Tenth Man Down

THIRTEEN

In retrospect, I can see we were crazy to carry on. We were all so shattered by exhaustion that our judgement was seriously flawed. We still had the .50 machine gun and nearly a thousand rounds of ammunition, as well as one RPG and a couple of dozen grenades, besides our personal weapons, but with our team down to seven men — eight including Jason — and only two vehicles, we were hardly an effective fighting unit, and certainly not strong enough to take on a major Kamangan force. We should have sat tight in our elevated LUP, waited until the incoming Herc was poised for a short last leg, and then gone out to find an LZ to mark with smoke grenades to guide the pilot in.

We did none of those things. Instead, we held an impromptu Chinese parliament in the shade of a leadwood tree and by a unanimous vote decided to head for Ichembo.

For me, the decision was easy. By then I was being driven by personal hatred of Muende and the German woman. I was rational enough to recognise this compulsion and see its dangers, but reason wasn’t strong enough to prevent me trying to gain revenge for Whinger’s death by topping both of them. After what they’d done, I’d have walked the length of the continent to get level with them, but after listening to Sam, I’d got it firmly in my head that the rebel leader would be leading the raid on the nuclear cache in person. Furthermore, having seen how he and Inge worked together, I felt certain she’d be coming with him. Therefore, if we reached Ichembo first, we’d have a good chance of ambushing the pair of them.

I was also needled by a dislike of failure. With our training task in ruins, and three of our lads dead, we’d got nothing to show for our month in Africa. It went against the grain to head for home with three lives lost and bugger all achieved. If, on the other hand, we managed to avert a nuclear showdown among such volatile states, we’d have a big plus to our credit. If we secured the weapons and topped Muende at the same time, all my goals would be achieved at once.

I was perfectly open with the rest of the guys. I told them exactly what I was thinking. Like me, they felt frustrated at the way the original task had collapsed under them, through no fault of their own; to have quit at that stage would have left a bad taste in their mouths. They also saw that immediate action was needed to secure the nuclear arsenal, and that to let it fall into Muende’s hands would be criminally irresponsible.

Yet beyond these practical considerations there lay a different pressure. I didn’t realise it at the time, but Pav told me later that from the moment I tumbled out of that little aircraft and collapsed on the deck, the rest of the team thought I’d changed. They felt I was somehow different: more ruthless than usual, almost fanatical. There were moments when they feared I’d lost the plot completely. They put it down to the experience I’d been through during the night, and luckily they were sympathetic. If they hadn’t been basically on-side, they might have mutinied. I know, now, that at one stage, when my behaviour became too outrageous, they did discuss ganging up on me and putting me under open arrest, but because they felt nearly as bad about Whinger and Genesis as I did, team loyalty held everyone together.

When I say ‘everyone’, that included our new recruit, Jason. He was as loyal as anybody, but again, his reasons were different. Having thrown in his lot with us, he seemed determined to come with us wherever we went, to stick with us to the bitter end, whatever that might be, and then come back to the UK. ‘I come work for you in England’ became his constant refrain. He had no conception of the difficulties involved: immigration laws, work permits, the northern climate — all way beyond his ken. But none of that fazed him in the least, and as for us, because he’d saved all our lives, we felt bound to do our best for him, and we kidded him along with jokey enquiries as to how he’d deal with his family if he did leave Africa.

‘How many wives have you got, Jason?’ Danny asked once.

‘Two, sir.’

‘What about children?’

‘No children.’

‘What, none at all?’

‘No sir.’

‘How’s that, then?’

‘Woman’s no good!’ He flipped up a skeletal hand, as though throwing one of the useless creatures over his shoulder, and everybody laughed. The fact that he had no young family to support made the idea of him emigrating seem less far-fetched, but still none of us took it seriously.

Yet he was the one who finally tipped us over in the direction of carrying on. We’d held the usual discussion of pros and cons, reviewing our options, and when I went to sum up, I expected opinions to be evenly divided.

‘So,’ I began, ‘we’re okay for ammunition and food. Water — have to be careful, but we can manage. Fuel’s the diciest. We’ve got enough to reach the area of the cache, but not much more. What we need is to hijack another vehicle without blowing it up, and nick its supply. We haven’t the fuel to return to Mulongwe, and in any case, my guess is we’d be thoroughly bloody unwelcome there. The main problem is to find the nuclear site. I vote we carry on to Ichembo and grab somebody with local knowledge who can give us directions. What does everyone think?’

Phil, as always, was for pressing ahead. So were Pavarotti and, to a lesser extent, Stringer. Chalky, Danny and Mart were more cautious. But, as I say, it was Jason who swung the vote when he said quietly, ‘I know Ichembo.’

