The Perfect Soldier

by Hurley, Graham

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘In Muengo?’

  ‘Wherever you like.’

  Katilo fell silent, brooding, and McFaul looked at his plastic leg, propped against the table next to Katilo’s armchair. The soldiers had unstrapped it after they’d dragged him back from the anthill. Evidently it saved them the chore of having to rope him up. Not that McFaul had been in any state to contemplate a bid for freedom.

  Katilo was looking at the maps, still deep in thought.

  ‘This film,’ he said at last, ‘you take it back to England?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Where? Who wants it?’

  ‘BBC.’ McFaul shrugged, warming to his new role. ‘ITV. Everyone.’

  ‘They’ll show it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You know that?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How? How do you know it?’

  McFaul thought about the question, trying to anticipate where the conversation might lead. Katilo held the rank of Colonel. UNITA discipline was strict but rivalries between senior officers were intense. Taking Muengo would have done him no harm. Maybe he wanted to cash in. Maybe he wanted to become a major player. Maybe he even fancied stardom.

  ‘Western television likes pictures like those,’ McFaul said carefully. ‘They’re worth a lot of money.’

  ‘You sell them?’ Katilo was looking at the cassette. ‘You can sell this?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘How much? How much money?’

  ‘Thousands of dollars.’

  ‘And they show it? On television?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Katilo nodded, impressed, and McFaul remembered a story he’d picked up in Luanda from an American diplomat. The man had been working in Liberia, a couple of thousand miles north, until the country had erupted in civil war. Rival armies had descended on the capital, capturing the president. Within hours they’d tortured him to death, cutting off his ears, hacking him to pieces, and a video of the proceedings had become Africa’s hottest-selling item. At the time, new to the continent, McFaul had found the story hard to believe but now he knew it was probably true. Like Bosnia, and parts of the old Russian empire, Africa seemed to glory in slaughter. It was everywhere, utterly commonplace. It was the currency brokered by rival warlords. It went with the heat and the harsh, pitiless midday light. Blood, for so many, was how you measured respect.

  Katilo stood up, returning to the fridge. Bottles of Glenfiddich lay side by side in a tray at the bottom. Katilo took one out, breaking the seal, and in that single action McFaul recognised the shape of the deal he was offering. First they’d talk about making a film. Then they’d get drunk. And by tomorrow, if he played his cards right, they’d be back in Muengo looking for Llewelyn’s precious camcorder. The camcorder was the key to McFaul’s survival. The pictures he’d shoot might even take him back to the UK. Katilo wanted to be famous and McFaul was the man he’d chosen to make it happen.

  McFaul looked up. Katilo was standing over him, the bottle in one hand, a glass in the other. McFaul blinked. The big gold Rolex was inches from his face.

  ‘You like Scotch?’

  McFaul watched the pale single malt slipping into the glass. The decision was made already, negotiations over, the deal concluded.

  ‘Sure,’ McFaul muttered, ‘why not?’

  Robbie Cunningham stood at the open door of Molly’s bedroom. Slanting bars of sunlight striped the wooden floor and the growl of Luanda’s morning rush hour drifted in through the half-open shutters.

  Molly peered up, rubbing the sleep from her eyes, surprised to find a cup and saucer on the chair beside her bed. Morning tea was a luxury in the Terra Sancta house.

  Robbie was settling himself in the bedroom’s only chair. He looked, if anything, shamefaced.

  ‘I’ve got to meet a friend,’ he murmured. ‘Wondered if you might come along.’

  They drove the half mile to the Meridian Hotel. The lobby was full of money-changers, energetic young men with bulging briefcases and battery-powered ultraviolet machines for checking foreign currency. Molly settled herself on a low sofa, watching the men parcelling out huge wads of red kwanza notes.

  ‘Room 1440,’ Robbie said, returning from the reception desk. ‘She’s invited us up.’

  They took the lift to the fourteenth floor. The door was opened by a young Angolan, a man in his early twenties. The dressing gown was several sizes too small for him and there was a wisp of cotton wool on his chin where he’d nicked himself shaving.

  Alma Bradley was sitting at a table by the window. She was wearing jeans and a baggy white shirt and her shoulder-length hair was gathered at the back by a twist of scarlet ribbon. Hunched over a small portable typewriter, she barely looked up as Molly and Robbie stepped into the room.

