And that, as it turned out, was Ben Bull.
The factory made garage doors. At least on the ground floor, that is. It occupied a fifty foot by thirty concrete shed, and most of the day there were twenty guys in there sweating over their machinery. But night had fallen now, and that meant the place was empty. Except for the owner.
Ben gave Chris a tight bear hug. He was a huge man, six feet five and weighing in at three hundred pounds. He had a thick beard, half-black, half-grey, and there was a film of sweat covering his face. Maybe back in the Recces, he’d been a decent physical specimen, decided Steve. He’d have had to be: in their prime, the Recces were the finest special forces unit the world had ever seen. But in the years since then, he’d turned into a ruin very fast.
After the introductions were made, Ben took them inside and offered them all some beers, but for Chris and Dan buying weapons was a serious business: for Dan, it was the only thing worth turning down a beer for.
The workshop covered the entire ground floor; there was a smell of lathes and oil in the air. Ben led them through a small doorway then down a flight of stairs, then through another door which, Steve noted, was double-locked with what looked like a hardened steel mortice deadlock. Laughably, Chris had explained to them on the way over, South Africa had strict gun control laws. Everyone was meant to get a police licence to own a weapon. In effect, all it meant was that the police could waste time hassling law-abiding citizens, whilst the criminals - and there were plenty of those - could get hold of all the weapons they wanted. Most of the white farmers went to guys like Ben to stock up on the munitions they needed. Even suburban families had more heavy-duty firepower tucked away in a safe room than the average police station in a normal country. Shotguns, automatic rifles - even hand grenades: they were all standard kit along the leafy avenues of middle-class Johannesburg.
Downstairs was a long thin basement, thirty feet deep and twenty across, with three rows of metal shelving. The room was immaculately clean, its temperature controlled at a constant seventeen degrees. ‘Good stuff,’ whistled Dan, as he cast his eyes around the room.
South Africa was not only one of the most heavily armed societies in the world, it was also one of the leading arms manufacturers: international sanctions in the last years of apartheid, coupled with vicious border wars, meant the country had no choice but to develop its own arms industry, and the kit had to be good enough to match Soviet-bloc-supplied guerrilla weapon for weapon. Among professional soldiers, weapons from three countries were most prized for their technology and durability: Israel, South Africa and Russia. Of the three, the Israeli kit was the most technically slick, but the South African one packed the most punch. Just by working with the local manufacturers, and getting hold of shipments made after-hours in the factories, a dealer such as Ben could operate an armoury as sophisticated as any in the world.
‘Where you going?’ asked Ben.
‘North,’ answered Chris.
Ben just nodded, the fat around his triple chin wobbling as he did so. He was both a Recce and an arms dealer, and the code of both professions meant you didn’t ask any unnecessary questions. But north could only mean one thing. Batota.
‘You’ll need plenty of kit then,’ he said. ‘It gets rough up there. Worse every year, from what I hear.’
They had already put together a checklist of what they would need. Assault rifles were an essential: they’d take AK-47s if they could find some good ones because they were sturdy, reliable, easy to look after, and there were so many of them in Africa that they could always steal some extra ammo if it became necessary. They’d need some decent machine pistols, plus some rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs), hand grenades, some quality plastic explosives - and enough ammunition to keep them supplied even if they came up against a small army.
On the racks of assault rifles was a selection of guns made by Vector Arms, a company now based in the US that specialised in making replica AK-47s mostly from Hungarian, Polish and Bulgarian parts. Chris was familiar with their stuff: it was reliable, well put together, and brand new. He took down an AKSW, its version of the AK-47, made with a black polymer hand-grip and a light-blond wood stock, tested its weight and feel, and handed it to Dan. Dan took a minute to assess the weapon, then nodded. They’d take a dozen, at $600 each: one for each man, and a couple of spares. The Vector AK came with a 30-round mag: they’d take twenty-four, allowing each man a spare for his webbing, and twenty boxes of ammo. Ben had a full range of AK-47 accessories - different grips, flashlights and laser sights - but none of them interested Dan very much. The AK was never any use as a precision weapon; it didn’t have the range or the accuracy. But there were a stock of AK bayonets. Of the three Ben had on the shelves, Dan picked out the Chinese-made Norinco 84S - 1, a simple bayonet with a black, stubby stock that slotted neatly on the underside of the weapon, and a short, polished steel blade that could be simply stabbed into your enemy and should kill him with one twist. Like most Chinese weapons, it was designed to kill quickly and effectively. They took twelve.