The Perfect Soldier
Page 18
‘Ahead,’ he said. ‘Look.’
Molly turned back, settling into the co-pilot’s seat, tightening the harness, telling herself that the worst was over. The ground was rising now and she suddenly spotted a stretch of cleared scrub tufted with yellowing grass. Wheel tracks down the middle of the scrub told her that this must be the airstrip but there were vehicles dotted everywhere, trucks mostly, and the way they’d been parked made a landing impossible. Seconds later, as they roared over the far end of the airstrip and began to bank to the left, Molly saw men running across the scrub, getting into the trucks. One or two of them started to move, bumping away towards a rough dirt road, and by the time the aircraft had completed a full circuit of the field, the centre strip was empty.
Rademeyer banked sharply, his right hand reaching for the throttle controls. The engine note rose, and the nose dipped, and Molly heard a rumble beneath them as the undercarriage came down. They were still side-slipping in, Rademeyer enjoying himself now, shedding height as quickly as he could, the wing flaps fully down, slowing the aircraft still more. At fifty feet, he kicked the plane level, perfectly aligned for the landing, the aircraft dancing through the bubbles of hot air rising from the ground beneath. The nose was still down, the first line of wheel ruts coming up to meet them, and at the last moment Rademeyer throttled back, lifting the nose, letting the main undercarriage settle on the baked earth. He began to apply the brake with his thumb and Molly heard a hissing noise as the nose came down and the aircraft juddered to a halt.
Llewelyn was back beside her, the camera raised, shooting through the windscreen. One of the trucks was racing out to meet them, three soldiers hanging on in the back. They looked like kids at Christmas. They could barely contain themselves.
Rademeyer reached for the throttle controls again, putting the engines into idle. Llewelyn was still busy with the camera, following the truck.
‘Who are these guys?’ he asked.
Rademeyer released his harness and stretched in the seat.
‘Mine hosts,’ he said, ‘or yours, anyway.’
‘Are you turning the engines off?’
‘No. You owe me seven and a half grand.’
‘It’s in the back. Bag marked “Santos”. I’ll get it.’
Llewelyn retreated to the cabin. Molly heard the door open, the growl of the exhaust and the propellers suddenly magnified. She found the release for her own harness and lifted a hand to her face. Only in the last ten minutes or so, with the shock of the MiGs behind her, had she begun to absorb the real significance of the journey she’d made. This was where James had come, and this was probably the way he’d arrived, emerging from some clapped-out aircraft, ready for the time of his life.
Molly reached for the sun visor over the windscreen. On the back was a mirror. She studied her face for a moment, determined to look her best. Somehow, over the last couple of days, she’d acquired the faintest tan and it gave the lie to the way she really felt, setting off the blonde curls that fringed the wary smile. She’d lost weight, too, and it suited her, hollowing the planes of her face. She looked at herself a moment longer, feeling the plane rocking beneath her as someone jumped out. Then there were voices outside, and Rademeyer’s, much closer.
‘You getting off or what?’
Molly nodded, apologetic, wriggling out of the seat. She paused at the cockpit door, thanking the young South African for the flight. He grinned back at her, exactly the way James used to, immensely pleased with himself.
‘Pleasure,’ he said. ‘Here. Little souvenir.’
He gave her the T-shirt he’d shown her at Luanda airport and she looked at it a moment, then began to thank him again as he plunged a hand into the back pocket of his jeans and produced a small card.
‘Here,’ he said again.
‘What’s that?’
Rademeyer didn’t seem to hear her. He was peering back through the cabin, a frown on his face. He shouted something in Portuguese to one of the soldiers, then slipped out of his seat, gesturing for Molly to go ahead.
‘Address and phone number,’ he muttered, ‘in case you need me again.’
Outside, the soldiers were unloading the cargo, rolling the heavy fuel drum across the grass and then manhandling it onto the back of the truck. Llewelyn appeared round the tail of the aircraft and began to use the camcorder, walking slowly towards the truck. Molly watched from the aircraft door as Robbie moved to intercept him but one of the soldiers got there first. He was a big man, older than the rest. He held a hand up, the huge spread of his palm cupping the end of the lens. Llewelyn looked annoyed, the expression of a man troubled by a passing insect. He lowered the camcorder, moved to one side, then began to shoot again. The soldier gazed at him and muttered something under his breath. Then he stepped across to Llewelyn and hit him hard beneath the ribcage. Llewelyn folded up with a tiny gasp, curling himself on the ground, protecting the camcorder. The soldier studied him a moment, insulted. Then he kicked him in the small of his back and wandered away, shrugging.
