Текст книги "Leopard Hunts in Darkness"

Автор книги: Wilbur Smith

Соавторы: Wilbur Smith
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"Lock the door!" Craig shouted urgently, and Timon pushed down the handle into the lock position just as the trooper threw his weight on it. He heaved at the outside handle with all his weight, and then darted to the rear door and before Sally-Anne could lock it, jerked it open. He reached in and caught Sally-Anne by the upper arm and began dragging her from the open door.

Craig was still hunched around in the front seat and now he lifted both manacled hands high and brought them down on the trooper's shaven head. The sharp steel edge of the cuffs cut down to the bone of the skull, and the man collapsed half in and half out of the open door.

Craig hit him again, in the centre of the forehead, and had a brief glimpse of white bone in the bottom of the wound before quick bright blood obscured it. The other two soldiers were only paces away, baying like wolfhounds and armed with their spades.

At that moment the engine of the Land-Rover fired and roared into life. Timon Nbebi hit the gear-lever, and with a clash of metal it engaged and the Land-Rover shot forward. Craig was thrown over the seat half on top of Sally-Anne, and the bleeding trooper was caught by his dangling legs in a thorn bush and ripped out through the rear door.

The Land-Rover swerved and bucked over the rough ground, with the two screeching black soldiers running behind it, and the open door flapping and banging wildly.

Then Timon Nbebi straightened the wheel and changed gear. "Me Land-Rover accelerated away, crashing over rock and fallen branches, and the pursuing troopers fell back.

One of them hurled his spade despairingly after them. It shattered the rear window, and broken glass spilled over the rear of the cab.

Timon Nbebi picked up their own incoming tracks through the high grass, and at last they were going faster than a man could run. The two troopers gave up and stood A

panting in the tracks, their shouts of recrimination and anger dwindled and then were lost. Timon reached the bush track at the point that they had left it, and turned onto it, picking up speed.

"Give me your hands," he ordered, and when Craig offered his manacled hands, Timon unlocked the cuffs.

"Here! he gave Craig the key. "Do the same for Miss Jay." j She rubbed her wrists. "My God, Craig, I truly thought that was the end of the line."

"A close, run thing," Timon Nbebi agreed, with all his attention on the track. "Napoleon said that, I think." And then, before Craig could correct him, "Please to arm yourself with one of the rifles, Mr. Mellow, and place the other beside me." Sally-Anne passed the short, ugly weapons over to the front seat. The Third Brigade was the only unit of the regular army still armed with AK 47s, a legacy from their North Korean instructors.

"Do you know how to use it, Mr. Mellow?" Timon Nbebi asked.

was an armourer in the Rhodesian Police." iX course, how stupid of me." Swiftly Craig checked the curved "banana" magazine and then reloaded the chamber. The weapon was new and well cared for. The weight of it in Craig's hands changed his whole personality. "Iinutes before, he had been mere flotsam on the stream, "06wept along by events over which he had no control, confused and uncertain and afraid but now he was armed. Now he could fight back, now he could protect his woman and himself, now he could shape events rather than be shaped by them. It was the primeval, atavistic instinct of primitive man, and Craig revelled in it. He reached over the seat and took Sally-Anne's hand.

He squeezed it briefly, and fervently she returned the pressure.

"Now we have a fighting chance, at least." The new tone of his voice reached her. Her spirits lifted a little, and she gave him the first smile he had seen that night. He freed his hand, found the bottle of cane spirit in the cubbyhole, and passed it to her. After she had drunk, he gave it to Timon Nbebi.

"All right, Captain, what the hell is going on here?" Timon gasped at the sting of the liquor and his voice was roughened by it as he replied.

"You were perfectly correct, Mr. Mellow, my orders from General Fungabera were to take you and Miss Jay into the bush and execute you. And you were also correct in guessing that your disappearance would be blamed on the Matabele dissidents."

"Well, why didn't you obey your orders?" Before replying, Timon handed the bottle back to Craig, and then glanced over his shoulder at Sally-Anne.

"I am sorry that I had to go through the preparations for your execution, without being able to reassure you, but my men speak English. I had to make it look real. It galled me, for I didn't want to inflict more on you, after what you have already suffered."

"Captain Nbebi, I forgive you everything and I love you for what you are doing, but why, in God's name, are you doing it?" Sally-Anne demanded.

