by Ryan, Chris
He recognized their cars too: beaten-up old saloons, mostly, which they parked up within the high wire perimeter fence that surrounded the communications tower. Robert was supposed to keep the perimeter gate locked, but he almost never did. Why bother? Nobody strange ever came to the tower, and it was a hundred metres from the gate to the tower itself. A long way to walk in the sun.
Today, though, a little voice in his mind told him that perhaps he should have locked the gate. Because as he sat on his rickety stool at the foot of the tower, he saw three vehicles entering the perimeter, shimmering in the heat haze. He didn’t recognize them – they were not the run-down old cars that Robert was used to seeing, but were big, shiny four-by-fours. Range Rovers maybe. They drove slowly in convoy and something about them made him feel uneasy.
Robert squinted in the sunlight as they approached. He didn’t move. When the convoy stopped, about thirty metres from his position, he stayed sitting down. In all his ten years guarding the tower, he’d never had to draw the gun he carried by his side and he didn’t intend to now. He was a peaceful man.
The side doors of the Range Rovers opened in unison. Four people emerged from the first vehicle. They were young – not much older than fifteen – and Robert’s eyes were immediately drawn to their faces. Each youngster had a thin scar stretching from the corner of his mouth to his ear. Like a hideous, fixed grin. They wore a strange combination of clothes. Bandannas, army camouflage trousers, dirty T-shirts and sleeveless jackets that showed their lean, muscly arms.
And guns. They each had an assault rifle strapped across their chest. It looked to Robert like they knew how to use them.
Four more boys climbed out of the Range Rover at the back of the convoy. They also had scarred faces and weapons.
Only then did two figures emerge from the middle vehicle.
These two looked different. They were also young, but they weren’t African. One was tall and thin, with a pronounced Adam’s apple and a cold, cruel look in his eyes. Robert thought that perhaps he looked South American. The other had pasty white skin and thick glasses. His eyes darted in every direction, and he seemed terrified. It was the sight of that scared kid that persuaded Robert to stand up.
‘Hey!’ he shouted out, choosing English as his language because this was such a strange collection of people. ‘What’s going on?’
‘Sit down, Grandad,’ one of the scar-faced boys shouted back. A few others laughed. ‘Maybe we let you live, hey?’
More laughter. Something snapped inside Robert. Sure, he was a peaceful man – some might even say lazy – but he had his pride. Fumbling, he felt for the old pistol by his side.
If you’re going to draw a gun on an armed man, you need to do it quickly. If you’re going to draw a gun on eight armed men, you’d better be like lightning.
Robert was neither.
His fingertips had barely touched the handle of his gun when there was a cluster of clicks as eight safety catches were released. Robert looked up to see the boys aiming their weapons directly at him.
A pause. In the distance, the roar of an aircraft taking off filled the air.
And then the tall South American boy from the second car spoke.
‘Kill him,’ he said.
There was no hesitation. Eight guns fired a single round each. They all found their mark. Robert only heard the sound of the one that killed him.
Malcolm was indeed weak with terror. As he watched the man at the foot of the communications tower fall, bloodied, to the ground, he felt his own knees buckle beneath him. Cruz caught him before he collapsed, but it wasn’t out of kindness. He yanked Malcolm back up to his feet again, then barked at the East Side Boys. ‘Clear the tower,’ he said.
Four of the boys stepped forward, past the corpse of the guard that was bleeding heavily onto the tarmac. One of them stepped in a puddle of blood, but it didn’t seem to bother him. He just walked scarlet footprints up to the entrance of the communications tower as he and his three companions disappeared inside.
There was a minute’s silence, followed by a sudden burst of muffled gunfire from inside the tower. It didn’t last more than thirty seconds. Then it fell silent.
Cruz turned to the remaining East Side Boys. ‘Guard the tower,’ he instructed. ‘We’re going in.’ He seized Malcolm roughly by his upper arm. ‘When we get inside, you’ll do exactly as I tell you. Understood?’
