Could that frustration spin off into vigilantism? Of course. Individual officers snapped under pressure, and organized police death squads had been documented worldwide, from Asia to Latin America. Gurirab was a reader, when he had the time, and knew that even in the great United States, where vigilante cops were staples of the movie industry, real-life police officers had tortured suspects, even joined in lynchings.
Yes, he could believe that one or more policemen was involved in the attacks made on the MLF, but if so, they were not alone.
Survivors of the brothel raid on Sam Nujoma Street described two men, one black, one white. There were no white policemen in Windhoek, or anywhere within Namibia. Under apartheid, just the opposite was true. The South West African Police had been a nearly all-white force, its handful of black constables assigned to ghetto duties and forbidden from arresting whites. Some of the racist officers who thrived under that system were dismissed in 1991, while most had chosen to resign and join the South African Police Service. What became of them under Mandela would be anybody’s guess. Gurirab neither knew nor cared.
His problem at the moment lay in Windhoek—or beyond the capital, if raids resumed in other areas. The first attack had fallen at Durissa Bay, and while he did not weep for any of the pirates who were killed or wounded there, it galled Gurirab that a private individual or group of people felt they were entitled to pass judgment on the MLF or anybody else within his jurisdiction. Even leaving mayhem out of it, the raids insulted Gurirab and every other Nampol officer, suggesting that they could not do their jobs.
Of course, he thought disgustedly, we can’t. We don’t.
Gurirab never raised that point with his superiors, much less with his subordinates who might run off and carry tales behind his back. His thoughts were private, and he kept them to himself. It was a matter of self-preservation, not to mention his advancement through the Nampol ranks.
But if a rogue policeman was involved in the Windhoek attacks, Gurirab had to find the man and stop him. Maybe even save the renegade before he was identified by other means and jailed—or gunned down on the street. If he found more than one involved, the task would be more difficult, but might not be impossible.
Names first. Boavida had proposed the single best approach, damn him. With every member of the force called out to work around the clock until the raiders were identified, an officer found missing from his post and out of touch with headquarters would be Gurirab’s prime suspect. Which meant he had to check on thirteen thousand officers, but Gurirab could narrow that for the moment by ruling out females and focusing on men posted in Windhoek. Any officer who could not be accounted for was suspect, more so if he had been missing on the night of the Durissa Bay attack.
It was a place to start.
All Gurirab had to do was run his search without involving or alerting anybody else from Nampol headquarters. He had no more time to waste.
* * *
ULENGA HAD SUGGESTED a location for the captive’s grilling. But he presently wondered whether he’d be damned for doing so. And even as the thought took form, he knew it came too late.
The hideout was a small house near the Goreangob Reservoir, northwest of town. On rare occasions, Nampol used it for protected witnesses or as the big American prepared to use it, for an interrogation best removed from prying eyes at headquarters. Squatters had found the place on several occasions and were dealt with harshly, but the space was empty when Bolan and Ulenga arrived with José Dembo.
The accoutrements of inquisition were already on the premises. A wooden chair with legs set far enough apart that it was difficult to rock or overturn. Enough duct tape to bind a dozen mummies. An assortment of completely mundane tools that only took on morbid connotation if you looked too closely at their stains. A hand-crank generator trailing cables with a pair of tarnished alligator clips attached.
Dembo took in the scene and might have bolted, but Bolan’s pistol settled him. He offered no objection when Bolan ordered him to sit down on the wooden chair. In fact, Ulenga thought their captive was relieved that no one ordered him to strip. If he was left with clothing, how bad could the grilling be?
Ulenga didn’t want to think about that yet.
Bolan handed him a roll of duct tape and Ulenga went to work. He started off at Dembo’s ankles, fastening each to a leg of the chair and working upward from there to the knees while Bolan covered Dembo. Next, his arms, beginning at the wrist, securing each in turn to the chair’s wooden arms. The final step was wrapping Dembo’s upper body until he was pinned, immobile, to the chair’s back. When Ulenga finished, Dembo had free movement of his head and fingers, but he could not move his torso, and his feet could not find purchase on the floor to rock the chair in which he sat.
So far, the prisoner had not risked speaking. When he could no longer move, however, Dembo found his voice. “Why have you brought me here?” he asked.
Bolan answered with a question of his own. “Isn’t it obvious? We need some information.”
“Then you’re wasting time,” Dembo replied. “I am not an informer.”
The warrior moved closer to the chair. He said, “You saw what happened to your two friends, back in town. Are you anxious to join them?”
“I’m a soldier,” Dembo answered. “We accept the possibility of death.”
“I’m wondering what kind of long-term health-care plan the MLF provides,” Bolan said.
Their captive looked confused. Confirmed it when he said, “I don’t know what you mean.”
Bolan shrugged. “You’re not afraid to die. Okay. Suppose we send you back minus your arms and legs. Who feeds you then? Who takes care of your hygiene? Who buys the prosthetics? Have you got a good insurance plan through the Mayombe Liberation Front?”
