A Time to Die c-13

by Wilbur Smith

  Sean pulled Claudia below the surface but still could hear the bullets plunging into the water above them and striking the trunk of the tree. He kept down until his lungs burned as though they were filled with acid and only then pulled himself to the surface to catch another breath.

  The gunner in the Zodiac was firing taps, not a single continuous burst. Like a Morse operator on the key, an expert gunner has his own distinctive style that others can recognize. This one fired double taps, five rounds each; it needed a concert pianist's touch on the trigger to achieve such precision.

  As Sean and Claudia came back to the surface, straining for the sweet taste of air, Dedan also came up only three feet in front of in. The reflection of the battle light lit his head clearly. His short the woolly beard streamed water, his eyes were like balls of ivory in his ebony face, and his mouth was open, drinking in air.

  A bullet touched his temple just above the ear. His head flinched to the shot, and it opened his scalp as cleanly as a saber cut.

  Involuntarily he cried out, a glottal bellow like that of a heart-shot bull buffalo, then his head fell forward and he sank facedown into the dark waters.

  Sean lunged out and caught his upper arm, pulling him back to the surface before he drifted away, but his head lolled and his eyes had rolled back in their sockets, exposing only the whites. The men in the Zodiac had heard his cry, and the Shangane sergeant shouted to one of himnen, "Get ready to throw in a grenade," then to them, "Come out of there. I'll give you ten seconds."

  "Job, answer him," Sean ordered with resignation. "Tell him we are coming out."

  Matabele and Shangane could understand each other, and Job shouted to them not to fire again.

  Claudia helped Sean keep Dedans head above the surface, and between them they pulled him toward the Zodiac. The battle light dazzled them, but hands reached down from out of the glare and one at a time dragged them on board.

  Shivering like half-drowned puppies, they huddled in the center of the boat. They had Dedans body stretched out between them, and Sean lifted his head gently into his lap. He was unconscious, barely breathing, and gently Sean twisted his head to examine the bullet wound across his temple.

  For a moment he did not recognize what he was seeing. From the long shallow wound bulged something that was white and glistening in the lamplight.

  Beside him Claudia shuddered violently and whispered, "Sean, it's his, it's his..." She could not bring herself to say it, and only then did Sean realize that Dedans brain, still contained in the tough white membrane of the dura mater, was bulging out through the rent in his skull like an inner tube through a hole in an auto tire.

  The Shangane sergeant gave an order, and the helmsman gunned the outboard motor and swung the Zodiac upstream. They ran at full throttle back toward the Renamo lines.

  Sean sat on the floorboards with Dedans head in his lap. There was nothing he could do except chip his wrist and feel his pulse weaker and more erratic, then finally fade away altogether.

  grow T

  "He s dead," he said quietly. Job said nothing and Claudia turned her face away.

  Sean held the dead head in his lap all the long return. Only when the helmsman cut the engine and coasted in to the bank did he look up. There were lighted lanterns and dark shapes awaiting them at the landing.

  The Shangane sergeant gave a brusque order. Two of his men lifted Dedans corpse off Sean's lap and dumped him facedown on the muddy bank. Another trooper grabbed Claudia's arm and dragged her to her feet. He shoved her roughly ashore, and when she whirled on him furiously to protest, he lifted his AK butt to strike her in the center of her chest.

  Sean, close beside him, caught the man s arm and siifled the blow.

  "Do that again, you son of a syphilitic hyena," he said softly in Shangane, "and I'll hack off your mtondo with a blunt ax and make you eat it without salt."

  The trooper stared at him, amazed more by his perfect Shangane than by the threat itself. On the bank the Shangane sergeant let out a bellow of delighted laughter.

  "Better do what he says," he warned his trooper, "unless you are very hungry. This one means what he says." Then he grinned at Sean. "So you talk Shangane like one of us, and you understood everything we said!" He shook his head ruefully. "I won't let you fool me again!"

  Wet, cold, and disheveled, they were dragged unceremoniously into General China's bunker and paraded before Ins desk. One glance at Ins face and Sean saw that the man was in a cold fury.

  sin hEr to his seat. Then he said, "The woman is being moved to another For almost a full minute he stared at sin without r" g 0 camp well away from here. You will have no further opportunity to see her until I order it Sean kept his expression neutral, but Claudia gave a little cry of as though she could prevent the at The two female jailers were standing against the wall us desk, and he glanced at them and nodded. The taller of the two wore sergeant's stripes on her sleeve. She gave an order to the squat toad faced trooper beside her, and the woman came forward.

  Stainless steel manaeleLdangled from her hand.