Malcolm was too scared to answer. He just swallowed nervously as Cruz dragged him away from the cars.
Inside the base of the tower there was nothing but a spiral iron staircase disappearing into a low ceiling. Cruz pushed Malcolm towards it with a single word: ‘Up.’
Malcolm staggered towards the staircase and started climbing it. The iron clattered noisily as he walked up, and he counted precisely thirteen steps before he emerged into a large circular room on the first floor. Around the walls were banks of old computers and communications terminals. Curved windows looked out towards the perimeter fencing. On one side Malcolm could see the white airport terminal. On another, thick trees in the distance. The four East Side Boys had taken up position around the edge of the room, facing inwards. And on the floor were six dead bodies, bleeding as heavily as the guard downstairs.
Cruz entered the room behind Malcolm. With a sweep of his arm he gestured at the banks of computers. ‘There you go, Einstein,’ he said. ‘Knock yourself out.’
Malcolm simply stared – not at the terminals, but at the bleeding corpses.
Cruz stepped round to face him. He grabbed Malcolm by the scruff of the neck and looked at him like he was the lowest form of life.
‘Listen carefully, you freak,’ he said. ‘Those idiots that you led through the jungle are dead. Your stupid cousin is dead. You’ve got nobody except me. I’m your best friend and your worst nightmare all in one, do you understand that? And if you don’t do exactly what I tell you to do, I won’t instruct my East Side Boys to kill you. I’ll get them to hurt you so badly, you’ll wish you were dead. I promise you, Malcolm, you’ll beg me to finish you off.’
To emphasize his point, Cruz suddenly pulled a knife from under his clothes. He pressed the point against the soft skin just below Malcolm’s right eye. Malcolm felt a scarlet tear drip down his cheek. Terror was not an emotion to which he was accustomed, but he felt it now: cold dread, seeping into every limb.
‘What do you want me to do?’ he croaked. Cruz had told him already, of course, but he wanted to make sure he had it right.
Cruz’s eyes went narrow with impatience. ‘I want all wireless communications in the capital disabled. Cellphones. Short-wave radios. Wi-fi. Everything. You can do that from here.’
Malcolm’s eyes flickered round the tower. He shook his head. ‘It’s not possible,’ he said weakly. ‘I don’t have the right equipment.’
There was a silence in the control tower. Cruz didn’t take his eyes off Malcolm. There was a sense that everybody in there was holding his breath.
‘Two things, freak,’ Cruz said quietly. ‘Number one: you’re not the only brainbox in here. I was a scientist before I became a businessman. I know what’s possible and what isn’t. And number two: the only reason you’re alive is to do this for me. If you really think you can’t do it, say the word and my men will deal with you.’
Malcolm swallowed hard.
‘I’m going to ask you this question just once.’ Cruz’s voice was deathly quiet. Malcolm could feel his enemy’s hot breath on his face. ‘Can you do it?’
Another pause. Then Malcolm nodded.
‘Then do it now.’
Cruz stepped back and once again swept his arm towards the computer screens. Malcolm edged forward, stepping round a bleeding corpse and selecting a terminal that looked at least fifteen years old. Within a few seconds his face was bathed in a green light and his fingers were flying over the keyboard.
‘How long will it take?’ Cruz demanded.
‘About twenty minutes,’ said Malcolm.
A
pause.
‘You’ve got ten,’ said Cruz.
20
THE COUP
Albert Market in Banjul had not changed for 150 years, or so all the guide books said. Stallholders – mostly women – sat cross-legged on the ground with their wares spilled out in front of them. Baskets of fruit, brightly coloured clothes, hair extensions, electrical goods, shoes and worthless trinkets to sell to tourists were all on display. A butchered cow was laid out on a wooden table, flies crawling over its dark red meat. Fishermen offered huge barracuda with rows of sharp teeth. It was noisy, hot, dirty and crowded.
