Thunderbolt

by Wilbur Smith

  Two were young black guys dressed in khaki fatigues. The nearest had a cigarette in the corner of his mouth. The other, beyond him, was quite fat. His shirt buttons were so taut it looked ready to pop. I realised I hadn’t seen a fat person in ages.

  Odd as that was, it was the third guy who shocked me most. He was white and middle-aged with a firm jaw and an upright military bearing. Though I’d only ever seen his image on a screen before, I recognised him instantly. This was the man whose face I’d seen on General Sir’s laptop, and also Mum’s.

  The sight of this man made my skin prickle. He hadn’t looked my way yet but it was as if an electric current was already running through me. This guy had cropped up on Mum’s laptop first, then General Sir’s, and now he was here in person. Who the hell was he and what did he want?

  It soon became obvious. He and the other adults began looking over the rag-tag rank before them. Among the troop of boys, the jokey atmosphere had faded, replaced with shifting uncertainty. They realised they were being judged, and in some cases rejected.

  We watched as the fat guy and his friend with the cigarette walked up and down in front of the kids looking them over, poking them, manhandling them generally. The fat guy was the worst. He yanked one little kid out of line by the wrist, lifted up the boy’s skinny arm and laughed in his face. Then he pushed him back into place so hard the kid tripped over and landed on his bum in the dirt. Cue more laughter.

  General Sir let this happen without objecting. In fact, he smiled at the men’s hilarity. All the while he was talking to the white guy, flicking his little baton in the direction of the kids for sale, talking up their value, or so it seemed.

  The white man appeared unmoved. I couldn’t see his face in full, but in profile it looked stony. He had a stillness about him. No matter what General Sir said to him, he wasn’t about to react.

  The men in uniform were now separating the boys into two groups, those they wanted and those – such as the skinny little kid the fat one had pushed over – that hadn’t made the cut. Those in the latter group looked crestfallen.

  ‘The irony is too much,’ Amelia whispered. ‘From the look of it these men are selecting fighters for actual war, in which those boys could easily be killed. Staying here, though boring, is the comparatively safe option. Yet that lot there, the rejects, look miserable, while those off to face the real danger seem delighted.’

  It was true; as the selection drew to an end the five boys who’d been successful were grinning at one another again. That wiry teenager there, in mismatched, broken shoes, now had a ticket out of here and was thumping his fist into his palm with a ‘let’s do this!’ look on his face.

  Amelia was right about the irony of the situation, but unlike her I sympathised with the whole success-over-failure thing: it doesn’t really matter what the competition is, if I’ve entered into it, I want to win. The flip side of that is that losing hurts.

  Mo put it more accurately. ‘It’s the way soldiers are trained the world over,’ he murmured to Amelia. ‘The most important step is making them want to fight. A soldier, once he’s had his training, should feel it’s his duty to use it in battle.’

  General Sir, still joking with the white guy, had drifted around to his other side, so that we were now standing in his line of sight. As he was motioning the man towards his quarters, he spotted us and grinned broadly. He beckoned us over with his arms held wide, shooting sidelong glances at the white guy, who’d swivelled to see us.

  ‘And these are the new recruits I was telling you about,’ General Sir was explaining. ‘New recruits for my international brigade!’

  I stared at the white man. He had a lean face, with a square brow and chin, and a level, unblinking gaze. His eyes were the colour of wet slate. He stood with his feet apart and his back straight, very still and upright, conveying the impression that standing, for him, meant taking a stand, rather than simply being in a particular spot.

  Slowly he took in Mo, Amelia and Xander, and finally me. When our eyes met, the electricity connecting us surged like lightning. I swear he also flinched. He looked away immediately.

  Who was this guy? How did he know General Sir? What did he want with kids from this camp? Why, simply by standing there, did he seem such a threat?

  37.

  General Sir waved us closer, his grin wider still. I didn’t want to obey him but, smile or no smile, we had no choice. He said something I couldn’t understand to the two goons who’d been picking out fighters, and then, in English, invited the white guy and the four of us into his quarters.

