The Perfect Soldier

by Hurley, Graham

  Robbie arrived minutes later, sinking wearily into the empty chair beside her and ordering a beer. Since their return from Muengo, he’d been working non-stop, trying to dam a flood of telexes chattering out of Terra Sancta headquarters in Winchester. Evidently the charity faced a crisis of its own in Angola. Their response to the country’s obvious needs had been judged inadequate. There was gossip amongst sister charities about poorly thought-out aid plans and lousy fieldwork, and employees spending half their days on the beach. The Angola operation was a fiasco and signing up to Todd Llewelyn’s little project hadn’t helped. Why on earth was a Third World charity funding television documentaries? Why was Terra Sancta more interested in screen time than fresh water and decent sanitation?

  Robbie had done his best to shore up the charity’s local defences but he was beginning to lose faith in the organisation’s leadership, sensing that events in the UK were out of control. What made the situation especially awkward was the news that another British television crew were in town, a freelance unit headed by a woman called Alma Bradley. According to the Director fretting daily on the telex from Winchester, Ms Bradley might be contemplating a hatchet job on Terra Sancta. Robbie thought this unlikely but had spent most of the last twenty-four hours trying to find out. He knew Alma Bradley well, and he trusted her.

  The waiter arrived with the beer. Molly settled for another coffee. Robbie lifted his glass and swallowed half the chilled Sagres in a single gulp. Then he reached inside his jacket and produced a thick fold of telex paper. He passed it across to Molly.

  ‘This is for you. I just picked it up from the Press Centre. God knows why it went there.’

  Molly flattened the telex on the table, alarmed already. Telexes meant bad news. They’d found Giles. They’d stored him in some mortuary or other. They wanted her to fly back and identify his body. She peered at the lines of smudgy text, recognising the name at the bottom of the message. The telex had came from Patrick Brogan, her solicitor back home, and as her eye returned to the head of the page, trying to make sense of the message, she found herself thinking back to the last time they’d met. Counting the days, it had only been a couple of weeks but the cluttered first-floor office on Frinton’s main street already seemed a world away, part of some other life.

  Molly looked up. Robbie was reading the front page of the Jornal de Angola.

  ‘Good news?’ he asked, not looking up.

  Molly glanced at the telex again.

  ‘Who’s Vere Hallam?’

  ‘Tory MP. One of the Thames Valley constituencies. Can’t remember which.’ Robbie folded the paper and pushed it away. ‘Why?’

  ‘It seems he’s part of my husband’s syndicate. At Lloyd’s. Him and a couple of other MPs.’

  ‘Oh?’ Robbie was interested now, his hand outstretched for the telex. ‘May I?’

  Molly hesitated. Before they’d left the UK, she’d confided a little about Giles’s problems at Lloyd’s. At the time, she’d felt relieved to share the news and Robbie had been immediately sympathetic, explaining how the Lloyd’s arrangements worked when syndicates went bust. The outlook, he’d said, wasn’t quite as bleak as it might have seemed. They’d have the house to live in plus the right to hang on to a fair whack of whatever Giles might be able to earn. Now, though, it seemed the situation had changed.

  Molly passed across the telex. Robbie read it, shaking his head in disbelief.

  ‘Amazing,’ he said at last.

  ‘What is?’

  ‘This.’ He tapped the telex. ‘Extraordinary.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘That New Jersey firm you were telling me about. The arms lot. Some witnesses have come forward, ex-employees. They’re suing the company for negligence. Some of them have developed tumours. The Lloyd’s people think there may be grounds to contest liability on the pollution claim. So they’ve decided to fight.’

  Molly retrieved the telex. The company in New Jersey was called Rossiter.

  ‘So?’ She looked up. ‘What will that mean?’

  ‘You’re off the hook. For now, at least. No big claim. No immediate liability. No bankruptcy.’ He grinned, recharging his glass with beer. ‘And no need for three by-elections, either.’

  ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘Your three MPs. If they’re declared bankrupt, they have to resign their seats. Bit sticky at the moment. Given the state of the polls.’

