Congo Page 9

  He heard soft voices again, and looked toward the computer console. Jensen and Irving were staring at a screen and talking quietly. “Dangerous signature. We got a computer projection on that?”

  “Coming. It’ll take a while. I asked for a five-year run-back, as well as the other pissups.”

  Elliot climbed out of his cot and looked at the screen. “What’s pissups?” he said.

  “PSOPs are prior significant orbital passes by the satellite,” Jensen explained. “They’re called pissups because we usually ask for them when we’re already pissing upwind. We’ve been looking at this volcanic signature here,” Jensen said, pointing to the screen. “It’s not too promising.”

  “What volcanic signature?” Elliot asked.

  They showed him the billowing plumes of smoke—dark green in artificial computer-generated colors—which belched from the mouth of Mukenko, one of the active volcanoes of the Virunga range. “Mukenko erupts on the average of once every three years,” Irving said. “The last eruption was March, 1977, but it looks like it’s gearing up for another full eruption in the next week or so. We’re waiting now for the probability assessment.”

  “Does Ross know about this?”

  They shrugged. “She knows, but she doesn’t seem worried. She got an urgent GPU—geopolitical update—from Houston about two hours ago, and she went directly into the cargo bay. Haven’t seen her since.”

  Elliot went into the dimly lit cargo bay of the jet. The cargo bay was not insulated and it was chilly: the trucks had a thin frost on metal and glass, and his breath hissed from his mouth. He found Karen Ross working at a table under low pools of light. Her back was turned to him, but when he approached, she dropped what she was doing and turned to face him.

  “I thought you were asleep,” she said.

  “I got restless. What’s going on?”

  “Just checking supplies. This is our advanced technology unit,” she said, lifting up a small backpack. “We’ve developed a miniaturized package for field parties; twenty pounds of equipment contains everything a man needs for two weeks:

  food, water, clothing, everything.”

  “Even water?” Elliot asked.

  Water was heavy: seven-tenths of human body weight was water, and most of the weight of food was water; that was why dehydrated food was so light. But water was far more critical to human life than food. Men could survive for weeks without food, but they would die in a matter of hours without water. And water was heavy.

  Ross smiled. “The average man consumes four to six liters a day, which is eight to thirteen pounds of weight. On a two-week expedition to a desert region, we’d have to provide two hundred pounds of water for each man. But we have a NASA water-recycling unit which purifies all excretions, including urine. It weighs six ounces. That’s how we do it.”

  Seeing his expression, she said, “It’s not bad at all. Our purified water is cleaner than what you get from the tap.,’

  “I’ll take your word for it.” Elliot picked up a pair of strange-looking sunglasses. They were very dark and thick, and there was a peculiar lens mounted over the forehead bridge.

  “Holographic night goggles,” Ross said. “Employing thin-film diffraction optics.” She then pointed out a vibration-free camera lens with optical systems that compensated for movement, strobe infrared lights, and miniature survey lasers no larger than a pencil eraser. There was also a series of small tripods with rapid-geared motors mounted on the top, and brackets to hold something, but she did not explain these devices beyond saying they were “defensive units.”

  Elliot drifted toward the far table, where he found six submachine guns set out under the lights. He picked one up; it was heavy, and gleaming with grease. Clips of ammunition lay stacked nearby. Elliot did not notice the lettering on the stock; the machine guns were Russian AK-47s manufactured under license in Czechoslovakia.

  He glanced at Ross.

  “Just precautions,” Ross said. “We carry them on every expedition. It doesn’t mean anything.”

  Elliot shook his head. “Tell me about your GPU from Houston,” he said.

  “I’m not worried about it,” she said.

  “I am,” Elliot said.

  As Ross explained it, the GPU was just a technical report. The Zaire government had closed its eastern borders during the previous twenty-four hours; no tourist or commercial traffic could enter the country from Rwanda or Uganda; everyone now had to enter the country from the west, through Kinshasa.

