Hitman: Enemy Within by William C. Dietz Page B

police charities and was known to place a high value on his privacy. So the corpses were given over to their respective families, funerals were scheduled for the following day, and the deaths were ascribed to gang activity.Which, sadly enough, was on the upswing.

Chapter Seven
    FEZ,MOROCCO
    Ali bin Ahmed bin Saleh Al-Fulani’s study was quite large. Complex geometric designs had been painted onto the ceiling, and floor-to-ceiling bookcases covered most of the wall space not occupied by the three arched windows behind his desk. A set of six intricately carved, hand-painted, Moorish screens served to partition off the east end of the room, where a prayer rug and a day bed were kept, and three richly polished antique doors had been used to decorate the wall. They were made of cedar and bound with strips of brass.
    But Marla Norton had other things on her mind, and was only vaguely aware of her surroundings, as she entered her sponsor’s office and went to stand in front of his desk. There weren’t any guest chairs, and wouldn’t be, unless orders were issued to bring some in.
    Al-Fulani was a big man with a broad forehead, heavy brows, and a prominent nose. He was at least fifty, and some said sixty, but his face was smooth and tight. He owned dozens of Western-style business suits, but it was rather warm that day, which was why he had chosen to wear a full-length, Gulf-style, white thawb instead. It made Al-Fulani look princely, which Marla suspected was one of the primary reasons why he wore it.
    The Moroccan was genuinely fond of Marla, even if he considered her a Western whore, and smiled as he looked up from the report that he had been reading.
    “Yes, my dear, what can I do for you?”
    “Professor Rollet is ready for questioning,” Marla answered evenly.
    “Then it would be rude to keep him waiting,” Al-Fulani replied cheerfully, as he rose from his executive-style chair. “Come, take my arm, and we will go down to greet him together.”
    Marla knew that both of the Moroccan’s wives lived at his country estate, and were therefore blissfully unaware of what went on inFez . So she allowed her protector to escort her down a flight of gently curving stairs and into the basement. Besides having six bedrooms, eight baths, a huge kitchen, large study, and sprawling living room, Al-Fulani’s mansion boasted something none of the surrounding residences had: Its own medical clinic—and adjacent torture chamber.Which, like a similar facility at police headquarters, was equipped with ceiling-mounted hooks and a central floor drain. Nor was the seeming contradiction lost on Al-Fulani, who while not the recipient of a formal education, was well read, and therefore familiar with the ancient Chinese concept of polar opposites.Which was why he called one room yin—and the other yang.
    As the twosome entered the scrupulously clean yang room, the first thing they saw was Paul Rollet. The former spy and college professor hung spread-eagled at the very center of the chamber. Ropes connected his wrists to the hooks in the ceiling and his ankles to ring bolts sunk in beautifully tiled floor. The academic’s partially bald pate gleamed under the bright lights, the bushy beard made him look much older than he actually was, and his long, obscenely white body was reminiscent of a skinned rabbit. Rollet’s ribs were plainly visible, as was a shock of brown pubic hair, and a long wormlike penis. The bruises all over his body suggested that Rollet had put up a fight during his abduction, or been professionally beaten since.
    Other than Rollet, Marla, and Al-Fulani, the only other person in the room was a man named Habib, who had been forced to drop out of medical school inCairo because of his low grades, but had progressed far enough to learn a great deal about the human body, including portions that were particularly susceptible to pain. He liked to refer to himself as Doctor Habib, and affected a white lab coat, a pocketful of