“I changed my mind.”
“But why?”
“Cotton candy,” I said.
“I beg your pardon.”
“I’m a sucker for cotton candy. Spun sugar. Just like I’m a sucker for stories about hungry, kids and lost puppies and sick kittens. But after a while you get tired of listening to the stories, just like you get tired of eating cotton candy. I’m tired of your stories so I’m going to do something about it.”
Then I hung up before he could tell me any more of them.
Chapter twenty-three
We only got lost once on the way out of Washington. It’s an easy town to get lost in and we took a wrong turn somewhere around the Lincoln Memorial and wound up heading for Baltimore. Mbwato was navigating with the aid of an Esso map and finally he said, “I think we’re headed the wrong way, old man.”
Haying just seen the BALTIMORE — STRAIGHT AHEAD sign I agreed with him, made what I was sure was an illegal U-turn, and headed back toward the Lincoln Memorial. This time I crossed the Memorial Bridge into Virginia, found the double-laned Washington Memorial Parkway, sped past the entrance to the CIA, and finally picked up 495, the circumferential highway that belts Washington. It was still muggy, the air conditioning in the rented Ford didn’t work, and I was in a foul mood. Getting lost does that to me.
Mbwato, on the other hand, held his large black leather attaché case on his lap, hummed to himself, and admired the countryside. “According to the map,” he said, “we take 495 until we come to Interstate 66, which leads to State 29 and 211. Five miles this side of Warrenton we turn right.”
“In the glove compartment,” I said, “there’s a pint of whisky.”
He opened the glove compartment, looked, and closed it. “So there is,” he said.
“Would you mind kind of taking the cap off and passing it to me? I mean if it’s no bother?”
“Oh, none at all,” he said, got the whisky out, took off the cap, and handed me the bottle. I took a long drink and handed it back to him. “Not that I approve of drinking while driving, you understand,” he said.
“I understand,” I said. “Neither do I.”
“But under certain circumstances, especially when there may be some unpleasantness in the offing, it should be permissible.”
“Even for navigators,” I said.
“That’s what I thought,” he said, and tilted the bottle up.
It gurgled at least three times before he put it back into the glove compartment.
He stared out at the scenery again. There wasn’t much to see. Some fields, some trees, and occasionally the tacky back yards of some plastic houses that people bought because it was all they could afford and the forty-five-minute drive to Washington was a small price to pay for having lily-white neighbors.
“They didn’t get quite this far, as I remember,” Mbwato said.
“Who, the Negroes?”
“What Negroes?”
“Never mind,” I said. “Who didn’t get this far?”
“The Confederacy.”
“About as close as they got was Dranesville,” I said. “They turned north there toward Pennsylvania. Dranesville’s about fifteen miles or so from Washington.”
“I wish I had more time,” he said. “I would so liked to have spent several days studying the battlefields. I’m quite a Civil War buff, you know.”
“I’ve been to Gettysburg,” I said. “I found it all very confusing.”
“Were you ever a soldier, Mr. St. Ives?” he said.
“A long time ago,” I said. “The war was called a police action then and I wasn’t a very good soldier even in that.”
“When I studied your Civil War at Sandhurst, I must confess that I developed a rather sneaking sympathy for the Confederacy. Pity that they didn’t have a more suitable cause.”
“It was the only cause around.”
“Still, I find many parallels between the Confederacy and my own country. Both the South and Komporeen, if my history serves me right, could be described as underdeveloped, largely agricultural, but possessed of a fierce regional pride. And jealous of tradition, too, I suppose.”
“And gracious living,” I said. “A good, unreconstructed Southerner can go on for hours about gracious living. You know, crinoline and fatback. Myths die hard in the South and from what you’ve told me, they die even harder in Komporeen.”
“Yes, I suppose you could call the aura that surrounds the shield a myth. But when you have very little else, myths become important, even vital.”
“When were you at Sandhurst?” I said.
“From ’fifty-five to ’fifty-nine. I think I may have neglected to mention it, but I’m a lieutenant colonel in our army.”
“You neglected to mention it,” I said. “How many generals do you have?”
“None. There is only Colonel Aloko who is now head of state and three other lieutenant colonels.”
“What are you, head of G-2?”
Mbwato looked surprised. “Yes, as a matter of fact, I am. However could you tell?”
I sighed and swung the Ford over into the far right lane and headed up the curving exit that leads to Interstate 66. “I just guessed,” I said.
“Mr. Ulado is my second in command. It’s Captain Ulado really.”
“The getaway expert,” I said. “I hope he’s better at that than he is at torture.”
“Oh, he is,” Mbwato said quickly, as if I’d just lodged a complaint that could turn into a hanging offense or, at least, a general court-martial. “He’s really quite efficient.”
We didn’t say much after that as we rolled through northern Virginia, through the heart of the hunt country. Highway 29 and 211 was just another road, sometimes two lanes, sometimes four lanes, and lined by the usual Stuckey candy stands, billboards, gas stations, motels, and quiet, closed-mouthed houses stuck off by themselves as if their owners didn’t mind living by the side of the road, but to hell with that friend-to-man nonsense.
At a sign that read WARRENTON, 5 MILES, I turned right and Mbwato said, “This person whom we’re to see. Does he have a name?”
“Yes.”
“Can you reveal it?”
“Yes. Winfield Spencer.”
“Ah, I see.”
“Do you?”
“Well, not really. But Mr. Spencer, I believe, is chairman of the Coulter Museum’s executive committee and I seem to recall that one of his firms was interested in securing drilling rights in Komporeen. Am I right?”
“You are.”
“Fascinating. Mr. Spencer has the shield?”
“Yes.”
“And he is simply going to hand it over to you?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Really fascinating,” Mbwato said. “Someday you will have to tell me the full story.”
“Someday,” I said. “I will.”
The road that we turned left on was a narrow, winding strip of asphalt that dipped and twisted between parallel rows of split-rail fences. There were a few unpretentious farmhouses and then the split-rail fences ended and were replaced on the left-hand side of the road by an eight-foot chain-wire fence that was topped by three wicked-looking strands of barbed wire. Behind the fence were pasture land and woods. No crops grew and I assumed that the Federal government paid Spencer not to grow anything. The chain-wire fence went on for two miles — which is a lot of fence to anyone but the military. At the two-mile point there was a stone hut with a thick, shake-shingled roof whose age was belied by the gray butt of an air conditioner which stuck out of one window. The road ended in a turnaround circle for the benefit of the strayed motorist out for a Sunday drive or for those who came calling on Spencer without an invitation. I stopped the car before the gate and the two men in gray uniforms came out of the hut and walked slowly over to the Ford. One of them, about thirty-five with gray, suspicious eyes that squinted underneath the brim of hat that seemed to have been copied from the highway patrol, rested his right arm on the window sill of the car and looked at me for several seconds. His partner circled around to Mbwato’s side, opened the rear door, looked inside, and then stared at Mbwato, who gave him a nice sample of the glory smile.