by Simon Mann
It must be about 11 pm. Bulawayo Airport is dead. We wait and wait. I’m dying for a piss. Bursting. The whole hernia thing has upset my bladder. It’s sore. I am cold in thin shirt and cut-off shorts.
When an An-12 lands, then taxis over, my police cadet and soldier escort show nerves. They think that this is my air cavalry. Attacking. I hope … but shit … no flashbangs… And, no … they are not my hostage release team. A little later an Air Zimbabwe Boeing 737-400 lands, taxis and parks up close to us.
The penny drops. This Casa was only ever meant to take me as far as Bulawayo. The bloody Boeing is Mug’s own. Tonight it is mine. I will be flying out of Zimbabwe VVIP.
But not before my captors have another go at showing me how tough they are. The Casa has no step and, despite the fact that I am wearing leg-irons, they push me out of the side door. Free fall.
I am bundled into the back of a waiting car. A large man is already on the far side of the bench seat. As I am pushed into the middle, another large man squeezes in beside me. Pally. Five or six heavy large bags are hastily thrown on top of us.
With this cunning camouflage, the car rockets off. We drive 300 yards in a circle before they dump me at the foot of the 737’s boarding steps. The point of this is beyond me. The airport is deserted. Nobody is watching.
The charade is proof, if proof were needed, that they are acting illegally. If this kidnap were legal, Mugabe would like nothing better than to parade me through Harare International Departures. In chains. Cameras rolling. There’d be a parade, a national holiday.
At some point during the Boeing flight, I wake. The plane is in darkness, apart from my ten-man escort and the crew. The latter are supposedly ignorant of what is going on. There was a ludicrous ‘Welcome aboard’ rigmarole when we embarked.
Flying over Africa at night is Europe upside down.
Instead of an overcast and darkened sky, there are, above, all the bright stars of the South. Rather than a carpet of man-made lights below, there is darkness. There are men, women and children down there, just the same, but they have no artificial lighting.
I read Heart of Darkness in Chikurubi, then Lord Jim as counterweight. Now I am flying over that darkness, not far from Joseph Conrad’s great dragon, the Congo River. Even now I feel the same old rush of spirits inside me, caused by the wild lands below.
In my cardboard box, still with me, is my Penguin Heart of Darkness, marked up with highlights of interest to help write this book.
When I wake again, the instrument pilot in me tells me that we are in the latter stages of a descent and approach. At my elbow, the dozy lump of goon escort is asleep. I crane my neck around him. I try to catch glimpses of the city below. I peer through layers of cloud. As the aircraft banks to port, I look across the aisle and out of the windows on that side.
Sitting across the aisle from me is the CIO man running this part of the show. The goon-in-chief. He is scribbling away. His ballpoint pen catches my eye. It is light blue and flexible, with a click-button top. Papermate Flexigrip. Such pens are highly prized. How come this goon-in-chief has one of these pens? Maybe nothing, maybe everything. Did the Croc give him one? While they had a friendly chat. With brown envelope.
He notices me watching. Is that sympathy? Surely not.
But now we are descending into Malabo, the place I had planned to fly into – to take over – four years earlier. I’m here now. It has come to this. The last stop.
The plane banks again, this time to starboard, leaning into its descent. Below, I see many ships at anchor in the port, then a long spit of land that forms the outer breakwater. Luanda harbour; it looks just like Luanda harbour.
Odd that the intended target of the coup – Malabo – should so resemble the capital of Angola, my country. The very place where, in 1993, I became Il Condottiero, El Mercenario.
Idiot.
I look again, then again, more closely at the rising city. My heart leaps. I could kick myself. How could I not have seen where I am? It looks like Luanda because it bloody well is Luanda.
Dummy.
We must be stopping to refuel. I may have a chance. Halt this monster. Luanda is my home. Angola my country. Maybe there is something I can do. Maybe a friend can help.
So much for the heart of darkness. If this is Luanda, then the darkness that just stirred me, that rekindled a longing in me, must have been much further south than the Congo River. We must have been flying over the Angola–Zambia border. Over the basin of the Zambezi. Giant sable country, to a Shikari.
