Tenth Man Down

TWELVE

I didn’t realise I’d been asleep, but I must have drifted off, because I came to with a jolt, in pain all over. Something had woken me. Rats? No. They were still on the move, back and forth across the floor, but I was used to them already. I listened. A faint thud came from outside the door. Then a chain or padlock rattled briefly. I assumed Muende had got his hands on my GPS, worked out that Waypoint Seven was what he needed, and decided he could bin us without further ado. Now he’d sent someone to take us out and shoot us. I started shuddering, partly from nerves, partly from cold.

‘Gen?’ I whispered. The first try brought no response. At the second he gave a grunt. ‘Something’s happening outside,’ I croaked. ‘I hope to fuck they’re not coming to beat us again.’

There was practically nothing we could do to prepare ourselves for an assault. But at least we were awake. If someone had come to top us, he’d get a good kick in the crotch first.

The next sounds from the door were the scratch of a key turning in a lock and another faint clink of chains. I was still bracing myself for a confrontation when I realised that the noises were furtive; not the confident clang of a gaoler going into his charges, but the careful tinkering of somebody who had no business to be there.

A moment later, the door opened inch by inch, and a voice said in American-accented English, ‘You guys there?’

I tried to speak, but couldn’t. My mouth was so dry that no sound came out. I swallowed a few times, and at last managed to croak, ‘Who’s that?’

‘Friend,’ came the answer. ‘Hold quiet. I’m coming right over.’

There was a scraping sound as he dragged something into the cell, and a scurry of rats departing. Then I felt, rather than saw, a man approaching along the wall. A hand settled on my left arm and ran gently down to my wrist.

‘Cuffs,’ whispered the voice. ‘Okay. I have some keys.’

I smelt the fresh, minty tang of chewing gum. Hope surged up inside me as I heard and felt unseen fingers trying different keys. At last one turned in a lock, and my wrists came free. With incredible relief I brought my arms slowly round in front of me and flexed them.

‘Wait there while I see to your buddy.’

Starlight was flooding through the open door. In it lay the bundle our rescuer had dragged in: the body of the guard. Moving stiffly, I went across and ran my hands over it, searching for weapons. No luck there. The man was wearing a holster, but it was empty.

From across the cell came the scrape of a key and whispered curses. I stepped back from the dead gaoler and tripped over something else. Crouching down, I reached out a hand and felt a boot, a bare leg. Another corpse, but this one was cold. Whinger! Instinctively I whipped my hand away, fearful that my fingers might come up against his congealing intestines. Then another horrible thought hit me. That was where the rats had been heading all night; it was Whinger they’d been eating.

I knew where his legs were. I ought to be able to find his head, without running my hands up his body. Aiming off about four feet, I reached down again. My right hand landed on the side of his face. I felt the puckered, slimy skin. I ran my fingers down his neck and got them under the paracord that held his ID discs. I was so absorbed in my task that I hardly noticed the movements behind me. Then came a touch on my shoulder, and a soft voice said, ‘Okay. We gotta go.’

With my left hand I lifted Whinger’s head, and with the other slipped the loop of cord free.

‘Leave him!’ said the voice. ‘Move!’

The head fell back on to the earth floor with a thud. I stood up, and the voice whispered, ‘Follow me. Keep right on my ass.’

Outside, the cool air made me feel less sick, and the starlight seemed bright as day. We waited a moment while the American reset the outer padlock; then, pocketing the keys, he led us silently along the side of the building and across an open space towards some big sheds in the distance. Behind us only a couple of fires were glowing, and the camp was almost entirely dark.

Walking was an effort. In order to keep going, I began to count the steps, and reached two hundred before we came to the sheds. In deep shadow behind them, out of line-of-sight from the rest of the barrack blocks, our escort stopped and turned to us, letting out a big breath of relief. ‘Okay,’ he announced, quietly. ‘We made it so far.’

‘What about the guard?’ I went.

‘He got a broken neck.’

‘Yeah, but won’t someone find his body?’

‘Not for a while. He’s locked in there for the duration, and I have the keys. How’re you doing?’ He shone a torch briefly on my face, and exclaimed, ‘Boy, you got a beating!’ He gave Gen a quick scan as well, saw he was much the same, and asked, ‘Well, what do you need?’

‘Water.’

‘Okay. Something to eat?’

‘Maybe, but water first. Any liquid.’

‘Sure. Stay here. If the alarm goes up, head thataway.’ He pointed to the south. ‘There’s a group of trees right out there. If you have to, hide in them, and I’ll come get you. Otherwise, stick around here. I’ll be back.’

He slipped away round the corner of the shed.

I felt breathless, barely able to believe we were out. ‘Gen,’ I whispered, ‘somebody answered your prayers.’

‘I know. Geordie, how are you feeling?’

‘Stiff as hell, specially my neck. Bruises all over. You all right?’

‘I wouldn’t say that. But I don’t think anything’s broken.’

Gingerly, I touched my lip, which seemed less swollen than it felt from inside. Next I swung my arms round vertically, slowly at first, then faster, to loosen cramped muscles and get circulation going.

In less than ten minutes our saviour was back. ‘Nothing much,’ he said, ‘but it’s liquid, anyway.’

He held out his hand, and I took what I could feel was a water-bottle.

‘Are we okay here?’ I asked.

‘Long enough to take a drink.’

‘Go on.’ I passed the bottle to Gen. ‘You first.’

He unscrewed the top, took a swallow, and said, ‘Champagne!’

In fact it was sweet lemonade, better than anything in the world. I took two long swallows, then handed the bottle over again.

‘I got some food as well,’ said the American. ‘Only MREs, but there you go.’

I took two squashy foil packets and slipped them into the thigh pocket of my DPMs. Genesis pouched a couple as well.

‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘What time is it?’

‘Ten of three. You guys gotta get out of here. They’re planning to kill you once you’ve done whatever it is they want. Which way d’you want to head?’

‘North, I suppose. Back towards the place we left the rest of our team. Where are we?’

‘This goddamn dump’s called Chimbwi. It’s a decommissioned bauxite mine. The rebel army’s taken it over as a forward base.’

‘How far are we from Msisi?’

‘Never heard of that. What is it?’

‘A convent. It was one, at least. Not a nun left now. That’s where we ran into trouble. We didn’t know the rebels had captured the place.’ I took another drink and asked, ‘Who are you?’

‘Sam Kershon, former SEAL.’

‘A SEAL!’ I peered at him, trying to see his features in the starlight. All I could make out was a neat crew-cut head and powerful-looking shoulders. ‘My God,’ I said, ‘what the hell are you doing here?’

‘I’m with an outfit called Interaction.’

‘Interaction! We know it. Based in London.’

‘Yep. London and Joburg. This guy Muende hired us to smarten up his rabble.’

‘Some job.’

‘You said it. Are you guys British special forces?’

‘Correct. Part of a training team.’

‘For the government forces?’

‘Exactly.’

‘That means we’re on opposite sides. But when I saw you being brought into camp, I thought you looked like Brits. I said to myself, shit, this is too much. Say, what are your names?’

