by Chris Ryan
After one almighty bump, which threw all our guards into the air, as well as us, I managed to get my head up far enough to catch a glimpse of the stars. There, ahead of us and slightly to the right, was the Southern Cross. As I expected, we were heading south-south-east.
Obviously we were in for a bad time, and I tried to prepare for it mentally. It would have helped to talk to Gen, but that was out of the question, as any attempt at communication put our escort into a frenzy of stamping.
Everything seemed desperately uncertain. Did the rebels know who we were? Did they know what we’d been doing? Did they know that we’d set up the attack on the mine? I suspected the woman was telling someone all about us. Ever since she’d come on the scene our own guys had been very guarded with her, but I was pretty sure some of Joss’s men had blabbed. Even they hadn’t known, or shouldn’t have known, that we were SAS. Our cover story was that we belonged to an infantry training school based at Hythe in Kent, and we’d stick to that as long as we could.
Not that details of regiments would make much difference if Inge had found out about our involvement at Gutu. If she had, we’d be accused of butchering the defenders. Altogether, I didn’t give much for our chances of survival. It wasn’t as if we knew any vital secrets the rebels would want to pry out of us, and we’d seen what a low value Kamangans put on human life, so to knock off a trio of Brits would be just a nice little evening’s entertainment for them. People with a greater sense of responsibility might have been inhibited by fear of the international repercussions that such murders might create, but not the Afundis.
Another big worry was the fate of the rest of our team. Virtually my last words to Pavarotti had been an agreement to RV with him on the high ground above the northern end of the Zebra Pans, whether or not they’d managed to free the mother wagon. The worst-case scenario was that they’d be unable to shift it, in which case they’d un-ship as many of the stores as they could carry, move them to the RV site, and booby-trap the truck. If the satcom came alive and they got through to Hereford, they’d ask the Kremlin to get a Herc moving in our direction and try to arrange for it to stage through some friendly capital like Harare. Then, when they found any flat area that would do as a makeshift strip, they could call it in to exfiltrate them.
Them. I was thinking ‘them’. I should have been thinking ‘us’. I had agreed with Pav that if Genesis and I hadn’t returned to the area of the pan by first light, he would follow up our tracks and come looking for us. Now that looked a seriously bad option, but there was nothing we could do to cancel it.
Our transport eventually pulled up after a journey which I estimated at nearly two hours. Gen guessed it was only ninety minutes. Splitting the difference, I reckoned we’d travelled fifty-something kilometres. With a squeal of brakes our driver came to a halt. There was a brief exchange of shouts, and a gate or gates scraped open. Then we went forward again into some sort of a compound. By then we’d already taken a fair hammering and were half-choked with dust. When our guards dragged Whinger out, I saw he’d got a bloody nose – no doubt from being too comatose to prevent having it banged on the steel deck.
I only got a brief glimpse of our surroundings, but they looked like a barracks. We’d debussed just inside the gates, which were made of weldmesh, with barbed wire on angle-irons at the top. The perimeter fence was the same. Inside, five or six identical single-storey buildings were ranged parallel to each other, about fifty metres apart, but it looked as though they were disused, because the windows were all dark; beyond them there was a big open space that could have been a parade ground, and higher buildings in the distance, up a slight incline. The whole place was poorly lit, with the occasional dim electric bulb slung from drooping wires. The lights kept flickering, as if the generator powering them was on the point of going down.
More shouting broke out among our guards, obviously an argument about where we were to be taken. In the middle of it I saw Inge limping off into the distance. As her fair head passed under one of the lights, I realised she must have been riding in the wagon that led our convoy. Again I wondered what the hell she was doing, mixed up with the rebel forces. Clearly she was in cahoots with them – but how, and why?
We found out soon enough. After a wait of maybe half an hour, during which we were held in a bare room that stank of piss, we were taken out again and hustled up the compound. Gen and I were frogmarched by guys holding either arm, with more in front and behind, all carrying AK47s, but Whinger was carried on a stretcher. I had a wild hope that he was shamming, and would suddenly leap to his feet, scattering our escort, but that was just a dream.
