Sing Like You Know the Words (45 page)

A pair of field guns had been
placed in the centre of the compound, and the soldiers were
directing them against some unidentified target in the centre of
town. Hawkins looked to the faraway high rise towers of what had
been a modern city, all steel and glass; probably with most of the
glass lying in shards by now.

The gun crews applied themselves
to the task as they would have approached any other job in this
heat: they would fire a few rounds, laughing at the deafening
explosions of the guns; then they would become bored or tired and
sit around talking for a while, resuming when the conversation wore
out. His escort seemed to find the artillery hugely entertaining.
They were grinning and applauding the gunners. But the lieutenant
had his orders and they moved on.

Further on, some of the child
soldiers that you saw everywhere in this conflict were resting in a
group. They seemed to be mostly asleep, which seemed incredible
given the noise of the guns, but Hawkins knew they were probably
coming down from the adrenaline of last night´s action and whatever
drugs they had been given to prepare them for it. They looked like
boys of ten or eleven, though they could have been older, holding
weapons as big as they were. He was careful to keep as far from
them as possible. Even without drugs they were unpredictable,
comical looking but lethal. Automatic weapons were their toys, and
the nearest thing they had to a daddy was the Big Man, even if most
of them had been orphaned by his troops. They were fanatically
loyal to him, convinced that he could not be killed by bullets, but
that anyone else who crossed their path very definitely could
be.

Even the crazy white man had not
been able to wound the Big Man. The child soldiers dreamed of a
time when they would share the Big Man’s secret of invulnerability
to bullets, but they knew that only the best of them would ever
achieve this.

Albert had been locked up in one
of the smaller outbuildings at the far side of the compound, that
might have once been the caretaker’s office and store.

The teenage lieutenant led
Hawkins to the door of Albert’s cell. There were two heavily armed
guards outside, who made a reasonable job of saluting the boy and
opened the door for Hawkins to enter. The lieutenant made as if to
follow, but Hawkins stopped him, patting the holstered pistol on
his own belt and smiling. The young man frowned; then shrugged his
shoulders. Hawkins went in alone.

There was a single room, with no
windows. The only light came from the holes in the roof, where it
had decayed and given way. The hot air was suffocating.

Something that could have been
either a man or a bundle of discarded clothes was lying completely
motionless in the darkest corner.

-Do you have any water?

-You’re alive

-Only for the moment I
suppose

-I’ve a little here, take
it.

Albert stirred himself to drink,
and wipe some of the blood away from his face with a dampened
sleeve. The light caught his face. Hawkins winced.

-Jesus Christ, what a mess. Long
time no see. What were you thinking of Albert?

-Someone once told me, there’s a
line you can’t cross because if you do, anything can happen. Best
advice I never took.

-You crossed a line for
sure.

-What is the Big Man saying? Did
the boys get anywhere near him?

-What do you think; seriously?
There´s not a scratch on him. I think he’s in a good mood today.
He’s been spinning all these tales about how he can’t be killed and
now your team comes along and makes it look as if it might be true,
even when the treacherous white men turn on him. I suppose if he
had even had a small wound, every white within reach would have
been slaughtered by now. It could still happen. Did you stop to
consider that? Anyway, give me the story, you may as well.

Albert had been out of the
country for months and Hawkins had not seen or heard from him. It
turned out that he´d come back only make a personal delivery of
some new toys for the Big Man’s army. He´d intended to make a few
calls on contacts, and leave as soon as was decent. Then somehow
he´d become involved in a desperate attempt to overthrow the regime
(if the Big Man’s rule could be called a regime). Two nights
earlier, a few well equipped men, veterans of the endless wars of
the place, had climbed the walls of the Presidential residence and
killed most of the guards before the Big Man was roused. He´d led
the counter attack personally with his elite bodyguard. In a few
minutes the attackers were captured or, if they were lucky,
killed.

-What were you thinking of?

-It’s worked before in this
country.

-Not against the likes of him.
Would you hope to catch the devil off guard? Jesus Christ.

-What about the boys?

-All dead now, fortunately for
them.

-They were dead anyway, before
it began. He´d decided to take out their village – decided he
couldn’t trust it not to turn against him. He’s insane, you know.
Fifteen hundred men, women and children in that village, probably
more. One of the ministers told me about it. I expect he’s dead
too, but you mustn’t ask me to tell you his name. He was a man from
the same village, introduced them to me. Knew I could get the
equipment for an operation. We persuaded ourselves that if the
worst came to the worst, maybe the stuff wouldn’t be missed from a
big shipment.

-Jesus Christ, Albert.

-Are you going to keep saying
that? If so I shall have to ask you to leave. Tell me what the deal
is.

-You know how it works. We’re
all under suspicion now, but fortunately we’re still useful. I’ve
been brought here to finish you off. Prove my loyalty I
suppose.

-No way out of it.

-I can’t see one Albert. You
know my views on such things. If was you or me, then would be you.
But it’s worse than that in this case; it’s just you; or you and me
both.

-I understand Ray.

-I wish I did.

-I couldn’t watch it happen any
more. That was my mistake; coming back. And I was stupid enough to
think I could make a difference. I overestimated our importance.
But they were good, honest men Ray, they deserved a chance.

-I don’t know how you can
possibly think that you know what kind of men they were, or what
kind of men they would have become in this place. Supposing it had
come off, one of your mates would take over and become just as bad
as this bastard in a month.

-I thought if they could make
the change, quickly and cleanly, without too much bloodshed…

-Well you’re right when you say
that you overestimated our importance. What matters for these men
is the will: we only provide the means. I used to think that it was
us who gave them power; but I know better now. The truth is they
are stronger than us. They have pure intentions in the way that
animals do. They’ve turned a bunch of kids too small to hold their
guns right into the most lethal weapon in this war. Men like these
will take out whole villages armed with nothing more than a few
sharp blades. We’ve both seen them do it, in the Congo.

