Oliver Bleeck - Brass Go-Between

With its U-shaped metal stock folded over its right side, the Carl Gustaf M45 had a wicked look about it. “Only weighs a little over nine pounds,” Mbwato said, handling the weapon as though it were an extension of his right arm.

“You get caught with a sub-machine gun in this country and you get thirty years,” I said.

“Really? I have one for you.”

“I don’t know anything about them,” I said.

“Oh, it’s not a sub-machine gun. It’s an automatic. Here.”

I had to take my right hand off the wheel to accept his present. It was a surprisingly light automatic. I glanced at it and saw the name Colt engraved on its slide.

“Quite a good piece,” Mbwato said. “It’s the Colt .45 Commander model with the alloy frame. Weighs just 26 ounces. Wonderful stopping power.”

“I don’t quite know how to thank you,” I said, and put the automatic on the seat beside me.

“Just a precaution.”

“Is it loaded?”

“Of course.”

The two guards at the exit to the plantation must have seen us coming because the gate opened as we approached and the one who earlier had examined our identification was outside the stone hut waving us through. Mbwato smiled at him as we went past; the guard didn’t smile back. I pressed the accelerator down and the Ford jumped up to sixty miles an hour which was really too fast for that road.

“Okay,” I said, “where to?”

“When you get to Highway 29 and 211 turn left. What time is it now?”

I looked at my watch. “Eight-twenty.”

“It’s growing dark.”

“Does that fit in with your getaway plan?”

“Perfectly,” he said.

“That’s good, because we’re going to need it.”

“Why?”

“We’ve got two cars behind us.”

“They’re following?”

“That’s right.”

“My word. Can you lose them?”

“No,” I said. “I’d only lose myself.”

Mbwato turned around in the seat. “There seem to be two in each car and they’re wearing hats very much like the guards at Spencer’s. He must have changed his mind.”

“He must have.”

“Is this a fast car?”

“Fairly so.”

“Then I think we should go as fast as possible.”

“That’s what I’m doing. It might help if you told me where we’re going.”

“Bull Run,” Mbwato said, adding dreamily, “‘Look! There stands Jackson like a stone wall. Rally behind the Virginians.’ General Barnard Elliott Bee said that, you know; gave Jackson his nickname.”

“At Bull Run,” I said.

“Manassas really. The first battle of Manassas to be exact. Jackson was an extremely dour man, most reserved.”

“And that’s where we’re going? To Manassas?”

“Not to the town, to the battlefield.”

“It was a big battle,” I said. “What particular spot do you have in mind?”

“Henry Hill.”

“What’s on Henry Hill?”

“It’s where Jackson held. In point of fact, there’s a statue of him there now. Might have been the turn of the battle really. McDowell’s union troops were hopeless, raw recruits mostly. Had McDowell kept the plateau, he might have won. There’s been some debate about that. But it was a great victory for the South. Their first. In fact, it was the first battle of the war.”

“It’s not that I don’t like your lecture, Colonel, but just what are we going to do when we get to Henry Hill? You know, where Jackson was first called Stonewall.”

Mbwato turned in his seat to look out the rear window. “They seem to be gaining, don’t they?”

“I was watching during your lecture.”

“At Henry Hill we rendezvous with Captain Ulado.”

“I take it you chose the spot.”

“Yes. It’s only about twelve air miles from Dulles International.”

“How far by road?”

“We don’t have to worry about that, Mr. St. Ives. Captain Ulado is meeting us with a helicopter.”

I nodded, keeping my surprise to myself, and glanced in the rear-view mirror. The two cars behind us were maintaining their distance. The closer one was approximately a hundred feet behind the Ford. At the junction of Highway 29 and 211 I barely paused and then skidded the car into a left turn. I pressed the gas pedal down hard and when I next looked at the speedometer the needle was bounding off ninety-five.

“This is as fast as it’ll go,” I shouted at Mbwato above the engine and wind noise. He nodded, half turned in the front seat, the muzzle of the sub-machine gun resting on the seat’s back.

Traffic was light and it got even lighter when most of the cars and trucks veered off to the right to take Interstate 66 rather than the slower 29 and 211. The two pursuing cars remained leeched to our rear, neither closer nor farther away. A mile past the cutoff to 66 they made their move. The lead car, a black monster that I thought to be an Oldsmobile, drew up effortlessly alongside us. The second car, another Oldsmobile, took up a position ten feet to the rear of the Ford’s bumper. I was boxed. The car on the left swerved toward me and I had to hit the shoulder to avoid a sideswipe. I got the Ford back on the road. I didn’t have the speed to move ahead. I couldn’t slam on the brakes, so I decided to go after the car on the left, but he dropped back too quickly for me to make my move.

“Don’t try it again,” Mbwato yelled. “Just wait for him to draw alongside.”

He clambered over the seat into the rear, taking the sub-machine gun with him. The lead Oldsmobile pulled up alongside me again and the machine gun went off in my ear.

“What the hell are you doing?” I screamed.

“Shooting at him. I believe I got the bugger.”

I looked in my rear-view mirror. Both cars had dropped back, but not much. The man next to the driver in the lead car was talking over a telephone, probably to the car back of him about how they could head us off at the pass.

“You didn’t hit anything,” I yelled at Mbwato.

“What time is it?” he screamed in my ear. He had to scream because the sub-machine gun had made both my ears ring. I looked at my watch. “Eight-forty.”

“Can’t you go any faster?”

“No. How far?” I yelled.

“Five minutes.”

I concentrated on my driving. Mbwato crawled back into the front seat and produced his map which he studied by the light of the open glove compartment. It was growing dark, not quite dusk yet. I decided that the attempt to wreck us made sense. At least to Spencer. When a car goes out of control at ninety-five, few of its passengers walk away. We could be accidentally killed, his guards could retrieve the shield, even if it were somewhat damaged, and Spencer could go drilling for oil in Komporeen. A car wreck would be simple and safer than a bullet in his well-appointed house. No messy bodies to dispose of. No one to wonder what happened to that itinerant go-between and the spade colonel with the funny name. They just died in a car wreck.

“That stone house ahead,” Mbwato yelled. “Take a right.”

I took a right, barely missing a stone pillar as the car slewed on its mushy springs. An asphalt road led up a hill. “Now where?”

Mbwato studied his map. “Next left; take the next left,” he said.

I took the next left onto an even smaller road, the tires shuddering and squealing in protest. I glanced in the rear-view mirror. There was now only one car following.

The road ended abruptly near a white frame house. “Wrong road,” Mbwato muttered. “Wrong goddamned road. Not your fault though. Mine. Never could read a map.”

The black Oldsmobile had stopped fifty feet behind us, its two occupants wary of Mbwato’s sub-machine gun. “What do we do now?” I said. “Make St. Ives’ last stand?”