‘Really?’ asked Richard flattered. ‘Which one?’
‘That’d be telling. Ouch! Your disguise is going to have to be very painful! And I know this before I even look in a mirror.’
‘Right,’ said Richard. ‘That’s you finished. And you’ve still got ears, so count your blessings. Now slip into the overall we took from the Han Wuhan engineer who went over the dam and try to look Chinese.’
‘And what were you saying about your disguise?’ she asked as she stepped into the white overall. Richard was doing the same, but he had to strip to his boxers before changing his trousers for a pair of Russian cargo pants.
‘Ivan will handle that,’ said Richard, turning to face the massive Russian as he pulled the stained vest over his head. ‘Ivan, I need my face to look like yours. But I want all my teeth and I need my right ear relatively untouched.’
‘Your face? Like mine?’ said Ivan, his eyes wide. ‘That’ll hurt.’
‘Let’s just say I’m after a SPETSNAZ red beret,’ said Richard.
Mako was in a bad way. Nails had been driven through the palms of his hands, then ropes had been used to lash his arms to the cross at wrist and elbow. The tip of his tongue had been cut out. Most of the skin on his forehead was missing. His left ear was gone, as was his left nostril. His left cheek had been slashed as though by panthers’ claws. Only the index finger and thumb remained on his left hand. Only the big toe remained on his foot. His face was a mass of flies that only rose when someone came to make sure he was still alive so that Ngoboi could continue his sick games with him. Or to feed him scraps and let him sip water while he still had teeth and lips. Like now.
Mako raised his head to look at the Chinese engineer and the two soldiers who were shoving yet another battered Russian across the compound towards him. Torn, ill-fitting cargo pants and a stained vest swam into his vision. Big, battered hands holding a tin full of water. He looked up further, into the brutalized face with its split lips and swollen eyes. But suddenly, from between the fat, black lids there darted a gleam of icy, commanding intelligence. A surge of amazement went through Mako. And his eyes gleamed in return.
‘Live or die,’ said a deep voice in brutal Matadi. ‘The choice is yours.’
Mako’s look was answer enough.
‘Right,’ said Richard Mariner slowly, his words slightly slurred between his thick lips. ‘This is how it goes …’
Bala Ngama eased back into the comfortable chair he had ordered to be carried into the middle of the jungle. His palatial tent opened westward so that he got the full benefit of the sunset and the view. The rear of the tent was to the lake. Behind the living area was a private, sleeping area, then a stout canvas wall, then the lake shore, bustling at the moment, with bulldozers, lifters, and Russian workers under the guns of Congo Libran soldiers. But ahead of him, beyond the wire of his compound, rose the jungle he already thought of as his own. Filled with animals from the menagerie he had assembled while he had been minister of the outer delta in Granville Harbour, it would one day become the greatest wildlife park on the continent. And he, with the support of President Fola, would annex it together with the lake into Congo Libran territory, rebuild the airport at Cite La Bas, fly in some rangers to control the animals and some builders to make five-star lodges like those in the great game reserves to the south or the east — and wait for the tourist dollars to arrive in their millions. It looked like a very bright future to him.
Ngama reached for a bottle of chilled Primus beer, one of a dozen or so recently unloaded from the fridge by an orderly. ‘So,’ he said lazily, ‘let us return to business, Mr Asov.’ As he spoke, Ngama gestured invitingly towards the bottles of Primus. Max would have preferred vodka. But, as the general said, this was business. And at the moment Max was in the business of staying alive. He reached for a beer. ‘What had you in mind, General?’ he asked. ‘The world, after all, is your oyster.’
‘Now that’s strange,’ said a deep voice. ‘I have some people here who also want to discuss oysters. And pearls.’ Ivan stepped out of the general’s private quarters and the men who had followed him in through the slit in the tent’s rear wall crowded thirstily round the table full of beer.
Five minutes later, General Ngama marched out of the front of his tent with Max Asov at one shoulder and Ivan Yagula at the other. A troop of half-a-dozen hangdog Russian workers followed behind, guarded by a smart squad of soldiers. They all marched towards a big Zodiac sixteen-seater RIB that was pulled up on the black mud bank. Had anyone in his command cared enough to look or to think, they might have been surprised to see their leader getting his exquisitely polished shoes covered with good honest mud for the first time since his arrival. But no one did. So they didn’t notice the fact that the general had the point of a matchet pressed against the joint above his fifth lumbar vertebra, three centimetres above the start of his buttock cleft and three centimetres precisely from severing his spinal cord.
But as the group moved unobserved towards the Zodiac in its anchorage carefully isolated from the rest of the bustle on the western shore, they seemed to slow and stumble. The black mud through which they were walking appeared to boil briefly, bubbling and spitting ebony spicules up their legs as far as their knees. They staggered as though all of them had been caught in a sudden squall. Only Ivan’s strength as a leader got them into the Zodiac. And once they were there, they sat, slumped in their seats as precious time slipped past unnoticed. But then, as the sun behind them set at last, the evening breeze swept down the mountain, and although it smelt faintly of sulphur, it cleared their heads. Ivan looked up suddenly, his mind reeling with shock, as though he were just awakening from a dream. He stared at his watch and his skin went cold. They had somehow lost nearly ten minutes. ‘Go!’ he shouted to the man at the motor. ‘Go! Go! Go!’ But he knew they were probably too late.
As the sun set and the sudden twilight swept across the mountain slopes, only the big Mil helicopters, still up in the sunshine, continued working. The last of the Russian prisoners were herded lethargically towards their gulag. And as they staggered wearily across the central compound past the listless figure of the crucified Mako, so the Army of Christ moved out of the jungle and gathered, watching through the razor wire. The evening breeze came whispering through the canopy overhead, spreading its restless sibilance down into the bushes, setting the ferns dancing as though some terrible life was in them. Ngoboi came whirling out of the shadows and into the compound behind the exhausted men. Two acolytes danced with him, keeping the raffia of his costume in place so that nothing of the man beneath the costume, of the face behind the mask, could be revealed. Led by Odem himself, the Army of Christ began to whistle and stamp in rhythm as Ngoboi leaped and capered, drawing out the performance, with his matchet whirling in the thickening shadows around him. The dark god whirled round Mako, the essence of primitive evil, embodying everything inhuman and unforgiving in the dark heart of the jungle.
At last, Ngoboi arrived at the climax of his dance. He froze, mid-caper, immediately in front of Mako, just at the point where the last of the light made it possible still for everyone to see what he was about to do. Odem held up his hands, the twilight’s last gleaming reflected in his wraparound sunglasses. The silence rolled like thunder over the place. Ngoboi placed the flat of his matchet under Mako’s chin and raised the colonel’s face until their eyes could meet. Then the tall god turned his hideously masked face towards Mako’s remaining left-hand finger and thumb. He raised his matchet and tensed for the blow.