Dark Heart

by Peter Tonkin

  For the rest of the night, Anastasia followed the big pool of brightness the searchlight cast on the river’s surface downstream and across the river to the north bank. Every now and then she sent Esan clambering aloft to swing the golden beam from side to side until she managed to make out some half-familiar landmark, then she knew where to make for next. As the dawn slowly gathered behind them and the sun came up over the jagged peaks of the volcanoes far inland, so she at last let the exhausted boy join Ado and Celine where they lay asleep in the cramped little cabin below.

  It was only when at long last Anastasia saw the familiar jetty reaching out from Malebo and steered towards it, shaking with a potent combination of exhaustion, relief and early-morning chill, that she realized she was still naked from the waist up. Naked and thickly coated with congealed blood. She called to the others but they made no response, so she ended up easing Nellie forward until her bow just kissed the pier’s outer end, then she quickly moored her in place and let her swing with the current while she ran lightly to the stern where she knew there was a bucket on a rope.

  She looked around, but it was too early for the township to be stirring yet. The little boats and occasional pirogues tethered to the lower sections of the jetty were all empty – there had been no fish here since the nineties. There was no one about. She stripped off, glorying in the warm caress of the early sunlight, in the golden veil of mist it raised along the shoreline and in the fragrant breath of the dawn wind, flowing gently down towards the sea. She dropped the bucket overboard and pulled up clear, clean water. It took half a dozen chilly bucketfuls to get her anywhere near clean. Then she stood, with her arms raised, letting the sun and the warm breeze dry her.

  She had no sensation of being watched at all.

  After a few moments, she stepped back into her jeans – noticing for the first time how bad they smelt, then she ran light-footed below, searching for something to put on. It was close to a miracle that the shattered glass hadn’t cut her feet to ribbons – but it was a miracle she could no longer rely on. She found an old pair of flip-flops that only stayed on when she clenched her toes round the piece of rubber between them and a My People T-shirt with an outline of Africa on the front, the familiar shape of the continent framing the frowning face of a boy who looked a lot like Esan. She slipped it on without registering that it was many sizes too big for her and turned to wake the other three.

  ‘What’s the plan?’ asked Esan, blinking himself awake and nudging Ado who was wrapped around him.

  ‘Get Celine to the clinic and call for all the help we can raise.’ Anastasia looked across at the woman sleeping restlessly in the other bunk. Through the semi-transparent cloth of her blouse it was clear that the makeshift T-shirt bandage was stained with more than just blood from her wound.

  Esan frowned. ‘What about me?’ he asked. ‘Anyone you call up to help you is likely to come after me too. I am Army of Christ the Infant.’

  ‘We have to think of a way round that,’ said Ado forcefully, untangling herself and sitting up, her face as fearsome as his. ‘Esan saved us.’

  ‘You’re both right,’ agreed Anastasia. ‘But I don’t think you need to worry yet. There’s no police station or military camp in Malebo. Even so, I think you should stay aboard, Esan, while Ado and I take Celine to the clinic. All I’m planning on doing after we check her in is trying to get hold of a cellphone or a radio that will get me in contact with Granville Harbour. I want to warn them about what’s happened. Tell someone where Celine is and how she is. I suppose there’s an outside chance the authorities would send a chopper up for us but I wouldn’t bet on it. Even though Celine’s the president’s daughter she says she and her father don’t talk. Haven’t talked for years. He wouldn’t lift a finger to help her any more than my father would help me. No. I plan that we’ll stick together and go on downriver if we can. There may even be someone in town who can help us with Nellie so we don’t have to do all the driving. Does that sound like a plan?’

