Black Pearl

by Peter Tonkin

‘Not that we’ve found. And shit, the wire works both ways. Keeps us in, and keeps whatever’s out there out.’ He shivered. It wasn’t cold.

  ‘Whatever’s out there …’ said Richard, frowning.

  ‘In the jungle. That’s where Odem’s men are. Odem’s men and more. Ngoboi – but not just Ngoboi, you know? There’s other stuff out there. Panthers. Leopards. Some of the men have seen them. We’ve all heard them.’

  ‘If Odem’s men can make it out there, then so could you,’ countered Anastasia. ‘You came up here to take down the Army of Christ and now you’re scared of some tosser dressed as Ngoboi! What the fuck, Ivan!’

  ‘What does Mako say?’ asked Richard. ‘He knows the jungle best.’

  ‘Mako doesn’t say anything,’ said Ivan shortly. ‘Ngoboi cut his tongue out. They have him crucified in the middle of the camp. Every now and then another bit of him gets chopped off. Or peeled off. A finger, an ear, a nostril. The skin of his forehead. But they won’t let him die.’

  ‘And none of you can help him out?’ sneered Anastasia. ‘Find some way …’

  ‘No,’ said Ivan shortly. ‘Every now and then Ngoboi comes round trying to decide who’s turn is next when Mako goes. Everyone has a vested interest in keeping the poor bastard alive.’

  That conversation was enough to silence all of them and they remained quiet through the next couple of hours as the three men at the front slashed with brutal energy through the jungle undergrowth. While Richard walked his mind was racing, constructing, testing and discarding plans of action. And every now and then he would ask Ivan something. ‘So, only one dam left standing, Ivan?’ was Richard’s first question. Ivan nodded. ‘But they have it rigged?’

  ‘As I say, that was what the engineer who went over was doing.’

  ‘OK.’ He added after ten minutes, ‘and how much water hyacinth is left?’

  ‘Looks like about half,’ Ivan shrugged.

  ‘But the lake is only half full now – so it’s pretty tight-packed still?’

  ‘At the far end it is. The end by the dams is clear.’

  ‘That’s where they have their attack helicopters on their floats?’

  ‘Yes.’ Ivan looked ready to add more detail. But several more minutes passed.

  ‘Anything else? Boats? RIBs? How do they cross the lake?’

  ‘Couple of RIBs, now you mention it. But they mostly use the choppers.’

  Richard nodded. Lapsed into thought. Then, ‘Where do they get the fuel?’ he asked suddenly after a few more minutes.

  ‘Bring it in over the volcano, I guess. They have engineers making some kind of makeshift road using the lava flow. That’s pretty broken up down-slope but I hear its pretty smooth upslope – it’s almost all in Congo Libre in any case.’

  A few minutes later again, Richard suddenly said, ‘But that means they have effective communications. Ours have been jammed.’

  ‘There’s a radio shack on each side of the lake,’ said Ivan. ‘The upslope one on our side looks the bigger. I’d guess that if they’re jamming all the frequencies except their own – which is standard battlefield practice after all – then that’s the one the equipment’s in.’

  ‘How do you know all this?’ Richard asked at once.

  Ivan chuckled and answered in fluent Mandarin, ‘The guys from Han Wuhan told me. They don’t know I speak their language.’ He switched to Yoruba. ‘And neither do the mumu soldiers …’

  ‘I thought they were all over the other side,’ said Richard in Russian after another lengthy period of reflection. ‘On the down-slope bank.’

  ‘They are. The Chinese are the ones who put us to work. It’s the army that make sure we do what we’re told. They’re all bivouacked over there. The Army of Christ is on this side – upslope, where they can keep an eye on us. You’ll be able to see for yourself soon. We’re nearly there.’

  Richard dropped his voice, but added intensity. ‘Wait! If the Army of Christ are upslope, aren’t we just about to walk into them?’

  ‘Not at this time of day,’ Ivan assured him. ‘My men are at work. The Chinese are directing them and Ngama’s soldiers are watching them. No one’s got a chance to make trouble. The Army of Christ won’t be out until after dark.’

  Even so, they approached the edge of the jungle with the utmost care, moving forward in an arc that swung them up the mountainside, then down to overlook the wire-walled camp that housed the Russians at night. A little way back from the edge of the jungle itself they came across a tree that had lost some of its purchase on the sloping ground and leaned over towards the lake. Richard, unobtrusively taking command now, sent Oshodi up this with the binoculars.

