Amie in Africa Box Set 1

by Lucinda E Clarke

  After she’d gone Amie looked quizzically at Ben. “Did you ask her to come? Was it to know what was going to happen in the next few days?”

  “No, she just knows things, no one understands why, but she is a wise old woman. I feel easier we go with her blessing.”

  “What was that last part, in your language?”

  “She asked the Ancestors to watch over us and save us from harm.”

  Amie wasn’t sure what to think of it all. Her time in Africa had taught her life followed a different set of rules and it was unwise to sneer at things that, for the moment, she didn’t understand. Could she compare Ouma Adede with the quacks on the pier in Brighton who offered to tell your fortune for a couple of pounds? Who really believed the horoscopes in the daily newspapers? Was it caused by the atmosphere, the smoke from the candles that might have induced a slightly hypnotic effect, or even the elderly lady herself? Despite the tinkling bottle tops, she exuded more nobility than anyone Amie had ever met in her life. She tucked the thoughts away to ponder later. Right now, there was still a lot of planning to do.

  The rest of the morning was spent plotting a route to the drop off point at the co-ordinates Shalima had read on the emails. They made a list of the supplies they might need, and even discussed the possibility of trying to get passports. Shalima had remembered there were several blanks in Edward’s case, and Ben admitted he knew of someone who could insert photographs and fill in the details. As far as they could see, when they examined them closely, the passports themselves appeared quite genuine. A lot would depend on the time it would take, and if they could get them done before they left the next day. Ben was in favour of leaving late that evening.

  After taking photographs of the girls with the cell phone he’d bought earlier that morning, he left them to it while he went out to source the rest of the supplies and collect the car.

  It was a long, boring afternoon with nothing much to do. The girls both agreed, surprisingly for once, it was safer to remain indoors and Amie settled down to read the rest of the magazines that were scattered around the lounge. She’d have been quite content if Shalima had stopped prowling around, swearing and cursing under her breath.

  First the teenager tried the television, but both stations showed football games with commentary in Togodian. She flipped through one of the magazines that was printed in English, and tried a couple of the puzzles but soon gave that up.

  Amie felt as if she was holed up with a caged tiger as her house mate, one who couldn’t sit still for a moment. There was a cuckoo clock on the wall which made a continuous tick tock noise and on the hour a bird appeared and went ‘craw, craw,’ like no cuckoo Amie had ever heard.

  “Why don’t that effin’ bird shut the eff up!” Shalima snarled, but Amie ignored the outburst. She wasn’t about to get into a fight with Shalima. The girl was street smart and Amie was quite sure she’d come off worst against an opponent from Sparkhill.

  “Shalima?”

  “What?”

  “Look, I know we’re very different …”

  “Sure we is. Knew that the moment I first saw you. Yer the kind what believes all that tommy rot the old woman was harking on about. You’d believe anything. Just ‘cos you was a big star on telly, you think yer the cat’s whiskers right?”

  Amie sighed. She’d never even seen the television series, and she certainly had no idea if anyone had even noticed it or written about it in the papers.

  As if reading her thoughts Shalima continued, “Don’t tell me you don’t know the fuss it caused?”

  “Well, no, I don’t.” The thought of going home to face another barrage of press and TV cameras stuck in her face was a nightmare. It actually closed that escape route for her.

  “Oh yeah, quite the little heroine you was, even that survival guy said he was impressed wiv’ what yer done, all alone in the wild African bush! Yeah, right!” and Shalima sniggered.

  Amie gave it one last try. “I know nothing about that, but if we’re going out there tonight to try this rescue, and we want to live through it, why can’t we just try and get along? Most probably we’re not going to be stuck with each other much longer whatever happens, and we need to work as a team. So, let’s call a truce, right?”

  Shalima considered Amie’s suggestion seriously. “Yeah, well as long as yer keeps out me way and yer don’t tell me what to do.” It was the best answer Amie could hope for. Shalima was a loose cannon and it was impossible to predict what she was likely to do.

