Love's Golden Spell

by William Maltese

  “You’ll still wave goodbye,” Craig promised, “although you’ll now be less content to see me go.”

  “Craig, what’s this all about?” Janet asked. She wouldn’t easily forgive the torment of his cruel lie about Christopher—if it was a lie. Her heart was still thumping madly from the scare.

  “Here’s the man who kept the poachers informed of the best times and places for their strikes,” Captain Frazier conjectured further. “As soon as I saw that communiqué, I realized that some of his cohorts must have been taken, which was also part of the plan. Captured men sometimes have the nasty little habit of spilling the beans. They would quite likely, for instance, reveal who their ringleader was.”

  “I don’t believe it!” Janet protested.

  “Ask him,” Captain Frazier challenged. “No wonder he was banging his head against the wall when it came to coming up with the guilty party. He couldn’t haul himself off to jail, could he?”

  “Craig?” Janet asked, more than one question implied by her simple speaking of his name.

  “It’s true,” Craig admitted. “There’s no point in my playing innocent any longer.”

  “Why?” Janet asked, aghast. “Your grandfather and father devoted their lives to wildlife preservation, and you’ve been instrumental in destroying all they worked to achieve.”

  “My grandfather died as poor as a country church mouse. My father was shot down with hardly enough in his savings account to pay for his and my mother’s funerals. Here’s one Sylo who’s getting out of Africa what Africa owes him—and don’t tell me it doesn’t owe me!” he said. “I’ve as much right to some of the gravy as your boyfriend does. Hell, I’ve more right. My grandfather and my old man worked their lives away to keep Africa unsullied, while the Van Hoons raped the countryside for everything it was worth. In the end, all my grandfather and father did wasn’t worth a damned thing. It’s men like the Van Hoons who always win in this world. So why shouldn’t I be out for number one?”

  “You used me!” Janet shouted. He had worked so hard to get her and Christopher together, because he had wanted her daily reports on where the V.H.A.M. team was headed. He couldn’t count on their filed itineraries. Team members were always wandering off, as Paul Spencer had done. Unmonitored, they could stumble onto things they weren’t supposed to see.

  Paul Spencer was dead. If Craig hadn’t pulled the trigger, he might as well have. In the stampede designed to scare away the research team, a soldier had been trampled to death, Janet had almost been killed and Christopher had had to shoot an elephant to save her. Melissa and Suzy were dead—all because of Craig!

  “You’re despicable and crude!” she exclaimed. To think she had once actually held him up as some kind of model.

  “Yes, go ahead and damn me for my ill-gotten gains, while you guiltlessly plan to marry into a fortune built from more exploitation of Africa than my killing of a few elephants and rhinos!” Craig declared. “Then you tell me, while you’re busy spending your husband’s money, which of us is more honest—which of us is more the hypocrite.”

  As much as she longed to deny any truth to Craig’s words, Janet felt a niggling uneasiness. She and Christopher still had so much to resolve.…

  “You’re not getting away with this, Sylo!” Captain Frazier warned.

  “And who’s going to stop me? You, Captain Frazier?” he asked before answering his own question. “I think not. You’re going to let me go, because that’ll be better than dying in any attempt to play hero and stop me. But we’re wasting valuable time with this idle chitchat, aren’t we? Is that what you’re counting on? Do you expect Major Jenkins to realize I’ve slipped through his fingers in the confusion?”

  “Major Jenkins has the ivory,” Janet reminded Craig triumphantly.

  “Only some of it,” Craig replied. “We’ve a lot already funneled through the pipeline; believe me—far more than I ever dreamed possible. When I first got involved, I was thinking of only four or five elephants. That was big money compared to my yearly income. I was even upset when my partners started getting greedy and endangering my cover by continually going for more. However, I’m going to be the one to enjoy the fruits of their greed while they sit out their time in some jail cell. There is justice in the world, after all, yes? Now about that plane.…”

  “You won’t get far!” Captain Frazier vowed, stalling for time. But Craig had obviously already gauged his position. Even if the prisoners had revealed their informant’s identity to Major Jenkins by now, no doubt hoping to gain lighter sentences in return for their information, by the time they all returned it would be too late. Craig would be long gone.

