Dark Heart (3 page)

‘Do tell. I wonder if it still does? Perhaps I
had
better take a close look for myself. If I can convince Robin to go in with the team and leave me to my own devices . . .'

It had seemed like a good idea at the time.

But now, as the Boeing's wheels thumped on to the runway and the sky above was shattered with lightning and split with instant thunder, Richard found his breath short, his heart racing, his scrotum and sphincter clenched – like a scuba-diver spotting a shark.

Out over the dull green canopy, a single bird soared, its movement almost unique in that dead place, and the phrase ‘
Chil the Kite
' slipped unbidden into his mind. It took a moment for him to track its relevance down to his reading of Kipling's
Jungle
Book
as a child.

And at last Richard's mouth lifted into a wry smile as he began to laugh at himself – not to mention at his childish fears. ‘Get a grip, Mariner,' he growled.

During the moments of inevitable confusion following the landing, Richard checked the most vital things, like a soldier going into combat. He slipped the green cardboard security card he had filled in prior to landing into his passport at the first vacant visa page and put the passport in the breast pocket of his jacket. He checked the carefully folded US dollar bills in his left jacket pocket. His BlackBerry in his left trouser pocket with his handkerchief. The local network Benincom cellphone that Jim had given him slipped safely in his right jacket pocket, pre-programmed with a local number that would summon immediate help if the going got too tough after all . . .

He pulled his hand luggage out of the overhead cabinet and slid an Apple Mac laptop into place. A 17” MacBook Pro worth £2000 and counting when he had bought it. If that went missing, he thought with a grim chuckle, the cost of getting through the airport was likely to go on to a whole new level. But then the same would be true for either of his suitcases, though his most expensive – most vital and formal – kit had come on the company jet with Robin and the financial team Heritage Mariner habitually sent to functions such as this. He squared his shoulders, stooped a little to keep the top of his head clear of the cabin ceiling, and joined the queue of passengers shuffling towards the exit.

It was the heat that hit him first, then, on the first breath, the stench. An overpowering, humid sultriness, packed with the scents of avgas, rubber, concrete, metal, bodies and garbage all heated far too hot for comfort. Immediately aware of the perspiration prickling on every fold and wrinkle from his scalp to the soles of his feet, he stepped down the disembarkation stairs and strode across the apron to the waiting bus.

The air conditioning in the long vehicle was nullified in an instant by the number of sweating bodies close-packed all around him. The vehicle lurched into motion even as he tried to ease his laptop case out of the small of his nearest neighbour's back. An action he felt he should attempt at once as the neighbour in question was a young woman in a formal business outfit. An action also cancelled out by the lurching movement of the bus which sent everyone staggering and slammed the corner of the bag into her spine once again.

‘Hey . . .' she began, trying to swing round and face her assailant. She got far enough for him to see black curls and a cinnamon-brown cheek. But she, like him, was wedged in place. Her skin was a different colour to most of the passengers – no matter what their ethnic background. But her accent, dripping over that one syllable like molasses, sounded American to him.

‘Sorry,' he answered, fatuously, sounding painfully English.

The coach drew up outside the arrivals terminal and the doors hissed open. People fell out rather than stepped out. The young woman shrugged and strode off ahead of Richard, who followed, frowning. The path up to the tall glass doors was just long enough to let him check his passport, money and Benincom cellphone once again. Only as an afterthought, as the glass portals hissed wide in front of him, did he think to check his BlackBerry.

