The Temple Covenant

by D C Macey

  ‘You’ve done well here, John, thanks. Now, I think we should leave separately; you should just go out quietly on your own. That way, nobody can accuse you of knowing where we’ve gone or assisting our flight.’

  ‘But the receptionist saw me arrive, I spoke to her.’

  ‘That’s fine. If challenged, just say you came here on a hunch, and once you’d confirmed we were actually here, you went back to the High Commission to alert staff and contact the police. Oh, and be sure to do just that when you get back.’

  ‘What if they don’t believe me?’

  ‘You’ll be fine, you’ve got diplomatic immunity. Now get back to the High Commission.’ Sam watched John’s almost automatic head nod response.

  ‘Good man, I’ll call you when I can. Now go and look after yourself.’

  John hesitated but was pulled from his momentary indecision by Helen’s hug. ‘Go on, John, quickly. We can’t leave until after you.’

  He drew away from Helen, smiled at her and left without another word. They watched him turn the corner into reception and waited, allowing him time to leave the building.

  Two minutes later, Helen and Sam stepped into reception and paused to pay their bill and collect the bottled water, which they stuffed into their shoulder bags. With a thank you to the receptionist, they left the Hilton, made a hard right and headed for Moi Avenue. Though the sky was still dark, a combination of streetlights, office and shop security lights and the steady flow of passing vehicles ensured they were always in light.

  ‘Where are we going, Sam?’

  ‘To a bus station. Provided things haven’t changed too much, we should be able to pick up an early shuttle bus.’

  ‘To where?’

  ‘Arusha, Tanzania.’

  ‘Wow, we’re going after Bob?’

  ‘Too right. We can’t stay in Kenya anyway now, or I will end up in jail. And that will involve months of unpleasantness while my innocence is proven.’

  ‘Will this work?’

  ‘Should be fine as long as we are discreet here. Buses run back and forth between Nairobi and Arusha umpteen times a day. They carry everyone and anyone. Safari trekkers and tourists, NGO staff, workers, market traders, families …’

  ‘And don’t forget fugitives from the law chasing a North Korean spymaster.’

  ‘Some of them too. We’ll be fine once we have tickets and get on board. Don’t worry; you’ll be having your tea safely in Arusha this afternoon.’

  ‘How far to the bus station?’

  ‘Less than ten minutes’ walk. Now just stay close to me, keep your shoulder bag swung across your chest to the front and a good grip on your case. But if we do get embroiled in something, don’t give up your life for your case. We can always buy new stuff.’

  Helen nudged him with her elbow. ‘Hey, mister, I’m no rookie. Remember, I spent three years in West Africa, and believe me, some places there make this place look like a kindergarten.’

  Sam knew it. ‘Sorry, just looking out for you, can’t help it.’

  She smiled to herself. ‘Come on, let’s get a move on.’

  • • •

  The shuttle bus pulled out of Nairobi, skirting the city’s wildlife park, a few giraffes and zebras visible in the growing daylight. Then they were on the open road and heading south.

  Helen and Sam spoke quietly, concentrating more on the lively conversations that were bouncing around the bus. What appeared to be a late-arriving, extended family had been split up into separate seats. Exercising her domestic control, the mother was calling out to children, keeping them informed and in line. A girl, aged about ten, had the task of ferrying drinks and food up and down the aisle to various family members, with the granny and the granddad, who were sitting near the front of the bus, getting priority service. There was no sign of a father. The constant babble was punctuated by occasional shouts from Granny when she needed anything.

  The time passed quickly as Helen watched the countryside roll by. The urbanisation long gone, now they were travelling through rural Africa. Dry land stretched out into the distance, the horizon broken by occasional lines of far-off hills. Almost everywhere sported the same dry silvers, yellows, blacks and browns that had come to dominate the landscape in Ethiopia. Here, just as further north, the land waited for the rains.

  This was not a completely empty landscape. Here and there were buildings dotted along the roadside, or farm steadings set back a little into the bush, perhaps just a roof visible. Occasional small communities flashed past, each sporting a quickly predictable mix of vendors’ stalls, anonymous workshops, and some homes built with breezeblocks and corrugated iron roofs intermingled amongst others of traditional wattle and daub construction.

