‘James, are you advising me how to distract a group of bored young men?’
He found himself studying the surfeit of freckles on her nose, the way her upper lip had again come adrift from the lower.
‘That would be a silly thing to do.’
‘Just say when,’ she said, enjoying the effect she was having on him. It was exciting. She reached out to touch his arm.
‘Be careful, James.’
He went and briefed Nikolai: he, Anton and Mikhail would create a diversion at the south end of the administration block. At two o’clock, Colonel Sulamani marched out into the paved area between the two buildings.
‘Commander Djouhroub,’ he shouted. ‘We must talk.’
Djouhroub emerged from the barracks a minute later. Three armed guards knelt beside him and made a show of preparing their rifles. Djouhroub beckoned to Sulamani, then stood with arms folded across his chest while the Polisario colonel approached.
‘I am obliged to pass on to you some urgent intelligence I have received from Polisario HQ,’ said Sulamani.
‘What intelligence?’ Djouhroub rolled on the balls of his feet and stared aggressively into Sulamani’s eyes.
‘Moroccan Special Forces will attack this compound later today. I do not have an exact time. Monsieur Zender knew about the raid – that is why he departed in such haste this morning. I advise you to follow him immediately. You know how Special Forces operate: they will not take prisoners.’
Commander Djouhroub rearranged his arms. ‘Is this what your MINURSO friends came to tell you?’
‘The raid is connected to the presence of Mansour here at the compound. He is accused of being the Agadir Bomber.’
The commander broke his stare and looked behind him for a moment, then turned back and emitted a laugh like rubble rattling in a steel chute. ‘It’s a lie, Sulamani. A lie to get us out of here. The Moroccans have not entered the Free Zone for. . . ’ It seemed he did not know how long. ‘They are not allowed to. Under international law,’ he said finally.
‘No, but who will stop them? MINURSO? We have a Polisario force on the way, but they cannot get here today.’
‘It’s a lie,’ Djouhroub repeated. ‘We will stay here at the compound, Colonel Sulamani. And so will you.’
James left the administration block by a door at the rear and scanned the open ground between him and the perimeter. A long bank of earth had been piled up to the north, and he could reach the far end without any danger of being seen. He jogged over and squatted down: less than a hundred yards from here to the fence. He saw Nat at the main gates, four men arranged in a rapt semi-circle around her. Nikolai, Anton and Mikhail were hurling abuse at the guards from a ground-floor window. Now was the time. He ran hard to the fence, checked his sightlines. No shouts, no one running after him. He climbed fast, using a pair of hooks fashioned from the clips of a rifle strap. A scrap of the thick rug from Zender’s office protected him from the lines of razor wire. He dropped down the other side and crawled off towards the thicket of bushes where they’d left Salif and Benoit before driving into the compound.
He found them ten minutes later, squatting in the shelter of the Mercedes. James explained what had happened and passed on Sulamani’s orders.
‘Work your way round until you find a good position to fire on the main gates.’
‘Where you go?’ asked Salif.
‘I’ll be here, with the mortar. Don’t be seen and don’t move up until it’s time to open fire.’
James unslung the Parker Hale and passed it over to Salif, along with a canvas bag containing spare magazines. ‘That’ll give you plenty of firepower. They’ll shoot back, so keep the range at around a hundred and fifty metres. You don’t need to kill anyone, just scare the shit out of them.’
‘Guards not Polisario men,’ said Salif, running his hands over the machine gun. ‘No leave Polisario compound, we kill them.’ He didn’t look in the mood to be contradicted on this point.
‘In forty-five minutes, you’ll hear the mortar bombs,’ James said. ‘Then there’ll be a break of fifteen minutes. When the mortar starts up again, start shooting.’
James bedded in the base-plate of the mortar, levelled it off, checked the firing mechanisms and arranged the shells. Twenty in all: eight for the first barrage, the rest for the second. The TDA 81mm LC, which stood for Léger court, was a fine weapon, robust and reliable, but this piece wasn’t fitted with sighting optics, so he’d have to set the range and direction by calculation. He’d worked out the distance to the barracks as accurately as he could and now set the tube to the correct angle of elevation. It was a risky shot, with Nat and the others sheltering inside the administration block, and he allowed a high margin for error.
