Assignment Black Gold

by Edward S. Aarons

  The Portuguese nurse at the reception desk looked harassed but not frightened. “Senhor Forchette?” she asked, in reply to Durell’s inquiry. “One moment, sir. We are extremely busy.”

  “Just tell me his room number,” Durell suggested.

  “Sim. Yes. One moment.”

  She got up in reply to a call from a hurried intern and left the desk. Two soldiers carrying a wounded man on a stretcher stumbled into the lobby, dripping with rain. Durell reached across the desk for the index cards and

  rifled swiftly through them.

  “It’s Room Two-twenty. Come on, Kitty.”

  He took the stairs. threading his way through the confusion in the hospital corridors and avoiding the elevators, which were working on power taken from the hospital’s emergency generator. The lights in the hall were dim. Outside, although it was nearly noon, the river speckled with the downpour of rain, looked dark and ominously gray, as if it were merely dawn. The freighters at their moorings in the fairway were invisible beyond the blowing curtains of rain. Durell took the steps two at a time, ducked past a gaggle of nurses, an armed soldier who was lighting a cigarette, and went down the hall. Kitty trotted dutifully at his heels.

  Room 220 was open. The hospital bed was unmade, and the traction equipment at the foot of the bed had been pushed aside. A nurse whirled about in startled fear from the window.

  “Sim? What is it?”

  “The patient," Durell said. “Senhor Forchette. Where is he?”

  The woman spread thin hands. “He is gone. I just discovered it. I have been so busy-we are all so busy—I could not check on him before.”

  “Could he walk?"

  “Oh, yes. But with some difficulty. With a limp. But he is a strong man. He objected to being here from the very first. He said he had business to attend to.”

  “When did you see him last?”

  The nurse rubbed her forehead with stiff, shaking fingers. “I brought his breakfast one hour ago. Everything is late this morning. Tell me, are the Apgaks—"

  “The Army will hold them back,” Durell reassured her.

  “How was he when you saw him?”

  “Angry. Very upset. Senhor Forchette is not a man who enjoys being kept in bed. His wound is not severe, you see. It was in the fleshy part of the thigh, and the bullet was removed quickly. He wanted to see Dr. Ghala. He was very angry, very impatient. I had no extra time for him.”

  Durell thanked the nurse and pushed Kitty out of the hospital room and ran down the fire stairs again. in the heavy wind and rain outside, there was a moment’s difficulty when he found two tall Lubindan soldiers waiting to commandeer his jeep. He showed them Colonel Lepaka’s scribbled pass, but they were in no mood to honor it. Durell took the half-empty bottle of Cape brandy from under the back seat and gave it to the most insistent soldier, and the man suddenly grinned and nodded. Durell hurried Kitty into the front seat and used the ignition key. The jeep whined and sputtered and would not start. The two soldiers started back toward them, after taking deep slugs of the fiery liquor. They seemed to have changed their minds about letting the jeep go. At the last moment, the engine caught and Durell slammed the vehicle into gear and gunned the motor. The soldiers lurched forward, hesitated, and he spun the wheel hard on the graveled driveway and headed outward. An ambulance filled with military casualties screamed in at the same time, heading for the emergency doors. Durell yanked the wheel to the right, ran over the soggy lawn. The wheels spun, tore out half a flower bed, then caught on the asphalt again, and they were off, careening down the wide, empty thoroughfare beside the rainswept river.

  “Not bad,” Kitty blew out an explosive breath. “It looks like the city is minutes away from anarchy. The Saka had better show up soon.”

  “He will.”

  “Where now? What’s so important about Matty‘?

  “We’ll try the Lubinda Marine Oil docks,” Durell said.

  There was a makeshift guard at the steel-mesh gate to the small switching yard on the concrete wharf. The rigging men had posted themselves at intervals around the small compound, some armed with rifles, most with just lengths of two-by-fours or iron pipe. Visibility from the edge of the dock where the WDT switching locomotive was parked was only about fifty yards. Beyond, the sea was lost behind the fitful curtains of mist and rain. The two burly American roustabouts at the gate pulled it open when they recognized Durell and Kitty Cotton.

  “Get inside. The whole town’s goin’ crazy.”

