Blood had flowed back under the smooth brown skin. She seemed to glow, and the light in her eyes had changed to the sparkle of dark yellow topaz.

"You called me darling," she whispered.

He lowered his head over her and kissed her. Her lips opened under his, and the inside of her mouth was hot and lubricious. He probed it deeply with his tongue, and it tasted like the sap of sweet young grass.

From the desk, General China said quietly in Shangane, "Very well, now take the woman away."

Claudia's guards seized her and Plucked her Out Of his embrace She gave a small despairing wail and tried to resist, but they were powerful, heavily built women, and between them they lifted her feet off the ground and hustled her back through the screen doorway.

one of Sean shouted' Leave her," and started after them, but the guards drew the pistol from her webbing holster and pointed it at his belly. The canvas screen dropped between them and Claudia's cries of protest dwindled as she was dragged away. In the silence Sean turned slowly back to the man at the desk.

"You bastard," he whispered furiously. "You set that up."

"It went better than I could possibly have hoped for," General China agreed, "although some previous conversation I had with Miss Monterro concerning you gave me the idea she was more hunter."

interested in you as a man than as a professional "I'd like to twist your head off your shoulders. if you hurt her -Come, come, Colonel Courtney. I'm not going to hurt her. She is far too valuable.

She is a bargaining chip. Surely You realize that."

Slowly Sean's fury abated and he nodded stiffly. "Okay, China, what do you want?"

"Good." General China nodded. "I was waiting for you to ask that question. Sit down." He indicated one of the stools facing his desk. "I'll order a pot of tea and we can talk."

While they waited for the tea, General China busied himself with the papers on his desk, reading and signing a batch of orders t gave Sean a chance to recover himself When an orderly brought the tea, General China gestured for him to clear the papers from the desk.

When they were alone again, China sipped at his mug and want. Well, I regarded Sean over Se rim. "You ask what it is I confess that at first it was nothing more complicated than must simple retribution. After all, Colonel, it was you that destroyed my command that day at the camp at Inhlozane. You put the only manent blemish on my professional career, and you inflicted Pc "Reason physical damage on my person." He touched his ear.

I'm sure you will agree."

enough for me to want revenge, Sean remained silent. Although he had not tasted tea in days and craved it, he had not touched the mug, which stood on the edge of the desk in front of him. Of course, I knew that you were operating the Chiwewe hunting concession. In fact, as a junior minister of Mugabe's government, I was one of those who gave approval to the grant. I thought even then that it might be useful to have you so close to the border."

Sean forced himself to relax. He realized that he might learn more, achieve more, by a show of cooperation rather than defiance. It was difficult to do, for he could still taste Claudia's mouth.

He picked up the tea mug and took a mouthful.

"You certainly get around." He smiled. "Comrade one day, general the next. Marxist government minister one day, Renamo warlord the next."

China waved a hand deprecatingly. "The dialectics of Marxism never truly interested me. Looking back now, I realize I enlisted in the guerrilla army for a very good capitalistic reason. At the time it was the best way to get on in LIFE--does that make any sense to you, Colonel?"

"Perfect sense," Sean agreed. This time his smile was genumie.

"It's a well-known fact that the only way communism can be made to work is if you have capitalists to pay the bill and manage the show' You phrased that very well." China nodded his appreciation.

"I only found that out later, once ZANLA had ousted Smith and taken over the government in Harare. I discovered that as a former guerrilla I was feared and mistrusted by the soft fat cats who had avoided the actual fighting but now had taken control of the show.

I saw that far from receiving my just rewards, I was more likely to end up in Chikarubi prison, so I allowed my capitalistic instinct to guide me. With a few other like-minded citizens, we were arranging another change of government, and we were able to convince some of my old comrades-in-arms, who occupied senior positions in the Zimbabwean Army, that I would make a suitable replacement for Robert Mugabe."

"The good old African game of coup and counter coup Sean suggested.

"It is refreshing to talk to someone who follows the reasoning so readily." China nodded approval. "But then you are an African, albeit of the less fashionable hue."

"I'm flattered to be recognized as one," Sean told him. "But to return to your altruistic desire to put the best man in charge--"

"All, yes... well, somebody boasted to a woman, and she told her other lover, who just happened to be Mugabe's chief of intelligence, and I was forced to cross the border in some haste, and here I fell in with yet others of my former comrades who now had joined Renaino."

"But why Renamo?" Sean asked.

"It is my natural political home. I am good at what I do, and Renamo welcomed me. You see, I am part Shangane- As you know, our tribe sprawls over both sides of the artificial line imposed by surveyors of the colonial era, who took no consideration of demographic realities when they agreed on borders."