Mrs Pollifax Unveiled Part 7

"Think you can find it again?"

"I want to," she said cautiously. "I want to see what else was burned in that fire."

He nodded. "According to our friend in Damascus in the souk -Omar-the camp's privy was very near to where you did your spying. Probably a pit in the ground. Did you notice it?"

She shook her head. "I didn't look for it, I was in a state of astonishment, and Joe was frankly scared. We certainly didn't linger."

He thought about this. "The fire sounds the most important of all -to confirm she was there or still is. It's what the State Department-not to mention Carstairs-will want to know. But d.a.m.n risky, d.u.c.h.ess-don't forget what Bazir Mamoul said about their privy being very near to where you must have done your spying . ., anyone using it just might look over that hill and see .. ." He looked down at his bandaged wrists and swore. "d.a.m.n it, d.u.c.h.ess, it's going to be another day before I can help. Wait for me -don't go alone, it's too dangerous."

She said nothing. Farrell obviously wasn't thinking clearly yet because they couldn't afford to wait for him; only forty or more hours ago he'd escaped from two men in Tadmor who would be looking for him now, and who would no doubt widen their search beyond Tadmor very soon. They couldn't afford time, it was necessary to act with haste. To be found here would be disastrous, for Dr. Robinson and his work, and for Farrell and herself, as well as for any hope of finding Amanda Pym. She only said gently, "Do lie back, Farrell, and concentrate on getting well. And don't worry." She left him to find Joe and ask about a camel.

You're crazy," Joe told her, climbing up the ladder out of Site Two. "A camel? And at night?"

She said tartly, "I can scarcely go by daylight, can I? We were lucky this morning, but another time we might be seen, and I want to do some serious digging. There was something about that fire .., as if they'd just dumped things there, lit a few sticks and left. If the flames didn't consume all of that pa.s.sport then it's possible the fire died away before anything buried deeper could be reached. There could be more to find."

He said grudgingly, "Well, it's true there's not much kindling in the desert, just dried dung and bits of twigs. But you can't go on a camel, it would take hours. They're slow."

"Then I'll walk," she said stubbornly.

He looked at her with amus.e.m.e.nt. "Blackmail, Khaleh Emily?"

"Khaleh?"

"Arabic for 'aunt.' "

"To be called a blackmailer shocks me to the core," she told him.

"I'll bet," he said, grinning. "I suggest we borrow the Land Rover -okay, steal it once it's dark-drive it within a few miles of the place, and walk."

"We?"

"So I'm curious," he admitted. "There'll be a moon tonight, not full for two more days, but enough to find the way there without being conspicuous." He added wryly, "Dr. Robinson likes you, and of course I impressed him by returning his Land Rover so punctually. He's very stern about such matters. I can tell him you'd love seeing the desert in the moonlight."

"What time?"

"Whether he says yes or no, about seven, once work stops?"

"I'll be ready," she told him. "What do they all think about Farrell limping into camp, b.l.o.o.d.y but unbowed?"

"I told them he fell."

"Fell?"

"Off a wall."

"And do they believe that?" she said incredulously.

"I doubt it," he said, grinning, "but Dr. Robinson does. His head is where mine usually was -back among the Umayyads. Very scholarly chap." His face clouded. "We've got to be careful; we all had to be cleared by the government here-had to be-and I don't want Dr. Robinson to get into any trouble. I think tomorrow I'd better approach him about pitching a tent for you and Farrell outside the camp. A bit of dissociating, if you get what I mean: aunt and cousin guests for a few days, until my cousin recovers and all that?"

She smiled at him. "I do like you, Joe."

He grinned. "The mischief I never got into, growing up, seems to be taking over at the ripe age of twenty-seven."

"No mischief?"

He shook his head. "Both my parents were history professors, I never got around to rebelling, it would only have bewildered them. How can you rebel against parents who live in another century? My rebellion was taking up with the Umayyads."

"The Umayyad," she said. "When did they live?"

