Wilbur Smith - B4 The Leopard Hunts In Darkness

by B4 The Leopard Hunts In Darkness(Lit)

  In a reflex action, Craig threw himself to one side, likea basket-ball player intercepting a pass, and he got a hand to the flying case, deflecting it aside so that it missed the open doorway and clattered against the bulkhead. He dived for it and hugged it to his chest.

  "This must be a very interesting piece of goods," he observed mildly, as he stood up. "I'd watch that one, Sam, he is as tricky as he is beautiful, he advised.

  Lugging the case, Craig made his way forward and clambered up into the raised cockpit. He dropped into the co-pilot's seat next to Sally-Anne, and shrugged out of the pack that contained the diamonds. He wedged it securely beside the seat.

  "So you can fly this damned thing, after all, bird lady!" She grinned at him, her teeth very white in her blackened face.

  "I'm heading back towards the pan where we left the Land-Rover." "Good thinking how's the fuel?"

  "One tank full, the other three quarters we have plenty in hand." Craig placed the attache case in his lap and checked the locks. They were combinations.

  "How long to the border? "he asked.

  "We are making 170 knots, less than two hours better than walking home, isn't it?"

  "My oath!" Craig grinned back at her.

  With his claspknifelie ripped out the combination locks and opened the lid of the attache case. On top there were two spare shirts and a ball of socks, a bottle of Russian vodka half full, a cheap wallet containing four passports, Finnish, Swedish, East German and Russian, airline tickets for Aeroflot.

  "Well-travelled gentleman!" Craig unscrewed the top of the vodka bottle and took a swig. "Brrr!" he said. "That's the real stuff!" He passed the bottle to Sally-Anne and lifted the shirts. Under them were three green-covered folders, they were stamped with Cyrillic lettering and black hammer and sickle crests.

  "Russian, by God! The man is a Bolshie!" He opened the top folder and his interest quickened.

  "It's typed in English!" He read the top page, and became gradually immersed in the contents. He did not even look UP when Sally-Anne asked, What's it say?" He skimmed through the first file and then the other two. Twenty-five minutes later he looked up with a stunned bemused expression and stared unseeingly through the windshield.

  "I can hardly believe it," he shook his head. "They were so damned sure of themselves. They even typed it out in clear English for Peter Fungabera's benefit. No attempt at concealing it. They didn't even bother to use code names."

  "What is it?" Sally-Anne glanced sideways at him.

  "It just boggles the mind." He took another mouthful of vodka. "Sam has got to read these!" He stood up and balancing against the lurch of the helicopter, he dropped down into the hold and hurried back to Tungata.

  Tungata and Sarah sat opposite the two hostages.

  Tungata had used the spare seat-belts to truss them securely at wrist and ankles. Peter Fungabera seemed to have recovered a little, and he and Tungata were glaring at each other, arguing with the acrimony and deadly concentration of mortal enemies.

  "Cool that! Craig dropped onto the bench beside Tungata.

  "Give me the Uzi." Craig took it from him. "Now read what is in here!" He placed the attach.6 case on Tungata's lap.

  "Delighted to meet you, Colonel Bukharin," Craig said pleasantly. "You must be happy to be missing the Moscow winter?" He pointed the Uzi at his belly.

  "I am a senior member of the diplomatic corps of the United Soviet-"

  "Yes, Colonel, I have read your visiting card." Craig indicated the files. "On the other hand Colonel, am a desperate fugitive quite capable of doing you a serious injury if you don't shut up." Then he turned to Peter Fungabera. "I do hope you are looking after King's Lynn properly, remembering to wipe your feet and all that?"

  "You escaped me once, Mr. Mellow," Peter Fungabera said softly. "I don't make the same mistakes twice." And despite the gun in his hands and the fact that Peter was trussed up likea sacrificial goat, Craig felt a chilly little breeze of fear down his spine and he could not go on holding the smouldering gaze of hatred with which Peter Fungabera. fixed him. He glanced sideways at Tungata.

