Line of Succession (41 page)

“You're talking about ramming a new Act of Succession through Congress in the next three days?”

“Not a new Act. An amendment to the old one, that's all.”

“Designed to take Hollander off the list?”

The President squinted at him. “They'd never stand still for that, Bill.”

“Then I still don't see the option.”

“What we do, Bill, we ask the Congress to insert one name on that list between the Speaker of the House and the President pro tempore of the Senate.”

“What name?”

“The man best qualified to act as interim President until the rightfully qualified President-elect is recovered.”

It dawned on Satterthwaite a split instant before Brewster voiced it: “The most recently retired former President of the United States, Bill.”

And the President added in a very quiet voice: “Me.”

5:20
P.M.
North African Time
The CIA chief in Algiers went by the name of Samuel Gilliams. He was one of those Americans who thought the United States owned the mortgage on the whole world and could foreclose any time it pleased. It was the standard CIA philosophy and it was one of the things that had driven Lime out of the intelligence service. Gilliams was almost the archetype; Lime detested him on sight.

Years ago Algeria had broken off diplomatic relations with the United States; Gilliams had a cubicle in the
chargé d'affairs'
office in what was called the American Affairs Section of the Swiss Embassy. Behind his desk Gilliams was self-important and miffed. “We've been on it for five days now. I don't know what-all you expect to accomplish that we haven't already covered.”

“We have reason to think they've got Fairlie down here.”

“Because this fellow Sturka used to operate in the
bled
ten-fifteen years ago?”

It was so damned tedious. “Mostly because we've identified Benyoussef Ben Krim as one of the cell.”

“Yeah I heard that, I heard that. Well we've had a net out after Ben Krim ever since we got your signal from Helsinki. He ain't turned up and he ain't lakly to.”

Lime wondered if they had filled Gilliams in on him. Did Gilliams know it had been Lime who had set up the secret negotiations between De Gaulle and Ben Bella back in the ALN days?

Lime said, “Information's highly marketable here. It always has been. If Sturka's here there are people who'll know about it. I need to arrange a meet with Houari Djelil.”

He saw by the surprise in Gilliams' face that he had scored a hit. It was evidence enough: nobody had bothered to tell Gilliams Lime was not just another tenderfoot.

“Well——”

“Djelil is still alive isn't he?”

“Yeah sure. But he ain't always inclined to cooperate. You know these Melons, I gather.”

Melon
was what the
pieds-noirs,
the Algerian-born French, called the Arabs; the only equivalent was
nigger.
Lime only said, “I know Djelil.”

“Well I'll see what I can fix up.” Gilliams picked up a phone—a direct line, Lime noticed, because Gilliams didn't dial—and spoke into it.

In the inferior regions of the city—the Casbah, named after the sixteenth-century fortress which surrounded the height overlooking the old quarter—Lime stood at the corner of a brasserie and viewed the street's squalid colors and scented the alleys' smell of urine and waited for the signal. He heard the long slow wail of a muezzin calling for evening Islamic prayers.

In the old days Djelil would sooner have been tortured to death than betray Sturka but in those days Sturka had been fighting for the Algerians.

But now there were arguments that might sway Djelil. If nothing else he was a practical man.

The present rulers of Algeria had functioned underground for so many years they had got into the habit and hadn't been able to break it. They still went under their revolutionary aliases and not many people knew their real names. The regime tended to support every self-styled national liberation movement that came along anywhere in the world: the State was socialist but the enemy was “imperialism” whatever its ideology. For these reasons the ruling party was often willing to assist murderous movements anywhere whose objectives claimed to be the overthrow of imperialism.

The only American mission recognized in Algeria was the Black Panthers. The Canadians were represented by the Quebec Liberation Front which had abducted and murdered various Canadian and British officials. FRELIMO, the Mozambique liberation movement, had training camps in the Algerian
bled,
and the desert was being used by training cadres of Al Fatah, the Palestine Liberation Movement. Altogether the ruling NLF accredited fifteen or sixteen liberation movements and granted them varying degrees of assistance in their attempts to overthrow established governments.

