‘Oh, all right.’ Tozier picked up his jacket. ‘I think I have the number here somewhere.’
Follet patted Raqi on the shoulder. ‘Bear up, Javid; we’ll get you out of this jam somehow.’ He sat next to him and began to talk to him quietly.
Tozier mumbled to someone on the telephone. At last he put it down and crossed the room with a paper in his hand. ‘This man wants to know who’s been ordering these chemicals—especially in quantity. He wants to know where they were despatched to. He also wants to know of any transactions concerning a man called…’ He peered at the
paper. ‘…Speering. That’s it.’ He rubbed the side of his jaw. ‘I screwed him up to forty thousand but he wouldn’t go higher for the information.’
‘Why does he want it?’ asked Warren.
‘I reckon he’s in industrial espionage.’
Follet took the sheet of paper. ‘Who cares why he wants it so long as Javid can deliver?’ He gave the paper to Raqi. ‘Can you get that stuff?’
Raqi wiped his eyes and looked carefully. He nodded, and whispered, ‘I think so. All this is in the stock ledgers.’
‘But the guy will only go to forty thousand, damn him,’ said Follet. ‘For crying out loud, I’m game to help make up the difference.’
‘Count me out on that,’ said Tozier grimly. ‘I’ve done my bit.’
‘Nick?’
‘All right, Johnny; we’ll split it between us.’ Warren sorted out five thousand rials from the money on the table and passed it to Follet.
‘There, you see, Javid; we’ve got ten thousand here. All you have to do to get the other forty thousand is to go back to the office. You have the key?’
Raqi nodded, and allowed Follet to help him to his feet. ‘It will take time,’ he said.
‘Half an hour. That’s all it took to loot the safe this afternoon,’ said Tozier brutally.
Follet saw Raqi to the door and closed it gently. He turned, and said, ‘We’re nearly there. There’s just one thing more to be done.’
Warren sighed. ‘It can’t be any dirtier than what we’ve done already. What is it?’
‘You’re not concerned in it, so rest easy,’ said Follet. ‘Now, all we have to do is wait. I’m going to see Ben—I’ll be back in ten minutes.’
It seemed, to Warren, an eternity before Raqi returned. The minutes ticked by and he contemplated the sort of man he was becoming under the stress of this crazy adventure. Not only was he guilty of blackmailing Follet, but he had assisted in the corruption of a young man who had hitherto been blameless. It was all right for Follet to preach that you can’t cheat an honest man; the men who offer the thirty pieces of silver are just as guilty as he who accepts them.
Again there was the expected knock at the door and Follet went to open it. Raqi had pulled himself together a little and did not seem so woebegone; there was more colour in his cheeks and he did not droop as he had when he left.
Follet said, ‘Well, kid; did you get it?’
Raqi nodded. ‘I took it from the ledgers in English—I thought that would help.’
‘It surely would,’ said Follet, who had forgotten that problem. ‘Let me have it,’
Raqi gave him three sheets of paper which he passed to Tozier. ‘You’ll see it gets to the right place, Andy.’ Tozier nodded, and Follet gave Raqi a bundle of money. ‘There’s your fifty thousand, Javid. You’d better put it back in the safe real fast.’
Raqi was just putting the money into his pocket when the door burst open. A man stood there, his face concealed by a scarf, and holding an automatic pistol. ‘Stay still, everyone,’ he said indistinctly. ‘And you won’t get hurt.’
Warren looked on unbelievingly as the man took a step forward. He wondered who the devil this was and what he thought he was doing. The stranger wagged the gun sideways. ‘Over there,’ he said, and Raqi and Follet moved under the threat to join Warren at the other side of the room.
‘Not you,’ said the man, as Tozier began to obey. ‘You stay there.’ He stepped up to Tozier and plucked the papers from his hand. ‘That’s all I want.’
‘Like hell!’ said Tozier and lunged for him. There was a sharp crack and Tozier stopped as though he had hit a brick wall. A stupid expression appeared on his face and his knees buckled. Slowly, like a falling tree, he toppled, and as he dropped to the ground a gush of blood spurted from his mouth.
