Dark Heart (23 page)

When Caleb came scrambling back down the collapsed bank, carrying a T-shirt and a camouflage jacket, he found her gazing in wonder into the bag. She looked up at him, wide-eyed. ‘There must be thirty more oysters in here,' she said. ‘Maybe more. Looks as though whatever else happens, someone's going to get a necklace out of this. A black pearl necklace.'

C
olonel Laurent Kebila looked at Anastasia Asov in thoughtful silence. ‘You have always had a reputation for resourcefulness,' he said at last in his beautifully modulated Sandhurst English. ‘But you are beginning to stretch my credulity now.'

‘But it's true. Every word! It's what has happened to me since the Army of Christ the Infant attacked.'

‘The whole truth?' he probed gently.

‘
Yes!
' Anastasia's eyes slid away from the colonel's steady gaze, however. A simple gesture that undermined his faith in her truthfulness almost fatally. And she knew it. But what could she do? She had never felt anything but trust and respect for the soldier sitting opposite her, leaning forward across his desk, his swagger stick resting beside the cooling coffee cups and empty plate of chocolate digestive biscuits, the CCTV monitor patched into his laptop still showing the picture of the cell they had held her in until he came down to fetch her. To rescue her.

But even Kebila could not be relied on to see that Esan was no longer a murderous child-soldier to be detained at once, or to be shot like a rabid dog if he resisted for a second. That, instead, he needed congratulating, helping and rewarding. So she had been very circumspect indeed in her version of how the young man had fallen in with them before he began to prove the valuable friend and helper he now was. And that one omission, that one flaw in her story, was in danger of undermining the whole thing.

‘Well,' he said at last, ‘we can start by checking some details that are closer to hand. Begin at the end of your story, so to speak, and then work our way back to the start of it, fact by fact. Captain Christophe is in our holding facility. We can talk to him immediately . . .'

But that eminently sensible course of action was another problem for her. Not because of what Captain Christophe might say or do – but because of what he had said and done already. Specifically, what he had said about the men who might be coming after them. Who might be aboard
Nellie
now, asking about their absent friends and missing cargo. And chopping off hands while they did so.

‘Please, Colonel,' she said. ‘Check on the captain later. Check on
Nellie
first.'

Kebila looked at her thoughtfully for a moment longer, then he said, ‘Very well. I will order a squad to accompany us,' sounding to the squirming Anastasia like a parent who knows his child is lying but is willing to give them enough rope to hang themselves. Been there, done that, she thought.

But once again Anastasia found herself with a problem. If Esan saw a squad of soldiers coming down the jetty he would either turn tail or open fire. ‘Why do we need a squad?' she said, feeling her eyes sliding guiltily away from his once again and fighting to hold his gaze like an honest person would. ‘Surely we can check on the existence of an ancient riverboat and a couple of youngsters without back-up.'

‘Hmmm . . .' he said. ‘Very well.'
More rope.
He picked up a phone handset and spoke into it without dialling. ‘Car and driver,' he ordered. ‘Sergeant Major Tchaba, I think.' He hung up, looked at her for a moment longer then said, ‘Right. Let's go.' He picked up a cellphone, checked that it was on and slipped it into his uniform jacket pocket. Then he rose and led her across to the door of his office. Here he paused for a moment and lifted a Sam Browne off a coat stand. As he ushered her out and followed her down towards the front of the building, he slipped the wide belt and shoulder strap securely into place, and patted the leather holster that now sat snugly on his right hip.

The car was waiting for them beyond the security gates at the main entrance, its engine running. A huge soldier sat in the driver's seat and, as she followed Kebila into the back, Anastasia noticed that he had several powerful-looking weapons on the passenger's seat at his side. ‘I don't think you've met Sergeant Major Tchaba before,' said Kebila easily. ‘Though given the range of your adventures in my country I wouldn't be surprised if you had. He is the diplomatic solution to both our requirements, I think. A one-man army.'

