The Perfect Soldier (39 page)

‘These friends of yours …’ he began, ‘in Muengo.’

It was Molly’s turn to look at the rear-view mirror. Rademeyer’s remarks about getting arrested had frightened her. An hour or two with Larry Giddings left you with no illusions about Angola’s system of justice. Once they had you behind bars, anything could happen.

‘That answerphone of yours …’

‘Yes?’

‘I left my name. And the Terra Sancta phone number.’

‘That’s right.’

‘Was that wise?’ She glanced across at Rademeyer. ‘Be honest.’

Rademeyer was playing with the zip on the canvas bag, sliding it back and forth.

‘It depends,’ he said. ‘Sometimes they’re not that organised. You might be lucky. Other times …’ he pulled a face, ‘you never really know.’

‘So what have you done? To cause all this …’ she frowned, ‘fuss?’

Rademeyer smiled at Molly’s choice of phrase. Then he reached forward and tapped the young black on the shoulder, muttering something in Portuguese. The youth nodded, easing the Mercedes into the nearside lane. Ahead, Molly could see an untidy line of vehicles pulled off the road. The youth nosed the four-wheel between a sleek BMW with tinted windows and a Russian-made truck piled high with treadless rubber tyres. Beyond the truck, two women were bent over a fire. When the youth opened the door, Molly could smell sardines.

Rademeyer stretched, yawning. For a man on the run, he seemed to have very low blood pressure.

‘You haven’t answered my question,’ Molly pointed out. ‘I asked you what you’ve been up to.’

‘Nothing. Making a living. That’s all.’

‘Is that enough? To upset them?’

‘That’s plenty.’

‘Why?’

Rademeyer shook his head again, refusing to elaborate. The driver was coming back, hunched against the rain. He was carrying a pile of steaming baps, wafered between sheets of soggy newsprint. He held the back door open with his knee, offering one to Molly. She took it, still waiting for Rademeyer. Rademeyer was inspecting the inside of his bap. Satisfied, he buried his teeth in it. Molly could smell something spicy now, tomatoes and peppers and thin green chillis.

Rademeyer wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

‘I’m flying up to Muengo this afternoon,’ he said. ‘You’re welcome to come with me.’

‘I thought they were looking for you?’

‘They are. Some of them.’

‘Then why aren’t they at the airport? Waiting?’

Rademeyer looked amused again.

‘Money,’ he said briefly. ‘Spend it wisely, spread it around, they leave you alone. The guys at the airport, anyway. Our Ninja friends?’ His fingers strayed to the wound above his eye. ‘They’re off the payroll.’

Molly watched him for a moment. Christianne, she thought. And McFaul. Two more reasons for getting out of Luanda.

‘Are you really going to Muengo?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why?’

‘Federal Express.’ Rademeyer patted the bag.

‘But the city’s fallen. You told me yourself.’

‘Sure.’

‘You know these people? The UNITA people?’

‘I do business with them.’

‘And that’s why …? Back in the bar …?’

Rademeyer put a hand on her arm, silencing her. Then he passed her a wad of Kleenex, nodding at the bap.

‘Eat,’ he said.

Molly took a mouthful of bap. The sardines were delicious. She patted her mouth with the Kleenex, staring out at the rain. She was due to meet Giddings this evening. He was leaving Luanda for a week or so. Then there was Robbie. And Alma. So far she hadn’t told them about Rademeyer. That was to be her surprise, her initiative.

‘How much?’ she asked through a mouthful of bap. ‘To get me to Muengo?’

‘Nothing. I’m going anyway.’

‘What about getting back? Flying the others out?’

‘We’ll talk about that.’

‘But you’re coming back?’

‘From Muengo?’ Rademeyer pulled a face. ‘Too right I’m coming back.’

He swallowed the rest of his bap and began to lick his fingers one by one. Then he unzipped the canvas bag and pulled out a two-way radio. Inside the bag, Molly could see blocks of something black, wrapped in polythene. Rademeyer switched on the radio. It was already tuned to Channel Two.

‘Here,’ he said. ‘Be my guest.’

Molly hesitated a moment. She had no money. No toothbrush. No change of clothes. Nothing.

‘Maybe I should come next time,’ she said uncertainly.

Rademeyer shook his head, looking at his watch, telling the youth behind the wheel it was time to go.

‘There won’t be a next time,’ he said. ‘Not from here, anyway.’

