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“Captain Fawkes, this is indeed a pleasure,” De Vaal said in Afrikaans. “It was good of you to make the trip.”

Fawkes crushed De Vaal’s hand within his. “Sorry, sir, but I do not speak your language.”

De Vaal smoothly slipped into English. “Forgive me,” he said with a feint smile. “I forget that you Eng-ah-Scotsmen do not take to strange tongues.”

“We’re just dunderheaded, I guess.”

“Pardon me for saying so, Captain, but you look as though you shaved with a branch of thorns.”

“I encountered an ambush. Bloody little devils broke my windshield. I would have stopped at the local hospital, but I was running late for our meeting.”

De Vaal took Fawkes by the arm and steered him to a chair. “I think we had better get a drink in you. Joris, will you do the honors? Captain Fawkes, this is Colonel Joris Zeegler, director of Internal South African Defence.”

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Zeegler nodded and held up a bottle. “I take it you prefer whisky, Captain?”

“Aye, that I do, Colonel.”

De Vaal stepped over to the door and opened it. “Lieutenant Anders,

^inform Dr. Steedt that we have a patient for him. I suspect you will find

‘• him in his compartment, dozing.” He closed the door and faced the

room. “First things first. Now then, Captain, while we await the good

doctor, perhaps you will be kind enough to provide us with a detailed

report of your ambush.”

The doctor came and went, grumbling good-naturedly over the rhinoceros hide Fawkes called skin. Except for two wounds that called for three stitches each, the doctor left the rest unbandaged. “Lucky for you those scratch marks don’t match fingernail tracks, or you’d have a tough time explaining them to your wife,” he joked as he snapped shut his bag.

“You’re certain the attack was not organized?” Zeegler asked after the doctor departed.

“Not likely,” Fawkes replied. “They were only ragged bush kids. God only knows what devil inspired them to go on a killing spree.”

“I am afraid your run-in with bloodthirsty juveniles is not an isolated occurrence,” De Vaal said softly.

Zeegler nodded in agreement. “Your story, Captain, fits the same crude modus operandi, if you will, of at least twelve other attacks in the last two months.”

“If you want my opinion,” Fawkes snorted, “that damned AAR is in back of it.”

“Indirectly, the blame can be laid on the African Army of Revolution’s doorstep.” Zeegler drew on a pencil-thin cigar.

“Half the black boys between the ages of twelve to eighteen from here to Cape Town would give their testicles to become an AAR soldier,” De Vaal injected. “You might call it a form of hero worship.”

“You have to give the devil his due,” said Zeegler. “Hiram Lusana is every bit as shrewd a psychologist as he is a propagandist and a tactician.”

“Aye,” Fawkes said, looking over at the colonel. “I’ve heard a great deal about that bastard. How did he come to be leader of the AAR?”

“Self-imposed. He’s an American black. Seems he made a vast sum of money in international drug smuggling. But wealth was not enough..He entertained dreams of power and grandeur. So he sold out his business to

Operation Wild Rose I 67

a French syndicate and came to Africa and began organizing and equipping his own army of liberation.”

“Seems a staggering undertaking for only one man,” said Fawkes, “even a wealthy one.”

“Not so staggering when you have help, and lots of it,” Zeegler explained. “The Chinese supply his arms and the Vietnamese train his men. Fortunately, our security forces are able to keep them in a state of almost constant rout.”

“But our government will surely fall if we are subjected to a prolonged economic blockade,” added De Vaal. “Lusana’s game plan is to fight a clean war by the book. No terrorism, no killing of innocent women and children. His forces thus far have attacked only military installations. Then, by playing benevolent savior, he can gain total moral and financial support from the United States, Europe, and the Third World powers. Once he achieves these goals he can exert his newly acquired influence to close off all our economic dealings with the outside world. Then the end of White South Africa is only a matter of weeks.”

“Is there no way to contain Lusana?” asked Fawkes.

De Vaal’s bushy eyebrows rose. “There is one possibility, provided you give it your blessing.”

Fawkes stared at the Minister, his expression one of bewilderment. “I’m only a beached sailor and a farmer. I know nothing about insurgent warfare. Of what use can I be to the Ministry of Defence?”

