Read The Israel Bond Omnibus Online
Authors: Sol Weinstein
It was a homing radio.
Wherever the MBG was going, so was a tiny sentinel from TUSH.
Two minutes later CIA Agent Brown, a towering Negro in a trim Ray Charles trenchcoat, stepped out of the office and was about to start up the MBG when he saw the red sedan pull into the parking lot. “1965 Togliatti,” he told himself. “Let’s look at the little old manual.” He opened a pocket-sized book titled “Oppo Autos” and read: “Togliattis are manufactured in the Communist-dominated Italian town of Fiore by the Roberto Scinto dynasty, known ultra-left sympathizers. It is no coincidence that Togliattis are always registered to members of SMERSH (a contraction of the Russian words ‘Smert Shpionam’—’Death To Spies’), SAMBO, the newest top-secret surveillance cadre organized by a distrustful Moscow, whose initials stand for Smersh Also Must Be Observed, and TUSH. SMERSH and SAMBO invariably use Dagroes as drivers, opining that Swegroes, Spigroes and Bulgars are too dimwitted to manipulate the vehicle. The latter breeds, however, may accompany Dagroes as strong-arm men. TUSH, most imaginative of these clandestine networks,
will
use a Swegro as a driver if he has passed a driving test administered by a Dagro, mutation Bulgar or a Spigro with no less than 25 percent Dagro blood.”
No doubt of it, Brown reckoned. The Togliatti is here to tag the MBG. Might make things a bit sticky later on for Goshen’s Israeli pal with the bigshot reputation. I’ll have to see that Mr. Bond gets an edge on these scum!
“Hey, boys!” He called to the usual gang of ragtag Arab urchins pestering the deplaned tourists near the taxi stand for cigarettes. He waved a pack of Waterfords and they raced to his side. Brown spoke to them in Sakistani, distributed the cigarettes, and watched them as they sprinted to the Togliatti, sportively climbed over and around it until the swarthy, hatchet-faced driver, whose woolly poll, thick Negroid lips and Sicilian curses stamped him as an unmistakable Dagro, shooed them away.
When the red sedan started up and headed toward Baghs-Groove, Brown got into the MBG, turned on the ignition and heard the beep, beep, beep of the homer planted by one of the boys under the Togliatti’s license plate.
Brown smiled.
We’re ahead of the game now.
Not knowing he’d merely evened it.
16 Dee Dee, Da, Da, Da, Da, Dee Dee
As Goshen’s Simulac rumbled through dark, narrow streets there came from a lofty minaret the ululation of the muezzin and they saw the faithful prostrate themselves in the age-old tribute to Mecca, holiest of Islam’s shrines, then heard a second cry from the chanter that held a definite note of annoyance.
Bond smiled. “I’ll translate. He’s crying, ‘No! No! You fools! Mecca is
east, east!”
“This, your highness, is the native quarter, the fabled Cissbah,” Goshen broke in with the Fitzpatrick narration. “It’s so named because—well, look for yourself.” There were burros and their riders making their water, as all good beasts and men must, against a dank, moldy wall. “Your father, King Hakmir, was quite science-minded. Well aware of the traditional usage of that wall, he had his researchers cover it with a gigantic sheet of Tes-Tape to create a sort of instant health diagnosis. As you can see, the third rider on the right and the fourth burro on the left are incipient diabetics.”
“Can’t we get any more speed out of this, Mr. Goshen?” said edgy Neon. “We’re going at a snail’s pace.”
Not quite, Bond thought. He’d been clocking a snail that had started all even with the Simulac on the Via of the Hairy Houris and was outpacing it by at least one-sixtieth of a kilo per nonnautical dunam. They began to pass mounds of rubble that contained entire families, the fathers puffing pipes, children diving in and out of the debris in merriment, mothers at the bottom of the piles with old-fashioned papyrus brooms sweeping them together.
“Your late father’s public housing project, sire,” Goshen pointed out. “Before he instituted it, the
fellaheen
[47]
had no debris to call their own and slept in sewers, puddles, marshes, etc. See how happy they are now? Generosity was an integral part of Hakmir’s nature. He often told our ambassador, ‘I’ve made my pile; now let my poor unfortunate subjects make theirs.’”
