The bar of the hotel they were in was bland enough, only the stuffed animals’ heads on the walls giving any clue to the continent they were in. All the SBS men had an adequate supply of Tanzanian shillings, and Prentiss had made it clear that money was no object. They were to have as good a time as they possibly could. Willan wondered if the Intelligence agent knew something he was not telling them. The whole thing was a little like the condemned man’s last meal, and that thought made him suspicious and uneasy.
He was already a little drunk, which irritated him. He seemed to have lost his head for alcohol in the dry days in the bush. He’d have to be careful.
‘Well, Gordy,’ Fraser said, draining his glass flamboyantly. ‘Time to hit the town before it hits us.’
‘Coming, boss?’ Gordon asked Willan.
‘No, you go ahead. And mind your Ps and Qs, you hear me?’
‘Aye aye. Come on, Okello – you want to show us where the action is?’
Fraser, Gordon and Okello left the bar, obviously girding their loins for a night of town-painting. Willan was not in the mood somehow. He sat beside Prentiss and breathed in the other man’s foul cigarette smoke. When Prentiss offered him one wordlessly, he took it.
‘Christ!’ he spluttered, his first drag making his head swim. ‘What are these made of – camel shit?’
‘They take a little getting used to,’ Prentiss answered imperturbably.
They ordered more beers. Willan lowered his voice, even though the bar was almost deserted and the barman was cleaning glasses listlessly at the other end of the room.
‘Spit it out, man,’ he said. ‘You’re holding out on us. You know something we don’t.’
Prentiss raised an eyebrow. ‘Oh, I do, do I?’
‘Damn straight.’
The other man drained the beer in his bottle and blew out another cloud of evil-smelling smoke.
‘The war is on,’ he said at last quietly.
‘When?’
‘Ah, now there’s a question. We think in about a month’s time – the end of October.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Sources in Kampala who have managed to avoid the butcher’s knife. You’re going to have one hell of a fight on your hands, Willan.’
‘Tell me about it. Is that why the Tanzanian government has suddenly become so cooperative?’
Prentiss nodded. ‘If you had a TV at the camp you’d have been able to see the way Amin and Nyerere have been mouthing off at one another. They really hate each other personally. The grapevine in government circles here has it that there’s been a change of plan.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘The original stategy was simply to defend Tanzania from attack – which is where you came in. But increasingly the feeling seems to be that if we can halt the Ugandan Army, that’s no longer enough. We have to push it back and invade in turn.’
Willan laughed shortly. ‘You can’t be serious.’
‘Oh, but I am. There are militias being raised all over the country. Nyerere is mightily determined.’
‘Jesus. Well, our mission was to train up a defence force – no more.’
‘Your mission, Sergeant,’ Prentiss told him acidly, ‘is to obey orders.’
‘So that’s what all this is about – giving the men a final fling before night falls.’
‘Yes.’
Willan became silent. His suspicions had been correct. His team were nothing but pawns in a larger game, pieces which would be sacrificed without question if that was what it took to win the game.
‘You bastard,’ he hissed. ‘You had an idea of this all along. You knew that we weren’t just going to be a training team. We’re to be little better than mercenaries, doing our employer’s bidding.’
‘You are carrying out the wishes of Her Majesty’s Government,’ Prentiss told him calmly. ‘Whitehall concurs with my recommendations and has put you at Nyerere’s disposal.’
‘Nyerere is happy to use us, but he won’t acknowledge our existence.’
‘Of course. Don’t be naive, Willan. And don’t drink so quickly.’
‘Oh, fuck off,’ Willan said, feeling suddenly tired.
‘As I think you said once before, you do what you are paid to do. In your line of work you can expect nothing more.’
‘Except a nameless grave perhaps.’ Prentiss was right: he was a little drunk. He had best watch himself, he thought, and stood up.
‘I think I’ll go and seek out some more congenial company.’
‘As you wish. But remember who you are supposed to be. And don’t get laid, Willan. The whores in this part of the world have diseases you wouldn’t believe.’
Willan left the bar without another word.
He wandered down the street in the waning sunlight. It was getting on towards evening and the streets were crowded with taxi-vans, donkeys pulling huge carts, women with their burdens balanced impossibly on their heads. The pavements were choked by street stalls selling every manner of fruit and vegetable that Willan had ever seen, and many he had not. He found himself a little open-air watering-hole along the Makongoro road, and sat there with a warm beer in his fist, watching the rowdy, colourful life of the town wind down into the humid night.
The Simba Mechanized Regiment was one of the best formations in the Ugandan Army. It was stationed along the border between Uganda and Tanzania and had its headquarters in the town of Mbarara. Its commander, Lieutenant-Colonel Kasese, studied the hand-delivered and handwritten orders he had just received from Kampala, and frowned. He had heard rumours, of course; they had been flying around for days. But this was the first time that the chain of command had taken any notice of them. His men had picked up a dozen stragglers from Van Dorn’s shattered raiders, who gabbled about white water-borne mercenaries who had ambushed them on the lake and who had a training camp near Mwanza. Now it seemed that Kampala wanted these rumours verified, and his men were to do it.
