Legacy

PRESENT DAY, MONDAY 24 NOVEMBER, MBOMOU PROVINCE, CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC

‘So how are they doing then?’

Yamba pointed to the Blackburn Rovers tattoo on Col’s forearm. He had a heavy Angolan accent, with a rising and falling cadence.

‘Er … not right up there like we were, you know … middling, like.’

‘Ah, but you are telling me forever that they are the best team in the world.’ Yamba rolled his eyes and chuckled, pleased to get one over on his friend.

Yamba was sitting in the passenger seat of the Land Cruiser and Alex was driving. Col had been leaning forwards in between the seats when Yamba had seen the tattoo on his arm and decided to break the monotony of the journey.

After their uplift, Arkady had flown them east to Gbadolite, just across the border in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where Patrice had arranged a meeting with the local militia group on a crucial part of the plan. They had then flown on to Rafaï, the nearest town to the mine, about a hundred kilometres south of it. Patrice had supplied the car and then waited in the town as the others set off north to complete the recce mission. They could have flown up there but Alex wanted to be careful not to create any disturbances in the vicinity of the mine. He guessed that helicopters were unusual in such a remote area and could set off alarm bells.

They were now thirty kilometres away from the mine but it had taken nearly two days to force their way along the appalling jungle road, a line of rutted red earth that made its way through the tunnel of green vegetation that was trying to overwhelm it. They were not expecting any contact with the mine forces this far out but were in combat gear and had their MP5 machine pistols within easy reach.

‘Now, look ‘ere, you cheeky booger,’ Col wagged his finger at Yamba, ‘they’re still better than bloody Soweto United, Joburg whatever …’ He waved his hands, trying to think of an insult.

But Yamba was cackling, rocking over away from him with laughter, his hands clasped together: he had him on another point.

‘Ah, but you see, my friend, I am not a South African, you know that! I am from Angola.’

‘Yeah, well, you know, whatever.’

Yamba was a former sergeant-major from 32 Battalion — The Buffalo Squadron — in the South African Defence Force. He had been born in Angola and as the brightest boy in his village had been sent to a strict Jesuit mission school run by Portuguese colonialists. Despite the beatings, he had done well and became head boy. Academically gifted, he had been dead set on becoming a surgeon and using his talents to save the lives of his countrymen.

It didn’t work out like that.

The country fell to the communists and his family were massacred. He was forced to flee into exile in the South African dependency of Namibia. Aged sixteen, he followed many other black Angolan refugees into the South African Army to fight for his adopted homeland.

He was now in his forties but still very lean and muscular; his bony head was shaved bald and his face had the hawk-like look of a disciplinarian. He had worked with Alex’s team for years.

Yamba was scarred by his experience in the crucial battle at Cuito Cuanavale, the largest battle in Africa since the Second World War. His unit had fought a combined force of tough East German, Cuban and Angolan troops. Neither side won, but by simply staying operational Yamba’s unit prevented the fall of neighbouring Namibia. The action took its toll on him, and his men often regarded him as a narrow-minded stickler. He could not care less; he understood that military victory required obsessive attention to detail in planning. He was never going to be in such a desperate position again in his life.

Alex grinned at the exchange going on next to him, but his mind was busy turning over their mission. He was responsible for making an accurate survey of the target and Kalil’s initial briefing had worried him. Whoever was running the mine seemed very concerned to keep people out. Given its isolated position he couldn’t understand the heavy security precautions; he had never seen such measures in all his time in Africa.

‘Whoa, third gear!’ he called jokingly to the others as the road suddenly became less rutted and they actually stopped bumping along in second for the first time that day,

‘Bout time too — bloody Africans can’t build a road for love nor money …’

‘Ah, my friend! Now suppose we are in the United Kingdom, and I am a guest! A guest in your house, am I going to be going about saying things like, ah … you know, “Ah, this queen of yours, you know, she is getting a bit, er …’ he fished for the right idiom, ‘“long in the tooth”? Am I going to be—’

‘Shit!’

Alex hit the brakes as they turned a corner and the Toyota skidded over the dust. He managed to stop them from crashing into the bushes but the engine cut out and they stalled in the middle of the road. A cloud of red dust blew out from under them and everything became very quiet as the noise of the engine died away.

As the dust cleared Yamba and Col could see what the problem was. A large log had been laid across the track to stop traffic. If that was not enough physical impediment, a psychological one had been added: a naked body was hung by the neck from a tree on the right-hand side, its intestines strung out and hooked into a bush on the other side. Flies swarmed inside the man’s abdominal cavity and along the purple strands, making them into a living barrier.

