He passed a pair of black youngsters squatting in the ditch beside the road. He paid them no heed and did not see them as they leaped to their feet and began running in the Bushmaster’s dusty wake. A hundred yards farther on the road narrowed. A swamp on the right side held a rotting bed of reeds. On the left a ravine fell more than a hundred feet to a muddy streambed. Directly ahead a boy of about sixteen stood in the middle of the road, one hand gripping a broad-bladed Zulu spear, the other hand supporting a raised rock.

Fawkes stopped abruptly. The boy held his ground and stared with an expression of grim determination at the bearded face behind the windshield. He wore ragged shorts and a soiled, torn t-shirt that had never seen soap. Fawkes rolled down his window and leaned out. He smiled and spoke in a low, friendly voice.

“If you have a mind to play Saint George and the dragon with me, boy, I suggest you reconsider.”

Fawkes was answered by silence. Then he became aware of three images simultaneously, and his muscles tensed. There was the sight of gleaming safety-glass fragments that had been carelessly kicked into a rain-eroded rut. There were parallel tire marks that curved at the lip of the ravine. And the other, most tangible evidence of something dangerously wrong was the reflection in the side mirror of the two boys charging toward his rear. One, a fat, lumbering youth, was pointing an old bolt-action rifle. The other swung a rusty machete above his head.

My God, Fawkes’s mind flashed. I’m being ambushed by schoolchildren.

His only weapon was the hunting knife in the glove compartment. His family had hustled him on his way so quickly that he had forgotten to

Operation Wild Rose I 63

pack his favorite .44 Magnum revolver.

Wasting no time by cursing his laxity, he crammed the Bushmaster into reverse and mashed down on the gas. The tires bit and jerked the four-wheel-drive backward, missing the boy carrying the machete but clipping the one with the gun, sending him spinning into the swamp. Fawkes then braked and shoved the gearshift into first and spun wheels toward the boy who stood poised to throw both spear and rock.

There was no hint of fear in the black teenager’s eyes as he rooted his bare feet and pitched both arms in unison. At first Fawkes thought the boy’s aim was high; he heard the spear clatter and ricochet off the roof. Then the windshield dissolved in a hail of glittering slivers and the rock was in the front seat, beside him. Fawkes felt the glass particles slice his face, but the only thing he remembered afterward was the cold look of hatred in his assailant’s eyes.