A Time to Die c-13 Read online

  "Until we meet again," Sean agreed, and handed him over to a guard detail under a white sergeant. Then he climbed into the Command armored car to lead the final stage of withdrawal.

  Sean extricated his column and had them back across the border ten and a half hours after the attack began. Ian Smith, the prime minister, came on the radio net in person to congratulate him and inform him of his decoration, a bar to his Silver Cross.

  Sean didn't learn about Comrade China's escape until the column went into laager that evening. Apparently China had slit the canvas hood of the troop truck and slipped through it while his guard was dozing. Undeterred by his manacles, he had dropped off the speeding truck, screened by the dust boiling out from the back wheels, and rolled into the head-high elephant grass along the verge.

  Two months later Sean had seen an intelligence report that placed China in command of the successful attack that had wiped out a supply convoy on the Mount Darwin road.

  "Yes, Matatu, I remember it all very well," Sean answered his question. He made one more steep turn above the site of the old terrorist base before he returned the Beechcraft to straight and level flight on a southerly heading.

  He did not, however, fly as far southward as the railway line that linked the port of Beira to the landlocked Zimbabwean border.

  This was a focus for all the military and rebel activity in the area, and the countryside would be swarming with Frelimo and Zimbabwean troops, all armed with RPG rockets and eager to get a shot at an unmarked low-flying aircraft with no flight authorization.

  "At least," Sean told Job, "it looks like a possibility."

  Job agreed. "The border opposite our camp seems undefended and deserted."

  "Worth a try for half a million?" Sean asked. Job just grinned at him.

  "One more little chore before we go home," Sean told them.

  It required precise navigation and an eye for the terrain, but Sean crossed back into the Zimbabwean side, and by flying low they were able to pick out the spot where the previous day they had first come across the poachers" tracks; from that point, with Matatu craning his head to see down and calling directions, they found the tableland and valley where they had come up with the band of poachers and taken them under fire. From the air the distances seemed much shorter than they had on foot.

  Matatu directed Sean along the trail the old bull had made toward the border. It seemed his gift for direction and terrain was not impaired by being high above the ground, and Sean was following their course on The map he held in his lap.

  "We are crossing bact into Mozambique now." Sean was scribbling notes on the map.

  "That way. Matatu leaned over the back of the seat and pointed out a more northerly track. Sean knew better than to argue with him and turned a few degrees left.

  Minutes later Matatu demanded he turn slightly south again.

  "Little bugger is actually sensing the old bull's trail, he is thinking like the elephant," Sean marveled. At that moment Matatu gave a squeak of triumph and pointed urgently out of the side window.

  As they flashed across another dry river-bed, Sean glimpsed the tracks trodden in the soft sand. They were so deep that they were filled with shadow, a string of dark beads on the white background. Even Sean, who for twenty years had watched Matatu work, was amazed. On instinct alone, Matatu had followed the bull to this river crossing.

  It was a supernatural feat.

  Sean circled the tracks, his port wingtip pointing directly at them, so steep was his turn.

  "Which way now?" he called to the back seat. Matatu tapped his shoulder and pointed downstream. Without demur, Sean followed the gnarled black finger.

  there he is!" Job shouted suddenly. Matatu shrieked with laughter and clapped his hands, bouncing in his seat like a child at a pantomime.

  A mile ahead the river ran into a wide vlei that still held water from the last rains. The elephant's humped back showed above the tops of the tall reeds that surrounded the pool, like a gray whale in a sea of green.

  As they raced low toward him, the elephant heard the Beechcraft's engine. He lifted his head and spread his ears wide, turning to face them, and they saw his tusks, those legendary shafts of black ivory raised to the sky. The beauty of their curved symmetry struck Sean all over again.

  There was just a glimpse of them as they flashed overhead, but the image was printed vividly on his mind's eye. Half a million dollars and those tusks-he had risked his LIFE a hundred times for much lesser prizes.

  "Going back for another look?" Job asked, twisting his head to try and see back over the tailplane.

  "No." Sean shook his head. "We don't want to disturb him more than necessary. We know where to find him. Let's go home."

  "It's MY half-million dollars you're so gaily throwing around," Claudia told her father.

  "How do you work that out?" Riccardo asked. He was lying on his camp bed dressed in a pair of silk pajama bottoms, his chest and feet bare. Claudia noticed that most of his body hair was still crisp, curly and black, with only a patch of fuzzy gray in the center of his chest.

  "My inheritance," she explained sweetly. "You're blowing my inheritance, Papa."