‘You know it!’ went Pavarotti. ‘How?’

‘One brother-law, he come from that place. I visit his family there.’

‘What is it?’ I asked. ‘A village?’

‘No village — boma. Small town.’

‘Can you find the way there?’

Jason nodded.

For a moment I felt seriously pissed off with him for not having divulged such vital information sooner. Again, it was out of habit of holding things back, but I didn’t bollock him on it because I knew it was his nature to be self-effacing, and also because he was shy about his limited English, and didn’t like speaking it more than he could help.

‘Wait a minute,’ I said. ‘I’ve just thought of something. The Yank, Sam, said the place was outside the war zone. If we beat Muende to it, maybe we can just cruise in and get some legit fuel from a garage.’

Again, Jason nodded, and said, ‘I think so.’

‘That’s it, then. Let’s go.’

‘What about the Kremlin?’ Stringer asked. ‘Shall we tell them what we’re doing?’

‘Not yet,’ I told him. ‘We’ll find out the score first and tell them after.’

‘Another suggestion,’ said Chalky. ‘Why not call your friend Back-hander and chat him up? If you went through to the embassy on the satcom, they might pull him across to talk to you. You could tell him Joss has flipped, and we’re in the shit. He might believe it, coming from you. It might stop him swallowing whatever crap Joss has sent back through his own headquarters. He might even send his chopper to lift us out. After all, you and he were great buddies when he came to the ambush.’

‘Yeah, well,’ I went. ‘It’s an idea.’ I remembered how we’d laughed when Bakunda had said, ‘Some of these fellows are not long down from the trees.’ Now I thought, too fucking right.

‘Good idea, Chalky,’ I said. ‘Let’s try it.’

When we punched in the number for the DA in Mulongwe, the call went through like clockwork. But the response was not what we’d hoped for: instead of a live human, we got a female voice on a tape honking, ‘The British Embassy in Mulongwe is temporarily closed. Urgent calls should be redirected to the British Embassy in Harare.’ There followed a string of numbers, but I switched off in the middle of them.

‘Cancel that one,’ I told the lads. ‘Like the Ops Officer said, they’ve broken off diplomatic relations. We’re on our own in glorious Kamanga. We’d better shift our arses, because if what Sam said was right, we’re in a race.’

Any race is easier to manage if you know what competition you’re up against. If you can see the other runners, and watch how they’re performing, you can at least pace yourself. But on that blazing hot morning we had only a hazy idea of what the enemy were up to. We believed that Muende was heading up with some sort of a force from the camp where I’d been held prisoner. Whether his South African mercenaries were still with him, or whether they’d formed a splinter group, we couldn’t tell. What we knew for sure was that Joss and his Alpha Commando were somewhere behind us, to the east, probably following our tracks. Had they got wind of the weapons cache, and of Muende’s new agenda? Again, we had no means of knowing. In the circumstances, all we could do was crack on as fast as possible.

Thanks to Jason, our move westwards went perfectly. How he navigated, I never quite made out. Riding in the front of the pinkie, with Pav driving, he never looked at the map, still less at a compass. His eyes were constantly sweeping the horizon, and every now and then he would glance up at the sun, as if to check his bearings. For the first hour he directed us through the bush, not on any road, but twisting and turning along one game trail after another. Then we came on to a sandy, overgrown track and followed that to the north at a good speed until we came to a T junction and joined an earth road leading east and west.

Half an hour westwards along that, and at last we saw signs of normal African life. After days without setting eyes on a civilian, it gave everyone a lift to find patches of cultivation and meet men and women walking along the road with bundles on their heads. When we stopped beside a little group and Jason made enquiries, the news was electrifying: the next village ahead possessed a borehole, and had plenty of fresh water. I was frantic to press ahead, but, whatever happened, we needed water, so I called a quick halt. The community was tiny — only twenty or thirty grass huts — but somehow it had been awarded a development grant, and there in the centre stood the borehole: a hand pump with a chute that ran water off into a galvanised metal tank, all under a conical grass roof set up high on wooden posts.

The moment we pulled up beside it, dusty, barefoot children began to assemble, struck speechless by the sight of these peculiar grey men caked in mud. Danny grabbed the pump handle and began to rock it back and forth. Up came a gush of water, cool and crystal-clear. Mart and Pavarotti started filling jerricans, but after days of mud, sand, grit and sweat, the sight of the clean water was too much for Phil, who ripped off his shirt and poured bowlfuls over his head. Stringer and Chalky followed his example. The spectacle of them furiously scrubbing away, and quickly turning white, sent the kids into paroxysms of delight.

Adults appeared from nowhere. One of them — elderly, tall and dignified — introduced himself as the head man of the village. Clearly he fancied a good exchange of news and a lengthy chat.

