“American Indians call it that,” he went on. “But I have heard the name used here too. It is also known as the Hunger Moon, which is strangely appropriate. I have been waiting for it. The moon is important to my plans.”
“There’s a name for people with an interest in the moon,” Alex said. “They’re called lunatics.”
McCain laughed briefly but without making any sound. “The late Harold Bulman told me a great deal about you,” he said. “I was impressed by what I heard, but I have to say I am even more impressed now. Any other boy who had been through what you have been through would be a sniveling wreck. Far away from home. Transported in a manner that could not have been agreeable. And you’re still brave enough to trade insults with me. At first I was disinclined to believe that the British intelligence services would have recruited a fourteen-year-old child. But I’m already beginning to see why they chose you.”
“Bulman is dead?” Alex wasn’t sure what else to say.
“Yes. He told me what I wanted to know and then I killed him. I enjoyed doing so. If you have learned anything about me, Alex, it won’t surprise you that I have a strong dislike of journalists.” McCain picked up the bottle. “Will you have some wine?”
“I’ll stick to water.”
“I’m glad to hear it. You’re too young to drink.” McCain poured himself a glass of the wine. Alex saw the swirl of red against the side of the glass. “Did you have a good day?” he asked. “Did Myra look after you?”
“She took me for a ride in the crop duster.”
“Do you know that she taught herself to fly? She never had a single lesson. She merely had a complete understanding of the laws of physics and worked it all out. She is a remarkable woman. When this is over, she and I plan to get married.”
“You must let me know what to buy you.”
“I doubt that you’ll be invited, Alex.” McCain still hadn’t drunk any of the wine. He was gazing into the glass as if he could see his future in it. “The meal will be brought over very shortly. Have you ever eaten ostrich?”
“They don’t serve it in the school cafeteria . . . at least not that I’m aware of.”
“The meat can be quite tough, and you will need a sharp knife to cut it. I notice that your knife is missing. Can I suggest you return it to the table?”
Alex hesitated. But there was no point denying it. He took out the knife and placed it in front of him.
“What were you going to do with it?” McCain asked.
“I just thought it might come in useful.”
“Were you planning to attack me?”
“No. But that’s a good idea.”
“I don’t think so.” He raised a hand and almost at once something whipped past Alex’s head and buried itself in a tree. It was a spear. Alex saw it quivering in the trunk. He hadn’t even seen who’d thrown it. “You can see that it would be a great mistake to try anything unwise,” McCain continued, as if nothing had happened. “I hope I have made myself clear.”
“I think I get the point,” Alex said.
“Excellent.”
“Are you going to tell me why I’m here?”
“All in good time.” McCain turned his head and for a moment the flames were reflected in his silver crucifix. It was as if there were a fire burning on the side of his face. “I am sure you will have worked out that I risked everything bringing you here. Your disappearance has already been reported on the English news and the police forces of the world are united in the search for you. But I am also playing for an enormous prize, Alex. It is a little bit like that poker game that first brought us together. All gamblers know that the greater the reward, the greater the risks.”
“I suppose you want to take over the world,” Alex said.
“Nothing as tiresome as that. World domination has never seemed particularly attractive to me.” He glanced up. “But it seems that dinner is about to be served. We can talk further as we eat.”
Two guards had appeared, carrying the dinner. They laid the food down on the table and disappeared. Alex had been served a barbecued meat, sweet potatoes, and beans. McCain had a bowl of brown sludge.
“We have the same food,” McCain explained. “Unfortunately, I am no longer able to chew.” He took a small silver straw out of his top pocket. “My meal has been liquified.”
“Your boxing injury,” Alex said.
“It wasn’t so much the injury as the operation that I underwent afterward. My manager decided to send me to a plastic surgeon in Las Vegas. I should have known it would be a botch job. His clinic was above a casino. I take it you are familiar with my past?”
“You were knocked out by someone called Buddy Sangster when you were eighteen.”
“It happened at Madison Square Garden in New York, two minutes into the middleweight championship. Sangster destroyed not only my hopes of becoming world champion, but my career. Then the surgeon made it difficult for me to speak and impossible to eat. Since then, I have only taken liquids, and every time I sit down for a meal, I remember him. But I had my revenge.”
Alex remembered what Edward Pleasure had told him. A year later, Buddy Sangster had fallen under a train. “You killed him,” he said.
“Actually, I paid to have him killed. An international assassin known as the Gentleman did the job for me. He also took care of the plastic surgeon. It was very expensive and, in truth, I would have preferred to have done it myself. But it was too dangerous. As you will learn, Alex, I am a man who takes infinite care.”
Alex wasn’t hungry, but he forced himself to eat the food. He would need all his energy for what was to come. He tried a mouthful of the ostrich. It was surprisingly good, a bit like beef but with a gamier flavor. He would just have to do his best not to picture the animal while he ate. Meanwhile, McCain had leaned down and was busily sucking. His own brown porridge entered his mouth with a brief slurping sound.
