Dark Heart (32 page)

‘That could be a problem,' said the Colonel.

‘
Will
be a problem,' added Robin. ‘Given her father's change of heart. She's quite a bargaining counter, all of a sudden.'

‘Important enough to get whoever's got her safe passage out of the country?' asked Anastasia.

‘I'd say so,' answered Robin. ‘It's a father–daughter thing.'

‘Do tell,' grated Anastasia in a tone that made Richard automatically glance over at the back of her T-shirt. But it was too dark to see ‘AND F*** YOUR FAMILY' written there.

This conversation all but covered the time it took the little squad to get to the hindmost of the two technicals – and for the man disguised as a nun to drag Celine to the door of the first one. Because they were moving so fast and so silently through the noisy darkness that was full of revving engines, gunshots and shouting – not to mention the roaring of flames from the guttering tank, the blazing chapel and the still-burning palisade – the squad of women with Richard were able to take the men aboard the second technical by complete surprise. A surprise aided by the madness of what Anastasia and her cohort were trying to do, coupled with the distractingly hypnotic sight of a man dressed as a nun with a gun wrestling with the nearly sainted folk-heroine daughter of the country's president.

The feral women simply erupted up out of the darkness, using their guns as clubs, and silently overpowered the three men in the back of the pick up and the two men in the front. Richard was able to spring up on to the flatbed and grasp the double handle of the massive weapon there. ‘This is the Shipunov self-powering four-barrelled Gatling designed mini-gun,' he said, awestruck. ‘God knows where they got a piece of cutting-edge Russian hardware like this, ladies. But I think it'll certainly help me get over my penis envy.'

No sooner had he finished speaking than the door of the technical in front of them slammed and the vehicle lurched into motion. Anastasia hauled the unconscious driver of the second technical out on to the mud and gunned the motor as the others clambered aboard, then they were off. Richard hung on grimly, straining his eyes to assess whether the Milan that had decapitated the T80 was the only one the lead Toyota had carried. Although he held the Shipunov – held on to it for all he was worth, in fact, as Anastasia's driving matched her approach to the rest of her life – he did not want to fire it as that would put Celine at risk. The men in front would have no such worries about launching another missile at him, however. And even as the thought occurred to Richard, he saw the three men in the vehicle in front start to prepare another Milan. There was still an outside chance they didn't realize their friends had been replaced, he calculated grimly. But the instant the nun in charge gave an order on the headset under his wimple and got no reply, then he and the girls in the second technical were toast.

Unless, of course, the men in the lead would also be putting themselves at risk if they launched. ‘Anastasia,' he called. ‘Keep as close as you can.'

‘I'm aiming to get more than fucking
close
. . .' grated the Russian woman, grinding the gears as she spoke.

‘Good, good,' he said paternally. ‘That's the ticket. If we fall back, he'll nuke us, as likely as not; same as he did to my tank.'

The two Toyotas roared along the inner wall of the stockade, beneath the Roman candle that was all that remained of the watchtower overlooking the jetty, and on towards the bush. Richard was sidetracked for an instant, calculating whether Sanda would have had time to get the girls from the hut across the war-zone they were heading for and down to the safety of the Shaldag and the river. If not, then the two careering vehicles were all too possibly just about to decimate a crocodile of terrified schoolgirls on top of everything else.

But then his worries became less speculative. The men in the back of the Toyota immediately in front started shooting at them. Or two of them did, while the third got the next Milan ready to fire.

The Toyota lurched forward as though Anastasia had found a nitrous oxide canister to gun the motor. The vehicles ground along, side by side, smashing brutally up against each other. It was only when a bullet smashed into the body armour on his chest that Richard was shocked into action. He realized that if they were side by side he could deploy the Shipunov without endangering Celine. If he was careful. Somewhere between a nanosecond and a microsecond after that thought occurred to him, the back of the other Toyota was empty – of men, guns and Milan missiles. All of it chewed into nothingness and hurled riverwards by something that sounded like a mad blacksmith trying to shatter an anvil with the biggest hammer he possessed.

