The Devil’s Kingdom

Chapter 17

Jude scrambled to his feet on the other side and brushed the dirt from his hair and hands. Free!

He stood still, barely able to suppress a wild grin as he listened for the footsteps or voices of a lurking security patrol. He could hear nothing, except for the thudding of his own heart and the whisper of the night air. He’d been working in the dark for so many hours that his night vision was sharp and clear. For the first time since he’d been locked up, he was able to see all three of the other huts. He wished he knew which one was the guard hut. It was worrying to imagine Promise lying there so close by, probably just half asleep and ready to spring up at the slightest noise, machine gun at the ready.

But Jude had no intention of rousing him, just as he intended to be long gone by the time Promise got up for his rounds and found the cage empty. All Jude had to do was slip past the armed patrols, make it over two manned perimeter fences topped with razor wire, and then try to figure out where the hell to run to without getting himself shot by soldiers or lost in the middle of the Congo wilderness. But anything was better than being caged.

Jude took a deep breath, steeled himself, then started to make his escape. He ran lightly over the compacted earth, freezing every few steps to listen hard. Still nothing. He ran on, barely making a sound. It reminded him of when he’d been on board the ship, ducking and dodging the pirates as he slipped from deck to deck. The memory made him think of his shipmates who hadn’t made it. Mitch, Diesel, poor Park, Condor, Hercules, all of them. Jude’s grin fell and he felt suddenly sombre and much more frightened.

In the dim moonlight he could see clear across the compound to the metal fence. Beyond the fence was the terrible place they’d come through in Masango’s limo, with the piles of earth and machinery and those poor people cruelly burned at the stake like a scene from hell. He shuddered at the thought that he was going to have to make his way back through it.

Jude was about to make a sprint for the fence when he froze. Two sentries were standing near the metal gates, barely visible in the darkness except for the metallic sheen of their weapons and the glowing red dots of burning cigarettes. He ducked behind the last hut and pressed himself tightly against its side. He’d have to thread his way back through the huts and try to escape from the opposite end of the compound.

Jude’s racing thoughts were interrupted by a sound from inside the hut. He tensed, alarmed at first and not sure what he’d heard. Then he heard it again. A female voice, coming from the other side of the tin wall he was leaning against.

It was the same voice he’d heard crying the night before, carried on the wind. All that day he’d wondered about it, undecided whether it had been real or imagined.

But it had been real, after all. She was sobbing softly. It was a heart-rending sound, and he wondered who she was and why they were keeping her prisoner. Just like his hut, hers had a single barred window. It faced away from where the sentries were standing guard. He could slip around the wall of the hut and look inside, and they wouldn’t spot him.

Jude moved silently to the window. He didn’t want to alarm the woman inside, for fear that she would cry out and draw the sentries’ attention or, worse, wake Promise. He tapped gently on the hut wall and whispered, ‘Hello?’

The sobbing instantly stopped. He thought he heard a snatch of breath; then rigid silence.

Jude gripped the bars of the window and peered in. It was very dark inside the hut. He blinked and thought he could make out the vertical lines of cage bars, just like his own, gleaming dully in the near-pitch blackness. ‘Hello?’ he repeated softly. ‘Who’s there?’

There was such a long pause that he began to wonder if he’d imagined it after all. Then, out of the darkness, came a tiny whisper.

‘Who are you?’ The voice sounded very scared, and even more suspicious, unsure whether to trust him. The accent was American.

He was afraid to say too much in case his voice carried. ‘My name’s Jude. They’re holding me here. I managed to get out. Are you alone in there? What’s your name?’

‘Ray,’ said the whisper, and for an instant Jude thought the voice must belong to a young boy, maybe a teenager, before he realised that she’d said ‘Rae’. Staring hard into the darkness, he could just about make out a slender shape in the middle of the cage. Black hair framing a pale face, out of which gleamed two frightened eyes. She was sitting bolt upright, watching him intently, like a startled deer whose path had crossed with a traveller’s in the forest.

‘Are they holding you here too?’ he whispered.

The pale face gave a quick nod. ‘Yes,’ she whispered back.

‘Why?’

A long pause. Then, ‘Don’t you know? For the same reason as you. Money. What else? They’re holding us for ransom.’

Jude knew that wasn’t the reason in his case. But it might be in hers. Four huts. One for Promise, left three. ‘Who else is here?’ he whispered.

The woman called Rae murmured in reply, ‘Craig. They have him too. Have you seen him?’

‘No. Is he American? Your relative? Husband?’

‘I work for him. We’re journalists. We were taken.’

‘How long have you been here?’

‘Eight days. Maybe nine. I… I lost count.’

Jude edged away from the window. The sentries were still standing by the gate. One of them was laughing about something.

‘Don’t leave me,’ said Rae’s voice. ‘Come back.’

Stepping back to the window, Jude saw the shape inside the cage move. She stood up, clutching the bars and pressing her face through the gap to get as close to him as possible. The fear in her voice had lessened, her tone more urgent as she hissed, ‘What are you doing out there?’

‘I got out. I’m getting out of here.’

‘They’ll catch you.’

‘Not if I can help it,’ he said. He sounded much more confident than he really was.

‘Then you have to get me out, too. And Craig.’

‘I—’

‘Please. You have to help us. If we stay here, we’ll die.’

‘Oh, shit.’ Jude had been so distracted that he hadn’t heard the approaching voices until it was almost too late. He glanced breathlessly around the edge of the hut. The sentries were strolling towards the huts for one of their routine patrols.

‘I have to go,’ he hissed through the window. ‘I’m sorry. I have to—’

‘Please!’

But there was no time to talk more. He broke away and dashed as fast and as quietly as he could away from the hut, losing himself in the shadows.

He would wait until the sentries passed by, and then he would sprint for the gate and take his chances getting over without being seen. He could do it. He had to believe it was possible.

Or was it?

He sighed. ‘Shitbags,’ he murmured to himself. ‘Bollocks.’

No, of course it wasn’t possible. Everything had just changed, now that he knew there were other captives here, locked up in inhuman conditions to face death, or worse.

Jude pictured Rae’s frightened face. Heard her voice in his mind, begging for his help. Then he pictured the charred, semi-skeletal bodies left hanging to rot from the post at which they’d been burned alive.

And he knew that he couldn’t run away and leave her here.

He was getting out. But he was no longer doing it alone. And not tonight. He needed more time to plan how he was going to get her and her friend Craig away from this awful place.

Unseen by the patrolling sentries, just a shadow flitting through the darkness, Jude made his way back to his hut.