  I didn’t like the feel of this at all. In fact, I nearly bolted. Something about the way I was moving must have betrayed as much because Xander, always reassuring, put a hand on my shoulder as we stepped inside and whispered, ‘Steady, Jack.’

  Once we were inside, the General made a great show of offering everyone a cold drink from his stupid mini-fridge. It was full of Cokes this time. Where he got them from, I’ve no idea.

  While he fussed about retrieving the drinks, I took a careful look around the little room. It was spick and span again, with the bed made and the laptop set precisely in the middle of General Sir’s little table. The one door into the shack was to the left of that table. A big padlock lay on a shelf just inside the door. I’d seen it before: the General used it to lock up when he wasn’t in the hut. The shack was actually quite sturdy, made of shiplap wood. It was gloomy. The only natural light fell into it through the open door, the shack having no windows.

  General Sir didn’t so much offer us kids a drink as hand us each a can. Amelia cracked hers open immediately. When he held one out to the white guy, however, he rejected it with an almost imperceptible shake of his head, keeping both hands behind his back as he stood there, upright, imposing and dismissive.

  The fact that he was turning down the General’s hospitality made me not want to accept it either, particularly not in front of this guy, but I was already holding the cold can in my hand, so I simply opted not to open it. I slid both hands behind my back instead and stood up as straight as the man in front of me.

  ‘Yes, yes,’ General Sir was saying. ‘As I explained, this is my international contingent, supervised by little Mo here. A new project. Very entertaining! Also, a valuable asset,’ he said under his breath. To us he said, ‘This is Mr Leopold. Or Mr Leopard, as we say! He’s an important man. I think you might be of interest to him.’

  I wasn’t sure how I felt about the ‘supervised by Mo’ bit, but now wasn’t the time to argue. I kept my eyes on this Leopard guy. Having inspected Mo, his level gaze drifted from Amelia to Xander, missing me out.

  ‘What are your names?’ he asked them.

  General Sir answered before any of us did. ‘That’s Xander, he’s Jack, and this one is Melia.’

  Amelia corrected him instantly: ‘Amelia.’

  The Leopard nodded, noting her objection and dismissing it at the same time. ‘Amelia, Xander, Jack,’ he said, but again, though he looked at my friends as he said their names, his eyes slid over me without apparently seeing me. He turned back to the General, a nonplussed look on his face.

  ‘What use are they to me?’ he said.

  ‘You’re not curious about them? How they came to be here; who might be missing them; where they’re from?’

  General Sir saying this brought Mum – poor Mum – to mind, and I had to hold myself back from flinging the Coke can, which I was still gripping tightly in my right hand, at his shiny little head.

  ‘Why should I be?’ said the Leopard.

  ‘As well as the excellent, hand-picked, highly trained fighting force you came for,’ General Sir went on, smooth as a used car salesman, ‘maybe you would like to make me an offer for these … valuable specimens.’

  The Leopard shrugged, as if to say: I doubt it.

  ‘When I say valuable, I mean it,’ General Sir insisted, a tetchy note in his voice. Clearly, he was annoyed by the Leopard’s lack of interest. Like any good salesman
– by which I mean exactly like those cringeworthy contestants on The Apprentice – he pushed on regardless. ‘In the right hands, using the right channels, a person could make a small fortune. These are very valuable goods indeed.’

  ‘Excuse me!’ said Amelia, unable to keep her indignation to herself. ‘Goods?! We’re people, not things. And we’re right here listening!’

  She had a point, but it backfired. General Sir, already frustrated by the Leopard’s stony refusal to bite on his offer, decided to try another tack. He said something to Mo and followed up with, ‘All of you, wait outside. Important negotiations must not be interrupted!’

  Mo immediately did as he was told. We traipsed out, me last. The Leopard didn’t so much as glance our way. He kept his eyes on General Sir, a withering look of near boredom on his face.

