Treasonous

by David Hickson

  The messroom was where our captain allowed us to speak our minds. Beyond these cardboard walls we obeyed his orders without question, we spoke when spoken to, and were an entity that transcended our individual beings. But in the messroom the converse was true. This compact space was where we were people and not soldiers. And this evening we were exhausted, disgruntled people.

  “You’re with me aren’t you, Benny?” asked Brian.

  “You’d be nothing more than common thieves,” said the captain.

  “Better than being hired killers,” said Brian.

  There was a silence between us. We’d travelled this conversational path several times this evening, and the captain had tired of insisting that as soldiers of Her Majesty’s government we were doing Her honourable work. The duplicitous reasons for our presence here had become clear to us all.

  “It’s a step up, from hired killer to common thief,” said Brian. “And that man Breytenbach will be our proud sponsor. Tell me you’re with me, Benny.”

  I said that I was with him. Brian turned to the captain.

  “Captain?”

  “I’ll not stand in your way,” said Captain Chandler. “But it will be a snowy day in hell before I stoop so low as to become a common thief.”

  Twenty-Seven

  Mpumalanga is a region of South Africa that deserves a better name. It sits on the northeastern edge of the country, providing a strip of border with Mozambique, and tucking the independent country of Swaziland under its armpit. It hosts some of the most renowned wildlife parks in the world, and much of it sits up on a high plateau where the air is thin, and the weather unpredictable, fluctuating wildly from bright sunshine to chilling mist in the space of an hour. It was Fat-Boy who told me it deserves a better name because the ‘Place of the Rising Sun’ is only true for the people who happen to find themselves to the west of Mpumalanga.

  “The Zulus,” said Fat-Boy elucidating for those of us who were geographically challenged. “They are the only ones who see the sun rising here. For the Swazis it’s the place of the setting sun, and for us,” he placed a large hand over his heart, “for us Xhosas it’s the ‘Place of Who the Fuck Cares?’”

  “I think it’s a beautiful name,” said Robyn. “Whether the sun is rising or setting.”

  “The route is plotted?” asked Chandler, tiring of the banter.

  “Almost, Colonel,” said Fat-Boy. “I’m running it now.” He turned his attention back to his laptop computer where something that looked like a paper aeroplane was travelling along a pink line superimposed over a map.

  “If we don’t run this test soon it’ll be dark,” said Chandler, with an edge of irritation.

  “Those babies will be airborne in just a few minutes,” said Fat-Boy.

  We were on the elevated wooden terrace of our Timbavati Lodge chalet. Chandler had booked two on the edges of the fenced area which offered the most secluded bush experience. The chalet was built on stilts in the style of a log cabin, and from the terrace we could see beyond the game fence over the treetops of the low-lying Sabie River valley all the way to the slopes of the Drakensberg range. An evening mist was descending into the cushion of trees, and the sun was dropping some burnt sienna into the wash.

  The two Phantom drones were resting like miniature spaceships on a table, and Robyn was checking their battery levels while Fat-Boy uploaded the route to the second one. Their destination was so far away that we needed two so that one could float high and relay joystick commands to the other.

  The slowly blinking red light changed to a solid green and Fat-Boy disconnected the cable and gave the drone a pat with his gloved hand. The odds of both drones returning were slim, and we didn’t want any incriminating fingerprints on their shiny plastic covers.

  “Ready to go,” announced Fat-Boy, and we stood to the side as he fired up the motors on the first one. The drone lifted a metre into the air and then wobbled about a bit as Fat-Boy adjusted the trim on his controls. Then it climbed away from us at an angle and hovered about five metres up.

  “You got picture?” asked Fat-Boy.

  “Clear as a bell,” said Robyn. On the laptop screen we could see an image of the four of us on our terrace. I resisted the temptation to wave.

  “Off she goes then,” said Fat-Boy, and he switched the controls over to the pre-programmed GPS route. The drone climbed up another twenty metres, then hesitated a moment as if it was choosing a direction, tilted itself and sped off towards the setting sun.

