Hyena Dawn

by Christopher Sherlock

  ‘Mmm. Excellent.’

  Bernard breathed a sigh of relief as the General took a large mouthful of whisky. ‘I see it’s time for us to eat.’

  They went through into the dining room, which must have been the most luxurious in the whole of Beira. Solid silver was laid at each of the three place-settings; Waterford crystal glasses for white and red wine stood elegantly next to fine bone china.

  While the main course was being served, General Vorotnikov was called away to the phone and Bernard and Rayne were suddenly alone again. Bernard was quick to seize the opportunity.

  ‘I’ll wait till we’ve finished lunch and are back on the verandah for coffee. He’ll be furious, but don’t worry, there’s nothing he can do about it.’

  Actually Bernard couldn’t have given a damn if the General shot Mr Brand then and there. What he wanted to see was the heart attack that would be brought on by the sudden excitement, and the drug. The more furious the General got, the more quickly he would die.

  Bernard glanced down at his watch. He wanted to be away well before five. His bags were packed ready to be placed in the car. Naturally, there would be a certain amount of hysteria when the General’s death occurred - he would make sure there was a servant with them while they were having coffee. The responsi­bility for the death could be laid firmly on Mr Brand. In fact, it might be convenient to have him arrested immediately, on suspicion.

  Putting down the phone, the General couldn’t have been more pleased with himself. The call had informed him that the AK-47 rifles were now being thoroughly cleaned and repacked into their boxes. He would present them to ZANLA on Monday afternoon, in a special ceremony that could also be used to commemorate the death of Mr Bernard Aschaar ... He returned to the dining room in a good mood.

  Bernard looked up as the General came through the doors. ‘Good news, I hope?’

  ‘Excellent news. We will be able to mount the operation next week. And I feel confident of victory.’ The General waited expectantly for them to bring up the topic of the guns, but nothing was said, and for the moment he let it pass.

  After the meal they went out on the verandah. Rayne was becoming increasingly anxious. Time was running out fast, and if he didn’t get away soon, his men would have to launch the attack on the bank without him. To his frustration, Aschaar continued to remain silent while the coffee was being served to them. He was obviously going for maximum shock value. At last he spoke.

  ‘Well, Mr Brand, my arms shipment should be here soon.’

  ‘I am afraid, Mr Aschaar, that I have run into some problems. Things are not going as smoothly as I would have expected.’

  ‘But naturally we can still expect delivery on Monday?’

  ‘Out of the question. It may even be a month before the weapons arrive. There’s nothing I can do about it.’

  Aschaar’s face became dark with anger. Rayne had to admit he was a good actor.

  ‘The terms were for speedy delivery! If you can’t deliver on time, you can forget about being paid!’

  Bernard kept glancing across at the General. By now the man should have been furious - and the drug only worked effectively if the subject experienced an emotional upset. But the General was quietly sipping at his coffee and appeared quite unruffled. In fact Bernard was sure he could even see a slight smile on the man’s face. This profoundly unnerved him. Suddenly, he no longer felt confident. Vorotnikov was getting the edge on him, and that was very, very dangerous.

  The General stared at him and then spoke softly. ‘Mr Aschaar, Mr Brand has double-crossed us.’

  To Rayne’s horror, Aschaar smiled. Good God, what was going on?

  ‘Very likely, General. However, you do need the arms. Without them, your plans will come to nothing.’

  ‘Relax, Mr Aschaar. The original consignment of AK-47 rifles that I ordered was found early this morning in a storeroom at the airport, so we have no need of Mr Brand’s kind services after all

  • punctual or otherwise.’

  Rayne let his hand work its way beneath his jacket to the butt of the Browning. The General looked at him coldly. ‘Tomorrow morning you will repay Mr Aschaar his deposit. Meanwhile, consider yourself under arrest. And you need not think of escaping. I control Beira.’

  He yelled out a command in Russian, and before Rayne could react, two of Vorotnikov’s bodyguard had rushed into the room, grabbed his arms and taken the pistol from his belt.

