I rounded a corner to find the first soldiers I had seen in the capital.
Three men in camouflage uniforms sat on a bench outside the door at the end. The door I knew led to the private chambers of the president. They were talking in hushed tones and casually held Chinese made AK47s, probably acquired from Vietnam.
They looked up as I came round the corner. There was a moment’s confusion as their brains tried to make sense of what they saw. They did not expect a white person, particularly a white female with long fair hair, dressed in black with body armour and an MP5 carbine pointing at them.
I didn’t say anything, as I hoped actions spoke louder than words, but I was wrong.
For they all decided that they could take me.
They were wrong too, and they died for it.
The door wasn’t locked, so I opened it and threw in a stun grenade. After it went off, I followed it through the door prepared to face yet more soldiers.
In the small hallway, one man tried to shoot me with a pistol, so I shot him twice.
I faced three doors, one to the left, one to the right and one straight on. I went straight on. The door was locked, but such was the adrenaline and my mood, it did not stay locked for long.
I was in the Presidential study. Malcolm Mombossu was no longer behind the large mahogany desk; the place was empty.
I felt as if I’d failed, so I took the opportunity to load a fresh magazine into my MP5.
Several shots came from the other door that led into the room. The door crashed open and Harvey appeared.
“All clear, Cap?” he said, pointing his weapon at the four corners of the room before lowering it.
“All clear, Harvey. We’re too late, the bugger has gone.”
What happened next happened in slow motion.
First, the window seemed to explode inwards in a hail of glass. I felt stinging on my left cheek as I saw Harvey falling backwards.
The noise was tremendous, but I flung myself on the floor behind the desk and opened fire at the sniper on the roof opposite. He fell, screaming to the courtyard below. That sniper had been Mombossu’s legacy for the returning G’ymbai.
I turned my attention to Harvey, who was struggling to sit up, swearing loudly.
My ears were still ringing, but I could see his lips moving as he spoke to me. He raised his forefinger and thumb in a circle to me, signifying he wasn’t hurt. His body armour had taken the shots, but had still knocked him off his feet. No one came running to see what the noise was all about. In the meantime, my ears stopped ringing and I was able to help Harvey to his feet. He had an enormous bruise to his chest where the trauma pack had spread the shock of the bullets. He was sore and winded, but otherwise unhurt.
I went to Mombossu’s desk, to get some clue as to where and when he had fled.
The radio sparked into life. The team at the airport told us that they had sight of a private jet in a remote hangar making ready to leave.
“Stop it taking off, any way you can!” I told them.
“Come on, Harvey, the airport!”
Although we ran out of the mansion, we could see that Mombossu’s men had ransacked the place, taking anything small are valuable with them. Harvey found the toilet and grinned at me as he went in and locked the door. What a time to take a dump!
I returned to the car. The crowd had gathered and multiplied since our arrival. A uniformed policeman wearing a scruffy blue tunic and a beret wandered over to me, eyeing my guns suspiciously. He had a pistol in a holster on his belt. He made no attempt to get to it.
“The General is gone. President G’ymbai will be here very soon,” I said.
The man nodded, picking his teeth with a small stick.
“What is your name?” I asked.
“I am Sergeant Desmond Hukote.”
“Well Sergeant, you should put men on all the doors, just to keep the place secure from further looting,” I said.
He nodded, staring at the front door.
“There are no soldiers left,” I pointed out.
He glanced at me. He looked worried and uncertain. I saw his glance take in the blood on my face, most of it my own from the flying glass fragments.
“Who are you?” he asked, as Harvey appeared, looking somewhat lighter.
“She’s the angel of death!” he said, getting in behind the wheel.
“Who are you, then?” the man asked.
“Me? I’m her driver, what does it look like?” he said.
“You should not leave,” he said, making it sound vaguely like a suggestion.
“We’ve have to leave, as we’re to escort the President when he arrives,” said Harvey.
The cop nodded again.
“Sergeant, have you any colleagues?” I asked.
He looked blank for a moment and then shrugged.
“You need to get them here, to help protect the President when he gets here,” I said.
“I have no radio,” he said.
“Use the phone in the guard post,” Harvey said.
The sergeant wandered off and we shook our heads. It was hard to imagine what sort of organisation would be needed to kick-tart this nation once more.
We took off, back through the shattered gates and out on the one good road in the city, the one to the airport.
Juminka Airport was three kilometres outside the city, nestling in a valley surrounded by rolling hills. Scrub and farmland surrounded it, with smattering of villages dotted around in a very haphazard fashion.
We arrived in just a few minutes to find the bullet ridden Toyota smoking in front of the hangar. Two of our men were taking cover behind a pile of old tractor tyres used as a barrier of some sort at the edge of the taxiway. The others were by a solid building adjacent to the hangar. As we passed within range, a burst of automatic fire came our way, causing a single star in the windscreen.
Harvey swerved out of range and we took cover behind the nearby building. None of our guys were hurt, having succeeded in keeping the plane in the hangar.
The plane, a small Lear Jet, not too dissimilar to the one used to fly G’ymbai into Ghana, stood with its nose poking out of the open doors. I slid down behind the tyres next to the team leader, Mike, I think his name was.
“There are only three army officers in there, plus Mombossu is with them. The pilots are somewhere in the back, they disappeared as soon as we opened fire,” Mike told me.
“Can they get out the back?” I asked.
“I’ve got someone covering that. One guy popped his head out and was persuaded not to try by a few shots. They’re in tight.”
“Have you got any grenades?”
“Yeah, but our orders were to take the guy alive, weren’t they?”
“I’ve history of forgetting exactly what orders said,” I muttered. “How about stun grenades?”
“A couple.”
I held out my hand. He gave them to me.
I returned to where Harvey was waiting.
“You got a plan?” he asked.
“Not really. I want that bastard, Harvey, and I don’t really give a shit whether he’s in one piece or several thousand.”
“Don’t get yourself killed, girl,” he said.
I was just turning away, when his words filtered through to me.
“What did you call me?”
He grinned.
“You heard.”
I smiled.
“Point taken, but are you sure?”
“Shit, girl, you’ve screwed with my brains. I’ve looked to see that miserable Brit inside you and I just can’t do it, so you just stay being you, and you and me ain’t got a problem.”
“Thanks. Now, can you do something for me?”
“Do Marines come back for their guys?”
“Okay, then here’s what I want you to do….”
Several minutes later, after Harvey got busy on the phone and laptop, an army truck and a small armoured car trundled across the tarmac towards us. On the nod from me, we withdrew out of sight, and the two new vehicles parked in front of the hangar. An Mgombi army officer got out of the armoured car and shouted into the hangar.