, said, "Let's go this way. I'd like to see the old Great
Mosque, in the Dyingerey Ber section of town. It's always fascinated
me."

Crawford said, looking at her and appreciating her attractiveness, all
over again, "You know Timbuktu quite well, don't you?"

"I've just finished a job down in Kabara, and it's only a few miles
away."

"Just what sort of thing do you do?"

She shrugged and made a moue. "Our little team concentrates on breaking
down the traditional position of women in these cultures. To get them to
drop the veil, go to school. That sort of thing. It's a long story
and--"

Homer Crawford suddenly and violently pushed her to the side and to the
ground and at the same time dropped himself and rolled frantically to
the shelter of an adobe wall which had once been part of a house but now
was little more than waist high.

"Down!" he yelled at her.

She bug-eyed him as though he had gone suddenly mad.

There was a heavy, stub-nosed gun suddenly in his hand. He squirmed
forward on elbows and belly, until he reached the corner.

"What's the matter?" she blurted.

He said grimly, "See those three holes in the wall above you?"

She looked up, startled.

He said, grimly, "They weren't there a moment ago."

What he was saying, dawned upon her. "But ... but I heard no shots."

He cautiously peered around the wall, and was rewarded with a puff of
sand inches from his face. He pulled his head back and his lips thinned
over his teeth. He said to her, "Efficiently silenced guns have been
around for quite a spell. Whoever that is, is up there in the mosque.
Listen, beat your way around by the back streets and see if you can find
the members of my team, especially Abe Baker or Bey-ag-Akhamouk. Tell
them what happened and that I think I've got the guy pinned down. That
mosque is too much out in the open for him to get away without my seeing
him."

"But ... but who in the world would want to shoot you, Homer?"

"Search me," he growled. "My team has never operated in this immediate
area."

"But then, it must be someone who was at the meeting."

VI

"That is was," Homer said grimly. "Now, go see if you can find my lads,
will you? This joker is going to fall right into our laps. It's going to
be interesting to find out who hates the idea of African development so
much that they're willing to commit assassination."

But it didn't work out that way.

Isobel found the other teammates one by one, a