Vixen 03 Page 13

  He did not observe the attendant as the lever was pushed; nor did he react immediately when the old man leaped agilely into the car with him and lowered the safety bar.

  "I hope you enjoy the ride," said a voice that Machita knew to be Emma's.

  Once again the mysterious informer had shrewdly capitalized on Machita's laxity. The odds favoring a clean kill had suddenly evaporated.

  Emma's hands expertly frisked his clothing. "How very wise of you to come unarmed, my dear Major."

  A score for our side, thought Machita, his hands casually holding the basket and shielding the ice pick. "Do you have Operation Wild Rose?" ''he asked, his tone official.

  "Do you have two million American dollars?" the shadowy figure beside him retorted.

  Machita hesitated and unconsciously ducked as the car swung beneath a tall stack of barrels that fell over toward them, jerking to a stop bare inches from their heads.

  "Here ... in the basket."

  Emma pulled an envelope from inside a dirty jacket. "Your boss will find this most interesting reading."

  "If not vastly overpriced."

  Machita was glancing through the documents in the envelope when a pair of grotesquely painted witches, fluoresced by ultraviolet light, leaped at the car and shrieked through hidden loudspeakers. Emma ignored the wax figures and opened the basket, 38

  studying the print on the currency under the purple illumination. The car rolled onward as the witches were pulled back into their recess by hidden springs and the tunnel plunged into darkness again.

  Now! Machita thought. He snatched the ice pick from its hiding place and lunged at where he guessed Emma's right eye socket should be. But in that split second the car snapped into a sharp turn and an orange floodlight burst on a bearded Satan who menacingly brandished a pitchfork. It was enough to deflect Machita's aim. The pick missed Emma's eye and its tip became embedded in the skull, above the brow.

  The stunned informer cried out, chopped Machita's hand away, and plucked the thin shaft from his head. Machita grabbed the razor blade taped to his forearm and swung it at Emma's throat in a sweeping backhand slash. But his wrist was smashed downward by the devil's pitchfork, snapping the bone.

  The devil was genuine. He was one of Emma's accomplices. Machita countered by throwing open the safety bar and lashing out with his feet, catching the costumed man in the groin, feeling his heels sink deeply into soft flesh. Then the car swung back into blackness and the devil was left behind.

  Machita whipped his body back to face Emma, but found the seat beside him empty. A brief stream of sunlight flashed several meters to the left of the car as a door was opened and closed. Emma had vanished out an exit, taking the basket of money with him.

  29

  "Gross stupidity," said Colonel Jumana with fiendish satisfaction. "You must pardon me for saying it, my General, but I told you so."

  Lusana stared pensively out the window at a formation of men drilling on the parade grounds. "A mistake in judgment, Colonel, nothing more. We will not lose the war because we have lost two million dollars."

  A sheepish Thomas Machita sat at the table, his face beaded with1 perspiration, staring vacantly at the cast covering his wrist.

  "There was no way of knowing-"

  He stiffened as Jumana stormed to his feet, the colonel's face radiating pure anger as he snatched Emma's envelope and hurled it into Machita's face. ?

  "No way of knowing you were being set up? You fool! There you sit, our glorious chief of intelligence, and you can't even kill a man in the dark. Then you add insult to injury by giving him two million dollars for an envelope containing operating procedures for military garbage re:; moval."

  "Enough!" snapped Lusana.

  There was silence. Jumana took a deep breath, then slowly stepped backward to his chair. Anger seethed in his eyes. "Stupid mistakes," he said bitterly, "do not win wars of liberation."

  "You make too much of it," Lusana said stonily. "You are a superb leader of men, Colonel Jumana, and a tiger in battle, but as with most professional soldiers, you are sadly lacking in administrative style."

  "I beg you, my General, do not take your wrath out on me." Jumana pointed an accusing finger at Machita. "He is the one who deserves punishment."

  A sense of frustration enveloped Lusana. Regardless of intelligence or education, the African mind retained an almost childlike innocence toward blame. Blood-soaked rituals still inspired them with a higher sense of justice than did a serious conference across a table. Wearily, Lusana looked at Jumana.

