by Ryan, Chris
But then he felt the barrel of a gun in his back. He upped his pace and followed the others into the jungle.
Ten minutes later he was by the bank of a river. There were ten speedboats here, each one containing several jerry cans of fuel. Mist and insects were rising from the water, birds shrieking in the trees.
At a curt instruction from one of the boys, Malcolm found himself in a boat with Cruz, the older man whom the others all seemed to call Boss, and two more armed boys. One of them started the outboard motor.
‘Where are we going?’ Malcolm asked Cruz.
Cruz looked at him with a sinister smile. ‘Banjul,’ he said.
15
BREAK OUT
Latifah didn’t dare move.
She was lying on her front, covered in wet vegetation. Through the foliage she could just glimpse the gates of the camp. The East Side Boys were spilling out. They were rowdy, waving their guns in the air. Señor Martinez was there too, and Boss. Her eyes picked out Puncher.
But there was another boy as well. A white boy. He wore spectacles and was obviously frightened. He looked around, as if he was searching for something. After a moment, his eyes seemed to fall on the exact place where Latifah was hiding. She gasped, and remained very still.
Then an East Side Boy prodded him in the back. The white boy moved on, along with the rest of them, the camp gate slid shut and Latifah was alone again.
Her heart was beating fast. But not as fast as her mind was working. The children inside the camp had hours to live. Unless she found help.
But where could she find help in the middle of the jungle?
She lay there, helpless and scared. Time passed. An hour, maybe two – she was too panicked to tell. The sun started to grow hot. Slowly she got to her feet. Something slithered in the undergrowth nearby, and she froze again. Then everything went silent.
Latifah thought of the boy who had tried to scale the wall last night. Who had given himself up rather than see her killed. He was dead – she had overheard them say that he’d already been buried. She remembered the two shots that had been fired in the jungle after his capture. If he had any companions, they were surely now corpses.
She shuddered. The thought of coming across dead bodies in the jungle was not a nice one. But maybe they had weapons on them. Latifah had never held a gun before, but how else could she stand up to these awful boys who were about to kill everyone in the camp?
She moved quietly round the edge of the camp, treading as silently as she could and keeping a distance of at least twenty metres from the high wall. Her plan was to reach the point in the wall where the boy had climbed over. She did this in about five minutes. She could tell it was the right place because the mesh squares of the fence were slightly damaged. From this point she looked into the jungle. Her keen eyes picked out a narrow path where the foliage was trampled down. She decided to follow it.
The path was straight. Easy to follow. Latifah walked along it reluctantly, scared of what it might lead to.
Forty metres from the camp wall, she tripped over a tree root and fell to the ground, grazing her knee painfully against a piece of bark. Tears welled up in her eyes. She fought them back, but her vision was misty as she looked up.
So the bodies, when she saw them perhaps fifteen metres in the distance, were slightly blurred.
They also seemed to be leaning up against a tree.
For a horrible moment, Latifah thought they had been hanged. But then she remembered the gunshots. She wiped the tears from her eyes so that she could see more clearly.
It was a man and a woman. Both had white skin and blond hair. They were tied to the tree with a length of rope, and their heads were drooping down onto their chests. There was a rucksack at their feet.
There was no blood anywhere but Latifah couldn’t tell if they were dead or alive.
She stepped forward. A twig cracked underfoot.
Both figures immediately looked up.
She gasped.
Their faces were dirty, their eyes bloodshot. They scared her.
Latifah stepped back. But now she saw that both the man and the woman had gags across their mouths. The little girl swallowed hard. She had come into the jungle to look for help, but now that she’d found it, she didn’t know whether she could trust these people. She continued to edge backwards.
Then she saw something in the woman’s eyes. She was desperate. Latifah could see that. She understood the way the woman was looking imploringly into her eyes.
Latifah nodded faintly, licked her dry lips and moved forward to the tree. She had always been an observant girl, so she immediately noticed, when she was about five metres from the tree, that there were two bullet shells on the ground. Again, she remembered the gunshots of the previous night, and tried to work out what had happened.