  Molly looked at him for a moment, uncertain. Patrick, in the telex, was talking about the prospect of lengthy litigation. At the end, he seemed as cheerful as Robbie. ‘So it’s good news at last,’ he’d written. ‘Fingers crossed for Giles.’

  ‘Do we get to keep …’ Molly hesitated, ‘everything?’

  ‘For now,’ Robbie nodded, ‘absolutely.’

  ‘And later?’

  ‘Depends on what happens in the US courts. I imagine it could get worse, legal costs, all that. But your people might win and then you wouldn’t lose a bean. Who knows?’

  Molly looked away. The kids were still there, faces in the darkness peering into the pool of light. The one with the overcoat had acquired half a loaf of bread and he was tearing it to pieces, passing bits round. Molly watched him a moment, remembering the mothers with their children the morning they’d left Muengo. Some of these kids would be refugees from the country, orphaned by the war. They’d have arrived at the airport aboard some returning aid flight and they’d have been left to fend for themselves. No parents. No possessions. Nowhere to lie their heads except the street. Molly watched them a moment longer, then folded the telex and slipped it into her bag, ashamed.

  ‘Did you find your journalist friend?’ she asked, changing the subject.

  Robbie sipped at the beer.

  ‘Yes. She was at the Press Centre. That’s why I went.’

  ‘And is she really a problem? Is she …’ Molly shrugged, ‘hostile?’

  ‘Not so far. She wants to do a film about the diamonds. She’s trying to get to the north, to the mines, like everybody else.’

  Robbie broke off, asking the waiter for a menu, then leaned forward across the table, picking up the story. Angola, he explained, was potentially rich. In the north, she had oil and diamonds. The oil paid for the government’s share of the war, plus the fleets of new Mercedes that cruised between Luanda’s ministries, while the diamonds funded Savimbi’s UNITA army.

  ‘They own the diamonds? UNITA?’

  ‘They control the area where they’re mined. Place called Cafunfo, up in Lunda Norte. Most of the gems go across the border into Zaire. The blokes earn a fortune.’

  ‘Which blokes?’

  ‘Miners. Smugglers. UNITA. The industry’s controlled by De Beers. They pay the earth to keep the diamonds off the open market.’

  Molly was looking at the kids again. One of them was on his hands and knees, picking up the bigger crumbs.

  ‘How much?’

  ‘Alma says five hundred million pounds. And that’s just last year’s figure.’ Robbie laughed. ‘It’s a wonderful story if you can get at it.’

  ‘So what’s stopping her? Why’s she still here? In Luanda?’

  ‘She’s waiting for a permit. The government control everything. An individual journalist might be able to sneak himself up north but she’s got a proper camera crew, couple of blokes, lots of equipment. You know …’ he grinned again, ‘the real thing. Not Mickey Mouse. Like our absent friend.’

  Molly nodded, knowing exactly what he meant. The last time she’d seen Todd Llewelyn was at the airport the day they’d flown in from Muengo. He’d been stretchered off the Hercules and driven into Luanda on the back of a flat-bed truck. As far as Molly knew, he’d be spending the week at the Americo Boavida hospital, but when Robbie had mentioned her TAP reservation, wondering whether Llewelyn might take her place on the Lisbon flight, she’d volunteered the ticket at once. Llewelyn’s need, she’d insisted, was greater than hers. He belonged back in England, between crisp white sheets. They could make a fuss of him there
. He’d be better in no time. It had fallen to Robbie to make the arrangements, and Llewelyn had left at noon next day aboard the big TAP jumbo. According to Robbie, he’d been less than grateful, insisting that his camcorder and his video rushes fly with him. Robbie hadn’t a clue where to find either and had told him so, and before he’d left the plane at Luanda airport, he’d at last had an opportunity to settle one or two personal scores. The Portuguese steward in charge of the flight had accompanied him to the head of the aircraft steps.

  ‘Senhor Llewelyn says he’s a big television star.’ The steward had looked quizzical. ‘No?’

  Robbie had smiled, stepping off the plane, shaking his head.

  ‘Delirium,’ he’d explained. ‘He told me yesterday he was a brain surgeon.’

