Catacombs (24 page)

After breakfast Toby grimly stuck to his routine, driving a rented Fiat with valve problems and almost no shocks left; the streets, even in the best areas, were in wretched condition. First they visited the British embassy to see if there had been any replies to Her Majesty's Government's latest official inquiries. They were in the midst of a move to the new capital in Dodoma, but the embassy staffers were sympathetic and helpful. Still, they were at an impasse. The first secretary told Toby and Sunni that there was nothing new on the cocktail-party circuit, just the same stale speculative gossip: The explorers had drowned in Lake Tanganyika; they had inadvertently strayed across one border or another to be slaughtered by soldiers and piled in a mass grave; they had perished in a cave-in or earthslide.

From the embassy they drove to the National Museum, to an office of the Antiquities Division of the Ministry of Education, where Toby had long since worn out his welcome. Today no one cared to see him. They called on a few correspondents and stringers for the news magazines and dailies of six countries, none of whom were anxious to become too inquisitive about the Chapman/Weller mystery.

Two of the correspondents had attempted to send cables to their publishers, suggesting that there was a story here worthy of the talents of important journalists; but the cables had been returned to them by the police, with the advice that they keep in touch with Jumbe Kinyati's press secretary for the latest word on the search for the explorers.

"I thought journalists were supposed to have guts," Toby complained as they drove down Independence Avenue toward Barclay's Bank. "If we could break just one major story in the world's press, that might prompt some action by the UN. Then the government here would have to change its tune."

"Tobe, don't you think–I mean, couldn't you accomplish more if you were back home? Honestly."

He braked hard to avoid a clerk in shirt sleeves cutting blithely into traffic on his Vespa.

"No. I'm staying here. Because my father is here, and I know he's in trouble. It's just a matter of–of finding someone who's willing to stick his neck out, and not worry about the consequences."

"I wonder," Sunni said abstractedly, staring out the window at a glimpse of rainless clouds and Russian freighters in the harbor a block away. "I wonder if–now I wish you'd gone with me to the reception for the Indonesian dance troupe yesterday. I met a man there–he knew Daddy when Daddy was chief of protocol in Washington. His name is Lundgren, and somebody told me he owns a magazine in Sweden, or was it Denmark? Anyway he's very impressive. The women flock around him."

"Really?" Toby said, with a slight curling of his lip.

"If he owns a magazine, it might be worth talking to him."

"All right, luv."

Toby wedged the Fiat into a space near the bank. They got out. Sunni took two steps on the crumbling sidewalk and paused. The festering bazaar of the port city, the fumes, the humid salty air, seemed to have stagnated into something quite unbreathable. She touched her chilly forehead, watching an unexpected fog blight downtown Dar, and let her fingers trail down one side of her face. She smiled when Toby turned to see what was keeping her, a dear foolish smile. And keeled over against him as he hastened back, falling out from under her woven hat with the big lazy brim. Toby, with the aid of a passerby, carried Sunni into the cool silence of the bank, where the manager, Mr. Mukome, waved them into his office. Sunni came around lying on a settee with a cold cloth on her forehead.

"What happened?" she said.

When she was sufficiently revived, Toby drove her to the Kialamahindi Hospital in the Upanga District of Dar. Sunni didn't protest too much. The fact of fainting scared her. She'd only done that once before in her whole life. And she was still feeling woozy.

Sunni was routed to a treatment room by a nurse who requested that Toby wait elsewhere. He wandered outside, remembering that he had left his camera bag in the trunk of the Fiat, which was too easy to pry open. He retrieved it and walked around the palm-shaded grounds. The hospital, recently built, consisted of half a dozen white coral block-and-concrete buildings in the Moorish style. It was set amid pools and gardens which had remained pleasantly green despite the prolonged absence of the monsoon. Everything was neat and well maintained, which in Tanzania usually meant Chinese funds and administration.