  “Have you seen Matty?”

  “Yeah. He’s off his rocker, too. Came tearing in here ten minutes ago, still wearin’ his hospital things.”

  “Which way?"

  The roustabout pointed and Durell gunned the jeep, bumped over the railroad tracks, swung around the switcher, and hugged the edge of the concrete dock where the big rig tender was still berthed. Repair work on the deck where the explosives had damaged the ship had come to a halt in the storm.

  Matty the Fork was not in his office. Through the wide blue-tinted windows on the top floor of the concrete building, Durell could see as much of the besieged city as the rain and wind allowed. Fighting was going on very close to the Presidential Palace. He wondered about the Saka. In the heat of battle, it would be difficult to turn the tide of events. And the old man had deliberately cut himself oft from his country's politics, seeking the solitude and peace of the Kahara Desert. Durell shook his head and looked about Matty’s office.

  The desk had been rifled, the drawers were all pulled out, one had fallen to the floor and spilled its contents of papers, file folders, and desk equipment. Kitty went to the window and stood looking out at the dim flashes of fire from the mortars that were crashing into the southern suburbs of the town. There was more firing audible from the nearby Pequah marketplace. The girl’s hair was plastered to her scalp by the rain, and her shirt and denims clung to every line and curve of her tall, slender body.

  From a door in the opposite wall of Matty’s office came an angry, irregular thumping. Durell turned and tried the knob. It was locked. There was a ring of keys amid the debris that littered Matty’s desk. He went back to it, listened to the muffled, angry voice behind the locked door, and selected a key that fit.

  Betty Tallman was inside. At first, he thought she had been injured and attacked, and then he smelled the alcohol and knew that she was simply drunk. Very drunk. Her first words were a spew of curses taken straight from the mouths of the rigging crew. Then her eyes slowly focused and she recognized Durell’s tall figure.

  “Oh. It‘s you. Thanks, old buddy,” she mumbled. “Son of a bitch locked me in here.”

  “Are you all right?”

  “Need another little drinkie, that’s all, Sam, boy.”

  “Who locked you in here?”

  “It was Hobe, the finking little bastard.”

  “What about Matt?”

  “Was it him a while ago? He heard me, all right. I kicked that door and kicked at it and yelled at him. He yelled back, asked me where Hobe was. I wouldn’t tell him unless he let me out, and he wouldn’t do that. And then he went away."

  “When was this?"

  “Just a few minutes ago.”

  The small room off the office had been a stationary storage cubicle. Its steel shelves were loaded with the reams of printed business forms that no enterprise Seems able to avoid. It was only six by six, and the alcohol fumes and the smell of vomit made the air unbreathable. The blond woman staggered out and drew a deep breath, her breasts arrogant and aggressive against the lines of her pink cotton shift. There were silver bracelets on both her wrists, a long row of them in Lubindan style, and she wore at jingly necklace of tiny silver bells that burrowed into her deep cleavage. She wore makeup for an evening out, but tears and rubbing had smeared her mascara and lipstick. She had lost one shoe, and she limped awkwardly on the single high, cloggy heel.

  “Gawd, I’m a mess, I know. Don’t look at me, Sam. Is that Kitty Cotton?" She peered uncertainly at th
e girl by the window. “Sure is. Like a drowned pussycat. Shit.

  Sam, I offered you—”

  “You need a drink,” Durell said.

  “I sure as hellfire do.”

  He went back to the desk and found the bourbon bottle in the drawer where he had seen Matty the Fork take it when they had first met. It had only been days ago, but it seemed like an eternity. Durell ignored Kitty’s prim, reproachful eyes and gave the bottle to Betty Tallman. She lurched unevenly to grab at it, her hips askew, and drank thirstily, pushed her straggly hair back from her face, and drank again. She did not offer to return the bottle to Durell. She blew out air gustily and grinned.

  “A mess, sure as hell.”

  “Who locked you in the closet?” Durell asked.

  “Hobe, who else? The damned pipsqueak!”

  “Why?”

  “He was mad. Guess I went a bit too far with him last night. He was really hyped up. Going to pieces. He called me names, so I told him a few things back, right to his face.” The woman giggled. “Shouldn’t have done it, but he had it coming to him.”

