The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax Page 35

  "As you did," she said, smiling.

  "Yes." He gave her a thoughtful glance. "Suppose you realize these are the same three men we saw at Lufupa camp this noon. Which of them hit you?"

  "It doesn't matter, Cyrus."

  "Try hitting you again," he said sternly, "and they'll have me to deal with."

  She said unsteadily, "You should never, never have come after us like this, Cyrus. It was madness."

  "Only thing I could think of to impress you, my dear."

  "Impress me!"

  "Well," he said with a boyish grin, "couldn't believe you'd give me a thought, coping with this bunch of hoodlums. Rather hard to overlook if I'm here. Too big."

  She began to laugh, which tore open her cracked lip again and sent a stab of pain across her cheekbone, but it was amazing how much better she felt for it, and almost light-hearted. It fortified her for Simon's reappearance.

  He walked in and gave Cyrus a nasty glance. "We do not wait for dawn to leave," he said coldly. "Because of you we go now."

  "Afraid of that," sighed Cyrus. "Sorry, my dear."

  "It's all right," she said, but of course it wasn't. For just a few brief moments there had been a flicker of hope that Chanda might be able to bring rescue before dawn. And really it was so unfair, she thought helplessly, to see all of her plans to uncover Aristotle aborted like this. By now, back at camp, who knew what arrangements were being made to assassinate some unknown and unknowing victim?

  "Mainza—" Simon's voice brought her back to the present, and she realized that her worries over Aristotle were a luxury just now. She had to resist distractions; her life and Cyrus' life depended upon it.

  "Mainza, remove all but this lantern."

  Mainza nodded and began rolling up the sleeping bags. "And while the car is being packed, we begin again," Simon told her, looking grim. "Sit, please, and you—" He pointed at Cyrus. "You will stand in the corner over there where I can observe you."

  "Think not," said Reed mildly. "Bigger than you are. Don't plan to budge an inch."

  Simon gave him a long, measuring stare. "You prefer that we shoot you instead?"

  Cyrus shrugged. "No need to, you know. Only came to keep the ladies company. I'll stand where I am and watch—like a UN observer," he added helpfully.

  Perhaps it was Cyrus' size or his mildness or a lingering sense of authority from his years on the bench, but it became obvious now to Mrs. Pollifax that Simon didn't know how to handle him. Cyrus was large, he was amiable and he exuded kindness, but he had an air about him of being immovable. Simon eyed him with resentment and then apparently decided to ignore him because he turned away and gestured Mrs. Pollifax to sit down.

  "As I started to say, we begin again." He was forced to step back as Mainza passed him, his arms filled with sleeping bags. When Mainza had gone he sat down on the other box. "Now you will tell me exactly how you met this Mr. Farrell."

  "Farrell?" said Cyrus, lifting an eyebrow in surprise. "So that's it!"

  "Yes, Farrell," Mrs. Pollifax said, nodding, and then, "all right," and began her story again. She explained about the house in New Brunswick, New Jersey, her son Roger and the soapbox car, but this time she embellished the story with small artistic details. She added a soapbox derby in which Roger won a first prize of five dollars, and she gave Farrell a mother who played the piano and a father who owned a department store. "And then the father died," she added, tiring of the story. "That's when they moved away."

  Mainza tiptoed in again and then went out with the remaining sleeping bags and a lantern. Simon did not comment on her story. He drew out the four photographs again and held up the lantern for her to examine them by. "Which?" he demanded, handing them to her. "Perhaps it will improve your memory if I tell you that your life depends on it."

  Mrs. Pollifax examined them one by one, frowning appropriately while Simon studied her face. She noticed that numbers had suddenly appeared in pencil on the bottom corner of each photograph; Mrs. Lovecraft's idea, no doubt. "I don't recognize any of these men," she said again with finality.

  "Mind if I look?" asked Cyrus, and when Simon only shrugged he took the pictures, glanced through them and shook his head. "Absolutely impossible," he said flatly. "None of these men could have lived next door to Mrs. Pollifax."

  "I may ask why?" Simon's voice was biting.

