The Omega Terror

FIVE

We walked a complicated route through the French Quarter, and when I was sure we were not being followed, I settled Gabrielle into a small hotel called the Mamora, not far from the Velasquez Palace. Then I kept my appointment with Colin Pryor.

The cafe we met at was not heavily visited by tourists, although located on the Boulevard Mohammed V. There was a single row of tables jammed up against the outside of the building to avoid the heavy evening pedestrian traffic. Colin Pryor was already there when I arrived.

I joined Pryor with just a mutual nod of our heads. We had met previously, in Johannesburg, but he looked heavier and out of shape now. He was a squarish Briton who might have been a champion soccer player.

“Good to see you again, Carter,” he said after we had ordered tea from a harried waiter.

I patched the crowd before us in their djellabas and fezzes and veils. “How are they treating you?” I asked.

“They keep me hopping, old boy. And the pay’s the same.”

“Same here.”

It was a perfect place for a meeting. The noise from the crowd drowned out our voices to anybody but each other, and since complete strangers sat at tables together because of a lack of chairs, there was no good reason for an observer to conclude that we knew each other.

I spent the first ten minutes telling Pryor how I almost got killed a couple of times in a couple of hours. He already knew about Delacroix and Pierrot. There was little he could add to my own meager store of information.

“What do you know about the Moroccan general staff?” I asked next.

“Not a great deal. What do the generals have to do with the Omega project?”

“Maybe very little. But Delacroix thought there might be a tie-in.”

“The army leaders are hiding under their desks at present, hoping the king doesn’t decide to bring charges against them. He believes there are still traitors in the army who plan to overthrow him.”

“Has he given Djenina a clean slate?”

Pryor shrugged. “Ostensibly. Djenina was at the state reception where the previous coup attempt was made. A bloody affair. Djenina killed several of his colleagues and helped prevent the coup, they Bay.”

I mused “Before or after he saw how badly it was going for them?”

“Good point. But so far, Djenina is in the clear. He and General Abdallah.”

That was the other name Pierrot had mentioned. “Abdallah was at this reception, too?”

“Yes. He shot a fellow officer in the face.”

I grunted. “Delacroix believed that Djenina was one of the conspirators in the first coup and that he’s now planning a second one.”

“He bloody well might. But what does this have to do with your problem, old boy?”

“Djenina has been seen at the research lab with the leaders there. It’s possible that Djenina is scratching the backs of the Chinese so that they’ll scratch his. I understand Djenina commands from Fez.”

“Yes, he does.”

“Does he live off the military base?”

“He’s furnished a place on the base, I believe,” Pryor said. “But he’s never there. He has a fancy estate up in the mountains, near El Hajeb. Keeps a cadre of troops to guard the place. It’s rumored that Hassan is going to take his personal guard away from him, but it hasn’t happened yet.”

“How would I find his place?”

Pryor looked at me quizzically. “You’re not going there, old chap?”

“I have to. Djenina is my only contact with the lab. He’s been there and knows its exact location. If Djenina has any records about his association with the Chinese, I think he would keep them at his home. They just might give me a clue as to where the site is located. Or Djenina himself might.”

“Are you planning a burglary?” Pryor asked.

“That seems easier than deception, under the circumstances.”

His eyebrows raised. “Well, you’ll need luck, old boy. The place is a veritable fortress.”

“I’ve been in fortresses before,” I said. Pryor began drawing on a napkin, and I watched him. In a moment he was finished.

“This will get you to the general’s estate. It’s not much of a map, but it should give you a fair idea.”

“Thanks,” I said, tucking the napkin into a pocket. I finished my tea and prepared to get up.

“Carter, old man.”

“Yes?”

“This is a big one, isn’t it?”

“Damned big.”

He grimaced. His square-jawed face was somber. “Well, take care,” he said. “What I mean to say is, we’d hate to lose you.”

“Thanks.”

“And if you need me any time, just whistle.”

“I’ll keep that in mind, Pryor. And thanks.”

When I left Pryor, I decided to check in on Gabrielle, to see that everything was all right. I made sure I was not being tailed, then went to her hotel. It took her several minutes to answer the door, and she listened carefully to my voice before she opened it. When I saw her, I must have stared for a moment. She was wearing a sheer peignoir, a pale green that brought out the color of her eyes, and her red hair was streaming over her almost-bare shoulders. The cloth revealed a lot of Gabrielle underneath.

“I must have gotten you out of bed,” I said. “I’m sorry, I just wanted to see that you were settled in.” I wondered, even as I spoke the words, whether that was my only reason for being there.

“I am very glad you came back, Nick. I had not gone to bed yet. Please come in.”

I stepped into the room, and she closed and locked the door behind me. “I had a bottle of cognac sent up,” she said. “Would you like a glass?”

“No, thanks, I won’t be long. I wanted to tell you that I’m going up into the hills tomorrow, near Fez, to locate the general who knows where the lab is.”

“Djenina commands that area. Is it him?”

I sighed. “Yes, and now you know more than you should. I don’t want you to become any more involved, Gabrielle.”

She sat down on the edge of the double bed and pulled me down beside her. “I’m sorry I guessed, Nick. But, you see, I want to be involved. I want to make them pay for my uncle’s death. It is very important to me to help.”

“You have helped,” I told her.

“But I can do more, much more. Do you speak the Almohad dialect?”

“Straight Arabic is tough enough for me.”

“Then you need me,” she reasoned. “The general’s guards are Almohads from the High Atlas. Might it not be important to be able to communicate with them in their own language?”

I was going to give her a quick “no” but thought better of it. “Are you familiar with the area around El Hajeb?” I asked.

“I was raised around there,” she said with a broad, disarming smile. “I went to school in Fez as a child.”

I took the map from my pocket. “Does any of this look familiar to you?”

She studied the map silently for a long moment. “This map tells how to get to the old caliph’s palace. Is this where Djenina is living?”

“That’s what I’m told.”

“My family used to go there every Sunday.” She beamed smugly. “The place was open to the public for a while, as a museum. I know it well.”

“You’re familiar with the interior?”

“Every room.”

I returned the broad smile. “You’ve just bought yourself a ticket to Fez.”

“Oh, Nick!” She threw her long white arms around me.

I touched a curve of soft flesh under the sheer cloth when she kissed me, and the touch seemed to set her afire. She pressed more closely against me, inviting further exploration with her hand, as her lips moved on mine.

I did not disappoint her. When the kiss was over, she was trembling. I got up from the bed and snapped the light off, leaving the room in dim shadow. When I turned back to Gabrielle, she was slipping the peignoir off her shoulders. I watched the liquid movement. She was a voluptuous girl. “Take your clothes off, Nick.” I smiled in the dark. “Anything to oblige.” She helped me, her body brushing against me as she moved. In a moment, we were locked in another embrace, standing, her long thighs and full hips pressed against me.

“I want you,” she said so softly I could hardly hear the words.

I picked her up, carried her to the big bed, laid her down on it, and studied the soft, light body against the bedcovers. Then I moved onto the double bed beside her.

Later Gabrielle fell asleep in my arms, like a baby. After lying there with her beside me for a while, thinking of Djenina and Li Yuen and Damon Zeno, I finally slipped away from her, dressed, and left the room silently.