Bite

by Nick Louth

  ‘How long did you spend in Europe?’

  ‘Three months, many years ago. I worked for the Belgian Army here, and they took me for officer training to Brussels. I was training to be a captain in the Force Publique. I wanted to learn English as well as French, and they sent me with some Belgian officers who were on a course at Sandhurst. It was excellent, the best time in my life. But it ended suddenly and I was sent home. Belgium had pulled out of our country.’

  ‘Then you had your freedom.’

  ‘Maybe, but in one day, we went from being a Belgian department to independence. No preparation. In the entire country there were three African civil servants and perhaps thirty graduates. They wanted it to be a big mess, and of course it was. They could point and say the African is not fit to govern.’

  ‘Couldn’t you just go back to living like before?’

  ‘No. The country had been driven down a European road for a hundred years, and was suddenly abandoned in a cul-de-sac. Getting back to African roots was not easy. We were lost.’

  ‘That is how we feel,’ I said. ‘We have been taken prisoner, and you have not said when you will release us.’

  He reached out and stroked my arm. ‘Erica. We will release you as soon as we can. The government must understand they have to deal with us. As soon as they acknowledge that, you will all be released.’

  ‘You sent Georg with a message, didn’t you?’

  ‘The man with the beard, yes. I have no reply yet.’

  ‘What have you demanded?’

  ‘Simply a place at the table for the KPLA. We want to be in a government of national unity.’ He looked at my glass. ‘You have not touched your vodka.’

  ‘No. I don’t like vodka,’ I lied.

  The Brigadier shrugged. He levered himself up and walked to the wall of photographs. He pointed out pictures of his Belgian regiment, his class at Sandhurst, and a few snaps taken in the tourist centres of Brussels and London. He was able to recall all the names of his colleagues, but what I saw was the thin, anxious black outsider. Only in one snowscene, where he was one of three laughing soldiers crammed on a toboggan, did I see any hint of belonging.

  The brigadier sighed as he stabbed the picture with his finger. ‘You know, I was nineteen years old when I came to Europe. I had never been on an aeroplane. I had never seen snow. I had never eaten chocolate or moules…mussels. We landed at midnight, and it was freezing. My four African friends were driven off to one regiment, near Antwerp and I was sent with some white officer cadets to a barracks in the forests of the Ardennes. I remember looking out of the truck at the trees and the snow and thinking this was the land of Christmas. It reminded me of pictures and cards we had on the wall at school with the nuns. And I was the only black man in the Nativity.’

  ‘Did they treat you okay?’

  ‘The white soldiers laughed at me a lot and played tricks on me. They hid bananas in my locker just before inspection, soaked my bed in aftershave. Even the sergeant called me a monkey. When they got drunk they just hit me. I was very miserable. The food was strange and I was cold and homesick. But I knew it was a test I had to pass.’

  ‘It sounds awful.’

  ‘What I really dreamed about was getting a white-skinned girlfriend. I wanted a chic Brussels girl, with long, flowing, blonde hair who would fall in love with me. But it was impossible. We spent all our time in the camp, scrubbing and polishing. No women ever came to the camp.’

  ‘Did you not get any leave?’

  ‘Yes, but everyone else went back to their families. No-one wanted to go into the town with me. I went once, but everybody stared at me, and they wouldn’t serve me at the café. So I took a bus to Brussels.’

  ‘You must have found plenty of Zaireans there.’

  ‘Yes, I found the African bars and cafés, and plenty of friendly people. But what is Zaire to an African? Does being a European make you feel at home with Hungarians and Finns? I wanted to speak my own language, but I met no-one else who understood it. There are ninety different languages in Zaire.’

  The Brigadier swigged his vodka and looked at me. ‘I am not trying to make you sorry for me.’

  ‘You couldn’t. I’m too busy being sorry for myself. And sorry for your other prisoners.’ I stood up. ‘I am tired. Thank you for the shower, and the comforts for the cell. I think the others would really appreciate it too.’

  He nodded, and fetched my wet clothes from the bathroom. I hurried out onto the verandah, sensing him close behind me.

  ‘Erica, wait a minute.’

  I stood stiffly with my back to him, watching the frosted canopy of stars. I felt his hand on the back of my neck. I shivered and squirmed away. ‘Don’t touch me.’

