by Chris Ryan
They would kill him sooner or later. He was sure of that. Suliman, that dog, had had a look of such contempt on his face that he knew he would take pleasure in doing it personally. He was only being kept here as bait – bait for Ben Tracey, who was up to something he didn't understand. He couldn't let it happen. If he was going to die, he wanted to die trying to escape, rather than on the whim of these men who had sold their souls to Kruger's wallet.
But that was easier said than done.
Abele enumerated his weapons. One candle, and the clothes he stood up in. It wasn't much, but slowly an idea started to form in his mind. It was risky. He might come off worst. But he had no other choice. He was desperate.
He removed his shirt, folded it neatly, then rolled it into a tightly wound cylinder. He then unthreaded a worn lace from his prized but beaten-up leather boots and used it to tie the shirt in place. Picking it up, he saw with a nod of approval that it would not now unfurl. Then he moved over to the candle, took a deep breath and lit the end of the shirt. It started to smoulder and the acrid smell of burning cloth filled the hut. Gently, so as not to extinguish the small flames that had started to appear, he moved it over to the opposite wall, next to the door, and placed it on the ground.
The wood from which the walls were made had been baked dry by the sun. It wouldn't take long, he hoped, for it to ignite. Then he would be in the hands of the gods: either the guard would rush in and try to rescue him, in which case he would have to fight him for his life; or, more likely, the guard would leave him in there to die, in which case he would have to wait for the wooden wall to burn sufficiently for him to hurl his way through it. As long as he wasn't roasted alive first. Or suffocated.
The fire began to crackle and already Abele's eyes watered with the smoke. He ripped a piece of cloth from his thin trousers and placed it over his mouth and eyes, taking slow, infrequent breaths in an attempt not to breathe in too much smoke. Then he crouched down by the opposite wall, and waited. The wood was like kindling, and soon half the wall was covered in bright yellow fire. What Abele had not counted on, however, was the iron roof; it reflected the heat back into the hut like an oven, and within minutes he found himself clenching his teeth against the intolerable heat. He could not break out yet; the wall would still be too strong.
Just a few more minutes.
Outside he heard a shout of surprise from his guard, but it was difficult to tell what he was saying or how far away from the hut he was above the crackle of the fire. He realized that the padlock would now be too hot to touch, so there would be no chance of the guard coming in, even if he wanted to.
His skin was scorching.
He held his hand up to his hair; it was too hot to touch.
He couldn't bear any more of this heat. He was going to have to break out.
Just another minute.
The air burned the inside of his nostrils as he breathed in. He started to choke. There was nothing for it. It was now, or…
'Aaaarrrggghh! ' he yelled at the top of his voice as he stood up and threw himself towards the burning sheet of flame in front of him. He felt the hot shock of a piece of burning wood splintering into his cheek. His whole body shrieked with pain as his skin came into contact with the fire; but the wall gave way against his formidable bulk, and as he burst through, he heard the roof collapsing behind him. He was out.
The guard was only a few metres away, his face confused and his rifle trained directly at the door. When he saw Abele burst through the wall to the side, he shouted in surprise and turned his gun towards the roaring prisoner. But he was too late: Abele was upon him. His already impressive strength compounded by adrenaline, Abele knocked the guard's rifle out of the way; it fired a chugging round, but the ammo spat harmlessly into the burning hut. Still holding onto the barrel of the gun, Abele knocked it forwards so that the butt sank sharply into the guard's stomach. He spluttered, winded, before being floored by a brutal punch to the side of his face that exploded in a shower of blood the moment Abele's clenched fist connected.
He was out cold.
Abele pulled the Kalashnikov from over the guard's neck, then detached the ammo belt, moving quickly because he knew it would not be long before the burning hut served as a beacon to his accomplices. His hands were still shaking, and the rifle felt heavy in his hands. He aimed it at the man lying unconscious on the floor. One squeeze of the trigger was all it would take; one squeeze, and the man who would have killed him without a second thought would be with the ancestors.