  He was skimming quickly through the green files, and as he read his expression changed from disbelief to outrage.

  "Do you know what this is, Pupho?"

  "It's a blueprint for bloody revolution," Craig nodded, written out in plain English, obviously for the benefit of Peter Fungabera."

  "Everything they cover everything. Look at this. The lists of those to be executed they spell out the names and those who can be relied on to collaborate. They have even prepared the radio and television announcements for the day of the coup!"

  "Page twenty-five," Craig suggested. "Check that." Tungata turned to it. "Me-" he read on. "Sent to a clinic in Europe, mind-bending treatment, the mindless traitor, to lead the Matabele peoples into perpetual slavery' Yes Sam, you were the pivot on which the whole operation turned. When Fungabera lost you in the cavern when he dynamited the grand gallery he admitted defeat. just look at him now." However, Tungata was no longer listening. He dumped the attache case and its contents back on Craig's lap and leaned forward until his face was a foot from Fungabera's.

  He thrust forward that craggy lantern jaw and slowly his eyeballs glazed over with the reddish sheen of rage.

  "You would sell this land and all its peoples into a new slavery, into an imperialism that would make the rule of Smith's regime appear benign and altruistic by comparison? You would condemn your own tribe, and mine and all the others madness-" In his rage, Tungata was becoming incoherent. "A rabid dog, crazy with the lust for power." Suddenly he roared, involuntarily giving vent to his anguish and hatred and outrage. He hurled himself at Peter Fungabera and seized the wide nylon strap that bound him.

  With the other hand he unclipped the huge Shana's seat, belt and jerked him off the bench. With the strength of a wounded buffalo bull, he swung him bodily across the hold towards the square open port in the fuselage.

  "Mad dog!" he roared, and before Craig could move, he had thrust Peter Fungabera backwards through the opening.

  Craig tossed the Uzi to Sarah and sprang to Tungata's side. Tungata had been dragged to his knees by the weight of Peter Fungabera's body and he was clinging with one arm to the jamb of the doorway. With the other hand he still had a grip on the strap around Peter's chest.

  Peter Fungabera dangled outboard. His hands were strapped helpless, his neck twisted back so that he stared up into Tungata's face above him. The fierce brown hills of Africa lay two thousand feet below him, the black stone crests bared like the teeth of a man-eating shark.

  "Sam, wait!" Craig screamed above the wind, roar and the deafening beat of the engine.

  fly

  "Die, you treacherous murderou&-2 Tungata roared, down into Peter Fungabera's upturned face.

  Craig had never seen such naked terror as that in Peter Fungabera's dark eyes. His mouth was wide open and the wind blew his spittle over his lips in silver strings, but no sound came from his throat.

  "Wait, Sam," Craig screamed, "don't kill him. He is the only one who can clear you, can clear all of us. If you kill him you'll never be able to live in Zimbabwe again-" Tungata rolled his head sideways and stared at Craig.

  "Our only chance to clear ourselves!" The red glaze of rage began to fade from Tungata's eyes, but the muscles stood out in his arms from the effort of holding Peter Fungabera's body against the whip and buffet of the wind.

  "Help me!" he grated, and in one movement Craig snatched the safety-belt, pulling it off the inertia reel, and buckled it around his own waist. He dropped belly-down on the deck, hooked his ankles around the base of the bench and reached down and out to get a double grip on the nylon strap. Between them they lifted Peter Fungabera back into the port, and his legs were so rubbery with terror that they could not bear his weight when he tried to stand.

  Tungata hurled him backwards across the cabin, and Peter hit the rear bulkhead. He slid down it and rolled onto his side, pulling up his knees into t
he foetal position, and under the crushing eight of defeat and capitulation he moaned quietly an covered his head with both arms.

  Craig climbed unsteadily up into the cockpit, and sank into the co-pilot's seat.

  "What the hell is happening?" Sally' Anne demanded.

  "Nothing serious. I only just managed to stop Sam killing Peter Fungabera."

