The Henchmen's Book Club (9 page)

The mine itself.

It rolled into view over the next rise. A
long wire fence peeled off in both directions, straddled by gun turrets and
security stations. All hell was breaking loose at one end of the line. Elements
of our column had reached the front and were smashing their way through the
defences around the main gate. The front office was bright with flames and I
saw several figures struggling to escape the windows. Gunfire picked them off
as they tumbled out and the Caia mine sécurité burned where they fell.

One of the gun turrets started firing on
our part of the column as we emerged from the rat-run of shanty streets. Me and
Captain Bolaji returned fire, spraying the position until we were past it and
out of range before turning into the mine’s works through holes in the wire.

Captain Bolaji stayed right on my tail,
his sights fixed on me as much as the enemy. We pushed on through, firing left
and right alternately, mowing down green uniforms where we found them.

Before we made much headway though,
bullets started pinging off our Land Rover’s armour. I couldn’t tell where the
fire was coming from and neither could Savimbi but we’d turned straight into a
cluster of small arms. I tried bringing the gun to bear, but their force of
fire was too much and I had to drop out of sight behind the armour while Savimbi
tried to extricate us from the ambush.

A grinding of gears and a desperate
screeching of the tyres did little to put any distance between us and our
persecutors and after a few more seconds a thump of blood from the driver’s
side told me Savimbi had left the building. The Land Rover was left to careen
into the back of a beast of a mining truck before beat bopping about on the
spot as its tyres and hydraulics were shot to pieces.

It was at that moment, after a sustained
ten or twelve seconds under fire that I realised no one was coming to my aid
– most notably Captain Bolaji. That son of a bitch! He’d been with us all
the way, right through the settlement and past the mine’s defences, blasting
what we’d blasted and shadowing us slug-for-slug. Now suddenly we – or
rather I – actually needed him and the bastard had his feet up, obviously
hoping I’d cop one to save himself the trouble.

I opened the steel ammo case against the
rear of the cab and started bowling grenades in the direction of the enemy. I
wasn’t close enough to take any of their sunglasses off, but if I could just
get their heads down for a few seconds I had a plan.

Explosions started splintering between
us, one after the other as a dozen grenades patiently waited their turn to rip
the air apart.

I grabbed the M4 Carbine off the brackets
just behind the passenger seat and scrambled across what was left of Savimbi
and the windscreen, leaping over the bonnet and landing on the runner boards of
the giant Earth Mover we’d crashed into.

As more explosions echoed behind me, I
pulled myself up into the driver’s seat and hit the ignition button. The diesel
engine roared to life first time and belched a huge black cloud of smoke over
the cab.

I threw the gears into reverse and
floored the
accelerator,
launching the titan back to
smash through the enemy’s makeshift defences and fill its enormous treads with
security guards. Several men attempted to board me but a couple of bursts from
the Carbine soon put paid to them and moments later I was rumbling through the
middle of a war zone, oblivious to fence posts, gate posts and guard posts. I
also flattened several portacabins and a couple of vehicles (which may or may
not have been ours) with my immense twenty-foot high tyres before I got the
monster motoring in the right direction. And that was when I saw it – the
Admiral’s eight-wheeler, rolling through the gates and towards the mine with an
unstoppable inevitability.

That’s it, I figured, I’m out of here.

The upside of losing Savimbi and the Land
Rover was that I also seemed to have lost Captain Bolaji. Taking this as my
cue, I pointed the Earth Mover in the direction of the distant hills and
flattened the accelerator.

Suddenly I was swimming against the tide.
Jeeps, APCs and armour were pouring into the works while I was intent on
leaving via the same holes. Luckily my Earth Mover could cart over three
hundred and fifty tonnes when fully loaded, so brushing aside a few old Russian
trucks hardly scratched the bumpers. The armour I pushed to one side, but the
jeeps I just went straight over without jigging the windscreen wipers.

Sparks started to explode all around the
cab as my former comrades voiced their objections, but I ducked beneath the
steering wheel and carried on over the top of them until I was outside.

