Hobe shrugged. “There’s nothing to do here except gossip. News travels fast. I was surprised when you asked to see me this afternoon.”
“They tell me you and Brady play chess together.”
“Sometimes.”
“Any idea where he is?”
“Oh, he‘ll hear the good news and come running. He’s probably out in the bush toward Namibia, trying to scrape up artifacts and native sculpture for his export shop.”
“What about Brady’s wife?”
Hobe’s face changed slightly. “She’s probably with him.
Katherine is quite a gal.”
“Katherine? Kitty?”
“Right.”
There was a sudden scream from Betty, guarding the windows and veranda of the living room.
Durell had been with those besieged before. People reacted oddly to the knowledge of entrapment, that they were cut off by others determined to kill them. Hobe Tallman seemed to be all right. But his young, voluptuous wife was something else.
Glass crashed as a flaming bottle was hurled into the house. It landed at the girl’s feet, the wick sputtering. Betty Tallman stood frozen, her rifle lowered. Durell dived for the bottle, snatched it up, threw it outside through the broken window, all in one swift gesture. The bottle burst among the flower beds fronting the veranda. There was a yell of rage from the dark bush. The lurid flames leaped high for a moment as the gasoline exploded.
“Get down!” Durell yelled.
The woman did not move, staring aghast at the red darkness outside. Durell caught her arm, felt her softness, breasts yielding against him. He threw her to the floor. At the same moment, bullets slashed through the window, breaking furniture, shattering a vase, splintering across a table, thudding into the opposite wall.
Betty shuddered under him. “Oh, my God, they’re going to kill us all!”
“Take it easy. Stay down.”
“Why don‘t you go out there?” she whimpered. “Then maybe they‘ll leave us alone. Go out there now! Before they burn us all!”
There was random firing all around the house now. From the kitchen came the thud of Henrique’s heavy rifle. Hobe’s gun sounded from the study. It was impossible to hold them off. There were too many exposed windows, too many blind points to the bungalow, to cover them all.
“Durell!”
The shout came again from the jungle. Durell thought he would remember that voice, arrogant, amused, a bit impatient.
“We have no quarrel with the Tallmans, Durell! Do you want them to die because you are a coward?”
Durell turned to the woman.
“Do you know who is out there?”
“It’s Lopes Fuentes Madragata.”
“The leader of the Apgaks himself?”
She said, “You must be pretty important.”
“I’m only a lawyer looking for Brady Cotton.”
“Oh, sure. All the way from the States.”
“It’s a lot of money that he’s inherited.”
Her eyes changed. “Really? Good for Brady.”
“Do you know where he is?"
“Nobody‘s seen him for a week. Are you going out there? Are you going to let Madragata call you a coward?” She laughed uncertainly. “A lawyer, huh? But pretty good with a gun. I bet you didn’t expect this when you came here with your briefcase full of legal documents.”
“Durell!"
Durell flattened his back against the wall near the window and called, “I’m coming. Give me five minutes!”
Chapter 3.
Hobe said, “You mustn‘t mind Betty.”
“I don’t."
“You don’t have to go out there. They’ll kill you. I don’t understand why they've chosen you—and you’re obviously not going to explain-but I’m asking you to stay in here with us. Maybe we can hold them off somehow.”
“Not a chance.”
“Maybe help will come—”
Durell interrupted. “Have you anything heavier here than your rifles?"
”I’m afraid not.”
He took a knife from the kitchen, aware of Henrique’s eyes rolling white in his brown face. The garden beyond the glass-paned door was quiet and empty and shadowed. He palmed the knob, opened the panel a few inches, waited. Nothing happened. Hobe breathed heavily behind him, but said nothing more to discourage him. Durell held his gun up, opened the door a few inches wider and slipped outside.
The warm, humid air of the tropical night hit him in the face like the soft slap of a hot, steamy towel. He watched the hedgerow of tall bamboo at the far end of the garden, then ducked low and ran for its shelter. Something moved to his left, but he wasn't sure what it was. He went over the wall at the end of the rose garden with a long. sliding motion, and rolled into the mucky ground among the thick bamboo canes.