  Now, Robbie was ordering a meal. Molly asked for fish. He chose a steak. The waiter chased off the kids again and then retired to the restaurant. Robbie leaned back, savouring the last of the beer, musing aloud about what might await Alma Bradley if she ever made it to the diamond mines. Apparently the place was completely lawless, a time warp, a glimpse of the way it must have been in the gold-rush days. Living conditions were primitive. Everyone carried a gun. Men died in arguments over cans of beer. Yet the lure of a fortune was always there, a handful of gems that could feed a man’s family for the rest of his life. Robbie shook his head, musing aloud about the kind of film Alma wanted to put together. She was a class operator. She knew exactly what she wanted and she had an enormous talent for getting through doors that no one else could unlock.

  ‘You think she’ll talk them into it?’

  ‘She might. She wants it badly enough.’

  ‘How long has she been trying?’

  ‘Here? In Luanda?’ Robbie frowned. ‘Too long. That’s the problem. You arrive with a crew and then you sit and wait for the ministry to make up its mind. Without a permit, you’re stuffed. And every day’s costing you money.’

  ‘So what happens if they say no?’

  ‘She’ll look for another film. She’ll have to. She has no option. And then …’ Robbie ran his finger around the top of the open bottle, ‘God only knows.’

  ‘You think she might …’ Molly shrugged, ‘try your lot?’

  ‘Sure,’ he nodded, ‘it’s possible.’ He paused. ‘Or she could bid for a big political interview. Dos Santos, the president, even Savimbi if she could get hold of him, but it’s not really her style. She likes getting in amongst the small print. That’s what she’s good at and that’s what people like.’ He sighed. ‘We talked about Terra Sancta tonight. She’d heard the rumours. I told her it was bullshit.’

  ‘Did she believe you?’

  ‘No, but that doesn’t matter. She doesn’t believe anyone.’

  ‘Does she know about Llewelyn? What we’ve been up to?’

  ‘No. She’d heard some rumour about Llewelyn flying out to Africa but that’s as far as it got. She said she didn’t believe it. She said he’d never be able to cope.’

  ‘She’s right. He couldn’t.’

  Robbie nodded, visibly brightening, and picked up the empty bottle in a silent toast. Far away, Molly could hear the whump-whump of one of the big army helicopters, and the noise grew and grew until the machine appeared overhead, a fat black shadow hanging in the night sky. Searchlights on the nose criss-crossed on the water and the helicopter dipped low over the lagoon before turning away towards the distant glow of the docks. Robbie was watching it, his head tipped back, his body slumped in the chair, the smile gone.

  The waiter appeared with the food. Molly reached for her knife and fork. Robbie hadn’t moved.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ she asked.

  Robbie didn’t reply for a moment. He looked suddenly exhausted.

  ‘Muengo fell this afternoon,’ he muttered. ‘I meant to tell you.’

  It was past midnight when the soldier came to look at McFaul. He was sitting on a dirty square of straw matting at the back of Katilo’s cave, using his fingers to scrape the last of the corned beef from the open tin. The guns had been silent now since noon and in the darkness outside, the camp seemed empty. Even the generator had stopped.

  The soldier stepped towards him. The beam of his torch lingered briefly on McFaul’s face then circled slowly round the rough sandstone walls. Katilo was sprawled in an ancient armchair beside a makeshift table, light from a candle shadowing his face. He was watching the soldier carefully, and when the beam of the torch swung towards him he signalled the soldier to switch it off. The soldier muttered something McFaul didn’t catch. Katilo dismissed him with a brusque nod, reaching out for the torch and then returning to the sheaf of maps on his lap. Without the generator, Katilo was unable to use the little CD player propped on a corner of the table. Neither could he amuse himself with the pile of videos at his elbow. For the latter, McFaul was profoundly grateful. While the video-player had been working, he’d been obliged to watch Domingos’s agony again and again, an experience that was worse, in many respects, than the beating he’d taken at the hands of the soldiers.

  Katilo was making notes on a map with the stub of a blue chinagraph. After a while, he looked up. Llewelyn’s video was at the top of the pile of cassettes. He picked it up, weighing it in his hand. When he moved his head, the diamond in his ear twinkled in the candle-light. He gestured at the torch the soldier had used.

  ‘He says you were the one.’

  ‘The one what?’

