Authors: Christopher Sherlock
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Michael and I have planned this operation very carefully, but things always do go wrong however good your planning, so we’ve made provision for that too. Now, when this is over you’re never to mention it again - not to wives, girlfriends, mates, anybody. Part of the reason why you’ve been chosen is that you’re all known for your ability to keep your mouths shut.’
Rayne paused for a moment. He wanted to make sure that the secrecy element sank well and truly home.
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For the rest, good luck and bon voyage. Enjoy your holiday in Beira.’
The drone of the two enormous Hercules transporters was deafening. They landed precisely within the flares that Rayne had set out. It took five minutes to get all the men and equipment on board and then they flew off into the darkness. Soon they were heading towards the Mozambique border. Inside Rayne’s plane was the jeep with a recoil-less cannon, as he had requested, plus a giant army truck painted in Soviet livery.
Rayne made his way towards the cockpit, to get the instructions he needed from the pilot. The giant hold felt like a subterranean cavern that shook every time the plane hit turbulence, and after this the cockpit was strangely comforting. Rayne saw the crew-cut head of an enormous man hunched over the controls. He turned as Rayne came closer, and Rayne saw that his hand moved instinctively to the .45 strapped to his side. No one, evidently, was taking any chances on this one.
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Hallo, Max.’
The pilot stared at him dumbly till Rayne realised that he would have to yell to be heard over the noise of the engines.
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Max. I’m Captain Rayne Gallagher.’
The man took his extended hand and squeezed it in his giant paw.
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Hi, Captain. You’re fucking crazy. Absolutely fucking crazy.’ Rayne was silent.
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Listen, buddy, and listen good.’ The American’s tone was friendly. ‘I fly into that fucking place twice every goddamn week and I’m still alive. That’s not a country beneath us, it’s a cesspit of war and goddamn violence. Nobody gives a fuck down there. If you don’t like the look on someone’s face, you just blow them away. Maputo is half sane and Beira is barely there. Don’t ask me how I know, we just have to keep on supplying and this is my job. I get paid for being stupid. Just like you do. Sorry, you get paid for being fucking mad.
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You’ll drop in the dark. Don’t worry, I checked out the area last week, it’s quite clear. Keep your legs together and you’ll still have your balls with you when you touch the ground. The drop zone is a long way from habitation and you shouldn’t have any trouble. They won’t be expecting you. Here . . .’
He handed him a piece of paper. Rayne opened it and saw a very accurately drawn map, showing the precise location of the car he was going to pick up after landing. The map even included precise compass-bearings, so there was no way he could get lost. He was about to thank Max but the man didn’t give him the opportunity.
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Don’t bother, buddy, save your breath for a prayer. There’s half the Soviet airforce outside Beira at the moment, one sniff of trouble and they’ll be on you like a pack of angry timber wolves. Don’t know what’s happened to the world. Ten or fifteen years ago the good ol’ USA would have been there, blown the bastards out of the sky. Now they can get away with murder. I’d like to take my M16 into the United Nations, give those fuckers a taste of the real world. They’ll get it when the bloody Reds take over the globe, then they won’t be able to sit in endless fuckin’ meetings all day.’
Rayne was taken aback. He’d had no idea that there was such a large Soviet presence in Beira. After Max had finished his tirade Rayne asked him another question. ‘How long have the Russian aircraft been in there?’
Max shot him a quick sideways glance. ‘They don’t tell you fuck-all. Hey, I’ve surprised you. Look, they’ve been coming in for the past two weeks. Maybe it’s part of some manoeuvre, I don’t know. A lot of equipment is being off-loaded, a lot of planes are on the ground. Reminds me of Vietnam, like they’re preparing for an assault. Strange thing is, I can’t understand where. I can’t see them leaping into Rhodesia now the Brits are in there successfully buggering things up; it would provoke too many people. But who am I to know, I just ferry nutcases like you in and out of this pit.’
Rayne was patient. Max could be a mine of useful information if primed properly - and once they were down on the ground it would be a lot harder to gauge what was going on.
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Are there a lot of Russians in Beira itself?’
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Hard to tell, but I don’t think so. The guys are pretty yellow, don’t want to catch any nasty diseases from the locals. Also don’t want to create a bad impression, I guess. This is all thumb-suck stuff, you understand, I’ve never been an on-the-ground operative like you. We’ll get you out OK, just as long as you make it to the pick-up point.
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It pays to keep your mouth shut in this part of the world. The trick for you lot is to lie low until you’re gonna strike. They’ll never notice you’re around - they won’t be expecting you. The Rhodesians would never dare to hit them when they’ve got all that heavy air support, and who else could they possibly think would come down on them?’
He roared with laughter, but Rayne felt it difficult to share in his amusement. The heavy build-up of Russian personnel meant that his attack would have to be faster and more efficient than he’d originally planned. He must let Michael know the moment they landed. Michael was in the other plane - two of them on the same plane would be inviting disaster.
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Have I got you worried, Captain Gallagher?’ Max’s voice interrupted his thoughts.
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No, you’ve just given me some useful information. I’ll have to be a lot more careful than I’d thought.’
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You’re a cool bastard, Captain. That I’ll say for you.’
Rayne went back into the hold and wondered how cool he’d be once they were on the ground.
He paced heavily along the side of the field, and occasionally he nodded his head knowingly - a thickset man with a white freckled skin and wispy red hair. Eventually he came back to the holidaymaker who’d first stumbled across the place.
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Shit, man, this certainly does look like the army. They laid out flares for a plane to come in by. Very professionally laid out, as well. Now let’s have a look at the camp.’
