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  "But our government will surely fall if we are subjected to a prolonged economic blockade," added De Vaal. "Lusana's game plan is to fight a clean war by the book. No terrorism, no killing of innocent women and children. His forces thus far have attacked only military installations. Then, by playing benevolent savior, he can gain total moral and financial support from the United States, Europe, and the Third World powers. Once he achieves these goals he can exert his newly acquired influence to close off all our economic dealings with the outside world. Then the end of White South Africa is only a matter of weeks."

  "Is there no way to contain Lusana?" asked Fawkes.

  De Vaal's bushy eyebrows rose. "There is one possibility, provided you give it your blessing."

  Fawkes stared at the Minister, his expression one of bewilderment. "I'm only a beached sailor and a farmer. I know nothing about insurgent warfare. Of what use can I be to the Ministry of Defence?"

  De Vaal did not answer but simply passed Fawkes a leather-bound book about the size of a thin bookkeeping ledger.

  "It's called Operation Wild Rose."

  The lights of Pembroke blinked on one by one in the evening dusk. A light rain had pelted the windows of the coach, leaving a myriad of streaks down the dust-coated glass. Fawkes's reading spectacles clung to his great nose and magnified his eyes as they darted back and forth over the pages without pause. He was so engrossed in what he was reading he absentmindedly chewed on the stem of a pipe that had long since burned out.

  It was a few minutes past eight o'clock when he closed the cover of Operation Wild Rose. He sat there for a long moment as though in contemplation. Finally he shook his head tiredly.

  "I pray to God it never comes to this," he said quietly.

  "I share your sentiments," said De Vaal. "But the time is fast approaching when our backs will be against the wall and Operation Wild Rose may well be our final hope of escaping annihilation."

  "I still fail to see what you gentlemen want from me."

  "Merely your opinion, Captain," said Zeegler. "We've made feasibility studies of the plan and know what the computers say about its chances of success. We're hoping your years of experience will supply the pros and cons as judged by a human."

  "I can tell you the scheme is damn near impossible," said Fawkes. "And for my money you can add 'insane' as well. What you're proposing is terrorism at its worst."

  "Exactly," agreed De Vaal. "By using a black hit-and-run force masquerading as members of the African Army of Revolution, we can swing international sympathy away from the blacks and to the white cause of South Africa

  "We must have the support of countries like the United States to survive," Zeegler explained.

  "What happened in Rhodesia can happen here," De Vaal went on. "All private property, farms. stores. banks, seized and nationalized. Blacks and whites slaughtered in the streets, thousands exiled from the continent with barely the clothes on their backs. A new black communist-oriented government, a despotic, tribal dictatorship suppressing and exploiting their own people in virtual slavery. You can be certain, Captain Fawkes, that if and when our government topples, it will not be replaced by one with democratic majority rule in mind."

  "We don't know for sure that that will happen here," said Fawkes. "And even if we could look into a crystal ball and predict the worst, it would not condone unleashing Operation Wild Rose."

  "I'm not after a moral judgment," De Vaal said sternly. "You've stated the plan is impossible. I will accept that."

  After Fawkes left, De Vaal poured himself another drink. "The captain was frank. I'll give that to him."

  "He was also quite right," said Zeegler. "Wild Rose is terrorism at its worst."

  "Perhaps," De Vaal muttered. "But what choice does one have when one is winning battles while losing the war?"

  "I am not a grand strategist," Zeegler replied. "But I'm certain Operation Wild Rose is not the answer, Minister. I urge you to shelve it."

  De Vaal considered Zeegler's words for several moments. "All right, Colonel. Gather all data pertaining to the operation and seal it in the Ministry vault with the other contingency plans."

  "Yes, sir," said Zeegler, his relief obvious.

  De Vaal contemplated the liquid in his glass. Then he looked up with a thoughtful expression.

  "A pity, a great pity. It just might have worked."

  Fawkes was drunk.

  If a monstrous claw had reached down and plucked away the long mahogany bar of the Pembroke Hotel, he would have fallen flat on his bandaged face. Dimly, he saw that he was the only patron left in the room. He ordered another drink, noting in a mild sort of sadistic glee that it was long past closing time and the five-foot-five-inch bartender was uneasy about asking him to leave.

