Little Sister (A James Palatine Novel)

by Giles O'Bryen

  ‘Bonsoir, messieurs,’ she said. ‘Nous avons arrangé un rendezvous avec quelques officiers du Polisario. Vous pouvez sans doute nous diriger vers Bir Lehlou?’

  It seemed to Nat that a dozen pairs of eyes were wandering like proxy hands over her face and body.

  ‘Où est le chef? Who’s the boss – I want to speak to him.’

  Two of the men were peering into the Mercedes, tapping on the window with the muzzles of their guns to make the occupants look round. Then one of them opened the driver’s door, caught Suli by the wrist and dragged him out. The man’s demeanour was of one unwilling to expend much effort on such a demeaning task.

  ‘Le chef, hein?’ said Nat, speaking as loud as she dared.

  There was a brief discussion. The men’s naked backs glistened, their guns clanked. Nat heard Zender and, several times, Polisario. Then one of them looked at her and beckoned. ‘You, come.’

  ‘Don’t do it, Nat,’ Nikolai growled. ‘We can take them out or die here. I don’t want you to go with them.’

  Nat ignored him. They were shoving Suli back into the driver’s seat and ordering him to follow, pointing at her by way of a threat. Two of the men came round and stood in front of her. If either of them touches me, she thought, I’m going to kick him so fucking hard he’ll be gagging on his own balls. Their eyes were empty, khat-numbed, the eyes of disturbed children that you couldn’t read any further than to say you wished you hadn’t tried. But still, she could see they weren’t sure how to treat her.

  ‘Allez-y!’ she said briskly, and marched towards the nearest man, forcing him to step aside. The one who had beckoned to her was standing by the open door of the cab, a smile playing around the edges of his mouth. He had an oval face and thick, curly hair. In other circumstances, you might have said his expression was genial, but here it looked cruel. His rifle lay over his shoulders, his hands and wrists dangling either side. The skin was so tight over his ribs it was like looking at someone being crucified.

  Nat stared at him with distaste. ‘Alors, nous restons ici toute la nuit?’

  She climbed up into the cab and slammed the door. The boss swung into the driver’s seat and the rest of them mounted up. The music came on, a succession of blundering thumps. The vehicle behind them honked and shunted the Mercedes into the pickup ahead. The men in the back whooped and a burst of automatic rifle fire stammered into the empty night.

  James made his way over to Nazli’s old lab. A smell of panic still clung to the air. He wished Nazli were there, fidgeting away like a testy child. He checked the cabling to the dish on the roof, then booted up the Sun and hunted for the software that controlled the satellite.

  It was dull, fiddly work, and he had to be careful not to terminate his own connection before he was through. Sulamani’s words played in the shadows of his mind: envoy from a putrefying civilisation that had brought his people nothing but war and starvation, cloaked in the stench of sanctimony – is that what the Polisario colonel thought of him? But you are a good man, he’d said. A polite retraction. Was he? Hadn’t he recently abandoned an innocent girl to a horrible fate? The evidence in favour of his goodness seemed thinner with every passing day.

  He prepared a sequence of commands that would force the satellite to look for non-existent fields in every data packet that came its way, then wrapped them in a timer and sent them up. The connection went dead, then came back up when the timestamp expired. When he was sure he could turn it off at will, he left a series of false leads for the operating company’s technicians, then set the timer to twenty-four hours and dispatched his final piece of mischief into the good heavens above.

  CONNECTION TERMINATED.

  Darkness had fallen by the time he left Nazli’s lab. The scarred buildings made a desolate spectacle under the cold gaze of the exterior lights – like the corpses of powerful men exposed to public ridicule. He found Sulamani and the others by the kitchen door, along with Adel and two small boys, the cook and a young woman who looked like her daughter. He remembered them from nine days ago, waiting outside his room with a clean mattress, giggling at his nakedness. Standing a short distance away was the man he’d strangled almost to death on the night of his escape: Younes. Catching sight of James, he lowered his eyes and backed towards the shelter of the doorway.

  ‘Follow the road east,’ Sulamani was saying to the cook. ‘I have told them to look out for you.’

