“That’ll take a lot of time.”

“I know it. But what else is there?”

“I’ll get on it,” Hill said, and went up the ladder.

Lime went back to Binaud. There was one more avenue to explore. “You say Ben Krim was not with them Wednesday night.”

“No.”

“Have you seen him since then?”

“No.…” Binaud seemed to hesitate. He hadn’t lied but he had just thought of something.

Lime waited. Binaud said nothing. Lime sat down opposite him. “What is it?”

“Rien.”

“It’s Ben Krim isn’t it. Something about Ben Krim.”

“Alors.…”

“Yes?” Suddenly Lime had it. “You’re expecting him to come here, aren’t you.”

Binaud’s eyes wandered away. Drifted down toward the stacked sovereigns. In the end the fatalistic shrug. “Yes.”

“He’s coming here?”

“Yes.”

“When? Tonight?”

“No, not tonight. He said it was not certain. I was to expect him Tuesday—that’s tomorrow—or Tuesday night.”

“Exactly where does he ordinarily meet you?”

“On the pier here.”

“Not in the bar.”

“No. He likes privacy, Benyoussef.”

Lime nodded. “I’m afraid we’ll have to intrude on it.”

10:15 P.M. ESTNorth African Time Peggy lit a cigarette and gagged on the smoke. These foreign brands must be made out of cow shit. She remembered the head nurse’s furious lectures on the suicidal toxicity of cigarette smoke and the thought made her crush the Gauloise out unsmoked. Then it occurred to her how ridiculous that was and she emitted a little laugh like a hiccup.

Sturka glanced at her coolly from the far side of the room and Cesar said, “What’s funny?”

“I had a training nurse who used to lecture us on the evils of smoking. I was thinking about it and I got so upset I put my cigarette out.”

“That’s funny?”

“Look we’re all likely to get killed in a matter of days and here I’m worrying about getting cancer when I’m forty-two. You don’t think that’s funny?”

Cesar picked his way across the rubble-strewn floor and squatted in front of her. The weak illumination of the kerosene lamps made him look jaundiced. There was a generator that provided power to the underground cells but the upper part of the building had been smashed thirty years ago by Italian bombs and nobody had bothered to repair the damage. Evidently some of Sturka’s old comrades in the Algerian liberation movement had fixed up the underground part with electricity and spartan accommodations but they’d never touched the aboveground wreckage. Probably because that would have given them away to the French.

Cesar said, “Nobody’s going to get killed, Peggy. Everything’s worked fine so far. Why are you so down?”

“They got Riva’s guys in Washington, didn’t they?” They had shortwave and they had been listening to all the news.

“They did their job before they died. That’s what matters in the people’s struggle, Peggy. Your life don’ count—it’s that you got to accomplish something before you die. Listen if we all died right now this minute we’d of accomplished something.”

“I guess.”

“You don’ sound very convinced. Look this is a hell of a time to get cold feet Peggy.”

“I haven’t got cold feet. Did anybody say I wanted to back out of this? All I said was I thought it was funny about the cigarettes.” Cesar had her angry now and she picked up the mashed cigarette and smoothed it out and lit it again.

Sturka broke loose of his thoughtful stance and came striding across to them. “Has the drug had time to work on him?”

“What time is it?” she asked.

“Twenty past. You gave him the shot half an hour ago.”

“It should’ve had time to work.”

“Then let’s go down.” Sturka beckoned to Alvin.

Peggy reached for the veil and the Arab robes and by the time she was costumed she saw Cesar and Sturka had engulfed themselves in their rough burnouses. Alvin had put a stick of gum in his mouth and they went down the dim broken stone stairs into the dungeons.

She put her thumb on the vein in Fairlie’s wrist. He gave her an incurious look; he didn’t even lift his head. His eyes weren’t tracking very well. She said over her shoulder, “Maybe we made the dose a little too big.”

“We gave him a smaller one last time and it didn’t work,” Cesar said.

She tapped Fairlie’s cheek. “Can you hear us? Say something.”

“I hear you.” His voice had a mausoleum tone, like a phonograph record being played at too slow a speed.

“Sit up. Come on, I’ll help you.” She got her arm under his shoulders and he obeyed, levering himself upright with sluggish concentration. She pushed at his chest and he slumped back against the wall, sitting on the cot sideways with his knees straight, looking like a small boy. His face was bloodless and his eyes were pouched and unrevealing.

She glanced at the others. Alvin stood guard in the doorway and Sturka was preparing the tape recorder; Cesar sat on the cot beside Fairlie and said in a reasonable tone, “Talk for a while, mister pig. Talk to us. Tell us about all the good people you’ve persecuted. Tell us about the fascist system back home.”

The hollow eyes settled painfully on Cesar.

Sturka was clicking controls on the tape recorder. Cesar said, “Can you read, pig?”

“… Of course I can read.”

“I mean aloud. Read to us, pig.” Cesar held up the speech they had written for Fairlie.

Fairlie’s eyes tried to focus on it but his head went back against the wall and his mouth slacked open. “Tired,” he muttered. “Can’t see very well.”

Too much, Peggy thought. They’d dosed him too much. She turned in anger toward Sturka. “He’s out of it, can’t you see that?”

“Then bring him around. Give him a shot of adrenaline or something.”

“I haven’t got any. What do you think I’ve got in that little kit, a whole drugstore?”

Sturka’s head lifted a little. She couldn’t see his face under the hood but she knew those awful eyes were burning into her. “Lady, your concern for the pig isn’t touching, it’s out of place. You’re forgetting who he is—what he is.”

She blanched. “He’s no use to us like this. That’s all I’m saying. I let you talk me into it but you can see he can’t handle the dose. We’ll just have to wait for it to wear off.”

“How long will that be?”

“I don’t know. It has a cumulative effect—he’s got an awful lot of it in his system. It may take three or four days for the whole thing to wear off. Maybe by morning he’ll be able to talk for you.”

She knew the trouble; it would cut things awfully fine. But it’s your own stupid fault. You just had to shoot the poor bastard full of stuff because he had the guts to stand up to you.

Cesar said, “Maybe he’s acting. Maybe he’s a lot wider awake than he looks.” He slapped Fairlie’s cheek and the handsome face rolled limply to the side; Fairlie blinked slowly and painfully.

“He’s not acting,” Peggy said. “Christ he’s had enough junk poured into him to knock an elephant on his ass. Acting? He hasn’t got any inhibitions left to play games with. Look at him, will you?”

There were flecks of white saliva in the corners of Fairlie’s slack mouth.

Sturka switched off the recorder and picked it up. “All right. Morning.”

They left Fairlie on the cot and went outside and closed the cell door. Peggy said, “I’ll try to get him to eat something later. A lot of coffee might help.”

“Just don’t bring him too wide-awake. We can’t have him resisting this time.”

“A few more cc’s of that junk and he’d be dead. He wouldn’t resist at all then. Is that what you want?”

“Talk to her,” Sturka said mildly to Cesar, and went ahead of them up the stairs.

“You’re getting to sound like a deviationist,” Cesar said. Alvin squeezed past them to go up the stairs; a blank look at Peggy and he was gone.

She slumped against the wall and listened with half her attention to Cesar’s voice. She made the proper responses mechanically and it seemed to satisfy Cesar. But under it all she knew they were right about her. She was sliding. She was worried about Fairlie—she was a nurse and Fairlie was her patient.