‘GO!’ screamed Anastasia and pulled the AK’s trigger, simply aiming towards the centre of the compound where Ngoboi was still capering. The muzzle flash exploded at the same instant as the next great blaze of lightning; its flat report lost amid the faltering beating on the tables and the instant explosion of thunder overhead. Ngoboi staggered back a step and suddenly sat down.
Anastasia rolled away from the step, and, holding the AK by its hot muzzle, she wormed her way under the chapel as quickly as she could. The thunder echoed through the jungle and began to fade away. But at once its diminishing rumble was replaced by the arrival of the rain. She rolled out on to the upper slope of the bank and saw Celine beginning to pick herself up. ‘Go!’ yelled Anastasia again, and side by side they pounded towards the river, slipping and sliding in the instantly disorientating deluge.
Blessedly, Ado had not been idle in their absence. She had pulled the little rowing boat down from its place beside the pier and — in a moment of bizarre inspiration — had secured it by tying it to the unconscious soldier. As the two women came sliding down the bank towards her, she flashed the Maglite once to guide them. ‘Get in!’ shouted Anastasia as soon as she understood what Ado had done. And Ado obeyed. Celine stepped in next and Anastasia herself brought up the rear. Kneeling in the bow of the rowing boat, she turned back to try and untie the rope. But Ado had made too good a job. The knot securing the little vessel to the unconscious soldier was far too tight and complex for her trembling fingers to loosen. And the rain only made matters worse. She felt back along the straining rope only to find a tangled mare’s nest beneath her knees.
Celine’s hand came down on her shoulder then and she looked up. Along the top of the ridge, silhouetted by the flickering lights of the compound, a row of figures stood looking down into the darkness. Uncertain yellow light gleamed fitfully on matchets and AKs as they were brandished above the howling soldiers’ heads. ‘Get him!’ Anastasia shouted. ‘Get him in the boat!’
Celine reached down and together they wrestled the dead weight of their living anchor in over the gunwale. And the river took them at once, sweeping the four of them down towards the mangroves. Lightning pounced down, lighting up the wild crowd of their pursuers, with the general in their midst, mouth wide, crocodile teeth gleaming, chin red with Sister Faith’s heart’s-blood, face slick and streaming. And, in that instant of brightness, he saw them. His eyes locked with Anastasia’s, and he raised the Browning even as she fought to bring up the AK. This time she took more careful aim.
They fired at the same instant, though neither was able to see where their bullets went, for the little rowing boat was whirled round the out-thrust of the mangroves, as though propelled by the recoil of the AK itself, and was gathered into the midst of the river as it twisted round a sharp bend and plunged down into the delta proper.
SIX
Craft
As Ngoboi and his assistants at last whirled off the dance floor, the chandeliers brightened once again and Bonnie’s whispered commentary stilled, Richard leaned over towards Robin, his eyes narrow and his face crafty. ‘While we savour dessert and coffee as promised, my darling, why don’t I bring you up to speed with some of the background I read up on during the flight down here?’
‘OK,’ said Robin, equally craftily; well aware that showing off to her would distract him from the delectable Dr Holliday. ‘Do tell, my darling.’
‘The minister for the outer delta is that huge, short-necked bull of a man at the table over there. His name is Dr Bala Ngama and he is every bit as powerful as he looks. His responsibilities run from the lower edge of the inner delta right out to the boundary of Benin la Bas’s territorial waters. His purview is, therefore, very wide indeed, and his influence, inevitably, just as far-reaching. Only Chaka himself outguns him, so they say. There’s oil in the outer delta, of course, and under the continental shelf beneath the ocean waters to the south of it.’
‘Oil that Max Asov’s Bashnev drills and we at Heritage Mariner ship to and from the refineries in Northern Europe. I know that, my love.’
‘Quite. Oil that everyone else is trying to get hold of too. At any price. But the minister, like the rest of Chaka’s government, has the reputation of being untouchably honest. But you know how dirty big oil can get. Still, that’s why Minister Ngama works so closely with the minister for petroleum resources. That scrawny-looking chap with the black-rimmed spectacles. Keeping an eye on each other, perhaps. As pristine as Caesar’s wife.’
‘But he’s just responsible for the outer delta and the oil, isn’t he? I mean he’s not responsible for mines and so forth as well, is he?’ Robin asked, frowning.
‘That’s right,’ answered Richard. ‘It’s the minister for the inner delta who’s responsible for the mineral wealth of the area — and he works most closely with the Ministry of Mines and Metals, not to mention the nearly nationalized Minière Benin la Bas diamond cartel. Those gentlemen you took such a shine to as you went down the reception line.’
‘Gold and diamonds,’ she countered cheerfully. ‘I can’t think what the attraction was…’
‘Well, he and Bala Ngama, fortunately, are brothers or there might have been some danger of rivalry between them. Especially as the minister for the outer delta, the elder, more powerful of the two, has yet more strings to his bow, many of them involving Colonel Kebila in his various security guises and his family in several of theirs.’
‘Now that I didn’t know,’ she admitted, more seriously. ‘Do fill me in.’
‘Minister Ngama is currently responsible for the customs service, which Kebila oversees in a semi-official capacity. By extension, he is responsible for the port and docking facilities in Port Granville Harbour and, again with a little help from his friend, for the security of the port as a whole. He’s equally responsible for the protection of the platforms, pipelines and facilities both ashore and in the offshore oilfields. Responsibility for Benin la Bas’s navy comes under his purview, therefore — both the riverine and maritime sections of it — and the coastguard, with which there is naturally some overlap. The senior representative for naval affairs, however, is Captain Caleb Maina, who has day-to-day oversight of naval matters in the bay and up the river.’
‘Which one is he?’ demanded Robin. ‘You know how I feel about naval men…’
‘He’s the only other one in uniform,’ said Richard with some asperity. ‘In dress whites, in fact. Over there beside Kebila. They’re cousins, apparently.’
‘So that’s why they look so similar! Two Denzel Washingtons for the price of one. One with moustache, one without. And does he have a command of his own, this Captain Caleb?’
‘Two, as a matter of fact — though how he exercises both I can’t imagine. When he’s out with the big boys in the blue-water navy, he shares command of a neat corvette called the Otobo. But when he’s assigned brown-water duties along the coast or sent off upriver, he has a pretty hairy Israeli-made Shaldag Mark Three fast patrol boat which is a bit like John F. Kennedy’s PT109 on steroids. On steroids with guns.’
‘Now he sounds like someone I’d give quite a lot to meet!’ said Robin.
‘Me too,’ added Dr Holliday quite unexpectedly. ‘And he’s the guy in white, you say?’
‘You’re going to have a race on your hands, girls, judging by the way one or two of the other guests have been eyeing him up,’ said Richard, more than a little amused. ‘Though to be fair, Robin, you’ll have your chance tomorrow. We’re scheduled to meet Minister Ngama and his team — which includes your new heart-throb — tomorrow morning. Apparently Max wants to try and flog the minister one of Sevmash’s updated Zubr hovercraft — which is just about designed to fill the gap between the Shaldag and the corvette, I’d say. Perhaps even cancel them both out.’