"Yes.” Mkondo slogged away and vanished around a turn.
There was nowhere to sit. Durell leaned next to Deirdre, and they exchanged glum looks. It was hot and stinking.
"Do you really think he’ll make it back?” she asked. "Don’t you?”
Her smile was wry. "Believe it or not, I do—but I’d like to hear you say it.”
"He’ll be back,” Durell said.
"A little more conviction, please?”
"That’s another matter.”
From the tail of his eye Durell caught sight of something that fell through a latrine hole and plopped into the shallow water. It wasn’t a form he was likely to mistake.
"Run!” he yelled.
"Wha—?”
He yanked her away from the wall. "Grenade!” Durell just made the half-dozen strides—dragging Deirdre—to round a curve in the sewer.
Then the grenade detonated with a crashing shock that blew the breath from their lungs. All Durell knew was a tremendous thump, blazing lights. . . .
The last embers of consciousness slid down the black void in his mind.
14
Durell choked and retched and tasted the foulest taste he’d ever tasted. He remembered the sewer dimly and thought he was suffocating. Deirdre flashed in his mind, and he lurched up on his hands, raising his shoulders. His nostrils were full of the stench of the sewer; limp hair hung over his eyes wetly, and he brushed it aside and spat.
He saw lots of faces, all under red berets, none friendly.
They watched him intently.
He lay on the red earth, outdoors. His clothing was soaked. The weight of his pistol was missing, of course.
Where was. . .?
He turned his gaze from the hostile faces: Deirdre lay beside him. She coughed and sputtered. Her dress was hiked up to her thigh. It was soaking, plastered to her curves. It made him think what could lie in store for her, and he fought back a surge of panic: he could not protect her against these odds.
A captain spoke: "Get off your belly, snake: stand when I address you.” His English was passable.
The captain’s thin face held the hard, eager eyes of a ferret, as Durell struggled to his feet. "What were you doing in the sewer?” he demanded.
"Hiding.”
"Of course.” That pleased the captain.
"I am a tourist; I was caught in the violence; it seemed the only safe place.” It was thin, Durell thought. Very thin. His head ached.
"That does not explain,” the captain said, "why the cover had been removed from the latrine in that house.”
Durell chose to make no comment, as he bent and helped Deirdre to her feet. She was shaky, but seemed unharmed. "I am—”
"I know who you are.” The captain spoke sharply. "And this man: I know who he is, as well.” He removed Durell’s passport from inside his tunic and tapped it on his thumb.
"I demand that you release us,” Durell said. It did no harm to get it on the record.
A sneer twisted on the officer’s thin mouth, and Durell saw the Arabic influence in his Nubian face. "Put them in the car,” he said.
Durell felt the prod of a rifle barrel as he and Deirdre were hustled into a vintage black Buick. They put Deirdre in front, with the driver; the captain got in back where he could cover both of them with his .45 automatic. They rolled down all the windows, and still the smell was god-awful. All around them life went on; business as usual in the ivory and ebony stores, the pelt emporiums and the small shops that sold tin-can lamps, beds with springs of woven automobile tire treads, and unidentifiable things of many sorts.
The sunlight plummeted through the high, thin atmosphere and sparkled and glared off chrome and glass, while the city’s hills wore the unbelievable green of the tropics.
Durell did not bother to ask where he was being taken. Deirdre was turned around so that she could see him, her lovely gray eyes wondering and troubled.
Their clothing had dried by the time the sedan parked at an enormous villa overlooking the city. There was a scent of swimming-pool water, the perfume of red jasmine. Numerous other vehicles were here, most of them bearing the markings of the military or police.
Sentries were everywhere. It seemed to be an operations center.
"Out,” the captain commanded, opening his door and waiting with his pistol ready.
They went up a wide flagstone walk that was bordered with flowers in a dozen varieties, then across a deep, cool veranda and into the house. The captain checked in with a brisk self-important lieutenant, who assigned two soldiers armed with rifles to escort the party further.
There was lots of traffic in the hall. Generals and other high staff officers came and went with grim faces. Phones rang. Doors muffled debates. A real charge of urgency hung like electricity in the air, and Durell’s hopes rose.
