The Devil's Kingdom

by Scott Mariani

  He got to his knees and groped around him in the semi-darkness. The hole was bottle-shaped, widening out at the bottom with enough room for him to have lain down stretched out if he’d wanted to. The shape of its walls made it impossible to climb out. Try too hard, and you’d only pull down enough earth to bury yourself alive. That was when Ben realised they planned to keep him in here for a while. It wasn’t just a hole in the ground. It was a primitive dungeon.

  He got to his feet, looked up and heard the sound of an engine that made him think at first that the soldiers were leaving. But then the sound of more voices told him that a second vehicle had arrived. He craned his neck upwards but couldn’t see any movement, only the circular window of sky far above him.

  Ben involuntarily ducked as a dark shape filled the mouth of the hole and came tumbling down. He pressed his back against the earth wall to avoid whatever it was landing on him. It hit the ground at his feet with a crunch.

  It was the dead body of an African. One of the prisoners he’d tried to save from the firing squad.

  Three more bodies tumbled down the hole, piling up at the bottom in a grisly heap. All four had had their throats cut, their eyes gouged out and their hands and feet chopped off. Perhaps not in that order.

  There was more activity above. Ben caught a glimpse of movement, heard the rev of an engine and saw a dark shadow pass overhead as one of the trucks drove over the mouth of the hole. It kept on going. Ben heard the clink of chains. Something heavy being dragged along the ground, obscuring the circular patch of sky like an eclipse spreading over the face of the sun. It was a steel plate or large manhole cover, and they were towing it into place to close off the mouth of his prison.

  Sealing him off. No escape.

  Suddenly, the dungeon was plunged into pitch blackness.

  And after that, Ben heard nothing more. He was alone with the dead.

  Chapter 15

  Under a sky heaving with grey clouds, Victor Bronski stepped off the plane at N’Djili Airport, Kinshasa, and surveyed the scene with an air of jaded disapproval. Having travelled to virtually every Third World country in the course of his career, his opinion of the Congo was that someone should invent a Fourth World and plonk the damn place into it, in a class of its own where it belonged. And then toss a nuke in after it. He threw an even more disgusted look upwards, thinking that if the threatening rainclouds did let go, it would only become more unbearably humid. My Christ, what a shitpit.

  Bronski was travelling light. His work here should require him to endure no more than a few days, at most. He would get the job done as slickly and efficiently as his reputation promised, deliver the goods and go home with a very fat pay cheque. At fifty-eight, with a quarter century under his belt as a private investigator and another fourteen years before that spent in law enforcement and criminal intelligence, he wasn’t someone who left much to chance. All this professionalism, experience, and attention to detail came at an extortionate price, but when your employer was one of America’s richest shipping magnates, Eugene Svalgaard, money was bottom of the worry list.

  Bronski had no issues with travelling openly to the country in which he intended to conduct criminal business, because he was using false documents in the name of Henry R. Barrington, one of his favourite aliases and one that he felt lent him an air of sophistication. Mr Barrington was smart but casual in nicely pressed chinos, a lightweight blazer, and a white shirt open at the neck with a silk cravat. With a Panama hat on his grizzled, balding head, he looked very much the part of the slightly adventurous American tourist.

  Bronski’s travelling companion, equipped with an equally convincing and expensively forged passport in the name Josh McKenzie, was a former Navy SEAL called Aaron Hockridge, now working occasional private military contractor jobs from his base in Tucson, Arizona. Aboard the same flight were four more of Hockridge’s hand-picked guys, their real identities all disguised. They’d booked individual seats scattered about the plane and made no sign of recognising one another on boarding. They disembarked in the same manner, ignoring one another and passing separately through customs. On the other side, each took a taxicab to the mid-priced hotel in Avenue Rép. du Tchad that was to be their base.

  Once Hockridge and the others were checked into their rooms, Bronski phoned Eugene Svalgaard from his own. ‘What’s the weather there in Knoxville?’ he asked, poking a finger through the lopsided blinds to peer down at the chaotic street below.

  Pacing the floor of his luxury hotel suite in Mombasa, Kenya, with white beaches and the Indian Ocean in view, almost naked with a dressing gown loose around his short, chubby little body and the air conditioning blasting at full pelt, Eugene Svalgaard replied, ‘I’m freezing my ass off while looking forward to a white Christmas. How are you finding Smolensk?’

