Catacombs by John Farris Read Free Book Online

There's a lot of loud talk and some arguing going on."
    "They must not know any more than we do."
    "We have a radio link with the communications room at the embassy. The radio's in my quarters, and one of the embassy staffers is monitoring for me. Speaking of communications–" Ron laughed. "Laki told me that telephone in Kumenyere's Mercedes isn't hooked up to anything. He was just chatting to himself, putting on a show for us."
    "Are we going to get anything to eat?" Len said with a sigh.
    "Dinner's promptly at nine, East African-Indian cuisine. It'll be followed by various entertainments, including a trip to a hide in the park for a look at leopards feeding."
    "Leopards! Can I go, Dad?"
    "Sure. We'll all go."
    Ron shook his head. "Sorry, sir. Jumbe's scheduled a colloquium at eleven for the VIPs."
    "Attendance required, I assume. Well, it's his party."
    "Most of the men have their wives with them. Laki says they've been here a week. They appear to be having a terrific time. But Jumbe's made himself scarce. There's one peculiar thing: No one from the Tanzanian parliament is here. And Jumbe didn't invite representatives from other African governments. But these days he's not getting along with many of them."
    Ron went over the list with Morgan; he had already made copious notations in the margins.
    "Damon Paul. He's the Fifth Avenue jeweler, and one of the world's authorities on gemstones. Lukas Zollner. Swiss mathematician and Nobel prize winner. Maurizio Ambetti, Italian physicist and Nobel Prize winner. There are three other mathematicians, almost as eminent as Zollner, on the list. Dr. Saul Markey is a crystallographer. Alex Kachurdian is an epigrapher and etymologist–"
    "What?" Len said, laughing.
    "Epigraphy is the study of ancient inscriptions; I don't know what the other means, but it may have something to do with dead languages." Ron made a circle on the list, isolating a name. "I'm really curious about this man's presence. Henry Landreth, British theoretical physicist."
    "I seem to be in fast company," Morgan said. "Does he have a Nobel too?"
    "He should own one by now. But he's lucky he doesn't have a prison record instead."
    "How's that?"
    "I checked him out with the press officer at the British Embassy. Landreth was Britain's top nuclear theoretician after World War Two. He worked at Harwell on some top-secret research involving neutron beams. He was a protégé of Klaus Fuchs and Dr. Bruno Pontecorvo, both of whom were spies. They gave the Russians secrets that put them in the nuclear club years before they would have made it on their own. Fuchs went to prison; Pontecorvo defected to Moscow. Landreth was in his mid-thirties then, approaching the height of his powers. He was accused of helping Fuchs feed information to the NKVD officer who was running Fuchs. Landreth claimed he was unaware that he was being used as a go-between, or that he was handing over vital information to a foreign national. Fuchs backed his story and there wasn't enough evidence to convict. But Landreth had a muddled history of Communist sympathies during his post-grad career at London University in the thirties. The U.K. press tarred him with the Commie brush.
    "He was banned forever from working at sensitive installations, which effectively ended his career. He's living in Tanzania now, but he doesn't teach. He has some connection with the government, a minor post in the Department of Antiquities."
    "Okay," Morgan said. "Let's go mingle."
    The main house consisted of two one-story wings with a large kitchen in the rear and a screened verandah with the best view of the seven lakes. Most of the guests, wearing tropical resort clothes and light sweaters, were on the verandah. The Russians hadn't shown up yet. The furnishings ran to bamboo and floral prints, sisal mats on the concrete floors. There were vivid paintings by East African artists, some Makonde sculptures, but there was not much of Jumbe in evidence, except for a small carved