Avenger

He stripped down to boxer shorts, selected the items he wanted to take with him, wrapped them in his sweaty T-shirt, and bundled them into the lunch bag. The rest he would have to lose. This surplus was rolled into the knapsack and disposed of during a second visit to the latrines. Then he waited for the clang of the iron bar on the hanging length of railway track. It came as ever at 6:30, still dark but with a hint of pink in the east. The duty guard, standing outside the village just beyond the chain-link double gates of the farmland, was the source. All around Dexter the village began to come to life.

He avoided the run to the latrines and wash troughs and hoped no one would notice. After twenty minutes, peering through a slit in the boards of the door, he saw that his alley was empty again. Chin down, sombrero tilted forward, he scurried to the latrines, one figure in sandals, pants, and shirts among a thousand.

He crouched over an open hole while the others took their breakfast. Only when the third clang summoned the workers to the access gate did he join the line.

The five checkers sat at their tables, examined the dog tags, checked the work manifests, punched the number into the records of those admitted that morning, and to which labour gang he was assigned, and waved the labourer through to join his foreman and be led away to collect tools and start the allocated tasks.

Dexter reached the table attending to his line, offered his dog tag between forefinger and thumb, like the others, leaned forward and coughed. The checker pulled his face away sharply to one side, noted the tag number, and waved him away. The last thing the man wanted was a face full of chilli odour. The new recruit shuffled off to draw his hoe; the assigned task was weeding the avocado groves.

At 7:30, Kevin McBride breakfasted alone on the terrace. The grapefruit, eggs, toast, and plum jam would have done credit to any five-star hotel.

At 8:15, the Serb joined him. "I think it would be wise for you to pack," he said. "When you have seen what Major Van Rensberg will show you, I hope you will agree, that this mercenary has a 1 percent chance of getting here, even less of getting near me, and none of getting out again. There is no point in your staying. You may tell Mr. Devereaux that I will complete my part of our arrangement, as agreed, at the end of the month."

At 8:30, McBride threw his suitcase into the rear of the South African's open Jeep and climbed beside the major.

"So, what do you want to see?" asked the head of security.

"I am told it is virtually impossible for an unwanted visitor to get in here at all. Can you tell me why?"

"Look, Mr. McBride, when I designed all this I created two things: One, it is an almost completely self-sufficient farming paradise. Everything is here. Second, it is a fortress, a sanctuary, a refuge, safe from almost all outside invasion or threat.

"Now, of course, if you are talking about a full military operation, paratroopers, armour, of course it could be invaded. But one mercenary acting alone? Never."

"How about arrival by sea?"

"Let me show you."

Van Rensberg let in the clutch and they set off, leaving a plume of rising dust behind them. The South African pulled over and stopped near a cliff edge.

"You can see from here," he said, as they climbed out. "The whole estate is surrounded by sea, at no point less than twenty feet below the cliff top, in most areas fifty feet. Sea-sca

"Interception?"

"Two fast patrol boats, one at sea at all times. There is a one-mile limit of forbidden water around the whole peninsula. Only the occasional delivery freighter is allowed in."

"Underwater entry? Amphibious special forces?"

Van Rensberg snorted derisively. "A special force of one? Let me show you what would happen."

He took his walkietalkie, called the radio basement, and was patched through to the slaughterhouse. The rendezvous was across the estate, near the derricks. McBride watched a bucket of offal go down the slide and drop into the sea thirty feet below.

For several seconds there was no reaction. Then the first scimitar fin sliced the surface. Within sixty seconds there was a feeding frenzy. Van Rensberg laughed.

"We eat well here. Plenty of steak. My employer does not eat steak, but the guards do. Many of them, like me, are from the old country, and we like our *braai*-or barbecue as you Americans call it."

"So?"

"When a beast is slaughtered, lamb, goat, pig, steer, about once a week, the fresh offal is thrown into the ocean. And the blood. That sea is alive with sharks. Blacktip, whitefin, tiger, giant hammerhead, they're all there. Last month one of my men fell overboard. The boat swerved back to pick him up. They were there in thirty seconds. Too late."

"He didn't come out of the water?"

"Most of him did. But not his legs. He died two days later."

"Burial?"

"Out there."

"So the sharks got him after all."

"No one makes mistakes around here."

"What about crossing the sierra, the way I came in yesterday?"

In answer Van Rensberg handed McBride a pair of field glasses. "Have a look. You ca

"But at night?"

"So you reach the bottom. Your man is outside the razor wire, over two miles from the mansion and outside the wall. He is not a peon, not a guard; he is quickly spotted andÉtaken care of."

"What about that stream I saw? Could one come in down the stream?"

"Good thinking, Mr. McBride. Let me show you."

Van Rensberg drove to the airfield, entered with his own remote for the chain-link gate, and motored to where the stream from the hills ran under the runway. They dismounted. There was a long patch of water open to the sky between the runway and the fence. The clear water ran gently over grasses and weeds on the bottom."

"See anything?"

"Nope," said McBride.

"They're in the cool, in the shade, under the runway."

It was clearly the South African's party piece. He kept a small supply of beef jerky in the Jeep. When he tossed a piece in, the water seethed. McBride saw the piranha sweep out of the shadow and the wad of beef was shredded by a myriad of needle-sharp teeth.

"Enough? I'll show you how we husband the water supply here and never lose security. Come."

Back in the farmland, Van Rensberg followed the stream for most of its meandering course through the estate. At a dozen points, spurs had been taken off the main current to irrigate various crops or top up different storage ponds, but they were always blind alleys.

The main stream curved hither and yon but eventually came back to the cliff edge near the runway but beyond the wire. There it increased in speed and rushed over the cliff into the sea.

"Right near the edge I have a plate of spikes buried," said Van Rensberg. "Anyone trying to swim through here will be taken by the current and swept along, out of control, between smooth walls of concrete, toward the sea. Passing over the spikes, the helpless swimmer will enter the sea bleeding badly. Then what? Sharks, of course."

"But at night?"

"Ah, you have not seen the dogs? A pack of twelve. Dobermans and deadly. They are trained not to touch anyone in the uniform of the estate guards and another dozen of the senior perso

"They are released at sundown. After that every peon and every stranger has to remain outside the wire or survive for a few minutes until the roaming dogs find him. After that there is no chance for him. So this mercenary of yours. What is he going to do?"

"I haven't the faintest idea. If he's got any sense, I guess he's gone by now."