Текст книги "A Time to Die"

Автор книги: Wilbur Smith

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Sean looked back at Claudia, looked into her honey-gold e yes, and he wanted her. He knew he had never wanted anything in his life so desperately.

"Just say it one more time," she breathed huskily.

"I love you," he said, and they kissed again, but a different type of kiss, hard where the first had been soft, hot where it had been warm, savagely urgent where it had been gentle and lingering.

Quickly," she said into his mouth. "Every second is precious."

Her hands below the surface of the water were tearing at their Mom clothing. He had to use one hand to keep them from slipping under the green water, but with the other he helped her as best he could.

She opened the front of his bush jacket and then her own shirt to the waist and pressed herself to him. Her breasts were lubricated by the cool water. Her nipples were hard with wanting him; he could feel them distinctly sliding over his chest, they felt as big as ripe grapes.

He tugged the tongue of the leather belt that held her khaki shorts. She lifted herself to make it easier for him to unzip the fly, then kicked to free her legs as he worked the clinging wet cloth down over her buttocks. He slipped the garment over his arm to prevent it floating away and she was naked from the waist down.

In frantic haste she opened the front of his trousers and thrust in both hands to scoop him out.

"Oh Sean," she blurted. "Oh God, my darling. You're so big, so hard. Oh please, quickly, quickly!"

In the water they were both weightless and lithe as mating otters.

Her long legs closed around his body, wrapping him, her knees up under his armpits, her ankles locked across the small of his back as she searched for him blindly. He angled his hips to meet her thrusts and they almost succeeded, but it slipped away harmlessly between their tense naked bellies.

She groaned softly with frustration, then reached down and seized him again. Then with a lewd and beautiful arching of her back she took in just, the tip of him. They strained against each other, and suddenly her body went rigid and her golden eyes opened so wide they seemed to fill her face as he went sliding full length into her. After the cold green water she was so hot it was almost unbearable, and he cried out involuntarily.

Both Job and Dedan glanced around in surprise, then looked away in embarrassment,. but Sean and Claudia were oblivious to all the world It was over very swiftly and she hung around his neck, exhausted as a marathon runner at the end of a grueling race.

Sean recovered his voice first. "I'm sorry," he said. "It was so quick. I couldn't wait. Did you-?"

"I was there long before you." She grinned up at him, a lopsided and uncertain grin. "It was like being in an auto accident, quick but devastating!"

They remained locked together by the embrace of her legs and arms for a long time, quiet and resting, until she felt him shrivel and slip away. Only then did she release the grip of her legs and reach up with her mouth to kiss him tenderly.

F "Now you belong to me, and I to you. Even if I die today, it won't matter so much. I have had you in me."

"Let's try for a little more than one day." He smiled gently down at her. "Get dressed now, my love." He handed her back her clothing. "While I check on what's happening in the real world out there. He swam away from her and went to Job. "What do you see?" he asked.

"I think we are clear of the lines," Job answered, avoiding Sean's eyes tactfully. Strangely, it did not embarrass Sean that Job what had happened between Claudia and himself. He still knew felt elated and triumphant at the consummation of their love, and nothing could degrade it.

"As soon as it's dark enough, well swim the tree in toward the bank and get ashore." Sean glanced at his Rolex. Not more than two hours to sunset. "Keep your eyes open," he said, and swam across to Dedan to repeat the warning.

He tried to estimate the rate of the current by watching the bank and decided it was not more than two miles an hour. They would still be dangerously close to the Renamo lines when the sun set, and the river was flowing eastward toward the sea, so they would have to work their way around or through General China's forces to reach the Zimbabwean border in the west. It was a formidable task, but Sean felt optimistic and invulnerable. He e S side and swam back to Claudia.

"You make me feel good," he said.

"That's going to be my job in the future," she assured him. "But what do we do now?"

"Nothing until dark, except steer this liner down the river."

She cuddled against him under the water, and they held each other and watched the riverbanks drift slowly by After a while she said, "I'm getting cold."

They had been in the water for almost two hours, Sean realized, and though it was only a few degrees below their body temperature it was gradually chilling them through.

She slanted her eyes at him and gave him a naughty grin. "Can't you think of something to prevent hypothermia?" she asked. "Or do I have to make a suggestion? "Well he pretended to reflect, "we can't light a fire."

