Black Pearl

by Peter Tonkin

  ‘Then you can’t do anything for me, Ivan!’ She turned away and crossed the room, putting the bed between them like the wall of a fortress. ‘You let me down in the past. Oh, Christ, how you let me down! You might as well keep right on doing it in the future .’

  ‘Anastasia …’ He came forward until the sharp side of the bed frame struck against his shins hard enough to bruise them. ‘Nastia …’Then he stopped, helpless.

  She turned back, her face a wilderness and her eyes empty, hopeless. ‘I’d have come for you, Ivan. If things had been the other way round, I’d have come for you no matter what. I swear it on my life!’ She pulled her hand down her face and Anastasia the Amazon Queen was back. ‘Now get the fuck out of my bedroom and leave me alone!’

  Cats

  Richard strode across the makeshift landing field towards the nearest Aerospacial Super Puma helicopter, thoughtlessly swatting a mosquito that had settled on his forearm. Somewhere in the back of his mind he admitted that maybe Robin’s anti-insect campaign might not be such a waste of time after all. And he wondered vaguely what other jungle scourges might be returning to the river and its margins if the mosquitoes were making a comeback. But the thoughts were subsumed beneath an overwhelming tide of breathtakingly vivid sensation. He was chewing on the last of a breakfast sandwich prepared with flatbread and highly spiced bush bacon – made, he was relieved to hear, from dried beef – washed down with strong black coffee. The flavours on his tongue were suddenly drowned by the stench of exhaust from the choppers idling on the flat grass field; the rumble of their motors and the thrumming of their rotors drowning out the morning bustle of the camp he was just leaving behind him. Workaday bustle augmented by the arming of the squads of locals destined to board the choppers and the detailing of those Russians getting ready to board the Zubrs. Ahead of him, the square bulk of the nearest sand and sage-coloured Super Puma’s fuselage was dwarfed by the simple enormity of the morning.

  The sun was rising over Karisoke into a huge blue sky, cloudless except for the traces of pink and grey smoke that marked the mouth of the volcano, whose jungle-clad peak was still so distant that it lay below the farthest turquoise horizon where blue sky and green canopy seemed to bleed into each other like colours running on a wet watercolour. On his right, the forest massed along the river’s edge in ranks of vegetation tall enough to disguise the fact that Stalingrad and Volgograd were already out on the water beyond the mangroves, preparing to depart, their course set for the invisible volcano and the black lake halfway up its side, while Kebila and his men stayed in the camp, preparing to go after Odem on foot. On his left, the fields of the farming cooperatives were already full of figures assessing the damage done by Odem’s technicals last night in the first light of day. The whole place – the whole country, indeed – seemed to be bustling with vigour and excitement. And no one more so than Richard and the tall, slim, vibrant woman at his side. Though, to be fair, Richard allowed, much of the energy that seemed to be sparking out of Anastasia Asov might well be latent rage as much as latent electricity.

  Anastasia was pouring all of her considerable force – wrath, outrage, frustration – into the strength with which she was checking her assault rifle. She had stripped and reassembled it on the breakfast table as she had talked over her immediate plans with Richard. Or talked them to Richard – who had hardly got a word in. The Russians around them were at first amused but eventually impressed by the dexterity with which her fingers worked on the weapon while her eyes were on her companion, her lips busy and her mind so clearly elsewhere.

  The only interruption to her impassioned speech had come when Sergeant Zubarov appeared. He was looking for a couple of men who hadn’t reported for breakfast duty: Brodski and Livitov. Not part of the Beslan veteran brigade from last night, apparently, but a couple of Ivan’s patrol. And there was some debate whether, after the confusion of the attacks and Ngoboi’s almost supernatural infiltration, they had even been seen in their bunks. But, what with the move from one Zubr to another and the reassignment of quarters, not to mention the midnight adventures, hardly anyone had slept in their assigned quarters last night. After a while he went off to report to Ivan with a shrug, assured that they’d turn up soon – as soon as they smelt the bacon, in all likelihood. Richard caught a look on Anastasia’s face at the mention of her old friend, which made him glad that Ivan hadn’t come looking for the men himself.

