Thriller (26 page)

passed.”

“I am sorry for that, Lieutenant, but it is good that my information is correct.”

“Is such information necessary?” Captain Hareet asked.

“All information is necessary,” the minister said. “In this case,

it might be vital. You will be posing as man and wife under the

most careful scrutiny of every foreign national who arrives in

their country at this moment. They will expect us to send spies,

try to learn what their plans are. Women who are not married

tend to act like coy maidens at the wrong moment. They forget.

To act like she sleeps regularly with a man, a woman must be

sleeping regularly with the man. Men who are not married don’t

know how to act with a wife at all.”

“Yes, sir,” Hareet said, and smiled again at the young woman.

“I think Greta and I will be able to act the part well enough to

pass any inspection.”

“Do we parachute?” Greta asked.

“The sky is too clear. They will be alert. You will fly to Rome,

and there you will board a normal commercial carrier. You will

be Mr. and Mrs. Rogers of Santa Barbara. Harry and Susan, but

he calls her Susy. Your papers are in order. The real Mr. and Mrs.

Rogers are in Europe on such a trip with a different order of itinerary caused by a sudden change in plans we managed to arrange,

and are being watched by our agents. You look enough like them

to pass a cursory inspection.”

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The minister turned again to the large map on the wall. “I wish

we could allow you some time to prepare. We can’t. You are the

only suitable team we have that can act the part on such short

notice. I cannot even tell you how to proceed. Only that we

must have the data within three days.”

The minister turned once more to look at Hareet and Greta

with his hard gray eyes. “In three days, they will attack us.”

Mr. and Mrs. Harry Rogers of Santa Barbara, California, U.S.A.,

passed through Rome customs and immigration without any

trouble. The Italian officials were most polite, and more than a

little appreciative of Mrs. Rogers’s dark beauty. She received all

the customary whistles and smiles, and one definite pinch. In the

taxi that took them to their hotel, they peered out the windows

and exclaimed over everything, as American tourists would.

They checked into the hotel they had booked months ago from

the States, showered off the grime of their trip, made love in the

ornate Italian bed and went out to see the sights of the Eternal

City. They ate in one of the best restaurants in Rome, ordered

two bottles of good local white wine, went dancing, threw some

coins in the proper fountain and visited the others, and generally had a fine tourist evening in the Italian capital.

The next morning they did not rise early, took the time to have

their usual big, leisurely breakfast, then caught a taxi back to the

airport for the next leg of their journey. On the jet out of Rome,

they had seats just behind the wing. Harry Rogers held a guidebook and pointed out the sights below they had missed on the

ground the night before.

“Look, dear,” Captain Hareet said to Greta, the perfect eager

American automobile salesman on his first trip to Europe.

“There’s St. Peter’s, and the Colosseum, and the Via Veneto. We

were standing right down there just last night, honey.”

“Did you remember to send the postcards to the Phelps and

the Temples, Harry?” Greta said, her mind clearly at home with

her social obligations where a good wife’s mind should be.

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“Ouch, I forgot,” Mr. Harry Rogers said, the self-centered

American husband. “We’ll send some from Athens when we get

there, okay?”

When they arrived at the airport of their next stop, the capital of the enemy country, there was the loud confusion normal

to Arab countries. The present political crisis and impending possibility of war only heightened the clamor and chaos. They were

inspected thoroughly at customs. With the mighty United States

Seventh Fleet cruising pointedly at this end of the Mediterranean, Americans were not in the best standing in Arab countries at the moment.

“You will do well to remain safely within the city,” a customs

official told them coldly. “And I suggest you do not enter the less

visited and policed areas.”

“We sure won’t, buddy,” Hareet said, his voice clearly nervous.

The official smiled at the intimidated American. Another man

who stood off to the right and watched everyone who passed

through customs did not smile. The dark shadows of his Levantine eyes stared at Captain Hareet’s left hand. He showed nothing on his face, no particular expression, but his steady gaze

followed them as they left.

“He’s interested in your missing finger, Paul,” Greta said

through a wifely smile. “They might have a file on you.”

“Possible,” Hareet agreed, smiling down at her. “We must go

to the hotel, however. The risk can’t be avoided, our contact will

be made there.”

Greta walked ahead of her husband in the American fashion.

They took a taxi to their hotel, where she walked in first, left Hareet to pay the cabdriver and run after her.

In their suite of rooms, Hareet remembered to overtip the

robed and surly bellman, and Greta remembered to prepare at

once for a shower. They were well-taken precautions. Two maids

soon arrived to perform some barely necessary tasks.

“We’re being watched, Paul,” Greta said.

Hareet agreed. “The question is, are we being watched as their

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normally trigger-happy suspicion against all tourists at a time like

this, or have we been spotted as something special and possibly

dangerous?”

“I would say something special.” Greta thought carefully. “But

not yet certain. They are checking on us.”

“So we have some time. A few hours at least. Unless they do

have a file on me and have connected it to Harry Rogers.”

“How many will come?” Greta asked.

“If they are sure, a squad of soldiers and a vehicle. If they are

still only suspicious, two men.”

“We can’t stay here in the rooms. We wouldn’t look much like

American tourists.”

“No. Are you ready?”

They went out and down to the crowded streets that

smelled of the masses of humanity and poor sewage disposal.

Streets now crowded more than usual with the local inhabitants, the fellahin and the middle class and even the elite

upper classes in their Cadillacs and Mercedes. They were all

more excited than normal. There was a high tension in the city,

a fever of hate and violence building almost by the minute. In

the markets, the merchants hawked and sold frantically. In the

shops, shutters were being readied for possible mass demonstrations.