"Can't we?" she asked. "Do you want to bet?" She reached down, and after a few seconds she whispered, "See, nothing to it, and I didn't even use matches "It's a miracle!" he agreed, and began to unbuckle her belt again.

"This time let's see if we can make the miracle last longer than ten seconds," she suggested.

As the sun set, it turned the surface of the river to a luminous serpent with scales of furnace orange and glowing crimson.

"Now we can begin working in toward the bank," Sean ordered, and they began to swim the floating tree across the current. It was heavy and ungainly, most of its bulk below the surface, and it resisted their efforts to move it closer to the bank. All four of them kept at it, kicking out strongly, and ponderously it began to swing across the wide waters.

The sun slipped below the horizon and the waters turned black as crude oil. The trees along them were dark cutout silhouettes against the last glow of the sunset, but they were still thirty meters from the southern bank.

"We'll swim from here," Sean decided. "Keep close together.

Don't get separated in the dark. Is everybody ready?"

They bunched up, clinging to the same branch. Sean reached for Claudia's hand and opened his mouth to give the order, then closed it again and cocked his head to listen.

He was surprised he had not heard it before. Perhaps the sound had been muffled by the high banks of the river and the tall trees that lined its winding course. However, it was suddenly loud and unmistakable, the sound of an outboard motor running at high speed.

"Oh, shit," he whispered bitterly, and looked toward the near bank. Only thirty meters away, it could just as well have been thirty miles.

The whine of the motor rose and fell as the acoustics of water and trees played tricks, but it was clearly coming downstream fast, running down from the direction of the Renamo lines. Sean ducked his head to gaze through a chink in the vegetation, and he saw a glow in the darlilless, a beam of light that shafted briefly across the night skye then bounced from the dark trees along the bank, glinted from the water, and swept boldly along the banks.

"Renamo patrol boat," Sean said. "And they are looking for US.

Claudia tightened her grip on his hand, and no one else spoke.

"We'll try to hide in here," Sean said, "though I don't see how they can miss us. Get ready to duck under when the light hits us."

The sound of the motor changed, slowing down. Then the craft swept around the upstream bend of the river, a few hundred yards distant but coming down swiftly on the current toward them.

The beam of the spotlight played alternately along each bank, fighting them like day. It was an enormously powerful beam, probably one of the portable battle lights simiW to the one that had trapped Sean at the top of the cliffs.

As the beam switched from bank to bank it briefly illuminated the craft and its crew. Sean recognized it as an eighteen-foot inflatable Zodiac driven by a fifty-five-horsepower Yamaha outboard, and though he could not count the occupants, there were at least eight or nine of them and they had a light machine gun mounted in the bow. The man with the battle light was standing amidships.

The beam of light glanced over their refuge, dazzling them for an instant with its malevolent white eye, passing on and leaving them blinded by its brilliance, then coming back remorselessly and holding them captive. Sean heard someone give an indistinct order in Shangane, and the Zodiac altered course toward them, the beam of the battle light still fastened on them.

AM four of them sank low in the water until only their nostrils were exposed, and they cowered behind the branch to winch they were clinging.

The helmsman of the Zodiac throttled back and slipped the engine into neutral. The black rubber craft drifted on the current, but twenty feet off, the battle light darted and level with them

"Turn P"

"yourfaime "away, Sean told Claudia in a tight whisper, and took her in his arms below the surface. Even their tanned faces would shine in the light, and he Screened her and turned the back of his head toward the Zodiac.

"There is nobody there," somebody aid in Shangane. Although spoken at conversational level, the voice carried clearly across the water to where they were hiding.

r voice ordered in a tone of command.

"Go around!" anothe oozed the shangane sergeant who had been his escort.

Sean rec A white wake spread out behind the Zodiac as it began to circle the floating tree.

The light beam cast stark black shadows from the tangled branches and struck dazzling reflections when it touched the water.

As the Zodiac circled, they padded quietly to the further side of their leafy refuge, and when the beam fastened on them, they slid softly below the surface, trying not to gasp for breath as they came up again The deadly game of hide-and-seek lasted all of eternity before said again. "There is nobody there. We are the voice in the Zodiac wasting time."

"Keep circling," the sergeant's voice answered, and then after another minute, "Gunner, fire a burst into the tree."

