Otto and Ingrid nodded.
‘How can we thank you?’ said Clay, knowing that there was nothing that could in any way meet the measure deserved.
Jürgen smiled, waving this away with a big hand. ‘Please. It is our great pleasure.’
Astrid emerged from the darkness and slid into the camp chair next to her husband. He reached for her hand and squeezed it.
She smiled. ‘He is sleeping,’ she said. ‘He is very lucky. Much longer, and he could have died.’
Clay watched her as she spoke. She was pretty, in that windburned, hard-working way that farm women sometimes were. After some time she glanced up at him and smiled. He lowered his eyes. It was too hard to look.
Jürgen said grace. They ate. Gazing into the fire, they talked of farming, of family and friends, of Africa and its troubles. Never once did Jürgen or Astrid ask about how they had come to be alone on the Skeleton Coast with a black child, lost and near dead.
Eben finished his meal and excused himself, wandering off to the tent. After a time, Astrid stood and led the children to the vehicle, whispering to them in German.
Jürgen placed another log on the fire. Sparks rose into the night, a funnel of glowing fireflies. Clay watched the flames leap and fall. It was very quiet now, and it was as if they were alone in the world.
‘Otto likes you very much,’ Jürgen said.
Clay looked at his host and now saw the years in his face, the hard work. Guessed him at late thirties, early forties perhaps.
‘I fear for him,’ said Jürgen. ‘And for Ingrid.’
‘The war.’
Jürgen nodded. ‘They are African.’ He motioned towards the tent with his chin. ‘As much as that boy. I was born here. My father and grandfather, too. Astrid’s grandparents, also, all of them. What kind of Africa will my children inherit, young man?’
Clay did not know if he expected an answer. ‘I don’t know, sir.’
Jürgen smiled. ‘You are not in the army, here, young man.’
‘Sorry,’ said Clay, finishing his beer. ‘Jürgen.’ He said it, but it didn’t feel right.
‘We will not win,’ said Jürgen.
‘Sir?’
‘History is not with us. You know that, don’t you? Despite your efforts, your sacrifice. Despite all the money and the technology, it is not for us, anymore. It is for them.’
Clay did not answer, just stared into the fire, contemplating the meaning of these words.
Soon after, Astrid reappeared with the children. Otto and Ingrid were scrubbed and combed and dressed in pyjamas. They kissed their father, and then, to his surprise, they kissed Clay. They reached up on their toes and planted little kisses on Clay’s bearded cheek, whispering gute nacht. They smelled of soap and shampoo. He mumbled a reply and watched them as they trundled off into the darkness with their mother.
‘I am blessed,’ said Jürgen after a time.
Clay thought that yes, he surely was.
They drank another beer together and then Jürgen kicked the fire out and they said goodnight to each other. Clay washed his face in the basin Astrid had set out on a tripod next to an ancient ironwood, dried his face on a towel she’d hung from one of its branches.
Eben and Adriano did not stir when Clay pulled back the tent flap. Eben had left the lantern burning on a low flame, and the golden light now flickered over their sleeping faces. A third cot beckoned, covered with an open sleeping bag and a big feather pillow. Clay killed the flame, peeled off his clothes and sank naked into the cot. He was asleep before he had time to think.
Sometime in the night, Clay woke. It was very quiet. He pushed himself up, pulled on his shorts, grabbed his sidearm, and went outside. It was cooler. Stars filled the sky. The faintest breeze stirred the leaves of the trees. He walked some way from camp, found a suitable tree and had a piss. The first in days.
He started back to camp. Starlight illuminated the two tents, threw shadows filtering across the ground, the camp chairs set around the fire pit, the Land Rover and the unhitched trailer. He was about to pull back the tent flap when he saw something twitch near the vehicle.
Clay stopped, senses firing. He peered into the semi-lit darkness, but all was still. He waited, watched. And there it was again, a definite movement. He let the tent flap fall, took a few steps forwards, moved into shadow. There on the ground, underneath the vehicle, two dark shapes. Not shadows.
Clay worked the Berretta’s action, chambered a round. Between him and the vehicle were the two tents, the fire pit and open ground to the right. He decided to flank left, towards a clump of trees, and circle in behind the trailer.
