Brass Go-Between (23 page)

“No,” I said. “It was Eldorado.”

“Ah,” he said. “Eldorado.”

“Eldorado Oil and Gas. It’s one of your companies.”

“Yes.”

“Before the revolution in Jandola broke out it was negotiating for mineral rights. Oil. A lot of it and most of it is under what some call Komporeen. The Library of Congress was most helpful.”

“I see.”

“Now the real villain enters. Your villain anyway. It’s a Dutch-British combine. It was after the oil rights, too, and it offered the Jandolaean government a far better deal. You matched it. The combine topped your offer and the Jandolaeans sat back content to let you fight it out. In the midst of the negotiations, the revolution broke out and because the oil reserves or whatever you call them are in Komporeen, the negotiations for the rights came to a standstill. I am correct so far?”

“In a crude way,” Spencer said.

“For a while it looked as if the Jandolaeans would finish the fight in a week. But it dragged on. The Komporeeneans fought better than was expected. Some help started coming in dribbles from France and Germany. If the Komporeeneans could hold on another two months or so, they might even win independence. Or at least, with recognition from France and Germany, keep the fighting going for years, and if they did, then you would have to negotiate with their government. If they lost, you’d be back where you started, bidding against the Dutch-British combine. You needed an edge. And the shield was it. You knew its importance to both Komporeen and Jandola. You would arrange for its theft, and then at the appropriate time, use it as a bribe to secure the oil reserves from whoever won.”

“And how would I explain that it came into my possession?” Spencer asked.

“Simple,” I said. “You bought it from the thieves, using your own money.”

“I see,” Spencer said again, and stared out the window some more.

“I don’t think you had anything to do with the four deaths,” I said.

“Thank you.”

“They just got greedy and after the deal was set up, they followed it because they didn’t know what else to do. None of them was too imaginative. They stole the shield, dumped it into the back seat of a car, and it was whisked away to you. None of them knew that you were involved. No one but Wingo knew that.”

“But you think that you do?”

“I know you are.”

“And your next move?”

“I could do several things,” I said. “First of all, I could tell the cops. They might laugh at me at the beginning, but they’d check it out. It might take a while, but they’d get around to it and even if they never proved it, it would be a considerable nuisance to you. But that’s just one thing that I might do. The other would be to let the Jandolaean Embassy in on my speculations. That would really tear it for you. You could never use the shield as a bribe then. They’d know you’d stolen it—or had had it stolen.”

Spencer rose from his chair and crossed to the window. He stood there in his 1939 suit and his bowl haircut, a billion dollars on the hoof, and looked out at the Capitol. “How much do you want, St. Ives?” he said.

“Not how much, but what.”

“All right then. What?”

“The shield. I want it today.”

There was perhaps fifteen seconds of silence. I assumed that he was rapidly weighing it all, totting up the costs, figuring the losses, poking at the loopholes. He turned from the window. “What do you intend to do with it?” he said.

“That’s no longer your concern.”

“I can, of course, beat any price.”

“I’m sure.”

“So it’s not price?”

“No.”

“Then I don’t understand it.”

“No,” I said. “I didn’t think you would.”

“What assurance do I have that you will continue your silence?”

“None.”

“Yes,” he said. “I did expect that.” He thought some more, for all of five seconds. “Eight o’clock tonight.”

“All right,” I said. “Where?”

“My home in Virginia. It’s not far from Warrenton.” He spent thirty seconds giving me directions. I wrote them down.

“You will come alone, of course?” he said.

“No.”

Spencer didn’t like that. He frowned his frown, pursed his lips, and jutted his chin. “I must be assured some measure of privacy, Mr. St. Ives.”

“Four, maybe five persons have died because of the $250,000 ransom for that shield, Mr. Spencer. According to the financial and oil and gas journals that I went through at the Library of Congress, the oil underneath Komporeen is worth maybe $200 billion or more. I guarantee that the person that I’ll bring with me won’t violate what you call your privacy. He will, however, make me feel a little more secure.”

“He’s not of the police, is he?”

“No, he’s not a cop. He’s just insurance as far as I’m concerned.”

“And you really think you need it—this insurance?”

“Yes,” I said. “I really think I do.”

I was back in my hotel room by twelve-fifteen dialing the phone. A voice, a deep familiar one, answered on the first ring with a bass hello.

“Mbwato?”

“Mr. St. Ives. How good of you to call.”

