The Spoilers / Juggernaut

by Desmond Bagley

  With no hesitation he dipped into his pocket, produced the pistol and tossed it onto my lap. ‘There’ll be others,’ he said.

  ‘And from now on, you can consider yourself under open arrest.’

  Now he gave me a belly laugh. ‘Ah, it’s the military ways you’re picking up, Mister Mannix. Just like old times.’

  ‘Old times in what army, McGrath? And just by the way, I suppose that isn’t your real name. No doubt you’re on a good few wanted lists, aren’t you?’

  He looked pensive. ‘They were the days, all right. Well, the name now, that’s something of a convenience. I’ve had several, and passports to match in my time. All this—’ He waved at the darkness around us, ‘—this was going to be a bit of a holiday for me. Things were getting a little hot at home so I thought I’d take a sabbatical. Now I find it’s a working holiday.’

  I wondered what to do. Keeping McGrath around would be like leading a tiger on a length of string. He was a killing machine, proficient and amoral; a most dangerous man, but extremely useful in times of war. I couldn’t trust him, but I found that I couldn’t quite dislike him, which troubled my conscience only a little. And I felt we could work together for the moment at all events. There would be a showdown one day, but not yet.

  I could hand him over to Sadiq, and he might be strung up from the next telegraph post; but quite apart from my liking the man, it would be a course of action very deleterious to our morale. The crew were civilians and nothing scares a civilian more than summary military law. I thought about McGrath’s views on our relative toughness, and said abruptly, ‘How old are you, McGrath?’

  He was mildly surprised. ‘Forty-nine.’

  So was I; and only an accident of birth had prevented me from being even more like him than he realized. In spite of what I’d said about Irish politics, I could to a degree understand the motives that drove him, and saw that they might have been my own. It was only chance that my weapon had become a boardroom rather than a gun. ‘Listen carefully,’ I said. ‘If you don’t keep in line from now on you won’t make your half-century. You were right, McGrath—we do think the same. But from now on even more so. Your thoughts and your actions will be dictated by me. You won’t do one single goddamn thing without my say-so. And I’ll pull the plug on you any time I feel it’s better that way. Am I understood?’

  He gazed at me steadily, ‘I said you were a tough man. I know what you’re thinking, Mannix. You’re thinking that I’d be a good man to have around if things get tougher. You’re thinking that you can point me like a weapon and I’ll go off, aren’t you? Well, I won’t argue with you about that, because I feel much the same myself. And speaking of guns—’

  ‘You’re not getting it back.’

  ‘Oh, that’s all right,’ he said. ‘There’s nothing so easy to come by in a war as a gun. All I was going to say was that I’ve not had a chance to clean it up yet. Careless of me, I know. You’ll want to do it yourself, I imagine.’

  I secured the safety catch on the shotgun and lowered it to the floor of the Land Rover. ‘Just remember this, McGrath. I’m never going to stop watching you.’

  ‘On probation, am I?’

  ‘Not at all. You’re awaiting trial. Be sure and stay around. Don’t go jumping bail, will you?’

  ‘Out there on my own? You have to be joking, Mannix. Now what did you think I went to all this trouble for, if not to prevent that very thing from happening with my lads…and I still wish I knew for sure which one came running to you. It wasn’t really necessary now, was it?’

  I waved a hand in dismissal. I felt no sense of danger from McGrath for the moment, and he must have had the same feeling about me, for he raised a hand and ambled away.

  ‘We’ll all be needing a bit of sleep, I think. See you in the morning, Mannix. Thanks for the chat,’ he said and was gone.

  I sat for a while longer wondering if I was doing the right thing.

  SIXTEEN

  Early next morning I did a check round the camp. There seemed to be more Nyalans than ever camped some little distance from where we were sited, and the soldiers’ camp was further off still, so that we covered a pretty vast area. Lights still burned on the rig, because full daylight had not yet arrived, and there was movement as the medical staff tended their patients, the skeleton night watch making way for the full team. I found Sister Ursula tidying up in the makeshift operating theatre.

  ‘Morning, Sister. Everything all right?’

  She offered a wry smile. ‘Not exactly all right, but as well as we can expect.’ She bustled about just as she would in a regular hospital, and probably saw nothing incongruous in her newly acquired methods; habit skirts tucked into her belt, one hand free to grasp at holds as she swung expertly about the rig.

