Chapter 1.

“Durell!”

The shout came echoing out of the blackness.

“Durell!”

Hobe Tallman, Betty’s husband, said nervously, “They’re not sure he’s here, dear."

“Of course they know he’s here,” Betty snapped.

“Otherwise. why would they bother us?”

“ ‘Bother’ is an understatement," Hobe muttered.

There was nothing to be seen from the windows of the bungalow. The smell of the river came in with the hot night wind, a smell compounded of mud and sewage and rotting vegetation, and a whiff from the stack of the WDT diesel working a mile or more away up the beach in the LMO Company’s storage yard. Durell had snapped off the lights in the bungalow with the first rasping, stuttering shots.

Something splashed in the river. Then the night was silent. He stood beside the window near the door to the veranda, a tall, dark outline in the blackness. Dim light from the African night sky made a pale halo of Betty Tallman's mop of blond hair. She had obviously let herself go pretty badly these past two months. He knew little about her except that her Gulf accent matched Hobe Tallman’s Texas drawl. She had been a bar girl in Galveston, a nightclub singer in Houston, and finally a secretary in the offices of the Lubinda Marine Oil building in New Orleans when Hobe had married her. Hobe was pushing forty and a little scared about it. Betty was only in her mid-twenties. Whatever urges had brought them together had long since been dissipated by the African heat.

“Durell!"

The shout came for the third time from the hot darkness near the river. Durell moved silently toward the open window. He had a snub-barreled .38 S&W in his hand, comfortable to grip, There had been no comment from the Tallmans when they saw he was armed. In Lubinda, these days. most men carried weapons or were never far front reaching for one. He flattened his back against the wall near the window and called back.

“Yes?”

“Senhor Samuel Durell?”

“Yo.”

There was distant laughter. “Come out, senhor. We have no quarrel with Mr. Tallman or his wife. We wish to talk to you."

“Go ahead and talk.”

“You come out, and we let the Tallmans go.”

“Who are you?”

“We will introduce ourselves properly face to face. You have fifteen seconds to come out.”

The voice was confident, with the Lubindan accent that was the legacy of Portuguese colonials and Catholic mission schools. It was deep, from a thick chest. Even amused. Durell looked at Betty Tallman, attracted by the sound of her hands searching for something in the dark living room of the bungalow. She had her handbag out, and a cigarette in her mouth, and was about to snap a lighter into flame. He jumped, slapped the small gold lighter from her fingers, then more gently took the cigarette from between her lips.

“You can get your head blown off, Betty, making a target out of yourself like that.”

“Oh, shit. They don‘t want us. They want you, Durell. Why don’t you go out there, the way they want, and make them leave us alone? Ho-be and I have always been friends with them."

Hobe said gently, “Betty, please. Durell knows what’s right.”

“Why should we be killed because of hint?”

“Betty. . .”

“You’re a worm, Hobe. Nothing but a creepy little

worm. Throw hint out. Throw him to the wolves, ha ha. I need a drink.”

“You’re just tired, Betty—”

“You’re damned right I’m tired. Sick and tired of this place, of oil, of your men tramping in and out, making passes at me, of everything going down the drain in this heat and muck.”

Durell turned in the shadows to Hobe Tallman’s short, stocky figure. “Who are those people out there?"

Hobe sounded helpless. “Apgaks. Local terrorists. Gangsters. Independents."

There was a sudden burst of gunfire from the bush and the jungled riverbanks. Automatic weapons. They sounded to Durell like Russian-made Kalashnikov rifles. More firing came from behind the bungalow. Something flickered, and in a low, looping arc of sputtering flame came out of the darkness toward the side of the house. There was a sudden explosion, a burst of fire, the quick conflagration of a gasoline bomb.

“Oh, Jesus, my car!" Betty shouted.

Her Mercedes was abruptly outlined in flames. It had been their only transportation back to the coast.

It was about fifty yards from the bungalow to the banks of the Lubinda River. At this point, five miles from the town on the West African coast of the little independent enclave of Lubinda, the river was a couple of miles wide, really an estuary or bay, threaded by channels, islands, mud banks, and scrub brush, with an occasional coconut palm rising above the flat, miasmic delta. it was relatively familiar country to Durell. He had been born and raised a Cajun in the Louisiana delta parishes, at Bayou Peche

Rouge. Yet there were differences. There was something untamed, savage, and bloody in this country so recently proclaimed an independent republic.

A rifle slammed from the big kitchen in the rear of the bungalow; slammed again and a third time. Durell waved a hand downward at Hobe, who took his place at the window with his own rifle, and moved toward Betty’s rigid figure in the shadows. He could smell the heavy perfume she used. She wore only a halter and a pair of pink cotton shorts, and an animal magnetism emanated from her tall, rich body. She had found herself a bottle in the cabinet against the far wall and was pouring herself a drink. Her pretty face, angry and frightened, turned toward him.

“They’re going to rape me, you know that?" she said tightly. “Then they‘ll kill us all.”

“They‘re not in here yet.”

“They’ve cut the telephone wire, right? We can’t raise the Lubinda once on the radio—the bastards there are all asleep since we shut down the Lady. Did you hear what the Apgaks did to the Jacksons last month?”

“No.” He wanted to go past her, but she deliberately moved in his way.

“George was a derrickman working the double board He came back from the rig on the crew boat after his tour”— she pronounced it “tower”—“and went home to his bungalow up the river. They were waiting for him. They killed him, cut oil his head and his testicles, gang-raped Milly, killed their two little girls. Milly was flown home a week ago last Tuesday. A raving idiot.”

“Get out of my way, Betty."

“Go on out to them,” the woman urged. Her eyes were desperate. “You’re the only one they want. We’ve always gotten along fine with everybody. Get out, and they’ll leave Hobe and me alone.”

“Not yet.”

“They’ve burned my car. Next they’ll burn the house. Then we'll all have to run out, rind they’ll have us. Damn you, Durell, you’ve brought us nothing but trouble—”

He pushed past her, went through to the kitchen where Tallman’s servant, a brown-skinned Lubindan named Henrique, turned nervously from the window with his rifle.

“Sir, they tried to come in from the bush out there.”

Henrique's gray head seemed palsied.

“Did you get anyone?”

“I’m not a very good shot, sir.” The man paused.

“What do they want from you, sir?”

“I don‘t know.”

“How do they even know you came here to visit?”

"I don’t know that, either,” Durell said.

“They say you are an American spy, senhor.”

“Who says that?”

Henrique shrugged. “The people. Everybody.”

Durell looked through the shattered glass of one of the kitchen windows. The glare of light from the burning Mercedes was dying down. A wall of bamboo marked the end of the neatly clipped colonial lawn and rose beds. Through the smells of the burning car came the faint, evanescent scent of night-blooming jasmine.

“How many do you figure are out there?” he asked.

Henrique’s brown face was plainly frightened. “Thirty or forty, sir.”

Durell considered the estimate and guessed the terrorists numbered closer to a score. It was still a sufficient number to overwhelm them.

He decided he would have to respond to their calls.

Chapter 2.

He had flown to Lisbon via Pan Am from Washington, then taken a TAP flight via llha Sao Tomé to Angola, landing at the President Craveiro Lopes airport, a couple of miles outside of Luanda. While waiting to have his visa checked, he listened to the Portuguese and Bantu spoken around him, then went to a branch of the Banco Beuguela and changed his dollars into the escudos of the Overseas Province of Angola. With enough angolars in his pocket, he changed those into rands at a discounted rate for Southwest Africa. which had been newly renamed Namibia.

He took time to make a call to 75021-2, the Centro de Associaco de Angola, on Largo Diogo C50 7. The Portuguese authorities were friendly and courteous, but they refused flatly to give him t travel permit to Lubinda. The future of the new republic to the south. along the West African coast, was still insecure, they said; there was fighting along the frontier and on the perimeter of the Kahara Desert on the coast near Namibia. Many of the European residents were fleeing—some being pulled out by the companies they represented. others simply packing up and taking the first plane or ship available. The Apgaks were everywhere, he was advised. “Very dangerous, senhor. There is no business there for you. We cannot permit you to expose yourself to such dangers.” The Portuguese were polite but firm.

It took twenty-four hours for Durell to arrange passage with a bush pilot who had formerly flown for Suidwes Lugdiens. Southwest Airlines in South Africa. He got a charter to Lubinda‘s small capital at a cost of 500R, which took almost seven hundred of his American dollars.

While he waited, he walked around Luanda, the “City of Bougainvilleas." It had been built in tiers on top of its origins as a fort. The assimilado system. which forbade all color bars, seemed to work well enough. The persistent cancer of guerrilla movements was not evident here. There were open air cafés, old houses with bright tiles, and in the new quarter, vivid Portuguese skyscrapers along broad boulevards and squares. The lower, Or Old Town, was a maze of cobbled streets and tiny nooks and corners. There were shops selling jaspers and agates from the Kahara and Namib desert shores, the old San Miguel fort on the waterfront, and chapels dating back to 1644. Durell felt no urgency. Eventually, the South African bush pilot showed up, shared a drink of fiery Cape brandy with him at a bright sidewalk cafe, and they took off for Lubinda.

Now, on the evening of the same day of his arrival in the tiny, independent enclave, he was trapped with the Tallmans, on the first move he had made.

In Durell’s business, anonymity was a key asset to accomplishing the jobs he had to do. He avoided encounters with local police and used whatever cover had been assigned him back in Washington. He trusted no one. As a chief field agent for K Section, that anonymous troubleshooting branch of the Central Intelligence Agency, he had long ago learned to live with caution. It was one way to stay alive a bit longer. His dossiers were registered in the intelligence files of the British M16. the French Sureté, the German DNB, the KGB in Moscow, the Black House in Peking. He was familiar with all the dark and dangerous corners of his lonely world, and he treated these dangers with respect. His survival factor had gone below the minimum in the computer personnel analyzers at No. 20 Annapolis Street, K Section’s headquarters in DC. He took all the precautions he could, whether in a Malayasian jungle or a London hotel. He never turned a corner without a thought for what might be waiting for him. And he had survived where others had gone down from a moment’s lack of attention, a careless gesture, or a trust misplaced.

Durell was a tall man, with thick black hair touched with gray at the temples. He had a heavy musculature that made the swift grace of his movements a surprise. He could kill. and had done so, in a dozen different ways, with any assortment of weapons or with his hands. He spoke a dozen different languages, a score of minor dialects, from Arabic and Swahili to Japanese. He regularly took refresher courses at the Maryland “Farm” operated by K Section, but he usually disdained the tricky gadgets dreamed up by the gimmick boys in the basement lab of the graystone building at No. 20 Annapolis Street. in line with his habitual sense of caution, he preferred to work alone.

He knew he could never go back to the normal world of a commuter’s job and a suburban home. He had been in the business too long for that. He did not think he could adapt to life on the outside. Although he was devoted to what he thought was necessary to be done, he did not consider himself a patriot. engaged in a dark and deadly war for the peace and security of the free world. Durell’s life was one lived on the knife-edge of terror and danger. of competition from those equally intent on reaping the intelligence data that had become one of the most valued commodities On this troubled globe.

He stood still, listening to the sudden silence from outside the besieged bungalow.

There was only a low crackling of flames from the burning Mercedes parked alongside the primitive road between the house and the riverbank. Durell tapped encouragement on Henrique’s bowed shoulders and watched the way the man held his rifle, then left the bungalow kitchen. Cicadas sang in the darkness Outside. There was no wind. He did not return directly to the living room, but turned right, into Hobe Tallman’s study. Hobe, as general manager for Lubinda Marine Oil, had an office here as well as in the town. The red light from the fire-bombed car gave him shadowed glimpses of a large, neat desk, cleared of papers, several large geological charts and cross-sectional surveys of the bottom offshore, marked with red and green and blue crosses from distances of five to twenty miles out. Durell considered the shale, sand, and rock formations patterned in color. There was a bulletin board listing crews’ names of floormen, roughnecks, tool-pushers, drillers, and motormen, a sheaf of porosity logs and core analyses determining permeability and fluid content below the ocean bottom. There were invoices for casing pipe and wrenches, air conditioners and quebracho from South America, the tannin extract used as a thinning agent for drilling mud. There was even a roster for the D.&D. Club—the Derrick and Desk Club for women employees, mostly the wives of the various drilling crews.

Lubinda Marine Oil operated on a shoestring, Durell thought. Only one drilling rig had been towed offshore so far, and it stood idle, just beyond the horizon of the South Atlantic. There was a fine model of the rig, Lubinda Lady I, on a polished mahogany table near the desk. The miniature was complete with derrick, drawworks, engines, and pumps, a submersible offshore jack-up rig designed to raise the huge hull above the action of the waves. There was even a tiny stack of drill pipe, racked in stands beside the drill.

Durell moved past the model to the window. There was no sound or movement from the bush outside.

“Mr. Durell?”

Hobe Tallman came into the room. The small man, whose thin hair was the color of sand, peered out of the study window. His face was pale in the lurid light.

“What do you make of our chances, Mr. Durell?”

“I don’t know. You’re more familiar with local conditions than I.”

“I had no idea the Apgaks were active this week. I’d never have invited you here it I thought it might be dangerous.”

“Who’s watching the front ot the house?”

"Betty’s alert.”

Durell said, “Can she fire a gun?”

“She’s a crack shot. She’s responsible enough.” Hobe took a deep, uncertain breath. “I’m sorry about the things she said to you. Naturally, it’s unfair to assume you would sacrifice yourself by going out to those murderers.”

“Is she drinking now?”

Hobe said, “She drinks too much. But you have to understand hor. This isn’t her milieu. Hardly anyone’s, for that matter. She’s been nervous and upset lately, that’s all. She’ll get over it.”

Durell looked levelly at the smaller, older man. “Perhaps I should give myself up to them, rather than endanger you and your wife. Obviously, they only want me.”

“I don't understand it.” Hobe peered carefully out of the window. “Maybe they‘ve given up and gone.”

“Not likely. They’re still waiting. The question is, how do they know about me and why do they want me? I arrived in Lubinda just this afternoon. I went to the hotel, registered, had lunch, walked around, went to Matty’s office, looked for Brady Cotton. Then I took a nap and you and Betty offered to drive me out here. How do they even know my name?"

Hobe shrugged narrow shoulders. “The Apgaks have sympathizers in the government. Spies in your hotel, perhaps.” Tallman licked his lips. “I don’t like this quiet. They usually come with a rush, get it over with.”

“I thought Lubinda was happy with independence.”

“We think the Apgaks are financed by Maoist Chinese. Like the guerrillas in Angola. Russia probably tries to buy dissent here, too. They don‘t want to see the new government work out as a liberal democracy. There was a short and vicious civil war when independence was declared. A lot of good people were killed. It stopped our drilling, of course, only a week after we’d spudded in and proved the DHC—the downhole comparability. The home office back in Houston is raising hell. But there’s nothing I can do, for the moment.”

Hobe paused suddenly, raised his rifle as if he saw movement out beyond the window, then lowered it with a shake of his round head. His voice was suddenly blunt.

“Just who are you really, Mr. Durell?”

“I’m a man looking for a friend.”

“You mean Brady Cotton? They tell me you’re his lawyer as well as his friend. Everybody says Brady has come into a lot of money.”

Durell nodded, watching the window. “His aunt died in New Orleans.” There was still no sound from outside. The fire-gutted Mercedes was just a shell. It would be a long walk back to Lubinda. He said, “Your bush telegraph is pretty good, Hobe."

Hobe shrugged. “There’s nothing to do here except gossip. News travels fast. I was surprised when you asked to see me this afternoon.”

“They tell me you and Brady play chess together.”

“Sometimes.”

“Any idea where he is?”

“Oh, he‘ll hear the good news and come running. He’s probably out in the bush toward Namibia, trying to scrape up artifacts and native sculpture for his export shop.”

“What about Brady’s wife?”

Hobe’s face changed slightly. “She’s probably with him.

Katherine is quite a gal.”

“Katherine? Kitty?”

“Right.”

There was a sudden scream from Betty, guarding the windows and veranda of the living room.

Durell had been with those besieged before. People reacted oddly to the knowledge of entrapment, that they were cut off by others determined to kill them. Hobe Tallman seemed to be all right. But his young, voluptuous wife was something else.

Glass crashed as a flaming bottle was hurled into the house. It landed at the girl’s feet, the wick sputtering. Betty Tallman stood frozen, her rifle lowered. Durell dived for the bottle, snatched it up, threw it outside through the broken window, all in one swift gesture. The bottle burst among the flower beds fronting the veranda. There was a yell of rage from the dark bush. The lurid flames leaped high for a moment as the gasoline exploded.

“Get down!” Durell yelled.

The woman did not move, staring aghast at the red darkness outside. Durell caught her arm, felt her softness, breasts yielding against him. He threw her to the floor. At the same moment, bullets slashed through the window, breaking furniture, shattering a vase, splintering across a table, thudding into the opposite wall.

Betty shuddered under him. “Oh, my God, they’re going to kill us all!”

“Take it easy. Stay down.”

“Why don‘t you go out there?” she whimpered. “Then maybe they‘ll leave us alone. Go out there now! Before they burn us all!”

There was random firing all around the house now. From the kitchen came the thud of Henrique’s heavy rifle. Hobe’s gun sounded from the study. It was impossible to hold them off. There were too many exposed windows, too many blind points to the bungalow, to cover them all.

“Durell!”

The shout came again from the jungle. Durell thought he would remember that voice, arrogant, amused, a bit impatient.

“We have no quarrel with the Tallmans, Durell! Do you want them to die because you are a coward?”

Durell turned to the woman.

“Do you know who is out there?”

“It’s Lopes Fuentes Madragata.”

“The leader of the Apgaks himself?”

She said, “You must be pretty important.”

“I’m only a lawyer looking for Brady Cotton.”

“Oh, sure. All the way from the States.”

“It’s a lot of money that he’s inherited.”

Her eyes changed. “Really? Good for Brady.”

“Do you know where he is?"

“Nobody‘s seen him for a week. Are you going out there? Are you going to let Madragata call you a coward?” She laughed uncertainly. “A lawyer, huh? But pretty good with a gun. I bet you didn’t expect this when you came here with your briefcase full of legal documents.”

“Durell!"

Durell flattened his back against the wall near the window and called, “I’m coming. Give me five minutes!”

Chapter 3.

Hobe said, “You mustn‘t mind Betty.”

“I don’t."

“You don’t have to go out there. They’ll kill you. I don’t understand why they've chosen you—and you’re obviously not going to explain-but I’m asking you to stay in here with us. Maybe we can hold them off somehow.”

“Not a chance.”

“Maybe help will come—”

Durell interrupted. “Have you anything heavier here than your rifles?"

”I’m afraid not.”

He took a knife from the kitchen, aware of Henrique’s eyes rolling white in his brown face. The garden beyond the glass-paned door was quiet and empty and shadowed. He palmed the knob, opened the panel a few inches, waited. Nothing happened. Hobe breathed heavily behind him, but said nothing more to discourage him. Durell held his gun up, opened the door a few inches wider and slipped outside.

The warm, humid air of the tropical night hit him in the face like the soft slap of a hot, steamy towel. He watched the hedgerow of tall bamboo at the far end of the garden, then ducked low and ran for its shelter. Something moved to his left, but he wasn't sure what it was. He went over the wall at the end of the rose garden with a long. sliding motion, and rolled into the mucky ground among the thick bamboo canes.

Nothing happened. A night bird called. A tiny lizard scrabbled away near his hand. He waited. The smell of the burned-out car clung to the quiet air. Overhead, through the spiky bamboo leaves, the stars seemed to reel in the velvet African sky. For a moment, he smelled the sea. A coconut frond clattered in a transitory breeze. After thirty seconds, he crawled to the right, out of the bamboo, near the ropy base of a wild rubber tree. It was over three miles down the road to the nearest scattered houses of Lubinda. He heard the trickle of water from a stream, oozing through the mud toward the wide sweep of the Lubinda River’s estuary, Then a man said something, in Apgak, so close at hand that he might have been at his elbow. It was a trick of the night air. The voice came from across the road, twenty yards from the rubber trees. There was a brief, annoyed reply. Then silence again. A moment later he heard the snick of a cartridge being shot home in a rifle chamber. They were watching the front of the Tallman bungalow, expecting him to come out there.

Two men trudged through the brush, moving his way.

Long ago. as a boy in the Louisiana delta country, Durell had become familiar with the bayous, with the ways of the hunted and the hunter. He had learned his lessons well from his Grandpa Jonathan. Old Jonathan had been one of the last of the Mississippi riverboat gamblers; he know men and their greed, their faults and strengths, as few did. Durell had learned the tricks of doubling buck like a fox, of suddenly standing at bay to disconcert the slavering hunting dogs. He stood absolutely motionless in the deep shadow of the old trees.

The two men would pass within three feet of him.

Their weapons shone clearly in the starlight. One man was black, with deep tribal scars like welted beads On his forehead and cheeks. He carried an AK-47 Russian-made automatic rifle. The other man was taller, with a brown face and straight black hair that betrayed a Portuguese heritage. He wore a rather swashbuckling outfit of bandoliers, a bolstered revolver, a pinkish shirt, and white duck pants that were a mistake for night combat. A straw hat with a wide brim and pink fabric band was tilted back on his head. His grin showed fine white teeth. He would have been handsome by any standard.

They were too sure of themselves.

The man with the hat suddenly switched to Portuguese. “You should have stayed in your position. Fengi. He will try a trick. This man is very clever, very dangerous—”

Durell hit the black low in the belly, stopping from around the thick bole of the rubber tree. The black man grunted and the AK-47 dropped from his hand. Durell slashed down at his bowed head. smacking his gun against the others scalp. then swung about lightly on his feet. The other man had jumped sidewise, trying to bring his weapon up. Durell shook the kitchen knife into his left hand and slammed his gun into the man’s stomach.

“Madragata?”

White teeth gleamed. “Ah, Durell. You will not shoot, eh? My men will hear and come fast. They will cut you into little pieces, senhor.”

“The knife is silent.”

“Sim."

"So hold still.”

“I obey, senhor.”  The man’s tone was low and mocking. Then he suddenly snaked to the left, away from the knife, and brought his rifle up. His bandolier made small clicking sounds. Durell slashed with his gun butt at the man’s wrist, heard the bone crack, heard the quick hiss of pained breath. Madragata was as quick and slippery as a snake. His rifle fell and his knees bent as he tried to come up under Durell’s guard. Durell lifted his knee, got under the man’s jaw, heard and saw Madragata’s head snap back, eyes gleaming suddenly as his face lifted to the black sky. He went over backward, his thick black hair all awry under the headband he wore beneath his straw hat. The hat itself rolled on its brim into the hush. Durell dropped his weight on him, knees bent, slamming into the man’s gut. Madragata’s breath went out with a rush. His eyes rolled. Durell caught his hair, hauled him up to a sitting position.

“Be quiet!”

“Sim. Yes.”

He looked at the house. It was dark and quiet. A few flames flickered on the front lawn from the exploded gasoline bottle. Through a gap in the trees he saw the starlit glimmer of the Lubinda estuary, dark and hostile.

“Where are your other men?”

“In front of the house. By the river.”

“How many?"

“Fifteen, senhor.”

"You lie.”

“Six was all I could manage on short notice.”

“That‘s better."

“Have you killed Fengi?”

“He’ll be all right. I’m not in Lubinda to kill anybody. So why do you want me?”

“You are an American imperialist spy," Madragata clutched at his belly. Even in pain, he looked somehow handsome and dashing. “I think you have broken something in me, senhor.”

“Not likely. What makes you think I am a spy?”

“You ask for Brady Cotton.”

“So?”

“Ah, you will die unpleasantly, senhor. My belly hurts me very much.”

“What about Brady Cotton?”

“You come here to look for him. He has vanished, no? So you are like him. A spy, working against the people’s revolution and supporting our so-called democracy. It is a farce. Our president is a tool of the old colonial masters. We shall not rest, we shall not sleep, we will kill and kill and kill, until true independence comes to us.”

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

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

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

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

“The same that will happen to you.”

“He’s dead?”

“You will find out.”

“Why?”

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

“You lie, son of a whore."

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

“Bloodbath, you mean.”

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

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

Madragata laughed.

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

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

But he saw no way out.

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

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

“Get in! Quick!”

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

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

“What about the Tallmans?”

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

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

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

“Yes. Mrs. Cotton."

“Thank you!"

She gunned the jeep and Durell hung on.

Chapter 4.

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

“Not exactly.”

“Did the Apgaks shake you up?”

“Not too much.“

“They wanted you, huh?

“Yes. lid like to know why.”

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

“Not really.”

“So your cover is already blown.”

“It seems that way. Who would do it?”

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

“Lopes Fuentes Madragata says Brady Cotton is dead.”

“Maybe he is,” said Mrs. Cotton.

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

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

“Why?” Durell asked.

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

“Yes.”

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

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

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

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

“I’ve been there," Durell said.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Maybe Brady is just bored.”

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

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

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

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

"In you go,” she said.

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

“This way,” the girl said.

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

It was the first time he had properly seen her.

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

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

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

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

“Are you really married to him?”

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

“But you discovered you didn’t?"

She shrugged. “I discovered I have no talent for anything. Not tor art. And not for love.”

“You don’t seem worried about Brady.”

“At first I figured he was away on a job for you people, or looking for more merchandise.” She waved negligently at the crates of African souvenirs in the dimly lit storeroom. “We weren’t speaking to each other when he left.”

“He gave you no hint of anything special in the wind?”

“No. And short of breaking down that locked door to his room upstairs, I’ve no idea what he might be doing.”

“Let’s see that door."

She led him up a flight of wooden steps to the second-floor living quarters. Her round bottom in the tight jeans was suggestive, but he didn‘t think she was deliberately tempting him. Durell followed her with care. There was a living room, a bedroom, and a small and very tidy kitchen. Everything was neat and tidy—a heritage from her New England forebears, he thought. She had been a good homemaker for Brady Cotton, whose habits were like those of it bear. Sloppy and disheveled, he dropped his clothes wherever he happened to be. He had eternally muddy boots and a habit of disrupting the orderliness of any room he occupied. Perhaps that was one of their marital difficulties, Durell thought.

“Don't put on the lights,” he said as she reached for a switch again. “Have you a flashlight?”

“Sure.”

A place for everything. and everything in its place. The torch hung on a nail in the doorway casing. She put it in his hand in the gloom; her fingers were warn and dry. She said, “'That’s the door. He has a radio in there, you know."

”Yes.”

“One of yours?”

“Yes.”

“How much was he paid for spying on Lubinda?” Her tone was suddenly but mildly hostile.

“Not very much. A hundred a month. Lubinda doesn’t rate ‘with the State Department." He paused. “It’s not a matter of spying on the new republic. It’s more a question of relaying social and economic data. Like the progress LMO is making in their exploratory offshore drilling.”

“Oh. Brady was interested in the Lady.”

“The Lady?”

“Lubinda Lady No. 1. The offshore drilling platform.”

“I see. How was he interested?"

“Well, I just thought it was because he came from Texas, and I figured everybody from Texas is interested in oil. Dumb of me, I reckon. Brady was really just a businessman. We’re doing real well in the export business, although President Kumashaga took a hefty whack at our revenue for licenses to ship out what he claims to be Lubinda’s cultural heritage.”

Durell took a picklock from his pocket and worked at the Smith-Hawes lock on the door. He wasn’t sure what he would find. He didn’t think Brady Cotton’s big body was lying dead behind the door. In this climate, such a fact would have become self-evident.

“Can I go in with you?” Kitty asked.

“He’s not in there.”

“I know. But I’ve never been in before.”

“No.”

“You owe it to me. I helped you get away from the Apgaks. That Lopes Fuentes Madragata is a real son of a bitch, you know. He’d have sliced you up, but good. I’d feel better if the local fuzz finally put him in the slammer.”

He shrugged. “All right.”

The room had no windows, and it still held the pent-up, explosive heat of past days. Since there were no outlets, Durell put on the light after closing the door behind the girl. The heat poured over him like a wave, and sweat popped out through his shirt. The girl said, “Shall I put on the air conditioner?”

“No.”

“You think somebody is outside watching?”

“Possibly.”

“It‘s torture in here.”

“We won’t be long. Do you have any of Brady’s bourbon?”

The girl‘s voice changed. “He doesn’t drink anymore.”

“Since when?”

“Since I asked him not to. Right after we were married.”

One wall of the room was filled with the GK-12 radio transceiver with which Brady sent his reports to Luanda, in Angola, where they were relayed through the consulate to Washington. Everything here seemed to be in order. There were filing cabinets, a desk against the opposite wall. Durell went to the desk, pulled out the lower right-hand drawer, and lifted a square bottle of sour mash.

The girl’s lips tightened.

“The sneaking bastard,” she said.

Durell took a short drink from the bottle, watching her. She didn’t say anything more. Then he carefully searched the desk. There was nothing incriminating there. The filing cabinets and the desk reflected Brady Cotton’s casual habits. Nothing seemed to be in its right place. It could be in character with Brady; or the place might have been searched by someone who hadn’t cared if the search was known, He couldn’t tell which it was. He felt frustration building up in him, along with the stifling heat in the airless room.

He went to the long table against the opposite wall. There were geological charts of the ocean bottom similar to those he had seen in Hobe Tallman‘s office. And clipped to a sheaf of typewritten specifications was a data list on the drilling rig and a draftsman’s sketch of the offshore platform. He skimmed through the closely typed list of figures.

The drawworks were driven by two 1200-HP GE 752-R electric motors, with Elmagco 6000 brakes. There were five Caterpillar D-398-TB diesels, each rated at 800 HP, connected to a 520-KW generator. There were two Continental mud pumps; and the drilling mast rose 142 feet with a 25-foot base rating a 900,000-pound static hookload, and provisions for stringing ten 1 3/8-inch lines. Durell skimmed details of the rotary table, blowout preventers, Byron mud-mixing pumps, mud tanks of 2000-barrel capacity with electric agitators, eight desanders, five dry-mud storage tanks with additional space for 8000 sacks of material, a Haliburton cementing unit.

He noted that the personnel quarters could accommodate fifty-six men. Water was provided by a distilling unit. For handling supplies, the equipment consisted of a Clyde derrick rated at 41 tons capacity and a Link belt crawler crane with a 7.8-ton capacity and a 38-foot radius. He noted that the heliport was designed for use by a Sikorsky S-61N. He skimmed over the statistics for liquid storage capacity of drilling water, potable fuel, and diesel fuel, and checked the leg length of the platform at 220 feet from the sea bottom. The overall length of Lubinda Lady I was 215 feet by 135 feet, not including the projecting table of the heliport. The design criteria included a 79-foot wave with a 15 1/2-second wave period and a wind speed of 138 MPH. The platform should be able to ride out any storm that hit this coast, he decided.

Behind him, the girl said restlessly, “l can make some coffee. Some scrambled eggs, maybe?”

He did not look at her. “Did Brady ever go out to the rig?”

“Sure, a couple of times. He was a great buddy of Matt Forchette.  Cajun, like you. They call him the Fork. Matt is the rig boss, rough and tough, like Brady. Like all of them."

He turned. “You sound bitter.”

“I had problems with Brady. His pals didn’t help.”

“Maybe you tried too hard."

“I was brought up to live by certain rules and standards. l won't give them up."

“And  Brady wouldn't fall into line?”

“No. What about the eggs?”

“You shouldn’t have tried to change him.”

She indicated the charts and specifications on the table. “What’s so important about the Lady?"

“l don’t know.” Durell admitted. “Maybe nothing at all. I’d like to talk to Matt Forchette. I knew him once."

“Yes, Brady said so. Brady admired you, you know. But you’re not the way he described you." She looked at the bourbon bottle Durell had put back on the desk. “Brady would have finished that after a run-in with Madragata’s killers like you had tonight."

“You’re sure you don't know where Brady might be?"

“No idea at all.”

“But you know something. Maybe not directly related to him—but something.“

“Come on, I'll make the coffee. Louisiana coffee, with lots of chicory in it, the way Matt and Brady like it. You, too, I presume. Ugh."

He followed her into the spotless kitchen, carefully locking the door to Brady Cotton’s Central office before he left.

Kitty Cotton made a face over the rim of the steaming mug she lifted to her lips. “There are the accidents, of course.”

“What accidents?”

“Didn’t Brady report them?”

“No.”

“Maybe he was saving them up to see if anything connected. Hobe Tallman could have told you about them. The Fork will rave and rant about them and call the local security people every kind of sons of bitches under the sun.”

“Tell me." Durell said.

It was quiet in the Pequah, almost midnight now, and a low moon hung over the Atlantic, west of the port. The kitchen was cozy. it seemed to Durell that Brady Cotton had had it made with this Yankee-Portuguese girl, whose gaze was as honest and direct as a child’s, but also as that of a woman whose first attempt at love had ended in failure. He almost envied Brady’s chance, although this sort of life was not for him; he knew it could never be his; it would make him vulnerable to being reached through the one he loved. He shook his head slightly.

“What accidents, Kitty?”

She shrugged her square shoulders and sighed. “One of the derrickmen was killed on the rig. They were making a hole and had a pinchout due to an overlap—hit some unconformity leading to a basal conglomerate. That didn’t do it, of course. They were running triple lengths of pipe, and the man was up on the mast at the third platform—the thribble—when he simply fell. Nobody saw it happen. The floormen and roustabouts were busy shaking shale for cuttings removal.”

