Wilbur Smith - C07 A Time To Die

by C07 A Time To Die(Lit)

  Without headlights, the column drove the last mile to the juncture with the main road. The scouts they had sent ahead whistled that the road was clear, and they raced forward and swung onto the meta led surface, heading westward toward the border.

  As soon as they were safely onto the highway, they switched on the headlights, dropped their speed to fifty kilometers an hour, andadjuste( t spacing to tie ter in erva S. To an observer they were just another Zimbabwean mechanized patrol.

  "So far, so good," Job called over the back of the seat to where Sean was hiding.

  "What's the time?"

  "Seven minutes past eight."

  "Perfect. We'll hit the border post just after ten, when the guards are thinking of going off duty."

  The hundred kilometers to the border seemed much further. The metal floorboards of the cab were corrugated and cut into Sean's buttocks, transferring the impact of every pothole in the neglected highway up his spine into his skull.

  "Get under the tarp! Border post ahead!" Job called at last.

  "Not too bloody soon," Scan assured him as the truck slowed and overhead floodlights flooded the cab. Sean pulled the tarpaulin over his head and sank down as low as he could below the seat back.

  He felt the truck brake and trundle to a halt. Job switched off the engine and opened the door of the cab. "Wish me luck," he muttered as he stepped down from the cab.

  Neither of them knew what to expect. The border formalities must surely be relaxed to accommodate the interchange of troops guarding the railway line. Job was dressed for the part and in possession of a genuine army pay book and ID. The truck's registration papers were likewise genuine. Yet they could be compromised by some small, unforeseen detail or by an alert border guard.

  If anything went wrong, Job would give a single long blast on his whistle and they would shoot their way out. All the rifles and rocket launchers were loaded, and the RPD machine guns on the cabs were manned.

  As the minutes drew out, Sean's nerves stretched tighter. He expected at any moment to hear the shrilling of Job's whistle and shouting and gunfire.

  At last there was the crunch of footsteps on gravel and the voices of Job and a stranger approaching the truck. Both doors of the cab opened, and Sean tried to shrink himself as the truck tipped slightly under the weight of more than one man climbing aboard.

  "Where do you want me to drop you of!?" Job asked casually in Shana, and a voi&. Sean had never heard before replied, "At the edge of town.

  III tell you where."

  Sean turned his head a stealthy inch and through the gap between the seats saw the blue serge cloth of a customs inspector's uniform. With horror he realized that Job was giving an off-duty inspector a lift into Umtali.

  The truck pulled forward, and the inspector lowered the side window and shouted to the guards on the barrier.

  "It's all right, open!" As they accelerated ahead, Sean had a glimpse of the raised barrier through the window. He had to cover his mouth to prevent himself laughing aloud with relief and triumph.

  On the back of the Unimog, the troopers seemed infected by the same reckless spirit of abandon. They were singing as the column wound down the hill to the town of Umtali. Job was casually discussing with the customs inspector the merits of the Stardust Night Club and the price of a short time with one of the bar girls.

  "Tell Bodo, the Barman at the Stardust, that you are a friend of mine," the inspector advised Job when they dropped him off on the outskirts of the town. "He'll get a special price for you and tell you which of the girls have the clap and which ones are clean."

  As they pulled away, Sean could at last crawl out behind the seat and slump gratefully into the passenger seat. "What the hell kind of trick was that?" he complained. "You damn near gave me a hernia."

  "What better way to get V.I.P treatment," Job chuckled, "than to have the head of the customs service as a pal? You should have seen the guards at the border saluting us!"

  "Where is this nightclub?"

  "Not far. We'll be there before eleven."

  They drove in silence for a few minutes while Sean rehearsed the next order he had to give. He waited until Job turned the truck into a dimly lit side street and switched off the engine. In the side mirror, Sean watched the other two Unimogs pull in behind them, cut their engines, and switch off their headlights.

  "Back home again," Job chuckled. "Nothing to it."

  Back home," Sean agreed. "And back home is where you are going to stay."

  T" here was a long silence. Then Job turned his head and looked at Sean thoughtfully.

  "What do you mean by that?"

  "This is the end of the road for us, Job. You aren't coming to Grand Reef, you aren't hijacking any Stingers, and you sure as hell aren't coming back to Mozambique with me."

  You're firing me?" Job asked.

  "That's it, pal. I've got no more use for you."

  Sean took a small wad of Zimbabwean dollars, part of the oney General China prov an o to "Get rid of that uniform as soon as you can.

  If they catch you in it, they'll shoot you. Take the next train back to Harare and go see Reerna at the office. She's holding about four thousand dollars in back pay and bonus for you. That will be enough to tide you over until Capo Monterro's estate pays out the money it owes us. My Job ignored the proffered money. "You remember that day on Hill Thirty-oneT"

  "Shit, Job, don't pull that sob stuff on me."

  "You came back for me," Job said.

