The Casbah Killers

Chapter 5

I thought they’d turned me into a mummy. I was still alive and they’d mummified me; my thoughts leaped in alarm as consciousness slowly returned. Conscious of being shrouded in yards of fabric, I began to focus my blurred vision and slowly realized that I could see out through a small opening in the material. I tried to move my arms and felt the restricting pressure of wrist bonds.

I was in semi-darkness on the flat of my back, bouncing and jouncing in what was obviously a wagon. I managed to turn my head and saw another shape alongside me, wrapped in a kind of shroud, and I presumed I was similarly encased.

Glancing upward, I saw the wagon was entirely enclosed, and it dawned on me that they were transporting us in a funeral wagon, a wagon used to haul bodies shrouded for transport to burial pyres.

I couldn’t tell if Marina was conscious or not, and I was thinking of perhaps kicking out at her to see when the bouncing suddenly came to a stop. The wagon had halted, and in a few moments I heard the sound of hinges creaking, and the bright glare of sunlight illuminated the interior of the wagon. I felt hands pulling me out of the rear of the wagon, and I murmured to let them know I was awake.

They stood me up and the shroud was ripped from me.

I saw the tall Rif, malevolently watching me, and I looked down at my bound wrists.

“Cut him loose,” he ordered, and one of the others freed me with one deft slice of his curved dagger.

I saw Marina, awake and free of her shroud, also being cut loose.

We were out of Casablanca, halted at the side of a road. It was a hot, dry place, and I saw the horses tied up to the back of the funeral wagon. They had simply used the funeral wagon to get us quietly out of Casablanca. Now, I saw, they were going to transfer us to horseback.

“Suppose I can’t ride,” I said to the tall Rif suddenly.

“Then this will be your first, and last lesson,” he growled.

I got the message.

I glanced at the horses and had to smile. They didn’t miss a bet in their own, subtle ways.

There were four of the powerful, fleet Arabian stallions, one for each of the Rifs, and two short-legged, sturdy but slow mounts. To try escaping on them would be like trying to run from a Maserati with a Volkswagen. They wouldn’t even have to watch us closely.

Sure of themselves, they mounted their Arabians at a short command from the tall Rif and waited as Marina and I climbed onto our horses.

“Don’t look so dejected,” I said to her as we started off after the Rifs. “You’re still alive. We’ll pull out of this.”

It was a piece of reassurance I wished had more substance behind it. I spurred my horse on to gallop up to the tall Rif. He turned at my approach, unperturbed, staring confidently at me.

“Where are you taking us?” I asked. “The Casbah at Tangiers?”

“No,” he said. “That is our official base only. We take you to our operational base, the Casbah built by El Ahmid atop Mount Dersa. He awaits us there.”

I dropped back to ride beside Marina.

Mount Dersa, in the heart of the Rif mountains, where, during the Rif war, Abd-el-Krim commanded his forces that held the city of Tetuan at bay for months.

I was beginning to wonder if this El Ahmid fancied himself another Abd-el-Krim, a leader of another Rif rebellion. I was to find out he fancied himself a lot more than that.

The Rifs set a fast pace though I knew their Arabians were capable of much greater speeds for sustained periods.

I was perspiring heavily under the broiling sun, and I glanced at Marina to see her dress so wet it looked almost as though she’d fallen into a lake with it on.

It clung to her with revealing tightness, outlining every curve of her large breasts, the small pointed tips. It clung provocatively to the long line of her I highs and dipped in a deep V at the abdomen. Her cascade of black hair streamed out behind her and she had assumed a different kind of beauty, a wildness, an untamed abandon.

Marina was part Spanish and part Moroccan she’d told me, and the Spanish blood in her had surfaced so that she seemed to be a wild gypsy from the hills of Andalusia.

I had the flaring desire to pull her from the saddle and make love to her in her wildness, and I knew that if I felt that way, the Rifs must surely have the same thoughts.

But, I had already seen, they were not a band of surly cutthroats but a highly disciplined group. They might think it but they wouldn’t do it.

