Catacombs

by John Farris

  After lunch the two men settled into the back of Koshar's antique, armored Daimler-Benz, a car that had belonged to a Nazi official in Poland during World War Two. In accord with the merchant's love of vivid color, the car had been refurbished with nine coats of hand-rubbed, high-gloss, gold-flake pistachio green. Mr. Mkassu drove, and two cars filled with bodyguards accompanied them.

  Koshar handed Belov his Swedish passport, other documents, and letters of reference.

  "Your passport has been stamped to show that you entered Tanzania two weeks ago, before the borders were closed. You have been staying at the Oberoi Bwawani on Zanzibar and Kilipamwambu in Chake Chake since your arrival. These letters will secure for you respectful and instant cooperation from our frequently corrupt and inefficient public servants. You may travel without restriction anywhere in the country, even to the so-called war zones."

  Belov nodded and filed the papers away.

  "Have you located Henry Landreth for me?"

  "Unfortunately, no. We can be reasonably certain that he was among the group of scientists and other eminent persons removed from Chanvai by helicopter on the night of April twenty-ninth."

  "What about friends of Landreth? Was he keeping someone, a man or a woman? He might have confided in a lover before he was sequestered."

  "From all reports he was a solitary and secretive man. His sexual preferences are not a matter of gossip; if there was anything bizarre about his appetites I would have heard. He owns a small house in Oyster Bay, but has been absent from that house for almost a year. He was often seen at Chanvai during the month of April."

  "Then I need access to Chanvai. Will I be allowed to call on Jumbe?"

  "Apparently he was quite dissatisfied with his last encounter with the press, and is seeing no journalists at present. Also he has been in ill health, and on his doctor's orders has not left Chanvai for several weeks."

  "His doctor would be Robeson Kumenyere. Can I get to him?"

  "For a purely social occasion."

  "I may want to consult him, privately, about the matters that concern me."

  "He's a shrewd and careful man, as he has reason to be. And a good pistol shot. But you could take him forcibly, with expert assistance. Is that wise?" Koshar concluded, with a heavy-lidded glance at the Russian.

  "Not yet. You have no idea of where Jumbe is holding his house guests?"

  "Inquiries must be made with the greatest discretion. Members of the Elite Guard are handsomely paid, and loyal. General Timbaroo has a unique method of dealing with those who do not fully grasp the seriousness of their responsibilities. In the nineteen fifties a troupe of baboons was brought into a secluded area near Chanvai for naturalists to study. They are fierce and inhospitable animals with a rigid sense of territory; protected, they flourished. Even leopards are frightened of them. You can imagine the fate of a lone soldier, securely tethered by the wrists to a stake in the ground, when the baboons discover him."

  "Interesting," Belov said, but he looked faintly annoyed by the digression. "I suppose you have no news about the Chapman/Weller expedition."

  Koshar shrugged apologetically.

  "Why not?"

  "It's a very large country, Mr. Lundgren. Despite the new microwave relay systems, communications in many areas are nonexistent. Where you find telephone exchanges, they are controlled by the government. There are many old missions and hunting lodges in forest districts that nearly defy penetration. This is why we need a man like Tiernan Clarke."

  Belov gazed at Koshar for several seconds.

  "I work alone."

  "As you wish; it is my obligation only to furnish you with the information you urgently need. Clarke is an associate of mine, a former game hunter and now an animal catcher, under government licenses which I obtained. He has a ranch at Lake Manyara. I've provided him with an excellent living in those times when the catching and exporting of game animals from Tanzania is forbidden."

  "He poaches for you?"