Then he realized that if he could depress the mini-gun's elevation sufficiently, he could do to the Toyota's back axle what he had just done to its on-board weapons system. Even as he pressed the trigger, Anastasia hurled her vehicle right, ramming the other technical, while its driver reciprocated. The far side of the Toyota's flatbed followed the men and the Milans into oblivion. But even as it did so, the palisade wall vanished and there was only riverbank beside them – and jungle dead ahead. Anastasia threw the technical sideways once again and the other vehicle began to slide. The riverbank was slick mud, sloping downwards to the water. The racing tyres had very little purchase here – hardly enough to carry them safely to the dry and level safety of the undergrowth half a kilometre ahead. Anastasia threw the technical sideways a third time and the eight tyres driving the two vehicles forward lost their grip at last. The bullet-riddled Toyota began to slide away from Richard – even as he felt Anastasia beginning to lose control of hers. But his gun was still at the maximum depression, and each foot that separated them brought that back axle more surely into his sights. So that at last he was able to pull the trigger and see the whole flatbed dissolve as the mad blacksmith took up his hammer once again. The back of the speeding vehicle broke. The cab slewed round and round. For a moment it looked as though it might roll. But no. Instead it settled as the square-cut end behind the cab sank down on to the slick mud, holding the front steady as it slid down into the water with all the stately grace of an ocean liner being launched. Anastasia's Toyota followed it, swinging round as though it was still under her control, so that the headlights shone on to the wreck as they slid to a halt. Richard ratcheted the mini-gun back on its mount, keeping the shattered technical in his sights.

The shore-side door opened and Celine wearily pulled herself out to come floundering up on to the bank. Anastasia threw herself out of the Toyota and ran down to her, sweeping her into the most enormous bear hug.
Only a Russian
. . . thought Richard.

‘Where are the others?' he called. ‘Celine, where's the guy who kidnapped you?'

‘Gone,' answered Celine wearily. ‘His name is Odem and he's gone. Out through the other door. Upriver. Like a ghost.'

‘We have Celine,' said Richard into his headset. ‘But it looks like there are still some bad men out there. Heading upriver by the sound of it.'

‘We'll get them,' said Mako. ‘In time. No matter how far upriver they go.'

‘Not,' added Robin, ‘that there
is
anything much upriver any more.'

‘You never know,' said Richard automatically, watching Bonnie, the girls and that one tall young man gather round the two women still lost in their embrace. ‘There could be anything up there . . .'

‘Don't tell me,' teased Robin gently. ‘Tarzan's Lost City. Prester John. King Solomon's Mines. You'll never grow up, will you, my love?'

‘You never know,' said Richard with a weary chuckle. ‘You never know . . .'

‘S
atisfied?' asked Richard, his voice deep and lazy.

‘Completely,' answered Robin. She pushed away the plate which had contained a fluffy mound of golden scrambled egg and several slices of wheaten toast, and lifted the breakfast tray on to her bedside table. Then she rolled out of bed, wearing only the napkin she had tied around her neck soon after Richard had brought the food through from room service. Crossing towards her bathroom, she paused in front of the mirror. ‘We'd better get home soon, though, before all this satisfaction goes to my hips . . .'

Richard climbed out of bed and reached for his bathrobe. ‘We can go when you like,' he said, knotting the belt around his slim waist. ‘Your mission is accomplished. Celine is in hospital and safely back within her father's orbit. Their reconciliation appears to have sorted out a lot of local difficulties. The sight of her seems to have melted his heart, as they say – elections are promised for next year. Free, fair and internationally observed. My mission is on hold until Chaka gets things settled in the delta. The IMF and the World Bank seem happy with the idea of bridging loans, and everyone else will be back in the spring – Max and I first in the queue.'

‘I thought the Army of Christ the Infant had all broken up.'

‘Vanished, more like. Into the jungle along with that chap Odem. Or Ngoboi. Smoke and mirrors. Gods and ghosts. Now you see them, now you don't.'

‘Do we need to be worried about Anastasia, then?'

‘What, after investing all that money in her? Freudian psychoanalysis and so forth?'

‘No. You know very well what I mean. Because she's gone back up to her orphanage . . .'

‘Someone had to clear up . . . She's got help. Bonnie and Caleb – and a squad of Colonel Mako's men. And she's organizing some of the older kids into a defence force. Ado and some of the girls. Esan's helping. She'll be fine.'

