by Helen Wells
“Then I’d better not leave the clinic unattended overnight, Bob.” Cherry looked at her watch. “I’ll be able to get back to Ngogo before dark.”
Bob said he would feel easier, too, if at least one of them were on call there tonight. “It’s a safe bet that Ed Smith won’t show his face around the place. You take the Rover, Cherry. I’ll pick up our truck from the police and drive out in that tomorrow.”
“And I,” Major Welsh said, “had better see that my planes keep moving out of here on schedule.” He got to his feet. “Miss Ames, if we have any more mysterious goings-on in MATS, I’ll look you up.” He had a second thought. “As a matter of fact, I just might do that anyway. There’s a dance at the Officers’ Club next Saturday night. And maybe by that time you and Bob won’t have so many weighty matters on your minds.”
Cherry thanked him, saying it was not possible to answer now. Just then a safari car drove by, curving in and out of traffic as though the driver was in a hurry.
“Isn’t that Jack Robertson?” Cherry asked.
“Yes, and he looks as if he’s going somewhere in a rush. He must have a new bunch of clients coming in on the afternoon plane.”
CHAPTER XIII
Long Jack Robertson
THE SKY WAS BEGINNING TO DARKEN, AND THERE WAS a sharp smell of rain in the air, as Cherry drove the Land Rover down the trail from Nairobi to Ngogo. Now and then a thin spear of lightning cracked over the horizon, followed in a few minutes by a faint rumble of distant thunder.
Cherry recognized it as one of those sudden storms that come and go so quickly in the tropics. The few animals in sight were uneasy. A small herd of gazelles were huddled under a grove of trees, and farther along the road a pride of lions lay close beside each other in the shelter of a huge acacia, their tails twitching nervously from side to side.
For the first time since coming to Kenya, Cherry felt apprehensive about the big beasts. What if one of them, spooked by a lightning flash, rushed the car? She wished that Bob, or Jeff, was sitting in the seat beside her. Or, best of all, Long Jack Robertson, with his big rifle across his knees. Then she shook off her fears as being foolish.
Soon a light rain began spattering the windshield. She closed the side windows up tightly and turned on the wiper. The raindrops made little spurts of dust as they hit the road. It would take a lot of rain, she decided, to turn the thick, dry dirt of the road into mud. But just the same, it might get slippery and tricky. She eased up on the accelerator and drove carefully, peering through the pie-cut shape of clear glass that the wiper made.
Then she saw a solid gray wall of rain advancing toward her across the level plain, obscuring everything behind it. It struck with the force of a massive blow that almost jerked the wheel out of her hands. The windshield became a watery blur. She braked the Land Rover to a stop.
The rain pounded down steadily for half an hour. Then, as suddenly as it had started, it tapered off to a light but steady drizzle. The red sun of late afternoon tried feebly to break through the murk. But even with the headlights on, Cherry could barely see the road ahead. She started the engine, and the wheels spun. They finally took hold in the gluey mire that the trail had become.
It was still five miles to Ngogo, and Cherry wanted to reach home before the sudden tropic darkness fell. She had hardly gotten the car rolling when a bright orange plane flashed through the air, and she heard the drone of its motor. The bush pilot’s plane! Why was he out in this kind of weather? She recalled that the Nairobi police had given Gus Fisher a clean bill of health, so far, in their investigation of Ed Smith. But still—! Well, she thought, her problem now was to reach the village without sliding off the road into a ditch and getting helplessly stuck in the mud.
Driving was painfully slow. The day was growing dark when she pulled into the compound at Ngogo. The rising moon shone dimly through the rain-soaked air—and by its faint light she saw the outlines of a plane pulled up on the narrow beach. Even by moonlight there was no mistaking the bright orange color. It was Gus Fisher’s!
What was Gus doing in Ngogo? The police in Nairobi could have been wrong—or not revealing everything they suspected.
All of her senses became alert. The back of her neck prickled. Cherry got out of the car and moved cautiously toward the steps of the hospital building.
The lights were on inside, and she could see the tall, straight figure of Kavarondi moving around among the patients’ cots. Usually, at this hour, a few people would be walking from hut to hut in the compound, but this evening the sticky mud left by rain was keeping everyone indoors.
