nights. They laid their cheeks together still hot and brown from the sun, and swayed to the beat of the steel band.
After midnight, they at last climbed the broad stairway, hand in hand, to their suite and the wide soft bed.
'Good Lordv Shasa said with genuine amazement. 'It's Thursday. We have been here four days. The kids will be wondering what on earth has happened to us.' They were at brunch on the open terrace.
'I think they will guess.' Elsa looked up from the mango she was peeling for him and smiled. 'And I don't think that 'kids' is the correct description for that rumbustious Utter of yours.' 'Van Wyk will be arriving at Chizora tomorrow,' Shasa pointed out.
'I know,' she sighed. 'I hate the thought of ending this, but we must be there to meet him.'
Sir Clarence Van Wyk was one of those extraordinary creatures that African evolution sometimes throws up.
He was a pure-bred Afrikaner. His father had been chief justice of South Africa when it was part of the British Empire, and he had received his hereditary title when it was still permissible for a South African to accept that honour.
Sir Clarence was a product of Eton and Sandhurst. He had been an officer in a famous Guards regiment, and was heir to the considerable family estates in the Cape of Good Hope. He was also the minister in Ian Smith's government specifically charged with funding the debilitating guerrilla warfare in which Rhodesia was engaged, and in evading the comprehensive mandatory sanctions that the British Labour Government, the United States and the United Nations had placed upon these perpetrators of unilateral independence.
Garry and Shasa had arranged this meeting during their stop-over in Salisbury on the way to Chizora. Sir Clarence was an avid big-game hunter, and they had promised him a bit of sport in the intervals between their deliberations.
Sir Clarence arrived at Chizora in a Rhodesian air-force helicopter. He had with him two of his aides and a pair of bodyguards, all of whom threatened to put a strain on the safari camp. The staff and facilities were geared to entertaining a much smaller number of guests. However, Sean had been given plenty of notice, and additional equipment, staff and stores had been sent down from Salisbury by truck.
The conference-table under the msasa tree was extended and additional chairs set out for Sir Clarence and his team. Isabella joined them as her father's personal assistant. From the beginning Sir Clarence made no attempt to conceal his interest in her.
At six foot five inches, Sir Clarence towered above even Shasa or Sean. He was a most impressive figure of a an whose plummy upper-class English accent and classical features belied his Afrikaner origins. He had a brilliant financial and political brain and a reputation as a lady's man.
Under the msasa tree, they negotiated the marketing and transportation of a nation's wealth and produce, and the commissions and handling fees due to each of them.
Rhodesia was a primary producer, which simplified these deliberations considerably. Her small-scale mines that worked narrow quartz reefs nevertheless turned out a considerable gold production. This did not concern them here, for gold was anonymous'. There was no 'Made in Rhodesia' stamp upon it, and its high value-to-bulk ratio made it readily transportable and disposable.
It was different with the other primary products of the country: tobacco and rare metals, chiefly chrome. These had to be transported in bulk, their country of origin had to be concealed and then they must be disseminated to the markets of the world.
From Rhodesia, the railways ran southwards to the harbours of Durban and Cape Town in the Republic of South Africa. That was the natural route for these treasures to go. For years now, ever since the Smith Government's declaration of independence, Garry Courtney and Courtney Enterprises had played a leading rele in helping Rhodesia evade the sanctions campaign against it.
Now there was to be an ambitious new strategy. After carefully studying the Pignatelli group of industries, Garry and Sir Clarence were offering Elsa Pignatelli the lucrative opportunity of taking part in these anti-sanctions activities.
Pignatelli Industries owned the second-largest tobacco 0e company in Europe, after the British American Tobacco Company. In addition, they had a controlling interest in Winnipeg Mining in Canada, and operated a stainless-steel mill and vanadium refinery in southern Italy near Taranto.
All this dovetailed neatly with Rhodesia's need to find a market for her products, but there was hard bargaining ahead.
Although it was conducted in a superficially civilized and friendly atmosphere, these were all shrewd and merciless financial predators locked in a contest of minds and wills. Isabella watched them with awe. Her brother used his bluff, almost bumbling manner, his myopic ingenuous gaze and hearty laugh to conceal the steely calculating mind.
