movement also filled its coffers by importing illegal drugs from South Africa. Dagga—marijuana—was the drug of choice for most Namibian users, though cocaine, heroin and LSD were also making inroads, and legislative efforts to hike prison terms for drug addicts had failed in the face of widespread public opposition. That was good for the smugglers, since prohibition kept street prices inflated, and the insurrectionists who peddled drugs for profit evidently saw no conflict with their high-minded ideals.
Bolan himself had never been a blue-nosed moralist where drugs or any other substance was concerned. By most standards he was a libertarian, but he had also learned firsthand that vicious predators infested every form of traffic in forbidden goods and services. The profits gleaned from dagga sales loaded the weapons pirates used to hijack ships at sea, primed the explosives left by terrorists to murder innocent civilians and equipped assassins for attacks on democratically elected leaders.
He would stop that, if he could.
But first, he needed hardware.
* * *
ASSER TJIRIANGE RAN an import business in the Katutura suburb of Windhoek. According to the guidebook Bolan carried, Katutura translated from the Herero language as “the place where we do not want to live.” Created in 1961 for resettlement of blacks uprooted from the present-day Hochland Park sector, Katutura had overcome its stigma as a ghetto during recent years, boasting small but decent homes and the ten-thousand-seat Sam Nujoma Stadium.
Tjiriange’s shop was located in Katutura Central, on a short street featuring a jeweler, two automotive garages, a fast-food restaurant and a cut-rate furniture store. Ostensibly, Tjiriange imported native art and handicrafts from Angola, Botswana and South Africa, selling them at marked-up prices to collectors in Windhoek and overseas. And while, in fact, he earned a living from that trade, it was his other line of work that let him buy a mini mansion in the formerly all-white enclave of Pioneer Park.
Tjiriange’s other trade involved illicit arms.
* * *
NAMIBIA IS A WELL-ARMED country. Police estimate that some 260,000 firearms reside in civilian hands, though less than 98,000 are legally registered under the nation’s Arms and Ammunition Act. Authorities receive an average five hundred applications for gun licenses each week, many of which are denied. The street price for an AK-47 rifle averages $250, although military-style weapons and imitations of the same cannot be purchased legally without a special license. On the other hand, no permits are required to carry pistols in public places, concealed or otherwise. But the impact of those weapons on society is difficult to judge, since Namibian authorities stopped reporting homicide statistics in 2004.
None of which meant anything to Bolan as he went shopping for hardware in Katutura. Tjiriange greeted him like a long-lost friend, alerted by a phone call to expect a special customer with ample cash in hand. He locked the shop’s front door and hung a closed sign on it before leading Bolan through the aisles of wicker furniture, carved figurines and other items offered to the general public, to an office at the rear. From there, a door opened behind a rack of jackets hanging in a narrow closet, granting them admission to a second showroom, hidden from the public eye.
Bolan knew what he wanted, more or less, but looked at everything Tjiriange had for sale. In addition to the AK-47 with its GP-30 launcher and the sleek Beretta 92, he also took a Dragunov sniper rifle chambered in 7.62x54 mmR, fitted with a PSO-1 telescopic sight. Although uncertain whether he’d be making any long shots, Bolan still preferred to have an extra weapon and not need it, than to miss it in a crunch and find himself outgunned.
And, as an afterthought, he picked up half a dozen Mini MS-803 mines with radio-remote ignition switches, the South African equivalent of Claymores manufactured in the States.
He paid the tab with cash acquired before he’d left the States.
Once he left the shop, the next matter on Bolan’s mind was a meeting with a target who had no idea The Executioner existed, much less that he’d flown to Namibia specifically for their impending tête-à-tête. Forewarned, the man might have tried to leave the city—or the country—and that didn’t fit with Bolan’s plans.
One unexpected meeting coming up.
Whether the stranger Bolan sought survived the meet or not would be entirely up to him, depending on his level of cooperation and the prospect that he’d keep his mouth shut afterward.
On second thought, his chances didn’t look that good at all.
* * *
NITO CHIVUKUVUKU MISSED the nightlife in Luanda, where five million people thronged the streets, not counting foreign visitors, and anything you might imagine or desire was readily available for sale. Windhoek, one-fifth the size of the Angolan capital, had opportunities for sin, of course, but they were limited, mundane. It was like hoping for a giant, super-modern shopping mall and being stuck inside a rural village’s pathetic general store.
The bottom line: Chivukuvuku wished he could go home.
The other bottom line: if he went home, he likely would be dead within a month.
He had worn out his welcome in Luanda and—to be honest—throughout his homeland generally. The Angolan National Police would love to lay their hands on Chivukuvuku, and he did not relish the idea of screaming out his final breaths inside some filthy dungeon. When he went home, if he ever went home, it would be as a heroic liberator of his people, honored for his sacrifice on their behalf.
And yes, beloved by all the ladies, too.
But in the meantime, there was work to do in Windhoek and along the cruel coast of Namibia. So close to home, and yet so far away. Until the final day of victory, there would be guns and drugs to smuggle, ships to loot or hold for ransom, building up the MLF’s war chest. And if he skimmed some off the top, who in his right mind would suggest that any soldier in the field should be denied a taste of pleasure, every now and then?
On this night, for instance.
He had started off at the Ten Bells, a pub on Werner List Street that displayed no bells, much less the ten it advertised. From there, glowing from the Starr African rum inside him, he was headed for the brothel run by Madame Charmelle Jorse on Sam Nujoma Street. The night was warm, as always, and the four-block walk would sober him enough to make sure that he chose a pretty girl and not a discount special.
Buzzed as he was, and looking forward to the climax of his evening. Chivukuvuku paid no real attention to the traffic flowing past him. He kept his distance from the curb, where a less steady man might lurch into the street and spoil his happy ending. If questioned afterward, Chivukuvuku could not honestly have said he saw the white Volkswagen pass him by and turn into a cross street one block farther south. In terms of model, year or who was at the wheel, he would have been a hopeless case.
If anyone had asked.
As it turned out, however, no one would.
When Chivukuvuku reached the corner where the Volkswagen had turned unnoticed, he was mildly startled by the vision of a white man dressed in casual attire. Mildly surprised, because he knew, on some level, that roughly one-sixth of the city’s populace was white. And he saw them every so often, particularly if his dealings took him to the central business district, but he rarely met a white man on his nightly prowls.
Not quite anticipating trouble, Chivukuvuku edged a little closer to the curb, putting some extra space between the white man and himself, still conscious
