Black Pearl (20 page)

Abruptly, he was surrounded by legs dressed in cargo pants. Monstrous three-eyed faces stared down at him like something out of a science fiction movie. Then a huge black hand reached down, lifting the three-pointed headset free. ‘Hi, Captain Mariner,' rumbled Mako. ‘What's happening?' As briefly as he could, Richard explained. But even as he did so, the nearest of the water hyacinth rafts erupted into flame as one of Ivan's men sent a missile out at it.

‘Under the mangroves, hunh?' growled Mako, paying no attention to the spectacular distraction and hunkering down beside Richard. He produced a long, articulated stick with a mini camera on the end of it. ‘Look in this.' He handed Richard what looked like an iPad. He flicked a switch. Richard saw a light-enhanced version of what the camera on the end of the stick could see. With no further comment, Mako pushed the stick down through the mangroves, turning the camera round until Richard could see a tunnel of woven branches. And there – disturbingly close within it – a narrow boat packed with men in a range of bush uniforms. In the bow, crouching low, but unmistakable in his raffia costume and mask, was the god of the dark places, Ngoboi.

‘They're there!' spat Richard. ‘Ngoboi …'

But as he did so, the second raft of water hyacinth seemed to simply vanish and a sizeable Zodiac inflatable appeared. This too was full of men. And, set up on the bow in place of the evil deity, was a tripod. ‘Night glasses!' rapped Richard, and one of Mako's men handed him a pair. He slammed them to his eyes and fixed his gaze on the bow of the Zodiac. He focused until he could see a sleek-looking missile sitting on the tripod, with a guidance system rigged beside it. ‘If they launch that it'll do quite a bit of damage. Are you in contact with Ivan?'

‘Separate systems. Vladimir! Bring up the RPG! The rest of you fall back. He needs twenty metres clearance to be safe!'

‘Warn Zhukov then,' hissed Richard. ‘He can try to get his countermeasures on line while Vladimir sets up.' Mako saw the wisdom in that. Just as everyone else saw the wisdom in his orders and cleared twenty metres behind the kneeling soldier.

It was the fact that the men in the Zodiac were equally careful that saved them, thought Richard a few moments later. The inflatable was suddenly rocking wildly as the Army of Christ men cleared out from the missile's exhaust path. The laser guidance system was thrown off. The operator hesitated.

Ivan must have seen something then, because one of his MANPADS came streaking out of the jungle half a kilometre further upstream, just at the very moment that Vladimir loosed off his RPG. The men on the Zodiac saw the rocket-propelled grenades heading their way and threw themselves into the water. But the man with the launcher fired it anyway then all three weapons came together in one unholy meeting. Thirty kilograms of TNT equivalent all went up together with a flash that blew the Zodiac and its crew to atoms.

But no sooner was that threat neutralized than Richard was on his stomach again, probing through the mangroves with Mako's camera stick, his eyes focused on the square of the hand-held screen in front of him. The sinister, mangrove-walled tunnel was empty. The men he had seen had vanished.

Ngoboi was gone.

R
ichard sat back on his haunches, his mind racing. Where could they have gone?

He turned to Mako. ‘Colonel, can you see anything moving out on the water, just beyond the edge of the vegetation?' Mako eased into a better position, swivelled his alien, almost insect-like head, and focused the night-vision goggles on the outer edge of the mangroves.

‘Nothing,' he rumbled.

Richard hissed with frustration, looking back into the vast blackness of the jungle behind him. You could hide an army in there, if you could avoid the night-vision goggles, he thought bitterly. Ngoboi had come ashore. And there was only one likely target important enough to tempt the angry god. ‘Colonel,' he grated, handing back the camera stick and the handset, ‘we've got to get back to the orphanage as quickly as we can.' He paused, his mind whirling. ‘Except for one patrol. Leave a patrol here to search along the bankside. There's a way down to the river through the mangroves and the undergrowth. It'll be hidden – camouflaged. But it'll be there. And there'll almost certainly be a boat tied up and someone guarding it.' Then he turned and began to work his way back.

Mako stayed crouched in position for a few more moments, giving orders and passing others along, then he rose, motioned to his men and followed Richard. He caught up after a while, his movements speeded by the night-vision goggles, and he fell in at Richard's shoulder. ‘What's your thinking on this?' he rumbled, almost silently.

