The Alpha Males

By George Buford

Along the rivers of Central West Africa tales of lost treasure are as common as mosquitoes; so when Charlie Gordon and Nick Nikkemba hear yet another story, theyre skeptical. This story, however, seems a little more probable.

Vic Rice, an American diamond merchant, tells Charlie and Nick that during World War II a plane carrying a load of diamonds to finance the war effort was flying north from South Africa when it crashed into an area of dense jungle. Rice hires Charlie and Nick to guide him through the area where the plane is most likely to be.

A complication is that Cavelli, an American gangster, is also looking for the diamonds and has hired two mercenaries, Mason and Piper, to guide him. Charlie, Nick, and Rice learn that these men are watching them and so make an escape by riverboat on their way to the jungle. But Cavelli and Piper, led by the homicidal Mason, are in close pursuit.

Law enforcement outside the cities in this country is the responsibility of the Patrol Service, and Captain Jolo and Sergeant Amed are in charge of the local branch. They learn whats going on and so, with two of their men, take off in pursuit of the first two groups.

As they make their way through the jungle, Rice proves to be a fast learner who accepts the hardships without complaining; a trait that makes a good impression on Charlie and Nick. Cavelli, by contrast, is a whiner who complains about everything, leading the ill-tempered Mason to be on the verge of killing him.

Jolo and his men, all tough veterans, are tailing the other two groups.

When they finally locate the plane, it leads to a shootout between the three groups that has surprising results. Even more surprising is what they find inside the plane.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Sep 5, 2002
• ISBN: 9781453582893

George Buford

George Buford is a professor of classical studies at the Missouri School of Veterinary Medicine. He did not violate the American embargo on travel to Cuba by going to Mexico on a false passport and then flying to Cuba. He didn’t do that. Honest.

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Copyright © 2002 by George Buford.

ISBN:     Softcover      1-4010-6878-2

               Ebook          978-1-4010-6879-0

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Xlibris

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To Barbara Julier, for her considerable help in getting this book ready for publication.

I dedicate this book to Aung San Suu Kyi, my heroine.

I dedicate this book to those brave women who participated in

the Tienanmen Demonstration in 1989 as well as those women

who stood by their husbands, fathers, sons, brothers, and friends.

I dedicate this book to all the Asian women

who have suffered so much and ask so little.

Contents

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER ONE

The Late Günter Mueller

Nabolo, Central West Africa, 1997

A week-old corpse is not a lovely thing. A week-old corpse that’s been stewing in tropical heat and humidity is even less so. The walls and door of the one-room cabin had kept the big animals out, but the flies had got in. The maggots had enjoyed a grand feast, but they were gone now; bodies don’t last long in the tropics. All that remained lying on the wooden floor was a skeleton wearing rotted clothes soaked in a grayish-black slime. The stench from a week’s worth of rotting had penetrated into every corner of the cabin. Had it not been for a slight breeze coming through the screens, the place would have been uninhabitable.

Charlie Gordon squatted and examined the remains more closely. He was looking at what was left of Günter Mueller, no doubt about it. The height was about right, a big brass ring with a Germanic cross was on what had been the third finger of the left hand, and there were three gold teeth, two in the upper jaw and one in the lower. It was Günter.

The cause of death was obvious: A bullet had entered the back of his skull, right at the top, and blasted out through his nose. Charlie put one finger at the identical points on his own head and considered the angle. For the bullet to pass through his head like that, Günter would most likely have been looking up, perhaps reaching for something.

The cabin had shelves fastened to the walls in various places, and some of these were just above Günter’s remains. Charlie stood up and examined them. They contained what one might expect to find in a jungle cabin: matches, candles, two butane lighters, small kitchen knives, a can opener, and assorted odds and ends.

The top shelf was too high for Charlie to see, even though he was a tall man. He could have easily reached the shelf, but a quarter century in Africa had taught him never to place his hand where his eyes hadn’t first looked. He had buried men who had failed to obey that simple rule.

A small homemade stool was nearby, so he scooted it over with one foot and used it to stand on. The shelf proved to be empty, but Charlie saw a stain that looked like oil—gun oil, Charlie was willing to bet. He would have been able to smell the oil under most circumstances, but the stench in the cabin was making it hard enough just to breathe.

Charlie stepped down, scooted the stool out of the way, and considered the situation. Günter had most likely kept a surprise gun on that shelf—a shelf low enough to easily reach, yet high enough that no one, or at least no one with experience in Africa, would have gone feeling around on it with his hand. Günter had always been quite thorough about keeping the screens tight and the cabin sealed, so he would have known that there was little chance of anything lying in wait on the shelf; a visitor would not.