‘Explain we’re in a hurry,’ I told Jason. ‘And ask if he’s heard anything about the war.’

As the two were talking I dug out a handful of boiled sweets and distributed them to the junior fans. The first little boy made to put the gift straight into his mouth, paper and all, and I had to show him how to unwrap it first.

‘First time the poor little bugger’s ever seen a thing like that,’ I said to Phil. ‘Eh, work the pump while I stick my head under the spout.’

By the time I’d given my head and neck a scrub, and sponged cautiously at the least sore parts of my face, Jason had established that the head man knew nothing about any fighting. He’d heard there was trouble away in the east, but that was all. The rumours hadn’t been bad enough to make his people desert their homes. We tried to get him to pin-point the position of his village, but the map meant nothing to him, and all he could confirm was that Ichembo was straight on in the direction we were pointing.

‘Let’s pay for the water,’ said Pav, as we were about to roll.

The suggestion irritated me. ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ I told him. ‘They’re not expecting anything.’

‘No, but Christ, look how poor they are.’

‘Well…’ I saw the sense of what he was saying, and felt ashamed of my own grudging attitude. From the general float, kept in the mother wagon, I dug out a ten-dollar bill and presented it to the head man, who held it up in front of his chest in both hands, beaming as if he’d got hold of a million dollars, and bowing his head repeatedly in thanks.

‘He says he buy football for the boys,’ Jason translated.

‘Good, and thanks!’ I smiled, shook the scrawny old hand, climbed back aboard, and off we went. We’d lost ten minutes, but gained a big lift in spirits and a supply of the best water we’d seen in Africa.

Until then, members of the party not driving or navigating had tried to get their heads down and catch up on lost sleep, but after the halt the tension was too great for anyone to relax. Not knowing what lay ahead, we were going to have to rely entirely on the speed and intelligence of our reactions: stealth, speed and surprise would have to be our weapons. There was no disguising that we were some form of army unit. Two military vehicles moving in convoy, the jeep with a .50 machine gun mounted on the back — what else could we be?

Another anxiety lay heavily on me. The rebel column advancing on course to meet us was one thing, but what was going on at Gutu? Had a relief force arrived and taken over the mine? If it had, what were Joss and his crew up to? Was Alpha Commando again moving southwards, according to their original plan? Or was the assassination squad still on our tail? Or had the South African mercenaries also found out about the nuclear stockpile, and diverted Joss’s hunt towards Ichembo? We’d seen Joss having one of them shot, but had the three we chased off into the hills rejoined his force? Because we had no means of answering such questions, they were preying on my mind.

‘This cache, or silo, or whatever,’ I said to Pav as I drove the pinkie. The surface was fairly good, and we were doing thirty, so I had to pitch my voice loud. ‘It can’t be in the town, or anywhere near it. Not even the Russians would have been such cunts as to locate a nuclear dump in an inhabited area. There’s the health hazard, for one thing. And then, quite separate, there’s the question of security: people would have been walking into it all the time. No, it’s got to be tucked away in some remote area that the locals don’t have any reason to visit. Eh, Jason!’

The tracker leaned forward from his place in the back, and I explained my concept to him in short, shouted takes.

‘As soon as we get to the edge of this town… we need to grab some guy… someone who looks sensible… find out if such an area exists.’

Jason’s answer was ‘Yassir.’ He said that to almost all enquiries. But I was sure he’d got the point.

Ever since we’d come on to the east-west road the terrain had remained flat: kilometre after kilometre of featureless, fairly open bush, with dry, sandy ground showing between the vegetation. But then, through the haze far out to our right front, I began to make out higher ground — some kind of a plateau.

‘Jason,’ I called. ‘Is Ichembo down on the flat, or up there in the hills?’

‘Flat, flat,’ he said emphatically, moving his open hand from side to side.

‘So what’s all that high ground?’

‘Is called Meranga Plain.’ Again he indicated level ground, but held his hand higher.

‘Do people live up there?’

‘No people. Ground bad for crop. Too much rock. No water.’

‘So it’s empty.’

‘Yassir. Only army training.’

‘A training area?’

‘One time. Now left.’

‘And is there a barracks in town?’

‘One time,’ Jason repeated. ‘Many Russian soldiers here. Training army.’

‘You mean the camp’s closed now?’

‘Yassir.’

Again I felt pissed off with our faithful tracker. Why the hell hadn’t he said the magic words ‘Russian’ and ‘training area’ before? All the same, I felt the adrenalin rising.

‘Hear that, Pav?’ I went. ‘That’s where our stuff will be.’

