The Hamlet Warning (14 page)

“Russians?” Archer asked.

“No,” Broadsword said. “At this point, we don’t know who. We have reason to believe it isn’t a nation, but some sort of international cartel.”

“Why don’t we pick one up and see how he bounces?” Peter Rabbit asked.

“That’s being taken care of,” Broadsword said. “Our job is to concentrate on the mission.”

“This plague,” said Peter Rabbit. “Aren’t we apt to waste a lot of people? Ourselves included?”

“Negative,” Broadsword said. “But I think we should all have our minds put at ease on that. Doctor, would you please explain?”

Dr. Segal swung his horn-rim glasses idly by one earpiece and smiled benignly at Peter Rabbit. “Contrary to popular belief, the plague isn’t readily communicable,” he said. “And man is incidental, even accidental, to the natural cycle of the disease. Normally, the cycle goes from rats to fleas to rats. It’s only when the rat population dies that the fleas turn to other hosts — squirrels, gerbils, and humans. The disease is not transmitted from human to human without the right species of flea.”

“What about your garden-variety Torremolinos sand flea?” Peter Rabbit asked, scratching himself ostentatiously.

“Only about a hundred of the fifteen hundred known species of rodent fleas are able to transmit plague,” Dr. Segal said. “But to be on the safe side, we’ll disinfect you along with the patient and the plane.”

“If the disease is so difficult to transmit, why all the panic over it?” Elliott asked.

“Partly psychological — a holdover from the Middle Ages,” Dr. Segal said. “But medically, the plague is a persistent disease, indigenous to many areas, only awaiting the right conditions to emerge. The bacillus remains alive in dried sputum for three months and may exist indefinitely in certain soils. It can survive in dry flea feces for five weeks at room temperature.”

“I’m home free,” Peter Rabbit said. “I keep my flea shit in the refrigerator.”

“How ill is the patient?” Tycoon asked. “Is he apt to crap out on us?”

“Possibly,” the doctor said. “Actually, bubonic is a misnomer in this case. There are three types — bubonic, pneumonic, and septicemic. Our patient is septicemic. Recovery is rare. The patient may die within twenty-four hours, but more commonly on the second or third day.”

Broadsword again looked impatiently at his watch. “You can continue this seminar on the plane, Doctor,” he said. “We have to get moving. Here are your assignments: Groundhog, Peter Rabbit, Tycoon, and the Doctor will fly to Zaire to return the patient. Dr. Segal holds credentials as the director of a drug research team. He has been briefed and will handle all negotiations with the mission hospital. Tycoon has prevailed upon his African connections to facilitate transportation, and the mission will be flown in his Lear jet. He is in charge of logistics. Groundhog and Peter Rabbit will, under the Doctor’s supervision, prepare the patient for passing as a businessman of Moorish ethnic origin. Archer, Bowman, and Shield will assume charge of surface transportation here and — last but by no means least — security of the operation. Any questions?”

“Arms?” Elliott asked.

“I’ve managed a Walther P-38 for each of you,” Broadsword said. “But please bleed a little before you use them.”

“I gather we’re not traveling on passport,” Elliott said. 

“Definitely negative on that. This is a covert action, all the way.” He stood up and handed out the pistols. Each contained a full clip. More ammo was placed on the table. Elliott pocketed a handful of cartridges.

“Have a pleasant flight,” Broadsword said. “I’ll be expecting you back here sometime early tomorrow night.”

“One thing,” Peter Rabbit said. “What if that black cat does croak on us?”

“Bring him back anyway,” Broadsword said. “We’ll just play like he’s alive long enough to see the mission through.”

