The Perfect Soldier (3 page)

‘She’s my partner. We live together.’

‘And does she work for Terra Sancta too?’

‘No, but she thought, under the circumstances—’ He broke off, uncomfortable again.

‘Moral support?’

‘Yes.’

Molly looked at Liz. Liz wore the smile of someone who didn’t quite know what was coming next. Molly extended a hand, touching her lightly on the arm.

‘I’m very grateful,’ she said, ‘to both of you.’ She looked
at Robbie again. ‘I’ll need your help. I’m glad you came.’

‘Of course, Mrs Jordan. Anything.’

‘Thank you.’

Molly stood up and went to the window. The frost had gone now, and the chickens were patrolling the edge of the lawn, looking for scraps. Beyond the fence, in the field, she could see the four sheep they’d reared from lambs. She thought of her son again, his two years at agricultural college, his impatience to get out into what he called the real world. Desk work had always bored him, too dull, not enough action. She reached for the tap, sluicing her mug.

‘Muengo, wasn’t it? The place James worked?’

‘Yes.’

‘You know it at all?’

‘Yes. I was out in March.’

‘Good,’ she glanced round at him, ‘then maybe you can tell me how I get there …’

The hear bubbled up from the baked red earth and Andy McFaul eased down on his hands and knees, reaching for the thermos of iced water. His left leg was cramping again, up above the knee, same place as before. Nearly time to stop, he thought. Nearly time for Domingos to take over.

He lifted the visor on the big ballistic helmet, sipping the water, then wiped his mouth and glanced back over his shoulder. An avenue of red-tipped stakes marked the extent of his morning’s work: ten more metres of this shit-hole cleared of mines, another tiny patch of Angola painstakingly made safe. The mines he’d found and defused lay where he’d dug them out, an irregular row of dark green hockey pucks, no bigger than a man’s fist, upended in the dust. Thirteen down, he thought grimly. Twenty million to go.

Up on the road, safely out of blast range, the Angolan reached for a pair of binoculars and McFaul lifted a tired arm, circling one finger in the air, a private signal which meant he was nearly through. Four more minutes, he thought. Then it’ll be Domingos’s turn.

He sat back for a moment or two on his haunches, rubbing his leg, feeling the cramp beginning to ease. They’d been working this site for five days now, opening another path to the river bank. If the rumours of a big new UNITA offensive were true then the aid organisations would pull everyone out of Muengo, and if that happened then the locals would be on their own again. Little food, no fuel to cook with, and an ever-greater reliance on the loop of sluggish brown water that girdled the city to the north. With luck, the demining teams could make it in time. Especially if UNITA held off.

McFaul lowered the visor again and stretched for the bucket by his side, splashing more water to soften the parched earth. Summer had come early this year, a succession of cloudless days that had taken the temperature into the high eighties. With power supplies non-existent, and fuel for the generator scarce, even life after dark had become a series of impossible challenges: how to stay cool, how to stay sane, how to relax and take your mind off the world’s worst job.

McFaul shrugged, and began to probe the darkened earth, back on his belly again, reaching forward, sliding the bayonet into the soil, inserting it obliquely, maintaining an angle of between fifteen and thirty degrees. Survival at this game meant sticking to a handful of rules: not hurrying, not cutting corners, learning to trust the simplest of technologies. While the mines got smarter by the year – non-metal construction, clever camouflage, sophisticated anti-disturbance devices – the guys who were left to clear them up had to rely on
eighteen inches of bare metal and their own powers of concentration. To anyone watching, McFaul knew he must look weird, shuffling slowly forward on his hands and knees, testing every inch of soil with the bayonet, in out, in out, time after time. If there was such a thing as Zen gardening, then this was surely it.

McFaul emptied the last of the water from the bucket, eyeing the patch of dampened earth. On top of his overalls, he wore a heavy black waistcoat, specially woven body-armour, and he could feel the sweat running down his chest towards his belly. The waistcoats were compulsory now, standard kit in the minefields. Some of the guys called them ‘LCV’s, a glum, fingers-crossed acronym for ‘Last Chance Vests’, and after Kuwait, McFaul knew why.

He felt the bayonet snag, the faintest tremor, and he eased the blade out, readjusting his position before inserting it again, the same line. Keeping the bayonet at a shallow angle meant that when you found a mine you were likely to make contact with the side of the thing, away from the sensitive pressure pad on top. The pressure pad was the bit you stood on. Even the weight of a child’s foot would be enough to set it off.