  Eventually the bus slowed, pulled off the road and came to a halt for a comfort stop. Everyone got off. Some people went to the rather doubtful looking restrooms while others took the opportunity to stretch and to breathe the fresh air.

  Sam gave Helen a little nudge to catch her attention. Beyond the restrooms were several cars parked in a rough line. A little silver car had managed to squeeze itself into the middle of the row. Helen looked to Sam who nodded towards the row of cars.

  ‘So, we’ve still got company and it narrows the field. If they were Kenyan officials, I’m thinking we’d have been whipped off the shuttle back in Nairobi,’ said Helen.

  ‘I don’t know, but as they’re not trying to arrest us or kill us, let’s let sleeping dogs lie. Come on - everyone’s getting back on the bus.’

  The shuttle pulled back out onto the road, followed by the little silver car. A few moments passed before an old dusty looking car followed them out and also took the road south.

  A while later, they arrived at the border. Along with everyone else, Helen and Sam left the bus and stepped into the Kenyan border control office. Queues formed as each passport was checked and stamped. Helen glanced at her passport. It was in order, but she still felt a sudden twinge of anxiety. Sam had said there would be no problem at the border; nobody would have realised yet that they had left Nairobi. It would be some time before anyone would think to inform the border guards down here.

  Progress was slow. Once they reached the official at his counter, Sam was obliged to pay a few shillings for something and nothing. Then they were through and hurrying back towards the shuttle bus.

  All aboard again, the bus rolled forward a short distance and stopped once more. The administration process was repeated on the Tanzanian side of the border. Less stressed here, there was now no threat of a phone call ordering that they be hooked out of line and driven back to Nairobi in custody. Once again, their passports had been pre-stamped in London with the appropriate visas, so this was just a long-drawn-out formality.

  They joined the queue that snaked back and forth within the building. The smell of travel weary bodies perspiring into the hot still air became progressively more oppressive as they slowly edged their way to the head of the queue, where a pair of officials sat behind a wood panelled counter reminiscent of a 1950’s British office. At last, they were through immigration and free to carry on the search for Bob Prentice - almost.

  A further half hour passed while customs officers satisfied themselves the bus was carrying nothing more than it should.

  All the while, the area outside the building was abuzz with people waiting their turn to get into the immigration office. Others, having got out, were waiting for their cars, trucks and buses to receive clearance to proceed. Vendors offering refreshments moved amongst the crowd. One little group of enterprising women had a patch staked out and were cooking hot food, others were brewing bush tea. Their calls mixed with those of the other vendors, the noise of half a dozen idling truck engines, screeching children scurrying about, and two competing portable stereos playing different tunes.

  A little gust of wind brought light relief for a few moments then it lifted and mixed together the smells of the cooking, diesel fumes and an endless variety of produce, fruits, spices an
d herbs. This was much closer to the Africa Helen remembered; the concrete of central Nairobi and its luxury hotels suddenly seemed a long way away.

  Helen looked across to the far side of the road. The traffic heading out of Tanzania into Kenya stretched away into the distance, for as far as she could see. There were soldiers on their side of the road, but many more were stationed around the customs and immigration post on the northbound side, heading out of Tanzania. Other soldiers were posted at strategic points on the little bluff that overlooked the road and yet more strolled up and down the stationary traffic queue. The soldiers’ relaxed and slow movements under the midday sun were belied by the weapons they all carried unslung and ready for action.

  Many northbound drivers and passengers had abandoned their cars; instead, opting to stand in the hot dry air, fanning themselves and covering their heads with any available artefact, from umbrellas to cardboard boxes. As ever, vendors had appeared from unknown places and were working the traffic jam for all it was worth: water, fruit and even cups of what she guessed was tea from a portable urn.

  ‘That looks like hell over there,’ she said.

  Sam had been watching the scene on the other side of the road too. ‘Absolutely. I’m guessing it will take a day to get to the head of that line. I wonder what the problem is.’