‘Yeah, yeah.’ Pav’s instincts had responded the same as mine. He was sitting up high and eyeballing the country all round for a possible landing strip.

‘Listen,’ I said. ‘I just had an idea.’

‘Like what?’

‘About how news of this cache suddenly came to light. If the warheads have been lying around for a dozen years, the locals must have forgotten all about them. But someone else remembered. I bet I know who it is — some bloody Russian who’s recently joined Muende’s private army.’

‘One of the mercenaries?’

‘Exactly. Sam said something about there being Russkies in the mercenary team. It’s a hundred to one there’s a guy who served out here in the Soviet army, finished his tour in the forces and signed up with Interaction, just like the South Africans, the Yanks and all the others. And now they’ve sent him to Kamanga because he knows the place.’

‘Possible.’

‘More than that: it’s bloody probable. And, of course, the trouble is, that guy will remember exactly where the stuff’s stored.’

Pav continued eyeballing for a bit, then asked, ‘You got a plan, Geordie?’

‘We need to ID the site first. Then it’ll depend on the strength of the opposition. If we find it, we’ll defend it until we can call in the Herc and an NBC crew.’

‘If, if, if,’ went Pav.

‘I know.’

In the last few minutes we’d started to meet pedestrians again, which made us think the town couldn’t be far ahead. Then came a hoot from Chalky, driving the mother wagon behind us. Stringer, standing up through the turret of the cab, was pointing energetically to our right front. From his high position he’d seen something we couldn’t. I slowed to a halt in a cloud of dust; no need to pull off the road, because we hadn’t seen another vehicle all morning.

‘What is it?’

‘On top of that bank. There’s a long open area that looks good for an LZ.’

‘Not another flood pan?’

‘Well, it could be one. But it’s worth a shufti.’

Stringer was right. Parallel with the road was a strip of ground at least two hundred metres wide which ran on for several kilometres. It appeared to have been levelled by a flood at some stage. Only a few isolated tussocks of grass grew out of the sand, and the surface turned out to be extremely hard. After our experience at the Zebra Pans we were dead cautious about driving on to it, but the seven-ton mother wagon rolled smoothly along for half a kilometre, leaving scarcely a mark.

‘This’ll do,’ I agreed. ‘Get the coordinates, Mart. And Stringer, now we’ve stopped anyway, get through to the Kremlin. First, though, let’s get under those trees, just in case Muende has got his precious chopper airborne and does a fly-past.’

The time was 1125 local — 0925 in Hereford. Because we’d been stirring the shit internationally, I guessed the bigwigs would already be at their desks. As Stringer set up the satcom dish, and I took another look at our one surviving map, Jason came across from the roadside, where he’d quizzed a passer-by, to announce, ‘Ichembo, one hour.’

‘One hour walking?’

‘Yassir.’

‘Five or six ks, then.’

I was right about the Kremlin. Everyone there was buzzing and bobbing like the shithouse fly. But the good news was they’d got their fingers out, and a Herc with crew equipped to handle NBC material was already on the ground at a military airfield just inside the border of Namibia.

‘Brilliant!’ I told Dave Alton, the Ops Officer. ‘We’re a bit north of that, but it can’t be more than two hundred ks — less than an hour’s flying time.’ I gave him the coordinates of the LZ, and a brief description of the area. ‘We’re calling the feature the Mall,’ I said. ‘It’s that flat and straight.’

‘What about hazards?’ he asked. ‘Hills? Power-lines?’

‘Nothing. No hill more than a couple of hundred feet within miles, and as for electricity, there ain’t none in this part of Africa. Listen, you don’t have any info on the cache site?’

‘Nothing’s come up yet. We’re still trying, but we doubt there’s any record.’

‘Roger. We think we’ve got the area pin-pointed, and we’re about to start a CTR.’

‘Good work. What have you done with Genesis?’

‘Buried him. I hope it’s only for the time being. We’re planning to go back for him if we get a chance.’

‘Roger.’

We agreed to open up the satcom link for five minutes every hour, on the hour. Then we shut down.

‘Why not call the Herc in now and fuck off out of it while we’ve got the chance?’ Danny suggested.

‘You can, if you like,’ I told him. ‘Personally, I’m staying to sort that bastard Muende.’ I didn’t mean to sound anti-Danny, but that was how the remark came out, and I saw him looking a bit pained. ‘Nothing personal, mate,’ I added. ‘But you weren’t there when he had Whinger butchered. You didn’t see what a barbarous fucking ape he is.’

By 1150 we were on the move again, with the pinkie leading, and soon the outskirts of Ichembo came into view — the usual string of shacks made from corrugated iron, cardboard, packing cases, pallets and so on. Also in view, and clearer now, was the low escarpment to our right, where the land ran up to the plateau Jason had described.

