Golden Fox

by Wilbur Smith

  He dropped the shirt and ran back silently to the kitchen door. It stood open on to the orchard of scraggly insect-ravaged fruit trees. Beyond them rose the corrugated-iron roof of a large shed, and from a stubby roof-mast a sad-looking wind-sock drooped like a used condom.

  Sean darted into the orchard and dodged between the fruit trees until he reached the wall of the shed. He flattened himself against it and laid his ear to the thin corrugated galvanized sheet. Through it he heard the murmur of men’s voices, too indistinct to understand the words. He checked the revolver in his belt, making certain the butt was at hand for a quick draw, and he eased himself along the back wall of the shed towards the small green wooden door.

  Before he reached it, the door swung open and two men stepped out into the sunlight.

  Ben Afrika was good with his hands and prided himself on the quality of his workmanship. He knelt on the pilot’s seat of the Cessna Centurion aircraft and tightened the final bolts that held the twin cylinders to the deck in front of the right-hand passenger-seat.

  He had drilled the bolt-holes with care so as not to damage any of the control cables which ran under the floorboards. Of course, he could have let the cylinders lie loose on the cabin floor, but that would have offended his engineering sense. There was always a danger of air turbulence in flight that might damage the valve or the tubing. He had positioned the steel bottles so that, while in flight, either the pilot or his passenger could reach the valve-handle readily.

  The bottle that contained element A was painted in a black-and-white chequered pattern with three red rings around the middle. Element B was in a crimson bottle with a single black ring. Each bottle was stamped with its unique serial number.

  It had taken all Ben’s skill to forge two ordinary medical oxygen-bottles to exactly the same exterior appearance. He had engraved the serial numbers by hand. The bottles were small enough to be smuggled in and out of the Capricorn plant in pockets specially sewn into his overcoat. It had called for ingenuity and immaculate timing to get them through the security check at the main gate of the plant.

  The bottles were joined by a stainless-steel T-piece that screwed into the special left-hand thread in the necks. Ben had turned the fittings on the small secondhand lathe in the rear of the hangar. To operate them, first the taps on each bottle were screwed open, and after that a half-turn on the swinging valve-handle of the T-piece allowed the twin elements to mingle and become active. From there the nerve gas flowed under pressure into the flexible armoured hose. The hose led back between the front seats into the rear luggage-compartment.

  Ben had drilled a three-centimetre hole clean through both the floorboards of the compartment and the outer metal skin of the Centurion. The end of the gas-hose passed out of this hole and protruded ten centimetres below the fuselage. He had fixed the hose in place, and sealed the narrow gap where it passed through the fuselage with Pratleys putty that dried as hard as iron.

  The gas would spray from below the aircraft well behind the line of the front seats, and would be carried back in the slipstream without any danger of reaching the occupants of the Centurion. However, as an added protection they would wear safety-suits and breathe bottled oxygen during the release of the gas.

  The suits hung on the hangar wall, ready to be donned in minutes. They were commercially marketed full-length protection-suits approved by the Fire Department for use by proto rescue teams in the gold mines.

  For a second time Ben put a spanner on each of the hose connections and the joints of the T-piece to satisfy himself that there were no leaks. At last he grunted with satisfaction and backed out of the open cabin-door. He wiped his hands on a piece of cotton waste and went across to the workbench against the nearest wall.

  The other two men were leaning over the bench studying the map. Ben came up behind Michael Courtney and draped his arm affectionately over his brother’s shoulders.

  ‘All set, Mickey,’ he said in his incongruous south London accent.

  Then he gave his full attention to Ramón Machado. Ben hero-worshipped this man. When he was along with Michael he often discussed him with the awe of an acolyte discussing the omnipotence of the Pope. Michael, on the other hand, realized the hideous nature of their mission, and it had taken many months of soul-searching for him to convince himself that this was something that had to be done if the struggle was to succeed.

  Ramón seemed to sense his lingering reluctance and turned to him now. ‘Michael, I want you to ring Met and get a final weather forecast for this evening.’

  Michael picked up the telephone from the bench in front of him and dialled the number of the weather information services at Jan Smuts Airport and listened to the pre-recorded announcement.

