Recoil

13

It took the best part of an hour to finish the digging, get the metal in and the claymores set and prepared. The sun had never won its fight with the cloud, but could still be seen trying to break through as it dipped towards the end of the valley.

I had run det cord from both dugouts. They met behind the mound where Tim had been dumped. The two lots were of different lengths, with one running across the valley entrance and the other up to the higher ground on this side. Differing lengths could sometimes cause problems; ideally, they should be the same so there’s simultaneous detonation. But these claymores were so far apart it wasn’t as if the first one kicking off a nanosecond before the other would dislodge or compromise its mate. And to any LRA within reach, it would be one big, fuck-off bang.

Crucial and I had trodden the det cord from the right-hand claymore into the mud to avoid any LRA feet kicking it out of the devices as they came screaming into the valley.

To make best use of the killing area, Sam would want the first wave to come into the sangars’ arcs of fire before he gave the order to detonate. The claymores would then take them down as they moved along the riverbank and the entrance to the valley, and we got to kill more of them more quickly. We might even have a chance of being alive at the end of it.

Crucial was on his way back from the stores with the firing cable, the detonator and the firing device. Sam would make the decision as to when the plunger would be depressed and the electric current sent down the two-strand firing cable. That would initiate the detonator, which would initiate the det cord that ran to the balls of HE at the heart of the claymores. In less than a second, all our hard work would be history, and so would be a whole pile of LRA.

I concentrated 100 per cent on making sure I assembled the devices right. I was already cutting myself away from the fact that some of the targets getting the good news from these things tonight would be kids.

Crucial came back with the goodies. ‘I’m going to see the children before I join Sam. You OK?’

I nodded. I didn’t need him. This next bit was a one-man drill – in case I fucked up and the whole lot exploded prematurely. ‘Just bring in the gunners. We need them in now.’

He screamed and shouted at the sangars. A guy jumped out like a jack-in-the-box and started relaying the order.

I wasn’t going to do anything until they were all sitting on the safe side of the claymores. While I waited, I took the ends of the firing cable, twisted them together and pushed it into the mud. Earthing was an SOP: if the cable still held a residual current, it might be enough to initiate the det when I attached it.

Crucial stood behind me, waiting for everyone to take his position. Everything had gone quiet. No gunfire, no shouts, just the constant racket of the cicadas taking over the world.

‘The kid you condemned to death? You talking about Sunday?’

Neither of us was looking at the other.

‘How did you know?’

‘Don’t need to be a brain surgeon to work that one out, mate. The drugs, flapping about contaminating Tim, oh, and all that “What have I got to lose?” shite.’

He stood stock still, gazing out over the valley. He might have been carved from stone.

‘It wasn’t the pain that made me cry out when he bit me. It was seeing him with a mouthful of my blood. I have given him HIV, Nick. I have killed him.’

‘How long you had it?’

‘After I fell from the helicopter Sam took me to an aid station outside Kinshasa. The blood transfusion was contaminated.’

‘I’m no doctor, mate, but Sunday’s got more chance of being struck by lightning. Your peripheral blood will be infectious, but not highly. And it was only one exposure. He can be tested anyway. And, as for you, the new drugs keep people alive for years. You’ve got plenty of time yet before you have that sit-down with God.’

He nodded, then smiled. ‘I keep telling myself that, but it’s good to hear it from someone else. Thank you, Nick.’

Fuck me, I seemed to be doling out happy pills today like they were going out of style. ‘Not a problem, mate. I was saying it to cheer myself up, as much as anything else. After all, if I hadn’t dropped you . . .’

It was my turn to concentrate hard on the treeline. I certainly didn’t want to catch his eye. ‘I killed another kid today. Point blank in the face.’

Crucial rested a giant hand on my shoulder. ‘And your claymores are going to kill more. That’s why you must stay and help us. We have to make sure people like Standish and Kony are never able to do this again, ever.’

He was so close I could see the thin line of cement round his diamonds, and smell his parched breath. ‘We have to stop it, Nick.’

The gunners arrived. He left without another word, and I got to work.

If I hadn’t earthed the cable correctly, I was about to find out.

I picked up the dets. They were loose in the bag, a demolition man’s nightmare: twenty or so aluminium tubes the size of half a cigarette, and the two thin metre-long wires that protruded from the back of each weren’t twisted together like they should have been. Left apart, the wires act like antennae and can pick up a radio signal or atmospheric electricity. Either could be enough to initiate the det, and this area was no stranger to electrical storms. They could have gone up at any moment.

I pulled one out, untwisted the firing cable wires again, turned my back on the whole process, and joined one to the first of the det wires.

If there was any electricity in the firing cable, it would flow to the det when I connected the second wires. It wouldn’t exactly blow my fingers off, but I’d collect a few splinters in the arse.

I closed my eyes and touched the two ends together.