Guardian (11 page)

“Very well, Ahmed, but you drive a hard bargain. I will make you one last offer. The white boy in exchange for a breeding slave and her female child. The one I have in mind has a good body and if you're careful with her, she will provide you with many more slaves yet. She's also a useful worker. But against this, you must guarantee the white boy is healthy. I don't want another like the last one you traded. We both know why he died before we rounded the Horn of Homuz. That eunuch of yours left little trace of what he'd done, but it was enough. He's cunning, that one.”

As expected Ahmed, the consummate dealer, ensured his face registered nothing. Not so much as the blink of an eye. He would have made a world-class poker player. They both knew exactly why Abdel-Aziz was interested in me and hence the somewhat acrimonious dispute over price. Amongst his debauched clientele a white face on a healthy young male body, particularly a well-endowed body, was a valuable commodity and the final profit margin would be high. Every slave was expected to work, but his or her main function would be to provide for the eventual master's pleasure. True, some of the sexual habits practiced amongst the rich Arab slave owners meant a slave's life expectancy could be drastically reduced, but that depended on how valuable he was considered to be. Abdel's job and that of the several sea captains he employed was to be discreet. To ensure the merchandise arrived at the Eastern slave markets in good working order. Abdel paid them well and took care of their families, a leverage he was not above exploiting. In exchange, he demanded unswerving loyalty and total reliability. His reputation, his wealth and thus his standing in society depended upon it, as did Ahmed's. More than one captain had discovered what it meant to displease Abdel and there was never much left after the fish had done their work. The French maxim ‘
pour encourager les autres'
might have been coined expressly for him.

Even worse, when it came right down to it, was the go-between: Ahmed. Head of a tightly knit land-based organisation that relied almost entirely upon secrecy and its master's peculiar brand of terror. “Very well. We are agreed. I have the boy available and you can take him when you deliver the girl and her baby.”

No more prone to overexcitement than Ahmed, Abdel-Aziz indicated his acceptance of the terms with the merest inclination of his head, before returning to his fastidious study of the hookah smouldering beside him. Quickly he considered the likely time it would take to produce the girl and whether her arrival could be arranged before he expected to re-join his ship, already waiting in Mombasa harbour with its cargo of South African slaves. The trade winds were set fair and, not wishing to miss them, the crew had almost finished loading the ambergris, the legitimate part of the cargo, valued for centuries as perfume although, for where it was now destined, valued far more for its aphrodisiac qualities. However, the really high-value cargo, selected slaves from the East African coast, would not join their fellow South African prisoners until just before anchor was weighed. One had to be careful, even in this benighted land. But he had a difficulty. The unsuspecting girl he had long held in mind for just such a bargaining occasion could not possibly be abducted, spirited out of her tribal lands and, together with a child still at the breast, brought nearly a thousand miles across country and down to the coast in less than three days. She was the daughter of a minor chieftain, the wife of a respected warrior, and it would require a certain amount of fast talking, bribery and heavy-handed intimidation. There was nothing for it. Departure would have to be postponed. “I will return in four days, after sundown. The cargo will keep.” A captain in his own right and master of a string of dhows he might be, but Abdel was never quite able to forget that it was Ahmed's stake money as well as his human merchandise that funded his continuing lifestyle. With business complete and reputations intact, the two men turned their attention to the time-honoured formalities of Arab hospitality.

***

Fortunately for the peace of my already ravaged mind, I was not only ignorant of what was going on but, even in my most feverish moments, could never have guessed at the medieval ritual being played out in the intimate room far above my head. Time returned me to its mindlessly boring, foot-dragging repetition. Once more starved of light and with my watch long since rendered useless, I couldn't even take refuge in the solace of counting days. Profound silence, like a heavy, suffocating blanket, enveloped me all over again in its insidious, mind-numbing coils and I lapsed back into a semi-comatose squat, back pressed against one of the all-encompassing walls, hands spread to prevent me rolling left or right. I didn't know, had no way of telling, just how close to death I was drawing, as my mind once again hovered near the edge of sanity, this time content to stare over the abyss, fear long gone.

