Mission: Earth "Fortune of Fear" (28 page)

I bit on it.

"You know that the taxi driver they call Ahmed is really a convicted criminal from Modon."

I nodded.

"Did you know that the driver Ters is a Turkish communist who just served twenty-seven years in jail for murdering the general?"

I shook my head the other way. This was not going very well.

"For the past several weeks," said Faht Bey, "the taxi driver has been going out with this Turkish murderer in that car with your name all over it. The way they worked was to go to a farm and look over the women, and if they found a good-looking one, they would tell her husband and the family that it was at your orders that they burn the whole farm down unless the woman consented to spend an evening with you in your car. And that if anyone went to the police, that farm, nearby farms and the closest village would be put to the torch."

I bit on the bullet. The taxi driver had been keeping that fee for himself!

"That's not all," said Faht Bey. "They told the woman that if she hadn't pleased you, they would murder her husband."

I clamped down harder on the bullet. That explained those beseeching looks I had mistaken for a plea to be with me again in the future!

"This all came out because they thought I knew you and somebody suggested they come see me for advice."

Utanc! In a jealous rage, she had set them on me!

"But that's not all" said Faht Bey. "When the taxi driver and Ters came to the rendezvous, Ahmed and then Ters raped the woman first."

My teeth were sinking deeper and deeper into the brass. No wonder the women had been so tired. No wonder they had always been so moist! Those (bleeped) (bleepards) had kept me waiting for half an hour while they both (bleeped) away and then they had called me to take their leavings! They must have been shrieking with laughter over it!

"One more thing," said Faht Bey. "This is adultery. In the
Qur'an
it states that the punishment shall be one hundred lashes for unmarried persons. But these women were married, so the punishment for you would be entirely different. The
Qur'an
states that in such a case the offender shall be stoned to death."

That settled it. The powder in the cartridge case spilled bitterly into my mouth as my teeth pierced it through.

I would have to leave Turkey.

There was no other way.

And I would have to leave Turkey AT ONCE!

I grabbed a bag. I looked around wildly.

Where would I go?

What would I take?

Faht Bey said, "If you are leaving, I want to remind you that the
Blixo
will be in, in a day or so. They always have something for you. What do I tell them?"

My attention snapped painfully back to him. The
Blixo?
They were probably after me, too!

Faht Bey went on: "Those homo couriers you get always demand postcards for some reason. You better give me some."

Postcards? Postcards? I made my mind focus. He was talking about the magic-mail cards. If they didn't get mailed on time, their mothers would be killed. That would make the couriers go after me, too!

I opened up the safe. I grabbed the whole pack of magic-mail cards. I threw them at Faht Bey.

Where would I go?

What should I take?

I ran around the room looking under things.

Faht Bey was still there. He said, "If you're going to run out, there's nobody here can stamp cargos in. They have to be stamped in as received on Voltar before they leave. Why don't you give me your identoplate?"

I fished it out.

I threw it at him.

Enough was enough. "Get out! Get out! Get out!" I screamed at him. "Can't you see my sanity is on the ragged edge? STOP BOTHERING ME! I have to think!"

He gathered up the postcards and identoplate and left.

Only then could I begin to get my wits in order.

What should I take?

A tough problem when you don't know where you are going to go. The only destination I had was OUT!

Blind instinct saved me.

I opened the grip. Into it I packed guns and ammunition so I could defend myself. I packed the phony Ink-switch federal I.D. so I could change my identity. I grabbed some instant gas pellets that would render any assailant unconscious and packed them. I snatched up the two-way-response radio and packed it. I stuffed in the three sets of viewers. I strapped the grip up. Then I realized I had forgotten to put in any clothes and unstrapped it. I put in a business suit, some shirts and ties and a combat camouflage dress. I strapped it up. I realized I had not put in any money. I unstrapped it. I looked in the safe and found I didn't have any money. I strapped the grip up. I wondered if I had forgotten anything and unstrapped it to look. I grabbed some things at random and threw them in, just in case. I strapped it up again.

