Wilbur Smith's Smashing Thrillers (113 page)

“Get back, Nandi” His voice was a high-pitched shriek. “Back! Back to your cage!” They both saw the leopard then, crouched in the alley between two walls of packing-cases. Its eyes reflected the headlights, yellow and glittering. Its tail flicked back and forth with a mesmeric rhythm. It was watching Chetti Singh. “No!” screamed Chetti Singh. “No, you can’t leave me to that brute. Please, Doctor. Please I implore you.”

The leopard raised its lip in a silent snarl of hatred and Chetti Singh urinated in a steady stream down the front of his khaki slacks. It puddled on the cement floor around his sandalled feet. “It’s going to kill me! This is inhuman. Please … You can’t allow this, please let me in.”

Suddenly Chetti Singh’s nerve snapped. He pushed himself off the side of the Cadillac and ran for the closed main doors of the warehouse, a hundred feet away in the looming darkness. He had not covered half that distance before the cat was on him. It came from behind, snaking low across the bare cement floor, and rose to settle upon Chetti Singh’s shoulders.

They looked like some grotesque hunchbacked creature with two heads, and then Chetti Singh was thrown forward by the leopard’s weight and borne to the floor. In a kicking clawing tangle they rolled together, Chetti Singh’s screams blending with the rattling growls of the leopard.

For a moment the man came to his knees, but instantly the leopard was on him again, going for his face. Chetti Singh tried to hold it off with his bare hands, thrusting them into its open jaws and the leopard clamped down on his wrist. Even in the closed sedan Daniel heard the bones of the wrist go, crunching like dry toast, and Chetti Singh screamed on a shriller note.

Goaded to superhuman effort by the pain he came to his feet with the leopard hanging on his arm. He staggered in an erratic circle, beating at the cat with his fist, trying to break its grip on his other wrist. The leopard’s back legs were slashing down the front of his thighs, ripping the khaki slacks, blood and urine mingling as the hooked yellow claws opened his flesh from groin to knee.

Chetti Sing blundered into a high pile of cardboard cartons, bringing them tumbling down around himself, and then his strength could no longer sustain the weight of the animal upon him. He collapsed again with the leopard still on top of him.

The leopard ripped and bit and worried, and Chetti Singh’s movements were becoming uncoordinated. Like an electric toy with a weakening battery he was slowing down. His screams were becoming feebler.

Daniel slid across to the controls of the Cadillac. As he started the engine, the leopard sprang back from its victim and stared at the vehicle uncertainly. Its tail lashed from side to side.

Daniel reversed slowly down off the loading ramp, and then manoeuvred the Cadillac so that its bulk would be between him and the leopard when he left the car and went to the door. He left the engine running and the headlights on and stepped out of the Cadillac. He watched the leopard steadfastly as he backed the few paces to the control-box.

The leopard was almost thirty yards from him but he never took his eyes off it as he inserted the key into its slot and the heavy door rumbled open. He left the key in the slot, and then dropped the shotgun and backed out through the door.

He was careful not to run or to make any other hurried movement that might provoke the leopard, even though the body of the Cadillac should inhibit a charge, and the animal already had its victim. Daniel was now well out of the cat’s attack circle.

Daniel turned at last and strode away into the night.

He used Chawe’s key-card to let himself out into the street, closed the main gates behind him and then broke into a jogtrot.

When they found Chetti Singh in the morning it would be apparent that for some unexplained reason he had gone to the wrong premises in response to the fire alarm call, and he had been attacked by his own animal while he was in the process of opening the warehouse door. The police would reason that left-hand drive controls of the Cadillac had made it necessary for him to leave the vehicle in order to operate the door controls.

Daniel had left no fingerprints or other incriminating evidence behind him.

When he reached the furthest corner of the perimeter fence, Daniel paused and looked back. The glow of the Cadillac’s headlights still lit the open warehouse door. He saw a dark feline shape, low and slinky, slip out through the door and streak to the high mesh of the perimeter fence.

The leopard went over the fence with the ease of a bird taking flight.

Daniel smiled. He knew that the poor tormented brute would head unerringly for its home in the misty forested mountains. After what it had suffered, it deserved that freedom at least, he thought.

Thirty minutes later he reached the hired Volkswagen. He drove to the airport and parked it in one of the Avis bays. He dropped the keys in the return box of the locked and deserted Avis office and then went to his Landcruiser in the public carpark.

