Khosa’s men fanned out and pointed gleaming automatic weapons at Ben and the group. Rae and Jude pressed together close while the children shrank away in fear. Sizwe placed his big hands protectively over Juma’s shoulders and glared at Khosa with pure hatred. Jeff and Tuesday were expressionless, but Ben knew what they were thinking. The same he was: How do we deal with this without getting us all killed?
In Khosa’s large shadow stood a tall African in a suit, looking more like a city lawyer than a mobster. Ben remembered him from the day Jude was taken from him. Masango, Khosa’s so-called political attaché.
Chief Zandu went over and joined Masango, giving Ben a sneer that said, ‘Not so cocky now, are you?’ while his men joined Khosa’s. Five plus five. That added up to far too many.
Khosa slipped out a cigar and lit it, seeming to savour the moment. He exhaled a cloud of smoke like a howitzer. The eyes behind the mirrored lenses watched Ben through the smoke. When he spoke, his deep voice echoed around the empty building.
‘What is it you once said to me, soldier? “I’ll still be here a long time after the world has had the pleasure of forgetting that your ugly mug every existed.”’ Khosa chuckled. ‘You were right about one thing. I am ugly. These scars I bear make people frightened to look at my face. I am a monster, am I not?’
‘I’m sure you’ve been called worse things,’ Ben said. ‘All of them true.’
Khosa smiled and went on, ‘But for the rest, soldier, you were wrong. Very wrong. You thought you would outlive me. And you tried very hard to make this happen. You have decimated much of my army. All of my trusted officers are dead. But I am still alive, because I was too clever for you. An underground tunnel leads from the place where you would have burned me alive and blown me to pieces. It is no more than a drain, but it enabled me to save myself from your attempts to assassinate me. And now you see, soldier, that you have failed, and that I will not be forgotten as soon as you thought.’
‘I admit I was wrong,’ Ben said. ‘You’ll be remembered, all right. The name Khosa will be talked about for a long time to come. Like some other names that people haven’t forgotten in a hurry. Hitler, Stalin, Amin.’
‘Ah, now you are talking about my hero,’ Khosa chided him. ‘You should not insult General Amin, the greatest African leader who ever lived. Until me.’
‘I know, you modelled yourself on him,’ Ben said. ‘You emulated him in all kinds of ways. Torturer, mass murderer, cannibal. In some ways maybe you even outdid him. Except you never got to rule your own country. That must be a real disappointment for you, to know in advance that you died before you could achieve your ambition.’
‘I think perhaps you are speaking too soon,’ Khosa said, wagging a finger at him. ‘I am only disappointed for you, that you will never live to see me president. I thought about keeping you alive until that day comes, but as you know, I am not a very patient man.’
‘Best get on with it, then,’ Ben said.
‘Nor do I believe in rushing things. We have all day. Before I kill you, soldier, it will give me great pleasure to share with you the entertainment of seeing your friends die first, and then your son. That is, after your son has watched my men have their own kinds of pleasure with his woman there. I see their time in prison together has brought them very close. That is sweet. It will be even sweeter to watch what happens to her.’
‘Bastard!’ Rae yelled.
Khosa smiled at her. ‘Perhaps I am. But one thing I would not stoop to is to force little children to watch a woman raped and butchered like an animal in front of them. I have more scruples than some of my officers have shown in the past. So naturally, it would be the kindest thing to kill the children before you. In any case they are deserters from my army, and the punishment for desertion is death.’
Sizwe pulled himself up to his full muscular height and said, ‘I will not live to see more children die.’
‘Then it is decided,’ Khosa said. ‘You are first, cockroach. Then I will kill the children, starting with that one.’ He pointed at Mani, then at Juma. ‘Or perhaps that one. I do not like the way he is looking at me. Then I will kill the Jamaican, and then Dekker.’ Khosa went on pointing at each in turn as he talked, as if he were playing a game of eeny-meeny. His eyes gave a twinkle as he turned to leer at Rae. ‘I am looking forward to hearing the American bitch scream. Then it will be you, White Meat.’ The finger aimed towards Jude.
‘Fuck you, Khosa,’ Jude spat.
Khosa smiled at Ben. ‘When we get to your turn, soldier, I do not think you will offer me any resistance. By then you will want to die. You will beg me to end your life. And after you have begged me enough, I will grant your final wish. Perhaps a quick end, perhaps not. I will see how I feel at the time. It is still some hours away.’
