The Perfect Soldier

by Hurley, Graham

  She sat bolt upright in the chair, the piece of paper limp between her fingers. There was nothing to say, absolutely nothing, except to acknowledge her own need to go there, to get to Muengo, to meet this person and to explain that perhaps her son’s life merited just a line or two extra. Who’d made these mines, for God’s sake? What were they doing there in the first place? Who’d sold them? Who’d laid them? Who’d forgotten about them afterwards? In short, who’d killed James Jordan?

  The ambassador was on his feet now. Molly refused the offer of more tea. He sat down again.

  ‘I understand you have plans to … ah … visit the scene …?’

  Molly understood the question at once, hearing the inflection in his voice. Robbie Cunningham had already warned her that the trip to Muengo would never win official approval. On the contrary, the people at the embassy would probably do everything in their power to stand in her way.

  ‘No,’ she said, ‘I’ve come to be here when they fly him in. I understand that’s the procedure. Before he goes home.’

  The ambassador studied her for a moment or two.

  ‘So you’re not trying to get to Muengo?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Because you know, of course, that the place is under siege?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you know what that means? Civil war? Untold casualties? No water? No power?’ He paused. ‘You realise the … ah … folly of exposing yourself to a situation like that? What you’d jeopardise? The difficulties you’d cause for yourself and … ah … very possibly for us?’

  Molly ducked her head, permitting herself a smile. They were playing a game now. She knew it. Lines to be spoken. A position to be taken. A warning to be issued. Just in case it ever came to an inquiry of some kind. For a moment she wondered whether he was taping the conversation, then she decided he wasn’t. The man was too nice, too ordinary, too human.

  She looked up. His hand was extended. She leaned forward, shaking it awkwardly. The ambassador blushed.

  ‘The report, please,’ he said. ‘I’m afraid I can’t let you hang on to it.’

  Molly passed the report over the desk without a word. The ambassador opened a drawer and took out a file. Molly recognised her own name, neatly typed on a white sticky label on the front. The ambassador carefully folded the report in two, glanced at his watch, and made a note on the inside leaf of the file.

  ‘Who wrote that report?’ Molly asked.

  The ambassador glanced up.

  ‘A man called McFaul,’ he said. ‘He’s in charge of the mine clearance operation out there. I gather he has a personal interest in … ah … James’s accident.’

  ‘Have you met him?’

  ‘Yes, as it happens.’

  ‘What’s he like?’

  The ambassador gave the question some thought.

  ‘Able,’ he said at last. ‘Committed. Passionate, even.’ He paused, frowning. ‘I believe he was blown up himself, in Kuwait.’

  ‘Is that why he’s got this …’ Molly shrugged, ‘personal interest?’

  ‘No.’ The ambassador closed the file. ‘He was the one who brought your son out. He and the French girl he mentions in the report. They could have been killed, too. I’d call that pretty personal …’ he slid the file back into the drawer, avoiding her eyes, ‘wouldn’t you?’

  It was dusk by the time the last bodies were lowered carefully into the mass grave. A small crowd had formed beneath the mango trees and the setting sun cast long shadows as the Africans swayed and keened, mourning their dead.

  McFaul stood beside the digger, watching Christianne, waiting for her to get to her feet. She was kneeling at the head of the long trench, her lips moving, her head bowed in prayer.

  ‘Requiem aeternam dona eis Domine, et lux perpetua luceat eis …’

  She crossed herself before getting to her feet. Then she returned to the Landcruiser, getting in and closing the door without a backward glance.

  McFaul lifted a hand to Bennie, perched in the cab of the yellow digger, and there was a puff or two of blue smoke before the engine caught. Then the long arm reached forward, and the cab revolved, and the first scoop of moist red earth settled on the line of waiting bodies.

  Hours later, the grave filled in, McFaul was still sitting beneath one of the mango trees, listening to the soft African lament, watching for the first stars. He stayed there all evening, motionless beneath the canopy of leaves. Finally, past midnight, he stirred, getting up. For a moment or two he stared down at the long dark scar at the foot of the hillock. Then he turned and limped away for the long walk back to the city.

