The Deadly Orbit Mission. Van Wyck Mason
his pipe and drawled, “Pretty obvious what we’ll have to do, isn’t it, Colonel?”
North inclined his dark, narrow head. “I’d venture you’re going to ignore the cable line through Europe.”
“Exactly. We’ll use said cable only for testing purposes, and sending a lot of misleading information—just to keep up appearances before the Chinese. The real material will go by radio telephone relayed through Tangier. I’ve already assigned more agents than you could count to England, Denmark, Sweden and Finland where they’re fairly swarming around the cable relay points. Expensive decoys but worth it. They’re going to raise all sorts of dust to keep the Chinese distracted and guessing. Meanwhile, you’re to protect the really strategic relay point.”
North summoned a wry smile. “Is that all? What’s the next step?”
“You leave at noon today and pick up your ticket and credentials at Dulles International. All arrangements have been made. I don’t want you to return to your hotel; you’ve been checked out already, so shop about and pick whatever you’ll need for Tangier and get cracking.”
North shook hands and walked away without looking back. Even so, he heard General Armiston’s soft, “May God go with you.” The words trailed him as he cut through the beautifully landscaped central courtyard and toward the Pentagon’s outer ring.
Hugh North appreciated what the Secretary of Defense discreetly had said through General Armiston. It amounted to this: Get this job done at all costs. Be diplomatic at all times except when you can’t afford to be. Be most discreet and take care not to involve the State Department so they won’t make trouble for the Defense Department.
The Colonel stopped at the armorer’s quarters long enough to check out a snub-nosed Smith & Wesson .38, a single clip of cartridges and a chamois skin shoulder holster. Later he shopped for a couple of dark-colored lightweight suits and a few other necessities before boarding a taxi for Dulles Airport. With luck, he should arrive in Tangier before the sun rose again.
Had Hugh North even suspected what he would discover in North Africa he’d have put in for an extra ration of luck.
4
A day earlier—quite by coincidence had anyone been interested—the cultural attaché of the Albanian Mission to the United Nations abruptly decided that he must be running short on his particular interpretation of American culture which might explain why a short, stout, almost bald man with an olive complexion flew from New York to Washington to observe some of that Capital’s sights—the architecture of Hugh North’s hotel for example. The little man was studying its lobby at the very moment the man from G-2 was hailing a taxi to report to his superior.
And then there was the celebrated Pentagon to be visited. Equipped with a map obligingly supplied to tourists at a lobby desk he appeared to be in search of a men’s room on the fourth floor at the moment Colonel North was entering General Armiston’s office.
Had Mr. Gregory been perceptive about such matters he might have noticed the fat little man’s heavy breathing behind him while following the General and North down the escalators. The little man in the baggy suit also found the private, well-guarded elevators a most interesting cultural fact. He didn’t need a new necktie, but bought one while North reappeared to select a new wardrobe.
And finally the man from Albania became deeply interested in Dulles International Airport which never before had appealed to him. Nothing like it in Tirana, was there?
Early in the afternoon while Colonel North was cruising at 35,000 feet over the Atlantic aboard a 707 Air France jet the little fat man was busy in Washington at the Embassy of an East European satellite reporting on his recent observations of the American scene.
And an hour later said observations had been coded and were being transmitted overseas. Only in America, thought the little man, could one so freely transact such delicate business. It really was remarkable.
CHAPTER TWO
1
Veteran Intelligence Officer Hugh North traveled so light that even if the Moroccan douanier in a dingy, silver-buttoned blue uniform had decided to search the Colonel’s luggage his examination couldn’t have required more than a minute of his invaluable time.
Dawn was just breaking over Boukhalef Airport, twelve kilometers from the city of Tangier proper, when both Colonel North and his burly, Gallic-appearing taxi driver rubbed exhaust fumes from their eyes before departing in one of those “taxi-babies”—modern minicabs—which remain characteristic of Tangier.
The man from G-2 was almost as anxious to wash off flight fatigue under a shower at the Hotel El Minzah as he was to establish contact with Mr. Gregory, the Voice of America’s electronics technician and chemistry hobbyist.
“Vous-êtes Americain, Monsieur?” The driver suggested while clutching the steering wheel with bear-like paws. A cigarette waggled as it hung from his lower lip.
North nodded and played the foreign-passenger game. “Vous êtes Français, n’est-ce pas?”
The driver insisted, however, on extracting an English lesson from his passenger. “You ’ave been to Tanzheer before?”
North allowed as he had, but that had been long ago, during the days of the International Zone when Tangier, feeding on the disarray of a war-torn world, was the bountiful haven of nylon, tobacco and assorted smugglers of everything imaginable, including espionage agents, money changers and people with bank accounts they didn’t want folks at home to learn about.
Hugh was aware that all this skullduggery supposedly had come to a gradual halt since Tangier had become an integral part of the Kingdom of Morocco. He also remained aware that, nevertheless, Tangier remained one of the easiest-going ports in the world. Its residents still paid no income tax, no sales tax, no gift tax and no inheritance tax.
Rich Britons and others whose personal fortunes would have been all but wiped out by home-country income taxes were able to keep their estates fairly intact by establishing residence in this buzzing eternally picaresque North African city.
Any person possessing a valid passport—or perhaps an almost valid one—could become a legal resident simply by setting up housekeeping on this point overlooking the Strait of Gibraltar. He could also organize a corporation and not be bothered by regulations designed to protect stockholders. Therefore, for anyone inclined to dodge taxes, hoard gold or engage in other dubious ventures the City still presented opportunities unmatched elsewhere.
“Tanzheer is the same, still not the same,” the driver offered, as if reading his passenger’s thoughts. “Is different, but us Moroccans not so dumb. We have laws prohibiting smuggling and making funny beezness weeth money exchanges.” He leered over a patched shoulder. “Hélas, no more circuses or strange shows weeth acrobat sex ladies; but still we know when to look zee other way. Comprenez-vous?”
“Plus ça change—” the Colonel ventured.
“Plus c’est la meme chose. Zee touristes want strange excitements, bon. Zee government want les touristes.”
North remembered well the unique appearance of Tangier, that the centuries-old port tucked away on a bay hemmed in by rocky hills which then had been ruled, uniquely among the world’s cities, by a special Legislative Body of twenty-seven members comprised of six Moroccan Moslems, three Moroccan Jews with the rest of the seats distributed among Britain, Spain, France, Italy, Belgium, Holland and Portugal.
Neither French nor Spanish territory and only technically belonging to Morocco, it had had its affairs directed by a Committee of Control, established forty years earlier by a Convention of the Algeciras Conference. In actual charge during that period had been eight Consuls whose governments maintained missions in this supremely strategic city.
There had also been a Legislative Assembly whose members were appointed by the eight Consulates which prepared laws, but the Committee only accepted laws approved by it while blandly vetoing the rest. High-handed, perhaps, but few Tangerines seemed to mind; they enjoyed