The Samurai Inheritance

XLI

Jamie hated the jungle with all the loathing and passion he’d feared, but he decided he hated Keith Devlin even more. No matter his apparently altruistic plans for the future of Bougainville and its people, Devlin was a malignant human being who manipulated everyone within his orbit. He’d noticed it first with Nico, the successful young Australian lawyer who’d brokered his deal with Leopold Ungar. Assured and urbane, Nico become uncertain and fearful in Devlin’s presence, like a dog worried the next thing he’d feel was the whip. Jamie knew he would never have dared cross swords with the odious Madam Nishimura if it hadn’t been for Devlin’s veiled threats against Fiona and Lizzie. And now it was happening again. He was out of his element and he knew it. For no good reason, Magda Ross’s face appeared in his head. He missed the air of calm competence she brought to every tough situation and she would be familiar with the Bougainville jungle. The feeling was quickly replaced by a familiar pang of guilt when he realized that her competence wasn’t the only thing he missed about her. Something fell down the back of his neck and he slapped frantically at the back of his shirt. And things were about to get worse.

It started to rain.

People talk about the heavens opening, but in Bougainville a shower was more like being caught underneath an emptying swimming pool. Jamie was soaked to the skin before he even had the chance to reach for his waterproof. His clothes stuck to his body as he trudged miserably on, the trail — little more than a dirt scar in the thick grass — turning to glutinous mud beneath his feet. Soon the trail wasn’t a trail at all, just an emerald strip of knee-high grass between the trees, filled with ferns and shoulder-high, razor-edged spiky leaves that sliced tiny cuts in the skin of his bare arms. Doug Stewart led with his rifle at the port across his chest, setting a pace Jamie struggled to match. The conditions had no effect on the Australian and his eyes alternately scanned the ground ahead and the wall of trees and vines that sloped upwards to left and right. Every hundred paces brought a gully to struggle down or a steep ridge to climb, each thousand a river to ford, filled with slippery rocks that were ankle-breaking booby traps.

As the canopy thickened the rain faded and eventually stopped completely, the constant rush replaced by a silence vastly more unnerving. Stewart halted and raised a hand for Jamie to do the same. For twenty seconds or more he stood with his eyes closed, tasting the quiet with his ears the way a dog tests for scent with his nose. When he was satisfied, they moved on, but he repeated the exercise half an hour later.

‘Five-minute rest,’ he whispered.

Jamie staggered to a grateful halt, panting with exertion. Stewart unhooked the water bottle from his belt and took a three-second drink. Jamie matched him gulp for gulp and had to avoid the temptation to continue. The security boss leaned against the barrel of his rifle, drawing the breath deep into his lungs. Jamie was about to take a seat under a tree beside him when the Australian’s fingers twisted into his T-shirt to drag him upright.

‘Don’t you know anything?’ he grunted. ‘If you sit down, it’s only more difficult to get up again. Stand tall and suck in that oxygen. Water and air, that’s your fuel, but you’ve got to get that air into your lungs.’

Jamie leaned against the tree instead and, imitating the Australian’s actions, carefully treated every scratch on his arms. After what could only have been three minutes, Stewart straightened up and headed off down the trail. With a curse and a groan, the art dealer followed.

Jamie’s image of the jungle included brightly coloured birds and potentially dangerous animals. Lizards and, he suppressed a shiver, scaly, thin-lipped, bead-eyed, enough-poison-to-kill-you-ten-times-over snakes. Yet this jungle was curiously devoid of life. All he saw was the occasional insect, although they included an ebony millipede the length of his forearm and butterflies that ranged between the size of a poker chip and a soup plate. A soft rush in the distance had just signalled the next river when the Australian froze and his eyes swivelled to the tree canopy. Jamie followed his gaze, aware that something wasn’t right, but not sure what it was. They stood frozen while the seconds lengthened. Eventually, Jamie’s eyes caught the flutter of a small brown bird flitting through the highest canopy.

It seemed nothing, but Stewart was already on the move, picking up the pace although, Jamie noted, not lengthening his stride pattern. The sound of the river grew louder and when they reached it the Australian stopped and beckoned Jamie close. ‘When you get to the middle,’ he whispered, ‘you turn, walk very carefully ten paces downstream and wait for me. Got that?’

