“Ja, okay, just hold the line please.. um who may I say is calling?”
“It’s Michael.”
The lady who answered the call didn’t cover the phone and Night could hear Lisa talking.
“She said to tell you that she is fine and busy working and that she will call you when she gets home.”
“Thank you.”
That was the first time that Lisa had refused to talk to Night and he was worried. Since the attack on her family and his beloved Wamba some weeks ago he had not had the opportunity to talk about it with her and her family. And his experience in the police led him to believe that her family were also thinking about leaving the country. It was something that struck him almost immediately once he had rushed to their property in Kensington and was something he wanted to bring up with the family and talk about. He was going to offer to move in and stay with them on a permanent basis. But none of that had been possible. He hadn’t even had the time to go and see his beautiful boy at the vet, something he was planning on doing today, something he had discussed with Zulu. Now, that too would have to wait. And would he even make it back from tonight’s mission. Night was ever so slightly starting to regret his close association with the General and as he thought it a flash of instant guilt fell on him. But the truth was that he felt worried, nervous and yes, even scared.
“Fuck man!” he said to himself much more loudly than he had intended.
He was leaning with his back against a corridor wall and was surprised to see Kalahari enter the hall obviously having just left the changing rooms – he was already fully kitted out in khaki overalls with black tactical webbing over his bullet proof vest and his 9MM on his thigh holster, a signature of the Taakies. Night immediately noticed the Warrant Officers insignia – the Special Task Force Coat of Arms; A blue shield with a lightning bolt flashing downwards from the apex of the shield. Across the bolt a gold-rimmed red disc and a golden falcon in flight. There was no other badge in existence that Night knew of that commanded such respect, to experienced combat veterans who knew what they were looking at, at least.
“What’s up, Mike?” asked Kalahari who then pulled out a small knife and cut off a piece of some biltong (dried meat). It irritated Night just how relaxed the Warrant Officer looked.
“Nothing’s up, Warrant” said Night a lot more curtly than he had intended.
Kalahari put his hand up apologetically and replied: “Okay, Captain. I was just asking” and then began to walk away.
“Wait, brother” Night took a deep breath and was surprising himself at how he was about to open up to his relatively new friend. If he was going to unload to anyone it would normally be Zulu. But then again, Zulu, would never accept any hint of fear or worry.
“It’s my fiancé, she’s been avoiding me, I think... and my boy, my dog, I was suppose to go and see him today at the vets… and you see I might have to put him down and then this, because of this new ‘mission’ I can’t do any of it. And well I’m getting a bit tired of it..”
Night ended his sentence and waited for a reply. It didn’t immediately come. He found himself annoyed once more with the Warrant Officer as he looked up to find him nonchalantly eating his biltong, as calmly as if he were waiting for the Sunday bus.
“Bullshit” finally came the cool reply from Kalahari.
Night immediately raised himself from the wall and pulled himself straight.
“What did you just say?”
“I said, bullshit. You’re scared.”
“WHAT?”
“You heard me, boet. You’re scared. And it’s totally fucking normal. You’re a patrol cop, yes, a highly trained and very well experienced patrol cop and former army commando but you’re still a patrolman. Your other problems are real, yes, but they are not the reason your stomach feels like it’s turned inside out right now, is it” said Kalahari as a statement rather than a question.
Night was about to shoot out some retort but instead he kept quiet, he knew that the Warrant Officer was right. His mouth just opened and closed without making any sound.
“At least you’re not trying to fight it. It happened to me at first when I moved from the streets to the Taakies full time. It happens to all the guys, we expect it. You see, you look forward to the first mission, maybe even the second and some guys the third but nobody ever gets to the fourth without hitting that sweet spot you are in right now. And you know why? It’s a realisation. A realisation that on every one of these operations your chance of surviving diminishes, it must do if you follow the numbers, and that you know what you’re getting yourself into, you know that you’re going up against hardened armed and dangerous criminals. You know you’re willingly walking into a gunfight. Totally different from going out on patrol as a policeman or even a soldier and thinking that you will deal with a contact situation if one occurs.”
