I realized there was a lot more to the story, but obviously Kowalski was not saying more.
Nobody carried rough uncut diamonds around in a briefcase through an airport in South Africa. Without a licence, possession of uncut diamonds was a serious offence. Kowalski didn’t strike me as somebody with a gemstone trading licence! Maria’s outburst had forced Kowalski to divulge what he had: the man had been taken by surprise and considering his present predicament, was certainly a man in need of assistance.
“Well, if I was you I’d hide those, and very quickly too. If we escape, you can always devise some plan to get back here. We’re right on an airfield and it should be easy enough to recover the cases. Christ, if the rebels, and I mean either UNITA or MPLA, find these on us, we’re good as dead. Any patrol finding us and opening those will assume they belong to us and are theirs for the taking... and they wouldn’t want any witnesses around, know what I mean?” I gestured vehemently, hoping he would see my concern.
From their expressions it was clear that they both understood what I was implying.
“Would you come back here and fetch them?” Kowalski asked.
I had to chuckle, the man was persistent.
“The price would have to be right, but I don’t want to think about that now!”
“We would pay well.”
It dawned on me that while I was just putting forward a possibility, Kowalski was quite serious.
“Hell, Kowalski, let’s just think about getting home first, okay?”
We found a spot on the banks of the river’s flood plain, a small clearing surrounded by big trees, just off the south-eastern end of the runaway. It was a spot that would present no difficulty in finding again, a hundred yards from a burnt-out Russian tracked personnel-carrier that appeared to have hit a mine, its one track missing. Clearly, this had to have happened a good while back as the vehicle was already badly weathered.
Digging a hole was easy, as the area was completely devoid of stone. We managed to break the hard topsoil crust with a branch cut off a tree with a pocketknife, and dug a hole about two feet deep. Kowalski placed the briefcases in the hole. We meticulously noted the exact position of the cache relative to the trees, the runway, and the personnel carrier. He filled the hole and then spread twigs and grass over the disturbed ground to hide the spot.
“Okay, let’s move away from here and get to a position where we can keep the aircraft under observation without being seen ourselves,” I said.
Chapter Four
The noon sun beat down on us. We were concealed below a large stunted bush with a wide canopy of green, which afforded us a view of the airstrip, which danced in the heat that rose from the ground. Kowalski and I had dragged a few branches to below the bush to further camouflage our position. We were not concerned with what lay behind us - that was Zambian territory and nothing was about to cross from there; the Zambian locals considered any forages into Angolan territory far too dangerous, what with patrols and landmines.
The wreck still smouldered, tendrils of black smoke drifting upwards into the sky. The bushfire had burnt itself out; the bush and savannah were not yet dry enough to sustain the flames. It would only burn well in the winter, after the rainy season had ended.
I realized that we could not stay much longer. We desperately needed water and to move towards the river would be to reveal ourselves. Maria had warned us that the presence of MPLA patrols made it too dangerous. She was certain that it was one of these patrols that had shot the aircraft down, and that they were bound to come and investigate. She added that she believed UNITA would have launched a pursuit operation in the hope of engaging the MPLA patrols.
Maria was an enigma. I wondered how she fitted into the realm of things. She seemed to be extremely well-informed about UNITA, the MPLA, and their movements. I just could not understand what a white woman was doing in this area. Surely the CIA would not send a woman into an African bush operation?
“We soon need to move towards the river,” I said lying prone on the ground. She lay next to me, Kowalski was a few yards behind us.
“Wait, we can only do that after sunset. I’m sure somebody will still arrive, just be patient. They can’t ignore a plane of this size coming down.”
She was right.
About two that afternoon, a troop of men emerged from the bush at the other end of the runway. They moved down the strip in single file, spaced out at about fifteen to twenty yard intervals with assault rifles at the ready. As they got closer, I saw that most wore dark berets.
“They’re UNITA,” Maria whispered before I could say anything.
“Thank God for that,” Kowalski said with a sigh of relief.
“Let’s wait first. I don’t think we should reveal ourselves yet,” she cautioned.
I said nothing, letting my silence indicate that I agreed.
Once the troop was a beam of the wreckage, they turned off the strip and approached the smouldering hulk of the aircraft. I noticed that they established a perimeter guard around the scene, obviously wary, not feeling safe. After a while, the men returned to the airstrip, looking around.
“They’ve found no burnt bodies in the plane and are wondering where the survivors are. See, they are looking at the tracks on the runway. They’ll find us soon enough, they’ve got the best trackers in the world,” I whispered to her
“Okay, maybe we should show ourselves - they’re UNITA. Kowalski remember; don’t mention your briefcases - we don’t know what they know,” she said.
I crawled slowly from under the bush and raised myself, my arms extended above my head. Maria and Kowalski followed. This stopped the troop in its tracks about two hundred yards away, and they all raised their rifles. We remained motionless and silent. One of the men moved forward, followed by another two soldiers who took up position behind him and slowly moved closer until only a few yards separated us. They wore dark green uniforms over which webbing was draped, the pouches attached to the webbing bulging with magazines and grenades.
