Assignment Moon Girl (7 page)

“They are your camels?” he asked quietly.

“They were here.”

“Without owners?”

The stout man shrugged. His eye glittered. “The beasts are
valuable. We do not know where the owners are. It is very strange. We have
asked at the inn, but no one says they know of it.”

“The camels will slow your truck, will they not?”

“We go with God. He makes his own time.”

Durell nodded. He knew it was useless to ask them to hurry.
He ate pieces of greasy lamb and a bowl of rice. It tasted like ambrosia. The
men watched him as he ate and the fat one said: “You are one of the diggers for
the old things?”

Durell nodded. “I was separated from the other learned men.”

“You are fortunate to find us. Allah blessed you. Few
men come this way.”

When he had eaten and had three more cups of the Arab
coffee, he dug in his sweaty shirt pocket and found the last of his cigarettes.
Four of them. He offered them around and extended the last to the woman who
cooked. She wore a veil and a black robe and was not, obviously, among the
emancipated women who danced in the nightclubs of Teheran. She shied away in
embarrassment and the fat man took the cigarette with a grin.

“How much money do you have, American?”

“Enough to reward you reasonably.”

“American dollars?”

“A few.”

“And your watch?”

“If you insist.”

“We are not greedy. Your money and your watch. I would like
them now.”

Durell moved so that the Arabs could see the gun in his
belt. Something shimmered in the fat one’s face. The thin Arab looked angry.
Then the other said: “Yes, we will be reasonable, sir.”

“Then let‘s get started.”

He walked toward the huts. They were all empty. A small inn
yielded only an inarticulate old man who told him nothing and knew less. No
sign of the girl. He walked back to the two men and the woman.

“I was not alone," he said casually. “Where is the girl
who traveled with me?”

“We see no one but you, sir.”

“But there was a girl here.”

“No, sir. No one.”

“In Teheran, you will be rewarded richly for her. Tell me
where she is.”

“We did not see a girl.”

After some hours, they were ready to move. He could not
hurry them. The truck was loaded with second-hand car parts that looked like
the castoffs from a ten-year-old junk yard. The man in the Arab robe tied the
camels to the tailgate of the truck. It was obvious that the beasts had been
stolen from somewhere. The water-cans were filled, and the stout man
indicated Durell’s seat in the truck cab, between the two Iranians. He shook
his head.

“I’ll sit with your cargo.”

“We travel at night. It will be cold.”

“I’ve been cold before.”

He was not sure he should leave this area without the girl.
But she was gone without a trace. There was no sign of violence here, and he
felt sure she had slipped away from him on her own account. He wondered what
Hannigan would say about that. Teheran Central would be furious. But it
couldn’t be helped. He watched the thin Arab range through the junk-piles of
the oasis, shouting in a high, angry voice. The stout one picked his teeth and
waited and talked to the woman. Presently the Arab came back, his thin, crooked
face dark with fury. They spoke together in a dialect that Durell could not
understand.

“What is it?” he asked in Farsi.

“The third camel is gone.”

“There were three?”

“Your friend—the woman—must have taken it.”

The fat man laid a pudgy finger against his nose. “The
beast was the best of the three, a fine runner. Most valuable, sir. She
stole it—your woman friend. We must be paid.”

“Very well.” Durell felt much better suddenly.

“You’ll be rewarded in Teheran.”

“We would like something now, sir.”

“In Teheran,” he insisted.

“In the city of men, we will be cheated and ignored and
perhaps beaten and accused of crimes of which we are innocent. We want the
money now.”

“All right. Here is all I have.”

Durell gave the man his last fifty in American
currency. The single eye lit up greedily in the dusk.

 
The money was
snatched from him. The woman cried out something in protest, and the Arab began
to argue, but the fat man suddenly started beating the woman and the Arab moved
away in fear and finally got behind the wheel of the Renault truck.

A few moments later, the ride began.

It was strange, Durell thought, that Har-Buri’s hunters
hadn‘t come this way after him.

