Nick Carter

Rhodesia

Dedicated to The Men of the Secret Services of the United States of America

Chapter One

From the mezzanine of New York's East Side Air Terminal Nick looked down, following Hawk's murmured directions. "At the left of the second pillar. The one with the painting of a stagecoach on it. The energetic lad in gray tweeds with the four girls."

"I see them."

"That's Gus Boyd. Watch them for a while. We may see something interesting." They settled back in the green, two-seater lounge facing the rail.

A very attractive blonde in a yellow knit suit that she filled beautifully was talking with Boyd. Nick reviewed the pictures and names he had studied. She would be Booty DeLong, three months out of Texas State, and according to the smug intimation of the CIF — Consolidated Intelligence File — prone to support radical causes. Nick placed little credence in such data. The snoopery network was so swollen and uncritical that the files of half the college students in the country contained misinformation — raw, misleading, and useless. Booty's father was H. F. DeLong, who had high-jumped in his lifetime from a dump truck to unrecorded millions in construction, oil, and finance. Someday men like H. F. would hear about the files and the explosion would be memorable.

Hawk said, "Your appreciative eye is caught, Nicholas. Which one?"

"They all look like fine young Americans."

"I'm sure the eight more who join you in Frankfurt are just as charming. You're a lucky man. Thirty days to get — well acquainted."

"I had other plans," Nick answered. "You can't pretend this is a vacation." Some of the grouch left his voice. It was always this way when he walked into a case. His senses sharpened, his reflexes alerted like a fencer en garde, he felt obligated and committed.

Yesterday David Hawk had played his cards cleverly — asking instead of ordering. "If you protest overwork or bad nerves, N3, I'll accept it. You're not the only man I have. You are — the best."

The adamant protests Nick had formed in his mind on his way to the Bard Art Galleries — an AXE cover operation — melted. He had listened and Hawk went on, the wise, kindly eyes under the gray brows grimly firm. "It's Rhodesia. One of the few places you've never been. You know about the sanctions. They're not working. The Rhodesians are shipping copper, chromite, asbestos, and other materials by the shipload out of Portuguese Beira with odd bills of lading. Four shiploads of copper reached Japan last month. We protested. The Japanese said, The bills of lading say South African. It is South African.' By now some of that copper is in mainland China.

"The Rhodesians are smart. Valiant. I've been there. They're outnumbered by the blacks twenty to one but they claim they've done more for the natives than they could ever have done for themselves. That led to the rupture with Britain and the sanctions. I'll leave the moral right or wrong of it to the economists and sociologists. But now we come to gold — and big China."

He had Nick and he knew it He went on, "The country has produced gold almost since the day Cecil Rhodes opened it up. Now we hear of tremendous new strikes extending under some of their famous gold reefs. Veins perhaps hidden by the ancient Zimbabwe workings or new discoveries, I don't know. You'll find out."

Caught and fascinated, Nick had observed, "King Solomon's Mines? I remember — was it Rider Haggard? The lost cities and mines..."

"The Queen of Sheba's treasure house? Perhaps." Then Hawk revealed the real depth of his knowledge. "What does the Bible say? I Kings, 9:26, 28. 'And King Solomon made a navy of ships... and they came to Ophir and fetched from thence gold and brought it to King Solomon.' The African words Sabi and Aufur may be the ancient Sheba and Ophir. We'll leave that to the archaeologists. We know gold has poured out of the region ever since, and suddenly we hear there's a great deal more in the reserves. You realize what this means in the current world situation. Especially if big China can accumulate a handsome pile."

Nick frowned. "But — the free world will buy it as fast as they mine it. We have the exchange. The manufacturing economies have the leverage."

"Ordinarily, yes." Hawk handed Nick a plump file and he knew he was hooked. "But we mustn't, in the first place, discount the production wealth of eight hundred million Chinese. Or the possibility that after they stockpile the price shoots up from thirty-five dollars an ounce. Or the way Chinese influence is surrounding Rhodesia like tendrils from a giant banyan tree. Or — Judas."

"Judas! Is he in there?"

"Perhaps. There has been talk of a strange organization of assassins, headed by a man with claws for hands. Read that file when you have time, Nicholas. And you won't have much. As I mentioned, the Rhodesians are shrewd. They've tossed out most of the British agents. They read James Bond and all that over there. Four of ours have been ejected without fanfare and the two men our big firm has in there are evidently watched. So if Judas is behind the problem, we're in trouble. Especially since his associate seems to be Si C'sian Kalgan."

"Si Kalgan!" Nick had exclaimed. "I was sure he was dead when he wasn't involved in those Indonesian kidnappings."[1]

"We think Si is with Judas, and probably Heinrich Muller too if he's alive after that shooting in the Java Sea. China allegedly has backed Judas again and he's weaving his web in Rhodesia. His cover companies and front men are wonderfully organized, as usual. He must be providing Odessa with a fortune. Somebody is — a lot of the old Nazis we're watching are financially well again. Incidentally, several good copper men in their club have dropped out of sight in Chile. They may have joined Judas. Their histories and pictures are in the file but it's not part of your objective to look for them. You just look and listen. Get proof if you can that Judas is developing a grip on the Rhodesian export traffic, but if you can't get proof your word is good enough. Of course, Nick, if you get a clean chance — the order is still the same on Judas. Use your own judgment..."

Hawk's voice had trailed off. Nick knew that he was thinking of the scarred and battered Judas, who had lived ten lives in one and evaded death more than that. It was whispered that his name was once Martin Bormann, and it was possible. If so the holocaust through which he had lived in 1944–1945 had tempered his hard iron to steel, sharpened his cunning, and made him oblivious to pain and death in wholesale quantities. Nick would not credit him with courage. Experience had taught him that the bravest are usually the kindest. The cruel and ruthless are yellow Jell-O underneath. Rut of Judas' ingenious generalship, lightning tactical judgment, and swift skill in combat there was no question.

Nick had said, "I'll read the file. What's my cover?"

Hawk's firm, thin mouth had softened for a moment. The crinkly lines at the corners of his keen eyes relaxed, looked less like a cluster of deep V's on edge. "Thank you, Nicholas. I won't forget. We'll arrange that vacation for you when you get back. You'll travel as Andrew Grant, an assistant tour escort with an Edman Educational Tour. You'll help conduct twelve young ladies around the country. Isn't it the most interesting cover you've ever had? The senior escort is an experienced man named Gus Boyd. He and the girls think you're an Edman official surveying a new tour. Manning Edman has told them about you."

"What does he know?"

"He thinks you're CIA but he's actually been told nothing. He's helped before."

"Boyd may catch on."

"It won't make much difference. Odd types often travel as escorts. Junkets are part of the travel business. Free trips with low pay."

"I ought to know about the country..."

"Whitney will be waiting for you at American Express at seven tonight. He'll show you a couple of hours of color film and brief you."

The films of Rhodesia had been impressive. So beautiful that Nick discounted them. No country could really be put together with the most striking vegetation of Florida and features of California and Colorado's Grand Canyon strewn through the landscape of the Painted Desert He had concluded that the film-makers had used superlative footage, slipped in some shots from botanical gardens, and retouched everything. Whitney had given him a packet of color folders and extensive verbal tips.

Now, sitting slouched with his eyes below the level of the barrier rail, he studied the blonde in the yellow suit Might as well make the best of everything. She was alert, easily the prettiest girl on the concourse. Boyd was trying to pay attention to them all What in the world did he find to talk about in this place? It was less interesting than a railroad station. The brunette with the sailor-like beret was striking. She would be Teddy Northway, from Philadelphia. The other black-haired girl would be Ruth Crossman, very pretty in an intense way; she was the only one with a poker face, but perhaps it was the black-rimmed glasses. The second blonde was something: tall, long hair, not nearly as eyecatching as Booty and yet... She would be Janet Olson.

Hawk's hand fell lightly on his arm and stopped his pleasant evaluation. There. Coming in from the far gate, medium-size, neatly dressed Negro."

"I see him."

"He's John J. Johnson. He can bring gutbucket folk blues out of a horn so mellow it can make you cry. He's an artist with talent as great as Armstrong's. But he's more interested in politics. He's not a Brother X — more of a nonaligned Malcolm X admirer and a Socialist. Not a Black Power booster. He is friendly with all of them, which may make him more dangerous than the ones that bicker among themselves."

"Dangerous how?" Nick asked, watching the slim black man weave through the throng.

"He's intelligent," Hawk murmured without emotion. "The kind society from top to bottom fears most. The man with brains who sees through."

Nick nodded impassively. It was a typical Hawk statement. You wondered about the man and philosophy behind it and then you realized he had really revealed nothing. It was his way of drawing a precise picture of a man in juxtaposition to the world at the moment. He watched Johnson pause when he saw Boyd and the four girls. He had known exactly where to find them. He used a pillar as a barrier between himself and Boyd.

Booty DeLong saw him, wandered away from the group, pretending to read an arrival-departure panel. She went past Johnson, turned. For a moment the white and black skins showed in contrast like the focal point in a painting by Brueghel. Johnson gave her something and turned away at once, going back toward the 38th Street entrance. Booty tucked something into the big leather bag that hung from her shoulder and drifted back into the little group.

"What was it?" Nick asked.

"I don't know," Hawk replied. "We have an inside man in the civil rights group they both belong to. A college thing. You saw its name in the file. He knew Johnson was coming here but not why." He paused, then added wryly, "Johnson is really smart. He doesn't trust our man."

"Propaganda for the brothers and sisters in Rhodesia?"

"Perhaps. I think, Nicholas, you ought to try to find out."

Nick glanced at his watch. It was two minutes before the time he was supposed to join the group. "Anything else going to happen?"

"That's it, Nick. Sorry there isn't more. If we get anything vital at this end that you must know I'll send a courier. Code word 'biltong' repeated three times."

They stood up, turning their backs at once to the concourse. Hawk's hand gripped Nick's, squeezed his hard arm once below the biceps. Then the older man vanished around the corner into a corridor of offices. Nick went down the escalator.

Nick introduced himself to Boyd, was presented to the girls. He used his light handshake and shy grin. Close up, Gus Boyd looked very fit His tan was not as deep as Nick's, but there wasn't an ounce of fat on him, and he was efficient "Welcome aboard," he said as Nick let go of Janet Olson s slim, cool hand. "Luggage?"

"Checked to Kennedy."

"Good. Girls, if you'll excuse us a second well just double-clear at the Lufthansa counter. The limousines are waiting outside."

As the clerk riffled through their tickets Boyd said, "Have you worked tours before?"

"With American Express. Once. Many years ago."

"It hasn't changed. These dolls ought to be no trouble. We get eight more at Frankfurt They've been doing Europe. They tell you about em?"

"Yes."

"You know Manny long?"

"No. Just joined the outfit."

"O.K Just follow my leads."

The ticket clerk handed back the package of tickets. "All okay. You didn't have to check in here..."

"I know," Boyd said. "Just being careful."

Booty DeLong and Teddy Northway drew a few steps away from the other two girls as they waited. Teddy murmured, "Wow. Whatta man — Grant! Did you see those shoulders? Where'd they dig up that handsome swinger?"

Booty watched the broad backs of "Andrew Grant" and Boyd go toward the counter. "They dug deeply, maybe." Her green eyes were slightly closed, thoughtful and reflective. The soft curve of her red lips was for a moment very firm, almost hard. "Those two look like finks to me. I hope not. That Andy Grant is just too good to be true. Boyd is more the CIA type. A lightweight who loves the easy life. But Grant is a government man if I ever smelled one."

Teddy giggled. "They do all look alike, don't they? Like the FBI men lined up for the peace parade — remember? But — I don't know, Booty. Grant looks — different"

"Well find out," Booty promised.

* * *

The first-class section of the Lufthansa 707 was only half-full. The big season was over. Nick reminded himself that although winter was coming to the United States and Europe, it was ending in Rhodesia. He was chatting with Booty when the group distributed themselves, and it was natural to follow her and take the aisle seat beside her. She seemed to welcome his company. Boyd graciously checked on everyone's comfort, like a bull stewardess, and then joined Janet Olson. Teddy Northway and Ruth Crossman sat together.

First class. Four hundred seventy-eight dollars for this leg of the trip alone. All the fathers must be financially fat. From the corner of his eye he admired the round curve of Booty's cheek and the pert, straight nose. There was no baby fat on her jaw. It was very firm to be so pretty.

Over the beer she asked, "Have you been to Rhodesia before, Andy?"

"No, Gus is the expert." Some girl, he thought. She put her finger right on the catch question. Why send an assistant who didn't know the country? He went on, "I'm along to carry bags and back up Gus. And learn. We re making up more tours into the area and I'll probably handle some of them. It s a bonus for your group, in a way. If you recall — the tour only called for one escort."

Booty's hand holding the glass came to rest on his leg as she leaned toward him. "No complaints. Two good-looking men are better than one any day. Have you been with Edman long?"

Damn the girl! "No. I came over from American Express." Stick to the truth. He wondered if Janet was pumping Boyd so that the girls could compare notes later.

"I love to travel. Although I get a funny little guilt feeling..."

"Why?"

"Look at us. Up here in the lap of luxury. Probably fifty people watching our comfort and safety right now. While down below.." She sighed, drank, the hand came back on his leg. "You know — bombs, murder, hunger, poverty. Don't you ever get that sensation? You escorts live the good life. Fine food. Beautiful women. I've heard all about it"

He grinned into the green eyes. She smelled good, looked good, felt good. You could go far astray with a cuddly little sweetie like this and enjoy the trip until one day the bills came in- Swing Now — Pay Later — Weep at Leisure. She was as naive as a regular-party Chicago district attorney with an alderman brother.

"It's a complex job," he said politely. It would be fun to take the needle out of her cute hand and jab it in her lovely rump.

"For complex men? Ill bet you and Boyd break hearts month in, month out I can see you in the moonlight on the Riviera with the older, lonesome types. The L. A. widows with a million in blue chips dead daddy killed himself to get. The ones in the front row at Birch meetings who wave the pamphlets."

"They've all been sucked into the gaming tables."

"Not with you and Gus around. I'm a woman. I know."

"I'm not sure if you're reminding me or yourself, Booty. But there are a few things you don't know about an escort He is an underpaid, overworked, feverish gypsy. He's prone to frequent dysentery from the strange foods because you can't dodge all the bugs. He's afraid to drink water or eat fresh vegetables or ice cream even in the U.SA. Avoiding them has become a conditioned reflex. His luggage is usually filled with dirty shirts and impressed suits. His watch is in a repair shop in San Francisco, his new suit was missed at a Hong Kong tailor, and he's trying to get along on two pairs of shoes with holes in the soles till he gets to Rome where he has two new pair. They were made six months ago."

They were silent for a moment. Then Booty said doubtfully, "You're putting me on."

"Listen to this — his skin has itched ever since he picked up something mysterious in Calcutta. The doctors have given him seven versions of antihistamines and recommend a year's session of allergy tests, meaning they're mystified. He buys little odd lots of stocks by living like a beggar when he's in the States because he can't resist the true-blue, sure-fire tips his rich travelers give him. But he's out of the country so much he can't watch the market and all his buys go down. He's lost touch with all the friends he likes. He'd like to own a dog but you can see how impossible that is. As for hobbies and interests, he can forget them unless he collects match covers from hotels he hopes hell never see again or restaurants that have made him sick."

"Urrf." Booty made a growly sound and Nick stopped. "I know you re teasing me, but a lot of it sounds as if it could be true. If you and Gus show signs of living like that during the nest month, I'm starting a society for the prevention of cruelty to."

"Just watch."

Lufthansa served the usual magnificent dinner. Over the brandy and coffee the green eyes locked onto Nick's again. He felt the hairs on his neck tighten pleasantly. It's the perfume, he told himself, but he always had been susceptible to the alert blonde type. She said, "You made a mistake.'*

"How?"

"You told me all about an escort's life in the third person. You never said I or we. You guessed at a lot of that and made some up."

Nick sighed, kept his face expressionless. A Chicago DA all the way. "You'll see for yourself."

The stewardess took the cups away and tendrils of golden hair were tickling his cheek. Booty said, "If it is true, you poor man, I'll feel so sorry for you I'll just have to cheer you up and try and make you happy. I mean, you can ask me for anything. I think it's horrible in this day and age that fine young men like you and Gus have to live like galley slaves."

He saw the twinkle in the emerald orbs, felt the hand — no glass in it now — on his leg. Some of the cabin lights had been turned off and the aisle was empty for the moment- He turned his head and fastened his lips to the soft red ones. She had been building up to it, he was sure, half in mockery, half shaping her woman's weapon, yet her head gave a tiny jerk as their lips met — but it did not retreat It was a nice, well-fitted, aromatic, and pliable molding of flesh. He had meant it to be a five-second thing. It was like stepping into sweet, cushiony quicksand with the menace hidden — or eating peanuts. The first move was the trap. He closed his eyes for a moment to savor the soft, tingly sensations that shot across to his lips and teeth and tongue like discharges from a powered circuit He opened one eye, saw that her lids were down, and shut out the world again for just a few seconds.

A hand tapped his shoulder and he snapped alert and drew back. "Janet doesn't feel well," Gus Boyd said softly. "Not serious. Just a touch of air sickness. She says she's prone to it I've given her a couple of pills. But she'd like to see you for a minute please. Booty."

Booty climbed out of the seat and Gus joined Nick. The younger man looked more relaxed, his attitude more friendly, as if what he had just seen guaranteed Nick's professional status. "That's a curie," he said. "Janet is a doll, but I can't keep my eyes off Teddy. She has the playful look. Glad to see you're getting acquainted. That Booty looks like speed with class."

"Plus brains. She started a third degree. I gave her a sad story about an escort's hard life and need for kindness."

Gus laughed. "That's a new approach. And it might work. Most of the boys blow themselves up, and hell, anybody with an ounce of sense knows they're just Grey Line guides without the megaphones. Janet pumped me pretty good, too. I talked about the wonders well see in Rhodesia."

"This is not a cheap tour. All their families loaded?"

"Except Ruth's, I think. She's on some sort of a scholarship deal or gift financed by her college. Washburn in accounting keeps me advised so I'll have an idea who to work for tips. Doesn't matter much with this bunch. Young gals are rotten. Selfish bitches."

Nick's eyebrows rose in the gloom. "I used to prefer the older girls," he replied "Some of them would be very grateful."

"Of course. Chuck Aforzio made a wonderful score last year. Married this old gal from Arizona. With homes in five or six other places. Supposed to be worth forty or fifty million. He's a cool cat Did you know him?"

"No."

"How long were you at American Express, Andy?"

"Off and on for four, five years. I handled a lot of the special F. I. T. tours. But I never happened to touch Rhodesia although I've been in most of the rest of Africa. So don't forget you're the senior escort, Gus, and I won't. You can order me around wherever you need a hole plugged in the line. I know Manning probably told you I have a piece of the action and I'm along for the ride and may leave you for a few days. But if I do, I'll try and tell you in advance. Meanwhile — you're the boss."

Boyd nodded. "Thanks. I knew the minute I saw you you're regular. If you take hold of Edman I imagine you'll be a good guy to work for. I was afraid I'd get another gay blade. I don't mind the sweethearts, but they can be a damn nuisance when there's real work to be done or the box gets tight You know about the troubles in Rhodesia? A bunch of blacks chased a Triggs and Son group right out of the marketplace. Scratched up a couple. I don't imagine it'll happen again. The Rhodesians are methodical and tough. Chances are we'll get a cop assigned to us. Anyway, I know the contractor. He'll give us a guard or two along with the cars if it looks like well need it."

Nick thanked Boyd for the briefing and then asked casually, "How about side money? With all the sanctions and such are there any really good angles? They mine a lot of gold. Any available for us?"

Although no one was close enough to hear them, and they had been talking in very low tones, Gus dropped his voice to an even softer level. "You ever deal in it, Andy?"

"Yes. Some. All I'd ask out of life was the chance to buy at the rate in the U. S. or Europe and have a foolproof pipeline to India. I've heard there are good channels from Rhodesia to India so I was wondering..."

"I might have an angle. I'm going to have to know you better."

"You just said you knew the minute you saw me I'm a regular. What's wrong now?"

Gus snorted impatiently. "If you're regular you know what I mean. I don't give a good damn about this job with Edman. But a gold operation is another story. A lot of the boys have made fortunes. I mean escorts, pilots, stewards, airline officials. But quite a few have wound up in barred furnished rooms. And in some of the countries they got busted in, the service where they're staying is real lousy." Gus paused and made a little shiver. "It ain't nice — five years with the lice. I worked hard for that pun but it tells you what I mean. If you've got a man on the scene working with you, say a customs guy in for a slice, you're home free if he's a hot operator. But if you're pushing in cold, you take some long chances. You can buy most of those Asian boys for a sliver off the cake, but they need victims all the time to show they're doing their jobs and cover up the deals they are getting cut in on. So if they make you, you can fall hard."

"I have a friend in Calcutta," Nick revealed. "He's got enough weight to help us but the riming has to be set up in advance."

"Maybe we'll get a chance," Gus answered. "Keep in touch with him if you can. It's a gamble operation unless you've got a smooth lock. The boys who run the stuff in in dhows figure automatically on a ten percent loss to let the government boys look like they're doing their job, and ten percent more for grease. That's off the gross, mind. Sometimes you go in, especially with a badge on that says Amex or Edman Tours or some such, and you're passed right by. They never even look under your spare shirts. Other times you get a full check and it's sudden death."

"I handled quarter-bars once. We were very lucky."

Gus was interested. "No sweat, huh? How much did you make on a bar?"

Nick smiled briefly. His new associate was using the admission to check his knowledge and thus his truthfulness. "Figure for yourself. We had five. A hundred ounces each. Profit thirty-one dollars an ounce and grease expense fifteen percent. There were two of us. We split about $11,000 for three days' work and two hours' worry."

"Macao?"

"Now Gus, I already mentioned Calcutta and you haven't told me much. As you say, let's get acquainted and see how we feel about each other. I'd say the main angle is this. If you can help set up a source in Rhodesia, I have the gate to India. One or both of us can travel the route on a pretended tour or en route to join a party in Delhi or what-have-you. Our cute badges and my connection will take us right in."

"Let's give it plenty of thought."

Nick told him he would. He would be thinking every moment, because a pipeline to illegal gold from Rhodesian mines should, somewhere along its joints and connections, reach into the world of Judas and Si Kalgan.

Booty returned to the seat beside him and Gus rejoined Janet. The stewardess gave them pillows and offered blankets as they tilted their seats to the almost horizontal level. Nick accepted one blanket, and switched off the single reading light that had been aglow.

They entered the odd quiet of a dry womb. The monotonous roar of the body that contained them, their own lightweight iron lung. Booty had made no protest when he took only one blanket, so he made a little ceremony of tucking it in over them both. If you could ignore the projections, you could fancy yourselves in a cozy double bed.

Nick looked up at the ceiling and recalled Trixie Skidmore, a Pan Am stewardess he had once spent a few cultural days with in London. Trixie had said, "I was raised in Ocala, Florida, and I used to go back and forth to Jax on the Greyhound and believe me I thought I saw everything in the sex world done on those back seats. You know, the long ones that go right across the bus. Well, honey, I just never had an education hardly at all till I hit the air. I've seen fornication, hand jobs, blow jobs, sidewinders, spoon tucks, down the Y, and whip dillies."

Nick had laughed heartily. "What do you do when you catch them?"

"I wish em luck, darlin'. If they need another blanket or pillow or if knockin' out another light or two will help, I help." He recalled how Trixie had pressed her plump, full lips against his bare chest and murmured, "I love lovers, honey — because I love love and I need a whole lot of it"

He felt Booty's soft breath against his jaw. "Andy — are you very sleepy?"

"No, not especially. Just drowsy, Booty. Well fed — and it's been a busy day. I'm pleased with it."

"Pleased? How?"

"Meeting you. I know you're going to be good company. You've no idea how deadly a trip can be with nobody who is interesting. I don't mean because you're — very pretty and you've got beautiful bulges. You're a smart girl. You have ideas and thoughts that you hide."

