Assignment Silver Scorpion by S. Aarons Edward

Author:S., Aarons, Edward
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2012-06-29T07:37:38+00:00

Chapter 14

HE KNEW exactly where he was going. Tom Adams, who worked at Monc et Cie at Lamy, Chad, had briefed him thoroughly after his stop at Lisbon. He put Georgette Finch out of his mind. She would have to take care of herself. The Chinese quarter was only a half mile away across the Getoba, beyond the central square that was dominated by a mosque and a tall, spired Portuguese cathedral. It was curious to see how the Teleks had become conditioned to their state of siege. From the moment the hourly bombardment ended, the streets filled with the trapped inhabitants-men, women, and children-along with a heavy sprinkling of uniformed rebels. Morale was running low among the civilians, Durell thought, and the sight of their long ration lines reminded him of his own hunger. Each man, woman, and child had a crumpled slip of paper, however, and he didn't dare join one of the lines without such a ration card. Water could be had at any of the public fountains, although he risked dysentery here. He paused long enough to wash his face and duck his head under the fountain, letting the spray of water cool and partially cleanse some of the grime off him. But then he let his hunger and thirst grow as he went on toward the Chinese quarter.

There wasn't much to it. A few small streets, with leaning wooden houses, Chinese signs hanging in the hot breeze, an ineffable scent of the Far East mingled with the flat dust of Africa. The Chinese quarter ended against the old medina wall, where once the proud Arabs had shut themselves off from the black Natangans. The moment that Durell entered the area, he felt that here, at least, there was a divorcement from the tragedy being played out all around the place. The shops were open, revealing wispy-bearded old men in black silken skull caps and stout Chinese matrons and tumbling, fat-cheeked children with slanted, bright sloe eyes of jet black. Durell checked the signs on the alley walls and found the one that Tom Adams had recommended. He had not mentioned the safe house to Georgette Finch. He did not know if she knew about it. But perhaps she would show up at Lu Chin's, in any case.

He followed the alley, picking his way among the playing children and the old men who sat and smoked in the hot sunlight. He ended up against the medina wall. He spotted a machinegun post up there and saw a regular patrol pacing along the crenellated top of the wall. Beyond the wall he could glimpse dense green jungle foliage. Painted signs in old Portuguese still survived on the gray stones of the barrier. Halfway toward it, Durell found the shop he wanted.

The Chinese, he thought, were the world's greatest commercial people. Wherever they went, they found something to sell, trade, or barter, something that was

needed. This particular shop catered to charms of all kinds, from specialized aphrodisiacs from China, India, and Mexico, to African gimcracks from beyond Boganda's borders.

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