Place of Bones (23 page)

“What are you waiting for!” I yelled, “GO...GO...GO!”

They moved. One of them lifted his AK into the air, a gesture of invincibility, and screamed the typically Kangatzi fighting whoop. The others took it up as they turned and streamed for the trees. They would not stop now, I knew, until they were either dead, or there were no more people left to kill. I pushed the W/T to my ear. “Brook!”

The reply was immediate. “Sir!  Moving in now. Radio mast down. No opposition so far.” The distant rifle fire and the hollow thudding of grenades duplicated itself tinnily as a background to Brook’s voice.

“What about Blue-Two?”

“Gone, sir. But there’s not a lot for them. I can see the hanger from here. Big job inside and a single chopper out on the grass. Several men, sir, but they’re running away. Blue-Two are almost there now.”

“Right. Inside. Quick as you can. They’re going to wake up pretty bloody soon.”

I allowed the W/T to fall to its strap and hared after Red-One. A tan-uniformed figure appeared in front of me, doing what, I did not know. I pulled my trigger and the man went over. It was like a pigeon-shoot.

So far!

CRUMP-UMP!

Two grenades, the second an instant echo of the first, exploded somewhere in the trees off to my right. There was dust and smoke everywhere. A cry. Then I heard the throaty growl of the BAR. I ran on, dodging the trees like some addled quarterback. Then I was out of the trees and bathed in brilliant sunshine. And there was the blockhouse.

That monstrosity had cost me dearly the last time I had done this. It was an iceberg - more of it beneath the ground than showed above it. Living space down there for a hundred men. But it was confinable if the head of the stairs could be secured, and quickly. Then a single automatic could stem the flow.

There were some half a dozen tan-uniforms scrabbling to get in the door, under continuous fire from the BAR and Red-One, who had thrown themselves to the ground on the edge of the trees. A bullet sighed past my head and I thought, about time!  I looked up. There!  On the roof of the main building. A single marksman. Perversely, I felt disappointed as I sprayed his position. The man pulled back his head.

I took quick stock.

There was Mahindru’s chopper, hovering at about a hundred feet, out over the freeway, the cannon’s tracer curving in like a moving, waving string of yellow fairy lights. Of the second aircraft I could see no sign. Smoke was rising thickly from the far side of the main building. Out on the car park a truck was moving, drawing fire from what could only have been the second BAR team. Where the hell was Red-Two?

There!  Over by the corner of the main building. At least, I could see three of them.

A puff of smoke emerged from a ground floor window, shattered glass flashed in the sun like a broken chandelier, and ugly black splotches appeared around other windows as if by magic, as someone’s wildly-aimed volley peppered the masonry.

SSSssss!

The guy on the roof again. “Get down, you bastard!” I hissed as I yanked off another burst. He did not get down, and now there were two of them. Then three. I dropped to one knee and took more careful aim. Spouts of dirt danced across the ground in front of me and a ricochet screeched into the air. The edge of the parapet appeared to disintegrate and the three heads disappeared. I yelled at the nearest man of Red-One. “Keep that position pinned down!”

The man waved acknowledgment and angled himself slightly more left. I looked at the blockhouse. Men were firing from a window now, but spasmodically, and then only wildly.

BOOOOM!

That came from away off to the right, over the wall that separated the compound from the airfield. The ground seemed to shake under me and a great gout of oily-black smoke billowed up. Forget the damned airfield! I rose to my feet and started to run the sixty or so yards to the main building. A face appeared at a window and I shot at it.

The moving truck exploded then, suddenly and violently; a dirty, flame-streaked, debris-filled eruption that came as more of a shock than the one from the airfield. A single wheel, ripped from its axle, came spinning out of the smoke like a huge, wobbling discus. As I ran I felt stupidly compelled to follow its trajectory. It hit the corner of the building and ricocheted straight up into the air. I ran on. Then a grenade exploded in the blockhouse off to my right with a resonant THUD!  On the edge of my vision I saw two men of Red-One crouched low at the base of the wall as glass, wood-splinters and smoke belched from the window. The door flew off and cartwheeled away. I could forget about the blockhouse. I called to the others of Red-One and waved them after me.

