The Leopard Hunts in Darkness Read online

  ‘He probably does not trust his own men not to cheat him,’ Craig murmured.

  ‘With the bunch of cut-throats he’s got working for him, who can blame him?’ Sally-Anne’s voice was hoarse with her outrage, but Peter Fungabera seemed unaffected.

  ‘We believe that we will be forewarned of the next consignment. As I have intimated, we have infiltrated a man into their organization. We will watch the movements of our suspect as the date approaches and, with luck, catch him red-handed. If not, we will seize the consignment at the airport, and arrest all those handling it. I am certain we will be able to convince one of them to turn state’s evidence.’

  Watching his face, Craig recognized that same cold, flat, merciless expression that he had last seen when Comrade Lookout reported the death of the three poachers. It was only a fleeting glimpse behind the urbane manner and then Peter Fungabera had turned back to his desk.

  ‘For reasons that I have already explained to you, I require independent and reliable witnesses to any arrest that we might be fortunate enough to make. I want both of you to be there. So I would be obliged if you could hold yourselves ready to move at very short notice, and if you could inform Captain Nbebi where you may be contacted at all times over the next two or three weeks.’

  As they rose to leave, Craig asked suddenly, ‘What is the maximum penalty for poaching?’ and Peter Fungabera looked up from the papers he was rearranging on his desk.

  ‘As the law stands now, it is a maximum of eighteen months’ hard labour for any one of a dozen or so offences under the act—’

  ‘That’s not enough.’ Craig had a vivid mental image of the violated and rotting carcasses of his animals.

  ‘No,’ Peter agreed. ‘It’s not enough. Two days ago in the House I introduced an amendment to the bill, as a private member’s motion. It will be read for the third time on Thursday, and I assure you it has the full support of the party. It will become law on that day.’

  ‘And,’ Sally-Anne asked, ‘what are the new penalties to be?’

  ‘For unauthorized dealing in the trophies of certain scheduled wild game, as opposed to mere poaching or hunting, for buying and reselling and exporting, the maximum penalty will be twelve years at hard labour and a fine not exceeding one hundred thousand dollars.’

  They thought about that for a moment, and then Craig nodded.

  ‘Twelve years – yes, that is enough.’

  Peter Fungabera’s summons came in the early morning, when Craig and Hans Groenewald, his overseer, had just returned to the homestead from the dawn patrol of the pastures. Craig was in the middle of one of Joseph’s gargantuan breakfasts when the telephone rang, and he was still savouring the homemade beef sausage as he answered it.

  ‘Mr Mellow, this is Captain Nbebi. The General wants you to meet him as soon as possible at his operational headquarters, the house at Macillwane. We are expecting our man to move tonight. How soon can you be here?’

  ‘It’s a six-hour drive,’ Craig pointed out.

  ‘Miss Jay is already on her way to the airport. She should be at King’s Lynn within the next two hours to pick you up.’

  Sally-Anne arrived within the two hours, and Craig was waiting on the airstrip. They flew directly to Harare airport and Sally-Anne drove them out to the house in the Macillwane hills.

  As they drove through the gates, they were immediately aware of the unusual activity in the grounds. On the front lawn stood a Super Frelon helicopter. The pilot and his engineer were leaning against the fuselage, smoking and chatting to each other. They looked up expectantly as Sally-Anne and Craig came up the driveway, and then dismissed them as unimportant. There were four sand-coloured army trucks drawn up in a line behind the house, with Third Brigade troopers in full battle-kit grouped around them. Craig could sense their excitement, like hounds being whipped in for the hunt.

  Peter Fungabera’s office had been turned into operational headquarters. Two camp tables had been set up facing the huge relief map on the wall. At the first table were seated three junior officers. There was a radio apparatus on the second table, and Timon Nbebi was leaning over the operator’s shoulder, speaking into the microphone in low rippling Shona that Craig could not follow, breaking off abruptly to give an order to the black sergeant at the map, who immediately moved one of the coloured markers to a new position.

