The Angels Weep - Smith Wilbur - Страница 153
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British and American intelligence appraisals showed that Josiah Inkunzi, despite all his extreme left-wing rhetoric and the military assistance which he had solicited and received from communist China and the Soviet bloc countries, was a pragmatist. From the Western viewpoint, he was far and away the least of many much greater evils, his elimination would clear the way for a horde of truly vicious Marxist monsters to take over and lead the nation-to-be Zimbabwe into the clutches of the big red bear.
A secondary consideration was that a successful Rhodesian assassination coup on Inkunzi would bolster the slowly flagging fighting resolve of the Rhodesian UDI government, and would render Ian Smith and his gang of right-wing cabinet ministers even less amenable to reason than they had been to date. No, it was absolutely essential that Josiah Inkunzi's life be protected at all costs, and Douglas Hunt Jeffreys tickled the sleeping woman gently.
"Wake up, pussy cat," he said. "It's time to talk." She sat up and stretched, and then groaned softly and touched herself cautiously.
"Ah!" she murmured huskily. "I ache all over, inside and out, and it feels good." "Light each of us a cigarette," he ordered, and she fitted one into his ivory holder with practised dexterity, lit it and placed it between his lips.
"When do you expect the next courier from Lusaka?" He blew a spinning smoke-ring that broke on her bosom like mist on a hilltop.
"Overdue," she said. "I told you about the Umlimo." "Oh, yes," Douglas nodded. "The spirit medium." "The arrangements to move her are all in hand, and Lusaka is sending a high party official, probably a commissar, to take charge of the transfer. He will arrive at any time." "It seems a lot of trouble to go to for a senile old witch, doctor." "She is the spiritual leader of the Matabele people," Leila told him fiercely, "her presence with the guerrilla army would be of incalculable value to their morale." "Yes, I understand, you explained the superstitions to me." Douglas stroked her cheek soothingly and she subsided gradually. "So they are sending a commissar. That's good, though it always puzzles me how they move back and forth across the border, in and out of the towns, and from one end of the country to the other, with so little trouble." "To the. average white man, one black face looks the same as every other," Leila explained. "There is no system of passes or passports, every village is a base, nearly every black person an ally. As long as they do not carry arms or explosives, they can use the buses and railways, and pass through the road-blocks with impunity." "All right," Douglas agreed. "Just as long as what I have for you gets back to Lusaka as soon as possible." "By next week at the latest," Leila promised.
"The Ballantyne Scouts are setting up a full-scale operation to cull Inkunzi and his staff at the safe house in Lusaka." "Oh my God, no! "Leila gasped with shock.
"Yes, I'm afraid so, unless we can warn him. Now here are the details. Memorize them, please." The rackety old bus came down the winding road through the hills, leaving behind it a long greasy black smear of diesel fumes which drifted sluggishly aside on the small breeze. The roof racks were piled with bundles tied with rope and pieces of string, with cardboard boxes and cheap suitcases, with squawking chickens in cages of plaited bark and bent green twigs, and with other less readily identifiable packages.
The driver slammed on his brakes when he saw the road-block ahead, and the chattering and laughter of his passengers died into an uneasy silence. As soon as the bus stopped, the black passengers poured out of the forward entrance, and under the direction of the waiting armed police separated into groups according to their sex, men to one side, women and their children to the other. In the meantime, two black constables climbed aboard to, search the empty bus for fugitives hiding under the seats or for hidden weapons.
Comrade Tungata Zebiwe was amongst the huddle of male passengers.
He was dressed in a floppy hat, a ragged shirt and short khaki trousers, on his feet were filthy tennis shoes, and his big toes protruded through the stained canvas uppers. He seemed typical of the unskilled itinerant labourers who made up the great bulk of the country's labour force, he was safe, just as long as the police check was cursory, but he had every reason to believe that this one would not be.
After crossing the Zambezi drifts in darkness, and negotiating the cordon sanitaire, he had made his way south through the abandoned strip and reached the main road near the collieries at Wankie. He was travelling alone, and carrying forged employment papers to show that he had been discharged two days previously from employment as a labourer at the collieries. It should have been enough to take him through any ordinary road-block.
However, two hours after he had boarded the crowded bus and when they were approaching the outskirts of Bulawayo, he realized suddenly that there was another ZIPRA courier amongst the passengers. She was a Matabele woman in her late twenties, who had been in the training camp with him in Zambia. She was also dressed like a peasant girl, and had an infant strapped upon her back in the traditional fashion. Tungata. studied her surreptitiously as the bus roared southwards, hoping that she might not be carrying incriminating material. If she was, and if she was picked up at a road-block, then every other passenger in the bus would be subjected to full security scrutiny, which included fingerprints, and as a former Rhodesian government employee, Tungata's fingerprints were on the files.
The woman, although his ally and comrade, was a deadly danger to him now. She was a totally unimportant pawn, a mere courier, and she was -expendable, but what was she carrying at the moment? He watched her surreptitiously, looking for any indication of her status, and then suddenly his attention focused on the infant strapped to the girl's back. With a swoop of dread in the pit of his stomach, Tungata realized the worst. The woman was active. If they took her, they would almost certainly take Tungata also.
Now, he lined up with the other male passengers for the body search by the black police members, on the far side of the bus the women passengers were forming a separate line. Women police would search them to the skin. The girl courier was in fifth place in the line, she was joggling the sleeping infant on her back, and its tiny head waggled from side to side. Tungata could wait no longer.
Abruptly he pushed his way to the front of the queue, and spoke "urgently but quietly to the black sergeant in charge of the search.
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