Free Assignment Madeleine by Edward S. Aarons

your job of taking him back to the frustrating processes of
justice.” DeGrasse slapped his carbine. “Orrin Boston was a man highly
respected by everyone here. Even loved, one might say. My own brand of justice
for his murder would be cleaner and quicker.”
    “My orders are to bring L’Heureux back unharmed,” Durell
said.
    “And mine are to assist you in every possible way.”
    “Then shall want a truck and a driver by tomorrow morning.”
    “The nearest contact with other Army units who could give
you reliable escort to Algiers is well over a hundred kilometers to the north.
I could not spare an escort large enough to insure your safety. Not for several
days, at any rate."
    “No escort at all would be better than one that is too
small, yet attracts attention. Do you understand?”
    “We shall discuss it at your convenience.”
    “Now, if I may see Orrin Boston’s living quarters, Durell
suggested quietly.
     
    The jeep driver, who said his name was Jean Letou , was a sweaty man in a stained uniform,
steel-helmeted, with tired, bloodshot eyes that peered with suspicion at every
shadow on the narrow, twisting streets they followed. Durell carried a
snub-nosed .38, but he kept it in his pocket. He had to remember this was not
his war.
    The town was quiet. Durell looked at his watch and saw it
was almost midnight. Here and there a hurrying figure showed briefly
in the shadows, and the driver tensed physically as they passed by, but nothing
happened. They were moving away from the sector of town where the raid had
occurred. Jean turned down a narrow street where the stone houses seemed to
lean over them, their balconies almost touching overhead to form a tunnel.
Lights shone ahead in a small square. Garish, naked bulbs gleamed over a long,
high wall where someone had daubed in red paint, A bas les francaises ! The driver made a
spitting sound in his beard as they lurched by and then halted the jeep in
front of the dim entrance to a cafe.
    “I had better go in with you, monsieur. It is difficult to
guess how they will regard a stranger. They are always nervous after the rebel
attack. Afraid of their brothers and afraid of the settlers’ territorial squads
who make reprisals.”
    Durell surveyed the shadowy native building and the
surrounding alleys. “Did Boston live here?”
    “He lived everywhere, they say, but this was his
headquarters.”
    “Were these people his friends?”
    “Everyone was his friend, monsieur.”
    Durell looked at him. “Except for one.”
    “ Merde .”
The driver spit again, wiped his beard with a thick hand, and took his carbine
and stood on the rough sidewalk. “We have that one locked up at the command
post. It is a disappointment he will not be shot, I myself volunteered for the firing
squad.”
    “Let’s go in,” Durell said.
    The thin wail of a flute and the rhythmic beat of a
goatskin drum came from inside the café. There were several wooden tables
inside and half-a-dozen Moslems in European dress drinking tea. The music,
Durell saw, came from a radio. A dark—faced girl in a gray skirt and pink
blouse came toward them smiling, and then she stopped smiling.
    “Jean, everything is quiet here,” she said quickly to the
jeep driver. “There has been no trouble at all.”
    “It is this man,” Jean said, waving to Durell. “He has come
for Monsieur Boston’s belongings.”
    Someone turned off the radio and the music stopped. There
was silence in the small, smoky room. Two of the Arabs got up and walked out.
The girl looked at Durell with sullen, hostile eyes. “There is nothing to take.
He owned very little, wanted very little.”
    “I’d like to look around, anyway,” Durell said.
    “As you wish, m’sieu . Follow me.”
    She led the way through an arched doorway in the back of the
room and out through a heavy wooden gate into a back garden. The change in
atmosphere was startling, after the squalid café. A small fountain tinkled with
gentle splashings . A flight