Night In London (Night Series Book 2)

by Casey Christie

  “They’re down. Back on kitchen.”

  “Mike, what did the General say?”

  “Swart lied to me, Zulu, he’s here….. ah, there the fucker is.”

  After searching the neighbouring property to his right and finding nothing Night now had positioned his optics on a window of the neighbouring house to the left where he saw his old commander standing with a pair of binoculars in one hand and something else held low by his side in the other.

  “Skerp, neighbours house to the left, second window from the right, lights off..”

  The sniper seemed to find his target almost instantly.

  “I have him, Cappy?”

  “Confirm target has optics?”

  “Confirmed.”

  “Do not kill, only wound, engage!”

  The Sniper spoke slowly and softly as though speaking to a child.

  “Um, Cappy. How do I not kill and only wound a suspect while shooting him with a .338 sniper rifle?

  “I’m not the professional sniper, Skerp! You tell me, no, in fact, show me!”

  “I’ll try, Cappy…”

  An instant later and another silenced round split the air and Night watched through his Night Vision as the unmistakable figure of Blackie Swart collapsed to the ground as a .338 round took off the former army commando’s right arm from the shoulder down, his warm blood painting the wall behind him through the Night Vision like some slick contemporary art work and then there was a massive explosion and the church roof shuddered as the target property exploded sending glass, concrete and debris flying into the air.

  Night looked down in time to see Team One thrown back against the wall of the property from the force of the explosion, the leading man’s bullet resistant shield absorbing most of the blast.

  “Tango Alpha, come in!”

  “Tango Alpha, come in?”

  “Ja, we’re okay, I think..” said Indaba.

  “Tango Bravo, come in?”

  “We’re fine, Cappy, but what the fuck was that!?” said Kalahari.

  “That, Kal, was an explosion meant for us, the entire house was one big trap! Meant to kill not only us, but the former commandos too.”

  Night ended the comms and quickly looked at Skerp.

  “Take over up here, Skerp. Get onto control and get an ambulance and both mortuary vans here. Zulu, you and I are going to see if my old friend is still alive, I have a few questions for him.”

  The sniper hadn’t moved his optics and still had his reticle over the prone body of Blackie Swart. “He’s still alive, Cappy, I can see him breathing, just.. but he’ll bleed out soon or just die from the massive trauma.”

  Night and Shaka jumped down off the church roof landing directly in the backyard of the target property. Night ran up to Captain Indaba and quickly checked that the entire team was okay, which, thankfully they were. Night and Shaka ran to the neighbouring wall in an estimation of where he believed the window in which Blackie was standing would be and proceeded to climb over it as Captain Indaba’s team stacked up to the hole in the wall where the door used to be in order to clear the property and search for any survivors.

  Night quickly found the window, broke the remaining glass and climbed through the opening. Night landed heavily on the carpeted floor, barely missing the legs of Swart. He immediately found the man’s arm and saw the dead man’s switch that had detonated the explosives in the house next door.

  The injured man looked at Night and tried to say something but only managed to gurgle. Shaka had climbed through the window and crouched down next to Swart and took his first aid kit out of his tactical vest and proceeded to bandage the gaping hole where Swart’s arm used to be connected to his shoulder. Neither Night or Shaka were keen on applying first aid or, indeed, were any good at it and the large Sergeant’s application was crude at best but it did manage to stop most of the bleeding.

  Night bent down next to Swart and gently opened the man’s mouth and stuck his finger in Swart’s throat causing the criminal to vomit, momentarily clearing his airway. Night cradled the man’s head in his hand and spoke softly but without compassion.

  “There, you can breathe now.”

  “Fuck… you… Night. You… self righteous English… cunt!” the wounded man spoke with great effort and his breathing was erratic. It was obvious to any combat veteran that upon impact some of the 3.38 round’s fragments had punctured the man’s lungs.