  No official reason was given for closing the eastern border, although sources in Washington speculated that Idi Amin’s troops, fleeing across the Zaire border from the Tanzanian invasion of Uganda, might be causing “local difficulties.” In central Africa, local difficulties usually meant cannibalism and other atrocities.

  “Do you believe that?” Elliot asked. “Cannibalism and atrocities?”

  “No,” Ross said. “It’s all a lie. It’s the Dutch and the Germans and the Japanese—probably your friend Morikawa. The Euro-Japanese electronics consortium knows that ERTS is close to discovering important diamond reserves in Vi­runga. They want to slow us down as much as they can. They’ve got the fix in somewhere, probably in Kinshasa, and closed the eastern borders. It’s nothing more than that.”

  “If there’s no danger, why the machine guns?”

  “Just precautions,” she said again. “We’ll never use machine guns on this trip, believe me. Now why don’t you get some sleep? We’ll be landing in Tangier soon.”

  “Tangier?”

  “Captain Munro is there.”

  6. Munro

  THE NAME OF “CAPTAIN” CHARLES MUNRO WAS not to be found on the list of the expedition leaders employed by any of the usual field parties. There were several reasons for this, foremost among them his distinctly unsavory reputation.

  Munro had been raised in the wild Northern Frontier Province of Kenya, the illegitimate son of a Scottish farmer and his handsome Indian housekeeper. Munro’s father had the bad luck to be killed by Mau Mau guerillas in 1956. * Soon afterward, Munro’s mother died of tuberculosis, and Munro made his way to Nairobi where in the late 1950s he worked as a white hunter, leading parties of tourists into the bush. It was during this time that Munro awarded himself the title of “Captain,” although he had never served in the military.

  Apparently, Captain Munro found humoring tourists uncongenial; by 1960, he was reported running guns from Uganda into the newly independent Congo. After Moise Tshombe went into exile in 1963, Munro’s activities became politically embarrassing, and ultimately forced him to disappear from East Africa in late 1963.

  He appeared again in 1964, as one of General Mobutu’s white mercenaries in the Congo, under the leadership of Colonel “Mad Mike” Hoare. Hoare assessed Munro as a “hard, lethal customer who knew the jungle and was highly effective, when we could get him away from the ladies.”

  *Although more than nineteen thousand people were killed in the Mau Mau uprisings. only thirty-seven whites were killed during seven years of terrorism. Each dead white was properly regarded more as a victim of circumstance than of emerging black politics.

  Following the capture of Stanleyville in Operation Dragon Rouge, Munro’s name was associated with the mercenary atrocities at a village called Avakabi. Munro again disappeared for several years.

  In 1968, he re-emerged in Tangier, where he lived splendidly and was something of a local character. The source of Munro’.s obviously substantial income was unclear, but he was said to have supplied Communist Sudanese rebels with East German light arms in 1971, to have assisted the royalist Ethiopians in their rebellion in 1974—1975, and to have assisted the French paratroopers who dropped into Zaire’s Shaba province in 1978.

  His mixed activities made Munro a special case in Africa in the 1970s; although he was persona non grata in a half-dozen African states, he traveled freely throughout the continent, using various passports. It was a transparent ruse: every border official recognized him on
sight, but these officials were equally afraid to let him enter the country or to deny him entry.

  Foreign mining and exploration companies, sensitive to local feeling, were reluctant to hire Munro as an expedition leader for their parties. It was also true that Munro was by far the most expensive of the bush guides. Nevertheless, he had a reputation for getting tough, difficult jobs done. Under an assumed name, he had taken two German tin-mining parties into the Cameroons in 1974; and he had led one previous ERTS expedition into Angola during the height of the armed conflict in 1977. He quit another ERTS field group headed for Zambia the following year after Houston refused to meet his price: Houston had canceled the expedition.

  In short, Munro was acknowledged as the best man for dangerous travel. That was why the ERTS jet stopped in Tangier.

