Free Assignment Black Gold by Edward S. Aarons Page B

town,
but the sky to the east was now filled with radiance as the hot dawn
began. The whaleboat proved sturdy and powerful against the thrust of the tide
in the mouth of the river.
    Matt stared moodily into the blackness ahead.
    “What kind of trouble are you in, Sam? Seems to me you held
out on me a bit, earlier.”
    “Lepaka is giving me a little pressure.”
    “What’s he want?”
    “It’s jail or a little job for him.”
    “You don’t want the local crib. It’s real bad. He can make
any charge stick, you know.” Matty looked grim.
    “What does he want you to do?”
    “I have to find the Saka.”
    Kitty turned and stared at Durell. Matt grunted and said,
“That’s easy. His body is in the tomb by the river.”
    “Lepaka says he‘s alive, somewhere in the Kahara."
    “Jesus. That beats everything yet.”
    “Do you believe it, Matt?”
    “Listen, anything can happen in Lubinda. I wouldn’t say yes
or no. But you’ll get your head chopped off and your guts cut out, and anything
else bad that you can think of, goin’ into the Kahara.”
    “Is Madragata really the Saka’s son?"
    “So they say. It gives the Apgaks a lot of political clout
with the tribes.”
    "And Komo Lepaka?”
    “He’s the Saka’s adopted son. Is that what Komo told you?”
Matt shook his head. “Jesus, the Saka. He must be a million years old by now.
Why would Komo want him back? It’ll open a whole new can of worms. Are you
going to do it?”
    “Komo says I have no choice.”
    “He’s probably right.”
    At the wheel, Kitty said, “I don’t see any lights.”
    Matt stood up, bracing himself against the pitch and plunge
of the small boat. “Maybe we’re not close enough yet.”
    “Do the local fishermen come this far out?” Durell
asked.
    “Not often. Sometimes. They don’t like to get out of sight
of land."
    The day was bright now. They could see the horizon ahead and
the last stars had paled away. Durell felt the heat of the morning sun on the
back of his neck, and he put on sunglasses against the glare of light on the
oily, heaving water. Kitty checked the compass bearing and Matt stood up straighter,
scowling at the sea. A low line of cumulus clouds hovered just above the
horizon.
    ‘“There she is,” Matt said suddenly. His voice was thick
with relief. “Over there. Lubinda Lady I.”
    Durell saw the drilling tower at the same moment. They were
still six or seven miles away, and a morning haze clung to the surface of the
Atlantic, making the platform seem to flout in the air, as if detached
from the sea bottom that supported it. A pair of binoculars swung from the
binnacle, and Durell reached around for them to study the rig. There were no
other vessels in sight in the early morning light except a distant freighter,
far on the horizon. He swept the sea in a full circle. Two triangular red fishing
sails were behind them, bearing south along the hazy green coast.
    “Let me look,” Matt said.
    “In a moment.”
    With every minute, the rig became clearer in the lenses. The
mast, towering 140 feet above the deck and half as much again above the surface
of the greenish sea, seemed intact. The stiff-legged Clyde derrick appeared to
be canted a bit on its rotary table. The great tubular platform piers were
streaked with rust. He swung the glasses amidships, where a tangle of lines and
cables looped down from the jackhouse into the
surging swells. To the   left wore the
metal-sheathed houses for the crew, and then the helicopter deck, beyond the
machinery house. The heliport was cantilevered out over the sea from behind the
crew’s quarters. He looked again, and then handed the binoculars to Matt
Forchette.
    “No chopper.”
    “I sent the Sikorsky out two hours ago.”
    “It’s not there,” Durell said. Matty stared through the
glasses at the growing image of the platform for long moments. His mouth
drooped grimly.
    “Right. No chopper.”
    Durell said, “No people, either.”
    “I noticed that.”
    “Yon