“In that case,” Ogilvie said, “I’ll have to deal with you, won’t I?”
“Is there anything wrong, sir?” Snook sounded helpful, ready to please.
Ogilvie gave an appreciative laugh, recognising Snook’s way of touching gloves with him. “There appear to be quite a few things wrong. I don’t like having to listen to the British Broadcasting Corporation to find out what’s happening in my country. What happened to our arrangement that you would keep Colonel Freeborn informed of all developments at the mine?”
“I’m sorry, sir—but things have been happening so quickly, and my telephone has been out of order. In fact, yours is the first call to get through for days. I don’t understand how it happened, because I’ve never had any trouble with the telephone before now. It might be something to do with the…”
“Snook! Don’t overdo it. What’s all this about a plan to make our so-called ghosts materialise into flesh and blood?”
“Is that what they said on the radio?”
“You know it is.”
“Well, that’s Doctor Ambrose’s department, sir. I don’t even see how such a thing would be possible.”
“Neither do I,” Ogilvie said, “but apparently some of the UN’s science advisers think there could be something in it, and they don’t like the idea any more than I do. They’re sending a team of investigators with whom I’m going to cooperate to the fullest extent. In the meantime, Doctor Ambrose is to suspend all activities. Is that clear?”
“Very clear, sir. I’ll contact Doctor Ambrose at once.”
“Do that.” Ogilvie replaced the phone and sat tapping it with a fingernail. “Your friend Snook is as slippery as an eel—how many times did he address me as sir?”
Freeborn stood up, swinging his cane. “I’d better get out to the mine and make sure they clear out of it.”
“No. I want the Leopards pulled right out and I want you to stay in Kisumu, Tommy—Snook gets under your skin too easily. I don’t want any more trouble than I’ve already got.” Ogilvie gave Freeborn a moody, speculative stare.
“Besides, we both agree that the whole thing about visitors from another world is a ridiculous fairy tale.”
Chapter Twelve
Snook had just set off down the hill to the mine when an unfamiliar car pulled up beside him, its wheel arches cascading yellowish muddy water. The passenger door opened and he saw Prudence leaning across the seat towards him.
“Where’s Boyce?” she said. “I don’t see his car.”
“He’s at the mine setting up some new equipment. I’m on my way to see him now.”
“Jump in and I’ll take you—it’s too wet for walking.” Prudence hesitated after Snook had got in. “Will it be safe for me to go to the mine?”
“It’s all right—my friends drove off in their jeeps about an hour ago.”
“They weren’t your friends, Gil. I shouldn’t have said anything like that.”
“I shouldn’t have raked it up again. It’s just…” Snook held back the words which would make him vulnerable.
“Just what?” Prudence’s eyes were steady on his own. She was still turned towards him, her skirt and blouse drawn tightly across her body in diagonal folds. Within the car, the dim afternoon light was reduced to a scented gloaming, the rain-fogged windows were screening off the rest of the world, and Prudence was smiling one of her rueful, perfect smiles.
“It’s just,” Snook said, his heart assuming a slow, powerful rhythm, “that I keep thinking about you all the time.”
“Dreaming up fresh insults?”
Snook shook his head. “I’m jealous of you, and it’s something that never happened to me before. When I walked into the Commodore, and saw you sitting with Boyce, I felt this pang of jealousy. It doesn’t make any kind of sense, and yet I felt as if he’d robbed me. Since then…” Snook stopped speaking, finding it genuinely difficult to form words.
“What is it, Gil?”
“Do you know what’s happening how?” He smiled at her. “I’m trying to make love to you without touching you—and it isn’t easy.”
Prudence touched his hand and he saw in her face the beginnings of a special, unique softness. Her lips parted slowly, almost reluctantly, and he was leaning forward to claim fulfillment when a rear door of the car was thrown open and George Murphy exploded into their presence in a fluster of plastic clothing, rain splashes and mint-smelling breath. The car rocked on its suspension with the impact of his body.
“That was a bit of luck,” Murphy said breathlessly. “I . thought I’d have to walk all the way to the mine in that stuff. What a bloody day!”
“Hi, George.” Snook was oppressed by a sense of loss, of doors into the future closing with ponderous finality.
“You’re going to the mine, aren’t you?”
“Where else?” Prudence started the car moving down the hill and, in an immediate change of mood which filled Snook with an obscure pain, said, “Gil wants to try out a new plastic pick axe.”
“It’s bound to be better than the old-fashioned wood and steel jobs,” Murphy chuckled. “Unless…Unless…How would it be if we tried making the handles out of wood and the blades out of steel?”
“Too revolutionary.” Prudence flashed him a smile over her shoulder. “Everybody knows pick axes have to have wooden blades.”
Unable to match the levity. Snook said, “I’ve just had a call from Ogilvie—he has ordered us out of the mine.”
“Why’s that?”
“I suppose it’s a reasonable demand, from his point of view.” Snook got a grim pleasure from stating the opposition case. “Boyce was sent into the mine to lay ghosts, not to materialise them.”
They found Ambrose and Quig three hundred metres south of the mine head, working in a nondescript patch of flat ground which was used for the disposal of packing cases, scrap lumber and broken machine parts. Ambrose had calculated that the Avernians would attain an elevation of some two metres above ground at maximum, and he had constructed a makeshift platform of that height on which to place his equipment. He and Quig were soaked through, but were trudging about with a kind of water-logged cheerfulness which made Snook think of Great War soldiers giving thumbs-up signs for the benefit of correspondents’ cameras. Already in place on the platform, and covered by a plastic sheet, was a bulky cube with Snook took to be the Moncaster machine. Ambrose came forward to meet the car, smiling uncertainly when he saw Prudence.
“What are you doing here?” he said, opening the driver’s door.
Prudence took a handkerchief from her sleeve and dabbed the rain from his face. “I’ve got a sense of history, man ami. I’ve no intention of missing this show—provided there is a show, that is.”
Ambrose frowned. “What does that mean?”
While Murphy got out of the car and distributed an armful of blue plastic raincoats, Snook gave Ambrose details of the telephone call from President Ogilvie. Ambrose accepted a raincoat, but made no move to put it on, and his mouth withered into a thin, hard line as he listened to Snook’s report. He had begun shaking his head—slowly and steadily as an automaton—long before Snook had finished speaking.
“I’m not stopping/ he said in a harsh, unrecognisable voice. “Not for President Paul Ogilvie. Not for anybody.”
Lieutenant Curt Freeborn listened to the words with a deep satisfaction which went a long way towards soothing the anguish which had been burning inside him for many hours.
He removed the headphones of the telebug system, being careful to avoid disturbing the patch of gauze over his right eye, and put them in the carrying case alongside the associated sighting scope. The foreigners were hundreds of paces away from him and completely wrapped up in their own affairs, but nevertheless he crawled on his hands and knees for quite a long distance to obviate the risk of being seen as he was leaving his observation post. When he had cleared the angular jungle of the dumping area, he got to his feet, brushed the clinging mud and grass from his slickers, and walked quickly to the entrance gate. None of the mine guards in the security building would have dared question his movements, but he waved to them in a friendly manner as he left the enclosure. He had evidence which would justify firm action against Snook and the others, and his spirits had improved at the prospect. More important, he had evidence of his own resourcefulness and value as an officer in the Leopard Regiment, evidence his uncle would have to accept.