Catacombs (38 page)

The girl might know. Getting
 
his hands on her, Belov knew, would not be easy, but he had to try. Finding Henry Landreth seemed his best hope of locating the FIREKILL bloodstones.

After the Russian had cooled his heels for almost twenty minutes, his host reappeared. Dr. Kumenyere had changed clothes. He was now wearing, instead of a tropical-gray Savile Row business suit, a twill lounging outfit with a dark-brown silk' shirt unbuttoned over his impressive chest and a neckerchief secured by a gold ring.

Kumenyere made elaborate apologies, had a drink for himself, and escorted Belov to his study, where he exhibited a collection of some forty sporting guns and twice as many photographs of himself with world figures. Belov presented Kumenyere with the gift, a weapon the likes of which he'd never seen. It was a chrome-plated, .22-caliber rifle that fired thirty rounds a second from a 177-round magazine. What made the rifle unique was a telescopic sight that pin-pointed targets with a red spot of light projected by a laser.

"The only other rifle just like this one belongs to the king of Spain," Belov said. "And this rifle is accurate up to two hundred yards."

Kumenyere was delighted with his new toy. He immediately closed the shutters, darkening the study. Belov assembled the rifle for the doctor, who tried it without ammunition. The red dot appeared faithfully on each object he aimed at: a piece of Makonde sculpture, the spine of a book on his shelves, a spider spinning a web in one high corner of the room.

But at lunch, which consisted of a chilled seafood salad and an excellent white Bordeaux, Kumenyere was hard put to conceal his lack of interest and his restlessness, and he answered the questions Belov was obliged to put to him in a brusque manner. He ate sparingly, and almost as soon as coffee was served asked to be excused.

"I've taken up quite a lot of your time today," Belov said.

"That's quite all right, but I have so much to do–"

"Perhaps another meeting–"

"Yes, of course, dear fellow, please phone my secretary for an appointment. In a few days' time. My chauffeur will drive you back to Dar when you're ready."

"I could easily call a taxi," Belov protested.

"No, no, you're my guest. I do apologize again for the rush."

Belov didn't want to leave; Nyshuri undoubtedly was still in the house, and he couldn't afford to lose track of her now. But almost as soon as the doctor left the terrace where they'd been served lunch, the chauffeur turned up in the doorway, waiting for him. Belov had another sip of wine and decided there was no point in dawdling.

They were half a mile from the villa in the Mercedes, within sight of the highway to Dar, when Belov asked the driver to pull over.

"Something wrong, sar?"

"I don't know. I'm feeling nauseated. Perhaps if I get out and walk around."

"All right, sar. Take your time. No problem."

Belov took out his handkerchief and coughed retchingly into it as he got out of the car. The chauffeur picked up a folded newspaper from his seat and began reading it. Belov walked along the shoulder of the road for fifty feet or so, bent down for a smooth round stone, and knotted it in his handkerchief. The stone weighed about two pounds. He returned to the Mercedes on the driver's side and tapped on the glass. The chauffeur rolled the window down and turned his head to smile at Belov.

"Better now? Continuing on now, sar?"

Belov popped him on the left temple with the makeshift cosh, and the chauffeur fell forward against the steering wheel. Belov opened the door and dragged him out, pulled the keys to unlock the trunk. Then he went back for the unconscious man. He yanked him erect and propped him against the side of the car as a bus went smokily by on the highway, swerving from side to side to dodge the potholes. The bus was packed with natives and tourists on the cheap. Some of the natives were riding in the luggage racks on top, snoozing, or eating and throwing their garbage along the shoulder.

When the bus disappeared down the road, Belov picked up the chauffeur by his belt and the back of his neck and lugged him to-the trunk. Kumenyere had installed a spare diesel tank, and there wasn't much room to pack the chauffeur inside. He reckoned that the rap on the head would be good for a couple of hours, and if he didn't slam the lid tight the chauffeur would have enough air to stay alive.

He got in behind the wheel, backed around, and returned the way they had come.

