"The timing of the raid has nothing to do with my private affairs, it will be dictated entirely by Buffalo's movements. In any event, my wedding will take place a week before the start of quarantine. Janine and I will spend our honeymoon at the Victoria Falls Hotel which is only two hours" drive from the camp at Wankie Safari Lodge. She will fly back to Bulawayo on the airway's scheduled flight, and I will go into quarantine directly from Vic Falls." Douglas lifted a defensive hand and grinned mockingly. "I say, do keep your hair on, old man. just a civil enquiry, that's all. By the way, I think my wedding invitation must have been lost in the post.-" But Roland had returned to his list, and was studying it with all his attention.

Douglas Hunt-Jeffreys lay on the ample bed in the cool shuttered bedroom, and examined the naked woman who slept beside him. At first she had seemed a most unpromising subject, with her pale acne-scarred face and disconcerting staring eyes behind horn-rimmed spectacles, her abrupt, aggressive, almost mannish manner, and the smouldering intensity of the political militant. But stripped of her shapeless sweater and baggy skirts, of her thick woollen socks and crude leather sandals, she had a slim pale, almost girlish, body, with fine small breasts that Douglas found very much to his taste. When she removed the spectacles, her staring eyes softened into appealing unfocused myopia, and under Douglas" skilful lips and fingers, she unloosed a tumultuous physical response which had at first astonished and then delighted him. He found he could induce in her an epileptic passion, a state in which she was almost catatonic and totally susceptible to his will, her depravity limited only by the range of Douglas" fertile imagination.

"A murrain on beautiful women," he smiled contentedly to himself.

"It's the ugly little ducklings who are the absolute ravers!" They had met in the middle of the morning, and now it was careful not to disturb her, Douglas checked his gold Rolex it was two o'clock in the afternoon. Even for Douglas, a marathon performance.

"Poor lamb is exhausted." He craved a cigarette, but decided to give her ten minutes more. There was no hurry. He could afford to lie a little longer and leisurely review this case.

Like many good controllers, Douglas had found that a sexual relationship with his female agents, and occasionally even With some of his male agents, was an effective tool of manipulation, a short-cut to the dependencies and loyalties that were so desirable in his trade.

This case was a perfect example. Without the physical lever Doctor Leila St. John would be a difficult and unpredictable subject, whereas with it she had become one of his best agents ever.

Douglas Hunt-Jeffreys by a fluke of war was a born Rhodesian. His father had come out to Africa at the beginning of Hitler's war to command the Royal Air Force training station at Gwelo. He had met and married a local girl, and Douglas had been delivered in 1941 by the Air Force doctor. The family had returned to England at the end of his father's tour of duty, and Douglas had followed the well-worn family path to Eton, and then on to the Royal Air Force.

After that there had been an unusual diversion in his" career, and he found himself in British military intelligence. Back in 1964, when Ian Smith came to power in Rhodesia, and started making the first threatening noises about breaking with Britain in a unilateral declaration of independence, Douglas Hunt-Jeffreys had been the perfect choice of an agent to place in the field. He had returned to Rhodesia, taking up his Rhodesian nationality, joined the Rhodesian Air Force and began immediately to mole his way up the ladder of command.

He was now chief co-ordinator for British intelligence throughout the territory, and Doctor Leila St. John was one of his recruits.

Naturally, she had no idea as to who was her ultimate employer, any suggestion of military intelligence, no matter to which country it belonged, would have sent her scampering up the nearest tree like a frightened cat. Douglas grinned lazily at his own imagery. Leila St. John believed herself to be a member of a small courageous group of left-wing guerrillas, intent on wresting the land of her birth from its racialist fascist conquerors and delivering it unto the joys of Marxist communism.

On the other hand, the concern of Douglas Hunt-Jeffreys and his government was to arrive at the swiftest settlement acceptable to the United Nations and to the United States, France, West Germany and their other Western allies, and to withdraw from an embarrassing, untidy and costly situation with what dignity and despatch they could still muster, preferably leaving in charge the least objectionable of the African guerrilla leaders.

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.

Then Tungata pointed deliberately at. the girl in the women's line.

The girl saw the accuser's finger pointed at her, she looked about her, and then broke from the line and started to run.