  BOOK TWO

  Lethality

  Whilst steel balls have the ideal shape for range, they have a poor shape for wounding because the worst wounds are caused by an unstable fragment tumbling inside the body. Such a shape is provided by the fragmentation of a prenotched case, chopped bar, or scored wire body. Of course, the effectiveness of shrapnel-type mines depends not simply on the individual particles expelled, but the collective damage induced by a large number of such fragments attacking the target simultaneously.

  LT.-COL. C. E. E. SLOAN

  Mine Warfare on Land

  CHAPTER SIX

  It was still dark when Molly Jordan finally got up. She’d spent most of the night flitting in and out of consciousness, lying under the mosquito net, trying to fathom the noises outside the window. For a while it had been raining again. Past midnight, she’d heard the rattle of distant small-arms fire. And once, in the small hours, there’d come a long groan, barely human, from the room next door.

  Dressed now, she ventured into the corridor. There was a strip of light beneath the adjoining door. She knocked twice, very softly. According to her watch, it was barely 5 a.m. She knocked again. When nothing happened, she opened the door, recognising the smell at once. Todd Llewelyn lay across the bed, naked except for a towel wrapped around his waist. A bowl on the floor was half-full of vomit.

  Molly hesitated a moment, then stepped across to the bed. Llewelyn’s eyes were closed and his breathing seemed normal. She reached for the single sheet, one corner balled in his right hand. The sheet was wet to her touch. She returned to her own room and fetched the thin cellular blanket under which she’d slept. As she draped it over Llewelyn, his eyes opened.

  ‘You’re ill,’ Molly whispered at once, ‘sick.’

  Llewelyn gazed up at her. The normal flush had drained from his face, leaving tiny spots of colour high on each cheek. He swallowed a couple of times then licked his lips. His tongue was furred with a chalky-white deposit. He reached out for the glass of water, discarded on the floor.

  ‘05.09?’ he queried.

  ‘Yes. Still early.’

  ‘Can you see a bag? Under the bed? An old sports bag?’

  Molly looked at him for a second or two then got down on her hands and knees. The bag had the word ‘Santos’ emblazoned across it.

  ‘It’s there,’ she said, getting up again.

  ‘Thank Christ for that.’

  He got up on one elbow, rubbing his face. His chin was grey with overnight stubble. Molly was looking at the bowl again.

  ‘How do you feel?’ she said.

  ‘OK Now.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘I’m not sure. I remember being cold when I went to bed. Freezing cold. Shivering cold. Then hot. Sweating like a pig. Then …’ he shrugged, ‘you came in.’

  ‘And you’re really OK?’

  ‘Yes,’ he nodded, ‘I think so.’ He took a deep breath, letting his head sink back onto the pillow.

  Molly bent to the bowl and carried it along the corridor to the closet at the end. She emptied it down the lavatory and sluiced it in the bathroom next door. When she got back to Llewelyn’s bedroom he was already half-dressed, pulling on a short-sleeved white shirt, brisk, over-purposeful movements, like a drunk determined to prove his sobriety. Molly watched him unconvinced.

  ‘Are you sure you’re OK?’
/>   ‘Fine,’ he said curtly. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘What do you think it was?’

  ‘No idea. Something I ate. Something I drank.’ He looked her in the eye for the first time. ‘Who can tell in this bloody place?’

  They left for the airport at half-past six. Robbie had borrowed a big American flat-bed from a sister charity and by the time he appeared in the street outside, he’d already been up for three hours, bumping down to the docks for the supplies he’d purchased the day before. Most of it was food – sacks of maize and rice, army surplus boxes of high-protein biscuits, catering-size tins of milk powder – but also visible beneath the tarpaulin was a big 40-gallon drum of diesel fuel.

  Molly stared at it all before getting into the four-seat cab at the front.

  ‘Why the docks?’ she asked Robbie. ‘Why so early?’

  Robbie was adjusting one of the ropes that secured the tarpaulin. His hands were black with grease.

  ‘Had to,’ he said. ‘Stuff gets nicked otherwise.’