  "The mistake was mine. I alone am responsible. If I had not given Major Machita the order to kill Emma, Operation Wild Rose might be lying in front of us this minute. Without murder on his mind, I trust the major would have checked the contents of the envelope before he turned over the money."

  "You still believe the plan to be valid?" Jumana asked incredulously.

  "I do," Lusana said firmly. "Enough to warn the Americans when I fly to Washington next week to testify at the congressional hearings on aid to African nations."

  "Your priorities are here," said Machita, his eyes expressing alarm. "I beg you, my General, send someone else."

  "There is none better qualified," Lusana assured him. "I am still an American citizen with a number of high contacts who sympathize with our fight."

  "Once you leave here, you will be in grave danger."

  "We all deal in danger, do we not?" asked Lusana. "It is our comrade-in-arms." He turned to Jumana. "Colonel, you will be in command during my absence. I shall furnish you with explicit orders for the conduct of our operation. I expect you to see that they are carried out to the letter."

  Jumana nodded.

  A fear began to swell inside Machita, and he could not help wondering if Lusana was paving the road to his own downfall and releasing a tidal wave of blood that would soon surge across the whole of Africa.

  Loren Smith rose from behind her desk and held out her hand as Frederick Daggat was ushered into her office. He smiled his best politician's smile. "I hope you'll forgive my intrusion ... ah ... Congresswoman."

  Loren grasped his hand firmly. It never failed to amuse her to see a man stumble over her title. They never seemed to get the hang of saying " Congresswoman."

  "I'm happy for the interruption," she said, motioning him toward a chair. To his surprise, she held out a box of cigars. He took one.

  "This is indeed a treat. I hardly expected ... do you mind if I light up?"

  "Please do," she said, smiling. "I grant that it looks a bit incongruous for a woman to pass out cigars, but the practical value becomes apparent when you consider that my male visitors outnumber the females by twenty to one."

  Daggat expelled a large blue cloud toward the ceiling and fired his first broadside. "You voted against my initial proposal to budget aid to the African Army of Revolution."

  Loren nodded. She didn't speak, for she was waiting for Daggat to make his full pitch.

  "The white government of South Africa is on the verge of self-destruction. The nation's economy has plummeted in the last few 39

  years. Its treasury is exhausted. The white minority have cruelly and ruthlessly treated the black majority as slaves far too long. For ten years, in the time since blacks took over the government in Rhodesia, Afrikaners have become hardened and completely merciless in their dealings with their Bantu citizens. Internal riots have taken over five thousand lives. This bloodbath must not continue any longer. Hiram Lusana's AAR is the only hope for peace. We must support it, both financially and militar-ily."

  "I was under the impression that Hiram Lusana was a communist."

  Daggat shook his head. "I'm afraid you labor under a misapprehen-sion, Congresswoman Smith. I admit that Lusana allows the use of Vietnamese military advisers, but I can personally assure you that he is not and never has been a pawn of international communism."

  "I'm glad to hear that." Loren's voice was toneless. In her mind Daggat was trying to sell a bill o
f goods and she was determined not to buy.

  "Hiram Lusana is a man of high ideals," Daggat continued. "He does not permit the slaughter of innocent women and children.

  He does not condone indiscriminate bloodthirsty attacks on cities and villages, as do 'he other insurgent movements. His war is aimed strictly against government installations and military targets. I, for one, feel that Congress should back the leader who conducts his affairs with virtuous rationality."

  "Come down off the cross, Congressman. You know it and I know it: Hiram Lusana is a rip-off artist. I've examined his FBI file.

  It reads like a biography of a Mafia hit man. Lusana spent half his life in prison for every crime from rape to assault, not to mention draft dodging and a plot to bomb the state capital of Alabama. After an extremely lucrative armored-car robbery, he went into the dope-peddling business and made a fortune. Then he skipped the country to beat paying taxes. I think you'll agree he's not exactly an all-American hero."

  "He was never legally charged with the armored-car holdup."

