Golden Fox

by Wilbur Smith

  Many of the members of the Derg saw the opportunity to settle old scores and for personal advancement. In a totally unrelated but significant development, the Arab oil-producers doubled the price of oil and held the world to ransom. In Ethiopia the cost of living soared, placing unbearable hardships on a populace already hard hit by famine. There was runaway inflation. Those who were able hoarded food, and those who could not went on strike or rioted and looted the food-shops.

  Many of the young army officers were products of Addis Ababa University, and they led the mutiny of the Army. These rebels formed a revolutionary committee and seized control of the Derg.

  They arrested the prime minister and the members of the royal family and isolated the emperor in his palace. They spread rumours that Haile Selassie had stolen huge sums of public money and transferred them to his Swiss bank account. They organized demonstrations of students and malcontents outside the palace. The mob clamoured for his abdication. The priests of the Coptic Church and the Muslim leaders joined in the chorus of accusation and demands for his abdication and the installation of a people’s democracy.

  The military council now felt strong enough to take the next significant step. Through the Derg they issued a formal declaration deposing the emperor, and sent a deputation of young army officers to arrest him and remove him from the palace.

  As they led him down the palace steps the frail old man remarked quietly: ‘If what you do is for the good of my people, then I go gladly, and I pray for the success of your revolution.’

  To humiliate him they confined him in a sordid little hut on the outskirts of the city, but the common people gathered in their thousands outside the single room to offer their condolences and pledge their loyalty. At the order of the military council the guards drove them away at bayonet point.

  The country was ripe, but it was all teetering in the balance when the Ilyushin touched down at Addis Ababa Airport and taxied to the far end of the field where twenty jeeps and troop-trucks of the Ethiopian army were drawn up to welcome it.

  Ramón was the first man out of the aircraft as the loading-ramp touched the ground.

  ‘Welcome, Colonel-General.’ Colonel Getachew Abebe jumped down from his command-jeep and strode forward to meet him.

  They shook hands briefly. ‘Your arrival is timely,’ Abebe told him, and they both turned and shaded their eyes as they looked into the sun.

  The second Ilyushin made its final approach and touched down. As it taxied towards them, a third and then a fourth gigantic aircraft turned across the sun and one after the other landed.

  As they pulled up in a staggered row and switched off their engines, the men poured out of the cavernous bellies. They were paratroopers of the crack Che Guevara Regiment.

  ‘What is the latest position?’ Ramón demanded brusquely.

  ‘The Derg has voted for Andom,’ Abebe told him, and Ramón looked serious. General Aman Andom was the head of the Army. He was a man of high integrity and superior intelligence, popular with both the Army and the civilian populace. His election as the new leader of the nation came as no surprise.

  ‘Where is he now?’

  ‘He is in his palace – about five miles from here.’

  ‘How many men?’

  ‘A bodyguard of fifty or sixty . . .’

  Ramón turned to watch his paratroopers disembarking.

  ‘How many members of the Derg stand for you?’

  Abebe reeled off a dozen names, all young left-wing army officers.

  ‘Tafu?’ Ramón demanded, and Abebe nodded. Colonel Tafu commanded a squadron of Russian T-53 tanks, the most modern unit in the Army.

  ‘All right,’ Ramón said softly. ‘We can do it – but we must move swiftly now.’

  He gave the order to the commander of the Cuban paratroopers. Carrying their weapons at the trail, the long ranks of camouflage-clad assault-troops trotted forward and began to board the waiting trucks.

  Ramón took the seat beside Abebe in the command-jeep, and the long column rolled away towards the city. Parched to talcum by drought and fierce sunlight, the red dust rose in a dense cloud behind the column and rolled away on the wind that came down hot from the deserts to the north.

  On the outskirts of the city they met caravans of camels and mules. The men with them watched the column pass without showing any emotion. In these dangerous days since the emperor had been deposed they had become accustomed to the movement of armed men on the roads. They were men from the Danakil desert and the mountains, turbaned Muslims in flowing robes or bearded Copts with bushy hair and broadswords on their belts and round steel shields on their shoulders.

