Assignment Moon Girl (3 page)

“Some,” said Durell.

“You don’t talk much," Sepah complained.

“You make up for it, Ike.”

“I went to a religious school—a
medersa
—when I was a kid. Papa was
a member of the Majlis—the House of Parliament. I was kicked out when they
caught me in one of those flashy, wicked nightclubs. They chased me all
the way down the
Lalezar
, but I wasn’t quick enough.
I was trying for the Bazar—that’s a real Persian word, you know-but didn’t make
it. So I joined the army. Cavalry. I always liked horses. I’m not sorry.”

“Watch the way you fly this plane,” Durell said.

“You nervous, Shemouel? That’s Farsi for ‘Sam.’ ”

“Just cautious."

Sepah laughed. He had strong, white teeth. “Here we are. In
case you don’t know it, I’m your guide, secretary, and general man Friday.
Orders from upstairs.”

“I guessed as much.”

In Isfahan, crushed by the August heat that reflected a
stony glimmer of the deserts, they were met by a Land Rover driven by a man
named Hanookh Ghatan. Hanookh and Ike looked enough alike to be twins. They
didn’t go into town. There were rifles, grenades, and what looked like a
small rocket-launcher in the heavy car, incongruous attachments under a striped
and fringed canopy that sheltered them from the stinging rays of the sun.

“We go to the Englishman,” Hanookh announced.

Ike Sepah laughed. “You see, it is all arranged. Very easy,
very efficient.”

It was too easy, Durell thought, and therefore worrisome.
There were too many people involved, and it needed sorting out. He felt a
nagging concern that Tanya, whether she had been on the moon or not-—and that
would be the most dumbfounding Soviet space coup yet—was not rightfully K
Section’s business. He had seen no sign of the KGB’s activity. They were
around, he knew. He never underestimated them. Meanwhile, he apparently had
Chinese, English, and Iranians to contend with. There was a smell of internal
Iranian politics, too. He shook his head and sat back in the jouncing Land
Rover, behind the two boyish
Farsis
, and watched the
landscape go by.

Long ago, in what seemed another time and another world, he
had hunted in the bayous with his old Grandpa Jonathan, and the old man had
taught him some basic principles of life and survival. He remembered the green
and black shadows of the bayous, the stately shimmer of a heron’s wings, the
mysterious angles of a
cheniere
under live oak and Spanish moss, and the slow rock of the pirogue as he poled
the old man forward. Grandpa Jonathan was the last of the old Mississippi
riverboat gamblers, who had won on a single throw of the dice the hulk of the
old
sidewheeler
, the
Trois
Belles
, that Durell remembered as his boyhood home.

Once there had been a choice of game under their guns-—and
he had hesitated, watching the deer and fox escape in that moment. The old man,
however, made his selection at once, and his gun cracked once, dropping the
deer.

“You suffered an embarrassment of riches, Samuel,” old
Jonathan had said. “You must learn to concentrate on one goal at a time. Don’t
be distracted.”

Durell seemed to hear the old gentleman’s words over the
creak and roar of the Land Rover as they headed out into the desert from
Isfahan. This land was far from Bayou
Peche
Rouge,
where he had been born. Older in civilization, wise and weary, and as dangerous
as a viper coiled on a desert rock, blending its color with the granitic stone.

“There he is, sir,” said Hanookh.

Durell looked back instead of forward. A plume of gray dust
lifted like a feather against the hot sky.

“We’re being followed.”

“Yes, sir,” said Sepah. “I’ve noticed, too.”

“Who is it?”

“I thought we might double back after picking up your
Englishman.”

“He’s not my Englishman.”

“Mr. Hannigan says you’re to work with him.” Ike grinned.
“You think I know too much? But you and I are friends and partners, like a
grape on the vine, eh?”

“We’ll see,” said Durell.

The Rover came to a rocking halt, and dust boiled up around
them. They were in a canyon where shadows were black, nothing grew, and the sun
was a blinding glitter on the rim above. A man stood on the top, waving his
arms. He looked like a painfully thin scarecrow, with a ragged turban wrapped
around his head. He wore tattered walking shorts, sneakers, a striped shirt. A
rifle struck sun-sparks from the barrel as he waved it in his left hand.

“Mr. Adam Beele,” said Sepah complacently, “is a bit mad. He
always looks for Iskander’s Garden.”