‘Odem has to hit you before you get settled and ready. Before Kebila can call up air support and anything else he has planned for the morning. But he really has only one target at this moment: Anastasia. If Ngoboi doesn't feed her heart to Odem, then he's not half the god he's supposed to be. And as an instrument of terror and control, he's a busted flush. So he's sent his technicals in across the fields and his Zodiacs down along the river – but they're something of a distraction. He's sneaking a little commando unit undercover to grab Anastasia and anyone else he can get hold of. The more hearts the better.'

‘This Ngoboi sounds like a hungry son of a bitch to me,' rumbled Mako.

‘And then some. Given his head, he's insatiable. And that's the point. With Ngoboi behind him Odem's in total control. No one knows who's next on Ngoboi's list – except for Odem himself, of course. It's a guarantee of sheer, naked power, for as long as the army believe in the magic.'

‘Getting his little team in is one thing,' rumbled Mako, returning to the logistics of the situation. ‘Getting them out again is another – especially if he wants to take prisoners with him.'

‘He'll have thought of that. We keep underestimating him. Odem's no fool. Quite the opposite, in fact.'

Richard's conclusion seemed more than fully borne out as the pair of them led Mako's Russian contingent out into the orphanage's central compound. What had been a bustling encampment was now a deserted ghost town of flapping tents and moaning guy-ropes. The slipways were empty,
Stalingrad
and
Volgograd
out on the wide black water, their searchlights probing the shadows on the stream and along the banks. The tanks, troops and transports were all out in the fields chasing Odem's technicals. Or, at Richard's request, in the jungle along the riverside, watching out for waterborne attacks.

Apart from the restlessness of the wind in the tents, the whole place was eerily silent. The buildings of the orphanage were all in darkness and apparently deserted. That made Richard's blood run cold – in spite of the fact that the wind must be thirty Celsius or warmer. Apart from Anastasia and Robin there should be several nuns, a priest, an imam and a couple of helpers. And the better part of a hundred kids – not counting the twenty or so that made up the army of Amazons that Anastasia, Esan and Ado were apparently training up. That was a lot of people to be sitting silently in the darkness in the middle of a fire fight. He motioned to Mako, and the whole contingent stopped and hunkered down in the shadow of the largest of the tents – the unit refectory tent. ‘Pass the word for any Vympel, Alpha and OMON men,' he whispered, peeping round the square canvas side at the dark, silent buildings.

Half-a-dozen burly Russians answered by moving silently forward.

‘Any of you know about Beslan?' he asked in his lumpy Russian. They all nodded. That figured, he thought. They were all probably too young to have been involved in the notorious school siege of September 2004 themselves, but stories like that get passed down units like family lore. They were the ones likely to have any experience of what this could turn into, he thought grimly. At the very least they'd know what not to do.

‘Zubarov,' one of them introduced himself, taking the lead. ‘We know. We lost seven of the Alpha team and nine Vympel at Beslan. And nearly four hundred hostages, shot, blown up, burned and buried. We're not looking at another Beslan here, are we?' He shuddered.

‘We almost certainly have between ten and a dozen hostiles in charge of the orphanage,' whispered Richard. ‘Possibly a hundred and thirty hostages. They haven't had time to rig explosives and there's no central holding area unless they get them all into the orphanage's refectory building. The enemy's main objective is to get several of them out and away. It'll only become a hostage situation if there's a stand-off.'

‘So our best bet is to stand back,' said Zubarov. ‘Move away, keep a watch and hope they haven't seen us. This tent makes good cover, thank God.'

‘Let them think they're getting away with it,' said Richard. ‘Then hit them when they come out with whoever they kidnap. That'll do as a game plan for now. But …'

‘But?' whispered Mako and Zubarov together.

‘They're being led by a god and a commander, both of whom have to make a statement here. They want to eat the hearts of whoever they take. And probably the rest of them into the bargain. They may not want to leave anyone else alive in the meantime.'

‘That could complicate things,' said Mako. ‘
Immanuel
. God with us …'

The theological discussion was interrupted by an inhuman howl. A long, tortured scream that seemed to echo from the dark depths of the orphanage.