  The two boys were crying. Adel and the young woman comforted them, then she ran off and returned with an armful of shemaghs and two pairs of men’s trainers. The boys stood in them doubtfully, then practised shuffling forward. It looked as if progress would be slow. Sulamani, Salif and Benoit escorted the bedraggled party to the gates and James was left with only Younes for company. James walked over and held out his hand. Younes shook it nervously. He carried his head stiffly and his neck beneath the sparse beard was mottled with bruising.

  ‘Colonel Sulamani good man. Good!’ said Younes eagerly, as if this declaration might somehow dissuade James from launching a new assault.

  ‘You OK?’ James asked, slapping him on the shoulder. The feel of the thick flesh under his hand brought back the moment he had nearly killed this man – the absolute power in his arms, the smell released by the guard as his muscles went slack. Perhaps you are a god, Sulamani had said.

  The Colonel returned, Salif trotting at his side in great agitation. ‘Sir, Colonel Sulamani,’ he was saying, waving a hand at Younes. ‘You must send this donkey away. He is a great fool and will get in our way.’

  ‘No,’ said Sulamani, ‘he can help us carry shells for the gun. We need dark paint and camouflage nets for the Unimog – go up to the warehouse and find some.’

  ‘Sir, he cannot even carry his own head.’

  ‘He is a Polisario soldier and must be accorded respect. I will not discuss this further. Go. Take Younes with you.’

  ‘The satellite’s down,’ James said when they had left. ‘Zaki’s on his own.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Sulamani. ‘I spoke to the guard. His arm is only scratched, but I could not persuade him to join us. The doctor also refuses to leave. The other guard is badly hurt and she says he will die if she does not stay and care for him. But perhaps the three of them will be safe here. I am beginning to believe that with your help, James, we have a chance of keeping the Moroccans at bay.’

  ‘And if we do?’ James asked.

  ‘They will have to deny there was ever an attack. We can get video of their retreat and announce the expulsion of some Moroccan agitators. Ha! Help us camouflage the Unimog, then we might rest for an hour or two, while Salif keeps watch.’

  The headlights picked out a large square tent of stained canvas with slack guy ropes and sagging pitched roof, like the travelling pagoda of a paladin who has fallen from grace. Nat’s captor killed the engine, then came round to the passenger door and started to tug her out.

  ‘Let go, dickhead. You think I’m going to run away?’

  He pulled her over to the tent. A flag with an elaborate device of swords and rifles against a red and yellow background hung over the entrance. A dying fire glowed dimly ten yards ahead and Nat saw two men lounging on spread blankets, their jaws working on khat leaves, their shot-pink eyes watching her with easy malevolence. The man leading her stood just outside the tent and spoke to someone inside, his hand gripped round her bicep. Nat pulled the flag aside with her free hand.

  ‘Are you going to invite me in, or am I just going to be manhandled by this foul-smelling boy?’

  The man shoved her inside the tent. The interior was lined with tattered cotton drapes and lit only by a red glass lantern suspended from the centre pole – at first she couldn’t see who she had spoken to. A fug of tobacco smoke laced with the sour smell of dung caught in her throat and made her cough.

  ‘My sincere apologies, Mam’selle,’ said a high-pitched voice. ‘Please, sit where you like. Kossi, bring tea.’

  Nat’s eyes searched the gloom. The floor w
as covered with a filthy camel-hair rug and a collection of lumpy cushions. There – something shifting in the far corner. She edged over to her right, staying close to the entrance. As her eyes grew accustomed to the darkness, she made out a hooked nose and a pair of large black eyes with yellowish whites; then a thin face beneath a helmet of heavily oiled hair that dripped in dressy curls around a sinewy neck. The assemblage lolled sideways, propped on a thin forearm with the wrist bent at right angles under his ear. There was a pile of cigarettes in front of him, and a gold lighter.

  ‘Prince Fara Makhlani al Makhlani,’ said the man. His accent was east coast USA, smeared into an effete drawl. ‘At your service.’

  ‘Natalya Kocharian.’

  She recognised the name as the one Claude liked to put on his end-user certificates. A tribal leader, though there didn’t seem to be much of a tribe. She sat down and pulled a cushion towards her, feeling somehow that it would protect her.