He said promptly, "They occupied the country in A.D. 661, made Damascus their capital, and were overthrown by the Abbasids in A.D. 750."

"I see .., and you were an only child?"

He nodded. "See you at seven, I've got Dr. Robinson to approach at dinner. The usual menu, of course."

"Not for me," she said, and went back into the tent to worry about Farrell, and to watch him carefully. Congratulating him on his escape was meaningless, she knew. She had once, in Hong Kong, undergone torture -she still carried the scars on her back-and she remembered very well the state of her mind when she'd been rescued; mercifully it had been temporary, but she knew that what Farrell needed now was the commonplace, a familiar face, work to do, and sleep to heal a mind still dazed by meeting with the worst that one human being could inflict on another.

He greeted her cheerfully, however, and knowing how resilient he was she was hopeful. "There's food and water on the table beside your cot," she told him. "I'll be going out for an hour or two this evening. Since I'm posing as Joe's aunt -and a mere tourist-it appears to be obligatory that I see the desert in the moonlight."

If he suspected more, he did not say so. "Then tell Joe to ba quiet when he gets back because I plan to sleep and sleep and sleep." He grinned. "Only way I can be of use to you by tomorrow. Sleep always does it for me."

Whatever Joe said to Dr. Robinson proved successful. The Land Rover drove up to her tent at seven o'clock , and climbing in beside Joe she found herself sitting on a mound of cloth. "What's this?" she asked.

"Djellabas," he said. "Borrowed from Mustafa and Argub. As a joke, I told them. They're in case we're glimpsed from a distance."

"Joe," she said, "I'm discovering new depths in you by the hour."

He laughed, and they set off in the direction they'd taken that morning, headlights shining until -with a glance at his compa.s.s-he announced, "Here's where we start walking."

The moon was high in the sky, shedding a soft and hazy light that outshone the stars. The air was cool and refreshing, so cool that Mrs. Pollifax was glad to pull on the old brown djellaba woven of wool. Borrowed car, borrowed djellaba, and borrowed spoons for digging, she thought, and found it quite pleasant, walking in the night. "I wonder if we'll see any lights at that camp," she murmured.

Joe shook his head. "Doubtful. No electricity. They could have a generator but it's more likely they've kerosene lamps, as we do, and those earthworks are too high to see them."

She had left her purse back in Amy's tent, but Joe had borrowed a small burlap sack from the storeroom. When at last they sighted the hill in the distance they began the job of looking for the darker circle of charred earth. For this the moonlight was of little help and they lost a precious twenty minutes before Mrs. Pollifax stumbled across it, and at onca she sank to her knees, spoon in hand. She dug while Joe kept watch, and without heed to what she uncovered she dug deep, spading everything -sand, pebbles, debris-into the sack that Joe held open for her. Extending the search beyond the fire she left a sizable hole behind her into which Joe made a hurried attempt to kick pebbles and earth.

When at last she said, "Enough!" Joe slung the bag over his shoulder. "This must be how grave robbers feel," he said as they walked away, not slowing their pace until the hill melted into the horizon, no longer visible.

When they returned to Camp Five it was nearing eleven o'clock and the site was dark except for the soft glow of lanterns set among the tents. A guard was asleep on a bench outside the field office, and roused at the sound of the Land Rover. Joe called out a few words in Arabic and he lay down again, satisfied.

"What we need is a hand screen," Joe said. "To sift the wheat from the chaff. Tired?"

"No," she lied. The cut on her temple had come to life and was throbbing, and she was beginning to realize that she had arrived at the camp roughly forty-eight hours ago and that she, like Farrell, had endured a difficult trip. With her normal energy depleted she was drawing heavily now on reserves. Or adrenaline, bless it, she thought, but was not about to admit it. "I'm fine," she told him. "I could never sleep without knowing if we found something. Where's that hand screen?"

Joe found one left on the ground near Site Two. They carried the sack and the screen to a nearby lantern and sat down beside it. "We do this sort of thing every day -tirelessly," said Joe, dropping handfuls of dirt and pebbles across its surface.

