Wilbur Smith's Smashing Thrillers (144 page)

“I don’t think he will do that,” she said. “That tape is too sensational. It is worth a million to him. He won’t want to give it up.”

“Then you will have to help me get it back. After all, it is your film. Will you help me, my beautiful red and white lily?”

“You know I will, Ephrem. I’ll do anything for you,” she murmured, and without another word he made love to her, that beautiful devastating love of which only he was capable.

Afterwards she slept. When she awoke it was raining again. It always seemed to be raining in this terrible green hell of jungle. The rain clattered and drummed on the roof of the VIP guest bungalow, and the darkness was complete. She groped instinctively for Ephrem but the bed beside her was empty. The sheets on which he had lain were already cool. He must have left her some time ago. She thought he might have gone to the bathroom, and felt the pressure in her own bladder which had woken her.

She lay and listened for him to return, but after five minutes when he had not come, she crept out from under the mosquito net and groped her way through the darkness to the bathroom door. She bumped into a chair and stubbed her bare toe before she reached it. She found the light switch and blinked in the sudden glare of white tiles.

The bathroom was empty, but the toilet seat was raised to prove he had been there before her. She flapped it down and perched naked upon it, still groggy with sleep, her red hair tangled over her eyes.

Outside the rain battered down and a sudden flare of lightning hit the window. Bonny reached across to the side wall for the roll of toilet paper in its holder and her ear was inches from the thin prefabricated partition wall of the bungalow. She heard voices, indistinct but masculine, from the room beyond.

She was slowly coming fully awake, and her interest was aroused. She pressed her ear to the wall and she recognized Ephrem’s voice. It was crisp and commanding. Somebody answered him but the sound of the rain intruded and she could not recognize the speaker.

“No,” Ephrem replied. “Tonight. I want it done immediately.”

Bonny was fully alert now, and at that moment the rain stopped with dramatic suddenness. In the silence she heard the reply and recognized the speaker.

“Will you sign a warrant, Mr. President?” It was Chetti Singh. His accent was unmistakable. “Your soldiers could carry out the execution.”

“Don’t be a fool, man. I want it done quietly. Get rid of him. You can get Kajo to help you, but do it. No questions, no written records. Just get rid of him.”

“Ah, yes. I understand. We will say that he went to film in the jungle. Later we can send a search party to find no trace of him. A great pity. But what about the woman? She is also a witness to our arrangements at Fish Eagle Bay. Do you want me to take care of her at the same time?”

“No, don’t be an idiot!” I will need her to recover the tape from the embassy. “Afterwards, when the tape is safely in my hands, I will reconsider the problem of the woman. In the meantime just take Armstrong out into the jungle and get rid of him.”

“I assure you, Mr. President, that nothing would give me more pleasure. it will take me an hour or so to make the arrangements with Kajo, but it will be all over before daylight. I give you my solemn promise.” There was the sound of a chair being pushed back and heavy footsteps, then a door slammed and there was silence from the sitting-room of the bungalow.

Bonny sat frozen for a moment, chilled by what she had heard. Then she sprang to her feet and darted across the floor to the light switch and plunged the bathroom into darkness. Swiftly she groped her way to the bed and crept under the mosquito net. She lay rigid under the sheet, expecting Ephrem Taffari to return at any moment.

Her mind was racing. She was frightened and confused. She had not expected any of this. She had thought that Ephrem might seize the videotape and arrest Daniel, then deport him immediately and declare him an undesirable alien, or something like that. She hadn’t been too clear as to what Ephrem would do to Daniel, but she had never dreamed for a moment that he would have him killed, squashed like an insect without pity or remorse. With a jolt she realised just how naive she had been.

The shock was almost too much to bear. She had never hated Daniel. Far from it, she had been as fond of him as she was capable of, until he had begun to bore and irritate her. Of course, after Ephrem had taken over Daniel had insulted and fired her, but she had given him some reason for that and she didn’t hate him, not to the point of wanting him killed.