‘I’m Geordie. This is Genesis.’

‘Genesis! Good one! First book of the Bible.’

‘Spot on!’ Gen agreed. Then he asked, ‘How did you get here?’

‘Trucked up from Sentaba, the Afundi headquarters. That’s a hundred miles or so. Eight-hour ride. What about you guys?’

‘We came the opposite way, from the north.’

Talking in fast whispers, I filled Sam in with an account of the crash, the attack on the mine, Joss’s volte-face, the discovery of the big diamond, and his plan to cut our throats in the middle of the night.

‘Nice way to treat your guests and allies,’ Sam said. ‘Sounds like there ain’t much to choose between the two sides.’

‘No,’ I went. ‘But this damned diamond is twisting everything. Until that came into the reckoning, Joss was okay — wasn’t he, Gen?’

‘Better than okay,’ Gen replied. ‘He was good.’

‘Well,’ said Sam. ‘Big money always talks loudest.’

A single shout came from the camp behind us. We listened for a few seconds, but the disturbance died down.

‘Look,’ I said. ‘We’ve got to get the fuck out of here.’

Then Sam sprang a surprise. ‘All right if I come with you?’

‘Why, are you wanting out?’

‘Too right I am. I’m through with this lot.’

‘Well, it’s up to you. It’s going to be some hike.’

‘How far’s this Msisi?’

‘It’s got to be about fifty ks from here. The Zebra Pans about the same.’

‘Sixty ks!’ The American gave a low whistle. ‘That’s over thirty miles. You have any equipment — compass, GPS?’

‘Nothing. The bastards who captured us nicked everything.’

‘Well, I’ve got a compass. Know what heading we want?’

‘Not exactly. Where’s Gutu in relation to Chimbwi?

‘Gee, let’s see. I’d say about forty ks north-east of here.’

‘Then I reckon we need to head north until we hit the river, then turn downstream. Can you get us out of camp?’

‘Oh, sure. That one’s easy. There’s plenty holes in the fence. But we’ve only got three hours of darkness. There’s no way we can make it back to the rest of your guys before first light.’

As the elation of getting free wore off, exhaustion was clamping down on me, and I sat on the ground to think.

‘Any chance of nicking a vehicle?’

‘Tough. The transport’s kept in a compound of its own and guarded pretty good. You’d stir up a hornets’ nest if you tried to get in there. Tell you what, though. Can you fly a plane?’

‘Depends what it is.’

‘A light aircraft,’ said Sam. ‘Very basic.’

‘Christ, that could be okay. Don’t tell me there’s one here.’

‘Sure is. They had it for prospecting.’

‘Is it operational?’

‘Absolutely. Somebody took it up a couple days back.’

‘Jesus!’ I felt my adrenalin stirring. ‘Where is it?’

‘Right over there.’ He pointed. ‘In an open shed.’

‘Any security on it?’

‘Nothing. There’s only one guy knows how to fly it, and he’s an officer, so they trust him.’

‘What about a strip?’

‘Right in front of it.’

‘Fuel?’

‘Should be plenty.’

‘Can we go and look at it?’

‘Sure. Come on.’

He led us to the end of the shed, took a cautious scan round the corner, and set out across the open ground beyond. The moon was already well across the sky. As I looked up at the stars, it seemed incredible that only twenty-four hours earlier our whole team had been driving though the dark. It felt like a month ago.

In three or four minutes we came to a perimeter fence, weldmesh on steel posts. As Sam had said, it was full of holes, and we found one easily enough. Behind us the camp lay silent, but out in the bush hyenas were howling. Walking was hard work for me; I was bruised all over, and my legs hurt when I moved them.

Soon, another large shed showed up ahead of us, black against the sky.

‘This is the hangar,’ Sam whispered. ‘Wait here while I check it out.’

Gen and I knelt down. Being so used to carrying weapons, I felt defenceless and vulnerable, lacking even a knife. Without thinking, I raised my left wrist to look at my watch, remembering too late that it had gone. I glanced behind us, trying to estimate how far we’d come from the main part of the camp. Half a mile, anyway.

Presently, Sam loomed up out of the dark, and announced, ‘All clear.’

The shed was open-fronted. Just inside it, with its perspex bubble of a canopy glinting in the moonlight, stood a very basic-looking aircraft.

‘Jesus!’ I went. ‘This is all right. You have a torch?’

‘Sure.’ He handed one over.

‘I’m going to have a quick look over it. Keep an eye out while I switch the torch on.’

‘Keep it short, then. Just point it away from the camp.’

I ran the beam quickly over the little plane. It wasn’t any make I recognised, but it looked much the same as other small aircraft I’d flown.

‘Only two seats,’ said Gen.

‘Don’t worry. Sam can sit on your lap. We’ll squeeze him in somehow.’

‘Will it take off with that weight?’

‘Should do.’

A quick inspection showed the plane had a nose-wheel and two main wheels, an ignition switch but no electric start — just a hand-pull on the side of the engine — and a squeeze-ball pump for priming the carburettors.

‘Think you can hack it?’ Genesis asked.

‘Try it, anyway.’

I doused the torch, eased myself into the left-hand seat and felt the controls: accelerator arm, joystick, pedals, handbrake. Everything moved freely. I shone the torch on the transparent tube that served as a fuel gauge. The level was fairly low; it looked as though there were only twenty or twenty-five litres in the tank.

‘We could do with more gas,’ I said. ‘Is there any around?’

‘In the back.’ Sam pointed into the depths of the shed. But there, for the first time, he was wrong. The day before, he said, two forty-five-gallon drums had been standing in the corner. Now they’d gone.

‘Too bad,’ I said. ‘We’ll have to make do with what we’ve got.’ I looked back towards the camp, calculating our chances. ‘It’s too dark to take off at the moment. If anything went wrong with the engine, we’d kill ourselves trying to land. Our only chance is to wait until dawn’s about to break.’

‘If we wait till it starts getting light, chances are someone will spot us,’ said Sam.

‘I know. But it’s a risk we’ve got to take.’

Because I was the only one of us who could fly, I was taking charge of the situation. But I didn’t want to put the American down, so I added, ‘If it’s light, and something does happen once we’re in the air, at least we’ll have a chance of getting down again. Okay, Sam?’

‘I’m in your hands, skipper.’

‘That’s the plan, then. What we can do meanwhile is push the thing further away from the camp, give ourselves that much more of a start, and keep the noise at a distance. How long’s the strip?’

‘Maybe five hundred yards.’

‘Better check it out. We’ll need to take off westwards. I don’t fancy flying back over the camp. Step it out to the far end, Gen.’

‘Fine. What do you need for take-off?’

‘Two fifty yards. Two hundred at a pinch. As there’s no wind, and we’ll have a heavy load, two fifty would be better.’

As Genesis set out, taking long strides, I let off the hand brake, and the two of us rolled the little aircraft forward. It trundled easily, making hardly a sound. I reckoned we’d pushed it nearly two hundred metres when we made out a dark figure coming back towards us.

