Garment of Shadows (36 page)

It made me uncomfortable. And eventually it pushed a question out of me. “How subtle are their minds?”

Holmes narrowed his eyes at the tone of my voice, but Mahmoud merely asked, “What do you mean?”

“Assassinating Abd el-Krim to undermine the Revolt would be an obvious move, but it’s less apparent why the Germans would wish to heat up the Rif conflict with France. Would you say that these mine owners, having failed in their attempts to murder Abd el-Krim, could come up with a plan of using France—no friend of Germany—as a tool to get rid of him?”

My voice was taut. I could feel Holmes’ gaze boring into my face, and wanted badly to look over at him, to ask why he wasn’t jumping into this beside me—but I had to keep my eyes on Mahmoud, whose expression was no more revealing than ever.

After a moment, Holmes spoke. “You are asking if the Mannesmanns are chess players, versed in the art of queen sacrifice? If they could craft a strategy that would lead to a buildup of the French presence in Morocco, even risk having France overrun Spanish territory entirely, because it appeared to be the only means of breaking the stalemate and ridding the country of the rebellion?”

Lyautey protested. “France has no plans for ‘overrunning’ the Spanish Protectorate. To do so would risk war.”

“Against whom? Spain?” Holmes asked. “Spain is in no condition to fight France.”

“Every European country would be against us. We would be forced to back down.”

“Precisely,” I said. “Even if you did decide that the only way to clear out the hornet’s nest of the Rif Revolt was to trespass on Spain’s region, France would—”

“I must object. I have no such intention.”

“Very well, then, your successor. But since it seems clear that France would have to withdraw from Spanish territory, the question remains: Do the Germans have minds that calculating?”

Lyautey grudgingly gave the question some thought, lighting a cigarette over the table-top lamp. Dulac was too frightened to be anything other than confused; Mahmoud was glowering, and I could feel Holmes waiting.

Was I the only person to see this huge question, hovering over the room? Did no one else—not even Holmes—look past basic assumptions? Or had I finally veered into pure madness, and my suspicion was a consequence of delusion?

I felt as if I were sitting with a lit bomb in my lap, invisible to the others. I had no choice, but to go on.

“M. Dulac, you may be unaware that one of your Jibali hirelings was killed by a fellow conspirator, when his injuries threatened capture for both.”

“No, really? That is to say, I am sorry that—”

“You should be thankful that you fell into French hands, instead of theirs. One last question: How much were you paid for the information about Monday’s meeting between the Maréchal and Abd el-Krim?”

“Is
that
where he went on Monday!” Dulac exclaimed. “I knew that you three rode north, but you were gone before I could send men after you.”

The truth of his words rang starkly through the room. As did the sound of a cocking trigger.

The rush of turmoil reached a crescendo in my ears, terror and uncertainty and the conviction that I had to act, even if lightning struck me dead. I spoke.

“Don’t move, Mahmoud,” I said. “Please, I beg you, do not move.”

C
HAPTER
T
HIRTY

W
ould I have dared, if the October revelations of Mycroft’s cold-blooded schemes did not echo freshly in my memory? Would I have turned my gun on Mahmoud without that new and vivid awareness of what the British government and its agents were capable of? Would I have even envisioned the possibility that Mahmoud Hazr could be my enemy, had I not just rebuilt my mind from the ground up?

“Russell!” I did not often shock my husband, but I had now.

“Holmes, you can hear that Dulac is speaking the truth. He did not know where we went. Unless you wish to entertain the theory that we were set upon by random villains, that leaves Mahmoud and Ali.”

Mahmoud’s fingers spread slightly, with care, to illustrate their emptiness. “You would take the word of this traitor?”

“A traitor, yes, but no actor. Only you and Ali knew where the Maréchal was going. I suppose Holmes and I would have been unavoidable casualties of war.”

“I shouldn’t like to try convincing his brother, Mycroft, of that.”

“Why were you sent here, to Morocco?”

“I told you—”

“That you were spying on the Revolt under the guise of being arms dealers, I know. But what was your real assignment?”

There was a long pause. Dulac fidgeted. The coal shifted in the brazier, my hand on the gun throbbed, and finally under his breath Mahmoud muttered a brief Qur’anic phrase: “To Him we surrender.” He lifted his eyes to mine. “We were sent to kill the Emir Mohammed Abd el-Krim.”

