A change of strategy was called for, and to pursue it Blaine headed for the door.
Two hours had passed with Natalya’s handcuffed form seated before the huge desk of the equally huge Vasquez.
“He won’t come,” she told him again. “He’ll know it’s a trap.”
“Ah, dear lady,” began the fat man, patting his cheeks with a handkerchief that was already grimy with sweat, “my sources place him in Casablanca, and he will come because I represent the end of the trail he’s been following.”
“The crystals …”
“Remarkable, aren’t they?”
“You don’t know—”
“I know when McCracken arrives I will have you to use against him to provide me the advantage I need.” He sighed mightily, his bulbous stomach stirring beneath his suit jacket. The fat man’s receding hairline made even more prominent the excess flesh which seemed to stretch out his jowls. He breathed noisily. “I’m starting to feel, though, that this is not the best of places to bait a trap for my old friend McCrackenballs.” He nodded to the four guards gathered around her. “I will have these men escort you to another of my establishments, eminently less cultured than this but better for our purposes.” He nodded to himself. “We’ll wait a few more hours. After that, I promise you a quick death since I remain a gentleman.”
The guards led her from the room and Vasquez followed them down the hallway to the top of the landing that overlooked the back section of the Cafe American. Natalya knew her move would have to come quick, but she also knew that Vasquez’s guards would be scattered among the cafe’s customers. And who knew how many there might be in addition to the four she could identify?
They started to lead her down the steps, handcuffs carefully concealed, and Natalya was ready to feign a trip and take her chances with one of the guards’ purloined guns, when a sound very much like thunder shook the smooth walls of the Cafe American. The chandeliers trembled and patrons grasped hold of glasses atop their tables to prevent them from toppling.
A pair of door guards had just reached the main entrance when the double doors crashed open in one savage thrust to allow a troop of Berber horsemen to charge through. They negotiated the various alcoves quickly, passing under the arches into the back section in just seconds. And Natalya caught a good look at the man garbed in robes at their lead, horse braying, rifle in hand.
The only Berber sporting a beard.
McCracken had gone straight up to the horseman he had identified as the Berber leader and uttered the three words taught him long ago when he had done a favor for the Berbers, a people he had always respected. The man looked down at him in shock. The words formed a bond, a pact, signifying a debt owed to any man who spoke them, words never passed to any but the bearer. Honor for the Berbers rose above all else.
The Berber leader climbed down from his horse, walked with McCracken off to the side of the road, and asked him there what his bidding might be.
Blaine told him.
Natalya threw herself into motion as soon as her eyes locked with Blaine’s. She tore free of the guards’ grasp when the commotion distracted them and hurled herself down the steps, just as the Berbers, expert marksmen without peer, began firing away with both hands clutching their rifles. They bellowed above the blasts, playing out the fantasia ritual for real.
McCracken leaped from his horse and used it for cover as he made for Natalya. He shielded her with his body and fired his rifle toward the soldiers left standing near the steps. More of Vasquez’s guards appeared about them, from behind every alcove and wall it seemed, but the Berbers were more than equal to the task. Incredible as it may have seemed, several of the fifteen horsemen who had rushed into the Cafe American handled single-shot rifles which had to be reloaded after each pull of the trigger even as they continued in motion on horseback in the narrow confines. Tables toppled over and crashed to the floor. Glass shattered. Through all the chaos, the cafe’s patrons did their best to make for the door or find areas of cover. The chaos allowed some of Vasquez’s men to make good on their targets, but most of these shots required exposing their positions, and inevitably there were Berbers ready to fire at them.
Blaine threw off his robes and led the handcuffed Natalya across the floor, dodging behind a series of horses en route to the exit. The Berbers realized his plan when he was almost to the first archway and pulled their horses into a new formation. A few of the animals rose on their hind legs and kicked at the air, their heads just missing the ceding.
On the main floor, Sam’s counterpart was long gone but the melody of “As Time Goes By” continued, revealing a player piano.
Blaine reached the second archway and hoisted Natalya atop a white Berber horse behind one of the group’s leaders. The horse was off instantly, knocking over a pair of tables and lunging through the ruined entrance doors. McCracken pulled himself on board while the animal was running, still searching for purchase while the horseman urged the animal on, holding on to Natalya for dear life when they leaped onto the street.
But a bullet found their horseman. He was hurled off and the animal rose in fright, tossing Blaine and Natalya to the street as well. At first McCracken thought the bullet was a stray but more shots started up immediately from positions of cover across the street. Damn, Vasquez must have had men already in position, leaving nothing to chance.
Blaine shielded Natalya on the street, bullets flying everywhere as the festival erupted in chaos. Participants in elaborate sets and displays, many costumed, all fled. Tables full of souvenirs and foods were upturned, contents dumped to the ground. Amidst it all the Berbers continued to rise tall on horseback, negotiating through the crowd while firing as best they could at the gunmen across the street.
Blaine realized that with more of Vasquez’s men starting to emerge from the Cafe American, the Berbers were about to be caught in a crossfire. Their only option was to regroup and rush en masse across the street to tum the tide of the battle. The Berbers’ incredible organization amazed McCracken. The best shooters among them continued to return enemy fire while the rest made it across the street as best they could, discarding their rifles and drawing long, curved swords instead.
As the first of Vasquez’s men appeared from within the cafe, Blaine and Natalya lunged back to their feet, each grasping a rifle belonging to a felled Berber, M-l carbines dating back forty years at least, and took cover behind a toppled fruit stand in order to buy the Berbers the time they needed across the street. The old-fashioned bolt-assembly rifles required that they make each bullet count, which they did at the outset by dropping the first four of Vasquez’s men to emerge from the door.
“Like to get back in there and find the fat man himself,” Blaine yelled to Natalya between rounds. “He’s the only one who knows for sure where the crystals are.”
Natalya was aiming again, with great difficulty, since handcuffs still bound her wrists. Vasquez’s men had stopped emerging but plenty had taken cover behind the iron cocktail tables outside the front of the cafe.
Across the street, the Berbers had used their razor-sharp swords on the supports holding up the awnings over the shops where Vasquez’s gunmen were stationed. The strategy forced the enemy to show themselves, and the battle turned hand-to-hand where the Berbers’ swords were infinitely superior to automatic rifles. Their horses charged through debris as the riders’ blades whistled in deadly arcs that sent ribbons of blood through the air.