Axel’s eyes would slowly be adjusting to the dark shed after the bright tropical light outside.
Deaver’s body was a still statue slowly taking shape, like a film in the developing pan.
“Merry Christmas, Vince. I came to say good-bye.” Axel walked toward Deaver and wrapped his hands around the bars.
Deaver let his gusty sigh fill the room. He lifted his head. Axel would be able to make out his movements by now. “Man, oh man, I’m going to miss you. Miss our talks. I’m just happy you’ll be out of this shithole and with Maja.”
“Oh, yeah.” Predictably, Axel’s face creased in a smile at the mention of his girlfriend. Axel was slated to leave this afternoon for a two-month rotation back to Finland. He hadn’t even tried to hide how glad he’d be to get out of Africa and back to his computer, snow and Maja, probably in that order.
Axel pulled up a stool and pulled out a little magnetized travel chess set. They had spent the past three days playing through the bars. Deaver had been letting him win two games out of three.
“Hey,” Deaver said, putting on a shy, abashed expression. “You’ve been really good to me, here, you know?” He put a little folksiness into his voice, just two guys chewing the fat on a lazy afternoon. “And I was thinking, what with you going back home for a while and all, that I’d like to give you something. I really owe you, man. I have something for you to give Maja. You know, as a Christmas present. I bet you didn’t get anything for her.”
Bingo. Axel hung his head. There wasn’t much but jungle within a hundred-mile radius. Jungle and soldiers and blood and misery. Nothing a Finnish woman would want.
Deaver stood and walked toward the bars, crooking his finger to bring Axel closer. Curious, Axel stood against the bars. Though they were separated by the bars, they were close enough to feel each other’s breath.
“I’ve got something real special for Maja. Something she’ll like…a lot.” He allowed himself a smile. “Something sparkly. Something all women like.” He shrugged and winked, man to man. “Won’t do me much good in here. You might as well get some use out of it, know what I mean?”
Axel nodded eagerly.
Deaver knew that everyone in the UNOMSIL encampment assumed he had the diamonds. Or rather, since he’d been frisked, knew where the diamonds were.
If only. It was a fucking fortune. Enough money to keep him happy for the rest of his life, wherever he wanted to settle down.
Away from Africa, away from Afghanistan and Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan and all the fucking ’Stans. Away from Iraq, away from all the shithole places with kids blowing themselves up just for the pleasure of gutting you while they did it and women who hid grenades under their burqas and men willing to shoot you for your fillings.
No more.
No more twelve-year-olds high on ganja or palm wine carting around AK-47s they could barely lift, with access to unlimited ammo and just itching to bag a white man. No more roadside IEDs, no more leeches or scorpions or lice, no more MREs, no more rough sleeping.
He’d earned that money. It was fucking his. He’d been dreaming of a big hit for years, and when he’d heard the rumors of a village whose men had all gone off to war and with millions of dollars in conflict diamonds hidden in the ground, he’d instantly known that this was It. His big chance.
He’d never have to soldier again, or ever have to work at anything, ever again. Never take orders again, never do anything but what he damned well pleased.
No more jungles, no more deserts. No more bivouacking in primitive encampments on stony ground.
Deaver planned on living in luxury for the rest of his natural life. Buy a mansion somewhere nice, somewhere sunny, somewhere OUTCONUS. In the Bahamas maybe. Or maybe Monte Carlo.
Why not? Buy a big house with a pool and servants and lots and lots of women. Not that many beautiful women wanted to fuck a soldier, but they sure as hell lined up ten deep to fuck rich men.
He could taste it, smell it, feel it, this new life.
And it was all gone. All his dreams for his future, a future he’d sweated and taken bullets for, wiped out in a second by Jack Prescott.
Deaver’s fists clenched as he remembered in a white-hot rage that moment when his future was snatched away from him. He and his men had opened fire on the village, softening it up. A knife against the throat of the daughter of one of the women, and he had the location of the diamonds. He’d run into the hut, found the bag and was running toward his men, who were eliminating the villagers—no sense in leaving witnesses behind—when all of a sudden, four spaced shots rang out, followed by sudden silence.
A sniper, picking off his men, one by one.
In his scramble to get to safety, the bag slipped from Deaver’s fingers as he ran to the nearest hut, leaping over the dead bodies in the central clearing. He slid into the opening and turned around, rifle to shoulder, and saw a big man disappear into the jungle with his diamonds.
He knew it was useless trying to follow. If Jack Prescott didn’t want to be found, he could disappear like smoke.
Deaver had spent the next few hours ransacking the village, turning over bodies, in the hope that there was another stash of diamonds, but by the time he’d come to the conclusion that there was nothing left, UN soldiers had surrounded the village and taken him into custody.
For a moment the heat of rage swept through him, wiping out every other thought except that of hunting down that fucker Jack Prescott, getting his diamonds back and killing Prescott with a knife, taking a couple of days to do it.
None of this showed on his face. He bent his head forward and dropped his voice to a murmur. “Come in here, Axel. And I’ll give you something that will make Maja drop to her knees in gratitude.”
“Okay, Vince.” Though there was no one else in the hut, Axel dropped his voice, too. As if they were about to exchange confidences.
Deacon stood up and backed away slowly. “Come inside.” His voice was still low. “I’ll show you what I’ve got for you. For her.”
Axel didn’t even hesitate. Deacon knew Axel thought of him as someone much like himself. Nice white boy caught up in the craziness that was West Africa.
Axel unlocked the cell door and walked inside, following Deacon, who’d reached his cot and pulled something out from under the hard mattress. A cloth bag with smooth round objects that rattled.
Axel’s excited breathing was loud in the darkened room.
Deacon smiled. “Maja’s going to love these. Come over and look.” Deacon reached over the cot to suddenly open the shutters, flooding the room with harsh light. Axel was temporarily blinded and would remain blind for about a minute and a half. More than enough time.
Deacon had closed his eyes and turned his back to the window, and he could see just fine.
His hand dropped to his boot, where he quickly and quietly pulled out a long thin dagger with a folding handle the UN troops hadn’t even noticed. He’d been briskly frisked for arms before being shut up in the detention center, but no one had thought to check his boots. Or his belt buckle with the minirevolver or the garotte wire along the inside of his belt.
The garotte was out of the question. Deaver needed Axel’s clothes intact. A slow choking death would loosen his bowels and bladder. And a bullet wouldn’t do—it would stain his uniform with blood.
There was only one way to do it.
Deaver dropped the bag into Axel’s hands. The bag opened under Axel’s eager, fumbling fingers. When the bag was open, he poured the contents in his hand. It took him a few seconds to realize that he held not diamonds but stones. His head lifted.
“What—” he began. It was his last word on this earth. Deaver hooked his left arm around Axel’s chest and with his right he slipped the stiletto he kept as sharp as a scalpel straight into the brain stem. It immediately stopped all bodily functions. Axel went from sentient being to stone in a tenth of a second. He slumped into Deaver’s arms, an instant corpse.