  Abiye pulled the tablet out of his backpack and, before long, Richard, the corporal, Anastasia and Ivan were poring over the vivid pictures it showed. Oshodi started with a slow panorama that showed the last dam standing across the northern end of the lake, its sluices wide, grey water soaring in arcs from its foot, visible behind it only because they soared out along the river valley before plunging out of sight below. The top of the dam was bustling with figures. Some were in the white overalls. Others were in uniform. The rest were in cargo pants and vests. These were obviously the Russians because everyone else seemed to be shouting at them, shoving them and hitting them.

  This side of the dam, the razor-wired compound with the skeletal watch towers they had seen from the lookout tree below, stood apparently empty. Behind it, sitting on floats on the still water of the lake there were three Chinese Z10 attack helicopters, with their undercarriages adapted to take floats. All of their considerable weaponry was pointed directly at the prison camp. Oshodi focused down. The cramped and filthy space – still far too limited for the choppers to use – was packed with ragged tents around a rough square, in the middle of which stood a cross. Even from here and looking from behind, it was possible to see that there was someone standing lashed to it. And Ivan’s description made it clear enough who that was.

  The picture swung upward, following the line of the last dam to the larger encampment in the woods on the far side. Here the trees and undergrowth had been adapted to allow a considerable number of tents to be erected. There was more wire. But there were no guard posts – nor, as far as Richard could see, any patrols. Instead, on a long sweep of naked black mud, there were teams of men with mechanical shovels, bulldozers and eight-wheel trucks shovelling up the black mud. Then the picture swung away to their right, following the sweep of the black-shored lake. And here there was yet more movement. Three Chinese versions of the MI-26 heavy transport helicopters were swinging massive hooks into the weeds and dragging them into the jungle on the upslope, but it was clearly slow work, for the mats of water hyacinth broke up too easily. So there were more Russians on the shore beneath the labouring choppers, hooking and dragging the smaller fragments of the mat when it fell back into the black water. ‘We’ll go for them first,’ decided Richard. ‘We can take them and give your men their guns, Ivan. Double our force before sunset. Then we’ll be ready for Ngoboi, Odem and the Army of Christ. The only other thing I need to know is what our radio operator thinks of their radio shack.’ As he said this, the shack in question filled the screen. It was a larger tent than the others, with a tall pole sticking up out of it to serve as an aerial and a line running up to a nearby tree where it was attached to a big dish on a branch about six metres up. ‘That’s the jammer,’ said Richard. ‘Unless General Ngama’s got Sky TV.’

  The screen went blank as Oshodi turned off the binoculars. ‘Right,’ Richard concluded. ‘Now this is what we’re going to do …’

  Black

  There was no jungle left in Congo Libre. It had been destroyed to make room for cattle ranches, okra farms and opium fields. There were secret societies among the peoples who inhabited the country, but these were of Bantu farming origin and nothing like the Poro or the Sande. They were simple agricultural and historical organizations, using bilumba witch doctors to read the past with lukasa beaded memory
boards and the future using mboko baskets. They required no sacrifices, blood or hearts. The Congo Libran soldiers knew nothing about the gods on this side of Karisoke, except that they were terrifying. They knew less about the virgin jungle which clothed the volcano’s south-western slopes, except that it was full of creatures and spirits that would kill the unwary without a second thought. And they were afraid, even before Ngoboi appeared and began to mutilate the crucified Mako.

  The group guarding the Russians dragging the water hyacinth out of the lake, therefore, were terrified when Anastasia’s Amazons appeared like ghosts out of the jungle. They were disarmed, made to strip and tie each other up before Ado and Esan gagged them all, while Richard and Anastasia went after her compatriots, completing the rescue so slickly that only the most eagle-eyed pilot in the big Mils so low overhead would have noticed. Richard and Anastasia led the ten newly liberated men laden with guns and uniforms to the big radio shack where corporals Abiye and Oshodi were firmly in control. From outside, the shack appeared empty but it was in fact crowded, and it soon became more so. The Congo Libran radio operator and his assistant were on the floor beneath a table gagged with duct tape and bound with flex. Their eyes were huge and their foreheads beaded with sweat.

  ‘Corporal Oshodi,’ said Richard as the forty members of his rapidly expanding army packed themselves in as though this were the Black Hole of Calcutta. ‘We need to get a message out, but we don’t want anyone near the lake to know we’re here yet.’