  The road to the airport was already clogged with traffic, most of it grinding towards the city. There were long queues for fuel at the handful of Sonangol petrol stations and twice they had to stop for police road-blocks. On the second occasion, the police were reinforced by a line of armed soldiers and after an exchange of words Robbie was obliged to roll back the tarpaulin whilst a couple of the policemen clambered up and rummaged amongst the carefully stacked cardboard boxes.

  Molly was sitting in the back of the cab beside Llewelyn. After a while, she realised that he was using the camcorder, holding it up to the window and shielding it with his jacket. Finally, the policemen climbed down to the roadside. One of them was carrying a box stamped ‘WITH CARE – EC AID’. Robbie got back behind the wheel and slammed the door, winding down the window and saying something terse in Portuguese as the older of the policemen waved him on. Pulling out onto the pot-holed carriageway, he caught sight of Llewelyn’s camera in the rear-view mirror.

  ‘Put that bloody thing away,’ he said, ‘before we get arrested.’

  Molly blinked. It was the first time she’d seen Robbie lose his temper. Llewelyn was peering at the footage counter on the side of the camcorder. In the grey morning light, he looked drawn and pale, and for a moment Molly wondered if he’d even heard what the young Terra Sancta man had said. Then he looked up, catching Robbie’s eye in the mirror.

  ‘Quite a challenge,’ he murmured.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Trying to make your film without shooting any pictures.’

  ‘My film?’ Robbie didn’t bother hiding his contempt. ‘Are you joking?’

  There were more soldiers at the airport. They ringed the terminal building, standing in twos and threes, eyeing every vehicle that turned in from the approach road. Robbie ignored them, driving past the glass doors of the main entrance and taking an access road through a pair of open gates. Beyond the gates stood the line of aid planes that Molly had seen the morning they’d arrived. At the end of the line, a little apart from the rest, was another aircraft, much older. The cockpit was set high in a faired Perspex bubble in the nose and there was a line of four windows down the side of the fuselage. The aircraft was painted sky blue and carried the outline of a bird in white on the tail.

  Llewelyn was leaning forward now, the camera to his eye again, muttering directions to Robbie. Molly saw someone jump out of the rear door of the aircraft and lift a hand. He looked young. He was short and stocky. He wore trainers and jeans and a light suede jacket. When the flat-bed stopped, he went straight to the back, lifting the tarpaulin and inspecting the goods underneath.

  They all got out, Llewelyn still shooting with the camera. He circled the aircraft, walking slowly backwards, then disappeared inside. A helicopter gunship had appeared from nowhere, swooping low over the airport terminal then settling beside a big TAP passenger jet. Molly watched as the helicopter’s door slid open and half a dozen soldiers jumped out. They were laughing amongst themselves, easing the straps on their helmets as an unseen hand tossed out a steady stream of rucksacks. One by one, they bent to the oily tarmac, cradling their weapons, shouldering the heavy packs, then trudged away towards a waiting truck.

  Molly felt a touch on her arm. The voice was soft.

  ‘Piet Rademeyer. Pleasure to meet you. I’m the pilot.’

  Molly shook the outstretched hand and followed the pilot across to the plane. Inside, the tiny cabin smelled of hot oil and old leather. There was room for a line of four single seats on either side of a narrow aisle, though most of the seats had been taken out to make room for cargo. Llewelyn was already prowling up and down, peering out of windows, a look of intense concentration on his face.

  ‘What do you think?’ he said to Rademeyer. ‘Where’s best?’

  ‘Best for what?’

  ‘Pictures.’ Llewelyn made an impatient gesture with the camcorder.

  ‘Movies?’ The height of the cabin made even Rademeyer stoop. ‘Are you some kind of media guy? Is that it? Are you a cameraman? Out here on your ace?’

  Llewelyn ignored the question, settling into the front right-hand seat, putting his nose to the window.

  ‘How about here? Can I get the take-off from here? The landing? Or would I be better off with you?’ He nodded at the open door that led through to the cockpit. ‘Up front?’

  ‘Up front’s OK. You can take the co-pilot’s seat but once you’re in you’re in. Back here you can get up, walk round, do whatever. Plus you can shoot up ahead if you want.’ He indicated the step that led up to the cockpit. ‘Just stand there. No problem.’

  ‘For take-off? And landing, too?’

  Rademeyer shrugged.

