Wilbur Smith's Smashing Thrillers

by Wilbur Smith

  She left the room, and suddenly the music swelled from hidden speakers, loud Chinese music with gongs and drums that would cover any other sound, such as a little girl’s screams.

  Chapter 27

  The colonials of Victorian times had sited Ubotno’s Government House with care on high ground above the lake, with a view out across the waters, and they had surrounded it with lawns and exotic trees brought out from Europe to remind them of home. in the evenings the breeze came down from the Mountains of the Moon in the west, with the memory of glaciers and eternal snows, to take the edge off the heat.

  Government House was still as it had been in the colonial era, no more pretentious than a comfortable redbrick ranch house with high ceilings, enclosed on all sides by a wide flyscreened verandah. Victor Omeru had kept it that way. He would not spend money on grand public buildings while his people were in want. The aid that he received from Ameria and Europe had all gone into agriculture, health and education, not personal aggrandisement.

  Tonight the verandahs and lawns were crowded as Daniel Armstrong and Bonny drove up in the army Landrover that had been placed at their disposal. A Hita corporal in camouflage overalls, with a submachine-gun slung over one shoulder, waved them into a parking slot between two other vehicles with diplomatic licence plates.

  “How do I look?” Bonny asked anxiously as she checked her lipstick in the rear-view mirror.

  “Sexy,” Daniel told her truthfully. She had teased her hair out into a great tawny red mane and she wore a green mini-skirt tight around her buttocks and high on her thighs. For such a big girl she had shapely legs.

  “Give me a hand. Damned skirts!” The Landrover stood high and her skirt rode up as she slid down. She showed a flash of lace pantie that rocked the Hita corporal on to his heels.

  There were floodlights in the jacaranda trees and an army band belted out popular jazz with a distinctive African beat that lifted Daniel’s spirits and put a spring in his step.

  “All this in your honour,” Bonny chuckled.

  “I bet Taffari tells that to all his guests.” Daniel smiled.

  Captain Kajo, who had met them at the airport, hurried towards them as soon as they stepped on to the lawn. He was looking at Bonny’s legs from twenty paces away, but he addressed Daniel. “Ah, Doctor Armstrong, the president has been asking for you. You are the guest of honour tonight.”

  He led them up the front steps on to the verandah. Daniel picked out President Taffari instantly, even though he had his back turned to them. He was the tallest in a room full of tall Hita officers. He wore a maroon mess jacket of his own design, although his head was bare.

  “Mr. President.” Captain Kajo addressed his back deferentially, and Taffari turned and smiled and displayed the medals on his chest. “May I present Doctor Daniel Armstrong and his assistant Miss Mahon?”

  “Doctor!” Taffari greeted Daniel. “I am a great admirer of your work. I could not have chosen anybody more qualified to show my country to the world. Up until now we have been kept in obscurity and medieval isolation by the reactionary old tyrant we overthrew.” “It is time that Ubomo came into its own. You will help us, Doctor. You will help us bring my beloved country into the twentieth century by focusing world attention upon us.”

  “I’ll do all in my power,” Daniel assured him cautiously. Although he had seen photographs of him, Daniel was unprepared for Taffari’s eloquence and presence. He was a striking looking man, exuding power and confidence. He stood a full head taller than Daniel’s six feet and had the features of an Egyptian pharaoh carved in amber.

  His eyes slid past Daniel and settled on Bonny Mahon. She stared back at him boldly and wet her bottom lip with the tip of her tongue.

  “You are the photographer. Sir Peter Harrison sent me a videotape of ‘Arctic Dream’. If you can photograph Ubomo with the same understanding and craft, I will be well pleased, Miss Mahon.” He looked down at her bosom, at the big golden freckles on her upper chest that gave way to a narrow strip of unblemished creamy skin above the top of her green dress. The exposed cleavage between her breasts was deep and tightly compressed.

  “You are very kind,” Mr. President, she said, and Taffari laughed softly.

  “Nobody has ever called me that before,” he admitted, and then changed the subject. “What do you think of my country so far?”

  “We only arrived today,” Bonny pointed out. “But the lake is lovely and the people are so tall, the men so handsome.” She made it a personal compliment.