  19 THE DROP ZONE

  It was almost dark when they heard a car engine stopping at the end of the narrow lane between the shacks, and a few moments later, Ben appeared carrying a mountain of bags. He gave them a shameful grin. “I thought we deserved some special treats. Some of the things I could not buy, as many shops do not have a lot to sell.”

  Shalima was already raiding the bags, grabbing a couple of energy bars and ripping the wrappers off them.

  “Oh good, plenty of cool drink,” remarked Amie peering into another bag.

  “Yes. I got the small plastic bottles we can refill with water, they won’t be so heavy to carry if we have to camp some distance away. And look, I got these.” Ben waved a pair of binoculars and a GPS. And, I also got a map, though it might not be too correct.”

  “Can we work out how far it is?” asked Amie.

  Ben unfolded the flimsy map and they searched for Apatu.

  “There.” Amie put her finger on the capital. “I’m not sure how we match the co-ordinates to the map.”

  “Give it here,” Shalima snatched the map nearly tearing it in half. She studied it for several seconds and traced a line north, checking the numbers down the side of the map. She grabbed the pen she’d been using earlier and marked a large X in the middle of nowhere.

  Ben pointed to the brown colouring. “I think this shows there are many hills around. That should help.”

  “Yes, and I think that’s a river there, that’s always useful,” Amie added.

  “If there is water in it, and no crocodiles or hippo” Ben reminded her.

  “When do we leave?” Shalima asked. She was itching to be on her way, desperate to get back in action.

  “We should have a good meal first, and leave in a couple of hours.”

  Amie’s suggestion met with general approval, so while Ben and Amie sorted and re-packed the purchases, Shalima disappeared into the kitchen and heated up the tins of stew Ben had bought, adding tinned potatoes and vegetables to the mix. The smells wafting into the lounge reminded Amie of days gone by when she would automatically expect to eat three times a day at roughly the same time.

  “And the passports?” Shalima enquired through a mouth full of food.

  “They were expensive but my friend promised to have them ready. We can pick them up on our way out of town,” Ben replied.

  “Cool.” Shalima nodded as she fiddled with the new cell phones Ben had bought. They weren’t the up-to-date smart phone variety, but the cheap, basic pre-paid kind. At least they could call and text one another if they needed to. Ben had warned them they were only to be used in an emergency. He had not been able to buy very much air time since many of the retailers were low on stock and would not sell him as much as he asked for.

  Shalima had pounced on hers as if it was a gold ingot. As soon as they’d exchanged numbers and keyed them into the memory, she shoved hers safely inside her bra.

  All too soon it was time to leave, and the girls once again swathed themselves in the thick black burqas. Not only did they itch, but Amie’s wasn’t too clean either. After collecting the water that morning, standing in all the mud round the water tap, and a few visits to the long drop, it no longer smelt so fresh.

  As soon as Ben had packed the gear away, and Shalima was taking her turn at the long drop, Ben pushed something into Amie’s hands. It was a gun.

  “Say nothing,” Ben warned, passing over a handful of bullets. “I got one for me and one for you. She …” he pointed toward
s the outhouse, “… does not need to know.”

  Amie nodded. It was the last thing she’d tell Shalima. She’d probably hit the roof if she found out she was the only one unarmed. She knew better than to ask Ben where he’d acquired two handguns; they were readily available in most townships if you knew the right people. She was about to ask Ben how to load it when they heard Shalima returning. She lifted the burqa and stuck it in the waistband of her trousers, hoping she’d never have to use it, and wondering if she’d even know how, if the time ever came. It was a different model to the one Jonathon had given her.

  At long last, packed and ready, they climbed into the truck, Ben and Shalima in the front, since she insisted she could read a map better than any of them, while Amie shared the back seat with a small mountain of supplies. Edward’s money had been put to good use.