When he was satisfied, he called Sulamani on the radio. The Polisario Colonel was stationed on the roof so he could help James sight the mortar.
‘Ready here.’
‘Salif?’
‘In position by now.’
‘Wait for my order.’
Having made ardent admirers of all four guards at the main gate, Nat joined the others in a passage off the entrance hall – away from windows and close to the core of the building, as Nikolai had advised.
‘You all ready?’ he said. ‘We move after the sixth round.’
‘I’d be a lot more ready if I didn’t think the first round was going to blow us into an early grave,’ said Anton.
‘You’re a big pussy,’ said Mikhail.
‘Yeah, a big pussy with more brains than the entire population of Bulgaria.’
‘Anyone ask you to squabble like a couple of schoolgirls,’ said Nikolai gruffly. ‘Get yourselves together or fuck off and hide under the bed.’
Ever since they’d been asked to lay down their rifles and leave the manly tasks of combat and leadership to the others, the three men had been sulking, and Nat was fed up with them.
‘If we don’t get on with it,’ she said, ‘I’m going to gnaw my arm off.’
James got the OK from Sulamani. He wrapped his ears, then balanced the first shell over the mouth of the mortar. He dropped it and ducked away, heard the rasp as it slid down the tube, the clunk of the firing pin, the whump as the propellant ignited. The bomb sailed into the sky, a collar of burnt gas blooming around the streak of exhaust in its wake. He watched the missile turn through the top of its parabola then hurtle down, felt the heavy thump as it landed. A patch of dirty smoke drifted across the façade of the administration block.
The radio handset was winking and he realised he couldn’t hear its buzz. Sulamani: You hit the perimeter fence, on your side. Direction is good. Add one-fifty to your range.
‘Increase range by one-fifty. Confirm.’
Confirmed.
Now he could aim with more confidence. He rolled the elevation wheel to lower the tube and give him the extra distance. This one was going to plunge straight through the roof of the barracks. He located the bomb, released and spun away from the blast of scorched fuel, then turned and saw it drop from the sky like a falcon stooping on its prey.
Smoke boiled up from the north end of the administration block. James froze with horror. How had he got that so badly wrong? He checked the base-plate and found it had shifted after the first shot. Nikolai had said they’d take cover in the centre of the building. They’d be safe there. But he couldn’t afford another mistake.
The first explosion sounded so harmless and polite, so exactly as an explosion should sound when it isn’t going to hurt you, that Nat found herself grinning with relief. She looked at Nikolai. His expression was thoughtful. No one spoke.
The second blast punctured the silence like a shriek in a church hushed for prayer. The building trembled, dust puffed from its joints. A rumble from the far end, and a wave of pulverised masonry rolled down the passage. She hunched in close to her brother, shrinking inside her skin.
‘What did I tell you,’ said Anton. ‘He’s got the whole fucking compound to aim at, but he drops one
on us.’
The third bomb crashed down somewhere outside the building, but still Nat was grinding her teeth at the brutal impact. Two more followed at thirty-second intervals. After the next, they were going to step out into the open. . . She gripped her brother’s forearm. The sixth explosion seemed nearer again – she felt it in her bones. They ran to the entrance hall. The huge chandelier swung slowly from side to side. Anton and Mikhail carried Nikolai to the doctor’s room. They set him up on a table with the loaded RPG cradled in his arms, then ran back to join Nat and Sulamani. They were climbing into the MINURSO Land Cruiser when the seventh blast thundered out from the far end of the barracks.
One more, Nat told herself.
Mikhail drove. The north end of the barracks had been torn open. Dust streamed from its cratered walls, and a dazed guard was picking his way over the chunks of breezeblock that lay round the entrance. Two more were dragging an injured man through a ground-floor window. One of the galvanised steel rubbish bins had been flung into the coils of razor wire around the guest wing, and the dogs were shying and barking as if only their frenzy could keep it at bay. Mikhail accelerated up towards the warehouse as the eighth explosion reverberated somewhere behind them.
