Kaufman alighted and spoke some words to an Arab in a neat Western-style suit. Then he disappeared through a doorless entrance. The Arab came across to the car and in careful English ordered Andre and Fleming to follow him.
He took them across the courtyard, up some stone steps and through a beautifully ornamented door.
'Wait here, please,' he said. He closed the door behind him.
Fleming strolled round the room. It was small but high ceilinged. A series of narrow slits, fitted with modern glass, allowed panels of sunlight to pattern the stone floor. Persian carpets hung on the walls. There were comfortable modern chairs as well as fragile little oriental tables. On one of the latter stood a brass tray with a silver jug and tiny cups. Fleming picked up the jug. It was hot; the aroma of coffee smelt good. He poured some of the thick, syrupy liquid into the cups and handed one to Andre.
'What is this place?' she asked as she sipped the coffee.
Fleming took off his sports jacket and unbuttoned his shirt. 'A very hot country,' he grinned. 'A place called Azaran which seems to be small but likely to be notorious.
This is doubtless some pasha's desirable residence. Unless it's Kaufman's.'
'He is not a bad man,' said Andre.
Fleming glanced at her with surprise. 'You sense that? Basically you're right, I'm sure. The trouble is the hard veneer stuck on that lovely, harmless soul of his.'
But Andre's attention had drifted away again.
There was a rustle of the hangings in the far corner of the room. Janine Gamboul came towards them. She was wearing a silk sheath dress and managed to look both cool and eye-catching.
'Doctor Fleming?' she murmured, pausing in front of him, unsmiling.
'Who are you?' Fleming asked ruddy.
'My name is Gamboul,' she answered, turning from him and studying Andre.
'The lady of the house?' he asked.
She did not take her eyes off Andre. 'This is the home of Colonel Salim, a member of the Azaran Government. He could not come himself. He is extremely busy. Today is the anniversary of Azaran's independence, and this year the celebrations have a special meaning because the Government has terminated the oil agreements. In case of interference the frontier has been closed.'
'A great day, as you say,' Fleming said. 'And this Salim had us brought here?'
She turned then and looked him over slowly. 'I - that is to say, we - had you brought.'
'I see. And you - singular or plural - are the flowers-by-wire service, the great Intel?'
'I represent Intel,' she said coldly. She looked once more at Andre. 'And you are - ?'
'A colleague,' Fleming said quickly.
Janine Gamboul let the ghost of a smile play round her sensuous lips. 'You are - ?' She asked Andre again.
'We are what is popularly known as "just friends", in the rather old fashioned and more exact sense of the term Fleming said. 'Her name is Andre. Just Andre.'
'Please sit down, ma petite,' she said pleasantly to Andre.
'I hope you're not too tired from your journey; that you were well treated.'
'Not particularly,' Fleming answered for her.
'I'm sorry,' she said formally. 'We brought you here because we think we can help each other. You're on the run from the British Government. They won't get you here, this is a closed country. No extradition.'
'That's your version of helping us. Now suppose you explain how we're to be forced to help you?'
She was saved from losing her temper by the arrival of Salim.
The late ex-Ambassador was in a perfectly tailored uniform, with two rows of medals on his breast. He clearly found life very good indeed.
'Ah, Dr Fleming,' he exclaimed, flashing his white teeth and extending his hand. Fleming turned his back on him. Not put out at all, Salim went to Andre. 'And you are Miss - '
'Andre,' Janine said.
'Just- ?'
Gamboul shrugged. 'Si. So the loquacious Dr Fleming says.'
Salim took Andre's hand in both of his. 'I'm charmed,' he murmured admiringly.
Andre smiled a little. 'How do you do,' she said politely.
Salim released her hands and threw himself in a chair, stretching his long legs in their immaculately polished boots.
'Well, to explanations. Dr Fleming, we are now a new country. Except for our oil we are under-developed. Not since two thousand years ago, when we were a province with our own rights under the old Persian Empire of Xerxes, have we been anything but a slave state of other people. We need help now we are independent.'
'You go about hiring help in a curious way,' said Fleming.
Salim waved his hand expressively. 'How else could we have got you? The Intel organisation has sunk a great deal of capital here, in the form of industrial and research developments. As the host government we shall benefit. We have engaged a great many progressive and brilliant people - scientists.'
'Collected in the same way?' Fleming enquired.
'In different ways. Once they are here they find it worth while. We treat them well. They don't usually wish to give it up.'
'Do they have any option?'
'Let us have a drink,' Janine Gamboul interrupted. Salim nodded and pulled a bell cord.
'You're a physicist,' Dr Fleming, and a mathematician specialising in cryogenics,' she went on.
'Sometimes,' Fleming agreed.
Salim motioned to the manservant who brought a bottle-laden tray to put it down. 'What will you have, Janine?' he asked. 'We had another young scientist working here - Neilson .... What would the young lady and you like to drink? Whisky, or something soft?'
'This is very un-Moslem of you,' said Fleming with a small smile.
Salim turned to him slowly and seriously. 'I am a modern man,' he said without affectation and turned away.
'In that case,' said Fleming, 'Andre would like some fruit juice if it isn't laced. I'll have a Scotch, neat.' Fleming regarded his impassive back. 'So Jan Neilson was here? I suppose your intelligence service knows that Jan, Denis Bridger, and I were at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for a spell? It all begins to fit .... '
Salim handed Andre and Fleming their drinks. He busied himself with two glasses for Gamboul and himself. 'We thought a lot of Neilson; he was very brilliant.' His voice was detached, as if he were quoting a handout.
'But dead?' Fleming asked.
Salim turned again and stared calmly at him. 'Neilson did all the real organisation of our main research project. But he failed to complete it. Even if he had stayed I think he was in a blind alley.' He looked thoughtfully at the ice bobbing about in his glass. 'So, of course, we had to find a better man.'
'To do what?' Fleming found his hand was shaking with anger and fear.
Salim came close to him. 'You worked on the Thorness computer. We have one.'
'What sort?' Fleming asked, dreading the answer.
Gamboul gave a short laugh. 'You ought to know, Dr Fleming. Your late colleague Neilson built it.'
Fleming fought to keep calm. 'I suppose you don't really know what you've got hold of,' he said at last. 'I'll give you the best advice I can: blow it up.'
'As you blew up the other?' Gamboul's eyes were dancing with amused triumph. 'I'm afraid you won't have the same chances here.'
'How do you know that we, that I - '
She waited before she answered, savouring the pleasure of the impact to come. 'Professor Dawnay told us.'
'Dawnay!' Fleming could only stare at her.
'She came here of her own free will,' Salim interposed.
'With you and the lady professor we feel we have the needful set-up. The computer Neilson built is to be the basis of all the technology Mam'selle Gamboul's organisation has placed here.'
He crossed to the window slit and peered out. The noise of the crowd was an incoherent accompaniment to the still booming public address system. 'Those people out there are emerging from a long sleep,' he said with sincerity. 'You're a liberal-minded man, Fleming. You will help them to awake and take their place in the modern world.'