Garrett & Petrus- The Complete Series

by C Marten-Zerf

  The young soldier stared at the Zulu for a while. Then he spoke in the slightest whisper. 'Corporal Yeung said that colonel Chang is going to Dar Es Salaam,' he said. 'He has taken a private train, two coaches and an engine. He is taking us all from Bulawayo to Lusaka and then to Dar Es Salaam. We will all be Yi Deng Bo or chief of the first rank.' He grasped Petrus' sleeve. 'Pain,' he gasped. 'So much pain.'

  Garrett searched the APC, going through the various cubbyholes. Eventually he pulled out a metal case. Gray with a red cross on. He opened it.

  'This looks like morphine,' he said, holding up a syrette.

  Petrus shrugged. 'Maybe.'

  Garrett moved over to the young Tiger, rolled his sleeve up and injected him. Within seconds the drug took effect and the young man relaxed.

  'We need to get to get to that train. Preferably before it gets into Zambia,' said Petrus. 'Best to catch it between Bulawayo and the border if we can.'

  'We'll take the APC,' said Garrett.

  'What about these two?' Asked Petrus, gesturing to the pair of wounded Flying Tigers.

  'There're pretty fucked,' said Garrett. 'Surprised that they're still alive. Tough bastards both of them. I reckon that we pump them full of morphine, leave them by the fire. Harsh, but we did shoot both of them in the first place as they were trying to kill us at the time.'

  'You'll find no arguments here,' agreed Petrus.

  Twenty minutes later, after drugging the wounded Tigers and collecting all of the weapons and ammo, the two friends were heading towards Bulawayo, cutting cross-country with the APC.

  Chapter 32

  Late the next morning they drove into a small village. After contacting the headman they purchased an old Toyota pickup, paying for it with the APC and a handful of dollars. They also left the headman the FN rifles, some of the surplus Chinese rifles and a hundred rounds of ammunition. They took three rifles and the rest of the ammunition with them.

  The pick up's odometer stated that the vehicle had traveled seventy-two miles. Which meant that it had gone around the clock at least once, if not twice. A mileage somewhere between one hundred and two hundred thousand. Halfway to the moon. It was predominantly white in color apart from the two doors, one green and one a faded yellow. A row of bullet holes were stitched down the right hand side of the loading bay.

  But it worked, spluttering along in a cloud of smoke like an old-fashioned steam train.

  Every few hours they would see another spotter plane in the sky above them, but they were confident of not being seen as the battered old pick up provided a great disguise.

  'Someone high up in government has a real hard on for us,' said Petrus. 'They're still searching for us. This Chang asshole must be personal friends with Mugabe or someone.'

  'Yeah,' agreed Garrett. 'Who would have known? Just our luck.'

  As Petrus drove he would randomly comment on things. A sighting of an animal. A request for a cigarette. A particular type of tree. An attempt to break the monotony.

  But Garrett remained silent. The Beast had been driven back into its cage. Bound tight with bonds of steel and willpower. And its absence had left a deep pool of regret. Once again he was in Africa. Once again he was killing. And for what? Some outdated concept of ancestor worship? A mere sop to a friend's grief and desire for revenge.

  He knew that Petrus was killing for something that he believed in. He was killing to save his brother's soul. He believed that he was doing something that had to be done to ensure his brother's everlasting peace. He was killing out of love.

  But Garrett feared that he was killing merely to satisfy the Beast. Feeding it with the souls of the innocent.

  'They were bad men,' said Petrus.

  'What?' Asked Garrett, drawn out of his internal reverie by Petrus' seeming non-sequitur.

  'Those soldiers. The Chinese. They worked for a man who ran protection rackets. A man who bullied and ordered killings. Forced people into prostitution and drug dealing. A man who is partly responsible for destroying almost an entire species of animal. A man who is partly responsible for my brother's death. And they are part of this man.'

  'They were just soldiers,' said Garrett.

  'True,' agreed Petrus. 'But would you take orders to do the things that they did?'

  Garrett shook his head. 'No.'

  'You see,' said Petrus. 'They were bad men.'

  Another spotter plane flew over them.