Dembo tried to ignore him, and was doing fairly well until Bolan found a blowtorch and a small electric chain saw sitting in a corner, brought them back and laid them on the floor at Dembo’s feet.
“I’ve never cared for torture,” Bolan announced. “It’s messy and it doesn’t always get results. Still, when the time’s short and an answer’s needed right away, I make allowances.”
“Do what you must,” Dembo replied. “I’m not afraid.”
Ulenga heard the tremor in his voice and thought, liar.
“Okay, then.” Bolan plugged in the chain saw, using an extension cord. Came back and revved it up, filling the small house with its high-pitched buzzing sound. “Let’s trim those toenails for a start,” he said.
* * *
THEIR PRISONER BROKE DOWN before the chain saw finished gnawing through the square toe of his boot, squealing for mercy. Bolan left it idling where Dembo could see it as he said, “Give me a reason not to go ahead.”
“What is it that you want to know?” Dembo replied, eyes wide, sweat beaded on his forehead.
“Hit the high points,” Bolan told him. “Traffic you’re expecting, operations in the works right now. Something that’s worth your life.”
It looked as if the man taped to the chair might have a stroke, panic spiking his blood pressure into the stratosphere while he wracked his brain, but then he hit on something and produced a kind of twisted smile.
“An arms shipment!” he blurted out. “It’s coming in tomorrow—wait, I mean tonight—out of Angola, over the Kunene River. Three truckloads of rifles and machine guns, ammunition, RPGs. We should have canceled it, but Oscar chose to go ahead as planned.”
“That’s Oscar Boavida?” Bolan asked him.
Dembo nodded jerkily. “Unless he’s changed his mind since yesterday at lunch, when we discussed it, they’ll be coming in at midnight.”
That left Bolan with the best part of a day to kill. “What else?” he asked the prisoner.
“No other shipments for a week or more,” Dembo said.
“If you want details on those…”
“No, thanks,” Bolan replied. “You know the names of MLF contacts inside the government?”
“A few,” the sweating captive said. “With the police—”
“Besides Nampol,” Bolan said, cutting in. He didn’t need the names of any crooked cops, since he was pledged to let them live.
“Um…well…there’s Moses Kaujeua at the Ministry of Home Affairs,” Dembo said.
Bolan heard Ulenga hiss at that and turned to face him. “Somebody you know?” he asked.
“The Second Deputy Assistant Minister,” Ulenga said. “I’ve never met him, but he’s well-known in Namibia, of course.”
“And you can find him, if we need to?”
“Probably. He will be guarded,” Ulenga said.
“Not a problem.” Turning back to Dembo, Bolan asked him, “Anybody else?”
Dembo named one member of Namibia’s National Council and three from the National Assembly, plus a friendly judge in Windhoek. Each name seemed to strike Ulenga like a slap across the face, his shoulders hunching in anticipation of another blow.
“This comes as news to you,” Bolan said.
His companion nodded. “Bitter news,” Ulenga answered.
Bolan checked his watch. A midnight ambush on the country’s northern border left them twenty hours and change before they had to be in place and ready for the weapons convoy. Four hundred miles to travel, more or less, and that left…what? Call it twelve hours to raise hell in Windhoek before setting off across the desert for their rendezvous.
But first, he had to break the bad news to their prisoner.
“All right,” Bolan told José Dembo. “That should do it.”
“You need nothing more?” Dembo seemed startled, then confused. “I’m free to go?”
“Sorry,” Bolan replied. “It doesn’t work that way.”
He saw the panic coming back in Dembo’s eyes. “What do you mean? You said—”
“I know,” the Executioner cut through his babble. “But we can’t afford to let you go. You’d run straight back to headquarters and tip them. Anybody would. I’d do the same myself.”
“But, no! I swear it on my children’s lives!”
“He isn’t married,” Ulenga said, leaden-voiced.
“No harm in trying, though,” Bolan said.
“Wait! I—”
One hit from the butt of the pistol snapped Dembo’s head back. By the time the man came to and was found, it would be too late. Bolan’s mission would already be complete—or at least nearly so.
“You still on board?” he asked Ulenga.
“Yes,” the sergeant said. “It seems we have much work to do.”
Chapter 10
“Two more dead, and José missing?” Oscar Boavida’s tone suggested that he could not grasp the latest news.
“Yes, sir,” Lúcio Jamba said.
“In Windhoek Central?”
“On a public street,” Jamba said. “Still, there were no witnesses, but I’ve confirmed it with Nampol.”
“And who was killed?”
Jamba doubted that his superior would recognize the names, but he replied, “António Lourenço and Pitra Savimbi.”
“They were good men?” Boavida asked.
“Not good enough, apparently,” Jamba said.
“Is there any hope that José managed to escape the trap?”
Jamba pretended to consider it, then shook his head. “He would have called by now. The shooting happened more than an hour ago.”
Boavida squinted at him. “Why am I just learning of it?” he demanded.
