by Paul Eksteen
My plan was to eliminate her if it was necessary, but to try and keep her husband out of it. He was innocent and did not deserve what she would be getting. But now I was having doubts as to how to handle ‘Operation Lillynn’. And was her husband really innocent? He looked like a nerd, but she might be able to influence him to do whatever she wanted.
I was still very much upset and pissed off about Jan’s murder and Kwinzee’s accident. I was almost a hundred per cent sure that she was involved. Someone, somehow should pay. If she was not involved directly, then definitely indirectly.
The car bomb was just too soon to be able to connect it to Vivo or Indermark. The Zimbabweans who murdered Jan also did not have the contacts or the infrastructure to support such an operation as the blowing up of my bakkie.
I was again thinking about how to handle Lillynn the next day. Torturing or killing someone who deserves it was not too difficult. And if she was involved with the car bomb, then I might even enjoy throttling her.
I decided to go to my lodge for a shower and supper and not to sleep in the veldt that night. I needed a good night’s rest and had to do some thinking. I would need a clear head in the morning.
***
The Poacher Pub and Restaurant
I walked into The Poacher Pub and Restaurant at a little after nine, having taken a shower and a change of clothing at the lodge first.
People ate early here, and the restaurant was almost full. I took a seat at the bar counter against the furthest wall, watching my rear flank and the entrance to the pub in the mirror.
There were open tables in the restaurant, but I was told to wait at the bar. The tables were either booked or the manager just liked making people wait for their grub.
I took a sip of my beer and gazed over the other customers. Mostly couples. Dressed casually for a relaxed weekend in the country.
The highlights of the Blue Bulls rugby game which took place earlier the day in Wellington was on a TV screen behind the bar, and I was quite happy to sip my beer and watch the Bulls beat the Hurricanes by a narrow five points.
Twenty minutes later one of the waitresses showed me to my table. I inspected the menu and ordered their specialty of pot pie with another lager.
The place was very busy and noisy which suited me well. I didn’t want to be noticed, and by eleven I was in bed.
***
It was the stench that I remembered, really. Always that. In some ways, maybe only that. Rubber, petrol and human flesh ablaze all together give off a smell like no other. It is the smell that is burned right into your DNA. It becomes a part of you forever.
It didn’t look good. A horde of screaming and dancing black ‘freedom fighters’ were busy necklacing one of their brothers. The charred remains of the victim were later identified as that of a policeman.
I assessed the situation. It was looking even worse, as some of the dancing warriors were starting to pay attention to us.
I was seated in the driver’s seat of a Buffel anti-mine personnel carrier with nine troops seated at the back, together with a police sergeant.
I was made a driver of the six-tonne landmine-protected armoured personnel carrier, as I was one of the few troops with a heavy motor vehicle licence. I had obtained the licence the year before while still at school, as I needed it to drive the cattle truck on the family farm.
We were busy with our counter insurgence training phase and were tasked to keep the rioting masses of ‘freedom fighters’ at bay by patrolling the townships.
Most of the troops were armed with the latest R4 assault rifles, except for the policeman and I who were still armed with an FN FAL 7.62 x 51 rifle. The FN rifles were manufactured under licence in South Africa and were known as an R1 rifle. They were being phased out of the Defence Force in the 1980s and replaced with the higher capacity R4 rifles.
I asked to keep Wayne Ryan’s R1 rifle as it was much more accurate at longer distances than the lighter R4 rifle. It was also with Ryan’s R1 that I earned my nickname. The sergeant had no problem to issue me with the R1, whilst the other troops went over to receive their brand new R4 assault rifles.
The R4 assault rifle was a copy of the Israeli Galil rifle in 5.56 x 45mm and, although it was named the Vektor R4, it was produced by Lyttelton Engineering Works (LIW, from Lyttelton Ingenieurs Werke) in Pretoria.
The troops were issued with four thirty-five-shot magazines and two fifty-shot magazines. After a state of emergency was called out by the state president, Mr PW Botha, early in 1985, we each received two hundred rounds of live FMJ rounds for these rifles.
I had my R1 rifle with five twenty-round magazines and was issued with a hundred FMJ rounds.
Due to sanctions against South Africa, we were forced to build our own weaponry. The Buffel (buffalo in Afrikaans) was built on a Mercedes-Benz Unimog chassis with a South African-made Atlantis diesel engine.
A group of ten of the warriors started hurling rocks at the Buffel. The Buffel had a detachable fibreglass cover plate for the opening above my head, but it was tied to the back of the carrier. It was like an oven inside the driver’s cubicle with the top cover in place, and up to now, it was never necessary for me to use it.
We were all standing upright in the vehicle witnessing the necklace ritual, but as one man, we dropped down in our seats and attached our riot helmets.
Except for the metal plates on the side of the Buffel, the only other protection the troops in the back had was their riot helmets with Perspex visors. The troop compartment was uncovered and very vulnerable to petrol bombs or similar projectiles lobbed into the steel cavity by the “freedom fighters”.