“I am going to tell you a little about myself,” McCain went on. “This is the third time you and I have encountered each other, Alex. We are enemies now and tomorrow, I’m afraid, we are going to have no time for idle chat. But I am a civilized man. You are a child. Tonight, under the Wolf Moon, we can behave as if we are friends. And I welcome the opportunity to tell my story. I’ve often been quite tempted to write a book.”
“You could have the launch party back in jail.”
“I would certainly be arrested if I were to make public what I’m about to tell you—but there is no chance of that happening.”
McCain put down his straw and dabbed at his lips with his napkin. His mouth was slanting the wrong way, as if it had been further dislodged by the food.
“I began my life with nothing,” he said. “You have to remember that. I had no parents, no family, no history, no friends, no anything. The people who fostered me in east London were kind enough in their own way. But did they care who or what I was? I was just one of many orphans that they took in. They were do-gooders. This was my first lesson in life. Do-gooders need victims. They need suffering. Otherwise they cannot do good.
“I grew up in poverty. I went to a tough school, and from the very first day, the other children were very cruel to me. I can assure you that it is not a good start in life to be named after a bag of frozen food. I was bullied unmercifully. My color, of course, was against me. If you had ever been a victim of racism, Alex, you would know that it goes to the very heart of who you are. It destroys you.
“I soon came to understand that only one thing would keep me safe and separate me from the herd. Only one thing would make a difference. Money! If I was rich, people wouldn’t care where I came from. They wouldn’t tease or torment me. They would respect me. That is the way modern life works, Alex. Look at self-satisfied pop singers or greasy, semi-literate athletes. People worship them. Why?”
“Because they’re talented.”
“Because they have money!” McCain almost shouted the words. His voice echoed across the clearing and a couple of the guards tu
rned toward him, checking that everything was all right. “Money is the god of the twenty-first century,” he continued, more quietly. “It divides us and defines us. But it is no longer enough to have enough. You have to have more than enough. Look at the bankers with their salaries and their pensions and their bonuses and their extras. Why have one house when you can have ten? Why wait in line when you can have your own private jet? From the age of about thirteen, I realized that was what I wanted. And very soon, that is what I shall have.”
He had forgotten his food. He still hadn’t tasted the wine, but he held it in front of him, admiring the deep color, balancing the glass in the palm of his hand as if afraid of smashing it. Once again, Alex was aware of the power of the man. He could picture the huge muscles writhing underneath the silk suit.
“I had little education,” McCain went on. “The other children in my class saw to that. I had no prospects. I was, however, strong and fast on my feet. I became a boxer, which has seen more than one working-class boy rise to riches and success. And for a time, it looked as if the same might happen to me. I was known as a rising star. I trained in a gym in Limehouse and I threw myself into it. Sometimes I would go there for ten hours a day. This was in many respects the happiest time of my life. I loved the feel of my fist smashing into an opponent’s face. I loved the sight of blood. And the feeling of victory! Once I knocked a man out. I thought for a moment I had killed him. It was a truly delicious sensation.
“But, as I have explained to you, my dream came to an end. My manager dropped me. The press, which had once fawned over me, forgot me. I returned to London with no money and no job. I had to move back in with my foster parents, but they didn’t really want me. I was no longer a cute little boy that they could feel good about helping. I was a man. There was no room for me in their life.
“My foster father managed to get me a job with a real estate developer, and that was how I found myself in the lucrative world of property. It was an area in which I had almost immediate success. At that time, it was easy to make a fast profit and I began to do well. People noticed me. You could not be a successful black person in Britain without standing out, and as I moved up the ladder, more and more businessmen wanted to be seen with me, to pretend that they were my friends. People liked inviting me to dinner parties. They thought of me as a bit of a character—particularly after my brief fame in the boxing ring.
“I made a large donation to the Conservative party, and as a result I was asked if I would like to become a prospective member of Parliament. I accepted and I was duly voted in, even though the seat had been Labour for as long as anyone could remember. Success followed success, Alex. I became a junior minister in the department of sport. I would often find myself on the terrace outside the House of Commons, sipping champagne with the prime minister. The entire cabinet came to my Christmas parties, which became famous for their fine vintage wine and chicken pies. I gave talks all over the country. And, thanks to my property empire, I was getting richer than ever. I still remember buying my first Rolls-Royce. At the time, I couldn’t even drive—but what did I care? The next day I went out and hired a chauffeur. By the time I was thirty, I had a dozen people working for me.”
He spread his hands. “And then it all went wrong again.”
“You were sent to prison for fraud.” Alex remembered what Sabina’s father had said.
“Yes. Isn’t it amazing how quickly people desert you? Without a moment’s hesitation, my so-called friends turned their backs on me. I was thrown out of Parliament. All my wealth was taken from me. Journalists in the main newspapers jeered and mocked me in a way that was every bit as bad as the boys I had once known at school. In prison, I was beaten up so often that the hospital reserved a bed for me. Other men would have chosen to end it all, Alex—and there were times when even I considered dashing my head against a concrete wall. But I didn’t—because already I was planning my comeback. I knew that I could use my disgrace as just one more step on the journey I had been born to make.”
