by Steve Reeder
“Oh crap, no, Smitty!” Franz cried in anguish, banging his forehead against the steering wheel.
“Come on, old man, no time to mourn now. Look,” Reece said, looking grim. He pointed to the pick-up that was now racing across the dirt strip towards Cole and the others. “If we don’t do something quickly, we’ll be short another three mates.”
Franz let out another string of violent curses, slapped the Toyota into gear and stamped down on the accelerator. The vehicle surged forward, chasing after the older pick-up as it sped past.
Reece checked the safety catch of the pistol. “Get me close and I’ll try get the guy on the back before they realise who we are,” he told Franz, who allowed the Toyota to cross his quarry’s wake, coming up from behind on the right. Reece leaned half out of the window, pistol at the ready, hoping that Franz could get them close enough for a realistic shot before the Angolan soldier looked behind him. Slowly they closed the distance between the vehicles. Reece began to take aim, waiting, hoping, until finally they were with twenty metres. The Angolan turned his head, looked back and grinned. Then the grin turned to fear as he understood what he was seeing. Reece fired three shots as quickly as he could. The rear window of the old pick-up shattered and another shot went wild, punching a hole in the side of the front door. But one bullet found its mark and the gunner slumped forwards over the roof of the pick-up before sliding down into the rear of the old truck. The panicked driver swung the wheel to his left and headed for the exit road again.
“Go, Franz! We can’t let him get away!” Reece screamed at Franz who had already turned to give chase.
The pick-up had gained thirty metres on them but Franz was in hot pursuit while Reece tried to get a clean shot.
The older vehicle was over-hauled almost at the edge of the plateau. Reece fired four times more and the front left wheel suddenly deflated. The pick-up went into a skid and finally stopped as the driver stalled the engine.
“Leave him,” Franz commanded as Reece lined up a clear shot at the now fleeing soldier. “He’s unarmed and going nowhere. You can shoot out a couple of the tyres though, just to be sure?”
Reece grunted his agreement and put two shots through the rear tyres. Realising the position they were now in, Reece quickly ransacked the second vehicle for more weapons. The Soviet Degtyarev DP Light Machine Gun with four belts of ammunition was followed by five AK47s and two large canvas s full of magazines for the assault rifles.
As soon as Reece was back in the vehicle Franz swung the steering-wheel and spun the rear wheels as he turned back towards their comrades. In the rear-view mirror he watched the Angolan who was now shouting and gesturing insultingly at them. Franz’s smile vanished quickly as he realised the predicament that now faced them.
The predicament was not lost on the others either, but Cole summed it up anyway.
“We’re a fucking long way from a border, any border, and the only thing that is likely to stop the Angolans from catching us is that they are not the most organised bunch I’ve ever seen . . . I’m not sure how much that government guy wants to involve either the police or the army.”
“Unless he actually acting for the government when he’s selling these stones?” Freeman suggested.
Bomber shot that idea down. “There would be no need: they could sell these diamonds to London or, better still the Dutch, quiet legally, and probably are. After all, they are the government. This is just one guy stealing his country’s diamonds.”
“Anyway,” Cole continued, “we need a plan to get ourselves home.”
“Well, this thing only has a quarter tank of fuel at best,” Franz told the others, indicating the Toyota.
“I say we use it and get the hell out of here,” Freeman said. “Once we’re away from here we can decide on the next - ”
“I’ve a better idea,” Reece said. “Did you notice that petrol station on the edge of town when we flew over it? There is an almost new Ford Cortina pick-up parked there. I think that we should go nick it and we can make sure it has a full tank. After all, it’s parked at the station, and grab a couple of twenty litre drums of fuel while we are at it.”
“I think someone might be on to us long before we manage that, Sean,” Bomber said with a nervous grin.