  He approached one of the customs officers who had just signed off their shuttle bus driver’s entry permit. At last the bus was free to drive on.

  In faltering Swahili, Sam tried to find out what the problem was.

  The customs officer smiled at him. ‘You speak some Swahili,’ he said in functional English.

  ‘Just a little, I haven’t used it for years.’

  The customs officer laughed out loud and wagged an exaggerated finger at Sam, again replying in English. ‘Very good you try but I can tell, it is many years. How can I help, sir?’

  Sam reverted to English. ‘What’s causing the delays over there, it looks like hell.’

  ‘Hell, yes. Very hot, very bad. We’re happy to be on this side of the road.’ Then, for the first time, the smile vanished from the man’s face. ‘Very bad. Terrorist attack in Arusha on Thursday. They tried to attack the vice president while he was visiting.’

  Sam and Helen looked concerned. ‘That’s bad,’ said Sam. ‘I hope the vice president is okay.’

  ‘Yes, but four guards were killed, many soldiers hurt. Those madmen.’ He waved a hand towards the north and Sam guessed he was meaning the terrorist groups based up in the Horn of Africa. ‘Three terrorists escaped, and the president has locked down the borders while we search for them. They won’t get away.’

  ‘I hope not,’ said Sam, as Helen adopted a sympathetic expression. ‘Seems that madness is everywhere now.’

  The customs officer nodded, and then turned his head to look at their bus; the driver was sounding his horn, revving up the engine a little. Stepping to one side, he waved them forward. ‘Have a good journey.’

  Helen smiled a thank you and, as she climbed onto the bus, she had a last look around. She could not see the little silver car. Possibly, the occupants did not have papers to hand to get them across the border. Anyway, they seemed to have vanished.

  10.

  Friday, 25th October - PM

  There seemed no difference in the landscape on the Tanzanian side of the border. After a short silence, Helen nudged Sam. ‘What do you really think the chances are of finding Bob?’

  ‘Up until we spoke to that customs officer, I’d thought not good. But there is a slim chance now.’

  ‘How so?’

  ‘Timings. The ACE and Bob were snatched on Tuesday morning and evening, respectively. Based on the message Bob left at the Thorn Tree Café, we know it’s Ro’s Korean boys. The good news is the nearest country from where they could ship their prize out without any questions being asked is Burundi. Of course, the bad news is it’s Ro Soo-Ann running the show.’

  ‘Hmmm,’ said Helen, pensively. ‘How long does it take to drive that far?’

  ‘There’s the question. Ordinarily, you might allow a day, perhaps a little less, to reach Arusha from Nanyuki, which is a good way north of Nairobi. But I’m guessing Ro and his men drove at night, which can be pretty dodgy here, so they would have gone slowly and then laid up through the day, just to minimise their exposure. Plus, throw in the fact they would have used bush tracks to get across the border, bypassing the border posts will have added more delays. I’m reckoning they didn’t come out of the bush on the Tanzanian side until maybe Thursday morning.’

  ‘When you put it like that they are still way ahead of us.’

  ‘You’d think that. It’s near as you like a thousand kilometres from Arusha to Burundi, with some very wild ground to cover and some pretty dodgy roads. You have to allow one and a half days, perhaps even two to reach Burundi.’

  ‘They’d maybe make it over the Burundi border sometime later today then.’

  ‘Ordinarily, yes. But perhaps not right now. See that queue?’ Sam pointed to the line of stationary northbound traffic that they were still driving past, all waiting to exit Tanzania. ‘That’s going to be repeated on all the other border crossings, including those into Burundi.’

  ‘And Ro won’t want to risk sitting in a line like that or being caught up in any checkpoint search of their vehicles.’

  ‘Exactly. So, I’m guessing, hoping, they’re still in Tanzania. Probably holed up somewhere, waiting for the heat from that terrorist attack to subside.’

  ‘Couldn’t they try for a bush crossing into Burundi, like you think they did to get from Kenya to Tanzania?’

