"Renamo patrol boat," Sean said. "And they are looking for US.
Claudia tightened her grip on his hand, and no one else spoke.
"We'll try to hide in here," Sean said, "though I don't see how they can miss us. Get ready to duck under when the light hits us."
The sound of the motor changed, slowing down. Then the craft swept around the upstream bend of the river, a few hundred yards distant but coming down swiftly on the current toward them.
The beam of the spotlight played alternately along each bank, fighting them like day. It was an enormously powerful beam, probably one of the portable battle lights simiW to the one that had trapped Sean at the top of the cliffs.
As the beam switched from bank to bank it briefly illuminated the craft and its crew. Sean recognized it as an eighteen-foot inflatable Zodiac driven by a fifty-five-horsepower Yamaha outboard, and though he could not count the occupants, there were at least eight or nine of them and they had a light machine gun mounted in the bow. The man with the battle light was standing amidships.
The beam of light glanced over their refuge, dazzling them for an instant with its malevolent white eye, passing on and leaving them blinded by its brilliance, then coming back remorselessly and holding them captive. Sean heard someone give an indistinct order in Shangane, and the Zodiac altered course toward them, the beam of the battle light still fastened on them.
AM four of them sank low in the water until only their nostrils were exposed, and they cowered behind the branch to winch they were clinging.
The helmsman of the Zodiac throttled back and slipped the engine into neutral. The black rubber craft drifted on the current, but twenty feet off, the battle light darted and level with them
"Turn P"
"yourfaime "away, Sean told Claudia in a tight whisper, and took her in his arms below the surface. Even their tanned faces would shine in the light, and he Screened her and turned the back of his head toward the Zodiac.
"There is nobody there," somebody aid in Shangane. Although spoken at conversational level, the voice carried clearly across the water to where they were hiding.
r voice ordered in a tone of command.
"Go around!" anothe oozed the shangane sergeant who had been his escort.
Sean rec A white wake spread out behind the Zodiac as it began to circle the floating tree.
The light beam cast stark black shadows from the tangled branches and struck dazzling reflections when it touched the water.
As the Zodiac circled, they padded quietly to the further side of their leafy refuge, and when the beam fastened on them, they slid softly below the surface, trying not to gasp for breath as they came up again The deadly game of hide-and-seek lasted all of eternity before said again. "There is nobody there. We are the voice in the Zodiac wasting time."
"Keep circling," the sergeant's voice answered, and then after another minute, "Gunner, fire a burst into the tree."
In the bow of the Zodiac, the muzzle flashes of the RPD light machine gun twinkled like fairy lights, but a storm of shot tore into the floating tree with brutal and stunning savagery. It cracked in their eardrums and thumped into the branches over their heads, cutting loose a shower of leaves and twigs. It ripped away slabs of bark and kicked spray from the surface of the water, odd shots ricocheting into the night, wailing like demented spirits.
Sean pulled Claudia below the surface but still could hear the bullets plunging into the water above them and striking the trunk of the tree. He kept down until his lungs burned as though they were filled with acid and only then pulled himself to the surface to catch another breath.
The gunner in the Zodiac was firing taps, not a single continuous burst. Like a Morse operator on the key, an expert gunner has his own distinctive style that others can recognize. This one fired double taps, five rounds each; it needed a concert pianist's touch on the trigger to achieve such precision.
As Sean and Claudia came back to the surface, straining for the sweet taste of air, Dedan also came up only three feet in front of in. The reflection of the battle light lit his head clearly. His short the woolly beard streamed water, his eyes were like balls of ivory in his ebony face, and his mouth was open, drinking in air.
A bullet touched his temple just above the ear. His head flinched to the shot, and it opened his scalp as cleanly as a saber cut.
Involuntarily he cried out, a glottal bellow like that of a heart-shot bull buffalo, then his head fell forward and he sank facedown into the dark waters.
Sean lunged out and caught his upper arm, pulling him back to the surface before he drifted away, but his head lolled and his eyes had rolled back in their sockets, exposing only the whites. The men in the Zodiac had heard his cry, and the Shangane sergeant shouted to one of himnen, "Get ready to throw in a grenade," then to them, "Come out of there. I'll give you ten seconds."
"Job, answer him," Sean ordered with resignation. "Tell him we are coming out."
Matabele and Shangane could understand each other, and Job shouted to them not to fire again.
Claudia helped Sean keep Dedans head above the surface, and between them they pulled him toward the Zodiac. The battle light dazzled them, but hands reached down from out of the glare and one at a time dragged them on board.
Shivering like half-drowned puppies, they huddled in the center of the boat. They had Dedans body stretched out between them, and Sean lifted his head gently into his lap. He was unconscious, barely breathing, and gently Sean twisted his head to examine the bullet wound across his temple.