Текст книги "A Time to Die"

Автор книги: Wilbur Smith

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It would be suicide for you to try to reach the border now. You must remain under my personal protection."

"What the hell do you want from us?" Sean demanded. "You are up to something, I can smell the stink of it from here. What is it?"

"Your lack of confidence in my motives is very distressing."

China smiled coldly. "However, the sooner the Hind gunships are destroyed, the sooner the Frelimo offensive will collapse and you and Miss Monterro will be returned to the civilized world."

"I'm listening," Sean told him.

"You are the only one, you and Captain Job, who understand the Stinger. In this our interests coincide. I want you to train a select contingent of my men to handle the Stingers."

"That's all you want?" Sean stared into his face. "We train your men to use the Stinger, then you let us go?"

"Exactly.

"How do I know you won't move the goalposts again?"

"You pain me, Colonel."

"Not nearly as much as I'd like to."

"It Is agreed, then. You will train my men, and in exchange I will have you escorted across the border at the very first opportunity."

"What option do we have?"

"I'm so pleased that you are being reasonable, Colonel. It makes life much easier for all of us." His voice became crisp and businesslike. "We must begin immediately."

"You'll have to let your staff sober up a little," Sean told him.

"I'll begin first thing tomorrow, and I'll train the Shanganes; under Alphonso and Ferdinand, if Alphonso makes it through the Frelimo offensive intact."

"How long will it take you?" China wanted to know. "From on every hour will be vital to our survival."

now "They are bright lads and willing. I should be able to do something with them in a week."

"You will not have that long."

"I'll have the Stinizers; in action just as soon as I possibly can," i Sean retorted irritablfy-"Please believe me, General, I don't want to hang around herea minute longer than I have to. Now we'll bid you goodnight." H& took Claudia's arm as he turned away.

"Oh, Sean," she whispered. "I have a terrible premonition that we are caught up in something from which we are never going to escape."

Sean squeezed her upper arm to make her stop. "Look up there," he ordered softly, and she raised her face.

"The stars?" she asked. "Is that what you want me to look at?"

"Yes, the stars." They daubed the night as though a gigantic firefly had been crushed to death and its luminous essence smeared across the vault of heaven.

"They calm the soul," Sean explained gently.

She breathed softly and deeply. "Yes, you're right, my darling.

Tonight we have our love. Let's exploit it to the full and let tomorrow take care of itself."

She felt safe and invulnerable under the tented mosquito netting.

The lumpy grass-filled mattress had taken on the shape of their bodies, and she did not notice the harsh touch of the canvas covering against her skin.

"If we made love ten thousand times, it still would not take the edge off my need for you," she whispered as she slipped over the edge of sleep.

She woke suddenly, feeling the tension in his body against hers.

Instantly he touched her lips to caution her to silence. She lay frozen in the darkness, not daring to move or breathe, and then she heard it: a soft scraping at the entrance of the dugout as the netting curtain was pushed aside and an animal passed through.

Her heart raced, and she bit her lip to stop herself gasping aloud as she heard the thing crossing the earth floor toward the bed. Its paws were almost soundless, just the faintest tick of grit compressed by the stealthy weight. Then she smelled it, the wild gamey smell of a meat-eating animal, and she wanted to cry out.

Beside her Sean moved suddenly. Fast as a striking adder, he lunged through the mosquito net. There was a quick scuffle and squeal, and she tried to crawl over Sean's back to escape w was.

it "Got you, you little bugger," Sean said grimly. "You don't sneak up on me twice and get away with it. Now tell me I'm getting old and I'll wring your neck!"

"You'll be young and beautiful forever, my Bwana," Matatu giggled, and wriggled like a puppy caught by the scruff of the neck.

"Where have you been, Matatu?" Sean demanded sternly.

"What took you so long? Did you meet a pretty girl along the wayT, Matatu giggled again. He loved to be accused by Sean of dalHance and amatory exploits. "I found the roosting place of the hen shaw he boasted. "The same way I find where the bees have their hive. I watched their flight against the sun and followed them to their secret place."

Sean drew him closer to the bed and shook his arm gently. "Tell me," he ordered. In the darkness Matatu squatted down, tucked his loincloth between his legs, and made little self-important throat-clearing and humming sounds.

