'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.'
'We assembled our forces and came on as quickly as the whirlybirds could get us here. Thirteen minutes was all it took. By then everything was ablaze and the raiders had vanished. Two platoons and a helicopter are tracking them through the bush now.'
'My people.' murmured Fawkes, pointing at the still figures sprawled around the compound. 'We cant leave them lying here for the vultures.'
'Your neighbor Brian Vogel is coming with his workers to bury them. They should be here any time. Until then, my men will keep the scavengers away.'
Fawkes was like a man wandering lost in a dream as he walked up the steps to the veranda. He could not yet grasp the immensity of the tragedy. He still half expected to see his three loved ones standing framed by the bougainvillea. And his mind very nearly formed a picture of them as they were, waving happily to him when he left for Pembroke.
The veranda was painted in gore. Puddled streaks traveled from the smoking embers down the steps to the yard, where they abruptly ended. It looked to Fawkes as if three or maybe four bodies had been dragged from the house before it was torched. The blood had coagulated and turned crusty under the afternoon sun. Fat iridescent flies hummed and waded about the trails in swarms.
Fawkes leaned against the lattice and felt the first uncontrollable tremor of shock. The house he had built for his family was nothing but blackened, grotesque ruins incongruously heaped in the middle of the trimmed lawn and the beds of gladiola and fire lilies that stood virtually unmarked.
Even the memory of how it had looked was beginning to twist and distort. He sank. down on the steps and covered his face with his hands.
He was still sitting there half an hour later when Constable Francis came over and gently nudged him.
'Come, Patrick, let me take you to my place. There is nothing to be gained by staying here.'
Francis led the unresisting Fawkes to the Bushmaster and tenderly deposited him in the passenger's seat.
As the vehicle passed through the gate, Fawkes stared straight ahead, did not look back. He knew he would never see or set foot on his farm again.
17
Although it seemed as though his head had barely hit the pillow, Hiram Lusana had been asleep for seven hours when he was roused by the knock at his door. The wristwatch on the bed table read six o'clock. He cursed, rubbed the sleep from his coffee-brown eyes, and sat up.
'Come in.'
The knock came again.
'I said, Come in,' he grunted loudly.
Captain John Mukuta entered the room and stood stiffly at attention. 'Sorry to wake you, sir, but section fourteen has just returned from its reconnaissance of Umkono.'
'So what's the emergency? I can study their report later.'
Mukuta's eyes remained fixed on a spot on the wall. 'The patrol experienced trouble. The section leader was shot and lies critically wounded in the hospital. He insists on reporting to you and no one else.'
'Who is he?'
'His name is Marcus Somala.'
'Somala?' Lusana's brow knitted. He got out of bed. 'Tell him I'm coming.'
The captain saluted and left, softly closing the door behind him, pretending not to have noticed the second shape curled beneath the satin sheets.
Lusana reached over and pulled away the top sheet. Felicia Collins slept like a statue. Her short Afro hair gleamed in the half light and her lips were puffy and parted. Her skin was the color of cocoa and her conical breasts, with their dark, full nipples, heaved with each deep breath.
He smiled and left the sheet off. Still half asleep, he weaved into the bathroom and splashed handfuls of cold water on his face. The eyes that stared back from the mirror were streaked with red. The face around them was lined and haggard from a night heavily laced with liquor and sex. He tenderly patted the battle-worn features with a towel, returned to the bedroom, and dressed.
Lusana was a small, wiry man, medium boned and lighter skinned than any man in the army of Africans he commanded. 'American tan' is what they called it behind his back. And yet any remarks about his color or his offhand stateside manner were not uttered out of disrespect. His men looked up to him with a primitive sort of awe of the supernatural. He had the air of assurance that most lightweight fighters have in their early careers; some might call it an air of arrogance. He took a last fond look at Felicia, sighed, and walked across the camp to the hospital.
The Chinese doctor was pessimistic.
'The bullet entered from the rear, tore away half his lung, shattered a rib, and exited below the left breast. It is a miracle the man is still alive.'
'Can he talk?' Lusana asked.
'Yes, but each word drains his strength.'
'How long -5'
'— has he to live?'
Lusana nodded.
'Marcus Somala has an incredibly strong constitution,' the doctor said. 'But I doubt if he can last out the day.'
'Can you give him something to stimulate his senses, if even for only a few minutes?'
The doctor looked thoughtful. 'I suppose speeding up the inevitable will not matter.' He turned and murmured instructions to a nurse. who left the room.
Lusana looked down at Somala. The section leader's face was drawn and his chest rose shallowly with spasmodic breaths. A maze of plastic tubing hung from a rack above the bed and ran into his nose and arms. A large surgical dressing was taped across his chest.
The nurse returned and carefully handed the doctor a hypodermic. He inserted the needle and pushed evenly on the plunger. In a few moments Somala's eyes fluttered half open, and he moaned.
Lusana silently motioned to the doctor and his nurse and they withdrew to the hall and closed the door.
He leaned over the bed. 'Somala, this is Hiram Lusana. Do you understand me?'
Somala's whispered voice came out hoarse but with a trace of emotion. 'I do not see well, my General. Is it really you?'
Lusana took Somala's hand and gripped it tightly. 'Yes, my brave warrior. I have come to hear your report.'
The man on the bed smiled thinly, and then a haunting, questioning look came into his eyes. 'Why… why did you not trust me, my General?'
'Trust you?'