"Paper!" cried Mrs. Pollifax suddenly. "Look, sc.r.a.ps of white paper!"

"I'm looking," Joe said. "What do I do with them?"

She unwound her white headscarf and he gathered together the sc.r.a.ps of paper and dropped them into it. When they had emptied the burlap sack they had culled a neat pile of scorched and torn pieces of paper. "Except, alas, no pa.s.sport," she mourned.

Joe reached for a crumpled sample from the collection and whistled faintly through his teeth. "No pa.s.sport but there's an American here somewhere. Look at this!"

He handed her one of the scorched remnants and by the light of the lantern she saw English print, something torn from a book, and leaning closer she read, Poems by Emi - and below it, I Was Hun- Fire had eaten away the rest, leaving its ragged edge brown with singe.

For a moment, tired and sleepless, Mrs. Pollifax thought she was going to cry. "English," she whispered.

Joe, plucking out another sc.r.a.p said, "Hey -there's more English and this one's written by hand; it says 'taught to be incons ...' " He looked at the quant.i.ty of scorched papers and shook his head. "This is going to be like gluing together shards of Ommayan pottery!" One glance at Mrs. Pollifax's face in the light of the lantern and he forgot their contraband. "Good G.o.d," he said with a gasp, "you've lost your bandage and it's starting to bleed again. You must be exhausted, we should never, never have- You need sleep."

"I -I think you're right," she said with a wry smile.

He helped her to her feet, gripped her arm and escorted her to Amy's tent. "I'll take these sc.r.a.ps with me -I'm rather good at jigsaw puzzles-and see what sense I can make of them. I'll do it with a flashlight outside my tent so I won't wake Farrell."

He added crossly, "You should have told me; I should have - Oh d.a.m.n it, sleep. All day if you want, Khaleh Emily."

"Thank you," she told him gravely, walked into the dark tent, glanced at a sleeping Amy, found a blanket and without bothering to remove her clothes lay down and at once fell asleep.

9.

In Langley , Virginia it was ten o'clock in the morning when Bishop picked up the telephone to hear that Amman , Jordan was calling: that would be Rawlings, of course, in their Jordan office. "Hold on a minute," he told him. "I believe he's on another line."

He buzzed Carstairs and then walked into his office to see whether he was ordering lunch sent up from the cafeteria, or was still talking with Jacob Mboro in the Sudan . There had lately been a number of calls to and from the Sudan and Bishop, curious, and knowing little about the country, had looked it up in their library. Carstairs had been more helpful. "Largest country in Africa ," he said. "Underpopulated and needy. To simplify, draw a line roughly across the middle, at Khartoum : the top half is Arab, and mostly Muslim; the bottom half of the country are the natives, Christians or animists, and they want autonomy. Call it civil war or guerilla war; it's been going on for years."

He opened the door in time to hear Carstairs say, "Good, I'll see what I can do," and cut the connection. Seeing Bishop he said cynically, "I must be getting old. Life was so much simpler when half the world backed the Soviet Union , and tha other half lived in terror of the Soviet Union . Remove the Cold War and internal conflicts multiply in countries by the week."

Bishop said meekly, "Rawling's on line one from Jordan, sir."

"Ah yes, Rawlings," he said, and to Bishop, "I'll want this recorded, turn on the machine, will you?" Turning to line one he said, "Carstairs here."

Bishop sat down and waited for further instructions.

Rawlings, young and still fairly new to the Middle East , said, "Yes, sir. I want you to know this call's being scrambled."

"That bad?" said Carstairs lightly.

"Well, it's from Damascus , sir, it just came in. The usual way."

"Yes?" Carstairs's voice was no longer flippant but deadly serious. "Talk."