He had not been treated badly so far, considering.
Maybe President for Life Field Marshal Azo Ausi really was dead. Maybe the Ndolo were safe, without further action.' Given State’s list of possible successors to Ausi—who was roundly hated here as well as abroad—there was every chance the new leader would turn firmly to the western democracies and away from the imperial African designs of the U.S.S.R.
He even dared hope that his own release could be arranged.
A door at the end of the. hallway opened, and the glare of outdoors slapped his eyes forcibly, after the shadows inside.
He saw the sparkling, mint-green water of a swimming pool surrounded by banana trees and shrubs that blazed with flowers. There was a knot of fully dressed men, a couple of young women in bathing suits dangling their legs in the water.
The men parted and all Durell’s hopes flew away.
There, in a brief red bathing suit, sat Azo Ausi.
He wore a small adhesive bandage over his left eyebrow: otherwise there wasn’t a scratch on him. His buffalo face looked mean; the hot glare of anger shone in his small red eyes.
"Bring them closer. So, you miscalculated, Mr. Samuel Durell. My driver is dead, but I am not, as you see.”
Deirdre, who had met Ausi socially, said, "I am so pleased to see you unharmed, Mr. President.”
"Are you?” The man rose from his chair and stood over her, his belly drooping over his beltline. He was a head taller than Durell. He tilted her chin and said, "Shall I show you how healthy I am, pretty lady? I shall make you very pleased. I please all the ladies; they love me.” His grin was lecherous.
Color rose to Deirdre’s cheeks.
He brushed her aside and approached Durell, head thrust forward like an ape’s. "You there! What have you to say?” he demanded. Without warning, the block of his fist crashed into Durell’s cheek and sent him sprawling. "Do you wish to confess?” Ausi shouted.
Durell rested on a knee, head hanging, breathed deeply, stood up. Ausi was not a patient man. He was lucky to be alive, and he knew it.
Old Mkondo would be disappointed.
Durell kept his voice even. "Turn us loose, unless you intend to charge us with something.”
"Charge you? Insolence.” Ausi’s voice rose, and he showed his teeth. "Insolence! My men had to pull you out of the ground like rats!”
"I tried to explain that,” Durell said, sticking by his story.
Ausi stamped back to the shade of an umbrella and dropped into his chair. He was nearly naked, obscene in his tight red bathing suit. The girls watched him covertly, as if to be ready for his pleasure at the snap of a finger. The men looked hot and uncomfortable in their western suits. They gave Ausi plenty of room and kept their mouths shut. From the hedge and beyond on the wooded estate came the calls of cuckoos, touracos and sunbirds. The high sun gouged Durell’s face.
"You do not understand, Mr. Samuel Durell, so let me explain,” Ausi said. He had attended Sandhurst, and his English was remarkably good. "First, you are an agent of the notorious K Section. Don’t trouble to deny it.”
Durell was stunned. Icy fingers squeezed his stomach as he fought to control hi
s face. How had Ausi known? One thought shouldered the other: Jerry.
"I knew,” Ausi continued, "that you had been sent to raise rebellion against me by reuniting General Albert Ogwang with the seditious Ndolo. But I had been puzzled as to why you would come to Kenshu, so far from the Ndolo heartland. I decided to wait and see, and this curiosity almost cost me my life.”
"I don’t know where this is leading, Mr. President, but—”
"Shut up!” Ausi breathed hard and worked his knuckles together. Then he continued: "You and this woman were seen together last night; neither of you returned to your room until early today. You have plotted together. You will pay the price together, for attempting my assassination.”
Durell was genuinely surprised, although he should have foreseen this.
"Of course it was you.” Ausi’s eyes became small, red beads. "My assailant is known to have escaped into the sewers after throwing two hand grenades at my vehicle. You were found in the sewer—like rats, as I have said.”
Durell still kept his voice polite. "You’re mistaken, sir. We had no designs on your life—”
Deirdre spoke up, her tone irate: "We hid in the sewer because your men were butchering everyone in sight.”