In the bow of the Zodiac, the muzzle flashes of the RPD light machine gun twinkled like fairy lights, but a storm of shot tore into the floating tree with brutal and stunning savagery. It cracked in their eardrums and thumped into the branches over their heads, cutting loose a shower of leaves and twigs. It ripped away slabs of bark and kicked spray from the surface of the water, odd shots ricocheting into the night, wailing like demented spirits.

Sean pulled Claudia below the surface but still could hear the bullets plunging into the water above them and striking the trunk of the tree. He kept down until his lungs burned as though they were filled with acid and only then pulled himself to the surface to catch another breath.

The gunner in the Zodiac was firing taps, not a single continuous burst. Like a Morse operator on the key, an expert gunner has his own distinctive style that others can recognize. This one fired double taps, five rounds each; it needed a concert pianist's touch on the trigger to achieve such precision.

As Sean and Claudia came back to the surface, straining for the sweet taste of air, Dedan also came up only three feet in front of in. The reflection of the battle light lit his head clearly. His short the woolly beard streamed water, his eyes were like balls of ivory in his ebony face, and his mouth was open, drinking in air.

A bullet touched his temple just above the ear. His head flinched to the shot, and it opened his scalp as cleanly as a saber cut.

Involuntarily he cried out, a glottal bellow like that of a heart-shot bull buffalo, then his head fell forward and he sank facedown into the dark waters.

Sean lunged out and caught his upper arm, pulling him back to the surface before he drifted away, but his head lolled and his eyes had rolled back in their sockets, exposing only the whites. The men in the Zodiac had heard his cry, and the Shangane sergeant shouted to one of himnen, "Get ready to throw in a grenade," then to them, "Come out of there. I'll give you ten seconds."

"Job, answer him," Sean ordered with resignation. "Tell him we are coming out."

Matabele and Shangane could understand each other, and Job shouted to them not to fire again.

Claudia helped Sean keep Dedans head above the surface, and between them they pulled him toward the Zodiac. The battle light dazzled them, but hands reached down from out of the glare and one at a time dragged them on board.

Shivering like half-drowned puppies, they huddled in the center of the boat. They had Dedans body stretched out between them, and Sean lifted his head gently into his lap. He was unconscious, barely breathing, and gently Sean twisted his head to examine the bullet wound across his temple.

For a moment he did not recognize what he was seeing. From the long shallow wound bulged something that was white and glistening in the lamplight.

Beside him Claudia shuddered violently and whispered, "Sean, it's his, it's his..." She could not bring herself to say it, and only then did Sean realize that Dedans brain, still contained in the tough white membrane of the dura mater, was bulging out through the rent in his skull like an inner tube through a hole in an auto tire.

The Shangane sergeant gave an order, and the helmsman gunned the outboard motor and swung the Zodiac upstream. They ran at full throttle back toward the Renamo lines.

Sean sat on the floorboards with Dedans head in his lap. There was nothing he could do except chip his wrist and feel his pulse weaker and more erratic, then finally fade away altogether.

grow T

"He s dead," he said quietly. Job said nothing and Claudia turned her face away.

Sean held the dead head in his lap all the long return. Only when the helmsman cut the engine and coasted in to the bank did he look up. There were lighted lanterns and dark shapes awaiting them at the landing.

The Shangane sergeant gave a brusque order. Two of his men lifted Dedans corpse off Sean's lap and dumped him facedown on the muddy bank. Another trooper grabbed Claudia's arm and dragged her to her feet. He shoved her roughly ashore, and when she whirled on him furiously to protest, he lifted his AK butt to strike her in the center of her chest.

Sean, close beside him, caught the man s arm and siifled the blow.

"Do that again, you son of a syphilitic hyena," he said softly in Shangane, "and I'll hack off your mtondo with a blunt ax and make you eat it without salt."

The trooper stared at him, amazed more by his perfect Shangane than by the threat itself. On the bank the Shangane sergeant let out a bellow of delighted laughter.

"Better do what he says," he warned his trooper, "unless you are very hungry. This one means what he says." Then he grinned at Sean. "So you talk Shangane like one of us, and you understood everything we said!" He shook his head ruefully. "I won't let you fool me again!"