"What I am about to tell you, I have never told a living soul before. You see, my mother was a full-blooded Matabele. She died when I was very young, but I remember her well and honour that memory." He did not look at them, but concentrated on the track ahead. "I was raised as a Shana by my father, but I have always been aware of my Matabele blood. They are my people, and I can no longer stomach what is being done to them. I am certain that General Fungabera has become aware of my feelings, though I doubt that he knows about MY mother, but he knows that I have reached the end of my usefulness to him. Recently there have been small signs of it. I have lived too close to the man-eating leopard for too long not to know its moods. After I had buried you, there would have been something for me also, an unmarked grave or Fungabera's puppies." Timon used the Sindebele, amawundhla ka Fungabera, and Craig was startled. Sarah Nyoni, the schoolteacher at Tuti Mission, had used the same phrase.

"I have heard that expression before I do not under, stand it "Hyena," Timon explained. "Those who die or are executed at the rehabilitation centres are taken into the bush and laid out for the hyena. The hyena leaves nothing, not a chip of bone nor a tuft of hair."

"Oh God," said Sally-Anne in a small voice. "We were at Tuti. We heard the brutes, but didn't understand. How many have gone that way?" Timon Nbebi said, "I can only guess many thousands."

"It's scarcely believable."

"General Fungabera's hatred for the Matabele is a kind of madness, an obsession. He is planning to wipe them out.

First it was their leaders, accused of treason falsely accused, like Tungata Zebiwe "

"Oh naP Sally' Anne said miserably. "I cant 3ear it was Zebiwe innocent?"

"I'm sorry, Miss jayTimon Nbebi confirmed it. "Fun, gab era had to be yew careful when he tackled Zebiwe. He knew if he seized hi In" for his political activities, he would have the entire Matabele tribe in revolt. You and Mr. Mellow provided him with the perfect opportunity a non-political crime. A crime of greed."

"I'm being stupid," said Sally-Anne. "If Zebiwe wasn't the master poacher, was there ever a poacher? And if there was who was it?"

"General Fungabera himself, "said Timon Nbebi simply.

Ak

"Are you sure?" Craig was incredulous.

"I was personally in charge of many of the shipments of 0, animal contraband that left the country."

"But that night on the Karoi road?" "That was easily arranged. The general knew that sooner or later Zebiwe would be going to Tuti Mission again.

Zebiwe's secretary informed us of the exact time and date.

We arranged for the truck loaded with contraband, driven by a Matabele detainee we had bribed, to be waiting for him on the Tuti road. Of course, we had not anticipated Tungata Zebiwe's violent reaction that was merely a bonus for us." Timon drove as fast as the track would allow, while Sally' Anne and Craig hunched down in their seats, their artificial elation at their escape rapidly giving way to fatigue and shock.

"Where are we heading?" Craig asked.

"Botswana border." That was the landlocked state to the south and west which had become an established staging post for political fugitives from its neighbours.

"On our way I hope you will have a chance to see what is really happening to my people. No one else will bear witness. General Fungabera has sealed off the whole of south-western Matabeleland. No journalists are allowed in, no clergymen, no Red Cross-" He slowed for an area where ant bears had dug their holes in the track, burrowing for the nests Of termites, and then he accelerated again.

"The pass I have from General Fungabera will take us a little further, but not as far as the border. We will have to use side roads and back roads until we can find a crossing place. Very soon General Fungabera will learn of my defection, and we will be hunted by the whole of the Third Brigade. We must make as much distance as we can before that happens." They reached the main fork in the track and Timon stopped, but kept the motor running. He took a large, scale map from his leather map-case and studied it attentively.

"We are just south of the railway line. This is the road to Empandeni Mission Station. If we can get through there before the alarm goes out for us, then we can try for the border between Madaba and Matsurni. The Botswana police run a regular patrol along the fence."

"Let's get on with it." Craig was impatient and becoming fear fill the comfort of the weapon across his lap beginning to fade. Timon folded the map and drove on.

"Can I ask you some more questions?" Sally-Anne spoke after a few minutes.

"I will try to answer,"Timon agreed.

"The murder of the Goodwins, and the other white families in Matabeleland were those atrocities ordered by Tungata Zebiwe? Is he responsible for those gruesome murders?"

"No, no, Miss Jay. Zebiwe has been trying desperately to control those killers. I believe that he was on his way to Tuti Mission for just such a reason to meet with the radical Matabele elements and try to reason with them."