‘Three hundred paces more beyond here,’ Gen said quietly.

‘This’ll do, then. What is there at the far end?’

‘Nothing. The ground just gets rough.’

More than anything else, I wanted to see if the engine would start. But I knew that the moment it fired, we’d probably be compromised: the noise would be almost bound to give us away. So all I could do was show Sam the hand-pull on the side of the engine.

‘It’s just like a lawn-mower,’ I told him. ‘All you need do is pull when I say, and keep pulling until she fires.’

‘We need a contingency plan,’ Gen said. ‘Supposing we can’t start it? What do we do then?’

‘Head north from here on foot, and keep going,’ Sam replied, pointing. ‘Right out there. There’s nothing to stop us. We’re already through the wire.’

‘You got a GPS?’

‘Sure.’ He patted his chest pocket.

‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Good. How’s the time?’

He glanced at his watch, and replied, ‘Twenty after four.’

‘What time’s first light?’

‘First light around here is twenty after five. Sunrise a quarter of six.’

‘An hour to go, then. What about the guard on the cell? Won’t someone miss him?’

‘His relief won’t come on till six o’clock. Then he’ll find his mate’s disappeared, along with the keys. Probably he’ll think he’s gone to sleep someplace. By then we’ll be up and gone.’

‘Touch wood.’

The tension was electric, but somehow we had to pass the time. We sat on the ground under the wing of the aircraft and chatted in quick, nervous whispers.

‘The guy they killed,’ Sam said. ‘Good buddy of yours, was he?’

‘More than that. We’d served together for fifteen years — Russia, Ulster, Colombia, everywhere.’

I began thinking about Whinger’s family. His mother was dead, but his father was still alive. If I got back, it would be down to me to go and tell him what had happened. I might never reveal exactly what they’d done to him; it would be bad enough without going into details. That unpleasant task was in the future, though. Our first priority was to get ourselves out. Had the lads got the satcom up and running? Was a Herc on its way to lift us out?

My mind kept returning to our flight. The last time I’d flown was eighteen months ago, when we’d done some pilot training with the Army Air Corps. Luckily for me, the Regiment had had a ridiculous idea that they wanted to train guys to fly, but nothing came of it, because at the end of the course one of the lads wrecked an aircraft. Now in my mind I ran through some standard drills.

‘Sam,’ I said, ‘those hills to the north. D’you know how high they are?’

‘The Makonde Hills? In the day you can see ’em in the distance. How high? Nothing great. Six, seven hundred feet. Why?’

‘I was thinking. We’re going to burn a load of fuel clearing them. It’s a question of how much we have left after that.’

I borrowed his torch again for another check of the fuel gauge. It had no calibration, just the curved, transparent pipe, so judging the supply was a matter of guesswork. By wishful thinking, I confirmed my original estimate of between twenty and twenty-five litres. Five gallons to lift us to freedom.

At about 0440 I suddenly felt ravenous and cracked into one of the ready-to-eat meals. My lip hurt as I took each mouthful, but never had cold, congealed corned-beef hash tasted so good. Genesis wasn’t so lucky: his foil pack contained spaghetti bolognese, which he said tasted like wallpaper glue, but he got it down his neck all the same.

Feeling revived, I asked, ‘Sam, were you in the Gulf?’

‘Sure,’ he replied. ‘SEAL Team Six, in the Western Desert.’

‘Never!’ I exclaimed. ‘That was our location, too. Deployed from Al Jouf? Amazing! What were you on?’

‘Air-sea rescue. Picking up downed aircrew.’

‘Some hairy trips, I bet.’

‘You said it. Had one near-miss from a SAM. Twice we nearly didn’t make it out.’

‘Ninety-one,’ I said, trying to remember a name. ‘Did you ever meet a guy called Tony Lopez?’

‘Sure did! Hell of a guy, Tony. I spent some time with him in Panama. He a pal of yours?’

‘Absolutely. He gave us a big hand in Colombia. Then he came over to the UK on attachment, and stopped a bullet at Chequers, of all places.’

‘Chequers?’

‘The Prime Minister’s country home.’

‘No kidding?’

‘Right there, in the park.’

‘What in hell were you doing?’

‘Tangling with the IRA.’

‘Oh, those choirboys.’

After a short silence, Genesis asked, ‘How many of you guys are there here?’

‘Mercs? Twelve. Only one American, though. Me! The rest are hairy-assed South Africans. Supposed to be some Russians coming in, too.’

‘So what’s your brief?’

‘Good question. They hired us to help fight the war against the north, but in the past couple of days that campaign’s pretty much taken a back seat. There’s a new agenda now.’

‘Which is?’

‘The thing’s going nuclear.’

‘What d’you mean?’

‘Somebody’s stumbled on a cache of warheads near a place called Ichembo, out west. I don’t know who found them, or how, because the site’s outside the war zone.’

‘Warheads?’ I asked

‘Nuclear heads for tactical weapons. Muende’s desperate to get his hands on them. He’s pissed off with the slow progress of his campaign. But now he reckons with medium-range nuclear capability he could knock out the north in a couple of weeks. A few missiles into Mulongwe, and all will be dandy. The north will be on its knees.’

‘Jesus!’ I went. ‘I bet they’re shitting bricks up there, then.’

‘They don’t even know about the stuff, yet. Nobody knows about it except us — that is, Muende’s force.’

‘How many heads are there?’

‘Supposed to be about fifty.’

‘What size?’

‘I dunno — like so, maybe.’ Sam held his hands about four feet apart to indicate their length. ‘I guess they’re like hundred-millimetre shells.’

‘Has Muende got the means to deliver them?’

‘Oh, sure. He has plenty Russian rockets. That’s how the warheads got here. Left behind by the Russians when they pulled out in a hurry. Then forgotten. Or, put it another way, deliberately not remembered. Apparently they’re in an underground silo, but they’re deteriorating — going unstable.’

‘If that arsehole Muende does get his hands on them,’ I began. ‘When he’s been drinking, he’s not rational any more. He might turn round and start on South Africa.’

‘That’s right. And the South Africans on the team know that. From what I’ve heard, they’re cooking up some plan of their own. Muende thinks they’re going to help him recover the warheads. They are, but once they’ve got them, they’re planning to hijack them for their own purposes.’

‘What do they want them for?’

‘You tell me. Maybe they’re working covertly for their government. Maybe they’ve got some private agenda. But this whole thing’s getting to be too big a fuckin’ mess. That’s why I’m wanting out. Ordinary fighting’s one thing. Nuclear is something else.’

‘Don’t blame you,’ I said. ‘What’s the timing of the operation?’

‘Immediate. The Afundis are going for the war-heads tomorrow. Correction, today. They’re gonna start right out this morning. The great commander’s going to direct the operation in person. It’ll be some circus, I tell you.’

‘Where is this place?’ I asked.

‘Ichembo? Not that far west of here. North-west, I should say. Maybe a hundred miles. But the main force has got to come up from the south, and then they’ve got to cross the river.’

‘So when do they reckon to get there?’

‘Evening, I guess. Why, you gonna join the party?’

