Chapter 52: Finding the Enemy

The last call that I made was to Bev. I hadn't checked on her for a while, and while I was pretty sure she would be fine, I needed to reassure myself. As it turned out, I needn't have worried. She had taken her mother to visit her parents in the Karoo, far from anything that I might be involved in.

The rest of the afternoon I spent watching the progress of the training and keeping track of how the different guys were performing. Somewhere during the afternoon, I noticed that Alina had gotten a clip-board from somewhere and was making notes of my observations. When I thought to take a look at what she had written, I was pleasantly surprised ... she had made neat profiles of each of the people I had commented on, with their name and a short description and then a summary of the various things I had said.

In the late afternoon, I called everyone together again and announced it was time for some PT. I decided to start out with a ten klick run, just to establish the basic fitness level. As it turned out, no-one had any issues with keeping up with the pace I set, which was a pleasant surprise.

After supper, Daise, Alina and I settled into the jacuzzi to let the hot, soapy water ease our muscles. After an indeterminate time of just lazing and soaking, Alina and I started talking through our observations of the people. Alina seemed to have all the details memorised, not needing to consult her clip-board once. Daise had to be reminded a few times, but each time she had a problem putting a face to a name, Alina gave her a quick verbal sketch of the person that enabled Daise to make the connection. I was very impressed by this performance by Alina, as it proved to me that she was bright and intelligent and had an increbible aptitude which, I felt, could be applied to any manner of careers.

We all eventually hauled our prune-skinned bodies out of the water, dried off, and clambered into bed. As much as I enjoyed the sensual delight of having these two delightfully nubile girls in bed with me, I faded as if someone had turned off the power switch.

I woke early as usual and headed out to the complex's pool. It was a bit cold in the pre-dawn twilight, but I warmed up quickly after a few lengths in the pool. I was joined after a while by Bettina who started doing lengths of her own. Although she swam a lot slower than I did, she had perfect form, gliding slowly and powerfully through the water.

I pulled myself out eventually, sitting on the side and towelling myself dry while I watched Bettina for a while, then I pulled on my track-suit and headed down to see what Gerrie was up to.

As I expected, he was being his normal trogolyte self, hovering gnomishly over his various computers with various empty coffee mugs and half-eaten pizzas scattered around the place. Surprisngly, he was clean-shaven, which puzzled me for a while, until I realised that the vaguely moving lump under the blanket on the bed was a slumbering Katie, then it made sense...

"Morning Gerrie," I greeted him.

"Howzit Boss," was the unusually cheery reply.

"What's happening Gerrie?"

"All kinds of stuff. I have a good track on these guys now. Their OPSEC leaves a lot to be desired. I think they are all used to the cover of a larger organisation. They aren't true professionals, that's clear."

"That's good news, isn't it?" I queried.

"Good for us, yes!" Gerrie replied. "Not so good for them. I've been plotting their operations on Google-Earth. Here, let me show you..."

Gerrie moved to one of the screens and showed me a map of the greater Durban (Etekweni) area. There were little marks all over it. "What are the markers?", I asked.

"The red marks are reported 'Enemy action', the blue are the incidents where you and yours have been involved, yellow are reported incidents of various types which could be enemy action but that I'm not sure of. If you click on any of the marks, the description will tell you what the details are," Gerrie explained.

I spent a few minutes checking the map out, clicking on some of the markers. "Ok," I said finally, "are you ready to brief me?"

"Sure," Gerrie answered. "The first thing you will notice is the clumping in these areas..."

Gerrie proceeded to spend just over half an hour going through the various incidents and point out the trends that he had noticed. Areas where there were high incidences of particular types of incidents. Indications of routes in and out of these areas, places that he thought were bases of operations and various similar things. It broke down to three clubs in Central Durban, two in Umhlanga Rocks and three houses that he speculated were being used as both brothels and drug distribution centers.

"There is one anomaly," Gerrie pointed out finally. This area here is completely black. There are incidents reported all around it, bit nothing within 500 meters. I took a closer look and it seems that there is a house here which could be Dimitri's home base, his HQ if you will. I have a few indicators, but it's not definite."

"Ok. Brilliant work Gerrie. I think this gives us a great place to begin. I think our first missions are going to be recces of these areas to give us more tactical data. You know I trust you, but I prefer confirmation of your ELINT with some HUMINT."