  Loren shrugged. "Okay, we'll give him the benefit of the doubt on that one. But his other crimes hardly qualify him to lead aholy crusade to free the downtrodden masses."

  "What's history is history," Daggat said, pressing on. "Regardless of his shady past, Lusana is still our only hope of providing a stable government after the blacks take over the South African Parliament. You cannot deny that it is in the best interests of Americans to claim him as a friend."

  "Why back any side?"

  Daggat's eyebrow shot up. "Do I detect a leaning toward isolation-ism?"

  "Look what it got us in Rhodesia," continued Loren. "Within a few months after our former secretary of state's ingenious plan to transfer white-minority rule to the black majority took effect, civil war broke out between the radical splinter factions and set the country's progress back ten years. Can you promise that we won't see a repeat performance when South Africa bows to the inevitable?"

  Daggat did not like being forced into a corner by a woman, any woman. He came out of his chair and leaned across Loren's desk.

  "If you do not throw your support to my proposal and the bill for aid which I intend to submit to the House, then, dear Congresswoman Smith, I fear you will be digging a grave so big and so deep for your political career that you may never get out in time for the next election."

  To Daggat's amazement and anger, Loren broke out in laughter. "Good God, this is rich. Are you actually threatening me?"

  "Fail to come out in favor of African nationalism and I can promise you the loss of every black vote in your district."

  "I don't believe this."

  "You'd better, because you will also see rioting like you've never seen before in this country if we don't stand solidly behind Hiram Lusana and the African Army of Revolution."

  "Where do you get your information?" Loren demanded.

  "I'm black and I know."

  "You're also full of shit," Loren said. "I've conferred with hundreds of blacks in my district. They're no different from any other American citizen. Each is concerned with high taxes, the rising costs of groceries and energy, the same as whites, Orientals, Indians, and Chicanos. You're only kidding yourself, Daggat, if you think our blacks give a damn about how African blacks mess up their countries. They don't, and for the simple reason that Africans don't give a damn about them."

  "You are making a sad error."

  "No, it is you who is making the error," snapped Loren. "You are stirring up trouble where it need not exist. The black race will find equal opportunity through education, just like everyone else. The Nisei did it after World War Two. When they returned from the internment camps, they worked in the Southern California fields to send their sons and daughters through UCLA and USC to become attorneys and doctors. They arrived. Now it's the blacks' turn. And they'll do it, too, provided they're not hindered by men like you, who rabble-rouse at every opportunity. Now I'll thank you to get the hell out of my office."

  Daggat stared at her, his face a mask of anger. Then his lips cracked slowly into a grin. He held the cigar at arm's length and let it drop onto the carpet. Then he turned and stormed from the office.

  "You look like a boy who just had his bicycle stolen," said Felicia Collins. She was sitting in one corner of Daggat's limousine, filing her long nails.

  Daggat slid in beside her and motioned for the driver to move on. He stared stonily ahead, his face blank.

  Felicia slipped the emery board back in her purse and waited, her eyes apprehensive. Finally she broke the silence. "I take it Loren Smith turned you down."

  "The foulmouthed white bitch," he said, almost spat. "She thinks she can treat me like some nigger stud on a pre-Civil War plantation."

  "What on earth are you talking about?" she asked, surprised. "I know Loren Smith. She hasn't got a prejudiced bone in her body."

  Daggat turned. "You know her?"

  "Loren and I were high-school classmates. We still get together from time to time." A hardness came over Felicia's face that had not been there before. "You have something evil on your crafty mind, Frederick. What is it?"

  "I've got to have Congresswoman Smith's support if I am to push through my bill to send arms and aid to the AAR."

  "Would you like me to talk to Loren? Lobby on Hiram's behalf?"

  40

  "That and more."

  She tried to read his thoughts. "More?"

  "I want you to get something on her. Something I can use to twist her to our way of thinking."

  Felicia stared at him, stunned. "Blackmail Loren? You don't know what you're asking. I can't spy on a good friend. No way."