  “I’ll get far enough with Janet along,” Craig assured the captain. “It’s not as if I haven’t made some plans for this day, you know. My cover could have been blown a long time ago. In fact, I was expecting it to be. It was sheer luck it wasn’t. It was even luckier that my optimistic superiors in Salisbury held out until now, figuring a guy, like me, with my father and my grandfather, would surely come through for them. So don’t worry about me. I’ve greased enough palms with ivory to get me out of Africa and to a certain sizable bank account awaiting me elsewhere.”

  It was his tent, and he knew where things were. He picked up a jacket and draped it over his arm, hiding the gun. No one would look that closely, anyway. It wouldn’t occur to anyone to suspect the ex-commandant of holding a gun on the man brought in to replace him. Craig didn’t rush. He proceeded calmly and coolly but efficiently.

  “Captain Frazier and Private Choma, step outside first,” Craig instructed, waving the gun. “Janet and I will follow. The private will drive the captain’s Jeep; Captain Frazier in front with him. Janet and I will sit in back. And don’t any of you try anything, will you? I’ll shoot one or all of you if I have to.”

  “You should give yourself up, Craig,” Janet said. Craig laughed in genuine good humor. “I’m serious,” she insisted.

  “I know you are,” he replied. “You see salvation awaiting this poor sinner if he repents his wicked ways. However, I have no such illusions. I would be put away for far longer than I have any mind to be. So save your breath, Janet. Surrender is out of the question. Let’s get on with the better alternative.”

  They left the tent and got into the Jeep. Janet hoped Christopher wouldn’t show up and attempt any dangerous heroics. She didn’t want him dead, and Craig would shoot if pressed—she was convinced of that now.

  Before leaving the encampment that morning, Major Jenkins had ordered two trucks left in the middle of the dirt road that doubled as a runway. There was no way the airplane could take off around or over them. This had offered Craig his main obstacle in making any escape without first enlisting the aid of Captain Frazier, whose men manned those vehicles. It took only one command from Frazier to have the trucks pulled back. No one was the wiser, since the word was out that Christopher Van Hoon had been shot and Craig had come to fetch the wounded man’s fiancée.

  “Excellent,” Craig said when the Jeep pulled to a stop not far from where the plane stood beneath the shade of several milkwood trees. “Now if the private will disengage the mooring cables and slide the blocks free of the wheels, we’ll wait.” Private Choma proceeded to do as he was told.

  “How long are you planning to have me along as your hostage?” Janet asked. She wasn’t afraid; she merely wanted this out of the way so she could get back to her life with Christopher.

  “Counting the minutes, are you?” Craig asked. His smile was an unattractive smirk. “Relax and take things as they come, Janet. After all, you now know Van Hoon has nothing I can’t offer, including money. Oh, I can’t match him bank account for bank account, but I’m no longer a pauper—that’s for certain. I might even have him beat in a few other departments. You can tell me for sure later.”

  Janet snapped to attention. He was planning more for her than a little side trip. “If I were you, I wouldn’t make comparisons between you and Christopher,” she warned. “
As far as I’m concerned, you’ll always come out on the short end.”

  “We’ll see what you have to say about further comparisons after our little trip gets underway,” Craig said. His suggestive wink gave Janet no comfort.

  “You’re disgusting, Sylo!” Captain Frazier spat. He, too, was catching Craig’s none-too-subtle innuendos. “You be damned careful what you attempt with Mrs. Westover.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” Craig retorted, sneering.

  Janet was appalled—more disgusted than fearful. Her mind flashed back to the times she had innocently spent alone with Craig. There hadn’t been that many—once after Christopher had unexpectedly shown up at Great Zimbabwe and insisted they talk; again at Victoria Falls. She had been looking for someone to offset the disturbing effect Christopher had on her, and Craig had been a likely choice. However, there hadn’t been any magic between them, or any danger. Clearly there was danger now.

