maximum-rate turn and came diving back on them, flashing barely twenty feet over their heads. The girls in the back seat were still waving.
'Cowboy!'gruffed Garry, as he climbed behind the wheel of the Toyota. 'Are you coming, Bella?' 'I'll drive back with Pater,'she called. She knew it would be easier for her to pump her father than her brother. She ran to the second truck and jumped up into the seat beside Shasa.
They were halfway back to the camp before she got her chance.
'So who is Elsa Pignatelh?' she asked sweetly. 'And why haven't I heard of her before?' Shasa looked startled. 'How did you find out about her?' 'Don't you trust me, Pater? I am your personal assistant, aren't IF Cunningly she saddled him with guilt, and immediately he began trying to exonerate himself. 'Forgive me, Bella. It's not that I don't trust you.
It's all rather hush-hush.' 'She is the main reason for us all being here, isn't that so?' But Shasa was still being evasive.
'Elsa Pignatelli is an avid huntress, a veritable Diana. She has hunted with Sean for the last three seasons. Her passion is hunting the cats lion and leopard. You know that Sean has a reputation for bringing-in big cats.' 'We haven't come to watch her kill cats,' Isabella pressed him, and Shasa shook his head and relented.
'Amongst the Pignatelli assets are a number of chemical factories pharmaceuticals, agricultural fertilizers and pesticides, plastics and paints. They hold certain patents that we are interested in.' 'So why didn't Garry fly to Geneva or Rome, or wherever she lives?' 'Lausanne actually.'
'So why didn't he go to her, or why didn't she send one of her people to meet him in Johannesburg, instead of this Tarzan setting in the jungle?
What precisely is all the mystery?' Shasa slowed the truck and gave all his attention to negotiating the rocky ford of the river. He did not reply until they climbed the steep opposite bank in four-wheel drive.
'Forgive me for not letting you in on it. I was going to tell you. Our interests are not confined entirely to agricultural pesticides. There would be a lot of unfriendly people out there in the big wide world who would be very interested in any discussions between Pignatelli Industries and the chairman of Armscor.' 'Ah, you are wearing your Armscor hat, so it must be armaments or weapons.' Speculatively Shasa glanced across at her. She had a brightly coloured scarf bound around her hair like a turban, and the wind had rouged her cheeks. She was very lovely, and Shasa felt a prickle of guilt that he should have mistrusted her. She was part of him; he should trust her as he did his own self.
'You and I have discussed the weapons of last resort,' he murmured.
'Not nuclear weapons?' Isabella said. 'You have the bomb already. All that fuss over Operation Skylight.) 'No, not nuclear weapons,' he sighed. 'Something just as nasty, I'm afraid.
You know that I share your distaste for weapons of mass indiscriminate destruction. However, such weapons are not intended ever to be used. Their effectiveness lies in their mere existence.' 'If they exist, then sooner or later some madman is going to use them,' she said flatly, and again Shasa shook his head.
'We've been over this before, my darling. But the bare fact remains that I have been entrusted with the job of providing our nation with all possible means of protecting itself. I have not been given the option of deciding which weapons are morally acceptable.' 'Do we really need some other nastiness?'she insisted.
'There is a groundswell of hatred running against our little country. It is being cunningly orchestrated by a small vicious group of our enemies. They are brainwashing an entire generation of young people around the world to regard us as monsters who must be destroyed at all costs. Very soon these young people will be in positions of authority and command. They are the decision-makers of tomorrow. One day we could see an American naval task force blockading our coast. We could face a military invasion of, say, Indian troops backed by Australia and Canada and all the members of the Commonwealth.' 'Oh, Papa, that is far-fetched. Isn't it?' 'Still remote,' Shasa agreed. 'But you met influential members of the British Labour Government while we were in London. You spoke to members of the American Democratic Party - Teddy Kennedy for one. Do you remember what he told you?' 'Yes, I remember,' said Isabella, and the memory subdued her.
'We must make absolutely certain that no nation - not even one of the superpowers - can ever with impunity consider armed intervention in our internal affairs.' 'We already have the bomb,' she pointed out.
