“You’re a regular whiz with math,” observed Mayor McCluskey dryly.
Paz ignored him. “My predecessor failed to make his point with you. The leaders of any group are responsible for that group’s actions.”
“We ain’t a group, friend. We’re a town you got no business bein’ in.”
“Your point is academic. Mine is not. My predecessor was lax in his response to problems, and the problems festered. I had hoped the kind of response I had planned could be prevented in view of increased vigilance on your own parts. Obviously I was mistaken. Unless you produce for me now the man who has been killing my men, I will have no choice but to act.”
“We don’t know anything,” said Dog-ear.
“And if we did, we’d piss in our soup ‘fore telling you,” added Sheriff Heep. “Whoever it is got the only sense in this town. At this rate, a few more weeks and there won’t be no more of you bastards left.”
“Now it’s I who must compliment your math, Sheriff,” said Guillermo Paz, lifting his hand from his mustache to pat the taller man on the shoulder. “But since we are on the subject of subtraction, perhaps you gentlemen should follow me outside.”
Heep and Dog-ear gazed at each other as they exited, with a half-dozen soldiers following close behind. What they saw stole their breath away and set them trembling. Across the street, lined up against the front of the boarded-up K Mart, were six citizens of Pamosa Springs with their hands tied behind their backs. Fifteen feet before them stood three soldiers armed with automatic rifles.
“Six of your people,” Pax explained. “One for each of mine lost so far. But I am willing to forego this equalization if you give me the killer; at least tell me who you think he might be.”
“Damnit, we don’t know!” pleaded Dog-ear. “Can’t you see that?”
“What I see is that someone in this town is an expert at what he does. He has penetrated our security and killed without ever being seen or leaving a trace, only bodies. Such a man could not go unnoticed by men in your position.”
“But there isn’t anybody like that in the Springs,” ranted McCluskey. “Hasn’t been for years. Maybe after Korea but we all got old. Look at us. See for yourself.”
Paz cocked his head toward the six figures lined up before the building. “I’m looking at them. They are about to die.”
“You can’t do this!” screeched Dog-ear, starting forward until he was restrained by two soldiers.
“Tell me who is killing my men.”
“We don’t know! I swear it!”
Paz turned to the rifle bearers. “Ready!”
“Please,” begged Dog-ear, “take us instead!”
“Aim!”
“We don’t know! We don’t know!”
“Fire!”
The bursts from the rifles lasted barely five seconds, slamming three of the victims up against the store front and dropping three as they stood. Blood spread and pooled, seeming to form one splotch across Main Street. A jean-clad leg and sneakered foot kicked once more. A red-smeared dress fluttered in the breeze.
“Oh God,” sobbed Dog-ear. “Oh God, oh God, oh God….”
“Others will die,” Paz promised. “Ten for every one of my soldiers who meets the same fate as the other six. And I think, gentlemen, I will accept your offer as well. Take them,” he ordered the men behind Dog-ear and Sheriff Heep. “And lock them in the jail.”
Chapter 24
The trawler rode the waves listlessly, protesting each bit of speed McCracken requested of it with a rumble that led him to ease back on the throttle. He stood on the exposed bridge in the morning winds, steering for the Moroccan port of Tangier en route to Marrakesh and the shadowy El Tan.
With Washington no longer supporting his quest, and in fact probably pursuing him, he decided it would be safer not to make a continuous journey by air from country to country. Customs details would accumulate on a man of McCracken’s description traveling from Athens, where his enemies in Washington now knew he had been. A rental car and then a boat were the safest and fastest means to flee Spain and reach Morocco. He almost fell asleep at the wheel several times before reaching a port in Tarifa on the Strait of Gibraltar. Arriving there at the peak of darkness in the early morning hours of Sunday, he was able to steal the trawler and set out to sea.
Through the long hours he had only his thoughts for company, and the company wasn’t pleasant. Fatigue, and lingering injuries courtesy of the Minotaur, added to his anguish. He felt confused, no longer sure what exactly he was after. He had started out on the trail of Atragon, hoping it would bring him to T.C.’s murderer. Natalya brought Raskowski into the picture and the trails separated. And yet he had continued on his probably hopeless quest. Why?
The question had plagued him throughout the long voyage and in the end he supposed the answer was that there were millions of people, innocent people like T.C., who might die if he failed. He knew he could just walk away and let the world take its chances. His arrangements were made: There was plenty of money in discreet Caribbean banks. But then the buffer he formed between the masses and the fools who ruled them would be gone and, no matter how hard he tried not to, he could not help but feel for the people who were as much victims of the fools’ decisions as he was. He was still fueled by T.C.’s senseless murder. But he realized that she could be best avenged by stopping Raskowski from killing millions of others like her.
He docked at Tangier just past noon, abandoned the trawler, and made his way to the airport where flights for Marrakesh left regularly. The terminal was jammed, though, and it was nearly two hours later before he squeezed on to an eighteen-passenger turboprop plane.
Upon arriving in Marrakesh, McCracken took a cab from the airport to Djema El Fna Square, center of activity in the city’s ancient sector. Since it closed at nightfall, his major concern all day had been that he wouldn’t make it in time and would waste the entire night as a result. But he arrived with an hour to spare and set about locating Abidir the snake charmer.
The square was a haunt for both tourists and locals. The merchants screamed prices that were four times too high, screamed as if to drown each other out. Bargaining had become an art here at Djema El Fna, the merchants enjoying it as much as the tourists. They sold their wares from the backs of horse-drawn carriages or beneath canopied shops set up in the morning and occasionally toppled by the wind. They knew only as much of a given language as served them, always the conversion tables for francs and dollars. To listen to their claims, they made up a uniformly generous lot whose children frequently went to bed hungry due to the generosity of their fathers’ merchant souls.
Blaine walked among the shops and stands. Distinct sections of the square were reserved for storytellers, acrobats, fire-eaters and sidewalk musicians who left large tins about in which passersby might deposit money for the “free” entertainment.
Abidir’s spot turned out to be separate from the other snake charmers, down a small side street lined with shops already closed for the day. The charmer sat stubbornly on, as if to arouse the pathos of those passing by to gaze at a blind man who could not tell the time of day. A cobra dangled around his neck and an empty silver cup sat before him.