The Seventh Scroll - Smith Wilbur - Страница 26

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permits, governmental contacts, vehicles, camping equipment and logistic

back, up necessary to travel and stay in even the remotest areas.

The authorities are quite accustomed to foreign hunters arriving and

leaving with these companies, whereas a couple of ferengi nosing around

on their own would have the local military and everybody else down on

them like a herd of angry buffalo., ( So we are going to travel as a

pair of dik-dik hunters?"

"I have already made the booking with a safari operator in Addis Ababa,

the capital. MY Plan is to look upon the whole of our project in three

distinct and separate stages.

The first stage will be this reconnaissance. If we find the lead we are

hoping for, then we will go back again with our own men and equipment.

That will be stage two. Stage three, of course, will be getting the

booty out of Ethiopia, and that I assure you from past experience will

not be the easiest part of the operation."

"How will you do that-' she began, but he held up his hands.

"Don't ask, because at this stage I don't have even the vaguest idea how

we will do it. One stage at a time."

"When do we leave?"

"Before I tell you when, let me ask you one more question. Your

interpretation of the Taita riddle - did you explain that in the notes

that were stolen from you at the oasis?"

"Yes, everything was either in those notes or on the microfilm. I am

sorry."

So the uglies will have it all neatly laid out for them, just the way

you laid it out for me."

"I am afraid they will, yes."

"Then to reply to your question as to when, the answer is tout de suite,

and the tooter the sweeter! We must get into the Abbay gorge before the

competition beats us to it.

They have had your conclusions and suppositions for almost a month. For

all we know they are on their way already!

"When?" she repeated eagerly.

"I have booked two seats on the British Airways flight to Nairobi this

Saturday - that is, in two days' time. We will connect there with an Air

Kenya flight to Addis that will get us in on Monday at around midday. We

will drive down to London this evening and stay over at my digs there.

Are your yellow fever and hepatitis shots up to date?"

"Yes, but I have no equipment and hardly any clothing with me., I left

Cairo in rather a hurry."

We will. see to that in London. Trouble with Ethiopia is it's cold

enough to emasculate a brass monkey in the highlands, and like a sauna

bath down in the gorge."

He crossed to the board and began to check off the items on his list.

"We will both start malarial prophylactics immediately. We are going

into an area of chloroquineresistant . falciparum mosquitoes, so I will

put you on Mefloquine "He worked swiftly through the list.

"Of course all your travel documents are in order, or you wouldn't be

here. We will both need visas for Ethiopia, but I have a contact who can

arrange that in twenty-four hours."

As soon as he completed the list he sent her up to her room to pack the

few personal items she had brought with her from Cairo.

By the time they were ready to leave Quenton Hall it was dark outside,

but still he stopped for an hour at the York Minster Hospital to allow

her to say goodbye to her mother. He waited in the Red Lion pub across

the road, and he smelt of Theakston's Old Peculier when she climbed back

into the Range Rover beside him. It was a Pleasant, yeasty aroma, and

she felt so much at ease in his company that she lay back in the seat

and fell asleep.

His London house was in Knightsbridge, but despite the fashionable

address it was much less grand than Quenton Hall, and she felt IF more

at home there, even if it was only for two days.

During that time she saw little of Nicholas, for he was busy with all

the last-minute arrangements, which included a number of visits to

government offices in Whitehall. He returned with wads of letters -of

introduction to high officials and British Embassies and High

Commissions throughout East Africa.

"Ask any Englishman," she smiled to herself "There is no such thing as

upper-class privilege any longer, nor is there an old-boy network that

runs the country."

While he was away, she went off with the shopping list he had given her.

Even walking the streets of the safest Capital city in the world she

found herself looking back over her shoulder, and ducking in and out of

ladies' rooms and tube stations to make certain that she was not being

followed.

"You are acting like a terrified child without its daddy," she scolded

herself.

However, she felt a quite disproportionate sense of relief each evening

when she heard his key in the street door of the empty house where she

waited, and she had to control herself so as not to rush down the stairs

to welcome him.

On Saturday morning, when a taxi cab deposited them at the departures

level of Heathrow MNIJ Terminal Four, Nicholas surveyed their combined

luggage with approval. She had only a single soft canvas bag, no larger

than his, and her sling bag over her shoulder. His hunting rifle was

cased in travel-worn leather, with his initials embossed on the lid. A

hundred rounds of ammunition was packed in a separate brass'bound

magazine and he carried a leather briefcase that looked like a Victorian

antique.

"Travelling light is one of the great virtues. Lord save us from women

with mountains of luggage,5 he told her, refusing the services of a

porter and throwing it all on to a trolley, which he pushed himself.

She had to step out to keep up with him as he strode through the crowded

departures hall. Miraculously the throng opened before him. He tilted

the brim of his panama hat over one eye and grinned at the girl at the

check'in counter, so that she came over all girlish and flustered.

It was the same once they were aboard the aircraft.

The two stewardesses giggled at everything he said, plied him with

champagne and fussed over him outrageously, to the obvious irritation of

the other passengers, including Royan herself. But she ignored him and

them and settled back to enjoy the unaccustomed luxury of the reclining

first-class seat and her own miniature video screen. She tried to

concentrate on the screen images of Richard Gere, but found her

attention wandering to other images of wild canyons and ancient stelae.

Only when Nicholas nudged her did she look around at him a little

haughtily. He had set up a tiny travelling chessboard on the arm of the

seat between them, and now he lifted an eyebrow at her and inclined his

head in invitation.

When they landed at Jomo Kenyatta airport in Kenya they were still

locked in combat. They were level at two games each, but she was a

bishop and two pawns up in the final deciding game. She felt quite

pleased with herself.

At the Norfolk Hotel in Nairobi he had booked a pair of garden

bungalows, one for each of them. Within ten minutes of her flopping down

on the bed, he called her from next door on the house phone.

"We are going to dinner with the British High Commissioner tonight. He

is an old chum. Dress informal. Can you be ready at eight?"

One did not have to rough it too onerously when travelling around the

world in this man's company, she thought.

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