Wilbur Smith's Smashing Thrillers

by Wilbur Smith

  “No, no! You are mad. I didn’t…”

  “Come on, Gomo. All I have to do is turn the knife a little, like this. Daniel rolled his wrist slowly, bringing the razor edge uppermost.

  Gomo’s organ was dangling over it, and then the thin skin split. It was just a scratch, but Gomo screamed. “Stop!” he bleated. “I will tell you. Yes, all right, I will tell you everything I know. Stop, please stop!”

  “That’s good.” Daniel encouraged him. “Tell me about Chetti Singh…” He introduced the name with assurance. It was a flier, but Gomo accepted.

  “Yes,” I tell you about him, “if you don’t cut me. Please don’t cut me.”

  “Armstrong.” Another voice startled Daniel. He had not heard the Landcruiser come up. It must have arrived while he was searching the cold compartment of the truck, but now Jock stood in the peripheral shadows of the headlights. “Leave him, Armstrong.” Jock’s voice was rough with determination. “Get away from that man,” he ordered.

  “You keep out of this,” Daniel snapped at him, but Jock stepped closer and with a start Daniel saw that he carried the AK rifle. He handled it with surprising competence and authority.

  “Leave him alone,” Jock ordered. “You’ve gone too far much too far.”

  “The man is a murderer and a criminal,” Daniel protested, but he was forced to step back before the menace of the AK 47.

  Jock was pointing it at his belly. “You haven’t any proof. There is no ivory,” Jock told him. “You don’t have anything.”

  “He was confessing,” Daniel told him angrily. “If you just keep out of it–”

  “You were torturing him,” Jock answered as angrily. “You had a knife to his balls. Of course, he was confessing. He has rights; you can’t abuse those rights. Unchain him now; let him go!”

  “You are a bleeding heart,” Daniel turned. “This is an animal–”

  “He is a human being,” Jock contradicted. “And I have to stop you abusing him, or else I’m as guilty as you are. I don’t want to spend the next ten years in prison. Turn him loose.”

  “He will confess first, or I’ll cut his balls out. Daniel seized a handful of Gomo’s genitals and pulled. The loose skin and flesh stretched like shiny black rubber and Daniel held the knifeblade threateningly over it.

  Gomo screamed, and Jock lifted the AK 47 and fired. He aimed a foot over Daniel’s head. The muzzle blast whipped through Daniel’s thick sweatsoaked curls and sent him reeling backwards clutching his ears.

  “I warned you, Daniel.” Jock’s expression was grim. “Give me the keys of the handcuffs.”

  Daniel was dazed by the blast, and Jock fired again. The bullet ploughed into the gravel between Daniel’s boots. “I mean it, Danny. I swear it. I’ll kill you before I let you suck me any further into this business.”

  “You saw Johnny…” Daniel shook his head and held his ears, but the muzzle blast had temporarily stunned him. “I also saw you threaten to emasculate this man. That’s enough. Give me the keys or the next shot is through one of your knee-caps.”

  Daniel saw that he meant it and reluctantly tossed him the keys. All right, now stand well back, Jock ordered. He kept the rifle pointed at Daniel’s belly as he unlocked one of the cuffs from Gomo’s wrist, and handed him the key.

  “You bloody idiot,” Daniel swore with frustration. “Another minute, and I would have had him. I would have found out who killed Johnny and what happened to the ivory.”

  Gomo unlocked his other wrist and swiftly pulled up his trousers and closed his tunic. Now that he was unchained and dressed, Gomo recovered his bravado. “He is talking shit!” His voice was loud and defiant. “I didn’t say nothing. I don’t know about Nzou. He was alive when we left Chiwewe.”

  “All right. You can tell all that to the police,” Jock stopped Gomo. “I’m taking you to Harare in the truck. Fetch my camera and bag from the Landcruiser. They are on the front seat.”

  Gomo hurried back to where the Landcruiser was parked.

  “Listen, Jock. Just give me another five minutes,” Daniel pleaded, but Jock waved the rifle at him. “You and I are finished, Danny. First thing I’m going to do when I reach Harare is make a full report to the police. I’m going to give them chapter and verse.” Gomo came back, lugging the Sony video recorder and Jock’s canvas duffel bag.

