Avenger (37 page)

The peon grunted once, tried to roll from side to side for a few seconds, then lapsed into deeper sleep. Dexter kept the pad in place to ensure hours of insensibility. When he was ready, he hefted the sleeping man over his shoulder in a fireman's lift and flitted silently back the way he had come, to the church.

In the doorway of the coral-stone building he stopped again and waited to hear if he had disturbed anyone, but the village slept on. When he found the vestry again he used stout masking tape to bind the peon's feet and ankles, and to cover the mouth, while leaving the nose free to breathe.

As he relocked the main door he glanced with satisfaction at the notice beside it on the blackboard. The notice was a lucky 'plus'.

Back in the empty shack he risked a pen light to examine the labourer's worldly possessions. They were not many. There was a portrait of the Virgin on one wall and stuck into the frame a faded photo of a smiling young woman. Fiancee, sister, daughter? Through powerful binoculars the man had looked about Dexter's age, but he might have been younger. Those caught up in Colonel Moreno's penal system and sent to El Punto would age fast. Certainly he was of the same height and build, which was why Dexter had picked him.

No other wall decorations; just pegs on which hung two sets of work clothes, both identical coarse cotton trousers and a shirt of the same material. On the floor a pair of rope-soled espadrilles, stained and worn but tough and reliable. Other than that, a sombrero of plaited straw completed the work clothes. There was a canvas bag with drawstring for carrying lunch to the plantation. Dexter snapped off his torch and checked his watch. Five past four.

He stripped down to boxer shorts, selected the items he wanted to take with him, wrapped them in his sweaty T-shirt and bundled them into the lunch bag. The rest he would have to lose. This surplus was rolled into the knapsack, and disposed of during a second visit to the latrines. Then he waited for the clang of the iron bar on the hanging length of railway track.

It came as ever at half past six, still dark but with a hint of pink in the east. The duty guard, standing outside the village just beyond the chain-link double-gates of the farmland, was the source. All around Dexter the village began to come to life.

He avoided the run to the latrines and wash-troughs and hoped no one would notice. After twenty minutes, peering through a slit in the boards of the door, he saw that his alley was empty again. Chin down, sombrero tilted forward, he scurried to the latrines, one figure in sandals, pants and shirt among a thousand.

He crouched over an open hole while the others took their breakfast. Only when the third clang summoned the workers to the access gate did he join the queue.

The five checkers sat at their tables, examined the dog tags, checked the work manifests, punched the number into the records of those admitted that morning, and to which labour gang assigned, and waved the labourer through, to join his gang-master and be led away to collect tools and start the allocated tasks.

Dexter reached the table attending to his queue, offered his dog tag between forefinger and thumb, like the others, leaned forward and coughed. The checker pulled his face away sharply to one side, noted the tag number and waved him away. The last thing the man wanted was a face full of chilli odour. The new recruit shuffled off to draw his hoe; the assigned task was weeding the avocado groves.

At half past seven Kevin McBride breakfasted alone on the terrace. The grapefruit, eggs, toast and plum jam would have done credit to any five-star hotel. At eight fifteen the Serb joined him.

"I think it would be wise for you to pack your grip," he said. "When you have seen what Major van Rensberg will show you, I hope you will agree this mercenary has a one per cent chance of getting here, even less of getting near me, and none of getting out again. There is no point in your staying. You may tell Mr. Devereaux that I will complete my part of our arrangement, as agreed, at the end of the month."

At eight thirty McBride threw his grip into the rear of the South African's open jeep and climbed in beside the major.

"So, what do you want to see?" asked the Head of Security.

"I am told it is virtually impossible for an unwanted visitor to get in here at all. Can you tell me why?"

"Look, Mr. McBride, when I designed all this I created two things. One, it is an almost completely self-sufficient farming paradise. Everything is here. Second, it is a fortress, a sanctuary, a refuge, safe from almost all outside invasion or threat.

"Now, of course, if you are talking about a full military operation, paratroopers, armour, of course it could be invaded. But one mercenary, acting alone? Never."

"How about arrival by sea?"

"Let me show you."

Van Rensberg let in the clutch and they set off, leaving a plume of rising dust behind them. The South African pulled over and stopped near a cliff edge.

"You can see from here," he said as they climbed out. "The whole estate is surrounded by sea, at no point less than twenty feet below the cliff top, in most areas fifty feet. Sea-scanning radar, disguised as TV dishes, warn us of anything approaching by sea."

"Interception?"

"Two fast patrol boats, one at sea at all times. There is a one-mile limit of forbidden water round the whole peninsula. Only the occasional delivery freighter is allowed in."

"Underwater entry? Amphibious special forces?"

Van Rensberg snorted derisively.

"A special force of one? Let me show you what would happen."

He took his walkie-talkie, called the radio basement and was patched through to the slaughterhouse. The rendezvous was across the estate, near the derricks. McBride watched a bucket of offal go down the slide and drop to the sea thirty feet below.

For several seconds there was no reaction. Then the first scimitar fin sliced the surface. Within sixty seconds there was a feeding frenzy. Van Rensberg laughed.

"We eat well here. Plenty of steak. My employer does not eat steak, but the guards do. Many of them, like me, are from the old country and we like our bra ai

"So?"

"When a beast is slaughtered, lamb, goat, pig, steer, about once a week, the fresh offal is thrown into the ocean. And the blood. That sea is alive with sharks. Blacktip, whitefin, tiger, giant hammerhead, they're all there. Last month one of my men fell overboard. The boat swerved back to pick him up. They were there in thirty seconds. Too late."