‘Orderly!’ Kasese barked. He was an old soldier, a veteran of the pre-Independence army and entirely loyal to his superiors, even though he knew of and detested the excesses of the regime they supported. It was one of the reasons he had been given this important command.
‘Sir?’ the orderly asked, entering the little office.
‘Get me Ngoro, the pilot officer, and ask Lieutenant Oyite to step in also.’
There were a trio of French-built Puma helicopters based at Mbarara. If the Chief of Staff wanted him to reconnoitre this reported camp, then he would do it. But he also decided that if he found it, he would order his men to do more than just look at the place. He’d give these mercenaries a taste of their own medicine.
Willan drank more beer, now feeling distinctly fuzzy-headed. By this time it was dark, and he was beginning to wonder if he could remember the way back to the hotel. He rubbed the sweat from his face and swatted a buzzing fly that wanted to crawl into the neck of his bottle.
‘Buy you a beer?’
He looked up, startled. It was the Aussie photographer. How the hell had she got here? But he found that he didn’t much mind. He drained the last gurgle of warm liquid in his bottle.
‘Sure.’
She sat beside him without further invitation and ordered two beers. Willan looked at her narrowly. No camera in evidence this time, but an ankle-length skirt with a thin blouse. He could see the imprint of her nipples in the light material.
‘Cheers,’ she said, and clinked bottles with him.
He swallowed, trying to blink his brain clear.
‘What do you want?’ he asked.
‘Charming. You’ll go far with chat-up lines like that.’
Willan sighed. ‘I’m in a non-charming line of work, and you’re a photographer . . .’
‘Photojournalist.’
‘Whatever. And I have to be suspicious. All right?’
She nodded. ‘All right. Listen, I wanted to apologize for what happened yesterday: me barging in like that. I understand that you’re under a lot
of pressure at the moment, you and your men.’
‘Apology accepted,’ Willan said in a neutral voice, still deeply suspicious. He might be drunk, but he wasn’t stupid.
‘How did you find me?’ he asked.
‘This isn’t a big town. Prentiss said you’d wandered off like you wanted to be on your own, so I thought you’d avoid the glitzier hotels and such.’
‘All two of them.’
She laughed. ‘Yeah. So here I am.’
‘Just to apologize.’
‘Maybe.’
‘Bullshit.’
‘My, you really do know how to treat a girl.’
‘To me you’re not a girl, you’re a snoop.’
‘That’s a pity.’
Willan laughed. ‘Who are you anyway? Mata Hari?’
She stuck out a hand in a very masculine manner. ‘Sue Morris,’ she said.
Willan took it. ‘John Willan. Enchanted.’
‘You don’t look it.’
‘That’s the kind of guy I am. You’re not going to get a story out of me if that’s what you’re thinking.’
She paused, and then the flirtatious manner disappeared completely.
‘All right, you bastard, so I’m here to sniff after a story. That’s my job. And there is a story here, somewhere – a big one. What the hell are a bunch of British soldiers doing running a camp in Tanzania in the first place? And that guy Prentiss, he’s . . .’
‘I know. A spook.’
‘Yeah. And the Tanzanian Foreign Ministry have been trying to get their hands on my films. It’s like they’re putting together some sort of propaganda exercise. And then all this crap on TV with Nyerere and Amin slagging each other off. What the hell’s going on?’
‘I’ve been asking that question myself ever since I arrived in this country,’ Willan said mildly.
‘Is it war? Is there going to be a war?’
Willan looked at her carefully. ‘Can I go off the record?’
‘Sure.’
‘Then yes, there’s going to be a war, very soon.’
‘So that’s why you’re here.’
‘That’s right, sweetheart. Me and my lads are the knights in shining armour who’re going to help deliver the country from the paws of Amin’s thugs. That’s the theory anyway.’
She was visibly excited now. ‘What a story this’ll make!’
‘That was off the record,’ Willan warned her quickly.
‘Yes, yes, of course. But now that I know what’s going to happen, I’ll know the right places to start digging. Thanks, Willan.’ She raised her beer bottle to him.
‘I don’t suppose you’d consider leaving the country. Things are going to get very hot and sticky when Amin’s tanks roll across the border.’
‘Not on your life.’
‘I thought so.’
‘So you Poms have been brought in to beef up the local defenders, eh? That means you’ll be in the thick of it when the shit hits the fan.’
‘It’s what we’re paid for,’ Willan said curtly, remembering Prentiss’s words.
‘I guess. You poor bastards.’ She laid a hand on his arm. Willan was not sure if her sympathy was genuine or if she was just trying to soften him up. Either way, he didn’t mind. He had not had a drink with a pretty woman in an awfully long time, though he could have done without all the verbal sparring.
‘You look as though you could do with a square meal and a good night’s sleep,’ Sue said. ‘Don’t you eat when you’re out in the bush?’
‘Sure. Antelope and caterpillars.’
‘How long are you in town for?’
‘One night only, sweetheart. It’s a flying visit. Tomorrow evening we head back out into the ulu.’
