Choice of Weapon

by Craig Marten-Zerf

Chapter 24

  Petrus, Mandoluto and the four new Zulus had clambered around the back of the mountain, a torturous and dangerous route that brought them out behind Texas and his unwieldy train of gangsters. Then they had watched them from afar and waited.

  When the train was well past them Petrus spent some time selecting the perfect spot on the trail. Eventually he decided. It was where it reached its narrowest point, cutting along a particularly steep ridge, an almost sheer drop below and a climb as steep above. Then they spent the next four hours finding and rolling over as many large boulders as they could. By late afternoon they had collected over thirty of them. Then they had climbed down to the trail and, using sharpened sticks, dug out a trench underneath the trial. The trench ran for about twenty feet. Finally, their bodies aching from the physical strain that they had been subjected to, they rolled the boulders down onto the weakened trail. The first ten boulders made no seeming impact at all but by the fifteenth the trail had collapsed. When they rolled the last boulder down the hill there was no visible sign of any trail at all, merely a treacherous landslide of rocks and mud and loose scree. The way home had effectively been cut off.

  The sun was going down and Texas had called to make camp. They had found a flattish area slightly off the beaten track but they would be unable to form a circle or square of any sort, the bulk of the tents would be strung out along the trail. But this did not bother anyone unduly as there was no possibility of them being attacked. The small handful of men that they were seeking would be attempting to get as far away as possible. In fact Texas’ biggest concern was that they were not traveling fast enough to catch up with the offenders that they wanted to punish. He made a note to himself to push harder to the next day.

  The men formed groups of five or six and used their gas stoves to heat up some dinner. The tents were pitched, watches allocated and rest taken. The fine rain continued and the men standing watch pulled their coats over their heads to take refuge.

  At two hours and seventeen minutes past the witching hour Garrett began to creep forward. He had noted that Texas had made the usual amateurs mistake of changing watch on the hour. Garrett had learned of old that watches should be changed at irregular times. Thirteen past or seven minutes to. Never on the hour or half hour. Because who knew, perhaps someone just like him was lurking in the long grass.

  Texas and Dubula shared a tent in the middle of the flat area, surrounded by four other tents and seven watchmen who rotated around the clock. It would be impossible, or at least very costly, to get to either of them.

  They had also placed another four watchmen along the trail, one at each end and one half way down towards the middle. The watchers were all stationary. Sitting huddled up against the rain. Focusing in on their own discomfort rather than out at what was happening around them. Rule number two, keep your watchmen mobile and get their patrol routes to intersect so that they had regular interaction. Keep them awake and on their toes.

  The gangsters were sleeping in a variety of tents; they had taken all that the trading store had in stock so there was no choice. They ranged from small two-man to double height four-man affairs in a mélange of colors from green to Day-Glo orange.

  Garrett chose a daffodil-yellow two-man about a third of the way along the stretched out encampment. With infinite care he leopard crawled towards the tent, not taking a direct route but rather sliding from shadow to shadow. He had tied a dark cloth over his mouth to stop any condensate forming in the low nighttime temperatures and he had blackened his face with mud. His machete was in its sheath but that was not to be his weapon of choice. In his right hand he held a small, razor –sharp skinning knife, its blade smeared with mud. In his left an eight inch sharpened hardwood stick, about the thickness of his thumb. And as the night wore on the soldier edged towards the tent. As slow and insidious as cancer.

  When Garrett finally reached the back of the tent undetected he used the skinning knife to cut an opening in the nylon. The blade whispered through the fabric and Garrett eased it open. Lying there were two men. One lay on his back, the other on his side. They lay with their heads at the door, their feet towards Garrett. Both were breathing the rhythmic breath of deep sleep. Garrett chose the one sleeping on his back. Throat exposed. Slowly, he moved into the tent, supporting himself on his arms so that he was above the man. A selfish lover readying himself to enter a woman. And then with one smooth movement he let himself fall onto the sleeping form. His right hand clamped over the man’s mouth and nose and the left hand plunged towards his throat. The sharpened stake shredded the man’s voice box, preventing sound, and then continued its upward journey, penetrating the roof of his mouth and entering his brain. The body twitched slightly but Garrett was lying full length on top so the other sleeper remained unaware of the violent scene that was taking place a mere foot away from him.

  The soldier waited a complete minute before he moved, and when he did it was with the same death-like stealth as before. He slid backwards off the body and then, inch-by-inch, he pulled the corpse out of the tent after him.

  The return trip took even longer than Garrett expected and it was literally minutes before false dawn when he had finally moved far away enough to stand. He picked the body up, threw it over his shoulder and jogged off. After twenty minutes or so he came across a concealed pit fall, covered with grass. Treacherous. He dumped the body into it and ran on towards his pre-planned rendezvous point with his Petrus.

  Texas was apoplectic. The gangster who had shared the tent with the missing man lay sprawled on the ground in front of him. Blood seeped from a cut on his lip and his right eye was swollen shut. Texas kicked him again, eliciting a grunt of pain.

  ‘How can someone cut a hole in your tent and simply take your partner without you knowing?’

  The prone man mumbled an answer.

  ‘What?’ Screamed Texas.

  ‘I don’t know, boss. Maybe Daniel went by himself. Maybe he ran away.

