Expendables

Начало книги

I wrote this one in 1986 and sold it in 1988, for publication in early 1990. This certainly isn't the most polished thing I've ever done, but for some reason it's been much on my mind, these last few days.

— BRB

The troops bounced in on lorries a week before the demonstration. Two hundred and forty select Afrikaner guardsmen secured the area and established a perimeter; only when Upington was certified safe did the C-130s leave Johannesburg.

Ryan came on the first plane, cursing the noisy, jarring ride. As soon as he had both feet securely on the ground again he switched to cursing the heat and the dust, and grimly predicting their effects on hand-wired circuitry. Vittorio stayed silent, trying to fan himself with a floppy straw hat too scratchy to wear. The rest of the passengers — engineers and observers, mostly — filed slowly off the plane, blinking nervously at the machine guns and concertina wire.

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