RUGS

CHAPTER ONE

"Wait a minute.  How old are you?"

"I eleven," the boy said beaming, slamming the pedal down and welding the rug merchant to the back of his seat.

Pakistan's wildest and smallest cabbie tore off through the summer-hot streets of Karachi swerving to miss street vendors, goat carts and baskets teetering high on rocking vehicles in a mad dash to deliver his fare to an airstrip east of the city.  Four miles of winding streets and merchants doing just as they pleased was tough on the nerves, Western nerves anyway, but the kid's driving was good, really good.  He knew two speeds, fast and faster, as he tried to see over the car's instrument panels.  Tracer usually avoided the underage taxi maniacs peculiar to the Far East, but at present, had no choice.  Not all the sweat on his brow was from the insufferable heat.

"Good God, kid!  Slow down a little!"

"You want fast?"

"Well, yes, but ... "

"Then I'm drive, you no talk!"

A shot cracked from behind and a bullet whacked through the rear window.  Something the kid yelled sounded like "son of bitch" tangled in thick guttural Arabic.

Trace recoiled in horror when the spray of flying glass brought a sobering realization that his colorful life might end before the hour was up.  With hands cupped over his face he peeked out from between his fingers at the pedestrians beyond the yellow hood of the Chevy Impala and wondered once again why his business had to be this hazardous.  He glanced lovingly under his shielding fingers at the four-by-six Pakistani silk rug folded neatly beside him, then looked around to see if the thugs from hell were still at his backside.  Fortunately they too were having traffic problems.

Amidst the rattle and crash of this brutal taxi ride, Tracer recalled a phone conversation two years earlier with Tom Smith, an old high school friend now an attorney, and concluded once again that the odds of staying alive in this strange pursuit were about the same as having a prosperous business curve in the late roaring twenties.

"Rugs?" he had said an eternity ago.

"Yes, Trace.  Rugs," Tom had repeated, switching the receiver to his other ear.  "You know, those tapestry-looking things you put on floors?"

"I know what they are, Tom.  But why rugs?"

"Look, every time you come down here to D.C. what do you talk about constantly?  And when you worked in the Middle East, what did you always write to me about?  And when you visited Greece what did you bring home?  Rugs!  You love rugs!  Persian, Pakistani, Greek, Indian ... and you're getting good at spotting quality.  What I'm trying to say is, now that your career has been dumped, do the thing you've always loved.  Go into the rug business!  Find those special rugs for wealthy clients, y'know the kind no store in the U.S. can provide.  You'll have more business than you want!"

In the present, Ronald Allen Tracer remembered thinking about what Tom had said months ago.  He'd always worked for others, and it never occurred to him to do it all himself.  "Tom," he'd said, "I think you've got a good idea.  It sure beats anything else I've tried in the past year, the most boring year of my life!  Nothing ever happens to me."

"Yes, Trace!  I can even help set up everything you'll need to be legal.  And there's a bonus beyond that.  I have a lot of well-placed friends who'll buy rugs.  They all love the fancy ones, you know, the ones that can't be found just everywhere, and they've got the bucks.  They are not inclined to go get them in person because, well, the world can be a little dangerous and they don't have time anyway.  But they still want them very much.  If you were in the business you'd be the logical choice to pick up those woven beauties.  Once it got around you'd done well for one buyer, well, need I say more?"

"What a cryptic phone conversation that had been," Trace thought, jogging his thoughts back to the taxi.  "A little dangerous.  Humph!"  He again peered from the bounding cab with the words "nothing ever happens to me..." ricocheting ironically between his ears.  "Since then, life has been a series of shock stories that wouldn't be believed even as fiction."

BANG!  A bullet tore into the right front fender of the battered cab.  The dreaded heathens Trace had been evading for four days appeared suddenly in their black Mercedes from a connecting street.  Quick expletives emanating from the front seat ended with, "I'm keel someone!"

Trace knew every effort would be made to damage this taxicab owned by a driver who could barely see over its dashboard.