Assignment ... Zoraya by S Aarons Edward

Author:S, Aarons, Edward
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Durell, Sam (Fictitious character), Intelligence service
Publisher: Greenwich, Conn. : Fawcett
Published: 1960-08-24T07:00:00+00:00

"True. Otherwise, they laugh at you. They encourage your vices and look for the end of the al-Maari family. As you have been, you are dangerous to no one but yourself. I have told you all this/' Durell said, "and now I am finished."

Amr said, "But I am a coward, Durell."

"We all know fear, at times."

"If I go with you, it will be only under protest. And I do not promise what I shall demand as revenge when we reach home. You are too strong. I resent this. I shall see what I can do when we are home. I want to see if you will weep and cry out for mercy. You trapped me, by coming here, and now I have no choice. They would have left me alone, otherwise. So you are my enemy, too, as well as they. Is this understood between us?"

"Yes. We are enemies. And friends."

"Later, I will not help you," Amr said. "I am ready to die here, if it must be. If it all proves to be too boring."

"You will not die," Durell said. "I will die first."

"For me?" The prince laughed.

"It is my job."

"How you must despise me now!"

"Yes," Durell said. "I do."

Before dawn, Zoraya awoke and led them down the beach to the cottage of a fisherman whose wife worked as a housemaid in her villa. The fisherman owned a small seine boat. For a sum of money that Durell paid out of the expense cash Haggarty had given him in Geneva, the fisherman went into Portoferraio and sailed his boat up the shore and brought it to the beach, where they waited. He reported much excitement in the town because of the events at the Count d'Igli's villa. Durell paid him an equal sum to forget what he had heard, and they sailed, not for the fishing grounds, but, for most of the day, southward along the coast, toward Ostia, the port of Rome.

The radio reported the mystery "tragedy" at the Count d'Igli's and the disappearance of Prince Amr al-Maari, heir to the throne of Jidrat.

In Ostia, Zoraya bought new clothes for herself and Durell walked through the Coney Island atmosphere of the resort with Amr and ordered supper for them, and then they took the crowded, high-speed suburban train, packed with chattering, sweating Romans returning from a day's holiday at the beach, to Rome.

In Rome, Durell telephoned Haggarty again. He picked up visas from a man in the lobby of the Excelsior Hotel, together with new airline tickets. Before the moon rose again, they were flying east to Athens, Ankara, and Karachi.

As far as he knew, they were neither followed nor suspected.

Chapter Eleven

At dawn, Naomi Haledi, the passenger aboard the Atlantic Maid, still had not slept.'Now, as the brassy sun lifted out of the sea beyond Jidrat, she heard the city wake and stir, like a giant grumbling at being disturbed.

The sounds of confusion began with a flat, heavy explosion in the oil field. The concussion rolled across the

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