Jamie nodded. This was no time for questions. The river was close to thirty feet wide with steeply sloping banks of gravel. He scrambled into the water and complied with the directions, disturbing the river bed as little as he could. When he reached the spot the security chief had indicated he turned and watched curiously as Stewart completed the crossing. When the Australian reached the far side he did an odd little dance, moving from side to side as he crossed the patch of loose stones. Once into the grass he moved quickly, planting his feet very deliberately for fifty paces, then marching from the path up into the trees for a count of ten. Jamie watched him stop and turn. Stewart scanned the path on the Panguna side of the crossing, before even more deliberately walking backwards down the slope. When he reached the flat he continued, parallelling his original tracks until he reached the river again and walked downstream to reach the Englishman.

‘That was very neat.’

‘What are you waiting for?’ Stewart growled. ‘That little parlour trick won’t fool a proper tracker for long.’

‘Tracker?’ Jamie frowned, but the Australian was already forging downstream out of sight of the ford. Here the banks closed in and Stewart grunted approval as he saw what he was looking for. The roots of a pandanus palm had given up the struggle with the thin soil and the eighteen-inch trunk had fallen to hang precariously at head height over the flow. As they reached the tree, Stewart handed Jamie the SLR and with surprising athleticism pulled himself up to balance on the trunk. He reached down to take the rifle and carried it to the sloping bank before returning to haul Jamie up beside him.

When they reached the bank Stewart studied the fallen tree, grimacing at the wet marks their feet had left on the bark.

‘Can’t be helped,’ he whispered. ‘Follow me and for Christ’s sake don’t make a noise.’ Picking up the rifle, the Australian ghosted his way through the vegetation without seeming to leave a mark of his passing. Jamie followed, trying, with limited success, to emulate him. As they reached the top of the bank Stewart forced him unforgivingly down among the fronds of a dense fern. They lay side by side, Jamie trying to still the arrhythmic, adrenalin-fuelled hammering of his heart and the breath that forced its way from his lungs in sobs. A minute passed, then another. Was the security man jumping at shadows? Stewart met the question in his eyes with an almost imperceptible shake of the head. Wait.

When they came they were like shadows, ethereal and almost invisible as they hugged the bank of the stream, their feet barely disturbing the surge of the water as they advanced. Jamie froze at the sight of the two black men in ragged T-shirts and worn combat trousers, automatic rifles held at the ready across their chests. Another ten paces and they would reach the tree. Jamie tensed, but Stewart laid a hand on his arm. Don’t move. Relax. Through a gap in the ferns he saw the enemy — whoever they were, their alertness and certainty of purpose definitely made them his enemy — halt. The closest, tall and athletic, with narrow-set killer’s eyes and pockmarked skin, cast a final glance over the surroundings and made a twirling motion with his finger. His companion nodded and together they turned to disappear upstream as silently as they’d come.

Jamie turned to his companion, but Stewart put a finger to his lips and squirmed silently backwards, downhill and away from the stream. Only when they’d covered fifty paces away and buried themselves in the bush did he rise. Jamie hurried to catch up with him, a dozen questions on his lips.

‘They were PNG,’ Doug Stewart whispered, forestalling the first of them. ‘Those illegal gold miners from the Jaba River I told you about. Redskins, and they must be desperate to be running around with fucking M16s in BRA country.’

‘What do you think they want?’

The Australian let out a soft snort of laughter. ‘Us, idiot. That monstrosity you have in your rucksack. Anything that Devlin has and they haven’t.’ He saw Jamie’s look of bemusement. ‘Intelligence,’ he tried to explain. ‘Just because they’re black fellas doesn’t mean they don’t have it, and you’d better start using yours if you don’t want to wind up dead. Look, Keith thinks he’s got Canberra wrapped around his little finger, but there are people in Canberra who don’t like Keith Devlin and would like nothing better than to see him fail. Maybe they’re sympathetic with the blokes running Port Moresby, maybe not, but they won’t miss a chance to do Devlin down. So the PNG government knows there’s dirty work afoot and they have spies on the island because they have everything to lose. The Solomons has spies on the island because they have an interest in what happens to Bougainville. The Chinks have spies on the island because they have spies everywhere in the Pacific. And the Aussies have spies here because they need to know if the mine is going to reopen and Bougainville is going to blow up in their faces again.’ He pushed his way through a stand of tall grass and Jamie struggled to follow. ‘All of those people have been watching us, some of them would be happy to see us dead and most of them want to see us fail. We’re on our own out here, son. Nobody’s gonna help us, but us. Just like the old days, but without the fucking Jolly Green Giant to take you back to the world. Now for half a dollar I’d bugger off and leave you on your own, but that would also leave me a long way from home and without a pot to piss in. So I’ll stay, for the moment, and help you get that thing back home. But you stay close and you cover my back.’

