Assignment Black Gold (17 page)

“You have proof?” the old man asked mildly.

“He is a chief field agent for K Section, a branch of
the American CIA. He would like to buy us as his fathers bought our ancestors,
the men of our tribes, to work in their fields overseas. Our history has
seen enough of slavery.”

“And your young woman?”

“She, too,” Madragata nodded. “She is the wife of a spy, the
scum Brady Cotton, who lived among us pretending to be a friend, a simple
merchant, all the time reporting on us and sabotaging our efforts toward true
freedom.”

“Your freedom? Or Lubinda’s?” the Saka asked gently.

“Yours and mine, Old Father.”

“My son, you have not mentioned this Chinese gentleman you
have brought with you.”

“He is Mr. Ch’ing. He is my adviser. He helps to finance
the glorious Apgak movement through the generosity of the People’s Republic of
China.”

“And will he not also try to enslave us, when you are
sufficiently in his debt?” the Saka asked.

Durell looked at the chubby, innocuous-looking Chinaman who
had entered the cave with Madragata. They knew each other. Durell’s memory spun
like the flashing cards of an electronic index file. Ch’ing
Lui
Yin, deputy administrator for Western Africa, from the
Black House in Peking. The man’s round face smiled at him, the black almond
eyes admitted his recognition. Mr. Ch’ing's dossier in the files at No.
20 Annapolis Street was bulging with instances of interference in the domestic
affairs of a number of newly emerged nations on the continent. He had been
declared persona non grata in Senegal, the Ivory Coast, and
Dahomey
.
Peking had officially disavowed him on each occasion. But he surfaced again and
again, always inciting a “people’s revolution” that led to guerrilla warfare,
burning, torture, and destruction. Most often it was the native population he
had come to “help” that seemed to suffer the most. The man’s carefully
manicured hands were bloodier than most. He wore a safari jacket, trousers
stuffed into boots, and an empty holster in his belt. His black hair was cut in
a thick shock so that it looked like a dark cap over his heavy, bristly brows.

“Senhor Durell,” he said, mimicking Madragata.

The Saka said gently, “You know each other?”

“We are—ah—rivals,” Ch‘ing said softly.

“And Lubinda is a pawn on your chess board, is that it?” The
Saka held up a long, bony hand. “Please. Spare me the rhetoric and the dialectics.
No diatribes about Western imperialism. No tears for the downtrodden masses. It
seems to me that poverty, oppression, and death of the mind and the spirit
always follow you.”

“Do you have visions, old man?” Ch’ing asked.

It was an error to talk to the Saka like that. Madragata
stirred uneasily and said, “Old Father, I have always respected you; I learned
much when I knelt before you. My brother Komo has sold out to the imperialists.
I have not. I come only to take these two Americans from you."

The Saka looked down at him. “Why did you burn Ngama, the
village where I was born?”

“Because—” Madragata hesitated, paused. “The
maka
was not harmed.”

“But you took away the young men?”

“For the Freedom Army of the Apgaks, yes.”

“They went willingly?"

“Yes.”

“It seems to me you must be lying, else why did you have to
burn the village? Or was it a whim, a desire for wanton destruction? The
villagers are poor, they live on the edge of extinction. I know. I happened to
survive my youth. Many did not. It seems to me you were always cruel,
boy."

Madragata said impatiently, “I am not a boy, Saka. You are
old. You have been dreaming here in the hills, sulking like ta spoiled child.
It is you who have abandoned Lubinda, not I. You chose to die when independence
finally came.“

There was a long silence after the Apgak’s outburst.
Madragata looked malevolently at Durell and the girl, and again Durell wondered
what it could be that had made Kitty Cotton the man’s enemy. He felt her move a

bit closer to him, as if contact gave her reassurance. Mr.
Ch’ing whispered something to Madragata. The guerrilla leader shook off the
Chinese, and Ch‘ing’s bushy black eyebrows lifted briefly.

Madragata said, “I have a hundred men on this mountain. They
will obey me. I demand these two Americans as prisoners.” He grinned. “After
all, Old Father, you are officially and legally dead. No words from you can
have effect in this world, eh? It was of your own choice.”

“And if I refuse to give these people to you?” The Saka’s
voice was quiet, but it had changed, hardening, with a hint of old steel coming
to the fore. “What will you do to me then, my son? Will you see to it that I
really dwell in the tomb beside the river?”