There was a bang as the door closed behind the visitor, and a faint reek of gunsmoke permeated the atmosphere.
Follet was the first to move. He darted over to Tozier and knelt down beside him. Then he looked up in wonder: ‘Good Christ—he’s dead!’
Warren crossed the room in two strides, his professional instincts aroused, but Follet straight-armed him. ‘Don’t touch him, Nick; don’t get any blood on you.’ There was something odd in Follet’s tone that made him stop.
Raqi was shaking like an aspen in a hurricane. A moaning sound came from his lips—not words, but the mere repetition of his vocalized gasps—as he stared in horror at the blood spattered on the cuff of his jacket. Follet took him by the arm and shook him. ‘Javid! Javid, stop that! Do you hear me?’
Raqi became more coherent. ‘I’m…I’m all…right.’
‘Listen carefully, then. There’s no need for you to be mixed up in this. I don’t know what the hell it’s all about, but you can get clear if you’re quick about it.’
‘How do you mean?’ Raqi’s rapid breathing was slowing.
Follet looked down at Tozier’s body. ‘Nick and I will get rid of him. Poor guy; he was a bastard if ever there was one, but I wouldn’t have wished this on him. That information his friend wanted must have been really something.’ He turned to Raqi. ‘If you know what’s good for you you’ll get out of here and keep your mouth shut. Go to the office, put the dough back in the safe, go home and say nothing. Do you understand?’ Raqi nodded.
‘Then get going,’ said Follet. ‘And walk—don’t run. Take it easy.’
With a choked cry Raqi bolted from the room and the door slammed behind him.
Follet sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. ‘Poor Andy,’ he said. ‘The chivalrous son-of-a-bitch. Okay, you can get up now. Arise, Lazarus.’
Tozier opened his eyes and winked, then leaned up on one elbow. ‘How did it look?’
‘Perfect. I thought Ben had really plugged you.’
Warren stepped over to Follet. ‘Was that play-acting really necessary?’ he asked coldly.
‘It was really necessary,’ said Follet flatly. ‘Let’s suppose we hadn’t blown him off that way. Some time in the next few days he’d start to think and put things together, and it wouldn’t take an egghead to figure he’d been conned. That boy’s not stupid, you know; it’s just that we rushed him—we didn’t give him time to think straight.’
‘So?’
‘So now he’ll
never
be able to think straight about what happened. The fact of sudden death does that to people. As long as he lives he’ll never be able to figure out what really happened; he’ll never know who shot and killed Andy—or why. Because it doesn’t tie in with anything else. So he’ll keep his mouth shut in case he’s implicated in murder. That’s why we had to blow him off with the cackle bladder.’
‘With the
what?
’
‘The cackle bladder.’ Follet gestured. ‘Show him, Andy.’
Tozier spat something from his mouth into his hand. ‘I nearly swallowed the damn’ thing.’
He held out his hand to disclose a reddened piece of limp rubber. Follet said, ‘It’s just a little rubber bag filled with chicken blood—a cackle bladder. It’s used quite often to dispose of the chumps when they’re no longer needed around.’ He sniggered. ‘It’s the only other good use for a contraceptive.’
Ben Bryan came in, grinning. ‘How did I do, Johnny?’
‘You did fine, Ben. Where are those papers?’ He took them from Bryan and slapped them into Warren’s limp hand. ‘Those are what you wanted.’
‘Yes,’ said Warren bitterly. ‘These are what I wanted.’
‘You wanted them—you’ve got them,’ said Follet tensely. ‘So use them. But don’t come the big moral act with me, Warren. You’re no better than anyone else.’
He turned away abruptly and walked out of the room.
They drove again among the ochre-red mountains of Kurdistan along the winding and precipitous roads. Warren was thankful to be in the lead; somewhere behind and hidden in the cloud of dust were Tozier and Follet in the second Land-Rover and he did not envy them. Bryan was driving and Warren navigating, trying to find his way to a spot pinpointed on the map. This was more difficult than had at first appeared; at times Warren felt as though he were in Alice’s Looking Glass Land because the roads, unmarked on the map, twisted and turned sinuously and often it seemed that the best way to approach a given point was to drive in the opposite direction.
