The Delta Read Free

sandy-coloured 110, the precursor of the Defender. It was rated one of the best offroad vehicles in the world and she prayed it lived up to its reputation.
    Sonja opened the driver’s door, reached in and started the engine.
    Major Kenneth Sibanda reached forward and tapped the pilot of the Russian-made Hind helicopter gunship on the shoulder. ‘Down there, Land Rover!’
    The smoke from the burning
bakkie
had been a beacon to them and Sibanda had radioed to the lead aircraft of the three Alouettes that he was going to investigate.
    After a pause, the pilot of the Alouette radioed back, ‘TheComrade President wishes you good luck, and good hunting.’
    Sibanda had smiled to himself. It was an honour to be serving the president, the hero of the revolutionary war, even if his leader knew nothing of Sibanda’s audacious plan. His heart soared to know the man was safe, on his way to Zimbabwe House in Harare. The day was turning out perfectly. The assassination ‘plot’ had been foiled and the Comrade President would address the state-owned media that afternoon, explaining how the Movement for Democratic Change had been implicated in an attempt to kill him in order to illegitimately seize power in Zimbabwe. The assassin, the president would announce, pending the successful completion of the last part of the elaborate plan Sibanda had formulated, would have been wounded by security forces, but would confess, on his deathbed, that he had been paid by an MDC middleman to ambush the presidential motorcade. The president would also announce that the Criminal Intelligence Organisation, or CIO, to which Sibanda belonged, had uncovered the plot and had advised the president to fly from Victoria Falls to Harare instead of drive. The president would cement his position, and that of his ZANU-PF party, as the rightful leader of the nation, while the MDC, who were in reality lackeys of the British neo-colonialists, would be undermined. The CIO, and Sibanda, would be hailed as heroes.
    The president was an old man, near the end of his life, and Sibanda and a small group of other veterans of the liberation war serving in the military and politburo were concerned about what the future would hold for the party and themselves when the unthinkable happened and the great man passed away. Their plan, now being so flawlessly executed, would cast the opposition as international pariahs for years to come.
    â€˜What are our orders, Major?’
    â€˜Destroy the vehicle.’
    The pilot hesitated. ‘Surely, sir, you want to try and take the assassin alive? Perhaps some warning shots or …’
    â€˜Destroy the vehicle.’ The story about the assassin confessing, about it being a man rather than a woman, was all part of Sibanda’s plan.
    â€˜Yes, sir.’
    The avionics and weaponry on board the Hind were not sophisticated – they dated from the early 1980s – but they were nonetheless deadly. In the swivelling turret under the gunner, who sat in front of and below the pilot, was a multi-barrelled rotating 12.7 millimetre machine-gun, and under the stubby wings on either side of the gunship were air-to-ground rockets housed in pods.
    â€˜Pilot to gunner, select guns and destroy the Land Rover,’ the pilot said.
    â€˜Roger,’ replied the gunner, ‘selecting guns.’
    The gunner walked the rounds on to the Land Rover and Sibanda’s heart pounded as he saw the fat projectiles strike home, ripping open the aluminium roof of the four-by-four like a tin opener.
    â€˜It is a strong vehicle, Major,’ the pilot said as their shadow passed over the truck which, despite a cloud of steam gushing from a hole in the bonnet, was still bouncing slowly but surely across the open grassy plain.
    â€˜Use the rockets. Obliterate it.’
    â€˜Yes sir. Gunner, you heard the man,’ the pilot said.
    â€˜Selecting rockets.’
    The pilot banked the Hind into a sweeping turn and