  I couldn’t see his face in the darkness, but I sensed his disappointment. He called a guard over but before he arrived I was striding back to my stinking cell as if it was the place in the world I most wanted to be.

  (Erica’s Diary 1992)

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Max and Lisbeth got back to Amsterdam Central Station at eleven and sipped strong coffee in a smoky café until it closed at two. They retrieved bicycles from the huge rack outside the station, and headed off down the Damrak, following the tram route through Leidseplein, past the dark towers of the Rijksmuseum and the vast expanse of Museumplein. They reached their destination in ten minutes.

  Anvil’s place was a rambling old house, three storeys high, with an overgrown garden backing on to a park. There were a couple of embassies around the corner and Mercedes and BMWs parked all over the place. The house had big metal railings and a videophone on the gate. There were no lights on. It looked deserted.

  ‘This is where he had me deliver your girlfriend’s laptop.’

  ‘Maybe she’s here too,’ Max said.

  ‘No. I’m sure the cops know all about this place. He’d have her somewhere else, somewhere no-one but him knows about.’ Lisbeth smiled at him. ‘So are you game?’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘Going in to get your laptop back.’

  ‘Are you out of your mind? You just want to walk in there without preparation? This place belongs to a guy who carves hate mail into your belly like it was a Post-It note.’

  ‘So says the man who cut my face with a bottle.’

  ‘Lisbeth…’

  ‘Yes, I know it was an accident. Look, you have to understand that I can only live on the edge. I need the thrill. The idea of breaking in here turns me on. Maybe I’m weird that way.’

  ‘You’re weird in every way, Lisbeth,’ Max muttered. ‘Please go home, and let me do this. There’s no need for you to get any further involved. I’ll just do a little reconnaissance, and figure out the best way.’

  ‘Fine. I’ll go home.’ She handed him a shoulder bag. ‘In here are the devices you might need. I presume you are familiar with security locks and professional alarms, and know the layout of the inside of the building to avoid setting off the movement detectors.’

  Max rubbed his chin and thought for a long time. ‘Okay, okay, you win. But just promise me we ain’t going in through the front door.’

  ‘Of course not. We are going through the park.’ She set off on her bicycle and Max followed. They looped up into Van Baerle Straat and took the steps down into the Vondelpark, a long sunken garden pointing like a finger out of the centre of the city. It was deserted and dark, and lush with the scent of summer. They chained the bikes to railings and sneaked up through bushes to the back of Anvil’s place and its six foot high spiked railings. The garden beyond was rambling and unkempt, leading up through a series of stone terraces and an overgrown pergola to a conservatory.

  Lisbeth handed Max her shoulder bag and began to shin up the railings. She hauled one leg over, and sat between two huge rusty spikes. Max handed her the bag and she helped him up. He wasn’t slim enough to straddle the railings without risking eye-watering injury, so he stretched a foot to the top of the railing, hauled himself up and jumped from the top into the
garden. He turned to help Lisbeth, and she dropped daintily into his arms. He let go, but she didn’t. Instead she kissed him on the lips.

  ‘Lisbeth, please.’ He extricated himself and turned to the house. As they walked forward a bright light popped on from the back of the house, dazzling them. Max dived for the ground, Lisbeth close beside him.

  ‘Max,’ she whispered. ‘Let’s make love right here.’

  He rubbed his face in disbelief. ‘I’ve a better idea. I’ll book you a shrink when we get outta here and you can tell him all about it.’

  Ahead of them was a stone patio with fountain at its centre. Lisbeth stood and danced out of the bushes into the light, pirouetting like a ballerina around the fountain.

  ‘Lisbeth,’ Max hissed. ‘For Christ’s sake!’

  ‘It’s okay. It’s driven by a movement sensor. There won’t be an alarm attached to it anywhere a cat could set it off.’ She stepped forward into darkness, and Max followed her, cursing. It took him a minute to find her, studying a kitchen window.

  ‘Too easy, just too easy,’ she whispered. ‘You see there is a window lock, yes?’ She pointed through into the kitchen. ‘That holds the frame in place. If you break the window you can’t reach at the right angle to unlock it even if you have the right key.’

  Max nodded.

