Fawkes eased from behind the wheel and cautiously walked back. The boy was dead, his skull crushed nearly flat, his skinny legs mangled chunks of crimson. The fat boy with the gun lay half in the algae-coated swamp water, half on the sloping bank. His head had been wrenched backward until it touched his spine. There was no sight of his companion; he had vanished into the swamp.

Fawkes picked up the rifle. The breech was open and a cartridge was jammed in the receiver. He pried it out and studied the problem. The reason the fat boy had not fired was that the rifle could not. The firing pin was too badly bent. Fawkes threw the old gun as hard as he could into the deepest part of the mire, watching it splash and gurgle out of sight.

A small lorry lay upside down in the ravine. Two bodies sprawled from the gaping, twisted doors. A man and a woman, brutally mutilated, were shrouded in swarms of flies.

It was obvious the three African boys had stoned the unsuspecting travelers, wounding the driver and sending the lorry hurtling into the ravine, where they had hacked to death the trapped survivors. Then, flushed and overconfident with their easy victory, they had settled down to await their next victim.

"Stupid kids," he muttered amid the stillness of death. "Damn stupid kids."

Like a marathon runner who had dropped out of the race a mile from the finish, Fawkes ached with exhaustion and regret. Slowly he returned to the Bushmaster, sopping with a handkerchief the trickles of blood that ran down his cheek. He reached inside the door, set the frequency dial on the mobile radio, and hailed the Pembroke constable. When he finished his report, he stood and cursed and tossed poorly aimed stones at the arriving vultures.

"He's late," Pieter De Vaal, Minister of the South African Defence Forces, said in Afrikaans. He lifted the window of the coach and leaned out, searching the road bordering the railroad siding. His words were directed at a tall, slender man with compelling blue eyes and dressed in the uniform of an Army colonel.

"If Patrick Fawkes is late," the colonel said, swirling the drink in his hand, "there must be a good reason for it."

De Vaal turned from the open window and brushed both hands through a thicket of gray wavy hair. He looked more like a professor of ancient languages than like the iron-willed head of the second largest military power on the continent. Not that he had exactly inherited a plum job. De Vaal was the fifth defense minister in seven years. His predecessor had lasted less than five months.

"Typical English performance," he said impatiently. "An Englander lives only for gin, the queen, and a practiced air of indifference. They cannot be relied upon."

"If you so much as even imply to his face that he is English, Herr Minister, Fawkes will become most uncooperative." Colonel Joris Zeegler downed his drink and poured another. "Fawkes is a Scotsman. I respectfully suggest, sir, that you try not to forget that."

De Vaal made no show of anger at Zeegler's insubordinate tone. He regarded advice from his intelligence chief seriously. It was no secret within the Ministry that De Vaal's success in smashing the advances by outside terrorists and suppressing local uprisings was due largely to the ingenious infiltration of the insurgent organizations by Zeegler's highly trained operatives.

"Englander, Scotsman — I would prefer dealing with an Afrikaner."

"I agree," said Zeegler. "But Fawkes is the best qualified to offer an opinion on the project. A month-long computer search of experienced military personnel proved that." He opened a file folder. "Twenty-five years Royal Navy. Fifteen of them in ship's engineering. Two years captain of HMS Audacious. Final time in service spent as engineering director of the Grimsby Royal Navy Shipyard. Purchased a farm in northern Natal and retired there eleven years ago."

"And what does your computer make of the fact that he coddles his Bantu workers?"

"I must admit that offering his blacks and coloreds shares of his farm profits is the gesture of a liberal. But there can be no denying Fawkes has built up the finest estate in northern Natal in an extremely short length of time. His people are loyal beyond belief. Woe to the radical who tries to stir up trouble on the Fawkes farm."

De Vaal was in the midst of formulating another pessimistic statement when there was a knock on the door. A young officer entered and came to attention.

"Forgive the interruption, Herr Minister, but Captain Fawkes has arrived."

"Show him in," De Vaal said.

Fawkes ducked his head under the low doorway and entered. De Vaal stared up at him in silence. He had not expected someone of such proportions, nor someone whose face was freshly cut in a dozen places. He extended his hand.

"Captain Fawkes, this is indeed a pleasure," De Vaal said in Afrikaans. "It was good of you to make the trip."

Fawkes crushed De Vaal's hand within his. "Sorry, sir, but I do not speak your language."

De Vaal smoothly slipped into English.

"Forgive me," he said with a faint smile. "I forget that you Eng- ah — Scotsmen do not take to strange tongues."

"We're just dunderheaded, I guess."

"Pardon me for saying so, Captain, but you look as though you shaved with a branch of thorns."

"I encountered an ambush. Bloody little devils broke my windshield. I would have stopped at the local hospital, but I was running late for our meeting."

De Vaal took Fawkes by the arm and steered him to a chair. "I think we had better get a drink in you. Joris, will you do the honors? Captain Fawkes, this is Colonel Joris Zeegler, director of Internal South African Defence."

Zeegler nodded and held up a bottle. "I take it you prefer whisky, Captain?"

"Aye, that I do, Colonel."

De Vaal stepped over to the door and opened it. "Lieutenant Anders, inform Dr. Steedt that we have a patient for him. I suspect you will find him in his compartment, dozing." He closed the door and faced the room. "First things first. Now then, Captain, while we await the good doctor, perhaps you will be kind enough to provide us with a detailed report of your ambush."

The doctor came and went, grumbling good-naturedly over the rhinoceros hide Fawkes called skin. Except for two wounds that called for three stitches each, the doctor left the rest unbandaged. "Lucky for you those scratch marks don't match fingernail tracks, or you'd have a tough time explaining them to your wife," he joked as he snapped shut his bag.

"You're certain the attack was not organized?" Zeegler asked after the doctor departed.

"Not likely," Fawkes replied. "They were only ragged bush kids. God only knows what devil inspired them to go on a killing spree."

"I am afraid your run-in with bloodthirsty juveniles is not an isolated occurrence," De Vaal said softly.

Zeegler nodded in agreement. "Your story, Captain, fits the same crude modus operandi, if you will, of at least twenty other attacks in the last two months."

"If you want my opinion," Fawkes snorted, "that damned AAR is in back of it."

"Indirectly, the blame can be laid on the African Army of Revolution's doorstep." Zeegler drew on a pencil-thin cigar.

"Half the black boys between the ages of twelve to eighteen from here to Cape Town would give their testicles to become an AAR soldier," De Vaal injected. "You might call it a form of hero worship."