of Oriental religions at the University of Toronto.
Sean hated them for it. Reema was a great asset to Courtney Safaris, and he knew he would never be able to replace her.
She had the ambulance waiting on the tarmac beside the light aircraft hangars. Reema regularly bribed the guards at the main gate with dried game meat from the concession. In Africa, meat or the Promise of meat opens all gates.
They followed the ambulance to the hospital in the Kombi.
While Sean sat in the passenger seat glancing through the most urgent mail she had brought for his attention, Reema recited a list of the important developments during his absence.
'Carter, the surgeon from Atlanta, canceled.. That was a twenty-one-day safari, and Sean glanced up sharply, but Reema soothed him. 'I phoned the German soap manufacturer in Munich-Herr Buchner, the one we turned down in December? He jumped at it. So we are full, back to back, for the rest of the season.
'How about my brother?' Sean interrupted. He didn't want to tell her it was touch and go that there was going to be an abrupt end to the season. 'Your broth eris expecting your call, and as of six o'clock this morning the telephone was still working.' In Zimbabwe that was something that couldn't be taken for granted.
At the hospital there were at least fifty seriously ill patients awaiting admission ahead of them. The long benches were full of huddled, miserable humanity and the stretchers were blocking the aisles and doorways. The admissions clerks were in no great hurry and waved Shadrach's stretcher to a far corner.
'Leave it to me,' said Reema, and she took the senior admissions clerk by the elbow and led him aside with an angelic smile, talking to him sweetly.
Five minutes later Shadrach's admission papers had been processed and he was being examined by an East German doctor.
'How much did that cost?' Sean asked.
'Cheap,' Reema answered. 'A bag of dried meat.'
Sean had picked up sufficient German from his safari clients to be able to discuss Shadrach's case with the doctor. The man was reassuring. Sean said good-bye to Shadrach.
'Reema has your money. She will come to see you each day. If you need anything, tell her.'
'I will be with you in spirit when you hunt Tukutela,' Shadrach said softly.
Sean had to clear his throat before he could answer. 'We will hunt many more elephant together, old friend.' And he walked away quickly.
The next morning, when at last he got through to Johannesburg, the telephone line was crackling with static.
'Mr. Garrick Courtney is in a board meeting,' the girl on the switchboard at Centaine House, the Courtney Group headquarters, told him. 'But he gave orders to put your call through directly.' In his mind's eye, Sean saw once again the boardroom paneled in figured walnut, the huge Pierneef canvases framed by the elaborate panels, and his brother Garry sitting at the head of the table in the chairman's high-backed throne, beneath the crystal chandelier his grandmother had imported from Murano in Italy.
'Sean!' Garry's voice cut through the static, bold and assured.
How he had changed from the puny little runt who used to Pee in his bed!
The job could have been Sean's if he had wanted it and had been prepared to work for it. Sean was the eldest son, but he had not wanted the job. Still, he always experienced a twinge of resentment when he thought of Garry's Rolls and Lear jet and holiday home in the south of France.
'Hello, Garry. How's it going', All well here,' Garry told him. 'What's the problem?' It was typical of their relationship that any contact meant there was a problem to solve.
'I might need to put a bit of honey with the cheese,' Sean told him diplomatically. It was their private code for money to Switzerland, and Garry would understand that Sean would be bribing somebody for something. It happened often enough.
'Okay, Sean. Just give me the amount and the account number.' Garry was Sean's partner in the safari company and held 40 percent of the shares.
Garry, I'll call you sometime tomorrow. How's the rest of the family?' They chatted for a few minutes longer, and when he hung up Reema came through from the outer office.
'I managed to get through to the game department at last.'
Reema had been trying all morning. 'Comrade Manguza will see u at four-thirty this afternoon.'
GeOffreY Manguza was a tall Shana with a very black complexion and close-cropped hair. He wore silver-framed eyeglasses and a dark blue suit. However, his necktie was Hermes... Sean recognized the horse carriage logo-and his wristwatch was a Patek Philippe with, a black crocodile-skin strap. They were not your run-of-the-mill Marxist accessories, and Sean found that encouraging. However, the deputy director did not rise from behind his desk to welcome him.
