Riders of the Pale Horse (37 page)

Again his gaze returned to the scene outside his window. “Trucks.”

“What? I don't—”

“Many, many trucks. Outside Aqaba. Is big market there for people on trucks. You know?”

“Yes,” she said, fighting to hold herself down, seated, still. “The souk for the drivers. Of course.”

“Was building on main road from trucks to port. Big building with apartments, highest I see. Near market. We stay in cellar many nights.”

“The tallest apartment building on the main road running from the truck depot to the harbor,” she repeated, struggling to find the breath to speak. “And not far from the souk. Is that right?”

“Yes. Except for first night here in Amman, we stay there whole time until Nuweiba.”

“Amman? You spent a night in Amman? Can you tell me where?”

Alexis looked at her with naked appeal. “You not forget promise?”

23

“I fear I have no choice but to go with the major to Aqaba and follow up this lead Alexis gave you,” Cyril said distastefully. He clattered down the steps of the Jordanian compound, accompanied by Allison and Judith Armstead. The army convoy stretching out before them was in the final throes of preparation. “We happen to be walking on very thin diplomatic ice just now. After all, it is their country.”

“But to put all of your resources into searching one place?” Allison protested. “It just doesn't make sense.”

“It does to our little Napoleon,” Cyril replied. “And his commanding officer informed me in no uncertain terms that the major is responsible for our search.”

“I understand,” Allison said. “I just have this feeling that Wade is here in Amman.”

“My dear, we have been through this twice already.” Cyril raised a hand toward where the officer strutted and shouted. “I concur one hundred percent. I have seen your so-called hunches pay off too often already to insist otherwise. But as I said, I must accompany the major to Aqaba, so I leave it to you and Miss Armstead to do what you can here in Amman. She is the best there is at this business.”

“Second best,” Allison countered.

“Yes, well, it is indeed kind of you to say so, considering our current state of affairs.” He offered her his hand. “Now I really mustn't try the major's patience any further. Do take care, my dear. And may we meet again under far more joyful circumstances.”

Amman was a sprawling, mostly modern metropolis with an overriding quality of sameness. Virtually all the buildings were constructed of concrete blocks, then finished in either
white stucco or white-dressed stone. Larger dwellings had lawns and landscaping, but most others looked as if they were planted in unfinished construction sites.

Some of the structures were truly palatial, residences of wealthy Jordanians who had worked in the oil-rich southern lands. But the closer Allison and Judith came to the center of the city, the older and more cramped the quarters became.

And the more talkative their driver grew.

Judith Armstead had insisted they take a taxi for their search, in order to remain anonymous. The driver had started off in silent concentration, but the closer they drew to their destination, the harder he sought to keep hold of his western clients.

“If you like,” he offered, “I make special price.”

“No thank you,” Judith Armstead replied crisply.

“Why not, hey? How you know next driver not take you wrong way, maybe leave you far in desert?”

“Not likely.”

“So is first time you are in Amman? You are welcome.” He was a grizzled man in dirty robes and filthy headdress. “You come with group?”

“No.”

“You come for business? You government officer from embassy?”

“Just drive the car, please.”

“Is good to be government officer. They pay you and you pay me, yes?” He turned far enough around to see them both, then swung back when a horn warned him of impending doom. He swerved, braked, stuck his head out the window, and shouted oaths at the innocent driver. Then, “You must to hire other driver for returnings. You pay much more, maybe driver not so honest like me. I take you safe. Come, go, special price. Many accidents was happened on this road. But I am always safety.”

“So happy to hear it.”

“Yes. Am safety driver. So why you not let me take you
come, go? I have all the good roads. Old roads. Special ways. Am born here, have all life in Amman. Know all good roads.”

Allison leaned forward. “Do you know a road that climbs a hill behind the old Roman amphitheater?”

“Is many hills in city. Amman built on hills. You like tour of Amman city?”

“Forget it.”

“Wait, wait.” His brow furrowed in concentration. “Hill from ampitheater? Old city?”

“We can find it just as easily on foot,” Judith said.

“No, no, not easy. Old Amman very tricky place; roads all go in wrong direction, take you out, lose you in desert. Wait. Hill in old city. I thinking.”

“We are looking for a pair of apartment buildings built side by side, and there is a view looking down across the rooftops and over the Roman amphitheater,” Allison told him, relating all the information Alexis had given her. He had been granted one brief time out on the roof. The remainder of his stay, he had said, had been spent in the building's cellar. It had been dark and windowless and smelled of wet laundry. More he could not say. “He was looking out over the amphitheater to some old ruins.”

“He?” the driver demanded. “Who is he?”

“None of your concern,” Judith replied.

