16
He was known as Killaman. He was thirty-eight years old and he’d been a soldier for twenty-five of them. It was he who had led the poaching expedition to kill the rhinos and lure the Strattens into the trap. Mabeki may have been the brains behind the operation, and President Gushungo’s consent had been required for it to go ahead, but Killaman had been the senior fighting man.
It had taken him a matter of seconds to exit the shebeen, race up the stairs, find his four fallen comrades and work out what had happened. His fury at the incompetence that had allowed one man to penetrate their defences and steal their most precious possession had swiftly given way to the realization of a golden opportunity.
Killaman gathered up the weapons lying by the bodies, shoved Mabeki’s pistol into the waistband of his trousers, and slung the straps of the AK-47s round his left shoulder. He retrieved the keys of the Hilux truck from the tabletop where they had been thrown when they’d first arrived in Chitongo. Then he went back outside and looked down at the men milling around in the road, some staring into the distance, others arguing about what to do next, the rest standing about aimlessly.
Among the milling rabble was the man who had fired at Carver, another member of the kidnap gang, who went by the name Silent Death. He was looking up at the building, waiting for Killaman to tell him what to do next. The rest were swiftly losing interest, now that the excitement seemed to have passed. Soon they would all return to the shebeen and the moment would be lost.
A series of pillars that supported the roof ran down the balustrade about ten feet apart. Killaman grabbed hold of one of them with his right hand and pulled himself up on to the balustrade so that everyone down below could see him, swinging his left arm up and making the guns hanging from it clearly visible.
‘Get the truck … go!’ he shouted at Silent Death, throwing the keys down to him. Then he turned his attention to the crowd. ‘Comrades!’ he cried. ‘Listen to me now!’
Killaman waited until every face had turned towards him and an expectant hush had fallen.
‘Something very precious that belongs to me has been taken – a white girl. I will offer ten thousand American dollars to any man who helps me recover this girl. Fifty thousand to anyone who kills the white man who stole her from me. I have guns for you to shoot, I have a truck for you to ride in. Now, who will join me?’
There was a clamour of volunteers. A couple of fights broke out as men competed for Killaman’s attention. He picked the four meanest-looking individuals he could find. Then he ordered them into the Hilux, clambered in next to Silent Death and set off in pursuit of the VW van and its passengers.
17
There was a football pitch on the edge of town, out beyond the last houses. On the road leading up to it, just behind one of the goals, stood a large warehouse used for storing food sent to the area by aid agencies. To one side of the pitch, by the halfway line, was a small stand made of scaffolding with a dozen rows of seats to hold a couple of hundred spectators. Directly opposite, on the far side of the ground, a motley collection of concrete buildings, little more than tin-roofed huts, provided changing rooms and an office. The playing area itself comprised an area of flat, beaten-down earth without a blade of grass upon it, surrounded by a few wooden poles topped by rudimentary floodlights. Carver had taken one look at the aerial photographs of the village and picked it immediately as his extraction point.
His plan had been to coordinate his arrival there with that of the helicopter. That way there’d be no hanging around. The chopper would touch down, the girl would be bundled aboard, swiftly followed by Carver, then they’d be off again. Now he had time to kill. And what bothered him was the possibility that time might kill him first.
‘Pull up over there,’ Carver said, as Justus got to the warehouse. He pointed towards a padlocked door, above which a security light gave off enough of a weak, flickering glow to illuminate the van and draw any pursuer’s eye. Just raising his arm made the cracked surfaces of his broken rib grind together, sending another agonizing jab into his chest.
Carver gave Justus the torch. That hurt too. Everything hurt. There were painkillers in Carver’s medical kit, but any dose strong enough to make him forget his ribs would by definition dull his senses and lessen his effectiveness. It was better to hurt and stay alive than be drugged up and die.
‘Take her over to the huts,’ he said. ‘One of them is painted pale blue. I’ll meet you inside it.’
The girl looked from Carver to Justus and back again. Carver had tried to explain to her that they were all working for her uncle Wendell Klerk, but she was still mentally paralysed by the unrelenting traumas she’d been forced to endure.
‘It’s OK,’ he said. ‘You’ll be safe with him.’