‘Not too fast,’ said Colonel Sulamani. ‘We need Djouhroub to see us.’
The commander of the guards was half way to the warehouse, roaring orders at his men. A pump-action shotgun dangled from one fist. He turned as he heard the Land Cruiser behind him, stopped and raised the shotgun to his shoulder. His face was red, his eyes full of savagery. Mikhail braked and Sulamani jumped out.
‘They are here,’ he shouted. ‘We must leave the compound!’
‘This is your doing, Sulamani. It is not Moroccan Special Forces but fucking Polisario. Get back!’
Sulamani stopped. ‘Why would we bomb our own base, Commander?’
‘Get back!’ Djouhroub pointed the barrel of his shotgun over Sulamani’s head and pulled the trigger. After the crunching weight of the mortar bombs, the report sounded puny in Nat’s ears. She saw Djouhroub pump the breech, the spent cartridge tumble to the ground. Three other guards now had their rifles up and aimed at the Land Cruiser.
‘This bombardment will be followed by a ground assault from the north,’ Sulamani said evenly. ‘They may not know about the gates beyond the warehouse. We have minutes to get away.’
‘Won’t your MINURSO flags protect you, Sulamani?’
The three hunting dogs suddenly bowled past. They gathered round Commander Djouhroub, whining and snuffling at his feet.
‘Look at my dogs,’ he said. ‘They know when we are under attack. They howl for blood. But they are silent. The shelling has stopped. It is just some thieves with a new toy. Clear the MINURSO vehicle, I’m taking it.’
‘We are wasting time,’ said Sulamani.
‘I have orders not to let you leave, so I won’t.’
‘You must. We can go by the south gates and drive east – the Polisario units will look out for us.’
‘If I decide to go, I don’t want to get caught with a Polisario officer.’
Djouhroub shouted orders. Four guards ran over to the Land Cruiser and started pulling at the doors. One of them grabbed Nat by the arm, and for form’s sake, she spat at him. She was about to follow up with a kick to the shin, when a tall, foppish looking man ran up the track from the barracks.
‘It’s over!’ he screamed at Djouhroub, sweeping a hank of sweat-soaked black hair from his eyes. ‘Zender has run for it. He knew the Moroccans were coming. We must get out!’
Djouhroub backhanded him across the cheek. The tall man staggered back, and his legs gave way beneath him.
‘You and you, take Nazli up to the warehouse,’ Djouhroub ordered.
The guards who had pulled Nat and the others out of the Land Cruiser started to edge towards the warehouse too. The foppish man’s hysteria seemed to have unnerved them.
‘Sons of bitches, stay where you are!’ Djouhroub ordered. He moved among them, slapping at their heads.
‘We may go or we may stay. I will decide, not this old man who is pissing himself over a few little bangs. Drive the Land Cruiser up to the warehouse,’ he said, manhandling one of the guards into the driver’s seat.
As the vehicle set off, one of the dogs backed away from the track, the hackles bristling along its spine. It gave a strange croak deep in its throat, then threw its snout in the air and howled, a long, clean note like the wail of a siren at night. Djouhroub marched over and swung his boot at the dog’s ribcage. The other two started to growl, but before they could open their throats, the roof of the administration block erupted and a sheet of flame slashed at the sky. A few seconds later, the shrill clatter of machine-gun fire struck up from the far end of the compound. Right on cue, a grenade from Nikolai’s RPG slammed into the wall of the barracks.
The guards didn’t wait for Djouhroub to decide their fate. They fled for the warehouse, the sounds of bloody mayhem pounding in their ears. Nat saw their commander open his mouth to shout at the retreating men. . . Then he thought better of it and strode after them, the dogs skulking at his heels.
Nat, Anton and Mikhail followed Sulamani along the flank wall of the warehouse until they reached the emergency exit door. He pushed it ajar. The place was in uproar. Djouhroub’s men had fired up the big Russian-made BTR-60P assault vehicle and the interior of the building was already obscured by the oily black smoke pumping from its exhausts.