He watched her. “What else?”

“Another man, the tong man, was decapitated, caught in a bight of cable from the Clyde crane, near the jack-house. Then three others—two drillers and a motorman just quit and flew back to the States, sore at the Fork about something. I don’t know what. He'll tell you, if you ask about it. And then Brady . . ." She paused.

He asked, “What did Brady have to do with it?”

“Matt Forchette caught him snooping, I guess. Again, I don’t know. Brady wouldn’t talk about. They had a pretty bad fight. Brady was banged up in the worst way. I had to nurse him for a week, right here. Wouldn’t let him go into the local hospital.”

“You don’t know what they fought about?”

“As I said, Brady was just snooping.”

“Did he think anything was wrong with the rig?”

“Oh, everybody knows there’s something wrong with the Lady. They all started out with such high hopes. You ought to look at the geologists‘ reports and the sample cores fished out of the hole. Terrific. Sweet oil, they said. Then all of a sudden, Hobe Tallman called it quits and they stopped drilling hole and shut down. Everything. Last week.”

“Because of the accidents?”

“Because. the way I heard it, Hobe decided there was no offshore oil after all.”

Kitty Cotton made a delicate snorting sound in her fine nose.

The sound became magnified into a tremendous, rolling, crackling, thunderous explosion.

Chapter 5.

The window blew in, showering them with broken glass. Durell noted that the girl did not scream. She sat very still for a moment, holding her coffee mug, her pale eyes staring wide and round at him. Then she put the cup down very carefully on the glittering layer of glass that covered the kitchen table.

“Take it easy," Durell said softly.

"I’m all right. Sam."

"It came from the LMO docks. Nothing aimed at us directly. We just felt the blast wave.”

“You’ve got a cut on your face," she told him.

“And your kitchen is a mess.”

The china and glassware had all tumbled from the cabinets around her, directly in the path of the concussion. Durell went to the broken window. There were flames down m the small rail terminal on the docks owned by the Lubinda Marine. Over the roof of the Pequah shops, the red glare burst skyward, showering sparks into the black sky. From far off in the distance, a siren sounded. He heard dim shouting, heard a secondary burst of explosives, saw more flames. The market quarter came awake to the catastrophe.

He pushed away from the window and saw Kitty Cotton heading for the door.

“You stay here,” he said. “Lock your doors. Don’t let anyone in until l come back.”

“Why? Nobody’s after me.”

“You can’t tell.”

“But I don’t know anything that might bother someone.”

“The ‘someone’ doesn’t know that. Whatever happened just now down at the oil docks was no accident. I’m betting on that. If it was the Apgaks, then their attack at the Tallman bungalow was a feint, and there’s something down at the docks that they want to get rid of. I’m sure they know I came here with you. So be careful. Stay here, as I said."

“I'd rather go with you.”

"No."

She stared at him. “Sam?”

He was impatient. “I have to go.”

“Brady, as a person, isn‘t the real reason you’re here, is it?“

“Not exactly.”

“He found out something. and that’s why he‘s missing. That’s why you came to locate him.“

“We think he learned something, yes.”

“Is Lubinda so important?”

“It’s a free republic. So it’s important. It‘s like a small island surrounded by a stormy ocean. We’d like to help save it from being swept away."

“And that’s all?”

“It's enough,” Durell said.

“So Brady is only secondary?”

“My job depends on what he found out and why he’s missing."

She looked at him blankly as he quit the kitchen and she hit her tip as she watched him go down the stairs two and three at a time.

The small WDT shifter locomotive that served the Lubinda Marine decks and the oceangoing platform tender had been blown off the rails. The diesel lay like some disabled monster, half on its side, its striped nose canted toward the water and hanging over the concrete bulkhead. Several storage sheds were still burning, and the rank smell of diesel oil filled the hot night. The smoke was blacker than the sky, billowing up over the scene, pushed by the faint sea breeze over the estuary, choking the men who struggled with fire hoses to keep the flames from spreading.

The engineer of the loco had been killed. No one seemed to know what had happened. The crew of the tender ship, which had been tied up to the concrete dock only a short way from where the locomotive had been derailed, were still climbing confusedly ashore. In the small switching yard there was a long low shed for drilling pipe, tanks for mud and drilling water storage, a ship’s chandlery, a barracks for the shore and rig crews’ quarters, a crawler crane, and a large oil storage tank with a pipeline snaking into the dark sea. The men struggled to keep the burning oil spilled from somewhere from reaching the main storage tank.

Durell went through the open wire gate without anyone attempting to stop him. He saw that the second explosion had occurred on the tender ship, and its Link belt 10-ton crane was canted forward toward the small helicopter deck. Some of the men were fighting to save the Sikorsky S-61N chopper on the octagonal pad. The flames lit the painted bull’s-eye on the deck with lurid colors.

"Ah, you must be Mr. Durell.“

He turned at the sound of the Oxford accent.

“Mr. Samuel Durell?”

“Yes.”

The black man was very tall, almost seven feet, with legs like a gawky heron’s protruding from his South African-type military drill khaki shorts. He had a small smile on his face, which was all bony protuberances, minor tribal scars, and deep-set muddy eyes that looked as if they had not been closed in sleep for too many hours. His eyelids drooped. His thick mouth smiled. He wore a holstered Walthers in at gun belt, sported a Sam Browne, and had several medal ribbons over the pleated pocket of his bush jacket. In his left hand, he tapped a short swagger stick.

“A calamity,” the man said. “One calamity after another. And our poor country had set such high hopes on the alleged efficiency of American technology to bring oil riches to our struggling democracy.”

“You sound like a political text,” Durell said.

“Ah, no. It is just that I make so many speeches to the tribal villagers. Forgive me. My name is Colonel Komo Lepaka. Security Police.”

Durell waited, watching the firefighters. An ambulance whined into the railroad yard and swerved toward the derailed locomotive to pick up the engineer’s body. The flames would not reach the oil storage tank. The firefighters were beginning to get the disaster under control.

“I hear," said Colonel Lepaka, “that you had an unfortunate welcoming experience at the Tallman bungalow. My apologies and regrets. I was among those who followed Mrs. Cotton to the place.”

“Did you get Lopes Madragata?"

“Unfortunately, no. That man is like a fdata—one of our swamp snakes, Mr. Durell. He can vanish in the mud in the wink of an eye. One day soon, however. . .” The black man touched his little swagger stick against his stork-like leg and smiled. His hooded eyes looked at the scene with regret. “I was hoping you would make a voluntary report of the incident, Mr. Durell. Mrs. Tallman tells me that Madragata seems to have been planning an especially exquisite welcome for you.”

“I don't know why," Durell said.

“You are an American attorney, here to settle an estate in which Brady Cotton is a beneficiary, according to your entry papers.”

“That is correct.

“How could that possibly concern the Apgaks?”

“I don’t know, Colonel. Perhaps it was all a mistake.”

“A mistake,” the tall man repeated, musingly. “Ah, yes. These things happen in the confusion of a newly created nation, amid the passions of foreign-inspired rebellion. Yes, a mistake." Lepaka tapped his bony black knee with his stick again, and sighed as he looked at the firefighters in the railroad yard. “You will come into headquarters and file a report on the incident, Mr. Durell?"

“Of course. I'll cooperate in every way.”

“I would like to have your statement, along with Hobart Tallman’s and Mrs. Tallman’s. For the records, you see.”

“Naturally.”

“As soon as possible?”

“Yes.”

“It would be appreciated.”

Durell nodded and the security man wandered off, apparently aimless in his direction. His long legs moved with slow care amid the debris and litter scattered by the explosions and the firefighters. The rank smell of burning diesel oil blew in Durell‘s face. He moved in the opposite direction from Colonel Komo Lepaka, toward the barracks building at the other end of the switching yard. A fire engine had belatedly appeared to help the tender boat’s crew. In the main doorway to the barracks, shouting orders in an unmistakable Cajun accent, was a stocky, white-shirted, familiar figure. Matty Forchette. Matty the Fork.

They had known each other in boyhood days around Bayou Peche Rouge in Louisiana. Matty had hunted with Durrell occasionally along the chenieres that twisted through the moss-draped oaks and wild vines of the bayou channels, and now and then old Grandpa Jonathan had had Matty aboard the hulk of the Trois Belles, the old Mississippi side-wheeler that the old man called home. But Matty had followed the lure of oil when the oilshore rigs came to the delta country, and Durell had gone to Yale to study law, and later to Washington to enter the world of K Section. He had not seen Matty for at least fifteen years, but the man still looked the same, perhaps a little stouter in the belly—although Dwell was sure that the belly was as hard as a beer keg»-and balding now, with a gleaming scalp encircled by thick, wiry black hair that stood up like porcupine quills to reflect his present rage.

“Matty?”

The man turned at Durell’s call, stared with hard, angry blue eyes, then shook his head as if he had been punched. A slow grin spread across his flat Acadian features.

“Like ducks fallin' from the sky,” he muttered.

“Like cattles in the ditches,” Durell said, completing the old boyhood formula.

“Really you, Sam?”

“Really me.”

“Jesus.”

They shook hands. Matty’s grip was that of a rig boss’s, hard and callused, like the steel slap of a tong man on a drilling crew. breaking out drill pipe. “You’ve come at a bad time, Sam."

“l hear you’ve been having bad times all along.”

Matty nodded, glared at the scene of wreckage and fire, cupped his hands and bellowed, “Frankie, get that Link crawler hooked onto the loco right, you boll weevil!” “Weevil” was an epithet for an inexperienced rig worker. “You want the WDT to go overboard on the tender?” The barrel-shaped man grunted, looked at Durell, and managed at rueful grin. “ ‘Ducks fallin’ from the sky,’ my ass. More like rocks on my head, Sam. This job was goin’ to be my last chance. lf we miss here, I really go back to wrestlin’ cattles outa the ditches in the bayous.”

“Is it that bad?”

“We’ve had a run of bad luck. Come upstairs and we’ll drink to better days.”

The firefighters finally had matters under control. Matty the Fork gave a last hard glance at the small switching yard. touched Durell’s arm, and led the way into the barracks, up a flight of prefabricated steel steps to a small office with windows like those of an airport control tower, overlooking the harbor and the black Atlantic. A draftsman’s tilted drawing board had a number of geological survey sketches pinned to it. The long table looked like a snowstorm of manifests, lading bills, import clearances, supply lists, lithographic studies, an AAODC standard drilling report, routine tables of penetration rates, instrumentation controls, crew lists, a repair report on down time, all intermixed with small hand tools tossed carelessly aside. Matty picked up a bottle from the cot against the far wall, where he obviously slept, rummaged around in the mess for two plastic cups, and poured them both full.

His pale blue eyes were red-rimmed.

“Here’s to the two kids we used to be, back in Bayou Peche Rouge. Your grandpa still alive, Sam?"

Durell nodded. “Yes.”

“Must be almost ninety by now.”

“Ninety-two.”

“Still on the old paddlewheeler?”

“He’ll die there,” Durell said.

Matty said, “l heard there was a lawyer comin’ to see Brady Cotton, but I didn't realize it was you. Is it a lot of money for the son of a bitch?”

“Not too much. l don’t work directly at being a lawyer, Matt. You don‘t like Brady? He’s got a fine girl for a wife.”

The Fork grunted, gulped his bourbon, stared at Durell with eyes that almost scented hostile for a moment. “Kitty is a fine gal, for sure, but too much a Yankee Puritan for Brady. Maybe she’s too good for him. Sam, you weren’t sent here from the Houston office to check up on this mess here, were you?”

“No.” Durell said. “I’m not in oil. But what happened to Brady? Where can l find hint?”

“He’s probably oil in the bush or the Kahara lookin’ for those wood-carved gadgets he exports. He’ll turn up, like any bad penny. The way things are with him and Kitty, he won’t be in a hurry to come back, I hear.” Matty grinned. He was missing two teeth in the upper right side of his mouth. “Me, I’ve been married four times, and blew each contract. Never did strike a gusher with the ladies. Probably be married four times again, though. Like hoping for a lucky strike. Wildcatting is in my blood, Sam, and I guess I go for the gals like I'd go for a likely new oil field. Want to look at my latest?”

Matty gestured toward a powerful reflector-telescope on sturdy tripods at one of the big observation windows. “The Lubinda Lady—settin’ out there at nineteen-point-three miles like an egg-bound old biddy. Useless. Due west-by-south.  She’s bound to die.”

Durell looked through the scope. The mirrored image showed him miles of placid black ocean. Then, dimly, at a great distance, he saw the wink and blink of tiny red, yellow, and green navigation lights. The rig loomed like a tiny miniature of the scale model he had seen in Hobe Tallman’s bungalow office. Gradually he made out the massive piers of the submersible jack-up platform, the decks. the crew‘s quarters. the derricks with frozen, crooked arms, the tall web of the drilling mast. He stared for a long moment, then turned his back and retrieved his drink.

Matty was watching the Link crawler lift the front end of the WDT switching diesel, swinging it away from its perilous perch on the edge of the concrete pier by the tender. There was a low crash as the locomotive was set ponderously back on the tracks.

“Why all the trouble?" Durell asked. “Is it the new government? Competition? The Apgaks ?”

Hobe Tallman says they’re all pure accidents. I say they are not,“ Matty growled grimly.

“Sabotage?”

“Sure. What else could it be?”

“Is it company work? Another oil outfit?

“Don’t know yet, Sam. I’ve sent feelers out around Companhia de Petroleos de Angola—that’s Petrangol, one-third Portuguese government, two-thirds Petrofina, Belgian. I’ve got friends in there. They operate off Angola in five fields—Galinda, Benefica, Quenquela-Norte. That last one flows more than twelve thousand b/d. Nobody knows anything. They’re decent people. So are Elf-Sprafe, the French outfit working with Shell. They hit a gas field farther north in sandstone zones at four thousand two hundred and sixty-five feet that tested over ten million cubic feet daily, and sweet oil up to fifty-two hundred barrels daily through a half-inch choke."

Matty sighed enviously. “Hell, everybody’s working the West African fields. Petrofina, BP, Italy’s Agip and ENI, the French CFP, the Teijin and Teikoku Japanese, the West German Deminex Consortium, the NNK from Nigeria—“ The man paused and drew a deep breath. “I know ’em all. Lubinda Marine got in here with luck, on preemptive leases, heating the whole crowd. Sure, they were all sore about our making it first. But sabotage like this?” Matt paused and rubbed his face downward with the flat of his hand. "I was so Sure, Sam. So sure! Look, they had a strike to the north, across the frontier, a test well drilled in eighty-six hundred feet of limestone that extends this way. They got a flow of thirty-nine-degree-gravity oil from their rig, the PD-27. That was after five years and fourteen dry holes. Ours is n wildcat in only a hundred and thirty feet of water. I’d hoped for a similar strike. But so far—nothing. I sure as hell figured we could put this field on stream in eighteen months. We’ve got a lease of a hundred and fifty thousand acres of potential oil and gas to be explored. I’m not giving up, but—well, it’s been one thing after the other.”

“What sort of things?” Durell asked.

“Pressure. The local government, the Apgaks. The government is making noises about putting up more blocks of concessions, as much as fifteen blocks covering a thousand square miles, if we don’t come through. We’ve been delayed—the usual stuff. Safety valves and packing, and getting that sixty-ton blowout preventer stack in position before we started drilling. Shit. I figured we’d put Nigeria in the shade. I figured the Lady would pump some fifteen-thousand barrels a day, sweet oil, no sulfur. So after rig-up, we got a pinchout due to overlap, missed the dome. the mud-pit agitators broke down. lost some junk down the hole. and laid down three days fishing for it with the junk basket. Just some lost tools. I fired the roustabout who was there.”

"Is there oil out there?” Durell asked.

"Yes," Matty said flatly.

“Any proof?"

“Not yet. Not a drop. But I’m an old rigger. Sam. I can smell it, I tell you. But Hobe took all the records and shut us down. No more pipe, no more trips made, nothing. Hobe says it’s a tiny hole. But l know there’s oil under that water." Matty chopped the air vehemently, as if attacking an invisible, frustrating enemy. “I’m sorry, Sam. I’m just plain mad. is all. I got to get down there on the dock and help those flatheads set things right. You’re

staying at the Lopodama Hotel?“

“I checked in there, but I haven’t seen the room yet.” Durell paused, watching the squat man. “One more thing, Matt. Tell me about Hobe Tallman and his wife.”

“Oh. Betty?”

"Yes."

Matty the Fork looked sour. “Like almost every other Stateside dame you see down here. Cranky and full of tricks. Makes passes at anything in pants just to while away the time. Maybe that‘s what bugs Hobe. He‘s a good superintendent, mostly. Worked with him before, in Sumatra. But he’s got ants up his ass or something. Maybe it‘s Betty, but i don’t know. He ought to send her home. But maybe we’ll all be going home soon, anyway.” Matty hesitated. “They even say she took on Lopes Fuentes Madragata. The Apgak general. The Mao Chinese got Lopes in their pockets, no mistake, but I don’t think Betty‘d care about that, Just before he broke with the new government, he was around town a lot, quite a wheel. Then he took to the bush and began terrorizing and murdering. Maybe Betty figured he had enough Portuguese blood in him to pass, make him acceptable, I wouldn’t know. Maybe she doesn‘t have any scruples. But they say that she and Lopes, during the time he was Interior Minister, had a hot fire going.”

“Did Hobe know about it?”

“Even if he did, he wouldn’t have let on.” Matty sighed. “I’m sorry, Sam, I’ve got to get back to work. Come back for a drink. any time—if I’m still here.”

"You can’t help me about Emily Cotton?"

“I told yon, he must be in the bush somewhere, And one other thing. l saw you talking to Colonel Komo Lepaka. You want to watch out for him. His little swagger stick can turn into a spiked jamba club if you don’t play things his way. Does he want to see you?"

"Yes, in a mild kind of way," Darrell said.

“There‘s nothing mild about Komo. You’d better get your ass over there.”

Chapter 6.

Durell returned to the Lopodama Hotel instead. It was after one in the morning, and the excitement generated by the explosions—sabotage or accident—on the dock had died down. The night‘s humidity made him feel as if he were breathing water. The hotel was an old one, going back to Portuguese days, built in the rococo colonial style. The central building resembled a miniature Petite Trianon, and there were two low wings of faded pink stucco and ornate pilasters that faced the estuary. Two freighters swung at their anchor moorings offshore. The riding lights made red and green ribbons across the quiet black water.

Durell’s room was at the extreme end of the west wing, on the second floor. It had a balcony overlooking the river and rotating wooden fans in the pale green ceiling. Plaster winged cupids smiled at him from each corner. The bathroom was large, tiled in elaborate arabesque designs, with a great long tub and a rusty shower. He had done little more than drop his bag in the room before going out to look for Brady Cotton and winding up at Hobe Tallman’s bungalow.

It had been a long day, and he felt bone-weary from the heat; but he was not too tired to take the usual precautions when entering the room.

Someone was in his bath. He heard the splashing of water while he stood in the broad, tiled corridor outside. He paused, then inserted the big iron key soundlessly and pushed the carved panel inward with his fingertips, not sure whether the bath water was a diversion for an unwelcome presence waiting just inside the doorway. He drew his gun. The only light came from the bathroom door, which stood ajar. No one waited for him in the bedroom. He let his eyes adjust to the faint moonlight that came through the tall, narrow windows facing the sea. His bed had been turned down, his bag had been unpacked by the maid. It was the sort of old-fashioned service one did not expect these days. A small wind blew the gauzy curtains.

More splashings came from the bath. He walked silently across the tiled floor and stood in the doorway.

Betty Tallman looked up at him with a smile from a foaming, bubbly tub full of steaming water. Her pale hair was piled high upon her head, and he saw her full round breasts above the soapy water and the round arch of one hip.

“Hi, Sam.”

“Hello, Mrs. Tallman,” he said flatly.

She looked at his gun. “Expecting the Apgaks again?”

“I didn’t expect it would be you,” he told her.

“Shoo, I don’t bite. Maybe I scratch a little, but I don’t bite. Do you mind? The posadero said I could wait in here for you. Hobe’s still at the bungalow, but all that mess out there cut off our power and there was no hot water, and I just felt as if I couldn‘t stand it another minute without a hot tub, so I thought of you and came here. Colonel Lepaka was kind enough to give me a lift.”

“Why?”

“He’s really a nice man.”

“Why come to me?"

Her smile did not touch her hard entertainer’s eyes. “I feel safe here with you. And we have some things to discuss. I don't think you mind mixing business with pleasure. Would you hand me that towel, please?”

He tossed it to her as she stood up in the tub. Her body was lush, ripe, inviting. She handled herself with no sense of shyness. She kept watching him with a direct, bold stare, her eyes amused.

“Don't worry about Hobe,” she said softly.

“I don’t. What do we have to talk about?"

“Later,” she said. “Do my back, please?”

He helped her with the towel.

“Let’s talk now," he said.

“Are you afraid of me?”

“A little. Is it about Brady?”

“Of course. And you.”

“Do you know where Brady Cotton is?”

“Don’t you like me?“ she asked.

“You look fine to me.”

“Then why don’t you touch me?”

“What about Brady?” he insisted.

“Oh, shoo. Let’s talk in bed.”

“Let’s talk now,” he said again.

“Well, I just happen to know that Brady Cotton is an orphan. He has no family at all. So what kind of an inheritance could he possibly receive?”

“It’s an insurance thing,” Durell said.

“An accident policy?”

“Something like that.”

“But I happen to know that Brady Cotton doesn’t have a single mark on his body. He brags about it.”

“So?”

“So, Mr. Samuel Durell, I think you're a liar. I don’t think there is an inheritance or an insurance policy.”

“And?”

“Maybe I’ll tell the police your papers are phony. Maybe I should talk to my good friend, Colonel Komo Lepaka."

“Go ahead. Do that.” Durell said bluntly.

She looked puzzled. She did not try to hold the big towel to conceal her tall, naked body. She let it slide to the tiled floor at her feet and stared at him for a moment, her lower lip full and petulant, and then she made a sniffing sound and moved past him, deliberately letting her hip brush against him. He ignored her, which was rather difficult, and checked the bathroom carefully, inspecting the cabinet, the pressure tank above the lavatory, then the big closet. He found a bug fastened loosely to the inside of the closet door. The tiny microphone wires led into a newly drilled hole in the wall. He left it there and went into the bedroom. Betty Tallman had made herself comfortable in the big bed, and was considering her long fingernails, smiling secretly to herself. She had scented herself, and he could not help but be aware of her, of the updrawn knee, the long full thigh and calf, the painted toenails. The search of the bedroom took longer, but he found a second bug hooked to the rather battered silken shade of a table lamp under the mirrored wall opposite the bed. He did not touch it. In the mirror, he saw Betty watching him.

“What are you looking for?” she asked.

“Nothing. Get dressed.”

“You don’t mean that. We've got plenty of time. Hobe doesn’t care. He doesn’t care What I do anymore. That’s the trouble. He’s all wrapped up in the failure of the Lady. It’s an obsession with him. He’s scared to death."

“Of not finding oil?”

“Of lots of things. Of the Apgaks, of losing me, the whole place. The whole bit.”

“He seems all right to me.”

“It’s a good facade. But I know him, see?” Impatience made her voice a bit shrill, gave the first betrayal of what her life had been be-fore her marriage to Hobe. He remembered she had been a bur girl in dubious bars from Texas through all the Gulf states. She wiggled fingers at him. “Come here.”

He went to the bed and sat down. She smiled with revived satisfaction and began to undo his shirt. Her hands were warm, eager, a bit perspired. From somewhere in the hotel, a Portuguese fado singer mourned the loss of her seafaring lover to a tune dating back three hundred years. Betty’s eyes grew heavy-lidded. He didn’t like the glitter in their depths.

“You do like me, dent you?” she murmured. “I suppose you think I’m terrible, being here like this. Hardly knowing you and all. But Lubinda gives me the wickie-wackies. I hate it so. If it weren‘t for Hobe—”

“He's been good to you, hasn’t he?”

“Sure, but—"

“But now that he’s in trouble, you’re ready to cheek out?”

“Oh, Sam, don’t be so cruel.”

“Do you know where I can find Brady Cotton?”

She pouted. “Be nice to me, I’ll be nice to you.”

“Tell me, first.”

“Why don’t you ask Hobe?”

“Hobe said he doesn’t know anything.”

“He knows a lot more than he lets on. Ask him again.”

“What are you looking for?” she asked.

“Nothing. Get dressed.”

“You don’t mean that. We’ve got plenty of time. Hobe doesn't care. He doesn’t care what I do anymore. That’s the trouble. He’s all wrapped up in the failure of the Lady. It’s an obsession with him. He’s scared to death.”

"Of not finding oil?”

“Of lots of things. Of the Apgaks, of losing me, the whole place. The whole bit.”

“He seems all right to me.”

“It’s a good facade. But I know him, see?” Impatience made her voice a bit shrill, gave the first betrayal of what her life had been before her marriage to Hobe. He remembered she had been a bar girl in dubious bars from Texas through all the Gulf states. She wiggled fingers at him. “Come here.”

He went to the bed and sat down. She smiled with revived satisfaction and began to undo his shirt. Her hands were warm, eager, a bit perspired. From somewhere in the hotel, a Portuguese judo singer mourned the loss of her seafaring lover to a tune dating back three hundred years. Betty’s eyes grew heavy-lidded. He didn’t like the glitter in their depths.

“You do like rue, don‘t you?” she murmured. “I suppose you think I’m terrible, being here like this, hardly knowing you and all. But Lubinda gives me the wickie-wackies. I hate it so. “If it weren’t for Hobe—”

“He’s been good to you, hasn't he?”

“Sure, but!”

“But now that he’s in trouble, you’re ready to checkout?”

“Oh. Sam, don’t be so cruel.”

“Do you know where I can find Brady Cotton?”

She pouted. “Be nice to me, I’ll be nice to you.”

“Tell me, first.”

“Why don’t you ask Hobe?”

“Hobe said he doesn’t know anything.”

“He knows a lot more than he lets on. Ask him again.”

Chapter 7.

Colonel Komo Lepaka let his heavy eyelids grow even heavier and his murky dark eyes grow sleepier. The skin over the fine bones of his small face shone with sweat. The prison room was like an oven, even for him.

“I am sorry, Senhor Durell. We still use the facilities left to us by our former colonial masters. Not the most comfortable, this old brick dungeon. I apologize. We have built a new Presidential Palace, a port, and a hotel, but we have not yet constructed new security headquarters.”

“Am I under arrest?” Durell asked.

“No, no. As I told you on the dock. I simply would like to talk with you." The man folded one abnormally long leg over the other. His seven-foot body looked collapsed on the hard wooden chair he had chosen. Durell looked for another chair, saw none. and remained standing. Lepaka’s South African khakis were as immaculate as before. He took a pair of horn-rimmed glasses from the pleated pocket of his bush jacket and put the-in on with slow deliberation, then reached into the plain wooden desk beside him and took out a manila folder, laid it flat on the desk, but did not open it. He looked up  Durell across the small, cell-like office. There was a single barred window in the room and an iron door. No air came through the window, and the place stank of urine and excrement and the untold miseries of many generations of prisoners. Durell hoard moaning and groaning from down the prison corridor, and tried not to pay any attention to it.

Lepaka spoke without opening the dossier. His long fingers resembled the legs of a crab as he joined and rested his hands on the closed manila folder.

“I am sorry I had to interrupt your dalliance with Mrs. Tallman. I do hope she was not embarrassed.”

“Do you think she could be embarrassed?”

“Not likely, I suppose. I think I Shall have to do something very soon about her presence in Lubinda. She may not mind being deported back to the States."

“You’d be doing her the greatest of favors,” Durell said. “Perhaps a favor for Hobe, too.“

Komo Lepaka waited. Durell knew the ploy, and waited him out, not offering anything. The silence grew tighter mid more strained. The colonel’s eyes looked sleepier. Finally, Lepaka said, “You see, Mr. Durell, I know all about you.”

"Yes?"

“You are not a solicitor here to present Brady Cotton with an unexpected inheritance. You work for K Section, and were appointed to bring your associate, Mr. Cotton, to the surface. or to find out what has happened to him.”

“Yes,” Durell said.

“You do not deny this?”

"l don’t believe I can. Colonel.”

“Then you are an admitted spy.”

“I am not here to spy on Lubinda.”

“Is it American oil interests, then, that brought you here?”

“You know there are no American oil interests, truly. According to Lubindan low, the oil belongs to your country. Only a small royalty will go to Hobe Tallman’s company.”

Lepaka looked puzzled. "Then why?”

Durell interrupted. “Would you call Lubinda a free democracy?”

Lepaka blinked. “Yes. Yes, I would say so.”

"We would like to help you to stay free. Your neighboring countries are hardly democratic examples, are they?"

Lepaka looked grim. “This is why you are here?”

“Yes. To help you, if possible.”

“Brady is secondary?”

“Only as a means to an end.”

“Our enemies would not understand your motives. Or perhaps they would, at that, knowing you are an enemy of theirs. To the Apgaks, you are a colonialist, an imperialist agent. It could be construed in several ways.” Lepaka held his hands palm up. His fingers were steady. His eyes did not leave Durell’s face. It seemed to Durell that here was a cop superior to most he had met around the world. He did not blame anybody. His cover was blown, but then, so was Brady Cotton’s, along with the export shop and K Section’s Central. Maybe Lepaka had discovered Brady’s true activities long ago; maybe Lepaka had been waiting for his own arrival for some time. Hard to tell, Durell decided silently. He as yet felt no great menace from the security officer. But he could not really read Lepaka‘s intentions.

“Your position here, Mr. Durell,” Lepaka said gently, “is rather ambiguous. You could be in great difficulties with our authorities. Meaning me, of course.”

“If you choose to put me in difficulty, yes,” Durell admitted.

“According to our statutes, you could be imprisoned for no less than ten years and for as much as life.”

“Would I have a trial?"

Lepaka smiled sadly. “Eventually. Our courts are still in sad disorder, following independence. A trial might be put off for a year, perhaps live. Meanwhile, you would be accommodated in our rather primitive facilities. A Lubindan might survive for a time. But you would not.”

Durell still had his gun. He wondered if he might have to use it to try to break out of here. There were guards in the brick-vaulted corridor outside, others at the high prison gates that once had flown the Portuguese flag. No attempt had been made to search him. He knew that the colonel knew this, too. He decided to wait.

“Lubinda is a poor country,” said Lepaka. “We are struggling to establish viability. The oil exploration promises economic stability. We are bounded by the sea, by the jungles, by the small but extremely hostile Kahara Desert to the south. And besides our economic and geographical problems, we find ourselves being wooed by the Russians, the Chinese, and your country. The decisions are difficult. We are not equipped, really to make a choice—if a choice is needed."

“It may be forced on you,” Durell said. “You shouldn’t by the way, be merely a police officer, Colonel.”

“No?”

“You should be prime minister.”

“Is that flattery?”

“You have a lack of educated men in Lubinda. Your talents may be going to waste.”

“Ah, yes. But at the moment, security is our greatest problem.”

“The Apgaks?”

"If their terror campaign succeeds in driving out the oil people, we are lost. The government would topple. The Lubindans are a simple people. They expect our streets to become paved with gold, through oil revenues. But the effort to find oil  being hampered by violence, as you saw earlier tonight. If it fails, more will join the Apgak cause and we will become little more than a Maoist or a Moscow colony.”

Durell said, “I appreciate your courtesy in giving me this lecture, Colonel. But I’m not here to interfere in your internal affairs.”

Lepaka’s eyes suddenly opened wide. They looked bloody. “Ah. but you must interfere, Mr. Durell. We need you. I need you."

“I’m only here to find Brady Cotton.”

“You will not find him in this prison, sir.”

“Am I being offered a choice?”

“Crudely put, yes. imprisonment as a foreign agent, or cooperation with me.”

Durell smiled. "We’ll get along, Colonel. It depends on what you want of me. What kind of deal.”

“Yes, of course. A deal.”

Durell felt better. He watched Colonel Lepaka reach into a desk drawer and take out a box of small thin cigars. He offered them to Durell, who shook his head, and then carefully thrust one between his large white teeth and lit it. The smoke was fragrant in the hot, humid air. Durell smelled again the urine smell of the ancient prison. The man in the cell down the corridor kept moaning and groaning.

“Have you ever,” Lepaka said slowly, “heard of Felipe Barraganza Sakadga?"

“General Sakadga?”

“Ah.”

“He’s dead,” Durell said.

“He is not dead.”

“The ‘father’ of your country?"

“Sakadga. The Lion of Lubinda.”

“He must be very old, then.”

“He is. But quite vigorous.”

“Really alive?” Durell insisted.

“In retirement. Disillusioned. He was ill for a time. From long imprisonment here and in two European capitals. A brilliant old gentleman. Lubinda worships him. Lubinda has all but canonized him."

“There is a tomb along the river,” Durell said, “where Felipe Barraganza Sakadga has been interred.”

Lepaka shook his head slowly. His eyes were sleepier than ever. “You might call him our messiah of freedom. People make regular pilgrimages to the tomb, true. But they pray to an empty casket. Sakadga is not there.”