‘Some chance!’

‘Sam,’ said Genesis. ‘How did you get involved with this shower, anyway?’

‘Answered one of Interaction’s ads. Simple as that. Came out of the military and found civilian life a bit tedious. I guess I was looking for some excitement. But I tell you something: if I’d known what a shithole Kamanga was, I’d never have gotten involved.’

‘The same goes for us,’ I said. ‘Except that we didn’t have the choice, we just got sent.’

The conversation drifted on. I was in a peculiar state. Lying flat on my back, looking up at the stars, I felt exhaustion pressing in on me like a heavy atmosphere from outside. I had that thick, cloudy feeling in my head that I’d been blaming on the Lariam. But at the same time apprehension was needling me internally and keeping me awake. I had to discipline myself not to go on asking Sam the time; after two enquiries, it was still only just after 0500, and there was at least half an hour to kill. My biggest worry was the rest of our guys were about to fall into the same trap as we had. Unless we got back to stop them, they’d set off in search of us soon after first light, and drive head-first into the shit at the convent.

In spite of everything, I must have dozed off. Suddenly, Gen was shaking my shoulder and saying, ‘Watch yourself, Geordie. Something’s starting up.’

He and Sam were already on their feet, looking back at the camp, where torches were flashing and people were running about.

‘Sounds like they’ve broken in to the cell and found the body,’ said Sam. ‘We better get set.’

Above the camp, in the east, the sky had started to lighten, but the moon had set, and around us the land still looked black as coal.

‘Can’t we get off right away?’ Gen asked.

‘Not yet,’ I said, looking at the sky. ‘Have to hang on for a bit.’

‘We’ve got a few minutes,’ said Sam, calmly. ‘They’ll run around the huts like blue-assed flies, looking for you. There’s nothing to draw anybody in this direction. When they find you’re missing, most likely they’ll head for the transportation section. They’ll think you’re trying to steal a vehicle.’

‘You’d better be right.’

The longer we held on, the more I managed to convince myself that the aircraft’s engine wasn’t going to start. Given the Kamangans’ abysmal standards of maintenance, the chances of it firing up and running properly seemed infinitesimally small.

Now, more than ever, precise timing was going to be critical. If we took off prematurely, in the dark, we could be committing suicide. If we let the light get too strong, and then couldn’t start the engine, we’d almost certainly be spotted and picked off by trigger-happy guards.

Dawn seemed desperately retarded. Daylight strengthened with impossible slowness, the greyness hardly able to infiltrate the black. The sky was clear — not a cloud anywhere — so I knew the apparent slowdown was psychological, but that did nothing to speed things up or ease my nerves.

Back in the camp, the commotion kept increasing. Vehicles had started to scud about. Horns were blowing, torches and headlights flashing, orders being shouted, doors slammed.

‘Let’s flit,’ said Sam. ‘Let’s do it.’

Looking at him, I could just make out his features for the first time: dark hair, thick eyebrows, broad, humorous face.

‘Okay,’ I agreed. ‘This is good enough.’

I’d hardly spoken when a pair of headlights swung out of the camp and came straight for us. They were five or six hundred metres off, but moving fast. Clearly, their objective was the hangar.

‘That’s it!’ I shouted. ‘Get in, Gen. Sam, on the starter!’

I jumped into the left-hand seat, squeezed the ball to pump fuel through the carbs, and called, ‘Pull!’

Sam pulled. Nothing. Again. Still nothing. At the third attempt the engine fired, backfired and cut. I stole a glance over my shoulder. The headlights were bouncing around, speeding towards us. I pumped again, and shouted, ‘Keep pulling!’ Once more the engine fired up and cut. In the silence I heard two sharp cracks snap out behind me. Screwing my head round, I saw the headlights boring in on us.

‘Pull, Sam!’ I bellowed. ‘For fuck’s sake, pull!’ My adrenalin was well up. My hands were shaking on the controls. As the engine fired again I whipped up the accelerator arm and sent the revs sky-high. ‘Okay! I yelled through the sudden scream. ‘Get in!’

More rounds were cracking past us. Sam, in front of me on the left, let go of the handle and ran round the front of the aircraft to jump in on top of Genesis. But as he came level with the open doorway, he gave a sudden yell, slumped forward and went down. From the way he buckled, backwards then forwards, I knew he’d got a round through the chest.

Gen made a move to get out and grab him.

‘Stay put! I yelled. ‘Leave him! He’s fucked.’

I ran up the revs, released the handbrake and got the little aircraft rolling. The acceleration felt sluggish, and the track was rough, but at least we were moving. I glanced over my shoulder once more and saw the pursuing headlights veer wildly from side to side. Then the beams whipped straight up into the sky, like searchlights, before they wheeled over and were snuffed out. The vehicle had hit a rock or gone into a hole.

By then the sky was fairly bright. What light we had was coming from behind us, so forward visibility was adequate and I could see my instruments. I fixed my eyes on the airspeed indicator and watched the needle pick up: fifteen knots, twenty, twenty-five. In a few moments the ASI was reading thirty-five. Mentally, I urged it upwards. Only five more needed for lift-off. Suddenly, on my left, a stream of glowing green spots zipped past from behind and went looping away into the distance.

‘Tracer!’ I yelled. ‘The bastards are firing at us.’

I ducked instinctively as sharp fragments rained down on my head. At the same instant I felt the nose lifting. Tracer on the right now. Suddenly, the perspex bubble in front of us starred: a round had come right through the cabin from behind. Forty knots. I eased back on the stick, and we were airborne.

I planned to stay as low as possible until we were out of small-arms’ range, in the hope that we’d be less visible and offer a more difficult target, so I levelled off at about a hundred feet and kept going due west. For the first few seconds there was open bush beneath us, then a higher, more solid wall of vegetation loomed ahead.

The engine noise was deafening, so I shouted, ‘Forest! Can’t stay so low. Got to climb.’

I pulled back the stick, lifting the nose. Dark tree canopy flashed beneath us. The ASI was showing fifty-five knots. We’d been flying for nearly a minute. We were easily one kilometre clear of the strip. A few more tracer rounds came floating past, but they were hopelessly wide of the mark. Every second we went further west was a waste of fuel. Surely it was safe to swing round on to the heading we wanted?

Gently I banked to the right, holding the turn until the compass needle settled on zero. As we came round, I could see the dawn breaking, away to our right: the rim of the sun was showing crimson on the horizon. Ahead lay the range of hills we had to cross. They rose in front of us, grey and crumpled, raked by long black shadows. I glanced across at Genesis, but his head was turned away as he too looked at the dawn, and I couldn’t see his face.

I started a gentle climb, easing the aircraft upwards in an attempt to conserve fuel by ascending as slowly as possible. Every few seconds I glanced at the cylinder-head temperature gauge. The needle for No. 1 had always been slightly higher than the one for No. 2. Now it began to climb, slowly but ominously. Up and up it went, to the edge of the red danger area. If the engine blew, that was us finished; I’d have no option but to glide down and land on the first level stretch we could find.

