Assignment Moon Girl Read Online Free Page A

shorts, sneakers, a striped shirt. A
rifle struck sun-sparks from the barrel as he waved it in his left hand.
    “Mr. Adam Beele,” said Sepah complacently, “is a bit mad. He
always looks for Iskander’s Garden.”
    “I’ve heard of the fable.”
    “No, sir. It exists. But the archeologists’ team, to which Mr.
Beele belongs as a cover for his British M.6 mission
in my country, has not found it yet.”
    “You know he’s M.6 and don’t do
anything about it?”
    “Why should we?” Hanookh put in. “He’s harmless.”
     
    Adam Beele came scrambling down the rocky canyon wall to meet
them. As he approached, Hanookh took a rifle and two grenades from the
Rover’s arms rack and walked back to the canyon mouth. The dust plume of the
car that had followed them had now disappeared. Durell touched his own .38 in
its holster under his cotton coat, pushed up his sunglasses, and got out of the
Rover, careful not to touch any of the car‘s hot metal.
    “Durell?” The voice was pure Oxonian ,
an educated drawl that did not conceal a shortness of breath and the painful
rasp of lungs in the canyon’s furnace heat. “I’m Adam Beele. What’s left of me,
Yank. Welcome to hell.”
    “You’ve been hurt.”
    “I believe I have a broken rib,” said the Englishman. He was
trying to ignore the pain, which was engraved on his lean face. “Perhaps two
ribs. I fell, while running.”
    “Why were you running?”
    “Some people from the camp tried to tag along. Workers, I
thought. Then I saw their weapons.” Beele looked at Ike Sepah. “Your people,
laddy?”
    “Don’t know.” Sepah looked serious. “How many?”
    "Four. Very determined chaps.”
    "Get in,” Durell said. “We’re followed, too.”
    Hanookh ran back from the canyon mouth and dropped to a seat
in front with Sepah. “All clear,” he said. But he kept his rifle in his
lap.
    “Head north by northeast, Ike,” said Beele. He extended a
thin hand to Durell. “Sepah is in the same profession, old man. We have an
understanding. Glad you’re with us. We’ll get along. Object is to find
that girl. Can’t keep the silly child, of course. But it would do a spot of
good to recover her, have a brief chat, and then give her back where she
belongs.”
    “Are those your orders?”
    “Yours, too, old chap. Are you annoyed?”
    “We have too many cooks,” Durell said.
    Sepah drove, guided by the compass on the dashboard. An
apparently trackless waste stretched northward. This part of the desert was
known as the Dasht-i-Lut . It was rimmed by unsurveyed , barren hills, crossed by only one caravan trail
from Podanu across a string of sparse oases to Darreh Bab. Its most distinguished landmark was a distant
glare of sunlight on the towering peak of Kuh -e-Jamal,
some sixty miles northeast. The floor of the desert was thin sand blown
over rock, gravel, or tumbled stone. Nothing green grew to relieve the eye. The westering sun glared a baleful white and tried to fry
their brains as the Rover rocked ahead. Sepah’s foot floored the pedal
dangerously. The canvas top flapped and snapped and threatened to tear
loose at any moment.
    “Allah’s garden for the damned,” Beele murmured.
    “Let me look at your rib.”
    “I’m all right.”
    But Durell took a first-aid kit from its straps and
taped the Englishman’s side as best he could in the rocking vehicle. He noted
that the Rover had cans of water, fuel, and food in addition to the weapons.
They were reasonably self-sufficient in this desert of stone. Now and then he
glanced back. But he saw nothing of their vague pursuers. In the mirror, he met
Sepah’s dark, liquid eyes. The Farsi grinned, his teeth flashing white
under his moustache.
    “They are there. We go tond , fast, and they keep up. I
see the sunlight now and then, on both of them.”
    “Both?”
    “ Do . Two.”
    “Can you lose them?”
    “ Farda .
Tomorrow.”
    Adam Beele smiled thinly. “Ike knows where I’ve been hunting
for the girl.