"There is a round hill, shaped like the head of a bald man," he began. "On one side of the hill passes the insimbi, the railway, and on the other side the road."

Sean propped himself on one elbow to listen. With his other arm he encircled Claudia's naked waist and held her close. She snuggled against him, listening to Matatu's piping pixie voice in the darkness.

"There are many ask ari around the hill with big banduki hidden in holes in the ground." Sean formed a vivid mental picture of the heavily garrisoned hilltop as Matatu described it to him. Beyond the outer defensive lines the gunships were laagered in separate sandbagged emplacements. Like battle tanks in hull-down fortifications, they would be impregnable, yet they had only to rise and hover a few feet above ground level to bring into action their devastating Gatling cannons and rocket pods.

"Inside the circle of roosting hen shaw there are many gharries parked and white men in green clothes who climb on the hen shaw and look inside them all the time." Matatu described the mobile workshops and fuel tankers and the squads of Russian mechanics and technicians needed to keep the helicopters flying. The training manuals had pointed up the Hind's excessive requirements of service and maintenance, and those big Isotov turbo engines would guzzle avgas.

"Matatu, did you see railway gharries on the line near the hill?"

Sean asked.

"I saw them," Matatu confirmed. "Those big round gharries full of beer-the men who ride in the hen shaw must be very thirsty."

Once many years ago, on one of his infrequent visits to the city with Sean, Matatu had seen a beer tanker disgorging its load at the main Harare beer hall. He had been so impressed that since that day he had been utterly convinced that all tankers of whatever size or type contained only beer. Sean could not change his mind on this; Matatu would never accept that some of them actually carried less noble fluids such as gasoline, and he always stared wistfully after any tanker they posed on the road.

Now, in the darkness, Sean smiled at the little man's fixation.

Fuel for the gunships' was obviously being railed from Harare in bulk tankers and transshipped into smaller road tankers. It was ironic that the fuel was almost certainly being originally supplied by the South Africans. However, if the helicopter squadron was storing its fuel within the laager itself, they were taking a grave risk. It was something to bear in mind.

Matatu remained at the bedside for almost an hour while Sean patiently drew from him every possible detail he could of the gunship laager. He was certain that there were eleven helicopters in the emplacements, which tallied with Sean's own estimate. Of the original twelve, one had been destroyed in the collision with the Hercules. He was equally certain that only nine of the gunships were actually flying. Hidden on a nearby kopJe, he had watched the helicopters sortie from their laager at dawn, return for refueling during the day, and at nightfall come in to roost. Sean knew that Matatu could count accurately to twenty, but after that he became vague and any greater number was described progressively as "many" or "a great deal" and finally as "like grass on the Serengeti plains."

So Sean was now fairly certain that two of the gunships had broken down and were probably awaiting spares, and he accepted Matatu's figure of nine operational gunships, still a formidable force, quite sufficient to turn the tide of the looming battle against Renamo unless they could swiftly be put out of action.

When at last Matatu had finished his recitation he asked simply, "Now, my Bwana, what do you want me to do?"

Sean considered in silence. There was really no reason why he should not bring Matatu in from wherever he was hiding up in the bush, and allow him openly to join the force of Shangane under his command as a tracker. However, he sensed there might be some future advantage in keeping Matatu hidden from China's cold reptilian gaze.

"You are my wild card, Matatu," he said in English. Then in Swahili, he said, "I want you to keep out of sight. Do not let any of the men here see you, except Job and me."

"I bear you, my Bwana."

"Come to me each night as you have tonight. I will have food for you, and I will tell you what to do. In the meantime, watch and tell me all you see."

Matatu went so silently that they heard only the faint rustle of the netting at the entrance as he passed through.

"Will he be all right?" Claudia asked softly. "I worry about him.

He's so cute."

"Of all of us, he is probably the most likely to survive." In the dark, Sean smiled fondly after the little man.

"I'm not sleepy anymore." Claudia snuggled against him like a cat. Much later she whispered, "I'm so glad Matatu woke us UP... it was still dark when Sean turned Job out of his blanket the next morning. "We've got work to do," he told him. While Job laced on his boots, Sean described his meeting with General China' You mean we are now instructors." Job laughed softly. "All we know about those Stingers is what we have read in the manuals."

"That will have to change," Sean told him. "The sooner we get the Shanganes into action, the sooner we are going to get the hell out of here."

