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K got Fred’s call that Wareika was being attacked. He immediately called the Factory and Cooper’s Hill, but there was no answer from either source. He sat in his private study and wondered what to do next. Five minutes later Fred called him, this time he was on Red Hills Road. He had driven very fast to reach Coopers Hill but had gotten a flat tire at Ewarton and engine trouble at Bog Walk. He said that he had been unable to get Gus at Coopers Hill.
***
Fred had been trying to get Gus to tell him about the raid, but nobody was answering the phones at the mansion, which meant that Mc Creed was out, probably partying. He had stopped at a friend’s house just off Washington Boulevard and then at the Outer Edge to make those phone calls but all in vain, damn Gus Mc Creed.
At a time like this, Gus McCreed was out having fun. Damn him, Fred thought as he increased the speed of the car. He suspected they had cut the telephone line linking Wareika to the outside world. It was still possible that Premba, Grosset, Butler, Lance, Ardez, Rattigan and the others could drive the security men away. He guessed that the new recruits were performing poorly and several of them had either been killed or captured. What he knew was that after this Wareika would never be the same, he was taking over even if it meant over Gus’ dead body.
***
Dangler and four of his men had survived the barrage of police bullets on the buildings. Gunshots were exploding all over the place. His efforts to contact Wareika had proved futile and he had given it up. The five of them made a desperate attempt to escape. They managed to open a grill door at the back of the premises and then jump over a fence. Dangler had a bag full of money with him.
“They’re trying to escape,” Lawrence shouted as he heard the window break. Some of the policemen darted around to the back of the building while others ran inside. Dangler and his four assistants heard the loud noises being made by the security men as they ran through the yard and scaled the fence.
Caught between the men who were pursuing them and those on the road, the four men put their hands in the air and flung down their guns. Dangler still kept on going, exchanging fire with the security men; he was shot in both legs and collapsed on the sidewalk. The bag he had gripped so tightly, fell from his grasp.
Lawrence and some of his men raced over to him.
“He’s badly hurt, he got shot in both legs,” Lawrence said, taking up Dangler’s gun with a rag.
They handcuffed him along with the other four men.
One policeman picked up the bag Dangler had dropped.
“It’s full of money,” he cried out excitedly.
“It’s McCreed’s money, I wonder where he was going with it,” Lawrence remarked.
“We have to get the Public Hospital to send an ambulance for him. We have to wait until they come. I hope that everything is all right at Wareika. You guys did well tonight,” he stated, congratulating his men.
The policemen found one of Dangler’s men dead in the yard. They didn’t trouble his body, but went inside the buildings to search them for illegal drugs and guns.
***
Bendoo reached Rattigan’s shack, he broke down the door and rushed inside but there was no one there. Yasmin must be with the rest of the women. Slowly he crawled to where McDonald and the rest of the men were.
Grosset had hit Bull Mosely with some of his best punches. He remembered the men he had either killed or maimed with blows like those. Butler was the biggest man he had fought and even he had gone down from some of his blows as did Bucky. Jack Marriot had been thrown into the air by some of those punches. All Mosely did was grunt and deliver sledgehammer blows of his own.
“You’re finished now, Grosset, I’m going to destroy you today,” Mosely shouted as he delivered a right hook to Grosset’s midriff that staggered him. He rushed Grosset again and hit him under the heart and Grosset felt as if a train had hit him. He tried to grab Mosely around his neck and strangle him. He succeeded in grabbing Mosely around his neck, but found that the man was too strong. Mosely tripped him and the two men fell and their hold on each other was broken. Grosset was the first on his feet and rushed for a tree limb. He had grabbed hold of the tree limb when Mosely rushed down on him and dodged the first blow and both of them wrestled for the tree limb.
Meanwhile a group of men headed by Ardez had taken up residence in his house and were prepared to fight it out.
Bendoo had now returned to where McDonald and the others were.
“We’ve captured about eight or nine of them so far and about the same amount are either dead or wounded.”
“Premba’s badly wounded, he and I shot it out,” Bendoo stated and looked at McDonald.
