"Were they ever used?” Deirdre asked.
"No, thank heaven. The Ndolo never attacked the little mission. In fact, the tribe became totally Christianized; my tribe was the spearhead for Jesus in these highlands.”
"And the tunnel—” Durell began.
"Was forgotten,” the priest supplied, "by all but a few—a very few.”
"They are to be trusted?”
"Completely.” He pressed Durell’s arm. "Use this tunnel to spirit Kabakaliya Teresa out of Kenshu. A boat is waiting at the other end, night and day.”
"A boat? I hadn’t thought of—”
Something battered against the bronze-clad doors at the gloomy end of the cathedral, snapping off his sentence. All three jerked their faces that way. The racket was of several things banging, not just one, and Durell know what they were.
"Rifle butts,” he said.
"Soldiers,” the archbishop gasped.
8
"Archbishop, archbishop!” a harsh voice called.
"Go. Go!” The churchman pointed down the flight of damp stone steps.
It sounded as if the soldiers would batter the door down.
"Open up!”
Boots clattered on concrete, running down the side of the cathedral, and the thudding of rifle butts reverberated inside the walls.
"Thanks, your excellency,” Durell said. "Thanks for everything.” He dashed down the stairs.
Deirdre hung back a second. "Come with us,” she cried.
"No, I must stay, my child. Mr. Durell knows that.” Durell watched from below, his jaw a hard, straight line. The archbishop told Deirdre: "I would be an added burden to you, endangering the kabakaliya. Hurry.”
She left him then, hurrying down as fast as she dared in high heels on the slippery stones. Durell's outstretched hand steadied her the last couple of steps, as he heard a grating sound and looked up. The archbishop had slid the dais back over the opening.
Deirdre glanced back, gave Durell a trapped look, and said, "I feel I’m in a tomb.”
"It’s open at the other end. Supposedly.”
"How far do you think?”
"The river is two hundred yards from the cathedral.” He held his candle out front and advanced down the sloping tunnel. Ax and shovel marks showed in the chalky walls as if they’d been cut yesterday. Beams shoring the place up were soggy, though, and made him nervous. He suspected dry rot of weakening them. The air bore the odors of decay and mud and felt as if it were coming off ice, although they were less than a hundred miles from the equator.
"What do you think they’ll do to him?” Deirdre said.
Durell thought about the archbishop and considered his chances, as he picked his way down the tunnel. "It depends on what brought them there in the first place,” he said.
"You think he has a chance?”
"Not much in the long run; not even the short run, if they raided him trying to pick me up.”
"But they don’t know about you.”
"I hope not. But they may have Jerry Chase by now. Anyhow he yelled my name at the top of his lungs in that crowded bar.”
"Lots of people are named Sam.”
"Not in Africa.”
"Well, you can trust Jerry.” She ignored Durell’s stony look, and said: "When do you think we’ll reach the end of this?”
"This is the end of the tunnel.” Durell stopped and regarded a natural cavern running across the end of the tunnel. His candle fluttered and bent in a heavy draft, indicating more than one exit or vent. It was narrow, high-ceilinged, sinuous, with a stream that slid almost silently over most of its floor. Where there was no water, there was mud.
"Watch your footing,” he said, and turned to the left.
"Just a minute.” She propped herself up with one hand and used the other to take off her shoes. Her berry-red suit already showed smudges of whitish grime.
Then he splashed on. His candlelight danced against the pale walls, and the walls twisted and leaned, squeezed in like a funnel, then out like the bell of a trumpet. The stream advanced over mirrorlike ponds diked with mineral deposits, then rippled over rapids of smooth knobs, as if oiled.
Durell kept listening to the rear, anticipating pursuit with edgy nerves. It wouldn’t take much to find the secret passage, if it occurred to you that one might exist. Numerous caverns branched off, but you could get lost in there. At least some of them were dry.
Another minute, and he heard the gurgle of the river. "Here we are,” he said, and pushed vines and branches out of the way. The stream fell past his feet and splashed into the slow current.
