by The Cool War
Hake woke up with a flashlight shining in his eyes. A voice he had not expected to hear said, “Don’t move, don’t touch anything.” A rough hand patted his body and explored under his pillow. The light circled around the bed and did the same for Alys, who woke with a gasp. Then the light retreated. Hake could not see past it, but he remembered the voice.
“Hello, Reddi,” he said. “Which one are you?”
The wall-bracket lights came on, revealing the slim, dark man with the small, dull gun pointing at them. “I am the one who is quite ready to kill you, Hake. I do not like having to follow you all over the world.”
“Well,” Hake said, “I really didnt want to put you to the trouble.” He rubbed his eyes and sat up. Beside him Alys was awake but silent; she was watching the entertainment with great interest, waiting to see what would come of it.
The gun was in the Indian’s right hand, and there was a scar over his eye: this twin was Rama Reddi. “How did you find me, Rama?” Hake asked conversationally.
The Indian said, “It was not hard to guess you would be coming to see Leota. Especially as you took her old school chum with you. I caught up with you in Cairo, and beat you here in a private jet; I was in the airport when you arrived.”
“I didn’t see you.” Hake didn’t expect an answer to that, and got what he expected. He rolled his feet over the side of the bed and said, “Do you mind if I get up and make myself some coffee before we continue with this? I have instant in the bathroom.”
“Yes? And what else do you have there, Hake? I am more comfortable to keep you where you are.”
Alys stirred. “Suppose a person has to tinkle? As I happen to.”
Rama Reddi studied her for a moment, then went to the bath. He peered inside, entered, rummaged among the pile of towels, opened the medicine chest. He did not leave the door, and the gun remained fixed on them. “All right, Miz Alys Brant,” he said. “Keep in mind that this gun does not make any noise, and I have no special reason not to kill you both, since Hake has chosen to cheat my brother and me on our agreement.”
“Now, wait a minute,” Hake said. “I haven’t broken our agreement. If anybody has a right to be pissed off, it’s me—why did you blow up my car?”
“Then our agreement is in force? You will work with us?”
Hake rubbed his chin. “Well— Will you help me get Leota out of the harem?”
“Certainly not. Have you not understood that my brother and I are not amateurs, or patriots? We have no client for this.”
“I’ll be your client. I’ll give you information—for a starter, I’ll tell you about the mission I’m on now. It’s big. It involves at least twenty Team personnel—”
“In A1 Halwani, yes, to sabotage the solar power installation,” Reddi nodded. He paused, watching Alys carefully as she came out of the bathroom. She was holding a glass of instant coffee for Hake, a towel wrapped around it to save her fingers from the heat. When Reddi was sure there were no surprises in the towel, he said, “I have no client for that either, Hake. It does not interest me.”
“I didn’t know you knew about that,” said Hake, dampened. “But it’s got to be pretty valuable. I have a map of it—I can get plans, even bring you with me, maybe. Surely you could sell the secrets to somebody.”
The Indian looked at him incredulously. “If I wished to do that, why would I go so far? And we still have no client.”
Alys said suddenly, “Horny offered to be your client.”
“Do not interrupt unless you can say something intelligent, Miz Brant. How would he pay?”
“He can get money out of the computer system. Lots of it. Can’t you, Horny?”
“Sure I can, Reddi. I’ll give you a—a hundred thousand dollars!”
Reddi crossed to a chair by the bed and sat down, the gun now in his lap. “That at least is a new idea. Perhaps it is worth discussing.” He sat silently for a moment, then produced an envelope from his pocket and tossed it to Hake. “Here,” he said. “I will go this far for you now.”
The envelope contained three photographs of a woman in harem dress and face-veil. It was Leota!