The Mercedes was easily identifiable as belonging to Kumenyere, and the coastal land was nearly flat, with groves of coconut and banana trees, a scablike salt marsh with clumps of wilting grasses like the fossils of wading birds. Then sand dunes, and above them a glimpse of the roofline of the villa; Belov turned off the track into a camp of some kind, slogans of the defunct TANU party fading on the whitewashed walls of concrete rondevals; most of the windows had been broken out.

He hid the car, taking with him the chauffeur's small Skorpion automatic. Even with its low-velocity load it would be useful in a pinch, although it couldn't be fired accurately on full automatic without the rudimentary stock attachment. He tramped up the dunes to a vantage point overlooking the villa, spread himself flat in the unpleasantly spiky dune vegetation. But there was a cool sea wind, an occasional long drift of spray from the waves. The two Land-Rovers were still parked outside the villa's gate; the mercenaries squatted in the shade they afforded and played gambling games without much show of interest.

Belov didn't have to wait long. Kumenyere came out of the villa at a little past three. He'd changed clothes again, this time looking as if he were journeying into bush country. He carried the laser rifle case which Belov had presented to him, and a tote bag. The mercenaries scrambled to attention when he appeared. Kumenyere exchanged a few words with one of them and climbed into a Land-Rover. Both vehicles then roared off toward the highway.

It was futile to try to follow the doctor in his own car. From the looks of things he was going after Henry Landreth; the rifle suggested the possibility of a night ambush somewhere, although that didn't seem to make sense. If Kumenyere had protected him before, why should he now want to kill him? Unless Landreth had been a prisoner, under house arrest.

Belov was unhappy with this turn of events, but there was nothing he could do yet. Only the girl could be of help to him. He wondered if he should risk returning to the villa in the Mercedes, claiming he'd left something valuable there. But the absence of the chauffeur would be suspicious. Trying to sneak in by broad daylight was foolhardy. He would, in time, get his hands on the girl. But patience was required. Annoyed by the biting heat of the sun on the back of his neck, and the forty kinds of flies with which he shared the dunes, he prepared to wait until nightfall if necessary, hoping there wouldn't be periodic patrols by the villa's guards which he would have to go to the trouble of ducking. But with the master temporarily away he doubted they would stir themselves.

"N
o, no, you must come at once,". Lady Hecuba ha-Levi de Quattro-Smythe said on the telephone to Nyshuri. "Poor darling. I'm outraged! He had no right to do that; it's not as if you had any control over what that foolish Dr. Landreth has done. If Robeson Kumenyere has damaged your lovely face I shall kill the swine. He might as well have struck me. There is no difference in the way I feel about this brutal assault, and you know that I bear grudges forever. How badly does it hurt? I can barely understand you. Oh, dear. Do you think you can drive? Then jump into your little blue car and try to hurry–I'll be in agony until I see you, my sweet."

M
ichael Belov returned to the abandoned TANU camp to check on the chauffeur.

He was semiconscious in the trunk of the Mercedes, breathing in moans, sweating rivers. Belov hauled him out of there and walked him to one of the buildings. The chauffeur's knees buckled and his feet wandered and he cried like a baby. He had a goose egg on his temple where he'd been struck, perhaps too hard. Belov gave him a drink of water from a trickling standpipe, found rope. He tied the man and gagged him with half his shirt to stop his whining. Eventually, if his head cleared and he worked hard enough, he would be able to get his feet free and walk down the road to the villa. If not, he would die there.

Belov walked outside just as the blue Toyota hatchback rattled by, taking him by surprise. He had a glimpse of Nyshuri's face, badly swollen on the left side. Probably the eye was swollen almost shut too, or she would have seen him peripherally as she passed the hut-like buildings, which stood close to the villa road. She was traveling fast, slewing from side to side on the rutted track, raising a sandstorm that glittered in the sun.

Belov hesitated, looking back to see if she was being pursued. Then he ran for the Mercedes. It was a piece of luck; if he hadn't come down from the dunes to make a better disposition of the chauffeur, he would have had no hope of getting to the car in time to follow her.