"But the writing in blood, "Tungata Zebiwe Lives"?" Now Timon Nbebi was silent, his face contorted as though he fought some inner battle, and they waited for him to speak. At last he. sighed explosively, and his voice had changed.

"Miss Jay, please troy to understand my position, before you judge me for -what I am about to tell you. General Fungabera is a persuasive man. I was carried along by his promises of glory and reward. Then suddenly I had gone too far and I was not able to turn back. I think the English expression is "riding the tiger". I was forced to move on from one bad deed to another even worse." He paused, and then, in a rush, "Miss Jay, I personally recruited the killers of the Goodwin family from the rehabilitation centre. I told them where to go, what to do and what to write on the wall. I supplied their weapons, and arranged for them to be driven to the area in transport of the Third Brigade." There was silence again, broken only by the throb of the Land-Rover engine, and Timon Nbebi had to break it, speaking as though words were an opiate for his guilt.

"They were Matabele, veterans, war-hard men, men who would do anything for the return of their personal liberty, the chance to carry weapons again. They did not hesitate."

"And Fungabera ordered it? "Craig asked.

"Of course. It was his excuse to begin the purge of the Matabele.

Now perhaps you understand why I am fleeing with you. I could not continue along this path."

"The other murders the killing of Senator Savage and his family?" Sally-Anne asked.

"General Fungabera. did not have to order those," Timon shook his head. "Those were copycat murders. The bush is still full of wild men from the war. They hide their weapons and come into the towns, some even have regular jobs, but at the weekend or on a public holiday, they return to the bush, dig up their rifles and go on the rampage. They are not political dissidents, they are armed bandits and the white families are the juiciest, softest targets, rich and helpless, deprived of their weapons by Mugabe's government so they cannot defend themselves."

"And it all plays right into Peter Fungabera's hands.

Any bandit is labelled a political dissident, any grisly robbery an excuse to continue the purge, held up to the world as proof of the savagery and intractability of the Matabele tribe," Craig continued for him.

"That is correct, Mr. Mellow."

"And he has already murdered Tungata Zebiwe-" Craig felt old and tired with regret and guilt for his old comrade you can be sure of thad"

"No, Mr. Mellow." Timon shook his head.

"I do not believe that Zebiwe is dead. I believe General Fungabera wants him alive. He has some plans for him." Wiat plans?" Craig demanded.

"I do not know for certain, but I believe Peter Fungabera is dealing with the Russians."

"The Russians? "Craig showed his disbelief.

"He has had secret meetings with a stranger, a foreigner, a man who I believe is an important member of Russian intelligence."

"Are you sure, Timon?"

"I have seen the man with my own eyes." Craig thought about that for a few seconds, and then reverted to his original question.

"Okay, leave the Russians for the moment where is Tungata Zebiwe? Where is Fungabera holding him?"

"Again, I do not know, I'm sorry, Mr. Mellow."

"If he is alive, then may the Lord have mercy on his soul," Craig whispered.

He could imagine what Tungata must be suffering. He was silent for a few minutes and then he changed the line of questioning.

"General Fungabera has seized my property for himself, not for the state? I am correct in believing that?"

"The general wanted that land very badly. He spoke of it often."

"How? I mean, even qjjsi-legally, how will he work it?"

"It is very simple,".Timon explained. "You are an admit red enemy of the state. Your property is forfeited. It will be confiscated to the state. The Land Bank will repudiate the suretyship for your loan under the release clause which you signed. The custodian of enemy property will put up your shares of Rholands Company for sale by private tender.

General Fungabera's tender will be accepted his brotherin-law is custodian of enemy property. The tender price will be greatly advantageous to the general."

"Add

41 bet," said Craig bitterly.

"But why should he go to such lengths?" Sally-Anne demanded. "He must be a millionaire many times over.

Surely he has enough already?"

"Miss Jay. For some men there is no such thing as enough."

"He cannot hope to get away with it, surely?" "Who is there to prevent him doing so, Miss Jay?" And when she did not reply, Timon went on, "Africa is going back to where it was before the white man intruded. There is only one criterion for a ruler here and that is strength.

