Assignment Black Gold (13 page)

“Why not? It’s my business.”

“It’s a terrible business,” she said.

“Somebody has to do it.”

“And you like it, don’t you?”

“Not really.”

She smiled. “Liar. But I’m fond of you, Sam.”

“That remains to be seen,” he said.

The pall of smoke that hung over the city and the riverbanks
and the eastern jungle was dissipated finally by the heat of the
afternoon sun. It did not take long for Colonel Lepaka to appear after Durell
had pulled the bugs out of the room. Durell ordered coffee and a luncheon of fish
and coconut salad and a fresh bottle of bourbon, and he made -the girl eat,
although she protested she was not hungry. When she began on the fish,
however, he noticed that she cleaned up her plate and licked her fingers
afterward. It was a touching, childlike gesture. He showered while she finished
eating, and afterward she sent down for some bandages and applied antiseptic to
the various cuts and abrasions he had acquired during the struggle on the
drilling platform.

“You ought to get a shot of penicillin,” Kitty said.

“That deck was pretty rusty, too. Maybe some tetanus would
be good.”

“I’ve had all the booster shots I need.”

“K Section really takes care of you, doesn’t it?”

“Only up to a point. We’ll never admit that Brady worked for
us, for instance. How is your head? You had a bad knock when the Apgak jumped
you.”

“I have a hard head. A couple of aspirins will fix me
up fine.”

“You look great,” he said.

“So do you.”

They stared at each other as she sat on his bed in the
quiet, shadowed room.

Then Lepaka knocked and came in.

“I have already spoken to Mr. Forchette at the
hospital," Lepaka said.

He still looked as if he had not slept for three days. The
rims of his dark, muddy eyes were bright red, as if they were ready to start
bleeding. He had changed into a fresh uniform, still in the South African
police style, with new ribbons over his breast pocket. His boots were carefully
shined.

“Mr. Forchette gave me a list of the men who are missing
from the rig. Here it is.” He unbuttoned one of the pleated pockets of his
shirt and handed Durell a slip of paper. “A machinist, the cook, two roustabouts,
and two engineers. One of the engineers was also a qualified radioman.”

Durell said, “I want those men back.”

 
“Alive? Or dead?”
Lepaka asked quietly.

“Alive, naturally.”

“Then only the Saka can help you now. If you can persuade
him to use his influence with the people, the Apgak attacks may collapse
and some clue may be obtained as to where the men are being held. Meanwhile, of
course. Mr. Tallman will have to negotiate as if to pay whatever ransom they
may demand. To stall for time, you might say.”

“The Saka,” Durell repeated.

“We made a bargain, Mr. Durell.”

“I mean to keep it.”

“Good. I have limited forces. In less than a week, the
Apgaks will take over the country. That is my most conservative estimate. So
you understand the gravity of the situation.” The colonel looked at Kitty
Cotton. “I cannot guarantee your safety in Lubinda, Mrs. Cotton. I do not know
why you are an Apgak target, but you are. Perhaps they think your unfortunate
husband confided in you, told you something they wish to know or wish to
keep from becoming public. I wish you would take the plane to Luanda tonight.”

“No. I said I’ll stick with Sam, and I will.”

He is going on a very hazardous journey for me.”

“I’ll still stay with him.” She looked at Durell. “Is that
all right?”

The thought crossed his mind that perhaps Lepaka was
correct, that she knew something, consciously or not, that he ought to know.

“You can come with me, Kitty,” he said.

“The Saka is a legend,” she said. “If he’s really alive, I’d
like the privilege of meeting him.”

Lepaka sat down in a wicker chair in the hotel room. “Very
well. Listen carefully. I cannot write the instructions. There are certain
people to see, and you must say certain things to them. If the Apgaks know, or
even get a hint of what you are trying to do, Madragata will make every effort
to kill you. So it will not be easy. It will be most dangerous, in fact. I will
give
you
arms and instructions. It is all I can do. I
only hope you return with the Saka in time to save the country from going up in
flames.”

“Fair enough,” Durell said.

Lepaka studied him for a moment.