  ‘Manoel.’ She gestured vaguely towards the Angolan. ‘He’s from the Press Centre.’

  Manoel produced bottles of Coke from the mini-bar. Molly stood by the window looking out at the view. Across the city, on the hill behind the fort, she recognised the pale sandstone of the embassy building where she’d met the ambassador. At the foot of the hill, on the causeway that connected the Ilha to the city, she could see a knot of men in blue manning a road-block. Larry Giddings had pointed them out to her yesterday. They wore Ray-Bans and chunky bullet-proof waistcoats and seemed to be a law unto themselves. The locals called them Ninjas.

  Robbie was sitting on the unmade bed, describing their week in Muengo. Alma Bradley was still typing, a cigarette burning in the ashtray beside her elbow. From time to time she’d raise an eyebrow, or mutter a question. Finally, she pulled the sheet of paper from the machine and handed it to the young Angolan. He took it into the bathroom and shut the door.

  Molly was still standing by the window. Alma glanced up at her.

  ‘Sorry about your son,’ she said briskly, ‘must have been awful.’

  ‘It was.’

  She nodded, turning to Robbie again. On the pillow by his knee was an open packet of dates.

  ‘Help yourself. You say there are pictures?’

  ‘Llewelyn shot pictures, certainly. Sony Hi-8.’

  ‘Of what? Exactly?’

  ‘I don’t know. I never saw them.’

  ‘Great. Nice pitch. Really whets a girl’s appetite.’

  Alma ground the unsmoked half of the cigarette into the ashtray and stood up. She had a lovely figure, Molly thought. Willowy yet firm. She checked her watch then shouted something in French at the bathroom door. The door opened. Manoel was washing his hair. Robbie started to laugh and Alma rounded on him.

  ‘What’s the secret?’ she demanded. ‘How the fuck do you get anything done round here?’

  Molly was still thinking about the tape. She knew exactly what was on it. Bennie had told her. Shot by shot. Twice.

  ‘It’s about James,’ she murmured, ‘and the minefields.’

  Alma broke off.

  ‘What is?’

  ‘That videotape.’

  Molly described the shots on Llewelyn’s cassette. He’d gone back over the accident, telling the story as best he could. He’d shot on the street in Luanda. He’d taken pictures the day they’d landed at Muengo. He’d done stuff in the schoolhouse where the mine people lived. Then he’d taken Bennie and Domingos to one of the minefields. Something out of the window had caught Alma’s attention and she was half-turned in her chair, staring down at the city below.

  ‘Then Domingos got blown up,’ Molly said quietly.

  ‘Where was Llewelyn?’

  ‘Filming it.’

  ‘What?’ Alma looked round. ‘What did you say?’

  ‘He was filming it. There. While it happened. It’s all on the video.’

  ‘Are you serious? Guy gets blown up? On camera?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you’ve seen it?’

  ‘No,’ Molly shook her head, ‘but I know it’s there.’

  Alma nodded, one hand reaching for the pack of Marlboro bes
ide her typewriter. She hadn’t taken her eyes off Molly.

  ‘What else is on this tape?’

  Molly told her about the scenes at the hospital, the shots that had so disturbed McFaul, Domingos lying on the bloodstained table, a surgeon hacking off his leg. At McFaul’s insistence, Bennie had seen it all and Molly repeated his description, word for word.

  The cigarette hung between Alma’s lips, unlit.

  ‘Where is this cassette? Does Llewelyn have it?’

  Robbie stirred.

  ‘No, definitely not. He was raising hell about it before he left.’

  ‘So where is it?’

  Robbie and Molly exchanged glances. Then Robbie shrugged.

  ‘To be honest, he and I didn’t get on.’

  ‘Who? You and who didn’t get on?’

  ‘Me and Llewelyn. There were a million better things to do in Muengo. As you might imagine.’

  Alma smiled for the first time.

  ‘Is this another pitch? You doing your Terra Sancta number? Only from what I’m hearing …’ she shook her head, ‘we have to find the cassette.’

  She finally got round to lighting the cigarette, inhaling deeply. Molly was trying to remember her movements, those last couple of days in Muengo, when Christianne had been nursing Llewelyn at the MSF house. The night he’d come over from the UN bunker was the night McFaul had found the telex about Giles. The telex had been in Llewelyn’s jacket. Llewelyn had been in bed, delirious with fever. McFaul had been across the other side of the bedroom, reviewing the video through the camcorder.

