The Watchman (30 page)

Even moving slowly and stopping every few metres for a listen and to let the other two catch up, I eventually ran into trouble.

It came in the form of a sentry taking a bathroom break.

He shouted in surprise and rose up in front of me, clutching his skirt in one hand and a rifle in the other. There was no time for pleasantries; I had just enough time to loose off a shot from the AK. It took him high in the shoulder and spun him round, but he was a tough bird and hollered out to his friends before I could smack him down with the rifle butt.

Too little too late.

Answering shouts came from the darkness behind us, and a shot sounded as one of the men got excited and drilled a shadow. It wouldn't be long before they were swarming around us and our way out was cut off. We had to move fast.

I whistled and got a reply from Tober, and an even louder one from Madar. Darned kid was going to get himself killed – but at least he was awake and alert. Seconds later they caught up with me and we began running south.

We arrived at the cluster of huts that had once been Dhalib. It still smelled of fire and death, and there was a taste of ash lingering in the air, but the bodies had been taken away. Now it was merely a ghostly place with no sign of life. Given time, I figured it would simply blow away with the next strong wind and be forgotten.

We left the ruined huts behind, but it was obvious from the distant shouting that Musa's men weren't far off. They couldn't know who they were looking for, nor how many, but they must have found their man and were operating on the logic that at least Tober and one other were out here, and were armed and ready to fight.

I slowed down to let Tober and Madar catch up. The kid was game enough, but he hadn't the strength for a full-on run and Tober was having to hustle him along, which slowed him down, too.

I had to think of some way of delaying the pursuit, and giving us a chance to get clear. I could have done with a couple of packs of C-4 right now, but that was wishful thinking.

I grabbed Tober's arm and said softly, ‘Head along the coast until you get to the first few houses. Madar will show you. Dig in somewhere on the beach and I'll catch up with you.'

‘What are you going to do?'

‘I'll spook them and lead them off the other way.'

He nodded and I stepped back towards the track and the incoming pursuers, sinking to one knee while the other two disappeared into the gloom. I was hoping Tober would get them both clear and not stay around to help me. It was pointless us all getting caught.

The first man came out of the dark like a runaway train, his sandals slapping on the hardened ground. He was grunting with excitement, his face shiny with sweat and desperately wanting to be the one to catch us.

He was lucky; he was going to be the one to live.

I waited until he was right on top of me, then stood up and hit him with the butt of the AK, hard enough to drive the air from his lungs but not to knock him out completely. I needed him conscious enough to be aware of what I was doing so he could tell his colleagues.

I snatched up his AK and called out into the dark, making sure he saw that I was looking directly to the west, inland and away from Kamboni. It was a piece of theatre, but I wanted him to think I was following others away from the town into the bush.

As I ran off I heard him trying to holler for backup from his friends, who could only have been a short distance behind him, and the answering chatter of men arguing over the direction I had taken.

Just to make sure they got the message, I shouted again and fired a short burst from the fallen man's AK towards the voices, then hit the ground. I was just in time; the answering fire was thick and fast and sounded like a small war as they let loose in my direction, bullets snapping angrily past me.

I waited for the excitement to die down, then jumped up and ran for several minutes, jumping scatterings of thorn bush and tangled grass more by instinct than sight. After I'd covered enough ground I shouted again and fired another burst until the magazine clicked on empty.

The Somalis responded in like terms, but this time the firing was lighter and seemed to be going in several directions at once. The sound of my shots must have been confusing in the darkness, and the excitement of the chase would have allowed them little chance of figuring out exactly where I was. But they had also learned by now to be cautious, which was going to work in my favour.

I tossed the empty AK to one side and carried on running. This time I headed south, aiming directly for the town and the beach beyond and hoping I didn't run into someone smart who'd figured out what I was doing. I was hoping the diversion would take the men enough time to sort out to give me a chance of catching Tober and Madar and figure out what to do next.

Fifteen minutes later I saw the shadows of buildings to my right, and came across the main coastal track. I had hit Kamboni head-on. I veered off slightly left and skirted a long thatched bungalow, keeping low and trying not to trip over anything in the gloom.

The smell of dried fish was very strong now, with the underlying fresher tang of the sea. I moved between two more long houses siding on to the beach and protected by a line of palm trees, then knelt down to get my bearings.

A dog barked in the distance, and the sea hissed across the sand and bubbled out again. Apart from that, it had the cold, dead feel of a ghost town. I wondered how many people were here, reluctant to leave the few possessions they had in the world.

I checked the beach, looking at the boats moored close to the waterline. I knew Tober would have gone looking for a way out of here as a matter of instinct.

And where there were boats, he would be, too.

I
spotted Madar first. He was moving along the waterline, keeping low and checking the boats which were moored in a row, their rigging down. He seemed to be by-passing a lot of solid looking craft, and I wondered why. Then it hit me: Tober would have told him to look out for one with twin engines.