Marina, her face wet and shiny, rode with a determined, almost angry abandon, and I knew she was trying to force anger to override fear. Until we halted at a zitoun, an olive grove, to water the horses, I thought she might have succeeded. I knew better when she stood beside me and watched the Rifs water their magnificent stallions.

“What’s going to happen to us, Nick?” she said. “Why don’t they just kill us and get it over with if that’s what they intend doing?”

I could have told her that would be too easy. I didn’t though.

She’d have time enough to learn what they had in store. I didn’t know myself, but I had a pretty fair idea it wasn’t a friendly fireside chat.

“They want to ask us some questions, I think,” I told her. I didn’t elaborate on their methods of asking.

The Rifs had finished watering the horses and gestured for us to mount up. The sun was lower in the sky and the rays less burning as we set off again.

I’d checked to make certain the two tubes of paint were still in my back pocket.

The Rifs had searched me, of course, when I was unconscious and decided the paint was harmless enough. They were my sole weapons at the moment, and they had limited uses.

I decided Marina and I were captive for a while yet, until I could find some moment for a break. I used the word “until” to myself. It was less pessimistic than “unless.”

We rode on, and the hot day finally gave way to the coolness of night as we reached the foothills of the Rif mountain stronghold.

Once more the Rifs paused but only for a few moments at the shores of a dayat, a mountain lake. Now, in the darkness, two of them rode behind Marina and me.

We pushed on, and the terrain changed from the semi-desert flatness to mountain defiles and narrow passes.

Marina was having trouble staying awake and I watched her closely. She was strained, haggard, thoroughly exhausted.

I was feeling it myself, and I was surprised she’d held out this long. Even the motion of the horse no longer served to keep her awake. I saw her eyes close, watched as she began to fall from the saddle and was there to catch her as she toppled.

I reined to a halt and was surrounded by Rifs at once.

“She can’t go on,” I said, holding the girl in my arms.

The tall one spoke brusquely to the others, and Marina was pulled from my arms and flung like a sack of grain across the saddle on her stomach, her head and legs hanging from the sides.

With a few quick turns of rope they lashed her in place, handed the reins of the horse to me, and started off again at the same, hard-driving pace.

Don’t the bastards ever get tired, I wondered. Suddenly the roads were steeper and the progress slower. We had reached Mount Dersa, I was certain.

We’d ridden most of the night, and I scanned the sky for the first hint of approaching dawn. It hadn’t bowed in yet when suddenly, turning a sharp curve in a narrow pass, we came to the dark silhouette of a citadel, two heavy towers at each corner standing guard over a collection of intertwining, connected buildings.

It was the Casbah of El Ahmid, and though he may have built it in recent years it followed the architectural lines of the ancient traditional Casbahs or citadels.

The main entranceway, tall and arched, stood open, protected only by sentries.

We rode through it and halted inside a stone courtyard.

I saw other Rifs on the walls and on the ground platforms of the two towers.

They unstrapped Marina and she slid to the ground, waking up as she did so. She tried to get up but her cramped, aching muscles refused to respond.

Two Rifs yanked her to her feet and started to drag her away.

“In the women’s quarters,” the tall one side. “Tell the eunuchs to guard her.”

He turned to me. “El Ahmid will see you after he awakens and breakfasts,” he said. “Meanwhile, you will have a few hours to think about what will happen to you if you do not cooperate with us.”

“I’ll think carefully,” I said. “That’s a promise.”

I was already thinking as they started to lead me away, only not what they wanted me to think about. I was noting that the wall from the towers was considerably higher than the roofs of the interconnected buildings at the back of the Casbah. I also noticed that the wall didn’t enclose the rear part of the Casbah but only butted up against the structures.

When they led me down a flight of stone steps, I had formed a pretty good mental picture of the outside layout of the place. A barred door swung open, and I was shoved into a dank, stone cell, windowless and barren except for some straw piled in a corner.

“Remind me not to stop here again,” I muttered to the two Rifs.

