by Diane Capri
When the team reached the taxiway, Umi pressed a second button on the remote-control detonator. The small explosion it caused could barely be heard above the wailing siren, but the effect was immediate.
The lights in the offices faded. The larger sodium floodlights that illuminated open areas flickered and went dark. The control tower’s lights were replaced by a dim blue glow from computer monitors and emergency lighting backed by local batteries. The siren’s wail descended the scale, growing quieter with each octave.
Within seconds, the camp was encased in the pitch-black night.
The last team was crossing the taxiway, assisted by the night vision gear.
Shouts came from around the fire station. Flashlight beams flickered and danced inside the offices. Across the base, the convoy’s headlights still bounced along the roads as they headed for the growing fire.
Timing was everything. It was something that couldn’t be planned. Judgment was required, and he judged the time had come.
The base’s focus was concentrated at the source of the explosions. More than half of the soldiers had already left to fight the growing fire. The fire truck had left. The leaders would be struggling to organize. Even if they realized what happened next, it would take minutes to turn the men around and get back to reinforce the few they had left guarding the base.
He keyed his microphone twice. The teams moved out, keeping low by the walls, and running hard in the spaces between. They each had a designated hangar and aircraft. Each would go through the same procedure simultaneously. If all went well, they wouldn’t meet again until they landed, far from Kumbha.
The hangars’ large multi-segment doors were closed. They would be electrically operated with a hand-crank backup, but there would be no way to open them from the outside.
He led his team around the side of the building, following his nose to the latrines. His night vision showed the short path between the latrines and the side door into the big building.
Umi sprayed the hinges with oil, counted to ten and whipped the door open. Tebogo was first in, rotating his head to look across the wide floor of the hangar, his gun following his gaze.
The area around the aircraft was empty. The door to the aircraft was open, and the steps were in place.
There were several mechanics tables with a man trying to feel his way from one to the next. In the far corner was a small office, like a ranch house built inside the bigger building.
He gestured to the mechanic. Mort ran full pelt in the pitch dark, and took the man out with a single punch.
Tebogo ran for the ranch house. There were two men inside. One of them was searching a cupboard. Before Tebogo reached the door, the man had found a flashlight and the beam darted around the room.
Tebogo opened the door, pointing his gun at the man. The flashlight beam settled on the Heckler & Koch. Neither man made a noise.
Tebogo used his gun to gesture for them to lie down. They eased themselves to the floor, their eyes fixed on the weapon. Umi gagged them, and zip-tied their hands and feet.
Tebogo cut through every wire in the room, and smashed both men’s cell phones.
The two pilots had made it to the aircraft. One was inside and the other remained on the steps, waving the OK signal to Tebogo before disappearing inside.
Mort worked at the opening mechanism by the right-hand door, spraying the rusty mechanism with oil.
Umi followed Tebogo back outside to the front of the building. An iron ladder led up to the roof. Tebogo settled the mortar across his back before making the climb.
The roof was metal. Their feet made dull thumps as they walked.
Umi climbed the shallow sloping roof to the top, and took position beside a rooftop vent to scan the runway behind the building.
Tebogo stayed by the front ledge. From the top there was a good view of the entire taxiway, the office buildings, and the control tower beyond.
He removed the mortar tube from his back, and unloaded five shells from his backpack, keeping three stowed in case he was forced to relocate in a hurry.
Moving flashlights indicated people were still busy in the offices, but the taxiway was quiet.
He heard and felt a deep rumble. He knew the noise. To his right, the massive hangar doors were being wound open.
The metal roof shook. The trembling came in bursts. The hangar doors below him were being opened, but Mort was struggling to do so.
Tebogo heard a jeep before he could see it. He adjusted his night vision to get the best image. An open-top military police vehicle with two men in front. They were armed, but they looked casual in their seats.
He had three choices. Drop them now, scare them off, or create a distraction. At this distance, hitting them could be difficult, which meant they would simply retreat for reinforcements. He also wanted to avoid being the first to take a shot that would announce their presence.
His best choice was distraction.
He aimed the mortar over the buildings and used the inclinometer to set it for three hundred yards. Holding the weapon steady, he dropped the round into the tube.
There was a small explosion and a whooshing noise. From the corner of his eye, he saw a white streak disappear into the night. He counted. The shell was invisible in the dark. On the count of three, a blast shook the air and a flash of light illuminated the rough ground to the left of the control tower.
Several men came out of the offices. The jeep stopped, and the passenger stood on his seat to get a better view.
He shouted, and pointed to the faint billowing cloud of smoke rising from the mortar’s detonation. The man struggled to get seated as the jeep turned ninety degrees.
Headlights blazing, the jeep raced between the buildings and out into the open ground toward the control tower and the plume of smoke that was dissolving into the night.
Tebogo saw movement below him. One of his men ran from hangar to hangar, racing inside for a moment before sprinting to the next. After the last hangar, he turned and ran back with both hands in the air.