  ‘I can send a compressed file,’ Oshodi promised. ‘There would be an incomprehensible blurt of sound on one carefully selected channel, then everything would be back to normal. Unless they are monitoring very closely – and this man had neither the training nor the equipment to do so – they will suspect nothing. But where should I send it?’

  ‘Send it to Tchaba,’ said Richard. ‘He knows we’re here. He’s waiting to hear from us. He can contact the others. Now, here’s what I want you to say …’

  Richard took a closer look around the shack while Oshodi was working on his orders. His wise eyes soon discovered the jamming equipment and his long fingers stroked it thoughtfully. But he left it switched on and continued searching. After a few moments he found something that brought a lopsided smile to his saturnine face. It was a box of headsets piled on top of a central command transceiver. Richard crouched, ripped the tape from the radio operator’s face and growled in Yoruba, ‘I’d like you to tell me about these.’

  ‘Right,’ Richard continued a few moments later. ‘Anastasia, your girls need to get into the kit we took from the Congo-Libran soldiers. Corporal Abiye’s men will pass muster as they are, but you all stick out like sore thumbs. I have something else in mind for you, though, Ivan. We need to split your men into teams.’ He raised his voice. ‘First, are there any VDV men here?’

  Half-a-dozen hands went up. Half-a-dozen faces almost as battered as Ivan’s looked confused. Why would the mad Anglican need VDV men? ‘Right. As soon as the girls are in soldiers’ gear I want you back working on the water hyacinth. Will the chopper pilots have noticed you were gone?’ There was a general shaking of heads. ‘Back to work it is then, but what I want you to prepare is this …’

  Five minutes later the crush in the shack eased as the VDV men and their disguised guards left, led by Ado and Esan, who had a battlefield radio headset clamped to the side of his face. Richard continued talking Russian. ‘Are there any GRU men – boat specialists, forty-fifth regiment men?’ Again, several hands went up. The battered faces showed less surprise now. ‘Ivan. You take half a dozen of Abiye’s men and go aboard a RIB with this lot. Look as though you’re under guard and busy with something important. I need you to get across the lake and find Max. Find General Ngama if you can – they might well be together, knowing Max. He’ll be trying to cut a deal. I need you to bring them back here. If you hit any complications you need to be aware that I’ll be moving soon after sunset. The signal will be when the guard towers blow up. Then all hell will break loose if everything goes to plan. So you’ll have to be quick. Here’s your headset. But hang on. There’s one more thing I need from you before you go.’ He switched from Russian to Matadi. ‘So, Abiye, I’ll need you and the two men with the MANPADS, one for each tower. And some really competent snipers. You’ll be with me and in the loop to begin with, but you’ll need this headset later. Listen for the code word GIBSON.’ Then back to speaking in Russian. ‘Anastasia, how do you feel about having your hair cut with a matchet? You and I are going what they call in the trade deep black. Disguse.’

  ‘And what about your disguise?’ she asked as he began to saw at her hair.

  ‘Don’t worry, it’ll be even more painful than yours. And black on a whole new level.’ He glanced up. ‘Ivan, I need to borrow one of your guys’ kit.’

  ‘A pair of Russian cargo pants and a dirty vest won’t fool anyone,’ said Anastasia. ‘You’ll still look like one of the earlier James Bonds.’

  ‘Really?’ asked Richard flattered. ‘Which one?’

  ‘That’d be telling. Ouch! Your disguise is going to have to be very painful! And I know this before I even look in a mirror.’

  ‘Right,’ said Richard. ‘That’s you finished. And you’ve still got ears, so count your blessings. Now slip into the overall we took from the Han Wuhan engineer who went over the dam and try to look Chinese.’

  ‘And what were you saying about your disguise?’ she asked as she stepped into the white overall. Richard was doing the same, but he had to strip to his boxers before changing his trousers for a pair of Russian cargo pants.

  ‘Ivan will handle that,’ said Richard, turning to face the massive Russian as he pulled the stained vest over his head. ‘Ivan, I need my face to look like yours. But I want all my teeth and I need my right ear relatively untouched.’

  ‘Your face? Like mine?’ said Ivan, his eyes wide. ‘That’ll hurt.’

  ‘Let’s just say I’m after a SPETSNAZ red beret,’ said Richard.

