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PART ONE

THE CRYSTAL

MOUNTAIN

one

There were no stars that night on the bush airstrip, nor anyround the scattered groups like war hardly off the tops of the iroko trees, and the waiting er to shield them from the bombers

At the end of the runway the battered old DC-4, which had just slipped in for a landing by runway lights that stayed alight for just the last fifteen seconds of final approach, turned and coughed its way blindly toward the palm-thatch huts

Between two of them, five white men sat crouched in a Land Rover and stared toward the incoht was in each et out of the battered and cruovernet out alive Each man had a price on his head and intended to see that no man collected it They were the last of the ht on contract for the side that had lost Noas tio plane with silent attention

A Federal MiG-17 night fighter, probably flown by one of the six East German pilots sent down over the past threeat night, ht above the cloud layers

The pilot of the taxiing DC-4, unable to hear the screahts to see where he was going, and frohts!” When the pilot had got his bearings, he turned thehter above was miles away To the south there was a rumble of artillery where the front had finally crumbled as men who had had neither food nor bullets for twobush forest

The pilot of the DC-4 brought his plane to a halt twenty yards from the Super Constellation already parked on the apron, killed the engines, and climbed down to the concrete An African ran over to him and there was a h the dark toward one of the larger groups of ainst the darkness of the palroup parted as the two from the tarmac approached, until the white man who had flown in the DC-4 was face-to-face with the one who stood in the center The white man had never seen him before, but he knew of hiarettes, he could recognize the man he had come to see

The pilot wore no cap, so instead of saluting he inclined his head slightly He had never done that before, not to a black, and could not have explained why he did it

“My nalish accented in the Afrikaner manner

The African nodded his acknowledg the front of his striped cae uniform as he did so

“It’s a hazardous night for flying, Captain Van Cleef,” he remarked dryly, “and a little late for more supplies”