It was the signal.
Each pilot would count down and start their engines simultaneously to reduce the risk of attracting attention before each aircraft was ready to start.
The normal power-up procedure had the pilot start one engine to bring up the electrical power, let it stabilize, then start the other engines. Tonight, they would start two engines at the same time. It would strain the batteries, but batteries could be replaced.
The first engine whirred as an electric starter turned over the heavy rotor. The whirring became faster and was drowned out by the roar of the half jet, half propeller turboprop. The second engine caught moments after the first.
Down the line of hangars came a cacophony of squealing and roaring as the other aircraft started their engines.
This was where the mission really got dangerous. Until now, concentrated fire or the appropriate use of the right weapon would give him and his men all the advantage they needed to make an escape. Despite the weight of the weapons they carried, his men were strong and light on their feet.
But aircraft changed everything. The lumbering beasts announced themselves unmistakably. Sheer size made them easy targets. A few well-placed rifle rounds would bring down forty-thousand pounds of airplane. An accurate or lucky shot could take out the pilot.
He scanned the tarmac. His night vision revealed a clear view for several hundred yards. Jeeps and anything else using a light were easily seen. But a man-sized figure was harder to spot. A man could easily come much closer without being seen in the dark.
The military police jeep was still heading across the open ground. Tebogo wondered what they thought they were going to do when they got there. The mortar had exploded a safe distance from the control tower, and the tower’s occupants had returned to their building.
He sensed a light, and snapped his head up. The windows of the control tower glinted in the dark. The glow was air traffic control displays reflecting off the glass.
His night vision goggles bloomed, the green and black images became almost white. All the detail and shapes were lost.
He ripped the goggles from his head. The night was black. No light visible with his naked eyes meant someone had trained an infrared illuminator on him.
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
He moved positions, shielding his goggles as he went. It took a few moments for the image in his goggles to recover. He spun around to look at the tower. The goggles saw through the glass.
Three men were pointing at the hangars.
One was on the phone.
Another had a large set of binoculars trained on the hangar. Big ones. Not ordinary binoculars but old generation night-vision gear. The type that used infrared illuminators. The man swept his binoculars along the row of hangars and gestured wildly for his colleagues.
With those older night vision binoculars, the watcher was too far away to make out human-sized figures, but the open doors and roar from eight engines would be unmistakable to anyone.
A klaxon sounded, its hash monotone wail pulsing into the night.
The military police jeep abandoned the mortar explosion and turned back for the hangars.
Far down the apron Tebogo noticed movement that showed as speckles and blobs in his goggles, and raised his adrenaline. But the fact that it was noticeable meant it was large enough to be a serious threat. A vehicle was approaching.
He set another mortar for five hundred yards. At that distance, aiming was uncertain, but a quick barrage would slow all but the most determined soldiers or well-armored vehicles.
He lined up four shells. He’d use three as a rapid salvo, and keep one in reserve. He laid his backpack down. He had three more shells, but he left them in the backpack. Long ago he’d learned to keep plenty of ammunition for whatever might happen after the opening shots.
The military jeep was closing fast. It would arrive well before the larger vehicle. He had no choice, he would have to deal with the faster one first.
He brought up his G36, settling it onto his shoulder and lining his eye up against the night scope.
The jeep bounced over the open ground.
He waited.
The jeep rolled onto the smooth tarmac.
He watched.
It reached the far side of the line of buildings and kept coming.
Closer.
Before the wide open space of the taxi apron.
As good as the target would get.
He fired two shots.
The driver bucked.
The jeep swerved violently left throwing the passenger sideways.
The jeep hurtled out of view, heading straight toward the rear of a building.
Over the roar of Antonov engines he didn’t hear the inevitable crash, but he was sure it would have hit full tilt, and both occupants would have been thrown from the vehicle.
With luck, they’d be dead.
At least, they’d be sitting out the rest of the night.
To his right, the first of the Antonovs rolled out of its hangar.
Tebogo swore. The pilot was using the taxi lights. The plane turned, its lights illuminating itself and highlighting the open hangar doors.
The speckles and blobs in Tebogo’s goggles were resolving into a tall, square shape. The features on the front of the approaching square told him it was a Nyala armored personnel carrier of South African design. There was something moving on the top, which he guessed was a gun.
The goggle’s resolution of the vehicle told him it was coming in range, and it was time to take action.
He braced the bottom of the mortar with his foot, and dropped a shell into the tube.
The percussive blast rattled the weapon on the metal roof, and a white streak disappeared into the air.
He surveyed the buildings and taxiway as he picked up the next round. The jeep hadn’t reappeared from behind the building, and the apron was still clear.
His first round impacted the vehicle. The sound of the explosion was muted by distance, but the blinding flash and the instant cloud of smoke left no doubt as to the damage it had caused.
