Catacombs by John Farris Read Free Book Online Page B

walked over to Morgan and, with a sudden happy smile, embraced him. He was a Georgian, short, but with a weight lifter's torso and strength. He had to reach up to get an arm around Morgan's shoulders.
    "Mr. Secretary, no one is tell me about you until I'm here. What unexpected pleasure!"
    Morgan replied in kind; they shook hands and embraced again. They had never met; but the dossiers, with photographs, which each man had on the other were detailed and up-to-date. They could have chatted for hours on a quasi-intimate basis. Morgan observed that Nikolaiev continued to dye his hair black. His health seemed generally good, although he was a heavy breather and had lost an eye to diabetes three years ago. He still drank and smoked Turkish cigarettes and was fond of startling strangers at private functions by suddenly shrieking with laughter and stubbing out a lighted cigarette on the surface of the glass eye. Aside from his social idiosyncrasies he was a shrewd, dangerous man, the highest-ranking Stalinist in a country where many people still yearned for a return to the good old days. He was known in some circles as the Dracula of Katyn, for certain infamous acts of butchery committed during World War Two.
    Nikolaiev waved his interpreter away from them; he had learned his English, heavily laced with G.I. scatology, in Berlin in 'forty-five and 'forty-six, and he could cope with six other languages. The calypso music had stopped. From outside came the nerve-prickling squall of an animal. Morgan and the Russian exchanged looks of mutual perplexity. Nikolaiev seemed uneasy in this equatorial environment. He squeezed Morgan's arm and drew him closer, spoke confidentially.
    'What do you think of that man?" he said, referring to Kumenyere.
    "I hardly know him."
    "But you're of the same color, like two coons."
    Morgan cleared his throat. "We're black," he explained with a tactful smile. "That doesn't make us lodge brothers, like the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks. To call someone of our race a 'coon' is a form of insult."
    Nikolaiev nodded. "Okay. That's not coon, it's black. I want to remember that. But let's get serious. What's the reason you're doing here?"
    "I came for reasons of friendship. Jumbe invited me for the weekend, and it's been a long time since I've seen him. How well do you know Jumbe?"
    "So-so. Meeting him on a state visit to Moscow. Two, three years ago. That's all." He slipped his arm around Morgan's waist and walked him toward the buffet. "Okay, my friend," he said, loudly enough for all to hear. "This looks good chow from smelling it. But not for me. Special diet I'm eating, my own chef daily. We will see each others. Later. For very big and important talk." He chuckled at the absurdity of this impromptu summit. "I'm telling you all my bullshit and you're telling me yours."
    There was a total silence. Out of the corner of his eye Morgan saw the expression of horror on the face of Nikolaiev's interpreter.
    Morgan laughed. Everyone else laughed too. Nikolaiev roared the loudest, until tears ran from his good eye.
    At a few minutes before eleven o'clock Morgan, Nikolaiev, his interpreter, whose name was Boris, and eight other men gathered in the conference room at Chanvai.
    A stone hearth with a crackling fire took up one end of the room. There was an area like a conversation pit, ringed with metal patio chairs cushioned and draped with zebra skins. In the center of the ring stood a table, a six-foot oval of solid onyx with veins of orange and rust and white on a massive, beautifully gnarled mahogany stump polished and artificially petrified to resist the borer beetles. The louvered windows in one wall were open; the night droned and screeched outside. Rhinoceros beetles whacked against the screens. The flag of Tanzania was displayed on the wall opposite the windows, a yellow-edged black bar dividing diagonally a field of sea blue and light green.
    Each chair had a name on it. Houseboys served drinks to those