Outbreak (4 page)

Ben shook his head.

'Good, I'm glad. Come with me.' They walked out of the room and Kruger led him along the corridor. 'You know what girls can be like, eh? Full of silly gossip. Especially girls like her - villagers. They don't know any better, eh?'

'Has my dad finished?' Ben tried to change the subject.

'Nearly finished, Ben. But there's been a change of plan. You'll be travelling to Udok later on today.'

'Today?' Ben was confused. 'I thought we were going tomorrow.'

'Like I say, a change of plan,' Kruger replied evasively. 'The plane has to fly this afternoon. Abele has been sent to collect your things from the hotel. He has' - Kruger smiled faintly to himself - 'volunteered to accompany you to the village.' They stopped outside an office in which three men were tapping away at old computers with boxy grey monitors. 'Wait here, Ben. Your dad will be along in a minute.' He walked off, leaving Ben loitering in the corridor.

Volunteered? Ben didn't like the way Kruger had said that. And it didn't make sense either. What was it Abele had said in the car just earlier that morning? '
I would not travel to Udok if it were up to me
.'

Ben felt into his pocket and wrapped his fingers round the crumpled note and the small wooden token Fatima had given him. He was beginning to think he might be of the same opinion . . .

CHAPTER THREE

Hundreds of miles away, a bat shrieked. It was a weak, pitiful sound.

The cave in which it lived was cool and perfectly dark, the water beneath it still and black. No light had found its way in here for millennia; no humans had tracked its existence, although lately they had come close. The bat was one of many thousands populating this hidden refuge; but in recent weeks their numbers had been declining.

Of late, the flight path of the bat had been erratic, and had become increasingly so in the past twentyfour hours. Occasionally its wing had scraped on the rough rock, causing it to shriek again, its panicked voice becoming lost in the echoing hubbub of the bats around him. Now and then it had flown blindly into one of its companions, causing a flurry of aggression from which it would fly away, knowing it could only come out worse.

Now, though, it lay on the floor. Its tiny abdomen made uneven attempts to breathe; its wings were spread on either side, occasionally twitching.

The bat gave one more call, though this would have been hardly audible even if it had not been drowned out by the cacophony of the colony. Then it twitched for a final time, before lying perfectly noiseless. Perfectly still.

And perfectly dead.

'Kruger said we were leaving this afternoon.'

It had taken Ben's dad about ten minutes to rejoin him, during which time he had hung around outside the office pondering the conversation he had had with Fatima. She had been cut off short, but clearly had wanted to tell him something. The look of fear on her face when Kruger had dismissed her suggested she would be unlikely to try again, though.

'It's
Mr
Kruger to you, Ben,' his dad said sternly.

'You wouldn't say that if you saw the way he just spoke to a cleaning lady I was talking to.' Ben knew he was answering back, but he calculated that he'd get away with it.

'There are cultural differences here, Ben. It's not up to us to start judging the way people treat their staff. I'm sure the woman is glad just to have a job.'

'But don't you think it's a bit weird, us being packed off to Udok so quickly?'

'Of course not. A change of plan, that's all. I'm here on business, after all,' Russell said rather officiously. 'I need to be flexible for my clients.'

Ben replied with an unconvinced stare.

'Look, Ben,' his father continued, 'I know you were shaken up by what we saw earlier - the dead body and all. So was I. But we're in good hands. Mr Kruger is a very well-respected businessman and has a lot of influence in these parts. And Abele might be a bit gruff, but he seems . . . extremely competent.'

'But--'

'Ben! We are these people's guests. Come on, Abele is meeting us in reception and taking us to a local airfield.'

Sure enough, Abele was already there, surrounded by their luggage. He had no smile for them as they walked back into the reception; indeed he looked distinctly surly. Ben's dad approached with his arms spread out in a gesture of friendliness. 'Abele!' he said breezily. 'I understand you are accompanying us.'

Abele didn't reply, other than to flash them a dark look; he just picked up their luggage and started walking out of the building. They trotted behind.

The airfield to which they were travelling was about an hour outside Kinshasa, and the journey was thankfully uneventful, allowing Ben to watch the alien scenery through the window. Outside the city the road was poor, and Abele was forced to drive slowly; occasionally they would pass through a village, and the sight of a strange car - especially one containing two white faces - would provoke curious stares from the adults and invariably a horde of excited children, thin and poorly clothed, running after them.

The airfield itself was little more than a parched expanse of earth with an iron hut and a short, bumpy looking runway. Waiting on the runway was a black and white twin-engined aircraft. Since Adelaide, where circumstances had forced him to fly a microlight over the burning city, Ben had made a study of such things, and he thought he recognized it as a Cessna 414. As they approached it, he became more sure he was right: the twin propellers, the long pointed nose - he'd be willing to bet money on it. He'd been wondering what sort of plane would be taking them to the village of Udok - there weren't many light aircraft that had the necessary range, but the Cessna was one of them. He felt a thrill of excitement that for a moment made him forget the worries that had been buzzing in his head; he was
really
looking forward to going up in this thing.

