Rhodesia (7 page)

It was an interesting barrier: unobtrusive and insurmountable, though it looked flimsy. A bar of three-inch steel swung on a pivot post with a counterbalance. It was painted with red and white stripes and you might mistake it for wood. Its free end was locked with a sturdy chain and fist-size English padlock.

Nick knew he could pick it or break it, but there was the question of strategy. From the center of the pole a long oblong sign hung down lettered in neat block-yellow — SPARTACUS FARM, PIETER VAN PREZ, PRIVATE ROAD.

There was no fence on either side of the gate, but the ditch from the highroad formed a moat impassable even for a jeep. Nick decided it had been cleverly dug that way with a backhoe.

He returned to the BMW, drove it farther into the bushes, and locked it Carrying the little radio he cut through the
bundu
on a course parallel to the side road. He crossed several dry creeks that reminded him of New Mexico in the dry season. Much of the vegetation seemed to have desert characteristics, able to hold its own moisture through drought periods. He heard a strange growling sound from a clump of brush and circled it, wondering if Wilhelmina could stop a rhino or whatever you ran into around here.

Keeping the road in sight, he saw the roof of a small house and approached it until he could inspect the terrain. The house was of cement or stucco, with a large kraal or cattle enclosure and neat fields stretching up a valley to the west and on out of sight. The road ran past the house and on into the bush, to the north. He took out his little brass telescope and studied details. Two small horses grazed under a shade roof like a Mexican ramada; a small, windowless building looked like a garage. Two large hounds sat looking in his direction, their jowls gravely thoughtful as they came through his lens like sad giants.

Nick crawled back and continued to parallel the road until he was a mile past the house. The
bundu
was getting thicker and the going rough. He reached the road and followed it, opening and closing two cattle gates. His receiver showed the Singer to be ahead of him. He trotted on, watchful but covering ground.

The parched road was gravel-surfaced and looked as if it drained well, not that it mattered in this weather. He saw dozens of cattle under trees, some very far away, A small snake scuttled off the gravel as he trotted by, and once he saw a lizard-like creature on a log that would take any ugliness prize — in its six-inch length it had varied colors, scales, horns, glaring eyes, and vicious-looking teeth. He stopped and mopped his head and it regarded him gravely without moving.

Nick looked at his watch — 1:06. He had been on foot two hours; estimated distance covered: seven miles. Using a handkerchief, he made a pirate's cap for protection from the searing sun. He reached a pump installation where a diesel purred smoothly and pipes vanished into the
bundu.
There was a spigot at the pump house and he drank after smelling and examining the water. It had to come from deep underground and was probably all right; he needed it badly. He mounted a rise in the road and looked ahead cautiously, like a cavalry picket He took out his telescope and extended it.

The powerful little lens showed him a large California-style ranch house amid a cluster of trees and well-trimmed vegetation. There were several outbuildings and kraals. The Singer was in the big looping drive, along with a Land Rover, a sporty-looking MG, and a classic car he did not recognize, a long-hooded roadster that must be thirty years old and looked three.

On a spacious screened patio at one side of the house he saw several people seated in colorful chairs. He focused carefully — Booty, an old man with weathered skin who gave the impression of being the host and leader, even at this distance, three other white men in shorts, two blacks...

He stared. One of them was John J. Johnson — last seen in New York's East Side Air Terminal, described by Hawk as a rare man with a hot trumpet. He had given Booty an envelope then. Nick decided he had come to pick it up. Very clever. The tour group, with its familiar credentials, came through customs easily, with hardly a piece of luggage opened.

Nick crawled back from the rise, made a 180-degree turn, and surveyed his backtrail. He felt uneasy. He had seen nothing behind him, actually, yet he fancied he had heard a short call that did not fit in with the animal noises. Intuition, he wondered? Or just overcaution in this strange country. He studied the road and the
bundu
— nothing.

It took him an hour to circle, using the five-stall garage to shield him from the patio, and approach the house. He crawled within sixty feet of the group behind the screens and hid behind a fat gnarled tree; the rest of the manicured shrubs and colorful plantings were too small to hide a midget. He focused his telescope through a notch in the branches. At this angle there would be no revealing sunflash from the lens.

