We heard them before we saw them.
Bert Proctor cocked his head at the distant rumble, then settled at the table and picked up his cards. ‘Just go on with the game,’ he said quietly.
Ron Jones got up. ‘Count me out, Bert. I’m too nervous,’ he said.
I took his place. ‘Deal me in. Just take it easy, Ron. No sweat.’
As Proctor dealt I noticed that Russ Burns was one of my fellow players. To my surprise he spoke to me directly.
‘You play goddamn rough, Mannix,’ he said. The ‘Mister’ had disappeared. ‘Where did you get that goon you set on me?’
‘I didn’t get him. I inherited him. He’s one of Wyvern’s best rig hands,’ I said. I didn’t expect friendship from Burns but he sounded easy enough.
‘I really thought he was going to cut my throat. He’s pretty dangerous,’ Burns said.
‘I’ll try to keep him on a leash,’ I said casually. ‘By the way, anyone seen Mick lately?’
There were headshakes all round.
Burns looked at his cards and cursed them. ‘We’ve got a few things to sort out, you and me, after this is over,’ he
said, ‘but if there’s trouble in the meantime, I’m with you. What say?’
‘Suits me.’ We played a round or two with less than full attention. The engine noises were louder and there were voices shouting. Soon we put our cards down to watch the arrival of the army.
A few motorcyclists came first. They roared to a halt just over the crest of the hill that led down to Makara and the camp, and there was a glow in the sky behind them as the rest followed. Soldiers came through the bush on each side of the road. I hoped they wouldn’t fan out far enough to find Sadiq’s team.
The minutes ticked by and there were rustling sounds in the undergrowth. They were being cautious, not knowing what they were getting into, and nervous men could do stupid things. We stood fully illuminated while they closed in around us, and felt terrifyingly vulnerable.
Wingstead said loudly, ‘I’m going to bed. We’ve got a busy day ahead. Goodnight, everyone.’
I followed his lead. ‘Me too. That’s enough poker for one night.’
Hammond, in a flash of inspiration, said equally loudly, ‘What about all the activity out there, Mister Wingstead? Anything we should know about?’
‘No, I don’t think so,’ he replied. ‘Just manoeuvres, I should guess. They won’t bother us.’
Truck after truck was coming over the crest towards us. I couldn’t see any tanks but the trucks’ headlights began to light up the whole camp in a glaring display. A ring of armed soldiers was gathered on the fringes of the camp, and we knew we were surrounded.
I shouted to carry over the engine roar, ‘We’ve got company. Let’s hope they can spare us some food and medical stuff.’
Into the light came a command car. In the back was a captain, his uniform identical to Sadiq’s except that he wore a red brassard on his right arm. He was unlike Sadiq in looks too; where Sadiq had a distinctly Arabic cast and a light skin this was the blackest man I had ever seen. He was huge and burly and most unnervingly wearing enormous dark glasses; in combination with his dark skin and the night the effect was weird.
He stood up in the back of the car and looked from us to the rig and then back. He said in English, ‘Who are you?’
I answered. ‘The rig team of Wyvern Transport. Who are you?’ But my counterattack didn’t work; I hadn’t thought it would.
‘Are you in charge of—of this?’ He indicated the rig.
‘No,’ I said, ‘that’s Mister Wingstead here. I am his associate. We were taking a transformer up to the oilfields. But now we have to head back westward.’
‘Where is Captain Sadiq?’ he asked abruptly.
I’d been expecting that question.
‘He should be well on the road to Fort Pirie by now. He left at first light with his men.’
‘You’re lying,’ the captain said. ‘Where is he?’
One of his men hitched his rifle. We were in the hands of a military power, and an unfriendly one at that. I hadn’t been accustomed to shutting up at anyone else’s say-so for a long time and it was an unpleasant sensation. I put an edge on my voice. ‘Now wait a minute, captain. You’re not dealing with soldiers now. You’d better consult your superior officer before you start dictating to civilians. I told you that Captain Sadiq left this morning and pushed on. He had orders reassigning him. I don’t know where he is now and I can’t say I care. He left us flat.’
All this rolled off his back without touching. ‘I do not believe you,’ he said. ‘There is much that is strange here. Who are all the people we found on the road as we came up?’
‘Women and children? They’re local folk, following us for food, and they’re in a bad way. I think you should be doing something to help them.’
