The Journey of Kyle Gibbs Box Set Page 11

  ‘So, forgetting about their oil reserves for a minute,’ Lord Butlers said. ‘What is his stance on the water issue?’

  ‘He’s well aware of the security risks and potential conflicts of water wars in sub-Saharan Africa. The main reason we feel comfortable that he’s on board with this is that he requires our expertise and substantial investment for the planned Cubango Dam project,’ Mason said.

  ‘I take it we are still struggling with the Botswana government’s reluctance on the damming up of the Cubango River?’ another member asked.

  ‘Yes,’ Lord Butler said. ‘They’re adamant it’ll have disastrous effects downstream, and therefore can see no benefit to the project. The Okavango swamps and Maun could suffer dramatically once the dam is built and operational. I guess the government in Botswana will take more persuading that the Angolan government won’t simply cut off their water.’

  ‘Are we talking about more forceful persuasion here?’ Lady Winterton asked.

  ‘Possibly, but I think that scenario won’t play out for another eighteen months or so,’ Lord Butler said.

  ‘It certainly appears as though we have to effect a lot more forceful change than we ever mandated,’ she murmured, shaking her head.

  ‘Yes. It was never going to be easy to consolidate all the resources around the planet. We knew at some point, we’d have to use coercion and force on the odd occasion,’ Lord Butler said. ‘The more precious the natural resource, the more force may be required at a point in the future. We’re already seeing a marked increase in illegal immigration from Africa to Europe as the localised water wars continue. Our mandate is to try and get regions to consolidate resources so they can support their people and not have them pouring into our major cities that are still thriving.’

  ‘I take it we’ll need to hire your mercenary teams again to do more work in the future?’ she said. ‘This strikes me as a very devious and backhanded method of getting us to approve of a small Billionaires Club army.’

  ‘Lady Winterton, you are making a rather broad assumption considering we are only talking about the Angolan action here. How do you suddenly jump to the conclusion that we will have our own army?’ Mason replied.

  ‘Oh, please don’t insult our intelligence, Mason. We all know the slippery slope we are about to embark on here and where it eventually will lead.’

  ‘I disagree, but let’s put this action to the vote,’ Mason said.

  Chapter 17

  Lobito vicinity, west coast, Angola, Africa - 2019

  Ten men huddled around the smouldering ashes of the campfire, holding steaming coffee and eating local hard biscuits called rusks for breakfast. The sun had yet to start warming up their part of Africa, but the cacophony of the cicadas was already deafening. A sweltering day lay ahead for them.

  Gibbs and his team spent the rest of the morning inspecting the forty-five new African recruits who had covertly appeared out of the bush during the night. The tall, stern-faced men had all arrived in simple civilian clothes with cloth bags over their shoulders. One or two had looked intimidated by the well-armed soldiers who they were about to go into battle with. An hour later, they’d all changed into old army fatigues and suddenly had the makings of a competent fighting force.

  ‘Quite a few have really old AK-47 machine guns,’ Shredder said. ‘We can get to work on them and repair the odd one. Other weapons could be usable with just a bit of oil and a good clean. None of them has any ammunition though, so it’s lucky that we’ve brought enough.’

  ‘Great, take JP and do a thorough inspection of all their hardware. Fix as many as you can because I don’t want to give them any of the new machine guns that they’ve never used before.’

  ‘Killey, you and I can take a few of the 32 Battalion boys through the handling of the M203 grenade launchers. I don’t think they’ve used them before either but are more competent with advanced weaponry. Let’s all meet up again at eighteen hundred this evening to run through the strike plans one more time. I’m not sure when they’ll call the strike, but let’s get everyone prepared for action,’ Gibbs said.

  • • •

  The crack of a dry twig underfoot caused Gibbs to turn around quickly, his finger moving down to the trigger. JP and four 32 Battalion troops were slowly making their way down the steep incline of the hill that overlooked the refinery. They crouched low as they crept forward, stopping at regular intervals to ensure their movement had not been detected. His heart was pounding in his chest, and a small grin appeared. He had missed the adrenalin.