  "Are you all right, sir?" the bartender probed cautiously.

  "No, dammit!" Fawkes roared. "I feel bloody-well awful."

  "Beggin' your pardon, but if it makes you feel so bad, why do you drink it?"

  "It's not the whisky that turns my guts. It's Operation Wild Rose."

  Fawkes looked furtively around the room and then leaned across the bar. "What if I was to tell you I met with the Minister of Defence right down the street at the station, in his private railroad car, not more than three hours ago?"

  A smug smile curled the bartender's lips. "The Minister must be one hell of a wizard, Mr. Fawkes."

  "Wizard?"

  "To be in two places at the same time."

  "Make your point, man."

  The bartender reached under a shelf and threw a newspaper on the bar in front of Fawkes. He pointed to an article on the front page and read aloud the caption.

  " 'Defence Minister Pieter De Vaal enters Port Elizabeth Hospital for surgery.'

  "Impossible!"

  "That's this evening's paper," said the bartender. "You have to admit not only does the Minister have extraordinary powers of recuperation, but one fast train as well. Port Elizabeth is over a thousand kilometers to the south."

  Fawkes snatched up the paper, shook the fuzziness from his vision, put on his glasses, and read the story. It was true. Clumsily, he threw a wad of bills at the bartender and staggered through the doorway, through the hotel lobby, and into the street.

  When he reached the railroad station, it was deserted. The moon's light glinted on empty rails. De Vaal's train was gone.

  15

  They came with the rising sun. Somala counted at least thirty of them, clothed in the same type of field uniform he wore. He watched as they crept out of the bush like shadows and disappeared into the sugarcane. He swept the acacia tree with his binoculars. The scout in the blind was gone. Probably slipped away to join his unit, Somala surmised. But who were they? None of the raiding force looked familiar to him. Could they be members of another insurgent movement? If so, why did they wear the distinctive black beret of the AAR?

  Somala was sorely tempted to leave his hiding place inside the baobab tree and approach the intruders, but he thought better of it and remained motionless. He would watch and observe. Those were his orders, and he would obey them.

  The Fawkes farm was slowly coming to life. The workers in the compound were beginning to spread out and commence their daily chores. Patrick Fawkes, Jr., passed through the electricity-wired gate and went off to the great stone barn, where he began tinkering with a tractor. The guards were changing at the gate, and the fellow who had manned the night shift was standing half in, half out of the enclosure, swapping small talk with his relief, when abruptly and silently he fell to the ground. Simultaneously, the other guard slumped and dropped.

  Somala gaped in awe as a wave of raiders sprinted out of the sugarcane field in a loose skirmish line and advanced toward the house. Most were carrying Chinese CK-88 assault weapons, but two of their number knelt and aimed long-barreled rifles with scopes and silencers.

  The CK-88s opened up and Fawkes Junior seemed to snap to attention as at least ten slugs ripped through his body. His hands splayed and claw
ed at empty air, and then he crumpled across the tractor's unhooded engine. The thunder of the volley alerted jenny and she ran to an upstairs window.

  "Oh God, Mama!" she screamed. "There's soldiers in the yard and they've shot Pat."

  Myrna Fawkes grabbed the Holland & Holland and ran to the front door. One look was all she needed to see that the defenses had been breached. Already Africans in green and brown mottled uniforms were surging through the open gate left useless by the broken electrical circuit. She slammed the door, threw the lock, and yelled up the stairs to jenny.

  "Get on the radio and call the constable."

  Then she calmly sat down, shoved two shells containing double-0 buckshot into the breech of the twelve-gauge, and waited.

  The crackle of the rifle fire suddenly increased and the shrill cries of women and frightened children began coming from the compound. Even the Fawkeses' prize cattle were not spared. Myrna shut out the bellows of their dying agony, choking off a dry sob at the waste of it all. She lifted the twin barrels as the first attacker crashed his way through the door.