Suddenly, though, the image of Ben popped into his head. The look of shock and horror that had crossed his face when he realized that Abele intended to kill the bandit who had attacked them the day he arrived.
Abele's lips curled into a sneer. He turned and left the man lying there.
It was a struggle to find the road that led into the village. Abele couldn't understand it – it wasn't like he didn't know the area well enough, but somehow he couldn't focus on where he was. He stopped for a moment and looked down at his arm. It was burning with an intense, white pain, and he could see a series of ugly burn blisters appearing along its length. As he looked at it, though, he felt his head spinning and a wave of nausea crashed suddenly over him.
The road, he told himself. I have to get to the road.
He looked around in confusion. 'That way,' he murmured under his breath.
By the time he reached the road, the nausea was allconsuming, making him forget even about the burns on his skin. He staggered along for perhaps fifty metres before he realized he could go no further. By the side of the road was a small copse of trees. He would be hidden there, so he stumbled towards them.
Immediately he was under their protection, though, he felt his legs buckle underneath him. He tried to take a deep breath, but he felt as though his airways were blocked. He coughed. A dreadful, racking cough.
A cough like the one he had heard coming from Russell Tracey, only a few hours before.
Ben awoke with a start.
For a couple of moments he looked around, not fully understanding where he was, confused by the ringing of the rainforest's early-morning noise in his ears. But then it all came crashing back.
Halima was stirring too; she opened her eyes and smiled at Ben, who was massaging a knot out of his neck and trying to forget about how hungry and thirsty he was. 'Bacon and eggs, anyone?' he asked with a sigh.
Halima looked puzzled. 'What is bacon and eggs?' she asked.
'Never mind,' Ben told her. 'Come on, we'd better get moving.' He consulted the compass and pointed in the direction they needed to go.
By mid-morning Ben started to notice that the foliage was thinning out a bit, and he had even seen a few stumps where trees had been hacked down. He gestured at Halima to stop. 'I guess this means we're getting close to an inhabited area,' he whispered. 'And we're less hidden now, so we need to be extra careful.'
Halima nodded her agreement. 'I do not think it is far to the river now.'
They continued to walk, their eyes darting all around them as they kept a lookout for Suliman's men. Soon, through a gap in the trees, Ben saw the twinkling blue of the river. He and Halima nodded at each other, then hurried towards it. As they reached the bank, Ben looked to the other side. Rising from the trees, a little distance away, he could see tendrils of smoke.
The village.
The place they were trying to get to; and the last place Ben wanted to be.
This time round, Ben knew better than to obey his body's urge to rush to the water's edge and drink. There were no animals sipping on the bank, and in any case there was less of a shoreline here, more of a mossy, treacherous bank forming a sheer drop down to the water. The river itself seemed stiller, calmer than it had further along; for some reason that just served to make Ben more nervous.
But as they stood there looking across, a horrible realization dawned on him. They had been so caught up in their desire to get to the river that they had not considered how they were going
to cross it. Surely they couldn't swim – who could tell what dangers lurked beneath that still surface?
As though echoing his thoughts, Halima spoke. 'We need to find a boat.'
Ben looked left and right. There was no sign of anything. 'How are we supposed to do that?' he asked.
Halima shrugged. 'By looking.' She strode off along the river bank, with Ben following behind.
They spent the next half-hour searching along the bank for a boat. It was treacherous work, as they kept losing their footing on the mossy boulders, and all of a sudden the humidity had seemed to double in intensity. 'The rains,' Halima murmured at one point. 'We need to cross before they come.'
'Fat chance,' Ben said, knowing that he was sounding a bit surly. 'Look, Halima. Everyone lives on the other side of the river. Why would they leave a boat here-?'
He cut himself short as Halima looked at him triumphantly. There, a metre or so below the high bank on which they were standing, water lapping against its sides, was a small wooden boat. It was an insubstantial thing, rickety and unimpressive, but it was a boat nevertheless. Ben grinned as he felt relief surge through him.
