Night of the Black Bastards (An Action-Packed Thriller) (34 page)

“I have no idea what OpSec is but I wouldn’t worry about it as I have heard at least three different versions of what’s happening. As far as the rumours go you are chasing uSathane into Zimbabwe, Cape Town, Durban, Botswana, Namibia and/or Angola!”

“And for what reason do we chase him down? According to the whispers that is?”

“Well to kill him of course. Why, what else would there be, what other possible reason?”

“No other reason. But there is more. As you know this operation isn’t going to be completely legal – not that it is illegal but it’s not an official police sanctioned operation. The legality of it all rests in a grey area. And after the event, if we are successful, I will also make a move overseas… to London. Amos has offered me a position within his private security firm and I would head his operation there.”

“That’s wonderful news Mikey – I know how much you have wanted to travel. To see the world and of course to take advantage of your dual citizenship. I am happy for you” said Lisa but Night could see the sadness of her being. She knew Night was going to break it off. It made sense and she knew it did. He would be better off as a single, independent operator. It hurt but she always encouraged Mike to live his dreams and swore to herself that she would never impose a restrictive or a selfish demand-oriented love on him.

“Isn’t there something else?” she inquired.

“What do you mean?” Night answered nervously, feeling hot under the collar now.

Lisa looked at him quizzically and with great love and a tilted head. “Your promotion. I saw the General at work and he let me in on the secret. Captain Michael Night!” she said with a magnificent smile.

“Ah yes, I almost forgot. Thank you Lis. It’s not official yet, so as far as I am concerned Sergeant I am still.”

“Well let’s drink to it anyway shall we?” And she raised her glass and they clinked them together gently. “To Captain Michael Night.”

Lisa held the glass to her lips but before she drank in the wine a thought stuck her.

“But I don’t really understand, how can you be going to London to work with Amos and be promoted to Captain at the same time?”

Night enjoyed the wine and drained his glass. Carefully he took the decanter and refilled his glass, he offered Lisa some more but she declined. He was feeling even more nervous than he had anticipated.

“It’s all part of the plan. I will do both. I will move to London, set myself up there and travel between the two countries. The role here as Captain won’t be a demanding one and I will be able to handle my responsibilities via email when need be. I will also juggle my leave and plan my diary carefully. I am looking forward to it Lis and am excited for the future but…”

“But you are not sure how we will work in the new… arrangement.”

“Yes. Something like that. It’s the only thing that is worrying me. That’s holding me back and making me uncertain to whether or not I am doing the right thing. You know I will be in more danger now and will be travelling a lot. I won’t be able to offer you as much time as I would like to or security…. so….”

“I know Mike. It’s fine. I understand. It makes sense you know. You will be better off without me.” Lisa stood up to walk to the bathroom her eyes now swelling with tears.

Before she could walk away Night took her right arm with his left as he gently lowered himself to the ground kneeling next to the table . His right hand ventured into his suit jacket pocket and produced a small velvet box. Lisa, dumbfounded, stopped motionless and stared at her lover. Her jaw dropped leaving her mouth wide open. A passing waiter witnessed what was happening and stopped serving his table to look at the happening. Soon the guests of that table joined in and watched with glee. Night looked around and noticed the people’s eyes intent upon him. He felt nervous and light headed. He looked up at Lisa and was struck by her angelic beauty.

“Wow, I really should look at you from this angle more often. You are so beautiful my Lisa.” Night looked at her adoringly. Seemingly forgetting his purpose. The waiter cleared his throat loudly.

The nudge of encouragement worked and Michael snapped out of his brief trance and opened the velvet box to display a diamond engagement ring, elegantly crafted with three separate stones.

“Will you be my wife, my lady?”

Those seven words unlocked the flood gates and Lisa broke into tears.

Night instantly, through protective instinct for her, stood up and held Lisa – to comfort her. To love her, to make her feel better.

“I’m not that bad am I?”

Lisa composed herself momentarily and spoke through the tears.

“No you silly man. I thought you were going to break up with me. That’s why I thought you brought me here!” she lightly punched him on the chest.

