Deaken's War

by Brian Freemantle

  Makimber’s car nosed into the alley, two hundred yards behind. It was only using sidelights, so they couldn’t see the two men who had followed Deaken from the balcony of the Royale. Makimber knew they would be in place.

  “I don’t want him killed unless there’s no other way,” said Makimber. It was a frequently repeated warning since his meeting with Carré. He supposed he should go the whole way with them to ensure they obeyed. But it was more important for him to remain in Dakar and ensure the freighter was safely on its way.

  “We know,” said the man in the back seat.

  “Make sure you remember,” Makimber said.

  There was a snow line of white teeth in a smile, but the man said nothing. Makimber hoped too many people hadn’t acquired a taste for killing; it had been an isolated problem after Zimbabwe’s independence, he remembered.

  At the end of the road, a long way off, Deaken could make out the brightness of the city. The light at the end of the tunnel, he thought, recalling the familiar phrase. The Vietnam promise of victory, parroted by the commanders in Saigon and the politicians in Washington. Vietnam had been the period of his most active radicalism, the breaking point with his family. He had told Karen it didn’t matter, being disowned by them, but it wasn’t true. It made him feel rootless, belonging nowhere. He felt the anger build up at the memory of South Africa. The convoluted logic was typical of the fascist bastards, employing terrorism to combat what they regarded as even worse terrorism; but he believed Underberg, that his father wasn’t involved. His father might be a Nationalist and support apartheid as well as embracing every concept and policy which was anathema to Deaken, but he wouldn’t have resorted to this. Deaken had known operations like this before—and represented people caught up in them—covert schemes dreamed up by the Bureau of State Security, renamed the Department of National Security after BOSS had earned the reputation of being as repressive as the security organizations of Russia and the South American banana republics. He wouldn’t let them get away with it. He would go along with everything they said now; he had no choice. But when he got Karen back he would expose the whole business. He was strong enough now to face the publicity, to put himself back in the limelight from which he had temporarily fled. Now the running was over. Before this ended, people would be fleeing from him.

  Deaken was never fully to know what happened. His memory was simply of a flurry of sounds, not really distinguishable as running feet, a confused imagery of people—he didn’t know how many—and then a blinding, aching pain as he was struck repeatedly, first along the side of the head when he instinctively drew back and then somewhere at the base of his skull, causing a hurt that made him feel sick before almost immediate black unconsciousness. It was too deep for him to feel the last needless blow across his shoulders.

  Makimber’s car was alongside when it happened. He saw the man pull up to bring the baton down for another crushing blow, and shouted for him to stop.

  There was a hesitation and for a moment Makimber didn’t think the man was going to obey. “I said stop.”

  The club was lowered reluctantly.

  “Get him into the car,” said the African.

  The man who had travelled with him in the rear got out to help the other two hump Deaken’s flopping body inside. Near the door sill they dropped him hard against the road and two of them giggled.

  “Get him in!” hissed Makimber.

  One went round the other side of the vehicle to lean across to pull Deaken from the other two. They were careless of bumping him against the car, stretching his body lengthwise across the floor in the back, over the transmission tunnel. They scrambled in after him, sitting with their feet resting on his back and legs. It had seemed a long time, but the car accelerated away down the gloomy road within two minutes of Deaken being clubbed down. Having reached the brighter part of town, the driver turned right, then right again, to disappear into the darkness of the waterfront. Makimber remained screwed around in his seat, alert for any pursuit: if he were to be detained and implicated in the assault, then everything would be ruined.

  There were vehicles behind but none taking any particular interest in them. Makimber exhaled slowly, not wanting the others in the car to be aware of his concern. He was the bwana mkubwa, the big man; he was not supposed to be frightened.

  They had been in the Senegalese capital for a week, with the opportunity to learn its basic layout, and the driver steered the car carefully into the delivery bay alongside one of the waterfront warehouses. It was a dark, secluded place, bordered on three sides by blank, empty buildings. Makimber still raised his hand to caution against any movement, staring around the car to ensure they weren’t observed. Then he gestured for them to turn Deaken over. The lawyer groaned, an involuntary sound as the air was forced out of his body by the manhandling.

