Vixen 03

Machita entered the next car. He relaxed and became amused at the thought of the ride. Images of his childhood returned and he remembered cringing in a similar car during another ghost ride long ago as phosphorescent banshees lurched out of the blackness at him.

He did not observe the attendant as the lever was pushed; nor did he react immediately when the old man leaped agilely into the car with him and lowered the safety bar.

"I hope you enjoy the ride," said a voice that Machita knew to be Emma's.

Once again the mysterious informer had shrewdly capitalized on Machita's laxity. The odds favoring a clean kill had suddenly evaporated.

Emma's hands expertly frisked his clothing. "How very wise of you to come unarmed, my dear Major."

A score for our side, thought Machita, his hands casually holding the basket and shielding the ice pick. "Do you have Operation Wild Rose?" he asked, his tone official.

"Do you have the two million American dollars?" the shadowy figure beside him retorted.

Machita hesitated and unconsciously ducked as the car swung beneath a tall stack of barrels that fell over toward them, jerking to a stop bare inches from their heads.

"Here… in the basket."

Emma pulled an envelope from inside a dirty jacket. "Your boss will find this most interesting reading."

"If not vastly overpriced."

Machita was glancing through the documents in the envelope when a pair of grotesquely painted witches, fluoresced by ultraviolet light, leaped at the car and shrieked through hidden loudspeakers. Emma ignored the wax figures and opened the basket studying the print on the currency under the purple illumination. The car rolled onward as the witches were pulled back into their recess by hidden springs and the tu

Now! Machita thought. He snatched the ice pick from its hiding place and lunged at where he guessed Emma's right socket should be. But in that split second the car snapped into a sharp turn and an orange floodlight burst on a bearded Satan who menacingly brandished a pitchfork. It was enough to deflect Machita's aim. The pick missed Emma's eye and its tip became embedded in the skull, above the brow.

The stu

The devil was genuine. He was one of Emma's accomplices. Machita countered by throwing open the safety bar and lashing out with his feet, catching the costumed man in the groin, feeling his heels sink deeply into soft flesh. Then the car swung back into blackness and the devil was left behind.

Machita whipped his body back to face Emma, but found the seat beside him empty. A brief stream of sunlight flashed several meters to the left of the car as a door was opened and closed. Emma had vanished out an exit, taking the basket of money with him.

28

"Gross stupidity," said Colonel Jumana with fiendish satisfaction. "You must pardon me for saying it, my General, but I told you so."

Lusana stared pensively out the window at a formation of men drilling on the parade grounds. "A mistake in judgment, Colonel, nothing more. We will not lose the war because we have lost two million dollars."

A sheepish Thomas Machita sat at the table, his face beaded with perspiration, staring vacantly at the cast covering his wrist. "There was no way of knowing — "

He stiffened as jumana stormed to his feet, the colonel's face radiating pure anger as he snatched Emma's envelope and hurled it into Machita's face.

"No way of knowing you were being set up? You fool! There you sit, our glorious chief of intelligence, and you can't even kill a man in the dark. Then you add insult to injury by giving him two million dollars for an envelope containing operating procedures for military garbage removal."

"Enough!" snapped Lusana.

There was silence. Jumana took a deep breath, then slowly stepped backward to his chair. Anger seethed in his eyes. "Stupid mistakes," he said bitterly, "do not win wars of liberation."

"You make too much of it," Lusana said stonily. "You are a superb leader of men, Colonel Jumana, and a tiger in battle, but as with most professional soldiers, you are sadly lacking in administrative style."

"I beg you, my General, do not take your wrath out on me." Jumana pointed an accusing finger at Machita. "He is the one who deserves punishment."

A sense of frustration enveloped Lusana. Regardless of intelligence or education, the African mind retained an almost childlike i

"The mistake was mine. I alone am responsible. If I had not given Major Machita the order to kill Emma, Operation Wild Rose might be lying in front of us this minute. Without murder on his mind, I trust the major would have checked the contents of the envelope before he turned over the money."

"You still believe the plan to be valid?" jumana asked incredulously.

"I do," Lusana said firmly. "Enough to warn the Americans when I fly to Washington next week to testify at the congressional hearings on aid to African nations."

"Your priorities are here," said Machita, his eyes expressing alarm. "I beg you, my General, send someone else."

"There is none better qualified," Lusana assured him. "I am still an American citizen with a number of high contacts who sympathize with our fight."

"Once you leave here, you will be in grave danger."

"We all deal in danger, do we not?" asked Lusana. "It is our c omrade-in- arms." He turned to Jumana. "Colonel, you will be in command during my absence. I shall furnish you with explicit orders for the conduct of our operation. I expect you to see that they are carried out to the letter."

Jumana nodded.

A fear began to swell inside Machita, and he could not help wondering if Lusana was paving the road to his own downfall and releasing a tidal wave of blood that would soon surge across the whole of Africa.

29

Loren Smith rose from behind her desk and held out her hand as Frederick Daggat was ushered into her office. He smiled his best politician's smile. "I hope you'll forgive my intrusion… ah… Congresswoman."

Loren grasped his hand firmly. It never failed to amuse her to see a man stumble over her title. They never seemed to get the hang of saying "Congresswoman."

"I'm happy for the interruption," she said, motioning him toward a chair. To his surprise, she held out a box of cigars. He took one.

"This is indeed a treat. I hardly expected… do you mind if I light up?"

"Please do," she said, smiling. "I grant that it looks a bit incongruous for a woman to pass out cigars, but the practical value becomes apparent when you consider that my male visitors outnumber the females by twenty to one."

Daggat expelled a large blue cloud toward the ceiling and fired his first broadside. "You voted against my initial proposal to budget aid to the African Army of Revolution. "

Loren nodded. She didn't speak, for she was waiting for Daggat to make his full pitch.

"The white government of South Africa is on the verge of self-destruction. The nation's economy has plummeted in the last few years. Its treasury is exhausted. The white minority have cruelly and ruthlessly treated the black majority as slaves far too long. For ten years, in the time since blacks took over the government in Rhodesia, Afrikaners have become hardened and completely merciless in their dealings with their Bantu citizens. Internal riots have taken over five thousand lives. This bloodbath must not continue any longer. Hiram Lusana's AAR is the only hope for peace. We must support it, both financially and militarily."