by Chris Ryan
I stood braced, with the rifle in my hands, finger on the trigger, ready for Muende to appear. When he didn’t, I yelled, ‘Come out!’
The trunk of the ebony was nearly a metre thick, and although I knew he was there, about ten feet from me, I couldn’t see any part of him. Glancing at Inge, I saw she’d stopped moving.
I took a step to my right, then another. After the second, I could see boots – black, army-type boots with the heels together, toes pointing downwards. The guy was stretched out on his front, grovelling into the earth. Two more steps, and his whole body was in view. He was wearing pale-coloured, lightweight DPMs, and had his face pressed into a groove between two large roots, as though he was trying to shut out the danger. His forehead was against the base of the trunk, hands clasped on top of his head. There was a sub-machine gun lying on the ground beside him, but it was out of his reach.
I went forward and kicked him in the ribs. ‘On your feet, cunt!’ I shouted.
His eyes were rolling as he looked up at me. For a few seconds he seemed paralysed by fear. Then, slowly, he hauled himself up and stood shaking with his back against the tree.
‘All right, Muende,’ I went. ‘You know who I am.’
He ran his tongue round his lips as he shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I’ve never seen you in my life.’
‘You fucking have. It was me you had beaten up the other night. The night you tortured my mate and ate his liver. You may have been pissed, but you can’t have forgotten.’
As comprehension dawned, the guy’s terror increased. He began to shake so violently that drops of sweat went flying in all directions off his forehead.
‘What do you want?’
‘The diamond. That’s all.’
‘What diamond?’
‘The one you’ve just recovered from the plane.’
‘Look,’ he said, ‘take it easy. There’s some mistake here.’
He sounded pure American, and for a few moments his easy natural authority started to assert itself. But I wasn’t in a mood to argue.
I drove the muzzle of the 203 hard into the top of his bulging stomach, stepped back, and said, ‘You’ve got thirty seconds to produce it.’
He doubled forward with a gasp. As he straightened up again, his bloodshot eyes went fromthe barrel of the rifle to my face and back. Then, he said, ‘You win.’
‘Where is it?’
‘On my belt.’
I looked at his midriff and saw a pouch of thick black canvas. It was too small to contain a pistol, the wrong shape for a knife.
‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Take the belt off and throw it to me. Then get your hands above your head.’
He did as ordered. The belt landed at my feet. I picked it up and withdrew another pace. The pouch was modern, with a Velcro fastener on the flap. With one hand I ripped it open. Inside was a suede leather bag with something hard inside.
It needed teeth as well as fingers to pull out the string round the neck of the bag, but at last I got it open and looked down. There, in the nest of blue suede, sat a lump of what looked like brilliantly flashing glass. Forget pigeon’s eggs, this thing was the size of a chicken’s egg, for God’s sake. The sight of it made my breath catch. I closed the bag by folding the long neck over and rolling it round, then stowed it in my right-hand belt pouch.
Muende’s eyes had followed every movement of the stone, as if it were magnetic. Then, suddenly, he came away from the tree a couple of paces.
‘Stop!’ I yelled.
But he was only trying to buy time. He went down on his knees, with his hands together up in front of him, like he was praying in church.
‘Look!’ he cried, in a high, beseeching voice. ‘You’ve got it! You’re going to be rich for the rest of your life. You don’t ever need to work again.’
I was too fired up to feel embarrassed at this grovelling. I just felt hatred, mixed with contempt. All I spat at him was, ‘So?’
‘Who gave you the diamond? I did! You don’t need to shoot me. It won’t get you anywhere.’
The guy was screaming pitifully. Still I just glared at him. Then, I said, ‘Don’t worry. I’m not going to shoot you.’
He didn’t know what I meant. How could he? He couldn’t see what I could see. Jason was silently creeping up on him from behind. But until the last second even I didn’t realise what my trusty henchman was planning.