  "Look at her, look at them. Tough-looking chaps. You think she'd know such a person? None of them," he added with authority, "built a soapbox car in his life."

  Smiling at him, Mrs. Pollifax thought, You dear man, there are so many things you don't know about my friends, but you've become one. Solidly.

  Simon leaned closer to her. "1 do not believe you understand me. If you remain stubborn we kill you— like that," he told her, snapping his ringers. "We kill this man too."

  "Stay as stubborn as she pleases," said Cyrus. "Why this passion for having Mr. Farrell identified?"

  "So we will know which of these four men he is," he said, exasperated. "Ah—Mainza, the Land Rover is ready?"

  "Everything is inside, Simon."

  "Then we go. Take them out, Mainza, I'll bring the lantern and tarpaulin. As for you," he told Mrs. Pollifax, "we talk again, but if you do not talk for me, Sikota is the man with a genius. For him everyone talks."

  They climbed into the Land Rover. Apparently Amy's role of innocent hostage was to be continued because she was led out of the second hut by Reuben, her wrists still bound, and inserted between Mrs. Pollifax and Cyrus on the rear seat. A rope was threaded through each of their bound wrists and secured to either side of the car, giving them a primitive check against falling; evidently some rugged driving lay ahead.

  Amy spoke only once. She turned her flawless profile to Cyrus and said coolly, "It was terribly sweet of you to come, Cyrus, but I hope you'll realize what you've done. Now we're both hostages to Mrs. Pollifax. They'll kill us first to persuade her to talk, and believe it or not this woman seems very willing to sacrifice us. She doesn't give a damn at all."

  "Ha," was Cyrus' only response.

  The Land Rover started with a jolt, and following this, in proportion to the distance they covered, all sense of time diminished for Mrs. Pollifax. It was not that the Land Rover drove so fast but that a relentless speed of fifteen miles per hour over rough ground abused every bone in the body. The headlights had been taped so that only the immediate ground could be seen, and frequently the Land Rover swerved to avoid a rock, and once a startled wild beast. At some point during the first hour— she supposed it was an hour—Cyrus observed that they were heading west, and then after an interminable length of time he announced that they seemed to be veering south, but except for these comments no one spoke. Mrs. Lovecraft remained silent and Mrs. Pollifax reflected that if Kafue Park was half the size of Switzerland, this gave Simon a great deal of space in which to maneuver, and any search parties vast difficulties in finding them.

  It was kinder not to think of Aristotle. She began to think instead of how far she could go in protecting Farrell's life from whatever dangers these people represented, and she thought the dangers must be considerable if they would go to such lengths as an abduction. But there was Cyrus' life too ... He had wandered after her, heroic and innocent, and it was unthinkable that he might have to pay for it with his life. She felt responsible for him even if he would snort indignantly at such an idea. How could one choose? One could say that Farrell was the younger, with more years ahead of him to live, but balanced against this was the fact that Farrell had survived to his forty-some years by outwitting just such people as Simon, and how could she assume that he wouldn't survive her identifying him? And on that score there rose the doubts—oh God, the doubts, she cried silently, those niggling, poisonous doubts that were perfectly logical but which she would do well to face now, and with honesty. Chance had brought her and Farrell together once in a very rare intimacy, but there was no overlooking the fact that their values had been different even then, and that four years had
intervened since she'd known him. He might be smuggling drugs, or involved in something equally abhorrent to her. She could vividly remember her shock at first meeting him—that hardbitten face and those mocking eyes . . .

  She discovered that she was smiling as she remembered those first reactions of a refugee from the New Brunswick, New Jersey, Garden Club. What a sheltered life she’d led before she met him, and how she must have amused him! It was preposterous to think he could change that much. He was a man who'd not broken under torture, and when he believed he was going to his death his first thoughts had been of her. No, she couldn't betray him, she simply couldn't . . .

  She realized that she couldn't betray Farrell and that she absolutely couldn't sacrifice Cyrus. She was going to have to wait and trust to her instincts hour by hour, and in the end—if they weren't found in time by a search party—there might be no choice at all, or very little, because even if she identified Farrell it might not save Cyrus' life. She would simply have to wait, and in the meantime, just because it was night and she was cold and hungry, she mustn't lose hope. In fact, if she could just get these ropes off her wrists, the bush country of Zambia would ring with her shouts of Ki-ya.