“Sir, it’s only been ten minutes since I heard from the police,” Jamba explained, his temper simmering. “I had to check the facts and check the hospital. Also, the doctor that we use.”
“I need to hear these things immediately!” Boavida said, as if he had not answered.
“Certainly. I understand, sir,” Jamba said, fuming.
“We take it, then, that José has been captured by our enemies?”
“I see no other possible interpretation,” Jamba said. “If he was simply killed, he should have been found with the others.”
“And why would he be taken? For interrogation?”
Jamba had to shrug at that. “There has been no demand for ransom,” he replied. “If they were after money—whoever they are—we would have heard from them by now. One raid or two, perhaps, to make a point, before they called to set the terms.”
“José’s a good man. Strong,” Boavida said. “He won’t tell them anything.”
“Let’s hope not,” Jamba said. He knew that any man could break, if his tormentors find the weak spot he conceals and use the proper tools to crack it.
“But you think he might?” Boavida asked, anxious.
Jamba was moved to wonder once again how this man had achieved his present rank in the Mayombe Liberation Front. Blackmail of their superiors, perhaps? It would have been much easier to kill him than promote him, but the harm was done.
Which did not mean that it could never be corrected.
Jamba shrugged in answer to the question and said, “We can’t predict what anyone may do or say, if they are tortured.”
“Damn it! What could he tell them?”
“What have you told him, sir?” Jamba asked.
After another moment, Boavida’s shoulders slumped. “He knows about the shipment, Lúcio.”
“I will call them,” Jamba said. “Either divert the shipment or delay it.”
“That’s impossible,” Boavida said. “That whole section of the desert is a dead zone for cell phones, and the convoys travel in radio silence.”
“So, we simply let them drive into a trap?” Jamba asked.
“If a trap exists, the only way to help them is with reinforcements,” Boavida answered. “You must lead them, Lúcio. Handpick a team and take them to the border. Meet the convoy and make sure it crosses safely.”
Jamba felt the noose closing around him, but he had no option to refuse the order. At the very least, he would appear to be a coward, at the worst, an outright traitor.
“Yes, sir. As you wish,” he said. “How many soldiers can we spare from Windhoek?”
“Nine should already be coming with the lorries,” Boavida said. “Take six, besides yourself. That ought to be enough for two opponents, if they even try to stop the caravan.”
Jamba remembered what had happened to the twenty soldiers at Durissa Bay, but once again, he knew that there was nothing to be gained by arguing. Once Boavida settled on a plan, it was as good as carved in stone.
Perhaps we won’t meet anyone, Jamba thought. The convoy might come through without a hitch—or, if it was attacked, he might be able to destroy their adversaries and return to Windhoek as a hero.
Either way, Jamba decided, if he lived to see another sunrise, there would have to be some changes made.
* * *
SERGEANT ULENGA TRACED a blue line on the map he’d spread between himself and Bolan, saying, “This is the Kunene River. It flows south from the Angolan highlands to this point, then turns west toward the sea. This portion marks the borderline between Angola and Namibia.”
“Bridges?” Bolan asked.
“They are not required for full-size lorries, or for smaller vehicles with four-wheel drive and snorkels on their engines,” Ulenga said. “Others must go east to Mahenene or beyond and find a dry place.”
“That’s a hundred miles of riverfront or more,” Bolan said. “How are we supposed to find the spot where they’ll be crossing?”
“There is only one road south to the Kunene from Cahama,” the policeman told him. �
�They will use it to avoid a breakdown in the desert.”
“So, they’ll have to deal with border guards,” Bolan observed.
“Unlikely,” Ulenga said. “The nearest border checkpoint is at Oshikango, opposite Ngiva on Angola’s side. The guards are lazy and do not patrol the border without some complaint to motivate them.”
“It’s wide open, then?”
“For all intents and purposes,” Ulenga said. “With no ferry or bus lines to Angola, they pretend the border is secure. In fact, it’s like a sieve, but smuggling is a boon to the economy on both sides, so why make an issue of it?”
“Suits me,” Bolan said, hoping that this would not be the rare occasion when a stray patrol passed by on one side of the border or the other. Cops on-site would force him to abort the ambush, and it would have been a long drive north for nothing.
“If we have a difficulty,” Ulenga said, “it may come from Windhoek. The police will certainly have found Dembo’s companions by this time. As soon as they’re identified, word will be passed to Oscar Boavida. When José is unaccounted for, the MLF may worry over what he knows and might have told about their plans.”
“You’re thinking they’ll send someone north to head us off,” Bolan said.
“Likely, if they think about the weapons shipment,” Ulenga said. “Or they’ll try to cancel the delivery.”
“Sounds like we need to keep them hopping in the meantime,” Bolan said. “Touch base a few more times, before we head up north.”
“It might work,” Ulenga said, sounding less than totally convinced.
“If nothing else,” Bolan said, “we can thin the ranks some more. Leave them with fewer soldiers for a border expedition.”
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