“Where do you go?” he said gruffly. “El Hassan’s vizier has ordered that he is occupied and none should approach.”
“He awaits me,” she wavered. There was kohl about her eyes, and indigo at the corners of her mouth. “We met at the tendi last night and he bid me come to his tent. It is for me he waits.”
Wallahi! but his leader had taste, the sentry decided.
“Pass,” he said gruffly. Even a vizier of such importance as this one must need solace at times, he decided philosophically.
She slipped past silently to the tent entrance where the Tuareg guard noticed she paused for a long moment before entering. He grinned into his teguelmoust. Aiii, the little bird was timid before the hawk.
She stood for a moment listening, and then slipped inside, dropping the desert musical instrument to the ground. Dave Moroka’s back was to her and even as she entered he flicked off the switch of the video-radio into which he had been speaking and scowled at it.
When he stood and began to turn, she covered him with the small pocket pistol. She had an ease in handling it which denoted competence.
His eyebrows went up, but he remained silent, waiting for her gambit.
Isobel said evenly, “You’re a Party member, aren’t you, Dave?”
“Why do you say that?”
She nodded infinitesimally to the set. “You were reporting just now. I heard enough just as I came in.”
He took in her disguise. “My guard isn’t as efficient as I had thought,” Dave said wryly.
Isobel said, “You knew Abe Baker, didn’t you?”
He looked at her, expressionlessly.
She said, “I already knew you belonged to the Party, Dave. No matter how competent an agent, it’s something difficult to hide from any other long-time member. There’s a terminology you use—such as calling it the Soviet Union, rather than Russia. No commie ever says Russia, it’s always the Soviet Union. You can tell, just as a Roman Catholic can tell a person raised in the Church, even though the other has dropped away, or even as one Jew can tell another. Yes, I’ve known you were a Party member for some time, Dave.”
“And?” the South African said.
“Why are you here?”
Dave Moroka said, “For the same reason you are, to further the El Hassan dream, the uniting and modernization of the continent of my racial heritage.”
“But you are still a Party member and still report to your superiors.”
Dave Moroka looked at the tiny gun she held in her hand.
“Don’t try it,” she said. “I have seen you in action, Dave. I have never seen a man move so ruthlessly fast…but don’t try it.”
“No reason to,” he bit out. “Come on, let’s go see Homer.”
She was slightly taken aback, but not enough to release her control for even a split second. “Lead the way,” she said.
* * * *
Even at this time of evening, the headquarters tent was brightly lit and most of the immediate El Hassan staff still at work. Homer Crawford looked up as they entered.
Cliff Jackson saw the gun first and said, “Holy Mackerel, Isobel.”
Fredric Ostrander was sitting to one side in discussion with the sober faced Jack Peters. He took in the gun and slowly came to his feet, obviously expecting climax.
Isobel said, “Dave’s taking over control of communications had method. I just found him reporting to what must have been a superior…in the Party.”
Homer Crawford looked from the South African to Isobel, then back to Dave again, without speaking. His eyes were questioning.
Dave said, his voice sharp. “I haven’t time for details now. Isobel’s right. I was a Party member.”
“Was?” Ostrander chuckled. “That’s the understatement of the year. I hadn’t got around to revealing the fact as yet, but our friend Dave is the notorious Anton, one of the Soviet Complex’s most competent hatchetmen.”
Dave looked at him only briefly. “Was,” he reiterated. He turned his attention to Homer and to Bey, who was staring tired dismay at this new addition to the load.
Homer still held his peace, waiting for the other to go on.
“I found out tonight why Colonel Ibrahim is attacking, instead of pulling in his horns as reason would dictate.” Dave paused for emphasis. “The Soviet Complex has thrown its weight, in this matter at least, on the side of the Arab Union. They have insisted that Sven Zetterberg be dismissed as head of the Sahara Division of the African Development Project and that his threat to use Reunited Nations aircraft if the local fighting spreads to the air, be repudiated.”
Kenny blurted, “Good grief…that means—”
Dave looked around at them, one by one. “It means,” he said, “that the Arab Legion is going to be reinforced tomorrow morning by a full regiment of paratroopers.”