  ‘Wind is still 290 degree at five knots,’ he repeated. ‘No change since this morning. Weather is settled. Barometric pressure steady.’

  ‘Very well.’ Ramón picked up his red marker-pencil and circled the position of the showgrounds on the large-scale aeronautical map. Then the marked in the wind direction.

  ‘OK. This will be your line of approach, about a mile up-wind of the target. Try to maintain a thousand feet above ground-level. Open the gas-valve as you pass the water-towers. They are very prominently lit with navigational warning lights.’

  ‘Yes,’ Michael said. ‘I flew over the area yesterday. The stadium will be floodlit, and there will be a laser show – I can’t possibly miss it.’

  ‘Well done, Comrade.’ Ramón gave him one of his rare irresistible smiles. ‘Your preparations have been excellent.’

  Michael looked down, and Ben interjected: ‘I heard on the one o’clock news that by noon more than two hundred thousand visitors had already passed through the showground turnstiles. It will be more like half a million by the time Vorster starts his official opening speech. What a blow we’ll strike for freedom today.’

  ‘Vorster’s speech is scheduled to start at seven p.m.’ Ramón picked up one of the advertising brochures issued by the show committee. He studied the opening programme. ‘But it might be a few minutes late. We must allow for that. He will probably talk for between forty minutes and an hour. The military tattoo begins at eight p.m. When will you take off?’

  ‘If we take off from here at 1845 hours,’ Michael worked it out, ‘it’s about forty-eight minutes’ flying. I timed it yesterday. That will get me over the target at thirty-three minutes past seven.’

  ‘That would be about right,’ Ramón agreed. ‘Vorster should still be speaking. You will make two passes across the range. A thousand feet above ground-level, one mile up-wind. After the second pass you turn west and head directly for the Botswana border. What is your estimated flying time to the rendezvous with Raleigh Tabaka?’

  ‘Three hours fifteen minutes,’ Michael replied. ‘That gets me there approximately eleven o’clock tonight. By that time any residual gas will have degraded.’

  ‘Raleigh Tabaka will light the airstrip with flares. As soon as you land remove all the gas equipment and set fire to the plane. From there it’s up to Raleigh to get you out to Zambia and Tercio base.’

  Ramón studied their faces. ‘That’s it, then. I know that we’ve gone over it a dozen times, but are there any questions?’

  The brothers shook their heads, and Ramón smiled wryly. Despite the difference in the colour of their skins and the texture of their hair, there was a strong resemblance.

  The revolution could never go forward without this kind of obedience and unquestioning faith, Ramón thought, and he felt an unaccustomed envy of such uncomplicated trust. Let them believe that this single act would change the world and herald the perfect dawn of universal socialism and brotherly love. Ramón knew that nothing was so simple.

  He envied them their faith, but he wondered if they truly had the stomach to live through the stark reality of the slaughter of half a million lambs, and the Red Terror which must follow the successful onslaught of the revolution. Sublime belief in the ultimate rightness of their actio
n might permit them to turn the value on a pair of innocent-looking steel bottles, but could they endure the reality of half a million corpses twisted and contorted in piles of hideous death? he wondered.

  Only the steel men survived. These two were not of that temper. The Red Terror would claim them as it did all weaklings. After tonight their usefulness would be reduced. They would be expendable.

  He touched Michael’s shoulder gently. He knew that Michael liked to be touched by another man. He let the touch become a caress.

  ‘You have done wonderfully well. Now you must eat and rest. I will leave you before you take off this evening. I salute you both.’

  They walked in a group to the door in the rear of the shed, but before they reached it Michael stopped.

  ‘I want to look at Ben’s installation of the bottles, and go over my own checks,’ he said diffidently. ‘I want to be absolutely certain.’

  ‘You are right to want everything perfect, Comrade,’ Ramón agreed. ‘We’ll have something for you to eat when you come up to the house.’

  They watched him climb into the cockpit of the Centurion, and begin checking the instruments before they walked together to the door.

  Ramón threw open the small back door in the rear wall of the hangar, and as he and Ben stepped through into the sunlight together Sean Courtney was crouched against the side-wall on their left-hand side, staring at them.

