Not too high either. Low enough to excite his greed, high enough not to alarm him. It was a nice calculation. He would have the duration of the flight to Taipei to consider it. That young fool Cheng has dropped me in it. It's only right that his father be made to pay. He thought about Ning Cheng Gong. He has been too good a choice, Tug smiled bitterly. He had asked for a ruthless one, and got more than he bid for.
Of course, Tug had known about the forced ]about, but not the details of their treatment. He had not wanted to know.
Neither had he known for certain about the use of the arsenic reagents, though he had suspected that Cheng was using them.
The platinum recovery figures had been too high, the profits too good, for it not to be so. He had not wanted to know any of the unpleasant details. But, he thought philosophically, the enhanced profitability of the mining venture would make it easier to sell out his interests to Lucky Dragon.
Ning Heng H'Sui would think he was getting the bargain of his life.
Good luck, Lucky Dragon, Tug grunted. You're going to need all of it.
Three months to the day since his last crossing Daniel stood on the moraine below the Ruwatamagufa glacier. This time he was properly equipped for the alpine conditions; there would be no more frostbite.
And this time he was not alone.
The line of porters, each man bowed forward against the headband of his pack, stretched back as far as Daniel could see into the mountain mist.
They were all men of the Konjo tribe, dour mountaineers who could carry heavy loads at these high altitudes. There were six hundred and fifty porters, and each man carried an eighty-pound pack.
In all, that made twenty-six tons of arms and ammunition.
There were no sophisticated weapons in the loads, only the tried and true tools of the guerrilla and the terrorist, the ubiquitous AK 47 and the Uzi, the RPD light machine-gun and the RPG rocket-launcher, Tokarev automatic pistols and American M26 fragmentation grenades, or at least convincing copies of them made in Yugoslavia or Romania.
All of these were readily obtainable at short notice in any quantity required, as long as the buyer had cash. Daniel was amazed how easy it had been. Tug Harrison had supplied him with the names and telephone numbers of five dealers, one in Florida, two in Europe and two in the Middle East. Take your pick, Tug had invited. But check what you're getting before you pay. Some of that stuff has been floating around for forty years. Daniel and his instructors had personally opened every case and laboriously checked each piece.
Daniel had calculated that the very minimum number of instructors he needed was four. He went back to Zimbabwe to find them. They were all men he had fought with or against during the bush war. They were all Swahili speakers and they were all black. A white face attracted a lot of attention in Ubomo.
The leader of the group of four was an ex-sergeant-major in the Ballantyne Scouts, a man who had fought with men like Roland Ballantyne and Sean Courtney. He was a magnificent figure of a Matabele warrior called Morgan Tembi.
There was another recruit in the party, a cameraman to replace Bonny Mahon. Shadrach Mbeki was a black South African exile who had done good work for the BBC, the best man that Daniel could find at such short notice.
To the north Mount Stanley was hidden in clouds, and the cloud dropped down to form a grey cold ceiling only a hundred feet above their heads, but to the east below the cloud it was open. Daniel gazed down upon the forest almost ten thousand feet below. it looked like the ocean, green and endless, except to the north where a dark cancer had bitten into the green. The open mined area was deeper and wider than when Daniel had last seen it from this vantage point only a few short months ago.
The cloud and the mist dropped over them abruptly, blotting out the distant carnage, and Daniel roused himself and started down, the long column of porters unwinding behind him.
Sepoo was waiting for him where the bamboo forest began at the ten thousand foot level. It is good to see you again, Kuokoa, my brother.
Kara-Ki sends you her heart, he told Daniel. She asks that you come to her swiftly. She says she can wait no longer. The men of Sepoo's clan had cut out the trail through the bamboo, widening it so that the porters could pass through without having to stoop.
Below the bamboo where the true rain forest began at the six thousand foot level, Patrick Omeru was waiting with his teams of Uhali recruits to take over from the Konjo mountaineers.
Daniel paid off the Konjo and watched them climb back through the bamboo into their misty highlands. Then the Bambuti guided them on to the newly opened trail, back towards Gondola.
After Kelly's message Daniel could not restrain himself to the pace of the heavily laden convoy, and he and Sepoo hurried ahead. Kelly was on the trail coming to meet them, and they came upon each other suddenly around a bend in the forest path.
Kelly and Daniel came up short and stared at each other, neither of them seemed able to move or even to speak until Kelly said huskily, without taking her eyes from Daniel's face, Go on ahead, Sepoo. Far, far ahead!
Sepoo giggled happily and went without looking back.
During Daniel's absence, Victor Omeru had built his new headquarters in the edge of the forest beyond the waterfall at Gondola where it would be hidden from any possible aerial surveillance.
It was a simple baraza with half walls and a thatched roof. He sat with Daniel on the raised dais at one end of the hut.
Daniel was meeting the resistance leaders, many of them for the first time. They were seated facing the dais on long splitpole benches, like students in a lecture theatre. There were thirty-eight of them, mostly Uhali tribesmen, but six were influential Hita who were disenchanted with Taffari and had thrown in their lot with Victor Omeru as soon as they heard that he was still alive. These Hita were vital to the plan of action that Daniel had devised and discussed with Victor.
Two of them were highly placed in the army and one was a senior police officer. The other three were government officials who would be able to arrange permits and licences for travel and transport. All of them would be able to supply vital intelligence.
At first there had been some natural objection to Daniel's new cameraman filming the proceedings, but Victor had interceded and now Shadrach Mbeki was working so unobtrusively that they soon forgot his presence. As a
