The Fury of Rachel Monette (19 page)

“Madame Monette?” whispered a male voice that she remembered hearing before. She didn't answer. “It is I,” came the whisper. “DePoe. I have a key.”

She heard the key scrape in the lock, and felt DePoe in the cell. “Where are your things?” he said. “We must hurry.”

Rachel still held the bowl in her hands. “How did you get the key?”

“I bribed the guard.” His face was very near but she couldn't see it. She smelled toothpaste and onions on his breath. “We must go. I will explain later.”

“But the guard isn't here. Lieutenant Moutassim took his place.”

There was a silence before DePoe said very quietly, “I didn't see him. But in that case we are in great danger. Quickly.”

Rachel put down the bowl and reached for her suitcase and handbag. She felt DePoe's hand on her back. He guided her out of the cell and across the courtyard. He opened a small door in the wall and led her outside.

They were in an unpaved unlit street. A small open jeep was parked on the far side. DePoe took Rachel's suitcase and handbag and wedged them behind the seat.

“Get in,” he said. She hesitated. The moonlight cast a faint gleam on DePoe's bald head but left his eyes in shadow. “He will kill you,” he whispered urgently. Rachel got in.

DePoe turned the key in the ignition with a delicate touch, as if that would make the engine catch more quietly. Without switching on the lights he drove quickly through a series of dark streets bordered by high clay walls. The last of these alleys opened quite suddenly on the flat plain to the west of town.

“Where are we going?”

“I want to see what you found in the desert,” DePoe said. He pressed on the accelerator. His left hand reached for the headlight switch, hesitated and returned to the steering wheel. He hunched forward as far as his soft belly would allow.

“What makes you think I found something in the desert?”

“Logic. You told me at the hotel that you were interested in some ruins from the Second World War. I'd never heard of such ruins. But the same day you are brought back by Lieutenant Moutassim and thrown in jail. Therefore you found something that someone did not want found.”

The jeep sped across the sand. In front of them the moon hung low in the skyline like a cupped hand bearing an unknown offering.

“Besides,” Depoe added after a while, “I am staying with the caid. You have managed to make him very upset.”

Rachel turned in her seat, trying to see his face. But the night painted every shape in featureless gray and shaded all the edges in black; except for the moon and its golden reflection on the curve of DePoe's bald head.

“How well do you know him?” Rachel asked.

“Who?” DePoe replied after a pause.

“The caid.”

“Not well. I met him for the first time last week, when I arrived. The university arranged that I would be his guest.”

“What university?”

“Aix-en-Provence.”

“Rashid says you taught in Paris.”

“He is incorrect.”

DePoe glanced in the rearview mirror. “It must be safe by now,” he said. He switched on the headlights. They drilled an expanding cone of light across the desert. In the distance a glowing pair of topazes hovered above the sand. When the jeep drew nearer Rachel saw that they were the eyes of a large brown hare. It bounded out of sight in two leaps.

“Can you remember the way?” DePoe asked.

“I don't understand why you are doing this,” Rachel said. “They can easily find out you were involved.”

“It won't matter. By dawn we can be at the airport in Marrakech. When they realize what has happened it will be too late.”

“But why are you taking the risk?” Rachel pressed him.

“Shall we say it's my job?” he replied. “I am an employee of the government of France.”

“Doing what?”

“France still has many interests in North Africa. I help protect them.”

“So you aren't really a professor?”

“But I am. Anthropology. It's been my passion since childhood. And it provides an excellent cover.”

“What is France's interest in this?”

DePoe sighed. “How can I know until I've seen what you've found?”

Rachel told him the way.

They rode in silence. Gravity tugged the moon lower and lower in the sky until it sank from sight. No more topaz glowed in the yellow tunnel. The cold night air flowed over Rachel's face, powdering her hair with fine dust. DePoe found the oued and followed it through the dunes. They rose up on all sides like ocean waves frozen during a midnight storm.

The yellow beams touched the face of the outcrop on the far side of the plain. “Over there,” Rachel said. They swept across the sand in a short arc. The pile of broken cement was gone. So was the earth that Rachel had dug out of the hole. And the hole.