‘Starting to overheat!’ I shouted. ‘Nothing we can do.’

At that moment I saw two huge birds coming in at us from the left front, big black silhouettes, almost one collision course. At the last moment they peeled off and fell away, to the left and below. From their long necks and trailing legs I reckoned they were storks, probably weighing twenty or thirty pounds. One of them into the canopy would have made a fine mess of us.

I straightened up and got back on course, so intent on watching the gauges, the ASI, the compass and the sky ahead for more birds that I ceased to think about the light. All the while the sky had been growing brighter, but then, because we were climbing, came a sudden, dramatic change. One moment we were still in the shadow of the earth, the next, the sun was over the horizon, and its radiance exploded all round us. In an instant it had flooded the whole of Africa with light.

‘Hey!’ I shouted in a moment of exultation. ‘How about that!’

Genesis turned half towards me, and said, very loud, ‘“To give light to them that sit in darkness, and in the shadow of death.”’

A moment later I felt him shudder violently. My right shoulder was pressed against his left, so the tremor was transmitted straight to me. I turned to look at him again. His head had dropped forward and was rolling back and forth across his chest.

‘Gen!’ I shouted.

I reached for his left hand with my right, lifted it, shook it. When I let go, it flopped off his knee and hung down, lifeless. I shouted his name again and twisted round to look at him. The only way I could get a proper view was by releasing my harness and coming half out of my seat, still holding the throttle and the stick. By doing that I got a sight of his chest, and saw blood seeping out down the front of his DPMs from a point just below the heart. I knew in an instant he was dead. The bullet that shattered the windshield had gone right through his torso from back to front.

I felt shaken to bits. I couldn’t believe it. Why hadn’t he said something when he was hit? Why hadn’t he yelled? Even if he had, I couldn’t have done anything to save him. But at least I’d have known the score. How typical of him not to complain. He must have known he was mortally wounded. Typical Gen to conceal his own trouble so that he didn’t disturb my concentration. Typical above all, in his last moments of consciousness, to come out with that quote from the Bible.

I felt choked, exhausted physically and emotionally, pissed off to the final degree with Africa and all these feuding savages. For a few seconds I thought, there’s one easy way to end this: climb to a thousand feet, point the nose down and open the throttle. That would be the finish of your worries, Geordie Sharp. Then, instead of self-pity, I felt shame, and said to myself, what about your mates, Geordie? They’re in the shit, nearly as deep as you, and they need your presence fast. Concentrate. Get back to them. Retrench. That was easier said than done. I’d begun to shake so violently that I could hardly hold the stick still. The cause wasn’t the cold — already the sun was hot on my right cheek and arm — it was more to do with shock and reaction.

Almost without noticing it, I cleared the highest point of the ridge, which was covered in grey rock and nearly bare of trees. Until then I’d hardly bothered with the altimeter. While waiting for takeoff, I hadn’t been able to see enough to wind it back to zero, and I knew any reading it showed would be only approximate. Now it was giving me 1,200 feet, which was obviously my height above sea level, rather than above the ground.

As I eased off the power, the temperature gauge began to sink back from its danger level, but the fuel in the transparent gauge was looking perilously low. I’d been planning to descend, following the lie of the land as it fell away towards the river valley, but I changed my mind and held the same altitude, with the idea that I’d get a better view of the ground ahead and see the river earlier.

Down the far side of the hills the bush thickened again, and the terrain reminded me of the area in which the Beechcraft had crashed. All the better: there must be thousands of scrub-covered ridges just like this one, scattered all over central southern Africa, and Muende’s chances of finding the wreck without my help were practically zero.

Thinking about the diamond, I realised I didn’t want the damned thing for myself. It had landed us in enough trouble already. No matter what it might be worth, I had a feeling it would always bring bad luck to anyone who owned it. What I did want, though, was to get my hands on Muende and the woman. If it was the last thing I did, I’d exterminate the pair of them.

My mind was becoming confused. I was too tired to think things through. Off to my right I spotted a dirt road twisting about like a grey ribbon, but running roughly north and south. Was that the track we’d been bounced along the night before? Must be. I checked the compass needle for the umpteenth time and made a small deviation to the left, aiming a few more degrees west of north. However small the risk — and by my calculations it was pretty much nonexistent — I couldn’t afford to hit the river at the mine, or anywhere near it. If Joss’s guys saw a light aircraft approaching from the south, sure as hell they’d open up on it, thinking it was part of an Afundi attack.

Thank God, the air was completely smooth, the visibility perfect. At one point, to my right, I saw three startled giraffes set off at that curious, floating canter that makes them look as if they’re swimming. I could even make out the puffs of dust knocked up by their pounding hooves.

Then, at last, across my front, I saw the river. Or rather, instead of muddy water lined by trees, I saw a long, white, winding streak of what looked like cotton wool. Fog! Above the stream vapour had condensed in the cool night air, and the valley was filled by a blanket of mist.

‘Shit! Shit! Shit!’ I shouted. This was the one, knackering circumstance I hadn’t foreseen. For the hundredth time I glanced at the fuel gauge. It was showing all but empty. I’d only got a few minutes’ flying time left.

Desperately I searched for a landmark that would tell me where I was before descending. The layer of mist looked shallow, but if I went down into it, I’d be blind. Any attempt to land in it could prove fatal. Beyond the fog rose a low mountain barrier. That was the western edge of the range of hills we’d come over before we attacked the mine. But where in hell was the spur on which we’d established our OP — that prominent feature from which Pavarotti had directed the mortar fire? Where was the track down which we’d approached the pontoon? Well away to my right, I hoped.

I estimated that, by air, the mine and the convent were no more than fifty kilometres apart. Now, unless my navigation was all to blazes, I was heading for a point roughly halfway between them. The eastern end of the Zebra Pans was about thirty-five ks downstream of the mine and fifteen kilometres short of the convent. If, as I hoped, I reached the river about thirty kilometres west of the mine, all I’d have to do would be to turn left and fly downstream until the pans appeared ahead.

Every few seconds I reviewed my options. What if the engine cuts now? Swing left, head out over the mist to the far edge, and look for a landing place on the other side of it, beyond the river. Then continue downstream on foot. What about Gen’s body? Deal with that when the time comes. What if the engine dies now? The same.

The river was less than a kilometre ahead. Not a landmark in sight. The decision could wait no longer. I turned left and flew parallel with the edge of the white blanket, two or three hundred metres out. Now the low sun was blazing from straight behind me. Without thinking I’d come down to a couple of hundred feet. Buffalo below — a big, slate-grey herd churned up the dust as my approach set them running, and a cloud of ox-peckers wheeled after them.

Gen’s torso was lolling to the left in its straps, leaning against my right arm. I shoved it away. The engine spluttered. Fuel gauge on zero. Must be a reserve. Then a gleam of hope: through the fog I saw grey-green water. The mist was thinning and breaking. In a few minutes the sun would burn it off. More glimpses of the river, which was swinging in wide loops, not running fast and straight as it did near the mine. That looked good, more like the flat terrain around the pans. I positioned the aircraft over the centre line of the coils and flew on downstream.

