The Watchman

Forty-Two

I got back to my hide and gave it a full ten minutes before moving again. If I’d triggered any alert senses in the guards, they were keeping it under their hats and waiting to see what I did next.

When I judged it to be safe, I called Vale. For once there was no answer. I tried again a few minutes later. Probably in conference somewhere.

I used the waiting time to check the remote triggers in the subdued glow of a pocket flashlight covered in gauze. The triggers weren’t back-room jobs, put together by guys with missing fingers and using fertilizer and packaging tape. They were state of the art, with the knob on the top numbered, each number matching that of a detonator. A flat button was built into the side of each trigger and covered in rubber. Simple and sophisticated. Turn the knob to the required number and hit the button. All you had to do was remember which detonator was where and make sure you weren’t still holding on to one of the devices with the detonator in place when you set it off.

Unless Musa had a few willing suicide bombers among his followers, in which case it wouldn’t matter.

I heard the grind of vehicle engines coming. Two sets of headlights were bouncing along the track from town. At the same time I heard shouts from the guards around the building and saw a bunch of figures pushing out of the door and assembling to the rear. In the spillage of light from inside, I could see that they all carried rifles and were spreading out to form a welcoming committee.

Something or somebody had poked a stick into the hornets’ nest.

The incoming vehicles were a pickup truck and an SUV loaded with armed men. They stopped a little way out and the men dismounted and walked the rest of the way, while the vehicles turned round and faced back the way they had come.

I couldn’t make out much detail amid the huddle of bodies, but when they got closer I saw that two of the men were holding a third by the arms, while another was kicking and slapping him repeatedly. I felt sickened when I realized who it was.

Madar.

From his body posture he didn’t look good. The men must have already given him a beating before he got here. He was making noises of protest, his voice thin and desperate, and I wondered what he’d done to run foul of the men in Kamboni. Not that it mattered now.

Then all the shouting stopped and Musa appeared, easing his way through the melee with calm authority. He was shadowed closely by the tubby figure of Xasan.

Musa addressed Madar and got him to lift his chin with a sharp smack of his hand. I was too far off to gauge his tone of voice, but it was clear he wasn’t a happy man. Madar didn’t say much, but whatever it was got him a sharp slap in the face from Musa, followed by a punch to the chest. Madar folded in two and hit the ground, his cry of pain high-pitched and reaching me up the slope.

For just a second my hand was on the AK, anger coursing through me like acid. This was my doing. A part of my brain was calculating how many men I could take out after killing Musa. He would be the easiest, but after that things would get problematic.

Then I stopped. Instead of reaching for an AK like last time, Musa pointed at the villa and shouted an order. The two men who had brought Madar in picked him up and dragged him inside, while the remainder stood around in silence, waiting for the boss man to speak.

It wasn’t long in coming. Musa raised his hands and all eyes were on him in an instant. He spoke calmly and at length, arms still raised, his voice rising and falling like a priest — or, in this case, a mullah — before his congregation. Nobody shuffled their feet, nobody moved so much as a flicker. They were frozen still.

When he finished, he pointed towards the east and dropped his hands. They all let out a cheer and began slapping each other on their backs as if they’d won the lottery. Some of the men began making their way inside, while Musa and the remainder walked over to the SUV and the pickup and began piling on board.

I didn’t have to have heard or understood what Musa had said; his gestures towards the horizon were clear enough. And now he was off to rally even more support among the faithful. He wanted a crowd for the big event, and thanks to Madar, I knew what that was.

Worse, he now had another victim for ritual slaughter.