Chapter 40: Counting the cost

Chris had just finished patching me up, when Bird appeared on the bank above us.

"Hey Boss," he called down and both Johnny and I turned to see what he wanted. I deferred to Johnny.

"Status?" Johnny asked.

"Looks like we got most of them. Rasta's got a bee in his bonnet about some spoor he's seen heading off west, but I told him he can't go haring off on a hunt now," Bird reported. I nodded my head in agreement, although I would regret that decision later.

"We have no own-force casualties. Four of the bad guys are still breathing. We're still finding and counting the bodies."

"Thanks Bird," Johnny said, "leave the bodies for the police to recover. I think we should take the prisoners and move back to the parking lot. Ok Rupert?"

"Sounds good to me," I agreed with Johnny. "I'd like to make sure that all my people are safe, and I'd really like to find out how this arsehole, Dimitri, found out where I live. Maybe we'll have some luck with getting the prisoners to talk..."

Chris helped me stand, with Daise supporting me on the other side, and we started making our way back down to the parking lot.

It wasn't too bad walking, now that I had been all strapped up, but I was reeling from the post-combat fatigue; mostly the after-effects of an adrenaline high. I thought briefly of the amphetamines we used in the old days, then decided that those drugs should be a last resort; I had loyal friends and employees, I wasn't operating five hundred klicks into enemy territory, so I decided to keep them in mind if I really got desperate at some later time.

When we arrived at the parking lot, I was surprised to see the Landrover with all the girls in it, parked there. I turned to Cpl. Maseka, who had come to meet us halfway, and he told me that it had been his call, as the safest place where he could protect them while still acting as a reserve element for me.

Any conversation on the issue was obviously not going to take place though, not until I had dealt with the semi-hysterical bunch of women who descended on me at that moment. There were exclamations and demands for explanations thrown around in four languages. Well, at least I could understand three of them; the Russian or Ukrainian, I wasn't sure which, was flying between Daise, Alina and Kat. I figured Daise would sort that out and I proceeded to do my best to reassure the others that I was really going to be alright, that my wound was not that serious and would everyone PLEASE relax?

Eventually, the babble subsided and we got all the cats herded I mean, we got everyone into vehicles. A quick conference with Johnny decided our story for the police, and we started out to head back to my house.

I had thought that the house might be quite a bit damaged, but it was a lot worse than I had thought.

I walked through the burnt out ruins of my house, trying to identify what could possibly be salvaged. The contents of my safes was all fine, the safes were designed for that after all, but the rest was a complete mess. What was making me more than slightly upset though, was the growing realization that a good proportion of the damage was smoke and water damage or breakage. It looked as if the firemen had destroyed my house in order to save it.

Just getting to the stage where I could walk through the house had not been a trivial exercise. The police had descended in force, hot on the heels of the fire department and they were convinced that a mini-war had taken place. Johnny was very eloquent in his explanation of the bunch of us having the weapons as part of his security companies' training program, but it was apparent that the whole lot of us were going to have to spend some considerable time in the near future providing statements and telling our versions of the story.

I tried to get hold of Roy, thinking that he would be able to assist with the whole police thing but, unusually for him, the call went to voicemail. I left a message telling him that there was a situation and that we could do with his help.

Rifleman's Zondi's body had been removed to the morgue, and I had made the call to his father. The man was devastated and didn't even try to hide it. I promised to cover the costs of the funeral and felt guilty at the amount of gratitude that offer generated. I knew how important the funeral was in the Zulu culture, so I understood this was not going to be a trivial expense. With Sgt. Major Dhlamini out of action with his wound, I had already started to rely on Cpl. Maseka.