Casca 12: The African Mercenary (14 page)

Mtuba
was elated. Now he'd take them all. He only hoped that the scar faced leader of the mercenaries would be alive when he got his hands on him. He had plans for that man that did not include an easy death. He would kill him an inch at a time to make him pay for the inconvenience he had caused. Sticking his head out of his window, he yelled to the trucks behind the Land Rover, ordering the men in them to get ready.

Montfort had the driver of his prized Bentley turn off on the road leading to van
Janich's headquarters. He had received a report that was most disturbing. It was rumored that Communist Chinese troops were seen with the N.F.L.K. when they took Kimshaka City. Perhaps that had something to do with the disappearance of Casey Romain and his men. Something rotten was going on, and they were a long way from Denmark. He was curious to see what van Janich would make of this new information. Things could begin to get a bit sticky. He found it difficult to believe that the mercenaries could simply vanish without a trace. That was too much, really!

At the south end of the strip, the old Dakota sat by a makeshift hangar and workshop. The Saladin pulled over at the north end of the runway. As the truck pulled up alongside the armored vehicle, it stopped long enough to let five men and Beidemann bail out, taking the 57mm recoilless rifle with them to add support to the 20mm on the Saladin. The mortars went with Van and Harrison. They'd probably be needed to give the rear guard cover when they had to withdraw. After transferring Major Xaun to the truck, Casey kept only three men with him in the Saladin: a driver, a loader, and a machine gunner. The others joined the rest of the mercs near the truck, waiting for orders.

From the advantage given him by the height of the turret, Casey did a quick surveillance of the approach the rebels would have to take to reach them. Once off the road and in sight of the field, they'd be able to flank them. The terrain all around was open, broken only by brush and scrub trees, none more than ten feet tall. They needed to engage the enemy before they got this far.

"Gus, this is going to be tricky. We can't cover every approach, so we've got to draw them to us. I want you to take these men and head straight out. Take the fifty seven with you. I want you to hit the first vehicle that comes into range. When you do, I'll have the Saladin on their left flank and start turning the line against them. Watch out for me. I don't want one of your shells up my tail. Maybe we can keep them busy until Harrison and Van get the plane secured: Keep your ears open. We'll probably have to back off in a hurry, one way or another."

Casey directed the Saladin to where they'd have the most cover from the trees. The 20mm gun was loaded; inside, belts of oiled machine gun ammo were made ready. As soon as
Mtuba's men came into range, they'd fire and try to hold them off until they heard the sounds of the Dakota's engines turning; then they'd make a run for it.

Beidemann
made for the brush. His men spread out at the ready safeties in a thin skirmishing line, weapons ready, safeties off. He carried a G 3 rifle in one hand and the heavy recoilless rifle in the other. On his shoulder was a sack containing their last five rounds.

Xaun
twisted his shoulders around, trying to ease the burning pain in them and his back. His bonds had made it nearly impossible for him to get any sleep. From what the mercenaries were saying, he knew that Mtuba was coming for him. Good, then he would have his revenge!

The truck screeched right up to the side of the plane. Men piled out of the back and threw a cordon around the aircraft. This was to be their salvation, their only way out. They'd let no one near it at any cost. Van took two men with him into the hangar. Inside were four men, one white and three black, who kept the plane and hangar in order. Their questions were stopped by the sight of automatic weapons pointing at them and the expressions on the mercs' faces. These were not men to argue with. Van waved them over to a screen walled cage where tools were kept.

"Inside! No talking, no questions, and maybe you'll still be alive an hour from now. We don't want anything from you except the plane." The four men made no protests. They had been around long enough to know when to keep their mouths shut and obey orders. Van used the padlock that was on the cage intended to keep thieves out of the tool room to lock the mechanic and his helpers inside where they wouldn't get in the way. To the other men with hint he barked, "Check out the rest of the building. If there's anyone else here, put them in the cage too."

A quick search turned up no one else. Leaving the mechanic and his helpers inside, they returned to the cordon around the plane. Harrison was already in the cockpit checking it out. Leaning his head out the cockpit window, he yelled down at Van, "We need gas." Pointing to a manual pump and some fifty five gallon drums near the hangar, he said, "Check those out and if there's anything in them, get a couple of men to pump it into the wing tanks."