  “You look nervous, Janet,” Craig said mockingly. She didn’t like the way he said it. She didn’t like anything about this situation. She should have seen the man as he was long before this too-late moment. There had been hints—something he had said about money not being the best thing in life, but everything else coming in a distant second. There had been that comment on how he would like, just once, to be in Christopher’s shoes long enough to know the feeling of having all that money and all those women. She had thought he was joking, because she had been confident at the time that she had him and Christopher correctly labeled and filed into categories. Craig was honest, trustworthy, loyal, friendly, courteous, kind—a veritable boy scout, interested not in material things but in endeavors like saving the animals of Africa. Christopher had been born with a gold spoon in his mouth and expected everything and everyone he wanted—money, power, beautiful women—to fall into his lap: a money-mad businessman who ran over anyone or anything at the hint of possible profit. Since then, she had at least partially adjusted her opinion of Christopher, but she hadn’t stopped to rethink Craig. It was an oversight for which she was to pay dearly, if Craig was to have his way.

  “So? Which one is it, Captain Sylo or Van Hoon?” Roger had asked on the plane just before the camera crew was evacuated to Salisbury on Craig’s orders. She had told him it was Christopher. “Good,” he had answered. “I couldn’t say this before, but he’s the better man.” And Dr. Nhari didn’t like Craig. And Christopher didn’t like him. Still, Janet had seen what she’d wanted to see. She had wanted an ideal man who labored for good causes and battled evil and avarice in a world gone mad. She had wanted a friendship with a man who had all the good qualities she had once thought missing in Christopher. Yet she had never seriously considered Craig as anything more than a friend. It had quickly become obvious that he was no match for Christopher, with all his faults. Her preference for Christopher must have been one more blow to an ego already bruised and battered by jealousy and envy.

  “You’ll never get anything from me, Craig,” she said.

  “Never is a very long time,” he said cryptically, sending chills up and down her spine—and it wasn’t a pleasurable sensation.

  She turned desperately to Captain Frazier then, but despite the commanding appearance of his uniform, he was as helpless as she. The ointment smeared on his sunburned face drew more flies, and sweat glistened on his brow. Craig was calm, cool and collected. He was in control: He was the enemy, and he was about to win.

  Private Choma returned to the Jeep, his mission accomplished. “We’ll be saying goodbye to you gentlemen now,” Craig said, his gun ready for any necessity. “I’ll expect Captain Frazier to remain in view of his men until we’re airborne. I want everyone to see his full stamp of approval set on this mercy mission. Slide over this way, Janet. That’s right. Now step on out.”

  “If you harm Mrs. Westover, there’s going to be hell to pay!” Captain Frazier said.

  Craig wasn’t impressed. “Harm Janet?” he asked incredulously. He reached for her with his free arm and drew her close. She wanted to pull away, but a scene was out of the question as long as Craig had a gun. “Janet and I are dear friends, aren’t we, Janet?”

  “I once thought we were friends, but I was mistaken,” she said.

  “Yes, we’re dear, dear friends,” Craig said, ignoring her denial. “But as much as it would pain me to hurt a dear, dear friend, I will if either of you gentlemen makes what even looks like one false move.”

  “You bastard!” Captain Frazier barked. Private Choma, as helpless as the captain, could only nod his agreement. “You’re a disgrace to your uniform!” Frazier added.

  Craig merely laughed at that comment. He kept his arm firmly around Janet’s waist and walked her to the plane. “You first, Janet,” he said. She moved slowly, hoping for a miracle. Christopher would save her, but she didn’t want him exposed to the dangerous risks any rescue would require. Besides, he was with Major Jenkins and out of temptation’s way. Janet would carry on as best she could, hoping this predicament promised none of the horrors she was reading into it. “A little faster, please, Janet!” Craig insisted, his impatient tone belying the politeness of his words.

  She entered the plane and turned into the aisle between the seats, heading toward the cockpit. The other times she had been in the plane, the seats, recently replaced, had been removed to make additional cargo space.

