Clive Cussler - Vixen 03

De Vaal's eyes registered stunned desperation. "How is it possible you know all this?"

"Like any good intelligence officer, Colonel Zeegler kept investigating until he ran down the truth," Pitt said. "Also, as do most sea captains, Fawkes kept a log. I was there when Emma tried to kill him. Fawkes saved my life before the ship blew up. But not before inserting his log, along with a few added notes about you, into a watertight tobacco pouch and slipping it under my shirt. The pages made damned interesting reading, especially to the President and the director of the NSA.

"By the way," Pitt continued, "that phony message you sent implicating Prime Minister Koertsmann was never really taken at face value. The White House was satisfied that Operation Wild Rose was conceived and conducted behind his back. Thus, your oily scheme to take over your own government was blown to dust. In the end Fawkes did you in, even if it was posthumously. The other details were supplied by Major Machita. who agreed to bury the hatchet with Colonel Zeegler long enough to put you away. As to my presence, I asked for and received the role of master of ceremonies because of my debt to Captain Fawkes. "

De Vaal stared at Pitt, his features set in defeat. Then he turned to Zeegler. "Joris, you arranged for my betrayals?''

"No man stands with a traitor."

"If ever a man deserved to die, De Vaal, it is you," said Machita. The hatred seemed to seep from his pores.

De Vaal ignored Machita. "You cannot simply execute a man of my station. The law demands a trial."

"It is Prime Minister Koertsmann's wish that there be no scandal." Zeegler spoke without looking his chief in the eye. "He suggested you die in the line of duty."

"That would make me a martyr." A tiny degree of confidence restored De Vaal's composure. "Can you see me as a martyr?"

"No, sir. That's why he agreed to my proposal that you turn up missing. Better you become a forgotten mystery than a national hero."

Too late, De Vaal caught the glint of steel as Machita's knife arched up between his groin and navel. The Defence Minister's eyes bulged in shock. He tried to speak; his mouth moved slackly, but the only sound that came was an animallike gasp. A red stain spread across his uniform.

Machita kept his hand on the knife's handle, watching death as it closed about De Vaal. Then, as the body sagged, Machita gave it a push backward, and De Vaal fell into the open grave. The three men walked to the edge and stood looking down as streams of dirt trickled and dropped on the figure sprawled below.

"A fitting rest for his kind," Machita muttered.

Zeegler's face was pale. He was hardened to seeing battlefield dead, but this was quite another thing. "I'll have the driver fill in the grave."

Pitt shook his head. "No need. Fawkes made one final request in his log. I promised myself I'd see to it."

"As you wish." Zeegler turned to leave. Machita looked as if he were going to say something, thought better of it, and started toward the underbrush surrounding the cemetery.

"Hold on," said Pitt. "Neither of you can afford to waste this opportunity."

"Opportunity?" Zeegler said.

"After acting together to destroy a mutual cancer, it would be stupid not to stand face to face and discuss your differences."

"A waste of words," Zeegler said contemptuously. "Thomas Machita only speaks with violence."

"Like all Westerners, Mr. Pitt, you are naive to our battle," Machita said, his face stoic. "Talk cannot change what is meant to be. The racist South African government will fall to blacks in time."

"You will pay dearly before your flag flies over Cape Town," said Zeegler.

"Fool's mate," said Pitt. "You're both playing a fool's-mate gambit."

Zeegler looked at him. "Perhaps in your eyes, Mr. Pitt. But to us it goes to a depth no outsider can fathom."

The colonel continued to his car and Machita faded into the jungle.

The truce was over. The chasm was too wide to be crossed.

A wave of impotency mixed with anger swept Pitt. "What will it all matter a thousand years from now?" he shouted after them.

He picked up the shovel and in a slow tempo began scooping dirt into the grave. He could not bring himself to look at De Vaal. Soon he heard the splatter of dirt on dirt and he knew no one would ever see the Defence Minister again.

When he was finished and the mound was neatly shaped, he opened a box that lay on the grass beside the headstone and removed four flowering plants. These he carefully embedded in the soil at the corners of the Fawkes burial plot. Then he straightened and stepped back.

"Rest well, Captain Fawkes. May you not be judged too harshly."

Feeling neither remorse nor sadness but rather a kind of contentment, Pitt placed the empty box under one arm and the shovel over his shoulder and set a course for the village of Umkono.

Behind him, the four bougainvillea plants arched their blossoms toward the African sun.

Clive Cussler lives the same sort of adventurous life as his hero, Dirk Pitt: Tramping the Southwest in search of gold mines, diving in isolated Rocky Mountain lakes for missing aircraft, and heading an expedition to salvage John Paul jones's ship, the Bonhomme Richard. Cussler discovered and excavated a sister ship to the Monitor, and he found artifacts from its famous nemesis, the Merrimack. A noted collector of classic automobiles, Cussler divides his time between Denver, Colorado and Paradise Valley, Arizona.