  Claudia tightened her'gripon Sean's arm and shrank away from another sharp her. The woman lies ted and the tall sergeant gave command. The jailer grabbed Claudia's wrist and without apparent effort plucked her away from Sean's side.

  With the expertise of long practice, she spun Claudia around and thrust her face hard against the sandbagged wall of the bunker, snapping the manacles on one wrist as she did so, then pulling both claudia,s arms behind her back and locking the second cuff on her other wrist.

  She stepped back. The tall female sergeant stepped up, took Claudia's hands, and lifted them high between her shoulder blades.

  Claudia gasped with pain as she was forced onto her toes. The base sergeant inspected the manacles; they were closed snugly around Claudia's wrists, but she was not satisfied. Deliberately the sergeant tightened them two more notches.

  Claudia gasped again. "That's too tight, they're cutting into me."

  "Tell that bitch to loosen them," Sean snapped at General China, who smiled for the first time that evening and leaned back in his chair.

  "Colonel Courtney, I have given orders that the woman is not to be allowed another chance to escape. Sergeant Cara is only doing her duty."

  "She is cutting off the circulation. Miss Monterro could lose her hands to gangrene."

  "That would be unfortunate," General China agreed. "However, I will not interfere, unless-" He paused.

  "Unless?" Sean demanded savagely.

  "Unless I am assured of your complete cooperation and unless I have your parole that you will not attempt another escape."

  Sean looked down at Claudia's hands. Already they were beginning to swell and change color, darkening to a leaden hue, the bright steel bands cutting into her wrists, the veins puffing up into dark blue cords below the manacles.

  "Gangrene is a dangerous condition, and unfortunately our facilities for amputation of limbs are very primitive," General China remarked.

  "All right," Sean said heavily. "I give you my parole."

  "And your cooperation," prompted China.

  "And I promise cooperation," Sean agreed.

  General China gave an order, and the sergeant used the key on the manacles, letting them out two notches each. Immediately the swelling of Claudia's hands dissipated and her skin coloring began to return to its normal creamy tan as the blood drained away.

  "Take her away!" China ordered in English, and the serge an nodded to her assistant gaoler. They each seized one of Claudia's arms and dragged her to the door.

  "Wait!" Sean shouted. But they ignored him, and when he tried to follow her, the big Shangane sergeant seized his arms from behind in a hammerlock.

  "Sean!" Claudia's voice had a note of hysteria. "Don't let them take me!" But they pushed her out of the bunker and the canvas curtain fell between them.

  "Sean!" Her voice came back to him.

  "I love you!" he shouted after her, struggling against the serg
eant's grip. "It will be all right, darling. Just remember I love you.

  I'll do what I have to do to get you out of here."" The promise rang hollowly in his own ears, and her voice was a despairing wail. "Sean!" And then again very faintly, "Sean!"

  Then there was silence beyond the curtain.

  Sean found he was panting with emotion, but he forced himself to cease struggling and stand quietly. The sergeant relaxed his grip and Sean shrugged him away and turned to General China.

  "You bastard!" he said. "You rotten bastard!"

  see you are in no mood for sensible discussion," China told him. He glanced at his wristwatch. "And it's well after midnight.

  We'll let you cool off." He looked at the sergeant and changed to shangane. "Take them" he indicated Sean and Job-i'feed them, give them dry clothes and a blanket, let them sleep, and bring them to me at dawn tomorrow." The sergeant saluted and pushed them toward the door.

  "I have work for them to do," China warned him. "Make sure they are in condition to do it."

  Sean and Job slept side by side on the floor of a dugout with a guard sitting over them. The floor was of hard-packed damp earth and the blankets were verminous, but neither the discomfort nor the tickle of insects crawling over Ins skin nor even thoughts of Claudia could keep Sean awake.

  The sergeant woke him in the dark of predawn from a profound and dreamless sleep by dumping an armful of clothing on his prostrate body.

  "Get dressed," he ordered.

  Sean sat up and scratched the bite of a bedbug. "What's your name?" It was a relief to be able to speak Shangane freely.

  Aliphonso Henriques Mabasa," the Shangane told him proudly. Sean smiled all he, unlikely combination-the name of a Portuguese emperor ancT the Shangane name for one who strikes with a club.

  "A war club ai your enemies and a meat club on their wives?"

  Sean asked, and Alphonso guffawed.

  Job sat up and grimaced at Sean's ribald sally. "At five in the morning, before breakfast!" he protested. He shook his head sadly, but Sean heard Alphonso delightedly repeating the joke to his men outside the dugout.

  "With the Shangane it doesn't take much to establish the reputation of being a wag," Job remarked in Sindebele as they sorted through the bundle of clothing Alphonso had brought them. It was all secondhand but reasonably clean. Sean found a military-style cloth cap and a suit of tiger-striped battle dress, and he discarded his bush jacket and shorts, which were by now in rags. He kept on his comfortable old velskoen.