  ‘He took it away,’ she said at last. ‘I’m sure he did.’

  ‘Who took it?’ Alma’s voice was low now, intense.

  ‘McFaul. He was very angry. He put the cassette in his pocket and I never saw it again.’

  ‘So where did he go? This guy McFaul? Where is he now?’

  Molly looked at Robbie. Robbie shrugged, reaching for another date.

  ‘No one knows,’ he said. ‘He just disappeared.’

  McFaul rode into Muengo on the back of a UNITA truck. Katilo loomed over him, his huge hands on the grab rail that ran above the back of the driver’s cab, his feet braced against the constant jolting as the truck bounced and swayed along the rutted dirt road. On the outskirts of the city, UNITA troops were already dismantling their road-blocks, and the soldiers straightened and saluted as the truck ground past them. Katilo returned the salutes with the merest nod. From somewhere he’d found an old paratroop beret, and he wore it pulled low above his eyes. When he turned his head, inspecting shell damage by the roadside, McFaul could see the faint shape of the outspread wings where someone had unpicked the cap badge. The sight of the red beret made him think of Bennie, and as they swung into the road that led to the schoolhouse, he wondered what had happened to him. Days and nights in the cave had blurred the passage of time. He might be home by now, back in Aldershot, settling into the life he always said he missed so much. Trips to Tesco with the missus. Couple of pints with his mates in the evening. Treats for the kids at weekends. McFaul eyed what was left of the city – the fallen power cables snaking through the dust, the burned-out carcass of a bus, piles of rotting garbage at the roadside – and for the first time he understood a little of the appeal of Bennie’s suburban idyll. Compared to this, Aldershot would be wonderful.

  The truck bumped to a halt beside the schoolhouse. Katilo travelled everywhere with a posse of bodyguards, four uniformed soldiers with a taste for Ray-Bans and yellow silk cravats. They vaulted over the tailgate and jogged towards the low brick building, peering in through the open windows, testing the locked doors.

  Katilo watched them, deep in thought. So far, driving into town, there’d been no evidence of government troops or even local inhabitants. The streets had been empty, no sign of movement except for the rags of smoke still drifting across the city from fires caused by the recent bombardment. Earlier, before they’d left the camp by the river, Katilo had emphasised the importance of finding McFaul’s camcorder. They’d be driving around the city for an hour or so. There’d be huge crowds, lots of cheering, maybe even rebel flags. He wanted the moment immortalised on video, a permanent record, evidence that UNITA had ended Muengo’s long nightmare. The city was free. The communists had surrendered. At last the people could get on with their lives.

  Listening to Katilo, McFaul had wondered exactly how much of this drivel he’d really believed. Both sides in the war were in the business of self-deception, proclaiming their patriotism and their popularity, but anyone working amongst the Angolans knew the truth: that the povo, the people, were sick of the bloodshed and the endless battles for local advantage. The war had long ago ceased to be about a cause or a creed. This wasn’t communism against the free market, or East against West. It was a handful of warlords, men like Katilo, determined to bend whole cities to their will and grab what they could in the process.

  Gangsters in uniform, thought McFaul, watching Katilo adjusting his new beret before joining the bodyguards. One of them had shot out the lock on the front door of the schoolhouse. Now, Katilo reached up from the roadside, helping McFaul climb down from the truck, gesturing impatiently towards the splintered woodwork. He was to go inside the schoolhouse. He was to find the camera.

  McFaul limped across the beaten patch of red earth, still patterned with the tread marks of the Global Land Rover. Inside, the schoolhouse smelled foul. There were fresh animal droppings on the floor and someone – presumably Bennie – had scrawled a cheerful adieu across the blackboard. ‘WELCOME TO MINESVILLE,’ the message read, ‘BEST FOOT FORWARD.’

  McFaul went through to the dormitory. His own possessions were still in the kitbag at the foot of the bed but of the camcorder there was no sign. He’d left it on top of the kitbag. He was sure he had. He frowned, bending to retrieve a small black hair clasp from a fold of blanket beside the pillow. He turned it over in his hand. The clasp belonged to the Englishwoman, Molly Jordan. She’d been wearing it the morning she’d come across to the schoolhouse, the morning Bennie had obliged her with the news of what had really happened to her son. He’d seen it when she’d been sitting at the table. McFaul looked across the room at Bennie’s bed a moment, wondering what had happened. The wall above the bed was still studded with tiny pellets of Blu-Tack but the photos of his wife and kids had gone.

