The soldiers bowed their heads as Mordecai strode back towards the pirogue, signalling to the driver to start the engine.
The Captain moved over to Bear’s unconscious body and scooped her off the ground. Her head hung limply over the edge of his arm, with her hair spilling down towards the ground. As he stared down at her naked breasts and the delicate line of her lips, his thickset face grimaced at the lost opportunity. Then, moving across to the bow of the pirogue, he placed her between two bench seats, jamming her body into the well of the canoe.
He turned back to survey the shore with a final glance as the engine revved higher. The pirogue pulled out into the main flow of the current and rapidly moved downstream, leaving only the smell of petrol and the fading vibration of its engine.
Chapter 29
GENERAL JIAN WATCHED his reflection in the mirror slowly fade as the old electric lights flickered then went out. He waited, staring into the darkness, as one by one all the lights in the mansion went off. There was silence. As the seconds passed, Jian stayed perfectly still, feeling the darkness close in around him.
Since returning from the mine, they had been staying at one of the old colonial houses on the shores of Lake Kivu. By day, its sweeping colonnades and high, ornate ceilings had seemed almost charming, brimming with a sense of faded grandeur and the sophistication of a bygone era. But by night the house had taken on a far more sinister feel. It wasn’t so much the groaning lead pipes or rising damp, more the lingering sense of what had once been. The place reeked of the old days, as if the horrors of Belgian rule were still etched into every single room.
There was a soft buzzing sound before the antique lights started to glow once again. Jian blinked, taking in the image of himself newly revealed in the huge, gilded mirror. He stared into his own eyes, blinking slowly as he tried to focus. They looked duller, the blacks of his pupils somehow faded and less alive. Every day he felt worse, the headaches never leaving him for a second.
What the hell was happening to him?
On the bathroom surface in front of him lay a bottle of single malt whisky and a glass. Scooping a handful of painkillers from his jacket pocket, he broke them up and poured the powder into the glass. He then added a huge measure of whisky and downed the glass’s entire contents in a single gulp. Staggering back a pace, he flung the glass to one side, sending it smashing down on to the faded marble floor.
Jian reached up and clutched his head in both hands. He screamed. The sound came out in a long, wretched wail, echoing in the tight confines of the bathroom. Jian scraped his fingernails down the sides of his face, leaving thin trailing red marks, and stared back into the mirror with wild, desperate eyes. The pain! The pain was unbearable!
It was like a vice clamped across his temples, ratcheting tighter with each passing second. Every thought, every feeling, was drowned out by it, robbing him of sleep at night and leaving him absolutely exhausted by day. The painkillers seemed only to dull the harshest spikes, but always there was this crippling undercurrent.
Jian let his eyes slowly trace down one side of his face. A hard swelling was poking out just above his shirt collar. It was getting bigger. He was certain of it. It had to be the reason why he was getting such bad headaches. But what was happening to him?
The Guild. It had to be the Guild. They had somehow found out about the satellite launch and the money he’d taken. They were trying to poison him.
Jian reached out to steady himself, feeling his vision darken around the edges. He had been drinking the same mixture of whisky and painkillers throughout the day, lacing the last couple with Ritalin to stave off the fatigue. Everything was starting to blur, the light from the flickering bulbs trailing across his vision like sunspots.
It was Xie. That bastard had been sent to poison him. Why else would those gutless bureaucrats at the Guild send him out to the Congo at the last minute? Suddenly it all made sense. They were delaying Jian in Goma, stopping him from reaching any sort of proper medical help, while the poison Xie was administering took hold.
He had to get out of here, had to find some way to get away from them all!
There was the faint sound of a gong echoing out across the house and Jian glanced down at his watch. It was eight o’clock and dinner was about to be served. Splashing deep handfuls of water on to his face, he dabbed it away with a hand towel before finally leaving the bathroom. As he walked down the corridor, he forced himself not to give any outward sign that he was in pain. He wouldn’t lose face in front of Xie, or give him the slightest opportunity to see that his poison was working.
The corridor opened up on to a wide veranda with a dining table set at one end. At the other, comfortable chairs were positioned in a semicircle, facing out over the sloping lawns which led down to the lake’s edge. In the moonlight its dark waters were just visible and the surrounding hills rising up towards the night sky.
On a low table in front of the chairs was the cage Mordecai had given him. The butterflies were there, slowly opening and closing their wings, their delicate pink deepened by the dull light. Jian craned his neck closer, watching every movement. They wouldn’t last long in captivity like this, maybe a few more days at most. He had to get them back to Beijing quickly and add them to his collection while they were still fresh. Such an incredibly rare butterfly as the Salamis parhassus could not be allowed to wither and die in the Congo. He had to get them out of here.
A trace of a smile passed across Jian’s face at the irony of the situation. Both he and the butterflies were in equal need of rescue.
Next to the cage was his laptop. As the screen lit up, washing his face in its artificial glow, he connected with the New York Stock Exchange. It had only just opened but already telecom stocks had dropped to a new all-time low. Ever since the announcement of the Chinese satellite phone they had been in freefall, with every one of the existing major brands crippled by share devaluations. He was already $230 million richer from the deal. Now, all that remained to be seen was how much further the stocks could fall.