Günter’s fetish for keeping the bugs out led to another question: How had the flies got in? Charlie considered the angle at which Günter must have been standing when the bullet struck him; the bullet would have passed through his head and struck the screens near the shelves. Yes, there at the top of one screen was a hole. A closer inspection showed that the individual wires had been forced out. It was a bullet hole. Those stains on the wall and the screens were no doubt Günter’s blood and brains.

Someone had been in the cabin with Günter, had become a threat to him, and Günter had made a grab for the surprise gun. Unfortunately for him, he hadn’t grabbed fast enough.

The Central West African country of Nabolo, where Charlie lived, was a magnet for people like Günter. With a stable government that was the legacy of British colonial rule, no extradition treaties, and reliable banks—actually branches of British and Swiss banks—that didn’t ask embarrassing questions about the origin of large cash deposits, the country drew men who were on the run. Some were running from the law, some were running from the lawless, some were running from personal demons, and some were running from all three.

Charlie didn’t know what Günter had been running from, but he had definitely been running from something: He had the attitude of constantly looking over his shoulder that marked all the runners. Among the immigrants, both the runners and the legitimates, Charlie had become an unofficial real-estate broker, financial advisor, and general man to see if you wanted something done. Thus, when Günter had come to Nabolo two years earlier and wanted to find a cabin out in the bush where he could live, he got in touch with Charlie. Charlie arranged for him to get this cabin, which had originally been part of a camp for scientists doing research.

The cabin itself consisted of a single large room of about eighteen by twenty-four feet. The upper parts of most of the walls contained screened windows that could be covered by shutters; the roof was sheet metal. Except for the screens and the sheet metal, which had no doubt been hauled in by four-wheel drive trucks, everything had been built on the spot by native carpenters. Most of the native carpenters were drunks and idiots, but a few were capable of doing good work. The good ones had built this cabin.

The furnishings didn’t amount to much: a cot, a table, a few chairs and cabinets—all having a homemade look about them. Günter had owned a twelve-gauge pump shotgun, but it was missing. So was the surprise gun. Nothing else appeared to have been taken.

There was no two-way radio, but there never had been. Günter, like most of the runners who went into the bush to live, had refused to own one, apparently believing that whatever was after him might jump out of the radio and grab him.

Charlie looked through the screens at the surrounding area. About a hundred yards separated the cabin from the jungle, which rose in a green wall forty feet high all around. Three other buildings were in the clearing—two storage sheds and an outhouse. A small garden was just behind the cabin. With a small garden and a backpack full of supplies brought in once or twice a year, a man can live in the jungle in reasonable comfort.

On the other side of the cabin was a desk where Günter had sat to write letters and take care of other such business. Charlie walked over and looked at it, but it contained nothing out of the ordinary: some ballpoint pens, some pencils, a couple of tablets of writing paper, a half-empty box of envelopes, a half-empty book of stamps, and what looked like the beginning of a shopping list. Charlie thought it was odd that there was a particularly good pocketknife lying on the upper right corner of the desk. A thief would have taken the knife—would have taken the stamps, too, come to think of it. The guns were missing, but the knife and stamps were still there; that suggested that Günter hadn’t been killed in a robbery.

Theft was surprisingly rare out in the bush, and robbery was unheard of. Why rob a man when you can just wait for him to leave his cabin and then help yourself. Murders in the jungle, when they occurred, tended to be crimes of passion committed with machetes—one person would chop up another, usually in a very sloppy manner. A bullet though the back of the head was definitely not typical of the local boys. Most likely, whoever or whatever Günter had been running from had finally caught up with him.

Charlie started to sit down on the chair by the desk, but stopped himself. He didn’t smell too good, having hiked the twenty miles out from Tagaville, where he lived; but the cabin smelled worse. He didn’t want to get the smell on him.

Ten days earlier, Günter had sent word out with someone passing by on the trail that he wanted to see Charlie. The message was that he would make it worth his while. Günter had always paid well, so when Charlie finished his other commitments, he hiked out. He could have taken a four-wheel drive, but the footpath was shorter, and the four-wheel trail was so bad that it was about as fast to walk. Judging from what remained of Günter, Charlie was about a week too late.

CHAPTER TWO

Diamonds Are Forever

Charlie walked out the front door, sat down on the wooden steps, and considered the situation. The local bad boys were a stupid lot—bad boys usually are—but they would have known enough to post a guard to warn them if he saw Günter coming. Even if Günter had walked in and surprised them, they would have simply knocked him down and run away. Had they killed him, it would have been by accident in their stampede to escape. A bullet through the head was too deliberate for any of the local criminals, either black or white. Günter had therefore been killed by a foreigner.

Determining which foreigner would be next to impossible. This was the height of the dry season, so the country was crawling with foreigners—everyone from tourists coming to see the wilderness to the inevitable scientists conducting research projects. Bolo camp, a scientific research station that was staffed year round, was about eleven miles from Günter’s cabin.