  ‘Two minutes I shall be inside.’ She took a tile cutter from her bag and gave four sharp strokes, one on each edge of the wooden frame. With another tool she carved away the putty, then levered away the excess wood, to reveal the full width of the pane. She took a big rubber sucker from her bag and ran saliva around its rim with a finger. She pressed it on the pane, and gently eased the glass away from the frame. It had taken a minute and three quarters.

  ‘Impressive,’ Max said. ‘I can now add breaking and entering to my expanding list of criminal exploits.’

  ‘The secret is to find the most rotten frame.’

  ‘Let me go in first,’ Max said.

  ‘Okay, but turn on the light. It is always less suspicious than blundering around in the dark with a torch.’

  Max slid in feet first and Lisbeth followed while he flipped the light. The kitchen was clean, tidy and empty. No pots, pans, or food in the cupboards. The refrigerator was disconnected. Lisbeth opened a tin. ‘Speculaas! My favourite.’ She took a bite of a biscuit, and handed the rest to Max.

  ‘For God’s sake, Lisbeth, you’re like a five-year-old.’ He examined the ginger cookie dubiously, and tossed it away. What he saw next made him freeze. ‘Oh My God.’

  ‘It’s just a dog bowl.’

  ‘But look what name is on it.’

  ‘You have met Mandy?’

  ‘Damn right I have.’ Max pulled the Walther from his jacket. ‘We kinda have a grudge against each other.’

  ‘If the dog’s running free, we don’t need to worry about movement sensors,’ Lisbeth said brightly.

  ‘I’d rather tackle Fort Knox than that sonofabitch,’ he said, easing open the door to the hallway. There was no sound. He turned on the light. All the interconnecting doors were closed. Mandy could be in any of the rooms. Max sniffed deeply, and crept low towards the foot of the stairs. Lisbeth went to the alarm control box behind the front door. She pressed some buttons, punched a number into the console and a green light flashed up next to the word ‘disarmed’.

  Max listened at the lounge door, and edged it open. The place was darkly furnished in heavy, old fashioned furniture. There were no pictures or photos and the bookshelves had been recently cleared. Everywhere else had a light layer of dust. The bottoms of doors, table legs, and bookcases had been scratched and gouged. Tufts of brindled fur lay on the carpet. The house had an aroma of dog.

  ‘Anvil’s cleared out. No laptop, no Erica, no nothing,’ Max said.

  ‘Maybe. Let’s go upstairs.’ Lisbeth was grinning.

  Max eyed her dubiously. ‘No funny business, okay? Let’s look for what we’ve come for and get the hell out.’

  Max and Lisbeth crept upstairs. The landing light didn’t work so Lisbeth shone her penlight on the closed doors. ‘Three bedrooms up here, two bathrooms. The master bedroom has a huge waterbed. I never slept anywhere so comfortable.’

  Max squinted sideways at her. ‘So that’s why you know the layout so well. Jesus, the emotional spaghetti that must be tangled in your head. Where’s he likely to keep the laptop?’

  ‘His computing gear was always in the office on the top floor.’

  They climbed the next staircase into a converted attic. It was carpeted, had floor to ceiling windows, and loads of empty space. In one corner was a desk and a couple of PCs, surrounded by a rat’s nest of wiring.

  On top of the desk was a laptop computer with a Save the Rainforest sticker on it. ‘Got it! Let’s get out of here,’ Max said.

  He looked up and she wasn’t there any more. ‘Jesus, don’t be playing games with me now.’

  He descended to the darkness of the landing. There were five doors, all shut. ‘Come on, Lisbeth. I’m leaving now, are you coming?’

  There was no reply and no noise. Max pushed open the door to the master bedroom. The room was very large, with two bay windows and a décor heavy on dark colours. A giant iron-framed bed was piled high with cushions, a massive stereo system stood on the floor, and on the wall was mounted a widescreen TV. The carpets were littered with CDs and videos.

  Rock music suddenly erupted from the stereo. Max whirled around, the Walther tight in his hand. Then the TV crackled on, volume blaring, a blonde screaming in some 1950s horror film.

  ‘Lisbeth, this ain’t funny,’ Max circled around the room, eyes flicking left and right. The bed began to undulate and giggle. Max strode over and hauled the covers off. Lisbeth was naked, screaming with laughter, a remote control in each hand.

