Free Mrs. Pollifax Unveiled by Dorothy Gilman Page B

hug you but I won’t embarrass you. You’re really offering
help.”
    “No,” he said, “just a ride into the desert to show you what you’re up against.”
    She said gravely, “I’ll accept that. Until tomorrow noon, then.”

7

    S he bunked that night with Amy Madison, a woman whom Joe had described as a tough old bird, but Mrs. Pollifax liked her. She was a faded blonde in her fifties, gruff voiced, carelessly dressed, a native of Australia and author of a book on the Umayyads, and she was not at all interested in small talk, which Mrs. Pollifax found restful after her tiring attempt to seduce Dr. Robinson into loaning his Land Rover, and a long day of work in the desert heat. She was even able to endure another morning, this time helping Julie Lowell make falafel, bean cake stuffed in bread and garnished with tahini sauce, but she watched the sun climb higher in a sky white with heat and waited patiently for the midday siesta.
    When Joe drove the Land Rover up to Amy’s tent the workmen were lounging in the shade and smoking cigarettes, but the site was otherwise emptied. “So,” he said, smiling. “Off we go!”
    As she climbed in beside him he unfurled a map. “I’ve been studying this,” he said. “It’s hard to know where
not
to go. If we head directly south away from the highway and from the digs it could be tricky.”
    “Why?”
    He said uneasily, “Because there are
said
to be a few military camps in the south. One of the rumors,” he added dryly, “that I passed along, no doubt already known by your own people, if true. And we don’t want to head west, there’s a well-known military post at Khabajeb, about twenty miles from here.”
    “How do you know
that
?” she asked.
    “It’s a very poor country. From time to time there’ve been a few things stolen that we’d report. Food mostly, or tins of kerosene. Everything of value we keep locked up and guarded.”
    Peering at the map she asked, “What is that long name in capitals?”
    “Badiet esh-Sham—Arabic for the Syrian Desert. We have only two hours,” he reminded her. “What I suggest is that we drive for one hour, not south but to the south
east
, then make a turn and drive straight west, and, after scouting that, head back north to our camp. That should cover a fair number of miles and bring us back in time. Agreed?”
    “Agreed,” she said. “Sounds most efficient.”
    He started the engine and they drove out of camp past the field office and the privies, and soon there was nothing but flat and empty earth except for the shape of a mountain far away to the north and hazy from heat. Mrs. Pollifax had already learned that deserts were more often fashioned of grit and pebble, and only seldom the golden sweep of windblown sands shown in ads and in the movies, and she automatically braced herself for a rough drive.
    “It’s like a moonscape, isn’t it,” she said. “Is there the slightest possibility of finding sheep—or Bazir Mamoul—in this direction?”
    “I’ve never been this way before but I’m afraid it’s doubtful. Along the highway that brought you here, running from Tadmorto Deir Ez Zor, one sees flocks of sheep. They stop traffic when they cross the road, and we can try that direction another time—Dr. Robinson willing—but if this shepherd saw this girl you speak of, it had to have been well away from highways and villages, and his stopping at our camp for water suggests he’d been looking for his lost sheep on this side of the highway.”
    Mrs. Pollifax nodded.
    “Who is this girl, anyway?” he asked. “Other than her name, I mean. Amanda, you said?”
    “Amanda Pym. Not much known about her except that she came from a small town in Pennsylvania, both parents dead, one of them recently. We couldn’t risk bringing photos of her. A rather plain young woman, twenty-three or -four, and looking—to be frank about it—rather dowdy.”
    There was no further conversation; the Land Rover had been