The Kremlin File

The breakwater ended against a sheer limestone cliff. A flight of steps had been cut out of the wall. Narrow. Only one person at a time could go up. The builders of that fortress had sat up there and thumbed their noses at the king’s ships when they tried to penetrate the cove.

It was a long climb but Noah was not winded when he took us past the top step and dropped five feet to the flat platform that did double duty as footing for defenders and roof for the lower rooms. I thought he ought to be teaching AXE’s physical fitness course. He handed Fleming down to reaching arms and the doctor was hurried into a room.

When we followed, I saw it was already prepared for him. Torches burned in brackets around the stone walls. A thick pallet of aromatic leaves was waiting in the center of the floor. We had walked through an aisle of silent tribesmen, people who reached to touch the doctor lightly as though offering him their strength.

As Fleming was lowered onto the pallet, I said, “He has a broken leg and a wrist full of rust. There’ll be blood poisoning and I didn’t have time to stop by the corner drugstore. He needs antibiotics right away. Any chance of having them brought up here?”

The tall black man moved his head sideways, unconcerned as far as I could tell. Fleming sounded weaker but he was smiling.

“Thank you for your concern, Mr. Carter, but I am in the best possible hands. Ill trust Noah’s medical know-how over the biggest Park Avenue specialist.”

The patriarch said softly, “We had word of the injuries in advance and are prepared.”

He indicated a row of bowls beside the pallet. They held liquids and bandaging cloths. Two women pull off Fleming’s clothes leaving only his shorts, then Noah knelt by him, dipped a sponge in the liquids, washed the rust out of Fleming’s wrist and plastered it with a greenish mess.

“This is a hot poultice of cochan leaves cooked with yellow soap,” Noah said to me. “We bind it on so, with cloth. It will draw the poison and the arm will soon heal.”

For the broken leg the treatment was more intricate. Noah set the bone, laid out splints, dipped a finger in a bowl of dark red cream-thick substance, drew a circle over the break, made an “X” inside it, and smiled at me.

“Cock’s blood,” he said, “to absorb the devil from the leg. Now a thick coat of sureau and barrachin leaves, over that a cast of hot com meal and a tight bandage.”

On top of it all he bound the splints. How much of the act was old tribal herb medicine, proven effective through ages of trial, how much was psychological faith healing, I didn’t know. But Fleming was their boy, one of them, and if he really believed in this mixture of native cures and sorcery, maybe he would come through. Like many highly educated men of all races, I suspected he nursed a hard core of religiousness. And I also suspected that though he might not profess it in public, his heart accepted the banned mystique of voodoo. But I couldn’t stay here to see how it all went.

I drew Noah aside and asked, “Did the drums tell you Fleming wants to go back and make speeches?”

“They told me.” The tall man’s smile was twisted. “The doctor is an idealist and stubborn in his beliefs. But after he is out of shock, I will make him understand the truth. You, I assume, are returning for Miss Sawyer?”

I had not said so, hadn’t mentioned the hotel tycoon’s daughter. He appeared to know one whale of a lot for somebody isolated on top of this hill. It could be the drums that kept him alerted, of course, combined with a very sophisticated power of reasoning that gave meaning to the scraps of information coming through the jungle.

My face felt a little stiff as I said, “If I don’t bring her out in one piece, I won’t be in one piece myself for long.”

Mitzy had listened in. Now she said, “You’re nuts to try that, but if you do, I’m going along. Us girls ought to stick together.”

“Wrong guess,” I said. “You’re a distraction I can’t afford. Noah, keep her here.”

He surprised me by nodding. “I’ll send a guide down the trail with you...”

“No dice,” I cut in. “The jeep’s way up at the cove, it’ll take too long that way. I’ll go the way we came.”

He raised his eyebrows high, not arguing. He knew he couldn’t change my mind. With a lift to his shoulders, he took Mitzy’s arm and went back to Fleming.

I headed down the steps, leaving behind me a rising chant from the tribe. I supposed it was a call to the gods to speed the Doctor’s healing. At the bottom I stepped on the breakwater, took a bearing on the jeep I could barely make out as a dark blob against the lighter sand, and went straight toward it. The car seemed to be alone; the soldiers were gone.

Concentrating on direction, I was halfway across when my foot came down on a slimy patch of sea grass growing in the rock and I skidded off, over my head. I came up sputtering, climbed on top again, lined up once more with the headland and the jeep, and went on more carefully. I got wet again where the breakwater ended, then I was ashore, soaked through.