The Perfect Soldier

by Hurley, Graham

  The aircraft finally stopped, Rademeyer killing the engines. Katilo was already out of the rear door, striding towards the four-wheel, one hand buttoning the holster. Molly smelled the hot breath of the bush, wriggling out of her seat and following McFaul into the sunshine.

  Katilo was embracing the man behind the wheel. He was small and lean with quick brown eyes and a pink shell-suit. Katilo introduced him as Dominique. The other man rounded the four-wheel. He carried a small, black sub-machine-gun and he shook Katilo’s outstretched hand, exchanging greetings in French.

  They got into the four-wheel, leaving the man with the sub-machine-gun to guard the Dove. At Katilo’s insistence, McFaul was taping again, the camcorder glued to his eye as the four-wheel bounced along the rough dirt road. Soon they were back beside the river. At ground level, the pits were even bigger than they’d looked from the air, and Molly gazed into them as the Chevrolet roared past. At the bottom of each there were men on their hands and knees, tearing at the glistening mud, pausing from time to time to reach for a pick or a shovel. Iron, Molly thought. Iron, and diamonds, and twelve funerals a week.

  They drove into Cafunfo twenty minutes later. The small bush town was falling apart: rutted dirt roads, shacks thrown together from scrap ends of timber and rusting sheets of corrugated iron, scenes that would have disgraced peacetime Muengo. Yet everywhere in this slum was the evidence of the wealth the diamonds must have brought. Two kids playing football with $100 Reebok trainers. A young Angolan with Ray-Bans and a fancy leather jacket stooping to unlock the door of his newly dented BMW. Two women hauling a Zanussi fridge across the street.

  Molly gazed out, half-listening to Rademeyer. Evidently he knew the place well. The leather jackets, he was telling McFaul, came in by the container load. You paid a couple of thousand dollars for a jacket but there was no choice of style or cut because all the garments were the same. Ditto the trainers, and the fridges, and the Japanese-made hi-fi stacks that were, in Cafunfo, de rigueur. To live here, you needed serious money. For a beer, you’d part with ten dollars, while filling your BMW might – on a bad day – leave you with no change from five hundred.

  The Chevrolet slewed to the left and came to a halt before a line of armed soldiers. Katilo fingered the control on the electric window and one of the soldiers saluted, recognising him at once. He stepped aside, waving the others away, and the four-wheel nosed into the compound.

  A line of washing hung between two spindly trees at the end. Beneath one of the trees, a goat was tethered to the wing mirror of a sleek Mercedes saloon. The far side of the compound was occupied by a mud-walled shack. Either side of the splintered wooden door were two guards, both armed.

  Katilo got out of the Chevrolet, telling McFaul to follow him. Rademeyer got out too, holding the door open for Molly. The soldiers stood aside, respectful, answering Katilo’s grin with shy smiles. Inside the shack, metal shelving was piled high with Western goods. There were bottles of Budweiser. Piles of ovenware. Racks of CDs. Molly recognised the tin of Bath Olivers at the end. The last time she’d seen them had been in Harrods.

  Katilo was already deep in conversation with a thickset Angolan sitting behind a big wooden desk. Insects and damp had eaten away at one of the legs of the desk and it was supported by a pile of magazines. Molly stared at them, wondering who in Cafunfo would possibly subscribe to Vogue. Katilo was laughing now, leaning across the desk, pumping the Angolan’s hand, introducing him to McFaul’s camcorder. His name was Ivan. He was a good friend of Katilo’s. He ran Cafunfo. Nothing happened here without his permission.

  The Angolan nodded, eyeing the camcorder without enthusiasm, unmoved by Katilo’s flattery. His fingers were laden with heavy gold rings. A thick wad of $100 notes bulged from the pocket of his shirt. He reached for a pair of scales on the side of the desk and opened a drawer beside him, pulling out a handful of polythene bags. At the bottom of each bag was a tiny pile of uncut diamonds and he began to shake them onto the scales, a hard, flinty noise that Molly knew she’d never forget. Ivan had a calculator out now, and after the fourth bag he punched in a row of figures, turning the calculator towards Katilo. Katilo reached for it, playful, shielding the lens of the camcorder as he checked the sum for himself, then grunted something in French. Dominique, the Angolan in the shell-suit, produced a pen and scribbled a signature on a sheet of paper. He showed the paper to Katilo then pushed it across to Ivan. Ivan was re-bagging the diamonds, pouring them in from the scoop. Katilo tied knots in the tops of all four bags, holding them up for McFaul’s benefit, the way an angler might display a handful of prize fish. Then, abruptly, they were back outside, the guards as respectful as ever, Ivan standing in the open doorway, sharing a joke with Dominique.