They looked at me blankly, slammed the door and took up positions at each side of it. They would be standing guard through the remainder of the night. It didn’t matter much because I wasn’t ready to move yet.

The cold, stone floor was hard but at least I could stretch out and flex my aching muscles.

I thought of what the tall one had said about cooperating with him, and I had to laugh, ruefully. I couldn’t cooperate if I wanted to do so. Where Karminian might be hiding was as much a mystery to me as to them. However, I knew I’d never be able to convince them of that.

Instead, I’d try for the brass ring on my own. I’d try to find out what this was all about. They’d tabbed me for an American agent, anyway. I had nothing to lose by trying, nothing except my neck, that is, and I. was used to risking that.

I fell asleep on the stone floor, still wondering how I came to be here and where these fierce, mountain tribesmen fitted into this weird puzzle of double-dealing twin informants.

I was wakened as the barred door came open with the sound of creaking hinges.

The two Rifs were inside the room and yanking me to my feet.

I could have taken them both, but it wasn’t time yet. I didn’t want to win a battle and lose the war.

“El Ahmid awaits you, pig,” the one snarled, shoving me out of the cell.

I was led back up the stairs and into a long room which in turn entered upon a room of rich draperies, incense, thick carpets and thick cushions casually strewn about.

At the far end I saw a man, wearing a traditional Arab headdress with open-necked shirt and riding breeches. He sat upon a bed of the cushions.

Beside him, feeding him olives and grapes, perched on her knees, was a girl, slim, narrow-waisted, wearing a diaphonous skirt and a bra, her midriff bare. Her nose was long and broadened at the base, her eyes a glistening black and her hair flowing loosely down her back. She was fascinating without being beautiful, her breasts swelling up from the bra in twin mounds of olive-skinned provocativeness.

The two Rifs with me bowed low, almost prostrating themselves before the man.

His face was long and angular with a high, broad forehead and a long, thin nose over finely molded, chiseled lips. It was an imperious face, arrogant, cruel and supremely confident. His eyes, dark and piercing, regarded me with disdain.

“Bow when you come before El Ahmid, son of a sow,” he hissed, his eyes boring into mine.

“I forget how,” I smiled.

I saw the sneer in his eyes change to anger. I shot a casual glance at the girl.

Her eyebrows were raised in astonishment. It was obvious that one didn’t give smart answers to El Ahmid.

He caught my glance and rose to his feet. He was tall, six feet, I judged.

“Bow!” he commanded, eyes glaring, one hand pointing to the door.

I knew what I was doing and I did it deliberately. I’d throw him off balance, open him up. It wouldn’t take much. He wasn’t used to anything but abject obedience.

“Go to hell,” I answered laconically.

He muttered an oath, reached down beneath one of the cushions and brought out a riding quirt. In two long steps he was before me, lashing out with the quirt.

I only moved my head to take the blow alongside my face. I felt the trickle of blood as the quirt bit sharply, painfully into the side of my face. I looked past him at the girl.

She was watching every move with eager interest.

He was standing with the quirt upraised, waiting for me to bow or receive another blow.

I bent my knees slightly, as though I were about to go down, and brought up a whistling right from behind my back. It cracked against his jaw like a rifle shot and he went crashing backward, sending cushions flying in all directions as he hit the floor.

The girl was at his side almost before he hit the floor, cradling his head in her lap, running her hands across his face. But her eyes were on me with a continuing astonishment, now tinged with something else, possibly respect.

The two Rifs had flung themselves at me and each one held an arm.

I didn’t try to pull away and stood casually, relaxed.

El Ahmid was up on one elbow, a trickle of blood running from the corner of his mouth.

The girl wiped it away, solicitously.

He angrily shook her off and got to his feet.

“Let him go,” he said to the two Rifs, who stepped back at once. “He shall die a thousand deaths for this,” he added.

