Before the African could speak, Ben pulled the leather pouch from his pocket and held it up above his head.
‘This is what you want,’ Ben called up to Khosa. He had to shout hard to be heard over the deafening noise of the helicopter. ‘You get no argument from us. It’s yours. I let you have it, you spare our lives. Do we have a deal?’
‘You’re just going to give it to him?’ Jude yelled at Ben.
‘Do we have a deal?’ Ben shouted up at the chopper.
Khosa smiled behind the megaphone. ‘Oh, yes, we will have a deal. Thank you for keeping it for me, soldier.’ His voice was deep and resonant, its sonorous bass tones exaggerated over the loudspeaker. He lowered the megaphone and spoke briefly to the man on his right. Whatever was said, the man stared blankly at Khosa and listened. He didn’t show any reaction. He didn’t nod, because nodding would imply agreement, and agreement would imply that there was any notion of democracy going on here. If Khosa had told the man to jump into the sea, the man would have done it without hesitation. Or if Khosa had handed him a pistol and instructed him to blow out his own brains, he would have done that too.
Instead, from the man’s response, Ben understood that Khosa had ordered him to climb down to the raft. With instant obedience the man slung his rifle over his shoulder on its sling, then lowered himself over the edge of the hatch so that his legs dangled in space. Then he grabbed hold of the sides of the rope ladder and twisted himself out and down and started scrabbling quickly down its length. Ben recognised him as one of the pirates they’d captured on board the Andromeda, except that he’d exchanged his loose, ripped T-shirt and frayed shorts for military khakis. He was the one of Khosa’s men to whom Ben had shown the controls for the MOB lifeboat before sending them all on their way. Doing the right thing.
The man kept descending the ladder. He was only a skinny little guy, but the laws of physics were immutable. The further down he reached, the more his weight, combined with the side-to-side motion of the hovering chopper, made him sway like a pendulum. As he got to the bottom, he twisted his neck to look down, waiting for the right moment to let go. If he misjudged it, he’d be in the sea. Ben wanted to see that happen, especially if one of the sharks circling hidden beneath the surface happened to get lucky.
But the man judged it correctly, and he let go of the ladder just as it was swinging towards the bottom and middle of its arc, and landed like a gymnast on his feet on the edge of the raft. The impact made the whole makeshift construction shake. The man quickly unslung his rifle and pointed it at Ben and the others. Technically unnecessary, with several more guns already aimed their way from above, but it was a dramatic gesture and Ben guessed the man wanted to look properly ferocious and aggressive in front of his commander. Or maybe he was just stupid.
If he was, Khosa certainly wasn’t. Even from a position of complete strategic superiority, he was being careful. He raised the megaphone back to his mouth and called down, ‘Throw your weapons in the water.’
Ben shrugged. It wasn’t as if he could do much anyway, under the circumstances. The guns were one step to his left. He replaced the leather pouch in his pocket, then held his arms out from his sides, palms splayed, and slowly crouched down. He could feel the hard lump of the diamond pressing against his thigh. No sudden moves. With great delicacy he reached for the weapons and picked one up in each hand, holding them by their barrels, butt-down, making a show of how harmless and well-intentioned he was. Not without some regret, he tossed the submachine gun over the edge of the raft and into the sea. Followed by the pistol. The smaller, lighter weapon made a smaller splash than the first. Ben gazed at the ripples and wistfully visualised the guns spiralling down to the ocean bed. Then he splayed out his arms again and stepped back, and glanced up at Khosa aboard the chopper as if to say, ‘Okay, what next?’
‘Now hand over my diamond,’ Khosa ordered from above.
My diamond. As if it had been his all along. As if all he was doing here was rightfully reclaiming his lost property. Ben wondered if Khosa somehow actually believed that. Was he really that crazy?
Ben thought so.
But he had no idea at that moment how crazy Khosa truly was. That was all set to change.
Ben took the leather pouch back out of his pocket. Again, no sudden moves, no surprises, no whipping out of a concealed weapon with which he might miraculously redress the situation and save the day. Ben held out the pouch at arm’s length and took one step towards the man on the raft, who was watching Ben’s every twitch with his finger on the trigger. His face was covered in sweat and his eyes were wide with fear, as if he thought Ben could break his neck at any moment. Ben would gladly have proven him right. But even the most fragile deal was still a deal. For now, at any rate.
The man wedged the butt of his rifle under his right armpit to support its weight, holding it one-handed while he edged forward and reached out with his left hand to snatch the leather pouch from Ben’s fingers. He did it furtively, anxiously, like a nervous but hungry dog overcoming its suspicion to accept a titbit from a potentially menacing stranger.
In that moment, the diamond was back in Khosa’s possession. Ben’s pocket suddenly felt strangely empty. The man with the rifle stuffed the pouch into his pocket, slung his weapon back over his bony shoulder and turned to clamber up the rope ladder. Three seconds later, he was back aboard the helicopter and handing the pouch to his commander, who snatched it from him with imperious disdain and opened it to peer inside.
A great glowing smile spread over Khosa’s scarred face. My diamond. Reunited at last.
‘Outstanding. There goes our only tactical advantage,’ Jeff muttered from behind Ben’s shoulder.
Ben glanced back at him. ‘What would you have me do?’
But Jeff was right, too. Now they were left with nothing. No weapons, no bargaining chips. Just their trust in the forbearance of their fellow man. It wasn’t a great feeling.
Ben turned back to look up at the helicopter. Any moment now, he thought, they would find out whether or not Khosa was going to honour his side of the deal.
And a moment later, they had their answer.