  "Yes. There's a steady demand, despite stringent export bans, for pelts and horns and tusks. Almost a risk-free endeavor, compared, say, to the smuggling of cloves from Zanzibar, which is still punishable by death. But let me tell you about Clarke. He has a rather colorful background. He was an expert in the construction and employment of two-stage bombs for the IRA's Provo wing until greed prompted him to steal a war chest of several thousand pounds. He was overtaken by his fellows and left for dead with a bullet in his head which, obviously, failed to kill him. As a result of the gunshot he has a few less ounces of brains than the average man and certain physical defects which he's managed to overcome; he's a charming hoodlum, a hard worker, a ruthless opportunist, and slightly mad. In the past fourteen years he's flown over or walked through nearly every square mile of Tanzania. He has native poachers working for him in all the game preserves, a crew of eyes and ears I sometimes envy. He may already know where these explorers are being detained. If not, I believe he will soon find out."

  "Can you trust Clarke?"

  "With what little information I choose to give him." They were driving now through the slovenly outskirts of Zanzibar Town in a haze of dust, past markets and lurching minibuses and a herd of skinny humpbacked cattle strolling along the road. Teenage herders, their heads wrapped in threadbare jackets as protection against the sun, flicked the cattle with ropes to keep them from wandering into the paths of vehicles. Along the channel the tide was out, exposing broad mud flats and beached dhows, a type of seagoing ship little changed from those that had sailed to Red Sea and Indian ports almost two thousand years ago.

  Near the Zanzibar Hotel they turned down a sunless street only a little wider than the car itself, driving past old Arab houses, their windows covered with intricate wooden latticework. The street opened into a broad square with open shops and stalls. Several whitewashed buildings with balconies and brassbound, arched teak doors dominated the west side of the square. This complex housed the offices and stores of Akim Koshar.

  Belov followed Koshar through room after room crowded with curios for the meager tourist trade. In another back room several ivory carvers were at work under bright lights with their dentist's drills, turning chunks of elephant tusk worth more than thirty dollars a pound into obscene objets d'art. The floor was white with ivory chips and dust.

  "Tusks are very expensive now," Koshar said, "but still there is a good profit to be made. I have a standing order from France for all the ivory porno I can produce."

  They continued through passageways with small barred windows which let in an odor of tidal wrack and stenchy mud. At high tide the waters would be lapping at the stained green seawall only a few feet outside. They came to a locked and guarded storeroom in the depths of one of the buildings.

  Inside, Tiernan Clarke was sorting through blood-flecked leopard and cheetah pelts piled high on a table; he was arguing in Swahili with one of Koshar's clerks. Nearby there was a wired bundle of elephant tusks, some weighing close to eighty pounds, which had been cut off the fallen elephants with a power saw. Each bore a prominent inked brand. Clarke had also brought in rhinoceros horns worth double their weight in gold.

  It was hot in the room and sweat flew from the hunter's brow when he shook his head. He wore shorts and a sleeveless bush shirt that needed laundering. He was a big man, with high squared-off shoulders and skinny dark legs displaying a polka dot collection of old scars from ulcer and claw. He had long swept-back hair the texture of a lion's mane and one eyebrow permanently out of kilter from a bullet crease. It gave a droll look to his ready smile when he turned and saw Koshar.

  Koshar nodded but didn't say anything. He approached the table and examined a couple of skins. Clarke plucked a mangled cheroot from his shirt pocket and stood back chewing on it, head down, grinning with an intimate ferocity. From time to time he lifted his head to study Belov with his coal-black stare.

  "Carelessly killed," Koshar said, letting go of a glossy fur with claws attached.

  "It was sho
ot fast or forget the whole thing. And we had a flying warden butt in, at just the wrong moment."

  Koshar looked displeased. "Where?"

  "Along the Little Simkiapi, in Ruaha. I dusted his tail feathers with a few rounds, enough to cause him to set down long before he reached home base. He should just now be walking out of the bush, if he can walk at all. –Or perhaps," Clarke added, rolling the cheroot to the other side of his mouth, "the warden was a she. That's been on my mind. I had only a glimpse, but there was something womanly in the bones of the pilot's face."

  He returned his attention to the table to defend his wares, pulling out a magnificent black leopard pelt.