“Keep out of it,” she warned herself. “It’s too late now. Danny has to take his own chances.” She lay waiting for Ephrem to come back to bed, but he did not come and she thought of Daniel again. He was one of the few men she had ever genuinely admired and liked. He was decent and good and funny and handsome … She broke that chain of thought.

“Don’t be a bleeding heart,” she thought. “It didn’t turn out the way you expected but that’s tough on Danny.” And yet there had been a veiled threat to her in what Ephrem had said.
When the tape is safely in my hands I will reconsider the problem of the woman.
Ephrem still hadn’t come. She sat up in bed and listened.

The rain had stopped completely. Reluctantly she slipped out from under the mosquito-net and picked her robe from the foot of the bed. She crossed to the door that opened on to the verandah of the bungalow and opened it quietly. She crept down the verandah. The light from the sittingroom windows beamed out on to the verandah floor. She moved into a position from where she could see into the sittingroom while remaining in shadow.

Ephrem Taffari sat at the desk against the far wall. His back was to her. He was dressed in a khaki T-shirt and camouflage trousers. He was smoking a cigarette and studying the papers that were strewn across the desk-top. He seemed to be settled to his work. It would take her less than ten minutes to reach the row of guest bungalows at the east side of the compound and get back to the bedroom.

The wooden catwalks were wet and red with mud. She was barefoot. Daniel might not be in his room. She thought of every excuse for not going to warn him.

“I owe him nothing,” she thought, and heard Ephrem’s voice again in her imagination:
Just take Armstrong out into the jungle and get rid of him.

She backed away from the lighted window, not yet certain what she would do until she found herself running along the catwalk beneath the dark trees that dripped with rain. She slipped and fell on her knees but jumped up and kept running. There was red mud on the front of her robe.

She saw through the trees that there was one light on in the row of guest rooms. The rest of them were in darkness. As she came closer she saw with relief that the light was in Daniel’s room. She did not go up on to the verandah of the guest house, but jumped down off the catwalk and made her way round the back of the building.

Daniel’s window was curtained. She scratched softly on the mosquito-mesh screen that covered it, and at once heard a chair scrape back on the wooden floor. She scratched again and Daniel’s voice asked softly, “Who is it?”

“For God’s sake, Danny, it’s me. I have to talk to you.”

“Come inside. I’ll open the door.”

“No, no. Come out here. It’s desperate. They mustn’t see me. Hurry, man, hurry.”

Half a minute later his broad-shouldered form loomed out of the darkness, backlit by the lighted bungalow window.

“Danny, Ephrem knows about the Fish Eagle Bay tape.”

“How did he find out?”

“That doesn’t matter.”

“You told him, didn’t you? Damn you to hell.”

“I have come to warn you. He’s issued orders for your immediate execution. Chetti Singh and Kajo are coming for you. They’re going to take you into the jungle. They don’t want any evidence.”

“How do you know this?”

“Don’t ask bloody fool questions. Believe me, I know. I can’t waste another minute. I’ve got to get back. He’ll find I’m gone.”

She turned away, but he seized her arm. “Thanks, Bonny,” he said. “You’re a better person than you think you are. Do you want to make a break for it with me?”

She shook her head. “I’ll be all right,” she said. “Just get out of here. You’ve got an hour, tops. Get going!”

She pulled out of his grip and hurried away through the trees. He caught one last glimpse of her: the lights from the bungalow transformed her tumbled hair into a roseate halo and the long white robe made her look like an angel.

“Some angel,” Daniel muttered, and stood for a full minute in the darkness deciding what he could do. While there had been only Chetti Singh and Ning Cheng Gong to deal with he had stood a chance. Like him, they had been constrained by the necessity of working in secrecy. None of them had been able to attack the other openly, but now Chetti Singh had open sanction to kill him, a special presidential licence.

Daniel grinned as mirthlessly as a wolf. He could expect the Sikh to act swiftly and ruthlessly. Bonny was right. He had to get out of Sengi-Sengi within the next few minutes, before the executioners arrived.

From the angle of the building he threw a quick glance down the verandah and around the compound. All was quiet and dark. He slipped back into his room, and lifted his small travel bag down from the cupboard. It contained all his personal documents, passport, airline tickets, credit cards and travellers cheques. Apart from his clothing and toilet bag there was nothing else of value in the room.

