by PJ Skinner
Black thought the rebels were very unlikely to murder the hostages. He convinced himself that MARFO would throw the hostages out to fend for themselves, if no ransom was paid. The Filipino had managed to survive, after all. Sam could talk to the locals in their own language. They would get home alive. No doubt. It would serve them right if they did not. Traitors.
He poured himself a large whisky from the tray on the cabinet and went into the kitchen to get some ice. He would have to pretend that he was going to pay the ransom and then refuse at the last minute on some pretext or other. He swirled the whisky around in his mouth as he stared into space.
No one from Gemsite needed to know what he had in mind.
***
A couple of days later, the General arrived on the island for lunch at his favourite restaurant on the beach. He sat at a table for two in the corner of the patio that had been built out over the sand. It was a breezy day, and the seagulls were buffeted from side to side as they scoured the beach for scraps. The General was sheltered from the breeze by flimsy wooden walls painted in a faded pink. He could feel the coarse sand scrunch under his shoes. He had the impulse to take them off and enjoy the warm boards on the soles of his feet. But before he could do so, he was joined by Eduardo, who had the air of someone bringing important news.
‘Good afternoon, my General.’
‘Good afternoon, Eduardo. Won’t you sit down? I took the liberty of ordering us some fried squid to pick at and a cold beer. I hope that is okay?’
‘Perfect. Thank you, General. I was dreaming of a beer when I was stuck in traffic on the way here. I apologise for my lateness, but you know how it gets at lunchtime.’
‘No need to apologise for the traffic jams in Mondongo. Do you have news for me?’
Eduardo sat forward. At that moment, the waitress approached the table with the beers, and the General raised his hand to stop Eduardo from starting his report. The two men sat back as the waitress fussed around their table, putting out the beer mats and the tankards, which were frosted with ice. She took out a novelty bottle opener in the shape of a diamond and opened the drinks. They were already cold, and when poured into the iced tankards, they were just too tempting in the heat of the Tamazia midday.
Eduardo’s news was put on hold as they took deep draughts of the icy liquid. The fried squid were also delicious. There was an appreciative silence as the two men enjoyed their crunchy heat, washed down by the arctic beers.
‘Fantastic, General.’
‘So, what news have you of the rebels?’
‘I have heard from my source that they have agreed to lower the ransom to five hundred thousand dollars on condition that it is paid next week. The rebels claim they will kill the hostages if it is not paid on time.’
‘That doesn't give us much time. I will have to speak to Mr Black as soon as possible. By the way, I forgot to ask you what you and Pedro talked about before my meeting with Black last week. He rushed upstairs and repeated it all to Black, you know.’
He saw Eduardo freeze with a piece of squid halfway to his mouth and go pale. The General could always tell when Eduardo was not telling the truth. He knew that Eduardo would not dare to lie to him about what he said to Pedro.
‘We were talking about the ransom. I told him that you wouldn't have a problem paying for Sam if it was your choice. Because she’s nice.’ He faltered and stopped.
‘Jesus Christ, Eduardo, don’t you have any sense at all?’ asked the exasperated General. ‘Did you tell him that Sam was at my beach house?’
Eduardo’s miserable face told him the truth. The General was shocked by this revelation. No wonder Black was cross. He was not a stupid man, and he must have guessed why Sam was being courted. The chances of Gemsite paying the ransom were receding by the minute. He felt responsible for the debacle.
‘You have put Sam in grave danger. I don’t know if we can save her. Did you leave the phone with Edison Sousa’s widow in the MARFO camp? My sources were right about her being there?’
‘Yes, General. She was very grateful that you remembered her. I gave her money for her children. She likes Sam and will keep an eye on her.’
‘You’d better be right, for your sake.’
‘I am sorry. I'm an idiot. I will do whatever you say to get Sam back.’ Tears welled up in Eduardo’s eyes.
‘Okay, don’t take it like that. We are warriors, are we not? We will find a way to rescue the hostages, especially Sam. Just promise me to keep your phone charged and in your possession day and night. We may need to move fast. I have talked to General Freddy, from my old brigade. He has a helicopter available day or night, if I give him word that I need it. We will get into big trouble with my brother-in-law but it can’t be helped.’
‘I don’t care. I will go anywhere with you, my General.’
‘Fine, you might have to. Let’s order some good fried fish. I’m still starving. Waitress?'
XV
Pibé was getting better every day and followed Sam around like a puppy. She had to shoo him away when she wanted to go to the toilet. When he was strong enough, they walked down to the river. She used some of her precious soap to wash the pink teddy. It was a thankless task but Sam was sure the soap would at least kill some of the bacteria on the pink polyester fur.
She was running out of repellent and had taken to spraying it on her clothes and not washing them for days. Her hair had begun to clump up until Tereza and her friends dragged a plastic comb though it and plaited it close to her head in corn rows. She had not looked in a mirror for weeks but her clothes told her that she was very thin.