She wondered where Jeff was. Then she remembered that he had said he was going hunting up by the pool. Probably he had been caught there by the storm, waiting for a chance to bag a gazelle. She wished that he were here now. Everything was so spooky in the moonlit mist. And Gus Fisher’s plane on the beach!
Cherry kept to the shadows as she moved around the hospital building toward her room in the back. Then she saw a dim light in the darkness. It was burning inside Ed Smith’s tent!
She stepped behind the trunk of a large tree, to wait a minute until her heart stopped pounding, and to try to figure things out. From inside the tent she heard a murmur of voices, but she was too far away to hear what was being said.
Leaving the shelter of the tree’s shadow, she moved toward the tent, taking each step carefully so that she would make no sound. Raindrops, still dripping from the trees, made a protective covering of quiet sound.
Reaching the side of the tent’s opening, Cherry peeked inside. Ed Smith and Gus Fisher, the bush pilot, were standing beside the cot. Bending over it, adjusting the straps of a leather briefcase, was a tall figure wearing a faded khaki jacket and a wide-brimmed safari hat. The tall man straightened up and turned around. It was the hunter—Long Jack Robertson!
Cherry gasped, and in her surprise she attempted to turn and run. But, turning, her foot slipped in the mud and she fell. The next thing she knew she was being helped to her feet and pulled inside the tent. Ed Smith and the bush pilot stood glowering at her. Long Jack wore an expression of embarrassment—and shame.
“I’m terribly sorry, Miss Ames,” he said, “that you had to find out about us. We thought the storm would hold you and the doc in Nairobi all night. I’m awfully sorry,” he repeated, crestfallen. “But now I guess you know.”
“O.K.,” Ed Smith growled. “So now she knows. So what do we do with her?”
“Well,” Gus Fisher said, “we can’t leave her here, that’s for sure. It was easy enough pulling the wool over the eyes of those two nurses at the hospital. But the minute we’re gone, she’ll be on the wireless to the cops in Nairobi.”
“Then we’ll smash the radio,” Ed Smith said. “That ought to settle that.”
“Now wait a minute,” Long Jack Robertson said. “Use your heads. Sure, we’ll smash the radio. But she could get to town in the Rover—or, if we fixed that too, she could send a couple of the natives here into Nairobi.” He shook his head. “No, we’ll have to take her with us.”
“What?” Ed Smith’s mouth was agape. “You’re asking for a kidnapping rap.”
Long Jack managed a feeble grin. “As far as I know, there is no such thing in Kenya. Besides, if we don’t get clear of here with no traces, we’ll all be up on diamond-smuggling charges, including your slick little friend Krynos. And there is a law—and a tough one—against that.”
He turned to Cherry, who was trembling with fear and anger.
“As I said, Miss Ames, I’m sorry you had to get mixed up in this sordid mess. But I promise you that nothing will happen to you if you just come with us quietly and don’t try to kick up a fuss. We’ll drop you off at some little village a hundred miles or so from here, and you’ll be back safe and sound within a week.”
“A week!” Cherry thought. “What will happen to me in that week?” But her words had died in her throat.
“That’s a good idea,” the bush pilot said. “We can land do
wn in that little Warumbo village in Tanganyika—you remember, Jack—on the lake there. They’ll take good care of her, and by the time she gets to a wireless set we will be in South Africa.”
Long Jack picked up the briefcase, which he had dropped on the cot at Cherry’s sudden appearance. Then he gently took Cherry by the elbow and steered her out of the tent.
“Just be quiet now,” he said. “Then we won’t have to be rough with you.”
Cherry went along numbly as he led her toward the plane on the beach. The two others followed. All this had happened so suddenly that she was shaking. That Smith was a criminal she knew. That the bush pilot was in on it she had guessed. But the hunter! She couldn’t believe what her eyes and ears were telling her. She stumbled along as she walked, half held up by Long Jack Robertson’s hand.
Passing the outdoor area where the two-way radio sat on a table under a protective covering, Ed Smith ripped off the cover and pulled out a handful of wires, which he slung into the darkness behind him. “That takes care of that!” he grunted.