  “The Hita are tall and handsome,” Taffari agreed. “But the Uhali are small and ugly as monkeys, even their women.” The Hita officers of his staff laughed delightedly and Bonny gulped with shock.

  “Where I come from we don’t talk disparagingly of other ethnic groups. It’s called racism, and it’s unfashionable,” she said.

  He stared at her for a moment. Clearly he was unaccustomed to being corrected. Then he smiled, a thin, cool little smile. “Well, Miss Mahon, in Africa we tell the truth. If people are ugly or stupid we say so. It’s called tribalism, and I assure you it’s extremely fashionable.” His staff roared with laughter, and Taffari turned back to Daniel.

  “Your assistant is a woman of strong views, Doctor, but I believe you were born in Africa. You have a keener understanding. It shows in your work. You have put your finger on the problems that face this continent, and poverty is the most crippling of those. Africa is poor, Doctor, and Africa is passive and supine. I intend to change that. I intend to endow my country with the spirit and confidence to exploit our natural wealth and to develop the strength and native genius of our people. I want you to record our endeavours.” His staff officers, all in the same marooncoloured mess jackets, applauded this statement.

  “I’ll do my best,” Daniel promised.

  “I’m sure you will, Doctor Armstrong.” He was looking at Bonny again, but he went on speaking to Daniel. “The British ambassador is here tonight. I’m sure you will want to pay your respects.”

  He summoned Kajo to him. “Captain, please take Doctor Armstrong to meet Sir Michael.” Bonny began to follow Daniel, but Taffari stopped her with a touch on the arm. “Don’t go yet, Miss Mahon. There are a few things I would like to explain to you, such as the differences between the Uhali and the tall handsome Hita whom you so admire.” Bonny turned back to him, thrust out one hip in a provocative stance and crossed her arms beneath her breasts, pushing them up so that they threatened to pop out of the green dress into his face. “You should not judge Africa by the standards of Europe,” he told her. “We do things differently here.”

  From the corner of her eye Bonny saw that Daniel had left the verandah and followed Kajo down on to the floodlit lawn. She leaned close to Taffari, her eyes not much below the level of his.

  “Goody!” she said. “I’m always looking for new and different ways.”

  Daniel paused at the bottom of the steps and began to grin as he picked out the familiar figure on the crowded lawn. Then he hurried forward and seized his hand. “Sir Michael, forsooth! British ambassador no less, you sly dog. When did all this happen?”

  Michael Hargreave gripped his elbow in a momentary display of un-British and undiplomatic affection. “Didn’t you get my letter? All very sudden. Hauled me out of Lusaka before you could say ‘Bob’s your uncle’. Sword on both shoulders from H. M. ‘Arise, Sir Michael’, and all that. Shot me down here. But you did get my letter?”

  Daniel shook his head.” Congratulations, Sir Michael. Long overdue. You deserve it.”

  Hargreave looked embarrassed and dropped Daniel’s hand. “Where’s your drink, dear boy? Don’t touch the whisky. Locally made. Convinced it’s actually bottled crocodile piss. Try the gin.” He summoned a waiter. “Can’t think why you didn’t get my letter. Tried to ring you at the flat in London. No reply.”

  “Where’s Wendy?”

  “Sent her back to Lusaka to pack up. New chap there has agreed to look after your Landcruiser and gear. Wendy w
ill be here in a couple of weeks.Sends her love, by the way.”

  “Did she know you’d see me here?” Daniel was puzzled.

  “Tug Harrison gave us the word that you’d be in Ubomo. You know Harrison?”

  “Everybody in Africa knows Tug. Finger in most pies.”

  “Asked me to keep an eye on you. Told me about your assignment here. You’re going to film Taffari and make him and BOSS look good; that’s what he told me. Right?”

  “A little bit more complicated than that, Mike.”

  “Don’t I know it! Complications you haven’t dreamed of yet.” He drew Daniel away to a deserted corner of the lawn, out of earshot of the other guests. “But first of all, what do you think of Taffari?”

  “I wouldn’t buy a second-hand country from him without checking the tyres.”

  “Check the engine as well, while you’re about it,” Michael smiled. “The indications are that he’s going to make Idi Amin look like Mother Theresa. I saw him giving you fifty lyrical words on his plan for peace and prosperity in the land.”

