The Devil’s Kingdom

Chapter 51

‘They are not here, General.’

The convoy had come to a halt, filling the main drag with a ragged line of dusty vehicles that tailed almost all the way back to the construction zone on its eastern side. The smell of hot metal and diesel fumes was rich in the air, along with the sounds of running boots and spluttering radios and barked commands as over a thousand soldiers were deployed into units that hurried here and there, spreading out in a wide circle and scouring every street, alley, and building. Within minutes, the sentries posted to guard the city in their absence had been found dead, presumed murdered by the escaped prisoners. The soldiers were under orders to bring both the American woman and the yellow-haired boy to the General for interrogation. It was whispered that the wicked foreigners had stolen something of great, great importance, though the rumour was vague. Whatever the nature of the crime, the soldiers were confident that its perpetrators would be suitably punished — and they couldn’t wait to watch.

Jean-Pierre Khosa stood beside his Hummer at the head of the line. His revolver was drawn and cocked in his fist. The wide-set eyes behind the mirrored shades scanned the surrounding buildings, their windows and doorways and rooftops, for any sign of movement. He sensed their presence nearby. He could feel them. He could almost smell the blood in their veins and hear their hearts beating. They would not remain beating for long, once his property was returned to him.

The General appeared calm, but as everyone who knew him understood, sometimes it was when he was at his most calm that he was also at his most volatile. He didn’t seem to have heard the soldier who’d reported back to him after the initial search of the area. Nervously, the soldier cleared his throat and repeated himself. ‘General, the city is empty. The escaped prisoners are no longer here.’

Khosa slowly turned to look at him, expressionless and inscrutable. He shook his head, and replied with absolute certainty, ‘No, Sergeant, they are here. Search again. Every inch of the city. Every crack and hole. Then search the mines. The river. The forest. They are not far away, and you will find them.’

Or heads will roll. Literally. The subtext wasn’t in any way lost on the sergeant, who had seen enough heads literally rolling before now to take it seriously.

‘Where is Pascal Wakenge? Where is my doctor?’ Khosa demanded.

‘With the convoy, General, as you ordered.’

‘Bring him to me.’

The sergeant snapped a salute and ran to carry out the command. Moments later, he returned with the witch doctor, who looked a little bulkier than usual as he was wearing body armour under his robe. Wakenge had accompanied the Luhaka invasion force in a Land Rover near the front of the column, as Khosa liked to keep him on hand for his superhuman powers. Being known to be completely impervious to bullets, the old man’s safety in the midst of battle had not been considered a concern. Strangely, though, Wakenge did seem most relieved to be back in the relative safety of the city. Nobody seemed to have noticed the Kevlar padding around his torso.

‘Oui, mon fils?’ Only the witch doctor could be allowed to call Khosa ‘my son’.

Khosa explained that he wanted Wakenge to use his magic to find the person who had stolen his most precious belonging from him. Wakenge hesitated for the briefest moment and then nodded sagely. He screwed his eyes shut with a look of intense concentration, so that his old face wrinkled up like a walnut as he shook his monkey skulls and chanted softly to himself in a language he alone understood. Khosa watched him with rapt attention. This went on for a good half-minute. Wakenge opened one eye to a slit, saw the General was watching him, closed it again, and continued his strange chant a while longer. Some kinds of magic took longer than others.

But before old Wakenge was able to finish working his wonders, Khosa interrupted him by suddenly reaching out and grasping his skinny arm in a powerful fist.

‘What is it, mon fils?’ Wakenge looked alarmed. Had his patient, pupil and protégé rumbled him at last?

Khosa took off his dark glasses and stared at the old man with bulging eyes. ‘I can hear them,’ he hissed.

Wakenge’s tension melted. He could hear nothing himself, being rather deaf in one ear. ‘This is good, Jean-Pierre. You are learning well.’

‘No, I mean I can hear them,’ Khosa said. He held up a hand. ‘Can you not hear it?’ He stood very still, listening. Then bellowed at the sergeant, ‘Tell those men to be quiet!’

The sergeant shouted orders at the troops. A hush fell over the street. Soldiers glanced at one another in confusion and began crowding around their leader as he stood like a statue, his scarred face locked in concentration. Whatever he could hear, it was no surprise to them that he was alone. His incredible powers of auditory perception were, after all, part of his legend, like his ability to read your thoughts and predict the future.

But then the sound grew a little louder and became audible to ordinary human ears. The soldiers could hear it, too. And if old Pascal Wakenge hadn’t been slightly deaf, he also would have been able to detect the distant familiar drone emanating over the rooftops from the western edge of the city.

A sound like no other. The unmistakable low-pitched rumble and chattering clatter of a large, old-fashioned propeller aircraft warming up its twin nine-cylinder air-cooled radial piston engines and taxiing into position as it prepared for takeoff.

Khosa snapped his eyes open and turned to his troops.

‘The airport!’ he shouted. ‘They are at the airport! Hurry!’