Little Sister (A James Palatine Novel)

by Giles O'Bryen

  ‘One minute,’ said Sulamani.

  He slid an L43 illuminating round inside the breech, then loaded the charge and clanked it shut. If the gun lit up, they’d all be mincemeat.

  ‘Clear,’ he ordered. ‘Block your ears.’

  ‘Fire when ready.’

  James steadied himself, then unleashed the charge. The blast seemed to brush him aside like he was made of paper. The rig hopped into the air and the breech kicked back, writhing in its mount. The shell accelerated up into the night sky, its whiffling noise vibrating on the pummelled air, then burst in a dome of white light. The canister of magnesium flared and spat under its swaying parachute – an unexpected and disturbing sight for the soldiers below.

  He slapped open the breech and let the case leap out, felt the burnt charge scorch his nostrils, looked up to see Sulamani with a high explosive round tucked under his arm. He was grinning – they both were. James used the ram to position the shell inside the barrel, then took a fresh charge from Benoit, loaded it and clamped the breech shut.

  ‘Clear!’

  The gun hurled the shell from its mouth with a brutal roar, bounced and settled, smoked lazily. Then, in the distance, the soft rumble as it cratered the sand eight kilometres to the north.

  Salif came on the radio. ‘East, half k. Range good.’

  James adjusted the tangent and watched the barrel move fractionally right, then reloaded and fired again. They stood and listened for the explosion.

  ‘Short. Maybe half k.’

  This was the problem. . . They didn’t have an accurate location for their target. The illuminating round had run out and the Moroccan force was in darkness again. He fired the fourth shell, ejected the case, noticed how the gun ran smoother now the steel had warmed. They fired the fifth and last immediately, then sat in the reverberating silence until Salif returned.

  ‘They stop. No lights, hard to see.’

  ‘OK, let’s strike the gun.’

  The prince’s hands tugged at her clothes, arranged her like a slab of meat on a butcher’s block. Finally, he pushed his crablike thighs between her legs. Nat withdrew into a kernel of herself, felt her body harden against him.

  But it seemed that Prince Makhlani al Makhlani wasn’t ready after all. He hung over her for a moment, a repulsive, seething greed in his large black eyes. Then he flung himself off her and reached for his bundle of khat. He lay on his back and chewed, then started to masturbate. Nat distracted herself by hunting for his gun, hands inching around under the scratchy cushions but finding only cigarette butts and things that ran over her fingers and stuff that she didn’t even want to think about. The prince had aroused himself enough to try again. He kept working away at himself as he crawled on top of her. But again his penis wilted.

  This is dangerous, she realised. If he could not actually rape her, what else would he do? She lay absolutely still while he lit a cigarette and played with himself some more. The rasping of his elbow on the cushions made a sound like a panting animal. Time was ticking out. She contemplated killing him with her bare hands. He wasn’t very strong. But unless she silenced him instantly, he could shout for help. Anyway, here he was again, clambering over her. This time, she could not prevent herself emitting a sigh of disgust.

  He heard her. She tensed in anticipation of a blow. Instead he reached for his Knicks shorts and started to pull them on.

  ‘Now you will have to wait.’

  He lay down beneath the red lantern, back arched over a cushion, one knee drawn up, and fell into a kind of black-eyed catatonia. When he hadn’t moved for half an hour, Nat crept into a dark corner of the tent, pulled a patch of filthy rug around herself and tried to take what comfort she could from this moment of respite. I’ll light a cigarette and stub it out on his dick, she thought. Then I’ll die happy. Her tongue felt like a wad of old leather, but she dared not look for something to drink. She found herself thinking back over her life, its dizzy arc from the dismal apartment at the end of the bus line in Kiev, to a seat at the top table in the world of corporate arms sales, to this reeking tent with its khat-wasted ‘prince’ who was going to slice her up like a pig. The satisfaction she’d got from besting her rivals and dressing every corner of her life in luxury was no consolation now. There weren’t many comforting memories to look back on, and she realised that she still saw herself as someone whose life had hardly begun. Her loyal brother Nikolai was locked up in an old Mercedes nearby, and it didn’t seem likely that the rest of the night would bring them anything but further degradation and violence.

