'Station a frigate at Possession. That would plug the gap.'
'How long do you think Doodenstadt's secret would stay a secret if I did that? Every trawler and every island headman would start asking, 'What's new? What's a frigate up to? Another big diamond strike to protect?" The buzz would spread like a veld fire. No, a warship would be the surest way to advertise a lost city. Besides, how effective would it be? You know that bloody Sperrgebiet weather – a gale twenty days a month. And the fog: every day there's that damn fog. Every day there's half an extra smuggler's night thrown in gratis. You can't win. You know yourself you can't operate a big ship like a frigate round Possession. There's no sea room and the reefs are thicker than pock-marks on a Hottentot's face.'
'A brace of fast patrol boats would do the trick.'
'Logistically sound; but, economically and ecologically, crap. Possession's one of the most important guano islands. Disturb the birds with high-powered boats' engines and they'll push off. No guano, no white gold.'
'We're playing verbal skittles. I pot 'em up, you knock ' em down.'
'You're the only skittle that can't be knocked down.' '
What the hell do you mean?'
`The "lost city" game must be played cards dose to the chest There must be security until Koch has time to sort out what really gives. But security with a difference: it mustn't seem to be security. What's needed is a one-man outfit – you.'
' M e
For reply, he spoke into the intercom. 'Send in Dr Koch? Koch was a tall, rangy Austrian with slicked-back hair and a pair of humorous grey eyes behind horn-rimmed glasses. He didn't look much older than me,
'This is our man, Koch.'
`Hotfoot from Circe and her wine, eh?' (It was the first flash of a sense of fun I came to know well; that, and his total dedication to his work: the investigation of sea-shore middens belonging to Strandlopers-'Seashore Walkers' – who were a vanished Stone Age race of Sperrgebiet nomads.) The way he said it turned me on. 'Gigi,' I corrected. 'Her name was Gigi.'