Had someone fired these shots to make it sound like they were killing these two people?
With a trembling hand, she removed the piece of cloth gagging the blonde woman.
The woman spoke immediately. She attempted certain African dialects that Latifah couldn’t understand, before saying: ‘Do you speak English?’
Latifah hesitated. ‘A . . . a little bit,’ she stammered.
Relief crossed the woman’s face. ‘OK, sweetie,’ she said. ‘You don’t need to be scared. My name’s Gabs. This is Raf. Untie us. We’ll make sure you’re safe.’ And when Latifah looked uncertain, the woman added: ‘Please. We need to find our friend. He’s in very great danger.’
‘Do you mean the one who climbed the wall?’ Latifah asked.
Gabs nodded. Her face was hungry for information.
‘I’m sorry,’ Latifah said, her voice breaking. ‘I think . . . he’s dead.’
Gabs closed her eyes. She drew a deep breath. When she spoke again, her voice had a different quality. Very quiet. Very determined. ‘Untie us,’ she said.
Latifah didn’t dare disobey.
The knots that bound them were tight. They had cut into their skin. But neither Gabs nor the man called Raf seemed bothered by that. ‘Why do you think he’s dead?’ Gabs demanded as soon as they were free.
‘I . . . I heard Señor Martinez talking. He said they had buried him.’
‘Where? Do you know?’
Latifah nodded. The East Side Boys had made the children dig the ditch on the far side of the camp, and had laughed when they explained that the children would probably end up buried here in the end.
‘Show us.’
They hurried through the jungle. This strange couple didn’t seem to care if they made a noise. If the rainforest got in their way, they burst through it. If they could sprint, they did. It took them no longer than ten minutes to reach the deep ditch that Latifah had hoped never to see again.
The three of them looked down into it and Latifah gagged. There was a terrible smell here. It came from the two coffins that lay in the ditch. Flies swarmed and crawled all around them and their buzzing filled her ears.
One of the coffins was unmarked. The other looked like it had been carelessly thrown in. Its head end was embedded in a puddle of water from last night’s rain. On the front was a brass plaque. It said: AGENT 21.
Gabs let out a low moan. Latifah thought that the blonde woman’s legs might give out. The same thought obviously occurred to the man. He grabbed hold of his friend and together they stared into the ditch.
Thirty seconds passed.
A tear rolled down Gabs’s dirty face. She suddenly buried her head in Raf’s shoulder. ‘We should never have brought him here,’ she said weakly.
Latifah cleared her throat. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I’m very sorry. But I need your help. Something terrible is going to—’
Knock.
Latifah stopped. All three sets of eyes were on the ditch again.
Silence.
Knock.
Latifah suppressed a shiver. The sound was coming from the coffin with the plaque. But how could it? Dead people don’t . . .
&
nbsp; Knock knock knock.
Gabs leaped down into the ditch. Dirty water splashed up around her ankles. The flies, suddenly disturbed, buzzed round her head.
‘Zak!’ she shouted. ‘Zak!’
Suddenly the knocking became frenzied. The whole coffin was shaking. Latifah had heard stories of corpses that had come back from the dead, and it looked like that was happening now. She covered her eyes with her tiny hands.
Then she heard a muffled voice from inside the coffin. Latifah recognized the voice – it belonged to the boy who’d tried to get over the wall.
‘Get me out of here!’ he shouted. ‘GABS! FOR GOD’S SAKE, GET ME OUT OF HERE!’
16
BREAK IN
Zak’s knuckles were raw with knocking. His muscles ached from lack of movement. His head throbbed. His eyes were wild from the horror of the last few hours. Every time he remembered the sensation of being in that coffin, waiting for the pitter-pattering sound of earth to fall on the lid, he shuddered. It was a relief to think of something else, even if it was only his explanation of what had happened in the camp: how Cruz had captured him, Malcolm’s betrayal and the murder of his cousin; the moment he’d come face to face with the man who’d actually killed his parents.
