The Secret War

10

The house on the edge of the desert

During the minutes Lovelace spent waiting by the bookstall he felt irritable and anxious. Irritable on account of the long wrangle he had had with Christopher that morning and anxious because, quite apart from any difficulties which might arise if he had to produce his passport, he saw, now he had a chance to think things over alone, that, even though there was no actual evidence to go on, Zirrif might well suspect some connection between the two visits Mr. Jeremiah Green had made him the day before and Christopher's attempt to murder him later. If Zirrif did suspect anything the fat would be in the fire with a vengeance.

In the distance Lovelace caught sight of Christopher and Valerie sauntering, side by side, across the aerodrome towards her plane. The sun was gleaming on her chestnut hair as she stepped out to keep pace with him. He too was bareheaded and, even so far away, his matt white face under the short, dark, curling hair looked like the profile of some young Greek God who had just come to life again. Lovelace was conscious of a warm glow of satisfaction at the thought that he had certainly saved him from a martyr's crown, at all events for the moment, but when they were safely embarked and ready to take the air his forebodings about his own situation returned with renewed vigour.

Cassalis' arrival put an end to his gloomy speculations and concealing his anxiety he gave the Frenchman a friendly smile.

`You are punctual, mon ami,' Cassalis remarked cheerfully. `That is good. Monsieur Zirrif much dislikes to be kept waiting.'

Lovelace felt a little thrill of elation. It seemed that at least he was not suspected of any connection with Zarrif’s unwelcome visitor. `Mr. Zirrif has not turned up yet,' he said, `at least I haven't seen him.'

`You would not,' the dapper secretary replied quickly. `Mr. Zirrif is a very extraordinary man and has many unusual privileges. He keeps his private plane here for convenience but no formalities are required when he and his entourage come or go in it. I left his car only this moment. It has driven straight on to the landing ground. I meet you so you have no delay in passing the officials. Come, let us proceed.'

An ill assorted pair, they walked over to the barrier. Cassalis slim, effeminate, quick stepping and conscious of his own importance, his dark eyes shining like polished jet in his sallow face; the Englishman a good head taller, slower of gait owing to his longer stride, his limbs moving easily with a hidden power, his healthily tanned face an unrevealing mask and his partly lowered lids half concealing his lazy glance.

At the guichet the passport officer greeted Cassalis with a friendly nod and the two exchanged flowery compliments in Greek.

The critical moment had come and Lovelace knew that somehow he had got to divert Cassalis' attention. Putting his hand in his breast pocket he drew out his passport and with it a dozen bank notes which, with apparent clumsiness, he allowed to flutter to the ground.

Murmuring an apology he thrust his passport through the guichet before stooping to pick up his money. Cassalis was already busy collecting some of the scattered notes. It took only a matter of seconds but, when they rose again, the officer had already given the passport the cursory glance which was sufficient to satisfy himself in the case of Cassalis' friend. With a smile of thanks to the official Lovelace slipped the document back in his pocket. As he turned towards the flying field he gave a secret sigh of relief. He was safely over the first fence, at all events.

Zarrif’s plane was a great, grey, four engined monster. Three cars stood near it but he and his suite were already on board when Lovelace and Cassalis went up the gangway.

The machine was divided into four compartments. A kitchenette in the tail; a biggish saloon which accommodated the bodyguard six tough looking customers two of whom Lovelace had seen the day before; a combined dining room and office, and, adjoining the cockpit, Zarrif’s own sanctum.

Lovelace was taken through to him at once. He looked smaller and more narrow shouldered than ever in the daylight yet his green eyes showed him to be a dynamo of mental activity and Lovelace was struck again by the unusual fairness of his skin for an Armenian.

Zirrif pulled at his little goatee beard as he inquired kindly after his new employee's health. On learning that the night's rest had restored him after the previous day's attack he dismissed him with orders that he should remain in the middle cabin with Cassalis.

As the plane moved off Cassalis unlocked a low steel cupboard and Lovelace saw that it contained four machine guns, equipment for fixing them, and several boxes of ammunition. The bodyguards were called in and, obviously following a well established routine, they disappeared with two guns aft and two forward to place them in position. Within ten minutes of leaving Athens the plane had been converted from a private airliner into a powerful fighting machine.

Lovelace forebore to comment but Cassalis gave him a knowing grin. `It is well to be prepared eh, Mr. Green?'

`Yes rather, but er what on earth for?' Lovelace fingered his little upturned moustache and his brown eyes were open wide in bland inquiry.