  In a seedy street in the lower end of town Ben disappeared up an alley to collect the passports leaving the girls to wait in the elderly, battered Land Rover. Several thugs loitered nearby, staring at them, nudging each other and laughing.

  “Effing idiots,” Shalima snarled. “Think they’re wide boys, oh yeah? They’d run a mile if they saw any real fightin’. Men? Pansies more like.”

  Amie wasn’t so sure. If they were part of a gang, acceptance was often based on some brutal act, often a killing, before you became a full member.

  Ben hurried back to the Land Rover, ignoring the cat calls from the youths, and climbed into the driver’s seat. Finally, they were on their way.

  It felt strange to Amie driving through the outer suburbs of Apatu as she had done so many times in the past, going shopping or to and from social events at the Expatriate Club. It gave her a feeling of déjà vu. Now the circumstances were so very different. This time she was smothered in a burqa and huddled in the back of an old Land Rover, with two people she’d not known all that long, and knew very little about.

  Shalima was an enigma and she had never found out much about Ben’s personal life. In fact, all she knew about him was he was from the Kawa tribe, with the elephant as his totem. He’d studied hard at school and trained to work in film and television. She could also guess he knew quite a lot of what her mother would call ‘shady’ characters, those teetering on the wrong side of the law, or even a long way over the other side?

  Yet the three of them had been thrown together, had experienced dangers together and, they’d survived. Once again, they were driving into the unknown. She could understand why Shalima was there. She had nowhere else to go right now, and she’d put off returning to England for as long as possible. She’d travelled abroad for a cause and an adventure, and she was still there, playing the game.

  But Ben? Amie couldn’t figure that out. Why was Ben still here? What was there in it for him? He could as easily have stayed safely in his home city, so why was he prepared to take such risks? It didn’t ring true with Amie. The more she racked her brains, the less sense it seemed to make, and the only possible answer she could come up with was he wanted to be near Shalima. Had he fallen in love with the girl? She tried to recall the exchanges between them but nothing she’d seen so far, suggested they were anything more than working friends, colleagues or whatever label you could put on any of their relationships? In the end Amie decided to give her brain a rest and, making herself as comfortable as she could, she fell asleep in the back of the car, as they left the suburbs behind and took the tarred road to the north.

  She was woken by the sound of Ben and Shalima arguing over the map. The sun was visible over the eastern hills and they were parked a little way off the main road. The fierce discussion was over which direction they should go. Shalima was waving the map around, Ben was trying to get her to look at the GPS.

  “Yeah, yeah. I know what yer trying to say, but that thing’ll keep us on the road. We need to cut across here.” Shalima was shouting. “Here on the map, see, if we go along by …”

  “But the map is not very accurate. I programmed in the co-ordinates before we left Apatu and it will take us the shortest possible route.”

  “Guys we should trust modern technology,” suggested Amie. “I’m sure Ben is right about the map. Let’s trust the GPS right?”

  “Oh yeah, take his side, wouldn’t you know it,” snapped Shalima crumpling up the map and sticking it in the glove compartment. “Go on then, get us lost. See if I care. Put us in more danger. Staying on a public road where anyone could stop us and wanna know where we is goin’ and get us arrested!”

  Amie sighed. Every time Shalima opened her mouth it was to complain or moan.

  Ben replaced the navigation system in its holder on the windscreen and turned the ignition key. “I do not want to go driving off into the bush yet, we’ve only got one spare can of petrol. If we travel too far off road, we may damage something and have problems crossing river beds. It’s only a few more kilometres on the road and then we will turn off.”

  Shalima didn’t reply but hunched down in her seat and stared out of the side window.

  There was very little traffic on the road, despite most Africans being early risers, out and about well before dawn. After half an hour, Ben slowed down and pulled over to the side of the road again.

  “What now?” Shalima shot up in her seat.

  “This is where we should turn off.”

  “So why don’t you?”