I’d quit looking at the fuel gauge. There was nothing more it could tell me. The temperature gauges were steady, so I could concentrate on looking ahead. Then, in the distance I saw that the fog blanket spread out to cover an area far wider than the river. The pans! That broad stretch of mist must be hanging above the water, the shallow lake, where Gen had found the reeds growing. Feverishly I scanned the high ground to the north, searching for the little shelf that Pav and I had designated as our RV. From this height it would look different, and I tried to allow for that.

Here, too, the mist was breaking. I was fast approaching the eastern end of the pans, the point where the vehicles had got bogged. My spirits leapt. Through a gap I saw the very spot where they’d gone in: a patch of ground freshly churned up, with semi-liquid mud showing dark in the middle of the lighter crust, like chocolate in the middle of coffee, and vehicle tracks all round. From above it looked as though elephants had got bedded and flailed their way out. The main thing was that the mother wagon had got out and had gone.

Now that I had my bearings, I knew where to look for the RV point. I banked hard right and headed for the hill. Sure enough, there was the shelf, with a rock face rising behind it. Even if the lads had the vehicles well cammed-up, there was a chance I’d see them — I was that low and close. But no, the location was empty. Either they’d never been on the spur, or they’d been there and gone.

Morale sank. They must have been on it. I knew Pav would not have moved from that location until first light, as we’d agreed. That meant they must be on their way to the convent.

I banked hard left, coming back towards the river. There was only one route they could have taken: the one that Gen and I had used the evening before. I assumed they’d picked up our vehicle tracks; they must be following them along the bank. At all costs I had to stop them.

The engine faltered and cut, then picked up again. I was on the way down. I had just enough power to reach the river and turn right above the near bank. All I could do now was line up above the track and keep going until I finally ran out of fuel, then glide in and land. In that crisis, my mind became clear as glass. I wasn’t worried about finding a place to put down; there were patches of open, level ground between the scrub, easily big enough for my purposes. All that mattered was that I should overtake the lads before they blundered into hostile forces at the convent and got captured, just as we had.

It was only in my final seconds under power that I saw them: two vehicles, one large, one small, crawling right-handed away from the river. Obviously they were looking for a route across one of the tributaries. As I turned towards them, the engine cut and died. In sudden silence, broken only by wind whistling past, I put the plane into a glide.

Now the sun was hot on my right cheek, the mist rapidly clearing. The vehicles were heading away from me, but I knew they’d turn at any moment, as soon as they found a crossing point, and come back towards me. I aimed for flat-looking ground on the left of a dry sand river, where I could intercept them. Without power, I was committed. I had only one chance. I picked my spot: a patch of bare earth at least a hundred metres long, with a thicket of thorn bushes at the far end which would act as a safety net if need be. I pushed the stick forward and dropped the nose, getting the attitude of the aircraft settled and aiming to maintain a forty-five-knot rate of descent. In the final instants of the approach I thought, Christ, I hope the lads can get to me quickly if this aircraft goes up. But at least it’s got no fuel to start a blaze.

It was too late to worry. I tried not to look down over the nose, as I knew that would produce the illusion known as ground rush — of the earth tearing past too fast for the eyes to focus on anything properly. Instead I concentrated on my peripheral vision, looking outwards and ahead, with the result that the ground seemed to be coming up round my ears, but at a speed that I could manage.

With a few feet to go I eased the stick back, flared the aircraft and held it there, letting it sink. As the wheels hit and bounced, I was aware of our pinkie coming past in the opposite direction, scarcely twenty metres to my right, as though on the other lane of a motorway, with Jason the tracker in the driving seat and an expression of utter astonishment on his face. Then he was gone and I was down. The aircraft bounced twice before it slewed sideways and slid right-handed, coming to a halt, still on its wheels, just short of the thorns.

Within seconds, the guys were all round me. Phil, Mart, Danny and Chalky on my left, Pav and Stringer beside Genesis. They were covered in dry grey mud from head to foot. There was also a fearsome noise; everyone seemed to be shouting at once.

‘Christ almighty!’ went Phil. ‘What the fuck’s happened to you?’ At the same time Pav was yelling, ‘Gen! Gen! Wake up! You’ve made it!’ and pulling at his arm.

‘He’ll not wake up,’ I said dully. ‘He’s dead.’

‘Dead?’ roared Pav, incredulously. ‘Never! Come on, boyo!’

But when he undid the harness and tugged, Gen’s body crumpled toward him and tumbled to the ground. The next thing I knew, I too was on the deck. I had no recollection of unbuckling my straps or of getting out of the seat. I seemed to have passed out, and came round flat on my back, with faces staring down at me. I felt annihilated, as if I’d had a total anaesthetic.

‘Where’s Whinger?’ Pav was asking.

‘Dead.’

‘For fuck’s sake! How? Where?’

‘I’ll tell you. Any chance of some water?’

‘Yeah, yeah.’ Danny sprang to it and started rooting about in the pinkie.

‘Get a guy on stag towards the convent,’ I croaked. ‘The bastards are in there. They may come out looking for us.’

‘Who?’

‘The rebels. The place is in rebel hands.’

The faces above me started to revolve. I’m sure Mart thought I was about to die on him, because he grabbed my wrist and held it, feeling the pulse, and opened up one of my eyelids with finger and thumb.

‘Geordie,’ he went. ‘Your face is a mess. You look like the phantom of the fucking opera.’

‘That’s how I feel.’

‘Stay there while I get something to clean up the cuts.’

I heard him get up and move away. For the time being nobody else spoke. I think they were in shock, nearly as badly as I was. Then Mart was back. He sponged the dried blood and dirt off my face with water, and when he dabbed antiseptic solution on to my cuts, the sting tweaked me sharply back to life.

‘The one on your temple’s not much,’ he said. ‘More of a bruise. The one on your cheekbone’s deeper. Ought to be stitched, really.’

‘Fuck that,’ I said. ‘Cover it over.’

He put on gauze pads and taped them in place. A couple of minutes later I was sat propped against the front wheel of the mother wagon, in the shade, gulping down water by the pint. Somebody had pulled Gen alongside the rear wheel and zipped him into a black nylon body-bag.

Except for Chalky White, who’d gone on ahead to act as an early warning, the rest of the lads crowded round to hear what had happened.

‘It’s all down to that German woman,’ I began. ‘When I catch up with her, her feet won’t fucking touch. That I guarantee.’

I looked round the haggard, unshaven faces, trying to collect my thoughts.

‘We drove right into it,’ I went on. ‘Came up to the back of the convent, and suddenly these blacks were swarming all round us. It happened so fast we never even got to our weapons. They had us on the deck, cuffed us, nicked everything — watches, GPSs, knives, the lot. They’d already massacred the nuns. There were bodies lying around everywhere. Old, white bodies. They didn’t touch her, though. She swaggered about giving orders like she was a fucking general in their army.’

‘She’s not a general,’ said Stringer. ‘She’s a crook, pure and simple.’

‘Eh? Did that come from the Kremlin?’