Chapter 16

Minus
5
Days
,
12
:
50
Hours

Four hours later, they landed at Yundum Airport outside Banjul, the Gambia, on Africa’s west coast. Elliott had slept most of the way, and he awoke vaguely disturbed by a dream. The motion, the physical confinement of air travel, often tended to inflict him with erections and erotic thoughts. Although he couldn’t remember all the details of the dream, he had the impression he’d been with the girl in Lisbon. Her presence lingered. Fully awake, he could conjure up a vivid mental picture of her face. That was unusual. He seldom could remember women so well. Experimentally, he thought of the girl he’d spent hours with yesterday in Oslo Fjord. He could form only a faint image of a large build and blond hair. He switched to the waif in Lisbon. She came into his mind as clear as television, all on the basis of that brief glimpse in the taxi.

Strange.

Only twenty minutes were allocated in Banjul for refueling. Tycoon left the plane, but everyone else remained aboard. Elliott glanced out at the whitewashed, bougainvillea-covered cottage that served as the terminal, then rolled over and returned to sleep. When he awoke three hours later, they were over water, flying into a brilliant red dawn. Elliott moved forward to find out where they were.

“Just nearing the coast of Gabon,” Tycoon said. He had the plane on autopilot and was half-turned in the seat. “In another hour, or little more, we’ll land in Kinshasa for clearance. I’ll have to pull a few strings.”

The Doctor was reading Homer. In Greek. Peter Rabbit was studying Elliott with amusement. “Hey, man. You always sleep with a hard-on?” he asked. “A thousand miles. You might make the Guinness Book of Records.”

Elliott grinned, mildly embarrassed. He’d never served in the military. He always felt unsure of himself around barracks humor.

“I was supposed to spend the night with a girl in Oslo,” he said. “And I wake up in Africa. What a crazy life.”

Peter Rabbit nodded agreement. “You should see the two chicks who rolled into Torremolinos last week in a Volks camper. Coeds from Louisiana State. They’re living on the beach. I don’t think they’ve got a complete dress between them. I’d just been invited to move in when word of this thing came. If they’re gone when I get back, I think I’ll cut my throat.”

“I feel for you both,” Tycoon said. “But I can’t reach you.”

“Rough to be over the hill, huh?” Peter Rabbit asked.

Tycoon laughed, but said nothing. The Doctor looked up from Homer, irritated. Peter Rabbit turned in his seat to face Tycoon.

“What do you suppose this thing’s all about?” he asked. “What’s aboard that tanker, anyway?”

Tycoon shrugged. “I assume that if they thought we had a need to know, they’d have told us.”

“At least they could tell us who these people are we’re up against,” Peter Rabbit said. 

“I really believe they
don’t
know,” Tycoon said. “I’ve never been involved in anything like this before. Broadsword was upset. He tried to hide it. But I know him well. I wouldn’t be surprised if there isn’t a small war going on back in Lisbon right now.”

“You think there may be a reception committee waiting when we get back?” Peter Rabbit asked.

Tycoon shrugged again. “I have the uncomfortable feeling there’s going to be a lot more to it than just wheeling this fellow into the hospital,” he said.

They landed at Ndolo Airport at Kinshasa, a private field three miles from the city center. Again only Tycoon left the plane. Plates of
moamba
— chicken cooked in palm oil — and rice were sent aboard. With the plane’s air-conditioning system off, the heat built up rapidly. More than an hour passed before Tycoon returned. He came aboard in a jubilant mood.

“We’re in,” he said. “A little trick they call the
matabiche
. Or, to put it crudely, a bribe.”

“How much?” Peter Rabbit asked.

“Five thousand zaire — ten thousand dollars.”

Peter Rabbit winced. “For that kind of money they should throw in a couple of lepers.”

After another thirty minutes of delay for refueling and safety checks, they left Kinshasa and flew due eastward, following the general route of the huge river curving through the jungle. Elliott was fascinated by the wild country below. He could see no evidence that man had ever been there.