It was short-lived. The instant his eyes fell on the boat, he heard a shout behind him. He spun round and, a sickness rising from his stomach, saw the sight he had been dreading: Suliman's men, twenty metres away, emerging from the forest, their guns pointing in his direction.
'The boat,' he yelled at Halima. 'Get in the boat! Now!'
His shout was punctuated by the sound of gunfire. Half expecting that he had been hit, Ben grabbed Halima and they jumped into the boat. It was barely big enough for the two of them, and as they hit the decks it wobbled precariously, water sluicing in and settling in the bottom of the hull. There was one oar there; Ben grabbed it and used it to push against the bank as hard as his strength would allow. The boat shot out a few metres into the river before slowing down to a gentle drift as the pair flattened their bodies into the bottom of the vessel, vainly attempting to hide from the onslaught of bullets as Suliman's men fired at them from the river bank.
But the sound of bullets never came. Instead, there was a short, muffled scream.
Gingerly, Ben looked over the side of the boat towards the bank. What he saw, he knew he would never forget as long as he lived.
One of the men – the smaller of the two – was already down, floored by an enormous silverback gorilla who had evidently attacked them from behind. Now the gorilla was dealing with the taller man. With one swoop of his enormous arm, he sent him crashing to the ground. The man weakly tried to get up and gain control of his gun, but he was too slow; the gorilla was beside him, raising both hands into the air, then thumping them down with brutal efficiency onto the man's chest. Again and again he beat him, roaring deeply each time he did so and inflicting the blows so hard that blood started to explode from the unconscious man's mouth and stick to the animal's long fur.
The gorilla continued his work long after it was clear to Ben that the man was quite dead.
When he had finished, the silverback turned his attention back to the smaller man, pummelling him repeatedly to make sure he would never get up again either. And then, without even seeming to acknowledge the presence of Ben and Halima, he turned and disappeared into the bush, growling deeply as he did so.
Maybe Ben was fooling himself, but he almost thought the animal seemed satisfied with his work.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Ben and Halima sat up in the boat in shocked silence; the rainforest itself seemed hushed after that horrific display. Ben watched in distaste as three vultures, silently swooping down as though surfing on an invisible tide of misfortune, settled on the bodies of the dead men and started pecking small, red gobbets of flesh from their faces. He turned away, sickened, and tried to focus on something else.
Halima was right. The river was not as wide here as it had been at their previous stopping point; but it was still wide enough – forty metres, Ben estimated. There was a gentle current that was pushing them downstream, but it was not so strong as to make using the oar too difficult, so he crouched in the middle of the boat and paddled alternately on either side, careful to keep his footing and gradually inching closer to the far bank. The boat still wobbled treacherously, and it was all he could do to keep his balance. Halima seemed able to do nothing but stare at the dead bodies on the bank. 'I told you terrible things would happen to them,' she murmured.
Ben didn't reply.
It was strangely peaceful in the middle of the river. Ominously peaceful. The oars splashed regularly as Ben eased them slowly towards the other shore.
Splash.
Splash.
Bang!
Suddenly he felt something knock the boat. He lost his balance and allowed himself to collapse heavily into the hull in an attempt to stop from falling sideways. 'What was that?' he demanded, sudden panic in his voice.
Halima shook her head to indicate that she didn't know; as she did so, they felt the boat being knocked again. More water sloshed over the side, stabilizing it a little but pushing the rim of the boat down a little too close to the water for comfort.
And then they saw what it was that was knocking them.
At first it looked like an enormous grey boulder was emerging from the water. It was Halima who realized what it was first. 'Hippo!' she gasped.
Instantly Ben grabbed the oar and, half kneeling, half standing, raised it up into the air to bring it sharply down on the head of the emerging beast. 'No!' Halima told him.
