Flyaway / Windfall (50 page)

Hidden in the thickness of the picture frame would be a small transmitter and the batteries to power it, and probably somewhere in Ol Njorowa would be a receiver coupled to a sound-actuated tape recorder. It would be simple to put the bug out of order by the simple expedient of inserting a needle into the hole and ruining the microphone but that would not do because it would be a dead giveaway. Better to leave it alone and say nothing of consequence in the room or, indeed, anywhere in Ol Njorowa.

Before leaving the room he took a small pair of field glasses from his suitcase and went to the window. In the distance he could see a section of the chain-link fence which indicated the perimeter of the college. He swept it, the glasses to his eyes, and estimated it to be ten feet high. At the top were three strands of barbed wire. Somewhere on the other
side Curtis was making an examination of the fence from the outside, and his briefing had been to make a complete reconnaissance of the perimeter. Stafford put the field glasses away and walked to the staff room with a light heart.

In Brice’s office Dirk Hendriks put down the telephone. He had found it difficult to contact Mandeville in London; the lawyer had been engaged in court and Hendriks had requested a return call with some urgency. Now he had just finished talking to Mandeville and the news he got had knocked the wind out of him.

Brice said, ‘What’s the matter? What did Mandeville say?’

‘The New York agency was Gunnarsson Associates,’ said Dirk hollowly.

‘
What
?’ Brice sat open-mouthed. ‘You mean the man you talked with in Nairobi was the man who found Henry Hendrix in the States?’

‘It would seem so.’ Hendriks stood up. ‘There can’t be many Gunnarssons around and the Gunnarsson in Nairobi is an American.’

‘And he was in the tour group with your cousin. They were travelling together, obviously. Now, why should a private detective still stick around after he’s delivered the goods? And to the extent of coming to Kenya at that. And why should Henry Hendrix let him?’

‘Perhaps he thought he needed a bodyguard after inheriting all that money.’

‘Unlikely.’ Brice drummed his finger on the desk.

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Hendriks objected. ‘He’d been shot in Los Angeles and there was the business of the car in Cornwall. He might have become suspicious.’

‘I suppose so,’ Brice said tiredly. ‘Another suggestion is that Gunnarsson and Stafford are tied together.’ He thought for a moment. ‘Whichever way it is Gunnarsson needs
watching. We must find out who he sees, and particularly if he gets in touch with Stafford.’

‘Do I go back to Nairobi?’ asked Dirk.

‘No, you stay here and keep an eye on Stafford. I’ll send Patterson.’ Brice stood up. ‘I’ll go to the radar office and send him now. You say Gunnarsson is staying at the New Stanley?’

Dirk nodded. Brice was almost out of the room when Dirk said suddenly, ‘Wait a minute. I’ve just remembered something.’ Brice turned back and raised an eyebrow, and Dirk said, ‘When I was talking to Gunnarsson in the Thorn Tree I had the odd impression I’d seen him before but I couldn’t place him. I can now.’

‘Where?’

‘Remember when I came to Kenya for the first time with Henry and Farrar? We stayed at the Lake Naivasha Hotel. You joined us there and we had dinner together.’

‘Well?’

‘Gunnarsson was dining at a corner table alone.’

Dirk Hendriks walked into the staff room and found Stafford in conversation with Alan Hunt who was saying, ‘I’m going up tomorrow anyway. Jim Odhiambo wants some photographs of his experimental plots. The balloon is useful for that kind of thing.’

Stafford beckoned to Dirk and said, ‘Alan, I don’t think you’ve met Dirk Hendriks, the grandson of the benefactor of the Ol Njorowa Foundation. Alan Hunt.’

The two men shook hands and Hunt said, ‘Your grandfather’s largesse has come just at the right time for me. I want a fraction of that seven million quid for a gas chromatograph.’

Dirk laughed. ‘I wouldn’t know what that is.’

‘Seven million!’ said Stafford in simulated surprise. ‘It’s more than that, surely.’

