Assignment Black Gold

by Edward S. Aarons

  Durell’s room was at the extreme end of the west wing, on the second floor. It had a balcony overlooking the river and rotating wooden fans in the pale green ceiling. Plaster winged cupids smiled at him from each corner. The bathroom was large, tiled in elaborate arabesque designs, with a great long tub and a rusty shower. He had done little more than drop his bag in the room before going out to look for Brady Cotton and winding up at Hobe Tallman’s bungalow.

  It had been a long day, and he felt bone-weary from the heat; but he was not too tired to take the usual precautions when entering the room.

  Someone was in his bath. He heard the splashing of water while he stood in the broad, tiled corridor outside. He paused, then inserted the big iron key soundlessly and pushed the carved panel inward with his fingertips, not sure whether the bath water was a diversion for an unwelcome presence waiting just inside the doorway. He drew his gun. The only light came from the bathroom door, which stood ajar. No one waited for him in the bedroom. He let his eyes adjust to the faint moonlight that came through the tall, narrow windows facing the sea. His bed had been turned down, his bag had been unpacked by the maid. It was the sort of old-fashioned service one did not expect these days. A small wind blew the gauzy curtains.

  More splashings came from the bath. He walked silently across the tiled floor and stood in the doorway.

  Betty Tallman looked up at him with a smile from a foaming, bubbly tub full of steaming water. Her pale hair was piled high upon her head, and he saw her full round breasts above the soapy water and the round arch of one hip.

  “Hi, Sam.”

  “Hello, Mrs. Tallman,” he said flatly.

  She looked at his gun. “Expecting the Apgaks again?”

  “I didn’t expect it would be you,” he told her.

  “Shoo, I don’t bite. Maybe I scratch a little, but I don’t bite. Do you mind? The posadero said I could wait in here for you. Hobe’s still at the bungalow, but all that mess out there cut off our power and there was no hot water, and I just felt as if I couldn‘t stand it another minute without a hot tub, so I thought of you and came here. Colonel Lepaka was kind enough to give me a lift.”

  “Why?”

  “He’s really a nice man.”

  “Why come to me?"

  Her smile did not touch her hard entertainer’s eyes. “I feel safe here with you. And we have some things to discuss. I don't think you mind mixing business with pleasure. Would you hand me that towel, please?”

  He tossed it to her as she stood up in the tub. Her body was lush, ripe, inviting. She handled herself with no sense of shyness. She kept watching him with a direct, bold stare, her eyes amused.

  “Don't worry about Hobe,” she said softly.

  “I don’t. What do we have to talk about?"

  “Later,” she said. “Do my back, please?”

  He helped her with the towel.

  “Let’s talk now," he said.

  “Are you afraid of me?”

  “A little. Is it about Brady?”

  “Of course. And you.”

  “Do you know where Brady Cotton is?”

  “Don’t you like me?“ she asked.

  “You look fine to me.”

  “Then why don’t you touch me?”

  “What about Brady?” he insisted.

  “Oh, shoo. Let’s talk in bed.”

  “Let’s talk now,” he said again.

  “Well, I just happen to know that Brady Cotton is an orphan. He has no family at all. So what kind of an inheritance could he possibly receive?”

  “It’s an insurance thing,” Durell said.

  “An accident policy?”

  “Something like that.”

  “But I happen to know that Brady Cotton doesn’t have a single mark on his body. He brags about it.”

  “So?”

  “So, Mr. Samuel Durell, I think you're a liar. I don’t think there is an inheritance or an insurance policy.”

  “And?”

  “Maybe I’ll tell the police your papers are phony. Maybe I should talk to my good friend, Colonel Komo Lepaka."

  “Go ahead. Do that.” Durell said bluntly.

