Текст книги "Vixen 03"

Автор книги: Clive Cussler

Соавторы: Clive Cussler
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13

The dampness hung like a soggy blanket and kept the water from evaporating out of the potholes. Fawkes glanced at the clock in the ashboard; it read three thirty-five. In another hour he would reach Pembroke. He began to feel a growing urge for a healthy tot of whisky.

He passed a pair of black youngsters squatting in the ditch beside the road. He paid them no heed and did not see them as they leaped to their feet and began running in the Bushmaster's dusty wake. A hundred yards farther on the road narrowed. A swamp on the right side held a rotting bed of reeds. On the left a ravine fell more than a hundred feet to a muddy streambed. Directly ahead a boy of about sixteen stood in the middle of the road, one hand gripping a broad-bladed Zulu spear, the other hand supporting a raised rock.

Fawkes stopped abruptly. The boy held his ground and stared with an expression of grim determination at the bearded face behind the windshield. He wore ragged shorts and a soiled, torn T-shirt that had never seen soap. Fawkes rolled down his window and leaned out. He smiled and spoke in a low, friendly voice.

"If you have a mind to play Saint George and the dragon with me, boy, I suggest you reconsider."

Fawkes was answered by silence. Then he became aware of three images simultaneously, and his muscles tensed. There was the sight of gleaming safety-glass fragments that had been carelessly kicked into a raineroded rut. There were parallel tire marks that curved at the lip of the ravine. And the other, most tangible evidence of something dangerously wrong was the reflection in the side mirror of the two boys charging toward his rear. One, a fat, lumbering youth, was pointing an old bolt-action rifle. The other swung a rusty machete above his head.

My God, Fawkes's mind flashed. I'm being ambushed by schoolchildren.

His only weapon was the hunting knife in the glove compartment. His family had hustled him on his way so quickly that he had forgotten to pack his favorite.44 Magnum revolver.

Wasting no time by cursing his laxity, he crammed the Bushmaster in reverse and mashed down on the gas. The tires bit and jerked the four-wheel-drive backward, missing the boy carrying the machete but clipping the one with the gun, sending him spinning into the swamp. Fawkes then' braked and shoved the gearshift into first and spun wheels toward the boy who stood poised to throw both spear and rock.

There was no hint of fear in the black teenager's eyes as he rooted his bare feet and pitched both arms in unison. At first Fawkes thought the boy's aim was high; he heard the spear clatter and ricochet off the roof. Then the windshield dissolved in a hail of glittering slivers and the rock was in the front seat, beside him. Fawkes felt the glass particles slice his face, but the only thing he remembered afterward was the cold look of hatred in his assailant's eyes.

The impact lifted the boy off his feet like an elastic doll and flung him under the front wheels. Fawkes stomped on the brake pedal but succeeded only in making the injuries worse. The locked tires bounced and skidded over pliant flesh, tearing skin from sinew.

Fawkes eased from behind the wheel and cautiously walked back. The boy was dead, his skull crushed nearly flat, his skinny legs mangled chunks of crimson. The fat boy with the gun lay half in the algae-coated swamp water, half on the sloping bank. His head had been wrenched backward until it touched his spine. There was no sight of his companion; he had vanished into the swamp.

Fawkes picked up the rifle. The breech was open and a cartridge was jammed in the receiver. He pried it out and studied the problem. The reason the fat boy had not fired was that the rifle could not. The firing pin was too badly bent. Fawkes threw the old gun as hard as he could into the deepest part of the mire, watching it splash and gurgle out of sight.

A small lorry lay upside down in the ravine. Two bodies sprawled from the gaping, twisted doors. A man and a woman, brutally mutilated, were shrouded in swarms of flies.

It was obvious the three African boys had stoned the unsuspecting travelers, wounding the driver and sending the lorry hurtling into the ravine, where they had hacked to death the trapped survivors. Then, flushed and overconfident with their easy victory, they had settled down to await their next victim.

"Stupid kids," he muttered amid the stillness of death. "Damn stupid kids."

Like a marathon runner who had dropped out of the race a mile from the finish, Fawkes ached with exhaustion and regret. Slowly he returned to the Bushmaster, sopping with a handkerchief the trickles of blood that ran down his cheek. He reached inside the door, set the frequency dial on the mobile radio, and hailed the Pembroke constable. When he finished his report, he stood and cursed and tossed poorly aimed stones at the arriving vultures.

