The Leopard Hunts In Darkness Part 41

"That's a b.l.o.o.d.y lie! Craig shouted, and Peter ignored the outburst.

"Your local control was the American agent Morgan Oxford at the United States Emba.s.sy, while your central control and paymaster was a certain Henry Pickering, who masquerades as a senior official of the World Bank in New York. He recruited both you and Miss Jay"

"That's not true!"

"Your remuneration was sixty thousand dollars per annum, and your mission was to set up a centre of subversion in Matabeleland, which was financed by CIA monies channelled to you in the form of a loan from a CIA-controlled subsidiary of the World Bank the sum allocated was five million dollars."

"Christ, Peter, that's nonsense, and you know it."

"During the rest of this interrogation, you will address me as either "Sir" or "General Fungabera", is that clear to you?" He turned away to listen as there was sudden activity outside the french doors. It sounded like the arrival of a convoy of light trucks, from which more troops were disembarking with orders being called in Shana. Through the gla.s.s doors, Craig saw a dozen troopers carrying heavy crates up onto the veranda.

Peter Fungabera glanced enquiringly at Timon Nbebi, who nodded in confirmation of the unspoken question.

"Right!" Peter Fungabera turned back to face Craig. "We can continue. You opened negotiations with known Matebele traitors, using your fluent knowledge of the language and the character of these intractable people-"

"You can't name one, because there aren't any." Peter Fungabera. nodded to Timon Nbebi. He shouted an order.

A man was led into the room between two troopers. He was barefooted, dressed only in ragged khaki shorts, and was emaciated to the point where his head appeared grotesquely huge. His pate was shaven and covered with lumps and fresh scabs, his ribs latticed with the scars of beatings probably the wicked hippo-hide whips called siamboks had been used on him.

"Do you know this white man?" Peter Fungabera demanded of him. The man stared at Craig. His eyes had an opaque dullness, as though they had been sprinkled with dust.

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"I've never seen him-" Craig started, and then broke off as he recognized him. It was Comrade Dollar, the youngest and most truculent of the men from Zambezi Waters.

"Yes?" Peter Fungabera invited, smiling again. "What were you about to say, Mr. Mellow?"

"I want to see somebody from the British High Commission," Craig said, "and Miss Jay would like to make a telephone call to the United States Emba.s.sy."

"Of course," Peter Fungabera nodded. "All in good time, but first we must complete what we have already begun." He swung back to Comrade Dollar. "Do you know the white man?" Comrade Dollar nodded. "He gave us money."

"Take him away," Peter Fungabera ordered. "Care for him well, and give him something to eat. Now, Mr. Mellow, do you still deny any contact with the subversives?" He did not wait for a reply, but went on smoothly, "You built up an a.r.s.enal of weapons on this estate to be used against the elected people's government in a coup d'gtat which would place a pro-American dictator-"

"No," Craig said quietly. "I have no weapons." Peter Fungabera sighed. "Your denials are pointless and tiresome." Then to the tall Shana sergeant, "Bring the two of them." He led the way onto the wide veranda, to where his men had stacked the crates.

"Open them," he commanded, and his men knocked back the clips and lifwd the lids.

Craig recognized the weapons that were packed into them. They were American Armalite 5.56 men all 18 automatic rifles. Six to the case, and brand-new, still in their factory grease.

"These are nothing to do with me." Craig was at last able to deny it with vehemence.

"You are testing my patience." Peter Fungabera turned to Timon Nbebi. "Fetch the other white man." Hans Groenewald, Craig's overseer, was dragged from the cab of one of the parked trucks, and led to the veranda.

His hands were manacled behind his back, and he was terrified. His broad tanned face seemed to have deflated into heavy wrinkles and folds of loose skin likea diseased bloodhound, and his dark suntan had faded to the colour of creamed coffee. His eyes were bloodshot and rheumy, like those of a drunkard.

"You stored these weapons in the tractor sheds on this ranch?" Peter Fungabera asked, and Groenewald's reply was inaudible.

"Speak up, man."

"Yes I stored them, sit."