Once clear of the main perimeter I found
less people to run over. Most of the Special Army were now inside and attacking
the mine’s installations, while the population at large had taken to the hills.
I’d momentarily lost the main road from having to duck under the dashboard so I
made one of my own through a row of corrugated houses until I found the
official road again.

For a few precious minutes I rolled away
from the mine stupidly thinking I’d made it, but only too quickly bullets began
strafing the cab again.

I glanced into my wing mirror and saw
Captain Bolaji making free with his ammo moments before the glass disappeared
in an explosion of shards. I swung the steering wheel into the Captain’s
direction, but he just popped up in the opposite wing mirror and carried on
rattling bullets off my doors.

What was left of my windows disappeared
in the next hail, but Captain Bolaji couldn’t bring his arc of fire to bear on
me. The driver’s seat was a good twenty-five feet above ground and protected from
the rear by six inches of solid steel. The only way to get anywhere near me was
to shoot through the driver’s doors, but in order to do that he had to make it
past a trio of twenty-foot high wheels, which didn’t appeal to his driver in
the slightest.

I checked the clip on my carbine and
resorted to my Colt when I found it was empty.

The road ahead was relatively straight,
so I stuck the Carbine through the steering wheel and checked my rear. Captain
Bolaji had disappeared from the driver’s side, so I clambered over the seats
and checked behind the right rear wheel. Sure enough there he was, bouncing
bullets off the rubber in an attempt to burst my tyres, but having about as
much luck as the residents of Caia were. Well, like I said, this truck carried over
three hundred and fifty tonnes of dirt and rocks fully laden so they didn’t
muck around when it came to the tyres.

I took a bead on my target and pulled the
trigger three or four times until I saw his driver’s hat come off. Captain
Bolaji’s jeep immediately veered into my rear wheel and disappeared under the
axles with a satisfying bump. Captain Bolaji himself leapt for his life but I
didn’t see what became of him as a crunch from the front suddenly grabbed my
attention.

I turned just in time to see the side of
a steel bridge vanishing under the front wheels of the Earth Mover and a river
looming large in the windscreen. I gasped through sheer terror, but just about
managed to hold onto the breath as I plunged thirty feet and crashed face first
into the mighty Zambezi.

10.
DILEMMAS WITH HYDROGEN AND OXYGEN

Everything immediately went black and I tumbled and turned inside the cab until
the Earth Mover hit the bottom with a thump.

My head hit the ceiling and I lost the
breath I’d been saving for later, but when I spluttered and choked, I found to
my surprise that I could still breathe. A small pocket of air had accompanied
me to the bottom of the river so I sucked in as much as I could and studied my
latest share price.

Not brilliant, but things could’ve been
worse.

And suddenly they were. The rear of the
Earth Mover started tumbling after the front and the air began draining away as
the machine twisted in the murk and came to a rest on its back. Fortunately, by
the time I was submerged again, I’d managed to pump my lungs full of air and
was confident I had a couple of minutes before I had to find any more.

I’m pretty good at holding my breath
these days. Most Agency Affiliates have to be. Besides marksmanship, flying
kicks and unbreakable skulls, a good pair of lungs is all part of the kit. Very
few jobs won’t dunk you in the drink at some point, whether it be oceans, seas,
lake or rivers, shark pits, moats, alligator enclosures or piranha tanks. And
if you want to get out of them again and pick up your wages at the end of the
job, you’d better know how to hold your breath. The Agency actually runs
courses for surviving water. And pretty vigorous they are too. More than a few
blokes have drowned just attending these courses but The Agency has world-class
lifeguards and medics on hand at all times and has yet to permanently lose a
student to water. The drowning side can actually help you. I almost drowned
doing this course and nothing makes you more aware of the limits to which you
can push your body. As long as you’re able to pump your lungs before you’re
submerged, as long as you know to release it slowly, as long as you let your
own natural buoyancy do as much of the work as you dare, as long as you don’t
panic and as long as you don’t breathe the water, more times than not you’ll
live to climb onto dry land again.