It makes sense that the Air Zim 737-400 should call in here. When we were planning the March 2004 coup – Plan E, the final attempt after I had aborted the first stab, Plan D – we had wanted to fly our ex-USAF Boeing 727-100 directly from Harare to Malabo.
Given our take-off weight (heavy: it included military equipment plus a 69-man force and crew) and Harare’s height ASL – 5,000 feet – the aircraft would only just have had enough fuel for that range. Technically speaking, we didn’t have enough fuel.
We didn’t have the range; except that we did – because we were prepared to cut corners and bust regulations. We’d achieve the former by cruising on only two of the three engines, and the latter – well, that was incidental, an irrelevance since we were about to commit a private act of war anyway.
Given the high risk of bad weather at Malabo, especially in March, the whole thing was fraught with danger. The dreaded ITCZ would have been slap over the island.
Given that there was no Instrument Landing System, and that the runway might be unlit and unsecured, ‘fraught with danger’ becomes an understatement.
I wonder why I pressed on.
Once on the ground, I ask my escort – the dozy one, window side – why we have stopped in Luanda. His eyes widen. What does his village do without the village idiot?
‘Mann – why do you think this is Luanda?’
‘I lived here once,’ I answer and pause. ‘…and because it says so.’ I nod in the direction of the enormous lettering on the terminal building: Quatro de Fevereiro International, Luanda.
He still doesn’t get what a dozy cunt he is. He is hurting me with these irons, hand and foot. Loving him is growing harder. Forgiveness is a taller and taller order.
If I could somehow cause a delay, or something that meant I had to be taken off the aircraft, I would demand that the Angolans throw me in their gaol. From there I might be able to escape. Jump over a wall. Diplomatic means. Legal means. Any means, for God’s sake.
From where came this curious sense of comfort, in the familiarity of place? On arriving at the Zim Army Military Police Depot, before the flight, I had experienced a confusing sensation that I was home. Even after four years in the nick, I felt a reassuring institutional similarity between the Zimbabwe Army and the British.
Then, during the descent to Luanda Airport, I felt, if only briefly, like I was heading home. Now, I believe that it would be a good thing to end up in gaol here. I know about Angola. Its gaols. I am in real trouble if I want to go to one of them.
I pull myself together. If I am seeing gaol here as good news, then I am truly fucked. There is the one chance. Wicknell and I planned it. Maybe he had a warning of what was going on with this flight.
Maybe he did what he said he was going to do.
To mock me further, out of that same side window I catch sight of a shiny British Airways Boeing 767. Parked unassumingly on the tarmac, with DayGlo plastic cones placed at each corner. A wishful defence against the crazed Luanda ground crews. That looks like home.
Impossibly close. So out of reach.
This is it. Wicknell’s chance to be a star. Then mine.
I ask to go to the heads. This takes the goons by surprise. They plot and plan, then bundle me aft. They unlock my handcuffs from behind my back. They relock them in front. They push me into the loo.
‘I need a shit. Close the door! We don’t want the hostesses seeing me having a shit, do we?’
‘Shut up! G
et on with it!’ shouts the goon as he stands at the door, holding it open.
Pride long ago drained from me. I don’t care.
Body pumps. Mind races. Running through our mad plan. Wicknell and I cooked it up, sitting on the floor back in good old FB 1. By this plan, there will be a 9mm handgun in among the stacked hand towels of the aircraft’s rear head. The last time I’d been was just before take-off from Bulawayo. The goon on shithouse detail had blocked me from the hand towels that time.
I must try harder.
Months ago, back in Chik, Wicknell had promised: if he learns that I am being flown to EG, he will slip a 9mm handgun onto the aircraft, in among the hand towels in the aft head. He has the guns. He has the contacts. He knows all the security men airside at Harare International. His uncle is their boss. It is a straw. I’m clutching…
I finish my shit and wipe my arse, putting both handcuffed hands between my legs from the front. I stand up, rinse my hands in the micro sink. Goon eyes bore into me. I go for the towels. I make a meal of taking one. Clumsy me. I tug out others.
If I pull a 9-milly out of these towels, the wankers will die of shock.