  ‘This is a real classy joint you booked us into, boss. There are hookers in the hotel lobby and the bed sheets, you don’t wanna know. What did I do to deserve this kind of treatment?’

  ‘I’m sure you’ve had worse. Just cope. Right now I’m really more interested in knowing what progress you’re making with our project.’

  ‘I just got here, boss. I’m on it, okay? I’ll keep you posted.’

  ‘Every hour. On the hour. I’ll be waiting.’

  ‘Take it easy, will you? What happened to trust?’

  ‘Trust my ass. You get this done fast before we miss our chance. No screw-ups.’

  ‘You’re hurting my feelings, boss. When did I ever screw up?’

  ‘There’s always a first time. Call me the moment you got something to report. And it better be good news.’

  ‘Fat fuck,’ Bronski muttered, putting away the phone.

  Sixteen hundred miles way on the east coast of Kenya, Eugene Svalgaard slumped on the king-size bed in his luxury suite and stared out of the balcony window at the swath of empty beach, the palm trees and the turquoise ocean beyond. He was a veteran connoisseur of luxury suites all over the world, and he wouldn’t have kept a dog in this one. He’d almost exploded when he’d discovered that it didn’t come with a private kitchen, chef and other essential staff. But if he had to be in Africa, this was as good a place as any to hole up in, keep his head down and twiddle his thumbs while waiting for Bronski to deliver the goods. The champagne was acceptably chilled, the bathroom roach-free so far, and the ocean view relaxing. Relaxation was what he needed to ease the nagging self-blame over his stupid mistake.

  His mistake had a name, one that wouldn’t ever be forgotten: Pender, the double-crossing sonofabitch of a shady lowlife ex-mercenary and jewel thief whom Eugene had hired to obtain the Star of Africa diamond for him by whatever means necessary. If Eugene hadn’t been so blinded by the power of his lust for that beautiful rock, none of this mess would have happened.

  Thank Christ for Victor Bronski. It was only due to Bronski’s top-dollar detective skills that they’d been able to trace the diamond’s path after it vanished into thin air halfway between Salalah and Mombasa. Following Pender’s slimy, disreputable trail to Kenya, Bronski had managed to deduce that the scumbag had been out to screw his boss from the start. To aid him – or at least, that had been the intention – Pender had struck a deal with a man whose reputation was even more gruesome than African luminaries such as General Butt Naked and Joseph Kony of the Lord’s Resistance Army. Given what he knew about the Congolese warlord Jean-Pierre Khosa, Bronski was quite confident that Pender was now very much dead; and there were no prizes for guessing who had got their mitts on the hot rock itself.

  Now, all Eugene had to do was get it back. Which was a fairly straightforward matter, as he saw it. Knowing what Bronski had told him about this Khosa, the idea of stealing it back was out of the question. Eugene accepted that if he ever wanted to lay his hands on the Star of Africa, he was going to have to pay. He was perfectly willing to write off the trivial $5,000,000 sum he’d wasted on Pender, if he could convince its new owner to part with it for a few dollars more.

  That w
as where Bronski came in. His job was to make contact with Khosa’s people and lay an offer on the table that (in Eugene’s words) an illiterate drum-banging savage from the Congo jungle couldn’t possibly refuse, sealing the deal quickly before anybody else jumped in with a bigger number.

  As to exactly how much of an offer he should make, Eugene had spent a while rolling numbers around his head. The figure shouldn’t be too high – after all, this was a strictly black market item now, with every cop in Oman and half of Interpol raising hell to find the thing. But the figure shouldn’t be too low, either. The deal had to appear dazzling enough that this shit-kicking jungle bunny (again, Eugene’s words) would trip over himself in his haste to snap up the cash before the anonymous bidder changed their mind. It had to positively blitzkrieg the negotiating table, eclipsing any chance of another player – of whom Eugene knew there would be many – putting up a bigger number. Eugene needed to show some muscle, seize control of the situation and leave Khosa in no doubt as to who was boss.