He moved quickly, keeping to the shadows. Within seconds he was poised behind the trailer. He stopped, listened. Nothing. He raised the Beretta, stepped towards the vehicle.
There, on the ground beside the vehicle two dark shapes. Intruders.
Clay was close now, nearly upon them. He trained the weapon on the closest target and braced his trigger hand. As he did, the target twisted towards him. A pair of big, pale eyes stared up at him from the darkness. Clay staggered back. It was Otto.
Beside him, Jürgen’s square-cut face, ghost-white in the starlight, nestled in the hood of his sleeping bag. His eyes were closed and his chest rose and fell in a deep, regular rhythm.
Clay lowered the handgun and put a trembling index finger to his lips.
Otto nodded, pulled his sleeping bag up around his shoulders and closed his eyes. As Clay turned away, he glanced inside the Land Rover. Stretched out across the back seat, snuggled deep into her sleeping bag, Ingrid.
Clay stood watching her sleep, tried to calm his breathing. Of course. They only had four camp cots. He hadn’t even considered it. He walked back to the tent and slipped into his cocoon. After a long time his heart slowed and he slept.
When he woke again, the sun was high and it was already hot. Eben and Adriano were still asleep. He looked at his watch. He’d slept twelve hours.
The events of the last days came flooding back: the red night of the landing strip, the tumbling bodies, the dunes and the blinding salt pan, Otto’s eyes staring up at him in the starlight. And now here. Alive. He thought of Jürgen and his wife, the way they were with each other, of their hospitality, of what he’d said about Africa. And in all of this, trepidation walked; and it was as if happiness was something to which he had lost all claim.
They stayed two more days at the camp. They ate, drank, slept. Played cards under the big tarpaulin Jürgen rigged between two trees and the vehicle. Eben and Adriano got stronger. Clay convinced Jürgen to take back two of the cots, that he and Eben were well used to sleeping rough. At Otto’s insistence, Clay field-stripped his R4 as the boy watched, reassembled it, banged off a few rounds. At night, Eben told stories around the fire: tales of knights and ladies, of monsters and shipwrecked sailors, that delighted the children. Adriano, isolated by language and race, kept to himself and seemed to respond only to Astrid.
The next morning, Jürgen took them as far as Palmvag and the crossroads with highway 43 – the main north-south trunk road that snaked down the spine of South-West Africa. Astrid gave them a plastic bag of oranges, bread, a couple of tins of tuna and some hard-boiled eggs. They filled their canteens from one of the family’s ten-litre jugs of water. Clay tried to offer them money but Jürgen pushed it away with a smile and apologies for not being able to take them further.
Clay and Eben shook hands with Jürgen. Astrid kissed Adriano. He hugged her back. As the Land Rover disappeared in the distance, Otto was still waving from the backseat.
And that was it.
Eben kicked the ground with his boot. ‘Makes you want to survive this, doesn’t it?’
Commissioner Lacy: So you saved the boy. You should be proud of what you did, Mister Straker.
Witness: How do you mean, ma’am?
Commissioner Lacy: Well, I mean, you brought him to safety.
Witness does not answer.
Commissioner Barb
our: Continue, please, Mister Straker.
Witness: From there we hitched a ride north to Opuwo. There was an army post there. We decided not to turn the boy over to military intelligence. Instead, we put in a call to Captain Blakely of 32-Battalion – the officer who had signed the order for us to accompany Brigade into Angola. We figured that was the best way to get Adriano back to his mother. And we wanted some answers.
Commissioner Ksole: 32-Battalion. They were known as ‘the terrible ones’, were they not?
Witness: By some, yes, sir. The commies – sorry, the communists – were terrified of them. They had a reputation.
Commissioner Barbour: And was Captain Blakely surprised to hear from you?
Witness: More like relieved, I guess. He said we’d been reported missing, presumed killed. He sent a transport to pick us up. When we got to the 32-Bat base on the Caprivi, he met us outside the main gates. Brigade was with him. And so was our CO, Captain Wade.
Commissioner Ksole: Did that not strike you as strange, Mister Straker, at the time?
