"I know where it is. There are two trucks filled with it, and a barge tied up practically out of sight, under the walls here. The barge is big enough to take both trucks. My guess is that a select party will vacate the fort in the trucks, on the barge, and go down river to the nearest highway and make for the border."
She nodded and sat down on the rough cot beside him. She did not try to cover up her nakedness. She was quite natural about it.
"I thought you were going to leave me here," she said quietly.
"I would have, if I could."
"I don't believe that," Finch said. "Not you."
"I didn't think you esteemed me that highly."
"You wouldn't have left me to Mickey, would you?"
"Maybe not," he admitted finally.
She said, "I bandaged your head. You were bleeding so badly. They threw you in here like a sack of cold meat. Like a slaughtered animal. I thought you were dead. I even threw up."
"That didn't help anything."
"I couldn't stop it. I felt so awful about you. Then they took our clothes away. Mickey was there and some soldiers. They had a good time, stripping me, but she wouldn't let them go any farther. Not yet, she said. She's terrible, Sam. She scares me."
"Me too. Relax, Finch. I'm all right now."
"You still look awful."
He felt awful. When he gingerly touched the back of his head, he realized that the stray bullet had dug a furrow, under the back of his skull, missing his brain by millimeters. He thought his head would burst. He wished he had some water, but there was none in the cell.
"What about the helicopter?" he asked
"I heard it and all the shooting. But nothing happened. It just came over the fort and then flew away."
"It has to mean something," he said. "I don't think the fighting will last much longer."
The girl frowned. "I don't understand about Captain Yutigaffa hiding out around here. Mickey asked me about him and Kantijji too." Her face was pale. She sat bending forward, her hands between her thighs, her knees pressed close together. "That woman isn't very nice, Sam."
"I've finally figured out Yutigaffa. And Mickey too," Durell said. "There was all this talk about the Silver Scorpion taking over Boganda; running things, reviving old tribal myths about a female jungle demon, a woman who could perform magic through terror and death."
Finch nodded, watching him.
"The Silver Scorpion took over the secret police, the FKP, little by little. It's usually the way to do it, taking over a state and moving it into totalitarianism. It was a new element in Boganda's life as an independent nation. And we had a new element in Mickey and Irene."
"Oh," Finch said. "I think I see."
"My guess is that Mickey began buying up key men in the FKP; turning them against the Raga, by using her base of power as General Watsube's white wife. She's smart enough to use local superstition to make her start. I think Mickey Maitland named herself the Silver Scorpion and took over the FKP."
"And Yutigaffa?"
"His loyalty remained with the Raga. So he and Kantijji, perhaps of all the secret police, were on their own. That's why those two were willing to help us. That's why they came into the Getoba, and that's why they're hiding out somewhere near here."
"Why hide out?"
"They're waiting for a chance to kill Mickey. Mickey called them trained tribal assassins. That may have beer true in their youth. I think all that changed when Boganda became free; but now they've reverted to more primitive passions."
The girl said, "Whoopee. We have allies." She didn't really sound elated. "Or do we?"
"I don't know."
"What can we do now, Sam?"
Durell said, "We wait."
Two hours passed. Nothing happened. No one came to the cell to check on them. The night grew chilly when the sun went down. The chill was augmented by the dampness that pervaded the old fort on its riverfront site. The cell was below ground level and could not hold the heat of the day. Without clothing the girl began to shiver. Durell was not sure whether his own shudders came from a fever due to the wound on the back of his head or if he was cold himself.
At first the girl lay on her own cot, silent and miserable in the gloom that filled the cell. Rats scuttled across the filthy floor. There were two more distant mortar barrages, marking the hours. One of the shells burst nearby, set something on fire, and a dim red haze crept through the barred window high in the wall. Durell got up twice to check the door and the window. There was no way out. When he went back to his own cot, Finch was there, silently stretching out beside him, shivering with the damp cold.
He took her in his arms and held her quietly for some moments.
"Sam?" she whispered.
"Yo."
"Do you think she'll kill us both?"
"If she can talk Chance into it, yes."
"What about Willie Wells?"
"He certainly seems worried about something," Durell said. "Maybe it's his innate sense of decency."
"Would he help us?"
"Our only chance is to help ourselves."
She was silent for a moment. Then she moved, and her hip and thigh slid against his, and her face turned, and she kissed him lightly on the cheek. She whispered, "I don't want to die yet, Sam. I want to make love. I want to be in love for the rest of my life-for a long, long time.?
"I know."
?Don't you like me, Sam?"
"You know I do."
"Don't you want me?"
"Yes. Obviously." He could not help responding to the pressure of her long, rich body close to him. The red glare that seeped through the loose boards on the cell window, became brighter. Her lips seemed wet, her teeth gleamed. Her eyes looked drowned. She moved against him again, and he turned toward her and kissed her. Her breasts were firm against his chest. She breathed quickly and kissed him with a sudden, avid hunger that betrayed her fear of death that told him how much she wanted to live. He murmured, "Georgette.-"
"My friends call me Winky," she whispered.
