Outbreak (15 page)

'Kruger.' Abele repeated the name with distaste, then spat at Suliman's feet. The bald man's eyes narrowed. 'It sounds to me,' Abele growled, 'as if the only slave round here is you. Kruger has you in the palm of his hand, eh?'

Suliman smiled. 'I'm being well paid for what I'm doing. That's the difference between you and me. And make no mistake, I have no qualms about silencing you if you force me to do so, no matter what Mr Kruger says.'

As he spoke, one of the guards threw him a questioning look. Suliman seemed to consider the unspoken query. 'No,' he said finally, his voice tinged with regret. 'Not here. Anyway, he might be useful. If by any chance the young people do make it back to the village, they will no doubt try to find this fool.' He sneered. 'They seem to have an adventurous streak. When they come looking for him, we'll just round them up.'

Suliman went over to one of his guards and gestured at him to hand over his Kalashnikov. The guard did as he was told while his colleague kept his own gun firmly trained on Abele. Suliman held the rifle carelessly and approached Abele. He poked the barrel of the gun firmly into the burly man's ribs. Abele stood tall, refusing to give Suliman the reaction he so clearly craved, so Suliman tried a bit harder, whipping the edge of the gun fiercely across the side of Abele's face. His head was knocked to the side, but he immediately turned it back to look straight at Suliman, displaying a thin streak of blood along the middle of his cheek. He stared balefully at his attacker, who could not stand that look for long and turned his back, handing the weapon back to his guard.

'Take him to the holding area I told you about,' he commanded, still failing to catch Abele's eye. 'Make sure there is someone watching over him all the time.'

Abele spat at him once more.

'And if he tries to escape,' Suliman continued in a deadpan voice, 'put a bullet in his skull.'

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

'They came this way.'

Suliman's men looked at each other. One of them was taller than the other, and his face had a pale scar reaching from his forehead to the top of his cheek. The other smaller man was distinguished by crooked yellow teeth that seemed precariously pegged into a set of red, sore-looking gums. 'Look here,' the taller man continued, pointing at where the foliage had been forced back to allow someone passage through. He pulled a small compass out of the pocket of his sleeveless shirt and checked his bearings. 'It looks like they're heading back to Udok.' He nodded with satisfaction. 'They'll have to cross the river, and the only place it's safe to do that is where it passes to the north of the village. If we don't catch up with them beforehand, we can deal with the idiots there.'

The smaller man sneered before pulling a water bottle out from his belt and taking a sparing glug. 'They're probably dead already,' he observed nonchalantly when he had finished. 'Only a fool would come into the forest without a gun.'

His colleague didn't respond.

'Come on,' the smaller man urged his friend. 'You know what they say about the forests north of the village. You don't want to find yourself there any more than I do. We should just return to the road, ambush a car and get back. Tell Suliman we killed them - he'll never know.'

His colleague seemed to consider that for a moment, but then shook his head in disagreement. As he did so, both men heard a low-pitched grunt. They looked sharply at each other, then simultaneously slung their Kalashnikovs round so that they were pointing in front of them; then they manoeuvred themselves to stand with their backs facing each other.

They heard the noise again, and movement in the trees beyond them.

'This way,' the taller man whispered. They walked side by side, stealthily, until it became apparent to them what was making the noise.

A gorilla sat, squat and alone, among the bushes a few metres away from them. It was not a silverback like the one Ben and Halima had encountered, but a young female, and she did not appear to be paying them any attention whatsoever. She reached out one of her arms and lazily plucked a handful of leaves from the surrounding greenery, then stuffed them in her mouth and started to chew, her hairy face gurning rather comically as she did so.

The eyes of the taller man narrowed. 'You want to see why I'm not scared of the forest?' he asked. 'It's because I have a gun, which makes me the strongest.' He licked his lips, then raised the rifle and took aim.

The gorilla looked up at him, but of course she had no idea what was happening.

When the man fired, it was as if someone had shaken the very roots of the trees. Birds screeched and flew away, and the aftermath of the shockwaves through the forest lasted long after the sound of the gun had ebbed away. As the frenzy of movement died, however, one sound remained. The gorilla had been knocked onto her back, a red welt on her left shoulder indicating the entry point of the ghastly wound that had just been inflicted upon her. She was making a series of pitiful yelps, as she clumsily tried to use her right hand to brush away the pain that she did not understand. It only took thirty seconds or so, however, for her energy to be depleted, and now she lay on the ground, her long arms listless beside her, her eyes flickering as she slowly began to bleed to death.

'You can't leave it like that,' the smaller man said. 'It's even more dangerous when it's injured.'

The tall man shrugged, then took aim again. The second bullet hit the gorilla in the head, and she lay still. He nodded with satisfaction that the danger they had encountered had been eliminated. 'Come on,' he told his colleague. 'We can't be far behind them.'

He turned and left the body of the gorilla, the smaller man following reluctantly behind.

'What was that?'

Ben and Halima had both stopped in their tracks at the sound of the loud bang echoing through the forest. Ben found himself breathing heavily. 'It sounded like a gun.'

'Suliman's men?' Halima asked.

Ben nodded. 'Probably. Whoever it was, I don't think we want to bump into them. We need to keep moving.'

