Solo (10 page)

Blessing knocked on his door.

‘James, I’m really sorry to disturb you, but only you can help me with this.’

‘Just coming.’

Bond pulled on his shirt and trousers and opened the door. Blessing stood there in a long white T-shirt that fell to her thighs and was looking at him a little sheepishly.

‘There’s a lizard in my room,’ she said. ‘And I can’t sleep knowing that it’s there.’

Bond followed her down the corridor to her room. To his vague surprise it was larger and better furnished than his and it had a ceiling fan that was turning energetically, causing the gauze of her mosquito net to billow and flap gently. Blessing pointed: high up on the wall by the ceiling was a six-inch, pale, freckled gecko – motionless, waiting for a moth or a fly to come its way.

‘It’s just a gecko,’ Bond said. ‘They eat mosquitoes. Think of it as a pet.’

‘I know it’s a gecko,’ she said. ‘But it’s also a lizard and I have a bit of a phobia about lizards, I’m afraid.’

Bond took a wooden coat-hanger out of the cupboard and a towel that was hanging from a hook by her jug and ewer stand. With the end of the hanger he flipped the gecko off the wall, catching it in the towel and balling the material gently around it. He stepped out on to the balcony and let the gecko scuttle off into the night.

‘A lizard-free zone,’ Bond said, closing the balcony doors behind him. Blessing stood by her bed, the angle of the bedside light and the shadows it cast revealing the shape of her small uptilted breasts under her T-shirt. Bond knew what was going to happen next and everything about Blessing’s expression confirmed that she did, also.

He crossed the room to her.

‘Thank you, James Bond,’ she said. ‘Licensed to catch lizards.’

Bond took her in his arms and kissed her gently, feeling her tongue flicker into his mouth.

‘As station head in Zanzarim it’s important I get to know visiting agents,’ she said and slipped her T-shirt off. She let Bond take in her nakedness for an instant and then lifted the mosquito net and slid into bed. Bond shucked off his shirt and trousers and climbed in beside her. He pulled her body against his and kissed her neck and breasts. She was tiny and lithe in his arms, her dark nipples perfectly round, like coins.

He looked into her eyes.

‘Ah, the old lizard trick,’ he said.

‘A girl can only work with the materials at hand.’

‘I’m going to miss you in Dahum, Blessing Ogilvy-Grant,’ he said, as he rolled on top of her and felt her knees part and lift to accommodate him. ‘Expect to see me back in Sinsikrou before you know it.’

‘I can’t wait.’

After they had made love – with an urgency and physicality that surprised them both – Bond fetched his bottle of whisky from his room. They lay naked on the top of the bed, drinking and smoking, talking softly and reaching out to touch each other until they arrived at a new pitch of arousal and they made love again, this time more deliberately and knowingly, prolonging their climaxes with all the expertise of familiar lovers. Afterwards, Bond lay still while Blessing fell asleep, curled at his side, his arm round her narrow shoulders, her arm thrown across his chest. The regular whirr of the ceiling fan blanked out all other noises and, for a moment, before sleep overtook him, Bond allowed himself to float on a sea of simple sensuality, spent and happy, the warmth of a beautiful young woman beside him, giving no thought at all about what might await him tomorrow.

Bond flinched and woke, thinking Blessing’s elbow had moved and was digging into his throat. But whatever was causing the pressure was cold and hard. Bond gagged reflexively and opened his eyes. The man’s face that loomed above him in the darkness was zigzagged with olive-green camouflage paint. The gun pressing hard into Bond’s windpipe made it impossible to speak.

‘Don’t try to say anything, big boy.’

Bond sensed other hands reach in beneath the mosquito net and grab Blessing. She managed a half-cry before she was stifled and dragged out of bed. The light went on.

‘Get up.’ The mosquito net was flipped aside.

Bond sat up slowly, rubbing his throat.

Blessing stood in shock, head bowed, shivering, arm across her breasts, a hand covering her groin. Six soldiers in camouflage uniform in mottled greens and greys and brown stood in the room – they looked like giants facing her, bulked out with their packs and ammunition. Five of them were black. The man with the automatic pistol – a big Colt 1911, Bond noticed – was white.

‘Move, sonny,’ the white man said. The accent wasn’t precisely English – more like East African or South African, Bond thought. Bond stood up and went to Blessing, putting his arm around her and making no attempt to conceal his nakedness.

‘Aw, Adam and Eve,’ the white man said.

