Daggat rose and put his hand on Lusana’s shoulder. “I suggest you catch the first flight back to Mozambique, Hiram, and regain control of your movement. Issue news releases denying the AAR’s involvement in the massacre. Blame it on the other insurgent groups, if you have to, but get out from under and put your house in order. I’ll do what I can to soften adverse reaction at this end.”

Lusana extended his hand. “Thank you, Congressman. I’m grateful for all you’ve done.”

Daggat shook his hand warmly.

“And your subcommittee. How will they vote now?” Lusana said.

Daggat smiled confidently. “Three to two in favor of aid to the AAR, providing you offer a convincing performance in front of the news cameras when you deny any involvement with the Tazareen massacre.”

Colonel Joris Zeegler had taken over the basement of a schoolhouse ten miles from the boundary separating Natal province and Mozambique. While class continued on the top two floors, Zeegler and several ranking officers of the Defence Forces studied aerial maps and a scale mock-up of the AAR headquarters, not twenty-five miles away, across the border.

Zeegler squinted through a wisp of smoke curling from the cigarette

No Return Ticket I 179

that dangled in his mouth and tapped a pointer on a miniature building in the center of the mock-up.

“The former university-administration building,” he said, “is used by Lusana as his nerve center. A Chinese-supplied communications network, field-staff offices, intelligence section, indoctrination rooms_ they’re all housed there. They’ve gone too bloody far this time. Destroy it and everyone in it and you cut off the head of the AAR.”

“Begging your pardon, sir”-this from a big red-faced captain with a bushy mustache-“but it was my understanding that Lusana was in America.”

“Quite correct. He’s in Washington this very minute, on his hands and knees, begging the Yanks for financial support.”

“Then what bloody good is cutting off the serpent’s head if the brain lies elsewhere? Why not wait until he returns and bag the head bugger as well?”

Zeegler gave him a cold, condescending stare. “Your metaphor needs refining, Captain. However, to answer your question … it will not be practical to await Lusana’s return. Our intelligence sources have confirmed that Colonel Randolph Jumana has engineered a mutiny within the ranks of the AAR.”

Surprised looks were exchanged among the officers clustered around the model. It was the first they’d heard of Lusana’s ouster.

“Now is the time to strike,” he went on. “By brutally murdering helpless women and children at Tazareen, Jumana has thrown open the door for retaliation. An across-the-border raid on AAR headquarters has been approved by the Prime Minister. The usual diplomatic protests from Third World countries are to be expected, of course. A formality, nothing more.”

A tough-looking customer with the rank of major and dressed in camouflage fatigues raised his hand. Zeegler acknowledged him.