‘Eh!’ exclaimed Pavarotti suddenly. ‘Look at this: the bloody barracks.’

On our right ran the remains of a two-metre chain-link fence. Stretches of wire had been taken down and carried off, and holes cut in the parts that remained. Inside the perimeter lay the wreck of a barracks, long, low huts with doors and windows ripped out, roofs collapsing. Around them was a flat, weedy wilderness of former drill squares and vehicle parks. Under the glare of the sun everything looked baked and dusty and dead.

With minimal warning to Chalky, who was driving behind, Pav swung the pinkie right-handed through one of the gaps in the fence and headed straight across an old parade ground.

‘Stands to reason!’ he shouted. ‘There must be access from this place, straight out on to the training area at the back.’

In less than two minutes his hunch proved correct. The rear fence had scarcely been vandalised, and a pair of exit gates was still closed by a rusty padlock and chain. Rather than alert the neighbourhood with an explosion, we chopped through the chain with bolt shears and hauled the gates open, squealing on their hinges. Beyond them a dirt road went up through a cutting, between walls of grey-brown sandy rock. From the weeds that had sprung up on the track, we could see it hadn’t been used in years.

‘Jesus!’ I shouted to Pav. ‘This is it! We’ve hacked it!’

The little canyon was no more than a hundred metres long, and towards the top our expectations rose even higher when we found the road blocked by a sagging wooden pole, painted pale blue and bound with barbed wire. A metal notice which had once hung on it had fallen off and lay face-down in the dust. I jumped out, picked it up and turned it over. Half the writing had gone, but the red letters that remained were in Cyrillic script.

‘Stringer!’ I yelled, holding the sign up. ‘What does this say?’

‘No entry,’ he translated. ‘Danger. Keep out.’

‘Shit hot!’ went Pav. ‘We’re closing in.’

Again there was no need for a demolition charge. The posts supporting the barrier were made of wood, which had been eaten away to a skeleton by termites. One push from the front of the pinkie and both snapped off in puffs of dust. We crunched over the remains of the barrier and motored to the top of the bank. A wilderness of withered shrubs and knee-high dead grass stretched off into the distance. The plateau had a blasted, lifeless, desolate look.

By then everyone was well hyped-up, but Pav was cool enough to look behind us and see that, from this higher ground, there was a long view out over the town. Even better, through the heat haze, we could see a road coming up from the south to join the one we’d just left. The junction was seven or eight hundred metres from where we were standing.

‘Let’s split in two,’ Pav suggested, pointing at the southern road. ‘If Muende comes, that’ll be his route. We can OP it from here and keep the rest of you informed while you recce ahead.’

‘Right,’ I agreed. ‘Better cam up, just in case.’

Pav backed the mother wagon between two tall patches of shrubs, aligning it so that the crew could watch both our own track and the southern approach road from the cab. Stringer, Danny and I left them slinging cam nets from the bushes, and drove on into the wilderness.

For the first few minutes I remained on a high. The place obviously had been used as a training area. Rusting sheets of metal riddled with bullet holes lay around. Roofless concrete-block buildings, without doors or windows, had been assaulted time and again. A pistol range had been excavated from a high sandbank. All this was encouraging, and I felt we were hot on the scent.

Then I began to realise how large the area was. The further we went, the more uneven the terrain became. Low hills restricted our view. We seemed to be driving along the main drag, but branch roads ran off to left and right, disappearing into the wastes of rock and dead grass. Black-and-white painted wooden signpost arms had once pointed to various outlying destinations, but now they had either fallen down or lost their lettering, and they gave no indication of where all the side tracks led.

After five minutes, and about five kilometres, I went on the radio to Pav, and said, ‘This place is fucking enormous.’

‘Yeah, well,’ he went. ‘It’s not surprising. One thing the bastards aren’t short of is space.’

‘I reckon it runs out into the desert and goes halfway to bloody Namibia. There’s tracks leading off in every direction. Wait one, what’s this?’

Stringer was pointing to our left. Below us in the distance, carved out of the face of a low hill, was a semi-circle of what looked like bunkers: pairs of corrugated iron doors, about fifty metres apart, faced on to a wide-open flat area the size of a football field.

‘This looks better,’ I told Pav. ‘Something like an ammunition storage area. This could be it. Stand by while we recce it.’

‘Roger.’

With my pulse speeding up I drove down the access track and on across the open ground to the right-hand pair of doors. Each of them was about ten feet square, an entrance high enough and wide enough for large trucks to drive in. Most of the pale-green paint had peeled off the metal, and patches of rust were eating away at it.