  Makimber leaned over the seat. He found the South African passport in the left-hand inside pocket, operating the interior light to examine it briefly, snorting contemptuously. He replaced it, going to the other inside pocket. It was there he found the envelope addressed to Captain Erlander. He broke it open and turned in the seat, with the paper held close beneath the light, wanting to read every word.

  In his anger Makimber slapped the face of the unconscious man. Deaken’s head twisted away under the force of the blow and Makimber regretted it at once. He wasn’t a savage.

  Makimber had found what he wanted, obtained his confirmation, but he went carefully through Deaken’s pockets for anything further about the Bellicose and its cargo. But that was it. He snapped the inside light off, not wanting to attract attention to the vehicle.

  “Tell me what you’ve got to do,” he demanded from the men in the car, anxious there should be no mistakes.

  Haltingly, one prompting the other, they went through the disposal procedure that Makimber had patiently rehearsed with them throughout the afternoon.

  “Far beyond Kaolack,” insisted Makimber.

  “Far beyond Kaolack,” recited the driver first, closely followed by one of the men in the rear.

  Makimber felt the tug of unease at their getting it completely right.

  “Is he a bad man?”

  “Very bad,” said Makimber. Swine, he thought again. “Take me back,” he said to the driver. It was only a short journey to the Place de 1’Union and the Hotel Teranga.

  Makimber stopped the car before they reached it and got out; there was a possibility of a road check.

  “Nearly all the way to Tambacounda.” He leaned in through the window. From inside the car came movements and grunts of understanding.

  Makimber stood in the road and watched the taillights out of sight. On his way to the hotel he tightened his arm against his chest, feeling inside his jacket for the bulk of the envelope he intended shortly to destroy. There were times, as a Moslem, that he regretted the teachings of the Koran. Makimber had spent most of his adult life in the West and would liked to have celebrated the odd special occasion with alcohol. Tonight was certainly a special occasion—he had averted a catastrophe.

  The Bellicose had picked up a following current and the headwind had dropped, so they reached the shelter of Goree Island four hours before they were scheduled to dock. Knowing that no port facilities would be available until their arranged arrival, Captain Erlander anchored off, using the shore lee for protection in case the calm weather changed during the remainder of the night. He let Edmunson complete the final anchoring, because the cable from Athens was a long one and he didn’t want to misunderstand it.

  He had been reading steadily for fifteen minutes when the first officer came into his room. They had sailed together for four years, but Edmunson never took advantage; he waited until Erlander suggested a drink, then poured for both of them.

  As the first officer brought the vodka to him, Erlander proffered the Athens cable and said, “What do you think of that?”

  Erlander had almost completed his drink before the first officer finished reading.

&
nbsp; “What sort of bloody stupidity is that?” demanded Edmunson.

  Erlander shrugged. “I’ve queried it hours ago. There was a repeat, identical to the first. We’re to take on a man and make him believe we’re taking a northerly course and all the while go south, to Benguela. And anchor ten miles off on the thirteenth.”

  “Which means this trip could end nastily.”

  This time it was Eriander who filled the glasses. “That’s what I think.” He looked through the porthole towards the yellow and orange smoulder of Dakar on the shoreline. “1 wonder who the poor bugger is?”

  Ashore, the car carrying Deaken had already made its northerly diversion and passed through Thiès and was on its way towards Diourbel.

  One of the men tried to kick at Deaken. The space was too restricted in the back of the vehicle, so he jabbed down viciously with his heel, feeling the body jerk with the impact.

  “What shall we do with him?” asked the driver, intent upon the unlighted road ahead.

  “Kill him,” came the reply.

  20

  The pain pierced Deaken’s unconsciousness, then agonizingly engulfed his whole body. He didn’t move—couldn’t move—because of the hurt. There was something hard—raised—beneath his stomach, bending him. Dust. A lot of dust. More than dust; road dirt, gritting into his face and nose, a stale, dried odour. The smell grew. Of people and oil and petrol. Like the earlier pain, the realization came in a rush. A car. He was on the floor of a car, face down, nose and mouth ground into the carpet. People had their feet on him, several people; one place worse than the rest, a foot jabbing at him in some sort of relentless pattern, again and again in the same spot.

