A Time to Die

There had been no warning, no obvious pursuit, no set ambush.

Without warning a sweep line of tiger-striped figures had rushed at them from out of the mo pane

They had all been weary after traveling hard all night. Perhaps their concentration had been eroded, perhaps they should have stayed in the trees instead of cutting across the open vlei, but it was yarn to think about what they might have done.

for There had only been sufficient time to snatch up the children and drag the women up the side of the kopJe with poorly aimed Renaino fire whining off the rocks around them. Perhaps the Renaino aim had deliberately been wild, Sean thought. He could guess what General China's orders to his men had been. "Take them alive!"

"Where is China now?" he wondered. One thing was certain, he was not far away and coming as fast as the Hind would fly. He looked out at the Limpopo River again, and there was the foul taste of failure and disappointment on the back of his tongue.

"Alphonso," he called out. "Have you got the radio rigged?" It was more for something to occupy his mind than with any real hope of making contact.

Twice during the night he had attempted to make the prearranged radio schedule with the South African Army. Once he had even heard "Kudu" calling him very faintly; however, the batteries of their radio had finally begun to fail. The battery test needle had dropped back deep into the red quadrant of the dial.

"If I try to raise the aerial those baboons down there will shoot my testicles off," Alphonso growled from among the rocks.

"It's almost line of sight to the river," Sean told him brusquely.

"Give me the aerial." He raised himself on one elbow, threw the bundle of insulated wire as far out down the slope as he could reach, and then stooped to the radio set. When he turned on the power, the control panel glowed feebly.

"Kudu, this is Mosgie," he sent out his despairing call. "Kudu, do you read me? Kudu, this is Mossie!"

A stray bullet hit the rock above his head, but Sean ignored it.

"Kudu, this is Mossie!"

The two women, white and black, were holding the children and watching him wordlessly.

"Kudu, this is Mossie.:" He adjusted the gain knob. Then, unbelievably, so faintly he "&uld barely catch the words, a voice answered him. lp "Mossie, this ii Oubaas. I read you strength three."

"Oubaas. Oh, God," he breathed. "Oubaas!"

Oubaas, the grandfather, was General Lothar De La Rey's code name.

"Oubaas, we are in deep shit here. Request an immediate hot extraction." He was asking for a removal while under enemy fire.

"We are seven par, five adults and two children. Our position is-" He read out the map coordinates of his dead-reckoning position. "We are holding a small kopJe approximately twenty kilometers north of the Limpopo." He raised his head and glanced around quickly. "There are two large kopjes approximately two miles due east of our position. Do you read me, Oubaas?"

"I read you, Mossie." The voice faded and then came back.

"What was your grandmother's maiden name?"

"Oh, sod you!" Sean snarled frustration. Lothar was double checking his identity at a time like this. "My grandmother's maiden name was Centaine De Thiry, and she is your grandmother also, Lothar, you rotten bastard!"

"Okay, Mossie. I'm sending a Puma in for a hot extraction. Can you hold out for one hour longer?"

"Pull finger, Oubaas. We've got gooks all over us."

"Wilco, Mossie." Sean had to put his ear close to the set to catch the last words: "Give them bell, Sean. Then the signal faded and the battery died with a last Ricker.

"They are coming!" Sean looked up from the radio and gri

They watched the Hind come down from the north, sweeping in low over the forest, a great humpbacked monster blotched with camouflage paint, the first rays of the rising sun reflecting off the cockpit canopy like huge glowing red eyes.

Out of the mo pane forest at the foot of the kopJe a signal rocket sailed up in a lazy red parabola, calling the Hind in. It altered course slightly and headed directly toward the crest of the biff on which they lay.

Claudia was at Sean's side, and he placed his arm over her shoulders.

"It's so cruel," she whispered. "It's like dying twice over." She pulled the Tokarev pistol from her belt and tried to place it in his hand.

"No!" he rejected her. "I can't do it! I can't screw myself up to that again!" He pushed the pistol away.

"What then?" she asked, and he showed her the fragmentation grenade he held in his right hand. She glanced at the deeply checkered black metal orb. It looked like some evil poisonous fruit, and she shuddered and averted her eyes.

"It will be as quick and more certain," he whispered reassuringly.

"And we'll go together, at the very same moment."

He knew what he had to do. He would hold the grenade between them as they lay chest to chest.