Although the thing Hake most remembered about Leota was that she was a different woman every time he saw her, this was a new variety of different. She wore gold arm-bangles, tight vest and baggy, gauze pants, and she seemed to be wearing curiously patterned stockings beneath the pants. Two of the pictures showed her getting out of a huge old gasoline-burning Rolls-Royce, one of them in heated argument with a black, liveried driver who carried a dagger. The third— Hake studied it carefully. It showed Leota sitting at a table with another woman, and behind them was a familiar window opening on a rooftop view. “That’s right here in the hotel!” he cried.
Reddi nodded. “I too found it amusing that she was here, while you were looking for her all over town. I took it this afternoon. She comes here sometimes for tea.”
“You mean she can get out?”
The Indian said, “Do not assume that means she is free, Hake. There are bodyguards always. And the bracelet on her left arm is a radio. Because of it she can be traced at any time, and they listen to her conversations. However,” he went on, “I permitted her to see me. She is therefore alert, in the event that I elect to assist you in this.”
“The price is a hundred thousand dollars,” said Hake.
“Oh, at least that,” the Indian said, studying Hake. After a moment he said, “You are puzzling, Hake. You have become a great deal more sophisticated since Munich. You miss much that is obvious—for example, you must have seen the solar facility that Sheik Hassabou is constructing here as you flew in, but you did not recognize what you saw. But you are using your government’s facilities for purposes of your own, and on no small scale, either. This implies to me that you have a means for breaking computer net security. I will have to talk to my brother but— Yes, that would be worth something to us, Hake.”
Hake glanced at Alys, and picked his words carefully. “Supposing,” he said, “that I could tell you where to find the code words and programs to break into the Team computer net and help you, ah, steal them.”
“You cannot give them to me yourself?”
“I don’t have them. But Yosper and Curmudgeon do, and they’ll be in A1 Halwani.”
Reddi rubbed his right hand along the barrel of his gun contemplatively. “I think,” he said, “that you are lying to me.”
“No! Why would I do that? Talk it over with your brother, we can make a deal.”
“Oh, I will talk to him, Hake. But now I want both of you to lie face-down on the bed.”
The hairs at the back of Hake’s neck prickled erect “Listen, Reddi—”
“Now.”
Hake set the coffee down and, unwillingly, joined Alys on the bed. They heard Reddi move across the room. The light went off. The door opened and closed.
Alys sat up immediately. “Horny, what the hell are you doing, lying to that man? You trying to get us killed?”
Hake breathed hard for a moment, trying to accept the fact that they were both still alive. He said, “I’m trying to prevent it. Figure it out, Alys. Suppose I gave him the code words and cards and told him my thumbprint opens a channel. What do you suppose he’d do after he got them?”
“Why—if he’d made a bargain with us—”
Hake shook his head. “He wouldn’t have anything more to gain. He’d take off with the cards and the codes—and my thumb.”
“Horny! He wouldn’t!”
“He would. Go to sleep, Alys. We’re going to need our rest, because we’re going to have to do this alone.”
But he slept poorly. Twice he woke up to the sounds of distant sirens and what sounded like fire-engine hooters, and the second time thought he heard the patter of rain against their window. Rain! Of course not. It was still dark, and he forced himself to keep his eyes closed.
Until Alys whispered softly in his ear, “Horny? Horny. Wake up and tell me what’s going on.”
> It was barely first light. She was pointing to the window, which seemed to be covered with great oily drops of blackness. The sirens were still going, and a distant /iee-haw hooting that sounded like an air-raid alarm. He got up and approached the window.
The oily raindrops were not drops of water. They were insects. Hundreds of them, rattling against the window and dropping to the little ledge below. All the ornamental plantings on the window were covered with them, the flowers invisible under a hundred insect bodies apiece, the stems bending to the dirt beneath their weight “Locusts,” breathed Hake.
“How awful,” said Alys, fascinated. “Are those the same ones we flew over?”
“I expect so.” She was standing beside him, shivering with excitement. Looking out the window was like looking through one of those snowflake paperweights, except that the flakes were dark browny-green. They drowned the desert view with their bodies. Hake could see the buildings across the street and, dimly, a minaret a few hundred yards away. Beyond that, nothing, only the millions and billions of insects.