“But you know where he is, and alive?”

“I know. And only one or two others.”

Durell said, “You wish to resurrect him?”

“The people would go mad with joy. They would destroy the Apgaks overnight and follow, obey, and work for him.”

“I see,” Durell said.

“You do not see. It could be a very dangerous thing, to bring Sakadga back. Like the return of Christ in this country. It would be a revolution.”

Durell leaned back against the brick wall. “Excuse me, Colonel. Are you planning a military coup against the democratic government of this country, with an old and martyred saint as your front man? if so, you Can count me out.”

Something flickered in Lepaka’s eyes. “You do not think I could run this country?”

“So far, you haven’t even been able to get rid of the Apgaks, who are deliberately destroying your one hope of viability, the oil exploration rig offshore.”

Lepaka considered his thin, fragrant cigar. A small sea wind, like an errant hope, drifted through the barred window. It died in anguish, a victim of the prison smells.

“The Saka, as we call him, is my foster father.”

“And?”

“When I was a boy, the Saka was already a mature man, a fighter for our independence, a revolutionist, if you will. I was a tribal orphan—the ward of a little village on the edge of the Kahara. I need not tell you that life was difficult, far below the normal subsistence level. I was pagan, illiterate, with a perpetually swollen belly. How I grew to my present awkward height is probably a matter of simple genetics. In any case, when the Saka came through our village to collect freedom fighters against our colonial masters, I joined him. What else was there for me to do? No woman would look at me. As a fdana, a tribal orphan. I had nothing to offer and never would have. I was a pariah. So I followed the Saka.

“He adopted me. It was as simple as that. It was like a splendid sunrise. He became fond of me—why, I do not know. I worshipped him for his strength and wisdom. He taught me Portuguese and English. Somehow, I was quick to learn. Before he was imprisoned that second time, he gave me money—no doubt stolen from the Luanda banks in Angola—and directed me to go to Europe for my education. He insisted that Lubinda needed literate, professional men, if we were to succeed in raising ourselves from the lives of fishermen, jungle kraals, and desert nomads. I went to London and studied hard, applied myself, and kept faith with the Saka.”

“And when you returned to Lubinda?”

“The first thing I did was to organize a breakout for Sakadga from Kajary Prison. You have heard of the place?”

Durell nodded. “Not easy. I heard the Saka was killed just four days before independence for Lubinda.”

“He was seriously injured. He has recovered. But his major and lasting hurt is an inner one.”

Durell waited. Insects hummed. and buzzed in and out of the barred window. Great moths fluttered around the globe lamp on the desk. He looked at this watch. It was almost four o’clock in the morning. He could have used at cup of coffee. But Lepaka offered him nothing. The colonel seemed to be thinking of other things, his hands flat on the closed dossier on his desk. Then Lepaka stood up. unfolding like some sort of stick insect, until he towered with his head just grazing the bricked vault of the ceiling.

“You see, Mr. Durell, I know we are in the same business, and therefore I can trust you to be competent and circumspect about what I say to you."

“You suggested we might make a deal.”

“Precisely. I am coming to that.”

“I just want to find Brady Cotton.”

“Alive, or dead?”

“Alive, preferably.”

“I am prepared to assist you,” Lepaka said. “In turn, you can do something for me that I am unable at the moment to do for myself.”

“You want Felipe Barraganza Sakadga?”

"Yes."

“Alive or dead?" Durell returned, unsmiling.

“Very much alive. To help Lubinda, to help my people, to be rid of the Maoist Apgaks who. in their foolish fanaticism. refuse to believe they are only the tools of another imperialism not much different from the old.”

“How many others know that Sakai is alive?”

“As I said, very few.”

"The President?”

“No.”

“Any of your parliament?”

“No.”

“Do you have a small junta planned?”

“No. We simply want his return. To guide us. The people adore him. They will follow him. The country will settle down. There will be no more killings.”

Durell had no idea whether the man could be believed or not. He did not mean to lend himself to some putsch that might establish yet another military dictatorship among the newly emerged African states.

“You said the Saka is hurt inwardly?"

“Sim. Yes. By his true son, who was always at his side, even as I was at his other hand.”

Suddenly it seemed as inevitable to Durell as the inexorable fate in an ancient Greek tragedy. There was remembered sorrow in the colonel’s black, bony lace, in the red depths of his murky eyes. Lepaka stood at the window and looked out at the moths, and without thinking, he drew up one of his stiltlike legs and stood on the other, loft foot resting just above the knee of the right. Durell could see him thus, leaning on a spear in the black forests and swamps of Lubinda—but more likely leaning on a rifle or a bazooka.

“You know of whom I speak?” Lepaka asked softly.

“l can guess.”

“Guess. then.”

“Are you testing me?” Durell asked.

“In a way."

“This former comrade-in-arms, this son, beloved by the Saka, as you say"—Durell paused— “this man, your stepbrother, is now the head of the Apgaks—Lopes Fuentes Madragata.”

Lepaka sighed. “Yes.”

“And how many know that?” Durell demanded.

“You and I. Lopes. No others.”

“All right. Then what’s the deal? What choice do I have except staying in this jail for years to come?”

“l want you to bring the Saka back—back to life, back to his rightful place, leading the people of Lubinda. To end Madragata’s stupid terrorism on behalf of the Maoist Apgaks. Bring him back for me, Durell.”

“Why can’t you do it?”

“It is a journey into the desert, beyond the Bone Coast.” Lepaka paused. “Settled by Germans in pre-World War I days. There are still some Rhineland-type castles there—Wakermund, Schneiderhof, and Heinrichburg. All ruins. Ignore them. I cannot leave. Madragata is ready to make his strike. He knows just where and when to do this bloody business. Someone tells him. I do not know who, but he has an informer, high in government, perhaps. I step closer to him with each hour. No, I cannot leave the city now."

Durell said, “I have no wish to interfere in your affairs or get mixed up in local politics. Why me?”

“First, you have no choice. If you do not agree, if you attempt to leave Lubinda secretly, or it you betray me, you will spend the rest of your life in this prison. I promise you that. You will not live long under these conditions. but each hour will seem like a year. Also, you see, I know you. I have your dossier here, and I know what you can do. You will go to the Saka and persuade him, for me, to rise from the dead and help save us.”

“Would he listen to me, a stranger?”

"You will speak for me, my words will be in your mouth.  will listen.” Lepaka paused. “He is not in sympathy with Lopes, his son. Be not concerned about that. But if he refuses you and me, you will not leave Lubinda.”

“Alive, you mean?”

“In any fashion.”

“The Saka is an old man.”

“He will listen.”

The wind came in through the small window and again died in agony, Durell thought about the prison, and did not like his thoughts. He knew that Komo Lepaka meant every word he said. Whether or not me words held the whole truth. he could not know.

He said, “And Brady Cotton?”

“You may pursue your search for him.”

“I ‘want to go to the Lady," Durell said.

The colonel's heavy eyelids thinned. “You think Brady

is there? No, no. He is off in the jungles—"

“I'd like to look.”

Lepaka said, “It is not in my jurisdiction. You must ask Hobe Tallman. He will refuse you. Duty a maintenance crew is on the rig now. All work has been stopped."

“I can get there,” Durell said.

“How?"

“Maybe Mrs. Cotton will help.”

“Ah. Kitty. A lovely young woman. Very helpful to our people. She teaches English to our children here, did you know that?"

“How much time will you give me?” Durell insisted.

Lepaka thought about it. “You may have all of tomorrow. By evening, you must he on your way to the Kahara Desert. I will let you know where to look for the Saka. You will be gone three days, at the most. You may be sure that you will be observed every moment. Any attempt to reach the border will prove unfortunate for you —and perhaps for Mrs. Cotton. too.”

“You’re not as subtle as I thought.” Durell said.

“When the fdata snake strikes, his fangs are bared.”

Chapter 8.

There was a brief freshness in the morning air when Durell stepped through the prison gates. He walked through the empty streets and lanes of the town and noted that lights were burning in the Presidential Palace. In the Chinese quarter, he smelled breakfast rice cooking and heard the wail of a child, the grunt of a pig in a backyard. He was not followed. He checked several times, and spotted no one.

He did not go back to the Lopodama Hotel. He walked quietly to the Pequah, entered that maze of tiny shops and tenements, and came to Brady Cotton’s establishment. All the windows were dark. There was a cord attached to a bell above the shaded shop door, and he tugged it gently. then again, listening to the dim tinkling inside. The lane was dark and shadowed, but no one loitered nearby. He heard a hooting from the whistle of one of the freighters moored in the river mouth. A rooster began to crow. To the west, the Atlantic brooded in sullen darkness under fading stars.

On the third ring, he heard movement beyond the door. Kitty Cotton appeared, wearing an ultra-short nightie that did nothing to make her look less desirable. Her eyes were sleepy.

“Cajun? Come in.” She undid the chain and the lock and stepped aside for him to enter. “Where’ve you been?”

“Down at the docks. In jail.“

“Jail? Oh, Lord.”

“Colonel Lepaka knows all about me. He’s known about Brady’s cover tor some time, it seems."

“Damn it. I told Brady he wasn't being too smart about things. Come in, Sam. I’ll make some coffee. Isn’t that jail a hellhole?"

“I didn‘t see too much of it. Lepaka says I have a choice—spend the rest of my life there, or help him with a private job he wants done. He‘s given me this day to find Brady."

“Nuts. Where can you look?”

“On the Lady, I thought.”

“You can‘t get out there. Nobody can.”

“Matty might help me.”

“Matt takes orders from Hobe Tallman, and Hobe says no one, but no one, goes out to the rig. He’s worried about sabotage, I guess.”

“Would you come with me?” Durell asked.

Her eyes were suddenly less sleepy. “Why me?”

“Brady’s your husband, isn’t he?”

“Not much of one,” she said.

He followed her up the stairs. The short nightie was a marvelous temptation. He kept his hands to himself.

“Let me put the coffee on and get dressed,” she said.

“How do you expect to get out to the Lady?”

“Doesn't Brady own a boat?”

She turned and looked at him. “Oh. I see what you mean. Matter of fact, I reckon he does. I’m not particularly fond of boats anymore. Are you?”

“I sail a little.”

“This is a power boat. I don’t think Brady's ever taken it out to sea that far. It’s almost twenty miles to the rig, you know.”

“What’s its speed?”

“Oh, fifteen knots, maybe. Make it two hours to get out there—as long as the ocean is reasonably calm.”

“Fine,” he said. “Get dressed."

She was quick and efficient in everything she did. He noted that she did not ask specifically what Lepaka had demanded of him. She vanished into the bedroom while he sipped the hot chicory-flavored coffee, and when she came out, she was wearing dark dungarees and a blue polo shirt that let him see the contours of her fine breasts. She had tied her hair into long braids and pinned them on top of her proud head. He thought again that Brady Cotton had been a fool to lose her. Her back and shoulders were very straight.

“Have you got a gun?” she asked.

“Do you think we’ll need one?”

‘“I’m not sure. It’s because of what the children that I teach have been saying.”

“And what’s that?”

She shrugged. “The rig is haunted. A sea devil lives out there. That sort of thing. Native superstition.”

“Do you think a sea devil is out there?”

She looked at him seriously. “I honestly don’t know. I just thought a gun might be handy.”

“Not against ghostly spirits.”

“All right. I’m just a bit jumpy, I reckon. With Brady missing, and the sabotage and accidents, and you showing up, and all. You bother me, do you know that?”

“How do I bother you?” Durell asked.

She kept her gaze level. “It’s just that you seem to be all the things I wish Brady might be. In some ways, I don’t like you. You scare me a little. Don’t forget, I was brought up on Cape Ann, and I’m part Portuguese fisherman, too. Lots of superstitions there, you see. About the ocean. I’ve never been out to the Lady, you know.”

“Let’s go,” he said. “It’s getting light.”

She still hesitated. “Still, I wish Brady was more like you. I’m taking a knife.”

“All right." He watched her choose a long, wicked-looking blade with steel about ten inches long and a blackened wooden handle. She had a leather sheath for it that clipped onto the wide studded belt of her denims. Then she touched her hair in an utterly feminine gesture and smiled, and the smile made her look defenseless, somewhat frightened, like a small girl.

The boat was moored opposite the oil docks and the switching yard where the explosions had occurred earlier. It was a thirty-two-foot wooden craft of the Boston whaler type, with a wide beam and a diesel engine and an extra fuel tank. There was a small canopy over a comfortable cockpit. It was tied to the concrete pier under a dim light from a nearby security lamp. The name on the stern was Kitty. The girl moved lightly, familiar with boats from her childhood days at Gloucester. She checked the lines and the fuel, nodded when Durell asked if there was enough for a round trip to the rig, and balanced herself easily against the slight push of the tide coming into the estuary. Off to the east the sky began to pale with the new dawn. Westward, over the African coastal waters of the Atlantic, the ocean was still utterly dark except for a few navigation lights winking against the blackness.

Durell heard the footsteps running from the oil company’s rail yard as he was about to go down the rickety wooden ladder to the whaler. He paused. touched the gun in his belt. The smell of smoke still hovered in the air from the earlier explosions.

“Cajun!”

It was Matt Forchette. His chunky figure appeared in the nearby pool of light. He wore boots and a checked cotton shirt and he held a Colt’s .45 in his hand. His square face was turgid with anger.

“What in hell are you doing?”

“Going for a boat ride, Matty,” Din-ell spoke calmly.

“Why the gun?”

“Why not? You know what‘s happening around here.”

“But we’re not on company property.”

Matty did not lower the big automatic. He looked down at Kitty Cotton and said, “Hi, sweetheart. I thought this feller was in jail.”

“Where did you hear that?” Durell asked.

“You told me yourself that Colonel Lepaka wanted to see you. I just figured—” The stocky man looked confused for a moment. He started to lower his gun, then brought it up again. “Listen, Sam, I know you—you’ve got to be up to something. Just where are you going? To the rig?”

“Yes. Looking for Brady Cotton,” Durell said.

“You think he’s out on the Lady?”

“He might be. He seems to be nowhere else.”

Matt made a snorting sound. “The chopper went out there two hours ago. Haven’t heard a word since. No radio contact at all. The supply tender needs repairs, since the explosions, so that’s no good either. I’m goin’ with you.”

Durell looked at Kitty, who nodded. “What do you mean, you haven’t heard anything from the Lady?”

“Contact went out before the chopper got there. Sure, we’re supposed to have radio telecommunications on twenty-four-hour service. Normally, the platform takes a crew of fifty-four men, but Hobe pulled most of them off

when he decided we were goin’ into a dry hole—which I think is a lot of crap—and he left only six men for maintenance. Tommy Crandon, Joe Ball, Eddie Grogan—I got the list back in the office."

“You think something has happened out there?”

“I damn well mean to find out.”

Durell said, “You don’t need that gun to convince me. Get aboard.”

Kitty handled the wheel. She stood with her legs braced against the rolling swell of the estuary and the incoming tide. Matty the Fork settled down on the stern near the inboard engine hatch and glumly put away his gun. In la moment, the dark shore receded, its empty storage tanks along the dock a mute testimony to unfulfilled hopes. A few lights twinkled in the town, but the sky to the east was now filled with radiance as the hot dawn began. The whaleboat proved sturdy and powerful against the thrust of the tide in the mouth of the river.

Matt stared moodily into the blackness ahead.

“What kind of trouble are you in, Sam? Seems to me you held out on me a bit, earlier.”

“Lepaka is giving me a little pressure.”

“What’s he want?”

“It’s jail or a little job for him.”

“You don’t want the local crib. It’s real bad. He can make any charge stick, you know.” Matty looked grim.

“What does he want you to do?”

“I have to find the Saka.”

Kitty turned and stared at Durell. Matt grunted and said, “That’s easy. His body is in the tomb by the river.”

“Lepaka says he‘s alive, somewhere in the Kahara."

“Jesus. That beats everything yet.”

“Do you believe it, Matt?”

“Listen, anything can happen in Lubinda. I wouldn’t say yes or no. But you’ll get your head chopped off and your guts cut out, and anything else bad that you can think of, goin’ into the Kahara.”

“Is Madragata really the Saka’s son?"

“So they say. It gives the Apgaks a lot of political clout with the tribes.”

"And Komo Lepaka?”

“He’s the Saka’s adopted son. Is that what Komo told you?” Matt shook his head. “Jesus, the Saka. He must be a million years old by now. Why would Komo want him back? It’ll open a whole new can of worms. Are you going to do it?”

“Komo says I have no choice.”

“He’s probably right.”

At the wheel, Kitty said, “I don’t see any lights.”

Matt stood up, bracing himself against the pitch and plunge of the small boat. “Maybe we’re not close enough yet.”

“Do the local fishermen come this far out?” Durell asked.

“Not often. Sometimes. They don’t like to get out of sight of land."

The day was bright now. They could see the horizon ahead and the last stars had paled away. Durell felt the heat of the morning sun on the back of his neck, and he put on sunglasses against the glare of light on the oily, heaving water. Kitty checked the compass bearing and Matt stood up straighter, scowling at the sea. A low line of cumulus clouds hovered just above the horizon.

‘“There she is,” Matt said suddenly. His voice was thick with relief. “Over there. Lubinda Lady I.”

Durell saw the drilling tower at the same moment. They were still six or seven miles away, and a morning haze clung to the surface of the Atlantic, making the platform seem to flout in the air, as if detached from the sea bottom that supported it. A pair of binoculars swung from the binnacle, and Durell reached around for them to study the rig. There were no other vessels in sight in the early morning light except a distant freighter, far on the horizon. He swept the sea in a full circle. Two triangular red fishing sails were behind them, bearing south along the hazy green coast.

“Let me look,” Matt said.

“In a moment.”

With every minute, the rig became clearer in the lenses. The mast, towering 140 feet above the deck and half as much again above the surface of the greenish sea, seemed intact. The stiff-legged Clyde derrick appeared to be canted a bit on its rotary table. The great tubular platform piers were streaked with rust. He swung the glasses amidships, where a tangle of lines and cables looped down from the jackhouse into the surging swells. To the  left wore the metal-sheathed houses for the crew, and then the helicopter deck, beyond the machinery house. The heliport was cantilevered out over the sea from behind the crew’s quarters. He looked again, and then handed the binoculars to Matt Forchette.

“No chopper.”

“I sent the Sikorsky out two hours ago.”

“It’s not there,” Durell said. Matty stared through the glasses at the growing image of the platform for long moments. His mouth drooped grimly.

“Right. No chopper.”

Durell said, “No people, either.”

“I noticed that.”

“Yon said there was a maintenance crew?”

“The weevils might still be all asleep. Nothing much for them to do out here.”

Durell said, “Do you believe that?”

“No.” Matt slowly lowered the glasses. “I‘m just kidding myself. The rig looks a mess. It’s been deserted.”

“You heard no Mayday from the chopper?”

“Nothing.”

The sun was now a blazing scourge above the surging ocean. The platform grew larger by the moment as Kitty held the whaleboat steadily on course. The wind blew from the west, and spray drenched them as the boat beat into the swells rolling toward them. Kitty’s face was pale under her tan. The platform was like a monstrous island, overgrown with mechanical arms, derricks, and loading cranes, covered with a spider’s web of cables and lines that had been left every which way, as if the men detailed to stand watch had abandoned the Lady in a panicked hurry, No sound came from the rig, which loomed higher and wider as they approached.

“Come into the lee,” Durell suggested.

The girl nodded. “I still don’t see a soul.”

Matt, ignoring the girl’s presence, swore in a growling Cajun accent.

Kitty said, “It’s eerie, even in broad daylight.”

The man-made island, with the drilling tower looming high against the hot, pale sky, seemed enormous. As they approached, they heard the crash and push of the sea against the six giant tubular legs that supported the rig on the ocean bottom, more than a hundred feet below. Various creakings, clangings, slappings, and crackings came from the great structure. The decks loomed overhead. Kitty brought the whaleboat around the heliport deck that jutted out beyond the crew’s quarters. Durell noted that some of the deck railing had been broken away. There were scars along the wide steel plates that supported the chopper deck, and a long bright streak where the paint had been gouged away, too recently for the ocean rust to have set in. The smell of smoke lingered  the leeward air beyond the platform.

The whaleboat rose and fell dangerously near the giant tubular legs that supported the platform.

“Is the Lady officially shut down?” Durell asked.

Matt shrugged. “Hobe was making frames to salvage the casings and plug the borehole with cement, You’ve got to plug it to prevent the migration of different fluids from the underground strata we’ve drilled through. But he couldn’t get permission from the oil ministry in Lubinda to abandon yet.”

“When were you here last?”

“Two days ago, with a shipment of barite—that’s barium sulphate, a mineral we use to increase the specific gravity and weight of the drilling mud. We’ve been using bentonite, a colloidal clay, which swells when wet, and We’d just gotten a new shipment. I’ve been going on as it We weren’t going to shut down, no matter what Hobe says about no oil under this water.”

Something clanged, steel on steel, on the deck high above them. Kitty reversed the whaleboat’s engine and Durell went forward to catch a long loop of cable that hung down from the side of the heliport.

“Blow the horn, Kitty,” Matt said hoarsely. “Someone’s got to be up there. They ought to have shipped the ladder down by now.”

“Maybe somebody’s there,” the girl said, “but I don’t think we’re going to be welcome.”

Durell tied up the whaleboat. “How many of your men are new, Matt? The place looks like a crow’s nest.”

“Hell, they’re all good boys. Picked them myself.”

Kitty sounded the whaleboat’s horn, listened to the strange echoes move away along the shadowed underside of the platform. The boat lifted and fell, splashing. She touched the compressed-air horn again. The raucous

blast was feeble against the immense noise of the heaving seas that rolled under the rig. The clanging and banging of loose equipment sounded even louder now that they were close aboard. Durell spotted a series of pipe ladders going up under the heliport deck, and pulled the whaleboat closer to it so they could step onto the tiny steel platform that was regularly awash at sea level. Kitty tied a quick bowline to secure the whaleboat. She looked uncertain. Fifty feet above, the three-sided deck of the chopper platform jutted over their heads, casting a shadow against the sun at their backs.

“Come on,“ Matt said grimly.

He jumped for the tiny step, slipped. caught at the pipe railing, did not look back as he started to climb hand over hand. Durell checked the girl.

“Maybe you should stay here.”

“Not a chance.” She looked almost as grim as Matt.

“I’ve got to see what’s going on.”

“Brady was curious, too," Durell said. “He had all those charts and progress reports and specifications in his office. And he’s disappeared. So has the standby crew here. And the Sikorsky.”

“I saw the same scars.” She pointed upward. “The chopper missed the landing platform and went into the water, didn’t it? Just about where we are now.”

“Missed, or was shoved over the side,” Durell said.

“Oh, hell. I knew the pilot. John was nice.”

“Stay here," Durell said again.

“No. I’m going with you.”

She refused his hand offered in help, jumped nimbly to the foot of the ladder, and climbed up after the chunky figure of Matt, who was already halfway to the lower deck. Durell went up after her.

The smell of smoke was stronger here, clinging to the steel girders supporting the heliport deck. At the top of the ladder, Matt hammered on the steel hatch over his head. After a moment, it gave way and he scrambled up, out of sight. The girl followed. Durell came last.

What had happened was only too evident. The scorching sun on the painted steel deck before them revealed the scars of a bomb blast or explosion, marked by the rubberized streaks made by the choppers wheels as it was pushed and hauled to the edge of the deck. There were more scars at the rail, broken Plexiglas, a yellow wing tip. The heat made waves of air dance over the fiat expanse of steel plate. Matty the Fork pushed stubby fingers through his cropped hair and cursed. His jaw stuck out stubbornly.

“The chopper was pushed overboard,” Durell said.

“Yeah. A lot of money and men," Matt muttered.

“They may not be dead.”

Below them, the sea hissed and rumbled. Loose cables moved in the wind, and metal banged loosely somewhere, as if a bulkhead door was open, although the platform itself was as steady as if built on dry land. All around them, the sea sparkled in emptiness. The two fishing boats with their triangular red sails had vanished toward the invisible shore to the east.

Matt cupped his hands and yelled.

“Connie? John? Ed?”

His voice went forward toward the crew’s quarters, the jackhouse, the drilling mast. No one was in sight. Nobody answered his angry shout.

“Come on,” Matt said. “There‘s something screwy here."

Dangerous was the proper word, Durell thought. He could feel it, smell it in the air of abandonment. The Lubinda Lady seemed empty. Seemed, he repeated to himself. He took nothing for granted. Outward appearances were as deceptive as a spider’s web to an unwary fly. He took his gun from his belt and held it loosely in his hand. A block banged hollowly against a girder. There were small square windows in the back of the crew’s quarters

that faced them. Nothing moved except a small white curtain that flapped through an open sash.

“Matt, go slow,” he said quietly.

There was a neatly stacked pyramid of casing pipe this side of the drilling tower. Crates, boxes, drums of fuel were also neatly ordered beyond the crew’s housing, on the opposite side or the platform from the jackhouse. The wind blew stronger across the deck, smelling of the limitless ocean.

Kitty said, “What’s wrong, Sam?”

“It looks as if the Lady has been pirated.”

They moved carefully to the crew’s quarters. The door was open, swinging slightly in the wind. There was nothing but silence, except for the occasional clatter of loose equipment in the wind and the endless surge and hiss of the sea far below-the platform.

“Stay out here, Kitty,” Durell said.

The girl shook her head. “No, I want to stay with you. Frankly, I’ve got the creeps.”

The bunk rooms were all neatly made up. In one of them, Durell noted the long ash of a cigarette in a tray. He touched it tentatively, but could not tell how long the ash had been there. The galley was another matter. He could smell the burned bacon before they got there. The stainless-steel range, with its assortment of pots and skillets, was still turned on. The burners were hot. A huge pan contained only dozens of small, shriveled black crisps of bacon. Scrambled eggs in another skillet were almost unrecognizable. Durell watched Kitty automatically turn off the power in the stoves with a look of unconscious concern on her fine face. There was still some coffee in the big pot.

“Where is the radio shack?” Durell asked.

“This way,” Matt said.

They went up a spiral stairway to the upper deck of the crewhouse. The door stood ajar. Durell held the others back and pushed at the door with his fingertips. Nothing happened. The radio shack also operated as a miniature control tower for the heliport; its wide windows faced fore and aft. The operator’s swivel chair had been turned to face the door, as if the radiomen had swung around suddenly to greet an intruder. Matt gave a low whistle.

“Look at that."

A crowbar lay on the carpeted deck. Someone had used it to smash the bank of communication instruments into a tangled mass of wires, dials, and twisted plates. Durell started across the green carpet, then checked himself and the others. There were stains on the carpet, a series of bloody drops soaked into the fibers, and a long scuff mark leading to the door where they stood. Durell knelt and tentatively touched the nearest drop. It had just started to coagulate.

“Your radioman was slugged and dragged out of here. It couldn’t have happened more than half an hour ago.”

Matt looked toward the eastward windows facing the invisible coast. “Those two fishing boats we saw—”

“Could be. I want to see the office—the one you and Hobe used.”

“That’s kind of restricted, Sam.”

Durell looked flatly at the foreman. “Do you want to stand on ceremony now? it‘s plain the rig has been hijacked—at least, the crew has been forced oil and the radio smashed and the chopper given the deep six.”

“But—why?” Matt demanded. “We were shut down, We were going to abandon the drilling hole—”

“Why was your switcher loco and yard sabotaged last night?”

“I can’t figure it," Matt grumbled.

“Somebody doesn’t want the Lubinda Lady to strike oil, that’s what it amounts to. Maybe Brady Cotton was working on this and that‘s why he disappeared, too.”

“But—who?”

“Apgaks, maybe,” Durell suggested.

“Just to disrupt things?”

“Maybe.”

Durell went out on the catwalk and took the ladder down to the main deck. The morning sun was hotter now. The crewhouse and radio shack were air-conditioned, and the pumps were still running; but now the force of the sun hit them with unexpected strength. The reflections from the sea were all but blinding.

“I’ll take you to the lab,” Matt agreed. “Hobe kept duplicates of all the records there.”

Durell still had a sense of oppressive danger amid the glare and heat of the deck as they walked toward the drilling tower. The tanks of mud, water, diesel fuel, the neat loops of chain and cable, the casing racks, a shack containing small power takeoffs, drilling bits, all presented a maze of equipment that could trap the unwary. Seagulls mewed and soared overhead in the blinding sky. Durell had gone out on ocean rigs before, during his youth on the Gulf, but never on one of these enormous dimensions.

A ladder took them to a lower deck beneath the main. It was a relief to escape the blast of sunlight. But here the swish and rumble of the sea were exaggerated by echoes, and for the first time, Kitty slipped her hand into Durell’s. Her fingers were cold. He headed for the door at the end of the wide catwalk. Fluorescent lights still blazed in the windows visible here. Again, no one was in sight. The maintenance crew had disappeared as it snatched up into the sky or dropped into the deep green sea.

“I tell you,” Matt said loudly, “we were ready to hit pay sand. I could smell it. I had the safety valve ready, the oil string standing by—that’s the final set of casing we put down into a well once we’re sure of production. We’d already hit a gas zone, twice. And then Hobe told us to shut down and get ready to tie into the rig tender and pump up the legs so we could either move to another zone or give it up and get towed away.” Matt the Fork waved a calloused hand. “This whole thing will float, you  know.”

The door to the geologist’s office and lab was closed and locked. Matt fumbled in his pocket for a key. The lock seemed stubborn for a moment, then it clicked open.

The interior looked as if a wild animal had gone rabid among the desks, files, cases of core samples, charts, and cabinets. A chair lay on the floor, its swivel legs upward. There were wash basins in which the technicians had studied the lithographic formations obtained by the drill. The samples were taken either from the bore or from the bailer in cable tool cuttings, and were then washed free of foreign matter, dried, and labeled to show the depths at which they were found. There were thick files or records analyzing the samples for porosity, permeability, angle of dip, fluid content, and geological age. Most of the analysis sheets were strewn like a snowstorm over the floor of the laboratory. Slung against one wall of the long room was a twenty-foot core barrel which was run at the bottom of the drill pipe in place of the bit. Matt the Fork looked around at the mess with utter incomprehension.

“What? What in hell happened?”

“You’ve been raided,” Durell said. “Maybe by the Apgaks, maybe by some competitor who wants to force you out of Lubinda."

“But what happened to the crew?”

“It looks as if they were rounded up and taken ashore.”

“It still makes no sense.”

Durell said, “Where were Hobe Tallman’s records?”

“This way.”

The inner office was finely furnished with a steel desk and swivel chair upholstered in leather, curtained windows, a small mahogany bar, some tribal wood carvings that stood three feet high in the corner—perhaps purchased from Brady Cotton‘s collection. Kitty followed them dutifully from the laboratory. There was a large carton in one corner where some core samples had been dumped in a sludgy mess. Matt shook his head dolefully.

“What’s in there?” Durell asked. He indicated a large metal chart ease, the sort that well-equipped seagoing vessels maintain. Matt shook his head again. “It’s locked, Sam. They’re Hobe‘s private analyses.”

“Don’t you have a key?”

“No. Only Hobe has access to those reports and charts. They go back to the home office in Houston.”

Durell tried the lock handle. He was not surprised when the topmost drawer slid out easily. He looked for Matt’s reaction, but the man showed only surprise.

“Hell, there’s nothing in it!”

“They’ve been cleaned out,” Durell said, opening one shallow chart drawer after the other.

“Those bastards,” Matt muttered.

“Who?”

“It could be the Syno-Pet GK people. They operate up in Nigeria and off the Ivory Coast. They came down here after we started and tried to cozy up to the Lubinda Ministry, but they didn’t get anywhere, Sam. I hate to think a rival company would do this.”

“When was Hobe last aboard?”

“Two days ago, I think. To my knowledge, anyway. He wasn’t here long. Stayed out here an hour, came back, didn‘t say anything was wrong.”

“Did he look worried?”

“Well, maybe, but then, he’s always worried. Between the sabotage on the job, the Apgaks, and his wife Betty—"’

“Was he carrying anything?”

“No. His hands were empty.”

“You talked to him then?”

“No. Betty was on the dock with the Mercedes, and I didn’t want to go near her. She—” Matt looked at Kitty. “I didn’t want another argument with her, is all.”

There was nothing more to be learned from the shambles of the office and the laboratory. “Did you have any labor troubles?” Durell asked.

“Absolutely not. Everybody here, from the roustabouts to the derrickmen, were on time and a half, with a bonus for overseas work. Nobody had a squawk, not the lab men or the roughnecks. Everybody was happy with their day work rates, even though there isn’t much in Lubinda to spend money on.”

Durell paused. He could hear the muffled clanging of a loose block that dangled from the starboard Clyde pintle crane. “Let’s look for Brady,” he said.

“But nobody is aboard," Kitty objected.

“I think Brady is.”

