“Exactly!?” said Moseh, a bit unsettled, and he searched al-Ghuráb’s face. The ra?s gave a little shrug and stared back at him coolly.
“Accordingly, he sees no reason to depart from the Plan now. As agreed, he will lend us four dozen oar-slaves, so that we can keep pace with the fleet on its passage to Alexandria. Victuals will be brought out on a small craft in a few hours. Meanwhile the jacht will send out a longboat to collect the ra?s and the ranking Janissary—these will go to pick out the oar-slaves.”
Now all began talking at once. It was some time before their various conversations could be forged into one. Moseh did it by striking the new drum, which silenced them all; they’d been trained to heed it, and it reminded them once more that they were still enrolled as slaves on the books of the hoca el-pencik in the Treasury in Algiers.
Moseh: “If the Investor does not learn of the thirteen until Cairo, he’ll demand to know why we did not tell him immediately!” (shooting a reproachful look at the ra?s). “It will be obvious to him that we sought to play out a deception, and later lost our nerve.”
Van Hoek: “Why should we care what the bastard thinks of us? It’s not as if we intend to do business with him in the future.”
Vrej: “This is short-sighted. The power of France in Egypt—especially Alexandria—is very great. He can make it go badly for us there.”
Jack: “Who says he’s ever going to find out about the thirteen?”
Jeronimo laughed with sick delight. “It begins!”
Moseh: “Jack, he expects his payment in silver pigs. We don’t have any!”
Jack: “Why give the son of a bitch anything?”
Van Hoek, grimly amused: “By continuing to conceal what the ra?s has thus far concealed, we are already talking about screwing the investor out of twelve-thirteenths of what would otherwise come to him. So why make such scruples about the remaining one-thirteenth?”
Moseh: “I agree that we should either screw the Investor thoroughly, or not at all. But I would argue for completely open dealings. If we simply follow the Plan and give the Investor his due, we will all be free, with money in our purses.”
Jeronimo: “Unless he decides to screw us.”
Moseh: “But that is no more likely now than it was before!”
Jack: “I think it was always very likely.”
Yevgeny: “We cannot tell the Investor of the thirteen here, now. For then he will say that we tried to hide it earlier, as part of a plan to screw him, and use it as a pretext to seize the galleot.”
Van Hoek: “Yevgeny is an intelligent man.”
Jack: “Yevgeny has indeed read the Investor’s character shrewdly.”
Moseh clamped his head between the palms of his hands, massaging the bare places where forelocks had once grown. For his part, Vrej Esphahnian looked ill at ease to the point of nausea. Jeronimo had gone back to dire predictions, which none of them even heard any more. Finally Dappa said, “Nowhere in the world are we weaker than we are here and now. It is not the time to reveal great secrets.”
In this, it seemed, he spoke for the entire Cabal.
“Very well,” Moseh said, “we’ll tell him in Egypt, and we’ll hope he’ll be so pleased by unexpected fortune that he’ll overlook past deceptions.” He paused and heaved a sigh. “Now as for the other matter: Why does he want both the ra?s and the ranking Janissary to come out in the longboat to collect the slaves?”
“It is a routine formality,” said the ra?s. “For him to do otherwise would be very odd.”*
“Remember, we are speaking of a French Duke. He will hew to protocol no matter what,” Vrej agreed.
“Only one of us can pass for a Janissary. I will go,” Jack said. “Get me a turban and all the rest.”
“EVEN IF THAT DUKE STARED me full in the face, I doubt he would recognize me,” Jack said. “My face was covered most of the time that I was in his house—otherwise, he never would have mistaken me for Leroy. I only let the scarf fall at the very end—”
“But if there was any truth whatsoever in your narration,” said Dappa carefully, “it was a moment of high drama, exceeding anything ever staged in a theatre.”
“What is your point?”
“In those short moments you may have made a vivid impression in the Duke’s memory.”
“I should hope so!”
“No, Jack,” Moseh said gently, “you should hope not.”
Only Moseh, Dappa, and Vrej knew that the Investor had for some years been combing every last fen, wadi, and reef of the Mediterranean for the man identified, by Muslims, as Ali Zaybak. Moseh and Dappa had followed Jack to the dress-up sack to fret and wring their hands. Vrej was completely unconcerned, though: “In those days Jack had long hair, and a stubbled face, and was heavier. Now with his head and face shaved, and a turban, and with him so gaunt and weather-tanned, I think there is little chance of his being recognized—provided he keeps his trousers on.”
“What possible reason could there be to take them off?” Jack demanded hotly.