Autobiography of an Assassin:: The Family

by M. T. Hallgarth

  We had operated during the dry season in South-West Africa and into Angola, itself, north of Rundu and Xangongo, and further deep into Angola around Cassinga and Menongue – all areas where SWAPO and the ANC had believed that they would be safe. South-West Africa had been a comparatively secure area for Joshua and I to work in, as it had been predominantly under the control of the South African Defence Force – we could literally be ‘bussed in’ to within a few klicks of where our intended targets had been holed up. Angola had been an entirely different matter, though. At that time, UNITA, which had been supported by South Africa and the United States, had recently had its butt severely kicked by Angolan’s Marxist MPLA military, who were supported on the ground by thousands of Cuban ‘advisors’.

  It would be some years before UNITA, with aid from South Africa and financial support from the United States, would gain effective control of the highlands interior – and many years before the bloody civil war in the country would come to an end.

  Operating in Angola, without the benefit of protection afforded by being attached to a SADF raiding unit, had meant that we had to tread very softly and very quietly. Not only had we to stalk up on our designated targets, without raising alarm, but we also had to evade detection by SWAPO guerrillas and MPLA military units, as well. We would trek over the border for targets that had been just inside Angola. Or, if located deeper into the country, taken by helicopter to within twenty kilometres of our target’s last known whereabouts. Providing that there had been some moonlight by which I could see by, we had always travelled at night, in an attempt to avoid detection – resting up during the heat of the day under the shadows of a Moringa tree, or any other cover that we could find under the sparse bushes and shrubs – protecting my eyes from the blazing sun by wearing darkened welder’s goggles. After completing each mission, or series of missions, we would then return back to the South African National Intelligence Service headquarters, in Pretoria, for debriefing and intelligence assessments to be conducted – and also for the forensic identification and classification, of the contents of the evidence bags that we had collected. And last, but not least, a bit of welcomed ‘R&R’, rest and recuperation, usually starting out at ‘Abby’s Bar’.

  It had been during one of these ‘R&R’ breaks that Joshua had learnt something that was to cause him to take matters into his own hands.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  I had not been aware of anything untoward, at the time.

  Joshua and I had sat through the same boring briefing session given by Captain Frederik van Rensburg, an intelligence officer at NIS Central, a white Afrikaner proud of his genes – and also the sound of his clipped voice, by the length and abject tedium of his monologues. I had switched off. In my mind, I had been listening to various pieces of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto, No.5 in E flat. If I had been paying attention to the briefing, I may have noticed a slight change in Joshua’s facial expression and body language, when Captain van Rensburg had mentioned the names of those ANC officials believed to be attending a rally in the nearby township of Duduza, the following day.

  Most lunchtimes, while in Pretoria on R&R, Joshua and I would meet up and head out to Abby’s Bar for some liquid lunch, and quite probably a liquid dinner, too, before heading back to our respective lodgings…mine at a hotel on Pretorius Street – and Joshua, a bed in the black dormitory of the Police Barracks, at Pretoria Central. Each morning, Gabriel, who had been one of Abby’s many cousins, would pick us up in his battered white Mercedes taxi cab. He would pick Joshua up first, at the Barracks, and then collect me from immediately outside my hotel. But, on that morning, Joshua had not been in the cab as it had pulled up kerbside, outside my hotel.

  “Where is Joshua?” I had asked, looking down into Gabriel’s fat upturned face, glistening in a heavy sheen of sweat.

  “Him say him not coming, Baas,” The fat man’s breath had reeked of garlic, stale beer, cigarettes – and God knows what else. “Him say I tell you he gone to Duduza.”

  SHIT.

  I might not have been listening at the time, but yesterday’s briefing, in all its minutest detail, had come flooding back as I had replayed it over in my mind. There had only been one possible reason why Joshua had gone, by himself, to Duduza – REVENGE! Those long hot days together, hiding up in the bush in Angola, Joshua had spoken of nothing else.

  “Gabriel – you wait here. I’ll be straight back down,” I had ordered. “There will be a big fat tip for you, if you wait,” I had offered.

  I had sprinted up the two flights to my room. My tool kit was packed, ready to go, and I had grabbed it before diving back down the stairs to the waiting cab. Opening the rear door, I had thrown the bag on to the back seat and had jumped in alongside it.

  “Where going, Baas?” the fat cabbie had asked.

  “Duduza,” I had succinctly replied.

