The Perfect Soldier (38 page)

‘What’s he like? This McFaul?’ Alma asked.

Robbie shrugged, looking across at Molly. His own dealings with McFaul had been minimal. Molly was still sitting by the window. This new film, as she understood it, was to concentrate on the minefields around Muengo. Amongst the many lives the minefields had taken were those of Domingos and James. Domingos was an Angolan, James was an outsider, but they’d both been trying to help. By telling their separate stories in graphic detail, Alma’s film might just prick the conscience of the West. That’s where most of the mines came from. That’s where the real money was made. It was this angle that had persuaded Molly to go along with Robbie’s proposal. A film like that, she thought, would be infinitely more worthwhile than Llewelyn’s original idea. She was no longer interested in baring her soul. Her private grief would never again be public property.

Alma was still looking at her, still waiting for an answer to her question.

‘McFaul knows it all,’ Molly said quietly. ‘He’s the one you should really be talking to.’

‘Great.’ Alma looked exasperated. ‘So where in God’s name is this man?’

McFaul limped towards the cathedral, trying to keep up with Katilo. The idea for the sequence had been the rebel commander’s. He’d arrived at the schoolhouse at daybreak. McFaul had been asleep beside Christianne, barely registering the stamp of boots across the wooden floor next door. Katilo had burst in, two bodyguards in tow, rousing McFaul with brisk prods from the swagger stick he’d taken to carrying. He’d been delighted with the shots McFaul had taped the previous day. He knew already that the film would be wonderful. Now it was time to try something a little more ambitious.

The square in front of the cathedral was filling up with people. Most of them were women and children, herded into the city centre by Katilo’s soldiers. They jumped from the backs of army trucks, laden down with rolls of rush matting and the tiny handful of personal possessions they still had left to sell. Katilo moved amongst them, telling them where to lay their mats, explaining the way he wanted the place to look. It was market day. The city was enjoying a precarious peace. The people were buying and selling. For the moment, the war was over.

The people did his bidding, avoiding the cold eyes of the watching soldiers. When the last mat was unrolled, there were more than thirty pitches around the dusty square and on a further command from Katilo, one of the trucks began to rumble from pitch to pitch, the soldiers on the back heaving sacks of UN maize and rice to the waiting traders. McFaul watched the women opening the sacks, wide-eyed, scarcely believing their luck. Extras, he thought. Movie props for Katilo’s march to stardom.

Katilo came striding back across the square. His shirt was tighter than usual, emphasising the massive shoulders and the heavy belly, and he waved an arm, telling McFaul to get pictures of the traders. There’d be more local people arriving any minute, lots of them. He wanted shots of buying and selling, of haggling, the market in full swing, the clearest evidence to any watching audience that life under UNITA was nothing to be afraid of.

McFaul nodded.

‘And then?’

‘And then, my friend, you film me.’

‘Doing what?’

‘Talking.’

Katilo grinned, offering no further explanation, stepping aside to cuff a soldier who’d dropped a sack of rice, spilling
the white grains everywhere. McFaul did what he was told, waiting for the next trucks to arrive then moving slowly around the square picking up the kind of shots he thought Katilo could use. The women largely ignored him, squatting amongst the piles of UN supplies, bartering eagerly with the growing crowd of townspeople, and for the first time McFaul realised that the distribution of food was for real. The soldiers wouldn’t be demanding this stuff back. On the contrary, the food would find its way into every corner of Muengo, and by this single act Katilo might well bump start the city’s fragile economy.

The taping over, McFaul returned to Katilo. He was standing in the middle of the square, surrounded by his bodyguards, beaming at the crowds that had gathered. Head and shoulders above the swirl of bodies, he looked like a circus ringmaster, pleased with the day’s attendance, eager now to get on with the show.

He took McFaul’s arm, hauling him across the square. On the far side, away from the cathedral, he stopped. McFaul was to have the camera ready. When the time was right, he would walk through the crowd, across the square, and into the cathedral. There, he’d pray before the altar, giving thanks for the great miracle of his victory. For Catholic audiences all over the world, these would be fine pictures.