"On whose orders?" Groenewald looked piteously at Craig, and suddenly Craig's heart was sheathed in ice, and the cold spread down into his belly and his loins.

"Whose orders?" Peter Fungabera repeated patiently.

"Mr. Mellow's orders, sit."

"Take him away." As the guards led him back to the track, Groenewald's head was screwed around, his eyes still on Craig's face, his expression harrowed. Suddenly he shouted, "I'm sorry, Mr. Mellow, I've got a wife and kids-" One of the guards swung the b.u.t.t of his rifle into Groenewald's stomach, just below the ribs. Groenewald gasped, and doubled over. He would have fallen but they seized his arms and swung him up into the cab. The driver of the truck started the engine and the big machine roared away down the hill.

Peter Fungabera led them back into the dining-room and resumed his seat at the head of the table. While he rearranged and studied the papers from the map, case he ignored Craig and Sally-Anne. They, were forced to stand against the opposite wall, a trooper on each side of them,

JW.

and the silence stretched out. Even though Craig realized this silence was deliberate, he wanted to break it, to shout out his innocence, to protest against the web of lies and half-truths and distortions in which they were being slowly enmeshed.

Beside him Sally-Anne stood upright, gripping her own hands at waist level to prevent them trembling. Her face had a sick greenish hue, under a light sheen of sweat, and she kept turning her eyes towards the fireplace where the puppy's crushed carca.s.s lay likea discarded toy.

At last Peter Fungabera pushed the papers aside and rocked back in his chair, tapping lightly on the table-top with his swagger, stick

"A hanging matter," he said, 4a capital offence for both you and Miss Jay---2

"it has nothing to do with her." Craig put a protective arm around her shoulders.

"Women's lower organs are less able to withstand the downward shock of the hangman's drop," Peter Fungabera remarked. "The effect can be quite bizarre or at least, so I am told." It conjured up an image that sickened Craig, saliva of nausea flooded his mouth. He swallowed it down and could not speak.

"Fortunately, it need not come to that. The choice will be yours." Peter rolled the swagger-stick lightly between his fingers. Craig found himself staring fixedly at Peter's hands.

The palms and insides of his long powerful fingers were a soft delicate pink.

J believe that you are the dupes of your imperialistic masters." Peter smiled again. "I'm going to let you go." Both their heads jerked up, and they watched his face.

"Yes, you look disbelieving, but I mean it. Personally I have grown quite fond of both of you. To have you hanged would give me no special pleasure. Both of you possess artistic talents which it would be wasteful to terminate, and from now on you will be unable to do any further harm." Still they were silent, beginning to hope, and yet fearful, sensing that it was all part of a cruel cat's game.

"I am prepared to make you an offer. If you make a clean breast of it, a full and unreserved confession, I will have YOU escorted to the border, with your travel doc.u.ments and any readily portable possessions and items of value you choose. I will have you set free, to go and trouble me and my people no more." He waited, smiling, and the swagger, stick went tap tap tap on the table-top, likea dripping faucet. It distracted Craig. He found himself unable to think clearly. It had all Ell happened too swiftly. Peter Fungabera had kept him off balance, shifting and changing his attack. He had to have time to pull himself together, and to begin thinking clearly and logically again.

"A confession?" he blurted. What kind of confession?

One of your exhibitions before a people's court? A public humiliation?"

"No, I don't think we need go that far," Peter Fungabera a.s.sured him. "I will need only a written statement from you, an account of your crimes and the machinations of your masters. The confession will be properly witnessed, and then you will be escorted to the border and set at liberty. All very straightforward, simple and, if I may be allowed to say so, very civilized and humane."

"You will, of course, prepare my confession for me to sign?" Craig asked bitterly, and Peter Fungabera chuckled.

"How very perceptive of you." He selected one of the doc.u.ments from the pile in front of him. "Here it is. You need only fill in the date and sign it." Even Craig was surprised at that.

J "You've had it typed already?" n.o.body replied, and Captain Nbebi brought the doc.u.ment to him.

"Please read it, Mr. Mellow,"he invited.