  Molly understood a little French. Best to get to Kinshasa before nightfall, Ivan was saying. Shame to share the diamonds with the scum at the airport.

  Back at the airstrip, after Rademeyer had refuelled from the 40-gallon drum stored in the rear of the fuselage, one engine on the Dove began to give trouble. They’d taxied downwind to the edge of the treeline and Rademeyer was readying the aircraft for take-off, but when he ran the engines up there was an audible banging and popping from the cowling on the starboard wing. Rademeyer tried to clear it with another burst of throttle but when it happened again, louder this time, he shut down both engines and appeared in the cabin with a handful of tools and a plastic shopping bag marked ‘Jan Smuts International Airport’.

  ‘Mag drop,’ he announced briskly. ‘Got to change the plugs.’

  Molly watched him for a while, the sun hot through the aircraft window, and when she woke up two hours later he was still bent over the exposed engine, his head and neck now protected by a wide-brimmed straw hat. By the time he’d finished, it was late afternoon, the shadows beginning to lengthen across the narrow airstrip. Back in the cockpit, the rear door secured, Rademeyer ran the engines up again, holding the throttles fully open until he was sure the problem had gone away. Minutes later, they were airborne, climbing over the broad strip of the Cuango river, setting course for Zaire.

  Kinshasa is 500 miles north-west of Cafunfo, and it was dark by the time Rademeyer hooked open the cockpit door and announced preparations for landing. Molly leaned across the aisle, waking McFaul, then tightened her seat-belt. Below, through the window, she could see a distant gauzy sprawl of lights, tiny twinkling diamonds in the darkness. They were losing height now and the city began to widen and take on shape before one wing dropped and the darkness returned. Minutes later, Rademeyer eased the Dove on to the tarmac at Kinshasa’s international airport and Molly watched the runway lights slowing as he applied the brakes. In the distance she could see the fat-bellied jumbos parked in front of the terminal building, and she stared at them for a moment, amazed. Then she smiled to herself, undoing her lap-strap. These planes had come from Europe. Ten hours ago they’d been in Paris, or Brussels, or Lisbon, names that belonged to another life. It was like coming back from outer space.

  She glanced up. McFaul was standing over her, stooped in the narrow cabin. He was loading a new cassette into the camcorder, steadying himself against the seat back as the aircraft bumped along the taxiway. When they finally came to a halt, he went forward to the cockpit, asking Katilo what he wanted to do, and Molly watched as the UNITA commander squeezed through the doorway and stepped into the cabin. There was transport arranged. He was expecting to be met.

  A white BMW was waiting beside the Dove. Rademeyer locked the aircraft and joined them in the car. They drove to the terminal building. The place was in almost total darkness. Officials were everywhere, hurrying from counter to counter. They carried their own lamps and calculators, and wherever they stopped they plugged in their equipment, examining tickets, checking travel documents, tiny pools of light in the teeming chaos. Molly had already told Rademeyer that she had no passport but the young pilot had dismissed the problem with a sardonic grin. Katilo, he muttered, had semi-diplomatic status. No one argued with him. The
normal regulations simply didn’t apply.

  Molly followed the big Angolan across the crowded concourse. Underfoot, the floor was littered with rubbish and broken glass, and whenever they stopped, strangers would appear, offering porterage, or help with customs, or thick wads of local currency. The more persistent ones surrounded Molly, cutting her off from the others until McFaul fought his way back, taking her by the hand and carving a path towards the door marked ‘Sortie’.

  Outside, amongst the taxis, they found the BMW. The back door was open and Katilo stood beside it. He nodded at McFaul’s camcorder.

  ‘You OK with that?’