McFaul began to work the soil away, using a soft, camel-hair paintbrush, tiny circular movements, gradually exposing the mine. It was the same kind as the others he’d disinterred, a Chinese Type 72A, a tiny thing, no bigger than a tin of shoe polish. Inside, it contained six ounces of high explosive, not the biggest bang in the world but quite enough to take your foot off. Mines like the 72A were perfect for a war like this, and a bargain too if you had three dollars to spare and weren’t too fussy about the ethics of maiming women and children.

McFaul scraped away the last of the soil, lifting the mine
gently from its bed. Keeping it level, he began to unscrew the top of the body, working the casing anticlockwise. Inside, he removed the tiny metal booster cup, the primary charge which detonated the larger explosive. Putting the booster cup to one side, he screwed the two halves together again, leaving the mine standing sideways on edge, a signal to the clean-up crew that the 72A was disarmed. Later, before the kids got hold of it, the thing would be collected for storage and eventual demolition.

McFaul eased his body backwards and then stood up, his eyes still on the mine. The design was simple but clever. The rubber pad on top rested against a convex carbon-fibre diaphragm which would buckle under the pressure of a passing foot. In Cambodia, the locals called them
‘ungkiaps’. ‘Ungkiap’
meant frog, a reference to the distinctive ‘crick-crack’ of the collapsing diaphragm the instant before it detonated the charge and changed your life for ever.

McFaul stooped to retrieve the bucket and the thermos and then limped back along the safe lane between the stakes. Up on the road, Domingos was standing beside a Land Rover, talking to the driver. The usual crowd of kids had gathered round and some were already climbing onto the back of the vehicle, doubtless looking for goodies, stuff to play with, things to nick. As he got closer, McFaul could hear them chattering to each other, curiosity spiced with shrieks of excitement. He loved their innocence, their appetite for each new day, and their laughter was one of the sounds of Africa that drew him back, time after time, in spite of everything.

Domingos turned round when McFaul reached the Land Rover. He was a small, quick-witted man in his early thirties with a ready smile and a mouth full of broken teeth. He was paler than most Angolans, and McFaul suspected Portuguese
blood, a generation or two back. Now he introduced the stranger behind the wheel.

‘Senhor Peterson,’ he said. ‘From Luanda.’

McFaul muttered a greeting, loosening the buckle on the helmet strap and taking it off. He ran a hand through his greying crew cut, aware of Peterson’s eyes on his face. McFaul’s chin and cheeks were cross-hatched with blue shrapnel scars, a legacy of the accident in Kuwait. They went with the plastic and titanium prosthesis that had replaced the shredded remains of his lower left leg. The prosthesis was state-of-the-art, a real masterpiece, and on a good day McFaul could walk as naturally as any man.

Peterson got out of the Land Rover, extending a hand. He was dressed like a war correspondent. He wore a loose khaki jacket with epaulettes and big button-up pockets, and the logo on the T-shirt underneath read ‘Kill The Criminal Justice Bill’. He was a tall man, with a long, narrow face and a shock of iron-grey hair, and he had the pallor of someone newly arrived from Europe. His manner was intimate, as if he were greeting a long-lost friend.

‘The famous McFaul,’ he was saying, ‘bit of a legend, the way I hear it.’

McFaul shrugged. The phrase was familiar. It made little sense.

‘You fly in this morning?’ he said, wiping his hand on the back of his overalls.

‘Yep. Begged a lift on the WFP Beechcraft. I thought they’d be staying over but they’ve gone on to Cubal.’

McFaul nodded. The big Russian freighters and smaller planes like the Beechcraft were still landing at Muengo but soon he suspected they’d stop. Local rebel units were supposed to have laid hands on American
Stinger
ground-to-air missiles. A
Stinger
could drop an Antonov at three miles. No one liked coming to Muengo any more.

McFaul bent down, his arms held out straight, letting Domingos tug the heavy armoured waistcoat off. Peterson watched the procedure. The smile on his face looked strained.

‘I’m with Terra Sancta,’ he said at last. ‘Acting CR.’

McFaul accepted Domingos’s proffered towel, mopping his face. CR meant Country Representative, one of the rungs in Terra Sancta’s administrative ladder. The man would have a rented house back on the coast in Luanda and responsibility for maybe thirty aid workers. It was an important job, far from easy, and McFaul began to understand why Peterson’s smile seemed so tight.

