Elephant Song - Smith Wilbur - Страница 52

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He slept until dinner-time, then showered and changed.  He felt refreshed and more cheerful.  His arm was less painful and the stiffness had eased.  It seemed that his mind had been busy even while he slept, for the details of his plan were clear as he sat down at the writing-desk and laid his small purchases out in front of him.  He lit one end of a mosquito coil and left it smouldering as he worked, timing the rate at which it burned.

Using his clasp-knife he snipped the heads off the safetymatches.  He used up the entire package of matches and discarded the decapitated sticks in the waste-paper bin.  He stuffed the match heads back into the paper wrapping, and taped it all up.

It made a neat package the size of his fist, a very functional little incendiary bomb.  He checked the burning rate of the mosquito coil.  It was approximately two inches per half hour.

The acrid insecticidal smoke made him sneeze, so he took the coil to the bathroom and flushed it down the toilet.

He returned to the desk and cut two fresh coils five inches long, to give a delay of a little over one hour.  They were the time-fuses of his makeshift bomb, one as a back-up should the other fail.  He pierced the paper packet of match heads, inserted the ends of the coils in the punctures and taped them carefully in place.

Then he went downstairs and stood himself a good dinner and half a bottle of Chardonnay.

After dinner he checked Chetti Singh's residential address in the telephone directory, and found the street in the town map provided so thoughtfully by the Lilongwe Chamber of Commerce.

Then he went down to the Volkswagen in the hotel parking lot and drove through the almost deserted streets.  He passed the lighted shop-front of Chetti Singh's supermarket, then circled the block.  in the alley behind the building he noted the bags of garbage and empty cardboard boxes piled against the rear wall of the supermarket, awaiting collection.  He smiled with satisfaction as he noticed the smoke-detector of the firewarning system high on the wall above the piles of garbage.

From there he drove out to the airport.  The Landcruiser was now conspicuous in the almost deserted airport carpark.  He gave the attendant a ten kwacha note and asked him to keep an eye on it.  Then he opened the back doors of the truck and rummaged around in his medical box until he found the plastic canister of sleeping capsules.

Parked under a street light he opened the plastic bag of minced meat in his lap.  By this time it had defrosted.  With his thumbnail he split open the sleeping capsules and poured the white powder over the meat. He used fifty capsules.

That should be enough to stun a bull elephant, he decided with satisfaction, and thoroughly mixed the drug into the chopped meat.

Then he drove out to Chetti Singh's home in the elite suburb behind State House and the main government buildings.  The house was the grandest on the street, set in two or three acres of lawns and flowering shrubs.  He parked the Volkswagen further down the street in an unlit section and walked back along the sidewalk.

As he came level with the fence surrounding Chetti Singh's property, two dark shapes detached themselves from the shadows and hurled themselves against the wire mesh.  German Rottweilers, Daniel noted, as the two guard dogs clamoured for his blood.  My least favourite animals, after the hyena.  On the other side of the fence, they kept pace with him as he followed the sidewalk to the end of the property.

As he passed the gates at the entrance to the driveway he noted that the padlock on the chain was of simple construction.

Two minutes' work with a paper-clip.

He left the two Rottweilers staring after him hungrily and turned the corner into an unlit side street.  From his pocket he brought out the packet of doped minced meat and divided it into two equal portions.

Then he walked back the way he had come.  The dogs were waiting for him. He tossed a portion of the meat over the fence and one of the dogs sniffed it and then gulped it down.  Then he threw the second portion to the other dog and watched while it was devoured.

He returned to the Volkswagen and drove back into town.

He parked a block away from the supermarket.  Still sitting in the front seat, he lit the ends of the mosquito coils protruding from the packet of match heads.  He blew on them gently to make sure they were burning evenly, then left the Volkswagen and sauntered down the alley behind the supermarket.

It was dark and deserted.  With barely a check in his stride, he dropped the incendiary bomb into one of the cardboard cartons that made up the pile of rubbish and sauntered out of the alley.

Back in the Volkswagen he checked the time; it was a few minutes before ten o'clock.  He drove back and parked three blocks away from Chetti Singh's home.  He pulled on the black leather gloves.  From under the driver's seat he brought out the twelve-gauge shotgun still wrapped in its sheet of light tarpaulin.  He broke down the weapon into its three component parts and wiped them down meticulously, made certain there were no fingerprints.  Then he refitted the forestock to the double barrels.

When he stepped out of the Volkswagen he slipped the barrels down one leg of his trousers, while the breech and buttstock section he tucked under his leather jacket.

The barrels in his pants hampered his gait, but it was better to lien a little than parade fully armed through the streets.  He had no idea how often the police patrolled this area.  He checked his pockets to make sure that he had the spare cartridges and Chawe's warehouse keys.

Then he limped on one stiff leg towards the Sikh's home.

There were no guard dogs to greet him when he reached the corner fence of the property, and neither of them appeared even when he whistled softly for them.  The dosage of the drug he had given them might have put them out for good and all.  At the gates to the driveway it took him even less than the two minutes he had estimated to deal with the padlock.  He left the gates wide open and moved quietly across the lawns, avoiding the crunching gravel of the driveway.

Daniel was prepared for a challenge from a night-watchman; even though Malawi was not as lawless and uncontrolled as Zambia there might have been a guard.  However, Chetti Singh seemed to place more faith in animals than in humans.

No challenge came, and from the shelter of a spreading bougainvillaea arbour he surveyed the main house.  It was in low ranch-house style with large picture windows, most of which were curtained and lit.

Occasionally he saw the shadows of the occupants flit across the curtains and he could distinguish between the silhouettes of Mama Singh and her more sylphlike daughters.

The double garage was attached to the main house.  One of the doors stood open and through it he made out the gleaming chrome work of the Cadillac.

Chetti Singh was at home.

Still standing in shadow, Daniel reassembled the shotgun and slipped two cartridges into the breeches.  At close range they would almost cut a man in half.  He closed the action, and set the safety-catch.

Turning the dial of his wristwatch to catch the light from the windows he read the luminous numerals.  In something under twenty minutes, depending on the burning rate of the mosquito coils, the packet of match beads would explode into bright phosphorous flame.  The garbage pile should burn with a heavy outpouring of smoke and within seconds the fire alarms would detect it.

Daniel moved quickly across the open lawn, watching the windows of the house.  The gravel crunched lightly under his feet and then he was into the garage.  He tensed for any outcry, and when none came he checked the doors of the Cadillac.

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