'Nuclear weapons are expensive, difficult to deliver and impossible to limit or control in their effects. There are other effective deterrents.' 'Elsa Pignatelli is going to provide an alternative? Why should she help us?' 'Signora Pignatelli is a sympathizer. She is a member of the Italian South Africa Society. She knows and understands Africa. She is a huntress and she has other ties with this continent. Her father was on General de Bono's staff when he invaded Abyssinia in 1935. Her husband fought in the Western Desert under Rommel and was captured at Benghazi. He spent three years as a POW in South Africa and developed an affection for the country that lasted his lifetime. He transmitted those feelings to her. She visits Africa regularly, either to hunt or to do business. She understands the problems we face and rejects, as we do, the simplistic solutions which the rest of the world would try to force upon us. This meeting was arranged at her suggestion.' Isabella wanted to ask questions, but she knew it was wiser to let him come to it in his own time.
She sat silently staring at the rutted track, barely noticing the herd of impala antelope that crossed ahead of the vehicle in a series of lithe bounds. They were lovely but insubstantial as blown smoke through the forest.
'Only four people know about this meeting, Bella. Signora Pignatelli has not trusted her own staff. Apart from Garry and I, only the prime minister is aware of the subject of our meeting.' Isabella suppressed that sickening sense of treachery that lay at the pit of her stomach. She wanted to warn him not to tell, then she thought of Nicky and she sat quietly.
'Five years ago, NATO had contracted with two chemical companies in Western Europe to develop a nerve gas that could be used under battlefield conditions. Last autumn the contracts were cancelled, mostly due to pressure from the socialist governments of Scandinavia and Holland. However, much work had already been done on the development of these weapons, and one company had produced and tested a gas that met all the original criteria.' 'That company was Pignatelli Chemicals?' Isabella asked. When Shasa nodded, she went on: 'What were the criteria that NATO laid down?' 'The weapon has to be safe to store and transport. Pignatelli developed two separate substances, each on its own absolutely inert and harmless. They can be transported in bulk tankers by road or by rail without any risk whatsoever. But when they combine they form a heavier-than-air gas which is approximately eleven times more toxic than the cyanide gas used in American execution-chambers.' 39e Shasa pulled off the track and parked the truck on the verge beneath the outspread branches of a flowering kigelia tree, that lovely sausage tree with its gigantic pods the size and shape of polonies.
He lifted Sean's double-barrelled Gibbs rifle off the rack behind the driver's seat and loaded it with two fat brass cartridges from the bandolier.
'Let's go down to the hippo pool,' he suggested, and Isabella followed him down the footpath to the deep green pool of the river. The rifle was insurance, for the hippo has killed more human beings in Africa than all the snakes and lions and buffalo combined.
Yet they did not look dangerous as they wallowed under the bank, only their backs exposed like great black riverboulders. Then the bull opened his jaws in a pink and cavernous gape and showed the curved ivory tusks that could scythe the papyrus reeds or guillotine a full-grown oxen into separate pieces. He turned his piggy eyes upon them and regarded them with a bloodshot malevolence.
They sat side by side on a dead log, and Shasa propped the rifle close at hand. After a moment, the bull hippo closed his jaws and sank back below the surface so that only his eyes and the tip of his small round ears were exposed. Shasa stared back at him as balefully.
'Eleven times more toxic than cyanide gas,' he repeated. 'It is terrifying stuff.' 'Then, why, Pater? It is heinous. Why do it?' He shrugged. 'To protect ourselves from hatred.' He picked up a pebble from between his feet and lobbed it at the hippo. The pebble splashed twenty feet short, but the bull submerged completely. Shasa went on speaking.
'The gas is code- named Cyndex and it has other desirable properties apart from its ability to deal swift and silent death.' 'How heartening,' Isabella murmured. 'What are they?' 'It is odourless. There is no warning; death comes unannounced. However, it can be given a signature, any signature one chooses - the smell of ripe apples, or jasmine, or even Chanel Number Five if you so wish.' 'That's macabre, Pater. Not your usual style.' He did not respond to the rebuke. 'It is also highly unstable. Decay time is a mere three hours after mixing. Thereafter, it is absolutely harmless.
This is extremely advantageous. You can gas an opposing army, and then move your own troops in to occupy the area three hours later.' 'Charming,' Isabella whispered. 'I have no doubt that the political possibilities have not entirely escaped the prime minister. Say, if a million blacks went on the rampage.' Shasa sighed. 'It doesn't bear thinking of' 'But you have thought of it, haven't you, Pater?' He was silent, acquiescing. 'You say that NATO cancelled the contracts. Only Pignatelli Chemicals are manufacturing this Cyndex 25F 'No. They manufactured and tested the gas. It was the twenty-fifth prototype, hence the numerical designation.