Lyautey dropped his cigarette.

“Was this as a favour to the French?” I asked Mahmoud. “Or to Spain?”

“It was thought that the Revolt threatened the stability of the region.”

“How is that Britain’s responsibility?”

“Spain will never control its Protectorate without help. Even a year ago, it was clear that as the Revolt continued to win ground, sooner or later it would come up against France, and France would be forced to respond. And when it did so, the obvious military decision would be to continue north to the coast.

“Britain cannot afford to look across the Straits of Gibraltar at a French fortress. The Empire depends on easy access through the Mediterranean: Palestine, Egypt, India, Hong Kong. If shipping ceased, or even grew threatened, it would be catastrophic.”

“That being Whitehall’s position,” I said. And, no doubt, that of his employer, my brother-in-law, the arch-manipulator Mycroft Holmes. A subtle mind—and a master of chess. “But you and Ali have witnessed first-hand Britain’s ruthless betrayal of the Arab cause. Like Colonel Lawrence, you must have felt stabbed in the back by your own government. When did you decide that you couldn’t stomach another round of it here in the Maghreb? That Abd el-Krim was right? That you needed to kill Maréchal Lyautey instead?

“Don’t!” I cried at the motion of his right hand—although I could not have said which was the greater fear, what I was doing, or what he was. I, daring to hold a gun on Mahmoud Hazr!

“I did warn you, Miri, where the ambush would be,” Mahmoud pointed out. “I drew you the location. How could I know that your injuries would turn it to mere pencil scratches?”

“Which only tells me that you changed your mind again once you found that Holmes and I would be at the meeting. That you couldn’t quite bring yourself to murder two friends. It still leaves you a traitor, just not a cold-blooded one.”

His black eyes glittered across the room at me; even with my revolver pointed at him, I felt a strong urge to back away.

“Do you think me a stupid man, Miri?”

“I did not in the past.”

“Perhaps you imagine that living with primitive tribesmen has rotted my wits, made me believe that killing one man might frighten his country into retreat?”

“You and Ali have spent the past year fighting with the Revolt. Guerrilla fighters kill where and when they get the opportunity.”

“Ali and I have spent the past year with two of the subtlest military minds I have ever encountered. They are not terrorists, but insurgents, perceptive enough to know that assassination invites response, not retreat. And why kill the Maréchal, who respects and honours the country he oversees?”

Lyautey spoke up. “In any event, there are several men ready and able to replace me. No, France will stay in Morocco, with or without me.”

“You misunderstand,” I told Lyautey. “He did not want to
stop
France from responding; he wanted to
ensure
it.”

“But why on earth—”

“France’s response to your assassination, during a meeting with the head of the Rif Revolt, would have been immediate, massive, and military. In fact, Paris might well have decided for itself that the only solution was a clean sweep north, treaties be damned.”

“That would put France across from Gibraltar,” Lyautey countered. “Do you suggest that this man, who evidently works for the British government, wants that? Would not his government see it as treason?”

“I am no traitor,” Mahmoud said, teeth clenched but hands motionless.

“You disobeyed orders,” I replied. “You tried to murder the official representative of a British ally. What else does that make you?”

“We were—” He caught himself, and considered for a moment, before giving a tiny shake of his head. “We were not trying to kill him.”

“Then who was?”

“We were trying to make it look like an attempt to kill him.”

I heard the sound of Holmes taking out his tobacco pouch, a sign of his need for concentrated thought. I said, “Perhaps you ought to explain that.”

“The meeting was a ploy. There were two Jibali the Emir had used before—they may even originally have come through this … person Dulac, ironically. The arrangement was for them to wait behind the boulder, and when the Maréchal appeared on the track, they were to shoot
into the air
—that was made
very
clear. Our goal was to build the tensions along the border so that, once fighting starts again in the spring, France would be determined to push hard into the Werghal Valley. If the Emir was present at the meeting, the attempt would be blamed on him—had he refused to come, we planned to bring another man of the Emir’s build and hope the Maréchal had no accurate photographs.

