The Devil’s Kingdom

Chapter 43

The General blinked, blinked again. He closed his fist around it and then reopened his fingers, as if by some conjuror’s trick the worthless rock might have vanished and the diamond reappeared in its place.

It had not.

Jean-Pierre Khosa almost fainted. He actually staggered on his feet. His brother was staring at him in total incomprehension, and the blank look in Louis’s eyes was more than Jean-Pierre could stand.

The guards posted outside the door with strict orders to let nobody enter heard the explosion of berserk fury inside the room and exchanged nervous glances, but knew better than to open the door. They had learned that the appropriate response to the General’s rages was to let them run their course and pray you didn’t become the target of his anger. But this one was like no other fit of rage they’d ever eavesdropped on before. An orgy of destruction seemed to be going on in there, as if a herd of wild rhinos had been let loose in the room and were trampling and smashing everything to pieces. It went on for several minutes before, eventually, it subsided. Not even General Khosa could keep up such a level of sustained superfury without suffering a fatal coronary.

When the peak of his wrath finally burned itself out, Khosa stood breathless in the wreckage of the room, stared at his bloody hands and then gazed down at the body of his brother on the floor at his feet. Louis’s skull was cracked and his brains had been beaten out. Khosa had no recollection of having bludgeoned him to death with the rock, which lay on the floor next to the body, slicked with blood.

But Khosa did recollect other things. Things that left him in no doubt as to who had stolen his beautiful diamond from him.

The miserable thief had stolen it before, from Pender, on the ship. He had wanted it for himself all along. This was why he’d escaped, and taken the American girl with him — just so he could take the diamond for himself! Yes, that was it. Of course it was. The sneaking little muzungu rat bastard had somehow managed to take it from him when he wasn’t looking. How or when, Khosa had no idea. But he knew it to be so, with absolute certainty.

He would go after him. There would be terrible vengeance. He would make him crawl like a limbless maggot on the ground. He would make him eat his own burnt organs. There would be suffering like no man had ever suffered.

Khosa clenched his bloody fists and screamed. ‘WHITE MEAT!! I WILL KILL YOU!!!’

Sixty miles south-west of Luhaka City, the muzungu rat bastard thief was getting increasingly worried.

Tuesday had told them Khosa’s base was in a building up the street, which seemed a likely place to find Rae’s photographic equipment. Tuesday had been right about it blowing their socks off. Neither she nor Jude were prepared for the experience of walking into a deserted luxury hotel in the middle of the Congo jungle. Jude, who had never seen the real London Dorchester, didn’t care if this was an exact replica or not. It was weird.

‘Probably built for the company top brass,’ Rae said as they stared at the marble-floored lobby.

‘Like Lijuan Wu?’

‘I just made her up. First name that came into my head.’

‘Could have fooled me. What about Zyu Industries?’

‘Oh, they’re real enough, all right. One day you’ll be reading all about them and their little schemes in the news. That’s if I ever find my stuff. It’s the only proof we have.’ She didn’t look hopeful.

‘At least we haven’t run into any more soldiers,’ Jude said, and touched the pistol in his belt. It felt odd being there. Maybe after about a hundred years of carrying it, he might get used to having a live firearm strapped to his side.

They hurriedly made their way to the top floor, where Tuesday had said Khosa had his quarters. ‘He might have stashed the stuff up here somewhere,’ Rae said. ‘We’ll start here and work our way downwards, okay?’

‘Tell me exactly what we’re looking for.’

‘A bunch of silver flight cases, a couple shorter with cameras inside, a couple of longer ones with the telephoto lenses and tripods. It’s just the small ones I want. One of them has the memory card in it, with the images of the mines.’

‘I’m on it,’ Jude said. ‘You take this end, I’ll check out the other rooms and we’ll meet in the middle.’

‘Got it.’

It was a busy search, but it was a fruitless one. Khosa’s suite contained everything a despotic warlord with a penchant for high living might ever want by way of trinkets and luxuries, but not a single camera and certainly none of the gear his men had confiscated from Rae and Munro. They’d been rummaging through the place for close to an hour when Jude’s walkie-talkie squawked, making him jump. It was Tuesday, saying he’d found what he thought was a viable aircraft and was working on it. The call was an uncomfortable reminder to them that the clock was ticking.

‘We’re wasting time here,’ Rae said, anxiously looking at her watch.

Working their way downwards through the hotel they ransacked laundry rooms, store cupboards, dozens of unused bedrooms, and found nothing. Finally reaching the ground floor, they spent far too long exhaustively searching the nest of passageways that led to the kitchens, the boiler room, and a series of cluttered storerooms.

Rae was almost weeping with frustration. ‘It’s got to be somewhere!’

Jude would have loved to say something to comfort her, but he couldn’t think what. Tuesday hadn’t been back in contact. Jude didn’t know if that was a good thing or a bad thing. Either way, their three hours were almost up, and his anxiety was mounting. Rae was as focused as a bloodhound on the trail of her precious evidence. He could sense that she wouldn’t relent until she found it. Knowing how much it meant to her, he dreaded her reaction if he made a move to tear her away. Yet he couldn’t leave her alone in this place, and nor could he give up on Ben and Jeff. It was an impossible situation.

There were now just a few minutes left to resolve it in. Running out of time faster than they were running out of places to search. They’d narrowed it down to a few remaining storerooms and offices on the ground floor, and Rae was digging through boxes and crates and assorted junk like a rescuer searching for survivors in the rubble of an earthquake. Jude was on the verge of saying, ‘Come on, Rae, it’s no use,’ when a bolt of lightning flashed in his mind.

‘Captain Umutese,’ he said out loud. ‘That was his name.’

‘Whose name?’ Rae asked, glancing up with a frown.

‘Khosa’s officer. The one the soldiers were about to radio when they caught us back there.’

‘So?’

‘So they had a long-range radio in their Jeep. They were in touch with the rest of the army.’

Rae didn’t understand. Jude didn’t have time to explain. The idea was a hell of a long shot, but then so had been the one-in-a-million chance of getting his SOS email through to Jeff Dekker while all hell was breaking loose aboard the Svalgaard Andromeda, stranded out in the middle of the Indian Ocean with pirates swarming all over her decks, killing off the crew and dumping bodies in the ocean. Long shots had worked for Jude before, and this one might — just might — work too.

He took the gun from his belt and urgently pressed it into her hand. ‘Take this. Stay right here. Lock the door behind me. Anyone tries to get in, you shoot first and ask questions later, all right?’

Rae stared at the gun in her hand, not liking it. She looked up at Jude in alarm. ‘Where are you going?’

‘I’ll be back as quick as I can,’ he promised her, and set off at a run out of the building and down the street towards the Jeep.