  Now she opened and closed the breech, ensuring it was empty, before flicking on the safety, all with almost brutal strength. ‘He won’t be out there,’ she said to Richard, raising her voice to a snarl as they neared the Puma. ‘Kebila can follow the tracks as long as he likes but they won’t lead him to Odem. He’s too canny for that.’

  ‘Then why are you coming?’ Richard shouted, stooping under the rotors.

  ‘To see for myself. To make absolutely double sure. In case there’s a double bluff. In case I’m wrong.’

  ‘Wrong?’ he bellowed as they neared the slide-door. ‘You? Wrong?’

  ‘I’ve spent most of the last ten years being wrong,’ she spat. ‘Wrong about almost everything I believed in. Everyone I thought I was sure of …’

  That shut him up. They climbed into the chopper silently, side by side.

  Kebila was waiting for them, and had reserved the two seats closest to his own. Richard was unsure whether this was as a courtesy or so that he could keep a close eye on them. The latter seemed most likely, he thought as he saw Sergeant Tchaba occupying the next available place to his own. He glanced up the cabin as he prepared to fold himself into his seat. There were fifteen of Kebila’s finest, all armed to the teeth, their faces set in ebony masks, many of them bearing the scars of Poro initiation. He had to wonder, as he sat and tightened his seat belt, how many of them would be willing to follow their orders to shoot on sight if the target was Ngoboi.

  Well, if Anastasia was right, they wouldn’t find out on this trip, he decided. But, on the other hand, if for once in her life she was wrong … He stopped the thought there, as the helicopter seemed to leap into the air, sidetracked into assessing her new-found lack of confidence in herself. He had talked it over with Robin last night in the sleepy haze after their lovemaking – the effect that all of the revelations would be likely to have on Anastasia.

  Richard’s thoughts were simply stopped at this point by the view out of the window beyond Sergeant Tchaba at his shoulder. The fields, full of tiny figures and toy trucks, gave on to the thickening wall of forest and secondary jungle which in turn reached out in mangroves along the edge of the great river. And the great River Gir spread wide, a huge, steady red-brown flow. And there, like water beetles creeping up it were Stalingrad and Volgograd, heading for the land of the big trees, where they would be dwarfed to near insignificance – let alone the arrogant overreaching specks of men inside them. He shivered.

  And as he did so, the helicopter angled its square body to the left and swooped away from the river, heading inland and downwards until the tracks of Odem’s technicals were plainly visible either as sets of parallel scars across green pastures or white-flattened roadways through ruined crops.

  ‘They’re turning in towards the river and the jungle,’ observed Anastasia. The cabin had canted slightly over to the right and if there had been a magnetic compass handy it would have been reading south-east as the tracks and the wide riverine jungle inevitably closed with each other. But then, striking north/south, shockingly rule straight amid all the natural curves of the land so far, there was an ancient concrete-sided irrigation ditch. The tracks converged on a fissure in the side which looked to be of recent origin, pulling the red mud down on to the flat, dry concrete bed of the thing, weaving past and over each other into a red mud braid, and then they faded into invisibility as the man-made channel disappeared into the jungle overgrowth.

  Kebila’s chopper settled beside the others and the colonel led his men on to the ground with Richard and Anastasia at his side. There were three choppe
rs in all and, after a brief meeting, Kebila decided to split his forces. The other two took off again. One to follow the drainage ditch inland to the north in case Odem’s men had laid a false trail and then doubled back. The other questing straight ahead in case this was all an elaborate trick and Odem was lurking upriver, waiting to catch them unawares. Then Kebila himself led his command on foot patrol into the concrete ditch.

  Richard, like all of them, found it an easy enough scramble down the dry slope of red earth impacted by the technicals’ tyres into a makeshift pathway. Then, aware that he was the only one there not armed to the teeth, he fell-in just behind Kebila between Tchaba and Anastasia. There was one moment of noise without progress as everyone took their weapons off safety and made sure that a round was in the chamber. Even Kebila pulled out the Desert Eagle he usually carried in the webbing holster at his hip, slid the top back, then snapped it forward again. Then they quietened, ready to begin the patrol. Silently, the colonel gestured them onward and they all followed him.

