Vixen 03

44

"You fool!" Thomas Machita shouted across the desk. "You bloody fool!"

Colonel Randolph Jumana sat and regarded Machita's outburst with controlled indulgence. 'I had the very best of reasons for issuing those orders."

"Who gave you the authority to attack that village and slaughter fellow blacks?"

"You overlook basic facts, Major." Jumana removed a pair of horn-rimmed reading glasses and stroked one side of his flattened nose. "During General Lusana's absence I am in command of the AAR. I am simply carrying out his directives."

"By switching attacks from military targets to civilian villages?" Machita snapped angrily. "By terrorizing our brothers and sisters whose only crime is working as underpaid civil servants for the South Africans?"

"The strategy, Major, is to drive a wedge between the whites and the blacks. Any of our people who hire out to the government must be labeled as traitors."

"Black members of the Defence Forces, yes," Machita argued. "But you can't gain support by indiscriminately murdering schoolteachers, mailmen, and road laborers."

Jumana's face went cold and impersonal. "If killing a hundred children would advance our ultimate victory over the whites by one hour, I would not hesitate to give the order for execution."

Machita was swept by a wave of abhorrence. "You're talking butchery!"

"There is an old Western World saying," Jumana said flatly. "The end justifies the means."

Machita stared at the obese colonel and his flesh crawled. "When General Lusana hears of this, he will expel you from the AAR."

Jumana smiled. "Too late. My campaign to spread fear and havoc throughout South Africa is irreversible." Jumana managed to look even more sinister. "General Lusana is an outsider. He will never be fully accepted by the tribes of the interior, nor by the black leaders of the cities., as one of their own. I guarantee he will never sit in the Prime Minister's office in Cape Town."

"You're talking treason."

"On the other hand," Jumana continued, "you were born in Liberia before your parents immigrated to the United States. Your skin is as black as mine. Your blood has not been fouled by mixed sexual intercourse with whites, as has most American blacks'. It might not be a bad idea, Machita, for you to consider a change of allegiance."

Machita replied coldly. "You swore the same oath as I when we enlisted in the AAR, to uphold the principles set down by Hiram Lusana. What you're proposing sickens me. I want no part of it. Rest assured, Colonel, your treachery will be exposed to General Lusana within the hour."

Without another word, Machita turned and stormed from Jumana's office, slamming the door with a loud crack.

Seconds later, Jumana's aide knocked and entered. "The major seems upset."

"A small difference of opinion," said Jumana without emotion. "A shame his motives are misdirected." He motioned outside. "Quickly, take two of my bodyguards and go to the communications wing. You should find Major Machita about to transmit a message to the general, in Washington. Stop the transmission and arrest him."

"Arrest the major?" The aide was astonished. "On what charge?"

Jumana thought a moment. "Passing secrets to the enemy. That should be sufficient to lock him in a basement cell until he can be tried and shot."

Hiram Lusana stood in the entrance to the House of Representatives library and searched until he spied Frederick Daggat. The congressman was sitting at a long mahogany table, taking notes from a large leatherbound book.

"I hope I'm not interrupting," said Lusana. "But your message sounded urgent and your secretary said I might find you here."

"Sit down," Daggat said with no sign of friendliness.

Lusana pulled up a chair and waited.

"Have you read the late-edition morning paper?" asked Daggat, again looking at the book.

"No, I've been lobbying with Senator Moors, of Ohio. He seemed most receptive to our cause after I explained the aims of the AAR."

"Apparently the senator missed the news, too."

"What are you talking about?"

Daggat reached into his breast pocket and handed a folded news clipping to Lusana. "Here, my friend. Read it and weep."

"This is not my doing," he said.

Daggat looked up from the book. "I believe you, Hiram. I am quite aware that gross stupidity is not one of your virtues. However, as commanding officer, you are responsible for the conduct of your troops." "Jumana!" Lusana blurted as full realization dawned on him. "You're mistaken, Congressman, I am stupid. Tom Machita tried to warn me of Jumana's renegade leanings, but I refused to listen."