  “It’s going all the way?” asked Chandler.

  “As ordered, Colonel.”

  “But it stays high?”

  “They won’t see or hear a thing, Colonel. We’re keeping that surprise for the morning.”

  The second drone was up in the air a few minutes later, and then we settled down in front of the laptop where a split screen showed us the progress of the two drones on a map, beside their camera images.

  “What if they go at different speeds?” asked Robyn. “Won’t they bump into each other?”

  “Different routes, baby,” said Fat-Boy. “You think I’m as dumb as I look?”

  “You’re sure they’re high enough?” asked Chandler.

  Fat-Boy sighed. He had been sending his new toys out on experimental flights all day. But Chandler had been in the municipal offices of Nelspruit, so he’d missed the painstaking elaborations that Fat-Boy had provided us with.

  “They are,” said Robyn on his behalf. “He’s checked the route.”

  “And when they get there, the one stays high?”

  “So high they won’t even know it’s there. Esmeralda goes down low and causes all the trouble, but Shirley stays up high as the relay.”

  “Esmeralda?” said Chandler.

  “He’s named them,” said Robyn and exchanged a warning glance with Chandler. He didn’t pursue it.

  “And the low one you can control?”

  “To some extent,” said Fat-Boy, indicating a joystick attached to the computer. “Through the relay.”

  That seemed to satisfy Chandler, and the questions dried up. We watched the progress of the two drones as they inched their way across the screen.

  “Twelve minutes you say?” asked Chandler.

  “Twelve minutes there, twelve minutes back.”

  “Just about enough time for the wine to breathe. Why doesn’t the Angel open the bottles for us?”

  Chandler had selected a Merlot to accompany the evening meal. I opened a few of the bottles and added some wood to the fire that was crackling in the hearth. We were at nearly seven thousand feet above sea level, and the evening would be a cold one.

  It had not been hard to find Breytenbach’s private game reserve. You don’t spend the equivalent of five million US dollars on your holiday home without a few people noticing. The difficult part had been figuring out how we would get in, a puzzle that was eventually solved for us by a man called Hannes whose wife had recently left him, and who had a penchant for sweet rum, which tended to loosen his tongue. He had been feeling sorry for himself in the little bar of Welverdiend and had welcomed the opportunity of having his tongue loosened by the friendly man with the white hair and British accent who took such an interest in his job as security adviser to some local resorts.

  Breytenbach’s residence appeared through the evening mist as a cluster of twinkling lights. Chandler had been right to push Fat-Boy because the light was failing as our drones arrived in position high above the complex. But there was still enough for us to make out the shapes of the buildings. The large central one was Breytenbach’s personal spot, then another building a brief walk through the trees was his guest house. There were three security buildings, one of which was a control centre, one a gatehouse, and the third a barracks for the private army that kept the area secure.

  Chandler rolled out the plans he’d printed at the municipality that morning and we matched the buildings with the architect’s drawings, while Fat-Boy tested his joystick and had Esmeralda fly slo
w loops, keeping her high and out of earshot of the sentries that were prowling about the place. The lights of the principal building were all burning, confirming that the master was in residence. Daylight was all but gone when Fat-Boy issued the command to bring the drones home, and Chandler, Robyn and I went inside to see if the Merlot lived up to its five-star rating.

  Robyn tested the mobile phone antenna we’d installed, while I put more wood onto the fire and shifted the coals about to get a good flame up. Chandler put on an apron and set about filleting the trout he’d bought from a local fisherman. Fat-Boy sat outside in the cold waiting for his girls to come back.

  “He realises the one isn’t likely to get back?” asked Chandler.

  “It’s why he’s so tetchy,” said Robyn, “you need to give him a bit of space, that’s all.”

  “A bit of space?” said Chandler. “It’s a machine, for god’s sake. Not a close family member.”