He regarded the rig again. ‘What is that stuff up there?’ He’d recognized the incongruity of the thatching.
‘That’s a long story,’ I said. ‘You’ve been in Kodowa lately? Then you’ll know what it was like there. The hospital wasn’t usable so we turned the rig into a travelling hospital. We’re trying to get the patients to Fort Pirie. Perhaps you can help us, Captain.’
He looked at me unbelievingly. ‘Why didn’t you take them to Kanja? There’s a hospital there and it’s closer.’
‘We tried. But there’s a bridge down in between.’
Apparently he hadn’t known that, because he fired questions at me about it and then called a couple of messengers and rattled off orders to them. Then he turned to me and said curtly, ‘I am leaving soldiers on guard here. You will stay until I return or until the Colonel arrives.’
‘We’re going no place, Captain,’ I said. ‘Not until morning, at any rate. Then perhaps you can help us get the rig across the bridge.’
He gave another order and the car swung round and drove off. A circle of soldiers, rifles at the ready, stood around us. The guns they held were Kalashnikovs.
I sighed and sat down.
‘Well done. You’re quite a con man,’ Wingstead said.
‘Cool it, Geoff. God knows how many of them understand English.’
Then we realized that the soldiers had orders to do more than just stand around watching us. A sergeant was doing what sergeants do, and corporals were doing what corporals do; passing orders from top to bottom. They began to swarm over our camp and vehicles and I heard the sound of breaking glass.
‘Hold on! What are you doing there?’ Kemp asked angrily.
‘We follow orders. You go back,’ a sullen voice answered.
I turned to a sergeant. ‘What’s the name of your colonel?’
He considered the question and decided to answer it. ‘Colonel Maksa,’ he said. ‘He will be here soon. Now you go back.’
Reluctantly we retreated away from the vehicles. I hoped to God the soldiers wouldn’t try clambering over the rig too, and that they’d respect the doctors and nurses.
We stood around helplessly.
‘What the hell do they want?’ Kemp asked.
‘You could try asking Colonel Maksa when he arrives, but I don’t recommend it. I bet he’s another man who asks questions and doesn’t answer them. I’m pretty sure these are rebel troops; the regulars would be more respectful.’ But I remembered Hussein and doubted my own words.
‘Are you going to send that signal to Sadiq?’
‘Not yet. Let’s keep that ace in the hole for when we really need it.’
Kemp said, ‘Bloody terrorists. Don’t they know they can’t win?’
‘I wouldn’t be too sure of that,’ Wingstead said. ‘And I wouldn’t use that word too freely. One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter. No doubt they see themselves as glorious liberators.’
The doors of the warehouse opened and light streamed out. Soldiers were manhandling two men into the open; they were Dan Atheridge and Antoine Dufour, who had retired to sleep on the cotton bales. Atheridge was writhing as someone wrenched his broken arm clear of its sling.
‘Good God, what are they doing to them?’ Kemp asked in horror.
‘I’d like to know,’ I said grimly. ‘Those two are about the most pacifist of the lot of us.’ I wondered if it had anything to do with the shotgun I’d hidden.
Into this scene drove two staff cars; in one was our blackgoggled Captain and in the other a large, impressive man who must have been Colonel Maksa. He had the Arabic features of many of his countrymen, marred by a disfiguring scar across his face. His uniform looked as though it had just been delivered from the tailors, in marked contrast to the bedraggled appearance of his Captain and men. He stood up as his car stopped and looked at us coldly.
I tried to take the initiative.
‘I must make a formal protest, Colonel Maksa,’ I said.
‘Must you?’ This was a more sophisticated man than the Captain, and just those two words warned me that he could be very dangerous.
‘We are a civilian engineering team. Your soldiers have been interfering with our camp and assaulting our men. I protest most strongly!’
‘Have they?’ he asked indifferently. He alighted from his car and walked past me to look at the rig, then returned to confer with his Captain.
At last he turned back to us.
‘Line up your men,’ he ordered. Wingstead gestured to the crew and they came to stand with him in a ragged line. The soldiers brought Dufour and Atheridge and dumped them among us. Both looked dazed. I glanced down the line. The two Lat-Am men were there, Burns at his most belligerent and being restrained by a nervous Zimmerman. So were both the Russians, and I hoped that Zimmerman would remember that if they were slow in obeying orders because they couldn’t understand them there might be trouble. It would be ironic if they were killed by Moscow-made weapons.