"Right!" Van detailed five men to check out the drums and to begin rolling the full ones over to where they could be hooked up to the pump and lines. Another climbed onto the wings to open the caps over the tanks.

"How long will it take?" Van called up to Harrison.

The pilot snapped back, "Until I get enough in this son of a bitch to be sure we can get to Rhodesia. I'll let you know. Now get them moving so we can get the hell out of here!"

Van yelled up to him about the men he'd locked in the tool cage. "I think one of
them's a mechanic. Do you want to talk to him?"

Harrison popped his head back out. "Bet your ass I do! If there's anything wrong with this antique, I want to know about it now rather than at ten thousand feet! I'll be right out."

Jumping out of the plane's side door, he followed Van inside the hangar. The mechanic did not like being locked up, and while not stupid enough to give them any back talk, he had suddenly gotten a bit stubborn and decided he wasn't going to tell them anything. Harrison got nothing from him other than dirty looks. He expressed his frustration to Van. "I can't get anything out of him one way or the other. If he did tell us anything, how would we know if he's telling the truth?"

Van thought that over for a moment,
then grinned under his coating of dust. "That's easy. Tell him he's going up with us. That way, if anything goes wrong, he'll be right there when we go down."

"Good idea, you wily Oriental gentleman.
Did you hear that, you obstinate Dutchman? If we go down, you'll go down with us." Jan Reiks turned a pale green. Chewing one fingernail with a ten year undercoating of grease, he re-evaluated his decision.

His English was good, though heavily accented. "Since you put it that way, there are a few things. The warning light is out on the hydraulics, and the line to the landing gear is disconnected."

Harrison told Van to take him out of the cage, then pointed a warning finger at Reiks. "All right, now you get out there and fix it and do it right, because you're still going up with us. One more thing you don't have much time. There are some very angry people corning after us who want our guts for garters. They won't know you're not one of us, and they'll cut your bloody white head off as fast as they will ours."

Reiks
swallowed, his Adam's apple sending signals. "It will take only five minutes." Running back into the cage, he brought out a tool chest and a five gallon can of hydraulic fluid.

Mtuba
moved his Land Rover to the front, out from his safe place between the two trucks. Putting his field glasses back up to his eyes, he adjusted the focus. The plane came sharply into view. He could see men around the plane and on its wings. The truck was there, but where was the armored car?

The radiator on
Mtuba's rear truck suddenly erupted in a spout of flame and steam. Casey's 20mm round had hit it squarely. Mtuba's men scrambled out of the truck, but they took their weapons with them, including the 106mm recoilless rifle. Casey whipped the Saladin in and out of the brush, his machine gunner raking over the trucks. They had to be put out of commission to give their men on the field time to get the plane working.

Mtuba's
gun crew were pretty good. They had the 106 set up and loaded in less than a minute. The Saladin came out of a patch of brush, the 20mm and the machine gun firing. Three of Mtuba's men went down. The 106 fired, the shell hitting the Saladin right above the left front tire, blowing it and the fender off, and sending red hot shell splinters inside the car to bounce off the steel sides. Casey was thrown out of the turret as the armored car turned over. Landing solidly on his back fifteen feet away, he was stunned. From inside the car, screams could be heard as the fuel tanks exploded, turning the interior into an iron furnace. Exploding ammunition brought a merciful end to the two mercenaries' agony.

Mtuba
called to his men, pointing at the dazed Casey, "Get that man for me and knock out that plane! Without it they can't get anywhere!" Three men ran for Casey as the 106 crew manhandled their long tube around, readjusting the sight for their new target.

The men of the N.F.L.K. were nearly upon Casey, running, crouched low, weapons at their hips ready to fire. They were stopped by a strange whooshing noise that shredded their bodies, tearing holes through their chests, and ripping faces and skulls apart.

Beidemann came out of the bushes to the left of Casey. Behind him, the men on the 57mm reloaded with high explosive, having used their last round of canister on the three Africans. Beidemann yelled back at them, "Hit the enemy gun!"