-Those blades were imported
machetes that arrived in crates stamped to say they were
agricultural implements. Whoever was selling them knew what they
were for: enough machetes for every farmer south of the Sahara to
have two.

-My point is; we think it’s our
doing, but it’s not.

-We tell ourselves that Ray, but
we make things worse, when we should be making them better. We keep
filling their treasuries with aid dollars, so there´s more for the
gangsters to fight over; and then we give them bigger and more
deadly toys so that the few can keep the many down. How does that
help?

-If you felt like that you
should have stayed at home. Why did you imagine that your meddling
would be more helpful than anybody else’s?

-Let’s talk about something else
Ray, I’m tired.

-Your mouth is bleeding pretty
badly.

-It’s only teeth knocked out. I
guess I shan’t need them now. Tell me about England. Did you manage
to sort out that little problem about the Cromwell takeover?

-Sweet as a nut. It seems like
an age ago now. The other party could see how the land lay fairly
smartish. He was only up for the money. Seemed like a lot of
trouble for nothing to me though. It was just one of your front
companies wasn’t it? Easier to let it go and find another.

-It mattered a great deal to a
friend of mine.

-Your protégé. The one you told
me about. I talked to him; seemed grateful. But that sort of
thinking is what I call romantic, Albert. I might even say there’s
a direct line between thinking like that, and the situation you
find yourself in now. Too much reading and thinking has brought you
to this.

-Reading stimulates the
imagination Ray. Without imagination we are animals and nothing
more. But you´re right of course: I´ve been reading too much and
the same few books. There are two of them with my things. You might
try them. They look like heavy going but I know you´re not as dumb
as you try to make out.

-You want to talk about books
just now?

-There´s a Russian one, but it´s
an English translation, called Crime and Punishment; and another
called Nostromo

-Funny name. What are they
about?

-The first is about a young
student who persuades himself to murder so he´ll be able to do
great things for mankind, but then he has to live with the
consequences. The second is more complicated; it´s to do with
personal integrity, and then it has things to say about whether you
can be involved in the business of empire and still be an honest
man.

-Thanks, but they don´t sound
like anything in my line.

-Well then, maybe if you find
your way back to England you could return them to that friend of
mine. In a way they are part of his story.

-How does the second one turn
out?

-It´s not conclusive. But in the
end, the material interests always extract what they demand in the
name of progress. My Charles Gould will go to hell defending his
silver mine.

-I have no idea what you’re
talking about.

-I´m raving probably. I´m beyond
everything now. One final thing, I wanted to tell you that I´ve
discovered the secret of the English abroad: they´re capable of
finding a practical way through every difficulty, by blocking every
perception of disagreeable consequences that may follow from
pursuing their own self-interest. Deciding not to think about
something, is a faculty they have evolved to the point where it
defines them. At the end of all, the Englishman sees that he has
endured, and concludes that this means that his behaviour was right
and proper.

-Well that´s my own philosophy
Albert, in a nutshell; and summed up very prettily. I wish we could
sit and chat for longer; I really do. By the way, you never did
tell me your real name. In case there’s anybody I should tell.

-There’s no one to tell. I´d
prefer to be allowed to disappear into Africa.

A memory brightened Ray´s
expression.

-Someone else used to say that.
Andrei, do you remember him? We were with him in Addis Ababa that
time. He said that once you spent time in Africa you could never
really leave. Mind you he hated the cold. Came from Siberia you
know, one of those oil towns that is cut off half the year. Studied
languages so hard, just to get away.

-I remember. What´s he doing
now?

-He´s got a big ranch somewhere
near Port Elizabeth. Never went home. He did all right when that
Soviet thing finished, I don´t know the details. Said he didn´t
want to move to Cyprus or anywhere else that´s lousy with other
rich Russian thieves.

Albert sighed.

-How is it you always know so
much about people, Ray?

-People interest me. It´s books
and ideas for you, people for me.

They fell silent for a moment.
Albert shifted painfully, attempting to support his weight more
easily.

-You know, after the American
Civil War, the slaves who were freed, were allowed to come to
Africa. They were helped to come. The place they settled, they
called Liberia; from the word liberty I suppose. What do you
suppose they did as soon as they got here?

-I don’t know

-They enslaved the first black
men they saw and set them to building plantations and southern
style mansions so that they could walk around in frock coats and
play the master.

-And does that tell us something
about blacks?

-No. Only about human nature in
general. It’s not enough for humans to have all they need. They
have to deprive and brutalize others to feel really good about
themselves.

-You know, I think it is time
for me to be done with all this. I hurt just about everywhere. We
might as well get on with it.

A few minutes later, the escort
heard the muffled noise of a single shot being fired behind the
locked door, barely audible above the noise of the cannon. The big
white man emerged looking not very friendly. The lieutenant judged
that the work was done and ordered his men back to the jeep. He
stepped inside himself briefly, just to check. He argued briefly
with the artillery officer over what should be done with the body.
Neither of them wanted to take responsibility for dumping it, in
case the Big Man should ask to see it afterwards, so in the end
they simply put the lock back on the door.

The big white man was very quiet
on the way back to the Presidential residence, in a way that made
the men in the jeep watchful, but the lieutenant supposed that he
and the other white men would have learned their lesson, that here
they were only men, and death could come to white and black, just
the same.

Chapter Thirteen

His private life was in such
turmoil that Matthew hardly noticed when the shareholders of
Cromwell voted to accept an offer to acquire all shares from a
mysterious bidder called Pelican Global. It was not a business that
anyone had ever heard of, but it did seem to have almost limitless
acquisition funds available.