  "Your choice is clear: a girlish school friendship in exchange for the freedom of millions of our brothers and sisters who are enslaved by a tyrannical government."

  "And if I can't dig any dirt?" Felicia said, searching for an out. "It's no secret her political career is unblemished."

  "Nobody is perfect."

  "What would I look for?"

  "Loren Smith is an attractive single woman. She must have a sex life."

  "What if she does?" Felicia argued. "Every single girl has her share of love affairs. And as long as she has no husband, you can't manufacture a scandal out of adultery."

  Daggat smiled. "How astute of you. We shall do exactly that-manufacture a scandal."

  "Loren deserves better."

  "If she throws her support to our cause, she needn't worry about her secrets' going public."

  Felicia bit her lip. "No, I will not stab a friend in the back. Besides, Hiram would never pardon such a malignity."

  Daggat refused to play her game. "Indeed? You may have slept with the savior of Africa, but I doubt if you ever truly read the man beneath the skin. Look up his past sometime. Hiram Lusana makes Al Capone and Jesse James look like sissies. It gets thrown in my face every time I stand up for him." Then Daggat's eyes narrowed. "Aren't you forgetting how he literally sold you to me?"

  "I haven't forgotten."

  Felicia turned away and stared out the window.

  Daggat squeezed her hand. "Don't worry," he said, smiling. "Nothing will happen that will leave any scars."

  She raised his hand and kissed it, but she didn't believe his words, not for an instant.

  30

  Unlike her famous parent ship the Monitor, the Chenago was virtually unknown to all but a handful of naval historians.

  Commissioned during June of 1862 in New York, she was immediately ordered to join the Union fleet blockading the entrance to Savannah. The unfortunate Chenago never had a chance to fire her guns: an hour away from her assigned station she met a heavy sea and foundered, entombing her entire crew of forty-two men ninety feet below the waves.

  Pitt sat in the conference room of the NUMA salvage ship Visalia and studied a stack of underwater photos taken by divers of the Chenago's grave. Jack Folsom, the brawny salvagemaster, chewed a massive wad of gum and looked on, waiting for the inevitable q
uestions.

  Pitt didn't disappoint him.

  "Is the hull still intact?"

  Folsom shifted the gum. "No noticeable transverse cracks that we can tell. Can't see it all, of course, since seven feet of keel is under the seafloor and the interior is filled with a yard of sand. But I'm guessing that chances of a longitudinal break are slim. I'll lay odds that we can lift her irt one piece."

  "What method do you propose?"

  "Dollinger variable air tanks," answered Folsom. "Sink them in pairs beside the hulk. Then attach and fill with air. Same basic principle that hoisted the old submarine F-four after she sank off Hawaii way back in 1915."

  "You'll have to use suction pumps to remove the sand. The lighter she is, the less chance she'll pull apart. The thick iron plate seems to have stood up well, but the heavy oak planking behind has long since rotted away its strength."

  "We can also remove the guns," said Folsom. "They're accessible."

  Pitt examined a copy of the Chenago's original designs. The Monitor's familiar shape contained just one circular gun turret, but the Chenago possessed two, one at each end of her hull. From within both turrets extended twin thirty-centimeter Dahlgren smoothbore cannon, weighing several tons apiece.

  "The Dollinger tanks," said Pitt, suddenly thoughtful, "how efficient are they for lifting sunken aircraft?"

  Folsom stopped in mid-chew and stared at Pitt. "How big?"

  "A hundred and seventy or eighty thousand pounds, including cargo."

  "How deep?"

  "One hundred forty feet."

  Pitt could almost hear the gears whirring in Folsom's brain. Finally the salvagemaster resumed chewing and said, "I'd recommend derricks."

  "Derricks?"

  "Two of them on stable platforms could easily lift that much weight," said Folsom. "Besides, an aircraft is a fragile piece of hardware. If you used the Dollinger tanks and they got the least bit out of synchronization during the lift, they could tear the plane apart." He paused and looked at Pitt questioningly. "Why all the hypothetical questions?"

  Pitt smiled a pondering smile. "You never know when we might have to bring up an airplane."