Rhodesia (9 page)

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.

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.