Assignment Black Gold

by Edward S. Aarons

  “Sam, why was Brady killed?”

  “I don't know.”

  “But you know what’s going on?”

  “Not yet. My job is to find out what happened to Brady and why,” he said. “I know part of it now. And you know, too. But my problem doesn’t end there. Brady was killed for a reason, a reason big enough to cost him his life.”

  “But he said his job with you people was nothing, just an easy way to earn a few extra dollars. How much of a retainer did K Section pay him?"

  “Maybe a hundred a month.”

  “He was making much more out of his export business, shipping all those Apgak and Hulipo art things out to dealers in New York.”

  “I know.”

  “He got a kick out of working for you, didn’t he?”

  “Probably. We recruit on several bases. Sometimes they do it for the money, sometimes they’re even patriotic, sometimes they think it’s all fun and games.”

  “Fun and games," she repeated bitterly.

  “Take it easy, Kitty."

  “It's just that we didn’t love each other anymore, that’s all. We hardly spoke to each other, Sam. It was all over, finished, kaput. I don’t feel sorry about that, even now, and maybe I ought to feel guilty because he’s dead, so terribly dead, high up there and out so far in the ocean. But I don’t feel guilty, Sam, and not feeling that way makes me feel worse. I ought to be crying for him, but I can’t.”

  He tried a smile. “Your New England conscience?”

  “Oh, hell.” She looked up. “Why did you pull out all of Lepaka’s bugs?”

  “I have to phone a report in to Lisbon Central about Brady. They’ll relay it to Washington.”

  “Are you going on with this business?”

  “I have to.”

  “They’ll tap your call, too, you know. Lepaka is a very efficient man. Everything he does is efficient. Like—like—”Her mouth trembled and she hugged herself. He knew she was thinking or the way Lepaka had cut the man’s head off. “I’m afraid of him. Komo Lepaka. He always talks so softly, so politely, that big long drink of water, all knobby knees and elbows. almost comical. But he wasn’t comical when he—when—”

  “Take it easy,” he said again.

  He picked up the telephone and asked the operator for an overseas line. Oddly, the communications system was working well. He was promised a line in ten minutes. While he worked out the cipher, using an old BT-9 code he had committed to memory long ago, the cable office called back and said they were ready. He made the message brief, reporting Brady’s death. He added that he would set up a new Central for Lubinda and handle it until a replacement was sent out. He did not offer any reasons for Brady Cotton’s death, nor did he suggest any of the ideas that had formed in his mind about what he had to do about it.

  When he hung up, Kitty’s eyes were upon him. “They may or may not send that code, you know. At least, not until Colonel Lepaka reads it and figures it out.”

  “That’s all right," he said.

  “Why do you go on with it?” she asked.

  “Why not? It’s my business.”

  “It’s a terrible business,” she said.

  “Somebody has to do it.”

  “And you like it, don’t you?”

  “Not really.”

  She smiled. “Liar. But I’m fond of you, Sam.”

  “That remains to be seen,” he said.

  The pall of smoke that hung over the city and the riverbanks and the eastern jungle was dissipated finally by the heat of the afternoon sun. It did not take long for Colonel Lepaka to appear after Durell had pulled the bugs out of the room. Durell ordered coffee and a luncheon of fish and coconut salad and a fresh bottle of bourbon, and he made -the girl eat, although she protested she was not hungry. When she began on the fish, however, he noticed that she cleaned up her plate and licked her fingers afterward. It was a touching, childlike gesture. He showered while she finished eating, and afterward she sent down for some bandages and applied antiseptic to the various cuts and abrasions he had acquired during the struggle on the drilling platform.

  “You ought to get a shot of penicillin,” Kitty said.

  “That deck was pretty rusty, too. Maybe some tetanus would be good.”

  “I’ve had all the booster shots I need.”

  “K Section really takes care of you, doesn’t it?”