So crowded that nobody would ever notice the sudden influx of fifty young teenagers with strange scars on their faces. The East Side Boys had no fixed abode. They slept wherever they lay, and stole whatever they wanted. They were used to living on the streets, and now they swaggered, as if they owned them.
They came in pairs, entering from all sides of the busy market. They carried weapons, but kept them hidden for now. Instead, they held sturdy poles, which they pretended to use as walking sticks.
They ignored the stallholders who implored them to buy their goods. They ignored the angry looks of the men and women that they shouldered past as they headed towards their positions. But finally, at 09.00hrs, they stopped.
Then they pulled their weapons.
Each of the fifty boys dotted around the market raised their guns above their heads and fired a single shot.
The noise was deafening. Like fifty bursts of thunder in quick succession. All movement and noise in the marketplace stopped.
The boys went to work. They raised their walking sticks and started swinging them around. They didn’t care what or whom they hit. The more chaos and damage they caused, the better. Their sticks cracked against the cheeks of old ladies swathed in colourful cloth. They upturned trays of fruit and baskets of vegetables. They snarled at young children, who ran away with frightened tears in their eyes.
All around the marketplace, stallholders and punters hit the ground, pressing themselves onto the stone floor in the hope that it would make them less visible to these scar-faced marauders. Some of them felt heels grind their cheeks into the ground. They knew better than to complain. Nobody was dead yet. But with so many guns around, it was surely only a matter of time.
There was one stallholder, though, who was braver than the others. She was a teenage girl with intricately plaited hair, selling bracelets that she had embroidered herself. Now she crawled behind the little pile of wooden boxes on which she displayed her goods. From her pocket she pulled a chunky mobile phone. She normally kept it switched off, because the battery was old and didn’t hold its charge very well. Now she pressed the button on the top with shaking hands. It seemed to take for ever to switch on. All around she heard the chaotic sounds of the boys terrorizing the marketplace, and of people screaming.
The screen on her phone lit up. She typed in her brother’s number. He would know what to do. He would bring help.
She hit dial and put the phone to her ear.
Then she winced. There was no ringing tone. Just a harsh, whining, white noise.
She checked the screen again. The service bars were full. She redialled.
Same thing.
Something was wrong with her phone, she decided. But she didn’t get the chance to dial for a third time. Someone kicked the boxes over to reveal her crouching down behind them. She felt a foot in her stomach. Winded, she dropped her phone.
One of the boys knelt down to look at her. He had a wild, crazy look on his scarred face.
‘No good trying to use your phone,’ he said with a spiteful grin. ‘No good anybody trying to use their phones.’
As if to emphasize his point, he stood up, then stamped on the handset. It shattered. Then he booted the girl in the stomach again and turned his back on her. She was out of play now, and there were plenty of other people to terrorize.
Sudiq strode down a long street in the centre of Banjul. He was flanked by two armed East Side Boys, and he had a cruel smile on his face.
Behind him were scenes of chaos, worse even than those at the market. Three cars were burning on the side of the road. Shop windows were shattered. Stalls were overturned. Members of the public were screaming. Some of them tried to yell into their phones, but no phones were working. East Side Boys – they seemed to crawl out of every alleyway – strutted around, bullying the local populace and peppering the air with the sound of gunshot. They were doing their job very well. In a few hours, this would all be over.
There was no sound of sirens. Sudiq was pleased about that. He hadn’t really trusted Cruz’s plan to wipe out all communications in the capital, but it seemed to be working. The emergency services clearly had no way of coordinating their response to the sudden rioting in the city. The police and the army would be trying to respond as best they could. But if they couldn’t talk to each other, they would be all over the place. They were so busy trying to communicate, they were seriously weakened.
It was a good plan. Sudiq had to give Cruz that. The thought even crossed his mind that he was smarter than his father, whom Sudiq had served for so many years.
And Cruz’s plan would make what Sudiq had to do now child’s play.
He picked up his pace, almost oblivious to another burning car he passed, then turned right. The road in which the presidential residence was situated was just up ahead. Sudiq’s eyes flashed eagerly. He walked towards it so swiftly that his guards suddenly had to trot to keep up.