  Suddenly there was a loud noise behind her. “What the hell?” Craig exclaimed. Something deflected off Janet’s foot, and she looked down instantly to see Craig’s pistol skid beneath the seats. She turned to confront the continuing noise.

  “Christopher!” she gasped. There was no mistaking his powerful body locked in battle with Craig for control of Christopher’s gun. She marveled at how he could be there. Since Craig had shut the door of the plane, Christopher must have been waiting in the tail section all along. But how had he known enough to be there?

  The two men grappled for the gun still in Christopher’s possession, moving slowly down the aisle toward her. Janet automatically stepped back. With the seats bolted in place, there wasn’t much space for two large men to move. Clearly well matched, they tumbled over seat backs that collapsed beneath the combined weight. The gun dropped from Christopher’s hand and clattered in between the seats.

  Janet dropped to her knees, looking for either gun. She spotted Craig’s, but not the other. Because of where the two men were fighting, she couldn’t reach it. Frustrated, she got up and hurried into the cockpit. Through the window she saw Captain Frazier and Private Choma sitting dutifully in the Jeep. She waved to them frantically, but neither was looking in her direction. She pounded on the sealed window. She put her mouth close to the glass and screamed, “Help, damn it, help!” She was behaving like the heroine in a B-movie, but she didn’t care. She had to get the attention of Frazier and the private.

  Craig and Christopher were fighting harder now, but the cramped quarters kept them from doing as much damage as they might have. Their momentum carried them back toward the tail section. Outside, Captain Frazier and Private Choma had finally caught sight of Janet, had run to the plane and were trying unsuccessfully to open its locked door. The captain, having shouted for assistance, had brought soldiers running from the sidelines.

  Janet went down on all fours in another attempt to get Craig’s gun, and this time she succeeded. The other gun was still nowhere to be seen, probably wedged between two seats. Janet hated guns. The feel of the one in her hand was especially disturbing. “Stop, or I’ll shoot!” she commanded. It was another hackneyed line from some late-night movie; it didn’t get any results. The two men kept slugging it out as if they hadn’t heard her. Anyway, she hadn’t aimed the gun for fear of shooting Christopher.

  The wrench had been left on the floor by one of the crew who had bolted down the seats, and Craig was the first to find it. Janet saw him with it before Christopher did. “He has a wrench!” she screamed in warning, watching Craig raise the piece of heavy metal. The blow grazed Christ
opher’s already bruised cheekbone and whacked his shoulder. Encouraged, Craig raised the wrench again.

  Janet fired a shot into the air. Disoriented by the sound, Craig turned toward her for a fraction of a second. And it was long enough for Christopher to bend down and retrieve the gun that had lain out of sight not far from his feet.

  “This is it, Sylo,” he said quietly, training the weapon on the other man, whose face was a mask of despair and disgust.

  * * * * * * *

  SHE SAT with her back against the trunk of a milkwood tree. Christopher lay with his head in her lap. His eyes were closed, and she gently traced the edge of the bruise growing more defined along his cheekbone. His hair was glowingly blond against the orange of her blouse. “You’re going to end up with a black eye, too,” she prophesied.

  “Will you love me anyway?” he asked.

  “Of course,” she said. His question and her answer were superfluous. It was accepted that she loved him and would do so forever.

  “Did I thank you for saving my life?” he asked, opening eyes as golden and as attractively hypnotic as ever.

  “Yes, I believe you did,” she said with a smile, “shortly after I thanked you for once again coming to my rescue.”

  Captain Frazier broke away from the group of soldiers gathered around the airplane. “We’re ready to fly Sylo out,” he said. “He won’t thank you for what you did; he has a lot of time in the stockade stretching ahead of him.” He dropped to his haunches to put himself on eye level with the two of them.

  Christopher anticipated the captain’s next question and asked it for him. “How did I happen to show up at the right place at the right time?”

  “I guess the prisoners taken during the raid talked their heads off, huh?” Captain Frazier speculated. He brushed away the fly that was trying so persistently to sample the ointment on the bridge of his nose. “Sylo was convinced no one would spill the beans about him until the legal people were brought in for plea bargaining.”