  She heard an explosion. Distant, its percussive quality muffled by several cubic miles of air. A few minutes later, there was another one, sharper and much louder, followed by a third. One of his men came to the entrance and jabbered at the prince. He sat up and extracted his gun from a pocket in the rear wall of the tent – how come she hadn’t seen that? – and followed the man out. She lay back in her corner and waited. Two more booms, five in all. Then silence.

  Prince Makhlani came back and pulled on a pair of fat-soled trainers that made his shins look like sticks.

  ‘I’m going to see what’s going down. I’ll leave two men. You’ll be safe.’

  He gathered up the remaining khat leaves and stuffed them into his pocket, then stood and looked down at her. He pulled out a couple of leaves, dropped them on the rug and walked out, bouncing ostentatiously in his new footwear.

  Wow, thought Nat, his compassionate side.

  An engine fired up, doors slammed, rap music thumped out. She heard their pickup snarling off to the west. She crawled round the tent looking for her clothes. He’d broken the clasp on her bra and she couldn’t wear it. She thought of how Anton would sneak a look at her breasts through her T-shirt. Shame crept over her, settled like a rat in its nest.

  They’d just packed up the Light Gun after its second barrage when Salif hissed at them and got down on hands and knees. He bent his ear to the ground, stroking it inquisitively, cajoling some elusive sound out of the dry earth.

  ‘Diesel, three, four k.’ He pointed east.

  ‘Only one?’ asked Sulamani.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘A scouting mission. We’ll stay hidden, but if we are discovered, we must destroy their vehicle. James, take the RPG two hundred yards south-east, find a position that will give you a clean shot if they get close to the gun. Fire only if you are sure they have seen us. Younes will cover you. If we see the RPG fire, we will move in. Look out for men on foot. Let’s go.’

  They unhitched the gun and covered it with camouflage netting, while Salif listened to the approaching diesel. They’d almost finished when he held up his hand.

  ‘Two, west,’ he said. ‘Three k, drive fast.’

  ‘Not scouting, then,’ said Sulamani. ‘Attacking.’

  He led them to a position five hundred yards further south, where a low ridge afforded some rudimentary cover. A wily old soldier, thought James. A less experienced man would have grouped them round the precious gun, but with three vehicles full of men ranged against them. . . The term turkey shoot came to mind. This way, they could stay hidden and retain the element of surprise. Salif lay on the ground to listen. James loaded the RPG. They waited, hearing each other’s breathing, the soft scraping of their clothes against the sand.

  It seemed from Salif’s stream of muttered updates that the vehicle arriving from the east would cut a line between them and the place where they had left the Light Gun. Then he reported that the two vehicles in the west had killed their engines. A few minutes later, James heard the lone vehicle, and then, following Salif’s outstretched arm, saw a pale glow shimmying across the desert towards them. As it drew nearer, they made out the shape of a pickup with men in the back. And what was that sound pulsing on the cool night air?

  Rap music.

  This was not how elite soldiers went into action. James pulled the RPG to his shoulder and rehearsed his shot. He felt Sulamani’s hand on his arm, saw him shake his head.


  The pickup passed between them and the gun, slowed, then came to a halt less than four hundred yards away. The rap music stopped mid-beat. A moment later, Salif pointed into the west.

  ‘Engines,’ he whispered.

  It looked as if the other two vehicles would approach above the brow of the low rise to the north-west of the compound. The pickup cut its lights and started to swing round towards the south.

  ‘Those in the pickup are not Moroccan Special Forces,’ Sulamani murmured. ‘I believe the other two are.’

  As he spoke, there was a roar of engines at full throttle and a cluster of powerful lights bored through the darkness from the west. A 4x4 with a rack of lamps mounted above the cab hurtled down the slope and ran fast on a line that would intercept the pickup if it tried to escape to the south. Behind it, a much larger vehicle careered over the brow of the hill, turned to fix the pickup in its headlights, and thundered down.

  The pickup surged forward, zigzagged out of the big vehicle’s lights, then slewed east and headed straight for their hiding place. With no headlights, the driver couldn’t see the ridge, or the men behind it. Barely twenty yards away, the driver swerved. The pickup skidded violently, its right-hand wheels lifting off the sand, the men in the back flung against its sides. It seemed certain they would roll, but the driver straightened and slowed in time and the vehicle blasted by in a boiling cloud of dust.