  Night laughed out loud remembering his time when he had first joined the South African Army Commandos and being treated like dirt not because he was a new recruit or a greenhorn but because he was an English speaking white man in an Afrikaner’s world.

  “Even at death’s door you’re still a proper Boer, hey Swart!”

  “Always… and you’ll always be… a filthy rooinek! Worse than the… bloody kaffirs!”

  Shaka bristled at the word kaffir and tightened the bandage, causing the Afrikaner to howl in pain. The proud Zulu then got to his feet and kicked Swart in the ribs before heading off toward the hallway that led to the rest of the house.

  “I’m going to check the rest of the property, make sure there are no more nasty surprises.”

  Night waited for the man’s pain to ease before continuing.

  “Why, why Blackie, go to all this trouble?”

  “To kill… you… Michael… fucking… Night, to kill you… and your black pet!”

  “I get that, part, Swart. But tell me why?”

  “You really… don’t get it… do you?”

  “No, I don’t?”

  “Because, that was… our… pension you stole!”

  “What was?”

  “The gold, Gadaffi’s Gold… it was… ours… and you steal it without a second thought.”

  Night and Shaka shared a look, as Shaka stood in the doorway before turning and disappearing down the corridor, which the wounded man obviously picked up on.

  “Ja… now… now you get it!”

  “How do you know about Gaddafi’s gold?”

  “How.. do I know about it?” Swart tried to laugh but once again all his effort achieved was to bring up more blood. Night cleared his mouth once more but knew that without urgent medical attention the man’s time was almost at an end.

  “I know about it.. because I led the team… that put the gold there, you fokken rooinek… we knew, Gaddafi would never get to it… before they killed him.. it was just.. a matter of… time before we… could… return and take it for ourselves…”

  “And you were contracted by the Englishmen?” The irony of the AWB- (Afrikaner Resistance Movement - an extremist cult) supporting Afrikaner contracting for an English agent didn’t escape Night.

  “Of course… the English are the masters of the mercenary world… they hold all the keys.. they’ve been at this game… a lot longer… than the likes of you.”

  “Who is this Englishman, give me a name?”

  Swart smiled and opened his mouth to speak but before he could answer Night saw the man’s face explode as a .338 sniper round made impact, spraying blood into Night’s mouth and bone fragment and brain matter into his eyes and hair.

  Night wiped his eyes clear and quickly turned and looked up to where he knew Skerp was lying on the church roof and keyed his radio.

  “What the hell, Skerp? Why the hell did you fire!?”

  “His right hand, Cappy, check it.”

  Night turned around and examined Swart’s body and let out a short sharp breath as he noticed the snub nose revolver in it.

  “He’d taken it out ages ago, only just now did he put his finger on the trigger” said Skerp in an almost bored tone.

  “Thank you, Skerp. I owe you a drink.”

  “In fact, Captain Night, you owe me a lot more than that but I can’t take credit for it or try to claim on it as it’s quite literally my job, Cappy.”

  Night let out another long, slow and deliberate breath as his friend stepped back into the room.

  “What the hell happened t
o you?” said Shaka noticing Night’s blood and brain- smeared face and hair.

  “Swart happened” answered Night while nodding toward the massively disfigured face and corpse of Blackie Swart, the once proud South African Army Commando.

  “What happened to Swart?”

  Night touched the revolver in Swart’s hand with his foot, indicating it to his friend and then said: “Skerp happened.”

  “Oh. Well, the rest of the house is practically empty apart from a sleeping bag and some kit. Anyway, I’m starving, Mike, can we get something to eat?”

  Chapter Twenty Four

  Ermelo, Mpumalanga, South Africa.

  Amos Arosi raised the 9MM pistol and pointed it at Night’s face then slowly, ever so slowly, squeezed the trigger, all the while the grin on the General’s face widened. Night saw the muzzle flash and then heard the sound of the small explosion and then the 9MM round tore through the air towards him and before it made impact he noticed Lisa standing behind General Arosi. She was laughing. Night tore himself away from looking at his one time fiancée and forced himself to face back to the bullet travelling toward him and closed his eyes waiting for it to make impact.