  Over Kebila’s shoulder, Richard’s view was of a steep-sided, arid grey-white perspective, all geometrical lines to a point perhaps three metres in height. Then brown trunks exploded upwards into bright bursts of greenery – branch, twig and leaf – like rockets filling the sky on Guy Fawkes’ night. The wind stirred fitfully, coming from all directions, bringing river odours and forest smells; the essence of prairie and of building site, drainage and sewer stench. As they walked into the shadow of the jungle itself, the overhang of the trees concentrated the sounds as though they were entering a tunnel. It seemed to Richard that even his eyes began to fail him. The perspectives, worthy of any engineer’s drawing, faded beneath those shadows. Distances became harder to judge. Richard started to wonder whether the tension was releasing something more than simple adrenaline into his bloodstream. Whether there was some strange narcotic on the stultifying air. Whether there was witchcraft here.

  So it came as almost no surprise at all when Ngoboi burst out of the darkness dead ahead and came running towards them in a weird kind of slow-motion dance. Kebila stopped. Straightened. Stood, as though no more able to believe his eyes than Richard. The whole of his command froze. Richard could hear the sudden superstitious intake of breath, feel the universal frisson of sheer terror. The tall, raffia-covered figure came towards them as though Quasimodo, not Odem, had donned the disguise. Stooping, weaving, limping, rearing, cavorting. But running towards them with a strange, mad intensity. Ngoboi – ebony mask, raffia headpiece, raffia cloak and raffia leggings. All two metres and more of him, like something out of a nightmare.

  ‘`Tchyo za ga`lima?! What the fuck?!’ shouted Anastasia and she tore her SIG Sauer up to her shoulder, flicking off the safety. But the moment she pulled the trigger, Tchaba hit her rifle so that her shot went high. The sound of it slammed along the drainage ditch and stopped Ngoboi almost as effectively as a bullet would have done. He froze there for an instant, then began to charge forward again.

  But even as he did so, a leopard hurled itself down from the high side of the drainage channel on to the back of the capering god. It was a sizeable beast, though it was only there for an instant – and its arrival and departure were so utterly unexpected. But Richard saw it land, knocking Ngoboi back and over to one side. And the instant it impacted, Ngoboi detonated. There was a massive explosion that vaporized the big cat and most of the man in the costume. Shrapnel howled out into the air, decimating the overhanging branches and leaves but mercifully not the patrol, which was standing rooted in place with shock and horror.

  Though the shrapnel went up into the forest, the wall of flame-hot force rolled back down the channel, staggering and singeing everyone there, battering and deafening them as they stood.

  After some uncounted time, Kebila staggered forward. Richard went with him at his shoulder. The destruction of the god had left a black star on the concrete as though a missile had exploded there. The stunned soldier reached down at the outer edge of the destruction and picked up a boot. An unexpectedly heavy boot. An army boot, Richard realized. It had a foot inside it. And, as with students at school, soldiers personalized their kit, all of which was uniform, by putting their names on it. With boots you wrote your name or number on the instep where the sole received least wear.

  And, although the writing on the instep was Cyrillic Russian, Richard easily read and understood it. It identified the boot as belonging to Livitov – one of the soldiers Sergeant Zubarov had been looking for at breakfast.

  Terrorist

  ‘Asuicide bomber?’ gasped Robin, shocked and horrified. ‘Disguised as Ngoboi? But why? What in God’s name were they thinking?’

  ‘Not suicide,’ corrected Richard grimly. ‘Murder. I read about it in a book on the most recent conflicts in the Middle East. The technique is to kidnap a member of someone’s family, brutalize them then load them with bombs and send them home. Their family has the choice of killing them and leaving them to rot while the authorities go on the firing line to try to defuse the corpse. Or try to help them. Most people try to help them. And BOOM!’

  It was late in the afternoon and the sun was westering downriver towards Granville Harbour and the ocean. The choppers had returned an hour ago and the interim had been taken up with feeding the men. Richard and Anastasia had not been alone in finding they had no appetite. Instead of eating, Richard had gone to find Robin and bring her up to date. Now the pair of them were hurrying across to Kebila’s command tent as they had this conversation. Robin, of course, had hundreds of questions arising from Richard’s terse report of their adventure and his equally terse explanation. But Kebila’s briefing answered most of them before she managed to frame them – let alone ask them.

