Iron Gate

by Richard Herman

  ‘We’ll be in contact, Mr Mills.’

  *

  The knock on MacKay’s hotel door came just before midnight. It was Kreiner. ‘May I come in?’ he asked. MacKay motioned him and closed the door. ‘Your credentials are most impressive, Mr Mills, and we have need of someone with your skills. Obviously, we hire blacks. But they must be willing to support us against other Africans.’

  ‘I’m not an African,’ MacKay said. ‘I had a good business going in Bloemfontein until some “Africans” — the black bastards — got their hands on my stock in a warehouse. When I couldn’t come up with the “commissions” to bribe them, my business licenses were revoked and my bank accounts impounded. They ruined me. They even took my passport away.’ He threw a new passport on to the table. ‘So I made this one.’

  ‘Why don’t you leave the country?’ Kreiner asked.

  ‘I will ... when the time is right. I need to tie up some loose ends. Where would I be working?’

  ‘Does it matter?’

  ‘The loose ends I mentioned are in Bloemfontein.’

  ‘Ah, I see,’ Kreiner said. ‘Revenge. It can be arranged.’

  Chapter 18

  Friday, March 27

  Kimberley, South Africa

  *

  Elizabeth Gordon was standing on the observation platform overlooking the Big Hole while Sam Darnell shot the background. ‘Done,’ she said. She focused on Gordon and cued her to start talking.

  ‘The ancient hunters and gatherers who lived here centuries ago,’ Gordon began, looking into the lens, ‘called this part of South Africa “Karoo”, the thirsty land. It is ironic that the world’s largest diamond strike occurred here, in such a desolate place. Behind me is the Big Hole, once the world’s richest diamond mine. It is over a half mile deep and almost a mile across. Over fourteen and a half million carats of diamonds, that’s three tons, were mined before the Big Hole played out. Today, all that remains is this huge, man-made pit, partially filled with water.’

  A loud noise momentarily distracted her. She paused, then continued. ‘In many respects, the Big Hole is a prime example of the impact of the modern world on this ancient land and its people. The more I know of this strangely beautiful land ...’ Gunshots echoed over the two women and they looked toward the parking lot. ‘What’s going on?’ Gordon gasped.

  The sounds of a full-fledged demonstration were coming their way. ‘Head for the car,’ Sam said. They ran for the car and piled in. Sam drove and headed for the entrance, past a large crowd that was moving toward the observation platform where they had been moments before.

  ‘I didn’t know you spoke French?’

  ‘Strictly high school,’ Sam told her.

  The sergeant slowed at the sound of sporadic gunfire and motioned his squad to take cover. They fell into a well-practiced routine, leapfrogging and covering each other as they advanced down the street. They moved quickly and silently, using hand signs to communicate. ‘This is good stuff,’ Sam said, pointing and shooting as they moved. The gunfire tapered off and the sergeant sent two men forward to reconnoiter while the rest of his squad took refuge in a building. Within minutes the two men were back, talking to the sergeant.

  ‘What are they saying?’ Gordon whispered.

  ‘Be quiet,’ Sam told her. She listened as the sergeant established radio contact with Bouchard’s command element at the city hall. She pulled Gordon aside. ‘The sergeant says we’re cut off and surrounded,’ she whispered.

  ‘They’re overreacting for our benefit,’ Gordon told her.

  *

  Pontowski was in the control tower when the first reports filtered in. Corporal Rogers, the American legionnaire, handed him a map of the city. ‘Bouchard has been forced into this building,’ Rogers told him. ‘He tried to arrange a ceasefire but the man he sent out under a white flag was gunned down.’ He circled the building where Gordon and Sam were trapped. ‘Another eight men and two civilian reporters are hiding here.’

  ‘Are you in contact with Cape Town?’ Pontowski asked. He felt like a fool when Rogers handed him a telephone. He dialed the UN’s command center at Constantia to update them on the situation and was surprised when Elena Martine came on the line. What is she doing there? he wondered. Keeping an eye on me? Then he reconsidered. Dragon Blue was a UN operation and she was the head of the UN Observer Mission to South Africa. Filling in for de Royer required more political networking than he had imagined.

  ‘Matt, you should be here,’ she told him.

  He knew she was right. ‘Elena, we’ve been set up.’ He quickly described the situation.