  “Rather more than fifty,” Daniel corrected him.

  “What it actually amounts to is peace for the Hita, prosperity for Ephrem Taffari, and screw the Uhah. My pals at MI6 tell me that he already has his numbered bank accounts in Switzerland and the Channel Islands all set up, and nice little sums tucked away in them. American foreign aid.”

  “That shouldn’t surprise you. Everybody’s doing it, aren’t they?”

  “Par for the course; got to admit it. But he is being rather naughty to the Uhali. Chopped old Victor Omeru, who was rather a decent sort, and now he’s kicking the manure out of the rest of the Uhali tribe. Some nasty rumours flying about, dark deeds. We don’t really approve. Even the PM is a bit browned off with him already, which reminds me, got some news of a pal of yours.”

  “A pal of mine?”

  “The Lucky Dragon. Rings a bell, doesn’t it? And you’ll never guess who they’re sending out to run the operation here.”

  “Ning Cheng Gong,” Daniel said quietly. It had to be. That was the reason he was here in Ubomo. He had sensed it all along. This was where he would meet Cheng again.

  “You’ve been reading my mail,” Michael accused. “Ning Cheng Gong is right. He arrives next week. Taffari is giving another party to welcome him. Any excuse for a party with our Ephrem, even you.” He broke off and stared at Daniel. “You all right, dear boy? Taking your anti-malarial, are you? Gone as white as a sheet.”

  “I’m fine.” But Daniel’s voice was hoarse and scratchy. He had a terrible mental image of the bedroom of the cottage at Chiwewe, and of the desecrated bodies of Mavis Nzou and her daughters. it left him feeling sick and shaken. He wanted to think of something else, anything but Ning Cheng Gong. “Tell me everything about Taffari and Ubomo that I need to know,” he demanded of Michael Hargreave.

  “Tall order, dear boy. Can only give you the headlines now, but if you drop in at the embassy, I’ll give you a full briefing, and a peep at some of the files. Your eyes only, of course. Even got a couple of bottles of genuine Chivas tucked away.”

  Daniel shook his head. “We’re going up the lakesbore tomorrow to start filming. Taffari has put the entire navy at our disposal. One clapped-out World War Two gunboat. But I could drop in at the embassy tomorrow evening.”

  When it was time to go, Daniel looked around for Bonny Mahon but could not find her. He saw Captain Kajo with a group of other officers at the bar and went across to him. “I’m leaving now, Captain Kajo.”

  “That’s all right, Doctor. President Taffari has left already. You are free to go.”

  You could only tell that Kajo was drunk by his eyes. They had that coffee-coloured haze over the whites. In a white man they would have been bloodshot.

  “We will meet tomorrow morning, Captain? What time?”

  “Six o’clock at the guest house, Doctor. I will pick you up. We must not be late. The navy will be waiting for us.”

  “Have you seen Miss Mahon?” Daniel asked.

  One of the other Hita officers sniggered drunkenly and Kajo grinned. “No, Doctor. She was here earlier on. But I haven’t seen her in the last hour. She must have left. Yes, come to think of it now, I did see her leave.” He turned away, and Daniel tried not to scowl and look abandoned as he went out to the Landrover in the carpark.

  The government guest house was in darkness when he drove up and parked under the verandah. She might be in bed, already asleep with the light out. Despite his altered opinion of her, he felt a stab of disappointment when he switched on the bedroom light and saw that the servants had turned down the beds and rigged the mosquito nets. She had given him the excuse to end it, why was he not more pleased that it was over?

  He had drunk just enough of the local gin to have a headache.

  He picked up Bonny’s bag from the foot of the bed and carried it through to the second bedroom. Then he went into the bathroom and swept her toiletries and cosmetics into her sponge bag and dumped them in the washbasin of the second bathroom down the passage. Then he held his head under the cold tap and took three Anadin tablets. He dropped his clothes on the floor and climbed naked under the mosquito net.

  He woke with headlights sweeping the front of the guest house and shining through the curtains on to the wall above his bed. Tyres crunched on the gravel drive. There were voices, and then a car door slammed and the vehicle pulled away. He heard her come up the verandah steps and open the front door.

