The roof was on several levels, and there were open spaces across an interior court and between the different levels. I started working my way toward a service hatch but found that a ten-foot space separated me from the section I wanted to reach.
The surface of the roof was curved tile, and it was difficult to perform acrobatics on it. Also, I didn’t want to be heard downstairs. I took a long hard look at the open space, backed up a few feet, ran, and sprang across the black gulf. I landed on the very edge of the other roof. I almost lost my balance and fell backward, so I leaned far forward at the waist. But that made my feet slip under me. In a split-second I was sliding off.
I grabbed frantically as I slid, but my fingers found nothing to hold on to, and I was going over.
Then, just as I was sure I was on my way down, my hands caught the eave trough which drained rainwater from the roof. It groaned and bent under my weight as my body jerked to an abrupt halt. My weight pulled my left hand free, but the right one held. The gutter let go at a bracket near me and dropped me another foot. But then it held tight.
I closed my left hand over the trough, waited half a minute for some strength to return to my arms, then did a slow chin-up. From that position I hooked my arms into the gutter and pulled myself arduously back onto the roof.
I squatted up there, sweating. I hoped things would go better when I got inside. Slowly and cautiously I moved over the slippery tile to the closed hatch. Kneeling beside it, I pulled on it. It seemed stuck at first, but then it pulled open, and I was looking into blackness.
I lowered myself into the dark room below. It was an unused, attic-type place, and it had a door that led to a corridor. I moved out into the corridor which was also dark, but I could see light coming from the bottom of a stairwell. I went down the stairs, which were dusty and full of cobwebs. The railing was all hand-carved hardwood. When I reached the bottom, I was standing in the second-floor corridor. It was fully carpeted, with mosaic decorating its walls. There were rooms with heavy wooden doors off each side of the corridor. The study Gabrielle had mentioned was to my right, and I tried the door. It was open. I entered and snapped a light on.
I had been right. The room was not used as the general’s office. Undoubtedly he did his work in the library downstairs, where the guards were. But the room was still interesting. The walls were covered with maps of Morocco and adjacent countries, the military installations marked with pins. One large map showed the pattern of fighting in a recent military exercise, a war game. Then I saw it. In a corner of the room, stuck on the wall with thumbtacks, was a small map, a map drawn by hand, but expertly done.
I went over and took a good look at it. It was of a part of southern Morocco, the dry arid area that André Delacroix had talked about. On the left edge of the map was the village of Mhamid, the one Delacroix had described to Pierrot, the one near the laboratory. There was a road drawn from that village, and at the end of the road was a simple circle with an “X” in it. There seemed little doubt of it: the mark revealed the location of the super-secret laboratory of Damon Zeno and his L5 boss, Li Yuen.
I tore the paper from the wall and stuffed it into a pocket. Then I turned the light off and left the room.
There might have been other information on the facility in the General’s office downstairs, but I had as much as I needed. I had the map and all I had to do was get out with it.
There was a broad, elegant stairway down to the reception hall from the second floor. I stood at the top and peered below, the Luger in hand. I did not see the guards who had been standing there earlier. Maybe they were having a snack in the kitchen.
I moved slowly down the steps, one at a time. It was uncomfortably quiet. Just as I reached the bottom and stood looking out through the open front doors, I heard the double roar in the night. Gabrielle had fired the gun.
I started to run outside when the voice came from behind me. It spoke in English.
“Stop! Do not move!”
There were at least two of them. As I whirled around, I dropped to one knee. There was a thin, tall one and a stocky one — the men I had seen before. As my eyes focused on them, I automatically looked for weapons. The thin one had his out already. It was a heavy military automatic, similar in style to the U.S. Army .45. The big gun banged loudly — and missed because I had crouched low as I spun. I squeezed the trigger of the Luger and it barked its angry reply. The slug caught the thin soldier in the gut, picked him a foot off the floor and slammed him back against the bottom post of the staircase.
The stocky soldier threw himself at me. He had not yet gotten to his gun. I turned the Luger toward him, but he hit me before I could fire. I fell to the floor under the impact of his body and felt a big fist crunch into my face.
His other hand was going for Wilhelmina. We rolled toward the open doors and then back to where we had fallen. He was strong, and his grip on my right wrist was turning it. My hand struck the wall and the Luger slipped from my grasp.
I slugged him hard, catching him full in the face, and there was a crunch of bone in his nose. He fell heavily off me, his nose bleeding. He muttered something as he went for the gun on his belt.
In the ensuing split-second I glanced around and saw an urn sitting on a shelf beside me. I grabbed the urn, which was heavy, and threw it hard toward the stocky man just as his gun cleared the holster. It hit him in the face and chest and broke into pieces as he went down under its impact. There was a low grunt from him as he hit the floor and then lay still.
At that moment the second man aimed his gun at me and fired. The slug chipped into the wall between my right arm and my chest; it would have killed me if it had been a few inches to the left.
As I dropped the stiletto into my hand, the thin soldier propped himself onto his elbow for another shot. He re-aimed just as I released the knife. The gun fired, creasing my neck, and the knife hit him over the heart. He fell back to the floor.
Getting to my knees to retrieve Wilhelmina, I thought it was over, but I was wrong. There was a wild yell behind me from the direction of the hallway to the kitchen, and when I turned I saw a heavy man swinging a meat cleaver toward my head.
This was obviously the general’s cook, who had been brought to the front of the place by the gunfire. The cleaver descended on me, glistening brightly in the light. I ducked backward and the blade struck the ornament on the stairway post behind my head, completely severing it.
I rolled away from the next blow, and it chopped a small hall table in half. He was fast with the weapon, and I had no time to make any but defensive moves. The third chop with the heavy, silver-gleaming cleaver came right at my face. I was against a wall, and I moved to my left just a split-second before the weapon buried itself in the wall behind me.
In the moment it took him to try to wrench the cleaver free, I pulled a leg up close to my chest and kicked out, hitting him hard over the heart.
His jaw flew open as he released his hold on the buried cleaver and fell backward to the floor, making ugly grunting gasps.
I saw the Luger near me and stretched out my arm to retrieve it.
“That will be quite enough!” the loud voice commanded.
I turned and saw the tall, husky General Djenina standing in the doorway. In his hand was one of the bulky automatics, and it was aimed at my head. Behind him, in the tight grasp of an orderly, was Gabrielle.
SEVEN
“I am sorry, Nick,” the girl said.
Another uniformed man, probably the general’s chauffeur, moved into the hallway. He held a gun on me too, as he came over and kicked the Luger out of my reach, glancing at the men on the floor. He muttered something in Arabic.