  The little township was beginning to stir as Anastasia and Ado helped Celine stagger inland from the river through the dilapidated white-walled buildings that lined the main street. Behind them, the town spread out into more traditional round, mud-walled dwellings, better suited to the climate and situation. Families were at their early-morning chores, fetching water, stoking fires, preparing food. The road the three women were following was metalled through the township, but it became little more than a red mud track in the distance. However, it curved away into the jungle and ran right the way down to Granville Harbour. Ten miles north of the city, in fact, it opened out again to became, suddenly and unexpectedly, an eight-lane highway even larger than the one they had travelled last night into Citematadi. There was a gas station here, whose diesel powered Nellie as well as local trucks, and whose petrol fired up generators, occasional four-by-fours, battered saloons and ubiquitous motorcycles. There was a post office and sometimes mail came and went. It had an old-fashioned exchange. Sometimes the phones worked. There had once been reliable landlines but they were long gone. Now communication from the post office relied – as was stated on the big poster in its window – on Benincom. There was a cellphone mast standing tall behind the post office on the edge of the jungle. And where there was communication, there was commerce: palm oil going down from local groves; bananas, plantains, dates, kola nuts, coconuts, okra on occasion – more than subsistence crops, grown on local smallholdings and gathered from the jungle. Up from the city came fish, meat and domestic utensils. There was a hardware store. There was a food shop. There was a bank, which opened occasionally.

  And there was a clinic. It was just about the last of the square, white-painted, flat-roofed buildings in town. It was air-conditioned, blessedly quiet. The sister on reception took one look at Celine and called for the doctor. The doctor took one look at her and called for a bed. ‘I’ll fill in the necessary paperwork,’ said Anastasia. ‘You find the nearest phone, laptop or two-way radio.’

  By the time Anastasia had filled out the paperwork – several sheets of it – Ado was back. ‘The post office says everything’s gone down,’ she reported. ‘Seems like bad luck. Benincom cellphones were working fine until earlier this morning. Then it all went down. Probably something to do with the mast. That’s it. No one has a laptop with Internet access either – that piggybacked on the Benincom signal apparently. The people at the post office think there might be someone with a satellite phone, but they don’t know who. Nor does anyone at the garage. Or at the hardware shop.’

  ‘That’s it then,’ said Anastasia. ‘Looks like Nellie and plan B.’

  The doctor arrived then and picked up the paperwork, frowning. Anastasia read the name ‘Dr Chukwu’ on the pocket of his white coat. ‘I have cleaned the bullet wound,’ he said, ‘and bandaged it properly. Given her antibiotics and painkillers. She is sleeping now. Please explain how she came to be wounded.’

  As Anastasia told her story, Dr Chukwu reached into his pocket and pulled out a bulky Benincom cellphone. Switched it on, frowned again. ‘No signal,’ he said. ‘But this must be reported to the authorities at the earliest possible opportunity!’

  ‘That’s our plan,’ said Anastasia.

  ‘Why, Malebo itself could be at risk! The Army of Christ the Infant is notorious!’

  ‘It doesn’t normally attack towns,’ countered Anastasia. ‘But you’re right. Is there a mayor, a chief, someone local in charge? Someone we could warn before we go downstream for help?’

  ‘There is Mr Obada. He runs the hardware store. He’s the man to tell.’

  ‘Right. We’ll do that on our way out, then. But Celine will be safe here?’

  ‘As safe as we can make her,’ said Dr Chukwu.

  On their way back to the Nellie, Anastasia and Ado went into the hardware store and told their story to Mr Obada. Malebo’s mayor frowned. ‘I will call a council meeting,’ he decided. ‘Warn everyone. Set up armed defences as soon as possible. You are going for hel
p, you say?’

  ‘In the Nellie. It might take a day or two . . .’

  ‘The Nellie? But where is Captain Christophe?’

  ‘I wish I could tell you,’ said Anastasia sadly.

  The man who had watched Anastasia washing and drying herself in naked splendour was called Odem. Esan knew him well but had no idea he was here – any more than Odem knew the boy was aboard the boat. Anastasia herself might have recognized him as one of the phalanx of older men who had stood around General Moses Nlong when he ate Sister Faith’s heart. For he was a captain in the Army of Christ the Infant and one of the general’s most trusted officers.

  Odem watched the women now, still from the fringes of the jungle, hidden with the little squad he had brought through the delta downriver with him; moving, he had thought, at almost incredible speed along the north bank through the all but trackless jungle. Especially as they had brought with them a pair of four-by-fours and a pair of Toyota ‘Technical’ trucks with machine guns and rocket launchers on the back of them. And yet three women – scarcely more than children – had beaten him to his goal. It was incredible. It might be enough to change the game – make him depart from the detail of his orders – a very dangerous thing to do. So Captain Odem sat and thoughtfully surveyed his target. Unsuspected still – in spite of the fact that they had already disabled the Benincom cellphone mast and cut the town off from the outside world.