  A minute later the bedroom door opened stealthily and she crept into the room. He switched on the bedside light and she froze in the middle of the floor. She carried her shoes in one hand and her bag in the other. Her hair was in a wild tangle, sparkling like copper wire in the light, and her lipstick was smeared over her chin.

  She giggled and he realised she was drunk. “Have you any idea of the risk you’re taking, you silly bitch?” he asked bitterly. “This is Africa. What you’ll get is a four-letter word and it’s not the one you’re thinking of, sweetheart. It’s spelled A I D S.”

  “Tut Tut! jealous, are we? How do you know what I’ve been doing, darling?”

  “It’s no big secret. Everybody at the party knew. You’ve been doing what any good little whore does.” She took a wild round-arm swing at his head. He ducked under the blow, and the momentum carried her on to the bed. She pulled the mosquito net down on top of herself and fell in a tangle of long legs. The mini-skirt pulled up almost as high as her waist, her buttocks were bare and white as ostrich eggs.

  “By the way,” he said, “you’ve left your knickers with Ephrem.”

  She crawled up on to her knees and pulled down the green skirt. “They are in my handbag, ducky.” She got unsteadily to her feet. “Where the hell are my things?”

  “In your room, your new room across the passage.”

  She flashed at him. “So that’s the way you want it?”

  “You didn’t really think I’d want to pick up Ephrem’s leftovers, did you?” Daniel tried to keep his tone reasonable. “Off you go, there’s a good little harlot.”

  She picked up her handbag and shoes and marched to the door. There she turned back to him, swaying with a drunkard’s dignity. “It’s all true, what they say,” she told him with vindictive relish. “They are big. Bigger and better than you’ll ever be!” She slammed the door behind her.

  Daniel was on his second cup of breakfast tea when Bonny came out on to the verandah and, without greeting him, took her place at the breakfast table opposite him. She wore her usual working uniform of faded blue jeans and denim top, but her eyes were puffy and her expression disgruntled with hangover.

  The guest house chef was an anachronism from the colonial era and he served a traditional English breakfast. Neither of them spoke while Bonny demolished her plateful of eggs and bacon.

  Then she looked up at him. “So what happens now?”

  “You make a film,” he said. “Just the way it’s written in your contract.”
<
br />   “You still want me around?”

  “As a cameraman, yes. But from now on it’s a business relationship.”

  “That suits me just fine, she agreed. It was getting to be a bit of a strain; I’m not good at faking it.”

  Daniel stood up abruptly, and went to fetch his gear from the bedroom. He was still too angry to risk getting into an argument with her. Before he was ready, Captain Kajo arrived with three soldiers in the back of his Landrover. They helped carry out the heavy video equipment and load it into the back of the truck. Daniel let Bonny sit up in the cab beside Captain Kajo, while he rode in the back with the heavily armed Hita soldiers.

  The town of Kahali was very much as he remembered it from his last visit. The streets were wide and dusty where the potholes had eaten, cancerlike, through the tarmac. The buildings looked like those from the movie set of an old-fashioned Western.

  The main difference that Daniel noticed was the mood of the people. The Uhali women still wore their colourful ankle-length robes and turbans, the Moslem influence apparent in their demeanour, but the expressions on their faces were guarded and neutral. There were few smiles and no laughter in the open-air market where the women squatted in lines with their wares spread out on sheets of cloth in front of them. There were army patrols in the market-place and on the street corners. The populace averted their eyes as the Landrover passed.

  There were very few tourists, and these were dusty, unshaven and rumpled, probably members of an overland safari making their way down the length of the African continent in a huge communal truck. They were haggling for tomatoes and eggs in the market.

  Daniel grinned. They were paying for a glimpse of purgatory. The overland safari meant amoebic dysentery and punctures, five thousand miles of potholes and army roadblocks, probably the only package holiday on the globe with no repeat customers. Once was enough to last a lifetime.

  The gunboat was waiting for them at the wharf. Seamen in navy blue uniforms and bare feet carried the video equipment up the gangplank and the captain shook hands with Daniel as he came aboard. “Peace be with you,” he greeted him in Swahili. “I have orders to take you where you want to go.”