[b]Rhodesian Embassy, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia[/b]
 
Reginald Heap sank into his leather office chair with a sigh, the chair squeaking as if in sympathy with his depression. He was wearing a red bathrobe, even in Ethiopia it got chilly in the wee hours of the morning, and white slippers on his feet to combat the cold tiles. His office was his sanctuary, even Beatrice did not enter it uninvited. Tall bookshelves filled with all sorts of books he had never read and Ethiopian trinkets he gave zero fucks about, but they made the locals think he was interested. In truth, he enjoyed Ethiopia for the drinking, the booze, and the women who would do literally anything he wanted. Rhodesia was less open minded about inter-racial fucking and certainly more tight on the drug control despite thee climate being ideal for Marijuana production.
 
He turned slowly in the chair, eyes raking the books, narrowing as he caught sight of a touristy Ethiopian Lion holding the national flag on one shelf. He had been certain that Ethiopian support would be enough to force the African Union vote but it seemed not so much. It had literally been his only mandate, other than keeping Ethiopia friendly, that he had been given by the Rhodesian Government. He had done that as best he could, spending Government money liberally on lavish parties, drugs, booze, whatever it took to keep the Emperor on side. It hadn't been enough. He would have to explain that when he was recalled, he knew that was only a matter of time. Rhodesia tolerated many things from its white citizens but failure, well, failure was not tolerated by anyone. He supposed that he could at least go back to the family estate where Beatrice could hold her lavish dinner parties and he could enjoy some more ebony pussy.
 
That made him think of Sara Reicker, the newly arrived secretary he had not really gotten to know. He had peep holes in her room but either by accident, or maybe she knew, she had kept them blocked off. There was no doubt that she was a good looking lady, almost thirty years his junior and in the prime of life. She was a prize worth having but he didn't dare try to force the topic. She was a Rhodesian Government employee, one of the "Good" Negroes. Reginald had always broken them up that way. Good or Bad, always Negroes. He hated them. He hated them because he wanted her, he wanted all their women, and it was so easy to take them, but it was weakness. His father had hated them for different reasons and the first time he found Reginald with a pair of black lips around his cock he had beaten the boy badly. But Reginald couldn't help himself.
 
The sound of movement outside the study door interrupted his train of thought and he waited for a moment. Eyes straining to see past the single lamp that was lit on his desk. The hallway beyond was plunged into darkness. He had thought he was the only one awake in the house.
 
"Hello." He called out, pulling his robe tighter around his body. He hadn't heard the dogs barking, or any shouts from his security detail, so whoever was out there had to be a member of the household. "Beatrice?"
 
There was a small scuffle and a muffled gasp before all was silent in the hallway. Cautiously he stood, still trying to see into the hallway. An inner instinct warned him to turn off the light and hide but another part of him rebelled against that. This was his house, he would not cower in fear. With slow movements he picked up the phone on his desk and punched in the two numbers that would ring through to the guardroom outside before lifting the phone to his ear. Nothing. The line was dead.
 
Something bordering on genuine fear began to blossom in his stomach as he put the phone back down. His eyes cast about the room and came to rest on a copy of the St. James Bible on a book case next to a photo that showed him and Beatrice on their wedding day. Quickly he crossed the room, grabbed the book off the shelf and tore it open. He had long ago hidden a small pistol inside the pages, cutting out a perfect shape so that it rested comfortably, just in case, one did not grow up Rhodesian without being cautious. His fingers stopped as they opened the cover, the pistol was gone. He dropped the Bible, the sound of it slamming into the tile loud to his ears as the fear began to take over.
 
"What's the matter Reggie? Lost something?' The voice from the door was unexpected and he froze in his panic, turning to stare at the woman who walked through the door. Sara Reicker, naked except for a pair of black gloves, stood before him. His eyes bugged out as he realized that she was holding the pistol that was supposed to inside the Bible. "Lost something?"
 
Sara purred the words and Reginald had the uncomfortable feeling that she was watching him like a cat watched a mouse.
 
"I brought you something." She continued, reaching behind the door frame and dragging another person into the light. Beatrice. Her wrists were tightly bound behind her back and she ankles were hobbled. She to was naked, a rag stuffed into her mouth. Sara kicked her hard behind the knees and Beatrice gave a muffled shriek as she collapsed, bouncing hard off the floor.
 
Reginald was having a hard time processing what was happening as he stared from his bound wife to the gun toting secretary. His mouth opened, then closed, he couldn't find words. He took a step towards Beatrice and the pistol flashed silver in the light as it lined up on his forehead.
 
"You're a pig." Sara suddenly said. She said it so mildly that he was taken aback again. His mind was whirling, trying to make sense of what was happening. She saw his confusion and smiled. "Oh, and the Rhodesian Government no longer requires your services."
 
Before he could speak, she fired, the bullet slamming into his forehead and snapping him backwards so that he bounced off the desk and onto the floor with a crash, dead before he hit the tiles. Sara stepped over the bound and gagged Beatrice and squatted down, checking for a pulse on the dead man. Satisfied she turned back to Beatrice. Outside the dogs had begun to bark and a voice shouted in the darkness. She had a minute or so left to her. She took a knife from the desk, cut the bounds on Beatrice's legs and helped her to her feet, smiling as she patted the woman on the cheek. The fear and terror in the white face made her realize how this moment had made living in Rhodesia completely worth it.
 
