by Chris Ryan
6
IN-COUNTRY
Tuesday, 09.00 hrs GMT
‘BRITISH AIRWAYS DEPARTURE BA912 to Luanda, now boarding at Gate Three.’
Luanda. Capital of Angola. It seemed a million miles from where he was now.
Zak stood outside Boots on the ground floor of Heathrow Terminal Five. The chopper from St Peter’s Crag had touched down at the London heliport near Battersea at six the previous evening. Zak had shaken Michael and Raf by the hand and given Gabs – who was clearly very anxious – a hug. Then, his hair still blowing in the downdraught of the chopper’s rotary blades, he’d climbed into a waiting Mercedes, fishing gear in hand. The windows were tinted black and the driver didn’t say a word as he drove him to the Holiday Inn on the outskirts of the airport.
Zak’s bags were packed and ready for him in his room. He had no idea who had prepared the single rucksack, but he remembered Michael’s words on the chopper. You’ll find clothes, Angolan currency and a passport in Jason Cole’s name. Sure enough, he found all three. Jay had been around. His dog-eared passport had stamps from the United States, Sweden, Italy – though none from any African country. But Zak already knew this information from the briefing pack Michael had given him. He’d only ‘met’ Jay the previous day, but already he felt he knew him well. He’d chucked the passport onto the rucksack, then lain on the bed and looked through his briefing documents once more, paying special attention to two photographs.
One of these photographs had showed a swarthy-looking man with thick black eyebrows that met in the middle of his forehead. His neck had the thickness of someone who was used to bodybuilding. Name, Antonio Acosta, Michael had told him. Born and raised in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro. There’s a rumour that he murdered his own brother when he was thirteen. We now believe he’s a Black Wolf general. Formerly a gun for hire guarding drug boats against piracy in international waters. Not a job for the faint-hearted, if you take my meaning.
Acosta was a distinctive-looking man. Easy to recognize. Zak had put the photo to one side and pulled out the second. This showed a man with a shaved head and a line of piercings along his left eyebrow. They made it look swollen and sore. Surname, Karlovic. First name unknown. Georgian national. Understood to have links with a terrorist group who call themselves the Patriots of Georgia. Recruited to Black Wolf for his prowess with car bombs and other IEDs.
Nice couple, Zak thought. Just about deserve each other.
We can’t be sure who else will be on board the Mercantile, but a positive ID of these two men will be enough. Put it this way: if Antonio Acosta and Karlovic are on board, the rest of the crew aren’t very likely to be sweet old pensioners.
Zak walked away from Boots and followed the sign to the gate, half expecting a tap on the shoulder from airport security, even though his fake documentation had got him this far without so much as a raised eyebrow. Thirty minutes later, however, flight BA912 was taking off. It juddered and rattled through the cloud cover, before settling smoothly into its cruising altitude.
Flight time to Luanda, eight hours twenty-five minutes. Zak took his iPod from his pocket and fitted the earbuds. He was only pretending to listen to music, though. He didn’t want to be disturbed by the middle-aged businessman sitting next to him as he cleared his head and thought his way through the details of the mission.
The flight passed quickly. It was nearly five p.m. local time when Zak emerged onto the tarmac at Luanda airport. The heat was intense and it was so humid that his skin was moist within seconds as he walked with the other passengers towards the terminal building. It looked like construction work had been going on here, but it had clearly stalled. There were no workmen on the scaffolding; pallets of building blocks lay abandoned. Half an hour later he had collected his rucksack and fishing gear and was standing in the small but busy arrivals hall. Flight announcements in Portuguese echoed from the public address system, but Zak was concentrating on the memory of Michael’s briefing. You’ll be collected at the airport by a young man called Marcus. Long hair, black beard, mid-twenties. He’s the youth group’s team leader in Angola. He’ll meet you in-country and escort you to Lobambo. Remember, Zak, he thinks Jason Cole is just another volunteer. Don’t do anything to stop him thinking that.
What? Zak had thought. Like blowing up a merchant vessel in a small fishing village? But he’d kept quiet.
