Michael Strong lifted his binoculars and noticed in the reflection of the eyeglass that his lashes looked as though they had morning dew on them. He shivered again with the cold. His uniform was absolutely sodden, it felt like a straitjacket; the hardy clothing had become as tough as board, and there were even large puddles of water on his back. ‘Bloody hell!’ He muttered aloud as he tried to reposition himself on the soggy ground.
He stared through the glasses at the pools of water along the edge of the runway and knew instinctively that half the charges they had so carefully laid must be considered inactive. Because it hadn’t rained once in the last week, they had ignored the possibility that it could rain at all. Well, they couldn’t replace them now, in daylight. They’d just have to hope that enough of them worked to do a decent job.
He looked at the dial of his watch, covered with water droplets like everything else. Half past six. That left another ten and a quarter hours before they were due to strike. He knew that the time was going to pass painfully slowly.
At the other side of the runway, outside the storerooms, Major Conrad, the commander of the Beira air base, was worried. It was obvious that the big pool of water building up against the wall of this particular store indicated an equally big pool of water inside.
He unlocked the padlock on the door and entered. He hadn’t been inside for some months. On his schedule he saw that the contents of this store were listed as canned foodstuffs.
One look at the cases and he realised that there had been an administrative mistake. It was that idiot, the quartermaster, who was now languishing in solitary confinement before he joined the prisoners in the workcamp.
The crates in the storeroom were long and rectangular, and certainly didn’t contain tinned food . . . With mounting excitement he began to prise open the top of one of the cases.
Michael Strong picked up his field-glasses and surveyed the runway for the fifth time in as many minutes. He couldn’t quite believe what had happened. In less than an hour all the Russian perimeter guards had disappeared. If they stayed away, it would mean that their attack could be far more effective . . . Only a fool would have reduced the guarding levels at such a strategic installation. There must have been a change in command.
The other possibility was that they had been spotted, and the forces around the perimeter had been withdrawn in anticipation of an attack. He watched all the buildings like a hawk, especially the storeroom which had just been rapidly and completely emptied. It was the same one the commander had left in a hurry earlier. What the hell was going on?
General Vorotnikov put down the phone and decided that he would mention the good news at lunch. Now they would not have to cooperate with this rather sinister arms dealer. What fools they were at the airport! He had immediately transferred control to Captain Balashov, who was ordered to make a thorough inspection of all the AK-47 assault rifles in Store 21, and report back.
The plans for the invasion of Rhodesia could now be set in motion. He would call a meeting of all the pilots on Monday morning, and give them a complete battle plan. On Monday afternoon he would hand out the assault rifles to all the black forces, which would instantaneously boost morale, and impress upon them the generosity of the Soviet Union towards the oppressed black peoples of Southern Africa.
Rayne worked with Guy and Larry, hidden from view in the back of the shop. Mick was on the roof of the hotel, watching the bank.
Slowly they dismantled and rebuilt each of their weapons. They would get no second chances once they began the attack, and seconds would make the difference between success or failure. They were all on edge.
It was ten o’clock, and as usual on a Sunday the streets of Beira were almost deserted. The atmosphere was wet and cold. Rayne spoke to Guy and Larry as he worked the action of his rifle.
‘I have to meet them for lunch, I’ve got no choice. If I don’t turn up they’ll probably come looking for me, and it could blow the whole operation. In the event of my not returning by five o’clock, you must attack the bank under Guy’s command.
‘As planned, you’ll drive down the main street and turn off just past the bank. A couple of stun grenades through the front window will knock the guard out, after that you can use all the explosives you want to blow open the door of the safe.
‘I want to get the contents of every single safe-deposit box in the place destroyed. There shouldn’t be more than about fifty. You can shoot open each one in a matter of seconds. Don’t waste time, and above all don’t panic.
‘The attack on the airport will begin at exactly the same time. Bunty will blow up the road the moment the Russian forces are mobilised. The Russians probably will panic, which will give us an added advantage provided we can stay cool. Planes to pull us out will be coming in at the site of the old airport just before sundown this evening, but if anything goes wrong, Lois will be waiting for us. I’ll give each of you a map locating this emergency take-off point. I only have two objectives, and they’re to destroy the safe-deposit boxes in the bank and destroy the airport.
‘All I can do now is wish you all good luck. I’m happy that conditions are good for the attack.’
Larry and Guy listened, grim-faced. They knew the risks, the odds weren’t good.
Rayne walked out of the back door and stood for a moment in the pouring rain. Michael Strong and Bunty Mulbarton would have laid charges all over the place; he just hoped they’d sealed all the connections well enough. Even the slightest drop of moisture would be enough to stop a charge from going off.
The sky was thick with dark, menacing clouds, and already there was a light breeze which promised to strengthen as the day went on. Before, in the sunlight, the town had looked run down but exotic; now, with ugly red puddles dotting the uneven tarmac of the roads and rain spilling off the gutterless roofs, it looked merely squalid. It was almost dark enough to be evening now, and the tarmac was a mass of dancing raindrops, making it impossible to see to the other side of the road.
