Simon Mann - Cry Havoc

G un-smoke grey vapour rips past; a silver spate river of cloud. A jagged mountain ridgeback lies too close beneath the thin metal hull of our Hawker biz jet. The Kruegersberg Ridge. Rock-crag fingers claw my arse.

Up front, the three pilots bicker and shout. Pien is number three. His arse is on the jump seat, but this is his airplane. Pien doesnt give a toss about cockpit human resource management he knows this Instrument Approach. He knows the Kruegersberg Ridge. The other two have got us below the published approach height; I can see it. Thats a fuck-up. Pien bollocks them. Fly up!

Imprecisely, we are flying a Precision Instrument Approach into Pilanesberg, near Sun City, a playground for wealthy whites.

From our base, Wonderboom, Pretoria, thats a 20-minute hop. This odd route is part of todays cunning plan, by which we will fly out of South Africa without being clocked by Immigration. I mean, we will be clocked, of course, but this makes it easier for the powers that be to scrub around their seeming dopiness in failing to detect a large number of mercenaries leaving the country at the same time. Thats if we make it as far as a landing at Pilanesberg.

Rock reefs rip up through cloud below. I dont need an altimeter; through my port-side window I can see that the ground is too close. The flying is shit; this cockpit tantrum is an omen.

Here I am, about to give the GO GO GO on the most risky job of my ramshackle career. The lives of many now hang from this beam of fate: victory or an abyss. But bad omens hurt.

Thankfully, ten minutes later weve landed. We ask to clear Pilanesberg Customs and Immigration, outbound. We josh black officialdom. But Pien has bribed them.

We take off for Kinshasa, Cathedral of Crime, heart of the Heart of Darkness.

We reach the cruise. Our Hawker is straight and level MACH 0.74, 440 knots TAS (true airspeed), Flight Level 340 (approximately 34,000 feet ASL [above sea level]) en route from Pilanesberg to Kinshasa. One thousand four hundred and thirty nautical miles (NM); Estimated Time En Route (ETE) 3 hrs 30 mins.

The cabin is fridge chilly. I zip my jacket to the neck. If I tell the air crew to warm us, then in five minutes well be toast. After their toddler tantrums I dont want to talk to them.

Sitting back in my wankers black leather biz jet executive power chair, I close my eyes, breathe deeply, count to ten. I listen to myself. Who I am, what I am about.

Tugged, scratched, I pull myself through tangled jungle thorn. Tearing with haste. Hunted. Never sure which way. Harried, soaked. Sweat and dirt grime. With this piece and that, Ive cobbled together a monster child. I drag him along with me, through sopping, super-heated thicket. Can I shoot the little bastard now, after all this? I wish. Thats how I feel.

More calm, my mind runs through the night before. Dinner with Frank Thomas. Red-faced, fat. I find him pompous, sly, often drunk. Blimp. He is a liar and traitor by profession a private spook but he hasnt betrayed me yet and he is clever. It was Frank who introduced me to some of the great and the good in Constantia, Cape Town.

Frank is on my payroll for this Op a Coup dtat against the regime who rule EG: a private-venture Assisted Regime Change (ARC) all the rage. Frank has already been paid $10,000. Hes my spy and secret agent into Nigeria, that is and hes set up and ready. Hell go to the capital, Abuja, straight after the coup has struck. Hes already been up there once for me.

After that he is earmarked to ride shotgun to those EG locals who will be running security and anti-corruption in the new interim government. Thats the one Im about to put in power. I hope.

Frank is also my snout into South African National Intelligence (SA NI) between me and NI? But thats the way this bloody things going.

Franks fat face of last night swims in front of my shut eyes. It looks flushed across the dinner table, as if through a Vaselined lens, soft focus, candle-lit.

Well, ha ha ha, Simon! Dicky and the Director

The Director, Frank?

The Director of NI.

Go on!

Well, ha ha ha They think its funny how youre dashing in and out of the country up and down Africa up and down like a whores drawers.

This is Frank-speak. Blimp telling me how closely I am being watched.

But I know that I am being closely watched from other better sources than Fat Face. For Gods sake: Ive seen the transcripts of my own phone calls with Amanda, complete with snotty handwritten shit down the margins.