Assignment Black Gold (3 page)

“Your mother was a whore, Madragata,” Durell said. “And you
are her stupid son, a murderer of innocent civilians.”

“You cannot anger me. Kill me now, if you wish. It would be
better for you. Otherwise, you will die badly. Not an hour, not a minute, not a
second while you are in Lubinda will you be safe. You will not rest, you will
not eat or drink, you will not sleep. You will die.”

Lopes Fuentes Madragata showed no fear. His face was beaded
in sweat from his pain. He sat back, resting on arms spread behind him. Durell
moved two steps away to the left.

“I am only interested in Brady Cotton," he said. “What
happened to him?”

“The same that will happen to you.”

“He’s dead?”

“You will find out.”

“Why?”

“Because we learned who and what he really was.”

“You lie, son of a whore."

“I am not angry with you. I do my revolutionary duty. I keep
a cool head, as you would say it. I am calm, see? Even if you kill me now, I am
calm. I rejoice for the coming revolution.”

“Bloodbath, you mean.”

“Some innocents will die, yes. It is always so.”

Durell heard
Fengi
stumble finally
to his feet some short distance behind him. At the same time, a questioning
call came from across the road near the riverbank. No lights shone on the broad
reaches of the estuary. The night was filled with the smells of the tide,
of rank mud, of decayed vegetation. He heard the thump and throb of the diesel
generator that supplied power to the Tallman bungalow. Then shadows came
running across the road toward them.

Madragata laughed.

“You see? My men look for me. You are finished.”

Durell did not want to kill any of these men. Their quarrel
with the local government was not his. It was not his business to interfere; he
was a stranger in this tiny, bloody country. Whoever had blown his cover, and
however Madragata of the Apgaks had. learned about him, made no difference. An
open struggle here would block everything he had to do in Lubinda.

But he saw no way out.

Fengi
stumbled toward them from
the bush. The other men from the road shouted and fanned out in a quick search
for their missing leader. He saw no choice. Then he heard the sound of the
jeep.

It roared down the dirt road from Lubinda at a furious,
breakneck speed. The headlights glared, showing thickets of elephants’ ears,
young bamboo, the graceful curves of
nipa
palms, and
the blink of oleanders and wild orchids. The four Apgak men were caught by
surprise in the full blast of the jeep‘s lights. There came a shattering crash
as a grenade was hurled from the jeep. And another. Night birds squawked and
flew up everywhere. A monkey screamed and chattered away. The Apgaks ducked and
ran. Durell jumped for the jeep, snatching up the AK-47 that Madragata had
dropped. He could not see who was in the vehicle, but an arm waved him on. The
jeep slowed for
at
moment as he reached the edge of
the road.

“Get in! Quick!”

It was a girl’s voice. He tumbled inside, felt her body
swing as she threw a third grenade at the retreating Apgaks. He settled in the
front seat as the girl tramped on the gas and spun the jeep on two wheels in a
complete turn in front of the bungalow. He could scarcely make out her face in
the darkness.

“Hung on,” she said. “We’re getting out.”

“What about the Tallmans?”

“I've called the police. The security people are right
behind me.”

She tramped on the accelerator again. The jeep lurched,
bounced, almost turned over. He had no idea who she was, but he was grateful
for her arrival. Almost at once, before he could demand that she pick up the
Tallmans, he saw the police scout car come down the road toward the bungalow.
The girl slowed the jeep, waved airily toward the armed Lubindans.

“It’s all right, Komo! Get Betty and Hobe. I think
Henrique’s with them, too. They’re probably all sitting on the floor by
now, shaking their teeth loose!”

“Yes. Mrs. Cotton."

“Thank you!"

She gunned the jeep and Durell hung on.

Chapter 4.

“You didn’t come here with money bags for Brady, that‘s for
sure,“ the girl said.

“Not exactly.”

“Did the Apgaks shake you up?”

“Not too much.“

“They wanted you, huh?

“Yes. lid like to know why.”

"Brady isn't really coining into money, is he?”

“Not really.”

“So your cover is already blown.”

“It seems that way. Who would do it?”

“Not me," she said promptly. “Not Brady, either.”