  ‘It is clear that Corporal Livitov was not a suicide bomber in league with Odem and the Army of Christ,’ the colonel began, looking around the frowning faces of his senior officers. ‘We found enough of his head to be certain that his mouth had been taped shut. Indeed, the fate of Colonel Mako’s patrol last night makes it quite possible his tongue had been cut out. From the strange way he approached us, I am certain that he had been restrained or crippled in some way, had explosives packed with shrapnel strapped to him, then put into the Ngoboi costume and left behind for us to find.’

  Kebila paused and looked around the assembled faces in the tent as though expecting questions. But neither the men who had gone upcountry nor the others who had followed the drainage channel inland had anything they wanted to ask yet. ‘We were doubly lucky when we did find him,’ continued the colonel soberly after a while. ‘The first piece of luck was that Sergeant Tchaba stopped Miss Asov shooting him. The second piece of luck – the leopard – shows us that the device Livitov was wearing had an impact detonator.’

  He turned to look directly at Anastasia. ‘Had your bullet struck him, he would certainly have exploded and at least two thirds of the command – starting with ourselves – would have been killed either by the explosion or by the shrapnel wrapped around it. The leopard spinning him round and knocking him back saved us. The unfortunate creature’s body soaked up much of the explosive force. The shrapnel decimated the trees above us instead of tearing us to shreds. We even found some dead birds and monkeys when we began our search of the area. But I still find it hard to see how Odem could take the risk of disguising his bomber as Ngoboi …’

  Richard held up his hand. ‘I believe Odem very reasonably expected someone to shoot Corporal Livitov, believing him to be Ngoboi,’ Richard said slowly and clearly in his best Matadi. ‘It is the most logical conclusion. And had anyone shot him, there would have been two likely outcomes. Either all of the patrol would die, in which case the Ngoboi disguise was hardly relevant, for no one other than the Army of Christ would know about it. Or most of the patrol would die – in which case the survivors would describe how the desecration of the god brought enormous death and destruction as an immediate result. You can bet he’s got more Ngoboi costumes – and the reputation of the next man wearin
g one would have been immeasurably enhanced.’

  ‘He’s fucking with our minds,’ observed Anastasia.

  ‘He has been all along,’ replied Richard grimly.

  ‘Let’s hope he stops at our minds,’ added Robin, glancing at Anastasia’s pale, determined face and thinking of the obscene wooden phallus in her blood-spattered bed last night. Then she changed the subject slightly, raising her own hand and catching Kebila’s eye. ‘And was it only the impact of a bullet – or a leopard – that was designed to detonate the bomb? One hears so much about mobile phones being used. Bombs set off by hand, simply by dialling the right number. Or putting it in the memory and hitting recall …’

  ‘We searched the jungle right the way down to the river itself,’ countered Kebila, ‘but we found no one there. Certainly no one close enough to have seen what was going on and decided when to detonate by hand …’

  ‘But,’ interjected Richard, ‘your local mobile phone company has such a well-structured network here that phone signals can be broadcast for miles up and down the river. And I don’t suppose my phone is unique in having a very effective built-in video camera.’

  ‘I see your point, Captain Mariner,’ said Kebila formally to Richard. ‘Someone miles away could have been watching pictures transmitted by the phone strapped to Livitov’s chest as part of the bomb. And as soon as he saw we were close enough, he would simply hit the right number, even if he was up on the shores of Lac Dudo or on the slopes of Karisoke. This has all clearly been very cleverly thought through and quite meticulously planned – not to mention being extremely well-equipped. And that fact alone immediately raises another consideration …’ Kebila paused, clearly deep in thought.

  After a moment or two, Richard continued with what he supposed the colonel’s sentence would have concluded. ‘That Odem, or someone close to him, has been to the terrorist training camps in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Sudan or Somalia. That they have returned not only with the knowledge and the techniques used by Al Qaeda, the Taliban, Al Shabaab, Boko Haram and the rest, but also the sort of equipment they use. That means money and – probably most worryingly of all – pretty upfront political support. And, if the evidence shown to President Chaka and the conversations I have had with him are anything to go by, that support may well be coming from just across your south-eastern border. Just on the eastern slopes of Mount Karisoke itself. Which, at the very least, also explains his access to replacement technicals and – suddenly and unexpectedly – to river boats that are large enough to transport them.’