Both police officers just stood for a short while then Night let out another deep breath and said: “Perhaps, perhaps you are correct. In fact I know you are. I feel odd, knowing now that I am willingly getting myself into this situation with my fiancé out there and my boy knocking on death’s door. Funny thing is I never felt quite like this signing on for a shift?”
“Well of course you didn’t. How many shifts occur where fuck-all happens? Probably not nearly as much as in a first world country but they still happen. And during that shift you grab something to eat, right, visit people you know, drive around and tell jokes when it’s quiet. What we are doing now, another operation or mission or whatever you want to call it is different. No jokes, no occasional friends or acquaintances. Tonight we will either kill or be killed. It’s as simple and serious as it gets.”
“So how do you train the guys to deal with it?”
“Well, your case is a little different as none of us expected to have to go on an op today after that foray into the desert and our nice little R&R in Durban but we tell our guys to switch off from the world while on rotation. To not care. To only think about now. To become cold and efficient, like machines. To think only about weapon and muscle and about war, death and victory” he paused and cut another slice of meat and then continued. “You know Michael, I would advocate for you to try out for the Task Force any day, except for one thing” said Kalahari while holding up one finger pointedly.
“And what’s that?”
“You’re too damn nice. Your sweetheart won’t stand alongside you when we fight our enemy tonight, your dog wouldn’t either, and even if he did, as I hear he is quite the beast, what good would he do? None. Tonight, bar your brothers who will no doubt have their own foe to face, you fight alone. I think you have got to change your outlook on things, Captain. At the end of the sometimes bloody day, we are totally alone and all we have as cops, fighters, soldiers, contractors, warriors or whatever else the world wants to label us as, is ourselves and our own set of skills, which usually revolve around making other men, our enemies, dead. Remember that, it really helps. Certainly put things in perspective for me.”
And with that the Special Task Force member finished the last of his meat and moved off toward the Norwood briefing room.
Night would only realise it at a later date in his life, sometime in the future he would look back on that conversation and remember it to be the time his understanding for his being crystalised.
About five minutes later and with a new confidence and a fresh sense of purpose he entered the changing rooms and got ready to go to war, totally putting to one side all of the other ‘problems’ in his life, all of which would amount to absolutely nothing if he died this night.
After kitting up and while finishing up by throwing on his tac vest and webbing, and totally subconsciously, he began to laugh out loud.
“What’s so funny, Mike?” asked General Arosi.
Night turned to see the General fully kitted out with his loyal bodyguard standing next to him and Zulu towering above and behind them. Sergeant Snyman and his ever present, built-like-a-brick-shit-house partner, D
emon, also entered the rooms now, also fully kitted out. Kalahari grinning from behind them. Deadly Bastards, the lot.
Night now took in the scene: His brothers. Ready to go to war, with him. And he for them. Nothing ever is or ever will be as simple as this. Or as beautiful.
Night didn’t reply, he couldn’t. He couldn’t put his thoughts or emotions into words. He just looked at his comrades in arms and laughed. Then slowly, they laughed. And then just as suddenly they all stopped laughing. Kalahari walked up to Night walking through the room and took Night’s forearm in the old roman fashion. The men nodded at each other and the General led them out. Zulu clapped Night on the back as he passed him and Tony, Snyman and Demon all saluted, saluted and smiled. Ready for war.
Chapter Five
En Route to Abandoned Durban Deep Gold Mine, Roodepoort, Johannesburg.
The Casspir, MRAP (Mine Resistant Ambush Protected), vehicle cruised along the N1 Western Bypass highway at close to its top speed of 98KM per hour, the turbo diesel engine providing more of a noisy roar than a purr. The inside of the troop carrier was built for functionality rather than comfort. In fact it was incredibly uncomfortable. But that made the experience of travelling in one, even more enjoyable for Night. Its purpose was simple: to transport men of war to theatres of combat. Demon was driving the large vehicle and Snyman was his navigator. The General, his bodyguard Tony, Kalahari, Daniel and Night rode in the back. In silence so far.
