Wilbur Smith's Smashing Thrillers (157 page)

There was still some desultory small-arms fire in the forest. The administrative offices were on fire. Flames leapt high, crackling and pouring out black smoke. A roof collapsed.

People were trapped in there, burning to death. The mob raged everywhere, chasing the guards and officials and engineers and clerks of the company, black and Taiwanese, anybody connected with the hated oppressor. They caught them and killed them, kicking and beating them as they writhed on the earth, hacking at them with spades or machetes, throwing their dismembered bodies into the flames. It was savage. It was Africa.

Daniel turned away from the horror. One man could not stop the orgy. They had suffered too long; their hatred was too fierce. He left the track and went into the forest to find Kelly.

He had not gone a hundred yards before he saw a small figure running towards him through the trees. “Sepoo!” he called, and the pygmy darted to his side and seized his arm and shook it.

“Kara-Ki!” he screeched incoherently, there was a gash in his scalp and he was bleeding heavily.

“Where is she?” Daniel demanded. “What has happened to her?”

“Kara-Ki! He has taken her. He has taken her into the forest.”

Kelly knelt in front of the radio set, gently manipulating the fine-tuning knob of, the receiver. Although her transmitter did not have the range to reach the capital of Kahali on the lakeshore, Sepoo had climbed into the silk-cotton tree above her and strung the aerial wire from the top branches. She was picking up the transmission of Radio Ubomo on the twenty-five metre band with very little atmospheric disturbance.

“This next request is for Miriam Seboki of Kabute who is eighteen years old today, from your boy friend, Abdullah, who wishes you many happy returns and says he loves you very much. He has requested, ‘Like a Virgin’ by Madonna, so here it is just for you, Miriam.”

The harsh cacophony of the music was aberrant in the forest silences and Kelly turned down the volume. immediately she was aware of other sounds even more obscene, the distant fusillade of gunfire and the wild screams of fighting and dying men. She tried to blot the sounds from her mind, tried to calm her anxiety and fear for the progress of the rising. She waited, powerless and afraid, for something to happen.

Suddenly the music was cut off, and the only sound from the speaker was the whistle and crackle of static. Then abruptly a new voice came on the air. “People of Ubomo. This station is now under the control of the Freedom Army of Ubomo. We bring you the President of Ubomo, Victor Omeru, speaking to you in person from the radio studio in Kahali.” There was a burst of martial music, the old national anthem, that Ephrem Taffari had banned when he seized power. Then the music ended.

There was a pause and at last the thrilling voice that Kelly loved so well reverberated from the speaker. “My beloved people of Ubomo, you who have suffered so much beneath the yoke of the oppressor, this is Victor Omeru. I know that most of you believed that I was dead. But this is not a voice from the grave. It is indeed I, Victor Omeru, who call upon you now.”

Victor was speaking in Swahili, and he went on, “I bring you tidings of hope and of great joy. Ephrem Taffari, the bloody tyrant, is dead. A loyal and true band of patriots has overthrown his cruel and brutal regime and given him the punishment he so justly deserves. Come forth, my people, a new sun rises over Ubomo.”

His voice was so compelling, so sincere, that for a moment Kelly almost believed what he was saying, that Taffari was already dead and the revolution was secure. Then she heard the sound of gunfire and she glanced over her shoulder.

There was a man standing close to her. He had come up soundlessly behind her. He was an Asian, almost certainly Chinese. He wore a blue safari suit damp with rain or sweat and stained with mud and blood. His long straight black hair hung down over his forehead. There was a shallow cut in his cheek from which the blood had dripped to stain the front of his jacket.

He carried a Tokarev pistol in one hand, and there was a wild and hunted look in his eyes, eyes so dark that there was no division between iris and pupil, black eyes like a mako shark. His mouth was contorted with fear or anger, and the hand that held the pistol twitched and trembled.

Although she had never seen him before, Kelly knew who he was. She had heard Daniel speak of him so often. She had seen his photograph in the out-of-date copies of the Ubomo Herald newspaper that occasionally reached Gondola. She knew that he was the Taiwanese managing-director of UDC, the man who had murdered Daniel’s friend, Johnny Nzou.

“Ning,” she said, and scrambled to her feet trying to back away from him, but he sprang forward and seized her wrist. She was shocked by his strength. He twisted her arm up behind her back.