“You didn’t convert to Christianity,” Alex said. “You just pretended.”
McCain laughed. “Of course! I read the Bible. I spent hours talking to the prison chaplain, a pompous fool who couldn’t see farther than the end of his own dog collar. I took a course on the Internet and got myself ordained. The Reverend Desmond McCain! It was all lies . . . but it was necessary. Because I had worked out what I was going to do next. I was going to be rich again. Fifty times richer than I had ever been before.”
Alex had left most of his food. One of the guards came over and took the plates away, removing McCain’s unfinished food. Another brought over a basket of fruit. In the brief silence, Alex listened to the sounds of the night: the soft murmur of the river as it flowed past, the endless whisper of the undergrowth, the occasional cry of some animal far away. He was sitting in the open air, in Africa! And yet he couldn’t enjoy his surroundings. He was sitting at a table with a madman. He knew it all too well. McCain might have suffered hardships in his life, but what had happened to him had nothing to do with his background or his color; they were convenient excuses now. He had been a psychopath from the start.
“Charity,” McCain said. “A very wise man once defined charity in the following way. He said it was poor people in rich countries giving money to rich people in poor countries.” He smiled at the thought. “Well, I have been thinking a lot about charity, Alex—and in particular how to use it for my own ends.” For a moment he looked up at the night sky, his eyes fixed on the full moon. “And in less than twenty-four hours, my moment will come. The seeds have already been sown . . . and I mean that quite literally.”
“I know what you’re doing,” Alex interrupted. “You’re faking some sort of disaster. You’re going to steal the money for yourself.”
“Oh—no, no, no,” McCain replied. He lowered his head and gazed at Alex. “The disaster is going to be quite real. It’s going to happen here in Kenya and very soon. Thousands of people are going to die, I’m afraid. Men, women, and children. And let me tell you something rather disturbing. I really want you to know this.
“I can see the way you’re looking at me, Alex. The contempt in your eyes. I’m used to it. I’ve had it all my life. But when the dying begins—and it will be very soon—just remember. It wasn’t me who started it.”
He paused. And somehow Alex knew what he was going to say next.
“It was you.”
19
ALL FOR CHARITY
THE GUARDS HAD SERVED COFFEE and McCain had lit a cigarette. Watching the gray smoke trickle out of the corner of his mouth, Alex was reminded of a gangster in an old black-and-white film. As far as he was concerned, the habit couldn’t kill McCain quickly enough.
McCain stirred his coffee with a second silver straw. The night had become very still, as if even the animals out in the bush had decided to listen in. The breeze had dropped and the air was heavy and warm.
“There are two ways to become rich,” McCain began again. “You can persuade one person to give you a lot of money—but that means finding someone who is wealthy and stupid enough in the first place, and it may involve criminal violence. Or you can ask a great many people to give you a little money. This was the thought that obsessed me while I was in prison, and it was there that I came up with my idea. It was easy enough to fake my conversion to Christianity. Everyone likes a sinner who repents. And it certainly impressed the parole board. I was released a long time before I had completed my sentence and I immediately set up my charity, First Aid. The aim, as I described it, was to be the first organization to respond to disasters wherever they took place.
“I would imagine that you know very little about international charity, Alex. But when a catastrophe occurs—the Asian tsunami in 2004 is a good example—people all over the world rush to respond. Old-age pensioners dip into their savings. Ten dollars here, twenty dollars there. It soon adds up. At the same time, banks and businesses fight to outdo each other with ver
y public displays of generosity. None of them really care about people dying in undeveloped countries. Some donate because they feel guilty about their own wealth. Others, as I say, do it for the publicity—”
“I don’t agree with you,” Alex cut in. He was thinking of Brookland School and the money they had collected for Comic Relief. There had been a whole week of activities and everyone had been proud of what they had achieved. “You see the world this way because you’re greedy and mad. People give to charity because they want to help.”
“Your opinions mean nothing to me,” McCain snapped, and Alex was pleased to see that he was annoyed. The anger was pricking at his eyes. “And if you interrupt again, I’ll have you tied down and beaten.” He leaned forward and sucked at his coffee. “The motives are irrelevant anyway. What counts is the money. Six hundred million dollars was raised for the tsunami in the United Kingdom alone. It’s very difficult to say what a charity like Oxfam raises over a period of twelve months, but I can tell you that last year they raised the same figure—six hundred million in Great Britain. That was just one office. Oxfam also has branches in a dozen other countries and subbranches in places like India and Mexico. You do the math!”
McCain fell silent. For a moment, his eyes were far away.
“Millions and millions of dollars and pounds and Euros,” he murmured. “And because the cash comes so quickly and in such large amounts, it is almost impossible to follow. An ordinary business has accountants. But a charity operates in many countries, often in appalling conditions—which makes it much less easy to pin down.”
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