The police sergeant was placed with the troops and was in command of the situation. We were under his command and had to adhere to his instructions. He was dressed in blues whereas the troops were wearing browns. The police sergeant was not issued with a riot helmet, but was wearing his blue cap.
Wayne Ryan got back into a standing position and was yelling at the warriors at the top of his voice. He was a powerfully build youngster and afraid of little. The next moment a rock the size of half a brick hit him in the chest. He went down with a grunt and stayed down.
“Shoot the fuckers!” Robert Mizen next to Ryan screamed. Ryan and Mizen came from the same secondary school and were inseparable.
“Hold your fire!” the police sergeant screamed back. “Don’t fire. Hold it!” He was still standing and had difficulty in controlling the nervous troops at the back of the vehicle. He was very nervous himself. This was the first time for him in this kind of situation. And he had to make the call.
I started the Buffel and enquired from the policeman whether I should engage low range and charge through the hordes to safety.
He told me to stay put, and at the same time instructed the troop next to him to call for assistance on the A52 VHF radio.
The next moment a rock thrown in a flat line like an arrow hit the sergeant on the ear, dropping him like a stone. Blood sprayed over the signaller next to him and, when the sarge removed his hand from his ear, it was covered in blood
“Shoot the motherfuckers! Kill them!” he screamed.
Ryan cocked his rifle and shot the rock thrower in the chest when he came running forward in an attempt to launch another missile.
At the same moment, a petrol bomb hit the side of the Buffel, spraying burning soap over two troops directly behind it.
I jammed the Buffel into gear and opened the throttle wide.
Stones and petrol bombs were raining on us as I charged over the first of five warriors in my path.
Lofty Maasz from South West Africa joined Ryan in the shooting and both of them were standing, screaming, and emptying their magazines in rapid fire on the masses.
What felt like an eternity was over in three minutes. I could feel the rocking of the vehicle as I drove over obstacles in the way, some of them human.
And suddenly we were out of it.
CHAPTER 17
The Rainbow
Lodge — Saturday, 21 March
As I opened my eyes, I could feel the sweat on my forehead. I removed the pistol from under my pillow and placed it on the bedside table.
I was in control, my movements measured, steady. I was not in Duduza fighting freedom fighters. I was in Dullstroom, looking for answers.
I showered and took an extra five minutes under the hot water to lift the stench of a years-old memory.
I left the lodge at half past four and rode out on the N540. I went past the Rainbow Lodge and carried on for another two kilometres towards Santa Pass.
At the beginning of the pass, I found a small dirt road going to the side and followed it for two hundred metres. I turned off the dirt road into the veldt and hid the bike between some shrubs. This was a new spot which I observed the previous day and decided to use today.
At just after five I was lying in my winter fatigues next to the fence with the garage and the X5 between me and the lodge. My rucksack with equipment was next to me.
At six I saw a light going on upstairs and could hear water running.
Good. It sounded like Louis was having a shower and, with the bedroom light off, I assumed that Lillynn was still sleeping.
Twenty minutes later and the upstairs light was switched off and a few moments later the kitchen light went on. The outside light was still burning since the previous afternoon.
So far so good.
Louis left the house ten minutes later, dressed in gumboots, waders and a tweed jacket. He had a fishing rod in one hand, a rucksack over his shoulder, and a basket in his other hand. Very dainty! It looked like he would be able to keep himself busy for a while.
I heaved a sigh of relief. My information was correct. It was mentioned in Lillynn’s file that either one of them or both would normally fish in the dams behind the lodge.
Louis exited the lodge via the rear garden gate and followed a footpath down the valley to a series of trout dams. I waited for him to disappear from sight, strolling down the meandering footpath, before I crouch-walked behind the fence to enter via the same garden gate.
The gate was unlocked as expected as it didn’t look like Louis had either unlocked or locked it as he exited the lodge five minutes ago.
I cautiously pushed the gate open to keep it from screeching and entered the back yard whilst keeping one eye on the house and one eye on the footpath which Louis used to disappear.
I moved towards the garage and followed the wall to within ten metres of the house. I waited for a while to catch my breath and to make sure that the status quo was still the same. No shouts or alarms had gone off so far.
After taking a few deep breaths, I walked towards the house at a brisk pace. Following the back wall to the rear door, I stopped and stood dead still, trying to hear anything out of the ordinary.
The back door opened into the kitchen and was fitted with one of those adjustable self-locking Yale locks. I slowly tried the handle but got what I expected. The Yale lock was on.
I sort of expected it, so I opened my rucksack to remove my door-opening tools. I did not have the lock pick set that James Bond would use, I was using an elbow length chrome leather glove to break one of the lead-glass panels in the back door.
After pushing out the panel, I reached through the empty panel and unlocked the door from the inside.
I pushed the door open slowly to minimise the noise of scraping glass on the floor. I moved into the kitchen and slowly closed the door behind me, focusing on not stepping on the glass pieces on the floor and making an even bigger noise.
Luckily the lead-glass panel was one of those proper lead-glass artworks and not one of the imitation painted glass panels. It, therefore, broke with very little noise.