  'Petrus looked up. 'They're still looking for us,' he said.

  Garrett stared at it. 'No,' he said. 'That's the fourth time that we've been overflown. They're not grid searching, they're not changing direction. They simply fly over, straight and level and then disappear into the distance. They're trying not to attract too much attention. That's because they are no longer looking - they've already found us and they're simply keeping us under surveillance. We need to find some high ground so that we can check for someone following us.'

  An hour later they came across a small koppie. Petrus parked at the bottom of it and the two of them jogged to the peak. Then Garrett took out his binoculars and scanned the surrounding vista. He stood for ages, not moving, simply scoping out the direction from whence they had just come.

  He handed the binoculars to Petrus. 'There, maybe five clicks away, southwest. Some sort of APC.'

  Petrus adjusted the focus. 'Got them. Coming fast.' The Zulu carried on watching for another full ten minutes. 'They're definitely following us. Right on our trail. Let's go.'

  They ran down the hill and jumped into the pickup. Petrus revved the engine, smoke bellowed, valves clattered and the vehicle ground forward, surging through the virgin bush.

  They drove as fast as they could and, whenever they saw high ground, they would stop and check on their pursuers.

  Petrus looked through the binoculars and drew a deep breath. 'I don't have a good feeling about this,' he said. 'They are getting closer by the minute. Looks like their ride is an upgraded Crocodile APC. Got an FN 7.62 machine gun on the roof. Carries up to fifteen troops. What have we got? A couple of grenades. Three claymores, these shitty Chinese rifles. I tell you, Isosha, this sucks.'

  Garrett said nothing. There was nothing to say. Petrus was right, they were exhausted, under armed and about to face a clearly superior force.

  'We'll lose them tonight,' he said. 'Same again. We ditch the pickup, booby trap it using the last of the claymores and the grenade. Hopefully that will slow them down a bit. Then we need to up our game, make sure that they can't track us. We've got enough cash to buy some more transport when we come across it. Let's move on out.'

  They mounted up and continued driving. An hour before sunset they came across a dry riverbed. The course was covered with hundreds of large flat river rocks.

  'This is it,' said Garrett. 'We leave the pick up here. Booby trap it and then move from rock to rock down the riverbed. There's no way that they'll be able to track us. We go as far as we can down the riverbed then we hotfoot it out of here, find some more transport and find the colonel. Kill him and then get the fuck out of this shitty country.'

  'It's a plan,' said Petrus. 'Let's give it a go.'

  Garrett laid the claymore traps carefully, connecting the tripwires to the door handles so that, as soon as someone tried to open the door, they would explode. Once again he placed a grenade in the cab, its pin pulled almost out, to add to the destructive force of the explosion.

  Then the two of them moved carefully to the riverbed, using bundles of grass to sweep their tracks. Once they were on the dry riverbed they moved from rock to rock. The going was very slow but they had decided to trade speed for concealment, determined to leave no discernable tracks.

  When it was almost dark they left the riverbed and walked for another hour. Then they stopped and slept, both so exhausted that they didn't even bother to keep watch, merely dropping to the floor and letting sleep overcome them.

  Garrett woke the next morning before the sun and looked up to see Petrus standing still, starin
g out at the surrounding bush. 'What's the problem?' He asked. 'There's no way that they could be anywhere close. They can't have caught up with us and they have no idea where we are.'

  'I just have this feeling,' said the Zulu. 'Like someone's watching us. Felt it last night as well.'

  'It's nothing,' said Garrett. 'Let's eat and get going.'

  Petrus pulled out some rations. Pronutro, a South African powdered food made from maize sugar, skim milk powder, groundnut flour, Soya flour, and fish protein concentrate with added vitamins. They mixed it with water. It had the consistency of quicksand and tasted like sawdust and sugar. But it was nutritious and energy giving, and that is why Petrus had packed it as their major food source.

  As soon as they had eaten they moved on to the first area of high ground that they could see.

  Garrett scanned their trail with his binoculars, picking up their followers almost immediately, a few miles back, clustered around the old pick up.

  The soldier held his hand up. 'They're all around the pick up,' he said. 'Won't be long.'

