Night in London Page 5

  Alexandra was originally established in 1912 and proclaimed as a so-called "native township." Because the township was declared prior to the South African 1912 Land Act, it was one of the few urban areas in the country where black people could own land under a freehold title. By 1916 the population of Alexandra had grown to 30,000 and thus the Alexandra Health Committee was established to manage the township. However, the Committee was not allowed to collect local taxes, nor was the Johannesburg City Council willing to take responsibility for an area that it claimed fell outside its jurisdiction, leading to a lack of resources and proper management. The township is situated on the banks of the Jukskei River and covers an area of more than 8 km² and now has an estimated population of over 470,000 people crammed together, living in the most awful conditions imaginable and without proper sewerage systems or electricity.

  The Colonel had established a stronghold here, linking a network of these shacks. Some of the dwellings housed his gang members, others housed weapons and ammunition and stolen goods and cash but the majority contained innocent civilians he used as human shields. He had one of his many “wives” run a soup kitchen on the one side of his personal quarters and had a dozen or so orphans sleep in the interconnected shack atop his own personal quarters -- dug one level underground - only a few feet away from where he sat now. He didn’t need high walls, sophisticated security systems or guard dogs to protect him from the South African authorities and law enforcement agencies. Rather he chose to surround himself with unknowing human protectors, shields who would make a raid on his lair very difficult for the South African Police or South African Army. His shack, which was underground, was seated at the foot of an old mine dump. He placed a number of his men on top of it each night to keep watch with their AK47s and RPGs.

  His bunker was almost perfect. For ten years he had led his criminal gang mainly made up of Zim soldiers. They robbed banks, cash in transit vehicles, blew up ATMs and committed house and business robberies and only twice had the authorities attempted to apprehend him in his dwelling place. The first time they tried was about nine years ago when the Colonel had just started his criminal empire. They had come with a huge force of police officers gathered from all over Johannesburg. The firefight lasted several hours and he had been wounded in the attack but after the police unintentionally inflicted too many civilian casualties they had to pull back.

  The next raid was to take place four years later and only happened because one of his house robbery victims happened to be a powerful member of the new ruling party. This time there was a joint operation between the South African Army and Police Force. The attacking force was huge and included helicopters and heavy armoured vehicles but the authorities had made one massive miscalculation – in the years that uSathane was ruling his criminal realm in Alexandra he had won the hearts and minds of the poorest Alexandra residents. Like any good politician he knew that his survival depended on the support of the masses. He gained favour by handing out cash, he bought school clothes for the children and gave them sweets, he ran a cheap shebeen that sold liquor to the residents at cost, sometimes losing money. He opened a soup kitchen and gave shelter to orphaned children. He did none of these things for charitable reasons but rather for his own personal safety and gain. Nonetheless, the majority of the Alexandra residents protected him and revered him.

  So when the Army and Police swooped, the residents came out and fought back. What ensued was an absolute blood bath. Dozens of policemen and women were either killed or injured. Seven soldiers lost their lives but more than 300 Alexandra residents were killed that day, most of them by uSathane and his men – in a successful attempt to pin the deaths on friendly fire from the police. It was a disaster for the Police and the Army and a PR nightmare for the new government.

  After that gruesome day the Minister for Safety and Security ordered the Generals of both the police force and army to never attempt to apprehend uSathane on Alexandra Township soil again. If they wanted to arrest him they would have to do it somewhere else. The hope was that they could arrest or kill him on a job, on the streets of Johannesburg. uSathane had informants all over Gauteng and in high governmental places and he soon got word of the new order. Since that day he never accompanied his men on jobs and hardly ever left his compound.

  That was until earlier today.

  The sound of a traditional Zimbabwean Ngoma drum throbbed hypnotically through the air – the male drummer semi-naked and seemingly in a deep trance. A Shona female Witchdoctor in full attire was at uSathane’s feet. The smell and smoke of dagga (marijuana) hung heavily in the air.

  uSathane was a stick-thin man, nothing more than bones and flesh. He had been diagnosed with HIV seven years earlier. By the look of him he now had full blown AIDS. Many of his men and the people who had known him had thought he should be long dead by now and the fact that he was still alive only added to the mystery and supposed supernatural power of Colonel Sifisu Sibanda of the Zimbabwe National Army and crime lord of Alexandra Township. His face was full of tattoos, prison tats each with its own meaning – devil horns on his forehead, fangs under his lips to signify that he bites and a spider’s web centred on his nose, spreading out across his face showing that he will wait patiently for his prey and a scar ran straight across his mouth from left to right. His teeth were deformed. He had purposely taken a chisel to his teeth some years back and had carved them into canine looking pointed dentures. Disturbingly, he was also a semi-skilled military tactician. He was trained as an officer in the art of war by the Soviet Union in Zimbabwe.

  He believed he was still alive because of the work of the Shona Witchdoctor now at his feet and the muti (medicine) and advice she provided.

  The witchdoctor believed he was still alive because he was the Devil.

  The sound of the mesmerising drum suddenly stopped and the dagga mist cleared.

