The Leopard Hunts In Darkness Part 93

"Hold on! I'm going down for the pick-up," Sally Anne -voice squealed from the twoway speaker above Craig's head.

The big helicopter dropped swiftly down towards where Tungata was waiting, and Sally' Anne steadied the machine and hovered above his head.

All around Tungata the gra.s.s was blown flat by the down-draught and Tungata's stolen battle-smock rippled and whipped about his body. He threw the AK 47 aside and looked up at Craig. The helicopter sank down the last few feet, and Craig leaned out of the hatch and made an arm for him. Tungata jumped and they locked arms at the elbows and Craig swung him aboard.

"Okay!" he yelled up at the speaker. "Go for it!" And they went bounding up into the sky so swiftly that Craig's knees buckled.

At a little over a thousand feet, Sally' Anne went straight and level and turned onto a westerly heading.

Tungata turned to the figures on the bench seat and checked. He stared at Peter Fungabera ferociously, but Peter slumped, still dazed and beaten, on the bench seat.

"Where did you find them, Pupho?" Tungata asked huskily.

"They are a little present for you, Sam." Craig handed him the Uzi sub machinegun "It's loaded and c.o.c.ked. Can I leave you to look after this pair of beauties?"

"It will afford me the greatest of pleasure." Tungata turned the gun on the two men sitting side by side on the bench seat.

"I'm going to see how Pendula is making out." Craig began to turn away, but something in the way the captive white man was holding himself alerted him, and he turned back quickly. The white prisoner had used the confusion to unlock the steel cuff from his wrist, and now he hurled the black attache case across the hold towards the open port.

In a reflex action, Craig threw himself to one side, likea basket-ball player intercepting a pa.s.s, and he got a hand to the flying case, deflecting it aside so that it missed the open doorway and clattered against the bulkhead. He dived for it and hugged it to his chest.

"This must be a very interesting piece of goods," he observed mildly, as he stood up. "I'd watch that one, Sam, he is as tricky as he is beautiful, he advised.

Lugging the case, Craig made his way forward and clambered up into the raised c.o.c.kpit. He dropped into the co-pilot's seat next to Sally-Anne, and shrugged out of the pack that contained the diamonds. He wedged it securely beside the seat.

"So you can fly this d.a.m.ned thing, after all, bird lady!" She grinned at him, her teeth very white in her blackened face.

"I'm heading back towards the pan where we left the Land-Rover." "Good thinking how's the fuel?"

"One tank full, the other three quarters we have plenty in hand." Craig placed the attache case in his lap and checked the locks. They were combinations.

"How long to the border? "he asked.

"We are making 170 knots, less than two hours better than walking home, isn't it?"

"My oath!" Craig grinned back at her.

With his claspknifelie ripped out the combination locks and opened the lid of the attache case. On top there were two spare shirts and a ball of socks, a bottle of Russian vodka half full, a cheap wallet containing four pa.s.sports, Finnish, Swedish, East German and Russian, airline tickets for Aeroflot.

"Well-travelled gentleman!" Craig unscrewed the top of the vodka bottle and took a swig. "Brrr!" he said. "That's the real stuff!" He pa.s.sed the bottle to Sally-Anne and lifted the shirts. Under them were three green-covered folders, they were stamped with Cyrillic lettering and black hammer and sickle crests.

"Russian, by G.o.d! The man is a Bolshie!" He opened the top folder and his interest quickened.

"It's typed in English!" He read the top page, and became gradually immersed in the contents. He did not even look UP when Sally-Anne asked, What's it say?" He skimmed through the first file and then the other two. Twenty-five minutes later he looked up with a stunned bemused expression and stared unseeingly through the windshield.

"I can hardly believe it," he shook his head. "They were so d.a.m.ned sure of themselves. They even typed it out in clear English for Peter Fungabera's benefit. No attempt at concealing it. They didn't even bother to use code names."

"What is it?" Sally-Anne glanced sideways at him.

"It just boggles the mind." He took another mouthful of vodka. "Sam has got to read these!" He stood up and balancing against the lurch of the helicopter, he dropped down into the hold and hurried back to Tungata.

Tungata and Sarah sat opposite the two hostages.