  ‘Don’t be fucking stupid. He would have gone out of the front of the tent, not through a hole in the back.’ He swung another kick at the man but missed, lost his footing and fell to the ground. The men around him kept their faces carefully expressionless. No hint of a smile. To laugh was to die. The gang lord sprang to his feet and started around him belligerently. Satisfied that he had not made a fool of himself he turned on Dubula.

  ‘Why didn’t your watchmen see something? Am I surrounded by idiots and blind people?’ He shook his head. ‘Strike camp. Double time. We catch these people today. Move it.’

  Around him everyone burst into frantic effort, each man keen to show his dedication to the master.

  Dubula went to the missing man’s tent and spent a while studying it and its surroundings in minute detail, going down on one knee to check for spoor. By the time that the men were ready to go he had pieced together what had happened and the sheer effrontery of the deed brought a smile of respect from him. Whoever had done this had balls of steel and a mind as cold as ice. The scary thing, he thought to himself, was that any one of the three men that they were seeking was capable of doing such a deed. The foreigner, the mad Zulu or the bishop. Dubula’s smile broadened. It was good to have such powerful enemies. It showed that you were a man of note. With a spring in his step, he joined the train.

  They did not catch up with anybody that day. In fact, by the time that they formed camp again that night, they had found no discernable trace of any human life, let alone that of their intended quarry. And, although he did not say anything, Dubula was staring to question the wisdom of his master’s plan. To himself he thought that it would be best to pick a smaller team of the very best men, led by him, to seek out the enemy. But the boss wanted a show of strength and so they blundered along like a huge unwieldy multi-limbed animal. All strength and no subtlety.

  The next morning when the camp awoke there was another man missing. This one from a tent only two away from the master’s. And this time there was no shouting and s
creaming. No pointing of fingers. Texas appointed a group of three men to retrace their steps of the last two days and see if they could find either of the bodies. In the back of his mind he was hoping that they would find evidence that the men had simply run away, although it seemed unlikely. They jogged off without packs, traveling light and making good time.

 

  The six men lay still in the long grass as they had been for the last four hours since sun up. Petrus was not convinced but Garrett was running the show at the moment and he had promised them that this was the correct time and place to set an ambush. Personally Petrus wondered why any men would be coming this way, in the opposite direction to the rest of the gangsters. But when he had questioned Garrett the soldier had simply smiled and told him to have faith. And after what he had done over the last two nights, killing and abducting two men from under the very noses of the enemy, Petrus was more than happy to take the soldier’s word. At least for a while.

  Slowly, without disturbing any of the surrounding knee-high grass, he crawled over to Garrett. He placed his mouth right next to his ear before he talked in the faintest of whispers.

  ‘Hey, Isosha. I’m bored. This is not how a Zulu makes war, hiding in the grass like a frightened herd boy. How much longer?’

  Garrett simply raised a finger to his lips and then pointed. Petrus saw them, coming around the crown of the hill. Three men running in single file. All carried AKs. Every now and then they would stop and take a cursory look at their surroundings before the jogging continued.

  Petrus felt adrenalin surge through his system. The plan was simple. They had laid an ambush on each side of the track as it ran into a steep dip. The loose scree and mud would force the assailants to slow down and, most likely, bunch up. It was imperative that they killed them all before they got off a shot. Garrett was very explicit about that. No noise. Although he had posted Mandoluto on a nearby hillock to provide sniper cover if anything went wrong.

  It worked perfectly. The runners slowed to a walk as they crested the rise and started down n the hill, slipping and sliding up against each other. Leaning on one another for support. Garrett and the five Zulus rose up as one, their blades stabbing, withdrawing and stabbing again. Fast balanced movements. Silent but for grunts of exertion and the wet tearing sounds of blades rending flesh. Within seconds the three men lay dead. And now Garrett and his friends had three AKs, six Chinese stick grenades, a Tokarev pistol and over three hundred rounds of ammunition.

  Petrus looked up at Garrett with a grin.

  ‘Well-done, Isosha. With these weapons I think that the enemy will now find themselves outnumbered.’

  The other Zulus laughed their appreciation.

  Texas had no idea what to do next. The three men that he had sent on a recce had not returned. Had they fallen to some misfortune? Had they simply gone awol? Or had the foreigner and his friends waylaid them? Whatever, he could not show any vacillation in front of the men. In a position such as his, implied strength was everything. So he struck camp and pushed on, keeping the pace high enough to keep the men concentrating on going forward. Keeping their minds off their slowly dwindling numbers and their boss’ seeming inability to do anything about it.

  That evening the camp looked more like a festival than a military post. Half the men had declined to pitch their tents, preferring to sit back to back in order to stay safe. Every man had his torch switched on and they all swept the darkness like children playing at hide and seek. A carnival of lights. Texas did nothing to stop them knowing that a nervous man is usually an alert man.

  And the night passed with infinite slowness as the men watched and waited and wondered who would be next.

  As it happened Garrett found that the surfeit of light actually worked to his advantage. Instead of using quiet stealth he simply blacked his face with mud, walked calmly into the camp, trusting that his attitude would convince people that he belonged. He approached one of the men sitting alone near the outskirts of the camp and, with one swift stroke of the skinning knife, slit his throat. He left the body where it lay and walked away from the camp into the darkness.