  “You know what he’s like,” said Robyn. “Don’t wind him up, Steven. We don’t need any issues.”

  “He’s a goddamn lunatic is what he is,” said Chandler, but he didn’t mention the matter again.

  “He has his own private army,” Chandler reminded us as we looked over the plans of the Breytenbach estate after dinner. We’d been over all this at least a dozen times, but none of us questioned Chandler’s need for repetition. It was a comforting routine. “It’s the army he deploys to the mines,” he said, “so it’s a big one. Over a thousand men altogether, a small portion of them posted here. And not just men; he’s a modern type and has no problem recruiting women as long as they’re prepared to pull the trigger when it comes to that.”

  “This place here,” he indicated the barracks block with a silver mechanical pencil, “is where they stay when they’re posted here. There are up to fifty of them on site at any time. They use the place as a training ground. Outside the perimeter they do the hard stuff. The endurance courses, sniper training, target practice and so forth. It means they can pretty much do what they like in terms of shaping their soldiers because they’re far from prying eyes. And they double up as security for the farm. They’re the same security we encountered at the archives, but these ones have something to prove. They’ve got their training captains watching them.”

  “Not the usual dozy security team,” said Robyn.

  “They’re not,” agreed Chandler. “Highly trained and pumped up. Expect them to be trigger-happy because they’re keen to show the boss how good they are.”

  “Not a walk in the park then,” said Fat-Boy, feeling almost jovial now that both his drones had returned from their test flights.

  “No, but we have many things to our advantage. They’re a mixed bag. Some of them will be green: newbies on their first training. And they have a fast turnover. They do a few weeks here before being shipped back to the mines to look after the rest of BB’s gold. So a few new faces will not be headline news. They’re used to the constant change. And that’s our opportunity.”

  “Which is why we’ve got the fancy dress,” I said.

  “The full kit,” confirmed Chandler. “Not the lightweight version we had in the archives.”

  “And this here,” said Fat-Boy placing a sausage of a finger onto a room with a large x marked in red felt-tip pen, “is his private study?”

  “It is,” said Chandler. “That is the focus of our attention.”

  “Because we need the alarm.”

  “That’s correct. As Hannes pointed out,” a slight grimace at the memory of his long evening listening to the inebriated drivel of the recently cuckolded security adviser, “this is the one room that BB has armed at all times.”

  “Not even the gold.”

  “Correct. The place was not designed for high security storage. It is illegal for him to keep this much gold on his premises. Which is why all they have is a big door with an electronic lock and an alarm on it. And two disinterested guards just waiting for a distraction. The extra security is being installed next week.”

  “And this,” said Fat-Boy, shifting the sausage to an adjacent larger square, “is where the big door is, where he’s put the gold?”

  “Correct. One floor below, the entrance is round the back because the place is built on a slope, you don’t even know there’s a lower floor until you drive around.”

  “And we will have only a few minutes,” said Robyn.

  “Indeed.” Chandler stared intently at the plans like they were a chessboard, and he was thinking several moves ahead. The entrance to the underground storage area was a narrow driveway. Not the kind of place you want to get stuck in while members of a small private army demonstrate their sharpshooting skills.

  “Timing is critical,” said Chandler. “Give me the sequence Fat-Boy.”

  “We trigger the alarm,” said Fat-Boy, “then we blow the power.”

  “Slow down,” said Chandler. “We must make sure that alarm is disabled before you blow the power.”

  “Roger that, Colonel. We trigger the alarm in the study. They disable it, then we blow the power.”

  “Good. Then the Angel provides us with a distraction when the alarm is disabled,” said Chandler. “Pulls the guards away. The backup generator takes sixty seconds to come on-line. The system will arm automatically when the power comes back.”

  “Which means you have sixty seconds to open that door,” I said.

  “We only need ten. It’s an electronic lock, Hannes was clear about that. Without power, it’s a matter of sliding the door open. They haven’t brought in the fancy security yet.”

