Vixen 03 Part 30

"I beg you, my General, do not take your wrath out on me." Jumana pointed an accusing finger at Machita. "He is the one who deserves punishment."

A sense of frustration enveloped Lusana. Regardless of intelligence or education, the African mind retained an almost childlike innocence toward blame. Blood-soaked rituals still inspired them with a higher sense of justice than did a serious conference across a table. Wearily, Lusana looked at Jumana.

"The mistake was mine. I alone am responsible. If I had not given Major Machita the order to kill Emma, Operation Wild Rose might be lying in front of us this minute. Without murder on his mind, I trust the major would have checked the contents of the envelope before he turned over the money."

"You still believe the plan to be valid?" Jumana asked incredulously.

"I do," Lusana said firmly. "Enough to warn the Americans when I fly to Was.h.i.+ngton next week to testify at the congressional hearings on aid to African nations."

"Your priorities are here," said Machita, his eyes expressing alarm. "I beg you, my General, send someone else."

"There is none better qualified," Lusana a.s.sured him. "I am still an American citizen with a number of high contacts who sympathize with our fight."

"Once you leave here, you will be in grave danger."

"We all deal in danger, do we not?" asked Lusana. "It is our comrade-in-arms." He turned to Jumana. "Colonel, you will be in command during my absence. I shall furnish you with explicit orders for the conduct of our operation. I expect you to see that they are carried out to the letter."

Jumana nodded.

A fear began to swell inside Machita, and he could not help wondering if Lusana was paving the road to his own downfall and releasing a tidal wave of blood that would soon surge across the whole of Africa.

Loren Smith rose from behind her desk and held out her hand as Frederick Daggat was ushered into her office. He smiled his best politician's smile. "I hope you'll forgive my intrusion ... ah ... Congress-woman."

Loren grasped his hand firmly. It never failed to amuse her to see a man stumble over her t.i.tle. They never seemed to get the hang of saying " Congresswoman."

"I'm happy for the interruption," she said, motioning him toward a chair. To his surprise, she held out a box of cigars. He took one.

"This is indeed a treat. I hardly expected ... do you mind if I light up?"

Salvage I 115

"Please do," she said, smiling. "I grant that it looks a bit incongruous for a woman to pa.s.s out cigars, but the practical value becomes apparent when you consider that my male visitors outnumber the females by twenty to one."

Daggat expelled a large blue cloud toward the ceiling and fired his first broadside. "You voted against my initial proposal to budget aid to the African Army of Revolution."

Loren nodded. She didn't speak, for she was waiting for Daggat to make his full pitch.

"The white government of South Africa is on the verge of self-destruction. The nation's economy has plummeted in the last few years. Its treasury is exhausted. The white minority have cruelly and ruthlessly treated the black majority as slaves far too long. For ten years, in the time since blacks took over the government in Rhodesia, Afrikaners have become hardened and completely merciless in their dealings with their Bantu citizens. Internal riots have taken over five thousand lives. This bloodbath must not continue any longer. Hiram Lusana's AAR is the only hope for peace. We must support it, both financially and militarily."

"I was under the impression that Hiram Lusana was a communist."

Daggat shook his head. "I'm afraid you labor under a misapprehension, Congresswoman Smith. I admit that Lusana allows the use of Vietnamese military advisers, but I can personally a.s.sure you that he is not and never has been a p.a.w.n of international communism."

"I'm glad to hear that." Loren's voice was toneless. In her mind Daggat was trying to sell a bill of goods and she was determined not to buy.

"Hiram Lusana is a man of high ideals," Daggat continued. "He does not permit the slaughter of innocent women and children. He does not condone indiscriminate bloodthirsty attacks on cities and villages, as do 'he other insurgent movements. His war is aimed strictly against government installations and military targets. I, for one, feel that Congress should back the leader who conducts his affairs with virtuous rationality."