“Where is he, Bendoo? That boy is my nephew, I am not ashamed to tell you. He went wrong a long time ago. We tried our best to help him, but he was just wild. He wouldn’t listen to anybody. His mother and father died broken hearted.”
“He’s over there Chief, handcuffed. He will survive, he only got a broken leg and probably a broken collar bone.”
“I’ll have to go and have a look at him.”
Bendoo turned away.
“The women are housed over there,” he said, pointing to a building at the far end of the village.
“I saw Bull Mosely and Grosset fighting.”
“How the hell did Bull get away from here without my permission,” McDonald shouted angrily.
Ardez’s men were now fighting back with Butler and Lance leading the attack.
“What happened to Premba?” Ardez asked.
“I don’t know,” Rattigan replied, firing a burst from his M-16.
“He was going to look for some ammunition that he had hidden,” Lance replied.
“Anybody knows where Premba hid that ammunition?” Ardez asked.
When no one replied, he looked around and counted the men, in all there were ten of them, but other men were out there under Clifton’s and Huntley’s command.
“We have to run them off. I hope that Premba and Grosset will soon rejoin us,” he finished as bullets began to pierce the walls of the shack.
Bull Mosely and Grosset were fighting like two tigers. There were now trying to choke each other to death. Grosset was putting all he had into squeezing the bigger man’s throat.
Mosely wrenched away his hands, grabbed him and began to squeeze his throat. Grosset tripped him and they both fell but still Mosely’s hold on Grosset did not loosen.
Grosset grabbed the big brutal hands and wrenched them away from his throat whereupon he put his own hands at Mosely’s throat and began to squeeze. Mosely slowly removed the fingers from his throat and rolled away.
Grosset came after him again and the two men began to wrestle each other. They had been wrestling each other for sometime when Mosely kicked Grosset and saw him roll down a hill. Mosely felt exhausted but decided to go after Grosset again.
Ardez was shot in his right shoulder in the first attack that the security men made on the group inside his house, yet they kept on fighting.
“They don’t want to surrender,” McDonald shouted. “Keep on firing and don’t let them escape. Lawrence raided the Factory and they’ve captured Dangler.”
“It seems as if my shoulder is broken,” Ardez groaned as he lay on his back.
“We’re running out of bullets. We might have to raid the ammunition depot,” Lance shouted.
“We could do that, we could then use those heavy caliber weapons on them,” Rattigan told them.
“How many men are guarding it?” Lance asked.
“Four, Bendoo is with the main body,” Rattigan replied.
“You and Butler give it a try Lance, we’ll cover you,” Ardez stated.
The men in Ardez’s shack opened up anew on the security forces who returned the fire. Lance and Butler rushed out through a back door and headed for their target.
Both men made a zigzagging run while firing at the men guarding the depot.
“Butler and Lance are trying to recapture the depot,” Bendoo shouted.
Immediately all guns were turned in the direction of the two running men. Butler was shot in his left leg by McDonald and he fell. Lance kept going reaching the door of the depot and wounding a soldier, but he was shot in the right shoulder and left leg by the cross-fire between the depot guards and McDonald’s men and fell to the ground screaming.
“Let’s go after those men in Ardez’s house,” Bendoo said to McDonald.
“We’re going to move up close to them,” McDonald replied.
“They’ll soon run out of bullets, that’s why Butler and Lance
were trying to recapture the ammunition depot,” Bendoo remarked.
“Okay, let’s wait and see what they do next,” McDonald said.
They could still hear the firing as Kerr-Coomb’s men engaged Huntley’s and Clifton’s fighters.
“They’ve shot Butler and Lance,” Norris, one of the new fighters said.
Dias, another of the new fighters, stood with the M-I Enforcer in his hand.
“What happened to Grosset and Premba?” he asked.
“I haven’t seen them, but I saw Bull Mosely, maybe he came back for Grosset,” Norris opined.
“Grosset must kill him this time,” Dias said. He had heard how Mosely had run from Grosset.
“We’re going to hold our fire until they rush us. We don’t have many bullets left. About how many of them you think we got?” Lawton, another fighter, asked.