The Europeans closed their official eyes to what was going on because everyone wanted a piece of the thirty million metric tons of oil that Algeria produced every year.

Clandestine intrigue was standard procedure in Algeria and the whole structure was supported by the continuing existence of profiteers like Houari Djelil who carried out functions which the government could not fulfill officially. Most arms manufacturers were located in countries which Algeria's friends were trying to overthrow; Algiers could hardly approach them formally and so it was up to men like Djelil to provide the vehicles, ammunition, matériel and Kalashnikov AK-47 automatic rifles with which the NLF equipped the revolutionaries who trained in the Western Desert.

It meant Djelil was a man whose movements were of frequent concern to various bashful agencies. If you wanted to meet with him you had to go to elaborate lengths. And so Lime stood on a street corner in the Casbah and waited to be informed it was proper to move on.

Finally the signal. A rickety old Renault 4CV came clattering through the narrow defile with its sun visors lowered.

He walked through the streets following it: every block or two it stopped and waited for him. Through the winding streets of the
medina,
the old maze of intricately woven alleys and dead ends. Urchins and beggars caromed toward him—“Hey Mister you want hash? You don't like, I get you grass?” Black market money and leather goods and taxis and their sisters: they sold everything, the Arab kids. An old Berber in yellow slippers and a flowing robe accosted him with an arm strapped solid with wristwatches from palm to shoulder: “You want to buy cheap?”

He followed the Renault through a swarm of Arabs listening to a storefront blare of loud twangy music. A woman in gray stared at him from behind her veil, and a block beyond that an Arab passed him in the crowd and spoke distinctly in his ear:

“Ask for Houari in the next bar on your right, Monsieur.” In French.

When Lime turned to look the Arab had been absorbed by the throng.

It was a rancid little room, dim and crowded, filled with the smell of the stale sweat of habitual garlic eaters. The bar was tended by a big man in a fez; his neck bulged with folds of fat. Lime pushed to the bar using his elbows and the bartender spoke in Arabic: “Lime
effendi?
”

“Yes. I was told to ask for Houari.”

“Through the back door please.”

“Thank you.” He made his way through the heavy mob and squeezed into a passage no wider than his shoulders; it was open to the sky and gave him the feeling he was at the bottom of a fissure created by some ancient earthquake.

At the end of the passage a car was drawn up in the Rue Khelifa Boukhalfa. A black Citroen, the old four-door model with the square hood. The Arab at the wheel watched Lime come forward and reached across the back of the seat to push the rear door open.

Lime got in and pulled the door shut. The Arab put the car in motion without speaking and Lime settled back to enjoy the ride.

The St. George was the state-owned deluxe hotel high on a hillside with a magnificent overview of the city. The Citroen drew up at a service door and the Arab pointed toward it; Lime got out of the car and went inside.

The corridor was heavy with kitchen smells. He walked toward a small man in a business suit who watched him approach without changing expression and spoke when Lime stopped in front of him: “Mr. Lime?”

“Yes.” He saw the bulge under the man's coat; Djelil certainly surrounded himself with protection.

“The stairs to your right please? Go to the second floor, you'll find Room Two Fourteen.”

“Thank you.”

Djelil's door was opened by a heavy woman with a well-developed moustache who stepped aside and admitted him.

Djelil stood in front of an armchair from which he had just risen. He salaamed Lime and smiled a little. “I thought they had retired you, yes?”

“They should have,” Lime said. Djelil made a discreet gesture and the woman withdrew from the room, shutting the hall door after her.

Obviously it was not Djelil's residence. There were no personal possessions. The decor was plastic-Hilton and the window looked out against a hillside.

“Ça va,
David?”

“Poorly,” he said, doing a quick wash with his eyes. If the room was bugged it didn't show; if they had company it would have to be under the bed or in the Wardrobe.