Wet, cold, and disheveled, they were dragged unceremoniously into General China's bunker and paraded before Ins desk. One glance at Ins face and Sean saw that the man was in a cold fury.

sin hEr to his seat. Then he said, "The woman is being moved to another For almost a full minute he stared at sin without r" g 0 camp well away from here. You will have no further opportunity to see her until I order it Sean kept his expression neutral, but Claudia gave a little cry of as though she could prevent the at The two female jailers were standing against the wall us desk, and he glanced at them and nodded. The taller of the two wore sergeant's stripes on her sleeve. She gave an order to the squat toad faced trooper beside her, and the woman came forward.

Stainless steel manaeleLdangled from her hand.

Claudia tightened her'gripon Sean's arm and shrank away from another sharp her. The woman lies ted and the tall sergeant gave command. The jailer grabbed Claudia's wrist and without apparent effort plucked her away from Sean's side.

With the expertise of long practice, she spun Claudia around and thrust her face hard against the sandbagged wall of the bunker, snapping the manacles on one wrist as she did so, then pulling both claudia,s arms behind her back and locking the second cuff on her other wrist.

She stepped back. The tall female sergeant stepped up, took Claudia's hands, and lifted them high between her shoulder blades.

Claudia gasped with pain as she was forced onto her toes. The base sergeant inspected the manacles; they were closed snugly around Claudia's wrists, but she was not satisfied. Deliberately the sergeant tightened them two more notches.

Claudia gasped again. "That's too tight, they're cutting into me."

"Tell that bitch to loosen them," Sean snapped at General China, who smiled for the first time that evening and leaned back in his chair.

"Colonel Courtney, I have given orders that the woman is not to be allowed another chance to escape. Sergeant Cara is only doing her duty."

"She is cutting off the circulation. Miss Monterro could lose her hands to gangrene."

"That would be unfortunate," General China agreed. "However, I will not interfere, unless-" He paused.

"Unless?" Sean demanded savagely.

"Unless I am assured of your complete cooperation and unless I have your parole that you will not attempt another escape."

Sean looked down at Claudia's hands. Already they were beginning to swell and change color, darkening to a leaden hue, the bright steel bands cutting into her wrists, the veins puffing up into dark blue cords below the manacles.

"Gangrene is a dangerous condition, and unfortunately our facilities for amputation of limbs are very primitive," General China remarked.

"All right," Sean said heavily. "I give you my parole."

"And your cooperation," prompted China.

"And I promise cooperation," Sean agreed.

General China gave an order, and the sergeant used the key on the manacles, letting them out two notches each. Immediately the swelling of Claudia's hands dissipated and her skin coloring began to return to its normal creamy tan as the blood drained away.

"Take her away!" China ordered in English, and the serge an nodded to her assistant gaoler. They each seized one of Claudia's arms and dragged her to the door.

"Wait!" Sean shouted. But they ignored him, and when he tried to follow her, the big Shangane sergeant seized his arms from behind in a hammerlock.

"Sean!" Claudia's voice had a note of hysteria. "Don't let them take me!" But they pushed her out of the bunker and the canvas curtain fell between them.

"Sean!" Her voice came back to him.

"I love you!" he shouted after her, struggling against the sergeant's grip. "It will be all right, darling. Just remember I love you.

I'll do what I have to do to get you out of here."" The promise rang hollowly in his own ears, and her voice was a despairing wail. "Sean!" And then again very faintly, "Sean!"

Then there was silence beyond the curtain.

Sean found he was panting with emotion, but he forced himself to cease struggling and stand quietly. The sergeant relaxed his grip and Sean shrugged him away and turned to General China.

"You bastard!" he said. "You rotten bastard!"

see you are in no mood for sensible discussion," China told him. He glanced at his wristwatch. "And it's well after midnight.

We'll let you cool off." He looked at the sergeant and changed to shangane. "Take them" he indicated Sean and Job-i'feed them, give them dry clothes and a blanket, let them sleep, and bring them to me at dawn tomorrow." The sergeant saluted and pushed them toward the door.

"I have work for them to do," China warned him. "Make sure they are in condition to do it."

Sean and Job slept side by side on the floor of a dugout with a guard sitting over them. The floor was of hard-packed damp earth and the blankets were verminous, but neither the discomfort nor the tickle of insects crawling over Ins skin nor even thoughts of Claudia could keep Sean awake.

The sergeant woke him in the dark of predawn from a profound and dreamless sleep by dumping an armful of clothing on his prostrate body.