‘Malcolm said he’d killed you,’ Zak said weakly when he’d finished. ‘I thought you were dead.’
They were sitting, shaken, by the ditch. Zak’s coffin was still down there, but Raf had prised the lid off with his knife. Zak couldn’t bring himself to look at it, so he concentrated on his friends, and the strange young girl who was with them.
‘We nearly were,’ said Raf. ‘Malcolm stole the AK-47 and crept up on us. I think he’d been working himself up to doing it, but when the time came . . .’
Zak stared at him in astonishment. ‘Malcolm?’ he said. ‘Overpowered you?’
Raf looked rather embarrassed. ‘He did have a gun,’ he said, a bit defensively.
‘You know what I think?’ said Gabs. ‘I think Malcolm listens more than we give him credit for. You remember when we were refuelling and Raf told him off for suggesting we should have just killed those men at the petrol pump? I think he took that on board. And he was clever too. Made us tie our own feet together and rope up one wrist each, then made me tie you up first so we couldn’t overpower him . . .’ Her face twisted, and Zak thought she looked almost embarrassed for a moment.
‘Whatever,’ Raf said. ‘When push came to shove, he couldn’t shoot us. But he couldn’t let Cruz know he’d spared us. That’s why he tied us up at gunpoint – so we didn’t walk in and put his cousin’s life at risk. Fat lot of good that did.’
‘We need to find him quickly,’ Zak said. ‘He’s in a lot of danger.’
‘It’s too late,’ the little girl, who had introduced herself as Latifah, piped up.
Zak, Raf and Gabs turned to look at her.
‘Señor Martinez took him away.’
‘We have to find him,’ Zak breathed. ‘We—’
‘Please,’ Latifah interrupted. ‘Please. You have to listen to me. They are going to kill all the children in the camp. We must not let them.’
Before any of them could reply, there was a new sound. It came from the sky, and was quiet at first, but grew louder. Zak knew immediately what it was. A chopper, flying in over the jungle.
‘Who’s that?’ he shouted.
The little girl, as usual, had the answer. ‘They fly in every week,’ she shouted over the increasing noise. ‘They pick up the dolls we have stuffed, and leave money in exchange. But this is the last time they will come. After today, Señor Martinez has no use for the camp. When the helicopter leaves, they will kill everyone. Please, you have to help me stop them.’
She was only small, Zak observed, but she had the heart of a lion.
Gabs obviously thought the same. She put a reassuring hand on Latifah’s arm. ‘Don’t worry, sweetie,’ she said. ‘Señor Martinez has killed enough people for one day. We’re not going to let anybody else get hurt.’
The helicopter appeared in the clearing above the camp. It hovered for a couple of seconds, adjusting its position. Then it lowered and went below the level of the wall.
Zak felt Latifah tugging his clothes. ‘Come on! Come on! As soon as the helicopter goes, they will murder my friends.’
Zak looked at his Guardian Angels. ‘How do we get in there?’ he urged.
Gabs stood up. She looked like she meant business, and she stared meaningfully at Latifah.
‘Come with me, sweetie,’ she said. ‘And remember to do everything exactly like I say. That’s the only way we’ll all stay safe . . .’
Latifah stood two metres outside the camp gate. It was closed. Inside the camp she could hear movement and voices. The helicopter had gone, only touching down for a few minutes, and the remaining East Side Boys were shouting orders at each other. Their voices sounded ugly. Brutal. They were gathering the children together. Rounding them up.
The little girl looked at her hand. It was shaking. She felt like she was in a dream. Any moment now she would wake up to find that she hadn’t really agreed to go back into the lion’s den. That she was safe with these strange white people in the jungle after all.
But that wasn’t true. She had agreed to do this, and she knew why: without her help, there would be a massacre here very soon.
She stepped forward, raised her little fist and clenched it. Then she rapped it lightly against the gate. There was no hint of her nervousness in her bright, clear voice. She spoke just loudly enough, she hoped, that only the guards at the gate – there were normally two of them – could hear her.