“You’ll get your shield at eight o’clock tonight.”

There was a long silence. “You are positive?”

“I’m not even positive that the earth isn’t flat.”

His deep laugh rolled over the phone. “According to our legends, it is a cube.”

“Stick with them,” I said.

“Yes,” he said, and there was another pause. “There is a saying in your country about a gift horse.”

“It’s no gift,” I said. “I’ve got a price.”

“You restore my faith in human nature.”

“I thought I would.”

“And your price?”

“Six hundred and eighty-five dollars. Those are my out-of-pocket expenses.”

“You are joking, of course.”

“No, I’m not joking.”

“No,” he said slowly, “I don’t think you are.”

“There’s one more thing.”

“Yes.”

“How soon can you get yourself and the shield out of the country?”

“Tonight,” he said. “We have several contingency plans.”

“Have you got one for Virginia?” I said.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Virginia. That’s where we pick up the shield. Near Warrenton.”

“And you think we may be in a hurry?”

“Yes.”

“A great hurry?”

“Yes.”

“To use your country’s parlance, might it even be called a getaway?”

God, he likes to talk, I thought. “It could be called that.”

“Then give me the exact location and I’ll get Mr. Ulado on to it. He’s our getaway expert. Quite good at it really.”

I read him the directions that Spencer had given me. “I have a rented car in the garage here,” I said. “We’ll use that.”

“Shall I meet you there?”

“Yes. At seven.”

“Anything else?” Mbwato asked.

“Nothing.”

“There are a couple of details I should attend to.”

“All right,” I said.

There was another pause and I was wishing he would say good-by, but he didn’t. “I’m sorry, Mr. St. Ives, but my curiosity is overwhelming. Just why are you doing this when you were so adamant previously?”

“I changed my mind.”

“But why?”

“Cotton candy,” I said.

“I beg your pardon.”

“I’m a sucker for cotton candy. Spun sugar. Just like I’m a sucker for stories about hungry, kids and lost puppies and sick kittens. But after a while you get tired of listening to the stories, just like you get tired of eating cotton candy. I’m tired of your stories so I’m going to do something about it.”

Then I hung up before he could tell me any more of them.

W
E ONLY GOT LOST
once on the way out of Washington. It’s an easy town to get lost in and we took a wrong turn somewhere around the Lincoln Memorial and wound up heading for Baltimore. Mbwato was navigating with the aid of an Esso map and finally he said, “I think we’re headed the wrong way, old man.”

Haying just seen the
BALTIMORE—STRAIGHT AHEAD
sign I agreed with him, made what I was sure was an illegal U-turn, and headed back toward the Lincoln Memorial. This time I crossed the Memorial Bridge into Virginia, found the double-laned Washington Memorial Parkway, sped past the entrance to the CIA, and finally picked up 495, the circumferential highway that belts Washington. It was still muggy, the air conditioning in the rented Ford didn’t work, and I was in a foul mood. Getting lost does that to me.

Mbwato, on the other hand, held his large black leather attaché case on his lap, hummed to himself, and admired the countryside. “According to the map,” he said, “we take 495 until we come to Interstate 66, which leads to State 29 and 211. Five miles this side of Warrenton we turn right.”

“In the glove compartment,” I said, “there’s a pint of whisky.”

He opened the glove compartment, looked, and closed it. “So there is,” he said.

“Would you mind kind of taking the cap off and passing it to me? I mean if it’s no bother?”

“Oh, none at all,” he said, got the whisky out, took off the cap, and handed me the bottle. I took a long drink and handed it back to him. “Not that I approve of drinking while driving, you understand,” he said.

“I understand,” I said. “Neither do I.”

“But under certain circumstances, especially when there may be some unpleasantness in the offing, it should be permissible.”

“Even for navigators,” I said.

“That’s what I thought,” he said, and tilted the bottle up.

It gurgled at least three times before he put it back into the glove compartment.

He stared out at the scenery again. There wasn’t much to see. Some fields, some trees, and occasionally the tacky back yards of some plastic houses that people bought because it was all they could afford and the forty-five-minute drive to Washington was a small price to pay for having lily-white neighbors.

“They didn’t get quite this far, as I remember,” Mbwato said.

“Who, the Negroes?”

“What Negroes?”

“Never mind,” I said. “Who didn’t get this far?”

“The Confederacy.”