The building loomed up. I yanked a grenade from the string and bit out the pin at the run. I felt a tooth crack. Despite what you see in films, there are better ways to pull the pin of a grenade. Then there were more faces at more windows. The surprise element was about to run out and we would be more or less on equal terms. I fired and hit wall.

The following few minutes passed in a blur.

Flashes. Explosions. Hissing bullets. More explosions and more hissing bullets. I hit the wall of the building with my left shoulder, inches from a window. I swung my arm and loosed my grip on the grenade. It smashed through the glass and disappeared. One of Red-Two dashed by me and I yelled, “Grenade!” He must have had a charmed life. The window came out in a welter of dirty red smoke and flame. The crash of the explosion bit into my head for a millisecond then shut off completely, to be replaced by a hissing noise. The man with the charmed life was in the blackened hole almost before the flames had ceased pouring out. I left him to it and ran, deaf, on to the double doors. I pulled off another grenade and hooked a free finger into the ring of the pin. I’d had it with cracked teeth. My hearing came back with a loud POP!

FRRRRRRRR!

That was not an AK. I looked up as the dirt around my feet did a new dance. There was the head at the parapet, leaning over, spitting weapon held loosely out over the edge. I kicked out from the wall and whipped up my AK, which was firing well before I had it pointed where I wanted it pointed. But the end result was the same, probably more by luck than judgment. The man up there pitched outward and curved neatly down, his weapon - a British “sten”, I noted clinically - flipped away from him in flight. Then I remembered I had a live grenade in my hand and I forgot about the flyer. He thudded down grotesquely behind me as I tossed the grenade in through a window of the door. I pushed myself into the wall and did what you do not see in films - I buried fingers into my ears, my AK crooked in my right elbow. All the same, the explosion was an assault to my ear drums. Except that this time I did not loose my hearing.

The doors splintered outwards like so much matchwood, followed by a black, gasping cloud of smoke. I dropped to my right knee, bringing the AK to a firing position, and then twisted around until the barrel was aimed into the shattered opening.

Click! Click! Click!

Shit! I whipped out the spent mag and groped for another as a man ran past my vision and into the corridor. Bullets sang in the air, and whoever it was who had run in, came out again, quickly, and cursing. I laughed. God knows why, it was far from funny. Then I had the new mag in and I again pushed the AK into the black hole. The cursing man and I - I knew his face but not his name - blasted that corridor with full clips. Then other men were running in and not coming back out again. I changed clips again, and realized that I was down to three left already - and I hadn’t even entered the damned building yet!

In the next second, I had.

Flames were licking around the point of the grenade explosion, wood smoke mixing with the fumes of spent cordite and restricting vision to a few yards. If the corridor had lights before, it had no longer. It was as black as night. Crashes rang out from up ahead, the flashes coming as luminous arrows. The corridor was an echo chamber of hammering explosions and screams. Then I saw a light from a blasted doorway. I ran on, glancing inside as I ran. It used to be an office. Now it was a shambles of broken furniture and bloody corpses, at least one of them female. There was another opening, again blasted door less. I looked inside. Carbon copy.

Then the world came apart.

I felt this concussion strike me like a hammer blow, and I was sailing through the air.

