bilges.
'Clumsy hint,' he grunted, and threw Nicky into the boat after her. It was a mistake.
Nicky rebounded like a rubber ball, and as Sean tried to grab him he ducked under his arm and shot up the bank.
'You little devil.' Sean whirled and went after him.
'My baby,' Isabella cried, and jumped out of the boat. She sloshed through the mud and raced up the bank in pursuit of the two of them.
'Come back, Nicky - oh, please, come back.' He was running towards the approaching convoy. Like a hare he ducked and dodged through the brush ahead of Sean. He was twenty feet short of the track when Sean dived and caught him by the ankle. Seconds later Isabella tripped over them and sprawled full-length on the soft sandy earth.
The headlights of the convoy swept over them, but the three of them were lying behind a clump of low bush, concealed from the men in the cab of the leading truck. Nicky screamed again and tried to crawl away, but Sean pinned him and covered his mouth with the palm of one hand.
The trucks bore down upon them and then braked as they saw the palm trunks that blocked the road. The leading truck in the convoy drew up only twenty feet from where they lay in darkness.
Still smothering Nicky under him, Sean reached out and pushed Isabella's face down to the earth. A white face shines like a mirror.
From the cab of the truck a man jumped down and ran forward to inspect the road-block, then he turned and shouted an order. A dozen guerrillas in combat camouflage swarmed from the back of the truck and seized the tree trunks.
As they lifted and dragged them clear, the headlights lit the face of the officer who commanded them. Isabella lifted her head and saw his features clearly. She recognized him immediately. It was not a face ever to forget.
The last time she had seen this man he had been a passenger in the van driven by her half-brother, Ben Afrika. The two of them had been on their way to a rendezvous with Michael Courtney. He was probably the finest-looking black man she had ever seen, tall, regal and fierce as a hawk.
He turned his head and, for a moment, seemed to stare directly at her. Then he turned again to watch his men roll the logs aside. The moment the road was clear he strode to the cab of the truck and vaulted into it. He slammed the door, and the truck roared forward.
The troop convoy followed it. As the last pair of head lights swept past them, Sean tucked Nicky under his arm, pulled Isabella to her feet and hurried her back towards the riverbank.
Sean kept a firm grip on the scruff of Nicholas's neck in the leading boat ~ as the flotilla ran back down-river. The glow from the burning huts lit the underbelly of the clouds, and even above the sound of the outboard motors they heard the shouts and the sound of automatic gunfire.
'What are they shooting at?' Isabella asked, as she huddled against Sean for warmth.
'Probably at shadows - or at each other,' he chuckled softly. 'Nothing quite like a nervous gook with a rifle in his hand for burning up ammo.' The outgoing tide sped them through the mouth into the lagoon. Through his nightscope Esau Gondele picked up the wake of the other flotilla of inflatables, heading back from the beach. They came together as they reached the pass in the reef and in line ahead headed out into the open sea.
Lancer in her bright yellow paint showed up through the lens of the nightscope at half a mile distance.
As soon as they had recovered the last inflatable through the stern chute of the trawler, she opened up her engines and ran for the open Atlantic.
Sean turned to Esau Gondele. 'What was the butcher bill, Sergeant-Major Gondele?' 'We lost one man, Major Courtney,' he replied as formally. 'Jeremiah Masoga. We brought him back with us.' The Scouts always retrieved their dead.
Sean felt that familiar sickening pang; another good man gone. Jeremiah was only nineteen years old. Sean had already decided to give him his second stripe. He wished now that he had done it before this. You can never make amends to the dead.
'Three wounded; nothing bad enough to make them miss the party tonight.' 'Put Jeremiah in the refrigerated hold,' Sean ordered.
'We'll ship him home as soon as we reach Cape Town. He'll get a regimental burial with full honours.' When they were still two hundred nautical miles from Table Bay, Centaine Courtney sent out a Courtney helicopter to pick up Sean and Isabella and Nicky. The old lady could not wait any longer to meet her greatgrandson.
Ramsey clung to the roots of one of the mangrove trees to steady himself against the drag of the outgoing tide as it funnelled through the river-mouth. The razor-edged shells of the fresh-water mussels that covered the stem cut into his hand, but he hardly felt the pain. He was staring out across the river.
