Tenth Man Down (24 page)

Authors: Chris Ryan

BOOK: Tenth Man Down

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‘Stick to that line, Phil. Tell her the place is impossible to find. And don’t take it so hard. I know she’s a pain in the arse, but think of it from her point of view. She’s well in the shit, by any reckoning. Friends dead, plane
kaput
. Stuck in the middle of Africa. You can’t blame her for panicking a bit.’

We were heading down to the river crossing again when a volley of shots rattled out from below.

Phil’s eyes lit up. ‘Maybe it’s a counter-attack.’

‘More like someone taking it out on the hippos,’ said Pav.

He, Phil and I were on our way to check things at the mine. Because we’d stood down the OP on the cliff, we had no eyes on the compound, and I wanted to know how Joss and his guys were getting on with the machinery. We also needed to quiz Boisset about the convent.

When we reached the bank, we were pulled up short. The pontoon was on the far side, and the Alpha guys who’d taken charge of it were lounging around, having a brew; but when we called to them to come across for us, they just gave us the fingers.

‘Bastards!’ I muttered. ‘What are they playing at?’ Then I yelled, full force, ‘
Get that boat over here, in double time!
’

At least that made one of them stand up. He started to yell back, and at first we couldn’t understand him. Then we made out, ‘Major Mvula say, no one across.’

‘What the fuck’s going on?’ said Phil, angrily.

‘Turds!’ growled Pav. ‘I’ll wade it. I’ll go over and fucking sort them out.’

‘Nobody’s wading,’ I told him. ‘You didn’t see what happened this morning. The crocs are horrendous. Watch this, though. I’ll soon put the frighteners on them.’

Moving slowly, I unslung my 203 and ostentatiously raised it to my shoulder.

‘Come across now!’ I bellowed. ‘Or I shoot.’

The fellow who’d got up stood looking. The rest didn’t bother to shift. I switched to automatic, aimed a yard to the right of the boat, and put two short bursts into the sandy bank, just at the waterline. The noise and the explosion of spray had the rest of them on their feet, sharpish. They considered doing a runner; we could tell that from the way they looked round behind themselves. But they saw that if they tried to get away, they’d be in our field of fire for at least fifty metres, and they weren’t going to risk it. Seconds later two of them jumped into the ferry, settled at the little club-oars and began hauling themselves over.

‘Listen, Geordie,’ said Pav, urgently. ‘I don’t know what these cunts are up to, but there’s something funny going on. Crossing could be bad news.’

‘You mean, we could get stuck on the wrong side?’

‘Exactly.’

‘Fuck it,’ I said. ‘I’m not taking this kind of shite from Joss. We’re going over.’ Then, as the ferry was approaching, I added quietly, ‘Don’t take it out on these guys. It’s not their fault. They’re only doing what they’ve been told.’

The oarsmen looked scared to hell. Their eyes were rolling all round their heads, anywhere but at me. Plainly they were expecting me to top them at any minute for insubordination, and feed their bodies to the crocs.

‘Take it easy,’ I said quietly as we set off. ‘Let’s just cross.’ I waited till we were halfway over before asking, ‘When did Major Mvula give that order? What time?’

‘Now.’

‘Right now?’

‘Half hour.’

‘Okay.’

On the far side we set off for the hillocks which had been our firing position in the morning – that was the direct approach to the compound – and we headed for the back of the mounds exactly as we had before first light. Until our setback at the ferry, it hadn’t occurred to me that we’d to have creep up on the mine like this for our second visit, but now I thought we’d take a shufti at what was going on before we walked right in.

Just as well. If we’d come into sight at that moment, things could have turned ugly.

‘Fuck me!’ exclaimed Pav under his breath. ‘A kangaroo court.’

