by Ryan, Chris
The president opened his mouth in outrage, but Sudiq immediately raised one hand to silence him.
‘Please, please, they’re quite safe for the moment. Whether they remain safe, of course, is up to you. I will offer you and your family safe passage out of The Gambia to a country of your choosing. I’ve no doubt you have a stash of money hidden away in a private bank account somewhere. You’ll live quite comfortably, I imagine.’ Sudiq smiled. ‘Do I take it that you accept my offer?’
‘Do I have a choice?’
Sudiq’s eyes widened. ‘Of course you have a choice, my friend. Either you do exactly as I say, or I instruct these boys to kill you now, and your family later. But I’m afraid I don’t have a great deal of time on my hands, so I must insist on hearing your decision immediately.’
There was a tense silence in the room. The president locked gazes with Sudiq. But after only a few seconds he turned to look at the army chief, and nodded his head, defeated.
The army chief stepped forward. ‘I am the head of the Gambian army,’ he said. ‘I will instruct my men to do whatever you say, Mr . . . I’m sorry, I failed to catch your name.’
Sudiq smiled. A cruel smile, filled with greed.
‘Just call me “Sir”,’ he said. The East Side Boys started to laugh.
Malcolm looked through the window of the control tower. He could see three aircraft circling in the clear blue sky above the airport. He turned to Cruz.
‘Those planes,’ he said. ‘If nobody can communicate with them, they’ll run out of fuel and—’
‘Quiet,’ Cruz hissed, without even glancing at the circling aircraft. He looked at his watch. ‘Ten thirty,’ he said. ‘It will be done by now.’ He turned to the East Side Boys guarding the control tower. ‘You and you,’ he said, pointing at two of the scar-faced boys. ‘Guard him. If he does anything suspicious, put a bullet in his head.’
Malcolm felt his glasses slipping down his sweaty nose. He pushed them back up with one finger and blinked heavily. He didn’t like being stuck with Cruz, but being stuck without him sounded even worse. His guards were violent. And totally unpredictable. He opened his mouth to try to change Cruz’s mind, but no words came out. That was what happened when he was scared.
‘The communications stay down for another two hours,’ Cruz said. ‘I mean it, freak. And remember what I said: the only thing keeping you alive is your ability to do what I tell you.’
Cruz turned and, without uttering another word, walked out of the control tower and down the steps. Two of the East Side Boys followed him. The two that remained leaned on either side of the door, arrogant looks on their faces. One of them was stroking the trigger of his rifle, but neither said a word.
Malcolm edged backwards towards the computer terminal he had been using. The screen was filled with the complex code he had used to disable the city’s communications systems. The cursor blinked, ready to receive more. Malcolm’s eyes flickered towards it and his fingers twitched as a million thoughts ran through his panicked brain, like lines of code in themselves.
He licked his lips, glanced anxiously at the computer screen and then, still standing up, allowed his fingers to fly lightly over the keyboard. More and more impenetrable code appeared. Line after line, like it was spilling directly out of Malcolm’s brain and into the computer itself.
‘Hey!’ one of the East Side Boys said sharply. ‘Hey! What are you doing?’
Malcolm looked over his shoulder but didn’t stop typing. He wasn’t used to feeling scared, as he was now. He didn’t think he was doing a very good job of hiding it, but he carried on anyway.
‘What I was told to do,’ he said, his voice wavering. ‘Do you really think the communications will stay down if I don’t keep on top of them?’ He gave a mirthless little laugh, as if to say: How stupid are you?
The East Side Boy stepped forward. He crossed the control room in four large strides, then with one brutal swipe of his arm knocked Malcolm away from the terminal. Malcolm’s hands shot up to stop his glasses falling off, but he managed to avoid falling.
Then he shrugged. ‘Fine,’ he said. ‘We’ll just stand around here waiting for everything to get back up and running, shall we? Then you can explain to Señor Martinez why everything’s gone wrong.’
Suddenly the thug looked a little less sure of himself. He glanced over at his mate, then back at Malcolm.
‘Get back to work,’ he growled.
Malcolm inclined his head, then stepped back over to the terminal and started typing again. He saw his face – intense, tired, frightened, determined – reflected in the screen. But in his mind’s eye he saw the face of someone else.