  ‘Mr Aschaar, you will get your money back in the morning, I will see to it. There is no need to delay your departure.’

  Bernard Aschaar hardly noticed what the General was saying; he was facing the fact that his plan had gone horribly wrong. If Vorotnikov didn’t get emotionally worked up during the next twenty-four hours, the effects of the drug would wear off and he would probably survive. This meant that the attack on Rhodesia was now inevitable. It was not the way Bernard had wanted things to go; the agreement he had struck with Mugabe would have been much more profitable than trying to share power with the General. For the moment, however, he would have no choice but to play along with the Russian - and hope that another opportunity to dispose of the man would present itself in the near future.

  ‘Er, thank you, General,’ he said. ‘I must indeed be on my way.’

  Locked in a windowless room in the villa’s basement, Rayne smashed his fist again and again into the wall. He’d never get back to the hotel in time now - it was hopeless. They’d have to launch the attack without him. Why had he been so foolish as to trust Bernard Aschaar, even for a moment. . . For the first time he felt himself begin to despair.

  And then, at a quarter to five, the door was opened and he was led outside. He was pushed into the front seat of a jeep, next to the driver, while another man sat in the back with his gun pushed hard into the back of Rayne’s head. They set off.

  As soon as he came out into the open air, Rayne’s spirits had lifted. Now it was just a question of creating an opportunity . . .

  ‘Any cigarettes?’

  The driver looked at Rayne without interest. Very deliber­ately, Rayne took off his watch and held it up, pointing, to indicate that he wanted to trade the watch.

  ‘Imbecile,’ said the driver scornfully, ‘I can speak English.’

  Rayne pressed on, ever hopeful. ‘This for a cigarette?’

  The driver smiled, and said something to the guard. Rayne’s heart leapt as he felt the gun barrel removed from his skull. Out of the comer of his eye he saw the guard searching for a packet of cigarettes in his jacket pockets. Rayne shot round, grabbed his lapels with both hands and head-butted him.

  The vehicle swerved off the road as Rayne grabbed the guard’s gun and pumped two shots into the driver. The guard swung a heavy punch at Rayne, who ducked to avoid it and ripped off a shot which hit his adversary in the shoulder.

  The Russian was a hardened fighter and just kept on coming. Rayne blocked another blow, dropping the gun. He rose, deliver­ing a roundhouse kick to the side of the guard’s skull in the same movement, and the guard fell sideways, grabbing Rayne so that they both fell out of the vehicle onto the sand road. Now Rayne had the advantage, his reflexes were faster and the extra space gave him the chance to dodge his enormous opponent’s blows.

  The guard came for him again, and Rayne delivered a hammering karate punch to the side of his forehead, then drove his left foot into the guard’s left knee. His opponent toppled back, and Rayne immediately climbed in with three quick punches to the stomach. As the guard fell over backwards, Rayne scrambled back into the jeep.

  Just as he was about to pull himself into the driver’s seat, he felt his ankles being grabbed and he was wrenched down again onto the ground. The guard was breathing heavily, but his grip on Rayne’s ankles didn’t slacken. Rayne felt his hand touch something cold. A spanner. He grabbed it, and brought it crashing down onto the guard’s head. Suddenly, his ankles were free. He dragged himself back into the jeep, pushed the body of the other Russian from the driver’s se
at, and put the dead man’s gun on the passenger seat beside him. Nothing was going to slow him down now.

  The engine started easily and he turned the vehicle round and floored the accelerator pedal. At full throttle, the jeep jumped around the road like a cat on a hot tin roof. Rayne clung to the wheel without using the brake pedal. He cursed out loud when he realised he’d lost his watch. He knew he was late - how late was what mattered.

  The first buildings of Beira came into view on the road leading into the Avenue Oliveira Salazar. He’d have to go straight to the bank, taking the risk that his men might open fire on him.

  He passed an army patrol, flat out, and they stared at him in astonishment as he barrelled along the main road, keeping right in the centre. Next a passenger car loomed into view as he came round a corner. It refused to give way but Rayne went straight for it, and at the last minute the driver lost his nerve, swerving off the road and ploughing into a brick wall. As the engine got hotter Rayne managed to coax the speed up even higher. Nothing mattered but getting to the bank. The streets flashed by.