As soon as we drew up alongside, my excitement started to wane. The doors were mounted on rollers and held together by nothing more formidable than one big hasp. There was a ring which would have taken a heavy padlock, but no lock in place. It took a big heave from Danny and me, pulling in unison, to shift one of the doors along its track. Metal rollers squeaked and groaned as we forced it open half a metre. Inside, the heat was phenomenal.

‘Torch,’ I called to Stringer, and he flipped me one from the vehicle.

The beam reached out into a cavernous interior, with a curved roof of concrete sections which came down almost to ground level on either side. The shelter certainly looked as though it had been used to store ammunition, but now it contained not a thing.

‘Drawn blank at the first one,’ I reported to Pav.

‘What was there in it?’

‘Two thirds of three fifths of fuck all.’

‘Try the others, then. How many are there?’

‘Six. Will do. Nothing moving on the road?’

‘Negative.’

We kept trying, with equal lack of success. Stringer drove the pinkie slowly forward across the front of the complex as we forced open one set of doors after another. We’d just reached the fifth when Pav suddenly came on the air with, ‘Stand by. There’s a heli approaching.’

‘A heli! Jesus, where is it?’

‘Coming up from the south, along the line of the road. It’s going to miss us, but I’d say it’s heading your way.’

‘Roger. How far out is it?’

‘Three ks max. You’ve got about a minute.’

‘Roger.’ I looked quickly round. There were no big trees to provide us with cover.

‘Inside!’ said Stringer.

Without another word all three of us put our shoulders to the door and forced it open wider. The rollers ground and groaned, but the gap was just big enough. Danny leapt back into the driving seat, reversed, lined up the pinkie and crawled it in. But could we close the door again? We pulled like lunatics, but the rollers, jammed with rust and sand and sundry shit, wouldn’t move.

We stood in the doorway, gasping from the effort. It was too late to do a runner. We were trapped. We could already hear the distant scream of a turbine. By the sound, the chopper was very low. We held our breath as the noise swelled to a roar and the thudding beat of a rotor buffeted the air. If the aircraft passed in front of the store sheds, the crew was bound to see the pinkie; if it passed behind the hill into which the bunkers were dug, they’d probably miss us. For a few seconds we waited breathlessly, weapons at the ready. Then, suddenly, the storm of noise was diminishing, and I knew we were safe for the time being.

I ran out into the sunlight and just got a glimpse of the aircraft, big and heavy and painted dun grey, as it disappeared over the horizon. A moment later it reappeared in the distance, turning right-handed. Instinctively I ducked, but then I realised that, with the heli banked towards us, the crew couldn’t see in my direction. As I straightened up, it went in to land, somewhere beyond the skyline, and the scream died away as the pilot cut his engines.

‘It’s landed,’ I told Pav. ‘Did you get a proper look at it?’

‘It’s a Hind. There was a guy sat in the open door with a gympi, but that was all I could make out.’

‘It’s got to be a recce,’ I said. ‘I bet Muende’s on board. He’s come to check out the site. I’m bloody sure of it. I’m going after him.’

‘Eh, Geordie!’ said Pav, sharply. ‘Chill out!’

‘What d’you mean?’

‘You sound as if you’ve gone all hyper. Take it easy. Don’t tangle with that machine-gunner, or we’ll not see you again.’

I didn’t reply to that, but I demanded of Stringer, ‘What’s he on about?’

‘He’s right,’ said Stringer, coolly. ‘You’re letting it get to you.’

All at once I was angry: angry with Pav, angry with Stringer — who was a dozen years younger than me, for Christ’s sake — angry with the whole situation. I had a sharp ache in the back of my head. I glared at my companions, trying to fight down feelings of rage and frustration.

‘All right,’ I said savagely. ‘What do we do, then? Just let them fuck off with their loot?’

‘No,’ went Stringer. ‘I’ve had an idea.’ He pointed back along the semi-circle of doors, and said, ‘Look at those.’ He was indicating the pinkie’s tracks, which showed up like a dog’s bollocks, freshly printed in the dust and sand. ‘If the heli takes off in the same direction it landed, and swings back low towards its original course, there’s a bloody good chance the crew will see our wheel-marks. If they do, they’ll wonder who the hell’s got in here. There’s no way they can leave without investigating.’

‘So we’d better shift our arses out of it?’

‘Yes, but bait the trap. Leave the pinkie inside, so there’s only one set of wheel-marks. None leading away. That’ll screw them. Deploy with our weapons into the scrub opposite. Then, if the heli lands out there in the open, we can whack the crew from behind when they get out to see what’s happening.’

‘Stringer,’ I went. ‘Your name should be Einstein. Fucking brilliant!’

My anger evaporated as we shifted the pinkie to one side of the shed, away from the line of the open door, grabbed our weapons and belt-kits, and put through another call to Pav, explaining our plan.

