Shadow Kill: A Strikeback Novel

by Chris Ryan

  Porter snorted with contempt. ‘Why would the West Side Boys kidnap you?’

  ‘Isn’t it obvious? I’m something of a celebrity in this country. Everyone knows my face. That makes me a high-value target. No doubt the West Side Boys thought they could negotiate a large ransom for my return.’

  ‘Good job you brought this brick shithouse along for the ride.’ Bald nodded at Solomon. ‘If you’d left it any later, we’d have been toast. Those kids had us by the fucking balls.’

  ‘Solomon insisted on coming, actually,’ said Tannon.

  ‘Yeah?’ said Bald, cocking his brow.

  Solomon bowed his head. ‘You saved my life at the hotel, sir. That means I am in your debt. When Miss Tannon said she was going to follow you, I was obliged to go along with her.’

  Bald glanced over at Captain Big Trouble. Blood pumped steadily out of the hole in the side of the boy’s head. ‘Consider your debt settled.’

  ‘I cannot. It does not work that way, sir. I must wait for a sign. Until then, I remain in your service.’

  Bald stared at the man-mountain, wearing a face as if someone had just given him a turd for Christmas.

  Soames cleared his throat. ‘This is all well and good, but we must leave now. Every minute we piss about here gives the Russians more of a head start.’

  Tannon shot a quizzical look at Porter. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘That hardly concerns you, my dear,’ Soames replied coldly.

  Tannon said, ‘We’re the ones who risked our lives to follow you into the jungle. We’re the ones who saved you from the West Side Boys. I already know about the diamond stash, so you might as well tell me the rest of it.’

  Soames clamped his lips shut and fumed for a beat. Then he nodded tersely. ‘Very well. The two Russians who escaped are on their way to Kono now. They’re planning to seize the mine at Kono and rob me while they wait for reinforcements to show up. If they succeed in capturing the mine, they will control the diamonds. President Fofana’s hopes of regaining power will go up in smoke, and any influence we currently have in this part of the world will be lost. It will be nothing short of a disaster.’

  ‘Don’t you have anyone guarding the mine?’

  Soames shook his head. ‘I evacuated my men after the rebels launched their coup. Most of the workforce had left by then anyway. They fled at the first sign of unrest. There’s nobody left.’

  Tannon said, ‘What’s the plan?’

  Porter said, ‘We head to Kono and stop the Russians.’

  ‘But won’t they get to the mine first?’

  Tully clicked his tongue and nodded down the track. ‘The road splits in two about twenty miles to the east. The highway goes south past Yonibana, around the edge of the Kangari Hills. But there’s a dirt road that goes north of the Hills. It’s not signposted anywhere, but that route will save us some time.’

  ‘How much?’ Porter said.

  Tully squinted at the road ahead. ‘Ten minutes. Maybe fifteen. The Russians will hit the mine before we do, definitely. But until their reinforcements show up, it’ll be just the two of them. It’ll take a couple of hours for their mates to come up from Liberia. If we take the dirt road, we can still stop them and secure the place before the Russians’ mates arrive.’

  ‘That’s what we’ll do, then.’ Porter turned back to Tannon. ‘Me, Jock and Bob will ride up front with Soames. You and Solomon follow us. Keep a safe distance behind.’

  Tannon said, ‘What if we run into another ambush?’

  ‘It’s a possibility,’ Porter conceded. ‘We’re going in blind, so we don’t know what’s out there. But if we get hit again, don’t join the fight. You stop the wagon, turn around and floor it back to Freetown. Got it?’

  ‘Can’t we call in for help? Warn Hawkridge and Angela that the Russians are en route to the mine? We might be able to divert some local resources to stop them.’

  Porter shook his head. ‘The sat phone’s dead. It’s just us.’

  ‘Shit.’

  ‘What about these two?’ said Bald.

  He gestured to the pair of child soldiers. They stood huddled at the edge of the track, a look of raw fear in their eyes. Deprived of their rifles and captain, the kids suddenly looked a lot younger. They’re probably only a few years older than my Sandy, Porter thought. Except she’s busy making friends at school, while this lot are chopping up foreigners. It hurt his head to think about it.