  “Yes, you tell the police you saw this mad white shit-eater cut my cock,” Gomo shouted. “You tell them no ivory…”

  “Get in the truck,” Jock ordered him. And start up.” When Gomo obeyed he turned back to Daniel. “I’m sorry, Danny. You’re on your own. You get no more help from me. I’ll give evidence against you if they ask me to. I’ve got to cover my own arse, man.”

  “You can’t help being a yellow belly,” Daniel nodded. “But weren’t you the one always sounding off about justice, what about Johnny and Mavis?”

  “What you were doing didn’t have anything to do with justice,” Jock raised his voice above the rumble of the truck’s diesel engine. “You were playing the sheriff and the posse and the hangman, Danny. That wasn’t justice; it was vengeance. I want no part of it. You know my address. You can send the money you owe me there. So long, Danny. Sorry it had to end this way.”

  He climbed up to the passenger side of the cab. “Don’t try to stop us again.” He brandished the AK 47. I know how to use this. Jock slammed the door and Gomo swung the truck back on to the highway.

  Daniel was left standing in the darkness, staring after the bright red gemstones of the tail-lights until a bend in the road hid them.

  His ears were still singing from the concussion of the rifle blast. He felt dizzy and nauseous. He staggered slightly as he walked back to where Jock had left the Landcruiser parked, and slumped into the driver’s seat. For a little longer his anger sustained him, anger at Cheng and his accomplices, at Gomo, and most of all at Jock and his interference.

  Then slowly his anger evaporated and the seriousness of his own predicament began to sink in. He had acted wildly and dangerously. He had made accusations which he could not support; he had damaged property, and he had endangered life and committed aggravated assault on a government official, if not grievous bodily harm. They could get him on half a dozen charges.

  Then once again he thought of Johnny and his family, and his personal peril was of no significance.

  “I was so close to breaking the whole scheme,” he thought bitterly. “Another few minutes with Gomo and I would have had them. I almost had them for you, Johnny.”

  He had to decide on his next actions, but his head was aching, and it was hard to think logically. There was no point in chasing after Gomo. He was alerted, and he had somehow managed to get rid of the ivory.

  What other courses of action were open to him? Ning Cheng Gong, of course. He was the key to the entire plot. However, the only connection to him, now that the ivory had disappeared, was Johnny’s cryptic note and the footprint he had left at the murder scene.

  Then there was Chetti Singh. Gomo had tacitly admitted that he knew the Sikh. What had he said when Daniel had tried him with the name?

  “Yes, I tell you about him, if you don’t cut me…”

  There was also the band of poachers. He wondered if Isaac Mtwetwe had been able to intercept the gang on the Zambezi crossing, and take prisoners. Isaac would not have the same scruples as Jock. Johnny had also been Isaac’s friend. He would know how to get information out of a captured poacher.

  I’ll ring Mana Pools from the police post at Chirundu, he decided, and started the Landcruiser. He U-turned and headed back down the escarpment. The Chirundu bridge police station was closer than Karoi. He had to make a statement to the police and make sure that a police investigation was under way as soon as possible. The police must be warned about Johnny’s note and the bloody footprints.

  Daniel’s head still ached. He stopped the Landcruiser for a few minutes while he found a bottle of Panadol tablets in the first-aid kit and washed down a couple of them wit
h a mug of coffee from the vacuum flask. While he drove on the pain abated and he started to put his thoughts into order.

  It was almost four o’clock in the morning when he reached Chirundu bridge. There was a solitary corporal in the police charge office. His arms were folded on the desk in front of him, cradling his head. He was so soundly asleep that Daniel had to shake him vigorously, and his eyes were swollen and bloodshot when at last he raised his head, and blinked uncomprehendingly at Daniel. I want to report a murder, a multiple murder. Daniel began the long laborious process of getting the official machinery in motion.