From the look in LeFagel’s eyes, Bond knew Sahd Sakistan’s new ruler had been touched deeply. Good-o! Perhaps King Baldroi will yet be—
The first volley stitched its way across the Simulac’s windscreen
[48]
and he hurled LeFagel face down upon the Du Pont 501 orange and black Cottage Club carpeting. From the front seat he heard Goshen moaning. “I’m hit, Oy Oy Seven. Save the king....”
“Monroe!” Bond’s muscular right arm lanced out, pulled the CIA op chief over the seat and deposited him next to the sobbing LeFagel. “It’s an ambush, Neon. Right in this narrow alley and we’re caught like rats in a trap.”
“Say, Oy Oy Seven, that’s a sharp simile you just came up with, that rats-in-a-trap business. That one of your originals?”
“You bet, Neon,” Bond told the worshipping 113. Maybe I’m off base lying to the kid, he thought, but what the hell—Neon’s under enemy fire right now and it’s no time to start shattering the kind of illusions that make men happy to fight, to die, if need be. “How’s Goshen?”
“Shoulder wound. Not too bad. Who’s the ‘oppo’ out there?”
Bond shouted over the next barrage. “About fifty Kurds in black burnooses blocking the alley. We’re in for it, I’m afraid.”
Bond could hear the twanging of Neon’s crossbow and from the occasional screams at the end of the alley he knew the kid was giving a good account of himself. Time to start doing the same, Oy Oy Seven, he chided himself. He worked the back door open and dove into one of the piles of debris, the impact sending stones cascading down its sides. The patriarch at the top of the mound hurled a deep-throated insult at him: “Home wrecker!”
His long, tapering fingers slid inside his Neiman-Marcus shoulder holster and liberated the ice-cold Colt 45. He yanked off its pop top and let the bracing malt liquor run down his parched throat. An excellent beverage, he knew, but no substitute for the weapon I need at this vital moment.
When he heard it he thought: I’m losing my mind. I’m lying next to a shot-up limousine in a fetid alley, slugs whistling by my dark, cruelly handsome face, and I hear music! And it’s so familiar.
Dee dee, da, da, da, da, dee dee.
Yes, the first eight notes of the main theme from the motion picture
Lawrence of Arabia
.
The music swelled, came closer and the shooting ceased. He could hear utterances of awe from the band of attackers: “She comes! She comes!”
Bond got up and looked down the alley, blocked no longer by the Kurds, who had opened a pathway and were kneeling along its sides. Through it bobbed a woman on a white camel from whose neck hung a black box whence emanated the music—a tape recorder, he guessed. She wore a gold robe whose effulgence was doubled by the Arabian sun. A red tarboosh with a golden flyswatter for a tassel sat upon her head. Only two glowing coals, a pair of indescribably piercing eyes, could be seen over the top of her black veil.
When the white camel snorted, a cool, mellifluous British voice calmed it. “Be still, Latakia. Thy mistress commands it.” The dromedary obeyed.
Those wondrous eyes swept over the grim faces of the Kurds, who held their smoking Bunning slider-carbines in their gnarled, sun-blackened hands, the pained expression on the wounded Goshen, the wide-eyed Neon Zion, the trembling, lip-biting elfin king, and then found Bond’s unflinching grey eyes. For 120 seconds black eyes and grey eyes locked in a duel; then Bond’s cruel sensual lips parted in an arrogant grin of desire and he knew somehow that under the veil her own lips were framed in an answering smile.
“Welcome to Sahd Sakistan, your Highness.” There was respect in the voice, but no submissiveness. “I was a friend of your late, beloved father, King Hakmir, and have sworn to uphold his successor. Why these misguided tribesmen have dared to fire upon their rightful ruler is a mystery I shall endeavor to unravel.”
LeFagel’s composure returned. “We owe our lives to you, gracious lady. Who are you?”
A white-gloved hand reached under the camel’s neck, touched a button and the
dee dee, da, da, da, da, dee dee
strain issued forth again. “You will always know I am here to protect you, sire, whene’er you hear the opening eight notes of my traveling theme music. I am Sarah Lawrence of Arabia.”
