Gorgeous East (47 page)

“Enough,” Phillipe interrupted. “Unlock my chains.”

Smith looked from the colonel’s calm pale eyes to the girl’s anxious dark ones and back again.

“Phillipe, I’m sorry . . . ,” he began, but his voice trailed off. What was the point of attempting to excuse himself from yet another crime?

4.

T
hey came out of Laayoune more like prisoners on a work detail than Legionnaires on a search-and-rescue mission. They were given Moroccan air force jumpsuits of coarse denim with nothing to distinguish rank or regiment, and placed in the custody of a demibrigade of the Moroccan army commanded by a fox-faced major named Abduljemal Rabani, said to be a distant cousin of the king’s. They were not allowed to carry weapons and went unarmed except for the concealed blade a Legionnaire always carries. Though for Szbeszdogy, this weapon of last resort took the form of no weapon at all, only a narrow file for picking handcuffs tucked into the lining of his pants; in Solas’s case, two razors and a garotting wire hidden in the hollow heel of his boot.

From Laayoune, the demibrigade struck out across the desert in a south-easterly direction, always keeping the snow-capped Gueltas to the right, their narrow peaks just visible above the horizon. Fifty rank-and-file Moroccan soldiers and the personnel of Mission: SCORPIO were crammed into the backs of two Bulgarian-made Grushinka AT troop transport trucks, baking hot and airless, without windows or ventilation. A stock 1982 Jeep Cherokee 4 × 4, originally Detroit red, now Marrakesh green, possessing air-conditioning and optional cassette player, carried Major Rabani, his second in command, and the two Moroccan non-coms in frosty comfort.

The major refused to reveal the exact location of the
fashula
—the hive—a word that had lately come to signify any Marabout camp—where intelligence indicated Colonel de Noyer was being held. Specific information, he told Pinard curtly, was secret property of the Moroccan government. He wore silver-lensed aviator glasses, his hair slicked back. He looked like a movie star, a swarthy matinee idol of the silent era. He pursed his mouth daintily when he spoke, as if sucking on something sour:

“I will absolutely not allow questioning, not of myself or my troops on this or any other matter,” he said on the evening of their first day out. “We will get there when we get there, but we will get there. . . .” Waving airily toward the horizon, across the desert where there were no roads, where it was like navigating at sea.

The major’s coyness bothered Pinard, but he did indeed seem to know where he was going, consulting laminated field maps, figuring vectors and longitudes with an old-fashioned slide rule and protractor. Pinard had no real reason to be suspicious. His Legionnaires were being well treated, supplied with food, water, and cigarettes. The Moroccan troops seemed friendly enough. And yet . . .

They progressed across the desert in slow zigzags, in exasperating fits and starts. The entire demibrigade, officers and men, stopped five times a day, an hour at a time, for obligatory prayers to Mecca. The major established the direction of this super-holy city using his orienteering compass, rolled out a small square of carpet, and settled himself down face forward in the sand. His men, pious or not, followed his example.

Pinard, Szbeszdogy, and the assassins from the 4e RE watched disdainfully from the shadows of truck or tent through these hours of enforced idleness, smoking foul Moroccan army-issue cigarettes and talking in low voices as fifty Moroccan foreheads touched the hot sand and fifty corresponding Moroccan rumps bumped heavenward.

“Ridiculous spectacle,” Solas muttered. It was now the third day out from Laayoune, just before noon, and the Moroccans had commenced their prayers once again in the 120° heat. Visible off to the east-northeast as a bluish brown line, indistinguishable from the horizon, the infamous Berm.

“Someone give me my FAMAS,” Vladimirovitch said. “I’ll rip them a second asshole.”

“What do they do if they’re in the middle of having sex?” Dessalines wondered. “Do they stop and pray?”

“They move the boy their fucking toward Mecca and keep at it,” Vladimirovitch said, and everyone laughed.

“At least they believe in something.” Szbeszdogy tossed his weedy cigarette into the sand. “Which is more than I can say for you filthy bastards.”