  Odem sucked his teeth in thought and indecision. His orders were specific and clear. They had not included the Nellie. But the general had not known about the Nellie. What would his orders have been if he had realized that the boat and the escaped women would be here? Odem’s indecision was acute. His hesitation crucial. The women climbed aboard the boat, slipped the mooring and were beyond his reach almost before he knew it. That taught the soldier the dangers of hesitation if nothing else. He gestured, silently. The little squad he had brought with him detached themselves from the invisibility of the undergrowth and followed him to the clinic.

  It took only a moment for the six men and one terrified woman to break into the white-painted building. They were experts at this kind of thing. Dr Chukwu and his staff never stood a chance of resisting. They didn’t even get the chance to raise the alarm. Captain Odem surveyed the terrified medical team as they stood under the guns of his men. ‘You will come with us,’ he said shortly. ‘You will bring all the medicines and equipment you can carry. This woman is a nun with some medical training. Her name is Sister Hope. She will advise on what you will need to bring and ensure that you bring the best. Hurry! There is little time. I am sure you don’t want to find yourselves in the middle of a firefight or a hostage negotiation.’

  As the terrified clinic staff did what he ordered, with the help of Sister Hope, under the guns of his command, Odem went through the neat little ward. There were four patients. He looked at three of them with no interest whatsoever. He looked at the fourth and smiled.

  Ten minutes later, Captain Odem surveyed his command and their prisoners. ‘Bring the patients too,’ he ordered. ‘Leave the place empty. It will sow confusion. Give us extra time – for the women must have told them we are somewhere near. We will not take the sick ones far, as they will slow us.’ He looked down. His smile lingered. Ngoboi had been kind. The capture of this woman would outweigh the escape of the other two. ‘Except for this one. This one is Celine Chaka, the daughter of the president. General Nlong wants her specifically, so she will be coming all the way back upriver with us.’

  FOURTEEN

  Burning

  ‘Dangerous?’ laughed Robin. ‘How could it be dangerous? Weren’t you paying attention to anything Chaka said?’ She pushed a plate of apon and iresi – meat stew and rice – to one side and looked up with a frown. ‘The President’s sending me upriver to take a message to his daughter. She’s in a combination orphanage, kindergarten and religious retreat on the bank of a quiet river in the middle of a deserted jungle. She’s surrounded by nuns and school kids. The scariest person anywhere near her is Anastasia Asov – and she’s a friend of ours.’

  Richard sipped his sparkling water; his expression said he was unconvinced.

  ‘The only complication anyone can see is the fact that their communications have gone down,’ Robin persisted, tapping on the tablecloth with her unused pudding fork to emphasize her points. ‘But that’s nothing unusual; they’re in the back of beyond and even the nearest town, Malebo, keeps going off-air on a regular basis. It’s par for the course. So they need a messenger to go up there in person and Chaka’s chosen me. He thinks Celine will listen to me. If I can, I’m to bring Celine back to him. If not, then I’m just to wash my hands of it and come straight home.’ She threw down her fork with a little more force than she meant to, and sat back. ‘What could be easier?’

  In the face of Richard’s continued silence, she leaned forward again and continued, ‘And what’s he given me to back me up? In case Anastasia’s antsy or the nuns turn nasty? Shaldag FPB004. A fast patrol boat that is just about the speediest thing afloat. A crew of ten commandos commanded by the best captain available. A boat that is, Captain Caleb assures me, armed with a stabilized 20 millimetre gun, and two 0.5 millimetre machine guns. Not to mention hand-held and shoulder-launched weapons systems, and, of course, standard issue personal armaments for each man. Semi-automatic, handgun, commando knife, whatever. And this kit isn’t special issue if that’s what you’re thinking. It’s standard. It’s what the Shaldags carry.’

