Windfall

He smiled grimly as he reflected that Hardin had told him how to do it in his report. If a pottery kiln had blown up once it could blow up again, this time with more serious consequences. Exit Biggie and the commune. It was then that he began looking for Hardin seriously and found that he was living in a fleabag in the Bronx, and another rooming house fire in the Bronx passed u

After that everything had gone perfectly. Corliss had been accepted in London and that old fool, Farrar, had even anted up two hundred thousand bucks as an earnest of what was to come. That was only a sweetener of course; a morsel before the main meal. Then they came to Kenya and the whole goddamn scheme had fallen apart when Corliss was snatched in Tanzania. What griped Gu

'Jesus!' he said aloud in the privacy of the car. 'If he's alive I could be cooked.'

He sorted out the possibilities. If Corliss was dead then goodbye to six million dollars; he would cut his losses and return to the States. If Corliss was alive there were two alternatives – either he stayed as Hendrix or he spilled his guts. If he had the nerve to stay as Hendrix then nothing would change and everything was fine. But if he talked and revealed that he was Corliss then that meant instant trouble. Everybody and his uncle would be asking what had happened to the real Hendrix. Maybe he could get out of it by fast talking – he could blame the whole schmeer on the absent Hardin. He could swear he had accepted Corliss as the real McCoy on the word of Hardin. Maybe. That would depend on exactly how wide Corliss opened his fat mouth.

But the stakes were goddamn high – six million dollars or his neck. Gu

And now someone else was butting in – Max Stafford!. It was inconceivable that Stafford could be there by chance; there was no co

He came off the tortuous road of the escarpment and drove along the straight and pot-holed road that led to Naivasha, and he was unaware of the Kenatco Mercedes taxi which kept a level distance of four hundred yards behind him. There was no reason why he should be aware of it because there were two fuel tankers and a beer truck between them.

As he turned off the main road and bumped across the railway track to join the road which led alongside the lake he thought fleetingly of Hardin's report – the bit where it said Hendrix had been shot in Los Angeles. 'Now, what the hell?" he muttered. Had it started – whatever 'it' was – as early as that? What had Hardin said? A couple of guys with un-American accents – possibly Krauts – looking for Hendrix. And then he had been shot. It would bear thinking about.

He turned into the grounds of the Lake Naivasha Hotel, parked and locked his car, and went to the desk to register. As he signed in he said, 'Which is Mr Stafford's room?'

'Stafford, sir? I don't think…' After a moment the manager said, 'We have no Stafford here at the moment, sir. I do recall a Mr Stafford who stayed here some little time ago.'

'I see,' said Gu

'I'll send someone to take your bags to your room, sir.'

'I'll unlock the car.' Gu

He stopped about five yards away and surveyed it. One radio ante

Slowly he withdrew and returned to his own car where he dropped on his haunches and looked under the rear. He passed his hand under the bumper and found something small which shifted slightly under the pressure of his fingers. He wrenched it loose and withdrew it to find he was holding a small anonymous-looking grey metal box from which two stiff wires protruded. He tested it on the bumper and it adhered with a click as the magnet on the bottom caught hold.

Gu

'A taxi, sir?'

'Yeah, a Mercedes,' Gu

'It could have been the Indian gentleman who was just here,' said the manager. 'He went that way.'

Gu

As he suspected, the Kenatco people denied all knowledge of it.

Chapter 24

Stafford was wakened at six-thirty next morning by the ringing of the telephone next to his bed. At first he was disorientated but put together the fragments of himself when he heard Hunt say, 'We leave in half an hour, Max. I'll meet you in the hall.'

Half an hour later Hunt said, 'Don't worry; you'll get your breakfast.' They got into a Land-Rover and Hunt drove out of the College grounds and up a winding unsurfaced road which ran next to the chain-link fence. 'The wind is perfect,' he said. 'I think "I'll be able to take you through Hell's Gate. Have you ever been up in a balloon before?'

'No, I haven't.' Stafford did not mention that the suggestion that he go through Hell's Gate on a first flight made him feel decidedly queasy.

Hunt swung off the road and the Land-Rover bumped across open bush country. 'Here we are."

Stafford got out of the Land-Rover stiffly and saw Judy about fifty yards away, standing next to what appeared to be a laundry basket. 'Is she coming, too?' '

'Yes; she operates the camera.', They walked over to her, and she said, 'Hi! Had breakfast?' Stafford shook his head. 'Good! Breakfast is better after a flight.'

He inspected the 'laundry basket' and found it was the thing they stood in while being wafted through the air. Judy was right; it was indubitably better to have breakfast after the flight. Stafford was not scared of many things but he did have a fear of heights. He was prepared to climb a cliff but nothing would ever get him close to the edge while walking at the top. Not an unusual phobia. He wondered how he was going to acquit himself during the next couple of hours.