The Samurai Inheritance

XXXVIII

It was raining when Jamie stepped off the Air Niugini Fokker 100 jet at Buka airport after the three-hour flight from Port Moresby, but not the kind of miserable London drizzle he was accustomed to. This rain came out of the sky like bullets and would have soaked him to the skin in seconds but for the hooded anorak he’d bought at Brisbane airport. The one compensation was that it took the edge off the sultry heat that hit him in the face like a slap the moment he left the air-conditioned cocoon of the plane.

His travel-weary mind fought to compute that it was still only nine in the morning. He’d parted company with Magda at Brisbane, where a young Devlin aide had given him his instructions. There’d been no surprise that his destination was Bougainville. The first leg of the journey had taken him to Port Moresby where he’d spent ten hours trying to avoid being mugged as he waited for the connecting flight. He hitched his rucksack on to his back and followed the other passengers towards the small single-storey building that constituted the Bougainville terminal. As they crossed the tarmac, the rain stopped as if someone had flicked a switch and wisps of steam rose from every surface like the essence of trapped souls escaping from the grave.

For a moment he had to fight the feeling of being very alone and far from home. Everything was unfamiliar. Exotic foliage hugged the fringes of the airport and palms and coconut trees swayed under a ceiling of puffy white cloud. Shading his eyes, he scanned his surroundings for the Devlin representative who would undoubtedly be here to meet him. A distinctive oily smell caught his throat, forcing the earthy scent of the passing shower into the background. It was the rancid aroma of some vegetable that had been lying decaying for years and just been exposed to the air. To his left was a small car park filled to overflowing with big sturdy SUVs, and beyond it a rusting corrugated-iron hangar that might have been there since the Second World War.

By the time he reached the terminal the heat had forced him to remove his jacket, and sweat poured down his back thanks to the incredible humidity. The baggage collection area was on an open veranda at the front of the building. He groaned inwardly as he saw the man in a blue uniform shirt checking passports while another made a cursory examination of his fellow passengers’ hand luggage. Jamie had thought he’d been clever disguising the Bougainville head in a box that had originally contained a toy of a similar size. The only problem was that it had a perspex window, and he now realized any native of the Solomon Islands wouldn’t be fooled for five seconds. Just as he reached the end of the line a hand touched his shoulder.

‘Mr Saintclair? If you’d like to come with me.’ Jamie turned his head and found himself the focus of a pair of ice-blue eyes. His captor was half a head shorter and thirty years older, but he wore his light tropical suit like a uniform and there was a stillness and a confidence to him that warned against taking any liberties. The man gave an almost imperceptible nod to the two guards and they stepped aside as he led Jamie through to the baggage area. ‘Which is yours?’ Jamie pointed to a brown leather holdall and the man picked it up. ‘You travel light.’

‘I’m not planning to be here for long.’

The comment prompted a faint smile and he followed his guide out into the sunshine. ‘Doug Stewart.’ Jamie took the proffered hand and winced as his fingers were crushed in an iron grip. He looked into Stewart’s face for any sign of a challenge, but there was nothing there but steady appraisal. ‘I’m Devlin’s head of security.’

‘That must be an interesting job.’

‘It has its moments.’ Stewart ignored the sarcasm. ‘I take it by your reaction to the security check that what we’ve been waiting for is in your backpack?’

‘When do I see Fiona and Lizzie?’ He took a tighter grip of the rucksack’s strap.

‘When Mr Devlin decides.’ Stewart’s laugh betrayed an easy confidence in his abilities. ‘Don’t worry, son, I’m not planning to take it away from you; but if I was there’s bugger all you could do about it.’

‘What would have happened if they’d found it and you weren’t there?’

The other man shrugged. ‘They’d have taken it and locked you up.’

‘And then?’

‘Then we’d have had to persuade them to give us it back. But the whole island would know about it in less than three hours.’

Jamie noticed that getting him out of jail wouldn’t have been part of the package. ‘Is that such a bad thing? I’d have thought the return of an ancient artefact would be cause for celebration on Bougainville.’

Doug Stewart stopped in the street and turned to face Jamie. ‘Oh, yes, Mr Saintclair, that would be a very bad thing indeed.’ He looked down at his feet. Jamie followed his gaze and flinched at what looked like bloodstains on the concrete. Stewart grinned at his reaction. ‘Betel juice. The Boogs chew betel all the time and the filthy so-and-sos spit it out wherever it suits them.’

Bastard.