  ‘Do you have a recommendation?’ she asked.

  She’s passing the buck, he thought. ‘If we don’t break them out, it will be a massacre.’

  ‘I don’t believe it’s that bad,’ she said. ‘Be patient and see what develops.’ She broke the connection.

  And get rescued by the Iron Guard again? he thought. ‘No way,’ he muttered aloud.

  ‘Beg your pardon, sir?’ Rogers asked.

  ‘Nothing,’ he said, dialing the command post in the COIC. Within seconds, he was talking to a controller. ‘Get me a STU-III up here so we can talk.’ The STU-III was a portable, plug-in-anywhere telephone scrambler smaller than a fax machine. ‘We got problems.’ He didn’t want to say anymore on an insecure line.

  Now he had to wait. He used the time to think and ran the numbers in his head, blending time and geography. They were 450 nautical miles from Cape Town; an hour and fifteen minutes flying time for the Warthogs, fifteen minutes more for the C-130s, and over three hours for the Puma helicopters. He checked the time: four hours to sunset. He paced the floor, thinking and planning.

  By the time the next C-130 had landed with the last of the legionnaires and the STU-III, Pontowski knew what he was going to do. He plugged the secure phone into the telephone jack, dialed the command post at Ysterplaat, and talked to Kowalski. ‘Lydia, we were bushwhacked again. I’m pulling back to the airport. But two groups are cut off at the city hall. We’re going to get them out at first light tomorrow morning. I want two Puma helicopters and one Herk up here as soon as it’s dark. Configure the Herk for MedEvac. Have the other three on alert. Starting at 0530 local time, I want a steady stream of Hogs on station. Sequence them in flights of four, thirty minutes apart.’

  ‘How do you want them configured?’ Kowalski asked.

  ‘For anti-personnel and soft-skinned vehicles,’ Pontowski answered. ‘I need to talk to Maggot about tactics.’

  At last he was doing something useful.

  *

  Kimberley’s electrical power and water failed shortly after three in the morning and the buildings around Gordon and Sam became shadowy, vaguely defined masses in the early-morning dark. An occasional flare would light up the street below them and freeze the scene in stark relief for a few moments before darkness recaptured the city. ‘I hate the waiting,’ Gordon said, moving back from the edge of the roof where they had stationed themselves. ‘I need to find a toilet that works.’

  ‘You can use any toilet,’ Sam told her. ‘You just can’t flush it.’

  ‘Oh,’ Gordon said, wandering off. ‘I hadn’t thought of that.’

  Sam looked through her camera’s viewfinder. She was starting to get images as the dark yielded to the rising sun. Encouraged, she angled the camera toward the city center. ‘What the ...’ she muttered, trying to make sense out of the shadowy movements she was recording. A short burst of gunfire erupted, startling her. Then it was quiet again. Men were separating from the shadows, moving down the street.

  ‘Sam!’ Gordon’s voice caught her attention. ‘They want us downstairs.’ The two women pounded down the stairs and found the squad of legionnaires crouched by the front entrance, ready to leave. ‘Who’s doing all the shooting?’ Gordon asked. There was no answer.

  ‘Follow us,’ the sergeant said. He spoke into his radio and looked down the street.

  ‘Where are we going?’ Sam ask
ed.

  ‘To the hôtel de ville,’ the sergeant answered. ‘From there we will go to Queen’s Park where helicopters will pick us up. The park is very close but the streets are blocked and we will have to fight our way through.’

  ‘The poor bastards,’ another legionnaire added.

  ‘Why don’t we go now, while it’s still dark?’ Sam asked.

  ‘Ah,’ the sergeant said, ‘it has been decided to let the American Warthogs open a corridor for us. It has all been coordinated and we must move fast.’

  ‘They’re playing Cowboys and Indians again,’ Gordon said in a low voice.

  The sun broke the horizon and Sam keyed her camera as more men ran down the street toward the city hall. From their vantage point, they were little more than a ragtag mob. ‘Sam, this doesn’t make sense,’ Gordon said. ‘The legionnaires can stop this with a snap of their fingers. We saw them do it yesterday.’

  They tensed at the sound of approaching jets. The sergeant spoke into his radio and held out his other hand, palm open and facing down. The sound of the jets grew louder. With a suddenness that made Sam jump, a Warthog passed directly overhead, just above the roof tops, flying down the street toward the city center. A loud buzz echoed over them as smoke billowed from its nose. The street erupted in a rushing wave of dust, debris, and explosions as the pilot walked his cannon fire down the street.

