The truck disappeared around a curve in the road, a copse of trees now restricting Peace’s vision. As he came barrelling round the bend, he suddenly saw the truck standing stationary in the middle of the track. The sides of the road were a jumble of boulders of all sizes, barring any attempt he could make to slip past. Again, he viciously braked. The wheels locked but the tyres still skidded. He knew he’d not be able to stop in time. The rear of the truck loomed ahead. He had little option but to throw himself out of the open vehicle onto the road, and instinctively he rolled in classic parachutist’s fashion to absorb the shock, trying to miss the rocks that lined the sides of the road. Simultaneously, he heard the chatter of a machine pistol and realised that Van Rhyn had set a trap for him.
Thank God, he thought. Had he been driving any slower and had he not abandoned the vehicle, the bullets might have ripped through him. Instead, they had whistled harmlessly overhead. The numbness in his side had begun to wear off and he was beginning to feel discomfort and some pain. Blood still seeped from the wound, but fortunately, less than he expected. Still, the side of the jumpsuit was drenched.
The Jeep collided with the truck with a thunderous crash, a huge cloud of dust rising into the air. He did not hesitate and despite the pain, he rolled from the road into the boulders at the side just as the machine pistol again fired, the bullets stitching a row of sand spurts past him. He pulled the automatic from his belt and removed the clip to check what was in the magazine. Only six shots, Jesus, this is serious. He rammed the magazine into the butt and pulled the slide back, forcing a cartridge into the chamber.
Cautiously he rose to get a better look at the vehicles. Van Rhyn had to be hiding near the vehicles waiting for him to make a move. Other than the grass swaying in the wind, nothing moved. For a few seconds, he was gripped by anxiety; this was a dangerous game of hide and seek.
He was sure Van Rhyn would think he’d try to outflank him, but would not believe he’d risk crossing the open road. However, this was precisely what Peace intended to do. But how to get across the road unscathed?
He took a fist-sized stone and threw it into the grass about twenty yards to the left of the crash site. Hopefully, Van Rhyn would turn to check the noise, thinking he was about to be attacked. As the rock clattered to the ground, Peace gritted his teeth, and in a crouched position, dashed across the road into the grass on the other side.
No shots rang out. Lying on his stomach, he remained silent but listened intently. Other than the sound of the light wind in the grass and the chirping and whistling of birds, he heard nothing suspicious. Had Van Rhyn fallen for it?
He leopard-crawled through the grass, ensuring he made a wide detour to approach the crashed vehicles from the opposite side of the road. All he had was the automatic — the sheath knife had been removed by his captors on their arrival at the lodge, and he doubted he was a match against a machine pistol even with the element of surprise in his favour.
A vision of Cherry kept coming to mind repeatedly, and he had to force himself to concentrate on his mission.
As he closed in on the edge of the road through the long grass, he peered through the stalks and carefully scrutinised the crashed vehicles. Both were so badly damaged they could not be driven. Steam hissed from the Jeep’s punctured radiator and water had already pooled on the ground. The truck’s rear axle had been torn from its spring-shackles on the one side. He saw no sign of Van Rhyn. Had he fled or was he hiding in the grass waiting for him to show himself? There was also the constant danger he might spray the surrounding area with bullets. Van Rhyn was the hunted and he could wait in ambush not showing himself, an advantage Peace didn’t have.
Peace wondered how much ammunition Van Rhyn could still have.
Suddenly he heard a dog barking. He soon saw it; it was in the road about sixty yards down the track, its attention focused on something in the grass near a large boulder.
He jumped up, and crouching low, moved rapidly across the road. His appearance drew the dog’s attention, and it now began to bark at him. It even made a half-hearted mock attack, stopping only a few feet away. Clearly, this was a dead giveaway and he cringed, expecting to hear the rifle open up. This didn’t happen. He knew then that Van Rhyn must have slunk away again.