  "Why did you bother?" Sally-Anne raised her voice above the clatter of the rotors overhead. "I'd love a shot at that swine myself."

  "Darling, can you get a radio connection to the United States Embassy in Harare?" She thought about it. "Not from this aircraft." "Give them the registration of the Cessna, I'll lay odds it hasn't been reported missing yet."

  "I'll have to go through Johannesburg approach, they're the only station with sufficient range."

  "I don't care how just get Morgan Oxford on the blower." Johannesburg approach radio responded promptly to Sally-Anne's call and accepted her call-sign with equanimity.

  t "Report your position, Kilo Yankee Alpha."

  "Northern Botswana--2 Sally-Anne anticipated by an hour's flying time, "en route Francistown to Maun."

  "What is the number you wish to connect in Harare?" "Person,to-person with the cultural attache, Morgan Oxford, at the United States Embassy. I'm sorry, I don't know the number."

  "Hold on." And in less than a minute Morgan Oxford spoke through the static.

  "Oxford here. Who is this?" Sally-Anne passed the microphone to Craig and he held it to his lips and depressed the transmit button.

  "MOrgan, it's Craig, Craig Mellow."

  "Holy shid" Morgan's voice became strident. "Where die hell are you? All hell is breaking out. Where is Sally Anne

  "Morgan, listen. This is deadly serious. How would you like to interrogate a full colonel of Russian intelligence, complete with his files of planned Russian aggression in and destabilization of the southern half of the African continent?" There was nothing but the hum of static for many seconds and then Morgan said, "Wait ten!" The w air seemed much longer than ten seconds, and then Morgan came back.

  "Don't say anything else. just give me a rendezvous point." "These are map references-" Craig read off the map coordinates that Sally' Anne had scribbled down for him. "There is an emergency landing, strip there. I will light a signal fire. How long for you to get there?"

  "Wait ten! "This time it was shorter. "Dawn tomorrow." 'llnderstood,"Craig acknowledged. "We will be waiting."

  "Over and out." He handed the microphone back to Sally-Anne.

  "Border crossing in forty, three minutes," she told him.

  "That mud pack suits you. I'm beginning to think it's an improvement."

  "And you, beautiful, are a racing certainty for the cover of Vogue!" She blew the hair off her nose and stuck her tongue out at him.

  hey crossed the border between Zimbabwe and Northern Botsw asa and seventeen minutes later they saw the kired Land-Rover standing exactly where they had left it on the edge of the wide white salt pan

  (my God, Sarah's buddies are still there that's constancy for you." Craig made out the two tiny figures standing beside the vehicle. "We'd better warn them, or when they see die government markings they are going to start shooting." Sarah called down to the waiting Matabele through the sky-shout" loud hailer as they approached, reassuring them, and Craig saw them lower their rifles as the Super Frelon sank lower. He could make out the beatific grins on the upturned faces of the two young Matabele.

  Jonas had shot a spring buck that morning, so there was a feast of broiled venison steaks and salted maize cakes that evening, and afterwards they drew lots for guard duty over the two prisoners.

  They first heard the drone of an approaching aircraft when it was still pearly half-light the next morning, and Craig drove out onto the pan in the Land-Rover to light the smudge fires. It came in from the South, an enormous Lockheed cargo plane with US Air Force markings. Sally Anne recognized it. "That is the NASA machine based at Johannesburg to monitor the shuttle programme."

  "They are really taking us seriously," Craig murmured, as the Lockheed lowered itself to earth.

  "It has amazing short take-off and landing capability," Sally-Anne told him. "Just watch." The gigantic aircraft pulled up in the same distance that the Cessna had used. The nose section opened like the bill of a pelican and five men came down the ramp, led by Morgan Oxford.

  "Like five sardines from a can," Craig observed, as they went forward to greet them. The visitors all wore tropical t.

  suits, white shirts with button, down collars and neckties and they all moved with athletes" balance and awareness.

