Countdown_ The Liberators Part 28

"Which is?"

"My tankers are maybe on the verge of mutiny over the limitations of the Eland. Sergeant Abdan's playing it down, for now, but it has me worried."

"What are you doing about it?"

"For now, I'm sending the two South Africans around to tell war stories. That should prove especially effective since one of them was Eland crew in their border war, and took out T-55's with them, while the other was on the receiving end, if not exactly in a T-55. I'm also going to have to have a long chat with Mendes about talking up the Eland. That's going to be tough, because she thinks we're suicidal maniacs for even thinking about it. And I don't know how good an actress she is. And while I like Option D better than the others, it's still a s.h.i.+tty plan. If they see us coming, we're f.u.c.ked."

"That's what I told Waggoner."

The explosion had a metallic quality to it: Blang. The 90mm subcaliber device sounded and a target to the left front shuddered with the impact. A small puff of smoke told of the hit.

The sound of the spotting rifles, as m.u.f.fled by the 90mm barrels, was odd, flatter sounding than what the troops were used to in the .50 caliber Browning. Lana rode the back deck, with her head inside the turret. Twenty-one of the twenty-seven available subcal devices were loaded on this Eland, in the immediately accessible ready racks. The platoon leader, Green, commanded and loaded-a tough job in itself-while his gunner, face pressed to the gunner's sight, frantically spun the traversing and elevating wheels to line up on targets that appeared at random, ahead and to either side. The gunner's face ran with sweat from the effort, despite the air conditioning the Israelis had installed, clouding his eyes and fogging up the sight. The bouncing of the armored car on the rough ground made the gunner's job seem impossible.

"Gunner, HEAT, Tank!" Green called out, dropping back to his seat and grabbing a round which he stuffed up the breech. "Three o'clock."

Lana counted off the seconds as the gunner spun the turret to the right. One . . . two . . . three . . . four . . . five, and a.s.sume you're dead, gunner, because at this range they can't miss. She thought it, but said nothing. Reilly wants me to act like I've got confidence; I'll act like it.

The subcal sounded again. Lana didn't need to see the target; she knew it had been a miss from the way the gunner slammed his head against the sight in frustration.

Green, however, having stuck his head up again, did see the miss. Once again he dropped down to his seat, screaming, "Gunner, HEAT . . . "

Lana shook her head. Inside, she felt rising despair. s.h.i.+t; it doesn't even matter. Their heavy antiaircraft machine gun can penetrate at this range.

"Lana," Reilly said, after she confronted him with her fears and doubts, "don't sweat it so much. The tank commanders are not going to spend much time under fire with their heads above the hatch. That's why I have infantry. There will not be a manned machine gun capable of engaging except for the coax guns, and those won't penetrate. And while a slow traverse is fatal at close range, it doesn't matter as much at long range.

"You just get my boys trained to engage and hit the targets. Leave the tactics of the thing to me." Now if only I could come up with something I had some confidence in, myself.

"Is that confidence," she asked, "or just overweening pride?"

Reilly laughed. "Maybe a little of both. Well . . . " he hesitated, then sighed. He looked her in the eye and said, "Look, Lana, this is the truth. As near as I can tell, it is, anyway. I'm not a good man. I'm sure not a nice man. I've got the morals of an alley cat . . . except that that's an insult to self-respecting alley cats everywhere.

"But there are two things I can do better than anyone I know . . . anyone I ever heard of that's living. I can train troops better and I can lead them in combat better.

"So if you won't have confidence in your Elands, or my crews, have confidence in me. They're going to be about two to three times more effective than you think is even possible . . . because of the way I'll train them and the way I'll use them in action. Do you think these guys came here and are still trying because they lack confidence in me? And, remember, the core of them know me from way back."

Mendes chewed at her lower lip while searching his face for the truth in his words. He believes it, she thought. He really does. Maybe . . . just maybe. And I do like him. Or worse. So . . .

"Fine. You're that sure?" She glanced at his face again. Yes, he was that sure. "Then I want to come along. You need a maintenance chief anyway, to ride herd on the Boer and the Bantu. And I, at least, won't look askance at Viljoen and Dumi for doing things that I do myself."

Reilly scratched at the side of his head for a half a minute before answering. "Let me ask Stauer if we can afford another . . . man . . . on the rolls." And did she just send me a hint? Did I suggest it to her with that "morals of an alley cat" line? s.h.i.+t. "And if you can't believe we have a chance, Lana, can't you at least fake it, for the men?"

She smiled then and, lifting her chin, answered, "I am a woman. Of course I can fake things for men."

G.o.d, what a wonderful girl.