“Come here, doggie,” he called, trying to coax the animal to him. At first, the dog was wary, but eventually, it slowly moved forward until close enough to allow him to put a hand out to stroke it. It gave a low growl but soon quietened, clearly happy with the attention he was giving it. He mumbled nonsensical endearments, which it seemed to appreciate while he carefully inspected the road again.
He could see from the flattened grass where Van Rhyn had concealed himself behind the boulder.
“Come, doggie, what’s this,” he said jabbing the ground trying to get the dog to smell the ground and catch Van Rhyn’s scent. Christ, for all he knew the damn animal only responded to commands in Afrikaans! He tried, “Come doggie,” again with a further display of friendliness. After ignoring him for a short while the dog finally sniffed the ground, then looked up and gazed stupidly at him, then at a large homestead in the distance, panting with its tongue out.
Still smiling, Peace said, “You fuckin’ stupid dog, for Chrissake, just sniff, okay?”
All the time he kept a wary lookout, not entirely convinced that Van Rhyn had run.
Finally, the dog appeared to understand or had decided it was time to return home. It sniffed again and then moved in a circle and started to pad away, obviously following something. At that moment, he could have hugged the animal.
He followed it, occasionally having to break into a trot just to keep up. The trail the dog followed avoided the road. The ground sloped slowly away down towards what was some sort of orchard, the trees in neat rows. Beyond the orchard and at least a mile away, he could see what he thought to be a large farmstead, the main house surrounded by a host of small outbuildings. These were all perched on the banks of a small river, lined by willow trees.
It was just past midday and the sun’s heat was very uncomfortable. The pace the dog set and the heat soon had him breaking out in a sweat, and he constantly had to use his sleeve to stop the perspiration from running into his eyes.
They reached the orchard, where row upon row of trees all in straight rows greeted them, the ground between them cleared. It offered little concealment as the canopies were relatively high off the ground.
Slowly they moved through the trees and after a while, he thought he could hear the laughter of children. For a moment, through the trees, he thought he caught a glimpse of movement and part of a swimming pool.
I must be approaching the guest farm’s swimming pool.
He could make out the buildings between the trees, and the cars and pickup trucks in an adjoining parking lot cut out of the nearby grassland. He knew it was where Van Rhyn had to be heading. The sounds distracted the dog and suddenly it deserted him, heading straight for the swimming pool, clearly attracted by the sounds of the children and the occasional scream of glee. For a moment, he thought that this might have been where the dog was heading anyway, and may not have been following Van Rhyn’s trail at all.
God, then he had lost him!
He entered the car park. There was no one to be seen. Slowly he moved through the vehicles, bending down after every few steps to see whether he could see anyone’s feet, but the grass was calf high, obscuring his vision. He moved from car to car and saw that some were not even locked, and several still had their keys in the ignition. Clearly, it was considered safe to do this out here in the country. He saw a large SUV and thought it just the vehicle that Van Rhyn would consider a good choice in which to make his escape. He approached it, ducking as not to be seen through the windows.
As he came alongside the driver’s door, it burst open with considerable force and smashed into the side of his head. He would have been sent sprawling had he not caught hold of the top of the doorframe. However, he was still caught off
-balance and the blow partially stunned him.
As the door was pushed wide open, he still clutched its frame. In the other hand, he held the automatic.
Van Rhyn spilled from the SUV. Peace tried to swing the automatic round to take a shot. Van Rhyn viciously brought his weapon down and knocked the automatic from Peace’s hand, forcing him to release his grip on the doorframe as he fell, but before he struck the ground, he managed to grasp the barrel of the assault rifle. Peace realised Van Rhyn was not going to release the rifle; he had to know his life depended on it. As Peace went down, he pulled Van Rhyn with him, where they battled for control of the rifle. Van Rhyn had it by its pistol grip; the rifle’s short stock was folded back, so it was now a machine pistol rather than a rifle.
