Read Online Assignment Black Gold by Edward S. Aarons - Free Book Online

security is our greatest
problem.”
    “The Apgaks?”
    "If their terror campaign succeeds in driving out the
oil people, we are lost. The government would topple. The Lubindans are a
simple people. They expect our streets to become paved with gold, through oil
revenues. But the effort to find oil   being hampered by violence, as you saw earlier tonight. If it fails,
more will join the Apgak cause and we will become little more than a Maoist or
a Moscow colony.”
    Durell said, “I appreciate your courtesy in giving me this
lecture, Colonel. But I’m not here to interfere in your internal affairs.”
    Lepaka’s eyes suddenly opened wide. They looked bloody. “Ah.
but you must interfere, Mr. Durell. We need you. I need you."
    “I’m only here to find Brady Cotton.”
    “You will not find him in this prison, sir.”
    “Am I being offered a choice?”
    “Crudely put, yes. imprisonment as a foreign agent, or
cooperation with me.”
    Durell smiled. "We’ll get along, Colonel. It depends on
what you want of me. What kind of deal.”
    “Yes, of course. A deal.”
    Durell felt better. He watched Colonel Lepaka reach into a
desk drawer and take out a box of small thin cigars. He offered them to Durell,
who shook his head, and then carefully thrust one between his large white teeth
and lit it. The smoke was fragrant in the hot, humid air. Durell smelled again
the urine smell of the ancient prison. The man in the cell down the corridor
kept moaning and groaning.
    “Have you ever,” Lepaka said slowly, “heard of Felipe
Barraganza Sakadga?"
    “General Sakadga?”
    “Ah.”
    “He’s dead,” Durell said.
    “He is not dead.”
    “The ‘father’ of your country?"
    “Sakadga. The Lion of Lubinda.”
    “He must be very old, then.”
    “He is. But quite vigorous.”
    “Really alive?” Durell insisted.
    “In retirement. Disillusioned. He was ill for a time. From
long imprisonment here and in two European capitals. A brilliant old gentleman.
Lubinda worships him. Lubinda has all but canonized him."
    “There is a tomb along the river,” Durell said, “where
Felipe Barraganza Sakadga has been interred.”
    Lepaka shook his head slowly. His eyes were sleepier than
ever. “You might call him our messiah of freedom. People make regular pilgrimages
to the tomb, true. But they pray to an empty casket. Sakadga is not there.”
    “But you know where he is, and alive?”
    “I know. And only one or two others.”
    Durell said, “You wish to resurrect him?”
    “The people would go mad with joy. They would destroy the
Apgaks overnight and follow, obey, and work for him.”
    “I see,” Durell said.
    “You do not see. It could be a very dangerous thing, to
bring Sakadga back. Like the return of Christ in this country. It would be a
revolution.”
    Durell leaned back against the brick wall. “Excuse me,
Colonel. Are you planning a military coup against the democratic government of
this country, with an old and martyred saint as your front man? if so, you Can
count me out.”
    Something flickered in Lepaka’s eyes. “You do not
think I could run this country?”
    “So far, you haven’t even been able to get rid of the
Apgaks, who are deliberately destroying your one hope of viability, the oil
exploration rig offshore.”
    Lepaka considered his thin, fragrant cigar. A small sea
wind, like an errant hope, drifted through the barred window. It died in
anguish, a victim of the prison smells.
    “The Saka, as we call him, is my foster father.”
    “And?”
    “When I was a boy, the Saka was already a mature man, a
fighter for our independence, a revolutionist, if you will. I was a tribal
orphan—the ward of a little village on the edge of the Kahara. I need not tell
you that life was difficult, far below the normal subsistence level. I was
pagan, illiterate, with a perpetually swollen belly. How I grew to my present awkward
height is probably a matter of simple genetics. In any case, when the Saka came
through our