  "Now this one is as near-perfect as the potentates could hope to find. It's a gahr-jus fur. Worth the price of the lot, in my estimation. But the others are only slightly less desirable, and with skill can be sewn into many a fine coat or slipcover."

  "Hmm," Koshar murmured, stroking the leopard, working his fingers deeply into the fur while trying not to admire it.

  "Not a bullet wound anywhere," Clarke insisted, pressing his advantage. "Instead the animal's chest was crushed, as if by a kick from an elephant during the furious stampede." He glanced around at Belov again. "Are you interested in hunting, boy-o?"

  "Not the way you do it."

  Clarke lowered his head again, a mannerism that seemed compounded of shyness and a sense of inferiority; but Belov guessed that it was a deliberate contrivance to conceal murderous impulses from the unwary. Tiernan Clarke may or may not have been unbalanced, but he would be dangerous to anyone who didn't understand the type. Clarke came toward him with a cringing show of teeth like a dog that wants to be petted and forgiven, but Belov recognized the sham and shifted his weight cautiously, hoping Clarke wouldn't be fool enough to work off his wretched pique by initiating a brawl.

  Koshar looked around, frowning, and said in Swahili, "I wouldn't touch him. He will kill you."

  Clarke stopped a few feet short of Belov and mulled this new idea while obsessively wiping his big and lumpy hands on his shirt until he had smoothed away the momentary rage. He looked up, grinning resentfully.

  "You haven't made the gentleman's name and business known to me."

  "He wishes not to be known."

  "Oh, well." Clarke picked his teeth with a fingernail and continued to size up Belov. He seemed to find him wanting, but was not in the mood to pursue an apology for the insult that had inflamed him before.

  "He must be a very dear friend or perhaps a partner, as you've so casually introduced him to my private business."

  "He is not interested in your business. Only in incidental services which you may be able to provide." Koshar beckoned to his clerk and whispered to him, rapidly counting off sums on his fingers. Clarke, eager to hear how his account was being settled, walked away from Belov.

  "The usual for this lot," Koshar said, with a careless sweeping gesture across the table. Clarke looked stunned, and ready to choke.

  Koshar lifted a cautionary finger in his direction. "And," he said, casting a swift reappraising eye over the richest pelt, "three thousand shillings more for the leopard." Clarke settled back on his heels, chomping down on the cheroot, momentarily silenced but not pacified by this bonus.

  "Three thousand! With that I'll barely make expenses for the month. The cost of avgas alone–"

  "I know too well. But perhaps you can earn another ten thousand shillings by noon of the twelfth of May." Clarke looked at Belov and, more closely this time, at the bag he was carrying. It made him tense. He spoke in Swahili, a language he had decided Belov didn't know.

  "For backing up the gent? What's his game, assassination? I tried that line of work." With a toss of his head his long hair flew back from the roots, exposing some serious scars. "It didn't agree with me."

  "Let's speak English," Belov said.

  "A party of explorers is being held, somewhere in Tanzania, by the government," Koshar explained. "We want to know where. Ten thousand and your expenses if we find out by the deadline. For each additional day it takes you to come up with the information, your fee will be reduced by a thousand shillings."

  Clarke laughed, but he looked preoccupied trying to comprehend the importance of their request.

  "Explorers?"

  "Archaeologists," Belov elaborated.

  "Oh, yes." Clarke shrugged. "Bloody country's full of them. There are digs everywhere. You have no more to go on than that?"

  Belov shook his head.

  "Well, man–unless I have some names. How many explorers? What were they looking for? Did they have the proper licenses, or were they caught out of bounds? All this will have to do with my success, or lack of it."

  Koshar looked at Belov, who said, "He's right. Tell him."

  "The expedition was an important one, led by Chips Chapman and Erika Weller. They were looking for an ancient burial ground near Lake Tanganyika; for the last six weeks they have been unwilling guests of the government, in an undisclosed location. I know only that they are somewhere on the mainland, and not in prison. Their numbers are between thirty and forty."

