Assignment Moon Girl (8 page)

“What do you suppose they wanted from him?”

“The map that he gave you, sir."

“You noticed it, did you?”

“Yes, sir. They will do anything to get it back, anything to
stop you from taking it to Teheran and revealing Har-Buri’s headquarters. Last
night I came across the desert, hoping to catch up with you. I stole the truck
from Har-Buri’s men, after Beele died.” Hanookh tightened his mouth. “You must
give me that map, Durell.”

“I’ll think about it,” Durell said.

“Sir, don’t you trust me?”

“I don’t trust anyone, lately.”

“I understand that, but I assure you—”

“Let’s go, Hanookh. We should be on our way.”

Hanookh’s dark eyes hardened for a moment, then he
straightened and looked toward the village gate. Two women in black robes and
veils, leading donkeys, came out. The women did not look their way. It was as
if they did not exist, or were invisible. Charcoal smoke drifted on the hot
air, and the smell of excrement and urine seemed strong enough to support the
clay village walls. More women gathered about the well. If anyone in the
caravanserai was aware of the Arabs and their truck, or the struggle outside
the gate, they gave no sign of it.

The Renault was gone. So was its fat owner and load of
contraband rifles. Hanookh and Durell walked through the narrow alleys to
the three-sided inn. No one tried to stop them. There was a dusty Coca-Cola
sign hanging askew over the main entrance, and a gasoline pump. The Anny truck
was parked there, incongruous among the camels, goats, and donkeys in the
courtyard. It looked as out of place as Hanookh, in his military uniform.

A clot of Kurds squatting around a
cookfire
looked up with mysterious eyes as Hanookh forged through them to the truck.

Hanookh halted. “We are in new trouble.”

Durell saw the problem, too. “Did you leave the engine hood
up?”

“No, certainly not.” The Iranian swore softly in Farsi and
jumped into the cab. The Kurds clustered about their fire and went on
eating. There came some dead clicks from the motor as Hanookh tried the
ignition and starter. Nothing else happened. Durell went around to the front
and looked at the engine. Hanookh’s face was dim behind the dusty windshield.

“Your distributor cap is gone,” Durell said.

Hanookh jumped out again. His dark face was flushed
with anger. He searched the nearby ground, then spoke rapidly to the Kurds in
their language. Durell saw that all the travelers in the caravanserai were
watching. Their eyes were secretive, amused. Most were hostile.

“They say they know nothing and saw nothing,”

Hanookh said grimly.

“Offer them some money.”

“It is against bureau principles—”

“How far is it to the main Teheran highway?”

“If we try to walk, we’ll be easily ambushed.”

“Exactly. Pay them.”

The Kurd leader was a tall, bearded man who wore his robes
with dignity. He took Hanookh’s money in a great, sandy paw and nodded,
speaking to his fellow-tribesmen in measured tones that held a questioning
note. At last he shrugged and turned back to Hanookh, who listened angrily.

“He says the Arab took the distributor cap. When this man
questioned him for tampering with government property, the Arab said I had sent
him. It’s hopeless. He’s thrown it away in the desert by now, miles from here.
And there isn’t another part like it within reach. So we must walk.”

“Not necessarily.” Durell eyed the tall Kurd. “Ask him for
transportation. We’ll pay.”

“Can you ride a camel or a donkey?”

“Easier than I can walk.”

“Yes. And your wound needs tending. You look pale, Mr.
Durell.” Hanookh hesitated. “You do not share your information with me,
but—well, we are allies, eh?”

The deal was quickly made. The Kurds would not leave until
evening, because of the heat. Hanookh arranged for a room at the caravanserai.
It was no use fretting about the Arabs and the Renault, or the riddle of
Tanya’s torn robe that Durell had found in the truck.

The Army vehicle had been stripped of everything detachable,
and it was no use, either, trying to recover anything from the silent people in
the courtyard. A hot wind began to moan and blow sand through the village, and
Durell was glad to go up to the room Hanookh got for them. The first-aid
kit from the truck was untouched, and Hanookh made a better bandage for Durell.
He felt tired, and frustrated. His eyelids were gritty and his head ached.
Hanookh promised to stand guard during the hours they had to wait. There was
nothing else to be done. Tanya was long gone. He stretched out on the straw
mattress that teemed with a life all its own. He was beyond caring. After a
time, he slept.