Witness: No, sir. Not at the time. We worked pretty closely with 32-Bat, so our CO being up there didn’t seem out of the ordinary.
Commissioner Ksole: What did you tell them?
Witness: They asked us about what we’d seen on the plane. We told them.
Commissioner Ksole: Everything?
Witness: Almost everything.
Commissioner Ksole: Did you tell them about killing the man who followed you into the dunes?
Witness: No. No we didn’t.
Commissioner Ksole: And why not, Mister Straker?
Witness: We were scared.
Commissioner Ksole: Of being court-martialled? Of being accused of murder?
Witness: Yes, sir.
Commissioner Ksole: And what was their reaction?
Witness: How do you mean, sir?
Commissioner Ksole: What did the officers say when you told them about what happened on the plane?
Witness: Just that we’d done well.
Commissioner Ksole: Did they seem surprised?
Witness: I can’t say, sir.
Commissioner Ksole: And did they say anything else?
Witness: They ordered us not to tell anyone what we’d seen.
Commissioner Ksole: You were sworn to secrecy.
Witness: Yes, sir.
Commissioner Lacy: And the boy?
Witness: Captain Blakely and Brigade took the boy. Blakely promised to get him back to his mother.
Commissioner Barbour: And as far as you know, did he? Get the boy back to his mother, I mean.
Witness: Yes.
Commissioner Barbour: You are sure, Mister Straker?
Witness: Yes, sir. Absolutely sure.
18
The Final Accounting
They’d been on the road for more than an hour before Captain Wade spoke. Hunched over the steering wheel, a Cuban cigar smouldering between his lips, Wade finally replied to one of the questions Eben had been throwing out at regular intervals since leaving 32-Bat’s Caprivi headquarters.
‘I sent you boys because there was no one else I could trust.’
The Land Rover rattled over the rutted track that served as the main east-west artery paralleling the border. Wade slowed and pulled to the side of the track to let a convoy of four supply trucks rumble past in the other direction. They continued on in a choking plume of dust.
‘And does the Colonel know about this?’ said Clay.
Wade was quiet a long time, staring out at the road. His sandy hair was cut bristle short and frosted with road dust. There were deep lines in his sun-burned face. He was early thirties, but looked forty.
‘Look,’ he said, pulling the cigar from between his teeth. ‘You boys know what you saw out there. So I don’t need to tell you that there is some very bad shit happening. I’m sorry I dragged you boys into this, but I didn’t have a choice.’ He was a native English speaker, a salt-dick, like them. ‘We’ve been watching UNITA for a while now, and when this opportunity came up, we had to act.’
‘Who is “we”, sir?’ said Eben.
‘We is us, Barstow. You, me and Straker, here.
Eben shot that sarcastic grin he used whenever confronted with military doublespeak.
‘Yes, sir,’ said Clay. ‘But who can we trust?’
‘Do not talk about any of this to anyone. Do you hear me? Both of you. I need your word.’
‘You have it, sir,’ said Clay.
‘So the answer is, trust no one,’ said Eben.
‘That’s right.’
‘Who is this Zulaika woman, sir?’ asked Clay. ‘Is she really MPLA?’
Wade nodded. ‘She is. But only as a matter of convenience.’
‘So then why are we working with her, against UNITA, our allies?’
‘Look, Straker, the more I tell you boys, the more dangerous it is for you. You’re just going to have to trust me.’ Wade crushed the butt of his cigar against the top of the steering wheel and dropped it into the breast pocket of his battle tunic. ‘She told me about what you boys did in the bunker. That’s why I picked you. You get it. Most of the people here, they don’t…’ Wade trailed off into silence again.
‘Get what?’ said Eben.
‘What this whole thing is really about.’
‘Not the rool gevdar,’ said Clay. Just what the lady doctor at 1-Mil had said. As he said it, something opened up inside his chest. It felt like treason. And something else: it felt like futility.
‘No, not the fucking rool gevdar,’ said Wade, his composure momentarily gone, his eyes flashing as he turned his head to stare right at them.
Eben was smiling now, broad and wide.