He breathed a sigh of relief, but it was no time for self-congratulation. They still had to get back to his car.
"Just a minute,” he said, as Deirdre emerged. "Let’s find that boat.” The cave exited about a yard above the water, behind lots of foliage; above it appeared to be a sheer face of rock, but below, where the underground stream had washed detritus from the cavern for thousands of years, the soil sloped gently into the river. He moved to one side, held the candle away from his gaze to avoid blinding, and found a hemp rope tied to a stake amid reeds in the mush of the river’s edge. He tugged it, and the bow of a rowboat parted the reeds before him; it was equipped with an outboard and tins of gasoline.
"Let’s go,” he said, and reached back for Deirdre’s hand.
They slipped and slid along the bank, working their way through some dense underbrush. The candle was next to useless; he decided to rely on the moon’s brilliance and blew it out, noting a thin fog in his breath as he did so. It was cold out here. The river was a mile wide; lights of fishing boats rode amid the silvery reflection of the sky. A thin mist hung just below chest height. Not a breath stirred.
When they came out on top, Deirdre was breathing hard. "I’m all right,” she whispered, leaning against him to slip into her shoes. There was no traffic on the street, which dead-ended at the riverbank. "Do you suppose the soldiers are still there?”
"Stick to the shadows and hope,” Durell said. The cathedral loomed over the area, black and stark in its outline against the sky. He could see no lights from its windows. Above it, the moon looked like a new nickel; mvule trees around the compound made menacing shapes. There was no fog or mist up here on the hilltop. A car crossed the next intersection, and they paused in the shadows, then went on.
Durell remembered the troops he’d seen prowling the city earlier and concluded that if it was possible to do worse than fall into the hands of the Second Bureau, it was probably by falling into those of the army. It was riddled with Ausi’s handpicked Nubians and had been purged long ago of those whose tribes he feared. It was a coddled, lawless gang of thieves, extorters, sadists that existed chiefly to keep its own population subdued by terror.
Every morning new victims floated to the surface below the hydroelectric dam.
You could almost smell fear on the air of this modern, once-gay city, Durell thought.
A military truck was parked by the curb; there was no guard. "They’re still inside,” Durell whispered, and ducked into the parking lot. "There’s the Volvo.”
"I don’t like to think what the archbishop’s going through,” Deirdre said. Her face showed worry and concern.
Durell closed her door quietly and wished for a starter that cranked without noise. The engine puttered as he backed out of his space at idling speed and crept over the culvert box, into the street. Durell felt somewhat better, thinking he must be still beyond the pale of the government’s knowledge. Otherwise wouldn’t they have had his car staked out? It would be simple enough to identify it through the rental agency. He’d have to put the evening’s unpleasantries down to coincidence brought on by Ausi’s normal procedures, having the foreign magazine team shadowed, along with his political enemy, the archbishop.
Then why couldn’t he shake the sense of an unseen hand reaching out of the darkness for him?
Deirdre asked: "How late is it?”
"Eleven-oh-five.”
"First let’s find a phone booth. I want you to call Jerry’s room and see if he’s there.”
"You needn’t worry about him, darling. I told you: he’s President Ausi’s fair-haired boy. Since you gave those two bruisers time to cool off, the whole thing will blow over; Ausi wouldn’t do more than slap him on the wrist. After all, he just wanted to protect me.”
"I’m not worried about him,” Durell replied darkly. "I’m worried about us, as long as we don’t know where Ausi’s fair-haired boy is, or what he’s up to.”
The Second Bureau chief told President for Life Field Marshal Azo Ausi: "We know Durell drove a green Volvo, license number KPI1401, your excellency.”
Ausi glared at his police minister through a cloud of smoke from his Cuban cigar. "Why have he police no word on this man since the incident at the Ruwenzori?” he demanded.
The police minister, who showed a helpless loathing for the SB chief and a general standing by, said: "Your excellency. How can we? Per your orders, when the army assumes civil responsibility, as it has tonight, officers of the national police are to suspend normal duties and remain in headquarters. We have been superseded by the army, your excellency.”