“Do not press me, old man.”

“Will you kill me, then?”

“The good of the land is above all other morality.”

MI. Ch’ing intervened. “Saka, he does not know what he says.
He is upset. These two people are a great danger to the Apgak movement—”

“Be quiet,” the Saka said. He stood even straighter than before,
not leaning on his long staff now, but holding it as if it were a weapon,
barring the space between the guerrilla leader and Durell and the girl. His
deep-set eyes burned as he looked at Madragata. “Although I have died in the
eyes of the public, I am not dead. Although I have been silent for these past
two years, I still have my tongue. I can speak. I have not wasted the seasons
in this cave. I believe your cause will mean the destruction of homes, of
innocent villages, the enforced conscription of young men. It is wrong. I do
not trust your Mr. Ch’ing. I do not trust Mr. Durell, either. Lubinda needs
help, and we must receive it, but with no compromises, no sale of the souls and
minds of our people.” The old man moved forward. “I will speak to your men.”

“No,” Madragata said.

“Are you afraid of what I shall say?”

“You are dead. You should remain dead. For—for the good of
the nation.”

“Kill me then,” the old man said.

His tall, thin figure moved toward the cave entrance.
Madragata stood frozen, his eyes shifting from right to left. Mr. Ch’ing raised
a hand, then dropped it. The old man reached the zebra-hide curtain at the cave
opening and stepped outside to the ledge in front of the cavern. The last of
the sunlight bathed his attenuated form in a rosy glow. He raised the staff
high above his head.

“Men of the Apgak!” The old man’s voice was surprisingly
strong, reaching out for the echoes from the surrounding walls of the meteorite
mountain. “This is your Saka! Yes, I live, I come back to you to continue on
the way of freedom! Men of the Apgak, my son leads you astray! He is mistaken,
and will bring fire and doom to beloved Lubinda! Do not follow him, do
not—"

Madragata made a growl of disbelief in his throat and lunged
for the old man outside the cave. The Saka heard him and whirled with
surprising speed and brought up his long staff. It smashed hard against the
Apgak’s chest, stopping his son’s charge for a moment. At the same time, Mr.
Ch’ing produced a Browning pistol out of his voluminous pockets.

Mr. Ch’ing was smiling. Kitty made a warning sound, but
Durell was already moving, driving for the Chinese. The gun went off with a
shattering roar inside the dim cave. Chips of rock and a burst of sandstone
dust came from the wall behind Durell. He heard distant shouting from the
mountainside beyond the cave, and then he hit Ch’ing hard, drove the man black,
reached for the Browning. The gun went off again. The bullet struck the
ceiling. The man’s face convulsed. Despite his soft appearance, Ch’ing’s body was
all hidden springs and steel coils. Durell hit him, hit him again, fought for
the gun. Ch’ing tried to use it as a hammer on him, then he brought up his left
hand, fingers stiff, and jabbed at his eyes. Durell ducked aside, slammed
a fist into the man’s belly, chopped at the side of Ch’ing’s throat. The
man made a bubbling sound and his eyes popped and he fell back against the wall
of the cave.

“Sam!”

It was Kitty’s sudden cry of warning. He did not turn. He
saw Ch’ing make one last effort to bring up the gun and he kicked at the man's
wrist, heard bones snap, and then the gun went skittering across the smooth floor
of the Saka’s cave. Kitty snatched it up. Durell whirled and saw Madragata
stagger in from the outer lodge. The man’s head was bleeding, his nose looked
broken, and a bubbling sound of incomprehensible rage came from his bloody
mouth. Behind him stood the Saka’s tall, elongated figure, the staff
still in his hand.

“It is quite all right, Mrs. Cotton,” said the old man.

He looked at the Chinaman. “He had a gun?”

“Yes,” Durell said.

“We must leave.” The old man put a hand over his eyes for a
moment, and his body trembled briefly. Madragata had fallen on all fours
and was shaking his head dazedly
 
like a
dog. “I had to do it. He is my son. I do not know what his men will think or
do. I hope, but I do not know.” He gestured to Durell and the girl. “Come.”

“Are Madragata‘s men—?” Kitty began.