In Durell’s business, hunches were usually to be ignored as unfounded on proper data and therefore dangerous. Yet he could not abandon his feeling that the rig, apparently deserted, held someone, someone he had not yet seen or heard. He climbed to the top deck, amid the carefully ordered jumble of mud-mixing tanks, oxygen blowers, cables, and tools, and stared toward the high spiderweb of the drilling tower. On either hand were the cargo derricks, the Clyde and the Caterpillar diesels, and the Link LS-108-B crawler. The smell of the sea and oil and hot metal from the equipment pervaded the air. The west wind was fresher, but the odor of fire still persisted, clinging to the hot metal. He watched the gulls circling the small operating cab at the topmost tower of the starboard derrick. They screamed raucously, hovering in the wind, their features delicately adjusting -to each change of pressure in the air stream—

Durell moved carefully across the hot, sun-scorched deck toward the port side of the platform, stepping among the tubes and piping in his way.

“What is it?” Kitty asked. Her face was pale.

“Brady,” he said.

“Where?”

“Just stand back a bit.”

He climbed up on the Clyde, swung past the main cab control of the cargo derrick, looked up into the blazing sun at the three arms of the crane. The block that swung loosely at the end or the long, arced cable came from the middle arm of the hoisting derrick, where the topmost cab was located. He could see the man’s head and arms now, dangling loosely from the tiny window. Kitty followed him on the circular platform.

“It can’t be Brady."

“We’ll see. Stay with Matt.”

He quickly climbed up the narrow ladder on the derrick arm. The metal was hot under his touch. The sea seemed to rotate around the horizon as he climbed higher and higher. It was a dizzying perch above the level of the ocean, but the climb did not take more than twenty seconds. The man in the cab had been shot in the face, and the blood had coagulated some time ago, leaving a mask of blackness over the upper part of his features. Durell reached up for the tiny cab door and pulled it open, clinging to the iron rungs with one hand. Looking down, he saw Matt and Kitty, their figures foreshortened, staring up at him, shading their eyes against the sun. They looked small on the deserted platform.

The dead man was Brady Cotton.

.It was a tight squeeze to get into the cabin because of the way he had crumpled forward when death came. The body had already stiffened and then relaxed. Durell struggled to get the arms and head free of the tiny window; he couldn’t do it, and gave up. Nothing would help Brady Cotton now. His main purpose was to discover whatever it was Brady had learned that had caused his death. There had to be a reason for it. All the men who had been left to maintain the rig had been taken off, somehow, alive or dead. But Brady had been abandoned in his lonely perch between sea and sky. Whoever had killed him either had not thought it worthwhile to remove him, or had deliberately left him for later discovery.

“Sam!”

He ignored Kitty’s call while he searched awkwardly through the dead man’s pockets. He found nothing except a crumpled pack of American cigarettes. The khaki slacks provided a wallet with some Lubindan currency, the names of several art agents, a folded cable from an importer in New York detailing his needs. He found no weapons on the dead man.

“Sam!”

He looked down at the girl’s small figure.

“Sam, is it Brady?”

"Yes."

“Is he—?”

“Yes, he’s dead.”

“I want to see him!”

He shook his head. Brady had been dead two days. He had not been killed up here, but somewhere else aboard the rig, and then, perhaps only hours ago, the body had been taken from its hiding place and hauled up to the cab, perhaps as a symbolic gesture or warning to him, Durell. He saw the brief slumping of the girl’s shoulders. Whatever their marital differences, Durell thought, she had been a loyal wife. He gave up trying to free Brady’s body from the tiny cab and started down the narrow iron rungs on the derrick arm.

The rifle bullet missed him by a hair.

Then he understood why Brady’s body had been propped up here.

Chapter 9.

The slug ricocheted off the steel boom of the derrick with a sharp scream. The rifle made a sudden sharp report. Durell was not sure where the shot had come from; nor did he take the time to find out. He dropped down the ladder fast, heard Matt shouting and ta brief yelp from Kitty. Another shot cracked toward his silhouette against the hot, pale sky. Then came the stutter of automatic rifle fire. Durell let go of the rungs and dropped the last ten feet to the greasy rotary table, slipped, dropped again to the deck. His gun came into his hand.

Matt the Fork held his big Colt up.

“Did you see them?” Matt asked hoarsely.

“They’re at the drilling tower.”

“How many?”

“Two, maybe three. So we’re not alone here.” Durell looked at the girl. “Are you all right?”

“Yes, I think so.” Her face was pale. “I guess I knew something had happened to Brady, somehow. Was it bad?”

“He never knew what hit him.”

“When did it happen?"

“A day or two ago. He was put up there so that anyone who climbed up for him would make a target."

Matt said slowly, “He wasn’t supposed to be aboard. There’s no record that he came out here. So he was hiding out, doing God knows what on the Lady, and somebody killed him?”

“What's more to the point right now,” Durell said grimly, “is who those men are and what they’re doing here.”

There were no more shots. The sun blazed down on them without mercy. The seagulls had gone away, sloping downwind. The sea sloshed and thudded against the platform piers below. Durell moved off to the right, taking Kitty with him behind the protection of the bulky cargo rig. The intricate pattern of guy wires, lock and tackle, and the main cabin of the Clyde offered them some protection. When he looked out beyond the bulky mechanism, he could see around the base of the drilling mast and the cluttered deck that formed the well pattern; but he spotted no movement except the faint swaying of a long cable from the head of the tower. A ladder led down the side of the Clyde to the main deck. On the other side of the rig platform was the other cargo derrick, the Link crawler. it was oil to starboard over 130 feet away. The shots had come from the drilling mast, he was sure. There was a pattern of linear shadows there, cast by the girders of the tower that rose 150 feet into the hot sky. The smells of the sea mingled with the odor of sun-scorched steel and oil.

“Stay with Matt, Kitty.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I’ll try to flush them out.”

“Sam, don’t be foolish—”

He spoke quietly. “We’re alone on the Lady with them. Whoever they are, they mean to get rid of us so they can finish the work they were left here to do.”

“What could that be?”

“Possibly sabotage to the Lady,” he suggested.

“But it’s so big—”

“There’s no way oil the Lady,” he said. “We’re stuck here with them. unless we can get hack to your boat. I doubt that they’ll just let us walk aft and climb down and go away.” He turned. “Matt?”

“Yo.”

“Come around the other side of the Clyde. Don’t expose yourself. When you’re ready, whistle. Then wait a few seconds. Check your watch. Make it ten seconds, and then we’ll both show ourselves and try to flush them out.”

Matt’s jaw muscles knotted. “Right. Ten seconds.”

The housing atop the well deck was two stories above the main deck. The heavy blocklike structures at each corner of the platform and on each side amidships, that held the tops of the cylinder platform legs. cut off Durell’s view from down here. The railing ended outboard with the flush steel sides of the platform corners. He would have to go inboard and around the housing and try to make it under the overhang of the well-pattern structure astern. The enemy was on top of that deck, at the base of the tower. There was a maze of winches and guy wires from the Clyde, a pattern of V-shaped girders supporting the well house. Above was a railed deck, then the well deck itself. Two square windows were positioned on this corner of the well housing, above the railed deck. If he could cross the area between the stiff-legged derrick and get under the central overhang, he would reach shelter. Durell calculated his chances and saw Matt move away from around the Clyde; he whistled softly, looked at his watch.

Ten seconds crawled by.

Then he started his run.

Immediately, the rattle of two automatic rifles came at him. The bullets whined and whistled overhead, screamed off the decking, hit the big power winch aft of the Clyde. Durell ducked, changed direction, flung himself forward into hot shadows. The shots had come from the windows above. The enemy had gone down from the tower platform into the housing. He still could not see them. He still did not know how many they were.

“Matt?”

“Yo.”

“Come on.”

“I can’t. I’m hit.”

“Where?”

“My leg: Son of a bitch.”

“Bad?”

“I don’t know.”

“Stay where you are. Cover me. I’m going in.”

Durell did not wait for an answer. He moved sideways toward an open bulkhead door, saw Matt now, lying in the sun, his body cramped, one arm holding one thigh drawn up against his stomach. His eyes looked blind. There was no time to help him. Durell ducked into the oval doorway, came up against a steel ladder in the shadowed gloom, grabbed the rungs, and pulled himself up fast, taking the steel treads two and three at a time.

The black figure of a man suddenly appeared above him.

Durell held his gun in both hands, fired three times, carefully, saw the man lurch backward; he dropped the rifle toward him, then followed, tumbling loosely in the familiar, disjointed pattern of death. He squeezed aside and lot the black man tumble to the foot of the narrow stairs, and caught up the rifle. It was a Russian-made AK-47. The clip was almost full. He was familiar enough with it.

There was shouting now, echoes in the well housing, a gabble of dialect he did not understand. Two more of them. Maybe three. He went on up the steel stairway, slowly now, making no sound, although they knew he was in here. The interior gloom, after the blinding sunlight on the platform deck, made his vision hazy for a moment. He paused two treads below the top of the stairs and thrust his S&W revolver into his belt, deciding to rely on the automatic rifle. Feet scuffed on a steel deck plate, out of sight and down the narrow corridor to his right. There was whispering again in the unknown dialect.

Then silence.

Below, in the open bulkhead door, the dead man sprawled in a slant of sunlight. He wore only a dark loincloth and a dirty red rag around his long head. Durell‘s slugs had hit him three times in the chest. Blood welled up thickly across the ebony skin and dripped to the rusting steel deck.

Naked feet slapped and slid on the plates around the corner. Durell moved his finger on the trigger of the AK-47 and went up fast, turned right, immediately fired at his target. There was only one man here, facing him, a tall thin figure, again in only a loincloth and a red headband. The clamor and blast of Durell’s gun chopped through the hot silence of the housing. The other’s gun cluttered in reply. But Durell’s surprise appearance gave him a split-second advantage. The tall, skinny figure jumped, jerked, was flung backward around the far corner of the corridor. For just an instant, Durell glimpsed the strange, drug-crazed eyes of the Apgak fighter. The man must have been hit three or four times by Durell’s burst; yet he had the strength and destructive drive to pull away out of sight.

He was careful approaching the corner. As on the rest of the rig, there was no sign here of the maintenance crew. He did not relish going around the corner to face a Lubindan hopped up to the eyebrows. He took a deep breath, then went around in a low flat dive to the floor, the automatic thrust before him in both hands, his finger tightening on the trigger. The clamor of his shoes spraying down the corridor echoed in emptiness. The man was gone. There was only a trail of wet blood on the deckplates to show which way his quarry had vanished.

Then he heard Kitty scream.

He straightened, then went up more steel ladders to the base of the drilling tower. The sunlight scorched his eyes. Blood spattered the deck, leading through and around a clutter of tools and equipment to a point above the windows from which the first shots had come. Something moved down there, close to the derrick, in the sharp shadows cast by the sun. A ladder forward led him down again. He could not see Matt or the girl. All at once he felt as if he had been drawn off balance, that he himself was not the true target. if Brady Cotton had been deliberately murdered, then perhaps the next victim was to be his young wife. He did not know why he felt this presentiment so strongly, but he acted on it at once.

He came around the corner toward the rotary table of the derrick and saw Matt, leaning against the housing. He still hugged his wounded leg, but a long, emaciated shadow stood over him, holding a knife splintering light from its broad. sharp blade. It was the man Durell had wounded. Durell yelled, jumped across the intervening distance, and fired twice. Matt had already turned to see his attacker. The Apgak jerked and tumbled forward as Durell's bullets found their final mark. The man fell across Marts wounded leg and Matt yelled with the pain.

Again, Kitty screamed.

Durell paused only to be sure that Matt was all right and that the Apgak was truly dead this time. He was not sure what drug the man had taken, but it had given him  an enormous, unnatural impetus to finish his mission even though he had been bleeding to death. Durell came to the top of the cab and crossed it, crouching, to the other side where he could see the deck where he had left Kitty.

The third man had cornered her against the railing between the platform leg housing and the derrick’s rotary table. Her hair had come loose and fell in a long pale screen across her face. She had her knife in her hand, but it looked useless against the tall, muscular figure of the third Apgak who moved toward her.

Durell did not wait. He jumped for the man from the top of the derrick cab, reversing his rifle and using the butt to smash into the man’s black. The Apgak stumbled and doubled over the rail, twisted, came up with teeth glearn.i.ng in an unnatural smile like a death rictus. Durell hit him again, drove him backward, baffled by the man’s unnatural, drugged strength. Kitty slid sideways, out of the way. The man smashed alt him with his gun, missed, then hurled it at the girl. It missed Kitty‘s head by an inch.

The Apgak scarcely looked at Durell. His sole aim was to get at Kitty. Durell yelled at her to get back, but she only flattened against the cab’s side, her arms spread wide. Her face was very pale. The Apgak swung an arm like a flail at him. He felt the impact like a logging pole and staggered against the forward rail. The sea looked far below. His side felt numb from the blow. He straightened, hit the man in the throat, hit him again, heard the Apgak’s breath hiss like steam. The eyes were wild and unnatural. Reluctantly, the man turned his attention to Durell, his tall figure moving forward, the mouth gleaming, the teeth very white in the sunlight against the bony, skeletal face.

Durell drew in a deep breath, aware of a sluggish response in him from the blow in his side.

“Sam, he has luitha in him,” Kitty called. “It’s a drug—”

"Stay back," he said, not looking at her.

“What about Matt?”

“Hurt. He’ll be all right, if we—”

The Apgak jumped suddenly sideways, not at him, but at the girl. Her voice had pulled his attention back to her. Kitty yelped and Durell landed on the man’s sweat-slick back. They went down, rolling toward the rail. The man’s body was slippery with oil, the muscles ropy and strong, sliding smoothly under the slick skin. For an instant, when they looked into each other’s eyes, Durell saw nothing but madness in the others red-black depths. He felt a sharp stab in the back of his neck; the man’s fingernails ripped down his side like claws. He thought he heard the distant beating of wings in the air, as if the pressure waves of heat had suddenly been translated into repetitive sound. He slammed a forearm across the Apgak’s throat and threw his weight forward on it. The man and his arm slipped in the sweat gathered in the man’s squirmed and heaved under him. His breath hissed. He drew a leg up to knee Durell, and a thin, incoherent babble came from his open mouth. Durell applied more pressure. A shadow flickered over him, and he heard an intense roaring. The body under him heaved convulsively and his arm slipped in the sweat gathered in the man’s throat. All in an instant, the Apgak got away, scrambling to his feet, lunging for the girl, who still had not moved to safety. The tall black man got his hands on her and hurled her like a broken doll against the side of the derrick cab. Her head hit the steel and she slid, spread-legged, to the deck. The Apgak gave a triumphant yell and jumped for her.

Durell saw something huge flicker above him and heard the thrust and beat of rotors, and then he plunged between the drug-crazed man and Kitty. He used the edge of his hand to chop at the Apgak’s throat, arm, and belly. The man fell to his knees. Durell kicked him off balance, jumped, spread-eagled the man, slammed a knee into his groin, hammered at the open-mouthed face. It seemed to take forever to overcome the spastic drive that the drug gave his opponent. He heard yelling and then he felt hands on his back and Kitty called, “Sam, stop, it’s all right now! Lepaka is here!”

His rage surprised him. But he let himself be pulled away from the Apgak, who was bleeding from nose and mouth and had a broken wrist and whose breath rasped like steam in the overheated air.

“Stand quietly, Mr. Durell.”

He straightened slowly. A Bell chopper had landed on the heliport deck. The machine looked like a giant, bubble-eyed insect, the Plexiglas glinting in the hot sunlight. Two of Colonel Komo Lepaka’s men, dressed in their khaki shorts and natty Sam Browne belts over dark shirts, held him.

He turned and looked at the colonel.

“A welcome surprise. What brought you here?”

“It was simple to deduce where you had gone. Was this man trying to kill you?”

“He was after Kitty. Better send one of your people to help Matt Forchette. He's been shot in the leg.” Durell flapped a hand to port. “Around the other side of the derrick.”

“Mr. Forchette is being cared for. We will get him to the hospital in Lubinda.” Komo Lepaka still looked like a giant stork, his long thin legs sticking out from his neatly pressed shorts. “You may tell me what happened here.”

Durell walked to Kitty. She sat up, her eyes still dazed. “They were trying to kill her. Not me, not Matty. The girl. Those were their orders.”

“Why, Mr. Durell?”

“I don’t know.”

“Where is the crew supposed to be aboard here?”

Durell told him briefly what had happened since their arrival on the Lady. The colonel listened, his small, bony face impassive. The helicopters rotors idled in long, sweeping arcs over the forward deck. Durell helped Kitty to her feet and said, "Are you sure you’re all right?”

“I’m just beginning to get seared” She managed a crooked grin. “Just now, when it’s all over.”

Lepaka said, “Did you find Mr. Cotton?”

“Up there.” Durell pointed to the tiny cab on the derrick arm high overhead. “He’s dead. Murdered.”

Lepaka listened to the rest of it with the same lack of emotion he had shown before. Now and then his eyes touched the Apgak who had been thrown flat on his face on the deck, arms and legs splayed, held there by his two men.

“We will take care of everything, Mr. Durell. It seems to be a great mystery, does it not? Perhaps this man you captured will give us some answers.”

Kitty said, “He’s piped to the eyes with luitha.”

“That can be cured,” Lepaka said quietly. “Perhaps you should go to the helicopter now, Mrs. Cotton. Please accept my condolences.”

Kitty looked up at Brady’s dead body dangling from the tiny cab of the derrick mast. Suddenly she began to quake, and she clung to Durell as if he were the only stable object in a world that had turned upside down.

“Go to the chopper,” Durell said gently.

“No. I’ll stay with you.”

He saw that Lepaka and his two guards were only waiting to handle the Apgak lying on his face before them. The colonel shrugged and knelt very carefully beside the man.

“Butithi?” He gave the last syllable a clicking sound with his tongue, in the Lubindan manner. Then he spoke in English. “Butithi, I know you. You work for Madragata, correct? How many people did you kill here?”

The man spat. He said something in Apgak and Lepaka looked up at Kitty, who still did not understand what was about to happen. Then Lepaka nodded to one of his men, who took a military knife from a scabbard at his hip, knelt, looked into the prisoner‘s eyes, and cut off one of the man’s thumbs. Blood spurted on the rust-streaked deck. The man‘s arm did not jerk, and he did not make a sound.

“How many, Butithi?” Click. “As many as there are fingers on your hand?”

“None.”

“Ah. You found your tongue before you lost it. Where are the Americans who were aboard?”

“They were not harmed.”

“Where are they?”

“They were taken ashore. They will be kept as hostages against the government. We will collect many millions in ransom for each of them.”

Komo Lepaka said, “You will collect a rhinoceros horn up your intestines if you think so. Where can they be found?”

“I do not know.”

The policeman cut off another finger. The Apgak squinted a little this time, staring at the long digit of flesh lying on the deck before his face. More blood dribbled from his hand. Durell looked at Kitty. There was nothing he could do to stop what was happening. He knew what would be the end of it, eventually, and he did not know if she knew it; but she would not move away. She stared at the Apgak as if he were a deadly captured snake.

Two more fingers were cut oil before Komo Lepaka was satisfied, A smell came from the captured man that was difficult to define. Whatever drug he had been given was not wearing off; it apparently rendered the pain tolerable. It seemed to Durell that it would have been better to Wait a few hours until the man could respond normally; but he could no-t interfere. He was not sure he wanted to, when he thought of how the man had tried, against all odds, to reach Kitty and kill her.

“Butithi,” Lepaka said with a click of his tongue. “Butithi, when did you come to this place?”

“In the night, Colonel.”

“Ah. And you killed Mr. Cotton up there?”

“No.”

“Your companions did it, then?”

“No. He was dead.”

“When was he dead.”

“He was dead when we came here and took the crew away.”

Durell interrupted to tell Lepaka of the searched and torn-up offices. Lepaka listened to him and watched him with his hooded, muddy eyes that gave nothing away. Finally, he turned back to the prisoner.

“Butithi, you heard all that?“

“I heard it, you capitalistic running dog.”

“Who did the searching?”

“We did not."

“You did not go into the offices?"

“We were waiting, we were left here, the three of us, to wait for and kill the white girl.”

“Why?”

“We were told to do so. We are disciplined.”

“How did you know she would come here?”

Lepaka looked angry, waiting for an answer. The prisoner said, “I am not told everything. We were ordered to wait aboard the platform, and when she carne, to kill her.”

Lepaka stared at Kitty. “Do you know why the Apgaks have suddenly chosen you for a victim?”

“No.”

“Brady told you nothing, gave you no clues?”

“None.”

Lepaka turned again. “Butithi, you knew there was no escape for you? You knew that when your comrades left you here, to kill and murder, that you would never leave this place alive?”

“We knew, Komo. Yes, we knew.”

“You wished to die?”

“No man wishes to die.”

“But you were given luitha?”

“It helps.”

“Then you will die, Butithi.”

“I wait.”

“Do you know what your noble leader, Madragata, the hireling of the Maoists, did this morning, Butithi? It may explain why he left you, in particular, to do this work of suicide.”

The captive waited. He had rolled over on his back, his face upturned to the sun, his eyes wide open, the retinas burning in the glare. He said nothing. He moved one hand up before his face briefly, to look at the bloody stumps where his fingers had been amputated, and then he lowered his hand and let the blood run slowly over his naked, sweaty chest.

“Butithi?”

“I hear you, traitor to our people.”

“Butithi, your noble leader this morning, to keep us busy and our attention distracted from this place, attacked your village and killed your wife and three of your children and many others. And also Senhor Fernandez, the Portuguese shopkeeper there, and his wife and children, too.”

“Good.”

“Do you understand me, Butithi?"

“It is good that Senhor Fernandez is dead. He was a colonialist, imperialist oppressor of our people.”

“And your wife and children, Butithi? What were they?”

“You lie, Komo.”

“You know that I never lie.” Lepaka paused. “Have you anything more to tell me?”

“I wish to die.”

“You shall.”

Lepaka took the bloody knife from his patrolman and knelt beside the prisoner. He thrust the point of the blade under Butithi’s left ear, twisted it, then cut across the man‘s throat in a swift movement and stepped back as the blood spurted and gouted from the severed artery, pumping like a small fountain of thick bright red into the hot, sunlit silence. Lepaka continued to work with the knife, handling-it deliberately, expertly cutting through to the bone of the spinal column and around to the base of the neck. He did not sweat or show any effort at the butchering work. The body jerked several times, the limbs twitched, the dead eyes rolled. When the head was completely severed Lepaka stood up and threw the knife overboard and turned back to the patrolmen, who watched what had been done with no expression on their faces.

“Take the head back to his village. Put it on a pole in front of his house, and leave it there.”

Durell suddenly realized that Kitty Cotton had buried her face against his chest and had not watched the execution.

Chapter 10.

Hobe Tallman said, “It’s been a bad morning for Lubinda. Madragata’s people slip in and out of the city like ghosts. Today is their worst work yet. Kitty, I have some air tickets for tonight’s flight to Luanda, and you can transfer from there for São Tomé and then go on to Lisbon. I can charge it to the company’s expense account. Hell, we don’t have much cash left, but there’s enough for that. I’ll make all the arrangements about Brady, don’t give it a thought." Hobe was very much the efficient executive. It was a side of the man that Durell had not seen before. “I’ll take care of everything, Kitty. You just do as I say. Get out of here while you can.”

“No,” she whispered.

“Why not?”

“I want to stay with Sam.”

“But, Kitty—”

"Brady worked for Sam—or Sam’s people, anyway. I think I should stick it out. Anyway, I have no other place to go. I don’t have anyone, anywhere, in the whole world. And I have work to do in Lubinda.”

“You poor child, you’ll get yourself killed,” Hobe said.

“I’ll take my chances with Sam.”

They were in Hobe’s office at the oil company dock. A pall of dark smoke drifted in the sky above the low jungled hills to the west. The air conditioner in Hobe’s office worked only fitfully, and the man’s pink-brown face was shiny with sweat. Still, Hobe looked neat and tidy, like a city man on his way to the commuter train. He looked at Durell and said urgently, “Take her out of it, Sam.”

“I can’t. I’m not sure I want to.”

“I’ve already cabled the home office about the kidnapped men, and I’ve ordered all the rest of our people to stay close to the compound. I think there’s going to be a revolution in this country any hour. We only have a few weapons on hand, and Lepaka won’t give us more. Says he can’t spare them. You don’t have to worry about Matt the Fork, though. I hear he’ll be up and around and out of the hospital in a couple of days. I’ve taken care of all that, too. But Kitty—”

“What would they want to steal from your office out on the rig?” Durell asked quietly.

“I don’t know, I can’t even guess.”

“Did you know that Brady was out there?”

“I certainly did not. No one was authorized to go out to the Lady except Matt and myself.”

“You didn’t take him out there?”

“I told you, no. Absolutely not.”

“Then the only people who can tell us about Brady’s death,” said Durell, “are the maintenance crew who were on the Lady. And the Apgaks have them.”

Hobe said, “Poor devils.”

“I’d like a list of the men who were aboard. Brady was murdered about two days ago, before the Apgak attack.”

Hobe’s eyes grew round. “What does that mean? None of my men are murderers, Durell.”

“That remains to be seen. They surely knew about Brady’s death—one of them knew, anyway.”

Hobe grunted. “Matt can give you the list. I didn’t assign men to their specific jobs. Matt took care of that.”

Durell felt frustrated. “What about your records that were destroyed’? Why would anyone ransack your office on the Lady and take away some of the records and destroy the rest?”

“I can’t even guess,” the man said helplessly. “Those papers can’t be replaced, you know. They were highly confidential and not in duplicate. You don’t understand the oil business, Durell. It’s cutthroat competition, and trade data is one of the most highly guarded commodities on the agenda. It could have been a competing company, anxious to know what we had achieved here. Maybe one of the crew was an industrial spy, say, for G.P. Gina. They originally wanted these offshore leases real bad." Hobe looked pleased that he had come up with a plausible theory. “I’m sure that was it. Or maybe Brady destroyed the records himself.”

“Why would he do that?” Durell asked.

Hobe shrugged impatiently. “I can’t begin to guess right now. Everything’s turned upside down. Did you know that the Apgaks killed Henrique, my servant, out at the bungalow? Put a‘ spear through his belly end pinned him to the back door and left him there to die, very slowly. I’m sorry, Kitty, but you have to face the truth around here. If you saw that poor old fellow with his guts hanging out—”

“I saw enough on the rig,” Kitty said flatly.

“Then you ought to go home.”

“I’ll still stay with Sam. How is Betty?”

“Hysterical, naturally." Hobe put his palms out as if thrusting something away. He seemed defenseless, suddenly. “Betty is in the next room. She’s been drinking too much. I don’t know what she’s up to, she‘s not quite herself. I want her to fly home tonight, too. With you, Kitty.”

Then Betty’s voice came from the office door behind them. “I’m not going no place, you sad shit. Hobart Mandrake Tallman! Wish you were a magician, at that.”

“Betty, please."

“Go to hell.” Her face was loose, her eyes uncertain, her hair disheveled. She looked at Durell. “Hi, Sam baby. You bastard. You prefer the little Puritan maid, hey? Gives you kicks to break her down?”

“Betty,” Hobe said again.

“You.” Her voice was savage whenever she addressed her husband. “You screwed up everything again. I heard you call the home office, begging them to quit, to give up the job, saying there’s no oil, nothing just killings and dirt. You want to fail again, don’t you?” Her voice lifted to just below a scream. “That’s what you do best—fail at your work, fail with people, fail in bed with me. I do everything in the books to turn you on, and you’re just a limp little twiddly, all the time, you—you failure!"

“Take it easy," Durell intervened.

“It’s all right,” Hobe said. “She's just drunk and homesick. Homesick for the gutter where I found her.”

“Yeah. Right on. And where did you bring me’? To this mess, this black gutter, where poor old Henrique gets his guts pulled out and everybody caters to this—this”—she swung to Kitty, who watched her soberly—“this prissy-faced excuse for a woman, who picked poor Brady to death. So you did rue a big favor, Hobart Mandrake the Non-Magician Tallman! Big oil man, ’way up on the management level, lots of bread in the old oil, the whole world’s swimming in it and you’re going to pump it out right here in Lubinda, terrific stuff, sweet oil—”

Hobe slapped her. “Shut up.”

The sound of the slap punctuated the end of her tirade. She stared helplessly at her smaller husband, a. tall woman just beginning to get flabby around the edges, her big eyes suddenly swimming with tears, eyes that were accustomed to the blue sparkle-makeup of nightclubs. The tears came silently, running down her suddenly ravaged face, streaking the pancake around her nostrils.

The drops trembled in the fine golden hairs along her upper lip, clinging to the corners of her mouth.

She gestured helplessly.

“Oh, Hobe,” she whispered as she wept. “Hobe, it was all just a dream, wasn’t it? A beautiful, silly dream."

Hobe Tallman turned away from her.

“Drunk,” he said to Durell. “Just as I said. She’s drunk.”

Chapter 11.

Durell took Kitty with him to the Lopodama Hotel. The city was quiet, the Pequah’s shops were all shuttered, and the open-‘air market on the waterfront was swept clean as if by an invisible, ominous wind. The heat and the silence made the afternoon seem intolerable. All the vagrant odors that clung to a tropical city were magnified into a sullen miasma. He asked the girl if she wanted to go back to Brady’s shop and her apartment for anything. She shook her head and said she didn’t ever want to see it again. There was nothing in it she wanted.

His hotel room was shadowed, fractionally cooler than the city’s streets. The girl sat down on the edge of the bed land folded her hands in her lap and considered her fingers as if she had never seen them before. He was concerned about her. Perhaps she was thinking of the amputations on the captured Apgak before Lepaka had cut off the man’s head. Durell left her where she sat and went silently around the room and quickly and deliberately tore out every microphone bug he knew was there. The girl finally watched him, but her eyes were still apathetic.

“Sam, why was Brady killed?”

“I don't know.”

“But you know what’s going on?”

“Not yet. My job is to find out what happened to Brady and why,” he said. “I know part of it now. And you know, too. But my problem doesn’t end there. Brady was killed for a reason, a reason big enough to cost him his life.”

“But he said his job with you people was nothing, just an easy way to earn a few extra dollars. How much of a retainer did K Section pay him?"

“Maybe a hundred a month.”

“He was making much more out of his export business, shipping all those Apgak and Hulipo art things out to dealers in New York.”

“I know.”

“He got a kick out of working for you, didn’t he?”

“Probably. We recruit on several bases. Sometimes they do it for the money, sometimes they’re even patriotic, sometimes they think it’s all fun and games.”

“Fun and games," she repeated bitterly.

“Take it easy, Kitty."

“It's just that we didn’t love each other anymore, that’s all. We hardly spoke to each other, Sam. It was all over, finished, kaput. I don’t feel sorry about that, even now, and maybe I ought to feel guilty because he’s dead, so terribly dead, high up there and out so far in the ocean. But I don’t feel guilty, Sam, and not feeling that way makes me feel worse. I ought to be crying for him, but I can’t.”

He tried a smile. “Your New England conscience?”

“Oh, hell.” She looked up. “Why did you pull out all of Lepaka’s bugs?”

“I have to phone a report in to Lisbon Central about Brady. They’ll relay it to Washington.”

“Are you going on with this business?”

“I have to.”

“They’ll tap your call, too, you know. Lepaka is a very efficient man. Everything he does is efficient. Like—like—”Her mouth trembled and she hugged herself. He knew she was thinking or the way Lepaka had cut the man’s head off. “I’m afraid of him. Komo Lepaka. He always talks so softly, so politely, that big long drink of water, all knobby knees and elbows. almost comical. But he wasn’t comical when he—when—”

“Take it easy,” he said again.

He picked up the telephone and asked the operator for an overseas line. Oddly, the communications system was working well. He was promised a line in ten minutes. While he worked out the cipher, using an old BT-9 code he had committed to memory long ago, the cable office called back and said they were ready. He made the message brief, reporting Brady’s death. He added that he would set up a new Central for Lubinda and handle it until a replacement was sent out. He did not offer any reasons for Brady Cotton’s death, nor did he suggest any of the ideas that had formed in his mind about what he had to do about it.

When he hung up, Kitty’s eyes were upon him. “They may or may not send that code, you know. At least, not until Colonel Lepaka reads it and figures it out.”

“That’s all right," he said.

“Why do you go on with it?” she asked.

“Why not? It’s my business.”

“It’s a terrible business,” she said.

“Somebody has to do it.”

“And you like it, don’t you?”

“Not really.”

She smiled. “Liar. But I’m fond of you, Sam.”

“That remains to be seen,” he said.

The pall of smoke that hung over the city and the riverbanks and the eastern jungle was dissipated finally by the heat of the afternoon sun. It did not take long for Colonel Lepaka to appear after Durell had pulled the bugs out of the room. Durell ordered coffee and a luncheon of fish and coconut salad and a fresh bottle of bourbon, and he made -the girl eat, although she protested she was not hungry. When she began on the fish, however, he noticed that she cleaned up her plate and licked her fingers afterward. It was a touching, childlike gesture. He showered while she finished eating, and afterward she sent down for some bandages and applied antiseptic to the various cuts and abrasions he had acquired during the struggle on the drilling platform.

“You ought to get a shot of penicillin,” Kitty said.

“That deck was pretty rusty, too. Maybe some tetanus would be good.”

“I’ve had all the booster shots I need.”

“K Section really takes care of you, doesn’t it?”

“Only up to a point. We’ll never admit that Brady worked for us, for instance. How is your head? You had a bad knock when the Apgak jumped you.”

