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Updated: June 18, 2025
"No one gets that excited over a plastic model. The cat is important for some other reason. But what?" "I'll ask a different question for a change. Who would you rather have on your trail, Moustafa or Youssef?" Rick stared at his pal for a long moment while he digested the implications of the question. "I see what you mean," he said finally. "There are two groups after the cat. Right?
On the other hand, it was valuable as a model, as Bartouki had explained, and Moustafa had confirmed again last night. Rick wasn't satisfied. A professional thief like Youssef wouldn't be interested in a model. He would want only objects of high value.
When the camel's protests had ceased, Hassan spoke to him rapidly. The man answered at length. "He was with Youssef," Hassan said. "But he is also in the pay of Kemel Moustafa. Last night he went to Moustafa and told him about us. Moustafa sent him to bring us back." Rick hesitated. Could they trust this man? But it was a silly question, because he knew he had no choice.
Two hundred thousand dollars! Rick looked at the expressions on the faces around him. Scotty was standing with openmouthed excitement. Youssef was leaning forward, feasting on the wealth with greedy eyes. Moustafa was slumped in resignation. And Ismail ben Adhem had the look of the cat that swallowed the cream. "Now," Rick said triumphantly, "now we know why the cat was important!"
Youssef's words simply reinforced the conclusion he and Scotty already had reached. "Elements of value to a few people," Youssef had said. That might mean only a few people knew what the cat contained. If you didn't know, it was only a plastic cat. If you did know what it contained ... well, Youssef knew, and he wanted the cat badly enough to risk a kidnaping. Rick wondered where the cat was now.
In 1086, at Zallarca, Youssef gave battle to Alphonso VI of Castile and Leon. The Almoravid army was a strange rabble of Arabs, Berbers, blacks, wild tribes of the Sahara and Christian mercenaries. They conquered the Spanish forces, and Youssef left to his successors an empire extending from the Ebro to Senegal and from the Atlantic coast of Africa to the borders of Tunisia.
France sent troops to his relief, but as soon as the dissidents were routed, and he himself was safe, Abd-el-Hafid refused to give the French army his support, and in 1912, after the horrible massacres of Fez, he abdicated in favour of another brother, Moulay Youssef, the actual ruler of Morocco.
He threw the pistol and the head vanished. Both boys got to their feet and crouched to rush any newcomers. They whirled at the tinkle of broken glass behind them. Youssef stood in the window, a Sten gun trained on them. Rick looked at the deadly little submachine gun and gulped. He remembered what Ben had said about removing the evidence. The thief said, "Put both hands on top of your heads."
The boys did so, with no hesitation. In spite of Youssef's apparently casual manner, both knew he would not hesitate to shoot. He raised his voice and shouted in Arabic. The boys stiffened as footsteps sounded behind them and gun muzzles were thrust into their backs. Youssef vanished from the window and reappeared in a moment through the door. "You're a difficult young man," he told Rick.
"Amen," Rick echoed. He shifted position. "We'd better get some sleep. Should we go into the crypt or stay out here?" The crypt was only a cubic chamber of rough stone, partly filled with drifting sand. Desert winds had been alternately covering and uncovering it for centuries. "Stay out here until morning. Then we go in out of sun, like today. Youssef good to us.
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