I watched the girl move to his side as he sat down on the cushions again. She was more than just a servant girl in the way she hovered over him, attentive to his every need. She was in his special favor, and she wanted to stay that way. In the way she patted his cut lip with a soft cloth, I wondered if perhaps she was in love with him. No matter, really. She was more than enough involved, and an idea was rapidly taking shape inside my nasty little mind.

El Ahmid pushed her away as a commotion from behind me was heard and I turned to see two more Rifs bringing in Marina.

She had been stripped down to black bra and black bikini panties, and she was one damn beautiful woman, her long legs curving gently to the V of her abdomen, her breasts, larger and fuller than the Arab girl’s, thrusting out of the bra.

The Rifs pushed her forward, in front of El Ahmid.

I saw her cast an anguished glance at me as they went past, but mostly I watched El Ahmid and saw his eyes widen appreciatively.

He roamed up and down and across Marina’s tall, full figure, devouring her with his eyes, and I saw that he had her mentally in bed already.

I also saw the Berber girl watching him, her eyes narrowing. With the eternal female wisdom of her sex, she knew danger to her interests when she saw it.

The idea inside my head was gathering momentum fast.

El Ahmid had risen and walked around Marina, examining her from every side, as though he were about to purchase a thoroughbred.

Marina stood still, chin thrust out, only the rapid rise and fall of her lovely breasts revealing the anguished turmoil churning inside her.

With typical Arab arrogance, El Ahmid halted before me, and the superior disdain was in his eyes again.

“You are an American agent,” he said. “We are certain of that. She is your woman?”

“That’s right,” I said. “Mine and mine alone.”

Marina turned, and her eyes darkened as she gazed at me.

I didn’t like using her this way, but I knew what El Ahmid’s convoluted reasoning would do with that tidbit of information, and I was completely right.

“She is no longer yours, American,” he announced. “She belongs to El Ahmid.”

I laughed and saw the anger leap in his eyes.

“She will never give of herself to a mere mountain bandit leader,” I said. Moving quickly, I stepped over to Marina and tore the brassiere from her breasts.

El Ahmid’s eyes widened in desire as he gazed at Marina’s gorgeous cream-white mounds.

“These are for a man of importance, a man of action,” I said. “I know this woman. She will obey and submit only to the very best of men. You are a nothing.”

He stepped forward, about to strike, but halted himself, eyes ablaze with anger. “The name El Ahmid will be known to all the world,” he raged. “She will be happy to be at the side of El Ahmid.”

“Why?” I asked mockingly. “Is he going to rob a big caravan?”

“El Ahmid will lead the new conquest of Europe,” he shot out. “El Ahmid will make history repeat itself once again.”

I’d hit paydirt and I pressed on.

“El Ahmid is as full of empty talk as an old man,” I answered, quoting an old Moroccan proverb.

This time his temper exploded, and he brought the quirt down hard in repeated blows.

I flinched back under them, half-turning away to take them on my shoulder.

Two Rifs seized me and turned me around. The damned quirt cut painfully across my temple and then my jawbone, and I could feel the rivulets of blood starting to trail down along my skin.

“Listen to me, you insolent dog,” he snarled. “Before I cut apart your miserable hide I’ll give you a little lesson in ancient history and coming events. We people of the Rif have been neglected long enough. We have always been set apart, good to have around when there was fighting to be done and conquerors to be driven out, but otherwise ignored. But this is all at an end.

“Our mountains, long the fortress of the north and the gateway to Europe, will serve as avenues for new conquests from the east. Do you know your history, infidel? Do you know how the Moslem forces of the seventh and eighth centuries swept into Europe?”

I nodded. “They came across the Straits of Gibraltar,” I said. “Where Morocco and Spain come closest together.”

“Precisely,” he said, eyes lighted with anticipation. “What you call Gibraltar we call after the Moslem emir who captured it, Djebel Tarik or Tarik’s mountain. But Gibraltar is only a large rock. It is Spain we will strike.”

“If you and your band are figuring on invading Spain, be my guests,” I said, frowning.

I couldn’t believe that was their scheme.

