Wilbur Smith - B4 The Leopard Hunts In Darkness

by B4 The Leopard Hunts In Darkness(Lit)

  They lolled on the cushions, drank the coffee, played Beethoven's Fifth on the tape, and talked of Africa. Once or twice she made passing reference to his book, showing that she had read it with attention.

  "I've got an early start tomorrow-" at last she reached across and took the empty mug out of his hand. "Good night, Craig."

  "When can I see you again?"

  "I'm not sure, I'm flying up into the highlands early tomorrow. I don't know how long." Then she saw his expression and relented. "I'll call you at the Mono when I get back, if you like?"

  "I

  like."

  "Craig, I'm beginning to like you as a friend, perhaps, but I'm not looking for romance. I'm still hurting just as long as we understand that," she told him as they shook hands at the door of the apartment.

  Despite her denial, Craig felt absurdly pleased with himself as he drove back to the Monomatapa. At this stage he did not care to analyse too deeply his feelings for her, nor to define his intentions towards her. It was merely a pleasant change not to have another celebrity boffer trying to add his name to her personal scoreboard.

  Her powerful physical attraction for him was made more poignant by her reluctance, and he respected her talents and accomplishments and was in total sympathy with her love of Africa and her compassion for its peoples.

  "That's enough for now," he told himself as he parked the Volkswagen.

  The assistant manager met him in the hotel lobby, wrin ing his hands with anguish, and led him through to his office.

  "Mr. Mellow, I have had a visit from the police special branch while you were out. I had to open your deposit box for them, and let them into your room."

  "God damn it, are they allowed to do that?" Craig was outraged.

  "You don't understand, here they can do whatever they like," the assistant manager hurried on. "They removed nothing from the box, Mr. Mellow I can assure you of that."

  "Nevertheless, I'd like to check it," Craig demanded grimly.

  He thumbed through his travellers" cheques and they tallied. His return air-ticket was intact, as was his passport but they had been through the "survival kit" that Henry Pickering had provided. The gilt field assessor's identification badge was loose in its leather cover.

  Ino could order a search like this?" he asked the assistant manager as they relocked the box.

  "Only someone pretty high up."

  "Tungata Zebiwe," he thought bitterly. "You vicious, nosy bastard how you must have changed." raig took his report of his visit to Tuti Rehabilitation Centre for Henry Pickering up to the embassy, and Morgan Oxford accepted it and offered him coffee.

  J might be here a longer time than I thought," Craig told him, 'and I just can't work in an hotel room."

  "Apartments are hell to find," Morgan shrugged. "I'll see what I can do." He phoned him the next day. "Craig, one of our girls is going home on a month's vacation. She is a fan of yours, and she will sub-let her flat for six hundred dollars. She leaves tomorrow." The apartment was a bed-sitter, but it was comfortable and airy. There was a broad table that would do as a writing, desk Craig set a pile of blank Typer bond paper in the centre of it with a brick as a paper-weight, his Concise Oxford Dictionary beside that and said aloud: "Back in business." He had almost forgotten how quickly the hours could pass in never-never land, and in the deep pure joy of watching the finished sheets of paper pile up at the far end of the table.

  Morgan Oxford phoned him twice during the next few days, each time to invite him to diplomatic parties, and each time Craig refused, and finally unplugged the telephone. When he relented on the fourth day and plugged the extension in again6, the telephone rang almost immediately.

  "Mr. Mellow." Itwas an African voice. "We have had great difficulty finding you. Hold on, please, for General Fungabera." "Craig, it's Peter." The familiar heavy accent and charm.

  "Can we meet this afternoon? Three o'clock? I will send a driver." Peter Fungabera's private residence was fifteen miles out of town on the hills overlooking Lake Macillwane. The house had originally been built in the 1920s by a rich remittance man, black sheep younger son of an English aircraft manufacturer. It was surrounded firstly by wide verandas and white fretwork eaves and then by five acres of lawns and flowering trees.

  A bodyguard of Third Brigade troopers in full battle dress checked Craig and his driver carefully at the gate before allowing them up to the main house. When Craig climbed the front steps, Peter Fungabera. was waiting for him at the top. He was dressed in white cotton slacks and a crimson short-sleeved silk shirt, which looked magnificent against his velvety black skin. With a friendly arm around Craig's shoulders, he led him down the veranda to where a small group was seated.

  "Craig, may I introduce Mr. Musharewa, governor of the Land Bank of Zimbabwe. This is Mr. Kapwepwe, his assistant, and this is Mr. Cohen, my attorney. Gentlemen, this is Mr. Craig Mellow, the famous author."

  They shook hands. "A drink, Craig? We are drinking Bloody Marys."

  "That will do very well, Peter." A servant in a flowing white kanza, reminiscent of colonial days, brought Craig his drink and when he left, Peter Fungabera said simply, "The Land Bank of Zimbabwe has agreed to stand as your personal surety for a loan of five million dollars from the World Bank or its associate bank in New York." Craig gaped at him.

