Amanda opened the door of her suite and looked at him. She wore a lime green slack suit of silk that matched the color of her long eyes. She had done her rich, coppery hair in a pile atop her head, and she wore Moroccan bracelets and a primitive necklace of beaten copper discs.
The bracelets jingled as she touched the back of her head.
"You might as well come in, Sam."
"Thank you. I was looking for Stephenson."
"Steve has no wish to see you. He says you were insulting and arbitrary and made a crude attempt to blackmail him when you met in Zurich."
"All true." He smiled. "You have to take me as I am. I just tried Stephenson's suite—next door, I believe. He isn't in. He hasn't been available since he arrived."
"Well, you've been busy with your boss—that little gray man, General McFee. He cracks the whip and you perform—even if it kills me."
"Amanda—"
"You would have shot right through me, in order to stop Skoll, wouldn't you?" she demanded.
"I honestly don't know."
"I know. I saw your face. It wasn't a bluff."
She turned away to the bar and made him a drink. Her bracelets jingled again. Her face was pale under the burns of the desert sun. She considered her green slippers, and then she clasped her hands.
"You asked me some peculiar questions, Sam. About my husband's death, how Hannibal died. I also saw the look in your eyes when you learned I knew all about helicopters. You're a good poker player, darling. Do you think I've been playing a game, too? A regular soap opera, I'd say. Young wife, greedy and ambitious to control elderly husband's fortune and industrial power. In love with the handsome, dashing general manager and executive vice-president. Acted the part of a grieving widow for six months to ease suspicions of cops. It makes a good script."
"I know you didn't kill Hannibal, Amanda."
"It was an accident," she said tightly. "It was!"
"No," he said gently. "It was not."
"Then you think I—"
"It was not you," he said.
She stared with wide eyes. "It's not over for you yet, is it, Sam? Not finished, even though you found Richard and destroyed that base."
"It's never over, really. Hannibal's death was murder." Diirell took an envelope from his pocket. ^'General McFee brought these reports to me. The helicopter in which your husband died was sabotaged. He was murdered."
"Sam, don't . . ." All at once she retrogressed to the indrawn, uncertain woman he had first met. For a time, she had wakened from her grief and tasted the power and promise of her position, and even began to enjoy it. Now she was frightened again. "I don't want to hear any more about it, Sam. Please. No more."
"You have to, Amanda. Where is Stephenson?"
"In—in Goulimine. Way down the coast. He said—he had a deal with some oil people down there. He's due back here tomorrow."
"I can't wait that long. This time, I want you to come with me."
She was very pale. "I couldn't, Sam."
"You have to," he said.
32
The road south through Tiznit, on P-30, was modern and paved. Amanda had retrieved her Mercedes, and she drove in silence as the afternoon waned. It was two hundred miles to their destination, but they made good time. By three o'clock they had passed through the farmlands. The road flattened toward long vistas across the Oued Massa, where Oqkba ben Nafi, the Islamic conqueror, rode into the Atlantic surf to prove to Allah there was no more land to conquer in His name. The sun lowered over the sea when Tiznit glimmered ahead like a mirage, with its square towers and palms and fortified gates. They ate an imsatisfactory meal at the single, bleak hotel available on Rou Hamou. There were still two hours of daylight left when they returned to P-30 and headed into the emptiness of the desert once again.
It was on P-30 that Durell noticed the car behind them. It was just a glint of sunlight on metal, not overtaking them, but not dropping out of sight, either. He asked Amanda to slow down, and he looked back along the stretch of the road. The other car had slowed, too, but not soon enough.
It was an old, high-bodied black Jaguar. Two men, indistinguishable at this distance, sat in it as patient as the desert hiUs, as patient as the Chleuh merchant waiting to fiU his choukhara with cast.
Collection time, Durell thought.
