Devil’s Harvest

by Andrew Brown

  ‘No, sir, I cannot buy rice with this. I need more than this. This does not buy my family rice. You need to give me another hundred, at least. I cannot take less.’

  Gabriel felt his ire rise at the presumption.

  ‘We are hungry. We need rice, just rice. I cannot buy food with this. This is too little.’

  There was no contrition, no sense of apology, just a direct sense of entitlement. ‘I’m not the bloody United Nations,’ Gabriel protested. ‘I’ve given you two hundred; it’s more than enough. Now just … goodbye.’

  The man looked genuinely hurt, his eyes glistening. ‘It is not necessary for you to be rude as well as not generous.’

  The response was so unexpected that Gabriel found himself apologising as he hauled out his wallet again and gave the man another two-hundred-shilling note. The man accepted the note and appeared to be weighing up whether to say anything more. There was a long pause, the silence stretched between them on the noisy street, until he carefully folded the note together with the other.

  ‘Thank you, I shall not trouble you further.’

  Gabriel headed back to the hotel, thirsty and conflicted. The exchange had felt abusive, but he was unable to identify the perpetrator and the victim. Four identical Land Rovers were cluttering the small drop-off area, ‘Scenic Africa Tours’ emblazoned across their doors. Slightly bewildered-looking Caucasians sat patiently, kitted out in khaki clothes and wide-brimmed hats complete with buckskin headbands. Touring Africa required the preparedness of camouflage outfits and possibly a trusty hand-knife. The local driver, uncamouflaged in a smart pink shirt and black tie, was paying close attention to his cellphone as he punched in a message.

  The hotel was a carefully constructed haven for Westerners, hermetically protected from the hubbub of central Nairobi by a phalanx of black-suited security personnel and a maître d’hôtel in resplendent purple tailcoat and top hat. The rest of the staff wore mustard-coloured suits or waistcoats, covering crisp white shirts: none wore gloves but Gabriel was sure they must be on the way. The establishment was populated by a few well-to-do Africans, but in the main one brushed shoulders only with overweight Americans toting the entire gamut of Canon’s retail offerings strapped like bandoliers across their chests, and more reserved Europeans, their conversations conducted in whispers when compared to the brash pronouncements of their North American counterparts. The cuisine was African-chic, catering for a Western palate but offering risqué alternatives like venison pot-stew and crocodile that had the US contingent even noisier than before, though none ultimately made it their choice. The wine came from Chile and South Africa and was quaffed liberally despite its staggering prices.

  He escaped the gathering tourists and headed for the Safari Terrace Bar. The bar had a vaulted ceiling reminiscent of the ribcage of an elephant carcass, or perhaps a whale. He ordered a Tusker Lager, attracted by the silhouette of an elephant against a bright-yellow background. The beer came in a daunting half-litre bottle and was accompanied by a coaster that happily announced that the Safari Club was ‘No longer a members-only club’. He retired to a quiet corner and a soft armchair, still vaguely distressed by his uncomfortable interaction with the Sudanese refugee. To his annoyance, a ruddy-faced man sloped off a bar stool and came to sit down opposite him.

  ‘So, what brings you to this little neck of the woods? Don’t look like you’re on safari.’ The twang in his American accent was strong, as was the waft of alcoholic fumes as he spoke. He was drinking whisky on the rocks by the look of the half-full tumbler in his hand.

  ‘Just passing through, actually.’

  Gabriel’s non-committal answer seemed to amuse the man, who smiled with almost a leer, and took a large gulp of amber spirits.

  ‘My friend, everyone’s only passing through here. We’re all hoping to move on to somewhere better as soon as our bus arrives. Know what I mean?’ He gave an exaggerated wink before downing his drink.

  ‘Mmm,’ Gabriel muttered. He wasn’t in the mood for allusions. ‘And what brings you here?’ he asked in spite of himself.

  ‘I’m in import–export, so I’m always passing through.’

  ‘I see,’ Gabriel said. There was something simultaneously gung-ho and seedy about the man, like a recovering addict or former convict. ‘Trading in what?’ he asked, genuinely curious.