  “What sort of things?”

  “What?”

  “What sort of things did you tell him?”

  “Oh.” Betty thought about it. “It’s a secret. ’Tween him and me and Matty—I mean, Madragata.”

  “Madragata?”

  “Handsome devil.”

  “The Apgak?"

  “Sure. He’s half Portuguese,” she said defensively.

  “No, he isn’t. I met his mother,” Durell said. “He’s black.”

  The woman glared at him. “He ain’t—isn’t! He told me so himself.”

  “He’s pure Lubindan,” Durell insisted.

  She looked at him as if he had told her the world was coming to an end. Her mouth twitched and her eyes grew narrow and icy with rage. She put a jeweled hand with its scarlet-tipped fingernails flat on her belly and shuddered.

  “Oh, no. No wonder—”

  “Were you and Madragata—?”

  “A couple of times,“ she whispered. “Oh, the son of a bitch. And me a pure Texas girl. He came to the bungalow a few nights, while Hobe would be here or out to sea on the rig. We—he wasn’t a bad sort, you know. Real good English. He kept telling me how everything would be different when he won his revolution. How he’d be a big shot, and the whole country would be rich with oil after he got into power, He liked to talk to me." Her manner became defensive. “Why not? That Colonel Lepaka would have shot him down like a dog, if he could. Madragatzi used to slip in from the jungle once in a while like that, with a dozen of his men, and visit me.”

  “Would he ever sneak in and talk to Hobe, too?"

  “I don’t know,” she mumbled.

  “Did he?”

  “Once or twice, I guess. That’s how he first saw me. He liked me. He said he’d make me rich later, when he got control of Lubinda. I believed the son of a bitch.” She tossed her ragged hair defiantly. “Why not? He was nice to me. The only nice person in this whole stinkin’ place. Nobody else really likes me here. They think I’m a tramp! I’ve heard them snickering how terrible it is for poor Hobe, what a fool he was to marry me after—my artistic career on the stage.“ She suddenly covered her face with her hands. Her bracelets jingled. “Bunch of snobby bastards. Even the roustabouts. Everybody trying to grab a feel, whenever they could. Treated me like public property. But not Madragata.”

  “He used you,” Durell said flatly.

  "What?”

  “Did you ever tell him things you heard Hobe talk about? About the Lady, or the progress of the drilling?”

  “Well, sure, but—”

  Betty pulled her hands down her cheeks, drawing her mouth cruelly out of shape as she clutched at her own flesh. Her eyes were suddenly haggard, tragic. “Oh, God. No. Is he really black?”

  “A Lubindan,” Durell said.

  Kitty said quietly, “Sam, don’t be so cruel.”

  He ignored her. “Did you tell Hobe about your affair with Madragata?"

  She didn’t seem to hear him. He repeated the question. She looked at the bottle of bourbon and shuddered, hugged herself, and stared vacantly into space.

  “Yes,” she whispered. “Yes, I told Hobe.”

  “When?”

  “Last night. Just when the fighting started, outside of town. I told him then.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he hit me. He said I was foolin’ around with Matty the Fork. But I never did. Matty wouldn’t touch me. So I told him he was right about my foolin’ around, but he had the wrong man. God, I wanted to hurt him. I hated him then. He’s broken all his promises to me. He kept saying we’d be rich someday, someday soon, right here in Lubinda.”

  “But he shut the rig down,” Durell objected.

  “No matter.” She shook her disheveled head. “He said we’d be rich. And I waited and waited. But nothing ever happens like that, does it? I got bored, don’t you understand? So I told him about Madragata.”

  “And?” Durell prompted her.

  “Well, he acted like he was pole-axed, you know? But it was funny, the way he acted. It wasn't like he was sore about me and Madragata. He was mostly sore at Madragata because he said he had been double-crossed. Betrayed, that was his word. But he didn’t seem to include rue in it. I don’t know, it was just a thing I felt, the way he reacted.”

  “Did he bring you here?”

  “Yes, the fighting was just starting up.”

  “He locked you in?"

  “Sure, he shoved me in that closet, first thing I knew, and turned the key. Said I was safe here. Said somebody would come and let me out, sooner or later.”

