On the opposite side of the operations table Wing Commander Douglas Hunt-Jeffreys slapped the wooden pointer into the palm of the other hand. "All right," he nodded. "This is for heads of staff only. Let's go over it from the beginning, please." There were just the two of them in the operations room, and the red security light above the steel door was burning.
"Code name Buffalo," Roland said. "The object of operation is the elimination of Josiah Inkunzi and/or one or all of his chiefs of staff. - Tebe, Chitepo and Tungata." "Tungata?"Hunt-Jeffreys asked. "A new one, "Roland explained. "Go on, please." "We will cut them at the safe house in Lusaka, at some date after the fifteenth of November when we expect Inkunzi to return from a visit to Hungary and East Germany."
"You will be able to get intelligence of his return?" Douglas asked, and when Roland nodded, "Can you let me know your source?" "That is not even for you, Dougie, my boy." "Very well, as long as you will be certain that Inkunzi is in residence before you move." "From now on let's call him Buffalo." "How will you go in?" "We will go in overland.
A column of Land-rovers with Zambian police markings and all personnel will wear Zambian police uniforms." Douglas raised an eyebrow. "Geneva Convention?" "Legitimate ruse of war," Roland countered. "They'll shoot you if they catch you." "They would do that anyway, uniforms or not. The answer will be not to let any of our lads get caught." "All right, you go in by road which one?" "Livingstone to Lusaka." "A long haul through hostile territory, and our air force has blown the bridges at Kaleya." "There is an alternative route upstream, there will be a guide waiting to take us through the bush to reach it." "So you have covered that bridge, but how do you cross the Zambezi?" "There is a drift below Kazungula." "Which you have checked, of course?" "On a dummy run. We took a vehicle across, using winch and floats, in nine minutes flat. We will have the entire task force across in under two hours. There is a track that will take us out onto the great north road fifty K's north of Livingstone." "What about re-supply?" "The guide at Kaleya is a white maize farmer, he has fuel on his farm, and we will back up with helicopters." "I take it you will use the helicopters to evacuate if you are forced to abort the operation?" Roland nodded. "That's it, Dougie old bean. Pray it's not necessary." "Let's go on to personnel then. How many will you use?"
"Forty-five Scouts, that includes S'am-Major and myself, and ten specialists." "Specialists?" "We expect to find a pile of documents in Buffalo's HQ. Probably so much that we will not be able to bring it all back. We need at least four intelligence experts to evaluate on the spot, what to keep and what to burn. You pick them for us." "The other specialists?" "Medicos, two of them. Henderson and his aide. We have used them before." "Good, who else?" "Blast bunnies, to clear the house of booby-traps, to set our own when we leave, and to blow the bridges behind us on our way home." "Armourers from Salisbury?" "I can get two good lads here in Bulawayo, one is a cousin of mine." "Fine, let me have a list of names." Douglas carefully withdrew the stub of his cigarette from the ivory holder, crushed it out, and replaced it-with a fresh tube from the packet of Gold Leaf.
"What about a site for the quarantine camp?" he asked. "Have you given it some thought?" "There is the Wankie Safari Lodge on the Dett vlei. It's two hours" drive from the Zambezi, and it has been on a caretaker basis since the Wankie strip was abandoned." "Five-star comfort the Scouts are getting soft." Douglas grinned mockingly.
"Okay, I'll see that you get it." Douglas made a note and then looked up. "Now let's go over the dates. How soon can you be ready to go?"
"Fifteenth of November. That gives us eight weeks to assemble the equipment, and rehearse the raid-".
"It probably also fits in rather well with the date of your wedding, doesn't it?" Douglas tapped the ivory holder against his teeth, and delighted in Roland Bailantyne's quick flare of temper.
"The timing of the raid has nothing to do with my private affairs, it will be dictated entirely by Buffalo's movements. In any event, my wedding will take place a week before the start of quarantine. Janine and I will spend our honeymoon at the Victoria Falls Hotel which is only two hours" drive from the camp at Wankie Safari Lodge. She will fly back to Bulawayo on the airway's scheduled flight, and I will go into quarantine directly from Vic Falls." Douglas lifted a defensive hand and grinned mockingly. "I say, do keep your hair on, old man. just a civil enquiry, that's all. By the way, I think my wedding invitation must have been lost in the post.-" But Roland had returned to his list, and was studying it with all his attention.
Douglas Hunt-Jeffreys lay on the ample bed in the cool shuttered bedroom, and examined the naked woman who slept beside him. At first she had seemed a most unpromising subject, with her pale acne-scarred face and disconcerting staring eyes behind horn-rimmed spectacles, her abrupt, aggressive, almost mannish manner, and the smouldering intensity of the political militant. But stripped of her shapeless sweater and baggy skirts, of her thick woollen socks and crude leather sandals, she had a slim pale, almost girlish, body, with fine small breasts that Douglas found very much to his taste. When she removed the spectacles, her staring eyes softened into appealing unfocused myopia, and under Douglas" skilful lips and fingers, she unloosed a tumultuous physical response which had at first astonished and then delighted him. He found he could induce in her an epileptic passion, a state in which she was almost catatonic and totally susceptible to his will, her depravity limited only by the range of Douglas" fertile imagination.
"A murrain on beautiful women," he smiled contentedly to himself.
"It's the ugly little ducklings who are the absolute ravers!" They had met in the middle of the morning, and now it was careful not to disturb her, Douglas checked his gold Rolex it was two o'clock in the afternoon. Even for Douglas, a marathon performance.
"Poor lamb is exhausted." He craved a cigarette, but decided to give her ten minutes more. There was no hurry. He could afford to lie a little longer and leisurely review this case.
Like many good controllers, Douglas had found that a sexual relationship with his female agents, and occasionally even With some of his male agents, was an effective tool of manipulation, a short-cut to the dependencies and loyalties that were so desirable in his trade.
This case was a perfect example. Without the physical lever Doctor Leila St. John would be a difficult and unpredictable subject, whereas with it she had become one of his best agents ever.
Douglas Hunt-Jeffreys by a fluke of war was a born Rhodesian. His father had come out to Africa at the beginning of Hitler's war to command the Royal Air Force training station at Gwelo. He had met and married a local girl, and Douglas had been delivered in 1941 by the Air Force doctor. The family had returned to England at the end of his father's tour of duty, and Douglas had followed the well-worn family path to Eton, and then on to the Royal Air Force.