‘We’ll be off the air while we’re away from the vehicle,’ I told him. ‘Call you as soon as we’re back. Wait out.’

We scuttled out across the open area and took up firing positions on the edge of the dunes, well concealed under swathes of long grass, seventy metres from the door, only thirty or forty from where the chopper was likely to land.

We didn’t have long to wait. I’d just looked at my watch and seen that it was after midday. We should be calling Hereford. Then we heard the heli’s engines start up. The roar deepened as the aircraft took off, and we could tell by the change in the note that it had turned in our direction. We’d loaded grenades into our 203s, but I’d told the others not to smack the chopper unless it looked like getting away from us. My aim was to make sure of Muende, if he was on board, and, if he wasn’t, to grab the crew and find out what the plot was.

By the noise, the heli pilot was aiming to pass behind us, very low. Twisting my stiff neck to the right, I peered through the grass and saw the aircraft skimming the dunes. Shit, I thought. He’s too low to see the wheel-marks. He’s going to miss them. For a few had seconds, I thought he had. Then the engine scream changed note and stopped moving. The thudding beat of the rotor increased. The pilot was hovering. The crew must have seen the fresh tracks in the dirt on the road.

Now they were coming back. I had a momentary panic that they’d fly right over our heads, and the downdraught from the rotor would expose us by blowing away our grass camouflage. With my left hand I gathered a bunch of long, dry stems and pulled them down over my back, holding them in place. In fact, the pilot was following the trail we’d laid. He flew back above the road, turned over the side-track, heading for the first of the bunkers, then swung towards us along the front of the complex and went into a hover directly between us and the open door. Never had I had a more tempting target in my sights: one grenade into the flight-deck — curtains.

Sand and dust boiled up in dense clouds as the Hind settled in to land. It was all that airborne shit that gave us our chance. If the ground had been clean, I’m sure the pilot would have kept his engines turning and burning for a rapid take-off. As it was, he obviously didn’t want all that rubbish sucked into his intakes, and he shut down.

‘Danny,’ I said.

‘Aye.’

‘Stringer and me will deal with anyone who gets out. The pilot’s your business. I don’t want him dead or hurt. Just under control. Okay?’

‘Fine. I’ll sort him.’

The rotor blades drooped as they swung slower and slower, gradually winding down. The dust cloud began to disperse. Through it we saw movement, figures emerging from the belly of the aircraft. Moments later four of them were walking towards the open door. I was amazed that they didn’t make any attempt at a tactical approach. I expected two or three to go down and cover the others as they went for the door, but no. They were so far from any battle zone they just weren’t expecting trouble. Maybe they thought some crazy farmer had been using the bunker to store maize. Whatever main weapons they had, they’d left them in the chopper, and were armed only with holstered pistols. In any case, they moved as a loose bunch, two blacks and two whites, all bareheaded, all in DPMs bar the taller white who was wearing a light-blue overall. I didn’t need binos to tell me that neither of the blacks was Muende. Both were youngish guys with short black hair, walking springily, far darker and slimmer than the rotund rebel leader.

Everything had happened so fast that I’d made no plan for dealing with this party. But by then my blood was up. Four was too many for us. We needed to thin them out. I guessed that the whites were mercenaries, the guys with expert knowledge, the blacks just guides or liaison officers. Whoever they were, we couldn’t afford to have any of them reach the open shed and see the pinkie.

‘Drop the silveries,’ I whispered to Stringer. ‘You take the right. I’ll take the left. Ready? Now!’

Our two short bursts were intermingled. The blacks were cut down like blades of grass, flat on their faces, and hardly moved. The whites leapt in the air as if they’d been electrified and came down facing different ways. But they were temporarily bemused. Echoes or ricochets made them think the shots had come from the bunker, ahead of them. Instead of pressing on towards it, they turned and ran for the helicopter, straight towards us.

I aimed into the ground between them and put another burst just ahead. The rounds ripped up puffs of sand and dust. At the same moment, I roared, ‘Stop! On the deck!’

I don’t know whether they went down voluntarily, or tripped. Either way, both dropped, and before they could collect their wits Stringer and I were on top of them.

‘Hands behind your back!’ I yelled. ‘Nobody move!’

I stood over them with my 203 and fired another burst into the ground less than a metre from their heads. Dust erupted and hung in the air. I kept the weapon levelled while Stringer bound their wrists with para cord. A glance at the helicopter reassured me that Danny had the measure of the pilot. Then we relieved the two of their pistols and got them on their feet.