And again, it was only by a considerable stretch of the imagination that these scratch marks in the mountains could be called roads. Ungraded, stony, washed-out and often on the living rock, these tracks had been worn by the pads of thousands of generations of camels over hundreds, possibly thousands of years. Alexander had marched through these mountains, riding among his
hetaeroi
to the conquest of Persia and the penetration of India, and Warren judged that the roads had not been repaired since.
Several times they passed groups of the nomadic Kurds who were presumably in search of greener pastures,
although where those pastures could possibly be Warren did not know. The whole land was a wilderness of rock and eroded bare earth with minimal hardy vegetation which sprouted in crevices in the bare hillsides, sparse and spindly but with the clinging tenacity of life. And it was all brown and burnt and there was no green at all.
He checked the map again, then lifted it to reveal the three sheets of paper which Javid Raqi had abstracted from his office at so much expense of the spirit. The information had been a constant worry to Warren ever since he had seen it. He had been prepared for a reasonable amount of chemicals—enough to extract, at most, a hundred pounds of morphine from the raw opium. But this was most unreasonable.
The quantities involved were fantastic—enough methylene chloride, benzene, amyl alcohol, hydrochloric acid and pharmaceutical lime to extract no less than two tons of morphine.
Two tons
! He felt chilled at the implications. It would provide enough heroin to saturate the United States illicit market for a year with plenty left over. If this amount got loose then the pushers would be very busy and there would be an explosion of new addicts.
He said, ‘I’ve checked the figures again, Ben—and they still don’t make sense.’
Bryan slowed as he approached a difficult comer. ‘They are startling,’ he admitted.
‘Startling!’ echoed Warren. ‘They’re damned nearly impossible. Look, Ben; it calls for twenty tons of raw opium—twenty tons, for God’s sake! That amount of opium would cost nearly a million pounds on the illegal market. Do you think the Delorme woman has that much capital to play with?’
Bryan laughed. ‘If I had that much money I’d retire.’ He twisted the wheel. ‘I’ve just had a thought, though. Perhaps Raqi fudged the figures in his excitement. He was translat
ing from an oriental script into western notation, remember. Perhaps he made the identical mistake throughout, and uprated by a constant factor.’
Warren chewed his lip. ‘But what factor? Let’s say he made an error of a factor of ten—that brings us to about four hundred pounds of morphine. That’s stall a hell of a lot, but it’s much more reasonable.’
‘How much would that be worth to Delorme?’ asked Bryan.
‘About twenty million dollars, landed in the States.’
‘Yes,’ said Bryan judiciously. ‘I think I’d call that reasonable.’ He slammed into low gear as they breasted a rise. ‘How much longer before we get to whosit’s place—what’s his name?’
‘Sheikh Fahrwaz.’ Warren checked the map. ‘If everything goes well—which it won’t on past form—we should be there in an hour.’
The Land-Rover roared up to the top of the mountain pass, and Bryan slowed as they reached the crest. Warren, looking through the dusty windscreen, suddenly tensed. ‘Reverse, Ben,’ he said sharply. ‘Quickly, now—get off the skyline.’
Bryan crashed the gears, infected by the excitement transmitted by Warren, and the Land-Rover lurched backwards in a series of jerks and came to a halt. ‘Run back down the road,’ said Warren. ‘Run as far as you can and flag Andy to stop. Ask him to join me on foot. And don’t slam that door when you get out.’
He opened the door and jumped to the ground, and as he ran up to the rest of the pass he veered to one side and headed for a clump of rocks which would give cover. When he arrived at the top he was panting, but more with excitement than exertion. He crouched behind the rocks and then slowly raised his head to get a view of the valley below.
Against a background of the usual arid hills on the other side of the valley there was a smear of green, cultivated land, chequer-boarded into fields, and in the middle was a cluster of buildings, low and flat-topped—either a small village or a biggish farm. This was the settlement of Sheikh Fahrwaz, the man who had ordered vast quantities of non-agricultural chemicals, and it was where Warren hoped to find Speering.