Figures emerged from the bushes ahead of them like predators stirring as they sensed blood. They were teenagers and wore an assortment of T-shirts, outsize combat fatigues and wigs. Alex took in six assault rifles pointed at him. They were still thirty yards off and moved slowly forwards; hesitating at the unusual sight of whites in such a remote region.

Alex’s experience and training kicked in. He stared at the slowly advancing child soldiers and thought fast. He couldn’t restart the truck and reverse in time without being riddled with bullets. He sat still but spoke quickly and quietly out of the side of his mouth to the other two: ‘Don’t move. Wait until they’ve all come out of cover. When we’re ready, Yamba take the two on your side, Col take the middle two, I’ll take my side.’

Col and Yamba slipped their hands onto the grips of their machine pistols, thumbed the safeties off and clicked them to automatic. Alex slowly put his hand up out of the window. The boys’ eyes flicked onto the movement and they halted in their gradual advance to the truck. Alex slowly leaned himself out of the window, trying to make eye contact with them. They stood still, watching intently. He gently pulled the door lever, swung it open and got out so that the door shielded him. The MP5 that had been tucked down the side of his seat was in his hands. He stood for a second looking at them; estimating distances and angles.

‘Now,’ he said calmly and fired a long burst through the door panel. He dived to the side of the road, rolled and came up on one knee firing again on auto.

Col and Yamba opened up from inside the car; bullets punched out through the windscreen. Then they were out as well, diving into the dense bush.

The gunfire crashed against the silence, birds erupted out of the trees. Short aimed bursts snapped out from the mercenaries against wild chattering salvos from the boys that veered off overhead as their oversized guns kicked up. Bodies jerked and spun in the road; arms flung rifles haphazardly away from them and then it was over.

The mercenaries moved forwards quickly and purposefully through the bush at the side of the road; hunched over the sights of their weapons, scanning ahead of them. The sound of the shots died away into the forest and the smell of cordite drifted past. No other fighters emerged from cover and there was no sound of any panicked flight into the jungle. Alex nodded across the road at Col, who ran out to check the bodies as the others covered him. Their marksmanship had been accurate, the shots were tightly grouped around the chest; none of them was alive.

They quickly moved on and searched the area around the roadblock. There was a crude shelter of banana leaves set back from the road. The earth floor was littered with screwed-up blankets, plastic bowls of cassava bread, bundles of dagga — the powerful local marijuana — and a lot of plastic bottles of home brew.

With the immediate danger over, Alex’s brain switched to figuring out the next problem. Were these child soldiers linked to the mine? Had the contact just blown the recce mission?

Overall, he figured they were still too far from the target, and it was hard to believe that a normal commercial mining operation would use such unorthodox troops. Also, they had got too close now just to turn back — he couldn’t return to London and face Kalil without at least trying to go on.

An idea occurred to him and he barked out orders. They dragged the bodies back around the basha and scattered them as if there had been an argument and a shoot-out in the group. They placed bottles of liquor around the corpses and emptied some more so that the place stank of alcohol. They then wrapped two bodies in blankets and put them and their weapons in the back of the car as the ‘ones that got away’. They would dump them in the bush further on.

Alex wrapped a shirt round his face, took a forked stick and unhooked the intestines from the bush; they exploded with flies and he nearly threw up but he forced himself through it. At the same time, Yamba heaved the log aside so that Col could drive through. The two of them then replaced their respective barriers.

Col cut some branches and swept the vehicle tracks off the road whilst the others picked up their 9mm shell casings from the firefight, leaving only the boys’ 7.62mm ones. It was by no means perfect but Alex was banking on the fact that whoever commanded these guys probably did not have advanced ballistic forensic skills.

They drove on in tense silence.

Eberhardt reeled from the words — Thomas Müntzer! A man whose prophecy of the end of the world had recently set Germany on fire.

Associations flashed past him: a brilliant theologian, a firebrand preacher, an early associate of Luther’s who had split from him and was now leading the radicals against both him and the Catholic Church.

Zwickau.

Back in 1521, after Luther was condemned as a heretic and had had to go into hiding, the extremists took over the Protestant movement. They made the town of Zwickau the centre of the radical Reformation. The Zwickau Brethren were led by Müntzer and had been forced to leave with him by the town council, who had become fearful of their growing fanaticism.

Eberhardt had seen them: mad saints wandering the highways dressed in rags. They mumbled to themselves and jerked their arms wildly; staring and shouting as they imagined the millennium: the end of time that Müntzer said was coming soon.