The other soldiers chuckled, enjoying the show, covering Bond with their Kalashnikovs. Bond noticed that sewn on their shoulders were small flags – a rectangle halved horizontally, black and white, and in the upper white band was a red disc. The flag of the Democratic Republic of Dahum.

‘Look, I’m a British journalist,’ Bond said. ‘She’s my translator.’

‘British special forces, more like,’ the white man said. There was something wrong with his face, something glinting in one eye, but Bond couldn’t see exactly what it was because of the zigzag paint stripes.

‘Get dressed,’ the man said to both of them. ‘Then pack up your stuff.’

Bond pulled on his shirt and trousers, shielding Blessing as she put her clothes on as quickly as possible. She seemed calmer once she was dressed, and Bond gave her as reassuring a look as he could muster before he was escorted down the corridor to his room by two of the other soldiers. He put on his desert boots and safari jacket and packed away the rest of his things in the Zanzarim bag. Back in Blessing’s room he showed the white man his APL identification and his accreditation from Zanza Force.

‘Good cover,’ the man said, unimpressed. Closer to him, Bond could see that half his face looked different from the other, normal, half. The glinting that Bond had spotted was caused by tears – his left eye didn’t blink and tears flowed unchecked from it – tears that he wiped away with a constant motion of his thumb or dried on his cuff. There were two small round scars below his left eye – bullet entry wounds – that looked like a stamped umlaut and the contours of the left-hand side of his face were strangely dished, the cheekbone missing. Some awful trauma to his face had left him in this state, obviously.

Bond and Blessing were ushered downstairs – no sign of the manager or the staff of Cinnamon Lodge – and out into the warm darkness of the night. Bond glanced at his Rolex – it was just after four in the morning. They were led out of the compound and down a pathway to a small creek. Bond feigned a stumble, dropped his bag and as he stooped to pick it up, bumped up against Blessing.

‘They’re from Dahum,’ he whispered.

‘That’s what I’m worried about.’

Then they arrived at the water’s edge where a twelve-foot fibreglass dory was moored. Bond was shoved up to the front and Blessing told to sit in the stern. Bond acknowledged the Dahumian soldiers’ discipline and good training. They moved confidently and briskly about their business with very little conversation. He heard one of the men say ‘We are ready, Kobus.’ So he was called Kobus, Bond noted – Kobus short for Jakobus. The man with half a face or, rather: Kobus, the man with two faces.

Kobus cast off the dory and sat down in the stern beside Blessing. The other men picked up short paddles and swiftly, silently, propelled the dory down the creek and out into the wider expanse of the lagoon. Bond could see a few lights burning in Lokomeji – no rendezvous with Kojo tomorrow – and it began to dawn on him that Kobus and his men must have come specifically to snatch him, thinking he was one of the British military advisers for Zanza Force. Bond smiled ruefully to himself – it would have been quite a coup if he had been. Blessing had said everyone in Lokomeji knew he was staying in Cinnamon Lodge – word had spread. So Kobus and his men had seized their opportunity and sneaked out of Dahum on a kidnap mission.

Paradoxically, this analysis made Bond feel marginally more relaxed. There was nothing on his person or in his belongings that would identify him as a member of a special-forces team. For once he was hugely relieved that he wasn’t armed. Perhaps when the Dahumian authorities realised that he appeared to be what he was claiming to be – a journalist working for a French press agency – they would hand him and Blessing over to civilian authorities in Port Dunbar. It was something to hope for.

They crossed the lagoon surprisingly quickly and entered one of the winding watercourses. Bond heard the dry whisper of the soft night wind in the tall reeds that lined the channel and sensed rather than saw the overarching bulk of the mangroves and other trees. The men paddled on, tirelessly, and soon the sky began to lighten as dawn neared and with it Bond became aware of a mounting nervousness in the soldiers as they glanced around watchfully and muttered to each other. They clearly didn’t want to be caught out on the water in daylight. Then Bond heard the rhythmic judder of a helicopter’s rotors as it took to the air and the distant sound of diesel engines revving. They must be passing through the Zanza Force lines that surrounded Dahum’s diminishing heartland.

Soon they reached a ramshackle cribwork jetty and they disembarked. The dory was hauled ashore and covered with palm leaves. Then the small column moved down a forest path to a clearing where a canvas tarpaulin had been erected as shelter, draped with camouflaged netting. Bond was ordered to sit down beneath it at one end and Blessing at the other. Kobus took both their bags away and their hands were tied behind their backs. One soldier was left to guard them and Bond saw Kobus posting lookouts on the trails that led into the clearing. As the sun began to rise, he heard the sporadic
crump
,
crump
of heavy artillery being fired.