  ‘No deaths last night, thanks be to God. It’s a pity about Kanja, but no doubt we’ll manage.’

  I told her about the cotton warehouses and she nodded. ‘Cool and spacious, much easier for my nurses, certainly.’ We had reached the fridge and she opened it, checked the contents against a list, reshuffled the dwindling stores and closed it swiftly, to let as little cold air escape as possible. ‘This has been a Godsend,’ she commented.

  She somehow pronounced the word with an audible uppercase G.

  ‘From God via Wyvern Transport,’ I said a little more harshly than was kind. I sometimes tired of the religious habit of thanking God for strictly man-made assistance. She took me up on it at once.

  ‘Don’t you believe in God, Mister Mannix? Or in thanking Him?’

  Having spent some time the night before in a short seminar on the philosophy of terrorism from McGrath, I didn’t feel in the least like getting into another on religion. ‘We’ll debate it some other time, Sister. We’ve both got enough else to do at the moment. Where are the doctors?’

  ‘Doctor Marriot’s having coffee and Doctor Kat is still asleep.’ She smiled. ‘He didn’t know it but last night I put a sleeping draught in his tea. It knocked him out.’

  She showed all the signs of being a very bossy woman. ‘Don’t ever try that on me, Sister,’ I said, smiling back, ‘or there’ll be trouble. I like to make my own decisions.’

  ‘You have enough sense to know when to stop. But the Doctor was out on his feet and wouldn’t admit it.’

  ‘But what happens if there’s an emergency? He’d be no good to us doped to the eyebrows.’

  She raised one at me. ‘I know my dosage. He’ll wake up fresh as a daisy. In the meantime there is Doctor Marriot, and me. By the way, Sister Mary is still not to be allowed up here, please. She can travel in the truck again, with the children. Don’t listen to anything she says to the contrary.’

  She was indeed a bossy woman. She went on, ‘I’ve got Nurse Mulira and Nurse Chula who are both well-trained, and the others are doing well too. Sister Mary doesn’t realize how frail she is.’

  ‘Point taken, ma’am. By the way, how much sleep did you get last night?’

  ‘Mind your own business.’ Before I could object to that blunt statement she went on, ‘I’ve just been with Mister Otterman. He’s not too well again…’ She looked down past me. ‘Someone wants you. I think it’s urgent.’

  ‘It always is. Be ready to move in about an hour, Sister.’

  I swung down off the rig. Sadiq’s sergeant looked harassed. ‘The captain wants you, please. It is very urgent.’

  I followed him to the command car and found Sadiq examining a battered map. He had an air of mixed gloom and relief. He said, ‘The radio is working. I have just had new orders. I have been reassigned.’

  I leaned against the car and suddenly felt terribly tired.

  ‘Good God, that’s all we need. What orders? And where from?’

  ‘I have heard from a senior officer, Colonel Maksa. I am to take my troops and join him at Ngingwe.’ This was on the nearside of the blocked road to Kanja.

  ‘Ngingwe! Sadiq, does this make sense to you?’

  ‘No, sir. But I am not to que
ry orders from a superior.’

  The sergeant returned with Geoff Wingstead. I recapped what Sadiq had told me, and Wingstead looked as puzzled as I had. ‘I can’t see how this Colonel Maksa got to Ngingwe, or why he wants Captain Sadiq there,’ he said.

  The only good thing in all this was that the radio was working again. If someone had got through to us, we could perhaps get through to others. And we were desperate for news.

  ‘Tell me what Colonel Maksa’s politics are,’ I asked Sadiq.

  ‘I don’t know, Mister Mannix. We never spoke of such things. I don’t know him well. But—he has not always been such an admirer of the President.’

  ‘So he could be on either side. What will you do?’

  ‘I cannot disobey a direct order.’

  ‘It’s been done. What did you say to him?’

  ‘We could not answer. The lines are still bad, and perhaps we do not have the range.’

  ‘You mean he spoke to you but you couldn’t reply. So he doesn’t know if you heard the order. Did it refer directly to you or was it a general call for assembly at Ngingwe?’

  ‘It was a direct order to me.’