The Karminians would have recognized that for what it was, a hare-brained scheme not worth peddling to the Russians or to us. They wouldn’t have even tried to peddle it.

No, it had to be something else and I felt a distinct chill at his next words.

“The ancient conquerors from Islam brought the world of the Far East with them in men, ideas and armies,” he smiled. “I have effected such a mutually rewarding arrangement with our friends in the East.”

The chill was getting chillier. “You mean the Chinese Reds?” I asked, trying to sound unconcerned.

He smiled again, like a satisfied cobra. “Exactly,” he hissed. “Together, we are going to open up a new chapter in the history of the world.”

I was remembering the sixth man at the old stable whose back I saw.

“Purely by accident one day, while I was in the foothills of the Rifs near Tetuan,” he said. “I came across a fantastic engineering feat, one to rival the Pyramids and the Sphinx. I came across a tunnel, dug in the eighth century, from Morocco under the Straits of Gibraltar, to emerge in Spain. It was completed, except for the last few hundred feet upward to Spanish soil. Apparently it was never used, and no one living today knows why. But it is about to be used.”

The words had an ominous ring to them, and I didn’t really need to ask further, but I had to hear it through.

“You’ve tied up with the Chinese Communists,” I said. “You’re going to invade Spain through the tunnel.”

My mind raced as I said it. The two countries were separated by only nine miles at one point.

A tunnel would afford the first surprise impact but the tunnel would only be a device. What its use would mean was the real explosive factor and the Karminians had recognized it at once.

Spain, the Mediterranean area, had remained a fairly stable region. It would be a real coup for the Chinese Communists to have trouble erupt there. A thousand ancient rivalries, alliances and emotional attitudes would assert themselves.

Led by the Rifs, with what would no doubt be termed Chinese volunteer fighters, it could even take on the aspect of the ancient Holy Wars of Moslem and Christian, stirring up a real kettle of undreamed-of problems.

The whole thing was fantastic in every aspect, fantastically wild and fantastically dangerous.

I could see now what El Ahmid had meant by history repeating itself.

He saw himself as a modern day Moslem conqueror with the Chinese as his helpers. But all the pieces were not in place. This kind of an operation took men, lots of men. How in hell were they getting here?

I looked at Marina, standing quietly, eyes riveted on the floor and then I gazed back at El Ahmid. I sighed casually, and grinned.

“A great story,” I said. “You almost had me believing you. But you’d need men for such an operation, lots of men, and you’d first need to get them here, unseen and unobserved and that you can’t do. Your whole story goes up in smoke right there.”

El Ahmid smiled again, that self-satisfied, smug smile embroidered with contemptuous disdain.

“At this very moment,” he said, “a huge camel caravan is nearing Oujda, the eastern end of the Taza Gap. The caravan, to anyone seeing it, belongs to a very wealthy slave trader, a dealer in women. There are over five hundred women, clothed in their haiks which, as you know, completely cover the wearer except for the eyes. He also has some two hundred guards in djellabas protecting the women.”

“And the women inside their haiks are really Chinese soldiers, as are the guards,” I finished.

“Exactly,” he said. “Cargo ships at some twenty-five ports from Le Calle to Algiers discharged the men in small groups where arrangements were made to take them to an assembly spot in Sahara. There the caravan was made up and sent on its way. Five more such caravans are being made up and they will all arrive within the week. Of course, once the initial attack is made on Spanish soil, the need for such secretive moves will end. We have dedicated men ready to assassinate the King and major cabinet officers as soon as they hear of the fighting in Spain. All Morocco will be thrown into turmoil and I shall emerge as the leader.”

I closed my ears to the rest of El Ahmid’s rhetoric.

He was convinced he was a reincarnation of the old Moslem conquerors who swept into Europe. That really was unimportant. He was being used by the Chinese. They didn’t give a damn whether this wild scheme really succeeded in the final analysis.

Regardless of its eventual outcome it would create turmoil and havoc on a disastrous scale for the western powers and it would plunge them right into the middle of the Mediterranean basin. It would have a propaganda value of astronomic proportions on the many wavering and newly emerging nations.

