Squadron Leader Courtney, he spoke in Afrikaans. Is it you, Mevrou? I forgot the number, I had to go back to the house to fetch it, she said. Her voice was rough with exertion, she had been running.
I couldn't call before, there were people, my husband, she broke off. She had said too much.
That is all right. Don't worry, everything is all right., No, she said. It's terrible what they are going to do. It's just terrible. Do you want to tell me? They are going to kill the field-marshal The field-marshal? The Ou Baas, Field-Marshal Smuts. He could not speak for a moment, and then he rallied. Do you know when they plan to do it? Today. They will shoot him today. 'That's not possible, he did not want to believe it. The Ou Baas has gone up Table Mountain today. He's on a picnic with, Yes! Yes! The woman was sobbing. On the mountain.
White Sword is waiting for him on the mountain., Oh my God! Shasa whispered. He felt as though he were paralysed. His legs were filled with concrete and a great weight crushed his lungs so that for a moment he could not breathe.
You are a brave woman, he said. Thank you for what you have done. He dropped the telephone onto its cradle and snatched open the drawer of Centaine's desk. The gold-engraved Beretta pistols were in their presentation case. He lifted one of them out of its nest of green baize and checked the load.
There were six in the magazine and an extra magazine in a separate slot in the case. He thrust the pistol into his belt and the magazine into his pocket and turned for the door.
The pistol was useless at anything farther than point-blank range, but the hunting rifles were locked in the cabinet in the gunroom, the ammunition was kept separately, his key was in the jag, it would take precious minutes to fetch it, open the cabinet, unchain his 9.3 Marmlicher, find the ammunition, he could not afford the time. The picnic party had a start of nearly forty minutes on him. They might be halfway up the mountain by now. All the people he loved were there, and an assassin was waiting for them.
He sprinted down the steps and sprang into the open cockpit of the jag. She started with a roar; he spun her in a tight circle, gravel spraying from under the back tyres, and went down the long drive with the needle climbing quickly to the eighty mph notch. He went out through the Anreith gates, and into the narrow curves and dips as the road skirted the base of the mountain. More than once he nearly ran out of road as the jag snarled and screeched through the turns, but it was fully fifteen minutes before he snaked her in through the gates of Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens and at last pulled into the parking area behind the curator's office. The other vehicles were there, parked in a straggling line, the Daimler and the Bentley and Deneys Reitzs Packard, but the parking area was deserted.
He took one quick look up at the mountain that towered 2000 feet above him. He could make out the path as it climbed out of the forest and zigzagged up the gut of Skeleton Gorge, passing the pimple of Breakfast Rock on the skyline and then crossing the rim onto the tableland.
There was a line of moving specks on the pathway, just emerging from the forest. The Ou Baas and Grandpater were setting their usual furious pace, proving to each other how fit they were, and as he shaded his eyes he recognized Mater's yellow dress, and Tara's turquoise skirt, just tiny flecks of colour against the grey and green wall of the mountain. They were trailing far behind the leaders.
He began to run. He took the first easy slope at a trot, pacing himself. He reached the 300-metre contour path and paused beside the concrete signpost to draw a few long breaths. He surveyed the track ahead.
It went up very steeply from here, jigging through the forest, following the bank of the stream, a series of uneven rocky steps. He went at it fast, but his town shoes had thin leather soles and gave him little purchase. He was panting wildly and his shirt was soaked through with sweat as he came out of the forest. Still almost 1000 feet to the top, but he saw immediately that he had gained on the picnic party.
They were strung out down the pathway. The two figures leading were Grandpater and the Ou Baas, at this distance it was impossible to distinguish between them, but that was Blaine a few paces behind them. He would be hanging back so as not to force the older men to a pace beyond their strength. The rest of the party were in groups and singles, taking up half the slope, with the women far in the rear.
He drew a deep breath and shouted. The women paused and looked back down the slope.
Stop! he yelled with all his lung power. Stop! One of the women waved, it was probably Marty, then they began to climb again. They had not recognized him, nor had they understood the command to stop. They had taken him for another friendly hiker. He was wasting time, the leaders were just under the crest of the summit.
Shasa began to climb with all his strength, leaping over the uneven footing, forcing himself to ignore the burning of his lungs and the numbing exhaustion of his legs, driving himself upwards by sheer force of will.
Tara looked back when he was only ten feet below her.
Shasa! she cried, delighted but surprised. What are you doing - ? He brushed past her. Can't stop, he grunted, and went on up, passing Anna and then Mater.
What is it, Shasa? Later! There was no wind for words, his whole existence was in his agonized legs, and the sweat poured into his eye, blurring his vision.
He saw the leaders make the last short traverse before going over the top, and he stopped and tried to shout again.
it came out as an agonized wheeze, and as he watched Grandpater and the Ou Baas disappeared over the crest of the slope with Blaine only twenty paces behind them.
The shot was dulled by distance, but even so Shasa recognized the sharp distinctive crack of a Mauser.
From somewhere he found new strength and he flew at the slope, leaping from rock to rock. The single shot seemed to echo and re-echo through his head, and he heard somebody shouting, or perhaps it was only the wild sobbing of his breath and the thunder of his blood in his own eardrums.
Manfred De La Rey lay all that night in his hide. At sunrise he stood up and swung his arms, squatted and twisted to loosen his muscles and banish the chill that had soaked through the overcoat into his bones. He moved a few paces back and emptied his bladder.
Then he stripped off the overcoat and the jersey,, both had been bought from a second-hand clothes dealer on the Parade. They were unmarked and could never be traced to him. He bundled them and stuffed them under a rock. Then he settled back in his hide, stretched out on the tarpaulin.
A few blades of grass were obscuring his line of fire and he broke them off and aimed at the head of the path.
His aim was clear and uninterrupted. He worked a cartridge from the magazine into the breech of the Mauser, checking it visually as it slid home, and he locked the bolt down.
Once more he took his aim, and this time he curled his finger round the rear trigger and carefully set the hair trigger with that crisp satisfying little click. Then he pushed the safety-catch over with his thumb and laid the rifle on the tarpaulin in front of him.
He froze into immobility. Patient as a leopard in a tree above a water-hole, only his yellow eyes alive, he let the hours drift by, never for an instant relaxing his vigil.
When it happened, it happened with the abruptness that might have taken another watcher by surprise. There was no warning, no sound of footsteps or voices. The range was too long for that. Suddenly a human figure appeared on the head of the path, silhouetted against the blue of the sky.
Manfred was ready for it. He lifted the rifle to his shoulder with a single fluid movement and his eye went naturally to the aperture of the lens. He did not have to pan the telescopic sight, the image of the man appeared instantly in his field of vision, enlarged and crisply focused.