“You will first go to the village of Ngama Kotumbama.
It is some distance to the south along the coast, near the border. A simple fishing
village, a tribal community, that is not on any maps, I fear. It is considered
unimportant, being partly nomad, since the people follow the wet and dry
seasons of the Kahara Desert. I will arrange for the Bell helicopter to
transport you part of the way. The rest of the distance, you will have to walk.
In any case, you should arrive there by evening.” Lepaka paused, his eyes
revealing long memories. “It is a pleasant walk, in a way. Sometimes beautiful,
and a bit dangerous. If you are carful, you will have no difficulty. But you
must conserve your water. Do you understand?”

Durell said, “And in Ngama Kotumbama?”

“You will find an old woman. Simply ask for the
maka
. She will tell you where to find
my foster father.”

“Why should she tell us? Why should she trust me?” Durell
asked.

Komo delved with two long fingers into his pleated
shirt pocket and took out an old, worn Maria Teresa dollar, once the common
currency of much of West and North Africa. There were tour holes drilled in the
antique silver coin. “Show this to the
maka
.
She will understand it came from me. Take it with you to the Saka, and he will
know I need his help. The decision, of course, will be up to him. I can only
have faith that he has not changed too much in his years of hermitage.”

“Who is the old woman?” Durell asked.

Komo Lepaka looked at him with unblinking eyes. “She is my
mother. She belonged to the Saka, and he set her free.”

“You said you were an orphan.”

“In the true sense, I am. The old woman was the first
of the Saka’s wives, in tribal days. When he adopted me, she became my mother.”

“I see.”

“There is much that you do not see, Mr. Durell. She already
had one son by the old man. That son was Lopes Fuentes Madragata.”

Chapter 12.

The sea thundered and crashed along the wide, sandy beach as
they walked south. The setting was an enormous, glowing red ball just over the
horizon, its outline wavering and distorted by the heat of the atmosphere,
While small white clouds overhead took on fantastic colorations of red and
lilac and gold. Seagulls mewed and skimmed along the tide line, looking for
tiny shellfish embedded in the sand by the receding tide. To the right,
high bluffs overlooked the beach. Jagged limestone and striated sandstone added
their own colors to the evening light by reflecting sharp lances of
brilliance from mica and quartz, like so many miniature needles of color. Atop
the bluff was the jungle, although it was thinner here to the south, growing
straggly and paler as they approached the edge of the Kahara Desert. The dry
season had almost ended, and the greenery up there, such as it was, looked
dusty and shriveled and silvery from lack of moisture.

For the last five miles, they had seen no other human
beings.

Lepaka had dropped them from the Bell chopper some forty
miles south of the river mouth where Lubinda was situated. He had not lingered.
There were more fires burning in the city, and he was in a hurry to get
back. His handshake had been brief, hard and dry.

“Find the Saka for me, Durell. You know what the alternative
might be.”

“What’s to keep us from just walking on until we cross the
border?” Durell asked.

“You would have to cross the Kahara along the Bone Coast first.
You have enough water for just two days. You could not possibly make it.”

Kitty said, “You arranged it this way?”

“One must be sure of certain things. Durell is an
exceptional man. The water I have given you both would not last half that time
with any other person.”

“Thanks for nothing,” Durell said.

“You have an interest in making a success of this now,”
Lepaka said. “You must succeed, too, if you hope to see your kidnapped
countrymen again.”

For some time after the chopper had vanished, beating its
way northward, Durell and the girl had walked in silence. The beach was empty,
the sea held no ships for them to sight. It was as if they had been dropped
into an area of the world where man did not exist. Several times, Kitty looked
at him as if she wanted to say something, but then she turned her face away and
walked on in silence, shouldering the small pack that Colonel Lepaka had given
each of them. Durell carried the rifle. He still had his S&W. The rifle
was a .375 Magnum Express, and he wished it had been one of the automatic
AK-47’s, or even a Russian-made Kalashnikov. He would have preferred, above
all, an Israeli Uzi, many of which had found their way to Lubinda. He took the
time on their first rest stop to break down the Magnum and examine it
carefully before putting it together again and sliding a charge of cartridges
into place.