She said nothing else as she smiled, placed the gun under Beatrices chin, and pulled the trigger again. The older womans head snapped backward and blood splattered the ceiling. The body crashed to the floor and Sara dropped the gun from where she held it, the weapon hitting the ground, bouncing once and sliding under a nearby chair. She swiftly knelt and cut the bounds from the dead womans wrists. She had used sheets in both cases, they would leave virtually no evidence the Police to work with. The knife went back onto the desk even as more shouts came from outside and she could hear the sound of men running across the gravel. Lights were coming on at the far end of the house in the servants quarters.
 
With last look around she stepped into the hallway, ran swiftly up the long stairs, and made her way down the long hall to her own chambers. She paused long enough to place the gloves and torn sheets back into the cleaning supply cupboard where they had come from and then slipped inside her apartment just as the front door crashed open and security men burst into the house.
 
She stepped in front of the mirror, using damp toilet paper to clean the small spots of blood off her skin before flushing them down the toilet. Satisfied, she slipped into her white sleeping shift, adopted a sleepy and annoyed expression, and stepped out of her room even as more shouts filled the air.
 
 
[b]London, England[/b]
 
"Thank you, thank you, and thank you again!" The representative of the Barnardo’s and the Fairbridge Society was effusive in his manner as he shook the tall Rhodesian by the hand. The two men were standing outside the "London Fairbridge Orphanage", one of the largest in London.
 
Some thirty children stood in the street, their suitcases by their feet, staring sullenly at the Afrikaner who beamed down at them. Several newspapermen stood nearby, smoking the Cornells he had handed out, their pencils scratching a brief story for the local papers about how a Rhodesian man, representing white farmers, had come to London to relieve the Barnardo’s and the Fairbridge Society of a number of their orphans. Only one had a camera and the Rhodesian was careful to stay out of any photos. What the reporters could not know was that in the back, carefully hidden from view, all record of the children, their names, their families, their ties to England, were being consumed by fire. The Rhodesian had bought some positive press with cigarettes, but he had bought the orphans with cold hard cash.
 
It was no secret in the Government halls of Salisbury that Rhodesia was a white country on the 'dark continent". Numerous programs had been begun to try and increase the population and none had been more successful than the very straight forward practice of buying orphans from European and North American countries.
 
"Alright children. Onto the bus!" The Fairbridge representative called out as a a pair of hired busses ground to a halt in front of the orphanage. The children, ranging in age from three to fourteen, uncertainty written across their faces, shuffled to the bus, the older ones helping the younger as they put their bags under the bus and them climb the rubber covered steps into an uncertain future.
 
The Rhodesian watched them go, his smile still plastered on his face. With records spotty at best, and the majority of them destroyed in exchange for some gold, the sheer size of the orphan buying operation would never truly be known. He expected to leave Britain with near three hundred children on a ship that would sail in two days time from Bristol, stopping in France, Spain, and Italy, on the way to pick up more children. In all, he hoped to return to Rhodesia with nearly six hundred young passengers.
 
Once in Rhodesia they would be adopted out to white families who would be given a stipend by the government for their care and upbringing. The older boys and girls would be given over to the military where they would be raised to fight for their new country. Not everyone would be happy. He knew some, usually those who did not speak English, would commit suicide or try to run away. It was a price they had to pay but a desperate situation called for desperate measures. Rhodesians were an endangered species in their own country and war was coming.
 
Simple failure happened as well. Not everyone was cut out for military service. The boys who did not make it through training would be turned over to the public service, and the girls would be given over to the breeding program. A number of government funded programs existed to encourage white women to have children, including cash bonuses but some years earlier the Rhodesian government had found it was not quite enough. They had instituted a "breeding program" in which certain women, always former orphans or kidnapped foreign nationals, were transported to "Rest Homes" were they were kept as virtual prisoners and given the choice between having children for the continued survival of the Rhodesian state, or they could vanish into the savannah. All took their first choice. he wasn't sure what happened when they were no longer useful and, like most Rhodesians, he didn't want to know. In fact, the whole "breeding program" was treated as a rumour by the Rhodesian people and largely ignored.
 
"Thank you again Mr. Smith!' The Fairbridge man said again as he tipped his hat to the Rhodesian who smiled and touched the brim of his own cap in return.
 
Officially the children were being sent overseas under the Child Migrant Program. The Rhodesian had carefully presented himself as a Canadian farmer. It was not hard, the British public assumed that everyone from the colonies was the same and only someone who had spent time overseas might notice the difference in accent. Canada and Australia were largely considered the best place to send the orphans, though some had gone to South Africa. This had been convenient for the Rhodesians who simply got some money into the right hands and children got off the ship in Cape Town and on to a bus that carried them to Salisbury. He had quietly been making arrangements for more of the children to go that route, it saved him a lot of time and money.
 
Mr Smith supposed that a small part of him should feel guilty about the whole affair but Rhodesia's survival was more important to him than any morale quibbles about right and wrong. All these children would one day be good sons and daughters of Rhodesia. Everyone had their part to play.