‘Yeah. In the end the South African police turned up trumps. That guy in the plane whose ID we got — Pretorius — he was wanted by Interpol for embezzlement, international currency rackets and so on. The woman the same. She’s got a record as long as her legs.’

‘That makes sense,’ I said. ‘Anyway, at the convent she was frightening the shit out of these blacks, bollocking them in their own lingo. Next thing, all three of us were dumped in the back of a truck and driven to some clapped-out bauxite mine.’

‘Was Whinger with it?’ Mart wanted to know.

‘Not really. He was coming and going. Mostly going — lucky for him.’ I paused, thinking back. ‘The thing was, the woman must have known where she was, all along. During the time she was with us, I mean. She was never as confused as she pretended. All that crap about needing glasses to read. It was shite. She knew bloody well we’d attacked the mine, and that the rebels had captured the convent. She was just waiting to get back there, to join up with them again.’

I held out the mug in a silent request for more water. ‘Anyway, from the convent, she went ahead in another vehicle. She was at the next place when we arrived. There was a delay — twenty minutes or half an hour. Then we were taken into a hut like a classroom, and in comes Mr Big himself.’

‘Muende?’ said Danny.

‘Him.’

‘What does he look like?’

‘A right half-caste. Pale skin, hair like tow. Yellow. Colour’s wrong, but otherwise he’s pretty much Afro-looking. Like the rest of these fuckers, only fatter. Quite sleek. Well oiled in every sense.’

In other circumstances, the lads might have laughed, but none of them even smiled. They knew something horrible was coming. Hardened though they were, the story of Whinger’s end left them looking shattered. As for me, I could hardly tell it. I kept feeling I had to make excuses for not having prevented the disaster.

‘The trouble was, the slag really had it in for him,’ I said. ‘She hated his guts. It didn’t seem to occur to her that killing him was the worst thing she could do. Because he’d got burnt dragging her out of the wreck, she was convinced he’d found the fucking diamond. She was out to get him somehow.

‘Gen and I were knackered, the pair of us. As I said, we were tied to the chairs. There was nothing we could do. Whenever we tried to help, we got hammered with rifle butts, or kicked. The way she handed Muende strips of liver — it was the filthiest thing I’ll ever see.’

Pav, who’d been fond of Whinger, suddenly turned and walked away into the distance. I think he cracked up for a moment — I couldn’t see. When he came back, he was together again, and muttering, ‘Fucking arseholes!’ over and over.

‘What time did you get out of the mud?’ I asked.

‘Midnight,’ Stringer said.

‘Hell of a struggle.’

‘You can say that again. Everyone’s creased. Who’s this bloke who got you out, then?’

‘The Yank? Sam something. Former SEAL. That poor bastard’s gone as well. They dropped him just as we were lining up for take-off.’

Phil handed me more water. ‘So the villains are going for the diamond.’

‘No. I mean, I don’t know. I’m sure they will, in time. But without a chopper it’ll take them days to find the wrecked plane. Even if they get hold of my GPS, they may not make anything of the waypoints. In the meantime, there’s a new deal.’

I told them about the cache of nuclear warheads. Then I amazed them, and myself, by saying, ‘I reckon we’d better go for that and clean it up before Muende does.’

Where the idea came from, I’ll never know. It just jumped into my mind, fully formed.

‘What?’ Pav was astounded. ‘Have you gone fucking mad? I thought we were on our way out of here.’

‘We were,’ I agreed. ‘But now the goalposts have moved. We need to pull our fingers out and get after those missiles.’

As I said that, I felt myself changing. It was as though I’d been supercharged with rage at Whinger’s death. In the past I’d never been really vindictive, but now I felt mean as sin: I’d dedicate myself to rubbing out the German woman and Muende, along with all his plans, if it was the last thing I did.

‘He’s not fucking getting away with it,’ I announced to the company in general. ‘There’s no way he’s going to get these weapons. You’ll see.’

Pav shot me a peculiar look, as though he thought I’d gone round the twist. By then rehydration had got my brain going again, and I felt well in control of the situation.

I reckoned I’d better give the lads a minute to adjust their ideas, so I said, ‘The first thing is to clear out of here. If the people at the convent have had a message about our escape, they could be out like a swarm of bees at any moment. Before we commit ourselves anywhere else, I need to talk to the Kremlin. Where’s the best place for a temporary LUP? Pav? Phil?’

‘Back up on that ledge at the RV point. Apart from anything else, it’s a great OP, with a view down over the pans and the river. If anyone’s coming, we’ll see them.’

‘That’s it, then. Let’s go.’

‘What about this?’ Mart pointed at the aircraft.

The thing was knackered. Without fuel, it had no future. We couldn’t hide it, and even if we tried to burn it, the tell-tale skeleton would remain.

‘Leave it,’ I said. ‘It’s done its job.’

Half an hour later we were up on the ledge, with the vehicles cammed up between two thorn bushes. As Phil had said, the outlook was brilliant: through binoculars we could see baboons feeding on the river bank, hippos feuding in the water, crocs crawling out onto sandbanks to bask in the sun. If any vehicle had moved, we’d have spotted it at once.

When I first looked into a mirror, I got a shock: my left eye was nearly closed, my mouth stuck out in a pout, and much of the rest of my face was covered by Mart’s dressings. My ribs were bruised black and blue all down my left side, but a check showed none was broken.

I made a quick inventory of the weapons and equipment we’d lost: one pinkie and all its gear, including the Milan post and half a dozen missiles; two 203s, two pistols and six badly needed jerricans of fuel. Needing to re-equip myself, I dug out Andy’s watch, which I’d stowed in the mother wagon for safekeeping, and took over Whinger’s 203, commando knife and GPS. I still had the Colt .45 which I’d taken off the white mercenary.

‘Eh, Stringer,’ I went. ‘Any joy with the satcom?’

‘Yeah, it’s fine. Didn’t you hear? The Kremlin told us about Pretorius and so on?’

‘Oh yeah. What was wrong with it?’

‘I took the handset apart and found a wire had broken inside.’

‘No wonder the bastard wouldn’t work. So you’ve been through to Hereford?’

‘Sure.’

‘What’s the buzz?’

‘We asked for an exfil. There’s a Herc on its way down. It’s going to stage through Harare and wait for us to call it in.’

‘What’s its ETA?’

‘Dunno yet. We need to get confirmation.’

I thought for a moment, then called, ‘Phil, where’s the good map?’

‘It was in your pinkie.’

‘Ah, shit. What about the other?’

‘Here.’ He brought it over. ‘What are you looking for?’

‘Place called Ichembo. Somewhere to the west. Christ, there it is. I found it straight away. That must be a sign.’

‘A sign of what?’

‘That we’re supposed to go there.’

Phil shot me a hard look as he asked, ‘What is it?’

‘The dump where these nuclear warheads are lying.’

By the time I’d got sorted, Andy’s watch was reading 0745.

‘What time will it be in Hereford?’ I asked Stringer.

‘Minus two — 0545.’

‘Let’s go through to them.’

‘What, now?’