It suddenly occurred to me I hadn't left yet. I had better get going. I started out the door. Then I realized I was not dressed for travel. I came back. I got into a business suit. I couldn't find any shoes so I put my military boots back on. I started out the door again and saw I had forgotten my bag. I went back. I needed something to discourage pursuit. I saw a pile of plunger time-fuse bombs in the gun case. I stuffed them in my pocket.

Wait a minute. My documents were in the grip. I needed a passport. The Achmed Ben Nutti diplomatic passport from the United Arab League was on top of the pile. It would get my guns and money through to wherever I was going. I put it in my pocket. Money. I didn't have any money. I must avoid Afyon: they would be waiting for me with a pile of lethal rocks and stones. I had it. I must get to Istanbul. Mudur Zengin would welcome the chance to give me money.

As an afterthought, working fast, I closed and locked my safe and secret compartments. I must get out of here. They might come for me at any minute.

I picked up my grip. I forced myself to stop shaking. I walked across the patio and into the yard.

With a surge of purest hate, I saw the taxi driver. He was polishing the new Mercedes-Benz.

Apparatus training makes one rise to any emergency. The hate distilled into the purest cunning. I determined then and there to kill two jailbirds with one bomb. They would learn in one last agonizing flash the penalty for grabbing women before I could get at them.

Cunning. Cunning. Cunning. I must concentrate on that. I went over and threw my bag carelessly into the Daimler-Benz. I did not even let my eyes dart under every bush to see if they were waiting for me, ready to spring out and stone me to death.

In an offhand voice, I called, "Oh, Ahmed. Would you like to come to the bank with me to get some money?"

He sprang gladly upright. I knew he would. He yelled for Ters and then raced around and got in the front seat of the big car. Ters ran out of the kitchen, putting on his old soldier's cap. He slid under the wheel.

We were off. I scrunched way down so nobody could see I was riding in the back.

We went tearing up the road to Afyon, scattering camels all over the place.

I could tell from the gay, insouciant manner of both Ahmed and Ters that they had no slightest inkling that this was their last day on Earth.

We entered Afyon and started down the street toward the Piastre Branch Bankasi.

"No, no," I said smoothly from the back. "You misunderstood me. I was talking about BIG money. I meant the Piastre Bankasi in Istanbul. Go there."

Happily, without the least suspicion they were driving their own hearse, they turned and we began to roar along the main highway to Istanbul.

Glancing backward from time to time, I detected no pursuit. I had been too fast for them. I might get away with this yet.

Several camels looked at us suspiciously, however, and some of my anxiety returned. Never trust a camel.

Ters was not driving very fast. But that was just as well. High speed would alert people that I was escaping.

The afternoon and the bleak February countryside moved along. Dusk came. We drove in the darkness. Our headlights flicked now and then upon the ruins of the ages. I was leaving Asia. Let it rot. It wasn't worth conquering anyway. Alexander's adventures had been but a waste of time.

We crossed the Bosporus into Europe about ten. We finally crossed the Galata Bridge over the Golden Horn and wove our way through the dying streets of Istanbul. We came at last to the Piastre Bankasi. The car came to a stop.

I intended to have the inevitable night watchman call Mudur Zengin. I had gotten this far and I was safe. But this was the end of the line for Ters and Ahmed. I slipped a time bomb with a plunger fuse under the cushion of the rear seat. I depressed the plunger. Ten minutes from now, this car and its villainous occupants would spatter all over the landscape in bits of dismayed and burning flame. Bye-bye, you woman grabbers.

I tossed my grip out onto the sidewalk. I got out. I said casually, "You can go home now. I won't be needing you."

"Don't you want us to take you to the airport?" said Ahmed.

"Airport?" I said. "What gave you the idea I was leaving Turkey? I'm just going to be in town three or four days, attending a convention of drug pushers at the Istanbul Hilton. You didn't think I would pay to keep you two in a hotel all that time, did you? So bye-bye. You're homeward bound," to whatever Hells they reserve for criminals who grab women first and then threaten to testify that it was all at my orders.

