Hyena Dawn (55 page)

Captain Balashov dialled General Vorotnikov’s private number. To his surprise the phone was answered by General Vorotnikov himself. He sounded furious.

‘
Yes, yes. What the hell is it?’

‘
Captain Balashov, sir. First-in-command, Beira Airport. We are under full-scale attack. All planes destroyed, runway destroyed. Enemy is closing in and firing from all sides . . .’

‘
Is Aschaar there?’

This seemed a stupid and irrelevant question to Balashov but he answered it all the same.

‘
He took off before the attack started, sir. The enemy rocketed his plane, but it didn’t come down. He’s making for Nairobi.’

To his astonishment Balashov heard the General cursing. He would have thought that at least the news about Aschaar was good.

‘
Take counter-action immediately, Balashov.’

‘
But that’s suicidal, sir!’

‘
Take counter-action, Balashov, or consider yourself stripped of command and under arrest from this minute.’

‘
Understood, sir.’

He put the phone down and staggered outside. There were men running in all directions. He saw one man on fire, screaming his head off, and he pulled out his pistol and cut the man down. Immediately he was the centre of attention. The men looked at him fearfully.

‘
Get together. Load your rifles. We have to counter-attack.’

One of the men started to protest, but Balashov lifted his pistol and the complaint was dropped. He scanned the frightened men around him, searching for any other backsliders. He wondered if this was what it had been like in the First World War before the men crossed over the tops of the trenches to almost certain death.

‘
We will fan out and then advance, is that understood?’ There was a dutiful murmur of acknowledgement.

‘
Forward!’

They moved out beyond the flames and began to advance slowly.

Michael Strong couldn’t believe his eyes. He had never seen anything so stupid in his whole life. It must be the same man who had removed the perimeter guards.

He gestured to the men either side of him to hold their fire. Then he quietly murmured his orders.

‘
Let’s not make this a massacre. Single shots only, please. Aim carefully. Maybe if we bring a few of the buggers down, the others will go home.’

The figures continued to advance. Silhouetted against the flames, they made perfect targets. Michael was still counting on their nerve breaking, but nothing of the kind happened. Reluctantly he picked up his rifle and aimed for the leading man.

Captain Balashov had never been so scared in his life. The firing had stopped and he couldn’t see the enemy. He got the disturbing feeling that he was being watched.

Perhaps the attacking force had left. The lack of return fire seemed to confirm this. Now that he and his men were almost away from the smoke and flames, he could see a little better through the drizzle - the shots erupted without warning. Three men directly in front of him were cut down and he felt a bullet fly past. There was a sickening thud as it found the man next to him.

He turned to look behind and a bullet tore into his right shoulder. His nerve broke, and he started to run back. Some of his men did not notice this and pressed forward to their deaths, but the rest followed their commanding officer, sprinting back towards the flames.

Balashov was breathing heavily. He’d had a foretaste of death, and that was as far as he wanted it to go. He knew there was no point in phoning General Vorotnikov, the man was crazy and would order him to remain at his post till death.

‘
Get the trucks!’ he shouted. ‘We must abandon the airport.’

The men looked at him dumbfounded. Balashov was a fool, moving from one ridiculous tactic to the next.

‘
Get the trucks!’

Balashov’s voice was now a high-pitched scream, and this time the men didn’t wait to find out if he would reinforce his orders with his pistol. The V-8 engines of the three GAZ trucks idled noisily as some three hundred and fifty troops and pilots climbed onto them. Balashov jumped into the cab of the leading truck and gave the order to pull off. In a matter of minutes the air base was completely deserted.

The moment the trucks had disappeared, Michael Strong and his men entered the base and started systematically destroying what was left of it. Michael was busy pouring petrol over the floor in the room below the shattered control tower when the phone rang. He picked it up and answered in the politest English.

‘
Good afternoon, Beira airforce base.’

General Vorotnikov was on the other end of the line. He could not believe Balashov’s impertinence and let forth a stream of Russian invective.

‘
I’m sorry, old boy, but I don’t understand your language.’

Vorotnikov switched to English. He would have the man sorted out later. ‘Have you made the attack, Balashov?’

‘
Balashov and his men have left. I am now destroying what is left of your base. Have a nice day.’

Bunty Mulbarton looked down at his watch. They were running out of time. He’d been expecting some sort of Russian relief force to come along the road, but none had appeared. Now to his astonishment he saw a vast convoy of trucks speeding towards him.

Bunty smiled to himself. Michael would be pleased. They had obviously abandoned the airport in a hurry. The first truck was ahead of the others, but fortunately they were all travelling close enough together for his charges to have maximum effect. His hand moved to the electric detonator and pressed the activator switch. Now he had merely to touch the red button on top of the unit to set off the explosive charges hidden beneath the road.

