Bey stooped and scooped up the fallen automatic of Fredric Ostrander
and tucked it into the voluminous folds of his native robe. "Here we
go again," he said.

III

The man whose undercover name was Anton, landed at Gibraltar in a BEA
roco-jet, passed quickly through customs and immigration with his
Commonwealth passport and made his way into town. He checked with a
Bobby and found that he had a two-hour wait until the Mons Capa ferry
left for Tangier, and spent the time wandering up and down Main
Street, staring into the Indian shops with their tax-free cameras from
Common Europe, textiles from England, optical equipment from Japan,
and cheap souvenirs from everywhere. Gibraltar, the tourist's shopping
paradise.

The trip between Gibraltar and Tangier takes approximately two hours.
If you've never made it before, you stand on deck and watch Spain
recede behind you, and Africa loom closer. This was where Hercules
supposedly threw up his Pillars, Gibraltar being the one on the
European shore. Those who have made the trip again and again, sit down
in the bar and enjoy the tax-free prices. The man named Anton stood on
the deck. He was African by birth, but he'd never been to Morocco
before.

When he landed, he made the initial error of expecting the local
citizenry to speak Arabic. They didn't. Rif, a Berber tongue, was the
first language. The man called Anton had to speak French to make known
his needs. He took a Chico cab up from the port to the El Minza hotel,
immediately off the Plaza de France, the main square of the European
section.

At the hotel entrance were two jet-black doormen attired in a
pseudo-Moroccan costume of red fez, voluminous pants and yellow
barusha slippers. They made no note of his complexion, there is no
color bar in the Islamic world.

He had reservations at the desk. He left his passport there to go
through the standard routine, including being checked by the police,
had his bag sent up to his room and, a few minutes later, hands
nonchalantly in pockets, strolled along the Rue de Liberte toward the
casbah area of the medina. Up from the native section of town streamed
hordes of costumed Rifs, Arabs, Berbers of a dozen tribes, even an
occasional Blue Man. At least half the women still wore the haik and
veil, half the men the burnoose. Africa changes slowly, the man
called Anton admitted to himself all over again--so slowly.

[Illustration]

Down from the European section, which coul