by Wilbur Smith
‘Tell them your mother is sick.’
‘I’m an orphan.’
‘I know, darling, but this is life and death.’
‘What did you call me?’
‘It slipped out.’
‘Say it again.’
‘Craig, don’t be an idiot.’
‘Say it.’
‘Darling.’
‘Where and when?’
‘Half an hour at the bandstand in the gardens, and Craig it’s bad news.’ She hung up without letting him talk again.
She saw him first. He came at a lope, like a Saint Bernard puppy, with legs too long and his hair sticking out under the peak of his cap, a frown of worry crumpling up his face, but when he saw her sitting on the steps of the white-painted bandstand, the frown smoothed and his eyes lit with that special soft look that today she found too painful to bear.
‘God,’ he said. ‘I had forgotten how lovely you are.’
‘Let’s walk.’ She couldn’t look at him, but when he took her hand, she could not bring herself to pull her fingers out of his.
Neither of them spoke again until they reached the river. They stood on the bank and watched a little girl in a white dress and pink ribbons feeding breadcrumbs to the ducks.
‘I had to tell you first,’ she said. ‘I owed you that at least.’ She felt him go very still beside her, but still she could not look at him, yet she could not withdraw her hand from his.
‘Before you say anything, I want to tell you again what I told you before. I love you, Jan.’
‘Oh, Craig.’
‘Do you believe me?’
She nodded and swallowed.
‘All right, then, now you tell me what you called me to hear.’
‘Roland has asked me to marry him.’
His hand began to tremble.
‘And I said yes.’
‘Why, Jan?’
She jerked her hand away at last. ‘Damn you, why do you always have to do it?’
‘Why?’ he persisted. ‘I know you love me. Why are you going to do it?’
‘Because I love him more,’ she said, still angry. ‘If you were me, who would you marry?’
‘When you put it that way,’ he agreed. ‘I suppose you are right.’ Now at last she looked at him. He was very pale. ‘Roly always was the winner. I hope you will be very happy, Jan.’
‘Oh, Craig, I’m so sorry.’
‘Yes, I know. So am I. Can we just leave it now, Jan. There is nothing more to say.’
‘Yes, there is. Roland is coming to see you this evening. He is going to ask you to be his best man.’
Roland Ballantyne perched on the edge of the operations table. It was an enormous relief map of Matabeleland. The disposition of the security force elements was shown by small movable counters and their strength by a numbered card set into each counter like a menu-holder. Every branch of the force had its own colour – the Ballantyne Scouts were maroon. They were shown as 250 in Thabas Indunas barracks, but there was still a patrol of fifty near the Gwaai, involved in the hot pursuit of the survivors of the previous day’s contact.
On the opposite side of the operations table Wing Commander Douglas Hunt-Jeffreys slapped the wooden pointer into the palm of the other hand.
‘All right,’ he nodded. ‘This is for heads of staff only. Let’s go over it from the beginning, please.’
There were just the two of them in the operations room, and the red security light above the steel door was burning.
‘Code name Buffalo,’ Roland said. ‘The object of operation is the elimination of Josiah Inkunzi and/or one or all of his chiefs of staff – Tebe, Chitepo and Tungata.’
‘Tungata?’ Hunt-Jeffreys asked.
‘A new one,’ Roland explained.
‘Go on, please.’
‘We will cut them at the safe house in Lusaka, at some date after the fifteenth of November when we expect Inkunzi to return from a visit to Hungary and East Germany.’
‘You will be able to get intelligence of his return?’ Douglas asked, and when Roland nodded, ‘Can you let me know your source?’
‘That is not even for you, Dougie, my boy.’
‘Very well, as long as you will be certain that Inkunzi is in residence before you move.’
‘From now on let’s call him Buffalo.’
‘How will you go in?’
‘We will go in overland. A column of Land-Rovers with Zambian police markings and all personnel will wear Zambian police uniforms.’
Douglas raised an eyebrow. ‘Geneva Convention?’
‘Legitimate ruse of war,’ Roland countered.
‘They’ll shoot you if they catch you.’
