Windfall

Hendriks had worried about his uncle Adriaan whom, of course, he had never met, and his particular worry revolved about the possibility of Adriaan fathering legitimate offspring. An inquiry was put in motion and thus he discovered Henry Hendrix, then in his last year in high school. Hendriks wanted, as he put it, 'to do something about it,' a euphemism which Malan burked at. 'No,' Malan had argued. 'I won't have it. We'll do it some other way when the need arises.'

But after Muldergate, when Malan was gone and Hendriks wanted to 'do something', Henry Hendrix had dropped out of sight, an indistinguishable speck of dross in the melting pot of 220 million Americans. From London Hendriks had tried to rouse Pretoria to action but the recent brouhaha of Muldergate had had a chilling effect on the feet and nothing was done.

It was only when Alix became pregnant and it was necessary that Hendrykxx should go that Pretoria took action, half-heartedly and too late. Hendrykxx had left 20,000 in his will to his jailers, Mr and Mrs Adams. Mandeville had insisted upon that, saying that the will had to look good. They responded by killing him, a not too difficult task considering he was senile and expected to die any moment, even though he was inconsiderately hanging on to life tenaciously.

Pretoria bungled in Los Angeles and Hendrix got away. He had survived the car crash in Cornwall, too, by something of a miracle, but now Potgeiter had finally solved the problem in a somewhat clumsy way. Or had he?

Hendriks was roused from his reverie by the ringing of the telephone next to his bed. It was Potgeiter. 'Get down here. Gunnarsson has gone on the run. I've sent Patterson after him.'

Chapter 28

Stafford thought the lake flies constituted the worst hazard of Crescent Island until he nearly broke his neck.

Chip, Nair and the Hunts had departed; the Hunts back to Ol Njorowa, Chip to Nairobi, and Nair to Naivasha to round up supplies. Nair came back in the late afternoon in a boat loaded with provisions and camping gear. They helped him get it ashore, then he said, 'We'll camp on the other side of the island where lights can't be seen from the mainland.'

'Are you staying with us?' asked Stafford in surprise.

Nair nodded without saying anything and Hardin snorted. I guess Chip thinks we want our hands held.'

Stafford had a different notion; he thought Nair was there to keep an eye on them. The mystery of Ol Njorowa had almost been solved and all that remained was to bust up the South African operation. But Chip, and possibly others, did not want premature activity and Nair was there to see that Stafford's party stayed put.

They lugged the supplies to the other side of the island, a matter of half a mile, and then made camp. Nair was meticulous about the setting up of the mosquito nets which were hung on wire frames over the sleeping bags, and fiddled for a long time in a finicky manner until he was sure he had got it right. 'Get much malaria around here?' asked Hardin.

'Not here.' Nair looked up. 'Lot of lake flies, though.' He did not elaborate.

Curtis put a burner op to a small cylinder of propane and began to open cans. In a very short while he had prepared a meal, and they began to eat just as the sun was setting over the Mau Escarpment. Over coffee Nair said, 'It's time for bed.'

'So early?' queried Hardin. 'It's just after six.'

'Please yourself,' said Nair. -But the wind changes at night fall and brings the lake flies. You'll be glad to be under coyer.'

Stafford found what he meant five minutes later when he began to swat at himself viciously. By the time he had got into the sleeping bag and under the safety of the mosquito netting he felt the skin of his arms and ankles coming out in bumps which itched ferociously. Also he found that he had admitted several undesirable residents to share his bed and it was some time before he was sure he had killed the last of them.

Curtis was silent as usual, but from Hardin's direction came a continual muffled cursing. 'Goddammit, Nair!' he yelled. 'You sure these things aren't mosquitoes?'

'Just flies,' said Nair soothingly. 'They won't hurt you; they don't transmit disease.'

'Maybe not; but they're eating me alive. I'll be a picked-over skeleton tomorrow.'

'They're an aviation hazard,' said Nair in a conversational voice. 'Especially over Lake Victoria. They block air niters and Pilot tubes. There have been a few crashes because of them, but they've never been known to eat anybody.'

Stafford lit a cigarette and stared at the sky through the diaphanous and almost invisible netting. There were no clouds and the sky was full of the diamond brilliance of stars, growing brighter as the light ebbed in the west. 'Nair?'

'Yes, Max?'

'Did Chip say anything before he went to Nairobi?'

'About what?'

'You bloody well know about what,' said Stafford without heat.

There was a brief silence. 'I'm not a high ranking officer,' said Nair, almost apologetically. 'I don't get to know everything.'