A boy his own age, with scruffy short hair that had been dyed artificially blond.
A boy whom he had last seen being nailed into a coffin, ready for death.
But whom Malcolm knew – or heavily suspected – was not dead.
The advantage of being in charge of a city’s communications system was that, even if nobody else could access their mobile phones or email accounts, Malcolm could. And as he entered lines of code into the computer, the computer spat back the information he was requesting.
It was the position of the phone Zak had taken from Malcolm’s apartment back in Johannesburg, and which he had left in his rucksack before entering the camp. And the sequence of figures spat out by the computer told Malcolm that the phone was not buried in the ditch somewhere deep in the Senegalese jungle. The phone’s GPS chip reported that it was moving up the same river that Malcolm himself had travelled. And it was just a couple of miles from Banjul.
He looked at his two guards in the reflection of his computer screen. They were still standing by the door.
Then he looked back at his terminal. He had only one option ahead of him, he realized, both to save himself and to save the hundreds of lives that Cruz’s men were about to take.
He had to get a message to Zak.
21
SMILER’S CHOICE
‘We must be getting close!’ Zak shouted over the noise of the outboard motor.
The river traffic had grown steadily busier. Zak noticed that all the ramshackle fishing boats he saw were travelling in the opposite direction – away from Banjul. They passed within a few metres of one of them and an old Gambian man with a deeply lined face waved his arms and shouted at them in an African dialect.
‘What’s he saying?’ Zak asked Smiler.
‘He is telling us to turn back,’ Smiler said.
‘Look,’ said Gabs. She pointed up ahead. In the distance, rising up into the sky, was a tendril of smoke. ‘Somehow I don’t think that’s a barbecue.’
Zak shook his head grimly. It looked like Cruz, Sudiq and their boys had been busy already.
Raf pulled out his phone. In the jungle, they hadn’t expected to get any service. Here, on the outskirts of the city, it was different. Here, they should be able to use their phones. ‘I’ve got service bars,’ he shouted as he continued to guide the boat with one hand. ‘Maybe they didn’t manage to disable the comms after all.’ Zak looked at his own phone – the one he’d taken from Malcolm’s house back in Jo’burg – and sure enough he could see three bars of signal strength. But then Raf dialled a number and held the phone up to his ear. He shook his head. ‘Nothing,’ he said.
Zak wasn’t surprised. He knew how good Malcolm was. If anyone could disable the city’s communications systems, it was him . . .
Or maybe not. Because suddenly, as Zak held it in his right hand, his own phone pinged into life.
The others in the boat noticed it happen. They all stared first at Zak, then at the phone.
‘Message, sweetie?’ Gabs asked lightly.
Slightly stunned, Zak swiped the screen of his phone. He read the message on the screen quietly to himself first, then out loud to the others.
‘It’s me. Malcolm. I’m at the communications tower near the airport. There are two boys here with guns. They’ll probably kill me soon. I hope it doesn’t h
urt too much. Cruz has gone to the president’s house. He says the coup is complete. Sudiq is the president now. But he hasn’t finished yet. There are bombs. They are at the Palace Hotel where lots of tourists stay, and are set to go off at midday. I hope you get this message and can do something to stop it. If not, lots of people are going to die. I have to stop now. My guards are looking suspicious. Don’t try to reply. It won’t work. Malcolm.’
‘The Palace Hotel!’ Gabs shouted. ‘We need to get there. Fast!’
But as she spoke, Raf killed the engine. ‘What are you doing?’ Zak demanded. ‘We need to—’ But he was cut short by a single raised finger from Raf, who then pointed ahead.
They were approaching some sort of harbour. It was about 250 metres away. A collection of old boats bobbed around in the water, and a rickety wooden pier extended around twenty metres into the river. Three figures stood at the end of the pier. Even from this distance Zak could see the outline of the weapons slung around their necks.
‘You still got that spotting scope?’ Raf asked. Zak nodded, removed it from his pack and handed it over. Raf looked through it, then handed it to Gabs, who took a look and passed it back to Zak. Zak held the scope to one eye and focused in on the figures on the pier. He immediately picked out the scars on their faces.
‘East Side Boys,’ he muttered.