  Only six feet separated Ramón and Sean, and their mutual recognition was instantaneous. Sean reached under his coat and plucked out the big magnum revolver. The double-action pull on the trigger delayed the shot a fleeting part of a second, and Ramón seized Ben Afrika’s arm and pulled him forward between them. With a muzzle-flash that was bright even in the sunlight, Sean’s shot crashed into Ben’s body.

  The hollow-point bullet struck him on the tip of the left elbow and mushroomed instantly. It ploughed through his arm and into his flank. The entry-wound into his body was the size of an egg-cup. The bullet struck his last rib and began to break up. Fragments were deflected into his lung; others tore through his entrails. A splinter of the copper jacket cut between the vertebrae of the spine and half-severed his spinal cord.

  Ben was flung sideways by the impact and he slid down the wall, leaving a bright smear of his blood across the rusty corrugated iron. Ramón Machado ducked back into the hangar before Sean could bring the revolver down from the head-high recoil. He kicked the door closed behind him and snatched the Tokarev automatic from his shoulder holster.

  He snapped two quick shots through the thin wall, aiming for where he judged Sean was standing. Sean had anticipated this, and had dropped flat and flipped over twice. He estimated Ramón’s stance from the sound of the shots and the angle of the bullets cutting through the corrugated iron wall. He fired double-handed, and the heavy bullet punched a hole through the wall and missed Ramón’s head by a foot.

  Ramón ducked behind a drum of Avgas and shouted across the hangar at Michael as he sat at the controls of the aircraft.

  ‘Start up!’

  Michael had been frozen with shock in the pilot seat of the Centurion, but at Ramón’s order he recovered and flipped on both master switches and both magnetos and turned the key. The Centurion’s engine fired and caught. He pushed the throttle open, and she roared eagerly and strained against the wheel-brakes.

  ‘Get her rolling,’ Ramón shouted, and fired two more shots through the wall at random.

  The Centurion moved forward towards the open hangar-door, gathering speed swiftly, and Ramón raced after her, ducked under the wing and jerked open the passenger-door.

  ‘Where is Ben?’ Michael shouted at him as he scrambled into the seat.

  ‘Ben is finished,’ Ramón shouted back. ‘Keep going.’

  ‘What do you mean, finished?’ Michael twisted in the seat and closed the throttle. ‘We can’t leave him.’

  ‘Ben is dead, man.’ Ramón caught his hand on the throttle. ‘Ben has been shot. He’s finished. We have to get out of here.’

  ‘Ben—’

  ‘Keep her going.’

  Michael pushed the throttle open once again and swung the Centurion on to the runway. His face was twisted with grief.

  ‘Ben,’ he whispered, and let the speed build up until the Centurion was taxi-ing tail-up along the strip. They reached the end, and he used brake and engine to swing her around, facing back down the runway into the wind.

  ‘The engine is cold,’ he said. ‘She hasn’t had a chance to warm up.’

  ‘We’ve got to chance it,’ Ramón told him. ‘The police are going to be swarming in. They’re on to us; somehow they’ve tumbled to it.’

  ‘Ben?’

  ‘Forget about Ben,’ Ramón snapped. ‘Get us into the air.’

  ‘Where are we going – Botswana?’ Michael still hesitated.

  ‘Yes,’ Ramón told him. ‘But first we are going to finish this operation. Head for the showgrounds.’

  ‘But . . . but you say the police are on to us,’ Michael protested.

  ‘How can they stop us now? It will take an hour to get an air-force Impala into the air – go, man, go!’

  Michael pushed the pitch fully fine and opened the throttle wide. The Centurion bounded down the strip.

  As the speed built up they saw a figure run out from behind the hangar. Michael recognized his brother.

  ‘Sean!’ he exclaimed.

  ‘Keep going,’ Ramón told him.

  Sean dropped on one knee at the verge of the runway, and as the Centurion raced towards him he thrust out both arms towards it in the classic double-handled grip and fired three deliberate shots. Each time the heavy recoil threw the muzzle of the revolver towards the sky.