  McFaul shrugged. In the schoolroom next door he found Katilo studying a hand-drawn map of one of Muengo’s minefields, still pinned to the big easel Bennie and McFaul had used for training sessions. The shape of the minefield was outlined in green Pentel and small red crosses indicated the location of each lifted mine.

  Katilo was counting the crosses on the top map. There were seventeen. He saw McFaul in the open doorway.

  ‘We blew them up,’ McFaul said drily. ‘In case you were thinking of using them again.’

  Katilo reached out for the easel. Under the top map there were half a dozen others. Some of the minefields were fully cleared. The rest had yet to be declared safe. He studied the bottom map for a moment or two then let the rest flick slowly through his fingers. The man’s got a problem, thought McFaul. He’s been chucking mines around for so long he can’t remember which bits of his nice new city are OK, and which bits are lethal. As long as he was outside Muengo, tightening the noose, none of that mattered. Now, though, it was different. If he was to keep the people alive, he needed access to the fields and the river but access to both was barred by mines. Katilo’s perfect soldiers had changed sides. Soon, poor fool, he’d want them disarmed and back in their boxes.

  Katilo glanced over his shoulder.

  ‘Where’s the camera?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘You said it would be here.’

  ‘It’s gone.’ McFaul shrugged. ‘We could try somewhere else.’

  They drove to the MSF house. A shell had fallen forty metres up the street, stripping one side of a tree of its branches. The blast had also shattered the windows of the house. When Mc
Faul got no reply at the front door he began to knock the remaining shards from the nearest window frame. He was about to try and climb in, using his good leg to lever his body into the room, when Katilo pulled him out of the way. He’d been watching from the truck. He studied the front door, stepped back, then planted a heavy kick at the panel beside the lock. The wood gave way at once and he felt inside, releasing the lock.

  McFaul went straight to Christianne’s bedroom. The last time he’d seen Todd Llewelyn, the TV man had been prostrate here, flattened by malaria. In all likelihood, they’d flown him out on the Hercules but there was a chance, McFaul thought, that they might have reclaimed the camera from the schoolhouse, and then left it behind in this room of Christianne’s. McFaul began to search. To his surprise, Christianne’s clothes were still hanging in the tiny wardrobe. He went to the bed, pulling back the single blanket. The sheet beneath was cold to the touch. McFaul frowned, picking up the pillow. Beneath, double-wrapped in polythene, he recognised the shape of the video-cassettes that fitted Llewelyn’s camcorder. With the cassettes were a handful of spare batteries and a couple of leads. Katilo was looking at them too. For the first time, he was smiling.

  McFaul gestured at the cassettes.

  ‘Still no camera,’ he said.

  Katilo’s smile faded. He went to the window and shouted orders at the men in the truck. They ran down the path to the front door and McFaul heard the splintering of wood and smashing of glass as they began to move from room to room, tearing the house to pieces. After half an hour, they hadn’t found the camera. Katilo was standing in the wreckage of the kitchen, examining a pile of underwear in the sink. He picked up a pair of briefs, black lace, holding them between his finger and his thumb. His men watched him, following every movement.

  ‘No camera?’ he said softly.

  McFaul shook his head, remembering the party Christianne had thrown, this same kitchen alive with the sound of laughter, and music, and the clink of glasses. Christianne had told him then that she wouldn’t be joining the evacuation flight. At the time he hadn’t believed her, blaming the booze, but a week later she’d evidently been as good as her word. Everywhere, amongst the debris, was the evidence that she hadn’t left with the rest of the aid community: more clothing, books, shoes, make-up, even an envelope of photographs. The photos had been strewn across the greasy kitchen table and Katilo had already been through them, recognising Christianne at once from the afternoon she’d spent with McFaul at rebel headquarters. Many of the photos had been taken on weekend expeditions upriver, and a couple featured Christianne standing topless in the muddy brown water. She had a beautiful body, big breasts, nice shoulders, her skin lightly tanned, her head slightly tilted and her face framed by falling ringlets of auburn hair. Katilo had lingered on the shot for a long time, Christianne’s smile telling him everything he needed to know. He’d thrust the photo at McFaul.