De Vaal did not answer but simply passed Fawkes a leather-bound book about the size of a thin bookkeeping ledger.

“It’s called Operation Wild Rose.”

The lights of Pembroke blinked on one by one in the evening dusk. A light rain had pelted the windows of the coach, leaving a myriad of streaks down the dust-coated glass. Fawkes’s reading spectacles clung to his great nose and magnified his eyes as they darted back and forth over the pages without pause. He was so engrossed in what he was reading he absentmindedly chewed on the stem of a pipe that had long since burned out.

It was a few minutes past eight o’clock when he closed the cover of Operation Wild Rose. He sat there for a long moment as though in contemplation. Finally he shook his head tiredly.

“I pray to God it never comes to this,” he said quietly.

“I share your sentiments,” said De Vaal. “But the time is fast ap—

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preaching when our backs will be against the wall and Operation Wild Rose may well be our final hope of escaping annihilation.”

“I still fail to see what you gentlemen want from me.”

“Merely your opinion, Captain,” said Zeegler. “We’ve made feasibility studies of the plan and know what the computers say about its chances of success. We’re hoping your years of experience will supply the pros and cons as judged by a human.”

“I can tell you the scheme is damn near impossible,” said Fawkes. “And for my money you can add ‘insane’ as well. What you’re proposing is terrorism at its worst.”

“Exactly,” agreed De Vaal. “By using a black hit-and-run force masquerading as members of the African Army of Revolution, we can swing international sympathy away from the blacks and to the white cause of South Africa.”

“We must have the support of countries like the United States to survive,” Zeegler explained.

“What happened in Rhodesia can happen here,” De Vaal went on. “All private property, farms, stores, banks, seized and nationalized. Blacks and whites slaughtered in the streets, thousands exiled from the continent with barely the clothes on their backs. A new black communist-oriented government, a despotic, tribal dictatorship suppressing and exploiting their own people in virtual slavery. You can be certain, Captain Fawkes, that if and when our government topples, it will not be replaced by one with democratic majority rule in mind.”

“We don’t know for sure that that will happen here,” said Fawkes. “And even if we could look into a crystal ball and predict the worst, it would not condone unleashing Operation Wild Rose.”

“I’m not after a moral judgment,” De Vaal said sternly. “You’ve stated the plan is impossible. I will accept that.”

After Fawkes left, De Vaal poured himself another drink. “The captain was frank. I’ll give that to him.”

“He was also quite right,” said Zeegler. “Wild Rose/s terrorism at its worst.”

“Perhaps,” De Vaal muttered. “But what choice does one have when one is winning battles while losing the war?”

“I am not a grand strategist,” Zeegler replied. “But I’m certain Operation Wild Rose is not the answer, Minister. I urge you to shelve it.”

De Vaal considered Zeegler’s words for several moments. “All right,

Operation Wild Rose I 69

Colonel. Gather all data pertaining to the operation and seal it in the Ministry vault with the other contingency plans.”

“Yes, sir,” said Zeegler, his relief obvious.

De Vaal contemplated the liquid in his glass. Then he looked up with a thoughtful expression.

“A pity, a great pity. It just might have worked.”

Fawkes was drunk.

If a monstrous claw had reached down and plucked away the long mahogany bar of the Pembroke Hotel, he would have fallen flat on his bandaged face. Dimly, he saw that he was the only patron left in the room. He ordered another drink, noting in a mild sort of sadistic glee that it was long past closing time and the five-foot-five-inch bartender was uneasy about asking him to leave.

“Are you all right, sir?” the bartender probed cautiously.

“No, dammit!” Fawkes roared. “I feel bloody-well awful.”

“Beggin’ your pardon, but if it makes you feel so bad, why do you drink it?”

“It’s not the whisky that turns my guts. It’s Operation Wild Rose.”

“Sir?”

Fawkes looked furtively around the room and then leaned across the bar. “What if I was to tell you I met with the Minister of Defence right down the street at the station, in his private railroad car, not more than three hours ago?”

A smug smile curled the bartender’s lips. “The Minister must be one hell of a wizard, Mr. Fawkes.”

“Wizard?”

“To be in two places at the same time.”

“Make your point, man.”