"From A-511, sir, code name Omar. The following message to be forwarded to you. It begins, and I quote, 'Carpets not selling well, two sent to Palmyra .' " He hesitated, and then continued, " 'Fareeq killed at Palmyra -have confirmed, reconfirmed, and verified a.s.sa.s.sin unknown to police. a.s.sa.s.sin mingled with group of tourists and escaped.' That's it, sir, end of agent's message."

Showing no immediate expression, Carstairs said noncom-mittally, "Thanks, Rawlings, I'll keep in touch." He hung up and exploded with a "d.a.m.n and d.a.m.nation!"

Bishop, frowning, said, "Fareeq? I don't recall an agent named Fareeq."

"Not under that name, no -you'll find him in our top top cla.s.sified secret file." Carstairs added savagely, "He was one of our most trusted surviving informants over there, and a d.a.m.n fine man -and he's dead? He was never a man to be careless . . , the question is why, and by whom."

Bishop said doubtfully, "Can you really believe he wasn't killed by the police?"

"If A-511 says not by the police then it was not by the police. Omar has connections, he's reliable. Which means, who killed Fareeq and why, and what the h.e.l.l was he doing in Palmyra ?"

He reached over and switched on the machine and listened again to Rawlings's message from a world away. "Two rugs sent to Palmyra ," he murmured, and then, "Oh G.o.d."

"What?"

"It has to mean he's made contact with Mrs. Pollifax and Farrell and he sent the two of them to Palmyra , presumably to meet Fareeq."

"And now he's dead. . . . Was he under surveillance, do you suppose?"

Carstairs shook his head and said drearily, "So far as I know, Fareeq has never been under suspicion, and he'd be too clever to be followed and not know it. It's more likely that it's Pollifax and Farrell who were being followed, which is fairly normal procedure over there, and Farrell and Pollifax knew this."

"Then how -"

"I don't know," said Carstairs grimly. "My reaction, quite frankly, is one of horror, it implies that others may have been following the two of them. Palmyra's a major tourist site, it's possible their police surveillants lost sight of them, or a.s.sumed they'd be staying there an hour or two, and took a break. Whatever happened -if that was the case-the fact that Farrell and Pollifax stopped to speak to Fareeq signed his death warrant."

"But that means -" Bishop stopped.

"Exactly," said Carstairs, tight-lipped. "Get me the Cham Palace in Damascus , Bishop, and after that the emba.s.sy."

The next thirty minutes were busy ones for Bishop. The hotel reported that Mrs. Pollifax and Farrell had ordered a car for Palmyra on Tuesday; so far as they knew they had not returned yet, since their keys remained untouched at the front desk. Calling the emba.s.sy, Carstairs was told with a hint of aggrievement that an appointment with Amanda Pym's aunt had been made for Tuesday morning and that neither she nor her companion had appeared.

"I'm sure they're all right," Bishop said with all the brightness he could muster, even as he felt anxiety blossoming and taking root.

"Really?" growled Carstairs. "My conclusion is that news of two people arriving in Syria to inquire about Amanda Pym has been leaked. Widely shared, one might say, with people who know a great deal more about Amanda Pym than we do, and if they also know that she has no aunt it means they know Amanda very well."

Bishop dropped his pretense of optimistic cheerfulness. "Then they'd still be following Mrs. Pollifax and Farrell, these people who aren't the police?"

Carstairs glanced away, his jaw tightening. "Possibly. Or after murdering Fareeq -" He stopped, and with a steadier voice said, "Or after killing Fareeq there's the possibility that Mrs. Pollifax and Farrell would be next on their list."

Oh G.o.d, thought Bishop, here we go again.

"It suggests very strongly," said Carstairs grimly, "that Amanda Pym is still alive. It also makes her very, very important to someone over there, and the question is why is this girl so important to them?"

"If Miss Pym is still alive ..." began Bishop.

"At this moment," growled Carstairs, "I'm far more interested in whether Emily Pollifax and Farrell are still alive, d.a.m.n it. Call Rawlings back, and instruct him to keep his line open for Omar night and day, and report to us any further news at once."

10.