The Tears of Autumn - Charles McCarry [105]
Manuel nodded and cleared his throat. “It’s remarkable what they can accomplish, Do and his people. But you’re right, of course, their race limits them. They have to rely on others from time to time.”
“Once again, security is sometimes less important than success.”
“There’s no such thing as security among professionals. You’re here. I wouldn’t have thought that possible.”
Ruiz folded the money in half and stuffed it into his breast pocket. He fastened the metal button.
“Frankly,” Christopher said, “Do didn’t think what you did was possible. He’s very grateful. You were the key.”
Manuel leaned back in his chair and slapped his palm with the flat of the bayonet. He struggled with a smile of pleasure, then submitted to it. He had large even teeth.
Manuel Ruiz’s mind opened with an almost audible click. Christopher had seen this happen before to men who had done great things in secret. No matter how disciplined, they wanted admiration. Manuel, sent by Che Guevara into a Congolese rain forest, was a long way from people he could trust—who could understand what he had done. Christopher didn’t know whether Ruiz had decided to trust him or kill him, but he knew that Ruiz had decided to talk.
But not immediately. Manuel moved a stack of papers to the center of his desk, and wetting his thumb, began to go through them. After a time he looked up and recoiled in mock surprise, as if he had forgotten that he had a guest.
“You must excuse me now, I have urgent work,” he said. “You’ll stay the night, I suppose? Eat supper with me.”
“Gladly. I have some Polish vodka in my bag. Do you like it?”
“No, but I’ll drink it, Charron.”
3
Outside, in the scorched white light of afternoon, nothing moved. Christopher heard African laughter coming from the huts and a radio playing songs in one of the Congolese languages. The sun had dried the cassava beds so that the soil was as fine as rouge.
Nsango sat in his hut, reading. When Christopher entered on his hands and knees, Nsango put a finger in his book to mark the place and showed him the cover. It was a French translation of one of Albert Schweitzer’s works. Even before he became a terrorist, Nsango had told Christopher that Schweitzer, who lived among black lepers in order to save his own white soul, was the only man in Africa he dreamed of murdering.
“Know thine enemy,” Nsango said.
Christopher took off the bush jacket he had been wearing, wiped the perspiration from the small wire recorder in its breast pocket, and fitted a new spool of wire.
“How did it go?” Nsango asked.
“All right. He’ll talk tonight. He wants to talk to someone.”
“Yes, he’s lonely. He’s above the other Cubans—they’re louts. Manuel is an educated man.”
“What are his communications with the outside?”
“You saw the radio. It breaks down a lot, and the man who knew how to fix it was the one who was bitten by the snake. Manuel has a link with the Russian radio in Dar es Salaam, but sometimes it takes hours to raise them. I think they don’t listen for his transmissions.”
“Would you consider sabotaging the radio?”
Nsango shrugged. “He’ll connect it to you.”
“Not if you’re subtle. The generator operates on a gasoline motor. Put a little dirt in the gas tank.”
“Sooner or later he’s going to describe you to someone in their apparatus.”
“Maybe. But not today.”
“All right, I’ll have it done. Manuel won’t try to transmit until after dark—the sun interferes.”
Christopher stood up and poured water into his mouth from the calabash. He touched Nsango’s Kalashnikov rifle, setting it swinging gently on its hangers.
“I see the weapons have been issued.”
“Only to me and other more advanced natives,” Nsango said. “The men are growing impatient.”
“I counted ten cases of rifles in Manuel’s hut. Your men must want them very badly.”
“Yes. Manuel or one of the other Cubans guards them all the time.”
Christopher sat down on the beaten dirt floor. “How soon do you expect to kill them?” he asked.
“It’s difficult, even though