‘Yeah. I need to catch up on things.’

This time the satcom worked perfectly, and in a few seconds I was talking to a signaller in the Comcen at Stirling Lines.

‘Who’s the Orderly Officer?’ I asked.

‘Max Davidson.’

‘Oh, right.’ I’d met the man — a tall, sandy-haired rupert who’d recently joined from the Parachute Regiment — but I hardly knew him. ‘Put him on, then.’

‘There’s been a runner sent to get him. He was talking to the DA in some dump called Mulongwe.’

‘Christ, that’s us. I mean, it’s to do with us. I’ll hold.’

From where I stood waiting, I could see the body-bag in the back of the truck. I was thinking, we can’t take Gen with us in this heat. We’re going to have to bury him, and then, if we can, come back for him later.

‘Orderly Officer speaking,’ said a Scots voice in my ear.

‘Hello. Geordie Sharp here.’

‘I’ve just been talking about you.’

‘What was the buzz?’

‘You’re blacked,’ said Davidson, jokily.

‘Great! What have we done?’

‘You attacked the Kamangan government forces without provocation and ran away. Now you’re deliberately fomenting civil war.’

‘Like fuck we are. Listen, you’ve not swallowed any of that shit, I hope?’

‘Of course not.’

‘I’m glad to hear it. Reality’s different. The Alpha commander suddenly turned round and told us to bugger off. We heard he was sending an assassination squad after us in the middle of the night, so we did a flit.’

‘Quite right,’ went Davidson. ‘Where are you now?’

I gave him our coordinates, and filled in more background. Then he said, ‘We’ve got problems at this end as well. Kamanga’s broken off diplomatic relations with the UK.’

‘Charming,’ I said.

‘Yeah. They’re refusing landing rights to British aircraft. The FCO are trying to negotiate. But if push comes to shove, the Herc can nip in across the Namibian border, permission or not. How are things with you?’

‘Bloody awful. We’ve lost two more.’

‘Oh, God! Since midnight?’

‘One before, one after.’

‘Who? Tell me.’

As quickly as I could, I brought him up to speed. I didn’t tell him about the diamond, and I didn’t say exactly what had happened to Whinger. I couldn’t. I just said he’d been murdered at the instigation of the German, that Gen and I had escaped in the light aircraft, but that Gen had collected a bullet.

‘But listen,’ I ended up. ‘The thing now’s this dump of nuclear missile heads. We’ve got to go for it.’

‘Say that again.’

‘We’ve got to grab the stuff before this nutter Muende gets his hands on it. We’re well placed. The location’s only about three hours west of where we are now. We can beat the opposition to it.’

‘Wait one. I think you need to talk to the Ops Officer and the CO before you go ahead on that.’

‘If we’re going, we can’t piss about. It’s now or never.’

‘What are you proposing?’

‘To lift the stuff out before anyone else gets there. What we need to do is find an LZ near the site and guide the Herc in.’

‘Geordie,’ went Davidson, as if he was speaking to a kid. ‘Take it easy. Your ideas are running away with you. All we’re looking to do is pull the remains of the team out before anyone else goes down.’

‘Where’s the Herc, then?’

‘Right now’ — he paused, as if looking at some schedule — ‘it’s en route to Harare. ETA there zero five hundred Zulu.’

‘That’s all right then. It can easily make it here by midday. But we’re going to need NBC suits for all crew members, and our own guys.’

‘Geordie, I say again: you need clearance on this one.’

‘Clearance!’ I shouted. ‘For Christ’s sake, we need help, not clearance. We’re trying to avert a fucking nuclear catastrophe.’

As I broke off the call, I again saw Pav looking at me in a strange way, but he didn’t make any comment, and I said, ‘Before we do anything else, we’d better get Gen underground.’

Nobody argued about that; we’d all seen what the heat and flies did to a body. Flies would be into the nose, eyes and mouth and lay eggs in a matter of hours. In a day or so the eggs would hatch into maggots, the maggots would start eating away, and the belly would explode with gas. Our immediate future was so uncertain that burial was essential. The only question was, where to excavate the grave. We could see that digging would be easiest down in the sand and mud around the pans, but for one thing we didn’t want to go down there, close to the river, and for another we reckoned there would be less risk of animals digging the body up again if we put it in the rocky ground high up. I kept remembering how the warthog had erupted from a hole at the site of the training ambush, and how Joss had told us that aardvarks make enormous excavations every night.

After a search, Phil found a site which he reckoned would do — a level patch, with a little grass growing out of sand — but Jason immediately told him there was rock close beneath the surface.

‘How far down is it?’ Phil asked.

‘Like this.’ The tracker held his hands about a foot apart.

‘How do you know?’

‘I feel.’

Phil glared at him, not liking to be contradicted, and started to dig anyway, with one of the short-handled, pointed shovels that we carried on the pinkies. Sure enough, just over a foot down he hit solid rock and had to admit defeat.

His second choice of site met with Jason’s approval, and there, taking turns, sweating like slaves, we got down nearly four feet before we again hit living rock, while those not digging assembled enough flat pieces of stone to cover the body.

‘That’ll do him,’ said Pav. ‘Nothing can come at him from underneath. If we put these lumps on top, he’ll be fine.’

Sorting through Genesis’s kit, we found his precious bible in the mother wagon. Our first idea was to bury it with him. Then I thought, no, there’s a good chance we’ll come back for him, so we’ll keep it with us and return it to his family.

I don’t think any of us had actually buried a mate before. Going to a funeral is one thing, doing the work another — and anyway, the body is usually inside a coffin. For Genesis we had no such luxury: he had to go under as he was, and there was no rush to take hold of him. In the end it was Pav and myself who picked up the body-bag and lowered it into the rough-cut hole. We’d dug it only just wide enough for his shoulders; his body had already gone stiff, and we had to wriggle it about to make it go down to the bottom. Once he was settled I leant over and pulled the toggle of the zip down far enough for us to see his face. His eyes were closed, and apart from some dried blood on his forehead, he looked peaceful enough

All eight of us — me, Pav, Danny, Chalky, Mart, Stringer, Phil and Jason — were shoulder to shoulder in a tight semi-circle, looking down. Nobody wanted to be the first to shovel earth in, to put him out of sight.

‘Give him our thoughts for a minute,’ I said gruffly. ‘Say goodbye.’

Seconds ticked past. I was conscious of the sun growing hotter on the back of my neck, of bird calls and insect noises. I was grateful to Pav when he broke the silence.

‘If it’d been one of us, he’d be praying,’ he said. ‘Let’s pray for him now.’

‘Yes,’ I went. ‘And save a thought for Whinger.’ Then I added, ‘The last thing Gen said, after he was hit, was, “To give light to them that sit in darkness, and in the shadow of death.”’

‘He would,’ said Pav. ‘And that’s where he is now: in the shadow of death. RIP.’

That cracked Stringer up. I saw tears come into his eyes. I bent down, gave the pallid, freckled cheek a pat, and ran the zip of the black bag shut. Then I started lowering flat rocks into place above the body and shovelling like there was no tomorrow.