I recognised one immediately: it was the fat, fair-haired South African who’d stood in the background while Inge had ripped the skin off Whinger’s face. When he saw me, he must have nearly shat himself. His mouth fell open and he gave a kind of croak. I could see him trying to work out how in hell I’d got to this place ahead of him. I blasted him with a look and concentrated on the other. In a flash I realised this guy must be Russian: a tall man, dark-haired, with a prominent forehead, hollow cheeks and sunken, pale blue eyes that made me think of the mad monk Rasputin, minus the beard. My adrenalin was already well up, but it ran even faster when I realised what the tall man was wearing: some form of NBC suit. No wonder sweat was running down his lean face and neck.

I went closer to him, and said, ‘Russki?’

He looked amazed, as well as shit-scared, but he nodded.

‘Great!’ I went. ‘You speak English?’

‘A little.’

‘Right. Where’s General Muende?’

The guy looked blank.

‘The rebel leader. Commander of the Afundis.’

The black eyes moved slightly. He’d understood the question, but he wasn’t planning to answer.

‘How about you, shitface?’ I went up close to the South African and jabbed his bulging gut with the muzzle of my 203. ‘Feel like answering a few questions?’

‘Vokken soutie.’ As he spat the words out, giving me a blast of dead-man’s breath, his yellow eyes flickered back and forth.

‘Listen,’ I told him. ‘I haven’t got time to trade insults with a pig. We’re going back on board your chopper. Your pilot will then fly us back to the stockpile of warheads. Understood?’

Again the guy didn’t answer, but again I saw that flicker of comprehension.

‘Get moving.’ I jerked the muzzle of my rifle in the direction of the heli.

The South African shot his mate a look. I could see he was calculating his chances if he lunged at me with a head butt.

‘Don’t try anything,’ I warned him. Suddenly, I put a three-round burst past him within inches of his right cheek. The noise and blast made him flinch, but he stood his ground: a hard case. ‘Any trouble,’ I told him, ‘I’ll make the sun shine through you. Now go!’

He turned and began to walk to the chopper. The Russian fell in behind him. As we came round the starboard side of the body, I saw a 7.62 gympi mounted on an extended arm. Danny was standing behind the pilot, another white, on the flight-deck.

‘Okay, Danny?’ I called.

‘No problem, except that this guy doesn’t speak any known language.’

‘Of course he does. To be a pilot, he must do. Another bloody Russian, for sure.’

I helped Stringer tether our prisoners to safety rings in the heli, well apart from each other, then told him, ‘Keep an eye on them while I stir up Biggles.’

I nipped up the two steps to the flight-deck and sat in the co-pilot’s seat. I could see at once the pilot was another Russian. He reminded me of Sasha, the great guy who’d got us out of trouble when the Kremlin mission went to ratshit. He had brown hair and a flat, wide face. He even had a couple of grey metal false teeth, one up, one down, in much the same places.

‘I got this off him,’ said Danny, handing me another pistol.

‘Thanks.’

I slipped it into the thigh pocket of my DPMs, where it made a heavy bulge along with the others. Then I waded into the pilot.

‘Don’t fuck about,’ I told him. ‘Just start up and take off.’

With the barrel of Danny’s 203 below his ear, he was already looking like a beaten spaniel. Now he spread his hands, and said miserably, ‘No fuel.’

‘Of course you’ve got fuel. You were airborne just now, no problem then.’

He shrugged, leant forward and flicked a couple of switches, lighting up the instrument panel. He jabbed a finger at the dials. The lettering was Cyrillic, but after our Russian task I could read basic words. The fuel gauges were showing about a third — plenty for a short trip.

‘Your fuel state’s fine,’ I shouted. ‘Get going!’

He stared at me as if I was mad — and probably, at that moment, I was a bit mad. I think stress and anger had sent me temporarily off the rails. The pilot seemed to sense it; he appeared to realise that no good would come of trying to resist me. He shrugged, and said, ‘Maybe we crash.’

‘Maybe we do,’ I told him. ‘I couldn’t give a monkey’s.’

‘Where to?’

‘Back to where you’ve just been.’

Again he made a hopeless gesture. ‘Today we are in many places.’

‘The weapons store.’

This time he tapped his head. I glanced back into the body of the chopper.

Stringer was crouched beside the open door, covering the two others.

‘Listen,’ I said, as menacingly as I could. ‘If you want to stay alive, get moving. And don’t try to pull any phoney malfunctions shit on me.’

‘Okay’. He shrugged again, and went into his startup routine.

‘Danny,’ I went. ‘Stringer and me can handle this. Hop out. Get on the inter-vehicle radio. Call up Pav. Tell him we’re hijacking the heli to find the cache. Ask him to bring the mother wagon forward and RV with you here.’

‘Roger. What’ll you do?’

‘Depends on what we find.’