The Watchman

Thirty-Seven

It took an effort of will not to overreact. Leaping up in my position would get me killed. Instead I grabbed the rifle and hugged the earth while I tried to locate the source of the gunfire. That’s not an easy thing to do when you’re crouched in a hole, half asleep and with your head clouded in cotton wool. Sounds get distorted and deflected every which way.

I figured I’d heard at least four or five shots in rapid succession. But they’d been faint, so not from anywhere close by. Then came another burst, and I pinned it down.

Dhalib.

I risked a quick look. Was this an attack? Or had the men with One-eye run into trouble with the locals? The light was still good but beginning to drop, and I couldn’t see any signs of activity towards Dhalib. If the Kenyan army or police had decided to pay a visit, and the shots had been a first encounter, no way was I going to hang around. The army would come in heavy-handed and mop up anybody in the area. And that would include me.

Then I saw smoke drifting into the air.

I checked the villa. A single guard was standing near the front door, scratching his butt. He didn’t seem concerned by the gunshots or the smoke, so I figured he knew what was going on. But I didn’t.

I waited for him to move out of sight, then lifted the cover overhead and slipped out of the hide. It was probably nothing to be worried about, but I had to make sure I wasn’t going to be caught in a pincer movement. I crept away towards Dhalib, sticking close to the ground and with the ghillie net over my head and shoulders to break up my outline.

Twenty minutes of slow crawling later, I heard voices and laughter. The smoke was pungent and black and hanging close to the ground, shifted inshore by the breeze. An occasional slurry of sparks was being pushed into the air, and I guessed I must be close to the huts.

It took me another five minutes to reach the first one. Or what was left of it.

It was too smoky to see much, but it looked like the men had raided the fishermen’s huts and got carried away. I figured three of the small buildings had been destroyed by fire and another two were smouldering. The smell of burnt wood and plastic was pungent, overlaid by the heavier stench of burning rubber, which I guessed was from old rubber tyres used as fenders and thrown into the flames by Musa’s men.

I crawled closer and found two bodies lying in the bushes. They were older men, lean and stringy, dressed in tattered clothing. They’d been shot several times.

Voices floated up from the beach. I moved back into the bushes and made my way closer to the water.

The pirates were milling around the fishermen’s boats, tossing out anything they couldn’t use, like nets and floats, and unfurling the sails to check for holes. An engine roared into life for a few seconds before cutting out. Compared to the engines used by the pirates, it sounded feeble and ancient.

A body lay in the shallows, covered in blood, and further along the sand, another man had tried to flee and got cut down.

Musa obviously wasn’t playing at being friends with the locals. He must have decided they needed more boats and sent his men out to get them. At whatever the cost.

I relaxed my grip on the rifle. It would have been easy to dish out the same treatment these men had given the fishermen. Satisfying, too. But there was nothing I could do for the dead men without compromising my position, so I slid back to my hide and got busy sending Vale the photos I’d taken earlier. Then I called him with an update. He answered the phone immediately.

‘What can you tell me?’ He sounded tired. ‘These photos are disturbing.’

‘It’s Musa. He just arrived with more armed men and supplies.’ I wasn’t sure how to proceed so I said, ‘Are you sure this is just a negotiation?’

There was a longer delay this time. ‘Why do you ask?’

‘Because they look as if they’ve come for war, and they’re already killing locals.’ I described what I had just seen in Dhalib — or what remained of it.

He grunted. ‘This isn’t good.’ Like me, he would have recognized some of the boxes unloaded from the skiffs as being of the kind used to carry ammunition, even small rockets. If Musa was planning on stocking up local members of his clan with some extra firepower, his men were in a position, placed behind the Kenyan forces in Kismaayo, to inflict some serious damage on their supply lines. It wouldn’t be a prolonged fight, but a quick hit-and-run exercise to unnerve and destabilize the soldiers in the area, followed by a rapid retreat to sea. It explained why he had decided to acquire more boats and why he wasn’t concerned about letting a few local fishermen stand in his way. This was part of a campaign and collateral damage was incidental.

‘It won’t help immediately,’ Vale continued, ‘but I got some information about the Skytruck. It was on a watch bulletin from the Kenyan and Nigerian border police. The pilot’s a Russian, said to fly anybody anywhere, no questions asked. He’s been in the region for a couple of years but nobody’s been able to pin anything on him yet apart from a couple of minor infringements. Any sign of our two people?’

I told him about the snatch of conversation I’d overheard earlier. He didn’t say anything, but I was certain by his silence that he shared the same reservations about Pryce’s outburst as me.

‘If it all goes wrong,’ I said, ‘and I get them out, we’re a long way from nowhere. I can put Pryce on the microlight, but Tober and I will be on foot in bush country.’ I let him work on that one for a bit; he knew the position we’d be in.

‘Yes.’ That was all he said.

‘I know what you said about rescue,’ I said, ‘but what are the chances of an extraction for Tober?’ I was thinking about the Russian pilot and the Skytruck. If he could set down right on the border near here, surely another pilot could do the same.

Vale was ahead of me. ‘Close to nil. I’m sorry. I wish I could hire a man to do it but my hands are tied. Piet will have to do what he can.’

At least it confirmed that he hadn’t been able to work any miracles behind the scenes.

It made our chances of survival very slim. Always assuming I got Tober and Pryce out safely in the event of trouble, we would still have to get back across the border and keep moving until Piet could make a pickup, followed by a second and third trip.

It would be pushing his luck — and ours — to the extreme.

‘There’s been a development from our cousins,’ Vale said calmly. ‘The CIA have failed to get camera coverage of the area. They had an offer agreed, then they were blocked at source. It seems certain elements in the administration don’t want to upset the Kenyans by overflying drones, which most people in that neck of the woods regard as attack vehicles.’

With all the news reports of terrorist leaders and others being taken out by drone attacks controlled by keyboard handlers, hundreds, even thousands of kilometres away, I wondered why anybody should be trying to kid themselves otherwise.

‘Well, aren’t they?’

‘Yes. But that doesn’t help you or us.’ He hesitated. ‘What’s your position?’

‘I’m good. But I’ve already had two near misses and these guys have shifted up a gear now Musa’s arrived.’

‘You’ve had a contact?’ His instincts were good, telling him that something bad had happened.

‘Yes, but they think it was an accident. You didn’t expect this to be trouble-free, did you?’

‘I suppose not.’ I heard his sigh all the way down the line. ‘It would help if we knew what was in those boxes on the beach.’

I knew what was coming next. ‘Meaning?’

‘Any chance you could take a look?’