Wings of the Morning (50 page)

It was also from the ‘Angel’ that he called in the first wave of Apaches, followed as fast as they could get airborne by the Chinooks carrying his fighting troops. The helicopters
were screaming in as Verity Blades, the ace Kiwi girl, executed her brilliant, brave idea that called for all her demolition skills. She blew the overpass bridge which took an access road from the
main highway up to the Palace. The effect was to box in both the President and his crack guards. It wouldn’t hold them for long, not with byways around, but for long enough to cause confusion
and to disrupt command. It was a subject for much debate during planning, but Verity proved her expertise, taking out a three metre strip to leave a clean gap too wide to jump but easy to close
again with temporary roadway.

By 1000 hours, Fergus was in position on the quay. His command post was formed by two small containers, pre prepared with communications and lifted in by the first Chinook. He was accompanied by
his personal staff including Rory Trollope as his ADC and they were ringed by troops flown in to provide protection. By the same time, the ‘Angel’ had berthed and Strike Force personnel
had taken over the Harbour office to give guidance to the ‘Dawn’ and the ‘Hope’, both vessels being now in view from land and approaching fast. On board the
‘Angel’, a carefully phrased announcement in the cinema, on radio and in print was being circulated amongst the Orphans personnel to inform and to advise that no one was yet permitted
to leave the ship. There was dramatic noise all around, but little opposition. The truth was that most of the invaders and more of the residents had no idea of what was taking place. It was exactly
this confusion on which Fergus was counting to encourage take over without bloody confrontation, but he knew it couldn’t last. The first news of fighting reached him when Patrick screeched to
a halt and hopped out of a scruffy old van which he had commandeered. Patrick had been watching the main barracks, just out of town, while his son was observing activity around the Palace from a
safe distance.

Their news was not surprising, but not good either. Despite Verity’s bomb, at least a hundred troops from the Palace Guard had made their exit via the bush tracks which ran north off the
hill to link up with the City ring Road. They must have organised themselves, because he had seen them link with a much larger group in a convoy of trucks driving from the direction of the
barracks. Patrick took over to describe what he had seen.

Oswanje Camp, the barracks, was hard hit by the Apaches in their first attack, using rockets to create maximum mayhem and drama. They were followed immediately by Chinooks, dropping the Strike
Force as the machines hovered and returning to the Dawn for more. Patrick reported that the scene was chaotic and Fergus was not surprised. Oswanje was the camp for enlisted men, largely untrained
and ill-disciplined who would be panicked by the crash and thunder of the Apaches, and easily contained by the far smaller number of his own, professional force. The greater worry was posed by a
smaller number of men who moved off smartly, forming themselves into sections and climbing into their transport.

Patrick had his adopted son Jonah with him. They had arrived before first light at a minor, back gate into the camp, driving in a truck loaded with baulks of timber. They had retreated higher
and further back into the bush from where Patrick could watch the action through his field glasses. As matters progressed, he manoeuvred their vehicle closer, planning to drop the timber over this
camp exit. He had not expected to confront any of the President’s elite soldiers but now it was plain that those organising themselves were just that. He watched them through the glasses.
Perhaps they made up a relief detachment which slept at Oswanje for want of space at the Palace. Whatever, they moved surely and calmly, and there were not a few: he counted a hundred plus.

Time was pressing. Patrick abandoned his plan for barricading the gate. He retreated to hide in the bush, but since that was low and skimpy, he reckoned Jonah would be better concealed by the
baulks of wood. He shouted at him to get in the truck and poor Jonah, young man mountain but pretty simple with it, did precisely what he was told.

The first vehicle carrying the President’s Guard came barrelling up the rough track from the camp and burst through the light mesh gate without stopping. Outside, however, it found Jonah
standing with his thumb out. The driver took him for one of their own as in all the chaos there were few of them in uniform and he slowed up just enough for Jonah to jump for the tailboard and be
hauled inside before the vehicle took off followed by five others with soldiers packed in and hanging on however. Jonah had done as he was told: ‘Get in the truck!’