  The Witchdoctor spoke to him in his native tongue of Shona:

  “You must eat more women now uSathane, the police men want kill you, you must take two women now each month. One for the diseases and one for increase power of your muti.”

  “And what do the ancestors tell you, what do the bones say?” he replied.

  The Witchdoctor threw the bones onto the animal skin at uSathane’s feet.

  Her head started to gyrate, her eyes went pitch black and then she spoke in a demonic voice.

  “Your enemies are strong. You killed the brother of one of these warriors and he will seek to destroy you. They plan their attack and will come for you. Be warned these men are unlike any you have fought before. Their light is strong. You will not succeed if you do not leave this land and return to your own, to our land, to your ancestors’ land but you must kill these men, these warriors first.”

  The Witchdoctor fell silent and slumped to the floor.

  uSathane was annoyed now and jumped out of his chair, kicked the Witchdoctor out of the way and commanded his men to bring his new woman to him in his room. He needed to eat.

  uSathane’s right hand man, Jabulani, brought in a bound and gagged woman. Her hands were tied with electrical cord. She was wearing a typical South African domestic worker’s blue uniform.

  “We got this bitch in the suburbs working for the whites. We tortured and killed the family and brought her for you Colonel.”

  “Where is the other one, I need two now, didn’t you hear the Sangoma, I need two now, every month.”

  “I will go out now with the boys Colonel and get one for you.”

  “No, you must stay here and set up the guards for when the policemen come. Have you forgotten already you stupid dog!”

  “No Colonel but I thought you needed to eat, to eat another one.”

  “I will. I will eat again tomorrow. But for now we must prepare for when those pigs attack. They are going to come tonight. Have you set up the explosives?”

  “Yes Colonel, they are at the entrances to all the main roads coming in to Alex. We have also placed one at the hospital, the
library and the community centre. As you said master.”

  “Good boy. Are the shooters on the top of the mine dump and the RPGs on the roofs for the helicopters that they will bring?”

  “Yes Colonel.”

  “Go then and wait outside until I am finished then you take this bitch dog for the men and enjoy.” said uSathane while he spat on the woman lying at his feet.

  uSathane sat down on his bed and thought about his plan. Sergeant Night and his men, these so called Black Bastards, had been seriously messing with his profit. As a result his master back home was breathing down his neck and was no longer sending good men and ammunition from the ZNA.

  He had devised this plan to coincide with him leaving South Africa for good once he had collected wealth beyond his imagination. But before he left he would kill these policemen. That was the reason he went with his men to the bank -- that was why he had tortured and mutilated the Metro officers; at the time he hadn’t known that one of the officers was a brother to the giant cop known as Zulu, this was an added bonus.

  He wanted the police to seek retribution for the bank job and he fully expected them to raid tonight or over the weekend. He had his men set up dynamite explosives, stolen from South African gold mines, all around the township and he would detonate them once they arrived in the hope of killing innocent civilians and then triggering riots within the township. Causing the people of Alexandra to hate the police and blame them for the death and destruction. And love the great uSathane.

  The domestic worker lay sobbing on the floor in front of him.

  He took out his rusty Panga and lit the small kerosene stove on the floor. Then he got up to fetch his favourite 24-carat gold goblet, a memento of a house robbery at a mining magnate’s palace.

  uSathane sliced the woman’s jugular vein and her sobs became gurgles. He held the gold goblet to catch the spurts of hot blood and drank greedily. As her heart began to fail the flow of blood diminished and uSathane turned his attention to her meat. He took his machete and sliced off long slivers of flesh. He held them briefly over the open flame of the stove until they were slightly charred and then he rapidly chewed, fragments of flesh falling from the gaps between his chiselled teeth and mixing with the blood still dripping from his mouth.

  As he crouched over his victim, now blissfully beyond pain, he looked like someone’s nightmare, alien, evil, repulsive.

  Having fed, he had sex with the body.

  When he was finished he simply opened his door and instructed his minion, Jabulani, to take her to the men so they too could also have sex with the corpse and benefit from the magical rewards of drinking the blood of a dead woman and raping her.

  uSathane had been killing, eating, drinking the blood and then raping the lifeless body of one woman a month for over five years now. He did this on the instructions of the witchdoctor who said this would cure him of the HIV and AIDS diseases and increase his magical powers. The women were never taken from the township; his men were careful not to diminish local support and always took them from a neighbouring location or during a house robbery. Sometimes he had them brought in from Zimbabwe and looked after them until he needed to “eat”. Not only did the abandoned mine-dump provide high ground for his snipers but a convenient burial ground for all of his victims.

  The witchdoctor had stipulated that the woman must be a virgin and AIDS free in order for the ritual to work. But uSathane had stopped caring if the women met these requirements or not. He thought to himself that some must, some of them anyway. He had so many and on such a regular basis that what did it matter if he raped and killed the wrong woman every now and then, he supposed.

  This belief that having sex with a virgin could cure a man of AIDS was tragically quite common in South Africa. Hence the reason that all of uSathane’s men also took part in the ritual after their master. The majority of his gang also had HIV or full blown AIDS. Why wouldn’t they, after all uSathane had raped all of the men as part of their initiation into his gang.