  Night woke with a start and sat up in his bed. He was naked and his body was drenched in sweat. He looked around the room and was momentarily disoriented as he struggled to remember where he was: It wasn’t his flat at Norwood barracks, it wasn’t Lisa’s room in her parents’ home and it wasn’t the spare room of Amos Arosi’s house. Then Night heard a loud snore that sounded like low thunder and looked down to the foot of his bed to see the formidable shape of Wamba lying there, obviously experiencing a better night’s sleep than his adopted father. Night realised his was in a guest room of Shaka’s family on their farm in Ermelo. The two police officers had arrived at the homestead late on Thursday night after the operation to take down the cash-in-transit robbers. They had only briefly stopped at the Norwood barracks so that both men could change out of their uniforms and gather some clothes for a weekend at the farm, doing so only after stopping to get food, a lot of food.

  Night allowed himself to fall back into his pillow and despite how damp it was he went off to sleep almost instantly.

  Lisa leaned into Michael and took him by the back of the neck and began to kiss him passionately… suddenly Night was struggling to breathe.

  Night opened his eyes and his head jerked back slightly into his pillow as he saw the large mouth and tongue of Wamba standing over him. The large canine, almost back to his full weight, had been licking his master for the better part of five minutes in an attempt to get his lazy owner out of bed. Night, finally awake enough to realise that it wasn’t Lisa kissing him, took hold of the great Boerboel behind his head and pulled the affectionate dog in for a hug and some much loved ear scratches.

  Some minutes and many cuddles later and a loud bark from the front of the bedroom caught Night’s attention and he looked over Wamba’s shoulder to see Nandi sitting patiently at the door, her tongue hanging out of her mouth as she continued to bark excitedly. As though being called Wamba gave Night one last huge, sticky lick up the side of his face, before jumping off the bed to follow Nandi out of the room. As the pair of dogs left the room with their tails wagging as though they were still three-month-old puppies, Night saw the familiar face of little Shongi who stepped into the room and politely knocked on the open door.

  “May I come in, Captain?”

  “You may, Shongi, but first please tell me what time it is?”

  “It’s just before seven, Captain.”

  Night put his feet out of the bed and looked out of the closest window to see the soft light of a new morning.

  “Captain, may I ask you a question?”

  Night yawned and stretched, feeling better rested and more refreshed than at any other time in his recent memory.

  “Of course you can, and in future you don’t have to ask for permission to ask, please just ask. Okay?”

  “Okay, Captain.”

  “And please call me Michael, Shongi.”

  “I like calling you Captain, Captain. I think I might want to be a policeman when I grow up. But that’s why I wanted to ask you my question.”

  Night waited but the boy wasn’t forthcoming with his query.

  “Then ask me, Shongi.”

  Night laughed. Shook his head slightly, got to his feet and found his clothes and swiftly put them on. He then paused as he noticed two towels that lay next to his bed – they had been obviously well used.

  Shongi noticed the look of confusion on the police Captain’s face and quickly filled him in.

  “My mom came in here a couple of times over the nights and dried you off, you were wet from sweating and shouting in your sleep, Captain.”

  “Nights? Shouting?”

  “Yes, Captain. And that’s one of the questions I wanted to ask you before I properly decide to be a police officer when I grow up.”

  “Yes?” Night was beginning to lose patience.

  “Do all policemen have bad dreams?”

  Night stretched once more and then leaned on a chair facing the inquisitive young man.

  “I do, only sometimes though, I think, but perhaps every night, I can’t really know though as I’m usually asleep. But I can’t say whether other policemen have them or not.”

  “Uncle Daniel does, like you, Captain. Whenever he stays here he sleeps just as long as you and swears even more in his sleep, but in Zulu not in English, that’s why my mother makes him sleep at the far end of the house. My father said she made a mistake letting you sleep next to their room as you also make a noise. But my mom said she felt bad for you and that you needed a good woman to look after you because of the job you do.”

