“Sit down, Mister Snook,” Ogilvie said in a dry unaccented voice. “I believe you have already met Colonel Freeborn.”
Snook turned and saw Freeborn standing in a shaded corner with his arms folded. “Yes, I’ve met the Colonel,” Snook said, lowering himself on to a chair.
Freeborn uncrossed his arms, long-muscled beneath the half-sleeves of his drill shirt, and the gold head of his cane shone like a miniature sun. “When you speak to the President use the correct form of address.”
Ogilvie raised a slim hand. “Forget it, Tommy, we’re here to talk business. Now, Mister Snook—Gilbert, isn’t it?—you realise we have a problem here. A very expensive problem.”
Snook nodded. “I can see that.”
“There’s a school of thought which holds you responsible.”
“I’m not.” Snook glanced briefly at Freeborn. “In fact, when I was talking to the school of thought in his office a couple of days ago, I gave him good advice on how to avoid the problem. He wasn’t interested.”
“What was your advice?”
“The ghosts can be seen only through magniluct glasses. Take the miners’ glasses away, install full lighting—no ghosts. It’s too late now, of course.”
“You still insist that these ghosts really exist?”
“Mister President, I’ve seen them, and I’ve photographed them.” Snook, who had been leaning forward in his earnestness, sat back and wished he had avoided any reference to the pictures.
“That brings me to another point,” Ogilvie said, taking a thin cigar from a box and sitting on one corner of his desk to reach for a lighter. “Colonel Freeborn tells me you took the film from the camera in his presence, and at that time it was blank. How do you explain that?”
“I can’t,” Snook said simply. “The only thing I can suggest is that the radiation by which we see the ghosts takes a long time to register on a negative.”
“That’s crap,” Ogilvie stated unemotionally, examining Snook through smoke-narrowed eyes. Snook received a distinct impression that the preliminaries had ended and that the serious business of the interview was about to begin.
“I don’t know much about these things,” he said, “but now that scientific researchers have begun to arrive in Kisumu from the States maybe we’ll get a better understanding of what’s going on.”
“Have you spoken to any of these people?”
“Yes—I’m meeting a Doctor Ambrose later today. Snook resisted the temptation to add that it would cause comment if he failed to keep the appointment. He knew that he and Ogilvie were communicating on two levels, one of which required no words.
“Doctor Ambrose.” Ogilvie moved behind his desk, sat down and made a note on a writing pad. “As you know, it is my policy to encourage tourists to visit Barandi—but it would be very wrong to entice them to come here with exaggerated ideas of what the country has to offer. Tell me, Gilbert, did you fake those photographs?”
Snook looked shocked. “I wouldn’t know how, Mister President. But even if I did know how—why should I?”
“That’s another thing I can’t understand.” Ogilvie smiled his regret. “If I could attribute a motive…”
“How did the photographs get into the hands of the Press?” Freeborn put in from his place in the corner.
“Well, that was my fault,” Snook replied. “I came into town that night for a drink and ran into Gene Helig, the Press Association man. We got to talking about the ghosts. Then I remembered I had shoved the film spools into my pocket and I took them out. You can imagine the surprise I got when Gene noticed the images on one film.”
Ogilvie gave a humourless laugh. “I can imagine.”
Snook decided to get back on to firmer ground. “The central issue, Mister President, is that these so-called ghosts do exist and the miners won’t go anywhere near them.”
“That’s what they think,” Freeborn said.
“I don’t believe in supernatural phenomena,” Snook continued. “I think there’s bound to be a plain explanation for the things that have been seen, and I think the only efficient way to clear up the whole mess is to find out what the explanation is. The whole world’s watching Barandi at this time and…”
“Don’t belabour the point.” Ogilvie had begun to sound bored. “You’ve stuck your nose into a lot of things without any authority—are you prepared to act as official liaison man if I give permission for a full scientific investigation to be carried out at the mine?”
“I’d be glad to.” Snook fought to conceal his surprise.
“All right. Go and see your Doctor Ambrose, and tie in with Cartier, the mine manager. And keep Colonel Freeborn fully informed. That’s all.” Ogilvie turned his swivel chair and sent a cloud of cigar smoke rolling in the direction of the nearest window.
“Thank you, Mister President.” Snook got to his feet and, without looking in the direction of Colonel Freeborn, hurried from the room. The interview with the President had gone better than he could have hoped for, and yet he had an uneasy feeling that he had been out-manoeuvred.
Freeborn waited a few seconds, ensuring that Snook had gone, before he moved forward into the light. “Things are bad, Paul,” he said. “Things are bad when a grease monkey like that can swagger in and out of here, laying down the law.”
“You think he should be shot?”
“Why waste a bullet? A plastic bag over the head is more satisfactory—it gives them lots of time to repent.”
“Yes, but unfortunately our grease monkey—by accident or design—has done all the right things to keep himself alive.” President Ogilvie stood up and paced the length of the room, marking his path with blue smoke clouds, and looking like a corporation executive discussing a sales plan. “What do you know of his history?”
“Only that I should have ended it three years ago when I had the chance.” Freeborn, in a reflex action, raised his cane and slid its gold head into the dent in his skull.
“There’s more to him than you think, Tommy. For instance, the suggestion he gave you about collecting all the miners’ low-light glasses had a lot of merit.”
“It would have involved a complete new lighting system for the mine. Have you any idea how much that would cost these days? It isn’t as if your nuclear power station had begun to work when it was supposed to.”
“New lighting would have been a trifle compared to the cost of a major shut-down—in any case, there’s more than money involved.” Ogilvie wheeled and pointed at the bigger man with his cigar. “Money means very little to me, Tommy. I’ve got more of it than I’ll ever be able to spend. The only thing I really want now is for this country, Barandi, the country that I made, to be given its rightful membership of the United Nations. I want to walk into that building in New York and see my flag up there among all the others. That’s why the diamond mines have to keep going. Because without them Barandi wouldn’t last a year.”
Freeborn’s eyes shuttled briefly as he sought the right words to use. He had been exposed to the President’s megalomania in the past and had no sympathy with it. The idea of his country’s leader dreaming of hoisting a scrap of cloth in a foreign city beyond the ocean—while there were hostile forces on the borders only a matter of kilometres distant—filled him with impatience and dismay, but he was accustomed to concealing his thoughts and biding his time. He had even learned to endure seeing the President take white and Asian whores to his bed, but a day was approaching when he would be in a position to give Barandi the firm military leadership it cried out for. In the meantime, he had to maintain and consolidate his own power.