‘Have no fear, Miss Zalika,’ said Justus, grinning, as he pulled out from beneath the dashboard a weapon that looked like an oversized black pistol. ‘This is a very powerful shotgun. No one gonna get you now.’
‘Go,’ said Carver. ‘I’ll be right behind you.’
Justus got out of the VW, walked round to the passenger door and took Zalika’s hand, helping her out. She gave one last look towards Carver then let Justus lead her away.
Carver watched them go. He spent about a minute more in the VW van. Then he grabbed his gun and walked across to the warehouse door. He put a single bullet through the padlock and freed the chain that secured it. Then he opened the door. An alarm began to ring. Carver did not seem concerned. Another twenty seconds passed as he stood by the half-open door. Finally he took a step back, looked at the opening, nodded to himself and loped away towards the changing rooms.
Not far away, he could hear the growl of an approaching engine. Carver picked up his pace.
18
Four men had been picked to go with Killaman, but twice as many clung on to the Hilux as it set off after the VW van. Many of those who had been left behind then dashed off to their homes to pick up weapons of their own. After a lifetime of conflict, almost all had some form of military experience, either for government or rebel forces, or even both. Many had kept hold of old weapons. They grabbed whatever they could find then started running after the departing vehicles. They didn’t care that the cars had left them far behind. They could run for hours if the need arose. And the tens of thousands of dollars at stake provided all the incentive they required.
Most of the men carried regular knives and guns. One, though, had a long thin tube on his shoulder. At the rear end it flared like the mouth of a trumpet. At the front the tube appeared to swell, before tapering to a point. This was the unmistakable silhouette of an RPG-7 grenade-launcher, a weapon beloved by terrorists, guerrillas and freedom fighters the world over for its ability to take out small buildings, armoured vehicles and even helicopters. It was, by some distance, the most precious single item in the entire village.
As Killaman’s forces converged on Carver, Justus and the girl, a Bell JetRanger was skimming over the hills to the west of the Zambezi.
‘For f*ck’s sake, man, can’t you make this heap fly any faster?’ Morrison was shouting at the pilot.
‘Forget it, Flattie, I’m maxing it already,’ he replied. ‘And if you keep yelling in my ear, putting me off my stroke, I will make a mistake and hit a tree or a f*cking power line. And then we will all be dead. But I tell you what, boet, it will be worth it just to get a little peace. Ek se, you are one loud item.’
19
Silent Death was driving the Hilux that was leading the pursuit of Carver, Justus and the girl. He had followed the road the VW had taken, but had been too far behind to catch sight of his prey. Then he heard the shrill clamour of the warehouse alarm. He looked across at Killaman and asked, ‘Is that them?’
‘Slow down,’ Killaman ordered him. The commander leaned out through the passenger window, almost like a dog sniffing the air. He pulled his head back inside the cab and nodded. ‘Yes, the warehouse. They are there. Follow them.’
Silent Death turned off the main road and drove down a short incline towards the warehouse.
‘Stop!’ snapped Killaman.
Up ahead, both men could see the VW parked by the warehouse. There did not appear to be anyone in it.
‘Right,’ he went on. ‘Let us make these drunken apes earn their money.’
He got out and faced the men in the back of the truck. ‘I need two volunteers,’ he said. Then he pointed at two of them in quick succession. ‘You and you. Check out the van.’ Killaman illustrated his orders with hand signals, to ensure that there could be no possibility of misunderstanding.
Both men glanced across the expanse of open road between them and the van. There was no cover at all aside from the wooden poles that supported the lights round the football pitch or carried power cables to the lights and the warehouse. The poles were very slender and at least fifteen metres apart. The men looked back at Killaman, eyes wide.
He grinned. ‘So you lose your enthusiasm. OK, no money for you. I will choose someone else.’
The men immediately leaped down from the Hilux and set off nervously down the road.
‘Make sure that the van is always between you and the open door,’ Killaman called after them. ‘If there is anyone inside the warehouse, they will not be able to shoot you. If anyone fires from the van, we will cover you.’