At that point, there was nothing which Fergus could do about Jonah. His hands were full with matters of moment and he couldn’t allow himself to be distracted. One look told him that
Patrick understood, despite his personal anguish. Fergus asked for any further detail on the escapees and Patrick remembered a sixth truck at the tail of the column, closed in and down on its
axles: weapons and ammunition. Fergus worried. It now looked that there were close to two hundred of their best fighting men on the loose and he couldn’t afford too many of his own to go in
search. He needed them to keep the hundreds of riff raff soldiers pinned down. He asked about Patrick’s other two sons: one was at the television station, the other well out of the city at
Bolongula, where the power station was located. Both were waiting to guide in Strike Force teams.

‘Stay with me, Patrick’, Fergus instructed before turning to Rory, ‘time you were on your way. Hook up with Simon and get going.’

They were just entering the next and critical phase. Hugh’s Bertie the Boeing was carrying David Heaven and party as well as a section of twenty-four from the Strike Force. There was cargo
on board as well and young Arnie Schwartz at the controls. They left London Stansted as late as permitted by CAA rules, but that was still going to put them in too early, so Arnie filed a flight
plan for N’Djamena, Chad and they laid over there for a few hours. They were timed to arrive overhead the airport at noon and to land after that.

Simon Goring was their most experienced commando. Backed up by Rory Trollope and three more, he travelled out to the airport in one of the Force Land Rovers which had rolled off the
‘Dawn’, by now in harbour. They worked fast, leaving their vehicle, cutting the perimeter fence and moving quietly in on their target. The management at the airport had no idea that the
control tower was in enemy hands as the Boeing was cleared to land and rolled down the runway onto the apron.

Then things changed. From the Captain’s seat, Arnie Schwartz saw activity all around the terminal building and three trucks drove onto the apron, jerking to a halt and spilling out armed
troops who started to surround his aeroplane. He reported to Goring in the Tower and alerted the leader of the Strike section on board. The word had got out and someone out there was competent to
respond. Arnie left the cockpit to tell his passengers to stay put. He couldn’t see the action but guessed that his soldiers were jumping from the cargo access door at the rear, engaging as
they hit the ground with support coming from Simon Goring’s team way up in the tower.

Arnie urged David Heaven and party onto the floor of the aisles and they huddled together as the plane took sporadic hits from the fire fight which was blazing all around, continuing for what
seemed like eternity. David lay there with his arm around Aischa, wondering if it was all going to end here. They had Hugh’s great feet in their faces. Then suddenly, there was silence,
followed by the appearance of Goring who had swung himself through the cargo hatch and came padding through to them. He had lost two, with three lightly wounded. They had killed many more and the
remainder had run. The entire airport was now under Strike Force control.

David Heaven’s party arrived at the Presidential Palace — immediately renamed Founder’s Hill — at dead on 1400 hours as scheduled.

By then it was clear that the city was taken. There was little more resistance. The ‘Orphans Angel’ was berthed, the ‘Dawn’ and the ‘Hope’ both tied up. The
utilities were secure, communications were under control and the helicopter base was established. The good news was that the provisions and the helping hands were rolling out and starting to win a
welcome. There was much evidence that the former President and his coterie had left in a rush: doors left open, furniture awry, cupboards half full of abandoned possessions, an empty safe and
papers everywhere — including those which had survived the half-hearted fire which someone had tried to light in front of the garage block. David had no idea why they had panicked, how they
had travelled or to where. It really didn’t matter.

As planned, they deployed the Strike Force contingent which had arrived with them to clear and check the large mansion and its outbuildings, then to provide personal protection as they settled
to work, cathartic after the shock of the gun battle at the airport. Felix Maas took over the dining room and started to assemble information on progress, Hugh Dundas went down to the harbour to
confer with the Captain of the ‘Angel’, Aischa went with Pente to visit the city hospital, King stayed with David who found himself a position within the grand entrance hall from which
to work. Alexa toured the main building with Ursula, noting what was where, deciding that it was well named as Founder’s Hill, and finding some members of the staff who had been left behind
and were amenable to instruction from a new management: she was reminded of Aischa’s prediction.

