Zimbabwe

 

Lat = 19 degrees, 48.2 minutes South

Long = 32 degrees, 22.3 minutes East.

 

Thursday 24th March 1988

 

Khanda had been violently awoken from his sleep by the sound of a large explosion; he climbed out of the plane and saw a bright ball of fire and a plume of smoke over in the direction of Shakira’s camp.

His initial thoughts were that there had been an accident at the camp; he looked at his watch 04:20 hrs. as his ears settled down from the initial reverberation he picked up the sound of gunfire.

This was not good; he climbed back into the plane and hurriedly started the pre-take off checks, five minutes later he fired the engine up and began to taxi back down the make shift runway to turn around for the take-off, as he began his take-off he saw a figure running to his right ahead of him, waving him down.

It was Shakira; he throttled back and quickly brought the plane to rest. Shakira opened the door. “What the hell’s happening?”

“Get us out of here, I’ll tell you once were in the air,” replied Shakira