“General Mombossu, sir, Mr G’ymbai is dead, killed by your loyal soldiers as he entered the city. You can come out now!”
There was no response from inside the hangar. By this time Harvey and I were round the back and almost at the back door.
The officer repeated what he had said, and this time there was a response. Mombossu himself shouted back.
“Then bring his body here so I can see you speak the truth.”
We were at the door and Harvey gently reached out and turned the handle. It was unlocked. My guess was that all those inside the hangar would want to see and hear what was being said, even if they didn’t believe it.
Carefully, he opened the door and I followed him through it. The back of the hangar was cool and relatively dark. There was a long rack of shelving, behind which we were able to hide and look through to see what we were up against. We were faced with a larger rectangular space, almost a square, but slightly longer than it was wide. The jet was at the doors, and a smaller, twin prop plane was towards the rear, facing diagonally. A small tractor was parked to the left, and a trailer with a fuel tank was next to it. In the rear corner, next to the door we had just used was a small portacabin-type office.
I saw Mombossu standing behind the tractor, with a handgun in his right hand. There was one man in army uniform in the plane doorway, he was holding a rifle. I couldn’t see anyone else.
I glanced at Harvey and he pointed towards the office.
He held up two fingers and then pointed to his eyes, tapping his shoulder with three fingers. I took this to mean he’d seen two men wearing three bar style epaulettes in the office. That accounted for the crew.
I’d been told that there were three officers with Mombossu, so where the hell were they?
I moved slightly to get a better view of the front of the Lear Jet. Mombossu wasn’t falling for it immediately, so he shouted to them to get the shot-up Toyota pushed out of the way so he could get the jet out of the hangar. That’s what I call keeping ones options open.
Several soldiers jumped out of the back of the truck and they milled around the vehicle for a while, discussing, no doubt, the best way of doing this.
As I shuffled sideways to get a better view of Mombossu, my feet stopped against something on the floor. Glancing down I realised that I’d found the missing army officer. He’d been shot in the head; one hole neatly placed in his forehead. I wondered what he had done to upset his leader.
The soldiers were taking too long to appease Mombossu’s patience, so he shouted something in a tribal language I didn’t understand. As the men failed to act on it, it dawned on me that the men, while pretending to be loyal to Mombossu, were not actually members of his tribe and therefore had no reason to be loyal. This could be the single factor that could scupper our plan.
I glanced at Harvey and pointed towards the plane. He nodded.
That left me with the man who’d started all this off. The man responsible for me being who and what I now was. I grinned, although I’d experienced more pain than was proper, it seemed perverse that I was more content being the person I now was, but I was never going to thank this man for that.
There was a single shot from Harvey and the soldier in the jet’s doorway fell onto the floor of the hangar.
Mombossu jumped as if struck, spinning round, waving his gun. Harvey, having taken out the man in the plane, moved out of Mombossu’s line of sight, across to the office to dissuade the pilots from undertaking anything apart from blinking and breathing.
“Drop the gun, general!” I said, from behind cover.
He fired a couple of shots vaguely in my direction, so I placed a single shot between his feet, chipping the concrete and making him skip.
“The next one takes out your manhood. Put it down!” I said, moving out of cover so he could see me.
“Who are you?”
“That doesn’t matter, I won’t ask you again.”
The soldiers from the truck joined my team and were now in the doorway, all pointing their assorted weapons at the dictator. I didn’t feel that safe, so I moved slightly, so if they did fire and miss, they’d have to miss badly to hit me.
“I can’t swear to it, but I don’t think I can control these men, so put the gun down and walk towards me. Do it now!”
Mombossu looked at the advancing soldiers and made a decision.
He placed the gun at his feet and walked towards where I was standing.
“Why do you, a white woman, help these traitors?” he asked. “Are you American CIA?”
“No, I’m not American.”
He stopped a few feet from me. Cheering could be heard outside the hangar, so the news had got out that the man had been caught.
“I can pay you, if you let me go,” he said.
“Pay me? What with, diamonds?”
He frowned.
“I thought as much. You never gave them all to the Vietnamese, did you?”
“What do you know of the diamonds?” he asked.
“Where are they?” I asked. He glanced at the aircraft. I nodded.
“You’ll never know how much I want to be free of those damn diamonds,” I said, as a senior army officer entered the hangar drawing his weapon. I made a decision.
“You’ll probably not thank me for this later, but for me, I think it’ll be very cathartic. I’ve been dreaming about doing this for a very long time,” I said.
“What?”
“This,” I said, and swung my gun but up, striking his chin, knocking him unconscious.
The officer came up to me, looking down at Mombossu.
“He was a very bad man,” he said.
“I agree. But he should stand trial and be dealt with properly. His way was of the gun, so your way must be different,” I said.
The man looked at me.
“Are you Miss Blanchard?”
“I am.”
“Then I extend to you our president’s greetings. He would very much like to see you in his office.”
“Thank you. What about him?” I asked, kicking the prone figure gently with my boot.
“I will deal with him. We will take him to the police station and lock him up. It is better than he deserves.”
I nodded, walking over to the plane and ascending the steps into the cabin. It was luxurious inside the plane, but slightly tatty, like most things I had come across in Africa so far. There was a briefcase on the small table by one of the seats. I quickly searched the rest of the interior, but found nothing else of interest.
I opened the briefcase and found myself looking at a small fortune of cut diamonds. Some were as big as my thumbnail. They glistened like little stars against the black velvet bag from which they spilled.
Closing the case, I tucked it under one arm and left the aircraft.
Without looking back, I walked out of the hangar. As I walked, Harvey and the rest of the team joined me. Nothing was said. I could hear jubilant shouts from inside the hangar, and to be honest I couldn’t really give a damn any more.
We crammed into the remaining Toyotas and set off for the presidential mansion once more.
Chapter Eighteen.
The journey back into the city was a very strange one. People thronged the streets in huge numbers. Their colourful clothing, smiling faces and whole attitude were so up-beat and cheerful compared to before, it was like being in a completely different country.
As we left the airport, two white helmeted policemen on Yamaha motorcycles swung in and acted as escorts as we sped into the city.
They both had whistles which they blew constantly, and waved their arms at people to clear a passage for us. They seemed to wobble precariously, but actually were sufficiently proficient to stay on even at the high speeds we managed to attain, despite the people.