Wilbur Smith's Smashing Thrillers

by Wilbur Smith

  “Keep going.” Daniel prodded him impatiently. “Make your speeches later, old man.”

  They went on along the spoor, quick, silent and alert. Sepoo pointed out the sign that Kelly had left, the broken twigs, the heel marks and the places where she had deliberately fallen to her knees. “We are close now.” He touched Daniel’s arm. “Very close…”

  “Be careful not to run into him. He might lay an ambush…”

  Kelly screamed in the forest ahead of them. “No, please! Please don’t hit me!” And for an instant Daniel lost control. He lunged forward, rushing to her defence, but Sepoo seized his wrist and hung on doggedly.

  “No! No! Kara-Ki is not hurt. She is warning us. Don’t rush in like a stupid wazungu. Use your head now.”

  Daniel pulled himself together, but he was still trembling with rage. “All right,” he whispered. “He doesn’t know I am here but he has seen you. I’m going to circle round them and lie downstream. You must drive him on to me, just as you drive the duiker in the net hunt. Do you understand, Sepoo?”

  “I understand. Give the call of a grey parrot when you are ready.”

  Daniel screwed the folding bayonet off the muzzle of his AK 47 and propped the rifle against the tree beside him. Cheng was using Kelly as a shield. The rifle was useless. He abandoned it. Armed only with the bayonet, he circled out swiftly away from the river-bank. Twice more he heard Kelly’s voice, pleading and whining, giving him a pin-point on her position.

  It took him less than five minutes to get downstream of Cheng and Kelly and to flatten himself against the hole of one of the trees growing on the bank. He cupped his hands over his mouth and gave an imitation of the squawk of a roosting parrot. Then he crouched down with the bayonet at the ready.

  Sepoo’s voice shrilled through the trees. He was using the high ventriloquist’s tone that would deceive the listener as to direction and distance. “Hey, wazungu – Let Kara-Ki go. I am watching you from the trees. Let her go, or I will put a poison arrow into you.” Daniel doubted that Cheng could understand the Swahili words, but the effect would be the same, to concentrate Cheng’s attention upstream while driving him down to where Daniel was waiting.

  He crouched and listened. A few minutes later, Sepoo called again, “Hey, wazungu, do you hear me?” Silence fell again and Daniel strained his eyes and his hearing. Then a branch rustled just ahead of him, and he heard Kelly’s voice, muffled and terrified. “Please don’t…” she began, but was cut off by Cheng’s brusque whisper.

  “Shut your mouth, woman, or I will break your arm.”

  They were very close to where Daniel waited. He tightened his grip on the hilt of the bayonet. Then he saw movement in the undergrowth, and a moment later made out the blue of Cheng’s jacket. Cheng was moving backwards, holding Kelly against his chest, facing the direction of Sepoo’s voice, aiming the Tokarev pistol over Kelly’s shoulder, ready to fire the moment Sepoo showed himself. He was backing directly towards the tree where Daniel waited.

  Daniel knew that Cheng was an exponent of the martial arts. In any hand-to-hand combat, Daniel would be at a terrible disadvantage. There was one sure way. That was to drive the point of the bayonet into his kidneys from behind. It would cripple him instantly.

  He stepped out from behind the tree with the bayonet held low and underhand. He launched the stroke, but at the same instant Cheng twisted violently sideways. Daniel never knew what had alerted him, for he had made no sound. it could only have been the almost supernatural instinct of the Kung Fu fighter.

  The bayonet caught Cheng in the flank, an inch above the hip bone.

  It went in to the hilt, but Cheng’s turn tore the weapon from Daniel’s grip.

  Cheng released Kelly, shoving her away from him and brought the Tokarev round to fire into Daniel’s face. Daniel grabbed the wrist of his pistol hand and forced it upwards. The first shot went into the branches above their heads.

