CHAPTER 5

Port Luard was cooler when we got back – about one degree cooler – but the temperature went down sharply when I walked into John Sutherland's office. It was evident that he'd been hoping I'd disappear into the wide blue yonder never to return, and when he saw me you could have packaged him and used him as a refrigeration plant.

I held up a hand placatingly and said, 'Not my idea to turn around so fast – blame Mister Geddes. For my money you could have this damn place to yourself.'

'You're welcome, of course,' he said insincerely.

'Let's not kid each other,' I said as I took a can of beer from his office refrigerator. 'I'm as welcome as acne on a guy's first date. What's new?'

My friendly approach bothered him. He hadn't known when to expect me and he'd been braced for trouble when he did. 'Nothing, really. Everything has been going along smoothly.' His tone still implied that it would cease to do so forthwith.

It was time to sweet-talk him. 'Geddes is very pleased about the way you're handling things here, by the way.'

For a moment he looked almost alarmed. The idea of Geddes being pleased about anything was odd enough to frighten anybody. Praise from him was so rare as to be nonexistent, and I didn't let Sutherland know that it had originated with me. 'When you left you implied that all was far from well,' Sutherland said. 'You never said what the trouble was.'

'You should know. You started it at the meeting in London.'

'I did?' I saw him chasing around in his mind for exactly what he'd said at that meeting.

'About the rumours of tribal unrest,' I said helpfully. 'Got a glass? I like to see my beer when I'm drinking it.'

'Of course.' He found one for me.

'You were right on the mark there. Of course we know you can't run the Bir Oassa job and chase down things like that at the same time. That was Shelford's job, and he let us all down. So someone had to look into it and Geddes picked me – and you proved right all down the line.' I didn't give him time to think too deeply about that one. I leaned forward and said as winningly as I knew how, 'I'm sorry if I was a little abrupt just before I left. That goddamn phoney victory parade left me a bit frazzled, and I'm not used to coping with this lot the way you are. If I said anything out of line I apologize.'

He was disarmed, as he was intended to be. 'That's quite all right. As a matter of fact I've been thinking about what you said – about the need for contingency plans. I've been working on a scheme.'

'Great,' I said expansively. 'Like to have a look at it sometime. Right now I have a lot else to do. I brought someone out with me that I'd like you to meet. Geoff Wingstead, the owner of Wyvern Haulage. Can you join us for dinner?'

'You should have told me. He'll need accommodation.'

'It's fixed, John. He's at the hotel.' I gently let him know that he wasn't the only one who could pull strings. 'He's going to go up and join the rig in a day or so, but I'll be around town for a bit longer before I pay them a visit. I'd like a full briefing from you. I'm willing to bet you've got a whole lot to tell me.'

'Yes, I have. Some of it is quite hot stuff, Neil.'

Sutherland was all buddies again, and bursting to tell me what I already knew, which is just what I'd been hoping for. I didn't think I'd told him too many lies. The truth is only one way of looking at a situation; there are many others.

For the next few days I nursed Sutherland along. His contingency plan was good, if lacking in imagination, but it improved as we went along. That was his main trouble, a lack of imagin ation, the inability to ask, 'What if…?' I am not knocking him particularly; he was good at his job but incapable of expanding the job around him, and without that knack he wasn't going to go much further. I have a theory about men like Sutherland: they're like silly putty. If you take silly putty and hit it with a hammer it will shatter, but handle it gently and it can be moulded into any shape. The trouble is that if you then leave it it will slump and flow back into its original shape. That's why the manipulators, like me, get three times Sutherland's pay.

Not that I regarded myself as the Great Svengali, because I've been manipulated myself in my time by men like Geddes, the arch manipulator, so God knows what he's worth before taxes.

Anyway I gentled Sutherland along. I took him to the Luard Club (he had never thought about joining) and let him loose among the old sweaty types who were primed to drop him nuggets of information. Sure enough, he'd come back and tell me something else that I already knew. 'Gee, is that so?' I'd say. 'That could put a crimp in your contingency plans, couldn't it?'

He would smile confidently. 'It's nothing I can't fix,' he would say, and he'd be right. He wasn't a bad fixer. At the end of ten days he was all squared away, convinced that it was all his own idea, and much clearer in his head about the politics around him. He also had another conviction – that this chap Mannix wasn't so bad, after all, for an American that is. I didn't disillusion him.

What slightly disconcerted me was Geoff Wingstead. He stayed in Port Luard for a few days, doing his own homework before flying up to join the rig, and in that short time he also put two and two together, on his own, and remarkably accurately. What's more, I swear that he saw clear through my little ploy with Sutherland and to my chagrin I got the impression that he approved. I didn't like people to be that bright. He impressed me more all the time and I found that he got the same sense of enjoyment out of the business that I did, and that's a rare and precious trait. He was young, smart and energetic, and I wasn't sorry that he was in another company to my own: he'd make damned tough opposition. And I liked him too much for rivalry.

Getting news back from the rig was difficult. Local telephone lines were often out of action and our own cab radios had a limited range. One morning, though, John Sutherland had managed a long call and had news for me as soon as I came into the office.

'They're on schedule. I've put it on the map. Look here. They're halfway in time but less than halfway in distance. And they'll slow up more now because they have to climb to the plateau. Oh, and Geoff Wingstead is flying back here today. He has to arrange to send a water bowser up there. Seems the local water is often too contaminated to use for drinking.'

I could have told Geoff that before he started and was a little surprised that he had only just found out. I decided that I wanted to go and see the rig for myself, in case there was any other little detail he didn't know about. I was about due to go back to London soon, and rather wanted one more fling upcountry before doing so.

I studied the map. This town – Kodowa – just ahead of them. It's got an airstrip. Any chance of renting a car there?'

He grimaced. 'I shouldn't think so. It's only a small place, about five thousand population. And if you could get a car there it would be pretty well clapped out. The airstrip is privately owned; it belongs to a planters' cooperative.'

I measured distances. 'Maybe we should have a company car stationed there, and arrange for use of the airstrip. It would help if anyone has to get up there in a hurry. See to it, would you, John? As it is I'll have to fly to Lasulu and then drive nearly three hundred miles. I'll arrange to take one of Wyvern's spare chaps up with me to spell me driving.' I knew better than to set out on my own in that bleak territory.

I saw Wingstead on his return and we had a long talk. He was reasonably happy about his company's progress and the logistics seemed to be working out well, but he was as wary as a cat about the whole political situation. As I said, he was remarkably acute in his judgements. I asked if he was going back to England.