Vixen 03 (Dirk Pitt 5)

Zeegler nodded in agreement. "Your story, Captain, fits the same crude modus operandi, if you will, of at least twelve other attacks in the last two months."

"If you want my opinion," Fawkes snorted, "that damned AAR is in back of it."

"Indirectly, the blame can be laid on the African Army of Revolution's doorstep." Zeegler drew on a pencil-thin cigar.

"Half the black boys between the ages of twelve to eighteen from here to Cape Town would give their testicles to become an AAR soldier," De Vaal injected. "You might call it a form of hero worship."

"You have to give the devil his due," said Zeegler. "Hiram Lusana is every bit as shrewd a psychologist as he is a propagandist and a tactician."

"Aye," Fawkes said, looking over at the colonel. "I've heard a great deal about that bastard. How did he come to be leader of the AAR?"

"Self-imposed. He's an American black. Seems he made a vast sum of money in international drug smuggling. But wealth was not enough..He entertained dreams of power and grandeur. So he sold out his business to a French syndicate and came to Africa and began organizing and equip-ping his own army of liberation."

"Seems a staggering undertaking for only one man," said Fawkes, "even a wealthy one."

"Not so staggering when you have help, and lots of it," Zeegler explained. "The Chinese supply his arms and the Vietnamese train his men. Fortunately, our security forces are able to keep them in a state of almost constant rout."

"But our government will surely fall if we are subjected to a prolonged economic blockade," added De Vaal. "Lusana's game plan is to fight a clean war by the book. No terrorism, no killing of innocent women and children. His forces thus far have attacked only military installations. Then, by playing benevolent savior, he can gain total moral and financial support from the United States, Europe, and the Third World powers. Once he achieves these goals he can exert his newly acquired influence to close off all our economic dealings with the outside world. Then the end of White South Africa is only a matter of weeks."

"Is there no way to contain Lusana?" asked Fawkes.

De Vaal's bushy eyebrows rose. "There is one possibility, provided you give it your blessing."

Fawkes stared at the Minister, his expression one of bewilderment. "I'm only a beached sailor and a farmer. I know nothing about insurgent warfare. Of what use can I be to the Ministry of Defence?"

De Vaal did not answer but simply passed Fawkes a leather-bound book about the size of a thin bookkeeping ledger.

"It's called Operation Wild Rose."

The lights of Pembroke blinked on one by one in the evening dusk. A light rain had pelted the windows of the coach, leaving a myriad of streaks down the dust-coated glass. Fawkes's reading spectacles clung to his great nose and magnified his eyes as they darted back and forth over the pages without pause. He was so engrossed in what he was reading he absentmindedly chewed on the stem of a pipe that had long since burned out.

It was a few minutes past eight o'clock when he closed the cover of Operation Wild Rose. He sat there for a long moment as though in contemplation. Finally he shook his head tiredly.

"I pray to God it never comes to this," he said quietly.

"I share your sentiments," said De Vaal. "But the time is fast appreaching when our backs will be against the wall and Operation Wild Rose may well be our final hope of escaping annihilation."

"I still fail to see what you gentlemen want from me."

"Merely your opinion, Captain," said Zeegler. "We've made feasibility studies of the plan and know what the computers say 23

about its chances of success. We're hoping your years of experience will supply the pros and cons as judged by a human."

"I can tell you the scheme is damn near impossible," said Fawkes. "And for my money you can add 'insane' as well. What you're proposing is terrorism at its worst."

"Exactly," agreed De Vaal. "By using a black hit-and-run force masquerading as members of the African Army of Revolution, we can swing international sympathy away from the blacks and to the white cause of South Africa."

"We must have the support of countries like the United States to survive," Zeegler explained.

"What happened in Rhodesia can happen here," De Vaal went on. "All private property, farms, stores, banks, seized and nationalized. Blacks and whites slaughtered in the streets, thousands exiled from the continent with barely the clothes on their backs. A new black communist-oriented government, a despotic, tribal dictatorship suppressing and exploiting their own people in virtual slavery. You can be certain, Captain Fawkes, that if and when our government topples, it will not be replaced by one with democratic majority rule in mind."

"We don't know for sure that that will happen here," said Fawkes. "And even if we could look into a crystal ball and predict the worst, it would not condone unleashing Operation Wild Rose."

"I'm not after a moral judgment," De Vaal said sternly. "You've stated the plan is impossible. I will accept that."

After Fawkes left, De Vaal poured himself another drink. "The captain was frank. I'll give that to him."

"He was also quite right," said Zeegler. "Wild Rose/s terrorism at its worst."