Blood Ties

by A. J. Quinnell

  “Not matter,” Ramesh said. “We will get it off later, and as for the sails, I need new ones anyway.”

  They finished the mainsail and re-attached it to the boom. They had got a lot of the black paint on themselves and the old man at the wheel had giggled and pointed a finger at his wrinkled chest.

  “Like me now,” he said. “Night time no one see you.”

  They unrolled the genoa and painted it on both sides and, after clipping it back onto the forestay, Ramesh looked at his watch and said, “We have been gone an hour and a half. Murphy and the others will be on the way. Let’s check the radios.”

  They moved to the afterdeck and Ramesh brought up the radios and torches. He pulled out the aerial of one of the radios, set the volume on three quarters, pressed the button and, feeling a little foolish, said, “This is Ram One calling Ram Three. Do you read me? Over.”

  He released the button. There was an expectant hush and then Murphy’s voice came out of the tiny speaker.

  “Ram One, this is Ram Three. Read you loud and clear. What’s your position? Over.”

  Ramesh pushed the button again.

  “Frankly I am not knowing. Our friend is steering while we have been preparing. Over.”

  “OK. Let me talk to him.”

  Ramesh held the radio in front of Salim’s face, who looked at it with round, astonished eyes. They grew even bigger when Murphy’s voice issued forth, speaking in Swahili. Then Salim grinned and nodded to Ramesh, who pressed the transmit button. Salim spoke several sentences and then nodded again at Ramesh, who said, “OK, Ram Three. Over.”

  Murphy’s voice came back in English. “He says you’ll be at the fairway in about five cigarettes.” A tinny chuckle, then, “In our time scale that means roughly an hour. Check back with us then. Over.”

  “OK. I am going to check the other radio.”

  It worked fine and next they checked the torches, shining the thin beams into the water and selecting the ones they wanted, both for signalling and finding their way in the dark.

  An hour later Manasa hove to. In the distance they could just see the glow of some lights on the Zanzibar coast. Ramesh had been totally mystified by Salim’s navigation. The old man never looked at the compass or even took casual bearings. He had said nothing for an hour and then simply eased off the power, pointed a bony finger at the bow and announced, “Reef channel. Half mile.”

  They brought up the rolls of black cloth together with the box of tacks and two hammers with heads covered by canvas. Ramesh and Cady manhandled the dinghy overboard, and Cady dropped into it with one of the hammers. The cloth was unrolled and hung over the side of Manasa like a skirl. Kirsty and Lani held the pieces in place while Ramesh hammered tacks through it and into the toe rail. Salim held the dinghy’s painter and slowly moved Cady round the sides as he tacked the cloth into place along the waterline. When he finished he rowed out about thirty yards and then circled the boat. Back on board he said to Ramesh,

  “Manasa looks like a ghost ship. No one’s gonna see her from even a hundred yards.”

  “Good.” Ramesh picked up a radio and called Murphy, who told him that they were in position two miles due east of Manasa.

  “OK,” Ramesh said. “We are going in now. Over.”

  “We’ll be monitoring your calls,” Murphy said. “Good luck.”

  “Thank you. Over and out.”

  Ramesh put the radio down and said slowly to Salim, “We go inside the reef.”

  Salim edged the throttle up and Manasa eased forward.

  In the darkness none of them even saw the reef. Ramesh marvelled at the old man’s confidence and thanked God that he had not had to take Manasa through himself, relying only on a bearing from the lights of the village of Jembiani.

  After twenty minutes Salim announced, “Inside reef. Jembiani one mile.”

  They put up the wet black sails and cut the engine. There was a ten-knot wind and they sailed silently and slowly north paralleling the coast. Even over the odour of the paint they could smell the aroma of cloves from the inland plantation.

  Kirsty, Ramesh and Cady prepared.

  They blacked their hands and faces from a tin of ointment that Murphy had provided and slipped into the webbed harnesses and clipped on the grenades and spare magazines for the Stens.

  Back on deck Ramesh carefully rehearsed Lani on the anchoring procedure. They had inflated another small dinghy and he explained again how she was to take the spare anchor out astern and use it to turn Manasa broadside on to the cliff. She nodded impatiently, her anxious eyes constantly on Cady’s blackened face.

