As the hadedas screeched outside, Johnnie Walker (code name of the commander of Operation Free Spirits), punched in the code for the Zoom meeting. Slowly, little windows popped up, showing the rest of the North Utopia Blockwatch S.W.A.T. team.
“We’ll keep the final briefing – well, brief. Once we’ve finished, delete your browsing history and the WhatsApp chats. Then switch off your phones. From now on, stick to agreed codes and communicate only in bursts. They are tracking us. Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams said so.”
The masked faces in the windows nodded. Pink Gin objected: “This camouflage cream is messing up the DA blue of my surgical mask…”
Walker shut her down: “Suck it up! It’s a war out there. And don’t bring politics into it … especially because Makashule Gana, your DA top brass guy, would have us lined up against the wall and shot if they captured us!”
Then: “Right. Let’s synchronise watches and cellphones. H-Hour is 18-hundred hours. That’s 6pm for you, Southern Comfort.”
Walker paused: “One day, when they write about this, they will say that never in the history of human lockdowns was so much taken by so few…”
*******
Black Label adjusted the too-small gangster hat perched on his head. His code name made sense and so did the hat. He was the only black (African actually, because Mainstay Patel also considered himself black) and one of the few non-white members of the Blockwatch group. It was an honour to be chosen for the S.W.A.T team … although, to be honest, no one else looked as much like Bheki Cele as he did.
He fired up the HiAce taxi and, after getting a thumbs up from the team in the back (they had to reduce the assault team numbers to eight in the taxi because of social distancing), he eased slowly into the road.
He wasn’t used to a shifting spanner on a steering column. The target was the local police station. They wanted somewhere packed with booze and little security.
Pick n Pay was too tough – they learnt that from last week’s failed cigarette raid. The cops had been seizing stock from shebeens in the area and they weren’t pouring it down the drains, they were selling it.
But the householders no longer had their gardeners to do the supply run to the back door of the charge office. Surprise and audacity were the keys to the S.W.A.T. assault’s group plan to liberate as much seized alcohol as possible.
Black Label was to storm in the front door, shouting that he was General Bheki Cele and this was an inspection, identifying the other masked team members as “MPs of the oversight committee”.
Pink Gin and Southern Comfort launched diversions – she going east to west walking her dogs and he going west to east on a jog. Flying Fish, in command of the drone above, saw the reaction forces of cops and soldiers roaring out to bring the criminals to book, and signalled the taxi.
The team stormed into the cop shop. They were met by silence. Behind the counter, two cops were fast asleep and the aroma of brandy was in the air. Coasts don’t come any clearer than that, so the team quickly loaded up crates of whisky, vodka, brandy, gin and tequila.
“Leave the Castle!” shouted Walker.
“It has more gas than Fikile Mbalula!”
As they roared off, back through the empty streets, they sang their victory song: “Amandla! Amarula!”
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