Border, Breed Nor Birth Part 3
"Yes, El Ha.s.san," she said, her voice expressionless. She didn't waste time. Homer Crawford heard the phone click as she hung up.
He was in a branch building of the post and telegraph network on the Rue des Resistance. Before leaving it, he looked out a window. Half a block away was the office of the Sahara Division of the African Development Project. Even as he watched, a dozen men hurried out the front door, fanned out in all directions.
Homer grinned sourly. Old Sven was moving fast.
He shot a quick glance around the lobby of the building. He had to get going. Zetterberg had started with a dozen men to trail down El Ha.s.san. He'd probably have a hundred involved before the hour was out.
A corridor turned off to the right. Homer hurried down it. At each door he looked inside. To whoever occupied the room he murmured a few words of apology in Wolof, the Sengalese lingua franca. The fourth office was empty.
Homer stood there before it for a long, agonizing moment, waiting for the right person to pa.s.s. Finally, the man he needed came along.
About six feet tall, about a hundred and eighty; dressed in the local native dress and on the ragged side.
Homer said to him authoritatively, in the Wolof tongue, "You there, come in here!" He opened the door, and pointed into the office.
The other, taken aback, demurred.
Homer's face and tone went still more commanding. "Step in here, before I call the police."
It was all a mistake, of course. The Senegalese made the gesture equivalent to the European's shrug, and entered the office.
Homer came in behind him, closed the door. He wasted no time in preliminaries. Before the native turned, the American's hand lashed out in a karate blow which stunned the other. Homer Crawford caught him, even as he fell, and lowered him gently to the floor.
"Sorry, old boy," he muttered, "but this is probably the most profitable thing that's happened to you this year."
He stripped off the other's clothes, as rapidly as he could make his hands fly. The other was still out and probably would be for another ten minutes, Crawford estimated. He stripped off his own clothes and donned the native's.
Last of all, he took his wallet from his pocket, divided the money it contained and stuffed a considerable wad of it into the European clothing he was abandoning.
"Don't spend all of that in one place," he growled softly.
Homer dragged the other to a side of the room so that the body could not be spotted from the entrance. Then he crossed to the door, opened it and stepped into the corridor beyond.
There was no need for sulking. He walked out the front door and headed away from the dock and administration buildings area and toward the native section, pa.s.sing the Reunited Nations building on the way.
Dakar teems with mult.i.tudes of a dozen tribes come in from the jungles and the bush, the desert and the swamp areas of the sources of the Niger, to look for work on the new projects, to visit relatives, to market for the products of civilization--or to gawk. Homer Crawford disappeared into them. One among many.
Toward noon, he entered the cleared area which was the restaurant he had named to Isobel and squatted before the pots to the far end of the Vietnamese owned eatery, examining them with care. He chose a large chunk of barbequed goat and was served it with a half pound piece of unsalted Senegalese bread, torn from a monstrous loaf, and a twisted piece of newspaper into which had been measured an ounce or so of coa.r.s.e salt. He took his meal and went to as secluded a corner as he could find.
Homer Crawford chuckled inwardly. That morning he had breakfasted in the most sw.a.n.k hotel in West Africa. He wished there was some manner in which he could have invited Sven Zetterberg to dine here with him.
Or, come to think of it, a group of the students he had once taught sociology at the University of Michigan. Or, possibly, prexy Wallington, under whom he had worked while taking his doctor's degree.
Yes, it would have been interesting to have had a luncheon companion.
A native woman, on the stoutish side but with her hair done up in one of the fabulously ornate hair styles specialized in by the Senegalese, and wearing a flowing, shapeless dress of the garish textiles run off purposely for this market in j.a.pan and Manchester, waddled up to take a place nearby. She bore a huge skewer of barbequed beef chunks, and a hunk of bread not unlike Homer's own.
She grumbled uncomfortably, her back to the American, as she settled into a position on the floor. And she mumbled as she began chewing at the meat.
_No table manners_, Homer Crawford grinned inwardly. He wondered how long it would take for the others to get here. He wasn't worried about Isobel, Cliff Jackson and Jake Armstrong. It would take time before Zetterberg's Reunited Nations cloak and dagger boys got around to them, but he wasn't sure that she'd be able to locate his own team in time. That bit he'd given the Swede official about his being so bully-bully with the other Reunited Nations teams was in the way of being an exaggeration, with the idea of throwing the other off.
Actually, working in the field on definite a.s.signments, it was seldom you ran into other African Development Project men. But perhaps it would tie Zetterberg up, wondering just who he could trust to send looking for El Ha.s.san.
He finished off his barbequed goat and the bread and wiped his hands on his clothes. n.o.body here yet. To have an excuse for staying, he would have to buy a bottle of Gazelle beer, the cheap Senegalese brew which came in quart bottles and was warm and on the ga.s.sy side.
It was then that the woman in front of him, without turning, said softly, "El Ha.s.san?"
II
Homer Crawford stared at her, unbelievingly. The woman couldn't possibly be an emissary from Isobel or from one of his own companions.
This situation demanded the utmost secrecy, they hadn't had time to screen any outsiders as to trustworthiness.
She turned. It was Isobel. She chuckled softly, "You should see your face."
His eyes went to her figure.
"Done with mirrors," Isobel said. "Or, at least, with pillows."
Homer didn't waste time. "Where are the others? They should be here by now."
"We figured that the fewer of us seen on the streets, the better. So they're waiting for you. Since I was the most easily disguised, the least suspicious looking, I was elected to come get you."
"Waiting where?"
She licked the side of her mouth, a disconcerting characteristic of hers, and looked at him archly. "Those pals of yours have quite a bit on the ball on their own. They decided that there was a fairly good chance that Sven Zetterberg wasn't exactly going to fall into your arms, so they took preliminary measures. Kenny Ballalou rented a small house, here in the native quarter. We've all rendezvoused there. See, you aren't the only one on the ball."
Homer frowned at her, for the moment being in no mood for humor. "What was the idea of sitting here for the past five minutes without even speaking? You must have recognized me, knowing what to look for."
She nodded. "I ... I wasn't sure, Homer, but I had the darnedest feeling I was being followed."
His glance was sharp now. First at her, then a quick darting around the vicinity. "Woman's intuition," he snapped, "or something substantial?"
She frowned at him. "I'm not a ninny, Homer."
His voice softened and he said quickly, "Don't misunderstand, Isobel.
I know that."
She forgot about her objection to his tone. "Even intuition doesn't come out of a clear sky. Something sparks it. Subconscious psi, possibly, but a spark."
"However?" he prodded.
"I took all precautions. I can't seem to put my finger on anything."
"O.K.," he said decisively. "Let's go then." He came to his feet and reached a hand down for her.
"Heavens to Betsy," she said, "don't do that."
"What?"