Khosa signalled his men. One of them fetched a rolled-up cloth, set it down on the ground and unrolled it to reveal a clutch of machetes that glinted dully in the dim light. The men took a machete each. They slung their rifles over their shoulders and moved in fast to encircle the group of prisoners. One of them angled a blade against Jude’s throat. Another jerked Rae away from him and gripped her arm tight with a machete in front of her face.
‘In case you try any of your tricks, soldier,’ Khosa warned. ‘That is a very sharp blade and Mateso is very quick and strong. He will have the boy’s head off before you can blink.’
With five guns still pointing their way in the hands of Zandu’s cops, Ben didn’t need the extra persuasion of a blade at Jude’s throat not to try any tricks. He stood very still. His mouth was dry. The seconds were ticking off fast. Think. Think.
Stalling for time, Ben said, ‘You really have this thing all worked out, don’t you?’
‘Oh yes. I have given it much thought, believe me.’ Khosa laughed again, and the raucous boom of his amusement echoed through the empty building.
‘Reckon you missed out a couple of important details,’ said a voice behind them.
Khosa’s smile fell and he whirled round. Ben slowly turned his head to look back at the doorway, where the voice had come from.
Standing in the doorway was a man with a pistol.
Chapter 60
He was a white man, not tall, not young, but built solid and wearing the dead-eyed look of a jaded veteran who’d survived enough scrapes in his time not to be fazed by a bunch of guns and blades. He spoke with a New York accent. Ben had never seen him before in his life.
‘Who are you?’ Khosa barked at the stranger.
‘Name’s Bronski,’ the stranger replied. ‘Victor Bronski. You know me as Reynolds. Your guy Mr Masango and I did a little business deal together, one that didn’t exactly go according to plan. Remember?’
As Bronski talked, three more hard-looking men appeared behind him, all with short-barrelled pump shotguns and the expressions of experienced fighters ready to inflict serious hurt.
‘Meet my associates,’ Bronski said. ‘Mr Shelton, Mr Gasser, and Mr Jungmayr. I’d tell you more about us, but you might shit your pants, and I’m willing to spare you that embarrassment. Just like I’m willing to overlook the matter of what happened to our other associates, Hockridge and Weller. This is all about business, okay?’
‘You had better drop your weapons,’ Masango said, coming forwards a step with a nervy glance at Khosa. ‘Or we will kill all these people.’
Bronski’s eyes didn’t flicker. ‘Not my problem, sorry. We didn’t come here for them. We came for the rock. Our property, bought and paid for. Let’s have it.’
‘Can you count, old man?’ Khosa said. ‘We have more guns than you.’
‘It’s what you do with them that matters,’ Bronski replied with a faint twitch of a smile. Another man appeared in the doorway behind him. Ben had no idea who he was either. A few years younger than Bronski, but badly out of shape, his blotchy puffed-up face covered in a sheen of sweat below the rim of his Panama hat. With the bulky white suit, its jacket folded over his arm, and the high-dollar shoes
and watch, he looked like an actor in a bad movie playing the part of the rich American businessman abroad. Which, Ben quickly realised, was exactly what he was.
‘You have something of mine, Khosa!’ the fat man yelled. ‘I paid you fifty million bucks for it and I want it!’
Khosa held up his clenched fist and slowly unpeeled his fingers. He rotated the diamond so that it caught the light like a disco ball. ‘You mean this?’
The fat man’s eyes popped at the sight of it. He swallowed, gulped, and for a moment seemed about to have a heart attack. ‘That’s my diamond. You stole it from Pender, and Pender was working for me. Which makes it mine, you hear me?’
Jude’s eyes flashed with recognition as he remembered the voice of the man he’d spoken to on Pender’s sat phone aboard the ship. ‘He’s Eugene Svalgaard. The ship owner.’
‘Quiet!’ Khosa snapped, his composure slipping for a second. Mateso pressed the blade more tightly against Jude’s throat. Ben’s fists clenched tight. He’d forgotten to breathe. Rae was struggling in her captor’s grip. The children were streaming silent tears, too terrified to sob out loud. Sizwe was still staring at Khosa, his whole body rigid and trembling in a molten fury. Chief Zandu’s eyes were flicking left and right. He was slowly edging away as the atmosphere of tension inside the warehouse continued to mount up towards a crescendo that could erupt at any moment.