  ‘I trade in the one commodity everyone wants on this continent. And business is booming.’

  Narcotics presumably, Gabriel thought. He didn’t ask the man to clarify.

  The American swirled the remaining ice around in his glass thoughtfully. After a moment’s silence he continued: ‘So where you passing to?’

  ‘South Sudan. I leave tomorrow morning.’ Gabriel could hardly believe it was him saying this; it sounded as if there was someone else in the room, someone who was blasé about these things.

  ‘Sudan. You don’t say? Sudan. What you up to in that shit-hole?’

  ‘I’m a biologist. A botanist actually. I’m going there for research.’

  ‘A birdman? You don’t say. Didn’t think there were any birds left. All been eaten I reckon. Well good luck, fellow. You’re sure gonna need it.’ He chuckled to himself.

  Gabriel shifted away from the man and picked up his beer. But it seemed his annoying companion had completed his repertoire, lumbering back to the bar to refill his drink. There, he took his seat next to a tall black woman in a short skirt, her back straight and her exposed legs crossed. She gave the American’s back a little rub as he joined her, a perfunctory display of affection, before turning to look at Gabriel.

  He heard them joking loudly, the man’s voice drowning out her quiet responses. She laughed a little too obviously from time to time. As Gabriel finished his beer he took out his wallet and pulled out an indeterminate number of local bank notes. He was startled so see the young woman standing next to him when he looked up again, a fresh beer in her hand. She had jet-black hair, brushed flat and moulded into a wave across her narrow nape. She was, even by European standards, extremely thin.

  ‘Bill says this is for you.’ She smiled, her teeth brilliant white, and gestured towards the bar with a fragile arm. The American raised his own replenished glass.

  ‘Like fucking a bicycle,’ he said, loudly enough for the entire bar to hear. Gabriel shuddered. Was the man buying him a beer or offering the woman to him? Not a dealer now, but a pimp perhaps. Or was the statement just a sexual boast? He couldn’t tell and the woman’s expression didn’t falter as she placed the beer in front of him.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said softly, feeling that somehow it was for him to apologise for the man Bill’s appalling comment. But she seemed to sense his discomfort and just gave a little shake of her head, still smiling.

  To his relief, the duo left him to his drink in peace. He studied the framed black-and-white photographs on the wall next to him. Old scenes of hunting safaris and an absurd array of slaughtered wildlife. One was less bloody, of a campsite in the bush, with white pitched tents and smoke rising from the fire. Another showed a hatted woman, dressed in un-Victorian knee-length shorts, sitting bareback on a zebra. All hedonistic and somehow bizarre. But the photograph that captured his attention was of a black woman, her face shiny and smooth, wrapped in a blanket or perhaps a shawl, staring straight back at the camera from beneath a bowler hat. Maybe the alcohol had made him maudlin, but he imagined a perplexed expression on her face, and something recessed and haunting about her eyes. The photograph filled him with sadness and a wish that he was home with Jane. The thought of Jane and the new notion of ‘home’ did nothing for his mood and he felt himself sinking into genuine misery.

  Bill was still drinking, his skinny companion by his side, when Gabriel finally managed to leave the bar, light headed after yet another round of beer.

  Bill grinned at him as he passed the bar counter. ‘Good luck with the birds,’ he said, winking again.

  There was some subtext that Gabriel wasn’t following. And something overly f
amiliar about the man, as if they shared a secret. Whatever it was, he wasn’t letting Gabriel in on it. Perhaps bored Bills went to Sudan for prostitutes, hence the reference to birds, but this Bill seemed to have found what he wanted without having to leave the confines of the Safari Club. The interaction made no sense.

  That night, Gabriel battled to fall asleep, tossing on the uncomfortable mattress and bothered by mosquitoes that hovered just above his forehead but escaped his clutching hands every time he lurched out for them. He developed a sweat and had to get up and stand in the tiled bathroom for a few minutes before he felt better. The beer had given him a dull headache and he knew he would feel awful the next day. He finally fell asleep in the early hours of the morning, but lapsed into a nightmare. Lying on his back, he was watching the thin woman from the bar scuttling, long-legged like a spider, from one corner of the ceiling to the other, her abdomen pulsing like a dark fig.

