A score for our side, thought Machita, his hands casually holding the basket and shielding the ice pick. "Do you have Operation Wild Rose?" ''he asked, his tone official.
"Do you have two million American dollars?" the shadowy figure beside him retorted.
Machita hesitated and unconsciously ducked as the car swung beneath a tall stack of barrels that fell over toward them, jerking to a stop bare inches from their heads.
"Here ... in the basket."
Emma pulled an envelope from inside a dirty jacket. "Your boss will find this most interesting reading."
"If not vastly overpriced."
Machita was glancing through the documents in the envelope when a pair of grotesquely painted witches, fluoresced by ultraviolet light, leaped at the car and shrieked through hidden loudspeakers. Emma ignored the wax figures and opened the basket, 38
studying the print on the currency under the purple illumination. The car rolled onward as the witches were pulled back into their recess by hidden springs and the tunnel plunged into darkness again.
Now! Machita thought. He snatched the ice pick from its hiding place and lunged at where he guessed Emma's right eye socket should be. But in that split second the car snapped into a sharp turn and an orange floodlight burst on a bearded Satan who menacingly brandished a pitchfork. It was enough to deflect Machita's aim. The pick missed Emma's eye and its tip became embedded in the skull, above the brow.
The stunned informer cried out, chopped Machita's hand away, and plucked the thin shaft from his head. Machita grabbed the razor blade taped to his forearm and swung it at Emma's throat in a sweeping backhand slash. But his wrist was smashed downward by the devil's pitchfork, snapping the bone.
The devil was genuine. He was one of Emma's accomplices. Machita countered by throwing open the safety bar and lashing out with his feet, catching the costumed man in the groin, feeling his heels sink deeply into soft flesh. Then the car swung back into blackness and the devil was left behind.
Machita whipped his body back to face Emma, but found the seat beside him empty. A brief stream of sunlight flashed several meters to the left of the car as a door was opened and closed. Emma had vanished out an exit, taking the basket of money with him.
29
"Gross stupidity," said Colonel Jumana with fiendish satisfaction. "You must pardon me for saying it, my General, but I told you so."
Lusana stared pensively out the window at a formation of men drilling on the parade grounds. "A mistake in judgment, Colonel, nothing more. We will not lose the war because we have lost two million dollars."
A sheepish Thomas Machita sat at the table, his face beaded with1 perspiration, staring vacantly at the cast covering his wrist.
"There was no way of knowing-"
He stiffened as Jumana stormed to his feet, the colonel's face radiating pure anger as he snatched Emma's envelope and hurled it into Machita's face. ?
"No way of knowing you were being set up? You fool! There you sit, our glorious chief of intelligence, and you can't even kill a man in the dark. Then you add insult to injury by giving him two million dollars for an envelope containing operating procedures for military garbage re:; moval."
"Enough!" snapped Lusana.
There was silence. Jumana took a deep breath, then slowly stepped backward to his chair. Anger seethed in his eyes. "Stupid mistakes," he said bitterly, "do not win wars of liberation."
"You make too much of it," Lusana said stonily. "You are a superb leader of men, Colonel Jumana, and a tiger in battle, but as with most professional soldiers, you are sadly lacking in administrative style."
"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 Washington 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 assured 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."