Of course, Charlie wasn’t a detective; he wouldn’t have to worry about it. He would report the matter to the Patrol Service—the Nabolian version of a national police—when he got back to Tagaville. That would end his responsibility.

Still, he couldn’t help wondering what Günter had wanted to see him about. The man had gone into the jungle when he first arrived and come out only rarely to get supplies; then, in the last two months, he had come out four times to Tagaville, to take the daily flight to the capital. Whether he had stayed in the capital or gone elsewhere, Charlie had no idea. Something had been motivating him to travel.

A flash of color at the edge of the clearing drew Charlie’s attention. Two men had just entered from the trail—a tall, slender black man and a shorter, heavier white man. Charlie recognized the black man: He was Nick Nikkemba, a retired sergeant in the Nabolian army who supplemented his income by guiding foreigners. Charlie had known him since the days when Nick was the Sergeant-In-Charge at the Tagaville office of the Patrol Service.

Except that Nick was black and Charlie white, they could have been twins. Both were tall and slender. Nick sported the same military-surplus apparel that Charlie wore: jungle khakis bleached from the sun, jungle boots, a big revolver with the handle forward on his left hip, a hunting knife on his right hip, the handle of a machete sticking up over his right shoulder, and an old army backpack. He was holding a walking stick that was even taller than he was.

Charlie had propped his backpack, machete, and walking stick against the outside of the cabin.

The white man with Nick was a foreigner—the pale skin and the shiny new gear showed that. The man appeared physically fit, but the strained look on his face suggested that he was more accustomed to getting his exercise in an air-conditioned health club than in the heat and humidity of a jungle.

The men moved toward him, so Charlie stood up and moved toward them. He noted that the white man had a semi-automatic pistol in a holster on his right hip, but he also noted that it was secured with a strap.

I’m looking for Günter Mueller, the white man said. I’m Vic Rice.

You’re in the right place, Charlie said, studying him. I’m Charlie Gordon. Günter’s inside.

Rice thanked him and hurried past him toward the cabin.

Nick walked up and he and Charlie exchanged greetings. Charlie turned around just in time to see Rice drop his backpack, run up the steps, and hurry through the cabin door. A second later he came flying back out, landed on the grass, dropped to all fours, and proceeded to give a spectacular demonstration of vomiting.

I take it Günter’s dead, Nick said.

Yes—about a week, I’d say, Charlie replied. Did I forget to mention that? How careless of me.

As they walked toward the cabin, Charlie told Nick what he had found and what conclusions he had reached. Nick agreed that his conclusions seemed reasonable.

At the cabin, Nick opened the door and looked inside. Yes, that’s Günter, all right—gold teeth and all.

My God! Rice protested, still on all fours, but having finished vomiting, why didn’t you tell me about that?

You didn’t ask, Charlie replied.

Rice muttered something that Charlie couldn’t understand; he assumed it was just as well that he couldn’t.

After a moment, Rice asked: What are we going to do?

Nick answered that one: We’re going to camp here overnight, then we’re going to hike back to Tagaville and make a full report to the Patrol Service.

Rice had by this time managed to bring himself into a sitting position. Shouldn’t we do something now? Call the medical examiner or something?

There’s only one medical examiner in the whole country, and he’s five-hundred miles away, Nick explained. Welcome to Africa, Mr. Rice.

Charlie and Nick left Rice sitting and moved away from the cabin to set up their own camp. Because this was the dry season, there was no need to set up a tent of any kind; there was, however, a need to get off the ground and away from the creepy-crawly things. The two men pulled out their machetes and walked to the edge of the jungle, where a few minutes of chopping produced the long poles they needed. They dragged these back to where they had left their packs and proceeded to build hammock stands. Each stand consisted of a pair of tripods with a long pole between them; the hammock was lashed at both points where the long pole fastened to the tripods. Each hammock would have two or three feet of clearance off the ground—quite enough to protect them from the creepy-crawlies.

They constructed a hammock stand for Rice. Normally, every man would have been responsible for building his own, but Rice didn’t know how. Some of the creepy crawlies were lethal; if Rice didn’t sleep in a hammock, Nick and Charlie might have a second corpse to explain to the Patrol Service.

Rice, looking paler than ever, slowly walked over. He thanked the two men for building a hammock stand for him, and then proceeded to drag his own hammock out of his pack and string it up. He knew how to do that.

After the hammock was in place and he had hung his pack on one of the tripods, he spoke to Charlie: How did you happen to be here today?

Charlie was sitting on his own hammock, his feet on the grass. Ten days ago Günter sent word out that he wanted to see me, Charlie said. I understood that he had some kind of a business proposition, but I have no idea what.

What do you do? Rice asked.

I mostly arrange things—tours, scientific expeditions, that sort of business.

Have you ever heard of a place called the swamp?

"A swamp or the swamp?"

Rice looked puzzled. "I suppose it would be the swamp."

"You can find a swamp in almost any low-lying area