He slowed down., a little as he considered his next move. He knew this
part of the valley fairly well. The previous year he had hunted over
much of this terrain with an American client, who had been looking for a
trophy Walia ibex. They had spent almost a month combing these same
gullies and wooded ravines before they had brought down a huge old ram,
black with age and carrying a pair of curled, back-sweeping horns that
ranked as the tenth largest ever in the Rowland Ward record book.
He knew that two or three miles ahead the Nile began another oxbow loop
out to the south, and that it then doubled back upon itself. The main
trail followed the river, because a series of sheer and formidable
cliffs guarded the high groupd in the centre of the loop of the river.
It was, however, possible to cut the corner. Boris had'done it before,
while following the wounded ibex.
The American hunter had not killed cleanly his bullet had struck the ram
too far back, missing the heartlung cavity and piercing the gut. The
stricken wild goat had taken to the high ground, following one of its
secret paths up amongst the crags. Boris and the American had followed
it up and over the mountain. Boris remembered how dangerous and
treacherous the path had been, but when it descended the far side of the
mountain it had cut off nearly ten miles.
If he could find the beginning of the goat path again, there was every
chance that he would be able to get ahead of Mek Nimmur and be lying in
wait for him on the far side. That would give him an enormous advantage.
The guerrilla leader would be expecting pursuit, not ambush.
He would be covering his back trail, and it was highly unlikely that
Boris would be able to slip past the rear guard without alerting his
intended victims. On the other hand, once he was ahead of them he would
be in control. Then he could choose his own killing ground.
As the trail and the main flow of the Nile started to turn away towards
the south, he kept watching the high ground above it, seeking a familiar
landmark. He had not gone another half-mile before he found it. Here
there was a break in the line of dark cliffs, a heavily forested
reentrant, that cut into the wall of basalt.
He stopped and mopped the sweat from his face and neck. "Too much
vodka," he grunted, "you are getting soft." His shirt was as sodden as
though he had plunged in the river.
He changed the slin of the rifle to his other shoulder, lifted his
binoculars and swept the sides of the wooded gully. They appeared sheer
and unscalable, but then he picked out the stunted shape of a small tree
that grew out of a narrow crack in the face. It looked like a Japanese
bonsai, with a twisted, malformed trunk and tortured branches.
The Walia ibex had been standing on the ledge just above that tree when
the American had fired. In his mind's eye Boris could still see the way
in which the wild goat had hunched its back as the bullet struck, and
then spun around and raced away up the cliff. He panned the glasses
upwards gently, and could just make out the inclination of the narrow
ledge as it angled up the face.
"Da, da. This is the spot." He was thinking in his mother tongue again.
It was a relief after these last days of having to struggle in French
and English.
Before he began the climb, he left the trail and scrambled down the
boulder-strewn slope to the river. He knelt at the edge of the Nile and
splashed double handfuls over himself, soaking his cropped head and
sluicing the sweat from his face and neck. He drained and refilled his
water bottle, then drank until his belly was painfully full.
Then he rinsed out the bottle and refilled it. There was no water on the
mountain. Finally he dipped his bush hat in the river and placed it back
on his head, sodden and streaming water down his neck and face.
He climbed back to the main trail and followed it for another hundred
paces, moving slowly and studying the "ground. At one place there was a
rock boulder almost blocking the path. The men ahead of him had been
forced to step over this obstruction, on to a patch of talcum-fine dust
beyond it. They had left perfect impressions of their footprints for him
to read.
Most of the men were wearing Israeli-style para boots with a
zigzag-patterned sole, and those coming up from behind had overtrodden
the spoor of the leaders. He had to go down on one knee to examine the
signs minutely before he could pick out the imprint of a much smaller
and more delicately formed foot, a lighter, unmistakably feminine tread.
It was partially obliterated by other larger masculine footprints, but
the outline of the toe was clear, and the pattern was that of a smooth
rubber-soled Bata tennis shoe. He would have recognized it from ten
thousand others.
He was relieved to find that Tessay was still with the group, and that
she and her lover had not left and taken another path. Mek Nimmur was a
sly one, and cunning.
He had escaped from Boris's clutches once before. But not this time! The
Russian shook his head vehemently: not this time.
He gave his full attention to the female footprint once again. It gave
him a pang to look at it. His anger returned in full force. He did not
consider his feelings for the woman. Love and desire did not enter into
the equation.
She was his chattel, and she had been stolen from him. It was only the
insult that had significance for him. She had rejected and humiliated
him, and for that she was going to die.
He felt the old thrill run through his blood at the thought of the kill.
Killing had always been his trade and his vocation, but no matter how
often he exercised his craft the thrill was never blunted, the pleasure
never satiated. Perhaps it was the only true pleasure left to him, pure
and unjaded - not even the vodka could weaken and dilute it as it had
the physical act of copulation. He would enjoy killing her even more
than he had once enjoyed coupling with her.
These past few years he had hunted only the lower animals, but he had
never forgotten what it was like to hunt down and to kill a human being,
more especially a woman. He wanted Mek Nimmur, but he wanted the woman
more.
In the days of President Mengistu, when he had been the head of
counter-intelligence, -his men had known his tastes and had picked the
pretty ones for him. He had only one regret now, and that was that this
time he would have to do it swiftly. There could be no question of
drawing it i out and savouring the pleasure. Not like some of the other
experiences, which had lasted for hours, sometimes for days.
"Bitch," he mouthed, and kicked at the dust, stamping on the faint
outline of her footprint, obliterating it just as he would do to her.
"Black fomicating bitch."
He ran now with fresh strength and determination as he left the trail
and climbed up towards the deformed tree and the beginning of the goat
track up, the cliff.
Exactly where he expected it, he found the start of the track and
followed it upwards. The higher he climbed, the steeper it became. Often
he had to use both hands to haul himself up a gradient, or to work his