Sam’s inner strength had become much more apparent as she fought to keep her spirits up. The deadline for the ransom payment was fast approaching and the atmosphere in the camp became tense. The hostages were shut in their huts at night. The games of chess and shared beers had become a thing of the past. Sam spent many hours in her hut, lying on her uncomfortable bed, wide awake with fear and anticipation as she ran through possible scenarios in her mind. She knew that not all outcomes had happy endings. She tried to imagine herself being brave, if worse came to worst.
This thought kept her awake, but she could not picture it. She was a glass half-full girl. To her all stories had happy endings, just maybe not quite the way one was expecting.
The next day, Sam was summoned by Joao Conte, the rebel leader, to the main hut in the centre of the compound. He sat on a stool made of an upright piece of log polished by the sweat of many posteriors. He wore a fetching pink t-shirt with a picture of a kitten on it.
Sam could not help smiling at the contrast between the bloodthirsty rebel leader and his less than terrifying attire. What he said next put the kitten right back in its box.
‘The committee of the Santos unit of MARFO has made a decision about the future of you and your companions from Kardo.’
He paused to examine a scab on his leg, which he picked and rubbed while he spoke to her. A small drop of dark blood oozed out and ran down his shin toward his battered trainers. He stopped it with a finger and cleaned his leg with spit.
‘We have asked for a ransom of half a million dollars for you. We have given the authorities one week to pay the ransom. If the ransom is not paid, we will put you on trial, charged with stealing the diamonds of Kardo from their rightful owners, the people of Tamazia. If you are found guilty, you will be shot. You’d better hope that ransom is paid on time. I can’t guarantee your safety if my men don’t get their money.’
Sam sat in stunned silence, trying to process this information. Their lives were hanging in the balance and Black was the only one who could save them. She wondered if it was worth arguing that Gemsite had a contract from the government to exploit the diamonds and that they paid close to half their income in taxes and royalties to the ministry, which were supposed to be spent in the Kardo district.
She remembered the dusty road and the battered huts along it. It was obvious that no government money had ever reached Kardo.
The local people had lost their only form of income when Gemsite began the commercial excavation of the diamond gravels. They had been shot for trying to take gravel at night.
Sam knew that there was no argument that would change Joao’s mind and that any protests were likely to antagonise him.
‘I understand,’ she said.
‘It’s nothing personal,’ said Joao. ‘MARFO needs to force the western companies to leave before they take all our diamonds. We need the income to buy weapons to fight the government. Killing a few foreigners worked the last time we took hostages. Asking for a ransom means that if we don’t get the diamonds ourselves, then at least we get the money earned from them.’
Sam could not fault his logic. She felt his total lack of sympathy for their fate. They were at war; people died.
He sent Sam to tell the others.
There was a shocked silence as Sam explained what she had learnt from Joao.
‘Jesus,’ said Brian. ‘That’s us fucked.’
‘Couldn’t you do something?’ asked Fred. ‘After all, you speak Portuguese.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Sam. ‘I don’t think that anyone is listening. We'll have to rely on Black. Half a million dollars is peanuts to Gemsite. We just have to wait.’
‘Rely on Black? That’s a laugh; he wouldn’t pay for his mother. We have to escape.’
But escape was not in the cards, as the rebels now kept a very close eye on their captives. From that time on, they did not let Sam near the others at all.
The days passed very slowly. The rainy season was almost over, and the heat and humidity in the small huts was unbearable. Sam used the last of her repellent on her clothes and decided not to wash them again until she was free. She would smell terrible but malaria stalked the camp. She had no tablets left.
Tereza brought her food in the evenings. But the portions were shrinking again, as the rebels did not want to waste food on the hostages. Tereza smuggled bananas to Sam via Edison and Pibé. But then the little boys were banned from going to see her after one of the rebels caught them giving her a tin of tuna.
Sam lay on her bed to conserve energy and tried to remember how to speak French. She conjugated irregular French verbs on the ceiling and the walls, forcing herself to pry them out of her memory. She ran through relationships she had in the past, dwelling on every good moment, every concert and every walk on the beach. She had to avoid memories of food, which were too hard to bear.
Sometimes Tereza would sneak in for a few minutes when she delivered the food. She asked Sam about living in England. ‘Do you know Princess Di? Have you ever seen her?’
‘No, I’m afraid I don’t. I have only seen her in newspapers. You do know that she is dead now?’
‘Yes, it is very sad. The princess came to Mondongo to support the landmine trust and everyone in Tamazia knows about that. A real princess!’
Sam tried to imagine the distance in realities between Tereza and Princess Di and gave up. If Di had come from the moon, she could not have been from further away.
‘Tereza, tell me about Edison, your late husband. Was he handsome and funny? How did you meet him?’
‘He was from my village. He was not tall, but he was strong and brave, like Pibé. We met at school and we fell in love. I got pregnant with Edison junior at seventeen.’
These little interludes kept Sam sane while she waited for news of the ransom and lay on her bed, imagining the worst and listening to the noises of people going about their daily lives in camp as if nothing was happening.
