The Secret War (18 page)

Valerie paused for a moment. “What made me look up I don't know, but I did, just when the riot was in full swing, and at a second floor window on the opposite side of the street I saw a man aiming a rifle dead at Christopher. I just had time to pull him down as the man fired. The bullet whizzed over our heads and smashed the mirror of an old bureau. Of course, if Christopher had been killed it would have been put down to a stray shot from the street.”

“That's about it.” Lovelace nodded. “Jove! what a narrow squeak. I wouldn't mind betting that riot was engineered specially to cover the attempt. The devils. I suppose they've been on the look-out for him in every likely town since he left Long Island. I wonder how they managed to get on to him when he was staying under an assumed name at a little place like the Gordon Pasha, though.”

“Simple, my dear,” Valerie laughed. “Yesterday we ran into a delightful idiot called Bob Tucker just outside the Museum, where we'd been putting in an hour to kill time while waiting for news of you. Bob's one of the nicest bad hats I've ever known. We had drinks together at a near-by café, and he took a snap of Christopher and me sitting at one of the tables. It was only afterwards he told us he'd turned journalist and persuaded some daft editor back home to send him out as war correspondent to Abyssinia. It never occurred to us at the time, but I'm news, of course, wherever I go,
and there was the picture in Alexandria's leading news sheet this morning with, ‘World's richest flying girl, Valerie Lorne, and her millionaire fiancé, Christopher Penn, now on vacation in Alex.,' in nice large letters underneath.”

Lovelace gave a rueful grin. “I see. That's what gave you away. Naturally, the moment the enemy saw that they dragged every hotel in the place until they found your description tallied with two people staying at the Gordon Pasha. It would be easy enough for such an influential bunch as they must be to fix up a riot for the purpose of having a shot at Christopher afterwards. I didn't know you were particularly rich, Valerie.”

“I'm not, compared with Christopher's standard, but I'm close on a millionaire in dollars. I'm an orphan and an only child, too, you know, so I live with an aunt—when I'm at home, that is, which isn't often. Bob Tucker was interesting about Abyssinia.”

“He's been there and come back, then?”

“Yes. He clung on until his paper refused to send him any more funds. Apparently the Abyssinian censorship is so stringent that the correspondents couldn't get a thing worth sending to their papers so the people at home got fed up with paying good money out for nothing, and recalled nearly all of them. He says it's a lousy country, and God alone knows why the Italians want it.”

“It'll be a very different place when they've been in occupation for half a dozen years.”

“Well, Bob says there's no question about their winning. It's only a matter of time. The climate, lack of roads, and their distance from their bases are the only serious obstacles they have to contend with. Troops of filthy ruffians are still pouring into Addis on their way to the front, though, and if only the Emperor can provide them with enough rifles and cartridges they may hold the Italians up until next year; especially as the rains are due in a few weeks' time.”

Lovelace nodded. “Mobilisation takes months in a place like Abyssinia where communications are almost confined to goat-tracks and every petty chieftain has to be bribed and flattered before he'll consent to bring his followers along to take a hand. Had this chap Tucker any genuine information about the progress of the war?”

“No. He didn't know a thing about it until he got back to Jibuti and saw the European papers. The Italians are said to have reached Lake Tana the day we arrived in Alex., and Badoglio's motorised columns are pushing on, but how long he'll stick the pace nobody has any idea.”

“Lake Tana's only just half-way from the Eritrean frontier to Addis, so he's got the worst half of the journey to make yet, and if they get too far ahead of the main army they may get cut off. What had Tucker to say about conditions in the capital?”

Valerie smiled. “Bob says it's in an unholy mess. The Emperor's somewhere on the battle front, at Dessye, they think, and as nobody has any power to do anything without him the whole machinery of government, such as it was, has seized up. The Press bureau ceased to issue anything, except wild statements that ten thousand Italians had been cut to pieces every day, so the correspondents had to rely on bribing spies to get some sort of news; and since they didn't really know anything either, but just provided any sort of lie they thought might earn them a few thalers, their information became equally unreliable and stupidly fantastic, after a bit. The nobles, who ought to be supporting the Emperor, are drunk most of the time. They laze about, boasting of what they or their fathers did at Adowa in 1896, and how they mean to drive the Italians into the sea. Bob says he had no idea until he went there that any race of blacks could possibly regard white men as their inferiors; but the Abyssinians do, apparently.

