The Leopard Hunts In Darkness Part 27

Why not merely hand it over to the police?"

"Since they fired their white officers, the police have become a bunch of heavyhanded bunglers- then Peter gave him a rake-h.e.l.l smile and after all, old boy, they are my rhino also." The helicopter lifted off with a gut-sliding swoop, and its nose rotated onto a northerly heading. Keeping low, hugging the contours, it bore away, and the rush of air through the open hatch made further conversation impossible.

They kept well to the west of the main northern road, not risking a sighting by the occupants of the Mercedes.

An hour later, as the helicopter hovered and then began its descent to the small military fort at Karoi, Craig glanced at his wrist.w.a.tch. It was after four o'clock.

Peter Fungabera saw the gesture and nodded. "It looks as though it's going to be a night operation, "he agreed.

The village of Karoi had once been a centre for the white, owned ranches in the area, but now it was a single street of shabby trading-stores, a service station, a post office and a small police station. The military base was a little beyond the town, still heavily fortified from the days of the bush war with a barbed-wire surround and sloped walls of sandbags twenty feet thick.

The local commandant, a young black 2nd lieutenant, was clearly overawed by the importance of his visitor, and saluted theatrically every time Peter Fungabera spoke.

"Get this idiot out of my sight," Peter snarled at Captain Nbebi, as he took over the command post. "And get me the at est report on Bas position."

"Bac a pa.s.se trou Sinoia twenty-three minutes ago.

Captain Nbebi looked up from the radio set.

"Right. Do we have an accurate description of the vehicle?"

"It's a dark blue Mercedes 280 SE with a ministerial pennant on the bonnet. Registration PL 674. No motorcycle outriders, nor other escort vehicle. Four occupants."

"Make sure that all units have that description and repeat once more that there is to be no slooting. Ba( a is to be taken unharmed. Harm him and we could well have another Matabele rebellion on our hands. n.o.body is to fire at him or his vehicle, even to save their own lives. Make that clear. Any man who disobeys will have to face me personally." Nbebi called each ugit individually, repeated Peter's orders and waited while they were acknowledged. Then they waited impatiently, drinking tea from chipped enamel mugs and watching the radio set.

It crackled abruptly to life and Timon Nbebi sprang to it.

"We have located the truck," he translated triumphantly.

"It's a green five-ton Ford with a canvas canopy. A driver and a pa.s.senger in the cab. Heavily laden, well down on the suspension and using extra low gear on the inclines. It crossed the drift on the Sanyati river ten minutes ago, heading from the direction of Tuti Mission towards the road junction twenty-five miles north of here." "So, Bada and the truck are on a course to intercept each other," said Peter Fungabera softly, and there was the hunter's gleam in his eyes.

aw the radio set was the focus of all their attention, each time it came alive all their eyes instantly swivelled to it.

The reports came in regularly, tracing the swift progress of the Mercedes northwards towards them and that of the lumbering truck, grinding slowly down the dusty rutted secondary road from the opposite direction. In the periods between each report, they sat in silence, sipping the strong over-sweetened tea and munching sandwiches of coa.r.s.e brown bread and canned bully beef.

Peter Fungabera ate little. He had tilted back his chair and placed his feet on the commandant's desk. He tapped the swagger, stick against the lacings of his rubber-soled jungle boots with a monotonous rhythm that began to irritate Craig. Suddenly Craig found himself craving for a cigarette again, the first time in months, and he stood up and began to pace the small office restlessly.

Timon Nbebi acknowledged another report and when he replaced the microphone, translated from the Shana, "I'he Mercedes has reached the village. They have stopped at the service station to refill with gasoline." Tungata Zebiwe was only a few hundred yards from where they sat. Craig found the knowledge disconcerting.

Up to now, it had been more an intellectual exercise than an actual life, and-death chase. He had ceased to think of Tungata as a man, he was merely "Bada', the quarry, to be outguessed and hunted into the trap. Now suddenly he remembered him as a man, a friend, an extraordinary human being, and he was once more torn between his residual loyalty of friends.h.i.+p and his desire to see a criminal brought to justice.

The command post was suddenly claustrophobic, and he went out into the tiny yard enclosed by high thick walls and sandbags. The sun had set, and the brief African twilight purpled the sky overhead. He stood staring up at it. There was a light footstep beside him and he glanced down.

"Don't be too unhappy," Sally-Anne pleaded softly. He was touched by her concern.

