muttered. "They set out the levels.
I We are going to have to rethink the entire concept.
matic rules.
"Three'dimensional bao, played to enig What chance have we got against
him?" Nicholas shook his head ruefully. "What we really need is a
computer. Taita.
without good reason. The wasn't Puffing his own virtues old hooligan
really was a mathematical genius." He shone the lamp back down the
tunnel from which they had come.
"Even when you know it's there you cannot actually see the fall in the
floor level. He designed and built it without even a slide rule or a
spirit level in his back pocket. This maze is an extraordinary piece of
engineering."
"You can form Your fan club later," she suggested. "But right now let's
start grinding those numbers again."
I am going to move the lights and the desks up here, on to this central
landing of the staircase."Nicholas agreed, I think we should work from
the centre of the board. It may help us to visualize it. Right now he
has got me thoroughly confused."
The only sound in the room was the soft on the sobbing of the
woman who lay curled Milan floor in a puddle of her own blood and urine.
Tuma Nogo sat at the long conference table and lit a he looked
cigarette. His hands trembled slightly, and gh the sickened, He was a
soldier, and he had lived through Mengistu terror. He was a hard man and
accustomed to violence and cruelty, but he was shaken with what he had
just witnessed. He knew now why von Schiller placed such The man was
barely human.
reliance on Helm Across the room Jake Helm was washing his hands in
tediously and then dabbed the small basin. He dried them fas at the
stains on his clothing with the towel as he came back and stood over
Tessay.
"I don't think there is anything else she can tell us," he said calmly.
"I don't think she held anything back."
Nogo glanced down at the woman, and saw the livid burns that spotted her
chest and her cheeks like the running ulcerations of some dreadful
smallpox. Her eyes were closed, and her lashes were frizzled away. She
had held out well. It was only when Helm had touched her eyelids with
the burning cheroot that she had at last capitulated, and gabbled out
the answers to his questions.
Nogo felt queasy, but he was relieved that it had not been necessary to
hold her lids open, as Helm had ordered, and to watch as he quenched the
flame of the cheroot against her weeping eyeballs.
"Watch her," Helm ordered, as he rolled down his sleeves. "She is a
tough one. Don't take any chances with her."
Helm walked past him, and went to the door in the far end of the hut. He
left the door open, and Nogo could hear their voices, but they were
speaking in German so he could not understand what they were saying. He
understood now why von Schiller had chosen not to be present during the
questioning. He obviously knew how Helm worked.
Helm came back into the room, and nodded at Nogo.
"Very well. We are finished with her. You know what to do., Nogo stood
up nervously and placed his hand on the webbing holster at his side.
"Here?"he asked. "No!"
"Don't be a bloody fool," Helm snapped. "Take her away. Far away. Then
get somebody in here to clean up this mess." Helm turned on his heel and
went back into the rear room.
Nogo roused himself and then went to the door of the hut. He walked wide
of where Tessay lay, so as not to soil his canvas paratrooper boots.
"Lieutenant Hammed!the called through the door.
t Hammed and Nogo lifted Tessay to her feet. Neither them spoke and
they were subdued, almost chastened, as torn and bloodied clothing.
they helped her into her yes from her naked body and the Hammed averted
his ed her glossy amber skin.
burns and other injuries that marre He draped the shamnw over her
shoulders, and led her towards the door, When she stumbled he caught her
before her with a hand under her elbow.
she fell and supported truck, and she moved He led her down the steps to
the sat in the passenger seat slowly, like a very old woman. She her
cupped hands.
with her burned and swollen face in Nogo summoned Hammed with a jerk of
his head, and led him aside. He spoke quietly to him, and Hammed's
listened to his orders. At expression became stricken as he one point he
started to protest, but Nogo snarled at him savagely and he chewed his
lower lip in silence.
"Remember!" Nogo repeated. "Well away from any of the villages. Make
certain that there are no witnesses.
Report back to me immediately."
Hammed straightened his shoulders and saluted before up into the seat
he marched back to the truck and climbed the driver a curt order and
they beside Tessay. He gav drove out of the camp, following the track
back towards Debra Maryam. sed and in such pain that she had Tessay was
so confu s, she lurched lost all sense of time. Only half-consciou ugh
icularly ro about in the seat when the truck hit a part ead rolled
loosely on her stretch of the track, and her shoulders. Her face was so
swollen that it required an effort and when she did she thought to force
her eyelids apart, that her vision was failing and that she was going
blind.
sun, had set and darkness had Then she realized that the in the hut with
fallen. She must have spent the whole day Helm.
She felt a mild lift of relief that the burns on her eyelids had not
done more damage. At least she was still
form able to see. She peered out through the windscreen, and found
that in the headlights the road was unfamiliar.
"Where are you taking me?" she mumbled. "This is not the way back to the
village."
Lieutenant Hammed sat slumped beside her in the seat and would not
answer. She relapsed into a daze of pain and exhaustion.
She was jerked awake when the truck braked abruptly and the driver
switched off the ignition. Rude hands dragged her out of the cab and
into the glare of the headlights. Her hands were jerked behind her back
and her wrists were bound together with a raw-hide thong.
"You are hurting me," she whimpered. "You are cutting my wrists." She
had used up the last of her strength and courage. She felt beaten and
pathetic, with no fight left in her.
One of the soldiers yanked on her bound wrists and shoved her off the
road. Two others followed, each carrying trenching tools. There was
enough of a moon for her to see a grove of eucalyptus trees about a
hundred metres from the side of the road, and they led her there. They
pushed her down at the base of one of the trees and the man who had tied
her wrists stood over her, holding his rifle casually aimed down at her
and smoking a cigarette with his free hand. The others stacked their
rifles and began digging.
They seemed to take no interest in her at all, but were discussing the
All Africa Soccer Championships that were being held in Lusaka, and the
Ethiopian team's chances of reachin the finals.
It was only after a while that it began to sink into Tessay's befuddled
mind that they were digging a grave for her. The saliva in her injured
mouth dried up and she looked around desperately for Lieutenant Hammed.
But he had stayed with the truck.
"Please," she whispered to her guard, but before she could say more he
kicked her painfully in the belly. -iftu vvurta 3 ivium i- utar vyo
"Keep quied' he used the derogatory term of address only applied to an
animal or a person of the lowest order, and as she lay doubled up on the
ground she realized the futility of appealing to them. A feeling of