He awoke to gloom and a thumping, scuffling noise
outside the cell-like room. He was bathed in sticky sweat. Someone yelled, and
he rolled instinctively off the narrow pallet to the dirt floor and
reached for his gun in his waistband. The old plank door burst inward and a
knot of struggling, cursing men tumbled in. There were three of them, against a
desperate Hanookh. A knife flashed in the semi-darkness. Glass crunched. He
rolled aside and something thudded into the cot where he had slept. A man’s
trousered
legs loomed above him and he kicked upward and
the man screeched and grabbed himself and staggered away. Hanookh yelled and
Durell got to his feet in a corner, gun in hand. Hanookh stumbled his way.
Durell shoved the slim lad aside and smashed his gun into a
snaggle
-toothed,
bearded face. Blood spattered. He felt someone grab for his gun and he squeezed
the trigger.

The report was enormous. It roared, echoed, and bounced back
and forth in the little room.

The three men stumbled away. Hanookh was on hands and knees,
shaking his head. His nose was bleeding and his glossy moustache was saturated
with it. His eyes were apologetic.

“I am sorry. They came so fast—”

“Who were they?”

“Har-Buri’s assassins. The first strike.”

“They struck out, then.”

“Ah, they will try again. They will not let us leave this
place.”

“Where are the Kurds?”

“Gone, without us. Probably they were paid more. I told you
that money was useless.”

Durell went to the door and looked down the arched corridor
to the entrance of the caravanserai. It was strangely empty. Where the
courtyard had teemed with life, it now stretched desolately in the evening
dusk. He yelled for the proprietor, but no one answered. The attackers had
vanished, and he wondered if there were more of them about. Plainly, Har-Buri’s
power stretched like the tentacles of an octopus, groping everywhere for him.
He wiped sweat and dirt from his face and suddenly longed for a cool, fresh
shower.

“We can’t stay here as sitting ducks,” he said to Hanookh,
“so we walk, after all. All the way to Teheran, if we must.”

He crossed the courtyard to the abandoned Army truck. It now
looked as if locusts had devoured it. The tires were gone, the canvas top of
the stake body had vanished, the cab seats, sun visor, canvas water-bottles,
wooden racks, instrument panel and wiring—all was stripped away. He kicked at
the ashes where the Kurds had camped. A few coals still glowed. He looked at
the sky. The moon was rising. A dog howled in one of the alleys nearby.

“Food and water,” he said to Hanookh.

“We can try the kitchen here.”

They found some cold rice, a few pieces of lamb, a hand-pump
that yielded brackish water when Hanookh tried it. Durell took a clay pot and
made a sling and carrying band for it. The place was silent and empty. Hanookh
was pale. He washed the blood from his nose and moustache.

“We are trapped here, Durell, sir.”

“People come and go all the time, don’t they?”

“Just traders, caravan folks.”

“Well, let’s look.”

The alleys were quiet. The clay houses leaned toward each
other, darkening the way. He walked to the village gate and saw no one. A last
light glimmered over the desert in the west. The hills were rugged, barren. A
faint track made by caravans, an occasional truck, and donkey and camel
droppings showed him the way home. The air was turning cold again. He shivered
and turned to Hanookh.

“I wonder where the three who jumped us went.”

“The villagers will hide them. Har-Buri has many
sympathizers. The others obey him, out of fear.”

“But the assassins got here, didn’t they?”

“I don’t know what you mean—”

“They were sent in to stop us. They haven‘t left. So they
must have the means to leave, right?”

Hanookh’s eyes glistened. “True. A car or a jeep—”

“Let’s look. I prefer to be the hunter.”

Durell led the way back to the caravanserai. It was still
deserted. There was an oil lamp in the vaulted corridor, and he took it down
and lit it with one of his remaining matches, and searched the floor for
blood. He knew he had hit one of the men with his gunshot. He found a few
spatters almost underfoot, and followed them to the rear of the inn, skirting
the kitchen. They came to a blank door. There was a bloody handprint on it,
above the iron latch. He listened, but heard no sound from beyond. His gun was
ready when he shoved quickly at the panel and jumped through. A flight of
dark, earthen steps yawned before him. He went down fast, with Hanookh at his
heels, the lamp in one hand, extended far out from his body.

