Free Sion Crossing by Anthony Price Page A

after Latimer had reported back, but Latimer had long experience of unfulfilled promises and deviously sketchy answers in the aftermaths of assignments, successful or not. However, since he had almost equally long experience of finding answers for himself, for his own satisfaction if not for his advancement, that was not particularly worrying.
    In any case, at least it had nothing to do with the hypothetical treasure’s intrinsic value. For what little research he had been able to carry out on the Senator, in default of being able to go back to R & D and with time pressing hard, had revealed one thing for certain: the Senator was a very rich man, as secure financially as he was politically. So the vulgar corruption of the profit motive was not something to be feared.
    So there must be some other sort of profit involved, in some other and very different currency—
    He shivered suddenly, and knew that it was not because of the contrast between the air-conditioned coolness of the terminal and the memory of those breaths of hellfire-heated-air outside. It was the knowledge that the other currencies included among them notes bearing higher ‘promise-to-pay’ legends, in exchange for things which mere money couldn’t buy. And … and some of those things were very dangerous indeed, equally if you needed them or if you had them for sale … So —
    “Mistah La tee mah, sah?”
    Latimer focussed on the very clean and well-polished floor of the terminal, at which he had been staring but not seeing a fraction of a second before; and also saw, on the edge of his vision on the floor, a pair of huge and very clean and well-polished and expensive shoes.
    He thought … no woman had a voice that deep, never mind feet that size, to fill those shoes … and looked up from the floor slowly, controlling his reaction. And up. And up—
    The man was very black. And very thin. But, even more than black and thin, he was very, very tall. He was so tall that it was quite understandable he should be stooping slightly beneath a ceiling ten feet above his head. And he had a huge grin on his face.
    It wasn’t true that all black men looked the same to white men, just as all Europeans and Chinese were supposed to look the same as each other to each other: he had seen this black man ten minutes before, lounging head-and-shoulders against a wall somewhere—where?
    Here, obviously. The question gyrated inside his brain, sweeping all others aside. They could wait—
    “Mister La tee mah?”
    “Latimer.” Whatever was about to happen, it must not be permitted to happen to anyone named La tee mah.
    “Mister Latimer.” The black giraffe’s accent changed, transformed in that instant from Deep South to British.
    “Yes.” Latimer frowned before he could stop himself, too many new unanswered questions crowding him. Absurdly, he felt that he had somehow given himself away.
    “I’m sorry, sir—I missed you, sitting here.” The black man reached out with an impossibly long arm. “Your bag, sir?”
    “Yes.” Latimer looked down quickly to the hand closing on his bag’s handle, then back upwards, conscious that he would still be looking upwards when he had stood up himself. “Who are you?”
    “Kingston, sir.” The black man lifted the bag effortlessly, straightening himself towards the ceiling. “From Kingston, Jamaica. If you think of Kingston from Kingston then you’ll never forget my name, sir.”
    Latimer stood up and continued to look up. But he was done with being stupid. “I was expecting Miss Cookridge. Where is she?”
    Miss Cookridge. For a step -daughter that wasn’t right, but perhaps the Americans had different conventions—that, both in general and in this particular detail, he had not been able to establish, to his present regret.
    “Yes, sir—Miss Cookridge.” The black man was already moving towards the exit on legs even longer than his arms, so that Latimer had to hurry unbecomingly to keep up with him. “She is