"Still your tongue, woman!” Ausi roared. His chest heaved with fury. "There will be punishment; I intend punishment: punishment for those who attempted to kill me.” His small eyes glared, and the jaws knotted on his broad face.
In the hot pause that followed, Durell was struck by a thought he hadn’t put together before: if Jerry had informed on him, he’d told Ausi only about the scheme to return General Ogwang to the Ndolo and nothing about the plot to steal Teresa away—otherwise, Ausi surely would have mentioned it. He asked himself why Jerry would have held that back: it made no sense. He wanted to ask after Kabakaliya Teresa, but feared it would raise the tyrant’s suspicions. Besides, it was probable that Ausi had not bothered to check on her, trusting to her SB escort to keep her from harm.
Now that his cover had been blown, and Deirdre’s worth destroyed, it hardly seemed to matter. Wells was the only one left in Kenshu who retained any effectiveness—if he was still alive. He’d never get Teresa out of the palace by himself.
The mission had turned into a complete fiasco, because of the ill-conceived attempt to assassinate Azo Ausi. Now, if events followed their familiar pattern, the brutal dictator would use the pretext for yet another bloody harvest of suspected enemies. And end up more secure and powerful than ever.
There seemed only one thing to do, and that was to try to swing Deirdre’s release and take the brunt of everything on himself, trusting to luck.
He said: "All right, you’ve nailed me, Mr. President.” He took an exaggerated breath. "My mission was to slip General Ogwang back into the country—”
"Back to the Ndolo.”
"Yes, sir.”
"You are wise to confess. The methods of my men in the Second Bureau are not pleasant.”
"But—” Deirdre’s eyes were baffled. "Sam! Have you gone out of your mind?”
Ausi chuckled grimly, pleased with himself, but the smile evaporated when Durell added: "I had no part in the attempt on your life, however. Nor did Miss Padgett—she’s no more than she seeins: a magazine writer who fell into bad company. Mine. She should be released and allowed to leave your—”
"Lies! Lies! Lies!” Ausi was on his feet, stamping in a circle, bellowing. "Everybody lies to me! I can believe no one! You came to kill me, but I will drink your blood!” A foam of spittle gleamed at the corners of his
twisted mouth, and Durell saw madness in the field marshal’s rancorous face. The man probably did drink the blood of his enemies.
Durell was aware of sweat trickling down his chest; the sunlight pounded. Deirdre stood in shocked immobility, her gray eyes wide and fearful.
Then she found her voice. "What of the pretty story about Teresa?” She spoke as if to a child. "You won’t have that to point to.”
"There will be no story,” Ausi said sadly.
"It would be a good joke on General Ogwang,” Durell urged.
"Yes,” Ausi said, "that would be good. But it cannot be. Everybody must die.”
A frigid sensation moved up Durell’s spine.
"Take them to the barracks,” Ausi ordered.
15
"What will they do to us?” Deirdre asked.
"Execute us. Unless we get away.” Durell looked around. It seemed impossible. He wondered if she saw that.
Gitau Barracks was a compound of grim dirty-white structures that housed the country’s largest regular army unit, the Fourth Mechanized Infantry, called the Ghost Brigade. The unit’s black skull flag flew with the Mobundan ensign of red stripes and crossed spears over the building to which the two were being escorted.
Armored personnel carriers roared and crept about an asphalt-paved square, the noise mingling with harsh commands as prisoners arrived in new batches. Ausi had declared a state of emergency, and the Ghost Brigade’s armor roamed Kenshu, using the pretext to intimidate, maul and kill. It was a time to hide if you had ever incurred the president’s displeasure.
No trees shaded the compound: the molten fury of the afternoon sun spilled out of the yellow sky unobstructed. The exhaust of armored vehicles made oily ripples in the air.
The guards’ black faces sweated, and their boots clattered importantly.
Deirdre whispered: "Maybe Teresa can intercede for us.”
"Not likely; I don’t think she would dare.”
"She’s our friend; she’s still the kabakaliya.”
"It’s just an empty title, now. She wouldn’t be in the fix she’s in, if she had any power.”