  Cheng twisted in Daniel’s grip, and as Daniel tried to hold him, he whipped his body back again and his knee came up, aimed for Daniel’s crotch. Daniel caught the kick on his thigh, but the force of it paralysed his leg.

  From the corner of his eye he saw Cheng’s left hand, stiff as an axe-blade, flick towards his head, aimed at his neck below the ear. He hunched his shoulders and caught it on the thick muscle of his upper biceps. The strength and power of it sickened him. His grip on Cheng’s pistol hand slackened.

  The hand flicked at him again, and this time Daniel knew it would snap his neck like a dry twig. Kelly had not fallen, despite the vicious shove Cheng had given her between the shoulder-blades. She gathered herself and hurled herself back at him, shoulder first into Cheng’s side, into the flank that the bayonet had laid open. The force of it turned the blow aside from Daniel’s exposed neck and Cheng stumbled against him and dropped the pistol with a shout of pain.

  Desperately Daniel locked his free arm around the back of Cheng’s head and threw himself backwards, in the direction in which Cheng had been thrown by Kelly’s charge. Cheng could not resist and they fell, locked together, down the sheer bank of the river, dropping six feet into the thick red ooze, going under completely.

  Almost immediately their heads broke out through the surface. Both of them were gasping for breath, still locked together. Daniel’s leg was still paralysed. Cheng was wiry and quick.

  Daniel realised that he could not hold him. Kelly saw he was in distress and stooped. She picked up the bayonet, and in the same movement threw herself feet first down the bank, sliding on her backside, the bayonet poised.

  Cheng squirmed over the top of Daniel, whipping one arm around his neck from behind. His back was turned to Kelly, the jacket of his safari suit shining wetly with red mud.

  Kelly stabbed from as high as she could reach. Her first blow struck one of Cheng’s ribs and was deflected. Cheng grunted and convulsed.

  She lifted the bayonet and stabbed again and this time the point found a gap between his ribs.

  Cheng released the armlock from Daniel’s neck and wriggled around to face Kelly in the mud. The bayonet was still lodged high in his back, the blade half buried.

  Cheng reached out for Kelly with both hands, his mud daubed features contorted with an animal ferocity. Daniel recovered and threw himself forward on to Cheng’s back, locking both arms around his throat, bearing him down with all his weight. The hilt of the bayonet was trapped between them and the blade was forced all the way home. A mouthful of blood burst over Cheng’s lips and poured down his chin.

  Daniel heaved and shoved his head below the surface, and held it there.

  As Cheng was struggling in the red mud, one of his arms broke out and groped blindly for Daniel’s face, trying to reach his eyes with hooked fingers. Daniel held on grimly, and the hand fell away. Cheng’s movements in the mud became feebler and more erratic.

  Kelly waded to the bank and crouched there, watching in fascinated horror.

  Suddenly a rush of slow fat bubbles rose out of the red ooze and burst upon the surface as Cheng’s lungs emptied. Only Daniel’s head was clear of the mud. He lay there for a long time, never relaxing his grip on Cheng’s submerged throat.

  “He’s dead,” Kelly whispered at last. “He must be dead by now.”

  Slowly Daniel released his grip. There was no movement below the surface. Daniel dragged himself to the bank, like an insect moving through treacle. Kelly helped him up the bank. His injured leg trailed behind him. On the top the two of them knelt together clinging to each other. They stared down into the river bed.

  Slowly something rose to the surface like a dead log. The mud coated Cheng’s corpse so thickly that it almost obscured the human shape.

  They stared at it for fully five minutes before either of them spoke.

  “He drowned in his own cesspool” Daniel whispered. “I couldn’t have chosen a better way.”