He looked questioningly at her as the hippo butted the boat once more, then allowed himself to sit down again as the vessel rocked dangerously.
'You cannot fight a hippo!' Halima told him scathingly. 'It is more dangerous than anything you have seen.'
'A hippo?' Ben asked, disbelievingly. But as if to back up what Halima had said, the boat was butted again, much more strongly this time. Ben and Halima grabbed firmly onto the side as it tipped almost to the point of capsizing – saved only by the fact that Ben had the presence of mind to hurl himself in the opposite direction and counterbalance his weight. 'What do we do?' They were both sopping wet and gasping for air, having swallowed large gulps of the river water.
'Hold tight and keep quiet,' Halima told him. 'Our only hope is that the hippo will leave us alone. If it thinks there is danger in the boat, it will continue to attack and that will be the end of us.'
Ben nodded, and the two of them lay down in the pool of water that had collected in the hull, their clammy bodies pressed together as they clutched tightly on to the edge of the boat.
The vessel swayed sickeningly, still reeling from the last knock. With every moment that passed, Ben expected to be hurtled down into the water. He knew he could probably swim to the other side if that happened, but he had no idea what horrors would try to stop him if he ended up in the water. And then there was Halima. 'Can you swim?' he asked her.
'Ssshhh!' Halima reprimanded him, before adding, quietly, 'No.'
Great, Ben thought to himself.
They continued bracing themselves for another knock.
But it didn't happen.
'I think it's gone,' Ben whispered. Slowly he pushed himself up, his hands splashing in the water that had collected in the hull. He looked around him. Everything was calm – there was no sign of hippos or anything else. As he looked around, the hippo emerged once more, but further away from the boat this time. It was heading towards the far shore, towards the place Ben and Halima wanted to get to. But there was no way they could follow; Ben saw that now. 'I'm going to let the current drift us downstream a bit,' he told Halima. She eyed the hippo as it waded out of the water on the other side and nodded her agreement.
The current seemed slow, but in fact it didn't take long for the boat to drift to a point where the hippo was out of sight. Squinting at the other side, Ben thought he saw a suitable place to land, so he carefully knelt up once more and started paddling again, while Halima attempted to bail out some of the e
xcess water.
They continued like this for a couple of minutes.
It was just as Halima had her hands over the side that she suddenly screamed. Quick as lightning, a crocodile had risen to the surface and snapped hungrily at Halima's arms. It was twice the size of the younger croc they had seen earlier, its skin horny and green-grey, and it was ten times more aggressive. Halima pulled back just in time, and the crocodile made another attempt, this time splintering the side of the boat with its razor-sharp teeth.
'Get back!' Ben shouted. This time he knew he had to do something; the crocodile was attacking, and clearly wouldn't just slip away like the hippo had. Adrenaline burning through his veins, he whacked it on the head with the flat part of his oar.
It did nothing. The croc attacked once more, splintering another part of the side of the boat.
Halima screamed again. Ben felt like screaming too, but what would that do? He hit the crocodile for a second time, gagging as the smell of rotting flesh from its teeth reached his nose.
It just seemed to make the vicious reptile more angry.
The third time Ben hit it, he managed to get the eye, but the oar was too flat for him to be able to poke it properly. He started to panic. One more bite of the side of the boat, he reckoned, and they would start to sink.
Ben's head started to spin, and he found himself hyperventilating. His instinct was to grab Halima, to protect her from the crocodile's next attack, though what he really thought he could do he didn't know. The beast had submerged itself somewhat, and there was a terrible silence as the pair watched its massive body curl round and swim away. For an instant Ben felt shuddering relief, but that soon disappeared as he realized what the croc was really doing.
It was preparing for another attack.
Ben knew what crocodiles did – it was the stuff of playground horror stories. Once it had one of them in its jaws, it would disappear with them to the bottom of the river until the struggling had stopped. Then it would store them in an underwater hiding place until the meat was slightly rotten before eating it.