‘And go where?’ Nick asked.
‘There are four different borders we can go for,’ said Ganju, spreading a map out on the rough, rocky floor. ‘North up into Tuka, east across into Mozambique, west into Botswana, or south down to South Africa. They’ve all got their own challenges. But the shortest route out of here is to head straight into Tuka.’
‘Which is what they’re expecting,’ said Ian.
‘We don’t know that for certain,’ said Steve. ‘If we try and out-think them we’ll end up being too clever by half. They’ll be looking for us everywhere, and every mile of country we have to cross increases the danger. So I reckon we should just get the hell out of here like a bat on roller skates. We meet any trouble, we just fight our way through it. Remember this: we’re a small unit in a big country, and they don’t have any idea where we are - and that means we’re in with a chance.’
He glanced around the circle of men, but all of them nodded, and to Steve that meant they were all signed up to the task ahead. ‘Then let’s be having you,’ he said. ‘I want to be out on the road in a couple of hours.’
The men swiftly turned to the tasks they knew best. Ganju and David studied the map, and figured out the best possible route. They’d head up towards Lake Hasta, because they already knew that territory, and the lake gave them the chance of slipping into Tuka unnoticed. They’d travel cross-country as far as was possible. The roads would be quicker, but two vehicles with a bunch of white men in them were going to stick out. Out in the bush, they might just be able to slip through the abandoned farms without anyone noticing them.
Dan and Maksim were getting the two Land Rovers ready. There were big plastic drums to float the rafts on, and so long as they kept those watertight, they should be strong enough to get the vehicles back across the lake onto the land. Maksim, the strongest man among them, volunteered to swim them over the water. Once they were back on dry land, Dan and then Steve, the two best mechanics on the team, would check over the engines and make sure they were in good enough shape for the journey ahead.
Nick was taking charge of the weapons. The FN-FAL rifles the General had stashed away were antique kit now but had once been among the most widely used weapons in the world. Originally designed by the Belgian manufacturer Fabrique Nationale Herstal, the gun was first introduced into service in 1953. Like the AK-47, it packed plenty of punch, fired rapidly, and was capable of bringing a man down at fifty yards.
As usual, Nick examined each weapon in turn. The rifles weren’t new, but they were in good shape, and had been carefully greased and wrapped in plastic before being stored away. In total, fifteen had been packed up, along with two thousand rounds of ammunition. Nick took each one apart, re-greased all its components, cleaned it, then carefully reassembled it. That done, he zeroed the weapon, adjusting the sights as necessary to make sure it was aiming accurately. Then he set to work on the Enfields. He’d only ever seen one before, on a trip up to London to the Imperial War Museum with his mum, but he enjoyed the feel of the weapon in his hands.
Manufactured from 1932 to 1963, the Enfield had been the standard issue service revolver for the British and Commonwealth armies for three decades - and, decided Nick, a gun didn’t get much better tested than that. With its wooden stock and shiny metal barrel, it was a classic Wild West shooter, the kind of gun he’d played with as a kid. It used .38 ammo, a relatively low-calibre bullet, but even so, it had plenty of stopping power, and it was extremely fast to reload, allowing the six bullets in its chamber to be pumped out in a couple of seconds. Nick repeated the same drill: by the time he had finished, he was happy that each man would have a working rifle and revolver, and if they got into a scrap it wouldn’t be their weapons that would let them down.
Ian and Ollie had headed over to the main house. Last night, Ian was certain he’d seen some old fire extinguishers up there, and that had given him a idea. A couple of the extinguishers had been let off by the robbers, but most of them were intact, and it didn’t matter whether they were working or not anyway. Ollie helped him carry ten of them back to the cave on a hastily assembled raft where they carefully blasted all the foam out of them. Once empty, Ian filled them with plastic explosives, then screwed the caps back on. The General had left ten packs of sparklers, not for a celebration, but because they were among the cheapest, most effective detonators you could use: put a sparkler into a lump of plastic explosive, then light it, and you had a minute to get clear before it burned down and exploded the dynamite. They hardly ever went out either. Ian stuck one into the cap of each fire extinguisher, and loaded five onto the back of each Land Rover.