Nothing happened. A night bird called. A tiny lizard scrabbled away near his hand. He waited. The smell of the burned-out car clung to the quiet air. Overhead, through the spiky bamboo leaves, the stars seemed to reel in the velvet African sky. For a moment, he smelled the sea. A coconut frond clattered in a transitory breeze. After thirty seconds, he crawled to the right, out of the bamboo, near the ropy base of a wild rubber tree. It was over three miles down the road to the nearest scattered houses of Lubinda. He heard the trickle of water from a stream, oozing through the mud toward the wide sweep of the Lubinda River’s estuary, Then a man said something, in Apgak, so close at hand that he might have been at his elbow. It was a trick of the night air. The voice came from across the road, twenty yards from the rubber trees. There was a brief, annoyed reply. Then silence again. A moment later he heard the snick of a cartridge being shot home in a rifle chamber. They were watching the front of the Tallman bungalow, expecting him to come out there.
Two men trudged through the brush, moving his way.
Long ago. as a boy in the Louisiana delta country, Durell had become familiar with the bayous, with the ways of the hunted and the hunter. He had learned his lessons well from his Grandpa Jonathan. Old Jonathan had been one of the last of the Mississippi riverboat gamblers; he know men and their greed, their faults and strengths, as few did. Durell had learned the tricks of doubling buck like a fox, of suddenly standing at bay to disconcert the slavering hunting dogs. He stood absolutely motionless in the deep shadow of the old trees.
The two men would pass within three feet of him.
Their weapons shone clearly in the starlight. One man was black, with deep tribal scars like welted beads On his forehead and cheeks. He carried an AK-47 Russian-made automatic rifle. The other man was taller, with a brown face and straight black hair that betrayed a Portuguese heritage. He wore a rather swashbuckling outfit of bandoliers, a bolstered revolver, a pinkish shirt, and white duck pants that were a mistake for night combat. A straw hat with a wide brim and pink fabric band was tilted back on his head. His grin showed fine white teeth. He would have been handsome by any standard.
They were too sure of themselves.
The man with the hat suddenly switched to Portuguese. “You should have stayed in your position. Fengi. He will try a trick. This man is very clever, very dangerous—”
Durell hit the black low in the belly, stopping from around the thick bole of the rubber tree. The black man grunted and the AK-47 dropped from his hand. Durell slashed down at his bowed head. smacking his gun against the others scalp. then swung about lightly on his feet. The other man had jumped sidewise, trying to bring his weapon up. Durell shook the kitchen knife into his left hand and slammed his gun into the man’s stomach.
“Madragata?”
White teeth gleamed. “Ah, Durell. You will not shoot, eh? My men will hear and come fast. They will cut you into little pieces, senhor.”
“The knife is silent.”
“Sim."
"So hold still.”
“I obey, senhor.” The man’s tone was low and mocking. Then he suddenly snaked to the left, away from the knife, and brought his rifle up. His bandolier m
ade small clicking sounds. Durell slashed with his gun butt at the man’s wrist, heard the bone crack, heard the quick hiss of pained breath. Madragata was as quick and slippery as a snake. His rifle fell and his knees bent as he tried to come up under Durell’s guard. Durell lifted his knee, got under the man’s jaw, heard and saw Madragata’s head snap back, eyes gleaming suddenly as his face lifted to the black sky. He went over backward, his thick black hair all awry under the headband he wore beneath his straw hat. The hat itself rolled on its brim into the hush. Durell dropped his weight on him, knees bent, slamming into the man’s gut. Madragata’s breath went out with a rush. His eyes rolled. Durell caught his hair, hauled him up to a sitting position.
“Be quiet!”
“Sim. Yes.”
He looked at the house. It was dark and quiet. A few flames flickered on the front lawn from the exploded gasoline bottle. Through a gap in the trees he saw the starlit glimmer of the Lubinda estuary, dark and hostile.
“Where are your other men?”
“In front of the house. By the river.”
“How many?"