  At the Tangier airport, the ERTS cargo jet and its contents were bonded, but all ongoing personnel except Amy passed through customs, carrying their personal belongings. Jensen and Irving were pulled aside for searches; trace quantities of heroin were discovered in their hand baggage.

  This bizarre event occurred through a series of remarkable coincidences, In 1977, United States customs agents began to employ neutron backscatter devices, as well as chemical vapor detectors, or sniffers. Both were hand-held electronic devices manufactured under contract by Morikawa Elec­tronics in Tokyo. In 1978, questions arose about the accuracy of these devices; Morikawa suggested that they be tested at other ports of entry around the world, including Singapore, Bangkok, Delhi, Munich, and Tangier.

  Thus Morikawa Electronics knew the capabilities of the detectors at Tangier airport, and they also knew that a variety of substances, including ground poppy seeds and shredded turnip, would produce a false-positive registration on airport sensors. And the “false-positive net” required forty-eight hours to untangle. (It was later shown that both men had somehow acquired traces of turnip on their briefcases.)

  Both Irving and Jensen vigorously denied any knowledge of illicit material, and appealed to the local U.S. consular office. But the case could not be resolved for several days; Ross telephoned Travis in Houston, who determined it was a “Dutch herring.” There was nothing to be done except to carry on, and continue with the expedition as best they could.

  “They think this will stop us,” Travis said, “but it won’t.”

  “Who’s going to do the geology?” Ross asked.

  “You are,” Travis said.

  “And the electronics?”

  “You’re the certified genius,” Travis said. “Just make sure you have Munro. He’s the key to everything.”

  The song of the muezzin floated over the pastel jumble of houses in the Tangier Casbah at twilight, calling the faithful to evening prayer. In the old days, the muezzin himself appeared in the minarets of the mosque, but now a recording played over loudspeakers: a mechanized call to the Muslim ritual of obeisance.

  Karen Ross sat on the terrace of Captain Munro’s house overlooking the Casbah and waited for her audience with the man himself. Beside her, Peter Elliot sat in a chair and snored noisily, exhausted from the long flight.

  They had been waiting nearly three hours, and she was worried. Munro’s house was of Moorish design, and open to the outdoors. From the interior she could hear voices, faintly carried by the breeze, speaking some Oriental language.

  One of the graceful Moroccan servant girls that Munro seemed to have in infinite supply came onto the terrace carrying a telephone. She bowed formally. Ross saw that the girl had violet eyes; she was exquisitely beautiful, and could not have been more than sixteen. In careful English the girl said, “This is your telephone to Houston. The bidding will now begin.”

  Karen nudged Peter, who awoke groggily. “The bidding will now begin,” she said.

  Peter Elliot was surprised from the moment of his first entrance into Munro’s house. He had anticipated a tough military setting and was amazed to see delicate carved Mo­roccan arches and soft gurgling fountains with sunlight sparkling on them.

  Then he saw the Japanese and, Germans in the next room, staring at him and at Ross. The glances were distinctly unfriendly, but Ross stood and said, “Excuse me a moment,” and she went forward and embraced a young blond German man warmly. They kissed, chattered happily, and in general appeared to be intimate friends.

  Elliot did not like this development, but he was reassured to see that the Japanese—identically dressed in black suits— were equally displeased. Noticing this, Elliot smiled benignly, to convey a sense of approval for the reunion.

  But when Ross returned, he demanded, “Who was that?”

  “That’s Richter,” she said. “The most brilliant topologist in Western Europe; his field is n-space extrapolation. His work’s extremely elegant.” She smiled. “Almost as elegant as mine.”

  “But he works for the consortium?”

  “Naturally. He’s German.”

  “And you’re talking with him?”

  “I was delighted for the opportunity,” she said. “Karl has a fatal limitation. He can only deal with pre-existing data. He takes what he is given, and does cartwheels with it in n-­space. But he cannot imagine anything new at all. I had a

  professor at M.I.T. who was the same way. Tied to facts, a

  hostage to reality.” She shook her head.