  “I’m waiting for that car to pass, so no one will see us.”

  But instead of racing past, the other car slowed down and stopped a little ahead of them. A man dressed in military uniform got out and walked towards them.

  “Oh sheeeet,” Shalima groaned. “You and yer ‘we need to stay on the road longer’. Now we’re in trouble.”

  Amie shrunk low in her seat trying to make herself invisible in the back. She was about to slide onto the floor when the newcomer stuck his head through the window. She felt the bile rise in her throat and thought she was going to throw up. No, not now, after so many near misses. Was this one Togodian soldier going to arrest them and force them to return to Atari? It was impossible to see how Shalima was reacting, since she’d immediately pulled the burqa over her head.

  The girls had no idea what was said, as the conversation went back and forth in Togodian. At last the man straightened up, knocked loudly on the car roof, walked back to his own car, got in and drove away.

  Amie relaxed and gave sigh of relief. She’d hardly been aware she was holding her breath.

  “And what was that all about?” Shalima asked.

  “He thought the car was broken and he stopped to help.”

  “What did you tell him?”

  “I explained one of you ladies wanted to um …”

  “Take a piss you mean?”

  “Uh, yes, and we were waiting until there was no traffic on the road.”

  “Nice one Ben.” Amie smiled.

  Looking both ways along the road, and seeing it was clear, Ben drove across the tar and onto the rough ground making for the low-lying western hills. Much to Shalima’s disgust, he insisted on stopping again and walking back up to the edge of the road to sweep away the tyre tracks and his footprints, with a leafy branch he broke off a bush.

  “It is wise,” he said as he got back into the Land Rover, “that we leave no tracks close to the road.”

  “Paranoid,” was Shalima’s only reply.

  Ben slowed the Land Rover and brought it to a full stop. He turned to look at Shalima. “I do not have to be here,” he said. “I can drive back to Apatu and live my life. I want to help Amie, and if you want you can leave.”

  Shalima glared at him, shocked.

  Amie was astonished. Nearly all the African people she’d met were very polite, and she was amazed to hear Ben speak so sharply. She could see he was very, very angry indeed. But this was between the two of them, so she closed her eyes pretending to be asleep. She wasn’t going to get involved.

  For several seconds a heavy silence hung in the car, then Shalima murmured a sort of apology. B
en put his foot on the accelerator and they moved forwards.

  They drove for several hours, stopping only for comfort breaks and on one occasion they paused while a small herd of elephants passed by. The sight of the huge creatures even impressed Shalima and she gazed at them in wonder. She giggled at the antics of the two little calves that were struggling to keep up with the adults. They were still at the stage where they didn’t have full control of their trunks and their clumsy attempts to feed like their elders were comical to watch as they tried to grasp small branches and pull off the leaves.

  As dusk approached, Ben suggested they stop for the night. By his reckoning they were quite close to the drop zone, and there was a hill to one side covered with large boulders that would make excellent hiding places and give them shelter. This time Shalima didn’t argue. She’d been very quiet for most of the day and Amie wondered if she’d had a change of heart.

  After a cold meal, Ben made a small fire and Amie filled a pot with water and put it over the flames to boil. While she spooned in coffee, sugar and powdered milk she voiced the thoughts no one had as yet put into words.

  “Now we are close to the drop zone, do we know what we’re going to do?”

  “Thought the idea was to rescue yer hubby, right?” Shalima snorted.

  “Yes, but how?” After a moment she continued. “The facts, as you discovered Shalima are that IS are going to drop supplies in this area, one of their convoys is going to arrive and pick up the goods. And we think it’s the same group which is transporting Jonathon and Charles to Libya. Right?”

  “How are they going to cross the Sahara?” Ben asked.

  “I suppose they could cut further west, meet up with some of their allies in the Congo and Nigeria and go north from there. But didn’t one of the emails say they would fly out?”

  “Oh, yeah, yeah, of course.” Shalima agreed quickly.