“Oh, I believe in something,” Solas said grimly. “I believe in my FAMAS, my razor blade, and my own right arm.”

“I don’t care what anyone believes,” Capitaine Pinard interjected. “So long as you men shut up and don’t cause any trouble. Every day we spend kicking around this miserable desert . . .” He didn’t finish this thought. “We need to get there soon if there’s going to be anything left of the colonel. Understood?”

A reluctant mumble of assent followed his statement, echoed by the pious murmur of Moroccans mouthing their prayers in even rows in the blazing sun.

5.

T
he Moroccan Berm was pierced every hundred kilometers or so with a fortified, gated passage through to the wilderness on the other side. Out there, beyond the great wall of sand, lay unmapped territory nominally held by Polisario rebels, but now mostly under the mysterious influence of the Marabout insurgency. The gate at sector fourteen, passage seven followed the pattern of every other gate along the line, garrisoned by a dismal bunch of a hundred or so Moroccan troops, sullen and slovenly, suffering from bad morale and their own version of the
cafard
, a condition that affects not only the Legion, but any army billeted in extreme and isolated conditions. The passage formed a rough circle a hundred meters in diameter, surrounded with barbed wire and a trench five meters deep. Inside, a haphazard arrangement of tents, Quonset huts, broken half-tracks, and a few pieces of poorly kept ordnance, sunk to the breech in the sand.

The gate—a mere rolling obstruction, more chicken wire than barbed and set between two rows of sandbags—rolled back to admit the convoy from Laayoune. Behind them now, the desert all the way to the coast. Ahead through the opposite gate, more desert all the way to the mountains where the Marabouts held absolute sway. The convoy drew up in a ragged line not far from the garrison commander’s igloo: a round, thickly plastered white building with no windows, only a huge square air-conditioning unit protruding from an aperture above the doorway and a couple of satellite dishes sprouting like mushrooms out of the roof.

The major exited his air-conditioned Cherokee and disappeared quickly into the air-conditioned igloo to confer with the garrison commander, a vampirish figure who only emerged once or twice a week and only for a few minutes, at dusk. Captain Pinard and the Legionnaires and most of the Moroccans jumped down from the trucks to stretch their legs. Windblown and flea-bitten garrison troops clustered around these new arrivals from cosmopolitan Laayoune, speaking a polyglot of Hassaniya, Arabic, and French, seeking any news from that faraway city, a paradise considered from the blighted perspective of the Berm.

A few soldiers approached Pinard and the Legionnaires.

“
Vouz avez des cigarettes les français?
” one of the garrison troops asked Pinard. He identified himself as Corporal Hassan; he was older, early fifties probably, and like many Moroccans of that generation still spoke the precise French he’d learned in parochial schools administered by French nuns, long since raped and murdered or deported.

“
Non, malheureusement,
” Pinard said. “
Seulement des cigarettes marocaines.
And we’re not French. All of us—Foreign Legion.” Corporal Hassan shrugged and took several of Pinard’s Moroccan cigarettes, putting one between his lips and the rest in his breast pocket. For some reason, he wore a blanket over his shoulders, despite the incredible heat.

“We have heard about you Legionnaires,” Corporal Hassan said, lighting his cigarette with expert ease in the steady desert wind.

Pinard shrugged.

“My grandfather fought against the Legion in the Rif wars.”

“So did everyone’s grandfather in Morocco.”

“El-Krim—”

“Please,” Pinard said, holding up his hands. “Let’s not start talking about el-Krim!”

Corporal Hassan chuckled. “Perhaps you are right,” he said. “Anyway, from what I’ve heard, el-Krim was a bastard.”

Then he made an odd little gesture, a subtle movement of head and shoulder to indicate discretion. He took a few steps away from the truck, blowing smoke into the air. Pinard followed, hands in his pocket. Nothing could be more natural than two soldiers sharing a cigarette and a few words in the waning light of afternoon.

“You seem like a good fellow,” the Moroccan said darkly. “So listen to me—from one soldier to another. Your situation is about to change for the worse.”

“Is this a joke?” Pinard said, careful to keep a smile on his face.