“I’ve heard of the fable.”

“No, sir. It exists. But the archeologists’ team, to which Mr.
Beele belongs as a cover for his British
M.6
mission
in my country, has not found it yet.”

“You know he’s
M.6
and don’t do
anything about it?”

“Why should we?” Hanookh put in. “He’s harmless.”

Adam Beele came scrambling down the rocky canyon wall to meet
them. As he approached, Hanookh took a rifle and two grenades from the
Rover’s arms rack and walked back to the canyon mouth. The dust plume of the
car that had followed them had now disappeared. Durell touched his own .38 in
its holster under his cotton coat, pushed up his sunglasses, and got out of the
Rover, careful not to touch any of the car‘s hot metal.

“Durell?” The voice was pure
Oxonian
,
an educated drawl that did not conceal a shortness of breath and the painful
rasp of lungs in the canyon’s furnace heat. “I’m Adam Beele. What’s left of me,
Yank. Welcome to hell.”

“You’ve been hurt.”

“I believe I have a broken rib,” said the Englishman. He was
trying to ignore the pain, which was engraved on his lean face. “Perhaps two
ribs. I fell, while running.”

“Why were you running?”

“Some people from the camp tried to tag along. Workers, I
thought. Then I saw their weapons.” Beele looked at Ike Sepah. “Your people,
laddy?”

“Don’t know.” Sepah looked serious. “How many?”

"Four. Very determined chaps.”

"Get in,” Durell said. “We’re followed, too.”

Hanookh ran back from the canyon mouth and dropped to a seat
in front with Sepah. “All clear,” he said. But he kept his rifle in his
lap.

“Head north by northeast, Ike,” said Beele. He extended a
thin hand to Durell. “Sepah is in the same profession, old man. We have an
understanding. Glad you’re with us. We’ll get along. Object is to find
that girl. Can’t keep the silly child, of course. But it would do a spot of
good to recover her, have a brief chat, and then give her back where she
belongs.”

“Are those your orders?”

“Yours, too, old chap. Are you annoyed?”

“We have too many cooks,” Durell said.

Sepah drove, guided by the compass on the dashboard. An
apparently trackless waste stretched northward. This part of the desert was
known as the
Dasht-i-Lut
. It was rimmed by
unsurveyed
, barren hills, crossed by only one caravan trail
from
Podanu
across a string of sparse oases to
Darreh
Bab. Its most distinguished landmark was a distant
glare of sunlight on the towering peak of
Kuh
-e-Jamal,
some sixty miles northeast. The floor of the desert was thin sand blown
over rock, gravel, or tumbled stone. Nothing green grew to relieve the eye. The
westering
sun glared a baleful white and tried to fry
their brains as the Rover rocked ahead. Sepah’s foot floored the pedal
dangerously. The canvas top flapped and snapped and threatened to tear
loose at any moment.

“Allah’s garden for the damned,” Beele murmured.

“Let me look at your rib.”

“I’m all right.”

But Durell took a first-aid kit from its straps and
taped the Englishman’s side as best he could in the rocking vehicle. He noted
that the Rover had cans of water, fuel, and food in addition to the weapons.
They were reasonably self-sufficient in this desert of stone. Now and then he
glanced back. But he saw nothing of their vague pursuers. In the mirror, he met
Sepah’s dark, liquid eyes. The Farsi grinned, his teeth flashing white
under his moustache.

“They are there. We go
tond
, fast, and they keep up. I
see the sunlight now and then, on both of them.”

“Both?”

“
Do
. Two.”

“Can you lose them?”

“
Farda
.
Tomorrow.”

Adam Beele smiled thinly. “Ike knows where I’ve been hunting
for the girl. It’s a long trek. We turn west soon, head for the
Chasmeh
-e-
Shotoran
. I call it
Satan’s Throat. It’s a sandy plain between two thrusts of higher land. Some old
Achaemenid
ruins there. Then we go across twenty
miles of gravel, to
Howz
-e-
Mirza
.
More ruins. After that, the really bad lands begin, the great salt desert of
Kavir. Hope you can stand the heat.”