“Funny, not one Taxi has tried to cut us off or failed to move out of our way” said Tony to no one in particular.
It was well known for it to be rare for the General’s bodyguard to talk, particularly when not spoken to first, but it was almost as well known how much he hated mini-bus taxis, as did millions of other South Africans. It was a daily occurrence to see a “Black Taxi”, as they were known, driving the wrong way down a one way street, driving on the shoulder of the road to bypass heavy traffic and driving so overloaded that passengers’ heads literally had to stick out of windows to create space. Policing them was nearly impossible, there were far too many –tens of thousands- and fining the drivers did nothing as they were too poor to pay the fines and the owners of the syndicates ran their “associations” like the Sicilian mafia; AK 47 assassinations and shootouts between rival associations was not uncommon.
“Think I should put in a request to National to have a Casspir assigned as my new state vehicle, Tony?” said the General with a wink to Night that his bodyguard could not see.
Tony Tshabalala’s eyes grew as big as golf balls “That would be fantastic, General!”
He then seemed to think deeply about something and continued: “But do you really think you’d get it allocated? I mean it’s overkill, even for a General but hell, it would be amazing, the taxis on Louis Botha will scatter like sheep before a lion.”
Night, Zulu and the General wanted to laugh but the look of sincerity at the idea in Tony’s face made them all hold in their mirth.
“It was just a joke, Tony’ said Arosi.
Tony Tshabalala’s shoulders slumped and the man was obviously crestfallen.
“But, hell, I’ll ask!” offered the General with a shrug of his shoulders.
“While we’re talking about National Instructions and the like I feel it’s my responsibility to ask, General, on what premise am I on this operation?” said Kalahari.
“I’m glad you asked, I was going to use this opportunity to address that anyway” turning to Night, the General continued: “I’m sure you have noticed that your friend, Stanislov, has not been around, Mike?”
Night was surprised by the comment because he hadn’t actually been consciously aware of his friend’s absence. And Nicolai Stanislov was the third member of the notorious Black Bastards Unit of Norwood. He was like a brother to both Night and Zulu but with everything that was going on Night hadn’t realised that his crew member was still AWOL.
“Where is he?”
“He’s away, out of the country, family issues, apparently” said General Arosi.
“Well that’s news to us hey, Mike. Although Stani has always had his secrets hey,” said Daniel.
“Ja, he has or he does, anyway what does that have to do with Kal’s question, General?”
“Since I know constable Stanislov is away and I also know that you have some on the road field training to get on with after we are finished with this business tonight I thought that the Warrant Officer could be seconded to Norwood for a few weeks to assist in the training of the new recruits.”
Night nodded: “The students will love that idea, having a fully fledged Taakie train them. Seems like a fine idea to me. We could even ask you to set up some more advanced training scenarios as a refresher for some of the more experienced officers. If you’re keen on the idea that is, Kal?”
“Count me in Captain but on one condition: please don’t expect me to sit at the station while you lot hit the streets?”
“Haha, wouldn’t dream of leaving a Taakie behind! General, please put in the transfer request paperwork, we’re all in agreement that it’s a fine idea” said Night.
“It’s already done!” said the General with a grin. “I put the paper work on Colonel Lembedi’s desk myself this afternoon and by the way she wants to see you and requests your presence in her office first thing tomorrow morning.”
“Excellent news about Kal!” said Night while thinking to himself about why the Norwood Station Commissioner would want to see him.
Suddenly the giant Sergeant stood up crouching awkwardly to avoid hitting the low ceiling of the troop carrier and leaned across and smacked Kalahari hard against the chest. The men were quiet in silence for a few moments before Daniel Shaka’s mouth broke into a wide grin and he said warmly: “Welcome to the Black Bastards, white boy!”