The security chief led the way to a Toyota SUV that had been put through hard use judging by the number of bumps and scrapes. Doug Stewart motioned him to the passenger side and it was only when he was inside the vehicle that he noticed the two men in the rear seats. Like Stewart they were small, compact men with unforgiving eyes, but they were twenty years younger and decked out in jungle green. Each held a stubby assault rifle with a plastic stock at his side.

‘Meet Joe and Andy,’ Stewart introduced the pair, ‘the boss’s personal bodyguards while he’s on the island, but he’s loaned them to you for today. Andy doesn’t say much, but compared to Joe he’s a bundle of laughs.’ The pair smiled dutifully at their colleague’s joke. ‘You’ll learn very quickly that it pays to be prepared when you’re on Bougainville, Mr Saintclair. This isn’t your average tropical paradise. You’ll have had your shots? Malaria and beriberi?’

Jamie nodded. He’d had a full set of injections for a planned trip to South America. ‘Good, but just remember the mossies aren’t the only pest around here. If you swim in the river a croc could take you. Swim in the sea and it’ll be a shark. The people are as friendly and open as any on earth; to a European they might even seem childlike. Don’t let that kid you. They welcome visitors, take them into their homes and share their food, but if you’re a Chinaman who opens up a shop you’ll like as not find it burned down the next morning. They’re all Christians, but they believe in magic and sorcery and that you can die if a witch curses you. There are enough guns left over from the last war to start the next one, every man knows how to use them and they’re not slow to pull the trigger. That’s the kind of place it is. If you don’t keep your eyes open you’ll end up in very big trouble indeed.’

Jamie knew the litany of danger had been designed to scare him, but he wasn’t impressed. ‘If that’s the case, why bring me here? We could just as easily have made the exchange in Brisbane.’

Stewart’s face turned blank as if a shutter had fallen. ‘That’s for Mr Devlin to explain.’

As they drove out of the car park Jamie saw a tall, dark-haired woman wearing sunglasses emerge from the terminal building to be met by a large black man in a T-shirt and jeans. A passenger who must have been one of the last off the plane. Taking care not to show an interest, he felt a surge of what might be optimism, or more accurately hope. He wasn’t alone any more.

Doug Stewart drove with the same economy of effort with which he moved and they made swift progress though the town past a mixture of coconut groves and clapboard houses with roofs of corrugated iron or plastic. Even with the air conditioning on and the added firepower of the driver’s aftershave the now-familiar rancid odour grew in intensity.

Eventually, they pulled in by a dock. Joe and Andy stowed their guns in a holdall and when they got out of the car Jamie winced at the heat and the stink. Stewart noticed his reaction and grinned. ‘That, my boy, is the smell of money. Copra; dried coconut husks. Those warehouses are full of it and so is the ship. Coconuts, cocoa and crazy tourists are the only things holding the Bougainville economy together right now. That and Australian aid money, which some of the locals would be happier without. The Buka Passage.’ He indicated the narrow strip of water, less than half a mile wide. ‘It’s quicker to leave the car here and get a banana boat across than wait for the ferry.’

It took them a matter of minutes to reach the far side, and moments later they were in another Toyota, heading south along a dirt road that hugged the coastline. They passed occasional small huts where locals sold surplus produce or native delicacies cooked over an open fire. Groups of women and children smiled and waved to the car as it passed. Jamie noted that the males were less friendly and most carried some sort of weapon: either a machete or a long bush knife. They were uniformly stocky and well muscled with handsome features, tight-curled bushes of black hair and skin so black it had a purple sheen.

The trip gave Jamie a glimpse of the picture-postcard tropical paradise he’d imagined on the flight from Port Moresby. Beyond a narrow fringe of white sand an endless expanse of sea stretched away to the horizon, its waters shot with every shade of blue from the lightest sapphire to the deepest indigo, constantly altering in harmony with the sky’s ever-changing moods. It was so beautiful it almost made you forget why you were here. Somewhere up ahead, Fiona and Lizzie Carter were being held against their will; dispensable tokens in whatever dirty game Keith Devlin was playing. Ever since he’d boarded the plane, Jamie had nursed a growing anger that bubbled inside him like the caldera of one of the volcanoes in those jungle-clad mountains looming to his right. The natural manifestation of this feeling would be to beat Devlin to a pulp the moment he set eyes on him, but Stewart and his two attack dogs ruled that out for the moment.