  ‘Okay, yes, I was scared,’ Max said.

  Lisbeth stopped abruptly, eyes wide. ‘I’m so horny and excited. Just think what would happen if he found us. Doesn’t it drive you wild?’

  Max leaned down to her. ‘Lisbeth, it makes my balls shrink is how much it scares me. So get dressed or Daddy won’t buy you an ice cream.’

  Lisbeth pulled a long childish face. ‘You’re no fun.’

  ‘Listen, if you want to play Goldilocks and the three serial killers fine, just leave me out.’

  ‘Okay, okay.’ Lisbeth went over to a drawer and opened it, pulling out an olive green shirt. ‘Think this would suit me?’ she asked, holding it against her. The tails fell almost to her knees. Max’s eyes were drawn to a small black triangular badge sewn on the right sleeve, depicting an upward pointing dagger. Over the left breast was a parachute with wings.

  ‘This guy was a commando, wasn’t he?’ Max asked.

  ‘Yes. He was in the 2nd Commando Battalion with Johnny, and he was a close combat instructor at Marche les Dames training centre.’

  Max shook his head and grabbed the laptop.

  Down below the front door slammed. Claws, scrabbling on the floor. Rasping breath, paws galloping up the stairs.

  Mandy!

  Max whirled around. Ten feet to the bedroom door, but it might have been a mile. He would never make it. He drew a bead on the doorway, waiting for the slightest movement on the darkened landing. Beside him, Lisbeth was dressing at furious speed.

  Mandy flew through the doorway, teeth bared and snarling, but the Walther barked first. Max’s first bullet didn’t slow the dog at all, the second sent it skidding in a bloody arc, one foreleg smashed. The third burst its skull like a ripe tomato and sprayed a plume of gore on the wall. For a few seconds afterwards the jaws trembled and the claws fandangoed on the hardwood floor.

  From downstairs came the unmistakable click of a weapon being cocked. Max slammed and locked the bedroom door. He pulled Lisbeth off the water bed, her bare breasts jiggling as she struggled into her jeans. It was hard enough to shunt the heavy bed against the door, but getting it vertical was going to be harder. Max rubbed his hands and crouched to get a good gri
p. With a deep breath he hauled one edge of the bed almost to shoulder height. His feet hit a patch of dog blood and began to slide. Outside, a stair creaked.

  ‘Gimme a hand,’ he hissed through clenched teeth. Lisbeth squeezed her shoulder underneath, and it was just enough. They flipped the bed against the door, where it sploshed and wobbled.

  A burst of automatic fire thudded through the door and fizzed into the waterbed, which rippled, bled and sagged as if it was human. Water flooded across the floor.

  Lisbeth was dressed and working at the window locks, but stood aside when she saw Max shouldering Anvil’s ten thousand euro stack. With one heave multi-change CD player, state-of-the-art amplifier and dual tape deck smashed through the window and exploded in high fidelity on the patio below. Behind them the door was being kicked, but that at least would be immovable so long as the bed held out. Max knocked out the remaining glass and helped Lisbeth up onto the ledge, then he joined her. It seemed a hell of a way down, but he held the laptop over his head as they jumped, and the round flowerbed in the centre of the patio provided a soft landing. Lisbeth was up and running instantly, giggling with delight as she scrambled effortlessly up the railings. Max handed her the laptop while he climbed up and over.

  Penny Ryan had arranged to meet Saskia at Amsterdam’s grand Café Luxembourg, and as she looked for a table she picked up a copy of the International Herald Tribune from the café’s magazine rack. When she saw the banner headline she suddenly felt faint.

  Deadly Malaria Strain Now Sweeps World

  Sidebar stories chronicled the various aspects of the disease: 46 Dead, 178 Sick across 15 Nations; Experts baffled; Ancient ailment returns with a vengeance; Little chance of early cure.

  She was still reading when Saskia sat down.

  ‘Hi, Saskia. I haven’t seen any news for days. I had no idea it had spread so far.’

  ‘It’s frightening,’ Saskia said. ‘The World Health Organization phoned Professor van Diemen this morning. They are trying to arrange an emergency conference. They want him to speak. Professor Friederikson has already perfected his soundbite: he reckons it is the Fifth Horseman of the Apocalypse.’