'Colonel Courtney,' he greeted him unsmilingly, using Sean's Previous rank to let him know that he knew that Sean had commanded the Ballantyne Scouts, one of the elite Rhodesian groups, after Ballantyne, the founder of the regiment, had been killed in action. It was also a reminder that they had been enemies and might still be so.
'I Prefer Plain 'Mister, '' Sean smiled engagingly. 'That other business is behind us now, Comrade Manguza. The deputy director inclined his head, neither agreeing nor disagreeing. 'What can I do for you?'
'Unfortunately, I have to report an unintentional transgression of the game regulations... ' Geoffrey Manguza's expression hardened and remained like that while Sean described the accidental shooting of the lioness and Shadrach's subsequent mauling. When Sean finished by submitting the written report Reema had typed for him, Geoffrey Manguza let the document lie untouched on his desk top while he asked a few Pertinent and unsympathetic questions.
'You do realize, Colonel Courtney,' he used the rank again, deliberately, 'that I'm obliged to take a most serious view of this entire business. It seems to me that there has been negligence and serious disregard for the safety of your clients and your own staff.
Zimbabwe is no longer a colony, and you cannot treat our people the way you did before.'
'Before you make your recommendation to the director, I would like to clarify a few points for you,' Sean told him.
'You are free to speak, Colonel.'
'It's almost five o'clock now.' Sean checked his watch. 'Won't you allow me to buy you a drink at the golf club, and we can discuss it in more relaxed surroundings?'
Manguza's expression was inscrutable, but after a few moments' thought he nodded. 'As you wish. I have a few small matters to attend to before I leave here, but I will meet you at the club in half an hour.'
He kept Sean sitting on the veranda of the golf club for forty minutes before he put in an appearance. it had once been the Royal Salisbury Golf Club. However, the first two words had been dropped from the title lest they perpetuate the colonial past. Nevertheless, the first remark Geoffrey Manguza made after he had taken the chair opposite Sean and ordered a gin and tonic was. 'Strange, isn't it? A few years ago, the only way a black man could have got in here was as a waiter, and now I am on the committee and my handicap is five.' Sean let it pass and changed the subject to that of rhino poaching across the border with Zambia. Manguza made no effort to pursue that topic. He watched Sean through his silver-rimmed spectacles and, as soon as he stopped speaking, cut in immediately.
'You wished to clarify a few points for me,' he said. 'We are both busy men, Colonel.'
This directness was disconcerting. Sean was preparing for a typically roundabout African approach, but he adapted his pitch.
'First of all, Mr. Manguza, I wanted to tell you what a high price I and my associates place on the Chiwewe concession.' Sean used the word 'price' deliberately. 'I telephoned them this morning and explained this unfortunate incident, and they are anxious to have it resolved at any price.' Again he used the word, and paused significantly.
There was a certain etiquette to be observed in negotiations such as these. To the Western mind it was bribery, but in Africa it was simply the 'dash system,' a universal and acceptable means of getting things done. Government might put up posters in all public buildings depicting a booted foot crushing a venomous serpent under the slogan sTAmp ouT coRRuptioN, but nobody took that very seriously. In fact, in a bizarre fashion, the posters themselves constituted official recognition of the practice.
At this stage, Geoffrey Manguza should have agreed that recoin, was due or given some other indication of his willingness to listen to reason. He said nothing, merely stared at Sean from behind those glinting lenses until Sean was forced to speak again.
'If you've finished your drink, why don't we take a stroll down to the eighteenth fairway?' The club veranda was crowded and the happy hour in full swing with too many listening ears. Manguza swallowed the last of his gin and tonic and without a word led the way down the steps to the lawn.
The last foursome was coming down the eighteenth, but Sean kept to the edge of the rough, and as the players and their caddies straggled past, Sean said softly, 'I told my associates that you are the most powerful man in the department and that the white director is merely your rubber stamp. I