Nick was glad she could not see his expression in the semidarkness. He meant what he said, but there was so much he left out. She had ideas and thoughts that she hid, all right, and they might be interesting and valuable — or warped and deadly. He wished he knew exactly what her connection was with John J. Johnson and what the Negro had given her.

"You're a strange man, Andy. Have you ever been in any other business than travel? I can imagine you as an executive of some kind. Not insurance or finance but some kind of business with action in it"

"I've done a few things in other lines. Like most everybody. But the travel business appeals to me. An associate and I may buy a piece of Edman's operation." He could not tell if she was pumping him or just interested in his background. "What are your hopes, now that college is over?"

"Work at something. Create. Live." She sighed and stretched and squirmed and snuggled, a rearranging of her soft curves that distributed them along his body, touching at many points. She kissed his chin.

He ran his hand between her arm and body. There was no resistance; when he drew it up and back he felt the soft breast push at him. He caressed it gently, a slow Braille reading of the smooth wool. When his tactile fingertips detected the stiffening of the nipple he concentrated, reading the stirring phrase over and over and over again. Booty gave a small purring sound and he felt light, slim fingers explore his tie clip, unfasten shirt buttons, pull up his undershirt He thought the pads of her hand might be cool, but they were like warm feathers above his navel. He drew up the yellow sweater and her skin felt like warm silk.

She fastened her lips to his and it was better than before, their flesh molding like ductile, buttery taffy into one sweet mass. He solved the brief puzzle of her bra catch and the Braille became alive and real, his senses rejoicing in the ancient contact, subconscious memories of well-being and nourishment stirred by the warm thrust of her firm breast.

Her manipulations sent the memories and anticipations coursing along his backbone. She was deft, creative, patient. Just as he found the zipper on the side of her skirt she whispered, "Tell me what it is..."

It's the nicest thing that has happened to me for a long, long time," he answered softly.

"That's nice. But I mean the other thing."

Her hand was a magnet, a vibrator without wires, a milkmaid's cloying persuasion, a tender giant's paw containing all of him, the clutch of a butterfly on a throbbing leaf. What did she want him to say? She knew what she was doing. "It's delicious," he said. "A swim in cotton candy. Being able to fly on moonbeams. A roller coaster ride in a good dream. How would you describe it when you..."

"I mean the thing under your left arm," she murmured clearly. "You've been keeping it away from me ever since we sat down. Why are you carrying a gun?"

Chapter Two

He was yanked off his pleasant pink cloud. Oh, Wilhelmina, why do you have to be so fat and heavy to be so accurate and dependable? Stuart, AXE's chief weapons engineer, modified the Lugers with shortened barrels and thin plastic grips, but they were still big guns to hide even in the perfectly fitted underarm holsters. Walking, sitting, they rode snugly without a trace of a bulge, but when you wrestled with a sexpot kitten like Booty sooner or later she bumped metal.

"We're going to Africa," Nick reminded her, "where our clients are exposed to a lot of dangers. Among other things I'm your security guard. We've never had any trouble there, the place is really civilized now, but..."

"And you'll protect us from lions and tigers and natives with spears?"

"That's the rough idea." He felt foolish. Booty had the most annoying way of saving ordinary things that laughed at you. The delightful fingers made one final stroke that made him squirm involuntarily, and were withdrawn. He felt both disappointed and foolish.

"I think you're talking nonsense," Booty whispered. "Are you with the FBI?"

"Of course not."

"If you were I suppose you'd lie."

"I hate lies." That was the truth. He hoped she didn't revert to her DA role and cross-examine him about other government agencies. Most people didn't know about AXE, but Booty wasn't most people.

"Are you a private detective? Did any of our fathers hire you to keep an eye on one of us or all of us? If he did I'll..."

"You've got a big imagination for such a young girl." That stopped her. "You've been in your comfortable, protected world so much of your life you think that's all there is. You ever go into the Mexican shack towns down home? Have you seen El Paso's slums? Remember the Indian hovels on the back roads in Navaho country?"

"Yes," she replied hesitantly.

He kept his voice low but crisp and firm. This might work — when in doubt and pressed, attack. "Where we're going those folks would qualify as high-income suburbanites. In Rhodesia itself the whites are outnumbered twenty to one. They keep a stiff upper lip and smile because if they don't their teeth will chatter. Count in the revolutionaries glaring over the borders and the odds in some places are seventy-five to one. When the opposition gets arms — and they're getting them — it'll be a worse setup than Israel facing the Arab legions."

"But tourists aren't usually bothered — are they?"

"There have been plenty of incidents, as they're called. There may be danger and it's my job to cool it. If you're going to tease me about it I'll change my seat and we'll make the rest of the trip as business friends. You enjoy yourself. I'll work."

"Don't be angry, Andy. What do you think about the African situation where we're going? I mean — the Europeans did grab the best parts of the country away from the natives, didn't they? And the raw materials..."

"Politics don't interest me," Nick lied. "I suppose the natives get some benefits. Do you know the girls who are joining us at Frankfurt?"

Booty didn't She fell asleep nestled against him.

The eight additions to the group were all eye-catchers, each in her own way. Nick wondered if wealth helped good looks or if it was the good food, extra vitamins, educational polish, and expensive clothes. They changed airlines at Johannesburg, had their first looks at Africa's mountains, jungles, and endless plains of bundu, the veldt or bush country.

Salisbury reminded Nick of Tucson, Arizona, with Atlanta, Georgia's, suburbs and vegetation added. They were given an introductory tour of the city in the contractor's shiny Austins. Nick noted that the contractor-trade name for local providers of cars, guides, and travel services — brought four big men with him in addition to the seven drivers with the cars. Security?

They saw a modern city with wide streets lined with colorful, flowering trees, with plentiful parks and contemporary British architecture. Nick rode with Ian Masters, the contractor, with Booty and Ruth Crossman in the same car, and Masters pointed out sites they would revisit at leisure. Masters was a powerful man with a booming voice which fitted his curved black lancer's moustache. You expected him to roar at any moment, "Trooo-o-p. Canter. Charge!"

"Well arrange special visits to suit individuals," he said. "I'll give out checklists at the dinner tonight You mustn't miss the museum and Rhodesia National Gallery. The National Archives' galleries are very worthwhile, and the Robert Mcllwaine National Park with its game reserve — it'll prime you for Wankie. You'll want to see the aloes and cycads at Ewanrigg Park and Mazoe and the Balancing Rocks."

Booty and Ruth worked him over with questions. Nick decided they asked extra ones to hear his baritone and watch the moustache wave up and down.

The "get-acquainted" dinner, in a private dining room at their hotel — Meikles — was a thorough success. Masters brought three of the big young men with him, resplendent in dinner jackets, and the stories, drinking, and dancing lasted till after midnight. Gus Boyd distributed his attentions properly among the girls, but he danced most often with Janet Olson. Nick played the part of the correct escort, talked mostly with the eight girls who had joined them in Germany, and felt an unusual resentment at the way Masters and Booty got along. He was dancing with Ruth Crossman when the two said good night and left.

He couldn't help wondering — all the girls had separate rooms. He sat glumly with Ruth in a lounge divan with whiskey-soda nightcaps. Only brunette Teddy Northway was still with them, dancing snugly with one of Masters' men named Bruce Todd, a bronzed youth who was a local soccer star.

"She'll take care of herself. She likes you."

Nick blinked, looked at Ruth. The dark girl spoke so rarely you forgot she was with you. He looked at her. Without the dark-rimmed glasses her eyes had the misty, unfocused gentleness of the nearsighted — and made her grave, even features quite beautiful. You thought of her as quietly lovely — never disturbing — not to be disturbed?

"Who?" Nick asked.

"Booty, of course. Don't pretend. She's on your mind."

"The girl I'm with is on my mind."

"Okay, Andy."

He escorted her up to her room in the east wing, paused in the doorway. "I hope you had a nice evening, Ruth. You dance very well."

"Come in and close the door."

He blinked again and obeyed. She turned off one of the two lamps the maid had left on, pulled wider the drapes that gave them a view of the city's lights, and poured two Cutty Sarks and added soda without asking him if he wanted a drink. He stood admiring the two double beds, on one of which the covers had been neatly turned down.

She handed him a glass. "Sit down, Andy. Take off your jacket if you're warm."

He slowly removed his pearl-gray dinner jacket and she hung it matter-of-factly in a closet and sauntered back to stand in front of him. "Are you just going to stand there all night?"

He took her slowly in his arms, looking into the misty brown eyes. "I guess I should have told you before," he said, "you're beautiful when you open your eyes wide."

"Thank you. Lots of people forget to look."

He kissed her and discovered her firm-looking lips were astonishingly soft and pliable, her tongue bold and shocking amid little gusts of woman-and-alcohol breath. She molded her trim body against him and after a moment one padded thighbone and leg-and-knee fitted him like a jigsaw-puzzle fragment inserted in the correct slot.

Later, as he removed her bra and admired the magnificent body extended on the smooth white sheet, he said, "The damn fools shouldn't, Ruth. And please forgive me"

She had been kissing his ear, on the inside, and she made a little gulp before she asked throatily, "Shouldn't what?"

"Forget to look."

She made a little snorting sound like a chuckle. "I forgive you." She ran the tip of her tongue up his jawline, around the top of his ear, tickled his cheek, and he felt the warm, moist, shivery probe again. He forgot all about Booty.

* * *

When Nick stepped out of the elevator into the spacious lobby the next morning, Gus Boyd was waiting for him. The senior escort said, "Andy — good morning. Hold it a sec before we go in to breakfast. Five of the girls are in there already. Rugged darlings, aren't they? How do you feel after the opener?"

"Just fine, Gus. Could have used a couple more hours' sleep."

They strolled past the desk. "Me too. Janet is quite a demanding doll. Did you make it with Booty or did Masters complete his score?"

"I wound up with Ruth. Very nice." Nick wished he'd slop this boy-to-boy chitchat. He had to be truthful, he needed Boyd's full confidence. Then he felt guilty — the lad was just trying to be friendly. Escorts no doubt exchanged these confidences as a matter of course. He himself, operating always as a loner behind invisible barriers, was losing touch with other men. Have to watch that.

"I've got it fixed for us to be free today," Gus announced cheerfully. "Masters and his merry men are taking the girls to Ewanrigg Park. They'll have lunch with them and show them a couple of other sights. We won't have to pick them up till cocktail time. Want to look into the gold business?"

"It's been on my mind since we talked."

They reversed their course, went out, and strolled along the sidewalk under porticos that reminded Nick of Flagler Street in Miami. Two alert-looking young men getting a breath of morning air. "I'd like to know you better, Andy-but I guess you're straight. I'll introduce you to my contact. You got any cash with you? Real cash, I mean."

"Sixteen thousand U. S."

"That's almost double what I'm holding, but I think my credit is good. And if we convince this guy we can really operate hell go in with us. He's loaded."

Nick asked casually, "Can you trust him? How much do you know about his background? No chance of a trap?"

Gus chuckled. "You're a cautious one, Andy. I think I like that This guy's name is Alan Wilson. His father was a geologist who made some gold strikes — peggings they're called in Africa. Alan is a tough man. By that I mean he's served as a Merc in the Congo and I heard he was very fast and free with the lead and steel. Don't mention I told you that Wilson's father has retired, I think. Probably loaded. Alan deals in exports. Gold, asbestos, chromium. In big, big lots. He's for real. I checked on him in New York."

Nick shuddered If Gus had described Wilson accurately the lad was sticking his neck out near a man who knew how to handle an axe. No wonder amateur smugglers and embezzlers so often wound up stretched out straight after fatal accidents, "How did you check on him?"

"A banker friend of mine slid a query back to the First Rhodesian Commercial Bank. Alan is rated like middle seven figures."

"He sounds too big and square to be interested in our little deals."

"He's no square. You'll see. Do you think your Indian connection can handle a really big operation?"

"I'm sure of it."

"That's our in!" Gus gave a delighted snap to the in, lowered his voice again at once. "He told me last time I saw him he wanted to set up a really big operation. Let's try it with a small shipment. If we can set up a big pipeline, and I'll bet we can once we've got the stuff to operate with, we'll make fortunes."

"Most of the world's gold output is spoken for, Gus. What makes you think Wilson can deliver in quantity? Has he opened new mines?"

"From the way he talked I'm sure he has."

* * *

In an almost new Zodiac Executive, thoughtfully supplied by Ian Masters, Gus drove Nick out the Goromonzi Road. The landscape again reminded Nick of Arizona in its best season, although he noted that the vegetation appeared dry except where it was artificially watered. He recalled his briefing reports-Rhodesia was having a near-drought. The white population looked healthy and alert, many of the men, including the policemen, wearing spodess shorts that looked starched. The black-skinned natives went about their jobs with an unusual intentness.

Something seemed odd here. He studied people thoughtfully as they rolled along the boulevard, and decided it was — tension. Under the crisp, busy attitude of the whites you could sense unease and doubt. Behind the friendly industry of the blacks you could guess there was watchful impatience, masked resentment.

The sign said WILSON. It stood in front of a complex of warehouse-type buildings fronted by a long three-story office structure that might have belonged to one of the better-run corporations along U.S.1.

The installation was neat and well-painted, the lush foliage forming colorful patterns on the brown-green expanse of lawn. As they circled the approach drive to a big parking lot Nick saw trucks parked at loading ramps in the rear, all of them large, the nearest a giant new International that dwarfed the Leyland Octopus eight-wheeler maneuvering beyond it.

Alan Wilson was a great big man in a great big office. Nick guessed him at six-feet-three and 245 pounds — hardly an ounce of it fat He was tanned, moved easily, and the way he slammed his door and returned behind his desk after Boyd's brief introduction of Nick showed he wasn't glad to see them. Hostility glared from every plane of his face.

Gus got the message and his words stumbled. "Alan... Mr. Wilson... I... we came to continue... the talk about the gold..."

"Who in hell told you to?"

"Last time you said... we agreed... I was going to..."

"I said I'd sell you gold if you wanted it If you do, show your documents to Mr. Trizzle in the front office and make your arrangements. Anything else?"

Nick pitied Boyd. Gus had spine but it would take a few more years to harden it for situations like this. When you spent your time giving orders to uneasy travelers who minded you because they wanted to believe you knew what you were doing, you weren't prepared for a big man you thought was friendly to turn and smack you in the face with a wet fish — hard. And that's what Wilson had done.

"Mr. Grant has good connections in India," Gus said too loudly.

"So have I."

"Mr. Grant... ah... Andy is experienced. He's moved gold..."

"Shut your stupid mouth. I don't want to hear about it. And I certainly didn't tell you to bring anyone like him here."

"But you said..."

"Who — you said. You do all the saying, Boyd. Too much of it to too many people. You're like most Yanks I've met You've got the disease. Perpetual diarrhea of the mouth."

Nick winced in sympathy for Boyd. Smack — smack-smack. Wet fish in the face one after another could be horrible unless you knew the remedy. You should grab the first one and either cook it — or slam it back at the giver twice as hard. Gus was flushed a bright pink. Wilson's heavy face looked like something carved out of aged-brown beef, deep frozen until rock hard. Gus opened his mouth under Wilson's angry glare and nothing came out. He glanced at Nick.

"Now get out of here," Wilson growled on. "And don't come back. If I hear that you've said anything about me I don't like, I'll look you up and smash your head."

Gus looked at Nick again with an expression that asked, What in the world has gone wrong? What did I do? This man is mad.

Nick coughed politely. Wilson's heavy glance swung to him. Nick said evenly, "I don't think Gus meant any harm. Not as much as you pretend he did. He has done you a favor. I have markets for up to ten million pounds in gold per month. At top prices. Any currencies. And if you could guarantee more, which of course you can't, I have a line to tap the IMF for more funds."

"Ah!" Wilson straightened his oxlike shoulders and made a tent of his big hands. Nick thought they resembled hockey mitts brought to life. "The blabbermouth has brought me a liar. And how do you know how much gold I might deliver?"

"Your whole country only produces that much in a year. Say about thirty million dollars? So come down out of your clouds, Wilson, and talk business with the peasants."

"Well bless my soul and body! A blinking gold expert! Where did you get your figures, Yank?"

Nick noted Wilson's interest with satisfaction. The man was no fool, he believed in listening and learning although he pretended to be impetuous.

"When I'm in a business I like to know all about it," Nick said. "You're small beer when it comes to gold, Wilson. South Africa alone produces fifty-five times as much per year as Rhodesia does. Figuring at thirty-five dollars a fine troy ounce the world produces about two billion dollars worth annually, I'd say."

"You're way high," Wilson disagreed.

"No, the official figures are low. They don't figure in the U. S. S.R., big China, North Korea, Eastern Europe — and the amounts that are stolen or not reported."

Wilson studied Nick in silence. Gus could not hold his tongue. He spoiled it by saying, "You see, Alan? Andy really knows his way around. He has operated..."

One mittlike hand silenced him with a stop gesture. "How long have you known Grant?"

"Uh? Well — not long. But in our business we learn..."

"You learn how to pick old ladies' pocketbooks. Shut up. Grant — tell me about your channels to India, How solid? What arrangements..."

Nick interrupted him. "Ill tell you nothing, Wilson. I just decided you're not in line with my policies."

"What policies?"

"I don't do business with loudmouths, show-offs, bullies, or Mercs. I prefer a black gentleman to a white shitheel any day. C'mon, Gus — now we're leaving."

Wilson stood up slowly to his full height He looked gigantic, as if a display maker had taken a fine linen suit and stuffed it with muscles — size 52. Nick didn't like that When they moved quickly after a needle or their faces flushed you could figure their minds were getting out of control. Wilson moved deliberately, his wrath glowing primarily from his hot eyes and in the dour rigidity of his mouth. "You're a big man. Grant," he said softly.

"Not piled as high as you."

"Sense of humor. Too bad you're not bigger — and with some stomach. I like a bit of exercise."

Nick grinned and appeared to stretch comfortably in his chair while actually getting a foot well under himself. "Don't let that stop you. Do they call you Windy Wilson?"

The big man must have pressed a button with his foot — his hands had been in sight all along. A wiry man — tall but not broad — put his head into the big office. "Yes, Mr. Wilson?"

"Come in and close the door, Maurice. After I throw out this big monkey you make sure Boyd leaves — one way or another."

Maurice leaned against a wall. From the corner of an eye Nick noted that he folded his arms as if he didn't expect to be called on soon. A sports spectator. Wilson came around the big desk, moving smoothly, and reached for Nick's forearm with a swift grab. The arm departed — with Nick as he leaped sideways out of the leather armchair and twisted under Wilson's groping hands. Nick bounded past Maurice to the far wall. He said, "Gus — come over here."

Boyd proved he could move. He skipped across the room so fast Wilson halted in surprise.

Nick pushed the younger man into a niche between two ceiling-height bookcases and shoved Wilhelmina into his hand, snicking off the safety with a flick of a finger. "She's ready to bark. Be careful."

He saw Maurice produce a small automatic, holding it pointed at the floor, looking doubtful but watchful. Wilson stood in the center of the office — a colossus in linen, "No shooting, Yank. You'll hang if you pop anyone in this country."

Nick took four steps away from Gus. "That'll be up to you, bucko. What's Maurice holding — a squirt gun?"

"No shooting, boys " Wilson repeated, and leaped at Nick.

There was plenty of room. Nick back-pedaled and sidestepped, watched Wilson follow him efficiently and in balance, and then tapped the big man on the nose with a lightning left that was strictly experimental.

The left jab he got back was fast, accurate, and if he hadn't slipped it would have shaken his teeth. It scraped skin off his left ear as he hooked another left to the big man's ribs and danced away. His fist felt as if he had pounded it on a leather vaulting horse, but he thought he saw Wilson wince. He did see the big man's right start — then the punch was pulled as the other decided to keep his balance and keep coming. Wilson had been around. Nick circled backwards, said, "Queensberry Rules?"

"Sure, Yank. Unless you cheat. Better not. I know all the games."

Wilson proved it by switching over to boxing, jabbing and looping lefts, some bouncing off Nick's arms and fists, others pulled as Nick countered or blocked. They circled like fighting cocks. The lefts that did get through brought grimaces to Gus Boyd's astonished face. Maurice' brown features were expressionless, but his left hand — the one not holding the gun — clenched in empathy with every blow that landed.

Nick thought he had his chance when a left came low, bounced off his armpit. He put steam from his right heel into a hard right counter aimed perfectly for the giant's jaw point — and lost his balance as Wilson fell into him, inside, taking the right on the side of his head. Lefts and rights pounded into Nick's ribs like mule kicks. He didn't dare go back and he couldn't get his arms inside to shield himself from the brutal punches. He clinched, wrestled, twisted, and turned, pushing into his opponent until he tied up those punishing arms. He got leverage, pushed, broke away fast.

He knew he had done wrong before his left landed. His excellent vision caught the right in clear sight as it crossed over the outgoing punch and came at his face like a ram. He pulled the left and tried to fade but the fist was far faster than the retreat of his face. He went backward, caught his heel in the carpet, got another foot under himself, and hit the bookcase with a crash that shook the room. He went down in a welter of broken shelves and falling books. Even as he rolled over and bounced forward and up in a wrestler's recovery, volumes were still thumping onto the floor.

Now! Nick commanded his aching arms. He went forward, got a long left in near the eyes, took a short right to the ribs, and felt jubilation as his own half-hooked right surprised Wilson as it skidded up his shoulder and smashed solidly into his cheek. Wilson couldn't get his right foot out in time to catch himself. He tilted sideways like a bombed statue, took one stumbling step, and crashed down on a table between two windows. The table's legs broke, a big squat vase of gorgeous flowers flew ten feet and shattered against the big desk. Magazines, ashtrays, and a tray and water carafe clattered under the big man's thrashing body.

He rolled, got his hands under him, and bobbed up.

Then the fight started.

Chapter Three

If you've never seen two good big men slug it out, "fighting fairly," you hold a lot of misconceptions about fistfighting. The staged mockeries on TV fool you. Those unguarded-against blows would break a man's jaw — but in real scraps they rarely land. TV fights are sucker-punch ballets.

The old bareknuckle boys would go fifty rounds, fight for four hours, because you learn first to take care of yourself. It becomes automatic. And if you can survive for a few minutes, your opponent is shaken up and you're both swinging a shade wild. It becomes a case of two battering rams bearing each other down. The unofficial record is held by unknowns, an English and an American sailor who fought in a Chinese cafe in St. Johns, Newfoundland, for seven hours. No time out. A draw.

Nick recalled this briefly during the next twenty minutes as he and Wilson fought from one end of the office to the other. They slugged toe-to-toe. They parted and traded long shots. They clinched and wrestled and pulled and hauled. Each man passed up a dozen opportunities to use a piece of furniture as a weapon. Once Wilson hit Nick with a low blow on his thigh bone and said instantly, although puffing the words, "Sorry — slipped."

They smashed beyond repair the window table, four light chairs, one priceless buffet, two end tables, a dictating machine, desk computer, and the small bar. Wilson's desk was swept clean, rammed back against the worktable behind it. Both men had their jackets ripped off. Wilson was bleeding from a cut over his left eye, gouts of blood that dribbled down his cheek and spattered the debris.

Nick worked on that eye, ripped open the wound with skidding and scraping hits that did extra damage by their own inaccuracy. His right hand was blood red. His heart pained and there was a nasty buzzing in his ears from the knocks he had taken to the skull. He saw Wilson's head waggle from side to side but those great fists kept coming — slowly it seemed, but they arrived. He beat one down and threw a punch along it. To the eye again. A score.

They both slipped in Wilson's blood and clung to each other, eyeball to eyeball, gasping so hard they almost gave each other mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Wilson kept blinking to clear his eyes of blood. Nick gathered strength desperately into his aching, leaden arms. They gripped each other's biceps, looked at each other again. Nick felt Wilson summon his remaining strength with the same weary hopefulness that prodded his own numb muscles.