  She looked puzzled. She did not try to hold the big towel to conceal her tall, naked body. She let it slide to the tiled floor at her feet and stared at him for a moment, her lower lip full and petulant, and then she made a sniffing sound and moved past him, deliberately letting her hip brush against him. He ignored her, which was rather difficult, and checked the bathroom carefully, inspecting the cabinet, the pressure tank above the lavatory, then the big closet. He found a bug fastened loosely to the inside of the closet door. The tiny microphone wires led into a newly drilled hole in the wall. He left it there and went into the bedroom. Betty Tallman had made herself comfortable in the big bed, and was considering her long fingernails, smiling secretly to herself. She had scented herself, and he could not help but be aware of her, of the updrawn knee, the long full thigh and calf, the painted toenails. The search of the bedroom took longer, but he found a second bug hooked to the rather battered silken shade of a table lamp under the mirrored wall opposite the bed. He did not touch it. In the mirror, he saw Betty watching him.

  “What are you looking for?” she asked.

  “Nothing. Get dressed.”

  “You don’t mean that. We've got plenty of time. Hobe doesn’t care. He doesn’t care What I do anymore. That’s the trouble. He’s all wrapped up in the failure of the Lady. It’s an obsession with him. He’s scared to death."

  “Of not finding oil?”

  “Of lots of things. Of the Apgaks, of losing me, the whole place. The whole bit.”

  “He seems all right to me.”

  “It’s a good facade. But I know him, see?” Impatience made her voice a bit shrill, gave the first betrayal of what her life had been be-fore her marriage to Hobe. He remembered she had been a bur girl in dubious bars from Texas through all the Gulf states. She wiggled fingers at him. “Come here.”

  He went to the bed and sat down. She smiled with revived satisfaction and began to undo his shirt. Her hands were warm, eager, a bit perspired. From somewhere in the hotel, a Portuguese fado singer mourned the loss of her seafaring lover to a tune dating back three hundred years. Betty’s eyes grew heavy-lidded. He didn’t like the glitter in their depths.

  “You do like me, dent you?” she murmured. “I suppose you think I’m terrible, being here like this. Hardly knowing you and all. But Lubinda gives me the wickie-wackies. I hate it so. If it weren‘t for Hobe—”

  “He's been good to you, hasn’t he?”

  “Sure, but—"

  “But now that he’s in trouble, you’re ready to cheek out?”

  “Oh, Sam, don’t be so cruel.”

  “Do you know where I can find Brady Cotton?”

  She pouted. “Be nice to me, I’ll be nice to you.”

  “Tell me, first.”

  “Why don’t you ask Hobe?”

  “Hobe said he doesn’t know anything.”

  “He knows a lot more than he lets on. Ask him again.”

  “What are you looking for?” she asked.

  “Nothing. Get dressed.”

  “You don’t mean that. We’ve got plenty of time. Hobe doesn't care. He doesn’t care what I do anymore. That’s the trouble. He’s all wrapped up in the failure of the Lady. It’s an obsession with him. He’s scared to death.”

  "Of not finding oil?”

  “Of lots of things. Of the Apgaks, of losing me, the whole place. The whole bit.”

  “He seems all right to me.”

  “It’s a good facade. But I know him, see?” Impatience made her voice a bit shrill, gave the first betrayal of what her life had been before her marriage to Hobe. He remembered she had been a bar girl in dubious bars from Texas through all the Gulf states. She wiggled fingers at him. “Come here.”

  He went to the bed and sat down. She smiled with revived satisfaction and began to undo his shirt. Her hands were warm,
eager, a bit perspired. From somewhere in the hotel, a Portuguese judo singer mourned the loss of her seafaring lover to a tune dating back three hundred years. Betty’s eyes grew heavy-lidded. He didn’t like the glitter in their depths.

  “You do like rue, don‘t you?” she murmured. “I suppose you think I’m terrible, being here like this, hardly knowing you and all. But Lubinda gives me the wickie-wackies. I hate it so. “If it weren’t for Hobe—”

  “He’s been good to you, hasn't he?”

  “Sure, but!”

  “But now that he’s in trouble, you’re ready to checkout?”

  “Oh. Sam, don’t be so cruel.”

  “Do you know where I can find Brady Cotton?”

  She pouted. “Be nice to me, I’ll be nice to you.”

  “Tell me, first.”

  “Why don’t you ask Hobe?”

  “Hobe said he doesn’t know anything.”

  “He knows a lot more than he lets on. Ask him again.”

  Chapter 7.