‘They are taking my Mitsubishi,’ said Sulamani, ‘and the two compound Land Rovers. I believe they mean to leave us without transport – but they have forgotten the Unimog.’
‘Hallelujah for the Unimog,’ said Nat. ‘Whatever it is.’
Two men were pulling open the hanging doors at the far end of the warehouse, where Commander Djouhroub stood by the MINURSO Land Cruiser. Another mortar shell thumped down behind them, then the crash of a second grenade. The interval between the blasts was filled with the angry hammering of small-arms fire.
‘Mount up!’
The man called Nazli, whom Djouhroub had struck earlier, was being bundled into the rear of the assault vehicle. No time for the cook who fed you, thought Nat, nor for the boys who served you. And what about the guards she’d distracted at the main gate? Little boys in big men’s bodies. . . She stepped further into the warehouse and watched through the open doors as the smaller vehicles bounded across the open ground. After thirty yards, they pulled over to let the assault vehicle past. The driver gunned the throttle and the monstrous, boat-like machine thundered on towards the perimeter fence. Nat didn’t see the gates until one of them was sent somersaulting into the air by the vehicle’s steel prow. It lumbered down the slope beyond, then its stern tipped up and disappeared from view. The three smaller vehicles swarmed through the broken gates just as a mortar shell detonated on the roof of the barracks, adding another cloud of smoke to the dense pall of burnt explosives drifting over the shattered building.
James made his way round to Salif’s position and managed to convince him and his nephew to stop firing. As soon as they did so, two guards emerged, one with his hands up, the other cradling a bloodied forearm. The guardpost had been shredded by the attack: of the two who hadn’t surrendered, one was dead and the other had been shot in the stomach and thigh and was grey with shock. The two Sahrawi swaggered over to take possession of their prisoners. They were in high spirits, taking it in turns to praise each other’s marksmanship and steadiness under fire, until Benoit caught sight of the dead and injured men and vomited in the sand at his feet. Salif clapped him on the back, then went over to taunt the uninjured man. James intervened, sending them off to fetch a stretcher and bear the wounded man to the doctor’s room.
He went over to the barracks. Perhaps Sulamani had been wrong about Sarah. She might still be here, hiding. He clambered over the rubble and entered the building. The air was thick with dust and he coughed and covered his mouth. There were signs of rapid evacuation, T-shirts and
trainers spilled on the floor. He searched the bedrooms one by one. His knee ached with every step, and whenever he turned, his ribs creaked and the muscles in his stomach stiffened where they’d crunched into the rooftop parapet in Smara: a rollcall of injuries, clamouring for attention now that there was no fighting to distract him. He found Sarah’s room directly below Nazli’s lab. In the cupboard was a small vinyl suitcase, a collection of dirty clothes in a Tesco carrier bag, and a book with pencil annotations and a stamp from the library of the University of Leicester. The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon. A book for the compassionate, for a girl touched by the injustice that sent her to a good university while the wretched of the earth lay down to die. Sulamani had said he would not tolerate further executions at the compound, so Etienne had taken her somewhere else. But that didn’t necessarily mean. . . He packed her things in the suitcase, then couldn’t think what to do with it and walked out, leaving it on the bed.
He went back to Zender’s room and sat on the green sofa. Djouhroub and the guards had fled, but he felt no sense of triumph. Instead, the familiar grim tension was throbbing in his veins: the Kosovo feeling he’d worked so hard to suppress, now jerked into life by the fight for the compound. Could it ever be sated? Not just by lobbing over a few mortar bombs, anyway. His mind chugged pointlessly through the events of the day, as if it might not be too late to rearrange them by some as yet unrecognised power of endlessly reiterated thought. But no. Zender had cruised off hours ago – perhaps to be detained by the Polisario, more probably to reach the Algerian border with nothing but a little discomfort to complain about. Zender is untouchable, he thought bitterly, there is no part of his fate in which he does not play the decisive role. Unlike you, who go galloping round every bend like a blinkered horse.
Little Sister (A James Palatine Novel) Page 32
