The Leopard Hunts In Darkness Part 19

"Six names." She pointed. "Six field commanders." still too many," Craig murmured, and saw that Peter Fungabera's name headed the six.

"We can do better," Sally-Anne agreed. "A private army.

That must mean dissidents. The dissidents are all Matabele. Their leader would have to be of the same tribe." She turned to the third sheet. On it was a single name.

"One of the most successful field commanders. Matabele.

Minister of Tourism, and the Wildlife Department comes under him. It's an old chestnut, but those set to guard a treasure, are too often those who loot it. It all fits." Craig read the name aloud softly, "Tungata Zebiwe," and found that he didn't want it to be true. "But he was with me in the Game Department, he was my ranger-"

"As I said, the keepers have more opportunity to despoil than any other."

"But what would Sam do with the money? The master poacher must be coming millions of dollars. Sam lives a very frugal life, everybody knows that, no big house, no expensive cars, no gifts for women nor privately owned land no other expensive indulgences."

"Except, perhaps, the most expensive of all," Sally-Anne demurred quietly. Tower." Craig's further protestation died unuttered, and she nodded. "Power. Don't you see it, Craig? Running a private army of dissidents takes money, big, big money." Slowly the pattern was shaking itself into place, Craig admitted. Henry Pickering had warned him of an approaching Soviet-backed coup. The Russians had supported the Matabele ZIPRA faction during the war, so their candidate would almost certainly be Matabele.

Still Craig resisted it, clinging to his memories of the man who had been his-friend, probably the finest friend of his entire lifetime.

He remembered the essential decency of the man he had then known as Samson k.u.malo, the mission-educated Christian of integrity and high principles, who had resigned with Craig from the Game Department when they svspected their immediate superior of being involved in 4*poaching ring. Was he now the master poacher himself? The man of fine compa.s.sion who had helped Craig when he was crippled and broken to take his single possession, his yacht, with him when he left Africa. Was he now the power-hungry plotter?

"He is my friend, "Craig said.

"He was. But he has changed. When last you saw him, he declared himself your enemy," Sally' Anne pointed out.

"You told me that yourself." Craig nodded, and then suddenly remembered the search of his deposit box at the hotel by the police on high orders. Tungata must have suspected that Craig was an agent of the World Bank, would have guessed that he had been detailed to gather information on poaching and power-plotting all that could have accounted for his unaccountably violent opposition to Craig's plans.

"I hate it," Craig muttered. "I hate the idea like h.e.l.l, but I think that you just may be right."

"I am sure of it."

"What are you going to do?"

"I'm going to Peter Fungabera with what evidence I have." "He will smash Sam," Craig said, and she came back quickly, "Tungata is evil, Craig, a despoiler!" He is my friend." He was your friend," Sally' Anne contradicted him. "You you don't know what don't know what he has become happened to him in the bush. War can change any human being. Power can change him even more radically."

"Oh G.o.d, I hate it." "Come with me to Peter Fungabera. Be there when I put the case against Tungata Zebiwe." Sally'Arme took his hand, a small gesture of comfort.

Craig did not make the mistake of returning her grip.

"I'm sorry, Craig." She squeezed his fingers. 11 truly am," she said, and then she took her hand away again.

eter Fungabera made time for them in the early morning, and they drove out together to his home in the Macillwane Hills.

A servant showed them through to the general's office, a huge spa.r.s.ely furnished room that overlooked the lake and had once been the billiard room. One wall was covered with a blown-up map of the entire territory. It was flagged id with multi-coloured markers. There was a long table under the windows, covered with reports and despatches and parliamentary papers, and a desk of red African teak in the centre of the uncarpeted stone floor.

Peter Fungabera rose from the desk to greet them. He was barefooted, and dressed in a simple white loin-cloth tied at the hip. The bare skin of his chest and arms glowed as though it had been freshly oiled, and the muscles moved beneath it likea sackful of living cobras. Clearly Peter Fungabera kept himself in a warrior's peak of fighting condition.

"Excuse my undress," he smiled as he came to greet them, "but I really am more at ease when I can be completely African." There were low stools of intricate carved ebony set in front of the desk.

"I will have chairs brought," Peter offered. "I have few white visitors here."

"No, no." Sally-Anne settled easily on one of the stools.