McFaul was back at the schoolhouse by early afternoon, stepping in from the sunshine, aware at once that something was wrong. The place had been wrecked, everything wooden stripped from the schoolroom. The door jambs had gone, the window frames, even some of the floorboards. Gone, too, were the desks and chairs where the students had once sat. In their place, strewn everywhere, were items from the crates of equipment Bennie had readied for the evacuation flight. In the event, Katilo had refused permission for the equipment to leave Muengo, and now McFaul understood why.

He knelt amongst the debris, trying to make a mental inventory, trying to remember exactly what Bennie had packed. The Ebingers had gone for sure, the $2,000 state-of-the-art detectors that would signal even the tiniest trace of metal, buried in the earth. Then there were the survey toolkits, and prismatic compasses, and the big HF radio that had been so temperamental. Both GPS locators had gone too, the priceless navigational kit that used satellites to give
you a spot-on terrestrial fix. The stuff that was left was largely domestic – blankets, cooking gear, a couple of tropical tents – and McFaul began to rummage amongst it, struck by another thought.

Christianne had appeared from the dormitory. She stood in the open doorway, framed by the bare brickwork. The soldiers, she told him, had arrived at noon. They’d come on Katilo’s orders. They’d only been interested in the de-mining equipment, plus anything wooden they could lay their hands on. Next door, where she and McFaul slept, they hadn’t touched a thing.

McFaul was still on his hands and knees amongst the litter of pots and pans. Eventually, he looked up.

‘The laptops?’ he enquired. ‘The disks?’

Christianne nodded.

‘Those, too.’

‘They took them both? The disks as well?’

‘Yes.’

McFaul slumped back against the wall. The little laptop computers contained all the data they’d amassed over the last five months. Every waking hour of the Muengo operation, every mine, every cleared metre of earth, was recorded in the laptops and on the disks. Bennie should at least have sorted out the disks. Even after Katilo prohibited the shipping of equipment, he should have taken them. He could have slipped them into a pocket. He could have given them to one of the aircrew. But he hadn’t. He’d just left them, along with everything else. McFaul knew that. He’d checked, only yesterday, spotting them through the slats in one of the crates, wrapped in polythene and taped to one of the laptops. The data was also stored in the laptops’ memory but that made no difference because now the laptops had disappeared as well.

Unforgivable, he thought. Absolutely one hundred per cent fucking unforgivable.

Christianne knelt beside him. All McFaul could do was shake his head. Five months. Three hundred and seventy-four lifted mines. Acres of ground made safe for crop raising, for kids, for animals, each square metre carefully logged. But now the records had disappeared, and with them had gone that total certainty that had become the trademark of Global operations. One hundred per cent clearance, McFaul thought grimly. That was the way we always worked. That was our promise. And now it meant fuck all.

Christianne was talking about the soldiers. She said she’d done her best to stop them but they’d ignored her. McFaul wasn’t listening.

‘What happened to the easel?’

‘They took that too. They said they wanted firewood.’

‘What about the maps?’

‘I don’t know about the maps. I didn’t see.’

‘Why not, for God’s sake?’

‘I …’ Christianne was staring at him.

McFaul struggled to his feet, pushing her aside, searching through the piles of discarded equipment again. The maps, he thought. They’d never take the maps. Not lines of red dots and bits and pieces of fancy cross-hatching. That would mean bugger-all. That would mean nothing. Just bits of paper. He tossed the blankets aside. He kicked the saucepans into the corner. The maps had gone.

‘Who were these guys? Where did they go?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Did you get their names? Could you recognise them?’

‘Maybe.’ She nodded, wary now.

McFaul hesitated by the doorway. Katilo had moved into the MSF house. He’d taken the camera back there. He was
already talking of more filming, extra shots around Muengo, then a whole new sequence, somewhere else, somewhere completely different.

Christianne was standing by the window, examining a splinter in her hand. When McFaul turned to leave, she called him back.

‘Where are you going?’

‘To find Katilo.’

‘You want me to come?’

McFaul shrugged, too angry to care.

‘Suit yourself,’ he said, limping away into the sunshine.

Katilo was addressing a circle of soldiers in the kitchen of the MSF house. One of the bodyguards in the garden outside, recognising McFaul, had accompanied him down the hall. Now, McFaul stood in the open doorway, waiting for Katilo to finish. He was talking in Ovimbundu, a long monologue, punctuated by flourishes with a length of bamboo he carried in his right hand. Beside him stood the easel.

