by Steve Reeder
“OK then,” Cole said. “There is not much more to do but wait and stay out of sight until next Saturday evening. I’ll take each one of you, one at a time, to Grand Central and show you the lie of the land. We’ll do that one day at a time but early in the mornings so that you can see what it will be like on the day.”
“Also,” Franz added, “We’ll each make sure that we are all familiar with the hand-guns . . . it’s a pity we can’t take them into the mine-dumps and fire them, but there is not enough ammo for that. The two AKs I think we can all handle pretty well?”
Another round of cheers and raised mugs gave him his answer, and told both Cole and Franz what they needed to know about the mind-set of the troops. The only problem between now and the 29th – next Sunday – was boredom, and that proved to be a bigger problem than either of them imagined.
Cole made two trips into Jo’burg and sold the two remaining rough diamonds, knowing that if they had to land somewhere and fill the tanks in a twin engine craft it was going to be expensive. Steffen marked three possible sites on a flight map where they could land at small aerodromes and fill the tanks if need be. They were all in Botswana but Steffen conceded that they might still have to wave some guns around if the notice of the stolen aircraft had been circulated beyond the border of South Africa.
“And that means,” Steffen told Cole. “That we need a plane with at least fifty gallons in the tanks when we steal the plane.”
“OK. In the mean time we wait.”
“Six days, five really I guess . . . let’s just hope the army doesn’t come looking and find us.”
“Why would they? At any time there must be hundreds of guys that are over-due back at the barracks after going on pass, and most turn up with an excuse about doe-eyed young girls and lost virginities. It’ll be several weeks before they take any real notice about us other than the regiment phoning around.”
Four days of close company in a small flat was wearing thin. Apart from Cole, who could come and go without worrying that anyone he knew was wondering why he wasn’t in uniform instead of lazing around town. Tanya was back and had taken a room in the local hotel in the main street of Edenvale where she was now shacked up with Bomber until Saturday evening. Reece wasn’t bored either, but then he spent most of the morning sleeping, then preformed two hours of exercise, along with the others, before making sure he looked good, then the late afternoon and evening he spent with the thirty-one year old woman living in the flat above Cole. However, the irritation levels were getting to Smit and Freeman even though they had been good friends since boot camp. Franz suffered their bickering for two days before telling them to get the hell of the flat and go somewhere and chill out; but not together, he commanded.
“What about the risk of being seen?” Smit wanted to know.
“Well don’t do anything stupid like go to visit anyone you know,” Franz told them brutally. “Just relax . . . go have coffee or a walk or something.”
John Smit walked the main street of Edenvale poking his nose into various shops until his mood improved. Tommy Freeman was a good mate; he would trust his life to Freeman, and in fact already had on two occasions during contacts with the enemy, but he knew that Freeman wasn’t a model citizen. In fact, Smit worried that his mate might easily become a candidate for crime – other than the diamond thing – after the army. He did drugs for a start. Of course, they all smoked an occasional joint – well, not Reece – and they all got rat-faced drunk from time-to-time, but Tommy flirted with stronger stuff. The bag of heroin that the section had confiscated from a known dealer while on patrol had disappeared and Smit knew that Tommy had taken it. The others probably knew too.
Finally Smit spotted a coffee shop and decided that a coffee and a slice of carrot cake would improve the day no end.
Freeman had hiked into Johannesburg and then walked up the hill into Hillbrow and was now feeling much better as he mingled with the midday throng of rushing pedestrians on the crowded streets, savouring the feeling that the Pinks gave him. Three pills it had taken, which was one less than he used to take before being sent to the border. “Maybe I should swear off the stuff for a while longer then get a massive trip out of five of them,” he suggested to himself, and then decided that a cold beer would be nice as the effect of the drugs wore off, and knew just the place.
He was sitting drinking his forth beer in a rundown bar three streets from the main drag where the barman knew him, when they found him.