“Holy Mackerel,” Cliff groaned. “We’ve had it. Another regiment of crack troops in Tamanrasset and we’ll never take the town.”
Dave shook his head. “That’s not the big thing. The paratroopers aren’t going to drop in Tamanrasset. They’re going to hit every oasis, every water hole, in a circumference of two hundred miles.”
There was an empty silence.
Homer Crawford said finally, evenly, “In the expectation that every follower of El Hassan in the Sahara will either surrender or die of thirst, eh?” He didn’t seem sufficiently impressed by the threatening disaster. He looked at Dave questioningly. “Why do you bother to tell us, Dave, if you’re on the other side?”
Dave grunted sour amusement. “Because I’ve just become a full member of the team. I resigned from the Party tonight.”
“Brother,” Bey said, “you sure pick a helluva time to join up.” He obviously was expressing the opinions of the majority.
Homer Crawford came to his feet and looked around at them. “All right,” he said. “A new complication. Let’s face up to it. There’s always an answer. We’re in the clutch, let’s fight our way out.”
Largely, they stared at him, but he ignored their dismay. He looked from one to the other. “We need some ideas. Let’s kick it around. Isobel, Cliff, Jack, Kenny—?” His eyes went from one to the other. Obviously his own mind was churning.
They shook their heads dumbly.
Kenny said, “Ideas! We’ve had it, Homer!”
Homer Crawford spun on him and now the force they all knew was emanating from him. He laughed his scorn. “A month ago we were half a dozen fugitives. Now we’re an army besieging a city. And you say we’ve had it? Listen, Kenny, if we have to we’ll go back to being half a dozen fugitives again—those of us that are left. But the dream goes on! However, we’re not going to have to. We’re too near victory in this stage of the operation to sit down on the job because of a threatened reverse. Now then, let’s kick it around. Jimmy! Dave! Kenny! Ostrander!”
Fredric Ostrander raised his eyebrows only slightly at being included in their number.
* * * *
Bey, for once, was seemingly too exhausted to be brought to new enthusiasm. He tossed a detail map of Tamanrasset to the table. “And I’d just worked out a bang-up scheme for infiltrating into town, joining up with our adherents there, and seizing it while most of Ibrahim’s men were out in the desert, trying to capture our nearer water holes.”
Homer snapped, “It sounds like it still might have possibilities.”
Ostrander looked down at the map, his face very tight. “How long would it take?”
Bey scowled at him, defeat dulling his mind. “What?”
“How long do you figure it would take to infiltrate Tamanrasset and capture it? Behind Ibrahim’s back, so to speak.”
Bey grunted. “A couple of hours in the early morning. I had a beautiful picture of the colonel’s armor out in the desert, cut off from its petroleum supplies and ammunition dump while we held the town. Some of our men, the former veterans of the French West African forces, could have even operated the antitank guns he has mounted at Fort Laperrine.”
The C.I.A. man’s mouth worked.
Homer Crawford’s eyes pierced him.
Ostrander walked over to the radio before which Kenny Ballalou sat. “See if you can raise Colonel Ibrahim for me.”
Kenny scowled at him. “Why?”
“Do it.”
Kenny looked at Homer Crawford.
Homer said, “O.K. Do it.”
Kenny shrugged and turned to the set. While the others watched, Crawford’s face alert, his eyes narrowed, the rest of them dull in apathy, the face of Colonel Ibrahim finally faded in on the screen.
Fredric Ostrander took his place at the instrument. He nodded, formally. “Greetings, Colonel, it seems a long time since last we met in Amman.”
The Arab Legion officer smiled politely. “I had heard that you represented the State Department in this area, Mr. Ostrander, and have been somewhat surprised that you failed to make Tamanrasset your headquarters. It would have been pleasant to have renewed old friendship.”
Ostrander cleared his throat. “I am afraid that would have been difficult, Colonel, particularly in view of the stand of my government at this time.”
On the screen, the other’s eyebrows went up.
