The Perfect Soldier (8 page)

McFaul got to his feet, easing the stiffness in his limbs. The concrete on the floor had been laid in a hurry and the thin down sleeping-bag did little to mattress the surface ridges. At night, like now, the bunker was full, a dozen or so people, all European. Most of them were trying to sleep, long shapes in the gloom barely penetrated by the single overhead light bulb. Power in the bunker came from a generator upstairs. The Swiss engineers had wisely installed a brand new Honda and they’d evidently left the Red Cross people with a couple of months’ supply of fuel. McFaul could hear the generator now, a low purring overhead. Since he’d been in the bunker, it had never faltered.

At the far side of the bunker, beside a flight of wooden steps that disappeared into the house, was the communications set-up: a big HF radio on a steel desk and a couple of Motorolas for local use. All day, one of the Red Cross people had been monitoring conversations between the UN representative in Muengo and the UNITA commander out in the bush. The latter called himself Colonel Katilo. Katilo was Ovimbundu for ‘will not run’, one of the favoured
noms de guerre
. With Katilo, the UN rep had been trying to broker a ceasefire long enough to organise the safe evacuation of the aid community. In all, according to the Red Cross, there were twenty-eight aid workers in Muengo, most of whom were under orders from their parent organisations to leave. Leaving, though, was difficult. Beyond UNITA lines, mines had made the roads impassable in every direction and without a ceasefire no pilot would dream of taking his aircraft within fifty miles of the city’s crumbling airstrip.

McFaul limped between the bodies on the floor and paused beside the radio. The duty Red Cross official was a greying Swiss called François who’d once worked in a Geneva bank. He and McFaul shared the same sense of humour, a wry assumption that making plans in Africa was an act of the purest optimism, and that if anything could go wrong then it surely would. The Swiss glanced up, stifling a yawn. Then he gestured at the HF set, thin far-away voices crackling through the ether, part of someone else’s conversation.

‘Luanda,’ he said simply. ‘They wanted an update earlier.’

‘What did you tell them?’

‘I told them it was like last night. Except worse.’

‘And what did they say?’

‘Nothing.’

McFaul nodded. The civil war was like a bush fire, smouldering for months on end then suddenly erupting at local
flashpoints, stirred by unfathomable political currents. Wherever the rebels or the government troops sensed an advantage, then the fighting would begin again. The slaughter would go on for weeks and weeks until both sides were either bored or exhausted, and the last item on any commander’s list was the welfare of the local people. They’d long since ceased to matter, helpless victims of a catastrophe they neither wanted nor understood.

A call sign came through on one of the Motorolas and McFaul recognised the rich bass voice of the local UN rep, Fernando, a middle-aged white from Mozambique. Evidently he was still trying to sell a ceasefire to Colonel Katilo, though negotiations appeared to have stalled.

McFaul reached across, dipping a Styrofoam cup into the big 40-gallon drum of tepid water that would supply the bunker until further notice. The water was already rationed, seven cups per day per person, and McFaul knew the ration would be reduced the longer the siege went on. It was hot underground, a stuffy, airless atmosphere that smelled of damp earth and unwashed bodies. From time to time, people would leave to use one of the two lavatories upstairs, but the nearest of these was already blocked and the stench seeped in as soon as the door was opened at the top of the stairs.

François, the Swiss, was still bent to the desk, scribbling on a pad. McFaul watched him, unable to keep up with the stream of Portuguese from the Motorola. Eventually, François leaned back, laying down his pen. McFaul offered him the Styrofoam cup.

‘Well?’ he said.

The Swiss sipped at the cup, ever thoughtful. Finally, he shrugged.

‘Usual problem,’ he said. ‘Both sides want to handle the evacuation, take the credit.’

‘Play the white man?’

‘Tout à fait.’
He glanced up, acknowledging the dig with a tired smile. ‘Which means, I guess, another couple of days.’

‘Minimum.’

He nodded.

‘Exactly.’