Balashov was beginning to feel quite jubilant. He had, after all, evaded being captured by superior enemy forces. Now they could regroup and counter-attack in the morning. He could confidently tell Vorotnikov that they had tried to attack the enemy and had been mowed down by withering crossfire. There was no way he or his men could have remained at the airport, they would have been mercilessly destroyed by the enemy.

Balashov urged the driver to go faster, anxious to get as far away from the airport as possible. He sweated as he remembered that he had given the order to reduce the number of perimeter guards. Perhaps that order would be forgotten after the afternoon’s chaos. He was not so sure that he would come out of a commission of enquiry looking particularly competent.

They rounded a very sharp corner, slowing down considerably.

There was a muffled explosion and the truck was thrown slightly off course.

Balashov looked around worriedly and then turned to the driver.

‘
Get out of here. As fast as you can!’

Bunty Mulbarton shivered, the charges had obviously been deactivated by the heavy rainfall.

There was a noise behind him and he swung round. Ted Donel jumped down from the bank above and landed squarely on the ground next to him.

‘
God, Bunty, we’re really in a fix.’

‘
Haven’t seen Colonel Strong yet, have you?’

‘
No, just his handiwork in the distance. Looks like he’s blown the whole bang-shoot to smithereens. How long do you think it’ll be before reinforcements arrive?’

‘
I don’t want to be around to find out.’

‘
Exactly my feelings.’

Bunty gestured for Ted to follow him and they made their way up the side of the slope. At a pine tree he had marked when they had first made their way up the bank a week before, Bunty started down towards the road.

They moved more cautiously now, making sure there was no one below them. In the distance there was another explosion. By
the time they reached the roadside it was getting dark and visibility was not good. All the same, they hoped they wouldn’t be stuck too long in such an exposed position.

Siva Singh rushed up to what was left of the bank. He had driven his car here himself, and at incredible speed, wearing only a pair of shorts and a T-shirt - for once his obsession with being dressed for the occasion had been abandoned.

He noticed in panic the bank notes lying all over the street in the pouring rain. Sprinting up the front stairs, he stared aghast at the doors of the vault which were hanging on their hinges. Slowly he moved forwards, praying that only money had been taken, but his worst fears were confirmed when he saw that the floor was scattered with empty safe-deposit boxes. He made his way to the nearest telephone.

‘
General Vorotnikov. Singh here . . . Yes, I know you have bigger problems . . . The fuel tanks . . . All destroyed? No, I don’t believe it. The airport under attack? It must be the Rhodesians . . . Worse, they have hit the bank. Yes, all the documents have been taken. They obviously knew exactly what they were looking for. Yes, the agreements are gone. Your guards should have been here, but instead they were at the fuel supply depot. General, General . . .’

The line went dead. Singh stumbled through the wreckage around him and went back into the vault. Plaster fell from the ceiling, cascading off the top of his head. Perhaps he had been wrong; maybe some of the boxes had been left untouched. Carefully he searched through the rubble, but every box he found had had its lock shot away.

He made his way back through the fallen masonry to the front entrance. Outside in the rain he saw vast black clouds billowing up from the fuel supply depot. Just an hour before, he had been relaxing at home, feeling supremely confident about the future. Now everything had changed. He could hear the frantic reports coming through on the military radio in the jeep nearby. He could hear the shouts and screams of men being injured by gunfire - and suddenly it dawned on him that these reports were not coming from the fuel depot, but from the airport.

Siva Singh raced back to his Mercedes and drove home as quickly as he could. If there
was
an invading force, then they would only know him as a private citizen, not as a supporter of ZANLA and the armies of the USSR. And nothing on earth was going to persuade him to come outside again today.

*

Fernandes sat in the bar of the Hotel Beira, drinking neat brandy with a shaking hand. He had just been in the shop next door that he had rented out to Mr Brand. It hadn’t been hard to guess what had been stored in it, and he’d also seen signs that men had been living there.

Every time there was another explosion in the distance Fernandes trembled and spilled some more of his drink, but at least he had for reassurance the comforting chill of the Berretta pistol stuffed into the belt of his trousers. There was only one choice left for him, and that was to get out of Beira as fast as he could.

He got up and reached for his car keys behind the desk of the hotel foyer. Once he had them safely in his hands he walked toward the front entrance of the hotel. He froze as he saw who was coming towards him.

Ivan had been ordered to arrest the owner of the hotel by General Vorotnikov. The order had been barked over the telephone at him and he was told in no uncertain terms that he must torture the Portuguese till he squealed like a sucking pig. Ivan despised torturing as an activity so the order was odious to him even though he disliked Fernandes, but he allowed none of this to show in his reply to Vorotnikov.

The Hotel Beira looked completely deserted. He parked the car and entered through the double front doors - immediately bumping into Fernandes, who was on his way out and did not look pleased to see him.

‘
Going out for a stroll, Fernandes?’

‘
I have urgent business to attend to.’ He attempted to bustle past Ivan, but found his way blocked.