Garrett & Petrus- The Complete Series

by C Marten-Zerf

  'Exactly were is this village?' Asked Petrus. 'I think that this so called general and I need to talk.'

  'Stay the night, baba,' answered the headman. 'Tomorrow I will provide you with a guide. He will take you there.'

  Petrus glanced at Garrett who nodded his agreement. It was running late and it would be better to start with a new sun. The prince nodded his affirmation and the headman clapped his hands to attract attention. One of the girls skipped over and he commanded that she prepare a hut for the guests.

  They were shown to a hut situated two away from the headman's abode. Obviously someone had been turned out of their house and relegated to another dwelling to make space for the honored guest. It was a simple round room. Carpets covered the bare earth and two sleeping mats were laid out on the top of the carpets. At the head of each sleeping mat was a traditional Zulu wooden headrest in lieu of a pillow. A pump-up paraffin lamp sat in the middle of the room and provided a bright orange-yellow light that filled the room.

  There was a bowl of water, two facecloths and two small pots of beer.

  Both Garrett and Petrus nodded their thanks and placed their kit next to the bedrolls.

  Garrett sat cross-legged and immediately started to strip the weapons that they had been given, laying the separate parts of the AK47's out in front of him on the carpets and then thoroughly cleaning each part with one of the facecloths. He whistled tunelessly through his teeth as he did so, his mind free of thought as his body carried out a task that was do familiar to as to be almost an autonomous action.

  Petrus sharpened his already razor-sharp assegai. The sound a chilling rasp of stone on steel as he drew it across the blade. The orange-yellow lamplight shone off the sliver of sharpened blade and reflected back, turning it into a blade of fire. Like a weapon of legend forged from the very flames of hell itself.

  There was a tentative knock at the entrance and a young girl let herself in. She was perhaps sixteen or seventeen. Buxom and healthy with firm round buttocks and a generous bosom. She wore a short skirt. The top half of her body was unadorned apart from two or three bead necklaces.

  She bowed deeply to Petrus, her eyes downcast. 'I have been sent to warm your sleeping mat, my lord,' she said.

  Petrus grinned.

  Garrett raised an eyebrow.

  'Thank you, pretty one,' responded Petrus. 'But tonight I think that I will refrain.'

  The girl raised her eyes and looked directly at the prince. 'My lord does not find me attractive?'

  Petrus laughed. 'Far from it, my beauty. But tonight is a night for contemplation. Thank the headman. Tell him that I was appreciative but I am…tired.'

  The girl nodded and left the hut, backing away until she had passed through the low entrance.

  'Cradle robber,' quipped Garrett with a grin.

  'What's that mean?' Asked Petrus.

  'It's an expression we whiteys use to describe an older man who goes for young girls.'

  'But I turned her down.'

  'That's true,' declared Garrett.

  'Anyway,' continued Petrus. 'You're just jealous.'

  'Also true,' admitted the soldier.

  The two of them laughed and then continued to prepare their tools of death.

  The next mooring they rose early, beating the sun by some twenty minutes. The headman was already up and about and his girls had prepared a breakfast of well-salted thick maize porridge for the two guests. He had also ensured that the Landcruiser had been topped up with diesel from his own supply and he had commanded a troop of umfaans to clean and polish the vehicle.

  Its aged, dented bodywork glowed in the rising sun like an old Hollywood actress who had undergone far too much plastic surgery. An attempt to cover age with the manufactured gloss of false youth.

  Next to the newly buffed vehicle stood a man. He had a threadbare blanket wrapped around his scrawny shoulders. His beard and the hair on his head were as white as a Himalayan snowcap.

  He saw Garrett and Petrus approaching and he gave them a smile and raised his assegai in salute. His mouth as toothless as a clam. But Garrett noticed that his assegai was bright and clean, the blade freshly oiled and the edges shone like newly minted silver.

  'That is your guide,' explained the headman.

  'Why?' Asked Garrett. 'Couldn't you find anyone older?'