  At an order from Colonel Abebe, the jeep swung on to a side-road and skirted the city, speeding down rutted roads between the crowded flat-roofed hovels. Abebe used the radio, speaking swiftly in Amharic and then translating for Ramón.

  ‘I have men watching Andom’s palace,’ he explained. ‘He seems to have called a meeting of all the officers in the Derg who support him. They are assembling now.’

  ‘Good. All the chickens will be in one nest.’

  The column turned away from the city and sped through open fields. They were bare and desiccated. The drought had left no blade of grass or green leaf. The chalky rocks that littered the earth were white as skulls.

  ‘There.’ Abebe pointed ahead.

  The general was a member of the nobility, and his residence stood a few miles outside the city on the first of a series of low hills. The hills were bare except for the grove of Australian eucalyptus trees that surrounded the palace. Even these drooped in the heat and the drought. The palace was surrounded by a thick wall of red terracotta. At a glance Ramón saw that it was a formidable fortification. It would require artillery to breach it.

  Abebe had read his thoughts. ‘We have surprise on our side,’ he pointed out. ‘There is a good chance that we will be able to drive in through the gate . . .’

  ‘No,’ Ramón contradicted him. ‘They will have seen the aircraft arriving. That is probably why Andom has called his council.’

  Out on a rocky plain between them and the palace, a staff car was speeding towards the open gate.

  ‘Pull in here,’ Ramón ordered, and the column halted in a fold of ground. Ramón stood on the rear seat of the open jeep and focused his binoculars on the gateway in the palace wall. He watched the staff car drive through it, and then the massive wooden gate swung ponderously closed.

  ‘Where is Tafu with his tanks?’

  ‘He is still in barracks, on the other side of the city.’

  ‘How long to get them here?’

  ‘Two hours.’

  ‘Every minute is vital.’ Ramón spoke without lowering his binoculars. ‘Order Tafu to bring his armour in as quickly as possible – but we cannot wait until he arrives.’

  Abebe turned to the radio, and Ramón dropped the binoculars on to his chest and jumped down from the jeep. The commander of the paratroopers and his company leaders gathered around him, and he gave his orders quietly, pointing out the features of the terrain as he spoke.

  Abebe hung up the microphone of the radio and came to join them. ‘Colonel Tafu has one T-53 in the city, guarding the emperor’s palace. He is sending it to us. It will be here in an hour. The rest of the squadron will follow.’

  ‘Very good,’ Ramón nodded. ‘Now describe the layout of the interior of Andom’s palace over there. Where will we find Andom himself?’

  They squatted in a circle while Abebe sketched in the dust, and then Ramón gave his final orders.

  Once again the column moved forward, but now there was a large white flag on the bonnet of the command-jeep, a bed-sheet that fluttered on its makeshift flagpole. The trucks kept in tight formation. The paratroopers were concealed beneath the hoods of the troop-carriers, and all weapons were kept out of sight.

  As they approached the palace a line of heads appeared over the wall above the gate, but the flag of truce had an inhibiting effect and no sho
t was fired.

  The lead jeep drew up in front of the gate, and Ramón assessed its strength. The gate was of weathered teak, almost a foot thick, reinforced with bands of wrought iron. The hinges were rebated into the columns on each side of the gateway. He abandoned any idea of driving a truck through it.

  From the top of the wall twenty feet above them the captain of the guard challenged them in Amharic, and Abebe stood up to reply. They haggled for a few minutes, with Abebe repeating that he had an urgent despatch for General Andom and demanding entrance. The guard shouted back his refusal, and the exchange became heated.

  As soon as Ramón was certain that all the guard’s attention was on the jeep he spoke softly into the two-way radio. The trucks behind the jeep roared forward and then peeled off left and right. They bumped over the rocky ground on each side of the roadway and drew up below the walls. From under the canvas hoods, paratroopers clambered on to the roofs of the vehicles. Ten of them were armed with grappling-hooks which they swung around their heads and then heaved up over the top of the wall. The nylon ropes streamed out behind them and dangled down.