Then he was in. The girl with cinnamon skin walked immediately in front of him, directed by white-uniformed security guards to the visa section. Still behind her, he joined a short queue. Taking a moment to look around and try to orientate himself as the air conditioning began to cool things down in all sorts of ways. After the visa section there was a security portal by the looks of things, then a passport and security check. Then baggage reclaim in the distance. And what looked like another security check before the customs hall. Further inside the huge building, the white-uniformed security men were joined by others in camos and fatigues. The ubiquitous sidearms were joined by submachine guns with skeleton butts, stubby barrels and short, square magazines. Richard recognized the uniforms from the last time he had been here – and had a less than satisfactory brush with Major Laurent Kebila, the man who had apparently risen to the rank of colonel and the position of head of army security under General Chaka. Kebila had clearly taken the opportunity to rearm his men – replacing the questionably efficient British SA80s with American Ruger MP-9s by the look of things – and to spread his tentacles a little wider into the bargain. Airport security and army security. Not a nice combination. Nor, Richard suspected, a cheap one. Unconsciously he slipped his hand into his pocket and ran his thumbnail over the edges of the carefully folded dollars.

‘What visa do you want?' demanded the man in the visa booth in French.

Richard looked down. The official was talking to the girl.

‘I don't know . . .' she responded, also in French. ‘I'm here for the finance meeting . . .'

New Orleans? wondered Richard inconsequentially. Did they let folks from Dixie into the hallowed halls of Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, where the IMF and the World Bank had their headquarters? But who else would send their employees tourist class to the conference?

‘Where are you going?'

‘The hotel . . . the meeting . . .' She sounded less sure of herself now, in the face of the official's abruptness.

‘Show me your disembarkation form! Quick!'

‘My . . .' she quavered.

‘Green form! Green form you filled in on the plane. I will tell you what visa and how much!'

The young woman passed her green form through the opening in the security glass. The official glanced at it. ‘Town visa,' he decided. ‘Ten dollars US.'

She passed over the money. He stamped the form. As he passed it back, Richard looked at the ‘EMPLOYMENT' section – ‘
World Bank
' it said. And her name was just above it: ‘
Dr Bonnie Holliday
'. He smiled.

Richard stepped forward, acting before the man could even speak. He passed in his green form and the ten dollar bill. Dark eyes glanced up, then down. The stamp fell like a guillotine blade.

Richard knew the security portal was going to present problems. They always did for him. Still behind the increasingly nervous-looking young woman, he put his laptop case in a plastic tray and dumped his phones, keys and steel-buckled belt on top of it. Even so, as he followed her through the gate itself, the alarm went off. She was waved to one side and subjected to a body scan. He was directed to the other side and searched. ‘It's my knees,' he explained in English – and then, in the face of an uncomprehending stare, he explained again in French. ‘The joints of my knees are metal. My legs were damaged in an accident . . .'

He closed his eyes for a moment, fighting his memory. Once, in the early days after the operation, he had been strip-searched at Belfast airport before the security team there had believed him. But things were easier here. The security wand that had just passed over the woman from the World Bank passed over him as well and the man studying the screen clicked his lips in surprise as the picture indeed showed titanium knee-joints. Another twenty dollars smoothed the passage. But when he got to the tray of possessions he saw that his keys, belt and both phones seemed safe enough. So did the Apple. He re-threaded his belt and headed for passport control.

Once again he found himself behind the World Bank woman, and he began to wonder if something in his subconscious was causing him to follow her. Latent stalker or Galahad complex? Either one was possible, he thought cynically – both fitted well enough with the James Bond mode he was trying for, at any rate.

‘This passport is out of date!' spat the man in passport control.

‘I assure you it is not . . .' answered the woman, frowning. ‘It will not expire for—'

‘Five months! It must be at least six months from expiry! This is serious!'

She turned around at last, her eyes wide with shock. ‘I had no idea! They called me in at the last moment! I only had twelve hours to get my stuff together and catch the flight from Boston to Paris!' She was explaining to Richard, in English.

Without a second thought he was at her side. ‘
How
serious?' he demanded in his brutal French. ‘
This
serious?' Richard produced twenty-five dollars.

The man frowned.

‘
This
serious?' Richard added another twenty-five dollars. Fifty dollars now lay beside the passport.

The stamp came down. ‘Remember in future,' the passport controller said. He handed up the passport. Richard took it and handed it to her. ‘See you in baggage claim, Dr Holliday,' he said. She walked away hurriedly without looking back at him. He slid his own passport into the booth. There was already ten dollars in it. He was getting the hang of this, he thought.