*

Seconds before the almost simultaneous blast of seven grenades had sent the radio mast toppling; the heavy steel door of the operations room on the second floor had been swinging shut, after the man nearest it, upon hearing the cannons opening fire, had run out into the corridor. The hinges were always kept well-oiled and the door, if left ajar, would always gravitate slowly to the closed position. The man who had run out of the operations room, in his haste to get to the nearest window, had actually, if unwittingly, given it a push, simply to get around it more quickly. So that the gap between the edge of the door and its steel jamb was no more than four inches wide, and still closing, when the grenades on the roof had exploded. The shock-waves had traveled down through the building, breaking windows and bouncing typewriters from desks and generally creating a secondary mayhem, part of which included the twisting out of true, in some cases by as much as five and six centimeters, of all the door jambs and window frames within a fifty foot radius of the combined explosions. The operations room, for obvious reasons, was directly beneath the radio mast. And the steel door, and its jamb - constructed and installed by Chubbs - became immovably locked in almost the closed position, trapping all the remaining personnel inside. These people, whose number included Aaron Motanga and Arnold Hewes, were to remain in helpless desperation until a second powerful explosion eased the frame sufficiently for the door to be pushed open. But it would already be too late for them. By that time the first men of Blue-Two were arriving at the operations room level.

At the time McCann was entering the ground floor corridor via the shattered east wing entrance, Brook, waving two of his section up the flight of stairs just inside the west entrance, had tossed a fragmentation grenade in through what appeared to be a serving hatch set in another substantially-constructed door - also of Chubb design and installation.

Chubb - or, rather, its Kinshasa agents - had undertaken and completed the contract to build two strong rooms and an air-tight entrance to the operations room, plus the installation of two of their finest safes - one at Motanga’s home, the other in one of the strong rooms at the Luana garrison. This latter room was used as a pay office. The other, into which Brook tossed his grenade, was a separately air-conditioned arms and ammunitions store. The serving hatch was someone’s idea for secure arms distribution, and it was intended to keep people out. That, someday, a man would take it into his head to hurl an armed fragmentation grenade in through it, had entered no-one’s calculations.

*

Brook called, “Grenade!” to dissuade anyone else from entering the corridor. This call was heard by several men of Blue-Two section, and they pinned themselves dutifully to the outside wall. It was heard by two men of Red-One who had preceded McCann in through the east entrance and who had reached the dog-leg in the corridor. It was in this dog-leg that they waited for the explosion which would tell them that they could get on with the business. The call was also heard by three panic-stricken, tan-uniformed female secretaries and a man called Robert Msakka, Motanga’s intelligence officer. These people were in one of the offices along the corridor from the arms store. Foolishly, they moved out of the office at the wrong moment - not that remaining in there would have saved their lives in any case.

Had the arms store been filled to its capacity there is little doubt that the Luana garrison would have been instantly deprived of one complete wing. As it was, the room contained mostly stun grenades for riot-quelling purposes, plus two six-inch mortars and three boxes of projectiles, amounting to nine in all. Also there was a quantity of M16 ammunition.

The explosion of Brook’s grenade tore the heavy door from its hinges with such force that it buried itself in the wall opposite. In the nature of explosives, the boxed grenades detonated in sympathy with the concussion of the blast, rather than as a direct result of actual sustained damage.

For a split millisecond the integral strength of the room contained most of the dreadful blast, as seventy-five stun grenades exploded simultaneously, though the wall in which the door had imbedded itself, disappeared. As did a large portion of the wall directly opposite
that!
Then, under enormous pressure, the floor and the ceiling of the strong room - the lines of least resistance - exploded upwards and downwards. The floor, almost vaporizing, slammed into Mother Earth, where the shock waves dissipated themselves. The ceiling blasted upwards in a single, huge lump of steel-reinforced concrete. It took the room above, plus that part of the roof of the building, with it. Then the whole thing came apart, mushrooming outwards to shower the entire compound with debris. It was a chunk of this debris that caused the pile-up of traffic outside on the freeway, and the subsequent tail-back into, and out of, the town of Kinshasa.

*

The man on the roof of the hospital opposite the compound had been briefed to be there. He was part of Jean-Paul Winterhoek’s plan to spread confusion. He had been told very little, just that something significant was to take place at the compound and that, when it did, he was to use the supplied hand radio set to spread the word. Some astute guesswork had led him to the correct conclusion.