“You punch like a girl Lisa” said Night sheepishly, upset with himself for making her cry and a bit embarrassed by having almost the entire restaurant stare at them.

“…Yes... Yes, Michael Night, Yes, I will be your wife. I would love to be your wife.”

And as one the entire restaurant applauded. The waiters gathered around them and started to sing a celebratory Zulu song of joy and love.

Phew, Night thought to himself, give me a shootout any day but this emotional stuff, my word it’s stressful!

A couple of hours later and after breaking the good news to Lisa’s parents-- earlier in the day Night had asked the father for his permission to marry his daughter which he happily gave -- they enjoyed a celebratory nightcap together.

After the drink and while Lisa enjoyed a hot bubble bath Night was outside playing with his boy Wamba under the garden lights. Lisa’s father watched from his vintage rocking chair while enjoying a double brandy. “How many balls have you gone through tonight?” he asked.

“He’s been very gentle today so only two. One tennis ball – he completely swallowed it the silly bugger. And he destroyed a rather nice soccer ball that I bought specially for him earlier on today. I was silly to think it would last longer than an hour. Anyway it’s the tyres he loves…”

“I can see! And only Wamba would be content with a truck’s tyre!”

Wamba had a tractor tyre in his colossal jaws. Night was pulling, hard, on the other end.

At one point the pooch-beast seemed to acknowledge Night’s extra efforts in playing with him. He let go of the tyre, nearly causing his master to fall over onto his backside, and walked to his dad and lovingly pushed him to the ground with both of his great paws and proceeded to give Night a huge, wet, slobbery lick across his face.  Night laughed out loud with utter joy. “You sloppy bastard!”

Michael stayed outside playing with his K-9 buddy until well after midnight. He finally went in to the house when Lisa came to get him. She was wearing a satin silver night gown and her hair was down and flowing against the gentle Johannesburg breeze. She stood in between the door frame, her feminine and voluptuous figure silhouetted by the lights inside and beckoned him in with an alluring finger. Night filled with love and desire. His body swelled with passion. He went inside leaving the tyred out Boerboel pit fighter to enjoy his treat - a huge animal bone that Night had acquired for him from the local butchers.

The betrothed couple made sweet, passionate, love, engaging themselves in carnal love making a number of times during the night, as quietly and as controlled as possible – they didn’t want to alarm her parents. The loving couple eventually drifted off to sleep sometime after 0200hrs.

CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN

Approximately 24 Hours Earlier

Maleven brought in the tied up domestic worker and threw her down at the feet of his master.

“For you Colonel. She is still fresh. And I found what we were looking for, I have it!”

The two criminals were sitting in the home of their victims, a large five bedroomed house situated in the leafy suburb of Linksfield Ridge. The property was perched on a hillside and commanded a magnificent view. Somewhere in the distance was Alexandra Township. The criminal gang, six of the Colonel’s underlings, including his loyal Jabulani, and the infamous “Maleven” who had just been initiated into the gang because of his reputation for torture and murder and targeted assassination, and the Colonel himself had broken into the property a couple of hours earlier. They had found the domestic worker asleep in her living quarters at the back of the property and had forced her to open the main door to the house with her keys and disable the alarm system linked to an armed response security company.

They came silently upon the two sleeping adults of the household, put guns to their heads and tied them up with electrical cord. They gathered and secured each of the family members one by one and brought them to the upstairs living area where the robbers and rapists now sat.

In front of uSathane were the parents of the family and owners of the property, both in their late forties, their teenage daughter next to the father on the one side and their young son, aged nine, lay hog tied next to his mother on the other. All of the family had been gagged and stripped naked.

“You see. You people have everything. You white people have everything. And my people have nothing. The black people have nothing. We live in the gutter, in the townships, like rats. That is why we must punish you. We must take from you what should be ours.”

He beckoned his new thug over to him.

“Show me what you can do Maleven! Show me why you are worthy of serving me.”