  ‘Who else knows about this?’ I asked.

  ‘Only my sergeant.’

  Wingstead said, ‘You want him to put the headphone to a deaf ear, to be a modern Nelson, is that it?’ We both looked at Sadiq, who looked stubborn.

  ‘Look, Captain. You could be running into big trouble. What if Colonel Maksa is a rebel?’

  ‘I have thought of that, sir. You should not think I am so stupid as to go off without checking.’

  ‘How can you do that?’ Wingstead asked.

  ‘I will try to speak to headquarters, to General Kigonde or someone on his staff,’ he said. ‘But my sergeant has tried very often to get through, without any luck. Our radio is not strong enough.’

  Wingstead said abruptly, ‘I think we can fix that.’

  ‘How?’ I knew that his own intervehicle radios were very limited indeed.

  He said, ‘I’ve got reason to think we’re harbouring a fairly proficient amateur radio jockey.’

  ‘For God’s sake, who?’ I asked.

  Wingstead said, ‘Sandy Bing. A few days ago we caught him in your staff car, Captain, fiddling with your radio. There was a soldier on duty but Bing told him he had your permission. We caught him at it and I read him the riot act. But I let it go at that. We’re not military nor police and I had other things on my mind besides a bored youngster.’

  ‘Did you know about this talent of his?’ I asked.

  ‘I’d caught him once myself fiddling with the set in the Land Rover. That’s really too mild a word for what he’d been doing. He had the damn set in pieces. I bawled him out and watched while he put the bits back together. He knew what he was doing and it worked as well as ever afterwards. He’s damned enthusiastic and wants to work with radio one day. Sam Wilson told me that he’s for ever at any set he can get his hands on.’

  ‘What do you think he can do? Amplify this set?’

  ‘Maybe. Come along with me, Neil. I’ll talk to Bing, but I want a word with Basil first. This will delay our start again, I’m afraid.’

  Sadiq agreed to wait and see if Bing could get him through to his headquarters before taking any other action. My guess was that he wanted to stay with us, but right now he was torn by a conflict of orders and emotions, and it was hard to guess which would triumph.

  Less than an hour later we stood watching as Sandy Bing delved happily into the bowels of a transmitter. Sadiq allowed him access to his own car radio, which Bing wanted as he said it was better than anything we had, though still underpowered for what he wanted. He got his fingers into its guts and went to work, slightly cock-a-hoop but determined to prove his value. He wanted to cannibalize one of Kemp’s radios too, to build an extra power stage; at first Kemp dug his heels in, but common sense finally won him round.

  ‘We’ll need a better antenna,’ said Bing, in his element. ‘I’ll need copper wire and insulators.’

  Hammond managed to find whatever was needed. The travelling repair shop was amazingly well kitted out.

  Our start was delayed by over four hours, and the morning was shot before Bing started to get results. Eventually he got the beefed-up transmitter on the air which was in itself a triumph, but that was just the beginning. General Kigonde’s headquarters were hard to locate and contact, and once we’d found them there was another problem; a captain doesn’t simply chat to his commander-in-chief whenever he wants to. It took an hour for Sadiq to get patched through to the military radio network and another hour of battling through the chain of command.

  I’ll give Sadiq his due; it takes a brave and determined man to bully and threaten his way through a guard of civilian secretaries, colonels and brigadiers. He really laid his neck on the block and if Kigonde hadn’t been available, or didn’t back him, I wouldn’t have given two cents for his later chances of promotion. When he spoke to Kigonde the sun was high in the sky and he was nearly as high with tension and triumph.

  ‘You did OK, Sandy,’ I said to Bing, who was standing by with a grin all over his face as the final connection came through. Wingstead clapped him on the shoulder and there were smiles all round.

  Sadiq and Kigonde spoke only in Nyalan, and the Captain’s side of the conversation became more and more curt and monosyllabic. Sadiq looked perturbed; obviously he would like to tell us what was going on, but dared not sever the precious connection, and Kigonde might run out of patience at any moment and do his own cutting off from the far end. I was sick with impatience and the need for news. At last I extended a hand for the headphones and put a whipcrack into my own voice.

  ‘Tell him I want to speak to him.’