“We better put the Rover out of business too,” Gus Fisher said. “I’ll only be a minute.”
When he returned, he informed the hunter, “I took off the distributor and threw it into the bush. So this place will be out of touch with the rest of the world for at least twenty-four hours. That will give us plenty of time.”
“Good,” the hunter said softly. “Now let’s get moving.” He again propelled Cherry in the direction of the river.
When they were only a few yards from the beached aircraft, Cherry was overtaken by wild panic. She made a desperate try to free herself, twisting away from the hunter’s hand and wheeling around to run toward the safety of the dark trees. As she did so, she screamed for help.
Long Jack dropped the briefcase onto the sand and encircled her waist with a strong arm that felt like a band of steel. He clamped his other hand over her mouth, stifling her outcry.
The other two men stopped dead in their tracks. The pilot scooped up the leather case from the ground.
“Now, Miss Ames,” the hunter said soothingly, “I told you not to make any noise. So come along now, and…”
“Hold it!” A voice rang out from the darkness behind them. Cherry almost sobbed when she recognized it as Jeff’s. “Hold it right where you are and don’t move! I’ve got a gun on you!”
Gus Fisher’s hand snaked into the inside of his flight jacket and the shining barrel of a revolver gleamed in the pale moonlight. Before he could level the pistol, Jeff’s rifle spoke with a red burst of flame and a loud crack that shattered the jungle silence. Fisher spun around, tripped over his feet, and fell into the sand. His revolver spun from his hand, arched over his head, and splashed into the water of the river.
“I said hold it!” Jeff’s voice was hard. Both Long Jack and Smith had not moved from their tracks. Cherry disentangled herself from the hunter’s arm. Turning around, she could make out the silhouette of Jeff’s figure against the dim lights that shone from the hospital building.
“Cherry,” Jeff said, “go have Kavarondi fetch a couple of the men. And while you’re at it, get a roll of heavy adhesive tape from Bob’s lab.”
Jeff kept his rifle leveled at Ed Smith and Long Jack, both of whom stood motionless on the beach, until Cherry returned at a run. Tomi and one of Jeff’s big, muscular Kikuyu workmen followed close at her heels.
“Tape those fellows’ hands behind them,” Jeff ordered, tossing Tomi the roll of wide tape that Cherry had brought. When this was done, Jeff added, “Now go pick up the pilot and carry him to the lab. Unless I’m a worse shot than my father taught me to be, I only got him in the shoulder.”
Ten minutes later Ed Smith and the hunter were sitting on the floor of the lab, their hands taped securely behind them. Smith had the snarling expression of a trapped animal. Long Jack looked miserable; he turned his head away from Cherry. The pilot lay stretched out on a cot, his shirt cut away from him, as Cherry examined his wounded shoulder.
“The bullet went straight through,” she said to Jeff, “but apparently it smashed the clavicle—that’s the collar bone. There isn’t much I can do, except cleanse the wound thoroughly, until Bob gets here.”
Fisher groaned as Cherry daubed at his shoulder with an antiseptic.
“With the radio and the Land Rover out of commission,” Jeff said glumly, “that may not be until late tomorrow, or maybe the next day. He’ll just have to lie there and take it. Serves him right.” He had a sudden thought. “Wait a minute!” He turned to Long Jack. “Is there a two-way radio in that plane?”
“I was just going to mention it,” the hunter replied. “As long as you’ve got us trussed up like Christmas turkeys, there’s no point in letting Fisher suffer.”
Jeff handed his rifle to Tomi. “Here, keep this on them while I go out and call the Nairobi police.”
In a few minutes he was back. “Well, they’ve got a car on the way. It will be here in a couple of hours and Dr. Bob will be with them.” He took the rifle from Tomi. “So you crooks just make yourselves as comfortable as you can. They are fixing up nice jail cells for you in Nairobi.”
Cherry had given the wounded pilot a sedative and, with his shoulder bandaged, he was sleeping fitfully. The reaction from her frightening experience was catching up with Cherry, and now that she had done all she could for the pilot, her hands were shaking. She went to the refrigerator in the corner of the room and poured herself a glass of ice water.