There was a shuffling sound on the far side of the veranda and Jian turned to see Xie. He had finally changed out of the crumpled linen suit into fresh clothes, but somehow still managed to look tired and unkempt, with dark-ringed eyes and his hair sticking out at unlikely angles.
They sat down at the candlelit table. Jian grabbed the bottle of wine cooling in the centre and poured himself a large glass. The wine tasted vinegary and sharp. Jian stared over the rim of his glass at Xie, not bothering to disguise the venom in his eyes. He knew what this clerk was up to, stalling with the money while the Guild waited for the poison to take effect.
‘So we’re still ordered to wait,’ Jian began, but Xie only shrugged, then smiled slightly as the waiters arrived with their food.
‘With each hour that passes, it becomes more likely that Mordecai will back out of the deal. And yet, you do nothing. Tell me, Xie, what’s the real reason for your delay?’
Jian spat the words out, the tone of his voice taunting and aggressive, but on the opposite side of the table, Xie seemed oblivious to it all. He was enjoying his food, every now and again politely dabbing at the corners of his mouth with his napkin. Jian suddenly leaned closer to him across the table.
‘What? Suddenly you don’t talk any more?’
Xie rested his fork and then his knife on the side of the plate. Each movement was unhurried and deliberate.
‘Mr Kai specifically stated that such large sums of money should be properly discussed. That we should wait until …’
‘What the hell does Kai know about any of this?’ Jian roared, his words slurring slightly as the painkillers and alcohol started to take hold. ‘One billion … that’s the cost of legitimising all future claims. So, answer me! Why the delay?’
‘Mr Kai suggested that it would be prudent to evaluate things more thoroughly,’ Xie replied, dabbing his mouth again. ‘That perhaps there was more to this than met the eye.’
‘Met the eye?’
Jian repeated, slamming his fist down on the table. ‘What can that old cripple Kai see behind those thick glasses of his anyhow?’
Xie looked up, genuinely surprised by such a brazen insult. ‘Perhaps it would be better if you spoke to Mr Kai yourself about this. It may take a little time, of course, but it can be arranged.’
‘You’d like that, wouldn’t you? You’d like to see me waiting here for as long as possible.’
Xie shrugged. ‘What I would like is of little significance. I will file my report, and that is all.’
Jian gave a bitter smile, his head swaying slightly. ‘You know that Kai isn’t the only one. There are others in the Guild who have the money to finance this, and if he won’t give me an answer, then maybe I’ll look elsewhere. The Governor of Chengdu might be interested to hear what’s going on.’
‘I would have thought that money wasn’t the problem. That you had enough of that already,’ Xie said softly, not making eye contact. ‘Satellite launches can be such profitable things.’
Jian froze. ‘Is that an accusation, or just another of your spineless insinuations?’
Xie kept his gaze averted as Jian inched a little closer to him across the table. The flickering light from the candle shone under his chin, giving his face a ghoulish look.
‘You think you’ve got it all worked out, don’t you? Keeping me waiting like this. But you know what’s really interesting is how you just upped and left Shanghai, without a single thought for where you were going. This is the blackest heart of the whole damn’ planet. Out here bad things happen, as easy as that.’ He clicked his fingers together, right in front of Xie’s face. ‘Especially if you’re all alone.’
Jian nodded towards the lake, still visible in the darkness beyond the end of the sloping lawns.
‘You know, that over the years countless bodies have been dumped into that water. Thousands upon thousands of them: Tutsis, Hutu, Hema, Lendu. It didn’t matter what tribe it was, they just carried on killing each other until the waters ran red. They say that at one point, there were so many corpses floating in the water that the fishing boats couldn’t even leave harbour.’
Jian lowered his voice even further. ‘Do you think anyone would notice another body or care if just one more were left to rot out there?’
Dragging his chair back from the table, he downed the contents of his wine glass without moving his eyes from Xie.
‘Get me my money,’ he hissed. ‘Or by tomorrow night those niggers won’t be the only ones floating in the lake.’
Chapter 30
BEAR JOLTED AWAKE as an explosion ripped though the mine. The noise was immense, reverberating off the rock walls in a series of rippling aftershocks. There was a low cracking sound as fragments of rock splintered off the main arch of the entrance tunnel before it finally collapsed under its own weight in a mass of rock and rubble. The rock kept on coming, fanning out across the upper reaches of the wooden balconies and tipping over into the central atrium. As it finally ground to a halt, the clouds of dirt blown high by the blast started to settle, coating everything in a thick, noxious dust.
The miners fell silent as the realisation slowly dawned on them all. They were sealed inside.
Bear had her eyes shut when a new sound began to fill the mine. It was a high-pitched, wailing noise which echoed all around her. Clasping her hands over her ears, she tried to blot it out, twisting from one side to the next, but the sound seemed to be coming from every direction. Then she realised what it was. It was the miners. They were screaming.