“Fidel! My man!” Freeman greeted the notorious drug dealer with an alcoholic grin.
“Tommy Whiteman,” the African growled menacingly as he approached the bar. The barman scowled at Fidel. Like so many Hillbrow establishments, the rules on Africans in the bar had been pretty much ignored for some years, apartheid or not, but that didn’t make him like this African any more. Fidel was flanked by two muscular types; one black, the other a white boy of perhaps nineteen, with the vacant expression and bad complexion of a heavy drug user. “I’ve been waiting for you to come back, Whitey. I had my boys on the street with instructions to call me when you did.”
“Well - I’ve been away fighting the good fight, Fidel, killing hundreds of your brothers in Angola,” Freeman laughed with drunken abandon.
“They not my brothers, Whitey. You kill them all, I don’t care. But I do care about the hundred Rand you owe me. It not a lot of money but if I let you not pay then everyone knows and soon I have trouble with the other dealers working for me.”
“Fuck you, Fidel, I don’t owe you anything,” Freeman snarled, the welcoming grin vanishing, replaced by nervous anger.
“I sold you some good stuff, Whitey.”
“And I paid you for it, you black shit. And I’m not a dealer for you or anyone else.”
“But you sold half of the stash – you think I not find out?”
“And that makes me a dealer?”
“I sell you drugs and you sell them for profit - that make you a dealer. And my dealers all pay me half of the profit, you know that.”
“Well fuck you again, Fidel, and the whore you rode in on.”
Freeman drained the beer glass and watched the two heavies spread themselves out, stepping closer to him as they did so. The big white boy was fat and slow, Freeman decided, but the black dude would be dangerous. Both had switch-blades in hand although the white boy had not opened his.
“Whitey, now that just silly and rude,” Fidel smiled evilly. “My boys here – Gary and Vussie - are going to have to make you understand my position better and then we can talk again.” He waved the two heavies forward.
“Wanker,” Freeman said. He smashed the glass against the bar counter as Gary lumbered in. He side-stepped Gary and slashed the broken glass at Vussie – the more dangerous of the two – slicing his face open and blinding the big African. As Vussie fell backwards Freeman jumped at the drug dealer and jabbed the razor-sharp glass into Fidel’s throat. He then tried to duck the arterial blood that spurted out in great geysers. Gary tried avoid the slashing weapon and ended up with the remains of the glass skewered through his left forearm. He sat heavily onto the floor and stared in disbelief at it. It was all over in seconds. Freeman looked around and found that Vussie has fled, leaving a think trail of blood droplets behind him. From out in the street there was a screech of brakes and the prolonged blast of a vehicle’s horn followed by the screams of several people on the sidewalk outside. Fidel hadn’t made it to the door, but collapsed half way to the entrance and was clearly dead, but not before creating a pool of blood several feet around his still twitching body.
From behind the bar there was the sound of a pump-action shotgun being cocked. Freeman looked around carefully. The weapon was pointed at him and there was a finger on the trigger.
“Hey cool it,” he said with a nervous smile. “They came it me, man, you saw it. Those two had knives.”
“Get out, Freeman!” the barman said, his voice cold and hostile. “Don’t ever come back.”
“OK, buddy, I’m leaving.” He put down the broken beer glass carefully on the bar counter. “I owe you for the - ”
“Out!”
“OK, man, I’m going.”
Freeman walked out into the street, the bright sunshine making his eyes water briefly. There was a crowd gathered around Vussie who had run into the road and been knocked over by a delivery van; he wasn’t moving. In the distance the sounds of police sirens were growing louder. Freeman threaded his way through the crowd and walked rapidly away heading over the hill and down into the blocks of low-cost flats and old houses. For the first time he noticed the blood that covered so much of his shirt front. Would the barman give his name to the cops? They had known each other for what seemed like a long time, and thinking about it, Freeman decided that he probably would. He pushed his shaking hands into the pockets of his jeans and began to sweat. He knew just how much trouble he was in.