"Come down off the cross, Congressman. You know it and I know it: Hiram Lusana is a rip-off artist. I've examined his FBI file. It reads like a biography of a Mafia hit man. Lusana spent half his life in prison for every crime from rape to a.s.sault, not to mention draft dodging and a plot to bomb the state capital of Alabama. After an extremely lucrative armored-car robbery, he went into the dope-peddling business and made

a fortune. Then he skipped the country to beat paying taxes. I think you'll agree he's not exactly an all-American hero."

"He was never legally charged with the armored-car holdup."

Loren shrugged. "Okay, we'll give him the benefit of the doubt on that one. But his other crimes hardly qualify him to lead aholy crusade to free the downtrodden ma.s.ses."

"What's history is history," Daggat said, pressing on. "Regardless of his shady past, Lusana is still our only hope of providing a stable government after the blacks take over the South African Parliament. You cannot deny that it is in the best interests of Americans to claim him as a friend."

"Why back any side?"

Daggat's eyebrow shot up. "Do I detect a leaning toward isolationism?"

"Look what it got us in Rhodesia," continued Loren. "Within a few months after our former secretary of state's ingenious plan to transfer white-minority rule to the black majority took effect, civil war broke out between the radical splinter factions and set the country's progress back ten years. Can you promise that we won't see a repeat performance when South Africa bows to the inevitable?"

Daggat did not like being forced into a corner by a woman, any woman. He came out of his chair and leaned across Loren's desk. "If you do not throw your support to my proposal and the bill for aid which I intend to submit to the House, then, dear Congresswoman Smith, I fear you will be digging a grave so big and so deep for your political career that you may never get out in time for the next election."

To Daggat's amazement and anger, Loren broke out in laughter. "Good G.o.d, this is rich. Are you actually threatening me?"

"Fail to come out in favor of African nationalism and I can promise you the loss of every black vote in your district."

"I don't believe this."

"You'd better, because you will also see rioting like you've never seen before in this country if we don't stand solidly behind Hiram Lusana and the African Army of Revolution."

"Where do you get your information?" Loren demanded.

"I'm black and I know."

"You're also full of s.h.i.+t," Loren said. "I've conferred with hundreds of blacks in my district. They're no different from any other American citizen. Each is concerned with high taxes, the rising costs of groceries

and energy, the same as whites, Orientals, Indians, and Chicanos. You're only kidding yourself, Daggat, if you think our blacks give a d.a.m.n about how African blacks mess up their countries. They don't, and for the simple reason that Africans don't give a d.a.m.n about them."

"You are making a sad error."

"No, it is you who is making the error," snapped Loren. "You are stirring up trouble where it need not exist. The black race will find equal opportunity through education, just like everyone else. The Nisei did it after World War Two. When they returned from the internment camps, they worked in the Southern California fields to send their sons and daughters through UCLA and USC to become attorneys and doctors. They arrived. Now it's the blacks' turn. And they'll do it, too, provided they're not hindered by men like you, who rabble-rouse at every opportunity. Now I'll thank you to get the h.e.l.l out of my office."

Daggat stared at her, his face a mask of anger. Then his lips cracked slowly into a grin. He held the cigar at arm's length and let it drop onto the carpet. Then he turned and stormed from the office.

"You look like a boy who just had his bicycle stolen," said Felicia Collins. She was sitting in one corner of Daggat's limousine, filing her long nails.

Daggat slid in beside her and motioned for the driver to move on. He stared stonily ahead, his face blank.

Felicia slipped the emery board back in her purse and waited, her eyes apprehensive. Finally she broke the silence. "I take it Loren Smith turned you down."

"The foulmouthed white b.i.t.c.h," he said, almost spat. "She thinks she can treat me like some n.i.g.g.e.r stud on a pre-Civil War plantation."

"What on earth are you talking about?" she asked, surprised. "I know Loren Smith. She hasn't got a prejudiced bone in her body."