  ‘Open fire!’ Ramón snapped into the radio, and a storm of automatic fire swept the top of the wall, kicking lumps of clay and brick from the rim. The ricochets whined away into the branches of the blue gum trees. The heads of guards disappeared instantly, some of them ducking away but at least one of them hit by a bullet. Ramón saw his helmet spin into the air and the top lift off his skull. A pink mist of blood and brain hung in the air for an instant after he was snatched away.

  Now the paratroopers were swarming up the wall, three or four of them on each dangling rope at the same time. They were as agile as monkeys, and within seconds thirty of them were over and into the palace grounds. There were bursts of automatic fire and the thump of a single grenade. Seconds later the great wooden gate swung open and Ramón urged the jeep-driver forward.

  The bodies of the palace guards lay in the courtyard where they had been shot down. Ramón saw one of his paras huddled beside the gateway clutching his belly with blood oozing through his fingers. The other paras grabbed on to the jeep as it roared forward.

  Ramón was standing behind the 50-calibre Browning heavy machine-gun that was mounted above the driver’s seat. He fired a long raking burst at the remaining guards as they fled like rabbits into the maze of adobe buildings on the far side of the courtyard.

  One of the guards whirled and dropped on his knee. He raised the launcher of the RPG 7 rocket he carried to his shoulder and aimed at the approaching jeep. Ramón swivelled the Browning on to him, but at that moment the front wheels struck one of the corpses and the jeep bounced wildly, throwing his aim high.

  The guard fired the rocket and it whooshed across the open courtyard and hit the jeep full in the centre of the radiator. There was a flash and a roar as the rocket exploded. Although the engine block smothered most of the blast, the front suspension collapsed and the vehicle cartwheeled end over end.

  They were all thrown clear, but the shattered body of the jeep blocked the entrance and the troop-trucks were backed up beyond the open gateway.

  The attack was stalling already, and the defence was rallying. Automatic fire was stuttering from the windows and doorways of the palace building.

  The Cuban paras sprang out of the stationary trucks and rushed forward, but another rocket hissed down the alley facing them. It flashed inches over Ramón’s head, blinding him with smoke, and struck the leading truck, ripping the bonnet open and shattering the windscreen. Diesel fuel spilled from the ruptured tank and ignited with a sullen roar. Black smoke billowed over the courtyard.

  There was shouting and more firing in front of them. Beside Ramón another para was hit and went sprawling.

  Ramón snatched up his machine pistol and waved the attack forward, just as a heavy machine-gun opened up on them from one of the windows. Ramón rolled under the blast of shot and came up against the mud wall directly below the window. The machine-gun was firing over his head, and the muzzle-blast drove in his eardrums.

  Ramón snatched a grenade from his webbing pocket, pulled the pin and went up on one knee to post it through the window. He ducked and covered his ears.

  There was a wild shout, and the machine-gun fell silent. Moments later the grenade exhaled in a fiery breath above his head.

  ‘Come on,’ Ramón yelled again, and led half a dozen paras through the shattered window. The gun had been knocked off its mounting and the floor was wet and slippery with blood.

  It was room-to-room, and hand-to-hand now. The advantage passed to the defenders as they retreated through the maze of rooms and alleys and courtyards, doggedly holding each strongpoint until they were driven from it.

  Slowly the attack lost impetus and, although Ramón threatened and swore and tried to inspire them with his example, they bogged down in the twisting alleys and interconnecting passageways and rooms. He realized that Andom was certainly radioing for reinforcements of loyal troops, and that minutes lost now could mean the defeat and failure of the revolution.

  He heard Abebe’s voice raised angrily, urging his men on in a fog of smoke and dust, and Ramón crawled across to him and seized his shoulder. Face to dusty smoke-grimed face, they shouted at each other to make themselves heard above the cacophony of guns.

  ‘Where is that bloody tank?’

  ‘How long since I called?’

  ‘It’s over an hour.’ Was it that long? It seemed that minutes had passed since the attack began.

  ‘Get back to the radio,’ Ramón yelled. ‘Tell them . . .’

