Wilbur Smith - B4 The Leopard Hunts In Darkness

by B4 The Leopard Hunts In Darkness(Lit)

  "You know that I have been up in the eastern highlands for the last ten days. What I didn't tell you is that I am running a leopard study in the mountains for the Wildlife Trust. I have people working for me in most of the jeopardy areas of the forest.

  AVe are counting and mapping the ties of the recording their litters and kills, trying territo cats to estimate the effect of the new human influx on them a that sort of thing which me to one o my men.

  He is a marvellously smelly old Shangane poacher, he must be eighty years old and his youngest wife is seventeen and presented him with twins last week. He is a complete rogue, with a tremendous sense of humour, and a taste for Scotch whisky two tots of Glenlivet and he gets talkative.

  We were up in the Vumba mountains, just the two of us in camp, and after the second tot he let it slip that he had been offered two hundred dollars a leopard-skin. They would take as many as he could catch, and they would supply the steel spring traps. I gave him another tot, and learned that the offer had come from a very well-dressed young black, driving a government Land Rover. My old Shangane told the man he was afraid that he would be arrested and sent to gaol, but he was assured that he would be safe. That he would be under the protection of one of the great chiefs in Harare, a comrade minister who had been a famous warrior in the bush war and who still commanded his own private army." There was a hard cardboard folder on the camp-bed.

  Sally-Anne fetched it and placed it in Craig's lap. Craig opened it. The top sheet was a full list of the Zimbabwe Cabinet. Twenty-six names, each with the portfolio set out beside it.

  "We can narrow that down immediately very few of the Cabinet did any actual fighting," Sally-Anne pointed out. "Most of them spent the war in a suite at the Ritz in London or in a guest dacha on the Caspian Sea." She sat down on the cushion beside Craig, reached across and turned to the second sheet.

  "Six names." She pointed. "Six field commanders." still too many," Craig murmured, and saw that Peter Fungabera's name headed the six.

  "We can do better," Sally-Anne agreed. "A private army.

  That must mean dissidents. The dissidents are all Matabele. Their leader would have to be of the same tribe." She turned to the third sheet. On it was a single name.

  "One of the most successful field commanders. Matabele.

  Minister of Tourism, and the Wildlife Department comes under him. It's an old chestnut, but those set to guard a treasure, are too often those who loot it. It all fits." Craig read the name aloud softly, "Tungata Zebiwe," and found that he didn't want it to be true. "But he was with me in the Game Department, he was my ranger-"

  "As I said, the keepers have more opportunity to despoil than any other."

  "But what would Sam do with the money? The master poacher must be coming millions of dollars. Sam lives a very frugal life, everybody knows that, no big house, no expensive cars, no gifts for women nor privately owned land no other expensive indulgences."

  "Except, perhaps, the most expensive of all," Sally-Anne demurred quietly. Tower." Craig's further protestation died unuttered, and she nodded. "Power. Don't you see it, Craig? Running a private army of dissidents takes money, big, big money." Slowly the pattern was shaking itself into place, Craig admitted. Henry Pickering had warned him of an approaching Soviet-backed coup. The Russians had supported the Matabele ZIPRA faction during the war, so their candidate would almost certainly be Matabele.

  Still Craig resisted it, clinging to his memories of the man who had been his-friend, probably the finest friend of his entire lifetime.

  He remembered the essential decency of the man he had then known as Samson Kumalo, the mission-educated Christian of integrity and high principles, who had resigned with Craig from the Game Department when they svspected their immediate superior of being involved in 4*poaching ring. Was he now the master poacher himself? The man of fine compassion who had helped Craig when he was crippled and broken to take his single possession, his yacht, with him when he left Africa. Was he now the power-hungry plotter?

  "He is my friend, "Craig said.

  "He was. But he has changed. When last you saw him, he declared himself your enemy," Sally' Anne pointed out.

  "You told me that yourself." Craig nodded, and then suddenly remembered the search of his deposit box at the hotel by the police on high orders. Tungata must have suspected that Craig was an agent of the World Bank, would have guessed that he had been detailed to gather information on poaching and power-plotting all that could have accounted for his unaccountably violent opposition to Craig's plans.

  "I hate it," Craig muttered. "I hate the idea like hell, but I think that you just may be right."

  "I am sure of it."

  "What are you going to do?"

  "I'm going to Peter Fungabera with what evidence I have." "He will smash Sam," Craig said, and she came back quickly, "Tungata is evil, Craig, a despoiler!" He is my friend." He was your friend," Sally' Anne contradicted him. "You you don't know what don't know what he has become happened to him in the bush. War can change any human being. Power can change him even more radically."

  "Oh God, I hate it." "Come with me to Peter Fungabera. Be there when I put the case against Tungata Zebiwe." Sally'Arme took his hand, a small gesture of comfort.

  Craig did not make the mistake of returning her grip.

  "I'm sorry, Craig." She squeezed his fingers. 11 truly am," she said, and then she took her hand away again.

  eter Fungabera made time for them in the early morning, and they drove out together to his home in the Macillwane Hills.