‘Damn right I’m Eugene Svalgaard,’ the fat man yelled, pressing past Bronski to point a chubby finger at Khosa. The blotchiness in his cheeks had gone, as his whole face was now flushed bright red with anger. Spittle sprayed out of his mouth as he ranted. ‘Me. The one who set this whole goddamned thing up in the first place. The one you oughtta be thanking that you ever laid eyes on that beautiful rock, because if it hadn’t been for me, it’d still be locked up a safe in Oman by some hoarding A-rab asshole who didn’t even appreciate it. So now you’ve had your fun, hand it over. A deal’s a deal, even for a lowlife piece of shit jungle bunny like you.’
With a slow, easy smile, Khosa folded his fingers back around the diamond and returned it to his pocket. ‘You want my diamond, fat man? Then come and take it.’
‘I don’t think you heard me, Coltrane. That right there is my property. My diamond. Mine.’
‘You are both wrong,’ said another voice.
Another total stranger stepped out from the shadows at the back of the warehouse. Lean, in his early thirties, with the olive skin and raven hair of an Arab and a dangerous gleam in his eyes. He was dressed all in black, his clothes tightly fitted to his lean frame. The tiny machine pistol in his hand was pointed somewhere midway between Khosa and Svalgaard.
‘Jesus Christ!’ Svalgaard yelled, waving his arms and half-turning towards Bronski. ‘What is this? Who the hell is this guy?’
The Arab man took another steady step into the light. His body movements were calm and stealthy, but the dark eyes were quick and alert. Ben knew the look very well. If Bronski looked like an ex-cop, everything about this man screamed military. And he wasn’t alone, either. As he walked slowly towards them all, four more black-clad shapes emerged from the shadows behind him.
Ben now counted thirty-four people inside the warehouse, twenty-four of them with guns. The tension was like electricity in the air, its voltage surging up ever higher and threatening to blow a fuse at any moment. When it did, it was going to be like a bomb exploding within the confines of the building.
‘My name?’ the Arab said. His voice was as smooth as a quiet ocean beneath whose surface predators swam. ‘I am Tarik Al Bu Said. And that diamond belongs to neither of you. It belonged to my brother Hussein.’
Eugene Svalgaard’s eyes bulged in his pudgy face. Even Jean-Pierre Khosa seemed to be speechless as he stared at the newcomer.
The gun in Tarik Al Bu Said’s hand swivelled to aim directly at Svalgaard.
‘And now I know that I am looking at the man who had Hussein murdered for it,’ Tarik said. ‘Along with his wife Najila, my little niece Salma, and my nephew Chakir. You commissioned the robbery.’
‘It’s not like it seems,’ Svalgaard blustered, now turning from bright red to white. ‘You don’t understand!’
‘It is not complicated. You hired Pender and his accomplices, knowing what was in my brother’s safe. You gave them the order to wipe out the family to steal it for you. You did these things, and now it is time for you to pay.’
Svalgaard stumbled backwards, pale, hands raised. In a panic, he tried to get behind Bronski.
Anticipating what was about to happen, Bronski fired first.
Then all hell broke loose.
Chapter 61
The violence lasted only seconds, but within that short explosive burst of time, everything would change.
Bronski’s pistol shot was fired in haste and missed Tarik by a couple of inches. Tarik stood his ground and the small automatic weapon in his hands gave a ripsnort and stitched bullets across Bronski’s torso and into Svalgaard, who was trying to hide behind him even as they both fell to the ground.
Simultaneously, Tarik’s men opened fire on Shelton, Gasser, and Jungmayr, but not before Bronski’s men opened fire in return, taking down two of Tarik’s men. Caught in the crossfire and not knowing which way to shoot, Zandu’s cops started blasting in all directions as Tarik’s remaining men sliced into them with automatic fire.