  "Growing light," said Cyrus, lifting his bound wrists and pointing toward the horizon. "Must be nearly four o'clock."

  Mrs. Pollifax looked up and for the first time since her capture saw the world around her. The light that he'd pointed out was murky, no more than a subtle diminishing of darkness, but it was enough to define thorn trees and tall grass and the slope of the ground. She felt totally unequipped for this new day, but slowly and softly a warm golden light stole over the earth, dissipating pockets of mist in the hollows, and then abruptly the sun spilled over the horizon, huge and orange, and Mrs. Pollifax's spirits rose with it.

  Simon and Mainza began chattering together in the front, and at length called in their own language to Reuben in the back. Mainza pointed to the left, they swerved in that direction, entered a copse of trees and came to a stop.

  "We rest," said Simon, turning off the ignition.

  They climbed stiffly out of the Land Rover and were led to a cleared area which, mercifully, received the warmth of the sun. Reuben brought them sleeping bags which they spread on the ground, after which bathroom privileges were extended to them and they took turns going off, with Reuben as guard.

  Simon and Mainza remained beside the car. As soon as Amy had gone, leaving her alone with Cyrus, she looked at him and said firmly, "It's absolutely imperative that we get these ropes off our wrists."

  "Logical, my dear, yes," he said, nodding, "but for the moment impossible."

  "Then, failing that," she said earnestly, "there ought to be some way for us to capture Amy and use her as a shield or hostage."

  "Thought had occurred to me," admitted Cyrus, "but not with any solution. Have to add I'm not very good at this sort of thing."

  She smiled. "It may surprise you what you can accomplish if your life depends on it."

  "Yes, but say, for instance, I approach our friend Amy from the rear," he said, "and fling my bound wrists over her head and hold her as a shield, what then?"

  "Then I stand behind you—"

  "Two of us hiding behind Amy?" He smiled faintly. "Bit of a stalemate, I'd say."

  "Why? They wouldn't dare to shoot us," she protested. "If they did they'd hit Amy."

  "Could stand facing each other for days, though," pointed out Cyrus. "Or they'd circle us. Three against two, and they've guns."

  Mrs. Pollifax bit her lip. "You have a point there, unfortunately. Oh, if only there were some way to free our hands!"

  "What then?" he asked, looking at her with amusement.

  "Well, you see I'm rather good at karate."

  This startled him but there was no overlooking his gleeful appreciation of this. "Damned astonishing woman," he said. "Enough to goad me into chewing off your ropes with my bare teeth."

  "I wish you could," she said wistfully. "They plan to kill me when we reach the burial ground, you know."

  "Burial ground? Nothing," protested Cyrus, "has been said about a burial ground."

  "That's what I overheard . . . it's across the Mumbwa-Lusaka highway, which we'll have to cross at some point, apparently, and around darkness they meet Sikota there."

  "So," mused Cyrus. "The longer it takes us to reach the burial ground—a macabre meeting place to say the least—the longer we have to exercise cunning, I take it?"

  She nodded. "Why is Mainza climbing that tree now?"

  He turned to look. "Could be lost. See better from a tree."

  "But they have a compass and maps."

  "Simon's been poring over both since we sat down," he told her. "Very heavy frown on his face."

  "I think it would be lovely if we're lost," she said, watching a scarlet butterfly hover over Amy's sleeping bag, touch down and then twinkle away. "I'd like to see it happen to them, they deserve it."

  "Not so sure we deserve it," he pointed out. "Very tiring sort of thing, being lost. Makes men like Simon irascible and insecure. Better sleep now, my dear, it may be your only opportunity."

  She nodded and lay down, and thinking how pleasant it was to be called my dear—and how fortifying Cyrus was—she closed her eyes and then opened them to watch Mainza climb down from his tree. Amy was returning from the bush—she could hear the crackle of dried leaves and the snap of twigs—with Reuben's heavier footsteps behind her. The sun and the warmth of the sleeping bag combined to soothe her aching muscles and help her forget her hunger; she closed her eyes a second time, felt tiredness wash over her in waves and then engulf her, and she slept.