“Fifteen, senhor.”
"You lie.”
“Six was all I could manage on short notice.”
“That‘s better."
“Have you killed Fengi?”
“He’ll be all right. I’m not in Lubinda to kill anybody. So why do you want me?”
“You are an American imperialist spy," Madragata clutched at his belly. Even in pain, he looked somehow handsome and dashing. “I think you have broken something in me, senhor.”
“Not likely. What makes you think I am a spy?”
“You ask for Brady Cotton.”
“So?”
“Ah, you will die unpleasantly, senhor. My belly hurts me very much.”
“What about Brady Cotton?”
“You come here to look for him. He has vanished, no? So you are like him. A spy, working against the people’s revolution and supporting our so-called democracy. It is a farce. Our president is a tool of the old colonial masters. We shall not rest, we shall not sleep, we will kill and kill and kill, until true independence comes to us.”
“Your mother was a whore, Madragata,” Durell said. “And you are her stupid son, a murderer of innocent civilians.”
“You cannot anger me. Kill me now, if you wish. It would be better for you. Otherwise, you will die badly. Not an hour, not a minute, not a second while you are in Lubinda will you be safe. You will not rest, you will not eat or drink, you will not sleep. You will die.”
Lopes Fuentes Madragata showed no fear. His face was beaded in sweat from his pain. He sat back, resting on arms spread behind him. Durell moved two steps away to the left.
“I am only interested in Brady Cotton," he said. “What happened to him?”
“The same that will happen to you.”
“He’s dead?”
“You will find out.”
“Why?”
“Because we learned who and what he really was.”
“You lie, son of a whore."
“I am not angry with you. I do my revolutionary duty. I keep a cool head, as you would say it. I am calm, see? Even if you kill me now, I am calm. I rejoice for the coming revolution.”
“Bloodbath, you mean.”
“Some innocents will die, yes. It is always so.”
Durell heard Fengi stumble finally to his feet some short distance behind him. At the same time, a questioning call came from across the road near the riverbank. No lights shone on the broad reaches of the estuary. The night was filled with the smells of the tide, of rank mud, of decayed vegetation. He heard the thump and throb of the diesel generator that supplied power to the Tallman bungalow. Then shadows came running across the road toward them.
Madragata laughed.
“You see? My men look for me. You are finished.”
Durell did not want to kill any of these men. Their quarrel with the local government was not his. It was not his business to interfere; he was a stranger in this tiny, bloody country. Whoever had blown his cover, and however Madragata of the Apgaks had. learned about him, made no difference. An open struggle here would block everything he had to do in Lubinda.
But he saw no way out.
Fengi stumbled toward them from the bush. The other men from the road shouted and fanned out in a quick search for their missing leader. He saw no choice. Then he heard the sound of the jeep.
It roared down the dirt road from Lubinda at a furious, breakneck speed. The headlights glared, showing thickets of elephants’ ears, young bamboo, the graceful curves of nipa palms, and the blink of oleanders and wild orchids. The four Apgak men were caught by surprise in the full blast of the jeep‘s lights. There came a shattering crash as a grenade was hurled from the jeep. And another. Night birds squawked and flew up everywhere. A monkey screamed and chattered away. The Apgaks ducked and ran. Durell jumped for the jeep, snatching up the AK-47 that Madragata had dropped. He could not see who was in the vehicle, but an arm waved him on. The jeep slowed for at moment as he reached the edge of the road.
“Get in! Quick!”
It was a girl’s voice. He tumbled inside, felt her body swing as she threw a third grenade at the retreating Apgaks. He settled in the front seat as the girl tramped on the gas and spun the jeep on two wheels in a complete turn in front of the bungalow. He could scarcely make out her face in the darkness.
“Hung on,” she said. “We’re getting out.”
“What about the Tallmans?”
“I've called the police. The security people are right behind me.”
She tramped on the accelerator again. The jeep lurched, bounced, almost turned over. He had no idea who she was, but he was grateful for her arrival. Almost at once, before he could demand that she pick up the Tallmans, he saw the police scout car come down the road toward the bungalow. The girl slowed the jeep, waved airily toward the armed Lubindans.