14

"He's late," Pieter De Vaal, Minister of the South African Defence Forces, said in Afrikaans. He lifted the window of the coach and leaned out, searching the road bordering the railroad siding. His words were directed at a tall, slender man with compelling blue eyes and dressed in the uniform of an Army colonel.

"If Patrick Fawkes is late," the colonel said, swirling the drink in his hand, "there must be a good reason for it."

De Vaal turned from the open window and brushed both hands through a thicket of gray wavy hair. He looked more like a professor of ancient languages than like the iron-willed head of the second largest military power on the continent. Not that he had exactly inherited a plum job. De Vaal was the fifth defense minister in seven years. His predecessor had lasted less than five months.

"Typical English performance," he said impatiently. "An Englander lives only for gin, the queen, and a practiced air of indifference. They cannot be relied upon."

"If you so much as even imply to his face that he is English, Herr Minister, Fawkes will become most uncooperative." Colonel Joris Zeegler downed his drink and poured another. "Fawkes is a Scotsman. I respectfully suggest, sir, that you try not to forget that."

De Vaal made no show of anger at Zeegler's insubordinate tone. He regarded advice from his intelligence chief seriously. It was no secret within the Ministry that De Vaal's success in smashing the advances by outside terrorists and suppressing local uprisings was due largely to the ingenious infiltration of the insurgent organizations by Zeegler's highly trained operatives.

"Englander, Scotsman – I would prefer dealing with an Afrikaner."

"I agree," said Zeegler. "But Fawkes is the best qualified to offer an opinion on the project. A month-long computer search of experienced military personnel proved that." He opened a file folder. "Twenty-five years Royal Navy. Fifteen of them in ship's engineering. Two years captain of HMS Audacious. Final time in service spent as engineering director of the Grimsby Royal Navy Shipyard. Purchased a farm in northern Natal and retired there eleven years ago."

"And what does your computer make of the fact that he coddles his Bantu workers?"

"I must admit that offering his blacks and coloreds shares of his farm profits is the gesture of a liberal. But there can be no denying Fawkes has built up the finest estate in northern Natal in an extremely short length of time. His people are loyal beyond belief. Woe to the radical who tries to stir up trouble on the Fawkes farm."

De Vaal was in the midst of formulating another pessimistic statement when there was a knock on the door. A young officer entered and came to attention.

"Forgive the interruption, Herr Minister, but Captain Fawkes has arrived."

"Show him in," De Vaal said.

Fawkes ducked his head under the low doorway and entered. De Vaal stared up at him in silence. He had not expected someone of such proportions, nor someone whose face was freshly cut in a dozen places. He extended his hand.

"Captain Fawkes, this is indeed a pleasure," De Vaal said in Afrikaans. "It was good of you to make the trip."

Fawkes crushed De Vaal's hand within his. "Sorry, sir, but I do not speak your language."

De Vaal smoothly slipped into English.

"Forgive me," he said with a faint smile. "I forget that you Eng– ah – Scotsmen do not take to strange tongues."

"We're just dunderheaded, I guess."

"Pardon me for saying so, Captain, but you look as though you shaved with a branch of thorns."

"I encountered an ambush. Bloody little devils broke my windshield. I would have stopped at the local hospital, but I was running late for our meeting."

De Vaal took Fawkes by the arm and steered him to a chair. "I think we had better get a drink in you. Joris, will you do the honors? Captain Fawkes, this is Colonel Joris Zeegler, director of Internal South African Defence."

Zeegler nodded and held up a bottle. "I take it you prefer whisky, Captain?"

"Aye, that I do, Colonel."

De Vaal stepped over to the door and opened it. "Lieutenant Anders, inform Dr. Steedt that we have a patient for him. I suspect you will find him in his compartment, dozing." He closed the door and faced the room. "First things first. Now then, Captain, while we await the good doctor, perhaps you will be kind enough to provide us with a detailed report of your ambush."

The doctor came and went, grumbling good-naturedly over the rhinoceros hide Fawkes called skin. Except for two wounds that called for three stitches each, the doctor left the rest unbandaged. "Lucky for you those scratch marks don't match fingernail tracks, or you'd have a tough time explaining them to your wife," he joked as he snapped shut his bag.

"You're certain the attack was not organized?" Zeegler asked after the doctor departed.

"Not likely," Fawkes replied. "They were only ragged bush kids. God only knows what devil inspired them to go on a killing spree."