"The heavyset colonel weighted down with medals," said Daggat. "I remember him from your cocktail party. A leader of a prominent tribe, I believe you said."

Lusana nodded. "A 'favorite son' of the Srona tribe. He spent over eight years in South African prisons before I arranged his escape. He has strong support throughout Transvaal province. Politically, I thought it an expedient move to name him my second-in-command."

"As with too many Africans who are suddenly thrust into a position of power, he apparently conjured up fantasies of grandeur."

Lusana stood and leaned wearily against a shelf of books. "The idiot," he muttered, almost to himself. "Can't he understand that he's destroying the very cause he's fighting for?"

Daggat rose and put his hand on Lusana's shoulder. "I suggest you catch the fast flight back to Mozambique, Hiram, and regain control of your movement. Issue news releases denying the AAR's involvement in the massacre. Blame it on the other insurgent groups, if you have to, but get out from under and put your house in order. I'll do what I can to soften adverse reaction at this end. "

Lusana extended his hand. "Thank you, Congressman. I'm grateful for all you've done."

Daggat shook his hand warmly.

"And your subcommittee. How will they vote now?" Lusana said.

Daggat smiled confidently. "Three to two in favor of aid to the AAR, providing you offer a convincing performance in front of the news cameras when you deny any involvement with the Tazareen massacre."

Colonel Joris Zeegler had taken over the basement of a schoolhouse ten miles from the boundary separating Natal province and Mozambique. While class continued on the top two floors, Zeegler and several ranking officers of the Defence Forces studied aerial maps and a scale mock-up of the AAR headquarters, not twenty-five miles away, across the border.

Zeegler squinted through a wisp of smoke curling from the cigarette that dangled in his mouth and tapped a pointer on a miniature building in the center of the mock-up.

"The former university-administration building," he said, "is used by Lusana as his nerve center. A Chinese-supplied communications network, field-staff offices, intelligence section, indoctrination rooms they're all housed there. They've gone too bloody far this time. Destroy it and everyone in it and you cut off the head of the AAR. 11

"Begging your pardon, sir" — this from a big red-faced captain with a bushy mustache — "but it was my understanding that Lusana was in America."

"Quite correct. He's in Washington this very minute, on his hands and knees, begging the Yanks for financial support."

"Then what bloody good is cutting off the serpent's head if the brain lies elsewhere? Why not wait until he returns and bag the head bugger as well?"

Zeegler gave him a cold, condescending stare. "Your metaphor needs refining, Captain. However, to answer your question… it will not be practical to await Lusana's return. Our intelligence sources have confirmed that Colonel Randolph jumana has engineered a mutiny within the ranks of the AAR."

Surprised looks were exchanged among the officers clustered around the model. It was the first they'd heard of Lusana's ouster.

"Now is the time to strike," he went on. "By brutally murdering helpless women and children at Tazareen, jumana has thrown open the door for retaliation. An across-the-border raid on AAR headquarters has been approved by the Prime Minister. The usual diplomatic protests from Third World countries are to be expected, of course. A formality, nothing more."

A tough-looking customer with the rank of major and dressed in camouflage fatigues raised his hand. Zeegler acknowledged him.

"Your intelligence report also mentions the presence of Vietnamese advisers and possibly a few Chinese observers. Surely our government will suffer repercussions if we snuff the bastards."

"Accidents happen," Zeegler said. "If a foreign national by chance stumbles into your line of fire, do not lose sleep if a stray bullet sends him straightaway to Buddhaland. They have no business being in Africa. Defence Minister De Vaal is aware of the likelihood and has consented to let that particular problem rest on his shoulders."

Zeegler turned his attention back to the mock-up.

