The Delta (54 page)

Sam sensed more shots flitting through the bush like angry bees beside him as he ran, as fast as he could, back towards the camp. Behind him he heard a whoosh of displaced air. He slowed and risked a glance back over his shoulder and saw the night sky flare orange and a volcano of sparks and glowing embers shoot up from the hut in which Jim and the woman had been killed.

Not watching where he was going, Sam ran headlong into a barrel-chested African soldier toting an AK-47. Sam stumbled
and the man wrapped an arm around him. It was the lieutenant in charge of the ready reaction force, Edison.

‘He has a gun!' Edison said.

Sam found himself pushed to the ground and facing a semicircle of armed warriors, all pointing automatic weapons at him. He tossed Sonja's pistol in the dirt and held his hands up, then placed them on his head. ‘Steele … Major Steele is trying to kill me. He killed my cameraman—'

‘Silence!'

Sam turned and saw Steele standing in the pathway, the silenced pistol raised and pointing at him.

‘Step away,' Steele said to the rebel soldiers. ‘This man is to be summarily executed.
He
killed the fellow he was with, and one of your women, from the village. I want a firing party of five men. Now!'

Edison shook his head. ‘We need orders from Major Kurtz.'

‘Major Kurtz is dead,' Steele said. ‘He and his men were killed in an ambush at M'pacha. You men need to get saddled up and ready to go as soon as we've killed this saboteur. We have to protect the withdrawal of the main force back across the border.'

‘An ambush you set up, Steele.' Sam turned back to the lieutenant. ‘This man is working against you, not for you.'

Steele laughed. ‘Preposterous. I'm the only person who knows what's going on here. With a bit of luck we can snatch something out of today's defeat. This man is a bloody
journalist
, he's never been on your side.'

‘I have seen this man on television, on DSTV,' Edison said. Both Sam and Steele stared at him.

‘You have?' Sam said, taking the words out of Steele's mouth.

Edison nodded. ‘On
Outback Survival
. I trust this man.'

‘Oh, for fuck's sake,' Steele said. He took a step closer to Sam and pointed the pistol at the side of his head. ‘I don't have time for this.'

Edison cocked his AK-47 and shifted its barrel slightly so that it covered Steele as well as Sam.

‘Go get the commander … please,' Sam said to one of the men arrayed behind their officer.

Steele licked his top lip. ‘Don't waste your time. This man killed the general and the two signallers in the command tent. He's a spy and he needs to be executed immediately.'

‘What?' Edison looked down at Sam, who was still kneeling.

Sam suddenly comprehended the enormity of Steele's deceit.

‘I just stopped by the headquarters tent,' Steele continued. ‘All three of them are dead. We need to kill this man now and get going as soon as possible. There may be other enemy agents in the area. Listen …'

Sam lifted his face to the night sky along with several of the other men. The far-off drone of the helicopter's engine was soft, but growing stronger.

‘Wait,' Sam said to Edison. ‘Check the bodies in the command tent and look at the bullet entry wounds – and exit wounds if there are any. Compare them to the pistol I had,' he moved a hand and pointed at Sonja's weapon down on the ground, ‘and that silenced popgun Major Steele is holding. Ask yourselves who the assassin is.'

‘Right,' Steele said, marching forward. ‘This has gone far enough.' Defying the men who faced him he grabbed Sam by the epaulette of his bush shirt and hauled him up.

Edison moved as well and grabbed Steele's wrist in a huge hand. The two men stared each other down. ‘Julius.'

‘Sir?' one of the other men answered the lieutenant, who still held Steele's arm.

‘Go check on the general and his men. Come back and tell me if they were killed by a two-two or a nine-mil. You have one minute.'

‘Yes, sir!'

Edison looked back at his subordinate and motioned his dismissal with a nod of his head.

Steele shook off Edison's hand while he was momentarily distracted, pointed the silenced pistol at his chest and pulled the trigger. Only one shot came out, but it took the big man in the chest and he staggered back, collecting one of his other troopers as he fell. Steele looked around him, threw the empty pistol at Sam and ran.