Kobus came in and squatted by Blessing and began to interrogate her, but he kept his voice low and Bond couldn’t hear his questions or her replies. Then Bond saw him stand up, look round and wander over to him.

He had removed the zigzag stripes from his face and Bond was able to see the full damage – the tear-fall from the unblinking eye and the saucer-deep declivity where his cheekbone should have been made Bond think that half his upper jaw had gone as well. He searched Bond roughly, taking his passport, his APL identification and his remaining wad of dollars. He also pocketed Bond’s cigarette lighter and his Rolex.

‘I’ll want them back, one day,’ Bond said. ‘So look after them.’

Kobus slapped his face.

‘Don’t be a cheeky bugger,’ he said.

‘Kenya? Uganda?’

‘Rhodesia,’ Kobus said, with a knowing smile. He nodded over to Blessing. ‘Your girlfriend tells me that you’re in the SAS.’

‘No, she didn’t,’ Bond said calmly. ‘Look, I’m a journalist. I met her in a bar in Sinsikrou. She’s smart, beautiful and speaks fluent Lowele and I needed a translator. I was meant to be interviewing General Basanjo today. I thought she’d be useful and we might have a bit of fun on the way, you know? Then you went and spoiled everything.’

Kobus slapped his face again, harder. Bond tasted salty blood in his mouth.

‘I don’t like your attitude, man. I’ll get you back to Port Dunbar where I can do some serious work on you and find out exactly who you are. One thing’s for sure – you’re no journalist.’ He stood up and left. Bond spat out some bloody saliva and looked over at Blessing. She was lying on the ground, curled up, turned away from him.

The day crawled by in the steaming heat beneath the tarpaulin. They were temporarily unbound and given some water and a plate of cold beans. Bond could hear the irregular detonations of artillery all day and at one stage two MiGs streaked over the clearing at very low level setting up a squawking and a squealing amongst the riverine birds that took a good five minutes to die down, such was the sky-shuddering guttural roar of the jets.

As dusk approached the men began to pack up the camp – the tarp and the netting were taken down and rolled up and any bits of litter were collected and buried. Bond and Blessing were untied and given another drink of water. Kobus swaggered up to them, smoking, and Bond felt a sudden craving for tobacco.

‘We’re walking out of here, OK?’ Kobus said. ‘If one of you tries to run I’ll shoot you down and then I’ll shoot the other. I don’t care. Just don’t be clever. Clever means death for you two.’

When it was dark they marched into the forest in single file, Kobus leading, followed by Blessing, Bond at the back of the small column with one soldier in the rear behind him. Bond felt grimy and sweat-limned, itches springing up all over his body. He fantasised briefly about a cold shower then ordered his brain to stop and concentrate. The path they were on was well trodden, Bond could see in the moonlight, and the forest around them was full of animal and insect noises that rather conveniently disguised the sound of their passage, the clink of buckles on machine gun, the dull thump of shifting harness, the tramp of boots on the pathway. Bond could see his Zanzarim bag lashed with a webbing belt on to the rucksack of the soldier in front of him. The fact that it hadn’t been abandoned or thrown away he found somehow reassuring, as if it betokened a future for him, however short-lived.

They walked for about an hour, Bond guessed, before Kobus halted them. He signalled them to crouch down where they were and wait. Bond turned to the soldier behind him.

‘What are we waiting for?’

‘Shut you mouth,’ he said simply.

Bond peered ahead – there was a lightening in the general gloom that would signal a gap in the trees and by craning his neck Bond could see the moonlight striking on what seemed like a strip of asphalt. Then Kobus waved them forward to the very edge of the treeline and Bond was able to get his bearings.

They had reached a road – a typical two-lane, potholed stretch of tarmac with wide laterite verges on each side. This section ran straight with no curves and the light of the moon afforded a good view a couple of hundred yards in each direction. Kobus obviously planned to cross it and pick up their forest path on the far side. However, they sat there in silence another five minutes or so, waiting and listening. Bond calculated that the distance to the other side was no more than thirty yards, maximum, before you reached the dark security of the forest again. It was the middle of the night, for God’s sake, Bond said to himself – what could be so problematic about crossing a road?