Marcus was standing in the arrivals hall. He wore pale canvas trousers, a red and white tie-dyed shirt and his hair was tied back in a short ponytail. He held an oblong of cardboard scrawled with the name Jason Cole. Standing next to him was a girl, perhaps three years older than Zak. She had short hair, halfway between red and ginger, and rather small eyes that blinked almost constantly.
‘Marcus?’ Zak held out his hand once he was standing in front of the young man with the beard.
The young man smiled and shook Zak’s hand. ‘You must be Jason.’
‘Call me Jay,’ Zak replied automatically. ‘Everyone does.’
‘Good to meet you, Jay.’ Marcus turned to the girl. ‘This is Bea. She’s only been with us forty-eight hours. Thought you two new bugs might like to get to know each other.’
‘Pleased to meet you, Bea.’ Zak offered her his hand.
The girl shook hands briskly. ‘Welcome to Angola, Jason. Is that all the luggage you have? Really? Well, I hope you’ve brought everything you need – it’s not like you can just nip out to the shops in Lobambo, you know. Now then, have you put your passport somewhere safe? You really don’t want to go losing that, do you, and I know what you boys are like. Now it’s very hot outside, so I hope you’ve had plenty of water to drink. And do you need the lavatory? It’s a long drive, you know, and Marcus, we really ought to get going, because we don’t want to be travelling at night …’ She turned on her heel and started marching towards the exit.
‘Forty-eight hours, you say,’ Zak observed, suppressing a smile as he watched her go.
‘Er, yeah,’ said Marcus. ‘Forty-eight hours.’ He scratched his head and looked a bit apologetic. ‘Lovely girl. Bit of a … bit of a chatterbox, but I’m sure you’ll get on like a … like a … The truck’s just outside.’
Marcus’s vehicle was an old Land Rover. It was parked right in front of the terminal building and was by far the fanciest vehicle there. All the other cars, parked up in no particular order by the side of the wide, dusty road, were old saloons covered in rust and dents. Four Angolan kids about Zak’s age were hanging around the Land Rover. When they saw the trio approach they all ran up to them, shouting. One of them tried to pull Zak’s fishing gear away and carry it to the car. But Zak wasn’t letting go of that for anyone. The kids soon realized they weren’t going to earn any money, and they quickly disappeared.
The Land Rover was khaki in colour, but so covered with dust that the paintwork was almost invisible. Bea immediately took the front passenger seat. ‘You’ll have more room back there, Jason, and it’s probably best if I help Marcus with directions.’
‘It’s a straight road, Bea,’ Marcus said mildly, catching Zak’s eye as he spoke. Once more, Zak tried not to smile as he crammed his rucksack onto the seat and sat next to it.
‘Is this your first time in Angola, Jay?’ Marcus asked as he negotiated his way through the chaotic traffic outside the terminal.
‘First time in Africa,’ Zak replied. ‘Er, why don’t we want to travel at night, Bea?’
He heard Bea drawing breath and prepared himself for a long explanation, but Marcus got there first, leaving Bea looking like the carpet had just been pulled from under her feet. ‘Angola has had a difficult history, Jay. I’m sure you know that.’
‘Civil war,’ Zak said.
‘Exactly.’ Marcus knocked the vehicle into third gear. ‘Things aren’t as bad now as they were a few years ago, but it’s still a dangerous country. Most of the Angolans are very good people who only want peace in their country. But not all of them. There’s a risk of bandits on the road, especially at nigh
t.’
‘Goodness, Marcus. A risk? The roads are very, very dangerous, Jason, and I want you to bear that in mind. You’re not to go wandering off. Some of these people will rob you of everything you have and would much rather kill you than leave you to identify them later.’
Zak looked through the window. Already the airport buildings had retreated. They were on a busy main road, but it wasn’t exactly the M1. It had no tarmac or markings – just a dusty, pitted surface that made the Land Rover rattle as it went. On either side there was flat, parched earth as far as Zak could see. The occasional bush had managed to sprout and there were a few shacks made out of rotting timber and corrugated iron. They passed the rusting shell of an old car and Zak saw three children, no more than five years old, playing inside it.
He examined the position of the sun. It was ahead to their right. Given the time of day, that meant they were heading south.
Towards the village.
Twenty-four hours ago, Zak had been in the safety of St Peter’s Crag. Now he felt anything but safe. He felt like he had been transported to another world.