I stood still for a minute, trying to stabilise my breathing and listening for any sounds from upstairs, trying not to think what my mother would say about destroying such a marvellous piece of art.
As soon as I was convinced that Lillynn was still sleeping, I started moving towards the living room behind the kitchen and the staircase behind it. As I left the kitchen, I removed the leather glove from my right hand and placed it in my rucksack.
I replaced the glove with my pistol and held it out in front of me. I was not planning on opening fire on Lillynn, but I had to be ready to instil some fear and to take her captive to get the information I needed.
There was no sound from upstairs and as I moved out of the kitchen into the living room, I closed the kitchen door behind me. I looked at a room with furnishings from all around the world. There was no specific theme, with an Oregon pine dining table and six chairs furthest from the fireplace, decorated by ornaments probably from official trips all around the planet. Two leather couches and a comfortable British club chair stood in front of the fireplace, joined by elegant French side tables.
Red-and-yellow Navajo drapes covered the wooden windows, and blended well with African baskets, Senegalese masks, Nigerian mud prints and Zulu assegais and shields.
I could hear the faint sound of either a radio or a television upstairs. That was probably why the sound of me breaking the window went undetected. Or did she hear it and was waiting for me to walk into a trap?
I looked at the stairs. They might present a problem. They went up one flight, and then turned back on themselves for another flight, ending in a landing with the two upstairs rooms each with their own bathroom.
I put my foot on the bottom stair and started to move up. Fortunately, the carpet from the living room went all the way to the top of the stairs.
Once my head got level with the landing, I turned around with my pistol pointed towards the top, moving backwards up the stairs.
This was the dangerous part where Lillynn could jump me.
A couple of steps; wait, listen. A couple more; wait, listen.
I could hear the voices from the radio/television much clearer now. It sounded like some morning talk show with much giggles and laughter.
The next moment I could hear the shower being turned on. I released a deep sigh of relief and slowly moved into the main bedroom. There was a dressing table on the one side of the bed and a large overstuffed chair on the other side next to a bedside table. I chose the chair.
I sat in the armchair next to the double bed, listening to the sound of the shower running, holding the pistol in my lap. I was facing the door to the bathroom when, a few minutes later, Lillynn walked into the bedroom wrapped in a white terrycloth robe, her feet bare. She was drying her hair with a towel and did not realise that I was in the room.
I left the pistol on the bedside table and quickly moved up to her to grab her arms, keeping the towel over her head and covering her face. She tried to shout and kick out at me as I slammed her back into the wall.
“Quiet and nothing will happen to you,” I hissed.
She stopped struggling and tried to shake the towel off her head.
“Keep quiet and behave,” I instructed her again as I pushed her down onto her stomach on the bed. Next to my pistol on the side table I had placed some cable ties.
I tied her two thumbs together behind her back with one cable tie and her two big toes with another. The towel was still covering her face and I draped it neatly around her head and cable tied it lightly around her neck. When I started tightening the cable ties around her neck, she started wriggling and squealing again. I slapped her hard on the side of the head. “Keep still,” I demanded.
I pulled a three-metre length of sisal rope from my backpack and roped her in the old, comfortable way. I tied her ankles, fed the rope underneath her hands in the small of her back and tied it around her neck. It was convenient to use the old way because, when struggling, Lillynn would strangle herself, and it also makes carrying the body easier this way.
“Good morning Lillynn,” I started off after finishing my work on her.
I could see her head jerk forward a little and then she started to cough. She was still very uncomfortable, lying roped in on her stomach on the bed.
“Yes, I know who you are. You also know me. I am the unfortunate guy whose profile at SSA has been hacked by you.”
She started mumbling something and squirmed around a bit on the bed. I bent forward. “Lie still and I will remove the towel.” I cut the cable tie with the Cold Steel knife from my pocket and wriggled the towel free from the sisal rope. Now the rope was directly around the bare skin of her neck. I returned the knife to my pocket.
“Behave and you will live. And tell me what this is all about or you will suffer. I promise both. Did you read my file?”
“I did.”
“Did you like what you read?”
She started squirming again. I could see the sisal rope chafing her neck.
“Comfortable?” I asked.
“Fuck you!” she spat out and tried to move into a less painful position.
Up until now I was admiring her natural light brown skin, prominent cheekbones, the daring sparkle in her nut-brown eyes and her wet pitch-black hair reaching to her shoulders. But using an expletive changed all of that instantly.
I stood up and jerked her head back by the hair with my left hand whilst giving her a smack across the face with the open palm of my right hand. The idea was not so much to instil pain, but fear.
“We are not going anywhere this way, Lillynn. Tell me what I want to know, and I will go away. Keep on wasting my time and you are going to die. You were an innocent until you stole my file. Then you became dispensable. I am a professional who is trained and paid to work for the government. And they told me to talk to you and to do what I deemed fit.”
I sat down on the bed next to her. I could sense her trying to move away from me. She did not like me invading her personal space one little bit.
Lillynn had clamped her mouth shut and had her face turned away from me. Groaning and sobbing sounds could be heard from the bed. I could see her toffee-coloured face had paled somewhat.