Van Rhyn was heavier than Peace, and immensely strong. Peace knew that in a drawn-out fight, he would lose. He’d be overcome by the man’s sheer weight. He dared not let go of the barrel. He now had both hands around it, as it pointed to the side. Suddenly, it hammered in his hands, emitting a short bark of shots, which was deafening in his ear. He had to twist his body to keep the rifle from pointing at him, causing an excruciating pain to shoot along his left side from groin to armpit. He knew that blood had to be spurting from his wound. He tried to roll, but Van Rhyn was too heavy. The huge man remained on top of him, and they both breathed heavily from their exertions. Again, Peace tried to roll, and this time had some success.
As he turned sideways, he felt his automatic under his cheek where it lay on the ground. He summoned all his strength, feinted with an intended roll to the right, and with a Herculean effort attempted a backward roll. This surprised Van Rhyn, and for a second the man relaxed his grip. Both went over, Peace rolling over on his back and head and Van Rhyn falling sideways, then rolling, finishing in a sitting position close to the vehicle’s driver-side door sill. Van Rhyn’s roll had not been clumsy but that of a trained paratrooper. The first thing he saw was Van Rhyn sitting with the rifle pulled close to his midriff, ready to fire. The smirk on his red and scarred face showed he knew he had the upper hand and that Peace was surely a dead man. Peace didn’t even have a weapon; the automatic was too far from him.
“Jou stuk fokken Britse kak! Vrek nou![25]” the huge man hissed, a split-second away from pulling the trigger.
The vehicle’s door was nearly touching Peace’s side and his hand was against the outside of the door. He swung it as hard as he could. Van Rhyn pulled the trigger. The door hit Van Rhyn in the face but he had managed to pull off two shots, a millisecond apart. The bullets hit Peace in the left side. It was as if he’d been hit by a sledgehammer, but still, he remained sitting. The blow to the face had laid Van Rhyn flat. Peace scrambled for the automatic a few feet away and managed to get a grip on it. He swung around and pointed it at his adversary. Van Rhyn was shaking his head, still clasping the rifle. Peace’s first shot hit Van Rhyn in the throat, tearing a hole in it on one side, blood immediately spurting from the wound. The second entered his right eye. The round-nosed slug blew out the back of his skull in a red mist.
Van Rhyn flopped backwards and lay on his back in the grass, his arm flung out. Peace stared at him through grey eyes of flint, devoid of emotion, and his lips in a grim line. Blood seeped from the holes in his side, the front of his jumpsuit already saturated. He still held the automatic.
“I don’t know what you said, but if I had ammunition left, I’d shoot you again,” Peace whispered his voice barely audible.
The job wasn’t yet done.
With an immense effort, he gathered himself and rose to his feet, while hanging onto the SUV, his head reeling. Slowly his senses began to function again. He grabbed the assault rifle and removed the magazine. It had another taped to it. This was full. He threw it onto the passenger seat of the SUV and slid behind the wheel. The keys dangled from the ignition. He started the vehicle, the engine immediately catching. The SUV had an automatic transmission, so reaching over with his good right arm, he brought the T-stick back into drive and floored the accelerator. The vehicle shot into a gap between parked cars, the rear wheels throwing up grass and dust. Out of his peripheral vision, he saw a group of people approaching. He ignored them, steering the SUV towards the track that led to the main gravel road, its rear-end swaying from side to side as he fought to control it. He shot through the lodge’s entrance and turned to go back to where the helicopter and aircraft had come down.
It took no more than a few minutes to get to the ditch where he saw the tail of the aircraft thrust into the air, the damaged tail plane clearly visible.
Already, he felt lightheaded. It had to be the loss of blood. He clamped his jaw, the muscles in his cheeks bulging. This wasn’t over yet.
Chapter Thirty-Two
The SUV skidded to a halt. He was surprised he couldn’t see anybody. Where were the farmworkers and the farmer? A little further on, he saw something covered by a piece of tarpaulin. He knew this had to be Cherry’s body. A feeling of intense anguish again washed over him, but he forced this aside. He moved towards the ditch. The figure that he’d seen sprawled over the cockpit’s instrument panel was no longer there. He felt his skin tingle with the first hint of alarm. He had not forgotten that this had been General Booyens. Since he’d already shoved the new magazine into the rifle, he pulled the slide back and worked a cartridge into the chamber.