They traveled all night under the light of the moon, along a
thin and treacherous trail that threaded its way through odorous salt swamps.
Durell kept checking their direction, but it remained correctly westward,
toward the railroad and highway that would take him back to Teheran. Seated on
some greasy crates of car engines, he scanned the wasteland that undulated and
shimmered under the night sky. Their pace was tedious, limited to the heavy,
clopping steps of the camels tied to the tailboard. The truck engine labored
and whined most of the way in low gear. They passed through another oasis, then
began climbing to higher ground and took a trail that wandered more to the
north. By dawn there was the loom of barren hills to the left, a clay ridge to
the right. A clump of tamarisks marked a walled village that might have existed
unchanged since the days of Assyrians.

The Arab and the fat man got out of the truck when they
stopped. The woman waddled away between dark mud huts. The air felt coldest
now, just before dawn.

“Sir, we must stop to rest ourselves and the camels, as God
orders.”

“I’ll pay you double to go on.”

“Impossible, sir. We must stay for the day.”

“What are you afraid of?” Durell asked.

The man rolled his one good eye. “We are men of peace. We
fear no honest people.”

They walked into the clay village. Durell got down and
walked around to the truck cab. The ignition key was gone; but it would be simple
to jump the wires. He listened to the skinny rooster’s crow at the rising sun.
The smell of
cookfires
and smoke filled
the desert air. How far was it to the main highway? Thirty, forty miles, he
guessed. He saw there was a caravanserai in the center of the huddled mud huts,
a three-sided building with a central courtyard filled with sleeping
people, camels, goats, and donkeys. He walked that way and halted at the
entrance. One or two of the women who were cooking looked at him over their
veils, dark eyes aglow, and then looked quickly away. Among the animals in the
low-walled courtyard, a modem Iranian Anny truck stood out incongruously. There
was no driver or crew in sight—no doubt they occupied the best rooms in the
place. He stepped back out of sight and saw the fat Farsi running with
remarkable speed back to the truck. The Arab was ahead of him, and the woman
had already cut the camels loose. They must be mortally afraid to give up the
camels, he thought. Then he ran back through the village gate.

He almost didn’t make it. The one-eyed Farsi had started the
motor, the Arab and the woman had piled onto the heaped crates of old auto
parts in the truck body. Durell jumped for the driver’s side and reached in and
cut the switch. The engine died. The stout man made a hissing sound and drew a
knife. His face was the color of mud.

“Are you abandoning me?” Durell asked quietly.

“We must go.”

“Because the Army is here?”

“We must hurry.”

“What do you carry under that junk in the back?”

“Nothing! Scrap iron, that is all, sir!”

“We’ll see.”

He jingled the ignition key in his hand and walked around to
the back. The Arab and the woman had gotten out of the truck. Durell began to
heave at the rusted machine parts on the splintery boards. The woman started to
yell and wail, and the Arab flashed a knife in his hands. But the fat one
smiled and spread his pudgy hands wide.

“You must understand us, sir. We are poor, we have no land,
we are like serfs to the rich, and an opportunity to earn a little extra does
not come often.”

Durell glimpsed a pale blue color, tugged a crate aside, let
it crash to the dust. He yanked the cloth free. It had been tightly balled, and
was covered with gun grease. Under it were a half-dozen new U.S. M-3 Army
rifles, obviously stolen, illicit, smuggler’s goods. But the guns did not
interest him as much as the pale blue silk he held in his hand. He felt as if
someone had kicked him in the belly.

It was the robe Tanya had worn when he last saw her. His
voice became dangerous.

“Where did you get this? Where is the girl?”

The fat Farsi’s cheeks quivered. The woman wailed and loosed
a torrent of quick abuse at her two men. The Arab stepped forward with a
curious mincing gait. The rising sun was enormous behind him, glowing through
the tamarisks that stood about the village well. “Where is she?” Durell asked
again, climbing out. “We know nothing, sir! Please give me the key to my
truck.”

“Are you running from the Army?”

“The soldiers are cruel men—they will not let us live—”

“Neither will I,” said Durell grimly.

