by Wilbur Smith
They walked on without speaking until they reached the gate of the compound, and then Nicholas whispered softly: 'I wish I could stay here at Tercio with you always." Ramsey pretended he had not heard him, but he found it difficult to draw his next breath.
The signals clerk woke him ten minutes after midnight. It needed only a light tap on the door of the hut for Ramsey to come fully awake with the Tokarev pistol in his hand.
"What is it?" 'A Red Rose relay from Moscow,' the clerk answered him. They had strict instructions to call him at any time of day or night for a Red Rose communication.
"I will come immediately." The message was in code, and Ramsey fetched his copy of the code-pad from the steel safe. They used a 'one-time' pad, a separate code randomly generated by computer for each sheet. He and Red Rose had the only existing copies of the pad, and used a single sheet for each message.
He matched her sheet and began to decode the message.
"Project is code-named Skylight,' the message read. 'First subterranean test of thirty-megaton fission device scheduled October twenty-sixth. Test site located 27*35'S 24'25'E. Full specifications of device on hand." Ramsey sent his driver to the main ANC camp upriver, and Raleigh Tabaka was in his office within forty minutes.
"We must leave for London immediately,' Ramsey told him as Raleigh read the message. 'This is too important to co-ordinate from here. We will orchestrate through the London embassy and the ANC office in the UK." Ramsey smiled with quiet satisfaction. 'We will have the Boers on the mat in front of the Security Council before the week is out. Once again, they have played right into our hands." He woke Nicholas to say goodbye to him.
"When will you come back, Padre?' the child asked bravely, hiding any sign of distress.
"I don't know, Nicky.' Ramsey used the diminutive of his name for the first time, and it sat awkwardly on his tongue.
"You will come back, won't you, Padre?" 'Yes, I will come back. I promise you that." 'And you will let me and Adra stay here at Tercio? You won't send us away?" 'Yes, Nicky. You and Adra will stay here." "Thank you. I am glad,'said Nicholas. 'Goodbye, Padre."
They shook hands solemnly, and then Ramsey turned away quickly and ran down the steps to the waiting jeep.
Preventing the Skylight test was of secondary importance. It was almost three years since they had first learnt of the South African plans to build a nuclear bomb, and Ramsey knew that by now they had a viable weapon.
However, a nuclear weapon had very little practical application in the type of bush war that was typically African.
What was of primary importance was to isolate South Africa even further from its last remaining support in the Western world. Already a political pariah, this was an opportunity that he had waited for, to brand her a nuclear rogue into the bargain.
They met in the ambassador's safe room in the cellar of the Soviet embassy.
The embassy was set in that intimate diplomatic enclave behind Kensington Palace.
Both General Borodin and Aleksei Yudenich had flown in from Moscow. Their presence gave weight to the deliberations. It underlined both the foreign ministry's and the KGB's renewed interest in the African section, and gave Colonel-General Machado tremendous personal prestige.
The Africans were represented by Raleigh Tabaka and the secretary-general of the ANC. Oliver Tambo, the president of the ANC, was on an unofficial visit to East Germany and could not return to London in time for the meeting.
There was a great deal of urgency, for the South Africans were due to test Skylight within the coming week. Red Rose had reinforced her initial despatch with quite extensive information concerning the enriching of the uranium, the specifications of the actual bomb, its projected delivery in the new G5 artillery round, the position and depth of the test-hole and the ignition system that would be used to detonate the bomb.
"What we have to decide today,' Yudenich opened the discussion, 'is how best to use this information."
"I think, comrade,' the secretary-general of the ANC cut in eagerly, "that you should allow us to call a press conference here in London." Ramsey's lips curled into a small cynical smile. Of course they wanted it.
What a blaze of publicity the ANC would bring down upon itself.
"Comrade Secretary-General,'Yudenich smiled broadly,, 'I think the announcement would carry a little more weight if it were to be made by the president of the USSR, rather than the president of ANC.' His tone was heavy with sarcasm. Yudenich didn't like blacks.
In private, before this meeting, he had remarked to Ramsey that it was a pity that they had been obliged to invite the 'monkeys' rather than deciding the issue between civilized human beings. 'It is difficult to bring one's mind down to their level,' he had chuckled. 'But, then, you have had much experience with them, Comrade. Should I have brought a packet of nuts for them, do you think?" Ramsey sat aloof from the discussion for nearly twenty minutes. The voices of both Yudenich and the secretarygeneral were becoming louder and more strained. It was Borodin who at last suggested mildly: 'Should we perhaps ask Comrade General Machado's views? His source provided the information perhaps he has ideas how best to take advantage of it." They all looked down the table at him, and Ramsey had his reply prepared.