  He was the handsomest African Myrna had ever seen. His features were distinctly Caucasian, and yet his skin was nearly a perfect blue black. He lifted his rifle as if to smash out her brains with the butt and lunged across the room. Myrna pulled both triggers and old Lucifer spat fire.

  The blast at such close range nearly tore the African's head off. His face dissolved in a spray of bone and reddish-gray tissue, and he jerked backward against the door frame and melted to the floor, his torso quivering in spastic pulsations.

  Almost casually, as though she were at a skeet tournament, Myrna reloaded the gun. She had just snapped shut the breech when two more men hurtled through the door. Old Lucifer took the first squarely in the chest, dropping him instantly. The other attacker leaped over his fallen comrade's body, a move that threw Myrna's aim a trifle low. The discharge from the other barrel hit her attacker in the groin. He screamed, cast his weapon aside, and clutched himself. He grunted incoherently and staggered back outside to the veranda, pitching forward with his booted feet still in the room.

  Myrna reloaded again. A window shattered and holes suddenly appeared in the wallpaper beside her chair. She felt no stabbing pain, no stinging sensation. She looked down. Blood was beginning to seep through the blue denim of her jeans.

  A heavy booming sound erupted from upstairs and she knew Jenny was shooting down into the yard with the captain's.44 Magnum.

  The next African was more cautious. He fired a quick burst around the door and waited before he entered. Not receiving any return fire, he became overconfident and ventured inside. The double-0 buckshot blew away his left arm. For several moments he stared dazedly at the limb lying at his feet, the fingers still twitching. The blood pumped from his empty sleeve and spilled on the carpet. Still in a trance, the soldier slowly sank to his knees and knelt there, moaning softly as his life's fluids leaked away.

  With one hand Myrna fumbled with Lucifer. Three bullets from her last assailant had shattered her right forearm and wrist.

  Awkwardly, she broke open the breech and ejected the spent shells. Her every movement seemed immersed in glue. The new shells slipped between her sweating fingers and fell past her reach.

  "Mama?"

  Myrna looked up. jenny was standing in the middle of the stairway, the revolver hanging loosely in one hand, the front of her blouse soaked with crimson.

  "Mama… I'm hurt."

  Before Myrna could reply, another figure entered the room. jenny tried to raise her gun. Her effort came slowly and too late. The newcomer fired first and she sagged and rolled down the stairs like a ragged, cast-off doll.

  Myrna could only sit there and grip Lucifer. The loss of blood was sapping her energy and blurring her vision. She gazed vacantly at the man standing over her. Through the growing fog she could see him place the tip of the rifle an inch from her forehead.

  "Forgive me," he said.

  "Why?" she asked vaguely. "Why did you do this terrible thing?"

  The cold dark eyes held no answer. For Myrna, the bougainvillea blossoms outside on the veranda exploded in a blaze of fuchsia and then blinked into blackness.

  Somala walked among the dead, staring numbly at the faces forever frozen in shock and confusion. The raiders had ruthlessly killed nearly all the workers and their families in the compound. No more than a handful could have escaped into the bush. The feed in the barn and the equipment housed in the shed had been set on fire, and flames were already flickering orange fingers from the upstairs window of the Fawkes house.

  How strange, Somala thought. The raiders policed the battleground and retrieved their own dead as quietly as ghosts. The movements had been efficient and deliberate. There was no hint of panic at the distant sound of the approaching helicopter units of the South African Defence Forces. The raiders simply melted into the surrounding brush as stealthily as they came.

  Somala returned to the baobab tree for his gear and began trotting toward the township. His only thoughts were focused on rounding up the men of his section and reporting back to their camp across the Mozambique border. He did not look back at the dead strewn about the farm. He did not see the gathering vultures. Nor did he hear the shot from the gun whose bullet tore into the flesh of his back.

  16

  The drive from Pembroke back to Umkono was a total blank to Patrick Fawkes. His hands turned the wheel and his feet worked the pedals in stiff mechanical movements. His eyes were unblinking and glazed as he assaulted the steep grades and on blind instinct hurled the four-wheel-drive around the hairpin curves.

