Entrapped

04 - The murderer is in control

Chloe is dispirited. Her arms and ankles are tightly bound and it doesn't help to fight against it; her position is hopeless. Then the creepy voice comes again right into her right ear. "Chloe, yell after me as if you really mean it; imagine you are in the sitting room and there is a knock on the front door and you invite someone in."

Anxiety churns her stomach when she asks carefully: "What must I say ...?"

She jerks from fright as the voice screams in her ear: "Hunter, the front door is open, please come in."

Suddenly the truth dawns upon her. She now knows that they were captured by the murderers. The same murderers that executed Clea and Tony so cleverly by mixing poison in their whiskey, have now swooped in and want to exterminate Hunter. The devils poisoned Tony and Clea so professionally that no evidence was left. The phantoms that had up to now destroyed her family, probably want to use her and Isaac to lead Hunter in a trap and murder and eliminate him. Hunter is naturally near success.

She wishes that he had not been so secretive and told her more. She feels so helpless because the murderers are completely in control and it looks that they are going to trap Hunter. How is she going to warn Hunter? They are completely at the mercy of the murderers; the situation is grim.

***

It is 25 August 1987 and the sunset in the Namib is again absolutely breath-taking and is slowly transforming the army base Ford Foot. Fort Foot is near Rundu that is on the banks of the Okavango River. Angola is just across the river. The base's colour changes as the sun transforms from yellow to an orange round ball on the horizon. Eventually, the sun will become a big round red light and then disappear slowly for the darkness to take over and cover everything. Then it will be time for the seemly impossible, suicide mission, Operation Coolidge, with twelve operational soldiers on standby; ready for action.

The bush war is at a breakpoint. A team of recces will shortly be flown deep into Angola to sabotage a strategic bridge over the Lomba River to stem the advance of four enemy brigades and disrupt their flow of critical supplies and equipment and thereby derail their offensive. It is the same team that was part of the operation that sank Russian ships in Port Namibe and blew up tank repository installations which rendered the enemy dysfunctional and stopped the offensive.

Soviet general Shaganovich was determined to win the war and the Russians flew in a force majeure like never before at the Lubango and Luanda air bases for the greatest offensive yet. UNITA and the South African forces had to be wiped out at any cost by taking complete control of the air and the offensive of four brigades. The offensive targeted the taking over of UNITA's base in the south at Mavinga and aimed to demolish their head base at Jamba, but that offence had was thwarted by the South Africans. A mortar attack on the brigades at Catato Woods stopped them in their tracks before they, severely disrupted, were driven away by the Valkiri rocket launchers, the Ratel 90 anti-tank units and the G5 battery. Now the recces must use this opportunity to disrupt the preparations of the alliance of Cubans, Russians and FAPLA for their next offensive by blowing up the strategic bridge and so hamper the flow of critical provisions and equipment.

Major Freddie Hunter (Hunter) en Staff Sergeant Anthony Eastwood (Tony) are sitting and relaxing in front of their Ford Foot bungalow in the serenity of the sunset while the last minutes are ticking away before they embark on this dangerous mission. They have been bosom pals since their school days.

Hunter sees how Tony puts the letter he's just read and also the photo that accompanied it away and begins to fill his pipe with Rum and Maple tobacco. When the pipe is lit Tony takes a few deep puffs before he blows a cloud of smoke in the air and stares into the sunset. Hunter knows what that stare means. Something must bother Tony because he only smokes that pipe when he ponders something far away on their family farm. Hunter only hopes that it hasn't been bad news and that it would not be a distraction and influences his concentration. That will be very bad.