  At the thought that he had just drunk good blood and that he would be stronger now for the fight against the police, he lay his head on his pillow and dozed off.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Sergeant Michael Night of the South African Police Force roused himself to the sound of his old alarm clock sitting next to his bed. It was Saturday 0600. He turned off the alarm clock and instinctively felt for his 9MM Vector that he kept loaded next to his bed below him carefully placed in a shoe for quick arming. He pulled himself out of his bed, made his way over to his bathroom and stumbled into an ice cold shower. Over the years he found that this was the best method for recuperating from an energy draining hangover, like the hangover he had now. Though it wasn’t an alcohol induced hangover, the General and he had hardly drunk a lot the night before. Rather it was what he liked to think of as an overdose-of-violence hangover combined with the massive adrenalin dump felt by men involved in gunfights across the world.

  He had first experienced this type of morning-after effect as a new recruit of the South African Army’s Special Urban Commando Unit or SASUCU over 18 years ago. They were operating alongside the South African Police and providing them with tactical fire support while the SAPF conducted High Visibility National Crime Prevention duties. They had made contact with a group of armed robbers while they were preparing to hit a cash-in-transit vehicle. The fire fight was brief. The highly skilled commandos dominated the poorly trained criminals within seconds by taking higher ground and applying aggression in action that Corporal Michael Night had never before experienced. It was the day that he had made his first confirmed kills, three in fact.

  Although he didn’t remember doing it at the time he had flanked the enemy’s position behind a stolen BMW, that they had planned to use to ram the CIT vehicle off the road, and cut three of the armed robbers down with his 5.56 calibre R4 assault rifle.

  His commanders were pleased with his performance and wrote letters of recommendation for his good work and bravery. The next day he awoke feeling pretty similar to the way he felt today although because that was the first time he felt that way it was more difficult to deal with. Through conversations with fellow commandos and police officers he came to realise it was a pretty common occurrence after killing the enemy or being involved in a fire fight. Many men just put it down to an adrenalin dump that follows the high and extra speed and strength that adrenalin provides.

  Sergeant Night thought a bit more analytically about it and concluded that it stemmed more from the violent and aggressive energy that is generated while in deadly combat. Whatever it was it was a very real occurrence and the debilitating effects could be three fold that of an alcohol hangover – resulting in slower thought processes, slower movement and an overall feeling of exhaustion and sluggishness.

  Sergeant Night gave the effect a name, Violence Over Dose Effect he called it, or VODE, and now he was primed for the morning’s measure that he knew would come after the previous day’s contact with the enemy. He had dealt with VODE many times in his life before.

  He stepped out of the cold shower and prepared himself a strong black coffee with three sugars. He put on a khaki coloured pair of Cargo pants and a plain black V-neck. His shoes were brown hiking boots. He picked up his 9MM and pulled back the slide just enough to see that a round was still in the chamber and placed the weapon in an in-holster in his pants on his right side and beneath his shirt. Safety always off. Like most veteran South African police officers Sergeant Night never engaged the safety mechanism of the state issued Vector, on duty or off. For two reasons. One, the safety catch was stupidly situated on the slide of the weapon and if engaged could easily re-engage once the weapon was cocked and two, in Night’s experience operating as a police officer and bodyguard in South Africa there simply was not enough time to disengage a safety mechanism once contact was made with the enemy.

  He downed the coffee and prepared to leave his small state-subsidised one bedroom single man’s flat at the bottom of the Norwo
od Police Barracks. Sergeant Night lived a Spartan life and had little desire for material possessions. The only objects he spent a considerable amount of his income on were tactical accessories, instruments that were essential to him performing his duty at optimal levels -- from extra ammunition magazines, flashlights, tactical knives, bullet proof clothing for his Close Protection contracts to private weapons. Under South African law at the time every private citizen was entitled to own and carry three weapons for self-defence. One pistol in each calibre: 9MM, .40 and .45. He went to his safe and took out his state issued 12 gauge shotgun. He left his personal weapons licenced for self-defence inside the safe.

  He had a busy morning ahead of him and planned to end the day sipping on an ice cold Castle Lager sitting in a deck chair looking out over the Vaal River that was about 100KMS out of Johannesburg. First, though, he was going to pay a visit to the Norwood Armoury where he would have the armourer take a look at his state issued shotgun. It had bothered him that it had failed to fire. Usually his shotgun was the most reliable weapon he had, or so he thought. Deeper, though, he wanted to find a mechanical failure with the weapon that would explain the misfire. That would be easier than putting it down to anything supernatural.

  He walked out of the barracks to the back of the station where he parked his pride and joy, a white 6.0 Litre V8 Chevrolet Lumina SS saloon. Hardly a vehicle a man could afford on a Sergeant’s salary but an important part of why he moonlighted as a bodyguard and security contractor. He had fallen asleep the night before, looking forward to the drive to the Vaal. He would be able to open up his girl’s naturally aspirated lungs and take her to her limits, or close to them.