  The headman looked at Garrett in puzzlement, then he continued. 'His name is Winstonchurchill. All one word. He is very wise.'

  Petrus said nothing but Garret wondered if the ancient old man would be more hindrance than help.

  'I only hope that he stays alive until we get there,' he mumbled under his breath as he climbed into the passenger seat.

  Petrus got behind the wheel and Winstonchurchil hopped into the back seats, moving like an arthritic stork.

  The guide pointed ahead, showing them the direction that they were to head. Petrus waved a final goodbye to the headman, cranked the engine into life and stepped on the gas.

  'How far away?' Asked Garrett of their guide.

  The old man shrugged.

  'Great,' said Garrett. 'A guide who doesn't know anything.'

  The old man stared at Garrett for a while, his dark eyes boring into him as he did so.

  'I know much, Isosha,' he said. 'Even though I have just met you, I already know your true identity. I know your life. I know your dreams.'

  'Yeah, whatever,' said Garrett, feeling uncomfortable under the old mans scrutiny.

  'You run, young Isosha. You try to hide. But you cannot, for the thing that you run from is inside you. You try to run from yourself. And you say I know nothing. Even the most inept herd boy knows that you cannot escape yourself. You live in a land far away and you serve the king of the mountains. You are his…' he paused for a while as he thought. 'You are the keeper of his cattle, his lands.'

  The old man sniffed in disapproval of Garrett's crass behavior.

  'And as for your question. I have traveled to the general's village before, but never have I have traveled therein a motorcar. It is a long walk. Eight or nine hours. In a car…who knows. Shorter, definitely. But how much shorter I do not know.'

  Petrus chuckled. 'Consider yourself owned, my friend,' he said.

  Garret nodded. 'I am sorry, Winstonchurchill. I was impolite. I apologize.'

  The old man shrugged. 'It is of no moment. You are too young to know any better.'

  Garrett said nothing. There was nothing to say.

  The Landcruiser ground on through the African heat dragging a dust cloud behind it as it ate up the miles.

  Chapter 9

  The Chinese ambassador to Zimbabwe, Mister Lin Chun glanced across the banquet table and caught the eye of senior colonel Zhao Yuan. Although neither of them showed any outward emotion the ambassador knew exactly what the senior colonel was thinking.

  Almost in exact concert the two of them swiveled to look at the guests of honor. The reason that the Chinese government was spending such a stupendous amount of money on yet another embassy banquet.

  Grace and Robert Mugabe.

  If the ambassador were honest with himself he would admit that the banquet was truly being thrown to curry favor with Mugabe's forty four year old wife as opposed to the demented ninety one year old president. This was because everyone knew that Grace, formally a girl in the presidents typing pool, was the de facto next in command. In actual fact the reins of power already lay in her grasp as, to all intents and purposes, Robert had already gone bye-bye, retaining as much grasp on reality as a nine year old on crack.

  . The menu was designed to impress…and it is not an easy task to impress "Gucci" Grace a woman who used to spend upwards of ten million dollars a day on shopping sprees in London, before both her and Robert where banned form entering the country.

  Conspicuous consumption took on an entirely different meaning to someone who owned over a thousand pairs of Ferrigamo and Gucci shoes, each costing more than five years earnings of the average Zimbabwean who's taxes were actually
paying for the outrageously expensive footwear. When the press had once questioned her about her penchant for high-priced designer footwear she had told them that she had very narrow feet so it was imperative that she had her shoes hand made for her.

  As it happened, the female dictator-in-waiting did not even seem to notice the quality of the food.

  She had hurriedly spooned down the Red Bird Nest Soup, a glutinous broth consisting mainly of the most expensive bird spit in the world, and then she had wiped her bowl with a hunk of bread, like a starving peasant seeking to clean the last bit of available nutrient from their plate.

  The next course was Abalone. A shellfish that had been illegally harvested off the cape of Good Hope in South Africa. Grace pushed it away with a look of distaste announcing that she did not like fish.