They upped their pace, both of them casting the occasional nervous look behind them.

As the day wore on and the two friends grew more tired, the trees became thicker, the foliage denser and greener. It was impossible to move silently through such terrain and Ben found himself becoming accustomed to the swishing sound as the leaves brushed past his ears, and the occasional crunch as dead wood broke underfoot. Soon, however, he became aware of something else. A different sound. 'Stop a minute,' he said to Halima. They stood still, then smiled at each other as they both realized that it was the sound of running water. And it was close.

Their pace quickened, the prospect of quenching their thirst giving them a new energy. Suddenly they burst through the edge of the trees to find themselves on a wide river bank. Ben blinked as his eyes got used to the sudden light after the relative darkness under the rainforest canopy, his thirst forcing him to ignore everything around him other than the river ahead. The river itself was wide - too wide to cross, certainly - and fast-moving. Wild with thirst, Ben ran to the water's edge and bent down to scoop it up in his hands.

'Wait!' he heard Halima calling behind him.

Ben spun round to look at her. She was gesturing at him to walk back towards her; perplexed, he did as he was told. Suddenly he heard a sound behind him, and without knowing why he jumped away, further towards Halima. '
Attention!
' she shouted, lapsing momentarily into French. 'Be careful!'

When he finally turned round to see what it was, he was very glad indeed that he had got out of the way.

Half in the water, half out, was a crocodile. It was small, perhaps only half-grown, but even without seeing its whole body Ben could tell that it was at least as long as him, if not longer. It lay there, dead still. Ben's heart stopped, and he found himself paralysed by the terrifying presence of the lizard-like creature, which seemed to be grinning at him, staring with lifeless, flat eyes. Slowly, and without making any sudden movements, Halima bent down and picked up a long branch from the ground. She held it out towards the croc. 'If it attacks,' she whispered, 'we must go for the eyes. Or deep into the back of its throat, if that is what it comes to. They say that will make the jaws open.'

'They
say
?'

'Few people survive an attack from a crocodile.' Halima's voice was taut and tense. 'At least not from a full-grown one. This one is young. Maybe it is not so sure of itself. We are lucky.'

Ben didn't feel very lucky. He saw one of the crocodile's front claws moving slowly.

'The adults will not be far behind.' Halima scanned down the length of the river. A few hundred metres away, it curved to the right, but before it did so Ben could see with a squint that there was a herd of animals drinking from the waterside. From this distance Ben couldn't see what they were, but they looked from here not unlike young horses. 'See,' Halima stated. 'They come to drink where it is safe. We need to get there.'

They stepped slowly backwards along the river bank, Halima still keeping the branch outstretched towards the crocodile. Once they were a good ten metres away, and much to Ben's relief, the reptile twisted its body round and disappeared smoothly below the water. There was something about the way it moved that filled Ben with revulsion, and he found himself praying that they would not encounter another of those terrifying and deadly beasts. He glanced glumly across the water: there was no way of knowing what it was hiding.

The riverside was covered with smooth pebbles that crunched lightly underfoot as they made their way towards the animals that were still drinking by the water's edge. Ben's eyes kept flicking to the river to check for sudden movements, but he was also becoming increasingly intrigued by these horse-like animals. The closer he got, the more he realized they were not like anything he had ever seen. They were shorter in length than horses, squatter, and their backs arched upwards to make them look more like miniature giraffes than anything else. They were brown in colour, all apart from their legs, which had the characteristic black and white markings of the zebra. 'What are they?' Ben asked hoarsely.

'Okapi,' Halima replied, a mysterious smile on her face.

'What?'

'Okapi. It is rare to see them. Very rare. The men hunted them for bushmeat, and now there are very few left. But if they are drinking here, it is more likely to be safe for us.'

They approached the okapi tentatively. There were eight of them, standing in pairs. Insects, unrecognizable to Ben, were buzzing around their heads, but it seemed not to worry them. As Ben and Halima came nearer, a couple of them stopped drinking and looked in their direction, inclining their heads slightly and displaying no fear. Clearly they were as unused to humans and the harm they could cause as humans were to them. Ben and Halima stood quietly, waiting for the animals to become accustomed to their presence, which they soon did, bending down once more to continue drinking. Halima nodded at Ben. 'You sure the crocs won't attack us here?' he asked her.

Halima shrugged. 'Nothing is sure,' she said.

Typical Halima, Ben thought. But his throat hurt from dryness and his whole body was screaming at him to drink, so he and Halima took their places by the waterside to begin slaking their desperate thirst.

Ben cupped his hands and nervously dipped them into the water; it was cool and clear, and when he took his first gulps he could feel his body absorbing the precious liquid like a piece of blotting paper dipped into a bottle of ink. After that first taste, nothing could stop him and he abandoned caution as he drank deeply. It took at least ten handfuls of water before his thirst even began to be slaked, and he continued drinking for a long time after that, knowing full well that it could be some time before they found drinkable water again, and silently cursing that they had no means of carrying any with them.

When he could physically drink no more, he stood back from the river bank. The okapi had wandered further down, and Halima was sitting on a boulder, her face and hair wet, her eyes lingering on Ben. It struck him for the first time how pretty she was. 'Best drink I ever had.' Ben smiled at her.

Halima looked slightly bashful.