  To that end, fifty sounded about right. Fifty million bucks was a fair chunk of change, even for the owner of the Svalgaard Line, but given that it represented less than 7.5 per cent of the behemoth $700,000,000 price that the Swiss brokerage agency of Fiedelholz & Goldstein had previously been grasping for on behalf of its original owner, the recently deceased Hussein Al Bu Said in Oman, Eugene was prepared to suck up the cost. The forthcoming insurance payout for his storm-wrecked cargo ship Svalgaard Andromeda would go quite a way towards recouping the loss, in any case.

  The more Eugene had considered it, the more golden the deal seemed. Okay, so maybe he wouldn’t be able to buy that golf course in Scotland. He might have to hold off renewing his Rolls Royce this year. So what? He hated golf anyway, and cars held little appeal for him. His one true passion in this world, even more than money, was diamonds. For a mere $50,000,000, the Great Star of Africa, the holy grail of the diamond world, lost for so long that it had passed into the realms of myth and legend, would at last be his to treasure forever, to adore and fondle every day for the rest of his life and take with him to his grave. He couldn’t possess it soon enough. Eugene was dizzy with expectation.

  He foresaw little difficulty in executing his plan. If that piece of trash Pender could make contact with Khosa, Bronski could do it twice as easily. The man was a magician. (Damn it all, why hadn’t he hired him first time round?) And who wouldn’t jump at the chance to become fifty million bucks richer at the click of a mouse? With that kind of cash in the bank, Khosa could do anything he wanted. Declare himself king of the jungle, for all Eugene gave a damn.

  For security, it had been agreed to take on extra men, experienced operatives who would watch Bronski’s back while the deal was being done. Then, when the funds had been wired to the account of Khosa’s choosing, the diamond was safely in Bronski’s hands and everyone was happy, Eugene would hop on his Learjet to somewhere reasonably safe like Nairobi or Kampala to take delivery of it personally before flying his beloved trophy home to New York. Nice and easy. What a marvellous, insurmountable moment that would be, the crowning glory of his diamond-collecting career.

  Eugene took another gulp of champagne and drifted deeper into his happy daydream.

  Chapter 16

  Aside from the fear of being murdered at any moment, by the end of his first day in captivity Jude was discovering that his biggest problem was going to be boredom. He was actually starting to look forward to Promise’s visits, not for the delicious rice-based concoction his kidnappers were feeding him, but just to have someone to harangue who couldn’t talk back, and probably didn’t understand a word of what Jude was saying even if he could have responded.

  The routine come evening was exactly as before: Promise’s entrance was announced by the jangling of keys and rattling of locks, then Jude was made to step to the back of the cage to have his hands cuffed through the bars while the cage door was opened, his empty bowl and cup were removed and replaced with fresh food and water, if fresh was the word.

  ‘Hey, what about a napkin?’ Jude called to Promise.

  No reply.

  ‘There’s got to be a Domino’s Pizza place nearby. Can you order me a pepperoni with extra cheese? Get an extra-large and we can share. I won’t tell Masango if you won’t.’

  No reply.

  ‘Sorry I can’t offer you a tip for this wonderful service. I seem to have mislaid my wallet.’ No reply.

  The worst was the bucket. Jude loathed having to be mucked out like an animal. But at least the bucket’s exchange for an empty one made the atmosphere of the hut more pleasant for a while. After Promise had finished his chores and closed him in for the last time that day, Jude sat cross-legged on the floor of the cage and gulped down his food with the tablespoon. Eat when you can, sleep when you can. It was getting dark outside, and he polished off his dinner quickly before he lost the light from the window.

  But there had to be more to do than eating, sleeping and passively waiting for tomorrow. With no idea how long he might be kept prisoner in this stinking hut, he was determined not to let his strength ebb and his body start to waste away. He stood up, kicked aside his empty dish, and dropped to the floor on palms and toes to knock out twenty press-ups. Then twenty more, and twenty more again, enough to work up a sweat in the humidity of the hut.

  He sprang to his feet and looked up. There was still just enough light coming in to make out the steel bars overhead. The cage roof was about eight feet high. Jude stood five-ten, an inch or so shorter than his father, but it was an easy jump to reach the bars, grab hold and let himself dangle. He hung there for a few moments, letting his muscles and spine stretch out, then crossed his ankles and bent his knees slightly, and pulled himself up until he could kiss the cool steel bars. Up and down. Up and down. Ten vertical raises, a few seconds’ rest, then ten more, and again, over and over until he was breathing hard and the sweat dripped down and splashed the cage floor like rain.