His first priority was to get Fiona and Lizzie out of this place. Keith Devlin seemed to think he could dabble with other people’s lives like some omnipotent god. Well, Jamie Saintclair had a message for him: he could bugger off and think again. The Bougainville head lay comfortably in the rucksack between his feet and he had a feeling its destiny was to do mischief on behalf of the Australian mining boss. He could almost sense its desire to be home and a growing power he hoped was all in his mind. But for Fiona and Lizzie he would have thrown the head to the fishes in the Buka Passage, but he knew he had no option but to play the game out to its bitter end. There was only one problem with that scenario. On a place like Bougainville it meant someone was going to get hurt. He just hoped it would be the right someone.

Doug Stewart concentrated on the road, which deteriorated the further south they travelled. Potholes riddled the dirt surface, spinning tyres had ripped out enormous mud holes where previous vehicles had become stuck and fought their way out of the mire. Every few miles they came to a boulder-strewn stream that needed to be forded at a crawl, with the car bucking like a rodeo pony. Now Jamie understood why only a big SUV would do in this kind of terrain. He counted at least five times they’d come close to being rammed by other cars or mini-buses filled to overflowing with islanders. Andy and Joe seemed unconcerned by the near-death experiences. One took turns on watch while the other got what sleep he could in the rattling vehicle. After two hours on the road, Jamie followed their example and closed his eyes.

He was woken with a nudge from Andy. ‘Grub’s up, mate.’

Stewart pulled up beside a roadside shack roofed with banana leaves, set back from the road in a clearing cut from the jungle. He got out of the car and stretched. ‘Christ, I’m getting too old for this.’ Jamie joined him and studied the wares on display. They mainly consisted of fresh fruit, some of which he recognized and some not, small see-through bags of what looked like potato crisps that turned out to be made from banana, and a bun-like object served on a coconut leaf.

Andy bought enough bottled water and bags of banana chips for the rest of the journey. A shy, bushy-haired boy of about five peeled and sliced a pineapple using an enormous machete with all the ease of a penknife. The pineapple was sweet, juicy and refreshing, and was followed by some kind of smoked fish and finally one of the sticky buns. ‘Tamatama, you likim,’ the boy said, following up with what sounded like a long explanation in the sing-song dialect the locals spoke.

‘Tok Pisin,’ Stewart explained. ‘Pidgin English. The different Boog clans have about twenty languages between them, but just about everybody can get by in English or Tok Pisin. He’s just told you the recipe. Basically its sweet banana, taro and coconut turned into a paste, rolled into a ball and roasted. Give it a try, it’s not bad.’

What Jamie found most interesting about the stop was the puzzling way the other men treated him. It had been the same ever since he’d arrived at Buka. These were Keith Devlin’s men, and by now he thought of Devlin as the enemy. He’d expected to step off the plane into a tense confrontation, possibly to be threatened with violence and then manhandled to a meeting with the mining tycoon. Instead, after an initial wariness, it seemed he was regarded not so much as a prisoner but as one of the team. At first he’d been suspicious. Was he the turkey being fattened up for Christmas? It was a possibility, but he had a feeling Joe and Andy, at least, though consummate practitioners of their art, tactically cunning and physically deadly, weren’t the dissembling type. If they acted as if Jamie Saintclair was one of the boys it was because someone, most likely Doug Stewart, had told them he was one. For the moment, Stewart himself remained an enigma, part middle management executive, part Fifties matinée idol, part superannuated assassin. It was an interesting mix.

When they drove on, Andy was at the wheel with Stewart in the passenger seat, while Jamie sat in the back beside the apparently mute Joe. To ease the boredom Jamie decided to try to tease him into conversation, remarking on the thickness of the jungle beside the road, which, frankly, scared the hell out of him.

‘Jungle?’ Doug Stewart snorted from the front seat. ‘That’s not jungle; it’s more like somebody’s back yard.’ In the rear, Joe nudged Jamie and grinned as Devlin’s security chief continued. ‘You wanna see proper jungle get yourself up country to Bien Hoa in the ’Nam. It once took us three days to cut a two-hundred-yard trail through elephant grass so thick you didn’t have room to swing your machete. The bloody leaves were sharp enough to shave with.’

‘You were in Vietnam?’

Stewart turned to stare at Jamie.

‘Hey, I’m just interested.’

‘Sure, I did two tours in ’sixty-seven and ’sixty-nine.’

‘What outfit were you with?’

The security chief smiled. ‘Now that would be telling.’

Jamie shrugged as if he’d taken the hint. ‘It’s always surprised me that the Australians supported the Americans, but the British didn’t.’

