‘Just drive straight through,’ said Chris. ‘The Sixth Brigade is waiting for us on the other side. And nobody messes with them, not even the South African Army.’
The air was heavy with repressed violence as they approached the bridge. You could smell it everywhere, noted Steve. And you could see it in the sad and weary eyes of the mothers carrying their hungry babies on their backs.
Ganju had pushed the Nissan up into second gear. There were plenty of people in front of them, but they edged away as the vehicle moved towards them. A soldier stepped out, looking at them suspiciously. He was carrying an R5 assault rifle. The soldier looked well-trained to Steve; he’d think twice before getting into a fight with this man. They had given Wallace their planned time of arrival and he’d messaged back that the Sixth Brigade would be waiting for them. The soldiers must have got the message across the bridge, since the South African troops didn’t even ask for their passports or papers, or show any interest in searching the back of the pick-up truck. Just as well, thought Steve. We’ve got a whole armoury back there.
‘Here we go then,’ he said.
‘And may God be with us,’ the Gurkha replied quietly.
‘We’ll need more than that,’ Newton put in from the back seat.
Steve nodded. The guy was right. Plenty of men had tried to assassinate Kapembwa over the years, but somehow they’d ended up in their graves while he remained in the Presidential Palace.
A soldier was flagging them down on the other side of the bridge.
‘We’re meeting Colonel Samuel Yohane,’ said Ganju, winding down the window.
The expression on the face of the soldier suddenly changed. He stood bolt upright, kept his rifle gripped tight to his chest, and pointed them to the side of the road. Ganju pulled the Nissan into a lay-by, checking that the Toyota was right behind them. Steve climbed out of the vehicle. Behind them, a woman with a screaming toddler at her side was arguing with a border guard. Steve tried to block out the noise. He hated the sound of women and children crying. Chris had already climbed out of the Toyota, with Ollie right behind him.
A man was striding towards them. Tall and strong, he had a thick, muscular face, perfect white teeth, and a wide grin belied only by the hardness of his dark brown eyes. He was dressed in an olive-green battlefield uniform and one of the distinctive purple and gold berets that marked out the Sixth Brigade from the rest of the Batotean Army. At his side, he was wearing a QSZ-92 pistol, manufactured by the Chinese weapons supplier Norinco since the late 1990s. Among the most advanced handguns in the world, it was still only available in limited quantities within China’s People’s Liberation Army. Whatever the Sixth Brigade might lack, decided Steve, it wasn’t munitions. Or guts either, he reckoned.
‘You are Mr Wallace’s men?’ the Colonel demanded, looking first at Steve, and then at Ollie.
‘Ready for work,’ said Steve crisply. ‘We were told you’d escort us into Batota.’
Yohane stretched out a fist and shook hands with each man in turn. He nodded towards two Chinese-made military jeeps fifty yards down the road that would escort them into Batota. Both had six men inside, the second one a 50-cal machine gun strapped to its back.
‘We’ll move out in a convoy,’ said Yohane. ‘One of our jeeps will go in front, the other behind your two vehicles. If there’s any trouble, let us handle it.’
‘Happy to, mate,’ said Steve, trying to remain cheerful. ‘We’ll stick to the fighting we’re paid for.’
If Yohane got the joke you couldn’t see it on his face. His expression remained solemn and implacable. He might be an African, decided Steve, but the North Korean training had left its mark on him. He handled himself with the icy cruelty you only found in Asian armies.
‘Excuse me,’ he said, his tone clipped.
He walked towards the sentry post, brushing aside the soldiers dealing with the angry mother. With one swift movement, he yanked her hair backwards with his left hand. With his right, he drew the QSZ - 92 from its holster, pressed it into the side of the woman’s head, and without a moment’s hesitation put a single shot into her brain. For a fraction of a second she remained lifeless in his hands, then dropped to the ground, blood starting to seep from the neat wound that had been cut into her skull. Yohane knelt down to wipe away a speck of blood that had splashed onto his polished black leather boots, tossing the crimson-stained handkerchief next to the woman’s corpse.
‘Take the child away,’ he ordered the soldier. ‘And put this body in the river.’
He walked back towards Steve and Chris, a thin smile playing on his lips. ‘That’s how the Sixth Brigade deals with traitors trying to leave our motherland,’ he said. ‘I thought it might be interesting for you to have an idea of what Batotean discipline consists of.’