"Now. gentlemen, for the final phase of the attack. We have decided to take a page from the AAR handbook on the policing of a battlefield." He smiled without humor. "Except we intend to go them one better."

Thomas Machita shivered in his cell. He couldn't remember when he had felt so cold. The temperature of the African interior had run its normal course, from ninety degrees the previous afternoon to a frosty thirty in the hours prior to dawn.

Jumana's goons had dragged Machita from the radio room before he could send a message of warning to Lusana in Washington. They savagely pulverized his face before stripping away his clothes and throwing him in a damp little cell in the building's basement. One eye was swollen shut; a deep gash above the other eyebrow had coagulated during the night, and he had vision after wiping away the clotted blood. His lips were swollen and two teeth were missing, courtesy of a well-aimed rifle butt. He shifted his position on a filthy pile of dried leaves, gasping at the pain that stabbed his cracked ribs.

Machita lay in dark frustration, gazing vacantly at the concrete walls of his prison as the new day's light filtered through a small barred window above his head. The cell was no more than a cube, five by five by five feet, and barely allowed enough room for Machita to lie down, provided he raised his knees. The low arched door to the basement hall was three-inch-thick mahogany and had no latch or handle on the inside.

He heard voices through the window and painfully pulled himself to a stooped position and looked out. The window faced the camp's parade ground at eye level. Elite commando sections were lining up for roll call and inspection. Across the way, messhall roof vents emitted shimmering waves of heat as the cooks stoked their stoves to life. A company of recruits from Angola and Zimbabwe crawled sleepily from their tents at the prodding of their veteran section leaders.

It began like another ordinary day of political indoctrination and combat training, but this day was to be far different.

His eyes aimed intently at his watch, Joris Zeegler spoke softly into a field radio. "Tonic One?"

"Tonic One in position, sir," a voice crackled over the receiver.

"Tonic Two?"

"Ready to fire, Colonel."

"Ten seconds and counting," said Zeegler. "Five, four, three, two…"

The formation of commandos on the parade ground dropped to the ground in concert as though by command. Machita could not believe that two hundred men had died almost instantly as a salvo of gunfire erupted from the dense bush surrounding the perimeter of the camp. He jammed his face against the bars, unmindful of his pain, twisting his head to see better through his one functioning eye. The firing increased in intensity as confused AAR soldiers began a hopeless counterattack against their unseen enemy.

He could distinguish the cracking sounds of the AAR's Chinese CK-88 automatic rifles from the Israeli-manufactured Felo guns used by the South African Defence Forces. The Felo gun emitted a barking noise as it shotgunned swarms of deadly razor-sharp disks capable of severing an eightinch tree trunk with one burst.

Machita realized the South Africans had crossed the border in a lightning raid to avenge Tazareen. "Damn you, Jumana!" he shouted in helpless rage. "You brought this upon us."

Bodies were dropping everywhere in frenzied contortions. So many littered the parade ground it was impossible to walk from one side to the other without stepping on torn flesh. A Defence Forces helicopter swooped over the main dormitory, where a company of men had taken cover. A bulky packet dropped from the aircraft's cargo door and landed on the roof. Seconds later the building fragmented in a thunderous explosion of brick and dust.

Still the South African ground forces had not shown their positions. They were wiping out the main core of the AAR without the slightest risk to themselves. Brilliant planning and execution had paid the whites rich dividends.

The green and brown of the helicopter's camouflage blurred into Machita's view for an instant, disappearing above the headquarters building housing his cell.

He braced his pain-wracked body against the inevitable explosion. The concussion was two, three times what he expected. The breath was pounded from his lungs as if by a jackhammer. Then the ceiling of his cell closed down on him and his tiny world went black.

"They're coming in now, sir," said a sergeant, saluting smartly.

Pieter De Vaal acknowledged the message with a methodical wave of his swagger stick. "Then I think we should extend them the courtesy of greeting, don't you?"