‘Per annum,’ said Dirk easily. ‘That’s Charles Brice’s estimate of the annual return when the capital is invested. I think he’s too optimistic. It’s before tax, of course, but he’s having talks with the government with a view to getting it tax free. The Foundation is a non-profit organization, after all.’

All very specious. ‘I must have misunderstood Brice,’ Stafford said.

Hunt whistled. ‘I certainly misunderstood him, and so did the pressmen. How much did your grandfather leave us?’

‘At the time of his death it would have been about thirty-four million, but probate and proving the will has taken some time during which the original sum has been earning more cash. Say about thirty-seven million.’

Hunt gave a sharp crack of laughter. ‘Now I
know
I’ll get my gas chromatograph. Let’s drink to it.’

He ordered a round of drinks and then Stafford said curiously, ‘You said you are taking photographs for Dr Odhiambo. I don’t see the point. I mean he can see the crops on the ground, can’t he?’

‘Ah,’ said Hunt. ‘But this is quicker. We use infra-red film to shoot his experimental plots. Plants that are ailing or sick show up very well on infra-red if you know what to look for. It saves Jim many a weary mile of walking.’

‘The wonders of science,’ said Hendriks.

‘They use the same system in satellites,’ said Hunt. ‘But they can cover greater areas than I can.’

Stafford sampled his beer. ‘Talking about satellites, who owns the satellite your animal movement people use? They couldn’t have put it up themselves.’

Hunt laughed. ‘Not likely. It’s an American job. The migration study boys asked to put their scientific package into it. It’s not very big and it takes very little power so the Yanks didn’t mind. But the satellite does a lot more than monitor the movement of wildebeest.’ He pointed to the ceiling. ‘It sits up there, 22,000 miles high, and watches the clouds over most of Africa and the Indian Ocean; a long term study of the monsoons.’

‘A geo-stationary orbit,’ said Stafford.

‘That’s right. It’s on the Equator. Here we’re about one degree south. It’s fairly steady, too; there’s a bit of liberation but not enough to worry about.’

‘You’ve lost me,’ said Hendriks. ‘I understand about one word in three.’ He shook his head and said wryly, ‘My grandfather wanted me to work here part of the year but
I don’t see what I can do. I haven’t had the right training. I was in liberal arts at university.’

‘No doubt Brice will have you working with him on the administrative side,’ observed Hunt, and drank some beer.

No doubt he would, thought Stafford, and said aloud, ‘Which university, Dirk?’

‘Potch. That’s Potchefstroom in the Transvaal.’

Stafford filed that information away in his mind; it would be a useful benchmark if Hendriks had to be investigated in depth at a later date.

Hunt said, ‘Max, if you’re coming with us tomorrow it’ll be early—before breakfast. The air is more stable in the early morning. I’ll give you a ring at six-thirty.’ Stafford nodded and Hunt looked at Dirk. ‘Would you like to come? There’s room for one more.’

Hendriks shook his head. ‘Brice wants to see me early tomorrow morning. Some other time, perhaps.’

Stafford was relieved; he had his own reasons for wanting to overfly Ol Njorowa and he did not want Hendriks watching him when it happened. He did not think the Hunts were mixed up in any undercover activity at the College. They were Kenya born and it was unlikely they would have been suborned by South African intelligence. He thought they were part of the innocent protective camou—flage behind which Brice hid, like most of the scientific staff. He had his own ideas about where the worm in this rosy apple lay.

Hunt announced he had work to do, finished his beer and went off. Stafford and Hendriks continued to chat, a curious conversation in which both probed but neither wanted to give anything away. A duel with words ending at honours even.

As Gunnarsson drove to Naivasha he began to put the pieces together and the conclusion he arrived at was
frightening. He was a tough-minded man and did not scare easily but now he was worried because the package he had put together in New York was coming apart; the string unravelling, the cover torn and, worse, the contents missing.

Corliss was missing, damn him!