  The 4x4 now angled in from the south to head off the pickup, lights slashing through the darkness ahead. The big vehicle – James recognised the sinister, snub-nosed oblong of a French-made VAB infantry carrier – rumbled on. It was tracking the dust cloud from the pickup’s wheels and would pass within a hundred yards of them, but with luck all eyes would be on their fleeing prey. James saw the outline of the heavy machine gun mounted behind the cab, men crouching and swaying as they rode the bucking chassis. The VAB barrelled past – despite its bulk, it was gaining on the pickup. The smaller vehicle might still escape under cover of dust and darkness. . . But now the 4x4 turned so that its battery of lamps laid thick columns of light in a wide fan across the path of the pickup. Abruptly, the VAB slewed to a standstill, dust drifting in the beams of its headlights. James watched in fascination. The pickup was trapped between the heavy machine gun behind it and the beams of light the 4x4 had lain across its escape route east: if they ventured into the lights, the machine gunner would have them cold. The driver saw the danger and slowed to a dawdle. The 4x4’s searchlights started to rake back towards the idling pickup.

  James felt himself willing the driver to make the right move. . . There! The pickup spun round and accelerated towards a line between the 4x4 and the VAB – they couldn’t use the machine gun with their own men directly in the line of fire – then swung through ninety degrees and drove directly at the 4x4. For a few moments it looked as if they might be able to break away to the south and outrun their pursuers. But the 4x4 heeled into a wide semi-circle and from its new position again laid its lights ahead of the pickup. Simultaneously the VAB powered three hundred yards to the south.

  They’ve done this before, thought James, as the pickup slowed again. It was like the endgame of a chess match, powerful pieces meticulously herding the queen to her death.

  The shafts of deadly light swept inexorably across the desert floor, found their mark, steadied, tracked their prey as it tried again to accelerate out of trouble. Not this time. The VAB’s machine gun hammered into life, raking the offside of the pickup. The tailgate bounced open, shreds of black rubber flipped from the rear wheels, the men in the back went down. Bullets shrieked along its steel sides. The pickup slumped to a halt as the machine gun clattered on. Finally, someone swore at the gunner and he stopped. The 4x4, a Renault Sherpa, James now saw, moved in to mop up and the VAB pulled up behind.

  A not very thorough inspection of the rear of the pickup was made, and four shots were fired into whatever was left to fire at. Two men were dragged from the cab and loaded into the VAB. Then the soldiers stood around and smoked. They’d left their engines running, their lights illuminating the remains of the kill. After a minute, the drivers climbed into their cabs and revved their engines. The rest of the soldiers tossed their cigarettes away and mounted up. The Sherpa threw a tight circle round the VAB, then led the bigger vehicle back west. They ground up the slope and disappeared over the brow, leaving only the noise of their engines growling in their wake.

  ‘I do believe they think they’ve caught us,’ said James.

  Sulamani decided to delay their next barrage so they could prepare for the likely return of the Moroccan infantry. They drove in close to the perimeter and sent Salif into the compound to keep watch from the roof. Younes went with him to fetch boltcutters from the warehouse. The rest of them set up the Light Gun at the foot of the slope below. The mortar they carried up the incline and positioned close to the mesh fence. They parked the Unimog a hundred yards south of the gun, then dug positions for themselves – deep enough to hide them from a casual sweep of the Sherpa’s searchlights. Younes returned with the boltcutters and they cut slits in the fence so they could retreat into the compound if they had to.

  ‘How long do you think before they come after us again?’ asked James.

  ‘First, Zaki will seek guidance from his command. You have knocked out the satellite link, so he will not get it. It will make him hesitate. The seeds of doubt are sown and we must help them grow.’

  Forty minutes later, Salif reported that two vehicles were headed their way once more.

  ‘I reckon they’ll find us this time,’ said James.

  He thought of the heavy machine gun mounted on the VAB, how it had taken less than twenty seconds to destroy the pickup. Afterwards, they’d fired handguns into the rear. There hadn’t been any discussion about that, as far as he’d been able to see. It hadn’t required anyone’s sanction.

  ‘The Sherpa will find the gun first,’ said Sulamani. ‘Younes, Benoit and I will shoot out its lights. James, you must deal with the machine gun on the VAB. Salif will man the mortar.’

