There were no more sentries posted. Chase moved down the old road in the dark, senses alert, reaching out with eyes and ears into the forest. He felt the change underfoot when he reached that part of the road which had just recently been mashed down by heavy trucks; reversing himself, he found the side road and moved slowly along it, hearing a confusion of faint noises ahead.
He almost walked directly into the side of the engine shed, not seeing it under the roof of tree branches. Circling, he saw vague illumination ahead, and took a moment to figure out what it was.
Of the coffee train, it appeared that only four freight cars were left, standing in a patient row on the old tracks like cows waiting to be milked. Or already being milked; a large Army truck was backed up against the side loading door of each. Kerosene lanterns in the cars gave illumination and tarpaulins thrown over the narrow space between freight-car roof and truck top guarded against that illumination’s being spotted from the air. Hollowly echoing sounds came out to Chase in the still night: feet tramping back and forth, mutters of conversation, thuds of coffee sacks being dropped into place.
A weapon, Chase thought. I have to have a weapon.
The truck cabs were empty. He searched them, but the glove compartments, the map racks, the underseat spaces were all devoid of guns. Frank will be armed, Chase told himself. I’d better have a gun in my hand when I meet him.
A man jumped from one of the freight cars, feet thumping the ground. He walked a bit away from the trucks, then stopped to relieve himself. Chase waited till he was done, then came up behind him, gripped his head and neck between his forearms, and whispered in his ear in Swahili, “If you make a sound, I shall break your neck.”
The man’s body tensed, but with fear rather than intended action. He froze there, his hands out as though he were falling forward, and Chase whispered, “Where is Frank Lanigan?”
“Gone—” The man faltered, his voice scratchy and hoarse. “Gone to the lake.” He spoke with a soft Luo accent.
“The lake. What about Brady?”
“I don’t—Who?”
Chase gave him a little squeeze, for being stupid. “The other white man!”
“The lake!”
“Quiet!”
“Gone to—You hurt my neck.”
“I can do worse,” Chase told him. “Both white men gone to the lake?” That didn’t seem sensible.
“Yes.”
“Who’s in charge?”
“Mr. Otera.”
Otera. Balim’s office manager. A picture came into Chase’s mind of Otera putting on the Army uniform in that Jinja attorney’s office. Not a difficult opponent. “Where is he?”
“The farthest wagon.”
“Who else is with him?”
“People working.” The man sounded surprised at the question.
“Bosses,” Chase explained, again squeezing the man’s neck. “What other bosses?”
“None here. Young Mr. Balim up by the road.”
So that had been Balim’s son up there, crashing around in the woods. Smiling, Chase said, “Thank you,” broke the man’s neck, and went over to the farthest freight car, where he stood in the darkness beside the truck and called, in imitation of that man’s Luo accent, “Mr. Otera!”
He had to call the name twice before Otera appeared, pushing aside the hanging end of tarpaulin, squinting, unable to see much in the dark after the lantern light. “Yes?”
“Something for you to see, Mr. Otera.”
“What is it?”
“Oh, you must come see, sir.”
Reluctantly, ungracefully, Otera clambered down out of the freight car and came forward. He was wearing the shirt and trousers of the Army uniform, but not the jacket. “What is it? I don’t see any—Oh!”
Chase lunged forward, left hand closing around Otera’s neck, right hand grabbing his shirtfront and yanking him in close. “Not a sound!” he whispered, reverting back to English. “You’d be dead in one flick.” His sudden movement had fired up inside his body all those pains that had been so slowly subsiding, none of which showed on his face.
Otera gaped at him, wide-eyed above Chase’s clenching hand. “Chase!” he whispered in blank astonishment.
“Where’s your uniform? The jacket.”
“It’s over—” Otera started, gesturing toward the engine shed, then too late tried to call the gesture back.
“That’s right,” Chase said, smiling at him. Sure of his man, he switched his grip from throat to upper arm, and pulled Otera along toward the shed. “There was a nice Sam Browne belt with that uniform, and a nice holster, and a nice pistol.”
“Chase—” Otera said, but then couldn’t seem to think of anything more to say, as he was propelled through the darkness.
Amiably enough, Chase said, “If I wanted to kill you, you’d be dead by now. I’ve been through a lot today, and I’ll be more comfortable when I’m armed.”
Otera, with a new worry, said, “Are they after you?”
“Not here. Don’t worry,” Chase told him in utter sincerity, “I won’t spoil this operation. Not for anything.”
The jacket and belt lay on the remaining mound of old rails, on the far side of the shed. Chase, to give warmth and support to his battered body, slipped the coat on, pleased that it was a bit snug. He cinched the belt tight, then snapped open the holster flap and slid the pistol out into his hand. Strength flowed from the cold metal. Otera’s herbivore eyes watched him in the dark. Holding the pistol casually at his side, Chase said, “Let’s go back.” At Otera’s sigh of long-held breath, Chase laughed. “I said I wouldn’t kill you.”
As they walked back, Chase said, “How much more is there to do?”
“These are the last trucks.”
“Good. We can ride down to the lake together.”
There was a bit more light near the trucks, and in it Otera frowned at Chase in bewilderment and dislike. “If you’re in trouble,” he said, “if all you want is to come with us to Kenya, you didn’t have to attack me, and arm yourself, and all this business.”
“We all have our methods, Watson,” Chase said. He made a shooing gesture with the hand holding the revolver. “Go along, go along.”
Otera turned away, and Chase went to rest himself in the nearest truck cab. But the map light didn’t work, so he went on to the next, where the small narrow glow under the dashboard permitted him to study the weapon with which he’d armed himself.
It was a good one, though old. An English semiautomatic revolver, a Webley-Fosbery chambered in .455 caliber, it was one of the few pistols ever made which used the recoil of the last shot to cock the hammer and rotate the cylinder for the next. It couldn’t be fired as rapidly as a full automatic, but it had a solid reliable heft to it.
Holding the gun down under the map light, Chase broke open the cylinder and looked in. For a moment he just gazed in silence, then he laughed at the joke. There wasn’t a bullet in it.
59
Balim rode in the back of the Mercedes with the government man called Charles Obuong. The other one, Godfrey Magon, rode up front with the chauffeur; between them, out beyond the windshield, Balim could see if he wished the rural roads of Nyanza province, illuminated by the powerful white headlights of the Mercedes; what he could not see, unfortunately, was into the minds of Charles Obuong and Godfrey Magon.
Their manner with him was unfailingly polite and friendly though with the inevitable edge of power and mockery. And they had been quite open, freely repeating to him what they already knew of the smuggling, which was a lot. And even beyond what they knew, they also modestly claimed to have been of logistical help along the way. It was their office, they said, which had expedited the permissions and development-fund loans for the Port Victoria hotel. They had assisted Isaac in his purchase of false identity papers. They had even made lumber available when in the ordinary course of events he might still be waiting for the planks they’d used in making the rafts. They had in effect been Balim’s partners all along, and they didn’t even seem to mind it very much that their “investigator” had apparently been murdered by someone connected with Balim.