The Soldier who Said No (6 page)

The general’s voice called De Villiers back to the business at hand. ‘There are reasons,’ he said, not dealing with the exfiltration issues worrying De Villiers. ‘One: this weapon has an effective range of two thousand three hundred metres,’ he said. ‘Yes, you heard me, twenty three hundred metres.’

De Villiers tried not to show his surprise. There had been talk of a Russian sniper’s rifle with a range of up to two kilometres, but the rumours had never been confirmed. The general must have read his thoughts. ‘In case you are wondering where we got it, the Mujahedeen took a couple off the Russians in Afghanistan and gave them to the Americans in exchange for Stinger missiles. The Americans kept one and gave one to the Israelis and they in turn shared it with us to develop our own model. The cartridges we manufacture ourselves.’ He pointed to the
ARMSCOR
representative.

‘General, with respect, can’t we test it here? Why do we have to take it to Angola to test it there?’ Verster asked.

‘We have a special target there, that’s why.’

De Villiers and Verster were silent, each considering the implications.

‘And another thing,’ the general said, ‘you are going to have to fire from more than fifteen hundred metres if you want to avoid capture.’ He chuckled. ‘It will give them a hell of a fright and they won’t know where to look for you.’

‘Who’s going to be our contact?’ Verster asked, looking the general in the eye. He was going to have to carry the radio during the operation and would be in charge of communications.

The general pointed towards the Air Force officer at the back of the tent. ‘The major over there. He’s with me in
MI
. That’s all you need to know.’

De Villiers was never to learn the name of the major.

The shooting range at Swartwater was too short, only six hundred metres, but it was unkempt and overgrown, which was just as well because it simulated the conditions that could be expected in the field. At that range, six hundred metres, the weapon was accurate to the size of a tennis ball, once all Verster’s calculations and settings had been applied. When they had completed the tests at six hundred metres, their instructors sprang a surprise on them. The shooting range was part of a block of bush with a straight and cleared fence line nearly two kilometres long on the eastern side. That fence line appeared to have been freshly cut and cleared and to the casual onlooker would have looked like a road for the inspection of the fence or for game-viewing drives. From within a small tent, guarded on all sides by soldiers carrying
R
4s, De Villiers and Verster tested the weapon on targets which were moved in hundred metre increments further away from them, from one thousand metres up to sixteen hundred metres, all along the fence line. The degree of accuracy hardly changed and a target the size of an adult man was repeatedly hit in the chest even at the maximum range they tried, sixteen hundred metres.

It was an amazing weapon, a thing of exceptional beauty to a soldier like De Villiers.

But that was then. In the oppressive tension of the here and the now, De Villiers and Verster continued to wait under their makeshift camouflage of branches and grass. They were one thousand four hundred and sixty-eight metres away from their target, the land sloping gently down towards the town square. The sun was behind the target and there was a light breeze coming at an angle across their left shoulders. At this distance the accuracy of the weapon would depend in equal measures on the correctness of Verster’s calculations and the steadiness of De Villiers’s trigger finger.

De Villiers had that finger on the trigger now, the target’s breast pocket in the crosshairs of the telescopic sights. The bullet would enter the target’s uniform somewhere within that pocket, right over his heart.

But the man on the podium was not a soldier, but a politician, onetime terrorist, now President of Zimbabwe. It was Verster who noticed it first. The spotter’s scope was far more powerful than the telescopic sights on the sniper’s rifle.

‘Hold it, Pierre. Hold it,’ he said. ‘Is that who I think it is?’

De Villiers breathed out slowly and eased his finger out of the trigger guard. Equally slowly he raised the telescopic sights slightly to bring the target’s face into the centre of the scope.

‘I can’t see clearly through my scope,’ he said.

‘That’s Robert Mugabe, I think,’ Verster said.

De Villiers lay still under the camouflage. ‘Here, come look through my scope,’ Verster offered. ‘See for yourself.’

They changed positions slowly, with the minimum of movement, not wanting to give any hint of their presence.

After a while, De Villiers had to agree. ‘Bloody hell! You’re right. It
is
Mugabe. What do we do now?’