  “Don’t worry Ramesh. I know what to do. Just be careful all of you.”

  Cady picked up a heavy coil of rope and draped it like a bandolier over his shoulder. He put two big skeins of twine and two solid rubber balls into a canvas bag, together with the torches, the radio and the binoculars. The four T-bars were on the deck at his feet.

  Ramesh stood next to Salim at the wheel. I here was a sliver of moon and he could just make out the darker line of the approaching shoreline. They were coming into it at an angle and again Ramesh wondered how the old man knew where he was.

  Ten minutes passed and then Salim turned the wheel and Manasa swung to port into the wind and the sails flapped idly.

  Salim pointed fine on the starboard bow. “Beach. Half mile.”

  Ramesh could just make out trees on the shoreline, and a gap in the direction where Salim was pointing. He held a small compass in his hand and quickly took a bearing.

  Then they were loading the dinghy and Lani, with tears on her cheeks, was first hugging Kirsty, then Ramesh and finally Cady. She clung like a limpet, sobbing against his chest, until he reached up and gripped her wrists and pulled her arms down. Still holding them he stepped back and looked down at her face; saw her draw a deep breath and steady herself.

  “You gonna be all right?” he asked, his face stem.

  She nodded. “Yes, don’t worry. I know what to do – and I’ll do it . . . I love you.”

  His expression softened. “An’ I you. We’ll call you from the beach.”

  They all shook hands with Salim and he noticed that while the eyes of the two men were tense, Kirsty’s were filled only with eagerness.

  They dropped down into the dinghy and, with Cady at the oars, Kirsty in the stern and Ramesh in the bow, rowed off into the darkness.

  At that moment Jaloud motored into Zanzibar harbour. It headed straight for the Government jetty and Lascelles, eschewing fine seamanship, banged it alongside and leapt ashore with a line. Twenty minutes later he was in the palace of the former Sultan, face to face with Okello in the reception room.

  It was an incongruous setting for two such men. They stood on a priceless Persian carpet under a shimmering crystal chandelier.

  Lascelles was dressed in dirty jeans and singlet. Okello, a short, stocky man with a handsome ebony face, was wearing highly polished black shoes, knee-length khaki socks, sharply pressed black shorts and a brown epauletted shirt. Around his waist was a Sam Browne belt with a holstered pistol. Within seconds Lascelles had blurted out his story. Okello seemed unconcerned.

  “So what can they do?”

  “Dammit-he’s an American. I’ll bet right now his bitch of a mother’s in Dar talking to the American Ambassador.”

  Okello shrugged. “So what can he do?”

  Lascelles drew a breath. “Listen, they find that kid alive and there’ll be big trouble. They just need an excuse to jump on you.”

  “But Lascelles, how can they find him?”

  “Look, they’re not stupid. Sure as hell they’ve got agents on the island. They might try a raid – they’ve got the people. At the very least they’ll scream to Nyerere.”

  Thoughtfully Okello started pacing. Five precise steps, one way to the edge of the carpet, and five back.

  “I am having difficulties,” he muttered, “with Karume and others on the Council. They have no stomach for real revoluti
on. That hyena Nyerere backs them. They wish, of course, that he will send in soldiers . . . but he is timid.”

  “He needs the Americans,” Lascelles said hastily. “They give him a lot of aid.”

  Okello stopped pacing and looked down as if studying the intricate pattern beneath his feet.

  “Do you still need the kid?” Lascelles asked nervously.

  Okello looked up and smiled. White teeth glinted in the light from the chandelier.

  “Not really. Friends in Kenya have found two sisters with the same blood group. Masai girls. They arrive within a few days.” His smile widened to a grin. “I’m going to marry them. Masai women are beautiful when you wash the mud off. Clever, no? I’ll be married to my blood donors.” He gestured at the opulence around him. “They will have a life of luxury and anything they want in return for their blood.” He studied Lascelles’ face and then said, “So you think the boy should die?”

  Lascelles nodded.