Molly jumped down from the aircraft and ran to Llewelyn. His eyes were closed. He was breathing hard, the way people do when they get excited, and his lips were moving, some wordless curse. Molly bent low, cradling Llewelyn’s head in her arms. The sun was fierce on the back of her neck and when she looked up she could see the soldiers watching her curiously from the truck. Llewelyn’s hand found hers.
‘Nothing’s easy,’ he muttered, ‘believe me.’
They left the airfield on the back of the truck. As they bounced along the red dirt road Molly had seen from the air, she heard the Dove beginning to move. She looked back, both hands on the grab rail, watching the plane taxiing to the end of the strip. It made a final turn then gathered speed, a little blue toy against the greens and browns of the surrounding scrub. Four hundred metres later, it was airborne, climbing steadily away as the trucks resumed their positions on the airfield, Muengo’s door firmly closed against further arrivals. Seconds later, their own truck lurched to a halt. Molly heard voices again, turning to see a line of oil drums in the road. There were more soldiers here, heavily armed teenagers, their skinny frames criss-crossed with bandoliers of ammunition. Someone in the cab was arguing with one of the soldiers. Looking down, Molly could see a black hand gesticulating angrily. Beyond the oil drums was a Land Rover with the Terra Sancta logo on the door. Beside her, Robbie was waving at it.
The soldier in the cab got out and told Robbie to join him on the road. The stuff from the Dove would have to be transferred to the Land Rover. Robbie helped Molly and Llewelyn off the back of the truck. Llewelyn was still bent double, walking with difficulty. Robbie began to help with the oil drum but the soldiers waved him away. Half of the food and the fuel was carried to the Land Rover. The rest stayed in the truck. When Robbie began to protest it was Llewelyn who pulled him aside.
‘Not worth it,’ he mumbled, ‘believe me.’
The truck drove away, disappearing in a cloud of dust towards the airfield, and the soldiers at the road-block abruptly lost interest. The man in the Land Rover finished securing what was left of the cargo and approached Molly.
‘Tom Peterson,’ he held out his hand, ‘I’m amazed you made it.’
McFaul and Domingos knelt in the dinghy at the foot of the embankment watching the little blue Dove circling the city. At length it levelled out and began to climb away to the north. Without question, it had landed and McFaul wanted to know why.
Domingos shrugged. Nothing in this war could any longer surprise him. He’d spent an hour or so at first light picking through the ruins of his bungalow and the games UNITA played had ceased to interest him. The pile of dented cooking pots, torn clothing, and salvaged tins of fish and corned beef were all that remained of sixteen years of family life but even this was a blessing compared to the wilderness in which most of Muengo was now living. Only the previous evening, he’d visited the town’s derelict cinema, looking for a neighbour who’d also lost his house. Camped inside wer
e hundreds of families, exposed to the rain, living in conditions that left Domingos shamed and speechless. Now, he flicked through his working notes. Anything he could do, any gesture he could make in the face of such primitive chaos, would be a fingerhold on the life he’d left behind.
He glanced towards the bank, looking at the stretch of pockmarked earth that served as a path to the river. The river here was upstream of the pool beside the bridge where people washed and the water was less polluted. The rebels had been aware of this and during earlier hostilities they’d seeded the path with mines, mainly the little Chinese Type 72s, no bigger than a tin of shoe polish. They’d worked under cover of darkness, scattering the mines at random, digging some in, leaving others on the surface, giving McFaul’s teams no choice but to search every square inch of the hard-baked soil, probing with the bayonet, opening a corridor down towards the river. Because of the shelling, they hadn’t been back to this site for four days and the rains had come on the second night, softening the earth.
