Line of Succession

The only American mission recognized in Algeria was the Black Panthers. The Canadians were represented by the Quebec Liberation Front which had abducted and murdered various Canadian and British officials. FRELIMO, the Mozambique liberation movement, had training camps in the Algerian bled, and the desert was being used by training cadres of Al Fatah, the Palestine Liberation Movement. Altogether the ruling NLF accredited fifteen or sixteen liberation movements and granted them varying degrees of assistance in their attempts to overthrow established governments.

The Europeans closed their official eyes to what was going on because everyone wanted a piece of the thirty million metric tons of oil that Algeria produced every year.

Clandestine intrigue was standard procedure in Algeria and the whole structure was supported by the continuing existence of profiteers like Houari Djelil who carried out functions which the government could not fulfill officially. Most arms manufacturers were located in countries which Algeria’s friends were trying to overthrow; Algiers could hardly approach them formally and so it was up to men like Djelil to provide the vehicles, ammunition, matériel and Kalashnikov AK-47 automatic rifles with which the NLF equipped the revolutionaries who trained in the Western Desert.

It meant Djelil was a man whose movements were of frequent concern to various bashful agencies. If you wanted to meet with him you had to go to elaborate lengths. And so Lime stood on a street corner in the Casbah and waited to be informed it was proper to move on.

Finally the signal. A rickety old Renault 4CV came clattering through the narrow defile with its sun visors lowered.

He walked through the streets following it: every block or two it stopped and waited for him. Through the winding streets of the medina, the old maze of intricately woven alleys and dead ends. Urchins and beggars caromed toward him — “Hey Mister you want hash? You don’t like, I get you grass?” Black market money and leather goods and taxis and their sisters: they sold everything, the Arab kids. An old Berber in yellow slippers and a flowing robe accosted him with an arm strapped solid with wristwatches from palm to shoulder: “You want to buy cheap?”

He followed the Renault through a swarm of Arabs listening to a storefront blare of loud twangy music. A woman in gray stared at him from behind her veil, and a block beyond that an Arab passed him in the crowd and spoke distinctly in his ear:

“Ask for Houari in the next bar on your right, Monsieur.” In French.

When Lime turned to look the Arab had been absorbed by the throng.

It was a rancid little room, dim and crowded, filled with the smell of the stale sweat of habitual garlic eaters. The bar was tended by a big man in a fez; his neck bulged with folds of fat. Lime pushed to the bar using his elbows and the bartender spoke in Arabic: “Lime effendi?”

“Yes. I was told to ask for Houari.”

“Through the back door please.”

“Thank you.” He made his way through the heavy mob and squeezed into a passage no wider than his shoulders; it was open to the sky and gave him the feeling he was at the bottom of a fissure created by some ancient earthquake.

At the end of the passage a car was drawn up in the Rue Khelifa Boukhalfa. A black Citroen, the old four-door model with the square hood. The Arab at the wheel watched Lime come forward and reached across the back of the seat to push the rear door open.

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.