Out in the hall the hotel’s piped-music speakers were muttering in several languages. Hake opened the door. Alys listened and said, “It’s French. Something about the main body of locusts being on the radar—two kilometers north, approaching at twenty kilometers an hour. But if this isn’t the main body, what is it?”
“Don’t ask me. We never had locusts on the kibbutz.”
The speaker rattled, and began again. This time it was in English. “Gentlemen and ladies, we call your attention to the swarm of locusts. They are in no way harmful or dangerous to our guests, but for your own comfort you will please wish to remain inside the hotel. The main swarm is approximately one mile away, and will be here in some five to ten minutes. We regret that there may be some interruptions in serving you this morning, due to the necessity of employing staff in protecting our premises against the insects.”
“I bet there may,” said Hake, staring out the window. Past the thousands dashing themselves against the window, through the dung-colored discoloration of the air, he could see turbulent activity in the streets below. Women were streaming out toward the farms, carrying nets, that looked like wicker fish traps and wire-screen cylinders, while hydro-trucks of men with heavy equipment were threading past them. Farther out, the sky was black. There appeared to be two layers of clouds, the rust of the swarm beneath, the red-lavender of sunrise on the wisps of cirrus higher up.
“Oh, Horny, let’s go outside and see!”
Hake tore himself away. “We might as well, I suppose.” They dressed quickly and took the elevator. The lobby was full of guests, milling around far earlier than most of them had intended to rise. By the time they reached the sidewalk the sun was above the horizon, but it was still twilight—a green-browny twilight that rustled and buzzed. The fountain outside the door was already crusted with a skin of drowning insects, and a porter was setting up an electric fan to blow clouds of them into a net sack. As they stepped off the curb, bugs crunched under their feet. Alys stared around, thrilled, oblivious of the insects that drove against her face and were caught in her hair. “How exciting!” she said. “Do you suppose they do this often?”
“If they did there wouldn’t be any farms,” Hake said. “They call them ‘seventeen-year’ locusts, but I don’t think they come even that often. And time’s running out for us.”
“Horny! You can’t be thinking of going after Leota in this. We don’t even know where she is.”
From behind them, Rama Reddi said, “She is in the gardens at the palace.”
Hake spun. “How do you know that?”
“Oh,” said the Indian, “it is not only her jailers who can track her electronically. Do you want to talk or get on with the project?”
Hake hesitated. “Why did you change your mind?”
“I did not change my mind. It is the circumstances that have changed.” Reddi waved an arm at the locusts. “There is much confusion because of this, and the odds become better. I don’t promise. But I have a car; let’s go see.”
The air was filled with insects now. To supplement the dull, dingy sun the Land Rover’s headlights were on, and their beams painted two shafts of insect bodies ahead of them. Reddi drove carefully through the hurrying farm workers, circling around trucks on the shoulder of the road; it was not far. They crossed a bridge over a rapidly flowing river, with what looked like a waterfall just below —no, not a waterfall; it was a hump in the river itself. And past the bridge, in a field that had once been barley and was now green-brown insects, shadowy figures were scattered by great fans. From what they wore Hake knew they were women; he could not have told in any other way, because what they wore was flowing robes and the headdress and scarf—the hatta w-‘aqqal—that was meant to protect against desert sand, and worked as well against locusts. Across the road a line of men was moving away from them, beating at the plants and forcing the locusts into flight again. Hake could not see what purpose that served, until he saw that the insects in flight were being sucked through the fans into wire cages. It was not just the fans. Hake became aware of a pungent, cockroachy smell: pheromone attractants.
At a turning, Reddi stopped the car and turned off the headlights.
“What’s the matter? Why don’t we go find Leota?”
The Indian said, “She is the third one in line back there. Did you not see her? But her little bracelet is still broadcasting, and my device located her.” He stared around, scowling. “However,” he said, “there are problems.”
“What sort of problems?” Hake demanded.
