A Time to Die c-13

by Wilbur Smith

  Sean leaped onto dry land and strode through the ruins of the village, trying not to break into a run. "Job should have kept a better watch," he thought angrily. "If we can arrive unseen.."

  He did not finish the thought. Just ahead was the thicket in which they had built Claudia's shelter, and he stopped abruptly.

  It was too quiet. His sixth sense of danger warned him. Something was wrong. He went down fast and hard, falling flat and rolling quickly into cover with the.577 held in front of him.

  He lay and listened. The silence was a physical weight. He wet his lips and imitated the clucking sound of a francolin, one of the Scouts" assembly calls that Job would recognize. There was no reply. He went forward at a leopard crawl, then stopped again.

  Something sparkled in the short grass just in front of his face. He picked it up and felt his stomach chill.

  It was the empty brass case of a 7.62-mm. cartridge, and it was head-stamped in Cyrillic script, Soviet military issue for firing in the AK assault rifle. Sean held it, to his nose and smelled the burnt powder. It had been fired very recently. He glanced around him quickly and saw other empty shells lying in the grass, evidence of a fierce firefight.

  He rolled to his feet and was running, jinking and twisting as he sprinted toward the thicket to throw off the aim of any hidden gunman.

  As he reached the edge of the thicket, he dropped to the earth again, flicking over as he hit the ground. He saw the corpse immediately. It lay facedown under a low Thorn bush only a few yards ahead. It was a black man. The body had been stripped of clothing and boots.

  "Job!" The name ripped from his throat. He crawled forward until he lay side by side with the body. A single bullet had plowed out of the man's back and the flies crawled over the wound. The blood had dried to a black crust, and he smelled the whiff of corruption.

  "Dead twenty-four hours," he estimated, rising to his knees.

  There was no further need for caution now. Gently he lifted the dead head. The corpse's neck was stiff with rigor mortis. He grunted with vast relief and let the head drop with a thud. The man was a stranger.

  "Job!" he called. "Claudia!" It was a despairing cry, and he ran forward to the lean-to in which he had left her. It was deserted.

  "Job!" He looked around him wildly. "Claudia!"

  There was another naked black body lying at the edge of the Clearing, and he ran to it. It was another stranger, a skinny little runt of a man with the top shot off his skull. He was also starting to stink, his belly blowing up like a shiny black balloon.

  "Two of the bastards," Sean said bitterly. "Nice shooting, Job."

  Matatu had followed Sean and was checking the lean-to. He left it and began to work out in circles, darting back and forth like a gun dog quartering for a sitting grouse. Sean and Pumula stood and watched him, not joining his search so that they would not trample the sign.

  Within minutes Matatu scurried back. "They are the same shifts who followed us before. There are fifteen of them, they surrounded the hut and came in at a rush. Job shot these two with the 30/06 banduki. " He offered Sean the empty cartridge cases. much struggling, but they took them." "There was "The memsahib?" Sean dreaded the reply.

  ARI "Ndio, " Matatu replied in Swahili. "they took her also.

  She is still limping, but they led her away, one on each side. She was fighting them all the way. Job was hurt, and so was Dedan. Perhaps they were beaten, and I think their arms are bound. They walk unsteadily." Matatu pointed toward the corpses. They striPPed their dead of uniforms and boots and banduki and then went back." He pointed along the isthmus.

  "When?" Sean asked.

  "Yesterday, early. Perhaps they rushed the camp at dawn."

  Sean nodded grimly, but inside he cried, "Claudia, oh God, if they touch You, I'll rip their guts out."

  "Hot Pursuit," he said aloud. "Let's go!"

  Pumula ran back to grab the equipment and water bottles from the canoe, and Sean was still shrugging into the shoulder straps of his Pack when he started to run. The near exhaustion of the long night Of Poling the canoe faded away. He felt strong, angry, and indefatigable.

  Within the first mile they settled into the pursuit pace of a Scout raiding party. The spoor was stiff cold, and Sean dispensed with any precautions against ambush. He relied entirely on Matatu to Pick UP any sign of a booby trap or antipersonnel mine that might have been laid on the tracks to hinder pursuit, but apart from that they went in single file at a speed not much below that of an Olympic marathon.

  Claudia's image seemed to dance ahead of Sean and winged his feet. Fifteen of them, Matatu had said, and they would be tempted by Claudia's sweet white body. There were no signs yet that they had stopped to have sport with her. He accepted without reservation Matatu's interpretation that they had crept up on the camp in the dawn and taken it at a rush, willing to accept casualties without inflicting them. it seemed they had wanted prisoners rather than kills. Other than a few blows with a rifle butt, it looked as though both Dedan and Job had come through it unscathed, but it was Claudia who had his full concern.