  Twenty minutes later they reached Gibbs’s position, and all knelt in the dry brown grass next to him, focusing on their target. Silence fell over them again with only the incessant cicadas’ humming and the occasional mourning dove ringing out.

  ‘Looks too quiet, boss,’ JP said in a whisper.

  ‘I tell you, mate, it’s bloody weird. Something is not right.’

  ‘Both machine gun turrets are manned, but the guards posted on them are fast asleep,’ JP said.

  ‘They’ve hardly moved in the hour that I’ve been here,’ Gibbs said.

  ‘I thought this was supposed to be a big strategic target.’

  ‘According to Kirkwood, it is. Killey was here all day yesterday doing reconnaissance and said that most of the guards finished work at six in the evening, then jumped into a truck that went towards the town centre.’

  ‘I don’t like it at all,’ JP said. ‘Do you think it is a trap?’

  ‘Nah,’ Gibbs said. Instinct told him that there was no trap. They’d been watching the refinery for three days now and would have seen any obvious attempts to entrap them.

  ‘Nearly dawn,’ JP said.

  Gibbs looked down at his watch. Five minutes to go.

  He looked through the night scope at the left-hand machine gun turret just as the gunner stretched his arms and yawned. The turrets stood above each gatepost of the main gate, wrapped in barbwire, and were covered with square, fibreglass rooves. The guard stood up and shouted something to the other gunner in the right-hand turret. They chatted for a minute and shared a joke. One picked up a metal box and took out some food which he started eating.

  Gibbs flipped his arm over again to look at the time then waited for a few seconds before he lined up the sights on his SA80 assault rifle and slipped his hand down to the grenade launcher’s grip. He took a last look at the machine gun post on top of the refinery’s main admin building that was set back from the main guarded gate. Gently squeezing the trigger, he sent the first grenade off towards its target. In a single movement, the men around him rose to their feet and started down the hill towards the Lobito Refinery.

  Gibbs reloaded and fired two more grenades, neutralising both the machine gun turrets above the gates. It was time for him to get down into the battle.

  The two guards in the machine gun turrets were blown out of their lofty perches. One of their bodies thudded to the ground right in front of the closed metal gate, the other got tangled up in the barbed wire fencing above the eight-foot wall, dangling like a macabre Damien Hirst work of art. Gibbs lifted his SA80 as he ran, focusing on the door of the main gate guardhouse. It swung open, slamming on its hinges, and government troops streamed out firing wildly into the vanishing night sky. Gibbs picked off the first two men as he ran, then heard another grenade launcher fire from behind him. He dropped down to one knee to cushion himself for the blow.

  The main gate shuddered as the grenade exploded against it, the right-hand side of the metal gates ripped open like an aluminium can. More guards panic fired in all directions, unable to see the attacking men from within their well-lit guardrooms. They’d clearly decided to stay put and fight. One of the rebel soldiers ran past Gibbs, ignoring the call to back down. The man fired into the guard house and as he reached the open doorway, recoiled, shuddering as bullets tore into his body. Gibbs loaded another grenade into the launcher and fired it through the open doorway. The explosion shattered all the windows and blew open
the rear door. As he shouted more orders to JP and two of his men, they slowly made their way up through the open refinery gate.

  At that early hour, the main courtyard was deserted of any workers, and the administration buildings were all locked up. The men fanned out and positioned themselves around the courtyard walls, in anticipation of any counter attacks.

  Gibbs forced long breaths of dusty air into his lungs to suppress the urge to sneeze. Sheltering behind a parked pick-up truck, he was about to cross the empty courtyard when two ground-floor office windows shattered, and two machine gun barrels appeared between the horizontal window blinds. The staccato snapping of an old Uzi machine gun sent a hail of bullets into the walls around the men who were taking cover.

  ‘Bastards,’ JP said and slipped a fresh magazine into his SA80.

  ‘JP, lay down cover fire into that room for me. I have one grenade left so will head across the courtyard to those two air conditioner units,’ Gibbs said.

