The Deadly Orbit Mission. Van Wyck Mason
of management also had been in effect; the Directeur de Police invariably was Belgian; the Directeur-Adjoint a Frenchman; the Commissaire de la Sûreté was English and the Chief Medical Officer was Spanish.
The system had worked. It discreetly administered a city that had become famous as an international headquarters for bartering—if one didn’t straightaway find what he wanted in Tangier all one had to do was ask for it—and pay.
All that had changed a decade ago when Tangier had passed directly under the control of the Kingdom of Morocco but, as the taxi driver agreed, the more things changed, the more they remained the same—more or less.
As the cab left the scrubby valley country in the brightening dawn and rattled between rows of gaunt and scabrous eucalyptus trees the big driver flicked his eyes from the rearview mirror to pick up North’s face. “You ’ad no deefeecultee with authorities at airport, Monsieur?”
“Of course not. Why?”
The driver shrugged, “Bien. Car behind been following us ever since we leave airport, is all.”
The Colonel assumed an air of indifference. “Guess he’s headed for Tangier, too. What’s so special about that?”
“Rien du tout. But never before ’ave a policier car follow me all zee way from Boukhalef to Tanzheer, is all.” He grinned into the mirror. “Is nothing, bien sûr.”
By the time the taxi had entered the city proper and made its way to the Socco Grande the driver had asked three times whether Hugh wanted him to shake the policier car. The G-2 man scoffed at the suggestion each time noticing that the driver was a little too eager to make a dash himself. Probably a well-earned case of guilty conscience over some misdemeanor of his own North ruminated.
Nevertheless, he felt a twinge of disquiet over this tailing, which by now was obvious. He did not often ask for active police cooperation on his assignments but he did appreciate freedom from interference from the same source.
Never one to fret unnecessarily he dropped the subject from his mind momentarily and enjoyed the familiar sights of the Socco Grande, or Great Souk, while his nostrils took in familiar if pungent aromas. Little had changed in the great Arab market place; its streets remained just as narrow, dirty and twisting as he remembered them, and a sea of white-robed humanity parted slowly and seemingly with indifference to let the taxi pass.
He recognized coal-black Moors, hawk-faced Berbers down from the mountains with their firewood or cactus-laden donkeys, their goatskins and baskets of produce. These mountaineers squatted in circles listening to storytellers and flute players and watching magicians perform age-old artful deceptions. The minty scent of Arab tea mingled with the vivid odors of spices, camels, manure, and the fumes of rank tobacco. Donkeys brayed and their heehaws clashed with the voices of barter in a mighty cacophony.
North took advantage of a lurching turn to glance swiftly back and at once spotted the police car behind. That peek was all he needed to be transported back a dozen years for beside the driver of an antique Mercedes sat an unmistakably familiar shape—that of Inspecteur Ibrahim René Potin, of le Bureau de la Sûreté . The glance also told Hugh that the wiry little man, caught in a burst of sunlight, was wearing his inevitable chéchia or dull-red fez, as usual tilted forward onto his forehead in the manner of a sodden sailor.
But there never had been anything dull or sodden about Ibrahim René Potin, as North recalled grimly. The Inspector had, in fact, given North a hard time during the man from G-2’s last visit to Tangier when he’d been preceded to Tangier by a slickly convincing double who’d been accepted as the Colonel himself.
No sooner had the real North set foot in Tangier than he’d been clapped into the calabozo at Maltabata Prison as an imposter. True, Inspector Potin finally had become convinced that he was being duped and had cooperated gamely in helping to bring the case to a satisfactory conclusion. Nevertheless Potin could prove troublesome if he chose to go by the book.
As the taxi suddenly reached an opening and spurted away from the Socco Grande into the Rue de la Liberté and the sharply contrasting modern city, North quickly made a résumé of the crisis that first had led him into this exotic corner of Africa. Here, in this blend of the Old World and the New, so many thousands of miles from the Pentagon and its National Military Command Center it was difficult to credit that he’d been conferring only a few hours earlier on a subject of stark, space-age immediacy. He would have to remain in the dark about the progress of events at home—and in outer space, for that matter—unless he received a message canceling his mission before tomorrow’s midnight deadline. This would mean the Russians willingly, or not, had managed to bring their double-crossing package of potential death out of orbit. Barring such an order he must move as quickly as possible to make sure that American technicians would receive the proper unlocking information and with no Chinese inspired interference.
The man from G-2 plotted moves he felt should have first priority. Gregory would have to be contacted immediately and unobtrusively and so learn the exact location of that Hot Line relay point reportedly situated high in Tangier’s seamy Casbah; and then make sure its functions remained secure from interference. The Lord only knew how many ways there might be to interfere with so complicated a device. How effective would radio jamming be? How would one locate a jamming station? Charles Gregory had better know his stuff.
For all his seeming indifference the presence of that policier car in his wake worried Hugh North. If Inspector Potin knew he was here even before his plane had landed how many others might share such knowledge? It would be only wise to assume that several very wrong people must know. But who were the wrong people in this case? Grimly, he conjectured that he might be forced to employ a tried-and-true method of finding that out—which was to set himself out as bait and find out who was stalking him—provided he lived long enough.
His taxi crossed the Avenue d’Angleterre and recognition returned as it chugged up the steep grade of the Rue du Statut. The driver pulled up screechingly before El Minzah and Hugh took in the huge Moorish type edifice shimmering in the heat like a regal white elephant.
Two huge Moors in yellow-and-blue uniforms at the hotel’s heavy iron gates swung them open as effortlessly as if they had been balsam branches. The cab lurched up the driveway and halted. North climbed out into the pleasantly cool air, tipped the big driver a wad of dirhams, then surrendered his single, light bag to a pantalooned chasseur who led the way into the hotel’s ornate lobby.
Hugh found suspiciously little trouble in securing a room overlooking the El Minzah’s famous patio—on which the first tourists had yet to appear. He was about to strip and shower when, not quite unexpectedly, footsteps sounded on the corridors carpeting and his suite’s door was smartly rapped upon.
Expectedly, when North opened the door he found standing before it Police Inspector Potin, a small, wiry man with the complexion of an old walnut shell. His deep forehead was half eclipsed by his untidy crimson fez and his brown skin was as wrinkled as the limp seersucker suit covering his slight frame.
“Mon Colonel,” intoned Inspector Ibrahim René Potin, representative of le Bureau de la Sûreté , “how pleasant after all these years to renew our acquaintance.” He grinned, sidled into the room to perch on the edge of a settee.
“It’s always good to see you, Monsieur l’Inspecteur,” North replied cheerfully. “I am much honored that so high an officer as you should take time from his duties in order to welcome me.”
“You are too kind, mon Colonel,” Potin replied, his grin hanging like the final words of a funeral sermon. “In fact, this is no reception. One only discharges his duties.”
“How do you mean?”
“Mon ami, this is what is termed as a visit of an official nature.”
2
Resignedly North shook his head remembering that stubbornness was one of Ibrahim Potin’s most distinguishing characteristics. He had to make sure that the Tangier police, if not recruited actively to his side, at least were going to remain neutral for the duration of this assignment. Gingerly he prepared to tread upon the eggshells