The Code War (18 page)

As Bezejel regained her seat she
pressed down lightly on the knife. A further inch of the blade sank
into the table. Holzm
an hadn't noticed.
His dopy grin was fixed on Bezejel's face.

Kodrob, with a worried
frown
, sat down too. 'Colonel Hideki, are
you ready to talk to us? We'd all really like to hear about the
operation you've come to talk about. Really like to hear about
that, right now.'

Holzman finally tore his gaze away from
Bezejel. He looked at Hideki for the first time in minutes as
though surprised there was anyone else in the room.

The Japanese colonel cleared his
throat.

'We have de
livered the second of a set of code-letters to the young
human female, Nancy,' he began, speaking over their heads to the
wall.

'I cannot tell
you how many letters there are. Spies are everywhere.' He
checked each demon's face as though he might find signs of betrayal
written in any one of them.

'But it is important that Nancy
receives every letter that we send her. The code sequence must not
be broken, or else the mission is in danger.' He paused to take a
solemn sip of his smoking coffee. 'Your mission, Captain Kodrob,
will be to guard the communication filaments that I have set up
between Inferno and Nancy and ensure that they are not interrupted
or tapped into. Filaments are not Fourth Dimension materials. They
are our own devilish thought-lines. They carry a short message to
an endpoint on Earth and manifest that message through a medium
such as a reflection. The filaments are our means of delivering the
code letters where they can be seen by Nancy. Our feathered enemy
may try to discover our filament endpoints and sever them or
obscure them. Only you Marauders know Earth well enough to be able
to protect them. You must follow Nancy wherever she goes and
intercept any attempted strike. Captain Kodrob, you will control
the mission from this room.'

'You can count on me and my men,
Colonel. We're entirely
dedicated to
serve our Leader in any way we can.' Kodrob was looking sternly at
Holzman as he spoke.

'That is not all.' Hideki was back
to addressing the wall. 'Later on some of you will have to
accompany me to the Fourth. I have a delicate op
eration to perform on one of Nancy's ancestors in the
Fourth's nineteenth century. You will guard me so that I can
concentrate on my spiritual surgery. I will tell you more about
this soon.'

Bezejel sipped her flaming
coffee
. 'Marauders, Colonel Hideki has
provided you with all you need to know concerning his area of this
very important task. Kodrob, I want you to draw up a shift schedule
so that we have the right amount of boots on the ground in the
Fourth when and where we need them. Nancy is on her way to Africa
so make sure everyone knows the territory down there. I don't want
anyone turning up for work drunk or leaving early to go to a
squawhouse. There'll be plenty of time for drinking and pleasure
when Nancy is safely in the bag.'

She turned to Hideki who was
nodding his approval at her every word.

'And the next l
etter is due to be sent soon,' he said coldly. 'You have
not much time to get organised. The Angelic command will be aware
of our strategy by now. They will act. But they will not risk a
spiritual confrontation on Earth so your presence alone should
deter them. It's against their rules to interfere directly unless
requested by humans on their knees. And with Nancy, that's not
going to happen.'

Hideki stood up abruptly and nodded
formally to the middle of the table. Stepping around his chair he
turned to his side and began to march off. The rest of the group
watched him depart in silence.

Bezejel tapped a finger gently on the
table. 'Well, Kodrob. You heard him. Filaments. You'd better get to
it. And maybe you should look into growing your team. You may need
more bodies than you have right now.'

'Ma'am.'

Holzman had resumed his babyface
adulation. Bezejel turned to him. 'Marauder. The knife,' she said
simply. 'Take it and own it.'

Holzman looked at her uncertainly.
'Thank you, madam Bezejel.'

She smiled back. He looked around the
table as if he couldn't believe his luck. He stood up and reached
forward for the knife. Only now did he notice how deep in the table
it was sunk. A frown crossed his face. He took the handle and
pulled upwards. Nothing happened. He pulled again, this time with
all his strength. And again.