“The roofs were flat,” Allison continued, “and both of the buildings were old. There were maybe five or six stories, but he was not sure.”

“All roofs flat in Amman old city,” the driver retorted. “All buildings old.”

“But two buildings built together,” Allison pressed. “So close that he could easily step from one roof to the other.”

Again the brow furrowed. “I thinking. You pay good tip for help, yes? I wait, drive you come, go?”

“We pay a very good tip,” Allison assured him.

“You've just designed an Amman taxi driver's dream day,” Judith Armstead informed her. “Take two rich westerners on
a tour of the old town, look for something they're not too sure about, drive anywhere you like. This is going to cost us the moon.”

“No, no, not moon,” the driver protested. “I honest man. Do good safety driving.”

He pulled up at the edge of a large parking area. In front of them stretched a white parade ground colonnaded along one side. To the right of that, the amphitheater climbed its way up a steep hillside.

The driver pointed to his right. “Jabal Al-Jawfa. Jabal mean hill. There Jabal Attaj. And there Jabal Al Qal'a. Where we go?”

Allison pointed toward the remains of what appeared to be an ancient Roman circus. “He said the ruins were behind the amphitheater. That means it would have to be the hill over there.”

“Jabal Al Qal'a,” the driver said. “I think maybe yes too.” He ground the gears and raced the engine. “Now we start.”

It was extremely hard to eat with his hands tied behind his back. Especially when the room was pitch black.

Wade had awakened to find himself crammed inside a jouncing coffin so small he could not stretch out his legs. Then he had recognized the sound of a roaring motor and realized he was jammed into the trunk of a car.

The air was stuffy but breathable. His muscles ached, his head hammered, and the more awake he grew the more frightening his predicament became. So he did the only thing possible under the circumstances. He went back to sleep.

He awoke a second time to find a bright light being directed into his eyes. “Wakey, wakey, Sport. Time to rise and shine.”

“Why are you doing this?” he mumbled.

“If you hadn't slept the whole way you'd have figured that out for yourself already.” Wade watched as the flashlight was handed to someone else standing beside Robards. Then strong
hands pulled a black stocking down over his head and plucked him effortlessly from the trunk. “Stretch out your legs.”

He did, and groaned as the circulation revived in areas long left dormant.

Robards showed no sympathy. “Okay, turn around.” When Wade did not move fast enough for him, Rogue spun him about, leaned him roughly against the car, and tied his hands behind his back. “All right, let's move.”

Wade started to tell him that he couldn't get away with it, then stopped. By the looks of things, he already had.

Robards led him up a set of crumbling steps, through a door, and down a flight of stairs. A key rustled and turned, a heavy door opened, and Wade was shoved inside. He stumbled against the rough concrete floor and fell heavily, landing full force on one knee. He cried out sharply and rolled to his side.

“There'll be somebody outside this door all the time,” Robards said. “Make any noise and you'll spend your days with a towel stuffed down your throat. Make any trouble and it's the last trouble you give anybody. That clear?”

“My leg,” Wade groaned.

“Hey, I'd be a little more sorry if it wasn't for all that's gone down.” He stepped into the room, ripped the stocking from Wade's head. “People don't find it profitable to get in my way, Sport. For two cents I'd stomp your head in. So count your blessings and keep it quiet.”

Robards returned only twice after that, both times in the quiet before the world awoke. Both times he jammed the stocking back down over Wade's head and led him limping down the corridor to a rudimentary toilet. Then he brought him back to the cellar room, retied his hands, and left him with two tin plates set on the bare floor. One held water, the other a portion of the poor man's food of the Middle East, a concoction of cold beans and onions and garlic called
foul.
The only way Wade could eat or drink was by kneeling and bending far over to lap it up like a dog. The pain in his swollen knee made doing so pure agony.

Wade counted the passage of hours by the sounds that echoed down from above him. Children crying, mothers yelling, dogs barking, a few cars passing, muzzeins' call to prayer, music playing from a dozen radios. Occasionally he thought of shouting, then recalled the cold detachment in Robards' voice and knew that if he did it would be the last sound he would ever make.

Allison knew from the first moment of their search that they faced an almost impossible task.

The hill called Jabal Al Qal'a was inundated with apartment houses, none of which were more than five or six stories high, and all of which were old. The roofs she could not tell much about, as the roads were winding and narrow and snaked back and forth in a confusing, interlocking array. The taxi was airless and almost unbearably hot.

The only one pleased with their state of affairs was the driver. Every now and then he would break into a single-note warble, tapping time on the steering wheel as he ground slowly down one street after the other.

“I think we've already come this way,” Judith Armstead announced. “Five or six times.”