Deathwish World

harm done, but let's keep it on a level where we communicate.'

'Fair dinkum.'

The American looked about the room, then brought his eyes back to his newfound friend. 'Nat,' he said. 'This doesn't exactly look like an employment agency. In fact, it's obviously a low-class bar where the town's less prosperous, uh, grifters, I believe is the term Paul used, hang out.'

Nat looked around too, taking in the other customers, both on the seedy side. 'Too right,' he admitted. 'Shall we do a bunk?'

'You mean get out? No,' Frank told him. 'Why'd you bring me here, Nat? '

The over-lengthy Aussie let his sun-faded eyebrows go up. 'What-o, cobber? You think I was trying to cozen you?'

'Look,' Frank said patiently, 'I'm game, but not everybody's. I was walking along the street, minding my own business. Suddenly you're there, winsome as a pimp, but you sure as hell don't act like one. Fifteen minutes later, we're in this dump. Why?'

The Australian went over and got two more bottles of Stork beer and returned with them. He was grinning. 'You said you were a deportee,' he told Frank as he put the bottles down.

'So?'

'I'm the local recruiting sergeant, cobber.'

* * *

Frank stared at him, even while upending the bottle over his glass. 'What is that supposed to mean?'

'Had any military training at all?'

'No.'

Nat Fraser looked disappointed. 'Don't twig anything about a shooter, eh? What did they nail you for, cobber?'

'I didn't say that. My old man was a gun crank. Had quite a collection. I didn't see much of him but he used to get a kick out of showing me the workings of everything from cap-and-ball revolvers to new Gyrojets. What was I nailed for? Homicide.'

The easygoing Aussie took him in for a long moment.

Frank said, 'Recruiting sergeant for what?'

'Mercenaries, Incorporated.'

Frank scowled. 'Never heard of it.'

'The Graf's outfit.'

'Never heard of him, either. You mean professional soldiers of fortune?'

'That's the dinkum oil. This is one of the big staging areas for many a contract. The Graf gets a contract and we put the operation together here in Tangier.'

'I thought Paul said you pulled nothing off here. That Tangier was sort of neutral ground. The boys, as he called them, didn't want to foul their own nest.'

'Fair dinkum. We don't do anything here in Tangier. Just recruit blokes who want to earn a little money, and put the operation together. The Graf's sometimes got other operations going. We crew some of them, too. Aren't as many bloody contracts these days as there used to be, but some. Bush wars down south between all the dictators, presidents for life, and that whole mucking lot. Some in the Far East, too. But we don't handle those operations. They're based in Singapore and Penang. The Graf's got his representatives there as well.'

Frank said, 'Soldiers of fortune, eh? Hiring yourself out to kill for money.' There was disgust in his voice.

The ordinarily amiable Aussie looked at him coldly. 'What other reason is mere to fight, cobber? A soldier's job is to win wars. If you pick that pro-bloody-fession, you wind up killing people, usually other soldiers who've picked the same trade.'

Some of his exaggerated Aussie slang seemed to have dropped away.

Frank said, 'The theory is that the usual soldier is fighting for his country. He's doing his duty, defending it.'

'Too right. That's the theory, but it's not the reality. I'm not talking about blokes drafted during wartime. They can't get out of it, even if they want to. But your professional soldiers are a bunch of hypocrites. At least a mercenary can choose what side he fights on. But your career soldier rights whoever the politicians tell him to. Look at the Germans in the Nazi war. Were they fighting for their country? Fucking well not. They were fighting for that dingo barstid Hitler and his gang.'

Frank was irritated by the other's strong opinions. He said, 'Even granting that doesn't excuse a mercenary, fighting for whoever will pay him.'

'Half a mo, cobber. I've never taken a contract for some rucking barstid like Hitler or any other politician I thought was buggering up his country. Sometimes I've been offered contracts where I wouldn't fight on either side.'

Frank stood and said, 'I'll get another, ah, buggering beer.'

Nat said, reaching into a pocket, 'You ought to let me shout the suds.'

'Why?' Frank said. 'I'm not a potential recruit. No reason I should be freeloading on you.'

At the bar, while Paul Rund was getting the fresh bottles of Stork, the wizened bartender said, 'Signing up with the Graf, Frank?'

Frank eyed him. 'I don't think so. Do you know of any other jobs kicking around?'

The other popped off the two beer caps, then ran his thin fingers through his bedraggled Vandyke. 'You might get a berth on one of the boats. Not as many of them as there used to be, but I heard Sam McQueen needed a couple of men.'

'What kind of boats?'

Paul Rund looked at him as though he had hardly expected that question. 'Smugglers.'

Frank said, 'For Christ's sake, I thought you said there was nothing illegal pulled off in Tangier!'

The bartender said patiently, 'Smuggling ain't illegal. You buy a cargo of hashish or tobacco here, perfectly legit, and run it to one of the countries where it's taboo, get it? And you sell it there, so you haven't broken any law in Tangier. Smugglers are reputable citizens here, get it?'

The American shook his head and took up the two beers. To his relief, they cost only two dirhams apiece in Paul's. Back at the table, after they had both poured, Nat Eraser said, 'So you're not interested?'

'I suppose not. Look, I'm not holier than thou. In fact, I suspect my father was some sort of mercenary; possibly in espionage, I don't know. He and my mother were separated when I was a kid; I didn't see him much. He was usually out of the country, I think. At any rate, he was finally shot on one of his trips. I haven't any desire to end the same way.'

The other shurgged broad shoulders. 'The Grafs got other operations, like I said. Maybe he could find a place in the organization for a nice presentable cove like yourself.'

'From what you've said so far about his operations, I doubt it,' Frank said, finishing his beer. He stood. Somewhat to his surprise, he could feel the drink. Possibly, Stork was stronger than the gassy anemic American brew he was used to.

He said, 'Thanks anyway, Nat. I'll see you around.'

'Too right, cobber. If you change your mind, I'm usually here this time of night.'

Frank sent his glance out of one of the dirty windows. It was dark out on the Grand Socco. He hadn't realized they'd been talking for so long.

He left after waving to Paul Rund and stood for a moment before the door. Not a fraction of the teeming Moroccans were still on the streets or in the souk. Evidently, everything folded in the medina with the coming of night. He made his way past shuttered stalls, past steel-barred store fronts, retracing his route as best he could.

He shook his head over the experiences of the past few hours. No crime in Tangier, eh? Uh-huh. Aside from the IABI men ripping off eight hundred of his thousand pseudo-dollars, the customs officer had lifted his camera, his cab driver had stolen his luggage, he had been offered a job as a mercenary despite his lack of experience, and had been told he might land a berth on a boat smuggling narcotics.

He came to a street that might be Rue de la Liberte and headed up it. It was too dark to make out the signs. He thought the street should have had more pedestrian traffic and more lights than this. The blow that struck him