"All that glisters is not gold; often you have heard it told.
Many a man his life has sold, but my outside of behold.
Gilded tombs to worms enfold, had you been as wise as bold.
Young in limb in judgement old, Your answer has been not inscroll'd, .
Fare you well, your suit is cold."
~ Merchant of Venice-Act II -scene VII Prince of Morocco.
"The Moroccan Affair"
Napoleon Solo sat at a table in the café Al-Masraf in the city of Marrakesh, a place that always fascinated him, with it's many alleys and soucs; it was exotic and mysterious like a beautiful woman. Yet under this particular woman's gossamer robes lay hidden a den of iniquity, thievery, prostitution, drug and slave trafficking...pretty much any sort of illicit endeavour that you could imagine went on there with in this old gal's city limits. It was too easy for it not to.
The city with it's tiles walls, Moorish influences, Islamic carvings and second story windows covered with intricately carved wood lattice work mashrabiya, offering perfect concealment for eyes peering out at the streets below while protecting from the heat of the sun.
Local law enforcement looked the other way while their pockets were filled with money; bribery was rampant among their ranks. That was about the only thing that was predictable about the place, well that and the beauty of the women.
It was just the sort of place where a particular species of bird loved to nest. Here they could be invisible, blending into the background while they schemed and contrived to work their way into the good graces of a young and inexperienced King.
Morocco was now a kingdom again under the rule of it's monarch King Hassan II , but it was still new to self reliance, having freed itself from the protective cocoon of the French under the rule of Mohammed V, Hassan's father and now it was attempting to fly off on it's own as a butterfly into the desert air.
It had actually been more a domination under French rule as the native Moroccans had no rights and were treated as second class citizens in their own country. And now they were learning to be an independent nation, taking their first tentative baby steps. Solo only hoped that those steps weren't taking them straight into the arms of Thrush's influence.
Napoleon relaxed his body, looking just a bit sultry as he tilted his red fez forward on his head; sipping his drink served in a Moroccan tea glass...coffee nss nss, made with half black coffee, half milk and spiced with a pinch of Ras el Hamut...cinnamon, nutmeg, cardamon and black pepper. He appeared to be watching intently as a belly dancer gyrated in the center of the room, her hips swaying and undulating to the rhythmic playing of a small group of musicians that sequestered themselves off in a corner of the room. The sounds of the ghaytah, a double reed wind instrument backed by a three stringed ginbri, accompanied by the bendir and taaiji drums all bringing her dancing to a near frenzy of erotic movements.
Seeing his gaze; her dark heavily made up eyes focused on him while the rest of her face was hidden behind a wispy veil, thinking perhaps she was garnering the favor of a wealthy and handsome foreigner.
"Not tonight Josephine" he muttered reluctantly to himself. Besides, she just wasn't that good to warrant his full attention. Even her voluptuous jiggling breasts could not keep his interest as he reminded himself that he was not there for the entertainment.
Across the room sat the man that he had been following. Dr. Miguel Kadiri, a dark haired man with hawkish features of mixed Spanish and Moroccan heritage working for the feathered ones. He was a chemist and was purported to have discovered a process where by he could speed up the work of mother nature, creating diamonds of substantial size and quality.
If these were cut, polished and released on the market undetected, Thrush could garner millions if not billions of dollars to fill their coffers, enabling them to finance what ever devilish scheme they had in the works to achieve their ultimate goal of world domination What better way to manage that than to control one of the worlds most influential and monetarily successful trades, the diamond business.
It was "imperative that the mechanism developed to do this was destroyed and Kadiri either taken prisoner or eliminated," those were Alexander Waverly's exact instructions. And of course there was the usual codicil to keep collateral damage to a minimum; citing recent budgetary concerns.
Napoleon never liked being issued a license to kill, though sometimes it just couldn't be avoided. Yet he took cold comfort that his partner was a little more aggressive in that area than he was.
Not that Napoleon Solo wasn't capable of eliminating a target; he just preferred not to. Illya however had no reservations in fulfilling such an order, as the Russian had a ruthless side that had become evident over the years.