Ostrander said evenly, “Colonel, we have just been informed that a regiment of paratroopers has been put at your disposal and that they plan to land at various points in the Sahara in the morning.”
The colonel said stiffly, “This is military information which I am not free to discuss, Mr. Ostrander.”
Frederic Ostrander went on, his voice still even. “We have further been informed that the Reunited Nations has withdrawn its ban on aircraft, which would seem to free your paratroop carrying planes.”
The colonel remained silent, waiting for the bombshell. It was obvious that he expected a bombshell.
Ostrander said, “As representative of the State Department I warn you that if these paratroop carrying planes take off tomorrow morning, the Seventh Airfleet of the United States of the Americas will enter the conflict on the side of El Hassan. Good evening, Colonel.”
The C.I.A. man reached out and flicked the switch that killed the set. Then he took the snowy white handkerchief from the breast pocket of his jacket and wiped his mouth.
Isobel said, “Heavens to Betsy.”
Kenny said indignantly, “Good grief, you fool, it won’t take more than hours for your superiors to repudiate you. Then what happens?”
“By then, I assume, the battle will be over and Tamanrasset in El Hassan’s hands. The Arab Union will then think twice before committing their paratroopers, particularly with captured armor in El Hassan’s hands.”
“And your name will be mud,” Kenny blurted.
Ostrander looked at Homer Crawford. “Gentlemen, you must remember that I, too, am an African. I had thought that perhaps there would be a position for me on El Hassan’s staff.”
Crawford reached for the Tommy-Noiseless that leaned up against the improvised desk at which he worked. He said, “Let’s get moving, Bey. We haven’t much time. We’re going to have to be able to announce its capture from Tamanrasset in a couple of hours.”
“Not you,” Bey said, grabbing up his own weapon and motioning with his head for Kenny and Cliff to come along. “You’re El Hassan and can’t be risked.”
“I’m coming,” Homer said flatly. “It’s about time El Hassan began taking some of the same risks his followers seem to be willing to face. Besides, the men will fight better with me out in front. Got a gun, Fred?”
Ostrander said, “No. Where am I issued one?”
“I’ll show you,” Homer said, stuffing extra clips in his bush jacket pockets. “Come on, Dave.”
The whole group began heading for the open air, Bey already yelling orders.
Fredric Ostrander looked at Dave Moroka. “Strange bedfellows,” he said.
Moroka grinned wryly. “My long view hasn’t changed,” he said. “It’s just that this African matter takes precedence right now.”
“Nor mine, of course,” Ostrander said. He cleared his throat. “However, I hope you last out the night. El Hassan needs strong men.”
“Same to you,” Moroka said gruffly. “Let’s get going, or the fight will be over while we hand each other flowers.”
Epilogue
El Hassan stood in the smoking, war-wasted ruin of Fort Laperine, his mind empty. The body of Jack Peters was ten feet to his left, burned beyond recognition and crumpled over a flame thrower which he’d eliminated in the last few moments of the fighting. Had he let his eyes go out the gun port before which he stood, it might have been possible for El Hassan to have picked out the bodies of David Moroka and Fredric Ostrander amidst those of the several hundred Haratin serfs who had swarmed out of the souk area at the crucial moment and stormed the half manned fort—unarmed save for knives and farm implements.
To his right, Dr. Warren Harding Smythe supervised two Tuareg who were carrying off the broken body of Kenny Ballalou; there was still faint life in it.
The doctor looked at him. “You are satisfied, I assume?”
El Hassan failed to hear him.
Smythe turned and stomped off, following his impressed nurses.
In the distance, Bey-ag-Akhamouk called hoarse orders from an over-strained throat, placing guns for a counterattack that would never come. The Arab Legion was broken and Colonel Ibrahim a prisoner. Large numbers of the survivors were defecting to the banner of El Hassan.
He threw his empty Tommy-Noiseless to the side. All he wanted now was sleep, the surcease of a few hours of oblivion.
Isobel, her face wan from the horror of the agony of the combat whose result was everywhere visible, was picking her way through the wreckage with Cliff Jackson.