  He approached one of the kids. Grabbed him by the wrist and dragged him forward. The kid struggled.

  ‘Please,’ he said. ‘No. Please.’

  Salty tears traced down the kid’s cheeks. His lips trembled. Blood and snot bubbled under his nose. He stopped pleading. So did the second kid. They both had the same look of silent terror. The look of someone preparing to die.

  ‘Please . . .’

  ‘You got family somewhere?’ Porter said.

  ‘Aunt,’ the kid sniffed. ‘In my village.’

  ‘Fuck off back to your village, then. You and your mate.’

  The kid blinked at Porter. Then he turned to his mate and said a few words in Krio. The pair of them took off across the track, scrambling past the ditch before they disappeared into the canopied gloom of the jungle. Tully shook his head in disbelief.

  ‘You’re actually letting these animals go?’

  Porter confronted Tully with an angry stare. ‘Just because this is Africa, doesn’t mean we get away with anything we want. We start killing unarmed kids, we could end up in jail. Especially if the government turns on us. I don’t know about you, but I’m not planning on dying in some hellhole African prison.’

  Tully shook his head again. ‘This was a mistake. You think those kids will honestly go back to their homes?’ He threw up his arms and pointed down the road. ‘You saw them villages. Those kids don’t have a fucking home to go back to. They’ll go running straight to the nearest enemy camp.’

  ‘I’m afraid Bob is right,’ Soames said. ‘These children are beyond help, sadly. They’re like wild dogs. The best thing for all concerned would have been to put them out of their misery. I expected better from you, Porter. For all your many faults, I never figured you were soft. You used to be a real man.’

  Porter rounded on Soames. ‘Get in the fucking wagon. Now.’

  Soames stared defiantly at Porter for a moment. Then he turned and trudged down the track towards the Range Rover, nonchalantly stepping around the bodies of the slotted children. Tannon followed him, beating a path back to the Discovery. Porter and Bald each grabbed an AK-47 from the slotted child soldiers to supplement their pistols. Solomon collected up the spare clips from the dead. With the ammo they had foraged from the West Side Boys they had a total of four thirty-round clips of 7.62x39mm brass apiece. The rifles were in crap nick, and the mags were held together with duct tape. But they were better than fuck-all, thought Porter.

  He looked back down the track. Tully was scooping up the M1911 semi-automatic from the beside the dead body of the slaughtered captain. Bald pulled a face.

  ‘You’re not taking a rifle, Bob?’

  Tully laughed. ‘You dopey cunt. This is a collector’s item. You don’t see many 1911s on the market anymore. It’ll fetch me a good price on the black market. Them .45 rounds pack a meaty punch, too.’ He grinned broadly. ‘Better than those shoddy pieces of crap you and Porter have got your hands on.’

  Bald stared enviously at the M1911. Then Tully smiled to himself and beat a path back to the Range Rover. Solomon hurried along behind him, cradling the spare mag clips for the assault rifles. For a moment Porter stood still, waiting until Tully and Solomon were out of earshot. Then he turned to Bald and lowered his voice.

  ‘What do you reckon about that stuff Soames was saying? About the West Side Boys wanting to kidnap him.’

  ‘What about it?’ Bald said.

  ‘Do you believe him?’

  ‘I guess. Everyone knows the West Side Boys are in the kidnap-for-ransom business these days. I
reckon the president’s right-hand man would be near the top of their most wanted list.’

  Porter looked away. He thought about the look on Big Trouble’s face when he’d confronted Soames. ‘Me gonna make you pay,’ the captain had said. ‘For all the bad tings you did to our people.’

  Pay for what?

  TWENTY-THREE

  1737 hours.

  The track narrowed as they motored east out of the ambush site. After twenty minutes they passed through the derelict town of Yonibana. Then the road split in two, just like Tully had said. Porter steered off the highway and took the barely-visible dirt road north. Soon they had left the jungle behind as the road climbed into a series of low, broken hills. It was like emerging from a tunnel. The sky light-blinded Porter. The dense canopy and foliage shrank into the distance. The air cleared. He steered the Range Rover along the beaten track, with Tannon behind the wheel of the Discovery ten metres to the rear. Porter kept the speedometer needle hovering around the forty mark, the engine groaning with the strain of the climb. Tully and Bold strained their eyes at the road ahead, searching for any sign of the Russians in the Hilux.