‘And Geneva? New York?’ McFaul gestured at the big HF set. ‘You talk to them at all?’

‘Only once. To Geneva. They say they’re getting everything they need through Luanda.’

‘Anything else?’

‘Yeah,’ he looked up again, a grin this time, ‘they told me the weather’s awful. Rain. Snow. Big falls in the mountains.’

Another conversation crackled into life on the Motorola and McFaul turned away. He had a small Sony radio of his own and he’d been listening to the BBC World Service, curious to know whether this latest outbreak of insanity in Muengo would feature on the news from Bush House. Inevitably it didn’t, though a couple of bulletins had mentioned the death of a young British aid worker. On neither occasion was James Jordan named, though it was plain that it couldn’t have been anyone else. McFaul returned to his space by the steps to the garden, musing on the irony. Out in the darkness, hundreds of local people were probably dying yet they didn’t rate even a mention. To a world hungry for bigger, starker, simpler tragedies, Angola remained a mystery, an unlanced boil on the face of Africa. The politics were complex. No one seemed to speak English. The world’s press had better things to do.

McFaul lay down again, careful not to disturb the sleeping shape beside him. Off and on, he’d been with Bennie for three years now, and the two of them shared a rapport that had been cemented in the minefields: Kuwait first, and then – after
McFaul’s convalescence – the six difficult months they’d endured in the madness of Afghanistan. It was there that McFaul had first put it all together – the mines, the money, the victims – and it was there that he’d first truly understood the way the scam worked. The guys in the factories making the stuff and the guys in the suits flogging it like sweets, Dolly Mixtures from the First World, enough cheap high explosive to lasso an entire society and choke it half to death.

McFaul shuddered, all too aware of the ache in his own leg, the price his own flesh had paid. In a curious way, though, none of that had mattered. Not until Afghanistan, not until he’d been up in the high pastures, up beyond Jaji. He’d found the little Afghan goat herd quite by accident, his body curled amongst the rocks. The trail of bloodstains, already brown, led up the mountain to the scorchmarks on the path where he’d lost his foot.

The mine had been Russian, probably one of the little PFM-Is, and the boy had finally died from shock, and exposure, and loss of blood, in sight of his home village in the valley below. Another statistic for the men in the suits. Another tiny triumph for the guys who’d sell you area denial. Later, McFaul had met the family, learned the boy’s name, pledged himself to take whatever small revenge he could. The spilling of blood – his own, Mohammed’s – carried certain responsibilities. And one day, somehow, he knew he’d repay a little of the pain.

One of the big 120-mm mortars fell nearby, a deafening blast that rocked the building overhead. For a moment or two the generator faltered, dimming the light even more, and McFaul felt a movement beside him. Bennie was sitting upright, staring at the wall opposite. McFaul laid a hand on his arm. Bennie looked at him.

‘Boss?’

‘It’s OK, mate. Fucker missed.’

Bennie nodded, sleep compounding his confusion. Then he rubbed his eyes.

‘Meant to tell you,’ he mumbled.

‘What?’

‘That bird from MSF. Christianne. The nurse. She was looking for you earlier. Wanted a word.’

‘What about?’

‘Dunno.’ He yawned, lying down again. ‘Some kind of favour, I think.’

CHAPTER THREE

Molly awoke in the middle of the night, uncertain for a moment exactly where she was. She’d been dreaming about James. He was kneeling by some kind of pond or pool. It was very hot. The water was a strange colour, almost green, and he kept dipping his hands in it, cupping the liquid, offering it to her the way he’d sometimes come into the kitchen as a child, carrying trophies from the garden. His expression was childlike, too, the purest delight. I did this, he seemed to be telling her. Mine. My efforts. All my own work.

Molly peered into the darkness, at last recognising the noise at the window. Since they’d gone to bed the wind had got up and now it was raining hard, the kind of rain that drove at the cottage across the bare, flat fields. One of the gutters beneath the big lime tree had become blocked with leaves and she could hear the water spilling over, splashing onto the flagstones below. She thought of James again by his pond, and she eased carefully out of bed, knowing that there was no possibility of getting back to sleep.