The torpor of Africa struck Rayne at that moment. What the hell did it all matter, anyway, since Africa would get her own way in the end? No foreign power could seriously upset the natural equilibrium of the Dark Continent, which always took back what anyone tried to take from her, always remained unchangeably herself. At that moment it seemed inconceivable to him that a group of Russian planes could hope to demolish the power structure of an entire African state.
And somewhere in this storm was Samantha. Then he knew why he was sad - because he had so little chance of finding her. He walked up to his room with a heaviness in his legs and in his soul.
Tongogara woke to find himself in a pool of mud, and as he raised himself to his feet, the water ran from his camouflage suit, leaving him freezing cold. Anxiously he glanced around for his pack and the weapons. He heaved a sigh of relief when he saw that Sam had wrapped them in a groundsheet under the tree. She was curled up near the tree, the top of her body dry, but her legs as wet and as muddy as he was. His soul was stirred as the memory of the night before came back to him.
Her eyes opened while he was still looking at her, and she smiled. ‘We couldn’t have picked a worse day.’
She got up and went over to him, kissing him softly on the lips. She watched as he fought with his emotions. He was silent for a while and then replied, ‘You’re wrong, Sam. We couldn’t have picked a better day. This weather is the best cover we could have asked for, maybe a bit uncomfortable now, but it makes it almost impossible for the guards to patrol the fuel tanks effectively. We must get moving, I want to be in position as soon as possible - there’s no telling when this weather may change. And thank you for putting all the equipment under the tree. I was stupid not to have done that. If it had got wet we might as well have given up now.’
Keeping the weapons wrapped in the groundsheet, Tongogara pushed them into his rucksack. He did not carry the assault rifle now, there was no need. Sam followed him as he strode through the bush towards the beach. They di
dn’t speak again until they started making their way up the shoreline towards the fuel storage tanks.
Sam felt at one with him, now she understood the fire that lay behind his cool exterior. She treasured her knowledge, and was determined that she would not let him down.
‘We’re lucky, Sam. This is going to take us less than an hour. We could never have come along the beach if the weather had been good, we’d have been too easily spotted, but in this downpour no one’s going to see us. And we can talk as well.’
They continued up the beach, the rain lashing in gusts against them. It was nearly an hour before Tongogara indicated that they should pull off the beach and move back into the bush. In the distance Sam could see the giant cylindrical shapes of the storage tanks. She looked out to sea. This was where the Pungwe River met the Indian Ocean. They were almost in Beira itself. Her heart skipped a beat. There was no pulling out now, she was committed.
The fuel depot at Munhava in downtown Beira consisted of forty massive tanks dominating the horizon. There were also several outbuildings containing two-hundred-litre fuel drums. Next to the depot was a run-down shanty town. It was through this uninspiring area that they had to pass undetected.
The roads were awash with mud, and there was no one in sight. They moved from building to building, hiding behind each one and checking the way in front of them before they moved on. It didn’t take them long to pass through the town. After that they had to sprint from the last buildings across an open stretch of ground and a road, and throw themselves down flat in the mud on the other side. Then they crawled their way to the perimeter fence of the fuel depot two hundred metres away. They lay in the mud as Tongogara took out a pair of pliers and carefully cut the fence along the bottommost level. He whispered to Sam as he gradually made an opening.
‘The trick is to create a way in, but to make sure that no one notices the break in the fence. It’ll be hard to get through this narrow hole, but there’s no danger of it parting wider. Once we’re through I’ll wire the gap up.’
Minutes later they had slipped through the hole and had crawled behind some low bushes.
Sam wondered whether they would ever get out alive. She realised how lucky they had been with the rain. There was no way they could have got into the high security area that quickly if the visibility had been good. Whenever the rain cleared briefly between squalls, she could see the sentry towers looming ominously above her. Her pulse refused to slow down. Already she could feel the excitement of the risk they were taking.
‘We must get ready. We won’t be able to hit all the tanks, but from where we are now it shouldn’t take long before the whole lot go up. There’ll probably be a trigger reaction - once one tank is alight, the fuel vapour from the other tanks will catch easily, provided we puncture each of them successfully. I’ll use the rocket-launcher and you can cover me with the machine-gun. Whenever you can, fire directly into the tanks.’
He hauled out the 7.62 mm PKM GPMG, capable of firing rimmed cartridges with over twice the propellant charge of the standard AK-47 assault rifle. The weapon was a brilliant hotchpotch of the best features of several other weapons, including the Kalashnikov rotating bolt, Goryunov cartridge extractor and barrel-change, and the Degtyarev feed-system and trigger.
‘I’m sorry, Sam, I don’t have the tripod for the machine-gun. You’ll have to rest it on top of the pack frame and shoot the best you can. I’ve only got a limited supply of ammunition, so try to fire in short effective bursts.’
Next he hauled out the SAM-7 Grail missile-launcher. ‘This is usually used for shooting down aircraft but it’ll also prove very effective on the fuel tanks. It weighs enough on its own without the rockets. I’ve managed to bring three, which should be quite enough to light this place up. Now we must keep down until after five o’clock.’