“They will be here soon. We cannot leave by the front
entrance.” The old man straightened, his moment of shock and sorrow vanished.
“There is another way out. Take the lantern, Mr. Durell, and please pick up all
the weapons.” His manner was quick and decisive now, and Durell could see the
charisma of a born leader, a man of talent and energy. of striking inner force.
‘We will go now. We will return to the land of the living."

Chapter 16.

Thunder rumbled distantly in the black, starless sky.

A cold wind that smelled of dampness and blowing dust came
out of the Kahara from the east. It was a smell compounded of parched earth, of
faraway rain, of tempests hurrying to overtake them. The old man had led

them through a maze of narrow passages carved by past
rainstorms in the soft sandstone of the mountain. In twenty minutes, they had emerged
on the other side, to slide down a long gravelly slope to the desert plain.
There had been no sign of Madragata and his Apgak men. They would follow, of
course, but only after an interval of puzzlement and rage on the part of the
Apgak leader and his Chinese associate. For the moment, they were safe.

The Saka, for all of his years, proved astonishingly nimble
and strong. He led the way. From the mountain, they headed north toward the dry
riverbed and what Durell suspected was the border of Lubinda. Under the stars,
the desert air was cold, and Kitty’s teeth chattered now and then, despite the
effort she made to keep up with Durell and the old man. Scrubby thorn trees,
clumps of mopanes that survived by sucking liquid from the underground water
table, surrealistic ridges of stone carved by unthinkable time and seasons,
marked their way. The old man led them with sureness and speed. There was no
sign of pursuit. Once, they startled a covey of bush pigeons, and the birds
sprang up into the black air with a sound like miniature thunder to echo the
rumbling over the eastern horizon.

For three hours, the Saka was relentless. Then he lifted his
stall to signal a hand, and they found a chance to rest from the increasing
pressure of the wind by hiding behind a jagged outcropping of the rock.

“You two must rest and sleep,” the Saka said. “I shall watch
and wait.”

“Wait for what?” Durell asked. ‘We can go on.”

“I camped here, once or twice, in the bad times, when we
fought against colonialism. It is a familiar place to certain men. There is
water if we need it, which we can dig for. And we must wait for the rain now.
We have crossed t-he dry river. The flood will not harm us here.”

Kitty sank gratefully into a niche behind the rock and
Durell joined her. The old man climbed higher and stood leaning on his staff,
his long legs firm, his cloak flapping in the wind that sounded
like distant express trains rushing across the empty, black Kahara plain. He
faced south from where they had come, and did not move. Durell thought again
that he looked like an ancient biblical patriarch, his face set and grim,
reflecting a patience and a strength that was more than normally remarkable.

For a time, the girl was silent. Durell thought she had
collapsed into sleep. Then she murmured something and moved into his arms and
rested there, her rich body warm and pliant against his.

“Sam?” she whispered.

“Are you angry with me?”

“Why should I be angry? You’ve been fine."

“I’ve been thinking about Brady—ever since you and I—on the
beach ”

“That’s natural.”

She shook her head against his chest. “No, that’s not what I
meant. You asked me why Madragata wants to get rid of me. I couldn’t remember.
I‘ve been thinking and thinking, trying to recall something Brady might have
said to me that might make me dangerous to the Apgaks.”

“And?” he asked quietly.

“I couldn’t remember anything, at first. Brady and I
hardly spoke to each other these past two or three months. I told you, our
marriage was finished.”

“What did you remember?” he asked. He could smell the scent
that still lingered in her long, thick hair, and he was aware of the pressure
of her body against him as they sat in the rocky niche, out of the wind. He
could not see the Saka, who stood high above them, his face turned to the
south. “What was it, Kitty?”

“It’s Hobe’s log,” she said.

“What log?”

“His private drilling records. As manager, he used to
compile his own reports and estimates on how much chance the Lady had of
striking oil.”

“It wasn’t a public or company record?”

“Hobe Tallman wants to strike it rich. There’s Betty, of
course, always putting pressure on him to succeed, to make money. It’s been
tough on the poor man. But most of all, Hobe is a man with a record of failures
behind him—wildcatting, making strikes that look promising and then turn out to
be overloaded with sulfur, of poor grade—well, I don’t know what all. I don’t
know the oil business. All I know is that Brady said that Hobe was really
desperate to succeed this time, with the Lady.”