“No,” the Moroccan said. “It’s not funny at all. My
copain
is the colonel’s communications subaltern. He runs the radio and the telex and sees every message that goes between the Berm and Rabat, Layoune, Marrakesh. Everything, you understand. And he knows almost every code.”

Pinard leaned forward against the wind, trying to conceal his interest. “So what does he tell you, this friend?”

“Nothing is free on this earth.” The corporal shook his head. “The free stuff you only get in paradise, where seventy-two virgins bring it along on silver trays.”

Pinard pulled out the pockets of his coveralls. “No money,” he said. “I’ve got nothing.”

“You must have something to barter,” Corporal Hassan insisted. “Even a trinket. It’s the principle of the thing.”

Pinard canvassed his men and came up with a small pile a few minutes later: Two silver earrings—both from Szbeszdogy, part Gypsy on his mother’s side—a silver pendant of the Virgin Mary from Dessalines, who was at least nominally Roman Catholic, and a vintage Zippo lighter from Vladimirovitch, its worn, nickel-plated case engraved with the insignia of the 4e RE and a blunt personal motto, probably mistranslated from Russian into French, because it didn’t make much sense: Try to kill me but I will kill you. Pinard presented these objects to Corporal Hassan as a bundle wrapped in a handkerchief.

“This is all we’ve got,” Pinard said.

The Moroccan picked over the loot in the handkerchief and gave everything back except the Zippo. He pressed the button and the blue flame shot up on the first click.

“Good,” he said, smiling. “Americans made this, when Americans knew how to make things. Did you know one of their spaceships blew up not long ago?”

“Well?”

Corporal Hassan glanced over his shoulder to make sure no one was listening. “There are rumors of peace talks, a treaty,” he said in a low voice.

Pinard and Szbeszdogy exchanged a worried glance.

“Between who?” Pinard said.

“Between Morocco and the Marabouts,” the corporal said. “That psychopath Al Bab is negotiating to make a common cause with the king against the Algerians, against Polisario, against the UN, and against all foreigners in Western Sahara. Morocco wants no interference, you understand, with its plans for this wasteland—which is to dig up all the phosphorous and sell it to the Chinese. What is now Polisario territory would become a satellite state of Morocco, evenly divided between the king and this Al Bab. This would put you and your men in a very awkward position, don’t you think? The enemy of my new friend is my new enemy, yes?”

6.

T
he Moroccan demibrigade and the Legionnaires exited passage seven through the eastern gate into Marabout-held territory soon after dark. Great clouds of sand and dust billowed up in the last red light. They drove through the cooling hours, the beams of their headlights falling across the emptiness, and reached a Moroccan supply depot just west of the Algerian border at 3:00 A.M. Here, at the edge of the Hoggar, previous expeditions had set up a semipermanent camp, with crates of RCIR reheatable meals, parcels of powdered soup, and plastic barrels of water buried in the sand in shallow trenches.

The Legionnaires helped the Moroccans set up their tents in even rows, tap the barrels of water, and dig latrine trenches. It appeared, to Pinard’s dismay, that they were preparing for a long stay. He asked the ranking Moroccan non-com, a grizzled sergeant named Muhammed Ladjal, a couple of questions about when they could expect to move on and was immediately summoned to Major Rabani’s tent for the answer. This elaborate shelter, more Ottoman splendor than military austerity, was made from a kind of stiffened linen, the breezy fabric covered in tasteful pale blue stripes. Large, comfortable pillows covered the carpeted floor inside; a tea service of polished brass glittered from a deep Moroccan tray—all gently illuminated in the shadowy light cast by the same sort of pretty filigree lamp that had hung in the tent of the late Saharoui emir in the souk in Laayoune.

The major sat directly beneath the lamp cross-legged on a scarlet pillow like a sultan, bare to the torso, wearing a pair of silk pantaloons. His subaltern, a youth of seventeen whose only garment was a loincloth, massaged oil into the major’s back and shoulders. The major gasped, as the youth bore down hard with the balls of his thumbs.