We Africans do not trust anything else. Fungabera is strong, as Tungata Zebiwe was once strong. "Timon glanced at his wrist-watch. "But we must eat. I think we will have a long day ahead of us." He pulled off the track, and drove the Land-Rover into a patch of second-growth scrub. He climbed onto the bormetand arranged branches to cover the vehicle, hiding it from detection from the air, and then opened the case of emergency rations from the locker under the passenger seat. There was water in the tank under the floorboards Craig filled a metal canteen with sand and soaked the sand with gasoline from the reserve tank. It made a smokeless burner on which to brew tea. They ate the unappetizing cold rations with little conversation.

Once Timon turned up the volume on the radio to listen to a transmission, then shook his head.

"Nothing to do with us." He came back to squat beside Craig.

"How far to the border, do you reckon?" Craig asked with a mouth full of cold, sticky bully beef.

"Forty miles, or a little more." The radio crackled to life again, and Timon jumped u PI and stooped over it attentively.

"There is a unit of the Third Brigade just a few miles ahead of us," he reported. "They are at the mission station Jim at Empandeni. There has been action against dissidents, but they had dealt with them and they are moving out.

Perhaps this way. We must be careful."

"I will check that we are hidden from the road." Craig stood up. "Sally-Anne, douse the fire! Captain, cover me!" He picked up the AK 47 and ran back to the track.

Critically he examined the patch of scrub that concealed the Land-Rover and then brushed over his own tracks and those of the vehicle with a leafy twig, and carefully straightened the grass that the Land-Rover had flattened where it left the road. It wasn't perfect, but it would bear a cursory examination from a speeding vehicle, he thought, and then there was a faint vibration on the windless air.

He listened. The sound of truck motors, strengthening.

Craig ran back to the Land-Rover and climbed into the front seat beside Timon.

"Put your rifle back in the rack," Timon said, and when Craig hesitated, "Please do as I say, Mr. Mellow. If they find us, it will be useless to fight. I will have to try and talk our way through. I couldn't explain if you were armed." Reluctantly Craig passed the weapon back to Sally Anne She racked it and Craig was left feeling naked and vulnerable. He clenched his fists in his lap. The sound of motors grew swiftly, and then over them the voices of men singing. The song grew louder, and despite his tension Craig felt the hair prickle on the nape of his neck to the peculiar beauty of African-4voices raised in song.

"Third Brigade," Timon said. "That is the "Song of the Rain Winds", the praise song of the regiment." Neither of them replied, and Timon hummed the tune to himself, and then began to sing softly. He had a startlingly true and thrilling voice.

"When the nation bunts, the rain winds bring relief, When the cattle are drought-stricken, the rain winds lift them up, When your children cry with thirst, the rain winds slake them, We are the winds that bring the rain, We are the good winds of the nation." Timon translated from the Shana for their benefit, and now Craig could see the grey dust of the trucks smoking up above the scrub, and the singing was close and clear.

There was a flash of reflected sunlight off metal, and then through the foliage Craig caught quick glimpses of the passing convoy. There were three trucks, painted a dull sand colour, and the backs were crowded with soldiers in battle camouflage and bush hats, their weapons held ready at the high port position. On the cab of the last truck rode an officer, the only one of them wearing the red beret and silver cap badge He looked directly at Craig, and seemed very close, the screen of foliage suddenly very sparse. Craig shrank back in his seat.

Then, thankfully, the convoy was past, the rumble of engines and the singing dwindling, the pale dust settling.

Timon Nbebi exhaled a long breath. "There will be others," he cautioned, and, with his fingers on the ignition key, waited until the silence was complete once again.

Then he started the Land-Rover, reversed out of the scrub and turned back onto the track.

He swung the Land-Rover in the opposite direction from the convoy, and they drove over the rugged tracks that the trucks had imprinted deeply into the sandy earth.

They drove for another twenty minutes before Timon ducked down abruptly in his seat, to peer up at the sky through the windshield.

"Smoke," he said. "Empandeni is just ahead. Will you have your camera ready, Miss Jay? I believe the Third Brigade will have left something for you." They came to the maize fields that surrounded the mission village. The maize stalks had dried, the cobs in their yellow sheaths were beginning to droop heavily, ready for the harvest. There had been women working in the fields. One of them lay beside the track. She had been shot in the back as she ran, the bullet had exited between her breasts. The unweaned child that she carried on her back had been bayoneted, many times. The flies rose up in a blue hum as they passed and then settled again.