"He didn't come out of the water?"

"Most of him did. But not his legs. He died two days later."

"Burial?"

"Out there."

"So the sharks got him after all."

"No one makes mistakes around here. Not with Adriaan van Rensberg in charge."

"What about crossing the sierra, the way I came in yesterday?"

For answer van Rensberg handed McBride a pair of field glasses.

"Have a look at it. You cannot climb round the edges of it. It's sheer to the water. Come down the escarpment in daylight and you'll be seen in seconds."

"But at night?"

"So, you reach the bottom. Your man is outside the razor wire, over two miles from the mansion and outside the wall. He is not a peon, not a guard; he is quickly spotted and .. . taken care of."

"What about the stream I saw? Could one come in down the stream?"

"Good thinking, Mr. McBride. Let me show you the stream."

Van Rensberg drove to the airfield, entered with his own bleeper for the chain-link gate and motored to where the stream from the hills ran under the runway. They dismounted. There was a long patch of water open to the sky between the runway and the fence. The clear water ran gently over grasses and weeds on the bottom.

"See anything?"

"Nope," said McBride.

"They're in the cool, in the shade, under the runway."

It was clearly the South African's party piece. He kept a small supply of beef jerky in the jeep. When he tossed a piece in, the water seethed. McBride saw the piranha sweep out of the shadow and the cigarette-pack-sized piece of beef was shredded by a myriad needle teeth.

"Enough? I'll show you how we husband the water supply here and never lose security. Come."

Back in the farmland, van Rensberg followed the stream for most of its meandering course through the estate. At a dozen points, spurs had been taken off the main current to irrigate various crops or top up different storage ponds, but they were always blind alleys.

The main stream curved hither and yon, but eventually came back to the cliff edge near the runway but beyond the wire. There it increased in speed and rushed over the cliff into the sea.

"Right near the edge I have a plate of spikes buried," said van Rensberg. "Anyone trying to swim through here will be taken by the current and swept along, out of control, between smooth walls of concrete, towards the sea. Passing over the spikes the helpless swimmer will enter the sea bleeding badly. Then what? Sharks, of course."

"But at night?"

"Ah, you have not seen the dogs? A pack of twelve. Dobermanns and deadly. They are trained not to touch anyone in the uniform of the estate guards, and another dozen of the senior personnel no matter how dressed. It is a question of personal odour.

"They are released at sundown. After that every peon and every stranger has to remain outside the wire or survive for a few minutes until the roaming dogs find him. After that there is no chance for him. So, this mercenary of yours. What is he going to do?"

"I haven't the faintest idea. If he's got any sense, I guess he's gone by now."

Van Rensberg laughed again.

"Very sensible of him. You know, back in the old country, up in the Caprivi Strip, we had a camp for mundts who were causing a lot of trouble in the townships. I was in charge of it. And you know what, Mr. CIA-man? I never lost a single kaffir. Not one. By which I mean, no escapers. Never."

"Impressive, I'm sure."

"And you know what I used? Landmines? No. Searchlights? No. Two concentric rings of chain-link fencing, buried six feet deep, razor-topped, and between the rings wild animals. Crocs in the ponds, lions in the grassland. One covered tunnel in and out. I love Mother Nature."

He checked his watch.

"Eleven o'clock. I'll drive you up the track to our guardhouse in the gap in the hills. The San Martin police will send a jeep to meet you there and take you back to your hotel."

They were motoring back across the estate from the coast to the gate giving access to the village and the climbing track when the major's communicator crackled. He listened to the message from the duty telephone radio operator in the cellar beneath the mansion. It pleased him. He switched off and pointed to the crest of the sierra.

"Colonel Moreno's men scoured the jungle this morning, from the road to the crest. They've found the American's camp. Abandoned. You could be right. I think he's seen enough and chickened out."

In the distance McBride could see the great double gate and beyond it the white of the buildings of the worker village.

"Tell me about the labourers, major."

"What about them?"

"How many? How do you get them?"

"About twelve hundred. They are all offenders: within San Martin's penal system. Now, don't get holier-than-thou, Mr. McBride. You Americans have prison farms. So this is a prison farm. Considering all things they live pretty well here."

"And if they have served their sentences, when do they go back home?"

"They don't," said van Rensberg.

A one-way ticket, thought the American, courtesy of Colonel Moreno and Major van Rensberg. A life sentence. For what of fences Jay-walking? Litter? Moreno would have to keep the numbers up. On demand.

"What about guards and mansion staff?"

"That's different. We are employed. Everyone needed inside the mansion wall lives there. Everybody stays inside when our employer is in residence. Only uniformed guards and a few senior staff like me can pass through the wall. Never a peon. Pool cleaners, gardeners, waiters, maids all live inside the wall. The peons who labour on the estate, they live in their township. They are all single men."

"No women, no children?"

"None. They are not here to breed. But there is a church. The priest preaches one text only absolute obedience."

He forbore to mention that for lack of obedience he retained the use of his rhino-hide sjambok whip as in the old days.

"Could a stranger come into the estate posing as part of the workforce, major?"

"No. Every evening the workforce for the next day is selected by the estate manager who goes to the village. Those selected walk to the main gate and report at sunrise, after breakfast.

They are checked through one by one. So many desired, so many admitted. Not a single one more."

"How many come through?"

"About a thousand a day. Two hundred with some technical skill for the repair shops, mill, bakery, slaughterhouse, tractor shed; eight hundred for hacking and weeding. About two hundred remain behind each day. The genuinely sick, garbage crews, cooks."