‘Come on, Doug.’ The mining boss laughed harshly. ‘You’re always telling me what a helluva fella and a great jungle fighter you are. Now’s your chance to show it, mate.’
The word ‘mate’ was anything but matey and Jamie saw Stewart flinch as if someone had poked him in the chest. The security chief continued to object, but Devlin wouldn’t be swayed and while they argued, Andy said he’d drive Jamie to the beach where Devlin had said Fiona and Lizzie Carter were bathing. After ten minutes he stopped the car by a coconut grove and pointed seawards. ‘Just follow the track down through the trees. Someone will be along to pick you up in an hour.’
Jamie hesitated in the doorway. ‘Andy, have you any idea what’s really happening here?’
The guard shook his head. ‘I just do the job I’m paid to do, Mr Saintclair. If you’ve got any questions you ask old Doug. He might be a bit over the hill, but he’s been around long enough to have all the answers.’ He nodded. ‘Enjoy your reunion and remember you have to be ready by five thirty tomorrow.’
Jamie walked until the track ended at a long, curving beach of white sand fringed with palm trees and coconut groves. The sun was in his eyes and it took a moment before he saw the bright orange beach umbrella two hundred metres away to his right, with three or four small figures playing in the surf close by. His first instinct was to run to them. Instead, he sat down and took off his shoes and socks and rolled up his trousers to the knee before walking, shoes in hand, to the breaking waves. With the wet sand squishing deliciously between his toes he set off towards the orange marker. By the time he was halfway the figures in the surf defined themselves into one pale child in a blue bikini and three startlingly black ones. Beneath the umbrella’s canopy a pair of long, tanned legs was just visible.
Lizzie looked up as he approached and her mouth dropped open. Jamie put his finger to his lips and she swallowed the shriek that was about to emerge, copying his gesture to her grinning playmates.
Jamie advanced till he could see past the edge of the umbrella. His breath caught in his throat at the sight of Fiona lying there in a black bikini barely worthy of the name that tantalized rather than covered. Her eyes were closed and the sleek golden body glistened with sun oil, all curves and hollows and tight muscled planes.
‘It looks as if being kidnapped agrees with you,’ he said.
Her eyes shot open. ‘Jamie.’ She struggled to her feet and enveloped him in her arms, so he could feel the contrasting softness and hardness of her. Kisses rained on his lips and cheeks until they finally found his mouth and he took control, ending the frenzy by holding her there for a long, long, increasingly breathless moment.
‘Yuk.’ A small body forced its way between them, and they reluctantly moved apart, holding each other by the arms.
‘I’ve missed you,’ she said. Her eyes were shining and his heart did a double somersault at what he saw in their shadows.
‘I’ve missed you too.’
‘Have you missed me?’ a small voice demanded.
‘Of course I’ve missed you, Lizzie.’ Jamie laughed. ‘Who are your friends?’
She introduced the grinning youngsters: ‘Gabriel, Maria and C’melita.’
‘Banana crisps for the one who finds me the prettiest shell,’ Fiona announced, and Lizzie ran off, followed by the others.
‘I don’t know if they understand her – I think they only speak Tok Pisin – but kids have a language of their own.’ She sighed. ‘Now,’ she said, taking his face between her hands and looking into his eyes, ‘where were we?’
‘Wondering why we’re standing on a beach in Bougainville when we were supposed to be drinking champagne in a hot tub in Cairns. By the way,’ he glanced to where Lizzie and her friends were searching through the sand by the waterline, ‘someone told me there are sharks and crocodiles.’
‘The sharks are further out and the crocs tend to stay in the estuaries.’ She smiled. ‘The locals say it’s quite safe to bathe here. Come and sit down.’ She stepped back and drew him into the shade of the umbrella, making a space for him on the towel she’d been using.
‘I think I just left the biggest shark of all back in Arawa.’ Jamie sank on to the fine sand. ‘Look, I’m sorry I got you into all of this. The question now is how I get you out. Devlin’s asked me to go on some daft mission into the mountains tomorrow, but I’m more than half inclined to hire a car, put us in it, and head for the airport …’ He’d been looking at her as he spoke and he saw a range of emotions cross her face before she turned her head away. None of them were the ones he’d expected. ‘Unless there’s something else you’d rather do,’ he ended lamely.