Sam picked up the wounded officer's AK-47, pointed it at the fleeing Englishman and pulled the trigger. The AK reared high and to the right as thirty rounds tore into the grass and reeds around Steele. Other rifles joined the cacophony, which reached a crescendo as the helicopter raced low overhead, towards the landing zone. Those men not firing knelt beside their tall leader, who was gasping for air. Blood was spreading across Edison's camouflage shirt.

‘Get him to the helicopter,' Sam said to the leaderless troops. ‘Hurry.'

‘What about Major Steele?' one of the others asked as four men grabbed the wounded man's arms and legs.

Sam shook his head. ‘I don't know. We leave him. He's a dangerous animal and he'll be worse now he's cornered. What he said was right – there might even be other people converging on this place while we stand around here. Let's go!'

It seemed wrong to leave Jim's body, and Steele running around the bush alive, but Sam's fear was growing rather than dissipating with the disappearance of the rogue mercenary. If Steele had killed the Caprivian general and Jim, planned to kill Sam, and set up the ambush of Hans Kurtz at M'pacha, what had he planned for Sonja?

They ran towards the noise and buffeting downwash of the helicopter, which was settling into the long waving grass of the
LZ. Sam clasped the hand of Edison, who had saved his life, as they all moved, bent at the waist, to the helo. ‘Hang on!' he roared over the turbine's nose as the man's comrades slid him into the cargo hold of the machine. A man already inside grabbed the wounded officer under his armpits and dragged him the rest of the way aboard. When Sam looked up he was shocked to see the short, wiry figure of Hans Kurtz, his face streaked with black camouflage paint.

‘Get in,' Kurtz waved to him.

Sam and the other men needed no urging and they climbed aboard. It was a tight squeeze, and they had to be careful where they put their feet around the casualty. Kurtz manoeuvred himself so he was sitting next to Sam.

‘I thought you were dead,' Sam yelled over the engine noise as the pilot increased power prior to take off.

Kurtz grinned. ‘Not yet, but the night is still young.' He slapped Sam on the thigh and then pitched forward.

The pilot turned his head and screamed: ‘Incoming fire!' He lifted the helicopter off the ground and it seemed to Sam they were rising at a rate of inches per hour. For the second time in the last fifteen minutes he snatched up a wounded man's rifle and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. A Caprivian soldier sandwiched between Sam and another man snatched the AK from him – his own machine-gun was resting on its bipod half under the wounded officer – yanked on the cocking handle and then fired out into the night. Tracer streaked away from the helicopter like trailing green ribbons. The fuselage behind them rattled with the noise of pebbles thrown on a tin roof as the pilot yelled at no one, willing his machine higher, faster and further away from the ground fire.

Hans slumped back in the nylon webbing troop seat.

‘Are you all right?' Sam's voice was almost lost in the exchange of gunfire.

Kurtz felt his side and showed Sam fingers sticky with blood. It reminded Sam of his own wound and again he felt the queasiness. ‘I'll be fine. They need to see to him first,' Kurtz said, pointing down at the officer. The medic was cutting away Edison's shirt. His black skin was slick with blood, but his eyes were open and he was breathing, albeit in ragged gasps.

The medic looked up from his patient and caught Kurtz's eye. In his right hand he held a curved AK-47 magazine with a bullet hole through it. ‘This took most of the force of the bullet, and the projectile glanced off his rib cage. The young chief, he will live.' Edison forced a painful smile.

Kurtz gave a thumbs-up as Sam tugged on his sleeve to get his attention. ‘What about Steele?'

Kurtz winced and looked out the open cargo door. ‘We'll get him, Sam. We'll get him.'

The medic worked on Hans during the rest of the flight, removing his fatigue shirt and cleaning the wound in his side as best as he could, then wrapping it in a dressing and a tight bandage around his torso.

‘We never went to M'pacha …' Kurtz winced as the medic fastened the bandage.

‘Where then?' Sam asked.

‘It was a feint, designed to fool Steele. Sonja and I were both pretty sure he was working for the Namibians, and for those crazy Germans who are building the dam, but we couldn't be a hundred per cent sure.'

‘And the general?'