Anastasia's irritation at having been outmanoeuvred vanished the instant Sergeant Major Tchaba pulled up behind the ruined office complex that led down to the jetty and the marina beyond. For a battered flat bed truck had appeared from nowhere and was sitting parked with arrogant disregard for the law half on and half off the pavement. Something about it made Anastasia fear the worst. ‘I'd bring as many of those as you can carry,' she said to Tchaba, nodding to the guns. ‘Just in case . . .'

Tchaba looked back at Kebila and the colonel nodded.

Suddenly full of the most terrifying premonitions, Anastasia hurried the two soldiers down the hill through the apparent hurricane damage, therefore, too focussed on
Nellie
to register properly the fact that Tchaba was limping. She did notice, however, that he was checking and preparing his considerable arsenal of weapons as he moved. But as she reached the landward end of the little jetty where the venerable riverboat was moored, she slowed, frowning. Kebila closed up behind her, and Tchaba stepped closer behind the pair of them, his hands at last still as the quiet clicking and cocking and sliding of metal on metal was done.

It was then that she realized two things. Firstly and most worryingly, there was the sound of moaning coming from
Nellie
. It wasn't all that loud, but it was enough to carry over the lapping of the waves and the stirring of the hulls and the tapping of the rigging nearby. Secondly and almost comically, she realized that Tchaba had a false foot. It hit the ground with a decided
thump
each time he took a limping step. Under almost every circumstance this would not have mattered. But Anastasia wanted more than anything to approach
Nellie
unsuspected, along a wooden jetty, its hollowness likely to amplify any sound made on the boards that made up its surface.

‘The sergeant has to wait here!' she breathed. ‘We have to get aboard as quietly as possible. Can't you hear?'

Kebila nodded once. Prepared to move forward.

‘I need a gun,' she whispered.

Kebila paused. She could feel the weight of his speculative gaze on her. The moaning from
Nellie
intensified. Someone started counting in Matadi. Neither sound was pleasant.

‘Ten . . . Nine . . .'

He nodded again. Tchaba passed her a boxy pistol. She recognized it as a Browning BDM. The same as the one with which General Moses Nlong had shot Celine. How apt.

‘Cocked,' whispered the sergeant. ‘One in the chamber. Fourteen in the clip. Double action mode – just keep pulling the trigger.'

‘. . . Eight . . .'

She nodded and was off. Imagining herself to be as light as Tania the Fairy Queen from long-past childhood stories, she ran on tiptoe along the thankfully silent planks, holding the Browning two-handed out in front of her, level with her groin, pointing downwards, at the end of her straight arms, completely unconscious of Sergeant Tchaba's approving, respectful nod.

‘. . . Seven . . .'

She was aware of Kebila behind her, but only on an almost psychic level – he was making no more noise than she was. So she was able to hear the rough male Matadi voice saying, ‘. . . Six . . .'

At the seaward end of the jetty she paused again.

‘. . . Five . . .'

The moon gave enough light for her to see that
Nellie
's deck was stirring as the waves came in at the top of the tide. Her weight would not make much difference as she stepped aboard. Nor would Kebila's if they timed it right. And the deck boards were solid and unlikely to creak. Even so, she kicked off her flip-flops just in case. She looked across at Kebila and he nodded, understanding. They waited for a down-swoop . . .

‘. . . Four . . .'

. . . and stepped aboard.

Steadying himself against the up-swoop of the next wave in, Kebila went for the bridge house and the companionway that would take him below, as Anastasia paused for a heartbeat and looked around the familiar deck.

‘. . . Three . . .'

Anastasia was in motion, flitting like a moth towards the column of brightness that soared like a faint square searchlight up from the skylight that gave brightness to the cabin below. Both of them moved like ghosts and the good old planks of the deck did not let them down.

‘. . . Two . . .'

Anastasia stood, spraddle-legged, looking down into the cabin through the glass skylight. She could see Ado, her blouse gone, sitting at the table with her hands stretched out before her, tied by cord which pulled them tight. Beside her, foreshortened by the fact that Anastasia was looking straight down from above his head, stood the man who was counting. And he was holding a matchet above Ado's wrists. Anastasia risked a quick glance across at Kebila who was crouching ready to go down the companionway at double speed. She looked back. The man with the matchet had a bald spot right at the top of his skull. She aimed at that.