It was unfortunate, Malcolm thought, that they had managed to pick a night when the moon seemed to fill the horizon, hanging low as it did over the surrounding dwellings, bathing everything, especially the stark, pencil-thin minarets of the Islamic Mosque, in its ethereal, monochrome glow. Even from fifty yards away down the dingy street fronting the high wall of his target, Malcolm could make out every detail. He had studied the sheer ramparts for some time and finally thought he'd found a possible way up in the crook of a flying buttress, the latter's hulking form in odd contrast to the lofty white walls it supported. Reaching to a point just below the crenulated parapet, it should shelter him from any cursory glance, once he'd started up the grappling-iron rope. Certainly, it would take a lucky throw, but he had expected that difficulty and now the five-pronged hook rested on the ground beside him, its long tether draped in a coil over his left shoulder.

Glancing to his left, Malcolm could just make out where Jomo was pressed back into the deep black shadows cast by an old corrugated iron lean-to. He was a lookout of sorts, but what he would do if someone actually appeared, Malcolm didn't care to guess. Nevertheless, after much urging, and clearly against his better judgement, he had been persuaded to accompany Malcolm and Roz on what he obviously considered a fool's errand. So, with too much time wasted already, Malcolm slipped out of the shadows and made his way towards the wall, moving with surprising delicacy for a man of his girth and stature. He could detect no sign of a guard and although that didn't mean there wasn't one, he hoped fervently that they would consider themselves safe from all but the most foolhardy burglar.

Tucked in below the towering barrier, he unhooked the line and examined it swiftly to make sure it would pay out smoothly, passing the first half-dozen coils through his hands, getting the feel of the light sisal cord. Then, with a last check right and left to confirm the road was still clear, he stepped back from the smooth face soaring above him, swung the grapple hard several times until it was whirling satisfactorily, then let it go on the upswing with a fervent prayer that his aim was sure and the flukes would catch first time. He could not afford an extra moment, much less a second bout of the clatter it would make if it failed to hold and fell back down on him.

For perhaps two or three seconds the line snaked out from his left hand, taking out great loops of the main coil as he watched the hook sail up and just clear the crenulations before falling slack. A definite but muted clanging thud echoed back as the grapple came up against some obstacle and he prayed ardently that it had not been enough to alert any half-asleep guard. Swiftly gathering in the slack, Malcolm pulled the hook back towards him, hoping against hope that one of the flukes would catch and hold. At least one did. Somewhere out of sight, the metal bit into the edge of a slab defining the walkway around the top of the wall and when he jerked it hard, it held. Slipping on a pair of thin leather gloves to protect his hands and improve his grip, Malcolm immediately began swarming up the rope, arms pumping as he walked his feet in steady rhythm, body held out at some forty-five degrees from the vertical. In a surprisingly short time, his head came level with the parapet and grabbing one of the crenulations, Malcolm heaved himself over the top, seconds before his arms gave out from the unaccustomed exercise.

In the mad scramble for a purchase, keeping quiet was beyond him, so he was heartily relieved to discover the compound below him was empty and apparently unguarded. Having reconnoitred, he crouched down, out of sight from below, trying to catch his breath and bring his wildly pumping heart under control. Then, rising to a half crouch, he made his way carefully towards the staircase he'd seen out to his right, excruciatingly aware of the impossibility of blending into the gleaming white background encircling him. Swiftly he dropped the first few steps towards the courtyard, knowing that if anyone cared to glance out of the windows with which he was rapidly drawing level, they couldn't help but see him. He stuck out like a sore thumb. The hairs on the back of his neck rose and the muscles around his chest tightened as he subconsciously waited for the sound of a shot and the tearing agony that would follow. He had no doubt at all that any guard spotting him would open fire. Kenyan jurisdiction wasn't famous for extending its authoritarian reach to quell the eagerness of guards on such occasions. The courts tended to busy themselves with lesser misdemeanours, preferring to allow ‘enterprise' to develop with minimum interference, profoundly certain of the long-established British idiom that a man's home was his castle. Burgle it if you dare.