  The Kobe beef with Matsutake mushrooms and white truffles went down better, although she did send it back to be re-cooked, reducing the tender cuts of the world’s most expensive beef into something akin to jerky.

  The meal ended with trays of Chocopologie chocolates.

  The final bill ran in at over ten thousand dollars a head, excluding the copious amounts of alcohol being consumed.

  Whilst the coffee was being served, Robert Mugabe decided to regale all with his current thoughts on homosexuality, a subject that he had lately become totally obsessed with.

  'That Obama,' he stated. 'He wants us to embrace homosexuality. I say No. John and John - No. Maria and Maria - no. They are worse than dogs or pigs. Worse. I own pigs and even they know the difference between male and female. We will cut their heads off. That is why China is our friend - they do not insist that we become anal vilifiers.'

  He wiped his sweating face with a table napkin and continued.

  'And that David Cameron with his little pink nose. He must keep out of our face. England is simply a cold uninhabitable country with small houses and homosexuals. I told them, when they sent food to us, I told them, take you food away. We have enough food. What are you trying to do? Choke us? Why foist this food upon us. I told them and I burned all the food they sent.' 

  Abruptly he burped and fell instantly asleep, snoring softly, his ancient head resting on his chest.

  Ambassador Lin Chun noticed Grace looking at the president with barely veiled contempt, and then she continued to flirt outrageously with her bodyguard, Licking her spoon and batting her eyelids.

  Lin Chun found her to be utterly ridiculous but he was not surprised. It was well known that she constantly had a string of affairs or dalliances. It was also assumed that, on the demise of Robert, she would assume power and appoint Gideon Gono ex head of the reserve bank, as her number two. She had been caught, some years before, having a very public affair with Gideon. The then head of the reserve bank had gone into hiding to escape the wrath of Robert. But nowadays the old man was so far gone that he didn't seem to remember, let alone care.

  So the dictator slept on.

  And his wife continued flirting with the help.

  And the Chinese ambassador smiled and smiled and smiled until his face ached.

  .

  Chapter 10

  Bravo had entered the Kruger National Park through a hole in the fence on the west side of the reserve.

  He had walked all day and into the night and had arrived at the perimeter at about half past midnight' He had found a thick copse of bush and slept under it, totally worn out from his trek. He woke before the sun, found the hole in the fence and proceeded into the reserve, searching for rhino tracks.

  Now, fourteen hours later, with the sun once more about to set, he was utterly and completely lost.

  He had no idea where the fence was, no idea what direction he had come from and no idea where he was going. He drank the last of his water from an old soda bottle that he had filled at the start of his trek. The water was as warm as tea and seemed to evaporate before it even got to the bottom of his parched throat.

  It was then that he heard it. A low coughing grunt. Atavistic and primeval. A sound that is guaranteed to make even the hardest man shiver with dread.

  The sound of the male lion.

  Terror gripped Bravo with ice-cold fingers. Suddenly the antiquated rifle in his hands that had previously felt heavy and solid now felt vague and insubstantial. No longer a weapon and now simply a lump of wood and steel.

  It was one thing to contemplate shooting a rhino. A large, shortsighted slow-witted herbivore that would usually contemplate retreat before it considered attack. It was a completely different ball game to contemplate taking on a full-grown male lion. Half a ton of carnivorous feline aggression that had evolved to become the apex predator in land that spawned predators like a ghetto spawned gang members.

  Bravo ran towards the closest substantial looking thorn tree and climbed it as fats as he could, finally nestling in a crook high above the ground. Safe. For the moment.

  He never saw the lion but he heard it as it prowled the veld around him. Eventually he fell asleep whilst clinging to the branch, driven to slumber by utter exhaustion brought on by physical exercise, fear and dehydration.

  The next morning a ray of sunlight stabbed through his eyelids and jerked him awake. He took a second to work out where he was and then he frantically scanned the surrounding area for the lion.

  There was no lion but there was, to his absolute joy and amazement, a lone rhino. It stood below the torn tree. Unmoving. A large gray statue, crudely molded out of child's clay.