He suspected that it was something that had just been ingrained into him from his days with the GRU. There was a duality to his partner as he always came across as very decent and polite man, having a good heart, but that heart could turn very cold on a moment's notice when needed. There was a very private side to Illya that was ever guarded, not even letting his partner through that door, and he wondered what it was that had shaped Illya Kuryakin into the sometimes mysterious man that he had become.
The most important thing that he knew about his partner was that he could trust him with his life, and that was really all he needed to know about the man.
Firstly they needed to find Dr. Kadiri's invention, as well as the manufactured diamonds, then the decision to take Kadiri out or not would be made. Illya was off doing his scouting as usual, while he had the not so unpleasant task of tailing Kadiri. Napoleon had to admit that so far this part of job had been the least been the easy part. Being out of the midday sun was definitely a positive and he supposed the belly dancer wasn't such terrible a circumstance to put up with.
Rumor had it that a big shot from Thrush Central would be arriving within the next twenty-four hours to take possession of the gems, reportedly three of them, ranging from eight to ten carats in weight, D colour and internally flawless. Essentially perfect diamonds.
Purported to possess the same thermal conductivity and refractive qualities of natural stones making them virtually undetectable as fraudulent. Kadiri had figured out a way to grow in only months what it took mother nature up to millions of years to do in volcanic kimberlite.
The potential to manufacture these stones and flood the market with them was a terrible reality. That happening would essentially downgrade the value of the most precious gem in the world to nothing. Diamonds were not only used in jewelry, but high quality stones were sold as for investment purposes.
They were a hard currency that maintained their value and there wasn't a successful business man or company that didn't hide some of their cash in diamonds. This would suit Thrush's purposes perfectly.
As they did a controlled release of these flawless stones, they would milk the scam for all it was worth, limiting the release, manipulating the supply and demand as internally flawless diamonds were the most rare, and those of perfect color and a preferred size even more so.
Eventually the value of diamonds would be affected as these gems would gradually saturate the market, becoming as they say, a dime a dozen.
Major cities where diamonds were cut would be inundated with these stones. The production and distribution of diamonds had always been consolidated in the hands of but a few key players, concentrated in traditional diamond trading centers, the most important being Antwerp, handling more than 80% of all rough cut stones, and over 50% of all cut diamonds, commercial and industrial diamond, And New York City, was where 80% of the world's diamonds were sold, including auction sales.
With diamond exchanges in over 25 key countries the potential disaster from the distribution of these stones would be felt worldwide...Thailand, the Netherlands, Italy, Germany, the United States, Singapore, the United Kingdom, Israel and Japan, just to name a few would suffer serious financial setbacks if not complete ruin.
Once Thrush had gotten their ill-gotten gains, they could very easily let it be known that the market had been flooded with fakes, crushing the credibility of those who controlled the diamond supplies to the world, the ones they had duped into distributing them in the first place.
Thrush could then stockpile real gems, and literally sit on a small fortune as they would then become the distributors of natural diamonds, offering certification that they were indeed natural. Controlling their release, making them again a commodity in demand. And by controlling their release, the would control the pricing as well.
It was a scathingly brilliant plan, if only in it's infancy stages; the implications and potential for world wide financial damages were staggering. The domino principle would hold very true for this scheme if it came to pass affecting not only the diamond trade but major financial institutions and businesses across the globe.
.
Solo continued glancing at the dancer, but his focus remained on his quarry and at the same time wondering where Illya had gotten to. He hoped the Russian had been successful in his quest to find the chemist's lab somewhere within the city. Once they could take out the lab, then it would be a quick job to see Thrush's plan nipped in the bud.
The dancer finished, quickly gathering the coins and offerings thrown at her feet as she stepped lightly out of view with and obvious look of disappointment that Solo was not coming after her.
The musicians continued to play as the room filled the noise of conversation and laughter along with the smoke of tobacco and hookas. A cloaked beggar sidled among the tables, seeking money from some of the patrons before the owners could toss him out. As he approached Solo, the man's head remained unseen, covered with a knit cap and the hood of a tattered burnoose.
He held out a dirty hand towards the agent, palm upward in supplication. "Please effendi, a few coppers for an unworthy soul unable to feed his children.