‘They would do that anyway, uniforms or not. The answer will be not to let any of our lads get caught.’
‘All right, you go in by road – which one?’
‘Livingstone to Lusaka.’
‘A long haul through hostile territory, and our air force has blown the bridges at Kaleya.’
‘There is an alternative route upstream, there will be a guide waiting to take us through the bush to reach it.’
‘So you have covered that bridge, but how do you cross the Zambezi?’
‘There is a drift below Kazungula.’
‘Which you have checked, of course?’
‘On a dummy run. We took a vehicle across, using winch and floats, in nine minutes flat. We will have the entire task force across in under two hours. There is a track that will take us out onto the great north road fifty K’s north of Livingstone.’
‘What about re-supply?’
‘The guide at Kaleya is a white maize farmer, he has fuel on his farm, and we will back up with helicopters.’
‘I take it you will use the helicopters to evacuate if you are forced to abort the operation?’
Roland nodded. ‘That’s it, Dougie old bean. Pray it’s not necessary.’
‘Let’s go on to personnel then. How many will you use?’
‘Forty-five Scouts, that includes S’arn-Major and myself, and ten specialists.’
‘Specialists?’
‘We expect to find a pile of documents in Buffalo’s HQ. Probably so much that we will not be able to bring it all back. We need at least four intelligence experts to evaluate on the spot, what to keep and what to burn. You pick them for us.’
‘The other specialists?’
‘Medicos, two of them. Henderson and his aide. We have used them before.’
‘Good, who else?’
‘Blast bunnies, to clear the house of booby-traps, to set our own when we leave, and to blow the bridges behind us on our way home.’
‘Armourers from Salisbury?’
‘I can get two good lads here in Bulawayo, one is a cousin of mine.’
‘Fine, let me have a list of names.’ Douglas carefully withdrew the stub of his cigarette from the ivory holder, crushed it out, and replaced it with a fresh tube from the packet of Gold Leaf.
‘What about a site for the quarantine camp?’ he asked. ‘Have you given it some thought?’
‘There is the Wankie Safari Lodge on the Dett vlei. It’s two hours’ drive from the Zambezi, and it has been on a caretaker basis since the Wankie strip was abandoned.’
‘Five-star comfort – the Scouts are getting soft.’ Douglas grinned mockingly. ‘Okay, I’ll see that you get it.’ Douglas made a note and then looked up. ‘Now let’s go over the dates. How soon can you be ready to go?’
‘Fifteenth of November. That gives us eight weeks to assemble the equipment, and rehearse the raid—’
‘It probably also fits in rather well with the date of your wedding, doesn’t it?’ Douglas tapped the ivory holder against his teeth, and delighted in Roland Ballantyne’s quick flare of temper.
‘The timing of the raid has nothing to do with my private affairs, it will be dictated entirely by Buffalo’s movements. In any event, my wedding will take place a week before the start of quarantine. Janine and I will spend our honeymoo
n at the Victoria Falls Hotel which is only two hours’ drive from the camp at Wankie Safari Lodge. She will fly back to Bulawayo on the airway’s scheduled flight, and I will go into quarantine directly from Vic Falls.’
Douglas lifted a defensive hand and grinned mockingly. ‘I say, do keep your hair on, old man. Just a civil enquiry, that’s all. By the way, I think my wedding invitation must have been lost in the post—’ But Roland had returned to his list, and was studying it with all his attention.
Douglas Hunt-Jeffreys lay on the ample bed in the cool shuttered bedroom, and examined the naked woman who slept beside him. At first she had seemed a most unpromising subject, with her pale acne-scarred face and disconcerting staring eyes behind horn-rimmed spectacles, her abrupt, aggressive, almost mannish manner, and the smouldering intensity of the political militant. But stripped of her shapeless sweater and baggy skirts, of her thick woollen socks and crude leather sandals, she had a slim pale, almost girlish, body, with fine small breasts that Douglas found very much to his taste. When she removed the spectacles, her staring eyes softened into appealing unfocused myopia, and under Douglas’ skilful lips and fingers, she unloosed a tumultuous physical response which had at first astonished and then delighted him. He found he could induce in her an epileptic passion, a state in which she was almost catatonic and totally susceptible to his will, her depravity limited only by the range of Douglas’ fertile imagination.
