A Time to Die c-13

by Wilbur Smith

  The forklift driver and the stevedores in their blaze orange overalls were halfway across the floor, coming directly toward Sean in a group, chatting and smoking cigarettes in direct defiance of the huge prohibition notices in red letters on the hangar walls. They stopped in confusion as they saw Sean come through the door with the armed men behind him.

  "Secure them," Sean ordered. As Job rounded them up swiftly, Sean looked beyond them.

  Along the opposite wall of the hangar was a line of office cubicles with side walls of painted chip board and glass windows.

  Through a lighted window, Sean saw the head and shoulders of one of the pilots wearing blue R.A.F overalls. He had his back toward Sean, and he was gesticulating as he spoke to somebody out of sight.

  By now the stevedores were lying spreadeagled on the concrete r, each with a man standing over him and the muzzle of an AKM pressed into the back of his neck. It had been done swiftly and silently.

  Pistol in hand, Sean ran to the door of the office cubicle and jerked it open. Two men, one of the pilots and the Royal Artillery captain, were lolling in a pair of dilapidated armchairs under a wall which was covered with a collection of ancient girlie pinups Sean guessed were relics of the bush war. The senior pilot sat on a cluttered desk in front of the lit window. All three of them stared at Sean in amazement.

  "This is a commando raid," Sean told them quietly. "Stay exactly where you are."

  On the floor between the Royal Artillery captain's feet stood a square black bag with substantial locks and a Royal Artillery decal stuck on the side.

  The gunner dropped a hand on it protectively, and Sean knew immediately what the bag contained. The gunner was in his mid-twenties, well built and competent-looking. The name tag on his breast read "Carlyle." He had blue eyes and thick sandy-colored hair.

  The senior pilot was a flight lieutenant, but he was middle-aged and overweight. His flight engineer was balding and nondescript, and there was real fear in his eyes as he stared at the pistol in Sean's hand. Sean anticipated no trouble from either of them, and he transferred his attention back to the gunner. He knew instinctively that this was the main man. He had the shoulders of a boxer, and he hunched them aggressively and scowled at Sean. He was young enough to be foolhardy, and Sean held his gaze and warned him.

  "Forget it, Carlyle. Heroes are out of fashion."

  "You are a South African," Carlyle growled as he recognized the accent.

  "Whose side are you on?"

  "My own," Sean told him. "Strictly self-employed." He glanced down at the black bag, and Carlyle pulled it an inch closer to him.

  "Captain Carlyle, you are guilty of gross dereliction of duty," Sean told him coldly. The gunner reacted to the accusation with the indignation of a professional soldier. "What do you mean?"

  "You should have posted guards while you were loading the missiles. You let us swan in here... " It distracted Carlyle as Sean had intended and gave Job the few seconds he needed to get his men into the office.

  "Stand up," he ordered the airmen. They obeyed quickly, raising their hands, and Job hustled them out of the office.

  Carlyle remained in the armchair with the bag between his legs.

  "Stand up!" Sean repeated the order.

  "Screw you, Boer."

  Sean stepped up to him and seized the handle of the bag. Carlyle grabbed at it to prevent him and Sean brought the barrel of the pistol down across his knuckles. The skin split and Sean heard one of his fingers snap. He had misjudged it, he had not intended to inflict that kind of injury, but he kept his expression fierce.

  "You have had your warning," he said. "My next offer is a bullet in the head."

  Carlyle was holdinglis; injured hand to his chest, but his face was set and dark witk fury as he watched Sean place the bag on the desk.

  "Keys!" Sean said.

  "Get stuffed," said Carlyle. His voice was tight and hoarse with pain, and Sean saw that his broken finger was standing out at an odd angle and swelling like a purple balloon.

  Job reappeared in the door of the office cubicle. "All secure," he said, and glanced at his wristwatch. "Four minutes to diversion."

  "Give me your knife," Sean told him, and Job slid the trench knife from its sheath and passed it to Sean, hilt first.

  Sean slashed the leather along the edge of the bag's steel frame, then pulled open the concertina hinge. There were half a dozen large looseleaf folders filling the interior of the bag, and Sean selected one. The file was covered in War Office red plastic and marked Top sEcRn. He glanced at the title page.

  FWLD MAMAL FOR INFANMY USE OF TM SnNC&R mom GU

  SURFACE-TO-AIR bUSS WE

  "Jackpot." Sean turned the file so that Job could read it. It was a stupid thing to do. They were both distracted, turned toward the desk, studying the Me.

  Carlyle launched himself out of the chair. He was young and fast.

