Place of Bones

by Larry Johns

  Nkomo, however, saw things differently when he heard about it, and he sent orders that I transfer Piet immediately to Magoe, threatening disciplinary action if I did not comply. I knew that Nkomo’s hatred of the Smith regime was exceeded only by his hatred of South Africans, so I knew what Piet would be in for.

  My current persona non gratia in the new Zimbabwe is a direct result of the escape I arranged for Piet and several others, before I arbitrarily resigned my commission and slipped out of the country myself. We fought together many times after that. And, with “Cat," we drank ourselves under more tables than I kept track of.

  The Congo River had risen two feet overnight. It was now a swift-running maelstrom of muddy vortices and debris-cluttered waves that ripped hungrily at the bank side undergrowth, undermining and carrying away more and more debris. Eventually, the Galewe Cataract, south of Mbandaka, would clog, and the thickly packed vegetation would back up for several hundred yards before the sheer weight of it all would burst through the dam, and the whole process would begin again at the next cataract.

  The sun was low down and the trees on the eastern bank appeared draped in a thin, wispy veil of blood-red silk. I had to raise my voice to be heard above the rushing water.

  “What is it, Piet? You didn’t drag me out here to discuss the finer points of the operation.”

  “You always were a perceptive bastard,” said Piet, his thick Boer accent more pronounced as he matched my volume. “And you’re right.” He removed his forage cap and pulled his fingers through his tangle of hair. “But where the hell to start...”

  I could not imagine what he had to say. Certainly I had never seen Piet Vryburg embarrassed. He was embarrassed now. I said, “Is there a bottom line, Piet? Or is it a long story?” It was very strange. Piet always came directly to his point, on any subject. Yet, here he was, tinkering around the edges.

  He shook his head. “Both. But I reckon you need the long story first.”

  I lit a couple of cigarettes and handed him one. “Then let’s have it from the top.”

  “The top,” he repeated significantly. “Fair enough. The top it is. That was a phone call from our mister Luang.”

  “And?”

  “And nothing. Not then. I was pretty bucked.” He leant back on the bonnet of the now clean jeep. “The Ugandan thing was turning sour on me. Apart from which it was good to think we’d be working together again. So I start to straighten things out that end. Then I get a visit from a South African. He says he wants a minute of my time. A reasonable request, I thought, since he backed it up with a fistful of Rand.”

  “A recruiter?” I thought I had it. He had been offered more money for another job. No sooner had that thought crossed my mind, I erased it. Money, for Piet - as for me - was not a reason; it was an excuse. Then again...

  Piet shrugged. “Don’t know what the hell he was. At least, I didn’t then. Anyway, he takes me for a ride in his flashy new motor. Out into the bush.” Now he really looked uncomfortable. So it was money. I said, “You know you’ll have to renegotiate with Luang, don’t you?”

  It was a stupid statement. Piet knew the rules as well as I did.

  He gazed at me as if I had not spoken, and I knew I was off-track completely. At length, he said, “Guess who I found out there, Robbie.”

  This was really weird. Piet playing guessing games? “I don’t have a clue, Piet. Who did you find out there?”

  He stared at me, opened his mouth to say something, then closed it again, with another shake of his head. This went way deeper than money, and I suddenly had a strange feeling, a feeling that what he was about to say had something to do with my current predicament. I tried to discount that as ridiculous. There was no way he could know the first thing about it. Was there?

  Piet reached into his tunic pocket and brought out a Polaroid photograph, which he glanced at briefly. “You’ve only ever talked about her, Robbie. So I don’t know. Is this Karen?”

  I was totally unprepared to see Karen’s face staring out at me from a photograph handed me by Piet Vryburg, who had been hired by the Chinese! But it was her. Dressed in blue jeans and blouse, hands planted defiantly on her hips. I looked at the picture, my mind now blank.

  “For Christ’s sake, Robbie!” said Piet, “Is it her, or isn’t it?”

  I was amazed that I could remain so calm, so detached from a situation that bordered on the ludicrous. “It’s Karen.” I looked at him. “In Uganda?”