"Yes, sir." The sergeant opened the car door and stood aside as De Vaal unlimbered himself from the blackness of the backseat, meticulously straightened his tailored uniform, and began walking toward the grass landing pad.

They both stood there for a minute and screwed up their eyes as the bright glare of the helicopter's landing lights cut the evening darkness. Then the gust from the approaching rotor blades forced them to clamp their hands to their caps and turn away as small pebbles blown from the pad pelted their backs.

With perfect precision the Defence Forces copters hovered in sequence until all twelve were aligned. Then, on order from the squadron commander, they eased gracefully to the ground as one unit and the lights blinked out. Zeegler emerged from the lead craft and trotted over to De Vaal.

"How did it go?" the Defence Minister asked.

Zeegler's grin was barely visible in the darkness. "One for the history books, Minister. An incredible exploit. There are no other words to describe it."

"Casualties?"

"Four wounded, none seriously."

"And the rebels?"

Zeegler paused for effect. "The body count tallied at twenty-three hundred and ten. At least another two hundred lie buried in the rubble of the destroyed buildings. No more than a handful could have escaped into the bush."

"Good God!" De Vaal was shocked. "Are you serious?"

"I checked the body count twice."

"In our wildest expectations we conceived no more than a few hundred rebel dead."

"A windfall," said Zeegler. "The camp was lined up for inspection. It was what the Americans would call a turkey shoot. Colonel Randolph Jumana was cut down by the first salvo."

"Jumana was an idiot," De Vaal snapped. "His days were numbered. Thomas Machita — there's the cagey one. Machita is the only bastard in the AAR who could fill Lusana's boots."

"We identified several officers on Lusana's staff, including Colonel Duc Phon Lo, his Vietnamese military adviser, but Machita's body did not turn up. I believe I'm safe in saying his remains are buried under tons of debris." Zeegler paused and stared De Vaal in the eyes. "In view of our success. Herr Minister.' it might be wise to scratch Operation Wild Rose."

"Why not quit while we 're ahead — is that it?"

Zeegler silently nodded.

"I am a pessimist., Colonel. it may take months, perhaps years) for the AAR to recover, but recover they will." De Vaal seemed to sink into a private reverie. Then he shook it off. "So long as South Africa lives under the threat of black rule, we have no option but to use any method available to survive. Wild Rose will take place as planned. 55 lls in our

"I'll feel better when Lusana fa net. 11

De Vaal threw Zeegler an off-kilter grin.

"You haven't heard?"

"Sir?"

"Hiram Lusana won't be coming back to Africa. ever."

Machita had no way of telling when he had recrossed the threshold of consciousness. He could see nothing but darkness. Then the pain began multiplying in his nerve endings and he groaned involuntarily. His ears recorded the sound, but nothing else registered.

He tried to raise his head and a yellowish ball appeared above and to his left. Slowly the strange object came into focus and formed a frame of reference. He was looking at a full moon.

He struggled to a sitting position with his back crammed against a cold, bare wall. In the light that sifted through the wreckage he could see that the floor above had dropped only two feet before becoming wedged between the narrow walls of his cell.

After a brief rest to collect his strength, Machita began pushing away the rubble. His hands discovered a short length of board and he used it to pry away the topside flooring until at last he forced an opening large enough to crawl through. Cautiously he peered over the edge into the chill night air. Nothing stirred. He bent his knees and shoved his body upward until his hands touched the grass of the parade ground. A sudden heave and he was free.

Machita took a deep breath and looked around. It was then that he saw the miracle of his salvation. The wall of the administration building facing the parade field had caved inward, collapsing the first floor, which had effectively shielded his cell from falling debris and the deadly wrath of the South Africans.

No one greeted Machita as he staggered to his feet, because there was no one in sight. The moon illuminated an eerie, barren landscape. Every facility, every building, had been leveled. The field was empty; the bodies of the dead were gone.

It was as though the African Army of Revolution had never existed.