  “Where did he go?”

  “I don’t know. I need some more to drink.”

  “In a minute.” Durell gripped her arm before she could raise the bottle. “Didn’t Hobe say what he was going to do?”

  “Yes, he said he was going to make sure of the Lady.”

  “You’re certain he said that?”

  “Yes, I’m certain. But he couldn’t get out there, could he, in this storm?”

  Durell turned and looked at Kitty Cotton. The girl started to say something, checked herself, then spoke. “Sam, the Sikorsky was ditched oil the Lady’s heliport, remember. And we left my boat there when Lepaka took us ofi in his Bell chopper. And the big tender—well, they’re still repairing that. We can’t fly out, that’s sure.”

  “Another boat,” Durell suggested.

  Betty muttered, “You think Hobe’s out on the rig? In all this weather? I—think I feel sorry for him.”

  “Do you know about a boat we could use?”

  The woman said uncertainly, “We’d drown, tryin’ to get out there.”

  “You’re not going,” Durell said.

  “Yes, I am. I want to find Hobe. I think I—I owe him something.”

  “Do you know about a boat?”

  She glared at him. “Only if you promise to take me along, too."

  “All right. We’ll take you. But no more bourbon.”

  She grinned. “Check. There's a motor lifeboat, under the dock. It came from the rig last week, for an overhaul, but it ought to be working now. That’s what Matty the Fork went for, I think. I heard him phoning from here, while he wouldn’t let me out of the closet. He asked somebody in the crew about it.” Betty Tallman made an effort to straighten up. Despite her appearance. she didn’t seem to be as drunk as she had pretended to be. Durell considered her, and then she suddenly said, "Come on. I’ll show you.”

  Chapter 18.

  The water surged and roared under the concrete pier at the far end of the fenced—in company area. Durell had gone back to the jeep and picked up the two rifles hidden under the back seat, then led the two women down a flight of stone steps out of the force of the wind. Long streamers of moss hung from the underside of the dock. There was a long shelf of narrow decking that led toward the open end. The footing was wet and slippery. At the far end of the pier wa
s gray daylight, marred by spray lifted by the wind. A white motor lifeboat, decked fore and aft, with a small cabin amidships, lifted and fell uncertainly in the surging water. As Durell reached the bottom of the steps, he heard the cranky sputtering of a balky diesel engine in the lifeboat. Someone moved at the small control bridge.

  Durell cupped his hands against the roar and crash of the sea against the concrete pilings.

  “Matt! Matty!”

  The figure lurched, turning, limped two steps astern, turned back to the controls, punching the starter button with a savage thumb. Durell ran along the slippery concrete toward the mooring. Matt the Fork hunched over the tiny lifeboat bridge, turned a furious face toward him, tried the motor again. it started with a roar as Durell leaped aboard. Matt spun about, grabbing for a wrench, lifted it to swing at him. The surge of the boat threw him off balance on his injured leg. Durell caught one end of the spanner and twisted it downward. Matt’s eyes were wild, not recognizing him. “Get off! Get away!”

  "Matt. listen! It’s me. It’s Sam!”

  The squat foreman glared at him. “Lemme alone!”

  “We want to go with you.” Durell had to shout against the roar of the diesel and the slap and crash of the seas coming in under the deck of the main pier overhead.

  “You’re crazy!” Matt yelled. "I'm going out to the Lady!"

  “So am I.”

  “And those women?"

  “The girls, too.”

  Matt’s grip on the heavy wrench, checked by Durell, tightened again. He tried to lift it against the pressure Durell kept on it, then suddenly slumped and shrugged.

  The diesel motor was purring quietly now.

  “Why Kitty and Betty?”

  “They have a right to go. Brady’s body is still out there. And Hobe went out earlier."

  “I know that.”

  “What’s so important out on the Lady?”

  “You’ll find out.” Matt grunted. He watched Kitty jump agilely aboard, accustomed to all boats from her childhood. She turned immediately to help Betty Tallman.

  The blond woman stumbled and fell against Matt, pushed at him with hands fiat on his chest, and swung away. Matt muttered under his breath and lurched back to the controls. There was a clunking sound as he shoved the engine into gear.