  ‘Yes, be comfortable. Why are you here?’

  The prince was wearing a Knicks basketball singlet and a pair of baggy shorts in gold satin. He drew his skinny legs towards his chin, as if trying to ease a stomach cramp.

  ‘I didn’t come here. Your boys brought me, at gunpoint.’

  ‘I mean, to my lands.’

  ‘Business.’

  ‘Oh, business.’ He picked a cigarette from his pile and lit up.

  ‘Why did you bring us here?’

  He smoked for a while. ‘Would you like one?’

  ‘I don’t smoke.’

  ‘You should. It is nice. I am the only businessman here. Do you want to do business with me?’ He grinned at her, and she saw that his teeth were brown and shrunken.

  ‘What’ve you got?’ she asked as brightly as could.

  He kept grinning. ‘Your four men.’ He laughed, a succession of disjointed squeaks. ‘And you.’

  Nat shifted uncomfortably. His eyes when she met them were glittering, thrilled with this statement of his power. She couldn’t hold them.

  ‘And this.’ He took the corner of a cotton drape that covered a square object behind him, then snatched it away with a flourish to reveal an aluminium case with ribbed sides. ‘It is called. . . ’ He unfolded a scrap of paper from the pocket of his shorts and read: ‘The IPD400. You know what it is?’

  Little Sister. She’d never actually seen it before. Thirty million dollars worth of electronics all packed up in a smart case with a handle on top. It didn’t look like much, considering the havoc it had caused.

  ‘No idea,’ she said. ‘A camera?’

  ‘Wrong. A computer.’ He covered it with the drape again. ‘Now, what have you got?’

  He spoke in a sneering parody of her English accent. He was hectoring her, bullying. She needed to take the conversation some place else, but couldn’t think what to say.

  ‘Nothing,’ said the prince softly.

  ‘You must have spent time in the US, to speak English like that. New York, maybe?’

  He stubbed his cigarette on a patch of rug and flicked the butt into the corner behind her.

  ‘You should come to London. I’ll show you round. There are plenty of princes in London, though not all of them are real.’

  ‘You think I am a real prince?’

  ‘You have your own flag. I guess you must be.’

  ‘You do business with Monsieur Zender?’

  ‘Yes. You?’

  He sat upright and leaned towards her, shoulders hunched beneath his ears, eyes wide open but the irises like little black pellets.

  ‘Zender is always fucking with me.’

  ‘It’s just the way he is.’

  The flag was pulled aside and one of the men came in with two glasses and a stained silver pot. There was no smell of mint from the steam, only a whiff of wet straw. The prince watched his underling bow out, then said something sarcastic and the man stooped down and slopped tea into the glasses. The prince gestured at Nat to take hers. She did so reluctantly.

  ‘Tell me what Zender’s done and I’ll try and guess what he’s up to.’

  The prince sat back, lit another cigarette and blew smoke at her. ‘Maybe later.’

  He shouted something and a moment later the underling returned with a bundle of khat leaves. The prince sorted through them, grumbling. He started to chew, then stood up. There was a revolver in his right hand.

  ‘Wait here.’ He pointed a bony finger at her. ‘Get ready.’

  He ducked out under his over-illustrated flag. Fear scampered inside her. A car door was slammed, then she heard someone screaming. Suli. There was a grunt and the screams stopped. Another grunt, followed by a series of gulping, panicky breaths. Talking, whimpering.

  The gunshot made her jump and she cried out as the filthy tea splashed over her ankles. Footsteps outside the tent. The flag was thrown aside. The prince flounced in like an offended teenager and flung himself onto his cushions. The stuffy tent air was pungent with cordite. Nat tried to stay calm. What had the prince done with his gun? He lit another cigarette and spat out the remains of the khat leaf. The smell of his excitement made her want to retch. Why did you kill the poor boy? As if there might be a perfectly reasonable explanation. I’m going to faint, she thought. I can’t take the heat, the smell, the smoke. I’m frightened.

  The prince was squatting in front of her, his narrow, curved haunches sticking out on either side like a locust’s legs.