Giles began to stir and for a moment she thought she’d woken him up. Then he grunted and rolled over and his breathing resumed the slow, steady rhythm that signalled deep sleep. They’d driven home in convoy from the marina. She’d prepared a simple supper and they’d gone to bed early, closer than they’d been for months. They’d even made love,
tender, consolatory, Molly letting him make the running, fitting herself to him, responding gladly to his urgent need to please her. Afterwards, she’d told him how much she loved him, how much he mattered to her, sealing his lips with a single moistened fingertip. No more apologies, she’d whispered. No more tears.

Downstairs, wrapped in Giles’s dressing gown, she plugged in the electric fire and made herself a pot of tea. James’s letters she kept in the chest of drawers beside the telephone. She pulled them out, a biggish bundle tucked into a Marks & Spencer plastic bag. Since Sunday, she’d wanted to read them again, to rejoin her son, but somehow there’d never been the time nor the space. With the wind howling around the cottage and the rest of the world asleep, now seemed the perfect moment.

She knelt in front of the fire and spread the letters around her. To her astonishment, James had written regularly, more than a dozen letters in all, and although the blue airmail envelopes had been arriving less frequently of late, each one still contained at least six pages of the awkward, backward-sloping scrawl that was unmistakably his. She reached for one of the letters now, a random choice, remembering the night she and Giles had driven him up to the airport. Even in the car, his excitement had been palpable, an almost physical thing. After three diligent years working for the local authority – a junior surveyor’s job in the Public Works department – he was at last breaking free and getting his hands on something that mattered. The night-school courses had paid off. He had the skills that Africa wanted. He’d even managed to persuade Terra Sancta to bend the rules about minimum age qualification and let him get out there early.

At Heathrow, she and Giles had waved goodbye beside the queue for International Departures. He’d filed past the
man who checked the tickets and he’d paused beside the big smoked-glass doors that led into the security area, glancing briefly back, raising a hand, nonchalant as ever. He’d been wearing jeans and his favourite hooped rugby-style shirt. Over his shoulder, he’d carried the bag Giles had given him as a going-away present. With his day-old crew cut and his carefree grin, he’d looked about twelve.

Molly blinked. The letter on her lap had dissolved into a blur. She frowned, helping herself to tea, drawing Giles’s dressing gown more tightly around her. James and Africa, she told herself, had been made for each other. The fact that the place had also killed him was simply unfortunate. Given the opportunity again – six months in Angola, the chance to run his own programme, make his own decisions – she was sure he’d be back at the airport in a flash, offering them a final wave, turning on his heel and disappearing behind those hideous smoked-glass doors.

She started the letter afresh. It had come from Muengo and it was dated early October. That meant he’d been in the place nearly a month. She turned the page, surprised again at how quickly he’d found his feet, impressed by the life he’d managed to make for himself. James had always hated depending on other people. Wherever he’d gone, he always seemed to have existed in a kind of bubble, insulated from the world outside. Nothing fazed him. Very little upset him. As long as he had his Walkman and his tapes and something half-decent to eat and drink, then he simply got on with the task in hand, not thinking too hard about other people, not thinking too much about anything but the next day’s schedule. In one sense it was a blessing, this tunnel vision of his, and in this respect he was a bit like Giles: solid, cheerful, thick-skinned to the point of arrogance. Like father like son, she thought ruefully, turning another page. Whether it was
pollution risks in New Jersey or land mines in Angola, there simply wouldn’t be a problem.