“Alright,” Cole said decisively, “Here’s the plan. We drive along the runway so that that guy standing watching us sees that we leaving and heading East, OK? Once we get into the bush and out of sight, me, Sean and Bomber will get out and head down into town. Franz, you and Tommy head east. Hopefully the soldiers will chase after you and we can steal the Cortina. OK?”
“We are we going to RV?” Franz asked.
“You remember that road we flew over running sort of East West?” Franz and Freeman both nodded. “About fifty kilometres from here there was that odd-shaped hill that Smitty laughed at, just north of the road?” Franz nodded again. “You wait two kilometres northeast of there for us and we’ll be there by dusk tomorrow. Does that work for everyone?”
“What if one of us doesn’t make it on time?” Freeman asked.
“We give each other till midnight. After that, make your own plans.”
“OK, but then, just to be safe, we each take one case of diamond.”
“Hang on a minute, guys,” Reece cried, “Charlie, why don’t we just go visit Santos? He must have fuel there, surely?”
“Santos?” Franz asked with a frown.
“Long story,” Cole told him, “but he is a local farmer. He has a farm about fifteen kilometres east of here, down that road, the one that comes into town, over there,” he added, pointing out past the town towards the spot where Eric had made his last desperate stand. “There might be a problem though, Sean. If the Angolans linked the dead captain to his uncle then the old man might well be dead or in captivity.”
“Maybe, but even if they have nicked him, I’m betting that there will be fuel still on the farm. And it has got to be a better bet than sneaking into town and trying to steal that Cortina.”
Let’s keep that as a back-up plan, Sean, and go nick the Cortina first, OK?”
Everyone finally nodded their agreement. Reece grinned and waved at the watching Angolan as they all climbed aboard the truck again.
“You’re an asshole, Sean. You know that?” Bomber muttered.
Reece grinned at Bomber, “And you my friend, have an asshole as a best mate! I’m not sure which is worse!”
Fifteen minutes later Bomber watched the Toyota pick-up disappearing into the veld and had a sinking feeling that they may never see the others again. He shook it off and turned to follow Cole and Reece back towards the edge of the escarpment. Between them and the Ford pick-up, supposing it was still there, was a hugely pissed off man wanting his diamonds back; and he had a small garrison of angry soldiers to call on. Who had the US treasury Bonds? Bomber wondered.
The sun sat low on the horizon and even the cicadas were stilled by the heat of the day. In front of them the road was worn and several pot-holes had grown in random patterns where heavy trucks had thundered back and forth from the military base not far to the West. On both sides of the road the soil was sandy and little grew except for the hardy thorn trees and a few competing scrub bushes. Small rocks were everywhere, waiting for the unwary to twist his ankle and gnash his knee.
“What time is it?” Cole asked.
“Just after five-thirty,” Reece whispered back. “It’s been an hour since we saw any activity, I say we take the chance and move now.”
But Cole shook his head, staring intently ahead of them across the main road into town. On the far side lay more scrub brush with little cover that they’d need to navigate through without being seen. The town lay on their left just out of sight and the fuel station was on the opposite side of the town perhaps four hundred metres away just this side of the ravine that Cole had hobbled down months before. Coming all the way around had been Bomber’s idea. His motivation being that the Angolans would not expect to find them on
the far side, away from the landing strip. Cole and Reece had readily agreed with him.
“We need to balance the risk of the vehicle still being there after dark with moving around in day-light,” Bomber commented. “And I vote for the dark.”
“We’ve been moving around all bloody day,” Reece whispered back fiercely, “I would kind of hate for the owner of the Ford to pack up and go home while we lay tanning ourselves here.”
“I can’t see home being too far away!”
“OK, let’s not have drawn hand-bags at fifty feet, ladies,” Cole said. “Here’s what I suggest. We will go at intervals of fifty metres, with only one person on the move at a time. That way if one of us does get spotted then the other two can hug the ground and hope that they are not seen. Then they will have to make up a plan C of their own. When we get close to the petrol station I’ll go in and see about nicking the Ford. If I can get it out without anyone seeing me then I’ll drive it a hundred metres or so out the far side of town and stop where that ravine runs – you’ll remember that well, Sean,” he said with a nervous grin, “and I’ll pick you guys up there. OK?”