The sudden appearance of the two unmarked helicopters had robbed him temporarily of his breath and his wits, arriving on the scene as they had, seemingly out of nowhere. He stood there, rooted to the spot, as they crashed overhead and zoomed into the compound in a maelstrom of dust and shooting. When he was over the initial shock he raised the W/T to his mouth and pressed the transmit button. But he said nothing. It was obvious what was happening, such things had happened in Kinshasa before. Some had ended happily - by
his
lights. Some not. So he determined to wait a little longer. Perhaps this attack,
whoever
was making it, would fail in its infancy.

So he waited.

The shooting seemed to go on and on and on, with no clues as to who was winning and who was losing. But when that fantastic projectile sailed into the air over the main building he could contain himself no longer. He pressed the transmit button again, just as a slab of masonry landed on the dual carriageway in front of him, and the traffic began to concertina into itself.

“They’ve done it! They’ve done it!” He shouted, adding, “Motanga is dead! Long live president Lumimba!”

The message was some way short of the truth, but the effect was exactly as Winterhoek had planned. The word spread like wildfire, and quickly, via other portable radios, and all over Kinshasa people began to gather. Then they began to march, converging on the Luana garrison from many different directions.

*

The wall against which Brook had pressed himself remained fairly intact, having acted, in common with the other three walls of the strong room, as something of a mortar barrel in its own right – the projectile in this case being the floor and the ceiling, though mostly the latter. But it bulged outwards. Not slowly, nor even close to slowly. It bulged outwards at the same speed a pricked balloon might
implode
, so that Brook himself became a projectile. One instant he had been pressed against the wall anticipating the blast of a single grenade, the next he was catapulted across the stairs and into the opposite wall. He died instantly, without knowing it, every bone in his body shattered. The others, the two Kangatzi of Red-One, plus the secretaries and Robert Msakka, died as a result of the airborne shock waves. Had McCann been sixty feet further along the corridor, or had there not been a dog-leg in it, he would have died also, and the message sent by the man on the hospital roof would have been a prelude to disaster.

*

I came to slowly, utterly winded and disoriented. I lay sprawled against the wall of the corridor and could not figure out what I was doing there, why, or when. I tasted dust and blood in my mouth and my limbs seemed to be quivering. I tried to rise up, failed, and flopped down again. So I stayed where I was, as I was, for a while longer.

What the hell was happening?

Then it began to come back to me. I sucked in great gulps of air; air heavy with the stench of spent explosive and scorched paint, but clear now of smoke. I wondered why. And I wondered why I was sitting on my arse feeling like death when I should be running along the corridor. I twisted my head and saw my AK. What was it doing all the way over there! And where was the light coming from? Sod all this, I thought, it’s time to move. I summoned up all my strength and coordination and directed it towards getting to my feet. This time I made it. I hobbled over and picked up the AK. It was in a doorway and sunlight was flooding in. That answered the light question, and it was one I should not have had to ask myself in the first place. Was I coming round? From
what?
  Had I been shot? I felt around but could feel no wound, and I seemed to be able to move all that should move.

Then the firing started up again and I heard the sound of running feet. A face appeared in front of mine.

“Blockhouse clear, sir.”

What fucking blockhouse!

Ah!
That
one! I said, “Okay,” and the man ran on. Then another one. Where were
they
going?

Come on! Come on!, I told myself. Pull yourself together. It’s all here somewhere...The blockhouse is cleared...What blockhouse? You know the one, for God’s sake! But I didn’t. Not really. It all kept coming and going and I surprised myself by staying vertical.

“You hokay, sir?”

“What?” Someone touched my arm. I shook the hand off. “What!” I felt suddenly sick. I reached out for the wall and it wasn’t there. I went down like a bag of nails. I felt myself being tugged at and I vomited over someone’s boots. The boots disappeared.

Then I was rising.

Then standing.

And there it was. “Is the blockhouse secure?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then get on, for Chrissakes! Find Motanga!”

“Yessir.” I was left alone. I felt the W/T swinging at my waist and I lifted it to my mouth. “Brook!”

