e “escaped prisoner” siren. Seal the gate of the mansion to everyone except me. Then use the PA to tell every guard on the estate, on or off duty, to report to me at the main gate.’
Seconds later the long, wailing sound of the siren rolled over the peninsula. It was heard in field and barn, shed and orchard, kitchen garden and pigsty.
Everyone out there raised their head from what they were doing to stare towards the main gate. When their undivided attention had been secured, the voice of the radio operator in the basement beneath the mansion was heard.
‘All guards to main gate. Repeat, all guards to main gate. On the double.’
There were over sixty on day shift and the rest on lay-over in their barracks. From the fields, riding quad-bikes from the farthest reaches, jogging on foot from the barracks a quarter of a mile from the main gate, they converged in response to the emergency.
Van Rensberg took his off-road back through the gate and waited for them, standing on the bonnet, bullhorn in hand.
‘We don’t have an escape,’ he told them when they stood in front of him. ‘We have the reverse. We have an intruder. Now, he’s masquerading as a labourer. Same clothes, same sandals, same sombrero. He’s even got a stolen dog tag. Day shift: round up and bring in every single labourer. No exceptions. Off-duty shift, search every barn, cowshed, stable, workshop. Then seal and mount guard. Use your communicators to stay in touch with squad commanders. Junior leaders, stay in touch with me. Now get to it. Anyone in prisoner uniform seen running away, shoot on sight. Now go.’
The hundred men began to fan out over the estate. They had the mid-section to cover: from the chain-link fence separating the village and airfield from the farmland, up to the mansion wall. A big territory; too big even for a hundred men. And it would take hours.
Van Rensberg had forgotten that McBride was leaving. He ignored the American, busy with his own planning. McBride sat and puzzled.
There was a notice by the church, right next to the door. It said: ‘Obsequias por nuestro hermano Pedro Hernandez. Once de la mañana.’
Even with his laboured Spanish, the CIA man could work out that meant: ‘Funeral service for our brother Pedro Hernandez. Eleven in the morning.’
Did the manhunter not see it? Could he not work out the sense? It would be reasonable that the priest would not normally visit his vestry until Sunday. But today was different. At exactly ten to eleven he would open his vestry cupboard and see the prisoner.
Why not dump him somewhere else? Why not tape him to his own cot where no one would find him till sundown, or not even then?
He found the major speaking to the airfield mechanics.
‘What’s wrong with it? Sod the tail rotor. I need it back up in the air. Well, hurry it up.’
He flicked off his machine, listened to McBride, glared and snapped: ‘Your fellow countryman simply made a mistake, that is all. An expensive mistake. It’s going to cost him his life.’
An hour passed. Even without field glasses McBride could see the first columns of white-cotton-clad workers being force-marched back to the double-gates to their village. Beside the lines of men the uniformed guards were shouting them on. Midday. The heat was a hammer on the back of the head.
The milling crowd of men in front of the gates grew even bigger. The chit-chat on the radio never stopped, as sector after sector of estate was cleared of workers, its buildings searched, declared clear, sealed and manned from inside.
At half past one the number-checking began. Van Rensberg insisted on the five checkers resuming their places behind the tables and passing the workers through, one after another, two hundred per column.
The men normally worked in the cool of the dawn or the evening. They were baking alive in the heat. Two or three peons fainted and were helped through by friends. Every tag was checked until its number matched one passed through that same morning. When the last white-bloused figure stumbled towards the village, rest, shade and water, the senior checker nodded.
‘One missing,’ he called. Van Rensberg walked to his desk to peer over his shoulder.
‘Number five-three-one-oh-eight.’
‘Name?’
‘Ramon Gutierrez.’
‘Release the dogs.’
Van Rensberg strolled across to McBride.
‘Every single technician must by now be inside, locked in and guarded. The dogs will never touch my men, you know. They recognize the uniform. That leaves one man out there. A stranger, white cotton pants and floppy shirt, wrong smell. It’s like a lunch bell to the Dobermanns. Up a tree? In a pond? They’ll still find him. Then they will surround him and bay until the handlers come. I give this mercenary half an hour to get up a tree and surrender, or die.’
The man he sought was in the middle of the estate, running lightly between rows of maize higher than his own head. He judged by the sun and crests of the sierra the direction of his run.
It had taken two hours of steady jogging earlier in the morning to bring him from his allotted work patch to the base of the mansion’s protective wall. Not that the distance was a problem for a man accustomed to half a marathon, but he had to dodge the other work parties and the guards. He was still dodging.
He came to a track across the maize field, dropped to his belly and peered out. Down the track, two guards on a quad-bike roared away in the direction of the main gate. He waited till they were round a corner, then sprinted across the track and was lost in a peach orchard. His study of the layout of the estate from above had given him a route that would take him from where he had started near the mansion wall to where he wanted to be, without ever crossing a knee-high crop.