The baggage hall was busy. There were people everywhere, many more than had just come off the KLM Boeing. A good number of them looked local. And not just the taxi-touts, the hotel drummers, or the ubiquitous men in white and camouflage with their sidearms and their submachine guns.

The cinnamon-skinned World Bank woman was nowhere to be seen, so Richard contented himself with looking for his bags. When they arrived, they were so battered that he only recognized them because he had cinched distinctive personalized straps around them. Narrow-eyed, he heaved them off the carousel and carried them through to the next security section which stood between baggage claim and customs. This time the pallets were bigger. Cases went through X-ray searches, as did his laptop, keys, belt, BlackBerry and cellphone once again. And as did his knees once more when the alarm sounded.

And he found himself another twenty dollars poorer by the time he caught up with his cases and effects.

He re-threaded his belt, slipped his BlackBerry into his breast pocket with his passport and put the Benincom cellphone in his right jacket pocket conveniently to hand. Then he put his laptop bag over his shoulder and hefted his cases into customs.

The first thing that he saw there was a selection of ladies' underwear so adventurous as to be almost shocking. It was being held up by the customs official going through a suitcase. And a second glance all too clearly revealed that the case belonged to the woman from the World Bank. Her cheeks were no longer cinnamon: they were mahogany with embarrassed blushes.

Enough
is
enough
, thought Richard, and he shouldered his way through the hall and slammed his cases down beside hers. The simple noise distracted the sniggering officials. Then they registered his height and his presence. And the look on his face. The woman's underwear was roughly shoved back and her case closed then marked ‘PASSED'.

‘Are these bags yours?' demanded the tallest of the three in French that was almost as brutal as Richard's own.

‘Yes.'

‘Open them . . .'

Ten minutes later, sixty dollars poorer and lighter by most of his exclusive toiletries, Richard carried his cases out into the main arrivals hall. This was even busier than the baggage claim had been. It was as much a market as an airport. People ran here and there, jostling the new arrivals, trying to sell them knick-knacks, local fruit and produce. There were men and women, boys and girls all in a jostling crowd offering everything from help with luggage to cigarettes to local currency and promises to guide.

The woman he had been following was standing, helpless, at the heart of a crowd of feral children who were pawing at her, apparently intent on tearing the very clothing off her back. ‘Hoi!' bellowed Richard without thinking, using his quarterdeck voice – the one that could carry half the length of a supertanker in the middle of a storm. Every head in the place swivelled towards him. The crowd of boys broke away from her and descended on him like piranhas. She staggered a few steps, only to find herself confronted by a soldier clutching a Ruger MP-9 submachine gun. One of Colonel Kebila's best by the look of things.

She looked over her shoulder, her eyes wide and desperate.

Richard decided that he had had enough. He dropped his cases and reached into his pocket for the Benincom cell pre-programmed with the number of someone capable of getting him out of this.

But his pocket was empty.

The phone was gone.

‘Stop thief,' he yelled at once in French. ‘Someone has stolen my phone!' Quick as a flash, he reached into his breast pocket and pulled out his BlackBerry. He had left it switched on and programmed with the Benincom cell's own number. He pressed speed-dial and immediately the phone began to ring. ‘Help! Stop thief,' he yelled again. ‘
Au secours! Voleur! Arrêtez le voleur!
'

One of the urchins who had been circling the woman and Richard himself seemed to freeze, then in a flash he was gone. But the ringing carried on.

‘It's here!' said the soldier with the submachine gun. And several others joined him at once. Numbly, moving like a zombie, the girl from the World Bank reached into her bag and pulled out Richard's phone. She stood there, gaping at the shrieking instrument, suddenly alone with the accusing soldiers in a widening space in the centre of a vanishing crowd. Richard strode forward, his clumsy thumb fighting to break contact with his BlackBerry.