  They were forcing her to march on her injured leg. That would only aggravate the knee and perhaps cause permanent damage. If she slowed them down too much, they would start to become impatient and threatening. It all depended on just how much they needed a white prisoner as a hostage, probably as a bargaining chip with Western governments. It depended on who they were, Frelimo or Renamo or free-lance bandits. It depended on how much control there was over them, on who commanded them, and how strong his authority was. But any way he considered it, Sean knew that Claudia was in terrible danger.

  Did they realize there was a pursuit? They must have read the sign going into the village and known that three men-no, four with Capo--were missing from the original party. The answer was yes. They probably anticipated a pursuit by this group. That would make them nervous and excitable.

  Claudia would be no great advocate for her own safety. He could just imagine her arguing with them, demanding her human and legal rights, refusing to follow their orders. Despite his concern, he grinned humorlessly as he thought about it. They probably believed they had caught a pussycat, but they would soon realize they had a full-grown female tiger on their hands.

  His grin faded. He was certain she would deal with them in precisely the fashion best designed to antagonize them and jeopardize her chances of survival. If the leader of the group was a weak man, she would push him to the point where he had to demonstrate his authority to his own men. African society was patriarchal, and he would rescp a woman who refused to bow to his will.

  If they were the same group that had wiped out the village, they had amply demo'nstated their brutality.

  "Just for once, ducky, button those lovely lips of yours," he pleaded with her silently.

  Ahead of him, Matatu checked his run and made a sweeping gesture. Sean pulled up.

  "Here they rested." Matatu pointed to where the group had sat in the shade of a grove of young mo pane

  There were the crushed butts of black cigarettes in the dust, and Matatu pointed to the raw white slashes on the mo pane where branches had been chopped away. The smaller twigs had been trimmed from them and discarded. The leaves on these were already wilted, confirming Matatu's estimate of time, yesterday morning.

  The cutting of branches Puzzled Sean for a moment. Then Matatu explained, "They have built a mushela for the mein." Sean nodded with relief Claudia on her injured leg had been holding up the March, but rather than ridding themselves of her through the simple expedient of a buffet in the back of the head, they had built a litter of mo pane poles on which to carry her. That was a welcome development, and it changed Sean's estimate of Claudia's chance of survival. They had placed a higher value on her than Sean had dreaded they might.

  However, the most crucial period would have come yesterday evening, when they stopped to camp for the night. Her captors would have had a full day to study her, to ogle her body and puff up their imaginatio
n and their courage. Sean found he could not bear to face the possibility of what might have happened to her if the leader had lost control of his men.

  "Come on, Matatu," he growled. "You are wasting time." If it had happened at all, it would have happened last night. He was already too late, but still every second of delay galled him.

  The spoor led them back up the isthmus, retracing their own route across the dry flood plains heading toward the south. The trail was broad and easy to follow, fifteen men and their captives making no attempt at anti tracking Matatu read the spoor and reported they were forcing Dedan and Job to carry the litter with Claudia on it. Sean was happy the two of them were able to do so.

  Whatever injuries they had sustained in the attack must have been Superficial, and he could be certain that Job would employ every ruse to slow down the march and allow them to catch up.

  Even as he thought this, Matatu exclaimed and pointed to ma As in the soft earth where Job had dropped his end of the litter and sprawled theatrically on his hands and knees, crawling up only after he had been surrounded and hectored by his captors.

  "Good man," Sean grunted without checking his stride. "But don't push them too far." It was a delicate game Job was playing.

  At Pursuit speed they were overhauling the clumsy and slow moving group so rapidly that Sean was beginning to hope they might catch up with them before nightfall.

  "That's going to be interesting," he decided. " three of us -with Only the.577 against fifteen thugs armed with AKs."

  So far they had found no booby traps set for them. It was usually their tactics to mine their own spoor, and Sean pondered their failure to do so. These could be untrained bandits, or they might lack the light plastic antipersonnel mines, or they could be of the Pursuit. Or, worst thought, they could be Planning unaware some surprises for later.

  "We'll deal with that one when we come to it."

  Matatu pulled up again. "They cooked here last night." He pointed to the remains of a camp fire, and there were the marks where they had sat while they rested and ate. A few black safari ants were scurrying about the site, foraging for the scraps of food they had spilled, and there were more cigarette butts. search! Sean ordered. "Job will have tried to get a message to us. While Matatu and Pumula went over the area carefully but bee quickly, Sean glanced at his watch: 1600 hours; they had. just over three hours. They still had plenty of daylight and going a good chance to catch them before dark.

