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"A fitting rest for his kind," Machita muttered.
Zeegler's face was pale. He was hardened to seeing battlefield dead, but this was quite another thing. "I'll have the driver fill in the grave."
Pitt shook his head. "No need. Fawkes made one final request in his log. I promised myself I'd see to it."
"As you wish." Zeegler turned to leave. Machita looked as if he were going to say something, thought better of it, and started toward the underbrush surrounding the cemetery.
"Hold on," said Pitt. "Neither of you can afford to waste this opportunity."
"Opportunity?" Zeegler said.
"After acting together to destroy a mutual cancer, it would be stupid not to stand face to face and discuss your differences."
"A waste of words," Zeegler said contemptuously. "Thomas Machita only speaks with violence."
"Like all Westerners, Mr. Pitt, you are naive to our battle," Machita said, his face stoic. "Talk ca
"You will pay dearly before your flag flies over Cape Town," said Zeegler.
"Fool's mate," said Pitt. "You're both playing a fool's-mate gambit."
Zeegler looked at him. "Perhaps in your eyes, Mr. Pitt. But to us it goes to a depth no outsider can fathom."
The colonel continued to his car and Machita faded into the jungle.
The truce was over. The chasm was too wide to be crossed.
A wave of impotency mixed with anger swept Pitt. "What will it all matter a thousand years from now?" he shouted after them.
He picked up the shovel and in a slow tempo began scooping dirt into the grave. He could not bring himself to look at De Vaal. Soon he heard the splatter of dirt on dirt and he knew no one would ever see the Defence Minister again.
When he was finished and the mound was neatly shaped, he opened a box that lay on the grass beside the headstone and removed four flowering plants. These he carefully embedded in the soil at the corners of the Fawkes burial plot. Then he straightened and stepped back.
"Rest well, Captain Fawkes. May you not be judged too harshly."
Feeling neither remorse nor sadness but rather a kind of contentment, Pitt placed the empty box under one arm and the shovel over his shoulder and set a course for the village of Umkono.
Behind him, the four bougainvillea plants arched their blossoms toward the African sun.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Clive Cussler lives the same sort of adventurous life as his hero, Dirk Pitt: Tramping the Southwest in search of gold mines, diving in isolated Rocky Mountain lakes for missing aircraft, and heading an expedition to salvage John Paul jones's ship, the Bonhomme Richard. Cussler discovered and excavated a sister ship to the Monitor, and he found artifacts from its famous nemesis, the Merrimack. A noted collector of classic automobiles, Cussler divides his time between Denver, Colorado and Paradise Valley, Arizona.