"We've got them," Peter Fungabera exulted, and switched off the parking lights.
Below them a canopied truck was trundling slowly from the verge where it had been parked in darkness, into the middle of the road. Its headlights flooded the Mercedes which pulled to a halt. Two men climbed out of the Mercedes and crossed to the cab of the truck. One of them Haiti carried a rifle. They spoke to the driver through the open window.
The Land-Rover raced silently in complete darkness towards the brightly lit tableau in the valley below. Sally Anne was clinging to Craig's hand with startling strength.
In the road below, one of the men began to walk back towards the rear of the parked truck, and then paused and looked up the dark road towards the racing Land-Rover.
They were so close now that even over the engine noise of the Mercedes and truck, he must have heard the crunch of tyres.
Peter Fungabera switched on the headlights of the Land Rover. They blazed out with stunning brilliance and at the same moment he lifted an electronic bull-horn to his mouth.
"Do not move!" his magnified voice bellowed into the night, and came crashing back in echoes from the close pressed hills. "Do not attempt to escape!" The two men whirled and dived back towards the Mercedes. Timon Nbebi started the engine with a roar and the Land' Rover jerked forward.
"Stay where you are! Drop your weapons!" The men hesitated, then the armed one threw down his rifle and they both raised their hands in surrender, blinking into the dazzle of headlights.
Timon Nbebi swung the Land-Rover in front of the Mercedes, blocking it. Then he jumped down and ran to the open window and pointed his Uzi submachine-gun into the interior.
"Oud'he shouted. "Everybody oud" Behind them the two trucks came to a squealing halt, clouds of dust boiling out from under their double rear wheels. Armed troopers swarmed out of them, rushing forward to club down the two unarmed men onto the gravel of the road. They surrounded the Mercedes, tearing open the doors and dragging out the driver and another man from the back seat.
There was no mistaking the tall, wide-shouldered figure.
The headlights floodlit his dark, craggy features and exaggerated the rocky strength of his lantern jaw. Tungata Zebiwe shrugged off the grip of his captors, and glared about him, forcing them to fall back involuntarily.
"Back, you yapping jackals! Do you dare touch me?" He was dressed in dark slacks and a white shirt. His cropped head was round and black as a cannon ball.
"Do you know who I am?" he demanded. "You'll wish your twenty-five fathers had taught you better mariners." His arrogant assurance drove them back another pace, and they looked towards the Land' Rover Peter Fungabera stepped out of the darkness behind the headlights, and Tungata Zebiwe recognized him instantly.
"You!" he growled. "Of course, the chief butcher."
"Open the truck," Peter Fungabera ordered, without taking his eyes off the other man. They stared at each other with such terrible hatred, that it rendered insignificant everything else around them. It was an elemental confrontation, seeming to embody all the savagery of a continent, two powerful men stripped of any vestige of civilized restraint, their antagonism so strong as to be barely supportable to them.
Craig had jumped dbwn from the Land' Rover and started forward, but Itow he stopped beside the Mercedes in astonishment. He had not expected anything remotely like this. This almost tangible hatred was not a thing of that moment, it seemed that the two of them would launch themselves at each other like embattled animals, tearing with bare hands at each other's throats. This was a passion of deep roots, a mutual rage based on a monumental foundation of long-standing hostility.
From the back of the captured truck the troopers were hurling out bales and crates. One of the crates burst open as it hit the road, and long yellow shafts of ivory glowed like amber in the headlights. A trooper hooked open one of the bales and pulled out handfuls of precious fur, the golden dappled skin of leopard, the thick red pelts of lynx.
"That's it! Peter Fungabera's voice was choking with triumph and loathing and vindictive gloating. "Seize the Matabele dog!" "WI-iatever this is will rebound on your own head," Tungata growled at him, "you son of a Shana whore! "Take him!" Peter urged his men, but they hesitated, held at bay by the invisible aura of power that emanated from this tall imperial figure.
In the pause, Sally-Anne jumped down from the Land Rover, and started towards the treasure of fur and ivory lying in the road. For a second she screened Tungata Zebiwe from his captors, and he moved with a blur of speed, like the strike of an adder, almost too fast to follow with the eye.
He seized Sally-Arme's arm, twisted and lifted her off her feet, holding her as a shield in front of him as he ducked low and scooped up the discarded rifle from the dust at his feet. He had chosen the moment perfectly.
They were all crowded in upon each other. The troopers pressed so closely that none of them could fire without hitting one of their own.
Tungata's back was protected by the Land-Rover, his front by Sally-Anne's body.
"Don't shood" Peter Fungabera bellowed at his men. "I want the Matabele bastard for myself." Tungata swung the barrel of the rifle up under Sally Anne armpit, holding it by the pistol grip singlehanded, and he aimed at Peter Fungabera, as he fell back towards the Land-Rover, dragging Sally' Anne with him. The Land Rover's engine was still running.
"You'll not escape," Peter Fungabera gloated. "The road is blocked, I have a hundred men. I've got you, at last." Tungata slipped the rate-of-fire selector across with his thumb and dropped his aim to Peter Fungabera's belly.
Craig was standing diagonally behind his left shoulder, he saw the slight deflection of the rifle barrel at the instant before Tungata fired. Craig realized that he had deliberately aimed an inch to one side of Peter's hip. The clattering roar of automatic fire was deafening, and the group of men leapt apart as they went for cover.