"Is that what China told you?" Job raised an eyebrow at Sean.

"Let's get Ferdinand and his boys cracking," Sean said brusquely to cover his own misgivings. well sort them into teams of two men, one to serve the launcher and the other to carry the extra missiles. Of course, the number two must be able to take over if the leader is put down."

Sean pulled out his notebook and drew the candle stump closer, writing in its guttering yellow light.

o get here?" Job stuffed his "When do you expect Alphonso t shirt into the top of his tiger-striped pants.

sometime today, if at all," Sean replied.

"He's the best of the Wnch," Job grunted.

"Ferdinand is not b ad," Sean pointed out, placing their names at the head of the pagE as his section leaders. "Okay, we need thirty names for our number ones, give me some."

It was like the old days working together this way, and Sean found he was beginning to enjoy himself.

As soon as it was light enough, they paraded the men who had returned in the Hercules from the Grand Reef raid. With the two casualties missing, there remained eighteen men under Ferdinand Sean immediately gave Ferdinand a field promotion to full sergeant and was rewarded with a huge grin and a flourishing salute that almost swept Ferdinand off his feet with his own vigor.

Sean had to find something to occupy them and keep them out of the way while he and Job gave themselves a crash course on the Stinger missile system.

"Sergeant." Sean addressed Ferdinand by his rank for the first time. "Do you see that hill over there?" It was just visible through the trees, shaded blue with distance. "Take your men for a run around it and get them back here in two hours. Weapons and full field packs."

As they watched the column of men doubling away, Sean said, "If Alphonso and his lads don't arrive by this evening, we'll have to recruit replacements. That's no problem, however. China will be keen to let us have his very best men. At the moment, we are right at the top of his list of favorite flavors."

"In the meantime let's hit those manuals," Job suggested. "I haven't swatted since varsity days. I'm not looking forward to it."

Claudia joined them in the dugout, helping them sort through the thick red plastic-covered looseleaf manuals, picking out the information relevant to their situation and discarding the vast body of technical data they had no need of, as well as the operational reports and instructions that did not apply to deployment in this altitude and terrain. After two hours" work they had reduced the mass of information to one manageable slim volume.

"All right." Sean stood up. "Let's go find a training ground."

They picked out a spot a few hundred meters downriver from the dugout where the side of a low kopJe formed a natural lecture theater. The tall riverine mahogany trees spread their branches overhead to provide cover from a surprise raid by the Hind gunships. When Ferdinand and his men returned bathed in sweat from their little outing, Sean put them to work clearing the amphitheater of thorn and scrub and digging shell scrapes conveniently close at hand for use when air raids interrupted classes.

"Right," Sean told Job and Claudia. "Now we can uncrate the trainer set and one of the launchers. From now on it's "look and learn,"

"show and tell" time."

When they opened the first crate, Sean discovered that the battery power pack was discharged. However, each crate contained a small charger set with appropriate connections and transformers.

Under Job's supervision Ferdinand and his men carried the power packs up to the headquarters communications center, and at General China's order they were given priority use of the portable 220-volt, 15-kilowatt generator. Sean connected up the power packs in batches of five, but it would take twenty-four hours before they had power available for all the missile launchers.

With the batteries on charge they laid out the trainer set and one of the launchers on the makeshift table Ferdinand had built on the floor of the open-air theater under the trees. While Claudia read aloud from the instruction manual, Sean and Job stripped and reassembled the equipment until they were thoroughly familiar with all of it.

Sean was relieved and pleased to discover that with the exception of the IFF, the operation of the equipment was not a great deal more complicated than the conventional RPG-7 rocket launchers. The RPG-7 was so much a part of the guerrilla arsenal that, as Job remarked, every single man in China's division could load and lock it on a pitch dark night in a thunderstorm.

"Anyway, we don't need the IFF," Sean pointed out. "Everything that flies in these skies, apart from the dicky birds, is a foe."

The IFF, "Identification Friend or Foe," was a system that inter rooted the target, determining from the aircraft's on-board transponder whether it was hostile or friendly and preventing missile launches against friendly aircraft.

