Target, page 27
Beyond the African, Blakey saw the woman crouched again over the cooking fire. The children, with the safety of distance separating them, had grown bolder. They were standing in front of their mother staring at him and giggling at their bravery. Makovsky heaved his pack into the back of the jeep and pulled a securing strap across it to prevent it bouncing out when they travelled over rough terrain. Blakey did the same. Ndala was on the driver’s side. Blakey extended his hand and the African took it.
“God be with you,” said the African.
Blakey swallowed, trying to reply.
“And with you,” said Makovsky, from the other side of the vehicle.
Blakey took the car slowly out of the village, watchful for children or any sudden flutter of chicken. Beyond the village, maize grew high along either side of the track. Makovsky screwed around in his seat, staring back to the village. “Damn,” he said bitterly.
“What’s the matter?” said Blakey, preparing to brake.
“The track is too straight: they’d see if I tried to poison any of this crop.”
Blakey winced, gripping the wheel tightly and taking his foot away from the pedal.
The Russian turned around, settling himself in the seat. Carefully he cleaned his sunglasses. “It might have been too much anyway,” he said, reflectively.
“Too much?”
“To kill the crops, as well. When I got our water this morning I fixed a cyanide cap to the side of the well. It’ll take most of the day for the adhesive to melt in the sun. Then it will contaminate the water.”
Blakey stopped the car, turning to the man beside him. “Why?” he demanded, anguished. “Why them? They looked after us, for God’s sake.”
“Why not them?” rejected Makovsky angrily. “Don’t play the bloody hypocrite with me. It doesn’t matter, don’t you see? We’ve only got a short time, so we’ve got to hurt anyone who befriends us just as we have to hurt a village where we’ll only stop for an hour.”
A feeling of positive nausea spread from Blakey’s stomach and for several moments he feared he was going to vomit. The sun was not yet over the rim of the horizon, but the perspiration spread over his face as if he were fevered.
“Let’s go on,” said Makovsky. He leaned across the dashboard, firing the ignition. Blakey engaged the gears and took the car forward again. They travelled without talking, each man encased in his misgivings about the other. The track was baked hard from the months of summer sun and Blakey was able to take the jeep faster than he had expected, despite the occasional teeth-snapping pothole. Sometimes the savannah grew higher than the vehicle, so that all they could see was the dark ribbon of road ahead, and when that happened the American slowed, not risking any sudden collision with an animal. For other long stretches, the grass was short and stunted and they could see for miles; the sun was drying out the overnight dampness, puddling milky-white mist in dips and depressions. On one of the open plains they came upon a pair of rhinos, quite near the road. The animals jerked up, startled by the vehicle, and Blakey briefly wondered if they might charge; instead they turned and trotted leisurely away, occasionally looking behind to insure there was no pursuit. It was an hour before they came to the next village and this time the road twisted through the maize and millet fields.
“Stop!” demanded Makovsky.
Blakey slowed but didn’t brake.
“I said stop.”
The American halted the vehicle and remained staring straight ahead. “Be quick,” he said.
“You.”
“What?” Blakey turned at last.
“You do it,” insisted Makovsky. He held out the canister of defoliant powder.
“I can’t,” said Blakey, indifferent to the pleading tone in his voice.
“You’re not free of responsibility, just because you don’t actually do it,” said Makovsky. “You’re here, therefore you’re guilty.”
“Yes,” agreed Blakey reluctantly.
“So do it.”
“No.”
“I shan’t do everything, just to satisfy your conscience. Get out of this fucking vehicle and start doing what you were sent here to do.”