The leading man was obviously an officer, the boards on the epaulettes of his shirt revealing some sort of insignia. He also wore an automatic in a holster strapped to his side. A pair of dark aviator sunglasses hid his eyes. A rather smartly turned-out individual, I thought.
His subordinates were scruffy, their uniforms threadbare, their boots worn, some wore only sandals, some obviously still teenagers. All carried AK47’s except for two, one of whom was carrying a Russian RPG and the other an American Stinger shoulder-operated ground-to-air rocket launcher.
“Are you from the plane?” the officer asked in Portuguese.
“Yes, I’m the pilot, these are my passengers,” I replied also in Portuguese, although not quite so fluently.
The officer visibly relaxed. He looked at Maria.
“I know you. I saw you in Jamba - you’re with the Americans,” he said.
“Yes,” she acknowledged.
“What happened?”
“I think we were hit by a missile,” I replied.
The officer nodded. “MPLA,” he said matter-of-factly.
”It seems so. Have you any water?” I asked.
The officer called a trooper who approached. He had a large canister strapped to his back. He produced a metal mug. We three drank thirstily.
“Have you got any weapons and stuff?” the officer asked.
I merely shook my head.
“We are going to take you back to Jamba - it’s about thirty-five miles. Please take care, this area is full of mines, you’re lucky that you haven’t set one off. Please walk in single file and follow in the footsteps of him in front of you. Keep a good distance, about ten to fifteen yards from him. If he puts his foot on one, you don’t want to share his fate, okay? Do you understand?”
In concert, we nodded our heads to indicate t
hat we understood.
It was now about mid-afternoon. We set off in single file, all obeying the officer’s instructions to the letter. He had sent scouts ahead and the troop followed rapidly along a barely discernible track, the going relatively easy in the flat terrain.
We must have covered half the distance, with the sun was ready to set when a halt was called in an omaramba. This is a dry riverbed, a wide shallow indentation in the flat ground, which fills with water only after heavy rains, which then flows into the Cuano River.
The landscape was bathed in grey, the orange streak left by the setting sun indicating the west. The troops carefully checked the selected camp area for mines before the men spread out. Perimeter guards were posted.
We three collapsed to the ground beneath one of the large gallery trees along the omaramba’s banks. We were exhausted, having had little or no sleep since the previous day. The UNITA officer saw to it that we were supplied with two ground sheets and two thin khaki blankets, apologising that it was all he could spare. He then also gave us a canteen of water and three vacuum-packed ration packs, which contained a vile-tasting concoction of pasta and meat sauce plus biscuits.
I inspected the unappetizing goo contained in the thick transparent plastic package.
“Probably some expired stuff that Trichardt picked up somewhere and sold to Savimbi making a bloody fortune out of the sale,” I commented mischievously.
Kowalski gave me a dirty look. Maria giggled. Still, we devoured the meal hungrily.
Afterwards Kowalski wandered away.
“I’ve been wondering about you. You must be CIA?” I said, looking at Maria. She did not reply which I took to be an affirmation. I thought I should put her at ease.
“Look, I’m South African, I fought the MPLA and the Cubans, we’re on the same side.”
“You know I still have to say, no comment.”
A true spook, I thought, she wasn’t going to let on to a thing.
“Sure, I just thought that given the circumstances, we could at least talk to one another. I’m just curious to know why you didn’t fly out on one of your own aircraft. You guys regularly fly into Jamba. I mean, I’ve seen your crowd there often enough in the past.”
“They don’t fly in that often anymore. The tripartite agreement they are negotiating between the warring factions, giving independence to Namibia, will change things. They’ve brokered a partial ceasefire, if that’s what you want to call it. The war will stop, the people will go to the polls, and the Cubans will withdraw,” she said matter-of-factly.
I threw my head back and guffawed. The Americans could be so naive at times!
“God, I can’t believe you all believe that. Savimbi wants to be president of Angola, and he really doesn’t give a damn as to how he achieves this. Besides, he’ll never hand his diamonds over to the government, no matter what!” I said, my voice full of scorn.
“You may be right,” she said quietly, “But I hope you are wrong.”
“Christ! You Americans are so gullible, believing there can be peace between the MPLA and UNITA - never going to happen! I know these people, I spent long enough in this war in this godforsaken place. God, this war has already cost well over a million lives.” I spat with annoyance.
She looked at me, a sad expression on her face.
“You South Africans are all the same; you can’t see any good in the blacks.”
“That’s not true!” I hissed but she was right. The whites merely went through the motions, pretending to accommodate the blacks. That was all bullshit; the majority of white South Africans were not ready to assimilate with the blacks.
Suddenly there was a flash and a loud explosion nearby. The shockwave blasted over us, breaking twigs and leaves from the trees.
At first, I thought it a mortar hit, but no other explosions followed. I then heard a loud wail pierce the air, coming from where the explosion had taken place. We did not move, afraid that we could be mistaken for whomever and some trigger-happy troops could open fire on us in the dark.
A few minutes later, the officer appeared out of the darkness.
