I stood up and turned to Spencer. “Anything else?”
“You may have cost me a great deal of money, St. Ives.”
“I haven’t thought about it.”
“You will,” he said, tightening his mouth into what I suppose he hoped was a grim line.
“Mr. Spencer has a flair for the dramatic, doesn’t he?” Mbwato said.
I shrugged. “You want me to help carry the thing or would you rather do it yourself?”
“I can manage,” Mbwato said.
“You’ll never get another assignment, St. Ives,” Spencer said. “I’ll see to it.”
Mbwato moved over to the shield, ran a large hand over its edge, then leaned it from the wall and slipped his left arm through two brackets on its back. He picked it up easily, all sixty-eight pounds, and I thought that it was a perfect fit.
“Do you have any more threats?” I said to Spencer.
He was staring at the shield and once again there was that look that I had seen twice before, once on the face of a fat man in a cafeteria and once on the face of a cop on the take in a New York hotel. Greed. Spencer ran a thin, pointed tongue over his lips as if he could taste it.
“It’ll never get to Africa,” he said. “He’ll sell it in London or Rotterdam. He’s fooled you, St. Ives. He hasn’t fooled me. He’ll sell it.”
“Would you sell it in Rotterdam or London?” I asked Mbwato.
“How much, Mr. Spencer?” Mbwato said softly. “How much do you think it would bring — in Rotterdam, say?”
“How much do you want?” Spencer said in a whisper, his thin tongue working at his lips again. Mbwato stared back at him, holding the shield chest high, his face for once impassive. “How much?” Spencer said again, hurling the words into the silence. “How much do you want?” This time it was a scream, one that keened out on the last word.
Mbwato looked at him without expression. Then he smiled, that gleaming, brighten-the-corner-where-you-are smile of his, and turned toward the door. I followed him through it and down the hall.
Halfway to the green copper doors that were held open by the man with the broken nose, Spencer called after us. It was more of a scream than a call. “How much, Mbwato? How much do you want?”
We didn’t hesitate or stop. We went through the door and down the three steps and across the crushed rock to the car. Mbwato put the shield in the rear, leaning it against the back seat. I had the car started by the time he got in next to me. “By the way,” he said, “what time is it?”
I didn’t look at my watch. I put the car into drive and pressed down on the accelerator. The rear wheels churned up some of the crushed rock. “It’s getaway time,” I said.
Chapter twenty-four
I kept the ford at twenty miles per hour on the way to the gate. We went past the blue jeep and its guard only glanced at us.
“Do you think he’ll give up so easily?” Mbwato said.
“Spencer? I don’t know.”
“At the gate perhaps,” he said.
“What about the gate?”
“They could try to stop us there.”
“He could have stopped us in the house. He’s got enough help around.”
“No,” Mbwato said. “Not in his home. It would be too complicated. I think the gate and if so, one must be prepared.” He took a key from his pocket and fitted it to the lock of his large attaché case. He opened it and I glanced at its contents.
“What in the hell is that?”
“Part of the Virginia contingency plan,” he said. “A sub-machine gun. A Carl Gustaf M45 to be exact, manufactured in Sweden.” He busily snapped things together. “Fires a 9-millimeter parabellum round, six hundred a minute. Thirty-six in the magazine,” he said, clicking one into the breech or whatever it was. I’m sure Mbwato knew.
With its U-shaped metal stock folded over its right side, the Carl Gustaf M45 had a wicked look about it. “Only weighs a little over nine pounds,” Mbwato said, handling the weapon as though it were an extension of his right arm.
“You get caught with a sub-machine gun in this country and you get thirty years,” I said.
“Really? I have one for you.”
“I don’t know anything about them,” I said.
“Oh, it’s not a sub-machine gun. It’s an automatic. Here.”
I had to take my right hand off the wheel to accept his present. It was a surprisingly light automatic. I glanced at it and saw the name Colt engraved on its slide.
“Quite a good piece,” Mbwato said. “It’s the Colt .45 Commander model with the alloy frame. Weighs just 26 ounces. Wonderful stopping power.”
“I don’t quite know how to thank you,” I said, and put the automatic on the seat beside me.
“Just a precaution.”
“Is it loaded?”
“Of course.”
The two guards at the exit to the plantation must have seen us coming because the gate opened as we approached and the one who earlier had examined our identification was outside the stone hut waving us through. Mbwato smiled at him as we went past; the guard didn’t smile back. I pressed the accelerator down and the Ford jumped up to sixty miles an hour which was really too fast for that road.
“Okay,” I said, “where to?”
“When you get to Highway 29 and 211 turn left. What time is it now?”
I looked at my watch. “Eight-twenty.”
“It’s growing dark.”
“Does that fit in with your getaway plan?”
“Perfectly,” he said.
“That’s good, because we’re going to need it.”
“Why?”
“We’ve got two cars behind us.”
“They’re following?”
“That’s right.”
“My word. Can you lose them?”
“No,” I said. “I’d only lose myself.”
Mbwato turned around in the seat. “There seem to be two in each car and they’re wearing hats very much like the guards at Spencer’s. He must have changed his mind.”
“He must have.”
“Is this a fast car?”
“Fairly so.”
“Then I think we should go as fast as possible.”
“That’s what I’m doing. It might help if you told me where we’re going.”
“Bull Run,” Mbwato said, adding dreamily, “‘Look! There stands Jackson like a stone wall. Rally behind the Virginians.’ General Barnard Elliott Bee said that, you know; gave Jackson his nickname.”
“At Bull Run,” I said.
“Manassas really. The first battle of Manassas to be exact. Jackson was an extremely dour man, most reserved.”
“And that’s where we’re going? To Manassas?”
“Not to the town, to the battlefield.”
“It was a big battle,” I said. “What particular spot do you have in mind?”
“Henry Hill.”
“What’s on Henry Hill?”
“It’s where Jackson held. In point of fact, there’s a statue of him there now. Might have been the turn of the battle really. McDowell’s union troops were hopeless, raw recruits mostly. Had McDowell kept the plateau, he might have won. There’s been some debate about that. But it was a great victory for the South. Their first. In fact, it was the first battle of the war.”
“It’s not that I don’t like your lecture, Colonel, but just what are we going to do when we get to Henry Hill? You know, where Jackson was first called Stonewall.”
Mbwato turned in his seat to look out the rear window. “They seem to be gaining, don’t they?”
“I was watching during your lecture.”
“At Henry Hill we rendezvous with Captain Ulado.”
“I take it you chose the spot.”
“Yes. It’s only about twelve air miles from Dulles International.”
“How far by road?”
“We don’t have to worry about that, Mr. St. Ives. Captain Ulado is meeting us with a helicopter.”