  McFaul paused at the kerbside, helping Molly into the car.

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Just be ready.’

  ‘What for?’

  Molly heard Katilo’s cackle of laughter. Then he was getting into the front beside the driver. Rademeyer seemed to have disappeared. Evidently there were arrangements to be made about the aircraft. He wanted it guarded, at least two armed men. He’d be making his own way into the city.

  Katilo was speaking to the driver in French. The man nodded, turning up the air-conditioning, easing the BMW into a line of taxis queuing for the airport’s exit road. Out on the main highway, the traffic was light and Molly looked out, wondering what she’d find in Kinshasa.

  She’d asked Rademeyer about the city back in Cafunfo. Rademeyer flew here regularly, always with Katilo. Katilo, he said, adored the place. If you had money, and no scruples, you could live like a king. President Mobutu did just that. In thirty years of absolute power, he’d robbed the place blind, tucking away a personal fortune of more than six billion dollars. The country itself – potentially one of the richest in Africa – was now bankrupt, crippled by foreign debt and 2,000 per cent inflation. As a result, Mobutu was hated and days of rioting had recently torn Kinshasa apart. The city had become the most dangerous in Africa, a vicious, lawless place peopled by gangsters and pimps and muggers, eager for easy pickings. Zaire, said Rademeyer, was a glimpse of life at its most corrupt and Kinshasa never ceased to amaze him. With the right government contacts, you could buy a licence to fly a 747 for just sixteen dollars.

  They were entering the outskirts of the city now, the traffic heavier. At first Molly found it hard to associate the soaring apartment blocks and the elegant tree-lined boulevards with Rademeyer’s apocalyptic vision but when she looked a little closer she began to see what he’d meant. Many of the shop fronts were boarded up. Others were fire-blackened and ransacked, the glass on the windows gone, the interiors looted and empty. Rademeyer had called it le pillage. In four brief days, rioting troops had apparently stripped the city of everything that could be hand-carried and sold. Much of the rest they’d either torched or demolished.

  The crowds began to thin and the BMW purred across an intersection into another quarter of the city. There were more trees here, a park of some kind, and ample villas half-hidden behind tall, white walls. Katilo was talking on a mobile phone, using French again, roaring with laughter at some joke or other. Up ahead was a roundabout. A car on the roundabout, a beaten-up Datsun saloon, appeared to have stalled. The BMW began to slow. Molly looked sideways at McFaul. McFaul had seen the car as well. He was reaching for the camcorder.

  The BMW came to a halt. Molly saw movement inside the car, someone behind the wheel, backing the Datsun towards them, cutting them off. Then she became aware of a face at the window, inches from her own. The man was wrenching at the door handle, trying to get in. Molly screamed, and the man stepped forward, pulling open Katilo’s door. Katilo was still on the phone. The man had a knife. He was young, a teenager. He was screaming at Katilo, the knife at his throat, his other hand reaching across, trying to get at the controls on the central console to unlock Molly’s door. He pressed the wrong button and Molly heard the window purr down. She shrank away from it, terrified, feeling McFaul’s arm close around her, pulling her away from the window. The youth was withdrawing from the front now, his right hand already stretching back along the car. Katilo’s first bullet caught him in the throat, spinning him around, and the second lifted him bodily into the air before he collapsed on the rubber-stained tarmac, blood pumping from his torn gullet.

  Molly stared at him, dry-mouthed. Then she looked at McFaul, seeking comfort, explanation, anything to soften the implications of this terrible spasm of violence, but McFaul had the camcorder to his eye, his body bent forward in the seat, keeping track of Katilo. Katilo was out of the BMW already, making for the stalled car on the roundabout. Molly could see the driver behind the wheel, desperately trying to turn the engine, and when he tried to abandon the car Molly knew he’d left it far too late. Katilo hauled him out one-handed, the huge automatic jammed against his temple, and when he pulled the trigger Molly saw his head erupt in a fine mist of bone fragments and brain tissue. Katilo checked the interior of the empty car, still holding the sagging body, then let it fall to the ground. He turned it over with his foot, glancing in McFaul’s direction, then emptied the rest of the magazine into the man’s belly. The corpse jerked with the impact of the bullets and Katilo delivered a final kick before returning to the BMW. Under the dashboard there was a box of tissues and as the car began to move again Katilo wiped his hands for a moment or two before resuming his conversation on the mobile phone.

