A Time to Die - Smith Wilbur (читать книги полные .txt) 📗

Sean's gut knotted with shock, and for long moments he was stunned by the enormity and cunning of the trap China had prepared for him. The cruelty of it was diabolical. To allow them to believe they were being set free, to let them taste the relief of crossing out of harm, when in fact they were going to a fate even worse than China himself could have meted out to them.

The fury of the Zimbabwean high command would know no bounds. Sean was the holder of a Zimbabwean passport, a document of convenience but one that would make him a traitor and murderer beyond any help from outside. He would be handed over to the notorious Zimbabwe Central Intelligence Organization and taken to the interrogation cells at Chikarubi prison, and he would never emerge from there alive. Job, despite his wounds, would share the same fate.

Even though Claudia was an American citizen, officially she no longer existed. It was weeks since she had been reported missing.

By this time, interest in her case, even at the U.S. embassies in Harare and Pretoria, would have cooled. Along with her father, she was presumed dead, so she could expect no protection. She was as vulnerable as they were.

The trap was completely closed; there was no way out. The Renamo army behind them, Frelimo on either hand, and the Zimbabwe CIO ahead of them. They were marooned in a devastated wasteland, doomed to be hunted down Ike wild animals or to starve slowly in the wilderness.

"Think!" Sean told himself. "Find the way out."

They could attempt to cross the Zimbabwean border at some other point than the Honde Valley, but the CIO would have the entire country alerted for them. There were permanent army blocks on every road. Without papers they wouldn't get more than a few miles, and then there was Job--what would he do with Job?

wounded man when every police and How could they transport a r somebody in a stretchers military post would be looking lo we must go southward," Alphonso said. "We must go to South Africa."we?" Sean stared at him. "You want to come with us?"

"I can't go back to General China," he pointed out philosophwill come with you to betrayed him. I ically. "Not after I have South Africa."

"That's a trek of three hundred miles, through two Opposed armies, Frefimo and the southern division of Renamo. And what ut Job?"

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"We will carry him , Alphonso replied.

"Three hundred miles"

"Then we will leave Sin behind." Alphonso shrugged. "He is only a Matabele and he is dying anyway. It will be no great loss."

Sean caught the angry words that rose to his tongue and re silent while he thought it out. Every way he twisted it and mained examined it, he saw that Alphonso was right. To the north the dubious haven of Malawi was blocked by the waters of Cabora he east lay the Indian Bossa and by General China's division. To t Ocean, and to the west the Zimbabwe

CIO.

t," Sean admitted reluctantly. "South is the only way.

righ Frefimo and the south Perhaps we can squeeze through between heavily em division of Renanio. All we have to do is get across a guarded railway line and the Limpopo River and find enough to eat while we are doing it in a land that has been burned and devastated by ten years of civil war."

"In South Africa we will eat meat every day," Alphonso pointed out cheerfully.

Sean stood up. "Will your men follow you?"

"I will kill those that don't." Alphonso was matter-of-fact. "We can't let them go back to General China."

"Right," Sean agreed. "And you will report on the radio schedule that I have crossed into Zimbabwe. We'll be able to string China along on the radio for four or five days. He won't realize that we have broken away southward until we are well on our way and beyond his range. You had better talk to your men now. We'll have to turn south right away. Talk to them before they realize for themselves that we are up to something."

Alphonso called in the sentries, and in the gray light of dawn the faces of the Shanganes were sober and intent as they squatted in a circle around him and listened to Alphonso describe the southern paradise to which he would lead them.

"We are all weary of fighting, of living like animals in the bush.

It is time we learned to live like men, to find good wives to bear our sons." He was filled with the fiery eloquence of the recent convert, and before he had finished Sean saw the sparkle of anticipation in most of their eyes and felt a lift of relief. For the first time he began to believe the journey ahead might just be possible, with a great deal of endeavor and an even greater deal of luck.

He went to tell Claudia and Job what lay ahead. Claudia was bathing Job's face with a damp rag. "He's much better, a good night's rest." She broke off as she saw his face. Her spirits visibly Plummeted as he explained what they had to do.

"It was too good to be true," she whispered. "I knew deep down it wouldn't be that easy, that General China wasn't Santa Claus in disguise."

Job lay so stiff on his stretcher that Sean thought he had once again slipped over the edge of consciousness, and he reached out to check his pulse. At his touch Job opened his eyes.

"Can you trust those Shanganes?" he whispered.

"We don't have much choice," Sean pointed out and then went on briskly, "We-"

"Leave me here." Job's whisper was barely audible, but Sean's expression hardened and his voice was brittle with anger.