Nobody spoke. Sally-Anne reached into her camera-bag and brought out her Nikon. She was bloodless grey under her freckles.

The other women lay further from the road, mere bundles of gay cloth, heavily stained. There were possibly fifty huts in the village, all of them were burning, the thatched roofs torching up to the clear blue morning sky.

They had thrown most of the corpses into the burning huts, leaving black puddles drying where they had fallen and drag marks in the dust. The smell of seared flesh was very strong, it coated the roofs of their mouths like congealed pork fat. Craig's stomach heaved, and he covered his mouth and nose with his hand.

"These are dissidents?". Sally-Anne whispered. Her lips were icy white. The motor drive of her Nikon whirred as she shot through the open window.

They had killed the chickens, the loose feathers rolled on the light breeze, like the stuffing from a burst pillow.

"Stop!" Sally-Anne ordered.

"It is dangerous to stay, "id Timon.

"Stop," Sally' Anne repeated.

She left the door open, and went among the huts.

Working swiftly, changing roll after roll of film with practised nimble fingers, while her white lips trembled and her eyes behind the lens were huge with horror.

"We must move on," said Timon.

"Wait." Sally-Anne moved quickly forward, doing her job like the professional she was. She moved behind a group of huts. The smell of burning flesh nauseated Craig, and the heat from the fires came at him in great furnace gusts as the breeze veered.

Sally Anne screamed and the two men jumped from the Land-Rover and ran, cocking their rifles, diverging to give each other covering fire, Craig finding his old training returning instinctively. He came around the side of a hut.

Sally-Anne stood in the open, no longer able to use her camera. A naked black woman lay at her feet. The woman is upper ocy was that of a comely, healthy young woman, below her navel she was a pink skinless monstrosity. She had dragged herself back out of the fire into which they had thrown her. There were places on her lower body where the burning was not deep, here the flesh was piebald pink and weeping lymph. Then in other places the bone was exposed; her hipbones charred black as charcoal, protruded obscenely from the scorched meat of her pelvic area. The lining of her stomach had burned through and her entrails bulged from the opening. Miraculously, she was still alive. Her fingers raked the dust with a repetitive, mechanical movement. Her mouth opened and closed convulsively, making no sound, and her eyes were wide open, aware and suffering.

"Go back to the Land' Rover please, Miss Jay," Timon Nbebi said. "There is nothing you can do to help her." Sally-Anne stood stiffly, unable to move. Craig put his arms around her shoulders and turned her away. He led her back towards the Land-Rover.

At the corner of the burning hut Craig glanced back.

Timon Nbebi had moved up close to the maimed woman, he stood over her with the AK 47 held ready on his hip, his whole attention was focused upon her and his face was almost as riven with suffering as was the woman's.

Craig took Sally-Anne around the hut. Behind them there was the whip-crack of a single shot, muted by the crackle of flames all around them. Sally' Anne stumbled and then caught her balance. When they reached the Land' Rover Sally-Anne leaned against the cab and doubled over slowly. She vomited in the dust and then straightened up and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.

Craig took the bottle of cane spirit from the cubby hole.

There was an inch of the clear liquor remaining. He gave it to Sally-Anne and she drank it like water. Craig took the empty bottle back from her, and then abruptly and savagely hurled it into the burning hut.

Timon Nbebi came around the hut. Wordlessly he climbed behind the steering, wheel and Craig helped Sally Anne into the rear seat. They drove slowly through the rest of the village, their heads turning from side to side as each fresh horror was revealed.

As they passed the little church of red brick, the roof collapsed in upon itself, and the wooden cross on the spire was swallowed in a belch of sparks and flames and blue smoke. In the bright sunlight the flames were almost colourless.

imon Nbebi used the radio the way a navigator uses an echo sounder to find the channel through shoal water.

The Third Brigade roadblocks and ambushes were reporting over the VHF vast to their area headquarters, giving their positions a* part of their routine reports, and Timon pin-pointed them on his map.

Twice they avoided road-blocks by taking side-tracks and cattle paths, groping forward carefully through the acacia forest. Twice more they came to small villages, mere cattle stations, homes of two or three Matabele families.

The Third Brigade had preceded them, and the crows and vultures had followed, picking at the partially roasted carcasses in the warm ashes of the burned-out huts.

They kept moving westwards, when the tracks allowed.