“It’s all right, Komo! Get Betty and Hobe. I think Henrique’s with them, too. They’re probably all sitting on the floor by now, shaking their teeth loose!”
“Yes. Mrs. Cotton."
“Thank you!"
She gunned the jeep and Durell hung on.
Chapter 4.
“You didn’t come here with money bags for Brady, that‘s for sure,“ the girl said.
“Not exactly.”
“Did the Apgaks shake you up?”
“Not too much.“
“They wanted you, huh?
“Yes. lid like to know why.”
"Brady isn't really coining into money, is he?”
“Not really.”
“So your cover is already blown.”
“It seems that way. Who would do it?”
“Not me," she said promptly. “Not Brady, either.”
“Lopes Fuentes Madragata says Brady Cotton is dead.”
“Maybe he is,” said Mrs. Cotton.
“It doesn’t seem to distress you very much.”
“I would be distressed if it were true. For Brady’s sake, not mine. But we were about to split anyway. And don’t ask me why. It‘s personal.”
“Why?” Durell asked.
“To hell with you. Don’t make me regret my cavalry charge, Cajun. You are the Cajun, aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
She was silent. The town of Lubinda, the new capital of this tiny enclave, was already half asleep at the hour of ten in the evening—and sleeping was not a very different status from its appearance under the broiling sub-equatorial sun since the offshore drilling had stopped. There was a sad slum of native tin-can and palm-frond huts along the river. inland from the new port constructed partly by World Bank funds, partly by the LMO Company. On a low promontory south of the new port stood a cluster of White government buildings—the Presidential Palace, a low structure with a white central dome, an alleged Congress of Tribes that was a concrete reproduction of native architecture with a conical roof, and the Security House, low and not
too obtrusive. There was also an office building put up by Lubinda Marine Oil. structured in the honeycomb style favored by unimaginative architects the world over.
The native market along the water’s edge facing the open Atlantic was the only genuine outgrowth of local culture. Lusty and brawling, filled with merchandise from the interior and the offerings of the West and Japan—transistor radios, Yamahas, drip-dry clothes from Hong Kong, ice cream stalls, and Pepsi signs. The Pequah was an enclave within an enclave, squeezed between the modern evidence of independence and the antique remnants of Portugal, whose old fort commanded the mouth of the estuary and once guarded a colony of colonial villas now occupied by government functionaries and troubled executives of the Lubinda Marine Oil Company.
The girl turned her jeep into the darkened alleys of the Pequah, rolled quietly between shuttered shops and across tiny squares, passed a single mosque down toward the waterfront where the masts of native fishing boats rocked with the dark night tide.
"My name is Kitty," the girl said. “Kitty Alvarez Cotton. From Gloucester, Mass. My people were Portuguese Americans from ‘way back. lf you're wondering about my blond hair, it’s real. The sun does my touch-ups for me. I guess I’m more Yankee than Portuguese. One of the Gloucester fishing Yankees got into my great-great-grandma, I guess. Just talking about Cape Ann makes me homesick. For the roses and the fogs and the rocks and Ten Pound Island, you know?"
“I’ve been there," Durell said.
She was tall, and as frank about her body and her attitudes as were most of her generation. She would be just a year or two younger than Brady Cotton—if Brady wasn‘t dead and eternal by now. She handled the jeep with a casual competence that let him relax as she squeezed down the narrow alleys and lanes, passed closed shops, and drove beyond the small mosque that co-existed peacefully practically next door to the tiny Portuguese Sephardic synagogue. The People’s Republic of China had slyly established a diplomatic mission here, where the Lubindans really lived. The Russian Embassy was up on the promontory, cuddling up as close as possible to the domed Presidential Palace. The American Embassy was not visible—being situated with typical aloofness on the other side of Government Point in an exclusive compound on the beach, beyond the sights and smells of Lubinda's normal lite, The American presence was virtually unseen—and barely tolerated.
Assignment Black Gold Page 2