Free The Serpent's Daughter by Suzanne Arruda

Marrakech. She would have to be watchful. With an incomplete rail system and limited vehicles, very few tourists pushed as far as Marrakech. That meant she would be more noticeable. It also meant that any non-Moroccans she met might be the kidnappers.
    She tried to rest but sleep eluded her, her mother’s face imposing itself every time she began to doze. Once she dreamt of her mother hosting a banker for dinner, convincing him to loan her husband a large sum with very low interest. A second dream showed Inez organizing a school for the pueblo children. In most of the dreams, her mother appeared impatient at Jade for taking so long to show up. Jade got up again and took out the dark blue woven robe and the dozen blue and black scarves she’d purchased from a street peddler.
    Eventually her stomach announced it was 5:30. She tossed the robe on the bed, took a seat back on the terrace and made a pretense of watching the people while she devoured stewed chicken with apricots and drank cup after cup of coffee. Patience, she counseled herself, but inwardly she felt like an unexploded shell, ready to blow apart at the slightest provocation. Deschamp’s watchdog still stood on patrol, looking more relaxed slouched against a wall. Jade pretended not to see him while her eyes searched the milling throngs for a smaller form.
    Presently the boy appeared, wending his way from person to person, his high voice proclaiming the virtues of his wares in French and Arabic. “Sweet oranges. Golden as the sultan’s throne.”
    “Here. I will buy an orange.” Jade saw the young officer watch her for a moment, then relax again when she did nothing more unusual than sniff a couple of the small globes before selecting one. What the man didn’t observe was the paper slipped to Jade with the fruit and the extraordinarily high price Jade paid for that orange.
    Jade shoved the telegram into her skirt pocket and calmly peeled her fruit, feeling the paper practically burn a hole in her pocket, taunting her to read it. She resisted. No one should suspect her of doing anything other than obeying Deschamp’s order to remain in Tangier. She finished her orange, then as the muezzin called the faithful to evening prayers, Jade rose and went to her room and ripped open the return telegram. The Dunburys had followed her example and written in Swahili.
    Roughly translated it read: “Received. Gathering help. Be careful.” At least she assumed the Dunburys said to be careful. They used hatari, a word that literally meant “danger” but was also used to express the need for caution. Jade had no idea what help they were gathering, but hoped Avery could persuade one of his many contacts to pressure either the American Consulate or the French to help her.
    She looked at her watch. Seven o’clock. Ten minutes after sunset. Another hour for the deeper darkness to descend. The earlier hours had been difficult enough to endure. This last hour seemed next to impossible. Jade forced herself to remain calm and busied herself knotting the scarves together into one long rope. She had wanted a room with a view of the Kasbah, but her frugal mother had insisted on the less expensive room whose windows looked over the narrow back alley.
    “Why pay more to see something from your room when we don’t plan on spending much time there?” she’d said.
    “Thanks, Mother,” muttered Jade as she tied one end of her silken rope to a bed post. “You’ve just made sneaking out of the hotel much easier.”
    Finally she decided the time was right. Deschamp’s watchdog would assume she’d gone to bed and would relax his vigilance. She slipped on the dark robe, tossed the rope and her carpetbag out the window, and shinnied down the outer wall.

CHAPTER 6
    There are two distinct cultures that call Morocco home. In the cities are
the Arabs, who resent the French intrusion into their home despite the new roads,
schools, and developing railroad. They forget they themselves