Nothing. I tried again. “Blue-One! Come in!”  As I spoke I began to walk up the corridor, unsteadily, shakily, but more or less in control. There was rubble everywhere and a lot of it was block-sized. In some places I had to climb over small mountains of it. Then I heard what sounded like chanting and I thought the concussion was taking me away again. But it was real.

“MoTANga...MoTANga...MoTANga...”

I felt ancient, decrepit, as I stepped in the door of the operations room. I knew now what had caused the tremendous explosion that had sent the shock waves racing through the building. Brook was downstairs with no more solidity in him than a rag doll without stuffing, and the building was minus more of itself than I cared to think about. I knew I had been lucky, but that did not make me feel any better in myself. I still felt like death. But my head was together now

“MoTANga...MoTANga...MoTANga...”

The room was full of sweating men waving guns and chanting. But as I stepped in the room the noise dimmed and a path opened up through the men. The stench in there was overpowering; sweat. blood and excrement and urine. It was a curious mixture, but one I felt familiar with. It was always there with dead bodies.

The lighting came from yellow emergency packs set high on the walls. There were deep shadows in places, but I could see everything I needed to see. Motanga lay spread-eagled on the littered floor. The breast of his tunic was a blood-sodden mass. But he was still very much alive. Two Kangatzi had a wrist apiece, pinioned beneath their combat boots as they stood, their AKs resting negligently on their shoulders. Two more sat astride his jerking feet, whilst a fifth knelt between his legs, a bayonet in his hand.

Motanga’s trousers had been ripped down from the waist and his genitals lay exposed. He struggled uselessly, his eyes glinting fear and hate. I glanced around at the tableau, looking into the expectant faces of the men I had led into this hell-hole. I wondered why they had waited for me to arrive, why they
still
waited. These men had probably witnessed similar atrocities perpetrated upon members of their own families; fathers, sons and brothers. For such was the coin of Aaron Motanga. Castration was as natural a recompense as breathing.

I glanced up at the other level and was mildly surprised to see a white man up there, cowering behind what looked like an upturned vending machine. Odd, I thought. He was at the business end of someone’s rifle, and, like Motanga, he was still alive. Why?  When everyone else had been slaughtered. Why not this white man?

Ah! That was it, of course. He was
white!
And
I
was white. Bloody marvelous, I thought. I said, “Who the hell are you?”

The man tried to speak but no words came out. I knew how he felt. I sighed and turned back to the scene on the lower level. The man kneeling between Motanga’s legs now had his testicles in his left hand, and stretched away from the crotch. The bayonet lay against the fleshy “rope.” Motanga had ceased to struggle. He raised his head and looked at me. I saw no pleading in his eyes, only hate.

I compromised.

I raised my AK until it was aimed at his head, then I nodded. The bayonet flashed and the blood spurted. So did my AK. Motanga was dead before the pain of his castration reached his brain, certainly before the gory evidence was thrown up into the air. The echoes of my shot were lost in the Kangatzi whoops of satisfaction as they streamed out of the room, the bloody bundle passing hand to hand, on its way to...where? I did not know and cared less. The man who was covering the white on the other level forgot about his charge and joined the others. Within thirty seconds there was only me, Char Abbas - the man who had reported the blockhouse taken - and the white man.

Abbas said, “Sorry ‘bout sarnt Brook, sir.”

I thought about that, and found myself unable to summon up the appropriate sadness for a man I knew only slightly. I did think it a shame that he never got to rejoin a regiment, but that was no epitaph at all. Perhaps, later, it would sink in. But I doubted it. Too many of my
close
friends had gone the same way. But Abbas had meant well. I nodded, then turned to the white man. “Who are you?”

“My name is Hewes,” he managed to say wetly, as he dragged himself out from behind the clutter. “I’m American.” He attempted to look manly as he stepped over a dead body and approached the stairs.

I said, “Well, you’re a lucky American. Can you give me a good reason why I should let you live?”