Ben saw his chance and dived for Mateso, at the same instant that Jude lashed back with his heel and twisted out of Mateso’s grip to launch himself at Khosa’s man holding Rae. Mateso flailed his machete at Ben. Ben ducked the blow that would have sliced his head in half, moved back in while the blade was still scything away from him with its own momentum, trapped Mateso’s arm and broke it and then punched out Mateso’s throat before the guy could reach for his pistol with his other hand. Ben whipped the pistol from Mateso’s belt and shot Masango, who was about to shoot Jude. Jude had got the better of the man holding Rae. Jeff and Tuesday had launched into the fight, kicking and punching, Tuesday fighting one-handed with a fury that Ben had never seen in him before as they took down Khosa’s men.
Having edged his way towards the shadows at the back of the warehouse, Chief Zandu now made a break for it. One of Tarik’s men shot him in the back. Jude had knocked his opponent unconscious and was grabbing Rae, flinging her down and pinning her with his body as a shield the way he’d done on the Dakota. The children were howling and running for the door.
In the middle of the melee, Jean-Pierre Khosa had drawn his .44 Magnum from its holster, sighted Ben through the chaos and drew his aim. Their eyes locked. Khosa’s face was a twisted mask of pure hate. Ben raised his pistol two-handed and was about to fire when Sizwe body-slammed Khosa like a charging rhinoceros and smashed him to the concrete floor, roaring in demented fury and raining punches hard and fast into his face, throat, and chest. Khosa was a powerful man, but Sizwe’s raging onslaught was so overpowering that Khosa could do little to fight back.
A matter of moments. Then it was over, or almost. Ben’s ears were singing shrilly from the gunfire. Bodies lay strewn everywhere. Svalgaard, Bronski, and their entire crew were among the dead. So were Masango, the police chief, and all the cops, along with two of Tarik’s men. Only a pair of Khosa’s thugs were still alive, though badly injured and bleeding out.
Sizwe was still punching Khosa on the floor, out of control. Khosa’s face was covered in blood. He tried to reach up and sink his fingers into Sizwe’s eyeballs, but Sizwe knocked his arms aside and went on pummelling him. Something fell from Khosa’s jacket pocket. The diamond! Khosa saw it rolling away across the floor, and even as he was being beaten half to death he reached out a flailing arm to make a grab for it. His fist closed on empty air.
Sizwe’s arms were red to the elbow. He picked up Khosa’s fallen revolver and aimed it in Khosa’s bloody face. Thumbed back the hammer. Tears streamed down Sizwe’s cheeks. The gun began to shake in his hand, until it was wobbling so violently that he could no longer hold h
is aim.
‘I will kill you!’ Sizwe screamed.
But Sizwe couldn’t do it. Not like this. He threw the gun down, then lashed out one more time with his fist with a howl of agony, spraying blood over the floor. Khosa groaned.
Jude clambered shakily to his feet, clutching Rae’s hand. His temple was bleeding from the fight with her attacker. She was safe now, and he’d keep it that way.
Sizwe might not be able to do it, but Ben could. He picked up the fallen revolver and walked over to where Sizwe was kneeling astride Khosa on the floor. ‘Move aside, Sizwe.’
‘No,’ Jude said.
Ben ignored him and took aim at Khosa’s head. Khosa just stared up at him through the blood. Ben had no words to say. The heavy revolver was already cocked and all he had to do was pull the trigger. He lined the sights up on Khosa’s forehead.
‘No!’ Jude shouted. He rushed across and pushed the barrel of the gun away from Khosa’s head.
‘We don’t execute people. I’m not that person, and neither are you.’
‘But he is,’ Ben said, looking down at Khosa. ‘That’s why he needs to go.’
‘Blowing a man’s head off when he’s beaten isn’t justice. We’ve had this conversation before.’
‘And I listened to you, and let him go,’ Ben said. ‘Look what came of it.’
‘Shoot the bastard,’ Jeff said.
‘Right here,’ Tuesday added, jabbing a finger of his good hand at his own brow.
Jude flashed a resentful look at them, then looked back at Ben. ‘This is not what we do, Dad. You kill him now, like this, and I will think less of you. I will no longer respect you. I mean that.’
Ben looked at Jude. Then put the gun down and slid it away so that it was out of Khosa’s reach. He stepped back.
Jeff picked up the gun.
‘Jeff—’ Jude warned.
‘Keep your hair on,’ Jeff growled. ‘I won’t shoot him unless he tries anything. You lie there nice and still, General, if you know what’s good for you. And count your lucky stars that St Jude here’s looking out for your human rights.’
The Devil's Kingdom Page 35