The file ended.
”Well,” Kit said heavily. “What do you make of that?” “Five hundred is a lot of money to demand for that information. Something’s going on here.”
Kit called up a map of Mozambique and replaced the video scenes on his office wall with the chart of southern Africa. “Mozambique…” he mused. “That’s hell and gone from anything useful. And in 1542 there wouldn’t have been any European exploration of the interior. Nothing out there but Shona and Bantu on the high veldt and San nomads in the Kalahari.”
”And the Venda-Lemba Semitic groups of the eastern Transvaal,- Malcolm added. “They were isolated until 1898 for God’s sake.’
”So why would Ripley demand so much money for this information?” Kit glanced up. “I wonder what Phil Jones has been up to lately?”
”I think we ought to find out.”
”Agreed. You want to tackle him or shall I?”
Malcolm managed the first smile Kit had seen out of him in weeks. “You’re too conspicuous, Kit. Everybody knows you’re looking for traces of Margo. l’ll follow that little weasel, see what he’s up to, who he’s hanging out with these days.”
Kit nodded. “Sounds good. I’ll give Bull a call. He’s trying to find out who else might be missing.”
Malcolm left while Kit dialed the phone.
The station manager apologized when he came on the line. “I’ve been meaning to call you this morning, except that Pteranodon sternbergi of Sue’s got sick, then we had an emergency with the water filters and … Oh, hell, you’re not interested in my problems. Only a couple of people I can’t account for, but they’re interesting.’