David’s first imperative was to make contact with Martin Kirchoff in London. He was relieved to get through to him immediately.

‘You’ve been reported on the news, David,’ Martin told him, ‘The BBC, but radio only so far: nothing on the TV. I guess it’s as you expected. Now we’re in the
new century, all anyone wants to hear about is if the world’s computers are still working, so a coup in West Africa isn’t attracting much attention.’

David smiled at King who was listening in at his side. It was what they had hoped to hear. David broke the connection and turned to congratulate Fergus who had just arrived with Patrick to join
them. Fergus looked grim, grabbing a seat while he briefed them on the situation at Oswanje Camp. As he finished a terse account, David looked towards King and spoke to them all.

‘Add in those who got away from the Palace fighting and that could mean nearly three hundred armed men, drawn from the best they ever had here. We don’t know where they’ve gone
and we don’t know what they’ll do next. Am I right?’

‘Plus they have their boss in charge. This is their Guard of Honour, right?’ it was a statement from King.

Patrick chipped in, ‘They’ll go home, Suh, to the place they call Panje. They’ll be there now.’

‘Where the hell is Panje?’ David asked, bellowing for Felix to join them. He arrived at the run and didn’t need his notes to supply the answer.

‘Panje is the name for both a place and a tribe or sect, ’he told them, ‘It’s a large group of rocks about 170 kilometres north east of here in the foothills which climb
towards the central plateau. Panje was the meeting point over hundreds of years for the hard fighting men from the mountains who used to come together for some bonding and witchcraft before raids
into the fertile country stretching down the coastline. Panje came to mean not just the place, but also the people, a name to identify the most feared and violent of the warrior class. From the mid
1960’s, succeeding Presidents here — only three as you know — encouraged a myth to grow up around Panje, fermenting the superstition that true Panje are a breed apart, with
invincible strength and a sort of inner eye for divining the truth. They are an elite, ideal to provide the classic Praetorian Guard, a bit like the Tonton Macoutes in Haiti. This type of voodoo
cult is extremely effective in a poorly educated and down trodden society. All it needs is to be rigidly disciplined and given enough leash to ensure that the general population rolls its eyes in
collective terror of attracting the wrong sort of attention.’

‘This is great,’ said David bitterly, ‘and we’ve let them escape. It would’ve been the best and brightest who grabbed their chance.’ He smacked a fist on his
knee in frustration.

‘And they’ve taken my Jonah with them,’ Patrick added.

David whirled round on him, saying, ‘How had you heard of the place?’

‘Anyone living here a while hears of it, Suh, can’t avoid the name. But the place too, well that was one of my sons. He went up there to have a look one day back a couple of months.
Didn’t get too close: got frightened off, but he knows where it is.’

David sat back with his arms folded and looked at them all for maybe thirty seconds. Then he stood and asked Felix to take Patrick with him and mark up a couple of maps with the best location
guide to Pange which they could manage. Left alone with King and Fergus, he didn’t mince words.

‘Fergus. I want you to go after them. Take who and what you need. Don’t give me the detail.

Return with Jonah if you can, but bring me the evidence that you’ve got all the others. And be quick.’

King raised his eyebrows but said not a word. He’d always figured David could be ruthless and single minded when he saw his opportunity. He’d first seen it so long ago with the
protection thugs in Westbourne Grove. Here it was again, but big time. A punitive expedition, nominally to rescue one mute boy, but really to rub out any remaining opposition to ‘winning the
welcome’. David had made an instant decision, taken it himself without debate. It was certainly ruthless and probably right. It was not a move which King could have made himself.

Fergus Carradine set out at 2100 that New Year’s Day. He took their five SAS converted Land Rovers and his pick of the best men they could carry, including Simon Goring and Rory Trollope.
He took Patrick’s son for his knowledge of the route. They made reasonable time, all on dirt road and using just convoy lights. They were in position before dawn, with just enough time for
each man to have a few rations and check his weaponry. They left the vehicles and force marched the last two kilometres. They found Pange easily. The camp was impossible to miss and there were only
three guards out who were expecting nothing and looked surprised as they died.