"Why?"
"I can't tell you that. But call me Winky, Sam."
"All fight."
"Not Finch any more."
"Right."
"It's so good to know-"
There were footsteps outside in the stone corridor of the dungeon. They were booted, quick, determined, coming toward the cell. The girl drew back with a small exclamation of dismay.
"Gosh darn it all, I-"
Durell sat up. The girl slid swiftly off his cot and went to her own. Durell swore softly. Lights flickered strongly through the bars in the opening of the plank door. A set of keys rattled.
"Durell? Mr. Durell?"
It was Irene Maitland's voice.
"Are you still alive in there?" Irene called.
He saw Finch grin. "Yes," he answered.
"I've brought you both some clothes."
The door opened. Irene's voice sounded different. There was a furious anger latent in her words, in the way she stood there with two armed men behind her. She held the keys. She signaled imperiously, and one of the men tossed in a pair of pants and shoes for Durell and a native cotton print for Georgette, an ankle-length smock affair that she quickly pulled on over her head.
Irene looked at them both in brief puzzlement that only momentarily quenched the anger in her.
"Come along. You too, Miss Finch. I'm just not going to stand for it another bloody second, that's all."
"Stand for what?" Durell asked.
"My darling sister, that's what. She's planning to double-cross me."
Chapter 21
IRENE LED them quickly and quietly along a vaulted, brick passageway under the Portuguese Fort, then up a flight of steps to ground level. The two Telek soldiers followed without asking questions. Irene turned at a barred doorway and spoke to the soldiers in dismissal. The two Teleks muttered something and looked at each other. Irene's seething temper burst out in a volcano of expletives. The two armed men beat a quick retr
eat, although looking dubiously at Durell and Finch.
"You know that they'll talk," Durell said to Irene.
"They'll tell Colonel Chance or Major Wells that you've let us out of the cell."
"No, they won't. They've been paid."
"But they're rebels. They're not loyal to you or the Raga."
"Money buys loyalty. It doesn't matter, anyway. Get in there."
Finch looked at Durell as if wondering why he didn't simply overpower Irene and make their escape. He ignored her, remembering briefly the smooth slide of her body against his, then put it out of his mind. Irene held the door open. He went in first, observing that the room was a duplicate of Mickey's-a large bed against a brick wall, set in an alcove that had once been a gun emplacement. The slot served as a window, barred now, but without glass and with a painted wooden shutter folded inward.
The smell of the river came into the room, and he saw that they were situated in the wall facing the mile-wide stream and the wharf area directly below. From the window he could see the motor barge tied up under the shelter of the crenellated wall. Some men were working down there, fashioning braces for a ramp from the brick embarkation to the barge's stern deck, using heavy planks and broken lumber. The ramp would be solid enough to, support the two trucks, Durell thought. Once aboard the barge, they would be off for the frontier, unhindered. He noticed Major Wells on the barge, arms akimbo, talking to three blacks in uniform. The smell of smoke from a nearby fire drifted through the narrow window.
Irene had lighted an oil lantern. There didn't seem to be any wiring from the local generator in this room.
"Never mind what's out there, Mr. Durell," she said in her thin voice. "You'd better be paying some attention to me, if you want to live much longer."
Durell turned to her. "All right. You've got a proposition to make, obviously; so make it."
"Mickey is going to shoot you-both of you" Irene made the announcement like saying it was going to rain. Her big blue eyes were innocent of any malice as she looked at her jewel-encrusted watch. "In an hour, she says. After the next bombardment."
"And you want to keep us alive? Why?"
"It's only to get your help again, not out of any bleedin' heart motives," Irene snapped. "After all I've done for that bitchy sister of mine, for her to think she can split and get away with all that cash and leave me to face the music! Well, she's got another bloody think coming to her, that's all I can say. You want to stop her, don't you?"
"How can I trust you?"
"You've just got to, mister," Irene retorted. "I could get shot myself, if she finds out what I've done already. I wouldn't put it past her-or beyond that conniving, insulting, slick article she's putting out for, that Colonel Chance, that bloody bastard. I think she's gone balmy for him, that's what I think. Every time I see her, she's waiting to go to bed with him again. Poor man, he's worn down to a nubbin, I bet."
"You sound jealous," Finch said acidly.
"Yes? And what about you and Durell, what you were about to do when I so rudely interrupted?" Irene's anger was genuine. She clenched her fists at her sides and went on, "I told you, Mickey is going to cross us all up. She and that handsome hunk, that Adam Chance. They're going to roll the trucks onto the barge at three o'clock this morning and slip away and leave us all holding the bag. I tell you, it's all arranged."