  The injury to his hand did not hamper him in the least, and he was across the narrow floor space before either of them could move to stop him. He dived headfirst into the frosted window "in the middle of the far wall. It exploded in a sparkling shower of glass, and Carlyle flipped over in midair like an acrobat.

  Sean leaped to the empty window. Outside on the brightly fit tarmac of the hard stand, Carlyle rolled to his feet and ran. Job pushed Sean aside and stepped up to the window; lifting his AKM and taking deliberate care, he aimed at Carlyle's broad back as he sprinted across open ground toward the base of the control tower.

  Sean grabbed the rifle and jerked the barrel down before Job could fire.

  "What the bell are you doing?" Job snarled at him.

  "You can't shoot him!"

  "Why not?"

  "He's an Englishman," Sean explained lamely. For a moment Job stared at him uncomprehendingly while Carlyle covered the last few yards and dived into the doorway at the base of the control tower.

  "Englishman or Eskimo, we are going to have the whole Fifth Brigade down our throats in about ten seconds from now." Job was obviously trying to control his anger. "So what do we do now?19

  "How long to diversion?" Sean asked to buy time. He had no answer to Job's question.

  "Still four minutes," Job answered. "And it might as well be four hours."

  As he said it, the sirens began to howl like wolves, bringing the base to full alert. Obviously Carlyle had reached the op room in the control tower. Sean stuck his head out of the shattered window and saw the guard turning out of the main gatehouse on the far side of the runway. They were dragging spike boards across the approaches to the gates to cut the tires of any escaping vehicle to ribbons, and Sean saw the barrels of the 12.7-men heavy machine guns depressing and traversing to cover the approaches. They were never going to get the trucks out that way.

  "You should have let me sort him out," Job fumed. How could Sean explain it to him? Carlyle had been a brave man doing his duty, and although Sean's lines of loyalty to the old country had become blurred, he had the same blood in his veins. It would have been worse than murder to allow Job to shoot him down; it would have been a kind of fratricide.

  Outside the hangar, the perimeter lights went on abruptly, flooding the high security fence around the runway and taxiway.

  The entire base area was lit like daylight.

  If the commandos of the Fifth Brigade were in barracks and asleep when the alarm sounded, how long would it take them to come into action? Sean tried to make an estimate and then, with self-disgust, realized he was simply avoiding facing up to his own indecision and lack of any plan. He had lost control, and it was all blowing up in his face.

  In a few minutes from now, he and Job and the twenty Shanganes of his commando were going to be overwhelmed. The lucky ones among them would be killed outright and so avoid interrogation by the Zimbabwe Central Intelligence Organization.

  "Think," he told himself desperately. Job was expectantly watching his face, waiting for orders. He had never seen Sean at a loss before. Ms unquestioning trust ir
ritated Sean and made it even more difficult for him to reach any decision.

  "What shall I tell the men?" Job prodded him.

  "Get them-" Sean broke off as heavy gunfire broke out on the southern perimeter of the base on the opposite side to the hangar and out of their field of vision. Alphonso had been bright enough to realize that the plan lid been derailed, and he had started his attack a few minutes early

  They heard the whoosh-boom! of RPG-7 rockets coming in through the perimeter wire and the duller thud-thud of mortar shells dropping in the base area. The 12.7-mm machine gun at the gates opened up, sluicing green tracer in pretty parabolas high into the darkness.

  "How are we going to get out of here?" Job demanded.

  Sean stared at him stupidly. He felt confused and uncertain.

  anic welled up from deep inside him from a source he had never suspected existed. He didn't know what order to give next.

  "Forget the bloody Stingers, just get us out of here." Job grabbed his arm and shook it. "Come on, Sean, snap out of it! Tell me what to do!"

  "Forget the Stingers!" The words were like a slap across his face with an open hand. Sean blinked and shook his head. Forget the Stingers and forget Claudia Monterro. Without the missiles, Claudia would stay in the hole in the ground where Matatu had last seen her.

  Sean glanced out of the open window again. He could see the gigantic tailplane of the Hercules and part of the fuselage; the rest of the aircraft was obscured by the angle of the hangar wall. The metallic silver skin of the Hercules glittered in the arc lights.

  Sean clamped down hard on the hot effervescence of panic that threatened to swamp him and felt it subside. "The lights," he said.

  He glanced around him quickly and spotted the fuse box on the office wall beside the door. He reached it in two strides and jerked open the cover.

  The hangar had been built during Hitler's war, when the R.A.F had used Rhodesia as one of its overseas training centers. The electrical wiring dated from that era and utilized the old-fashioned ceramic type fuse holders.