But I don’t…
No gun. It was never there. No hope.
This is it. They will cuff me again. Hands behind my back, I can do nada.
I spin … dive … reach for the starboard rear door. Opposite the head.
First goon falls back to my lunge. Pass him.
Second goon runs at me, grasps my chest. I heave at him. Frantic. Reach that door handle.
Third goon hits.
In irons, my legs won’t move right. I might make it. Reach that door. Pop it. Jump.
Flying sideways, back aft down the aisle. Fourth goon has hit. My wind all knocked out.
That’s it.
They re-cuff me. Rougher now: punches, pummelling, kicks. They force me to my seat. The cabin steward looks on aghast.
‘Go and tell the captain of this aircraft what you saw,’ I yell at him. ‘I demand to see him. Go. Go and do it.’
The wretched man looks terrified. The goons curse him but he goes to the flight deck nevertheless. He looks over his shoulder as he walks. When he comes back, the goon-in-chief fixes him with a look that would stop a buffalo.
But he lets him speak. He must feel he has to. The captain – I’ve seen him from behind – is white. We are sure to have friends in common, if nothing else. I stare at the steward’s mouth, hoping for words to save me. Nervous, he speaks. The captain won’t see me, he stutters. But I can give my message to him and he will pass it on to the captain, for sure.
‘Tell him that this flight is illegal. My extradition has not been carried out correctly. You and the captain are committing a crime. This flight is illegal…’
I check myself. After all this, why do I still have such faith in the law?
‘None of that! None of that!’ shouts the goon-in-chief. ‘Go! Go and tell the captain if you like. But this extradition is legal.’
Like hell it is. I’ve been kidnapped. I’m being smuggled. Trafficked.
Excitement over, the waiting starts. For what?
We have fuelled up, so what are we hanging around for? Not that I want to leave, but the delay brings me another glim of hope.
The Croc? ‘London’? The British fucking government? Are they hot on my trail? This delay might be because they know that I am in Luanda. They are protesting to the Angolan government: I am being moved through their sovereign territory in a manner that breaks the terms of every fucking international fucking treaty ever pissed on.
I hope. Now, my only hope.
Luanda. In shackles, in Mug’s stationary aircraft, at this Mad Max airport, I think of the other times I’ve sat here. Heady days some. Near-death others. I think of the times I have flown back-seat on combat sorties.
A figure I have not seen before peels out from Club Class. He makes his way for’ard, out of the aircraft. He is an Equatorial Guinean, I am sure. His clothes are smart, new. Black and red trousers, shirt and cap, Ferrari-branded. Flashy bastard. But no way is he Zimbo (even if that’s the look they dream of). When he comes back, he is lighter. The air of the pilgrim who has paid so that the others may carry on with their journey.
He has not been called for earlier because the Zimbos – as I guess – are trying one of their pathetic money scams on the fuel … even with their sub-prime UN Red List extinct credit.
We take off – at last – from Quatro de Fevereiro International.
I peer out of the window, as best as the goon and my cuffs allow. Longing, I watch the early-morning landscape fall away. Sad farewell to blue remembered hills.
Minutes later, down there in the water-heavy clouds coils the great river. The dragon. Vast masses of water rushing forth, beyond the estuary, towards the river’s deep ocean trench. Beyond me is my next stop. Last stop.
Destination: Treasure Island. Fantasy Island. Torture Island.
I think of all the many slaves shipped out from Luanda. Angola: jewel in the crown of the Portuguese empire. For centuries, slaves were the main export, mostly to Brazil. I’ve joined them now. I’m bought and sold. Dragged from pillar to post, chained hand and foot.
I sleep. Thankful to tiredness for smothering me.
Awake – how long? – my canoe has drifted into calm waters. Strange.
I think: if they are going to torture and kill me, I’ll have to get through it. Except there will be no other side to get through to. Maybe they are after my help. My INT. They’re welcome to it.
I hope they won’t hang me. I’d rather be shot. If I am to be plat du jour, then why should I care what sauce?
Friends and foes alike back in Zim assured me that my execution – should I reach EG – was a dead cert. Obiang, my coupee, is reported to ‘eat the brains and testicles of those he particularly dislikes’.