The men seemed to take heart. As Killaman and his remaining troops took up positions behind the Hilux and those with weapons aimed them towards the VW, the two unwilling volunteers jogged more purposefully to the first pole. There was no response from the van. The men emerged from behind the pole and started running again. Still nothing.
When they had got to within twenty metres of the van without any sign of hostile activity, the men relaxed. They stopped running and dodging and just walked straight towards the VW, their guns held diagonally across their bodies, ready to be used in an instant if required.
Ironically, their comrades left behind at the Hilux now became more tense. It was bad enough thinking that two of their number might be killed. Even worse, however, was the possibility that they might survive and be the first to get to the woman and the bounty she would earn them.
The driver’s door was nearest to the two men’s line of march. They walked right up to it. One of them pressed his face to the glass and tried to peer into the interior of the van. He put his hand to the handle and tugged. It was unlocked.
Back at the Hilux, Killaman suddenly realized what was about to happen. He shouted, ‘Do not …’
Before he could finish the sentence, the car door had swung open. There was a length of fishing line, invisible in the darkness, inside the VW. One end was tied to the inside door handle. The other end was attached to the pin of one of Carver’s grenades, which was jammed against the runners beneath the passenger seat. As the door moved, the line pulled tight and the pin was tugged out of the grenade.
‘… open the door!’
Killaman’s voice drowned out the faint chink of the pin hitting the metal sill at the bottom of the door. The two men jostled each other in their eagerness to get inside the vehicle. One of them said ‘Hey!’ in protest at being pushed out of the way.
And then their voices and their lives were obliterated by the deafening blast of the grenade that blew them both to pieces and sent shrapnel from the grenade, fragments of the VW and minced human body parts back up the way they’d come, rattling and splattering against the side of the Hilux and scaring the hell out of the men cowering behind it.
‘Get up, you cowards!’ Killaman screamed. ‘You gutless sons of jackals and hyenas! Follow me!’
He walked towards the burning VW, not looking round, trusting in his own powers of command as Silent Death and the other men traipsed after him.
The flames were casting an orange glow across the dirty white walls of the warehouse. Killaman walked straight past the VW and up to the warehouse door. There he stopped. He put out a hand behind him, palm up, stopping his men in their tracks. They looked on with a mix of fear and curiosity as Killaman got down on his haunches, looked very carefully at the opening, and then smiled.
In the light from the fire, the nylon filament stretched from the door to the warehouse wall was clearly visible. Killaman understood exactly how the booby-trap had been rigged; he had done it often enough himself. The grenade would be by the wall somewhere.
He gently raised his left hand and took hold of the line, close to the door. He pulled it taut, towards the wall, lessening the tension on the pin of the grenade. Then he reached into his trouser pocket and took out the black handle of a flick-knife that had served him well in many a bar and backstreet fight. He pressed the switch and a vicious six-inch blade sprang from the handle.
Killaman cut the fishing line between his hand and the door. He let go of the line and swung the door fully open. There was a light switch on the wall near him. When he turned it on, the empty warehouse was fully illuminated. And so was the grenade just inside the entrance, tied to a sand-filled firebucket with the same kind of fishing line that had linked its pin to the door.
Killaman took the grenade, then turned back to his men.
‘There is no one here,’ he said.
He looked around, trying to sense where the girl and her rescuers might have gone. His eyes caught a glint of flickering amber caused by the firelight playing on the crossbar of the nearest goal. Killaman thought about the football pitch. It suddenly struck him why anyone needing a speedy extraction would head in its direction.
He was grinning when he spoke again to his men: ‘But they are not far away.’
20
In the darkness of the concrete changing room, Carver spoke over his communications system. ‘Where are you, Morrison?’
‘Ten clicks out from you, a little over three minutes’ flying time. Can you give us your exact position?’
‘We’re by the football pitch, as planned. Did you see the explosion just now?’
‘Nah man, there is still a ridge of hills between us and you. It’ll be a couple of minutes before we can establish visual contact.’
‘OK, well, when you get over the hills, you should see the fire from Justus’s van.’
Morrison’s laughter, filled with the savage glee coursing through him at the promise of combat, cackled in Carver’s earpiece. ‘What? You f*cked up his precious Kombi? Ah shit, that must be one unhappy munt.’