It was a rhetorical question. He was the leader of their two-man team. He would have to make the decision.

‘Let’s contact the major,’ Verster said without hesitation. He activated the small radio in his backpack and started to initiate the emergency call procedure. The conversation was in code and was brief.

De Villiers could decipher the coded phrases as well as Verster. ‘It
is
Mugabe.
He
is the target. Shoot the fucker and get out of there.’

It wasn’t General van den Bergh’s voice.

The connection was cut. ‘We have to shoot him,’ Verster confirmed.

De Villiers lined Mugabe up a second time.

‘Wait, the wind has shifted,’ Verster said.

De Villiers exhaled slightly. He had to slow his breathing to lower his heart-rate to ensure the maximum duration between heartbeats. The shot had to go off between heartbeats when his body was internally as still and unmoving as externally.

‘Okay, it’s steady where it was.’ Verster’s voice was calm, the voice of a soldier who knows his onions and can perform in the field.

De Villiers confirmed, ‘Steady as before.’

‘Let’s do it,’ Verster whispered. ‘Fire when you’re ready.’ He kept his eye on his spotter’s scope.

For the third time De Villiers set Mugabe in the sights. Heatwaves danced up from the red earth of the landing strip.

The crosshairs settled on the target’s chest, a ribbon of military honours in the sights just above the man’s pocket. De Villiers felt the urge to focus on the man’s face and resisted at first, keeping the sights on the breast pocket. He slowed his breathing and held it. He waited until he could feel his heartbeat in his trigger finger. He started counting the beats.

One two three four … five … six … seven … twelve
…
I’ve done this before and can do it again
.

Behind Mugabe the sun reflected off the windscreen of a moving vehicle. In the haze Mugabe’s olive green tunic was transformed into red. De Villiers blinked and lowered the barrel of the rifle, a blond woman’s face in his mind’s eye, her red tunic in the sights.

When he lined the target up again, Mugabe’s face reappeared in the sights.

Verster knew better than to speak as De Villiers slowly centred the crosshairs on Mugabe’s breast pocket. De Villiers slowed his breathing and his heartbeat and gently took up the slack on the trigger.

From this moment events would unfold slowly. The explosion would be deafening to the sniper and the spotter, but nearly a kilometre and a half away on the podium where Mugabe stood, there would only be a distant crack, the sound arriving after the bullet had struck. The bullet would cleave a path through the air and take its time to reach Mugabe a full second and a half after leaving the barrel. In the keen eye of Verster’s spotter’s scope a hole would appear in Mugabe’s top pocket before he would fall backwards as if pushed by an invisible hand. The assembled troops and dignitaries would watch in silence for a few seconds, and when they connected the distant thunderclap to the blood and the gaping red hole in the back of their hero’s uniform, they would scatter for the sparse cover provided by the few buildings of Vila Nova Armada.

De Villiers lowered the rifle. ‘This isn’t right.’

Verster kept his eye on the target through his spotter’s scope. ‘Go when you’re ready,’ he said as if De Villiers hadn’t spoken. When he sensed that there was no movement next to him, he turned to face De Villiers. ‘What’s wrong, Pierre?’

‘This isn’t right.’

‘Our orders have been confirmed, you heard that. Now shoot him so that we can get out of here!’ There was an urgency in Verster’s voice. ‘If the parade breaks up, they will load their weapons and come after us.’ It was well known that Mugabe was paranoid and always insisted that the soldiers on inspection should be unarmed.

‘It’s not right,’ De Villiers said a third time. ‘I’m calling this off.’

‘We have orders, Pierre. Shoot him and let’s get out of here.’

‘No, the operation is over.’

‘Pierre, we’ve done this before.’

‘That was different, Jacques. That was a soldier. This man is a civilian.’

‘He’s wearing a uniform, Pierre.’ Verster tapped on the lens of his scope. ‘See for yourself,’ he insisted.

‘That doesn’t change anything. This man is not a soldier. He’s a politician. We don’t shoot civilians,’ De Villiers said a second time.

‘Pierre, we don’t have much time. Our orders are clear. We have to shoot him now and get out of here. This is not a regular operation. We have to follow orders.’