"I am afraid your run-in with bloodthirsty juveniles is not an isolated occurrence," De Vaal said softly.

Zeegler nodded in agreement. "Your story, Captain, fits the same crude modus operandi, if you will, of at least twenty other attacks in the last two months."

"If you want my opinion," Fawkes snorted, "that damned AAR is in back of it."

"Indirectly, the blame can be laid on the African Army of Revolution's doorstep." Zeegler drew on a pencil-thin cigar.

"Half the black boys between the ages of twelve to eighteen from here to Cape Town would give their testicles to become an AAR soldier," De Vaal injected. "You might call it a form of hero worship."

"You have to give the devil his due," said Zeegler. "Hiram Lusana is every bit as shrewd a psychologist as he is a propagandist and a tactician."

"Aye," Fawkes said, looking over at the colonel. "I've heard a great deal about that bastard. How did he come to be leader of the AAR?"

"Self-imposed. He's an American black. Seems he made a vast sum of money in international drug smuggling. But wealth was not enough. He entertained dreams of power and grandeur. So he sold out his business to a French syndicate and came to Africa and began organizing and equipping his own army of liberation."

"Seems a staggering undertaking for only one man," said Fawkes, "even a wealthy one."

"Not so staggering when you have help, and lots of it," Zeegler explained. "The Chinese supply his arms and the Vietnamese train his men. Fortunately, our security forces are able to keep them in a state of almost constant rout."

"But our government will surely fall if we are subjected to a prolonged economic blockade," added De Vaal. "Lusana's game plan is to fight a clean war by the book. No terrorism, no killing of innocent women and children. His forces thus far have attacked only military installations. Then, by playing benevolent savior, he can gain total moral and financial support from the United States, Europe, and the Third World powers. Once he achieves these goals he can exert his newly acquired influence to close off all our economic dealings with the outside world. Then the end of White South Africa is only a matter of weeks."

"Is there no way to contain Lusana?" asked Fawkes.

De Vaal's bushy eyebrows rose. "There is one possibility, provided you give it your blessing."

Fawkes stared at the Minister, his expression one of bewilderment. "I'm only a beached sailor and a farmer. I know nothing about insurgent warfare. Of what use can I be to the Ministry of Defence?"

De Vaal did not answer but simply passed Fawkes a leather-bound book about the size of a thin bookkeeping ledger.

"It's called Operation Wild Rose."

The lights of Pembroke blinked on one by one in the evening dusk. A light rain had pelted the windows of the coach, leaving a myriad of streaks down the dust-coated glass. Fawkes's reading spectacles clung to his great nose and magnified his eyes as they darted back and forth over the pages without pause. He was so engrossed in what he was reading he absentmindedly chewed on the stem of a pipe that had long since burned out.

It was a few minutes past eight o'clock when he closed the cover of Operation Wild Rose. He sat there for a long moment as though in contemplation. Finally he shook his head tiredly.

"I pray to God it never comes to this," he said quietly.

"I share your sentiments," said De Vaal. "But the time is fast approaching when our backs will be against the wall and Operation Wild Rose may well be our final hope of escaping annihilation."

"I still fail to see what you gentlemen want from me."

"Merely your opinion, Captain," said Zeegler. "We've made feasibility studies of the plan and know what the computers say about its chances of success. We're hoping your years of experience will supply the pros and cons as judged by a human."

"I can tell you the scheme is damn near impossible," said Fawkes. "And for my money you can add 'insane' as well. What you're proposing is terrorism at its worst."

"Exactly," agreed De Vaal. "By using a black hit-and-run force masquerading as members of the African Army of Revolution, we can swing international sympathy away from the blacks and to the white cause of South Africa

"We must have the support of countries like the United States to survive," Zeegler explained.

"What happened in Rhodesia can happen here," De Vaal went on. "All private property, farms. stores. banks, seized and nationalized. Blacks and whites slaughtered in the streets, thousands exiled from the continent with barely the clothes on their backs. A new black communist-oriented government, a despotic, tribal dictatorship suppressing and exploiting their own people in virtual slavery. You can be certain, Captain Fawkes, that if and when our government topples, it will not be replaced by one with democratic majority rule in mind."

"We don't know for sure that that will happen here," said Fawkes. "And even if we could look into a crystal ball and predict the worst, it would not condone unleashing Operation Wild Rose."