He told Amanda to go faster again, and they turned away from the coast through the Tizi Mighert pass, driving through groves of argan and caroub trees. From here, the landscape turned lifeless except for passing a camel train of Blue Men once. The beasts were a pale sandy color, and some of them were fitted with wicker chairs where women rode, draped in blue veils, their faces tattooed with blue patterns. They had stopped to pitch camp, and the appearance of the men with their blue faces, blue robes, and twisted turbans made Amanda murmur with remembered fear.
"These are legitimate Tauregs," Durell reassured her. "Not fake gunmen, such as Von Handel hired."
It was dusk when Goulimine loomed out of the indigo emptiness like a port after a sea voyage. It was a weekend market day, and the camel market near the Hotel Salam was still in progress. Drums beat as some Taureg women began to dance the guedra in the dusty square. Squatting in a circle outside the hotel, the Blue Men in their gan-douras watched the dancing women with intent, gleaming eyes.
The black Jaguar was still some distance behind. There were other cars here, and even some American tourists braving the unknown desert's edge to watch the Blue Men's souk and the guedra dancing, feeling adventurous for having essayed their cars on S512 road from Bou Izakarn. Beyond the reddish, sun-dried mud walls, there was only the sea of the desert again. Goulimine was a cluster of houses, each like a miniature fort, with small shops on the main square and shadowy alleys on either hand. It was a town of the Tauregs, and the tall, handsome desert people were everywhere, trading baby camels, skins, and wool for chains, bracelets, necklaces, and ornately carved daggers or sugar hammers and salt. The drums of the dancers sounded as sinuously as the movements of the women in their traditional and formal reflection of a striptease. The music's beat shimmered in the dusk of the evening, as ephemeral as the heat waves that still lifted over the barren south.
There were several comfortable hotels. Durell had Amanda park the Mercedes beside an American Buick, and went in to make inquiries. When he returned, the Jaguar was parked a little distance away, near the market square where the lamp-lit windows of the shopkeepers gleamed against the dusk.
"Is he here?" Amanda asked.
"Not in this hotel. But a couple of thousand dirhams made a Chleuh's tongue wag. Stephenson's arrival here would hardly go unnoticed."
"Sam, why couldn't it all have waited until Steve returned to Agadir?"
"I think he wouldn't have come back, Amanda."
"I don't believe what you're thinking. I know what you're saying, but I just don't believe it."
"Come with me," he said.
The Chleuh hadn't lied. Business was business. The narrow street led betw^een crumbling houses, where a goat suddenly lifted his bearded old head and glared at them with yellow eyes. The music of the guedra followed them. At the end of the lane there was a broken mud-brick wall and truck tire tracks that led into the empty desert beyond. Over the insistent beat of the drums came the sudden bellowing of a tethered camel a shout of approval for the dancers. Durell looked back. He thought he saw tw^o shadows at the opposite end of the lane. A white crescent atop a minaret gleamed in the new starlight. The building he sought was a warehouse. The wide doors were open. A new Ford truck stood inside. The Chleuh had described it exactly, closing his hand on Durell's money.
Across the street was a low red wall, a blue door, the wail of a child, the smell of hot solder in the ah*. Beside the parked Ford was a flyblown case of brocades, copper lamps, trays, and coffeepots. On each side of the doorway were clay ewers as tall as himself.
Darkness was inside. The smell of furnace heat from the day's implacable sun filled the cobble lane, which was thi
ck with slops and donkey dung. The lane might be wide enough for donkeys or camels, but not for the black Jaguar that had followed them from Agadir.
"Stephenson!" Durell called suddenly.
Yellow lamp light came from behind the wooden slats of a door at the back of the warehouse. Durell took Amanda's hand and pulled her behind him, and then he walked around the truck and the display cases and the dim dusty crates.
'*Sam, I don't—" Amanda began.
The yellow slits of light swung and slanted across the ceiling, beckoning them inward. There was the sound of a man talking, a curt word of dismissal, and then Stephenson's tall, elegant figure loomed in the doorway.
"Who is it? Is that you, Amanda?"
"Yes, Steve."
"Well, this is a surprise. I expected to see you tomorrow morning, when everything is cleaned up here. Is that—oh, it's you, Durell."
"Me," he said.