The bartender reached under a shelf and threw a newspaper on the bar in front of Fawkes. He pointed to an article on the front page and read aloud the caption.

” ‘Defence Minister Pieter De Vaal enters Port Elizabeth Hospital for surgery.’ “

“Impossible!”

“That’s this evening’s paper,” said the bartender. “You have to admit-not only does the Minister have extraordinary powers of recuperation, but one fast train as well. Port Elizabeth is over a thousand kilometers to the south.”

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Operation Wild Rose I 71

Fawkes snatched up the paper, shook the fuzziness from his vision, put on his glasses, and read the story. It was true. Clumsily, he threw a wad of bills at the bartender and staggered through the doorway, through the hotel lobby, and into the street.

When he reached the railroad station, it was deserted. The moon’s light glinted on empty rails. De Vaal’s train was gone.

They came with the rising sun. Somala counted at least thirty of them, clothed in the same type of field uniform he wore. He watched as they crept out of the bush like shadows and disappeared into the sugarcane.

He swept the acacia tree with his binoculars. The scout in the blind was gone. Probably slipped away to join his unit, Somala surmised. But who were they? None of the raiding force looked familiar to him. Could they be members of another insurgent movement? If so, why did they wear the distinctive black beret of the AAR?

Somala was sorely tempted to leave his hiding place inside the baobab tree and approach the intruders, but he thought better of it and remained motionless. He would watch and observe. Those were his orders, and he would obey them.

The Fawkes farm was slowly coming to life. The workers in the compound were beginning to spread out and commence their daily chores. Patrick Fawkes, Jr., passed through the electricity-wired gate and went off to the great stone barn, where he began tinkering with a tractor. The guards were changing at the gate, and the fellow who had manned the night shift was standing half in, half out of the enclosure, swapping small talk with his relief, when abruptly and silently he fell to the ground. Simultaneously, the other guard slumped and dropped.

Somala gaped in awe as a wave of raiders sprinted out of the sugarcane field in a loose skirmish line and advanced toward the house. Most were carrying Chinese CK-88 assault weapons, but two of their number knelt and aimed long-barreled rifles with scopes and silencers.

The CK-88s opened up and Fawkes Junior seemed to snap to attention as at least ten slugs ripped through his body. His hands splayed and clawed at empty air, and then he crumpled across the tractor’s unhooded engine. The thunder of the volley alerted Jenny and she ran to an upstairs window.

“Oh God, Mama!” she screamed. “There’s soldiers in the yard and they’ve shot Pat.”

Myrna Fawkes grabbed the Holland & Holland and ran to the front door. One look was all she needed to see that the defenses had been breached. Already Africans in green and brown mottled uniforms were surging through the open gate left useless by the broken electrical circuit. She slammed the door, threw the lock, and yelled up the stairs to Jenny.

“Get on the radio and call the constable.”

Then she calmly sat down, shoved two shells containing double-O buckshot into the breech of the twelve-gauge, and waited.

The crackle of the rifle fire suddenly increased and the shrill cries of women and frightened children began coming from the compound. Even the Fawkeses’ prize cattle were not spared. Myrna shut out the bellows of their dying agony, choking off a dry sob at the waste of it all. She lifted the twin barrels as the first attacker crashed his way through the door.

He was the handsomest African Myrna had ever seen. His features were distinctly Caucasian, and yet his skin was nearly a perfect blue-black. He lifted his rifle as if to smash out her brains with the butt and lunged across the room. Myrna pulled both triggers and old Lucifer spat fire.

The blast at such close range nearly tore the African’s head off. His face dissolved in a spray of bone and reddish-gray tissue, and he jerked backward against the door frame and melted to the floor, his torso quivering in spastic pulsations.

Almost casually, as though she were at a skeet tournament, Myrna reloaded the gun. She had just snapped shut the breech when two more men hurtled through the door. Old Lucifer took the first squarely in the chest, dropping him instantly. The other attacker leaped over his fallen comrade’s body, a move that threw Myrna’s aim a trifle low. The discharge from the other barrel hit her attacker in the groin. He screamed, cast his weapon aside, and clutched himself. He grunted incoherently and staggered back outside to the veranda, pitching forward with his booted feet still in the room.