Dictator

66

Nearly seven thousand miles to the west of Hong Kong stood the Malemban capital of Sindele. It still pretended, at least, to be the heart of a modern, functioning state. It had a central business district ringed by motorways. Their intersections led to broad four-lane boulevards, criss-crossing blocks filled with office buildings ten or even twenty storeys high. It had splendid government buildings left over from colonial times, lavishly appointed, department stores, banks with marble halls, and parks laid out with rolling lawns, shady trees and herbaceous borders.

These days, however, the roads were virtually empty, there being almost no petrol anywhere, nor spare parts for broken-down vehicles. The office buildings frequently lacked electric power or running water. The department stores were empty for want of goods to sell or customers to buy, and the banks had long since ceased to function in an economy bereft of meaningful currency. As for the parks, the lawns were now parched and bare, with just the occasional straggly weed or rusting soft drink can to break up the monotony of scorched earth. The trees had all been cut down for firewood and the empty herbaceous borders were indistinguishable from the rest of the barren terrain.

But Major Rodney Madziko of the Malemban National Army’s elite Reconnaissance Squadron had no time to contemplate the passing cityscape or bemoan its decline. He was standing in the open hatch of an amphibious BRDM-1 scout car, an old Soviet model, bought second-hand from the Russians almost thirty years ago. Its body-armour was now more rust than metal, its engine propelled it in a random combination of lurches, kangaroo-hops and staggers, and its belching exhaust pipes created their very own black smokescreen. But the 7.62mm machine gun mounted above the front crew compartment still fired live ammunition, as did those on the four other scout cars that were following Madziko’s as it made its way through the deserted streets of downtown Sindele.

It was half-past five on a Sunday morning, a perfect time to cross the city uninterrupted and unobserved. A perfect time for a coup.

Madziko’s instructions were simple: on the ‘go’ signal, get to the headquarters of the Malemban Broadcasting Corporation, secure the building and hold it until Patrick Tshonga arrived at seven to make the simultaneous announcement of Henderson Gushungo’s death and his own assumption of power on the MBC’s solitary TV channel and all four of its national radio stations. His men had been ready since long before dawn. The signal had been received. So now, as the rising sun split the streets into long expanses of deep shadow and dazzling shafts of burnished gold, the Reconnaissance Squadron was on its way.

Madziko had sworn a solemn oath in the sight of God to uphold the state of Malemba and preserve it against all its enemies, foreign and internal. So far as he was concerned, he was upholding that oath more loyally now than at any other time in his fifteen-year career as an army officer. He had been raised to believe in the essential virtues of democracy and free speech. He did not accept that oppression was any more acceptable just because a black man, rather than a white man, had imposed it. To be in the vanguard of establishing true freedom in his country was thus, to Rodney Madziko, the greatest honour he could possibly be granted.

Up ahead, he saw Broadcasting House, the MBC headquarters, named after the London home of the British Broadcasting Corporation in colonial times and unchanged ever since. It was a heavy-set, redbrick thirties office block that occupied three sides of a large courtyard, in the middle of which stood a modernist white marble fountain that had long since run dry. The fourth side of the courtyard consisted of a high metal fence that ran along the street, pierced by the building’s main entrance. A guard-hut stood by a lowered barrier. The hut was empty, nor were there any signs of life in the building itself. It was, after all, first thing on a Sunday morning. Only the bare minimum of staff would be at work at this hour.

Major Madziko could easily have ordered his driver to burst straight through the barrier, but he did not want to act like a violent oaf. They were supposed to be there in the interests of a fair, law-abiding society. So he ordered one of his men to raise the barrier then led his troop of scout cars into the courtyard, the sound of their engines echoing raucously off the building’s plain brick facade. They proceeded round the fountain, three to one side, two to the other, so that Madziko’s vehicle ended up in the middle of a line of five, all facing the main entrance. He ordered the drivers to cut their engines and jumped down from his car. His men followed him, clambering out on to the tarmac courtyard until only the gunners standing behind their machine guns remained.

Inside Broadcasting House, another major, from the army’s paratroop battalion, was watching events down below from the vantage point of a first-floor window. He was holding a walkie-talkie to his lips. He spoke very quietly into the mouthpiece, and a dozen windows slid open. From each, a round metallic snout slid forward.

‘Fire at will,’ said the major.

The moving window frames caught Madziko’s eye in an instant, but the totally unexpected shock of impending disaster took him a couple of seconds to process. Too late, he turned back to his gunner, pointed at the dark interruptions in the facade caused by the raised glass and shouted, ‘The windows! Shoot!’

By the time the first machine gun was raised, the triggers on the grenade-launchers had been pulled, the rocket flames were spurting and the grenades were on their way. A fraction of a second later, the scout cars were obliterated. The force of the blast and the thousands of razor-sharp shards of metal that filled the air blew Madziko and his men apart. In the time it takes to swat a mosquito, they were destroyed, and with them all hope of a peaceful coup.

The ambush was repeated with equal finality at the Parliament Building, the Central Bank, Police Headquarters and the President’s official residence. Wherever Patrick Tshonga’s forces went, government men were waiting for them. The rebels who had counted on the element of surprise were the ones receiving a rude and terminal shock.