"You know I am always pleased to see you, but I am due in the House at ten -hundred hours-" Peter Fungabera hurried them.

"I'll come to it without wasting time," Sally-Anne" agreed. "We think we know who the master poacher is." Peter had been about to seat himself at the desk, but now he leaned forward I'with his fists on the desktops and his gaze was sharp and dhnanding.

"You said I had trily to give you the name and you would smash him," Sally-Anne reminded him, and Peter nodded.

"Give it to me," he ordered, but Sally-Anne related her sources and her deductions, just as she had to Craig. Peter Fungabera heard her out in silence, frowning or nodding thoughtfully as he followed her reasoning. Then she gave her conclusion, the last name left on her list.

"Comrade Minister Tungata Zebiwe," Peter Fungabera repeated softly after her, and at last he sank back onto his own chair and picked up his leather, covered swa-wer-stick from the desk. He stared over Sally-Anne's head at the map-covered wall, slapping the baton into the rosy pink palm of his left hand.

The silence drew out until Sally-Anne had to ask, "Well?" Peter Fungabera dropped his gaze to her face again.

"You have chosen the hottest coal in the fire for me to pick up in my bare hands," he said. "Are you sure that you have not been influenced by Comrade Zebiwe's treatment of Mr. Craig Mellow?"

"That is unworthy," Sally-Anne told him softly.

"Yes, I suppose it is." Peter Fungabera looked at Craig.

"What do you think?"

"He was my friend, and he has done me great kindness."

"That was once upon a time," Peter pointed out. "Now he has declared himself your enemy."

"Still I like and admire him."

"And yet-?" Peter prodded gently.

"And yet, I believe Sally-Anne may be on the right spoor' Craig conceded unhappily.

Peter Fungabera stood up and crossed the floor silently to stand before the vast wall-map.

"Me whole country is a under-box," he said, staring at the coloured flags. "The Matabele are on the point of a rebellion. Here! Here! Here! Their guerrillas are gathering in the bush." He tapped the map. "We have been forced to nip the plotting of their more irresponsible leaders who were moving towards armed revolt. Nkomo is in forced retirement, two of the Matabele Cabinet members have been arrested and charged with high treason. Tungata Zebiwe is the only Matabele still in the Cabinet. He commands enormous respect, even outside his own tribe, while the Matabele look upon him as their only remaining leader. If we were to touch him-2

"You are going to let him go!" Sally-Anne said hopelessly. "He will get away with it. So much for your socialist paradise. One law for the people, another for the-"

"Be silent, woman," Peter Fungabera ordered, and she obeyed.

He returned to his desk. "I was explaining to you the consequences of hasty action. Arresting Tungata Zebiwe could plunge the entire country into b.l.o.o.d.y civil war. I didn't say that I would not take action, but I certainly would do nothing without proof positive, and the testimony of independent witnesses of impeccable impartiality to support my actions." He was still staring at the map across the room. "Already the world accuses us of planning tribal genocide against the Matabele, while all we are doing is maintaining the rule of law, and searching for a formula of accommodation with that warlike, intractable tribe. At the moment Tungata Zebiwe is our only reasonable and conciliatory contact with the Matabele, we cannot afford to destroy him lightly." He paused, and Sally Anne broke her silence.

"One thing I have not mentioned, but which Craig and I have discussed. If Tungata Zebiwe is the poacher, then he is using the profits to some special end. He gives no visible evidence of extravagance, but we know there is a connection between him and dissidents." Peter Fungabera's expression had set hard, and his eyes were terrible. "If it's ZeNwel I'll have him he promised himself more than h&. "But when I do, I'll have proof for the world to see and he will not escape me."

"Then you had best move pretty d.a.m.ned quickly," Sally Anne advised him tartly.

t23 r ell, you've picked a good time to sell." The Tyacht,broker stood in Bawu's c.o.c.kpit and ! looked nautical in his double-breasted blazer and marine cap with golden anchor device seven hundred dollars from Bergdorf Goodman. His tan was even and perfect sunlamp at the N.Y. Athletic Club. There was a fine web of wrinkles around his piercing blue eyes not from squinting through a s.e.xtant nor from tropical suns on far oceans and coral beaches, Craig was certain, but from perusing price-tags and cheque figures.

"Interest rates right down people are buying yachts again.