I launched myself through the windscreen
of the Earth Mover and was pulled clear by the current. I could see the African
sun twinkling far above my head, sending golden rays through the dirty water to
show me the way back to life, so I kicked off my boots, my jacket and my gun
belt and motioned my arms and legs in gentle circles, clawing myself towards
surface inch by murderous inch.

The current was mercilessly strong and
for every three feet I rose, I sank another two until my lungs burned with
impatience. I knew not to kick too frantically as that had been my undoing on
The Agency course. You don’t rise any quicker, you just use up your oxygen.
Instead I tried meditating my way to the surface. This sounds a bit gay, and
I’ll be the first to admit it, but it can actually save your life. By focussing
inwardly and shutting down all extraneous activity, you conserve oxygen for
your vital organs, granting you precious extra seconds to circle around in the
swells as you float towards daylight. But it is an incredibly hard thing to do,
because you’ve basically got to fight against your instincts. I mean, when
you’re in thirty feet of water and gasping for breath, your panic stations will
demand that you strike for the surface, but fighting against the water will
only make you want to breathe all the more. What you actually have to do is
take a moment to calm yourself, then relax as many muscles as you can (your
back, neck, buttocks, stomach etc) and slowly and rhythmically waft yourself
toward the light. Hopefully, if you’ve done it right, Saint Peter won’t be
standing there when you open your eyes to tell you you should have kicked, and
you’ll break the surface as gently as a sea turtle on its journeys around the
oceans.

Of course, it’s almost always those last
few inches that actually kill you, tricking you into believing that you’ve made
it when you haven’t, and that’s when you’ve got to be at your most disciplined
and resist the urge to thrash for the finishing line.

Though this can be particularly hard when
a semi-submerged tree branch stabs you in the face.

“Oh you… [cough]…
 
fuckin’…. [retch]… cuntin’… fuck…
[gag]… shi… [heave]… urghhh!”

I managed to somehow cling onto the
branch and pulled myself the last few inches to the surface, though the pain
that gouged my face almost knocked me back into the depths. I gulped down a
bellyful of river and air, coughing and hacking with every breath until I was
eventually able to keep some air down.

The river continued to pull at my feet,
but my arms were tightly wrapped around the branch to keep me afloat.

I looked around to take stock of my
situation but saw nothing out of the right eye but blood and shapes, and
nothing at all out of my left. I felt my face and a shiver ran down my spine
when I found a tangled mess of skin and bone where my left eye used to be.

“Oh shit!”

I splashed some water into my right eye
to clear my vision, but I was still unable to see anything at all out of my
left.

Blood started pouring down my face again,
flavouring the water and banging the dinner gong for any nearby crocodiles, so
I put my less immediate worries on hold for a moment and hauled myself along
the branch until I reached the bank. The mud sucked at my hands and feet but a
little more clambering saw me up the slope and away from the Zambezi’s circling
patrons.

I wanted to clean my face, push it back
together and pick out any fragments of wood and dirt that were stuck in my eye,
but my hands were caked with mud and my shirt was somehow filthier than the
water it had just left.

I found some waxy vegetation nearby and
did what I could to clean my hands up, and although I was still reluctant to
put them into an open wound, what choice did I have?

A couple of bits of bark and one of the
tastier splinters of wood fell from my face as I tried to flick it clean, along
with one or bits I think I was meant to keep. Only my hand was keeping my
eyeball and eyebrow in place, so I untied my bandana from around my neck and did
what I could to tie it around my head. My eye was gone, and a good proportion
of my face too, but at least I was alive, which is more than a lot of people
would be able to say come the end of this day.

I was stupidly just allowing myself think
that the worst of it was behind me when the same waxy vegetation that had
served as my medicine cabinet began exploding all around me. I looked up and
saw Captain Bolaji on the crest of the riverbank, emptying his pistol in my
direction in a fit of ill-judged impatience. If he’d snuck up on me or had lain
in wait, he would’ve had me for dead, but like so many inexperienced gunmen,
he’d opened up on me from a distance, assuming I’d be as easy to hit at fifty
yards as a paper target.