"Comrades, all that you have said has good sense and reason. However, if either the ANC or the president of the USSR breaks the news it will be a one-day sensation. I believe that to extract the most benefit we should draw out the process. We should release a few scraps of information at a time, and allow interest to build up over a protracted period-" They looked thoughtful, and Ramsey went on.
"I also believe that if we break it ourselves, either through Moscow or through the ANC, it will be looked upon as biased or at least highly prejudiced information. I think we should give the news to the most powerful voice in America to spread for us.
The voice that governs the United States - and, through it, the Western world." Yudenich looked confused. 'Gerald Ford? The President of the United States?" 'No, Comrade Minister. The news media. The true government of America. In their single-minded obsession with the freedom of speech, the Americans have created a dictatorship more powerful than anything we can devise. Let us give this to the American television networks. We make no announcements, we hold no press conferences. We simply give one of them a mere whiff of the scent, show them the tracks of the hare, and let them hunt it down and tear the animal to pieces themselves. You know well how it works; like a pack of hounds their excitement and their blood lust will be more thoroughly aroused if they believe that the prey is theirs alone. They call it "investigative journalism" and give prizes to the ones who do most damage to their government, their allies and to the capitalist system that supports them." Yudenich stared at him a little longer before he began to chuckle. 'I hear that in Africa they call you the Fox, Comrade General." "The Golden Fox,'Borodin corrected him, and Yudenich burst into full-throated laughter.
"I see you merit your name, Comrade General. Let the Americans and the British do our work for us once again."
The total success of the Skylight operation reaffirmed Red Rose's-worth a hundredfold, but brought with it its own problems.
The more valuable Red Rose became, the more skilfully and carefully she must be controlled. Every possible precaution had to be taken to protect and guard her in the field, and to give her incentive to continue. She must be rewarded immediately for Skylight and given access to Nicholas as soon as reasonably possible. However, this again was complicated by Ramsey's own changing attitude towards his son.
He was determined that these sickly bourgeois sentiments which recently had intruded on his sense of purpose must never be allowed to interfere with his duty. He knew that, if necessary, given the right circumstances, he must be ready to sacrifice Nicholas, just as he was completely resigned to laying down his own life if duty dictated it.
Until that day, however, Nicholas must never be placed in any position of danger. Especially there must never be the least possibilit
y of Red Rose or any other person laying hands on the boy and removing him from Ramsey's custody.
He considered once again arranging the next access at the hacienda in Spain. This would mean moving from Tercio; that involved a degree of risk, a very small degree, but a certain risk none the less. It was just possible that Red Rose - say, with the assistance of South African agents might succeed in spiriting the child to the British embassy in Madrid. He knew that Red Rose possessed a British passport and dual nationality. Spain was no longer secure enough to satisfy Ramsey.
Of course, he could arrange the meeting in either Havana or Moscow. This entailed considerable logistical problems in getting Red Rose to those locations. It would also reveal to her beyond any doubt who were her ultimate masters. He wanted to avoid that if at all possible.
The most secure location outside Cuba or Russia was Tercio base on the Chicamba river. It was remote and heavily guarded. There was no foreign embassy within a thousand miles. Nicholas was already installed there. Red Rose could be brought in with very little inconvenience. Once she was at Tercio she would be more completely under his control than in any other place on this earth.
Tercio it would have to be.
Isabella came fully awake with a guilty start. For a moment she did not know where she was or what had woken her. Then she remembered, and realized that it was the change in the sound of the Ilyushin's engines and the canting of the deck beneath her that had woken her. Despite her best intentions, she had fallen asleep in the uncomfortable jump-seat.
She glanced quickly at her wristwatch. Two hours fifty minutes since take-off from Lusaka.
She lifted herself slightly in her seat and checked the instrument-panel over the pilot's shoulder. They were still on the same heading, but they were beginning their descent. The altimeter began to unwind steadily.
She looked ahead through the windscreen of the cockpit. It was late afternoon and hazy, but suddenly the low sun flashed on a large body of water ahead.
Lake? she thought, and searched her memory for one that large. The African lakes all lay along the Great Rift Valley, thousands of miles in the opposite direction. Then suddenly it occurred to her.
"The Atlantic! We have reached the west coast.' She reassembled the map of Africa in her mind. 'Angola or Zaire, or the Enclave." The Candid banked on to an approach heading. The undercarriage whined and vibrated as it was lowered. Ahead she saw white coral beaches, and the shape of the reefs beneath the blue Atlantic waters.