Their eyes seemed to say, What the hell are we doing here?

Nick said between breaths, "That's... a... bad... cut."

Wilson nodded, seemed to think about it for the first time. His wind whistled in and out. He puffed, "Yeah... guess... better... fix... it."

"If... you... don't... have... bad... scar."

"Yeah... nasty... call... draw?"

"Or... Round... One."

The powerful grips o Nick's arms relaxed. He eased his own, lurched back, and got to his feet first. He thought he would never reach the desk, made it, and sat on it with his head hanging. Wilson collapsed back against the wall.

Gus and Maurice glanced briefly at each other, like two shy schoolboys. The office was silent for over a minute except for the agonized inhaling and exhaling of the battered men.

Nick run his tongue over his teeth. They were all there. The inside of his mouth was badly cut his lips would soon puff. They would probably both have black eyes.

Wilson got to his feet and stood unsteadily surveying the chaos. "Maurice — show Mr. Grant the bath."

Nick was led outside and a few steps down the hall. He drew a basin of cold water and plunged his throbbing face into it There was a tap on the door and Gus came in, carrying Wilhelmina and Hugo — the thin knife that had been shaken from its sheath on Nick's arm. "You all right?"

"Sure."

"Gee. Andy, I didn't know. He's changed."

"I don't think so. Things have changed. He's got a prime outlet for all his gold — that's if he's got a lot as we think — so he doesn't need us anymore."

Nick drew more water, dunked his head again, dried himself on thick white towels. Gus held out the weapons. "I didn't know you — carried these."

Nick stuck Wilhelmina in his belt under his shirt, replaced Hugo. "Looks like I might need 'em. This is rugged country."

"But... customs..."

"We did all right so far. How's Wilson?"

"Maurice took him to another bathroom."

"Let's get out of here."

"Okay." But Gus hung back. "Andy — I oughta tell you. Wilson has some gold. I bought some from him before."

"So you have an outlet?"

"It was only a quarter-bar. I sold it in Beirut."

"But they don't pay much there."

"He sold it to me for thirty dollars an ounce."

"Oh." Nick's aching head whirled. Then Wilson did have so much gold he was willing to unload it at a bargain, but now he either had lost his source or had developed a satisfactory way of getting it to the markets.

They went out and along the corridor toward the reception lounge and entrance. As they passed an open door marked Ladies, Wilson called, "Ho, Grant."

Nick stopped and looked in cautiously. "Yeah? How's the eye?"

"Okay." Blood still seeped from under a bandage. "You feel all right?"

"No. I feel as if I fell under a bulldozer."

Wilson came to the door and chuckled through swollen lips. "Man, I could have used you in the Congo. How come the Luger?"

"They tell me Africa is dangerous."

"It can be."

Nick watched the man closely. Here was a lot of ego and self-doubt and an extra portion of the loneliness that powerful men build around themselves when they fail to lower their heads and listen to smaller people. They build their islands, apart from the main, and wonder at their isolation.

Nick chose his words carefully. "No hard feelings. I was just trying to make a dollar. I shouldn't have come. You don't know me and I don't blame you for being careful. Gus said it would be all right." He hated to hang a dunce cap on Boyd, but right now every impression counted.

"You really have a line?"

"Calcutta."

"Sahib Sanha?"

"His friends — Goahan and Freed." Nick named two of the leading gold operators on the Indian black market.

"I see. Take a tip. Forget it for a while. Things are changing"

"Yeah. Prices are going up all the time. Maybe I can connect with Taylor-Hill-Boreman Mining. I hear they're loaded. Can you give me a connection or introduction?"

Wilson's good eye widened. "Grant — listen to me. You're no Interpol snoop. They don't carry Lugers and they can't fight I think I have your number. Forget gold. At least in Rhodesia. And stay away from THB."

"Why? You want all their output for yourself?"

Wilson laughed, flinched as his torn cheeks rubbed on his teeth. He was thinking, Nick knew, that this reply confirmed his estimate of "Andy Grant" Wilson had lived all his life in a world of distinct black or white, for us or against us. He was selfish, considered it normal and honorable, and condemned no one else for it.

The big man's laugh filled the doorway. "I suppose you've heard about the Golden Tusks and you can just feel 'em. Or can't you just see 'em? Coming across the bundu. So big it takes six blacks to carry each one? By God, you think about it awhile and you can almost taste 'em, can't you?"

"I never heard about Golden Tusks," Nick replied, "but you draw a nice picture. Where can I find them?"

"You can't. It's a fairy tale. Gold is sweated for — and what there is, is spoken for. Right now, anyway " Wilson's features were puffing up, his lips swelling. He still managed a grin, though, and Nick realized it was the first time he had seen him smile.

"Do I look like you do?" Nick asked.

"I guess so. They'll know you bumped into something. Too bad you're in that panty-waist business, Grant. If you come back this way looking for something to do, come see me."

"For Round Two? I don't think I'd be up to it."

Wilson liked the implied compliment. "No — out where we use tools. Tools that go bu-du-du-du-du brr-r-r-r-." He made excellent imitations of a heavy and a light machine gun. "We've used 'em a little and we're gonna have to use them a lot more. You'd be on the first team."

"For cash? I'm no romantic."

"Of course — although in my case — " He stopped, studying Nick. "Well — you're a white man. You'll understand after you've seen a bit more of the country."

"I wonder if I will?" Nick replied. "Thanks for everything."

* * *

Rolling toward Salisbury through the overbright landscape, Gus was apologetic. "I loused it up, Andy. I should have come out alone or checked by phone. Last time he was cooperative and full of promises for the future. Man — that was some scrap. Were you a pro?"

The compliment was partly butter, Nick knew, but the lad meant well. "No harm done, Gus. If his present channels clog up he'll be back to us quick enough, but it doesn't look likely. He's plenty happy the way things are. No, I wasn't pro. Boxed a little in college."

"A little! He would have killed me."

"You wouldn't have tangled with him. Wilson is a big kid with principles. He fights fair. Only kills people when the principle is right as he sees it"

"I... I don't understand..."

"He was a Merc, wasn't he? You know how those boys behave when they get natives under their muzzles."

Gus flexed his hands on the wheel and said thoughtfully, "I've heard. You don't somehow think of a guy like Alan mowing em down."

"You'd better. It's an old, old pattern. Visit Mother on Saturday, church on Sunday, and bombs away on Monday. When you try to square that with yourself, you get tight knots. Inside your head. The connections and relays in there start to smoke and burn out Dangerous. Now what about those Golden Tusks? You ever hear about them?"

Gus shrugged. "Last time I was through here there was a story around about a shipment of Golden Tusks that went out via rail and Beira to beat the sanctions. There was an article in The Rhodesia Herald speculating on whether they were cast that way and painted white, or found in some old Zimbabwe ruins and sneaked out. That's the old Solomon and Sheba myth."

"You think the story was true?"

"Nope. When I was in India I talked it over with guys who oughta know. They said plenty of gold was coming out of Rhodesia but it was all in nice four-hundred-ounce bars."

When they reached Meikles Hotel Nick slipped in through the side entrance and went up to his room. He used cold and hot soaks, a gentle alcohol rub, and took a nap. His ribs hurt, but he found no sharp pain to indicate a break. At six o'clock he dressed carefully and when Gus called for him he used the eye paint that the other had thoughtfully bought. It helped some, but the full-length mirror told him he looked like a very well-dressed pirate after a severe battle. He shrugged, flicked off the light, and followed Gus to the cocktail lounge.

After his callers had left, Alan Wilson used Maurice' office while half a dozen of his staff worked at rejuvenating his own. He studied three photographs of Nick, shot with a hidden camera.

"Not bad. They show his face from different angles. By Jove, he's a scrapper. We could use him someday." He put the prints in an envelope. "Have Herman fly these over to Mike Bor."

Maurice took the envelope, went through the complex of offices and warehouses to a dispatch desk in the rear of the plant, and relayed Wilson's order. As he sauntered back toward the front offices, his lean brown face bore a satisfied expression. Wilson was learning to follow orders; to take photographs at once of anyone interested in buying gold and send them out to Bor. Mike Bor was the chairman of Taylor-Hill-Boreman, and he had had a little temporary trouble bringing Alan Wilson to heel. Maurice was part of the control web. He received a thousand dollars a month to watch Wilson and he intended to continue to deserve it.

* * *

At about the moment Nick was masking his darkening eye with cosmetics, Herman Duzen began a very careful approach to the airport of the Taylor-Hill-Boreman Mining Company. The giant installation was classified as an off-limits military research area with forty square miles of protected airspace above it. Before he took off from Salisbury, flying VFR in the sun-seared clear weather, Herman had telephoned the Rhodesian Air Force control and Rhodesian Air Police. As he neared the restricted zone he radioed his position and bearing and received another clearance from the controller at the plant.

Herman did his duty with absolute precision. He was paid more than most airline pilots and vaguely felt that his sympathies lay with Rhodesia and THB. All the world was against them, you might say, just as the world had once been against Germany. It was strange that when you worked hard and did your duty people seemed to dislike you for no reason at all. It was evident that THB had discovered giant gold reefs. Good! Good for them, good for Rhodesia, good for Herman.

He began his first landing leg, flying over the squalid native huts packed like brown marbles in boxes within their guard walls. A long, serpent-like column of human-wound along a road from one of the mines toward the native compound, guarded by men on horses and in jeeps.

Herman made his first ninety-degree turn, on the mark, on air-speed, on rpms, on rate-of-descent, course accurate to a degree. Perhaps Kramkin, the chief pilot, was watching, perhaps not That wasn't the point, you did your job perfectly out of loyalty to yourself and — to what? Herman often puzzled over that Once it had been his father, stern and fair. Then the air force — he was still in the Republic's reserve — then the Bemex Oil Exploration Company; he had been really heartbroken when the young firm failed. He blamed the British and Americans for that You couldn't buck their money and connections.

He made his last turn, saw with satisfaction that he would flare-out exactly on the third yellow crossbar of the runway and settle like a feather. He hoped the Chinese fellow. Si Kalgan, was watching. It would be nice to get to know him better, such a handsome devil with a real brain. If he didn't look Chinese you'd consider him a German — so quiet, alert, and methodical Of course his race didn't matter — if there was one thing Herman really prided himself on, it was an open mind. That was where Hitler, for all his fine points, had gone wrong. Herman had figured it out for himself and was proud of his insight.

A crewman directed him up to the line, waving a yellow paddle. Herman stopped on the spot and saw with pleasure that Si Kalgan and the crippled old man were waiting under the awning of the field operations office. He thought of him as the crippled old man because he usually traveled in the electric cart in which he was sitting now, but there wasn't so much wrong with his body and certainly nothing slow about his mind or tongue. He had an artificial hand and he wore a large eyepatch, but even when he walked — with a limp — he moved as crisply as he talked. He was called Mike Bor but Herman was sure his name had once been something else, perhaps in Germany, but it was best not to think about that.

Herman came to attention in front of the two men and extended the envelope to the cart. "Good evening, Mr. Kalgan — Mr. Bor. Mr. Wilson sent this to you."

Si smiled at Herman. "A beautiful landing, a satisfaction to watch. Report to Mr. Kramkin. I believe he wants you to return in the morning with some staff."

Herman decided against saluting, but came to attention, bowed, and went into the office. Bor tapped the photos thoughtfully against an aluminum armrest. "Andrew Grant," he said softly. "A man of many names."

"He is the one you and Heinrich — met before?"

"Yes." Bor handed him the pictures. "Don't ever forget that face — until we eliminate it Call Wilson and warn him. Order him explicitly to take no action. We will handle this. There must be no error. Come — we must talk with Heinrich."

Seated in a lavishly furnished room with a wall that slid back to join it to a spacious patio, Bor and Heinrich spoke in low tones while Kalgan telephoned. "There is no doubt. You agree?" Bor asked.

Heinrich, a gray-haired man of at least fifty-five who seemed to sit at attention even in a deep, foam-cushioned chair, nodded. "It is the AXEman. I think at last he has come to the wrong place. We have the information early, so we plan, then strike." He brought his hands together with a small slap. "Surprise is with us."

"We will make no mistakes," Bor said, speaking with the measured tones of a chief of staff outlining strategy. "We assume he will accompany the tourist party to Wankie. He must do that to maintain what he assumes is his cover. That is our perfect place to hit, as the Italians say. Deep in the bush. We will have the armored truck. A helicopter in reserve. Use Herman, he is dedicated, and Krol for a gunner, he is an excellent shot — for a Pole. Outposts on the roads. Draw up a complete tactical plan and a map, Heinrich. Some people would say we are using a mallet to swat a beetle, but they don't know this beetle the way we do, eh?"

"He is a beetle with a wasp's sting and a skin like a chameleon. Not to be underestimated." Mullers face showed the ugly anger of bitter memories.

"We want more information if we can get it, but our prime objective is the elimination of Andrew Grant once and for all. Call it Operation Kill Beetle. Yes — a good name, it will keep our main purpose before us.

"Kill Beetle," Muller repeated, savoring the words. "I like that"

"Now," the man called Bor went on, ticking off points on the metal projections of his artificial hand, "why is he in Rhodesia? Political evaluation? Is he looking for us again? Are they interested in the increasing flow of gold which we are so pleased to provide? Could it be they've heard of our well-organized gun boys, guaranteed to succeed? Or is it perhaps none of these things? I suggest you brief Foster and send him to Salisbury with Herman in the morning. Have him talk with Wilson. Give him explicit orders — find out. He is to gather intelligence only, not alarm our quarry."

"He follows orders," Heinrich Muller said approvingly. "Your tactical plan is excellent, as always."

"Thank you." The good eye glittered at Muller, but even in appreciation of a compliment it had the cold, merciless appearance of a cobra viewing a target, plus a speculative narrowing, like a reptile with egomania.

* * *

Nick discovered something he had not known — how smart travel agents, tour operators, and travel contractors keep their important customers happy. After cocktails at the hotel Ian Masters and four of his personable merry men drove the party to the South Africa Club, a lovely tropical-style building amid lush grounds lit by colored lights and refreshed by sparkling fountains.

Inside the club the girls, resplendent in their colorful gowns, were introduced to a dozen men. All were young and most were handsome, two wore uniforms, and for solidity there were two older citizens, one with a distinguished grouping of decorations on his dinner jacket.

A long table was reserved for the party in an ell of the main dining room, adjacent to the dance floor, and with its own service bar. After the introductions and pleasant chat, they discovered place cards which cleverly seated each girl between two men. Nick and Gus found themselves side by side at the far end of the table.

The senior escort murmured, "Ian is a good operator. This makes a hit with the women. They see enough of you and me."

"Look where he put Booty. Next to old Sir Humphrey Condon. Ian knows she's VIP. I didn't tell him."

"Maybe Manny sent along her old man's credit rating in the confidential advices."

"With that body she can do all right without a push. She looks class, maybe he guessed." Gus chuckled. "Don't fret You'll have plenty of time with her."

"I haven't been making time lately. But Ruth is good company. Anyway, I've got some worries about Booty..."

"What! Not this soon. Its only been three days — you couldn't have..."

"Not what you're thinking. She's cool. Something's wrong. If we're going into the gold business I suggest we keep an eye on her."

"Booty! Could she be dangerous... spying..."

"You know how these kids like adventure. The CIA has fallen into a lot of messes using kindergarten snoops. Usually they do it for the money, but a gal like Booty might go for the glamour. Little Miss Jane Bond."

Gus took a deep swallow of his wine. "Wow — now that you mention it, this fits in with what happened while I was dressing. She called and said she wouldn't go with the group tomorrow morning. The afternoon is free time for shopping anyway. She has hired a car and is going off on her own. I tried to pin her down and she sounded secretive. Said she wanted to visit something in the Motoroshanga district. I tried to talk her out of it, but hell — if they've got the funds they can do anything they please. She got the car from Selfridge's Self-Drive Cars."

"She could have gotten one easily from Masters, couldn't she?"

"Yes." Gus trailed off the word with sibilant s sounds, his eyes narrow and thoughtful "You may be right about her. I thought she just wanted to be independent, the way some of them do. Showing you they can operate all right on their own..."

"Can you reach Selfridge's and find out about the car and time of delivery?"

"They have a night number. Give me a moment." He was back in five minutes, his expression slightly grim. "A Singer Vogue. At the hotel at eight. It looks like you're right. She had arranged credit and a permit by cable. Why didn't she ever mention that to us?"

"Part of the intrigue, old man. When you have a chance, ask Masters to have a self-drive at the hotel for me at seven. Make sure it's as fast as that Singer."

Later in the evening, between the roast and the sweets, Gus told Nick, "Okay. A BMW-1800 for you at seven. Ian promises it'll be in perfect shape."

Just after eleven Nick said polite good nights and left the club. He wouldn't be missed. Everyone seemed to be having better than a good time. The food had been excellent, the wines plentiful, and the music sweet Ruth Crossman was with a dashing lad who looked as if fun, fellowship, and virility were his prime qualities.

Nick returned to Meikles, soaked his battered body again in hot and cold tubs, and checked his gear. He always felt better when every item was in place, oiled, cleaned, saddle-soaped, or polished according to its needs. Your mind seemed to function faster when you had no small doubts or worries.

He removed the packets of bills from a khaki money belt and replaced them with four blocks of explosive plastique shaped and wrapped like bars of Cadbury chocolate. With them he put eight fuses that normally traveled among his pipe cleaners, identified only by tiny blobs of solder on one end of the wire. He turned on a small transmitter beeper, which had a signal good for eight or ten miles under fair conditions, and noted the directional response to his transistor radio, the size of a pocketbook. Edge toward the transmitter, strong signaL Flat toward the beeper, weakest signal.

He turned in and was grateful that no one disturbed him until the desk called him at six. His travel alarm went off with a burr-r-r-r just as he hung up.

At seven he met one of the muscular young men who had been at the party the night before, John Patton. Patton handed him a set of keys and pointed to a blue BMW gleaming in the fresh morning air. "Full of gas and checked out, Mr. Grant. Mr. Masters said you particularly wanted it in perfect shape."

"Thanks, John. That was a nice party last night. Did you have a good rime?"

"Grand. Wonderful group you brought Have a nice trip."

Patton walked briskly away. Nick grinned slightly. Patton had not betrayed by the flicker of an eyelid what he meant by wonderful, but he had been snuggling Janet Olson, and Nick had seen him drink a goodly amount Stout fellow.

Nick reparked the BMW out of sight, checked himself out on the controls, explored the trunk space, and inspected the motor. He checked the underframe as best he could, then used his receiver to see if the car was bugged. There were no betraying emissions. He worked his way all around the car, scanning all the frequencies his special set could receive, before deciding the car was clean. He went up to Gus's room and found the senior escort hurrying his shaving, his eyes foggy and bloodshot in the glare of the bathroom lights. "Big evening," Gus said. 'You were smart to cut out. Whooh! I got in at five."

"You ought to live the clean life. I turned in early."

Gus inspected Nick's face. "That eye shows black even under the paint. You look almost as bad as I do."

"Sour grapes. You'll feel better after some breakfast I'll need a bit of help. Escort Booty out to her car when it comes, then get her back into the hotel on some excuse. How about having them put up a box lunch and then take her back inside to get it Don't tell her what it is — shell make some excuse not to get it or she probably has one ordered already."

Most of the girls were late for breakfast. Nick haunted the lobby, watched the street, and saw a cream-colored Singer Vogue park in one of the angled spaces at exactly eight o'clock. A young man in a white jacket entered the hotel and the PA system paged Miss DeLong. Through a window Nick watched Booty and Gus meet the delivery man near the desk and go out to the Singer. They talked. The lad in the white jacket left Booty and Gus went back into the hotel. Nick slipped out the door near the arcade.

He walked swiftly behind the parked cars and pretended to drop something at the rear of a Rover parked beside the Singer. He went down out of sight When he came up, the beeper-emitter was fastened under the Singer's rear frame.

From the corner he watched Booty and Gus come out of the hotel carrying a small box and Booty's large handbag. They paused under the portico. Nick watched until Booty got into the Singer and started the engine, then he hurried back to the BMW. When he eased up to the turn the Singer was halfway down the block. Gus spotted him and waved, a small motion with an upward flick of his hand. "Good luck," it seemed to semaphore.

Booty drove north. The day was gorgeous, the bright sun baking a landscape that looked like Southern California in a dry spell — not the desert areas, but the near-mountain country, with thick vegetation and strange rock formations. Nick followed, staying far back, confirming contact by the ba-beep of the radio receiver braced against the back of the seat at his side.

The more he saw of the country the more he liked it — climate, landscape, and people. The blacks looked calm and often prosperous, driving all sorts of cars and trucks. He reminded himself that he was seeing a developed, commercial section of the country and ought to withhold opinion.

He saw an elephant grazing near an irrigation pump, and by the astonished looks of the bystanders he concluded they were as surprised as he was. The animal probably had been driven into civilization by the drought.

The hallmark of England was everywhere and it fitted very well, as if a sun-splashed countryside and hardy tropical vegetation was just as good a background as the mild-damp cloudy landscape of the British Isles. The baobab trees caught his attention. They cast weird arms toward space, looking like the banyan or fig trees of Florida. He passed one that must have measured thirty feet across, and came to an intersection. The signs included Ayrshire, Eldorado, Picaninyamba, Sinoia. Nick stopped, picked up his radio and rotated it The strongest signal came from dead ahead. He went straight and tested the ba-heep again. Right out in front and loud and clear.

He rounded a turn, saw Booty's Singer stopped at a roadside gate; he stamped the BMW's brakes and hid it handily in a turnout evidently used by trucks. He jumped out of the car and peered past the neatly clipped bushes that screened a cluster of rubbish cans. There was no traffic on the road. The Singer's horn bleated four times. After a considerable wait a black man, wearing khaki shorts, shirt, and a peaked cap, trotted up the side road and unlocked the gate. The Singer drove in and the man fastened the gate, got in the car, and drove it down the grade and out of sight Nick waited a moment, then drove the BMW to the gate.

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."

"Of course not I'm just concerned about Miss DeLong's safety. That's why I followed her."

Booty couldn't keep quiet. She said, "How did you know to come here? I watched in my mirror all the way. You weren't behind me."

"Yes, I was," Nick said. "You just didn't look carefully enough. You should have gone by the driveway. Then doubled back. You would have caught me, then."

Booty glared at him. If looks could give you a rash! "The Garb of Auld Gaul," softer now, ended. The band swung into "Road to the Isles." The white man was walking back from the house, slowly. Nick shot a glance under his supporting arm. Something moved at the corner of the roof, at the back.

"Can I come down..."

"Toss down your weapon, laddie." The tones weren't so gentle.

Nick shook his head, pretending to think. Over the martial music something scraped and he was engulfed in a net and swept off the roof. He was groping for Wilhelmina as he landed with a stunning crash at Pieter van Prez's feet.

The older man leaped, got a double-handed grip on Nick's gun hand as Wilhelmina tangled in the net ropes. An instant later Tommy and Fred hit the pile. The Luger was jerked away from him. Another fold of the Bet whipped over him as the white men sprang back and two blacks flipped the net ends across with practiced precision.

Chapter Four

Nick had landed partly on his head. He thought his reflexes were normal but they were slowed for a few seconds, although he realized everything that was going on. He felt like a TV watcher who has sat so long he is stiff and his muscles refuse to flash into action, although his mind continues to absorb the content of the screen.

It was damned humiliating. The two blacks secured the end ropes of the nets and stepped back. They resembled Tembo. He imagined one of them might be the Zanga who had gone to warn Pieter. He saw John J. Johnson walk around the corner of the garage. He had been back there to give them a hand with the net.

The band struck up "Dumbarton's Drums" and Nick scowled. The stirring music had been deliberately played to cover the sound of the moving men and the net. And Pieter van Prez had organized the movement in seconds, with the smooth tactics of an experienced strategist. He gave the impression of a likable, eccentric old chap who played bagpipes for his friends and rued the loss of horses for the cavalry because it ruined foxhunting when on active duty. So much for historical reference — the old boy probably understood random-selection computer analysis.

