“Where you take me?” She said. He was surprised, hadn’t expected her to be able to speak English. He shrugged his shoulders and smiled.
“I don’t know. Home? Where do you live?” The girl shrugged.
“Far,” was all she said in reply. He took her hand and led her out of the room, along the corridor. He tapped on the door of the room where they were keeping Jack. No answer. He tapped again. A small boy opened it a fraction. Monsieur Blanc pushed past him and entered the room.
Jack strained his neck, shifted himself onto his elbows. The boy with the gun shouted, his voice high, unbroken. Monsieur Blanc shooed him away.
“Did you hear it?” Jack said, that half-croak back again, same as he’d had when he escaped from the lab.
“Did I hear what?” Monsieur Blanc asked, both irritated and relieved that the boy was alive and asking questions.
“The engines. The props. The sound of the Hercules. They’re sending in the big guns. My guess is they’ll be a troop of gun-toting soldiers here in the morning, courtesy of the British army.”
Monsieur Blanc stepped towards him, shaking his finger. “You’re lying. I didn’t hear anything. I would have noticed.” He said. Jack lay back down. “Please yourself. You don’t have to believe me. And I’m guessing Nbotou hasn’t got the facilities to test the devices here, otherwise you’d probably be hanging from the monkey puzzle tree in the courtyard by your intestines.” Jack caught sight of the girl standing warily behind Monsieur Blanc.
“Who’s your friend?” He asked, pointing at the girl.
“No one. Just a child Nbotou thinks he can treat like a dog.”
“What are you going to do with her?” Jack asked, frowning.
“I don’t know,” Monsieur Blanc replied, wearily wiping the sweat from his forehead. “Get her out of here.” He added weakly.
“Very charitable. Wouldn’t have put you down as an envoy for bloody Unicef.” Jack said, his tone heavy with sarcasm.
“For God’s sake, shut up,” Monsieur Blanc replied irritably. “How many times do you have to be kidnapped, cut open, and beaten before you finally stop talking?” Exasperation in his voice, but also a grudging respect. The man was resilient. He pulled a crate close to the makeshift operating table and signalled to the boy by the door. “Food and drink please. Chop chop!” He clapped his hands together. The boy darted out of the room.
Monsieur Blanc leant close to Jack, spoke quietly. “When I took out the device I noticed it wasn’t attached to living tissue. Which would support your claim that this is a setup. But why here, why Nbotou, why British Secret Services? He is a tyrant, a despicable man, but that has never been enough for you British to take someone out before. Usually you are quite happy to let warlords be warlords, run their own little fiefdoms. As long as it doesn’t interfere with your economic interests.” Jack heaved himself onto the edge of the table, the blood rushing away from his head, made him feel dizzy. “Who knows? What’s he got, aside from the coltan? Is the stuff really that valuable?”
“To a weapons manufacturer maybe.” Monsieur Blanc sighed. A long day. It was going to be a long night too. “This is very fucked-up.” He said at last. Jack realised it was the only time he had ever heard the man swear. His French accent put an odd emphasis on the word, an effect that would have been comic in any other situation.
“I should never have got involved. You know Jack, sometimes it is the big corporations that do the worst, that are the worst. They buy the backing of governments, set themselves above the law.”
The boy arrived carrying a plate of food in one hand and a bottle of beer in the other. The large machine gun was slung precariously over his shoulder. Monsieur Blanc and Jack had the same thought. If he trips and drops the gun it could send a live round into any corner of the room. They watched him make his way over the creaking wooden floorboards, he handed the food and drink to Monsieur Blanc, and there was a collective sigh of relief.
“How many of them do you think die from accidental shootings a year?” Jack asked, taking the plate of food from Monsieur Blanc and downing the beer. It swirled, cold and delicious, down his throat and into his empty belly.
“Quite a few. Like the food?” Jack didn’t answer, too busy stuffing the spicy stew into his mouth. “I grew up on dodgy Croydon kebabs with chilli sauce. This is something of an improvement.” He shovelled another mouthful of food in. “You really think the people who employed you would go to all this effort to secure supplies coltan?” He asked.
Monsieur Blanc shrugged. “I think they would do a lot worse. If they need the metal to fulfil a contract there’s no knowing how far they’d go. And Nbotou’s the perfect target. Large amounts of the stuff here. Processed and held in reserve. If they’re planning to send people in to take him out they better be good. Half the soldiers might be children but they know this jungle like the back of their hands. Know where the mines are, can shimmy up the trees and take them out from above before they even know they’re under attack.” He paused and looked at Jack.
“The biggest mistake they could make would be to under-estimate a man like Clement. He’s taken control of this area for a reason. He knows how to fight.”
46
Two chutes deployed. Now three, four. Opening up like rain clouds over the forest canopy. Puffs of smoke. Air rushing past. Ed strained to check the altimeter on his wrist. Two more seconds. One, two. Rip-cord pulled at the last moment. The sudden yank backwards, jerking his shoulders upright, horizontal to vertical in a fraction of a second. The rushing sound ceased. The speed of descent dramatically slowed. He could see nine other chutes. A relief. They’d all opened. Now he just had to hope the navigator had got the bearings right and they weren’t going to land in the treetops. He could see a snaking silver trail through the darkness. The river Congo. And over to the right the ghoulish glow of yellow floodlights. Had to be Clement’s camp. Where was the airstrip? No time to check, he was scanning the ground below him, the clearing visible now. A dull grey roundish shape against the deeper blacks of the jungle.
Two parachutes disappeared, extinguished. Then another. And another. The team were landing, pulling in their chutes as soon as they hit the ground. The treetops reached up towards him, he sailed past, slowing himself the moment before his feet touched the ground. An expert landing. He jogged forwards, turned and tugged the chute in, hefting the pack off his shoulder and bundling it all together. Perfect conditions for a night jump. Good visibility, low wind and no rain. So far so good. Footsteps running towards him, the other members of the team. He didn’t say anything, just signalled to the tree line. They sprinted towards it, into the cover of the undergrowth.
The two boys acting as lookouts kept their eyes trained on the night sky, not sure what they’d seen. The different shades that had flickered briefly against the clouds were long gone. No way of knowing what had caused them. They climbed down from their positions and ran to the house. Was this something to bother Clement with? The big boss? He’d beaten a boy half to death for interrupting a black jack game once before. Depended on how much he had been drinking.
They walked uneasily towards the dining room, the booming laughter from Clement echoing along the hallway. The other guests provided a nervous accompaniment, bad actors trying laugh convincingly in a surreal play. The boy who’d shimmied up the tree pushed the door open first, he was a year older than his friend and determined to show how brave he was. He marched up to the dining table and executed an untidy salute. Nobody noticed him. Clement had opened a bottle of whiskey and was pouring a generous measure into Gustav’s glass.