I was on my belly and scrambling before
he’d got more than three or four shots off, and used the sloping bank as cover.

Captain Bolaji swore at me and told me to
die, but I hadn’t accommodated any of the hundred or so other piss poor shots
who’d made similar demands in the past so I didn’t see why I should make an
exception for him.

If I’d still had my Colt and my 3D vision
I might’ve stayed and taught Captain Bolaji how to shoot, but I was unarmed and
hurt, so I scrambled through the undergrowth, keeping my head down and arse
moving as I slithered for salvation. Thanks to the loss of my trousers my legs
were soon scuffed to sirloin and together with all the blood that was pouring
off my face I quickly realised a half-cut tracker with a hangover could’ve
happily run me down, so I took the decision to lay up and wait for Captain
Bolaji. If he was impatient enough to open up on me from fifty yards away, he
was a good bet to run straight into a blade if I gave him the opportunity.

I rolled off the trail and pulled my
combat knife from my ankle sheath. The Captain soon caught up with me, eyes to
the dust as he chased down my blood trail, and I saw that he too had been hurt,
presumably when his driver had taken a detour under my Earth Mover. This
bolstered my confidence and I sunk back behind the tree and crouched with the
blade poised to strike.

Sounds of twigs cracking heralded his
arrival and I stabbed into a rush of movement but misjudged the distance thanks
to my newly acquired 2D vision. Still, the shock knocked him off kilter long
enough for me to turn my attention to his gun and I slashed it from his hand,
opening his tendons and veins as I did so.

Far from falling back as I would’ve
expected, Captain Bolaji launched himself at me, seizing my knife hand and
tumbling us both into a scrub-filled gully to crack our heads on the waiting
rocks.

“Dog bitch!” Captain Bolaji screamed,
trying to turn the knife on me.

“Fucking twat!” I screamed back, equally
determined to be the one who did the stabbing around here.

Captain Bolaji smashed me on the side of
the face with his free hand, rocking my head back and exposing my neck for a
dangerous few moments. However, I managed to use the momentum to bring my face
straight back into his, head-butting him on the bridge of the nose with a
sickening crunch. To be honest, I wasn’t sure which of us had just done the
crunching but neither of us seemed that happy about it and both reeled back
with nausea.

“That wasn’t good,” I spluttered, and for
one moment Captain Bolaji nodded in agreement.

Almost immediately though we were
straight back to it, grappling and scratching at each other as we fought for
possession of the blade.

My shock and blood loss must’ve begun to
tell because Captain Bolaji started to get the upper hand. He rolled me onto my
back and twisted the blade in my grip until my hand was almost at a right angle
to itself. It was impossible to push the blade away when my wrist was at this
angle, so I held him for as long as I could and settled for opening a second
front on the bastard, whipping my knees up between his legs until I eventually
won a coconut.

Captain Bolaji’s strength slipped and I
was able to push him off and turn the knife around. Captain Bolaji still had a
hold of my wrist but the tide had turned and he knew it.

“No!” he gasped, as the tip of the blade
began to pierce his neck.

I’ve killed a couple of people with a
knife before and they always react the same way when the end comes. Pleading,
desperation, pity and regret. Mr Fedorov, my late lamented Russian colleague,
used to say that knife fights were like games of chess; each player started out
on the attack with such intent, rushing their Queens and Rooks into the fray
with only final victory on their minds until inevitably the issue was forced,
and the losing King was left to run around in ever decreasing circles until the
final blow was struck.

Well my knee-to-the-nuts had sapped
Captain Bolaji of all his Bishops, Knights and Rooks and only a few token Pawns
stood between him and Check Mate. Captain Bolaji recognised this and did what
everyone in his position always did when their time came. He pleaded with me to
“wait”, used the last of his strength to delay the inevitable and prayed for a
miracle to save him.

It arrived right on cue, just as I was
about to deliver to killer blow.