“Why does a South African, and an Afrikaner, do a thing like that, General?” one of them asked.
There was a flash of teeth as the general smiled briefly. “I don’t think we shall ever understand that,” he said.
A match spluttered as another cigarette was lit, the glow setting for a parting instant into sharp relief the faces of the men in the group. At the center was the general, taller than all but two of the guards, heavily built with burly chest and shoulders, distinguishable from others at several hundred yards by the bushy black beard that half the world had come to recognize.
In defeat, on the threshold of an exile he knew would be lonely and humiliating, he still commanded. Surrounded by his aides and several ministers, he was as always slightly aloof, withdrawn. To be alone is one of the prices of leadership; with him it was also a state of reflex.
For two and a half years, sometimes by sheer force of personality when there was nothing else to employ, he had kept his millions of people together and fighting against the central Federal Government. All the experts had told the world they would have to collapse in a few weeks, two months at most. The odds were insuperable against them. Somehow they had kept fighting, surrounded, besieged, starving but defiant.
His enemies had refuted his leadership of his people, but few who had been there had any doubts. Even in defeat, as his car passed through the last village before the a
irstrip, the villagers had lined the mud road to chant their loyalty. Hours earlier, at the last meeting of the cabinet, the vote had asked him to leave. There would be reprisals in defeat, the spokesman for the caucus said, but a hundred times worse if he remained. So he was leaving, the man the Federal Government wanted dead by sunrise.
By his side stood one of his confidants, one of those whose loyalty had not been changed. A small, graying professor, he was called Dr. Okoye. He had decided to remain behind, to hide in the bush until he could return quietly to his home when the first wave of reprisals had ended. The two men had agreed to wait six months before making the first steps to contact each other.
Farther up the apron, the five mercenaries sat and watched the dim figure of the pilot return to his plane. The leader sat beside the African driver, and all five were smoking steadily.
“It must be the South African plane,” said the leader and turned to one of the four other whites crouched in the Land Rover behind him. “Janni, go and ask the skipper if he’ll make room for us.”
A tall, rawboned, angular man climbed out of the rear of the vehicle. Like the others, he was dressed from head to foot in a predominantly green jungle camouflage uniform, slashed with streaks of brown. He wore green canvas jackboots on his feet, the trousers tucked into them. From his belt hung a water bottle and a bowie knife, three empty pouches for magazines for the FAL carbine over his shoulder. As he came round to the front of the Land Rover the leader called him again.
“Leave the FAL,” he said, stretching out an arm to take the carbine, “and, Janni, make it good, huh? Because if we don’t get out of here in that crate, we could get chopped up in a few days.”
The man called Janni nodded, adjusted the beret on his head, and ambled toward the DC-4. Captain Van Cleef did not hear the rubber soles moving up behind him.
“Naand, meneer.”
Van Cleef spun round at the sound of the Afrikaans and took in the shape and size of the man beside him. Even in the darkness he could pick out the black-and-white skull-and-crossbones motif on the man’s left shoulder. He nodded warily. “Naand. Jy Afrikaans?”
The man nodded. “Jan Dupree,” he said and held out his hand.
“Kobus Van Cleef,” said the airman and shook.
“Waar gaan-jy nou?” asked Dupree.
“To Libreville. As soon as they finish loading. And you?”
Janni Dupree grinned. “I’m a bit stuck, me and my mates. We’ll get the chop for sure if the Federals find us. Can you help us out?”
“How many of you?” asked Van Cleef.
“Five in all.”
As a fellow mercenary, Van Cleef did not hesitate. Outlaws sometimes need each other.
“All right, get aboard. But hurry up. As soon as that Connie is off, so are we.”
Dupree nodded his thanks and jog-trotted back to the Land Rover. The four other whites were standing in a group round the hood.
“It’s okay, but we have to get aboard,” the South African told them.
“Right, dump the hardware in the back and let’s get moving,” said the group leader. As the rifles and ammunition pouches thumped into the back of the vehicle, he leaned over to the black officer with second lieutenant’s tabs who sat at the wheel.
“We have to go now,” he said. “Take the Land Rover and dump it. Bury the guns and mark the spot. Leave your uniform and go for bush. Understand?”
The lieutenant, who had been in his last term of high school when he volunteered to fight and had been with the mercenary-led commando unit for the past year, nodded somberly, taking in the instructions.
“G’by, Patrick,” the mercenary said. “I’m afraid it’s over now.”