  Porter guessed that Nilis and Spray-Tan had a fifteen-minute head start on them. Tully had said the diamond mine was a three-hour drive east from the ambush site. Which meant the Russians would arrive at Kono at around 2015 hours. With the short-cuts Tully knew about, Porter and the others would probably reach the mine at around the same time. Assuming they didn’t run into any more ambushes. It’s going to be close, Porter thought.

  After an hour they hit the southern fringe of the Loma mountain range. They were in diamond country now. The sun began sinking behind the hills, burning up in the sky and tingeing the earth a bloodshot red. Porter kept his eyes focused on the road ahead, looking for the Russians. In the fading light it was hard to see very far ahead, but he still couldn’t see any sign of the Hilux. The road tightened and narrowed. The diamond hills brooded in the distance, shadowed by the setting sun. Thirty minutes later they reached the outskirts of a place called Koidu Town. They took a left turn and Tully directed them north on a steep track that corkscrewed between rolling green hills dotted with palm trees and bushes. The clock on the dash read 1946 hours.

  Just a few more miles to go.

  A few more miles until this thing ends once and for all.

  They crept along the dirt track for another twenty minutes, rolling over an endless succession of bone-shaking potholes. Thick vegetation overhung both sides of the track, black against the grainy moonlight. Porter slowed down to thirty miles per. He switched off the headlamps and reverted to the sidelights, concealing their approach. According to Tully’s directions they were just a mile from the mining field now. He scanned the ground ahead but saw nothing except the track, the moon, the blackness either side. Which could only mean one thing, Porter realised. We’re too late. The Russians must have already reached the mine.

  They continued for another eight hundred metres. Eyes squinting, searching the pitted darkness ahead. Then Porter saw it. A wide compound eight hundred metres ahead of them, faintly illuminated by the ambient light of the moon. There was a chain-link metal fence running the length of the compound, with security lights mounted along the top at regular intervals. Half the lights were dead. An old Toyota Hilux was parked in front of the entrance. Headlamps burning, the doors on both side of the front cab hanging open.

  ‘Shit,’ Soames said, panic rising in his voice. ‘That’s the Russians.’

  Porter hit the brakes and steered the Range Rover to the edge of the track, easing to a halt next to the bushes, seven hundred metres from the Hilux. He cut the engine. Tannon pulled up four metres behind them, killing her lights. Porter stuffed the Makarov pistol down the back of his combats and grabbed his AK-47 from the dash, along with the spare thirty-round clip. Bald and Tully snatched up their weapons too. Then everyone debussed. Porter jumped down onto the sun-baked dirt. The temperature outside was close to incinerator level in spite of the late hour. The air was dry and choked with dust. Every time he breathed in, it felt as if someone was shovelling hot coals down his throat.

  Tannon and Solomon hurried forward from the Discovery.

  ‘Why have we stopped?’ Tannon asked.

  Porter gestured in the direction of the compound. ‘The Russians are already here. That’s their wagon parked outside. We’ll have to make our approach on foot.’

  Tannon squinted at the Hilux, the bodywork spotlighted under the harsh glare of the security lights. She turned back to Porter and shook her head. ‘I can’t see them from here.’

  ‘You won’t,’ Porter replied. ‘The Russians might be at the truck, but it’s more likely they’re inside the compound. But we don’t know for sure. That’s why we can’t risk driving up in the wagons.’

  ‘Won’t they have seen us already?’

  ‘Not from here, lass,’ Bald cut in. ‘It’s black as a witch’s tit at this end of the track, and those security lights are pointing towards the compound. They’ll fuck with anyone’s natural night vision. Anyone near that wagon looking out this way won’t see anything beyond the light sources.’

  ‘What are we waiting for, then?’ Soames said. ‘Let’s get a bloody move on.’