Raf twisted the outboard motor ninety degrees and slowly chugged towards the edge of the river. Reeds and mangroves sprouted from the water and Zak could see the shadows of large fish below the surface. As the boat bobbed out of sight of the pier guards, Raf turned to Smiler and rapped on the top of the coffin containing Cruz’s money.
‘Smiler,’ he said. ‘It’s still possible that we’ll need to use this – and you – to get access to Cruz. You need to wait here with it. Can you do that?’
Smiler gave an anxious nod.
‘We’re going to get to the hotel and try to stop this bomb going off. Or at the very least evacuate the place. But we’ll be back as soon as we can.’
Raf was already climbing out of the boat and stepping onto the marshy bank. Gabs followed him. Zak found his eyes lingering on the coffin.
‘You need this to be with Boss and Señor Martinez, don’t you?’ said Smiler quietly.
Zak narrowed his eyes. ‘It’s OK, Smiler,’ he said. ‘I can’t ask you to do that.’ He looked over at Raf and Gabs who were almost ten metres away and disappearing from the bank. ‘Stay here, like Raf told you.’ He started to climb out of the boat, but then he stopped. ‘I know Raf said we’d be back, but if something happens . . .’ He rummaged in his backpack for a piece of paper and a pencil, hurriedly scrawled a message and pressed it into Smiler’s hands. Then he clasped one hand on the boy’s shoulder, gave him a reassuring nod, and climbed out of the boat.
‘Zak,’ said Smiler. ‘I know there is something you are not telling your friends. And I don’t know what’s really in this coffin. But if I took it to Señor Martinez, would it help you?’
‘Stay here, Smiler.’ Zak avoided the question. ‘Do as Raf said. It’s safer.’
Smiler bowed his head as Zak turned and ran after his Guardian Angels. But a few seconds later, they heard the growl of the boat’s motor. Zak spun round to see Smiler moving away from the bank.
‘No!’ he shouted.
Too late. The boat veered ninety degrees to the left. Smiler was heading towards the pier where the other East Side Boys were waiting.
‘What’s going on!’ Raf was suddenly at Zak’s shoulder, watching the boat disappear.
Zak tried to keep his voice steady. ‘I don’t know,’ he lied. His stomach was churning. He’d made a terrible mistake. Smiler was putting himself in very great danger and Zak didn’t know how to make it right again.
Raf was swearing under his breath as Gabs strode up to them.
‘We can’t do anything about it now. We’ve got to get to the hotel. If Smiler wants to risk his life, that’s his business. Let’s go!’
Raf and Gabs turned and ran. Zak clenched his jaw, watched the boat drift up towards the pier, then turned and followed them.
The ground was wet and marshy underfoot, the air thick with insects. Zak and his Guardian Angels crashed through the vegetation, driven on by urgency. It was 11.30hrs. In thirty minutes precisely, a bomb – maybe more than one – would explode at the Palace Hotel. Hundreds of people could die. Their only chance was if the three agents currently fighting their way towards the city got there in time and evacuated the building.
It wasn’t looking good.
The vegetation stopped abruptly and they burst out onto a roughly tarmac’d road. It was busy, but all the cars were heading in a single direction. Zak instantly realized that they were heading away from Banjul.
Raf stepped calmly into the line of traffic and held up one hand. Several cars screeched to a halt and honked their horns noisily at him. He ran up to the first car, waving a hundred-dollar bill at the driver.
‘Take us to the Palace Hotel,’ he said.
The driver shook his head fearfully. Even the promise of money was clearly not enough. He shot off along the road.
Raf flagged down a second driver. The same thing happened.
The driver of a third car, however – a beige, battered VW Polo – couldn’t take his eyes off the money. He nodded when Raf explained where they wanted to go, and indicated that they should all climb into the back of the car. Raf and Gabs hurried towards the back seat.
Zak held back.
‘Come on!’ Gabs shouted at him.
Zak shook his head. ‘You go,’ he said. ‘You don’t need me to evacuate the hotel. I’m going to find Malcolm.’
Gabs shook her head. ‘It’s too dangerous. He’ll be well guarded. Let’s stop the attack, then we’ll deal with him together.’