“Lopes Fuentes Madragata says Brady Cotton is dead.”

“Maybe he is,” said Mrs. Cotton.

“It doesn’t seem to distress you very much.”

“I would be distressed if it were true. For Brady’s sake,
not mine. But we were about to split anyway. And don’t ask me why. It‘s
personal.”

“Why?” Durell asked.

“To hell with you. Don’t make me regret my cavalry charge,
Cajun. You
are
the Cajun, aren’t
you?”

“Yes.”

She was silent. The town of Lubinda, the new capital of this
tiny enclave, was already half asleep at the hour of ten in the evening—and
sleeping was not a very different status from its appearance under the broiling
sub-equatorial sun since the offshore drilling had stopped. There was a sad
slum of native tin-can and palm-frond huts along the river. inland from the new
port constructed partly by World Bank funds, partly by the LMO Company. On a
low promontory south of the new port stood a cluster of White government
buildings—the Presidential Palace, a low structure with a white central dome,
an alleged Congress of Tribes that was a concrete reproduction of native
architecture with a conical roof, and the Security House, low and not too
obtrusive. There was also an office building put up by Lubinda Marine
Oil. structured in the honeycomb style favored by unimaginative architects the
world over.

The native market along the water’s edge facing the open
Atlantic was the only genuine outgrowth of local culture. Lusty and brawling, filled
with merchandise from the interior and the offerings of the West and
Japan—transistor radios, Yamahas, drip-dry clothes from Hong Kong, ice cream
stalls, and Pepsi signs. The Pequah was an enclave within an enclave, squeezed
between the modern evidence of independence and the antique remnants of
Portugal, whose old fort commanded the mouth of the estuary and once guarded a
colony of colonial villas now occupied by government functionaries and troubled
executives of the Lubinda Marine Oil Company.

The girl turned her jeep into the darkened alleys of the
Pequah, rolled quietly between shuttered shops and across tiny squares, passed
a single mosque down toward the waterfront where the masts of native fishing
boats rocked with the dark night tide.

"My name is Kitty," the girl said. “Kitty Alvarez
Cotton. From Gloucester, Mass. My people were Portuguese Americans from ‘way
back. lf you're wondering about my blond hair, it’s real. The sun does my
touch-ups for me. I guess I’m more Yankee than Portuguese. One of the
Gloucester fishing Yankees got into my great-great-grandma, I guess. Just
talking about Cape Ann makes me homesick. For the roses and the fogs and the
rocks and Ten Pound Island, you know?"

“I’ve been there," Durell said.

She was tall, and as frank about her body and her attitudes
as were most of her generation. She would be just a year or two younger than
Brady Cotton—if Brady wasn‘t dead and eternal by now. She handled the jeep with
a casual competence that let him relax as she squeezed down the narrow alleys
and lanes, passed closed shops, and drove beyond the small mosque that
co-existed peacefully practically next door to the tiny Portuguese Sephardic
synagogue. The People’s Republic of China had slyly established a diplomatic
mission here, where the Lubindans really lived. The Russian Embassy was up on
the promontory, cuddling up as close as possible to the domed Presidential
Palace. The American Embassy was not visible—being situated with typical aloofness
on the other side of Government Point in an exclusive compound on the beach,
beyond the sights and smells of Lubinda's normal lite, The American presence
was virtually unseen—and barely tolerated.

But Brady Cotton had gone down among the people in the
Pequah to establish contact. He had been assigned as K Section’s Central in
Lubinda only three months ago, when it looked as
it
the shaky new democracy would go down in flames before the dissident
Maoist Apgaks. Brady had come in with the Texas oilmen who hoped to strike
offshore oil and make Lubinda and themselves rich. Nothing had happened yet,
but Brady had sent in information. data, pithy comments that were angry, often
obscene, and always to the point.

Brady had disappeared a week ago, after the offshore rig was
shut down. Durell had been sent to find him. General Dickinson
McFee
, at K Section’s headquarters in Washington, hadn’t
made it seem important.

“You can relax there, Samuel.” the little general had told
him at the short briefing. “I understand the climate isn't too bad. You
need a rest, it: any case."

