The First Novels: Pay Off, the Fireman (56 page)

‘What’s the point of it?’

‘I suppose to make sure they don’t smuggle any diamonds out. It’s standard practice in diamond mines, Sally said. It’s so easy for someone to swallow a stone and let it pass right through his system.’

The second dredger arrived at the pier, and its scoop began unloading more mud.

‘Seems a lot of trouble if all they’re getting out of that mud are industrial diamonds.’

‘I hadn’t thought of that,’ he said. No, pal, you hadn’t, but I bet Sally had.

‘Did she tell the guy who she was?’

‘Of course, and left her card with him. He said he wanted to give her a call next time he was in Hong Kong.’

‘What about you?’

‘Huh?’

‘Did you leave your card with him?’

‘No, but he asked my name. Sally just said I was a translator.’

He’d rolled the leaf into a small ball which he flicked into the air. His fingers were stained green.

‘What are you thinking?’ he asked.

‘I’m not sure,’ I said.

‘You think she died because she came out here?’

‘I don’t know. Maybe you both saw something you shouldn’t have.’

‘So why invite us in in the first place?’

‘I don’t know. Perhaps the Canadian was new to the job. Perhaps he didn’t know what was going on.’

‘And what is going on?’

I shrugged, and pushed myself to my feet. Graceful wasn’t the word to describe it. The seat of my pants felt damp. I didn’t want to say ‘I don’t know’ again but that was the only answer I could think of. The sun was setting now, the evening light streaking the river orange. Lights began to go on in the huts.

‘What are we going to do?’ asked Seligman.

A hole appeared in one of the leaves at my eye-level and almost simultaneously we heard the crack of a rifle and Seligman and I dived flat, though he did it with a darn sight more style than me. He rolled behind the bush and then got up into a crouch and scuttled back down the hill. A second bullet whined overhead. Once over the brow of the hill he stood upright and shouted.

‘They’re firing from the camp. We’re shielded on this side.’ That was all right for him to say, I was lying spreadeagled on the wrong side of the sodding hill. A dribble of something wet trickled down my leg and I just hoped it was sweat.

‘Move,’ screamed Seligman.

My eyes were tight shut and my teeth clenched. There was another crack and I felt rather than heard the bullet thud into the ground a few inches to the left of my head.

‘Move, move,’ he yelled, and this time I didn’t need any encouragement, I was on my hands and knees and scrambling over the edge. By the time I caught up with the American I was moving too fast to stop, and I stumbled, rolling over and over till I came to the bottom. Seligman came after me and helped me to my feet. I was shaking, my breath coming in ragged gasps. He grabbed me by the shoulders and shook me hard, my head jerking backwards and forwards.

‘What the hell is happening?’ I asked him. Seligman looked as shocked as I was, his eyes were wide and his mouth open. He rubbed the bridge of his nose and then started pulling at his lip.

He shook his head in confusion. ‘I don’t know. We weren’t doing anything wrong.’ He was starting to shake.

I crawled on all fours to the brow of the hill and nervously peeked over the top. There were three armed guards standing by the gate. They’d stopped firing and were scanning the hillside, jerking their rifles whenever they thought they’d seen something. One of them took aim and fired at a spot about fifty feet to my right. Another group of guards ran out of the shed, shouting at the men at the gate, and another two came out of the Portakabin. They stood together, yelling and cursing, two of them pointing in my general direction. Two open-topped, dark green Land-Rovers appeared from behind the shed and drove up to the gate where they stopped with a squeal of brakes in a cloud of dust.

The men with the guns climbed into the back of the Land-Rovers as another guard unlocked the main gate. Jesus, they were coming after us.

I scampered down the hill again. Seligman was where I’d left him, staring at me in bewilderment.

‘We have to go, they’re coming after us,’ I said, and pushed him towards the Mercedes. The windows were all open and
Jailhouse Rock
was on full blast. Wah-yim and Elvis hadn’t even heard the shots, they were sitting with bottles of beer held between their knees, handjiving away like a couple of kids.

Seligman wrenched open the door and practically threw me in. He leant forward and began talking earnestly and rapidly to the two of them. My mind was clearer now and I reckoned that we had anywhere between one and four minutes before the guards got to us by road.