Suddenly, I saw that in his right hand he was holding aloft his fearsome machete. From a metre behind Muende, he sprang. The blade flashed through dappled sunlight and buried itself – thunk! – in the right-hand side of its victim’s neck. The blow was so violent that it almost severed the head. Blood spurted from the jugular, fountaining on to the ground at my feet. With half a groan the self-styled President of Free Kamanga toppled sideways to the ground. Before his limbs had stopped twitching, Jason swung in a backhanded second strike from the other side and cut through the rest of the neck. The next thing I knew, the head came rolling towards my feet with the eyes still opening and shutting.
I stood rooted, too shocked to speak. Jason was exactly the opposite. He went stomping off round the ebony glade, throwing back his head, letting off triumphant yells, leaping in the air, whirling his machete in fancy passes above his head. His wildness scared me shitless. What if he decided he wanted the diamond for himself?
The headless body kept quivering. I walked away from it and sat down heavily on a fallen log with my back to the scene of the massacre. The first thing I needed was a drink. My hands were shaking as I unscrewed the cap of the water-bottle. I took two big gulps, then steeled myself to save the rest.
It was several minutes before I’d chilled out enough to look at the diamond again, and when I got it in the palm of my hand I began to shake again, from wonder at the sheer size and brilliance of the stone. It didn’t take an expert to see that this was one in a million, worth millions. I stared into its glittering depths half mesmerised. Here in my hand I held a secure future, not only for myself and Tim, but for all the survivors of the team. I thought of the night we’d sat round the fire with Rhino Bakunda, joking about what we’d do if we won the lottery. Well, now Pav would be able to hire Concorde and go screwing in the South Seas, Chalky could buy his yacht, Danny his arms business.
Or would any of that happen? Immediately, I began to think of problems. Number one: in the SAS you’re supposed to hand in any booty that comes your way. Often, with minor gains, the lads ignore the rules, but what would I do with something of such value? Number two: the diamond would have to be cut before it was worth anything. How would I find a cutter or a dealer who could be relied on to keep quiet? Would I get landed with an asset I couldn’t cash in?
Suddenly, a gust of wind got up. I heard it coming, a stir in the ebony grove. Leaves began to flutter, branches swung, and a cool blast of air came swirling past me from behind. In that stifling noonday heat any drop in temperature should have been welcome. But to me it was sinister and full of menace, because I instantly associated it with the night that Phil, Mart and I had stood in front of the witch doctor, when the child had died.
The breeze died away as quickly as it had come. All round me the leaves settled. Except for the go-away bird, which was still calling, stillness returned to the trees. I glanced across to see what Jason was doing. He’d gone down on his knees at the foot of a tree, and appeared to be praying, giving thanks.
I looked back at the great rock. Why had that wind come at the very moment I held it in my hand? Was it a natural phenomenon, caused by the hot air rising somewhere else, and the shape of the grove we were in? A couple of months before I’d have said it was. I’d have believed the timing of it was pure coincidence. Now I wasn’t so sure. What I did know for certain was that I wanted nothing more to do with the diamond. No matter how many millions it might be worth, I knew it would only bring me bad luck. I didn’t even want to look at it any more. Hurriedly, I fumbled it back into the blue bag and drew the neck strings together.
&nbs
p; Jason was back on his feet and walking towards me with a big grin on his face. Skirting the bodies, I went to meet him. As we met he put up his right hand, palm forward, and I smacked mine against it – high fives, like footballers celebrating a goal.
‘Fucking great!’ I went. ‘You got ’em.’
‘Yassir! They don’t make no more trouble.’
‘Not for us,’ I said. ‘Not for anyone.’
Flies were already clustering on the fresh blood. Africa would deal with the bodies in short order.
‘Jason,’ I said, holding out the blue bag, ‘you’d better have this.’
He took it in his long, elegant fingers and held it in both hands.
‘Open it,’ I told him. ‘Have a look.’
Once again the diamond blazed in a shaft of sunlight, bright as a halogen lamp, so bright that I had to look away. Jason gave a whistle, and stared in astonishment.
