He wasn't sure whether Zebari had chosen the cafe deliberately, or whether he'd just picked a fairly busy road and assumed that there would be a cafe somewhere along it. Either way, once he paid off the cab and turned into Rue de Sebta, he saw the white awning and collection of tables and chairs only twenty or so yards in front of him. Dexter glanced round when he reached the cafe but saw no sign of the man he was meeting. He ordered yet another mint tea and prepared to wait.
Five minutes later Izzat Zebari pulled out the chair opposite Dexter and sat down. He looked furtive and harassed, glancing all around him before he spoke, but at that hour there were few people in the cafe and only a handful of pedestrians. Two young men who'd been walking along the street behind Zebari carried on past the cafe without a backwards glance, deep in conversation.
'You've got the money?' Zebari demanded, as the waiter placed a cup of thick black coffee in front of him and moved away.
Dexter nodded. 'And you've brought the card?' he asked.
Zebari nodded in turn.
Dexter reached inside his jacket, pulled out two thick envelopes secured with elastic bands and slid them across the table. 'Ten thousand, in dirhams, as we agreed.'
Zebari mirrored Dexter's action, producing an envelope and placing it on the table. Each man reached out and took what the other had offered. Zebari opened the envelopes and ran the end of his thumb over the crisp banknotes they contained, riffling them like two packs of cards, then swiftly slid them into the pockets of his jacket. Dexter unsealed the brown envelope and slid out the piece of card. He stared at what was printed on it.
'Jesus,' Dexter said after a few moments. 'This is nothing like as good as I was expecting. The picture's a lot smaller than I'd hoped, and the inscription's still not very clear.' He tossed the card across the table. 'I'm not satisfied. The deal's off. Give me back the money.'
Zebari shook his head. 'This Walther in my pocket says the deal is still on, Dexter.' He pulled the butt of a small semi-automatic pistol into view. 'Think about it. I've really got nothing to lose.' He stood up, tossed a few dirhams on the table, and walked away, back down the street.
There's a slight kink in the Rue de Sebta, where a sidestreet links it with the Rue de Bured. The black Mercedes reached that point at almost precisely the same moment as Zebari.
The heavy car squealed to a halt half on the pavement, its long bonnet blocking Zebari's way forward as two other men closed in on him from behind.
Zebari saw the car swing towards him and immediately guessed the identity of the vehicle's owner. Right then he knew he was in trouble, deep trouble. He swung round, turning to run, but two men were right in front of him, the same two who'd walked past the cafe only minutes earlier. Both were clearly ready to intercept him no matter which way he went. Behind him he heard the unmistakable sounds of car doors opening.
Pulling the Walther from his pocket, Zebari snapped off a quick and barely aimed shot at the men in front of him, forcing them to duck. But they too were drawing weapons. Zebari's only escape route was across the road, through the traffic – and that's where he ran.
He dodged around a slow-moving truck and sprinted for the pavement on the opposite side of the road. He'd almost reached it when he felt a tremendous punch in the centre of his back. The echo of the shot reverberated from the buildings all around, and he tumbled to the ground, all feeling gone from his legs. He dropped the pistol, which landed with a clatter well out of his reach.
Almost casually, the tall man and one of his men jogged across the road to where Zebari lay. Numbers of people began to gather on both sides of the road, attracted by the drama, but none showed any inclination to become involved.
'You stole something from me. Where is it?' the tall man demanded, as his associate picked up Zebari's Walther.
The wounded man lay half on the pavement, crumpled and barely moving, a pool of blood spreading around him. He stared up at the tall Arab. Oddly enough, he felt very little pain, just a growing numbness.
'I haven't got it,' he said, his voice barely audible.
The tall man gestured and his colleague roughly searched the recumbent figure. He didn't find the card, but pulled out the two envelopes stuffed with banknotes, which he passed to his boss.
'Have you sold the card?' he demanded, looking down.
'Yes,' Zebari gasped, a sudden wave of agony coursing though his body.
'Not a bad deal, Zebari. All this money just for a small piece of card,' the tall man said, his voice quiet and controlled. 'You know me, or at least you must know my reputation. When you broke into my house to try to steal my tablet, you must have guessed what would happen to you. So why did you do it?'
'It was just a job,' Zebari muttered, the pain now starting to bite. He coughed, and a spray of blood showered the front of his jacket. 'An order from a British collector.'
The tall man looked interested. 'Does he have a name, this collector?'
'I was dealing with an intermediary, an agent.'
'And what is
Zebari said nothing, and the tall man leant closer. 'Tell me his name,' he said, 'and we might walk away and you might live.'
Zebari stared up, his gaze fixed with a kind of horrified fascination at the tall man's milky-white, unseeing and unblinking right eye.
'Dexter. Everybody just calls him Dexter.'
'And where would I find him?'
'He's here in Rabat. He was right there. I've just sold the card to him.'
'Good,' the tall man said, straightening up. 'We'll find him. Right, Ahmed, finish it.'
'I told you what I knew,' Zebari said, his voice rising in terror. 'You said you'd walk away.'
'I lied,' the tall man muttered, the left side of his face lifting in a travesty of a smile. He nodded to the other man.
The echo of the second shot was just as loud as the first. Another pool of blood began to spread from Zebari's shattered skull to mingle with the congealing puddle that had already covered a large area of both the road surface and the pavement.
33
Alexander Dexter guessed he'd broken every speed limit imposed in Morocco as he drove south in his hired Citroen towards Casablanca, but even he was surprised by how short a time it had taken him to cover the sixty-odd miles to the international airport.
As he'd walked away from Rue de Sebta, he'd made an instant – and actually very easy – decision.
He'd just witnessed Zebari's murder. The man had been tracked down and killed in broad daylight in the middle of Rabat, despite whatever precautions he had taken to ensure his own safety.
But even more terrifying was the ruthlessness of the man who had killed him, the man with the milky-white eye whose frozen face he would not forget – the man, Dexter knew, who would now certainly be after him.
He had his passport, wallet and keys for the hire car in his pocket; all that he'd left in his hotel room were a few clothes and his washing kit, nothing important. Given Zebari's killer's very obvious capability, Dexter suspected that even if he went back to his hotel immediately, there was a good chance that a couple of men would already be there waiting for him.
So he'd changed his mind and told the taxi driver to drop him on a corner a short distance from the building, and had then walked straight over to the Citroen that he'd left parked on the street, got in and driven away.
When Dexter had flown out to Morocco, he'd taken an Air France flight to Rabat from Heathrow. The return half of that ticket was still in his jacket pocket, but there was no way he was going to use it. That, he guessed, would be far too obvious – and too obviously dangerous. He was sure Zebari's murderer would already have men on the way to the Rabat-Sale airport some five miles north of the city. Dexter's decision to drive to Casablanca was an attempt to put some distance between himself and his pursuers, and hopefully to throw them off the scent.
At the Mohammed V airport in Casablanca, he didn't bother returning the car to the Hertz desk. He just parked it, locked the doors and tossed the keys underneath it. When – if – he got back to England, he'd tell the local