He heard a stone clatter behind him and turned his head to see Tozier approaching with Follet close behind. He waved them down and they came up more cautiously and joined him in looking down upon the valley. ‘So this is it,’ said Tozier after a while. ‘What now?’
Follet said suddenly, ‘Those people have been in big trouble.’
Warren looked down. ‘How do you make that out?’
‘Haven’t you got eyes?’ asked Follet. ‘Look at those bomb craters. There’s a line of them right across the valley—one bomb just missed that big building. Someone’s had a crack at these boys from the air.’
It appeared that Follet was right. The line of craters stretched across the valley, starting from just below them and arrowing straight towards the settlement and beyond. Tozier reached behind for his binoculars. ‘Who would want to bomb them unless it was the Iranian Air Force?’ He juggled with the focusing. ‘It was a poor attempt, though. That building hasn’t been touched; there’s no sign of repair work on the wall near the crater.’
‘Are you sure they’re bomb craters?’ asked Warren. Something niggled at the back of his mind.
‘I’ve seen plenty of them in Korea,’ said Follet.
‘Yes, they’re bomb craters,’ confirmed Tozier. ‘Not very big bombs.’
This was a new element in the situation and something else for Warren to worry about. He put it on one side, and said, ‘So what do we do?’
Bryan joined them. ‘We just go down there,’ he said, and jerked his head back at the vehicles. ‘Our cover’s good enough to carry it off. Even these people will have heard of motion pictures.’
Tozier nodded. ‘Half of us go down,’ he corrected. ‘One vehicle. The other stays up here out of sight and keeps a listening watch on the radio.’
‘What’s the general procedure?’ asked Warren. He had no illusions about himself, and he knew that Tozier, the professional, knew more than he about an operation of this sort. He was quite prepared to take orders.
Tozier squinted at the valley. ‘I’ve searched many an innocent-looking village in my time, looking for arms caches mostly. But then we went in as an open operation—bristling with guns. We can’t do that here. If the people down there are innocent, they’ll be hospitable; if they’re guilty, they’ll
seem
to be hospitable. We’ve got to get a look into every building, and every one we’re barred from is a black mark against them. After that we play it as it comes. Let’s go.’
‘So it’ll be you and me,’ said Warren. ‘While Ben and Johnny stay up here.’
The road wound down to the fertile oasis of the valley where the green vegetation looked incredibly refreshing. Some of the fields were bare and had the shallow lines of primitive ploughing, but most of them were under crops. Tozier, who was driving, said, ‘Would you recognize an opium poppy if you saw one? You might find them here.’
‘There’s none that I can see,’ said Warren. ‘Wait a minute—can you go across there?’ He pointed.
‘I don’t see why not.’ Tozier twisted the wheel and the Land-Rover left the road and bumped across open country. It did not make any appreciable difference to the bounce and jolt—the road was purely symbolic. ‘Where are we going?’
‘I want to have a look at those craters,’ said Warren. ‘The idea of bombing worries me—it doesn’t make sense.’
Tozier drove to the nearest crater and left the engine idling. They got out and looked across the valley floor towards the settlement. The line of craters stretched out towards the buildings, equally spaced at fifty-yard intervals. Tozier looked at the nearest and said, ‘If that’s not a bomb crater then I’m a duck-billed platypus. You can see how the earth has been thrown up around the edge.’
‘Let’s have a closer look,’ said Warren, and started walking. He climbed over the soft earth at the crater’s edge, looked inside and started laughing. ‘You’re a duck-billed platypus, Andy. Look here.’
‘Well, I’m damned!’ said Tozier. ‘It’s just a hole.’ He stepped inside the crater, took a pebble and dropped it into the hole. There was a long pause and then a very faint splash. He straightened up and looked along the line of craters—of holes—with a puzzled expression. ‘This is even crazier. Who’d want to dig a hell of a lot of deep wells at fifty-yard intervals and in a dead straight line?’
Warren snapped his fingers. ‘I’ve got it! I nearly had it when Follet pointed them out, but I couldn’t pin it down. This is a
qanat.
’
‘A who-what?’
‘A
qanat
—an underground canal.’ He turned and looked back at the hills. ‘It taps an aquifer in the slopes over there, and leads water to the village. I was studying Iran before we came out here and I read about them. Iran is pretty well honeycombed with the things—there’s a total of nearly two hundred thousand miles of
qanats
in the country.’