No-one moved. No-one
laughed.
They were watching a tragicomedy
play itself out right in front of their eyes.

'It's stuck,' he said sheepishly.

'Well. Maybe it's not for you
after all,' said Bezejel quietly. She bent her hourglass shape over
the table, grasped the knife's handle and pulled upwards. For a
moment the table left the ground. Bezejel pushed down on it with
her other hand and the knife came free. As she stood up and
straightened her dress the knife vanished back into her
belt.

There sat Holzman staring up at
Bezejel and no words came from his mouth. Now he was
the one with the seal pup eyes, looking up
adoringly at the hunter who could snuff him with a blow. But only
for a moment. Realisation dawned, its fingers stretching across his
warted face and pulling away his laughter lines. 'Oh,' he said with
feeling, looking anew at Bezejel as if waking from sleep. 'Uh…Oh.'
He sat back in his chair with a lurch.

Kodrob was seeing a new side to
Bezejel that he didn't know existed. She was showing
patience,
tolerance and self-control
towards enlisted men. This was unexpected. No-one would blame her
if she'd husked Holzman for showing such public disrespect. But
she'd allowed him to make a fool of himself - and her - and then
come back to his senses. On his own. That made Bezejel a very
formidable leader indeed. Maybe, just maybe, she'd pull this whole
thing off after all.

Bezejel regarded
Kodrob with a look that said nothing and
everything. 'I'll be back soon, Captain. Try to keep an eye on your
boys. I wouldn't like to see them hurt.' She clacked briskly out of
the room into the dimly-glowing corridor, swirling her hair and
leaving her Marauders gazing at her ember-like form as it retreated
and was swallowed up by the darkness.

Flying Hippo
t
ransport plane above Gambia,
West Africa

Nancy raised her head from her
make-do pillow of vehicle covers and dust sheets. She pulled aside
the tarpaulin that covered her and listened again. The tone of the
engines had definitely changed. They sounded softer and quieter as
though the aircraft's speed had dropped.

The cabin door opened and a figure came
through into the hold. Probably the co-pilot who had brought her
sandwiches and coffee earlier and shown her where to find the
lavatory. Sound of a switch being flicked and a glow permeated the
hold from a dozen low intensity bulbs arranged along both sides of
the hull's interior.

Nancy lifted herself up on one arm and
bumped her head immediately. She looked up at the malevolent
machine gun barrel pointing backwards from the vehicle she had
chosen to sleep in. Death, it whispered. I do death. The smiling
co-pilot, who had declined to tell her his name so far, approached.
He was African and wore a blue flight suit over his large
frame.

'Time to shiny up and wake,
missy,' he announced cheerily. 'Got some fresh coffee if you want,
just come up when you ready.' His good humour seemed out of place
with their surroundings.

Nancy wanted coffee desperately but more
than anything else she wanted a shower. Her body was sweat-sticky
inside her clothes and her mouth felt like she had smoked 40
cigarettes. What was her hair like? She decided not to look in the
mirror again. e.

The memories of yesterday came surging
back into her mind like beery gatecrashers. Africa? Drive a lorry?
Charm people from different tribes? Right now she felt barely able
to hold a cup without spilling it. Anything beyond that was asking
too much.

She pulled herself onto her knees,
avoiding the death whisperer above her, then slowly stood up and
climbed over the side of the jeep and onto the floor. Fifteen hours
she'd been in this wretched smelly plane she realised, looking at
her watch. They'd stopped once to refuel, God knows where, just as
the light was fading. All she'd been able to see was sand and
wilderness and a few dusty shacks around an uneven tarmac. Who had
built an aerodrome here in the desert? Why?

The plane was banking gently now
as she made her way unsteadily forward toward the cabin door. The
co-pilot was sitting on the right of the cabin. The pilot on the
left, also in a blue flight suit, was speaking through his
microphone, presumably to air traffic control. Through the
windscreen ahead Nancy could see a few small lights in the
distance. Co-pilot turned towards her and offered her a thermos and
a cup.