  "Because sometimes I'm just a bloody fool."

  "Me too." Job smiled. "Sometimes I'm just a bloody fool."

  "Listen, Job, this is not your shauri anymore. There is nothing in it for you. Get out. Go back to your village, buy yourself another couple of pretty young wives with Capo's dollars. Sit in the sun and drink a few pots of beer."

  "Nice try, Sean. Pity it didn't work. I'm coming back with you."

  "I'm giving you a direct order."

  "I'm refusing to obey it. So convene a court-martial."

  Sean laughed and shook his head. "She's my woman, so it's okay for me to risk my life."

  "I've been nursemaiding you for almost twenty years, and I'm not giving up now," Job said. He opened the cab door. "Let's go and find Cuthbert in his Superman suit."

  Sean left his cap and tunic on the seat; the insignia of a famous regiment would be out of place in a cheap nightclub. The Stardust was at the end of the lane in a converted furniture factory, a barnlike building with all its windows blacked out. They could bear the music from a hundred paces out, the hypnotic repetitive beat of new wave African jazz.

  Women were clustered around the entrance. In the overhead light their dresses were as colorful as butterfly wings. Their hairstyles were flocculent Afros or the intricate beaded dreadlocks of the Rastafarians, their faces were painted into death masks of ds like iguana rouge and purple lipstick with iridescent green eyeli lizards.

  They swarmed around Sean and Job, rubbing themselves against them like cats.

  "Hey man, get me in!" they lDleaded. "Give me five dollars to get in, darling, I'll dance with Y'O and jig-jig, man. Everything."

  "Come on, whitqyj" A child with a tender, immature body in a shiny dress of cheap nylon, the face of a black Madonna, and ancient weary eyes, seized Sean's arm. "Take me with you and I'll give you something you've never had before." S re the front of Sean's body and cupped her hand to fondle him. Sean took her wrist and restrained her.

  "What have you got that I've never had before, sweetheart?

  AID ST They pushed their Way through the rustling nylon skirts and lawyers will handle that. You will be entitled to half of that... clouds of cheap perfume and at the door paid their five dollars.

  The doorman stamped their wrists with an indelible dye in lieu of an entrance ticket and they ducked through the black curtain.

  The music was a stunning, painful assault, the lights were revolving strobes and ultraviolet. The dance floor pulsated with humanity transformed into a s
ingle primitive organism, like some gigantic amoeba.

  "Where's the bar?" Sean bellowed into Job's ear.

  "I'm a stranger here myself." Job seized his arm and they struggled through the engulfing sea of light and sound and gyrating bodies.

  The faces around them were transported as if in a religious fervor, eyeballs rolled glaring white in the rays of the ultraviolet $ V, lamps, sweat glistened on upraised arms and streamed in rivulets down jet black cheeks.

  They reached the bar. "Don't risk the whisky!" Job yelled. "And make them open the beer in front of you."

  They drank directly from the cans, besieged in a corner of the bar with the ocean of humanity pressing hard against them.

  There were a few white faces, all male, tourists and Peace Corps and military advisors, but most of the clientele were black soldiers still in uniform so that Sean and Job blended into their surroundings.

  "Where are you, Cuthbert, in your Superman shirt?" Sean pushed away one of the more persistent bar girls and peered over the heads of the dancers. "We'll never find him in here."

  "Ask one of the harm en Job suggested.

  "Good thinking." Sean reached across and grabbed the front of the Barman's shirt to get his attention, then stuck a five-dollar bank note into his top pocket and shouted the question in his ear.

  The Barman grinned and yelled back, "Wait! I find him."

  Ten minutes later they saw Cuthbert working his way down the bar toward them, a skinny little man wearing a Superman T-shirt at least two sizes too large for him.

  "Hey, Cuthbert, anybody ever tell you that you look like Sammy Davis Junior?" Sean greeted him.

  "All the time, man." Cuthbert looked pleased. Sean had obviously picked out his pet vanity.

  "Your uncle sends his love. Can we go somewhere to talk?"

  Sean suggested as they shook hands.

  "Best place to talk is here," Cuthbert answered. "Nobody else going to hear a thing you say. Get me a beer, can't talk with a dry throat."

  Cuthbert downed half his beer at a draft and then asked, breathless from the effort, "You were supposed to be here last night.

  Where you been, man?"

  "We were delayed."

  you should have been here last night. Would have been easy, man.

  Tonight, well, tonight is different." - "What has changed?" Sean asked with a sink of dread in his chest.

  "Everything changed." Cuthbert said. "The Hercules arrived seventeen hundred hours. Come to pick up the goods."

  "Has it left yet?" Sean demanded anxiously.

  Don't know for sure. She was still there when I left the base at twenty hundred hours. Sitting out there in front of number three hangar. Perhaps she still there now, perhaps she long gone. Who knows?"

  "Thanks a lot," Sean said. "That's a great help."

