Another big worry was the fate of the rest of our team. Virtually my last words to Pavarotti had been an agreement to RV with him on the high ground above the northern end of the Zebra Pans, whether or not they’d managed to free the mother wagon. The worst-case scenario was that they’d be unable to shift it, in which case they’d un-ship as many of the stores as they could carry, move them to the RV site, and booby-trap the truck. If the satcom came alive and they got through to Hereford, they’d ask the Kremlin to get a Herc moving in our direction and try to arrange for it to stage through some friendly capital like Harare. Then, when they found any flat area that would do as a makeshift strip, they could call it in to exfiltrate them.
Them. I was thinking ‘them’. I should have been thinking ‘us’. I had agreed with Pav that if Genesis and I hadn’t returned to the area of the pan by first light, he would follow up our tracks and come looking for us. Now that looked a seriously bad option, but there was nothing we could do to cancel it.
Our transport eventually pulled up after a journey which I estimated at nearly two hours. Gen guessed it was only ninety minutes. Splitting the difference, I reckoned we’d travelled fifty-something kilometres. With a squeal of brakes our driver came to a halt. There was a brief exchange of shouts, and a gate or gates scraped open. Then we went forward again into some sort of a compound. By then we’d already taken a fair hammering and were half-choked with dust. When our guards dragged Whinger out, I saw he’d got a bloody nose — no doubt from being too comatose to prevent having it banged on the steel deck.
I only got a brief glimpse of our surroundings, but they looked like a barracks. We’d debussed just inside the gates, which were made of weldmesh, with barbed wire on angle-irons at the top. The perimeter fence was the same. Inside, five or six identical single-storey buildings were ranged parallel to each other, about fifty metres apart, but it looked as though they were disused, because the windows were all dark; beyond them there was a big open space that could have been a parade ground, and higher buildings in the distance, up a slight incline. The whole place was poorly lit, with the occasional dim electric bulb slung from drooping wires. The lights kept flickering, as if the generator powering them was on the point of going down.
More shouting broke out among our guards, obviously an argument about where we were to be taken. In the middle of it I saw Inge limping off into the distance. As her fair head passed under one of the lights, I realised she must have been riding in the wagon that led our convoy. Again I wondered what the hell she was doing, mixed up with the rebel forces. Clearly she was in cahoots with them — but how, and why?
We found out soon enough. After a wait of maybe half an hour, during which we were held in a bare room that stank of piss, we were taken out again and hustled up the compound. Gen and I were frogmarched by guys holding either arm, with more in front and behind, all carrying AK47s, but Whinger was carried on a stretcher. I had a wild hope that he was shamming, and would suddenly leap to his feet, scattering our escort, but that was just a dream.
On the higher level we came to an area where the buildings were closer together and some of the windows were lit. Then, as we passed another building, a door opened, and out came a white man. Just for a second I saw him clearly — and he saw us. In fact he must have seen us better than I saw him, because to me he was little more than an outline, with the light coming from behind him and falling in our direction. Our escorts moved sharply up beside us, trying to block his view, but there was no doubt that he’d got eyes on us. He was only ten or twelve metres off, and he half raised his right hand, as if in surprise or greeting. I got the impression of a big, middle-aged guy in a short-sleeved shirt, and opened my mouth to shout something, but before I could utter a syllable I was knocked sideways by a stunning blow on the jaw. I almost went down, and by the time I was in control again, the guy had vanished.
Seconds later, we were in a ramshackle lecture room, with a low stage and metal chairs set out in rows facing it. A few tattered charts and diagrams hung on the dirty white walls, but I was too confused and preoccupied to take in what they were about. On the stage, already seated beside a plain trestle table, was the German. Behind the table a second chair, a more elaborate one, with arms, stood waiting, as if for the judge who would take charge of the proceedings.
The moment we appeared Inge began cracking out orders in some native language, and her guys jumped to it, scraping the other chairs away across the bare concrete floor until three were left lined up in the middle of the room. Gen and I were pushed down onto two of them, with our bound arms and hands forced behind their backs. Whinger was dumped on the middle chair and similarly trussed, rolling to right and left. With his head lolling on his chest, he was snorting through his bloody nose. The gauze had long since come off his face, and he looked a right mess, the skin hanging in filthy bulges. I could hardly bear to look at him. But suddenly, to my amazement, he came round, straightened up, and said loudly, ‘Where the fuck are we?’
I just had time to say, ‘In the shit,’ before the woman barked, ‘No talking! Only answers!’
I had to fight down an impulse to jump up and rip out her throat. But I stopped myself doing anything at all, because I knew if I moved or spoke out of turn I’d only get another clout over the ear. Always be subservient during interrogation — that’s what I’d been taught. Never get the questioners’ backs up unnecessarily.
For a few moments there was silence. The atmosphere was like in a classroom when kids are waiting for the teacher to arrive — everyone teed up with expectancy, laced with a dose of fear. After a bit, people began to talk in quick whispers. Then a door at the back of the stage opened, and everyone abruptly went quiet again.
In strode a tall, heavily built man, bare-headed, dressed in plain, oatmeal-coloured uniform. The people were obviously in awe of him, and his sheer size gave him a commanding presence, but there was something about him that didn’t add up. Although his features were definitely negroid, his skin was no darker than milky coffee, and his short, crinkly hair was a peculiar dark yellow.
At his entry the guards alongside us came more or less to attention and stood rigidly upright. Inge hauled herself to her feet and gave a peculiar bob forward, half bow, half curtsey. Jesus, I thought, she’s doing him obeisance — and I knew he must be the infamous General Muende. He was the right age, early thirties, and his half-Scottish background would account for his strange colour. His movements were peculiar, too: he rolled, rather than walked, as though he had problems with his balance. In his right hand he was carrying a dark-green, army-type water-bottle, which he put down clumsily on the table, and when he sat in the chair he hit it heavily, then slumped forward on his elbows. Jesus, I thought, the guy’s pissed out of his mind.
Behind him came two big, square-arsed lads wearing DPM fatigues and slung about with weapons, who stood to one side, slightly behind him, followed by a single white. Was this the guy who’d raised a hand as we’d gone past? No, that fellow had had what I’d call a normal figure. This one was squat and broad, and had a bullet head with it. Was he one of the three who’d escaped from the mine? Possibly. Whovever he was, all he did was lurk in the background, glaring at us.
My mind was spinning. The German was in league with this drunken, half-caste creature of a general. What did we know about him? What else had Bakunda told us, besides his age and his part-Scottish descent? More came back to me from our evening of rum-drinking round the fire: Gus Muende had been to West Point, in the States; he was the arsehole of the Afundi tribe; he was a friend of Gadaffi; he’d been fêted as a star guest in Libya. He was dressed like Gadaffi, anyway, in a tunic with a turned-up collar and general’s insignia on the epaulettes, and he carried a pistol in a holster on his belt.