“I’d rather spend the time on the Chesapeake,” Durell had
said.

"But you know Brady Cotton. do you not?’

"I've met him. He's good. But there’s nothing going on
in Lubinda. We don't have to worry too much about the KGB or the Black House
over there. It's not important enough.”

“Still, Brady has disappeared,”
McFee
insisted. “He’s missed his last two analysis broadcasts. He never missed them
before."

“Maybe Brady is just bored.”

“Well, go find out what’s boring him, then. I don’t
like it when one of our Centrals shuts down and goes dead.”

The house and shop looked like any of its neighbors in the
Pequah. Built of red stone quarried in the desert to the south, with yellow
Portuguese roof tiles, it was sturdy and solid in its two-storied height. Kitty
Cotton parked the jeep with a vehement pull on the hand-brake and jumped out.
There was no one in sight in the little lane. The shop that Brady had
established as a cover for his Central was an import-export establishment;
Brady was a historian with some knowledge of West African culture. The
antiquities and
objets
d’art
that his merchant scouts picked
up in the interior toward Zaire and south toward Namibia made it a profitable
concern. His business accounts, Durell discovered, were all in order, kept in
Kitty Cotton’s neat, round hand.

“They tell me you were in the Pequah this afternoon,
straight from the airport.” Kitty had a pleasant, husky voice. The humid heat
of the night didn‘t disturb her, however much she claimed to long for Cape
Ann’s crisp breezes. She produced a key and grinned. “You didn’t get in, did
you?”

“Your neighbors are loyal enough,” Durell admitted. “I felt
their beady eyes on rue all the tune. Had no chance to pick the lock.”

"In you go,” she said.

The shop was scented with sandalwood, filled with a
pale gloom that filtered in through the steel louvers of the window
shutters. There was a public lamp at the far end of the lane. The figure
of a man startled hint; he almost drew his gun. Then he saw that it was an
antique Apgak image carved in mahogany, a jungle king probably dating back four
centuries. There were glass-covered eases of smaller objects, silver jewelry,
carved figurines of ivory, antique hide shields and old iron spears,
three Portuguese crossbows and crested helmets.

“This way,” the girl said.

She led him into a storeroom packed with eases that reached
to the beamed ceiling. One corner had been cleared as an office of sorts,
and contained a modern steel desk with a Formica top, a steel chair on rollers,
and filing cabinets. The girl closed the door and reached for the light.

It was the first time he had properly seen her.

She was tall, coming a bit above his shoulder, with thick
blond hair tied with a red ribbon at the nape of her neck. It should have made
her look severe, but instead it gave her olive-tinted face—her Portuguese
heritage, Durell guessed—a serene and classic look. Her eyes were pale blue,
the whites clear and striking against her darker skin. There was a slight bump
to her nose, perhaps from her amorous Yankee ancestor. She had a full mouth and
a good chin; her skin was extraordinarily clear, almost limpid. She wore blue
jeans, tight about her thighs, with a wide black leather belt studded with
brass. Her long feet were in leather-
thonged
sandals,
They looked clean. He could not see where she wore any makeup. A thick series
of gold and silver chains hung about her neck, the pendants hanging down over
her dark man's shirt between high, proud breasts.

She grinned at him in the light of the gooseneck desk lamp,
aware of his survey. “Hi, Cajun.”

“I should thank you,” he said. “Where did you get to be so
handy with grenades?”

“Brady taught me about them. And guns, too. And a bit about his
work for you people. None of the details —he was tight-mouthed about what he
really did. But, of course, I couldn't be living with him and not know he had
irons in the fire for K Section.”

“Are you really married to him?”

She stood spread-legged, challenging, her hands thrust into
the tight pockets of her jeans. “Sure I am. He’s kind of attractive in a rough
western way—-he was. at least, when I met him in Gloucester last summer. I have
ambitions, you see. I’m an artist. Not bad, not good yet. I was looking for a
gimmick, and when he said he was coming here to Africa, I thought it might be a
good chance to study Lubindan art work. Something new, you see. So we were
married at Rocky Neck. All my friends were there, envious as hell. Besides, I
thought I loved him.”