  He woke with a start, the muezzin’s call to prayer from the mosque competing with the roar of buses and trucks from the road outside. His head throbbed, as he knew it would. He sat on the edge of the bed, rubbing the back of his neck, feeling the trepidation build as the day ahead came into focus. Juba awaited him.

  Chapter 8

  BAE SYSTEMS, FILTON, SOUTH-WEST ENGLAND

  There is thus a high probability, based on trajectory modelling, that the dark rectangular shape on the supplied footage was projected from a position adjacent to the rear stabilising fin of the AGM-114 Hellfire missile. The probability is that the projectile in the image did not emanate from the target or surrounds.

  Bartholomew read over Ms Easter’s conclusion for the umpteenth time. In spite of himself, he was impressed by her modelling. It was a sensible report, with no wild speculation; the conclusion seemed valid, unavoidable even.

  He picked up the telephone and called Richards immediately: ‘You’ve seen this?’

  He didn’t need to identify what he was talking about.

  ‘Yup. It’s not unexpected.’ There was a half-excited tone in his voice, inappropriate considering the ramifications of the report. For them both. ‘We should meet with her,’ Richards continued blithely. ‘You know, to finalise.’

  ‘What the hell for? Finalise what exactly? It’s pretty bloody precise.’

  ‘Still, I have some questions I’d like to ask her.’ Richards remained unshaken.

  Bartholomew hung up without responding. Damn amateurs, he fumed.

  He knew he should act on the report immediately, but he found himself immobilised. If Ms Easter was right, the consequences were dire, whatever decision was taken. He minimised the document on the screen and sat back in his chair, contemplating his next move. Whatever happened, he needed to try to deal with this new development personally. He shuddered to think what would happen if the ministry found out, or, worse, Hussein. Or if somebody got hold of the information before he managed to make it disappear. The grim reality was that the report itself wasn’t the problem; it was the piece of a malfunctioning British missile somewhere on the other side of the world. The thought brought on another bout of bowel spasm and he found himself clutching at his rear end in pain.

  When the cramp had eased, he called up the drawings of the experimental NT version on the intranet. He knew the design of the missile well enough, but needed to scrutinise it one more time. Words seldom convinced him of anything. The three-dimensional design illuminated the screen, a phallic metal tube with guidance fins and a high-explosive warhead. The programme allowed him to change the perspective and he spent over twenty minutes turning it around, gazing at its sleek lines from every angle. The drawing remained uncommunicative.

  He needed to see it, in the flesh, Bartholomew realised. He needed to run his hands over its cool sides, feel the join of the control panel. Then he would know. He picked up the phone again and called the munitions warehouse at Waddington. The NTs were all in the field, mostly in Saudi Arabia, but there were two standard Hellfire in stock. That was fine, as the guidance section was precisely the same. Without a word to Richards, he made for his car and headed for Waddington.

  It was midday when he arrived. The sergeant on duty, a former soldier injured in the line of duty and now working in the stores, was not expecting Bartholomew’s arrival – clearly the advance telephone query had not been conveyed to him. His reaction was a mixture of surprise and excitement. He immediately offered to give the air marshal a full tour of the warehouse. They had few visitors these days it seemed.

  Bartholomew declined and the man led him through the neatly packed high-roofed warehouse, their footsteps the only sound in the building. High curved roofing above and concrete floors beneath, it was filled with an array of weaponry, spare parts and dismantled military hardware.

  ‘Not many asking to see the Hellfire,’ the man remarked in a West Country accent. Whatever his injury, its treatment had involved a fusion of the knee joint and he walked by lifting his right hip and swinging his leg out in an arc. ‘In fact, most of the requests are for drawings these days. Not many physical inspections.’

  Bartholomew suspected this was part of the problem. Somebody hadn’t tested the bloody thing properly, and now he was the one in the shit.

  The man continued his uncomfortable walk to the storage facility and unlocked a large metal cabinet. When he opened the door, a clicking sound echoed throughout the building.