Ausi towered over the three men. His small red eyes were mean, his mouth turned down: his face said he was trying to hold his temper.
The general’s response to the police minister’s statement was: "Nobody told us to look for this car, your excellency.”
Field Marshal Ausi could stand it no longer. He threw his cigar on the floor and stamped it, but that wasn’t enough, so he clutched the general just below his epaulets and shook him, and his words came out as something ground between stones. "I want Samuel Durell found,” he said.
The skin on the general’s dark face went soggy. He stiffened to attention. "He shall be brought in, your excellency. Consider it done.”
"Idiot!” Ausi exploded.
"Yes, your excellency.”
"Fool!”
"Yes—”
"Simpleton!”
The general waited, eyes bugging.
Ausi’s voice lowered to a venomous growl. "I’ll tell you when to bring him in. Just find him!”
With an air of contempt, the SB chief told the general: "His excellency wishes to ascertain Durell’s purpose in Kenshu; there are rumors of a coup; the city is full of traitors.”
Then the SB chief turned to his boss, and said: "Your excellency. What about the prisoner?”
Ausi’s smile was vile. "Give him the VIP treatment,” he intoned. "Do something special.”
9
"There’s no answer; Jerry isn’t in his room,” Deirdre said, and climbed back into the Volvo.
Durell crimped his lips and rubbed his chin.
"I’m beginning to get worried, Sam,” she said.
An army truck rumbled past. They were parked on the approach to a long, rising span that bridged the river, where they had found a phone booth. The fog was thick here, so that Durell had to turn on the windshield wipers.
"There’s nothing we can do,” he said, turning the car around, "except make the arrangements to spring Teresa as soon as possible. I’ll want you and Wells and Jerry—if he’s able—to be out of the country when it’s attempted.”
"Oh?” She made a moue. "Must we miss the fun?”
"Ausi will go crazy when she disappears. He’s likely to lash out at whoever’s handy, and there’s no point to risking you.” He drove on for a few seconds. "Incidentally, has anyone asked her if she wants to go back to General Ogwang and her people?”
"It goes without saying, doesn’t it?” She looked surprised.
"But she hasn’t been asked, specifically?”
"Willie would know. I haven’t.” She pointed. "There he is.”
Wells waited on a bench by a bus stop at Kannenberg Hospital, named after a German physician who’d devoted his life to service in the African bush. Durell drove past slowly, could pick out no sign of surveillance, and rounded the block with its big white hospital and palm-studded lawn. In front of the bench once more, he stopped, and Wells casually got in. "Good to see you, Cajun,” the black man said.
He was almost as big as Durell, and, like all of K Section’s best, he was lithe, fearless and predatory-looking. He’d served a bitter tour in Vietnam and was a mercenary in Africa during the Bogandan troubles when Durell met him. He was totally, amorally loyal to his employer. He’d been raised in the ghettos of North Philadelphia, and his cynicism was inbred. Durell had recruited him to K Section. He had always carried out the duties in his contract implacably. Once, because of a mistake, he had been loosed on Durell’s trail, ignoring the fact that Durell had been his benefactor. Durell had beaten him then, by the narrowest of margins; he wouldn’t look forward to a second encounter.
"Sorry we’re late,” Durell said.
"It’s okay.”
"He’s really the only one doing anything,” Deirdre said. "I feel like a drone.”
Durell asked Wells what progress he had made. "I’ve managed to case most of the palace, including some pretty unlikely nooks and crannies—my job supposedly is to scout potential settings for the camera work, you know.”
"And?”
Wells grimaced. "It’s tight as a jug with a glass stopper, Cajun. There’s no way we’re going to get in there and get her out.”
"There has to be a way,” Durell said.
"I’ll keep looking.”
"You find it.” He was driving back toward the river. This was a sumptuous residential section, with homes tucked back from the street among trees. There was a view of outlying hills and valleys, where lights of the city shone like fire in the jungle. "Have you talked with her about the mission?” he asked.