The broken beer glass remained on the bar until police collected it as evidence; there were several sets of bloody finger-prints and most of them belonged to Tommy Freeman.
When Tanya had left Cole’s flat with Bomber in tow, heading back to the hotel, she had kissed Franz, Charlie Cole and Steffen lightly on the lips. She was growing very fond of all of them apart from Thomas Freeman, who, she reminded herself, she did not like at all. Fortunately, Freeman had been absent all afternoon. Smit had returned not long before but had gone directly to the guest bedroom and was quickly asleep and snoring loudly.
“Sean never seems to be there, does he?” she asked Bomber as they walked hand-in-hand down the main street of Edenvale.
“He’s got himself a bit-on-the-side upstairs from Charlie’s flat,” he replied with a grin.
“And am I your bit-on-the-side?” she asked coyly.
“Don’t be silly, babe. You are the light of my life,” he replied, patting her rear end affectionately.
Tanya smiled. She knew that he loved her, but a girl never got tired of hearing her man say it.
“Tonight is going to be our last night together,” she said miserably as they reached the hotel entrance.
“Don’t worry, I’ll be back before you even miss me,” he said. The day-receptionist handed him the room key almost as they walked into the foyer of the hotel and Bomber nodded his thanks. “And when I get back we’ll be rich!”
“Yes, but what about the trouble you’re going to be in with the army?”
They had walked up the single flight of stairs and Bomber used the room key, ushering her in and shutting the door behind them.
“We were talking about that yesterday and, Freeman aside, we agree that, providing we can keep the South African authorities from knowing about the diamond thing, there is nothing for it but to hand ourselves to the army and probably end up doing two, maybe three months in the detention barracks. Tommy says he’s ducking the country and heading for America.”
“Will that be hard on you?”
“Three months in DB? It won’t be a picnic, but it won’t kill me. And,” he said, dragging his T-shirt over his head and tossing it on the small dressing table, “Now I have some loving to stock up on!”
Franz and Cole sat in companionable silence and watched the TV. There was a tape in the VCR playing a Dirty Harry movie. They had both seen the movie many times over the years but both agreed that a good Clint Eastwood movie was always worth another viewing.
The movie finally ended with the predictable last scene and Cole removed the tape from the VCR, putting on the kitchen counter so as not to forget to return it in the morning. Smit was up and having a shower and Steffen was across the road in the corner café playing pinball. Roll on Saturday evening, Cole thought. Time was dragging.
Steffen was feeling good. Not only had he set a new high score on the pinball machine, to the irritation of two young teenager boys who were watching, but he had begun to realise that he was no longer afraid. When the others had first told him about their plan and asked him to join them he had been afraid, not only of the risks involved, after-all there was danger every time they went on patrol, but he was afraid of getting caught by the authorities. He had been brought up to obey his elders and spent most of his time in the military blindly doing whatever anyone with a higher rank told him to do. But something had change over the past week or so. He wasn’t sure whether it was being a part of THAT group of guys or that they were now beyond the point of no return in so far as being AWOL was concerned, but he had developed a feeling of superiority with regards to the army; he, Lance Corporal Steffen was going to fly a stolen aeroplane into the heart of enemy territory and steal diamonds worth more than the Colonel would earn in his army career! Man, he felt good. The pinball machine began ringing as he won yet more free games and the score clicked up to another record. Thoughts of being caught and getting into trouble no longer clouded his every waking moment. One of the teenagers was beginning to look impressed.
Sean Reece admired the trim back and shapely buttocks as he stepped into the shower behind the older woman. She handed him the plastic bottle and he squeezed a small amount of shampoo into his hand. Her hair was already wet so he massaged the crème into the luxuriant blonde tresses, enjoying the feel of her. Every few seconds his hands wound wonder down her front and cup her breasts which made her giggle and press her rear end into his crotch.