Bioko Island glides out from under the starboard wing. Shit.
Bright-green jungle green draped over the old volcano mountain. Jagged rainforest crags. Unspoilt. Climax. Primary. All around glittering bright-blue Atlantic Ocean, the Guinean Bight.
Wow. I still love flight.
I do love life. I think of how I do love Amanda. To love life you have to love someone else as well. Without a lover, then everything is blotting paper.
It blows my mind. Because, as we arrive, I get that same sense of relief that bemused me when I was first arrested. Four long years ago in Zim. It goes like this: now I’m really fucked – so let’s leave off worrying. Not brave. Not unafraid… Just like I’d run out of the stuff.
After we land, I look out. There it is. The airport had been the first objective. The control tower. Terminal building. Key points. The 737 taxis past the normal parking spaces. I catch sight of an old, derelict An-12. Our Herkski. The very same one that I had chartered and based in EG all those years ago. The one that failed us so badly in the first coup attempt: Plan D.
Why do people hang on to these old crates? I wonder. I know the answer: they’re idle. It’s easier to watch them rot than it is to bulldoze them, scrap them.
Now, our old Cold War aircraft has a warm four-year overcoat. Bright-green rainforest moss. A prop from Planet of the Apes.
Mug’s 737 comes to a standstill. We’re a long way from the main buildings. Out on a distant taxiway, I watch army vehicles speed towards us, then surround the aircraft. Chilly.
Goons bully me down the aisle. No niceties. No farewells. My legs have grown bigger during the flight. I am in agony. Leg-irons: a steel noose around each swollen ankle.
I make my way slowly, painfully down the steps. At the bottom waits a neat, slim and well-dressed black man. He smiles, takes my arm and helps me towards a police Toyota Land Cruiser. Two soldiers stand by the wagon, with side arms only.
‘If you help us, Señor Mann, I promise we will help you. Everything will be OK for you. You will see. But you must help us. If you help us, the President will do something for you.’
EG’s Ministe
r of Security, and the head of its prison service, General Manuel Ngema Mbo. He tells me who he is.
One of the soldiers holds open the rear door of the Toyota and ushers me in. They climb into the car, one beside me, the other at the wheel. The engine revs up. We drive off, the central vehicle in a heavily armed, speedy convoy of six.
Helping the EG crowd can mean only one thing: working against the Boss, Thatcher and the rest, my erstwhile Brothers-In-Arms. Nothing would give me more pleasure than undoing those men. They have broken their oaths to me. Oaths of armed brotherhood.
If I could help to nail them, then I could win yet. Maybe.
Off the back of the Toyota. They walk me into Black Beach prison. Dreaded place. My hernia hurts. I need to lie down. Get my gut back in. Everything hurts.
After the rumpus in Luanda, these Zim goons have made sure that my cuffs and leg-irons are clamped too tight. My body has rebelled. Now my flesh, swollen from the long flight, has puffed up. Flesh pushing against steel. Steel bites.
We walk through the prison yard. A crowd of black faces stare. Hundreds. I’m used to that, but these are new. The EG goons walk with me, so too the Zim. The General is beside me. Looking after me, I think.
That’s a stupid thought, I tell myself.
Coming from the 1984-like monolithic reinforced-concrete battleship blockhouse of Chik Max, as I am, Black Beach doesn’t look like a prison. Two floors, whitewashed walls, red Spanish tiles on a pitched roof.
There’s a steel door, leading into dark shade. More black faces. A shop, really just a stall, with a money tin and tall stacks of goods. Fags, match boxes, sardine tins, soap, sauces, football mags, pencils, razors, toothpaste, Laughing Cow, Gold Blend… It’s Fortnum & Fucking Mason.
I look at the man manning this emporium. I stare. A woman. My Chikurubi-brainwashed brain goes into a flat spin. This cannot be.
I listen for screams as I walk. This is Black Beach. This is where the torture happens… Is this Club Med?
We go up two flights of stairs. Once inside, it looks like a prison after all: cells along the inner space, which is all open. The upper balcony that circles the building is cut off from the bottom by wire mesh. If you jump you won’t fall.