'A last bit of advice, Major.'
Machita leaned down to the driver's window. 'What is it?'
'A good operative never takes the first taxi offered to him. Always pick out the second or third in line. You stay out of trouble that way.'
Properly rebuked, Machita stood on the curb and watched the cab until it was swallowed by the swarming traffic of Pretoria.
23
The rays of the late-afternoon sun crept over the balcony railing and probed the languid form stretched outside one of the more expensive suites of the New Stanley Hotel in Nairobi, Kenya.
Felicia Collins wore a colorfully patterned bra and matching Kongo skirt over the bottom half of her bikini. She rolled over on her side. lit a cigarette, and considered her actions of the past few days. Granted, she had slept with a varied lot of men over the years. That part didn't bother her. Her first time had been with a sixteen-year-old cousin when she was only fourteen herself. At best, it was an experience dimmed by the passage of time. Then came at least ten other men by the time she was twenty. Most of the names were long forgotten and the faces vague and indistinct.
The lovers who had climbed in and out of her bed during the years when she was struggling as an aspiring vocalist formed a continuous montage of recording-company executives, disc jockeys, musicians, and composers. Most had in some way contributed to her rise to the top. With the sudden crest of success came Hollywood and a whole new orgy of high living.
Faces, she thought. How strange that she couldn't remember their shapes and features. And yet the bedrooms and their decors stood out vividly. The feel of the mattress, the design on the wallpaper, the fixtures in the adjoining bathroom, were still etched in her mind along with the different types of beams and plaster she had recorded on the ceilings.
As with many women, sex to Felicia was not necessarily exalted above other forms of entertainment. There were uncounted times she'd wished she had curled up with a good novel instead. Already Hiram Lusana's face was blurring into obscurity along with all the rest.
At first she hated Daggat, hated the very idea that he could turn her on. She had insulted him at every opportunity, and yet he had remained courteous. Nothing she could say or do angered him. God, it is maddening, she thought. She almost wished he would demean her as a slave so that her hatred would be justified, but it was not to be. Frederick Daggat was too shrewd. He played her gently, cautiously, as would a fisherman in the knowledge he had a record fish on the line.
The balcony door slid open and Daggat stepped outside. Felicia sat up and removed her sunglasses as his shadow fell across her body.
'Were you dozing?'
She offered him a fluid smile. 'Just daydreaming.'
'It's beginning to get cool. You'd better come inside.'
He took her hand and pulled her to her feet. She gazed at him mischievously for a moment and then unclasped the bikini's bra and pushed her bare breasts against his chest. 'There is still time to make love before dinner.'
It was a tease and they both knew it. Since they had left Lusana's camp together, she had responded to his sexual manipulations with all the abandon of a robot. It was a part she had never played before.
'Why?' he asked simply.
Her expressive coffee eyes studied him. Why?'
'Why did you leave Lusana and come with me? I am not a man whose looks turn women's heads. I've looked at this ugly face of mine in the mirror every day for forty years and I'm not about to kid myself into thinking I'm superstar material. You did not have to behave like a bartered cow, Felicia. Lusana didn't own you; nor do I, and I suspect no man ever will. You could have told us both to go to hell and yet you came with me willingly, too willingly. Why?'
She felt her stomach tingle as her nostrils detected his strong male scent, and she took his face in her hands. 'I suppose I jumped from Hiram's bed into yours merely to prove that if he didn't need me, I could just as easily do without him.'
'A perfectly human reaction'
She kissed him on the chin. 'Forgive me, Frederick. In a sense, Hiram and I both used you: he to gain your goodwill for congressional support, and I in an adolescent game to make him jealous.'
He smiled. 'This is one time in my life that I can honestly say I'm happy I was taken advantage of.'
She took him by the hand and led him into the bedroom and expertly undressed him. 'This time,' she said 3 her voice low, 'I'm going to show you the real Felicia Collins.'
It was well past eight o'clock when they finally released each other. She was far stronger than Daggat had believed possible.
There was no plumbing the depths of her passion. He lay in bed for several minutes, listening to her humming in the shower. Then he wearily rose and pulled on a short kimono, sat down at a desk littered with imp ortant-lo o king documents, and began sorting through them.
Felicia padded from the bathroom and slipped on a belted wrap dress in a red and white zebra print. She approved of what she saw reflected in the full-length mirror. Her figure was slim and solid; the vitality that flowed through her lithe muscles overshadowed the soreness that was there from the vigorous exertions of early evening. Thirtytwo years old and still damned provocative, she decided. There were still a few good years left before she could allow her agent to accept matronly roles for her, unless, of course, a producer offered a blockbuster script and a hefty percentage of the net.
'Do you think he can win?' Daggat asked, interrupting her reverie.
'I beg your pardon.'
'I asked you if Lusana can defeat the South African Defence Forces.'
'I'm hardly one to offer a valid prediction on the outcome of the revolution,' Felicia said. 'My part in the AAR was simply that of a fund raiser.'
He grinned. 'Not to mention providing entertainment to the troops, particularly generals.'
'A fringe benefit,' she said, and laughed.
'You haven't answered the question.'
She shook her head. 'Even with an army 0 one million men, Hiram could never hope to defeat the whites in a knockdown, drag-out conflict. The French and the Americans lost in Vietnam for the same reason the majority government fell in Rhodesia: guerrillas fighting under the cover of heavy jungle have all the advantages. Unfortunately for the black cause, eighty percent of South Africa is arid, open country, better suited for armored and air warfare.'
'Then, what's his angle?'
'Hiram is counting on worldwide popular support and economic sanctions to strangle the white ruling class into submission.'
Daggat rested his chin on his huge hands. 'Is he a communist?'
Felicia tilted her head back and laughed. 'Hell, Hiram made his fortune as a capitalist. He's too ingrained with making money to embrace the Reds.'
'Then how do you explain his Vietnamese advisers and the free supplies from China?'
'The old P. T. Barnum sucker routine. The Vietnamese are so revolution happy they'd air-freight guerrilla- warfare specialists into the Florida swamps if someone sent them an invitation. As for Chinese generosity, after getting booted out of eight different African nations in as many years. they'll kiss anybody's ass to keep a toehold on the continent '
'He could be miring himself in quicksand without realizing it.'
'You underestimate Hiram,' said Felicia. 'He'll send the Asians packing the minute they've outlived their usefulness to the AAR.'