  ‘Gotcha, boss. Go on three.’

  Counting down, JP and two soldiers fired into the window of the offices, the blinds ripping apart under the barrage. Gibbs sprinted across the courtyard and slid to a stop against the wall with a thud, the wind driven from his lungs on impact. He closed his eyes for a second and could hear his heart thumping in his ears.

  The Angolans fired another burst at him, hitting the solid metal structure of the air conditioner units that shielded him. JP then popped up to lay the second burst into the windows which gave Gibbs his chance.

  Gibbs lifted the SA80 and held his breath for a second then squeezed the trigger of the M203. The grenade looped into the smashed window and was followed by screams of terror. The explosion drowned out the screaming as the remaining glass and debris were blasted out into the courtyard.

  ‘JP?’ Gibbs shouted. ‘Take two men and break down the doors to the main administration block.’

  ‘Yes, boss.’

  ‘Set up our command post in the reception area and get the radioman up and running.’

  Gibbs covered the men as they got up and walked pressed against the wall. Was that it? Surely there must be more Angolan soldiers.

  From an area to the south-west of the refinery, where Shredder and Killey had mounted their attacks, he could still hear the odd explosion and sporadic echo of gunfire.

  • • •

  ‘Job done, boss,’ Shredder said as he walked up to Gibbs thirty minutes later. He was covered in dust and had specks of blood spattered across his face.

  ‘Everything secure?’ Gibbs said.

  ‘Yeah. We set up the agreed watch posts, and the boys are digging the mortars in which will cover the road from the south,’ Shredder said. ‘Everything go to plan here?’

  ‘We only had one casualty who got hit as we came through the main gates. Our mortars are also set up, covering the road north. We just need Killey to cover off securing the refinery tanks,’ Gibbs said.

  Killey walked in a few minutes later. ‘The gas tanks are all secure, and I’ve set up three teams to patrol the water’s edge. If we’re attacked from that direction over the next few days, we’ll be in serious trouble. We’re extremely exposed from the main seafront as you know. It’s a massive area to patrol bearing in mind our limited resources.’

  ‘I know it is, mate,’ Gibbs replied. ‘But depending on the news from Luanda we might have to change plans anyway. If the coup fails, I believe a counter attack will most likely come from the north-east, not the seafront.’

  Gibbs turned and looked at the map. ‘So, while we wait for news, JP, can you take two men and head back up to the hill opposite the main gate? It has a fantastic vantage point of the approaching road. Set the men up with radios and rations. I want a twenty-four-hour watch on that road.’

  ‘I’ll stay up there with them for a while,’ JP said. ‘The buggers will probably fall asleep on the job or get bored and disappear back into the bush.’

  ‘Fine, but no drinking with them either, okay,’ Gibbs said, winking at him. ‘I know how you like a few brandies while you wait.’

  • • •

  The following morning, Shredder walked into the ops room just before sunrise. It had proved to be an uneventful night, and they had managed to get some sleep. Large maps of the area had been hung in the old reception area windows near to a small radio station that’d been set up for operation communications. Two guards were standing at the main doors keeping watch, and nodded at him as he walked past. Another one of the troops had set up a kettle and was making coffee and preparing breakfast packs.

  ‘Morning, boss. Any news from Luanda?’ Shredder said, taking a cup of coffee from the soldier.

  ‘Not a bloody word,’ Gibbs said.

  ‘Hmmm… it’s been over twenty-four hours.’

  ‘I know. I’ve tried to contact them on both frequencies we were given, and still bloody nothing,’ Gibbs said.

  ‘That can’t be good news,’ Shredder said. ‘What do you want us to do?’

  ‘After sun up, if we still have radio silence from Luanda, I’ll contact Kirkwood directly to see what is going on. The strike on Luanda should have occurred two hours after our attack, so I guess from the radio silence the original plan is dead in the water.’

  • • •

  Gibbs flipped the page of an old Wilbur Smith novel he’d found in the ops room. Sitting on a tattered old couch, he heard JP over the radio. ‘Alpha one, Alpha one, this is Bravo one.’

