Leopard Hunts in Darkness - Smith Wilbur (книга бесплатный формат .TXT) 📗

It doesn't matter now, it's all over anyway."

"Shut up, you fool," the white man hissed at him.

"Get him into the helicopter." Craig prodded the Uzi into the white man's back, and the pair started towards the ladder.

"Keep the gun on them, Sarah," Craig called and glanced over his shoulder. The helicopter pilot had almost reached the edge of the clearing. "Hurry it up," Craig snarled at them, and the white man shoved Peter Fungabera through the port and clambered up after him, with the black case dangling on its chain from his wrist.

Craig jumped up into the body of the helicopter.

"Over there! he ordered his two prisoners to the bench seat. "Strap yourselves in! "Then to Sarah, "Tell Pendula. to get going!" The helicopter lifted off and rose swiftly out of the clearing, and Craig tossed the grenade out of the open port. It dropped away and exploded in the forest far below.

Craig hoped the explosion would heighten the confusion down there.

Craig stood behind Peter Fungabera with the Uzi pressed to the nape of his. neck while with his free hand he reached over and pu&d the Tokarev pistol from the holster on Peter'shipt He thrust it into his own pocket, then he backed off and buckled on the engineer's safety straps at the doorway. As Sarah clambered down from the cockpit, he ordered her, "Cover them both!" and he leaned out of the port and peered ahead.

Almost immediately, he saw Tungata. He was already out of the trees, just below the rock slope, waving both hands over his head, brandishing the AK 47.

"Hold on! I'm going down for the pick-up," Sally Anne -voice squealed from the twoway speaker above Craig's head.

The big helicopter dropped swiftly down towards where Tungata was waiting, and Sally' Anne steadied the machine and hovered above his head.

All around Tungata the grass was blown flat by the down-draught and Tungata's stolen battle-smock rippled and whipped about his body. He threw the AK 47 aside and looked up at Craig. The helicopter sank down the last few feet, and Craig leaned out of the hatch and made an arm for him. Tungata jumped and they locked arms at the elbows and Craig swung him aboard.

"Okay!" he yelled up at the speaker. "Go for it!" And they went bounding up into the sky so swiftly that Craig's knees buckled.

At a little over a thousand feet, Sally' Anne went straight and level and turned onto a westerly heading.

Tungata turned to the figures on the bench seat and checked. He stared at Peter Fungabera ferociously, but Peter slumped, still dazed and beaten, on the bench seat.

"Where did you find them, Pupho?" Tungata asked huskily.

"They are a little present for you, Sam." Craig handed him the Uzi sub machinegun "It's loaded and cocked. Can I leave you to look after this pair of beauties?"

"It will afford me the greatest of pleasure." Tungata turned the gun on the two men sitting side by side on the bench seat.

"I'm going to see how Pendula is making out." Craig began to turn away, but something in the way the captive white man was holding himself alerted him, and he turned back quickly. The white prisoner had used the confusion to unlock the steel cuff from his wrist, and now he hurled the black attache case across the hold towards the open port.

In a reflex action, Craig threw himself to one side, likea basket-ball player intercepting a pass, and he got a hand to the flying case, deflecting it aside so that it missed the open doorway and clattered against the bulkhead. He dived for it and hugged it to his chest.

"This must be a very interesting piece of goods," he observed mildly, as he stood up. "I'd watch that one, Sam, he is as tricky as he is beautiful, he advised.

Lugging the case, Craig made his way forward and clambered up into the raised cockpit. He dropped into the co-pilot's seat next to Sally-Anne, and shrugged out of the pack that contained the diamonds. He wedged it securely beside the seat.

"So you can fly this damned thing, after all, bird lady!" She grinned at him, her teeth very white in her blackened face.

"I'm heading back towards the pan where we left the Land-Rover." "Good thinking how's the fuel?"

"One tank full, the other three quarters we have plenty in hand." Craig placed the attache case in his lap and checked the locks. They were combinations.

"How long to the border? "he asked.

"We are making 170 knots, less than two hours better than walking home, isn't it?"

"My oath!" Craig grinned back at her.

With his claspknifelie ripped out the combination locks and opened the lid of the attache case. On top there were two spare shirts and a ball of socks, a bottle of Russian vodka half full, a cheap wallet containing four passports, Finnish, Swedish, East German and Russian, airline tickets for Aeroflot.

"Well-travelled gentleman!" Craig unscrewed the top of the vodka bottle and took a swig. "Brrr!" he said. "That's the real stuff!" He passed the bottle to Sally-Anne and lifted the shirts. Under them were three green-covered folders, they were stamped with Cyrillic lettering and black hammer and sickle crests.

"Russian, by God! The man is a Bolshie!" He opened the top folder and his interest quickened.

"It's typed in English!" He read the top page, and became gradually immersed in the contents. He did not even look UP when Sally-Anne asked, What's it say?" He skimmed through the first file and then the other two. Twenty-five minutes later he looked up with a stunned bemused expression and stared unseeingly through the windshield.