“I must have gotten you out of bed,” I said. “I’m sorry, I just wanted to see that you were settled in.” I wondered, even as I spoke the words, whether that was my only reason for being there.
“I am very glad you came back, Nick. I had not gone to bed yet. Please come in.”
I stepped into the room, and she closed and locked the door behind me. “I had a bottle of cognac sent up,” she said. “Would you like a glass?”
“No, thanks, I won’t be long. I wanted to tell you that I’m going up into the hills tomorrow, near Fez, to locate the general who knows where the lab is.”
“Djenina commands that area. Is it him?”
I sighed. “Yes, and now you know more than you should. I don’t want you to become any more involved, Gabrielle.”
She sat down on the edge of the double bed and pulled me down beside her. “I’m sorry I guessed, Nick. But, you see, I want to be involved. I want to make them pay for my uncle’s death. It is very important to me to help.”
“You have helped,” I told her.
“But I can do more, much more. Do you speak the Almohad dialect?”
“Straight Arabic is tough enough for me.”
“Then you need me,” she reasoned. “The general’s guards are Almohads from the High Atlas. Might it not be important to be able to communicate with them in their own language?”
I was going to give her a quick “no” but thought better of it. “Are you familiar with the area around El Hajeb?” I asked.
“I was raised around there,” she said with a broad, disarming smile. “I went to school in Fez as a child.”
I took the map from my pocket. “Does any of this look familiar to you?”
She studied the map silently for a long moment. “This map tells how to get to the old caliph’s palace. Is this where Djenina is living?”
“That’s what I’m told.”
“My family used to go there every Sunday.” She beamed smugly. “The place was open to the public for a while, as a museum. I know it well.”
“You’re familiar with the interior?”
“Every room.”
I returned the broad smile. “You’ve just bought yourself a ticket to Fez.”
“Oh, Nick!” She threw her long white arms around me.
I touched a curve of soft flesh under the sheer cloth when she kissed me, and the touch seemed to set her afire. She pressed more closely against me, inviting further exploration with her hand, as her lips moved on mine.
I did not disappoint her. When the kiss was over, she was trembling. I got up from the bed and snapped the light off, leaving the room in dim shadow. When I turned back to Gabrielle, she was slipping the peignoir off her shoulders. I watched the liquid movement. She was a voluptuous girl. “Take your clothes off, Nick.” I smiled in the dark. “Anything to oblige.” She helped me, her body brushing against me as she moved. In a moment, we were locked in another embrace, standing, her long thighs and full hips pressed against me.
“I want you,” she said so softly I could hardly hear the words.
I picked her up, carried her to the big bed, laid her down on it, and studied the soft, light body against the bedcovers. Then I moved onto the double bed beside her.
Later Gabrielle fell asleep in my arms, like a baby. After lying there with her beside me for a while, thinking of Djenina and Li Yuen and Damon Zeno, I finally slipped away from her, dressed, and left the room silently.
SIX
The next day we drove through the hills and mountains of northern Morocco to Fez and El Hajeb. We were in Gabrielle’s Citrõen DS-21 Pallas, a high-performance luxury car that hugged the mountain curves well. I drove most of the way because time was important to us and I could push the Citrõen harder.
For the most part it was dry, rocky country we went through. The scrawny greenery clung to the harsh terrain with a fierce determination to survive that was matched only by the Berbers who eked out a kind of living from the mountain rock. Goatherds stood tending flocks in lonely fields, and farmers were wrapped completely in their brown djellabas so that a passerby could not see their faces. Women sold grapes by the side of the road.
We drove directly to the mountain village of El Hajeb. It looked a thousand years old, the crowded-together houses of the medina showing crumbling, ancient brick. We found a small cafe where we took our chances on a lamb kebab lunch with a local wine. Gabrielle had a glass of tea afterward, and it turned out to be a frothy mixture of hot milk and weak tea, which she sipped and then left.
We got the map out and started off again into the mountains. This time we had to leave the main road and drive over some very primitive paths. They were rocky and bumpy, with craggy outcroppings of rock surrounding us at times. As we rounded a curve onto a green plateau, we saw the, estate.
“That’s it, Nick,” Gabrielle said. “It used to be called the Caliph Hammadi Palace.”
I pulled the Citrõen over toward a clump of trees at the side of the road. I did not want the guards spotting us just yet. The old palace was very large. Made of brick and stucco, it was all arches, wrought-iron gates, and balconies, with mosaic tile decorating the facade. It was an appropriate home for a very powerful man.
Around the palace were gardens that extended for about a hundred yards in a wide perimeter. This garden area was enclosed by a high iron fence. There was a big gate on a drive that led into the grounds, and I could see a guard in a military uniform on duty.
“So that’s where Djenina hangs out,” I said. “It makes a nice summer cottage, doesn’t it?”
Gabrielle smiled. “Generals are important in this country, despite the recent uprising.” This one is more important than anyone on his staff imagines.”
“The place appears heavily guarded,” Gabrielle said. “Even if we manage to get in, how will we get out?”
“We will not get in or out,” I said to her. “I win—”
I squinted into the lowering sun and saw a long, black car coming from the garden on the way to the front gate.
“What?” she asked.
“Unless I’m badly mistaken, here comes the general,” I said.
The black limousine, a Rolls-Royce, had stopped at the gate while the soldier, a submachine gun slung over his shoulder, unlocked it.
I shifted the Citrõen into low gear and twisted the wheel as the car shot forward. We moved off the road into high bushes just beyond the level shoulder, where the Citrõen was hidden from view.
The Rolls glided past on the dirt road, moving swiftly but almost noiselessly, raising a great cloud of burnt umber dust behind it. Soon it was gone. I climbed from the Citrõen, and Gabrielle followed.
“That was the general, all right,” I said. “I got a glimpse of him and saw the insignia. He looks like a tough hombre.”
“He has a tough reputation.”
“I just hope he’s decided to leave for the evening,” I said, glancing again at the peach-hued sun, already dipping behind the mountains that circled the palace. I looked down the road to a high, rocky escarpment that abutted the estate grounds. “Come on.”
I grabbed Gabrielle’s hand and pulled her along after me to the road, across it, and into the brush. We walked through low greenery for a hundred yards, always heading uphill, and found ourselves in rocks. We continued climbing until we crested the escarpment and moved out onto a rocky ledge that overlooked the palace and grounds, giving us a good view of the place.
We lay on our bellies on the rock, studying the scene below. Besides the guard at the gate, we saw at least two other armed soldiers up near the building itself.