"I can't say you are very welcome."
"I didn't expect to be." Durell saw that Stephenson was holding a gun at his side, muzzle down. With the yellow lamplight behind him his face was in the shadow, his pale hair tidy, his tailored shoulders hunched just a little. Again, Durell heard movement inside the room. "It's been a long drive down here. Amanda wanted to see you, urgently. I volunteered to guide her."
"Really? I wouldn't expect your sort to be that thoughtful. Come in. Come in, Amanda." Stephenson stood aside to let them enter. "I've just about finished my business here—a matter of discussing with these gentlemen— engineers, oil men, by the way, they can smell oil two
thousand feet down in the sand—a matter of deciding, let us say, whether to invest some HCI capital in their venture. Knocking off two birds with one stone, so to speak."
"Am I," asked Amanda, *'one of the birds to be knocked off, Steve?"
''Darling, whatever are you talking about?"
Durell walked by him quickly and flattened against the inner wall of the room and looked at the three men seated at the table there. Two small windows opened on the desert side of the building. Both were barred with iron. They wore sweat-stained khakis and week-old beards. They smelled of sweat and the desert. One of them had been injured, and was bandaged about the forehead and one arm. They looked as if they hadn't yet had a chance to wash the smoke-stains from their haggard faces.
"Dismiss your boys, Stephenson," said Durell. "I'd suggest a doctor, for all of them. It must have been a long trek across the hammada. The djirms really burned them a bit. Anyway, they're in no condition to help you."
"Why do I need help?" Stephenson asked coldly.
"You wanted a first-hand report of the disaster out there, didn't you?" Durell's gun was in his hand now. He gestured to the narrow windows facing the desert. "How did you learn about it, Steve? Private radio band? Got the SOS, didn't you? I'm sure these survivors have told you that it's all gone up in smoke."
"I don't know what you're talking about." Stephenson turned. "Amanda, I must tell you—"
Amanda spoke flatly. "You ought to know why I've come here with Sam. I want to know about Haimibal."
"Han—?"
"My husband. How he died. If it was an accident—or murder, as Sam says. What you know about it."
Amanda's voice gained sudden strength, lashing out like the crack of a whip. Stephenson's face twisted, and his eyes changed subtly. His mouth twitched, and he spoke to the three ragged men in swift, guttural Arabic. "Get out. Go on your way. You have your money? Then we are quits." To Amanda, he said, "Come with me, darling," and gave her a smile that was not a smile.
Durell and Amanda followed him through another room into a garden beyond, where a palm tree clacked in the desert wind; there was a dim fragrance of flowers blooming. Stephenson went to a table there and poured coffee from a copper pot, he offered a cup to Amanda and looked at Durell.
"Suppose you explain yourselves. Amanda, I'm astonished at what you say. Shocked. Why you should suppose there was anything suspicious about Han's death is beyond me. Darling, I just don't know how to answer such an incredible remark." Stephenson looked at Durell. "She's giving too much credence to your insinuations. I warned you before, Durell, not to interfere with me. Now you will pay the consequences. Washington will hear of this. You're not a tin god, you know. Your kind are accustomed to manipulating people and events to shape the situation into something that suits your concept of what is right. It's about time someone investigated you and your agency, right down to the ground and back."
"You're welcome," said Durell. "But you won't be around to do it, yourself. I brought Amanda here so she'd know firsthand how she's been victimized—made a widow, first, and then used in your plan to run HCI—to own it, eventually. You're an amateur, though. You bungled it from the beginning. And it was you who became the first victim."
"Go on," Stephenson said coldly. "Show your hand."
Durell tossed onto the coffee table the envelope he had found waiting for him at Agadir when they returned from the desert with Richard. The sound of drums beat dimly against the starry sky. The air was colder. Stephenson looked at the envelope, touched it with one finger, and looked at Amanda. Her face was in the shadows. She stood tall and straight, watchful, her attitude one of waiting.