  Peter Fungabera greeted Craig and Sally-Anne perfunctorily and waved them to stools, then went on speaking into the telephone. When he hung up he explained quickly, ‘We know the location of three of the dumps – one is at a shamba in the Chimanimani mountains, it’s mostly leopard-skins and some ivory. The second is at a trading-post near Chiredzi in the south – that’s mostly ivory. And the third is coming from the north. We think that it’s being held at Tuti Mission Station. It’s the biggest and most valuable shipment, ivory and rhino horn.’

  He broke off as Captain Nbebi handed him a note, read it swiftly and said, ‘Good, move two platoons up the north road as far as Karoi,’ and then turned back to Craig.

  ‘The operation is code-named “Bada”, that is Shona for “leopard”. Our suspect will be referred to as Bada during the entire operation.’ Craig nodded. ‘We have just heard that Bada has left Harare. He is in his official Mercedes with a driver and two bodyguards – all three of them Matabele, of course.’

  ‘Which way?’ Sally-Anne asked quickly.

  ‘At this stage, he seems to be heading north, but it’s still too early to be sure.’

  ‘To meet the big shipment – ’ there was the light of battle in Sally-Anne’s eyes, and Craig could feel his own excitement tickling the hairs at the back of his neck.

  ‘We must believe that is so,’ Peter agreed. ‘Now let me explain our disposition if Bada moves north. The shipments from Chimanimani and Chiredzi will be allowed through unhindered as far as the airport. They will be seized as soon as they arrive, and the drivers, together with the reception committee, arrested, to be used as witnesses later. Of course, their progress will be under surveillance at all times from the moment the trucks are loaded. The owners of the two warehouses will be arrested as soon as the trucks leave and are clear of the area.’

  Both Craig and Sally-Anne were listening intently, as Peter went on, ‘If Bada moves either east or south, we will switch the focus of the operation to that sector. However, we had anticipated that as the most valuable shipment was in the north, that’s where he will go – if, of course, he goes at all. It looks as though we were right. As soon as we are certain, then we can move ourselves.’

  ‘How are you planning to catch them?’ Sally-Anne demanded.

  ‘It will be very much a matter of opportunity, and what we will do depends necessarily on Bada’s actions. We have to try and make a physical connection between him and the consignment. We will watch both the vehicle carrying the contraband and his Mercedes, and as soon as they come together, we will pounce—’ Peter Fungabera emphasized this act of pouncing by slapping his leather-covered swagger-stick into the palm of his hand with a crack like a pistol shot, and Craig found that he was already so keyed up that he started nervously and then grinned sheepishly at Sally-Anne.

  The radio set crackled and the side-band hummed, then a disembodied voice spoke in Shona, and Captain Nbebi acknowledged curtly, and glanced across at Peter.

  ‘It’s confirmed, sir. Bada is moving north on the Karoi road at speed.’

  ‘All right, Captain, we can go up to condition three,’ Peter ordered, and strapped on the webbing belt with his holstered sidearm. ‘Do you have anything from the surveillance teams on the ‘Tuti road?’

  Captain Nbebi called three times into the microphone, and was answered almost immediately. The reply to his question was brief.

  ‘Negative at this time, General,’ he reported to Peter.

  ‘It’s still too early.’ Peter adjusted his burgundy-red beret to a rakish angle, and the silver leopard’s head glinted over his right eye. ‘But we can begin moving into our forward posi
tions now.’ He led the way through the french doors onto the veranda.

  The helicopter crew saw him, quickly dropped their cigarettes, ground them out and vaulted up into the hatch. Peter Fungabera climbed up into the fuselage and the starter-motor whined and the rotors began to spin overhead.

  As they settled down on the bench seats and clinched their waist-belts, Craig asked impulsively the question that had been troubling him, but he asked it in a voice low enough not to be heard by the others in the rising bellow of the main engine.

  ‘Peter, this is a full-scale military operation, almost a crusade. Why not merely hand it over to the police?’