  “Aw – you be bosbefok to go there, Baas,” Gabriel had replied, his voice cracking up slightly; whether it was out of concern for me, or himself, I hadn’t been exactly sure. “Them’s peoples of Duduza don’t like youes whites. And they give this poor Kaffer bad times for taking you, Baas.”

  “As quick as you can,” I had said, ignoring his pleas that I was ‘bosbefok’ – crazy – to be taken there. Instead, I had dropped a thick fold of ten Rand notes on to the torn passenger seat, besides him.

  Money Talks – Bullshit Walks.

  Gabriel had covered the seventy kilometres to the outskirts of Duduza, a township just east of Rand, in the Gauteng district, in well under the hour. Established in 1964 to forcibly re-settle those blacks and coloureds, who had been living too close to white towns; Duduza had become notorious for its civil unrest and public disobedience. An ideal recruiting ground for the African National Party. With no local police presence in the town – since the necklacing of its last black policeman – it had become undisputed ANC territory.

  Turning off right, from the main highway, we had continued south until we had come on to the Duduza Road. Then we had come to an abrupt halt, by a cemetery – the road blocked with an assortment of haphazardly parked cars, trucks, and buses.

  “Daar is ‘n necklacing omtrent om te gebeur, Baas,” Gabriel, my cab driver, had suddenly spurted out, bringing the old Mercedes to a tyre screeching halt behind the lines of the parked up vehicles.

  ‘There’s a necklacing about to happen, Boss’ – my Afrikaans had been a bit patchy…but I had understood that much. Grabbing hold of my tool kit, I had opened the passenger door of the Mercedes, pulling myself out. “Gabriel, you go now. You go back to Pretoria – call the police, when you can.”

  “I go find phone – call police, Baas. Then I come back for you and Joshua,” he had replied. With that, Gabriel had stuck the gear shift into reverse and had slammed his foot hard down on to the accelerator, hurling the car backwards before executing a perfect hand brake turn and speeding off up the road, in the direction of the highway.

  I had threaded my way through the chaotic rows of parked vehicles, heading towards the sounds of excited chanting and shouting. I had needed height and an old bus had provided me with a vantage point. Climbing up the rear ladder of the bus, on to its reinforced roof, I had moved to the front of the vehicle and looked down upon the mob. They had been less than fifty metres away, across open ground. A large crowd, comprising of both men and women, they had formed a big open circle around a group of figures. I had easily recognised Joshua kneeling in the centre of the circle; his face blooded and battered – a man in a torn vest standing behind him, holding the blade of a tapanga to his neck. Around him had danced three equally shabbily dressed men, all proudly holding objects high above their heads, pausing every now and then to lash out with a kick towards Joshua’s head. One of them had carried a large tyre above his head, another a clear plastic container filled with liquid – the third a flaming torch. To the right of Joshua, detached from the crowd, had stood a group of five very smartly dressed men, each wearing slacks and sporting an assortm
ent of different coloured short sleeved shirts.

  I was later to learn that they had been the exact five man ANC delegation of the MK, who had instigated the killing of Joshua’s wife!

  One of the five, a small man, had been excitedly reading to the assembled crowd from several sheets of paper – well, rather he had been shouting at them. I had dropped my tool kit on to the roof of the bus, opening it, as I had done so. I had already been wearing my Browning Hi-Power and Colt Combat Commander, both in horizontal holsters; the Browning under my right armpit, the Colt under my left, with three additional clips, each – I had taken the opportunity to ‘holster up’ in the back seat of the cab, while on my way to Duduza. Taking the Uzi sub-machine gun out of the bag first, I had inserted the central magazine of a fabrication of three magazines; two welded to either side of the base of the central magazine, forming the capital letter ‘L’, facing forwards. This fabricated assembly may have looked odd; but it had enabled three clips to be attached together for rapid change over. The combined weight of the two legs of the magazines pointing forward, directly underneath the barrel, helped to counter balance and offset some of the recoil. Pulling back the slotted slide knob, on the front upper part of the receiver, I had chambered the first 9mm round before slinging the Uzi, muzzle pointing downwards, over my left shoulder. From out of my tool kit, I had then lifted out the M14 rifle, fitted with its Russian made PSO-1 telescopic sights. Taking out a twenty round magazine from the bag, tapping it on the guns receiver, I had inserted the clip into the M14, giving it an additional tap as I had done so.

