A Time to Die - Smith Wilbur - Страница 75

"How many did you see?" Sean asked without lowering his binoculars. "Have they all gone to the trees at the head of the in valley?"

"I saw only a few," Pumula murmured.

"Masesh, " Matatu spat unhappily. He was referring to the lees of millet beer that, after fermentation, the Batonka fishermen use as a ground bait to lure the shoals of bream into Lake Kariba's shallows.

He spat again. "That valley is the mouth of the crocodile. They want us to put our heads into it."

Sean studied the sides of the valley, taking his time, every few minutes lowering the binoculars to rest his eyes and then lifting them again. He began at the top of the slope and swept gradually downward. when he reached the bottom, he began at the top again, going over the same ground time and again. He tried not to think of that sighting of the litter or the tiny figure he thought he had seen upon it. He concentrated entirely on his search, and ten minutes later he was rewarded.

It was a single flash of sunlight reflected from the lens of a wristwatch or the lens of a pair of field glasses' Yes Matatu, "There they are." He lowered his own glasses.

you are right. They have put out the bait, now they are waiting for US. 99 He sat down behind the boulder and tried to think it through logically, but Claudia's memory kept intruding and deflecting his reasoning. There was only one certain conclusion, and that was that it was hopeless to continue the pursuit. He looked up. Matatu and Pumula were watcl&g him with expressions of blind faith. In almost twenty years he had never seen him at a loss. They waited patiently for himtdperform the miracle yet again.

Sean found it "infuriating. He jumped up and went back down upon him. He found the hill to think without those trusting eyes a spot that was well concealed and yet had a good all-around view so that nobody could sneak up on him. He settled down with the.577 across his lap to consider his options.

The first one he crossed from his mental list was an attack on the Renamo column. Even leaving aside the puny forces he had available, he had to consider the hostages they had in their hands. Even with a company of fully armed Scouts, he would still have been unable to attack.

"SO what can I hope to achieve by following them?" he asked himself "Apart from gratifying this new and mawkish desire to be as close as possible to Claudia Monteffo."

Probably the best chance of release of the captives from Renarno clutches was not his own intervention but diplomatic negotiations through Renarno's reputed allies, the South African vernment in Pretoria However, even the South Africans would not be able to achieve anything if they were unaware an American citizen had been captured by Renamo.

"Okay." Sean made his first firm decision. 161 have to get a message back to the American embassy in Harare, immediately he realized that this took care of his other major worry. Matatu and Pumula were his re risibility. Up to n SPO aw he had been leading them into a suicidal situation. They had been more and more on his conscience the closer they drew to the Renamo column. This was the excuse he had been looking for.

"I'll send both of them back to Chiwewe with a message for Reerna." He opened the flap of his backpack and found his small leather-covered notepad. He began to compose the message.

Reema had all Riacardo,s and Claudia's personal details on the safari files, everything from their physical descriptions to their passport numbers. Riccardo was an important and influential man. Sean did not tell her he was dead, but implied in his message that both father and daughter were captives of Renamo. The U.S.

embassy could be relied on to react swiftly, and it would be in contact with Pretoria within hours of receiving the news.

Of course, since the imposition of U.S. sanctions on that country the relations between Washington and Pretoria were at a historically low ebb, and the influence Of the United States in southern Africa was no longer the overriding factor it had once been. Nonetheless, the South Africans could be relied on to intercede with Renamo on the simplest humanitarian unds.

"Okay, that takes care of Matatu gro and Pumula. " Sean signed the message, tore the Pages out of his notepad, and folded them. As an afterthought he filled another Page of instructions for Reerna covering the $500,000 that Riccudo's estate owed them. She was to Pass these on to Sean's lawyer.

At last he had to make his own decision. He could run back across the border, carrying the message himself, and within two or three days he could be drinking Castle lager in the Meikles Hotel and working out how to spend Capo's half-million bucks. That was the sensible and logical thing to do, but he had already dismissed the idea before he considered it.

"So I'll follow the column and wait for an opportunity." He grinned at the absurdity of his decision. "What opportunity?" he wondered. "A chance to shoot my way into an encampment of fifty-plus tells with the old.577, free the three prisoners, and with one mighty bound whip them a hundred miles to the border, carrying Claudia with her injured leg on my back!"

He stood up, resettled his pack between his shoulders, and crept back up to the slope where Matatu and Pumula were lying watching the escarpment. He dropped down beside Matatu.

"Anything?" he asked. Matatu shook his head. They were silent for many minutes while Sean plucked up his courage to tell the little man he was sending him back.

While he did so, he scowled through the binoculars at the spot up the long valley where he knew Renamo, had set their ambush.

Matatu seemed to sense that something unpleasant was brewing.

He kept glancing at Sean with a troubled expression, but when Sean finally turned to him, he burst into a sunny, ingratiating grin and wriggled his entire body in his eagerness to please and to stave off whatever was coming.

"I remember," he said eagerly. "I remember who he is."