Ed walked down the plane to the loading doors. The rear of the plane was alive with vibrations, metal rattling against metal. Even noisier here than in the middle of the fuselage. He pressed the intercom that linked to the cockpit.
“How long to drop zone?” Ed asked into intercom.
“Ten minutes, line up your men. Over.” The pilot’s voice crackled back. Ed signalled to his men to get in position. Once the cargo doors were open they’d drop in pairs. A dangerous jump because of the darkness and the size of the clearing they had to land on. Wind speed was low, seven knots, but still enough to carry them into the trees if they didn’t all get out in time.
The rear doors opened slowly, a rush of air through the aircraft, a high-pitched whine, the sound of the engines even louder. The men waited for the command, faces tense, concentrated, adrenalin pumping through their blood.
“You’re clear. Go! Go! Go!” The pilot’s voice bellowed through the intercom. The men stepped forwards, ready for the jump. Ed watched them go. When the last pair had left, he stepped to the edge of the cargo doors. He braced himself for that moment when his body would drop like a stone but his stomach would stay in the same place. Solid ground to nothing in under a second, cold air streaming past, loud as a waterfall. Ground rushing towards you. From here on in it was all instinct.
45
Far below Monsieur Blanc, Gustav and Uko chewed their way through the stringy meat that made up the stew, forcing laughter at the stories told by Clement, swatting the occasional mosquito that found its way through the netting over the windows. They listened to his tales of jungle warfare. Of the village he had grown up in, the battles he had won, the booby traps he had fitted to his Maybach.
“Anyone tries to take that car they’ll find they don’t have a leg to stand on,” he said wiping his lips. “And I mean that literally. Charges go off at waist height.”
Whenever he had important guests Clement liked to serve food in the formal dining room. Walls lined with tarnished and cracked mirrors, jungle vines creeping through cracks that had opened up in the window frames, green tendrils trying to reclaim the house as their own. A reminder to those present that the Congo was not an area a Colonial power could hold on to for long.
None of them paid any attention to the distant rumble above the clouds, they were too used to the sounds of aeroplanes to notice. None of them except Clement. His ears pricked up at the noise. It sounded like a large propeller driven aircraft. They were not in flight path for Kinshasa airport or Kampala in Uganda. The occasional aid flight flew past but they tended to land at the military bases in the west of the Congo. He signalled to one of the boys serving dinner and spoke quietly in his ear.
“Go, take two climbers, one on the roof and one in the tree tops and watch the skies. Quickly now.” The boy nodded and darted out of the room, the tree they used as a look-out post was at the end of the courtyard, he shimmied up it, shouting at one of his friends to climb onto the roof of the house as he did so. The noise from the plane had died down, somewhere to the west. He looked up at the night sky, eyes absorbing every last scrap of light, straining to see. Nothing. The other lookout whistled, he was already on the roof of the building, hanging on to the chimneystack. He whistled again, pointing east. The boy in the tree focused on the direction he was pointing in. Against a cloud, for no more than a second, a sudden flicker, a change of tone. Then another. Two more. Could be a bird. Could be nothing. They remained in place, watching the sky, listening carefully.
In his room at the top of the stairs, Jack also caught the sound of the plane. His body might be dehydrated, weak, recovering from exposure to the heat of the sun and Monsieur Blanc’s impromptu surgery, but he recognised it immediately. The distinctive drone of the RAF Hercules. The four prop driven engines. You don’t grow up on army bases without getting to know that sound. He listened, ears straining. It grew quieter then louder. Was it because of a change in wind direction or had the plane banked? Changed its course? He wasn’t sure, but could only think of one reason why it might suddenly turn, it had dropped its load, got rid of its cargo.
He struggled to raise his head to hear better, but something cold poked at his chest. His eyes focused on it. A black tube, shiny, and at the other end of it a small boy. The gun was almost too heavy for him. His arms shook slightly under the weight. Jack lay back down. The pressure from the gun barrel eased. Was this a rescue mission for him? Somehow he doubted it.
“Well Clement, I would like to thank you for your hospitality,” Monsieur Blanc said, getting up off the crate he had been seated on. “But I think I should check on the boy. Make sure he hasn’t come to. Or died.” He added as an afterthought.
“Of course, but I want you back here for a game of black jack after. See if you can win any of that money I took from you last time.” Clement replied cheerfully.
“I doubt that very much,” Monsieur Blanc said, downing the last of his bottle of beer. It had warmed up quickly in the heat of the dining room and tasted bitter and unpleasant.
In the corridor, a gentle breeze from the open doorway cooled the beads of sweat on the back of his neck. He was thinking about Jack’s warning, about the way the device was implanted under the skin. There were questions that needed answers.
He walked quickly up the marble staircase, the effort required to shift his weight in the humid air bringing a fresh dampness to his forehead. How he hated the jungle. Couldn’t wait to leave Clement’s god-forsaken hellhole and return to his palatial home in Paris or the chateau he owned near Poitiers. He earned his money, no doubt about it, and for the most part he enjoyed his work. But Clement’s false bonhomie grated, tried his patience. The man was a brute, clear and simple. Having to sit and eat his indigestible food and laugh at his jokes required more diplomacy than he possessed.
He was about to enter Jack’s room when he heard something from the far end of the corridor. Sounded like a wounded animal. A soft whimpering. He walked along the landing, pulled at a heavy wooden door, half hanging off its hinges. For a moment he feared it might be locked, but it was just the resistance of warped wood. Clement didn’t lock the doors to his apartment, there was nothing worth stealing inside.
The noise stopped as he soon as he opened the door. A sharp intake of breath from near the window. He could see a thin figure shaking in the corner of the room. A girl. Monsieur Blanc knew enough about Clement and his soldiers to understand the routine rape and kidnap of girls from nearby villages was part of their military strategy. An attempt to control what was left of the local population through brutality and fear.
He stepped towards the girl. “It’s ok, it’s ok. Ça va ça va,” he spoke quietly, as reassuringly as he could. Both hands held up, palms facing outwards. The girl retreated as far as she could into the corner of the room. She was tied to the bed. What looked like an electrical cable cutting into the skin around her ankle. Without thinking he pulled out his pocketknife and cut through the plastic cord. An adult he would have left, an adult should be able to fend for themselves, but a child? He couldn’t leave her to Nbotou. The faces of the sisters at the Shanghai Mission were in his mind’s eye, judging his actions.
He took the girl by the arm, pulled her towards the streaks of orange-yellow light that fell through the shutters, cast his eye quickly over her body. The slip of a dress barely covered her, ugly welts on her arms and legs from where she’d been beaten.
He shook his head. “Come, viens,” he said, taking her hand and leading her out of the door. She went with him. Something about the short fat man meant she didn’t feel threatened. His eyes. The tone of his voice. Monsieur Blanc wasn’t thinking about what he would do with her. What he would tell Clement. Just wanted to get her out of that room.