"I'm not after a moral judgment," De Vaal said sternly. "You've stated the plan is impossible. I will accept that."

After Fawkes left, De Vaal poured himself another drink. "The captain was frank. I'll give that to him."

"He was also quite right," said Zeegler. "Wild Rose is terrorism at its worst."

"Perhaps," De Vaal muttered. "But what choice does one have when one is winning battles while losing the war?"

"I am not a grand strategist," Zeegler replied. "But I'm certain Operation Wild Rose is not the answer, Minister. I urge you to shelve it."

De Vaal considered Zeegler's words for several moments. "All right, Colonel. Gather all data pertaining to the operation and seal it in the Ministry vault with the other contingency plans."

"Yes, sir," said Zeegler, his relief obvious.

De Vaal contemplated the liquid in his glass. Then he looked up with a thoughtful expression.

"A pity, a great pity. It just might have worked."

Fawkes was drunk.

If a monstrous claw had reached down and plucked away the long mahogany bar of the Pembroke Hotel, he would have fallen flat on his bandaged face. Dimly, he saw that he was the only patron left in the room. He ordered another drink, noting in a mild sort of sadistic glee that it was long past closing time and the five-foot-five-inch bartender was uneasy about asking him to leave.

"Are you all right, sir?" the bartender probed cautiously.

"No, dammit!" Fawkes roared. "I feel bloody-well awful."

"Beggin' your pardon, but if it makes you feel so bad, why do you drink it?"

"It's not the whisky that turns my guts. It's Operation Wild Rose."

Fawkes looked furtively around the room and then leaned across the bar. "What if I was to tell you I met with the Minister of Defence right down the street at the station, in his private railroad car, not more than three hours ago?"

A smug smile curled the bartender's lips. "The Minister must be one hell of a wizard, Mr. Fawkes."

"Wizard?"

"To be in two places at the same time."

"Make your point, man."

The bartender reached under a shelf and threw a newspaper on the bar in front of Fawkes. He pointed to an article on the front page and read aloud the caption.

" 'Defence Minister Pieter De Vaal enters Port Elizabeth Hospital for surgery.'

"Impossible!"

"That's this evening's paper," said the bartender. "You have to admit not only does the Minister have extraordinary powers of recuperation, but one fast train as well. Port Elizabeth is over a thousand kilometers to the south."

Fawkes snatched up the paper, shook the fuzziness from his vision, put on his glasses, and read the story. It was true. Clumsily, he threw a wad of bills at the bartender and staggered through the doorway, through the hotel lobby, and into the street.

When he reached the railroad station, it was deserted. The moon's light glinted on empty rails. De Vaal's train was gone.

15

They came with the rising sun. Somala counted at least thirty of them, clothed in the same type of field uniform he wore. He watched as they crept out of the bush like shadows and disappeared into the sugarcane. He swept the acacia tree with his binoculars. The scout in the blind was gone. Probably slipped away to join his unit, Somala surmised. But who were they? None of the raiding force looked familiar to him. Could they be members of another insurgent movement? If so, why did they wear the distinctive black beret of the AAR?

Somala was sorely tempted to leave his hiding place inside the baobab tree and approach the intruders, but he thought better of it and remained motionless. He would watch and observe. Those were his orders, and he would obey them.

The Fawkes farm was slowly coming to life. The workers in the compound were beginning to spread out and commence their daily chores. Patrick Fawkes, Jr., passed through the electricity-wired gate and went off to the great stone barn, where he began tinkering with a tractor. The guards were changing at the gate, and the fellow who had manned the night shift was standing half in, half out of the enclosure, swapping small talk with his relief, when abruptly and silently he fell to the ground. Simultaneously, the other guard slumped and dropped.

Somala gaped in awe as a wave of raiders sprinted out of the sugarcane field in a loose skirmish line and advanced toward the house. Most were carrying Chinese CK-88 assault weapons, but two of their number knelt and aimed long-barreled rifles with scopes and silencers.

The CK-88s opened up and Fawkes Junior seemed to snap to attention as at least ten slugs ripped through his body. His hands splayed and clawed at empty air, and then he crumpled across the tractor's unhooded engine. The thunder of the volley alerted jenny and she ran to an upstairs window.

"Oh God, Mama!" she screamed. "There's soldiers in the yard and they've shot Pat."