Doctor Segal came to sit beside him. “Ever read Joseph Conrad’s
Heart
of
Darkness
?” he asked. “There’s one line in it I’ve never forgotten: ‘Going up that river was like traveling back to the earliest beginnings of the world, when vegetation rioted on the earth and the big trees were kings.’ Down there is where it took place. The Zaire River. The Congo, they called it in Conrad’s day.” 

“In my day, too,” Peter Rabbit said. “I was down there with it in sixty-five.”

Tycoon turned around, surprised. “I didn’t know that,” he said. “Broadsword didn’t mention it.”

“He may not know it,” Peter Rabbit said. “That was before I joined the company. Pierre Mulele and his Simbas were killing a lot of people. Me and about twelve hundred other guys hired out to the Belgians to put a stop to it.”

“Did you know Loomis?” Tycoon asked.

Peter Rabbit waited a couple of heartbeats before answering. “I knew him,” he said. “He was there.”

Elliott had been isolated on station so long that he seldom heard much company gossip. But he knew about Loomis. Everyone knew about Loomis.

“I knew him in Vietnam,” Tycoon said. “Way back early. I was there when it all happened.”

“Loomis was one tough son of a bitch,” Peter Rabbit said. “He was on the run then. Always suspicious, kept to himself. And nobody messed with him. I can tell you that.”

“Johnson was tougher,” Tycoon said.

“Not the way I heard it,” Peter Rabbit said. “Johnson was company all the way. Loomis wasn’t. He was his own man. Nobody ever bought him.”

“I won’t argue the point,” Tycoon said. “I wouldn’t want to go up against either one. If they’d left the war to those two, they might not have had to call in a half-million men.”

“Whatever happened to Loomis?” the Doctor asked.

“He’s riding shotgun for some dictator in South America,” Peter Rabbit said.

“The Caribbean,” Tycoon corrected.

“The company ever drop the contract?” Elliott asked.

“A long time ago,” Tycoon said. “In fact, I understand that when the top brass heard what was going on, all sorts of hell was raised.” 

“I worked with Johnson once,” Elliott said. “He seemed all right.”

“They were a hell of a team,” Tycoon said.

Peter Rabbit was standing up, looking out the window. “Where exactly are we going, anyway?”

“A small Protestant mission up beyond Kisangani,” Tycoon said. “I doubt if it even has a name.”

Elliott was watching the jungle slide by below. “Is the country there any different from this?”

“Not a hell of a lot,” Tycoon said. “It looks pretty much the same from the Atlantic to Lake Tanganyika a thousand miles to the east. There are more than ten thousand missionaries down there. The Catholics alone have six hundred missions. God knows how many Protestant.”

“Will we have to travel far from the plane?”

“Not if things go right. There are more than two hundred landing strips hacked out of the jungle. We’ll set down at one and pick up our man.”

“How did the company find him in all that country?” Elliott asked.

“Shortwave radio, most likely. There isn’t much of any other way of doing business out here.”

“I suppose they were lucky to find a good case,” Elliott said.

The Doctor looked up from Homer. “Not necessarily. I’ve looked up the figures. They average more than four hundred cases a year.”

In mid-afternoon they landed on a narrow strip surrounded by jungle. The turf was rough, and the Lear jet veered sharply as Tycoon rode the brakes to bring the speed down. The end of the runway rushed toward them, but Tycoon didn’t seem perturbed. He was amused by Elliott’s nervousness. “You should be along when we
really
have a short runway,” he said.

As they taxied up to the edge of the trees, Elliott could see a small group waiting around a Land Rover. 

Tycoon cut the engines, and the group came toward the plane. Two blacks carried a stretcher, and two white men walked a few paces behind.

Tycoon placed a hand on Dr. Segal’s shoulder. “Time to make some medical noises,” he said. Dr. Segal moved toward the door. Tycoon turned to Elliott. “You and I will go out with him. Let him do most of the talking. Just play it by ear. He’ll introduce us as executives of the drug firm that has found the miracle cure.”