On the higher level we came to an area where the buildings were closer together and some of the windows were lit. Then, as we passed another building, a door opened, and out came a white man. Just for a second I saw him clearly – and he saw us. In fact he must have seen us better than I saw him, because to me he was little more than an outline, with the light coming from behind him and falling in our direction. Our escorts moved sharply up beside us, trying to block his view, but there was no doubt that he’d got eyes on us. He was only ten or twelve metres off, and he half raised his right hand, as if in surprise or greeting. I got the impression of a big, middle-aged guy in a short-sleeved shirt, and opened my mouth to shout something, but before I could utter a syllable I was knocked sideways by a stunning blow on the jaw. I almost went down, and by the time I was in control again, the guy had vanished.
Seconds later, we were in a ramshackle lecture room, with a low stage and metal chairs set out in rows facing it. A few tattered charts and diagrams hung on the dirty white walls, but I was too confused and preoccupied to take in what they were about. On the stage, already seated beside a plain trestle table, was the German. Behind the table a second chair, a more elaborate one, with arms, stood waiting, as if for the judge who would take charge of the proceedings.
The moment we appeared Inge began cracking out orders in some native language, and her guys jumped to it, scraping the other chairs away across the bare concrete floor until three were left lined up in the middle of the room. Gen and I were pushed down onto two of them, with our bound arms and hands forced behind their backs. Whinger was dumped on the middle chair and similarly trussed, rolling to right and left. With his head lolling on his chest, he was snorting through his bloody nose. The gauze had long since come off his face, and he looked a right mess, the skin hanging in filthy bulges. I could hardly bear to look at him. But suddenly, to my amazement, he came round, straightened up, and said loudly, ‘Where the fuck are we?’
I just had time to say, ‘In the shit,’ before the woman barked, ‘No talking! Only answers!’
I had to fight down an impulse to jump up and rip out her throat. But I stopped myself doing anything at all, because I knew if I moved or spoke out of turn I’d only get another clout over the ear. Always be subservient during interrogation – that’s what I’d been taught. Never get the questioners’ backs up unnecessarily.
For a few moments there was silence. The atmosphere was like in a classroom when kids are waiting for the teacher to arrive – everyone teed up with expectancy, laced with a dose of fear. After a bit, people began to talk in quick whispers. Then a door at the back of the stage opened, and everyone abruptly went quiet again.
In strode a tall, heavily built man, bare-headed, dressed in plain, oatmeal-coloured uniform. The people were obviously in awe of him, and his sheer size gave him a commanding presence, but there was something about him that didn’t add up. Although his features were definitely negroid, his skin was no darker than milky coffee, and his short, crinkly hair was a peculiar dark yellow.
At his entry the guards alongside us came more or less to attention and stood rigidly upright. Inge hauled herself to her feet and gave a peculiar bob forward, half bow, half curtsey. Jesus, I thought, she’s doing him obeisance – and I knew he must be the infamous General Muende. He was the right age, early thirties, and his half-Scottish background woul
d account for his strange colour. His movements were peculiar, too: he rolled, rather than walked, as though he had problems with his balance. In his right hand he was carrying a dark-green, army-type water-bottle, which he put down clumsily on the table, and when he sat in the chair he hit it heavily, then slumped forward on his elbows. Jesus, I thought, the guy’s pissed out of his mind.
Behind him came two big, square-arsed lads wearing DPM fatigues and slung about with weapons, who stood to one side, slightly behind him, followed by a single white. Was this the guy who’d raised a hand as we’d gone past? No, that fellow had had what I’d call a normal figure. This one was squat and broad, and had a bullet head with it. Was he one of the three who’d escaped from the mine? Possibly. Whovever he was, all he did was lurk in the background, glaring at us.