Nick took a couple of deep breaths. His head had cleared, but he felt no less foolish trussed up like fresh-caught game. He could reach Hugo and cut himself free in an instant, but Tommy Howe held the Luger very professionally and you could bet there was other firepower hidden here and there.

Booty giggled. "If J. Edgar could see you now..."

Nick felt heat travel up his neck. Why hadn't he insisted on that vacation-or retired? He said to Pieter, "I'll take that cool drink now if you'll get me out of this mess."

"I don't suppose ye have another gun," Pieter said, and then showed his diplomatic generalship by not having Nick searched — after letting him know that he had thought of the possibility. "Unfasten him, lads. Please forgive the rough treatment, Mr. Grant. But you are trespassing, you know. These are bad times. One never knows. It does nae seem to me that we have any quarrel, unless the United States is getting ready to put hard pressure on us and that makes no sense. Or does it?"

Tembo unwrapped the net. Nick stood up and rubbed his elbow. Truthfully — I don't believe you and I have any differences. Miss DeLong is my concern."

Pieter neither bought it nor rejected it. "Come along up in the cool. You can use a glass on a day like this."

Everyone except Tembo and Zanga sauntered to the patio. Pieter personally prepared a tall one and handed it to Nick. Another subtle gesture of mollification. "Any man named Grant takes Scotch and water. Did ye know ye were followed from the highroad?"

"I thought so once or twice but I saw nothing. How did you know I was coming?"

'The dogs at the small house. You saw them?"

"Yes."

Tembo was inside. He phoned me and then followed you. The dogs track silently. What you may have heard was his command to them to hold back and not alert you. It sounds like an animal's growl but your ear may have distrusted it."

Nick nodded agreement and took a long draught of the Scotch. Ah-h-h. He noticed that van Prez occasionally lost the burr from his speech and talked like a well-educated Englishman. He gestured at the beautifully furnished patio. "A very nice home, Mr. van Prez."

"Thank you. It shows what hard work, thrift, and a substantial inheritance can do. You're wondering about my name being Afrikaans and my actions and accent Scotch. My mother — a Duncan — married a van Prez. He came up with the first treks from South Africa and put together much of this." He waved a hand at the great expanse of land. "Cattle, tobacco, minerals. He had a keen eye."

The others had distributed themselves on the foam-rubber chairs and lounges. The patio would have served a small, mom-and-pop resort hotel. Booty was in an adjacent conversation U with John Johnson, Howe, Maxwell, and Zanga. Mrs. Ryerson brought Nick a tray of snacks — meat and cheese on triangles of bread, nuts, pretzels. Nick took a handful. She sat down with them. "You had a long, hot walk. Mr. Grant. I could have driven you in. Was that your BMW parked near the highway?"

"Yes," Nick said. "The strong gate stopped me. I didn't know it was so far."

Mrs. Ryerson pushed the tray nearer his elbow. "Try the biltong. There..." She gestured at what looked like dried beef curled on the bread with dabs of sauce. "Biltong is just salted meat but it's delicious when prepared properly. That's a bit of pepper sauce on the biltong."

Nick smiled at her and tried one of the canapés while his mind clicked. Biltong-biltong-biltong. For a moment he recalled Hawk's last keen, kindly glance and caution. His elbow pained and he rubbed it. Yeah, kindly Daddy Hawk, pushing Junior out the door of the plane for a parachute jump. It has to be done, son. I'II be there when you hit. Don't worry, the chute is unconditionally guaranteed.

"What do you think of Rhodesia, Mr. Grant?" van Prez asked.

"Fascinating. Exciting."

Martha Ryerson chuckled. Van Prez glanced sharply j at her and she returned his look with amusement. "Have you met many of our citizens?"

"Masters, the tour contractor. Alan Wilson, a businessman."

"Ah, yes, Wilson. One of our most enthusiastic advocates of independence. And sound business conditions."

"He mentioned something about it."

"A brave man, too. In his way. The way the Roman legionnaires were brave. A sort of half-interested patriotism."

"I thought he'd have made a fine Confederate cavalryman," Nick said, following the lead. "You get the philosophy by putting courage, ideals, and greed in a Waring blendor."

"Waring blendor?" van Prez asked.

"A machine that whips them all together," Mrs. Ryerson explained. "It stirs everything into a sort of soup."

Van Prez nodded, imagining the process. "It fits. And they can never be separated again. We have a lot like that."

"But not you," Nick said carefully. "I imagine your point of view is — more reasonable." He glanced at John Johnson.

"Reasonable? Some call it treasonable. For the record let's say I can't make up my mind."

Nick doubted that the mind behind those sharp eyes was ever unmade for very long. "I understand it's a very complicated situation."

Van Prez poured a dash of whiskey into their glasses. "It is that. Whose independence comes first? You had a similar problem with the Indians. Should we solve it your way?"

Nick refused to be drawn into that one. When he was silent Mrs. Ryerson interjected, "Are you just conducting the tour, Mr. Grant? Or do you have other — interests here?"

"I've often thought of going into the gold business. Wilson turned me down when I tried to buy some. I hear the Taylor-Hill-Boreman Mining Company has made new strikes. Maybe they'll be more interested."

"I'd stay away from them if I were you," van Prez said quickly.

"Why?"

"They have markets for everything they produce. And they are a tough crowd, with firm political connections. It's rumored that other things go on behind the gold facade — strange rumors of assassins for hire. If they catch you the way we did, you won't just be netted. You wont survive."

"And where does that leave you as a Rhodesian patriot?"

Van Prez shrugged. "On balance."

"Did you know that people also say they are financing the new Nazis? They contribute to the Odessa fund, support half a dozen dictators — with both guns and gold."

"I've heard. I don't necessarily believe."

"Is it improbable?"

"Why would they sell to Communists and finance Fascists?"

"What better joke? First you dump the Socialists, using their own money to bankroll your blows, and then you finish off the democracies at leisure. When it's over they'll build statues of Hitler in every capital of the world. Three hundred feet high. He made it. Just delayed a little while, that's all."

Van Prez and Mrs. Ryerson looked questioningly at each other. Nick guessed the idea had been around here before. The trills and shrieks of the birds were the only sounds. At last van Prez said, "I must think about that Time for tea." He stood up.

"And then Booty and I can depart?"

"You go and have a wash. Mrs. Ryerson will show you the way. About your going, we'll have to have an indaba here on the stoep about that." He waved a hand that took in all the others.

Nick shrugged and followed Mrs. Ryerson through the sliding glass doors into the house. She led him down a long hall and pointed to a door. "There."

Nick whispered, "Biltong is good. Robert Morris should have shipped more to Valley Forge." The name of the American patriot and Washington's winter quarters were AXE identification words.

Mrs. Ryerson gave the correct answer. "Israel Putnam, the general from Connecticut. You came at a bad time, Grant. Johnson was smuggled in via Tanzania. Tembo and Zanga just came back from Zambia. They have a guerrilla group up in the jungle along the river. They are fighting the Rhodesian army now. and they're doing such a good job the Rhodesians have had to bring in South African troops."

"Booty brought money?"

"Yes. She's just a courier. But van Prez may think you have seen too much to be let go. If the Rhodesian police show you pictures of Tembo and Zanga, you could identify them."

"What do you suggest?"

"I don't know. I've lived here for six years. I'm in-place AXE P21. I can probably free you eventually, if they keep you."

"They won't," Nick promised. "Don't disturb your cover, it's too valuable."

"Thank you. And you are..."

"N3."

Martha Ryerson swallowed, regained her calm. Nick decided she had been a beautiful girl. She was still very attractive. And she evidently knew that N3 meant Killmaster. She whispered, "Good luck," and went away.

The bath was ultramodern and well equipped. Nick washed quickly, sampled the men's lotion and cologne, combed his dark-brown hair. When he returned through the long hall, van Prez and his guests were gathered in a large dining room. A buffet — actually a smorgasbord — was spread on a side table at least twenty-five feet long, covered with snowy linen and set with gleaming silverware. Pieter graciously handed the first large plates to Mrs. Ryerson and Booty and invited them to begin the attack.

Nick loaded his plate with meats and salad. Howe was monopolizing Booty, which was all right with Nick until he had eaten a few mouthfuls. A Negro man and woman in white uniforms came from the rear of the house to pour tea. Nick noted the swinging doors and decided the kitchen was beyond a butler's pantry.

When he felt a little less empty Nick said pleasantly to van Prez, "This is an excellent luncheon. It reminds me of England."

"Thank you."

"Did you decide my fate?"

"Don't be so melodramatic. Yes — we must ask you to stay at least until tomorrow. We will telephone your friends and say you had motor trouble."

Nick frowned. For the first time he felt a small measure of hostility toward his host. The old man had put his roots down in a land that suddenly bloomed with problems like a locust plague. He could feel for him. But this is too arbitrary.

"May I ask why we're being detained?" Nick asked.

"Actually only you are being detained. Booty is pleased to accept my hospitality. I don't think you'd go to the authorities. It's none of your affair and you seem a reasonable man, but we cannot take chances. Even when you do leave, I'm going to ask you as a gentleman to forget anything you've seen here."

"I believe you mean — anyone," Nick corrected.

"Yes."

Nick noted the look of cold hate that John Johnson cast in his direction. There had to be a reason they needed the one day's grace. Probably they had a column or tactical group between the van Prez ranch and the jungle valley. He said. "Suppose I promise — as a gentleman — not to talk if you let us return now."

Van Prez's grave glance went to Johnson, Howe, Tembo. Nick read negatives in their faces. "I'm sorry," van Prez answered.

"So am I," Nick murmured.

He finished his meal and lit a small dear, fumbling in his pants pocket for the lighter. You couldn't say they didn't ask for it. He felt satisfaction at going over to the attack, and then reproved himself. A Killmaster must control his emotions, especially his ego. He must for about that surprise plop from the garage roof, about being trussed like a captured animal.

When he put the lighter away he removed the two oval, egglike containers from the pocket of his shorts. He was careful not to mistake them for the pellets on the left that contained explosives.

He studied the room. It was air-conditioned; the patio and hall doors had been slid shut. The servants had just gone through the swinging doors to the kitchen. It was a big room, but Stuart had designed big-expansion into the knock-out gas compressed under very high pressure. He felt the small toggles and turned them off safety. He said loudly, "Well — if we have to stay we'll make the best of it, I suppose. Can we..."

His voice did not cover the loud, double poof-poof and hiss as the two gas bombs released their loads.

"What was that?" van Prez roared and half-stood at the table.

Nick held his breath and began to count.

"I don't know." Maxwell replied from across the table and pushed back his chair. "Sounded like a small explosion. Somewhere on the floor?"

Van Prez bent down, gasped, and slowly collapsed like an oak run through by a chain saw.

"Pieter! What's the matter?" Maxwell started around the table, wobbled, and went down. Mrs. Ryerson's head tilted back as if she napped.

Booty's head fell forward into the remains of her salad. Howe choked, swore, thrust a hand inside his jacket, and then fell backward in his chair, looking like an unconscious, seated Napoleon. Tembo, three seats away, managed to reach Pieter. It was the worst direction he could have taken. He went to sleep like a tired baby.

John Johnson was the problem. He did not know what had happened but he got up and moved away from the table, sniffing suspiciously. The two dogs, which had been left outside, knew intuitively that something was wrong with their master. They hit the glass partition with a double crash, barking, their giant jaws red caverns rimmed with white teeth. The glass was strong — it held.

Johnson put a hand to his hip. Nick picked up his plate and scaled it accurately into the man s throat.

Johnson staggered back, his face calm and without hate, serenity in black. The hand he had at his hip suddenly dangled forward on the end of an arm gone leaden and powerless. He took a gasping breath, tried to control himself, determination clear in the helpless eyes. Nick picked up van Prez's plate and balanced it like a discus. The man didn't give up easily. Johnson's eyes closed and he fell.

Nick put van Prez's plate neatly back where it came from. He was still counting — one-hundred-and-twenty-one, one-hundred-and-twenty-two. He felt no need to breathe. One of his better skills was holding his breath; he could almost reach the unofficial record.

He plucked a small blue Spanish revolver from Johnson's pocket, took an assortment of guns from the unconscious van Prez, Howe. Maxwell, and Tembo. He retrieved Wilhelmina from Maxwell's belt and to make things look right, searched both Booty's and Mrs. Ryerson's handbags. Neither held a weapon.

Trotting to the double doors that opened on the butler's pantry, he slammed them open. The generous-size room, with an astonishing number of wall cabinets and three built-in sinks, was empty. He ran through tie room into the kitchen. Across the room the screen door slammed shut The man and woman who had served them were running across the service yard. Nick closed and latched the door to prevent the dogs getting in.

Fresh, oddly scented air blew softly through the screen. Nick let out his breath and emptied and filled his lungs. He wondered if they had a spice garden near the kitchen. The running Negroes vanished from sight.

The big house was suddenly silent. The only sounds were the distant cheeureep of a bird and the soft burble of water in the teakettle on the stove.

In a storage room off the kitchen Nick found a fifty-foot hank of nylon clothesline. He returned to the dining room. The men and women lay where they had fallen, looking sadly helpless. Only Johnson and Tembo showed signs of returning consciousness. Johnson was muttering unintelligible words. Tembo swayed his head very slowly from side to side.

Nick tied them up first, throwing clove hitches secured by square knots on their wrists and ankles. He did it almost without looking, like an old-time bosun's mate.

Chapter Five

Securing the others took only minutes. He tied Howe's and Maxwell's ankles — they were earnest chaps and wouldn't be above a foot attack with their hands tied — but fastened only van Prez's hands and left Booty and Mrs. Ryerson free. He collected the guns on the buffet table and unloaded them all, dropping the cartridge into a bowl greasy with the remains of a green salad.

Reflectively he swished the shells around in the goo and then put the bowl with some others and spooned salad into it from another one.

Then he took a clean plate, selected two thick slices of roast beef and a scoop of spiced beans and took the seat he had occupied for lunch.

Johnson and Tembo came to first. The dogs sat outside the glass partition, watching alertly, their hackles up. Johnson said thickly, "Damn... you... Grant. You'll... wish... you... never came to... our land."

"Your land?" Nick paused with a forkful of beef.

"My people's land. We'll get it back and we'll hang bastards like you. What are you interfering for? You honkies think you can run the world! We'll show you! We're doing it now and well do more..."

His tones went up and up the scale. Nick said sharply, "Shut up and get back in your chair if you can. I'm eating."

Johnson hitched himself around, struggled to his feet, and hopped back to his seat. Tembo, seeing the demonstration, said nothing but did the same. Nick reminded himself not to let Tembo get near him with a weapon.

By the time Nick had cleaned his plate and poured himself another cup of tea from the pot on the buffet table, snugly warm in its knitted woolen cozy, the others had followed the example of Johnson and Tembo. They said nothing, just glared at him. He wanted to feel victorious and avenged — instead he felt like the skeleton at the feast.

Van Prez's look was a blend of anger and disappointment that made him feel almost sorry for gaining the upper hand — as if he had done wrong. He had to break the silence himself. "Miss DeLong and I will be going back to Salisbury now. Unless you'd like to tell me more about your — er, program. And I'd appreciate any information you'd like to add about the Taylor-Hill-Boreman outfit."

"I'm not going anywhere with you, you beast!" Booty yelped.

"Now, now, Booty," van Prez said, his voice surprisingly soft. "Mr. Grant has the situation under his command. It would look worse if he returned without you. Do you plan to turn us in. Grant?"

"Turn you in? To whom? Why? We've had a little fun. I've learned a few things, but I'm not going to tell anyone about them. In fact I've forgotten all your names. Sounds silly, my memory is usually excellent. No — I walked into your ranch, found nothing except Miss DeLong, and we returned to town. How does that sound?"

"Spoken like a Highlander," van Prez said thoughtfully. "About Taylor-Hill. They made a pegging. Perhaps the greatest in the country. They're selling fast — but that you know. To everybody. And my advice still goes. Stay away from them. They have the political connections and the force. They'll scrag you if you go against them."

"How about both of us going against them?"

"We have no reason to."

"You believe your problems don't concern them?"

"Not yet. When the day comes..." Van Prez looked around at his friends. "I should have asked if you agree with me."

Heads nodded affirmatively. Johnson said, "Don't trust him. Honkie government man. He..."

"Don't you trust me?" van Prez asked gently. "I'm a honkie."

Johnson looked down. "I'm sorry."

"We understand. There was a time my people killed Englishmen on sight. Now some of us call ourselves Englishmen without thinking much about it. After all, John, we are all... men. Parts of the whole."

Nick stood up, slid Hugo from the sheath, and cut van Prez loose. "Mrs. Ryerson, please take a table knife and free all the others. Miss DeLong — shall we go?"

With an expressively silent flounce Booty picked up her handbag and opened the patio doors. The two dogs burst in, beaded for Nick but with their eyes on van Prez. The old man said, "Stay... Jane... Gymba... stay."

The dogs halted, wagged their tails, and caught pieces of meat on the fly which van Prez tossed them. Nick followed Booty outside.

Seated in the Singer, Nick looked at van Prez. "Sorry if I spoiled everybody's tea."

He thought there was a twinkle of amusement in the keen eyes. "No harm. It seemed to clear the air. Perhaps we all know better where we stand. I don't think the boys will really believe you till they find out you meant it about not talking." Suddenly van Prez straightened and held up a hand and bellowed, ""No! Wallo. It's all right."

Nick had ducked, his fingers probing toward Wilhelmina. At the foot of a low, green-brown tree two hundred yards away he saw the unmistakable silhouette of a man in prone firing position. He narrowed his remarkably keen eyes and decided Wallo was the Negro of the kitchen staff who had served them and run when Nick invaded the kitchen.

Nick squinted, compressing his 20/15 vision into sharp focus. There was a telescopic sight on the rifle. He said, "Well, Pieter, the tables turned again. Your men are determined. I thought that man and the woman who worked with him would be still running."

"We all jump to conclusions sometimes," van Prez answered. "Especially if we're preconditioned. None of my people have ever run very far. One of them gave his life for me, many years ago in the jungle. Perhaps I feel I owe them something for that. It's hard to untangle our personal motivations and social actions."

"What's your conclusion about me?" Nick asked, both curious and because it would be a valuable note for future reference.

"Are you wondering if I'll have you shot on your way to the highway?"

"Of course not. You could have let Wallo pot me a moment ago. I'm sure he's hunted enough big game to hit me dead center."

Van Prez nodded. "You're right. My opinion of you is that your word is good, as mine is. You have genuine courage, and usually that means honesty. It is the coward, dodging fear through no fault of his own, sometimes, who double-deals or stabs in the back or shoots wildly at foes. Or... bombs women and children."

Nick wagged his head without smiling. "You're leading me toward politics again. They're not my dish. I just want to get this tour group safely through..."

A bell rang, a trilling, amplified blurr-r. "Wait a moment," van Prez said. "That's the gate house you passed coming in. You don't want to meet a cattle truck on that road." He trotted up the wide steps — his step as light and springy as a youth's — and took a telephone instrument from a gray metal box. "Pieter here..." He listened. "Right" he barked, his whole attitude changed. "Stay out of sight."

He slammed the receiver down and yelled into the house. "Maxwell!'

An answering shout came. "Yes?"

"Army patrol coming in. Get on the horn to M5. Make it short. Code four."

"Code four." Maxwell's head appeared briefly at a porch window and then he vanished. Van Prez bounded down to the car.

"Army and police. Probably just checking up."

"How do they get through your highway gate?" Nick asked. "Smash it?"

"No. They demand duplicate keys from all of us." Van Prez looked worried, tension drawing extra lines in his weathered features for the first time since Nick had met him.

"I guess every minute counts now" Nick said softly. "Your code four must be between here and the jungle valley, and whoever they are they can't move fast. I'll give you a few more minutes. Booty — let's go."

Booty looked at van Prez. "Do as he says," the old man barked. He put his hand through the window. "Thanks, Grant. You must come from Highlanders."

Booty headed the Singer out the entrance road. They topped the first rise and the ranch vanished behind them. "Step on it!" Nick said.

"What are you going to do?"

"Give Pieter and the others a little time."

"Why would you do that?" Booty increased speed, bouncing the car through dips in the gravel.

"I owe it to them for an interesting afternoon." The pump house came in sight. It was as Nick remembered it — the pipes ran under the road and surfaced on both sides; there was room for only one car. "Stop right between those pipes — at the pump house."

Booty gunned the few hundred yards, braked to a halt in a shower of dust and dry earth. Nick jumped out, unscrewed the right rear tire valve, and the air whooshed out. He replaced the stem.

He went to the spare, removed its valve stem, and twisted it in his fingers until its core was bent. He leaned on Booty's window. "Here's our story when the army arrives. We had a flat. There was no air in the spare. I think it was a bum valve stem. All we need now is a pump."

"Here they come."

A sheet of dust billowed up against the cloudless sky — of a blue so clear it looked luminous, retouched by bright ink. The dust formed a soiled panel, rising, spreading. The road formed its base, a notch in the bundu. Through the notch came a jeep, a small red-and-yellow pennant whipping from its aerial as if an ancient lancer had lost his spear and flag to the machine age. Three armored personnel carriers followed the jeep, giant armadillos with heavy machine guns for snouts. Behind them came two six-by-six trucks, the last one towing an impudent little tank trailer that danced along the rough road as if to say, I may be littlest and last but not least — for it's water that you'll want when you're on the bloomin' trot...

Gunga Din with rubber tires.

The jeep stopped ten feet from the Singer. The officer in the right seat casually climbed out and approached Nick. He wore a British-type tropical rig with shorts, retaining a garrison cap instead of a solar topee. He was not over thirty, and had the strained expression of a man who takes his job seriously and is unhappy because he's not sure he's got the right one. The curse of modern military service was eating at him; they tell you it's your duty but they make the mistake of teaching you to reason so you can handle the modern equipment. You get your hands on the story of the Nuremberg trials and the Geneva Conferences and you realize that everybody is mixed up, which means that somebody must be lying to you. You get hold of a copy of Marx to see what they're all arguing about and you suddenly feel balanced on a shaky fence, listening to shouted bad advice.

Trouble?" the officer asked. He surveyed the surrounding bush carefully.

Nick noted that the quick firer in the first personnel carrier stayed on him, and the officer never got in the line of fire. The steel snouts in the next two carriers traversed outward, one left, one right. A soldier dropped from the first truck and made a quick inspection of the little pump house.

"Flat tire," Nick said. He held out the valve. "Bad valve. I replaced it but we don't have a pump."

"We may have one," the officer replied without looking at Nick. He continued to calmly survey the road ahead, the bundu, nearby trees, with the avid interest of a casual tourist, anxious to see everything but not worried at what he missed. Nick knew he wasn't missing anything. At last he looked at Nick and the Singer. "Odd place you stopped."

"Why?"

"Completely blocking the road."

"It's about where the air came out of the tire. I guess we stopped here because the pump house is the only bit of civilization in sight."

"Hm-m. Ah, yes. You're American?"

"Yes."

"May I see your papers? We don't usually do this but these are unusual times. It will simplify things if I don't have to question you."

"What if I'm not carrying any papers? We weren't told this country is like Europe or some Iron Curtain places where you have to have a dog tag around your neck."

"Then please tell me who you are and where you have been." The officer casually checked all the Singer's tires, even kicking one with his foot.

Nick handed him his passport. He was rewarded with a look that said, You might have just done this in the first place.

The officer read carefully, made notes on a small pad. As if to himself he said, "You might have mounted your spare tire."

"It was flat," Nick lied. "I used the valve stem from it You know these for-hire cars."

"I know." He handed Nick his passport and Edman Tour identification card. "I'm Leftenant Sandeman, Mr. Grant Have you met anyone in Salisbury?"

"Ian Masters is our tour contractor."

"I've never heard of Edman Educational Tours. Are they like American Express?"