A phrase caught her eye, making her smile. James’s first task in Muengo involved laying on a water supply from the river. To do this he’d had to build something called an infiltration gallery. Molly hadn’t a clue what this might be but James had penned a detailed description, complete with diagrams. First he dug a hole near the river. Then he half-filled it with fragments of stone. Then he waited while the river found its way through the soil and into the hole. Once the hole was full, wrote James, it was dead simple to get the stuff away to a storage tank. All you’d need was a pump and a length of pipe and a tank at the other end. She looked at the phrase again, ‘dead simple’, hearing him saying it, picturing the expression on his face as he did so, impatient, even slightly amused. The world of practical challenges – of nuts and bolts and flanges and grommets – had never held any fears for James. On the contrary, it had made him the person he’d become. Life, he’d recently told her, was a bit like his first motor bike. Stick the bits together in the right order, and it’ll probably work.

She reached for another letter, a week or so later, looking for a particular photo. True to form, James’s hole by the river had been a triumph. Nearby, on a little mound of spoil, he’d installed a pump and the photo had recorded the moment when the pump had first spluttered into action. She found the photo at last, the kids crowding around the spout of water, their faces twisted up towards the camera, their sleek black bodies already soaking wet. The closest child was a little girl. The bright red shirt she was wearing was at least three sizes too big, hanging comically around her ankles, but the huge grin on her face told Molly everything she needed to know about what her son was doing in Africa. She turned
the photo over. On the back, in careful capitals, James had written ‘MARIA’S FIRST SHOWER – FRIENDS FOR LIFE!!’

Molly read through the letters, still not bothering to sort them into any kind of order, happy to dip into this new life James had led. There’d been moments of special achievement, duly recorded and passed on. To dig the trench for the water pipes, he’d managed to locate an excavator, a big yellow digger that featured in at least four photos. The digger and the driver had cost Terra Sancta $400 a day but he’d saved weeks of manual labour and got the water to the distribution point in record time. This had won James what he called ‘a herogram’ from Terra Sancta’s regional office, and in the letter he’d reproduced the text in full. ‘Terrific news about Stage One. Expect your pipeline in Luanda soonest. Press on with the good work.’

This pat on the back had obviously pleased James no end but there’d been bleaker moments, too. James, typically, hadn’t made much of these but there’d clearly been friction in Muengo with someone on the military side. This person, whoever he was, seemed to have responsibility for clearing the minefields. One of his jobs was to brief newcomers on what to look out for, where not to go, and James had evidently been less than receptive. ‘Bloke’s got a problem,’ he’d written, ‘I think he thinks we’re all cretins. Don’t do this. Don’t do that. Don’t do the other. I told him he ought to try local government. Right up his street!’ Molly pondered the likely exchange. Mines had never meant anything to her but for the last forty-eight hours she’d thought of little else. Big mines. Small mines. Green mines. Blue mines. Even mines with little cartoon faces that rose from the soil and ghosted through her dreams. In reality, she hadn’t a clue what they did, how they worked, and whenever James had
mentioned them he’d never gone into detail. It seemed they were just there, semi-permanent, part of the landscape, as inescapable as the weather or the passage of the seasons. It was obvious now that James should have listened to the man in Muengo, but it was typical that he hadn’t. James, like his father, always knew best.

Molly looked up, hearing the wind tugging at a loose tile on the garage roof, wondering how on earth she was going to get to Angola. Reading his letters again had given her glimpses of his life out there, scenes from a film she’d only half-seen. What she needed now was the rest of the story, the whole plot. To understand exactly what had happened – the friendships he’d formed, the work he’d done – would be to share with him those last few weeks of his life. As a mother, it was surely the least she owed herself.

Her eye returned to the last of the letters. James had been writing about a girl he’d met, a French nurse called Christianne. As ever, he’d included a photo. The girl had a soft, oval face dusted with freckles and framed by a mass of auburn curls. Her head was tilted slightly to one side and her smile reminded Molly of moments from her own youth. It spoke of the excitement of a new relationship, of possibilities yet unexplored. It was very James to have found someone so striking and from his letter he sounded more than keen. Christianne, it seemed, spoke perfect English. She worked for an organisation called Médecins Sans Frontières. There were several other girls with her, and where they lived they had crates and crates of incredibly classy white wine. The girls were evidently planning a party. They’d asked James to fix up the music. At the end of the letter, he was musing aloud about getting Christianne to England one day. Then, typically, something else had occurred to him. ‘Help,’ he’d written, ‘post goes in the morning and I haven’t sorted out
the blokes’ rice rations. Eduardo’ll go bananas. Got to rush.
Boa noite
.’

