Suddenly, the night sky lit up as rockets from their supporting Hind helicopter smashed into the front windows of the farmhouse. Blinding explosions ripped open the front of the building as if it were made of paper. Chang instinctively ducked as glass and wood flew everywhere. A large chunk of the front door sailed over Chang’s head and smashed into splinters on the ground behind him. Looking back, Chang was relieved to see the last Hip leaving the landing zone. A smile broke on his blackened face. He now had all fifty-five men of his mercenary team on the ground. The gunfire began to slacken from the burning farmhouse. Chang stood and without any care for his own well-being, called for his men to stand and follow him. A loud cheer rang out as Chang and his men dashed forward, firing small bursts from their assault rifles into the wrecked house at any target of opportunity.
Chang was the first man to reach the steps leading into the building. He pulled his AK-74 tight into his shoulder as he advanced over the destroyed remains of the front of the burning farmhouse. Pausing for a moment to see if anyone could have survived the initial rocket attack, Chang decided not to take any chances and hurled a Russian made anti-personnel grenade through a blown-out window. He heard it bounce along the floor; three seconds later, it went off. The noise and concussion of the blast rocked the shattered wooden walls of the wrecked house.
Two mercenaries rushed over and joined Chang. Just as they had rehearsed at their mock-up in Mozambique, he waved at his men to kick in what was left of the shattered door and then as a group, they dashed inside the smoldering house. The interior of the old farmhouse was a complete wreck. Several mangled bodies and destroyed pieces of furniture were scattered across the hardwood floor. Chang took a step forward, but had to brace himself from slipping in a puddle of blood as he stepped past a severed limb. Looking for any further sign of opposition, Chang saw none.
A moan rang out from the far side of the room.
Chang turned towards the sound and walked over to see who had survived the volley of missiles from the Hind attack helicopter. He saw a young black woman in South African military fatigues, her round face covered in blood, struggling to get up on her hands and knees. She was in shock and did not realize that Chang was standing over her. Seeing that she was the only survivor, Chang lowered his weapon until the barrel rested on the back of her head. Without flinching, he fired two rounds into the woman’s skull, splattering her blood and brains all over the floor. He did not care about the cold-blooded murder of the girl; it was no more troubling to him than stepping on a bug with his boot. Cradling his AK in his arms, Chang headed towards the kitchen. All around him, his men broke down into their pre-determined search teams and started their deadly and methodical clearance of the house. A shot rang out somewhere in the building but was quickly and abruptly silenced by the overwhelming firepower from Chang’s highly trained killers.
With a smile on his hard face, Chang let himself relax for a moment. So far, so good, it was all going to plan. Chang, accompanied by his radio operator, strode into the kitchen and stopped by the fuse box on the wall. Reaching over, he found that it was locked.
Chang’s radio-operator stepped forward, reached into a pocket, pulled out a skeleton key, and quickly popped opened the locked box. Chang grabbed a Maglite from his chest-rig and shone it inside the fuse box. He counted the fuses until he found the sixth one. Pressing it in with his thumb, Chang was rewarded by the sound of a hidden door sliding open beside the stove.
“Ingenious,” said Chang in perfect English as he stared at the open elevator. “Call in the exterminators,” said Chang to his radioman.
A minute later, two men dressed from head to toe in chemical warfare suits and wearing military gas masks walked into the kitchen. Chang nodded to them and pointed towards the open elevator. Both men returned the nod and stepped into the elevator. In their hands were canisters of deadly Sarin nerve gas. Chang closed the door behind them and looked down at his watch. So far, they had been on the ground for no more than five minutes. They had twenty-five more before any police, alerted by local farmers, would arrive. While he and some of his men cleared the house, Chang knew that his deputy was busy establishing a defensive perimeter around the building to keep the authorities at bay for as long as it took.
A huge broad man with short black hair and a long scar across his left cheek entered the kitchen. Chang nodded at Ivan Kolikov, an ex-Russian Spetsnaz sergeant, and his deputy for the raid. “Are the bug specialists in the hole?” asked Kolikov, as he looked at the closed elevator door.
“Yes, and I suspect that we shall hear from them shortly,” said Chang, watching the time burn away on his watch.
“Good. I’ll get the bomb experts up here and then call in the two empty choppers,” said Kolikov with a mock salute before heading back out into the pouring rain.
Seconds later, the door to the elevator slid open; a dark-skinned man stepped out without his gas mask on. “It’s clear down there,” said the man in a thick Somali accent.
“How many?” asked Chang.
The Somali mercenary held up two fingers, indicating how many South African security personnel were now dead.
Chang thanked the man. He had expected more, but most must have died under the rocket barrage from the Hind. Stepping into the elevator, Chang pressed the only button on the wall. A moment later, he felt the elevator start to descend. From studying the secret files provided to him by Alexandra Romanov, Chang knew the basement level built thirty meters below the surface held South Africa’s last line of defense. Something that had been hidden away for years and was not supposed to exist: two nuclear bombs.
Built during the Cold War, South Africa once had had an arsenal of six known and two undisclosed nuclear bombs. With the approaching end of Apartheid, South Africa openly and willingly dismantled its six bombs and declared itself a nuclear-free state. However, even the new leadership of the country saw the wisdom of keeping a secret nuclear deterrence and continued with the clandestine maintenance of two nuclear bombs. It was a decision they would now live to regret.
Chang stepped out of the elevator and was met by the other member of the exterminator team. With a quick handshake, he stepped over the dead bodies of two South African bomb technicians, their vacant, accusing eyes staring up at him. With a grin from ear to ear, he walked straight over to the two nuclear bombs. Chang saw that the white-painted bombs were three meters long and strapped down onto sturdy metal tables. Chang knew that these bombs were designed to be delivered from the air.
The sound of men chatting away excitedly as they exited the elevator caught Chang’s attention. They nodded their heads in greeting and moved past him, carefully starting to unlock the bombs from their cradles so they could be quickly placed onto the waiting heavy-duty carts for transfer to the surface.
Chang watched his men work as fast as they could. They knew just as well as he did that time was not on their side, but they could not afford to be sloppy around such lethal devices. Ten minutes passed; the first of the bombs was on its way to the surface. Chang looked at his watch and cursed. They had, at most, five minutes before a police car arrived. Leaving his technicians to their work, Chang jumped into the elevator and headed up to the surface to prepare a reception.
Outside, the rain had stopped. The air smelled fresh and appealing to Chang after being cooped up for the past ten minutes in the stale air of the smoldering farmhouse’s basement.