  “All right. Now he can die.” He looked up and smiled again and it was a sight to chill the devil himself. “But first I take all his blood. We will go to the villa with ‘Doctor’ Bakari and he will first drain his blood.” Okello’s eyes narrowed in thought. “After four or five pints his heart will give out but the blood will still flow from gravity – about eight or nine pints – so I’m safe if the Masai girls are delayed. Then you can take the body and give the sharks a good breakfast. They are used to flesh now. They have fed well these months.”

  Lascelles grinned. “When can we go?”

  Okello turned and his moderate tone changed abruptly as he shouted towards an open door.

  Immediately an African in khaki shorts and shirt appeared in the doorway, his eyes wide with fear.

  Okello literally screamed an order at him in Swahili. As he turned and fled Okello, his voice back to normal, said to Lascelles, “We will be there in an hour.”

  The dinghy scraped on to the sand and Ramesh jumped out, the painter in his hand. He pulled until the bow was on the beach. Cady and Kirsty climbed out and they dragged it up under some palm trees. Ramesh took the radio, turned the volume low and called Lani and told her they were safely ashore. Then he said into the radio, “Ram Three. Do you copy?”

  Very faintly they heard Murphy’s voice. “We copy. Good luck.”

  Cady carried the canvas bag and two T-bars. Ramesh the other two. They found a track leading north from the beach and followed it.

  Twenty minutes later they were skirting the militia barracks. It was now 2.30 a.m. and not a sound issued from the compound.

  But they got a fright half a mile further on.

  They had just passed a cluster of tin-roofed shacks when a dog started barking. Two others joined in and the sounds grew closer. With Kirsty in the lead they ran quickly, dodging in and out of coconut trees. But the dogs would not be shaken off. They came in close behind, three dark shapes barking loudly. Ramesh dropped the T-bars and turned and unslung his Sten.

  “Cady we have to shoot them.”

  Cady grunted in agreement and moved up beside him, his gun in his hands. Kirsty waited twenty yards up the path, sucking air into her lungs.

  It was not necessary. The dogs were close and as soon as they saw the pointed barrels they turned and slithered away. They knew about guns.

  Half an hour later Ramesh was lying on his belly on a low ridge studying the villa through the binoculars. They gave a grey but distinct image. It was a low Moorish style building perched right on the edge of the cliff. A covered walkway led to another smaller, square-shaped building behind it formerly the servants’ quarters but now, as Murphy had told them, housing the guard detail. A light showed at one rear window.

  Ramesh panned the binoculars looking for movement but saw nothing. He shifted his gaze back to the main entrance and then saw him: a slumped figure sitting on a bench, his back and head resting against the wall —obviously asleep.

  Ramesh pushed himself backwards. Kirsty and Cady were hunched down beside him.

  “I see only one guard,” he said. “And he is asleep.”

  Cady grunted in satisfaction.

  “Let’s go rig the line.”

  Crouching, they moved to the south. About a quarter of a mile away they located the coconut tree that Cady had noted on their way up. It stood about ten yards from the edge of the cliff. The shore at that point formed a slightly concave crescent. Cady took the binoculars and moved up close to the edge. With Ramesh holding the back of his shirt he studied the rocks and sea below. Then he backed away.

  “Perfect,” he whispered. “The rocks extend out about thirty yards, then there’s unbroken, dead calm water.” He raised the binoculars again and looked out to sea. He could sec nothing but an opaque grey. “Let’s signal. Call Lani an’ tell her to watch for the light.”

  Ramesh took the radio and a torch out of the canvas bag. He gave the torch to Kirsty, pointed and said, “When I tell you, show a light there. But very briefly.” He pressed the send button on the radio.

  “Ram One. This is Ram Two. Do you read? Over.”

  Immediately he put his hand across the small speaker. A second later they heard Lani’s muffled but excited voice.

  “I hear you Ramesh.”

  She had forgotten Murphy’s careful coaching in radio procedure but none of the three on the cliff top cared about that. Her voice was a link-reassuring. Into the radio Ramesh said, “We are going to shine a light. Tell me if you see it.”

  He nodded to Kirsty, who cupped a hand over the top of the torch and flicked the switch. There was a pause and Ramesh said, “Again.”

  She flicked the switch a second time and a moment later Lani’s voice was saying, “I see it! Wait!” Five seconds later she said, “Forty degrees.”