‘He’s fine. So’s the girl. Now listen, there’s a cluster of small buildings approximately one hundred and twenty metres northeast of the burning van. That’s where we are. The closer you can get to that the better. There’s a lighting pole by the corner of the pitch. Your pilot doesn’t want to get his disc anywhere near that. Other than that, nothing to worry about.’
‘Apart from all the buggers trying to kill us, you mean.’
‘Yeah, apart from them.’
The helicopter wasn’t the only thing being drawn towards the fire. The men running from the village, whose numbers had swollen as news of the night’s excitement spread, picked up their pace as they followed the route of the two vehicles off the main road and down towards the warehouse. Some of them were shouting. A couple fired their guns in the air.
The noise distracted Killaman, just as he was issuing orders to his men. He was not happy to see what was coming towards him. The last thing he needed was an ill-disciplined rabble getting in the way and complicating an operation that was already difficult enough as it was. Then he saw the silhouette of the grenade-launcher. That changed everything.
‘Stop!’ he shouted, bringing the village men to a halt just short of the flaming VW. He pointed at the man with the RPG. ‘You! Come here. I have special need of you.’
The man stepped forward, a huge grin across his face, proudly carrying the weapon that had long been his pride and joy.
‘The rest of you form a line right across the football pitch over there. All the way across, evenly spaced.’
Killaman motioned to Silent Death to organize them.
‘You will proceed at walking pace down the pitch,’ he said once the line had been formed. ‘The rest of us will follow you. You will look very carefully for any sign of the white girl and the men who took her. Do not be alarmed if one of you is shot. That will simply demonstrate that we are getting close.’
It was a clear night with the moon almost full. Carver had Justus’s thermal-imaging binoculars slung round his neck, but he did not need them to spot the men coming down the football pitch, making progress with the sluggish inexorability of zombies.
The building where he, Justus and Zalika were holed up consisted of one main changing room with slatted wooden benches pressed up against the walls along the longest sides. At one end, crude breezeblock partitions had been used to create a rank-smelling toilet cubicle and a shower area whose rusted shower-heads and dusty tiled floor suggested it had long been unused. There were no windows, just a simple skylight to provide illumination, with half the glass missing from its panes. The only access came from a single doorway, directly opposite the shower, accessed via a porch recessed into the building.
Carver had left the other two inside and was now crouched in the porch. It gave him just enough cover to be able to observe what was happening out on the playing field without giving away his own position. Soon, though, the enemy would be on him.
There was a crackle in his earpiece, followed by Morrison’s voice: ‘With you in about a minute. We have a visual on the van. Looks like you’ve got company.’
‘Are you armed? Can you give me any suppressing fire?’
‘Oh ja, don’t you worry about that.’
Carver could hear the faint sound of the approaching chopper now. He raised the binoculars to his face and swept as much of the horizon as he could manage without exposing himself to sight. It took two passes before he spotted the helicopter, coming towards him at tree-skimming height over open country beyond the far side of the pitch. The course would bring it directly over the stand at right angles to the direction in which the line of men was going, but slightly behind it. Carver could see exactly what Morrison had in mind. He was going to run along the line, getting a clear shot at every single one of them.
By the time the chopper arrived, though, it might be too late. The nearest men were barely twenty metres away from the shack now. In a matter of seconds they would be on him. It was time to adjust the odds a little bit more in his favour.
Carver could not afford to waste a single round. He aimed at the man at the nearest end of the line and fired a single shot. The bullet hit its target in the right temple and exploded out of the back of his head. Before he had even hit the ground, Carver had traversed and fired at the second target a further ten metres away. It took two rounds to put him down, and the time wasted by the second of those shots allowed man number three to shout out in warning and fling himself to the ground as another bullet fizzed through the air where his body had been. The man had not seen Carver, but just from the way his comrades had been killed he had a general idea of where the shots must have come from. He also had a gun.
He emptied an entire magazine blazing away at the cluster of buildings by the side of the pitch.
Carver ducked back inside the porch.
The helicopter sounded louder in the distance. Very soon it would be over the field. Now all he had to do was make sure that he, Justus and, most importantly, Zalika were still alive when it got there.