Kurtz tried to scoff, but the small action caused him pain, so he grimaced instead. ‘That fool was bamboozled by Steele into thinking the best way to regain the Caprivi Strip was to seize the capital. I argued against it – there was no way we had enough
troops to take and hold both Katima and the airfield at M'pacha. Besides, I knew from my spies in the field that the Namibians were amassing an unusually large ground force at M'pacha. It was the ambush that Steele had kindly arranged for us.'

‘So where are your men, if not at Katima?'

Kurtz grinned. ‘They are where we're going right now, at Kongola, halfway down the Caprivi Strip between Katima Mulilo and the dam. We're not going to take Caprivi – we're going to split it. Kongola's on the Kwando River, which divides the strip in two. It was easier to take than Katima and it'll be a damn sight easier to hold than a town – it's no more than a few buildings and a bridge. We're going to stop east–west traffic in this part of southern Africa. The Namibians and the rest of the world will have to take notice of us now.'

Kurtz explained, in between painful breaths, that the main force of his men had crossed the border as planned, but instead of making for Katima Mulilo they had secretly rendezvoused with a fleet of civilian trucks and buses which had sped down the near-empty highway to Kongola. Instead of flying to certain death at M'pacha airfield, Kurtz and the rest of his small assault group had flown straight to Kongola and met up with Gideon, who had split up from Sonja and overpowered the small police detachment at the bridge over the Kongola River. ‘We've taken Kongola and split the Caprivi Strip in two without firing a shot – except for here,' he said.

‘What about Sonja?' Sam asked.

The helicopter was starting its descent and Sam could see headlights flicking on and off on the road below. Kurtz looked at him. ‘Like me, she was calling in fake reports to Steele and to the general, but we had worked out our own code, between us, to fool the rest of them. The last I heard of her she was at the dam and safe. Beyond that … I don't know.'

Sam felt anger slowly spreading from his heart to his head and his fingertips, dispelling the fear. ‘Goddamn it! Don't you care about your daughter? You said Gideon went to Kongola – does that mean she's going to blow the dam all by herself?'

Kurtz shrugged as the pilot flared back the nose of the helicopter and the skids settled on the black tar of the main highway. ‘If anyone can blow a dam up by herself, it's my daughter. She's very stubborn once she puts her mind to something.' Kurtz clapped him on the shoulder, then eased himself painfully down out of the helicopter. He winked at Sam. ‘You'll learn that in the years to come. Goodbye, Sam.'

Sam blinked, not fully able to comprehend all that the old man was saying to him. He watched as the soldiers on board helped Edison from the helicopter. The young officer was fully conscious now and although he limped he politely waved away his men. ‘Hans! Sir!' Sam called.

Kurtz was easing on a new fatigue shirt that one of his men had waiting for him, to cover the bright red and white of the bandages. Kurtz walked slowly back to the helicopter. The pilot looked over his shoulder and twirled his finger in the air, signalling to Sam and the two armed men who had stayed on board with him as a security detachment that it was time to take off. Sam held up a hand. ‘Sir?'

‘What?' Kurtz said, buttoning his shirt.

‘I think I love your daughter, sir.'

He nodded. ‘Don't tell me, tell her. Go!'

Sonja and Chipchase got in the Land Cruiser and then ducked out of sight behind the dashboard as a spotlight swept over them. The blinding beam bounced back off the driver's side wing mirror and filled the cab with a flash like lightning.

The light was followed by the grumbling clatter of a big diesel engine and, as the noise passed, Sonja peeked up over the steering wheel and saw the disappearing bulk of a slow-patrolling BTR 60 armoured car. ‘They're nervous.'

‘So am I,' Chipchase said. ‘What do we do now?'

‘Wait a little longer, until things settle down.'

‘Have you got a pick-up arranged? Is that it? Who's double-crossing who tonight, Sonja? If you knew Steele planned on killing the AIDS nurse and her driver then you're as guilty as he is, for letting it happen.'

She gave a snort. ‘I told you, I thought they were just going to be arrested. Don't lecture me on morality – you sent nearly a hundred Caprivians to their certain death when they tried to stop this dam while it was still under construction.'

Chipchase hissed through gritted teeth. ‘That's a lie. I didn't mean for that many to die.'

She kept the gun on him. ‘
That many?
What does that mean? You set them up for a fall, but didn't expect them to make it into the killing ground?'