  The last shot struck the windscreen, and they both ducked instinctively. It left a silver cobweb in the Perspex pane, and then Michael rotated the Centurion’s nose and they skimmed over the boundary fence and bore up into the clear blue highveld sky.

  At two hundred feet the cold motor stuttered and coughed, then it caught again and ran smoothly.

  ‘Head for the showgrounds,’ Ramón repeated. ‘We won’t get Vorster, but it’s still a good target. There are two hundred thousand of them.’

  Michael levelled out at a thousand feet and turned on to his track.

  As the Centurion soared overhead, Sean emptied the revolver, blazing up at its belly. He saw no sign of his bullets striking, and the landing-wheels of the Centurion retracted as she rose unharmed into the sky.

  Sean jumped to his feet and sprinted into the hangar. He saw the telephone on the workbench.

  ‘Thank God!’ He ran to the bench and snatched it up.

  As he dialled the Capricorn numbers, he noticed the open map under his hands and the Rank Easter Show brochure. The red-marked notations on the map ringed the location of the showgrounds, and a broad arrow indicated the wind direction and speed.

  The operator on the switchboard answered on the third ring. ‘Capricorn Chemical Industries, good day. How may I help you?’

  ‘Get me Mr Garry Courtney in the boardroom. I’m his brother. This is an emergency.’

  ‘He is expecting your call. You are going straight through.’

  As he waited Sean glanced quickly around the hangar. He saw the safety-suits hanging on the wall beside the door.

  ‘Is that you, Sean?’ Garry’s voice was strained.

  ‘Yes, it’s me. I’m at Firgrove. It’s as bad as we feared. Michael and Ben and the Fox. The target is the showgrounds.’

  ‘Did you stop them, Sean?’

  ‘No. Michael and the Fox are airborne. They took off two minutes ago. They are almost certainly heading for the showgrounds.’

  ‘Are you sure, Sean?’

  ‘Of course I’m bloody sure. I’m in Mickey’s hangar and I’m looking at a map right now. The showgrounds are marked and the wind speed and direction. There are two smoke-proof suits hanging on the wall – they didn’t have a chance to get into them.’

  ‘I’
ll warn the police, the Air Force.’

  ‘Don’t be a prick, Garry. It will take an order from the chief of the defence force and the minister before they’ll send up a fighter or a helicopter gunship. That could take a month of Sundays. By then two hundred thousand people will be dead.’

  ‘What must we do, Sean?’ At last the administrator deferred to the man of action.

  ‘Take the Queen Air,’ Sean told him. ‘She’s faster and bigger and more powerful than the little Centurion. You have to intercept them and force them down before they reach the show.’

  ‘Describe Mickey’s Centurion,’ Garry ordered crisply.

  ‘Blue on top. White belly. Her markings are ZS – RRW, Romeo Romeo Whisky. You know the location of Firgrove and their course to reach the show.’

  ‘I’m on my way,’ said Garry, and the connection clicked and went dead.

  Sean picked up the Smith & Wesson from the bench-top where he had dropped it, and spilled the empty cases from the chambers. From his pocket he pulled the box of ammunition and reloaded swiftly. He ran back to the door and with the revolver held ready he stood clear and kicked it open. Immediately he dropped into a gunfighter’s crouch and aimed through the doorway.

  Ben had dragged his paralysed legs only a few yards before he collapsed. He lay in a huddle at the foot of one of the peach trees. He was bleeding copiously; bright arterial blood had soaked his shirt and the tops of his trousers. His left arm hung by a tatter of mangled flesh. The shattered bone was spiked through the meat like a skewer.

  Sean straightened up and safed the Smith &Wesson. He walked through the door and stood looking down at Ben.

  Ben was still alive. He rolled over painfully to look up at Sean. His eyes were brown as burnt sugar and filled with a dreadful anguish.

  ‘They got away, didn’t they?’ he whispered. ‘They will succeed. You cannot stop us. The future belongs to us.’

  Isabella came running through the trees. She saw Sean and swerved towards him.

  ‘I told you to keep out of the way,’ he growled at her. ‘Why can’t you ever do as you’re told?’