"Yes. There are dozens of smaller tour companies who specialize. Everybody doesn't want a Chevrolet, you might say. Our group is made up of young ladies of wealthy families. An expensive jaunt."

"What a lovely job you have." Sandeman turned and called to the jeep. "Corporal — please bring over a tire pump."

Sandeman chatted with Booty and glanced at her papers while a short, rugged-looking soldier pumped up the flat tire. Then the officer turned back to Nick. "What were you doing in here?"

"Visiting Mr. van Prez," Booty broke in smoothly. "He's a pen pal of mine."

"How nice for him," Sandeman answered pleasantly. "Did you come in together?"

"You know we didn't," Nick said. "You saw my BMW parked near the highway. Miss DeLong left early and I followed later. She forgot that I didn't have a key to the gate and I didn't want to damage it. So I walked in. I didn't realize how far it was. This part of your country is like our West."

Sandeman's tense, young-old face was expressionless. "Your tire is inflated. Please pull over there and let us by."

He gave them a salute and swung into the jeep as it rolled by. The little column vanished in its own dust.

Booty drove the Singer toward the main road. After Nick had unlocked the barrier with the key she gave him and closed it behind them, she said, "Before you get your own car I want to tell you, Andy — that was nice of you. I don't know why you did it, but I know that every minute of delay helped van Prez."

"And some others. I like him. And the rest of those people are nice folks, I think, when they're home and standing at ease."

She halted the car beside die BMW and thought for a moment. "I don't understand. Did you like — Johnson and Tembo too?"

"Of course. And Wallo. Even if I hardly saw him, I like a man who sticks at his job."

Booty sighed and shook her head. Nick thought she was positively beautiful in the fading light Her bright blonde hair was awry, her features betrayed weariness, but her pert chin was up and the graceful line of her jaw was firm. He felt a strong interest in her — why would such a beautiful girl, who could probably have anything in the world she wanted, get involved in international politics? It was more than just discovering a relief from boredom or a way to feel important. When this girl gave herself it was a commitment with a reason.

"You look tired, Booty," he said gently. "Shall we stop somewhere for a pick-me-up as they say around here?"

She tilted her head back, pushed forward her legs, and sighed. "I am. I guess all those surprises wore me down. Yes, let's stop someplace."

"We'll do better than that." He got out and walked around the car. "Move over."

"What about your car?" she asked as she obeyed.

"I'll have it picked up and brought in. I guess my expense account can stand it as personal service to special client."

He rolled the car toward Salisbury at an easy pace. Booty peeked at him, then laid her head against the backrest and studied this man who was becoming more and more of a puzzle, and more and more of an attraction for her. She decided he was handsome, an advance over her first opinion when she had considered him good-looking and empty, like so many she had met. His features had the flexibility of an actor's. She had seen them look hard as granite, yet she decided there had always been a certain kindness in the eyes which never varied.

There was no doubting his strength and firmness of purpose, but it was tempered with — mercy? That wasn't quite right but it would have to do. He probably was a government agent of some kind, although he could be a private detective hired by — Edman Tours — her father? She recalled how van Prez had failed to press him for his exact alliance. She sighed and let her head sag onto his shoulder and put one hand on his leg, not a sensuous touch, just because it was the natural position in which it fell. He patted her hand and she felt a warmth in her chest and stomach. The gentle gesture aroused her more than an erotic caress. A lot of man. He probably was positively thrilling in bed, although that did not necessarily follow. She was fairly sure he had slept with Ruth, and Ruth looked satisfied and dreamy-eyed the next morning, so maybe...

She slept.

Nick found her weight pleasant, she smelled nice and felt nice. He put his arm around her. She purred and relaxed even more against him. He drove automatically and built a few fantasies that involved Booty in various interesting attitudes. When he pulled up at the Meikles Hotel he murmured, "Booty..."

"Hmpf...?" He enjoyed watching her awaken. "Thanks for letting me sleep." She became fully alert, not half-conscious as so many women did, as if they hated to face the world again.

At the door of her room he paused until she said, "Oh, c'mon in for a drink. I don't know where the others are now, do you?"

"No."'

"Do you want to dress and go down for dinner?"

"No."

"I hate to eat alone..."

"So do I." Normally, he didn't, but he" was surprised to realize that tonight it was true. He did not want to leave her and face the loneliness of his room or a single table in the dining room. "Ill order from room service."

"Please get ice and a couple of bottles of soda first."

He called for setups and menus, and then phoned Selfridge's to pick up the Singer and Masters' to bring in the BMW. The girl on the phone at Masters' said, "This is a bit unusual, Mr. Grant. There will be an extra charge."

"Check it out with Ian Masters," he said. 'I'm a tour escort."

"Oh — then there may be no extra charge."

"Thank you." He hung up. They learned quickly in the travel business. He wondered if Gus Boyd received a cash payment from Masters. It wasn't his business and he really didn't care, you just liked to know exactly where everyone stood and how tall.

They enjoyed two drinks, an excellent dinner with a good bottle of rosé, and pulled the couch around so they could look out over the city lights with coffees and brandies. Booty turned out the lights except for a bedlamp over which she hung a towel. "It's soothing this way," she explained.

"Intimate," Nick replied.

"Dangerous."

"Sensual."

She laughed. "A few years ago a virtuous girl wouldn't consider getting into a situation like tills. Alone in her bedroom. Door closed."

"I locked it," Nick said cheerfully. "That's when virtue was its own reward — boredom. Or are you reminding me that you're virtuous?"

"I... I don't know." She stretched on the lounge, giving him an inspiring view of her long, nylon-clad legs in the gloom. They were lovely in daylight; in the soft mystery of near darkness they became twin patterns of exciting curves. She knew he was looking at them dreamily over his brandy snifter. Let him — she knew they were good In fact she knew they were excellent — she often compared them with the supposedly perfect ones in The York Times Magazine ads on Sundays. The sleek models had become standards of perfection in Texas, although most women in the know kept their Times hidden and pretended they loyally read only the local papers.

She studied him with a sidelong glance. He gave you the darnedest warm feeling. Comfortable, she decided. He was very comfortable to be with. She remembered their contacts on the plane that first night. Whoo! All man. She had been so sure he was a snoopy nothing that she load misplayed her hand — that was why he had gone with Ruth after that first dinner. She had turned him away, now she had him back, and he was worth having. She saw him as several men in one — friend, adviser, confidant. She slid over father, lover. You knew you could depend on him. Pieter van Prez had found that out. She felt a glow of pride at the impression he had made. The glow spread up to the back of her neck and down to the base of her spine.

She felt his hand on her breast and suddenly he fingered the right spot and she had to catch her breath to keep from jumping. He was so gentle. Did that mean a terrible lot of practice? No, he was naturally gifted with a delicate touch, he moved like a trained dancer at times. She sighed and put her lips to his. Hmmm. She was falling deliciously through space, but with the ability to fly when she wanted to just by putting out a hand like a wing. She closed her eyes tightly and did a slow loop that jumbled the warmth in her stomach the way the looping machine did at the Santone amusement park. His mouth was so pliable — should you say that a man had wonderfully kissable lips?

Her blouse was off and her skirt unzipped. She raised her hips to make it easier for him and finished unbuttoning his while shirt. She pulled up his undershirt and found the soft fluff of hair on his chest with her fingers, smoothing it this way and that the way you would groom a dog's tufts. He smelled so entrancingly male. His nipples reacted to her tongue and she giggled inwardly, pleased that she wasn't the only one to be stimulated by the right touch. Once his spine arched and he breathed a pleased, humming sound. She sucked the hardened cones of flesh slowly, capturing them again instantly as they popped from her lips, delighted at the way his shoulders squared with reflexive pleasure at each loss and recapture. Her bra was gone. Let him discover that she was better built than Ruth.

She felt positively burning — with delight, not pain. No, not burning, vibration. Warm vibration, that was it, as if one of those throbby massage machines was all over her body at once.

She felt his mouth descend to her breasts, kissing her with narrowing circles of damp warmth. Ooh! a very good man. She felt him ease her garter belt down and unfasten the tabs from one stocking. Then they were rolled down — gone. She extended her long legs, feeling the tension leave her muscles to be replaced by a delicious relaxed warmth. Oh yes, she thought — in for a penny in for a pound, is that what they would say in Rhodesia?

The back of her hand brushed his belt buckle and almost without thought she turned her hand over and unbuckled him. A soft thud — she supposed that was his pants and shorts hitting the floor. She opened her eyes to the half-light. True. Ah — She swallowed and felt deliciously smothered as he kissed her and rubbed her back and rump.

She blended herself against him and tried to lengthen her breaths, they were so short and gusty it was embarrassing. He would know she was actually panting for him. His fingertips caressed her thighs and she gasped and her self-criticism flew away. Her spine was a column of warm, sweet oil and her mind a pressure boiler of assent. After all, when two people really enjoyed and cared...

She kissed his body, responding to a forward tug and push of her libido that broke her last cords of conditioned restraint It's perfectly all right, I need it, this is so — good. A perfect contact made her tense. She stiffened for an instant, then relaxed like an opening flower in a slow-motion nature film. Oh-h. The column of warm oil came to a near-boil in her belly, churned and throbbed deliciously around her heart, flowed through her flexing lungs until they felt hotly awash. She swallowed again. Shivery shafts like glowing pellets of neon arced from her loins to her scalp. She imagined her golden hair standing straight out and up, flooded with static electricity. Of course it wasn't, it just felt that way.

He left her for an instant and turned her. She remained utterly pliant, only the quick rise and fall of her generous breasts and the quick beat of her breath showing she was alive. He's going to take me, she thought, as he should. A girl likes — in the last analysis — to be taken. Oh-h. A gasp and a sigh. A long breath and a murmur, "Oh yes."

She felt herself receive deliciously, not once, but over and over. Layer after layer of warm depth spread and welcome and fall away and make room for the next advance. She felt as though she were built like an artichoke with delicate leaves inside and every one was possessed and taken. She writhed and worked with him to speed the harvest Her cheek was wet and she supposed some tears were flowing with the shocking delight of it but they didn't matter. She did not realize that her nails dug into his flesh like the flexing claws of an ecstatic cat. He eased his loins forward until their pelvic bones locked as tightly as a closed fist, feeling her reach avidly with her body for his steady lunge.

"Darling," he murmured, "you're so damn beautiful you scare me. I meant to tell you before..."

"Tell... me... now," she gasped.

* * *

Judas, before he called himself Mike Bor, had found Stash Foster in Bombay, where Foster was a dealer in humanity in die many vicious ways that arise when there are uncounted, unwanted, gross masses of it Engaged by Judas to bring three minor wholesalers of dope aboard Judas' Portuguese motor-sailer, Foster fell right into the middle of one of Judas' small problems. Judas wanted the good-quality cocaine they carried, and he did not care to pay for it, especially since he wanted the two men and the woman out of the way because their operation fitted nicely into his developing organization.

The three were tied up as soon as the vessel was out of sight of land, plowing through the hot-looking Arabian Sea, bound south for Colombo. In his lavishly furnished cabin Judas said thoughtfully to Heinrich Muller, while Foster listened, "Best thing for them is overboard."

"Ja," Muller agreed.

Foster decided they were testing him. He would pass the test, because Bombay was a lousy place for a Pole to make a living even if he was always six jumps ahead of the local banditti. The language problem was just too much, and you were so damn conspicuous. This Judas was building a big operation and he had real money.

"Want me to dump 'em?" he had asked.

"If you would be so kind," Judas purred.

Foster took them up on deck with their hands tied, one by one, the woman first He slit their throats, severed the heads completely from the bodies, and stripped the corpses before dropping the bodies into the greasy-looking sea. He made a weighted bundle of the clothes and dropped it over. When he was done there was only a yard-across puddle of blood on the deck, forming a red, liquid tray for the three heads, eyes-adroop.

Fastidiously, Foster pitched the heads over, one by one.

Judas, standing with Muller near the helm, nodded approvingly. "Have that hosed down," he ordered Muller. "Foster — let's have a talk."

This was the man Judas had ordered to watch Nick, and in so doing had made a mistake, although it might turn into a plus. Foster had the greed of a pig, the morals of a weasel, and the reasoning power of a baboon. A full-grown baboon is a match for most dogs, except a Rhodesian Ridgeback female, but the baboon thinks in odd little circles and has been bested by men who had the time to fashion weapons from available sticks and stones.

Judas told Foster, "Watch this Andrew Grant Stay out of sight. We're going to take care of him."

Foster s baboon brain promptly concluded he would gain acclaim by "taking care" of Grant If he had succeeded, he probably would have; Judas considered himself an opportunist. He came very close.

This was the man who watched Nick leave Meikles in the morning. A small, neatly dressed man with powerful shoulders that hunched over rather like a baboon's. So unobtrusive among the people on the sidewalks that Nick did not notice him.

Chapter Six

Nick had awakened before dawn and ordered coffee sent up as soon as room service could manage it He kissed Boots' awake — noting with satisfaction that she matched her mood to his own; love-fun had been great, now on with the business of a new day. Make the parting perfect and your anticipation of the next kiss would ease you by many a rough moment She drank a quick coffee red a long good-bye embrace, and slipped away after he checked the corridor as all clear.

As Nick was brushing a sports jacket, Gus Boyd arrived, bright and bouncy. He sniffed the air of the room. Nick frowned inwardly, the air-conditioner hadn't carried away all of Booty's perfume. Gus said, "Ah, friendship. Wonderful Varia et mutabilis semper femina."

Nick had to grin. The lad was observant and his Latin wasn't bad. How would you translate that? Woman is always a switcheroo?

"I prefer happy clients," Nick said. "How's Janet doing."

Gus poured himself coffee. "She's a sweet jellyroll. There's lipstick on one of these cups. You leave clues all over."

"No, there isn't" Nick did not waste a glance at the buffet. "She didn't put any on before she left. All the other girls — er, satisfied with Edman's efforts?"

"They're absolutely enthusiastic about the place. Not a single damn complaint, which you know is unusual. Last night was a free night so that they could explore restaurants if they wanted to. Every one of them had a date with one of the colonial types and they lapped it up."

"Ian Masters put his boys up to it?"

Gus shrugged. "Could be. I encourage it. And if Masters puts a few dinner checks on the account, I never object as long as the tour has gone well."

"Are we still leaving Salisbury this afternoon?"

"Yes. We fly to Bulawayo and take the morning train to the game preserve."

"Can you get along without me?" Nick snapped off the lights and threw open the balcony door. Bright sun and fresh air flooded the room. He gave Gus a cigarette, lit one himself. "I'll join you at Wankie. I want to check into the gold situation more thoroughly. We'll beat the bastards yet. They've got a gravy train going and don't want to let us ride."

"Sure." Gus shrugged. "It's all routine. Masters has an office in Bulawayo that handles the transfers there." Actually, although he liked Nick, he was pleased to lose him — for long periods or short. He preferred to dispense tips without observation — you could pick up quite a percentage over the long pull without shorting the waiters and porters, and there was a lovely shop in Bulawayo where women usually lost all thrift-control and spent dollars like dimes. They bought Sandawana emeralds, copperwarc, and antelope and zebra-skin items in such quantity he always had to arrange a separate baggage shipment. He had a commission arrangement with the shop. Last time through his cut had been $240. Not bad for a one-hour stop. "Be careful, Nick. The way Wilson talked this time was a lot different from when I did business with him before. Man, what a scrap you put on!" He shook his head at the recollection. "He's become — dangerous, I think."

"So you got that impression too, did you?" Nick winced as he probed his sore ribs. That flop from the roof at van Prez's hadn't helped any. "That guy can be black murder. You mean you didn't notice it before? When you bought the thirty-dollar-an-ounce gold?"

Gus flushed. "I figured — aw hell, I don't know what I figured. This thing has started swinging. I'd just as soon drop it, I think, if you figure we'll get jammed up bad if anything goes wrong. I'm willing to take chances, but I like to watch the odds."

"Wilson sounded like he meant it when he told us to forget the gold business. But we know he must have found a helluva market since you were here last. First he sells you gold cheap, so he must have had it spilling out of his treasure rooms. Then he doesn't have any at any price. He's found a pipeline, or his associates have. Let's find out what it is, if we can."

"Do you still believe there are Golden Tusks. Andy?"

"Nope." It was a rather simple catch question and Nick gave a straight answer. Gus wanted to find out if he was working with a realist. They might have dummied a few up and painted the gold white. Hollow tusks of gold to beat the sanctions and help smuggle the stuff into India or wherever. Even London. But now I think your friend in India is right. There's plenty coming out of Rhodesia in nice four-hundred-ounce bars. Notice he didn't say kilos or gram-weights or jockey leads or any of the slang terms the smugglers use. Nice, big standard bars. Yummie. One feels so wonderful in the bottom of your travel case — after you've cleared customs."

Gus grinned, chasing a fantasy. "Yeah — and a half-dozen of 'em shipped with our tour baggage would feel even better!"

Nick slapped him on the shoulder and they went down to the lobby. He left Gus at the dining-room passage and went out into the sun-splashed street. Foster picked up his trail.

Stash Foster had an excellent description of Nick and the picture, but he countermarched once, near Shepherds', so that he could see Nick full-face. He was sure of his man. What he didn't realize was that Nick had an astonishing photographic eye and memory, particularly when concentrating. At Duke, in a controlled test, Nick had once remembered sixty-seven photographs of strangers, and was able to fit them to their names.

Stash had no way of knowing that, as he passed Nick amid a group of shoppers, Nick caught his direct glance and catalogued him — baboon. Other people were animals, objects, emotions, any related detail to help his memory. Stash received an accurate description.

Nick heartily enjoyed his brisk walk — Salisbury Street, Garden Avenue, Baker Avenue — he strolled when there were crowds, swung at marching double-time when the walk was empty. His strange pattern irritated Stash Foster, who thought, What a nut! Going nowhere, doing nothing: stupid physical culturist. It would be a pleasure to let the lifeblood out of that big, husky body; to see that straight spine and those wide shoulders fallen, twisted, crumpled. He scowled, his wide lips pulling on the skin of his high cheekbones until he looked more apelike than ever.

He was wrong about Nick's going nowhere, doing nothing. Every moment the AXEman's mind was absorbing, contemplating, filing, studying. When he finished his long walk there was little about the major area of Salisbury he did not know, and a sociologist would have been delighted to receive his impressions.

Nick was saddened by his conclusions. He knew the pattern. When you have traveled in most of the countries of the world, your capacity for evaluating groups expands like a wide-angle lens. A narrow view would show hard-working, sincere whites who had wrested a civilization from nature by bravery and hard work. The blacks were lazy. What had they done with it? Weren't they now — thanks to European ingenuity and generosity — better off than ever?

You could sell this picture easily. It had been bought and framed many times, by the defeated Confederate South in the United States, by Hitler's listeners, by grim-jawed Americans from Boston to Los Angeles, especially many in police departments and sheriffs offices. Outfits like the KKK and Birchers made careers out of recooking it and serving it under new names.

The skin didn't have to be black. The stories had been woven about red, yellow, brown — and white. The situation is easy to set up, Nick knew, because all men carry the two basic explosives within themselves — fear and guilt. The fear is the easiest to see. You've got your precarious blue- or white-collar job, your bills, your worries, taxes, overwork, and boring or despised future. They are competition, tax-eaters, who crowd the labor offices, mob the schools, roam the streets ready for violence, mug you in the alley. They probably don't know God, like you do, either.

The guilt is more insidious. Every man has once or a thousand times rolled round in his brain perversion, masturbation, rape, murder, theft, incest, corruption, brutality, knavery", debauchery, and having a third martini, cheating his income tax report a little, or telling the cop he was only doing fifty-five when it was over seventy.

You know you don't-won't-can't do these things. You're good. But they! My God! (They really don't love Him either.) They do all of them all the time and — well, anyway, some of them every chance they get.

Nick paused on a corner, watching the people. A pair of girls, lovely in flouncy cottons and sun hats, smiled at him. He smiled back, and kept it turned on for a homely girl who came along behind them. She beamed and blushed. He took a cab to the office of Rhodesian Railways.

Stash Foster followed him, guiding his driver by watching Nick's cab. "I'm just seeing the town. Please turn right... now up that way."

Strangely enough, a third cab was in the weird procession, its passenger using no subterfuge on his driver. He told him, "Follow number 268 there and don't lose him." He was following Nick.

Because the journey was short, and Stash's cab moved erratically, not steadily on Nick's tail, the man in the third cab didn't notice it. At the railroad office Stash let his cab go on by. The third man got out, paid off his driver, and followed Nick right into the building. He caught up with Nick as the AXEman strode through a long, cool, covered passageway. "Mr. Grant?"

Nick turned and recognized the law. He sometimes thought that professional criminals were right when they claimed they could "smell a plainclothesman." There was an aura, a subtle emanation. This one was tall, slim, an athlete. A serious type about forty.

"That's right," Nick answered.

He was shown a leather case with an ID card and a badge. "George Barnes. Rhodesian Security Forces."

Nick grinned. "Whatever it was, I didn't do it."

The quip fell flat as a beer from last night's party left open by mistake. Barnes said, "Leftenant Sandeman asked me to speak with you. He gave me your description and I saw you on Garden Avenue."

Nick wondered how long Barnes had followed him. "That was nice of Sandeman. Did he think I'd get lost?"

Barnes still did not smile, his clean-cut face stayed grave. He had the accent of north-country England, but spoke his words round and rolling-clear. "You remember seeing Leftenant Sandeman and his party?"

"Yes, indeed. He was helpful when I had a flat."

"Oh?" Evidently Sandeman had not had time to fill in all details. "Well — evidently after he aided you he ran into trouble. His patrol was in the bush about ten miles beyond van Prez's farm when they came under fire. Four of his men were killed."

Nick dropped his half-smile. "I'm sorry. News like that is never pleasant."

"Would you please tell me exactly whom you saw at van Prez's?"

Nick rubbed his broad chin. "Let's see — there was Pieter van Prez himself. A well-weathered old-timer who looks like one of our western ranchers. A real one, who worked at it. About sixty, I guess. He wore..."

"We know van Prez," Barnes prodded. "Who else?"

"Well, there were a couple of white men around there and a white woman and I guess about four or five black men. Although I might have seen the same black men coming and going because they sort of look alike — you know."

Nick, gazing reflectively at a point above Barnes's head, saw suspicion cross the man's face, linger, then fade to resignation.

"You don't remember any names?"

"No. It wasn't that formal a call."

Nick waited for him to bring up Booty. He didn't. Perhaps Sandeman had forgotten her name, dismissed her as unimportant, or Barnes was holding back for his own reasons or to question her separately.

Barnes switched his approach. "How do you like Rhodesia?"

"Fascinating. Except I'm surprised at the ambushing of that patrol. Bandits?"

"No, politics, as I imagine you know very well. But thank you for sparing my feelings. How did you know it was an ambush?"

"I didn't. It's pretty obvious, or perhaps I connected up your mentioning in the bush."

They came to a rank of telephones. Nick said, "Will you excuse me? I want to make a call."

"Certainly. Who do you want to see in these buildings?"

"Roger Tillbourne."

"Roggie? I know him well. Make your call and I'll show you his office."

Nick called Meikles and had Booty paged. If the Rhodesian police could bug the call this fast they were ahead of AXE, which he doubted. When she answered he told her briefly about George Barnes's questions and explained that he had only admitted meeting van Prez. Booty thanked him, adding, "I'll see you in Victoria Falls, darling."

"I hope so, sweet. Have a good time and play it cool."

If Barnes was suspicious of the call, he did not let it show. They found Roger Tillbourne, an operating director of Rhodesian Railways, in a high-ceilinged office that looked like a movie set for a picture about Jay Gould. There was a lot of beautiful oiled wood, the smell of wax, heavy furniture, and three magnificent models of locomotives, each on its own table about a yard long.

Barnes introduced Nick to Tillbourne, a short, thin, quick-moving man in a black suit who looked as if he turned in a terrific day's work.