“About as close as they got was Dranesville,” I said. “They turned north there toward Pennsylvania. Dranesville’s about fifteen miles or so from Washington.”

“I wish I had more time,” he said. “I would so liked to have spent several days studying the battlefields. I’m quite a Civil War buff, you know.”

“I’ve been to Gettysburg,” I said. “I found it all very confusing.”

“Were you ever a soldier, Mr. St. Ives?” he said.

“A long time ago,” I said. “The war was called a police action then and I wasn’t a very good soldier even in that.”

“When I studied your Civil War at Sandhurst, I must confess that I developed a rather sneaking sympathy for the Confederacy. Pity that they didn’t have a more suitable cause.”

“It was the only cause around.”

“Still, I find many parallels between the Confederacy and my own country. Both the South and Komporeen, if my history serves me right, could be described as underdeveloped, largely agricultural, but possessed of a fierce regional pride. And jealous of tradition, too, I suppose.”

“And gracious living,” I said. “A good, unreconstructed Southerner can go on for hours about gracious living. You know, crinoline and fatback. Myths die hard in the South and from what you’ve told me, they die even harder in Komporeen.”

“Yes, I suppose you could call the aura that surrounds the shield a myth. But when you have very little else, myths become important, even vital.”

“When were you at Sandhurst?” I said.

“From ’fifty-five to ’fifty-nine. I think I may have neglected to mention it, but I’m a lieutenant colonel in our army.”

“You neglected to mention it,” I said. “How many generals do you have?”

“None. There is only Colonel Aloko who is now head of state and three other lieutenant colonels.”

“What are you, head of G-2?”

Mbwato looked surprised. “Yes, as a matter of fact, I am. However could you tell?”

I sighed and swung the Ford over into the far right lane and headed up the curving exit that leads to Interstate 66. “I just guessed,” I said.

“Mr. Ulado is my second in command. It’s Captain Ulado really.”

“The getaway expert,” I said. “I hope he’s better at that than he is at torture.”

“Oh, he is,” Mbwato said quickly, as if I’d just lodged a complaint that could turn into a hanging offense or, at least, a general court-martial. “He’s really quite efficient.”

We didn’t say much after that as we rolled through northern Virginia, through the heart of the hunt country. Highway 29 and 211 was just another road, sometimes two lanes, sometimes four lanes, and lined by the usual Stuckey candy stands, billboards, gas stations, motels, and quiet, closed-mouthed houses stuck off by themselves as if their owners didn’t mind living by the side of the road, but to hell with that friend-to-man nonsense.

At a sign that read
WARRENTON, 5 MILES,
I turned right and Mbwato said, “This person whom we’re to see. Does he have a name?”

“Yes.”

“Can you reveal it?”

“Yes. Winfield Spencer.”

“Ah, I see.”

“Do you?”

“Well, not really. But Mr. Spencer, I believe, is chairman of the Coulter Museum’s executive committee and I seem to recall that one of his firms was interested in securing drilling rights in Komporeen. Am I right?”

“You are.”

“Fascinating. Mr. Spencer has the shield?”

“Yes.”

“And he is simply going to hand it over to you?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Really fascinating,” Mbwato said. “Someday you will have to tell me the full story.”

“Someday,” I said. “I will.”

The road that we turned left on was a narrow, winding strip of asphalt that dipped and twisted between parallel rows of split-rail fences. There were a few unpretentious farmhouses and then the split-rail fences ended and were replaced on the left-hand side of the road by an eight-foot chain-wire fence that was topped by three wicked-looking strands of barbed wire. Behind the fence were pasture land and woods. No crops grew and I assumed that the Federal government paid Spencer not to grow anything. The chain-wire fence went on for two miles—which is a lot of fence to anyone but the military. At the two-mile point there was a stone hut with a thick, shake-shingled roof whose age was belied by the gray butt of an air conditioner which stuck out of one window. The road ended in a turnaround circle for the benefit of the strayed motorist out for a Sunday drive or for those who came calling on Spencer without an invitation. I stopped the car before the gate and the two men in gray uniforms came out of the hut and walked slowly over to the Ford. One of them, about thirty-five with gray, suspicious eyes that squinted underneath the brim of hat that seemed to have been copied from the highway patrol, rested his right arm on the window sill of the car and looked at me for several seconds. His partner circled around to Mbwato’s side, opened the rear door, looked inside, and then stared at Mbwato, who gave him a nice sample of the glory smile.