  ‘They could, but if I were in Ro’s shoes I wouldn’t risk it. The Tanzanian Government has closed the border tight, so they will have made sure all the smaller crossing points are guarded, too, for sure, and probably mobile patrols on border bush tracks.’

  They lapsed into silence for a little while, each thinking about their close shave in Nairobi and what was to come next. Their reverie was interrupted by the phone ringing. Helen looked at the incoming caller display, recognised the Edinburgh number and answered.

  ‘Hi Elaine, it’s Helen here. Good to hear your voice.’ Helen was silent as Elaine responded. Pressing the phone to her ear, she struggled to hear over the noise in the bus. ‘Speak up, Elaine,’ she shouted into the phone. ‘It’s noisy at this end.’

  Helen was silent again, listening carefully. Sam handed her a little note that he had scribbled down.

  ‘Okay, Elaine. I’ll tell Sam. He’ll be interested to hear the news. And thanks to Scottie, I hope he won’t get into trouble for finding that out. Look, Elaine, here’s something else. You had set us up with an accommodation base in Arusha, for the Tanzanian leg of our trip. We’re going to need it earlier, if at all possible. We’ve had to leave Kenya in a hurry. I can’t explain while I’m on the bus, but we’ll be arriving at Arusha in about an hour.’ The telephone conversation ended, and Helen hung up.

  ‘What’s the news?’ said Sam.

  ‘She’ll try and shift our booking now. Failing that she’ll make a fresh arrangement elsewhere and get back to us.’

  ‘Great. But what about Elaine’s news? It sounded interesting.’

  ‘It does. Scottie has really pulled out the stops, but I think somebody is going to be annoyed with him. He’s found out a bit about ACE. It all seems weird to me. But remember, Elaine’s not a science buff and I’m not a fan of weapons, so if it all sounds garbled … well, it probably is.’

  ‘Okay, tell me.’

  Helen lowered her voice and leaned close to whisper into Sam’s ear. ‘Turns out ACE is an acronym. It stands for Autonomous Combat Entity.’

  ‘Sam nodded, ‘So ACE is a weapon then.’

  ‘Scottie had to break into some very secret defence websites to find out for us. I’m hoping they can’t trace it back.’

  ‘He’s the security wiz. I’m sure he will have covered his tracks. What did he find?’

  ‘Well, appa
rently, it’s a system that can replace soldiers on the ground in certain environments.’

  ‘Robots?’

  ‘No, Elaine didn’t say that. But it was a bad line and hard to hear with all this going on,’ Helen waved her hand about.

  ‘She did say it operates independently but has a human programmer or director who is linked into the system’s master controls. She said Scottie had described the set-up as a human ignition key. And whatever ACE is, it won’t function unless that living key is to hand. Trying to operate it without will trigger a self-destruct mechanism. He told her it’s designed to completely fry itself instantly.’ She paused, pulled back a little and looked at Sam. ‘What do you think?’

  ‘Well, that fits with what Rupert said. Though I’ve never heard of that type of security before. Yes, thumbprints, iris recognition, even voice, but what is it measuring? Maybe biorhythms, heartbeat patterns, I don’t know, but very clever. And Scottie mentions this self-destruct mechanism just as Rupert did. I can see why they need Bob alive too. That’s useful, a real sign he may still be alive.’

  The heat of the afternoon had finally tired the passengers out. People had said all they could and now they mostly sat quietly sleeping, reading or just gazing out of the window, waiting for the journey’s end and watching the continuing pattern of the dry and dusty bushlands. The scene was broken by occasional streaks of green where distant trees marked the route of near-dry riverbeds. Helen’s eyes would trace the lines of far-off hills then would suddenly be drawn to the foreground as the flash of ramparts signed the bus’s passage across yet another bridge.

  In the quiet, the satellite phone rang again. Helen answered it quickly. She listened, thanked and hung up.

  ‘That was Elaine again. She spoke to the accommodation. It’s fine, they have space free right now, so at least we’ve sorted that out. They will send their driver to collect us from the shuttle stop. All we need to do is look out for an orange Land Rover.’

  ‘Orange?’

  ‘That’s what she said - bright orange.’