‘Nice,’ said Cassidy over my shoulder. ‘I can have some fun with those.’
Claymores. I picked out one of the devices. Unlike the mines we’d captured, these ones were equipped with clackers, electronic firing devices connected to the mine via a wire that allowed it to be fired remotely when the target was within range, rather than having to wait for a line to be tripped — although these could be rigged to fire that way, too. Handy. There were maybe thirty Claymores in the box. Rutherford and I set it beside the one containing the M16s.
Fumbling with the keys, I opened the fourth case.
‘Now we’re cookin’ with gas,’ Rutherford said, his eyes lighting up. Inside the container were two M2A1 ammo cans containing sixteen hundred and eighty rounds of ball ammo for the M16s, plus magazines. According to the stencils on the wooden crates packed within, there were also smoke grenades and M67 HE frag hand grenades, as used by the US Army. ‘We’ve got enough ammo here to start a war.’
‘And hopefully finish it,’ I added.
Cassidy nodded. ‘Amen.’
There was another container with the same dimensions. Opening it revealed more ammo, smoke and frag grenades, just in case we were in danger of running low.
We moved to the remaining cases, the ones Cassidy had been sitting on. I repeated the juggling act with the keys until the lock sprang open.
‘Oh shite,’ said Rutherford when I lifted the lid.
Oh shite, all right. Packed into the top of the case were six ammo cans, each holding six 60mm M49A4 HE rounds. I lifted one up. Below was the base plate for an M224, which gave a massive clue to what was in the last unopened container.
Sure enough, when I managed to find the right key, the box contained the tube and sight assembly as well as the bipod. We had us a brand-new, fully operational M224! This was the same light mortar system we’d seen Colonel Makenga’s forces using to chew up Lissouba’s men. Ol’ Colonel Cravat had obviously put in his order, and Charles White and Lockhart had obliged so that the two Africans could go for each other’s throats on a more even footing. Both men were currently in the FARDC’s HQ. I wondered how they were getting along. I also wondered how Colonel Biruta was enjoying being in the company of Makenga. Maybe the gold being pulled out of the ground smoothed over any past differences; at least until they could all get back to their people. Perhaps none of these men had any intention of going back at all and were taking their gold and heading for retirement in the south of France.
‘Man, we can get real fuckin’ loud with this stuff,’ said Cassidy gleefully.
‘On me,’ I signalled. Ryder and West both acknowledged and trotted up the hill.
‘Christ,’ said West, his eyes lighting up when he saw what we’d acquired.
‘If we get isolated and things go from bad to beam-me-up-Scottie,’ I said, ‘this is where the trucks are stowed.’ Using my Ka-bar, I drew a map in the leaf litter pinpointing the location of the vehicles in the abandoned plantation. ‘According to Francis, the road between the encampment and the mine ends at a place called Mukatano, twenty klicks away. That’s where you go.’
Rutherford clapped his hands and rubbed them together like he was about to tuck into a Thanksgiving turkey. ‘So then, how’re we going to use our little windfall, lads?’
I planted an eighth Claymore in line with the others — back a meter from the edge of the road and well inside the foliage, which, along this section of the forest, had begun to grow up through the exposed mud. It was clear that the road here had been used very little, if at all, once the loggers left the area and so the plant life had been marshaling forces to reclaim it, inching forward with each new shoot. I looked up at the long straight incline that disappeared over a crest, the tunnel of overhanging leaves and fronds that lined the road here smeared with the orange mud thrown up in the trucks’ wakes as they motored back and forth along it. Fifty meters downhill in the other direction, the road curved away out of sight on its way to the village.
I heard a truck approaching from the blind, village end of the road, engine revving in a low gear. It was going slower than the others that had passed regularly through the day, which suggested it had a different purpose to the trucks rumbling back and forth between the encampment, village and mine. I retreated into the forest, got down on my belly and waited for it to pass. That took some time. It eventually drove by, doing around five miles per hour, creeping along, armed men hanging out the back and a couple of others riding the running boards. They were all peering into the forest, probably hunting for a missing truck or two; one of which was full to the brim with expensive items purchased to kill people and vital to the FARDC if it were to continue its important work here on that score.
I pulled up the M4, just in case I was spotted, aware that there was a full mag in the slot and five others in my webbing along with four frag grenades. And, of course, in my hand was a clacker for the Claymore just set, with seven more within reach if I needed them. I could easily take care of this truck and the men it carried, but if it came to that and I was forced to go hard-core, things would get chaotic thereafter. A firefight right here and right now was not part of the plan, and the plan — what was left of it — called for stealth until we were ready to show our hand, which wouldn’t be for several hours yet. But the truck roared by like I wasn’t there and continued noisily up the incline. I crept forward to the road’s edge and watched it rumble out of sight over the crest two hundred meters further up the hill.
Bushing the ants off my clothing as I stood, I wondered what theories about the disappearance of the two trucks were doing the rounds in the camp. Seemed that they’d quickly come to the conclusion something had gone wrong. The road to the mine was steep in several sections, with plenty of opportunities for a Dong to misjudge a hairpin corner and go crashing to the bottom of a ravine. The typical Hollywood depiction of an accident like that would have the truck bursting into flame, pinpointing its whereabouts. That was fction. The Dong sucked diesel, which didn’t catch fire easily, and the explosives on board were designed to withstand severe battle shocks without blowing up. So it was possible that an accident could happen, and the terrain made it possible that the location, cause and nature of the accident could remain a mystery. And maybe there was another theory doing the rounds — that the trucks had been taken by the spirits that cut people’s throats.
‘You done, sir?’ Ryder asked, walking into sight,
‘Yeah,’ I said, hands on hips, surveying my handiwork. I could only make out two of the devices and that was only because I knew exactly where to look. ‘Let’s head back.’
Threading through the plantation, a familiar sound in the sky caused Ryder and me to stop and crouch. A helicopter, and it was getting closer. It wasn’t the ancient Soviet Mi-8, which made a sound like an old washing machine with rusted bearings trying to grind out a spin cycle. This was the executive chopper, the aircraft from Swedish American Gold. I could almost hear the rocks clinking into glasses holding a couple of fingers of something aged. The bird turned and hummed away out of sight, which wasn’t such bad news. Our hiding place was vulnerable from the air and if we could see the helo, the pilot could eyeball our trucks.
The departure of the Sikorsky did raise the question of who was on board: White and that Swedish slime-ball, Sven? Did they leave Mak-enga and Biruta behind, or were they also passengers? What about Lockhart? Had he also departed the scene of the crime, along with that fuck LeDuc? The Sikorsky was a large chopper. It could take all those cocksuckers and still have room to include a rap singer and his buddy on the manifest. And if that were the case and our principals were no longer in-country, then the escapades we had planned for the evening were about as useful as a chain of bikini wax clinics in the state of Utah.