  When the corporal seemed unable to decide upon the correct procedure, Daniel sent him to call the member-in-charge from his rondavel at the back of the station house. When the sergeant came into the charge office at last, he was dressed in full uniform, including Sam Browne belt and cap, but he was still half asleep. “Ring CID in Harare,” Daniel urged him. “They must send a unit to Chiwewe.”

  “First you must make a statement,” the sergeant insisted.

  There was no typewriter in the charge office; this was a remote rural station. The sergeant took down Daniel’s statement in halting childlike longhand. His lips moved as he spelled out each separate letter silently. Daniel wanted to take the ballpoint away from him and get it down himself.

  “Damn it, sergeant. Those dead people are lying out there. The killers are getting away while we sit here.” The sergeant went on placidly with his composition, and Daniel corrected his spelling and turned with exasperation.

  However, the pace of the dictation allowed him to phrase his statement carefully. He set down the timetable of the previous day’s events: the time that he had left Chiwewe and said goodbye to Johnny Nzou; the time he had found the signs of the raiding party and decided to return to the headquarters camp with a warning; and the time that he had met the refrigerator trucks on the road in company with the ambassador’s Mercedes.

  He described his conversation with Ambassador Ning and hesitated, wondering whether to mention the bloodstain that he had noticed on his blue slacks. it would sound like an accusation. The hell with protocol, he decided, and described in detail the blue slacks and the training shoes with fish-scale patterned soles. They’ll have to investigate now. He felt a grim satisfaction, as he went on to describe his return to Chiwewe and the carnage he had found there.

  He made sure to mention the note in Johnny’s hand and the fishscale pattern of the bloody footprint on the office floor without specifically relating either to the Taiwanese ambassador. Let them make their own inferences.

  He had a great deal of difficulty when it came to describing his pursuit of the Mercedes and the refrigerator trucks. He had to give his motives without incriminating himself, or pointing too definitely at the suspicions he entertained towards Ning Cheng Gong.

  “I followed the convoy to ask them if they had any knowledge of the missing ivory,” he dictated. “Although I was unable to catch up with Ambassador Ning and the leading truck, I did speak to Ranger Gomo whom I met on the Karoi road and who was driving the second refrigerator truck. He denied any knowledge of these events and allowed me to inspect the contents of the truck. I found no ivory.”

  It galled him to have to admit this, but he had to cover himself against any charges that Gomo might bring against him later. “I then determined that my duty was to contact the nearest police station and report the deaths of the Chiwewe warden, his family and staff, and the burning and destruction of buildings and other property.”

  It was well after daybreak when Daniel could at last sign the handwritten statement, and only then would the police sergeant respond to his urging to telephone CID headquarters in Harare. This led to a protracted telephone discussion between the sergeant and a series of increasingly senior detectives in Harare as one passed him on to the other. This was the pace of Africa and Daniel gritted his teeth.

  “AWA,” he told himself. “Africa Wins Again.”

  At last it was ordered that the sergeant should drive out to Chiwewe camp in the station Landrover while a team of detectives flew down from Harare to land at the Park’s airstrip. “Do you want me to come out with you to Chiwewe?” Daniel asked, when the sergeant finally relinquished the telephone and began preparations for his expedition to the camp.

  The sergeant looked nonplussed by the question. He had received no instructions from CID as to what to do with the witness. “You leave an address and telephone number where we can contact you if we need you,” he decided, after a great deal of frowning thought.

  Daniel was relieved to be turned loose. Since arriving at the Chirundu police station, he had had many hours in which to consider the situation, and make his plans to cover every contingency.

  If Isaac Mtwetwe had been able to capture any of the poachers, that would still be the swiftest path to Ning Cheng Gong, but he had to talk to Isaac before he handed over his prisoners to the police.

  “I want to use your telephone,” he told the police corporal as soon as the station commander and his unit of armed constables had driven away in the green Landrover, heading for Chiwewe.

  “Police telephone. “The corporal shook his head. “Not public telephone.”

  Daniel produced a blue ten Zim dollar note and laid it on the desk in front of him. “It is only a local call,” he explained, and the banknote vanished miraculously. The corporal smiled and waved him towards the telephone. Daniel had made a friend.

  Isaac Mtwetwe answered the call almost immediately the Karoi telephone exchange made the connection to Mana Pools.

