Casca 12: The African Mercenary by Barry Sadler

Author:Barry Sadler [Sadler, Barry]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2014-03-18T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWELVE

In the palace courtyard, the mercs wiped up what feeble, demoralized resistance remained. They took a number of prisoners, disarmed them, and locked them up in one of the palace storerooms. As Casey and the others came down from Dzhombe's rooms, they had to step over the bodies of Simbas and the distinguished guests who'd died in their master's house. A fire had started somewhere in the rear of the palace, but they had neither the time nor the interest to put it out.

Harrison called to them from the seat of a half-track. He'd gone with Fitzhugh to the palace's motor pool. His new acquisition was American made, and behind it came Fitzhugh, driving a British Saladin armored car on which was mounted a 20mm gun. One more half-track pulled up with Yousef standing behind a captured Russian RPD light machine gun. Casey wondered where he'd been and figured that the Moroccan had attached himself to Harrison during the melee. One other vehicle, a two and a half ton open bed truck, made up the vehicles for their escape.

Waving them aboard, Casey yelled to all not to leave any of the gear behind, which included his MG-34 still in its drop bag. The light machine gun hadn't been needed during the fight, but they weren't out of danger yet. There was still the escape from the city to be made, and they could run into enemy patrols. Fitzhugh and Harrison gunned the engines of the vehicles. The operation had now been on the ground for forty three minutes; they should be gone. As they loaded, Casey put the casualties into the truck and positioned it between the Saladin and the last half track. They had gotten off fairly easy: four dead and six wounded, only one critically. The medic was already working on the badly injured man.

Guns pointing to the outside, the mercenaries loaded up and headed out into the streets of Kimshaka City, turning down the main thoroughfare and aiming for the lines of the N.F.L.K. about ten miles south, near the Soruba River.

Word of Dzhombe's death had preceded them. From some houses came the sounds of panic and sorrow; in others there was rejoicing that the monster was gone. Already, Dzhombe's officers were drawing the lines to see who would inherit his power. The mercs drove as fast as they could while keeping all the vehicles close enough to each other to give mutual support in case it was needed. A number of Simbas, still in shock at the news, wandered the streets, randomly shooting out windows of whitewashed, flat roofed buildings and shanties made of tin sheeting. A couple of them took a few shots at the vehicles, but they were quickly cut down by the mercs' automatic weapons. Leaving the lights of the capital behind, in less than ten minutes they entered the first thin line of trees and brush. The time on site was now exactly one hour and three minutes.

The men felt good.

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