  He rushed over to the table. ‘Go ahead, Bravo one.’

  ‘We have a military truck approaching your position. It’s being driven at speed by men in army uniforms. Heading past our current position. Should I engage, Alpha one? Over.’

  ‘Confirm it’s just a single truck, over?’ Gibbs said.

  ‘Affirmative, Alpha one. Do I engage? Over.’

  ‘Negative, Bravo one, let it through. We’ll engage it here if necessary, copy over,’ Gibbs said and put out a call to Shredder and Killey.

  The team in the admin block sprang into action and opened the compound gates to allow the inbound truck inside. Gibbs’s men were stationed on either side of the courtyard, facing the gate, and with orders to hold their fire until they got the command.

  Minutes later the drab green truck stopped just short of turning into the refinery. Both the driver and passenger put their hands out of the window to show they were unarmed. A couple of Gibbs’s team appeared from up on the hillside and surrounded the truck, performing a search of the contents in the back of the covered Mercedes. When all was deemed safe, they signalled to the driver to pull the truck into the compound.

  Gibbs and Shredder led the two young rebel fighters away from the truck into the ops room to interrogate them. They were shaken up by their journey south from Luanda and sat timidly on the old beige reception couch. Both were dressed in dirty green fatigues with black army boots, and one of them had dried blood covering most of his sleeve and shoulder.

  Gibbs dragged an office chair over to the couch and sat in front of the men. ‘Has João Baptista taken over the government buildings in Luanda?’

  ‘No, sir. He is dead.’

  ‘Have the rebels taken control of the radio and television building?’

  The men shook their heads. ‘It is finished, sir. Even our second-in-command, General De Govea, was assassinated.’

  ‘Did the army stop the coup?’ Gibbs asked.

  ‘Yes, sir. They and the white soldiers from England were waiting for us.’

  ‘What?’ Gibbs said. ‘Are you saying there were men like us fighting against you?’

  ‘Yes, sir, in the same clothes as you. They killed Mr Baptista.’

  ‘Boss?’ Shredder said and nodded towards an adjacent room.

  They pushed their way into an abandoned office and walked over hundreds of office documents scattered around on the carpeted floor, then stopped to look through the dust-covered windows, overlooking the main courtyard windows.

  ‘Other mercenaries?’ Shredder s
aid.

  ‘It would seem so.’

  ‘I wonder what the hell happened. How did they know about the coup?’

  ‘No idea, mate, but how much do you want to bet that we will be their next targets?’

  Chapter 18

  Lobito vicinity, west coast of Angola, Africa - 2019

  ‘Do you think they were the same group of Kirkwood’s mercenaries who were supposed to be leading the coup?’ Killey said from his position on the couch. He had a mess tin on his lap and was eating a freeze-dried lasagne.

  ‘That was my initial thinking, but it makes no bloody sense, I mean, why would they plan the whole operation and have us take control of this refinery, only to assassinate the man they were trying to get into government?’ Gibbs said.

  ‘What if we were only meant to be a diversion?’ Killey asked.

  ‘I’m not sure about that,’ Shredder said. ‘The army forces that were guarding this place were undertrained. And I expected, at least three times more firepower here than we encountered during our attack. Is this a valuable strategic asset as we were led to believe? Based on the number of men here, I doubt it.’

  ‘I agree. There was no real resistance here to meet us,’ Gibbs said. ‘This couldn’t have been a diversion. These guys looked as though they were going about their normal daily routine. Taking this refinery would have had no real effect on any coup.’

  ‘Maybe we’re being set up as scapegoats if the coup failed,’ Killey said.

  Gibbs nodded. ‘Now, that reasoning is harder to argue against. If it’s the case, we can expect a few angry visitors at the gate shortly.’

  ‘Wonderful,’ Killey said, chewing with his mouth open. ‘Best we put the old kettle on and roll out the welcome mat.’

  ‘JP, do you need more men on the hill? More eyes and ears?’ Gibbs said.