Rolling toward Salisbury through the overbright landscape, Gus was apologetic. "I loused it up, Andy. I should have come out alone or checked by phone. Last time he was cooperative and full of promises for the future. Man — that was some scrap. Were you a pro?"
The compliment was partly butter, Nick knew, but the lad meant well. "No harm done, Gus. If his present channels clog up he'll be back to us quick enough, but it doesn't look likely. He's plenty happy the way things are. No, I wasn't pro. Boxed a little in college."
"A little! He would have killed me."
"You wouldn't have tangled with him. Wilson is a big kid with principles. He fights fair. Only kills people when the principle is right as he sees it"
"I... I don't understand..."
"He was a Merc, wasn't he? You know how those boys behave when they get natives under their muzzles."
Gus flexed his hands on the wheel and said thoughtfully, "I've heard. You don't somehow think of a guy like Alan mowing em down."
"You'd better. It's an old, old pattern. Visit Mother on Saturday, church on Sunday, and bombs away on Monday. When you try to square that with yourself, you get tight knots. Inside your head. The connections and relays in there start to smoke and burn out Dangerous. Now what about those Golden Tusks? You ever hear about them?"
Gus shrugged. "Last time I was through here there was a story around about a shipment of Golden Tusks that went out via rail and Beira to beat the sanctions. There was an article in The Rhodesia Herald speculating on whether they were cast that way and painted white, or found in some old Zimbabwe ruins and sneaked out. That's the old Solomon and Sheba myth."
"You think the story was true?"
"Nope. When I was in India I talked it over with guys who oughta know. They said plenty of gold was coming out of Rhodesia but it was all in nice four-hundred-ounce bars."
When they reached Meikles Hotel Nick slipped in through the side entrance and went up to his room. He used cold and hot soaks, a gentle alcohol rub, and took a nap. His ribs hurt, but he found no sharp pain to indicate a break. At six o'clock he dressed carefully and when Gus called for him he used the eye paint that the other had thoughtfully bought. It helped some, but the full-length mirror told him he looked like a very well-dressed pirate after a severe battle. He shrugged, flicked off the light, and followed Gus to the cocktail lounge.
After his callers had left, Alan Wilson used Maurice' office while half a dozen of his staff worked at rejuvenating his own. He studied three photographs of Nick, shot with a hidden camera.
"Not bad. They show his face from different angles. By Jove, he's a scrapper. We could use him someday." He put the prints in an envelope. "Have Herman fly these over to Mike Bor."
Maurice took the envelope, went through the complex of offices and warehouses to a dispatch desk in the rear of the plant, and relayed Wilson's order. As he sauntered back toward the front offices, his lean brown face bore a satisfied expression. Wilson was learning to follow orders; to take photographs at once of anyone interested in buying gold and send them out to Bor. Mike Bor was the chairman of Taylor-Hill-Boreman, and he had had a little temporary trouble bringing Alan Wilson to heel. Maurice was part of the control web. He received a thousand dollars a month to watch Wilson and he intended to continue to deserve it.
At about the moment Nick was masking his darkening eye with cosmetics, Herman Duzen began a very careful approach to the airport of the Taylor-Hill-Boreman Mining Company. The giant installation was classified as an off-limits military research area with forty square miles of protected airspace above it. Before he took off from Salisbury, flying VFR in the sun-seared clear weather, Herman had telephoned the Rhodesian Air Force control and Rhodesian Air Police. As he neared the restricted zone he radioed his position and bearing and received another clearance from the controller at the plant.
Herman did his duty with absolute precision. He was paid more than most airline pilots and vaguely felt that his sympathies lay with Rhodesia and THB. All the world was against them, you might say, just as the world had once been against Germany. It was strange that when you worked hard and did your duty people seemed to dislike you for no reason at all. It was evident that THB had discovered giant gold reefs. Good! Good for them, good for Rhodesia, good for Herman.
He began his first landing leg, flying over the squalid native huts packed like brown marbles in boxes within their guard walls. A long, serpent-like column of human-wound along a road from one of the mines toward the native compound, guarded by men on horses and in jeeps.
Herman made his first ninety-degree turn, on the mark, on air-speed, on rpms, on rate-of-descent, course accurate to a degree. Perhaps Kramkin, the chief pilot, was watching, perhaps not That wasn't the point, you did your job perfectly out of loyalty to yourself and — to what? Herman often puzzled over that Once it had been his father, stern and fair. Then the air force — he was still in the Republic's reserve — then the Bemex Oil Exploration Company; he had been really heartbroken when the young firm failed. He blamed the British and Americans for that You couldn't buck their money and connections.
He made his last turn, saw with satisfaction that he would flare-out exactly on the third yellow crossbar of the runway and settle like a feather. He hoped the Chinese fellow. Si Kalgan, was watching. It would be nice to get to know him better, such a handsome devil with a real brain. If he didn't look Chinese you'd consider him a German — so quiet, alert, and methodical Of course his race didn't matter — if there was one thing Herman really prided himself on, it was an open mind. That was where Hitler, for all his fine points, had gone wrong. Herman had figured it out for himself and was proud of his insight.
A crewman directed him up to the line, waving a yellow paddle. Herman stopped on the spot and saw with pleasure that Si Kalgan and the crippled old man were waiting under the awning of the field operations office. He thought of him as the crippled old man because he usually traveled in the electric cart in which he was sitting now, but there wasn't so much wrong with his body and certainly nothing slow about his mind or tongue. He had an artificial hand and he wore a large eyepatch, but even when he walked — with a limp — he moved as crisply as he talked. He was called Mike Bor but Herman was sure his name had once been something else, perhaps in Germany, but it was best not to think about that.
Herman came to attention in front of the two men and extended the envelope to the cart. "Good evening, Mr. Kalgan — Mr. Bor. Mr. Wilson sent this to you."
Si smiled at Herman. "A beautiful landing, a satisfaction to watch. Report to Mr. Kramkin. I believe he wants you to return in the morning with some staff."
Herman decided against saluting, but came to attention, bowed, and went into the office. Bor tapped the photos thoughtfully against an aluminum armrest. "Andrew Grant," he said softly. "A man of many names."
"He is the one you and Heinrich — met before?"
"Yes." Bor handed him the pictures. "Don't ever forget that face — until we eliminate it Call Wilson and warn him. Order him explicitly to take no action. We will handle this. There must be no error. Come — we must talk with Heinrich."
Seated in a lavishly furnished room with a wall that slid back to join it to a spacious patio, Bor and Heinrich spoke in low tones while Kalgan telephoned. "There is no doubt. You agree?" Bor asked.
Heinrich, a gray-haired man of at least fifty-five who seemed to sit at attention even in a deep, foam-cushioned chair, nodded. "It is the AXEman. I think at last he has come to the wrong place. We have the information early, so we plan, then strike." He brought his hands together with a small slap. "Surprise is with us."