"I got your name from the Railway Age library in New York," Nick said. "I intend to write an article to go with the pictures I'll take of your railways. Especially your Beyer-Garratt engines."

Nick did not miss the look that passed between Barnes and Tillbourne. It seemed to say, Maybe, or maybe not — every unwanted rascal seems to think he can cover up anything by posing as a journalist.

"I'm flattered," Tillbourne said, but he didn't sound it "What can I do for you?"

"Oh, I don't want you to do anything, just tell me where I can photograph one of the German-built Union class 2–2–2 plus 2–6–2 with the swinging front water tank. We've nothing like them in the States, you know, and I don't suppose you'll go on using them for long."

A pleased, slightly glassy look spread over Tillbourne's earnest features. "Yes. A most interesting engine." He opened a drawer in his giant desk, produced a photo. "Here is a picture we took. Almost a builder's photo. No life to it but excellent detail."

Nick studied it and nodded admiringly. "Beautiful brute. This is a wonderful shot..."

"You may have it. We made several prints. If you use it, credit Rhodesian Railways. Did you notice the model on that first table?"

"Yes." Nick turned and looked at the gleaming little locomotive and put love in his glance. "Another Garratt. The GM class with four cylinders. The most powerful engine in the world to operate on sixty-pound rail."

"Right! What would you say if I told you we still have one in service?"

"No!"

"Yes!"

Tillbourne beamed. Nick looked astonished and delighted. He tried desperately to remember how many of the unique locomotives there were listed. He could not.

George Barnes sighed and handed Nick a card. "I see you two will get along. Mr. Grant — if you remember anything about your trip to van Prez that might help Leftenant Sandeman or me, will you give me a ring?"

"I certainly will." You know I won't remember anything, Nick thought, you're hoping I'll stumble into something and have to call you, and you'll work on it from there. "Pleased to have met you."

Tillbourne didn't even notice his departure. He was saying, "You'll get your best opportunities for pictures, of course, around Bulawayo. Did you see David Morgan's pictures in Trains?"

"Yes. Excellent"

"How are your unit trains doing in the United States? I've been wondering..."

Nick actually enjoyed the half-hour of railroad talk, thankful for his minute research into Rhodesian Railways and his unusual memory. Tillbourne, a genuine buff in love with his field, showed him pictures, related incidents about the country's transport history that would have been priceless to an authentic journalist, and had tea sent in.

When the conversation got onto air and truck competition, Nick made his move. "The unit trains and new types of big, specialized freight cars are saving us the in United States," he said. "Although thousands of small freight sidings are abandoned. I suppose you have the same problem, as they do in England."

"Ah, yes." Tillbourne went to a giant map on the wall. "See the blue marks? Unused sidings."

Nick joined him, shaking his head. "Reminds me of our western roads. Fortunately, the few new sidings that go in are for new business. A giant factory or a new mine that provides big tonnage. I suppose with the sanctions you're not getting big plants built now. A lot of construction is postponed."

Tillbourne sighed. "You're so right. But there will come a day..."

Nick nodded confidentially. "Of course the world knows about your interline traffic. From the Portuguese and South African connections to Zambia and so on. But if the Chinese build that road they threaten to..."

They may. They have teams working on the surveys."

Nick pointed to a red mark on the rail line near the border on the route to Lourenco Marques. "I'll bet that's a new yard for the cross-country oil and stuff. Do you have enough power for it?"

Tillbourne looked pleased. "You're right. We are using all the power we have, that's why the Beyer-Garratts are still running. We just don't have enough diesels yet."

"I hope you never get enough. Although I suppose as an operating official you like their efficiency..."

"I'm not so sure." Tillbourne sighed. "But one can't stop progress. The diesels are easier on the rails, but the Garratts are thrifty. We have more diesels on order."

"I won't ask you from what country."

"Please don't. I mustn't tell you."

Nick put his finger on another red mark. "Here's another new one, near Shamva, Decent tonnage? Nickel, I suppose?"

"Right Several carloads a week now but it will increase."

Nick followed the tracks on the map, apparently with casual curiosity. "Here's another. Looks substantial."

"Ah, yes. The Taylor-Hill-Boreman yard. They're giving us several cars a day. Marvelous pegging they made, I understand. I hope it holds up."

"That's wonderful. Several carloads a day?"

"Oh yes. A syndicate hit it. Foreign connections and all that, rather hush-hush in these times but how hush-hush can you be when we marshal cars out of there ever}' afternoon? I wanted to give them a small shifter, but we don't have any to spare so they've ordered their own."

"From the same country where you've ordered the diesels, I suppose." Nick laughed and held up a hand. "Don't tell me where!"

His host joined in the chuckle. "I won't."

"Do you suppose I should take some pictures of their new yards? Or would that be — uh, undiplomatic. It's not worth getting into a fuss about."

"I wouldn't. There are so many other good scenes. They're extremely secretive chaps. I mean they operate in isolation and all that. Road guards. They even resent our train crews going in, but there's nothing they can do about it until they get their own shifter. There's been a bit of talk about their abusing the native help. Rumor, I imagine, no sensible operator mistreats his workers. Can't get production that way, and the labor board would have something to say about it."

Nick departed with warm handshakes and good feeling. He decided to send Roger Tillbourne a copy of Alexander's Iron Horses: American Locomotives. The official deserved it. Several carloads a day out of Taylor-Hill-Boreman!

In the rotunda of the extensive complex of buildings Nick paused to look at a photograph of Cecil Rhodes alongside an early Rhodesian train. His always alert eyes saw a man come along the passage he had just left and slow his pace when he saw Nick ... or for some other reason. He was eighty feet away. He looked vaguely familiar. Nick filed the fact. He decided not to go directly out into the street, but to stroll through a long arcade, spotless and cool and dim, the sun corning through the oval arches like ranks of narrow yellow spears.

In spite of Tillbourne's enthusiasm, you could see that Rhodesian Railways were in the same situation as those in the rest of the world. Fewer passengers, bigger and longer freights, handled with fewer personnel and requiring fewer facilities. Half the offices in the arcade were closed, some of the dark doors still wearing their nostalgic signs: Salisbury Baggage Director. Sleeping Car Supplies. Assistant Ticket Master.

Behind Nick, Stash Foster reached the rotunda and peeked past a pillar at the AXEman's retreating back. When Nick turned right, down another passage that led to the tracks and marshaling yards, Stash moved rapidly on his rubber-soled shoes and stopped just around a corner to watch Nick step out into a hard-surfaced courtyard. Stash was thirty feet from that broad back. He selected the precise spot, just under the shoulder and to the left of the spine, where his knife should go in — hard, deep, held horizontal so it could choose its slice between ribs.

Nick felt strangely uneasy. It was unlikely that his keen ears had caught the suspicious slither of Stash's almost silent feet, or that the man s odor, left in the rotunda when he had entered the building behind Nick, had aroused some primitive cautionary gland in Nick's nostrils and warned it to alert his brain. It was a fact, however, which Stash resented and Nick did not know, that no horse or dog would approach Stash Foster or stand near him without rebelling, sounding, and wanting either to attack or flee.

The courtyard had once been a busy spot, where engines and cars paused to get orders or for their crews to confer with officials or pick up supplies. Now it was neat and deserted. A diesel droned by, hauling a long drag of vans. Nick lifted a hand to the engine crew and watched them out of sight. The cars rumbled and clattered.

Stash closed his fingers on the knife he carried slung from a sheath attached to his belt He could reach it by sucking in his breath, as he did now. It hung low, the leather hanger bending when he sat down. He liked to talk with people, thinking smugly, "If you only knew! I have a knife in my lap. It could be in your gut in a second."

Stash's blade was double-edged, a stocky stiletto, a short version of Nick's own Hugo. Its five-inch blade was not of Hugo's superb quality, but Stash kept razor edges on both sides. He enjoyed stroking it with the small whetstone he carried in his watch pocket. Stab it in right — lever it from side to side — withdraw! And you could stick it in again before your victim recovered from shock.

The sun flashed on steel as Stash held it low and firm, the way a saber man would execute point and cut, and sprang forward. He fixed his gaze on the precise point on Nick's back where the tip would enter.

The vans rattled past Certainly — Nick heard nothing. Yet- They tell of the French fighter pilot, Castellux, who allegedly sensed attackers on his tail. Once three Fokkers came at him — one-two-three. Castellux evaded them, one-two-three.

Perhaps it was the sun's flash, that sparkle from space to blade to a nearby window or bit of metal that reflected for an instant to catch Nick's eye and alarm his alert senses. He never knew — but he turned his head suddenly to check his backtrail and saw the baboon face hurtling at him less than eight feet away, saw the blade...

Nick fell to the right, pushing off with his left leg, curling his body. Stash paid the price for concentration and lack of flexibility. He tried to follow that spot on Nick's back but his own impetus carried him too far too fast He braked, turning, slowing, lunging the knifepoint downward.

The AXE manual on man-to-man combat suggests: When faced with a man holding his knife properly, first consider a lightning kick to the testicles or running.

There's a lot more to it, about finding weapons and so on, but right now Nick realized those first two defenses were out. He was down and too twisted to kick, and as for running...

The blade came hard and straight for his chest. He writhed back and felt a shiver of pain as the point tore in under his right nipple and made a dull clanging sound on the walk. Stash was crouched over him, carried forward by his own powerful spring. Nick locked his left hand on that deadly right wrist, his reflexes as instantaneous and precise as those of a fencing master parrying a pupil's attack. Stash bent his knees and tried to pull back, feeling sudden dismay at the crushing power of a grip that seemed to have a two-ton weight behind it and strength enough to break the bones in his arm.

He was no novice. He twisted his knife arm toward Nick's thumb, a breakaway maneuver impossible to counter, a tactic by which any active woman can free herself from the most powerful man. Nick felt his grip slip under the rotation of the arm; the blade prevented his reaching Wilhelmina. He braced and pushed with all his conditioned muscular power, hurling Stash four or five feet back just before the grip on the knife arm was broken.

Stash regained his balance, poised to thrust again, paused for the barest second as he saw an astonishing thing: Nick ripped open his left jacket sleeve and shirt sleeve in order to draw Hugo without hindrance. Stash saw a second gleaming blade flash into sight and steady, its point a yard from his own.

Stash lunged. The opposing blade dipped, parried his thrust with a miniature left turn and upward push en quarte. He felt superior muscles carry his knife and arm upward and he felt horribly naked and helpless as he fought to regain control, pull back his blade and hand, and cut again. He got his hand back near his chest as that now appallingly fast sliver of steel he faced rose and crossed his blade and came for his throat. He gasped, struck forward at the man who was coming off the ground, and knew dread as a left arm rose like a granite block against his right wrist He tried to turn back, slash sideways.

That horrible blade dipped to the right as Nick feinted and Stash stupidly moved his arm to parry. Nick felt the pressure against his blocking wrist and thrust easily and straight over Stash's arms.

Stash knew it was coming. He had known it since that first gleaming flicker toward his throat, but for an instant he had thought he had saved himself and would conquer. He felt terror and dread. This was no bound victim with tied hands waiting...

His brain was still shrieking alarmed commands to his outmaneuvered body as panic struck — in time with Nick's blade, which entered just beside his Adam's apple and went completely through his throat and spinal cord, the point projecting like a metal-tongued viper under the hairline. The day turned red and black with gold flashes. The last flaming colors Stash would ever see.

As he fell Nick withdrew Hugo and stepped away. They didn't always die at once.

Stash lay in a spreading, bloody pool. His squirms drew red patterns in half-circles. He banged his head on the walk. The throat cut reduced what would have been screams to unearthly whines and gratings.

Nick kicked Stash's knife away and searched the fallen man, keeping away from the blood and plucking at pockets like a seagull pecking a cadaver. He took a wallet and a card case. He wiped Hugo on the man's jacket, high on the shoulder where it might be mistaken for the man's own gore, evading a hand that groped at him in death throes.

Nick walked back into the building entrance and waited, watching. Stash's squirmings were lessening, like a wind-up toy running down. The last of the vans clattered by, and Nick was thankful there was no caboose or cabin car on the end of the drag. The courtyard was silent. He went through the arcade, found a little-used door on the street side, and walked away.

Chapter Seven

Nick walked back to Meikles. No use hailing a cab and giving the police another time fix. Barnes would decide he should be questioned about the death in the railway building, and a long stroll is a flexible time unit.

He bought a newspaper as he went through the lobby. In his room he stripped, put cold water on the two-inch slice across his chest, and inspected the card case and wallet he had taken from the man. They told him little except for Stash's name and an address in Bulawayo. Would Alan Wilson have sent him? When you protect millions you get rough, yet he couldn't believe back-stabbing was Wilson's style.

That left Judas — or "Mike Bor," or someone else at THB. Never discounting Gus Boyd and Ian Masters and even Pieter van Prez, Johnson, Howe, Maxwell... Nick sighed. He put the packet of banknotes from the wallet with his own money without counting them, cut up the cases, burned what he could in an ashtray, and flushed the rest down the toilet.

He searched the cloth of his coat, shirt, and undershirt carefully. The only blood was from his own knife scratch. He rinsed the undershirt and shirt in cold water and tore them into scraps after removing the collar labels. As he unwrapped a clean shirt he looked affectionately and regretfully at Hugo, strapped to his bare forearm. Then he called Masters' office and arranged for a car.

It wouldn't do to discard the coat; Barnes might legitimately ask about it. He found a tailor shop far from the hotel and asked to have it mended. He drove a few miles toward Selous, admiring the countryside, and turned back toward town. The expansive groves of fruit trees looked exactly like parts of California, with long irrigation lines and giant sprayers drawn by tractors. Once he saw a horse-drawn spray cart and stopped to watch the blacks operate it. He supposed their trade was doomed, like the cotton-pickers in Dixie. An odd tree caught his eye and he used his guidebook to identify it — a candelabra, or giant euphorbia.

Barnes was waiting in the hotel lobby. The questioning was thorough but led nowhere. Did he know a Stash Foster? How had he returned from Tillbourne's office to his hotel? What time had he arrived? Did he know anyone who belonged to the Zimbabwe political parties?

Nick felt amused because the only completely honest answer he gave was to the last question. "No, I don t think so. Now tell me — why the questions?"

"A man was stabbed to death at the railway offices today. At about the time you were there."

Nick put on his astonished look. "Not — Roger? Oh no..."

"No, no. The man I asked you if you knew. Foster."

"Care to describe him?"

Barnes did. Nick shrugged. Barnes departed. But Nick permitted himself no elation. There went a smart man.

He returned the car to Masters and flew in a DC-3, via Kariba, to Main Camp at the Wankie National Park. He was pleased to find at Main Camp a thoroughly modern resort The manager accepted him as one of the escorts for the Edman Tour that would arrive in the morning, and installed him in a comfortable, two-bedroom chalet — "No charge for your first night."

Nick was beginning to appreciate the escort business.

Although Nick had read about Wankie National Park he was amazed. He knew its five thousand square miles held seven thousand elephants, great herds of buffalo, as well as rhino, zebra, giraffe, leopard, antelope in infinite variety, and dozens of other species he had not bothered to memorize. Yet Main Camp was as comfortable as the products of civilization could make it, with an air strip where CAA DC-3s were met by the latest model cars and the innumerable microbuses, striped black and white like mechanical zebras.

As he strolled back toward the main lodge he saw Bruce Todd, Ian Masters' man — "a soccer star" — standing near the entrance.

He greeted Nick, "Hello, I heard you arrived. Enjoying it?"

"Magnificent. We re both early-"

"I'm a sort of advance scout Checking the rooms, cars, all that. Feel like a sundowner?"

"Good idea." They strolled to the cocktail lounge, two bronzed young men who drew women's eyes.

Over whiskies and sodas Nick's body relaxed, but his mind was active. It was logical for Masters to send an "advance man." It was also possible, even probable, that Salisbury athlete Todd had a connection with George Barnes and Rhodesian Security Forces. Certainly Barnes would think it worthwhile to put a tail on "Andrew Grant" for a while; he was a prime suspect in Foster's strange death.

He thought of those carloads shipped daily from the THB mine complex. The waybills would be meaningless. Perhaps chrome or nickel ore with gold hidden in any car they chose? That would be clever and practical. But carloads? They must be dripping with the stuff! He tried to remember the shipping weights of asbestos. He doubted that he had read about them, for he could not recall them.

Sanctions — hah! He held no definite opinion on the right or wrong of them or the political issues involved, but the old, bitter fact applied: Where there is enough involved, self-interest rules. It was probable that Wilson, Masters, Todd, and the others knew exactly what THB was doing, and approved. Perhaps even collected a fee. One thing was certain, in this situation he could only absolutely rely on himself. All others were suspect.

And the killers Judas was supposed to be dispatching, the efficient assassin force he could dispatch all over Africa? That fit in with the man. It meant more money in his pocket and it helped him get rid of a lot of unwanted enemies. Someday, his gun slingers would come even more handy. Someday... Yeah, with the new Nazis.

Then he thought of Booty and Johnson and van Prez. They would not fit the pattern. You could not quite imagine them moving-only-for-the-money. Nazism? That was really out. And Mrs. Ryerson? A woman like her could enjoy the good life in Charlottesville — riding to hounds, social affairs, admired, invited everywhere. Yet, like a few other in-place AXE agents he had met, she isolated herself here. When it came to it, what was his own motivation? IATA had offered him twenty thousand a year to supervise their security operation, yet he roamed the world for less. All you could tell yourself was that you wanted to put your ounce of weight on the right side of the scales. Fine — but who says which side is right? A man could...

"...the two waterholes nearby are Nyamandhlovu and Guvulala Pans," Todd was saying. Nick had been listening carelessly. "You can sit high up and watch the animals come in for their evening drinks. We'll go there tomorrow. The girls will like the steenbok. They look like Disney's Bambi."

"Point them out to Teddy Northway," Nick said, and was amused at the pink that rose up Todd's tanned neck. "Is there a spare car I can use?"

"Not actually. We have two sedans of our own and we use the microbuses with a guide for the guests. You can't drive around here after dusk, you know. And don't let the guests out of the cars. It can get a bit sticky with some of the livestock. The lions sometimes appear in prides of fifteen or so."

Nick concealed his disappointment They were less than a hundred miles from THB's property. The road from this side did not quite reach it, but he assumed there might be unmarked trails over which he could put a car or, if necessary, walk. He had a small compass and a mosquito net and a plastic poncho so small they fitted in a pocket His small map was five years old but it would do.

They went into the dining room and had eland steaks, which Nick found excellent. Later they danced with some very pretty girls, and Nick excused himself just before eleven. Whether or not he was able to explore THB from this point, he had lit enough fuses for one of the unknown explosive forces to let loose very soon. It was a good time to stay in condition.

* * *

He joined Bruce Todd for an early breakfast and they drove the fourteen miles to Dett Station. The long shiny train disgorged a horde of people, including five or six tour groups in addition to their own. Two of the groups had to wait for cars. Masters was wise to have his man on the spot. They had the two sedans, a microbus, and a Volvo station wagon.

The girls were bright and beaming, chatty about their adventures. Nick helped Gus with the baggage. "Smooth trip?" he asked the senior escort.

"They re happy. This is a special train." Gus grunted with a heavy bag. "Not that the regular ones aren't a helluva lot better than the Penn Central!"

After a hearty "early tea" they drove, in the same vehicles, into the rugged bundu. A Wankie guide drove the little striped bus, and at the manager's request, because he was short of men, Gus and Bruce drove sedans and Nick took the wheel of the Volvo wagon. They stopped at Kausche Pan, the Mtoa Dam, and several times on the narrow road to watch herds of game.

Nick admitted it was astonishing. The instant you left Main Camp you entered another world, harsh, primitive, threatening, beautiful. He had drawn Booty, Ruth Crossman, and Janet Olson for his car, and he enjoyed the company. The girls used hundreds of feet of movie film on ostrich, baboons, and ververt monkeys. They groaned sympathetically when they saw lions tearing at the carcass of a downed zebra.

Near Tshompani Dam a helicopter droned over them, looking out of place. It should have been a pterodactyl. Shortly afterward the little caravan came together, sharing cold beer that Bruce produced from a portable cooler, then, as tour groups will, they drifted apart. The microbus stopped to view a great herd of buffalo, the sedan's occupants were photographing wildebeest, and, at the girls* urging. Nick rolled the wagon down a long, curving loop of the road which might have been in the Arizona hills during a dry sprine.

Ahead, at the foot of the hill, he saw a truck drawn up at an intersection where roads, if he remembered the map, branched off to Wankie, Matetsi, and back to Main Camp via another route. The truck was marked in large letters Wankie Research Project. As they left the slope he saw a panel delivery wagon stopped two hundred feet along the northeastern road. It was lettered the same way. Odd — he hadn't noticed the park administration plastering their name on everything. They liked to leave an impression of naturalness. Odd.

He slowed. A stocky man stepped out from the truck and waved a red flag. Nick remembered the construction projects he had seen in Salisbury — they used warning flags, but he could not, at the moment, recall seeing a red one. Odd, again.

He sniffed, his nostrils flaring like those of the beasts around them at the scent of the unusual that can mean danger. He slowed, squinted, watched the flagman who reminded him of someone. Who? Foster the baboon! There was no precise facial resemblance, except for high cheekbones, but the simian way he moved, the arrogance, and yet a certain uprightness with the flag. Workers handle them casually, not like pennants at a Swiss banner meet.

Nick took his foot from the brake and hit the gas.

Booty, sitting in front beside him, yelped, "Hey — see the flag, Andy?"

There wasn't enough road to miss the man, the low bluff came down on one side and the truck blocked the narrow passage. Nick aimed for him and blew a single horn blast The man waved the flag madly, then jumped aside as the wagon hurtled past, over the spot where he had stood. In the back seat the girls gasped. Booty said, in a high pitch, "Hey-y-y. Andy!"

Nick stared at the truck's cab as he went by. The driver was a burly, surly-looking type. If you picked a norm for a Rhodesian, he wouldn't be it. Pale white skin, hostility glaring from the face. Nick caught a glimpse of the man beside him as he sat up in surprise when the Volvo speeded up instead of stopping. Chinese! And although the single, out-of-focus picture in AXE's files was a poor long shot, he could be Si Kalgan.

As they raced past the sedan delivery the rear door opened and a man started to scramble out, dragging something that could be a weapon. The Volvo roared past before he could identify the item but the hand that came out of the front held a large pistol. No doubting that.

Nick's stomach went cold. There was a quarter-mile of weaving road ahead before the first dip and safety. The girls! Would they shoot?

"Get down, girls. On the floor. Now!"

Bang! They were shooting.

Bang! He praised the Volvo's carburetor, it sucked the juice and fed out power without a wobble. He thought one of those shots had hit the body but it might be his imagination or a road bump. He guessed that the man in the small truck had fired twice and then got out to steady his aim. Nick hoped fervently he was a poor marksman.

Bang!

There was a slight wider spot in the road and Nick used it to weave the car. They were really rolling now.

Bang! Fainter, but you couldn't outrun bullets. Bang!

Perhaps the bastard had used his last slug. Bang!

The Volvo whizzed over the dip like a boy racing into a lake for his first plunge of spring.

Rub-a-du-du-du. Nick gasped. The man in the back of the sedan delivery had been dragging a submachine gun. He must have fumbled it in his surprise. They were over the knoll.

The road ahead was a long, serpentine down-curve with a warning sign at the bottom. He accelerated half the way down, then hit the brake. They must be doing seventy-five but he did not change his eyes' focus to look at the meter. How fast would that delivery truck roll? If it was a good one or souped-up, they would be sitting ducks in the Volvo if it caught up. The big truck was no threat — yet.

The big truck certainly was no threat, but Nick could not know that. It was Judas' own design, with waist-high armor all round, a 460-horsepower engine, and heavy machine guns fore and aft with a full 180 degrees of fire through ports normally hidden by panels.

In its racks were submachine guns, grenades, and rifles with sniperscopes. But, like the tanks Hitler first sent into Russia, it was just too damn good for the job. It was hard to maneuver and on narrow roads couldn't average more than fifty miles an hour because the turns slowed it. The Volvo was out of sight before it moved.