"I see misery in your future," Viljoen said to Lana, later, over dinner.

Dumisani, sitting next to Lana and opposite his lover began softly to laugh.

Lana sniffed, "Why is that and why would it be any of your business?"

Viljoen rolled his eyes as if the questions were too preposterous to answer. Dumi, instead, answered for him. "Because, countrywoman, you've got it so bad for our 'fearless leader' that we can practically smell you getting wet every time he gets close. Trust me, Dani and I are both pretty good at discerning such things. It's part and parcel of the whole gay thing."

Lana bridled. Her face grew red. She sputtered, "That's . . . that's . . . that's . . . "-her moral outrage collapsed, suddenly. "Oh, s.h.i.+t, what am I going to do? He hardly knows I exist." Then she remembered a perceived mental note of, To lay, soonest. "Well, maybe he does."

"Oh, he knows," Viljoen countered. "We're pretty good at reading body language that way, too. As to what you're going to do, I'd suggest rape if you're impatient, seduction otherwise."

"I'd thought that being treated as an equal, and an equally valuable soldier, meant more than being treated like a woman," Lana said, sadly and wistfully. "It's not a crime to be wrong, is it?"

"No crime, no, Lana," Dumi replied. "And don't listen to my partner. Seduction you can do. Rape would be right out."

To Lana, the tone and tenor of the Zulu's voice, so much like that of the woman who had cared for her as a child, was inherently authoritative.

"I don't understand why he's never come on to me," she said. "I mean, I'm pretty sure he has me on his list. But never a hint, or at least never one he intended to give."

"He's a pro," Viljoen said. "I mean, I'm pretty sure Dumi and I make his skin crawl, but he suppresses that in the interests of the mission and the organization. Equally, you make certain parts of him vibrate like a tuning fork-no, we can't hear it; that's just a guess-but he pushes that back, too, and for the same reason."

"Seduction, huh?"

"Seduction."

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE.

No man is free who is a slave to the flesh.

-Seneca, Epistolae ad Lucilium, XCII

D-91, Suakin, Sudan

Things had been worse. For one thing, he'd developed an infection, a few weeks back, from the open sores where he'd once been manacled. They'd stopped shackling Adam's legs together, long enough for the sores to heal, and never quite gotten around to putting the shackles back on. He could walk almost like a free man, now.

Almost as if they were free, Adam and Makeda walked hand in hand in the pre-morning darkness. His guards walked, politely enough, a few steps behind. They were not so far back, however, that they couldn't hear what was said. And Adam had learned already that if he whispered they simply closed the distance.

Across the water, one largish building shone electric lights. Besides that emanating from the portholes of a dhow which had shown up the previous night, those were the only lights to be seen, close in. Adam turned his head over one shoulder and asked the guards what it was.

Before they could answer, Labaan spoke out from the darkness. "It's a prison, boy, and, yes, we considered putting you in it. Be happy we decided differently. The place is a near double for what I imagine h.e.l.l is like.

"And here, at least, you have the girl."

Adam nodded, then squeezed Makeda's hand. Yes, at least here I have the girl.

"You must think I'm a wh.o.r.e," Makeda whispered, after a bout of particularly fierce and frantic lovemaking. She was definitely growing fond of the boy, and even beginning to trust him a bit.

Adam smiled and shook his head no, while thinking, I think you're very good at your job and there's a part of me that would like to cut the heart out of whoever trained you in it. Because, in a better world, I could take you home and present you to my father as my wife. In the world that is, they'd never accept you as anything more than a slave and concubine.

Makeda wasn't fooled. "It's all right," she said. "I understand. There's no place for you and me to be together after . . . if we ever get free of this place and these people. Get me free, though; that's all I ask."

"There is such a place," Adam replied, softly. "Far away, across Africa, over the sea. I've lived there. It's real."

"America? Where the streets are paved with gold? I've heard of it."

He shook his head, rustling the pillow. "Yes, there . . . though the streets aren't paved with gold. Still, it's a place someone can get a fresh start in life, a place where the only slavers are the . . . frankly, the Arabs and other Moslems that immigrate there. Oh, and the odd Hindu or Filipino. And even those the Americans will send to jail if they catch them. Fine them too for the wages their slaves should have been paid, with interest.

"Sadly," he added, "I am as much a slave as you, or maybe more so. You, if free, could go to America. Me? I have obligations to take over my clan when my father dies and those I can't . . . s.h.i.+t." He rolled his head on the pillow, staring at the ceiling, the moonlight filtering in showing a look of mixed disgust and despair on his face.

"What?" she asked.

