Star of Africa

Chapter 36

Even at this distance, Khosa’s victorious smile was brighter than the burning hot sun that was bearing down on them out of the cloudless sky. He gave the leather pouch a loving squeeze in his fist, as if savouring the knowledge of what was inside. Then he tucked the pouch into the pocket of his combat jacket and raised the megaphone to his mouth once more.

‘Thank you, soldier,’ the big voice boomed out over the blast of the chopper. ‘Now you will all come with me.’

‘Oh, shit,’ Tuesday said. Gerber and Hercules exchanged terse glances. Jude turned suddenly pale. Jeff ground his jaw tighter.

‘That wasn’t the deal,’ Ben shouted up. ‘You have the diamond. Now leave us.’

Khosa’s amplified laughter roared down at them like thunder. ‘I said we would have a deal, soldier. My deal. Take it, or die. It is your choice.’

Ben looked at Jeff. Jeff wasn’t saying anything.

‘Good,’ chuckled the booming voice from above. ‘Now you will all climb aboard. Starting with the boy.’

Ben looked uncertainly at Jude. Jude returned his glance. What do I do? his expression read.

‘The boy first,’ Khosa repeated over the megaphone. ‘Or he dies first.’ Without looking back over his shoulder, he snapped his fingers theatrically and two of his men instantly appeared to the left and right of him, rifles shouldered and trained on Jude. With the up-down, side-to-side drift of the chopper their aim couldn’t be that steady or precise. But with their weapons set to fully-automatic fire, it didn’t need to be.

‘Remember I said I had a bad feeling about this?’ Tuesday said. ‘It just got worse.’

‘What does that maniac want with us?’ Gerber asked.

Ben said, ‘I don’t know.’

‘I do,’ Hercules said. ‘He’s gonna put a bullet in our asses one by one.’

Jeff shook his head. ‘Nothing stopping him from doing that right now. He doesn’t need us in the chopper for it.’

Hercules gave a snort. ‘Then he’s plannin’ to chop off our fuckin’ arms and drop us in the sea for sport with the fuckin’ sharks.’

Ben looked at them. ‘Whatever we find up there, whatever his intentions are, we’ll deal with it. One step at a time. Jeff’s right. If he wanted us dead, we’d be dead. Something tells me he has something else in mind.’

‘We’re wasting time here,’ Jude said. ‘Let’s get this over with.’ He stepped to the edge of the raft and reached out for the swaying ladder. Using his uninjured hand to grab hold of the bottom aluminium rung, he pulled it towards him. He put a foot on the rung and tested it with his weight, like testing a stirrup before mounting a horse. The thick nylon cord stretched and wobbled, but it could have held many times Jude’s weight.

Jude began to climb, a little gingerly because of his cut palm. Ben’s heart was in his throat and his fists were clenched at his sides, and there was nothing he could do but watch helplessly as Jude ascended rung by rung towards the open hatch and the pointing rifles above him. As Jude reached the top, sinewy hands reached down and grabbed him by the arms and hauled him aboard the helicopter. Jude and Khosa disappeared from view. For a terrible moment or two, Ben was frightened that the aircraft was going to fly away. But then Khosa reappeared at the mouth of the hatch and pointed down at Jeff. ‘Now that one,’ he boomed down through the megaphone.

‘Whatever happens,’ Jeff said to Ben.

Ben nodded. ‘Whatever happens.’

Jeff climbed, with the practised ease of a guy who had shinnied up a thousand ropes and ladders into a thousand helicopters in his time. He reached the top quicker than Jude had. With two rifles at his head he was yanked inside the hatch and disappeared as well.

Next, it was Tuesday’s turn. Then Condor’s. Ben and Gerber helped him to his feet and steadied him as he stumbled towards the waiting ladder.

‘I can’t do it,’ Condor gasped.

‘You gotta try, buddy,’ Gerber told him, clutching his shoulder. ‘I’ll be right there behind you.’

Condor inched his way up the ladder like a half-crushed spider crawling up its web in search of a place to die. Khosa was frowning impatiently down at him. Twice, Condor lost his footing and almost fell into the sea. When he eventually made it to the top rung, the Africans dragged him roughly aboard and virtually threw him inside. Gerber went next. Then Hercules, his bulky weight making the ladder swing wildly, the bewildered parrot still peeking its head out of his pocket.

Ben was the last man off the raft. He wasn’t sorry to leave it behind, but he wasn’t happy about where he was going, either. At the top of the ladder he batted aside the guns that pointed in his face, and clambered to his feet inside the cargo area. He looked around him.

The interior of the Puma was exactly how he remembered them from his military days. The exact opposite of Auguste Kaprisky’s Gulfstream. Even more spartan than the Soviet seaplane. The inward-curving interior walls and riveted seams of the fuselage had been painted the same dull olive green as the outside, but many years ago, and were mostly worn and scuffed down to the bare metal. The floor was sheet aluminium, grimed with layers of filth and oil. Rudimentary folding seats were bolted along the length of the cargo bay, either side of a narrow aisle that passed through a narrower hatch into the cockpit. The inside of the chopper was completely uninsulated from the noise of the turbine. Totally utilitarian in every respect. Nothing much in the way of creature comforts, especially with a bunch of aggressive Africans pointing loaded and cocked automatic weapons at you.

There were five of them, including the skinny one who had come down to the raft. The ubiquitous AK-47s all round, except for the fat one who was armed with a black Remington combat shotgun. All were attired in the same thrown-together military uniforms. Ben couldn’t remember all their faces, whether they’d been with Khosa aboard the Andromeda or whether they were fresh troops he’d picked up ashore. If fresh was the right word to describe them. They looked as worn out with fear as they looked desperate as they looked ragged.

Their weapons jabbed and prodded Ben to an empty fold-down seat between Hercules and Gerber, opposite where Jeff was already sitting with Jude to his right and Condor to his left. Jude was staring blankly into space, apparently lost in his own thoughts.

Condor wasn’t looking good. He could barely sit up and kept listing sideways to his left to lean on Tuesday, who was leaning forwards with his elbows on his knees, rigid with tension and all keyed up, glancing constantly at Ben and Jeff for some kind of guidance. What do we do?

Khosa had made his way forward to the cockpit and returned to the co-pilot’s seat. All Ben could see of him was one wide shoulder and the back of his head from a rear-three-quarter angle as he turned to give some unheard instruction to the pilot. What was going on inside that head, Ben still had no idea. But whatever Khosa had planned for them, at least they were still alive.

Right now, that seemed about as much as anyone could wish for.