Abele parked the car by the metal shed and they all got out. A smiling man approached them and introduced himself as the pilot: Ben and his dad shook hands, but Abele seemed unwilling to speak, simply going about his usual business of carrying their bags across to the plane. Along with the pilot he lifted the bags up into the cabin; Ben and his dad walked up the steps, took their seats, and before they knew it the engines were humming, the propellers were spinning and they were trundling their way at increasing speed down the runway. Ben's eyes darted between the instruments on the control panel and the view out of the window: suddenly the jolting that shook them around in their seats was replaced by the familiar lurch in the stomach and that curious sense of weightlessness as the plane smoothly rose into the air. There was not a cloud in the sky here in the heart of Africa; there was unlikely to be any turbulence today. Ben found his eyes transfixed by the disappearing ground: the parched earth of the airfield soon gave way to a patchwork of browns and yellows, punctuated in the distance by the sparkling blue of the River Congo and the liver-shaped delta on which Kinshasa and Brazzaville lay. He was transfixed by the sight for some minutes, before the plane stopped climbing and settled into its steady flight.

The passengers sat in silence - Dad reading a book next to him, Abele sitting opposite, looking fiercely out of the window. Ben decided to ask the Congolese man the question that had been on his mind ever since his conversation with Fatima. 'Abele,' he said, 'why did you say you didn't want to travel to Udok?'

Abele's forehead creased into a frown. 'It doesn't matter,' he replied. His eyes flickered over at Ben, then looked sharply away again when he realized he was staring straight at him. Almost involuntarily, the black man's fingers brushed against a necklace he was wearing. Ben hadn't noticed it before: a piece of black leather, with a shiny triangle of metal and what looked like an etching he recognized upon it. It was an eye - one not a million miles away from the token Fatima had given him only a couple of hours ago. Ben felt a sudden coolness in his blood as Abele hid the necklace under his clothes, having realized that Ben had been gazing at it.

'What was that?' Ben asked quietly.

Abele shook his head. 'Nothing.'

'You weren't wearing it this morning.'

'Ben,' his dad chided.

Ben fell silent, but did not stop looking at Abele, who seemed to be deliberating whether or not to say something. Finally, it appeared, he could not help himself. 'It is a charm,' he said in a low voice. 'To protect against evil. If you were wise, you would wear one yourself.'

'That's enough, Abele.' Ben's father was uncharacteristically firm, but his face had a look of gentle amusement about it - his scientist's mind would not tolerate such superstitious talk, Ben realized. 'You'll frighten the lad.'

But I'm not frightened, Ben thought to himself, as Abele looked resolutely out of the window once more. Just intrigued. He thought back to what Fatima had said. There was something she had been trying to tell him, something she did not have good enough English to say. What was the word she used?
Maudit
. The village was
maudit
.

In his bag, Ben had a pocket French dictionary, ready to help him when his own schoolboy knowledge of French let him down. Wordlessly he opened the zip, rummaged around and pulled it out. The type was small, difficult to read in the vibrating plane, but as he diligently thumbed through the lists of unfamiliar words, he eventually found it.

Maudit
.

It meant 'cursed'.

As the plane sped across the skies of central Africa, four men met in a plush room in the middle of Kinshasa. There was air conditioning and a carpet, and a bottle of Scotch whisky on the large mahogany meeting table. Two of the men were black, two of them white. They all wore suits and sipped their drinks from heavy tumblers. They didn't speak, but rather seemed to be waiting for someone.

Eventually that someone came - another white man with thick black hair and a lined face. He nodded at each of the others in turn before taking his seat at the table. 'You are all aware of what is happening?' he asked in a marked South African accent.

One of the black men spoke. He was short, with chubby features and a sing-song voice in which he spoke immaculately polite English. 'I think it would be best, my friend, if you filled us all in from the beginning.'

The South African nodded. 'Certainly, Mr Ngomo. As major shareholders, you will all be aware that the Eastern Congo Mining Corporation has been mining for tin in the east of the country for just over a year. Profits have been' - he shrugged - 'adequate.'

The men round the table nodded their heads.

'A little over six weeks ago, our mine manager there extended the excavations and believes he has come across a source of Coltan. Very plentiful, and on first examination of very high quality. I know a number of you have interests in other Coltan plants, so I needn't explain how lucrative it can be.'

'That rather depends,' one of the other white men interrupted, 'on the quality of the ore.'

'Indeed. As we speak, we have a British scientist flying out there to examine what we have found. He's one of the best.'

The men around the table nodded their approval.

'There is, however,' the South African continued, 'as you know, one small hitch.'

None of the men around the table looked at each other, and there was an oppressive silence before Mr Ngomo spoke. 'I assume you are referring to the unfortunate deaths of the mine-workers in recent weeks.'