He had been so careful in New York. After Hendrix had been delivered by Hardin no one had seen him because Gunnarsson had personally smuggled him out of the building and to a hideaway in Connecticut. The only person to have laid eyes on Hendrix, apart from Hardin, had been his secretary in the outer office and she did not know who he was because the name had not been mentioned. And he had successfully got rid of Hardin; the damn fool needled so easily and had blown his top, which made his dismissal a perfectly natural reaction.

Gunnarsson tapped his fingers on the wheel of the car. Still, it was strange that when he wanted to find Hardin again he had vanished. Probably he had crawled into some hole to lick his wounds. Gunnarsson shrugged and dismissed Hardin from his mind. The guy was a has-been and of no consequence in the immediate problem he faced.

But Hardin’s report had been interesting and valuable. Here was Henry Hendrix, a hippy drop-out with no folks, and no one in the world would give a damn whether he lived or died because no one knew the guy existed. No one except that freaky commune in Los Angeles and, at first, he had discounted Biggie and his crowd.

And so, with Hendrix held isolated, he had the material for the perfect scam, and the hit was going to be big—no less than six million bucks. Hendrix had gone along with everything, talking freely under the impression that his interrogation was for the benefit of a British lawyer and quite unaware of the quietly revolving spools of the tape recorder memorizing every word.

And then there was Corliss. Corliss had been easy because he was weak and bent under pressure. He had been uncovered in a routine check by Gunnarsson Associates and when Gunnarsson had faced him and shown him the options he had folded fast. No one in the organization wondered when he quit his job without being prosecuted because everyone knew computer frauds were hushed up. No bank liked to broadcast that it had been ripped off by a computer artist because it was bad for business. And so Corliss had also been isolated but Gunnarsson made sure that Corliss and Hendrix never met.

Then Corliss was groomed to take the part of Hendrix. It was lucky that Corliss was not unlike Hendrix physically—they were both blond and of about the same age—and the passport was easy to fix. After that something had to be done about Hendrix and Gunnarsson saw to it personally. It was a pity but it was necessary and Hendrix now resided encased in a block of concrete at the bottom of Long Island Sound.

Gunnarsson had second thoughts about Biggie and the commune. The sudden emergence of an overnight multimillionaire called Hendrix could attract the attention of the media. It might make the papers on the West Coast—it could even be on TV with pictures—something which Biggie might see. So something had to be done about
that
and, again, Gunnarsson saw to it personally.

He smiled grimly as he reflected that Hardin had told him how to do it in his report. If a pottery kiln had blown up once it could blow up again, this time with more serious consequences. Exit Biggie and the commune. It was then that he began looking for Hardin seriously and found that he was living in a fleabag in the Bronx, and another rooming house fire in the Bronx passed unnoticed. It did not even rate a paragraph on the bottom of page zilch. That worried Gunnarsson because he was not certain he had
taken out Hardin. Discreet enquiries revealed that the bodies in the rooming house were unidentifiable and a further search for Hardin produced nothing so he relaxed.

After that everything had gone perfectly. Corliss had been accepted in London and that old fool, Farrar, had even anted up two hundred thousand bucks as an earnest of what was to come. That was only a sweetener of course; a morsel before the main meal. Then they came to Kenya and the whole goddamn scheme had fallen apart when Corliss was snatched in Tanzania. What griped Gunnarsson was that he did not know whether Corliss was alive or dead.

‘Jesus!’ he said aloud in the privacy of the car. ‘If he’s alive I could be cooked.’

He sorted out the possibilities. If Corliss was dead then goodbye to six million dollars; he would cut his losses and return to the States. If Corliss was alive there were two alternatives—either he stayed as Hendrix or he spilled his guts. If he had the nerve to stay as Hendrix then nothing would change and everything was fine. But if he talked and revealed that he was Corliss then that meant instant trouble. Everybody and his uncle would be asking what had happened to the real Hendrix. Maybe he could get out of it by fast talking—he could blame the whole schmeer on the absent Hardin. He could swear he had accepted Corliss as the real McCoy on the word of Hardin. Maybe. That would depend on exactly how wide Corliss opened his fat mouth.