There was a river mouth, with a low surf breaking on the bar and a deeper serpentine channel crawling into the lagoon. The river was broad and brown, but not large enough to be one of the major African drainages, not the Congo nor the Luanda river. She tried to memorize every detail. A few miles above the lagoon the river formed a distinctive ox-bow, a double S. Dead ahead was a long red clay landing-strip, and she made out the thatched roofs of a large settlement in the bend of the river beyond it.
The Candid touched down and taxied to the far end of the strip. As the pilot shut down the engines, a convoy of 34e trucks trundled out to surround it. She saw many armed men in camouflage and combat fatigues.
"Wait,' the pilot told her. 'Men come fetch.
Two officers entered the flight-deck. One was a major. They were both swarthy and wore moustaches. They were dressed in camouflage with no insignia apart from their badges or rank.
South Americans, she thought. Or Mexicans. And this was confirmed when the major addressed her in Spanish.
"Welcome, sehora. You will please come with us." 'My suitcase.' She indicated her luggage with all the hauteur she could muster, and the major snapped an order at his junior. The lieutenant carried her baggage down the ramp and loaded it into a waiting truck.
They drove her in silence for twenty minutes, passing the barbed-wire stockade beyond which stood the thatched buildings she had first seen from the air. There were armed guards at the gate. They followed a single track, and she caught glimpses of the river through the trees. The track became progressively softer and sandier, and she guessed that they were headed towards the river mouth and the sea.
They reached another smaller stockade. The gate was guarded, but they were allowed to pass straight through. The huts were thatched, but seemed smaller and neater than the others she had seen. There were nine of them along the edge of the beach.
As she stepped down from the truck she looked around her. It was a pretty spot, and reminded her of one of the brochures for a Club Mdditerrande holiday - sea, sand, palms and thatched huts.
The major escorted her politely into the largest hut, and as soon as Isabella saw the two uniformed females who were waiting to meet her she felt her flesh crawl. She remembered the degrading deep body-search that had been inflicted on her on the previous occasion.
Her fears were without substance. The two young women were almost apologetic as they searched her suitcase and handbag. They patted her down, but did not force her to undress for a body-search.
There was minor consternation when they discovered her camera. It was a small 'Swinger' type Kodak. They discussed it with obvious alarm, and Isabella resigned herself to losing it.
"It is of no value,' she told them in Spanish. 'You may take it if you wish." In the end, one of the women took the camera and the two spare rolls of film and disappeared with them through the door at the back of the room.
Ramsey was watching through the peep-hole in the wall as the two women signallers conducted the search. He had ordered them to behave with circumspection and not to give unnecessary offence, so he nodded with approval when one of them came through and handed him the camera and film.
He examined them quickly but thoroughly. He exposed a single frame to ensure that the trigger mechanism functioned and that the film wound on properly. Then he nodded and handed the camera back to the woman.
Isabella was surprised and obviously pleased when it was returned to her.
Through the peep-hole, Ramsey studied her expression with interest. She had grown her hair longer, and her features had matured and become stronger.
She was even more poised and self-possessed than she had been when last he had seen her in Spain. She carried authority and success well, and he reminded himself of her considerable achievements and the high place that she had carved for herself in a few short years.
She had obviously kept herself in top physical condition. She was slim and fit-looking. Her legs and arms under the short cotton blouse and Bermuda shorts were tanned and shapely. Her muscle tone was as taut as that of a professional athlete. He considered her objectively and he thought that she was probably one of the three or four physically most attractive women of the hundreds he had known. He was highly pleased with her. She was in large measure responsible for his own career success.
The two women finished the search and repacked and closed Isabella's suitcase. One of them picked it up and asked Isabella to follow her. She took her to the end of the compound to a gate in the screen fence made of dried palm-fronds. Isabella found herself in a small enclosure that contained only two huts.
The woman led her to the nearest of these and ushered her into a single large living-room, with a mosquito-netted bed in a side-alcove. She deposited the suitcase on the bed and left Isabella alone.
Isabella explored quickly. There was a shower-room and earth toilet at the rear. All very bucolic but more than adequate for her needs. It reminded her of one of Sean's hunting camps in the Chizora concession.
She began unpacking her suitcase. There were hangingspace and shelves behind a curtain, but before she could finish the chore a sound carried to her through the open window overlooking the beach.
It was a sound that pierced her soul, the high joyous shout of a child that she would have recognized wherever or whenever she heard it.
She rushed to the window.
Nicholas was on the beach. He wore only bathing-trunks, and at first glance she saw that he had grown inches since their last meeting in Spai
n.
He had a puppy with him, a black and white spotted mongrel with a thin muzzle and a long whippy tail. Nicholas was holding a stick out of reach as he raced along the water's edge, and the puppy gambolled and leapt beside him trying to reach the stick. Nicholas was shrieking with laughter, and the puppy yapped hysterically.