The sand was soft, the beach filled with tidal pools
that forced them to detour widely at times. Durell had advised the girl against
wading through the shallow, tepid salt water, in order to keep their boots in
good shape. When the light began to fade, he identified occasional
movement atop the bluff as wildebeest, the common gray, shaggy-
maned
antelope that moved in clumsily galloping herds. Once
he spotted a family party of butt-gray reedbuck; their white tails. flashed
as they bounded away. As dusk came, a troop of baboons led by a huge old male
came down from their resting place under the mopane trees to the beach to
search for stranded shellfish. The babies rode their mothers’ backs. The
big male loader glowered at Durell and the girl and did not give way, and
Durell detoured around them. Ten minutes later, he called a halt and they sat
facing the sea, eating the sandwiches Komo Lepaka had given them—the only food
he had offered—

and Durell sipped sparingly at the canteen of water. The
girl sat close to him, her knees drawn up, and stared at the ocean. Behind
them, the bluff had become lower and he could see the scrubby thorn trees and
brush that struggled to exist in what had become a sandy waste reaching far
into the interior.

“How much farther is it?” the girl asked quietly.

“Another hour.”

“Will they give us food and water at this fishing
village?"

“It depends.”

“Doesn't it bother you?” she asked.

“No. Does it worry you?”

“It’s strange,” she said.

He waited.

“It’s strange that I’m not worried. I look at the ocean
here, and it seems a little different from the Atlantic at Gloucester, but not
all that different, and I feel at home. Maybe it’s because I’m with you.”

“You don’t know me at all, Kitty.”

“If it comes to that, I don’t know any men. Bobby . . .”

She paused and looked pensive. “We were divorced in two
months. Imagine that. Stupid kids.”

“You were married before you met Brady?”

“If you can call it a marriage. A couple of kids fumbling
and groping at each other at Bass Rocks, hoping nobody in the passing cars
going to Rockport would notice us. I—partly because I’m from an old Portuguese
family there, the Yankees wouldn’t quite accept me. Friendly enough, everything
fine on the surface, but underneath, you were cut dead. I got used to it,
and then thought it didn’t matter when Bobby wanted to marry me. He was there
for the summer from Harvard. His family had a home at Magnolia, down the
shore.” She shook her head and he sensed her past desperation. “They gave us no
help at all. Nothing. You never felt so cold as when you went into that big summerhouse
of theirs and looked into their eyes and sat down to dinner with them. I almost
choked on the food. Cut us dead. Bobby said at first that it didn’t
matter, but then he brooded about it—maybe he was a mama’s boy, I don‘t know. I
certainly wasn't about to mother him. Finally, at the end of the summer, we
split. The family was happy to arrange for the divorce.” She paused bitterly.
“We might just as well have had an affair for the season, and quit. You see, I
didn’t
know
him.”

“Did you know Brady?”

“Same mistake. They say that people in marital trouble
always look for the same type with which to make another goof. Brady was
different, but maybe he was the same. I never felt at home with him, like I
feel at home with you, Sam.”

“You could be making another mistake,” he said.

She shook her head. “I don’t know." She put her chin on
her knees and stared at the darkening sea. “I’m lonely, Sam, that‘s all. Don’t
you like me?”

“Yes, I do.”

“They think I‘m a prude,” she said suddenly. “A prissy
Yankee gal.”

“And you’re not?”

He watched her breathe, saw the lift of her breasts under
the shirt she wore. She stood up, her body graceful, straightening her legs
like a dancer as she rose. "I'm going for a swim. It’s been a long, hot
walk."

She took off her shirt, her bra, wriggled out of her slacks,
kicked off her boots. She did not look at him as she undressed. Her body seemed
to capture and engulf the last rosy glow of the setting sun, He thought he saw
tears glisten in her large eyes, as if the memories she had evoked of her young
past had been more disturbing and frustrating than she admitted. Without a
word, she ran naked down to the water’s edge, her hips swaying, and splashed
into the warm shallow sea. Breaking waves curled for some distance out from the
beach, their muted thunder and crash like a final orchestration for the dying
day.