  ‘Forget business,’ he said, tossing the loose bundle of khat into her lap. ‘Try this. Better than cigarettes.’

  She picked out a leaf, slid it between her teeth. Looked into the prince’s empty eyes.

  ‘Zender told me about you. He said you were a good man.’

  He shook his head.

  ‘I can see he was right.’

  ‘I should slice you up like a pig,’ said the prince. ‘But you’re a hot bitch. I can do it later.’

  ‘They teach you how to chat up girls in prince school?’

  He raised his eyebrows in mock surprise, reached out a clawed hand and took her by the throat. Pushed her down until the back of her head hit the ground, the ground with the filthy rug that stank of old shit. Flakes of khat scratched the back of her throat. If I could just get comfortable, drink some clean water, I could bear this, she thought. He held her down. She saw him looking at her honeycomb-coloured hair and it felt like she was watching him with someone else.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  James was woken from tangled sleep by Salif’s hand rough upon his shoulder.

  ‘They are here. Come.’

  They ran up to the roof. Colonel Sulamani was staring into the north-west. Salif pointed to a slender comb of dust twirling above the moonlit horizon.

  ‘How many, how far?’

  Sulamani consulted Salif. ‘Seventy or eighty men. Ten, twelve k – maybe an hour away, but now they have halted.’

  ‘They’re not doing much to conceal themselves,’ said James.

  ‘Perhaps they hope we will be scared and run away. Salif, stay here. Report to me in fifteen minutes.’

  Sulamani had drawn maps showing the compound, the northern approach road that would be taken by the Moroccan force, and a sequence of firing positions in a five-mile arc to the south of the perimeter fence, where the ground sloped away and afforded some cover. Each position was numbered, and annotated with the anticipated range and direction of fire. They’d launch five shells, then move on to the next. There’d be long gaps in the bombardment, but over a six-hour period they’d cover six positions and unload all of their stock of thirty shells. At some point, Colonel Zaki would surely dispatch a unit to flush out the gunners.

  ‘I will be happy to see them take a direct hit,’ said Sulamani, ‘but our first objective is to keep firing through the night. If they come after us, we will hide as best we can. We fight only if we are discovered.’

  Salif came down and said the Moroccans were moving again – but slowly, like pregnant goats. James loaded the RPG and a new Parker H
ale into the back of the Unimog – Salif had made the other one his own. The rest of them carried M16s, and their pockets bulged with knives, handguns and cartons of ammunition.

  The night was clear and the moon tracking low over the horizon as Salif drove them out to their first firing point. They’d knocked all the glass out of the Unimog and, with its peeling grey paintwork and garb of netting decked with flapping shreds of stone-coloured canvas, the vehicle looked as if it had just been driven up from hell. Behind it bounced the Light Gun, barrel cocked at the skies.

  ‘No faster, Salif, we don’t want to kick up dust,’ said Sulamani. ‘See how the compass wanders when we hit a rut. Wait for it to settle or you’ll go off course. Remember, you are towing a gun.’

  Salif showed how much he needed this advice by changing gear with a deft double de-clutch. They hit the top of the downslope to the south of the compound and the Unimog drifted with the camber. James watched the Light Gun through the rear window, worried that it would detach itself. They reached the first firing point. Salif worked the Unimog to and fro, wrestling the artillery piece into position on an area of level ground. But one wheel was parked on softer sand and promptly sank. They had to start again. Their hands were repeatedly crushed and scraped as they worked the trail on and off the bar, and it was over forty minutes before they had the spade dug in and the gun set up and ready to fire.

  ‘We need to get better at this if we want to do it six times before dawn,’ said James.

  ‘Salif, get a fix on their position,’ Sulamani ordered.

  Salif ran up the slope and disappeared. He radioed ten minutes later.

  ‘I see them. Not much, but I see them.’

  They discussed angles and distances. Sulamani amended his map. James ran through the firing routine, used the elevation and traverse controls to set the dial sight, checked the spade, the recuperator assembly, the recoil buffer. . . Checked bloody everything, then realised he hadn’t even remembered to release the transit lock on the barrel, meaning the first round would have sent two tons of hot steel catapulting into the Unimog ten yards behind.