She stared out at the sea, taking a long time to formulate her reply. ‘When I realized the plane wasn’t taking us to Cairns I was angry at first, then frightened. We’d had a wonderful time in Perth and Melbourne with the aunties and cousins, and I couldn’t believe it was happening. They said there’d been some sort of emergency and we’d had to divert, but I didn’t believe them. But everything changed when Mr Devlin met us and explained why he’d brought us here. I think you have to do this thing for him, Jamie. The people on this island deserve all the help they can get.’
Jamie set his face in a reassuring smile designed to cover the inner confusion he felt. Christ, he thought, I’m not the only one who was seduced by Devlin’s pitch. You’ve got it in a bad way. Bewitched, bewildered and completely buggered. There were things he could say, things he could tell her, doubts and worries, but he had a feeling they wouldn’t do either of them any good. ‘So you don’t feel like you’ve been kidnapped?’
She shook her head with a little half-grin of apology. ‘So there isn’t anything to forgive. In a way, it’s much better than it would have been on Mr Devlin’s private island, especially for Lizzie. Life here is so simple. We have a house beside the family who look after us. The plumbing is basic and the electricity is supplied by a generator and goes off at ten. The TV has three channels instead of three hundred and we drink rainwater and eat the same food the locals do. Yet I’ve never seen Lizzie happier or more content. Our landlady, Grace, treats her as if she’s one of her own, and her children like she’s their sister. I’ve heard all about the mine and the war, but despite all that Bougainville is a special place and it can be even better …’
‘If I help Devlin?’
‘Yes.’
‘Despite the fact that he – let’s put a happy face on it – at best shanghaied us and brought us here against our will.’
‘He told me his plans. What he can do for these people—’
‘Spare me, I’ve heard it.’
‘And then there’s the money.’
‘He told you about that?’
‘Yes. It’ll mean I can put Lizzie into a good school; give her all the things I’ve always wanted to but haven’t been able to afford.’
Seduced and bought. Keith Devlin never did things by halves. Jamie lay back on the sand and closed his eyes.
‘What are you going to do, Jamie?’
‘Sleep. Wake me up when Andy gets back.’
‘Andy?’
‘Devlin’s bodyguard. Dark hair, shoulders like a bullock.’
‘Oh, the good-looking one.’ He kicked her leg with his bare feet. ‘So what are you going to do?’ she repeated.
‘Can’t you leave me alone, woman? I have a mountain to climb tomorrow.’ He opened one eye. ‘And of course, I may have other duties to perform later.’ Now it was her turn to kick him, but she lay against him in a way that said she didn’t really mean it.
As it turned out, despite their joint inclination, the paper-thin walls of the guest house and Lizzie’s excitement at seeing him again precluded any potential ‘duties’. Jamie lay beneath the sheet with Fiona’s arm across him, listening to the unmistakable concerto of the tropical night, to which she seemed annoyingly immune. The machine-gun clicks of cicadas and crickets competed with the croaking of a hundred frogs; a raucous cackle that sounded as if it shoul
d come from a hyena, but was probably a fruit bat; the buzz of tiny insects he’d been assured weren’t mosquitos and the soft chirrup of the lizards that scurried around trying to have them for dinner. At one point he heard the thump-thump-thump of a heavy bass and a car screeched by with the male occupants making more noise than either the stereo or the engine. A few minutes later came the crack of a gunshot, but whether it came from the car or from someone taking issue with the noise was anybody’s guess. Eventually, he slept. The last thing he remembered was the jungle closing in around him.
XL
‘My grandfather served in the SAS during the war.’
Doug Stewart’s head came up from the map he was checking. ‘Is that supposed to impress me?’
‘Don’t be so bloody bolshie,’ Jamie snapped as he slipped into the jungle boots Devlin’s people had provided. Since breakfasting in the dark he’d become increasingly nervous about what lay ahead and it wasn’t very reassuring that it appeared his supposed protector was equally jittery. ‘I just meant that I knew what you were on about when you said that would be telling and about the Brits in Vietnam. I read somewhere about a few of them being unhappy about missing out on a proper war and taking “unofficial leave” to join in. Lessons to be learned, and all that.’