Tozier scratched his head. ‘Why can’t they build their canals on the surface like other people?’
‘It’s for water supply,’ said Warren. ‘They lose less by evaporation if the channel is underground. It’s a very old
system—the Persians have been building these things for the last three thousand years.’ He grinned with relief. ‘These aren’t bomb craters—they’re ventilation shafts; they have to have them so the workmen aren’t asphyxiated when they’re doing repairs.’
‘Problem solved,’ said Tozier. ‘Let’s go.’
They set off again and drove back to the road and then towards the settlement. The buildings were of the common sort they had seen elsewhere—walls made of rammed earth, flat roofs, and all of them single storey which would conveniently make a search easier. As they got nearer they saw goats grazing under the watchful eye of a small boy who waved as they passed, and there were scrawny chickens which scattered as they approached the courtyard of the largest building.
Tozier drew up inside. ‘If you want to tell me anything let it wait until we’re alone. These people might have more English than they’ll admit to. But I must say everything looks peaceful.’
It did not seem so to Warren because a crowd of small boys rushed forward towards the unexpected visitors and were capering about in the dust, their shrill voices raised high. The women who had been about were vanishing like wraiths, drawing their shawls about their faces and hurrying out of sight through a dozen doors. He said, ‘There are a hell of a lot of rooms to look into; and if Fahrwaz has a harem that will make things difficult.’
They descended to the ground and the small boys engulfed them. Tozier raised his voice. ‘Better lock up or we’ll be missing a lot of gear.’
Another voice was raised in harsh command and the boys scattered, running across the courtyard as though the devil were at their heels. A tall man stepped forward, richly dressed and straight-backed, though elderly. The haft of the curved knife in his sash glinted with jewels, a stone shone
in his turban and others from the rings on his fingers. His face was thin and austere, and his beard was grey.
He turned and spoke in a low voice to his companion, who said—astonishingly in English—‘Sheikh Fahrwaz welcomes you. His house is yours.’ He paused, then added sardonically, ‘I wouldn’t take that too literally—it’s just a figure of speech.’
Warren recovered enough to say, Thank you. My name is Nicholas Warren and this is Andrew Tozier. We’re looking for locations to make a film.’ He indicated the inscription on the side of the Land-Rover. ‘We work for Regent Films of London.’
‘You’re off the beaten track. I’m Ahmed—this is my father.’ He spoke to the old man and the Sheikh nodded his head gravely and muttered a reply. Ahmed said, ‘You’re still welcome, although my father cannot really approve. He is a good Moslem and the making of images is against the Law.’ He smiled slightly. ‘For myself, I couldn’t give a damn. You need not lock your truck—nothing will be stolen.’
Warren smiled. ‘It’s…er…unexpected to find English spoken in this remote place.’
Ahmed smiled a little mockingly. ‘Do you think I should have a big sign put up there on the Djebel Ramadi—“English Spoken Here”?’ He gestured. ‘My father wishes you to enter his house.’
Thank you,’ said Warren. ‘Thank you very much.’ He glanced at Tozier. ‘Come on, Andy.’
‘The room into which they were led was large. Sheepskin rugs were scattered on the floor and the walls were hidden behind tapestries. Several low settees surrounded a central open space which was covered by a fine Persian carpet, and coffee was already being brought in on brass trays.
‘Be seated,’ said Ahmed, and sank gracefully on to one of the settees. Warren tactfully waited until Sheikh Fahrwaz had settled himself and then sat down, doing his best to
imitate the apparently awkward posture of Ahmed, which Ahmed did not seem to find awkward at all. Tozier followed suit and Warren could hear his joints crack.
‘We have had European visits before,’ said Ahmed. ‘My father is one of the old school, and I usually instruct visitors in our customs. It pleases my father when they do what is right in his eyes, and does no harm to anyone.’ He smiled engagingly. ‘Afterwards we will go to my quarters and drink a lot of whisky.’
‘That’s very kind of you,’ said Warren. ‘Isn’t it, Andy?’