  I had an urge to shout something – anything – to get his attention. I’ve no real idea why. What did his indifference matter to me? Either way, I held back, but once we got outside and I realised Mo was intending to head all the way back to the tent, I drew everyone up short.

  ‘Let’s stick around, see what happens,’ I said.

  ‘I’m not sure that’s wise,’ said Xander.

  He’s generally good at avoiding needless trouble, but I ignored him today. ‘To plan an escape, we need to know as much of what goes on here as possible,’ I whispered, trying to believe what I was saying and failing: it sounded so lame.

  One of General Sir’s bloodhounds was curled in the dirt beneath a nearby tree. I went over to it. The dog opened an eye and raised its lip above a yellow incisor as I approached, but there was no venom in the display and I heard no growl. When I bent to scratch the dog between the ears, I was ready to jerk back if it snapped at me, but it didn’t. In fact, though its lip stayed half curled, the dog pushed its dusty head up against my hand, clearly enjoying the attention despite itself. I knelt there, gently working the fur on the back of the dog’s neck, one eye on General Sir’s quarters.

  We were close enough to hear voices coming from inside. Or rather one voice: General Sir’s. He got louder and louder, as if arguing with himself.

  I strained to hear the Leopard’s responses but couldn’t. His stillness seemed to radiate from the shack. Elsewhere, there was movement. The kids who’d not been selected to fight slunk away while those who were off to war, all smiles, climbed into the waiting Land Rovers, ushered inside by the Leopard’s goons.

  That made sense. What surprised me, however, was that as soon as General Sir’s voice became audible outside his shack, two kids with guns had materialised. One, Kayd, came out from behind the building itself, the other casually wandered into the clearing from the direction of the tents.

  The door to General Sir’s quarters banged open hard, kicked from within. The General himself emerged. He had a pistol in his hand, and even from this distance I could see the whites of his eyes.

  Both boys with rifles went immediately to General Sir’s side. The metallic click of gun mechanisms cocking cut through the hubbub. General Sir was waving the pistol in the direction of the door he’d just walked through. Sure enough, the Leopard emerged from the shack.

  Whatever the shape of the row between the two men, the Leopard had remained calm while General Sir had lost his temper. The boy-enforcers weren’t exactly aiming their guns at the Leopard, but they were resting them on their hips, muzzles pointing in his direction.

  If he noticed this, he didn’t show it, just strolled slowly past the little group as if he was taking a walk in the park. He caught nobody’s eye: didn’t look at us or even General Sir, just calmly crossed the clearing, heading for the Land Rovers.

  ‘It was a good offer, a valuable opportunity, and you know it!’ General Sir shouted after him.

  The Leopard’s pace neither quickened nor slowed.

  ‘This disrespect, it’s very bad for business!’ General Sir hollered.

  The Leopard climbed into his seat and closed the door.

  ‘You’ll be back,’ shouted General Sir. ‘You will. You’re interested. We both know it!’

  The Leopard’s Land Rover did not take off in a cloud of dust. Instead it made a slow three-point turn and came to a halt next to General Sir and his enforcers. The second SUV fell in line behind the first. From where we were standing the sun, glancing off the Land Rover’s windows, made it hard to see what was happening.

  I couldn’t see the Leopard at all. But he definitely held out a small package to General Sir, and General Sir, his shiny head still pulsing with rage, snatched it from him angrily. Without pausing, General Sir marched back to his shack as the two Land Rovers, carrying their cargo of fresh child soldiers, eased away down the track.

  38.

  ‘What was all that about?’ asked Xander.

  ‘It’s pretty obvious,’ said Amelia. ‘Those guys were here to buy fighters from the General.’

  ‘Have you seen them here before?’ Xander asked Mo.

  Mo shook his head. ‘They are not General Sir’s usual customers.’

  ‘Who do they work for?’ Xander asked. ‘Where are those poor kids going to fight?’

  ‘Government forces,’ said Mo. ‘Either they go north to Mogadishu, or further south to the border.’

  ‘That Leopard guy didn’t look much like a Somali government official,’ said Xander. ‘But I suppose there’s no telling.’