'Ah, who can tell?' The Frenchman shrugged mysteriously. 'But there are strange people about these days and some of them perhaps use aeroplanes. There are no witnesses in the sky to see what happens and if we were all picked up drowned people would say "this is an accident! Mr. Zirrif is one who has a great aversion to accidents.'

Opening a satchel, Cassalis took out a sheaf of papers, but after a moment he thrust them back again having apparently decided not to start work at once. Instead he settled himself more comfortably and said

`Tell me, Mr. Green, about Abyssinia. As you will have assured yourself from my questions yesterday I know much of the Emperor and his principal ministers. It is my business to do so, but I have never been there.'

'I was only there myself . . .' Lovelace caught himself just in time. Lulled into a false security by Cassalis' friendly acceptance of him as a colleague he had forgotten momentarily that he was impersonating the messenger who had been struck down by fever in the Sudan. He had been about to say quite truthfully, `on a visit to see the Emperor's coronation in 1930.' The slip would have cost him his life. With a hardly perceptible hesitation he managed to substitute '. . . for a few months this winter. What d'you want to know about the place?'

'Of the people, the customs, the country?' Cassalis made an airy gesture; evidently having noticed nothing.

`All three vary tremendously. The ruling caste are the Amhara. They're quite light skinned and have nothing negroid about them except their fuzzy hair and they don't think of themselves as blacks at all. In fact they regard negroes with more contempt than most white people do. They've a culture of their own which was probably quite a high one in pre Roman times but they've been isolated for so many centuries that it became sterile and decadent long ago. They're such snobs that they look down on whites almost as much as they do on negroes. Altogether there's only about two and a half million of them that's roughly a fourth of the total population but they hold all the important posts and are thoroughly hated by the other races of greater Abyssinia; the races they ruled in the dark ages but have only reconquered in quite recent times, I mean.'

`Who are these other races?

'Well, the Gallas are the largest; they're about four million strong. Then there are the Guragis; a mysterious race said to be descended from white slaves brought out of Egypt three thousand years ago. They're the workers of the country. The others despise men who labour and particularly anyone who has anything to do with commerce. The deserts of the east and south are inhabited by the Danakil’s and Somalis; blood thirsty, uncivilized savages. In the mountains to the north on the borders of Eritrea live the Tigres who're not much better. In the west there's a backward race of negroes called Shankalis, and round Harar you find the more cultured Hararis who come from Arab stock. Then a race of black Jews called Fallashas occupy the neighborhood of Gondar. None of them agrees about a single thing except in their hatred of their overlords, the Amhara.'

Cassalis nodded. `It is a country of many nations then; like Austria Hungary before the Great War? Held together only by the strength of its ruler.'

`Exactly. The fact that it might break up at any time, even without pressure from outside, is the worst problem the Emperor has to face, and what makes things even more difficult for him is that he daren't do a thing without the sanction of the Church.'

`They are Christians of a sort is it not so?'

`Yes. The people of the four major kingdoms, Amhara, Shoa, Tigre, and Gojjam, which composes true Abyssinia, are Coptic Christians. The Abuna, their chief priest, is under the jurisdiction of the Archbishop of Cairo. He's really the most powerful man in

the country because every third Christian in Abyssinia is also a priest and takes his orders from him. The Emperor's big trouble is that the Church is dead against any sort of progress. They put every possible obstacle in the path of his reforms and if he seriously offended the priests they could push him off his throne tomorrow. He'd give anything to get rid of them, I think, but he's not strong enough and, even with a war on his hands, he has to keep in with them by attending service four times a week. Services which start at six in the morning and go on until past midday.'

`He is much handicapped then; more than I had thought.'

'He is,' Lovelace agreed. 'Abyssinia's in the state now that England was in under the Plantagenet’s. The people are lousy, diseased, ridden to death with religion, and only acknowledge allegiance to their own feudal overlords. The great nobles are greedy, fierce and resentful of any central authority. Many of them were independent kings themselves only a few years ago and would revolt again on the most flimsy pretext. The Emperor can only keep them in check by retaining the goodwill of the Church and playing them off one against the other.'

`How do they live the better class I mean?'

`The Emperor lives like a cultured European now, but that's quite an innovation. When he was younger he used habitually to sleep in vermin infested beds. Most of the nobles do still, and their so called palaces are little more than two roomed houses with a collection of squalid huts clustered round them. Their favourite food is raw meat to this day and they eat it with their fingers.'