  ‘It’s not the weaponry,’ said Richard at last. ‘The last time you were up in the delta you and Anastasia had been kidnapped. Celine and I were coming after you, fair enough, but it was the fact that all we heard from you – all we heard about you – was the kidnappers’ messages, threats and demands. It was you I needed to talk to – and you were out of contact . . .’

  Robin’s expression softened. She remembered how stressful the incident had been – oddly, it had been worse for him than it had been for her. She could understand why he wanted to avoid any chance at all that the nightmare might be repeated. But she was going to go for all that; the president’s mission was simply too good to miss. ‘FPB004 has broadband, satellite, GPS, radar, sonar. She has better navigation equipment than your precious top-of-the-range Katapults. She can sail at fifty knots for seven hundred nautical miles – more than enough for the round trip, especially as we will be carrying an extra six tons of spare fuel, which should get us another five hundred nautical miles or so. If we halve our speed – when coming back downriver, say – we double our range. And we are talking nautical miles here. That’s twelve hundred and sixty klicks at full speed and twenty-five hundred if we’re careful. God! I bet we could sail right up to those famous volcanoes – Mount Karisoke and the rest – if we wanted.’

  She could see him wavering. So she pushed home her advantage ruthlessly. ‘Jesus, Richard, it’s like I was taking a walk from Nelson’s Column to Buckingham Palace, wrapped in cotton wool with an armed guard from the household cavalry! It’ll be a walk in the park . . .’

  ‘Yes,’ he acknowledged. ‘St James’s Park, in fact.’ But there was still that lingering scepticism in his voice as he sought to puncture her grandiose comparison.

  ‘Oh, Richard,’ she challenged him directly at last. ‘What on earth could go wrong?’

  Richard threw up his hands in defeat. ‘I just wish I was coming with you,’ he said. And that, she knew. was the crux of the matter.

  ‘In case I need someone to hold my hand, wipe my nose or change my nappy?’ she teased, lightening the atmosphere. ‘Come on, darling! You’ve got enough to keep you occupied here. And the upside from the Heritage Mariner point of view is that while I’m doing my Mary Poppins act upriver, Chaka himself promises to head up the negotiations. That’ll short-cut Minister Ngama and his cohorts. Maybe even outmanoeuvre BP, Shell, Exxon, Conoco and the rest!’

  ‘OK,’ he acquiesced. ‘I give in. So what’s the plan now?’

  ‘I get
my Jungle Jane kit on, throw one or two necessaries in a grip, and go down to what little Captain Zhukov’s fans left of the new docks.’ She was on her feet already, unable to contain herself any longer, heading from the reception room into the bedroom. ‘You, my darling, get the team together and get ready to go and kick some presidential bottom.’

  The conversation took place over the remains of a late lunch in the Nelson Mandela Suite. It had been a busy day so far and it looked like getting busier, if anything. While the Mariners had been lunching, the venue of the morning’s meeting was being moved to the president’s own offices for the afternoon session and everyone was due to reassemble there in the cool of the afternoon at four. Caleb’s Shaldag was being refuelled and prepared to undertake the president’s mission with a night-run upriver which should get them to Celine’s school sometime the next morning.

  For Richard the prospect was of another boring meeting, a quick change, another formal dinner, a lonely night and yet another lengthy meeting tomorrow. The only positive element to his day so far had been the adventure of the burning corvette and the awesome experience of Captain Zhukov’s private hurricane. It was all clearly going to be downhill from there. He could not begin to express his boredom and depression.

  Robin on the other hand could scarcely contain her excitement, he thought, with pure, simple jealousy. In about a tenth of the time it usually took her to change – only just giving him time to contact his negotiating team – she had slipped into a pair of jeans and solid-looking boots. She was tucking a seemingly indestructible plum-coloured brushed silk blouse into a solid leather belt and catching up a safari jacket he didn’t even know she possessed. Then she was off, with Richard almost sullenly in tow.

  ‘Get my bag for me, would you?’ she asked winningly as she reached for the door handle. And so he followed her down to reception with a surprisingly heavy Louis Vuitton Canvas Keepall in one hand and his black leather briefcase in the other. When Andre Wanago gallantly relieved him of the Keepall in the lobby as they swept out towards the car, the pained look in the elegant manager’s eyes showed that he realized he had made the wrong choice.