Warren Murphy: Slave Safari

"A jackal howled three times last night," announced Obode. "Now to you Oxford and Cambridge people, it is nothing. And I'm sure it is nothing at some fancy United Nations office where all they have to do is worry about the air conditioning staying on. But this American here, this Butler, who has come home to his rightful land, he thinks it is something and he is CIA formerly. Now all of you have heard of the Central Intelligence Agency. It is not Oxford. It is not Cambridge. It is not the United Nations."

"It is a vicious, dangerous organization, Mr. President," said the chairman of the council who was a Hausa. "It will stop at nothing to achieve its ends."

"Right," said General Obode. "Therefore we can have some respect for it. And this former CIA man tells me a jackal howling at night is something strange. What do you think?"

While Obode spoke, Butler looked down at the floor, his left fingers twisting a ring he wore on his right hand, a ring fashioned of miniature golden chain links.

It was the consensus of the council that the howling jackal was definitely strange. The strangest thing they had ever heard of.

"Not the strangest thing," said General Obode angrily. "A strange thing. We will investigate CIA style." He dismissed the council with a wave of his hand. Seven of them, while leaving, caught Colonel Butler's eye with a conspiratorial look, the look one gives a partner one trusts when there is really nothing to talk about. Obode summoned the captain of the palace guard who was a Hausa, and whose hatred of Butler fairly oozed as he entered the president's quarters and saw the American there. The captain had also heard the jackal last night, and he had arrested a lieutenant for imitating the animal, just to intimidate the president.

"From the Loni," said the captain, looking at Butler. "This lieutenant was a Loni and he was the jackal."

"Let us see this jackal," said General Obode. When the captain of the guard left, Obode explained his logic to Butler. Jackals did not live in the palace. Soldiers did. Therefore the jackal was a soldier.

"I don't think so," said Colonel Butler.

"What is your rank, Butler?"

"Colonel, Mr. President."

"And what is my rank?"

"General, Mr. President."

"Did they teach you discipline in your CIA?"

"They did."

"Then you know that when a colonel disagrees with a general, a general is right." Big Daddy clapped his hands gleefully.

"No, Mr. President, they taught me that the general gets his way. But any man can be right."

Obode frowned a deep dark frown. He summoned Butler's ear forward with a finger.

"When I want logic, Butter, I'll ask for it," he said.

"The lieutenant is innocent though," whispered Butler, hearing the captain again approach the door.

"Maybe he is, maybe he isn't. He could be the jackal."

"He's not," Butler said. "I am the jackal."

Obode leaned back and stared at Butler. "You want to die, Colonel?"

"No, Mr. President, I want your life saved. I brought the jackal into the palace last night to root out your enemies. If I put the jackal there, whoever says he found a man to be the jackal is a liar. The captain of your guard is a liar. He knows that you want to bring the Loni into the government, and so he is trying to destroy your plan by accusing the Loni lieutenant of a crime he did not commit. You see your enemy? He is as far away as the captain."

Obode did not look up at the captain who was now approaching the President's chair. Intrigue was afoot

Butler looked at the captain, who returned his look with loathing. Butler winked. The captain had been one of the few men close to Obode who did not agree with Butler that Obode was a lunatic whose continued rule would make Busati a worldwide joke. Because the captain did not agree with Butler, the captain was dangerous to Butler. But how he had overplayed his hand.

The captain stood in front of Obode with a hand on the shoulder of a thin man, wearing the tattered remnants of a lieutenant's uniform. The man's legs and wrists were in heavy gray irons. His mouth was a blotch of blood. A tooth stuck out through his lower lip.

"He has confessed that he is the jackal, General," said the captain.

"A confession is a confession," said Obode. "That is logic and the CIA style of investigation is logic, so the man is guilty. But I will ask him myself."

Obode looked up at the lieutenant, who had to be continually jerked upright by the captain of the guards,

"Are you the jackal?"

Drops of dark red blood fell to the clean marble floor at the man's feet, building a puddle, splattering fault rays of red around it as each drop hit. The man, his eyes swollen almost shut, nodded and the puddle became bigger.

Butler twisted the gold chain ring on his right hand.

"Guilty," said Obode. The captain smiled.

"Set up a firing squad," said Obode. "I will personally administer the executions" He clapped his hands, the man was led away, and servants rushed in with rags and water to clean the blood off the palace floor.

Big Daddy took care of the Libyan Ambassador in three minutes. He confided to the Ambassador that Israel was planning a raid on the Busati plain and he needed $85 million more in gold reserves to repel it. When the Libyan ambassador appeared somewhat dubious, Big Daddy wistfully remembered the fine training he had personally received from the Israeli paratroopers and how he longed to wear again the wings he had earned at such a high personal cost. He also reminded the Ambassador that he was the only leader of a nation to publicly say to the foreign press that Hitler had been right. That was worth at least $85 million right there. The Libyan 'Ambassador timidly suggested that Big Daddy had been paid for that already, but finally agreed to ask his glorious revolutionary leader, Colonel Quadaffi, for the funds.

"Don't ask—tell," said Obode and that Jook care of the Libyan Ambassador.

"We'll get $25 million," Obode told Butler-when the Ambassador had left. "Better than nothing. I can't wait for their oil to dry up. They smell funny. Who's next?"

"The journalist, Remo Mueller, from America. The one who wrote the favorable piece about you," said Butler.

"I'll see him tomorrow."

"You've been saying that for three days."

"I'll say that for three days more. We have an execution for me to administer. But first I wish to see the jackal you say you brought into the grounds."

"Will you still execute the lieutenant?"

"I said there would be an execution. I cannot go back on my word," said Obode.

The salutes along the corridors by the guards were crisp and rigid, a perfection of discipline that could only be imposed by the best of British sergeants major.

As they walked down steps to a small cell beneath the palace, Obode asked Butler how things were at the white house with the iron gate.

"Just fine, Mr. President. Your soldiers who use it bless your name continuously. You should pay it a visit yourself."

Obode sneered and shook his head.

"You don't like white women, General?"

"You don't have to put them in chains to bang them. I will tell you, Colonel, that before you came I had white women. I had yellow women. I had Hausa women and Loni women. I had old women and young women, fat women and skinny women, women who smelled of perfume and women who smelled of dung. Colonel Butler," said Obode, pausing before an iron door to which Butler had the key, "there isn't a spit's difference between any of them. And your adventures to get young rich American girls costs too much, and may yet get us into trouble with your American government."

"But, General, isn't it fitting that the greatest soldiers of the great leader of a great country, get the very best?"

"Best of what? Queen Elizabeth or the lowest bush tribe whore. Same thing."