Mordecai had sealed off the mine. The thought seemed abstract, of little relevance to her, as if it was something to be revisited sometime in the future. She had been unconscious for over two hours in the well of the dugout and now found herself struggling to make sense of it all. A swirling fog of dust surrounded her, clinging to her skin and face and choking her lungs as she tried to breathe. Then, as she reached out to the railings just in front of her, she found her hand missing the wooden bar. She tried again, but still her hand met thin air. What was wrong with her? Why did she keep missing?
Slowly reaching up to the side of her head, she pressed her hand down on to her temple. There was an open cut still weeping blood, while her ear felt swollen and hot. A thin line of blood oozed down from inside the ear itself where the bodyguard had struck her. That was why she couldn’t balance. The bastard must have burst her eardrum.
Hand over hand, she dragged her body up the railings and stood, swaying slightly. Folding her arms across her chest, she took in the heaving mass of movement below. The miners were lined up on the balconies, pointing hysterically above her to where the entry tunnel had collapsed.
Only then did she understand the significance. Only then did she feel the same wave of absolute dread as the others. They were all trapped here, with no hope of escape.
Bear didn’t move, letting her eyes drift from one face to the next amongst the hordes of people below her. Fights had already begun to break out on the lower levels, with some of the miners grabbing water pouches and hunks of bread as the scrabble for survival began.
On the far side of the atrium, on the level directly below her, she could see two men attacking others. They already had several plastic gourds of water slung over their shoulders and were clambering up the metal chains as if to try and escape from the top level. Bear could see the domed roof stretching high above them. The last of the evening sun was filtering down through the crack, but she already knew that there was no escape. The only two exits had been cut off by thousands of tons of rock. There was nowhere left to go.
As she took in the chaos, she suddenly realised that there was a small wooden cabin only about twenty metres to her right. The whole structure was listing to one side from the force of the explosion, looking as if it might collapse at any moment. Staggering over and pulling back the rickety door, she realised it was the old LRA guardhouse. Inside were a few basic items: a table, chairs, a row of hooks with jackets still hanging from them. But as she moved further inside, she saw a metal bucket three-quarters full of water, with a bar of soap left to one side. The water was scummed by black dust, but it did not matter to her. It was water. She gulped it down, her throat working as her stomach began to bloat.
She kept on drinking, forcing every last sip down until finally she let the bucket fall from her grasp. She felt as if she might vomit and reached out a hand to steady herself while her eyes drifted over the lines of crooked shelving, vaguely registering the assortment of possessions that had belonged to the guards. Everything lay untouched, with no sign of a struggle. They had gone quietly when Mordecai had summoned them.
Then she saw it. Lying to one side, forgotten. The snub nose of a pistol gleamed in the half-light and Bear picked it up, feeling the weight of it in her hand. She had seen this type before – a Norinco. It was standard issue for the Chinese military. Pressing down the release button, she saw the magazine had all nine rounds still neatly clipped inside. Chambering the first, she held the pistol in her right hand while she moved over to the jackets hanging by the door. She pulled one over her ripped vest. It was tight-fitting. The LRA soldier who had owned it could not have been much more than a boy.
Just as she was about to go back into the body of the mine, she stopped. There was nothing but mayhem and confusion out there. A crippling wave of exhaustion washed over her. There was no more adrenalin left in her, no glimmer of hope to ease her through. This was how it would all end – in a mine in the middle of the Congo.
The fire coltan … that was why she was here. Her lips curled in a bitter, humourless smile at the futility of it all. She was going to die because of some new mineral that she had been too stubborn to ignore. Everyone from her husband to Fabrice had warned her of the dangers but still she had gone, daring herself to continue each step of the way. And now that same pig-headed tenacity had led her here – to a lonely death, deep in the middle of the jungle.
Bear screwed her eyes shut, feeling a sickening mixture of
self-pity and regret wash over her. Why did she always have to push so hard, to never back down? Why did she always have to be so stupid? Reaching into the thigh pocket of her trousers, she pulled out the Ziploc bag and held up the small lump of fire coltan she had been carrying. She let her eyes rest on the vein of molten red in the centre, while her vision slowly fogged from tears.
This was what they were all looking for. And this was the reason she was going to die.
The door of the shack suddenly burst open and two men appeared. They looked frantic and aggressive, searching for anything they could take. The one on the right jumped at her and in that split second Bear reacted, swinging the pistol round and firing. The gunshot rang out, deafeningly loud in the tiny shack, as the bullet spun the man round from the force of its impact.
His accomplice turned on his heel and sprinted off as fast as he could. Bear watched him go, her ears ringing from the explosion as the door slowly creaked shut again.
She didn’t get up, but let her hand fall so that the nose of the pistol scraped across the rough wooden flooring. She felt no remorse or even regret for what had just happened. She knew full well that those men would have killed her in a heartbeat. She could hear a low groan as the wounded man dragged himself away from the door, and sat listening to the sound. It was as if the very last of her emotions had ebbed away and there was nothing left for her to feel.
‘Luca,’ Bear whispered. Her only hope was that he and Joshua had made it past the LRA patrol and were somehow on their way to the MONUC compound.
The Secret Chamber Page 25