  "Give me an AK round," Sean snapped at Job. His voice was crisp and decisive, and Job obeyed instantly. He flicked one of the brass 7.62-men cartridges from the spare magazine in the pouch on his webbing.

  Sean identified the main phase in the fuse box. The incoming current would be distributed directly from the transformer at the gates; if he could overload that, he would blow the flying fuse on the transformer box.

  He puffed out the ceramic fuse holder and the hangar was plunged into darkness, but the light of the floods through the open window gave him sufficient light to see what he was doing. He jammed the AK cartridge into the lugs of the ceramic fuse holder and snapped at Job.

  "Stand back!"

  The last vestiges of his panic were gone. He felt cold and resilient as a knife blade. His mind was clear and he knew exactly what he was going to do.

  He thrust the loaded fuse holder back into its slot. A blinding blue explosion of light like a photographer's flashbulb lit the darkened room, and Sean was sent flying backward. He crashed against the office wall, half stunned, shaking his head, his vision starred with memories of the blue flash.

  It took him a few moments to realize that the floodlights beyond the windows were extinguished and except for the fiery bead necklaces of tracer flying across the dark sky and the brief glare of exploding grenades and rockets, the base was in darkness.

  "Get the men into the Hercules," he shouted.

  Job was just a dark shadow behind the whirling Catherine wheels of fire that still disturbed his vision. "What? I don't understand," he stammered.

  "We are getting out in the aircraft." Sean grabbed his shoulder and thrust him toward the door. "Get Ferdinand and his boys on board and move your arse."

  Job ran, and Sean blundered blindly after him. His vision was returning swiftly. He turned toward the paler square of light that was the hangar doors.

  "What about the prisoners?" Job called from the dark depths of the hangar.

  "Turn them loose," Sean yelled back, and ran for the doors.

  He was trying to recall everything he knew about the Hercules.

  Although Sean had almost five thousand hours of flying time on multi engine types, he had never flown a Hercules or any other four-engined aircraft. He had, however, spent days on the flight deck of one while acting as an advisor to the South African Defense Force on antiterrorist opsin Angola and Namibia back in 1983. With a pilot's interest and keen eye, he had studied the pilot's procedures and discussed them with him in detail. He remembered what the man had told him: "She's a lamb. I wish my wife was so docile."

  At the hangar door, Sean stopped suddenly. "Matatu is right, you're getting old, Courtney," he castigated himself, and spun around. He charged back into the dark hangar and almost collided with Job.

  "Where you going?"

  "I forgot the bag!" Sean yelled. "Get the men on board! "of The gunner's bag was on the desk where Sean had left it. He stuffed it under his arm and ran back to where Job was waiting for him at the foot of the Hercules" loading ramp.

  "All the men are on board," he greeted Sean. "You should have let me keep the pilot."

  "We didn't have time to convince him to cooperate," Sean snapped. "The poor bastard was in a blue funk."

  "Are you going to fly?"

  "Sure, unless you want a shot at it."

  "Hey, Sean, have you ever flown one of these things?"

  "There is a first time for everything." Sean pointed forward.

  "Come on, help me clear the chocks."

  They ran forward and dragged the wheel chocks clear. Then Sean led the way up the steep angle of the ramp and stopped at the top.

  "Here is the control for the ramp." He showed Job the rocker switch in the side wall of the fuselage. "Move it to the "up" position when I have got the first engine started and the red light goes on in that panel. It will switch to green when the ramp is up and locked."

  Sean left him and ran down the length of the Hercules" body.

  The Shanganes were milling about uncertainly in the darkness.

  "Ferdinand!" Sean shouted. "Get them to sit in the side benches and show them how to strap in."

  Sean groped his way toward the flight deck. He found the wooden missile cases loaded over the Hercules" center of gravity between the wings. They were piled against the fuselage on wooden pallets and covered with heavy cargo netting. He eased past them and reached the door to the flight deck. It was unlocked, and he burst through it and dumped the heavy gunner's bag into the map bin under the flight engineer's steel table. Through the cockpit windows, he saw that the mock attack on the south perimeter was still in full swing, but that the volume of fire from within the base was now much heavier than from the raiders out in the bush beyond the wire.

  "The Fifth Brigade has woken up," Sean muttered. He climbed into the left-hand seat and switched on the lights of the Hercules" instrument panel. The vast array of glowing dials and switches was intimidating and confusing, but Sean would not allow himself to be daunted.

  It was a lot simpler than starting the old Baron. He merely switched on and ran a finger along the rows of circuit breakers to ensure that they were all in.

  "The hell with start-up checks," he said and hit the start switch for the number one engine. The starter motor whined and he watched the needle creep around the rev counter.