Recoil (13 page)

I shook my head in disbelief. ‘Just as well you didn’t become a vicar. Their company houses aren’t a patch on this.’

‘I work as a peacemaker, Nick.’ He motioned towards Mimi and Vegas. ‘Dog collars are for dogs.’

‘You on the circuit?’

We walked along the hall and into the kitchen. He opened a huge, stainless-steel, double-doored fridge. ‘No, no, none of that rubbish. That’s Crazy Dave’s end of the market. What we do is a wee bit more sophisticated.’

He was waiting for me to fold. Fuck it, I’d held out for a while and, besides, it got us away from Zaïre. ‘Who’s “we”? I know them?’

He was happy now. ‘There are four others on the team. You know one of them for sure, and might remember another.’ He passed me a cold can of Castle. ‘Come on, then, tell all. I want to know what you’ve been getting up to.’

That was fine by me: it put more distance between us and the shit can. ‘Bit of this, bit of that. I worked for the Firm for a while, then the Yanks.’ I took a mouthful of lager.

‘You did the Iraq gigs?’

‘Madness not to. What about you? Where do you keep the peace most days?’

‘Security for a mine in DRC. We fly to the Rwanda border and conduct operations into DRC from the base camp.’ He lost the sparkle in his eyes for a moment, and I had the strange impression that his red skin had gone a shade lighter. ‘It’s a nightmare up there, Nick. The miners need protecting, the communities need protecting.’ He touched my arm. This stuff was coming from the heart. ‘But tell me about the girl.’

I toyed with my beer can as I wondered whether to give him the truth. If he was fucking me about, I still needed to make sure I got on that flight. The next step would be begging. Maybe that was what he wanted from me. ‘This isn’t just a job, Sam. She’s important to me. I have to get her out of Nuka.’

He shook his head slowly. ‘Not a healthy place, Nick. Everyone’s getting slaughtered left, right and centre. But I’ll take you in.’

‘I don’t know what I’d do without her.’ Fuck. Where did that come from? So much for keeping things under wraps . . .

Sam eyed me with real concern. Eventually he resorted to the shoulder-clapping routine and changed the subject. ‘Let’s worry about that tomorrow. I’ll show you round.’

He ushered me through a door into his own private cinema. A giant plasma screen filled the far wall. A dozen La-Z-Boy armchairs faced it, and there was a bar tucked into the corner.

‘I’ve got my own church now. We educate, medicate, protect – and keep the Lord high on their agendas.’

I didn’t run for the hills, these days, when God came up in conversation. I’d worked out long ago that the afterlife was just a comfort blanket for people who didn’t know what the fuck was going on and needed to believe there was some sort of reasoning behind it all, be they Christian, Jew, Muslim or Seventh Day Jehovah’s Buddhist. Me? I was glad I was too stupid to worry about the meaning of life. I just wanted to keep mine going as long as I could.

I glanced at the row of photos on the wall behind the bar. ‘This the church?’

All I could see was a jumble of mud huts with palm-leaf roofs and a few crosses hanging over the doorways. In the foreground, a bunch of kids were grappling with a goat, up to their knees in mud.

‘Not exactly. That’s Nuka, in fact, an orphanage I also run.’

‘I still don’t quite understand how God fits in with your private enterprise. God and gun?’ I indicated the opulence around us. ‘Where’s the join?’

‘It’s wrong to think of it like that. The two are totally compatible. What good could I do without the cash? This house means nothing. It’s not mine, nor will it ever be. It comes with a job that I take very seriously because it gets me to the people who need my help and provides the money to run the church, to run Nuka . . .’ He saw the expression on my face and held up his hand. ‘Yes, it’s near the mine. We’ll get to her, don’t you worry.’

We went out on to a terrace overlooking the sea. The sun had just about sunk into it now. A woman was laying a table for two. Crystal glasses, gleaming candelabra, big linen napkins.

Sam looked pleased. ‘I thought we’d get the company silver out and celebrate with a few courses of mealie-meal and Milo. Then maybe a movie. Very romantic, eh?’