  Piet let out a sigh. “Well, that puts it all on the straight and level. I tell you, Robbie, I was - “

  “You took this picture?”

  He shook his head. “No. This guy did. Called Ryan. But that’s my shadow you see on the ground beside the...beside Karen. You gonna explode soon, Robbie? Get it over with?”

  I wished I could explode. But an explosion was not in me to come out. For the moment, this new twist, coming at me from out of the blue, seemed to demand nothing but dumb acceptance. “Why?” I asked. “I mean, why the picture?”

  Piet shook his head wonderingly. “That’s all, Robbie? Just, why the picture? You got nothing else to say, man?” His tone told me that had the situation been reversed he would have had plenty to say. And he was right. Surely to God a real father would have found some emotion to unleash. Anger, maybe. Fine. But directed at whom? I said:

  “Explosions later, Piet. I’ll find a quiet corner. For now, let’s hear the explanation.”

  He nodded, his expression a picture in its own right. “Sure. It sounds like a real mess, Robbie. I don’t know how it got started, or where it’s going. And I might as well tell you right off that I’ve been paid to deliver the message. What happens from this moment on is up to you. But I will add this, we both know that I owe you. So you can count me in on anything. Whichever way you decide to play it, I’m with you. One hundred percent, right down the line.”

  I said, “Thanks, Piet. But right at this moment I don’t know what the hell is happening. What does S.I.S. want now?”

  Piet, in the act of flicking the cigarette into the river, did a double-take. “S.I.S.? The British? What in God’s name have they got to do with anything?”

  That would be just like our mister Brown, I thought. All that need-to-know crap. I said, “Ryan has to be S.I.S. Didn’t he tell you that?”

  Piet grunted. “Ryan may be many things to many people, Robbie. But one of the things he is not, is British! Ryan works for S.A.I. - my lot, Robbie - South African Intelligence.”

  Piet went on talking but I was no longer hearing him. My brain had suddenly taken a spin and I stood there like an idiot. As I came back to earth, Piet was saying, “...and the fact that you didn’t know, explains a fair amount. It’s not a mess, Robbie. It’s a bloody free-for-all, with us stuck in the middle. I tell you true, they could pay me three times my going rate and I still wouldn’t want your decision. But that’s just what it is, Robbie; your decision. And I repeat; I’m here, I’m under your command, and that’s the way it’ll stay until you say different.”

  Over the following seconds some of what Piet had said when I was out in orbit found its way back into the conscious part of my brain; mainly, that SAI now had Karen. I said, “Back up, Piet. Go through all that again.”

  He did. Then he went on to say more. And the crude logic of it all became obvious. Disjointed still, but obvious. “And you say that what happens to Karen is up to me? No blackmail?”

  Piet nodded. “That’s what they say, Robbie.” He reached into another pocket and fished out an envelope. “Am I glad to be getting shot of this stuff, matey. It beats me how these bloody spies get through their day. I thought we had it bad! Here,” he handed it over. “It’s a list of times and frequencies, plus a whole bundle of code phrases. All you have to do - now, if you like - is tell them where you want Karen taken, if anywhere. Ryan swears she’ll be safer left with him. He’s got a safe house organized, he says. All the comforts of home. But it’s up to you. Wherever you say take her, that’s where s
he goes. No hassle. No fuss. Anywhere on the globe. And wherever it is they’ll have her transmit a message to say she’s safe. They’ll even bring her here...if that’s what you want!”

  “Here?”

  “Sure. Ryan reckons that from your point of view, here’s the only place that’ll really satisfy you. Since you could otherwise assume that anywhere else, and they could pick her up again whenever they wanted. Which would be the same as hanging on to her.”

  “Bloody courteous of him!” It was all I could think to say.

  Piet nodded. “I thought a lot about that on the flight over from Uganda. It’s an act of good faith they’re trying to get through to you, Robbie. But it’s a null and void point, if you ask me. You want an opinion?”

  “I could use one. Plus a stiff drink.”