“If you don’t mind, Miss Ames,” Long Jack Robertson said, “I could use a drop of that too.”
After she had her drink, Cherry took a glass of water to the hunter, and held the glass to his lips. He drank thirstily. Then he seemed to relax a little bit, as though accepting his fate.
“I thought I was a pretty good hunter, young fellow,” he said to Jeff. “But you outhunted me. Where did you come from out of the dark, and with that rifle? I looked the place over carefully after we landed, and there was nobody here but the Kikuyus.”
“Oh, shut up!” Ed Smith growled. “You talk too much!”
Jeff had to laugh, but his laugh was a little nervous and high-pitched. “I was out hunting, trying to get us some antelope steaks. If the rain hadn’t held me up, I wouldn’t have got back in time to see you three dragging Cherry to your plane. I started to yell, then something told me to keep my mouth shut and come up on you quietly.”
“Well,” the hunter said, loosening up a little, “that’s the instinct of a natural-born hunter. If I ever get out of this bloody mess, I’ll take you out on safari.” Then he added, “Would you believe me if I said there are no hard feelings? I should have known better.”
“I said shut up!” Ed Smith growled again.
“There’s no use shutting up,” the hunter said softly. “I brought this on myself. And I learned long ago that people have to take their medicine when they make mistakes. So I’ll take mine and be glad when the dose is down.”
Cherry grew curious. Long Jack, like many men who are caught in a crime, seemed anxious to get at least part of it off his chest.
“I knew these other two here had a hand in the diamond-smuggling business,” Cherry said to Robertson. “But how did you get mixed up in this? And why did you come back here after you knew an alarm was out for Smith?”
Ed Smith flushed with anger. “Shut up!” he snapped for the third time.
“No,” the hunter said slowly. “I have every intention of coming clean to the police, so I don’t mind doing the same with you, Miss Ames.” He hesitated. “To answer your first question, I guess it was just plain greed. I thought I was a strong man, but apparently I wasn’t strong enough to resist the lure of easy money when Smith here came to me with his proposition. He told me about the illegal diamond workings in Rhodesia, and in a moment of weakness—I suppose with a vision of a quick fortune—I agreed to be the go-between. As a freelance hunter, I had contacts all over East Africa and I could come and go as I pleased without arousi
ng any suspicion. So I enlisted Gus Fisher and his plane, and we delivered the diamonds to Smith and his partner Krynos. They, in turn, were to see to the business of spiriting the stones out of the country.”
Cherry’s eyebrows went up. “Then you were in on that scheme to smuggle some of them to England in the horns of the antelopes you shot?”
The hunter smiled weakly. “Yes, and so was the man who posed as my client. He was one of Krynos’ men too. But somehow, when things went wrong in London, he managed to give the police the slip. How he did it, I haven’t any idea. Of course, as far as anyone knew,” he added, “I was completely in the clear.”
All the while the hunter talked, Ed Smith was silent, but glowering with hate.
Cherry persisted, now that Long Jack seemed so ready to talk. “But why did you risk coming back here tonight?”
“Well, for one thing, we knew you and young Bob were in Nairobi, and when it stormed so hard, we thought that you would certainly be held up all night. It would have been easy to explain our presence to the other people here—even to this young fellow with the gun—if neither you nor Bob were around.
“Besides that,” he continued, “we knew the heat was on. Smith saw you two pull up at MATS headquarters just a minute or so after he had left the diamonds, so he knew the jig was up. He abandoned your truck and ran to Gus Fisher’s hangar, and Fisher hid him in a tool closet while he got in touch with me. I drove to the field as fast as I could, and we had a quick conference. There was still a small fortune in diamonds in Ed’s luggage here at the compound. I had given him a large consignment when he was with me those two days, and he’d only taken about a third of the stones to the airport to ship out with the samples of blood.” He looked up at Cherry. “I wonder if I could have another glass of that water.”
After Cherry had given it to him, he related the rest of the story.
“It was crazy, of course. We should have lit out fast in the plane. That is what we decided to do as soon as it got dark. But when the storm came up, as I say, we figured you and young Bob would be trapped in town for the night, so we decided to risk coming back for the diamonds.”
