The Black Art of Killing

by Matthew Hall

  Fallon checked his GPS. ‘That’s twenty miles.’ He glanced back at Black, sensing that he had started to flag. ‘It’s five o’clock. Do you want to stop?’

  ‘I’m good for one more shift.’

  Fallon and Riley glanced at one another, as if about to object. Black strode to the front and picked up the pace, determined that they wouldn’t see him weaken. To admit tiredness, even to himself, was too dangerous to contemplate. He pushed on, head down, leaning into the straps of his Bergen and feeling the burn in his thighs on every stride. After fifteen minutes his left calf started to tighten. He fought against the pain, aware that at the first signs of a limp Riley and Fallon would start to see him as a liability and with that his authority would drain away.

  He stopped suddenly and held up a hand. In a puddle of mud in front of him were two sets of boot prints. They were fresh. A large bubble of air squashed into the ground by a heel remained unburst. Riley and Fallon came alongside him and followed his gaze.

  ‘I’ll go ahead,’ Black mouthed, giving them no opportunity to protest. He pressed a finger to his lips, indicating that he was demanding absolute silence, then slid off his Bergen. The others did the same. Ignoring their concerned glances, he moved off, holding his machete in his right hand and ready to reach for his pistol with his left. Several yards behind, Riley and Fallon came after him, silently easing off their rifles’ safety catches.

  Black tracked the line of footprints that seemed to follow a game trail heading north-west. He continued for several minutes, the light beginning to fade.

  He heard them before he saw them. Two male voices, talking in a Spanish dialect. He inched towards a dense thicket, staying out of their sight. Just visible through the interwoven stems were two men in their thirties, both dressed in jungle combats without insignia. They had taken off their packs, one of which had a radio aerial protruding from it, and were making ready to camp for the night at the foot of a large tree. Black assumed they were a foot patrol, probably one of several that at any one time circled the forests outlying the Sabre compound. He was forced to a decision – retreat and risk being heard or seen or eliminate the danger before it presented itself. The answer was obvious. He turned and gestured to Riley and Fallon to fan out either side of the thicket to cover him.

  The three of them waited, silent and still, ready at any moment to seize their opportunity. It came as the taller and younger of the two men headed off into the bush on the far side of their campsite to urinate, leaving the other to set up a cooking stove. He lit the gas with a match and the flame roared noisily into life. Black used the moment to make his move, his footsteps disguised by the sound of the stove. The crouching man glanced up as if sensing a presence, but in the opposite direction from which Black was approaching.

  It was perfect. Black stooped forward and in a fraction of a second drew the blade of his machete across the kneeling man’s throat. There was hardly a sound, except that of the blood that fountained out from the severed neck hitting the ground in a single spot several feet ahead of the already limp body. Black caught the dead man’s collar in his left hand and lowered him so that his forehead was resting on the ground in front of his knees, inches from the stove, giving him the appearance of having leaned down to inspect it.

  Black crept sideways to the trunk of the tree and waited for the sound of footsteps. Moments later he heard the second man returning. He started talking, picking up the conversation he had been having with his companion. With his back pressed to the rough bark and facing the slumped body, Black sensed the second man approaching from his right. A shaft of moving shadow was his cue to step left around to the far side of the trunk as his target passed by on the other side.

  The machete blade sliced the air. Some instinct caused his victim to raise his right hand and make a quarter turn in Black’s direction, giving him a glimpse of his astonished eyes as the blade sliced through his raised fingers and sank at a downwards angle into his neck. It was a deflected blow and not fatal. The man stumbled, pouring blood, kicking over the stove as he fell. Black struck again – once, twice.

  A detached head rolled away from its body and came to rest, rocking slightly, in a thick pool of blood. Black turned away and wiped the blade of his machete on the fabric of one of the packs. Already, a swarm of flies was descending and a small army of ants crawling out of the earth. Black stooped to turn off the stove, confirmed that neither of the dead mercenaries was wearing a dog tag or carrying identification and rejoined the others.

  ‘Probably Sabre,’ Black said. ‘We’ll have to be careful. There may be more.’

  They nodded, neither saying a word.

  Black strode back along the game trail in the fast fading light to find their Bergens.

  He had made his point.

  49

  Kennedy had been roused from his sickbed for the occasion. Dr Razia had been insistent. They would all be present to witness the coming together of their work.

  Sarah Bellman stood at the far left of the row of scientists who had been joined by Brennan and Drecker. She, Kennedy and Sphyris now found themselves for the first time in the laboratory in which Razia and Holst had been working alongside each other for weeks. They were looking through a window of one-way glass at a slightly built young man of twenty or so dressed in a plain, khaki T-shirt, who was seated at a white-topped table on which there was a pair of speakers and a silver crucifix: a gesture, designed by Holst no doubt, to make the experience as digestible as possible.

  Razia and Holst were thoroughly enjoying themselves, smiling and laughing with one another as they carried out the last checks on the equipment that would control the strength of the signal to be transmitted to the subject. Even Brennan and Drecker seemed infected by their optimism. They sat, relaxed, on stools, like investors confident that their big gamble was about to pay off.