Slowly, holding the canister as if he were afraid it might explode, Blakey got out of the jeep and edged his way into the crackling maize stalks. Dust and the inevitable flies rose about him. He ripped the seal away from the canister top and started spreading the powder with quick, twitching flicks of his wrist. He was very careful to keep the powder from coming into contact either with his clothes or skin. A parody of the Commandments forced its way into his mind: Thou shalt kill but not be killed. The law according to Henry Blakey and the superpowers. He covered a wide area in the middle of the field and then began making his way back to where the Russian sat waiting. The tears came when he had almost reached the road and he stopped, squeezing his eyes tightly closed, clenched fist tight against his teeth. He wouldn’t pray for forgiveness; that would be the greatest hypocrisy of it all. What about Confession? Could he ever sit in a confessional, a missal in his lap, and admit to what he had done? Were there more or less Hail Marys for killing a child than for killing an old man? He shuddered, appalled at his own blasphemy.
He emerged unsteadily from the field, unable to keep a straight line. Makovsky watched unsympathetically.
“Give me the container,” demanded the Russian.
Blakey held it forward silently and Makovsky took it, testing its weight and then shaking it, to ensure it was empty.
“I did it!” said Blakey, suddenly angry at the disbelief.
“Makes you feel sick, doesn’t it?” said the Russian.
Blakey looked across the jeep at the other man, curious at the softening of his attitude. “Yes,” he said.
“I don’t enjoy it either,” said Makovsky. “I’d rather be doing something … anything else, to damage the complex but this. But this is what I have been sent to do. And so I shall do it. I’ll do it and for the rest of my life I’ll wonder what sort of pain and hardship I caused these people.”
“I’m sorry …” Blakey moved his hands helplessly, as if he were physically trying to hold the words. “I mean … Oh shit.…”
“I think you were right not to become a priest,” said Makovsky. “You’re far too selfish.”
Blakey started the jeep again and drove slowly on towards the village. It was much smaller than the one where they had stayed the previous night, just a cluster of about ten conicle-roofed huts buttoned either side of the track. Halfway along was the plaited lean-to for midday shade, and next to it the wall, marked by a tiny surround of rock and pebbles and a bent balancing arm, from which the rope and bucket were suspended. Bony cattle, ribs and haunches marked out through taut skin, were hobbled on the scrub grass. Children ran towards the jeep fearless, because they didn’t know vehicles and were therefore unaware they could be dangerous. Kwashiorkor swelled their bellies and brought their navels out in hard protuberances, like accusing fingers.
“We’ve done enough here,” decreed Blakey.
“Yes,” accepted Makovsky immediately.
The men of the village were beneath the lean-to. Again Blakey and Makovsky found a bridge with French. They hunched in the shade, offering cigarettes and accepting the sweet beer in return. They let the conversation meander towards the complex and then insinuated the thoughts of the harm it might cause. After a while, Blakey realized that their arrival had not surprised the villagers; the bush telegraph would help them, he decided, spreading the word far faster than they could ever manage. It was too small and poor a hamlet to maintain its own witch-doctor, and the Africans digested the hints without any argument. Biakey was half aware of the children grouped respectfully beyond the lean-to and finally turned, conscious that there were several women there too. They appeared to be waiting patiently, and Blakey asked the men grouped before him what they wanted. At first the Africans appeared embarrassed to discuss it but gradually it became clear that they wanted help.
A child was at last pushed forward, his head held back for Blakey to see the eye discoloration. Each eyeball was inflamed and red. Conjunctivitis? wondered Blakey. Or the first indication of glaucoma? From his pack in the jeep he took a tube of antihistamine eye cream and squirted ointment into the infected eyes. His hands were shaking, and several times he became frightened that he might cause more damage than the infection he was attempting to treat. Makovsky had pulled away, still talking to the men.
They left after two hours, continuing on in the general direction of the lake.
“See the signs of hunger in those kids?” said Blakey.
“Of course I did.”
“Nothing will grow in those crop areas,” said Blakey, as if he were realizing it for the first time. “It will be poisoned now, for years.”
“I know the effects,” said the Russian.
“Christ!” said Blakey, in self-disgust.