  ‘Since they fired their white officers, the police have become a bunch of heavy-handed bunglers—’ then Peter gave him a rake-hell smile ‘– and after all, old boy, they are my rhino also.’

  The helicopter lifted off with a gut-sliding swoop, and its nose rotated onto a northerly heading. Keeping low, hugging the contours, it bore away, and the rush of air through the open hatch made further conversation impossible.

  They kept well to the west of the main northern road, not risking a sighting by the occupants of the Mercedes. An hour later, as the helicopter hovered and then began its descent to the small military fort at Karoi, Craig glanced at his wrist-watch. It was after four o’clock.

  Peter Fungabera saw the gesture and nodded. ‘It looks as though it’s going to be a night operation,’ he agreed.

  The village of Karoi had once been a centre for the white-owned ranches in the area, but now it was a single street of shabby trading-stores, a service station, a post office and a small police station. The military base was a little beyond the town, still heavily fortified from the days of the bush war with a barbed-wire surround and sloped walls of sandbags twenty feet thick.

  The local commandant, a young black 2nd lieutenant, was clearly overawed by the importance of his visitor, and saluted theatrically every time Peter Fungabera spoke.

  ‘Get this idiot out of my sight,’ Peter snarled at Captain Nbebi, as he took over the command post. ‘And get me the latest report on Bada’s position.’

  ‘Bada passed through Sinoia twenty-three minutes ago.’ Captain Nbebi looked up from the radio set.

  ‘Right. Do we have an accurate description of the vehicle?’

  ‘It’s a dark blue Mercedes 280 SE with a ministerial pennant on the bonnet. Registration PL 674. No motorcycle outriders, nor other escort vehicle. Four occupants.’

  ‘Make sure that all units have that description – and repeat once more that there is to be no shooting. Bada is to be taken unharmed. Harm him and we could well have another Matabele rebellion on our hands. Nobody is to fire at him or his vehicle, even to save their own lives. Make that clear. Any man who disobeys will have to face me personally.’

  Nbebi called each unit individually, repeated Peter’s orders and waited while they were acknowledged. Then they waited impatiently, drinking tea from chipped enamel mugs and watching the radio set.

  It crackled abruptly to life and Timon Nbebi sprang to it.

  ‘We have located the truck,’ he translated triumphantly. ‘It’s a green five-ton Ford with a canvas canopy. A driver and a passenger in the cab. Heavily laden, well down on the suspension and using extra low gear on the inclines. It crossed the drift on the Sanyati river ten minutes ago, heading from the direction of Tuti Mission towards the road junction twenty-five miles north of here.’

  ‘So, Bada and the truck are on a course to intercept each other,’ said Peter Fungabera softly, and there was the hunter’s gleam in his eyes.

  Now the radio set was the focus of all their attention, each time it came alive all their eyes instantly swivelled to it.

  The reports came in regularly, tracing the swift progress of the Mercedes northwards towards them and that of the lumbering truck, grinding slowly down the dusty rutted secondary road from the opposite direction. In the periods between each report, they sat in silence, sipping the strong over-sweetened tea and munching sandwiches of coarse brown bread and canned bully beef.

  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 Shona, ‘The 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.’

  ‘I 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 command post crashed open and Peter Fungabera strode out into the yard.

  ‘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.

  The 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 passenger seat. Craig and Sally-Anne were crowded 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 pre-arranged meeting, sir.’

  ‘Get going,’ Peter Fungabera ordered. ‘Follow them!’

  Now Timon Nbebi drove fast, using the glow of his parking lights to hold the verge of the road.

  ‘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 footboard 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, sir. 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 the pale dust surface of the track, to be answered suddenly by another glaring pair of headlights facing in the opposite direction, even at this range, blindingly white. The second pair of headlights flashed three times, obviously a recognition signal, and immediately the Mercedes slowed.

  ‘We’ve got them,’ Peter Fungabera exulted, and switched off the parking lights.