The Watchman

Thirty-Two

Angela Pryce stared around her at the inside of the villa and felt an instant wave of unease. The walls were pockmarked and bare of decoration, the plaster having come away in chunks from the underlying shell of rough bricks. What had once been a comfortable, if cheaply made structure of vaguely European design, was now little more than a draughty ruin.

She and Tober had been herded into a room at the front of the property, their every move watched by several armed men crowding in around them. They hadn’t been treated roughly so far, but there was undoubtedly a more hostile feel to the atmosphere here. It wouldn’t take much, she judged, for something bad to kick off if provoked.

They had been made to sit in rickety hard-backed chairs next to an ancient and warped card table laid out with water, fresh fruit and dried dates. It was a welcome relief after the dryness of the plane’s interior, and at Tober’s silent urging she had drunk as much water as she could take and eaten several dates. It brought to mind the stern teachings of the SIS survival instructor at Fort Monckton on the south coast, who had counselled all recruits that survival in the field was key, and eating and drinking to maintain energy levels should never be passed up, no matter how dire the circumstances might seem.

A large, brightly-coloured yellow and green flag had been tacked to the wall of the room, partially covering the boarded-up window overlooking the sea. The flag bore the familiar and disturbing symbols of the crossed assault rifles and Qur’an of al-Shabaab, which both the SIS people recognized immediately.

Xasan entered the room and stood watching them eat. The armed men paid him no mind, but whispered among themselves and shuffled their feet. Xasan said nothing, but it was clear that his attitude had changed dramatically since their first encounter in Nairobi. Angela couldn’t make out whether he was simply edgy or impatient to be getting on with the talks. This, after all, had been his game from the beginning. But when he spoke to his men it was in a terse manner, and the way he was looking at her and Tober verged on the openly hostile. She wondered if he was putting on a front for the others, and decided to ignore him until something happened.

Another man entered the room. It was the driver of the SUV that had brought them here from the landing strip. He approached Xasan. He was holding a cell phone and showed Xasan the screen. The middleman studied it for several seconds and the man pressed a button. Then Xasan turned his head and stared at Angela.

He walked over and placed the cell phone on the table in front of her.

‘Who is this?’ He spoke softly, but his voice was clear in the crowded room. The men around him fell silent and turned to stare.

The screen showed two men in a microlight aircraft sitting in tandem. In the background a small cargo plane was standing on a runway, with men loading boxes into its belly. The microlight pilot was concentrating on something off to one side, while the passenger had his head turned away, adjusting his harness. Both were white, she noted, although the passenger had a tanned look, and was younger than the pilot.

She shook her head. ‘I have no idea.’

‘Mr Tober?’

Tober said, ‘Me neither. Why should we know who he is?’

Xasan studied them carefully. The other men in the room were silent, not understanding but waiting for a reaction.

‘The pilot is a park ranger working for the Kenyan Wildlife Service,’ Xasan said finally. ‘He’s an Afrikaans who flies out of Malindi, down the coast. But he does not normally carry passengers.’ He pointed at a rifle hanging from a sling by the pilot’s side. ‘As you can see, he is also armed. Odd, do you not think?’

‘Not really,’ Tober ventured easily. ‘It’s pretty standard equipment for a park ranger, I’d have thought. Don’t they have a lot of poachers in Kenya?’

Xasan pursed his lips but did not reply. He did a tour of the room, hands behind his back. Like a strutting little general on parade, thought Angela. He stopped in front of them. ‘It would be a grave error,’ he murmured, ‘for your SIS to have sent any of your highly-esteemed Special Forces here, Miss Pryce. It would lead to severe consequences for one of you if they have.’ He turned his gaze on Tober as he said this. ‘Very severe.’

Tober grunted. ‘One man in a microlight? I know the UK’s strapped for cash, but if they were going to send anyone in, I think they’d go for a bit more punch than that.’

Angela shot him a warning glance, but Xasan appeared satisfied by the blunt logic. ‘You are probably right, Mr Tober. Perhaps I am being over-cautious and this ranger has simply brought a visitor to the area.’ He tapped his chin with a forefinger, then murmured, ‘However, better to be safe than sorry — isn’t that what you English are fond of saying?’ He tossed the cell phone back at the man who had brought it in and gave him rapid instructions. The man grinned and left the room.

‘What happens now?’ Angela demanded. She flicked a glance at Tober. The way Xasan was talking didn’t sound good.

‘You will see.’ He turned to his men and gestured at the door. Two men each approached Tober and Angela, and took them by the arms. Others crowded in with their weapons ready. ‘For now,’ Xasan explained, ‘you will wait until we are ready. You will be fed again in the morning. Do not attempt to resist or to get away; you are a long way from nowhere and guards have been posted with orders to shoot.’

‘What is this shit?’ Tober said quietly. He towered over the two men flanking him, and they began to look nervous.

‘Wait.’ Angela held up a hand to prevent any over-reaction from Tober or Xasan’s men. ‘Has there been another delay?’ she queried.

‘Not a delay, Miss Pryce. A change of plan.’ Xasan turned his back on them, signalling the men to take them away. ‘No more questions.’

They were bundled out of the room into what appeared to be a rough kitchen at the back, complete with a gas stove and food in plastic boxes. A large wooden trapdoor in the floor was open, revealing a flight of rough stone steps disappearing into the dark. A dank smell came up from below. One of the men handed Tober a flashlight and gestured for him to go down.

Tober hesitated, then stepped into the darkness, followed by Angela.

The trapdoor was slammed shut behind them.

They stood where they were for a few moments on the steps. Tober used the flashlight to investigate their new home. It didn’t take long. The basement was a simple square space approximately twelve feet by twelve, with a low ceiling which meant they both had to stoop. Two grass-filled sacks lay on the floor, alongside an earthenware pot of water. A larger pot, which was empty, stood near a blanket screen hung by nails across one corner. It was as much privacy as they were going to get, and confirmed if the two needed it that something about this whole negotiation meeting had changed dramatically. And for the worse.

Tober inspected the walls for signs of another way out. But there were none. They were underground and surrounded by hard-packed dirt and rock. Digging their way out would take days, even if they had the means.

‘I should have paid more attention in class,’ Angela said, in an attempt at pragmatism. ‘I read Arabic and one of the add-ons was a basic course in Somali. I didn’t get a single thing they were saying up there, it was all too fast.’

Tober shrugged and kicked the mattresses over, checking for bugs and snakes.

‘I didn’t read languages,’ he said bluntly. ‘Didn’t really read much English, come to that. But I did six months on armed protection for tankers in the Gulf before joining SIS. It was ninety-eight per cent sun-tan time, so a couple of us got a Somali crewman to teach us the basics. I picked up enough to know what Fat Boy was saying.’

She stared at him. ‘Go on.’

His eyes glittered in the flashlight, but his face was blank of emotion. ‘He ordered the guy with the camera phone to go find the microlight pilot. He’s going to wait for him to make a pass come daylight, then shoot him down.’

She looked stunned. ‘But he’s nothing to do with us! That’s appalling.’

‘It is for the pilot. I know some of those guys — they don’t bother with parachutes.’