“I have a hard head. A couple of aspirins will fix me up fine.”

“You look great,” he said.

“So do you.”

They stared at each other as she sat on his bed in the quiet, shadowed room.

Then Lepaka knocked and came in.

“I have already spoken to Mr. Forchette at the hospital," Lepaka said.

He still looked as if he had not slept for three days. The rims of his dark, muddy eyes were bright red, as if they were ready to start bleeding. He had changed into a fresh uniform, still in the South African police style, with new ribbons over his breast pocket. His boots were carefully shined.

“Mr. Forchette gave me a list of the men who are missing from the rig. Here it is.” He unbuttoned one of the pleated pockets of his shirt and handed Durell a slip of paper. “A machinist, the cook, two roustabouts, and two engineers. One of the engineers was also a qualified radioman.”

Durell said, “I want those men back.”

“Alive? Or dead?” Lepaka asked quietly.

“Alive, naturally.”

“Then only the Saka can help you now. If you can persuade him to use his influence with the people, the Apgak attacks may collapse and some clue may be obtained as to where the men are being held. Meanwhile, of course. Mr. Tallman will have to negotiate as if to pay whatever ransom they may demand. To stall for time, you might say.”

“The Saka,” Durell repeated.

“We made a bargain, Mr. Durell.”

“I mean to keep it.”

“Good. I have limited forces. In less than a week, the Apgaks will take over the country. That is my most conservative estimate. So you understand the gravity of the situation.” The colonel looked at Kitty Cotton. “I cannot guarantee your safety in Lubinda, Mrs. Cotton. I do not know why you are an Apgak target, but you are. Perhaps they think your unfortunate husband confided in you, told you something they wish to know or wish to keep from becoming public. I wish you would take the plane to Luanda tonight.”

“No. I said I’ll stick with Sam, and I will.”

He is going on a very hazardous journey for me.”

“I’ll still stay with him.” She looked at Durell. “Is that all right?”

The thought crossed his mind that perhaps Lepaka was correct, that she knew something, consciously or not, that he ought to know.

“You can come with me, Kitty,” he said.

“The Saka is a legend,” she said. “If he’s really alive, I’d like the privilege of meeting him.”

Lepaka sat down in a wicker chair in the hotel room. “Very well. Listen carefully. I cannot write the instructions. There are certain people to see, and you must say certain things to them. If the Apgaks know, or even get a hint of what you are trying to do, Madragata will make every effort to kill you. So it will not be easy. It will be most dangerous, in fact. I will give you arms and instructions. It is all I can do. I only hope you return with the Saka in time to save the country from going up in flames.”

“Fair enough,” Durell said.

Lepaka studied him for a moment.

“You will first go to the village of Ngama Kotumbama. It is some distance to the south along the coast, near the border. A simple fishing village, a tribal community, that is not on any maps, I fear. It is considered unimportant, being partly nomad, since the people follow the wet and dry seasons of the Kahara Desert. I will arrange for the Bell helicopter to transport you part of the way. The rest of the distance, you will have to walk. In any case, you should arrive there by evening.” Lepaka paused, his eyes revealing long memories. “It is a pleasant walk, in a way. Sometimes beautiful, and a bit dangerous. If you are carful, you will have no difficulty. But you must conserve your water. Do you understand?”

Durell said, “And in Ngama Kotumbama?”

“You will find an old woman. Simply ask for the maka. She will tell you where to find my foster father.”

“Why should she tell us? Why should she trust me?” Durell asked.

Komo delved with two long fingers into his pleated shirt pocket and took out an old, worn Maria Teresa dollar, once the common currency of much of West and North Africa. There were tour holes drilled in the antique silver coin. “Show this to the maka. She will understand it came from me. Take it with you to the Saka, and he will know I need his help. The decision, of course, will be up to him. I can only have faith that he has not changed too much in his years of hermitage.”

“Who is the old woman?” Durell asked.

Komo Lepaka looked at him with unblinking eyes. “She is my mother. She belonged to the Saka, and he set her free.”

“You said you were an orphan.”

“In the true sense, I am. The old woman was the first of the Saka’s wives, in tribal days. When he adopted me, she became my mother.”

“I see.”

“There is much that you do not see, Mr. Durell. She already had one son by the old man. That son was Lopes Fuentes Madragata.”

Chapter 12.

The sea thundered and crashed along the wide, sandy beach as they walked south. The setting was an enormous, glowing red ball just over the horizon, its outline wavering and distorted by the heat of the atmosphere, While small white clouds overhead took on fantastic colorations of red and lilac and gold. Seagulls mewed and skimmed along the tide line, looking for tiny shellfish embedded in the sand by the receding tide. To the right, high bluffs overlooked the beach. Jagged limestone and striated sandstone added their own colors to the evening light by reflecting sharp lances of brilliance from mica and quartz, like so many miniature needles of color. Atop the bluff was the jungle, although it was thinner here to the south, growing straggly and paler as they approached the edge of the Kahara Desert. The dry season had almost ended, and the greenery up there, such as it was, looked dusty and shriveled and silvery from lack of moisture.

For the last five miles, they had seen no other human beings.

Lepaka had dropped them from the Bell chopper some forty miles south of the river mouth where Lubinda was situated. He had not lingered. There were more fires burning in the city, and he was in a hurry to get back. His handshake had been brief, hard and dry.

“Find the Saka for me, Durell. You know what the alternative might be.”

“What’s to keep us from just walking on until we cross the border?” Durell asked.

“You would have to cross the Kahara along the Bone Coast first. You have enough water for just two days. You could not possibly make it.”

Kitty said, “You arranged it this way?”

“One must be sure of certain things. Durell is an exceptional man. The water I have given you both would not last half that time with any other person.”

“Thanks for nothing,” Durell said.

“You have an interest in making a success of this now,” Lepaka said. “You must succeed, too, if you hope to see your kidnapped countrymen again.”

For some time after the chopper had vanished, beating its way northward, Durell and the girl had walked in silence. The beach was empty, the sea held no ships for them to sight. It was as if they had been dropped into an area of the world where man did not exist. Several times, Kitty looked at him as if she wanted to say something, but then she turned her face away and walked on in silence, shouldering the small pack that Colonel Lepaka had given each of them. Durell carried the rifle. He still had his S&W. The rifle was a .375 Magnum Express, and he wished it had been one of the automatic AK-47’s, or even a Russian-made Kalashnikov. He would have preferred, above all, an Israeli Uzi, many of which had found their way to Lubinda. He took the time on their first rest stop to break down the Magnum and examine it carefully before putting it together again and sliding a charge of cartridges into place.

The sand was soft, the beach filled with tidal pools that forced them to detour widely at times. Durell had advised the girl against wading through the shallow, tepid salt water, in order to keep their boots in good shape. When the light began to fade, he identified occasional movement atop the bluff as wildebeest, the common gray, shaggy-maned antelope that moved in clumsily galloping herds. Once he spotted a family party of butt-gray reedbuck; their white tails. flashed as they bounded away. As dusk came, a troop of baboons led by a huge old male came down from their resting place under the mopane trees to the beach to search for stranded shellfish. The babies rode their mothers’ backs. The big male loader glowered at Durell and the girl and did not give way, and Durell detoured around them. Ten minutes later, he called a halt and they sat facing the sea, eating the sandwiches Komo Lepaka had given them—the only food he had offered—

and Durell sipped sparingly at the canteen of water. The girl sat close to him, her knees drawn up, and stared at the ocean. Behind them, the bluff had become lower and he could see the scrubby thorn trees and brush that struggled to exist in what had become a sandy waste reaching far into the interior.

“How much farther is it?” the girl asked quietly.

“Another hour.”

“Will they give us food and water at this fishing village?"

“It depends.”

“Doesn't it bother you?” she asked.

“No. Does it worry you?”

“It’s strange,” she said.

He waited.

“It’s strange that I’m not worried. I look at the ocean here, and it seems a little different from the Atlantic at Gloucester, but not all that different, and I feel at home. Maybe it’s because I’m with you.”

“You don’t know me at all, Kitty.”

“If it comes to that, I don’t know any men. Bobby . . .”

She paused and looked pensive. “We were divorced in two months. Imagine that. Stupid kids.”

“You were married before you met Brady?”

“If you can call it a marriage. A couple of kids fumbling and groping at each other at Bass Rocks, hoping nobody in the passing cars going to Rockport would notice us. I—partly because I’m from an old Portuguese family there, the Yankees wouldn’t quite accept me. Friendly enough, everything fine on the surface, but underneath, you were cut dead. I got used to it, and then thought it didn’t matter when Bobby wanted to marry me. He was there for the summer from Harvard. His family had a home at Magnolia, down the shore.” She shook her head and he sensed her past desperation. “They gave us no help at all. Nothing. You never felt so cold as when you went into that big summerhouse of theirs and looked into their eyes and sat down to dinner with them. I almost choked on the food. Cut us dead. Bobby said at first that it didn’t matter, but then he brooded about it—maybe he was a mama’s boy, I don‘t know. I certainly wasn't about to mother him. Finally, at the end of the summer, we split. The family was happy to arrange for the divorce.” She paused bitterly. “We might just as well have had an affair for the season, and quit. You see, I didn’t know him.”

“Did you know Brady?”

“Same mistake. They say that people in marital trouble always look for the same type with which to make another goof. Brady was different, but maybe he was the same. I never felt at home with him, like I feel at home with you, Sam.”

“You could be making another mistake,” he said.

She shook her head. “I don’t know." She put her chin on her knees and stared at the darkening sea. “I’m lonely, Sam, that‘s all. Don’t you like me?”

“Yes, I do.”

“They think I‘m a prude,” she said suddenly. “A prissy Yankee gal.”

“And you’re not?”

He watched her breathe, saw the lift of her breasts under the shirt she wore. She stood up, her body graceful, straightening her legs like a dancer as she rose. "I'm going for a swim. It’s been a long, hot walk."

She took off her shirt, her bra, wriggled out of her slacks, kicked off her boots. She did not look at him as she undressed. Her body seemed to capture and engulf the last rosy glow of the setting sun, He thought he saw tears glisten in her large eyes, as if the memories she had evoked of her young past had been more disturbing and frustrating than she admitted. Without a word, she ran naked down to the water’s edge, her hips swaying, and splashed into the warm shallow sea. Breaking waves curled for some distance out from the beach, their muted thunder and crash like a final orchestration for the dying day.

Durell looked up and down the long, empty shore. In this place, at this time, for one of the rare moments in his business, there seemed to be no danger in sight. He heard the girl call, saw her wave joyously to him as she plunged deeper into the sea. He stood up and undressed, carefully put the rifle and his handgun where the sand would not damage them. Then he ran after her.

The salt water was a refreshing shock. He dived under a comber, came up, swam strongly, dived again. He heard the girl call to him over the crash of the breakers; she waved and swam toward him. He felt the tug of the undertow, not too bad, and saw the sky turn lilac and orange and a dark, deep blue to the east as the last quivering tip of light from the setting sun vanished from the ocean’s horizon. He felt her body against him, warm and smooth, wet and pliant, and her head came up, her face turned toward him. He kissed her. Her mouth was rich and willing. Her eyes had lost their haunted look.

“Oh, Sam!”

A breaking wave threw her against him. Her waist was surprisingly smooth and slim and supple. He felt a rush of desire for her that overcame his natural and ingrained restraint. It was a rare moment, recaptured from childhood; but they were not children. Her body slid warmly against him, and he saw her laugh as a breaker crashed over them, tumbling them. to the bottom as they clung to each other.

“Let’s go back,” he said.

“Yes. Oh, yes, Sam!”

They made love with their wet, tingling bodies while the night spread over them. The last of the Seagulls had soared home. The stars reeled in the black, infinite depths of space above them. Kitty responded to him with a desperate passion, as if love had been something almost forgotten, eagerly recaptured. Her body was quick, voluptuous, as if her Portuguese blood had overwhelmed her prim Yankee side. There was no restraint in her. Durell felt almost overwhelmed. It was like a fierce battle, in which she was trying to prove something to him, and in which she succeeded.

“Sam, don’t stop. Hold me.”

“We must.”

“Why? Why?”

“We have to go on. The moon is up."

She came out of their lovemaking as if out of a dream, her eyes dazed but aware of him, her long hair swinging as she looked up at the black sky. The moon was a fat crescent over the sea’s horizon, silvering the combers as they roared in toward the beach. The sound of the surf, now that it was dark, seemed faintly ominous.

She sighed. “All right. How much farther is it?”

“About five miles to the river mouth.”

“There is no river to the south of us.”

“It was one of Lepaka’s little jokes. He said there is a river.”

“It’s dry,” she said. “Almost always dry.”

“We’ll see.”

She dressed quickly, and he regretted seeing the slim, fine, velvet lines of her body lost in her clothing. He looked up and clown the beach in the moonlight, which turned everything silver and ebony. It was as empty as before. The girl picked up his rifle and checked it for him. He took it from her and examined it for himself.

She laughed. “You don't trust me?”

“I don‘t trust anybody.”

“Not even after—after—”

“You needed it. So did I.”

“You sound angry, Sam. Should I be ashamed, because of Brady, because it’s so soon after we found him?”

“No. You told me it had been over with Brady for several months.”

“Than what is it?”

“The Apgaks want to kill you. Me, too, of course. They think you know something about their plans to take over Lubinda, and they don’t want you to tell me. Brady never had a chance to transmit to Washington what he knew. They don’t want me to find out from you what it might have been.”

“But they’re all mistaken about that. I don’t know what was in Brady’s mind.”

“Komo thinks you do. He can’t afford the men to guard you, since you refused to take the night plane. So he put you in my care.”

“But if you’re a target, too—”

Durell was grim. "I'm used to it. My real job is to help Lepaka save the government here. We’d like to keep the Apgaks out, if possible. They’re the real colonialists. They’d tie up Lubinda economically and politically, make it a vassal state. This is a tiny bastion of democracy surrounded by nations leaning the other way. That's why the things Brady learned are so important. It’s tied up with the oil here, but how or why it fits together, I don’t know yet. As for the Saka—”

Durell paused thoughtfully.

The girl said, “You’re interfering in local affairs, coming all this way to bring the old man back.”

“If we can find him. I’m working with Lepaka only out of expediency. The Saka is solid, mature. wise. He can keep the local government resisting the Maoist Apgaks. So I’ll do what I can to help Lepaka find the old man."

“And I’m only incidental to that job, too, is that it?”

“Keep trying to remember if Brady ever hinted at anything useful.”

“Do you believe I’m lying to you, Sam?”

“No.”

“You do think so.”

“Let’s not quarrel,” he said gently.

“All right.”

“You’ll remember something.”

“There’s nothing to remember,” she said sharply.

“All right.”

“Yes. All right.”

They began walking again, hostility between them.

The Suidwes Lugdiens night plane from Lubinda to Luanda roared high overhead as they walked along the lonely beach an hour later. Durell listened to the thin, high thunder of the jets and watched the winking lights and wondered if Betty Tallman was on it. Kitty refused to raise her head to look at the plane as it moved along the coast southward.

The high bluff, inland from the sea, lowered more and more, until at times the beach merged with the sparse growth and the stunted trees. The jungle that had been evident when they first started was long gone now. Patches of sand extended far inland. A warm wind from the interior brought a hot, dry lifeless smell to the air instead of the previous ozone from the ocean. Once, he saw a dozen reedbuck lift up, shaking their slender yellow flanks; they moved inland, away from the beach. Again, among the stunted, twisted trees, he thought he saw something else move, black and formless, darting from shadow to shadow. He could not be sure if it was a man or an animal. He kept the .375 Magnum ready, looking and watching, although Kitty was unaware of his sense of being watched. The moon slid lower to the horizon of the sea. The sand grew firmer, which helped their walking. The way seemed endless. Driftwood, dry and silvered by the African sun, began to show up in high piles along the dunes, as if driven there by inland floods that had raked and scoured the interior. The sea bluffs vanished and there was nothing but a fiat plain, rising ever so gently, from the coast to the interior.

“Sam?”

“Yes.”

“It’s not an animal.”

“I didn’t know you saw anything.”

“It’s a man.”

“He’s out of range now,” Durell said. “In this light, anyway.”

“Would he be an Apgak?"

“If Madragata gets any kind of a hint of where we are and what we’re trying to do, he’ll bend every effort to find us and kill us. He has to.”

She shivered. “This country needs stability, Sam, It’s like a baby wobbling on its feet, just taking its first steps. Lubinda is poor. You can‘t imagine how poor it is. The oil exploration offshore is its big hope. Its only dream. Otherwise, Lubinda has nothing.”

He watched the semi-desert inland, and then Kitty checked herself abruptly and put a hand on his arm.

“Civilization,” she said grimly.

Two fishing boats were drawn up on the beach, long shapes with outriggers tilted toward the black sky. The moon outlined their hulls in silver. The masts were canted to one side, the sails brailed up. The beach itself was scuffed and marked by a trail left by perhaps two dozen men. Several of the heel marks looked as if some of the men had been dragged. Durell remembered the two fishing boats he had seen from the oil platform, far out to sea. It was possible, he thought. There was no one in sight here now. No guards had been left with the primitive boats. He moved closer and looked at the sails, and they were red, like the ones he had seen from the Lady.

“What is it, Sam?”

“The drilling crew who were taken off the rig—I think they were brought here.”

“Should we follow them?”

“Not now. We follow Colonel Lepaka’s instructions."

They did not have far to go for the first landmark. The character of the beach changed again, for perhaps half a mile ahead. A long tongue of sand swept in a crescent out to sea, and the beach was flat, watermarked, filled with more inland debris than before. When he looked toward the interior, he saw that they had come to the edge of a dry riverbed that curved far inland between the sparse, stunted trees and the black, shapeless brush. On the map he had seen during his briefing in Washington, it was marked as the Bieu Zei River. Torrents brought about by seasonal rainstorms in the far interior had swept everything before them, time after time, until there were great heaps of litter, the bones of antelope and larger animals drowned in the floods, even the unmistakable neck and skull of a giraffe. He saw now why Lepaka had referred to this stretch as the Bone Coast. The litter of bones gleamed ghostly white in the light of the setting moon. Everything had been picked clean by the sea birds and vultures that followed the innumerable flood victims.

Kitty shuddered. “What a horrible place.”

The watercourse was dry now, except for a tiny trickle toward the far edge of the little delta. Durell moved across the tidal sands, hating to leave the distinct trail of their bootprints He went from one huge tangle of brush to another. Sometimes the dry tree trunks and heaps of bones were high enough to form a barrier that forced him to detour around them. The trickle of water barely flowed on the far side. He knelt beside the tiny stream and tasted the water carefully. He spat it out. The water was brackish.

“We’ll go inland now,” he said.

“Just who or what are we looking for?” Kitty asked.

“The Saka’s former favorite wife. Komo Lepaka’s adoptive mother.”

When he looked up the wide, dry watercourse, it didn’t seem as if any human being could live up there.

Chapter 13.

The place was like a desert mirage, an illusion. They came upon it unexpectedly, an old Rhineland castle built by an ambitious German settler hungry for something to remind him of home. The stones had collapsed, and it was only a pile of ruins except for one fingerlike turret probing the sky above a ridge of reddish rock. The village had been built around the ruins.

“Maka,” Durell said. He tried the tongue-click he had heard from Colonel Lepaka, and failed. “Mother. We have come to help you.”

The old woman simply stared at him from fathomless dark eyes. Her face was incredibly wrinkled. There was no sign that she understood him or even heard him. For ten minutes she had simply sat there, defying him, in a sense, to communicate with her.

The smell of smoke was thick and choking in the midnight air. The glow of fires from the huts that had been burned cast enough ruddy light for Durell to see the old woman’s face with reasonable clarity. She wore a fine striped robe and large, thin gold hoops in her ears, which had grown enormous and pendulous from the weight attached to them throughout a lifetime. She squatted in front of her hut, one of the few that had not been put to the torch, with her feet tucked under her, her hands resting palms up, one within the other, in her lap. She was as tall, Durell judged, as Komo Lepaka. There was wisdom in her small black eyes, and a deep hunger he could not fathom.

"Maka," he said. “Surely you understand me.”

The woman looked at him, unblinking.

Some of the villagers were straggling back from the scrub brush and sand to which they had fled. It must have happened only an hour ago, Durell thought. The village had been raided and put to the torch, and so far he had counted two bodies of old men. The livestock, two cows, and any number of dogs and goats had all been slaughtered by cutting their throats. The primitive Apgak thatch huts had been burned at random. some here, some there. In some ways, it was worse than a natural cataclysm. Durell saw no young women, no young men. He assumed they had all been taken away—those who had not fled in time.

“Kitty?” he called.

He saw her moving among some of the old people, tending to their injuries. She heard him and looked up and came walking over to him. Her face betrayed her anger and her anguish at what had happened to these simple people.

“Is this the one?” she asked, looking at the old woman.

“I think so. The Saka’s first wife. She won’t answer me.

She isn’t in shock, nothing like that.” Durell paused. “My Apgak isn’t very good, perhaps. But you speak it, don’t you? You’ve been teaching English to the children in Lubinda.”

“What do you want me to ask her?”

“Let’s see if she responds to anything,” Durell said.

“Talk to her, Kitty.”

The girl sank to the hard-packed earth in front of the hut, her movement graceful and accomplished, and seated herself cross-legged in front of the old woman. She offered the canteen of water that Durell had given her.

Smoke drifted over her head. Oil in the empty, sandy wilderness beyond the dry riverbed, a few jackals howled. A bird beat the night sky with invisible wings, veering over the raided village. Durell stepped back a bit from the old woman and the girl. They sat quietly, staring at each other in an almost formal silence that was both a greeting and a measurement.

“Maka,” Kitty said, and her tongue clicked perfectly.

“Maka, this man is a friend. He needs help. We will also help you and the people of the village, when we can.”

The old woman blinked her eyes. Then she spoke in reply, using perfect English, and Durell swore to himself.

The old woman said, “You are Mrs. Cotton, the young woman who teaches the children of Lubinda?”

“Yes, I am she.”

Durell drew a deep breath. He said, “Ask her what happened here.”

Kitty did not turn her head to look at him. “It’s obvious what happened, Sam. The Apgaks who landed on the beach with their prisoners came up this way. They wanted recruits and took the young men and women with them. They need men for their revolutionary army, and women to take care of the men.” She spoke to the woman again, made the clicking sound. “Is it not so, Maka?”

“Yes. Until now, our village was privileged. It has happened to other villages, but Madragata promised that we would not be harmed. He has broken his promise to us and destroyed our lives.”

“When did this happen?”

“Before the moon set. We were all asleep when they came.”

“Did you see any of their prisoners?”

“Yes. White men, in slave chains.”

“Were they injured?”

“Two carried blood on their heads. The others were beaten and tormented. They did not look up.”

Durell said, “Maka, where did they go?”

The old woman raised dark eyes to consider him. In her wrinkled, aged face there was pride and a hint of past tribal beauty. “Does one follow the jackals to find their lairs? They came. They burned. They killed. They went.”

“Are you hungry?” Kitty asked.

“No.”

“Do you want some water?”

“Nay

Durell said, “Maka, I have been sent to you by your son, Komo Lepaka.”

The old woman’s eyes flickered. She said nothing.

“Did you see Madragata with the raiders?”

“Is your name Durell?” the old woman countered.

“Yes. Samuel Durell.” ‘

“He asked for you. He wishes to kill you.”

“Did he say why?”

“Madragata is also my son. There are sons who do not speak the truth to their mothers. One does. One does not. My true son is a false one. Madragata killed my people he-re. Komo is more my true son than the other.”

“Komo said you would help me it I came to you with a message from him.”

The old woman’s eyes went blank. “Now I truly grow afraid.”

“Komo said you would help me to find the Saka.”

The woman blinked. “The Saka, my beloved, is dead in his tomb on the banks of the Lubinda River.”

“Komo says the Saka is not dead.”

“Has Komo seen his ghost?”

“Komo says the Saka is alive.”

“Aiyee,” the old woman whispered. “He was my moren, my master. Many a time I baked his bread in the ant heaps of the Kahara.” She looked down into the folded palms of her long, wrinkled hands. “The Saka taught me English. In those days, a woman was not supposed to be taught anything but how to take care of her man. I was his first wife, so he taught me. He was proud that I learned so easily. He also taught me Portuguese. Now I wish he had taught me nothing, so that I would not understand your words.”

Kitty said gently, “Durell speaks the truth, Maka.”

The old woman began to tremble.

“I cannot help you. I do not know where ghosts and spirits go.”

“The saka is alive and on this earth,” Kitty said. “We must find him.”

“He would be old, old. Very old.”

More villagers had straggled back from the desolate plain that stretched darkly to the south of the dry riverbed, beyond the ruined German castle. Some of the women went to the single well and drew water. A few of the men came and looked at the maka and at Durell and the girl, and then wont away to consider their ruined houses, their slaughtered livestock. The moon was down over the western horizon, and the night air felt cooler, dry and dusty, with no life in it. There was tension in the atmosphere, however, as if a storm were brewing somewhere inland, although there was no breath of wind, no hint of movement. In the firelight, the old woman’s face looked as if it had been carved from mahogany, like the artifacts Brady Cotton once collected. Durell looked at his watch. It was past three o’clock in the morning.

“Old Mother, I have a token from your adopted son, Komo.” He reached into his pocket for the Maria Teresa dollar with the four holes in it, which Lepaka had given him. The woman now watched him with bright, unblinking eyes. A shadow of pain flickered in their dark depths when she saw the silver coin in Durell’s palm. She leaned forward a little and touched it with an uncertain, trembling forefinger, but she made no effort to take the coin from his hand. “Yes,” she said. “Yes. It is from Komo.”

“He said to me that you would help me find the Saka, if he is still alive. If the Saka is alive, Old Mother, where would he be?”

The old woman sighed. “I weep for him.”

“Why?”

“It was his wish to die in the minds of men.”

“Why?” Durell repeated.

“He did not wish to live in a shadowed land of sorrow, in a land of disillusionment.”

“Why would he be so sad?”

“He saw his life’s work unfinished.”

“But he was powerful, and in command—”

“The power was taken from him by his sons.”

“Komo?”

“And Madragata,” the old woman said. “Like your Hebrew story of Cain and Abel. They fought each other, for different purposes. They saw opposite visions here in the Kahara, They ignored the Saka and did not listen to his words. So he chose to die.”

“He is not dead,” Durell said again. “If he were alive, where would he be?”

“I do not know.”

“You know,” Durell insisted.

The old woman was uneasy and fearful now, where before she had shown no fear. She sighed and looked down again at her hands. For a long moment, she was silent. Then she said, “He did much thinking, the Saka. He was a man of the mind, of principles and ideals, not action. It was the flaw in him. He often talked of it, when we lay together at night, when I was young and full of juice, and he loved me. He could think, but he could not act. It was his weakness. His sons came to know this and acted for him, each in his own different way, and his heart was broken. And so he died. He thought it best.”

“He died deliberately?”

“He removed himself from this world, yes.”

Kitty said quietly, “And just where did he go to die, maka?”

“He went to the mountain that is round.”

“Round Mountain?”

“To the mountain that is round.”

“Where is that?” Durell asked.

She paused again. He did not think she would reply. All around them, the villagers moved like ghosts through the ruins of their homes. One of the few surviving dogs began to bark, and was quickly hushed. None of the people came near them.

Durell said, “Do any of these others know about the Saka?”

“No. It is my secret. Now it is yours.”

“Did you tell Madragata?”

“No. He has no respect for his maka.” The old woman chuckled. “He is son of my breast, he suckled my milk, but it is a truth that he is less a son to me than Komo, the desert orphan. whom I also let suck on my breast.”

“Where is the mountain that is round?"

“One must go a day’s walk into the sun when it rises.” A glint of amusement at last enlivened the old woman’s eyes. A sound that might have been laughter came from her wrinkled mouth. “It is beyond the lake that is salt. Where once the wild little men used to live.”

“Thank, you, maka," Durell said.

“Thank you," Kitty said.

Chapter 14.

The sun was a hot iron on the napes of their necks. Its glare was blinding as they walked east into the dawn. There was no sound except the susurration of the wind that rustled the sand and stirred the dry, leafless branches of the occasional shrub and thicket of brush they passed. During the hours of darkness before the shimmering, violet dawn, they had slept for a time, near a ridge of red rock, and Durell had wakened to the early dawn, listening to the whistle of a night plover over the sandy plain. The desert that seemed so lifeless actually held antelope and steenbok, lizards and tiny striped mice, honey birds, snakes, and even an occasional pride of lions. Wild bees began to hum in the air as the light grew stronger. He listened to ta jackal cough and then howl. The sound was mournful. A vulture came spinning out of the violet dawn sky.

“Kitty?”

“I’m awake.”

They had not made love again during the two-hour sleep they had enjoyed, after walking toward the east, away from the village. It would be hot today, and the wind would cut like sandpaper, searching out the land. They had filled their canteens from the village well, near two flamboyant trees, and the old woman had ordered a meal for them of bush pigeons. The old German castle gloomed against the sky.

“Let’s go,” he said.

“Did you believe her?” Kitty asked.

“The maka? Yes.”

“She never admitted that the Saka is alive, you know.”

“He’s alive,” Durell said.

“Do you think he will listen to you and come back to Lubinda?”

“I don’t know. I hope so.”

When the sun came up, they saw that the Kahara sand was red, and there were great ridges of blushing stone. Now and then they passed giant baobab trees, the bark looking hot and also red, the sap like permanganate; the trunks were wide, but they were hollow inside and they were stripped of leaves, the awkward limbs reaching toward the blinding sky as if in prayer. There were dunes covered with brush and clusters of spiked thorn trees amid yellow grass that bent in the hot wind, suffering until the seasonal rains would come.

At midmorning, they paused to rest in the shade of a grove of mopane trees, the bark all green and red and gold, twisted in spirals going up along the trunks. Crickets shrilled in the yellow grass that thrived although no water was visible. This was a land that had been pioneered by the first Portuguese captains, hunting gold and finding slaves, for the slave trade of the Carib and Brazil, and later the States. Durell kept himself occupied with his thoughts, but not once did he lose his caution and alertness as he watched the terrain, The first Portuguese captains had been Ruy de Siqueiera, Alfonso d’Aveiro, and Duarte Pires, the forerunners of many other adventurers who met the Bantu people and the great warrior races of the Amampondo, the Namaqua Ovambo, Mambukush, and the Bechuana races of Tembu and Thaba’nchu. The word Bantu simply meant people; it was the plural of muntu, a single person. Long ago, south of the Congo River, in the land now called the Zaire, the Kongo people of Bundu had been conquered by the Mbanza, along with the Ambundu and the Ambwela people, under the king whose title was Ntinu and Mani, Lord of the Earth, Earth Priest. In the early sixteenth century, there had been a king named Ngola, and the Portuguese traders in gold and slaves took the king’s name for the name of the country and called it Angola. Those were the days of Queen Nzinga of the powerful Ovambo tribe that still lived in modern Namibia; those had been the glory days of the Portuguese adventurers, Balthazar de Castro and Paulo Dias de Novais—

“Hold it,” Durell said.

The girl stopped obediently. She had said little to him that meant anything since their lovemaking on the beach. He did not know for certain what was troubling her; perhaps it was true that she was prim and was suffering pangs of guilt for what they had done.

“I don’t see anything,” she said.

“There. Over there.”

Light flashed and glittered from a wide stretch of water ahead, reflecting the brazen sky, the ridge of red rock beyond. There were pinnacles of stone to the right, a single karee tree, a glimpse of tangled riverbeds amid gorges that sliced through the desert plain before them. The land was polished smooth by the wind and the heat of the sun.

“I still don’t see—oh,” the girl said. “Yes.”

The tracks of the men who had raided the village that night were clearly visible under the bright sky. The trail went north, around the weedy shores of the bitter lake. There were outcroppings of stone close to the shore, and the water looked like rippled glass under the glinting sun.

A man was propped against the reddish rock, a rifle in his hand. The rifle was pointed at Durell.

“Do we run?” the girl whispered.

“Not a chance.”

He walked forward toward the man, holding his own powerful Magnum loosely in his right hand, swinging at his hip. For a moment, he wasn’t certain if the black man was alive or dead. Then he saw the eyes blink and a pink tongue touch the black lips.

Durell held his hand high over his head and gave the man with the rifle the Bushman greeting. “Tshjamm! Good day!”

The man had grayish woolly hair and looked to be about forty or fifty. He could not he certain. Pain had etched deep lines of suffering around his mouth. His eyes were red-rimmed, his face caked with dust. A clump of acacia made a wavering shade over his legs. There was blood on hi-m, and Durell saw a broken thigh bone thrusting through the black skin. Although it was hot, the man was not sweating; there was little liquid left in him.

“Old Father,” Kitty began. “We are friends.”

The man kept staring at Durell. Durell saw that the rifle was a heavy old Remington, powerful and accurate. The muzzle was pointed at his stomach. One shot would blow his spine away.

The man spoke in Bantu. “Are you the police?”

Durell looked at Kitty, not sure of the language, with its complex clicking consonants. The girl said something at length, and the man answered, and then she explained to Durell. “I told him we were looking for Madragata. He says Madragata has gone on. Since he is helpless, he has been left here with only some brandy with which to die.”