  WILBUR SMITH

  WILD

  JUSTICE

  PAN BOOKS

  First pu
blished in Great Britain 1979 by William Heinemann Ltd

  This edition published 1998 by Pan Books

  This electronic edition published 2008 by Pan Books

  an imprint of Pan Macmillan Ltd

  Pan Macmillan, 20 New Wharf Rd, London N1 9RR

  Basingstoke and Oxford

  Associated companies throughout the world

  www.panmacmillan.com

  ISBN 978-0-330-46802-2 in Adobe Reader format

  ISBN 978-0-330-46801-5 in Adobe Digital Editions format

  ISBN 978-0-330-46804-6 in Microsoft Reader format

  ISBN 978-0-330-46803-9 in Mobipocket format

  Copyright © Wilbur Smith 1979

  The right of Wilbur Smith to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  You may not copy, store, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  Visit www.panmacmillan.com to read more about all our books and to buy them. You will also find features, author interviews and news of any author events, and you can sign up for e-newsletters so that you’re always first to hear about our new releases.

  This book is for my wife and the jewel

  of my life, Mokhiniso, with all my love

  and gratitude for the enchanted years

  that I have been married to her

  There were only fifteen joining passengers for the British Airways flight at Victoria Airport on the island of Malic in the oceanic republic of the Seychelles.

  Two couples formed a tight group as they waited their turn for departure formalities. They were all young, all deeply tanned and they seemed still carefree and relaxed by their holiday in that island paradise. However, one of them made her three companions seem insignificant by the sheer splendour of her physical presence.

  She was a tall girl, with long limbs and her head set on a proud, shapely neck. Her thick, sun-gilded blonde hair was twisted into a braid and coiled high on top of her head, and the sun had touched her with gold and brought out the bloom of youth and health upon her skin.

  As she moved with the undulating grace of one of the big predatory cats, bare feet thrust into open sandals, so the big pointed breasts joggled tautly under the thin cotton of her tee-shirt and the tight round buttocks strained the faded denim of her hacked-off shorts.

  Across the front of her tee-shirt was blazoned the legend "I AM A LOVE NUT" and below it was drawn the suggestive outline of a coco-de-mer.

  She smiled brilliantly at the dark-skinned Seychellois immigration officer as she slid the green United States passport with its golden eagle across the desk to him, but when she turned to her male companion she spoke in quick fluent German. She retrieved her passport and led the others through into the security area.

  Again she smiled at the two members of the Seychelles

  Police Force who were in charge of the weapons search, and she swung the net carry bag off her shoulder.

  "You want to check these?" she asked, and they all laughed. The bag contained two huge coco-de-mer; the grotesque fruit, each twice the size of a human head, were the most popular souvenirs of the Islands.

  Each of her three companions carried similar trophies in net bags, and the police officer ignored such familiar objects and instead ran his metal detector in a perfunctory manner over the canvas flight bags which made up the rest of their hand luggage. It buzzed harshly on one bag and the boy who carried it shamefacedly produced a small Nikkormat camera. More laughter and then the police officer waved the group through into the final Departure Lounge.

  It was already crowded with transit passengers who had boarded at Mauritius, and beyond the lounge windows the huge Boeing 747 jumbo squatted on the tarmac, lit harshly by floodlights as the refuelling tenders fussed about her.

  There were no free seats in the lounge and the group of four formed a standing circle under one of the big revolving punk ah fans, for the night was close and humid and the mass of humanity in the closed room sullied the air with tobacco smoke and the smell of hot bodies.

  The blonde girl led the gay chatter and sudden bursts of laughter, standing inches above her two male companions and a full head above the other girl, so that they were a focus of attention for the hundreds of other passengers.

  Their manner had changed subtly since they entered the lounge; there was a sense of relief as though a serious obstacle had been negotiated, and an almost feverish excitement in the timbre of their laughter. They were never still, shifting restlessly from foot to foot, hands fiddling with hair or clothing.

  Although they were clearly a closed group, quarantined by an almost conspiratorial air of camaraderie, one of the transit passengers left his wife sitting and stood up from his seat across the lounge.

  "Say, do you speak English?" he asked, as he approached the group.

  He was a heavy man in his middle fifties with a thick thatch of steel-grey hair, dark horn-rimmed spectacles, and the easy confident manner of success and wealth.