“That's hardly to be wondered at,” Lovelace shrugged.
“Comparatively few of them had ever seen a white until about nine months ago, and look at the specimens who have been crowding into the place since: every sort of shady character who thought he might make a bit out of their war. Concessionaires like Zarrif who'd see the whole lot of them slaughtered without a qualm if it happened to suit their book. Armament racketeers who'd sell them dud cartridges, so as to make a bigger profit, if they had the chance. Cashiered officers from half the armies in Europe willing to drive them into battle with machine-guns at their backs if they're paid well enough for the job. Phoney Red Cross men laying for a chance to steal the funds, and every other sort of trickster playing half a hundred different games to do the poor devils down.”

“You'd have to get up early in the morning to trick an Abyssinian,” chuckled Valerie. “At least, that's what Bob says. And as for graft, well, he told us that sort of thing wasn't understood in the States at all. Compared with their fuzzy-haired officials our tough eggs back home are still in the kindergarten class. He'd hoped to save a bit on his expenses, although I'll admit that's a grand laugh coming from Bob, but he passed up every dime he had in bribery—even to get himself allowed to walk round. He's come back dead broke, and I suppose that's why he thought he'd make the price of a few drinks by selling our picture to the local daily.”

Lovelace frowned. “You know, that young man's let us in for a packet of trouble, and I'm afraid we haven't had the last of it yet. D'you realise that from now on half the population of Alex. May recognise you and Christopher the moment you set foot in the streets? I expect that nebulous group of thugs we vaguely call the enemy have been questioning the reception clerks in all the hotels with a copy of that paper in their hands ever since they learned that you'd cleared out of the Gordon Pasha. They're bound to run you to earth here before long. If you ask me, we're up against it, Valerie.”

Her face went suddenly grave. “You—you're not thinking of backing out now—after—after what happened to you this evening, are you?”

“Good God, no!” He drank off the rest of his grog and smiled at her. “I was never keen on this murder game, as you know, and I wouldn't have come in at the beginning if Christopher's life hadn't been threatened. Then, after the mess up in Athens, I'd certainly have chucked in my hand if it hadn't been for you. But now the thing has become really personal. That cold-blooded swine Zarrif did his best to murder me to-day. Worse, he ordered the death of that poor innocent negro, the real Jeremiah Green, without the slightest compunction. I've got a score to settle with Mr. Paxito Zarrif, and I mean to move heaven and earth to see he gets his deserts.”

Valerie laid her hand on his for a second. “I'm so glad, Anthony—so glad.”

He looked away, concealing under the mask of his tanned face the sudden emotion her touch had roused in him, and asked abruptly: “How is he—Jeremiah, I mean?”

She smiled. “When you went up to Christopher's room to get your clothes off, and I was booking another for you at the desk, I wanted to get one for him too; but he wouldn't have it. He was inquiring about sailings for the States. When they told him there was nothing for the next two days, he said he'd take a passage anywhere provided he could sleep on board a British or American boat to-night.”

“Poor Jeremiah,” Lovelace laughed. “At least he has the sense to know he'll be safe under the Stars and Stripes or the Union Jack. He's had a filthy trip, and he won't feel really good again until he's back in Gainesville. Still, think what a story he'll have to tell all the coloured girls when he does get home. Can't you see their eyes rolling?”

“Tell me about him—and yourself. You must know
I'm dying to hear what happened to you; yet you've been making me talk about Abyssinia all this time.”

“Let's order dinner first, shall we. Christopher may be back by the time they bring it up. Then I'll give you a full and true account of how Jeremiah and I very nearly found a watery grave.”