"Stop her!" the sergeant bellowed, and the running girl loosed the strap of cloth that held the infant to her back and let the tiny black baby fall to the earth. Freed of her burden, she raced for the line of thick thorn bush along the verge of the road. However, the road-block had been laid to prevent just such an escape, and two police constables rose from concealment at the edge of the bush. The girl doubled back, but they had her trapped and a heavy blow with a gun-butt knocked her sprawling in the grass. They dragged her back, struggling and kicking, spitting and snarling, like a cat, and as she passed Tungata, she shrieked at him.

"Traitor, we will eat you! jackal, you will die-" Tungata stared at her with bovine indifference.

One of the constables picked up the naked infant from where the girl had abandoned it, and he exclaimed immediately.

"It's cold." He turned the body gingerly, and the tiny limbs sprawled lifelessly. "It's dead!" The constable's voice was shocked, and then he started again. "Look! Look at this!" The child's body had been gutted like that of a fish. The cut ran upwards from its groin, across its stomach, through the sternum of the chest to the base of the little throat and the wound had been closed with sacking twine and crude cobbled stitches. The white police captain, with a sickly expression on his face, snipped the stitches and the body cavity bulged open. It was packed with ropes of brown plastic explosive.

"All right." The captain stood up. "Hold them all. We will run a full check on every one of the bastards." Then the captain came to Tungata. "Well done, friend." He clapped Tungata's shoulder. "You can claim your reward from the main police station. Five thousand dollars that's good, hey! You just give them this." He scribbled on his notebook and tore off the sheet, "That's my name and rank. I will witness your claim. One of our Lan dRovers will be going into Bulawayo in a few minutes I'll see you get a lift into town." Tungata submitted docilely to the customary search by the guards at the gates to Khami Mission Hospital. He was still dressed in his labourer's rags, and carrying the forged discharge from the Wankie collieries.

One of the guards glanced at the work papers. "What is wrong with you?" "I have a snake in my stomach." Tungata clasped his hands over the offending organ. A snake in the stomach could mean anything from colic to duodenal ulcers.

The guard laughed. "The doctors will cut out your mamba for you, go to the out-patients department." He pointed out the side entrance, and Tungata went up the driveway with an ungainly sloppy gait.

"The Matabele sister at the out-patient desk recognized him with a flicker of surprise, then her expression went dead-pan and she made out a card for him and waved him to one of the crowded benches. A minute or two later the black sister rose from the desk and crossed to the door marked "Duty Doctor." She went in and closed the door behind her.

When she came out again, she pointed at Tungata. "You next!" she said.

Tungata shambled across the hall and went in through the same door. Leila St. John came joyfully to meet him, as soon as he closed the door behind him.

"Comrade Commissar!" she whispered, and embraced him. "I was so worried!" She kissed him on each cheek, and as she stepped back, Tungata had changed character from dull-witted peasant to deadly warrior, tall and dangerously cold-faced.

"You have clothes for me?" Behind the movable screen, Tungata changed swiftly and stepped out again buttoning the white laboratory-coat. On his lapel he wore a plastic dog-tag that identified him as "DOCTOR G. J. KUMALO', which placed him immediately above idle suspicion.

"I would like to know what arrangements you have made," he said, and seated himself facing Leila St. John across her desk.

"I have had the Umlimo in our geriatric ward since she was brought in by her followers from the Matopos Reservation about six months ago."

"What is her physical condition?" "She is a very old lady ancient, is perhaps the better word. I see no reason to doubt her claim that she is 120 years old. She was already a young woman when Cecil Rhodes" freebooters rode into Bulawayo and hunted King Lobengula to his death."

"Her condition, please." "She was suffering from malnutrition, but I have had her on a nutritional drip and she is much stronger, though she cannot walk, nor is she in control of her bowels and bladder. She is an albino, and she suffers from a type of skin allergy, but I have been able to prescribe an antihistamine ointment which has given her a great deal of relief. Her hearing and eyesight are failing, but her heart and other vital organs are remarkably strong for her age. Moreover, her brain is sharp and clear. She appears to be totally lucid." "So she can travel?"Tungata insisted.

"She is eager to do so. It is her own prophecy that she must cross the great waters before the spears of the nation prevail."

Tungata made an impatient gesture, and Leila St. John interpreted it.

"You do not set any store by the Umlimo, and her predictions, do you, Comrade?" "Do you, Doctor?" he asked.

"There are areas which our sciences have not yet penetrated.