Nick Carter - Rhodesia

"I mean the thing under your left arm," she murmured clearly. "You've been keeping it away from me ever since we sat down. Why are you carrying a gun?"

He was yanked off his pleasant pink cloud. Oh, Wilhelmina, why do you have to be so fat and heavy to be so accurate and dependable? Stuart, AXE's chief weapons engineer, modified the Lugers with shortened barrels and thin plastic grips, but they were still big guns to hide even in the perfectly fitted underarm holsters. Walking, sitting, they rode snugly without a trace of a bulge, but when you wrestled with a sexpot kitten like Booty sooner or later she bumped metal.

"We're going to Africa," Nick reminded her, "where our clients are exposed to a lot of dangers. Among other things I'm your security guard. We've never had any trouble there, the place is really civilized now, but..."

"And you'll protect us from lions and tigers and natives with spears?"

"That's the rough idea." He felt foolish. Booty had the most annoying way of saving ordinary things that laughed at you. The delightful fingers made one final stroke that made him squirm involuntarily, and were withdrawn. He felt both disappointed and foolish.

"I think you're talking nonsense," Booty whispered. "Are you with the FBI?"

"Of course not."

"If you were I suppose you'd lie."

"I hate lies." That was the truth. He hoped she didn't revert to her DA role and cross-examine him about other government agencies. Most people didn't know about AXE, but Booty wasn't most people.

"Are you a private detective? Did any of our fathers hire you to keep an eye on one of us or all of us? If he did I'll..."

"You've got a big imagination for such a young girl." That stopped her. "You've been in your comfortable, protected world so much of your life you think that's all there is. You ever go into the Mexican shack towns down home? Have you seen El Paso's slums? Remember the Indian hovels on the back roads in Navaho country?"

"Yes," she replied hesitantly.

He kept his voice low but crisp and firm. This might work — when in doubt and pressed, attack. "Where we're going those folks would qualify as high-income suburbanites. In Rhodesia itself the whites are outnumbered twenty to one. They keep a stiff upper lip and smile because if they don't their teeth will chatter. Count in the revolutionaries glaring over the borders and the odds in some places are seventy-five to one. When the opposition gets arms — and they're getting them — it'll be a worse setup than Israel facing the Arab legions."

"But tourists aren't usually bothered — are they?"

"There have been plenty of incidents, as they're called. There may be danger and it's my job to cool it. If you're going to tease me about it I'll change my seat and we'll make the rest of the trip as business friends. You enjoy yourself. I'll work."

"Don't be angry, Andy. What do you think about the African situation where we're going? I mean — the Europeans did grab the best parts of the country away from the natives, didn't they? And the raw materials..."

"Politics don't interest me," Nick lied. "I suppose the natives get some benefits. Do you know the girls who are joining us at Frankfurt?"

Booty didn't She fell asleep nestled against him.

The eight additions to the group were all eye-catchers, each in her own way. Nick wondered if wealth helped good looks or if it was the good food, extra vitamins, educational polish, and expensive clothes. They changed airlines at Johannesburg, had their first looks at Africa's mountains, jungles, and endless plains of bundu, the veldt or bush country.

Salisbury reminded Nick of Tucson, Arizona, with Atlanta, Georgia's, suburbs and vegetation added. They were given an introductory tour of the city in the contractor's shiny Austins. Nick noted that the contractor-trade name for local providers of cars, guides, and travel services — brought four big men with him in addition to the seven drivers with the cars. Security?

They saw a modern city with wide streets lined with colorful, flowering trees, with plentiful parks and contemporary British architecture. Nick rode with Ian Masters, the contractor, with Booty and Ruth Crossman in the same car, and Masters pointed out sites they would revisit at leisure. Masters was a powerful man with a booming voice which fitted his curved black lancer's moustache. You expected him to roar at any moment, "Trooo-o-p. Canter. Charge!"

"Well arrange special visits to suit individuals," he said. "I'll give out checklists at the dinner tonight You mustn't miss the museum and Rhodesia National Gallery. The National Archives' galleries are very worthwhile, and the Robert Mcllwaine National Park with its game reserve — it'll prime you for Wankie. You'll want to see the aloes and cycads at Ewanrigg Park and Mazoe and the Balancing Rocks."

Booty and Ruth worked him over with questions. Nick decided they asked extra ones to hear his baritone and watch the moustache wave up and down.

The "get-acquainted" dinner, in a private dining room at their hotel — Meikles — was a thorough success. Masters brought three of the big young men with him, resplendent in dinner jackets, and the stories, drinking, and dancing lasted till after midnight. Gus Boyd distributed his attentions properly among the girls, but he danced most often with Janet Olson. Nick played the part of the correct escort, talked mostly with the eight girls who had joined them in Germany, and felt an unusual resentment at the way Masters and Booty got along. He was dancing with Ruth Crossman when the two said good night and left.

He couldn't help wondering — all the girls had separate rooms. He sat glumly with Ruth in a lounge divan with whiskey-soda nightcaps. Only brunette Teddy Northway was still with them, dancing snugly with one of Masters' men named Bruce Todd, a bronzed youth who was a local soccer star.

"She'll take care of herself. She likes you."

Nick blinked, looked at Ruth. The dark girl spoke so rarely you forgot she was with you. He looked at her. Without the dark-rimmed glasses her eyes had the misty, unfocused gentleness of the nearsighted — and made her grave, even features quite beautiful. You thought of her as quietly lovely — never disturbing — not to be disturbed?

"Who?" Nick asked.

"Booty, of course. Don't pretend. She's on your mind."

"The girl I'm with is on my mind."

"Okay, Andy."

He escorted her up to her room in the east wing, paused in the doorway. "I hope you had a nice evening, Ruth. You dance very well."

"Come in and close the door."

He blinked again and obeyed. She turned off one of the two lamps the maid had left on, pulled wider the drapes that gave them a view of the city's lights, and poured two Cutty Sarks and added soda without asking him if he wanted a drink. He stood admiring the two double beds, on one of which the covers had been neatly turned down.

She handed him a glass. "Sit down, Andy. Take off your jacket if you're warm."

He slowly removed his pearl-gray dinner jacket and she hung it matter-of-factly in a closet and sauntered back to stand in front of him. "Are you just going to stand there all night?"

He took her slowly in his arms, looking into the misty brown eyes. "I guess I should have told you before," he said, "you're beautiful when you open your eyes wide."

"Thank you. Lots of people forget to look."

He kissed her and discovered her firm-looking lips were astonishingly soft and pliable, her tongue bold and shocking amid little gusts of woman-and-alcohol breath. She molded her trim body against him and after a moment one padded thighbone and leg-and-knee fitted him like a jigsaw-puzzle fragment inserted in the correct slot.

Later, as he removed her bra and admired the magnificent body extended on the smooth white sheet, he said, "The damn fools shouldn't, Ruth. And please forgive me"