‘Maybe you’re not as dumb as you look, your lordship.’
Jamie stared at him. Another man had called him that not so long ago and that man had ended up dead. ‘Let’s get this straight. I’m not your lordship and I’m not your pukka English gent. I went to a grammar school and my mother cleaned the local bank to make ends meet.’
‘With a name like Saintclair? Don’t make me laugh. What did your old man do? A squaddie like your granddad? He must have been at least a general.’
Jamie concentrated on packing the camouflage-green rucksack that matched his Australian army-issue shorts and T-shirt. ‘I wouldn’t know; I never met him.’
‘Now who’s being bolshie?’ Stewart let out a cackle that was interrupted as Keith Devlin marched into the room.
‘Got everything you need, fellas?’
Jamie nodded. The rucksacks were filled with survival gear and enough food and water to last three days. He picked his up, surprised at the weight. He could carry it without too much trouble, but it would take a bit of getting used to. He was just glad Stewart had vetoed the tent and sleeping bags they’d been offered. ‘If it comes to it, we sleep on the ground like the Boogs; and if it rains we get wet. It never did me any harm in Vietnam.’ The security chief gave his boss a significant look. ‘Just one more thing.’
Devlin’s heavy brows came together in a frown. ‘Are you sure you’ll need it?’
‘Better safe than sorry. You’re not the one that’s going out in the long grass, mate.’
After a moment’s hesitation Devlin nodded to Joe who accompanied him. The guard left to return a moment later with a long leather case. He handed it to Doug Stewart. The security chief unzipped the case and whistled as he withdrew four foot of painted steel and black plastic.
‘Just like the old days,’ he chuckled. He turned to Jamie. ‘Your L1A1 self-loading rifle is a precision weapon that is efficient and easily maintained,’ he said, as if quoting from the service manual. ‘Weighs a fucking ton, but it can put a 7.62mm round through a brick wall and still kill the bastard hiding behind it. Eighty rounds of ammo,’ he checked the magazines one by one, ‘but we’re not planning to start a war, so forty will do.’ He tossed two of the magazines to Joe. ‘The Bougainville Revolutionary Army captured hundreds of these buggers from the PNG troops. If we do happen to shoot someone nobody’s gonna be any the wiser.’
Jamie was appalled at the sight of the weapon. He’d fired it on familiarization courses during his time at the Cambridge OTC and he knew just how deadly it could be. This trip had suddenly taken on a whole new dimension. ‘You can cut out the we for a bloody start,’ he bridled. ‘I’m not planning to shoot anybody. I thought this was supposed to be a quick jaunt up a mountain and back down again?’
‘Of course it—’
Devlin’s reassurance was cut off in mid-sentence by Doug Stewart. ‘So if the buggers come at you out of the jungle waving one of these,’ he whipped the machete from the scabbard on his belt with a soft hissing sound and pointed it at Jamie’s groin, ‘you’re just gonna let them cut off your goolies?’
Jamie glared at him and Keith Devlin stepped forward to take his employee by the arm. ‘A word, Doug.’ The two men walked out of the room.
‘Jesus Christ, what have I got myself into this time?’ Jamie muttered as he finished packing his rucksack.
‘You don’t want to mind old Doug,’ Joe said mildly. ‘I think he had a little too much of the jungle juice last night. He likes to cover all the bases, that’s all. Says it’s what got him through the ’Nam.’
‘Somebody should tell him the war is over,’ the Englishman snapped.
Devlin returned carrying something in a soft leather bag tied at the neck with a beaded cord. He handed it to Jamie. ‘You’ll need this,’ he said. ‘Remember. You don’t make the exchange until you have the briefcase in your hand. Got that?’
Jamie nodded and checked the contents: the Bougainville head nestled in a cocoon of plastic bubble wrap. He stowed it in a separate compartment of the rucksack he’d left empty for the purpose.
