Even before he hit the floor, he heard gunfire and felt bullets whip cracking overhead. The guerrilla’s eyes opened wide in surprise and pain, and stayed open in death, as the force of Roost’s fire threw him back against the wall. Bekker had time to notice the man’s bare chest and bare feet before fear and surging adrenaline brought him upright again.
He dove over the bodies and into the doorway as he heard Roost running down the corridor. He felt exposed, knowing nobody could cover him but wanting to move quickly.
Then he was through the door, rolling clumsily over the tangled corpses into a small room, and scrambling for any cover he could find. There wasn’t any within reach.
Bekker fired blindly, scanning for targets behind the hail of bullets tearing up walls, mattresses, and bedding. There weren’t any. The room was empty.
Roost crashed in behind him and the two men took a hasty look around.
They were in a small bunk room filled with five or six neatly arranged cots and footlockers. Militant political posters decorated all four walls. A wooden weapons rack, empty, stood in one corner.
More gunfire and grenade bursts echoed down the hall from other parts of the building. Roost paused just long enough to replace the magazine in his assault rifle and then dashed back out through the door. Bekker picked himself up and with one last look for concealed guerrillas, followed his sergeant.
Dense, choking, acrid smoke swirled in the air. Bekker’s nose twitched.
Even after more than a dozen firefigghts, he still couldn’t get used to the smell. He looked around for his radioman. It was time to start getting control of this battle.
He found Corporal de Vries crouched next to a desk in the outer office, watching the stairwell.
“Any word from der Merwe or Heitman?” Bekker asked.
“Second section reports activity in the police station, but no…
They both heard ringing and turned around to stare at a phone on one of the desks. Belcker looked at his radioman, shrugged, and picked it up.
The voice on the other end shook, clearly shocked and more than a little frightened.
“Cosate? What’s going on down there? Are you all right?”
Bekker’s lips twitched into a thin, humorless smile as he heard the textbook-perfect English. He slammed the phone down hard.
The captain looked around.
“All right, the town’s waking up.” He shouted,
“Roost!” just as the sergeant trotted up with two other men, a half-eaten piece of chicken in one hand.
“Last room is a kitchen. The floor’s clear. No casualties,” he reported.
Belcker nodded.
“Good. Now take your squad and start Phase Two. Search the rooms, collect all the documents you find. And get Nkume up here.
Let’s move.” He turned to de Vries.
“The building’s secure. Send “Rooikat.”
As his soldiers started tearing the office apart, BeIcker heard the rattle of machinegun fire off in the distance. From the north, he judged.
Der Merwe’s second section must be earning its pay. Their job was to keep the local garrison busy and out of the fight. They were supposed to shoot early and often, pinning the Zimbabwean police in their headquarters and hopefully holding casualties on both sides to a minimum.
Nkume appeared at the top of the stairs, looking tense and reluctant.
Bekker put on a friendly smile and motioned him into the room.
“Come on,
Nkume, we’re almost done. Show us your hidey-hole and we’ll be out of here.”
The black nodded slowly and went over to the right-hand door, leading to one of the rooms Bekker’s men had cleared. He stepped in and then backed out, tears in his eyes.
Bekker moved to the doorway and looked in at a large apartment, complete with its own bathroom. A middle-aged black man with gray pepperingbis close-cropped black hair lay half in, half out of bed, his chest torn open by rifle fire. The captain stared hard at Nkume and jerked a thumb at the corpse.
“All right, who’s he?”
“Martin Cosate. The cell leader here. He was like a father to . , . ” Nku me choked up.
Bekker snorted contemptuously and shoved Nkume into the room with the barrel of his assault rifle.
“Don’t worry about the stiff, kaffir. He’s just another dead communist. If you don’t want to join him, show us the safe.”
For just a second, the informer looked ready to resist. Bekker’s finger tightened on the trigger, Then Nkume nodded sullenly and walked over to a wooden chest in one corner of the room. He pushed it to one side, knelt, and ran his hands over the floor. After a moment, he pressed down hard on one of the floorboards and it pivoted up, revealing a small steel safe with a combination lock.
“Open it, Nkume. And be quick about it!” Bekker was conscious that time was passing fast, too fast.
The black began turning the safe’s dial, slowly, carefully.
Scattered shots could still be heard from the north side of town. A sudden sharp explosion rolled in from the south, and Bekker swung toward his radioman for a report.
The corporal held up one hand, listening.
“Third section reports a police vehicle tried to enter town. They destroyed it with a Milan, but a few survivors are still firing.”
That meant Zimbabwean casualties. Bekker shrugged mentally. He was only supposed to try to minimize collateral damage. Nobody at headquarters expected miracles. Besides,
a few of their own people killed might teach Zimbabwe’s ruling clique to be more careful about allowing ANC operations inside their borders.
Nkume finished dialing the combination and turned the safe’s locking handle. Bekker’s soldiers pulled him roughly away from the hole before he could finish opening the door.
“Get him outside,” Bekker snarled. He looked for the leader of his attached intelligence team and saw him standing nearby.
“It’s all yours now,
Schoemann. Take your pictures quickly. “
Schoemann’s men, one with a special camera, knelt down next to the hole and carefully removed inch-high stacks of paper from the safe. Bekker watched for a moment as they took each page, photographed it, and laid it in the proper order in a pile to one side.
He felt a warm glow of satisfaction at the sight. This was the prize, the real payoff for a month of hard training and intense preparation. The information contained in this one small safe-ANC operations plans, equipment lists, personnel rosters, and more—would be a gold mine for
South Africa’s intelligence services. And with luck, the ANC wouldn’t even know that these once-secret files had been found and copied.
More firing sounded outside and shook Bekker out of his reverie. Der Merwe and Heitman must be running into more resistance than they’d anticipated.
Schoemann, on the other hand, clearly had everything under control, so he sprinted down the stairs and out into the clear night air. Reebeck, Roost, and the rest of his troops were there waiting for him, listening to the fighting still raging at either end of town. Every man knew that the clock had been running since they first entered Gawamba, and from the sound of the firing to the north and south, it was running out.
Bekker stopped near Reebeck.
“Lieutenant, take your team and cover the intelligence people. Send word as soon as they’re finished. I’m taking de
Vries and going north.”
Reebeck nodded and wheeled to his appointed task.
STRIKE FORCE SECOND SECTION, NORTH END OF GAWAMBA, ZIMBABWE
Bekker and five men double-timed north through the streets toward the police station, equipment clattering and boots thumping heavily onto the dirt. There wasn’t time to make a cautious, painstaking advance now.