The camp was deserted. Spotlessly clean, not a scrap of paper or a broken bottle to be seen, and the huts were in immaculate condition. Even the ground outside had been swept. Major Piet ‘Iron Man’ Viljoen’s face was looking more and more concerned.
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I don’t know, man. I really don’t know. There’s more to this, that’s for sure.’
He moved away from the huts and began to search in the surrounding bush. Again he found nothing. Then he walked to the track that led out of the camp and nodded his head.
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Crafty fucking bastards. Another day and no one would have known. You were correct that this was the place, Mr Retief, but these guys don’t remind me of the regular South African Army. They’d never go to all this effort to cover up their tracks. Maybe it’s an elite unit. Fuck, whoever runs this outfit has got his men well disciplined, I’ve never seen a place so well cleaned up. There isn’t a single bloody clue that they’ve been here.
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There are no tracks leading out of here, so they came by road but they didn’t leave that way. Must have been a bloody Hercules that took them all out. It doesn’t make sense unless they didn’t want to be seen or known by anyone. If you ask me, something funny’s going on. I think you and your friend were very lucky you didn’t bump into these men.’
The other man shivered, then walked quickly back to the car, anxious to leave the place.
Major ‘Iron Man’ Viljoen scratched the stubble on his chin. Whoever these bastards were, he’d sure as hell find out.
Rayne plunged headlong into the blackness, screaming towards the earth. The cold air rushed past his face, pushing his hair back like a powerful hair-dryer. He immediately pushed out his legs and arms so that he was spread-eagled against the air, gaining control over his fall. He could see no one else in the icy blackness and he didn’t expect to. All he did now was concentrate.
In a way, this was the worst part - not knowing where one was going, hoping like hell that when the ground came up there was nothing in the way and no one waiting. As a practice he found this sort of jump exhilarating, in reality it was always quite terrifying. If he broke an ankle now, he would be useless to the whole mission. Instead of the regulation jump-boots he was wearing a light pair of running shoes, his personal preference. They would give him the opportunity to get away quickly once he was on the ground, and leave very few tracks.
He was glad to be away from the mad American and his plane. The man’s cynicism had bothered him; it was the sort of cancer that got you killed in action very quickly. He pulled at the ripcord that lay packed against his stomach and felt the rush of the shute careering up above him.
His body was jerked upwards as the giant expanse of material above him billowed out and slowed his fall. Suspended in the air, this was the last peace he would know till it was all over. His mind ran quickly over everything they had brought, searching for something that might have been forgotten or overlooked. He thought of Sam for a fleeting moment. Then the ground came towards him very fast.
He hit the dirt hard and rolled over to one side, forming his body into a bundle. Immediately, he was up, checking that the safety on his Browning was off and glancing round quickly. He bundled the shute into a ball, the relief of having made a good landing lasting little more than seconds.
For the moment it would be best to sit still and listen to the others coming down. The vehicles and equipment must have landed minutes earlier, they would be lying somewhere in the bush around him. The biggest worry was that they might have landed in a very open area, contrary to their plans. He heard a noise to his right. Another man coming down. By the sound of it he had landed perfectly too. Rayne heard him pulling in his shute, and used the pre-arranged call-sign.
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Hallo, my brother?’
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I am not your brother, I am your son.’
Fine. It was Guy Hauser. At least one member of his team was on the ground in perfect condition.
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Guy, I’m keeping still till the light comes up. I don’t want to do anything till I know exactly where we are.’
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Good, sir. I’ll stay here with you.’
Rayne liked this quiet, ruthless man. The iron discipline of the Legion had become a part of his soul, and he was the perfect soldier even if he was not the perfect man. In the distance came the sound of another man landing. Soon they would all be down, nineteen men in a hostile country where the gun was law and little else mattered.
General Vorotnikov did not find the major’s barrack-room humour in the least bit funny. How such a common man could have risen to such high command was beyond him.
The General had decided to set about a thorough inspection of the military installations and airforce back-up in Beira. He had not been disappointed; the force was well organised, and carefully disguised to escape detection by aerial reconnaissance. His black colleagues were beaming, this sort of fire-power had never been seen in southern Africa before - the fighter-bombers would annihilate the Rhodesian Airforce in a matter of minutes.
He was pleased that there had been no comment from the West so far. The build-up had been achieved in complete secrecy and there was little chance that anyone could have known what it was all about. They had air-lifted in crack combat troops and heavy artillery. Not that the troops would be used unless things got really out of hand, and Vorotnikov doubted that that would happen. With Salisbury a mass of flames, the Parliament building destroyed and most of the key white leaders captured, the people would be a terrified herd, easy to control. The new People’s Republic of Zimbabwe would be declared within twenty-four hours while a stunned world looked on. Certain key whites would be quickly executed for crimes against humanity. Western politicians and journalists would be held for a long time, just to rub salt into the wounds of the Americans and the British.
The hands of the Western super-powers would be tied - his underground agents assured him that no Western army would dare to interfere in Mozambique or Rhodesia, with the memories of Vietnam still so fresh in their minds. But meanwhile, left-wing politicians all over the world would urge their governments to acknowledge the new Zimbabwe, and the coup would be heralded as a victory for the oppressed peoples of Africa, an overthrowing of colonialism and the beginning of a new era of equality. Immediately, behind the scenes, the banks, heavy industries and mines would be nationalised. Key figures in commerce would be arrested for exploitation of the people before the Revolution. The men he was speaking to now would take command within the next few days. All wages would be dropped to an equal level, and people would be asked to ‘volunteer’ their services to the new republic.