“Then I came to Fez and spoke with you, sir. I expected a jingoistic administrator who paid lip-service to respecting the colonials. Instead I found a man with a deep affection for Islam and a willingness to twist the regulations to the breaking point in order to further his goal of Morocco for the Moroccans.

“When I left Dar Mnehbi Thursday, I was uneasy. Ali and I had crafted the fake assassination with care, and I was now thinking about discarding it, without consultation, for the sake of an irrational response to a Frenchman.

“When I sat down to coffee in the medina, my mind was in a turmoil. When I stood up again, the decision was made: We needed to bring the Maréchal and the Emir together in fact, not merely as a ruse.

“The original plan was, Ali would ride with the Emir while I brought the Maréchal. As we approached the meeting place, shots would ring out. Ali and I would hustle our respective charges back home; both sides would be convinced of the untrustworthiness of the other, and firmly committed to war. However, Ali had more faith in the hired men than I. Men for hire are never to be fully trusted—and asking Moroccans, who take pride in their shooting, to deliberately miss a target may be foolish. However, he pointed out that the men in Fez had never let us down before. In the end, we agreed that he and I would take care to be in the fore of our parties, that we might ‘discover’ the ambush and give warning.

“I expected to see Ali in Fez on Saturday, and tell him of the change—that he needed to cancel the arrangement with the two hirelings, and permit the meeting to go through. But as Miri and I were climbing the hill on the Thursday night, I thought of the men seen on the hillside near the boulder, and of the out-of-place branch on the track—yes, both those were the truth—and it occurred to me that such a degree of preparation was both unexpected and pointless. Unless another man’s plans had overtaken our own.

“And although an actual ambush was nothing Ali and I couldn’t handle between us, I decided that a degree of insurance was called for. So I gave Miri the vague outlines of the potential trap, knowing that if I was for some reason unable to speak with Ali, she would tell him, and he could make the decision, whether or not to go forward.

“I did not wish her to cancel entirely, merely to ensure that she, Holmes, and Ali would be on the alert. So I told her that I was mildly apprehensive, and made a drawing of the place I judged the most logical site for a possible ambush.”

My eyes were alert for the least motion, but my mind was elsewhere. As, indeed, was Holmes’. I heard him jabbing meditatively at his pipe before he remarked, “You are saying that you are not a failed assassin, merely a British traitor.”

At my accusations, Mahmoud had glared; at those of Holmes, he winced.

“I am neither,” he insisted in a cold voice. “Explain.”

“To do so, I must go back to when Ali and I first came to the mountains. We were sent to kill Abd el-Krim, but it soon became apparent that removing the older brother alone would not stop the independence movement. And removing both brothers—if, as requested, it was to appear an accident—would be nearly impossible, since they are only rarely together.

“And then we met the Emir. He was a man, and a mind. He was a person who did not deserve the fate we would have brought him. Ali and I …”

“Became converts,” Holmes provided.

“I will not try to convince you of the rightness of the Rif cause. I will merely point out that Ali and I are well accustomed to carrying out distasteful tasks for our government. This was different.

“As we lived with the Rifi, we saw the implacable hatred that the Spanish have for them. Eight centuries of
Reconquista
mean that as far as Spain is concerned, there can be nothing for the Moor but the heel of a boot. Nothing but poverty and abuse.

“And in October, as Ali and I watched the Spanish move to the relief of Chaouen, I thought, What if these were the French instead? What if the hand of France was pushed, forcing a show of strength against the Rif—the entire Rif, not just the portions of it south of the Werghal? The Revolt would be crushed, in no time at all. Of that we had no doubt.

“But afterwards, in the wake of defeat? Over the weeks of Chaouen, Ali and I had many long talks about this question, and could only see two possibilities. One was that France would stay over all of Morocco, shipping the Spanish troops home to their dictator. France does not hold 750 years of bitter struggle against the Moors, has no raw memories of twenty thousand slaughtered infantry rotting on the banks of the Mediterranean, no revenge-lust driving them to drop canisters of mustard gas over civilian villages. They have no reason to withhold mercy to the Rifi. Yes, the cost would be a threat to British shipping, but to be honest, was that sufficient justification? As you say, Ali and I had good reason to mistrust the colonial impulses of our country—seeing an empire from the bottom gives a different perspective. Going against our government’s wishes might buy the Rifi a chance to enter the world with position and self-respect.