Free Wild Justice by Wilbur Smith

‘Somebody with four great cannons aimed at him is more likely to make a bad decision, and pull the trigger himself. You may keep them in close support, but get them out of sight into the terminal car park, and let your men rest.’
    With little grace the colonel passed the order over the walkie-talkie on his belt, and as the vehicles started up and slowly pulled away behind the line of hangars, Peter went on remorselessly.
    â€˜How many men have you got deployed?’ He pointed to the line of soldiers along the parapet of the observation balcony, and then to the heads visible as specks between the soaring blue of the African sky and the silhouette of the service hangars.
    Two hundred and thirty.’
    â€˜Pull them out,’ Peter instructed, ‘and let the occupants of the aircraft see them go.’
    â€˜All of them?’ incredulously.
    â€˜All of them,’ Peter agreed, and now the smile was wolfish, ‘and quickly, please, colonel.’
    The man was learning swiftly, and he lifted the miniaturized walkie-talkie to his mouth again. There were a few moments of scurrying and confusion among the troops on the observation deck below before they could be formed up and marched away in file. Their steel helmets, like a bobbing line of button mushrooms, and the muzzles of their slung
weapons would show above the parapet, and would be clearly visible to an observer in the Boeing.
    â€˜If you treat these people, these animals—’ the colonel’s voice was choked slightly with frustration, ‘– if you treat them soft—’
    Peter knew exactly what was coming, ‘– and if you keep waving guns in their faces, you will keep them alert and on their toes, Colonel. Let them settle down a little and relax, let them get very confident.’ He spoke without lowering the binoculars. With a soldier’s eye for ground he was picking the site for his four snipers. There was little chance that he would be able to use them – they would have to take out every single one of the enemy at the same instant – but a remote chance might just offer itself, and he decided to place one gun on the service hangar roof, there was a large ventilator which could be pierced and would command the port side of the aircraft, two guns to cover the flight deck from both sides – he could use the drainage ditch down the edge of the main runway to get a man into the small hut that housed the approach radar and ILS beacons. The hut was in the enemy’s rear. They might not expect fire from that quarter – point by point from his mental checklist Peter planned his dispositions, scribbling his decisions into the small leather-covered notebook, poring over the large-scale map of the airport, converting gradients and angles into fields of fire, measuring ‘ground to cover’ and ‘time to target’ for an assault force launched from the nearest vantage points, twisting each problem and evaluating it, striving for novel solutions to each, trying to think ahead of an enemy that was still faceless and infinitely menacing.
    It took him an hour of hard work before he was satisfied. Now he could pass his decisions to Colin Noble on board the incoming Here, and within four minutes of the big landing wheels hitting tarmac his highly trained team with their complex talents and skills would be in position.

    Peter straightened up from the map and tucked the notebook under the flap of his button-down breast pocket. Once again he scrutinized every inch of the silent, batteneddown aircraft through his glasses – but this time he allowed himself the luxury of gut emotion.
    He felt the anger and the hatred rise from some hidden depth of his soul and flush his blood and tighten the muscles of his belly and thighs.
    Once again he was confronted by the many-headed monster. It crouched out there in ambush, waiting for him as it had so often before.
    He remembered suddenly the shards of