Elephant Song - Smith Wilbur - Страница 107

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His beard was still thick and glossy, curled up under his chin, the ends tucked into his spotless white turban.  Indeed, what an absolute pleasure to see you again, Doctor.  His eyes gave the lie to the words.

Thank you for your kind sympathy, but happily I am fully recovered, except for my missing appendage.  He wiggled the stump.  It's-a nuisance, but I expect to receive full compensation for my loss from those responsible, never mind.  His touch was cool as a lizard's skin, but he withdrew his hand from Daniel's and turned to Bonny and Kajo.

His smile became more natural and he greeted them cordially.  When he turned back to Daniel he was no longer smiling.  And so, Doctor, you have come to make us all famous with your television show.  We shall all be film stars.  . . He was watching Daniel's face with a strange greedy expression, like a python looking at a hare.

The shock of the meeting had been almost as great to Daniel as it had obviously been to the Sikh.  Of course, Mike Hargreave had told him that Chetti Singh had survived the leopard attack, but that had been months ago and he had never expected Chetti Singh to turn up here in Ubomo, thousands of miles from where he had last seen him.  Then, when he thought about it, he realised that he should really have been prepared for this.

There was a strong link between Ning Cheng Gong and the Sikh.  If Ning were placed in charge in Ubomo, he would naturally appoint as his assistant somebody who knew every wrinkle of the local terrain, and who had his networks securely in place.

In retrospect, it was obvious that Chetti Singh had been the perfect choice for Ning.  The Sikh's Organisation had infiltrated every country in central Africa.  He had agents in the field.  He knew whom to bribe and whom to intimidate.  But most of all, he was totally unscrupulous and bound toNing Cheng Gong in loyalty and fear and greed.

Daniel should have expected Chetti Singh to be lurking inNings shadow, should have been prepared to face his vengeance.  It did not need the expression in Chetti Singh's eyes to warn him that he was in mortal danger.

The only escape from Sengi-Sengi was along the single roadway through the forest, every mile of which was controlled by company guards and numerous military road-blocks.

Chetti Singh was going to try to kill him.  There could not be a single doubt of that.  He had no weapon nor any other form of defence.

Chetti Singh commanded the ground and could choose the time and the place to do it.

Chetti Singh had turned back and was chatting to Captain Kajo and Bonny.

It is too late already for me to offer to show you around.  It will be dark in a short while.  You will want to move into the quarters we have prepared for you He paused and beamed at them genially.  Besides which, I have exciting news for you.  I have just this minute received a fax from Government House in Kahali.  President Taffari, in the very flesh, is coming to Sengi-Sengi by helicopter.  He will arrive tomorrow morning and he has most graciously consented to a film interview on the site of our operation here.  It is a great.

honour, I assure you.  President Taffari is not a man to be taken lightly, and he will be accompanied by the chief executive officer of UDC, none other than our own Mr.  Ning Cheng Gong.  He is another eminently important personage.  Perhaps he will also consent to play a part in your production.  .

It was raining again as Chetti Singh's secretary showed them to the quarters that had been set aside for them.  The rain rattled like birdshot on the roofs of the buildings and the already saturated earth steamed with a mist that was blue as smoke in the twilight beneath the forest canopy.

Wooden catwalks had been laid between the buildings and the secretary provided them with cheap plastic umbrellas gaudily emblazoned with the slogan: UDC means a better life for all.

The guest quarters were a row of small rooms like stables in a long Nissen hut.  Each room contained rudimentary furniture bed, chair, cupboard and desk.  There was a communal washroom and lavatory in the centre of the long hut.

Daniel checked his own room carefully.  The door had a lock that was so flimsy that it would yield to any determined pressure, besides which Chetti Singh certainly had a duplicate key.  The window was covered by a mosquito screen and there was a mosquito net hanging above the bed, none of which was any protection.  The walls were so thin that he could hear Kajo moving around in the room beside his.

It was going to be a pleasant stay.

Okay, folks, we'll have a competition, he grinned ruefully to himself.

Guess when Chetti Singh will make his first attempt to bump us off.

First prize is a week's holiday at Sengi-Sengi.

Second prize is two weeks holiday at Sengi-Sengi.

Dinner was served in the mess for senior staff.  It was another Nissen hut comfortably furnished as a bar and canteen.  When Daniel and Bonny entered there was a mixed bag of Taiwanese and British engineers and technicians filling the mess with cigarette smoke and noisy chatter.

Nobody took much notice of him, but Bonny caused a mild sensation, as usual, especially with the group of Brits playing darts and drinking lager at the bar.

The Taiwanese seemed to be keeping to themselves and Daniel sensed a tension between the two groups.  This was confirmed when one of the British engineers told Daniel that since Ning had taken over UDC, he had been ousting the British engineers and managers and replacing them with his own Taiwanese.

Bonny was instantly adopted by the British contingent and after dinner Daniel left her playing darts with a couple of beefy mining engineers.

She intercepted Daniel heading for the door and she grinned at him maliciously as she whispered, Enjoy your lonely bed, lover.  He grinned back at her as icily.  I never did like a crowd.  As he made his way through the darkness along the slippery mud-caked catwalk, a spot in the centre of his back itched.  It was the spot into which somebody sneaking up behind him might stick a knife.  He quickened his pace.

When he reached the door of his room in the Nissen hut, he pushed it open but hung back for a minute.  There could be somebody waiting for him in the darkened room.  He gave them a chance to move before he slipped his arm around the door frame and switched on the overhead light.  Only then did he venture in cautiously.  He locked the flimsy door and drew the curtains and sat on the bed to unlace his boots.

There were just too many ways that Chetti Singh could choose to do it. He knew he couldn't guard against them all.  At that moment he felt something move under the bedclothes on which he was sitting.  It was a slow, stealthy, reptilian sliding movement beneath the thin sheet and it touched his thigh.  An icy dart of fear shot up his spine, stiffening every muscle in his body.

He had always had an unreasoning fear of snakes.  One of his earliest memories was of a cobra in his nursery.  It had only been a few months after his fourth birthday, but he vividly remembered the grotesque shadow that the reptile's extended hood had thrown upon the nursery wall as it reared in the diffuse beam of the nightlight that his mother had placed beside his bed.  He remembered the explosive hisses with which the snake had challenged his own wild and terrified screams, before his father had burst into the nursery in his pyjamas.

Now he knew with the utmost certainty that the thing beneath the sheet was a snake.  He knew that Chetti Singh or one of his men had placed it there.  It must be one of the more deadly species, one of the mambas, slim and glittering with their thin grinning lips, or a forest cobra, black as death, or one of the thick repulsive gaboon adders.

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