“About half a dozen, compared to about ten of our fighters plus several are wounded,” Dias said as a bullet screamed over his head and lodged into a wall.
“They’re surrounding us,” Rattigan shouted as Stennet screamed and fell, the left side of his face blown off.
Bullets were now raking the house from all sides. Rattigan gave a shout and fell, a bullet breaking his leg. Gustas and Wallman jumped through a window and raced away. Both were shot in the legs and captured. Dias, Norris and Lawton slipped through a side door and ran down into the bushes. McDonald’s men and Bendoo fired after them raking the undergrowth with bullets, but the fugitives could still be heard breaking twigs as they raced away.
“Our men on the road will catch them,” McDonald remarked.
Bendoo and McDonald made a cautious approach to Ardez’s shack, opening the door; they came upon the two wounded men.
“Don’t move,” Bendoo shouted. He had his gun covering both men.
McDonald was behind him, his gun covering the men too. Bendoo went and picked up their guns.
“Who are these two men, Bendoo?” McDonald asked.
“They’re Ardez and Rattigan, and it seems as if they are badly wounded,” Bendoo replied as they looked at the two wounded men who were wrenching their faces trying to fight the searing pain they were feeling.
“Both of you are under arrest,” Bendoo said as both men were handcuffed.
“Go to hell Bendoo, I’ll kill you one day,” Ardez shouted defiantly.
“So this is the famous Mister Rattigan and Ardez. Well the game is up for both of you,” McDonald stated.
Raising his head, Rattigan stated.
“They can’t hold me on anything out here, Bendoo. I haven’t committed any crimes in Jamaica. My government will free me. I know where Camilla lives, I know all about her family. She’s going to regret what she did, I swear to God.”
“You might spend a few years in our jails yet, Coleman. We can charge you with kidnapping and illegal possession of firearms among other things,” McDonald told him.
“Who did I kidnap, Camilla?” Rattigan laughed. “That woman begged me to take her with me. Then when we got here she began spreading her legs apart for any man who was interested. That’s why she ran away with Bendoo.”
“You’re a dirty liar, Rattigan.”
“I’ll get one of the men to get these guns,” McDonald told Bendoo.
Rattigan made to speak again, but Mc Donald signalled for him to shut up.
Bendoo went into Ardez’s bedroom to look for wounded men and guns but didn’t find any. He came back into the room where they were.
“Where are the women and children, Ardez?”
“They are at a safe house, but I won’t tell you where that is.”
Bendoo thought for a moment.
“I think I know where that is, Chief. I’ll tell you when we get outside.”
Bendoo and McDonald returned outside, each going in separate directions. Meanwhile the battle between Kerr-Coomb’s men and Huntley and Clifton’s fighters was just about over. Realizing that firing from Ardez’s house had ceased and it was useless to fight anymore, both men were preparing to make a getaway.
“We can’t beat these men. It would be better for us to make a run for it, because I haven’t heard anything from Premba and Ardez,” Clifton said to Huntley.
“We’re going to make a run for it,” both men told their fighters as they grabbed their guns and raced into the bushes.
Kerr-Coomb’s men came up firing into the undergrowth as the fugitives spread out in all directions in the bushes. There must be at least fifteen of them, Kerr-Coombs thought.
“Don’t bother going after them,” he shouted to his men.
Coming up to the Wareikan’s position Bendoo saw several wounded men, some handcuffed and scattered all around. He went up to where McDonald was. A group of men was there too and on closer inspection, he saw that the three wounded men they were looking at were Grosset, Bull Mosely and Premba Mc Donald.
“I never knew Bull was so brave,” McDonald remarked.
“He disobeyed my orders, but at least he beat Grosset and captured him.”
Kerr-Coombs and Wood joined them.
“We got all of the leaders and some of the others have given themselves up,” Kerr-Cooms told them.
McDonald was feeling very emotional; the men had performed with distinction. Every man had done his duty. He was brought back to reality by Bendoo’s voice.
“I have some unfinished business to attend to,” Bendoo said and started off for the trail.