"Destroyer 012 - Slave Safari.pdb" - читать интересную книгу автора (Williams Remo)

"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."

"You have had Queen Elizabeth?"

"No. But if a man eats one hundred hogs, does he have to eat another to know what it will taste like?"

"I'm sorry, General, I thought you approved of what I was doing for your men." Butler twisted the gold ring on his right hand.

Obode shrugged his massive shoulders. "You wanted to have your house and your games so I let you. I like you, Butler. You are the only man on my staff who has not loyalty to one tribe or another, but is loyal just tom e. Even if you are soft on the Loni. So, I let you have . your house. Now let me see your jackal."

Butler turned the key and opened the door on an empty cell. Obode walked in and sniffed the air. Before the stunned Butler could move, Obode snapped the Colonel's revolver from his holster as if disarming a recalcitrant enlisted man.

"I put the jackal here myself. I tied it right to that wall. I wanted to show you there were liars in your guard. The jackal was here, General. What reason would I have to lie to you?"

"Outside, Butler," said Obode.

The palace courtyard was hot in the morning African sun, baking hot with' dust in the very grass itself. The captain of the guard grinned broadly when he saw the Loni-loving American Colonel go before the General with his hands up and holster empty. He winked broadly at Butler, and then turned and motioned his firing squad to kneel.

"Against the wall," said General Obode.

At the wall, Butler spun around beside the Loni officer who was chained against the wall in a standing position, but whose body hung heavy from his wrist manacles.

"You're a damned idiot, General," Butler yelled.

"When you shoot me, you shoot the best officer you have. I just want you to know that, you dumb bastard."

"You call me a dumb bastard," yelled back Obode, "but you're the one who's got his hands up against the wall."

At that, Butler laughed.

"You're right, you fat bastard, but you're still shooting the best officer you ever had."

"That's where you're wrong, skinny little man. I am going to shoot the officer who lied to me about the jackal."

The captain of the guard smiled. The firing squad behind him waited for a signal. It did not get one. There was the crack of a pistol and the captain of the palace guard was no longer smiling. There was a very dumb look on his face and a very wide dark red hole between his eyes, although few people saw it because the head was jerked back by the force of the shot. The body followed. It hit the burned grass with a whoomph and moved no more.

"So much for people who lie to me about jackals. And now for those who call me a fat bastard," said General Obode. He extended the pistol at arm's length and walked up to Colonel Butler's face.

"Don't do it again," he said to Butler and spun the pistol around, Western style, offering it handle first.