"Some,” Wells said. "There isn’t much opportunity, of course.”
"Then she’s agreed to go?”
"Why not?”
"Maybe she doesn’t want to go back to Ogwang,” said Durell.
"She hates Ausi; all you have to do is see her face when he’s around,” Wells said. "She’s a terrific lady. She’s assured me she wants to help the Ndolo.”
Durell’s tone was somber. "If we ever get her to them.”
"There is one way.” Wells became enthusiastic. "Attack the palace. It wouldn’t take much: a bazooka and a couple of Uzis.”
"Don’t get carried away,” Durell said.
"What did I say?” Wells lifted his palms innocently. "No violence that might involve Ausi’s person—you know our orders. If we harmed him and it came out who we were, imagine the propaganda bonanza that would be for the other side.”
"I guess you’re right: if we killed the bastard, we wouldn’t have a friend left in the Third World—even if they all do hate him.” Frustration simmered in Wells’ eyes. "What are we going to do?”
"Until you find a way to steal her out of the palace, nothing, I’m afraid. And that’s bad. General Ogwang is waiting for us downriver. He won’t wait forever, if I’m any judge.” They were back in the long, shallow valley that held most of the city’s center. Seven blocks ahead rose the gray concrete-and-glass bulk of the International Hotel. A few cars poked cautiously through the streets. There was no sign of the military for the moment, Durell noted.
Wells said, "It’s Kenneth Dager’s job to keep him there. Don’t you think he can do it?”
"Dager’s untried: he’s a question mark. He wouldn’t be in the field at all if it weren’t for his father, the senator. I don’t know what he can do.”
"You know what’s going to happen to the Ndolo if we don’t get Teresa back there with Ogwang; extreme measures may be justified,” Wells insisted.
Durell’s tone was firm. "Keep looking for a quieter way, Willie. A way so that she just disappears.” He pulled to the curb. Across the street was a newspaper kiosk and taxi stand. "Better take a cab from here,” he said. "I’ll see you in the park, five p.m. You know where.”
&n
bsp; Wells looked surprised. "I thought Jerry was to handle your liaison.”
"I’m freezing him out.”
Wells asked no questions.
Durell said: "Before you go, have you arranged for me to speak with Kabakaliya Teresa?”
"Tomorrow.” He grinned. "You’re not going to be overjoyed with the location.”
"Fill me in.”
"Sure.” Wells went over the details once, and Durell had them. It took about a minute. Wells grasped the door handle, stared at Deirdre.
She said: "I’ll be with Sam tonight.”
Wells nodded and stepped outside. Thin mist that hung in the air made rainbows around streetlamps, and the colors and the lights reflected from Deirdre’s marvelous gray eyes. The impact of her beauty struck Durell with aching force, as it had numberless times in the past. He knew he should send her away—and he knew he would not.
"Your place or mine?” she said.
"I know a little inn on the lake, at the edge of town,” he said. "We mustn’t draw attention to ourselves.”
"I wish we could; I wish we could shout it. When I’m with you, I wish I could wear a neon sign saying you’re mine.” She put on a thoughtful face and subdued her voice, as she added: "But you’re no one’s, really, are you, my dearest darling? Except maybe K Section’s.” "You’re going to love this inn,” he said, turning off the empty boulevard and winding down a hillside street
"How did you find it?”
She knew how to drop a sticky subject, and Durell was thankful. "I had three days on my hands; I did some sightseeing,” he said.
It was a small, chalet-style building reminiscent of Bavaria and the homesick Germans who once ruled Mobundu as a colony; the roof was thatched with papyrus reeds harvested from Lake Lumumba, a few yards from its immaculate lawn. Tonight the lake was carpeted with shallow, dense fog that came only halfway up pilings supporting the inn’s outdoor deck lounge. The fog billowed and streamed eerily under the African 'moon and hid slapping waves, frogs, insects, crocodiles, fish and hippos that called and moved restlessly in the night. Only two other cars were in the parking lot. No one seemed to have followed Durell.
Assignment- Tyrant's Bride Page 5