My mind was spinning. The German was in league with this drunken, half-caste creature of a general. What did we know about him? What else had Bakunda told us, besides his age and his part-Scottish descent? More came back to me from our evening of rum-drinking round the fire: Gus Muende had been to West Point, in the States; he was the arsehole of the Afundi tribe; he was a friend of Gadaffi; he’d been fêted as a star guest in Libya. He was dressed like Gadaffi, anyway, in a tunic with a turned-up collar and general’s insignia on the epaulettes, and he carried a pistol in a holster on his belt.
‘Soldiers of Her Majesty,’ said the arsehole. ‘What are you doing in Free Kamanga?’
His voice was hoarse, and too high for his size, his accent definitely American. He sounded excited, or angry, or both.
‘We’re a training team, sir,’ I said.
‘A training team? Is that right?’ He turned to the woman, who spoke briefly in dialect. Then he went, ‘Uh huh,’ and faced us again. He seemed to be having difficulty summoning words and collecting himself to speak. ‘Mercenaries, I suppose.’
‘No, sir. We’re here on an official tour, invited by the Government of Kamanga.’
‘The Government of Kamanga!’ Muende shouted. ‘I might have known. That neo-colonialist bum Bakunda has been licking the ass of the British Government again.’ He reached for his bottle, unscrewed the cap and held the neck to his mouth. Whatever it was he drank, it made him gasp and blink. Then he said, very loud, ‘What’s the goddamn difference, anyway? You’re being paid to kill people, just like if you were mercenaries.’
‘No, sir. We’re not being paid to kill anyone. We’re serving members of the British army,’ I said, evenly. ‘We were sent here by the British Government.’
‘I don’t care who in hell you are!’ Muende was getting more worked up by the minute, shouting louder and louder. ‘You ought to be shot. You’ve been killing our people. Killing an Afundi is a capital offence.’
I was going to deny that we’d killed anybody, but I held off, because I didn’t want to provoke him. What we needed to do was soothe him down, flatter his ego. Subservience, I told myself again.
Suddenly, his manner changed. His tone became friendly, conversational. ‘But look,’ he said. ‘I don’t want to shoot you. Tell me what you think of Kamanga.’
I was taken aback. What was he trying to do now? Make some friendly overture? I had to think fast. Better not tell him it’s the arsehole of Africa. ‘You have tremendous potential, sir,’ I said.
‘That’s right. We got the resources. We just need to develop them. What we don’t need is these sonofabitches in the north messing us up.’
‘I’m not up in Kamangan politics.’ I tried to sound naïve. ‘I don’t know what the war’s about. What’s wrong with the north?’
‘What’s wrong with it?’ His voice rose again. ‘What’s right with it? That crazy bum Bakunda, hiring people like you to fight for him.’
‘We’re training,’ I repeated. ‘Not fighting.’ I should have left it at that, but I made a bad mistake by adding, ‘And anyway, you hire whites to fight for you.’
‘I do not. That’s an insult.’
‘Listen,’ I went, growing reckless. ‘We’ve seen them. And who’s that guy behind you?’
Muende glanced round at the heavy in the background, glared at me, and ostentatiously drew his pistol. I thought he was going to shoot all three of us there and then, but he laid the weapon on the table in front of him.
Then, with a kind of snarl, he said, ‘You’re lucky.’
‘How’s that?’
‘We need to do a deal.’
‘Sorry, I’m not with you.’
‘Your lives in exchange for the stone.’
‘What stone?’
‘What stone?’ He echoed my words with a tenor shout and crashed his fist on the table. ‘See here, Englishman! I’m not taking any shit from you!’
Still I was determined not to provoke the bastard, so I said nothing. When he glowered at me, I lowered my eyes submissively. The bare bulbs hanging from the roof flickered down very faint, then came back bright again. Then, into the silence, Whinger mumbled, all too audibly, ‘Tell him he’s a cunt, from me.’
I saw Muende’s bloodshot eyeballs bulge. With shaking hands he unscrewed the stopper of his water-bottle again and raised it to his mouth. Genesis, obviously feeling the tension needed to be lowered, said mildly, ‘General, if you tell us what you’re on about, we may be able to help.’
