The Devil’s Kingdom

Chapter 29

Ben was slowly coming to as the soldiers slung him into the back of a technical and delivered him back to the city. As consciousness returned, with it came the pain. There wasn’t much of him that didn’t hurt so badly that the nerves screamed in protest at every movement and every bump of the pickup truck’s suspension. It was almost a relief when the jarring trip ended and he was grabbed and thrust into prison.

Khosa’s jail block was a crude basement beneath the barracks building. Crude, but effective. The walls were solid, the doors were sheet steel and the only window in Ben’s tiny cell was twelve feet above the floor and barely large enough for a monkey to scramble through. Let alone a monkey with multiple contusions over just about every square inch of flesh on its body.

Ben knew he wasn’t going anywhere.

The first thing he did was to check himself over for serious damage. He was no stranger to hurt. The last time he’d taken such a thrashing had been at the hands of a bunch of sadistic prison guards in Indonesia. Even that was nothing next to the joyful memory of the roughest phase of SAS training, where the lucky candidates who’d already managed to endure weeks of hell on earth were manhunted through forests and hills, inevitably caught, hooded and knocked about fairly brutally to make them divulge their name, rank and serial number. It was called RTI, Resistance to Interrogation training. Ben had actually evaded capture the first three times they’d tried it on him — a regimental record that to his knowledge was still unbroken. The fourth time he hadn’t been as fortunate, although his interrogators had got nothing out of him.

What you took away from those experiences was the knowledge of where your personal limitations lay; Ben had learned that to physically break him, you’d have to kill him. Then wake him up and kill him again. It was a valuable lesson, earned the hard way.

Khosa’s men hadn’t done any lasting damage, as far as Ben could tell from his painful self-examination. His nose wasn’t broken and none of his teeth felt loose. He’d be spectacularly black and blue for a while, and it would take a few days for the swellings across his cheekbones and jawline to go down. But he’d mend in time, and be fully functional again long before then. He lay on the wooden bench that was the only form of bedding in the cell, and gazed up at the ceiling, trying to relax his aching body.

His mind, though, would not relax. Jumbled fragments of half-memory told him that something bad had just happened to Jeff and Tuesday. He’d only vaguely registered being cut down from the rope, but he’d have recognised those voices anywhere. There had been a commotion. Shots fired, then lots of shaking around in the back of a truck. A rescue attempt, one that touched him with gratitude to the deepest core, but thwarted for some reason. Where were his friends now?

The stars were fading in the small rectangle of dark sky above him. The first glimmers of a dawn the colour of blood were threading in from the east. He closed his eyes, alone and weary and in pain. And desperately thirsty. His lips were cut and parched, and his throat was so dry he could barely swallow.

He’d had worse.

But the worst of all, by a long shot, was still to come.

Ben’s eyes opened at the sound of his cell door opening. He raised himself painfully up on one elbow and blinked as harsh torchlight shone in his face. Two guards entered his cell, one carrying a dish and a sloshing bucket, the other pointing a rifle as though he seriously expected Ben to try something on. They weren’t alone. The broad, tall figure that stepped into the cell with them was instantly recognisable.

‘I have brought you some food and water, soldier,’ Khosa said. ‘Do not tell me I am not fair and considerate, even towards a man who has shown me nothing but disrespect.’

‘Where are Jeff and Tuesday?’ Ben asked. His voice was just a croak.

‘Your friends, unlike you, are very loyal. They would risk death to save you. Such courage is to be honoured. This is the only reason I have decided to spare the white one from execution. He is in a cell down the hall. We have not hurt him very much. As for the black boy, my men will find him soon enough. If he is as clever as he is brave, he will come quietly. If not, perhaps they will have to kill him.’

Ben smiled despite the pain in his broken lips. They were alive, for now at least. That piece of news was more important to him at this moment than his dignity. The slosh of the water bucket was more than he could bear. He rolled off the bench and went to drink thirstily from it.

Then recoiled with a loud yell at the thing in the water.

Sunk to the bottom of the bucket, palely illuminated in the torchlight, was a human hand.

It had been hacked off by a cleaver or a machete, leaving about four inches of wrist and a nub of bone. But it wasn’t the sight of a severed body part that brought out Ben’s involuntary cry of horror. It was the bead bracelet looped around the stub of the wrist. A bead bracelet that Ben had seen before, lettered to spell the name ‘Helen’.

Ben kicked out at the bucket, spilling its contents across the floor. The hand flopped out and fell on its back, fingers curled into a claw like the legs of a huge dead spider. It was colourless and puffy, the flesh swollen and macerated from being immersed in the water. He didn’t recognise it. But how well did he know his own son’s hand?

Ben’s eyes filled with tears that stung the raw bruises on his cheeks like acid. He looked up at Khosa in pure hatred. ‘What have you done to him?’

‘He is alive. That is all you need to know. And he still has one hand, two feet and his head. For the moment. Perhaps you will reflect on this before you commit any further acts of insubordination. I hope you appreciate that your punishment could have been much worse. You have only my good grace to thank for this act of mercy. The next time I will not be as lenient. Even my benevolence has its limits.’

Ben was silent. He was slumped on his knees on the wet floor, shaking badly and fighting a tide of nausea.

Khosa’s awful scarred face frowned sternly down at him. ‘Have you nothing to say?’

Ben couldn’t find the words. After a long silence, he mumbled, ‘Thank you.’

‘I would like to hear more conviction in your voice.’

‘Thank you,’ Ben repeated more firmly. He closed his eyes, unable to stare at Jude’s hand for a moment longer.

Khosa gave a broad smile. ‘You are welcome. Can I now expect to see an improvement in your attitude?’

Ben nodded, eyes still closed.

‘Excellent. It is a shame that we have these difficulties, soldier, but I am pleased that we are making progress at last. Now that we understand each other much better, I will arrange for your immediate release. Your friend Dekker is hereby pardoned for his actions, and will be freed also. Let this be an end to the matter.’

Khosa swept from the cell. On his way out he said to a guard, ‘Bring the hand. It will make a nice treat for the dogs.’