The golden rules of Krav Maga were speed, aggression, surprise; plus to strike first and to improvise weaponry. You fought with whatever came to hand – planks of wood, metal bars, even broken bottles.
Or a sharpened wooden stake fashioned from a mangrove root.
Chambara’s men appeared shortly before dusk.
There were two dozen of them in one truck. They moved on to the far end of the beach, fanning out to search it from end to end. They paused at each of the dugout canoes, turning them over as if they expected their quarry to be hiding underneath.
It was the obvious place to lie low – which had made it a complete no-no as far as Jaeger and Raff were concerned.
The soldiers from the Bioko armed forces loosed off rounds from their G3 assault rifles, blasting holes in the bottom of several of the boats. But there was little order to their actions, and Jaeger made careful note of which canoes hadn’t received a burst of bullets.
It didn’t take the soldiers long to find the canoe packed with provisions. Orders were screamed across the sand. A pair of camouflage-clad figures hurried into the village, returning a minute later with a diminutive form slung across their shoulders.
He was dropped in the sand at the force commander’s feet.
Jaeger recognised the commander, a large, overweight man, from one of his many visits to Black Beach, where he’d overseen the interrogations and the beatings.
The commander proceeded to boot the prostrate form in the ribs.
Little Mo let out a muffled scream.
It echoed pitifully across the dusky beach.
Jaeger clenched his teeth. The chief’s boy had been like a son to him as well. He’d been a smart pupil, but with a goofy smile that had always made Jaeger laugh. Plus he’d proved an ace at beach soccer, their favourite pastime once the daily lessons were done.
But it wasn’t just that that had bonded the two of them. In so many ways, Little Mo reminded Jaeger of his own boy.
Or at least the son he’d once had.
4
‘MR JAEGER!’ The call rang out, cutting through Jaeger’s dark thoughts.
‘Mr William Jaeger. Yes, I remember you, you coward. And as you see, I have the boy.’ A massive hand reached down and pulled Little Mo up by the roots of his hair, until he was balanced on the very tips of his toes. ‘He has one minute left to live. ONE MINUTE! You white bastards show yourselves, NOW! Or this boy takes a bullet between the eyeballs!’
Jaeger locked eyes with Raff. The big Maori shook his head. ‘Mate, you know the score,’ he whispered. ‘We show ourselves we damn the entire village – ourselves and Little Mo with it.’
Wordlessly, Jaeger flicked his eyes back to the distant figures. Raff was right, but the image of the kid dancing on his tiptoes as the big commander gripped him punched into Jaeger’s brain. It flipped his mind back to a long-buried memory – to a remote mountainside and a shredded, knife-torn length of canvas…
Jaeger felt a massive arm upon him, powerful; restraining. ‘Easy, buddy, easy,’ Raff whispered. ‘I mean what I’m saying. Show yourself now, we’re all dead…’
‘The one minute is up!’ the commander screamed. ‘COME OUT! Now!’
Jaeger heard the sharp, steel-on-steel clatch-clatch of a round being chambered. The commander whipped his pistol up, shoving the muzzle hard into Little Mo’s temple. ‘I COUNT FROM TEN. Then, make no mistake, you British bastards, I fire!’
The commander was facing the sand dunes, flashing his torch across the tussocks of grass and hoping to spot Raff and Jaeger.
‘Ten, nine, eight…’
A new voice rang out over the darkening beach, the childish cries cutting across the commander’s words. ‘Sir! Sir! Please! Please!’
‘Seven, six, five… Yes, boy, plead to your white friend to save you… Three…’
Jaeger felt his big Maori friend pinning him to the mud, as his mind darted in horror between distant memories: to a savage attack on a dark and frosted mountainside; to blood amongst the first winter snows. To the moment his life had imploded… To right now; to Little Mo.
‘Two! One! IT IS FINISHED!’
The commander pulled the trigger.
A single muzzle flash threw the beach into stark light and shadow. He loosened hold of the boy’s hair, letting the tiny body crumple to the sand.
Jaeger turned his head in agony and pressed it tight against the mangrove roots. Had Raff not been restraining him, he would have burst out of hiding, knife and sharpened stake at the ready, murder blazing in his eyes.
And he would have died.
He wouldn’t have given a damn.
The commander barked out a series of staccato orders. Camouflaged figures dashed in all directions, some back into the village, others to either end of the beach. One came skidding to a halt at the edge of the swamp.
‘So, we continue with our little game,’ the commander announced, still searching in all directions. ‘And so we fetch the next child. I am a patient man. I have all the time in the world. I am quite happy to shoot every last one of your pupils, Mr Jaeger, if that is what it takes. Show yourself. Or are you the poor white coward I always thought you were? Prove – me – wrong.’
Jaeger saw Raff make the move. He stole forward silently, gliding through the mud on his stomach like a giant ghostly snake. For the briefest of moments he glanced over his shoulder.
‘Want to go in a blaze of glory?’ he whispered.
Jaeger nodded grimly. ‘Speed. Aggression…’
‘Surprise,’ Raff completed the mantra.
Jaeger slithered forward, following the path that Raff made. As he did so, he marvelled at the big Maori’s ability to move, to hunt, silently – like an animal; a natural-born predator. Over the years Raff had taught Jaeger so many of those skills: the total belief and the focus it took to stalk and kill.
But still Raff remained the master; the best there ever was.
He melted out of the swamp like a formless shadow, just as another hapless child was hauled on to the beach. The commander started booting the child in the guts, his men grinning at the cruel spectacle that was unfolding.
It was now that Raff seized his moment. Enshrouded in the darkness, he stole towards the lone guard nearest the swamp. In one swift move he slipped his left arm around the sentry’s neck and mouth in an iron chokehold, blocking off any possibility of a cry, jerking the chin upwards and to the side. At the same instant his right arm snaked around in a savage thrust, sinking the blade of his knife up to the hilt through the man’s throat, before punching forward to slice through the artery and the windpipe.
For several seconds Raff gripped the stricken sentry, as his life drained into his lungs, drowning the man in his own blood. Silently, he lowered the body to the sand. An instant later he was back at the swamp, the dead man’s assault rifle gripped in hands thick with blood.
He crouched low, widening the narrow exit for Jaeger.
‘Come on!’ he hissed. ‘Let’s go!’
Jaeger sensed the movement from the corner of his eye. A figure had materialised out of nowhere, his assault rifle rising to aim, Raff bang in his line of fire.
Jaeger left fly with his knife.
The movement was instinctive. The blade whispered through the dusk air, twisting as it flew, and sliced deep into the figure’s guts.
The gunman screamed.
His weapon went off, but the shots sprayed wide, punching wildly off target. As the echoes of the gunfire died away, Jaeger rose and sprinted forward, wooden stake raised in one hand.
He’d recognised the gunman.
He leapt, slamming the spear into the man’s chest. He felt the sharpened stake split apart ribs and slice through muscle and sinew, as he forced it in with all his strength. By the time he’d grabbed the fallen man’s assault rifle, he had him pinned to the sand – the stake driven clean through the side of his chest and shoulder.