Tungata had used the spare seat-belts to truss them securely at wrist and ankles. Peter Fungabera seemed to have recovered a little, and he and Tungata were glaring at each other, arguing with the acrimony and deadly concentration of mortal enemies.

"Cool that! Craig dropped onto the bench beside Tungata.

"Give me the Uzi." Craig took it from him. "Now read what is in here!" He placed the attach.6 case on Tungata's lap.

"Delighted to meet you, Colonel Bukharin," Craig said pleasantly. "You must be happy to be missing the Moscow winter?" He pointed the Uzi at his belly.

"I am a senior member of the diplomatic corps of the United Soviet-"

"Yes, Colonel, I have read your visiting card." Craig indicated the files. "On the other hand Colonel, am a desperate fugitive quite capable of doing you a serious injury if you don't shut up." Then he turned to Peter Fungabera. "I do hope you are looking after King's Lynn properly, remembering to wipe your feet and all that?"

"You escaped me once, Mr. Mellow," Peter Fungabera said softly. "I don't make the same mistakes twice." And despite the gun in his hands and the fact that Peter was trussed up likea sacrificial goat, Craig felt a chilly little breeze of fear down his spine and he could not go on holding the smouldering gaze of hatred with which Peter Fungabera. fixed him. He glanced sideways at Tungata.

He was skimming quickly through the green files, and as he read his expression changed from disbelief to outrage.

"Do you know what this is, Pupho?"

"It's a blueprint for b.l.o.o.d.y revolution," Craig nodded, written out in plain English, obviously for the benefit of Peter Fungabera."

"Everything they cover everything. Look at this. The lists of those to be executed they spell out the names and those who can be relied on to collaborate. They have even prepared the radio and television announcements for the day of the coup!"

"Page twenty-five," Craig suggested. "Check that." Tungata turned to it. "Me-" he read on. "Sent to a clinic in Europe, mind-bending treatment, the mindless traitor, to lead the Matabele peoples into perpetual slavery' Yes Sam, you were the pivot on which the whole operation turned. When Fungabera lost you in the cavern when he dynamited the grand gallery he admitted defeat. just look at him now." However, Tungata was no longer listening. He dumped the attache case and its contents back on Craig's lap and leaned forward until his face was a foot from Fungabera's.

He thrust forward that craggy lantern jaw and slowly his eyeb.a.l.l.s glazed over with the reddish sheen of rage.

"You would sell this land and all its peoples into a new slavery, into an imperialism that would make the rule of Smith's regime appear benign and altruistic by comparison? You would condemn your own tribe, and mine and all the others madness-" In his rage, Tungata was becoming incoherent. "A rabid dog, crazy with the l.u.s.t for power." Suddenly he roared, involuntarily giving vent to his anguish and hatred and outrage. He hurled himself at Peter Fungabera and seized the wide nylon strap that bound him.

With the other hand he unclipped the huge Shana's seat, belt and jerked him off the bench. With the strength of a wounded buffalo bull, he swung him bodily across the hold towards the square open port in the fuselage.

"Mad dog!" he roared, and before Craig could move, he had thrust Peter Fungabera backwards through the opening.

Craig tossed the Uzi to Sarah and sprang to Tungata's side. Tungata had been dragged to his knees by the weight of Peter Fungabera's body and he was clinging with one arm to the jamb of the doorway. With the other hand he still had a grip on the strap around Peter's chest.

Peter Fungabera dangled outboard. His hands were strapped helpless, his neck twisted back so that he stared up into Tungata's face above him. The fierce brown hills of Africa lay two thousand feet below him, the black stone crests bared like the teeth of a man-eating shark.

"Sam, wait!" Craig screamed above the wind, roar and the deafening beat of the engine.

fly

"Die, you treacherous murderou&-2 Tungata roared, down into Peter Fungabera's upturned face.

Craig had never seen such naked terror as that in Peter Fungabera's dark eyes. His mouth was wide open and the wind blew his spittle over his lips in silver strings, but no sound came from his throat.

"Wait, Sam," Craig screamed, "don't kill him. He is the only one who can clear you, can clear all of us. If you kill him you'll never be able to live in Zimbabwe again-" Tungata rolled his head sideways and stared at Craig.