“You mean he needs some leave?” Shaw remembered what Anne Hartog had said about that. “Needs a break?”
“That’s about it. Being together here so many hours a day and sometimes half the night too, just lately while we’ve been putting the station on to an operational basis, and then with so little social life, well, we’ve got on each other’s nerves. That’s all, really.”
“Nothing more to it than that?”
Geisler said slowly, “I guess not, no. I’ve got to be fair. I reckon he could find plenty of fault with me, come to that.” He looked hard at Shaw suddenly. “You getting at anything particular, Commander?”
Shaw hesitated. Then he said, “I’ll be honest and tell you I don’t know what to think. There’s one or two things that I don’t believe quite add up, but then again, they could. Hartog struck me as some one who’s his own worst enemy in a way. I mean, it’s almost as though he wants people to be suspicious about him. As you said, it could even be that he is getting a little bit unbalanced. That’s rather how he struck me, too. But we don’t want anything to go wrong, just now particularly. I’ll be having a word with this Colonel Mgelo in Jinda about — about one thing and another, but in the meantime I’d like you to do something for me.”
“And that is?”
Shaw said quietly, “Keep an eye on Hartog while I’m away. Try not to leave him alone till I get back — I shan’t be gone long, I hope. I’m not quite easy in my mind, but I don’t want to act just yet and perhaps mess up a lead. You see, if Hartog’s genuine, and he very likely is, then he may really be on the verge of finding something out from the Edo boys, something that’ll tie this job right up. On the other hand, if he’s — well, not so genuine as he says he is, he could still lead us to something he doesn’t intend. I can’t risk dropping any leads down the drain. What he told me did have the ring of truth about it, as a matter of fact, but I’d like him watched — very unobtrusively, so he doesn’t know what’s going on. Can you fix that?”
“Why, sure I can if you want.”
Shaw relaxed. “Good — and thanks. It’s not a pleasant thing to do, I know, and I’m sorry to have to ask you, but it could be very important. And there’s something else. I’d like an eye kept on all the African labour. I don’t like the atmosphere among any of the blacks. It’s something I’ll be discussing with Mgelo. What I have in mind is that it might be wise to get rid of all African labour, but Mgelo might take a different view of that. He might think it would only exacerbate the situation, precipitate something. How would you feel about it?”
The American grinned. “Heck, sore as hell! It’d make things even more goddam uncomfortable till we could get white replacements sent out. Anyhow, I don’t think it’s at all necessary. We’ve never had any trouble with ’em.”
“Maybe not, but — if anything did start, say if they ran amok here inside the station, things might get pretty tricky, surely?”
“I don’t anticipate anything like that — I told you it’s all okay inside. They’re a decent enough bunch, and we’ve got ’em very well in hand.”
“Well, of course, it’s up to you, Commander.” Shaw looked at him narrowly. He asked, “Talking of the Africans, you’re quite convinced that Hartog’s genuine in what he says are his feelings for the blacks — that he loathes their guts?”
“I’m absolutely definite on that. You can’t live with a man for close on two years and not know if he’s acting. But he has got enough sense to keep his feelings to himself — especially, of course, since he joined the goddam Cult!” Shaw nodded. He looked round as a rating came in, saluted smartly, and reported the helicopter ready. As he got up he said, “So long as you’ll keep that eye open, it’s all we can do for now anyway. I’ll try to be back by this evening if I can…"
At Manalati Shaw sat and waited uncomfortably in a bare, tin-roofed hut, listening to the monotonous drumming of the rain, a sound which filled the place like distant rumbling thunder, continuous and oppressive, a sound of foreboding. If a man had to listen to this kind of thing for six rainy months at a stretch, with only short intermissions, that alone would be enough to send him round the bend, he thought.
He was glad when he heard the sound of an aircraft circling to touch down on the sodden field. Soon now he would be in Jinda, and he could perhaps get some action started if the man who called himself Edo really had turned up. Within a few minutes he had run through the soaking rain and climbed into the small cabin behind the pilot, who was a white. Then they were off, plunging through the mist of rain, climbing, climbing until they reached above the thick cloud layer and sped under a hot blue sky for Jinda.
Shaw had much on his mind during that run in; Hartog’s story — true or false? That Lee Enfield bullet… the way he’d come out with the story about Edo having turned up… his open admission that he was a member of the Cult… his habit of drink, which something must be driving him to — a guilty conscience of sorts? Shaw didn’t know; the man was an enigma, a contradiction. Somehow there wasn’t quite the right feeling to all this. Certainly Hartog didn’t strike Shaw as being a traitor; there was a latent honesty in the man somewhere. And yet — if he could be assumed to have fooled the Cult into accepting him on his own merits, could he not equally well be assumed to have fooled Geisler and now Shaw? Again, couldn’t it have seemed to Hartog to be a good idea, a disarming idea, to go straight to the man whom he knew to be investigating, and tell him about Edo’s coming— in other words, tell him something which he would be bound to hear for himself sooner or later in any case — if it was true at all? And couldn’t the same thing be said of his admission that he had joined the Cult?
Where was the answer?
When the aircraft came over Jinda the clouds had gone, leaving a welcome if only temporary lull in the rains.
A policeman, an African constable in a smart, well-starched khaki uniform and blue peaked cap, and with a folded cloak over his arm, was waiting for Shaw in the main dispersal hall of Jinda Airport. When he saw the tall, angular form swinging along, the only passenger off the specially cleared military plane, he stepped forward and saluted.
“Bwana, you are Commander Shaw?”
“That’s right. You’ve come from Colonel Mgelo, have you?”
“Yes, Bwana. There is a car outside. Please follow.”
The man turned about smartly and marched away, Shaw behind him. He went up to a police car which was parked at the entrance, and he swung the door open, standing aside and saluting. And then, as Shaw ducked to get in, he saw the small round hole, the gun held very steady in a big black fist, and the tilt of a brown hat over crinkly greying hair and a heavy, cruel face.
Instinctively he reached for his own gun and backed away. He backed into the muzzle of another gun, held by the African policeman. A voice murmured in his ear, “Keep your hands at your sides, white man.”
From the car’s interior Sam Wiley said softly, “At last, Commander Shaw. I am only sorry Mr Canasset is not here to welcome you as well — but he is already where your people can’t touch him. Now please get in quickly and without a fuss.” He reached out, took Shaw’s gun, and pushed it down beside him. He said, “You will not recognize me—”
“Oh, yes, I do!” Shaw spoke between his teeth. “That powder of yours… it wore off, you know, a little sooner than you thought it would, I dare say, Wiley! Anyway — how did you get into Nogolia?”