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.’
FOURTEEN
The heli’s turbines fired. The pilot let the engines warm up for half a minute, then engaged the rotor, increased revs, put on pitch and lifted away. Below us, dust boiled out to fill the football field.