“In Moscow,” Mbanzi answered, looking at Nick steadily. “By the expert Rubitchev, whose scientific integrity is unassailable.”
Polikov smirked.
“We will naturally expect to see the original copy of his report,” Hawk said coldly. “The original. However. That is a detail we can take up later. First, Dr. Mbanzi, another question. If your government is so convinced that the United States is behind all your present troubles, why did your President specifically request an American investigative mission? Since you have chosen to direct your discussions under the wing of the United Nations, why not request a United Nations team?”
Tom Mbanzi locked gazes with the leathery old man with the pioneer’s face and startlingly sharp eyes. At last, he said: “So far, it is a matter between my country and yours. The accused has the right to face the accuser. Even the Russians who have suffered are on our soil and are our responsibility. It is your responsibility, your right, to prove that our accusations are untrue.”
It sounded like a declaration of ancient tribal law, or of a law so just and simple that it could only be practiced in the new world of the future.
Hawk smiled one of his rare smiles.
“You honor us,” he said.
The meeting settled down into a discussion of specifics.
Later, behind the brownstone façade of the AXE branch office near Columbus Circle, Nick went over the final details with Operations and had one last talk with Hawk.
“For almost the first time in my life,” he said, “I feel like a fraud. I hate to lie to a man like Tom Mbanzi.”
Hawk puffed busily at his cigar. “And for almost the first time in your life, you’re going to have to be someone very much like yourself. That’s far from being a fraud. And I think you’ll find that Julian Makombe won’t be too surprised if you’re a little unorthodox. He’s not expecting a stuffed shirt. Don’t try to be one. Mbanzi was sincere when he said what he did about the accuser and the accused. But Makombe went one better. He is not convinced that the U.S. is behind his troubles. He’s testing us, in a way. But he thinks it’s just remotely possible that there may be some other force at work. We know there is.”
Nick nodded. “It’s a familiar pattern. Very much like the operations of CLAW. I sense a fine yellow hand pulling the strings somewhere in the background. With any luck, I’ll chop it off at the wrist.”
“You’ll need the luck, because you won’t be getting much help. Fergus at the Embassy is a good fellow and may be useful. Then there’s our man in Morocco — your orders will tell you how to contact him. But I want you to work through the Embassy as much as possible. On the surface, that is.”
“ ‘Our man in Morocco.’ ” Nick grinned faintly. “Sounds very exotic. Was it a movie?” Hawk grunted irritably. “But wouldn’t you say Morocco’s going to be a little outside my beat?”
Hawk shook his head. “I don’t think any place in Africa’s going to be outside your beat on this one. An operation of this sort has to be controlled from some relatively big center. Not from headquarters; that’s too far away. It requires a midpoint, large enough for a screen yet accessible to both the target area and the main control center. Cairo, perhaps. Casablanca, Tangier, or possibly Dakar since it’s the closest city of any real size. The trail can lead you anywhere. Don’t count on settling down in Abimako. Now. I have a parting gift for you.”
Nick raised his eyebrows. “For me? Oh, you shouldn’t have!”
Hawk ignored the comment, although a faintly pained look crossed his thin, hard face. He reached beneath his desk and came up with his latest lethal toy: a bone-handled cane.
“Add this to your arsenal,” he said.
Nick’s room in the Hotel Independence at Abimako was, as Tad had told him when the light plane landed on the smooth new airfield, “nothing gaudy, but quite neat.” President Makombe, Sendhor told him, would send a car for him at lunchtime. Nick inspected his new quarters as soon as his entourage had left him. Two large windows looked down on a small square, cool with trees and bright with flowers. The bed was comfortable, the rug thick, the closets ample, and there was a bottle-opener in the compact bathroom. The only drawback was that the room was bugged.
“He’d Better Not Die”
It was so obvious it was almost funny. If the system had been any more conspicuous Nick would have been able to sit down at the controls and monitor himself. The telephone fairly bulged with its guilty secret, and the wires that snooped into his room from another were about as discreet as a nude on Broadway.
He left them as they were and sang an incredibly filthy song in a loud, cheerful voice as he unpacked his bags and put his weapons, Wilhelmina, Hugo and Pierre, safely to bed. In case his hearer’s English was imperfect he repeated the awful verses first in French and then in Portuguese, finally tossing in a few words of Swahili for special effect. That, he thought with perverse satisfaction, ought to set back American diplomacy a good ten years.
His next move was to call room service and order a hearty breakfast. While waiting for it he showered briskly and spent fifteen minutes doing a set of Yoga exercises.
Wherever he was, whatever he was doing, Nick found time to spend fifteen minutes each day practicing the Yoga exercises that kept his superbly trained, magnificently muscled body at the peak of condition. Because of them, his reflexes were as swift as a striking snake’s. He could relax his body even under the duress of extreme pain, and he could hold his breath as long as any man alive. It was largely due to these and related talents that he could go on counting himself among the living. Almost every day of his life offered a challenge to his speed, his skill, his physical strength and amazing flexibility — and his ability to duck.
He lay on the thick carpet clad only in his shorts, willing his muscles into extraordinary positions and thinking idly of the few times he had been obliged to miss his Yoga practice sessions. Once in Palermo, many years before, he had hung in chains for three days without water, food, light or the slightest hope of freeing himself. Finally, a magnificent bluff and a fellow agent had combined to free him. And then there was the time that Van Niekerk had trapped him in the mine shaft; Nick had had neither the space nor the inclination to go through his entire repertoire, but by contorting his body and controlling his breathing in a certain way, he was able to worm out and surprise the hell out of Van Niekerk.
Nick grinned at the memory and pulled himself to a cross-legged sitting position. He had done these same exercises on the beach at Tahiti, on a cabin cruiser in the Caribbean, in an Alpine snow shelter, on a desert island, in the bedroom of a countess and in the mansion of an exiled queen. And now, on a carpet in Africa. He drew in his abdomen until it seemed to cling to his backbone. The muscles of his chest and shoulders stood out in relief.
Even though he was giving every ounce of his concentration to the task at hand he sensed there was someone at the door even before he heard the knock. Breakfast, he thought hungrily, and was on his feet pulling on his trousers when the knock came.
“Come in.”
He had left the door unlocked for the waiter. But it was not the waiter who came in.
Liz Ashton stood in the doorway staring at the bare expanse of his chest.
“Oh,” she said, and blushed as suddenly as if she’d thrown a switch to light up her face. “I’m terribly sorry. I should have called you first.”
“Please, no apologies,” Nick said cheerfully. “Come in. Turn around for a moment, if you like, while I make myself presentable.”