Tongogara looked down at his watch. In six hours’ time they would be almost dead with cold, but they could not afford to attack earlier - they needed the failing light to get away successfully.
Sam shivered. She was both wet and cold. She had never been in a situation like this, never even imagined it. As a reporter, however close she came to the action, she had always remained separate from it. Now she was directly involved. She realised that there was no longer any point in being afraid. She had persuaded Tongogara to take action and now she must support him, even to the death.
He pulled her close to him and kissed her again. She was powerless in his arms.
At the edge of the airport runway, unknown to Michael Strong or to airport security, two men waited, hidden in the bush. They had a rocket-launcher of the same type Tongogara had just unpacked some three kilometres away.
The senior officer repeated General Vorotnikov’s instructions to himself again and again. The weapon was not one hundred per cent accurate, and could only be used on a departing target - for it was only then that the heat source of the plane would be visible. The trick was to zero in on the departing plane’s engine and apply partial trigger pressure. Once the missile had locked into the engine’s heat source, the light would turn from red to green. After that it was simply a case of applying greater pressure to the trigger.
There would be no danger of anyone seeing a flash from the ground because the boost charge burned away before the rocket even left the barrel. Once the rocket was safely out of the tube, a sustainer would ignite and accelerate the missile to Mach 1.5, fast enough to catch any aircraft in the process of taking off.
It would be a case of hit and run. There would be only one chance at the target and they had been warned about the penalties for failure. The man knew the limitations of the rocket - which was why he kept on rehearsing the precise details of firing the weapon. He was also worried about the rain and its effect on the rocket’s guidance system. The chances of making a direct hit did not look good.
He looked at his watch again. He had been told by General Vorotnikov that Aschaar’s plane would take off quite late in the afternoon.
The car arrived for him outside the hotel at twelve-thirty precisely. Rayne breathed a sigh of relief; every minute counted now if he was to be back at the hotel by four o’clock that afternoon. The chauffeur dutifully got out of the Mercedes with an umbrella and went to the front entrance of the hotel to escort Rayne back to the car.
They pulled away quickly and Rayne kept wondering what he would do if he didn’t make it back in time. He wished he could have taken the Peugeot, but they needed the Peugeot for the attack on the bank.
Rayne’s Browning pistol was carefully pushed down into his belt, concealed by his sports jacket. He couldn’t risk going out unarmed - he didn’t trust Aschaar, and for all he knew, the meeting could be an elaborate double-cross. The more he knew about Aschaar, the more he wanted to help Lois get him. It was all a question of timing, he told himself, as the big car pulled up the long gravel drive leading to Aschaar’s villa.
He was impressed by the villa. Revolutions come and go but the wealthy stay wealthy. In twenty years, perhaps the only things that had changed here were the quality of the security and the nature of the occupier’s business. He was shown through the main door by a black manservant and escorted to the verandah at the rear.
‘Mr Brand, how good to see you.’ Aschaar lunged towards him from the shadows. His hand was outstretched and they shook quickly in the uncertain partnership of conspirators. ‘Can I get you a drink?’
‘A beer would be fine.’
‘Not the sort of drink I would choose on a cold day, but then I am a whisky man myself.’
The arrogance never left Aschaar, thought Rayne; the desire always to put the other man down, however trivial the matter. He took the drink and sat down on one of the cane chairs. He was damned if he was going to be intimidated by this man. The rain dripped steadily outside and for a few minutes neither spoke. Aschaar was the first to break the silence.
‘You are clear on what you have to say?’
‘Perfectly clear.’
‘
The General is in good spirits today, I don’t know why. He will take the information you give him very badly. I’ll act as a counterfoil to his anger. In the true sense of the expression, we have him over a barrel!’
Bernard tucked his hands into the narrow pockets of his double-breasted suit. It was not a casual action. His left hand found the deadly drug with which he planned to lace the General’s drink. If they accused this Mr Brand of murdering the General, too bad. He disliked the man’s aloofness anyway - and he was undoubtedly up to no good. What was his real business in Beira? There were so many rebel groups active in the country, he was no doubt doing a roaring trade. Probably he sold arms to the Rhodesians as well . . .
At that moment the General walked onto the verandah, followed by a small dog. He did not seem surprised to see Rayne, just displeased. To Rayne he did not look like a man who would be easily unsettled.
The small dog went to Rayne, who put his hand down to scratch behind its ears. ‘Rhodes likes you,’ said Vorotnikov, smiling reluctantly.
‘General, Mr Brand is joining us for lunch.’
Bernard watched the servant who was pouring their drinks. He waited till the General had walked towards the edge of the verandah, then bumped clumsily into the servant carrying the General’s whisky. ‘I’m sorry!’ The glass broke as it hit the floor and the man hurried quickly out of the room for a cloth.
‘Let me pour you another, General.’
Bernard went across to the drinks cabinet, carefully taking the vial from his pocket and emptying the contents into a glass. He then poured a generous measure of Scotch, and was pleased to see that the crystals dissolved readily. He was about to taste the drink himself when he remembered that even the slightest amount of the poison would be dangerous. He added the small amount of soda the General liked.
Hyena Dawn Page 34