  The two friends waited. But there was no explosion.

  'They're not taking the bait,' said Garrett. 'Not even looking into the pick up, they're just scouting around the area. Looking for spoor. A lot of good that'll do them,' he continued. 'There's no way that they will be able to find our trail.' He was about to pack up his binoculars when he paused. 'No way,' he explained. 'They've picked it up. I can't believe it. How the fuck did they do that? Man, these guys are good.' He turned to Petrus. 'Let's go.'

  And they ran. Long loping strides. They stopped for more Pronutro at midday and then continued running.

  'Keep a look out for rocky ground,' said Garrett. 'Overhanging trees, anything that we think can throw them off the trail.'

  Within an hour they came across an area of rock and shale. They entered the area and walked slowly across it, making sure that they didn't dislodge any rocks or leave any sort of trace of their passing. On the edge of the rocky plain there was a copse of large false Mopani trees. They grabbed one of the overhanging boughs and climbed up. Then they clambered from tree to tree across the copse before dropping to the ground.

  'Yeah,' said Garrett. 'Try to track that, you fuckers.' He turned to Petrus. 'What do you reckon?'

  But, once again, the Zulu was standing still, his head cocked to one side, listening.

  'What?' asked Garrett.

  Petrus shook his head. 'Nothing. Just spooked I guess. Let's keep moving.'

  The day became an endless, sunlit dust bowl; of pain and exhaustion. Bodies that had been pushed beyond collapse were pushed even further.

  The deep cut in Garrett's leg felt like fire and Petrus' head wound thumped in time with every step that he took. In the last four days they had run almost two hundred miles, the equivalent of four standard marathons.

  On top of that they had fought for two of the nights. They had been deprived of both sleep and sustenance and had now entered a stage where their bodies were actually eating themselves to provide enough fuel to continue their gruelling pace.

  They continued running into the night, staggering and lurching like zombies, until finally they simply fell down and lay there, comatose.

  The next morning, before the sun, they were dragged from their death-like sleep by the sound of the following APC's diesel engine in the distance.

  They stood up, stretched and ran again, looking for a high point. As soon as they found one they climbed to the top of the hillock and surveyed the land.

  Garrett watched them through the binoculars for a while. 'Well,' he said. 'Obviously they're still following us.'

  'Man these guys are good,' said Petrus.

  'Better than me,' admitted Garrett. 'There is no way that I could have followed our tracks. Not with all that we did.'

  Petrus took the binoculars and took a look. 'Shit,' he exclaimed. 'I know these fuckers.'

  'What, personally?' Asked Garrett.

  'No, of course not. They're Fifth Brigade. You can tell by their red berets.'

  'I've heard of them,' said Garrett. 'Aren't they some sort of fast reaction squad?'

  'No,' denied Petrus. 'Not really. In nineteen eighty, president Mugabe signed an agreement with the North Korean President, Kim Il Sung, that they would train and equip a brigade for the Zimbabwe National Army. That turned out to be the Fifth Brigade. And they were different from all other army units. They were answerable only to the prime minister, and not to the normal army command structures. Mugabe basically used them as his own private death squad. In nineteen eighty-three, he sent them to crush any resistance, right here, in Matabeleland, because their leader was running against him. They slaughtered over twenty thousand civilians. Some say closer to fifty thousand. Most of the dead were shot in public executions, often after being forced to dig their own graves in front of family and fellow villagers. Others they simply burned alive in their huts.'

  'How come you know so much about this?' Asked Garrett.

  'The Matabele are an Nguni tribe,' answered Petrus. 'Close relatives to the Zulu. My father knew many of them. They call that time of genocide, Gukurahundi. This is most simply translated as "the rain that washes away the chaff before the spring rains." Trust me, Isosha, these are very bad fuckers. You don't want them to take you alive. The thing is,' mused Petrus. 'I have no idea why they are following us. We have no fight with them.'

  'You said yourself that Chang must be well connected. Maybe even mates with Mugabe. I reckon that this sort of proves that theory. Whatever, it looks as though we've got a fight coming our way,' interjected Garrett. He looked around, taking in the hill and the approaches. 'This is as good a place as any,' he said. 'We will make our stand here.'