"You don't have to go," she went on. "You could stay here." He shook his head. "I want to be sure I want to see it for myself," he said. "But I'll not hate it any less." 11 know" she said. "I respect you for that." He looked down on her upturned face and knew that she wanted him to kiss her. The moment for which he had waited so long and so patiently had arrived. She was ready for him at last, her need as great as his.

Gently he touched her cheek with his fingertips, and her eyelids fluttered half-closed. She swayed towards him, and he realized that he loved her. The knowledge took his breath away for a moment. He felt an almost religious awe.

"Sally-Anne," he whispered, and the door of the corn Peter Fungabera strode out "We are moving out," he snapped, and they drew apart.

Craig saw her shake herself lightly as though waking from sleep and her eyes came back into focus.

Side by side, they followed Peter and Timon to the open Land' Rover at the gate of the fort.

command post crashed open into the yard.

he evening was chill after the heat of the day, and the wind clawed at them, for the windscreen had been strapped down on the Land-Rover's bonnet.

Timon Nbebi drove with Peter Fungabera in the pa.s.sig and Sally-Anne were crowded enger seat. Cra into the back seat with the radio operator. Timon drove cautiously with parking lights only burning, and the two open army trucks packed with Third Brigade troopers in full battle gear kept close behind them.

The Mercedes was less than half a mile ahead.

Occasionally they could see the glow of its tail-lights as it climbed the road up one of the heavily wooded hills.

Peter Fungabera checked the odometer. "We've come twenty, three miles. The turn-off to the Sanyati and Tuti is only two miles ahead." He tapped Timon on the shoulder with the swagger-stick. "Pull over. Call the unit at the junction." Craig found himself s.h.i.+vering as much from excitement as the cold. With the engine still running, Timon called ahead to the road, junction where the forward observation team was concealed.

"Ah! That's it! Timon could not keep the elation from his voice. "Bada has turned off the main road, General.

The target truck has stopped and is parked two miles from the crossroads. It has to be a prearranged meeting, sit."

"Get going," Peter Fungabera ordered. "Follow them!" Now Timon Nbebi drove fast, using the glow of his arking lights to hold the verge of the road.

p "There's the turning!" Peter snapped, as the unmade road showed dusty pale out of the dark.

Timon slowed and swung onto it. A sergeant of the Third Brigade stepped out of the darkness of the encroaching bush. He jumped up onto the foot board and managed to salute with his free hand.

"They pa.s.sed here a minute ago, General," he blurted.

"The truck is just ahead. We have set up a road-block behind it and we will block here as soon as you are pa.s.sed, sit. We have them bottled up."

"Carry on, Sergeant," Peter nodded, then turned to Timon Nbebi. "The road drops steeply down from here to the drift. Have the trucks cut their engines as soon as we are rolling. We'll coast down." The silence was eerie after the growl of heavy engines.

The only sound was the squeak of the Land-Rover's suspension, the crunch of the tyres over gravel, and the rustle of the wind around their ears.

The twists in the rough track sprang at them out of the night with unnerving speed, and Timon Nbebi wrenched the wheel through them as they careered down the first drop of the great escarpment. The two trucks were guided by their tail-lights. They made monstrous black shapes looming out of the darkness close behind. Sally-Anne reached out for Craig's hand as they were thrown together into the turns, and she hung on to it tightly all the way down.

"There they are!" Peter Fungabera snarled abruptly, his voice roughened with excitement.

Below them they saw the headlights of the Mercedes flickering beyond the trees. They were closing up swiftly.

For a few seconds the headlights were blanketed by another turn in the winding road, and then they burst out again two long beams burning th pale dust surface of the track, to be answered suddenly 6y another glaring pair of headlights facing in the oppbsite direction, even at this range, blindingly white. The second pair of headlights flashed three times, obviously a recognition signal, and immediately the Mercedes slowed.

"We've got them," Peter Fungabera exulted, and switched off the parking lights.

Below them a canopied truck was trundling slowly from the verge where it had been parked in darkness, into the middle of the road. Its headlights flooded the Mercedes which pulled to a halt. Two men climbed out of the Mercedes and crossed to the cab of the truck. One of them Haiti carried a rifle. They spoke to the driver through the open window.

The Land-Rover raced silently in complete darkness towards the brightly lit tableau in the valley below. Sally Anne was clinging to Craig's hand with startling strength.