  "Sally-Anne. Craig." Morgan Oxford shook hands tOf briefly, and then acknowledged Tungata. course, I know you, Mr. Minister, these are my colleagues." He did not introduce them, but went straight on, "Are these the subjects?" The two young Matabele brought the prisoners forward at gunpoint.

  "Son of a gun!" Morgan Oxford exclaimed. "That's General Fungabera Craig, are you out of your mind?"

  "Read what is in here." Craig proffered the attache case.

  "And then you tell me."

  "Wait here, please." Morgan accepted the case.

  Jonas and Aaron led the two captives towards the aircraft and the Americans came forward to receive them.

  Peter Fungabera was still bound at the wrists with the nylon straps from the helicopter. He seemed to have shrunk in physical stature, he was no longer an impressive debonair figure. The cloak of defeat weighed him down.

  His skin had a grey tone and he did not lift his eyes as he came level with Tungata Zebiwe.

  It was Tungata who reached out and seized his jaw in one hand, pressing his fingers into his cheeks, forcing his mouth open and twisting his head up so he could look into his face. For long seconds he stared into Peter Fungabera's eyes, and then contemptuously he pushed him away, so that Peter staggered and might have fallen had not one of the Americans steadied him.

  "At the bottom of nearly every bully and tyrant lurks a coward," Tungata said in that deep rumbling voice. "You did right when you stopped me killing him, Pupho, a clean drop from the sky is too good for the likes of him. He goes now to a juster fate. Take him out of my sight, for he sickens me to the gut." Peter Fungabera and the Russian were led into the interior of the Lockhee4'and Craig and his party settled down to wait. It wasoa long wait. They sat in the shade thrown by the Land-Rover and chatted in a desultory distracted fashion, breaking off every now and then as the squawk and warble from the radio in the Lockheed carried to where they sat.

  "They're talking to Washington," Craig guessed, "via satellite." It was after ten o'clock before Morgan came down the ramp again, accompanied by one of his colleagues.

  IT his is Colonel Smith," he told them and the way he said it, he didn't mean to be taken literally. "We have appraised the items you have delivered to us, and we conclude, at this stage, anyway, that they are genuine."

  "That's very generous of you," Craig deadpanned.

  "Minister Tungata Zebiwe, we would be very grateful if you could spare us a deal of your valuable time. There are persons in Washington very anxious to talk to you. It will be to our mutual benefit, I assure you."

  "I would like this young lady to accompany me. "Tungata indicated Sarah.

  "Yes, of course." Morgan turned to Craig and Sally, Anne. "In your case it's not an invitation, it's an order you're coming with us." "What about the helicopter, and the Land-Rover?" Craig asked.

  "Don't worry about them. Arrangements will be made to have them returned to their rightful owners." hree weeks later, at the United Nations building, a file was handed to the head of the Zimbabwe delegation. It contained excerpts from the three green files, and transcripts of the debriefing of General Peter Fungabera by persons unnamed. The file was rushed to Harare, and as a direct result an urgent request was made by the Zimbabwe government for the repatriation of General Fungabera. Two senior inspectors of the Zimbabwe police Special Branch flew to New York to escort the genera
l home.

  When the Pan Am flight landed at Harare, General Fungabera descended the boarding staircase from the firstclass section of the Boeing handcuffed to one of the police inspectors. There was a closed van waiting on the tarmac.

  There was no media coverage of his return.

  He was driven directly to Harare central prison, where sixteen days later he died in one of the interrogation cells.

  His face, when his corpse was spirited out of the rear entrance to the main prison block, was so altered as to be unrecognizable.

  A little after midnight that same night, a ministerial black Mercedes went off the road at speed on a lonely stretch of country road outside the city and burst into flames. There was one occupant. By his dental bridgework, the charred body was identified as that of General Peter Fungabera, and five days later he was buried wid-i full military honours in "Heroes" Acre', the cemetery for the patriots of the Chimurenga on the hills overlooking Harare.