  The sergeant’s hand flashed in a forward motion, his forefinger pointing to the city hall. Without a word, the men ran from the building with Sam and Gordon right behind them. Silence ruled the street, broken only by the sound of their running feet. Gordon stumbled. She looked down and gasped. She had tripped over the remains of a man, his arms and legs blown away. Little was recognizable as human life. Sam saved her from falling and they ran on. The sergeant pushed them through a door into the city hall and Sam collapsed to her knees, gasping for breath. She looked up and saw Gordon retching in a corner.

  ‘Oh, my God,’ she rasped, struggling for breath. ‘It was horrible.’ It was her first encounter with the receiving end of modern fire power and nothing she had seen during the attack on the Blue Train had prepared her for this.

  Another A-10 flew overhead, blasting a path down the street that led to Queen’s Park. Sam stood up and recorded the pass. The cars and trucks blocking the street seemed to explode in a madcap rhythm. Another Warthog sliced in from the left, stabilized and pickled off two canisters. Sam went for a distance shot and caught the canisters as they split open like clamshells. A hail of baseball-sized bomblets peppered the street. Some exploded as they hit the ground while others bounced into the air and burst, sending a cloud of killing shrapnel into the attackers.

  The action held the women spellbound as another A-10 rolled in, this time closer to Queen’s Park. Again, the deadly ballet repeated itself but this time, distance made death more impersonal. Sam kept her camera going as Gordon talked into her microphone. But her words were meaningless to Sam.

  A fourth A-10 attacked, dropping its load of canisters. Later, Sam would learn they were CBU-58s. But for the present, she was learning first-hand what the innocuous-sounding name, CBU, meant. She zoomed in as an incendiary pellet buried itself in a man’s back. He ran screaming down the street until a single shot ended his agony.

  ‘A legionnaire shot him,’ Gordon said.

  ‘We must go now,’ a sergeant said. They followed him and ran into the street, falling in with the men evacuating the city hall.

  ‘Is this everyone?’ Gordon asked, shocked by the small number of soldiers.

  ‘Only a few officers and NCOs are left,’ the sergeant said. ‘They will follow shortly. The Legion does not abandon its men.’

  ‘I want to get this,’ Gordon said. The two women stopped in the middle of the street and turned toward the city center. Sam shouldered her camera. ‘A mob,’ Gordon said into her microphone, ‘trapped a small number of legionnaires in the city hall last night. No attempt was made by the United Nations to free them through negotiations. Instead, American A-10s blasted open a corridor, cutting a street of death and destruction through this city. Words fail to describe the carnage around me.’

  Sam panned the area and zoomed in on Gordon’s face. The reporter’s hair was tangled and dirty, pulled back into a loose knot on the nape of her neck. Fatigue lines etched with sweat and dirt added years to her face — sure professional death for a woman reporter — yet, she would never be better. ‘When I look around,’ she concluded, ‘I can only ask, Why? Why this senseless butchery of civilians who have every right to be angry at their government?’

  The sound of a helicopter reached them and they ran toward Queen’s Park. Ahead of them, a Puma was settling behind a line of trees. Sam paused long enough to pan the street and record for one last time the slaughter behind them. A legionnaire yelled at them to hurry, but a sniper’s bullet slammed into him, cutting off his words. Gordon ran to help. ‘He’s still alive,’ she yelled. ‘Help me!’ Sam helped her pick the man up and they hobbled toward the trees, driven by a hail of bullets. Bouchard and three men caught up with them, firing as they retreated. They were the rear guard.

  ‘Oh, no!’ Sam yelled as the helicopter lifted clear of the trees. ‘They’re leaving us behind!’

  Bouchard grabbed the wounded man. ‘Run!’ he yelled, pushing Sam toward the trees and safety. Bullets kicked up the grass around her as she ran. She reached the trees, and again she turned her camera on the action, this time recording Bouchard and Gordon carrying the wounded man as they ran the gauntlet of fire. Above her, she could hear the distinctive sound of turboshaft engines blending with the beat of a helicopter’s rotor. She looked up in time to see the silhouette of another Puma fly over. She had a momentary impression of the door gunner firing his machine gun and smoke trailing from an engine.

