Assignment - Zoraya by Edward S. Aarons

Author:Edward S. Aarons [Aarons, Edward S.]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

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 harbor like the clap of an ogre's hands, and Naomi got up slowly from her bunk to stare through the porthole. In her confusion, she thought for a moment that she was back in Budapest, when the Soviet tanks returned to crush the rebellion. An image came before her of machine guns ravening the crowds her father and brother had joined—and then the image was gone. A sheet of flame leaped in fury from the oil tanks and lit the pre-dawn sky. Minor blasts followed as individual storage tanks went up. In the unreal light, Naomi saw the tankers at the end of the feeder lines coming alive, unhooking the loading pipes and getting ready to cast off their moorings.

It was stifling in the cabin and the brass rim of the porthole was hot to the touch because the old freighter could not shed the heat of the day. Naomi did not dare unlock the cabin door. Once, during the night, she'd heard the voices of an official boarding party, heard the gutteral Arabic of a port officer demanding the crew's papers. MacPherson had protested in vain. Naked feet had slapped the steel decks nearby and bulkhead doors had slammed endlessly.

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