  “Only up to a point. We’ll never admit that Brady worked for us, for instance. How is your head? You had a bad knock when the Apgak jumped you.”

  “I have a hard head. A couple of aspirins will fix me up fine.”

  “You look great,” he said.

  “So do you.”

  They stared at each other as she sat on his bed in the quiet, shadowed room.

  Then Lepaka knocked and came in.

  “I have already spoken to Mr. Forchette at the hospital," Lepaka said.

  He still looked as if he had not slept for three days. The rims of his dark, muddy eyes were bright red, as if they were ready to start bleeding. He had changed into a fresh uniform, still in the South African police style, with new ribbons over his breast pocket. His boots were carefully shined.

  “Mr. Forchette gave me a list of the men who are missing from the rig. Here it is.” He unbuttoned one of the pleated pockets of his shirt and handed Durell a slip of paper. “A machinist, the cook, two roustabouts, and two engineers. One of the engineers was also a qualified radioman.”

  Durell said, “I want those men back.”

  “Alive? Or dead?” Lepaka asked quietly.

  “Alive, naturally.”

  “Then only the Saka can help you now. If you can persuade him to use his influence with the people, the Apgak attacks may collapse and some clue may be obtained as to where the men are being held. Meanwhile, of course. Mr. Tallman will have to negotiate as if to pay whatever ransom they may demand. To stall for time, you might say.”

  “The Saka,” Durell repeated.

  “We made a bargain, Mr. Durell.”

  “I mean to keep it.”

  “Good. I have limited forces. In less than a week, the Apgaks will take over the country. That is my most conservative estimate. So you understand the gravity of the situation.” The colonel looked at Kitty Cotton. “I cannot guarantee your safety in Lubinda, Mrs. Cotton. I do not know why you are an Apgak target, but you are. Perhaps they think your unfortunate husband confided in you, told you something they wish to know or wish to keep from becoming public. I wish you would take the plane to Luanda tonight.”

  “No. I said I’ll stick with Sam, and I will.”

  He is going on a very hazardous journey for me.”

  “I’ll still stay with him.” She looked at Durell. “Is that all right?”

  The thought crossed his mind that perhaps Lepaka was correct, that she knew something, consciously or not, that he ought to know.

  “You can come with me, Kitty,” he said.

  “The Saka is a legend,” she said. “If he’s really alive, I’d like the privilege of meeting him.”

  Lepaka sat down in a wicker chair in the hotel room. “Very well. Listen carefully. I cannot write the instructions. There are certain people to see, and you must say certain things to them. If the Apgaks know, or even get a hint of what you are trying to do, Madragata will make every effort to kill you. So it will not be easy. It will be most dangerous, in fact. I will give you arms and instructions. It is all I can do. I only hope you return with the Saka in time to save the country from going up in flames.”

  “Fair enough,” Durell said.

  Lepaka studied him for a moment.

  “You will first go to the village of Ngama Kotumbama. It is some distance to the south along the coast, near the border. A simple fishing village, a tribal community, that is not on any maps, I fear. It is considered unimportant, being partly nomad, since the people follow the wet and dry seasons of the Kahara Desert. I will arrange for the Bell helicopter to transport you part of the way. The rest of t
he distance, you will have to walk. In any case, you should arrive there by evening.” Lepaka paused, his eyes revealing long memories. “It is a pleasant walk, in a way. Sometimes beautiful, and a bit dangerous. If you are carful, you will have no difficulty. But you must conserve your water. Do you understand?”

  Durell said, “And in Ngama Kotumbama?”

  “You will find an old woman. Simply ask for the maka. She will tell you where to find my foster father.”

  “Why should she tell us? Why should she trust me?” Durell asked.

  Komo delved with two long fingers into his pleated shirt pocket and took out an old, worn Maria Teresa dollar, once the common currency of much of West and North Africa. There were tour holes drilled in the antique silver coin. “Show this to the maka. She will understand it came from me. Take it with you to the Saka, and he will know I need his help. The decision, of course, will be up to him. I can only have faith that he has not changed too much in his years of hermitage.”

