‘Good evening, Miss Asov,’ said Colonel Laurent Kabila quietly. ‘Welcome to Granville Harbour. I’m sorry your reception has been so upsetting so far but I’m sure we can improve things for you very soon. I think you had better come with me…’
SIXTEEN
Manpads
‘No,’ whispered Caleb. ‘It is out of the question. I will simply not allow you to accompany us.’ He, like the team assembled to go ashore, was wearing body armour and a tin helmet. He was armed with a sidearm — as was Sanda — while the others carried semi-automatic rifles. Both officers also carried massive flash lamps.
But Caleb was staying aboard for the moment — as was Robin. This wasn’t a TV programme — the commander stayed aboard and in command; guests did not go running willy-nilly into dangerous situations. He had other officers whose job was to go ashore and other responsibilities beyond indulging the adventurous desires of his passengers. But he would be following them the instant it was safe for him to do so. He was a ‘lead from the front’ commander to his fingertips. The problem was, so was Robin.
‘That seems sensible, Robin,’ added Bonnie, nervously, her voice breathy and scarcely audible above the grumbling motor. ‘This stretch of the river’s supposed to be deserted and now suddenly we have folks shooting at us and setting fire to stuff. If the president had known about all this he would never have sent us, I’m sure. And I’m equally certain he wouldn’t want us going ashore and nosing around in burned-out buildings.’
‘I can handle myself,’ persisted Robin. ‘I proved that when we turned the corvette round and got her out of trouble. And I’m trained to Accident and Emergency standard in first aid — that makes me the closest to a medic you have.’
‘Even so,’ said Caleb, his quiet voice ringing with finality, ‘I’m not going to let you go ashore now. It will almost certainly be dangerous — even if all we’re doing is going into a smouldering boathouse — and I simply don’t want to put you at risk.’
As they spoke, Lieutenant Sanda was watching the helmsman bring the Shaldag gingerly into the cavernous opening of the burned building. Her engines were running as close to silent as possible, just giving the vessel headway against the restless current downriver of the cataract. There was an order for silent running aboard — as though this were a submarine. FPB004 was also in darkness, as anonymous and nearly invisible as she was silent. For Caleb was correct, thought Robin grimly, scanning the boathouse they were approaching though narrow eyes. This all looked wrong on so many levels.
The front of the building was gone but the back of it remained relatively unscathed. There had once obviously been a covered wooden jetty along one side, reaching out into the river, but all that remained of it was the concrete posts it had stood on and one or two beams above, outlined against the starry sky. Behind the posts, the concrete floor of the main area was littered with chunks of charcoal. But the thick, rough slabs seemed solid still. The roof above them was burned back to a ragged line of timbers that stood above what seemed to be an internal lean-to. An office, perhaps, or a storeroom. But it was difficult to see details even under the moonlight.
Caleb turned away from Robin, his armour creaking, its Velcro fastenings rasping. ‘Put on the searchlight and get ready to go ashore,’ he ordered, and suddenly the interior of the place was lit by the stark white illumination of a hospital operating theatre.
‘Can you put her against the concrete?’ asked Caleb, no longer keeping his voice down — the need for stealth over as soon as the light went on.
‘Yes sir,’ answered the helmsman. ‘But there’s nothing to moor her to.’
‘Use the engine to hold her in place. Mr Sanda, you and the men I’ve detailed will go on my order. I will follow on your all clear.’ He turned back to Robin. ‘If it’s safe when I’ve checked it out for myself then I’ll call you ashore for a quick look around,’ he promised. ‘Or if there’s anyone needing tending in a secure location. In the meantime, stay aboard and inside, please.’
‘Thanks a bunch,’ she answered.
Richard would have known from her tone that she had no intention of doing what she was told. But Caleb’s experience with women was relatively slight, so he took this as acquiescence. He turned away from her and signalled to Lieutenant Sanda, who ran silently out of the bridge, crossed the deck and leaped ashore with the four men detailed for the first recce.
Robin followed them out on to the deck, but stopped at the rail, looking after the little commando unit as they went forward in practised formation, scouting carefully ahead and moving from one secure firing position to the next. After a heartbeat she returned to stand by Caleb on the bridge, inside, as he had ordered, listening to Sanda reporting back to the captain at every step, even though he and the shore party were etched against the brightness like saints in a stained-glass window. Within three minutes they had crossed the concrete floor. Then Sanda hit the door to the lean-to office, and vanished inwards. After a second, his torch went on, its light varying the lambency in the mirror surface of the internal window. Shadows moved against the frosted glass like some kind of magic trick or theatrical effect. They stooped, twisted, turned. ‘Men down,’ came his terse report. ‘Not ours. Strangers. Five here. Some uniforms. Look like UN but hard to say. Pretty torn-up. Something’s not right. There’s a back door half open. Checking further…’ The light went out. The window became a flat mirror once again.
That was enough for Caleb. He ran out of the bridge and leaped nimbly ashore. Robin followed him to the deck rail and hesitated. She could still hear Sanda’s voice coming quietly from the relay on the bridge behind her. ‘Back of the building deserted. But there’s a truck. UN markings. Checking inside… Oshi! What is this?…’ The torchlight in the office deepened the window once again as Caleb’s shadow hurried through.
Robin slipped down the companionway and found her bag on the bunk that had been prepared for her. She unzipped the exclusive Louis Vuitton Keepall, reached in and pulled out a torch. Less than a minute later she was back on deck.
‘Where are you going?’ asked Bonnie from the bridge door.
‘You know very well where I’m going,’ she answered. ‘But from the sound of things you do not want to come along.’
She leaped out on to the concrete and ran forward, crouching a little, even though she was almost certain there was nothing to fear. Unlike the soldiers who preceded her, however, she added the beam of her own torch to the brightness sweeping across the floor. So, just outside the stage-set wall of the internal office, a little way from the door itself, she found a trainer that they had overlooked. She scooped it up on the run, one glance was enough to tell her it belonged to a woman or a girl.
However, one glance around the charnel house of the office was more than enough. The stench of blood and cordite turned her stomach but she refused to let the swelling nausea distract her. She straightened, flashing her torch beam around, letting its bright light add to the square of illumination coming in through the window behind her. The table caught her attention first, for it was most brightly lit. It was oddly placed, too close to the door. The man lying beside it, with his chest blown open, had his trousers and pants round his ankles. Taken in conjunction with a woman’s shoe, that was immediately sinister. But not as sinister as the fact that the spray of blood across the table — which had clearly issued from the dead man’s chest — formed a rough outline round a clean space in the middle. A clean space that might, at a stretch, have conformed to the shape of a woman’s torso. Robin’s torch beam went down on to the floor once again. She found the second trainer almost at once. And then, most tellingly, a bundle of cotton that turned out to be a pair of panties.