“Is he angry at Madragata?"

“No.”

“Translate for me, please.” Durell turned to the man.

“We will try to help you, Old Father.”

“I am not so old,” the man whispered, “but my days are ended. No one can help me. I die.”

“Did Madragata have the prisoners with him?”

“Yes. Six Americans.”

“Where does he take them?”

“To a camp. I do not know where.”

“Give me your gun,” Durell said.

When Kitty repeated the order in Bantu, the man licked his lips again and then shrugged and let the gun fall from his grip. It was plain that the broken leg was a mortal wound, and the man had been abandoned here to die. Durell picked up the heavy Remington and handed it to the girl. She carried it with familiarity.

“Ask him—” he began, and then he paused.

The man’s eyes stared with a fixity that was familiar to Durell, who had seen death come to many men in many ways. The jaw hung slack. Kitty murmured something and turned away. For a moment, Durell looked out over the salt lake, shimmering under the hot sky. Then he reached behind the dead man for the bottle he saw there. It was Cape brandy, fiery stuff often called blitz or lightning. Half of the contents were still there. He uncorked it and took a swallow and felt the heat of the liquor hit his stomach. The girl watched him in silence. When he offered her a drink, she said, “No, thank you.”

“Kitty, what’s troubling you?”

“I don’t like to see anyone die like this, out here in such a place.”

“He was an Apgak. A terrorist.”

“He seemed decent enough. He didn’t put a slug in your belly,” she said.

The shade of the small acacia shrubs trembled in the hot, gritty wind. Durell wished the man had lived only a few minutes longer. He wanted to know if Madragata, too, was headed for the “mountain that is round,” seeking the Saka. There was no way of knowing. When he stood up, he felt the increased force of the easterly wind, a pressure of heat, and he heard the sound of it among the rocks and the sparse grass and thorn trees like the sound of a rushing river.

“Let’s go,” he said.

They saw the mountain an hour before sunset. The salt lake was far behind them. He saw now why the old woman of the village had insisted on her name for it. It was not a mound, with soft slopes, but a semi-circle of rough red crags, as if a meteor had landed here millions of years ago and thrown up a barrier like those on the moon, with a level center that was almost perfectly circular.

Eons of time had etched caves and grottoes into the reddish walls of the rimrock, and baboons with prehensile toes and long fingers scrambled in tribal groups over the steep, sloping walls of stone. The sunlight flashed and flickered off the red sandstone. A single baobab tree grew in front of one of the middle cave entrances.

“He’ll be up there,” Durell said. pointing to the tree.

“All alone? Living here in this wasteland, an old man, alone?” Kitty asked.

“This is his home.”

“But he’s been all over the world. He’s a cultured, cultivated man, a mover of events, a statesman for his people—"

“Events moved in a way he didn’t anticipate,” Durell said softly. “The years piled up on him. If Komo Lepaka is right, he’s become like the mystics of the old biblical days, an Essene, a hermit living and talking to his god.”

“I don’t see anyone.”

“He's here,” Durell said.

He started forward, holding the Magnum .375 in loose fingers. There was no sign of Madragata’s band or his captives. He was wary. The place seemed too empty, too suspiciously innocent. Despite what he had just said to Kitty, this face of nature seemed too harsh and uncompromising to support an old, old man who had known the luxuries of Paris and London, of Lisbon and Geneva. He slapped at flies that unaccountably began to buzz

about them. The girl followed more slowly.

Near the big baobab tree, which he saw was truly dead and not simply leafless in the dry season, he paused and cupped his hands.

“Saka!”

His word echoed back and forth from the circle of high red sandstone. For a long moment, nothing happened. Two vultures lifted on lazy, flapping wings and began to circle upward. Durell called again, and then a third time.

“There he is,” he said.

The old man had appeared at the mouth of the highest cave. He stood quietly watching Durell and the girl as they climbed up the mountainside toward him.

He was tall and thin, storklike, with the same tribal heritage that belonged to Komo Lepaka. His hair was white and his short beard was neatly trimmed. His figure was straight and strong. Durell could not begin to guess at the Saka’s years. He wore a striped cloak and leaned on a straight staff, in an odd resemblance to an Old Testament shepherd. The evening wind made his white beard blow. He had a fine brow, deep-set intelligent eyes that held the banked fire of mysticism in the mind behind them. Old tribal scars beaded his leathery, wrinkled cheeks. What those eyes had seen no man could ever guess.

“Saka,” Durell said. He told his name and Kitty’s. “You could have hidden forever from us in this place, for a long, long time. You did not need to show yourself.”

“Indeed, forever.” The old man’s English was faintly accented, part Portuguese, part London public schools. “It was foolish of you to seek me out, when most of Lubinda believes I lie in my tomb. But of course, when you called my name, I knew that my life was not a secret to you. The time will come, soon enough, when I will occupy that tomb. But I have taken these years selfishly for myself, after a lifetime of service that seems to have come to nothing. Now, I suppose, my secret is ended.” The old man smiled and gestured graciously. “Will you have some tea‘? It is fine Ceylon tea. I have all the amenities l need here. A few—very few—faithful people know that I live here, and help me to survive in this wilderness."

“We would be grateful for tea,” Durell murmured.

“Come in, then. We do not have much time.”

“There is never enough time," Durell said.

The old man paused while turning toward the mouth of the cave and looked at him sharply. “Then of course you know about Madragata?”

“Is he here?”

The old man gestured with his stall. “He is all around us, my dear sir. As I said, you were foolish to come."

“Are you sympathetic to the Apgaks?”

The old man did not reply to that. He led the way inside the cave. The interior was surprisingly comfortable. There was a cot with a spring mattress, a table and several chairs, an oil lantern, several chests, one old wood carving, and heaps and heaps of books that were perfectly preserved in the climate of the meteorite mountain. The old man dropped a curtain made of zebra skins over the cave entrance, and in the momentary darkness, Durell could smell him, a musty smell compounded of old age and dry leathery skin and something else, as if the Saka’s thoughts scented the air of the cavern. Durell could not see where the back of the cave ended. The yellow glow of the oil lamp did not extend that far.

“I have seen the old woman in Ngama Kotumbama,” he -said quietly. “Your first wife, she says. The mother of your son, Madragata, and the foster mother of your other son, Komo Lepaka.”

“Ah. And which is the true son?” the old man asked.

“I think it is Lepaka," Durell said.

“What made the old woman tell you about me?”

Durell took out the Maria Teresa silver coin with the four holes drilled in it. Like the old woman, the Saka stared at it and touched it with his forefinger as it lay in Durell’s palm, but he did not take it in his own hand. For a long time he stared at it, and the only sound in the cave was the sputter of the oil lantern and the Saka’s long, labored breathing. '

Finally he raised his eyes. “Lubinda is in danger?”

“Yes. From your son Madragata.”

“He is honest in his beliefs.”

“So is Lepaka.”

“They will go to war?”

“They are already at war."

The old man nodded. “I thought I had already known the darkness of the deepest sorrow. And now this is added to my many years.”

“Lepaka looks to you, his true father, for help.”

“But is it not a matter of ambition, of one son set against the other?”

“It is a matter of Lubinda,” Durell said.

“And you, a stranger, a foreigner? Why should you care about any of this?”

“We care for any nation that seeks to keep its freedom. Tiny as Lubinda is, it is important. It would be a great victory if democracy survived here. You and I are not important, otherwise. None of us are.”

“You are an idealist?”

“I do my job. I’ve been accused of being pragmatic about it.” Durell paused. He looked at Kitty. “I was not sent here merely to learn what happened to one of our people, to Brady Cotton. I was sent to help stop the Maoists, if I can. With your consent. Otherwise, I have no wish to interfere.”

The old man looked thoughtful. “What did the old woman of the village say to all this?”

“I think she know about it, but l did not speak to her at length. The village was destroyed. Most of the homes had been burned. Men were killed. Many young men were taken for Madragata’s army. Apparently, some of them did not wish to go, so there was a small struggle and the village was burned.”

The old man was silent again for a long time. He turned from Durell to the girl. “This is true? You are no stranger to me, Mrs. Cotton, although of course you did not know of my true existence. You have helped Lubindan children with your work in the schools and your kindness, teaching them of the world. It is you I trust, not this man, this American, who comes here for his own purposes, whatever his tokens of coins and messages. Was the village burned, Mrs. Cotton?” .

“Yes,” the girl said. “I don’t know how they will live until the rains come.”

“The rains come soon," said the old man. “They will be strong and heavy, and the Kahara will bloom. But—”

The Saka was interrupted.

Once again, Durell heard the familiar, booming voice call to him from out of the unfamiliar darkness.

“Durell! . . . Durell!”

Kitty made a small movement of shock and surprise. The old man did not move except to cock his head slightly toward the closed cave entrance. Durell lifted the heavy Magnum.

“So,” said the Saka. “It is my son.”

“I know it’s your son. It’s Madragata.”

“Let him come in.”

“He’ll kill you,” Durell said flatly.

“And you, too, if he can.”

“But you’ll talk to him?”

“Will you not?" the old man asked gently. “Is it not best to talk first? Then perhaps there will be no fighting.”

“You don’t know—”

“We will talk,” the old man decided.

Chapter 15.

Durell listened to their voices that echoed back and forth within the jagged rim of the mountain that surrounded the cave entrance. The Saka spoke strongly. in a dialect he did not understand, and when Durell looked at Kitty, she shook her head. “I don’t know what they’re saying,” she murmured.

Her manner toward him had changed again. She stood close beside him as they watched from the partly open zebra-hide curtain at the cave entrance. From outside came shouted replies to the Saka’s words, a lift in the voices that hinted at argument, then silence.

“Will he sell us out?” Kitty whispered.

“The Saka? No.”

“Why are you so sure?”

“I’m sure.”

Her hand crept into his. Her fingers felt chilly. The sunlight touched her face and turned it to gold.

The Saka spoke again, this time at greater length. The clicking consonants rolled out with force and power. The old man turned, waved his tall walking stick like a baton, and came back into the cave.

“Madragata will be here.”

“Alone?” Durell asked.

“With one man. An adviser.” The old man looked at Kitty and smiled. “Be seated. Be calm. No harm will come to you.”

But there was anger in the old, dark eyes.

Madragata wore his complacency and arrogance like a royal cloak. He was tall, but not as tall as his father. Neither did he have the long, angular muscularity of the Saka’s people. Durell had not seen him too clearly on the night of the raid on Hobe Tallman’s bungalow. Now he saw the pride in the man, the ferocious ambition, the cruel and coldly analytical mind behind the eyes that smiled; the smile meant nothing. It was no deeper than the film spread from a drop of oil in a pond. He carried no weapons that Durell could see, and at a sign from the Saka, he himself put aside the Magnum and Remington rifles and then added the S&W .38 from his waistband as the old man waited patiently.

“We meet again, Senhor Durell,” said Madragata.

“It is not my pleasure,” Durell said.

“Most certainly not. It will be quite the opposite, I promise you.” Madragata turned. “Old Father, I want -this man. I have been hunting for him for some time, since he came to our country. Also the young woman. These are spies, capitalists and colonialists who would grind our country into deeper poverty and enslave us all with invisible economic chains, reducing us to the state of vassals.”

“You have proof?” the old man asked mildly.

“He is a chief field agent for K Section, a branch of the American CIA. He would like to buy us as his fathers bought our ancestors, the men of our tribes, to work in their fields overseas. Our history has seen enough of slavery.”

“And your young woman?”

“She, too,” Madragata nodded. “She is the wife of a spy, the scum Brady Cotton, who lived among us pretending to be a friend, a simple merchant, all the time reporting on us and sabotaging our efforts toward true freedom.”

“Your freedom? Or Lubinda’s?” the Saka asked gently.

“Yours and mine, Old Father.”

“My son, you have not mentioned this Chinese gentleman you have brought with you.”

“He is Mr. Ch’ing. He is my adviser. He helps to finance the glorious Apgak movement through the generosity of the People’s Republic of China.”

“And will he not also try to enslave us, when you are sufficiently in his debt?” the Saka asked.

Durell looked at the chubby, innocuous-looking Chinaman who had entered the cave with Madragata. They knew each other. Durell’s memory spun like the flashing cards of an electronic index file. Ch’ing Lui Yin, deputy administrator for Western Africa, from the Black House in Peking. The man’s round face smiled at him, the black almond eyes admitted his recognition. Mr. Ch’ing's dossier in the files at No. 20 Annapolis Street was bulging with instances of interference in the domestic affairs of a number of newly emerged nations on the continent. He had been declared persona non grata in Senegal, the Ivory Coast, and Dahomey. Peking had officially disavowed him on each occasion. But he surfaced again and again, always inciting a “people’s revolution” that led to guerrilla warfare, burning, torture, and destruction. Most often it was the native population he had come to “help” that seemed to suffer the most. The man’s carefully manicured hands were bloodier than most. He wore a safari jacket, trousers stuffed into boots, and an empty holster in his belt. His black hair was cut in a thick shock so that it looked like a dark cap over his heavy, bristly brows.

“Senhor Durell,” he said, mimicking Madragata.

The Saka said gently, “You know each other?”

“We are—ah—rivals,” Ch‘ing said softly.

“And Lubinda is a pawn on your chess board, is that it?” The Saka held up a long, bony hand. “Please. Spare me the rhetoric and the dialectics. No diatribes about Western imperialism. No tears for the downtrodden masses. It seems to me that poverty, oppression, and death of the mind and the spirit always follow you.”

“Do you have visions, old man?” Ch’ing asked.

It was an error to talk to the Saka like that. Madragata stirred uneasily and said, “Old Father, I have always respected you; I learned much when I knelt before you. My brother Komo has sold out to the imperialists. I have not. I come only to take these two Americans from you."

The Saka looked down at him. “Why did you burn Ngama, the village where I was born?”

“Because—” Madragata hesitated, paused. “The maka was not harmed.”

“But you took away the young men?”

“For the Freedom Army of the Apgaks, yes.”

“They went willingly?"

“Yes.”

“It seems to me you must be lying, else why did you have to burn the village? Or was it a whim, a desire for wanton destruction? The villagers are poor, they live on the edge of extinction. I know. I happened to survive my youth. Many did not. It seems to me you were always cruel, boy."

Madragata said impatiently, “I am not a boy, Saka. You are old. You have been dreaming here in the hills, sulking like ta spoiled child. It is you who have abandoned Lubinda, not I. You chose to die when independence finally came.“

There was a long silence after the Apgak’s outburst. Madragata looked malevolently at Durell and the girl, and again Durell wondered what it could be that had made Kitty Cotton the man’s enemy. He felt her move a

bit closer to him, as if contact gave her reassurance. Mr. Ch’ing whispered something to Madragata. The guerrilla leader shook off the Chinese, and Ch‘ing’s bushy black eyebrows lifted briefly.

Madragata said, “I have a hundred men on this mountain. They will obey me. I demand these two Americans as prisoners.” He grinned. “After all, Old Father, you are officially and legally dead. No words from you can have effect in this world, eh? It was of your own choice.”

“And if I refuse to give these people to you?” The Saka’s voice was quiet, but it had changed, hardening, with a hint of old steel coming to the fore. “What will you do to me then, my son? Will you see to it that I really dwell in the tomb beside the river?”

“Do not press me, old man.”

“Will you kill me, then?”

“The good of the land is above all other morality.”

MI. Ch’ing intervened. “Saka, he does not know what he says. He is upset. These two people are a great danger to the Apgak movement—”

“Be quiet,” the Saka said. He stood even straighter than before, not leaning on his long staff now, but holding it as if it were a weapon, barring the space between the guerrilla leader and Durell and the girl. His deep-set eyes burned as he looked at Madragata. “Although I have died in the eyes of the public, I am not dead. Although I have been silent for these past two years, I still have my tongue. I can speak. I have not wasted the seasons in this cave. I believe your cause will mean the destruction of homes, of innocent villages, the enforced conscription of young men. It is wrong. I do not trust your Mr. Ch’ing. I do not trust Mr. Durell, either. Lubinda needs help, and we must receive it, but with no compromises, no sale of the souls and minds of our people.” The old man moved forward. “I will speak to your men.”

“No,” Madragata said.

“Are you afraid of what I shall say?”

“You are dead. You should remain dead. For—for the good of the nation.”

“Kill me then,” the old man said.

His tall, thin figure moved toward the cave entrance. Madragata stood frozen, his eyes shifting from right to left. Mr. Ch’ing raised a hand, then dropped it. The old man reached the zebra-hide curtain at the cave opening and stepped outside to the ledge in front of the cavern. The last of the sunlight bathed his attenuated form in a rosy glow. He raised the staff high above his head.

“Men of the Apgak!” The old man’s voice was surprisingly strong, reaching out for the echoes from the surrounding walls of the meteorite mountain. “This is your Saka! Yes, I live, I come back to you to continue on the way of freedom! Men of the Apgak, my son leads you astray! He is mistaken, and will bring fire and doom to beloved Lubinda! Do not follow him, do not—"

Madragata made a growl of disbelief in his throat and lunged for the old man outside the cave. The Saka heard him and whirled with surprising speed and brought up his long staff. It smashed hard against the Apgak’s chest, stopping his son’s charge for a moment. At the same time, Mr. Ch’ing produced a Browning pistol out of his voluminous pockets.

Mr. Ch’ing was smiling. Kitty made a warning sound, but Durell was already moving, driving for the Chinese. The gun went off with a shattering roar inside the dim cave. Chips of rock and a burst of sandstone dust came from the wall behind Durell. He heard distant shouting from the mountainside beyond the cave, and then he hit Ch’ing hard, drove the man black, reached for the Browning. The gun went off again. The bullet struck the ceiling. The man’s face convulsed. Despite his soft appearance, Ch’ing’s body was all hidden springs and steel coils. Durell hit him, hit him again, fought for the gun. Ch’ing tried to use it as a hammer on him, then he brought up his left hand, fingers stiff, and jabbed at his eyes. Durell ducked aside, slammed a fist into the man’s belly, chopped at the side of Ch’ing’s throat. The man made a bubbling sound and his eyes popped and he fell back against the wall of the cave.

“Sam!”

It was Kitty’s sudden cry of warning. He did not turn. He saw Ch’ing make one last effort to bring up the gun and he kicked at the man's wrist, heard bones snap, and then the gun went skittering across the smooth floor of the Saka’s cave. Kitty snatched it up. Durell whirled and saw Madragata stagger in from the outer lodge. The man’s head was bleeding, his nose looked broken, and a bubbling sound of incomprehensible rage came from his bloody mouth. Behind him stood the Saka’s tall, elongated figure, the staff still in his hand.

“It is quite all right, Mrs. Cotton,” said the old man.

He looked at the Chinaman. “He had a gun?”

“Yes,” Durell said.

“We must leave.” The old man put a hand over his eyes for a moment, and his body trembled briefly. Madragata had fallen on all fours and was shaking his head dazedly  like a dog. “I had to do it. He is my son. I do not know what his men will think or do. I hope, but I do not know.” He gestured to Durell and the girl. “Come.”

“Are Madragata‘s men—?” Kitty began.

“They will be here soon. We cannot leave by the front entrance.” The old man straightened, his moment of shock and sorrow vanished. “There is another way out. Take the lantern, Mr. Durell, and please pick up all the weapons.” His manner was quick and decisive now, and Durell could see the charisma of a born leader, a man of talent and energy. of striking inner force. ‘We will go now. We will return to the land of the living."

Chapter 16.

Thunder rumbled distantly in the black, starless sky.

A cold wind that smelled of dampness and blowing dust came out of the Kahara from the east. It was a smell compounded of parched earth, of faraway rain, of tempests hurrying to overtake them. The old man had led

them through a maze of narrow passages carved by past rainstorms in the soft sandstone of the mountain. In twenty minutes, they had emerged on the other side, to slide down a long gravelly slope to the desert plain. There had been no sign of Madragata and his Apgak men. They would follow, of course, but only after an interval of puzzlement and rage on the part of the Apgak leader and his Chinese associate. For the moment, they were safe.

The Saka, for all of his years, proved astonishingly nimble and strong. He led the way. From the mountain, they headed north toward the dry riverbed and what Durell suspected was the border of Lubinda. Under the stars, the desert air was cold, and Kitty’s teeth chattered now and then, despite the effort she made to keep up with Durell and the old man. Scrubby thorn trees, clumps of mopanes that survived by sucking liquid from the underground water table, surrealistic ridges of stone carved by unthinkable time and seasons, marked their way. The old man led them with sureness and speed. There was no sign of pursuit. Once, they startled a covey of bush pigeons, and the birds sprang up into the black air with a sound like miniature thunder to echo the rumbling over the eastern horizon.

For three hours, the Saka was relentless. Then he lifted his stall to signal a hand, and they found a chance to rest from the increasing pressure of the wind by hiding behind a jagged outcropping of the rock.

“You two must rest and sleep,” the Saka said. “I shall watch and wait.”

“Wait for what?” Durell asked. ‘We can go on.”

“I camped here, once or twice, in the bad times, when we fought against colonialism. It is a familiar place to certain men. There is water if we need it, which we can dig for. And we must wait for the rain now. We have crossed t-he dry river. The flood will not harm us here.”

Kitty sank gratefully into a niche behind the rock and Durell joined her. The old man climbed higher and stood leaning on his staff, his long legs firm, his cloak flapping in the wind that sounded like distant express trains rushing across the empty, black Kahara plain. He faced south from where they had come, and did not move. Durell thought again that he looked like an ancient biblical patriarch, his face set and grim, reflecting a patience and a strength that was more than normally remarkable.

For a time, the girl was silent. Durell thought she had collapsed into sleep. Then she murmured something and moved into his arms and rested there, her rich body warm and pliant against his.

“Sam?” she whispered.

“Are you angry with me?”

“Why should I be angry? You’ve been fine."

“I’ve been thinking about Brady—ever since you and I—on the beach ”

“That’s natural.”

She shook her head against his chest. “No, that’s not what I meant. You asked me why Madragata wants to get rid of me. I couldn’t remember. I‘ve been thinking and thinking, trying to recall something Brady might have said to me that might make me dangerous to the Apgaks.”

“And?” he asked quietly.

“I couldn’t remember anything, at first. Brady and I hardly spoke to each other these past two or three months. I told you, our marriage was finished.”

“What did you remember?” he asked. He could smell the scent that still lingered in her long, thick hair, and he was aware of the pressure of her body against him as they sat in the rocky niche, out of the wind. He could not see the Saka, who stood high above them, his face turned to the south. “What was it, Kitty?”

“It’s Hobe’s log,” she said.

“What log?”

“His private drilling records. As manager, he used to compile his own reports and estimates on how much chance the Lady had of striking oil.”

“It wasn’t a public or company record?”

“Hobe Tallman wants to strike it rich. There’s Betty, of course, always putting pressure on him to succeed, to make money. It’s been tough on the poor man. But most of all, Hobe is a man with a record of failures behind him—wildcatting, making strikes that look promising and then turn out to be overloaded with sulfur, of poor grade—well, I don’t know what all. I don’t know the oil business. All I know is that Brady said that Hobe was really desperate to succeed this time, with the Lady.”

“Was Hobe in debt?”

“I suppose so.” She shrugged. “Betty talked about that, somewhat. Back home in the States, the big house that he bought for her is mortgaged to the eyeballs. He’s just lost a condominium apartment, too. They foreclosed on him. Betty wants to be rich, you see. Really rich. Maybe that’s why she married him, getting fooled by his big front, a hot-shot oil man. And he’s failed her. Brady said once that if Hobe didn’t strike a winner this time, he was finished. And Betty often said that she was ready to walk out on Hobe if he failed again.”

“What does all this have to do with a secret log?”

“Well,” Kitty said, “it was stolen.”

Durell felt a thin twinge of excitement run along his nerves. “Stolen from where? When?”

She shook her head. “That’s what I’ve been trying to remember, Sam. Do you mind if I—if we—”

“Tell me, first.”

“Well, a week before you arrived in Lubinda, you know, that’s when it happened. Brady came back from the interior with his usual load of wood carvings and such, to export, and he was only in town a couple of hours when Hobe came down to the shop and charged him with spying and stealing his log.”

“Did Hobe Tallman know that Brady worked for K Section?”

“I don’t—I think so. Anyway, the two of them had a terrible quarrel. Actually, a fight. Poor Hobe got the worst of it, I suppose, although Brady tried to reason with him at first. Hobe really seemed to be out of his mind, about that missing private log.”

“Where was it kept, do you know?” Durell asked.

“Oh, it was out on the rig. In Hobe’s private office there. In a safe. You remember, someone had searched that place when we found Brady murdered—”

Durell said, “Do you think Hobe was upset enough to kill Brady?”

“Oh, no. I can’t picture poor Hobe going into real violence. No.” The girl shook her head, rolling her cheek against Durell’s chest. He was aware of her quickened breathing, of the hardness of her nipples against his breast. He felt a quickening in himself, too, in this private little niche they shared, so remote from the rest of the world. But the world was with them in any case, with all its angry passions and blood and rage. This moment, as he lay with her in the warming shelter of the rock, was something stolen from the dark world in which he lived and worked. Yet he felt as if he were a thief, holding the girl like this, his mind on matters other than the love she so patently offered him.

“Who do you think did it, then?” he asked quietly.

“Killed Brady? I thought it was the Apgaks. But now I—I’m not so sure, Sam.”

“Can you guess?”

“No.”

“Matt the Fork?” he asked.

She stiffened slightly. “Sam, he’s your friend. How can you suggest—”

“Hobe Tallman’s private log of the drilling program could be very valuable. It could be worth millions, to certain people. To certain rival companies, say. Maybe even—” He paused.

She turned her head to look up at him. “What is it, Sam?”

“Nothing.”

“You’ve thought of something.”

“Maybe.”

“Sam, I don’t want to talk about it anymore."

Later, he thought it had rarely been better. He was aware of the desperation of her love and the loneliness in all her movements. There were times in the past when he had known what she felt now, that he was alone in a world that held only danger for him. He responded to her gently, and when she lay naked beside him, he held her softly, yet with some reassurance, giving to her something she needed so desperately at this moment in her life, what he himself wanted and did not possess for himself. He did not delude himself about her emotions. He knew they would change and pass, as all things changed; and if they survived and found some normalcy, she would move away from him then, and seek her own path to follow, just as he himself would move on to another place and another time. But for this moment, they were together, they were one, surging like the sea, seeking, finding, bursting like a mighty wave, one within the other, to find solace later in the quiet and gentle retreat.

“Get dressed." he whispered softly.

She was drowsy. “What?”

“Listen,” he said.

There were voices above them on the rock that sheltered them from the growing tumult of the wind. The air smelled more strongly of approaching rain. The night was less than half over, and the stars were no longer visible, hidden now by a low, thick scudding of clouds. At first, he had thought the voices were merely the wind, which sounded at times like a rushing river. He unwrapped himself from the girl and reached for his .38 and sat up. He

could not see her face. The darkness was absolute.

“I hear them,” she said.

“Is it the Saka?”

“And another man.”

Durell stood up quietly and felt his way along the rock to the ledge on which the Saka had stood guard. He heard the wind flap the old man’s striped cloak. Kitty touched his back. He tried to urge her into the niche again, but she tightened her grip on his shoulder. When he looked up, the wind cut into his eyes and he could see nothing. Then, very dimly, he made out the form of the tall old man, and another. The Saka still leaned on his tall staff. The other man knelt, almost like a penitent. He felt Kitty’s breath in his ear as she translated the harsh consonants of the language.

“He wants to come back. He prays the Saka to take him back.”

“The other man?”

“And others, too.”

“How many?”

“Wait,” she said.

The newcomer was a squat, burly Lubindan who wore the paramilitary uniform of the Apgaks. The darkness came and went as the clouds scudded by overhead, now and then bringing more light from the night sky.

“Forty, he says,” Kitty finally whispered.

“From Madragata’s company?”

“Yes. They are amazed at the miracle of finding the Saka alive and well. They will follow him anywhere, this man says.”

“What about Madragata?”

“They have deserted the Apgaks to follow the Saka.”

“Good enough,” Durell said. “Stay here.”

“Sam—”

He left her, climbing quickly up on the ledge. The Saka saw or heard or felt him in the darkness. The old man turned his head. “Ah, Mr. Durell. You heard?"

“Some of it.”

“This man is an Apgak lieutenant. My son Komo, who is more my son than if he were of my flesh and blood, seems to have been correct. He needs my help. And this man and his companions will also help.”

“One question,” Durell said.

“Yes?”

“Madragata kidnapped six American oil workers from off the floating platform. He means to hold them for ransom. I want them back—if they haven’t been killed yet.”

“They are alive, Mr. Durell. And I shall get them back for you. It is not far from here. You need not concern yourself with the encampment. The guards are few, this man says.”

"How can you be sure it isn’t a trap for you?”

“I believe this man. As he had faith in me, I have faith in him.”

“Can you stop the Apgak rebellion?”

“All things can be stopped, even the turning of the earth, at one distant day. But I shall not labor for you, or for your country, in this. Neither shall I work for that Maoist Chinese. What I shall do will be for Lubinda and my people, the Lubindans and Apgaks alike.”

“Fair enough,” Durell said.

“And you will not go with me on this matter. I know you wish to, Mr. Durell. But it is  question of pride, and perhaps privilege for an old man. And perhaps a test.”

The Saka seemed to stand straighter, defying the weight of the wind against his tall, thin body. “You will take Mrs. Cotton black to Lubinda. The storm that is coming is not an ordinary affair. I would feel better, having discharged my obligation to you for carrying out Komo’s mission, if I knew that you and the young woman were safely back in the city.”

Durell hesitated. “And the American prisoners?"

“They will be returned tomorrow. There is transport for you and Mrs. Cotton, by the way, not far from here. The Apgak camp can provide a jeep. I suggest you waste no time. Drive back to the riverbed and follow it quickly to the sea. When the floods come, or the water overtakes you, you will be lost. Use the beach to return to Lubinda."

Durell saw there was no point in arguing with the old man. He felt the Saka could be trusted. The prisoners would be returned. And it was the Saka’s affair who would determine the future of the tiny country, not his.

For himself, he had felt an urgency to get back as soon as possible ever since Kitty had spoken to him in their rocky niche.

The darkness seemed to lift for a moment, and he saw that the Saka had extended his hand. Durell took it in his. The old man’s grip was dry and firm.

“Go quickly, with my thanks, and tell Komo to wait for me. Lubinda will be safe. For the Lubindans.”

“As it should be," Durell said.

He turned and climbed back down to Kitty.

Chapter 17.

There was no dawn. The Pequah huddled under the lash of the first seasonal rain. The wind drove a frothy foam across the waters of the estuary, and the unnatural darkness hid the far shores of the river. There was smoke in the air, and from far away came the distant thump and crunch of mortars and the crackle of automatic fire that rivaled the thunder rolling across the sky. Apparently the Apgaks under Madragata had timed their assault on the government with the approach of this first seasonal storm.

The power from the electric plant was out, and Kitty lit two kerosene lanterns and provided Durell with a five-cell torch, while she scraped breakfast together for them on a gasoline camp stove. From the windows of the apartment over Brady Cotton’s antique shop, he saw that every store in the Pequah market area was tightly shuttered and closed. No one was on the streets. The open-air food market was deserted, its space swept clean and empty by the heavy, thunderous curtains of rain that came from the east. Despite the wind and the rain, the air still had a hot, suffocating quality.

“I don’t know where to look,” the girl said.

“We’ll go over everything again.”

“The shop downstairs is a mess. It would take a week to go through every corner down there."

“We don’t have a week,” Durell said.

She fried bacon and cracked eggs in a saucepan over the Coleman stove. Coffee bubbled in an enameled pot. The kitchen was still spotless. Without turning, she said, “Do you think the Apgaks will make it?”

“They’re attacking the Presidential Palace now."

“I hope the Saka gets here.”

“He’s not a miracle man,” Durell said. “All this fighting will be hard to stop, now that it’s been started.”

“Will they be coining here?”

“Yes.”

“For us?”

“Yes,” Durell said.

“Should we go to the oil dock?”

“Later,” he said.

He had searched the simply decorated apartment with utmost thoroughness, using every technique taught him by the training “Farm” in Maryland. If Brady Cotton had stolen Hobe Tallman’s secret drilling log, he had not stashed it in these upstairs rooms. Durell listened to the sounds of fighting on the outskirts of the city and watched branches and palm fronds fly through the air in the narrow lane below. A small armored car rumbled around the corner; it was crammed with helmeted government troops. The black Lubindan faces under the helmets looked grim and a bit frightened. The armored car paused, the machinegun swiveled uncertainly, and then it rumbled on.

A few moments later, there was the sharp rattle of gunfire from around the corner. A man began to scream. The sound was abruptly cut off, and then thunder came and drowned out everything else. The lane remained empty. None of the shopkeepers ventured out from their steel-shuttered doors to see what was happening.

Durell went downstairs and began the tedious search of the shop and the cluttered storeroom in the rear. Kitty came down, bringing his breakfast on a tray. He drank the hot coffee gratefully. The girl had showered and piled her thick hair neatly on top of her head. She had changed into clean denims and a pale blue blouse and heavy boat shoes. Her face in the glow of the big flashlight was calm but pale.