At the top of the road, he passed the body of a dead policeman. Two more East Side Boys loitered casually around it. As Sudiq strode past, they joined him. Now he had four of them walking behind him as he marched confidently down the street.
Sudiq knew which building was the presidential residence, but he would have figured it out anyway. It was the largest, broadest house, made of white stone. There were pillars at the front and a Gambian flag hanging limply from a pole at the top. Two members of the presidential guard stood at the main gate. They knew something was up – they could hear the shouts of rioting in the distance. Glancing nervously at each other, they anxiously fingered their weapons.
When they saw Sudiq and his followers approaching from thirty metres away, they backed up against the railings of the residence. They looked even more nervous now. It’s easy to be confident when you’re the only person with a gun. But suddenly they were outnumbered, and things didn’t look so good.
The guards started to raise their weapons.
The four East Side Boys did the same.
‘Don’t kill them,’ Sudiq said under his breath. ‘We need the army on our side. Just give them a scare.’
The East Side Boys didn’t need telling twice. They fired.
The sound of one assault rifle firing a burst of rounds is loud enough. Four of them pumping out bullets at the same time can be deafening. The shots thundered towards the guards, missing them but sparking violently against the railings as they ricocheted off.
Panicked, the guards hit the ground. The East Side Boys cheered. They ran towards the guards. Within seconds they had disarmed them and dragged them to their feet. Two East Side Boys held each guard, one grabbing a clump of hair, the other clutching his prisoner’s throat.
Sudiq approached. He spoke slowly and very clearly. ‘You will take us to the president now,’ he said. ‘If you shout out, or hesitate, we will kill you. If you do as we say, you’ll be well rewarded. Do you understand?’
The guards nodded vigorously. Moments later, this strange group of seven boys and men had stepped through the perimeter fence and were approaching the main entrance of the presidential residence.
The president was not alone. Nor was he a fool. Word had reached him of the rioting in the street and he had heard the sound of gunfire echoing across his capital city. He knew what was coming.
He had instructed the head of the army – a broad-shouldered, flat-nosed man who now stood to his right – to surround the resid
ence with armed troops. The army chief had tried to make the relevant calls, but the phone line out of the residence seemed to be down. His cellphone didn’t work, either. Nor did the phones of anyone else in the vicinity. There was little he could do now, except pull out the pearl-handled pistol he normally only carried for show, and wait by his president’s side.
The president himself had changed into an expensive suit and tie. Now he was regretting his choice of clothes as sweat poured from his body. He paced the large, marble-floored room in which he normally conducted important business. He was proud of this room. It was open on one side and looked out onto a massive courtyard, full of greenery and fountains that tinkled gently. The courtyard served two purposes: to look beautiful, but also to provide a landing pad for a helicopter in case the president needed to be evacuated.
But there were no helicopters arriving now. The president was trapped.
He occasionally gave his army chief an irritated glare. How could you get me into this situation? it seemed to say. The army chief could do nothing but bow his head and look miserable.
The door opened and the army chief raised his pistol. But he lowered it again as four heavily armed boys with strange scars on their faces spilled in, aiming their weapons directly at him. He muttered under his breath, with more than a hint of contempt: ‘East Side Boys . . .’ Behind them, two guards hovered uneasily, then they took to their heels and sprinted away down the corridor.
A figure stood in the doorway. An older man, whose hair was tied in tight dreadlocks.
‘Good morning, Mr President,’ he intoned slowly as he stepped inside the room. ‘I won’t keep you long. As you’ve probably discovered, we have disabled all communications within the capital.’
No reply.
The man with dreadlocks smiled. ‘My name is Sudiq Al-Tikriti Gomez. My excellent East Side Boys are busy causing chaos and death on the streets, and a few of them have been dispatched to the hotel room where I understand your wife and children currently believe themselves to be beyond harm’s way.’