Peter Fungabera ate little. He had tilted back his chair and placed his feet on the commandant's desk. He tapped the swagger, stick against the lacings of his rubber-soled jungle boots with a monotonous rhythm that began to irritate Craig. Suddenly Craig found himself craving for a cigarette again, the first time in months, and he stood up and began to pace the small office restlessly.
Timon Nbebi acknowledged another report and when he replaced the microphone, translated from the Shana, "I'he Mercedes has reached the village. They have stopped at the service station to refill with gasoline." Tungata Zebiwe was only a few hundred yards from where they sat. Craig found the knowledge disconcerting.
Up to now, it had been more an intellectual exercise than an actual life, and-death chase. He had ceased to think of Tungata as a man, he was merely "Bada', the quarry, to be outguessed and hunted into the trap. Now suddenly he remembered him as a man, a friend, an extraordinary human being, and he was once more torn between his residual loyalty of friendship and his desire to see a criminal brought to justice.
The command post was suddenly claustrophobic, and he went out into the tiny yard enclosed by high thick walls and sandbags. The sun had set, and the brief African twilight purpled the sky overhead. He stood staring up at it. There was a light footstep beside him and he glanced down.
"Don't be too unhappy," Sally-Anne pleaded softly. He was touched by her concern.
"You don't have to go," she went on. "You could stay here." He shook his head. "I want to be sure I want to see it for myself," he said. "But I'll not hate it any less." 11 know" she said. "I respect you for that." He looked down on her upturned face and knew that she wanted him to kiss her. The moment for which he had waited so long and so patiently had arrived. She was ready for him at last, her need as great as his.
Gently he touched her cheek with his fingertips, and her eyelids fluttered half-closed. She swayed towards him, and he realized that he loved her. The knowledge took his breath away for a moment. He felt an almost religious awe.
"Sally-Anne," he whispered, and the door of the corn Peter Fungabera strode out "We are moving out," he snapped, and they drew apart.
Craig saw her shake herself lightly as though waking from sleep and her eyes came back into focus.
Side by side, they followed Peter and Timon to the open Land' Rover at the gate of the fort.
command post crashed open into the yard.
he evening was chill after the heat of the day, and the wind clawed at them, for the windscreen had been strapped down on the Land-Rover's bonnet.
Timon Nbebi drove with Peter Fungabera in the passig and Sally-Anne were crowded enger seat. Cra into the back seat with the radio operator. Timon drove cautiously with parking lights only burning, and the two open army trucks packed with Third Brigade troopers in full battle gear kept close behind them.
The Mercedes was less than half a mile ahead.
Occasionally they could see the glow of its tail-lights as it climbed the road up one of the heavily wooded hills.
Peter Fungabera checked the odometer. "We've come twenty, three miles. The turn-off to the Sanyati and Tuti is only two miles ahead." He tapped Timon on the shoulder with the swagger-stick. "Pull over. Call the unit at the junction." Craig found himself shivering as much from excitement as the cold. With the engine still running, Timon called ahead to the road, junction where the forward observation team was concealed.
"Ah! That's it! Timon could not keep the elation from his voice. "Bada has turned off the main road, General.
The target truck has stopped and is parked two miles from the crossroads. It has to be a prearranged meeting, sit."
"Get going," Peter Fungabera ordered. "Follow them!" Now Timon Nbebi drove fast, using the glow of his arking lights to hold the verge of the road.
p "There's the turning!" Peter snapped, as the unmade road showed dusty pale out of the dark.
Timon slowed and swung onto it. A sergeant of the Third Brigade stepped out of the darkness of the encroaching bush. He jumped up onto the foot board and managed to salute with his free hand.
"They passed here a minute ago, General," he blurted.
"The truck is just ahead. We have set up a road-block behind it and we will block here as soon as you are passed, sit. We have them bottled up."
"Carry on, Sergeant," Peter nodded, then turned to Timon Nbebi. "The road drops steeply down from here to the drift. Have the trucks cut their engines as soon as we are rolling. We'll coast down." The silence was eerie after the growl of heavy engines.
The only sound was the squeak of the Land-Rover's suspension, the crunch of the tyres over gravel, and the rustle of the wind around their ears.
The twists in the rough track sprang at them out of the night with unnerving speed, and Timon Nbebi wrenched the wheel through them as they careered down the first drop of the great escarpment. The two trucks were guided by their tail-lights. They made monstrous black shapes looming out of the darkness close behind. Sally-Anne reached out for Craig's hand as they were thrown together into the turns, and she hung on to it tightly all the way down.
"There they are!" Peter Fungabera snarled abruptly, his voice roughened with excitement.
Below them they saw the headlights of the Mercedes flickering beyond the trees. They were closing up swiftly.
For a few seconds the headlights were blanketed by another turn in the winding road, and then they burst out again two long beams burning th pale dust surface of the track, to be answered suddenly 6y another glaring pair of headlights facing in the oppbsite direction, even at this range, blindingly white. The second pair of headlights flashed three times, obviously a recognition signal, and immediately the Mercedes slowed.