  Before Sadiq could react I took the headphones away from him. There was a lot of static as I thumbed the speak button and said, ‘General Kigonde, this is Mannix. What is happening, please?’

  He might have been taken aback but didn’t close me out.

  ‘Mister Mannix, there is no time for talk. Your Captain has received orders and he must obey them. I cannot supervise the movement of every part of the army myself.’

  ‘Has he told you the situation at Ngingwe? That it is a dead end? The road goes nowhere now. We need him,

  General. Has he told you what’s happening here, with your people?’

  Through the static, Kigonde said, ‘Captain Sadiq has orders to obey. Mister Mannix, I know you have many people in trouble there, but there is trouble everywhere.’

  That gave me an idea. I said, ‘General Kigonde, do you know who gave Captain Sadiq his orders?’

  ‘I did not get the name. Why do you ask?’

  ‘Does the name Colonel Maksa mean anything to you?’ It was taking a gamble but I didn’t think the chances of Maksa or anyone on his staff overhearing this conversation were strong. It was a risk we had to take.

  Static crackled at me and then Kigonde said, ‘That is…perhaps different. He was in command of forces in the north. I have not heard from him.’

  Doubt crept into Kigonde’s voice.

  I said urgently, ‘General, I think you do have doubts about Colonel Maksa. If he were against you what better could he do than draw off your troops? Captain Sadiq is completely loyal. Where would you get the best use out of him? Here with us, or cut off upcountry? If I were you I’d cancel those orders, General.’

  ‘You may be right, Mister Mannix. I must say the Captain would be better off for my purposes further west. I will send him to Makara instead.’

  ‘But we’re going to Makara ourselves. Can he stay with us until we get there?’

  I was really pushing my luck and I wasn’t surprised when he demanded to speak to Sadiq again. It was a long onesided conversation, and when he rang off we could all see that he had been told something that had shaken him badly.

  He remembered his manners before anything else, turned to Bing and said, ‘Thank you very much. I am grateful to you,’ whic
h pleased Bing immensely. But Sadiq didn’t look grateful, only distressed.

  ‘Let’s go and sit down, Captain,’ I said. ‘Geoff, you, me and Basil only, I think. Move it out, you guys. Find something to do.’

  Sadiq filled us in on the conversation. He was to move westwards to Makara with us, but once there he was to push on towards Fort Pirie, leaving us to cope. It was as much as we could have expected. But it occurred to me that the General must be in a bad way if he was calling such minor outfits as Sadiq’s to his assistance.

  ‘The General says that the Government is in power in Port Luard once again. The rebellion is crushed and almost all the rebels are rounded up,’ Sadiq said. That was what Kigonde would say, especially on the air, and none of us put too much faith in it. But at least it meant that the Government hadn’t been crushed.

  ‘The rebellion was premature, I think,’ Sadiq said. ‘The opposition was not ready and has been beaten quite easily in most places.’

  ‘But not everywhere. Does he know where this Colonel Maksa is? I think we have to assume he’s on the wrong side, don’t you?’ I said.

  ‘Yes, the Colonel’s politics are suspect. And he is known to be hereabouts. There are planes looking for him and his force.’

  ‘Planes?’ said Wingstead in alarm. ‘Whose planes?’

  ‘Ah, it is all most unfortunate, sir. We were wrong, you see. The Air Force, Air Chief Marshall Semangala is on the side of the Government.’

  ‘Ouseman’s allies?’ My jaw dropped. ‘Then why was Mister Wingstead’s plane shot down, for God’s sake?’

  ‘I don’t know, Mister Mannix, But perhaps the Air Force expected that any civilian planes flying in the battle area belonged to the rebels,’ Sadiq said unhappily. I thought of Max Otterman, fighting for his life somewhere on the rig, and rage caught in my throat.

  Geoff Wingstead was ahead of me. ‘What about the bombing of Kodowa, then? The troop moving through the town at the time was Kigonde’s own Second Battalion. Are you going to tell us that was a mistake, too?’

  ‘Ah, that was very bad. Air Force Intelligence thought that the Second Battalion was already with the Seventh Brigade at Bir Oassa. When they saw troops moving north they thought it was the enemy trying to cut off the Seventh Brigade from coming south. So they attacked.’ Sadiq looked anguished.