She stood up, and tugged him to his feet.
‘We’d best make the most of it then. Come on, I’ll take you to a much nicer place.’
‘What are you going to do: take advantage of me? Maybe I’m not that kind of guy.’
‘I think you are. Come on.’
Willan let himself be led away. He liked the way she held his arm.
It’s all a big show, he told himself. She’s just after information.
But at that moment, he really didn’t give a shit.
9
The helicopters came in low, just after dawn. Those men who were still in camp had just assembled on the parade ground when the flight of three Pumas burst into view, so near the ground that they sent up clouds of choking dust from the dry clay below.
‘Who the hell are they?’ Willy Geary yelled, running through the thick dust and cocking his AK47 at the same time.
The answer came in the form of a bright flare of automatic fire from the open side door of the lead chopper. The gunner strafed the packed parade ground, sending men screaming and toppling into the dirt.
‘Take cover!’ Mick Morgan was shouting. ‘Get off the fucking square!’
The three helicopters circled the camp in dizzying swoops, barely a hundred feet off the ground, and from the sides of all three came jets of yellow flame as the door gunners let rip. The new recruits, most of whom had been at the camp for less than two days, ran panic-stricken in all directions. The choppers herded them like sheep and cut them down with hundreds of rounds of machine-gun fire. Geary and Morgan were out in the square with the crowds of terrified recruits, kicking, shoving and cursing them into the shelter of the huts. At the same time, Parker and three of the more experienced NCOs were manning two GPMGs, two firing the machine-guns while two provided living rests for the weapons by crouching with the barrels on their shoulders.
Tracer bounced about the camp, raining down from the swirling choppers and arcing up from the two machine-guns on the ground. There was a louder explosion and a flare of red light, and an RPG7 round, fired by Hill, streaked off into the sky. It exploded against the tail rotor of one Puma and the helicopter began to spin in lazy circles, out of control. The fuel caught just before it hit the ground and it exploded in a huge fireball, obliterating the HQ hut.
More fire was exchanged, but the helicopter pilots had had enough. They banked steeply, the door gunners still blazing away at the camp buildings, then headed out across the lake while a last RPG round fired by Hill fell short and sent up a geyser of foam in the water below them. Then they were gone, roaring off northwards.
The camp was on fire, the tracer rounds having set light to the dry brush that formed the roofs of the buildings. There were bodies everywhere, and amid thick clouds of obscuring dust, men still screaming in agony.
The SBS men dropped their weapons and began organizing firefighting teams, forming a human chain of men down to the lake and passing buckets of water up from the shore by hand. Blazing thatch was torn down, precious stores were carried out of blazing buildings and the human water-chain worked incessantly, ignoring the cries of the wounded. But the wind picked up and began fanning the blaze. They gave up fighting the fires and instead began salvaging what they could from the buildings before they were consumed. The wounded were dragged away to receive crude first aid. Trucks were backed into the camp to help with the evacuation. Exploding ammunition sent red-hot metal careering across the camp, wounding more men. The burning buildings sent a tower of smoke up into the clear morning sky that could be seen for miles.
Willan opened his eyes. They felt as though they were full of hot sand, and his mouth tasted as though a monkey had taken a dump in it. He groaned and turned over. Into the face of Sue. She was fast asleep, snoring slightly, her cheek pillowed on the back of one hand.
Willan blinked. For a moment he was entirely bewildered. He sneaked a look under the sheet that covered them both and saw her long, tanned body, naked as the day she was born. He whistled softly at the sight, some of the events of the preceding night coming back to him.
I’ll be damned, he thought. I’ll be damned. His brown face broke into a grin. A moment later his splitting headache made it vanish.
He sat up. They were in his hotel room and their clothes
formed an ungainly puddle at the foot of the bed. Beer bottles everywhere; they had made use of room service well into the early hours.
He could hear the street noise already, and squinted at his watch. God, it was only five o’clock. No wonder he still felt drunk. He lay back on the bed and silently studied the features of his sleeping companion.
There was a sudden hammering on the door that brought him bolt upright in the bed and made Sue murmur and shift sleepily.
‘Willan! Wake up! Open the door!’ It was Prentiss’s voice. Strange to hear the MI6 so agitated.
Willan grabbed the sheet, wrapped it about himself and shambled to the door. He opened it, forgetting about the uncovered girl on the bed behind him.
Prentiss’s face was unshaven, and the blast of early-morning breath that came from it made Willan wince.
‘What the hell do you want?’
‘The camp, Willan,’ the other man hissed. ‘The camp has been attacked.’
‘What?’
‘Willan?’ Sue’s voice came from the bed. ‘What are you doing?’
‘What do we know?’ Willan asked Prentiss, cursing his muddled head.
‘Choppers, just after dawn. They shot the place up, and there’s been a fire. We’ve got a truck waiting.’
‘I’ll get dressed.’
He turned to find Sue glaring at him and trying ineffectually to cover herself with her hands. ‘What the hell’s going on?’ she asked.
Willan threw the sheet at her and grabbed his trousers.
‘Sorry, kiddo. Duty calls. I have to run.’
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