4

Sunday, 11 June

05:58 hours

We’d left the house nearly an hour ago and I was feeling good, even if my cell hadn’t made a squeak all night. At least I was getting closer to where I needed to be. We’d driven through the golf course, past security and out on to the metalled road in pitch darkness. We’d turned off after twenty minutes, and for the last ten Sam’s shiny new company BMW X5 had been bouncing along a dirt track. A sliver of light was peeping over the horizon.

Behind the blacked-out windows, we listened to an early-morning talk-show. The only other sound was the gentle hum of the air-conditioning. The station said there was a festival and wine-tasting up in Stellenbosch this afternoon, but I knew at least three people who wouldn’t be going. By the time the organizers were pulling the first cork, Sam, Lex and I should be on the Rwanda–DRC border and less than fifty K from Nuka.

I breathed in the aroma of brand new leather. Sam and I had spent the evening being served roast beef and fine wines. He seemed to have become a bit of a connoisseur. I couldn’t believe the transformation – but not everything about him had changed. He still thought God had created the earth, and that he needed to save everyone’s souls. Even the DVD we watched after dinner was a fund-raiser he’d put together.

I believed him when he said that the house, even the BMW, meant nothing to him. We’d spent all night talking about how he’d stayed in Africa after the 1985 job and worked for different aid organizations. Not once did he ask me about Zaïre; there were no more leading questions.

I suddenly realized I had to talk to him. ‘Sam?’

‘What?’ He adjusted the air.

‘The thing that happened on the heli, the boy . . . I need to talk about it.’

‘I know.’ He kept looking straight ahead.

‘I couldn’t hold him. I need you to know that. The little fucker was too slippery.’

‘I know.’

‘I couldn’t help Annabel. That fucking arsehole Standish, you see what he did?’

Sam nodded. We hadn’t talked about him all night. It was just as well. I’d still be honking and banging the table.

‘After the boy fell it was too late – I couldn’t get off the heli in time.’

‘I know that too.’

‘So why do I feel so guilty?’ I paused. ‘Do you know that too?’

‘Because you can’t get the sight of those kids’ corpses out your head. I do know that, because I can’t either. That’s why my life has been here ever since. I want to make up for killing those children. I want to make sure the ones who are still alive don’t have to suffer like the ones we killed. But you don’t have to feel guilty, Nick. We didn’t know. This is just my particular way of dealing with it.’

‘Thanks.’

‘No thanks needed, son. Do you want to know what happened to the others?’

‘No,’ I lied. I’d always wanted to know about the boy.

‘Really?’

‘I know Annabel didn’t make it. Not sure I’m ready to hear the rest.’

We rounded a bend in the dirt track. ‘OK. Just let me know when you are.’ Sam tapped the wheel. ‘In the meantime, this is us.’

I could make out a cluster of breezeblock buildings, topped by a couple of antennas and a sat dish. The rest of the skyline was dominated by the massive silhouettes of two four-prop Antonov An12s.

The Russian version of our C130 Hercules, the An12 had the same shape as most tactical transport aircraft, essentially a huge tube with a ramp at the back. The only real differences were the amount of glass in the nose, which made it look like a Second World War Heinkel bomber, and the pair of 23mm cannon protruding from the rear of the fuselage – it looked like Donald Duck’s bill had been stuck on the aircraft’s arse.

The rear ramp was down on the nearest. Three or four trucks milled around, loading up what I assumed was the cargo Lex had been waiting for.

The ageing Antonovs were relics from the bad old Cold War days. They were now dotted around every ex-Communist African country you could name, and a good few you probably couldn’t. As we got closer it was clear that this faded dark green monster had come from Mother Russia: it still had a big red star on the tail fin.

Sam knew what my next question was going to be and laughed. ‘They look weird, don’t they? Lex got the pair on the cheap. One working,’ he pointed to the second aircraft, at the side of the strip, ‘and that one for spares. Low mileage, one careful lady owner. You know the sort of thing.’