  The control came, he didn’t know how, through the whirl of impressions. The first thought was against movement to alert them, made easy because his body was afire against the slightest jar. He tried to remember but couldn’t; just the darkness of the alley, something about Vietnam and then sounds. Sounds and then the awfulness of something clubbing into his head. Terrible pain. Not as terrible as now though. Not an ordinary backstreet mugging, otherwise he wouldn’t be face down in a car, being taken to God knows where; he’d have woken up in the same alley, everything gone, even his clothes. What then? The pain coiled around him, band after band, preventing coherent thought.

  From above, seeming sometimes far away and sometimes close, came the blur of conversation and Deaken forced himself to concentrate, straining for the words. He had breached the segregation, even as a child, when his mind had been most receptive to languages and he had managed a smattering of a lot of African tongues: none perfect or even extensive, but sufficient for day-to-day communication. They weren’t speaking Bantu. Or Zulu either. Or Shona. Swahili! The recognition settled without any satisfaction, because it was not one of the Swahili dialects he understood. He was picking up isolated words, even those flattened against positive identification. The speed with which they were talking made it more difficult, because they were arguing. Deaken recognized mtu mkorofi, bad man, repeated several times: nearly always it seemed answered by reference to bwana mkubwa. Their leader, the bwana mkubwa, had told them something, given an order, taratibu, but they couldn’t agree over it. Every time mtu mkorofi came there was the repeated, relentless kick and Deaken was in no doubt he was the one they were referring to. Several times there was the word Kaolack and then Deaken remembered the airline map he had studied during the flight from Nice, recalling the Senegal place-name: his memory was of it being somewhere far inland. Dust and fumes crowded into his nose and throat and he wanted to cough against them. He managed to suppress the need, guessing there would be a renewed attack if they suspected he was recovering. Why was he mtu mkorofi? Why had he been attacked at all? It didn’t make sense. If only the pain would go away, lessen at least, so that he could think straight. Mtu mkorofi came again, like a taunt. Then another kick. Abruptly, so suddenly that he was rolled forward against the rear of the front seats, the vehicle stopped; he felt it skid as the brakes locked and then, because he was against it, he felt the driver twist in his seat, to continue the dispute without the distraction of navigating.

  Gradually Deaken picked up one particular word, uncertainly at first and then positively. It came from the man who kept kicking him, he was sure. Just as he was sure what the word was, despite the variation of dialect. In Swahili kuua meant to kill. The pain was pushed aside by a new feeling, the numbness of terror. Deaken tasted the vomit, acid in his throat. He thought he had shuddered, a physical movement they might have felt, but couldn’t be certain; he waited for the sounds above to lessen with their awareness of his recovery. They shouted on, almost as if they were unaware he was in the car with them.

  As immediate as the terror the calmness came, a bizarre sensation of serenity which he knew wasn’t serenity at all but the approach of some sort of hysteria. Deaken still tried to hold the feeling, wanting the detachment whatever its cause. There was nothing he could do, not thrust face down, underfoot and boxed within a car. It was a logical, calculating thought, not one of despair. He had one small advantage: they didn’t know he was conscious, listening to everything.

  The shouting frenzy above subsided into a repetitive exchange of words. There was only a solitary voice saying bwana mkubwa now: met by a chorus of mtu mkorofi. And a new expression, one he missed at first and belatedly snatched for, recognizing the phonetic similarity and then fitting it into the context of what they were saying. The mtu mkorofi, which was him, was guilty of kupunja. Which meant to cheat. He had cheated the big man, the bwana mkubwa. And no one should be allowed to do that. What in the name of God or Hell or whatever Holy did it mean?

  The fury all round him was subsiding now, the lone protesting voice overwhelmed by the weight of the others. Surprisingly, he felt no fear.