Doug Stewart shook his head. ‘Partly politics, but mainly geography. The war was on our doorstep and the Yanks were our allies. If we didn’t fight Charlie in the ’Nam what was to stop the Chinks rolling over the rest of South East Asia, and where would that leave us? Nah, we needed the Yanks more than they needed us, but they were bloody pleased when they saw what we could do. And don’t you believe there were no Brits in Vietnam. I served beside a few guys who were about as Australian as Yorkshire pudding.’

An hour later the road moved away from the coast towards the mountains and they arrived at the first major road junction Jamie had seen in a hundred miles. Stewart told Andy to stop. As the Toyota rolled to a halt he turned to Jamie. ‘In case you’re interested, this is the road to the Panguna Mine that caused all the trouble a few years back.’ Jamie stifled the urge to tell him all he was interested in was seeing Fiona and Lizzie. The road was different from the one they’d travelled because it was paved and in reasonable condition. It ran for about a hundred metres before it disappeared into thick jungle, and he could see the green-clad mountains that rose just beyond. In the foreground a dilapidated sign announced that it was a No Go Zone, and just beyond it a line of iron oil barrels reinforced the message. He shrugged. ‘Thanks for the tour, but I’d really like to get wherever it is we’re going.’

Stewart grinned. ‘No problem. At least you won’t have long to wait now.’

They resumed their journey, dropping down towards the coast again. After about ten minutes Jamie saw a sight that seemed almost surreal after the endless miles of jungle track.

‘Welcome to Arawa, the Pearl of the Pacific,’ Doug Stewart announced.

It was a town. Public buildings — a hospital, a school, a library — churches, paved roads, a shopping mall, open spaces filled with greenery, and a grid of streets lined by white houses and colonial-style apartment blocks sprawling across acres of flatland in a river valley running down to the sea.

‘It even had its own international airport. Let Mr Saintclair have a look-see, Andy.’

The bodyguard took a left that sent them towards the town square. It was only when you looked closer that you realized this wasn’t so much a town as a ghost town. Every shop and business had been gutted by fire. Most of the buildings — burned-out shells — were only held together by rusting metal beams. The windows of a thousand houses stared out black and empty like the eye sockets of as many skulls. Doors hung by their hinges, roofs had collapsed into the rooms below, and the jungle had reclaimed gardens once thriving with scented flowers, yams, sweet potatoes and taro.

Here and there were a few signs of revival. Someone had opened a bar with a few tables outside. A couple of dozen houses had been patched up, perhaps by their former owners.

‘Difficult to believe this was once the richest town between Sydney and San Francisco,’ Stewart reflected. ‘It had a country club with its own golf course, restaurants and a footy team, the best health facilities money could provide. This,’ he shook his head, ‘truly was Paradise to the people who lived here.’

‘What happened to it?’ Jamie asked. ‘And to them?’

Devlin’s security chief shrugged. ‘Bougainville Copper Limited built it for the mine workers and their families. They turned a coconut plantation into the state capital of Bougainville; Government House was just up the road there. By the Eighties the place was going like a fair. It had its own power plant, shared with the mine, over at Loloho Point across there, a couple of hundred kids were born in the hospital and a couple of thousand taught in the schools. You could buy every western luxury as long as you could afford it. So there you are, the world’s biggest copper mine is churning out millions a week in profit, you have some of the finest mining experts to make sure it continues that way, and probably the happiest workforce in the world. What could go wrong?’

‘They’d forgotten something,’ Jamie ventured.

‘That’s right.’

‘The people.’

‘You have an elite group of white workers living in all this luxury and the only look-in the Boogs get is to clean their toilets; okay, that’s an exaggeration, but you get the picture. Some slick lawyers have persuaded them to more or less give their land away or if they refused the government just took it. They don’t understand how big a mess this thing is going to cause, and when they do find out the PNG government doesn’t give a bugger because all they can see is dollar signs and they don’t care about the Bougainvilleans anyway. It could all have been sorted out with a couple of million to the right people, but by the time anybody realized it was too late. One of the Bougainville employees at the mine was a clever young fella called Francis Ona. He could see what was happening and what was gonna happen. So he started a war. One thing led to another and the mine closed down, Arawa was abandoned, the PNG defence department brought in troops to destroy the Bougainville Revolutionary Army and when that didn’t work they tried to burn and starve Bougainville into submission. But the Boogs are a lot tougher than they look and here we are.’

‘I don’t understand,’ Jamie said as Andy put the big SUV into gear. ‘What will Keith Devlin do that’s any different? How can the Bougainville head cancel out thirty years of history?’

‘I’ll let the Messiah tell you that himself.’ Stewart smiled, but Jamie detected a sardonic edge to his voice.