The Poison Oracle Read Online Free Page B

brolly-man behind him. His sunglasses were not quite big enough to eliminate all the glare from the side. He felt a fool, and frightened.
    “Testing, testing, one two three four,” he said.
    “My dear fellow, I know you can count,” hissed the expensive gadget in his shirt pocket. “I’ve got her bang in my sights. By Jove, that’s what I call a figure!”
    The walkie-talkie smacked its metal lips. Warily Morris peered across the concrete furnace—he still had a hundred yards to go. He wished that the hijackers had allowed him to come in a car—the bullet-proof one would have done fine. The girl posed on the wing had a nasty-looking gun at her hip, which distracted Morris’s attention from what the Sultan considered her finer points. She was dark-haired and brown-skinned, slim in her blouse and jeans. Visor-like sunglasses hid her eyes, but her nose had a hawkish look. Her stance was tired but confident, quite different from the deflated exhaustion of the dozen people who stood grouped before her on the concrete, covered by her gun.
    Dinah whimpered and tugged at Morris’s hand to be carried. It was too hot for that—but then he realised how the concrete must be burning her feet and picked her up. She clung to his side, shading her eyes against the glare.
    “Stop,” called the girl in Arabic. “That is near enough.”
    She had the words right, but her accent was appalling. She called again as Morris came on and waved the gun his way. Then she tried French, which she spoke even worse. Morris became more confident as he approached. It was too hot to shout over distances.
    “I insist that you stop,” she said suddenly in perfectly good English, clipped and officer-like.
    Morris walked on until he was about ten feet from the wing-tip, where he and the girl and her captives formed the points of an equilateral triangle. He took the sweat-towel which the brolly-man carried, folded it and put it on the ground in the shade of the brolly. Thankfully he dumped Dinah on it, then turned and bowed to the captives.
    “His Pacific Majesty the Sultan of Q’Kut conveys his greetings,” he said in Japanese. “He is honoured to receive you in Q’Kut.”
    The captives stiffened with surprise and hope. Several of them returned his bow. He turned to the girl.
    “Is anybody injured?” he said in English.
    “No,” she snapped. “Who are you? What powers do you have?”
    “My name is Doctor Wesley Morris, and I am Foreign Minister of Q’Kut. I am also in radio contact with His Majesty.”
    “Fine,” she said. “You can tell his nibs I . . . we want a new plane, with a pilot, and food and drink. We demand these things in the name of Arab solidarity, for the liberation of Palestine.”
    Morris muttered into the walkie-talkie.
    “Yes, yes,” answered the Sultan. “A pilot? See if you can find out what happened to the other one. And there ought to be three guerrillas.”
    “Get on with it,” snapped the girl.
    “Listen, Morris,” said the walkie-talkie, “I’ll have to back these goons up to keep my Arabs quiet, though privately I say pooh to Palestine. But the oil company is run by a rabid bunch of absentee Zionists. I want no part of any of this. They only landed here because some idiots at Karachi tried to shoot their tyres out and got a fuel pipe as well.”
    “Get on with it,” said the girl again. “Or I’ll shoot that chimp to show I mean business.”
    “His majesty is an ardent supporter of the Palestinian cause,” said Morris, “but regrets that he has no plane or pilot available.”
    “He can have one flown in,” said the girl. “We’ll get back into the plane and wait—I don’t think it’s going to catch fire after all.”
    “In that case you will all die of heat-stroke,” said Morris.
    “Don’t give me that,” said the girl. “Come on you lot.”
    “This is a comparatively cool day,” said Morris. “To-morrow will probably be twenty degrees hotter.”
    He turned to the captives and