  Petrus nodded. 'I am so sorry, my friend,' he said.

  'Yeah, well. I always knew that this fucking continent would be my death. I always wanted to die in my bed. Old and infirm, surrounded by grandchildren and well-wishers. Only problem was, no kids and no grand kinds.'

  'And no one who wished you well,' added Petrus.

  They laughed together and started to build a rampart of stones on the crown of the hill. Then they placed all of their spare magazines on the rampart, sat down, smoked and drank the last of their water. There was no longer a need to conserve it.

  They waited and twenty-five minutes later the APC trundled into view. Two trackers ran in front of it and an officer sat in the open top, behind the 7.62mm machine gun.

  The officer shouted an order. Garrett and Petrus could not hear it above the engine but it was obvious what he was saying.

  The APC stopped and the troops poured out. There were twelve of them. The machine gunner pointed at the hill, raised his arm and chopped it down. The APC crawled forward, the Fifth Brigade troops walking next to it, AKM assault rifles at the ready as they bore down on the hill.

  'Well now,' said Garrett. 'Let's see how many of these fuckers we can take down.'

  The two of them opened fire, concentrating on the officer in the cupola. Their shots ricocheted off the armor around him. Some slugs even struck close enough to flick at his clothing. But none hit him.

  The return fire was absolutely overwhelming.

  The machine gun opened up with a sound akin to a giant, tearing bales of cloth. The troops fired with their AKM's on full automatic at the same time. Each firearm was capable of churning out a cyclic rate of over ten rounds a second. Thirteen weapons firing at once tore the top of the hill to pieces. Fully two thousand rounds smashed into Garrett and Petrus' small redoubt in the first ten seconds. The thorn trees were leveled, the rampart simply ceased to exist and both Garrett and Petrus were hit.

  Blood flowed and mixed with the dry dust forming a dull red mud. A quagmire of human DNA.

  'I've been shot in the fucking head again,' said Petrus, blood pouring down a savage gash in his temple.

  'Me too,' said Garrett wiping blood out of his eyes.

  'Should we fire back?' Enquired the Zulu.

  'Not su
re,' answered Garrett. 'It'll just piss them off.'

  'Oh well, fuck them,' said Petrus as he lined up his rifle again.

  But before he could fire there was a flash of an explosion about fifty yards away from the APC. A trail of smoke connected the flash with the side of the APC. There was another muted bang as the projectile struck the side of the armored vehicle followed immediately by a massive secondary explosion.

  The officer behind the machine gun was expelled form the vehicle in a gout of flame that threw him twenty yards into the air. His burning body hit the ground with a wet thump.

  The Fifth Brigade troops turned to face the new threat but they didn't stand a chance. Another RPG rocket exploded amongst them and then a fusillade of small arms fire decimated their ranks. Steel jacketed bullets flying like swarming locusts of death as they fed upon the red bereted soldiers.

  Garrett and Petrus joined in, firing as fast as they could and changing magazines with fervid haste.

  'What the fuck is going on?' Shouted Petrus.

  'Not a clue,' answered Garrett. 'But they're shooting at the same people that we're shooting at so don't complain.'

  The firefight lasted another thirty seconds before it hiccupped to a halt. Garrett and Petrus heard some shouted orders. Indistinct due to the fact that their ears were ringing from the noise of the battle.

  Amazingly, not all of the Fifth Brigade soldiers were dead, even though they had all been struck a number of times. However, their attackers were changing that fact, walking amongst the bodies and calmly shooting the survivors in the face.

  'Who the hell are these guys?' Asked Garrett.

  Petrus shrugged. 'Don't know, but they have just become my official best friends. Unless they decide to shoot us next, then the friendship is over.'

  'Let's go and talk,' suggested Garrett as he stood up, slinging his rifle over his shoulder. Petrus did the same and the two of them trudged down the hill.

  The men that they were approaching were not dressed in uniform although their clothing was of a type. Mainly faded and patched denim with a motley selection of various types of webbing ranging from Vietnam era American to nineteen eighties South African. In the main they carried AK's also ranging from sixties model 47's to the more recent AKM.