The eight undercrewed planes had started arriving at three this afternoon, and the last hadn’t showed until after nine tonight. With the end of uncertainty and the addition of all these other pilots and navigators, a certain conviviality developed, and during dinner in the otherwise empty airport coffee shop Ellen had smilingly turned down three separate propositions. So it was her own fault if she was alone tonight in this bed and unable to sleep.
The moon was nearing apogee, climbing just beyond the top of the windowframe. Is Lew in Uganda? Will the coffee show up here tomorrow? If it does, will that mean they didn’t make the try, or that they tried and failed? The grayish pale moonlight inched out of her eyes and moved away down the blanket, and Ellen drifted into shallow unsatisfying sleep.
43
They took Chase to the State Research Bureau, pretending he’d meet Amin there to “help him” in some undefined way in connection with “the Swiss man who is buying the coffee.” In other words, some corner of Chase’s scheme had unraveled and Amin had sent Colonel Juba to pick at it and find out what it meant.
The first encouraging sign was that Juba didn’t want anyone else to know Chase had been arrested. At the Bureau’s front door, he went so far as to ask the guard, “Is the president here yet?” Chase presumably was not supposed to notice the guard’s bewilderment, nor to hear the irritation in Juba’s hurried “No matter. We’ll wait in his office.”
So. Amin was not certain he had Chase dead to rights. Juba and his two young assistants and Amin himself were probably the only ones who knew Chase was a prisoner. (Amin had to know; Chase was far too important for Juba to arrest on his own initiative.)
So they went to “Amin’s office,” a large square room with gray industrial carpeting and several Danish-style sofas along the wall, which was in fact one of the interrogation rooms, though Amin did use it sometimes in conferences with Bureau people. He also used it for occasional in-person interrogations of his chief enemies, and it was here he’d lost his temper and shot the archbishop. Chase was supposed to be thinking about these associations, of course.
What he was thinking instead was that Amin was too impatient a man not to be here already if he planned to take part in this interrogation. In leaving it to Juba, he was giving himself later deniability. More important, he was also confirming for Chase that he wasn’t yet sure what was going on. They need to get it from my mouth, Chase thought, and they won’t succeed.
Juba, having earlier proved himself inept at clever double entendre, now proved himself inept at the psychological ploy. The next three hours of waiting—ostensibly for Amin—were supposed to soften Chase for the questions to follow, but the delay merely gave him time to plan out his own strategy.
At first Juba tried to fill the time with light conversation, but made the mistake of talking about foreign travel. Poor Juba had never been out of Africa; Tripoli was his cosmopolitan city, where the Libyans had taught him how to use his electronic equipment (some of which probably had created this present trouble). Chase responded with amiable condescension, until even Juba saw he was being made fun of. Then they sat in silence, unless Juba and his men spoke together, which they did from time to time.
And here was an irony Chase could appreciate without approving. After all his years of hiding his knowledge of Swahili, when these three Africans spoke secretly together it was in Kakwa, their tribal tongue, of which Chase knew only one word: kalasi, which means “death.” It might have been his imagination, but he thought he heard them use the word several times.
Colonel Juba tried to maintain an atmosphere of menace with dignity, but the other two, the captain and the major, were in reality only country boys from up north, basking in power and luxury, practically hugging themselves with delight at their great good fortune. In a well-ordered world—and they knew this better than anybody—they would be at best laborers now, on a farm or a construction project, and at worst they would be nothing at all, merely two more idle men whose ugly bitter wives worked small parcels of land for their minimal food supply. But here they were, because of Idi Amin, a “captain” and a “major,” with women and food and drink and clothing and even cars available just for the asking.
The burlesque that Chase was not a prisoner extended so far as their permitting him to go to the men’s room by himself, though the captain did stand in the office doorway watching the men’s room entrance until he returned. And after a while it extended to their offering him beer, when the captain and the major both began to drink. Chase accepted a bottle, but merely sipped at it, noticing that Juba didn’t drink at all.
Finally, after three hours of nonsense, Chase decided it was time to force the issue. Rising—the captain and the major sat up, looking as alert as possible after half a dozen bottles of beer—he crossed to the desk, behind which Juba was seated filling out pointless forms, and reached for the telephone. “Perhaps the president has forgotten,” he said. “He’s at the Old Command Post, isn’t he?”
“No need for that!” Suddenly angry, Juba slapped at the phone, glaring at Chase. “Just sit down.”
“But if it’s so important for the president to see me, we should—”
“He’ll see you in his own good time!” Then Juba got himself back under control, and returned to the game of make-believe: “I’m sure the president doesn’t wish to inconvenience you, Captain Chase.”
“No inconvenience. Merely a desire to be of help.”
“Then there’s another matter you can help on, while we wait.”
Chase was aware that the major was on his feet, prowling around behind him. They could at any time use physical torture, but they preferred the cat-and-mouse tactics until they grew bored. Chase had to sense Juba’s state of mind very delicately, but didn’t want to make his own move until he knew for sure the extent of the problem. He said, “What other matter is that, Colonel?”
“Sometime ago there was a white man imprisoned here. He caused some damage, and you had him released. Why?”
What was this? In his irritation—maybe the stalling tactic had gotten through to him after all—Chase snapped, “All of this was covered at the time. The man was named Lewis Brady, he’s a gun runner working for the Saudis, bringing weapons to Muslim revolutionary forces in Africa. He came here posing as a tourist to meet with me, unofficially, concerning arms shipments for friends of ours in the Sudan, to be shipped through Uganda. Libya unfortunately had his name on the wrong list, as a result of work he did for a pro-Libya faction in the Sudan several years ago. So he was arrested. When he didn’t appear at our meeting, I naturally made inquiries, and I found him here. He was already making his escape when I intercepted him.”
“There is no verification of this story.”
“Verification? The man was here. Libya has acknowledged his work with their people in the Sudan. I have told you his mission. What more do you need?”
“The Saudis—”
“In the first place,” Chase interrupted, really tired of all this, “we couldn’t possibly make an open interrogation to the Saudis about one of their sub rosa projects. And if we did, they would quite properly deny all knowledge.”
Colonel Juba sat blinking at his desk, annoyed and uncomfortable. He tried once or twice to find things to say, then finally blurted, “Do sit down! You make me lean my head back!”
“Sorry, Colonel.”
Chase started for the sofa, but Juba said, “No, here. Sit here,” pointing at the witness’s chair in front of the desk.
So the make-believe was coming to an end. To emphasize his dignity and authority, Juba went on pointing at the chair until Chase had settled himself in it. Then he said, “About this other matter of the Swiss man.”