  The practice of tapping magazines, before loading them into a weapon, is primarily to ensure that the rounds are firmly seated in the magazine, and are less likely to miss-feed.

  Cocking the gun, I had moved the safety to off and had brought the combat rifle up firmly into my right shoulder. At less than fifty metres, I had no need of the telescopic sight, mounted high on top of the rifle. Instead, I had lowered by cheek on to the butt plate and had taken aim underneath the scope, directly through M14’s open sights.

  With multiple targets, it is always important to prioritise.

  I had shot the man holding the machete to Joshua’s throat, first. He had collapsed over Joshua and someone in the crowd, immediately behind him, had screamed out in pain…the 7.62mm NATO bullet had gone straight through the man’s head and had struck somebody else – double bubble! Then it had been the turn of the three men who had dancing around Joshua. They had stopped motionless on the impact and sound of the first bullet, their arms still holding up high in the air their individual ‘contributions’ to the necklacing. Moving anti-clockwise, I had shot them each in turn: the man, who had been waving the firebrand; then the man with clear plastic container; and finally, the man who had been holding up the tyre. I had then swung my aim round to where the five ANC MK men had been standing, addressing the crowd – but they had gone, fleeing, pushing and charging their way through the crowd. I could just make out their heads bobbing through a sea of others, as they had barged their way through the mob. No clear shot – but I had still fired off five rounds after them, anyway. Judging by the screams, all five rounds had found their mark…but whether or not they had hit their intended targets, I had doubted it – but, hey, you’ve got to take the shot when you can.

  After their initial shock, the assembled crowd had seemed to have gathered their collective wits…now they were looking for the perpetrator of the shooting – ME! And I’d not been that difficult to see, standing on top of the bus! The mob had let out a baying howl, and had charged across the open ground towards me. The Congo had been a stark lesson in how quickly an extremely enraged and motivated mass of people can cover open ground – and the M14 had not been the solution to my predicament. Carefully, I had laid the rifle down on top of the bus; it might have come in handy as a club, if the situation had got desperate. Grasping hold of the pistol grip of the Uzi in my left hand, I had swung it up level with my waist, supporting the forward stock with my right hand. With the thumb of my left hand, I had moved the ‘safety’ to off and, moving in a slow arc, from right to left, I had fired off a full three second burst into the charging mob. Instantly, shrieks of pain and howls of agony had erupted from out their midst and, as one, they had come to an abrupt halt in their charge. With a simple twisting movement of the right wrist, I had changed over and had inserted a fresh magazine into the Uzi, chambering it with the same hand. Flicking open the skeleton butt of the gun, I had brought it up into my left shoulder, this time taking aim through the milled slot cut in the centre of the cocking knob. The cries and whimpering moans of the injured and wounded had been clearly audible as I had taken careful and deliberate aim, just a few metres in front of the now motionless mob, squeezing off a couple of five round bursts into the ground, directly in front of them. Their screams of pain had erupted again as sharp shards of stones and rock, split and broken free by the impact of the 9mm rounds ricocheting off the ground, had torn into their legs and lower parts of their bodies. They had all turned tail and fled. Then, the fleeing crowd had suddenly parted, branching off left and right, as if they had been giving way to some immovable force…they were – it had been Joshua! His tall powerful frame had walked slowly and purposely through the mob, his arms slightly outstretched by his sides, almost like the folded wings tips of a dark angel, in either hand a tapanga – the sharp blades of both already darkened in a red hue. If any of the fleeing mob came too close to him a ‘wing’ had suddenly lashed out, its solitary claw slashing through the neck of the poor unfortunate.

  Placing the M14 rifle back into its padded compartment and fastening the securing straps, I had closed up my tool kit, lifting the long round kit bag on to my back with its reinforced canvas shoulder straps. With the Uzi still in my left hand, I had climbed back down the rear ladder of the bus, just in time catch Joshua. We did not exchange any words between each other – it had been clearly evident from his fixed gaze that Joshua had ‘gone.’ Taking his gore saturated arm, in mine, I had guided him through the maze of parked cars and trucks. Directly up the road, in front of us, four yellow Casspir police armoured personnel carriers had sped quickly towards us – a short distance behind them, a battered white Mercedes taxi cab. Armed with riot shot guns, most of the police had immediately disembarked and had sprinted off in the direction of the township. Shortly afterwards, the distinctive bark of the shotguns could be clearly heard as they had fired their stinging birdshot into the fleeing mob. But, if the mob had already been in full flight – why fire on them?