on the investments in Lagrange Five and the Asteroid Islands.'
'Yes, sir,' Barry said. 'Sir, something has come up. I tried to contact you by every means but… well, with the usual results. It seems we have a situation fraught with…'
'Tell me about it when you get here,' Hamp said brusquely. 'What's the enjoyment in being a recluse if every senior member of your staff can get in touch with you every time he thinks an emergency has surfaced?'
'Yes, sir.' There was resigned disapproval in the other's face.
Hamp faded him off, arose from his chair, and stretched his shoulder muscles. In spite of the time of day, he went over to the bar and brought forth a bottle of stone age Armagnac and a snifter glass. He poured a sizable jolt, then went over to the bookshelves, searching for a moment before selecting a copy of Cheikh Anta Diop's
In the next half hour he went through a good quarter of the brandy, several times checking with the mirror. At the end of that period he was satisfied with what he saw. The face that looked back at him was that of, say, a well-tanned Frenchman.
He went back into the study and again sat at his restricted phone screen. He punched for a foreign call and then twice again.
The face that appeared was a twin of his own, including dark blue eyes, crew-cut reddish hair, and the well- tanned face of a European playboy.
Hamp said briskly, 'Jim, I'm taking over for an indefinite time, probably a month or so. Go to ground. Assume your usual identity. I'll get in touch when I need you.'
The other grinned. 'Any suggestions?'
'You might try the Malta retreat. But be on immediate call.'
'You're the boss,' Jim told him. 'You slave driver.' The face of his stand-in faded.
Chapter Five: Franklin Pinell
Frank Pinell looked about the shabby, windowless room of the Hotel Rome in the International Zone of Tangier. Ten dirhams a day. Two pseudo-dollars. Cheap, perhaps, for any shelter at all, but with the cost of food, his bankroll would melt away in short order.
It was late afternoon, but he'd had lunch on the jet with his two escorts and wasn't yet hungry. The thing to do was to get out and start to make contacts. If there were jobs to be had, he was going to have to find one soonest. He had only been here for a couple of hours but he had seen what poverty was like in the old, old town of Tangier and wanted no part of it. Seemingly, there was no sort of government relief whatever for the poor; certainly nothing like GAS.
It was orientation time; he must contact his fellow English-speaking residents. He went into the hall, taking the key that Luigi had given him, locking the door behind. Why, he couldn't say. He had left nothing in the room. He had nothing to leave. On his way out, he hung the key on the rack behind the desk. On the face of it, anyone coming along could have taken it down, or any of the others, and stripped the place. But strip it of what? He doubted that any of the other tenants of the fleabag had much more in the way of possessions than he had.
He walked down the rickety stairs to the ground level and looked up and down Rue Moussa Ben Moussair, as drab a street as he had ever seen. The cab driver who had stolen his luggage had told him that Pasteur Boulevard, the town center, was two blocks up. He headed left, reached Rue Goya, turned left again. He carefully checked his route, having no desire to get lost.
Two blocks up, Rue Goya came into Pasteur Boulevard and the immediate change couldn't have been more definite. Its two or three blocks could have been directly out of a swank Florida or Southern California resort. The cars, many chauffeur driven, were the latest from Common Europe, the Americas, and the Asiatic League. The pedestrians were largely Europeans with a sprinkling of Orientals and a few North Africans. All seemed prosperous—the suits of the men had been cut in London, Rome, Manhattan; the clothes of the women in Paris, Budapest, Copenhagen, or Los Angeles. The women were strictly Tri-Di shows. Most of them could have passed as the latest sex symbols of the entertainment world, or as fashion models. Every hair seemed to be in place. Quite a few tripped along behind poodles and Pomeranians.
Surprised by the opulence, Frank turned left on the boulevard and walked along slowly, staring into the shop windows. Save for such centers as Manhattan in his own country, in an age when cities were crumbling, Frank Pinell had seldom seen privately owned shops before. His was an era of automated ultra-markets, through which credit could purchase anything from a safety pin to a yacht. But these that lined the main boulevard of European Tangier were the purveyors of ultimate luxury—clothing and shoe stores, art galleries, jewelry stores, gourmet food shops, liquor stores. Mingled among them were small, intimate restaurants, offering the outstanding cuisines of the world, and even more intimate cocktail lounges. On the face of it, not all of Tangier was poverty-stricken.
He stood to one side for a moment and watched the pass-ersby. An Indian woman, a red caste mark on her forehead, went past in a golden sari. He had never witnessed a more graceful female in his life. A Parisian—by the looks of her—went by, complete with arrogant champagne poodle. What had MacDonald said about the Madrid mopsies being the most beautiful in the world? Frank doubted it. Perhaps this girl wasn't a prostitute, or even a mistress, but if she was he wondered vaguely what she charged for a night's entertainment. Two men passed briskly, attache cases in hand, in business suits that looked as though they'd come from the tailor's less than half an hour previously. They had the healthy, tanned, barbered, massaged look of the ultimately successful. Then an Oriental girl tripped along in an off-white silken
He looked up and down the boulevard, wondering where to go and what to do. All his impulses were to enter one of the bars and have the drink he needed. His present finances didn't allow for alcoholic beverages, certainly not at the prices that would prevail here.
A voice from behind him said, 'Cooee, mate. You look like a flashing lost soul. Dinkum you do. Could a bloke give you a steer?'
Frank turned sharply. Grinning down at him from a height of at least six foot four was a long, cheerfully rugged type, a spanking new Australian bush hat pushed back on his head, but otherwise as nattily dressed as the other males on the street. Somehow, he looked slightly uncomfortable in his tailored afternoon suit. Indeed, he was on the gawky side, and obviously meant for the ranch, rather than a city's sidewalks.
Frank said, 'What?'
'You look like a Yank, strewth, a Yank or maybe a Canuck, new in this barstid town. Don't want to be cheeky, but you don't look like you know your way around, what-o?'
Frank said, 'Oh. Thanks. Fact is, I just pulled in and don't know the ropes. Is there some place, a neighborhood, where Americans hang out? Not just Americans, but anybody who speaks English.' He hesitated, then stuck out his hand and said, 'Frank Pinell. And, yeah, American. You're Australian?'
'Too right. Nat Fraser. Bonzer to meet you, Frank.' His hand was huge, dry as the outback, and strong. 'Not as many Yanks, Aussies, or even Limeys in town as you'd bloody well wish. You go crazy as a kookaburra for a fresh face or two.'
'You're permanent here?' Frank said, regaining his well-squeezed and -pumped hand.
'Too true, oh my word. And don't think I wouldn't do a bunk if I could. Crikey, I haven't had a contract for donkey's years. Now, let's see. A bar where the English speaking coves hang out. Well, mate, actually there's three. There's the Parade, where the toffs take on their plonk.' He took in Frank's suit. 'Probably too rich for your blood, what-o?'
Frank said, after letting air out of his lungs ruefully, 'Sounds like it. I'm on a limited budget and I need a job.'
The Australian cocked his head at him. 'Going to be in this googly town for a spell, eh?'
Frank could think of no reason for disguising his status. 'I'm a deportee,' he said, watching the other's face to get his reaction.
There wasn't any. Nat Fraser was going on as though he hadn't heard the confession. 'Then there's the Carousel, over on Rue Rubens. Not your cup of tea, cobber. What do you Yanks call them? Gays. I doubt you get your lollies that way.'
'No,' Frank said. 'What's this third one?'
'Paul Rund's, down on the Grand Socco. That's the biggest