  “They’re on the level, Robbie. At least about Karen. They know that if you state Jo-burg as a preference, then she’d be available to the Brits again. And that would negate the whole deal. Same, really, would apply wherever you said take her. Which is why Ryan said she’d be safer left with him. The point is, S.A.I. don’t need her. Not the way the Brits do...did! They’ve got their guarantee already.”

  “Tell me.”

  Piet hesitated. “You’re going to be a marked man, Robbie. Especially from the Chinese point of view. They’re going to be after their pound of flesh whatever happens from here on it. Granted, there’s not a lot they could do with us here, but they’d think up something nasty for afterwards. We can’t stay here for ever. There are a hundred also’s, Robbie. Also, the yanks are out there somewhere. God knows why, but they’re there. We don’t have many friends. Or, we won’t have. SAI knows it, and I’ve got to tell you, I do too. It’s either play it their way, or make a stand right here - without bothering to put on any long playing records.”

  I had to smile. “But you came, Piet.”

  He shrugged. “Sure. I told you. I owe you. I owe “Cat.” Besides, life was getting to be a yawn.” He grinned briefly. “But the decision has to be made right now. No-one knows how much time we’ve got left, least of all Ryan. If you don’t do something before the Brits realize what’s happened to Karen...” He let that hang.

  I said, “What’s in it for South Africa, Piet? You haven’t told me yet.”

  “That’s easy. I don’t know what water went under the bridge two days ago, not to do with this mess, but the overall picture has been up for display for months. The Chinese had to be stopped. Because if they weren’t, and they gained control of Zaire, then S.A. would be next on the list. No question. I’m South African, Robbie, though anyone else would be forgiven for thinking otherwise. All I mean by that, is I know the score. I know what this means for Pretoria, for the new administration. You send the Chinese into S.A. and they’ll blow everything to hell and back. And we’ve only recently come back from that place!”

  I nodded. “So what do they want?”

  Piet sucked in a breath and let it out slowly. “They want an immediate strike. They know Camp-One is a fresh outfit; untried, unmolded. But they’re all fighting men, and that’s what counts.”

  “What’s the target?” This was just question and answer. I had yet to assimilate in my mind what it all meant.

  “There’s two, Robbie. Kinshasa’s the first; for effect. Motanga’s pad. He’s there now, apparently. Will be for several weeks. He’s got to be knocked out.”

  “Making space for whom?”

  “I’d be guessing on that one.”

  “Then guess.”

  “Lumimba.”

  “Roderick Lumimba?” I knew a lot of men who had gone down putting that man into power. I also knew a lot who had died taking that power away from him!

  “Can’t think of anyone else. Can you? Lumimba is not exactly pro-S. A. But he’s not that anti, either. He is anti-Motanga. And he hates the Brits and the yanks. Also, Lumimba’s mother was Kikuyu. But the clincher, for my money, is that his brother’s wife is Kangatzi. And we all know how Motanga feels about them. At the very least the country will be split in half.” He gave a humorless grunt. “Again!”

  “Okay. What’s the second target?” For me, it was still a matter of question and answer. No more, no less. For the moment.

  “You know more about that than I do. Motanga’s got all his loyal troops out in the field, waiting for the British pay-off. I’ve got a few guesses about that side of it, Robbie, and if I’m right you won’t want to discuss it much. True?”

  I nodded. “True.”

  “Shit,” he said softly, more mouthed than heard above the din of the water. What he meant by that, I did not know. Nor did I ask him. I said, “Go on.”

  “Eh?” he said, lost for a moment. Then, “Yeah, well. They need to be hit fairly hard. I know it sounds crazy, three thousand troops. But it shouldn’t be too difficult to knock a bit of wind out of their sails, not with Motanga already out of the picture.” He gave a wry smile. “Assuming he is! Anyway, a night strike maybe. Hit and run. In and out. We’ve done it before, Robbie, against worse odds.”

  I smiled. “No, we haven’t, Piet.”

  He shrugged. “Well, almost...Let’s not get too negative, eh?”

  “By all means. In and out, you said. How?”

  “How what?”

  “How out?”

