[CHAPTER ELEVEN]
Flight to the North
"Serrangi!" Dave finally gulped out. "Mein Gott! What kind of trick is this you play?"
The owner of the Devil's Den smiled crookedly, opened the door wider and nodded them in.
"Come inside, my friends," he said. "It is sometimes necessary to be more than one person. I believed this was one of them. But come inside before the whole waterfront sees us chattering here. Seat yourselves in those chairs and be comfortable."
Very much like two awed kids being led through Toyland for the first time, Dave Dawson and Freddy Farmer stepped into the room, and slowly seated themselves in a couple of chairs. The shop was filled with rugs of all sizes, and makes, and all colors. They were on the floor in piles, hung four and five deep on the walls, and suspended on rollers from the ceiling. Agiz Ammarir's rug shop looked as though it could supply the whole world, alone, for the next couple of years. It did not, however, give either Dave or Freddy that impression, for the simple reason that their entire attention was riveted on Serrangi. Silent and wide eyed, they watched him close the door, bolt and lock it, and then move over to a chair for himself. In return, though, he didn't give them so much as a single glance. Once seated, he set about lighting one of his long brown paper wrapped cigarettes, with both his good and bad eye fixed expressionlessly on space.
Not until he was spewing smoke ceilingward did he lower his gaze and take further notice of their presence.
"You are entitled to an explanation, so I will give you one," he said in his sifting ashes voice. "In these days, the man who takes anything on face value is a fool. And the man who trusts even his own brother may well be dead tomorrow. For that reason I told you to come here to speak with one Agiz Ammarir. For that reason I had one of my men make a show of waylaying you and killing you en route. I...."
"So that was a fake?" Dave gasped out in German. "But that knife was inches from my friend's throat!"
"It would never have descended all the way to his throat," Serrangi said placidly. "The attack was to learn what you would say on the impulse of the moment. And in what language! There was once a man who came to see me with a promise of great wealth for me ... if I would reveal a little of the many things I know. He, too, presented himself as a German and a loyal follower of Herr Hitler. But I am not the one to be taken in that easy. I sent him, also, to visit Agiz Ammarir. He too, was attacked on the way. He opened his mouth, and in so doing sealed his doom, for he cried out in English. He was, of course, a British Secret Service agent. I have never seen him since. I suppose the poor fellow died from the shock of the attack."