  Riccardo chuckled. She had the sass of a divorce lawyer, coming bursting into his tent to renew the argument he thought he had finalized in the mess tent over breakfast.

  "If I'm not going to get it in your will, the very least you can do is let me enjoy it with you now."

  "According to the last audit, young lady, you will have a little over thirty-six million coming to you after taxes, after I've allowed myself this small extravagance. I hasten to add that every cent is tied up in a trust fund that not even the most crafty lawyers will ever break. I don't want you handing out my hard -earned loot to one of your bleeding-heart charities." "Papa, you know the money has never interested me. What interests me is coming with you on this crazy jaunt after the elephant.

  I came to Africa with you on the understanding that I was to be included in everything. That was our bargain."

  "I'll say it one more time, tesoro, my treasure." He only called her by that baby name when he was feeling very affectionate or very exasperated. "You're not coming into Mozambique with us."

  "You'd go back on your solemn promise?" she accused.

  "Without a qualm," he assured her. "if your safety or happiness was involved."

  She jumped up from the canvas camp chair and began to prowl around the tent. He watched her with secret pleasure. Her arms were folded over those pert little breasts, and she was frowning heavily, but the frown left no lines on her smooth plastic skin. In looks she reminded him of the young Sophia Loren, his favorite actress.

  Now she stopped beside the camp bed and glared down at him.

  "You know I always get my way," she said. "Why don't you make it easier for both of us, and just say I can come."

  "I'm sorry, tesoro. You aren't coming."

  "all right." She drew a deep breath. "I don't want to do this, Papa, but you leave me no choice. I've begun to understand what this means to you, why you're prepared to pay such a vast sum for a chance to do it, but if I can't go with you, as is my right and my duty, then I'll prevent you from going."

  He chuckled again, easily and unconcernedly.

  "I'm serious, deadly serious, Papa. Please don't make me do it."

  "How can you stop me, little girl?" he asked.

  "I can tell Sean Courtney what Dr. Andrews told me."

  Riccardo Monterro came to his feet in one lithe swift movement and seized her arms. "What did Andrews tell you?" he asked in a voice as thin and cutting as a razor blade.

  "He told me that last November you had a little black spot on your right arm," she said. Instinctively he put his right arm behind his back, but she went on. "It had a pretty name, melanoma, like a girl's name, but it wasn't pretty at all, and you left it too late. He cut it out, but the pathologist graded it Clarke five-that's six months to a year, Papa. That's what he told me."

  Riccardo
Monterro sat down on the bed and his voice was suddenly very weary.

  "When did he tell you?"

  "Six weeks ago." She sat down beside him. "That's why I agreed to come to Africa with you. I didn't want to be apart from you for one day of the time we have left. That's why I am coming with you into Mozambique."

  "No." He shook his head. "I can't let you."

  "Then I'll tell Sean that at any moment it may reach your brain."

  She did not have to elaborate. Dr. Andrews had been most graphic as he described the many possible directions the disease could take. If it went to the lungs, it would be death by suffocation, but if it affected the brain or nervous system, it would be either general paralysis or total derangement.

  "You wouldn't," he said, shaking his head. "The last thing in my life that I really want. You wouldn't deny it to me?"

  "Without a qualm," she said, repeating his own words. "If you refuse me my right to be with you for every one of these last days, and to be with you at the end as is the duty of a loving daughter."

  "I can't let you." He let his face sink into the cup of his hands, a gesture of defeat that hurt her. It required all her resolve to keep her tone firm.

  "And I can't let you die alone," she replied.

  "You don't understand how much I want this thing. It's the last thing in my LIFE. The old bull and I will go together. You don't understand. If you did you wouldn't prevent me."

  "I'm not preventing you," she said gently. "I want you to have it-if you'll let me come with you." As she said it, they both became aware of a faint vibration in the air, and together they looked up.

  "The Beechcraft," Riccardo murmured. "Sean's on his way back to the airstrip." He glanced at his wristwatch. "He'll be here within the hour."

  "And what will you tell him?" Claudia asked. "Will you tell him I'm coming with you?"

  "No!" Sean bellowed. "No bloody fear! Forget the idea, Capo.

  She can't come, and that's absolutely bloody final!"

  "For half a big M, I get to call the shots," Riccardo told him quietly.

  "I say she's coming, so she's coming."

  They were standing beside the Toyota. Riccardo and Claudia had met Sean as he drove into camp. Sean drew a breath and glared at father and daughter as they stood side by side confronting him. He saw that their expressions were set and determined.