At the Capital Hotel he packed quickly, stuffing his few possessions into the canvas valise. He used one of his neckties as a sling for his arm.

All that exertion had aggravated the injury. The sleepy night clerk at the hotel cashier’s desk printed his credit card and he carried his own bag out to the Landcruiser.

Unable to restrain his curiosity he drove past the Chetti Singh supermarket. There was no damage to the main building, although in the back alley a couple of firemen were still hosing down the pile of scorched garbage and the smoke-stained rear wall, watched by a dozen or so local residents in their nightclothes.

He turned westwards and left Lilongwe, heading back towards the Zambian border post. It was a three-hour drive. He turned on the radio and tuned to the early-morning service of Radio Malawi, listening to the music and news reports. He was approaching the border post when it came on the six o’clock news.

It was the second item after a report on the breaching of the Berlin Wall and the flood of East Germans to the West. Meanwhile, here in Lilongwe we have just received a report that a prominent Malawi businessman and entrepreneur has been savagely mauled by his own pet leopard. Mr. Chetti Singh was rushed to the Lilongwe General Hospital where he is now in the intensive-care unit. A hospital spokesman said that Mr. Singh was suffering from extensive injuries and his condition is described as critical. The circumstances of the attack are unknown, but the police are seeking an employee of Mr. Singh’s, a certain Mr. Chawe Gundwana, who they hope will be able to assist them with their enquiries. Any person knowing the whereabouts of Mr. Gundwana is asked to report to the nearest police station.

Daniel switched off the radio and parked outside the Malawi customs and immigration post. He was expecting trouble. There might be an APB out on him already, especially if Chetti Singh was in a condition to speak and had given Daniel’s name to the police. Chetti Singh’s survival had not been part of Daniel’s calculations. He had expected the leopard to do a more thorough job. His mistake had been in moving the Cadillac too soon. It had distracted the leopard from its victim.

One thing was certain: Chetti Singh was going to need a few gallons of blood transfusion. In Africa that involved an additional hazard.

He hummed his own version of the old song:

Ashes to ashes and dust to dust.
if the leopard don’t get him, then I must.

Then with some trepidation, he took his passport into the border post. He need not have worried. The law was all smiles and courtesy.

“Did you enjoy your holiday in Malawi? We are always pleased to see you, sir. Come again soon, sir.” Old Hastings Banda had them well trained. They all appreciated the vital role that tourism played in their lives.

There was none of the have-not resentment that was so evident in other parts of the continent.

Chapter 14

He folded a five-dollar bill into his Passport as he approached the post on the Zambian side, a hundred yards in distance but, it seemed to him, a mighty leap back into the dark ages as he passed between the two countries.

He telephoned Michael Hargreave within an hour of arriving in Lusaka, and Michael invited him to dinner that evening.

“Where are you heading next, you roving bedouin you?” Wendy demanded as she served him a second helping of her famous Yorkshire pudding. “God, what a lovely adventurous, romantic life you lead. I really must find you a wife; you make all our husbands restless. How long will you be with us?”

“That depends on what Michael can tell me about a mutual acquaintance called Ning Cheng Gong. If he’s still in Harare, that’s where I will be heading. If not, well, it’s back to London, or possibly Taiwan.”

“You’re still chasing after the Chink?” Michael asked, as he pulled the cork from a bottle of reasonable deuxime cru claret that had come out in the diplomatic bag. “Are we allowed to know what it’s all about yet?”

Daniel glanced at Wendy, and she pulled a face. “Do you want me to go to the kitchen?”

“Don’t be an ass, Wendy. I’ve never had any secrets from you,” Daniel soothed her, and then turned back to her husband. “I have proved to my own satisfaction that Ning Cheng Gong arranged the attack on the Chiwewe ivory godown.”

Michael arrested the claret glass on the way to his lips. “Oh dear. Now I see what it’s all about. Johnny Nzou was your pal, I remember. But Ning! Are you sure? He’s an ambassador, not a gangster.”

“He’s both,” Daniel disagreed. “His hatchet man was a Sikh from Lilongwe, name of Chetti Singh. They have quite a few secrets between them. Not only ivory, but everything else from drugs to diamonds.”