  "That's not all, man." Cuthbert clearly enjoyed being the bearer of evil tidings.

  "Hit us with it, Cuthbert."

  He finished the beer in another long swallow and held up the empty can. Sean ordered another and Cuthbert waited for it, drawing out the suspense masterfully.

  "Two full para commandos of the Fifth Brigade came down from Harare in the Hercules. They real cool, those Fifth Brigade cats," Cuthbert said with relish. "They real mean dudes, no shit."

  "Cuthbert, you've been watching too much Miami Vice on television," Sean accused, but he was worried. The Fifth Brigade were the elite of the Zimbabwean Army, converted by their North Korean instructors into ruthlessly efficient killing machines. Two full para commandos of a hundred men each, added to the standing garrison of Third Brigade troops-almost a thousand crack veterans on base.

  "Your uncle says you are going to take us in, Cuthbert. Pass us through the gates."

  "No way, man!" C#thbert was vehement. "Not with those Fifth Brigade cats in there."

  "Your uncle will be pissed off with you, Cuthbert. He's a pretty al cat himself, man, Uncle China is." Sean imitated Cuthbert's co hip jargon.

  Cuthbert looked worried. "Man, I've fixed your pass," he explained hurriedly. "You'll have no trouble getting in. The guards are expecting you. You don't need me, man. No sense I should compromise myself, no sense at all."

  "You've got the pass here?"

  "Right on. The password too. You'll have no trouble."

  "Let's go." Sean took Job's arm and steered him toward the door. "That Hercules could take off any time."

  Cuthbert hurried between them down the lane to where the three Unitnogs were parked.

  "Here's the pass." He handed the plastic-covered card to Sean.

  It was slashed with a scarlet "Top Priority" cross.

  "The password is a number, "fifty-seven," and your reply is "Samara Machel." Then you show the pass and sign the book.

  Simple as a pimple, man. You in like Flynn."

  "I'll tell your uncle you couldn't bring yourself to come with US.

  "Hey, give me a break, will you? No sense me getting culled, man.

  I'm more use to my uncle alive and kicking than dead meat."

  "Cuthbert, you are wasted in signals. You definitely should be on television." Sean shook hands with him and watched him scurry back into the Stardust Club.

  There were clusters of women around the back of each of the three trucks, giggling and joking with the troopers who hung out over the tailgates. One of the girls was climbing aboard, boosted by eager hands, her miniskirt tucked up high on her long thin black legs.

  "Get those whores out of there, Sergeant," Job snapped at Alphonso. The women around the tailgates scattered and three or four others descended hastily from the backs of the Uniniogs with their skimpy clothing in varying states of disarray.

  Sean and Job climbed into the cab of the lead truck, and as they drove off Sean buttoned on his tunic and tipped his cap over one eye at a rakish angle.

  "What are we going to do?" Job asked.

  "Number three hangar at Grand Reef is in full view of the main road. We will drive up the highway. If the Hercules is still there, we go in. If not, well, we'll go back the way we came."

  "What about the Fifth Brigade?"

  "They're just a bunch of ex-gooks," said Sean. "You weren't afraid of them before, so what's changed?"

  "Just asking to pass the time." Job grinned at him sideways.

  "You want to tell Alphonso about them?"

  "What Alphonso doesn't know won't hurt him," Sean said.

  "Just keep going."

  The column of three trucks drove sedately through the sleeping town of Unitali. The streets were deserted but Job obeyed the traffic fights punctiliously, and then they were out on the open highway.

  "Twelve minutes past eleven." Sean checked his watch, then read the road sign in the beam of the headlights. "Grand Reef Military Base, fifteen kilometers."

  tightness in his stomach muscles, the short He felt the familiarness in his breath, and consciously slowed and regulated his breathing.

  It was always like this before a scene.

  "There she is," Job said softly as they topped a rise in the highway.

  The airfield was fully lit, the beacon lights glowing orange and the blue and green dotted lines of the taxiways and runway beyond them.

  In the stark white light of the floods, even at a distance of almost two miles, the Hercules looked gigantic. its forty-foot-high tail fin towered above the roof of number three hangar.

  The Royal Air Force rounders were painted on the monstrous silver fuselage and on the high tail fin, and Sean immediately that it was one of the Marshall stretched-out converrecognized of Lockheed's Hercules original C-MK3 transports made for sions the R.A.F.

  Pun over," Sean ordered. Job flicked his taillight indicators and pulled into the side of the road. He switched off his headlights, and one after the other the following Unimogs did the same.

  In the silence Sean said softly, "So the Hercules is still here. We are going in."

  "Let's do it," Job agreed.

  and ran back to the second Sean
jumped down from the cab truck just as Alphonso climbed down to the roadside.

  "Sergeant, you knoW" what to do. I'll give you forty-five minutes to get into position. Then I want exactly ten minutes of diversionary fire, everything you've got."