Lime got in and pulled the door shut. The Arab put the car in motion without speaking and Lime settled back to enjoy the ride.

The St. George was the state-owned deluxe hotel high on a hillside with a magnificent overview of the city. The Citroen drew up at a service door and the Arab pointed toward it; Lime got out of the car and went inside.

The corridor was heavy with kitchen smells. He walked toward a small man in a business suit who watched him approach without changing expression and spoke when Lime stopped in front of him: “Mr. Lime?”

“Yes.” He saw the bulge under the man’s coat; Djelil certainly surrounded himself with protection.

“The stairs to your right please? Go to the second floor, you’ll find Room Two Fourteen.”

“Thank you.”

Djelil’s door was opened by a heavy woman with a well-developed moustache who stepped aside and admitted him.

Djelil stood in front of an armchair from which he had just risen. He salaamed Lime and smiled a little. “I thought they had retired you, yes?”

“They should have,” Lime said. Djelil made a discreet gesture and the woman withdrew from the room, shutting the hall door after her.

Obviously it was not Djelil’s residence. There were no personal possessions. The decor was plastic-Hilton and the window looked out against a hillside.

“Ça va, David?”

“Poorly,” he said, doing a quick wash with his eyes. If the room was bugged it didn’t show; if they had company it would have to be under the bed or in the Wardrobe.

“There’s no one,” Djelil said. “You asked we meet alone, yes?”

Djelil was swarthy and narrow; he looked less like an Arab than a Corsican hoodlum but his face had authority—the strength of a consciousness that had seen many things and not been changed by them. It was his weakness as well as his strength; he had been fundamentally untouched by his lifetime of experiences.

Djelil smiled lazily and lifted a canvas satchel onto the chair. From it he produced bottles. “Cinzano or rum?”

“Cinzano I think.” He needed a clear head.

“There should be glasses in the lavatory.”

Lime found a pair of heavy chipped tumblers and realized as he collected them that Djelil had sent him after them to reassure him there was no one in the bathroom.

He carried the glasses inside and glanced at the greenish turban that lay on the bed. “I see you’ve earned the mark of a Haj to Mecca.”

“Yes, I went six years ago.”

Remarkable, Lime thought.

Djelil handed him the drink and he waved his thanks with the glass.

“At any rate it’s better than the pinard we used to drink, yes?”

Lime sat on the edge of the bed; hotel rooms were not made for conversations. “And how’s Sylvie?”

Djelil beamed. “Oh she is very grown up, yes? She is to be married in a month’s time. To a government minister’s son.”

She had been four years old when Lime had last seen her. It was not a thought worth dwelling on. “I’m very glad to hear that.”

“It pleases me you remember, David. It’s kind.”

“She was a lovely child.”

“Yes. She is a lovely woman too. Do you know she is acting in the cinema? She has a small part in a film. The French are shooting it here now. Something about the war, the Rommel days.” Djelil smiled broadly: “I was able to supply the producers with a great many things. Practically an entire Panzer battalion.”

“That must be rather profitable.”

“Well ordinarily, yes? But persuading them to use one’s daughter as an actress was more important this time. I’ve allowed them to hire the tanks for a beggar’s price. She can’t act of course. But she has the beauty for the camera.”

Djelil’s glistening black hair was combed carefully back over the small ears; he looked prosperous and content. Lime said, “Julius Sturka has our new President out there somewhere. Probably in the djebel.” Like Lazarus, he thought, just lying in an open grave waiting for a savior to come.

Djelil’s smile coagulated. Lime proceeded with caution. “My government can be generous in times like these.”

“Well that is most interesting, yes? But I am not sure I can help.” Djelil’s face had closed up, with guilt or with innocent curiosity; from his expression it was impossible to guess but from experience Lime knew.

“For information that led to the safe recovery of Clifford Fairlie we could pay out as much as half a million dollars.” He spoke in Arabic because he wanted Djelil to reply in Arabic: when a man spoke a language other than his own you couldn’t be certain of the subtleties of his meaning—his inflections might be caused by his accent rather than his intent.

“I’m quite sure you can help,” he added gently.

“What made you come to me, David?”

“What made you freeze when I mentioned Sturka?”

Impenetrably discreet, Djelil only smiled. In Arabic Lime said, “Your ears have access to many tongues, effendi. We both appreciate that.”

“It is difficult. I haven’t seen Sturka since the days of the ALN, you know.”

“But you may have heard a few things?”

“I am not sure.”

“Sturka needed a hideout. He needed transportation and supplies. He needed access to the ministries in charge of government patrols out in the djebel—to make sure the FLN keeps clear of his hideout.”

“Well I suppose that must be true, if as you say they are hiding in the djebel. But what makes you think so?”

“We’ve identified Benyoussef Ben Krim.”

“Surely you have more than that?”

Lime only nodded gently; he had given away all he was going to give, it was no good adding that through Mezetti they had traced Sturka’s movements as far as the south coast of Spain and had concluded that Sturka must have made the crossing to North Africa.

Djelil stood up and paced to the door, turned, paced to the window, turned. Lime lit a cigarette and looked around for an ashtray. There was no hurrying Djelil; he had to think about the money a while. Then he would start to bargain. Djelil was a past master at horsetrading; he had learned his art as a slave auctioneer.

At the door Djelil turned, stopped, scowled at the wall, tapped his foot a few times and grunted. He walked slowly to the window and stood in front of it looking out. Lime studied his back.

Abruptly Djelil turned to face him. Djelil’s features were obscured; the twilit sky silhouetted him. “Do you recall the village of El Djamila?”

“A few kilometers up the coast—that one?”

“Yes.”

“They’re not holding him there?”

“No, no. Of course not. I have no idea where they might be. But there is a man in El Djamila, a pied-noir who was a spy in the French camp for Ben Bella. For various reasons I think he may be able to help you in your search.…”

Lime had not heard the movement behind him because Djelil’s voice had his attention but when he turned his head slightly he caught a tail-of-the-eye impression imperfectly—the door swinging soundlessly open—and his scalp contracted. With the speed of long-forgotten habit he rolled off the bed and dropped to the floor, hearing the crack of the silencer-pistol and the thud of its bullet into the wall above his head; he dragged the .38 out of the armpit clamshell as he rolled.

His shoulder blade struck the wall. He saw the squat zigzagging shape across the room and fired the .38 three times very rapidly, recognizing the intruder slowly as he fired.

It was the woman with the moustache. She died with a kind of low-comedy surprise on her face and Lime spun toward Djelil as she was collapsing.

Djelil had a curved knife. His arm was swinging up toward Lime.

Lime parried with the revolver. It cracked against Djelil’s wrist. Djelil didn’t lose the knife but his hand had been numbed and Lime dropped the revolver, snapped a grip on Djelil’s arm at wrist and elbow and broke the arm across his knee.