  ‘Here you go,’ he said, pulling the missile out of its sling and presenting it to Bartholomew with pride. ‘Ai, she’s a beauty she is. Quiet as a mouse.’

  He watched as Bartholomew ran his hand over the shaft of the missile. It seemed so benign, like some toy waiting for a spoilt child to run off with it, making shooting sounds with his lips.

  The recessed rear access panel was securely bolted in place. An innocent access point to the inner core of the guidance system. But the moment Bartholomew ran his fingers over its smooth shape, he knew. The military would insist that it was still a matter of speculation, that it was impossible to make any decision about intervention without reliable data. But they would be wrong.

  He had a sickening pang of certainty, the feeling you have when you tip out into space off the edge of a diving board. The horror flashed before him: the baying press, the stern face of the minister as he terminated Bartholomew’s career, and dear Lilly, confused and a little scared.

  Chapter 9

  JUBA, SOUTH SUDAN

  The flight from Nairobi started off well enough. Gabriel had had to fly with Kenya Airways – the ‘Pride of Africa’ – the only airline flying into Juba. Uptempo music filled the plane as they took off, including some optimistic tune about freedom in Zimbabwe. Once they had punched through the clouds, the plane hummed through the thin air. He had to hand it to the Africans. Their cities may be chaotic and smelly, but in this environment they outdressed their European counterparts. The passengers were all noticeably better dressed than him. The men wore either suits or at least fresh-looking golf shirts and slacks, while the women wore colourful dresses and modest jackets. A particularly dashing couple was sitting across the aisle from him – a tall man dressed in a black suit with a blue shirt, dark glasses and immaculately manicured facial hair, his wife statuesque in a turquoise shawl and robe, her wrists and ankles sporting delicate gold chains.

  The few Europeans on the flight, by contrast, looked tired and scruffy in faded jeans and T-shirts with brand names scrawled across them. An overweight woman with blotchy skin had sweat rings under her arms and was looking sadly out of the window. Ahead of her, a young man with earphones clamped over his woolly hair was nodding his head furiously to unheard beats, lost in a world of his own.

  A midmorning meal was served promptly, the sticker on the foil overlay announcing some foreign fare. Gabriel considered abstaining. His stomach didn’t react well to alien food, but he was ravenous and so peeled off the foil covering. It turned out to be a beef stew with a spiced sauce of chopped potatoes and peas, surprisingly palatable despite the early
hour for such adventurous tastes. Gabriel felt a certain contentment as he mopped up the last of the sauce with a bread roll. Adventuring in Africa was not that hard after all, he mused. He wondered what all the fuss – much of it his own – had been about. The neatly dressed air hostess, her coffee skin aglow, removed the tray and replaced it with a small bowl of pudding that could be described, at best, as eclectic. But not even the strange combination of stodginess and cream could deter his improving spirits.

  An hour into the flight, however, and the seatbelt lights came on with a loud, unnerving ping. The aircraft gave an expectant little shiver. Gabriel stared out of the window at the changing cloud formations. The comforting blanket that had undulated below them had been replaced by hillocks and folds that seemed to boil up from the landscape. Then, in front of the plane and curling around in a horseshoe, Gabriel saw a bank of grey, searching fog, its edges turning in on itself as it climbed higher into the sky. The engines picked up as the pilot increased altitude, but soon they were among pillars of surging cloud, each fiercely served from the land below.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen, this is the captain. Please ensure that your seatbelts are fastened as we commence our passage into Juba International Airport. We may experience some upwelling on the descent, but we will endeavour to avoid the turbulence. Thank you.’

  With that comforting statement, the pilot started to bank and then dip sharply. His calm announcement was followed by some of the most extreme flying that Gabriel had ever experienced. Despite the pilot’s efforts, the small Embraer aircraft bucked and sank, the passengers whooping as if they were on some roller coaster at the fair. When they had boarded Gabriel had chuckled at the dotted line on the side of the aircraft, cheerfully headed by the words ‘Cut here in case of emergency’. Now he failed to see the humour in it.