Wah-yim started the engine and did a three point turn, the road was too narrow to make it in one go. As we reversed the rear wheels slipped off the road and spun uselessly while Seligman swore and pounded his seat in frustration. He was sweating and red and a vein was pulsing in his temple, he looked as if he was about to turn green and split his shirt. I probably didn’t look any better because I was shouting at Wah-yim too, begging, pleading, threatening, just wanting to get the hell out of this place where men with rifles were trying to kill us.

The wheels suddenly found traction and the car sped forward. Round the bend behind us hurtled the two Land-Rovers with wire mesh screens over the windscreens and large metal bumpers fixed over the radiators. Standing up in the back of each were two men pointing their rifles and struggling to keep their balance.

Wah-yim stamped hard on the accelerator, but there was a limit to how fast he could drive the Mercedes on the country roads and the Land-Rovers were already driving at that speed.

A bullet pinged through the rear window, passed through the middle of the car and out through the windscreen leaving a perfect hole about the diameter of a cigarette. Elvis cursed and dropped down into the footwell among his empty bottles while Wah-yim hunched low over the wheel. The American and I were lying on the back seat like a couple of canned sardines.

‘What the fuck are we going to do now?’ I asked his ankles.

‘Shit, I don’t know,’ he gasped. ‘But if they hit the petrol cans we’re dead.’

I peered over the back of the seat to see the first of the Land-Rovers coming round a corner after us. On the straight and flat we’d have left them far behind but on these winding roads the four-wheel drives had the advantage. Wah-yim was throwing the Mercedes from side to side, and the stuff in the back of the car was rolling all over the place.

‘Tell Elvis to pass his empty bottles over here,’ I told Seligman’s knee.

‘What?’ he said. There was the loud smack of a bullet hitting the bumper. Wah-yim made himself even smaller in the driver’s seat, like a schoolboy in his father’s car.

‘The bottles,’ I said. ‘Get him to throw the bottles here.’

Seligman spoke to Elvis, who gave me a look that said I was crazy. Maybe he was right.

‘Now what?’ Seligman said.

I took off my tie and thrust it at him. ‘Start pulling it to bits,’ I said, and risked another look over the seat as Wah-yim took a right curve. The short section of road behind us was clear so I lunged over and grabbed the funnel and one of the petrol cans and with a grunt hauled it back. As I did the two Land-Rovers roared around the bend and one of the guards got off a shot but it went wide. I dropped down, this time with my head the same side of the car as Seligman’s. He was using his teeth to shred the material, gnawing like a beaver with a branch. Elvis had started shoving bottles through the gap between the two front seats muttering to himself. There were six in all, but if that wasn’t enough I could always get him to drink some more.

I knelt down on the floor, keeping my head low, and unscrewed the top of the petrol can. The vapour made me feel light-headed as I filled one of the empty beer bottles, slopping the fuel into the tin funnel and trying not to spill any.

‘OK, give me a piece of the tie,’ I said to Seligman, and he handed me a scrap of blue and yellow cloth. I pushed half of it into the neck of the bottle and let the rest dangle down the side. It was soon damp with petrol. I went through the whole business again as the Mercedes lurched into a swift series of turns and I slopped a pint or so on the floor. By the time I’d finished I was close to passing out. I gave them to Seligman to hold while I took another look at our pursuers. They were gaining, fifty feet or so behind us, and the guys with the rifles were trying to aim, but the wind was making their eyes stream and the vehicles were bucking up and down on the uneven road. Wah-yim threw the car into a sharp right turn and they disappeared from view.

‘OK, here goes nothing,’ I said, and took one of the bottles off Seligman.

Elvis started talking to the American, who reached out and held my arm. ‘He says he wants to do it.’

‘Yeah, well I’ve seen his aim and I’m not impressed.’

‘He says he was only trying to scare the farmers.’

‘Jesus Christ, give him one then. And tell Wah-yim to slow down once he takes the next bend.’

As the car began its turn Elvis flicked his lighter into life and we both lit our fuses. He was giggling like a girl as he leant out of the window, the flaming material waving in the slipstream. Wah-yim started to brake and I joined Elvis, keeping a tight grip on the bottle. The first Land-Rover came hurtling around the bend, and I drew back my arm and threw, hard and high. The second bottle followed half a second later.

