Vixen 03

"You'd better come home, Patrick," Francis's strained voice crackled over the speaker. The constable spared Fawkes the details, and Fawkes did not demand them.

The sun was still high when Fawkes came within sight of his farm. Little remained of the house. Only the fireplace and a section of the veranda still stood. The rest was no more than a pile of cinders. Across the yard, rubber tires on the tractors smoldered on their steel rims and emitted thick black smoke. The farm workers still lay where they'd fallen in the compound. Vultures were picking at the carcasses of his prize cattle.

Shawn Francis and several Defence Force soldiers were huddled around three forms lying under blankets when Fawkes braked to a stop in the yard. Francis came over to him as he leaped out of the mud-streaked Bushmaster. The constable's face was pale granite.

"God in hell!" cried Fawkes. He gazed into Francis's eyes, searching for a small ray of light. "My family. What of my family?"

Francis fought to get the words out' then gave up and dipped his head in the direction of the blanket-covered bodies. Fawkes pushed past him and stumbled across the yard but was caught short by the stout arms of the constable, which suddenly encircled him about the chest.

"Leave them be, Patrick. I've already identified them."

"Dammit, Shawn, that's my family lying there."

"I beg you, my friend, do not look."

"Let me go. I must see for myself."

"No!" said Francis, grimly hanging on,knowing he was no match for Fawkes's massive strength. "Myrna and je

Francis could feel the tenseness slowly drain from Fawkes's muscles and the constable loosened his hold.

"How did it happen?" asked Fawkes quietly.

"No way of describing in detail. All your workers have either been driven off or killed. There are no wounded to tell the tale."

"Somebody must know… must have seen… 55

"We'll find a witness. One will turn up by morning. I promise."

The grim conversation halted while a helicopter whirled to the ground and the soldiers tenderly lifted the bodies of Myrna, je

"Who is responsible?" Fawkes said to Francis. "Tell me who murdered my wife and children and my workers and burned my farm. "

"One or two CK-eighty-eight plastic cartridges, the charred remains of an arm inside the house with a Chinese watch on the wrist, prints in the dirt from military-soled boots. Circumstantial as it is, the evidence points to the AAR."

"What do you mean, 'one or two cartridges, Fawkes snapped. "The bloody bastards should have left a whole mountain of them."

Francis made a helpless gesture with his hands. "Typical of an AAR raid. They always police the area right after an attack. Makes it tough to tag them with any hard evidence. They plead i

"The raiders' tracks come and go from the bush through the cane fields and up to the house. I figure they shot down the guards during a shift change, while the gate was open, breaking the electrical charge. Pat junior was killed over by that burnt-out tractor. Myrna and je

Constable Francis paused to take a drink from a canteen. He offered it to Fawkes, who simply shook his head.

"Take a swig, Patrick. It's whisky."

Fawkes refused again.

"My office received a distress message over the radio from je

"We assembled our forces and came on as quickly as the whirlybirds could get us here. Thirteen minutes was all it took. By then everything was ablaze and the raiders had vanished. Two platoons and a helicopter are tracking them through the bush now."

"My people." murmured Fawkes, pointing at the still figures sprawled around the compound. "We cant leave them lying here for the vultures."

"Your neighbor Brian Vogel is coming with his workers to bury them. They should be here any time. Until then, my men will keep the scavengers away."

Fawkes was like a man wandering lost in a dream as he walked up the steps to the veranda. He could not yet grasp the immensity of the tragedy. He still half expected to see his three loved ones standing framed by the bougainvillea. And his mind very nearly formed a picture of them as they were, waving happily to him when he left for Pembroke.

The veranda was painted in gore. Puddled streaks traveled from the smoking embers down the steps to the yard, where they abruptly ended. It looked to Fawkes as if three or maybe four bodies had been dragged from the house before it was torched. The blood had coagulated and turned crusty under the afternoon sun. Fat iridescent flies hummed and waded about the trails in swarms.

Fawkes leaned against the lattice and felt the first uncontrollable tremor of shock. The house he had built for his family was nothing but blackened, grotesque ruins incongruously heaped in the middle of the trimmed lawn and the beds of gladiola and fire lilies that stood virtually unmarked.

Even the memory of how it had looked was begi

He was still sitting there half an hour later when Constable Francis came over and gently nudged him.

"Come, Patrick, let me take you to my place. There is nothing to be gained by staying here."

Francis led the unresisting Fawkes to the Bushmaster and tenderly deposited him in the passenger's seat.

As the vehicle passed through the gate, Fawkes stared straight ahead, did not look back. He knew he would never see or set foot on his farm again.

17

Although it seemed as though his head had barely hit the pillow, Hiram Lusana had been asleep for seven hours when he was roused by the knock at his door. The wristwatch on the bed table read six o'clock. He cursed, rubbed the sleep from his coffee-brown eyes, and sat up.

"Come in."

The knock came again.

'I said, Come in," he grunted loudly.

Captain John Mukuta entered the room and stood stiffly at attention. "Sorry to wake you, sir, but section fourteen has just returned from its reco

"So what's the emergency? I can study their report later."

Mukuta's eyes remained fixed on a spot on the wall. "The patrol experienced trouble. The section leader was shot and lies critically wounded in the hospital. He insists on reporting to you and no one else."

"Who is he?"

"His name is Marcus Somala."