‘You better,’ he said. ‘Have you got families?’
‘Families?’ I was taken aback. ‘No. None of us.’ In a kind of lightning flash I saw Tim’s face looking back at me from the door of the departure lounge at Birmingham airport, the last time I sent him back to Belfast. But I thought it better to pretend we were all single.
‘Just as well,’ said Muende, with heavy menace. ‘But look, all you need do, to get out of here alive, is say what you did with it.’
I felt panic threatening. The guy was making no sense, and I reckoned his patience would soon run out. I should have gone on being obsequious, but instead I said sharply, ‘Come on! This is ridiculous. Stop pissing about and tell us what you want.’
Muende gave an upward flick with his right hand. A second later a crashing blow caught me on the left cheekbone and sent me lurching against Whinger. For a few seconds the light bulbs spun and swam.
‘You went to the airplane!’ Muende shouted. ‘Do you deny that?’
‘What airplane?’
‘The Beechcraft. When it crashed.’
‘Of course. Yes. I mean, no.’
‘Yes or no? Were you there or not?’
‘Of course I was there.’
‘Why deny it, then?’
‘That’s what I meant. I don’t deny it. My colleague was with me. Both of us were there together. That’s where he got burned. He nearly killed himself rescuing this bloody woman.’
That brought a signal from her, and another clout. I felt a trickle of blood run down my temple.
Muende shouted, ‘Where is it, then?’
‘What?’
‘The diamond!’
At that moment the lights went out. Instantly there was a stir all round us. Guards moved in and gripped us by arms and shoulders, as if we might try to do a runner in the darkness. Outside the hut distant shouting started up. Inside, the woman barked out an order. I heard one man detach himself from our group, hurry to the door, feel for the handle and let himself out. Under cover of the commotion, I whispered to Gen, ‘The guy’s pissed, and getting worse.’
‘Don’t wind him up any more,’ he answered. ‘He’s right on the edge. Highly dangerous.’
Once again, Whinger muttered, ‘Tell him he’s a cunt.’
Luckily his words were muffled by the general hubbub, but out of the darkness, the woman shouted, ‘No speech without questions!’
So, Muende as well as Joss now – both having a seizure because neither knew the whereabouts of the diamond the old Belgian had told us about in his coded note. It had obviously been somewhere on the crashed plane, otherwise why was the general – and Ingeborg Braun, for that matter – so manically concerned about it?
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For the moment I kept quiet, thinking furiously. Then the outer door opened again, and a man came in carrying an oil lamp, which he stood on the corner of the table. Knock it off, I thought. Set the place on fire. Make them all scatter. I measured the distance. The lamp was about eight feet from me. Tethered as I was, I’d never make it. But at least, with the generator down, they couldn’t start giving us electric shocks.
In the faint lamplight beads of sweat were shining as they trickled down Muende’s plump jowls.
‘General,’ I said. ‘Now I know what you’re talking about. The big diamond found in the mine at Gutu.’
‘So!’ Inge gave a yell of triumph. ‘I told you! This man knows. He is all the time lying. He knows absolutely.’
‘Where is it?’ Muende repeated.
‘I haven’t a clue. I’ve never seen it.’
‘You took it from the plane.’
‘I never got near the plane. The bloody thing was on fire.’
‘Nein!’ shouted Inge. ‘It was this one, the middle one! The sick one!’ In her excitement she broke into German. ‘Er war in dem Flugzeug!’ Seeing Muende hadn’t understood her, she translated, ‘He was inside of the plane.’
‘Search my kit,’ said Whinger, thickly. ‘That’s what you were doing in the camp, anyway. Search it again. Search the vehicles. You’ll find fuck all, because it isn’t there.’
‘No, of course!’ she cried. ‘You have hidden it in the bush. Tell me where! Tell!’
She shouted an order at the guards. Two of them started to beat Whinger about the head with rifle butts, one from either side, with sickening thuds. He made no sound as his head was hit to and fro like a football.