  He thought about Aschaar and how he was going to get even with the bastard . . . The tyres squealed and slid in protest as he nudged the vehicle round the sweeping curves of the road bordering the golf course. Nothing was going to stop him.

  The Avenue Massano di Amorium was deserted. It was as if the whole town could sense that it was a place to avoid that miserable, wet Sunday afternoon. The rain fell steadily, leaving giant pools on the uneven road surface. There was no one to notice the vehicle parked in the open area next to the bank, or to hear the sound of breaking glass and the muffled explosion of two stun-grenades.

  No one challenged the three men who had broken into the bank. Two of them moved with silent purpose through the desks towards the doors of the main vault, while one remained near the front door, his eyes combing the deserted avenue for the slightest sign of trouble.

  Guy was really worried. He’d kept to Rayne’s orders, but that didn’t make carrying them out any easier. Where the hell had the Captain got to? Maybe he’d been imprisoned. Without him, Guy felt less than confident about their chances of making it out alive.

  The pouring rain made it difficult for him to see far into the distance, but he knew that when they blew the vault the time for moving fast would begin. The detonation would wake the whole town. He glanced back inside the bank and saw that Mick and Larry were already applying the plastic explosive to the hinges on the vault door.

  Rayne had told them to use more explosive than was necessary, to make sure that no one missed the blast. The question was, would the explosion pull the whole building down on top of them? Guy was wary of explosives, he’d had too many near misses to regard them with anything but respect. He went back to watching the main road.

  He saw the jeep as it hit a large puddle and threw up clouds of spray. It was coming fast. Guy tensed, guessing this must be the first reaction to their breaking into the bank. They must have triggered some secret alarm unknowingly. He raised the Galil ARM rifle, pressing the stock firmly into his shoulder, then checked that the standard twenty-five round magazine was firmly in place. He loved the rifle. The Israelis had developed the Galil, naming it after the head of their design team, Israel Galil. In a stroke of brilliance they combined receivers made by Valmet of Finland with rough-turned barrels obtained from Colt Firearms of Hartford, Connecticut. The new Galil was a magnificent weapon with fully forged and milled receivers, chrome-lined bores, chambers and gas blocks; the gas pistons were chrome- plated too. Now Guy turned the selector switch from S to F and fixed the jeep carefully in the 300m peep-sight.

  The jeep came nearer, and he fixed his aim in the centre of the driver’s sternum and began the slow squeeze on the trigger. Two shots. That should compensate for any inaccuracy that might be caused by the movement of the vehicle and the difficulty of seeing through the rain.

  He was surprised that only one person had responded to the alarm - he would have expected a greater show of force. His finger began to tighten. The man was clearly in view now. It would be an easy shot. He squeezed slowly.

  The whole town shook with the magnitude of the explosion. In seconds a black pall of smoke hung over the Pungwe River. Further explosions followed, and gradually the people who had been convinced it was just bad thunder became aware that something serious had happened.

  Even in the pouring rain the flames from the giant fuel storage tanks refused to die down. Instead they fanned out, setting light to other tanks, triggering more explosions, creating an inferno of smoke and flames.

  Suddenly the sky was filled with flashes as the anti-aircraft gunners let rip. High explosive shells were lobbed into the air and exploded in orange bursts on the horizon. It was like a fireworks display gone mad.

  Larry

  Rayne was almost at the bank when the first big bang occurred and he swung instinctively off the road. He dropped out of the jeep and crawled underneath the chassis. Looking away from the bank towards the west, the direction from which the noise had come, he saw to his horror huge clouds of smoke billowing into the air above the area where the fuel storage tanks were located. He’d specifically instructed his men that the tanks were not to be attacked. Who the hell had disobeyed his orders?

  But then why shouldn’t they blow up the tanks? It made sense in more ways than one. After all why not totally destroy the Russian installations around Beira? Again Rayne questioned Fry’s orders and began to wonder what Fry’s true objectives actually were.