  Mako was in a bad way. Nails had been driven through the palms of his hands, then ropes had been used to lash his arms to the cross at wrist and elbow. The tip of his tongue had been cut out. Most of the skin on his forehead was missing. His left ear was gone, as was his left nostril. His left cheek had been slashed as though by panthers’ claws. Only the index finger and thumb remained on his left hand. Only the big toe remained on his foot. His face was a mass of flies that only rose when someone came to make sure he was still alive so that Ngoboi could continue his sick games with him. Or to feed him scraps and let him sip water while he still had teeth and lips. Like now.

  Mako raised his head to look at the Chinese engineer and the two soldiers who were shoving yet another battered Russian across the compound towards him. Torn, ill-fitting cargo pants and a stained vest swam into his vision. Big, battered hands holding a tin full of water. He looked up further, into the brutalized face with its split lips and swollen eyes. But suddenly, from between the fat, black lids there darted a gleam of icy, commanding intelligence. A surge of amazement went through Mako. And his eyes gleamed in return.

  ‘Live or die,’ said a deep voice in brutal Matadi. ‘The choice is yours.’

  Mako’s look was answer enough.

  ‘Right,’ said Richard Mariner slowly, his words slightly slurred between his thick lips. ‘This is how it goes …’

  Bala Ngama eased back into the comfortable chair he had ordered to be carried into the middle of the jungle. His palatial tent opened westward so that he got the full benefit of the sunset and the view. The rear of the tent was to the lake. Behind the living area was a private, sleeping area, then a stout canvas wall, then the lake shore, bustling at the moment, with bulldozers, lifters, and Russian workers under the guns of Congo Libran soldiers. But ahead of him, beyond the wire of his compound, rose the jungle he already thought of as his own. Filled with animals from the menagerie he had assembled while he had been minister of the outer delta in Granville Harbour, it would on
e day become the greatest wildlife park on the continent. And he, with the support of President Fola, would annex it together with the lake into Congo Libran territory, rebuild the airport at Cite La Bas, fly in some rangers to control the animals and some builders to make five-star lodges like those in the great game reserves to the south or the east – and wait for the tourist dollars to arrive in their millions. It looked like a very bright future to him.

  Ngama reached for a bottle of chilled Primus beer, one of a dozen or so recently unloaded from the fridge by an orderly. ‘So,’ he said lazily, ‘let us return to business, Mr Asov.’ As he spoke, Ngama gestured invitingly towards the bottles of Primus. Max would have preferred vodka. But, as the general said, this was business. And at the moment Max was in the business of staying alive. He reached for a beer. ‘What had you in mind, General?’ he asked. ‘The world, after all, is your oyster.’

  ‘Now that’s strange,’ said a deep voice. ‘I have some people here who also want to discuss oysters. And pearls.’ Ivan stepped out of the general’s private quarters and the men who had followed him in through the slit in the tent’s rear wall crowded thirstily round the table full of beer.

  Five minutes later, General Ngama marched out of the front of his tent with Max Asov at one shoulder and Ivan Yagula at the other. A troop of half-a-dozen hangdog Russian workers followed behind, guarded by a smart squad of soldiers. They all marched towards a big Zodiac sixteen-seater RIB that was pulled up on the black mud bank. Had anyone in his command cared enough to look or to think, they might have been surprised to see their leader getting his exquisitely polished shoes covered with good honest mud for the first time since his arrival. But no one did. So they didn’t notice the fact that the general had the point of a matchet pressed against the joint above his fifth lumbar vertebra, three centimetres above the start of his buttock cleft and three centimetres precisely from severing his spinal cord.

  But as the group moved unobserved towards the Zodiac in its anchorage carefully isolated from the rest of the bustle on the western shore, they seemed to slow and stumble. The black mud through which they were walking appeared to boil briefly, bubbling and spitting ebony spicules up their legs as far as their knees. They staggered as though all of them had been caught in a sudden squall. Only Ivan’s strength as a leader got them into the Zodiac. And once they were there, they sat, slumped in their seats as precious time slipped past unnoticed. But then, as the sun behind them set at last, the evening breeze swept down the mountain, and although it smelt faintly of sulphur, it cleared their heads. Ivan looked up suddenly, his mind reeling with shock, as though he were just awakening from a dream. He stared at his watch and his skin went cold. They had somehow lost nearly ten minutes. ‘Go!’ he shouted to the man at the motor. ‘Go! Go! Go!’ But he knew they were probably too late.