The car skimmed above the tree-tops. The driver and his two passengers scanned the sky.
A plane would have been a faster way to get out of the country. But then they would have spent hours flying over Africa, with Belderkan fighters in hot pursuit, other nations joining the chase and the world uproar gaining volume. By transmitter, if all went well, they could have Umluana in Geneva in an hour.
They were racing toward Miaka, a branch transmitter station. From Miaka they would transmit to the Belderkan Preserve, a famous tourist attraction whose station could transmit to any point on the globe. Even now a dozen inspectors were taking over the Game Preserve station and manning its controls.
They had made no plans to take over Miaka. They planned to get there before it could be defended.
“There’s no military base near Miaka,” Rashid said. “We might get there before the Belderkans.”
“Here comes our escort,” Read said.
A big car rose from the jungle. This one had a recoilless rifle mounted on the roof. The driver and the gunner waved and fell in behind them.
“One thing,” Read said, “I don’t think they’ll shoot at us while he’s in the car.”
“Don’t be certain, corporal. All these strong-arm movements are alike. I’ll bet Umluana’s lieutenants are hoping he’ll become a dead legend. Then they can become live conquerors.”
Sergeant Rashid came from Cairo. He had degrees in science and history from Cambridge but only the Corp gave him work that satisfied his conscience. He hated war. It was that simple.
Read looked back. He saw three spots of sunlight about two hundred feet up and a good mile behind.
“Here they come, Sarge.”
Rashid turned his head. He waved frantically. The two men in the other car waved back.
“Shall I duck under the trees?” the driver asked.
“Not yet. Not until we have to.”
Read fingered the machine gun he had picked up when he got in the car. He had never been shot at. Twice he had faced an unarmed mob, but a few shots had sent them running.
Birds flew screaming from their nests. Monkeys screeched and threw things at the noisy, speeding cars. A little cloud of birds surrounded each vehicle.
The escort car made a sharp turn and charged their pursuers. The big rifle fired twice. Read saw the Belderkan cars scatter. Suddenly machine-gun bullets cracked and whined beside him.
“Evade,” Rashid said. “Don’t go down.”
Without losing any forward speed, the driver took them straight up. Read’s stomach bounced.
A shell exploded above them. The car rocked. He raised his eyes and saw a long crack in the roof.
“Hit the floor,” Rashid said.
They knelt on the cramped floor. Rashid put on his gas mask and Read copied him. Umluana breathed like a furnace, still unconscious from the injection Rashid had given him.
I can’t do anything, Read thought. They’re too far away to shoot back. All we can do is run.
The sky was clear and blue. The jungle was a noisy bazaar of color. In the distance guns crashed. He listened to shells whistle by and the whipcrack of machine-gun bullets. The car roller-coastered up and down. Every time a shell passed, he crawled in waves down his own back.
Another explosion, this time very loud.
Rashid raised his eyes above the seat and looked out the rear window. “Two left. Keep down, Read.”
“Can’t we go down?” Read said.
“They’ll get to Miaka before us.”
He shut his eyes when he heard another loud explosion.
Sergeant Rashid looked out the window again. He swore bitterly in English and Egyptian. Read raised his head. The two cars behind them weren’t fighting each other. A long way back the tree-tops burned.
“How much farther?” Rashid said. The masks muffled their voices.
“There it is now. Shall I take us right in?”
“I think you’d better.”
The station was a glass diamond in a small clearing. The driver slowed down, then crashed through the glass walls and hovered by the transmitter booth.
Rashid opened the door and threw out two grenades. Read jumped out and the two of them struggled toward the booth with Umluana. The driver, pistol in hand, ran for the control panel.
There were three technicians in the station and no passengers. All three panicked when the psycho gas enveloped them. They ran howling for the jungle.
Through the window of his mask, Read saw their pursuers land in the clearing. Machine-gun bullets raked the building. They got Umluana in the booth and hit the floor. Read took aim and opened fire on the largest car.
“Now, I can shoot back,” he said. “Now we’ll see what they do.”
“Are you ready, Rashid?” yelled the driver.
“Man, get us out of here!”
The booth door shut. When it opened, they were at the Game Preserve.
The station jutted from the side of a hill. A glass-walled waiting room surrounded the bank of transmitter booths. Read looked out the door and saw his first battlefield.
Directly in front of him, his head shattered by a bullet, a dead inspector lay behind an overturned couch.
Read had seen dozens of training films taken during actual battles or after atomic attacks. He had laughed when other recruits complained. “That’s the way this world is. You people with the weak stomachs better get used to it.”
Now he slid against the rear wall of the transmitter booth.
A wounded inspector crawled across the floor to the booth. Read couldn’t see his wound, only the pain scratched on his face and the blood he deposited on the floor.
“Did you get Umluana?” he asked Sergeant Rashid.
“He’s in the booth. What’s going on?” Rashid’s Middle East Oxford seemed more clipped than ever.
“They hit us with two companies of troops a few minutes ago. I think half our men are wounded.”
“Can we get out of here?”
“They machine-gunned the controls.”
Rashid swore. “You heard him, Read! Get out there and help those men.”
He heard the screams of the wounded, the crack of rifles and machine guns, all the terrifying noise of war. But since his eighteenth year he had done everything his superiors told him to do.
He started crawling toward an easy-chair that looked like good cover. A bullet cracked above his head, so close he felt the shock wave. He got up, ran panicky, crouched, and dove behind the chair.
An inspector cracked the valve on a smoke grenade. A white fog spread through the building. They could see anyone who tried to rush them but the besiegers couldn’t pick out targets.
Above the noise, he heard Rashid.
“I’m calling South Africa Station for a copter. It’s the only way out of here. Until it comes, we’ve got to hold them back.”
Read thought of the green beret he had stuffed in his pocket that morning. He stuck it on his head and cocked it. He didn’t need plain clothes anymore and he wanted to wear at least a part of his uniform.
Bullets had completely shattered the wall in front of him. He stared through the murk, across the broken glass. He was Corporal Harry Read, UN Inspector Corps—a very special man. If he didn’t do a good job here, he wasn’t the man he claimed to be. This might be the only real test he would ever face.
He heard a shout in rapid French. He turned to his right. Men in red loincloths ran zigzagging toward the station. They carried light automatic rifles. Half of them wore gas masks.
“Shoot the masks,” he yelled. “Aim for the masks.”
The machine gun kicked and chattered on his shoulder. He picked a target and squeezed off a burst. Tensely, he hunted for another mask. Three grenades arced through the air and yellow gas spread across the battlefield. The attackers ran through it. A few yards beyond the gas, some of them turned and ran for their own lines. In a moment only half a dozen masked men still advanced. The inspectors fired a long, noisy volley. When they stopped only four attackers remained on their feet. And they were running for cover.