He could hear only bits of talk. They seemed to be having a pleasant meeting. There were glasses and cups and bottles on the tables. Evidently Booty had arrived for and enjoyed a good lunch. He wished he had. The patriarch who looked like the host did a good deal of talking, as did John Johnson and the other black man, a wiry, smallish type in dark-brown shirt and pants and heavy boots. After he had been watching for at least half an hour he saw Johnson lift a packet from the table that he recognized as the one Booty had received in New York — or its twin. Nick never jumped to conclusions. He heard Johnson say, "...not much... twelve thousand... to us vital... we like to pay... nothing for nothing..."

The older man said, "...contributions were better before... sanctions... good will..." He spoke evenly and in a low tone, but Nick thought he heard the words "golden tusks."

Johnson unfolded a sheet of paper from the packet Nick heard, "Thread and needles... ridiculous code but clear..."

His rich baritone traveled better than the other voices. He went on, "...they are good guns and the cartridges are dependable. The explosives always work, at least so far. Better than the A16..." Nick lost the rest of it in the chuckles.

A car's motor sounded from back along the road Nick had used. A dusty Volkswagen came into view and was parked in the drive. A woman of about forty went into the house and was greeted by the older man and introduced to Booty as Martha Ryerson. The woman moved as if she spent much of her time outdoors; her stride was brisk, her coordination excellent. Nick decided she was almost beautiful, with intense, open features and neat, short brown hair that stayed in place when she took off her wide-brimmed hat Who would...

A heavy voice behind Nick said, "Don't move quickly."

Very quickly — Nick did not move a muscle. You can tell when they mean it — and probably have something to back it up. The deep voice with its musical British accent said to someone Nick could not see, "Zanga — tell Mr. Prez." Then, louder, "You can turn around now."

Nick turned. A Negro of medium height clad in white shorts and a pale-blue sports shirt stood with a double-barreled shotgun cradled under his arm, aimed just to the left of Nick's knees. The gun was an expensive one, engravings clear and deep in the metal, and it was ten-gauge — a portable short-range cannon.

These thoughts passed through his mind as he calmly watched his captor. He had no intention of moving or speaking first — that made some people nervous. A movement to one side caught his eye. The two dogs he had seen at the small house at the beginning of the road walked up to the Negro and then looked at Nick as if to say,
"Our lunch?"

They were Rhodesian Ridgebacks, sometimes called lion dogs, weighing about a hundred pounds each. They can break a deer's leg with a grip and twist, knock down good-size game with their battering-ram charge, and three of them can hold a lion. The Negro said, "Stay, Gymba. Stay, Jane."

They sat down beside him and lolled their tongues in Nick's direction. The other man looked down at them. Nick turned and leaped away, angling to keep the tree between himself and the shotgun.

He was counting on several things. The dogs had just been told to "stay." It might hold them still a moment. The Negro probably wasn't the leader here — not in "white" Rhodesia — and perhaps he had been told not to shoot.

Blam!
It sounded like both barrels. Nick heard the whine and shriek of light shot as it cut the air where he had been an instant before. It whacked against the garage he was approaching, forming a jagged circular pattern to his right. He saw it as he leaped up, hooked a hand over the garage roof, and threw his body up and onto the top in a one-hock mount and roll.

As he twisted out of sight he heard the scampering feet of the dogs and the heavier sounds of the running man. The dogs each gave a loud, gruff bark that carried a long way as if to say,
"Here he is!"

Nick could imagine them with their forepaws up on the side of the garage, those great mouths with the inch-long teeth that reminded him of crocodiles', open hopefully. Two black hands gripped the edge of the roof. The Negro's angry features rose into view. Nick whipped Wilhelmina out and writhed around, putting the barrel an inch from the man s nose. They were both still for an instant, looking into each other's faces. Nick shook his head negatively, said, "No."

The black face did not change expression. The powerful hands opened, and it dropped from sight. On 125th Street, Nick thought, they'd call him a real cool cat.