Turning, he started for the village gate. The Arab made a
guttural sound and jumped at him with the knife. Durell twisted, broke the
stabbing blow with his left forearm, drove a fist under the thin man’s
ear. Something struck him heavily on the back of the head, and he staggered,
turning. The fat man had a stone in his hand and began beating at him with it.
Durell kneed him, heard him squeal like a stuck pig, felt the woman claw at him
with dirty fingernails. The Arab circled, knife glittering. The struggle
was silent. No one in the village seemed to hear a thing. Reddish sunlight
flooded through the tamarisk trees. Dust boiled up under their scuffling
feet. Durell did not want to use his gun. It would mean too many questions from
the local authorities, delays, news stories, impossible complications. His
opponents sensed his reluctance. They rushed him together, the two men and the
woman, and forced him back into the shadow under the village wall. They all had
knives ready now. He felt chagrined. How many good men had he known, who met
death in ugly, dirty ways like this? The files of K Section recorded the
end for too many, in dark alleys and far-off corners remote from everything
they had known. Something warm ran down his cheek. He was bleeding from the
stone the fat man had used. He drew a deep breath—and suddenly jumped for the
thin Arab.

The man gave a stifled screech, tried to squirm aside, his
blade flashing. Durell hit him in the throat, didn’t wait to see him go
down, and whirled for the fat man. The other’s blade point hissed before his
eyes. Durell drove hard into the bulging belly, heard the air go out of the man
with a grunt, and ducked as the woman leaped for him. Stones slid out from
under his feet. His shoulder hit the mud wall near the gate and he thought he
heard the insane cackling of a rooster in his ear. His head exploded with pain
and he rocked down to his knees, smothered under a smelly, oily body, bulbous
but muscular. He tried to slide away, but the weight pinned him down. Darkness
swooped over him. He heard a scream, a yammering, the explosive slam of a gun.
It wasn’t his own. He couldn’t reach the .38 in his belt now. There was a
wriggling heap of bodies all over him. He cursed, heaved upward, and hurled the
weight away from him. Then there was a bright flash of light and it all
ended, fading away in quick waves of silent motion. . . .

“Durell?” someone said.

And: “Can you hear me, sir?”

He looked up into an anxious young face, a dark moustache,
gleaming teeth that showed in a sudden smile. He sat up. He was still in the
dust at the foot of the village wall. He felt for his gun. He still had it. He
drew it, not caring what happened now. He had been too cautious before. He was
lucky to be alive. It could have killed him.

His vision cleared.

“Hello, Hanookh,” he said.

“Are you all right, sir?” asked the Iranian.

“I think so.”

“There’s a nasty gash on your arm. And someone used your
head as a com grinder. Otherwise, no damage.”

“Thank you,” Durell said. “Where did you come from?”

“Over the wall. The rascals are gone. I had hoped you might
come this way, across the Dasht-i-Kavir. My guess was right. But in another
moment or two—”

Durell nodded. “Where is Ike Sepah and Beele?”

The young man’s face grew dark and sorrowed.

“They are dead, sir.”

Durell stared into Hanookh‘s dark, liquid eyes. He saw the
truth in them. He sat still for a moment, then climbed laboriously to his feet.

“Let's get out of here.”

Chapter Six

THE sun made blinding patterns of white light and inky shade
under the mud walls of the village. Hanookh knelt beside him and deftly
uncapped a tube of antiseptic ointment and daubed the stuff on his injured arm,
then snapped open a clean handkerchief and tied it quickly and efficiently
over the wound. Suddenly his hands began to shake and Durell finished the
job, studying the young Iranian, who bit his lip and muttered apologies.

“Ike was my best friend,” Hanookh said. “He was fortunate.
When Har-Buri’s assassins caught him, his death was quick. But Adam Beele was
not so lucky. They wanted something from him, and they took a long time to ask
their questions.”

“How do you know about it?” Durell asked.

“I watched. I was hiding. They outwitted us, after you left
the ruins. One group was driven off—Chinese, they were-—and we remained hidden.
I went oil to scout, and while I was gone, they took Ike and Mr. Beele. I could
not help them. There were too many of them. Ike fought, and they shot him at
once. But Beele was tortured.”