`Nom de dieu, what a country!' The Frenchman threw up his hands.

Lovelace smiled. `You'll get used to it. They're a lazy, ignorant, verminous lot, and their favourite word is Ishi naga, which means “all right but tomorrow,”

Still, Europeans manage to survive somehow and think how tremendously you'll appreciate civilisation when you do get back to it again.'

'Thank you, Monsieur Green. I have heard enough of this abominable country to which we go. Fortunately we stay there at most a day or two. You will forgive me now please if I work.' Cassalis picked up his satchel again and began to spread his papers out on the dining table.

Having told nothing but the truth Lovelace was mildly amused at its effect on the effeminate Frenchman, but soon he turned his thoughts to more serious things. One point had emerged from the conversation. Zirrif only intended to spend a day or two in Addis Ababa. That meant he had business to transact and would make a prolonged halt on the way out. But where? Lovelace wondered if the production of his hideously dangerous passport would be necessary again on landing and how he would be able to communicate with Valerie and Christopher. These questions, and the danger of his situation, troubled him acutely as they flew on through the golden afternoon, leaving the eastern end of Crete below them on their right and ploughing steadily towards the south eastward.

At five thirty they sighted land again and began to descend in circling spirals. A large town was visible some miles away on their left along a narrow strip of sea coast. Inland, behind it, spread a big lake but they were coming down on a deserted shore. A river, winding away to the inland lake, showed below them. On its bank, a few hundred yards only from the sea, a solitary white building set among gardens was visible. The plane tilted at what seemed a horribly risky angle, dropped in a great curve towards the earth, then straightened, bounced along a stretch of sand, and halted within fifty yards of a white villa surrounded by palm trees.

As they disembarked Lovelace saw that a great khaki hangar waited to house the plane near one wall of the property. A dusty track bordered by ragged palms led towards its gate where a little group of native servants in tarbooshes and white clothing stood ready to welcome Zirrif. Preceded by two of his gunman he trudged through the sand, a small, bent figure, towards them. They salaamed as he approached but he never gave them a word or a glance and walked straight on up to the house.

Lovelace, thanking his gods that Zarrif’s privileges apparently included the right of making an unofficial landing which rendered the production of passports unnecessary, followed with Cassalis and the remainder of the bodyguard.

By pausing for a moment to fiddle with his shoe lace Lovelace managed to drop a few paces behind the others and was able to snatch a quick look round without being observed. The city he had seen from the air was some miles along the coast and no longer visible. A stony track, just wide enough to accommodate a single car, ran from the villa towards it but disappeared among the sand dunes which were partially covered with coarse grass. No other house or building except the hangar, into which Zarrif’s pilot was now taxiing the big plane, broke the scorched monotonous landscape. Far away, in the direction of the city, a tiny speck moved in the cloudless sky.

It was that for which Lovelace had been looking, At so great a distance it was impossible to identify it as Valerie's plane, and he knew that it might well be one of the Royal Air Force machines with which the British were said to be filling Egypt, or a civilian flyer, but the sight of it cheered him. There was a decent possibility of it being Valerie which increased his hope that she had managed to keep on Zarrif’s tail as they crossed the Mediterranean and would have seen them come down at the villa. He broke into a trot and caught up the others just as they were entering the garden.

Inside, the villa proved cool and commodious. A gallery ran round the tiled hall on a level with the fist floor. Cassalis escorted Lovelace to a room opening off it, then left him with the suggestion that he would like to rest until dinner for which he would be galled at eight o'clock.

He had no desire to rest at all but, courteously as the suggestion was made, the tone in which it was given warned him that he was not expected to wander about the house uninvited.

The room contained a large double bed, draped in mosquito netting, and was furnished in the ornate French style of the early nineteen hundreds. A partly open door in one wall disclosed a bathroom. He unpacked his scant belongings, undressed, enjoyed a shower, and then sat down to consider the situation.

He felt certain that the big town he had seen further along the coast, when the plane was landing, must be Alexandria. Christopher and Valerie would just be arriving at the Gordon Pasha Hotel there for, even if they had lost sight of Zarrif’s plane when crossing the Mediterranean that had been agreed upon as their first port of call if he headed towards Egypt.