Eberhardt looked at him now. The sallow face prematurely aged by the intensity of the prophecy he had made to bring about the Kingdom of God on Earth.

‘How …? But … I thought …’ Eberhardt mouthed frantically, trying to think how he came to be there.

Thomas nodded and explained calmly, ‘You probably last heard of me back in the summer, when I had my pulpit in Altstedt. I preached to the Princes and called on them to prepare the way for Christ’s coming. But the Devil stopped their ears and they would not hear me, the Dear Lord forgive them for they will burn in the hottest Hell. They chose to join with Satan because of their love of wealth.’ He shook his head at their folly. ‘So they drove me out and I had to flee into hiding. But through this trial the Lord showed me that the true Elect, His most faithful angels, will be the common man. They will be the new saviours of Germany.

‘I was organising secret meetings of the Elect in the Schwarzwald last year.’ He looked at Albrecht. ‘Those were the first stirrings you were referring to,’ he said, pitying him for his lack of understanding of the working of God in this world.

Albrecht nodded awkwardly.

‘I am now on my way north to Mühlhausen. You should join me,’ he said, looking intensely at Eberhardt. It was an instruction not a question. ‘We did not meet by chance. The Lord wanted you to hear His message; to be part of His movement — it is your destiny to be part of it!’ He held up a warning finger and hissed, ‘The end of this world is nigh!’

Eberhardt stared back at him, gripped by the certainty in the man’s eyes. He was presently a wanderer searching for a saviour for his nation and now he had found one.

He nodded slowly. ‘Yes … destiny, it is my destiny to join you, Thomas. We will save Germany!’

PRESENT DAY, TUESDAY 25 NOVEMBER, MBOMOU PROVINCE, CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC

At first light the next day Alex twisted the focus on his binoculars and stared at the perimeter fence of the mine.

It was eight foot of razor wire with a coil of the stuff on top. Watchtowers with an armed guard in each were spaced along it, and a twenty-foot-wide swathe in front had been cleared of vegetation and covered with brown gravel.

Nice touch, he thought. We can’t sneak across that without making a noise. But it’s still not going to stop us if we drop in behind by helicopter.

Beyond the gravel strip, the trees had been cut down for a hundred yards into the jungle to clear the field of fire; clumps of tall grasses and bushes had grown up in their place and Alex was lying in a bush thirty yards from the gravel. The smell of damp earth and rotting vegetation was in his nostrils and he was soaked in cold dew from lying motionless on the ground for two hours waiting for dawn to come up. His body kept shivering and he fought to keep still.

The three of them had crawled into their observation post under cover of darkness in full combats, heavily camouflaged with cam cream on their faces and vegetation stuffed into their webbing and cam-netting head covers. Throat mikes on their radios meant they could communicate but radio silence was to be observed for all but emergency situations this close to the enemy.

They had wriggled forwards on elbows and knees with their weapons held in front of them; they had fitted their rifles with silencers, and had radio beacons to call on Arkady for emergency uplift, but Alex hoped to God that they did not have to make contact.

They were lying on the ground in a triangle shape, facing outwards. Yamba and Alex watched different sectors of the complex, whilst Col maintained a guard behind them. One foot lay over each other’s ankles so that a silent tap could alert them to any danger.

They were on the first leg of what Alex hoped would be three approaches to the perimeter; going in and out in a classic flower-petal pattern around the site to see it from all angles. He wanted to check the enemy’s defensive positions and weapons, their routines, and also to get some idea of what calibre of troops he was up against. Alex knew that a long day of discomfort lay ahead — it was going to be twelve hours before he could move enough to have a piss.

They were at the east end of the complex, where the road and the power line came in from the volcano. He had been able to see the outline of some of the buildings through the blurry green vision of his nightsight: the ends of a row of bar-rack huts and behind them the huge grey corrugated-metal shed they had to capture. However, he really needed daylight to get a detailed look at things.

As daylight seeped quickly into the air he pushed the night-vision goggles up onto his forehead so that he could use the binoculars. He twisted the focus again to zero in on the perimeter defences.

Shit, he muttered in his head. He was looking at one of the covered structures that had shown up on the satellite photo in Kalil’s presentation. From the air it looked like a simple square banana-leaf-roofed hut but underneath it was a concrete bunker.

Who the hell builds that kind of thing out here? he wondered as he looked at the squat hexagonal concrete structure. He could see that the walls were a good two foot thick from where the firing slits went through them. The long barrel of a heavy machine gun pointed out uncompromisingly from each of the three concrete pillboxes that he could see along the perimeter.