Ahmed shrugged. Ters gave his evil laugh. And away they went. I watched their taillights fade out of sight. It gave me a great deal of satisfaction. There wouldn't even be enough left of them to bury, for that was a Voltar maximum-destruction pocket bomb.

A moving shadow called my attention suddenly back to my own peril. But it was just the watchman.

"Phone Mudur Zengin for me," I ordered. "Have him come down to the bank. Say Sultan Bey wants to see him."

The watchman shined a flashlight in my face. Then he pointed to an upper window. It was lighted. "He's already here," the watchman said. "Came in half an hour ago and said he was expecting you."

A chill went through me. Then I realized it was true. The credit companies kept an accurate, to-the-minute check on the whereabouts of the paying man. They had told Zengin.

I must be fast. I raced inside. I entered his office.

Coldly, Mudur Zengin remained at his desk eyeing me. He did not rise. He did not even say hello. He just sat there and looked at me. I stopped in the middle of the room.

"I've been requested to detain you," Mudur Zengin said.

Terror surged through me. They knew. They were after me!

I went down on my knees. "Look, you were the boyhood friend of my father. Please don't turn me in! You've got to help me. I need money!"

"I can't give you any money. The vaults are closed."

"Then let me into the safe deposit boxes."

"I can't. They're closed tight. Nothing will be open until 9:00 A. M. tomorrow."

Too late. Too late! They would have dragged me halfway back to Afyon by then.

"I need dollars!" I begged.

"Dollars?" he said coldly. "Why don't you ask your concubine for dollars?"

"Mudur, please hear me. I need dollars and I need them right now. Tonight. FAST!"

He fixed me with his cold banker's eye. "The only dollars available at this time of night are not the bank's. They are my own. I keep some in my personal safe."

"Give them to me," I begged, my ear cocked for any sound of footsteps on the stairs. "Quick!"

"It would only be enough to tide you over," he said. "And it would have to be at regular terms: 30 percent interest per month."

He pushed a piece of paper at me. I swiftly signed it.

He went to his safe, opened it and took out some packets of U. S. dollars, counted off a hundred thousand and then tossed them on the floor and pushed them toward me with his foot.

I bent to grab them. I stuffed them in my pocket. Then I saw the contempt in his eyes. It struck me that he was certainly behaving in an unfriendly way. Rushed as I was, I still said, "What have I done?"

"What you have done," he said, "is between you and Allah. It is not given to a mere mortal to comprehend the actions of such as you."

He walked over and gave me a shove toward the door. "Good night and, I hope, good-bye."

As I stole out of the bank, I knew my problem was threefold:

A. Get out of Turkey.

B. Not get caught.

C. Cover up my trail.

In terms of pure theory, it seemed elementary. In fact, the Apparatus continually pounded (B) and (C) into one. They were the basis of practically every operating plan.

But theory is one thing and being in the middle of the night in Istanbul, Earth, surrounded by skulking enemies and pursued relentlessly by pitiless women who had noses like bloodhounds, was something else.

The minarets of a thousand mosques stood around me with pointing fingers. The very clouds were liable to open and drown the world with the voice of the Prophet hollowly commanding that the words in his
Qur'an
be followed: STONE THE ADULTERER TO DEATH!

Spooky. You can never tell about these primitive religions. They might come true suddenly. The very towers of the mosques might cave in on me to do just that.

I kept my wits. I had to. Nobody else would want them. Gods, how I had been taken in by those women!

Looking up and down the street, I saw that Mudur must have miscalculated. He would want me under obligation on a note before he called the police. I would outwit him!

Running like a hare, clutching my bag to my chest, I got the blazes out of that district.

I ducked and dodged down numerous alleyways and streets. No pursuit yet. As I ran, I laid my careful plans to escape and cover my tracks.