Yet Lovelace, not having foreseen that Zirrif might stop at a house of his own miles outside a town, had no way of communicating with them. There was no telephone in the room and he would not have dared to use it if there had been. He made up his mind that somehow or other he must get out of the house and in to Alexandria that night. It would be a long and tiring walk but he could get a car to bring him out again and, having made fresh arrangements with Christopher, he should be safely back in his bedroom again before dawn. In the meantime his position would continue difficult and dangerous. The only comforting thought was that neither Zirrif nor Cassalis could have any possible suspicion that he was not Mr. Jeremiah Green.

He dined alone with the Frenchman, who proved an amusing enough companion and seemed glad to have his company. After the meal he seized the opportunity, when they were studying some old prints on the walls, to push his tobacco pouch behind an ornament and then, without protest, he allowed himself to be shepherded upstairs again to his room. Cassalis indicated a long shelf of books and expressed the hope that he would find something there to interest him before wishing him good night with courteous but unmistakable finality.

Knowing he had several hours to wait before he dared attempt anything Lovelace took the hint and settled down to read. He was patient by nature and the time slipped past quickly. By midnight, as far as he could judge, all the lights in the house were out, and, when he listened intently for any sound or movement, the place was so still that he could hear his own breathing.

He dared not remove his shoes; to have been caught carrying them would reveal a guilty intention and, if he ran into one of the gunmen, he meant to excuse his midnight prowling by saying that he had left his tobacco pouch downstairs in the dining room. However he was banking on the man on duty being safely out of the way at some permanent post in the neighborhood of Zarrif’s bedroom. He put out the light, quietly turned the handle of his door, and pulled. It did not yield a fraction. Someone had locked it.

That gave him cause for anxious thought but he came to the conclusion that, since they could have no grounds for suspecting him, they were only treating him as a new comer to the establishment and exercising a precautionary measure by keeping him a prisoner.

He moved over to the window and peered out. It was not a long drop to the ground and somehow he would manage to scramble up again. The garden was still and moonlit. Only the faint howling of a jackal out in the desert broke the stillness. He threw one leg

over the balcony; then paused. A shadow had moved at the foot of one of the palm trees. It was a big dog. It lifted its head, barked once, and subsided into a menacing growl. Lovelace withdrew behind the curtains of the window. As he did so a figure came round the corner of the house. One of the gunmen was on duty in the garden.

Mr. Zirrif apparently made it as difficult for his guests to get out of his establishments as for unwelcome visitors to get in and Lovelace felt there was no alternative but to abandon his attempt for that night at least. As he climbed into bed he recalled Cassalis' statement that `Mr. Zirrif was one who had a great aversion to accidents.'

Next morning a light breakfast was served to him in bed. He had scarcely finished it when Cassalis arrived to say that Zirrif would like to see him at ten o'clock. By the appointed time he was dressed and ready to wait upon the elderly Armenian. For an hour they talked Abyssinia together. Lovelace found it a little easier to sustain the ordeal now that he had had some practice at it and, when the interview was over, asked if there was any objection to his spending the afternoon in Alexandria.

Zirrif looked at him in cold surprise. `My staff are sufficiently well paid to take their recreation only when they have left my service,' he said quietly. `I fear that I may need you at any time.'

For a moment Lovelace thought of mentioning Otto Klinger, whose name Barrotet had given as an associate of the Millers o f God resident in Alexandria, and saying that he wished to see him on business; but that would have meant compromising Klinger with Zirrif if anything went wrong later. His only course was to accept the situation with outward cheerfulness.

After the interview he was given the run of a small sitting room at the back of the house which had a large selection of books in it. From the window he could see over the garden wall and glimpse the slope running down to the turgid, muddy river; a native felucca with a large, triangular sail was tacking up stream, but it was too far off for him to contemplate attempting to use the river traffic as a means of communication with his friends.

He began to study the titles of the books and decided to use one of them for a matter that had been troubling him ever since the previous evening. If he slipped up, as he feared he might from hour to hour, and they searched him, the discovery of his passport would damn him utterly; yet he was loath to destroy it, as its loss might prove a serious handicap if he wished to leave the country at an hour's notice later on. Now, making certain that he was unobserved from the garden, he pulled a heavy volume of Natural History from a lower shelf, jammed the passport well home between the leaves, and replaced the volume in its set.

That done, he felt a trifle easier in his mind. He could always swear he had lost it, and at least they could not now secure any proof of his real identity.