Peter Rabbit was peering out the window. “Looks like that cat’s gonna need it,” he said. “He hasn’t moved. He may be dead already.”

“You keep out of sight,” Tycoon said. “If these natives get a good look at you, it might set primitive religion back a hundred years.”

The Doctor went down the ladder first and walked out to meet the group. Tycoon hung back, giving him time. Dr. Segal shook hands with the missionaries, exchanged a few words, then knelt to examine the patient. Tycoon seemed to accept the movement as a signal. He walked down the ladder. Elliott followed him.

“An excellent test case,” Dr. Segal said as they walked up to the group. “Well advanced, but still retains all the vital signs.”

“We’re extremely grateful for your cooperation,” Tycoon told the missionaries.

Dr. Segal made the introductions. Elliott missed the names, including his own. The tall missionary was a Robert Mitchum type. The short one resembled Peter Lorre.

“We would be honored if you would care to visit our mission,” the Peter Lorre said. “It’s only five miles away.”

Dr. Segal declined politely. “Perhaps another time,” he said. “As you can understand, minutes may make the difference in our septicemic studies.”

While Dr. Segal discussed the medical history of the case, going over the records, jotting down notes, Tycoon and Elliott helped the blacks load the patient. Then farewells were said, the doors closed, and Tycoon started the engines.

The whole loading operation had taken less than twenty minutes.

Tycoon devoted his full attention to the takeoff. Aligning the plane at the end of the strip, he brought the engines to maximum power before releasing the brakes. The plane gathered speed rapidly. But Tycoon held it just off the ground, gathering more air speed, until the end of the runway, then he climbed steeply into a shallow bank, circling back westward. When they reached cruise altitude, he set the automatic pilot and left his seat.

“Now the work begins,” he said. “We’ve got to prepare the patient for admission to the hospital. As Dr. Segal told you, the disease risk is minimal. But we’ll still follow antiseptic procedures, as a precautionary measure. We’ll all do as Dr. Segal says.”

“We’ve brought medipaks,” Dr. Segal said. “Sterile gowns, surgical masks, gloves. And we’ll all scrub thoroughly afterward. That should be sufficient.”

They moved the patient to the center of the cabin space and released the stretcher straps. Dr. Segal peeled back the blankets, and they were able to study the patient for the first time.

He was big and jet black. The skin of the arms, neck, and upper torso was leathery and wrinkled. The face was broad, the nose flat, and the mouth negroid. The hair was bona fide Afro, as big as a medicine ball, and filthy. The legs were scarred from years in the brush, and the man obviously had gone barefoot most of his life. He was breathing, but seemed to be in a deep coma.

“I suppose we can look at the bright side,” Peter Rabbit said. “He doesn’t have a bone through his nose. But who’ll ever take him for a European?” 

“We’ll have our own doctor at the hospital,” Tycoon said. “I doubt that anyone will check closely. But we’re to do all we can. And we’re counting on you for the biggest part of his cover. Broadsword said you once trained as a tailor.”

Peter Rabbit stared at him in amazement. “How the fuck did they know
that
?” he asked. “I’ve never told
anyone
.”

Tycoon shrugged. “I suppose it’s in your record, somewhere. And that’s how you came to be on this mission instead of screwing a couple of chicks. It’s true, isn’t it? You have training as a tailor?”

“Affirmative,” Peter Rabbit said. “When I was growing up in Brooklyn, my old man apprenticed me out to an uncle in a tailor shop. But I thought I was through with that needle-and-thread shit years ago.”

“This won’t take long,” Tycoon said. “We’ll help you measure him. In the compartment behind the head, you’ll find a half-dozen suits, and you can alter one to fit. I think we have all the gear you’ll need.” Tycoon looked up at Elliott. “Think you can turn that real-McCoy Afro into a continental clip? I understand you once did some barbering.”

Elliott had worked in a barbershop one summer to earn extra money while in college. “I haven’t cut hair in fifteen years,” he said.