Domingos looked round. Unlike the other sites he’d listed for priority clearance, this one was close to the encircling front line. Through binoculars, it was possible to pick out the dark smudge of newly dug UNITA trenches, about a kilometre away, but Domingos had his doubts about their marksmanship from such a range.
‘We could do it this afternoon,’ he said. ‘Me and Bennie.’
McFaul shook his head, throttling back the outboard, keeping the dinghy steady against the tug of the current.
‘No,’ he said firmly.
‘Why not?’
‘Too dodgy. Give me a day to sort it out with Katilo. Then we can do it properly.’ He balanced himself in the dinghy and then reached across and tapped Domingos’s notes. ‘How far did we get? It seems like a year ago.’
Domingos consulted his notes. As usual, he’d marked the furthest extent of the de-mined area on the site itself but the rains had carried the line of wooden pegs away.
‘Eighty metres,’ he said, squinting into the sunshine. ‘About seven metres to go. Half a day?’
McFaul followed his pointing finger, then shook his head.
‘Double it,’ he grunted.
Tom Peterson was driving Molly Jordan to the MSF house where Christianne lived. He’d already dropped Robbie Cunningham and the TV man at the UN compound where he knew Fernando would offer them floor space. Their safe arrival must have been the result of some special leverage with the UNITA people, and Fernando would doubtless want to know about the small print of this mysterious relationship. Like it or not, Robbie Cunningham and his party appeared to have lifted the siege single-handed.
Peterson slowed the Land Rover to a crawl, trying to avoid a woman in the middle of the road. She was pushing a wooden barrow. On the barrow was a very small coffin. As they passed, Molly turned in her seat to see the woman’s face. She’d said nothing since they’d dropped the others at the UN compound, staring out at the rubble and the shell damage and the abandoned, burned-out vehicles. Even Peterson’s murmured consolations for the death of her son she’d barely acknowledged. At first, he’d put this reserve of hers down to exhaustion. Now, he was beginning to wonder.
‘Bit of a shock, I imagine,’ he said lightly.
‘I’m sorry?’
‘All this. After London.’ He paused. ‘Is it London you live in? Or out in the sticks?’
‘Thorpe,’ Molly said, ‘in Essex.’
She was twisted round in her seat now, still looking at the woman with the coffin. There were soldiers up ahead, guarding a truck. There were a dozen or so sacks in the back of the truck, barely visible from street level, but the crowd around the truck was growing by the minute. Peterson slowed again, still thinking about Thorpe. He’d been there once, years ago, for a wedding.
‘Nice church,’ he said. ‘Good pub, too. King’s Head? King’s Arms?’
‘Maid’s Head.’
Molly had seen the crowd now. One of the soldiers was clubbing a youth who’d tried to clamber onto the back of the truck. He had both hands up, protecting his head, so the soldier started beating his legs instead.
‘Why’s he doing that?’ Molly said. ‘What’s going on?’
Peterson bumped the Land Rover over the broken kerbstone, avoiding the milling crowd. The women at the back of the crowd turned and peered in, their faces barely an inch from Molly’s. Hunger and the shelling had given them a gaunt, raw-boned look and when one of them tried to wrench open the passenger door, Peterson accelerated away, curtaining the scene behind a cloud of dust.
‘The army still has food,’ Peterson was saying. ‘Maize, mostly. The local folk are desperate, poor buggers. We do our best but …’ he shook his head, ‘in the end it’s down to them.’
‘Down to who?’
‘The army,’ he corrected himself, ‘armies. When they decide to stop fighting, the people eat. Until then, too bad.’ He glanced across at her. ‘If you’re young and black in this country, it’s a tough choice. Stay out of uniform, and you risk starvation. Join the army, and you’ll probably end up dead anyway.’
‘What sort of choice is that?’
‘None. But at least the soldier dies on a full stomach.’
Molly shut her eyes, leaning back against the seat. She was beginning to sweat in the heat, dark patches of perspiration blotching her shirt.
‘I’d no idea,’ she said quietly. ‘I thought Luanda …’ She shrugged, unable to finish the sentence.
‘Luanda what?’
‘I don’t know. I just thought … the poverty, the rubbish everywhere, the kids in the street, the beggars … but this …’ she shook her head, ‘it’s medieval.’