McFaul was already looking round for the maps. Except for rubbish abandoned before the evacuation, the kitchen was empty. McFaul waited a minute or so longer then began to go through the rest of the house. Christianne’s bedroom had been taken over by Katilo. A generator was already purring in the front garden and a length of cable through the window powered the television and video-recorder. On the screen was a picture of Katilo, a single frame from his march across the cathedral square. He was looking up, distracted by a flock of birds, and the lowness of the angle magnified his bulk. He looked almost biblical, the prophet come to free his people, and McFaul knew at once that he must have chosen this image himself. He can’t leave it alone, he
thought. He’s been spooling and respooling the footage, infatuated with the role he’s assigned himself. Redeemer. King. Messiah.

McFaul heard footsteps behind him, turning in time to see Katilo’s huge frame pause by the door. He’d been on his way out. Now he joined McFaul, his eyes at once going to the television.

‘Good, eh?’

McFaul nodded, asking at once about the equipment from the schoolhouse. Katilo’s men had taken computers, small ones. Where were they? Katilo picked up the remote control for the video-player. The image flickered briefly on the screen and then began to move. Katilo was heading for the cathedral. Again.

‘Gone,’ he muttered. ‘They’ve gone.’

‘Gone where?’

‘Huambo.’ He nodded. ‘They belong to UNITA now.’

‘When? When did they go?’

Katilo was grinning, watching himself pausing beside the big wooden door, delivering his lines about peace. The angle of the sun through the bedroom window flooded the screen with light, and Katilo knelt beside the television a moment, turning it carefully away from the glare, an object of reverence.

McFaul was losing his temper. This clown was responsible for laying the fucking mines. McFaul and his team had risked their lives trying to lift them. Without the maps, or the computer records, they were as good as laid again.

‘Maps,’ he said slowly. ‘There were maps on the easel, pinned to the easel, when it left the schoolhouse. Where are they now? Where have they gone?’

Katilo ignored the question, transfixed by the video. He was kneeling before the altar, caged by the shafts of dusty
sunlight, and McFaul watched him crossing himself again as he saw the sequence anew. McFaul stepped in front of the screen, blocking Katilo’s view.

‘Maps,’ he said thickly.

Katilo looked up, surprised, as if he’d just heard the question for the first time. He frowned a moment, then went to the window and bellowed to one of the bodyguards. The soldier came running, the same man who’d let McFaul into the house. Katilo muttered something McFaul didn’t understand, his eyes returning to the TV set. Behind the set, for the first time, McFaul recognised the bottles of Glenfiddich he’d last seen in Katilo’s fridge. Katilo was bending down, feeling blindly. His fingers tightened around a bottle and he picked it up, passing it to McFaul without a word.

‘Go with the soldier,’ he muttered. ‘He knows about your maps.’

McFaul felt a tug on his arm. The soldier was taking him away, taking him to where the maps were. They stepped outside, into the sunshine, McFaul still holding the bottle. The house next door had belonged to a sister charity, Oxfam. A handful of soldiers were squatting around a fire in the corner of the garden, surrounded by a small mountain of hacked-up wood. McFaul paused, recognising the desks from the schoolhouse. The soldiers looked up, curious. One of them was stirring a pot of
funje
. McFaul peered at the fire. A corner of charred plywood looked familiar. He reached forward with his foot, turning it over. On the other side, clearly visible, were the letters G-L-O-B-, part of Bennie’s carefully stencilled label for the onward shippers at Luanda airport. Bennie had used black paint. McFaul had watched him do it.

The soldiers were still looking at McFaul. He tried to ask them about the maps, using sign language. At first they didn’t
understand. Then the bodyguard got the drift, explaining what McFaul wanted. There’d been paper on the easel. Sheets of paper with marks on them. Where were they now? One of the soldiers pointed at the fire, miming a box of matches. Paper lights fires, he was explaining. Fires cook food. Food fills empty bellies. The other soldiers watched him, laughing, and McFaul turned away, limping back through the knee-high grass, his face betraying nothing.

Piet Rademeyer’s little blue Dove landed at dusk. With a hiss of pneumatic brakes, he brought it to a halt at the end of the tiny strip. One of Katilo’s trucks came bumping across to meet the plane and the soldiers gaped as Rademeyer helped Molly down from the rear door. The aircraft secured for the night, the truck rolled away towards Muengo, Rademeyer and Molly in the back. On the outskirts of the city, dark now, they took the road to the schoolhouse. When the truck stopped, Molly could see a flicker of candle-light in the room the men had used as a dormitory. Rademeyer lowered the tailgate and jumped down from the truck. So far, he hadn’t let go of the blue canvas bag. The truck roared away.