Seconds later Wake was standing before the man himself.
31
Let No Man or Beast Fail
“You are here to assist the search for these poor missing souls?” Hassan, seated amid overstuffed silken pillows on a green dais several feet off the floor, had abruptly stopped talking with the Belgian, pointed to Wake and asked the question in French. Pickering translated between the two.
“Yes, Your Majesty. I will assist your government in any way that I am able to.”
“And you are here because your admiral is responding to the request of the ambassador?” Wake could hear a touch of disbelief in the tone of the Arabic, though he noticed Pickering didn’t echo it.
“Yes, Your Majesty. The admiral is very concerned and wants to help you in this matter.”
Hassan was a large man, muscular and not fat. Pickering said during the long walk that the sultan was rumored to have killed ten men in battle and others in the palace intrigues of his dynasty, the Alawites. Pickering explained he could not prove Hassan had killed his predecessor, Moulay Sulimane, but there were persistent rumors to that effect. Some said that poison had hastened Sulimane’s death along.
Wake could believe it. Framed by a dark-haired head that never turned, Hassan’s black eyes betrayed no emotion, moving back and forth over the assembled audience. Only his mouth occasionally showed expression, his severe smile emerging as more cruel than relaxed. Gowned in a silk robe of pale green, outlined in emeralds along the front seam, Hassan waved his right hand, his tone almost bored.
“That is good. Then it will please me that you will go on the search being organized by the colonel of my Royal Guards regiment. The French ambassador will be going also, for he has the strongest reasons of us all.” Catherine flooded into Wake’s mind as Hassan continued with a sigh, “I want all these people found and returned safely. Then I want them out of the land of Morocco. It is too dangerous here for infidel pacifists. You will leave then also.”
Wake remembered Pickering’s admonition. “Yes, Your Majesty.”
“And in addition to my colonel and my guard, I will send the Royal Scholar, Mu’al-lim Sohkoor.” Hassan stroked his goatee. “Yes, he will be valuable for the expedition.”
Wake wasn’t sure he should respond, but he got out, “Thank you, sir . . .” before Hassan leaned forward and with a fierce glare, boomed out in a loud bass that seemed like doom itself, Pickering shaking as he translated.
“I command that these missing People of the Book be brought before me, by the laws and customs of Islam and of the Great Prophet Mohammed, my ancestor and teacher. Let no man or beast fail in this command, and they that would try to stop my appointed—will be smitten from the face of the Earth! As I have said, it will be done!”
Everyone recoiled and even the fan-boys stopped, dead silence filling the room. Wake waited, but no one moved. He heard breathing again but everyone was riveted on the sultan out of the corners of their eyes, since all were looking downward. Pickering had explained earlier that royal audiences frequently went on for hours, until all the applicants for favors were heard, or royal business completed.
Wake, seeing the line form when they entered the royal chamber, assumed the sultan would speak with each, so he was taken aback when Hassan abruptly stood and snarled an order, prompting the guards to snap to attention and an elderly member of the royal retinue to proclaim something. Then a purple curtain suddenly came down, turbaned ushers cleared everyone out. Wake made his exit—walking backward with head bowed like the others, wondering how and why Catherine was in his life again—and wishing her husband wasn’t.
***
Pickering and Wake flowed out of the palace with the court entourage into the central plaza within the Kasbah. Wake looked around the torch-lit evening for Faber but couldn’t find him. As Rork joined up with them, Pickering touched Wake’s shoulder. “The courtier just advised me that the colonel of the royal guards has requested Ambassador Faber, you, and me immediately. Wants to talk about the search expedition. He’s over at the main gate.”
Faber was there already, grimacing when he saw Wake coming. Faber wasn’t subtle as he spoke to a man in the shadows, jerking his head toward the American naval officer. “Him! No—I will not have him on the search.”
Then Wake saw who Faber was speaking to and his heart stopped—things were getting worse. It was the man on the train months earlier who had said he was going to Morocco as a mercenary. He was decked out in a tan uniform with some sort of shoulder insignia, looking even more dangerous than when he killed the street tough in Genoa.
“Good evening, Colonel . . . Woodgerd, isn’t it?” said Wake, seeing surprise flicker on the other’s face. Turning to Faber he added, “Mr. Ambassador, I’m here to assist in the search for your wife. Lieutenant Peter Wake, U.S. Navy. We’ve met in Genoa, sir.”
Faber’s face tightened. “You, of all people. No ship, no Marines, just you?”
“I’m not particularly thrilled to be with you either, sir, but I think the main thing here is to find Catherine and the others, and I will assist in any way possible.”
With an amused expression, Woodgerd watched the exchange, then said, “Well I’ll be damned. The train in Italy. You’re that sailor who was heading to Porto Fino. Hell and damnation. Now I’ve got a friggin’ fish out of water
