Akhmed screamed. Only he couldn't manage a real scream anymore. Only those gurgling, inhuman sounds of pain beyond pain.
His wife had been luckier. She lay a few feet away. Her throat had been slit so deeply and widely that her head was nearly severed from her neck.
The cigar-tip was applied to Akhmed's flesh again. His body twitched convulsively. I tried not to hear the sounds that came from his mouth, or see the bubbling blood that came out at the same time.
"You are still being foolish, Akhmed," the man with the cigar said. "You think that if you still refuse to speak, we will let you die. But I assure you, you will remain alive — and be sorry that you are alive — for as long as we wish you to — until you tell us what we wish to know."
Akhmed said nothing. I doubt if he even heard the man's words. He was a lot closer to death than these men realized.
"Alors, Henri," said the other, in the drawling French of one born in Marseilles, "shall we castrate this filth?"
I'd seen enough. I took one step backward, concentrated all my energies, and kicked. The door exploded from its hinges and hurtled forward into the room. I was right behind it. Even as the two men turned, my finger was gently squeezing Wilhelmina's trigger. A bright circle of red appeared in the forehead of the man with the cigar. He spun around, then plummeted forward. He was a corpse before he hit the floor. I could have disposed of the other man a split second later with another bullet, but I had other plans for him. Before his hand could reach the.38 revolver holstered under his left arm, Wilhelmina had disappeared, and Hugo was sliding into my hand. There was a bright flash of steel blade flickering through the air, and Hugo's point sliced neatly through the tendons of the second man's gun arm. He screamed, clawing at his arm. But he was no coward. Even with his right arm hanging bloodied and useless, he hurled himself at me. I deliberately waited until he was only inches away before I stepped aside. My elbow tapped his skull as his body, now totally out of control, hurtled past me. His head snapped up as the rest of his body slammed point blank to the floor. He was hardly down before I had rolled him over, face up, and pressed two fingers on the exposed sciatic nerve of his bloodied arm. The scream that came from his throat almost deafened me.
"Who do you work for?" I gritted. "Who sent you?"
He stared up at me, his eyes wide with pain.
"Who sent you?" I demanded again.
The terror in his eyes was overwhelming, but he said nothing. I pressed the sciatic nerve again. He shrieked, and his eyes rolled upward.
"Talk, damn you," I gritted. "What Akhmed felt was pleasure compared to what's going to happen to you if you don't talk. And just remember, Akhmed was my friend."
For an instant he simply stared up at me. Then, before I realized what he was doing, his jaws moved swiftly and violently. I heard a faint splintering sound. The man's body stiffened, and his mouth stretched into a rictus of a smile. Then the body slumped, inert. A faint smell of bitter almonds came to my nostrils.
A suicide capsule, hidden in his teeth. Die before you talk, they had told him — whoever they were — and he had done just that.
I pushed his body aside. The faint moans I could still hear coming from Akhmed were tearing at my guts. I retrieved Hugo from the floor, and, cradling his body in my left arm, cut my friend's bonds. I laid him on the floor as gently as possible. His breathing was shallow, weak.
"Akhmed," I said softly. "Akhmed, my friend."
He stirred. One hand fumbled for and found my arm. Incredibly, something like a smile appeared on the tortured, bloodied mouth.
"Carter," he said. "My… friend."
"Akhmed, who were they?"
"Thought… sent by St. Pierre… opened gate for them after bar closed. Carter… listen…"
His voice was getting weaker. I bent my head to his mouth.
"Trying to reach you for two weeks… something going on here… our old friends…"
He coughed. A trickle of blood slid from his lips.
"Akhmed," I said. "Tell me."
"My wife," he whispered. "Is she all right?"
There was no point in telling him.
"She's okay," I said. "Just knocked unconscious."
"Good… woman," he whispered. "Fought like hell. Carter… listen…"
I bent closer.
"…tried… contact you, then St. Pierre. Our old friends… the bastards… heard they'd kidnapped somebody…"
"Kidnapped who?"
"Don't know… but… brought him first here, Tangier, then…"
I could hardly distinguish the words.
"Then where, Akhmed?" I asked urgently. "Where did they take him after Tangier?"
A spasm seized his body. His hand scrabbled along my arm. The mutilated mouth made a last desperate effort to speak.
"…leopards…" he seemed to say."…leopards… pearl…"
Then: "The volcano, Carter… volcano…"
His head fell to one side, and his body relaxed.
Akhmed Djoulibi, my friend, was dead.
He had repaid my favors. And then some.
And he'd left me with a legacy. An enigmatic set of words.
Leopards.
Pearl.
And, the same word that Remy St. Pierre had last spoken on this earth:
Volcano.
Three
When I brought the girl through the dummy wine barrel and into the cellar, she was shivering. I could tell from her eyes that it was as much from fear as from cold.
"What happened?" she pleaded, pulling at my arm. "I heard shots. Is anyone hurt?"
"Four," I said. "All dead. Two were my friends. The others were scum. Scum of a particular kind."
"A particular kind?"
I guided her down the hall, to the room where Akhmed and his wife lay dead alongside their torturers, their murderers. I wanted her to see what kind of people we were dealing with — just in case she hadn't been sufficiently educated by the massacre in the club.
"Look," I said grimly.
She looked inside. Her mouth fell open and she went white. An instant later she was halfway down the hall, bent over, gagging.
"See what I mean?" I said.
"Who… who are they? Why…"
"The two Moroccans are my friends, Akhmed and his wife. The other two are the men who tortured and killed them."
"But why?" she asked, her face still white with shock. "Who are they? What did they want?"
"Just before he died, Akhmed told me that he'd been trying to get in touch with me for several weeks. He'd gotten wind of something going on here in Tangier. Somebody had been kidnapped, and brought here. Ring any bells?"
Her eyes widened.
"Kidnapped? You mean — it might be my father?"
"Remy St. Pierre must have thought so. Because when Akhmed couldn't contact me, he got in touch with St. Pierre. Which is undoubtedly why Remy brought you and me here."
"To talk to Akhmed?"
I nodded.
"But before Akhmed could talk to anybody, these two men got to him. They posed as being messengers from St. Pierre, which means they knew Akhmed had been trying to contact Remy. They wanted to find out how much Akhmed knew, and what — if anything — he'd passed on."
"But who were they?"
I took her by the arm and guided her down the hall. We started up the stairs that led to the bar.
"Akhmed referred to them as 'our old friends, " I said. "But he didn't mean friendly friends. Just before he was killed, Remy St. Pierre used those same words to refer to the people who might be behind the disappearance of your father. He also said something about these people being in a position to infiltrate RENARD, and to know enough about your father to kidnap him at the right moment."