  Breakfast was a stew of kapenta, the fingerling dried fish he thought of as African whitebait, and a porridge of maize meal.

  "What about tea?" Sean asked.

  Alphonso laughed. "You think this is the Polana Hotel in Maputo?"

  Dawn was just breaking when Alphonso escorted them down to the riverbank, where they found General China and his staff inspecting the damage done by the Hind gunships.

  "We lost twenty-six men killed and wounded yesterday," China greeted Sean. "And almost as many deserters during the night.

  Morale is sinking fast." He spoke in English and it was clear that none of his staff understood. Despite the circumstances he looked dapper and competent in his beret and crisply ironed battle dress, medal ribbons across his chest and general officer's stars on his epaulettes. The ivory-handled pistol hung on his webbing belt and he wore aviator-style mirrored sunglasses with thin gold frames.

  "Unless we can stop those gunships, it will be over in three months, before the rains can save us."

  The rains were the time of the guerrilla, when head-high grass, impassable roads, and flooded rivers hamstrung the defender and 0 concea men an sane uary "I watched those Hinds in action yesterday," Sean told him cautiously. "Captain Job here borrowed one of your RPG-7 rocket launchers and scored a direct hit with an AP rocket."

  China looked at Job with new interest. "Good," he said. "None of my own men have been able to do that yet. What happened?"

  "Nothing," Job answered simply.

  "No damage," Sean confirmed.

  "The entire machine is encased in titanium armor plate." China nodded and looked up at the sky, a nervous gesture, as though he were expecting one of the humpbacked monsters miraculously to appear. "Our friends in the south have offered us one of their new Darter missile systems, but there is the difficulty of bringing in the launch vehicles, heavy trucks, over these roads and through Frelimo-controlled territory." He shook his head. "We need an infantry weapon, one that can be carried and used by foot soldiers."

  As far as I know, there is only one effective weapon of that kind.

  The Americans developed a technique in Afghanistan. They adapted the original Stinger missile and worked out a way of getting through the armor. I haven't any idea of the details," Sean added hastily. He knew it was unwise to set himself up as an expert, but the problem was intriguing and he had allowed himself to be carried away.

  "You are quite correct, Colonel. The modified Stinger is the only weapon that has proved effective against the Hind. That's your task, the price of your freedom. I want you to procure a shipment of Stingers for me."

  Sean stopped dead and stared at him. Then he began to smile.

  "Certainly," he said. "A piece of cake. Do you have a preference for color and flavor? How about baboon-ball blue and kiwi fruit?"

  For the first time that morning China smiled back at him. "The Stingers are here already. It's simply a matter of picking them up."

  Sean's grin faded. "I hope, most fervently, that this is a joke. I know Savimbi has been given Stingers by the Yanks, but Angola is on the other side of the continent."

  "Our Stingers are much closer than that," China assured him.

  "Do you remember the old Rhodesian Air Force base at Grand ReefT" "I should." Sean nodded. "The Scouts operated out of there for almost a year."

  "Of course I remember." China touched the lobe of his ear beneath the gaudy beret. "It was from there you launched the attack on my camp at Inhlozane." His expression was suddenly bleak.

  "That was in another war," Sean reminded him.

  China's expression relaxed. "As I was saying, the Stingers we want are at Grand Reef."

  "I don't understand." Sean shook his head. "The Yanks would never give Stingers to Mugabe. He is a Marxist and there i no deep love between Zimbabwe and the U.S. It doesn't make sense.

  "Oh yes, it does," China assured him. "In a roundabout African way, it makes good sense" He glanced at his watch. "Teatime," he said.

  "I believe you were asking for a brew this morning. No matter what side we were on, the war made us all tea addicts."

  China led them back to his command bunker. Immediately an orderly brought in the smoke-blackened kettle.

  "The Americans dislike Mugabe, but they dislike the South Africans more," China explained. "Mugabe is harboring and assisting ANC guerrillas operating across his borders into South Africa."

  Sean nodded grimly. He had seen photographs of the carnage created by a limpet mine detonated in a South African supermarket; it had happened on the last Friday of the month, payday for monthly workers, when the store was crowded with housewives and their offspring, both black and white.

  "The South Africans have vowed to pursue the guerrillas wherever they run. They have already repeatedly made good that threat, hot pursuit across the borders of all their neighbors. The ANC have announced their intention of stepping up their bombing of soft civilian targets. Mugabe knows what the consequences will be, so he wants a weapon to deal with the South African Puma gunships when they cross his border to cull the ANC."