The flash illuminated the apron and the angular bulk of the personnel carrier. He saw movement on the vehicle’s roof. It was a heavy .50 caliber machine gun that would do serious damage to the aircraft’s thin skin.
Unless he stopped the vehicle.
The second aircraft exited its hangar with its lights off, as planned. It followed along the apron.
The third followed close behind the second.
The first plane was about forty feet in front as it turned ninety degrees, and disappeared between the hangars toward the runway.
Tebogo breathed a sigh of relief. Even without their lights, the others moved faster than the first.
He kept the mortar’s range the same, and dropped the next round in the tube. The natural variation in rounds and wind speed would give it a spread pattern.
There was the same launch blast, the same white line scorching into the darkness, and three seconds later the same blinding flash. The personnel carrier had turned to avoid the first explosion, and the second shell missed by a good hundred feet.
He checked the ground below and saw no sign of the fourth aircraft. What was keeping them? With the previous three aircraft headed out to the runway, the team had only two means of escape, the fourth aircraft or a hard slog on foot.
Tebogo adjusted his arm and dropped in the next round. The explosion was much closer this time. His night vision revealed no detail, but the carrier would have been peppered with debris. It diverted off the apron and sheltered behind a building.
The metal roof began to vibrate. The aircraft below was revving its engines at last.
Behind him, Umi fired onto the runway using his H&K. Not a good sign. Someone or something was close.
Umi hunched low, and crossed the roof. “Company on the runway. We gotta go.”
Tebogo caught a glimpse of the personnel carrier crossing behind the buildings. He picked up another shell, adjusted the mortar’s range, and dropped the round down the tube. The shell arced into the night. Three seconds later it exploded in front of the vehicle.
Tebogo slung the hot mortar over his shoulder and followed Umi down the rusty ladder.
The fourth Antonov rolled out of the hangar, Mort at the side door, gun ready for covering fire.
Umi sprinted for the door, leaping through and rolling on his back to clear the way for Tebogo.
The tarmac in front of Tebogo erupted into a cloud of dust and shrapnel. He turned back for the hangar wall.
The armored carrier had come to a stop half out on the apron between the gap in the buildings. Its front was caved in, probably closer to the last mortar than he had judged, but the explosion hadn’t taken out its heavy machine gun.
He dropped to one knee. They hadn’t fired on the aircraft. They meant to block his team’s escape.
He lifted the Heckler & Koch night scope to his eye. Once he fired, they would sight his muzzle flash. He had to get his shots in first and empty the magazine before they had a chance to get their heads up.
A metal shroud protected the gunner. The top of his head was visible, but it’d be a lucky shot to take him out. Tebogo aimed and fired. He had twenty-six bullets. He fired five-shot bursts. The sixth and last burst had one extra bullet for what he hoped would be luck.
CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
His night vision goggles lit up as his rounds smashed into the vehicle’s armor. The gunner’s head disappeared with the first round, but Tebogo was pretty sure he hadn’t hit him.
Tebogo raced to the next hangar, slamming his back into the wall. He ripped out the empty magazine and slammed in another.
The fourth Antonov’s engines revved. Tebogo’s eyes widened. The aircraft had turned away from the route through to the runway. It was moving farther away from him.
The .50 cal fired on the spot where he had been. The ground and the wall blossomed into a deathly cloud of dust a
nd hot metal.
The Antonov was a couple of hundred feet from him. The .50 cal would never let him cover that ground. He had no choice.
He laid the mortar down low. Judging the shallowest angle he could risk. The shell would lack gravity’s assistance, and the recoil would fight back on the tube without being braced against the ground, but he would improvise.
He gripped a shell. He would have to fire and move. He knelt low and peered around the corner of the hangar. The armored carrier was disabled, and armed soldiers were grouped around the side of the vehicle. The Antonov was out of the line of fire.
The hangar wall was made from heavy precast concrete. The end of the wall was flat and solid. He gripped the mortar in his left hand and the shell in his right. In one movement he stepped out from behind the wall, jammed the rear of the mortar tube against the wall, angling it low across the apron, and hurled the round into the tube.
The mortar jerked in his hand and the shell flew from the tube. He saw nothing, but he heard the almost instant explosion. He dived behind the wall, catching sight of a fireball where the carrier had been. Screams and sporadic gunfire erupted.
He repeated the action with the mortar, bending low and hurling the shell into the tube. The explosion was instant. The personnel carrier was engulfed in flames.
He didn’t dive for shelter.
He dropped the mortar and shells to lighten his load, and sprinted across the open apron after the disappearing Antonov.
The aircraft was reaching the end of the apron. It had nowhere else to go. If the pilot thought he could take off on the apron, he was an idiot.
Tebogo glanced behind him. A second armored vehicle was thundering down the taxiway.
The aircraft turned. The side door was still open. Umi jumped out, dropping to his knees and launching a salvo of mortars as Tebogo barreled past. He dove in through the doorway. Umi followed a second later.