Hurricane seemed ambivalent about the journey. An accomplished world traveler, he had crossed this ocean in almost every imaginable means of conveyance; it took a lot to get him excited. He spent most of the trip asleep. As they stretched their legs on the remote knob of volcanic rock that was Ascension Island, Dodge caught up with him.
“Why did you bring me along?”
Hurley gazed at him sidelong. “You didn’t have to come.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“Well, I guess it ain’t at that.” The big man chuckled. “I could say because you might very well be the world’s leading expert on Zane Falcon.”
Dodge laughed humorlessly. “I don’t know anything about the real Captain Falcon.”
“You know more than you realize. The way you write him… that’s his ideal; the hero he always wished he could be.”
“But that’s not the reason.”
“It is, at least a little bit. If and when we find him, he might need some persuasion of the kind that’s more your forte than mine — gentle persuasion.”
This time Dodge’s chuckle was more heartfelt. Hurley wasn’t the big, dumb brute everyone thought he was. “You don’t give yourself enough credit. I happen to know that head on your shoulders is good for more than just cracking walnuts.”
“He’s lost his way,” Hurley continued, ignoring the platitude. “I tried to help him once before but it wasn’t enough.”
“What happened?”
“Who knows? It wasn’t any one thing really.” He sat on the ground Indian-style and took out a hand-rolled cheroot. “Maybe he just buried one too many friends in a war none of us really understood. You know, it wasn’t just the three of us. He took a whole company of kids over there. Seemed like it was always me ‘n’ the Padre there when things got ugly, but there were others too. Most of ‘em are still over there, if you take my meaning,”
It was odd hearing Falcon described this way, not as a pulp hero, but as a real man, conflicted by human emotions. “Quite a lot for one man to bear.”
“A company of ghosts.” Hurricane shrugged and savored a mouthful of sweet smoke. “Well, like I said, there are other reasons why I wanted you along.”
“Such as?”
“You’re good in a fight. I couldn’t believe how you tackled that fellow, and flew off with him and took away his wings. That was pretty bold… heroic, even.”
Dodge looked away quickly, hoping that his friend wouldn’t see the rush of color in his cheeks. “I’m no Captain Falcon.”
“Nope,” agreed Hurley, blowing a perfect smoke ring. “You might be better.”
Dodge was no stranger to Africa. He had been there many times. He had crossed mountains and deserts with Quatermain, roamed the jungles with Lord Greystoke, and even steamed up the mighty Congo with Marlow. As he disembarked the B-10 shortly before midnight onto a muddied airstrip under the full fury of a tropical downpour however, the Dark Continent seemed a bit more prosaic than he expected.
They were met on the tarmac by Pieter Demme, an expediting agent recommended by the diplomatic service. Demme shuttled them from the airfield in a lumbering Citroen P45 — more vehicle than they needed for just themselves and their duffle bags, but a far better means of getting around on dirt roads turned to quagmires by the heavy rain than anything else available. It was their next stop, at the Hotel Imperial in the sprawling city of Leopoldville, where Dodge got his first real taste of Africa.
Despite the lateness of the hour, the saloon of the Imperial was bustling with activity, or to be more accurate, debauchery. The tables and the long hardwood bar were lined with a motley group of weathered, hard-looking Caucasians; the only Negroes in the establishment were the bartender and a loose assortment of prostitutes that wandered from table to table plying their trade. The latter group immediately took note of their arrival and began gravitating toward their table, but a stern look from the expediter deflected their advances.
“You’re welcome to sample the local fare,” Demme explained in English, clipped with an almost guttural Flemish accent, “but just now, we’re awaiting Monsieur Marten, a riverboat operator.”
“Can he be trusted?” inquired Hurley, intuitively recognizing that this requirement was of foremost importance.
Demme shrugged. “You are not carrying a great deal of money, so he has no reason to resort to skullduggery. If he fails to deliver you to your destination, he will receive no payment from my office.”
“Not exactly a ringing endorsement,” Dodge observed.
“It is a rough place, Monsieur, and sometimes one is required to do business with rough men. Ah, speak of the Devil and he appears; here is Monsieur Marten.”
Marten looked like a cross between a character from a Joseph Conrad tale and a Brooklyn longshoreman. Almost as tall and burly as Hurricane, he wore a permanent scowl on his pockmarked face and had a curious Oriental dragon tattooed on the right side of his clean-shaven skull. He offered Demme an indifferent greeting in French, then sat at the table where he regarded the Americans as an alley cat might observe a mouse and the bulldog that keeps him company.
“Monsieur Demme tells me you want to go upriver,” he began, disdaining polite preamble. “How far?”
Hurley seemed unperturbed by the coarse Belgian. “We don’t know for sure. We’re looking for a man: Father Nathan Hobbs.”
“Oui, I know him. He preaches to the Kongo who clear the forests to plant rubber. I stop there on my way to Stanleyville.”
“We’d like you to take us there.”
“But of course. There is only the question of price.” He sucked through his teeth as if trying to clear a piece of food lodged in his molars. “I have no cargo, so if I take you now, you would bear the entire cost of the journey. I could not take you upriver for less than…two thousand francs.”
Dodge did the arithmetic in his head. Two thousand francs was more than four thousand US dollars. He wasn’t clear on who was picking up the tab for their little jaunt, but that was a lot of money by anyone’s standard.
“How long to get us there?” Hurricane pressed, ignoring the issue.
“If we make no stops? Two days.”
“Two more days,” groaned Dodge. “We’ve only got a week. It’s not enough time.”
His friend made a comforting gesture. “For two thousand francs, you will take us to Father Hobbs’ mission, agreed?”
Marten’s scowl turned into an avaricious grin. “Oui, monsieur. We have a deal.”
“Excellent, we leave immediately.”
The riverboat captain’s smile slipped a notch. “Ah, but monsieur….”
There was a gleam in Hurricane’s eye and Dodge realized the big man had set the hook. “If you can’t do it, maybe we should talk to someone who can.”
“Non.” Marten wore the look of a man who knew he had been had. “A deal is a deal, monsieur. Je vais le faire immédiatement!”
“Excellent.” Hurley turned to Demme. “Listen, I’d like you to wire your office in Stanleyville and have ‘em buy a whole mess of rubber. We can have Mr. Marten here bring it back on the return trip, seeing as how we’re paying for him to run an empty boat.”
Demme’s face also fell and Dodge, in a moment of clarity, saw the game the two men had been playing. Demme and Marten, recognizing that the urgency of their need would translate into a willingness to pay an exorbitant fee, had already made plans to bring their own cargo back from upriver, essentially doubling their profit. It wasn’t that much different from an unscrupulous New York cabbie, taking advantage of an out-of-town fare. What really amazed Dodge however, was how Hurley had so easily seen through their scheme and outplayed them.