  "Here is where they put the mein's litter." Matatu pointed out the marks in the earth. "Here she stood."

  Sean studied her footprints, smaller, neater, and narrower than the boot prints of her captors. When she walked she had favored her leg, dragging the toe.

  "Did you find anything?" he demanded roughly. "Did Job leave a message?"

  "Nothing." Matatu shook his head.

  "All right. We'll drink now," he ordered, handing out salt tablets and caution them to self-control.

  Three swallows each from the bottles, then they screwed the stop from his pack. He didn't have topers tightly closed. They had paused for less than five minutes.

  "Let's go," said Sean.

  An hour later they found where the raiders had slept. The fact t beside their that they had moved on after eating and not slep cooking fire told Sean that they were trained troops.

  "Search again," Sean ordered. Any information Job could have left for them would be valuable.

  "Nothing," Matatu said back a few minutes later. Sean felt a prick of disappointment. d. He was about to turn away "M right. Keep going," he ordered when something made him pause. He glanced around the camp site. b sleep?" he demanded.

  "Where did the memsahi "There." Matatu pointed. Somebody, probably Job, had cut an of leaves and grass for her mattress. Her body had flattened armful the pile. Sean squatted beside it and carefully sifted through it, searching for any clues.

  There was nothing. He lifted away the last few leaves and was beginning to rise to his feet. He was disappointed; the feeling that she had left something for him had been very powerful.

  "So much for ESP," he grunted. Then he noticed the button, half buried in the dust under the mattress of straw.

  He picked it out and stood up. It was a brass button from the waistband of her denim jeans, engraved "Ralph Button."

  "Designer jeans, that's my ducky." He slipped it into his pocket.

  "But it doesn't tell me anything," he broke off, unless..." H knelt again and gently brushed aside the dust under where the button had lain. He was right; she had used the button as a marker. he Beneath it she had buried a scrap of cardboard, the flap torn from the lid of a packet of cheap Portuguese cigarillos. It was not more than two inches long and half as wide, very little space for the message she had written with a charcoal stick scavenged fire. from the 15 mAma. That was invaluable intelligence, confirming Matatu's estimate of numbers, and now at least he knew who they were dealing with: Renamo.

  CAvE. The next word puzzled him. "Cave?" Suddenly he realized it was the old public schoolboy warning from the Latin caveat beware

  He smiled despite himself.

  "ere did she ever learn a Limey expression like that?" Then he remembered she was a lawyer and read on.

  CAVE.

  T1 ExPECT You- She and Job would have overheard them discussing the Pursuit. That information was just as valuable.

  ALL OK. And she had signed it, C He stared at the scrap of cardboard, holding it in the palm of his hand as though it were a relic of the true cross.

  "You little beauty, you," he whispered. "You've got to be the brightest, gutsiest..." He shook his head in wonder, a choking sensation in his throat. For the very first time he admitted his Ion ng for her, then suppressed it firmly as he came to his fee gi t.

  There was neither time nor opportunity for such self-indulgence now.

  "Renamo," he told Matatu and Purnula. "You were right, the are fifteen of them. They know we are following. We can expect an re ambush."

  They both looked grave. Sean anced at his wristwatch. "We can catch them before dark." 91 Within an hour they came upon the first ambush the Renarno had set for them. Four men had lain beside the trail at the point where the causeway across the flood plains joined the main forest on the higher ground. The ambush had been cunningly sited on the far edge of a narrow vlei, across open ground with a good field of I T ; 178 fire. it had been abandoned only a short time before they came up to it.

  "They are putting down a rolling rear guard." Sean felt queasy at the risk he had taken with such a reckless pursuit.

  in the dust were the distinctive double marks left by the bipod of an RPD light machine gun, one of the simplest and yet the most deadly effective of all guerrilla weapons. If he had led his men into the vlei while that gun was still in position, it would all have been over in a few hellish seconds. He had been pushing too hard, not taking even elementary precautions. His concern for Claudia had unbalanced his judgment.

  Renamo had pulled out just before they reached the vlei. They had judged the time of his arrival with disconcerting accuracy, the margin had been far too narrow. The crew of the RPD would have moved back and re sited the ambush farther along the trail in order not to fall too far behind their main party.

  "Flankers out," Sean ordered reluctantly. "Ambush precautions." It would slow them to half their previous speed. Now it would be impossible to catch up with Renamo before nightfall.

  Three men were too few. It left only Matatu on the spoor and Sean and Pumula on the Banks. They had a single weapon between them, the big-bore, slow-firing double. They were going in against trained bush fighters armed with automatic weapons, and they were expected.

  "Just another name for suicide," Sean told himself. But despite the odds he had to restrain himself from quickening the pace.