Free Tenth Man Down by Chris Ryan

bombing in.’
    ‘Sure it’s only a hyena?’ I asked. ‘Not one of the poachers?’
    ‘Nar,’ went Mart. ‘Before the birds arrived we could see it laid on its back with all four feet in the air, like a spotted dog, its stomach blown up like a balloon.’
    ‘At least it means some of the silvery spoons can shoot,’ said Whinger.
    ‘Even you might have hit the poor bastard at that range,’ I told him. ‘Listen. The President’s on his way. His Puma’s due into camp at 1645. They asked if we couldn’t clear an LZ for it to land nearer the ambush location, but I refused. I’m not having the exercise buggered up by some darkie rupert.’
    ‘How are you going to get him here, then?’ Whinger asked.
    ‘Stringer’ll bring him forward to the Bergen cache, which I’ve downgraded to a transit post. I’ll go back, meet him, brief him and bring him on.’
    ‘What time will we crack off the action?’
    ‘No point in keeping everyone hanging about longer than we need. The guys will have had a bellyfull of waiting by then. It’s fully dark by 1800. If old Back-Under’s here by 1830 or so, we’ll go for 1900.’
    As I waited with Genesis at the cache, I didn’t know what to feel. On the one hand, it was irritating that Bakunda should muscle in on our exercise, and that I should have to make these special arrangements to deal with him. At the same time, it was flattering that he cared enough about our training task to come out and see some action. So in a way I was looking forward to his visit; after all, a president’s a president, even if his country’s third world and third rate.
    The air was so still we thought we might hear the Puma coming into base camp, even though we were several kilometres away. In fact we never heard a thing, and, as dusk was falling, I’d begun to wonder whether there’d been a last-minute cancellation. Then we saw the party approaching across the low ground that fell away behind the grove. Stringer was in the lead, with five black guys following in single file. The one immediately behind him barely reached to his shoulder. That can’t be him, I thought, but a moment later I realised it was.
    I slipped forward and stationed myself behind a thick trunk at the edge of the grove. When Stringer was about four feet off, I called, ‘Stringer – over here!’ As he stopped, the last guy in the file reacted so violently that he rose clear of the ground.
    I stepped out into the open, and said, ‘Welcome to Mantrap.’
    ‘Hi, Geordie!’ Stringer grinned. ‘Can I introduce the President, General Bakunda? Mr President, this is Sergeant-Major Geordie Sharp.’
    ‘How d’you do, sir?’ I stepped forward and shook hands.
    ‘Pleased to meet you.’
    In the last of the light, I couldn’t see much except a big white smile, and touches of grey or silver in a clipped moustache. There was more grey in the sideburns that came down below a dark beret, and the broad face put me in mind of that monster from the distant past, Idi Amin. Bakunda hadn’t got the height – he was knee-high to a pisspot – but he was pretty much the same width. I’d feared he might turn up in some Mickey Mouse uniform with rows of phony gongs across his chest. In fact he was wearing plain DPMs, without any insignia, and carrying no weapon except a pistol in a belt-holster. Slung round his neck was a pair of useful-looking binoculars.
    ‘Good journey?’ I ventured.
    ‘No problem. We had a nice, smooth flight!’ The accent was very much Sandhurst officer, not bush at all.
    ‘Well, I can’t offer you any hospitality, I’m afraid. But before we move off I’ll brief you on what we’ve arranged. Then we’ll head on to the location.’
    I led the way to a patch of sand in which I’d scratched a map of the ambush, switched on a torch and introduced Genesis. As the President pulled off his beret, revealing short, tight curls of iron-grey hair, the light glinted off beads of perspiration on his forehead. At close