  When she opened her eyes the clearing was empty of voices and she saw that Cyrus' sleeping bag was unoccupied. Without moving her body she turned her head and saw Amy burrowed deeply in her sleeping bag with only strands of pale hair in sight. Over near the Land Rover, Simon and Mainza were stretched out asleep in the sun. Reuben sat dozing with his back against a tree, the rifle across his lap, his eyes closed, but of Cyrus there was no sign until a sudden stealthy movement from the Land Rover caught her eye. It was Cyrus, creeping around the back of the vehicle on hands and knees. Mrs. Pollifax glanced at the dozing Reuben and then at Cyrus, and held her breath in horror.

  CHAPTER

  11

  She had no idea what Cyrus had been doing behind the Land Rover but he was in plain view of Reuben: only Reuben's closed eyelids—a fragile barrier—lay between him and discovery, and Cyrus' stealth was proof that he was up to something. She dared not lift her head lest the movement wake Reuben, who was obviously supposed to be thoroughly awake and guarding them. She lay very still and held her breath. Cyrus was still on his hands and knees, but when he reached the side of the Land Rover he slowly rose to his feet, glanced once at Reuben and then tiptoed soundlessly toward her, testing the ground underfoot at each step. Only when he had dropped to his sleeping bag did she sit up, and as she did so Reuben gave a start, opened his eyes and instinctively reached for his rifle.

  "Feeling better?" asked Cyrus without expression. "About four hours' sleep, I think."

  "Much better," she said politely.

  The others were stirring now too, sitting up, and stretching, yawning, their faces cleared of tension and hostility, so that for a moment they might have been a picnic party waking up from a nap out in the bush. Simon called out something to Reuben, who laughed and replied, and then Mainza and Simon both laughed, completely relaxed. Only when Simon's glance fell on the map and the compass did his frown return. He picked them up and tension was visible again on his face.

  Amy Lovecraft sat up and pushed back tangled hair with her tied wrists. "Oh God, how I'd love a bath," she said.

  But the only water they were to see this morning was brought to them by Reuben in a canvas bag. They took turns drinking from it, and then he opened his palm and revealed a handful of peanuts. "Ground nuts," he said, dividing them equally among them.

  "So that's what
they're called here," said Mrs. Pollifax. He had thoughtfully shelled them and she tried to chew each one carefully—there were only eight—because they were both last night's dinner and today's breakfast as well. In fact, if this was Thursday she remembered that it was time for another malaria tablet, but she supposed it was trivial to worry about malaria when she might not even survive the day. Perhaps it was also trivial to worry now about Aristotle . . . Cyrus was conspicuously silent; he looked tired, and she realized he'd probably not slept at all, and again she wondered what he'd been doing crouched behind the Land Rover. She turned her head and glanced at Amy, and not for the first time speculated about her motives in this insane abduction. She wondered if Amy could possibly be Aristotle. Women were assassins, and clever at disguise, but Aristotle—Aristotle, she felt, was different. Bishop had described him as a professional and a mercenary, with no ties to any particular country. She simply couldn't imagine him involving himself in an abduction, and then there was the fact that Amy knew these men, and Aristotle always acted alone.

  Her thoughts were interrupted by Simon, who shouted, "Up!" and once again they were herded to the Land Rover and loosely roped in place. They set off in the warm morning light, and Mrs. Pollifax noticed they avoided open spaces now, which she thought showed more faith in a search party than she could muster at the moment. Shortly after leaving they skirted another clearing and surprised a herd of zebra standing motionless in the sun. The herd took flight at once, their stripes dancing and blurring as they swept across the plain in a cloud of graceful motion, and then as they reached the edge of the clearing the Land Rover swerved and they came to a stop.

  "Flat tire," said Simon.

  They climbed out and sat on the ground while Mainza jacked up the Land Rover and removed the tire. The spare was taken from its mounting on the hood and inserted on the rim, the jack was disengaged and the Land Rover lowered until it came to rest on the new tire, which slowly, comically, went flat too.