He pulled on a light wind-cheater and checked that the key of the Landrover was in his pocket. He extinguished the lights and went out. The Landrover was parked at the far end of the verandah. He opened the door quietly and threw his bag on to the passenger seat. All the hired VTR equipment was packed into the rear compartment and there was a selection of basic camping and first-aid equipment in the lockers, but there was no weapon of any kind, apart from his old hunting knife.

He started the Landrover. The engine noise seemed excessively loud in the darkness. He did not switch on the headlights and he let in the clutch gently, keeping the engine revs down. He drove slowly through the darkened compound towards the main gates. He knew that the gates were never closed at night, and that a single guard was on duty there.

Daniel was under no illusion as to just how far he was going to get in the Landrover. There was only one road from Sengi Sengi to the Ubomo river ferry, and there was a road-block every five miles. A radio call from Sengi-Sengi would alert every one of them.

The guards would be waiting for him with their fingers on the triggers of their AK 47s. No, he would be lucky to make it through the first block, and then he would have to take to the jungle. He didn’t relish that prospect. He had been trained for survival and warfare in the drier bushveld of Rhodesia, a long way further south. He would not be nearly as adept in the rain forest, but there was no other way open to him.

The first thing was to get clear of Sengi-Sengi. After that he would face each problem as it arose. “And this is number one,” he thought grimly as suddenly the floodlights at the main gates switched on in a bright halogen dawn. The entire compound was brightly lit.

There were half a dozen figures running from the barrack area where guards were quartered. It was obvious they had dressed hastily; some were in undervests and shorts. Daniel recognized both Captain Kajo and Chetti Singh.

Kajo was brandishing an automatic pistol and Chetti Singh was trotting along behind him, shouting and waving at the approaching Landrover, his white turban very visible in the glare of the floodlights. One of the guards was trying to shut the gates. He already had one wing of the steel-framed mesh gate half across the roadway.

Daniel switched on his headlights, put his hand flat on the horn and drove hard at him, the hooter blaring. The guard dived nimbly aside, and the Landrover slammed into the unlocked leaf of the gate and whipped it aside. He roared through.

Behind him he heard the rattling clamour of automatic riflefire. He felt half a dozen bullets slam into the aluminium bodywork of the Landrover, but he crouched low over the wheel and kept his foot hard down on the accelerator. The first bend in the roadway rushed towards him in the headlights.

Another burst of automatic fire splattered against the rear of the vehicle. The rear window exploded in a storm of glass splinters and something struck him high in the back within an inch of his spine. He had been hit by a bullet before, in that long-ago war, and he recognized the sensation. From the position of the wound, high and close to the spine, it had to be a lung shot, a mortal wound. He expected to feel the choking flood of arterial blood into his lungs.

“Keep going as long as you can,” he thought, and swung the Landrover into the bend at full throttle. She went up on two wheels but didn’t roll. When he glanced in the rear-view mirror the camp lights were obscured by forest trails, a dwindling glow in the darkness behind.

He could feel hot blood, running down his back, but there was no choking, no weakness, not yet anyway. The wound was numb. He could think clearly, He could keep going.

He knew exactly where the first road-block was situated. Approximately five miles ahead, he reminded himself. On the first river crossing. He tried to remember how the road ran to reach it. He had driven over it half a dozen times during the last three days filming. He could remember almost every twist, every track that led off it.

He made his decision. He leaned back against the seat. The wound stabbed him like a knife in the back, but he wasn’t losing much blood.

“Internal bleeding,” he thought. “You aren’t going to walk away from this one, Danny boy.” But he kept going, waiting for the weakness to overcome him.

There were five logging roads branching off from the main highway before it reached the first road-block. Some of them were disused and overgrown, but at least two were still being subjected to heavy daily traffic. He chose the first of these, two miles from Sengi-Sengi and turned on to it, heading westwards.

The Zaire border was ninety miles in that direction, but the logging track only ran five miles through the forest before it intersected the MOMU excavation.