Myrna Fawkes grabbed the Holland & Holland and ran to the front door. One look was all she needed to see that the defenses had been breached. Already Africans in green and brown mottled uniforms were surging through the open gate left useless by the broken electrical circuit. She slammed the door, threw the lock, and yelled up the stairs to jenny.

"Get on the radio and call the constable."

Then she calmly sat down, shoved two shells containing double-0 buckshot into the breech of the twelve-gauge, and waited.

The crackle of the rifle fire suddenly increased and the shrill cries of women and frightened children began coming from the compound. Even the Fawkeses' prize cattle were not spared. Myrna shut out the bellows of their dying agony, choking off a dry sob at the waste of it all. She lifted the twin barrels as the first attacker crashed his way through the door.

He was the handsomest African Myrna had ever seen. His features were distinctly Caucasian, and yet his skin was nearly a perfect blue black. He lifted his rifle as if to smash out her brains with the butt and lunged across the room. Myrna pulled both triggers and old Lucifer spat fire.

The blast at such close range nearly tore the African's head off. His face dissolved in a spray of bone and reddish-gray tissue, and he jerked backward against the door frame and melted to the floor, his torso quivering in spastic pulsations.

Almost casually, as though she were at a skeet tournament, Myrna reloaded the gun. She had just snapped shut the breech when two more men hurtled through the door. Old Lucifer took the first squarely in the chest, dropping him instantly. The other attacker leaped over his fallen comrade's body, a move that threw Myrna's aim a trifle low. The discharge from the other barrel hit her attacker in the groin. He screamed, cast his weapon aside, and clutched himself. He grunted incoherently and staggered back outside to the veranda, pitching forward with his booted feet still in the room.

Myrna reloaded again. A window shattered and holes suddenly appeared in the wallpaper beside her chair. She felt no stabbing pain, no stinging sensation. She looked down. Blood was beginning to seep through the blue denim of her jeans.

A heavy booming sound erupted from upstairs and she knew Jenny was shooting down into the yard with the captain's.44 Magnum.

The next African was more cautious. He fired a quick burst around the door and waited before he entered. Not receiving any return fire, he became overconfident and ventured inside. The double-0 buckshot blew away his left arm. For several moments he stared dazedly at the limb lying at his feet, the fingers still twitching. The blood pumped from his empty sleeve and spilled on the carpet. Still in a trance, the soldier slowly sank to his knees and knelt there, moaning softly as his life's fluids leaked away.

With one hand Myrna fumbled with Lucifer. Three bullets from her last assailant had shattered her right forearm and wrist.

Awkwardly, she broke open the breech and ejected the spent shells. Her every movement seemed immersed in glue. The new shells slipped between her sweating fingers and fell past her reach.

"Mama?"

Myrna looked up. jenny was standing in the middle of the stairway, the revolver hanging loosely in one hand, the front of her blouse soaked with crimson.

"Mama… I'm hurt."

Before Myrna could reply, another figure entered the room. jenny tried to raise her gun. Her effort came slowly and too late. The newcomer fired first and she sagged and rolled down the stairs like a ragged, cast-off doll.

Myrna could only sit there and grip Lucifer. The loss of blood was sapping her energy and blurring her vision. She gazed vacantly at the man standing over her. Through the growing fog she could see him place the tip of the rifle an inch from her forehead.

"Forgive me," he said.

"Why?" she asked vaguely. "Why did you do this terrible thing?"

The cold dark eyes held no answer. For Myrna, the bougainvillea blossoms outside on the veranda exploded in a blaze of fuchsia and then blinked into blackness.

Somala walked among the dead, staring numbly at the faces forever frozen in shock and confusion. The raiders had ruthlessly killed nearly all the workers and their families in the compound. No more than a handful could have escaped into the bush. The feed in the barn and the equipment housed in the shed had been set on fire, and flames were already flickering orange fingers from the upstairs window of the Fawkes house.

How strange, Somala thought. The raiders policed the battleground and retrieved their own dead as quietly as ghosts. The movements had been efficient and deliberate. There was no hint of panic at the distant sound of the approaching helicopter units of the South African Defence Forces. The raiders simply melted into the surrounding brush as stealthily as they came.

Somala returned to the baobab tree for his gear and began trotting toward the township. His only thoughts were focused on rounding up the men of his section and reporting back to their camp across the Mozambique border. He did not look back at the dead strewn about the farm. He did not see the gathering vultures. Nor did he hear the shot from the gun whose bullet tore into the flesh of his back.