He surveyed the roof. It was covered with a light-colored compound similar to smooth, hard stucco, and without obstruction. If it hadn't been tilted slightly toward the rear you could put up a net and use it for a deck tennis court A bad place to defend. He looked up. They could climb any of a dozen trees and shoot down at him, if it came to that.

He drew Hugo and dug at the stucco. Perhaps he could blast a hole with plastique and steal a vehicle — if there was one inside the stalls. Hugo, its steel driven with all his powerful strength, dislodged chips smaller than fingernail parings. It would take him an hour to make a cup for the explosive. He sheathed Hugo.

He heard voices. A man called, "Tembo — who's up there?"

Tembo described him. Booty exclaimed, "Andy Grant!"

The first man's voice, British with a touch of Scots burr, asked who Andy Grant might be. Booty explained and added that he carried a gun.

Tembo's deep tones confirmed it. "He's got it with him. Luger."

Nick sighed. Tembo had been around. He guessed that the Scots burr belonged to the older man he had seen on the patio. It had the ring of authority. Now it said, "Put your guns down, men. You shouldn't have shot, Tembo."

"I didn't try to hit him," Tembo's voice replied.

Nick decided he believed it — but that blast had been damn close.

The voice with the burr sounded louder. "Hello up there — Andy Grant?"

"Yes," Nick replied. They knew it anyway.

"You bear a fine Highland name. You're Scottish?"

"So far back I wouldn't know which end of a kilt to get into."

"Ye should learn, mon. They're more comfortable than shorts." The burr chuckled. "Want to come down?"

"No."

"Well, have a look at us. We won't hurt you."

Nick decided to risk it He doubted they'd murder him casually with Booty looking on. And he wasn't going to win anything from this roof — it was one of the worst positions he'd ever gotten into. The simplest could be the most dangerous. He was glad none of his vicious antagonists had ever gotten him into a bind like it. Judas would have had a few grenades lobbed up and then riddled him with rifle fire from the trees for insurance. He put his head over the side and added a grin to his, "Hello, everybody."

Incongruously, at that instant a PA system flooded the grounds with a drum roll. Everyone froze. Then a good band — it sounded like the Scots Guards Band or the Grenadiers — thundered and piped into the opening bars of "The Garb of Auld Gaul." In the center of the group below him, the old man with weathered skin, standing over six feet of thin length and straight as a plumb line, roared, "Harry! Please go and turn that down a wee bit."

A white man whom Kick had seen in the group on the patio turned and trotted toward the house. The older man looked up at Nick again. "Sorry — we did nae expect conversation wi' tha music. 'Tis a fine tune. You recognize it?"

Nick nodded and named it. The old man smiled. He had a kindly, thoughtful face, and he stood easy. Nick felt uneasy. Until you knew them, this was the most dangerous type in the world. They were loyal and straight — or pure poison. They were the ones who led troops with a riding crop. Marched up and down atop trenches piping "Highland Laddie" until they were shot down and replaced by another. They were in the saddles as Sixteenth Lancers when they came upon forty thousand Sikhs with sixty-seven pieces of artillery at Aliwal. The damn fools charged, of course.

Nick gazed down. History was so helpful; it gave you a line on men and lessened your mistakes. Booty stood twenty feet behind the tall old man. With her were the two other white men he had noticed on the porch and the woman who had been introduced as Martha Ryerson. She had donned her wide-brimmed hat and looked like a pleasant matron at an English garden tea.

The old man said, "Mr. Grant — I'm Pieter van Prez. You know Miss DeLong. Let me present Mrs. Martha Ryerson. And Mr. Tommy Howe at her left and Mr. Fred Maxwell to her right."

Nick nodded to all and said he was delighted. The sun was like a hot iron on the back of his neck where the pirate cap did not reach. He realized how he must look, took it of it with his left hand, gave his forehead a wipe, and put it away.

Van Prez said, "Hot up there. Would ye care to toss your gun down and then join us for something cool?"

"I'd like something cool but I'd rather keep my gun. I'm sure we can talk this out."

"Sur-r-re we can. Miss DeLong says she thinks you're an American FBI agent. If you are, you've no quar-r-rrel with us."