  “Isaac,” Daniel blurted with relief. “When did you get back?”

  “I have just walked into my office this minute,” Isaac told him. “We got back ten minutes ago. I have one man wounded. I must get him to hospital.”

  “You made contact, then?”

  “Yes, we made contact. Like you said, Danny, a big gang, bad guys.”

  “Did you get any prisoners, Isaac?” Daniel demanded eagerly. “If you managed to grab a couple of them, we’re home and dry.”

  Chapter 8

  Isaac Mtwetwe stood at the wheel of the twenty-foot assault craft and ran downriver in the night. His rangers squatted on the deck below the gunwale and huddled into their greatcoats, for it was cold out on the water with the wind of their passage accentuating the chill of the river mist.

  The outboard motor was running rough and cutting out intermittently. Twice Isaac had to let the boat drift while he went back to work on it. It badly needed a full overhaul, but there was never enough foreign exchange available for spares to be imported. He got her running again and pointed the bows downstream.

  A thick slice of moon spiked up above the dark trees that lined the bank of the Zambezi. It gave Isaac just enough light to push the boat up to top speed. Although he knew each curve and stretch of the river intimately for the next fifty miles, right down to Tete and the Mozambique border, the shallows and rocky outcrops were too complex even for him to run in complete darkness. The glow of moonlight turned the patches of river mist to iridescent pearl dust and gave to the open water a lustre like polished black obsidian. The subdued hum of the motor and the speed of their progress gave no advance warning. They drew level with the hippopotamuses feeding in the reedbanks before the monstrous amphibians were aware of their arrival.

  In panic they tobogganed down the steep and slippery paths into the river, and went through the surface in a welter of spray. The flocks of wild duck roosting in the lagoons and quiet backwaters were more alert. The assault boat’s approach sent them aloft on whistling wings, silhouetted against the rising moon.

  Isaac knew exactly where he was heading. He had been a freedom fighter during the bush war and he had crossed this same river to raid the white farms and harass the security forces of Ian Smith’s illegal regime. He knew all the techniques and tricks that the poachers employed. Some of them had been his comrades-in-arms in the struggle, but they were the new enemy now. He hated them as much as he ha
d ever hated the Selous Scouts or the Rhodesian Light Infantry.

  The Zambezi was almost half a mile wide along this stretch below Chirundu and Mana Pools. The raiders would need craft to cross its mighty green flood. They would get them the same way the guerrillas once had, from the local fisherfolk.

  The Zambezi supports an itinerant population of fishermen who build their villages upon her banks. The villages are impermanent, for the tenor of their lives is dictated by the Zambezi’s moods. When the river floods her banks and inundates the flood plains, the people must move to higher ground.

  They must follow the migrations of the shoals of tilapia and tiger fish and barbeled catfish on which they live, so every few months the clusters of rude thatched huts with their fishsmoking racks and smouldering fires are abandoned and allowed to fall into decay as the tribe moves on.

  It was part of Isaac’s duty to monitor the movements of the fisherfolk, for their exploitation of the river had a profound effect on the river ecology. Now he smelled the smoke and the odour of drying fish on the night air, and throttled back the motor. Softly he crept in towards the northern bank. If the poachers had come from Zambia, that was where they would return.

  The odour of fish was stronger and tendrils of smoke drifted out low across the water to mingle with the mist. There were four huts with shaggy thatched roofs in an angle of the bank, and four long dugout canoes drawn up on the narrow beach below them.

  Isaac nosed the assault craft on to the beach and jumped ashore, leaving one of his rangers to hold the bows. An old woman crawled out of the low door of one of the huts. She wore only a skirt of lechwe antelope. skins around her waist and her breasts were empty and pendulous.

  “I see you, old mother,” Isaac greeted her respectfully. He always took pains to maintain good relations with the riverfolk.

  “I see you, my son, the old woman giggled,” and Isaac smelled the rank odour of cannabis on her. The Batonka people pound the weed into a paste, then mould it with fresh cow-dung into balls which they dry in the sun and smoke in clay pipes with reed mouthpieces.