  “Who is the old woman?” Durell asked.

  Komo Lepaka looked at him with unblinking eyes. “She is my mother. She belonged to the Saka, and he set her free.”

  “You said you were an orphan.”

  “In the true sense, I am. The old woman was the first of the Saka’s wives, in tribal days. When he adopted me, she became my mother.”

  “I see.”

  “There is much that you do not see, Mr. Durell. She already had one son by the old man. That son was Lopes Fuentes Madragata.”

  Chapter 12.

  The sea thundered and crashed along the wide, sandy beach as they walked south. The setting was an enormous, glowing red ball just over the horizon, its outline wavering and distorted by the heat of the atmosphere, While small white clouds overhead took on fantastic colorations of red and lilac and gold. Seagulls mewed and skimmed along the tide line, looking for tiny shellfish embedded in the sand by the receding tide. To the right, high bluffs overlooked the beach. Jagged limestone and striated sandstone added their own colors to the evening light by reflecting sharp lances of brilliance from mica and quartz, like so many miniature needles of color. Atop the bluff was the jungle, although it was thinner here to the south, growing straggly and paler as they approached the edge of the Kahara Desert. The dry season had almost ended, and the greenery up there, such as it was, looked dusty and shriveled and silvery from lack of moisture.

  For the last five miles, they had seen no other human beings.

  Lepaka had dropped them from the Bell chopper some forty miles south of the river mouth where Lubinda was situated. He had not lingered. There were more fires burning in the city, and he was in a hurry to get back. His handshake had been brief, hard and dry.

  “Find the Saka for me, Durell. You know what the alternative might be.”

  “What’s to keep us from just walking on until we cross the border?” Durell asked.

  “You would have to cross the Kahara along the Bone Coast first. You have enough water for just two days. You could not possibly make it.”

  Kitty said, “You arranged it this way?”

  “One must be sure of certain things. Durell is an exceptional man. The water I have given you both would not last half that time with any other person.”

  “Thanks for nothing,” Durell said.

  “You have an interest in making a success of this now,” Lepaka said. “You must succeed, too, if you hope to see your kidnapped countrymen again.”

  For some time after the chopper had vanished, beating its way northward, Durell and the girl had walked in silence. The beach was empty, the sea held no ships for them to sight. It was as if they had been dropped into an area of the world where man did not exist. Several times, Kitty looked at him as if she wanted to say something, but then she turned her face away and walked on in silence, shouldering the small pack that Colonel Lepaka had given each of them. Durell carried the rifle. He still had his S&W. The rifle was a .375 Magnum Express, and he wished it had been one of the automatic AK-47’s, or even a Russian-made Kalashnikov. He would have preferred, above all, an Israeli Uzi, many of which had found their way to Lubinda. He took the time on their first rest stop to break down the Magnum and examine it carefully before putting it together again and sliding a charge of cartridges into place.

  The sand was soft, the beach filled with tidal pools that forced them to detour widely at times. Durell had advised the girl against wading through the shallow, tepid salt water, in order to keep their boots in good shape. When the light began to fade, he identified occasional movement atop the bluff as wildebeest, the common gray, shaggy-maned antelope that moved in clumsily galloping herds. Once he spotted a family party of butt-gray reedbuck; their white tails. flashed as they bounded away. As dusk came, a troop of baboons led by a huge old male came down from their resting place under the mopane trees to the beach to search for stranded shellfish. The babies rode their mothers’ backs. The big male loader glowered at Durell and the girl and did not give way, and Durell detoured around them. Ten minutes later, he called a halt and they sat facing the sea, eating the sandwiches Komo Lepaka had given them—the only food he had offered—

  and Durell sipped sparingly at the canteen of water. The girl sat close to him, her knees drawn up, and stared at the ocean. Behind them, the bluff had become lower and he could see the scrubby thorn trees and brush that struggled to exist in what had become a sandy waste reaching far into the interior.