“You see them!” He gestured at the men across the road. “They have radios too. And it is probable the sheik himself is wandering about. He enjoys adventure— Hell!” He stared in the rearview mirror, then jumped out of the car and held up a warning hand.
One of the women was walking toward them. At Reddi’s signal, she stopped. It was impossible to make out her face, but Hake had no doubt who she was.
“She saw us pass,” said Reddi. “But it is too dangerous.”
He tugged at his scant beard, and then shook his head. “We will go on and try again, later.”
“The hell you say! This is the best chance we’ll ever have, Reddi!”
“It is no chance at all. If there were no men near— But there are, and the guards are always monitoring. We cannot even speak to her, or they will hear.”
“We can just take the radio off her—”
“And do what? They are all around. If they look to where she is supposed to be and see no one, what will they do, Hake? Say, ‘Oh, perhaps my vision is blurred, I must be mistaken’? No. They will investigate. Then they will search, and if they search they will find us. And if we take her in the car, even if we do not speak, they will hear the sound of the car over the radio, and will locate her with the direction-finders. No. It is impossible. A little later—”
“I don’t believe you’ll do it later,” Hake said. Alys put her hand on his arm.
“Mr. Reddi? Why can’t I take her place?”
“What?” Hake cried. “Don’t be insane! You don’t know what you’re saying.”
She leaned to kiss his cheek. “Dear Horny,” she said, “Leota is my friend, too. And anyway—it does sound interesting. And when you come right down to it, men always liked me better than Leota, back in college, and I don’t think Sheik Hassabou will mind too much.”
She jumped out of the car. The Indian glanced once at Hake, then followed. Hake started after them, then stopped himself; it was out of his hands; if he said anything, it would be heard and they would all be caught. He squinted through the blur of locusts as Reddi produced wire cutters and expertly snipped the golden arm-bracelet. It was soft, easy to remove, easy to bend onto Alys’s willing arm.
Almost at once a voice came from it. “What is happening, Leota?”
“Nothing,” said Leota, chin on Alys’s shoulder. “I just tripped and bumped into something.” She hesitated. “I’m getti
ng tired of being out here,” she complained. “I’m going back to my room to sleep for a while, if His Excellency doesn’t require me.”
The voice laughed. “His Excellency will surely wake you if he does.”
Alys touched the bracelet, then smiled at them. She formed with her lips the words Get out of here! as she turned to move slowly toward the distant loom of the palace. Hake stared after her as they turned and retraced their path, until Reddi snapped, “Eyes front! Don’t attract attention! That’s the sheik.” They were crossing the bridge, and down the stream, on the permanent hump of water, someone was standing on a surfboard, moving back and forth across the standing wave. He did not look toward them, and in a moment the locusts hid him from view.
XIII
Having stuffed herself, gauze pants, harem vest and all, into one of Alys’s baggier suits, Leota was now trying to make her face look more civilized in Alys’s mirror with some of Alys’s cosmetics. Rama Reddi, in the copilot seat, was busy with a notebook, studying what and writing what Hake did not want to imagine. The pilot was obviously consumed with curiosity. He had put the plane on autopilot long since and was trying to strike up conversations with the passengers.
At least he had gotten over being indignant at being forced to take off in a locust swarm, but now he wanted to chat. “It was quite exciting, was it not, effendi?” he called to Hake, enunciating each syllable with care for Hake’s practicing ear. “But what a pity! These people know nothing of locusts. They will capture only a few. The rest willfly on. If it would rain— Then they would stay on the ground and could be scooped up. But it will not, I think.”
In spite of himself, Hake was intrigued. “Why do you want them to stay on the ground?”
“Why does one want to eat? They are excellent protein. And nearly gone, like your whooping crane. This pitiful remnant! In the time of my father the swarms would blacken the sky for days, horizon to horizon. When they alighted they would break the limbs of trees. Then the Europeans came with their insecticides, and our children fall to kwashiorkor for lack of protein.”