  Molly had her eyes closed now. Her hands found the open window and she leaned out, vomiting quietly into the slipstream. She could hear Katilo again. The conversation on the phone was over. He wanted to check on the pictures. The pictures were fine, McFaul was saying. Just fine.

  Katilo had rooms booked at the Intercontinental Hotel. Molly walked through the huge lobby, still numbed, still trying to orientate herself. There were signs for a travel agency, tennis courts, a swimming pool, a sauna. There were shops, still open. There was a pharmacy, shelves of beauty products, a display of perfumes. Everywhere she looked, she was back in Europe. Diorella. Johnny Walker. Benetton. Names she recognised. Names that signposted the journey home. Where did Katilo’s brand of casual slaughter belong in all this? When would the horror end?

  By the bank of lifts, Molly leaned briefly on McFaul. Katilo had disappeared.

  ‘Help me,’ she pleaded. ‘Please.’

  The lift doors opened and she felt McFaul’s hand supporting her. It was suddenly very hot and she wondered vaguely whether she might faint. The lift hissed upwards, and the door opened, and suddenly they were in a corridor, walking again. Pictures, she thought, everywhere. Lush studies of the rain forest. Endearing photos of gorillas. An Africa softened and gentled for the hotel’s clientele.

  McFaul was bending to a lock. The door swung open. The room was enormous, the king-sized bed softly lit by hidden spots. The windows were floor to ceiling, and beyond the crescent of lights below Molly could see the darkness of the river. She leaned against the door, watching McFaul pull the curtains. Even now, even here, he still carried the camcorder.

  He was crossing the room, asking her whether she’d be OK. She felt herself shaking her head. She wanted to be put to bed. She wanted to go home. Like Christianne, she’d had enough.

  McFaul said nothing, scribbling something on a piece of paper. He offered it to her. She took it.

  ‘What’s this?’

  ‘My room number.’ He nodded at the telephone. ‘Ring if there’s a problem.’

  ‘There’s a problem.’

  ‘No,’ McFaul softened a little, ‘you’re upset, that’s all. That’s not a problem. Not compared to what you’ve coped with so far. Last night was a problem. Muengo was a problem. That’s as bad as it gets. Believe me.’

  Molly went to the bathroom and sluiced out her mouth with water. Then she sat on the side of the bed and took her shoes off. She could still taste the vomit.

  ‘Muengo was paradise compared to this. I hate this place. I hate what he did. Can’t you understand that?’

  ‘Yes. Of course I can.’ He paused. ‘You should sleep. Try and forge
t it.’

  ‘I wish I could.’

  ‘Then try.’

  Molly stared up at him, wondering what she had to do to get through to this strange man. The last twenty-four hours had robbed her of her bearings. She no longer knew where she was. She felt lost and very afraid. She wanted reassurance. She wanted to know she could go home.

  McFaul bent to Molly and put his hand briefly on her shoulder. She reached up, squeezing it, then let him go. She heard his footsteps across the carpet. When she’d finished throwing up again, she rinsed her mouth and slumped against the side of the bath, her mind quite blank.

  After a while, she crawled back into the bedroom. Beside the dressing table was a mini-bar. She opened it, selecting three miniatures of vodka and a carton of mango juice. She lined them up beside the bed and pulled back the covers, not bothering to undress. She began to shake again, deep tremors, wholly beyond her control. She closed her eyes, trying to find a point of reference, something to seize on, a lifebelt in the swirling tide. All too briefly, she saw her husband. Giles was standing in the well of the Molly Jay. It was summer. He was wearing an old pair of blue shorts. He was very brown. He was waving. Molly called his name, trying to attract his attention but he was looking the other way, upriver, grinning.

  Molly felt tears, hot, on her face. They trickled down her cheeks, dampening the pillow. Giles wouldn’t have left her like this. Giles would have stayed. He’d have comforted her. He’d have held her tight. He’d have been there in the smallest hours, when it mattered most. He’d have agreed with her about Katilo. The man was a monster. Life meant nothing to him.