Scene 2

The telephone tinkled. It was the «Department». They were really early today – or late: in Port Louis it was already 3'o clock. Maille waited a moment before he pressed the mound of his index finger on the tiny green square.
«Hektor, we have contact.» Marie's voice sounded astonishingly awake.
«And? Are they really tiny, green, slimy and a lot more intelligent than we are?»
«How? Who?»
Maille had to sneeze and sensed how Marie instinctively held the receiver away from her ear.
«Contact, that's fantastic», he grunted, trying in vain to stem the leak running from his burning nostrils to his lips.
«Yes, we have been able to trace the signal from Koslow once again.»
«To Santa Lemusa», hoped Maille: «Or perhaps here in beautiful Switzerland? In an Alpine clinic, housed in a wooden chalet, where stinking-rich baronesses tear their pearl necklaces off their necks for failed writers?»
«Well, the signal was traced by our service point in Dubai – first to Abu Dhabi, then to Dubai itself and then to Sharjah, where it now seems to be stationed.»
«We have a man in Dubai?»
«No, I would not really call it a man.»
«A Mata Hari?»
«You will meet her. Her codename is ‹Enigma›. I have booked you on the 15.35 ‹Emirates› flight. By the way, your cook Odette was here today, a beautiful woman. She brought us cake and it seems as though she misses you.»

Maille was feeling too flat to indulge in meaningful repartee and let the matter rest. He spent the morning finding and consulting a doctor, who drew his blood sample, investigated it and then proceeded to prescribe a course of antibiotics for him as well as a few other specialities of the Swiss pharmaceutical industry.

continue