“A white woman, he said in English. A hostage…”

Sepoo rushed at him, trying to help her, but Cheng swung the pistol in a short vicious arc and the barrel struck the little man above the ear, splitting open his scalp. He dropped at Cheng’s feet. Still holding Kelly with the other hand, Cheng stretched down and aimed the pistol at Sepoo’s temple.

“No,” screamed Kelly, and threw herself back against Cheng’s chest. It spoiled his aim, and the bullet ploughed into the earth six inches from Sepoo’s face. the shot roused him, and Sepoo rolled to his feet and darted away. Cheng fired another shot at him as he ran, but Sepoo vanished into the undergrowth.

Cheng twisted her arm savagely, pulling her up on to her toes with the agony in her shoulder-blade.

“You’re hurting me, she cried.”

“Yes,” Cheng agreed. “And I will kill you if you resist me again. Walk!” he ordered. “Yes, like that. Keep going if you don’t want me to hurt you again.”

“Where are we going?” Kelly asked, trying to keep the pain out of her voice, trying to be calm and persuasive. “There is no escape into the forest.”

“With you there is,” Cheng said. “Don’t talk. Be quiet! Keep going.” He pushed and dragged her onwards, and she dared not resist. She sensed that he was desperate enough to do anything.

She remembered what Daniel had told her about him, about the murdered Matabele family in Zimbabwe, about the rumours of children and young girls tortured for his perverted pleasure. She realised that her best chance, perhaps her only chance, was to comply with anything he ordered her to do.

They covered half a mile, staggering and stumbling, made clumsy by the wrist-lock that Cheng had on her, and by his wild haste. When they came out suddenly on to the bank of a narrow stream she realised that it was the Wengu, the small river that gave the area its name. It was one of the tributaries of the main Ubomo River. It was also one of the bleeding rivers, clogged with the poison effluent from the MOMU vehicles. It was stinking and treacherous. Even Cheng seemed to realize the danger of trying to wade across it.

He forced Kelly to her knees, and stood over her, panting and looking about him uncertainly.

“Please…” she whispered.

“Be silent he ranted at her. I told you not to speak!” he screwed her wrist to enforce the order, and despite herself she whimpered aloud.

After another few moments, he asked suddenly, “Is this the Wengu River? Which direction does it run? Does it go southwards towards the main road?”

Instantly she realised which way his mind was working. Of course, he would have an intimate knowledge of the area. It was his concession. He would have studied the maps. He would certainly know that the Wengu made a circle to the south, an ox-bow that intersected the main road. He would know that there was a Hita military post at the bridge.

“Is it the Wengu?” he repeated, twisting her wrist until she screamed, and she almost answered truthfully before she caught herself. “I don’t know.” she shook her head. “I don’t know anything about the forest.”

“You lie,” he accused, but he was obviously uncertain. “Who are you? he demanded.”

“I’m just a nurse with the World Health Organization. I don’t know about the forest.”

“All right.” He hauled her to her feet. “Get going!” He shoved her forward, but now they turned southwards following the bank of the Wengu River. Cheng had made up his mind.

Kelly deliberately kicked and scuffed the soft earth as he pushed her along. She put all her weight on her heels, trying to lay as good a spoor as possible for Sepoo to follow. She knew Sepoo would be coming, and with him must come Daniel.

She tried to snap any green twig that came within reach as Cheng forced her through the undergrowth. She managed to tear a button off her shirt and drop it, an identification for Sepoo to pick up. At every opportunity she tripped over a dead branch or fell into a hole and dropped to her knees, holding him up as much as possible, slowing down their progress, giving Sepoo and Daniel a chance to catch up.

She began whining and whimpering loudly and when Cheng raised the pistol threateningly, she screamed, “No, please! Please don’t hit me!”

She knew her cries would carry, that Sepoo with his sensitive, forest-trained ears would hear her at a distance of quarter of a mile and pin-point her position.

Sepoo picked the shirt button out of the leaf trash of the forest floor, and showed it to Daniel. “See, Kuokoa, Kara-Ki is laying sign for us to follow,” he whispered. “She is clever as the colobus, and brave as the forest buffalo.”

“Keep going.” Daniel prodded him impatiently. “Make your speeches later, old man.”