“Do you have any idea on how to hot-wire a car, Charlie?” Sean asked.
“Do you?”
“Sure, done it many times.”
“Why am I not surprised? OK then, you can go first.”
Foregoing a retort, Reece stood up, dusted himself off and calmly walked across the road and then, moving from the dubious cover of one stubby tree to the next, he traced out a path for the others to follow. When he finally sank to the ground and vanished from sight Bomber rose and followed his lead until he reached the same spot. Moments later Reece was moving again but Cole lost sight of him almost immediately and only knew that everything was going to plan when he saw Bomber move on. He waited until an appropriate time then he too left the cover of the thorn bushes and crossed the road. Several kilometres away on the escarpment there was a flurry of shots, then silence. Cole chose not to think about what that might mean, besides, Franz and Freeman should be well away by now, shouldn’t they?
He hesitated, picked up the coffee mug, found that it was empty and put it down again. He couldn’t recall drinking the contents.
“Would you like another one?” Tanya asked, nodding at the mug. She shifted uncomfortably in the chair; they had been sitting for so long that her rear-end was going numb.
“Uh, no, not really. I am bloody hungry again though. It seems to be so long since I ate regularly now all of a sudden I’m constantly eating,” he laughed self-consciously. “I have a few Rands left, why don’t we go down town and find a steak-house? I could kill for a well-done steak with baked potato and sour cream.”
Tanya agreed readily, anxious to hear the rest of the story and yet relieved to get away from it for a while, to do something normal, to watch him relax a bit and act normally himself. She could sense the hurt in his voice; he was crying inside, she decided, and liked him all the more for it.
“There is a lot more money,” she told him, letting words out quickly as if afraid that they would change something between them. “I got all the diamonds that you sent – it was you wasn’t it?” He nodded. “My uncle Albert is busy having them sold in London.”
“That was just half of them. The other half is probably still lying on the road in Angola where . . .” he stopped suddenly and found that his fists were clenched tightly, painfully even. He relaxed, breathed out and looked up at the girl who was watching him tearfully. “Later,” he told her gently, “I’ll get there later.”
The moon up high on the horizon again, bathing the bedroom with its silvery glow. Again she watched him sleep and felt his breath on her face. They had made love twice, or perhaps just the second time could be called making love. The first time, almost before she had closed the front door to the apartment behind them, had been frantic, almost brutal in his urgency. Had she let him? Had she encouraged him? She was no longer sure. She had been almost as eager as him anyway. Either way, she had known he needed her, needed her more than she had needed him and she saw the calm relief on his face when they had finished.
She settled her head on his chest again and felt his arms around her. Was this just his need, their need, after the horrors he had told her about? She wasn’t sure, and wasn’t sure of her feelings either. Perhaps things would be clearer in the morning when she had heard the rest of the story. But how would she feel once she knew everything? He alone had survived; should she feel guilty somehow, and if so why, that they could be here sleeping together when the others had been cut down before their adult lives had hardly begun? Should she blame him in some way for not getting the others back safely or perhaps for not dying along with his friends?
She worried uselessly about this until the early hours before, mercifully, she fell into a dead sleep.
“We seem to spend our lives at this table drinking coffee?” she smiled at him, placing the brimming mug on the table near his right hand.
“Not last night,” he replied softly.
She didn’t answer him but busied herself with the toast instead, still unsure about her feeling regarding last night.
They spread honey or jam and ate slowly through the pile of slightly over-done toast. When it was finished and the empty plates stacked in the dish-washer Tanya knew it was time to finish hearing the tale. She felt the hollow dread in the pit of her stomach again.
He pushed the empty plate aside, collected his thought and began to speak . . .
