Avenger

Seconds later the long, wailing sound of the siren rolled over the peninsula. It was heard in field and barn, shed and orchard, kitchen, garden, and pigsty.

Every one out there raised his head from what he was doing to stare toward the main gate. When their undivided attention had been secured, the voice of the radio operator in the basement beneath the mansion was heard.

"All guards to main gate. Repeat, all guards to main gate. On the double."

There were over sixty on day shift and the rest on layover in their barracks. From the fields, riding four-wheelers from the farthest reaches, jogging on foot from the barracks a quarter mile from the main gate, they converged in response to the emergency.

Van Rensberg took his offroad back through the gate and waited for them, standing on the hood, bullhorn in hand.

"We don't have an escape," he told them when they stood in front of him. "We have the reverse. We have an intruder. Now he's masquerading as a labourer. Same clothes, same sandals, same sombrero. He's even got a stolen dog tag. Day shift: Round up and bring in every single labourer. No exceptions. Off-duty shift: Search every barn, cowshed, stable, workshop. Then seal and mount guard. Use your radios to stay in touch with squad commanders. Junior leaders, stay in touch with me. Now get to it. Anyone in prisoner uniform seen ru

The hundred men began to fan out over the estate. They had the midsection to cover: from the chain-link fence separating the village and airfield from the farmland up to the mansion wall. A big territory; too big even for a hundred men. And it would take hours.

Van Rensberg had forgotten that McBride was leaving. He ignored the American, busy with his own pla

Even with his laboured Spanish, the CIA man could work out that that meant: "Funeral service for our brother Pedro Hernandez. Eleven in the morning." Did the Avenger not see it? Could he not work out the sense? It would be reasonable that the priest would not normally visit his vestry until Sunday. But today was different. At exactly ten to eleven he would open his vestry cupboard and see the prisoner.

Why not dump him somewhere else? Why not tape him to his own cot where no one would find him till sundown or not even then?

He found the major speaking to the airfield mechanics.

"What's wrong with it? Screw the tail rotor. I need it back up in the air. Well, hurry it up."

He flicked off his machine, listened to McBride, glared and snapped, "Your fellow countryman simply made a mistake, that is all, an expensive mistake. It's going to cost him his life."

An hour passed. Even without field glasses McBride could see the first columns of white cotton-clad workers being forcemarched back to the double gates to their village. Beside the lines of men, the uniformed guards were shouting them on. Midday. The heat was a hammer on the back of the head.

The milling crowd of men in front of the gates grew ever bigger. The chitchat on the radio never stopped, as sector after sector was cleared of workers, buildings searched, declared clear, sealed, and ma

At 1:30 the number checking began. Van Rensberg insisted on the five checkers resuming their places behind the tables and passing the workers through, one after another, two hundred per column.

The men normally worked in the cool of the dawn or the evening. They were baking alive in the heat. Two or three peons fainted and were helped through by friends. Every tag was checked until its number matched one passed through that same morning. When the last white-bloused figure stumbled toward the village, rest, shade, and water, the senior checker nodded.

"One missing," he called.

Van Rensberg walked to his desk to peer over his shoulder.

"Number five-three-one-oh-eight."

"Name?"

"Ramon Gutierrez."

"Release the dogs."

Van Rensberg strolled across to McBride. "Every single technician must by now be inside, locked in, and guarded. The dogs will never touch my men, you know. They recognise the uniform. That leaves one man out there. A stranger, white cotton pants and floppy shirt, wrong smell. It's like a lunch bell to the Dobermans. Up a tree? In a pond? They'll still find him. Then they will surround him and bay until the handlers come. I give this mercenary half an hour to get up a tree and surrender, or die."

The man he sought was in the middle of the estate, ru

It had taken two hours of steady jogging earlier in the morning to bring him from his allotted work patch to the base of the mansion's protective wall. Not that the distance was a problem for a man accustomed to half a marathon, but he had to dodge the other work parties and the guards. He was still dodging.

He came to a track across the maize field, dropped to his belly, and peered out. Down the track, two guards on four-wheelers roared away in the direction of the main gate. He waited till they were around a corner, then sprinted across the track and was lost in a peach orchard. His study of the layout of the estate from above had given him a route that would take him from where he had started near the mansion wall to where he wanted to be, without ever crossing a knee-high crop.

The equipment he had brought in that morning, either in his supposed lunch bag or inside the tight briefs he wore beneath the boxer shorts, was almost expended. The tough dive watch was back on his wrist, his belt round his waist, and his knife was up against the small of his back, out of the way but easy to reach. The bandage, sticky plaster, and the rest were in the flat pouch forming part of his belt.

He checked the peaks of the hills again, altered course by a few degrees, and stopped, tilting his head until he heard the gurgle of the flowing water ahead. He came to the stream's edge, backtracked fifteen yards, then stripped, retaining only belt, knife, and briefs.

Across the crops, in the dull, numbing heat, he heard the first hounds baying toward him. What little sea breeze there was would take his odour to the muzzles of the hounds in a few more minutes.

He worked carefully but fast, until he was satisfied, then tiptoed away toward the stream, slipped into the cool water, and began to let the current take him, slanting across the estate toward the airfield and the cliff.

Despite his assertion that the killer dogs would never touch him, Van Rensberg had wound all the windows up as he drove slowly down one of the main avenues from the gate into the heartland.

Behind him came the deputy dog handler at the wheel of a truck with a completely enclosed rear made of steelwire mesh. The senior handler was beside him in the Land Rover, head stuck out on the passenger side. It was he who heard the sudden change in pitch of his hounds' baying, from deepthroated bark to excited yelping.

"They have found something," he shouted.

Van Rensberg gri

"Over there."

McBride crouched in the rear, glad of the walls and windows on the Land Rover Defender. He did not like savage dogs, and for him twelve was a dozen too many.

The dogs had found something all right, but their yelping was more from pain than excitement. The South African came upon the entire pack after swerving round the corner of a peach orchard. They were milling around the centre of the track. A bundle of bloody clothes was the object of their attention.

"Get them into the truck," shouted Van Rensberg. The senior handler got down, closed the door, and whistled his pack to order. Without protest, still yelping, they bounded into the rear of the dog truck and were locked in. Only then did Van Rensberg and McBride descend.