The barrage of bad news made Jamie wonder more than ever about Keith Devlin’s motive in sending them out into the bush without a proper escort. He wished to Christ he’d never come anywhere near this godforsaken island and that he’d never set eyes on the Bougainville head. But most of all he wished he had a gun; a big, shiny black gun like the one Doug Stewart carried.

‘We’re going in the wrong direction,’ he pointed out.

The ground fell away sharply to their right and Stewart tested a length of liana that would help him down the bank before he answered.

‘If we try to get back to the track the chances are we’ll meet them head on and they’ll either ask politely for what’s in your rucksack or shoot us and take it anyway. On the other hand, they might just carry on for a bit after they lose our tracks and set up an ambush.’

‘That seems to presuppose they know exactly where we’re going.’

Stewart grinned savagely. ‘A gold watch for the clever bugger with all the answers.’

‘Which means they could be waiting for us when we get there?’

‘It’s a possibility,’ Stewart conceded. ‘But Kristian Anugu’s clan owns a lot of the land where we’re going and they don’t take to strangers much, especially Redskins. I’m gambling our “gold miners” know that and won’t want to chance getting involved in a gun battle. I plan to cut down the western side of the hills until we reach the Pagana Valley, then follow it until we hit the plain. It won’t be much fun and it’ll take us longer, but at least nobody will be shooting at us.’

He grunted as he began to descend the crumbling earth slope, the liana in his left hand and the SLR in his right. Jamie picked another vine and followed. Within a few metres he felt something give and before he knew what was happening he was tumbling down the hill past the startled face of the other man. The trunk of a tree flashed by and it occurred to him he might break his neck and probably deserved to for not testing the vine properly. A millisecond later he landed flat on his face with an almighty, bone-shaking crunch that knocked every ounce of breath from his body. He lay with his eyes closed and experienced a mix of emotions. Relief that he was still alive and — he tested one limb at a time — more or less in one piece. Embarrassment that he had looked like a fool in front of a man like Doug Stewart. And concern that the bloody Bougainville head hadn’t suffered the kind of damage that would make it even uglier than it already was. But when he opened his eyes the only thing he felt was a paralysing surge of sheer terror that made him release an involuntary cry.

It wasn’t what you’d call a big snake, but when it was coiled two feet from your nose with its head held back ready to strike and its jaws gaping to show the awful fangs inside, it was more than big enough. The dull brown had slightly darker bands at intervals along the body and the serpent was a sinuous three feet long. Jamie noticed it had tiny overlapping scales that glittered with moisture from the earlier rain. He thought of moving back, but the pitiless black eyes mesmerized him and he knew the slightest movement would provoke the strike. Christ, what would it be like? His nightmares had always entailed being bitten in the leg or the arse; the face seemed that bit more awful. He’d feel the hit, and then the sting and then … He’d never understood the term gibber, but he was gibbering inside. Gradually he became aware of Doug Stewart’s boots moving into vision just beyond the angry reptile and a thrill of hope surged through him. The machete, that’s it, chop the ugly little monster into pieces. Pleeeeaaaase.

The Australian bent down and picked up the snake by the tail, holding it away from his body so the head couldn’t reach him. It hissed and wriggled, attempting to get into position to strike, but Stewart didn’t even flinch. Eventually, Jamie raised himself on shaking legs and brushed himself down, keeping a safe distance between him and the twisting brown body.

‘Thanks.’ He swallowed. ‘That was a damned close thing, as the Old Duke would say.’

‘It sure was.’ Doug Stewart shook his head in mock sorrow. ‘You might have landed on the poor little bugger. It was the same in the ’Nam. FNGs never knew a bloody thing.’

‘FNGs?’

‘The Fucking New Guys. If you’d done even a little bit of research about this here island, Mr Jamie Saintclair, you’d have learned that the only good thing about Bougainville is that there are no poisonous snakes. Off you go, little fella.’ He threw the snake a few feet into the bushes and it slithered away into the undergrowth. ‘Now stop pissing about and let’s get going or Kristian Anugu will have died of old age before we get there.’

Jamie ignored him and opened the rucksack flap that held the Bougainville head. His fingers prickled with distaste as he picked it up by the curly hair and studied the ugly little face: it didn’t appear any more battered than usual.

‘This is the first time I’ve seen it close up,’ Doug Stewart said. ‘We’re risking our necks for a fucking gonk?’ He turned away and set off through the jungle, shaking his head in disgust. Jamie replaced the head and followed.