  James didn’t think a well-trained and equipped special forces unit was going to acquiesce in this plan – but plans didn’t last long in such circumstances anyway. He loaded the RPG and lay it alongside him in one of the two dugouts he’d scraped for himself, placed the box with a spare shell and charge at his feet. The stars were very distinct, winking and shimmering in the gaping, blue-black void. It seemed almost childish to be hiding like this. He closed his eyes. I want them to find me, he thought.

  Salif gave a croak from his position sixty yards to his left. James’s heart gave a jolt. He raised his head above the lip of his hollow and watched. After a few minutes, he made out a ghostly luminescence hovering above the desert floor, then two pairs of headlight beams nodding and swaying through the darkness, feeling their way forward like the antennae of some supernatural beast. The Sherpa crawled past the line of the fence three quarters of a mile away and rolled slowly down the incline. They weren’t going to rush anything this time – no doubt Colonel Zaki had been livid that there’d been no Polisario gunners among the men they had brought him so far.

  The cab-mounted searchlights flipped on and started to traverse the sand between them. The burnt-oil smell of a fairground ride drifted under James’s nose. Now the VAB emerged, a few hundred yards closer to them than the Sherpa. The two vehicles swung round and took up positions two hundred yards apart, then started to move towards them. The Sherpa’s searchlight flicked meticulously from point to point, exploring anything that interrupted the monotone spread of sand and rock.

  Their position was just over the rim, slightly elevated and with the compound fence behind them. The fans of light weaved closer. On the next sweep, they would touch the sides of the Unimog, then pass directly over his head. James started to count, just to give some dimension to the waiting. The VAB rumbled steadily on, now less than three hundred yards away. For a split second he saw the lower half of the Unimog illuminated in the Sherpa’s li
ghts – a length of knotted cord that joined two pieces of netting, a wheel arch thick with paint. The sand silvered ahead of him. He flattened himself into his hole, waiting for the bark from Sulamani’s rifle that would set off the skirmish and decide their fate.

  Nothing.

  The relentless chug of the VAB’s engine, the burnt-oil smell. The VAB would be zigzagging back soon. Its headlights would flit over the Unimog from a different angle, forty yards closer. His heartbeat pulsed in his ears. Don’t look until you’re sure. . .

  Again, the VAB’s observers seemed to miss the signs. The camouflage wasn’t that good. . . James looked out and saw the big vehicle trundling away from him, searching the empty desert to the south, before swinging back their way. It had broken its routine. . . This wasn’t right. The Sherpa came idly round in a half circle that would bring it towards them at right angles to the VAB.

  The formation they used to attack the pickup. They’re getting the searchlights in position, then they’ll open fire.

  Energy crackled through his body, the feeling that obliterated all else, the feeling he’d been craving since they’d driven Djouhroub and his guards from the compound. Time slowed. He knelt and turned to face the VAB, now barely a hundred yards away. He heaved the RPG tube up to his shoulder. Settle, count to three. Aim for the crease between the machine-gun mounting and the body of the VAB. Adjust. Hold.

  The hiss of the fuze, then the low howl of the rocket from the tube. James felt the heat on his back, saw the shadowy landscape glow orange as the exhaust gases flared into the sky. He heard the blast, didn’t look, grabbed the box with the spare round and charged from his position.

  The VAB revved, huge tyres churning as it turned to bring its headlights to bear. The loose sand gave way under his feet, scalpel blades jiggled in his damaged knee. He’d prepared a position sixty yards away to his right, but he wasn’t going to make it. A disc of brilliant light was hovering just ahead. He dived down the slope, rolled, the launcher clamped against his side. Rifle fire rattled behind him, bullets snicked at the sand three yards to his left. The steel box banged into his shin. He heaved himself back to his feet and plunged on. A fountain of sand erupted to his right and instinctively he swerved towards it, to confuse the next shot. The pit he’d dug was so bloody well hidden he couldn’t see it. Might just as well turn round and loose off the second RPG round. Then he found the row of stones he’d left as a marker and threw himself forward again. A hail of rifle fire from the Polisario men behind him smashed the VAB’s searchlight, leaving him in merciful darkness. He scrambled into the hole, dragging the RPG and steel box in behind.