  "Your connection with the World Bank is not a particularly closely guarded secret, you know. Henry Pickering is well known to us too Peter smiled, and went on quickly.

  "Of course, there are certain conditions and stipulations, but I don't think they will be prohibitive." He turned to his white attorney.

  "You have the documents, Izzy? Good, will you give Mr. Mellow a copy, and then read through them for us, please."

  VP

  Isadore Cohen adjusted his spectacles, squared up the thick pile of documents on the table in front of him and began.

  "Firstly, this is a land purchase approval," he said.

  "Authority for Craig Mellow, a British subject and a citizen of Zimbabwe, to purchase a controlling interest in the land-owning private company, known as Rholands (Pry) Ltd. The approval is signed by the state president and countersigned by the minister of agriculture." Craig thought of Tungata Zebiwe's promise to quash that approval and then he remembered that the minister of agriculture was Peter Fungabera's brother-in-law. He glanced across at the general, but he was listening intently to his lawyer's recitation.

  As he came to each document in the pile, Isadore Cohen read through it carefully, not omitting even the preamble, and pausing at the end of each paragraph for questions and explanations.

  Craig was so excited that he had difficulty sitting still and keeping his expression and voice level and businesslike. The momentary panic he had felt at Peter's sudden mention of the World Bank was forgotten and he felt like whooping and dancing up and down the veranda: Rholands was his, King's Lynn was his, Queen's Lynn was his, and Zambezi Waters was his.

  Even in his excitation there was one paragraph that rang with a hollow note with Isadore Cohen read it out.

  "What the hell doe that mean enemy of the state and the people of Zimbabuk?" he demanded.

  "It's a standard clause in all our do cum ntation," Isadore Cohen placated him, "merely an expression of patriotic sentiment. The Land Bank is a government institution. If the borrower were to engage in treasonable activity and was declared an enemy of the state and people, the Land Bank would be obliged to repudiate all its obligations to the guilty party."

  lit

  "Is that legal?" Craig was dubious, and when the lawyer reassured him, he went on, "Do you think the lending bank will accept that?" "They have done so already on other contracts of surety," the bank governor told him. "As Mr. Cohen says, it's a standard clause."

  "After all, Craig," Peter Fungabera smiled, "you aren't intending to lead an armed revolution to overthrow our government, are you?" Craig returned his smile weakly. "Well, okay, if the American lending bank will accept that, then I suppose it m
ust be kosher." The reading took almost an hour, and then Governor Musharewa signed all the copies, and both his assistant and Peter Fungabera witnessed his signature. Then it was Craig's turn to sign and again the witnesses followed him, and finally Isadore Cohen impressed his seal of Commissioner of Oaths on each document.

  "That's it, gentlemen. Signed, sealed and delivered."

  "It only remains to see if Henry Pickering will be satisfied." 40h, did I forget to mention it?" Peter Fungabera grinned wickedly. "Governor Kapwepwe spoke to Pickering yesterday afternoon, 10 a.m. New York time. The money will be available to you just as soon as the surety is in his hands." He nodded to the hovering house servant. "Now you can bring the champagne." They toasted each other, the Land Bank, the World Bank, and Rholands Company, and only when the second bottle was empty did the two black bankers take reluctant leave.

  As their limousine went down the drive, Peter Fungabera took Craig's arm. "And now we can discuss my raising fee. Mr. Cohen has the papers." Craig read them, and felt the blood drain from his face.

  "Ten per cent," he gasped. "Ten per cent of the paid, up shares of Rholands."

  "We really must change that name." Peter Fungabera frowned. "As you see, Mr. Cohen will hold the shares as my nominee. It might save embarrassment later." Craig pretended to re-read the contract, while he tried to muster a protest. The two men watched him in silence.

  Ten per cent was robbery, but where else could Craig go?

  Isadore Cohen slowly unscrewed the cap of his pen and handed it to Craig.

  "I think you will find a cabinet minister and an army commander a most useful sleeping partner in this enterprise," he said, and Craig accepted the pen.

  "There is only one copy." Craig still hesitated.

  "We only need one copy," Peter was still smiling, "and I will keep it." Craig nodded.

  There would be no proof of the transaction, shares held by a nominee, no documentation except in Peter Fungabera's hands. In a dispute it would be Craig's word against that of a senior minister but he wanted Rholands. More than anything in his life, Craig wanted Rholands.

  He dashed his signature across the foot of the contract and on the other side of the table the two men relaxed visibly and Peter Fungabera called for a third bottle of champagne.

  p to now; "Craig had needed only a pen and a pile of paper, and time had been his to squander or use as the fancy led him.

  Suddenly, he was faced with the enormous responsibility of ownership and time telescoped in upon him. There was so much to do and so little time to do it that he felt crippled with indecision, appalled by his own audacity, and despairing of his own organizational skills.

  He wanted comfort and encouragement, and he thought immediately of Sally-Anne. He drove around to her apartment, but the windows were closed, the mail overflowed her box, and there was no answer to his knock.