  Reluctantly the group opened for him, and it was the tall blonde girl who answered, as if by right.

  "Sure, I'm American also."

  "No kidding?" The man chuckled. "Well, what do you know." And he was studying her with open admiration. "I just wanted to know what those things are." He pointed to the net bag of nuts that lay at her feet.

  "They are coco-de-mer," the blonde answered.

  "Oh yeah, I've heard of them."

  "They call them "love nuts"," the girl went on, stooping to open the heavy bag at her feet. "And you can see why." She displayed one of the fruit for him.

  The double globes were joined in an exact replica of a pair of human buttocks.

  "Back end." She smiled, and her teeth were so white they appeared as translucent as fine bone china.

  "Front end." She turned the nut, and offered for his inspection the perfect mons vener is complete with a feminine gash and a tuft of coarse curls, and now it was clear she was flirting and teasing; she altered her stance, thrusting her hips forward slightly, and the man glanced down involuntarily at her own plump mons beneath the tight blue denim, its deep triangle bisected by the fold of material which had tucked up into the cleft.

  He flushed slightly and his lips parted with a small involuntary intake of breath.

  "The male tree has a stamen as thick and as long as your arm." She widened her eyes to the size and colour of blue pansies, and across the lounge the man's wife stood up and came towards them, warned by some feminine instinct. She was much younger than her husband and very heavy and awkward with child.

  "The Seychellois will tell you that in the full moon the male pulls up its roots and walks around to mate with the females---"

  "As long and as thick as your arm-" smiled the pretty little dark-haired girl beside her, " wow!" She was also teasing now, and both girls dropped their gaze deliberately down the front of the man's body. He squirmed slightly, and the two young men who flanked him grinned at his discomfort.

  His wife reached him and tugged at his arm. There was a red angry rash of prickly heat on her throat and little beads of perspiration across her upper lip, like transparent blisters.

  "Harry, I'm not feeling well, "she whined softly.

  "I've got to go now," he mumbled with relief, his poise and confidence shaken, and he took his wife's arm and led her away.

  "Did you recognize him?" asked the dark-haired girl in German, still smiling, her voice pitched very low.

  "Harold McKevitt," the blonde replied softly in the same language.

  "Neurosurgeon from Forth Worth.
He read the closing paper to the convention on Saturday morning." She explained. "Big fish very big fish," and like a cat she ran the pink tip of her tongue across her lips.

  Of the four hundred and one passengers in the final Departure Lounge that Monday evening three hundred and sixty were surgeons, or their wives. The surgeons, including some of the most eminent in the world of medicine, had come from Europe and England and the United States, from Japan and South America and Asia, for the convention that had ended twenty-four hours previously on the island of Mauritius, five hundred miles to the south of Malic island. This was one of the first flights out since then and it had been fully booked ever since the convention had been convoked.

  "British Airways announces the departure of Flight BA 070 for Nairobi and London; will transit passengers please board now through the main gate. "The announcement was in the soft singsong of the Creole accent, and there was a massed movement towards the exit.

  "Victtoria Control this is Speedbird Zero Seven Zero request push back and start clearance."

  "Zero Seven Zero you are cleared to start and taxi to holding point for runway Zero One."

  "Please copy amendment to our flight plan for Nairobi.

  Number of Pax aboard should be 401. We have a full house."

  "Roger, Speedbird, your flight plan is amended." The gigantic aircraft was still in its nose-high climb configuration and the seat belt and no-smoking lights burned brightly down the length of the firstclass cabin. The blonde girl and her companion sat side by side in the roomy seats and directly behind the forward bulkhead that partitioned off the command area and the first-class galley. The seats that the young couple occupied had been reserved many months previously.

  The blonde nodded to her companion and he leaned forward to screen her from the passengers across the aisle while she slipped one of the coco-de-mer from its net bag and held it in her lap.