She was out of sight already, en route to the highway, but he easily caught up, with a notion of cutting her off.

But at a bend of the track he encountered men in Chinese coolie hats and native kekois, a skirtlike garment, walking goats and zebu to the commune across the highway. By the time he got around them his chance was gone. Nyshuri turned north, taking the road to Bagamoyo. Traffic was light. She was a very fast and brainless driver, oblivious of the poor condition of the highway. He was content to stay well back, so she wouldn't recognize the car if she happened to notice it, and wait for the further opportunity he knew would develop.

"I
f you will kindly leave Nyshuri to me," Hecuba said to Jan-Nic Pretorius, "in due course she will tell me everything she knows. All you need to do is conceal yourself, and listen. Perhaps this is a function you can fulfill without clumsiness. She may be able to tell us what has become of Henry Landreth. She wasn't clear about that. But let me make myself clear. I am fond of Nyshuri. Her childlike eroticism revitalizes me. I have no intention of delivering her into your incompetent hands."

"She's coming with us," Jan-Nic said grimly. He had flushed a dirty red color from his shirt collar to the roots of his hair, a threat display Hecuba calmly stood up to, looking him in the eye and smiling faintly. "This way," Jan-Nic
 
concluded, "I can be sure there's no risk of further betrayal."

"You mean to convey that the inconceivably stupid business at the hospital was my fault. And to whom did I betray you?"

"I only had a glimpse of one of them. He spoke English, with a decided American accent. A voice I've heard before, I know, it haunts me. But I can't recall–"

"Perhaps he was a house guest."

"Who also happened to be a professional assassin. I've only just learned how Bendert was killed. A very thin curved knife was thrust behind his eye and into the brain. The autopsy in Johannesburg revealed this. He must have been taken completely by surprise."

"How fortunate you were alert enough to escape a similar fate. You must be very fast on your feet, like the racing dog you somewhat resemble."

The implication of cowardice caused Jan-Nic to tremble; Hecuba saw that she was pressing too hard, aware of his limitations and mistakes and desperate to make up for them. They had put the wrong man in the field, she thought. She caught a whiff of something else that depressed and worried her. An odor of fear and death. His. Others'. Let them take the girl, then. She wanted no more of this tainted and deadly business.

But Jan-Nic had already revised his strategy.

"It's quiet here," he said, walking to the seaward side of the courtyard terrace. The courtyard was fully in shadow, the tables bare. He looked out at the spume of breakers behind the seawall. "Isolated. I couldn't help noticing you've let your servants go for the day. You're not entertaining tonight."

"No."

"
Ach
, this might be the best place after all, if the girl needs persuasion . . ."

"Not in my house! Do your filthy butcher work somewhere else; I'm not paid to–"

Jan-Nic
 
looked around at her, pleased to have uncovered a weakness.

Hecuba's pulse pounded but she said, more reasonably, "You're making a mistake. Nyshuri is coming to me beaten, hurt. Whatever she knows, she won't respond to you, a
mzungu
. Let me try it my way."

"But I don't trust you," Jan-Nic said with a cutting smile. "Who knows what passes between the two of you that an outsider would miss? As for pay, you'll take anyone's money. Perhaps Dr. Henry Landreth has found it prudent to bribe you already."

"How ridiculous. I've never met the man."

"Still I think it would be better if, when she arrives. the girl sees nothing of you at all. Willem!"

A stocky man with a bland fair face, small eyes, and sun-whitened brows appeared from a corner of the courtyard where he'd been patiently waiting.

"Take Lady Hecuba upstairs to her rooms. Stay with her. Remember that she is completely treacherous." To Hecuba he said, "Willem would be the first to admit that he has no imagination. He is sexually neuter. He follows instructions faithfully. He can't be distracted or diverted from his duty. But he can be annoyed. If you annoy him, you'll regret it."

Hecuba looked curiously at Willem, who was easily twice her size, and smiled shrugging her bare shoulders in surrender.