  He returned to the bed-sitter, sat at his table and pulled a blank sheet from the pile and headed it, "Work to be done," and stared at it.

  He remembered what a girl had once said of him. "You have only done one thing well in your life. "And writing a book was a far cry from getting a multi-million, dollar ranching company back on its feet. He felt panic rising within him and crushed it back. His was a ranching family he had been raised with the ammoniac al smell of cow dung in his nostrils, and had learned to judge beef on the hoof when he was small enough to perch up on Bawu's saddle, pommel likea sparrow on a fence pole.

  "I can do it he told himself fiercely, and began to work on his list. He wrote: 1) Ring Jock Daniels. Accept offer to purchase Rholands.

  2) Fly to New York.

  a) World Bank meeting.

  b) Open checking account and deposit funds.

  C) Sell Bawu.

  3) Fly ZUrich.

  a) Sign share purchase.

  b) Arrange payment to sellers.

  His panic began to subside. He picked up the telephone and dialled British Airways. They could get him out on the Friday flight to London, and then Concorde to New York.

  He caught Jock Daniels in his office. "Where the hell you been?" He could hear Jock had made a good start on the evening's drinking.

  "Jock, congratulations you have just made yourself twenty, five grand commission," Craig told him and enjoyed the stunned silence.

  Craig's list began to stretch out, ran into a dozen pages: 39) Find out if Okky van Renshurg is still in the country.

  Okky had been the mechanic on King's Lynn for twenty years. Craig's grandfather had boasted that Okky could strip down a John Deere tractor and build up a Cadillac and two Rolls-Royce Silver Clouds from the spare parts.

  Craig needed him.

  Craig laid down his pen, and smiled at his memory of the old man. "We are coming home, Bawu," he said aloud.

  He looked at his watch and it was ten o'clock, but he knew he would not be able to sleep.

  He put on a light sweater and went out to walk the night streets, and an hour later he was standing outside Sally-Anne's apartment. His feet had made their own way, it seemed.

  He felt a little tingle of excitement. Her window was open and her light burning.

  "Who is it?" Her voice was muffled.

  "It's me, Craig. "There was a long silence.

  "It's nearly midnight."

  "It's only just eleven and I have something to tell you."

  "Oh, okay door * unlocked." She was in her' dark-room. He could hear the splash of chemicals.

  "I'll be five minutes, she called. "Do you know how to make coffeeP When she came out, she was dressed in a sloppy cable knit jersey that hung to her knees and her hair was loose on her shoulders. He had never seen it like that, and he stared.

  "This had better be good," she warned him, fists on her hips.

  "I've got Rholands "he said, and it was her turn to stare.

  "Who or what is Rholands?"

  "The company that owns Zambezi Waters. I own it. It's mine. Zambezi Waters is mine. Is that good enough?" She started to come to him, her arms rising to embrace him, and he mirrored the movement, and instantly she caught herself and stopped, forcing him to do the same.

  They were two paces apart.

  "That's marvelous news, Craig. I am so happy for you.

  How did it happen? I thought it was all off."

  "Peter Fungabera arranged a surety for a loan of five million dollars."

  "My God. Five million. You're borrowing five million?

  How much is the interest on five million?" He had not wanted to think about that. It showed on his face, and she was immediately contrite.

  "I'm sorry. That was insolent. I'm truly happy for you.

  We must celebrate-"Quickly she moved away from him.

  In the cabinet in the kitchenette, she found a bottle of Glenlivet whisky with an inch left in the bottom and added it to the steaming coffee.

  "Here's success to Zambezi Waters," she saluted him with the mug. "Now first tell me all about it and then I've got news for you also." Until after midnight he elaborated his plans for her: the development of the twin ranches in the south, the rebuilding of the homestead and the restocking with blood cattle, but mostly he dwelt upon his plans for Zambezi Waters and its wildlife, knowing that that was where her interest would centre.

  "I was thinking I'd need a woman's touch in planning and laying out the camps, not just any woman, but one with an artistic flair and a knowledge and love of the African bush."

  "Craig, if that is meant to describe me, I'm on a grant from the World Wildlife Trust, and I owe them all my time."

  "It wouldn't take up much time," he protested, "just a consultancy. You could fly up for a day whenever you could fit it in." He saw her weaken. "And then, of course, once the camps were running, I'd want you to give a series of lectures and slide, shows of your photographs for the guests- I and he saw that he had touched the right key.

  Likeany artist, she relished an opportunity to exhibit her work.

  "I'm not making any promises," she told hi
m sternly, but they both knew she would do it, and Craig felt his new burden of responsibility tighten appreciably.

  "You said you had news for me," he reminded her at last, grateful for the chance to draw the evening out further.

  But he was not prepared for her sudden change to deadly seriousness.

  "Yes, I've got news," she paused, seemed to gather herself, and then went on, "I have picked up the spoor of the master poacher"

  "My God! The bastard who wiped out those herds of jumbo? That is real news. Where? How?"