“There's no one,” Djelil said. “You asked we meet alone, yes?”

Djelil was swarthy and narrow; he looked less like an Arab than a Corsican hoodlum but his face had authority—the strength of a consciousness that had seen many things and not been changed by them. It was his weakness as well as his strength; he had been fundamentally untouched by his lifetime of experiences.

Djelil smiled lazily and lifted a canvas satchel onto the chair. From it he produced bottles. “Cinzano or rum?”

“Cinzano I think.” He needed a clear head.

“There should be glasses in the lavatory.”

Lime found a pair of heavy chipped tumblers and realized as he collected them that Djelil had sent him after them to reassure him there was no one in the bathroom.

He carried the glasses inside and glanced at the greenish turban that lay on the bed. “I see you've earned the mark of a
Haj
to Mecca.”

“Yes, I went six years ago.”

Remarkable, Lime thought.

Djelil handed him the drink and he waved his thanks with the glass.

“At any rate it's better than the
pinard
we used to drink, yes?”

Lime sat on the edge of the bed; hotel rooms were not made for conversations. “And how's Sylvie?”

Djelil beamed. “Oh she is very grown up, yes? She is to be married in a month's time. To a government minister's son.”

She had been four years old when Lime had last seen her. It was not a thought worth dwelling on. “I'm very glad to hear that.”

“It pleases me you remember, David. It's kind.”

“She was a lovely child.”

“Yes. She is a lovely woman too. Do you know she is acting in the cinema? She has a small part in a film. The French are shooting it here now. Something about the war, the Rommel days.” Djelil smiled broadly: “I was able to supply the producers with a great many things. Practically an entire Panzer battalion.”

“That must be rather profitable.”

“Well ordinarily, yes? But persuading them to use one's daughter as an actress was more important this time. I've allowed them to hire the tanks for a beggar's price. She can't act of course. But she has the beauty for the camera.”

Djelil's glistening black hair was combed carefully back over the small ears; he looked prosperous and content. Lime said, “Julius Sturka has our new President out there somewhere. Probably in the
djebel.
” Like Lazarus, he thought, just lying in an open grave waiting for a savior to come.

Djelil's smile coagulated. Lime proceeded with caution. “My government can be generous in times like these.”

“Well that is most interesting, yes? But I am not sure I can help.” Djelil's face had closed up, with guilt or with innocent curiosity; from his expression it was impossible to guess but from experience Lime knew.

“For information that led to the safe recovery of Clifford Fairlie we could pay out as much as half a million dollars.” He spoke in Arabic because he wanted Djelil to reply in Arabic: when a man spoke a language other than his own you couldn't be certain of the subtleties of his meaning—his inflections might be caused by his accent rather than his intent.

“I'm quite sure you can help,” he added gently.

“What made you come to me, David?”

“What made you freeze when I mentioned Sturka?”

Impenetrably discreet, Djelil only smiled. In Arabic Lime said, “Your ears have access to many tongues,
effendi.
We both appreciate that.”

“It is difficult. I haven't seen Sturka since the days of the ALN, you know.”

“But you may have heard a few things?”

“I am not sure.”

“Sturka needed a hideout. He needed transportation and supplies. He needed access to the ministries in charge of government patrols out in the
djebel
—to make sure the FLN keeps clear of his hideout.”

“Well I suppose that must be true, if as you say they are hiding in the
djebel.
But what makes you think so?”

“We've identified Benyoussef Ben Krim.”

“Surely you have more than that?”

Lime only nodded gently; he had given away all he was going to give, it was no good adding that through Mezetti they had traced Sturka's movements as far as the south coast of Spain and had concluded that Sturka must have made the crossing to North Africa.

Djelil stood up and paced to the door, turned, paced to the window, turned. Lime lit a cigarette and looked around for an ashtray. There was no hurrying Djelil; he had to think about the money a while. Then he would start to bargain. Djelil was a past master at horsetrading; he had learned his art as a slave auctioneer.