A shell path took him past one-story offices, the kitchen and a cafeteria, a helicopter landing pad, and a massive building out of character with the rest of the architectural scheme. It was modern, windowless, an inverted flat-top pyramid with a moat around it

Some sort of laboratory. Beyond this large building there was a small private area, secluded behind a screen of thriving croton plants and with a wire fence and locked gate. Above the tops of the green-and-red plants he glimpsed the tiles of two bungalow roofs.

Toby yawned; he was bored and depressed and fidgety about Sunni's fainting spell. He went to the creeper-covered gate and peered into the compound. He heard low voices, one of them English. A man's voice.

The bungalows were on opposite sides of a courtyard; the verandah of the nearest bungalow was set at an angle to the gate and there was some kind of flowering vine growing around the mangrove posts, so he had an unobstructed view of only a small part of the verandah. A wicker basket swing made slow quarter turns on a squeaking chain.

As it turned toward him Toby had tantalizing glimpses of a slim black nurse in a hospital uniform, curled up shoeless in the deep scoop of shade afforded by the basket. She had unbuttoned the dress and her youthful breasts were exposed. She played with one of them, like a tired puppy with a favorite ball. She spoke in Swahili, which Toby didn't understand, her statement ending in a pealing laugh.

A man came momentarily into view. Sixty-five or so, wearing un-pressed drill shorts, his legs hairless, his kneecaps shocking as snow in the wavering heat. He placed a cold glass between her breasts and she shuddered deliciously.

Toby held his breath, squinting a little. Lately he'd become just nearsighted enough to know he should consider glasses. The gray-haired man turned his head sharply toward Toby, as if to avoid a darting insect, and his face was cast into the sunlight.

Toby recognized him immediately. He could not be mistaken. It was Dr. Henry Landreth, late of the Chapman/Weller expedition, obviously in decent health and well accommodated.

More than a year and a half ago Toby, down from Cambridge for the weekend, had been introduced to the notorious physicist aboard his father's yacht in Fowey harbor. Landreth was shaky, threadbare, seething with secrets. He clutched a sort of diary, covered in soiled green cloth, which he had unearthed in a used-book shop in Dar. It was the key, he claimed, to the most fabulous archaeological discovery of the ages.

Toby stepped away from the gate, his heart giving a sudden lurch of happiness. But caution overtook him like a swiftly moving shadow.

If Dr. Landreth was alive and apparently flourishing, what had happened to the others? Why not a word from this man in more than six months? What did anyone really know about him, except that he'd once betrayed England–a fact his father had been able to stomach only with the greatest difficulty, even though Landreth had come to him with an apparently dazzling proposition, potentially the most daring adventure in a career of celebrated achievements.

Toby took several deep breaths to contain his excitement and belatedly looked around to see if he was observed, although earlier he hadn't noticed any bored plainclothesmen keeping tabs on him. This corner of the hospital grounds appeared to be seldom visited. Satisfied, he unzipped his camera bag and took out the Minolta XG-1 with auto-wind, slipped a 250-millimeter zoom lens from its case, and mounted it. He moved cautiously back to the gate. The black nurse was still turning in her swing, drinking from the tall glass. Landreth had disappeared, although Toby could hear the sporadic rumble of his voice from inside the bungalow.

Toby waited, the sun on his head, sweat trickling, in a state that veered from nervous exhilaration to barely suppressed fury to tears of frustration.

Finally Henry Landreth reappeared, but he was hidden by the black girl. There was nothing for Toby to photograph. Landreth seemed to be doing most of the talking. His words were inaudible, but clearly he was on edge about something. His shoulders hunched up and down, his hands sawed the air. She replied in monosyllables. He took a cigarette case from his shirt pocket, lit up, turned his head after a deep drag to expel the smoke away from her face. Toby snapped a picture. Waited. The gray head came around again, idly, eyes unfocused. Toby took a second picture, hastily packed his camera gear, slung the bag over his - shoulder where it wouldn't be in the way, grabbed the fence and scaled it, jumped down into the yard. He strode quickly to the verandah.

"Dr. Landreth!"