  Mo shrugged. ‘He’s a mercenary working with them, I think, to put distance between General Sir’s black-market child soldiers and the officials. But the other two men wore Somali army uniform, that’s how I know. Mercenaries fight on all sides. Often they have military experience in foreign armies. They sell their expertise to the highest bidder.’

  ‘He sounded British to me,’ I said. ‘And he looked pretty together. General Sir’s a nasty nut-job, but what he does makes a sort of sense. This is his conflict. Imagine coming here on purpose as a mercenary, just to make money out of the war, buying children to fight in it. That Leopard guy is just … beyond evil.’

  ‘Yeah, but what was the row about?’ asked Xander.

  Mo, eyes to the ground, said, ‘I think General Sir was trying to sell you to the Leopard as well,’ he said. ‘With his contacts he could ransom you on for even more money. But the Leopard wouldn’t bite.’

  ‘And the implications of that are pretty interesting,’ said Amelia, as if explaining a bit of schoolwork, not theorising about our fate. ‘Things can’t be going too well from General Sir’s perspective if he wants to pass us on to some random mercenary. Either he’s not been able to make contact with our parents or they’re not willing to pay for our release. Given that he appears to have a computer and adequate communications in place, the latter is the more logical, if surprising, conclusion.’

  We sat in silence as her words sank in.

  Amelia’s reasoning sounded, as usual, correct. I’m not sure what the others were thinking about that, but I was torn. On the one hand, I have to admit it hurt a bit to imagine that Mum – and Amelia’s and Xander’s parents – weren’t prepared to pay for our release, but on the other I was proud of them: led by Mum – and me – they were doing the right thing by holding firm. It was exactly what I’d asked her to do.

  ‘If General Sir starts thinking we’re not so valuable as hostages …’ Xander began, but trailed off.

  ‘He might put us to some other use,’ said Amelia.

  ‘Like what?’ Xander asked.

  Unable to stop herself, but clearly frightened by her own thinking, Amelia whispered, ‘Since this is a training camp for child soldiers, the obvious answer would be to train us up. He may decide we’ll sell for more as … cannon fodder.’

  Nobody said anything as the implications of this sank in. Imagine actually fighting a war. Against other child soldiers and men. Being sniped at, machine-gunned, bombed. My tongue was running around the inside of my mouth, probing a painful cut inside my cheek. It felt raw, like an abscess. Bad food, without enough vitamins, can give you those; I
’d read about that in a book on pirates, ironically enough. Not the modern type who’d kidnapped us; the old-school ones with eye-patches and parrots. At sea for months on end without sight of a vegetable or any fruit. Scurvy is a thing. Never mind being torn apart on a battlefield, we were already falling apart here. Anger welled up within me.

  ‘It changes nothing,’ I said. ‘We got ourselves into this mess and we’re going to get ourselves out of it. If anything, it just means we should put an escape plan into action sooner rather than later.’

  Mo hung his head.

  Xander said, ‘Sure.’

  And Amelia said, ‘Of course.’

  Through gritted teeth I muttered, ‘I mean it.’

  39.

  Maybe it had to do with his disappointment at not having offloaded us on the Leopard, or possibly he’d been planning this visit all along: either way, General Sir pulled a chair into our midst after nightfall that evening and said, ‘You know I have an English passport, like you guys?’

  ‘Sure,’ I said under my breath.

  ‘I do. I lived there for a while. In London. A place called Camden.’

  ‘That explains the accent,’ said Amelia. ‘But if you lived there, what are you doing here?’

  ‘This is where I’m from originally.’

  Despite myself I was interested. ‘So, what happened?’ I asked.

  ‘My family were from Mogadishu. The capital. We endured the war at its worst here, during the 1990s. My father fought in it. He was killed when I was six.’

  ‘That’s a shame,’ said Amelia. She’s so unintentionally deadpan that even I, in that moment, couldn’t work out whether she was being sarcastic or genuine.

  ‘Sad, yes,’ said General Sir, taking no apparent offence.