The sedan delivery was another matter. It was souped-up and the driver, полу snarling at Krol beside him as they got rolling, was a hot man with horsepower. The windscreen, as the windshield was listed in local parts catalogs, had been cleverly split and hinged so that the right-hand half could be folded in for clear observation ahead — or use as a firing port Krol crouched down and opened it, holding his Machine Pistol 44 back over his shoulder temporarily, then bringing it up to the opening. He had fired a few rounds with a heavier Skoda, but switched to the 7.92 in the cramped quarters. Anyway, he prided himself on his skill with the burp gun.

They roared over the hillock in the road and down the incline on bouncing springs. All they saw of the Volvo was a cloud of dust and a vanishing shape. "Go," Krol snapped. "I'll hold fire till we close."

The driver was a tough city Croat who had named himself Bloch after joining the Germans when he was sixteen. Young or not, he had such a vicious record for persecuting his own people that he retreated with his Wehrmacht buddies all the way to Berlin. A clever one, he survived. He was a good driver and he handled the souped-up vehicle with finesse. They flashed down the grade, cornered smoothly, and gained on the Volvo on a long straightaway that led toward a line of jagged hills.

"We'll catch them," Bloch said confidently. "We've got the speed."

Nick was having the same thought — They'll catch us. He watched the sedan delivery in the rearview mirror on a long straightaway as it slid out of the turn, fishtailed a little as it straightened, and picked up speed like a big bullet. There was an experienced driver and a very good engine — against the Volvo with an experienced driver and a good standard engine. The outcome was predictable. He used every bit of skill and daring he possessed to retain every inch that separated the two cars, which was now less than a quarter-mile.

The road threaded its way through the brown-sand, mixed-green landscape, bending around bluffs, skirting dry watercourses, crossing or weaving through hills. It was no longer a modern road, although a well-graded, serviceable one. It seemed to Nick for an instant that he had been here before, and then he knew why. The terrain and the situation were a duplicate of the chase scenes he had enjoyed as a boy at the movie serials — the Saturday cliff-hangers. They were usually made in California, in countryside just like this.

He had the feel of the Volvo nicely now. He whipped it over a stone bridge and made an easy, sliding turn to the right that used every bit of road to avoid losing any more speed than absolutely necessary. Around the next turn he passed one of the microbuses. He hoped it met the sedan delivery at the bridge and delayed it.

Booty had kept the girls quiet, as Nick observed and appreciated, but now that they were out of sight of their pursuers Janet Olson opened up. "Mr. Grant! What's happened? Were they shooting at us really?"

For an instant Nick considered telling them that it was all part of the park's entertainment, like the fake holdups of the stagecoaches and railroad trains in "frontier town" amusement attractions, then thought better of it. They should know it was serious, so that they could duck or run.

"Bandits," he said, which was close enough.

"Well, I'll be damned," Ruth Crossman said without a quiver in her smooth voice. Only the expletive, which normally she would never have used, betrayed her excitement. Stout gal, Nick thought.

"Could it be part of — the revolution?" Booty asked.

"Sure," Nick said. 'It'll be popping up all over this place sooner or later, but I'm sorry for us if it's sooner."

"It was so — planned" Booty said.

"Well planned, with only a few holes. Lucky we found some."

"How did you guess they were fakes?"

"Those trucks were a little too pat. The big signs. The flag. All so methodical and logical. And did you notice how that guy handled the flag? Like he was leading a parade instead of out working on a hot day."

Janet said from the back, "They're not in sight."

"That bus may have slowed them at the bridge," Nick answered. "You'll see them on the next straightaway. There's about fifty miles of this road ahead of us and I don't look for much help. Gus and Bruce were too far behind us to know what happened."

He zipped past a jeep rolling placidly in their direction, occupied by an elderly couple. They shot through a narrow defile and emerged on a wide, barren plain ringed by hills. The floor of the small valley was smeared with abandoned coal workings, looking like the sad parts of the Colorado mine country before the foliage grew back.

"What... what will we do?" Janet asked timidly. "Keep quiet and let him drive and think," Booty ordered.

Nick was thankful for that. He had Wilhelmina and fourteen shells. The plastique and fuses were in his underbelt but that would take time and the right location and he couldn't count on either.

Several of the old mine roads offered a chance to loop and attack, but with a pistol against a quick-firer and the girls in the car, that was out. The truck had not emerged into the valley yet; they must have been slowed at the bridge. He unbuckled his belt and down-zipped his fly.

Booty quipped, with just a slight quiver in the words, "Talk about the time and place!"

Nick grinned. He hitched the flat khaki belt around, unhooked it, and pulled it free. "Take that. Booty. Look in the pockets next to the buckle. Find a flat black thing that looks like plastic."

"I've got one. What is it?"

"Explosive. We may not get a chance to use it, but let's be ready. Now go along to the pocket that doesn't have a black block in it. You'll find some pipe cleaners. Hand them to me."

She obeyed. He felt with his fingers for a "pipe cleaner" without the telltale end knob that distinguished the electrical thermo-detonators from the fuses. He selected a fuse. "Put the rest back." She did. "Take this one and feel around the edge of the block with your fingers for a little wax blob. It covers a hole if you look closely."

"Got it"

"Poke the end of this wire into the hole. Penetrate the wax. Careful, don't bend the wire or you can ruin it."

He couldn't look, the road was twisting through the old mine dumps. She said, "Got it It went in almost an inch."

"Right. There's a cap in there. The wax was to keep a chance spark from getting in. Don't smoke, girls."

They all assured him nicotine was their last thought right now.

Nick cursed the fact that they were going too fast to stop as they whizzed past a collection of weatherbeaten buildings that would have suited his purpose. They were varied in size and shape, had windows, and were reached by several gravel roads. Then they dropped into a small depression with a sag and lurch of springs, passed an evil-looking pool of yellow-green water, and shot up into more of the old mine slag heaps.

There were more buildings ahead. Nick said, "We've got to take chances. I'm going near a building. When I tell you to go, you go! Everybody got it?"

He guessed the strained, choking sounds meant yes. The reckless speed and realization were reaching their imaginations. Fifty miles of this would develop terror. He saw the truck pop into the valley, a bug moving into the unfertile, arid-looking landscape. It was about a half-mile away. He braked, jab-jab-press...

A wide side road, probably a truck exit, led off to the next group of buildings. He skidded into it and gunned the two hundred yards to the structures. The truck would have no trouble following their cloud of dust.

The first buildings were storehouses, offices, and shops.

;He supposed that in the old days the operation had to be self-contained — there were about twenty of them. He braked again on what looked like the abandoned street of a much-abused ghost town, drew up at what might have been a store. He yelled, "Come on!"

He ran to the side of the building, found a window, high-kicked in the glass, cleaning the shards from the frame as best he could.

"In!" He lifted Ruth Crossman through the opening, then the other two. "Stay down out of sight. Hide if you can find a place."

He ran back to the Volvo and drove on through the settlement, slowing as he passed rank after rank of drab cottages, undoubtedly once the quarters of the white workers. The natives would have had a compound in the bush of thatch-roofed huts. When the road started to turn he stopped, looked back. The truck had turned in off the main road and was picking up speed toward him.

He waited, wishing he had something to armor the rear seat with — and time to do it. Even a few bales of cotton or hay would make your back less itchy. When he was sure they had seen him he went on along the road that led up a winding incline toward what must have been workings; it looked like an artificial hill with a small tipple and shaft house at the top.

A broken line of rusty narrow-gauge tracks paralleled the road, crossing it several times. He reached the top of the artificial hill and grunted. The only way down was the way he had come. That was good, it would make them overconfident. They would decide they had him, but he'd go down with his shield or on it. He grinned, or thought his grimace was a grin. Thoughts like that kept you from shaking, imagining what could happen, or going cold in the belly.

He roared in a half-circle around the structures and found what he wanted, a sturdy little oblong building near the tipple. It looked lonely, ruined but solid, a windowless oblong about thirty feet long. He hoped its roof was as strong as its walls. It appeared to be of galvanized iron.

The Volvo came up on two wheels as he wrenched it around and alongside die gray wall; out of sight, stop. He jumped out, climbed to the roof of the car, and onto the building's roof, moving with as low a silhouette as a serpent. Now — if those two were only true to their training! And if there weren't more than two... There might have been another man hidden in the back but he doubted it.

He lay flat. You never broke the skyline in a spot like this or you were through. He heard the truck come onto the plateau and slow. They would be looking at the cloud of dust where it ended at the Volvo's last hard turn. He heard the truck approach and slow down. He took out a pack of matches, held the plastique ready, the fuse horizontal. Made himself feel better by squeezing Wilhelmina with his arm.

They had stopped. He guessed they were two hundred feet from the shack. He heard a door open. "Down," a voice veiled.

Ja, Nick thought, follow your pattern.

Another door opened, neither one slammed closed. These boys were precision workers. He heard the scuffle of feet on gravel, a growl that sounded like, "Flanken."

The fuses were twelve-second firers, add or subtract two depending on how neatly you lit the end. The scratch of the match sounded awfully loud. Nick lit the fuse — it would burn now even in a gale or under water — and rose to his knees.

His heart sank. His ears had betrayed him, the truck was at least three hundred feet away. Two men were moving out from it to circle the building from either side. They were intent on the corners ahead of them, but not so intent they weren't watching the skyline. He saw' the burp gun carried by the man on his left swing up. Nick changed his mind, flung the plastique at the burp gun carrier and dropped as it growled, a bitter rattle like fabric tearing. He heard a yell. Nine-ten-eleven-twelve-boom!

He had no illusions. The little bomb was powerful but with luck they d still be in action. Scuttling across the roof to a point well away from where he had just appeared, he peeked over the rim.

The man who had carried the MP 44 was down, squirming and moaning, the chunky weapon five feet ahead of him. Evidently he had tried to run to the right and the bomb had gone off behind him. He did not look badly damaged. Nick hoped he was shocked enough to stay dazed for a few minutes; the other man was his worry now. He was nowhere in sight.

Nick crawled forward, saw nothing. The other one must have gained the building's side. You could wait — or you could move. Nick moved as swiftly and quietly as he could. He flopped over the next rim, on the side the burp gunner had been heading for. As he had guessed — nothing. He scuttled to the rear edge of the roof, put Wilhelmina over at the same time as his head. The scarred black ground was empty.

Move! By now his man would be creeping along the wall, perhaps turning that back corner. He went to the forward angle and peeped over. He had guessed wrong.

When Bloch had seen the shape of the head on the roof and the sputtering grenade had spun toward him and Krol he had propelled himself forward. The right tactic; get away, get under, and get in — if you can't drop with your helmet toward the bomb. The blast had been surprisingly powerful, even at eighty feet. It had shaken him to the roots of his teeth.

Instead of going along the wall he had squatted at its center, watching left-right-up. Left-right-up. He was looking up when Nick looked over — for a moment each man looked into a face he would never forget.

Bloch had a Mauser balanced in his right hand and he was good with it, but he was still slightly stunned, and even if he were not, the outcome could not have been in doubt. Nick fired with the instantaneous reflexes of an athlete and the skill of the tens of thousands of rounds, burned slow-fire, rapid-fire, and in every position including hanging over roofs. He picked the pinpoint on Bloch's upturned nose where the slug would land, and the nine-millimeter slug missed it by a quarter-inch. It opened up the back of his head.

Even against the impact, Bloch fell forward, as a man usually will, and Nick saw the gaping wound. It was an unpleasant sight. He dropped from the roof and ran around the corner of the building — cautiously — to find Krol slobbering but reaching for his weapon. Nick ran forward and picked it up. Krol stared up at him, his mouth working, blood drooling from the corner of his mouth and one eye.

"Who are you?" Nick asked. Sometimes they will talk under shock. Krol didn't.

Nick searched him swiftly, finding no other weapon. An alligator-skin wallet had nothing in it but money. He went swiftly back to the dead man. He had only a driver's permit issued to John Blake. Nick said to the cadaver, "You don't look like a John Blake."

Carrying the Mauser and the burp gun he went to the truck. It appeared to have escaped damage from the blast He opened the hood and unsnapped the distributor cap and put it in his pocket In the back he found another burp gun and a metal box with eight magazines and at least two hundred extra rounds. He took two magazines, wondering why there wasn't more armament Judas was known for his love of superior firepower.

He put the guns on the rear floor of the Volvo and rolled down the hill. He had to call twice before the girls appeared at the window. "We heard shots," Booty said in a high-pitched voice. She swallowed and lowered her tones. "Are you all right?"

"Sure." He helped them out. "Our friends in the little truck won't bother us anymore. Let's get out of here before the big one comes."

Janet Olson had a small scratch on one hand from a sliver of glass. "Keep that clean till we get something to put on it," Nick ordered. "You can catch all kinds of things around here."

A droning babble in the sky drew his attention. From the southeast, the way they had come, a helicopter appeared, following the road like an exploring bee. Nick thought, Oh no! Not that — and fifty miles from nowhere with these girls!

The whirly spotted them, flew over, and went on to hover near the truck standing silently on the plateau. "Let's go!" Nick said.

As they reached the main road the big truck nosed out of the defile at the end of the valley. Nick could imagine the two-way radio conversation as the helicopter described the scene, settling to peer at "John Blake's" body. As soon as they decided...

Nick raced the Volvo away toward the northeast They had decided. At long range the truck fired at them. It sounded like a fifty-caliber, but probably was a European heavy.

With a sigh of relief Nick twisted the Volvo into the turns leading up the escarpment The big track had shown no speed — just firepower.

On the other hand, the eggbeater up there gave them all the speed they'd ever need!

Chapter Eight

The Volvo whipped up the turns to the top of the first mountain like a mouse in a maze with food at the end. They passed a tour caravan of four vehicles on the way. Nick hoped the sight of them would cool the lads in the helicopter temporarily, especially if they carried gunship armament. It was a small two-place bird of French make, but good modern weapons don't weigh much.

At the top of the grade the road wound near the edge of a cliff with a lookout parking area. It was empty. Nick drove near the edge. The truck was grinding doggedly up the hills, just passing the tour cars. To Nick's astonishment the helicopter was vanishing toward the east.

He considered the possibilities. They needed fuel; they were going to get a distributor cap to get the truck and body away from there; they would circle and set up a roadblock ahead of him, boxing him between it and the big truck. Or all these reasons? One thing sure, he was up against Judas now. He had taken on a whole organization.

The girls were regaining their composure and that meant questions. He answered them as much as he thought best as he drove swiftly toward the western exit of the giant forest preserve. Please — let there be no construction blocks on the way!

"Do you think the whole country is in trouble?" Janet asked. "I mean, like Vietnam and all those African countries? A real revolution?"

"The country is in trouble" Nick replied, "but I think we tangled with our special dose. Maybe bandits. Maybe revolutionists. Maybe they know your folks have money and want to kidnap you."

"Hah!" Booty snorted and looked at him skeptically, but she didn't butt in.

"Give us your ideas," Nick said sweetly.

"I'm not sure. But when a tour escort carries a gun and maybe that was a bomb you had back there we heard — well!"

"Almost as bad as if one of your girls carried money or messages to the rebels, eh?"

Booty shut up.

Ruth Crossman said calmly, "I think it's wonderfully exciting."

Nick drove for over an hour. They passed Zimpa Pan and Suntichi Mountain and Tshonba Dam. Cars and microbuses passed them now and then, but Nick knew that unless he met an army or police patrol, he should keep civilians out of this mess. And if he met the wrong patrol, and they were politically or financially with the THB mob, that could be fatal. There was another problem — Judas was prone to outfit small detachments in the uniforms of the local authorities. He had once set up an entire Brazilian police post for a robbery caper that was smoothly successful. Nick didn't see himself walking into the arms of any armed squad without plenty of preliminary identification check.

The road wound upward, leaving behind the weird, half-barren, half-jungle valleys of the preserve and they climbed to the ridge that carried the railroad and highway between Bulawayo and Victoria Falls. Nick stopped at a filling station in a small settlement, pulling the Volvo under the ramada-like roof over the petrol pump.

Several white men were glumly watching the road. They looked nervous.

The girls went into the building and the tall, sunburned attendant murmured to Nick, "Are you heading back to Main Camp?"

"Yes," Nick replied. He was puzzled by the confidential manner of the usually open and hearty Rhodesians.

"Won't do to alarm the ladies but we're expecting a bit of trouble. Some guerrillas have been working south from the Sebungwe. Hope to cut the railway, I suppose. They killed four soldiers a few miles upcountry from Lubimbi. Might be a good idea to go back to Main Camp for now."

"Thanks " Nick answered. "I didn't know the rebels were penetrating this far. Last I heard your boys and the South Africans helping them had things under control. Killed a hundred of them, I understand."

The man finished filling the tank and shook his head. "We've got problems we don't talk about. We've had four thousand men south of the Zambesi for six months. They're finding underground camps and all that. We don't have enough petrol for constant air patrols." He patted the Volvo. "We still pump to these for tourist business but I don't know for how long they'll keep it up. Yank, aren't you?"

"Yes."

"You know. You have your own actions going in Mississippi and — let's see — Georgia, isn't it?" He winked, a sad intimacy. "You make a lot of em good ones but where does it lead?"

Nick paid him. "Where, indeed. Which is the shortest way to Main Camp?"

"Six miles along there to the highway. Turn right. Forty miles or so by following the signs. Then two more rights at signs. Can't miss it."

The girls came back and Nick followed the man's instructions.

Their refueling stop had taken perhaps eight minutes. He had not seen any sign of the big truck for an hour. If it was still following them, it was far behind. He wondered why the helicopter did not return to scout them out They covered the six miles and reached the broad, hard-surfaced road. They traveled about two miles when they began to pass an army convoy headed west. Nick estimated it at battalion size with heavy equipment left at home. It was honed for jungle warfare. He thought. Good luck, you'll need it.

Booty said, "Why don't you stop an officer and tell him what happened to us?"

Nick explained his reasons, not adding that he hoped Judas had removed "John Blake's" remains. A long and sticky explanation of what had happened would be inconvenient.

"It feels good to have the soldiers going by," Janet said. "It's hard to remember that some of them may be against us."

"Not actually against us," Nick corrected. "Just not with us."

"She's really looking at those handsome men," Ruth said. "Some of them are soothy. Look — there's one just the image of Charlton Heston."

Nick didn't look. He was busy watching a speck in the sky that followed the little column. Sure enough — as soon as the last personnel carrier went by, the speck grew in size. A few minutes later it came close enough to be recognized. Their old friend, the two-man helicopter that had left them at the valley.

"It's them again," Ruth said almost happily. "Isn't this exciting?"

"Oh — real groovy, man," Booty agreed, but you knew she didn't mean it.

Nick said, "They're just too cute up there. Shall we shake 'em up?"

"Let's " Ruth said.

"Give'em hell!" Janet snapped.

"How'll you shake 'em?" Booty asked.

"You'll see," Nick promised. "If they ask for it."

They asked for it. As the Volvo rolled through an open, deserted section of scrubby dry bundu, the whirly came down on the driver's side of the car. They wanted a close look or a close shot. Nick let the spintop settle, then hit the brakes yelling, "Out and down flat on the right-hand side!"

The girls were getting used to it. They scrambled and hit the dirt like a combat team. Nick wrenched open the rear door, grabbed a burp gun, cut the safety, and hosed a nicely leading stream of lead after the eggbeater, which angled away under full power. The range was long but you could get lucky. He didn't.

"Back in," he yelped. "Let's go, team!"

"Teach me to use one of those things," Ruth said.

"If we have a chance," Nick agreed.

The helicopter flew ahead of them, lazing over the hot road like a waiting vulture. Nick drove about twenty miles, ready to stop and fire at the aircraft if it made another approach. It didn't They passed several side roads but he didn't dare take one. A dead end with the truck guided in behind them would be fatal. Far ahead he saw a black blotch on the side of the road and his spirits sank. When he could see it more clearly he swore silently to himself. A parked car, a big one. He stopped, sawed around in the reverse direction, and halted. A man jumped into the parked car and it started toward them. Boxed! He gunned the Volvo. Two miles back, with the strange car racing behind them, he reached a side road he had noted and whipped into it The car followed.

Booty said, "They're gaining."

"Watch them," Nick ordered.

The chase covered six or seven miles. The big sedan was in no hurry to close. That worried him. They were herding them into a dead end or into the bush. The country became more hilly, with narrow bridges across dry watercourses. He picked one carefully, stopped on a single-lane bridge when their pursuers were not in sight.

"Out and down into the creek bed," he said. They were very good at it now. He balanced a burp gun and waited, down in the gully, using it as a trench. The sedan's driver saw the stopped Volvo and halted, out of range, then drifted forward very slowly. Nick waited, peering through bunch grass.

Now! He fired short, low bursts, saw a tire flatten. Three men spilled out of the car, two carrying long guns. They hit the ground. Well-aimed slugs hit the Volvo. It was enough identification for Nick. He raised the muzzle and dripped short bursts onto the men at the longish range.

They found his position. A heavy-caliber slug ripped across the gravel five feet to his right Good shots, tool He dropped out of sight and changed magazines. Lead chopped and rattled on the ridge above his head. The girls were crouched just below him. He scooted twenty feet to his left and looked over the rim again. Lovely, they were exposed from this angle. The chopper rattled in six-shot bursts, skittering sand over car and men. It wasn't his day. Glass shattered but all three men ran back up the road out of range.

"C'mon," he said. "Follow me."

He led the girls along the dry watercourse at a fast walk If the men ran true to form, they would spread out, crawl up on the flanks of the Volvo. They would waste a half-hour.

When his little patrol was far from the bridge, Nick led them up out of the ravine and into the bush, parallel to the road.

He was thankful that all the girls were wearing sensible shoes. They would need them. He had Wilhelmina with thirteen shells. Was that unlucky? One burp gun and an extra magazine, a compass, some odds and ends, and hope.

The hope was smaller as the sun settled in the west, but he didn't let the girls know that They were hungry and thirsty, he knew. He saved their strength by frequent rests and cheerful comments, but the air was hot-dry and the going rough. They came to a deep crevice and he had to follow it back to the road. It was empty. He said, "On we go. If anyone hears a car or a plane, speak up."

"Where are we going?" Janet asked. She sounded scared and tired.

"According to my map, if I remember it, this road takes us to Bingee. A good-size town." He didn't add that Bingee was perhaps eighty miles away in the jungle valley.

They passed a shallow, murky pool. Ruth said, If only that was drinkable."

"We can't risk it." Nick said. "I'll bet even money you drink it you're dead. Or ruined for life with bilharzja.

Just before dark he led them off the road, swept clear a rough section of ground, and said, "Make yourselves comfortable. Get some sleep if you can. We can't travel at night."

They talked in weary tones, but there were no complaints. He was proud of them.

"Let's set up watches," Booty said. "You've got to get some sleep, Andy."

Not far away an animal made a strange, rumbling roar. Nick said, "Gather round. You're going to get your wish, Ruth."

In the dying light he showed them how to release the burp gun's safety. "Squirt it like a flit gun but don't hold the trigger in."

"I don't understand," Janet said. "Don't hold the trigger in?"

"No. You must correct your aim all the time. I can't demonstrate, so you imagine it. Here — " He unlocked the magazine and levered out the chamber shell. He demonstrated by touching the trigger and making sounds like short bursts. "Brrr-rup. Brrr-rup."

They each tried it. He said, "Excellent You're all promoted to sergeant."

To his surprise, he got three or four hours of light sleep cuddled between Ruth and Janet, during Booty's watch. It proved he had confidence in her. At the first dim gray light he led them on down the road.

Swinging along at an easy mile-in-ten-minutes they had covered a lot of ground by the time Nick's watch said ten o'clock. But they were tiring. He could keep it up all day, but the girls were nearly finished without a long rest. He let them carry the burp gun by turns. They took the job seriously. He told them, although he didn't believe it, that all they had to do was stay out of the "bandits'" hands until the Edman company in the person of Gus Boyd gave the alarm. The legitimate army and police would be searching for them, and the publicity would make attacking them again too risky for the "bandits." It listened well.