Staging Area – Ten Mikes from Target Area. Roodepoort, Johannesburg.
The men stood in a semi-circle around the Casspir MRAP under a tall tree behind a large derelict farmhouse approximately ten driving minutes away from the abandoned Durban Deep gold mine.
General Arosi stood in the middle of the semi-circle while ending a phone call, waiting to address his men. Night noticed with interest the absence of Kalahari who had disappeared shortly after they had arrived on scene about one hour earlier. The main purpose of the halt in operation was to wait for the sun to set. Night now looked up and saw the golden glow indicating that African darkness was about to take hold.
“All right guys. Looks like we are ready. And here come our two helpful suspects” the General pointed to behind the men and they turned to see a dirty white Toyota Corolla with no number plates drive to within about 50 metres of the group and then come to a skidding halt. The driver of the vehicle got out and walked to the back of the vehicle and opened the boot. He then pulled two head-sacked and gagged and blindfolded men from it and let them fall to the ground. The driver got back into the vehicle and sped off in a u shape, heading back the way he had just come, creating a small cloud of dust from the wheel spin as he did so.
The two criminals wriggled on the floor in the dust apparently in an attempt to free themselves from their restraints.
“Well, is someone going to go and get them?” said the General.
Zulu and Night moved more quickly than any of the other men and got to the two criminal informants first. Night stood his man up by the belt and began walking him back to the group. Shaka simply picked the man up and threw him over his shoulder as though he was nothing more than a gym kit bag. Moments later and both men were sitting on the floor in the middle of the police officers, still head-sacked, bound and gagged.
“They can’t hear anything either so we can speak freely until we need these two to make that phone call.”
“Who dropped them off, General?” asked the voice of Kalahari who had appeared from behind the Casspir.
“Military Intelligence or SAPS NI, I’m not entirely sure, it’s hard to keep up. Anyway the Intel gleaned from these two has panned ou
t with local surveillance teams that I have had get eyes on our target area. The gang is there, nine men at the team’s last report, not 12, so the odds just got a bit more favourable. And it seems that only about four of the men are always armed. The rest rotate a watch between bouts of drinking and playing card games. And there seems to be little evidence of their belonging to Boko Haram although from on site Intel gathered and some digging in Nigeria they certainly seem to be sympathetic to the cause and perhaps a couple are even rejects from the group. So this shouldn’t be too difficult, gentlemen.”
“But what’s the plan, General?” asked Night, standing with his arms folded and his head slightly tilted to one side.
“We go straight in, like this..” the General drew a rough outline of the gold mine in the sand. The main feature being a huge wall of soil to the north and a large mine shaft in the center of the formation, with only one dirt road leading in between two old administration buildings and living quarters to the South.
“We come in from the South, here..” he pointed to the location with his stick. “Then we engage the enemy from the firing ports of the Casspir.” The MRAP has 12.
“Once we have cleaned up the alert and on guard sentries we then debus and eliminate the rest on foot. There is no other way in or out.”
Night, Zulu and Kalahari looked at each other in turn and then at Snyman and Demon. Tony, as usual, avoided any interesting looks.
These men, all highly trained and experienced force on force tactical operators, were police officers first and foremost and it bothered all of them that the mission sounded more like a massacre than an arrest warrant execution. The General’s language made it pretty clear that no survivors were to be left behind or suspects arrested. This didn’t bother Night too much as he knew that no matter how much authority the General had or how much he was respected none of the men present would summarily execute an unarmed criminal. As politically inconvenient as it would be, some of the criminals would be arrested this day as long as they were not armed and posing an immediate threat to life. Arosi knew this to be true himself, he was just hoping that all of the gang would put up some sort of a fight so that they could all be put down. Something almost all police officers hoped for, in the privacy of their own minds, on some level, at some point in their careers.
Night In London (Night Series Book 2) Page 6