‘And the Colonel, sir?’ said Clay. ‘Is he one of the people that doesn’t get it?’
‘Especially the Colonel.’
Clay swallowed hard, glanced over at Eben. Now he looked scared.
‘What about Liutenant Van Boxmeer, our platoon commander?’ said Clay.
‘God damn it Straker, I said no one. Crowbar knows nothing about this. Keep it that way. He’s just a good soldier who does what he’s told.’
Clay nodded. ‘So who is this Doctor Death?’ said Clay, pressing. ‘He’s one of ours, isn’t he?’
Wade frowned, drove on.
‘You might as well tell us, sir,’ said Eben. ‘By the sounds of it we’re already fucked anyway.’
Wade whipped his head around and glared at Eben. ‘You’re in the middle of a war, son,’ he said, swerving to avoid a pothole. ‘Of course you’re fucked.’
By the time they reached Ondangwa, the sun was low in the sky, and the bush took on that golden, late-afternoon glow that reminded Clay of summer days playing cricket and lounging in the back garden of his family home in Jo’berg. In straight-line time it wasn’t that long ago. But it felt like forever.
Wade had steadfastly refused to speak anymore of the incident and instead fell into the usual superficial conversation an officer has with his men: home, food, sleep. He dropped them five kilometres from the main gate and told them to walk the rest of the way in, and then report directly to Crowbar with the agreed story. They hadn’t seen him and he hadn’t seen them. It was for their own protection, he said.
‘Sometimes it feels wholly as if I’m living inside one, long, interrupted dream,’ said Eben as they walked back alone along the wheel-churned road, watching the sky light up flamingo pink and blood orange. ‘As if my life is not, you know, rational.’
Clay didn’t reply. He reached into his trouser pocket and pulled out the notebook he’d taken from the body of Doctor Death’s assistant out in the dunes. ‘Maybe this will tell us something.’
He opened the notebook to the first page. It was a ledger of some sort: columns of handwritten numbers and a strange shorthand of letters and Greek symbols. He flipped through the pages. The same unintelligible stuff: numbers, symbols, the occasional scrawled chemical or medical term. Inside, towards the back, was a folded sheet
, typewritten. He passed Eben the notebook and opened up the paper. It was an official document, under the seal of the South African Army Medical Service, SAMS.
‘Listen to this, bru,’ said Clay, reading from the document. ‘Subjects injected with formulation 13B – muscle relaxants: methylqualone and hydroxyl pheylbenzenacetic acid (60%); anaesthetic: etomidate (20%); central nervous system depressants (sleeping agent): phenobarbital (20%). Subjects exhibited rapid interference with motor function, immediate loss of coordination and muscle control, and confusion and lethargy, followed by seizures and terminal respiratory failure. Reduced dose and potency recommended.’
Clay stared at his friend, the coldest shiver creasing the length of his spine. ‘That’s what those poes were doing out there that night. They were injecting those poor bastards with this shit. Did you hear that: “Immediate loss of muscle control.”’ He shook his head. ‘Can you fucking believe it?’
Eben grabbed the paper. Clay walked on in silence, the weight of his rifle and the ordnance filling his Fireforce vest suddenly an almost intolerable burden.
‘Holy Mother of God,’ said Eben. ‘Listen: “Lower dosage. Formulation 14C. Substitute neuromuscular blockers with MDMA one for two. Subjects display slower onset of paralysis. Respiratory failure delayed or prevented. Total loss of muscle control temporary. Recovery expected within twenty-four hours.”’ He looked up at Clay.
‘Adriano,’ said Clay.
Eben nodded.
‘Lab rats,’ said Clay. ‘That’s what they were using them for. No wonder they wanted to get rid of the evidence.’
‘Moeder van God,’ said Eben. ‘Our own medical corps.’
‘Look at the header,’ said Clay, cold creeping through him now, despite the searing tropical heat. ‘Operation COAST.’
Eben grabbed the paper. ‘Holy shit.’
‘The doctor’s message, from 1-Mil. The doctor’s operation.’
‘She knows.’
‘Or she suspects. That was why she used a cipher. She must be under surveillance.’
‘BOSS.’
Reconciliation for the Dead Page 16