The two Americans were watched with barely concealed antagonism.

Hareet took pictures until it was dark. They went to clubs that

throbbed with excited patriotism. The belly dancers appeared

overcome with ecstasy, danced specifically for the soldiers in

uniform who seemed to throng everywhere. Four Americans sat

near Hareet and Greta in one popular tourist club.

“I don’t like it,” one American said to them. “Time we got out

of here.”

“The sooner the better,” another said.

“It doesn’t look so good,” Hareet acknowledged, his voice

nervous again.

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“Dave Spatz,” the first American introduced himself. “Where

you folks from?”

“Santa Barbara,” Hareet said. “Harry and Susy Rogers.”

“I was in Santa Barbara once for Fiesta. That’s one helluva great

town to live in. We’re from Chicago.”

“August is our best month,” Greta said.

The police watched them, listened to them. But the police were

watching everyone. They sat through two drinks and three belly

dancers, then left and returned to their hotel. The desk clerk was

friendly.

“Terrible times,” the clerk said. “Even our thieves are too excited to work.”

“Thieves?” Hareet said.

The clerk smiled and held out Greta’s wedding ring. “Madame

forgot her ring after her shower. The maid found it after you had

gone out.”

“Oh, my, how careless of me,” Greta exclaimed, and smiled at

the clerk.

She reached for the ring with her left hand. The clerk bowed

over her hand to put the ring on. When he straightened up, his

eyes had subtly changed, clouded, but he continued to smile as

if nothing had happened.

Greta and Paul went up to their suite.

“They searched our rooms,” Hareet said. “That’s when they

found your wedding ring.”

“It won’t matter,” Greta said. “I made a bad mistake, Paul. Did

you see the clerk’s eyes? He saw it.”

“A mistake?”

Greta took off her wedding ring and held up her hand. The

ring was a broad gold band. The third finger of her left hand was

smooth and unmarked, one single color.

“I’m suntanned, Paul,” Greta said. “There should be a pale ring

mark on my finger. The clerk knows I haven’t worn the ring more

than a few days.”

“You have a dark complexion.”

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“Not that dark. Look under my wristwatch. My sunglasses

have left a pale patch on my nose. He saw all that, too, Paul.”

Hareet looked at his watch. “We’ll wait half an hour for the

contact.”

The knock came in fifteen minutes.

Hareet opened the door. Behind him, the shower was running

in the bathroom, the noise coming from under the bathroom

door.

The two dark-eyed men who came into the suite wore Western clothes. They both glanced toward the sound of the shower,

then back at Hareet.

“My wife can’t stand this heat of yours, too muggy,” Hareet said

with an apologetic smile. “Back home, our heat isn’t so humid.

Dry and not all that hot except when the Santa Anas blow down

the canyons, you know?”

“In Santa Barbara, sir?” one man said. “The sundowner

winds, yes?”

The other man walked through the rooms, his hand in his

pocket. All the rooms except the bathroom. He returned, shook

his head to the first man, and stood near the hall door they had

left open.

“That’s right,” Hareet said to the first man. “You’ve been to

Santa Barbara?”

“If you will ask your wife—” the first man began.

Greta appeared silently in the open door from the hall. The

man at the door heard her soft step, turned. She stabbed him

twice in the heart before he could move or even open his mouth.

Hareet’s knife appeared in his hand. The first man only managed to half draw his pistol. Hareet killed him with a single thrust.

Greta closed the door. They dragged the bodies into the bedroom and pushed them into a closet, moved the furniture just

enough to cover the bloodstains on the carpeting. They changed

into Arab clothes and left the room. They took nothing with them

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but their weapons and their second set of papers. They took the

back stairs down.

Before they left, Hareet broke the mirror of the dressing table

in the bedroom.

In the noisy streets, they mingled with the crowd. As they

walked through the packed throngs of the enemy capital, Greta

held Hareet’s hand once. Her veil hid her face. Then they separated and she walked behind him until they reached the dark and

deserted streets in the slums of the city where the fellahin wallowed in filth and misery.

On a particularly dark and silent street they went down four

steps into a dank cellar where water ran in a deep trough at one

side of the room. Slime floated on the water and rats swam in

the slime. Hareet haggled with a one-eyed Arab in ragged Western clothes and a stained fez. Money changed hands. Hareet and

Greta found a deserted corner of the cellar. They lay down to

sleep as much as they could.

“How long do we have?” Greta said.

“As long as we’ve always had, Greta. Two more days.”

They spoke softly in stilted Arabic. Water spouted in ragged

streams from pipes in the walls, human waste reeked through the

darkness. The people lay in stuporous sleep, or sat against the

walls and stared at the poverty and need and squalor of their

lives. No one cared about Greta and Hareet in the darkness and

silence of the cellar, no one was suspicious. Patriotism does not

run deep among the ragged and starving and diseased of any

country, not even here where patriotism was often all they had

to make them feel human.

“They have no way to trace us,” Hareet said. “The Rogerses

are gone for good. They know that two spies are in the city, but

they expected there would be spies anyway. Our problem is still

the same—to get the data. The only change is that it will be a little harder to get it back and in time.”

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“There’s another change, Paul,” Greta said. “We don’t have a

bed for tonight.”

“No,” Hareet said. “I’m sorry,
liebchen
.”

Greta smiled at the endearment that was far from his stilted Arabic. “I’m sorrier,” she said, and lay close against him in the dimness. “Where will we live when we retire, when this is over?”

Hareet stroked her arm softly. “There’s a hill in the north. It

looks out over orange trees and an olive grove. You can see the