‘Ever seen one like that?’ I asked.
He shook his head.
‘Take it, anyway.’
‘No, sah. It is for you, not me.’ He held the damned thing out towards me.
‘I don’t want it.’ I waved it away. ‘I want you to have it. But be careful. Don’t mention it to anyone. If somebody knows you’ve got it, they’ll kill you for it. Take it to Mulongwe and sell it there, quickly. You’ll be a rich man for the rest of your life – big house, car, television, everything.’
For what seemed a long time, he held it steadily in his fingers, gazing at it. Then he looked up at me, said, ‘Zikomo, sah,’ very gracefully, and slipped it back into the bag.
As he stowed it in a belt-pouch I sensed immediate relief, as if a burden had been lifted from me. At the same time I felt entirely disorientated. I had to think hard to remember where the hell we were, and even harder to dream up some way of getting back to civilisation.
‘So,’ I began. ‘The first thing is to head for the pinkie and mend that puncture. D’you know where it is?’
‘Yassir.’ He made one of his expansive gestures, flinging out a hand and pointing back up the hill. I’d been on the point of digging in my bergen for the GPS, but by then I trusted Jason’s sense of direction implicitly, and was happy to walk on the line he gave.
I never went near the body of the German woman, or even took a close look at it. Like the diamond, she was already part of my past. We just pulled on our Bergens and left the ebony glade to the go-away bird who lived there.
Two hours later we were back at the pinkie. Jason helped mend the punctures in both tyres, and as we worked he explained how, if I skirted the hills to the west, I would pick up another dirt road running northwards. With the wheels back in place, I emptied the last jerrican of diesel into the tank, and by 1500 I was ready to move.
Until the last moment, I assumed Jason was coming with me. He’d given no indication of having any other plan. But when I said, ‘Right, all aboard,’ he replied, ‘I go this way,’ and gestured to the east.
I was taken aback. For one thing, he was an extremely valuable escort. For another, I didn’t like the thought of him alone, on foot, in that hostile environment. But when I asked, ‘Are you sure?’ he simply nodded, and I knew there was no point in arguing.
‘Good luck, then. Got plenty of water?’
He nodded, patting the full bottles in his belt-kit.
‘And thanks for all your help.’ I grinned, holding out my hand.
He took it in a firm grip, and said, with a smile, ‘Zikomo!’ and then ‘Nayenda.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘I am walking away.’
I banged him on his bony shoulder, climbed into the driving seat, started up and set off downhill. The last I saw of him, he was striding away over the big rocks.
Three or four hundred metres on, I came out on to a low ridge and stopped. Looking back, I had a long view of the mountainside behind. Jason should have been in sight. He couldn’t have reached the far skyline already. Yet somehow he’d vanished. For three or four minutes I sat watching, expecting him to emerge from a gully or hollow. Yet in all that arid landscape, nothing moved. Africa seemed to have swallowed my faithful companion, and I drove on, knowing I would never see him again.
EIGHTEEN
Soon after Tim and I had eaten our packed lunch on the summit of Pen-y-Fan, the last of the clouds blew away and the band of rain gave way to a golden autumn afternoon. The sunshine, soft and gentle after the glare of Africa, encouraged me to keep talking and talking.
So did Tim. I didn’t tell him all the gory details, of course: for instance, I only said that Whinger had been executed, and that at the end Jason had shot Muende. But I gave him a pretty good account of what had happened. Several times I sent him running off round some minor landmark, to keep his blood moving and give myself a break, and when he came back he was always full of questions. The longer we talked, the more I admired his intelligence, and his desire to get things straight.
He’d almost floored me, early on, when he said, ‘If you die, Dad, what’s going to happen to me?’
The question caught me below the belt, and I tried to turn it aside by saying jokily, ‘Who said I’m going to die? I’m not planning on that yet.’
‘No,’ he persisted. ‘But where will I live?’
I told him he could stay on with his gran and gramp, or with his cousins.