The Russians, I knew, would be just as unhappy to see the Chinese Reds pop up smack in the middle of the North African-Southern European area. They had long ago decided that if there were to be Communist uprisings in any region they wanted it to be their brand, not that of the Chinese Reds.

I thought of what a shot-in-the-arm this stunt would give to the Red groups in Spain, Portugal and even France. The more I looked at this scheme, the more I realized that it could trigger repercussions all over the world.

El Ahmid had shut up, and I brought my attention back to him. He had gone over to Marina and reached put to touch one breast.

She shrank back and ran over to me.

“Such rare beauty,” El Ahmid murmured as he gazed at Marina who tried to hide her naked breasts against me.

I pulled away from her.

“You’re backing a loser,” I said to her. “I can’t help you now, baby. He can. He holds all the cards.”

“An attack of rare common sense,” El Ahmid said.

I callously ignored the shocked disbelief I saw in Marina’s eyes and let my glance move casually to the Berber girl, standing to one side.

Her jaw was set grimly though she put on a seductive smile as she went over to El Ahmid and whispered something to him.

He spoke sharply to her in tarrafit without taking his eyes from Marina.

I saw anger flash in her eyes, and she snapped something back at him.

His answer was a sudden, whirling backhand blow that sent her sprawling on the floor. Before she could rise he was beside her and I saw his foot slam into her belly.

She gasped and lay on the floor.

“You do not tell El Ahmid what to do,” he snarled at her.

The girl kept her head down as she fought to get her breath but I saw her eyes find Marina and there was hatred in them. She was reacting perfectly.

I could almost see the thoughts whirling around in her head. I’d give her one more push. I turned to Marina.

“Better be nice to him, baby,” I said.

I put my hand on the small of her back and gave her a little push in Ahmid’s direction.

“Get smart,” I continued. “Play your cards right, and you’ll come out all right.”

Marina’s eyes were deep pools of angry pain.

“You haven’t a principle in your whole body, have you?” she shot back at me. “You’d do anything to try and save your neck. You’d bargain your mother away.”

I shrugged and said nothing.

El Ahmid had watched the little scene, and he spoke out now, his voice taking on a hard edge. “Has your attack of common sense extended to telling me where Karminian hides.”

I nodded. “I don’t know the exact spot,” I said. “But there’s a place south of Casablanca, the black something-or-other.”

“The Black Rocks,” he cut in. “Les Roches Noires.”

“Yes, that’s the name,” I said. “He’s hiding in that section, inside a small canning factory there.”

It would take them at least a day to discover I’d made up the whole bit. By that time I’d be out of here, or it wouldn’t make any difference anyhow.

“Now how about letting me go?” I asked. “I cooperated with you. You got what you wanted.”

I glanced at Marina. “In fact, you got more than you started out to get.”

“Your childish naïveté surprises me,” El Ahmid said, that sneer of a smile on his face again. He snapped his fingers and two Rifs came forward to grab hold of me. “Take him away,” the Rif leader said.

He felt his jaw gingerly. “I’ll decide how to kill him in the morning. I want to think of something worthwhile for this one.”

As they led me off I cast a quick glance back at the Berber girl.

She was standing to one side, watching El Ahmid start to sweet-talk Marina.

Marina would be all right for a while. He’d treat her with kid gloves for a few days, at least.

El Ahmid had picked a robe from the floor and was putting it around her shoulders.

I shot another glance at the Berber girl and I called out from the doorway.

“Tell him to let me go, Marina,” I said.

The obvious implication of my appeal, that Marina would soon be in a position of influence, did just what I wanted. It was too much for the Berber girl, and I saw her turn and walk off, eyes narrowed in cold fury.

I grinned inwardly. After all these years I ought to know something about dames, I told myself, and female psychology was the same thing in all of them, whether they were from Manhattan or Marrakesh, Paris or Palermo, Athens or Addis Abbaba. I was counting on it to work once again.