  “How much farther is it?” the girl asked quietly.

  “Another hour.”

  “Will they give us food and water at this fishing village?"

  “It depends.”

  “Doesn't it bother you?” she asked.

  “No. Does it worry you?”

  “It’s strange,” she said.

  He waited.

  “It’s strange that I’m not worried. I look at the ocean here, and it seems a little different from the Atlantic at Gloucester, but not all that different, and I feel at home. Maybe it’s because I’m with you.”

  “You don’t know me at all, Kitty.”

  “If it comes to that, I don’t know any men. Bobby . . .”

  She paused and looked pensive. “We were divorced in two months. Imagine that. Stupid kids.”

  “You were married before you met Brady?”

  “If you can call it a marriage. A couple of kids fumbling and groping at each other at Bass Rocks, hoping nobody in the passing cars going to Rockport would notice us. I—partly because I’m from an old Portuguese family there, the Yankees wouldn’t quite accept me. Friendly enough, everything fine on the surface, but underneath, you were cut dead. I got used to it, and then thought it didn’t matter when Bobby wanted to marry me. He was there for the summer from Harvard. His family had a home at Magnolia, down the shore.” She shook her head and he sensed her past desperation. “They gave us no help at all. Nothing. You never felt so cold as when you went into that big summerhouse of theirs and looked into their eyes and sat down to dinner with them. I almost choked on the food. Cut us dead. Bobby said at first that it didn’t matter, but then he brooded about it—maybe he was a mama’s boy, I don‘t know. I certainly wasn't about to mother him. Finally, at the end of the summer, we split. The family was happy to arrange for the divorce.” She paused bitterly. “We might just as well have had an affair for the season, and quit. You see, I didn’t know him.”

  “Did you know Brady?”

  “Same mistake. They say that people in marital trouble always look for the same type with which to make another goof. Brady was different, but maybe he was the same. I never felt at home with him, like I feel at home with you, Sam.”

  “You could be making another mistake,” he said.

  She shook her head. “I don’t know." She put her chin on her knees and stared at the darkening sea. “I’m lonely, Sam, that‘s all. Don’t you like me?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “They think I‘m a prude,” she said suddenly. “A prissy Yankee gal.”


  “And you’re not?”

  He watched her breathe, saw the lift of her breasts under the shirt she wore. She stood up, her body graceful, straightening her legs like a dancer as she rose. "I'm going for a swim. It’s been a long, hot walk."

  She took off her shirt, her bra, wriggled out of her slacks, kicked off her boots. She did not look at him as she undressed. Her body seemed to capture and engulf the last rosy glow of the setting sun, He thought he saw tears glisten in her large eyes, as if the memories she had evoked of her young past had been more disturbing and frustrating than she admitted. Without a word, she ran naked down to the water’s edge, her hips swaying, and splashed into the warm shallow sea. Breaking waves curled for some distance out from the beach, their muted thunder and crash like a final orchestration for the dying day.

  Durell looked up and down the long, empty shore. In this place, at this time, for one of the rare moments in his business, there seemed to be no danger in sight. He heard the girl call, saw her wave joyously to him as she plunged deeper into the sea. He stood up and undressed, carefully put the rifle and his handgun where the sand would not damage them. Then he ran after her.

  The salt water was a refreshing shock. He dived under a comber, came up, swam strongly, dived again. He heard the girl call to him over the crash of the breakers; she waved and swam toward him. He felt the tug of the undertow, not too bad, and saw the sky turn lilac and orange and a dark, deep blue to the east as the last quivering tip of light from the setting sun vanished from the ocean’s horizon. He felt her body against him, warm and smooth, wet and pliant, and her head came up, her face turned toward him. He kissed her. Her mouth was rich and willing. Her eyes had lost their haunted look.