17 Let’s Do The Tryst
As the mystery rider interrogated the Kurds, Bond promised the pale CIA Mid-East Op Chief, “This’ll stop the bleeding,” and he unscrewed his belt buckle to remove a tube, squirting its contents on the hole in Goshen’s left shoulder. “It’s cherry salve. My mom used to
schmear
it on every wound we kids ever had... burns, knife slashes, boils, even a deep puncture I received once when I fell from a window and was impaled on a rusty fence post.” Directly upon application the cherry salve drew the bullet from the flesh with a loud pop and the ragged edges began to knit. In a few seconds every trace of the wound disappeared, including an adjacent vaccination mark and a tattoo, I’M A BOSOX FAN.
“You missed your calling, Mr. Bond,” the mystery woman remarked. “Those long, tapering fingers should be healing men, not ending their lives with karate blows.”
Bond, placing Goshen in the rear of the Simulac, said, “You seem to know all about me, Miss Lawrence, which gives you an advantage, since I know nothing about you.” The grey eyes challenged hers again. “And I’d like to—very much.”
“Mount Latakia and ride with me, Mr. Bond, and we can discourse as I guide your auto out of the Cissbah.”
Ordering Neon to take the wheel, Bond accepted a white-gloved hand and with the fluidity of the high hurdler sprang onto the veiled beauty’s mount.
The cool, musical voice was deferential. “You seem to be no stranger to a hump, Mr. Bond.”
“That expertise, Miss Lawrence, is something I hope you’ll have complete knowledge of someday,” he sallied, and drew an appreciative chuckle from her.
“You have a rapier wit to match that lithe, muscular body, Mr. Bond.” She touched Latakia’s ear and whispered, “Onward, noble ship of the desert.” Latakia moved forward with an undulating motion that lulled them both into a state of euphoria. As they rode, Bond encircled her waist, his fingertips tingling with a strange sensation never before known to him. Gottenu! he thought, now it’s happening on camels!
“I am a twenty-fourth cousin by marriage of the famed Lawrence who changed the face of Mid-East history,” she said in her clipped, precise British manner. “As a little girl on our ancestral estate, ‘Guanay’s End,’ which is situated in the center of the triangle formed by Saxonshire, Normanshire and Brokenshire, I was regaled by Pater’s tales of my cousin’s exploits in Arabia and vowed to make a pilgrimage to the area one day to retrace his glorious footsteps. A child’s silly longing, I suppose, and I more or less had forgotten it because of the multifarious activities afforded members of my class. Pater was an M.P. for the constituencies of Sussex, Wessex and Essex and—”
“Perhaps,” Bond interjected, “you’d be interested in the benefits of a locale very dear to me, My Sex?”
“Capital, Mr. Bond! You
are
an amusing chap! To continue: As the daughter of landed gentry I went through the usual rounds, riding to the hunt with my trained pointers, Alpo and Thrivo, humdrum semesters at the exclusive Miss Fenton’s School for the Bored, where I majored in ballet, fencing, art and class hatred. There was never a shortage of dashing swains for the beautiful, accomplished daughter of an M.P., Mr. Bond, and I was constantly turning down marriage proposals from such eligibles as Ronald Duckblind, Brenfleck Coddingfeather, even Britain’s most sought-after young gallant, Sir Marvin of Throneberry. Despite the flattering attention I sensed the innate emptiness of this decaying way of life. My ennui did not escape the shrewd eyes of Rector Justin-Thyme Mother, spiritual leader of our Anglican parish. Father Mother, when he heard the dreams of an impressionable girl, said, ‘Then go to the Middle East and take up the tasks left undone by Lawrence of Arabia.’ However, there was much to be learned before I could come here—the art of riding a camel, for instance, which I mastered after many months of practice riding on a carousel in Blackpool. England’s most renowned female armorer, Lady Major Ruthboyd, taught me to handle rifles, side arms and medium-range rockets; I was schooled in the many dialects of Arabic by Ibn Tard, dean of the Institute of Middle East Languages and Intrigues; dressed for the desert by Muslim Dior and taught to exist on a mere handful of tanna leaves a day. I came to Sahd Sakistan a year ago and introduced myself to Hakmir and the leaders of the Kurds and Wheys, meeting first with rejection, until I had the presence of mind to play my theme song. Having seen the picture, they were convinced I was, indeed, Lawrence’s kin. It was this hard-won admiration, Mr. Bond, that made the Kurds halt their attempt to assassinate King Baldroi back in the alley. The Kurdish chieftain told me he had received a report that LeFagel was an impostor, a false pretender to the throne, and that a real pretender to the throne was about to arrive in Baghs-Groove.”