But the stakes were goddamn high—six million dollars or his neck. Gunnarsson thumped the driving wheel in frustration and the car swerved slightly. Corliss! Where was the stupid son of a bitch?

And now someone else was butting in—Max Stafford! It was inconceivable that Stafford could be there by chance; there was no connection at all. So Stafford had caught on to something. But how? He thought back to the time when he and Corliss were in London, reviewing what they had done,
and could not find any flaw. So what in hell was Stafford doing and how much did he know? Well, that was the purpose of this trip to Naivasha—to find out. But carefully. And for the moment he was short of troops—he needed legmen to nose around—but a couple of days would cure that problem.

He came off the tortuous road of the escarpment and drove along the straight and pot-holed road that led to Naivasha, and he was unaware of the Kenatco Mercedes taxi which kept a level distance of four hundred yards behind him. There was no reason why he should be aware of it because there were two fuel tankers and a beer truck between them.

As he turned off the main road and bumped across the railway track to join the road which led alongside the lake he thought fleetingly of Hardin’s report—the bit where it said Hendrix had been shot in Los Angeles. ‘Now, what the hell?’ he muttered. Had it started—whatever ‘it’ was—as early as that? What had Hardin said? A couple of guys with un-American accents—possibly Krauts—looking for Hendrix. And then he had been shot. It would bear thinking about.

He turned into the grounds of the Lake Naivasha Hotel, parked and locked his car, and went to the desk to register. As he signed in he said, ‘Which is Mr Stafford’s room?’

‘Stafford, sir? I don’t think…’ After a moment the manager said, ‘We have no Stafford here at the moment, sir. I do recall a Mr Stafford who stayed here some little time ago.’

‘I see,’ said Gunnarsson thoughtfully. Where was the guy?

‘I’ll send someone to take your bags to your room, sir.’

‘I’ll unlock the car.’ Gunnarsson turned away, brushing shoulders with an Indian as he walked towards the parking lot, and was again unaware that Nair Singh turned to stare after him. He strode towards his car followed by a hotel
servant and unlocked it. As his bags were taken out he looked about him and his attention was caught by the taxi some little distance away. His eyes narrowed and he walked towards it.

He stopped about five yards away and surveyed it. One radio antenna was okay—a guy might need music while he travelled. Two radio antennas? Well, maybe; being a taxi it might be on a radio network. But
three
antennas? He knew enough about his own work to know what that meant. He tried proving it by approaching from the driver’s side and peering at the dashboard, and he saw an instrument which was definitely not standard—a signal strength meter.

Slowly he withdrew and returned to his own car where he dropped on his haunches and looked under the rear. He passed his hand under the bumper and found something small which shifted slightly under the pressure of his fingers. He wrenched it loose and withdrew it to find he was holding a small anonymous-looking grey metal box from which two stiff wires protruded. He tested it on the bumper and it adhered with a click as the magnet on the bottom caught hold.

Gunnarsson straightened, his lips compressed, and looked across at the taxi. Someone had been following him; someone who so badly did not want to lose him that a radio beeper had been planted on his car to make the task of trailing easier. He walked briskly back to the hotel and went to the desk. ‘That taxi back there,’ he said. ‘Whose is it?’

‘A taxi, sir?’

‘Yeah, a Mercedes,’ Gunnarsson said irritably. ‘Owned by Kenatco—least that’s what the sign says.’

‘It could have been the Indian gentleman who was just here,’ said the manager. ‘He went that way.’

Gunnarsson ran back quickly but, by the time he came within sight the taxi was taking off at speed in a cloud of dust. He stood there, tossing the radio bug in his hand, then
he dropped it on to the ground and crushed it under his heel. Somebody was playing games and he did not know who. It was something to think about before proceeding too precipitately so he went to his room and lay on the bed before ringing the Kenatco Taxi Company in Nairobi, giving the registration number.

As he suspected, the Kenatco people denied all knowledge of it.