  Colonel Komo Lepaka let his heavy eyelids grow even heavier and his murky dark eyes grow sleepier. The skin over the fine bones of his small face shone with sweat. The prison room was like an oven, even for him.

  “I am sorry, Senhor Durell. We still use the facilities left to us by our former colonial masters. Not the most comfortable, this old brick dungeon. I apologize. We have built a new Presidential Palace, a port, and a hotel, but we have not yet constructed new security headquarters.”

  “Am I under arrest?” Durell asked.

  “No, no. As I told you on the dock. I simply would like to talk with you." The man folded one abnormally long leg over the other. His seven-foot body looked collapsed on the hard wooden chair he had chosen. Durell looked for another chair, saw none. and remained standing. Lepaka’s South African khakis were as immaculate as before. He took a pair of horn-rimmed glasses from the pleated pocket of his bush jacket and put the-in on with slow deliberation, then reached into the plain wooden desk beside him and took out a manila folder, laid it flat on the desk, but did not open it. He looked up Durell across the small, cell-like office. There was a single barred window in the room and an iron door. No air came through the window, and the place stank of urine and excrement and the untold miseries of many generations of prisoners. Durell hoard moaning and groaning from down the prison corridor, and tried not to pay any attention to it.

  Lepaka spoke without opening the dossier. His long fingers resembled the legs of a crab as he joined and rested his hands on the closed manila folder.

  “I am sorry I had to interrupt your dalliance with Mrs. Tallman. I do hope she was not embarrassed.”

  “Do you think she could be embarrassed?”

  “Not likely, I suppose. I think I Shall have to do something very soon about her presence in Lubinda. She may not mind being deported back to the States."

  “You’d be doing her the greatest of favors,” Durell said. “Perhaps a favor for Hobe, too.“

  Komo Lepaka waited. Durell knew the ploy, and waited him out, not offering anything. The silence grew tighter mid more strained. The colonel’s eyes looked sleepier. Finally, Lepaka said, “You see, Mr. Durell, I know all about you.”

  "Yes?"

  “You are not a solicitor here to present Brady Cotton with an unexpected inheritance. You work for K Section, and were appointed to bring your associate, Mr. Cotton, to the surface. or to find out what has happened to him.”

  “Yes,” Durell said.

  “You do not deny this?”

  "l don’t believe I can. Colonel.”

  “Then you are an admitted spy.”

  “I am not here to spy on Lubinda.”

  “Is it American oil interests, then, that brought you here?”

  “You know there are no American oil interests, truly. According to Lubindan low, the oil belongs to your country. Only a small royalty will go to Hobe Tallman’s company.”

  Lepaka looked puzzled. "Then why?”

  Durell interrupted. “Would you call Lubinda a free democracy?”

  Lepaka blinked. “Yes. Yes, I would say so.”

  "We would like to help you to stay free. Your neighboring countries are hardly democratic examples, are they?"

  Lepaka looked grim. “This is why you are here?”

  “Yes. To help you, if possible.”

  “Brady is secondary?”

  “Only as a means to an end.”

  “Our enemies would not understand your motives. Or perhaps they would, at that, knowing you are an enemy of theirs. To the Apgaks, you are a colonialist, an imperialist agent. It could be construed in several ways.” Lepaka held his hands palm up. His fingers were steady. His eyes did not leave Durell’s face. It seemed to Durell that here was a cop superior to most he had met around the world. He did not blame anybody. His cover was blown, but then, so was Brady Cotton’s, along with the export shop and K Section’s Central. Maybe Lepaka had discovered Brady’s true activities long ago; maybe Lepaka had been waiting for his own arrival for some time. Hard to tell, Durell decided silently. He as yet felt no great menace from the security officer. But he could not really read Lepaka‘s intentions.

  “Your position here, Mr. Durell,” Lepaka said gently, “is rather ambiguous. You could be in great difficulties with our authorities. Meaning me, of course.”

  “If you choose to put me in difficulty, yes,” Durell admitted.

  “According to our statutes, you could be imprisoned for no less than ten years and for as much as life.”

  “Would I have a trial?"