  Razia called the room to order. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, before we begin, I would like to thank you all for your incredible efforts. In the space of weeks we have married your expertise to create a result – we hope – that will be as momentous as any we have seen in the field of neuroscience, or, indeed, the whole of medicine. The human condition is determined by the mind. What you have given us is no less than the ability to improve that condition immeasurably. In fact, if properly applied, suffering in the sense of mental pain and anguish need no longer exist.’ He nodded to Holst. ‘I shall allow my colleague to lead the demonstration.’

  Bellman felt trickles of sweat run down her back. She glanced to her right. Kennedy and Sphyris were staring impassively at the glass. Should she have told them? No, she was clear in her own mind. She had done the right thing. This was her responsibility. She held the cards and was the only one to be trusted with them. Sphyris was too timid to negotiate his way out and in his current state of mind Kennedy was too angry. Behind their military uniforms Drecker and Brennan were business people who spoke the language of deals. The terms she would strike were simple: they could have the correctly ordered code in exchange for their immediate release, safe passage and the balance of their money, but they wouldn’t receive the code until they had arrived safely home. If there was to be haggling, Bellman would negotiate over the cash, nothing else.

  Holst leaned forward to a small microphone connected to the speakers on the other side of the glass: ‘Cuando oye el sonido, recoja el crucifijo, por favor.’ When you hear the sound, please pick up the crucifix.

  He pressed a key on his laptop. The same white noise they had played to the macaque was played to the young man.

  No doubt glad of something to break the boredom, the young man picked up the crucifix and held it in his palm.

  What happened next was not what Sarah was expecting. He pressed the crucifix to his chest, then to his lips and then to his forehead. Holst played another short burst of encoded sound. The subject sank to his knees, proclaiming in Spanish, ‘¡Alabado sea el Señor!’ Praise God!

  Sarah felt eyes on her. She glanced to her right an
d saw the smiling face of Dr Razia.

  50

  They made camp, cooked and ate in silence, tuned in to the jungle, alive to the tiniest sign of human approach. Since dealing with the two mercenaries, Black had felt his equilibrium return. His mind was clear and focused. The balance of power between the three of them had shifted. The bond between Riley and Fallon seemed to have loosened and he detected a renewed respect from both of them. Their muted reactions suggested to him that while they might have seen action in Syria, it was of the kind conducted at arm’s length, through the scope of a rifle. Killing up close with a blade was a large step up in every way. If it overwhelmed you, if afterwards you shook and trembled and had nightmares, you were the kind of soldier who was likely to be killed very soon. Survival required a cool head and a cold heart.

  The colder the better.

  Sometimes, in order to stay alive, you needed to be more dead than death.

  Throughout the night they took turns on watch, crouching, alert, rifles cocked, until again the heli passed overhead on its pre-dawn run to Platanal. At first light Black skirted the circumference of their camp, checking the tripwires he had tied across the access points. There were no alien footprints. No signs of disturbance. It was good news. They were still ahead of the game.

  In the absence of a stream or overnight rain to fill their canteens from the palm-leaf funnels they had placed in their necks, Black chopped down lengths of thick bamboo, cut nicks in the stems and tipped out the water trapped inside. It had a bitter, pithy taste but was fresh and clean. They used it to brew coffee, topped up their supplies from more stems and set out, aiming to reach their objective by nightfall.

  Black marched without pain or stiffness. He was just another animal in the jungle, observing, anticipating, ready on a hair trigger to react. To counter the danger of meeting more patrols he imposed a new drill. Every ten minutes they would stop for thirty seconds to listen, watch and sniff the air.

  They continued in this way for more than three hours. Marching, stopping, listening, marching, then, during one of their silent pauses, Black caught a faint change of scent.

  ‘Smell that?’ he whispered.

  Riley and Fallon shook their heads.

  At first he believed it might be human sweat. The smell of a man who hadn’t seen soap for a week. He sniffed again and changed his mind. ‘Woodsmoke. Could be wrong.’

  The others couldn’t detect it.

  They pressed on for another half hour, Black occasionally catching the same scent and wondering whether his mind was playing tricks. He was bringing up the rear of the party when Fallon held up a hand. He pointed to a rubber tree a short distance in front of them. A flash had been cut in its trunk with a machete. Black stepped up for a closer look.

  The scars in the bark were far from fresh and showed the early signs of healing. They had been made months rather than days or weeks before. The symbol that had been carved consisted of two parallel lines bisected with a slanting vertical: ≠. Black felt an unsettling sensation in his stomach. It was a symbol he had seen before, many times. Every experienced bushwhacker had his own distinctive sign he used to mark his way or to signal his route to others who may be searching for him.

  ‘Boss?’ Riley said.

  ‘That flash … It’s the one Finn always used.’

  Riley and Fallon exchanged a glance as if doubting Black’s sanity.

  Black quickly assembled the evidence in his mind: the mention of Brennan in Finn’s diary, the cover story to Kathleen about a job in Africa, his shame when going cap in hand to Towers and the distinctive flash. Its presence could be purely coincidental, but the fact that it was here, on the precise bearing between the airstrip and the Sabre compound, lent weight to his theory: that its maker was navigating by compass rather than GPS. Its position on the trunk, at ninety degrees to their current course, suggested that if it were Finn who had left it, he was heading to their left.