But there was something pathetic about his anxiety. I could see he felt thoroughly insecure, and whose fault was it that he had no proper home?
It was better when we kept to Africa.
‘That scar on your cheek,’ he said. ‘How did you get that?’
‘Somebody slammed me with a rifle butt. Mart wanted to put stitches in the cut, but we didn’t have time.’
His next question was, ‘How did you get out?’
‘Luck, really,’ I told him. ‘I drove most of that first night. When it started to get light, I lay up again. I had food and water, remember. I was nearly out of fuel, so I was just planning to drive until the engine cut. But when I started again the next night, I came on a truck that had crashed into a ditch and been abandoned. Nobody had bothered to drain the tank, so I did it for them.’
‘How d’you drain a tank?’
‘With a piece of pipe. We’d been carrying one in the pinkie for that very purpose. You push one end down into the tank, and suck back until the fuel’s almost at the top. Then you bend the tube down until your end’s lower than the other one, and the petrol or diesel runs out into your can.’
Tim considered this, frowning, then said, ‘But why does it run?’
‘Gravity. Once you’ve got it going, it works fine. But you have to be careful not to suck too hard, or you get the stuff in your mouth, and it tastes horrible.’ I glanced down at him, and went on, ‘Anyway, then I had enough diesel to drive back to the place where we flew Andy’s body out from. Remember – where we cleared a strip of road? Luckily, the coordinates for that were still in Stringer’s GPS. With the satcom I got a message out to Hereford. They contacted the civilian pilot who air-lifted Andy’s body, and he came and picked me up in his Cessna.’
‘Then what?’
‘I thought I might get arrested if anyone saw me in Mulongwe. So I got him to fly me to Harare, which is a bit friendlier.’
‘Did you pay him?’
‘I couldn’t. I didn’t have a single kwatcha on me.’
‘What’s a kwatcha?’
‘Kamangan money. One kwatcha is worth about a hundredth of a penny.’
‘Who did pay him, then?’
‘The Regiment, I hope. I told him to e-mail a bill to Hereford.’
Tim scuffed his trainers together, and asked, ‘How big was the diamond, exactly?’
‘I can’t say exactly. But about like this.’ I held up finger and thumb. ‘It must be one of the biggest ever found. Worth millions if it’s sound. They have to cut tiny pieces off, to see if there are any flaws.’
‘You ought to have kept it, then.’
�
�I told you, I had a feeling it would bring bad luck. I didn’t dare keep it. Somehow the witch doctor had put a spell on it. Look what it did to Muende and the German woman.’
‘What were they going to do with it?’
‘Good question. Apparently they were planning to do a runner – leave the country altogether. Interpol – that’s the police – found out they were going to do a bunk to Mexico. That shows you how powerful the diamond was. Is, I mean. For months Muende had been directing a civil war, trying to take over the country. He thought he was about to get his hands on nuclear weapons. If he’d managed that, he could have terrorised the north and taken charge of the whole of Kamanga. Then, suddenly, he had a fortune in his hands, and it went to his head. All at once politics didn’t matter any more. He threw everything over, just for money.’
Tim thought for a while, then said, ‘Were you going to kill them yourself?’
‘I was planning on it. I was that angry. But, luckily, Jason did it for me. In the end I was glad I didn’t have to.’
‘Did the police interview you?’
‘Of course.’
‘What did you tell them about the diamond?’
‘I said I threw it into a river because I knew it was unlucky.’
Another gap, and then, ‘You should have gone back to the witch doctor and made him take the spell off it.’
‘I thought of that. But in the end it didn’t seem possible. If I’d shown him the rock, he’d have tried to claim it for himself. And if I’d reappeared in that village, where the boy died, I’d have been torn to pieces.’
‘Were you scared of him?’
‘Yes, I was. So was Phil. When that cold wind came, there was something going on we couldn’t understand.’
‘Will Jason be all right?’
‘You mean medically? I don’t know. I’m afraid he may have got a dose of radiation from being so close to the warheads. I hope not, but I can’t be sure.’