Marina stood still, chin thrust out, only the rapid rise and fall of her lovely breasts revealing the anguished turmoil churning inside her.
With typical Arab arrogance, El Ahmid halted before me, and the superior disdain was in his eyes again.
“You are an American agent,” he said. “We are certain of that. She is your woman?”
“That’s right,” I said. “Mine and mine alone.”
Marina turned, and her eyes darkened as she gazed at me.
I didn’t like using her this way, but I knew what El Ahmid’s convoluted reasoning would do with that tidbit of information, and I was completely right.
“She is no longer yours, American,” he announced. “She belongs to El Ahmid.”
I laughed and saw the anger leap in his eyes.
“She will never give of herself to a mere mountain bandit leader,” I said. Moving quickly, I stepped over to Marina and tore the brassiere from her breasts.
El Ahmid’s eyes widened in desire as he gazed at Marina’s gorgeous cream-white mounds.
“These are for a man of importance, a man of action,” I said. “I know this woman. She will obey and submit only to the very best of men. You are a nothing.”
He stepped forward, about to strike, but halted himself, eyes ablaze with anger. “The name El Ahmid will be known to all the world,” he raged. “She will be happy to be at the side of El Ahmid.”
“Why?” I asked mockingly. “Is he going to rob a big caravan?”
“El Ahmid will lead the new conquest of Europe,” he shot out. “El Ahmid will make history repeat itself once again.”
I’d hit paydirt and I pressed on.
“El Ahmid is as full of empty talk as an old man,” I answered, quoting an old Moroccan proverb.
This time his temper exploded, and he brought the quirt down hard in repeated blows.
I flinched back under them, half-turning away to take them on my shoulder.
Two Rifs seized me and turned me around. The damned quirt cut painfully across my temple and then my jawbone, and I could feel the rivulets of blood starting to trail down along my skin.
“Listen to me, you insolent dog,” he snarled. “Before I cut apart your miserable hide I’ll give you a little lesson in ancient history and coming events. We people of the Rif have been neglected long enough. We have always been set apart, good to have around when there was fighting to be done and conquerors to be driven out, but otherwise ignored. But this is all at an end.
“Our mountains, long the fortress of the north and the gateway to Europe, will serve as avenues for new conquests from the east. Do you know your history, infidel? Do you know how the Moslem forces of the seventh and eighth centuries swept into Europe?”
I nodded. “They came across the Straits of Gibraltar,” I said. “Where Morocco and Spain come closest together.”
“Precisely,” he said, eyes lighted with anticipation. “What you call Gibraltar we call after the Moslem emir who captured it,
“If you and your band are figuring on invading Spain, be my guests,” I said, frowning.
I couldn’t believe that was their scheme.
The Karminians would have recognized that for what it was, a hare-brained scheme not worth peddling to the Russians or to us. They wouldn’t have even tried to peddle it.
No, it had to be something else and I felt a distinct chill at his next words.
“The ancient conquerors from Islam brought the world of the Far East with them in men, ideas and armies,” he smiled. “I have effected such a mutually rewarding arrangement with our friends in the East.”
The chill was getting chillier. “You mean the Chinese Reds?” I asked, trying to sound unconcerned.
He smiled again, like a satisfied cobra. “Exactly,” he hissed. “Together, we are going to open up a new chapter in the history of the world.”
I was remembering the sixth man at the old stable whose back I saw.
“Purely by accident one day, while I was in the foothills of the Rifs near Tetuan,” he said. “I came across a fantastic engineering feat, one to rival the Pyramids and the Sphinx. I came across a tunnel, dug in the eighth century, from Morocco under the Straits of Gibraltar, to emerge in Spain. It was completed, except for the last few hundred feet upward to Spanish soil. Apparently it was never used, and no one living today knows why. But it is about to be used.”
The words had an ominous ring to them, and I didn’t really need to ask further, but I had to hear it through.
“You’ve tied up with the Chinese Communists,” I said. “You’re going to invade Spain through the tunnel.”
My mind raced as I said it. The two countries were separated by only nine miles at one point.
A tunnel would afford the first surprise impact but the tunnel would only be a device. What its use would mean was the real explosive factor and the Karminians had recognized it at once.
Spain, the Mediterranean area, had remained a fairly stable region. It would be a real coup for the Chinese Communists to have trouble erupt there. A thousand ancient rivalries, alliances and emotional attitudes would assert themselves.