As he was talking, Richard walked through into the suite's big sitting room, and he noticed something strange. There was a disc he had never seen before sitting on top of his laptop case. ‘Robin, do you know what this disc is?'

Robin came to his side, also tying her robe shut. By the time she arrived, he had opened the Apple and started the media player. He slipped the disc in.

Audio started at once. The voices easily identifiable.

‘Yes. I do know where they come from,' said Minister Ngama. ‘A Japanese company built a facility upriver in the seventies and proposed to produce black freshwater pearls in commercial quantities. There is apparently a man-made lake on the slopes of Mount Karisoke away in the impenetrable jungle of the interior. May I ask how you came by them?'

‘My daughter Anastasia gave them to me. She and Mrs Mariner brought them to me. A kind of peace offering, I think, to get the girl back in my good graces.' There was a sneer in his tone. ‘One of the children from her orphanage apparently discovered them on the riverbank after the floods. Just before the Army of Christ the Infant attacked.'

‘They must have washed downriver for quite a distance, then.' Ngama mused. ‘Why did she give them to you?'

‘To sell. Anastasia wishes to raise capital to rebuild her orphanage.'

‘I see, but I am hardly in the business of buying pearls. Even such unusual ones as these.'

‘That is because, with all due deference, Minister, you do not know just
how
unusual these pearls actually are.'

‘Then perhaps you would be good enough to explain.'

‘Certainly. When the girl gave the pearls to me I took them to my people, naturally, and in the process of assaying what they might be worth on the market, one of my mining specialists got the idea of checking what it was that had made them so uniquely black in the first place.'

‘The black volcanic sediment on the bed of the lake, of course.'

‘Of course. And that is where things became interesting enough for me to contact you and request this meeting. Because the black sediment on the bed of the volcanic lake that gave these pearls their unique colour is the purest example of coltan my mining engineers have ever seen.'

‘Coltan!' breathed Ngama.

‘Coltan,' Max confirmed quietly. ‘The most valuable and sought after of all the conflict minerals. And if what you said about the Japanese and their pearl-production company is true, there's a lake full of the stuff out there somewhere.
At least
a lake full of the stuff. And, with my Zubr
Stalingrad
we can get closer to it faster than anyone else in the game.'

‘This is information that we should keep very secret indeed,' purred Ngama.

‘Absolutely,' agreed Max.

‘No one outside this room should hear even a whisper about this,' Ngama emphasized. ‘No one.'

‘Absolutely,' said Max Asov once again. ‘Absolutely secret.'

The media payer hissed with static for a moment – a click made it clear one recording was over and another one was starting – then a third voice, also familiar, explained, ‘Mr Asov also carries a Benincom phone, you see, Captain Mariner.'

‘That was Colonel Kebila,' said Robin. ‘What on earth is he up to? Come to that, what is
Max
up to?'

She turned, expecting Richard still to be at her side. But he was over by the French window overlooking their balcony and the swimming pool. His eyes were fixed on the far blue distance where volcanic mountains rose behind the brash green of the delta. She knew that look and it frightened her.

‘Not Tarzan's Lost City or Prester John after all,' he whispered. ‘Better than King Solomon's Mines: a lake full of black pearls and coltan . . .'

Dark Heart
follows on from
Benin Light
, although it is not a sequel.
Benin Light
made use of Tim Butcher's
Blood River
for some of its inspiration, and in the same way
Dark Heart
makes use of his
Chasing the Devil
. As well as researching in Tim's excellent books, I reread Graham Greene's
Journey Without Maps
and
The Heart of the Matter
. Michela Wrong's
In the Footsteps of Mr Kurtz
supplied me with more research material as did Ronan Bennett's
The Catastrophist
. And mention of Mr Kurtz, of course, leads me to acknowledge my debt to Joseph Conrad –
Heart of Darkness
and
An Outpost of Progress
in particular. A chance encounter placed Jon Evans'
The Night of Knives
in my possession and that too became grist to the mill. But most influential in many ways (next after
Heart of Darkness
and
Chasing the Devil
, at least) was Chinua Achebe's
Things Fall Apart
. To all of these fine writers and their outstanding work I freely acknowledge a great debt.