He heard the unmistakable sound of helicopters and looked up. Two British Chinook helicopters moved across the sky, their roundels clearly visible, flying towards Lesotho. Had VA known all along what had transpired and where he and Cherry had been? Then why had he not lent any assistance, especially when they had been stuck in Lesotho? This could’ve saved Cherry’s life. The callous bastard! He resolved he’d deal with him as well.
Booyens had to be around somewhere. If he didn’t find him soon, he’d lose him. Besides, didn’t think he could stay conscious much longer. His side hurt like hell. There seemed to be blood everywhere.
He inspected the aircraft. The two who had sat on the right side were dead. A wing strut had broken off and had pierced the passenger in the right seat in the back; this protruded through the man’s chest. When the aircraft crash-landed, it had slid into the ditch, where a huge boulder had crushed the right side and killed the man in the rear seat. There was a strong smell of petrol and he realised the aircraft could go up in flames at any moment.
Peace hung on the wing strut on the left side and briefly closed his eyes, fighting off the nausea and dizziness as his head reeled. He knew he was rapidly losing blood. He had to finish this soon. He heard movement behind him, spun round, and saw the farmer. He immediately realised that the elderly man was in shock, his face pale.
“Wat op aarde gaan hier aan?[26]” the farmer asked with a distinctive tremor in his voice. Then he seemed to realise that Peace did not speak Afrikaans and repeated, “What on earth is going on here?” in a heavy guttural voice.
“Sir, if I told you, I’m sure you’d never believe me.”
He saw the farmer’s eyes dart to his assault rifle and to the blood that oozed from the punctures in his black jumpsuit.
“Liewe aarde[27], you’re wounded; you’re losing blood.”
“I know, but first, where’s the man that was in the aircraft, the one that was unconscious?”
“He has a broken leg; I pulled him from the plane and dragged him far enough away so if the plane exploded, he’d be all right.”
“Show me.”
The old man pointed to a small copse of thorn trees.
Peace took a step forward but had to stop as again a wave of light-headedness overcame him. For a moment, he stood swaying as he squeezed his eyes shut, trying to regain control. The feeling passed, and he again fell in step behind the farmer.
They got to the copse where he found Booyens propped up in the shade against the trunk of a small tree. Next to him lay a black man. Peace assumed him to be one of the farm labourers. The man was clearly dead.
“This bliksem[28
] shot him!” the farmer blurted, seemingly close to tears. “Isaiah was my foreman; he worked for me for years. I hope they hang this bastard. Don’t worry about his pistol; it’s empty. He tried to shoot me but there were no bullets.”
Booyens was in great pain, as was evident by the grimace on his face as he tried to move.
“Van Rhyn’s dead,” Peace said.
“You killed him?”
“Yes.”
“I suppose you’re going to kill me, in cold-blood nogal?[29]”
Peace could see that the man knew he was about to be executed, but he didn’t flinch.
“You suppose correctly.”
“But the farmer here will be a witness, you can’t do that,” Booyens sneered.
“Well, that depends on how you look at it. You’re no more than a fuckin’ animal,” Peace replied, and smiled. “And now it’s time to join your boss!”
The expression on Booyens’ face was one of fear as he realised that this really was the end. The assault rifle bucked in Peace’s hands. The shots rang loud, each bullet jerking the general like a rag doll. With his lungs blown to shreds, the blood welled-up in Booyens’ mouth and trickled down his chin.
“My liewe Here![30]” the old man shouted. He stumbled backwards, trying to get away from the ghastly sight as though he feared he might be next. His heel hit a stone and he fell to the ground. He scrambled upright in an instant and turned to run.
“Stop!” Peace shouted. “I won’t shoot you.”
The farmer stopped. Peace lowered the rifle, but then dropped it. He swayed for a moment and finally pitched forward.
The man stood there looking at Peace, oblivious to the sound of an approaching helicopter, obviously still in a state of shock at what he had witnessed in just a short space of time. To him it must have seemed that the world had gone mad.
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