"I just realized. I mean really just realized. Labaan was right. Blood, for us, counts for most and I, no matter what they told me at the university, am just as much a member of my culture and supporter of my clan as he is. s.h.i.+t."

"I don't see what the disappearance of the Galloway has to do with us," Labaan said to the Arab seated opposite. Both men sat on placed on the rugs that covered the polished coral floor. "Yusuf ibn Muhammad al Ha.s.san, from Sana'a," the Arab had introduced himself as. He'd come in on the dhow riding at anchor in the bay. It was he, so it was said, who had arranged for a s.h.i.+p bearing arms, among them T-55 tanks, to be in a position to be seized by the clan's seafaring rovers. The Arab had come in from Yemen by dhow, the same dhow as brought supplies every eight to ten days.

"It didn't just disappear," Yusuf said. "It blew up. That's odd enough, in itself. But the area has been swept and not a single body or piece of a body has been found. That's really odd."

"So what do you think happened to it?" Labaan asked.

"If I had to make a guess, I'd say either British or American or possibly even Zionist special forces overtook it at sea, boarded it, and captured the crew. Except that I had the s.h.i.+p transporting more than just the crew. There was a major strike force of mujahadin aboard, as well, and they would not have gone gently."

"All those forces you mention are highly capable. They probably have some method of incapacitating a s.h.i.+p's crew before they even board."

"Maybe," Yusuf half agreed. "But it is still oddly coincidental that someone went after this particular s.h.i.+p so soon after it transported your people and your prisoner."

"Stranger things have happened," Labaan said, with a shrug. "I would think it much more likely that it was the presence of that same strike team you mentioned that alerted whoever took over the s.h.i.+p."

Yusuf c.o.c.ked his head to one side, shook it to and fro a few times, and again said, "Maybe. Still, I thought you ought to know. And, per your chief's . . . request, I could hardly call you."

"I appreciate that," Labaan said, "as I appreciate the trouble you took to bring us word. And I will increase security because of it. Even so, we are small change, here. I think whoever went after your s.h.i.+p was after the mujahadin, not us."

"You're probably right," Yusuf agreed, with good grace.

D-90, Suakin, Sudan

There were four guards, not counting Labaan, when Adam and Makeda were brought out for their evening walk. Labaan looked apologetic as he announced, "I've received word of some strange happenings. The details don't matter. What does matter is I have to increase security on you. I'm sorry."

Adam looked from guard to guard and answered, "What difference, two or four. There's still no privacy."

"It's more than that," Labaan said. "I won't . . . we can't . . . put the leg irons on you anymore, but . . . " He signaled with a toss of his head at the guards. One of these produced a set of manacles, old things, a little rusty on the surface, and rough, but solid looking for all that.

Adam began to protest. "Like a . . . " He cut himself off. No sense in reminding Makeda of her official status.

"I'm sorry," Labaan repeated. "But turning the two of you into one package makes it that much harder for someone to take you away."

And impossible to swim, Adam thought. Dammit. There goes that plan . . . if I can call it a plan . . . since I still had no good solution to the sharks.

Makeda took the wrist manacles in stride, or at least seemed to. Who knew what anger and hate burned inside the heart of a slave? Adam, on the other hand, felt a deep, burning sense of humiliation.

"It will only be when you're outside," his captor a.s.sured Adam. "And I really am sorry." Labaan, feeling mildly dirty, turned and left. They could hear his footsteps scrunching on the coral gravel for some time after.

The sun setting to the west over the waters of the bay framed Makeda in bright orange as she walked the rubble strewn road circling the island. She had the swaying grace common among the woman of her people, that grace being partly driven by culture and example, and partly by the mere fact that they tended to be so tall and slender. Adam walked at her side, holding her hand. This was the easiest way, since the two were cuffed together at the wrist.

The guards hadn't said, "Now try to swim in that position," as they'd linked the two. At least their mouths had said nothing. Adam thought their faces betrayed the words even so. At least most of them had. One, Adam had thought, looked almost apologetic. He thought, too, that they seemed more alert than they'd been for some time.

"Before you were brought here," Makeda said, "before they put up the fence, we were allowed sometimes to a.s.sociate with the locals." Her chin indicated the surrounding waters. "They said there used to be yachts that came here . . . often, even. And a ferry from Yemen that came almost every day, instead of the one that comes about once a week or ten days now."

"Not anymore?" he asked.

She shook her head, a motion as graceful as her walk. "Too dangerous now; pirates . . . slavers . . . kidnappers for ransom. They said they used to make a pretty good living from the yachts and the tourists. Some of them hoped they might restart the slave trade that used to run through here . . . but most were skeptical that they could."