‘That's it,' said Richard. ‘Let's go …'

The whole of Mako's command tensed, ready to move forward
en mass
.

‘
Richard!
' hissed a familiar voice from close at hand. ‘Richard!
Wait!
'

‘
Anastasia?
' gasped Richard, thunderstruck. The whisper was coming through the canvas wall immediately beside him. He eased himself out of his crouch position and moved to the flap. As he did so, Zubarov pulled off his night-vision goggles and handed them up to him, so that when Richard peered through the tent flap into the troop's eating area, he could see quite clearly, even if everything was a submarine green. And what he saw brought him up short. For Odem wasn't the only military commander he kept underestimating.

The tent was filled with everyone missing from the orphanage. The priest and nuns were all seated with groups of frightened children around them. And the whole lot sat safely under the guns of Anastasia's Amazons. As Richard entered, twenty rifle barrels swung towards him. He held his hands up. Anastasia and Robin stepped forward, flanked by Ado and Esan. ‘Has he gone?' breathed Anastasia. ‘I heard him scream and I heard you whispering.'

‘I don't know,' rumbled Richard. ‘But if you're all safe in here then there's nothing stopping us going to have a look …' He stepped out of the tent and crouched beside Mako. ‘The kids are all safe in there under guard,' he hissed. ‘There's nothing stopping us taking a close look at the orphanage.'

‘I'll take Sergeant Zubarov and the men you called forward,' Mako decided. ‘You wait here with the others.
Guard the guards
, to paraphrase Juvenal. Anastasia's guards and the nuns and orphans they are guarding.'

Zubarov held out his hand for his goggles and the Beslan men were gone the instant Richard handed them back. Richard gestured to the rest of the Russians and they fell into a protective cordon round the mess tent, facing out, weapons at the ready. After a moment, Robin stepped silently out and stood at his shoulder. ‘From what I've seen,' she said, her lips and breath hot against Richard's ear, ‘the best this lot can hope for is to keep poor old Ngoboi safe from Anastasia and her Amazons.'

But the wry little exchange was hardly over before the lights in the orphanage building came on and Mako's unmistakable
basso profundo
voice called in English, ‘Captain Mariner. Ask Miss Asov to come here, would you?' The three of them headed towards the bright building at a trot and walked in through the doorway Richard had run out of a couple of hours earlier, still shrugging on his shirt. This time the doorway was half blocked by a three-quarter-size figure of Ngoboi. The mask and raffia costume had been hung on the wooden slats of a bed roughly lashed together into a sticklike manikin. But the thing still seemed to ooze an eerie sense of threat. Especially as the restless river wind made it seem to dance. ‘Take it out,' ordered Anastasia at once. ‘It is a Poro curse. If any of the children see it they will be afraid to come in here.'

‘I know what it is,' rumbled Mako like a distant thunderstorm. ‘I am Thoma myself. Thoma is the third of the great societies of our country. But I cannot allow this to stand. Nor this.' He gestured Anastasia to follow him and led the way down the corridor as Zubarov and one of the others took the makeshift Ngoboi out into the darkness and away.

Anastasia's bedroom was a mess. But not a random one. Her walls had been daubed with bright red splotches of blood. The floor was covered in strange patterns and complicated footprints as though a wild dance had taken place in here. Her bed was covered in blood – but the blood had been used to draw the rough shape of a splayed body. Where the eyes would have been, two long black stone daggers had been thrust into the pillow. Where the throat would have been was a thick red line of blood. Where the thighs would have joined, a huge ebony phallus had been thrust into the bedding with enough force to rupture the mattress. And where the heart would have been there was a gaping, blood-rimmed hole.

‘Christ, girl,' said Robin, horror-struck. ‘Ngoboi certainly seems to have some sick plans for you.'

Anastasia looked down. She snapped the safety off her assault rifle. ‘And I have plans for him, the
ebanatyi pidaraz
,' she swore. She turned on her heel and stormed out into the night, with Richard and Robin at each shoulder. The whole camp was bathed in security lighting now. The two hovercraft still prowled along the nearest river reach, searchlights on full-beam and weapons at the ready. The battle in the farmland seemed to have stopped.