McFaul looked across towards the cathedral, wondering what he’d find inside. Shell damage had destroyed part of the roof and there’d be no problem with light but the aisle might be blocked with fallen debris. He began to suggest a recce, a preliminary look, but Katilo dismissed the idea. These things, like everything else in life, were best done at once. If God so willed it, it would happen. McFaul shrugged, unconvinced. The least he expected was someone to guide him backwards, carving a path through the crowd, and Katilo
nodded at one of the bodyguards, issuing the appropriate order.

McFaul checked the cassette. There was still twenty minutes of tape left, ample time for the sequence. He put the camcorder to his eye, securing the strap around his hand, adjusting the framing to accommodate Katilo’s upper body. In a normal film, McFaul suspected that this sort of material would be recorded within a formal interview, Katilo talking to someone off-camera, but the rebel commander had no time for the polite conventions of Western broadcasting. He knew exactly what he wanted to say and he wanted nobody between himself and the camera. The message, McFaul suspected, would be brutally direct.

McFaul glanced behind him, indicating that the waiting bodyguard should tug a corner of his shirt, physically guiding him backwards. Then he returned to Katilo, pressing the ‘Record’ button and waiting for the red light to appear in the viewfinder before raising his thumb.

Katilo frowned a moment, looking at someone in the crowd, then he looked down at the camera, beginning to move, describing his days and nights in the bush, waiting for the moment he could deliver Muengo from the godless hands of government troops. He had a strong, deep voice and he used it well, the way McFaul had read about in tabloid features on £100–a-day media training courses. Address the camera as if you were talking to a specific individual, someone you know, someone you want to stay friends with. Don’t treat it like a public meeting. Don’t shout. Don’t go in for grand phrases. Keep it simple. Keep it intimate. Share a confidence or two. And look as if you mean it.

They were approaching the cathedral now, Katilo’s huge hand flat against his chest. The night of the final bombardment had been a torment for him. So much violence. So
much bloodshed. And all of it because the troops in the city refused to surrender. No commander enjoys slaughter, he confided. But no commander willingly wastes the lives of his own men. And so the big guns had spoken. And the walls of Muengo had finally tumbled down.

McFaul felt flagstones beneath his feet. The sunshine had disappeared. It was abruptly cooler. Katilo had stopped. He was looking up. The camcorder followed his tilted head, fighting to compensate for the sudden change in light. Dimly, in the background, a skein of rafters appeared. McFaul felt a tug on his shirt. Katilo was on the move again, the big eyes back on the lens of the camcorder. He’d come, at last, to make his own peace. Not the peace of the battlefield. Not the peace of the negotiating table. Not the peace that might one day be signed in Lusaka. But the other peace, the peace between himself and the Lord. Katilo paused again, grave. The Lord had spoken. And Muengo had returned to God’s children.

Katilo nodded, then stepped past McFaul. McFaul panned round, keeping the huge body in shot, hearing the bodyguard behind him struggling to get out of the way. With the camcorder pointing towards the altar, McFaul watched – fascinated – as Katilo bowed before the altar, then crossed himself and knelt in prayer. The image was extraordinary. Katilo’s passage down the aisle had raised clouds of dust from the piles of fallen masonry and now the dust was lanced by shafts of sunshine, spearing through the gaping holes in the roof.

McFaul let the camera run and run, using his other hand to steady the shot. Eventually, Katilo stood up. He lumbered back down the aisle, tramping through the debris. When he got to McFaul, he reached out, wanting the camera. The dust had flecked his hair, greying it, and for a moment McFaul could see what he’d look like if he ever achieved old age. He offered Katilo the camera. Katilo had learned how
to rewind the tape and now he put his eye to the viewfinder, watching the end of the sequence. The sight of the interior of the cathedral brought a smile to his face and he nodded, returning the camera.

‘God’s will,’ he boomed, stepping towards the door.

Piet Rademeyer was nursing a glass of mango juice when Molly Jordan finally spotted him. He was sitting at a table in the corner of the Bar Alberto, a big blue canvas bag at his feet. Since the flight down to Muengo, he’d acquired a deep cut over his left eye and when he looked up Molly could see the neat line of stitches, and the livid purple swelling beneath.