“Brady wasn’t a thief," she said.

“Hobe thought he might be.”

“If Brady took anything, it was for you—for your people. It must have been something he thought Washington would be interested in.”

“Exactly.”

He spent more than an hour searching the shop and the storeroom. He did not really expect to find what he wanted, but he had to be sure it was not here. The girl helped him. Now and then they heard muffled shooting, but none of it seemed to be moving their way. He covered everything he could think of. There was an old desk in the store-room, and he emptied every drawer, went through Brady’s business records, and tapped the wood for hollow places. He turned furniture upside down, checked for newly stitched seams, examined the plank floor for loose boards. Nothing, He went into the shop and examined all the curios, looking at the backs of the wood carvings, weighed the grotesque but beautiful statuettes, and ran his fingers along wooden seams, searching for a hollow place. Nothing. He found some crates in a shed out back and took a hammer and broke them apart and checked the contents—bolts of cloth woven by natives in the interior forests, more wood carvings, two antique Portuguese guns, a moldy leather-bound diary by a Portuguese missionary.

Nothing.

“I told you,” the girl said.

“Brady still could have taken it somewhere."

“Did you examine his—his body when you found him on the rig?”

“Yes.”

“Then he didn’t have it on him?”

“He could have hidden it,” Durell said.

“Where?”

He straightened. “On the rig.”

“You can‘t go out there in this storm.”

“I have to,” he said.

There came a brief metallic knocking on the steel shutters over the shop window.

It was Komo Lepaka. The colonel wore a short rubber poncho that only accentuated his extreme height and thin, knobby legs. A squad of soldiers rested in the narrow lane, leaning against the walls, smoking, relaxed. Thunder crashed again overhead. Smoke drifted through the sheets of rain that poured down from the leaden African skies. Durell could smell the odor of burning wood, of spent explosives. It seemed to cling to the tall black man. Komo’s eyes were red-rimmed, and his gaunt, bony face looked even more drawn than usual.

“May I come in, Mr. Durell?“ he asked quietly.

Durell gestured. “Is it official?"

“Partly. The struggle is still a toss-up. The Apgaks have the suburbs along the southern blank of the river. They’re fighting for the Presidential Palace now. As a security officer, my task is here, not with the military. I came -to ask you about the Saka. Did you find him?”

“Yes. He said he was coming.”

Nothing changed in the man’s face. “The Old Mother sent you directly to him?”

“She was helpful.”

“And she was well?”

“She survives.”

“And the Saka?”

“Alive and vigorous.”

While Lepaka looked around the shop, lighting one of his small thin cigars and obviously taking a momentary respite from what had been a grueling day, Durell signaled to Kitty to get more coffee. The colonel’s eyes did

not miss the signs of Durell’s rapid search. Durell told him briefly of their discovery of the Saka’s cave, of the confrontation with Madragata and the Chinese agent, Ch’ing, and of the Saka‘s promise to rescue the Americans being held captives for ransom.

“He is truly coming?”

“He promised.”

“But when?"

.“I don’t know,” Durell said.

The man’s eyes drooped tiredly. “You were looking for something here.” It was a statement, not a question. “Whatever it is, Colonel, it’s not in the shop or in the apartment upstairs,” Durell said. “It’s just something Brady might have left for me.”

“Whatever happens, Mr. Durell, I wish to thank you. I am grateful.”

Durell waved his hand downward. “It’s not over yet, is it? You can do me a favor, though. I want to go back to the Lady.”

Komo eyed him briefly. “It is not possible in this storm.”

“I’ll find a way, somehow.”

“Is it so important?”

“To me, yes. To my job.” Durell paused. “And one other thing. I want to talk to Hobe Tallman. Is he out at his bungalow?”

“I fear not. He is not to be found anywhere.”

“What does that mean?”

Colonel Lepaka shrugged. “I have looked for him and cannot locate him. But his wife is at the dock office. I am afraid she is not in very good shape, however. She is very upset, Perhaps she can tell you about Hobe. And I must be going. Once again, I thank you for going to the Saka. I only hope your mission will not be in vain. We haven‘t much time now.”

“Neither have I,” Durell said quietly.

In the jeep, Kitty asked, “Where are we going? This is the wrong way for the dock.”

“I want to see Matty, at the hospital.”

“What’s he got to do with it?”

“Maybe nothing. Maybe everything.”

The streets were deserted, although it was close to eleven o’clock in the morning. The rain still tore at the city, now in a vertical heavy downpour, new in sudden gusts that swept the narrow lanes and alleys of the Pequah like a thousand wet brooms. Durell drove the jeep carefully toward the wide boulevard on the banks of the river, then turned east and inland toward the new white concrete hospital built with World Bank funds. A large Red Cross flag hung wetly from a makeshift staff on the roof, a plea to the combatants to respect the sick, the wounded, and the dying. The sound of mortars and rifle fire came from the other side of the city, near the wide landscaped grounds of the Presidential Palace. Durell gave the fighting area a wide berth. Colonel Lepaka had handed him a scribbled pass that promised them passage through two temporary roadblocks on the boulevard. On the grassy median, between palm trees, were several troop-carrying trucks, silently parked. The Lubinda militia in them stood stolidly in the downpour, unprotected, by any canvas coverings, their faces morose and blank.

The Portuguese nurse at the reception desk looked harassed but not frightened. “Senhor Forchette?” she asked, in reply to Durell’s inquiry. “One moment, sir. We are extremely busy.”

“Just tell me his room number,” Durell suggested.

“Sim. Yes. One moment.”

She got up in reply to a call from a hurried intern and left the desk. Two soldiers carrying a wounded man on a stretcher stumbled into the lobby, dripping with rain. Durell reached across the desk for the index cards and

rifled swiftly through them.

“It’s Room Two-twenty. Come on, Kitty.”

He took the stairs. threading his way through the confusion in the hospital corridors and avoiding the elevators, which were working on power taken from the hospital’s emergency generator. The lights in the hall were dim. Outside, although it was nearly noon, the river speckled with the downpour of rain, looked dark and ominously gray, as if it were merely dawn. The freighters at their moorings in the fairway were invisible beyond the blowing curtains of rain. Durell took the steps two at a time, ducked past a gaggle of nurses, an armed soldier who was lighting a cigarette, and went down the hall. Kitty trotted dutifully at his heels.

Room 220 was open. The hospital bed was unmade, and the traction equipment at the foot of the bed had been pushed aside. A nurse whirled about in startled fear from the window.

“Sim? What is it?”

“The patient," Durell said. “Senhor Forchette. Where is he?”

The woman spread thin hands. “He is gone. I just discovered it. I have been so busy-we are all so busy—I could not check on him before.”

“Could he walk?"

“Oh, yes. But with some difficulty. With a limp. But he is a strong man. He objected to being here from the very first. He said he had business to attend to.”

“When did you see him last?”

The nurse rubbed her forehead with stiff, shaking fingers. “I brought his breakfast one hour ago. Everything is late this morning. Tell me, are the Apgaks—"

“The Army will hold them back,” Durell reassured her.

“How was he when you saw him?”

“Angry. Very upset. Senhor Forchette is not a man who enjoys being kept in bed. His wound is not severe, you see. It was in the fleshy part of the thigh, and the bullet was removed quickly. He wanted to see Dr. Ghala. He was very angry, very impatient. I had no extra time for him.”

Durell thanked the nurse and pushed Kitty out of the hospital room and ran down the fire stairs again. in the heavy wind and rain outside, there was a moment’s difficulty when he found two tall Lubindan soldiers waiting to commandeer his jeep. He showed them Colonel Lepaka’s scribbled pass, but they were in no mood to honor it. Durell took the half-empty bottle of Cape brandy from under the back seat and gave it to the most insistent soldier, and the man suddenly grinned and nodded. Durell hurried Kitty into the front seat and used the ignition key. The jeep whined and sputtered and would not start. The two soldiers started back toward them, after taking deep slugs of the fiery liquor. They seemed to have changed their minds about letting the jeep go. At the last moment, the engine caught and Durell slammed the vehicle into gear and gunned the motor. The soldiers lurched forward, hesitated, and he spun the wheel hard on the graveled driveway and headed outward. An ambulance filled with military casualties screamed in at the same time, heading for the emergency doors. Durell yanked the wheel to the right, ran over the soggy lawn. The wheels spun, tore out half a flower bed, then caught on the asphalt again, and they were off, careening down the wide, empty thoroughfare beside the rainswept river.

“Not bad,” Kitty blew out an explosive breath. “It looks like the city is minutes away from anarchy. The Saka had better show up soon.”

“He will.”

“Where now? What’s so important about Matty‘?

“We’ll try the Lubinda Marine Oil docks,” Durell said.

There was a makeshift guard at the steel-mesh gate to the small switching yard on the concrete wharf. The rigging men had posted themselves at intervals around the small compound, some armed with rifles, most with just lengths of two-by-fours or iron pipe. Visibility from the edge of the dock where the WDT switching locomotive was parked was only about fifty yards. Beyond, the sea was lost behind the fitful curtains of mist and rain. The two burly American roustabouts at the gate pulled it open when they recognized Durell and Kitty Cotton.

“Get inside. The whole town’s goin’ crazy.”

“Have you seen Matty?”

“Yeah. He’s off his rocker, too. Came tearing in here ten minutes ago, still wearin’ his hospital things.”

“Which way?"

The roustabout pointed and Durell gunned the jeep, bumped over the railroad tracks, swung around the switcher, and hugged the edge of the concrete dock where the big rig tender was still berthed. Repair work on the deck where the explosives had damaged the ship had come to a halt in the storm.

Matty the Fork was not in his office. Through the wide blue-tinted windows on the top floor of the concrete building, Durell could see as much of the besieged city as the rain and wind allowed. Fighting was going on very close to the Presidential Palace. He wondered about the Saka. In the heat of battle, it would be difficult to turn the tide of events. And the old man had deliberately cut himself oft from his country's politics, seeking the solitude and peace of the Kahara Desert. Durell shook his head and looked about Matty’s office.

The desk had been rifled, the drawers were all pulled out, one had fallen to the floor and spilled its contents of papers, file folders, and desk equipment. Kitty went to the window and stood looking out at the dim flashes of fire from the mortars that were crashing into the southern suburbs of the town. There was more firing audible from the nearby Pequah marketplace. The girl’s hair was plastered to her scalp by the rain, and her shirt and denims clung to every line and curve of her tall, slender body.

From a door in the opposite wall of Matty’s office came an angry, irregular thumping. Durell turned and tried the knob. It was locked. There was a ring of keys amid the debris that littered Matty’s desk. He went back to it, listened to the muffled, angry voice behind the locked door, and selected a key that fit.

Betty Tallman was inside. At first, he thought she had been injured and attacked, and then he smelled the alcohol and knew that she was simply drunk. Very drunk. Her first words were a spew of curses taken straight from the mouths of the rigging crew. Then her eyes slowly focused and she recognized Durell’s tall figure.

“Oh. It‘s you. Thanks, old buddy,” she mumbled. “Son of a bitch locked me in here.”

“Are you all right?”

“Need another little drinkie, that’s all, Sam, boy.”

“Who locked you in here?”

“It was Hobe, the finking little bastard.”

“What about Matt?”

“Was it him a while ago? He heard me, all right. I kicked that door and kicked at it and yelled at him. He yelled back, asked me where Hobe was. I wouldn’t tell him unless he let me out, and he wouldn’t do that. And then he went away."

“When was this?"

“Just a few minutes ago.”

The small room off the office had been a stationary storage cubicle. Its steel shelves were loaded with the reams of printed business forms that no enterprise Seems able to avoid. It was only six by six, and the alcohol fumes and the smell of vomit made the air unbreathable. The blond woman staggered out and drew a deep breath, her breasts arrogant and aggressive against the lines of her pink cotton shift. There were silver bracelets on both her wrists, a long row of them in Lubindan style, and she wore at jingly necklace of tiny silver bells that burrowed into her deep cleavage. She wore makeup for an evening out, but tears and rubbing had smeared her mascara and lipstick. She had lost one shoe, and she limped awkwardly on the single high, cloggy heel.

“Gawd, I’m a mess, I know. Don’t look at me, Sam. Is that Kitty Cotton?" She peered uncertainly at the girl by the window. “Sure is. Like a drowned pussycat. Shit.

Sam, I offered you—”

“You need a drink,” Durell said.

“I sure as hellfire do.”

He went back to the desk and found the bourbon bottle in the drawer where he had seen Matty the Fork take it when they had first met. It had only been days ago, but it seemed like an eternity. Durell ignored Kitty’s prim, reproachful eyes and gave the bottle to Betty Tallman. She lurched unevenly to grab at it, her hips askew, and drank thirstily, pushed her straggly hair back from her face, and drank again. She did not offer to return the bottle to Durell. She blew out air gustily and grinned.

“A mess, sure as hell.”

“Who locked you in the closet?” Durell asked.

“Hobe, who else? The damned pipsqueak!”

“Why?”

“He was mad. Guess I went a bit too far with him last night. He was really hyped up. Going to pieces. He called me names, so I told him a few things back, right to his face.” The woman giggled. “Shouldn’t have done it, but he had it coming to him.”

“What sort of things?”

“What?”

“What sort of things did you tell him?”

“Oh.” Betty thought about it. “It’s a secret. ’Tween him and me and Matty—I mean, Madragata.”

“Madragata?”

“Handsome devil.”

“The Apgak?"

“Sure. He’s half Portuguese,” she said defensively.

“No, he isn’t. I met his mother,” Durell said. “He’s black.”

The woman glared at him. “He ain’t—isn’t! He told me so himself.”

“He’s pure Lubindan,” Durell insisted.

She looked at him as if he had told her the world was coming to an end. Her mouth twitched and her eyes grew narrow and icy with rage. She put a jeweled hand with its scarlet-tipped fingernails flat on her belly and shuddered.

“Oh, no. No wonder—”

“Were you and Madragata—?”

“A couple of times,“ she whispered. “Oh, the son of a bitch. And me a pure Texas girl. He came to the bungalow a few nights, while Hobe would be here or out to sea on the rig. We—he wasn’t a bad sort, you know. Real good English. He kept telling me how everything would be different when he won his revolution. How he’d be a big shot, and the whole country would be rich with oil after he got into power, He liked to talk to me." Her manner became defensive. “Why not? That Colonel Lepaka would have shot him down like a dog, if he could. Madragatzi used to slip in from the jungle once in a while like that, with a dozen of his men, and visit me.”

“Would he ever sneak in and talk to Hobe, too?"

“I don’t know,” she mumbled.

“Did he?”

“Once or twice, I guess. That’s how he first saw me. He liked me. He said he’d make me rich later, when he got control of Lubinda. I believed the son of a bitch.” She tossed her ragged hair defiantly. “Why not? He was nice to me. The only nice person in this whole stinkin’ place. Nobody else really likes me here. They think I’m a tramp! I’ve heard them snickering how terrible it is for poor Hobe, what a fool he was to marry me after—my artistic career on the stage.“ She suddenly covered her face with her hands. Her bracelets jingled. “Bunch of snobby bastards. Even the roustabouts. Everybody trying to grab a feel, whenever they could. Treated me like public property. But not Madragata.”

“He used you,” Durell said flatly.

"What?”

“Did you ever tell him things you heard Hobe talk about? About the Lady, or the progress of the drilling?”

“Well, sure, but—”

Betty pulled her hands down her cheeks, drawing her mouth cruelly out of shape as she clutched at her own flesh. Her eyes were suddenly haggard, tragic. “Oh, God. No. Is he really black?”

“A Lubindan,” Durell said.

Kitty said quietly, “Sam, don’t be so cruel.”

He ignored her. “Did you tell Hobe about your affair with Madragata?"

She didn’t seem to hear him. He repeated the question. She looked at the bottle of bourbon and shuddered, hugged herself, and stared vacantly into space.

“Yes,” she whispered. “Yes, I told Hobe.”

“When?”

“Last night. Just when the fighting started, outside of town. I told him then.”

“Why?”

“Because he hit me. He said I was foolin’ around with Matty the Fork. But I never did. Matty wouldn’t touch me. So I told him he was right about my foolin’ around, but he had the wrong man. God, I wanted to hurt him. I hated him then. He’s broken all his promises to me. He kept saying we’d be rich someday, someday soon, right here in Lubinda.”

“But he shut the rig down,” Durell objected.

“No matter.” She shook her disheveled head. “He said we’d be rich. And I waited and waited. But nothing ever happens like that, does it? I got bored, don’t you understand? So I told him about Madragata.”

“And?” Durell prompted her.

“Well, he acted like he was pole-axed, you know? But it was funny, the way he acted. It wasn't like he was sore about me and Madragata. He was mostly sore at Madragata because he said he had been double-crossed. Betrayed, that was his word. But he didn’t seem to include rue in it. I don’t know, it was just a thing I felt, the way he reacted.”

“Did he bring you here?”

“Yes, the fighting was just starting up.”

“He locked you in?"

“Sure, he shoved me in that closet, first thing I knew, and turned the key. Said I was safe here. Said somebody would come and let me out, sooner or later.”

“Where did he go?”

“I don’t know. I need some more to drink.”

“In a minute.” Durell gripped her arm before she could raise the bottle. “Didn’t Hobe say what he was going to do?”

“Yes, he said he was going to make sure of the Lady.”

“You’re certain he said that?”

“Yes, I’m certain. But he couldn’t get out there, could he, in this storm?”

Durell turned and looked at Kitty Cotton. The girl started to say something, checked herself, then spoke. “Sam, the Sikorsky was ditched oil the Lady’s heliport, remember. And we left my boat there when Lepaka took us ofi in his Bell chopper. And the big tender—well, they’re still repairing that. We can’t fly out, that’s sure.”

“Another boat,” Durell suggested.

Betty muttered, “You think Hobe’s out on the rig? In all this weather? I—think I feel sorry for him.”

“Do you know about a boat we could use?”

The woman said uncertainly, “We’d drown, tryin’ to get out there.”

“You’re not going,” Durell said.

“Yes, I am. I want to find Hobe. I think I—I owe him something.”

“Do you know about a boat?”

She glared at him. “Only if you promise to take me along, too."

“All right. We’ll take you. But no more bourbon.”

She grinned. “Check. There's a motor lifeboat, under the dock. It came from the rig last week, for an overhaul,  but it ought to be working now. That’s what Matty the Fork went for, I think. I heard him phoning from here, while he wouldn’t let me out of the closet. He asked somebody in the crew about it.” Betty Tallman made an effort to straighten up. Despite her appearance. she didn’t seem to be as drunk as she had pretended to be. Durell considered her, and then she suddenly said, "Come on. I’ll show you.”

Chapter 18.

The water surged and roared under the concrete pier at the far end of the fenced—in company area. Durell had gone back to the jeep and picked up the two rifles hidden under the back seat, then led the two women down a flight of stone steps out of the force of the wind. Long streamers of moss hung from the underside of the dock. There was a long shelf of narrow decking that led toward the open end. The footing was wet and slippery. At the far end of the pier was gray daylight, marred by spray lifted by the wind. A white motor lifeboat, decked fore and aft, with a small cabin amidships, lifted and fell uncertainly in the surging water. As Durell reached the bottom of the steps, he heard the cranky sputtering of a balky diesel engine in the lifeboat. Someone moved at the small control bridge.

Durell cupped his hands against the roar and crash of the sea against the concrete pilings.

“Matt! Matty!”

The figure lurched, turning, limped two steps astern, turned back to the controls, punching the starter button with a savage thumb. Durell ran along the slippery concrete toward the mooring. Matt the Fork hunched over the tiny lifeboat bridge, turned a furious face toward him, tried the motor again. it started with a roar as Durell leaped aboard. Matt spun about, grabbing for a wrench, lifted it to swing at him. The surge of the boat threw him off balance on his injured leg. Durell caught one end of the spanner and twisted it downward. Matt’s eyes were wild, not recognizing him. “Get off! Get away!”

"Matt. listen! It’s me. It’s Sam!”

The squat foreman glared at him. “Lemme alone!”

“We want to go with you.” Durell had to shout against the roar of the diesel and the slap and crash of the seas coming in under the deck of the main pier overhead.

“You’re crazy!” Matt yelled. "I'm going out to the Lady!"

“So am I.”

“And those women?"

“The girls, too.”

Matt’s grip on the heavy wrench, checked by Durell, tightened again. He tried to lift it against the pressure Durell kept on it, then suddenly slumped and shrugged.

The diesel motor was purring quietly now.

“Why Kitty and Betty?”

“They have a right to go. Brady’s body is still out there. And Hobe went out earlier."

“I know that.”

“What’s so important out on the Lady?”

“You’ll find out.” Matt grunted. He watched Kitty jump agilely aboard, accustomed to all boats from her childhood. She turned immediately to help Betty Tallman.

The blond woman stumbled and fell against Matt, pushed at him with hands fiat on his chest, and swung away. Matt muttered under his breath and lurched back to the controls. There was a clunking sound as he shoved the engine into gear.

Durell threw off the mooring lines and took in the foam fenders. Matt did not look at him as he sent the lifeboat out from under the concrete dock. The moment they were out in the open, the wind took the bow and shoved it to port, and Matt wrenched savagely at the small wheel. The boat lifted, fell, took water amidships. It surged forward uncertainly. Then the powerful engine and oversized prop bit into the seething current and they drove forward.

From behind them came a long-drawn-out shout. Someone was running beyond the bulk of the rig tender and the WDT loco on the tracks close to the pier‘s edge.

He thought he saw the man wave a -rifle at them. The gesture was an unmistakable command for them to turn back. Then the figure was blotted out by the blowing rain.

The compass swung erratically for a few moments until Matt steadied the lifeboat on a course for the rig’s position, twenty miles out on the stormy sea. The lifeboat was fast, but even at its best, Durell estimated it would take them until noon to reach the Lady—if the storm, the wind, and the seas did not swamp them. The lifeboat could not sink—its built-in buoyancy tanks would keep them afloat through almost anything—but he was uncertain about the diesel engine or the fuel they might need.

He watched Matt the Fork as he hunched over the wheel. The wind was at their backs, giving them a forward impetus, but there was always the danger of breaching when the seas astern lifted them and sent them forward with what seemed like the speed of an express train.

But Matt showed no signs of incompetence.

Kitty came out of the small cabin with international orange slickers for them. Matt started to shrug his off, his powerful back and shoulder muscles hunched in the effort to handle the wheel and keep them on course. Kitty shouted something to him that was snatched away by the wind, and he let her drape the slicker over his shoulder. He wore a khaki shirt and trousers, with sneakers on his feet. His injured leg seemed to be holding up well. But Durell was not sure how long that would be true.

The land faded swiftly behind them.

Betty Tallman did not come out of the little cabin. Kitty went below and soon returned with steaming mugs of hot tea. Matt shook his head, refusing it. The man seemed obsessed by only one idea—to get out to the drilling platform as fast as possible. To all of Durell’s questions, he simply shook his head, grinned harshly, and dashed the spray from his eyes and returned to the wheel.

The boat smashed its way forward, moving steadily out to sea. Overhead, the cloud cover seemed to grow thicker and heavier. Everything was gray and pale white in the feeble sunlight. Now and then the rain lightened, but all they could see were the endless lines of sea swells, the caps flattened or torn away by the whistling wind.

The time did not go slowly. Matt refused to talk, pointing to the seas and the scudding clouds, He touched his ear to indicate that the storm noise was too much. He would not give up the wheel when Durell volunteered to take over.

Matt Forchette was built like a small bull, Durell thought, remembering a boyhood long ago in the Louisiana bayous. Matty’s strength even then had been a matter of awe. The leg wound did not hamper him. As long as he had an excuse for not talking through the storm noise, it was useless to question him.

During a brief lull, Durell went below.

The small cabin was fitted with leather-cushioned benches on each side, with big lockers fore and aft. Kitty sat on the starboard side, holding a fresh mug of tea in both hands. Betty Tallman sprawled on the opposite bench, feet braced against the pitch and crash of the lifeboat’s forward movement. The woman’s head lolled and her eyes were closed. Kitty looked up at Durell and shook her head.

“She’s passed out.”

“I don‘t think so,” Durell said.

“Why did she insist on coming with us?”

“Why did you?” Durell asked pointedly.

Kitty did not answer. "

The forward lockers were stuffed with life jackets and flares and neat coils of line, rockets, battery lanterns, first-aid kits. When he turned, he saw that Kitty had finished her tea and held the Magnum rifle on her lap. She was wiping it dry.

The aft lockers contained packets of food, signal flags, small aerosol bombs of dye as distress signals to be tossed on the water if they became helpless.

Durell turned back to Betty Tallman. He had to balance himself with his feet spread on the deck in response to the jolting lift and fall of the lifeboat as it smashed through the seas. The blond woman’s body rolled loosely and heavily on the padded bench.

“Betty?”

He slapped her face lightly.

Kitty said, “What are you doing?”

“I want some more answers.”

“You won’t get them from her the way she is.”

He slapped Betty Tallman’s face again. The woman moaned and mumbled something. He struck her again, still lightly, and once more, harder. She opened her eyes.

“Huh?”

“Betty, are you sure Hobe went out to the rig?”

“Sure. Sure I’m sure.”

“Did he mention his private drilling log?"

“Don’t know what—you’re talkin’ about."

“You know very well what I’m saying. You’re not as drunk as you pretend to be. Tell me exactly what Hobe said and did, after you told him about Madragata and yourself.”

The blond woman grinned foolishly. Kitty had helped wash the streaked makeup from her face, and now she looked older, worn and exhausted. She said, “A cigarette?”

There were cartons of them in the forward locker. Durell shook out a pack. When he turned, Betty was sitting up on the bench and leaning forward, holding herself as if she had a stomach ache.

“Oh, Lord, it’s coming back to me now.”

“The things Hobe said?”

“The things I told him. About me and Madragata. I was really crazy. I gave him all the details. Poor Hobe.”

Durell lit a cigarette and handed it to her. The woman dragged in the smoke hungrily and pushed her straggly hair back from her forehead with an oddly delicate gesture.

“I want to know about Hobe’s private logs.”

“I don’t know anything about that. But Hobe said he was going to kill Madragata if he—if Madragata touched the Lady.”

“What did that mean?”

“Madragata is on the rig.”

Durell’s face was without expression. “He’s with the .guerrillas, attacking the town.”

“Uh-uh. He wants the rig.”

“What can he do with it?”

“I don’t know. Hobe means to stop him, whatever it is. Hobe said the rig was the whole thing, you know? It all depends on the rig. But he was going to fix Madragata for doing—because of me and Madragata. He said he didn’t care if he was poor for all the rest of his life, or in jail, or whatever. It was crazy. He talked like he was out of his head.”

The cigarette fell from the woman’s loose fingers. Durell picked it up from the desk and crushed it out. Kitty had finished wiping down the Magnum and new was checking out the Remington. She seemed to be quite familiar with both rifles.

Betty fell backward on her bench and closed her eyes again. A wet streak of spittle oozed from a corner of her slack mouth.

The respite from the storm did not last long. A darkness grew, swelling from astern, and quickly overtook them with a howl of roaring wind and a blast of salt spray and rain that drenched the lifeboat and blotted out everything within twenty feet of the vessel. The stern lifted high and the lifeboat slewed down a long, seething slope of water and buried its decked bow under the next sea. The boat trembled with the shock, seemed to shake itself, and then the bow lifted with the pressure from the flotation cells in her hull. They lifted slowly, streaming water. Then it was as if something hit them amidships and spun them halfway around. A giant comber hung over them like a white, churning cliff. When the water came down, it was with the force of tons of pressure, a crash and a roar that made the boat shudder. Matt lost his grip on the wheel and went sliding aft. Durell grabbed for him, caught a flailing arm, hauled back to catch the spinning wheel with his other hand. It was difficult to hang on to both.

Matty’s forehead looked bloody where he had banged his face against something. His eyes were glazed. But his grip on Durell’s hand did not slacken.

The lifeboat slewed and climbed up another sea. The wind wanted to take her and broach her broadside. Durell spun the wheel and kept them moving forward. He thought he heard the diesel engine falter, but then its thudding rhythm became normal again.

Matty pulled himself upright, clung to the gunwale, and then worked his way back to the tiny binnacle.

“Thanks, Sam."

“You pulled me out of the bayous once or twice,” Durell reminded him.

“That was long ago.”

“How is your head?”

Matt touched the long bloody welt above his bushy brows. He seemed surprised to see the blood on his fingers. He watched it wash quickly away in the drenching rain.

“I'm all right. Just was took all at once, is all. Give me the wheel again.”

“I can handle it,” Durell said.

“We ought to see the Lady’s lights soon.”

“Yes.”

“But I don’t think it will be better there than right here.”

Durell said, “It’s a big platform. Safe enough.”

“It ain’t safe,” Matty said. “Not with Hobe aboard. He’s going to blow it up.”

“Blow it up?”

Matty dabbed at the bloody cut on his forehead. His square face was grim. “That’s what he came out here for. When I figured it out, l knew I had to stop him. So I skipped out of the hospital and came here. Too rough to fly. No chopper available, anyway.”

“How did you hear about Hobe while you were in the hospital?”

“Colonel Lepaka told me. He visited me, after he saw you. Talked about Betty. Still wanted to know about me and Betty. Nothing to it, I told him.”

“But what about Betty and Madragata?”

Matty looked at him with surprised eyes, but his mouth tightened and he shook his head. He did not answer.

Durell said, “I‘ll take the wheel. You’d better get yourself a drink down below.”

Chapter 19.

It was not luck or navigation. It was instinct, an oilman’s keen sense of smell for oil. It was not yet noon before the lights and loom of the giant ocean platform appeared out of the rain and breaking seas ahead of the boat.

A long string of red, yellow, and green lights flickered and flashed from the drilling tower, showing through the gray scud of rain and spray. The lights had not been on before, when they had come out here in Kitty’s launch. But that had been in broad daylight, before the storm. Perhaps the switchers aboard were automated. But it looked as if someone had gone around the platform and snapped on every light available. The windows in the crew’s quarters, the machinery shack, and around the housing of the well pattern were all ablaze. Without them, they might have missed the Lady by miles and kept on going out into the storm-swept Atlantic.

“Somebody expecting us?” Matt muttered. “How come?"

“Maybe the signal went out by radio.”

“No radioman left aboard, remember?”

“Somebody could have come here last night.”

“Somebody did," Matty said. “Look.”

Lashed fore and aft to the girders that supported the heliport was a boat. Its mast swung and swayed in the lee of the wind. It was one of the fishing boats Durell had seen on the beach when he and Kitty walked south to find the Saka. Or a boat just like it. It was big enough to hold over twenty men. Durell was just as pleased he had brought the Magnum rifle.

“We can get aboard over there,” Matty pointed to an iron ladder that had been lowered down the rusty sides of the Lady.

“Find another place,” Durell said. “They might be waiting. Maybe they know we’re coming. Tie up alongside the fishing boat.”

Matty turned the wheel again. “They took a hell of a Chance, coming out here in that native hulk.”

“Desperate men take desperate chances,” Durell said.

“You really think we’re expected?”

“I think so.”

“Lepaka, maybe?"

“No,” Durell said. “I have to trust Lepaka.”

“He’d like to be a military dictator,” Matt said.

“I don’t believe that.”

The girls came up out of the small cabin. Betty Tallman looked better. Her eyes were clearer, although her face was still pale, and she had made an effort to brush and tie up her blond hair.

Kitty carried both rifles.

The bulk of the platform, With its six huge cylindrical columns that supported the rig above the surface of the ocean, tended to break the force of the wind and waves, although the lifeboat pitched and tossed wildly as they circled to the west. Durell watched the railings on the platform deck. Nobody appeared there, high above them, to challenge their approach. The roar of the seas was deafening as a wave broke against the cylinders. The gray wind whistled in varying crescendos under the platform.

Matty and Durell tied up next to the fishing boat. The seas lifted and fell under them. The fishing boat stank, even in the harsh, cold wind that rushed by.

“The girls should stay here,” Matty said.

“No,” said Kitty.

“Not a chance,” Betty Tallman said.

Matty said, “I thought you and Hobe were split. We could get killed up there.”

“I feel different about Hobe now.”

Durell said, “Kitty is a good shot. We could use her, Matt.”

Matty shrugged and they crossed the rough plank deck of the fishing boat and started up the steel stairs that zig-zagged back and forth up to the underside of the deck. There were spotlights fixed here and there among the struts and girders, and all of them were ablaze. Above the noise of the sea and the wind, Durell could hear the thumping of the two‘ Caterpillar D 398-TB diesels that ran the 520-KW AC generators aboard the rig.

He went up first. Matty followed, and then the girls. Matty had a Colt .45 that he had pulled from under his belt. Durell wondered where he had gotten it since he left the hospital. He kept the Magnum for himself. Kitty carried the Remington. Betty did not have any weapons, but Kitty thrust a flare pistol into her unwilling hand.

Nobody was on guard at the upper hatch. It was a relief to feel the stability of the platform deck under their feet, after the pitching of the lifeboat for so long.

Matt cupped his mouth to Durell’s ear. “How many Apgaks came aboard from the fishing boat, do you think?”

“Maybe a dozen. Maybe twenty.”

“They must’ve got Hobe already.”

“Perhaps. Where would Hobe hide out?”