Molly folded the letter and reached for the switch on the electric fire. Only last week, she’d gone to a bookshop and looked up the phrase. It was Portuguese. It meant ‘good night’.

Robbie Cunningham was still in bed unwrapping his birthday presents when the phone rang. Liz fetched the mobile from the kitchen. The alarm clock on the bedside table read 07.54.

‘Hello?’

‘Westerby here. Do you have a pen?’

Robbie wedged the mobile to his ear, reaching down for his satchel, wondering why on earth the Director should be phoning so early. At the Terra Sancta headquarters in Winchester, he still kept university hours, turning up at his desk around ten. Now he sounded brisk, even excited.

‘Colchester,’ he was saying, ‘you know the town at all?’

‘Yes. We went that way on Sunday.
En route
to the Jordans’ place.’

‘Good. There’s a hotel in the High Street. The Blue Boar. Got that?’

Robbie grunted an affirmative, scribbling down the name. The Director was talking about Llewelyn. Apparently he’d be waiting in the lounge bar at half-past twelve. Robbie was to meet him there.

‘Why?’

‘I want you to do the introductions.’

‘Who with?’

‘Mrs Jordan. I phoned her five minutes ago. I said you’d pick her up and take her to lunch. She’ll be ready by twelve. Apparently it’s only half an hour from her place.’

Robbie frowned. Llewelyn had been on to him twice in the last twenty-four hours, trying to get him to arrange a meet with James Jordan’s mother, but both times Robbie had said he was too busy. Now, it seemed he had no choice.

‘But why?’ he said again. ‘Why the meeting?’

‘We’re taking her to Angola.’

‘Who’s taking her?’

‘You are. With Todd Llewelyn.’

‘But I thought we agreed that—’

Robbie broke off, unable to interrupt the Director’s flow. Llewelyn, he said, had been talking to some of his media contacts. The new People’s Channel were mounting a major series about the Third World. They were looking for good stories at what Llewelyn called ‘the sharp end’. They wanted new angles, some fresh way of establishing the realities of the aid business. James Jordan, it seemed, had caught their imagination.

‘But he’s dead,’ Robbie pointed out.

‘Exactly. It’s a perfect focus. For them and for us.’

‘Who says?’

‘Todd. He’s extremely bullish. We’ve been discussing our profile and he thinks this could be the breakthrough. He’s promising an hour of national television. He understands our reservations, naturally, but he says we’re looking a gift horse in the mouth and I must say I agree. Apart from anything else, we can’t afford to be left out of this thing. A series without us would be a disaster. We’d disappear without trace.’

‘But the boy’s dead,’ Robbie said again. ‘As far as I know, he wandered into a minefield and got himself killed. Is that something we want to be part of? Sending young kids to their graves?’

There was a brief silence. Then the Director was back again. He was beginning to sound irritated.

‘You’re supposed to understand the importance of all this,’ he said. ‘It’s part of your job description, public relations.’

‘This isn’t PR,’ Robbie said at once. ‘PR’s something you can control, or at least try to. This could go anywhere. Todd Llewelyn’s a journalist. He doesn’t work for us.’

‘Untrue. He’s on a modest retainer.’

‘Enough to buy him? Body and soul?’ Robbie broke off, knowing that he’d gone too far. Arguing about concepts like PR was one thing. Questioning the Director’s personal judgement was quite another. At this rate he’d be celebrating the first day of his twenty-sixth year by looking for a new job. He began to apologise but the Director broke in again.