"Get dressed," he ordered.

Sean sat up and scratched the bite of a bedbug. "What's your name?" It was a relief to be able to speak Shangane freely.

Aliphonso Henriques Mabasa," the Shangane told him proudly. Sean smiled all he, unlikely combination-the name of a Portuguese emperor ancT the Shangane name for one who strikes with a club.

"A war club ai your enemies and a meat club on their wives?"

Sean asked, and Alphonso guffawed.

Job sat up and grimaced at Sean's ribald sally. "At five in the morning, before breakfast!" he protested. He shook his head sadly, but Sean heard Alphonso delightedly repeating the joke to his men outside the dugout.

"With the Shangane it doesn't take much to establish the reputation of being a wag," Job remarked in Sindebele as they sorted through the bundle of clothing Alphonso had brought them. It was all secondhand but reasonably clean. Sean found a military-style cloth cap and a suit of tiger-striped battle dress, and he discarded his bush jacket and shorts, which were by now in rags. He kept on his comfortable old velskoen.

Breakfast was a stew of kapenta, the fingerling dried fish he thought of as African whitebait, and a porridge of maize meal.

"What about tea?" Sean asked.

Alphonso laughed. "You think this is the Polana Hotel in Maputo?"

Dawn was just breaking when Alphonso escorted them down to the riverbank, where they found General China and his staff inspecting the damage done by the Hind gunships.

"We lost twenty-six men killed and wounded yesterday," China greeted Sean. "And almost as many deserters during the night.

Morale is sinking fast." He spoke in English and it was clear that none of his staff understood. Despite the circumstances he looked dapper and competent in his beret and crisply ironed battle dress, medal ribbons across his chest and general officer's stars on his epaulettes. The ivory-handled pistol hung on his webbing belt and he wore aviator-style mirrored sunglasses with thin gold frames.

"Unless we can stop those gunships, it will be over in three months, before the rains can save us."

The rains were the time of the guerrilla, when head-high grass, impassable roads, and flooded rivers hamstrung the defender and 0 concea men an sane uary "I watched those Hinds in action yesterday," Sean told him cautiously. "Captain Job here borrowed one of your RPG-7 rocket launchers and scored a direct hit with an AP rocket."

China looked at Job with new interest. "Good," he said. "None of my own men have been able to do that yet. What happened?"

"Nothing," Job answered simply.

"No damage," Sean confirmed.

"The entire machine is encased in titanium armor plate." China nodded and looked up at the sky, a nervous gesture, as though he were expecting one of the humpbacked monsters miraculously to appear. "Our friends in the south have offered us one of their new Darter missile systems, but there is the difficulty of bringing in the launch vehicles, heavy trucks, over these roads and through Frelimo-controlled territory." He shook his head. "We need an infantry weapon, one that can be carried and used by foot soldiers."

As far as I know, there is only one effective weapon of that kind.

The Americans developed a technique in Afghanistan. They adapted the original Stinger missile and worked out a way of getting through the armor. I haven't any idea of the details," Sean added hastily. He knew it was unwise to set himself up as an expert, but the problem was intriguing and he had allowed himself to be carried away.

"You are quite correct, Colonel. The modified Stinger is the only weapon that has proved effective against the Hind. That's your task, the price of your freedom. I want you to procure a shipment of Stingers for me."

Sean stopped dead and stared at him. Then he began to smile.

"Certainly," he said. "A piece of cake. Do you have a preference for color and flavor? How about baboon-ball blue and kiwi fruit?"

For the first time that morning China smiled back at him. "The Stingers are here already. It's simply a matter of picking them up."

Sean's grin faded. "I hope, most fervently, that this is a joke. I know Savimbi has been given Stingers by the Yanks, but Angola is on the other side of the continent."

"Our Stingers are much closer than that," China assured him.

"Do you remember the old Rhodesian Air Force base at Grand ReefT" "I should." Sean nodded. "The Scouts operated out of there for almost a year."

"Of course I remember." China touched the lobe of his ear beneath the gaudy beret. "It was from there you launched the attack on my camp at Inhlozane." His expression was suddenly bleak.

"That was in another war," Sean reminded him.

China's expression relaxed. "As I was saying, the Stingers we want are at Grand Reef."