  With shaking hands he pointed the rifle. Squinting down the barrel, lining the steel sights up with the rhinos head.

  He pulled the trigger.

  Nothing happened.

  In panic he pulled the trigger again, squeezing as hard as he can.

  Still nothing.

  Then he remembered King Kentucky's instructions. Flick the small switch. Bravo fumbled at the lever and pushed it with his thumb. Inadvertently slipping it from "safe" past "single shot" and onto "automatic fire".

  Once again he lined the rifle up. Aimed and pulled the trigger. The assault rifle disgorged all five rounds in under a second as it cycled on full automatic fire. The weapons flew from Bravo's hands and fell to the ground. At the same time the recoil knocked the boy from his perch and he followed the rifle down, banging into the branches on the way down, slamming head first into the sun-baked, rock hard soil and rendering him unconscious.

  He came to half an hour later. His tongue felt swollen and dry. His head throbbed and his mouth tasted of blood. Metallic. Smokey.

  He glanced up to see the rhino's head, also lying on the ground, only three feet away from him.

  He screamed and rolled away before realizing that the huge creature was dead.

  Amazed that he had actually killed it, Bravo stood up, walked to the animal and gingerly touched its flank. There was no reaction. He looked more closely at its head. Three of the 7.62mm rounds had struck the rhino in the face. One in its eye, the other entering its temple and the third tearing a furrow along the side of its magnificent main horn.

  Bravo pulled his knife from his belt and immediately started to cut into the flesh below the horn.

  Three hours later he placed the bloody horn into a black plastic rubbish bag. His fingers were raw with broken blisters and his once sharp knife was a dull as wooden ruler. But he was a wealthy man. In a little over two days he had earned a years worth of wages. His family would live and, if he did this only two or three times a year they could all live in comparative luxury.

  He stood up slowly, like an old man, tortured muscles straining in pain. Rubbing his eyes with the back of his hands and closing them tightly for a while he tried to create some moisture so that he would be able to blink away the red dust that was scratching at his pupils.

  Bravo never saw the blow that hit him in the side of his face, shattering his lower jaw, knocking out four of his teeth and hammering him to the ground.

  Whimpering in pain he looked up from his prostrate position. For some reason
he could no longer see in color. The world presented itself in grays and blacks and whites. And it was all badly out of focus.

  A white man stood over him. Not tall, maybe five foot ten. Close cropped black hair. Unshaven. His shirt open to reveal a massively hirsute chest. His arms were covered in tattoos.

  'Hey, boy,' he said. 'Are you alone?'

  Bravo nodded.

  'This your rhino?'

  Another nod.

  'You kill this rhino by yourself?'

  Again, the boy nodded in affirmation.

  'Well done,' said the man.

  Despite the pain, Bravo allowed himself a tiny smile of pride.

  The man shot him twice in the face.

  'Now it's my rhino,' said Igor.

  Behind him both Yarik and Stas laughed.

  That Igor was one funny guy.

  Chapter 10

  They had stopped a mile away from the general's village, traveling the rest of the way on foot. From the cover of the surrounding bush Garrett raised a pair of binoculars to his eyes and scanned the village.

  'What do you see?' Whispered Petrus.

  'A village. Seems to be some sort of perimeter fence, although it's really badly kept. Fallen over in some places. Guards. Patrolling in singles. Three of them. One smoking. Armed with shotguns.'

  The soldier handed the binoculars to Petrus. Here, take a look for yourself. I'll tell you something for nothing, though. If this guy fancies himself as some sort of military leader then he must be the shitest officer in the world. The place is a bloody side show.'

  'I agree,' affirmed Petrus. 'I reckon that we simply wait until nightfall, go in, grab the general and ask him some questions.'

  'Why not,' said Garrett. 'No need to complicate things. Especially when the place is such a joke like this is.'

  Winstonchurchill also nodded his agreement, even though he had nothing at all to do with the decision making process.