  "That many? It would require a considerable effort just to feed them. Have you considered the possibility that they're all enjoying the hospitality of a shallow grave?"

  "Yes," Belov said.

  "But it seems unlikely," Koshar objected. "Despite his recent attempts to overextend his authority, Jumbe is neither a despot nor a murderer."

  "I should have heard something already," Clarke said doubtfully. "What did they do, stumble across King Solomon's mines?" He beamed at the other two men, who made no reply. "All right, then. You'll have your explorers, if they're still alive. And in five days. But for five thousand a day."

  "The fee is not subject to negotiation–" Koshar, began, coldly. Clarke cut him off.

  "Not subject to negotiation, is it? Well, now, you're not the one who's likely to get his head shot open again, for being in the wrong place at the wrong time perhaps, or asking too many questions. If this job's to be on the economy plan, then bloody find them yourself."

  There was silence in the room, except for a buzz of flies around the table, the hoot of a freighter's horn in the channel. Koshar took out a platinum tin of snuff and placed a pinch of it in one cheek. Only a slightly accelerated pulse at one brown temple betrayed his fury.

  "Pay him," Belov said.

  Clarke, pleased with himself, turned and looked Belov in the eye.

  "It's that big, is it?" he said, this time in reasonably good Russian.

  Belov cocked his head a little to one side, and smiled noncommittally.

  "For the work I did with the Provos," Clarke told him, "I went to school in Moscow. And as you can tell, I have an ear for language. It's the KGB, is it not? I've had some practice in identifying you gents."

  "Mr. Clarke," Belov said, his smile now indicating a certain amount of favor, "there's no doubt in my mind that you're a man of rare ability."

  "That's the truth," Tiernan Clarke said earnestly. He spat particles of tobacco from the tip of his tongue, then threw the soggy cheroot on the floor of the storeroom. "How about buying me a decent smoke to seal the bargain? This one's had it."

  Chapter 7

  VON KREUTZEN'S SHOOTING PALACE

  Bekele Big Springs, Tanzania

  May 7

  Alone in a great bronze bed-ship, with dirty clouds of sail luffing around her, rocking gently and sometimes sickeningly whenever she moved a muscle, Erika Weller felt as if she were adrift on the blinding tide of the incoming sun, about to leave the confines of smoke-scarred walls and float through the windows.

  But she sensed there was something different about the windows since she had last been conscious of them, as ragged frames for stars; they were no longer just empty space in the walls which admitted everything with wings, from tsetse flies to bats. Opaque glass had been installed, or something like glass, but her eyes were too vulnerable, it made her head ache to look directly at the windows.

/>   Usually about this time, after a few minutes of growing awareness of herself and her surroundings, of lucidity and the desire to think, Erika would lose consciousness or sink back into that agreeably gray state of mind where pain seldom intruded. But this morning–or was it morning?–as she began to dim out, she writhed and gasped for air, then whined at the impact which these small efforts made on her tortured body. She realized that she was urinating, uncontrollably, in the bed.

  It happened without discomfort and, despite the fact that she had no reliable sense of her own muscles, Erika felt a certain satisfaction in knowing that she was functioning humanly, normally, although in a most primitive way. Afterward she couldn't feel the wet. She clenched her thighs, flexed, and was aware of soft binding cloth.

  She lifted her head and was dizzy almost at once. She bit down on her crusted, dry underlip and finally felt the pain, tasted fresh blood. The spell passed. Erika saw that she was covered to just above the knees with a drab but neatly folded blanket, then swaddled, in some wide strips of a clean absorbent material, like an infant. Her hollowed belly was bare. From what she could tell she had on nothing else but a torn white football shirt with grass stains. When she tried to touch her face she was shocked to find that she was securely tied to the frame of the bed.

  She moved her body again, experimentally: The bed swayed beneath her. She rested her head, on some sort of improvised pillow, and scratched with her fingers at the surface she was lying on. Loose cloth; beneath that, a rubbery plumpness, like a raft-size air mattress.