Bending over Casey,
Beidemann grabbed his friend's arm and jerked him to his feet. Throwing him over his shoulder, he ran back into the brush, bullets clipping at his feet. The mercs on the 57mm fired one round, missing the enemy recoilless rifle but scaring the shit out of Mtuba when the round passed close enough to his Land Rover that he could have reached out and touched it.

Van looked across the field to where the fight between his friend and
Mtuba was taking place. His men were setting up empty steel drums for cover. Jan Reiks worked as feverishly as the crew, who were refueling the plane's tanks under the frantic urging of Harrison. Reiks had reconnected the hydraulic lines to the landing gear, filled the reservoir with fluid, and had just finished bleeding the lines. Throwing the empty can over by the hangar, he called up to Harrison, "That's it!"

Checking his fuel gauges, Harrison yelled out to the men on the wing tanks: "Cap that son of a bitch off!" To Van, he waved his arm. "Get '
em on board!" Two mercs leaped through the open cargo door as Van prodded Xaun to his feet. Two more men grabbed the Chinese and threw him bodily up to the pair waiting for him. In relays they began to climb on board.

A round from
Mtuba's 106 blasted three oil drums high into the air, killing one Belgian. Van was glad the drums were empty, or they would have sprayed the plane with burning oil and gasoline. Another shell hit on the dirt runway, shrapnel splinters splattering the fuselage, breaking out the right window on the copilot's side.

"What the bloody hell are you waiting for?" Harrison screamed at Van as he hit the starter switch and opened the throttle.

That was all the encouragement Van needed, and he followed the last of the men on board as the port engine coughed into life. By the time he'd run up to the cockpit, the starboard motor was running. Harrison wasted no time. As soon as he could, he started the plane rolling back down the runway to the north. He could have taken off to the south, but he wanted to get as close as possible to those who were fighting their rear guard action. Seconds meant life, and he was not going to leave them behind just to save his own neck. From the open cargo door and along the windows that the mercs had smashed out, machine gun and automatic rifle muzzles stuck their lethal spouts out the sides of the cargo plane as firing apertures were made.

Running, twisting, and dodging through the brush and trees,
Beidemann carried Casey toward the landing strip. The men on the 57mm fired off their last rounds and covered his retreat with light weapons fire, spraying the N.F.L.K. in front of them, trying to make them keep down until they could break free and follow after the big German.

Mtuba
kept after the 106 crew to keep firing, cursing them for missing a target as big as the plane. Now the damned thing was moving! All his men were out and on their stomachs, firing wildly at everything that moved, including the breeze through the dry leaves of the brush.

"Cease fire, you
fools! Wait until you have something to shoot at!" A burst of bullets from one of the rearguard mercs shattered the Land Rover's windshield.

"Why aren't you firing?" he screamed as he hit the ground, his face bleeding from glass splinters.

The two mercs caught up with Beidemann, who turned Casey over to them. They placed his arms around their shoulders and half carried, half dragged their unconscious leader to the north end of the landing strip.

Beidemann
broke to his right. Taking advantage of all the cover, he ran to get around the flank of the enemy. He had to get that 106 out of action before they hit the plane or damaged it so badly they couldn't take off. For all his bulk, Beidemann could move fast when he had to. Getting around the flank, he dropped to his stomach and went into a crab walk. His body raised half off the ground; his weapon on his chest, he scurried from bush to bush until he was behind them.

Under the lash of
Mtuba's tongue and the sincere threat of execution the N.F.L.K. troops managed to get into a semblance of order. Getting them into a line, Mtuba ordered them to advance at a half run toward the end of the air strip. Overhead, the 106 sent another round arcing into the sky to blast a small pit twenty feet in front of the Dakota as Harrison zigged and zagged closer to where the two mercs with Casey waited for it to come and get them.

The crew operating the 106 concentrated their attention to the front as they tried to adjust to the changing distance and position of the Dakota on the strip. They never saw or heard the figure to their left raise up and draw the bolt back on his weapon. Thirty 7.62mm rounds ripped through their backs, tearing hearts and lungs open. The three men of the recoilless rifle crew died instantly. Another object fell through the air to fall among the bodies by the boxes containing the shells for the recoilless rifle.