After that it just got worse. At seven o’clock an empty oil barrel was bashed with something metal as the camp wake-up call. Alex scanned the barracks as soldiers emerged from the long huts; they were mainly the same sort of teenagers that they had encountered at the roadblock, armed with a mixture of automatic weapons and grenade launchers.

So the boys at the roadblock were from the mine.

At first sight they looked dishevelled and scruffy, wearing a mixture of combats and ghetto-style Western fashion, but someone obviously had a grip on them. He noticed that they had jumped pretty quickly at the sound of the reveille and were hurrying across to a parade ground that he could just see between two huts. It was probably the tall, muscular guy stripped to the waist, who walked into his field of vision; he was shouting at the boys, urging them on.

What now?

Alex scanned on to two uniformed, middle-aged officers, who were now going from hut to hut checking that everyone was up. He didn’t recognise the camouflage pattern of their uniforms and caps, which was strange, as he had come across most nationalities.

White mercenaries?

He focused in on them. Swarthy and dark-haired, they didn’t look European.

Middle Eastern?

He couldn’t tell from this distance.

Yamba’s foot tapped his left ankle.

He looked round.

The black sergeant pointed to another wide hut structure halfway between two of the pillboxes, set back from the perimeter. Alex had skipped it in his initial scan. As he looked closer he could see more of the troops in proper uniforms get hold of the posts, lift up the ends in the ground and walk back with them so that the roof split neatly in two. As the camouflage netting pulled back he tensed.

The twin barrels of a Russian ZSU 23mm antiaircraft gun rose up smoothly from the horizontal position to the vertical and swept the sky in an early morning anti-aircraft drill. Any Mi-17 helicopter that got within a thousand yards of that would simply become a twenty-two-man coffin.

There goes the plan.

He put the binoculars down and rubbed his tired eyes; this was not going to be easy. He stared down at the ground in front of him for a while, deep in thought.

Eventually he looked up again at the complex but this time something outside the perimeter caught his eye. He hadn’t seen it before because he was either using the nightsight or the binoculars; he squinted and craned forward, peering at it for a minute.

Across the stretch of gravel he thought he had seen a slight shimmer just off the ground in the low dawn sun. He picked up the binoculars and twisted the focus all the way back to the nearest possible range. He peered at it again and then put the binoculars down and rubbed his forehead; the swathe of gravel was not just there for making a noise.

Yamba heard his sigh and twisted round to look at him. Alex rolled on his side so he had both hands free and put his fingers and thumbs together to make a large ‘O’ shape — the hand signal they used for mines.

The shimmer that he had seen was the early morning sun catching on droplets of dew that hung on tiny transparent rods and trip wires sticking up out of the gravel: spring mines. Once tripped, they shot up out of the ground to stomach height and then exploded in a shrapnel burst that left any man within fifty yards dead or writhing in agony. He could also see the tiny, pronged spigots of anti-tank mines mixed in with them.

The thick layer of gravel stopped the usual tropical plant growth from setting off the trip wires and disrupting the mines — weeding in a minefield was not something that you wanted to be doing every few weeks. Whoever was running this place was very organised.

How the hell were they going to do this?

That evening the flickering fire lit the exhausted faces huddled around it.

Eberhardt, Thomas and Albrecht were sitting on the earth floor of a tiny wooden hut on the edge of the forest with its owner, Joachim the Weaver, a follower of Thomas. The tiny fire did not succeed in heating the hut — their breath froze in the room — but it was better than being out in the snow.

Joachim was forty but looked seventy. His face in the firelight had deep creases cut into it by the strain of his life. Stoop-backed from his weaving, he was gap-toothed and bald, with shaggy grey locks hanging down the side of his head. Weighed down by suffering, he rarely spoke.

His wife and three remaining children were cramped in around the hut. Four others had died that winter already: tuberculosis and measles. The children were tucked in the bed head to tail, and a heavy racking cough came occasionally from it. They wouldn’t last long either.

These then were the poor.

Eberhardt had seen a lot of them since his fall, but such poverty still shocked him. Their faces were twisted by hardship, they stank of sweat, their hands were grubby and stained; their fingernails like claws with black grime under them.

Thomas seemed in his element. They had just shared a meal of thin gruel; he smiled and said graciously, ‘Joachim, you are too kind, too kind,’ gripping the man’s forearm.

With some dinner inside them now they perked up. Eberhardt looked at Thomas questioningly. ‘So you have prophesied that the end of the world is nigh?’

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