  He had been in a small chemist's shop, buying Jenny's bath oil, when a sergeant from the Pembroke constabulary tracked him down and stammered out a sketchy outline of the tragedy. At first Fawkes refused to believe it. Only after he reached Shawn Francis, the Irish-born constable of Umkono, over the Bushmaster's mobile radio did he come to accept the worst.

  "You'd better come home, Patrick," Francis's strained voice crackled over the speaker. The constable spared Fawkes the details, and Fawkes did not demand them.

  The sun was still high when Fawkes came within sight of his farm. Little remained of the house. Only the fireplace and a section of the veranda still stood. The rest was no more than a pile of cinders. Across the yard, rubber tires on the tractors smoldered on their steel rims and emitted thick black smoke. The farm workers still lay where they'd fallen in the compound. Vultures were picking at the carcasses of his prize cattle.

  Shawn Francis and several Defence Force soldiers were huddled around three forms lying under blankets when Fawkes braked to a stop in the yard. Francis came over to him as he leaped out of the mud-streaked Bushmaster. The constable's face was pale granite.

  "God in hell!" cried Fawkes. He gazed into Francis's eyes, searching for a small ray of light. "My family. What of my family?"

  Francis fought to get the words out' then gave up and dipped his head in the direction of the blanket-covered bodies. Fawkes pushed past him and stumbled across the yard but was caught short by the stout arms of the constable, which suddenly encircled him about the chest.

  "Leave them be, Patrick. I've already identified them."

  "Dammit, Shawn, that's my family lying there."

  "I beg you, my friend, do not look."

  "Let me go. I must see for myself."

  "No!" said Francis, grimly hanging on,knowing he was no match for Fawkes's massive strength. "Myrna and jenny were badly burned in the fire. They're gone, Patrick. The loved ones you knew are no more. Remember them alive, not as they are in death."

  Francis could feel the tenseness slowly drain from Fawkes's muscles and the constable loosened his hold.

  "How did it happen?" asked Fawkes quietly.

  "No way of describing in detail. All your workers have either been driven off or killed. There are no wounded to tell the tale."

  "Somebody must know… must have seen… 55

  "We'll find a witn
ess. One will turn up by morning. I promise."

  The grim conversation halted while a helicopter whirled to the ground and the soldiers tenderly lifted the bodies of Myrna, jenny, and Patrick Junior inside the cargo cabin and strapped them down. Fawkes made no move to go to them. He only stood there and watched with great sadness in his eyes as the helicopter lifted off and headed toward the mortuary in Umkono.

  "Who is responsible?" Fawkes said to Francis. "Tell me who murdered my wife and children and my workers and burned my farm. "

  "One or two CK-eighty-eight plastic cartridges, the charred remains of an arm inside the house with a Chinese watch on the wrist, prints in the dirt from military-soled boots. Circumstantial as it is, the evidence points to the AAR."

  "What do you mean, 'one or two cartridges, Fawkes snapped. "The bloody bastards should have left a whole mountain of them."

  Francis made a helpless gesture with his hands. "Typical of an AAR raid. They always police the area right after an attack. Makes it tough to tag them with any hard evidence. They plead innocent to any international investigation of terrorism while pointing a hypocritical finger at the other liberation organizations. If it hadn't been for our Alsatian dogs, we never would have uncovered the spent shells or perhaps even the arm.

  "The raiders' tracks come and go from the bush through the cane fields and up to the house. I figure they shot down the guards during a shift change, while the gate was open, breaking the electrical charge. Pat junior was killed over by that burnt-out tractor. Myrna and jenny were lying a few feet apart in the parlor. All had been mercifully shot. Patrick, for what little comfort it's worth, there was no indication of rape or mutilation. "

  Constable Francis paused to take a drink from a canteen. He offered it to Fawkes, who simply shook his head.

  "Take a swig, Patrick. It's whisky."

  Fawkes refused again.

  "My office received a distress message over the radio from jenny. She said that Pat had been shot and that men in bush fatigues were attacking the farm. She and Myrna must have put up one hell of a fight. We found four separate bloodstains in the yard behind the house. And you can see for yourself that what's left of the veranda floor is filled with bloody trails. jenny's last words were. 'Good Lord, they're shooting the children in the compound.'