El Hassan looked at her absently. Whatever message she bore held little interest to him.
Cliff said, “India has recognized El Hassan as legal head of state of all North Africa. It is expected that Australia will follow before the week is out.”
El Hassan nodded. For the time, not caring.
Isobel said, “We have other word. It came by messenger.” She closed her eyes in pain and handed him a small box.
He opened it and recognized the ring on the enclosed finger. He looked up at them.
Cliff Jackson growled low in his throat. “Elmer Allen. He’s been captured by a leader of the Ouled Touameur clan of the Ouled Allouch tribe. You know this Abd-el-Kader?”
El Hassan was staring down at the finger, his mind slowly clearing of its fatigue. “He belongs to the Berazga division of the Chaambra confederation. I had a run-in with him a few months ago and had him jailed. He’s nothing but a desert bandit on the make.”
Cliff said, “He’s escaped, has thrown his weight behind the Arab Union, proclaimed himself the Mahdi and is uniting Algeria and parts of Morocco and Tunisia like a wildfire. The marabouts and Shorfa are backing him.”
“Proclaimed himself the Mahdi?” Isobel said in question.
El Hassan turned to the girl and took a deep breath. “The original Mahdi was the holiest prophet since Mohammed and according to the more superstitious Moslems, he’s still alive. According to Islamic tradition, he periodically shows up again in the desert and makes various predictions. When he does, it almost always winds up with a jehad, a holy war. Don’t you remember in history the anti-British Mahdi at Khartoum, the killing of Chinese Gordon and so forth? That Mahdi was the son of a Dongola carpenter and he managed to conquer two million square miles in two years.”
“But, what has this got to do with this Abd-el-Kader?”
“He’s evidently proclaimed himself sort of a reincarnation of the original Mahdi. He’s out to do the same thing we are—to unite North Africa. But in his case he doesn’t exactly have the same dream and he’s working under the green ensign of the Pan-Islamic Arab Union.”
“And has Elmer Allen captive.”
“Yes, he has Elmer.” El Hassan’s tone of voice turned sharp. “Cliff, go get Bey. Tell him we�
�re forming a flying column and heading north.”
Cliff was gone. El Hassan turned back to the girl. “You know, Isobel,” he said softly, slowly, “in history there is no happy ending, ever. There is no ending at all. It goes from one crisis to another, but there is no ending.”
FRIGID FRACAS
I
n other eras he might have been described as swacked, stewed, stoned, smashed, crocked, cockeyed, soused, shellacked, polluted, potted, tanked, lit, stinko, pie-eyed, three sheets in the wind, or simply drunk.
In his own time, Major Joseph Mauser, Category Military, Mid-Middle Caste, was drenched.
Or at least rapidly getting there.
He wasn’t happy about it. It wasn’t that kind of a binge.
He lowered one eyelid and concentrated on the list of potables offered by the auto-bar. He’d decided earlier in the game that it would be a physical impossibility to get through the whole list but he was making a strong attempt on a representative of each subdivision. He’d had a cocktail, a highball, a sour, a flip, a punch and a julep. He wagged forth a finger to dial a fizz, a Sloe Gin Fizz.
Joe Mauser occupied a small table in a corner of the Middle Caste Category Military Club in Greater Washington. His current fame, transient though it might be, would have made him welcome as a guest in the Upper Caste Club, located in the swank Baltimore section of town. Old pros in the Category Military had comparatively small sufferance for caste lines among themselves; rarified class distinctions meant little when you were in the dill, and you didn’t become an old pro without having been in spots where matters had pickled. Joe would have been welcome on the strength of his performance in the most recent fracas in which he had participated as a mercenary, that between Vacuum Tube Transport and Continental Hovercraft. But he didn’t want it that way.
You didn’t devote the greater part of your life to pulling your way up, pushing your way up, fighting your way up, the ladder of status to be satisfied to associate with your social superiors on the basis of being a nine-day-wonder, an oddity to be met at cocktail parties and spoken to for a few democratic moments.
The Mack Reynolds Megapack Page 85