‘You’re here about last night? The boy? Jordan?’

‘Yes.’

‘You want my opinion?’

‘Your help.’

‘How?’

Peterson glanced at Domingos then took McFaul by the arm, trying to guide him away from the Land Rover. Instinctively, McFaul resisted the pressure, wanting no part of any confidential conversation. For once, Domingos wasn’t smiling.

‘You’ll be writing some kind of report?’ Peterson asked.

‘Of course.’

‘May I see it?’

‘Yeah, when it’s done.’

‘Who else gets a copy?’

McFaul looked at him a moment, at last understanding why he’d bothered to stop by.

‘My lot,’ he grunted. ‘The office in Luanda. The embassy people. The ODA …’ he shrugged, ‘and whoever else my boss thinks may be interested. Up to him really.’

He paused, letting the circulation list sink in. The ODA was shorthand for the Overseas Development Administration, the Whitehall department responsible for funding the mine clearance work. They had close links to all the UK aid
outfits. Peterson began to make a point about the importance of proper briefings but McFaul interrupted him.

‘Jordan was an arsehole,’ McFaul grunted, ‘and he’d done it before.’

‘So I understand. All I wanted to say was—’

‘No.’ McFaul shook his head. ‘You listen to me. There are rules out here. We don’t make them up to keep ourselves amused. They’re not for negotiation. They matter. There are things you do and don’t do. The boy thought he was immune. He knew it all. He wouldn’t be told.’

‘Of course.’

‘You understand that?’

‘Yes.’

‘Your people understand that?’

‘I hope so.’

‘So do I. For their sake. And yours.’

McFaul turned away, letting his anger subside. Last night, after the Mayday on Channel Two, he’d driven out with Domingos in the two-tonner. They’d spent the hours of darkness by the roadside, waiting until first light to spade the remains of James Jordan into a body bag. The Médecins Sans Frontières girl, Christianne, had done what she could to help, insisting on staying with them until the body had been recovered, but the price of the boy’s stupidity, his recklessness, was plain to see. Everyone knew how much the prat had meant to her. Poor cow.

McFaul stood at the roadside, looking down the line of stakes. Peterson joined him.

‘All I came to say,’ he murmured, ‘was sorry.’

‘Sure.’

‘It can’t make things any easier for you.’

‘It doesn’t.’ McFaul glanced across at him. ‘Are you taking the body back? Only there’s a space problem.’

‘So I understand.’

‘There’s only one fridge at the hospital and they’re short of fuel for the gennie. If the bad guys get their act together, there won’t be any fuel at all. Then we’ll have to bury him.’

McFaul broke off, watching Peterson working it out for himself. Mercifully, very few aid workers got themselves killed but when it happened, repatriation of the remains became a priority. Africa could claim white lives but white bodies, however mangled, belonged back home.

Peterson was looking at his watch.

‘There might be another aid flight this afternoon,’ he said uncertainly. ‘No one seems to know.’

Peterson eyed the sky, like a man assessing the weather. The road to Muengo had been off-limits for months, a combination of land mines and the fear of UNITA ambush. The only way in or out was by air.

‘It’s Sunday afternoon,’ McFaul grunted, ‘no one likes flying on Sunday afternoons.’

‘Tomorrow then. Or the next day. Would that be too late?’

McFaul looked at him for a moment or two, suddenly aware of how tired he felt.

‘You tell me,’ he handed his helmet to the waiting Domingos, ‘I only work here.’

Robbie Cunningham took the first Winchester exit off the motorway, peering through the rain to avoid the tangle of roadworks. He’d dropped Liz at the flat in Chiswick and doubled back towards the M3, pushing the rusty Escort to the limit. Westerby, the Director, had called the meeting for half-past four. With luck he’d just make it.

Terra Sancta was headquartered in a sprawling Victorian
vicarage on the city’s western edge. A big new extension to the rear of the building would treble the office space but the project was a month and a half behind schedule and what the Director called ‘the worker bees’ were still caged in the main building. Robbie shared an alcove with a fax machine, an unsteady pile of phone directories and a file of agency press cuttings. The file was on the thin side, a fact of which he was uncomfortably aware. In a good mood, the Director would refer to this as ‘disappointing’, though Robbie had no illusions about what he really meant. Third World charities survived on press coverage. Without profile, without your name in the papers, you stayed poor.