  ‘Whatever. You’re paying.’

  They took off forty minutes later. Robbie had organised a couple of Angolans to help out with the cargo and the food and fuel were carefully stacked at the back of the aircraft, secured beneath a thick rope netting. At Robbie’s insistence, Molly had taken the co-pilot’s seat, strapping herself in and accepting a pair of headphones from Rademeyer. Already, she’d had a chance to talk to him while they waited for the last of the cargo to be loaded. He had homes in Cape Town and Florida but he worked most of the year in what he called ‘the front-line states’, shuttling people and cargo into places no one else would touch. The airplane was his own and perfect for the job, an old De Havilland Dove he’d managed to pick up from a broker in Miami. To his knowledge it was the only one left south of Cairo, and when he’d got tired of risking his life in southern Africa he planned a luxury conversion, flying millionaires and their mistresses to some of the continent’s better-kept secrets, beauty spots remote and inaccessible enough to have survived the ravages of the package tour.

  In the ten minutes’ conversation they’d shared before take-off, Molly had warmed to the young pilot. She liked his confidence and his enthusiasm. It reminded her just a little of James – the same tilted chin, the same bluff dismissal of difficulties or the possibility of failure – and she’d been amused when he’d rummaged under his seat and produced a handful of blue T-shirts, each with a white dove printed on the chest. Apparently the shirts were a souvenir from the recent national elections. The UN had distributed hundreds of them, a peace token, more oil for the wheels of democracy. According to Rademeyer, the elections had been a farce, civil war resumed within days, but in the aftermath he’d been able to lay hands on a couple of dozen T-shirts and had subsequently painted the plane to match.

  ‘Colour’s important around here,’ he said. ‘You may have noticed.’

  ‘You mean black and white?’

  ‘Blue.’ He grinned. ‘They think I’m UN. Saves getting shot down.’

  Now they taxied slowly out across the tarmac towards the strip of rubber-scorched concrete that marked the start of the runway. Molly had never flown in the cockpit of a plane before and even the presence of Llewelyn behind her, standing in the gap between the seats, failed to puncture the bubble in which she sat. On the l
eft a hundred metres ahead, she could see the charred remains of some earlier incident, a blackened stencil, aircraft-shaped, against the pale cropped grass, and further away on the other side of the airfield was a line of brutal-looking combat jets, heavily camouflaged. As she watched, ground crew were attaching bombs to the pylons beneath the wings of one of the jets, tiny figures in dark green overalls wrestling with the sleek silver containers. According to Rademeyer, bombs like these had flattened whole areas of Huambo, a once-beautiful city to the south and the home of UNITA’s high command. Molly shook her head, taking in the implications. Days ago, all of this would have been hopelessly remote, pictures on some news report, but already she felt at home here, no longer surprised or even alarmed by it.

  Llewelyn spotted the wrecked aircraft, leaning forward across Rademeyer, and as the pneumatic brakes hissed beneath their feet Molly remembered the supper she’d shared with Larry Giddings the previous evening. They’d been talking about exactly this, a society torn apart by war. Giddings, it turned out, had been living in Angola for the best part of fifteen years, nursing Aurora through crisis after crisis as the country drifted towards disintegration. Abandon the stuff we all take for granted, he’d said, and the results are all too predictable. Take away freedom, and opportunity, and a government you can vote out of office, and you end up with chaos, and violence, the country bleeding like a wounded animal. But Angola was worse than that, he’d said. Angola was a homicide case, robbed blind, and the fingerprints of communism were all over the corpse. Molly had written the phrase down when she got back to the privacy of her own room. Her father had said something similar, years ago, when the Russians had blocked off East Berlin and turned their backs on the twentieth century, and she’d thought of him at once, watching Giddings in the restaurant, musing on the follies of mankind. Her father had been right. The fingerprints of communism. Everywhere.

  Llewelyn tapped her on the arm. They were at the end of the runway now, Rademeyer lining up the aircraft for takeoff. She lifted the headphones, listening while Llewelyn tried to explain where he wanted her to look for the next shot, but the roar of the engines was getting louder all the time and in the end she simply gave him a nod and a smile, none the wiser about what he was really after.