The reflection from the flames of the burning compound flecked the surface of the water with sovereigns of gold.
The boats passed within fifty feet of where he crouched chin-deep in the mud and slime of the mangroves. Their motors buzzed softly in the stillness of the night. Their outlines were indistinct, three dark hippo shapes that passed swiftly on the tide heading for the mouth and the open sea - but he imagined that one of the figures in the leading boat was smaller than the others and wore a pale T-shirt.
It was only then, in the moment of losing him, that he realized that he was, after all, just another father. For the first time in his life he acknowledged his love and dependence upon that love. He loved his son and he was losing him. He groaned in anguish.
Then rage boiled up in him and burnt away all other feeling. It was a consuming anger against all those who had inflicted this loss upon him. He stared into the empty darkness that had swallowed his son, and the fire of vengeance burnt through every fibre of his being. He wanted to shout this fury after them. He wanted to rail against the 54e woman, he wknted to curse and scream out his frustration, but he caught himself. That was not his way. He must be cold and sharp as steel now. He must think clearly and with icy purpose.
The first thought that came into his mind was that he had lost his hold on Red Rose. She was no longer of any value to him or the cause. Now she was the sacrifice. He knew how to destroy her and all those around her. The hilt of the weapon was in his head; it only remained to unsheathe it.
He pushed off from the mangrove and let the tide sweep him into the curve of the river, swimming across it with an easy breast-stroke. The bottom shelved gently under him, and he touched sand and waded ashore.
Raleigh Tabaka was waiting for him beside the burnt-out ruins of the communications centre. Ramsey dressed hastily in borrowed trousers and jacket; his hair was still damp and matted with river- mud.
Smoke from the smouldering buildings hazed the first grey light of dawn.
Raleigh Tabaka's men were recovering the corpses and laying them out in a long row under the palms. In rigor mortis they were locked into the attitudes in which they had met their deaths. It was a grotesque charade show.
Jose, the paratrooper, had one arm thrown over his face as though protecting his eyes. His chest was mangled by grenade shrapnel. Adra's arms were extended as though she hung on a crucifix, and half her head was missing.
Ramsey glanced at her without particular interest, as he might at a worn-out article of clothing which no longer had any utility for him.
'How many?' he asked Raleigh Tabaka.
'Twenty-six,' he replied. 'All of them. There were no survivors. Whoever it was, they did a thorough job. Who were they? Do you have any idea?' 'Yes,' Ramsey nodded, 'I have a very good idea.' And before Raleigh could speak again Ramsey told him: 'I am taking over the Cyndex project personally.'
'Comrade-General' - Raleigh frowned with affront -'that has been my operation from the very beginning. I have controlled the two brothers.' 'Yes,' Ramsey agreed implacably. 'You have done very well. You will receive all the recognition that you deserve. But I am taking over the direction of the project. I will leave for the south as soon as an aircraft is available. You will accompany me.'
'It doesn't end here, Bella,' Shasa said gravely. 'We cannot just pretend that nothing else happened. I did not want to complicate the rescue attempt by considering the full murky depths of this whole dreadful business.
However, now Nicholas is safe here at Weltevreden we are forced to do so.
Many people, including the members of your family, risked their lives for you and Nicholas. One gallant young man, a stranger, a trooper of Sean's regiment, died to save you. Now you owe us the truth.' They were assembled in the gun-room once again, and Isabella was on trial before the family.
Her grandmother sat in the chair to one side of the fireplace. She sat very straight. Her hand on the ivory head of her cane was blue-veined beneath the thin parchment of skin. Her hair, once a thick unmanageable bush, was now the purest silver cap washed with a hint of blue. Her expression was severe.
'We want to hear it all, Isabella. You will not leave this room until you have told every detail.' 'Nana, I am so ashamed. I had no choice.' 'I did not ask for excuses and self-abasement, missy. I want the truth.' 'You must understand, Bella. We know that you have done terrible damage to the national interest, to the family, to yourself Now it is our duty to contain and control that damage.'