***
In Mondongo, Black sat in the meeting room, waiting for the general. He looked even more dishevelled than usual and the sore on his forearm was weeping. He had been on a serious binge the night before and, still quite drunk, could only just keep his head up. He lit a cigarette with great concentration, unaware that there was already one balanced on one of the ashtrays, with a long piece of ash hanging from the end. The air in the room was thick with smoke and there was a rank smell of sweat and bad breath. There was a knock on the door.
‘Come.’ Black drew deeply on his cigarette, composing himself for a confrontation. He had made up his mind days ago to make no attempt to raise the money for the ransom payment. What sort of example would that be to his workforce? Traitors didn’t deserve any sympathy. If anything, Black was more determined than ever to punish Sam. He did not care that two more people would die to make him feel better. Sam had betrayed him. That was unforgivable.
The General entered the room and waited to be addressed, wrinkling his nose in mute protest at the smell.
Black looked up, and gave the General a malevolent glance. ‘General, was I expecting you? Oh, yes. Yes, I was,’ he muttered. ‘I don’t have good news, I’m afraid.’
General Fuego looked startled but said nothing.
‘We couldn’t raise the money in time. The diamond sales have not gone through yet. Can’t we persuade the rebels to wait?’ The insincerity of his tone surprised even the General.
‘To wait? You want the rebels to wait? Don’t you realise that the hostages will be murdered if you don’t pay now? How will you sleep at night knowing that you have, to all intents and purposes, signed their death warrants?’
Black knew damn well that it was a final demand. He was going to leave the hostages to their fate because he imagined he had been betrayed by one of them. Something approaching a smirk crept across Black’s face. He cocked his head at the General, as if daring him to say something.
There was a tense silence.
‘I see,’ said the General stiffly. ‘I suppose it can’t be helped. The president will be most disappointed.’
Black was not fooled. He knew as well as the General did that the president wanted diamond revenue at any cost and that if he had intended to do something about the hostages, he would have done it weeks ago. The president would only be disappointed if production stopped because of the raid. In fact, everyone had carried on as if nothing had happened.
Brian had been replaced by his deputy and Black had already interviewed replacements for his technical staff. He had sent Jim straight back to Kardo to reorganise the staff so that diamond production would not cease or be diminished by the raid. He already forecast another bumper month of production following the hitting of the double production target this month.
‘I’m sorry General, but I’m pretty busy this morning. Was there anything else?’
***
Black shuffled some papers on the board table. He soon appeared to forget that the General was there.
General Fuego got his limbs moving and left the room. He was already miles away, thinking about Sam, scared and alone in the rebel camp. He was so absorbed in his thoughts that he tripped as he descended the stairs. He flailed around and made a grab for a non-existent bannister.
Luckily, one of the office gophers was coming up the stairs and managed to grab his arm and steady him to prevent him from crashing down the stairs head first.
The General was shaken. He realised that Sam’s only chance of escape was now in his hands and he had almost ended up in hospital. He waved the gopher away and sat on the stair for a moment, his breathing agitated. He felt his age. Every old wound, every broken bone told him that it was too late. Was it hopeless to waste his time trying to do something?
Black appeared at the top of the stairs, alerted to the near accident by the gopher. He was concerned enough to stagger from the boardroom when he realised that the national hero of Tamazia had almost died in his office. He was amazed to see the General still sitting on the stairs with his head in his hands. Could he really be in love with that woman? Black was bemused.
‘Leave her to her fate, General. She is only a spoilt white bitch,’ he shouted down the stairwell.
Black’s total lack of humanity stirred the general into action. He stood up and straightened his uniform. His dignity returned with the rush of fury that flooded his body with adrenalin. Without looking back, he left the Gemsite offic
e and went to call his friend General Freddy.
***
In the rebel camp, Joao Contes received the bad news. He called a meeting of the fighters and told them that Gemsite had refused to pay the ransom. There was a lot of shouting as they worked themselves into a group fury. Joao had provided a ten-gallon plastic tank full of strong local beer, which he poured into plastic cups and passed around the hut.
He announced that it was his intention to try the prisoners for stealing the diamonds belonging to the people of Kardo. He appealed to their patriotism and their machismo. He was a good public speaker, which was the main reason that he had taken over the unit when Edison de Sousa had been killed. He had no trouble persuading his frustrated men that the foreigners had to die.
No one mentioned that one of them was a woman and that it was against their rules to kill women. Despite their status as illegal rebels, MARFO had military roots and strong discipline, which had enabled them to keep fighting for years on very small means. Joao had been able to prevent them from raping because of this, although he had no real appreciation of the fact that many of the fighters wished they could drag her into their huts for an hour or two. She had strong novelty value, even if she was not young anymore.
Joao was jealous of the strong attachment Tereza and the boys had formed with Sam at a time when he hoped to move in on Tereza himself. Getting rid of Sam would clear the way for the final takeover of Edison de Sousa’s life, which he so craved. The other two men were road-kill to him: expendable, soft, foreigners. He encouraged his men to drink up. They would need Dutch courage for the task ahead.
XVI
That night, two of the fighters appeared at the doorway of Sam’s hut. They dragged her roughly outside. She had no time to put on her boots. As she emerged, she saw Fred and Brian also being manhandled and pulled to the meeting hut on the main square.