  Ramesh pressed the button and said softly,

  “Good. You are close. Come in towards us. Every two minutes we will flash a light. Over and out.”

  Leaving Kirsty with the torch, Ramesh and Cady moved to the coconut tree, Cady lifted the coil of rope from his shoulder, dropped it beside the tree, picked up one end and shinned up the trunk. About ten feet from the ground he coiled the rope several times around the trunk and knotted it tight. Then he dropped lightly down. He trailed the other end of the rope back to the cliff edge, took the two thick skeins of twine from the bag and the two solid rubber balls. Holes had been drilled through their centres and he threaded an end of each skein of yarn through a bail and tied them.

  Then he took the binoculars and looked down to the sea. He saw the dim grey shape of Manasa three hundred yards away moving slowly towards them on a starboard tack. He could just make out the two figures: Lani by the mast and Salim at the wheel. He saw Lani move and then the black mainsail dropped down to the boom.

  Five minutes later, as Cady whispered a commentary to Kirsty and Ramesh, Manasa glided in close to the rocks. The genoa flapped as Salim turned into the wind and Lani, on the forepeak, lowered the anchor into the sea without the merest splash.

  Within minutes she was in the little dinghy dragging a line out from the stern quarter. She lowered the spare anchor about fifty yards from the boat and rowed back.

  Cady saw her bend over the winch and slowly Manasa’s stern came round until she was lying parallel to the shore.

  “Good girl,” Cady breathed. “Those anchors will be set in coral and Manasa’s steady an’ tight.” To Ramesh he whispered, “This is the tricky part – I’ve only got two tries. Let’s not make a stupid mistake. Will you hold one end of the rope an’ one end of the twine?”

  Ramesh nodded and groped around and found both ends. Cady picked up the ball attached to the other end of the twine. He had the binoculars in his left hand. To Kirsty he whispered, “Tell her it’s comin’.”

  Kirsty picked up the radio, pressed the button and said, “Lani. Stand by.”

  Cady heard Lani’s faint, “OK. Standing by.”

  He measured the distance, then lowered the binoculars and took two steps backwards. He weig
hed the heavy ball in his right hand, lifted it and, with a grunt, hurled it over the cliff.

  The twine snaked out into the void. Cady moved forward and raised the binoculars. Beyond Manasa he saw, and then faintly heard, the splash. An agonising ten seconds and then Lani’s voice from the radio, “Got it!”

  With a sigh of relief Cady took the end of the twine from Ramesh and knotted it to the rope. He took the radio from Kirsty, pressed the button and whispered, “Lani, pull it in. Slowly.’

  Holding the rope in his hand he watched as the twine unravelled over the cliff. Then he slowly played out the rope. He held the radio in his right hand and when all the rope was over and suspended six feet above the cliff edge he instructed Lani to stop. He studied Manasa through the binoculars: saw Lani crouched at the base of the mast. The rope would be wound round it. To Ramesh he said, “Swing on the rope. Give it all your weight.”

  Ramesh moved back towards the coconut tree, reached up with both hands, gripped the rope and lifted his feet off the ground.

  Cady peered down through the binoculars, saw the rope tighten and Manasa heel slightly and move in a few feet closer to the rocks. He turned to see Ramesh holding his legs high, his bottom inches from the ground. Cady grinned and whispered, “The Geronimo line’s ready.”

  Five minutes later, having laid the T-bars out in a neat row under the rope, they were back on the low ridge.

  Again Ramesh studied the buildings through the binoculars. There was no change. The guard was still asleep.

  He handed the binoculars to Cady, looked at his watch and whispered. “Twenty to four. I suggest we do not wait.”

  With the binoculars at his eyes, Cady answered, “Hell, no! We can practically walk in.” Then he stiffened and said, “Listen! What’s that?”

  They all heard the sound of the car. They turned to their left and saw the headlights coming up the road. Heard the peremptory hooting of the horn. Cady, through his binoculars, saw the guard jerk awake, grab his rifle and stand up, legs apart, an arm wiping his eyes. An outside light came on as the car pulled up and they all saw Lascelles and two Africans climb hurriedly out.