“It’s your man,” he said. At first, I did not understand what the man meant, and then it dawned on me. Somehow, Kowalski had to be involved. I sprang to my feet.
“What happened?” I asked.
“I’m sorry; he stood on an anti-personnel mine. It blew his leg off. He’s bleeding badly and we’ve no medic with us. He should not have wondered away from the camp,” the officer replied, shaking his head resignedly.
“Oh my God.” Maria said sinking to the sand, sitting on her haunches, dropping her head into her hands.
A feeling of horror swept over me. By the time the officer and I got to Kowalski, the man was already dead, having rapidly lost blood when his femoral artery was severed. The sand was soaked in blood. I noticed distractedly that his left arm had also been virtually blown-off, only attached by a piece of flesh. I felt the bile rise in my throat.
I hunkered down next the mutilated body and looked up at the stars, overcome by a feeling of abject shock and horror.
“Fuckin’ hell,” I whispered and then exhaled a long drawn-out sigh. I’d been here before; the place was cruel, brutal, and uncompromising.
“There’s nothing more we can do now. Go back to the woman... my men will bury him here,” the officer said, placing a hand on my shoulder.
I carefully retraced my steps and returned to Maria, dropping to the ground next to her, my mind numb And I unable to think clearly.
“He’s dead,” I said, “A mine blew him to bits.”
Maria’s hand flew to her mouth, her face an expression of shock, her eyes wide.
“I’m sorry,” I said, realizing how callous my statement was. “I didn’t mean to put it to you like that. Apparently, he wandered off, probably to relieve himself, no more than twenty yards from the perimeter. They say there are millions of mines in this country.”
There was nothing more we could do. We were alone with our own thoughts.
We lay down on the groundsheets, each with a blanket. In the distance and through the quiet of the bush, we could hear the sound of a shovel as the rebels dug a hole in the omaramba in which to place Kowalski’s body. It was macabre and so senseless. My mind was a maelstrom of distorted thoughts. Christ! I thought - Kowalski’s body wasn’t even cold! This had to be as bad as it gets. Finally, exhaustion overcame me and I dropped off into a dead sleep.
We arrived at Jamba by the next afternoon. I never wanted to walk in Angola again. After what had happened to Kowalski, the trek through the bush had been a terrifying ordeal, our eyes continuously glued to the ground trying to ensure that we too did not accidentally step on a mine.
An immense sense of relief swept over me when entered the camp. Maria walked up from behind and grabbed my arm, smiling for the first time in a long while, her expression telling me that she felt as I did.
The officer took me before the camp commander, and I had to relate in finest detail the events that took place after our take-off. The senior officer asked me what had happened to the briefcases that Kowalski had carried. I feigned an air of indifference and said that as far as I knew he had abandoned them in the aircraft. I stated that I had not seen Kowalski with the cases when he fled from the burning wreck. I added that I could only assume that these had been destroyed in the fire. I told the officer that it had to be realized that there had been no time to save these or any other personal effects: the aircraft was about to explode. While telling him this, I wondered whether they had already questioned Maria, and what she had said or would say. I had not seen her since we’d been back at camp.
“Did Kowalski ever discuss the briefcases with you or indicate what these contained?” the officer asked.
I did my best to stare blankly at the officer for a second or two
before replying.
“No. We hardly spoke to each other at all,” I said with what I hoped was a quizzical expression on my face.
The officer seemed satisfied and dismissed me.
Four days later a DC3 Dakota arrived from South Africa piloted by another ex-Air Force pilot who I knew. He was one of Trichardt’s other regular hired pilots. Maria suddenly appeared and boarded the empty aircraft with me, we sharing the two jump seats in the now bare cargo hold.
We said little until the aircraft crossed into Botswana and the pilot took it to its nominated flight level, ten thousand feet above sea level.
“What did you say about the briefcases?” she asked quietly.
There was no chance of being overheard. These aircraft were not sound insulated, the drone of the engines reverberating through the fuselage.
I stared at her for a moment. “Nothing” I said.
“Nor did I.”
Neither of us said anything for a long while.
“Are you going to mention what happened to these to Kowalski’s boss?” she asked finally.
That took me by surprise.
“That may depend on what you expect me to say,” I finally replied having let a few seconds elapse. Her mention of Kowalski’s boss intrigued me.
She did not reply but stared at her hands in her lap. She then finally spoke.
“You know that they contained millions in dollars and diamonds?”
“Really?” I replied sarcastically, with a pretence of surprise, but smiling. I realized that she did not quite know how to get her view on the matter over to me; she was obviously afraid that I would be appalled by her thoughts.
“You think we should keep the briefcases a secret between us, don’t you?” I ventured.
“Yes.” She replied immediately, turning to look at me, her dark eyes wide, assessing me, trying to interpret my reaction.
“So do I,” I said, then quickly added. “That’s agreed then. Let’s not discuss it any further. We believe these were destroyed in the crash when Kowalski abandoned them in the aircraft - agreed?”
Diamonds Are But Stone Page 4