So, continuing to move as quickly as he could, Malcolm leaned out precariously towards the nearest shuttered window, feeling for a foothold on the narrow sill, fearful of a fall, but fully aware that to descend to the courtyard offered nothing more than a death-trap if he was spotted. Any entry would have to be made up here through a window, the only obvious weak spot. Light filtered faintly through the wooden slats and, from behind them, he was frustrated to catch a murmuring of voices. Arab voices. A language over which he had a basic grasp, but little fluency. The conversation was desultory and, as far as he could tell, innocuous. He shifted his grip and edged his weight away from the stairs and onto the foot resting on the window ledge.

As he did so, a small piece of tile dislodged, the faint thud of its landing in the courtyard coinciding with the sound of a door opening directly below him. Malcolm froze. Suspended half-way between the open steps and the window, he hung motionless, his arms beginning to screech their protest at the punishment being meted out. Mentally he cursed himself for ever having got into his present predicament and the longer the suspense played out, the more stupid the whole thing began to look. He knew it couldn't go on indefinitely – for a start his arms and legs were already trembling like a man with the ague as they reacted to the full, unaccustomed weight of his awkwardly splayed body. Below him, the guard, rifle slung over his shoulder, sauntered into the centre of the courtyard, his features momentarily caught in the flare of a match held cupped in his hand as he lit a Four Aces cigarette and breathed in deeply from the smoke and warm night air. As almost any man would, he turned to stare upwards at the stars, to savour their display, still remarkable despite the bright moonlight. It was exactly what Malcolm had feared and his heart was hard pushed to remain in his chest rather than relocate to his mouth. But even as he watched the cameo being played out in something approaching despair, he became aware of a change of tone in the conversation filtering out beside his head. Despite his predicament, he listened. And it was as well he did, because he was only just in time to catch the end of the conversation. “…tomorrow night to pick up the white boy.”

Whatever else might have been said, Malcolm missed it, because at that precise point he received a rather rude wake-up call. It was presented in a form that always obtains the victim's complete and absolute attention: incoming steel-jacketed lead. And since much of Malcolm's Service career had been spent learning to allow such persuasive arguments absolute right of way, he reared desperately back and away from the flying splinters chipped off by the bullet as it slammed into the brickwork not two inches from the side of his head. The sound of rifle fire rolling around the courtyard and a simultaneous shout of warning from the guard comprehensively ruined the silence under which Malcolm had been figuratively sheltering. Barely had he begun to pull himself frantically over to the staircase when a second bullet ripped through his left side, putting paid to any hope of negotiating his way out of the mess he was in.

The shockwave as the bullet penetrated below his ribs to exit through a large and messy cavity on his right side was enough to throw him back across the stairs and momentarily below the guard's line of sight. It was probably that alone which saved him from immediate execution, because the guard was forced to run along the courtyard to where the steps reached the base of the wall, before ascending to get a clear shot. In that instant all his old training kicked in and summoning the last of his fast-draining strength, Malcolm lunged for the top of the stairs and rolled his blood-soaked body across the flat walkway.

Only adrenalin kept him moving. That and an almost euphoric feeling induced by the rapid loss of blood. There was little pain as yet. That would come. For now, all he could think of was getting hold of the grappling rope and sliding down it to the ground, anything to get away and under cover before the guard made his inevitable appearance at the top of the stairs. As he reached for the rope snaking across the walkway, his feet seemed to slow of their own accord, as if he were wading through treacle and his hands became difficult to direct. In a slow-motion dream he leaned forward to gather the rope, then stepped deliberately but unsteadily over the rampart, intending to abseil his way down.

He couldn't understand it when his legs buckled and his gloved hands began to slide helplessly along the rope. Couldn't understand why nothing seemed to work properly. Desperately, he sent an order to his hands to hold on more tightly, but for some reason they didn't want to obey. He remembered seeing the ground coming up towards him far too fast and he remembered the wildly thrashing line catching around his legs. He remembered the scything pain as one leg became trapped and he was abruptly and cruelly tipped upside down to let his whole weight combine with gravity to widen the gaping channel left through his flesh. And after that he remembered nothing.