Journey time from Luanda airport to Lobambo, two hours forty-five minutes. The further south they travelled, the less barren the surroundings became. The parched earth gave way to low brush. The low brush gave way to thicker vegetation. By the time Marcus announced that Lobambo was just a kilometre away, Zak was sweaty and dirty. His skin was caked in dust and he was looking forward to getting out of that rattling Land Rover.
Lobambo was poor. That much was obvious. If there was diamond wealth in the area, the ordinary people had never got their hands on it. There were no streets or pavements – only areas of worn-down earth between the wood and iron shacks that passed as dwellings. Children were playing outside the shacks; women were rolling out bread or breast-feeding infants; men were sitting in groups, chatting. All the adults had the weathered skin of people who’d led a hard life. And some of the kids did too. Everyone stopped what they were doing to watch the Land Rover trundle by.
They passed a building site. Foundations had been dug into the earth and pallets of breeze blocks and timber were lying around. As at the airport, there was no sign of work, though. The only people on the site were four Angolan men. They were loitering lazily, one of them rolling a cigarette, two others playing some kind of dice game. Zak noticed that they all had weapons lying beside them.
More shacks. More stares. ‘Everyone looks nervous,’ Zak said.
‘And so would you, Jay,’ replied Marcus, ‘if for ten years the arrival of a stranger meant the arrival of somebody who wants to kill you.’
The shacks continued like this for perhaps a kilometre. Occasionally they would pass a more solid structure, built of breeze blocks or concrete. ‘Bottle shop,’ Bea explained without being asked. Or, ‘Doctor’s surgery.’
Moments later, the sea came into view. The sun, all orange and pink, was setting on the horizon and the water twinkled in its light. It looked like it was full of jewels.
‘It’s amazing,’ Zak said, and even Bea seemed lost for words as she nodded her head in agreement. But Zak’s attention wasn’t just on the beauty of nature. He was examining the waterfront intently, comparing it to the mental snapshots he had taken of the satellite imagery Michael had provided. Almost straight ahead of them, Zak saw a pier. It stretched about 100 metres out to sea and was raised ten metres above the level of the water. To its left was a harbour. There was a series of ten much shorter jetties here, but the only boats moored against them were ramshackle fishing vessels.
Zak scanned the beachfront. He counted three palm trees set twenty metres back from the harbour. They were tall and thin and offered nothing in the way of camouflage. A wooden fisherman’s hut had once stood just in front of one of those trees, but it had long since collapsed and was now just a mess of timber surrounded by bits of driftwood. There was nowhere, Zak realized, that he could conceal himself in this tiny harbour. Nowhere he could set up a suitable OP.
The Land Rover turned right, away from the harbour and along a golden stretch of beach. It was deserted and very beautiful – the sort of place Zak had only ever seen in holiday brochures. After 500 metres they stopped by a small encampment of sturdy canvas tents. There were ten of them, each one about five metres by five. Washing was hanging from lines between each tent and a small fire was burning ten metres in front of the encampment. Eight people were sitting around the fire. Seven of them had white skin and were about the same age as Bea. The eighth was black and a bit younger. Zak’s age, perhaps. It was difficult to tell.
Bea got out of the Land Rover the moment it stopped. She was talking almost before her feet touched the ground. ‘Come along, Jason, you must meet the others … I’ll introduce you … Don’t worry about your luggage …’ She walked off, still chatting, without noticing that Zak and Marcus hadn’t moved.
‘One of the challenges you’ll face out here,’ Marcus said tactfully, ‘is getting used to other people.’
‘Does she ever stop talking?’ Zak asked.
‘Course she does, Jay. The very second she falls asleep. But her heart is in the right place, even if her nose is always stuck into everybody’s business.’ He winked at him. ‘Come on. I think you’ll find the others a bit more relaxed.’
Marcus was right. By the time he and Zak had walked up to the camp fire, the others were standing and smiling in their direction, although the younger local-looking boy had now moved away from the group. Marcus started making the introductions. ‘Jason, meet your fellow volunteers – Matt, Roger, Alexandra, Tillie, Jacqui, Ade and Christopher. Don’t worry, I won’t be testing you on their names just yet.’