Out in the open compound, between the wrecked mesh gates and the main building, a huddle of twelve or so Kamangans were sitting on the ground in a horseshoe. Halfway round the ring, and just outside it, with his back to us, Joss was poised on a metal chair perched atop a packing case, as if on a throne. Opposite the ends of the horseshoe, like the pillar in the middle of a peepsight, a white prisoner was standing bound with rope to an upright wooden stake. Beside him stood another man wielding a heavy stick, and on the ground close by lay a body.

The prisoner was already far gone. His head was lolling forward, chin on chest, and blood was dripping down his chest. As we eased into view Joss screamed some question at him, and when he didn’t answer, the attendant belted him in the ear with his club, rocking his head violently sideways.

‘Jesus!’ breathed Phil. ‘Isn’t that the guy we brought in?’

‘It is.’ I took a deep breath. ‘What do we do?’

My instinct was to take out the whole of the kangaroo court. With three 203s, we could have done it. Joss as well. But I knew we couldn’t start topping the guys we were supposed to be working for.

‘Rounds over their heads!’ Phil urged. ‘Cause a diversion.’ Already he was pushing his rifle into position.

‘No, no!’ went Pav. ‘For fuck’s sake! They’re so fired up, they’d go completely hyper if they thought we were shooting at them. There’s three of us and about fifteen of them, plus more indoors. We’d get massacred.’

We’d arrived just in time for the final act of a violent drama. Joss screamed the same few words again and again in a high tenor voice, almost a falsetto. When the prisoner gave no answer, he stood up and appealed to the assembled court in a burst of impassioned ranting. Without understanding his exact words, we knew what he was asking: guilty or not guilty? In a single roar a dozen voices gave him the answer he was looking for. Instantly he raised his right hand in a kind of Nazi salute and shouted an order. Half his jurors came up on one knee and levelled their AK47s at the prisoner. Another yelp of command, and
cra-cra-crash
! A ragged volley riddled the victim, who jerked backward, then slumped into his ropes, with blood pouring from multiple wounds in the chest.

I shot a glance at Phil. His eyes were gleaming. ‘
Phworrh!
’ he went. ‘Didn’t give the bugger much chance, did they? What the hell did he do?’

‘He was enemy,’ I said, ‘fighting for the Afundis. And he was white. That’s enough.’

We lay still as we watched the court break up and disperse. For the time being adrenalin had cleared my head. I felt apprehensive, but calm.

‘Give ’em a minute or two to cool down,’ I said. ‘If they saw us right now, they might carry on firing.’

‘Let’s pull off,’ Pav suggested.

‘Not a chance,’ I told him. ‘We’re going to sort the bastards out.’

We watched as somebody brought up one of the Gaz jeeps, cut down the body, slung it aboard and loaded up the one already on the ground. The vehicle drove off round the back of the big building, and Joss stalked away into it, throwing strange, dismissive gestures with his right hand. There seemed to be something peculiar about his gait. He was moving stiff-legged, as though on stilts. A couple of squaddies carried away the chair and box that had acted as the seat of judgement.

We gave it five minutes, sweating literally and metaphorically. The afternoon sun beat down on us, and we knew our position was dodgy to a degree. It looked as though Joss was high on something. Power? Drugs? The mercenaries’ hooch? We could have withdrawn and returned later, but that would have entailed loss of face, because sooner or later he’d hear from the boatmen that we’d come across and had been hanging about, too scared to go on. There was only one thing to do: confront him.

We expected to be challenged at the gate, and we were. Two sentries put on a hostile front and barred our way, saying, ‘No visitors to the mine.’ But by then I was quite angry, and the message soon got through. One of them shouted across to the central building, and presently a man came out to wave us across.

‘Chill out,’ I told the others as we went forward. ‘Play it cool.’

We found Joss sitting at a trestle table just inside the big doors, where he seemed to have set up a temporary office. He’d taken off his beret and laid it on one side of the table as he checked names on lists with a corporal standing at his elbow. He looked hot and harassed, and our arrival did nothing to improve his temper.

No cheerful ‘Join the party!’ this time. Instead, he demanded, ‘What do you people want?’