  Porter led the way, moving ahead of the Range Rover with Soames at his side. Bald and Tully followed close behind, with Tannon and Solomon bringing up the rear. They stayed close to the side of the track to make themselves less visible, blending in with the surrounding darkness. As they edged forward Porter strained his eyes at the mine, looking for signs of movement around the pickup truck. He periodically stopped every hundred metres, stilled his breath and listened for any unnatural noise. But he could hear nothing except the chirping of the crickets, the mechanical purr of the Hilux engine.

  At two hundred metres he stopped again and scanned the compound. Metal signs had been staked into the ground in front of the chain-link fence, warning that unauthorised visitors would be shot on sight. A small guard hut stood next to the entrance. Just inside the entrance Porter spied a large wattle-and-daub hut with a thatched roof. Where the diggers usually slept, he guessed. Several concrete buildings were situated north of the hut, with a steel-framed Portakabin opposite. In the middle distance he could see a large parcel of land. The diamond field. Porter searched for any sign of the Russians at the Hilux or the compound.

  Nothing.

  ‘Place looks fucking deserted,’ Bald said.

  Porter nodded, remembering what Soames had said about the workers fleeing after the revolt. Nothing here except a bunch of empty buildings and mine pits. And a couple of Russian killers.

  ‘Keep moving,’ he said.

  They crept closer to the entrance, using the dead spots in front of the broken security lights to keep themselves hidden from view. Porter kept his AK-47 trained on the Hilux, ready to brass up anyone who might be hiding inside the pickup. Bald and Tully also had their weapons raised as they searched for activity around the compound. But there was no movement or noise inside. Nothing at all. After a few more paces Porter drew to a halt beside the Hilux. He peered inside the front cab. Turned to Bald and shook his head.

  ‘Wagon’s empty,’ he said.

  ‘Where the fuck have they gone?’ Bald said.

  ‘Over there,’ Tully said.

  He nodded towards the Portakabin inside the compound, fifty metres downstream from the entrance. Porter looked towards the structure. He noticed a light shining in the cabin window, spilling its fluorescent glow across the ground. Bald narrowed his eyes at the Portakabin and grunted.

  ‘Think the Russians are in there?’

  Porter shrugged. ‘Where else?’

  In the corner of his eye, he noticed Tully frowning at the diamond field. Porter looked towards Tannon and said, ‘You and Solomon wait here in case things get noisy. We’ll give you a shout once it’s clear.’

  Tannon glanced warily around the compound and nodded ‘Okay’.

  Then Porter set off. Bal
d at his side, Tully and Soames at his six. They crept past the Hilux and swept through the entrance, keeping eyes on the Portakabin, sticking to the dark areas between the functioning security lights. A bank of body scanners had been set up next to the guard hut, to make sure none of the workers tried swallowing a diamond or shoving one up their arse. Tannon had called it wrong, he thought as he picked his way past the scanners. This mine makes Fort Knox look like a branch of Abbey National. That’s what she told him back at the Ambassadors Hotel. But it didn’t look that way from the outside. The guard hut next to the entrance stood empty. There were no gates, no barriers. No kind of security presence at all, apart from the lights and the fence.

  They stopped beside the large wattle-and-daub hut. Bald peeked through the opening to check it was unoccupied. Then they moved on. Worn car tyres and broken wooden pallets had been dumped next to the hut. Beyond it stood the cluster of concrete buildings and a standalone shower block. The guards’ quarters, Porter figured. The closest thing the mine had to luxury accommodation.

  North of the concrete buildings stood the diamond field. It was huge. Bigger than Porter had imagined. In the encroaching darkness it was hard to judge the size of the field, but he figured it had to be around twenty acres. Moonlight reflected off a gentle-flowing river to the west of the field. East of the field there was a worn landing strip, just about long enough to land a light aircraft. Far to the north of the mine, another bank of security lights pricked the darkness.

  Porter wondered about those lights.

  ‘The Russians have got to be in there,’ Bald said, nodding at the Portakabin.

  Soames frowned at him. ‘How can you be sure?’

  ‘Every other building looks empty. Where else would they be?’

  Soames didn’t reply.

  Porter turned to Bald and said, ‘Take a closer look. We’ll cover you from here.’