  At that moment they both heard it, the shrill metallic squeal and the rumble of the tracks.

  ‘Come on!’ Ramón lunged to his feet, and they ran together, doubled over, with bullets fluttering in the air around their heads, back through the blood-smeared rooms with walls pocked by bullets and shrapnel.

  As they reached the entrance courtyard the tank butted its way in through the blocked gateway. The turret was reversed, the long 55-millimetre gun-barrel pointed backwards. The carcass of the rocket-shattered jeep was forced forward by the mass of armour and it rolled clear of the gateway. The T-53 burst into the courtyard with its diesels bellowing. The turret was open, the commander’s helmeted head protruded from the hatch.

  Ramón windmilled his right arm in the cavalry signal to advance and pointed into the tangle of alleys and buildings.

  The tank pivoted on its churning steel tracks and crashed into the nearest wall. The mud bricks collapsed before it, and the roof tilted and sagged and buried the T-53 beneath it.

  The tank shook itself free and roared forward. Ramón and his paras poured into the breach it had opened. Walls toppled and timbers crackled as the steel monster crawled forward, tilting and rocking over piles of rubble and human bodies.

  The screams of the defenders rose higher than the uproar, and their firing died away. They came stumbling out of the ruined buildings, throwing down their weapons and raising their arms in surrender.

  ‘Where is Andom?’ Ramón’s throat was rough and sore with the dust and the shouting. ‘We must get him. Don’t let him escape.’

  The general was amongst the last to surrender. Only when the T-53 flattened the thick mud walls of the main hall did he come out with four of his senior officers. There was a blood-soaked bandage around his forehead and over his left eye. His beard was thick with dust and blood, and one of the scarlet tabs was torn from his collar.

  His good eye was fierce. Despite his wound, his voice was firm and his bearing dignified. ‘Colonel Abebe,’ he challenged. ‘This is mutiny and treachery. I am the president of Ethiopia – my appointment was confirmed by the Derg this morning.’

  Ramón nodded to his paratroopers. They seized the general’s arms and forced him to his knees. Ramón opened the flap of his holster and handed his Tokarev pistol to Abebe.

  The colonel placed the muzzle between the captive’s eyes and said quietly: ‘President Aman Andom, in the name
of the people’s revolution, I call upon you to resign.’ And he blew the top off the general’s skull.

  The corpse fell face-forward, splattering custard-yellow brains on to Abebe’s boots.

  Abebe clicked the safety on the Tokarev, reversed it and handed it butt-first to Ramón.

  ‘Thank you, Colonel-General,’ he said.

  ‘I am honoured to have been of service.’ Ramón bowed formally as he accepted the weapon back.

  ‘How many members of the Derg voted for Andom?’ he asked as the column sped back towards Addis Ababa.

  ‘Sixty-three.’

  ‘Then we still have much work to do before the revolution is secure.’

  Abebe radioed ahead to Colonel Tafu’s squadron of T-53 tanks. They were entering from the eastern side of the city, and he ordered them to surround the building that housed the Derg and to train their guns upon it. Elements of the Army were ordered to seal off all foreign embassies and consulates. No legation staff were allowed to leave the premises, for their own safety.

  All foreigners in the country, especially journalists or television personnel, were rounded up and escorted to the airport for immediate evacuation. There were to be no witnesses of what followed.

  Small units of Abebe’s most loyal troops, backed up by Cuban paratroopers, were rushed to the homes of the members of the military council and the Derg who had declared for Andom. They were stripped of weapons and badges of rank, dragged out and thrown into the waiting trucks and driven back to the Derg, where a revolutionary court awaited them in the main assembly-chamber.

  The court consisted of Colonel Abebe and two of his junior officers. ‘You are accused of counter-revolutionary criminal acts against the people’s democratic government. Have you anything to say before sentence of death is passed upon you?’

  They were taken out directly from the trial into the courtyard of the building, placed against the north wall of the chamber and executed by firing squad. The executions were carried out in full view of the revolutionary judges and those prisoners still awaiting trial. The volleys of rifle-fire periodically interrupted the proceedings of the court.