  On the last raise he kicked his feet up, hooked his toes through the gap between the bars and let go with his hands, now tentatively hanging upside down from his feet. Six months of practice at this, he thought, and maybe he could get a job in a circus. Roll up, roll up, see the Amazing Monkey Boy in action. Jude laughed at the idea. Laughter made him feel a little better. Or maybe he was already losing his mind. And it was only the second night.

  He soon found out that hanging from his feet made for a great stomach workout if he tried to jerk his body back up to reach his toes. He managed it two or three times, but it was hard work. He was panting. The whole cage was rattling with every rep.

  Jude stopped and hung there upside down, frowning at the realisation that this was something new. Why was the cage rattling? It had felt solid and immovable before.

  He bent his body upwards one more time, grabbed two parallel bars and let his feet drop down, then inched along the bars, one hand at a time, until he’d squirmed his way as far as the corner. It was still rattling like an old iron bed frame. As he wiggled his weight around and swung his legs, he could tell where it was loose. He braced himself against the two adjacent cage walls and let go with one hand so that he could examine the joints.

  ‘Hello,’ he muttered to himself. The joints weren’t welded, as he’d initially assumed. As he now realised, the cage was bolted together out of sections.

  In fact, he reflected as he groped about in the darkness, it was remarkably similar in construction to the dive cages he’d experienced in New Zealand, during his epic and unforgettable holiday spent diving in waters full of large, hungry sharks. The sections of stainless-steel cage had been flat-packed on the deck of the boat. It was Jude’s nature to muck in and get his hands dirty, and he’d helped the crew guys bolt it all together. One of them, Nicko, had told him that if you didn’t use the exact right size of bolt to match the hole it passed through, it didn’t take much vibration and movement to make the structure work itself loose and start flexing at the joints. Not what you wanted to
happen, when you were being offered as a potential snack to a thirty-foot Great White.

  Jude soon discovered the bolt that had come loose. Maybe the Africans hadn’t used the right size for the hole. A torch would have been useful at this moment. Having to rely on feel alone, he fingered the loose bolthead. Its hexagonal faces were smooth to the touch and felt shiny, maybe galvanised or zinc-plated. He thought it felt a little smaller than the bolts that had held the shark cage together. Jude was good at remembering numbers, and recalled that those had needed a thirteen-millimetre spanner to tighten up. But he had no way to measure the size of these bolts, any more than he had anything to use as a spanner to turn them with.

  He let himself drop to the floor with a soft thud. His fingers were stiff from all the dangling, and the healing cut on his palm where Scagnetti had gashed him with a knife was sore and sticky, as if it had opened up again. But the pain didn’t matter to him as he stood thinking for a long minute.

  Then it came to him. Of course! He’d no idea if it would work, but it had to be worth a go.

  He went over to his discarded food bowl, hunted around in the darkness and found the tablespoon. It was flimsy metal and easy to bend, but was it strong enough? Would it snap? He folded it into a U, then squeezed the U into a tighter shape, like a hairpin. There was enough springiness to the metal for it to bend without snapping.

  ‘No harm in trying,’ he muttered. He clamped the bent spoon in his teeth, then craned his neck upwards to peer at the darkness, bent his knees and sprang up once more. On the first blind attempt his fingers hit the bars painfully, but on the second he got a solid grip and started working his way to the corner where the loose joint was. Like before, he wedged himself into the corner using his feet to brace himself. Taking the bent spoon from his mouth he reached out carefully with it towards the loose bolthead. He was scared the spoon might drop, hit the cage floor and bounce out of reach through the bars, where Promise would find it the following day and know the prisoner had been up to no good. Gripping it tightly, he fumbled and scraped until he’d managed to close the U-shape of the bent spoon like a primitive kind of pincer around the bolthead and squeezed to tighten it against the flats. It seemed to get a purchase. He twisted it, and felt the bolt turn, and a flash of hope went off like a magnesium flare inside his heart.