A woman screamed, and he recognized the owner’s frightened
voice. They were in a storage cellar, and the
innlceeper
and his wife were the only people in sight.

“The
hashishim
,”
Hanookh said angrily. “Where are they?”

The man was a Hindu. He shook with his fear. “Sahib, I am
poor but honest, and have only my wife and no children, alone in the world,
struggling to exist—“

“Shut up.”

The cellar was empty. Another door led them up an adjacent flight
of dirt steps. They found themselves in the next village house. A single,
circular room, with a smoke-hole in the antiquated beehive roof, was deserted.
Durell spotted more blood on the floor.

“Hanookh, I smell gasoline.”

“I don’t, sir."

“Come along.”

They found the jeep behind the house, under a shed thatched
with palm fronds. A dog barked furiously at them, and Hanookh chased it away.
There was no further trace of their attackers. Perhaps the one he’d shot was in
a bad way, Durell thought, and the others had taken him somewhere else in the
village for help. He checked the jeep rapidly, found the open gas can that had
given away its presence, and set to work to jump the ignition wires. In a few
moments, the engine roared into life.

Hanookh grinned broadly. “All Americans are good auto
mechanics,” he said.

“It’s our way of life,” Durell told him.

The jeep was old and rusty, and its second gear didn’t work,
but it took them through the village gate with a roar, In minutes, the oasis
was out of sight behind the barren, rolling hills. The moonlight was bright.
The track was easy to follow, leading north and west toward the desert’s edge
and the highway to Teheran.

Durell drove, fighting the balky gearshift. He did not
dare use the headlights, and trusted to the moon to guide his way. The nature
of the land began to change after the first few miles. Scrubby brush
appeared, and the hills lifted higher on either hand. Hanookh kept looking
backward, but there was no pursuit.

“They will wait up ahead,” the Iranian said.

“How can they know we’ve escaped from the village?”

“They will know,” Hanookh promised grimly.

“When you talked to the villagers and the caravan people—did
anyone mention Tanya?”

”No.”

“No one saw her?”

“No one admitted it. Do you think they have her again?”

“No, I don’t think so,” Durell decided.

 
“It is a marvel,”
Hanookh said, “that a human being has at last been on the moon.”

“A miracle,” said Durell. “Is this Har-Buri as dangerous a
politician as everyone seems to think?”

“More so. He is our number-one priority at intelligence
headquarters, according to my superior, Colonel Saajadi. He uses everyone as
his tool. He preys upon the greed of the poor and the fears of the rich. We
have hunted him for a long time. And only you know where he can be found.”

Durell said nothing.

“Give me the map, please,” said Hanookh.

“I destroyed it.”

“Then tell me where he can be found.”

“Yes. But when we get to Teheran. No sooner.”

“We may never reach the city.”

“Then it wouldn’t do you much good to know, would it?”
Durell said.

“Why do you not trust me?” Hanookh complained.

“It’s an occupational hazard.”

The trail lifted into rugged, stony hills. Now and then they
skirted the edge of sheer drops into dry ravines. The sound of the laboring
jeep was enormous in the chilly night. Anyone waiting for them could hear them
coming for miles. But it couldn’t be helped, Durell decided.

They had gone perhaps half the distance to the highway,
according to his estimate, when he suddenly slammed on the brakes. They were
faulty, and the jeep slid on the gravel and checked itself dangerously close to
the edge of the drop-off. Hanookh started to explain, then saw the tire tracks
going over the lip of the cliff. Durell unhooked the ignition wires and the
engine coughed itself into silence.

“Be careful,” Hanookh whispered.

In the quiet of the hills, they heard the sigh of the wind
in the brush, a distant plane motor that reminded them they were near civilization.
Durell smelled woodsmoke. He got out and walked to the edge of the road and
looked down into the narrow valley. Water gleamed down there, surprisingly. And
the moonlight outlined the wreckage of a truck.