Maleven was a short and stocky man. He had a deep and grating voice brought on by alcohol and drug abuse. He wore aviator sunglasses night and day and sported a black leather jacket and dark corduroy trousers. All-star shoes. He had a wickedly evil smile and flashed it regularly displaying a mouth with hardly any teeth and a serpent like tongue that he had purposefully pared while in prison to look reptilian.

Without saying a word Maleven moved over to where the young boy was knotted and lying face down and stood over him from behind and put his Norinco .45 pistol to the back of his head. Only momentarily he looked up at his leader and uSathane almost imperceptibly nodded his head in approval.

Maleven pulled the trigger and executed the young boy. uSathane’s gang were unusual in South Africa in one aspect – all their firearms were silenced.

The mother roared with emotion and flung her restricted arms and legs wildly in the air. Jabulani moved over to her and hit her over the head with the garden spade he had used to kill the family’s pet poodle only minutes earlier. She was knocked unconscious.

The father and teenage daughter didn’t make a sound. The daughter was gripped with fear, afraid of being raped, scared to draw attention to herself. The father was in shock and not of sound mind, his thoughts were incoherent and he felt as though he wasn’t in his body.

“Good. Now kill the rest of them. We don’t need them but leave the girl for me. I leave tomorrow to begin the journey home after I take my treasure and I will need the blood of two women to sustain me for the drive” instructed uSathane.

This time Maleven took the spade from Jabulani and turned it so that the garden tool became a blade and brought it down onto the unconscious woman. He had to strike her over two dozen times to fully sever her head from her body.

The father mumbled. And again and again more loudly. His entire body started to shake and he eventually broke free from the constraints – his strength was immense and came from deep within the man. One of the Colonel’s men saw the danger and quickly shot him in the back twice. He fell to the ground and lay still then moved once more, taking the flannel out of his mouth, that was used to  silence him, and was about to say something. The gang member now moved his gun to the wounded man’s head and was ready to pull the trigger.

“Wait. Let him speak. I want to hear what this white man, this settler, could possibly want to say to me now after I have killed his little boy and his bitch wife” said uSathane.

“Why?... why…why” pleaded the distraught doctor, the words barely audible through tears and inexpressible pain.

uSathane laughed an unnerving and unnatural laugh.

“I should have told you from the start. I am in such a rush that I forgot to tell you what brought me to your door, what doomed you and your family.”

The Colonel they called the Devil looked around the room, seemingly savouring the moment. “Michael Night brought me to your door doctor- Michael Night caused the death of you and your family.”

“…But…how, why…what?”

“Because you are his doctor. The man has no family and friends here or anywhere that I could find and he has removed all of his personal records from his police station, he is a careful man, but he forgot about you. He forgot to remove the letter of recommendation about his good health that you wrote for the station commissioner six months ago, my policemen-servants got the letter for me. And that’s why I am here. Because I knew you would have the details I needed.”

The doctor gasped desperately as he clung onto life, his mind unravelling.

“But he lives at the police station….”

“Yes doctor but it’s not his address I am after is it.”

The words were barely audible: “I don’t understand.”

“His bitch, doctor, his white Afrikaans bitch!”

uSathane instructed Maleven to finish off the good doctor and uSathane prepared himself for his usual ritual of rape and cannibalism. Maleven savaged the doctor’s body with the bloody spade.

“Now go Maleven, leave us and complete your final test. You must kill this white Lisa bitch and her family. You have the address, kill her and her family and wait for the bastard cop. And when he comes to investigate where his pretty little bitch is you must kill him, don’t leave the house until he comes, eat their food and drink their water and sleep in their house for as long as it takes and don’t attack until tomorrow morning! Not this morning Maleven, you understand, I must leave first before you do this final thing. Now go, leave us to enjoy!”

uSathane and his men laughed that malevolent peculiar laugh once more and the temperature in the room plummeted. The domestic worker and the young teenage girl prayed for a swift death. uSathane produced his rusty Panga and eyed the girl. His breath left his body as he exhaled in excitement and lust and the air turned white like a fine mist…