Christopher was back in time to join them at the scratch meal the little cosmopolitan hotel provided, and over it he listened with Valerie to Lovelace's unpleasant experiences while a member of Zarrif's household.

“What luck did you have with Klinger?” Lovelace asked when he had concluded his narrative.

“I was fortunate to find him in,” Christopher replied promptly, “but he's performing at a concert to-morrow night, so he was practising in his flat this evening. He's a Heidelberg graduate and has a job in a private German bank here. I found him a nice fellow; about my own age. He's a diehard Nazi, as far as Germany's internal politics are concerned, but he swears that Hitler doesn't want war and that all the younger generation, like himself, are out to stop it at any price.”

“Could he tell you anything about Zarrif?” Lovelace inquired.

“As a
Miller
he knew him, of course. It's up to each one of us to watch the enemy and find out as much about them as we can. Klinger knew Zarrif had a villa here; he's been out to it in Zarrif's absence, and actually has a plan of the place. He knew Zarrif had been in residence there for the last couple of days, too, but he had no idea where Zarrif's gone to now.”

“You're determined to follow him, then?” Lovelace asked. “Even to Addis Ababa if need be?”

Christopher gave a vigorous nod. “Even if I have to walk there.”

“In that case, perhaps, we'd better go straight to Addis Ababa and wait there till he turns up,” suggested Valerie. “He's bound to arrive there some time before the first of May.”

“To-morrow's only the 16th,” said Christopher, “and he's travelling by plane, remember. It's hardly likely he means to arrive there nearly a fortnight before he's due. He must be stopping off for a day or two somewhere on the way to transact further business. It would mean another chance for us to get him if we could only find out where.”

Lovelace shrugged. “That's all very well, but we haven't got time to go chasing half over Africa, and we don't know if he means to go down the Nile to Khartoum, then over the mountains, or if he'll take the Red Sea route to Jibuti and follow the course of the railway inland from there.”

“I favour the Red Sea route,” said Valerie. “It's inhabited most of the way, and at least there's the railway to guide us when we have to cross Abyssinia. I'm as good a pilot as most people, but frankly I'd rather not attempt flying over those trackless mountains east of the Sudan.”

“I don't think you ought …” Lovelace began, but she cut him short.

“For goodness' sake don't start that argument again. Remember what I told you in Athens.”

Lovelace remembered clearly enough—that Christopher needed them both, and they must not let him down—but, more than ever now, he hated the thought that she should be exposed to such very real dangers as they had already encountered.

Christopher caught the meaning of their quick exchange and looked across at him. “I tried to persuade Valerie to leave us to it again this afternoon, but she won't. She says she is of age and her own mistress, and that having come so far she intends to fly her plane down to Addis Ababa anyhow. If she won't listen to me, her fiancé, I don't suppose she'll hear reason from anybody else, so we can only accept the situation and, at least, we'll be able to look after her if we all go together.”

“All right, then,” Lovelace sighed, “and we take the Red Sea route, eh?”

“Yes. I should have suggested that anyhow, because Klinger did give me one piece of information. It seems that Zarrif's hand in glove with a bird called Abu Ben Ibrim, whose headquarters are in Jibuti. Ben Ibrim is the big noise in every sort of dirty work that goes on along the Red Sea. Slave trading's his special racket, but he deals in smuggled ammunition, hashish, and all sorts of other things as well. It's more than likely Zarrif will go via Jibuti to have a word with him, and I thought that if we did too we might manage to get on Zarrif's track again.”

“What, visit the Arab and try to pump him? But is it likely he'll have anything to do with us without an introduction?”

“I haven't got that, but Klinger said that if we pretended we were friends of a Jewish oil refiner here in Alexandria, named Melchisedek, Ben Ibrim would be almost certain to receive us.”

Lovelace nodded. “I see, Melchisedek's another of the bunch, and it is up to us to think out a good story for Ben Ibrim. Well, when do we start?”

“The earlier we get off to-morrow morning the better,” said Valerie decisively. “The thugs who tried to do Christopher in to-day may find out our new address at any time.”