He had rescued his tobacco pouch from the dining room after seeing Zirrif. Filling his pipe, he lit up and sat down to think; to try and plan some way of leaving the house without arousing suspicion. If only the party had stopped at some hotel, as he had naturally assumed they would, there would not have been the least difficulty in his getting in touch with his friends. A carefully worded note slipped into the hand of one of the hotel servants with an adequate tip, when no one was looking, and Christopher would have known the place that Zirrif had selected for his headquarters during his stay in Alex. within an hour.

As it was, Lovelace dared not risk bribing Zarrif’s own servants to take a message, because he knew that if they betrayed him he would pay for his indiscretion with his life, and in the face of Zarrif’s refusal to allow him to go into Alex. it would have been madness to attempt to leave the house in broad daylight.

Sitting there in the quiet room all through the morning, he was aware, although he could not see them, that from time to time, visitors arrived; presumably to see Zirrif. While he puzzled his brains for a way out of his dilemma, Lovelace wondered upon what strange errands, fraught, perhaps, with far reaching consequences for countless innocent people, these mysterious visitors came.

He could not bring himself to hate Zirrif as a person. The elderly Armenian had shown him every courtesy more; he had even momentarily put aside important business to show concern over his new employee's health. Yet Lovelace knew that the man was ruthless, evil, completely callous about everything outside his own personal interests, and engaged in plotting a thing which would bring about incalculable human suffering through a mad lust for power and monetary gain.

By lunch time he had reached no decision. The meal was brought to him on a tray, and deft, silent footed native servants waited on him.

When he was alone again he confessed to himself that for the moment he was powerless, and decided he must postpone any further action until the coming night. Selecting a book from the shelves he sat down to read, and remained immersed in the adventures of a man in far less delicate situations than he was himself until the shadows drew a veil over the garden and he could no longer see the sails of the native boats upon the river in the near distance.

That evening he dined again with Cassalis. Afterwards Zirrif sent for him, but detained him only ten minutes. When he was free he went up to his room and read till midnight. Once more, after the house had gone to rest, he made a cautious investigation. His door was locked; the dog and watcher occupied the garden. In an evil temper after his long worrying day, and really anxious now, he went to bed.

On the following morning he was escorted to the back sitting room and left there undisturbed. The staff were as polite as ever, so he came to accept the fact that he was kept a virtual prisoner only as part of a cautious routine : simply to ensure that he should learn nothing of Zarrif’s business.

He attempted to occupy himself with books and papers, but as hour after hour slipped by he became more and more concerned with the apparent impossibility of getting in touch with his friends. Before they left Athens it had been arranged that if Christopher and Valerie succeeded in keeping track of Zarrif’s plane they should remain for five days at a prearranged address in any town at which they saw him land. If Lovelace failed to communicate with them during that time they would then proceed a stage further south; on the assumption that Lovelace was too closely watched to send a message and that Zirrif would most probably move, without their being able to witness his departure, towards Abyssinia as the date of his appointment in Addis Ababa drew nearer.

After a little Lovelace flung down his book. His eyes were reading the printed lines, but his brain was not taking in their meaning. He realised, quite suddenly, that he had not the faintest idea what the last chapter he had read had been about. His mind was solely occupied with the knowledge that two of the days during which Christopher and Valerie would remain in Alex. were already gone and that there seemed no more likelihood of his being able to communicate with them during the next three than in those which had passed.

As the brief twilight fell, heralding his third night in Egypt, his nerves were becoming a little jumpy from having to keep so strict a watch upon his tongue at every meal; and wondering what sinister business brought those visitors whose footfalls he could hear, but whom he could not see, to this mysterious house on the edge of the desert; yet he had no premonition of coming trouble when Cassalis arrived to say that Zirrif wished to see him. He walked across the tiled hall without the least suspicion that anything had gone wrong.

His first intimation of the unusual was the sight of two of the bodyguard standing behind Zarrif’s desk with their automatics drawn ready in their hands.

A big, flashily dressed Negro, his face shiny with perspiration, stood in front of the desk. His arms hung loosely at his sides and he seemed to have shrunk a little so that he no longer fitted his smart, white suit of European design.

Lovelace took in the scene at a glance. A second later he felt something prod him in the back. Turning he saw that Cassalis, his shiny jet black eyes gone hard and soulless, was holding a pistol to his spine.

With a smile which it took a very considerable effort to produce he looked at Zirrif and asked: `What is all this what's the trouble?'

Zarrif’s green eyes fixed him like those of a snake about to strike. `The trouble is,' he said icily, waving a hand towards the big Negro, 'that I don't know who you are but this is Mr. Jeremiah Green.'