  There was only one logical explanation. If Finn had been following a straight compass bearing, the flash would have marked a point of deviation from his route. A point to which he would have had to return in order to resume his previous course.

  Finn had been here. He was following the same trail. Somehow, for reasons he had yet to explain, their destinies had contrived to combine.

  He smelled it again.

  This time there was no doubt. The others smelled it, too: smoke from a cooking fire. It was being carried on the gentlest of breezes from his left, from the direction in which Finn – if that’s who it had been – had been travelling.

  ‘We should take a look,’ Black said.

  ‘What if it’s trouble we could do without?’ Fallon said.

  ‘We need to know what we’re up against – what we might run into on the way back.’

  The argument was unanswerable. They brought out their GPS units, got a fix on their current position and marked it as a waypoint. They could now head out in any direction and be guided back.

  The smoke was coming from the north. Black followed his nose and after a hundred yards found another similar flash. After another hundred there was a third, and a short way beyond it they picked up the meander of a small stream that wandered between the rubber trees. One by one the signs started to add up. The ground began to rise ahead of them. A gentle slope became a steeper one. They arrived at yet another flash and up ahead, saw an unusual glimpse of sky – a break in the trees.

  They crept upwards to the top of the rise where they remained in cover behind a dense clump of leafy palms. On the far side was a sight Black hadn’t expected to see: a clearing no more than fifty yards in diameter, in which there were a number of circular huts and a single traditionally built longhouse thatched with palms. On top of the building was a wooden cross, signalling that it was a Christian mission. A number of semi-naked children were playing football on an area of dirt shared with chickens and goats. A few older ones were crouching at the margins. Black noticed that several of these teenagers had lifeless, glazed expressions of the kind he had seen on the faces of the young in conflict zones across the globe.

  ‘Sorry, boss. Not sure we can handle them,’ Riley said.

  Black ignored the remark and continued to watch. A short while later, a woman of about thirty-five wearing a blue smock dress and sandals, her hair tied back from her face, came out of the longhouse carrying a small child. She set it down with two young girls and went to talk to a teenage boy who was sitting by himself. He watched her place a hand on his shoulder and talk to him gently.

  ‘Seen enough?’ Fallon said.

  ‘Stay here. I’m going to talk to her.’

  ‘You’re what?’

  ‘I want to know where all these kids are coming from.’

  ‘What does it matter?’ Fallon said.

  ‘Personal reasons. Take a break. Relax.’

  Ignoring their objections, he sloughed off his pack and tried the best he could to scrub the greasy camouflage cream from his face and arms with water from his canteen. Then, leaving behind his rifle, pistol and machete, he circled around to the far side of the clearing where he arrived at a narrow but well-trodden trail that led northwards from the settlement into the forest. Just outside the margins, he took up position behind the knotted roots of a large ‘walking palm’ – a wigwam-like structure of roots, on top of which a full grown tree was improbably balanced. From this angle he could see inside the various buildings in the encampment. In total there were perhaps forty or fifty children and teenagers and one more adult woman moving about inside the longhouse. The smoke they had smelled was coming from a fire burning inside a crude cooking range built from mud bricks, situated in an open-sided structure that served as a cookhouse.

  Black paused to question his motives. Was he taking an unnecessary risk in exposing himself? Of course he was. There was no logical answer but some instinct told him that it was something he had to do. He decided to trust it.

  ‘Hola. Buenos días. Habla inglés?’

&nb
sp; The woman in the blue dress spun around, her hand pressed to her chest in alarm. She was younger than he had at first thought, perhaps not yet thirty.

  He held out his hands in a gesture of openness and smiled. Some of the footballing children, who, at first sight of the stranger had frozen in curiosity, ran towards him. They swarmed around his legs and tugged excitedly at his clothes.

  ‘I’m English,’ Black said, noticing the second woman coming to the longhouse door. She was identically dressed and of a similar age. She exchanged an anxious glance with her colleague but overcame her fear and stepped forward. ‘I’m trying to find out what happened to a friend of mine.’ It was hard to make himself heard above the babble of the children’s voices. He ‘may have passed this way last year. His name was Finn. Ryan Finn.’

  The woman nodded and called out to her colleague, translating what Black had just told her. A look of understanding, though not quite one of relief, spread across the other woman’s face.

  ‘Yes, Mr Finn was here,’ the woman closest to him said guardedly, in good but heavily accented English. Her features were plain and her hair scraped back, but her deep brown eyes had the arresting quality of one motivated by a higher purpose. ‘You look like a soldier.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to frighten you. I’m an old friend. We were soldiers together – in the past.’ He paused to consider the significance of this revelation. Finn had come halfway across the world to work for Sabre and upped and left before he got paid. ‘You said he was here?’

  She nodded. ‘Just a moment.’ She came forward and called the children away, clapping her hands and sending them back to their game.

  They obeyed without question, letting go of his clothes and straggling back to the open area at the side of the longhouse.