  ‘The one behind the camera. He says he saw you. He says you made the film.’

  For a moment, McFaul was lost. For two days, obsessed by what he’d seen on Llewelyn’s cassette, Katilo had wanted to know who’d been responsible for the pictures. He’d run them again and again, pausing to savour this detail or that. The moment when Domingos had stepped on the mine had especially fascinated him: the tiny, rich blossom of flame, the soil and the dirt blasting skywards, the torn fragments of clothing fluttering slowly back to earth. He’d run the sequence backwards and forwards on the video-player, watching the little Angolan disintegrate and then become whole again. At first, McFaul had put this down to sadism. Katilo was a psychopath. He enjoyed playing God, he revelled in dispensing disfigurement and sudden death, and the glories of Japanese technology gave him the chance to savour his handiwork.

  After a while, though, it began to occur to McFaul that there might be some other explanation. Katilo, after all, was no fool. Much of his interest seemed genuinely technical. He wanted to know more about the way the material had been organised, why some sequences were in close-up, why certain actions had been shot again and again from different angles, what the final film might look like. Faced with these questions, McFaul had denied all responsibility. The pictures had been shot by someone else. His own job began and ended in the minefields. Katilo had ignored his denials, telling him there was no shame in pointing a camera at scenes like these, and now he looked immensely pleased with himself, satisfied that at last he had proof of McFaul’s complicity.

  ‘He saw you,’ he repeated. ‘He was on the front line. You were there on the road, with another man. He was talking to the camera. You made the pictures. He recognised your face.’

  Katilo’s hand had strayed to his chin and he tapped it a couple of times, making the point. Scars, he was saying. The scars prove it. You were the cameraman. You made the film.

  McFaul had caught up now, finally understanding what he meant. Early on, back in Muengo, he’d driven Llewelyn out of town. The TV man had wanted to describe the way James Jordan had blown himself up. Llewelyn had posed against a likely stretch of bush and McFaul had been behind the camera, pressing the right buttons, making sure it looked OK. Llewelyn’s version of what had happened had been a joke, wildly out of order, and McFaul had never touched the camera again. But Katilo didn’t know that. As far as he was concerned, his soldiers behind the sandbags down the road, glued to their binoculars, had identified McFaul as the cameraman. And that, it seemed, changed everything.

  Katilo stirr
ed.

  ‘You told me you used to be a soldier.’

  ‘It’s true.’

  ‘I know.’ He tapped the cassette approvingly. ‘Only a soldier could make these pictures. You have to be strong, a strong man. Machismo, no?’

  McFaul was thinking of Llewelyn again. Only a soldier, he thought. Or some burned-out journalist, prepared to trade another man’s life for a day or two back in the limelight.

  Katilo was on his feet. In a recess beside the entrance to the cave, a blanket hid a portable fridge. With the gennie turned off, the ice in the freezer was fast melting but the fridge was still stacked with beer. Katilo pulled out two cans, tossing one across the cave towards McFaul. It bounced a couple of times on the hard rock floor and when McFaul tugged on the ring-pull he covered himself with foam. Katilo watched him, roaring with laughter, then selected another can, opening it himself and passing it across.

  The beer was colder than McFaul expected. He took a mouthful, letting his head sink back against the damp sandstone, allowing the beer to trickle slowly down his throat. The worst of the pain from the beating had gone now, dulled by sleep, and for the first time he found himself contemplating the possibility of survival. Not by doing anything heroic but simply by going along with whatever fantasy role Katilo was planning to offer him.

  The rebel commander was back in the armchair now, sitting sideways, his legs hanging over one arm. Half-warrior, half-child, he picked up the cassette again.

  ‘Where’s the camera?’ he asked suddenly.

  ‘I don’t know.’ McFaul shrugged. ‘Back in Muengo.’

  ‘We’ll find it. Tomorrow.’

  McFaul looked at him a moment, understanding now why the camp felt so deserted. Muengo had fallen. The trucks had left for the city. The gennie, too. McFaul took another mouthful of beer.

  ‘OK,’ he said.

  ‘You’ve got more of these?’ Katilo tapped the cassette. ‘We can shoot some more pictures?’