Rademeyer ordered drinks at the bar. When he sat down again, Molly apologised for hounding him. She’d been phoning the Luanda number on the card he’d given her for two days now, leaving endless messages on his answerphone until finally they’d made contact. Meeting at the Bar Alberto was Rademeyer’s idea. Evenings were boisterous – the diplomatic crowd, the UN people, diamond dealers down from Zaire – but in the afternoons you often had the place to yourself.

Molly was still looking at the bruising around his eyes.

‘What happened?’

Rademeyer shrugged.

‘Bump in the car,’ he said briskly. ‘Not my fault.’

He changed the subject quickly, asking her about Muengo. Molly spared him most of the details. The place had been chaotic. She’d little idea what went on behind the scenes but she felt very sorry for the people who had to live there. Getting the aid workers out made a great deal of sense. Unfortunately, a couple had been left behind.

Rademeyer nodded. He seemed to be barely listening, his eyes on the door beyond the bar that led to the street. The
bar was decorated with bits of bicycle and old car, refashioned into pastiche masks and spears, and a crop-haired young barman lurked in the shadows behind the espresso machine. The way he kept smiling at Rademeyer told Molly the two were probably close.

‘These people in Muengo,’ Molly said. ‘One of them’s a friend of mine.’

‘Oh?’ Rademeyer had moved the bag to one side, making it easier for him to get out.

‘She’s a French girl, a nurse. Her name is Christianne …’ Molly paused, slightly irritated by the young pilot’s evident lack of interest, ‘… and the other one’s older, English. He works in the minefields.’

Mention of the minefields brought Rademeyer’s eyes briefly back to Molly.

‘UNITA are into Muengo,’ he pointed out.

‘Quite.’

‘So what are these people doing there? Why didn’t they come out with the others?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘I thought she was your friend, this French girl.’

‘She is but …’ Molly shrugged, colouring slightly. She’d got the pilot wrong. Rademeyer had been listening to every word. He was looking across at the bar now. The barman was crouched in one corner, whispering urgently into a phone.

Molly leaned forward, sensing that her time with Rademeyer was probably limited. It had taken her two days to get this far. Pinning him down again wouldn’t be easy.

‘I want to get them out,’ she said. ‘As soon as possible.’

The barman had left the bar. He was signalling to Rademeyer and the pilot got to his feet at once, stooping to retrieve the canvas bag. Molly felt his hand on her arm.

‘Come with me,’ he said.

Molly got up and followed him across the floor. They left the bar through a fire exit at the back. Outside, it was pouring with rain. A big Mercedes four-wheel was waiting amongst the piles of rubbish in the alley. Nearby, Molly heard a squealing of tyres and then a wild shouting, two or three men at least. Rademeyer pushed her into the Mercedes and for the first time it occurred to Molly to resist. This was the way you got kidnapped. Larry Giddings had warned her about it. She should have listened harder.

The Mercedes was on the move now, accelerating down the alley, splashing through the puddles of muddy brown water. Molly was in the back, wedged between Rademeyer’s bag and the door. The driver was Angolan, a squat youth with an ear-ring and a nervous laugh. Rademeyer was giving him instructions in Portuguese. At the main road, the driver hauled the four-wheel across two lines of oncoming traffic, and began to thread his way out of town, the fat tyres hissing on the wet tarmac.

Molly recognised one or two landmarks. They were heading for the airport.

‘What’s going on?’

Rademeyer had relaxed now, his body slumped against the canvas bag, his eyes on the rear-view mirror.

‘They’d have picked you up,’ he said briefly. ‘It’s best you came with me.’

‘Who? Who’d have picked me up?’

‘Our Ninja friends. The goons in blue.’

‘You mean—?’ Molly gestured back, remembering the commotion they’d left behind them.

Rademeyer nodded.

‘They get a bit excited sometimes. You can try reasoning with them but they’re not really interested in conversation. Just being with me would be enough to get you arrested.’

‘Are you serious?’

‘Very.’

‘They’d arrest me?’

‘Yes.’

‘What for?’

‘Conspiracy. Crimes against the state. I know we had an election but …’ he shrugged, gazing out at the rain, ‘democracy’s not that easy. Especially for beginners.’

Molly stared at him, wondering again about the line of stitches above his eye. A car crash was beginning to sound less than likely. No wonder he’d been so jumpy. The Mercedes had slowed down, merging into the line of vehicles grinding towards the airport. Rademeyer was looking thoughtful.