  The small group broke from the trees and ran for the helicopter that was now on the ground. The legionnaires who had been holding the perimeter were pulling in and climbing on board when Bouchard and Gordon reached the Puma. One of the crew relieved them of their load. ‘He’s dead,’ the sergeant said.

  ‘Carry him on board,’ Bouchard said, his voice amazingly controlled. ‘I must count.’ Methodically, he counted his men, not bothering to explain that no one, not even their dead, would be left behind.

  Gordon climbed on board and went forward to get the pilot’s name. Piet van der Roos was sitting in the right seat of the cockpit and turned so he could check the loading in the cargo compartment. He recognized her immediately. ‘Welcome aboard, Miss Gordon. Are you signed up for the United Nations’ frequent flier program?’

  ‘That’s not funny,’ she snapped. ‘Have you seen the hell you made out there?’

  Van der Roos ignored her and spoke into his microphone. ‘Strap in,’ he told her. ‘Everyone is on board.’ Action transformed the easy-going captain into a human dynamo. ‘Coming up. Clear left? Clear right. Overhead?’ The crew answered his questions and the Puma took on a new life as he jammed the two throttles on the overhead console full forward. Van der Roos lifted the helicopter, still trailing smoke, clear of the park while the rattling bark of the helicopter’s two door-mounted machine guns deafened the passengers.

  *

  Pontowski was standing in the control tower at Kimberley Airport as the last helicopter approached from the north. Van der Roos had shut down the left engine and it was no longer trailing smoke. The Afrikaner’s voice came over the radio. ‘Evacuation complete. I have one KIA and several wounded. Elizabeth Gordon and her photographer are onboard.’

  ‘Just what we need,’ Pontowski grumbled. ‘Why does she always show up at the wrong time?’ He keyed his personal radio and alerted the crews on the ramp to transfer Gordon to the MedEvac C-130. He trained his binoculars on the landing helicopter. It had taken extensive battle damage. ‘How in the hell did Piet keep it flying?’ he wondered aloud, not expecting an answer. He left the control tower to talk to the pilot and Bouchard.

  Pontowski waited outsid
e the terminal as Bouchard climbed off the helicopter. Behind him, van der Roos was ushering Gordon on to the C-130 with the last of the wounded. Pontowski walked toward the Frenchman as the C-130 taxied out for takeoff. I’m glad they’re gone, he thought.

  Bouchard was haggard and drawn, his battle dress uniform torn and bloodied. ‘I recalled all the other ground teams last night,’ Pontowski told him. ‘You were the only ones cut off.’

  ‘Casualties?’ Bouchard asked.

  ‘So far, two dead, four wounded.’

  ‘It is two too many,’ Bouchard said, relieved that more of his Quick Reaction Force hadn’t been killed. ‘If all our people are accounted for, I suggest we withdraw.’

  ‘I’m not sure we should abandon the airport,’ Pontowski told him. ‘We have a secure perimeter and need to repair the helicopter.’

  ‘Destroy it,’ Bouchard said. ‘We need to withdraw now.’

  ‘Why now?’

  Bouchard’s voice was hard. ‘We were fighting the Azanians again. At Van Wyksvlie ... when they trapped the C-130 and the relief team on the ground ... they were nothing but a mob. Now they have heavy machine guns and recoilless rifles mounted on trucks and they outnumbered us by at least twenty to one.’

  ‘Who outnumbered you, Colonel?’ a woman’s voice said.

  Pontowski turned and saw Sam standing a few feet away. She was dirty, blood-spattered, and on the edge of collapse. Damn, he raged to himself, why wasn’t she on that C-130?

  ‘Are you okay?’ he asked.

  ‘Did you see what your fighters did out there?’ She waved a hand at the city and lost her balance. Instinctively, he reached out to steady her. ‘Don’t,’ she said. ‘Don’t touch me, you bloody bastard.’ She crumpled to her knees, gasping and crying.

  Bouchard ignored her. ‘We need a decision, Colonel,’ he said.

  ‘Destroy the helicopter and withdraw.’

  ‘And the woman?’ Bouchard asked.

  Without answering, Pontowski helped Sam to her feet and led her inside, ready to catch her if she collapsed. ‘Leave me alone,’ she muttered.