'Fresh made,' he grinned through
amazingly white teeth.

Nancy gratefully took the cup. Whoever
these two were, they weren't clandestine agents or spies. They were
just functionaries. They probably knew nothing about Nancy or why
they were flying her to Gambia. They were just doing their job
flying Israel's obsolete munitions to her ally in the west African
continent.

Nancy felt homesick. She wanted to
be back in Ealing, joshing with Mel again and selling cruises. Or
was this all happening because she'd slept with two boys and might
have tumbled the third if he hadn't been gay?

'I'm sorry,' she said.

'What you say?' Co-pilot

'Oh nothing, just thinking out loud.'
Nancy took another sip of coffee and wiped her mouth with her
sleeve. Her blouse was crumpled and smelt of oil. Her hair felt
like matted dog fur. What a mess.

'Final approach, tower.' Pilot.

'You better sit down now missy in
case of bump.' Co-pilot was looking after her. Not much of that
from the rest of humankind recently.

Nancy stepped back and swung
herself into the navigator's seat. She put her coffee on the floor
and buckled herself in.

A few moments later she could see the
runway lights coming up to meet them and then a light thump from
the wheels and the deceleration as the pilot cut the power
back.

The plane slowed after a few
hundred yards then taxied off the runway and came to rest not far
from the two-storey control tower. The engines gave a final cough
as the propeller discs ended their long shift and came to rest.
Noughts became crosses.

The runway lights went out and, a
second later, so did the control tower's. One solitary perimeter
light remained on in the distance casting a glow in their
direction. Silence enveloped the aircraft. No airport vehicles sped
to meet them. No customs officials appeared. No passport control
beckoned. Nancy suddenly thought about her passport. Was she
supposed to bring it? No, Habib never mentioned it. She realised
she didn't officially exist.

This was truly illegal. What if they
just decided to kill her? Who would know she was ever there?

Co-pilot peered back at her. 'Who
meeting you, missy?'

Darned if I know, thought Nancy.
If no-one came to claim her, her mission would be over. Maybe she
could just stay on the plane and wait for it to go back to Israel.
She'd tell Habib his plans fell through and there was nothing she
could do about it.

'I was hoping you'd tell me. Do you
really not know?'

'Some times different people.
Brother is big organisation.' But it seemed co-pilot was now
starting to realise that Nancy was in the dark. 'Well,' he said 'we
go back Israel midnight tomorrow. Maybe see you then.' He was
smiling encouragingly and Nancy warmed to him. She wished she could
pour out her heart to him. She also knew that he could not help
her.

'
Brother. What sort of an…Where is Brother
based?'

Co-pilot's smile drooped.
He turned away with a shrug and a mutter that
could have been 'if you don't know, I don't know'.

Pilot and co-pilot both finished
their post-flight checks
. They flicked
lots of switches and shoved papers into plastic envelopes.
Satisfied that everything was off, they clambered through into the
hold and opened the forward door which folded out to reveal some
metal steps to the ground.

'After you.' Co-pilot was smiling,
ever-polite. But they weren't going to leave Nancy on the
plane.

She went to the front and walked down
the steps. A light breeze blew across her face. That felt good,
really good.

An anxious-looking African man came from
behind the steps and looked up into the plane, ignoring her.

Pilot and co-pilot were coming down the
steps behind Nancy. They stopped, one on each side of Anxious who
spoke to them in what Nancy assumed was a local dialect.

Co-pilot gestured towards Nancy and said
something in reply.

Anxious turned to Nancy in wide-eyed
shock. He looked back at co-pilot and said something that must have
been 'Really?' and then returned his eyes to Nancy, looking her up
and down for several seconds and staring in horror at her breasts.
'You. Woman,' he shouted. It was like an early moment in the Garden
of Eden.

'Well, I'm glad you can tell,'
replied Nancy who was beginning to feel like the last piece of meat
on a shambles table. Nancy had her back to the light, the others
were facing it.