  Night felt his face warm as he blushed.

  “Well I’m very grateful to your mother then and shall have to thank her for wiping me down while I was sleeping, although it wasn’t necessary.”

  “My mom says that it was, she says that the sweat is bad for you and contains bad muti and memories and that it is better out and off your body.”

  “Okay, Shongi. I’ll be sure to thank your mom, now can you ask me your other question so that we can go and eat breakfast, I’m absolutely famished.”

  “Do all policeman have to sleep for so long, I mean is it a requirement or a law or something?”

  “What are you talking about, Shongi, I got into bed at around midnight, it’s now seven, that’s seven hours, not too much I’d say.”

  “Yes, that’s true Captain if today was Friday but today’s actually Saturday.”

  Night’s mouth opened as he realised he’d just woken from a practically uninterrupted 31 hours of sleep.

  “Well… Shongi, that’s news to me…”

  Little Shongi noticed Night look up and into the air as if trying to remember something and was about to ask if the Captain was okay when he began speaking again.

  “Come to think of it, Shongi, that’s probably the best sleep I’ve had in years, many years. And it seems I should have listened to your uncle sooner, he’s been telling me about this place for a long time now and that I should come here to catch up on my sleep, is that what uncle Daniel does when he is here, Shongi?”

  “Sleep? Oh yes, sometimes uncle Daniel will arrive Friday night and I’ll only see him on Saturday night or sometimes even only on Sunday morning.”

  Night walked around the chair and placed a hand on the young man’s shoulder.

  “Then, to answer your question, yes, policemen sometimes need more sleep, it’s not a law or a requirement or anything though. Now, I can smell something delicious, could you lead me to it?”

  The sun was at it’s highest point in a midafternoon, almost cloudless, sky. A gentle breeze ruffled the long grass behind where Night and Daniel sat under the shade of a weeping-willow tree. Wamba lay happily to one side of his master, gnawing at a massive animal bone Night had picked for him from the local butcher, as Night scratched the back of his ears with one hand,
a cold beer in the other.

  Nandi lay at the feet of Shaka, without her bone, which she had finished earlier, as she, like most working canines, wouldn’t indulge in food while being too close to humans, as the Sergeant ate his second sandwich from the packed picnic basket that Shongi’s mother had made for them for the fishing expedition. The two rods were propped on poles and the lines were in the small dam’s water. The bait had taken a couple of hits, not that either of the inexpert fisherman had even noticed or in truth actually cared - fishing wasn’t really about catching fish to these two particular policemen.

  “Can you believe how good Wamba looks, Mike? Almost back to his old self.”

  “Ja, boet, it’s amazing, hey. I still don’t know exactly what it is that your people did for the little fellow but it sure worked. By the way… is there any kind of a donation I can make towards the witchdoctor that helped him?”

  Shaka finished the last of his sandwich and washed it down by downing a can of beer then picked up another sandwich, one of the two prepared for Night.

  “Can I have this?”

  “Jeez, boet, you’ve already had your two.”

  “Ja, Mike, but I didn’t have breakfast did I?”

  “Not my fault you slept through that magnificent breakfast.”

  “Ja, well, I don’t have a great big bloody lion to come wake me up now do I?!”

  Night just shrugged his shoulders and pulled Wamba closer.

  “Well, can I?”

  “Of course, man, have them both if you want, I’m on my beers now anyway, so I’m happy.”

  “Thanks, brother.”

  The conversation came to a standstill as Daniel Shaka devoured his third sandwich before unwrapping his fourth but before he could take a bite Night put a hand on his arm.

  “Whoa, big fella, just answer me before I forget, again. Can I make a donation to the witchdoctor and to William for all the food this little guy has probably been eating?”

  “Little guy? Probably been eating? Ha! He eats more than Nandi and Dingi combined I hear! Only that great big coward, Gwala, eats almost as much as him.”