Steve was studying the map, running the calculations in his head, trying to get a fix on the odds. Whichever way you looked at it, they weren’t great. Not great at all.
‘You certain?’ he asked.
‘Got any better ideas?’ said Ian tersely.
Steve shook his head. They couldn’t break into the Sixth Brigade headquarters. There were hundreds of soldiers there, all of them skilled operators, and there were only three of them. Once they were in the National Stadium, there could be fifty or sixty thousand people inside. The journey through the city was the only possible point of weakness. They had to strike there.
‘We can stop the vehicles,’ said Nick.
‘With what - our bare hands?’ said Ian.
‘No, with the kit that Dan bought,’ said Nick. From his kitbag, he pulled out the HPES, or High-Power Electromagnetic System, they had bought from the arms dealer back in Johannesburg. ‘It stops vehicles, right?’ Nick went on. ‘So they’ll be bringing our boys on a truck. We use this to stop it dead in its tracks.’
‘You certain it’ll work?’ said Steve.
Nick shrugged. ‘I’ve got no idea - we haven’t tried it yet. But I reckon this will be the morning to give it a go.’
Steve and Ian exchanged glances. ‘If anyone can make it work, Nick can,’ Steve shrugged.
Ian nodded. ‘OK, Nick, you rig up your toy, and then your job is to stop the truck.’ His eyes flashed up towards Steve. ‘I’m going to put together some homemade bombs. Nothing too lethal - I don’t want to turn the place into Hiroshima. But there will be a convoy of troops coming down with the main vehicle carrying our boys, we can be certain of that. I’ll create enough smoke and noise that they think there’s a fire-fight breaking out, and that will draw enough troops from the convoy to give us a chance of rescuing them.’
‘You take care of that,’ agreed Steve, ‘and I’ll rush the main vehicle. I’ll slot the driver, then take control of it and drive the hell out of there. You boys will have to jump on the back, or else melt into the crowds and chaos and make your own way home as best you can.’
Ian nodded his head, his face tight with concentration. ‘The men need to be prepared,’ he said. ‘If they know what’s going down, then they can help overwhelm the guards.’
‘I can do that,’ said Sam.
Steve looked towards her. He’d hardly noticed her leaning over the map, listening to every word of the discussion. Her hair was tied behind her, and her face looked pale and drawn, but there was determination in her eyes.
‘Like how?’
‘I’ve been texting my brother.’
‘He knows we’re here!’ exclaimed Ian.
Sam shook her head. ‘Just me,’ she said quietly. ‘But I can go and visit the men in the cell first thing in the morning if that would help.’
Again, Steve exchanged glances with Ian. Both of them needed no more than a look to confirm they were in agreement. The mission they were about to take on was so high-risk already, it didn’t make much difference how many chances they took.
‘Could you get to see them alone?’ said Steve.
Sam nodded. ‘My parents sent me to a convent school for a couple of years. I’ll tell Archie they might want a brief religious ceremony if they’re going to be hanged in the morning. He’ll let me see them.’
‘He trusts you?’ said Ian.
‘I’m his sister.’
‘OK, you’re on,’ Steve decided. ‘Get them alone, and tell them there’s going to be a break-out as they approach the stadium. I’m going to find you some pocket-knives. If you can, try to find a way of slipping them through to them.’
He looked towards Nick. ‘You practise with that kit, laddie. Make sure you know it inside out. We can’t afford any screw-ups.’
‘And by the way, it’s not a rhino - got that?’ Ian put in.
‘That wasn’t my bloody fault,’ said Nick, his ears turning bright red.
‘Drop it,’ snapped Steve. Ian was good enough at his job, but his tongue had a cruel lash to it. This was no time to be knocking Nick’s confidence. They were three men against impossible odds, and they were going to need all the self-belief they could dig out of themselves to have any chance of pulling this off.
‘Ian, we’ll start sourcing your kit,’ he went on. ‘What do you need?’
‘I want some oil drums, a metal hacksaw, about twenty gallons of diesel, a packet of triple-A batteries, and two old-fashioned phones,’ the Irishman said. ‘The Bakelite ones, with the dials on the front.’