‘Hey, stupid boys,’ she called. ‘You didn’t know I got away, did you?’
Latifah’s eyes grew narrow as she listened for the response.
At first there was none. Just a shuffling of feet and a kind of murmur as the guards spoke together in low voices.
She wiped a trickle of sweat from her brow and called out again. ‘Your friends will think you’re real idiots,’ she taunted. ‘All those guns and you can’t even keep a little girl safely locked up.’
More murmuring. Latifah stepped back from the gate until she was about ten metres away.
Any minute now, she thought to herself. They’ll open the gate. They’ll have their guns strapped round them. They’ll be pointing them at me.
Her eyes darted around. To either side of the gate was a tangled mess of vegetation, thick and knotted. Behind her, the jungle itself did not start again for another fifteen metres. All about her were patches of low scrub, but as soon as the gate slid open, the guards would see her alone and exposed.
And the gates were opening now.
Not fully. Just a metre or so – enough to allow two East Side Boys to step out. One of them wore army trousers and no top. His gun was strapped across his bare, glistening torso. The other wore a khaki sleeveless jacket, and was unarmed. They both had suspicious looks on their faces. But when they saw Latifah standing alone and vulnerable in the clearing, their lips curled into contemptuous sneers. In a single movement, the first boy raised his rifle in Latifah’s direction.
Latifah froze. She knew she was supposed to run. She had practised this moment in her head. But when it came to it, she froze. The only thing she could think about was what it would feel like to be shot in the back as she ran.
It meant she saw it happen.
The East Side Boys never knew what hit them. The two knotted patches of vegetation suddenly sprang to life. The man and the woman – Raf and Gabs – emerged from their hiding places and hurled themselves at the East Side Boys. At the same time, the boy called Zak jumped up out of a low patch of greenery lying just a couple of metres to her left. He wrestled her to the ground. ‘Keep low,’ he hissed. ‘Don’t move.’
They stayed there, pressed against the earth, for what seemed like a minute but was in fact no more than a few seconds. Then they heard a whisper from the direction of the gates. ‘Clear!’
Zak r
eleased his grip and they looked towards the camp gates. Raf and Gabs had completely overwhelmed the two East Side Boys. The guards were on the ground, belly down. Each one had a booted foot on their back and Gabs had their gun. Their earpieces and boom mikes had been ripped from their heads.
Latifah quickly covered her eyes. She had seen enough violence in her short life, and could not bear to see any more. She steeled herself as she waited for the shots.
But no shots came.
When Latifah looked again, peering through a gap between her fingers, the scene had changed. Each boy had a length of rope over his mouth and tied at the back of his head. Their hands were behind their backs. Raf and Gabs were tying their wrists tightly. The two East Side Boys, who had seemed so threatening to Latifah with their guns and their cruel faces, now looked like what they were: scared kids.
Zak grabbed Latifah’s wrist and pulled her to her feet. Together, they ran towards Raf and Gabs, who were forcing the trussed-up East Side Boys into a sitting position against the outside wall, just to the left of the gate. Once the boys were on the ground, Gabs turned her gun round so the butt was in front of her. She gave the two boys an appraising look, then yanked the butt sharply against each of their heads. Their eyes misted over and they slumped to the ground.
‘They’ll be fine,’ Gabs said to nobody in particular. Latifah was a bit scared of this blonde-haired woman whose expression changed between kindness and grim ferocity. ‘You did very well, sweetie,’ she said, with an expression that was now somewhere between the two. Then she turned to Raf and Zak. ‘I think it’s time for us to head inside, don’t you?’ she said very quietly.
The man and the boy nodded.
‘You don’t have to come, Latifah,’ said Gabs. ‘You’ve done more than enough to help already.’
But Latifah felt like she was on auto-pilot now. She shook her head. ‘I’m coming,’ she said, praying there would be no argument.
There was none. Zak was peering round the edge of the camp gate. He turned back to look at them.
‘They’ve rounded up the kids,’ he hissed. ‘I think they’re about to kill them. We have to move!’