  “Did he ask about Amy?”

  “Of course.”

  “And what did you tell him?”

  “I told him she was sick and probably dying.”

  “And he believed that?”

  “We’ll see. There’s Munro”

  Captain Munro appeared in the next room, wearing khakis, smoking a cigar. He was a tall, rugged-looking man with a mustache, and soft dark watchful eyes that missed nothing. He talked with the Japanese and Germans, who were evidently unhappy with what he was saying. Moments later, Munro entered their room, smiling broadly.

  “So you’re going to the Congo, Dr. Ross.”

  “We are, Captain Munro,” she said.

  Munro smiled. “It seems as though everyone is going.” There followed a rapid exchange which Elliot found incomprehensible. Karen Ross said, “Fifty thousand U.S. in Swiss francs against point oh two of first-year adjusted extraction returns.”

  Munro shook his head. “A hundred in Swiss francs and point oh six of first-year return on the primary deposits, crude-grade accounting, no discounting.

  “A hundred in U.S. dollars against point oh one of the first-year return on all deposits, with full discounting from point of origin.”

  “Point of origin? In the middle of the bloody Congo? I would want three years from point of origin: what if you’re shut down?”

  “You want a piece, you gamble. Mobutu’s clever.”

  “Mobutu’s barely in control, and I am still alive because I am no gambler,” Munro said. “A hundred against point oh four of first year on primary with front-load discount only. Or I’ll take point oh two of yours.”

  “If you’re no gambler, I’ll give you a straight buy-out for two hundred.”

  Munro shook his head. “You’ve paid more than that for your MER in Kinshasa.”

  “Prices for everything are inflated in Kinshasa, including mineral exploration rights. And the current exploration limit, the computer CEL, is running well under a thousand.”

  “If you say so.” He smiled, and headed buck into the other room, where the Japanese and Germans were waiting for his return.

  Ross said quickly, “That’s not for them to know.”

  “Oh, I’m sure they know it anyway,” Munro said, and walked into the other room.

  “Bastard,” she whispered to his back. She talked in low tones on the telephone. “He’ll never accept that. . . . No, no, he won’t go for it. . . they want him bad. . .”

  Elliot said, “You’re bidding very high for his services.”

  “He’s the best,” Ross said, and continued whispering into the telephone. In the next mom, Munro was shaking his head sadly, turning down an o
ffer. Elliot noticed that Richter was very red in the face.

  Munro came back to Karen Ross. “What was your projected CEL?”

  “Under a thousand.”

  “So you say. Yet you know there’s an ore intercept.”

  “I don’t know there’s an ore intercept.”

  “Then you’re foolish to spend all this money to go to the Congo,” Munro said. “Aren’t you?”

  Karen Ross made no reply. She stared at the ornate ceiling of the room.

  “Virunga’s not exactly a garden spot these days,” Munro continued. “The Kigani are on the rampage, and they’re cannibals. Pygmies aren’t friendly anymore either. Likely to find an arrow in your back for your troubles. Volcanoes always threatening to blow. Tsetse flies. Bad water. Corrupt officials. Not a place to go without a very good reason, hmm? Perhaps you should put off your trip until things settle down.”

  Those were precisely Peter Elliot’s sentiments, and he said

  so.

  “Wise man,” Munro said, with a broad smile that annoyed Karen Ross.

  “Evidently,” Karen Ross said, “we will never come to terms.”

  “That seems clear.” Munro nodded.

  Elliot understood that negotiations were broken off. He got up to shake Munro’s hand and leave—but before he could do that, Munro walked into the next room and conferred with the Japanese and Germans.

  “Things are looking up,” Ross said.

  “Why?” Elliot said. “Because he thinks he’s beaten you down?”

  “No. Because he thinks we know more than they do about the site location and are more likely to hit an ore body and pay off.”

  In the next room, the Japanese and Germans abruptly stood, and walked to the front door. At the door, Munro shook hands with the Germans, and bowed elaborately to the Japanese.