Mack Reynolds - Border, Breed Nor Birth

Elmer Allen had been leaning on his pilgrim’s staff, as though weary with this whole matter. He said to Ostrander, interestedly, “So you’ve been checked out on judo? Know anything about the use of the quarterstaff?”

Ostrander kept his gun traversing between the four of them. “Eh?” he said.

Elmer Allen shifted his grip on his staff infinitesimally. Of a sudden the end of the staff, now gripped with both hands near the center, moved at invisibly high speed. There was a crack of the wrist bone, and the gun went flying. The other end of the staff flicked out and rapped the C.I.A. operative smartly on the head.

Fredric Ostrander crumpled to the floor.

“Confound it, Elmer,” Crawford said. “What’d you have to go and do that for? I wanted to talk to him some more and send a message back to Zetterberg. Sooner or later we’ve got to make our peace with the Reunited Nations.”

Elmer said embarrassedly, “Sorry, it just happened. I was merely going to knock the gun out of his hand, but then I couldn’t help myself. I was tired of hearing that holier-than-thou voice of his.”

Kenny Ballalou looked down at the fallen man gloomily. “He’ll be out for an hour. You’re lucky you didn’t crack his skull.”

“Holy mackerel,” Cliff Jackson said. “I’m going to have to learn to operate one of those things.”

Elmer Allen handed him the supposed pilgrim’s staff. “Best hand-to-hand combat weapon ever invented,” he said. “The British yeoman’s quarterstaff. Of course, this is a modernized version. Made of epoxy resin glass-fiber material, treated to look like wood. That stuff can turn a high-velocity bullet, let alone a sword, and it can be bent in a ninety degree arc without the slightest effect, although it’d take a power-driven testing machine to do it.”

“All right, all right,” Homer said. “We haven’t got time for lessons in the use of the quarterstaff. Let’s put some thought to this situation. If Ostrander here was able to find us, somebody else would, too.”

Isobel licked the side of her mouth. “He was probably following me. Remember, I told you, Homer?”

Kenny said, “If he had anyone with him, he’d have brought them along to cover him. You’ve got to give him credit for bravery, taking on the whole bunch of us by himself.”

“Um-m-m,” Homer said. “I wish he was with us instead of against us.”

Jake Armstrong said, “Well, this solves one problem.”

They looked at him.

He said, “Just as sure as sure, he’s got a car parked somewhere. A car with some sort of United States or Reunited Nations emblem on it.”

“So what?” Kenny said.

“So you’ve got to get out of town before the search for you really gets under way. With such a car, you can get past any roadblock that might already be up between here and the Yoff airport.”

Elmer Allen had sunk to his knees and was searching the fallen C.I.A. man. He came up with car keys and a wallet.

Homer said to Jake Armstrong, “Why the Yoff airport?”

“Our plane is there,” Jake told him. “The one assigned Isobel, Cliff and me by the AFAA. You’re going to have to make time. Get somewhere out in the ah, boondocks, where you can begin operations.”

Bey said thoughtfully, “He’s right, Homer. Anybody against us, like our friend here”—he nodded at Ostran-der—“is going to try to get us quick, before we can get the El Hassan movement under way. We’ve got to get out of Dakar and into some area where they’ll have their work cut out trying to locate us.”

Homer Crawford accepted their council. “O.K., let’s get going. Jake, you’ll stay in Dakar, and at first play innocent. As soon as possible, take a plane for Geneva. A soon as you’re there, send out press releases to all the news associations and the larger papers. Announce yourself as Foreign Minister of El Hassan and demand that he be recognized as the legal head of state of all North Africa.”

“Wow,” Cliff Jackson said.

“Then play it by ear,” Homer finished.

He turned to the others. “Bey, where’d you leave our two hover-lorries when you came here to Dakar?”

“Stashed away in the ruins of a former mansion in Timbuktu. Hired two Songhai to watch them.”

“O.K. Cliff, you’re the only one in European dress. Take this wallet of Ostrander’s. You’ll drive the car. If we run into any roadblocks between here and the Yoff airport, slow down a little and hold the wallet out to show your supposed identification. They won’t take the time to check the photo. Bluff your way past, don’t completely stop the car.”

“What happens if they do stop us?” Cliff said worriedly.

Kenny Ballalou said, “That’ll be just too bad for them.” Bey stooped and scooped up the fallen automatic of Fredric Ostrander and tucked it into the voluminous folds of his native robe. “Here we go again,” he said.

The man, whose undercover name was Anton, landed at Gibraltar in a BEA roco-jet, passed quickly through customs and immigration with his Commonwealth passport and made his way into town. He checked with a Bobby and found that he had a two-hour wait until the Mons Capa ferry left for Tangier, and spent the time wandering up and down Main Street, staring into the Indian shops with their tax-free cameras from Common Europe, textiles from England, optical equipment from Japan, and cheap souvenirs from everywhere. Gibraltar, the tourist’s shopping paradise.

The trip between Gibraltar and Tangier takes approximately two hours. If you’ve never made it before, you stand on deck and watch Spain recede behind you and Africa loom closer. This was where Hercules supposedly threw up his Pillars, Gibraltar being the one on the European shore. Those who have made the trip again and again sit down in the bar and enjoy the tax-free prices. The man named Anton stood on the deck. He was African by birth, but he’d never been to Morocco before.

When he landed, he made the initial error of expecting the local citizenry to speak Arabic. They didn’t. Rif, a Berber tongue, was the first language. The man called Anton had to speak French to make known his needs. He took a Chico cab up from the port to the El Minza hotel, immediately off the Plaza de France, the main square of the European section.

At the hotel entrance were two jet-black doormen attired in a pseudo-Moroccan costume of red fez, voluminous pants and yellow barusha slippers. They made no note of his complexion; there is no color bar in the Islamic world.

He had reservations at the desk. He left his passport there to go through the standard routine, including being checked by the police, had his bag sent up to his room and, a few minutes later, hands nonchalantly in pockets, strolled along the Rue de Liberté toward the casbah area of the medina. Up from the native section of town streamed hordes of costumed Rifs, Arabs, Berbers of a dozen tribes, even an occasional Blue Man. At least half the women still wore the haik and veil, half the men the burnoose. Africa changes slowly, the man called Anton admitted to himself all over again—so slowly.

Down from the European section, which could have been a Californian city, filtered every nation of the West, from every section of Common Europe, the Americas, the Soviet Complex. If any city in the world is a melting pot it is Tangier, where Africa meets Europe and where East meets West.

He passed through the teaming Grand Zocco market and through the gates of the old city. He took Rue Singhalese, the only street in the medina wide enough to accommodate a vehicle, and went almost as far as the Zocco Chico, once considered the most notorious square in the world.

For a moment the man called Anton stood before one of the Indian shops and stared at the window’s contents: carved ivory statuettes from the Far East, cameras from Japan, ebony figurines, chess sets of water jade, gimcracks from everywhere.