They stopped at an animal water-hole just before noon. Any animal which might have used it was far away in the shade, but a few birds were at the rim. They fluttered away as the men approached. The immediate surround was trodden and track-marked. Elephant impressions were clearly visible; about fifteen yards away there were the bleached rib-cage and leg bones of what must have been a zebra, obviously trapped by a lion while watering. The water was stained and dirty. The cyanide splashed in with a tiny plopping sound and within seconds the surface was still again.
They erected the canvas hood for some protection against the sun and drove with the windscreen folded down onto the bonnet so there was a constant inrush of air against their faces and bodies. The skin across Blakey’s forehead and on his arms was tight and red; he glanced across to Makovsky. The Russian appeared to be tanning immediately without any initial discomfort. They ate as they drove, unwilling to sacrifice the breeze by stopping. It was mid-afternoon when they reached the lake edge. Along wide areas there were broad bands of carbonated sodium, blinding white in the sun.
“How about cleaning ourselves up?” suggested Makovsky.
They carefully checked the area for any crocodiles and then Makovsky undressed unashamedly, spreading his clothes out for the sweat to dry in the sun. The man was very hairy, not just on his chest but over his back and shoulders. Blakey took off his clothes more slowly, feeling the embarrassment he had known from his very first arrival in the seminary at undressing in front of other men.
Lake Chad is an enormous area of water, covering four thousand square miles in the dry season and spreading out to twice that size when the rains come. But nowhere is it deeper than twenty feet. The shore area is extremely shallow and Makovsky had to walk out almost two hundred yards before there was sufficient water to immerse himself. Blakey hurried after him, seeking the covering of water. Completely naked, he felt curiously unprotected. He washed, gazing back towards their clothes and the jeep, as if he feared something might happen to them; his back was to the Russian, his genitals hidden. He was much smaller than the Russian.
He left the lake first, thrusting through the water. By the time he reached the edge, the water had dried on his skin and he was already beginning to perspire again. There were isolated smears of sodium on his skin and he wiped it off.
“That was good,” said Makovsky, from behind.
Blakey waited until his trousers were on before turning round. “Yes,” he said. “It was.”
They continued to drive northwest, with the lake to their left. Their progress was slower now. The track was less well defined and softer, because of its proximity to water. The undergrowth was thicker, too. Frequently they had to make a detour around some sudden brush outcrop or reed forest, and frequently Makovsky had to use the compass to confirm their direction. Several times they splashed through tiny streams feeding into the lake. They came upon the next village tucked into a corner made by the lake and one bank of a large stream. Seine nets were strung out on drying poles and there were dug-outs and fording rafts pulled up beyond the shoreline
They were greeted with as much friendly courtesy as before. As well as beer they were given mealie, mixed here with fish. They were offered a hut for the night but refused, anxious to cover more ground before nightfall. The conversation about the complex was easily managed, the confirmation coming quickly that four of the younger men had abandoned the fishing to go to work there. The innuendo was received impassively, and Blakey wondered at one stage whether they were explaining themselves sufficiently. Blakey was alert for the gathering of the women and children and this time there wasn’t the same hesitation in the explanation. A very young mother, perhaps no older than twenty, her face open and trusting and her breasts still obviously milk-filled, offered him the baby.
“She wants a baptism,” Blakey said to Makovsky.
“Then give it to her.”
“I’m not ordained.”
“You don’t have to be.”
The villagers grouped respectfully around him in a semicircle. Blakey used the chlorinated water from his drinking flask, poured into a gourd that the mother provided. He began mumbling the ritual, straining the words through a throat which felt tight and restricted, as if it were swollen. He completed the blessing and lifted the child to kiss it. As he did so, it began to scream and he quickly handed it back to the giggling woman. Makovsky recognized his emotion, taking over the conversation and sparing Blakely from any immediate need to join in the talk.