  “And the alarm on the storeroom door won’t arm if it is already open,” said Fat-Boy. “So no alarm when they enable it again.”

  “By which time they’ll be too busy to worry about a storeroom door failing to arm,” I said.

  Chandler nodded. “The security team don’t know what has been stored down there. They won’t bother.”

  “And your B-plan, Colonel,” said Robyn. “You will have called the army already?”

  “I’ll make the call to the military base ahead of time,” said Chandler. “Before we go in.”

  “What happens if they send a police van?” said Robyn. “We can get out, but Ben will be trapped.”

  “You don’t send a police van to deal with a private army,” said Chandler. “You send a bigger army. They’ll come alright, just a matter of when. Gabriel will be fine.”

  “And we meet here,” said Fat-Boy placing his finger on a small square on the outskirts of the property. “The outdoor sauna and jacuzzi? Why here?”

  “It’s the last place they’ll look,” said Chandler. He looked at each of us in turn. “Are we ready then? We have our A-B-C’s?”

  “I want to be with Ben,” said Robyn.

  “The Angel will do just fine on his own,” said Chandler. “We don’t change things now.”

  Robyn was looking at me with her dark eyes. “We’ve got our A-B-C’s worked out, Colonel, but Ben has no exit. You know he doesn’t.”

  “Gabriel can look after himself,” said Chandler.

  “It makes sense for me to be with him. One of us is too obvious as a distraction, they won’t buy it. It won’t give you enough time. It needs to be convincing.”

  “Gabriel has his reasons for going in there,” said Chandler. “You know he does. We’ve been through this.”

  “I won’t get in his way,” said Robyn. “Trust me on this, Colonel. I need to be with him.”

  Chandler looked at me. I was still watching Robyn, whose dark eyes were holding steady on me. When Robyn decided on something, there was very little anyone could do to change her mind. There was a moment of silence filled by the frogs from the river below the cabin.

  “That’s okay with me, Colonel,” I said. “I’ll pair up with Robyn on this.”

  “I know what you’re doing,” said Robyn as we shared a cigarette on the terrace of our own wooden cabin. “I can read your mind, Ben. Don’t you know that? It’s why we’re so connec
ted.”

  “I can’t read yours,” I said. “You’re a complete mystery to me.”

  “Can’t you?” Robyn turned her head and considered me at an angle. The sound of Fat-Boy gargling came to us through the still night. Chandler had insisted that we turn in early and get some sleep before the big day. “You like to think of me as a mystery, perhaps,” said Robyn. “But I’m not.”

  “If you know what I’m doing, what is it?”

  “You want me to say it? Out loud? That you plan to kill him?”

  The light on the terrace of Fat-Boy and Chandler’s cabin turned off and the sudden darkness smothered us.

  “It’s obvious Ben. I know about the history you and the Colonel have with Breytenbach.”

  Sounds of the frogs in the valley below us built up like a chorus to fill the silence.

  “So, having read my mind with regard to my intentions,” I said, “you will stop me from fulfilling them. Is that why you wanted Chandler to change the plans?”

  “I’m not going to stop you from killing him, Ben. I have a feeling you will need me there with you.”

  “I will?”

  Robyn leaned towards me and kissed me. Not a small kiss. Not a dry, sensible, reserved kiss. She pulled back, and her eyes studied me.

  “You will,” she said. “Sometimes we need each other.”

  Esmeralda and Shirley departed at oh six hundred hours the next day. Fat-Boy had replaced their batteries, tightened all the screws he could find, applied a little oil to the rotors, and even drawn a smiley face onto Esmeralda with some lipstick he stole from Robyn.

  “What the hell you do that for?” asked Chandler.

  “She’ll go down smiling,” said Fat-Boy.

  “Clean it off. Poor security.”

  “They’re not going to trace the lipstick,” said Fat-Boy, and left the smiley face there. Robyn gave Chandler a stern look as she came out with the hot chocolate.