‘Impressive, I’m sure.’
‘And you know what I used? Landmines? No. Searchlights? No. Two concentric rings of chain-link fencing, buried six feet deep, razor-topped, and between the rings wild animals. Crocs in the ponds, lions in the grassland. One covered tunnel in and out. I love Mother Nature.’
He checked his watch.
‘Eleven o’clock. I’ll drive you up the track to our guardhouse in the gap in the hills. The San Martin police will send a jeep to meet you there and take you back to your hotel.’
They were motoring back across the estate from the coast to the gate giving access to the village and the climbing track when the major’s communicator crackled. He listened to the message from the duty telephone/radio operator in the cellar beneath the mansion. It pleased him. He switched off and pointed to the crest of the sierra.
‘Colonel Moreno’s men scoured the jungle this morning, from the road to the crest. They’ve found the American’s camp. Abandoned. You could be right. I think he’s seen enough and chickened out.’
In the distance McBride could see the great double-gate and beyond it the white of the buildings of the worker village.
‘Tell me about the labourers, major.’
‘What about them?’
‘How many? How do you get them?’
‘About twelve hundred. They are all offenders: within San Martin’s penal system. Now, don’t get holier-than-thou, Mr McBride. You Americans have prison farms. So this is a prison farm. Considering all things they live pretty well here.’
‘And if they have served their sentences, when do they go back home?’
‘They don’t,’ said van Rensberg.
A one-way ticket, thought the American, courtesy of Colonel Moreno and Major van Rensberg. A life sentence. For what offences? Jay-walking? Litter? Moreno would have to keep the numbers up. On demand.
‘What about guards and mansion staff?’
‘That’s different. We are employed. Everyone needed inside the mansion wall lives there. Everybody stays inside when our employer is in residence. Only uniformed guards and a few senior staff like me can pass through the wall. Never a peon. Pool cleaners, gardeners, waiters, maids – all live inside the wall. The peons who labour on the estate, they live in their township. They are all single men.’
‘No women, no children?’
‘None. They are not here to breed. But there is a church. The priest preaches one text only – absolute obedience.’
He forbore to mention that for lack of obedience he retained the use of his rhino-hide sjambok whip as in the old days.
‘Could a stranger come into the estate posing as part of the workforce, major?’
‘No. Every evening the workforce for the next day is selected by the estate manager who goes to the village. Those selected walk to the main gate and report at sunrise, after breakfast. They are checked through one by one. So many desired, so many admitted. Not a single one more.’
‘How many come through?’
‘About a thousand a day. Two hundred with some technical skill for the repair shops, mill, bakery, slaughterhouse, tractor shed; eight hundred for hacking and weeding. About two hundred remain behind each day. The genuinely sick, garbage crews, cooks.’
‘I think I believe you,’ said McBride. ‘This loner doesn’t have a chance, does he?’
‘Told you so, Mr CIA-man. He’s chickened out.’
He had hardly finished when the communicator crackled again. His brow furrowed as he listened to the report.
‘What kind of flap? Well, tell him to calm down. I’ll be there in five minutes.’
He replaced the set.
‘Father Vicente, at the church. In some kind of a panic. I’ll have to drive by on our way to the mountains. A delay of a few minutes no doubt.’
On their left they passed a row of peons, aching backs bent over mattocks and hoes in the raging heat. Some heads lifted briefly to watch the passing vehicle bearing the man who had power of life and death over them. Gaunt, stubbled faces, coffee-brown eyes under straw brims. But one pair of eyes was blue.