Mine went spinning wide and burst into flames by the side of the road. Elvis’s hit the windscreen full on, smashing open on the metal grille and spraying burning petrol over the glass. The two armed men standing in the back were splattered with the liquid and they began hitting at themselves, trying to beat out the flames that were eating at their uniforms, screaming in high-pitched, terrified voices. The vehicle began to swerve from side to side and then one of the wheels clipped the edge of the road and it flipped over on its side and then was lost from view as we screeched around another corner. Elvis whooped for joy, punching the air with a clenched fist.

The remaining Land-Rover was more cautious after seeing the fate of the first and it dropped back, well out of throwing range. As soon as we reached a straight section they’d be able to start shooting from a safe distance.

‘Now what?’ asked Seligman. I got down on the floor again and began preparing four more of the Molotov cocktails.

‘We’ll get them to come to us,’ I said, fumbling with the petrol can again. ‘Tell Wah-yim to step on it and get as far ahead as he can. Then when I yell to stop he’s to slam on the brakes, stop dead and let me and Elvis out. Then he’s to drive a hundred feet or so and stop again.’

Seligman relayed the message to the driver, who was still sitting hunched over the wheel. He nodded furiously. Then I told the American what Elvis was to do.

He was grinning viciously and holding both of his bottles in one hand, idly flicking the lighter as he waited. The real Elvis was singing at the top of his voice that we should lay off his blue suede shoes.

The road was straighter now, and two shots whined past the car. The hillsides were quite thickly wooded, so I told Seligman that Wah-yim was to get ready. There was a curve coming up so I nodded at Elvis and the lighter sparked into flame. We held the four pieces of petrol-soaked cloth over the lighter and they soon caught, black smoke curling up to the roof of the Mercedes.

The car hit the curve around twenty feet into it and I shouted ‘stop.’ We all pitched forward and the wheels skidded and Elvis and I had our doors open before we’d stopped. He ran straight for a tree half a dozen paces from the road, I dashed behind the back of the car, heading in the opposite direction.

As the doors slammed shut Wah-yim shot off and the Land-Rover came careering round the bend. It started to brake as the Mercedes accelerated, then picked up speed again. Wah-yim hit the brake pedal again and the car’s red lights flashed and the Land-Rover slowed to walking pace, the driver obviously confused by its antics. The two armed guards took aim and then Elvis’s first bottle hit the floor between them and they disappeared in a sheet of flame. They fell off the back howling in pain, and I threw mine at the tyres, front and back, then ran along the side of the road back to the car. Elvis was standing by the side of a tree, eagerly watching the inferno, he’d obviously forgotten about the burning bottle in his hand. I shouted and pointed and he looked at it, blew it a kiss and heaved it at the door which the driver was trying to open, then he too was running. We got in the car at the same time and Wah-yim roared off. Elvis was laughing and slapping the dashboard with the palms of his hands. I was shaking and Seligman was sitting there with a look of horror on his face. I gulped in deep breaths and tried to steady myself. Wah-yim was laughing too now, and Elvis began frantically handjiving as he enjoyed the emotional high he’d worked himself up into. I just sank back into the seat and hugged myself as I tried to wipe what I’d done from my mind. I felt sick.

It was some time before the American spoke.

‘They were trying to kill us,’ he said quietly. ‘Why?’

‘They’ve obviously been told to tighten security since you and Sally were last here,’ I said, stating the obvious. ‘Are you sure she never told you what she’d discovered? What about when you were back in Hong Kong?’

‘The last time I saw her she wasn’t in any fit state to say anything,’ he said.

‘What do you mean?’

‘She’d been celebrating at the KCC, drinking champagne and telling everybody that she’d got a scoop. God, I’d forgotten about that evening. She was blind drunk but wouldn’t say what the story was. Just kept repeating over and over again that she had the proof. I took her home and she was sick in my car, all over her briefcase.

‘Briefcase?’

‘Yeah, I had to carry it for her.’ He looked at me, eyes widening. ‘Shit, it’s still in the car, under the front seat. She passed out in the car and I had to carry her upstairs to her flat. I couldn’t manage it and her. I never got the chance to return it.