"In that envelope," said Durell, "is a full report of the helicopter accident that killed Hannibal. It contains the preliminary findings that pronounced it an accident. It also contains a suppressed report of the investigation that
followed an examination of the wreckage. You had a lot of strings to pull, Stephenson. You made a plea on the grounds that any suspicion surrounding Hannibal Cop-pitt's death would seriously undermine the stability of the conglomerate and jeopardize deliveries on government contracts for PASS base. I asked for a more detailed inquiry. It wasn't difficult to make a few people talk. The main rotor of that helicopter failed not through metal fatigue, but because someone had deliberately weakened it mechanically."
''You're talking of murder. Do yoii accuse me?"
''Yes."
"I don't have to listen to this nonsense."
"Just read the reports."
Stephenson withdrew his hand from the envelope. "Amanda, do you accuse me, too?"
"I'm waiting for your answer," she said quietly.
"You know I love you, darling. You can't possibly believe this man."
"I do believe him."
Stephenson looked at Durell. "Why should I do such a thing? I have it made. I can't go any higher—I run HCI. I don't need or want anything more."
"You wanted Amanda."
"Not at the price of murder."
"At any price," Durell returned. "That was your original motive. But you were hung up. You found yourself involved in more than dubious, ambitious murder. You found yourself involved in treason."
"You're bluffing," Stephenson whispered.
"Your original motive was to control HCI through Amanda. But then you ran into blackmail. Dr. Von Handel knew the helicopter crash was not an accident. You worked closely with Von Handel, before he vanished from PASS base, didn't you? Contracts, projects, satellite problems—as chief supplier of electronic data machines for the spy satellites, you were in constant contact with Von Handel. He suspected the crash was not an accident. He began to blackmail you. He made you part of his personal project to blackmail every nation with spy satellites. He got you to jump through the hoop and help him set up his courier organization. Richard, who suffered from distorted ideals of serving world peace, got your help to escape from the States and come here to work for Von Handel. We have Richard, and he'll tell us everything. He's been— ah—disenchanted. He'll tell us about your part in the affair, how you became Von Handel's puppet and Von Handel blackmailed you on the murder charge. There is no way out for you. It's all down in the records, in Agadir and Washington. Extradition papers are being prepared to get you out of Morocco, so you'd gain nothing by trying to kill me and Amanda now. No more executive suites for you, Stephenson. It's Leavenworth, from now on."
/> Stephenson put down his coffee with a trembling hand. His face was gray. He got up suddenly, turned to the garden wall, and stood with his back to them. His voice was strangled.
"Amanda, do you believe all this?"
"Yes, Steve."
"Is Durell telling the truth about—the reports in the works back home?"
"I believe so." Amanda's voice was dangerously calm. "I never imagined Hannibal's death was anything but an accident. I depended on you, Steve. Han was your friend. He often spoke of his age, of how he inevitably would go first, and—he implied you and I made a logical team. But you killed him. We trusted you. You were weak to let a creature like Von Handel use you. Through fear, you turned traitor. You encouraged Richard to defect. You 'took care of me.' What Von Handel did through ego and a mad craving for power, you did as a coward, through avarice and fear."
Stephenson made a sound. "And what happens now?"
Durell said, "You come back with us."
"To face a trial? Publicity? I couldn't—" The man paused and stared. His poise and confidence had evaporated. He looked haggard and then, smiling twistedly, he ignored Durell's gun and suddenly ran for the warehouse door and the street. Amanda started after him, but Durell held her back. "Let him go. He won't get far."
There was a sudden scuffle, a thud, a shout of command, then running footsteps, a series of carefully spaced shots. Amanda trembled and held hard to Durell's arm.
Durell said, "Let's go, Amanda."
"What—what's out on the street?"
"A couple of Moroccan security police."
The black Jaguar stood at the end of the lane. The same two police who had stopped Durell at Volubilis now stood in the center of the lane. A huddled shape, like a pile of old clothes, lay on the edge of the desert at the far end of the alley. The cops still looked like twins, and the fatter one was still the spokesman.
"Si Durell?"
Assignment Star Stealers Page 15