"I drink to you, Monomatapa of Zimbabwe, may you reign a thousand years!" He set down his glass and turned to stare down the long open vlei to the distant waterhole. A herd of zebra had down to drink. They were nervous and skitti come st, for the lions lie in ambush at the water. At last they waded in, knee, deep and in a single rank, dipped their lips to touch the surface in unison. They formed an overlapping frieze of identical heads like an infinity of mirror images until the old stallion sentinel snorted in nervous alarm and the pattern exploded in foaming water and wildly galloping forms.
"The treatment of which you speak is drastic." Colonel Bukharin watched the zebra herd tear away into the forest.
"Some patients do not survive it. Those that do are-" he searched for the word" altered."
"Their minds are destroyed." Peter said it for him.
"In plain terms yes," the colonel nodded.
"I need his body, not his brain. I need a puppet, not a human being."
"We can arrange that. When will you send him to us?" The diamonds first," Prter rep lied.
"Of course, the diamd Ids first. How long will that take?" Peter shrugged-_'.1,&t long."
"When you are ready I will send a doctor to you, with the appropriate medications. We can bring this Tungata Zebiwe out on the same route as the ivory: Air Zimbabwe to Danes-Salaam and one of our freighters from there to Odessa." "Agreed."
"You say that he is being held near here? I would like to see him."
ri
"Is it wise?"
"Indulge me, pleaseP From Colonel Bukharin it was an order rather than a request.
ungata Zebiwe stood in the flat white glare of the noonday sun. He stood facing a whitewashed wall that caught the sun's rays and flung them back likea huge mirror. He had stood there since before the rise of the sun, when the frost had crusted the sparse brown grass at the edge of the parade ground.
Tungata was stark naked, as were the two men that flanked him. All three of them were so thin that every rib showed clearly, and the crests of their spines stood out like the beads of a rosary down the centre of their backs.
Tungata had his eyes closed to slits to keep out the glare of sunlight off the wall, but he concentrated on a mark in the plaster to counter the effects of giddy vertigo which had already toppled the men on each side of him more than once. Only heavy lashing by the guards had forced them to their feet again. They were still swaying and reeling as they stood.
"Courage, my brothers," Tungata whispered in Sinde, bele. "Do not let the Shana dogs see you beaten." He was determined not to collapse, and he stared at the dimple in the wall. It was the mark of a bullet strike, painted over with lime wash They lime washed the wall after every execution they were meticulous about it.
"Anwnzi," husked the man on his right, "water! "Do not think of it," Tungata. ordered him. "Do not speak of it, or it will drive you mad." The heat came off the wall in waves that struck with physical weight.
"I am blind," whispered the second man. "I cannot see."
The white glare had seared his eyeballs like snow blindness.
"There is nothing to see but the hideous faces of Shana Tungata told him. "Be thankful for your blindness, apes, friend." Suddenly from behind them brusque orders were shouted in Shana and then came the tramp of feet from across the parade ground.
"They are coming," whispered the blinded Matabele, and Tungata. Zebiwe felt a vast regret arising within him.
Yes, they were coming at last. This time for him.
During every day of the long weeks of his imprisonment, he had heard the tramp of the firing-squad crossing the parade ground at noon.
This time it was for him. He did not fear death, but he was saddened by it. He was sad that he had not been able to help his people in their terrible distress, he was saddened that he would never see again his woman, and that she would never bear him the son for whom he longed. He was sad that his life which had promised so much would end before it had delivered up its fruits, and he thought suddenly of a day long ago when he had stood at his grandfather's side and looked out over the maize fields that had been scythed by a brief and furious hail-storm.
"All that work for nothing, what a waste!" his grandfather had murmured, id Tungata repeated his words softly to himself as ru* hands turned him and hustled him to the wooden stake-'set in the ground before the wall.
They tied his wrists to the stake and he opened his eyes fully. His relief ftorn the glare of the wall was soured by the sight of the rank of armed men who faced him.
They brought the two other naked Matabele from the wall. The blind one fell to his knees, weak with exposure and terror, and his bowels voided involuntarily. The guards laughed and exclaimed with disgust.
"Stand up!" Tungata ordered him harshly. "Die on your feet likea true son of Mashobane! The man struggled back to his feet.
"Walk to the stake," Tungata ordered. "It is a little to your left." The man went, groping blindly, and found the stake.
They bound him to it.
There were eight men in the firing-squad and the commander was a captain in the Third Brigade. He went slowly down the rank of executioners, taking each rifle and checking the load. He made little jokes in Shana that Tungata could not follow, and his men laughed. Their laughter had an unrestrained quality, like men who had taken alcohol or drugs. They had done this work before, and enjoyed it. Tungata had known many men like them during the war; violence and blood had become their addictions.