Henry Landreth looked as startled as if someone had fired a pistol in his direction. The head of the black girl popped out of the basket swing at a wry angle; she stared at Toby with her mouth open, then quickly withdrew. The basket rocked a little as she hurriedly buttoned her dress.

Landreth's hands were poised in the air as if he'd been caught in the act of opening a safe that wasn't his. Sweat glistened on his face. His expression prompted an unexpected laugh from Toby. He paused near the steps to the verandah, glancing from Landreth to the black girl and back.

"It's Tobias Chapman," he said. "We met in England, when my father was putting the expedition together. How is he, anyway? I've been looking everywhere for him."

Landreth recovered from his surprise; eyes narrowing, he put the cigarette to his lips.

"My dear fellow, whoever you are, you have no business being here."

Toby bit his lip in anger.

"I told you who I was. Chips Chapman is my father."

Landreth had regained most of his composure. His eyes were brackish, hostile; his lips twisted rudely.

"I'm afraid that means nothing to me. I've never heard of him. Nor do I know you. Please leave at once. This hospital has a private police patrol. You can be beaten for trespassing here."

The black girl got out of the swing. Landreth glanced at her meaningfully. She went into the bungalow.

Toby 's neck was red; his face swelled with malignant humor. He leaned toward the verandah as if he were about to dash up the three steps and seize Landreth by the throat. Landreth licked his lips and leaned back; Toby's righteous force was irresistible.

"Don't you dare threaten me with a beating, you miserable treasonous bastard! I've spent six weeks in this godforsaken country waiting for some word about my father. You were with him. You must know where he is. Tell me!"

"I am sorry, but you've made a mistake. I'm not who you take me for. Now be a good chap; really, I mustn't be disturbed like this. I'm–a very sick man. I'm here for rest and treatment I simply cannot tolerate–"

"What? Are you denying that you're Dr. Henry Landreth?"

"Deny it? Of course I do." He had a coughing fit that bent him like a question mark and seemed to leave him bloodless as a snail.

Toby's hands fell to his sides. He stared in astonishment and dismay at the unkempt, feral scholar. All of his worst fears about his father's fate crystallized at the level of his heart. Something evil and disastrous had taken place. This man, contemptuous of loyalties, so casual in his betrayals, was obviously hiding here. Hiding from the world. Toby felt a shock of caution, but he couldn't be silent.

"That's a fucking lie; and you'll pay for it. I know very well who you are." His voice broke. "I can prove what I know."

The black girl reappeared. She looked down at Toby with an expression of innocent wonder.

To Landreth she said in English, "They're coming."

"Very well. Thank you, Nyshuri." His lackluster gaze passed over Toby, dismissing him. "You can avoid a great deal of unpleasantness by leaving at once, however you came. I'd say you have a minute at most." He turned and went into the bungalow and shut the door. Toby was left alone with the black girl. Nyshuri shrugged her comely shoulders and said with a sympathetic smile, "Go on now; when he gets in one of his moods he can cause quite a row."

"Bugger him," Toby said under his breath, but he backed away from the verandah, glancing at the gate he had scaled.

Nyshuri pointed to a path along the hedges.

"The other way. To the street. That gate isn't guarded during the day."

She seemed truly anxious to avoid trouble. Toby nodded and went off at a jog beside the hedges, which snaked through the grounds. He was soon out of sight of the bungalows. He came to the gate Nyshuri had told him about, and clambered over it without difficulty.

As he walked back to the main entrance of the hospital, he was breathing hard, unable to concentrate his thoughts, to bridle his panic. He kept his eyes open for the hospital guards as he returned to the clinic for Sunni.

Her examination was over. She greeted him with a pretty, downcast smile.

"Feeling better?"

"They gave me some pills for the–the nausea."

"Let's hop to it, then."

"Tobe, you look as if you were running. What's the matter?"

He tried, but couldn't find his voice right away. He'd begun to doubt himself. Perhaps he'd just been overexcited, carried away by a striking resemblance. At the same time he was frightened. He did have photos. If he was right, if he had found Landreth, then there had to be serious reasons behind the man's strong denials.