We drove to the rear of the building and pulled up alongside a black 4x4 Porsche. Sam shook his head. ‘Lex’s penis extension. A bit too flash for me.’ He jumped out. The sun hadn’t cleared the treeline yet and it was still a bit chilly.

I followed him to the back of the BMW. He lifted the tailgate and pulled out his green daysack with a blue, hard-plastic wheelie suitcase, the sort that fits into overhead lockers. It was so new it still had the sale tag on the handle.

I threw my holdall over my shoulder. ‘Does he charge for excess luggage as well?’

Donald’s bill jutted out over a truck that was backed up to the ramp. The 23mms were still in place. The early-morning sun glinted off the scratched Perspex canopy and the oversized belts of brass link inside.

Lex jumped down to greet us. He shoved a sat phone into its belt carrier, rubbed his hands and inspected the sky. ‘Turned out nice again, eh?’ For people working in hot climates, it was the oldest cliché in the book, but it still made me smile.

I glanced beyond him at the long aluminium containers being stowed in the belly of the aircraft. They were offloaded on to pallet trolleys then hauled up the ramp. By the looks of it, each one weighed a ton. ‘What’s the cargo, Lex?’

‘Just food, water, that sort of stuff. General shit. It’s a fresh day for the lads. I tell you, I’ve got enough steak in the back there to open a restaurant chain.’

‘How many people work for this mining company, then?’

He turned away. ‘Don’t bore me with that stuff, man. Me, I just play with the joystick. No names, no pack drill.’

He jumped back on the ramp and disappeared. I wanted to ask Sam what was really in the containers, but thought better of it. They weren’t full of prime fillet, that was for sure.

The BMW and the Porsche were being driven away. ‘Doesn’t Lex come back here after he drops off?’

‘He’s got to go elsewhere.’ One of the engines began to whine. ‘And I’m not due back for a few weeks myself.’

The stench of aviation fuel filled my nostrils and a flock of startled birds lifted from the trees as the other three engines sparked up. The truck moved away and I followed Sam up the ramp. My trainers crunched on the layer of dark red grit that covered the floor. It looked as if the other place Lex had been going to was Mars.

The interior was stripped of all essentials, not that it would have left the showroom with too many in the first place. There were no seats and no padding over the alloy skin of the fuselage. It was stacked to head height with aluminium containers and plastic iceboxes.

I pointed at a big blue one. ‘Don’t tell me. Steaks?’

‘Yeah. Steaks, eggs – and it’s a dry job, but on a fresh day we have a few beers.’

I spotted several cases of Castle. Sam grinned. ‘Aye, I’ve done the PRI shop.’

The engines coughed and all four props spun. The PRI was a shopping system we used in the Regiment, but I’d never had a clue what the initials stood for. All I knew was that every garrison had one, and if you were in the field and it was a fresh day, people would go off to the PRI and come back with half a supermarket. Normally you’d get a fresh day in every seven or ten; you could ask for your Colgate and Ambre Solaire on top, and the bill would be raised at the end of the trip.

A loadmaster squeezed between us and the containers, a big pair of cans over his ears and a boom mike in front of his mouth. He yanked on all the webbing straps to check.

‘How many guys working, Sam?’

‘Not enough, Nick. Not yet.’

The ramp lifted with an electric whine. The loadmaster plugged his cable into a socket in the fuselage and spoke rapidly into his mike. I guessed Lex was at the other end.

The four props came up to speed.

Through one of the round portholes I could see a cloud of dirt getting kicked up behind. No wonder they’d had their shiny new vehicles taken away.

Sam threw me a bundle of green parachute silk and para cord and unwound one of his own. It was like being back in the Regiment, in the back of a C130, except that, with only two of us, there wasn’t going to be a fight for prime position. This was normally anywhere over the ramp, because there was nothing stacked on the floor there, and you had enough room for the hammock to sag and swing.

The props screamed and the aircraft shuddered. We rumbled down the airstrip.

I leaned close to Sam’s ear. ‘How long’s it going to take?’

‘Seven hours.’ He had to shout. ‘Might as well get your head down.’