"How do you know about it?"
Irene made a noise like a spitting cat. "I just happened to overhear. I slipped into their room while they was, while they made love. I was just snooping around. It's my right, isn't it? After all, I'm the Ragihi here, and it's my duty to find out what I can, to help the President!"
"Are you switching sides now?" Durell asked.
"Maybe I never changed sides, how about that? You can't prove what I was planning and thinking of doing. I'll tell the Raga I came here to help him, if Mickey ever gets away."
"Will he believe you?"
The blond girl smiled crookedly. "I can make Inurate believe anything I say. He's crazy for me."
"Maybe not this time," Durell warned.
She shrugged. "I'm not worried about it. What I want from you is a little help, to see she doesn't get away with it. After all, I bloody well gave her the chance to get in on the ground floor in this country. We could've lived high, wide, and handsome in Boganda, all safe and secure and respected like, by everybody. It would be a whole new life for us both, I wrote her. I figured she'd make a good catch, but I didn't expect her to get so high, like making it with General Watsube. It kind of surprised me, but I was really glad for her, and I figured even that was all right. I was still the Ragihi. After all those years in Liverpool, while she claimed to be the brains, while she told me day in and day out that I should do this and that, and then little dumb Irene comes here and really makes it, I mean, really. And that bloody slut tries to move in and steal the pennies off dead men's eyes. Lord!" Irene literally quivered with rage. "And now she plans to cut me out of it all. I won't let her do it, you hear?"
"How do you plan to stop her? We're prisoners here," Durell said quietly. "Admittedly, she's done you a wrong. But are you sure she plans to leave you here and take off on the barge with the truckloads of cash?"
"I was in their closet while they were bloody well loving it off, just an hour ago. I could see it all through the door. I kept it open a little." She bit her lip. "Mickey really ties him up in knots in bed. She's got him eating off her-well, you know what. He'll do anything she says. And they were laughing at me, together! Laughing, imagine that! After I brought her to Boganda and set her up."
Georgette said sympathetically, "I can see why you're angry, but what do you want us to do?"
"Stop them, that's what you can bloody well do! I can't trust anybody else here in this crazy place. They're all going to be shot when Watsube moves his troops in. And he'll do it too. He'll massacre them all, the bloody fools. The Raga will still be President, and they'll be fed to the crocodiles, that's what. But not me! Not little Irene. If I can't have my share, nobody's going to get away with anything."
Durell said, "All right. My job is to save the money for Boganda. How can I help?"
Irene said flatly, "You can kill her."
"Your own sister??
"They caught me in that stupid closet," she said in a shamed whisper. She lowered her big blue innocent eyes. "They made a lot of fun at me. Both of them in the stark, y'know? Standing there laughing at me. Telling me I was out of it all, they didn't need me or want me here, I was just a nuisance to them. And then she said-Mickey said that Adam had agreed to kill you both and hide your bodies where you'd never be found, and nobody could question anything after all the fighting. Is that what you want, Durell?"
"Not exactly. Why can't you get rid of Mickey yourself, Irene?"
"Because she wouldn't trust me near her again, that's why. So I got you out of your cell. I can get you a gun. I tried to make it to the telephone, the one that's still connected to the President's bungalow. The crazy thing still works. But she stopped me and ripped it out. I slipped, away from the room, after I tried to warn the Raga and show him me heart's still in the right place. I bribed one of the Teleks and got you out. And we're wasting time, you know. She'll be coming for you, Durell, any minute now."
Mickey spoke from the doorway. "Dearie, I'm here already."
She carried an Uzi automatic in her right hand, crooked, in her elbow. Behind her Colonel Adam Chance smiled. He held his Colt .45 pointed at Finch. Major Wells, behind them both, seemed to be unarmed and thinking about, something else.
Chance said, "One move, Durell, and you've got a dead girl on your hands."
Mickey Maitland said, "The next mortar barrage, Durell. When all the noise comes, that's when you go. I Quick and quiet. So nobody hears the shots in the fort and asks questions or acts as a witness later."
Durell said, "Colonel, you can't make it. Mickey will knock you off too, the first chance she gets, once you help her out of the country. That's the kind
of woman she is."
Adam Chance smiled. "I know what she is."
Durell said, "Mickey, he knows you too. You'll both be at each other's throats. It's just too much money. It's too much for anyone to try to steal, either alone or together. You'll never make it. If you don't get Adam first, he'll get you, to save his throat from being slit."
"Shut up, you!" Mickey raged.
"And what about Irene?" Durell asked. "Will you execute her too?"
"She'd kill me, wouldn't she? So why not?"
Adam spoke easily. "Take it easy, Mr. Durell. You might as well be peaceful." He looked at his watch. "You have thirty-five minutes until Watsube sends over his next mortar shells."
Assignment- Silver Scorpion Page 16