“Do you really have to go so soon today?” she asked as she leaned back against him.
“Yeah,” Sean replied, gently kissing her neck. “I need to be back in Edenvale for a meeting at two, although if you keep that up I may have to stay a bit longer.”
Actually, Reece couldn’t see the point in the meeting anyway; they were only moving out the next evening, Saturday, so as to be at the Grand Central Airport by four am Sunday morning.
The naked woman giggled again as she felt his rising erection begin to prod the small of her back. She turned to face him, kissed him fleetingly on the lips and then sank to her knees. “I think I can persuade you to stay a while longer,” she said huskily.
All thought of the final instructions meeting with the lads slipped away as she took him into her mouth.
By three that afternoon tempers were at boiling point. Reece was a no-show and Freeman had arrived back, having walked the twenty kilometres from Hillbrow, with a blood-soaked shirt and fear in his eyes. It took Franz no more than ten minutes to get the truth out of him.
“This is a bloody great start,” Steffen muttered. The others looked at him with grim expressions. No-one disputed his sentiments though. “One more day and we’re out of here,” Steffen continued, “do you think you can last that long without killing anyone else, Tommy?”
Freeman bit back an angry retort, electing to head for the bathroom and a much needed shower instead.
“So what now?” Steffen demanded to know.
Cole shrugged and with a glance handed the question over the Franz.
“Now nothing,” Franz told them. “Tomorrow evening we leave as planned and we continue as normal.”
“Do you think that there is any chance that the cops can track Tommy to here, or to the rest of us?” Cole asked.
“I don’t see how,” Franz replied. “I doubt the cops can work that quickly anyway. Even if they do know who Freeman is – Tommy says that the barman knows him, but does he really know him, or just his name?”
“True,” Cole was thoughtful for a moment. “And even if they can get an identity it’s still a long way to tracking him to this flat.”
“So we carry on as before?”
“I think so.”
“OK, Steff?” Cole looked Steffen’s way.
The pilot scowled at them and but finally nodded, but he was far from convinced. The nagging fear of being caught by the authorities was back.
The next morning Bomber Harris arrived back at the flat just as Charlie Cole was finishing his first coffee of the day. The battery-powered clock above the kitchen sink told him that it was just after seven am. Saturday, Bomber thought t
o himself, D-day.
“Had a good night, Bomber?” Cole smirked.
Bomber grinned and nodded but then added, “There were two guys walking down the main drag who seemed a bit interested in me.”
“How do you mean, interested? Couple of gay guys?” He gave the word ‘interested’ physical quotation marks with his fingers.
“No, not like that.” Bomber crossed to the front of the flat and peered out of the window over-looking the main street. “It’s like one of them recognised me, and I think that they might have been watching where I was going.”
“And you didn’t recognise them?”
“No.” Bomber returned to the middle of the living area and flopped into the easy-chair. “If I was inclined towards being paranoid,” he said darkly, “then I’d not be surprised if they were cops though.”
Cole studied the road for a minute. “Any reason that the police would be interested in you, Bomber?”
“No, not unless they were military police - us being AWOL and all.”
“There is no way the MPs would be bothering with us after just five days.”
“Six days,” Bomber corrected him. “But I do agree with you. Maybe it was just my imagination. Or maybe there know Tommy is here,” he said gloomily.
Two hundred metres to the east two men sat in an unmarked sedan.
“So what do we do? Should we call those SAP offices?” the shorter of the two asked.
His companion and senior NCO stroked his struggling moustache thoughtfully. “I’d like to take those guys in for being AWOL, but if Freeman is there then the civilian police are going to moan if they aren’t here to arrest him for murder.”
“Murder? I’d be more than happy to give the kid a medal for despatching that fuck-head Fidel,” the corporal snorted. “It is before your time, but we used to have a hell of a time with him and his drugs deals around several army and air force bases around Jo’burg.”