‘A murrain on beautiful women,’ he smiled contentedly to himself. ‘It’s the ugly little ducklings who are the absolute ravers!’
They had met in the middle of the morning, and now it was – careful not to disturb her, Douglas checked his gold Rolex – it was two o’clock in the afternoon. Even for Douglas, a marathon performance.
‘Poor lamb is exhausted.’ He craved a cigarette, but decided to give her ten minutes more. There was no hurry. He could afford to lie a little longer and leisurely review this case.
Like many good controllers, Douglas had found that a sexual relationship with his female agents, and occasionally even with some of his male agents, was an effective tool of manipulation, a short-cut to the dependencies and loyalties that were so desirable in his trade. This case was a perfect example. Without the physical lever Doctor Leila St John would be a difficult and unpredictable subject, whereas with it she had become one of his best agents ever.
Douglas Hunt-Jeffreys by a fluke of war was a born Rhodesian. His father had come out to Africa at the beginning of Hitler’s war to command the Royal Air Force training station at Gwelo. He had met and married a local girl, and Douglas had been delivered in 1941 by the Air Force doctor. The family had returned to England at the end of his father’s tour of duty, and Douglas had followed the well-worn family path to Eton, and then on to the Royal Air Force.
After that there had been an unusual diversion in his career, and he found himself in British military intelligence. Back in 1964, when Ian Smith came to power in Rhodesia, and started making the first threatening noises about breaking with Britain in a unilateral declaration of independence, Douglas Hunt-Jeffreys had been the perfect choice of an agent to place in the field. He had returned to Rhodesia, taking up his Rhodesian nationality, joined the Rhodesian Air Force and began immediately to mole his way up the ladder of command.
He was now chief co-ordinator for British intelligence throughout the territory, and Doctor Leila St John was one of his recruits. Naturally, she had no idea as to who was her ultimate employer; any suggestion of military intelligence, no matter to which country it belonged, would have sent her scampering up the nearest tree like a frightened cat. Douglas grinned lazily at his own imagery. Leila St John believed herself to be a member of a small courageous group of left-wing guerrillas, intent on wresting the land of her birth from its racialist fascist conquerors and delivering it unto the joys of Marxist communism.
On the other hand, the concern of Douglas Hunt-Jeffreys and his government was to arrive at the swiftest settlement acceptable to the United Nations and to the United States, France, West Germany and their other Western allies, and to withdraw from an embarrassing, untidy and costly situation with what dignity and despatch they could still muster, preferably leaving in charge the least objectionable of the African guerrilla leaders.
British and American intelligence appraisals showed that Josiah Inkunzi, despite all his extreme left-wing rhetoric and the military assistance which he had solicited and received from communist China and the Soviet bloc countries, was a pragmatist. From the Western viewpoint, he was far and away the least of many much greater evils; his elimination would clear the way for a horde of truly vicious Marxist monsters to take over and lead the nation-to-be Zimbabwe into the clutches of the big red bear.
A secondary consideration was that a successful Rhodesian assassination coup on Inkunzi would bolster the slowly flagging fighting resolve of the Rhodesian UDI government, and would render Ian Smith and his gang of right-wing cabinet ministers even less amenable to reason than they had been to date. No, it was absolutely essential that Josiah Inkunzi’s life be protected at all costs, and Douglas Hunt-Jeffreys tickled the sleeping woman gently.
‘Wake up, pussy cat,’ he said. ‘It’s time to talk.’
She sat up and stretched, and then groaned softly and touched herself cautiously. ‘Ah!’ she murmured huskily. ‘I ache all over, inside and out, and it feels good.’
‘Light each of us a cigarette,’ he ordered, and she fitted one into his ivory holder with practised dexterity, lit it and placed it between his lips.
‘When do you expect the next courier from Lusaka?’ He blew a spinning smoke-ring that broke on her bosom like mist on a hilltop.