When there was no answer, Verster added, ‘Pierre, we shot that Russian and we can shoot this man. He’s a terrorist.’

The image of the Russian in a red tunic reappeared in De Villiers’s mind. ‘She was a soldier,’ he said defensively, his words sounding like a lame excuse, a plea for understanding, even to his own ears.

‘No more than this man.’ Verster pointed at the parade ground in the distance. He turned and put his hand on De Villiers’s shoulder. ‘Come on, Pierre, we’re going to get into trouble.’

De Villiers ignored the exhortation. He sat up and started disassembling the weapon. ‘Radio them. I’ve terminated the mission,’ he said to Verster. ‘We may be doing this operation for Military Intelligence, but we are still soldiers, Recces. We don’t shoot civilians. We don’t assassinate presidents. We fight the soldiers fighting on the other side. That’s what we do. Now get on the radio and tell them I’ve called off the operation and that we’re coming home.’

Verster turned to his radio transmitter. Pretoria insisted on speaking directly to De Villiers. This time it was the general’s voice. He was terse and angry. ‘You have your orders. Execute them or face me when you return.’

‘General, in the Recces the final decisions are made in the field. I’m the commander in the field and I have decided to terminate this operation.’

‘Captain, in this operation you’re not in the Recces. You work for me. You will do as I say.’

‘This is an illegal operation, General. I’m calling it off.’

‘You will be held responsible for the weapon and for anything that happens to Lieutenant Verster. Is that understood?’

De Villiers motioned to Verster to turn off the radio, but the general’s voice came across once more. ‘It’s not too late to complete the mission, Captain.’ It sounded like a plea.

‘Let’s go,’ De Villiers said to Verster. ‘You heard what he said. Let’s go.’

The general had the last word. ‘And rest assured that I’ll follow you to the ends of the world to make sure that you pay for this, do you hear me?’

De Villiers reached to cut the power on the radio transmitter.

‘You will be responsible for all the consequences of your refusal to carry out your orders,’ he heard the general say before he flicked the switch to silence the radio.

De Villiers was first to move. He slipped out from under the camouflage materials and rose to a stooped position, keeping his eyes on the parade ground where, in normal sight, the troops appeared no larger than soldier ants. Verster was forced to follow his lead. They expertly packed their gear. Verster muttered under his breath.

‘What did you say?’ De Villiers demanded.

‘I said you could have asked me first before you made your decision.’

‘It’s my responsibility and mine alone. Nothing can happen to you.’

‘That’s rubbish,’ Verster hissed between his teeth. ‘My record is going to reflect a failed mission, a mutinous one, in fact. We’re going to be court-martialled. They will hold it against me every time I come up for promotion. This thing is going to live with us forever.’

‘I’ll take the blame, all of it,’ De Villiers responded. ‘The consequences will be on my head, not yours.’

‘No,’ Verster said. ‘I’ll pay the price too.’

The several components of the rifle were secure in their backpacks as they slunk away towards the river to wait for the helicopter that was to take them home to an uncertain welcome.

In due course Verster would pay a heavy price for their mutiny, but not in the manner he had anticipated.

Pierre de Villiers had a private room at Brightside Hospital. The blood test had shown a
PSA
count of 4.45 and the biopsy had come back positive for cancer in several pods. Surgery was the only option the surgeon explained – his rooms were around the corner in Gillies Avenue – and he had performed the operation before the weekend.

‘He has good hands, the best in the business,’ the theatre sister had said when De Villiers was wheeled into the theatre.

De Villiers had sighed. ‘Don’t worry,’ the theatre sister had said. ‘He’s done more than five hundred of these operations and they say he’s the best in the country. He has good hands.’

That reassurance now felt like a long time ago. Since then De Villiers had been tied to his hospital bed by a tangle of tubes and instruments, a captive to his pain and his thoughts.

A nurse came in and removed the lunch tray. He had left half the meal untouched.

The events of the previous two days were blurred in De Villiers’s mind. He could remember visits by his wife and daughter and seeing the anaesthetist, but the rest was unclear. He remembered very well being extremely hungry and thirsty, but now didn’t know whether that had been real or a dream. It felt as if two or three days had been compressed into one.