  A loud singing sound made him turn suddenly - to see Mick running to the front of the bank building with a spinning reel of wire cable leading back to the front of the vault. Then a bullet impacted into the wall next to him, spraying him with plaster. He looked up to see Guy sighting his rifle on him.

  ‘Guy!’

  There was a silence. Rayne dropped flat on the ground behind the jeep. One wrong move, and Guy’s next shot would hit him.

  ‘Captain. Is that you?’

  ‘Yes!’

  ‘You can come out.’

  Cautiously Rayne raised his head to see that Guy’s rifle was no longer trained on him. He sprinted across the road. ‘I was held up. Only just made it.’

  Guy wiped the sweat off his forehead. God, it had been close.

  ‘I nearly killed you, sir. Thank God, the explosion spoilt my aim.’

  ‘Who the hell blew the tanks?’

  ‘I don’t know, but we’re blowing the vault now.’

  Larry came out of the front door of the bank moments later.

  ‘OK. Everything’s set, there’s enough plastic on the front of that thing to demolish a bridge. Keep down when I activate the detonator.’ He quickly attached the two wires to a small box with a handle on the side.

  Rayne watched the rain dripping off the sides of the roof. The explosions at the fuel depot continued to thunder in the distance.

  Larry spun the handle around quickly and then lay close in against the wall, gesturing for the others to do the same.

  ‘For God’s sake, keep your heads right down.’ Then he pushed the plunger down hard.

  A sheet of flame shot through the interior of the bank as the high explosive erupted into life. The front windows were blown out and the doors ripped off their hinges. The metal roof ballooned upwards and then mushroomed out, throwing lethal bits of metal in every direction. The windows in the block of flats opposite were shattered to smithereens.

  The blast obliterated every other noise, and for a moment it seemed as if the rain had stopped. Then there was the sound of falling masonry and burning wood.

  Rayne lifted his head first. His ears were singing. There was another small explosion and he dropped flat again. He wondered if there was anything left of the vault at all. Crawling out, he looked at the charred shell of the Bank of Beira. To his amazement the walls were still standing and much of the roof still hanging in place. He leapt over the wall and into the building, the others following closely.

 
; Rayne was sure the Russians must already be mobilising to move in on the bank. The noise of the fuel tank explosion would have carried to the military base, and now, with the explosion at the bank, the alarm must have been well and truly given. He just hoped it was enough of a diversion to pull some of the troops away from the airport.

  He had to admire the professionalism of Larry’s work. The safe doors were hanging on their hinges but none of the area behind them was damaged at all. He heard Larry speaking from behind him.

  ‘Move it up, the structural damage is very bad. The whole place could cave in on us.’

  They followed Rayne into the main vault, pulling out the large plastic rubbish bags that they had brought with them for storing the bank notes. Rayne said, ‘Remember, only take dollars, pounds or foreign currency, the local stuff is worthless.’

  Rayne moved into the safe-deposit-box area and quickly saw that most of the boxes were unlocked - only a very few were actually in use. Fry’s instruction to destroy everything echoed through his mind. Once he had shot the locks off the boxes, he poured all the contents into a pile, ready to fire it. Even though time was of the essence, he could not help glancing at the documents, some of which were in English, others in Cyrillic script.

  Suddenly he caught sight of Aschaar’s signature - and almost instinctively he stuffed this group of documents inside his jacket. Maybe this was something he could use . . .

  Larry and Mick were stuffing bank notes furiously into their plastic bags while Guy waited outside, ready to warn them the moment anyone showed up. There had been far more foreign currency in the bank than Rayne had expected. He swore silently; the money would be a hindrance. He wished he could just tell them to dump it, but he knew that would be asking too much.

  Mick burst out of the doorway after Rayne and they threw the bulging bags into the back of the jeep. Rayne decided to leave the Peugeot behind. He looked down anxiously at Guy’s watch. Five-fifteen. He had anticipated being out of the bank by five-ten. They were nearly all set now, but where the hell had Larry got to? A shout to his left informed him, in no uncertain terms.