They were at the MSF house now. Peterson pulled the Land Rover to a halt at the kerbside and helped Molly out, locking both doors behind him. Christianne appeared under the porch. Peterson had already alerted her over the radio about Molly’s arrival and she’d volunteered her own bed at once. Now she stepped into the sunshine, her hand extended. Molly stopped on the path, confused for a moment, looking at her. Then she opened her arms, recognising the soft, oval face, the auburn curls, the look of quiet determination beneath the girlish smile, and Peterson turned on his heel, heading back towards the Land Rover as the two women embraced.
McFaul’s first reaction was to laugh.
‘You’re doing what?’
‘A film.’
‘Here? You’ve come here? To make a film?’
‘Yes.’
The visitor had walked into the schoolhouse uninvited, a tall man, slightly stooped, with bloodstains on his collar and one side of his face purpled with recent bruising. Already, from his shoulder-bag, he’d produced a small camcorder, leaving it on the table, much as one might proffer a calling card. McFaul studied the camera. Global had something similar. They’d bought it to pick up field footage for training sessions. McFaul had used one in Afghanistan and had been impressed with the results. He looked up again.
‘You came in the Dove? This morning?’
‘Yes. For my sins.’
‘So you’re the journalist?’
‘Correct. Todd Llewelyn, People’s Channel.’ He began to sway a little on his feet, reaching automatically for the table for support. ‘Bloody hot,’ he muttered at once, ‘and a flight you wouldn’t believe.’
‘How come you got to land?’
‘Money.’
‘How much money?’
‘A lot.’
Llewelyn was looking at the survey maps now, newly pinned to the classroom blackboard. Beneath the maps, neatly stacked against the wall, was some of the equipment McFaul and Bennie wouldn’t be needing over the next few days. Bundles of wooden stakes. Rolls of red and white tape. Spare sets of protective clothing. A box or two of battery chargers. Llewelyn stepped across the room and picked up one of the old Schiebel mine detectors. McFaul kept them for back-up in case of problems with the new Ebingers.
‘Impressive,’ Llewelyn was saying, ‘I’d no idea you carried so much kit.’
‘You’re leaving?’ Llewelyn looked up sharply.
‘Yeah.’
‘When?’
‘No one knows. Couple of days maybe?’ He paused, watching Llewelyn picking through the rest of the equipment, then examining the survey maps. The man’s curiosity was boundless.
‘This film …’ McFaul began, ‘what’s it about?’
‘You …’ Llewelyn’s finger was on one of the maps now, tracking the line of the river, ‘and this operation of yours. The risks you run. The little miracles you work.’ He paused, glancing round. ‘That’s Ken Middleton’s phrase, not mine.’
McFaul blinked. Last time he’d made contact with the boss, Middleton had been insisting on evacuation, and the merits of a transfer to Mozambique. Not once had he mentioned a film.
‘You’ve talked to him?’
‘Of course.’
‘You go down there? To Devizes?’
‘No, we met in London. Nice chap. Dedicated, too.’
‘And he said it was OK?’ McFaul frowned. ‘Doing this film of yours?’
‘He was delighted, providing we hammered the training angle. I gather that’s where the miracle comes in. Getting the locals to sort themselves out.’
McFaul nodded. ‘Working miracles’ wasn’t a phrase he’d ever associate with Ken Middleton but the sentiment was true enough. The man was obsessed by spreading the word. Always had been. Llewelyn had returned to the table, perching his long frame on one corner.
‘But why me?’ McFaul began. ‘Why here?’
Llewelyn studied him for a moment or two.
‘Films like these need a focus. A lure. Something to get people on the hook.’ He paused, glancing at his watch. ‘I understand you lost an aid worker recently. Kid called James Jordan …’
It was mid-afternoon before Christianne took Molly to the grave. They went on foot, walking slowly through the hot dusty streets, Molly at last oblivious to the wreckage all around her. The girl’s relationship with James had been much closer than she’d imagined, much closer – in truth – than she’d ever thought her son could possibly merit. The James she’d known – energetic, reckless, single-minded to the point of arrogance – wasn’t at all the person Christianne described. The James whose adolescence had seemed never-ending had, on a different continent, become a man.