  “Ah! S.A. will supply the transport. Chopper gunships. I don’t know where from, but they’ll have them somewhere. Ryan says they can be here in a matter of hours.”

  “And all this has got to be done yesterday. Right?”

  “If not the day before.”

  For no good reason, we started to laugh.

  TEN

  “You need what?” said Ryan.

  Karen McCann felt like a fool. Things! What a childish way to put it! Had the man been a pharmacist in Jo-burg she would have felt no embarrassment at all, no need to search for code words. Well, that was not quite true. There was always a tinge of embarrassment when the chemist was a man. Why, she did not know. It was not as if she were the only girl in the world to suffer the monthly plague. But it was never like this. Then again, she had never been stuck on a farm in the middle of nowhere before, with only two men for company. Surely to God she was allowed a little embarrassment, a little discomfort. She steeled herself. She had to. Too soon, she knew from pains in her stomach, it would be far too late for self-consciousness.

  “I need some tampons.” She felt herself flush to the roots of her being. How could they put her in this impossible situation!

  “Oh, that,” said Ryan, his face clearing immediately. “Why the hell didn’t you say so in the first place! Any particular kind?”

  Oh, God! Karen thought, am I supposed to discuss these things in detail with a perfect stranger? “Just tampons!” she spat. She turned on her heel and stormed into the house, brushing angrily passed the other man, the black African farm manager, as if he were not there. She could not understand why she felt so mortified, so hurt. She went immediately to the room they had given her and threw herself onto the bed, fighting hard to stem the tears that, so far, she had managed to conquer. I’ll not cry. They’ll not make me cry!

  Karen McCann’s stoicism was a trait inherited from the mother she had never really known, and which had been underpinned by sixteen years of life as a virtual orphan.

  She was different from all her friends, she knew it and accepted it. Hers could never be the life of family gatherings; of ready mother’s shoulder to cry on; of a steadying father’s day to day influence; of the true if stormy companionship of a brother or sister. She was, for all intents and purposes, alone in the world. She had grown used to the idea as a child and was beginning to come to terms with it as an adolescent. To her, Robert McCann had never been any more than a source of pocket money. She rarely saw him and, in truth, rarely even thought of him. Certainly never as a father. And now, suddenly, out of nowhere, this...this jumble of confusion in a vacuum of nothingness. And it was all his fault!

  At first, when those three men
, those awful automatons, had bustled her into their car, she had been very frightened indeed, imagining all kinds of evils about to be perpetrated upon her. Then had come the slow realization that she was not about to be raped, nor even molested, other - they had told her - than that which she brought upon herself. Whatever they meant by that! The flight, in what she could only assume to be some kind of executive jet, small, yet ostentatiously furnished, had been a quiet affair and had proved beyond doubt that, for now at least, her life was in no danger. It had amazed her that she found herself able to cope with what could have been a horrifying experience. The kind you only read about, or saw enacted in films.

  She heard a knock to the door. It was a light, almost apologetic tap. That was Isa, the manager. Ryan’s knock was bolder.

  “Go away!”

  “Yes, miss,” came the reply, “But mister Ryan said I was to make you some breakfast.”

  “I don’t want any breakfast.”

  “No,miss. But mister Ryan said I was to make it anyway. You want eggs?”

  Karen sat up, steadying herself. She was being petulant and she knew it. It had to stop. But what other device did she have? “Just coffee.”

  “Yes, miss. Shall I put your eggs on some toast?”

  Karen stared out of the window at the veldt that stretched in gently undulating waves to the horizon, the emptiness of the scene reminding her of the desolation she felt inside. If only she knew why she was here. What was it all about? Ryan had said that it was to do with her father. But what to do with him? And why had she to be brought here, to a farm in the middle of a wilderness. Well, it was a farm in name only. Certainly there were no signs of any farm work being done. For that matter, where were the farm workers? There was only Ryan and Isa. Everything about it was unnatural, unreal. She glanced at the tiny dressing table upon which she had laid her only possessions; her purse, a small comb, and the necklace her...She wrenched her eyes back to the window. Her father had sent her that necklace last Christmas. She wished now she had thrown it away.