  Lepaka smiled sadly. “Eventually. Our courts are still in sad disorder, following independence. A trial might be put off for a year, perhaps live. Meanwhile, you would be accommodated in our rather primitive facilities. A Lubindan might survive for a time. But you would not.”

  Durell still had his gun. He wondered if he might have to use it to try to break out of here. There were guards in the brick-vaulted corridor outside, others at the high prison gates that once had flown the Portuguese flag. No attempt had been made to search him. He knew that the colonel knew this, too. He decided to wait.

  “Lubinda is a poor country,” said Lepaka. “We are struggling to establish viability. The oil exploration promises economic stability. We are bounded by the sea, by the jungles, by the small but extremely hostile Kahara Desert to the south. And besides our economic and geographical problems, we find ourselves being wooed by the Russians, the Chinese, and your country. The decisions are difficult. We are not equipped, really to make a choice—if a choice is needed."

  “It may be forced on you,” Durell said. “You shouldn’t by the way, be merely a police officer, Colonel.”

  “No?”

  “You should be prime minister.”

  “Is that flattery?”

  “You have a lack of educated men in Lubinda. Your talents may be going to waste.”

  “Ah, yes. But at the moment, security is our greatest problem.”

  “The Apgaks?”

  "If their terror campaign succeeds in driving out the oil people, we are lost. The government would topple. The Lubindans are a simple people. They expect our streets to become paved with gold, through oil revenues. But the effort to find oil being hampered by violence, as you saw earlier tonight. If it fails, more will join the Apgak cause and we will become little more than a Maoist or a Moscow colony.”

  Durell said, “I appreciate your courtesy in giving me this lecture, Colonel. But I’m not here to interfere in your internal affairs.”

  Lepaka’s eyes suddenly opened wide. They looked bloody. “Ah. but you must interfere, Mr. Durell. We need you. I need you."

  “I’m only here to find Brady Cotton.”

  “You will not find him in this prison, sir.”

  “Am I being offered a choice?”

  “Crudely put, yes. imprisonment as a foreign agent, or cooperation with me.”

  Durell smiled. "We’ll get along, Colonel. It depends on what you want of
me. What kind of deal.”

  “Yes, of course. A deal.”

  Durell felt better. He watched Colonel Lepaka reach into a desk drawer and take out a box of small thin cigars. He offered them to Durell, who shook his head, and then carefully thrust one between his large white teeth and lit it. The smoke was fragrant in the hot, humid air. Durell smelled again the urine smell of the ancient prison. The man in the cell down the corridor kept moaning and groaning.

  “Have you ever,” Lepaka said slowly, “heard of Felipe Barraganza Sakadga?"

  “General Sakadga?”

  “Ah.”

  “He’s dead,” Durell said.

  “He is not dead.”

  “The ‘father’ of your country?"

  “Sakadga. The Lion of Lubinda.”

  “He must be very old, then.”

  “He is. But quite vigorous.”

  “Really alive?” Durell insisted.

  “In retirement. Disillusioned. He was ill for a time. From long imprisonment here and in two European capitals. A brilliant old gentleman. Lubinda worships him. Lubinda has all but canonized him."

  “There is a tomb along the river,” Durell said, “where Felipe Barraganza Sakadga has been interred.”

  Lepaka shook his head slowly. His eyes were sleepier than ever. “You might call him our messiah of freedom. People make regular pilgrimages to the tomb, true. But they pray to an empty casket. Sakadga is not there.”

  “But you know where he is, and alive?”

  “I know. And only one or two others.”

  Durell said, “You wish to resurrect him?”

  “The people would go mad with joy. They would destroy the Apgaks overnight and follow, obey, and work for him.”

  “I see,” Durell said.

  “You do not see. It could be a very dangerous thing, to bring Sakadga back. Like the return of Christ in this country. It would be a revolution.”

  Durell leaned back against the brick wall. “Excuse me, Colonel. Are you planning a military coup against the democratic government of this country, with an old and martyred saint as your front man? if so, you Can count me out.”

  Something flickered in Lepaka’s eyes. “You do not think I could run this country?”

  “So far, you haven’t even been able to get rid of the Apgaks, who are deliberately destroying your one hope of viability, the oil exploration rig offshore.”