Claudia found the section on the manual dealing with the IFF, and under her tutelage they disarmed the system, converting the Stinger into a free-fire weapon that would attack any aircraft at which it was aimed. straight Without IFF fit, the attack sequence for the missile is forward. The target is picked up in the small screen of the aiming sight, and the safety device above the pistol grip is disengaged with the right thumb. The actuator is engaged by depressing the button built into the reverse of the pistol grip. This starts the run up of the navigational gyro and releases a flow of freon gas to cool the infrared seekers as they become active. With the sights held on the target, all incoming infrared radiation is magnified and focused on the detector cell of the missile head. As soon as this radiation is of sufficient concentration to allow the mi ssi e to track to its source, the gyro stabilizer un cages and the missile emits a high-pitched tone.

To fire the mi ssi the operator depresses the trigger in the pistol grip with his Torefinger, which starts the electric ejector motor. The missile discharges from the launch tube through the frangible front seal and ejects to a safe distance, approximately eight meters from the operator, to protect him from rocket backblast. At this point the solid-fuel rocket engine fires, the blast of exhaust gas flares out the retractable tail fins, and the missile accelerates to four times the speed of sound. When an inertial force of twenty-eight times gravity is attained, the fuse shutout is thrown open and the missile is armed. It tracks the target on a fire-and-forget trajectory, guided not by the operator but by its own proportional navigational system.

With the specialized "Hind" attack cassette inserted in the launcher's RMP-re programmable microprocessor-the system automatically switches into "two-color" mode when it is a hundred meters from the infrared source. At this point it abandons the infrared radiations emitted by the engine exhaust suppressors and instead focuses on the much weaker ultraviolet emanations from the engine intakes. On tins target the high-explosive warhead hits to kill.

"Even a Shangane could learn how to fire one of these," Job said.

Sean grinned. "Tut-tut, your Matabele tribal racism is showing again.

It's like this-when you are genetically superior, there is simply no point in trying to conceal the fact."

They both glanced expectantly at Claudia, but she did not even look up from the manual as she drawled, "You're wasting your time, you two bigots. You aren't going to get a rise out of me this time."

"Bigot." Job savored the word. "It's the first time anybody has ever called me that. I love it."

"That's enough fooling around." Sean broke it up. "Let's take a look at the trainer."

After they had connected one of the freshly charged battery packs and assembled the trainer equipment, Sean gave his opinion: "With this stuff, we can have the lads ready to go into action within days, not weeks."

Once a microcassette was inserted into the training monitor, the launcher screen simulated the image of a Hind, which the instructor was able to manipulate in various flight patterns, climbing, descending, sideslipping, or hovering. While he did so, he was able to watch the trainee's reactions as he attempted to acquire the ghost ship on his own screen and attack it with a phantom missile.

Sean and Job played with the trainer like a pair of teenagers, flying the image in complicated maneuvers. "It's just like a PacMan game," Job enthused. "But what we need is a durn-durn, a pseudo-Shangane to act as a trainee for us."

Once again both the men looked at Claudia, who was still sitting cross-legged on the table, studying the manual.

She looked up as she felt their eyes on her. "A durn-durn?" she demanded. "I'll show you durn-durn. Give me the launcher."

She stood in the center of the amphitheater floor with the launcher balanced on her shoulder and stared into the sighting screw. The bulky equipment seemed to dwarf her. She had reversed her camouflage cap so the peak stuck out behind her head, and it gave her the ga mine air of a Little League baseball player.

"ReadyT" Sean asked.

"Pull!" she said, concentrating ferociously on the screen. Sean and Job exchanged smug supercilious i grins.

"Incoming!" Sean called sharply. "Twelve o'clock high. Lock and load." He brought the ghost Hind in on a head-on attack at 150 knots.

"Locked and loaded," Claudia affirmed, and in their screen they watched the duplicate sight ring of her missile launcher swing up smoothly and center on the approaching Hind.

"Actuator on," she said calmly, and a second later, they heard the launcher sob and growl in her grip, then settle into a steady insect whine, like an infuriated mosquito.

"Target acquired," Claudia murmured. The Hind was six hundred meters out but coming in fast, swelling dramatically in the sights.

"Fire!" she said. They saw the red light blink and then change to green, signaling that the rocket engine of the fictitious missile was running. Almost instantaneously the image of the Hind disappeared from the screen, to be replaced by the flashing legend: TARGET

DESTROYED! TARGET I)ESTROYM!