‘What about Wyatt Earp?’ he protested. ‘Wouldn’t it be safer to send Joe and Andy with me instead? At least they don’t plan to start a war.’
‘It’s all sorted, son,’ Devlin assured him. ‘I’ve had a word with Doug and nobody’s going to be doing any shooting.’
But when they went out to the Toyota the first thing Jamie noticed was the gun case in the back seat.
Stewart drove in silence, every movement a testament to his anger at whatever Keith Devlin had said to him, each gear change accompanied by a savage howl of engine noise. They left the compound and reversed their route of the previous day until they came to the junction. Someone had moved the roadblock of barrels during the night and the security chief swept past the ‘No Go Area’ sign as if it didn’t exist. As they drove by, Jamie noticed a man standing in the shadow of the trees with a mobile phone to his ear. His eyes never left the Toyota. At first the road was wide enough for two vehicles, but soon the jungle closed in and it became single track, rising steadily to be consumed in the lush green folds of the mountains.
‘All right,’ Jamie said eventually, ‘I think you’ve sulked long enough. Now you can tell me what the plan is.’
‘The plan is to get the job done and stay alive.’ Stewart’s tone was terse and Jamie noticed he spent as much time looking behind him as in front.
‘I’d assumed that. I was hoping for a little more detail.’
He winced as Stewart changed gear with a metallic crunch to take a hair-pin bend that had a stomach-churning drop on the passenger side. ‘This road was built by Bougainville Copper Limited. It takes us up to the Panguna Mine, which just happens to be close to the highest ridge in the Crown Prince mountain range. The old chief, Kristian, has a longhouse about nine miles south, down Takuan way, more or less on the same ridge line. The easiest way to get there is from Panguna so we’ll leave the car there and trek through the jungle.’
‘Nine miles?’
Stewart shrugged. ‘The going’s not too bad, except in a couple of places. I reckon we can be in and out by teatime – if everything works out.’
Something about the way he said those last four words made Jamie wary. ‘Is there any reason why everything shouldn’t work out?’
The road widened again at a sweeping bend and Stewart drew in to the side of the road and switched off the engine.
For a moment the only sound was the gentle tick of cooling metal. Stewart gestured at the greenery that covered everything around them. ‘What I learned about the jungle in Borneo and Vietnam is you can’t fight it, you have to learn to live with it. The people most at home in the jungle are the ones who’ve never
known anything else. The minute we step off this road we’re at a disadvantage. You’re an arty-farty city boy who’s got lucky a couple of times and I’m an over-the-hill special forces veteran who’s not so special any more.’ He reached down to his feet and retrieved a bottle of clear liquid, taking a long slug before resuming. ‘Good old Keith has been feeding you the sugar-coated version of Bougainville from the start, and he still is. Y’see, Kristian Anugu isn’t the only person on this island who wants the head. There are at least three other factions who have an interest in it, all for different reasons, and they all outgun us. One of them is an offshoot of the old man’s clan who think they have a better claim. They come from the matriarchal line, so they could have a point. Women were the traditional land holders on Bougainville up till what they call the Crisis, but now the men have the power. It’s no coincidence that the Panguna landowners’ association we’ve been dealing with is an all-male preserve.’ A few metres further up the road a large pig stepped warily into the road and Stewart paused as he watched three small piglets follow it across the tarmac and disappear into the jungle on the far side. ‘That could have been supper.’ He grinned, but his voice quickly turned serious again. ‘Then there’s the government of Papua New Guinea, who by now are aware that Devlin Metal Resources’ master plan for the reopening of Panguna will cut them out of the loop. Whatever Keith tells you, these blokes are not going to give up billions of dollars without a fight. Right now, on the other side of this hill, down in the Jaba River valley, there are a couple of hundred small-scale and highly illegal gold-mining operations. About seventy-five per cent of them are run by outsiders, what the islanders here call Redskins, from Papua New Guinea. What if some of these miners aren’t miners at all, but PNG spies, or worse, PNG special forces soldiers in disguise? Way back when, I helped to train some of these guys and if they find out we’re on the way to see Kristian it kinda ups the ante.’
‘And the third group.’
The Samurai Inheritance Page 29