  A servant showed them through to the general's office, a huge sparsely furnished room that overlooked the lake and had once been the billiard room. One wall was covered with a blown-up map of the entire territory. It was flagged id with multi-coloured markers. There was a long table under the windows, covered with reports and despatches and parliamentary papers, and a desk of red African teak in the centre of the uncarpeted stone floor.

  Peter Fungabera rose from the desk to greet them. He was barefooted, and dressed in a simple white loin-cloth tied at the hip. The bare skin of his chest and arms glowed as though it had been freshly oiled, and the muscles moved beneath it likea sackful of living cobras. Clearly Peter Fungabera kept himself in a warrior's peak of fighting condition.

  "Excuse my undress," he smiled as he came to greet them, "but I really am more at ease when I can be completely African." There were low stools of intricate carved ebony set in front of the desk.

  "I will have chairs brought," Peter offered. "I have few white visitors here."

  "No, no." Sally-Anne settled easily on one of the stools.

  "You know I am always pleased to see you, but I am due in the House at ten -hundred hours-" Peter Fungabera hurried them.

  "I'll come to it without wasting time," Sally-Anne" agreed. "We think we know who the master poacher is." Peter had been about to seat himself at the desk, but now he leaned forward I'with his fists on the desktops and his gaze was sharp and dhnanding.

  "You said I had trily to give you the name and you would smash him," Sally-Anne reminded him, and Peter nodded.

  "Give it to me," he ordered, but Sally-Anne related her sources and her deductions, just as she had to Craig. Peter Fungabera heard her out in silence, frowning or nodding thoughtfully as he followed her reasoning. Then she gave her conclusion, the last name left on her list.

  "Comrade Minister Tungata Zebiwe," Peter Fungabera repeated softly after her, and at last he sank back onto his own chair and picked up his leather, covered swa-wer-stick from the desk. He stared over Sally-Anne's head at the map-covered wall, slapping the baton into the rosy pink palm of his left hand.

  The silence drew out until Sally-Anne had to ask, "Well?" Peter Fungabera dropped his gaze to her face again.

  "You have chosen the hottest coal in the fire for me to pick up in my bare hands," he said. "Are you sure that you have not been influenced by Comrade Zebiwe's treatment of Mr. Craig Mellow?"

  "That is unwor
thy," Sally-Anne told him softly.

  "Yes, I suppose it is." Peter Fungabera looked at Craig.

  "What do you think?"

  "He was my friend, and he has done me great kindness."

  "That was once upon a time," Peter pointed out. "Now he has declared himself your enemy."

  "Still I like and admire him."

  "And yet-?" Peter prodded gently.

  "And yet, I believe Sally-Anne may be on the right spoor' Craig conceded unhappily.

  Peter Fungabera stood up and crossed the floor silently to stand before the vast wall-map.

  "Me whole country is a under-box," he said, staring at the coloured flags. "The Matabele are on the point of a rebellion. Here! Here! Here! Their guerrillas are gathering in the bush." He tapped the map. "We have been forced to nip the plotting of their more irresponsible leaders who were moving towards armed revolt. Nkomo is in forced retirement, two of the Matabele Cabinet members have been arrested and charged with high treason. Tungata Zebiwe is the only Matabele still in the Cabinet. He commands enormous respect, even outside his own tribe, while the Matabele look upon him as their only remaining leader. If we were to touch him-2

  "You are going to let him go!" Sally-Anne said hopelessly. "He will get away with it. So much for your socialist paradise. One law for the people, another for the-"

  "Be silent, woman," Peter Fungabera ordered, and she obeyed.

  He returned to his desk. "I was explaining to you the consequences of hasty action. Arresting Tungata Zebiwe could plunge the entire country into bloody civil war. I didn't say that I would not take action, but I certainly would do nothing without proof positive, and the testimony of independent witnesses of impeccable impartiality to support my actions." He was still staring at the map across the room. "Already the world accuses us of planning tribal genocide against the Matabele, while all we are doing is maintaining the rule of law, and searching for a formula of accommodation with that warlike, intractable tribe. At the moment Tungata Zebiwe is our only reasonable and conciliatory contact with the Matabele, we cannot afford to destroy him lightly." He paused, and Sally Anne broke her silence.

  "One thing I have not mentioned, but which Craig and I have discussed. If Tungata Zebiwe is the poacher, then he is using the profits to some special end. He gives no visible evidence of extravagance, but we know there is a connection between him and dissidents." Peter Fungabera's expression had set hard, and his eyes were terrible. "If it's ZeNwel I'll have him he promised himself more than h&. "But when I do, I'll have proof for the world to see and he will not escape me."

  "Then you had best move pretty damned quickly," Sally Anne advised him tartly.

  t23 r ell, you've picked a good time to sell." The Tyacht,broker stood in Bawu's cockpit and ! looked nautical in his double-breasted blazer and marine cap with golden anchor device seven hundred dollars from Bergdorf Goodman. His tan was even and perfect sunlamp at the N.Y. Athletic Club. There was a fine web of wrinkles around his piercing blue eyes not from squinting through a sextant nor from tropical suns on far oceans and coral beaches, Craig was certain, but from perusing price-tags and cheque figures.

