The Radioactive Camel Affair - Leslie Peter - Страница 17

“Over there!” another voice was shouting. “Look—on the far side of the bazaar. Quick! After him!”

He glanced over his shoulder. The owner of the hardware stall, his arms full of saucepans, was dancing up and down and pointing towards him. Beyond, advancing rapidly down a lane between the striped awnings, Ahmed and tile soldiers came running. He broke into a run himself and plunged into the dark street. A fusillade of shots erupted behind him as he gained the shadow. Bullets spurted the dust on either side of his pounding feet; another chipped plaster from the wall by his shoulder.

Solo hared around the first bend in the street. There was no turning off to the right. The roadway led towards the lights of another square. He dashed into an entry on the left, ran up a flight of stone stairs, crossed a wider street and plunged through an archway into a maze of unlit alleyways. Behind him, the footsteps and voices of the hunters approached. There had been plenty of people in the street he had crossed to point out the way he had gone.

He ran on, down a second flight of steps, and found himself in a narrow lane with street lamps at dim intervals. All around him a faint murmur of voices behind closed shutters stirred the warm air. Music rose and fell in the distance.

He halted, panting.

“Why do you not come inside, stranger?” a soft voice intoned in Arabic at his elbow.

He swung around. There was a click. The upward-directed beam of a small flashlight illuminated the upper half of a girl’s body. The gleam of teeth and the highlight on a full lip shone through the shadows.

Solo hesitated. The sounds of pursuit were only one corner away. Already feet were scrambling down the steps.

“All right,” he said huskily, making up his mind. He stepped towards the doorway. The light vanished. A door creaked open into darkness.

Solo brushed past the girl and stood waiting as she closed the door. In the airless dark of the passage, the perfume of some exotic, cloying cosmetic washed over him. Outside, footsteps scraped to a halt. He could hear the voice of Ahmed: “…a foreigner. Medium height, bearded, and wearing western clothes.”

Somebody mumbled a negative.

“But he must be here somewhere. He can’t have got away…I’ve seen that man before somewhere, but for the moment I just can’t place him. There’s something familiar about him all the same…”

“He could be anywhere here,” another voice chimed in. “You know where we are? This is the street of—”

“It doesn’t matter what street it is,” a third voice, clipped and commanding, interrupted. “We’ll post sentries at either end and search it house by house.” The footsteps moved away decisively.

The girl, whose breath had hissed in sharply the first time Ahmed had spoken, now moved past Solo towards the back of the building. She said in a low voice, “This way. I will show you….”

Light stabbed the blackness as she switched on the flashlight and shone the beam at the floor behind her to light the way. Solo followed her to the end of the passage and up a flight of stone stairs. Apart from the clip-clop of the girl’s slippers and the swish of garments against her legs, they mounted in silence. At the top of the stairs a dimly lit foyer appeared with a number of doors opening off it. He followed the girl through one and found himself in a tiny room about eight feet square, furnished with nothing more than rugs and cushions upon the floor. As she crossed to draw heavy drapes across an arched window embrasure, Solo closed the door silently and leaned against it.

“I am sorry,” he began, “I only want to…”

For the first time, the girl turned to face him. It was Yemanja—the belly dancer from the caravan who had been giving him the come-on throughout the journey.

“So,” she said softly. “It is you!”

“Yemanja! I didn’t recognize you. I—”

“Why would you, my friend? How could you recognize that which you will not see? But I recognize you—although evidently Ahmed does not…yet.”

“I do not wish you to misunderstand me, Yemanja. When I came in here—”

“I know. If you had recognized me, you would have run away—the way you always retreat with your eyes when I look at you. Why do you rebuff me, my friend? Am I not beautiful? Am I not desirable?” The girl sank down on a pile of cushions, staring at him with her enormous eyes.

“You are very beautiful,” Solo said, “and very desirable. I swear it.”

“Then…?”

The agent hesitated. Could he trust the girl? If she had taken such a fancy to him, it might be worth the risk. On the other hand, a woman scorned…Mentally, he shrugged. He really had no choice.

“I am engaged upon a certain mission,” he said carefully. “In order to complete this successfully, it is vital that I do not in any way attract attention while I am with the caravan.”

“So? You are running away, are you not? It was you that Ahmed and the soldiers were chasing, no? Evidently you are on some secret business, for you are dressed as an effendi. But this is no concern of mine. Why do you not stay here with me? Come—sit here beside me and I will send for some refreshment.”

“Yemanja, I cannot.”

“But I wish it. You are beautiful. You have a kind and gentle face. You are different, my friend. In my life I have not met men like you. If you find me pleasing, why do you reject me—”

“If I become ‘friendly’ with you, it will make Ahmed jealous. And if he becomes more jealous than he already is, he will notice me all the more in the caravan—and that must not happen. Because, you see, he does not yet connect the man he is chasing tonight with the man his woman so obviously likes in the caravan.”

“Ahmed!” The girl’s voice was full of scorn. “He is a brute, that one. He beats me. Look—I will show you…”

“No, no,” Solo said hastily. “I believe you.”

“Anyway, I wish to leave him. I do not understand this of the caravan and your private business. I have said it does not concern me. You need not be afraid of Ahmed: he is a bully, all brag and no courage.”

“I am not afraid of him. It is just that he must not notice me.”

“Well, he cannot notice you here,” the girl cried triumphantly.

She broke off abruptly. From somewhere below a persistent hammering was echoing up the stairway. Yemanja rose on to her knees, her eyes wide with alarm. “The soldiers,” she whispered. “They said they would search every house…”

“Oh, no! Not again!” Solo said in English.

“You are right, my friend. They must not find you here. You must go.”

“Yes, but how?”

“Nobody saw you come in. So far as they know, I have been here alone all the time. If you leave through this window…”

“Does Ahmed know you are here?”

“Of course. I am here at his command. Where do you wish to go?”

“I want to get back to a lane which runs behind the wall at one side of the square where the encampment is.”

The girl drew back the curtain over the window embrasure. “Out here is a flat roof. Beyond is an alley. You cannot get back directly without crossing the street in front here. So take the alley in the opposite direction and you will find you are in the street circling the town inside the walls. Turn right along this and you will find that the—one, two, three, four, yes, fifth—the fifth turning will lead you to the mosque. And from there, the lane you speak of—”

“Yes, yes. I know the way from there,” Solo said. The hammering had stopped and there was the sound of many voices below. He swung a leg over the window-sill, and then turned back towards the girl.

“You are very beautiful and very kind,” he said. “I am grateful. If ever there is anything I can do…”

“You know what you can do,” the girl said.

Solo grinned, leaned inwards and kissed her briefly on the lips.

“I will not forget you,” she said softly. “You will see me again, my friend. I am a determined woman…”