They went on along the spoor, quick, silent and alert. Sepoo pointed out the sign that Kelly had left, the broken twigs, the heel marks and the places where she had deliberately fallen to her knees. “We are close now.” He touched Daniel’s arm. “Very close…”

“Be careful not to run into him. He might lay an ambush…”

Kelly screamed in the forest ahead of them. “No, please! Please don’t hit me!” And for an instant Daniel lost control. He lunged forward, rushing to her defence, but Sepoo seized his wrist and hung on doggedly.

“No! No! Kara-Ki is not hurt. She is warning us. Don’t rush in like a stupid wazungu. Use your head now.”

Daniel pulled himself together, but he was still trembling with rage. “All right,” he whispered. “He doesn’t know I am here but he has seen you. I’m going to circle round them and lie downstream. You must drive him on to me, just as you drive the duiker in the net hunt. Do you understand, Sepoo?”

“I understand. Give the call of a grey parrot when you are ready.”

Daniel screwed the folding bayonet off the muzzle of his AK 47 and propped the rifle against the tree beside him. Cheng was using Kelly as a shield. The rifle was useless. He abandoned it. Armed only with the bayonet, he circled out swiftly away from the river-bank. Twice more he heard Kelly’s voice, pleading and whining, giving him a pin-point on her position.

It took him less than five minutes to get downstream of Cheng and Kelly and to flatten himself against the hole of one of the trees growing on the bank. He cupped his hands over his mouth and gave an imitation of the squawk of a roosting parrot. Then he crouched down with the bayonet at the ready.

Sepoo’s voice shrilled through the trees. He was using the high ventriloquist’s tone that would deceive the listener as to direction and distance. “Hey, wazungu – Let Kara-Ki go. I am watching you from the trees. Let her go, or I will put a poison arrow into you.” Daniel doubted that Cheng could understand the Swahili words, but the effect would be the same, to concentrate Cheng’s attention upstream while driving him down to where Daniel was waiting.

He crouched and listened. A few minutes later, Sepoo called again, “Hey, wazungu, do you hear me?” Silence fell again and Daniel strained his eyes and his hearing. Then a branch rustled just ahead of him, and he heard Kelly’s voice, muffled and terrified. “Please don’t…” she began, but was cut off by Cheng’s brusque whisper.

“Shut your mouth, woman, or I will break your arm.”

They were very close to where Daniel waited. He tightened his grip on the hilt of the bayonet. Then he saw movement in the undergrowth, and a moment later made out the blue of Cheng’s jacket. Cheng was moving backwards, holding Kelly against his chest, facing the direction of Sepoo’s voice, aiming the Tokarev pistol over Kelly’s shoulder, ready to fire the moment Sepoo showed himself. He was backing directly towards the tree where Daniel waited.

Daniel knew that Cheng was an exponent of the martial arts. In any hand-to-hand combat, Daniel would be at a terrible disadvantage. There was one sure way. That was to drive the point of the bayonet into his kidneys from behind. It would cripple him instantly.

He stepped out from behind the tree with the bayonet held low and underhand. He launched the stroke, but at the same instant Cheng twisted violently sideways. Daniel never knew what had alerted him, for he had made no sound. it could only have been the almost supernatural instinct of the Kung Fu fighter.

The bayonet caught Cheng in the flank, an inch above the hip bone.

It went in to the hilt, but Cheng’s turn tore the weapon from Daniel’s grip.

Cheng released Kelly, shoving her away from him and brought the Tokarev round to fire into Daniel’s face. Daniel grabbed the wrist of his pistol hand and forced it upwards. The first shot went into the branches above their heads.

Cheng twisted in Daniel’s grip, and as Daniel tried to hold him, he whipped his body back again and his knee came up, aimed for Daniel’s crotch. Daniel caught the kick on his thigh, but the force of it paralysed his leg.

From the corner of his eye he saw Cheng’s left hand, stiff as an axe-blade, flick towards his head, aimed at his neck below the ear. He hunched his shoulders and caught it on the thick muscle of his upper biceps. The strength and power of it sickened him. His grip on Cheng’s pistol hand slackened.

The hand flicked at him again, and this time Daniel knew it would snap his neck like a dry twig. Kelly had not fallen, despite the vicious shove Cheng had given her between the shoulder-blades. She gathered herself and hurled herself back at him, shoulder first into Cheng’s side, into the flank that the bayonet had laid open. The force of it turned the blow aside from Daniel’s exposed neck and Cheng stumbled against him and dropped the pistol with a shout of pain.