“Stop,” she said. She got out and walked toward the outcrop, examining the ground where the hole had been. “Come closer,” Rachel called to DePoe. The light grew stronger, throwing Rachel's shadow against the rock. It also cast lines of thin parallel shadows across a patch of sand not much bigger than a pitcher's mound. They resembled miniature furrows.

“Someone's been over it with a rake,” Rachel said over the sound of the motor. DePoe shut it off and walked over to Rachel. In front of his stomach he held out a shovel like a ceremonial object.

“I hope you won't think me ungentlemanly,” he said, “but I have a heart condition.”

Rachel hesitated.

“I have to see with my own eyes,” DePoe said patiently. “Otherwise I can't help you.”

“Help me how?”

“You tell me. After all, you haven't yet explained what you are doing here.”

Rachel took the shovel. “I'll show you,” she said. She dug the hole again.

It was easier the second time. The earth, looser and drier than it had been the day before, offered little resistance to the shovel. DePoe stood to one side, hands in the pockets of his tweed coat and the collar turned up. In less than two hours Rachel reached the round wooden cover. She leaned on the shovel and rested. She had spent most of her strength and energy, converting it into matter, the dirt that lay in mounds around the hole. She tried to remember her last meal. Sticky buns, almost two full days ago.

“Is anything wrong?” DePoe asked, looking down at her.

“I'll need your help to lift this cover,” Rachel said. “It's very heavy.”

“I'm sorry. Lifting is out of the question. The doctor was adamant on that.” In the movies secret agents never had bad hearts, Rachel thought. “Why don't you use the shovel to pry it off?” DePoe suggested.

“All right,” Rachel sighed. Wedging the blade of the shovel between the cover and the edge of the well she leaned all her weight on the handle. The cover began to lift. “Be ready,” she warned him. “The smell is awful.”

But the smell was gone too. When the cover slid off the top of the well it released only the scent of damp earth, coupled with a faint suggestion of cool fresh water. Rachel peered down in the empty blackness. DePoe shone his flashlight into it, but the beam didn't reach bottom. It expired somewhere in the void.

“Is this a joke?” DePoe asked in a hard voice.

“Not by me.”

The yellow beam climbed backwards out of the hole, curved in a slow arc the way a rifle follows a moving target, and fastened on Rachel's face.

“You'd better explain,” came the voice quietly from behind it.

Standing in the pit Rachel raised a hand to shield her eyes. “First get that damned thing off my face.” In the silence which followed she heard DePoe's rapid shallow breathing. The light left her face, trailed down her body and came to rest at DePoe's feet like a heeling dog.

“Go on,” DePoe said.

“I'm not trying to play games with you. I want to find out what's going on just as badly as you do, believe me. More so.” And she told him about Dan and Adam and Andy and the document. She left out the blond man.

“The connection seems rather flimsy to me. It might help if I saw this document.”

“I don't have it with me.”

“Is it at the hotel?”

“No.”

“Where then?”

“In a safe place. But I've got an English translation in my pocket. I'll show you.” She moved to climb out of the pit.

“Stay right there,” DePoe said in a tone that sounded cold and frightened at the same time. His right hand moved out of the shadows and pointed at her head. It held a small black gun.

Some people have reported that their life stories unreeled in their minds when they thought they were about to die. Rachel watched a shorter film. She saw DePoe eating sticky buns in the dining room of the Hotel Mhamid while she discussed the planned drive to the ruins with Madame Ratelle. She saw the three jeeps coming without hesitation across the desert, as if they already knew where they were going. She saw Lieutenant Moutassim pacing in the night outside her cell.

“So you couldn't get Moutassim to do your dirty work for you,” Rachel said, and she heard her voice as if it were another person's. It sounded hard, and calm. “No, that's not it. He was willing. The caid was the one who said no.” DePoe did not speak. His breath wheezed quietly in his throat.

“Surely you don't believe the caid can keep this a secret much longer?” She gestured at the pit around her.

“Place your hands on your head,” DePoe said nervously.

She did. “Think of all those soldiers who saw the well,” Rachel continued. “Are you going to kill them too?”