A profound silence followed. Job cleared his throat nervously.

"Flukes happen," said Sean. "Shall we try it again?"

"Pull!" said Claudia, and concentrated on her aiming Screen' Incoming Sean called. "Six o'clock high. Lock and load." He brought the next Hind in from behind her at treetop level, attack speed. She had three seconds to react.

"Locked and loaded." Claudia pirouetted like a ballerina and picked up the Hind in the sight ring. "Actuator on." As she said it, Sean flung the Hind into a climbing sideslip, giving her deflection in three planes. it wQAd be like trying to hit a high bird in a gale of crosswind.

in their screen the watched with disbelief as Claudia swung smoothly, keeping the image in the exact center of her aiming ring and the missile sobbed and then settled into its high-pitched tone.

"Target acquired. Fire!"

TARGET DEsTROy mi TARGET DEsTRoYED! The screen blinked at them, and they fidgeted uncomfortably.

Job murmured, "Twice on the trot. That ain't no fluke, man."

Claudia laid the launcher on the table, readjusted the peak of her cap over her eyes, then placed her fists on her hips and smiled at them sweetly.

"I thought you said you didn't know how to shoot," Sean accused her with righteous indignation.

"Would a daughter of Riccardo Enrico Monterro not know how to shoot?"

"But you are stridently opposed to blood sports."

"Sure," she agreW. "I've never shot at a living creature. But I'm death to clay pigeons. Papa taught me."

"I should have guessed when you said "Pull."" Sean groaned softly.

"As a matter of interest"–Claudia examined the fingernails of her right hand modestly–"I was Alaska State women's skeet champion three years running and runner-up at the national championships in 'eighty-six."

The two men exchanged embarrassed glances. "She got you with a sucker punch." Job shook his head. "And you walked straight into it with both eyes closed."

"AD right, Miss Alaska," Sean told her sternly. "You are so damned clever, you've just landed yourself the job of instructor.

From here on you are in charge of this equipment. Job and I will split the Shanganes into two classes and give them the basics. Then we'll pass them on to you for simulation. It'll speed up the whole works."

General China interrupted them as he strode into the amphitheater, beret cocked jauntily, slapping his swagger stick against his thigh and taking in their preparations with quick, inquisitive eyes.

"How soon can you begin training? I expected to be further J

along than this."

Sean recognized the futility of trying to explain to him. "We'll get along better without interference."

"I came to warn you that Frehmo have launched their offensive.

They are coming at us in force from the south and the west, a two-pronged drive, obviously trying to push us out of these hills, away from the river, into more open terrain where they can deploy their armor and their helicopters to better advantage."

"So they are whipping the hell out of you," Sean needled him with a thinly concealed sneer.

"We are falling back." China acknowledged the jibe with just a glitter in his eyes. "As soon as my men attempt to hold up their advance at a natural strongpoint, Frelimo simply calls in the Hinds. The Russian pilots are showing us the close-support skills they learned in the mountains of Afghanistan. They simply obliterate our defenses. It is not a pleasant experience to listen helplessly on the radio while my field commanders plead for help. How soon can I send them the Stingers?"

"Two days," Sean said.

"So lone. Is there no way you can hurry it up?" Impatiently China slapped the swagger stick into the palm of his hand. "I want you to let me have at least one trained team immediately. Anything to be able to hit back at them."

"That, General China, would be crass stupidity," Sean told him.

"With all due respect"-Sean showed none in the tone of his voice-"if you deploy the Stingers piecemeal, you'll be tipping your hand to the Hind crews."

"What do you mean?" China's voice cracked like breaking floe ice.

"Those Russkie pilots have met the Stingers before, in Afghanistan, you can be pretty damn sure of that. They'll know every countermeasure in the book and then a few more. Right now they are blissfully convinced that they are the only things in the sky.

guard is wide open, but you let one Stinger By and all that will change. Okay, you might put one down, but the rest of the squadron will be ready for you."

China's frozen expression thawed and he looked thoughtful.

"So what do you suggest, Colonel?"

"Hit them all at once with everything you've got."

"When? Where?"

"When they are least expecting it, a full-scale surprise attack on their laager-at dawn."

"On their laager?" China shook his head irritably. "We don't know where they laager at night."