‘Courtesy call,’ I said, easily. ‘We came down to see if you needed any help.’

‘If I want help, I’ll tell you.’

‘Okay, okay.’ Inwardly, I was boiling. Who did this arsehole think he was? Who did he think had planned the attack on the mine in the first place and got his team through it with so few casualties? But all I said was, ‘Sure, but I’d like a word with the old Belgian.’

‘What about?’

‘Private business.’

‘There’s no private business here.’

‘All right, then. I want to ask him about the mission hospital at Msisi.’

‘Msisi? Where’s that?’

‘That’s what I want to find out. Somewhere down river. Whinger’s burns need proper treatment.’

‘Well, you can talk to the man in front of me.’

‘Listen, Joss.’ I kept my voice low, staring into his bloodshot eyes. ‘Watch yourself. I don’t know what’s got into you, but there are one or two things you need to remember. The first is, your president’s getting a full report on this campaign.’

He shot me a glance, but said nothing.

‘We saw you execute those prisoners just now.’

He jerked in his seat, and said angrily, ‘You had no business to be watching.’

‘We didn’t mean to. We stumbled on it. But those shootings might not be entirely to your credit.’

‘The men had been stealing diamonds,’ he said defensively. ‘They were caught with their pockets full of them.’

I felt my scalp prickle, and I said a silent prayer of thanks that I’d fought off the temptation to load up myself.

‘All right,’ I said. ‘The way you maintain discipline’s your business. But I’m also reporting on your attitude in general.’

‘You take it easy!’ He pulled himself upright and swayed about, banging a fist down on the table. ‘Don’t try threatening me. You went into the strongroom. I’ll have you searched as well.’

Still I kept my cool. ‘Search away if you want,’ I said evenly. ‘But I can tell you, there’s no point. I didn’t nick anything, and even if I had, I wouldn’t have it on me now. I’d have hidden it long ago.’

Joss slumped back into his seat. The man was obviously high on something, but the strange thing was I couldn’t smell any alcohol.

I decided to up the voltage a bit, and demanded, ‘Look. What the hell’s the matter with you? Has one of our guys pissed you off or something? What’s got into you? Calm down a bit.’

I saw his broad nostrils flaring with anger. ‘You’re telling a senior officer how to carry on!’ he shouted. ‘You’ve no business to give orders!’

From close beside me, on my right, Phil uttered a strangled curse. I sensed he was on the point of erupting. With his temper, he might thump the Kamangan commander any second.

I turned towards him, silently mouthed ‘For fuck’s sake!’, and then said out loud, ‘I’m not giving orders. I’m talking about common courtesy.’

‘Courtesy!’ yelled Joss, struggling to his feet again. ‘The best courtesy you could show would be to get back to UK, pronto.’

Still I held my cool. ‘If that’s what you want, fine. We’ll start tomorrow. But I don’t think President Bakunda will be very chuffed if our assignment ends prematurely just because you can’t keep your temper.’

The hands on the table top were clenching and unclenching. Beads of sweat were standing out all over the man’s forehead. I stared at him, amazed that he could have changed so completely in such a short time.

He took a deep breath, sat down again, and asked, ‘What is it you want?’

‘Like I said, to speak to Boisset.’

‘All right. We’ll get him. But only in my presence. No private spying conversations.’ Over his left shoulder he gave a rapid order in Nyanja, and the corporal departed for the inner machine sheds.

I almost added, ‘I’ll talk to him anywhere I bloody well like,’ but I bit it back, and asked, ‘While we’re waiting, how many men did the rebels lose in the attack?’

‘Twenty-seven,’ came the prompt answer.

‘All black?’

‘Twenty-five black, two white.’

‘Including the man shot just now?’

He nodded.

‘No other prisoners?’

A shake of the head.

‘What about the other whites?’

‘They got away. But we found where they’d been living. Over there.’ He gestured towards the bungalow.

‘How many?’