‘Overdue,’ she said. ‘I told you about the Umlimo.’
‘Oh, yes,’ Douglas nodded. ‘The spirit medium.’
‘The arrangements to move her are all in hand, and Lusaka is sending a high party official, probably a commissar, to take charge of the transfer. He will arrive at any time.’
‘It seems a lot of trouble to go to for a senile old witchdoctor.’
‘She is the spiritual leader of the Matabele people,’ Leila told him fiercely, ‘her presence with the guerrilla army would be of incalculable value to their morale.’
‘Yes, I understand, you explained the superstitions to me.’ Douglas stroked her cheek soothingly and she subsided gradually. ‘So they are sending a commissar. That’s good, though it always puzzles me how they move back and forth across the border, in and out of the towns, and from one end of the country to the other, with so little trouble.’
‘To the average white man, one black face looks the same as every other,’ Leila explained. ‘There is no system of passes or passports, every village is a base, nearly every black person an ally. As long as they do not carry arms or explosives, they can use the buses and railways, and pass through the road-blocks with impunity.’
‘All right,’ Douglas agreed. ‘Just as long as what I have for you gets back to Lusaka as soon as possible.’
‘By next week at the latest,’ Leila promised.
‘The Ballantyne Scouts are setting up a full-scale operation to cull Inkunzi and his staff at the safe house in Lusaka.’
‘Oh my God, no!’ Leila gasped with shock. ‘Yes, I’m afraid so, unless we can warn him. Now here are the details. Memorize them, please.’
The rackety old bus came down the winding road through the hills, leaving behind it a long greasy black smear of diesel fumes which drifted sluggishly aside on the small breeze. The roof-racks were piled with bundles tied with rope and pieces of string, with cardboard boxes and cheap suitcases, with squawking chickens in cages of plaited bark and bent green twigs, and with other less readily identifiable packages.
The driver slammed on his brakes when he saw the road-block ahead, and the chattering and laughter of his passengers died into an uneasy silence. As soon as the bus stopped, the black passengers poured out of the forward entrance, and under the direction of the waiting a
rmed police separated into groups according to their sex, men to one side, women and their children to the other. In the meantime, two black constables climbed aboard to search the empty bus for fugitives hiding under the seats or for hidden weapons.
Comrade Tungata Zebiwe was amongst the huddle of male passengers. He was dressed in a floppy hat, a ragged shirt and short khaki trousers, on his feet were filthy tennis shoes and his big toes protruded through the stained canvas uppers. He seemed typical of the unskilled itinerant labourers who made up the great bulk of the country’s labour force; he was safe, just as long as the police check was cursory, but he had every reason to believe that this one would not be.
After crossing the Zambezi drifts in darkness, and negotiating the cordon sanitaire, he had made his way south through the abandoned strip and reached the main road near the collieries at Wankie. He was travelling alone, and carrying forged employment papers to show that he had been discharged two days previously from employment as a labourer at the collieries. It should have been enough to take him through any ordinary road-block.
However, two hours after he had boarded the crowded bus and when they were approaching the outskirts of Bulawayo, he realized suddenly that there was another ZIPRA courier amongst the passengers. She was a Matabele woman in her late twenties, who had been in the training camp with him in Zambia. She was also dressed like a peasant girl, and had an infant strapped upon her back in the traditional fashion. Tungata studied her surreptitiously as the bus roared southwards, hoping that she might not be carrying incriminating material. If she was, and if she was picked up at a road-block, then every other passenger in the bus would be subjected to full security scrutiny, which included fingerprints, and as a former Rhodesian government employee, Tungata’s fingerprints were on the files.
The woman, although his ally and comrade, was a deadly danger to him now. She was a totally unimportant pawn, a mere courier, and she was expendable, but what was she carrying at the moment? He watched her surreptitiously, looking for any indication of her status, and then suddenly his attention focused on the infant strapped to the girl’s back. With a swoop of dread in the pit of his stomach, Tungata realized the worst. The woman was active. If they took her, they would almost certainly take Tungata also.