‘. . .
One
. . .' said the man beside Ado, and raised the matchet, two-handed.

Ado screamed.

Anastasia pulled the trigger. The Browning's bullet exploded in through the skylight and hit the man on the top of the head with all the force of a baseball bat. It went straight through his skull and body, slamming into the deck between his feet. He sat down as though a huge weight had suddenly landed on his shoulders, dropping the matchet as he did so. He flopped backwards and lay still. It all happened so fast that glass was still falling on his prone body.

Anastasia looked for Kebila but he was gone. She heard the flat report of his gun, the thud of another body falling and then silence. Except for the moaning. ‘Come down,' he called. ‘Quickly.'

She arrived in the cabin to see Kebila standing beside the body of a second man, trying with limited success to untie something that looked like fishing line hanging tautly from a hook in the cabin ceiling. And she saw in a flash why it was important he should do so. The lower end of the line was secured round Esan's scrotum and the boy was half-hanging, bent like a bow, face-up, with his trousers round his ankles, on the bunk below. His eyes were rolled back so only the whites were showing and it was he who was moaning. Which didn't surprise her at all. She crossed the cabin in four swift steps and caught up the matchet that had been destined one second later to have severed Ado's hands. She stepped past Kebila and cut the line. Esan collapsed back on to the bed. His moans became a howl of agony. He clutched himself and rolled on to his side. Anastasia slammed the matchet blade down again and Ado's hands were free. Ado was on top of Esan immediately, covering him protectively with her body. Which, Anastasia noticed now, was battered, bruised, bleeding in one or two places, and also naked.

‘You know, I'm beginning to find your story a little easier to believe,' Kebila admitted in a grimly conversational tone.

Sergeant Tchaba came stomping through the door like Long John Silver. ‘Three for the hospital and one for the morgue,' said Kebila, ‘and I think we'd better prepare the interrogation cell at headquarters.' And Anastasia registered for the first time that the man at the colonel's feet was still alive.

‘So,' said Kebila twenty minutes later as the ambulance wailed off into the distance, while Tchaba engaged the gears and eased the colonel's staff car into motion. ‘You managed to get away from those gentlemen's colleagues in the good ship
Nellie
, dropped Celine Chaka off at the clinic in Malebo and came straight back down here to alert the authorities about smugglers, rapists – mostly deceased – and secret armies overrunning sections of the jungle unsuspected.'

‘Yes,' she said shortly. ‘I told you. The same as I told you about the men who might be coming after
Nellie
. And I was right about that, wasn't I?'

‘Indeed. However, there are still elements in your narrative I find hard to believe,' he said. ‘Even making allowances for the fact that it is
you
who are at the heart of it all. Logic dictates that, if everything you say is true, I should wake up the president and get some sort of expeditionary force up there. But it is –' he consulted his watch – ‘still two hours until dawn. And the president will not thank me for disturbing him at this time of night without absolutely incontrovertible proof. Especially as we happen to have a Shaldag fast patrol boat in the area and we haven't heard a whisper out of them about any of this so far. But we are conveniently situated to get an update on their latest contact. Naval headquarters, please, Sergeant.'

Kebila's presence was like a magic pass. The car was waved through the security gate and into the golden aura of the security lighting. As it passed, the guard slammed to attention and saluted. Tchaba parked in a bay marked ‘Commanding Officer Only' and then waited while Kebila led Anastasia into a three-storey white-painted box of a building with a display of antennas and dishes on its roof that would have flattered GRU headquarters on Khoroshevskiy Highway in Moscow. The security guard on the door also slammed to attention and waved them through like his colleague on the gate. The twenty-four-hour communications room was on the third floor and the pair of them ran lightly up the stairs side by side. The officer in charge leaped to his feet and was halfway to attention when Kebila said, ‘That will do, Lieutenant. I'm here to see the latest communication from Shaldag FPB004, not to hold some kind of an inspection.'