  "Interest rates right down people are buying yachts again.

  It was like discussing the terms of a divorce with a lawyer, or the arrangements with a funeral director. Bawu had been part of his life for too long.

  "She is in good nick, all tight and shipshape, and your price is sensible. I'll bring some people to see her tomorrow "Just make sure I'm not here, "Craig warned him.

  J understand, Mr. Mellow." The man could even sound like an undertaker.

  she Levy also sounded like an undertaker when Craig telephoned. However, he sent an office messenger down to the marina to collect the first three chapters Craig had completed in Africa. Then Craig went to lunch with Henry Pickering.

  "It really is good to see you." Craig had forgotten how much he had grown to like this man in just two short meetings.

  "Let's order first," Henry suggested, and decided on a bottle of the Grands Ech6zeaux.

  "Courageous fellow," Craig smiled. "I am always too afraid to pronounce it in case they think I am having a sneezing fit."

  "Most people have the same reluctance. Must be why it is the least known of the world's truly great wines keeps the price down, thank God." Appreciatively they nosed the wine and gave it the attention it deserved. Then Henry set his glass down.

  "Now tell me what you think of General Peter Fungo, hera," he invited.

  "It's all in my reports. Didn't you read them?"

  "I read them, but tell me just the same. Sometimes a little thing may come out in conversation that just didn't get into a report."

  "Peter Fungabera is a cultivated man. His English is remarkable his choice of words, his power of expression but it all has a strong African accent. In uniform he looks likea general officer in the British army. In casual clothes he looks like the star of a T! series, but in a loin-cloth he looks what he really is, an African. That's what we tend to forget with all of them. We all know about Chinese inscrutability, and British phlegm, but we seldom consider that the black African has a special nature "There! Henry Pickering murmured smugly. "That wasn't in your reports. Go on, Craig."

  "We think them sloxy'-moving by our own bustling standards, and we do not realize that it is not indolence but the deep consideration they bring to any subject before acting. We consider them simple and direct when really they are the most secretive and convoluted of people, more tribally clannish than any Scot. They can maintain a blood feud over a hundred years, like any Sicilian-" Henry Pickering listened intently, prodding him with a leading question only when he slowed. Once he asked, "Something that I still find a little confusing, Craig the subtle difference between the term Matabele, Ndebele and Sindebele. Can you explain?"

  "A

  Frenchman calls himself a Francais, but we call him a Frenchman. A Matabele calls himself an Ndebele, but we call him a Matabele."

  "Ah" Henry nodded, "and the language he speaks is Sindebele, isn't itr "That's right. Actually the word Matabele seems to have acquired colonial connections since independence " Their talk ranged on easily, relaxed and free-flowing, so that it was with a start of surprise that Craig realized that they were almost the last party left in the restaurant and that the waiter was hovering with the bill.

  "What I was trying to say," Craig concluded, "is that colonialism has left Africa with a set of superimposed values. Africa will reject them and go back to its own."

  "And probably be the happier for it," Henry Pickering finished for him. "Well, Craig, you have certainly earned your wage. I'm truly pleased that you are going back. I can see that you will soon be our most productive field agent in that theatre. When do you return?"

  "I only came to New York to pick up a cheque." Henry Pickering laughed that delightful purring laugh of his. "You hint with a sledgehammer I shudder at the ect of a direct demand from you." He paid the bill prosp and stood up. "Our house lawyer is waiting. First you sign away your body and soul and then I give you drawing rights up to the total of five million dollars." The interior of the limousine was silent and cool, and the suspension ironed out most of the trauma of the New York street surfaces.

  "Now enlarge on Sally-Anne Jay's conclusions regarding the head of the poaching ring," Henry invited.

  "At this stage, I don't see any alternative candidate for the master poacher, perhaps even the leader of the dissidents." Henry was silent for a moment. Then he said, "What do you make of General Fungabera's reluctance to act?"

  "He is a prudent man, and an African. He will not rush in. He will think it out deeply, lay his net with care, but when he does act, I think we will all be surprised at how devastatingly swift and decisive it will be."

  "I would like you to give General Fungabera. all the assistance you can. Full co-operation, please, Craig."

  "You know Tungata was my friend."

  "Divided loyalty?"

  "I

  don't t
hink so, not if he is guilty."

  "Good! My board is very happy with your achievements so far. I am authorized to increase your remuneration to sixty thousand dollars per annum."

  "Lovely," Craig grinned at him. "That will be a big help on the interest payment on five million dollars." t was still light when the cab dropped Craig at the gates of the marina'. The smog of Manhattan was transformed by the low angle of the sun to a lovely purple mist which softened the grim silhouettes of the great towers of concrete.

  As Craig stepped on the gangplank, the yacht dipped slightly under his weig4', and alerted the figure in the cockpit.

  "Ashe! Craig was taken by surprise. "Ashe Levy, the fairy princess of struggling authors."

  "Baby." Ashe came down the deck to him with a landlubber's uncertain steps. "I couldn't wait, I had to come to you right away."