“Forward, near the drilling tower.”

“Why not his office in the laboratory quarters?”

“Not if he saw them coming,” Matt said.

The crew’s quarters were deserted, although bright with lights. Durell saw pools of water on the deck, leading toward the doorway that led to the area where the drilling pipe was stacked. The Apgaks from the fishing boat hadn’t arrived here much sooner than themselves, obviously.

He pushed carefully on the door that led out to the platform’s main deck. His gun was up and ready. The door opened outward, and there was weight against it, holding the panel shut. He shoved harder. Something rolled aside, and he saw the body of a dead man, red headband around the head, a rifle spilled to the wet steel deck nearby. An Apgak. The man had been shot in the chest.

The rainswept deck, with its clutter of machinery, mud-mixing tanks, piping, and crates, seemed to be empty. The wind-force lessened for a few moments. He stepped outside, into the rain. As the screaming of the wind dropped to a lower pitch for a moment, he heard the shooting.

The Link LS-108-B crawler crane, its boom swinging down, was moving across the cluttered deck amidships.

Durell could not see who was in the control cab. The boom came down farther, swung viciously across the deck, and knocked over a pile of wooden crates. Machinery parts spilled from the crates, which shattered and burst with the impact.

“What the hell?” Matty muttered behind him.

“Would that be Hobe in there?”

‘“Can’t tell. They’re shootin’ at him, though.” Matt hefted his heavy Colt. “Maybe we ought to help him.”

“He doesn‘t need help right now.”

The firing seemed to ring the massive, clattering cargo derrick that moved slowly over the steel plates of the platform. There was another swipe of the lowered boom, and a pile of stacked well piping went askew, the tubes rolling with loud bangings and clatterings toward the rail. Two men in red headbands scattered from behind their masked concealment and ran for new cover.

Betty said, “It’s got to be Hobe, running that thing.”

A sputter of automatic rifle fire sent a hail of bullets toward the crawler derrick. The slugs bounced off the heavy steel plates with effect. One of the small windows in the Link’s cab suddenly shattered.

“Come on," Durell decided. “Kitty. keep Betty here. You can cover us with your rifle. Matt, come with me.”

The force of the wind made his shirt flap and flutter at his back. The rain came down in long, wavering patterns. Spray from a comber burst as high as the lowest railing of the platform. From up here, they could see the turmoil of the tortured ocean, the steady march of twenty-foot waves, the blasts of spray where the wind took the tops off the combers. The deck trembled. It should have been solid, even in this weather, but Durell felt the trembling through the soles of his boots.

Matt said, “If that‘s Hobe, what the hell does he think he’s doing?”

Betty spoke behind them. “I see Madragata. He’s over there.” She pointed forward.

“Madragata," Matty said, “has to be back in the city, leading his goddamn Red coup."

“I tell you, it’s him! I see him!” She paused when Durell looked back at her. “He’s gone now.”

Durell could see the Apgaks moving from cover to cover as the Link crawler crane moved about the main deck like some agonized, prehistoric monster. The Apgaks kept firing at it. The sounds of their guns were small poppings and cracklings against the noise of the wind and sea. Durell spotted six, then ten, then over a dozen of the men with the red headbands. There was no doubt that they meant to get the operator of the crawler derrick. There was not too much room for the Link to maneuver, and then it came up against the heavy base of the Clyde stiff-legged boom, where Durell had found Brady Cotton’s body on his first visit to the Lady.

Matty groaned. “He’s doin’ one hell of a lot of damage. I can count one hundred grand in the wreckage already."

Suddenly Durell saw what the driver of the crawler was trying to do. The cargo boom, which could lift over seven tons and turn in a thirty-five-foot radius, swung once more, rising as it moved. It struck one of the legs of the Clyde, and the crash of steel on steel was as it two ancient behemoths had locked horns. The Clyde shuddered and the leg collapsed, and then the derrick arm came down in a crashing tangle of blocks and steel cables. The rugged support girders bent and separated as if they were built of wet cardboard. Half of the big boom went through the railing and over the side, splashing into the sea.

The man in the crawler cab tried to back away from the wreckage. His machine shuddered, gave out a pull of black exhaust that was quickly whipped away by the wind. The crawler did not move. Durell could see that one of the tracks had come oil the sprockets. The machine spun helplessly in a slow circle, like a crippled bug.

A dim shout of triumph came from the attackers spotted here and there on the crowded platform deck.

Durell ran down the ladder from the crew housing. Matty limped after him. Above, Kitty watched with her rifle. All of the attention of the Apgaks was centered on the crippled crawler. The firing was heavy now. Every window in the crawler’s cab was smashed.

“This way!” Matty shouted.

The wind came in erratic gusts. Durell could taste the salt spray from the wind and sea on his lips.

They ran through a bulkhead door, down another short flight of steel stairs, and came out on the main deck. An Apgak, hunched behind a corner of the machinery house, heard them somehow above the wail of the wind and the thunder of the sea. The man turned, lifted an AK-47, his mouth open in surprise. Durell fired, saw the man throw up both hands as a splotch of red bloomed on his left shoulder. The force of the Magnum’s slug was enough to stop a charging rhino. The man was literally blown off his feet, and went sliding away along the wet deck plates.

“Is there a way to the tower mast?” Durell asked.

“Underneath. Catwalks. Come on.”

The shooting sounded like popguns against a renewed blast of the wind. Durell saw a man climb out of the Link belt crawler and run for the edge of the platform. He caught a cable that dangled over the edge of the deck and swung downward on it, hanging perilously over the seething sea.

It was Hobe Tallman.

There was a short lighted corridor, then another flight of steps down, then an open-railed catwalk going forward from the heliport deck where they had first come aboard. The heaving seas under the platform licked up hungrily for them. The deck treads of the catwalk were treacherously wet. Durell ran forward, looking for a sign of where Hobe Tallman might have landed. There was a small balcony-like structure just below the bottom level of the platform’s rusty sides. Rain smashed into Durell’s eyes. He thought he saw something or someone move onto the little platform. He wasn’t sure.

He was halfway there, wondering if Hobe had fallen into the sea in his desperate effort to escape the Apgaks, when he felt the explosion.

The charge had been placed somewhere in the housing that held the tops of the great cylindrical legs supporting the semi-submersible rig on the ocean bottom. A twisted plate of steel went floating lazily in the air and spiraled outward into the sea from the side of the platform opposite Durell. Smoke made a dark burst of cloud that was immediately shredded by the wind. The catwalk trembled under his feet. The whole platform lurched, began to cant to one side, dipping and shuddering down on the side of the rig away from them. Matty yelled and tried for a grip on the catwalk rail and missed. Durell caught the chunky man as his legs shot out over the side. He held Matt from the sea for a long. straining moment until the rig foreman caught the underrail and pulled himself back. Everything slanted steeply away from them.

Then there was another explosion from one of the corner columns. This one was heavier. The whole rig, the huge artificial man-made island the size of at least two football fields, shuddered and cracked and groaned.

Matt‘s voice held tears of rage in it.

“Hobe!” he called. “Hobe, don‘t!"

Chapter 25.

The drilling mast came down above them with a great screaming of torn and twisted girders. The crash was thunderous, even above the noise of the storm. Durell felt as if everything were falling away from him. The catwalk twisted, heaved, and bent under them. The rig sank slowly on its side, going down by the opposite corner as the two cylindrical legs that had been cracked by the explosion slowly buckled. Plates popped loose as if they had been made of paper. Rivets shot through the air like bullets. Durell and Matty hugged the floor of the catwalk, feeling the whole structure shudder and tilt and slip more and more sideways toward the sea.

The rumbling movement seemed without end.

When it was over, the deck canted toward the far corner of the platform by at least twenty degrees.

“Jesus,” Matty gasped. “Is he crazy?”

Durell said. “Can you get up?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m all right.”

“It’s not over yet. Hobe’s still up there, somewhere.”

Durell flipped a hand. He was surprised to see blood on his knuckles. “He’s got more explosives, I’m sure. That’s why he came over in the crawler to this side.”

“But he’s gone.” Matty peered down into the sea. “He must have been shook loose by the explosions.” He looked tormented. “Why, Sam? Why did he do this to the Lady?”

“I think he‘ll do anything now to keep the rig out of Madragata’s hands. In case Madragata takes over the government.”

“But he—we worked like bastards to get this outfit going. Even if it turned out to be a dry hole—”

“It isn‘t,” Durell said.

Matt turned his tormented face toward him. “What are you talking about? I saw the records myself, the logs, the geological analysis—”

"Not the real ones. Hobe kept the true log. Maybe he began it to keep information from the Lubindan Interior Ministry. Brady Cotton swiped the real records from him as evidence. We might never find them, however. Come on. We can’t stay here forever.”

Matty’s strong, angry hand clamped on his shoulder. He had to bellow above the sounds of wind and wave. “What? What are you talking about? I knew Hobe was a little crackers, he’s been goin’ off his rocker since it was decided the Lady was a wildcat failure. I came out here this morning to stop him from doing something crazy, that’s all—I mean, when I heard he’d come here, too, and all. I just had this hunch about him." Matty paused. He was trembling. “I didn’t know he was going to wreck the whole platform. We’ll all go into the sea if he sets off a few more charges like these first two. We’re crippled as it is. Another one, and we all—”

Matty checked himself, gripped the rail, and stared belligerently down at the heaving green ocean.

"Come on,” Durell said again.

Matty said, “I can’t swim."

“Nobody could, in these seas.”

Durell knocked the man’s hand off his shoulder and led him forward along the slanted, twisted catwalk to where he had last seen Hobe swinging down over the side.

Hobe had disappeared.

There was danger here from the loose steel cables that dangled over the edge of the tilted platform. The wind lashed at the cables until they acted like long, flailing whips. Part of the catwalk had been twisted upside down, midway toward the corner pier where Hobe had gone over the side. For a time, Durell had to crawl along the underside of the steel plates, searching for any handheld available. The wind tried to pluck him oil his perilous perch. He could see part of the tower mast on the other side, hanging over the far edge halfway into the sea. Spray reached up and dashed in his face. He was momentarily blinded. Matty urged him forward, consumed by his desire to save the platform from Hobe’s explosives.

None of them would get back ashore alive, Durell suddenly thought. They were twenty miles out to sea, caught in a raging storm, with a madman aboard, bent on destroying them all. Not to mention the Apgaks, he thought wryly.

He kept going forward.

There was no sign of Hobe at this far corner of the platform. The catwalk angled on, under the deck. Durell looked for explosives, found none. Apparently Hobe had taken off for another spot to set his charges. If he hadn’t fallen into the sea, Durell reminded himself.

“Sam!”

Matty’s warning shout was torn away by the wind. Durell spun about, saw two Apgaks swarming down the cables from the upper deck. The flat sound of a gunshot reached him. He heard Matty’s big Colt smash out a reply, and one of the Apgaks let go of his cable and fell into the sea below. The second man fired again. And Durell heard the bullet scream off the deck plates behind him. The Apgak turned and swarmed up the cable to the deck like a long-jointed, giant spider.

“This way.” Durell said.

He pointed to the crosswalk that led amidships under the platform. A bulkhead door at the other end of the walk seemed to offer temporary safety. Hobe Tallman must have gone in through there.

They slid and clung and worked their way down the slanting catwalk to the door. It was not locked. A heavy sea smashed under the platform, sent spray bursting up at them, soaking their legs. The wind was growing stronger again. There was a crashing and banging of loose, broken equipment above them. Another crash made Durell turn his head in time to sec the fishing boat tear loose and break against the more distant pier at the far corner.

“We’ve lost another couple of degrees,” Matty yelled.

“The Lady’s settled some more.”

“Inside,” Durell said.

He pulled the bulkhead door open all the way.

They practically fell through, impelled by the slant of the deck. Matt turned and shoved the heavy door shut and dogged it tight. His thigh wound was bleeding again, and his khaki slacks, soaked with rain, looked darker where the open wound bled through the cloth.

It was quieter inside, with the noise of the storm muffled by the heavy door.

They were in a small, Spartan anteroom. A corridor sloped ahead of them, still ablaze with lights. A flight of steps led upward toward the laboratory offices, marked by a painted arrow on the bright yellow walls.

Madragata stood at the foot of the steps, waiting.

He had an automatic rifle pointed at them.

As Durell started forward, the Apgak leader grinned.

Then he pulled the trigger.

And all the lights went out.

The bullets clamored past him and away.

Durell heard Matty fall to the deck. He slid to one side, listening to the muted rumble of the seas. He smelled cordite in the air.

The image of Madragata, tall and muscular, his handsome face ravaged by hatred, seemed to float in the darkness before him. He pressed back against the wall beside the bulkhead door.

Very faintly, he heard the shouting of panicked voices like the mewing of seagulls.

“Matty?” he whispered.

“Yo.”

“Are you hit?”

“Uh, no. The son of a bitch is still here.”

“Hold it.”

Durell moved farther to his right. He came to the corner of the small ante-room, feeling unbalanced by the pitch of the deck that dropped down ahead of him. Apparently the two Caterpillar diesels that provided electric power had been knocked out. But there was a little light, seeping in from somewhere ahead, down the stairwell from the upper deck. He could barely make out the shape of the corridor and the steps. He could not see Madragata.

“Durell!”

Madragata’s deep voice trembled with hatred and frustration. It came from somewhere beyond the open treads of the steel staircase.

“Durell, do you have Hobe?“ There was anxiety in the

words. “Have you stopped him?”

Durell called hack, “No.”

He moved immediately, forward and to the right, against the corridor wall. He had to feel his way onward.

“He’s going to blow us up, Senhor Durell!"

Now there seemed to be panic in the Apgak’s voice.

But Durell was not sure.

“He must be stopped!” Madragata yelled.

Durell called forward into the downward-sloping darkness. “Is that why you came here, Madragata?”

“Certainly.”

“And left your men to fight it out alone in Lubinda?”

“The fight is lost. The Saka is coming. He turned against me, his own son. My own rightful father. Against me! The Chinese was killed. Half my people have deserted. I want to cooperate now. We’ll make a deal, eh?”

The voice echoed and banged through the steely darkness. There was a plea in it, and desperation, but still a sense of hatred, a need for revenge.

Durell slid a little farther down the inclined corridor floor. He estimated he was now about twenty steps from the stairway where Madragata was hiding. Something clicked behind him, from where he had left Matty. He thought he heard Matty breathing, the sound whispering of the man’s pain. He took another step down the slope. Above, on the platform deck, something else came loose and slid with a great crashing noise and went overboard.

Suddenly Madragata yelled, “Killing is too good for you, Durell! You must die for all the ill fortune you brought to me!”

Another step.

He could not keep his balance on the tilted floor. He grabbed for the wall. His palms made a thudding sound.

Madragata fired again. The muzzle flame made long red flashes nearby. Something tugged at Durell’s shoulder.

He dived forward for the stairs.

Matty shouted something. He felt the cold grip of the staircase rail, let his momentum carry him down and around to the back of it. He crashed into human flesh, hard muscle; he smelled panic breath, sweat, food exhaled between the faint gleam of white teeth.

Another explosion shook the drilling platform.

Madragata made a squealing sound of fear. Something hit Durell in the stomach, then smashed at his throat. He grabbed at the man’s arm. tore it loose as the platform lurched. They went rolling over and over down the blackness of the corridor. Crashings and hangings echoed from everywhere as more equipment broke loose. Durell thought he heard Matty yell something. It did not matter. Madragata’s gun was now the sum of the universe, the end of everything.

They brought up hard against the wall beyond the staircase. Madragata grunted, wriggled, heaved aside to break free. Durell hit him in the throat, at the side of the neck, and missed a third blow that ended on the deck plates, jolting pain through his hand and up his arm. He still had his rifle. He swung it up, caught the muzzle in the other hand, brought it forward, crushingly, into Madragata’s throat. The Apgak kicked him low in the belly. Everything seemed to break loose inside him. But he did not let go of his grip, He had the man’s head pinned to the deck plates.

Under them, the platform lurched and shuddered again. Madragata’s gun went off beside his ear, deafening him. He slammed it aside, his head ringing. He had to loosen his grip on the rifle. Madragata got halfway up, stabbed fingers at his face. Durell caught the man’s free hand, slammed it back against the steel wall. Bones broke. The man squealed again. He wriggled free, scrabbling up the canted deck for the stairway. Matty yelled and came sliding down toward them, his leg bumping loosely as if it were broken.

Light suddenly shone down the stairwell.

Madragata was already crouched halfway up the treads, his hair a wild screen across his face, through which his eyes gleamed like a hunted animals

The light came from an emergency battery lantern.

It framed Betty Tallman’s figure at the head of the steps. She was carrying the Remington that Durell had left with Kitty. He shouted to her, started to climb up the sloping corridor. his stomach heaving from the blow Madragata had gotten at his belly. He could have shot Madragata then and there with the heavy rifle, His finger tightened on the trigger. Then he didn't have to do anything about the Apgak.

Betty Tallman‘s face was in the shadow, the lantern behind her. She leveled the gun downward at Madragata. Her mouth drooped strangely. She looked as if she were crying. Madragata put a hand upward, fingers splayed, as if to ward off something. Then the woman began to fire, very carefully, very methodically, at the man reaching up to her.

With each echoing, racketing shot that overrode the groaning of the platform, Madragata jerked and stepped backward. When Madragata fell, hands high in the air, Betty still kept firing. The body jumped and jerked in the light of the emergency lantern.

“Betty!” Durell called.

She looked dazed.

“Betty, he’s dead. Stop it.”

“What?”

“He’s dead.”

"Oh."

Chapter 21.

“Where is Hobe?”

“I don’t know.”

“And Kitty?”

“Somewhere.”

“Why did you kill Madragata like that?”

“Because he made me—because he and I—we made Hobe go crazy.”

“Why did Kitty give you the gun?”

“I took it from her.”

“Did you hurt her?”

“No. Yes. I don’t think so.”

Matty crawled up the incline from the foot of the slanted stairway. He trailed a small snake of blood from his injured leg. His teeth clamped together in a grimace that was not a grin. He looked at Madragata’s body in the dim light.

“Sam, listen. We’ve got to stop Hobe. He'll kill us all. He’ll sink the Lady.”

“The platform will float, if necessary, won’t it?”

“Not like this. Not with the legs still down. And all the pumps are knocked out. We’re listing at about thirty degrees now. Everything, all of us, will just slide into the sea.”

“Stay here with Betty,” Durell said. “Don‘t let her out of your sight.”

“Sure.”

Durell held out his hand for the Remington that Betty Tallman still gripped. She stared as if hypnotized at Madragata’s bloody body. “Give me the gun, Betty. Matt?”

“Yo.”

“Where do you keep the explosives aboard?”

Matt jerked a thumb upward. “Locked room, next to Hobe’s office.”

“Fine. Betty?”

He wasn‘t sure about her for a moment. Then, without taking her eyes from the dead man, she handed him the rifle. Durell tossed it to Matt. “Hold on, Matty,“ he said.

He turned and climbed the awkwardly tilted stairs. The door above hung open, pulled down and back by the slant of the crippled platform. Durell got through, hung onto the doorjamb for a moment, used the battered lantern to check that he was on the level of the lab and geology offices, and then snapped off the switch. Some daylight came through the small square windows in the yellow-painted wall. Rain rippled the image of the main deck.

He saw nothing but chaos out there.

Another stairway led him awkwardly to the level of the main laboratories. He moved with care, trying to be soundless, although the muddled roar of the wind and the crash of the sea outside would serve to cover most normal sounds. Something clanged steadily overhead, a loose piece of machinery or a cable blowing in the wind.

He paused at the head of the second set of steps. The corridor slanted away into shadows. Several of the doors to the lab rooms had come ajar with the tilting of the rig, and light came in through their windows. Footsteps thudded overhead. Two, three, maybe five men. Apgaks. He stood still and listened. They went away alt, toward the heliport.

“Hobe?” he called softly.

The door was painted red, with various warning signs stenciled in white. The tilt of the deck kept this door tightly closed in its steel frame. Durell put down the Magnum rifle and took the .38 handgun from under his belt. The room in which he stood had been Hobe’s private executive office. The desk had slid against the opposite wall, and papers and boxes made a small heap of trash in the corner. The windows here were wide, overlooking the well pattern. He could see that the drilling tower was bent halfway to the top, although the lower sixty feet still stood firm. But the narrowing girders to the drilling engines above had bent and toppled sidewise, so that the tower lay caught between the Clyde derrick turntable and the aft port pier housing. The end of it was awash in the seething gray-green seas.

“Hobe? This is Durell. Come out of there.”

He could hear Hobe moving around inside when he took a misstep on the canted deck and lurched against the wall.

“Hobe?”

He stepped back, suddenly kicked at the door. It sprung backward, hung there halfway, and before gravity could slam it shut again, he charged through. The room reflected chaos. Cartons, metal canisters, boxes of detonators, and sticks of explosive had tumbled from the shelves and piled up in one corner. Hobe’s figure was bent over the pile, scrabbling for various items he was putting aside.

The man turned, stared at him with wild eyes in a round moon face.

“Hold it, Hobe. No more.”

“Get away from me!”

“Just hold it. Exactly like that.”

“It’s too late. You can’t stop me, Durell.”

“Madragata is dead. His men are in a panic. They have no leader, they don’t know what they’re supposed to do now.”

Hobe glared at him. “Dead?”

“Yes. Madragata is dead.”

“You’re lying.”

“Betty shot him,” Durell said.

“No.”

“She put at least six bullets in him. I saw it.”

“Now I know you‘re lying. She wouldn‘t. She and Madragata—”

“It wasn’t all true. She was just trying to hurt you. Because she’s disappointed. Because she hoped for too much. Listen to me, Hobe.”

“She can’t be aboard?”

“I brought her here with me. And Matty the Fork. And Kitty Cotton.”

“Why?” the man wailed. “Why did you do that?”

“To stop you from destroying the Lady.”

“But I have to do it. I’m not going to let it all go into Madragata’s hands. And then the Chinese. He planned everything to cheat me. He’ll never pay me. He laughed at me, took my wife, went to bed with her, and all the time—”

Hobe paused. His eyes were not sane. His mouth twitched. He rubbed it with the back of his hand and stared at Durell as if he still did not comprehend his presence here. There was an ugly bruise on his forehead, as if he had fallen against something. He had lost his glasses, and his eyes looked vague and uncertain without them. His white shirt was ripped, and his back was bloody, as if he had skidded when he fell. His thin hair was plastered wetly on his red scalp. In his hand, he carried a small timing device and a clutch of varicolored wires.

“Betty?” he whispered. “Betty killed him?”

“She wants you to take her back,” Durell said.

“It’s too late for that now.”

“It’s never too late,” Durell said. “Stop and think about it. The Lady is still afloat. She can he fixed up, set to drilling again. You know there’s oil here, don’t you?”

“Yes. Sweet oil. Lovely stuff. Lots of it.”

“But you changed the reports to make it look like a dry hole, right?”

“That was because—because—”

“Brady Cotton found out about it, didn’t he?”

“It was stupid. He was nosing around. I should have realized that he couldn’t have known anything really.”

Hobe fumbled in his wet shirt pocket and took out a stubby cigar. He had a lighter in there, too. He bent his head and worked on getting the wet cigar aglow. It didn’t want to stay lighted.

“You killed Brady, didn’t you?” Durell said quietly.

“He found out,” Hobe Tallman said. “I had to.”

“Why did you have to?”

“I told you, I couldn’t let Brady tell the truth. He was just poking around. I thought he had something solid on me. He pretended he did. A bluff. His mistake. I thought I had to shut him up. He was your man, wasn’t he?”

“Yes.”

“A K Section man?”

“Yes,” Durell said.

“I should have known. I knew it too late, when you showed up in Lubinda looking for him.”

Durell said, “Why did you do it, Hobe?“

The man tried to light the soggy cigar again.

“Money," he said.

“You had a good job here. You hit oil. You had it made.”

“But I wouldn't get anything out of it, don’t you see? Just the same old salary. Another job somewhere else in some other stinking hole, another jungle, maybe Sumatra, just about anywhere. Betty wanted to go home rich.”

“Yes. It was Betty.”

“I love her,“ Hobe said. “I need her.”

He looked as if he was going to cry.

He said, “When other men saw me with her, as my wife, they figured I—they said I was lucky, kidded me about whether I could give her enough to keep her satisfied. That sort of thing. It was good for me, though. I needed it.”

“You never had to prove anything to anybody about yourself, Hobe.”

“I thought I did.”

“Brady Cotton didn’t fool with her, did he?”

“No, no. It wasn’t that. He found out about the money Madragata had offered me. A million dollars, in the Banque Josper Suisse, in Geneva.”

“A million? For what?”

“To delay announcing the discovery of the oil strike here. It‘s a big strike. It I reported it, Lubinda would really be on the map. There’d be all kinds of interests swarming in. And then Madragata’s rebels wouldn’t have a chance, of course. The government would have too much going for it, with the prospects of all that national wealth they’d never let it fall into Madragata’s hands, what with prices so high and the way the industrial nations knife each other to get their share. You can’t use force in the Middle East. but you can use it here. That’s what Madragata was afraid of. So he offered me a million, even more, if I held oil the announcement until after his coup succeeded.”,

Hobe smiled sadly.

“Not only that. I’d have the job of Minister of Internal Resources in Lubinda. Betty would have had everything she dreamed of. So I faked the reports. I went along with Madragata. But Brady found my real log, and I had to kill him, even though he was my friend."

Hobe looked at his wet cigar and threw it away.

“I want to see Betty,” he said.

“She’s all right.”

“Did she really kill Madragata?”

Someone came into the office behind the explosives storeroom. Durell recognized the footsteps. He turned to retrieve his rifle, but he was too late. Kitty Cotton had the Magnum, pointed at him and Hobo. There was no way to get past her and out of the storeroom.

Fear crossed Hobe‘s round face. He thought the girl was going to shoot him to avenge Brady.

But Hobe had gone beyond concern for his own life. A strange sound came from him and he lurched across the room for the girl, trying to grab at the rifle. Durell did not want to shoot him. He saw uncertainty in Kitty’s eyes, then surprise and a touch of fear. There came a crashing sound as the outer office door was smashed open again. Two Apgaks stumbled in, wet with rain, injured and bloody. They saw Hobe come at them, or thought he was coming at them, and one of them threw a knife. It made a fine flickering arc in the dim gray air. The sound as the point hit Hobe in the stomach was a fiat chunking. Kitty stood frozen. Durell’s handgun jumped, roared, firing once, then twice. The first Apgak went skittering backward on legs that no longer supported him, fell against the far wall, slid with his legs awry to the sloping deck. The second man spun about, a hand to his face, dead before he fell.

“Hobe?”

Durell knelt beside the fallen man. The knife was embedded in his stomach up to the hilt. Kitty made a moaning sound and put aside the heavy Magnum.

“I didn’t mean—I wasn’t going to—”

“Things happen,” Durell said. And again: “Hobe?”

“Just as—just as well," Tallman whispered.

He didn‘t speak again. When Betty showed up, he was already dead.

Betty knelt beside him and looked at him with dry eyes and a set mask for a face.

Chapter 22.

“I need you, Sam,” Kitty said. “I really do.”

Durell stared up at the ceiling of his room in the Lopodama Hotel. “I don’t think you do.”

“I’ve been looking for you all my life.” She rubbed the sole of her foot along his left calf. “I really have. I’ve made two mistakes so far—”

“Don’t make a third,” he said.

“What’s the matter with you, anyway? What kind of a man are you?”

“You see, you don’t know anything about me.”

It was still raining. The smell of smoke and destruction still hung over the city, but the wind had died, and the storm was passing out to the west, over the Atlantic Ocean. Some of the shopkeepers in the Pequah had taken down the steel shutters over their store windows and were open for business. The hotel was crowded. A lot of European refugees had come in from the countryside during the fighting. The clerk had honored Durell’s claim to the room, although Durell had spent little time here since his arrival in Lubinda. The bed was cool, big, comfortable. It didn’t matter how big it was. Kitty was pressed close beside him, leaving most of it empty.

There was a change in the atmosphere, too. The sticky humidity was gone. The day was actually cool, relatively speaking, Durell thought. Everything was relative. He had managed to get the radio on the Lady working, after he and Matty had rounded up the remaining Apgaks on the rig, who were just as happy to surrender after Kitty spoke to them. in their clicking dialect, announcing the Saka’s return over the booming echoes of the PA system on the platform.

It was evening before the rescue boats arrived from shore. One of the first aboard was Colonel Komo Lepaka. His stick figure paused only briefly when he had surveyed the tangled mess of wrecked machinery aboard.

“It can be repaired?” Lepaka asked.

Matty the Fork had replied. “Yes, with a lot of work. There’s plenty of oil down there. Enough for everybody.”

Kitty said, “Enough for new schools, Colonel.”

“Why did Hobe try to destroy everything?”

“He didn’t want Madragata to get it, if the Apgaks took over the government. A question of revenge for being double-crossed, as he thought,” Durell said.

Lepaka looked tired. “Ah, yes. And Mrs. Tallman?”

“I think she ought to go home,” Durell suggested.

“It will be arranged.” Lepaka turned his heavy-lidded eyes away from the destruction. His dark brown face looked as gaunt as ever. “It is all over, you understand. For now. The Saka came back. You brought him back. It has saved Lubinda.”

“Lubinda could have saved itself.” Durell said.

“I am sorry about Hobe Tallman,“ Lepaka said.

“He had no place to go.”

Later, after he had seen Matty back to the hospital, he had walked with Kitty through the wet, rubbled street to the hotel. Armored troops were stationed at strategic posts throughout the city. Lights blazed in the Presidential Palace. There was the sound of commercial jets at the airport, probably bringing in scores of reporters from all over the world to add their din and sensationalized comments to the affair for the next few days.

But it was all over.

There was a call for him from the elegant, isolated U.S. Embassy down the coast, well out of the area of disturbance. Durell took the call while Kitty, by unspoken agreement, showered in the bathroom with its blue Portuguese tiled walls.

“Durell? We’ll want a full report on what you’ve seen and done, at the soonest. We want to know about the People’s Army and how the military security forces crushed opposition to the legitimate aspirations of the Lubindan people—"

“Who is this?" Durell asked.

“I’m Henry Adams, the Ambassador's secretary.”

“You have a good name,” Durell said.

“What? I'm sorry, I don’t understand—"

“Don’t spoil it,” Durell said. The shower in the bathroom had stopped hissing. The lights were still not working in the Lopodama, but the manager had provided candles and oil lamps. There were ships’ lights moving out on the broad anchorage in the estuary, beyond the windows. Durell said, “I’ll make my report directly to Washington.”

“But we have a need to know—”

“To hell with you,” Durell said.

He hung up, then took the phone off the hook.

Kitty was waiting for him.

Later, when they had Slept, and the next clay had begun with a drizzle that promised to end before noon, he ordered breakfast brought up to the room. It was served by a thin, long-legged boy who might have been Lepaka’s son. They ate in bed, listening to the drip of the rain from the roof eaves, enjoying the cool sheets and the wind that blew in off the harbor, Traffic began to move more briskly in the streets.

“Sam, will you be taking Brady’s place?” Kitty asked.

“No.”

“But that’s your job, isn’t it?”

"I'll clean up Brady’s Central, yes. The main thing is, Lubinda will remain a free republic for a while yet—perhaps until the old man, the Saka, dies. For real, this time. Then we’ll have to watch Komo Lepaka. Most people in the police and security business gradually get totalitarian ideas.”

“I thought you liked Komo.”

“I do.”

“But you’ll swing against him if he turns?”

“If he tries later on to put Lubinda on the other side, yes.” .

“It seems so futile. Why did Brady have to die?”

“He died in a small skirmish. You can think of it like that. At least, things are kept stable here for a while longer, thanks to him. That’s why I came here. It’s a worldwide struggle, and every little bit helps. Soon enough, I’ll be sent somewhere else, Kitty You seem to want a personal substitute for Brady, a better dream. Maybe a better man. I don’t know if I’m better than Brady, except that I’m alive and he got himself killed. I couldn‘t live up to any woman’s dream, in any case.”

“Sam, you and I—”

“You and I have this, now. Now, and nothing more.”

“Oh, hell,” she said. She turned her face away from him and stopped rubbing her foot along his leg. “It’s so good like this, you and I . . .”

She turned her back to him and moved to the other side of the bed. It was as if she had moved to the opposite end of the world. The bed was wide and cold between them.

Durell said, “Come here.”

She did not move.

“We still have some time together,” he said.

“No.” Her voice was muffled. Her hair was tumbled over the white pillow. “It’s wrong.”

“You’re a Puritan again?”

“I never was. You know that.”

“So let’s make use of our time," he said.

For a long minute, she did not move. She drew a deep breath and he looked at her fine smooth back, the swell of her hip, her lustrous hair. He thought maybe he ought to get out of the bed and go about the business that had brought him here. Then he thought of the Ambassador’s man in the distant, safe embassy down the coast, smug in its antiseptic isolation, and decided it could all wait. All of them could wait. He reached out for Kitty, and when she felt his hand on her thigh, turning her toward him, she made a small sound and came back across the wide bed and hugged him tightly, as if it could be forever; and he thought that even an hour, a minute, or a moment, could be an eternity.