Catacombs by John Farris Read Free Book Online Page A

wood bust.
    Dr. Kumenyere was acting as host in Jumbe's absence. He had two women with him, a tawny Eurasian bombshell named Nicola, who licked her plump lips as if she were masturbating, and a satin-finish Masai country girl who wore an exquisite shuka and heavy gold plugs in her enlarged earlobes. She was so ill at ease she seemed brittle; her remote eyes were on a level above everyone else's.
    Morgan was introduced. The few Americans there looked delighted, as if the party, pleasant enough before, had become a major event in their lives. The European scientists looked him over carefully, and not without suspicion. He was a warlord, overseer of the Pentagon billions, the arms machine they roundly condemned. The Italian Nobel laureate jumped on Morgan right away about some matter of U.S. foreign policy that had offended him.
    Morgan easily outmaneuvered Signor Ambetti and took a reading on the mood of the guests, something he had become very good at during his three years in Washington, where the ambience of the "better" parties accurately reflected what was happening in government circles: crisis, scandal, a major policy as yet unannounced, choice backstairs gossip. Someone always knew a secret but was free only to drop hints; inevitably there was more suppressed excitement than in children the night before Christmas.
    And this was the tone of Jumbe's party. They were all waiting for the best Christmas ever. But if anyone talked about what he knew, even to another initiate, Santa Claus would pop back up the chimney in a twinkling.
    Morgan accepted a gin and tonic from a houseboy and tried to find out why certain guests were enjoying Jumbe's hospitality.
    Damon Paul was a dapper man with crisped blond hair and a high color from his week of exposure to the African sun. He was a guest, he said, of Tanzania's Gemstone Council. The country was a consistent but not high-volume producer of diamonds. It was all a matter of Kimberlite formations, or pipes, he explained. These fossil volcanoes were the principal source of natural diamonds. South Africa was particularly well endowed with large and economically important pipes. Was Jumbe interested in gemstones? Damon Paul's color deepened, as if from a sudden pleasurable surge of blood pressure. His eyes grew softly introspective. He smiled and shook his head. Jumbe, he said, knew a great deal about geology, but he had very little interest in personal ornamentation.
    Henry Landreth, physicist and traitor, occupied a basket chair with a young and lovely black girl in a flowered kanga. From time to time she stroked the back of his wrist with an insinuating finger. Landreth appeared to be in his mid-sixties. He drank pink gin, like an old colonialist. He had no commerce with his fellow scientists; no one dropped by his corner to talk shop. His was a deadpan face with eyes like drops of tar, too much hair growing wild in the wrong places: above his eyes, in the ears. He smoked a cigarette fiercely, eyes narrowing to slits, as if this pleasure had been forbidden and he was making the most of his defiance.
    He talked to Morgan with reluctance. He had not done any work in his field for many years. Retired. Yes, he had kept up with developments. But he was rather more interested in archaeology nowadays.
    Were there any significant ruins in Tanzania?
    "Well, if you're fascinated by digs, you must pop over to Engaruka for the day. Nyshuri, dear girl, would you mind terribly freshening my gin for me? There's a love."
    And still Jumbe was missing.
    Dinner was served, buffet style, at which point Marshal Victor Kirillovich Nikolaiev and his party arrived en masse, creating the kind of circusy stir all Russians take delight in. Kumenyere's relief at seeing them was evident.
    The Soviet Minister of Defense, who was wearing a business suit too heavy for the climate, surveyed the dining room and caught Morgan's eye. He seemed to care about no one else who might be there. He brushed Kumenyere aside,