"Shut up! No talking!” a guard snarled in Swahili. They came to the building, into some welcome shade, then the dank gloom of a long corridor. There was a water fountain and a bulletin board plastered with notices. This seemed to be an administrative wing— but Durell sensed something more: despair, a restless fear. . . .
Then came a muffled scream, ending abruptly.
He felt Deirdre’s fingers tighten on his arm. He did not look at her; he didn’t want to see her fright, when there was nothing he could do about it. The cry had come from below. The basement, he thought, and wondered if finding himself going down a flight of stairs would be the only warning.
They were shown into a room packed with men and women prisoners, and the door was locked behind them. The anguish of these people was palpable.
"I can hardly breathe,” Deirdre said.
"Let’s get to the window, see what’s outside.” He led the way, pushing through with some difficulty. Activity out in the brilliant sunlight seemed general, with no one interested in this building, specifically. Far away he saw the steeple of the cathedral, beyond that the heave of green foothills, then the purple Ruwenzori.
Deirdre spoke, close to his shoulder: "There seem to be no sentries.”
"I don’t trust that.”
"Try the window, Sam.”
He heaved. "It’s nailed shut.”
"Break it.”
"You’re joking. It would draw everyone within earshot.”
She held her voice down with obvious, grating effort. "We have to do something.”
"If I at least had a weapon. . .” Flies buzzed at the dirty panes.
Someone tapped his shoulder, and he heard: "Count me in, if you have a plan.”
"Jerry!” Deirdre cried.
He grinned widely, but his pale-blue eyes were troubled and sad. Durell stood back while he and Deirdre embraced like long-lost friends. Jerry told him: "I hope you’re willing to forget our differences.”
"I’m not forgetting anything,” Durell said. "It doesn’t matter, now; if you told Ausi about me, it didn’t get you much.”
"I didn’t say a word.”
"Somebody did. He knew.”
"Not me. I swear it.”
Deirdre spoke up. "I believe him, Sam.”
Durell blew a short breath th
rough his nose. "The last time I saw him, he was running away, leaving you to the wolves,” he said.
Jerry’s face was apologetic. "I’m sorry, Sam. Listen, I’d never do anything to harm Deirdre. I—I guess I was scared out of my wits. I hid in a house, but they found me—”
The door opened, interrupting him, and guards lined up ten prisoners and filed them into the hall and locked up the room once more. A horrified silence fell over the room: the people slumped, wept soundlessly, prayed with muttered fervor.
"It’s murder,” Jerry said, outraged.
Deirdre’s gray eyes widened. "You mean, they are to be. . .?”
"Murdered. Executed.” Anger stiffened his voice. "They are just ordinary people who were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Like me. It’s the end of the line, Deirdre.”
Durell broke in, partly to quiet Jerry. "Did you see Willie Wells?”
Jerry shook" his head. "Not after the commotion started.”
Durell turned a thoughtful gaze out the window, noting a chain-link fence that ran behind buildings across the way and probably enclosed the whole compound.
"Willie’s unaccounted for?” Jerry asked.
"He may have been killed in the square.”
"Poor Willie.”
"We’d better start thinking about ourselves.”
"But what can we do?”
"I don’t know.” Durell knitted his brows. "There’s bound to be something, if we can only see it.”
The room stank in the afternoon heat, the crammed bodies suffocating each other and leaving desperate, sliding marks where greasy fingers smudged the white wall.
A muffled cry came up through the floor.
Deirdre jumped, and her brave face crumpled, and she held the lapels of his filthy blue suit jacket and buried her face against his chest.
When the guards came again, they sought out the Americans.
The three of them were lined up in a group of ten and escorted from the fetid air of the detention room. The feet of prisoners shuffled hopelessly as they went single-file down the hall. There were two guards, one in front, another in back. They wore red berets that bore a silver-skull emblem. Durell was in the middle, between Deirdre and Jerry, out of reach of either guard, and his mind raced for a way out. He felt Deirdre’s hand come into his. She did not look back. Everybody seemed enveloped in his own private thoughts.
Assignment- Tyrant's Bride Page 9