The terrain led downward, and rounding a curve in rough country they came upon a native dozing under a thatch shelter beside the road. He pretended that he could not speak English. Nick herded him along. He was a lookout. Half a mile down the winding track they came upon a small compound of thatch-topped huts, complete with the usual fields of mealies and tobacco, kraals and cattle-dipping pens. The village was cleverly situated. The hillside location presented difficulties, the fields were uneven, and the kraal fences harder to maintain, but what rainfall there was came to the ponds via a network of ditches that spread up the slopes like veins.

As they approached, several men working under a shelter tried to conceal a vehicle under tarps. Nick said to his prisoner, "Where is the boss? Muhle Itikos?"

The man stubbornly shook his head. One of the gathering, proud of her English, said, "The boss is over there." She spoke flawlessly, pointing at a nearby hut with a wide ramada.

A short, brawny man came out of the hut and looked at them questioningly. When he saw the prisoner in front of Nick's casually held Luger he frowned.

"Bring that vehicle out of that shed. I want to look at it."

Several black men who had gathered began to mutter. Nick took the burp gun from Janet and held it suggestively. The brawny man said, "My name is Ross. Would you mind introducing yourself?"

His diction was even better than the little girl's. Nick told him their right names and concluded, "...over to that car."

When the tarp was off Nick blinked. It had concealed an almost new jeep. He inspected it, watching the village men who now numbered nine. He wondered if that was the total. He found four extra cans of gasoline in the rear of the open shed.

He said to Ross, "Please bring us some water and something to eat. Then well leave. No harm to anyone. I'll pay you well and you'll get your jeep back."

One of the men spoke rapidly to Ross in a native tongue. Ross answered shortly. Nick felt uneasy. These cats were too cool. They did as ordered, but as if they were curious, not intimidated. Ross asked, "Would you have connections with Mapolisa — or Rhodesian forces?"

"None."

The black who had spoken said, "Mkiwas..." Nick understood the first word, "white people," and the rest sounded threatening.

"Where are your guns?" he asked Ross.

"The government has taken them all away."

Nick didn't believe it. The government might have gotten some, but this bunch was too self-confident. He felt more and more uneasy. If they jumped him, and he had a hunch they might, he couldn't blast them down no matter how tough he tried to act. Killmaster did not mean mass murderer.

Suddenly Booty stepped closer to Ross and talked in low tones. Nick lost some of it bv the time he moved toward them but he heard, "...Pieter van Prez and Mr. Garfield Todd. John Johnson, too. Zimbabwe seventy-three."

Nick recognized the name of Todd, a former Rhodesian premier who had tried to moderate difficulties between the whites and blacks. The in-group of whites had exiled him to his cattle ranch for his liberal views.

Ross looked at Nick, and the AXEman knew how correct he had been. It wasn't the look of a man you pushed. He had an idea Ross would walk into the burp gun if circumstances called for it Ross said, "Miss DeLong knows friends of mine. You'll get your food and water and I'll drive you to Bingee. You may be a spy for the police. I don't know. I don't think so. But I don't want shooting here."

'There are some people following us" Nick said. Tough men from the THB gang, I think. And there'll be a helicopter overhead any time from the same crowd. You'll know then I'm no police spy. But you'd better dig up some firepower if you have it."

A gleam of appreciation showed on Ross's calm black features. "We took out one of the bridges you crossed. They'll be many hours getting here. That's why our sentry was so careless..." He glanced at the man. The watchman hung his head.

"We surprised him," Nick offered.

"That's kind of you," Ross replied. "I hope it's the first lie you've told me."

Twenty minutes later they rolled toward the northeast in the jeep, Nick at the wheel with Ross beside him, the three girls in the back, Ruth holding the burp gun. She was developing into a real guerrilla. After about two hours of travel over a road that belonged in the Wyoming of 1905, they reached a slightly better road where a sign pointing to the left advised in faded lettering, Bingee. Nick glanced at his compass and turned right.

"What's the idea?" Ross asked.

"Bingee is no good for us," Nick explained. "We've got to go across country. Then out to Zambia where Booty's connections are apparently solid. And I imagine yours are. If you can take me by the THB mining properties on the way, so much the better. You must hate them. I hear they work your people like slaves."

"You don't realize what you're suggesting. After the roads give out there's a hundred miles of jungle to cross. And if you don't know it — there's a small war on in there between guerrillas and the Security Army."

"If there's a war on there are roads, right?"

"Oh, a few tracks here and there. But you won't survive."

"Yes we will," Nick answered with more confidence than he felt "With your help."

From the back seat Booty said, "Oh, Andy — you shouldn't. Listen to him."

"I have," Nick replied. "He knows that what I'm doing will help his outfit too. What we tell about THB will shake up the world, and the dust will fall on the government here. Ross will be a hero."

"You're mad," Ross said disgustedly. "The odds are fifty to one against it working out as you say. I should have had you overpowered back in the village."

"You had guns, didn't you?"

"There was a rifle pointed at you all the time you were there. I'm just too soft It's the trouble with idealists."

Nick offered him a cigarette. "If it makes you feel better, I wouldn't have started shooting, either."

Ross lit the cigarette, and they looked at each other for a short moment Nick realized that except for shading Ross's expression was much like the one he often saw in his mirror. Lots of confidence and a question.

They covered sixty miles more in the jeep before the helicopter flew over, but they were in jungle country now and the whirly had the problem of searching a thousand miles of road. They parked under overhead vegetation as thick as woven thatch and let it drone past Nick explained to the girls why they must not look up, saying, "Now you know why guerrilla warfare works in Vietnam. You can hide easily."

Once when Nick's compass indicated they should take ;a faint track to their right Ross said, "No, stay on the main road. It bends right beyond the next line of hills. That path dead ends in the false escarpment You'd waste thirty miles."

Beyond the line of hills, Nick found out Ross had told the truth. In the afternoon they reached a small village, and Ross obtained water and mealie cake and biltong to conserve their own small supply. Nick had no choice but to let the man talk with the natives in a language he did not understand.

As they left Nick saw a horse-drawn cart being readied. "Where are they going?"

"They'll go back the way we came, dragging brush. It will wipe out our tracks, not that we're easy to track in this dry weather, but it can be done by a good man."

There were no more bridges, just fords across the creeks in which there remained a trickle of water. Most were dry. As the sun was setting they passed a herd of elephants. The great beasts were active, lumbering into each other, turning to look at the jeep.

"Keep going," Ross said quietly. "They're drank on fermented fruit juice. Sometimes there's a bad one."

"An elephant binge?" Nick asked "I never heard of that."

"It's true. You don't want to meet one when he's high and feeling mean or when he has a bad hangover."

"Do they actually make alcohol? How?"

"In their stomachs."

They forded a wider stream and Janet said, "Can't we soak our feet and wash?"

"Later," Ross advised. "Crocodiles and bad worms in there."

As darkness fell they reached an empty compound, four neat huts with a wall-and-gate courtyard and a corral. Nick inspected the huts approvingly. They had clean hide beds, simple furnishings. "This where you said we'd sleep?"

"Yes. This used to be the last patrol post when they came in on horses. Still used. There's a village about five miles away keeps an eye on it. That's one trouble with my people. So damn law-abiding and obedient."

"Those are supposed to be virtues," Nick said as he unloaded the food box.

"Not for a revolution," Ross said bitterly. "You should stay rough and mean until your rulers get civilized. When you mature and they stay barbaric — with all their tiled baths and mechanical toys — you're screwed. My people are infested with spies because they think it's the right thing to do. Run tell the policeman. They don't realize they're being robbed. They get kaffir beer and ghettos."

"If you were all that mature," Nick said, "you wouldn't be in ghettos."

Ross paused, looked puzzled. "Why?"

"You wouldn't have bred like bugs. From four hundred thousand to four million, wasn't it? You could have beat the game with brains and birth control."

"That's not so..." Ross paused. He knew there was a flaw in the idea somewhere but it hadn't been covered in his revolutionary reading.

He was quiet as night fell. They hid the jeep, ate, and divided up the available quarters. They bathed gratefully in a wash house. Ross said the water was pure.

The next morning they drove thirty miles, and the track ended at a deserted village, unlike the compound. It was falling to pieces. "Resettled," Ross said bitterly. "They were suspect because they wanted to stay independent."

Nick looked at the jungle. "You know the trails? From here — we walk."

Ross nodded. "I might make it alone."

"Then well make it together. Feet were made before jeeps."

Perhaps because of the dry weather, with the animals drawn to the remaining waterholes, the going was dry-misery instead of damp-horror. Nick fashioned head nets for all of them out of his packet, although Ross claimed he could get along without one. They camped the first night on a hillock that showed signs of recent occupancy. There were thatch shelters and firepits. "Guerrillas?" Nick asked.

"Hunters usually."

The night sounds were an uproar of roaring animals and screaming birds; crashing in the forest that sounded near. Ross assured them that most animals had learned by lethal experience to avoid the camp, but they didn't sound like it Just after midnight Nick was awakened by a soft voice coming from the door of his cabin. "Andy?"

"Yes," he whispered.

"I can't sleep." Ruth Crossman's voice.

"Scared?"

"I don't… think so."

"Here..." He found her warm arm and drew her down on the stretched-hide bed. "You're lonely." He kissed her comfortingly. "You need a little cuddling after all the excitement"

"I tell myself I like it." She snuggled against him.

On the third day they came to a narrow road. They were in bundu brush country again, and the track had been hacked fairly straight Ross said, "It marks the edge of THB holdings. They patrol four times a day-or they used to."

Nick said, "Can you take me in to where I can get a good look at the operation?"

"I can, but it would be easier to circle and get away from here. We go into Zambia or out toward Salisbury. You can't accomplish anything against THB alone."

"I want to see the operation. I want to know what's going on instead of getting all my information secondhand. Then maybe I can put real pressure on them."

"Booty didn't tell me that, Grant. She told me you helped Pieter van Prez. Who are you? Why are you an enemy of THB? Do you know Mike Bor?"

"I think I know Mike Bor. If I do and he's the man I think he is, he's a murdering tyrant."

"I could have told you that. He's got a lot of my people in the concentration camps he calls compounds. Are you with the international police? The UN?"

"No. And Ross — I don't know where you fit in."

"I'm a patriot"

"Like Pieter and Johnson?"

Ross said sadly, "We see things differently. In every revolution there are many points of view."

"Trust me to knock THB when I can?"

"Come on."

Several hours later they scrambled to the top of a miniature escarpment and Nick drew in his breath. He was looking at a mining empire. As far as he could see there were workings, camps, truck parks, warehouse complexes. A rail spur and a road came in from the southeast. Many of the operations had sturdy fences. The hut compounds, which seemed to stretch away endlessly in the clear sunlight, had high fences and watch-towers and guarded gate houses.

Nick said, "Why not slip arms to your people in the compounds and take over the place?"

"That's one of the points over which my group and Pieter's differ," Ross said sadly. "It might not work, anyway. You will find this hard to believe, but the colonial operation here over the years has made my people very law-abiding. They bend their heads and kiss the whips and polish their chains."

"Only the rulers can break the law," Nick murmured.

"That's right."

"Where does Bor live and have his headquarters?"

"Over that hill beyond the last shaft tower. He's got a beautiful place. Fenced and guarded. You won't get in."

"I don't have to. I just want to see it so that I can report I've personally seen his private kingdom. Who lives with him? The servants must have talked."

"Several Germans. Heinrich Muller is the one you're interested in, I imagine. Si Kalgan, a Chinese. And a number of men of different nationalities, but all criminals, I think He ships our ore and asbestos all over the world."

Nick looked at the rugged black features and did not smile. Ross had known all along much more than he revealed. He shook a powerful hand. "Will you take the girls to Salisbury? Or direct them to some part of civilization?"

"And you?"

"I'll be all right. I'm going to get the whole picture and get out. I have a compass."

"Why risk your life?"

"I'm paid for it. I've got to do my job right"

"I'll get the girls out tonight." Ross sighed. "I think you're taking too much of a risk. Good luck, Grant, if that's your name."

Ross crept back down the hill to the hidden valley where they had left the girls. They were gone. Tracks told the story. They were overpowered by booted men. Whites. THB personnel, of course. A truck and a car had taken them away over the patrol road. Ross backtracked their own jungle trail and swore. The price of overconfidence. No wonder the pursuers in the truck and sedan had seemed slow. They had called in trackers and were behind them all the time, perhaps in touch with THB by radio.

He looked sadly up at the far hills where "Andrew Grant" was now probably entering the mining kingdom; entering a beautifully baited trap.

Chapter Nine

Ross would have been astonished to see Nick at the moment. The mouse had crawled so quietly into the trap that no one knew it — yet. Nick had joined a group of white men in a locker room behind a messhall. When they had left he had appropriated a blue jacket and a yellow safety helmet He strolled through the hustle and bustle of the loading docks as if he had worked there all his life.

He spent the afternoon nosing through the giant smelters, plodding past narrow-gauge trainloads of ore, looking purposeful as he went in and out of warehouses and office buildings. The natives didn't dare look at him or question him — the whites just weren't used to it. THB ran like a precision machine — no unauthorized person ever moved around inside.

Judas' move helped. When the girls were brought to the villa he snarled, "Where are the two men?"

The patrol team, which had been directed to the girls by radio, said they thought the jungle team had them. Herman Duzen, the volunteer leader of the jungle pursuers, went pale. He had been exhausted; had brought his group in for food and rest. He thought the patrol had scooped up all the quarry!

Judas cursed, then sent all his security group out of the camp into the jungle and along the patrol roads. Inside, Nick did everything but punch a time clock. He saw trucks and rail cars loaded with chrome and asbestos, and he saw the wooden boxes move from the gold smelters to be buried under other loads while supervisors kept careful records.

He talked with one, getting by with his German because the man was Austrian. "This the one for the Far East boat?" he asked.

The man dutifully consulted his clipboard and waybills. "Nein. Genoa. Escort LeBeau." He turned away, efficient and busy.

Nick found the communications center, a room full of clattering teletypes and gravel-toned radios. He obtained a blank from the operator and wrote a telegram to Roger Tillbourne, Rhodesian Railways. The blank was numbered, German Army style. No one would dare...

The operator read the message: Next thirty days require ninety ore cars. Move only by Beyer-Garratt power under engineer Barnes. Signed, Granche.

The operator was busy, too. He asked, "Railway wire. Free?"

"Ja."

Nick was near a truck park when the sirens went off like a bombing alert He climbed into the body of a giant dump truck. Peeping over the top he watched the search go on all day, finally concluding it was for him, although he did not know about the girls' capture.

He found out about it after dark after he propped up the electrified fence around Judas' villa with sticks and crawled close to the lighted patio. In the screened enclosure nearest the house sat Mike Bor, Muller, and Si Kalgan. In a more distant enclosure, with a pool in the center, were Booty and Ruth and Janet, They were tied spread-eagled to the wire fencing, nude. A large male baboon paid them no attention as he munched on a green stalk.

Nick shuddered, drew Wilhelmina, sighted on Bor, paused. The light was odd. Then he realized the three men were in a glass enclosure — an air-conditioned and certainly bullet-proof box! Nick backtracked swiftly. What a trap! Within a few minutes he saw two men move silently through the brush where he had stood. Herman Duzen was patrolling, determined to make up for his error.

They were making a full circle of the house. Nick followed them, slipping from around his waist one of the pieces of plastic cord he let no one know he carried. They were pliable, with a break strength of over a ton.

Herman — although Nick did not know his name — went first. He lagged to inspect the outer electric fence. He died without a vocal peep, in a short thrash of arms and legs that subsided in sixty seconds. His companion came back along the dark path. His end came as shortly. Nick bent over and was a little sick for a few seconds, a reaction he never revealed even to Hawk.

Nick returned to his patch of shrubbery overlooking the glass bos and looked at it with a feeling of helplessness. The three men were laughing. Mike Bor pointed at the pool in the zoo enclosure where the naked girls hung like pitiful statues. The baboon had retreated to a tree. Something crawled out of the water. Nick shuddered. A crocodile. Hungry, probably. Janet Olson screamed.

Nick ran for the enclosure, Bor and Muller and Kalgan stood up, Kalgan holding a long gun. Well — for the moment he couldn't hit them and they couldn't hit him. They were depending on the two men he had just eliminated. He put slugs from Wilhelmina precisely into each of the croc's eyes from a distance of forty feet.

Mike Bor's heavily accented English roared from a loudspeaker. "Drop your gun, AXEman. You are surrounded."

Nick ran back into the rank of landscaping and crouched. He had never felt so helpless. Bor wasn't far wrong. Muller was using a telephone. They'd have plenty of reinforcements here in a few minutes. The three men laughed in his direction. Far down the hill a vehicle's engine roared into life. Midler's lips moved mockingly. Nick ran away, for the first time in his career. He went away from the road and the house, letting them see him flee, hoping they would forget the girls for a moment because the victim could not see the bait.

In the comfortably cool enclosure Bor chuckled. "See him run! It's the American all right. They're cowards when they know you have the power. Muller — send men around to the north."

Muller barked into the phone. Then said, "Marzon is over there now with a squad. Hell run into them. And there are thirty men closing in from the outside road. Herman and the inner patrols will be behind him in a moment."

Not quite. Herman and his squad chief were cooling under a baobab tree. Nick slipped past a three-man patrol and stopped when he saw the road. There were eight or nine men spread along it. One held a leashed dog. A man standing by a combat car was using a radio. Nick sighed and shoved a fuse into the block of plastique. Three of these, and nine bullets — and he'd start using rocks against an army. A portable searchlight probed.

A small column of trucks growled up the incline from the north. The man with the radio turned, held it as if confused. Nick squinted. The man clinging to the side of the first truck was Ross! He dropped to the ground as Nick watched. The truck reached the command car and men came out of the truck's back. They were black! The command car's lights went out.

A white man behind the radioman lifted a submachine gun. Nick put a bullet in his middle. At the shot — action exploded.

It sounded like a small war. Orange tracers ripped the night. Nick watched the black men attack, flank, crawl, fire. They moved like soldiers with a purpose. The hard kind to stop. The whites broke, retreated, some were shot in the back. Nick yelled to Ross and the burly black ran to him. Ross carried an automatic shotgun. He said, "I thought you were dead by now."

"Close to it."

They moved into the glow of the trucks lights and Pieter van Prez joined them. The old man looked like a victorious general. He carried a small command set. He looked at Nick without emotion. "You've triggered something. A Rhodesian unit that was chasing us has gone around to join another one coming in from outside. Why?"

"I sent a message to George Barnes. Tin's THB outfit is a bunch of international criminals. I figure they can't have all your politicos bought."

Van Prez tapped his radio. "The native workers are breaking out of their compounds. The charges against THB will shake something up. But we've got to get out of here before the security boys arrive."

"Give me a truck," Nick said. "They've got the girls up on the hill."

"Trucks cost money," van Prez said thoughtfully. He looked at Ross. "Do we dare?"

"I'll get you a new one or send you the price via Johnson," Nick exclaimed.

"Give it to him," Ross said. He handed Nick the shotgun. "Send us the price of one of these."

"It's a promise."

Nick whipped the truck past wrecked vehicles and around bodies, got on the side hill road toward the villa and climbed as fast as the engine would roar. Across the valley clusters of lights glowed but they were minute beside the fires that were breaking out everywhere. Away off, at the main gate, tracer bullets snapped and twinkled and the sound of firing was heavy. It looked as if Mike Bor and company had lost their political connections — or couldn't reach them fast enough. His guards must have tried to stop the army column, and that did it.

He rolled onto the plateau, circled the house. He saw the three men on the patio. They weren't laughing now. He drove straight at them.

The heavy International was rolling at a good clip when it hit the wide-weave chain-link fence. The barrier was carried along with the charging truck in a ripping, tearing mélange of grinding wire, falling posts, and shrieking metal. Chaise longues and deck chairs flew like toys before the impact of the fence and the vehicle. Just before Nick crashed into the bullet-proof glass box that sheltered Bor, Muller, and Kalgan, the V of fencing — pushed ahead like a metal soundwave by the truck's nose — parted with a giant twang.

Bor bolted toward the house and Nick watched Muller poise, holding a gun. The old man had guts or he was petrified. Kalgan's Oriental features were a mask of angry hate as he pulled at Muller and then the truck rammed the glass and everything vanished in a jolting shock of metal-to-glass. Nick braced against the wheel and firewall. Muller and Kalgan vanished, obscured by a sudden screen of fractured, splintered glass. The stuff bent, gave, and became opaque with a network of breaks.

A cloud of steam burst from the truck's fractured radiator. Nick struggled with his jammed door, knowing that Muller and Kalgan had gone through the exit door of the glass shelter and were following Bor into the main house. Finally he dropped the shotgun out the window and crawled out after it.

The door to the house was swinging as he ran around the shelter and came to it — the truck and the trailing fence was a barrier to his right. He put one blast from the shotgun through its center and it ponged open. No one was waiting for him.

Over the hiss of the truck's steaming radiator sounded a girl's terrified scream. He whirled, surprised that the lights stayed on — he had knocked down several outdoor fixtures — and hoping they'd go out. He was a good target if Muller and the others went to upper windows.

Dashing to the fence that separated the patio from the 200 enclosure he found a gate and got through it. The baboon cringed in a corner, the crocodile's corpse quivered. He cut Booty's bonds with Hugo. "What's wrong here?" he snapped.

"I don't know," she sobbed. "Janet screamed."

He got her free, said, "Undo Ruth," and went to Janet. "You all right?"

"Yes," she quavered, "a horrible big bug crawled up my leg."

Nick unfastened her hands. "You've got guts."

"Damn exciting tour."

He picked up the shotgun. "Untie your own feet." He ran for the patio and the door to the house. He was searching the last of many rooms when George Barnes found him. The Rhodesian policeman said, "Hello. Bit of excitement? Got your word by Tillbourne. Clever."

"Thanks. Bor and his crew have disappeared."

"We'll get them. I do want to hear your story."

"I haven't made it all up yet. Let's get out of here. This place may blow up any time." He carried blankets out to the girls.

Nick was wrong. The villa glowed brightly as they drove down the hill. Barnes said, "All right, Grant. What happened?"

"Mike Bor or THB must have thought I was business competition or something. I've had a lot of surprises. People attacked me, tried to abduct me. Annoyed my tour clients. Chased us all over the country. He was really violent near the last, so I made a pass at him with a truck."

Barnes laughed heartily. "Talk about the understatement of the decade. As I see it, you triggered a native revolt. Broke up a fight between our army and some guerrillas. And you've exposed enough smuggling and double-crossing by THB to turn part of our government on its ear. The radio has been wailing from HQ so much I got away from it."

"Gee," Nick said innocently, "did I? Just an accidental chain of events. But lucky for you, eh? THB was abusing workers, cheating your customs, and helping your enemies — they sold to everyone, you know. You ought to get a fine commendation out of this."

"If we ever straighten it out."

Of course they straightened it out. Nick noticed how simple it is when you're dealing with a lot of gold that has tremendous power and no patriotism. The free world felt better with the yellow metal flowing into hands that appreciated it. Judas was traced to Lourenço Marques and his trail vanished. Nick could guess where — up Mozambique Channel to the Indian Ocean in one of the big oceangoing ketches he favored. He said nothing, for technically his own objective had been reached and he was still Andrew Grant, visiting escort with tour group.

Indeed, an assistant chief of the Rhodesian police gave him a commendation scroll at a small dinner. The publicity helped him decide not to take Hawk's suggestion, via coded cable, that he leave the tour on some excuse and return to Washington. He decided to complete the trip for the sake of — appearances.

After all, Gus was good company, and so were Booty and Ruth and Janet and Teddy and...

Notes

1

See The Judss Spy.

Content

Nick Carter
Rhodesia

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Notes