  There was a sudden silence in the car, each waiting for the other to move. It was very hot in the enclosed space, thick with body smell. Abruptly, decisively, the rear door near which his head was wedged thrust open. A foot scraped against his cheek as the man got out. They were getting ready to kill him. Still no fear. Instead he began to become aware of minuscule inconsequential things. Fresher air; cicadas chattering from the underbush; absolute darkness.

  The movement of one man released the others. He heard the front door open and then there was a shudder as it slammed shut. Suddenly he felt his feet and ankles seized as they began hauling him from the vehicle, turning him over for better access to his clothes. Before any attack they were going to go through his pockets. His shoulders and then his head bumped off the transmission arch, jarring fresh pain through him as they hauled him out. He kept his eyes closed, head turned against the seats to cover any expression he couldn’t control; the interior light didn’t seem to extend to the rear. Fetid food-fouled breath sprayed over him. Deaken let his body flop, without resistance.

  One chance, thought Deaken, that’s all he’d have. Two men pulled him by his legs from the car and, when he was almost clear, the third grabbed his arms. The eager ones—those who want to kill him. With the reluctant one a spectator. And if he were reluctant it was unlikely he would have any weapon in his hands. A guess, Deaken knew, but a reasonable guess. Everything was going to be a guess. One chance, he thought again.

  The scream, as he moved, was involuntary, a mixture of tension and instinct, but it startled them. At the same time Deaken made a coordinated, body-arching eruption, lashing out against them with his hands and feet, twisting from them as he did so. They dropped him awkwardly, one leg, then the other. Deaken had yanked at the man holding his arms, and felt him begin to topple. As Deaken struggled to keep his balance, he was suddenly conscious of the ground dipping beneath his left foot. He guessed they were by a storm ditch. With desperate ferocity, he lashed out again. One of the men toppled with a groan into the darkness. Deaken was free. And his one thought was to run.

  The pitch-black night helped him; the driver had only left the sidelights on, which did little more than mark out the shap
e of the car. An advantage. Like his breaking the pattern, confusing them. And he was better oriented, knowing the way the car was pointing, and from it the line of the road. Which gave him the positioning of the storm ditch, parallel to it.

  The pain surged back immediately he tried to run. He concentrated against it, trying to force it aside just as a swimmer on a freezing day tries to ignore the icy coldness of the water. The darkness, his help a moment before, became an immediate liability. There was no marker to guide him. A soft crack broke the still night. Deaken realized that somebody had fired a gun: he had no impression of a bullet passing anywhere near him. He felt out delicately with his foot, waiting for the dip of the ditch. As he found it he was aware of groping, scuffling sounds as they came for him. Deaken stepped back, counting, trying to measure his run-up; never more than one opportunity, he thought. If he missed, they would get him. The beating had slowed him so that it was more of a stagger than a run. He had miscounted the backward steps, so the ground was already falling beneath his feet, making his jump across the ditch a clumsy, awkward plunge.

  He didn’t clear the ditch. Instead he crashed into the opposite bank, gushing the breath from his body. He clung there as if he were impaled, chest and arms over the rim, the lower part of his body dangling into the emptiness below. From above and behind there was a shout as they realized what he had done. He heard the sound of collapsing earth and stones as one of them scurried after him into the ditch. He strained to get some air into his lungs.

  They were close enough now for him to feel the vibration of their running feet through the earth against which he was pressed. There were more shots, two this time, perhaps three, fired in close succession. Deaken’s right foot found purchase and he pushed upwards, hauling his body over the edge. A rock was dislodged under his weight. It clattered invisibly into the ditch, and there were more shouts. He could hear the panting of the man in the storm ditch. Deaken dragged himself out of the gully seconds before the man reached him. Deaken held his breath, straining not to give away his position. He felt the man plunge beneath, close enough for him to have reached down and touched him. Deaken was shuddering with the physical effort. Puffs of dust rose directly beneath his nose and mouth which were jammed against the earth. The footsteps had gone past, away from him. He ached to stay where he was, to rest, but knew he couldn’t afford the luxury.