"Yes, we do," Sean contradicted. "I have already pinpointed the laager. I'll train Alphonso and Ferdinand and set up the raid for them. Give me two days, and they'll be ready to go."

China thought for a moment, hands clasped behind his back, staring up at the blue African sky as though he expected at any moment to see those dread humpbacked shapes appear.

"Two days," he agretd at last.

"Two days, and when I have your missile crews trained and ready to leave on -the raid, you let me and my party go. That is my condition."

"There is a Frelimo column between here and the Zimbabwean border," China reminded him.

"We'll take our chances," Sean snapped. "That is the bargain.

Do I have your word on it?"

"Very well, Colonel. I agree."

"That's fine. Now, when do you expect Alphonso and his detachment to arrive?"

"They have already reached our lines. I expect Alphonso and his men will be here in another hour or so, but they will be exhausted, they have been in action almost continuously for twenty-four hours."

"They aren't on a Sunday school picnic." Sean was callous.

"Send them to me as soon as they arrive.

They came in at last, moving with the slack, stumbling gait of a boxer at the end of ten hard rounds. Their tiger mission sl gut the Unimog truck and crossed mt4 Mozambique on abandoned foot.

He "The bush is full of Frelimo, and the air is full of hen shaw and wiped Ins face wearily on a grubby, tattered bandanna.

paused hcraft, but the hen shaw can speak from the sky. They

"It is wite;

taunt us in the Shangane language. They tell us they have magic that turns our bullets and rockets to water."

Sean nodded grimly. The Russians must be using sky-shout amplifiers to demoralize the Renamo defenders. That was another trick they had learned in Afghanistan.

"All along the line our men are being shot to Pieces, or are running away. We cannot fight against the hen shaw

"Yes, you bloody well can." Sean seized the front of his tunic.

"I'D show you how. Get your men up. There'll be plenty of time to sleep later, when we have burned those Russian bastards out of the sky.

g Sean and Job had worked and fought with all these men and had come to know them by name and deed, so they had formed a fairly accurate picture of their individual worth and capabilities.

They knew that there were no cowards nor shirkers among those out.

However, there them. Alphonso had long ago sifted were those whom Job classified as "oxen," the strong and stupid, the muscle and cannon fodder. The others were of varying degrees of intelligence and adaptability. At the top of the heap were Alphonso and Ferdinand.

Sean and Job sorted them into two groups and concentrated their efforts on the most promising in each group, quickly picking out those who had the image recognition to translate what they saw on the aiming screen of the launchers into finite terms in shape and space.

At the end of almost three hours, they had picked out twenty men who had the potential to assimilate the necessary training swiftly and to act as number ones in the missile teams, and as many again who might be able to fulfill the number two backup role.

The others, who showed no aptitude, were allotted to the assault team, which would be using conventional weapons in the attack Sean was planning. Of the missile trainees, Sean took one group and Job the other, and they began the monotonous task of familiarizing them with the actual weapons. Once again they relied on the technique of repetition and reinforcement. Each trainee had his turn at stripping and reassembling, locking and loading, and aiming the launcher. While he did so, he explained to the class exactly what he was doing, and Sean and Job corrected their mistakes while the rest of the class taunted them.

It was late afternoon before Sean sent the first group of five men, which included both Alphonso and Ferdinand, to Claudia for simulated attacks with the training equipment.

and was immediately Alphonso scored three consecutive hits detailed to act as Claudia's assistant and translator. By nightfall an five members of the first group had scored three consecutive hits, which Claudia had arbitrarily decided was her passing standard, and Sean and Job had another ten men ready to begin simulator training as soon as it was sufficiently light the following morning.

When it was too dark to continue, Sean dismissed Alphonso and his group, and they staggered off wearily into the night, Punchdrunk with fatigue and the effort of learning.

Joyful, the chef, had stolen the tripe from the buffalo carcass ious evening. After the day's that had fed the officers" mess the prey heat they were a little ripe, but he had disguised that fact with a liberal addition of chopped wild onion tubers and peri-peri sauce.

Claudia paled when Joyful proudly placed a steaming bowl of the tripe in front of her. In the end, hunger overcame her fastidiousness. 4.

"Put hair on your chest," Sean comforted her.

"That, my darling man, isn't high on my list of beauty aids."

"Okay, then." He smiled at her. "Put some weight on those skinny little buns of yours."