"I don't understand." Sean shook his head. "The Yanks would never give Stingers to Mugabe. He is a Marxist and there i no deep love between Zimbabwe and the U.S. It doesn't make sense.

"Oh yes, it does," China assured him. "In a roundabout African way, it makes good sense" He glanced at his watch. "Teatime," he said.

"I believe you were asking for a brew this morning. No matter what side we were on, the war made us all tea addicts."

China led them back to his command bunker. Immediately an orderly brought in the smoke-blackened kettle.

"The Americans dislike Mugabe, but they dislike the South Africans more," China explained. "Mugabe is harboring and assisting ANC guerrillas operating across his borders into South Africa."

Sean nodded grimly. He had seen photographs of the carnage created by a limpet mine detonated in a South African supermarket; it had happened on the last Friday of the month, payday for monthly workers, when the store was crowded with housewives and their offspring, both black and white.

"The South Africans have vowed to pursue the guerrillas wherever they run. They have already repeatedly made good that threat, hot pursuit across the borders of all their neighbors. The ANC have announced their intention of stepping up their bombing of soft civilian targets. Mugabe knows what the consequences will be, so he wants a weapon to deal with the South African Puma gunships when they cross his border to cull the ANC."

"I still don't believe the Yanks would supply him with Stingers," Sean said flatly.

"Not directly," China agreed. "But the British are training Mugabe's army for him. They are the middlemen. They have got the Stingers from the Americans, and they are training Mugabe's crack Third Brigade to use them at Grand Reef."

"How the hell do you know all this?"

"You must remember that I was once a minister, albeit a junior one, in Mugabe's cabinet. I still have good friends in high places."

Sean thought about it. "You are right." He nodded. "It is all typically African. So the Stingers are at Grand Reef."

"They were delivered by a Royal Air Force Hercules fourteen days ago and are scheduled to be deployed along the South African and Zimbabwean border by the beginning of next month.

They will be aimed at your countrymen, Colonel Courtney."

Sean felt a stirring of patriotic outrage, but he kept his expression neutral.

"The training is being conducted by Royal Artillery personnel, a captain and two NCOs, so you will begin to understand why I require a white face for my plans."

"It certainly begins to sound ominous," Sean muttered. "Tell me what it is exactly that you require."

"I want you to go back to Zimbabwe and bring me those Stinger missiles."

Sean showed no emotion as he asked, "In exchange?"

"Once the missiles are delivered to me, I will remove the manacles from Miss Monterro and transfer her to quarters where you will be able to visit her regularly"-he paused and allowed himself a knowing smile-"and spend some time with her each day or evening in private."

"What about our release?"

"Yes," China agreed. "All three of you will be released after you have performed one additional service for me-after first obtaining the Stingers."

"And what is that service?"

China held up both hands. "One thing at a time, Colonel Courtney.

The missiles first. Once you have delivered them, we will discuss the final part of our bargain."

Sean scowled into his tea mug as he turned it over in his mind, trying to find some vantage point to adopt, but China interrupted him.

"Colonel, every minute you waste merely prolongs Miss Monterro's'-he searched for the correct word-"her discomfort.

Until I have those missiles, she will wear her manacles night and day, waking or sleeping, eating or performing 0 the other essential functions of life. I suggest you begin immediately laying out your plans to procure them for me."

Sean stood up and went to the large-scale wall map behind China's desk. He didn't really need to study it. He could have closed his eyes and visualized every valley and peak, every wrinkle of land along the border between Mozambique and Zimbabwe.

The railway line crossed the border near the little town of Unitali, and twenty kilometers beyond it on the Zimbabwean side a tiny sit ion of the Grand Reef airfield red aircraft symbol marked the Pa and base.

Sean touched the stylized aircraft symbol with his forefinger, and Job came to stand beside him. They both stared at it thoughtfully. How many times had they sortied from that field, shambling out to the rumbling Dakota transports under the burden of parachute and battle packs and weapons? Each of them could picture clearly the position of every building, the hangars and barracks and perimeter defense.

"Twenty Ks from the border post," Job said softly. "Fifteen minutes by truck, but we'll never get there on foot."

"You spoke of a plan, General China. What do you have in mind? Can you provide us with vehicles?" Sean asked without looking around.

"Some time ago my men captured three Unimog trucks with authentic Zimbabwwn Army paintwork and papers. We have them hidden," China answered. Sean breathed a sigh of relief.