  Sean had been on the point of bellowing again, but with an effort he checked himself. "Be reasonable, Capo," he said, moderating his tone. "You know it's impossible."

  They stared at him grimly, closed against argument or reason.

  "It's war out there. We'll take her."

  "Claudia comes with us."

  "The hell she does."

  Claudia spoke for the first time. "What are you making a fuss about? Is it because I am a woman? There's nothing a man can do that I can't."

  "Can you pee standing up?" He wanted to disconcert her, make her lose her temper, but she ignored the crude jibe and went on as though he had not spoken.

  "You've seen me hike. I can stand the heat and the tsetse fly. I'm as good as my father."

  He turned from her deliberately and spoke to Riccardo. "As her father, you can't allow it. Can you imagine what would happen to her if she were caught by a gang of Renamo cutthroats?"

  He saw Riccardo flinch, but Claudia had seen it also, and before he could weaken she took his hand and spoke up firmly.

  "Either I go or nobody goes, and you can kiss your half a million good-bye, Colonel Sean Courtney."

  That was the key, the half-million dollars. She had him, and they both knew it. He couldn't afford to pass it by, but he made one last effort.

  "Is she in charge around here, Capo? Do I take my orders from you or from her?"

  "That won't work either." Claudia tried to keep her tone placatory, although she longed to tear into him with tooth and nail.

  That crude sally of his rankled. "My father and I are agreed on this. Both of us go, or we call the deal off. Isn't that right, Papa?"

  "I'm afraid that's it, Sean." Riccardo looked tired and discouraged. "It's not negotiable. If you want your money, you take Claudia along with us."

  Sean turned on his heel and strode away toward his own tent, but after a few paces, he stopped and stood with his hands on his hips. His shouts had attracted the camp servants, and they hovered around the mess tent and peered out of the doorway and windows of the kitchen hut, apprehension mingled with curiosity. "What the hell are you all gawking at?" he roared. "Have you got no work to do around here?" And they disappeared.

  He turned and walked slowly back to where the two of them stood beside the Toyota. "Okay," he agreed, staring coldly at Claudia. "Cut your own throat, but don't come to me for a bandage."

  "I won't, that's a promise." Her voice was dripping honey, more irksome to him than straightforward gloating would have been, and they both knew their declared truce was at an end.

  "We've got some paperwork to do, Capo." Sean led the way to the mess tent without looking back at them.

  With two fingers, Sean typed out the indemnity statements on his old portable Remington, one for Riccardo and one for his daughter. Each began: "I acknowledge that I am fully aware of the danger and the illegality..." Then he typed an acknowledgement of debt for Riccardo to sign and called Job and the chef to witness the signature. He sealed all the copies in an envelope addressed to Reema at the Harare office and locked it in the small steel safe at the back of the mess tent.

  "Let's do it, then," he said.

  The poaching expedition would consist of the three whites, Job, Mattu, Pumula, and the stocky, bearded tracker who had picked UP Tukutela's spoor at the river crossing. His name was Dedan.

  "It's too many, but each of those tusks weighs a hundred and thirty pounds," Sean explained. "Matatu is too small to act as a porter. We need four big men to bring them back."

  Before the equipment was loaded into the Toyota, Sean ordered it laid out, and he opened and checked each pack. Claudia protested when he opened her personal pack. "That's an invasion of my privacy!"

  "So take me to the Supreme Court, ducky," he challenged as he went through the pack remorselessly, throwing out most of the tubes and bottles of cosmetics, allowing her only three tubes of moisturizer and sunscreen.

  "One change of underwear," he ordered, discarding half a dozen pairs of panties. "But you'll need two more pairs of thick socks.

  Get them."

  He pulled out her box of tampons. "Everything a man can do, and then some," he remarked coldly. "You don't need the box, it takes up too much space. Pack them loose." Her poorly suppressed fury gave him a sour pleasure.

  By the time he had finished, they were down to the barest essentials, and the packs were carefully weighed and apportioned depending on the strength and physical condition of each bearer.

  Sean, Job, Pumula, and Dedan carried sixty pounds each, Riccardo and Matatu forty, while Claudia was down to twenty-five pounds.

  "I can carry more," she protested. "Give me forty, the same as Matatu." Sean did not bother to answer her.

  "And what's more, I eat half as much as any of you!" But he had already turned away to supervise the loading of the Toyota.

  There were still four hours of daylight remaining when they left Chiwewe camp, but Sean drove the first section very fast, jouncing them around in their seats. It was partly an expression of his objection to Claudia's presence but mostly an urgent desire to be at the jump-off point before nightfall.