After another hour, Sepah, guided by some mysterious sign in
the changeless desert, abruptly veered west. The lowering sun was a blinding
red ball before them. Durell appreciated his sunglasses. Beele sank down into a
quiet abyss of pain. He was about fifty, with thinning sandy hair and a
small yellowish beard, gaunt cheeks, and the bone structure of the British
upper classes. His gray eyes, when not clouded by the pain of his broken rib,
were smoothly intelligent.

“The girl was seen in Isfahan,” he said quietly. “No
mistake. After all, her face has been on the front pages of newspapers all over
the globe. She was first spotted in Kashan—a center of the Shi’ites, you
know, fervently religious. The famous Mullah Kashani was born there. But the
locals are known as cowards and thieves. Tanya was spotted with a camel caravan
going north.”

“How could that be?”

Beele only shrugged. “Next sighting, Isfahan. ‘
Esfahan,
nesf
-e
jahan
. Isfahan is half the world,’ they say. She was
with some tourists doing the Tchahar Baq-the Four Gardens—shopping district.
She didn’t belong. But she had that exalted look the locals get there. The city
has its magic. Secret, ornamented, heavy with history, old man.”

“Stay with the girl,” Durell suggested.

“She was picked up by Mahmoud Lakh.”

“Who is he?”

“They say he’s one of Har-Buri’s
hashishim
. An assassin. The
constables spotted them, but they got away. Trail is clear enough, however.”

“How long ago was this?”

“Four days.”

“She wasn’t spotted since?”

“Hanookh saw her. Couldn’t take her from Mahmoud. Not there.
It was near the tomb of Baba
Qasem
. Hanookh tried,
but Mahmoud was quicker and slicker.”

Hanookh spoke from the front seat. “Am I to commit suicide?
They went into Bakran’s house. Behind the wall, Bakran had twenty men. I went for
the police, but they were too late. The girl was gone when we raided. So now we
have only Mr. Beele’s guess as to where she is.
Nazdik
—somewhere near. But our
curious followers are gaining on us, gentlemen.”

Ike Sepah complained. “I’m doing the best I can, Hanookh.”

“You should drive like you make love.
Tond
and
garm
. Fast and hot.”

“What would you know about my private life?”

Hanookh laughed. “I hear tales about you.”

Beele sighed. “Tanya is not a myth, Durell. She’s here and
she’s been on the moon. What happened to her can be of vast importance to your
space program, if you can get a few answers from her.”

“We wouldn‘t kidnap her,” Durell said.

“Naturally. But an hour’s questioning, skillfully done—well,
her data would be invaluable. And you’d gain goodwill in Moscow when you
returned her.”

“It doesn’t add,” Durell said. “No space probes were
reported or traced. She just appears running wildly down a street in Teheran
saying she’s been on the moon.”

“Mysterious, I admit,” Beele said. “But there will be some
explanation, I’m sure.”

“But not what we expect,” Durell said.

They went on for two more hours, over a vast and featureless
gravel plain. The hot wind whined, lusting for their lives. Presently a range
of hills appeared, with a flat tongue of sand dunes between, interspersed
with stony hills like the mesas of the Southwest. Beele ordered Sepah to bear
closer to the left-hand ridge. The sun went behind the rise, and long shadows
engulfed them. It would soon be dark. Durell looked backward again.

“They are still there?” Hanookh asked quietly.

“Both parties. Separated, but coming on.”

Durell took field glasses and scanned the desert
behind their rocking car. It was difficult to see through the dust that
boiled up behind them. But then he glimpsed a flash of light on glass, to
the southeast. Sweeping more to the north, he spotted another glimmer, about
six miles apart from the first. As the sun set, the air turned cold and
Hanookh broke out sweaters for them all.

“We have to shake them,” Durell said.

“I don’t see how,” Beele murmured.

“Duck out of their way. Let them collide with each other.
You say there are ruins ahead?”

“Another five miles, at the foot of that ridge.”

“That’s out of our way,” Hanookh objected.

“We have to try something, or they’ll cream us tonight.”

The ruins were like vague dreams rising from a sandstone
cliff that thrust up like the prow of a ship from the soft sand of Satan’s
Mouth. There was a wall or two, still with a few blue tiles, some broken
columns, a tumbled monument in the shape of a faceless, winged bull eroded by
two millennia of wind and sand. The shadows were sharp and deep when Sepah
turned the car into the tangled ramps and broken walls of the site.