“If it is necessary.” But the quaver in his voice said it wouldn't be that easy.

“It was clever the way you asked for directions,” Rachel said. “As if you didn't know the place at all. I bet you knew it when it was a going concern.” She felt adrenaline pumping through her as if it had a heart of its own. “Who are you? Kopple? Shreyer? Reinhardt? Feldbrill?” DePoe's forehead wrinkled in a puzzled way. Suddenly his eyes opened wider and Rachel was sure that they held a look of recognition.

“I don't know what you're talking about,” he said, breathing very loudly. He made a flicking motion with the gun. “Now lift the shovel and place it slowly and carefully on the ground.”

“You haven't got the strength to bury me,” Rachel said, remaining motionless.

“Shut up,” he said shrilly. “Do as I tell you.”

“All right. But if I'm going to die anyway why not tell me where Adam is?”

“Is?” DePoe said. He shone the light into the pit. “The shovel. Now.”

Rachel slowly lifted the shovel forward, off the ground. In the same motion she scooped a bit of dirt onto the end of the blade. She brought it even with the lip of the hole and as she stepped forward to set the shovel down she flung the dirt upward in DePoe's face. The gun went off. Rachel drove the blade at DePoe's groin. With a cry he fell backwards. She scrambled out of the pit. DePoe was crawling toward the gun, which lay on the sand a few feet away. His breath made a high whistling sound. Rachel grabbed the shovel and went after him. As his hand curled around the gun she brought the flat of the blade down hard on the back of his head.

Rachel dragged the body to the pit and tumbled it in. It hung on the lip of the well. She climbed into the pit and rolled it over the edge. After a few seconds she heard the hollow echo of a distant splash. She threw in the gun and the flashlight. Then she replaced the wooden cover, climbed out and began to fill in the pit. The well had been free of bodies for only a day. Rachel realized with horror that she was on the side that was putting them in.

She smoothed the earth over the top of the pit. With the edge of the shovel she tried to duplicate the furrows made by the rake. Then she put it in the back of the jeep and drove toward Mhamid.

18

Rachel drove the jeep across the plain until she saw the squat grey blocks of Mhamid thrust against the blackness of the night sky. She left it in the desert. As she walked toward the town she thought of Rashid's vipers, and wanted very much to be racing through the night on the road to Zagora, up the valley of the Draa, and over the mountains to Marrakech and the airport. She had very little time.

No lights shone in the town. The streets were empty. Behind the clay walls of the houses no one muttered in his sleep. Like a thief Rachel walked softly through the shadows.

She tried the door of the hotel. It opened with a squeak of the hinges. Quickly she turned to look at the gendarmerie across the square, but it remained dark and still. She entered the lobby and felt her way up the stairs. Keeping one hand on the wall she went along the corridor until she came to the second-last door on the right. Her fingers reached for the brass numeral screwed to the wood and traced the metallic shape of the number five.

Rachel knocked three times, quickly and almost noiselessly. There was no response. She counted to thirty before turning the knob and stepping inside.

She could see the shape of the bed under the narrow window. On the white pillows lay two heads, one dark, the other light. Rachel went to the dark one, found a shoulder, and prodded it gently.

“Rashid,” she whispered.

On the other pillow the light head came awake with a jerk. “Who's there?” said Madame Ratelle in a high scared voice.

“Shh,” Rachel said. “It's me.”

“You? How dare you break into my room like this?” Anger pushed the fear out of her voice, and made it louder.

“Be quiet,” Rachel hissed.

Rashid rolled over and sat up, rubbing his eyes. Sweeping away the covers with a furious motion Madame Ratelle leapt from the bed and pressed the switch of the lamp on the dressing table. It stayed dark. Madame Ratelle swore at it, quite loudly.

“It's the generator,” Rashid explained. “They've gone back to shutting it off at night.”

“Merde,” said Madame Ratelle. Rachel heard the dresser drawer open, hands fumble in jewelry and tissue paper, the scrape of a match. Madame Ratelle lit a candle and faced Rachel across the bed. Her long thin breasts pointed to the curved scar on her lower abdomen. Her pale body shook very slightly.