They left after an hour, still with some hours of daylight left. They had to drive inland along the rivulet edge to find the ford, about four hundred yards from the lake. Under the guise of checking a tire, Makovsky got down from the jeep and waded into the water, concealed from the villagers by the vehicle. He embedded the cyanide canister into the river bottom; the cyanogen poison would be released over a regular period, as the movement of the water eroded the seals. They crossed and turned back towards the river. As they got near the village again, the Africans waved to them: the woman with the newly baptized baby held it up, so they could see it had stopped crying. Half a mile further on, Blakey went into the water almost as far as they had waded when they bathed and implanted another canister in the lake.
They stopped an hour before sunset, on a sudden jut of high ground topped by trees. They erected the tent attachments from the rear of the jeep, then lit a vapor candle to fumigate it from insects. While they waited, Blakey radioed Peterson aboard the missile ship.
Without any risk of detection, he did so on an open channel, holding a two-way conversation with the CIA Director. Blakey reported their position, listened silently while Peterson reported on the activities of the other two groups and then wrote down and dictated back, for confirmation, the frequencies each would use in the event of an emergency. Peterson disclosed that they had established a weather satellite over the area, and that a build-up of cumulus was forecast. A B-52 had already taken off from the Azores, to seed the cloud with carbon dioxide, so in the subsequent encounters with Africans they had to predict an unexpected rainfall. Almost as an aside Peterson added that to make the trip really worthwhile, the aircraft was also going to be dropping more defoliant, stronger than the original, for a quicker effect. Blakey hesitantly recounted the damage they had already seen. His misgivings were obvious and Peterson’s voice demanded, “You sick?”
“Not physically.”
“I’m not reading you clearly,” protested Peterson. He appeared to be shouting into his transmitter.
“The damage is very widespread,” said Blakey.
“If it weren’t evident before you visited the villages, then you’d be the prime suspects.”
“Is it necessary, to do any more?” attempted Blakey, aware of Makovsky’s surprise at his open opposition.
There was a pause and for a moment Blakey thought their connection had been broken. Then Peterson said firmly, “If it weren’t necessary, you wouldn’t be there. You got that?”
“Yes,” capitulated Blakey.
“Don’t forget it.”
The vapor was thick and sickly in the small space of the tent. They got into sleeping bags and then encased themselves in the cocoon of mosquito netting.
“There wasn’t much of a protest,” said Makovsky, in the darkness.
“The channel was open for you to speak,” said Blakey. Makovsky didn’t reply.
“When I get back to Washington, I’m going to quit,” announced Blakey suddenly.
“That’ll impress all these people we’re hurting,” said Makovsky.
“It’ll mean I’ll never again have to harm anybody else.”
Again Makovsky was silent. Then he said, “At least you can get out. I don’t have the choice.”
On the missile destroyer, Peterson sat gazing at the receiver on which he had just spoken to Henry Blakey. The argument shouldn’t have surprised him after the protest in Vienna. And really the feeling wasn’t surprise; it was irritation. He decided not to include the conversation in his report to Petrov. It showed the American apparently the weaker of the two men and Peterson didn’t want that to be evident.
In the older area of Wichita Falls the stockyards and the warehouses were gradually being demolished. The buildings were condemned and boarded up and supposedly empty, but they had been discovered by derelicts with the instinct they have for such ghettoes where they can exist for a day or a week or maybe even a month, safe and undisturbed by any officialdom.
It took Paul two days to locate it, a building set back from the service alley and isolated among a cleared area of rubble and debris. Groups of people sat around two fires, kindled from the rafters and planks of buildings already destroyed. Separate from the others, a group of three were squatting in lotus position, apparently mediating. From within the building came a shift of movement, hidden and secret. It was like a huge nest, thought Paul.
Apprehensively he moved from group to group, aware of their hostile wariness. At first he imagined it was because they regarded him as authority but then, with a stab of actual fear, he decided they were assessing him as a victim, trying to estimate the amount of money he might be carrying or the value his watch would bring at the nearest pawnshop. There were no longer any doors at the warehouse entrance, but it was dark inside. He edged in, trying to blink the sunlight from his eyes and focus. There were about twenty people spread about, some close together in occasional, mumbled conversation, others quite alone, isolated from everything.