The sun had set just minutes before Cole caught up with Bomber fifty metres from the edge of town. Three apparently uninhabited shacks were clinging to the vertical not far in front of them.
“Where’s Sean?” Cole asked.
Bomber pointed carefully, making no quick movements, towards the petrol station. “I last saw him behind those old oil drums. There seems to be someone still in the office so I guess Sean is waiting to see what’s going on. Anyway, the Cortina bakkie is still there.” They could just see the back end of the Ford as it stood out front near the pumps.
“Perhaps we should go in and join him? If there is just the owner of the vehicle there then we can take him, tied him or something?”
“If Sean can take the pick-up with being seen then why risk it?”
“Two reasons; firstly I think the guys is going to scream blue murder when he does decide to go home and then finds his prized and much-loved Ford gone, and secondly, if that is like any other petrol station in Africa then there is bound to be a fair stock of Cokes, Fanta’s and stuff in there, and I could do some right about now. A ginger beer would go down a treat, not to mention more food.”
Bomber chuckled, “Good point, Charlie. The town seems deserted anyway. Let’s go.”
Reece strolled casually out of the small shop with three bags of groceries in his hands. The bags had faded logs from South African shopping malls on them. He placed them carefully in the back of the Ford pick-up which was still parked at the fuel pump. Cole poked his head into the driver’s door, saw that the keys were in the ignition, and turn in on. The fuel gauge slowly moved to the full mark before he turned the ignition off again. Bomber and Reece were loading six more bags onto the back. Cole could see bottles of water amongst the bags of food, cooked and uncooked and three twenty-litre plastic containers. He opened one and caught the smell of diesel.
“Are we ready to go?” he asked Reece, and nodded in the direction of the shop. “And what about the owner?”
“There is a small cold-room in the back,” Reece replied. “I locked him in it. But I don’t think it’ll take more than a minute or two to get out of it, so I suggest we get a move on.”
Bomber climbed onto the back as Cole took the wheel. He scanned the deserted street and wondered where everyone was. The troops might all be in the hills chasing Franz and Freeman, but where were the citizens?
Cole kept the Ford on the road, heading east, until they passed the entrance to the Santos farm. He and Reece were both drawn to lo
ng looks at the empty fields, remembering the last time they had seen the place.
“The old man seems to be absent,” Reece commented, pointing at the dry fields and weed strewn driveway.
Cole nodded but wasn’t inclined to say anything. He felt sorry for the old Portuguese farmer, but butting heads with corrupt government ministers in a country like Angola was a dangerous game and if you lost then your future prospects were slim to none. He drove on, keeping to a steady eighty kilometres an hour. The moon was rising and the going easy for the moment.
The road finally turned southwards and Cole chose a spot where the land seemed flat and not too many trees blocked the way. He pointed the front of the Ford to the north and dropped to a lower gear. The ford began to struggle across the sandy terrain. Reece had been doing some mental arithmetic and announced that they should be no more than fifty kilometres from the chosen RV. The big question was what would they find there when they arrived.
Sixty-three kilometres to the north east Franz checked again on the sleeping Tommy Freeman. The make-shift bandages were soaked with blood but he decided that the bleeding had slowed a lot, perhaps even stopped altogether. Satisfied, he took up the rifle and walked back up the ravine to his chosen observation spot. Carefully he studied the terrain to the south west for half an hour, letting his peripheral vision absorb the minor details. All was still except for a large owl that swooped down and snatched a rodent of some sort from the ground fifty metres away from his position. There were no signs of the Angolan army truck but in the far distance he imagined that he could see what might be a camp-fire. He tried to judge the distance but it was harder to do so at night. Perhaps four kilometres, he guessed. The moon was high in the sky and he knew that he should be using the light to put more distance between himself and the pursuing soldiers, but Freeman needed rest, and as long as the Angolans were content to remain stationary then he would too. One more visual search and then he made his way back to the bullet-scarred Toyota.