Zak looked at each of them in turn. Matt, Roger, Alexandra, Tillie, Jacqui, Ade, Christopher, he repeated silently to himself, reassured somehow by his instant recall.
‘Where’s Bea?’ the guy introduced as Ade asked.
‘I thought it was quiet,’ someone murmured.
‘Over there.’ Zak pointed to a space between two of the canvas tents. He’d seen Bea as soon as he’d approached the camp fire. She was standing in the shadows, blinking furiously, but still watching them all. Watching Zak. For some reason it made him a bit nervous.
He turned to the others. ‘It’s nice of you all to let me join you,’ he said. ‘I’m looking forward to getting my hands dirty.’
Ade had very tanned skin. He was wearing just a pair of turquoise knee-length swimming shorts. ‘Hands dirty?’ he asked, clearly confused.
‘Building the school.’ He looked around the group. Suddenly things seemed a bit awkward. ‘That’s what we’re here to do, isn’t it?’
A pause. ‘You didn’t tell him?’ Ade asked Marcus in surprise.
Marcus didn’t answer. He just put one hand on Zak’s shoulder. ‘I’ll show you where you’ll be sleeping,’ he said quietly. ‘We’ll have a chat later.’
He led Zak towards the tents, keeping a couple of metres ahead of him. It was almost as if he didn’t want to get caught in a conversation. And Zak couldn’t help noticing, as he walked away from the camp fire, that Bea was no longer staring at them.
She was no longer standing in the shadows.
She was nowhere to be seen.
7
NIGHT FISHING
19.45 hrs West Africa Time
ZAK’S TENT WAS simple – a low bed covered with a mosquito net hanging from the ceiling; rush matting on the floor; a clothes rail with a few hangers; a battery-operated lamp. He dumped his stuff and sat quietly on the edge of his bed for a few minutes, gathering his thoughts. He’d only just arrived in Lobambo and already things didn’t seem right. Why had everyone gone quiet when he’d asked about the school? And there was something about Bea that didn’t quite ring true. What was it? Zak was determined to find out.
But first he had to become one of the group again. To be Jason Cole and not Zak Darke. He cleared his head and prepared to rejoin them. It was fully dark when he walked outside again. The stars were amazin
g. As he walked towards the camp fire, Zak looked up and quickly identified the Southern Cross. It was his first time in the southern hemisphere, so he had only ever seen this constellation on star charts. He remembered Raf teaching him about astro-navigation, one of the first lessons he’d ever had after being recruited. He wondered where his Guardian Angels were now. What did they have to do that was so important?
‘Hey, Jay.’ The others were all sitting around the fire, chatting quietly. Marcus stood up to welcome him.
‘Marcus,’ Zak replied with a nod.
‘We’ll eat soon. Come and meet an important member of our team.’ He led Zak round to the far side of the camp fire where the Angolan boy about the same age as Zak was sitting by himself. He had a shaved head and wore a very old Manchester United football top. With his right hand he was drawing shapes in the dusty ground. But it was his left arm to which Zak’s eyes were immediately drawn. The boy was missing half the arm. It finished at the elbow in a scarred, knobbly stump. Zak did his best not to stare at it.
‘This is Malek,’ Marcus said. ‘He speaks very good English, which is good, because our Portuguese is rotten. Right, Malek?’
‘Right, Marcus,’ Malek said with a grin that revealed crooked yellow teeth.
‘Malek helps us liaise with the locals. We’d be lost without him. Malek, this is Jay. I’ll leave you to get acquainted.’ Marcus walked back to the other side of the fire.
‘Mind if I sit here?’ Zak asked, pointing at the patch of earth next to Malek.
The Angolan boy shook his head. He seemed quite shy.
Zak sat down. Nightfall had brought a chill in the air and he was glad of the warmth of the fire. Unlike Bea, Zak wasn’t naturally talkative; he felt a moment of panic as he cast around for a topic of conversation. ‘So,’ he said after a few awkward seconds and looking at the Man United shirt, ‘do you like football?’
‘All my friends like football,’ Malek replied. He spoke very slowly, with a pronounced African accent. He raised the stump of his left arm. ‘But it is difficult for me to play.’