Elsa Pignatelli, poised and beautiful, shamelessly exploited her looks and her charms and used the feminine rapier against their masculine cutlasses.
She matched and met them with ease.
Sir Clarence was suave and his manners courtly. He held the line like the Guardsman he was and made them pay dearly for every inch he was forced to yield. Then he counter-attacked with consummate timing.
Shasa sat aloof at his end of the table, leaving most of the bargaining to Garry. However, when he spoke, his comments were pithy and apposite, and very often served to break a log-jam in the negotiations and to propose the equitable compromise.
The sums of money they were discussing were of numbing magnitude. While Isabella recorded the minutes of this conference, she amused herself by calculating two and a half percent of three billion dollars. That would be the Courtney Enterprises share of the loot in the coming twelve months alone, all of it earned without any additional capital investment on their part. When she had the total worked out, she looked at her brother with renewed respect.
At noon the conference adjourned for an elaborate lunch. In the air-force Alouette helicopter Sir Clarence had brought with him a selected baron of the finest Rhodesian beef. Sean and his chef had passed the morning in barbe-
cueing it to golden-brown perfection over a fire of mopanc coals. They cleared their palates with a glass of Dom Perignon while they watched Sean carve pink slices from the joint and the juices spurted and sizzled from around the blade.
During the luncheon, Sir Clarence demonstrated as great a skill and finesse as he had at the conference-table in his attempts to cut Isabella out of the herd and put his brand upon her.
Isabella was flattered by his attentions and more than a little tempted. He was a superior man, a dominant herd bull. Power is a wonderful aphrodisiac for any woman. In addition, he had thick wavy dark hair with just a touch of grey at the temples. She liked his eyes. He was so tall, and he amused her with his urbane wit.
She found herself smiling at his sallies, and once she glanced down at his feet. They must be size fourteen in those gleaming hand- made chukka boots, and she smiled again thoughtfully. Perhaps that was a fallacy, but never theless the possibility was intriguing.
She could almost hear Nanny's rebuke ring in her cars. 'All the Courtneys got hot blood. You must be careful, missy, and remember you are a lady.' She knew he was married, but it seemed a long time since she had taken comfort from a man's body, and he was so big and powerful. Perhaps, if Sir Clarence continued to demonstrate the requisite amount of class and s - then perhaps, just perhaps he stood a chance.
After lunch they returned to the conference-table. It seemed to Isabella that their minds had been stimulated rather than dulled by the Dom Perignon.
At four o'clock Garry glanced at his watch. 'If we aren't to miss the evening flight, then I suggest we adjourn until tomorrow morning.' They drove down to the pools in both trucks to shoot the evening flight of ring-necked doves coming in to drink.
Sir Clarence had contrived, without making it too obvious, to seat himself beside Isabella in the leading truck. However, at the last moment just as they were about to pull away, she jumped down and ran back to sit beside Garry in the second truck. She didn't want to make it too easy for Sir C. She sensed that he enjoyed the chase as much as the kill. Garry was in an ebullient mood. As he drove he slipped one arm around her shoulders and squeezed her.
'God, I love it,' he exulted. 'I love Harold Wilson and James Callaghan and all those, sanctimonious little bleeding hearts in the General Assembly of the United Nations. I love being a sanctions-buster. It's exciting and romantic. It makes me feel like Al Capone or Captain Blood. Yo ho ho, and a bottle of rum. It gives me a fine feeling of patriotism and the opportunity to make a telling political statement, while at the same time I can pocket seventy-five million pounds in lovely hard cash that the taxman will never see. It's beautiful. I love all sanctioneers and prohibitionists.' 'You are incorrigible.' She laughed at him. 'Isn't there any limit to your appetite for riches?' At that he sobered and removed his arm from her shoulders. 'You think I'm avaricious?' he asked. 'It's not so, Bella. The truth is that I am a player in the great game. I don't play for the monetary prize, I play for the thrill of winning. I was a loser for too much of my life. Now I must be a winner.' 'Is that all there is to it?' She was also serious now. 'You are playing with the wealth and well-being of millions of little people to gratify your ego.' 'When I win, then those little people win. The sanctioneers; seek to inflict starvation and misery upon millions of ordinary
