The Lioness(64)

“Oh, I’ll know my moment,” the colonel told Patton. “I always”—and there was a hint of condescension in the way he echoed the great white hunter—“know my moment.” He raised his glass to Patton and the other Russians sitting around the camp table, swallowed the last of his gin and tonic, and crunched an ice cube between his teeth. Then he said, “I heard the Americans put a monkey in space. You know lots about monkeys, I suppose. What do you think of that, Charlie Patton?”

“I imagine they could have put a pig up there, too,” the hunter replied. “And why not? The accomplishment was that they didn’t barbecue the damn thing. Cook the monkey at blastoff or burn it up in reentry.”

“A monkey. What a waste. The problem? Americans are wary of risk. You probably see that when you have American clients. We’ll put a man up there. We won’t waste a rocket on a monkey. We won’t waste time on a monkey.”

Patton nodded amiably and took a sip of his own cocktail. Procenko looked back at Benjamin’s father and motioned for him to refill his own glass and top off Patton’s. Benjamin could see in Patton’s eyes that he didn’t want any more, but he wasn’t about to decline. And so Benjamin and his father brought the ice bucket, the gin, and the tonic to the table and did as they were asked. Another member of Procenko’s group, a stout little man who laughed easily and was particularly kind to the staff, asked for another too, and Benjamin carefully scooped the ice into the glass and gave him a pour heavy with alcohol, because he had figured out on the first night that these Russians liked to drink and you didn’t stint with the booze.

“The Americans have those seven astronauts,” Procenko went on. “The Mercury astronauts. And instead of using one of them to reach for the stars, they send a chimp. A monkey. Don’t you think that’s cowardly?”

“No, I wouldn’t say cowardly,” said Patton. “That’s not the word I would use.”

Procenko watched him, waiting for more. But it seemed Patton had nothing more to add. “Pathetic?” he pressed. “Is that a better word?”

“The goal, I suppose, was to test the rocket and not lose a man you’ve spent a lot of money training.”

“So why not send up a watermelon?”

Patton shrugged. “Maybe the monkey had to press a button or two at a certain point. Maybe there was teamwork involved.”

“You can train a monkey to do that? Push buttons at certain points?”

“Absolutely. Chimpanzees are splendid pack hunters.”

Procenko shook his head. “It still doesn’t matter. You want to be first. You want to put the first man in space, not the first monkey. And you want the element of surprise.”

“Rather like all hunting and all predation,” Patton observed.

“We weren’t the first in 1941, and we paid for it.”

“And Lumumba?”

Procenko rolled his eyes. “Same thing: he wasn’t first. And in our case? You’re either committed or you’re not. We were not sufficiently committed.”

“Is he in jail or on the run? You’re with me here on safari, Viktor, and I can’t decide what that means.”

“It means Lumumba is dead.”

His father had just screwed the top back on the gin and went perfectly still, gripping the bottle with both hands. He wasn’t moving a muscle; it was as if he were afraid if he did, Patton and Procenko would remember he was there and stop speaking.

“You know this for a fact?”

“As you just pointed out, I’m with you right now. We all are. We wouldn’t be here with you if the man was alive. Mobutu and the Katangans—with the permission of the Belgians and the UN—shot him. They shot him and a couple of his allies.”

“It wasn’t the Americans?”

“Oh, they would have poisoned him. The CIA. That’s how they work. Or made him go crazy. I could tell you stories, Charlie Patton. Everyone thinks the KGB is so nasty. But the truth? The CIA is just as ruthless.”

Patton looked at his glass but restrained himself from having another swallow. He was doing his best to walk that tightrope of keeping up and pacing himself. Finally, he said, “Not surprised at all that the Belgians would countenance that: shooting Lumumba. But the UN? Not sure I buy that part of the story.”

Procenko shrugged. “Believe what you want. Either way?” Here he gestured at the other guests. “We get to go home.”

“But first you get your elephant.”

“Which, I suppose, will be easier than a rhino.” In truth, Benjamin hadn’t thought the rhino had been all that difficult to find and kill. They’d had to crawl a long while on their bellies, but the creature had never known what hit him. Never turned and charged. Procenko was a good shot.

“Don’t underestimate an elephant, Viktor.”

The colonel raised an eyebrow. “I told you, Charlie Patton: I always know my moment.” Then he leaned over and clinked his glass against the hunter’s and said, “Drink up. That bottle won’t finish itself.”



* * *



.?.?.

But Benjamin did not jump. He didn’t hurl himself over the side of the lorry and attempt to wrestle the driver to the ground. He would have; he knew in his heart he would have, despite the reality that his hands and ankles were bound. It wasn’t cowardice that kept him on his rear in the back of the truck. It was Muema. The guide had listened to him and knew he was planning something, and with a strength that momentarily caught him off guard, Muema had grabbed his left wrist in both his hands and held him so firmly that he couldn’t rise to his feet. Muema had pressed him into the base of the cargo bed.