“Chetti Singh. I’ve heard that name recently.” Mike thought for only a second. “Yes, on the news this morning. He was mauled by his own pet leopard, wasn’t he?” His expression changed again. “Just about the time you were in Lilongwe. What a coincidence, Danny. Has it got anything to do with your arm being in a sling, and your smug expression?”

“I’m a reformed character, you know me,” Daniel assured him. “Would never dream of any rough stuff, but I did find out something from Chetti Singh during my brief chat to him before the unfortunate incident with the leopard. It’s something that might interest you spooks at MI6.”

Michael looked pained. “Ladies present, old boy. We don’t mention the firm like that. It’s bad form.”

Wendy stood up. “On second thoughts, I will go and keep an eye on Cheffie. I’ll be ten minutes, enough time for boy talk, I hope.” She took her wine-glass with her.

“Coast clear,” Michael murmured. “Fire away, Danny.”

“Chetti Singh tells me that there is a coup being set up in Ubomo. Omeru is going to get the chop.”

“Oh, dear me; not Omeru. He wears a white hat. One of the good guys. That will never do. Have you any details?”

“Not many, I’m afraid. Ning Cheng Gong is in it, and his family, but not as principals, I suspect. I think they are merely eager sponsors of the proposed revolution, with expectations of rights and privileges later on.”

Michael nodded. “Usual set-up. They get a slice of the pie when the new ruler of Ubomo divides it up. No idea who he will be?”

“None, I’m afraid, but it will be soon. My bet is within the next few months.”

“We’ll have to get a warning to Omeru. The PM might want to fly in an SAS battalion to guard him. I know she’s particularly pro the old boy and Ubomo is, after all, a member of the Commonwealth.”

“I’d be obliged if you could check up on Ning Cheng Gong while you’re at it, Mike.”

“He’s gone, Danny. Flown the coop. Spoke to my opposite number in Harare only this morning. Of course, I knew of your interest in him, so I dropped the question into the conversation. Ning held a farewell party at the Chinese embassy on Friday evening and flew home on Saturday.”

“Damn it,” Daniel exclaimed. “That shoots down all my plans. I was going to go down to Harare.”

“Wouldn’t have been a good idea,” Michael broke in. “It’s one thing feeding an ordinary law-abiding citizen to his own leopard, but one can’t go around beating up ambassadors. It’s considered very poor form indeed.”

“He’s no longer ambassador,” Daniel pointed out. “I could follow him to Taiwan.”

“Another very mediocre idea, if you don’t mind my saying so. Taiwan is Ning’s home wicket. From what I hear, his family all but owns the island. Whole place is sure to be bristling with Ning’s uglies. If you’re determined to play the avenging angel, best bide your time. If what you tell me is correct, Ning will be back in Africa soon. Ubomo is a nice neutral turf, better than Taiwan. At least I could back you up there. We’ve got an office in Kahah, the capital, in fact there is a chance that–” Michael broke off. “Bit premature, but there is talk that I may be sent to Kahah on my next posting.”

Daniel stared into his glass, swilling the contents slowly as though admiring the ruby lights in the wine. At last he sighed and nodded. “You’re right, as always.” He grinned at Michael ruefully. “I was getting carried away, besides which I’m terrifyingly short of cash. Doubt I could raise the airfare to Taipei.”

“Never have believed it of you, old boy. Thought you were rolling in the filthy stuff. Always been green with envy. All those million-dollar TV contracts.”

“Everything I have is wrapped up in those video cassettes you sent to London for me. Not worth a damn until I cut and dub them. That’s what I’ll have to do right now.”

“Before you go, you’d better give me a briefing on all you know about this pair, Singh and Ning. I’ll follow up on my side, in case…”

“In case anything happens to me,” Daniel finished for him.

“Never said that, old boy. Perish the thought. Although this time you do seem to have picked on a pair of heavyweights.”

“I’d like to leave my Landcruiser and all my gear here in Lusaka with you in the usual way, if that isn’t inconvenient?”

“Pleasure, dear boy. My home is your home. My garage is your garage. Feel free.”

The next morning Daniel returned to the Hargreaves’ home. Michael was at work, but Wendy and her domestic staff helped him unpack the Landcruiser. His equipment was stiff with dust and the accumulated filth of six months bush living. Between them they cleaned it all and repacked it into the vehicle. They threw away the perishables and Daniel made a list of replacements.