Napoleon was not an uncharitable man, but at the moment he couldn't afford to have his attention diverted from the Doctor who was looking like he was preparing to leave.
"Sorry not now." He mumbled hurriedly," another time perhaps."
"But effendi please a few coins to buy some borscht at least?"
Napoleon attention snapped to, peering at what he realized were blue eyes staring out at him from under the hood.
He reached into his pocket, pulling out a few darahim and Moroccan francs of avoid suspicion, dropping them into his partner's outstretched palm.
"A thousand thanks and blessings Effendi," the beggar said kissing the back of Solo's hand, slipping a piece of paper into it at the same time.
"Hey filthy dog out of here before I call the Gendarmarie! Veet allez, allez!" The proprietor yelled, clapping his hands at the beggar who disappeared like a human Sirocco out the door to the hot afternoon streets.
"Please pardonnez-moi Monsieur, these disgusting beggars and thieves come in trying to take advantage of our foreign customers. I hope his presence did not offend you. May I offer you another coffee? I saw that you were watching the dancing of Nahid very intently, perhaps I can have her give you a private performance?" Solo chuckled to himself upon hearing her name, thinking it was quite appropriate as he knew that it meant big breasted. There were definitely some words he made a point of knowing in several languages...
Napoleon eyed Kadiri impatiently as he rose from his cushioned seat on the floor, trying not to be distracted by the host's groveling.
"No, no thank you but merci Monsieur. There was no offense taken I assure you." He said, standing up from his own seat, pushing the man aside as he headed towards the door after the chemist.
He took a discreet look at the note that Illya had passed to him, it was his partners ever so neat writing indicating an address. Obviously he'd found the lab.
Napoleon steeped out to the narrow busy street, looking quickly for the direction the Doctor had taken, when suddenly a burnoose was tossed at him.
"Put that on, otherwise you will stick out like a sore finger." his partner whispered from behind him.
"Fine, and that's thumb, stick out like a sore thumb"
"What ever...Kadiri went that way, we will follow him to see if he is heading back to his lab. Might as kill two Thrush with one stone? If he is not, then I will go to the lab and take care of it, and you will stick with him, da?"
Solo nodded as he draped the burnoose around his shoulders, pulling the hood up to cover his face.
The two agents moved casually, following behind Kadiri remaining virtually invisible to the untrained observer. Illya knew there were others watching, knowing eyes that might see he and Napoleon but his concern was not for them; it was for their quarry. Should someone realize it was the scientist they were after and intervened; the man could be spooked. And they would more than likely lose him.
If that were to occur then they would have failed in completing half their mission, leaving only the destruction of the machine to complete. The confiscation of the fake diamonds before they fell into the hands of Thrush would be another matter, if Kadiri had them on his person and they lost him; that would not be a good thing. The man being left alive would allow his project to begin anew, just somewhere else. They were under the gun and had to handle this before the little bird from Central showed up.
"Best guess as to where he's going?" Napoleon asked out of the side of his mouth.
"He is heading in the opposite direction of his laboratory. Perhaps we need to split up, you get the good Doctor and I will take care of the lab. Hopefully the stones are either with him or still there."
"Sounds like a plan. Which direction is his place?"
Illya nodded his head, rather than pointing. "It is approximately a quarter of a mile in that direction, you have the address. It has a distinctive green canopy over the door...please Napoleon, do not get lost when you return with the Doctor. Better still, maybe I should come to you when I am done?"
"No. I'll meet you there, and one small point of fact, I only get lost when I'm driving...sometimes."
Illya smiled at his partner's admission and with that slipped into the crowd, disappearing among those that were wearing burnoose's that were identical to his.
It never ceased to amaze Solo that the man, as blond and fair-skinned as he was had to ability to blend in with the background like a chameleon. He could be standing right there in a room with him, and he knew Illya was there, but still could not see him. Whether Illya was standing behind a display of greeting cards, or right next to a decorative palm tree, you wouldn't see him unless he permitted himself to be seen.
Little did Napoleon realize that this was possibly the last time he would see his enigmatic partner.