All our own men were there save Mick McGrath, and on him I had begun to pin absurd hopes. None of the medical
people were present. There were soldiers in front and behind us, and paradoxically the very fact they were behind us made me feel a little better, because otherwise this would look too much like an execution.
Maksa spoke to his Captain, who barked an order.
‘Go into the warehouse.’
‘Now wait a goddamn—’ began Wingstead.
The Captain thrust his black-visored face alarmingly close. ‘I would not argue. Do what the Colonel wishes,’ he said. ‘He doesn’t like arguments.’
I didn’t know if this was a warning or a threat. We walked forward between a line of guards and entered the warehouse.
We crowded towards the rear where the cotton was piled. Atheridge collapsed to the floor. Dufour looked dazed still but was on his feet. The doors were closed and a line of Maksa’s troops stood just inside them, holding submachine-guns.
I had to know about the shotgun. I said to Hammond, keeping my voice low, ‘Drift over to the corner behind you, to the left. Get some of the others to do the same. I need a diversion at the door. I want their attention away from that corner for a few seconds.’
Russ Burns said softly, ‘I’ll do it.’
‘Right. Just keep them talking for a few moments.’
He nodded curtly and edged away. I passed Bishop as I moved slowly towards the corner and said to him, ‘Brad, keep Sandy out of this if you can.’
He moved in the opposite direction, taking Bing by the arm as he did so. Zimmerman followed Burns and the two Russians went with him as though connected by magnets. We were spread about, and the five soldiers couldn’t watch all of us.
Burns went up to the soldiers and started talking. They converged on him threateningly and their voices rose. As all
eyes were on them I slipped away into the corner, shielded by the little knot of men around Ben Hammond.
I scrabbled at the cotton searching for the exact spot, and my fingers encountered nothing. The sweat on my forehead was an icy film. The shotgun was gone. I rejoined the others as the warehouse doors opened again.
We were being joined by the whole of the medical staff. They were upset and angry, both Sister Ursula and Dr Kat boiling with rage.
‘What’s happening out there?’ Wingstead asked.
‘They made us leave our patients,’ Dr Kat said hoarsely. ‘They turned guns on us.
Guns
! We are medical people, not soldiers! We must go back.’
The black bars of Sister Ursula’s eyebrows were drawn down and she looked furious. ‘They are barbarians. They must let us go back, Mister Mannix. There’s a baby out there that needs help, and Mister Otterman is dangerously ill.’
‘Where’s Sister Mary?’ someone asked, and Sister Ursula looked more angry still. ‘She’s ill herself. We
must
make their leader see reason!’
Until the Colonel came there was nothing to do but wait. I considered the two missing factors: McGrath and the shotgun. It was inevitable that I should put them together. When I hid the shotgun, I had thought I wasn’t seen but there was no knowing how much McGrath knew. He was used to acting independently, and sometimes dangerously so, and I knew him to be a killer. I hoped that he wasn’t going to do anything bull-headed: one wrong move and we could all be dead.
I was still brooding when the warehouse doors opened and Maksa walked in. When I saw the shotgun in his hands I felt as though I’d been kicked in the teeth.
He stared at us then said, ‘I want to talk to you. Get into a line.’ A jerk of the shotgun barrel reinforced the order. He gave a curt command and the soldiers filed out except for
one sergeant and the doors closed behind them. We shuffled into a line to face our captor.
He said, ‘I am Colonel Maksa, commander of the fifteenth Infantry Battalion of the Nyalan Peoples’ Liberation Army. I am here in pursuit of an unfriendly military force under the command of Captain Sadiq. I have reason to think you are shielding them in an act of aggression against the Nyalan Peoples’ Republic and I intend to have this information from you.’
‘Colonel, we really don’t—’ Wingstead began.
‘Be silent! I will ask you in due course. I will begin by knowing all your names and your business, starting with you.’ He thrust the shotgun in the direction of Ritchie Thorpe, who was at the far end of the line.
‘Uh…Mister Wingstead?’
Wingstead nodded gently. ‘As the Colonel says, Ritch. Just tell him your name.’
‘I’m Richard Thorpe. I work for Mister Wingstead there. For Wyvern Transport.’