At each prominence that afforded a view ahead, Timon parked in cover and Craig climbed to the crest to scout ahead. In every direction he looked, the towering blue of the sky above the wide horizon was marred by standing columns of smoke from burning villages. Westwards still they crawled, and the terrain changed swiftly as they approached the edge of the Kalahari Desert. There were fewer and still fewer features. The land levelled into a grey, monotonous plain, burning endlessly under the high merciless sun. The trees became stunted, their branches heat-tortured as the limbs of cripples. This was a land able to support only the most rudimentary human needs, the beginning of the great wilderness. Still they edged westwards into it.

The sun made its noon and slid down the sky, and they had made good a mere thirty miles since dawn. Still at least another twenty miles to reach the border, Craig estimated from the map, and all three of them were exhausted from the unremitting strain and the heat in the unlined metal cab.

In the middle of the afternoon, they stopped again for a few minutes. Craig brewed tea, Sally-Anne went behind a low clump of thorn scrub nearby and squatted out of view, while Timon hunched over the radio.

"There are no more villages ahead, Timon said as he returned the set. "I think we are Clear, but I have never been further than this. I am not sure what to expect." J worked here with Tungata when we were in the Game Department. That was back in "72. We followed a pride of cattle-killing lions nearly a hundred miles across the border. It's bad country no surface water, soft going with salt-pans and-" he broke off as Tinion signalled him urgently to silence.

Tirrion had picked up another voice on the radio. It was more authoritative, more cutting than the reports of the A, platoon he had been monitoring. Clearly it was demanding priority and clearing the net for an urgent flash. Timon Nbebi stiffened, and exclaimed under his breath.

"What is it?" Craig could not contain his forebodings, but Timon held up a hand for silence and listened to the long staccato transmission that followed in Shana. When the carrier beam of the radio went mute, he looked up at them.

"A patrol has picked up the three men we marooned this morning. That was an alert to all units. General Fungabera has given top priority to our recapture. Two spotter aircraft have been diverted to this area. They should be overhead very soon. The general has calculated our position with great accuracy, he has ordered the punitive units to the east of us to abandon their missions and to move in this direction immediately. He has guessed that we are trying to reach the border south of Plumtree and the railway-line. He is rushing two platoons down from the main border-post at Plumtree to block us." He paused, took off his spectacles and polished the lenses on the tail of his silk cravat. Without his spectacles, he was as myopic as an owl in daylight.

"General Fungabera has given the "leopard" code to all units-" He paused again, and then almost apologetically explained, "The "leopard" code is the "kill on sight" order, which is rather bad news, I'm afraid." Craig snatched the rrw and unrolled it on the bonnet.

Sally-Anne came ha4 and stood close behind them.

"We are here," he said, and Timon nodded agreement.

"This is the only track from here on, and it angles northwards about west-northwest," Craig muttered to himself. "The patrol from Plumtree must come down it to meet us, and the punitive groups must come up it behind us." Again Timon nodded. "This time they won't drive past us. They'll be on the lookout." The radio came alive again and Timon darted back to it. His expression became even more lugubrious as he listened.

"The punitive unit behind us has picked up the tracks of the Land-Rover. They are not far behind and they are coming up fast," he reported. "They have contacted the patrol on the road ahead of us. We are boxed in. I don't know what to do, Mr. Mellow. They'll be here in a few minutes." And he looked appealingly at Craig.

"All right." Craig took control quite naturally. "We'll go for the border cross-country."

"But you said that is bad country-"Timon began.

"Put her into four-wheel drive and get going," Craig snapped. "I'll ride on the roof rack to guide you. Sally, Anne, take the front seat." Perched on the roof tack the AK 47 slung over one shoulder, Craig took a sight with the hand-bearing compass from Timon's map-case, made a rough calculation of the magnetic deflection, and called down to Timon.

"Right, turn right that's it. Hold that course." He was lined up on the white glare of a small salt-pan a few miles ahead, and the surface under them seemed firm and reasonably fast. The Land-Rover accelerated away, barging through the low thorn scrub, weaving only when they came to coarser thorn or one of the stunted trees. Craig called corrections after every deviation.

They were making twenty-five miles an hour and it was clear as far as the horizon. The pursuing trucks, heavy and cumbersome, couldn't outrun them, Craig was sure, and the border was less than an hour ahead, darkness not far off. That cup of tea had cheered him, and Craig felt his spirits lift.