The Watchman

Twenty-One

There wasn’t much to do while we flew, save listen to Piet’s occasional commentary, check out the scenery, and try not to dwell on the fact that I was sitting in an open bucket seat with bits of aluminium tubing, fabric and wires holding us in the air. I occupied myself instead by counting the number of people or vehicles down below, and wondering what kind of reception committee we might run into if we got unlucky.

‘Where do they come from?’ I said over the intercom. ‘The people on the track.’ The ant-like figures were moving slowly in line along a thin trail of bare earth, heading towards Malindi. I couldn’t see any signs of habitation and wondered how far they had walked. It was a common enough sight in Africa, where people had to walk kilometres for food, water, medicines or schools — all stuff we take for granted in the west. But it still amazed me every time.

‘Some are traders off the offshore islands, like Lamu and Kiswayu,’ he said shortly. ‘The rest are mainland locals. Any heading south are probably Somali illegals. If they’re lucky and miss the army and police patrols, they’ll get through to Mombasa and disappear.’

I wondered how he could tell. To my untrained eye the walkers were dots against the landscape. He’d said earlier that we would be flying at 1,500 feet, which gave us a spectacular view of the countryside below, but no real detail save for endless patterns of greens and reddish-brown, of grassland and scrub through a shimmering haze. Off to our right was a silver sheen where the sun was reflecting off the sea, and I could just about make out the curved scimitar-shapes of sails as local boats moved offshore. The sky above us was a brilliant blue all the way to the horizon.

‘Going down,’ he said after another thirty minutes. ‘There’s a section of fence out and I need to check it. If we’re being watched it might look odd if I don’t.’

We lost height and began to circle round, and I tried to spot the damaged fence, but couldn’t. Piet brought us to within a hundred feet of the ground, his shoulders working to keep us level, and I saw we were running parallel to a long stretch of wire fencing. He stabbed a finger out and I saw a gaping hole where the wire had been cut and peeled back. Tyre tracks were plainly visible in the soft earth running in a north-westerly direction away from the coast.

‘Poachers,’ Piet said. ‘I’ll have to call it in to HQ.’ He regained height again and levelled off, then got on the radio and gave the details and coordinates to somebody on the other end.

‘What will happen?’ I queried, when he switched off. If Piet was forced to divert or drop me off early somewhere, I’d be behind the band.

‘They’ll send out an armed patrol. Be lucky, though, if they find them. They could be anywhere. It’ll be down to the trackers.’

We flew on until he took us down again, this time just short of the town of Kiunga. We drank water and stretched our legs, and Piet showed me a map of the area.

‘We’re about ten kilometres from the border. I can drop you about here.’ He showed me a position north of the town and right up against the border with Somalia. It would put me about two kilometres from the town of Kamboni. ‘I pass this way often enough checking the area around the Kwaggavoetpad and Boni reserves, so the locals know my machine. The area on the other side is a park, too, but I’ve got no business over there. Any closer than this and the spotters on both sides of the border might start wondering what I’m doing.’

‘Spotters?’

‘They keep an eye out for army, police patrols and anti-smuggling units, and sell the info to whoever will buy it — including your pirate fellows. Spotters can be farmers, homesteaders, fishermen — anybody.’

‘The guard at Malindi?’

He gave me a quick look. ‘Why do you say that?’

I told him about the man taking a snapshot on his cell phone. It had seemed such a natural thing to do, I hadn’t thought anything of it until we were in the air. In common with others in my line of business, I’m wary of having my photo taken, especially when on assignment on foreign soil.

‘He was probably unused to seeing me go two-up,’ he said eventually. But he didn’t sound convinced. ‘Can you manage from there?’

I nodded. It would be easy enough. I’d walked bush country before, and in hostile territory. Some things are like riding a bike; as long as you don’t get cocky, you’ll survive.

Piet replenished his fuel from the spare tank to avoid having to stop again until he was well clear of the area, then we took off for the last leg.

‘We’ll be going in low,’ he explained over the roar of the engine. ‘Anybody down there will hear us but won’t see us until we’re right overhead.’

As we cleared a line of thin trees and levelled out, this time disturbingly close to the ground, I caught a glimpse of the sea less than a kilometre away to our right. Seeing it all this close was a reminder that this was where things started getting serious.

Twenty minutes later I was alone and on foot, watching from the sparse cover of an acacia tree as Piet took off. Behind me was the border, a vague no-man’s land marked by an occasional line of posts running into the distance.

On the other side lay bandit country.

I waited for Piet to get clear, then checked my bearings. Night-time falls quickly in Africa, like God throws a switch, and I needed to get across the border before it was fully dark. But being prepared before you move is a must-do thing. A gun is no good if it doesn’t do what you want the first time of asking, and having to search for something vital in the dark can seriously slow you down if you can’t put your hand on it right away. I checked my weapons again to make sure they were fully functioning, then opened my backpack.

What I needed first was a lightweight ghillie net. By itself it was no use unless I wanted to catch fish; by adding bits of local foliage, it would become part of the background, under which I would hide if anybody came along. Ghillies were commonly used by snipers and forward observers, some made up in the form of elaborate suits. I preferred something easy to pull over me, yet quick to throw off if I needed to respond suddenly to a threat.

With the ghillie ‘shrubbed up’, I called Vale. He picked up on the third ring.

‘I’m about an hour out from the RV,’ I reported. ‘I’ll be going in on foot, crossing the border in fifteen.’

‘Good to hear.’ He sounded relieved but concerned. ‘Our people are still at the hotel in Nairobi. We’ve had a man checking flight bookings out of Jomo Kenyatta International for tomorrow but he hasn’t found anything yet. If they take an air taxi or a private flight, which is the most likely, we won’t know when they leave until too late.’ He sounded frustrated at the lack of hard information, and I guessed he was having to take a back seat at SIS headquarters and not ask too many questions.

I sympathized. It would have helped to know more. A lot more. With no idea of how or when his people would get to the coast, I was in danger of going in blind. And if the other side changed the venue of the meeting, I would be left sitting out here with nothing to do and nowhere to go. I couldn’t watch over them until I got a visual, but I also needed to be close to the meeting venue early, to assess what forces I was up against. For that I would need to find the villa and get right up close to it before morning.

I shut off the phone and packed it away, then threw the ghillie net over me and set off towards the border.

What I didn’t know was that I’d already been spotted.