‘No. If Cruz hears that you’re even in the vicinity of that hotel, he’ll know Malcolm tipped you off and he’ll get his East Side Boys to kill him immediately.’ Zak didn’t mention that this was the only way he could think of to save Smiler’s skin too.
Gabs hesitated, looking uselessly from side to side.
‘We got him into this, Gabs,’ Zak urged. ‘We have to get him out.’
Without waiting for a reply, he sprinted over to the next car in line, ignoring the cacophony of car horns that blasted through the air. He dug one hand into his pocket and yanked out a fistful of notes, which he waved under the nose of the driver. ‘Will you take me to the airport for this?’ he shouted.
The driver’s eyes bulged and he nodded vigorously. Zak jumped into the back of the car. Within seconds, the driver had done a U-turn. Zak looked out of the window and saw the battered old car carrying Raf and Gabs do the same manoeuvre. He caught a glimpse of Gabs herself, her face troubled and nervous, and suddenly felt very alone.
‘Please hurry,’ he said to his Gambian driver.
The man looked nervously left and right. In the rear-view mirror, Zak could see sweat on his brow. ‘All the planes are cancelled anyway,’ the driver said. ‘They are making circles in the sky. All the phones are down. Nobody can talk to anybody else.’
‘Yeah,’ Zak said. ‘I heard.’
‘Probably it is something to do with the weather.’ The man was talking fast and Zak sensed he was trying to keep his mind occupied while they headed back into the city.
‘Probably,’ said Zak, looking out at the piercing blue sky.
‘You will not miss your flight.’
‘I’m not catching a flight,’ Zak mumbled.
‘Then why go to the airport? You want to wait there until you can get out of Banjul? That is a good idea. There are riots in the streets today. Buildings on fire. It is not a safe place to be.’
‘How long till we get there?’ Zak asked.
‘It is not far. Five minutes maybe.’ The man fell silent as he concentrated on the road.
‘I think there’s something Zak’s not telling us,’ Gabs said.
Their driver screeched wildly up the m
ain road. A sign told them that they were entering the town of Serrekunda, a suburb of Banjul. It appeared to be a busy, sprawling place. But a place in a state of panic. Roadside stalls had been left abandoned. Empty cars sat at the side of the road with their doors flung wide open. They drove past shacks to the left and right where whole families seemed to have congregated. Many of the men were holding phones up to the sky, clearly trying to understand why they wouldn’t work.
‘What do you mean up to something? Like what?’ asked Raf. He glanced at his watch. 11.37hrs.
‘I’m not sure. Did you see the way he looked at that coffin? Something’s going on. I don’t like it.’
Raf gave her a solid stare. ‘I know he’s like your kid brother, Gabs, but you’ve got to let go sometime. We’ve taught him all this stuff so he can act on his own. We won’t always be there to help him, you know.’ He sniffed. ‘He was probably just spooked by that Vodun picture.’
Gabs’s cheek twitched. She wiped some little beads of sweat from her nose. ‘What if he comes across Sudiq on his own? The guy killed his parents. He’s going to want revenge, Raf. He’s just a kid. I know he’s clever and brave and all that stuff, but he’s never killed anyone. I just don’t think he has it in him. But if he hesitates for even a moment . . .’
Raf put one hand on hers. ‘I think you’ll be surprised,’ he said, ‘what Zak has in him.’
They stared silently at each other for a long moment. Then Gabs ripped her gaze away. ‘How far is the hotel?’ she asked their nervous driver.
‘Two minutes,’ the driver said. He honked his horn and started to overtake a white bush taxi trundling up ahead.
Then he cursed.
‘What is it?’ Raf asked tersely.
‘There is a road block,’ the driver hissed. ‘I’m going to turn back.’
‘No!’ Raf hissed. ‘Keep going. We’ll talk our way through.’
‘They have guns!’ the driver screeched.
‘Listen to me,’ Raf snapped. ‘If we don’t get to that hotel, people are going to die, do you understand?’
The man was hyperventilating. His eyes were as wild as his driving. The bush taxi had pulled up at the side of the road to pick up some passengers and there was now nothing but open space between the VW and the roadblock. They were fifty metres away and closing. And they could clearly see that the armed guards blocking the road had the distinctive scars on their faces that they had grown to fear. There were four of them, standing in front of a barrier with bright orange chevrons.