That automatically ruled out boats belonging to the local fishermen. If they had engines at all they were small and probably far from new, held together by repeated tinkering and lots of prayer. Only the pirates could afford the fancier machines required to get them in against their targets in rough seas and away again if they encountered resistance on board or an armed naval patrol vessel.

I stayed where I was and checked out the beach either side, listening for sounds of pursuit coming from among the huts behind me. Going out to meet up with the two others might attract unnecessary attention, and I could do more useful work watching their backs.

Tober appeared, stopping every few paces to check his back trail, then giving each boat the quick once-over in case Madar had missed something. I made sure nobody was behind him, then followed a parallel course through the passageways among the huts, keeping the beach within sight.

Kamboni was on a promontory shaped like the head of a hammerhead shark, with the uppermost part of the hammer forming the protective arm of a natural bay. Most of the town was set back slightly inland, with a few buildings and the local mosque closest to the water at the centre of the hammerhead. I hadn't ventured that far, but from a satellite shot Vale had provided, it seemed that all the boats were moored in the bay, where they would be less vulnerable from storms along the coast.

I paused to watch as Madar approached a large boat in the shallows. We were getting very close to the area around the mosque, which I guessed might have some kind of watchman in attendance. If he carried on much further, he would run out of beach.

Then I stopped moving and lifted the AK. A figure had stepped out from the houses and was walking down the sand. I couldn't see a rifle but he had something bulky over his shoulder. I checked through the scope to see what it was.

A rolled fishing net. And he was heading for the boat where Madar was standing.

Madar saw him too, and stopped, sinking to his haunches in the water. I looked to my left. Tober had frozen, hard up against another boat.

I heard voices.

The man had spotted Madar. But he wasn't shouting in alarm. I held my breath, finger light on the trigger. I didn't want to kill the fisherman just for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. But if he started yelling, we were in big trouble.

Madar stood and walked towards him. The man dropped his netting on the sand by the boat, then stretched his back and looked up at the stars. Next he pointed to the stern of the boat and said something.

Madar stepped forward and picked up the net, heaving it on board.

I waited, wondering what he was doing. Could it really be this simple? Had Madar stumbled on his way out of here? If so, Tober and I were down one problem and free to make our own way out, too.

Madar turned and looked along the beach and gave a short whistle. Tober stood up and moved forward to join them, and stood listening before he turned and waved to me.

He was good. He'd known I was here all along.

I jogged down the beach and saw Madar was grinning, looking like an excited puppy about to go on an outing.

‘Mr Marc,' he whispered. ‘This is Tawfiq.' He indicated the fisherman, who didn't seem that surprised to see two armed white men on a remote beach in his country. If he thought anything he certainly wasn't saying. Up close, I could see he must have been in his sixties, with the build of a marathon runner, a scrub of white beard and deep-set eyes.

‘He is a good man,' Madar continued, ‘and says the other men are very bad and will bring nothing but trouble to Kamboni. He believes the Kenyan army will come soon and attack the town, and many may die. That is why he is leaving. It has happened before when the pirates come; they bring nothing and take everything. I have asked him if he will take me with him to the north.'

He rapidly translated for Tawfiq, who nodded and replied in a guttural burst of his own.

‘What did he say?' I asked. ‘Can you trust him?'

‘Yes. He says he dares to go out at night because he has a bigger boat and knows the waters like his own hand. The others are like women with the courage of goats. His cousin's son who helps him is not well and he says he will take me as a deck hand but I will have to work hard or he will throw me overboard to the sharks.' He grinned again. ‘I do not think he means that.'

‘Let's hope not. Does he need money?' I didn't want to insult the man, but I couldn't take advantage of his kindness.

Madar spoke to him, and the old man looked nonplussed. I dug out some notes and handed them to Madar. ‘You deal with it. Tell him if he doesn't take you home, we will come back and sink his boat.'

I'm not sure Madar passed that on, but the man seemed happy with the money.

Madar turned to Tober and shook his hand, then to me and hugged me briefly. ‘Thank you, Mr Marc,' he muttered, his voice choked. ‘You are a good man, too.'

I hugged him back and slapped him on the shoulder. He was a decent kid and I hoped he made it.

Tober and I helped push the boat out until it floated free, while Tawfiq and Madar climbed aboard and got busy, the fisherman telling the kid what to do in a calm, practiced voice. The sail went up and filled gently, and the boat was soon moving with deceptive grace into deeper water.

Then we heard a shout, followed by gunshots.

T
ober and I raced up the beach to put distance between us and the departing boat. If Musa's men thought we were on board, they'd have a fleet of fast skiffs out and be all over Tawfiq and Madar in no time. And I didn't think they'd stop to ask questions.

The shooting had come from between the huts to the northern end of town. It meant we had to head for the centre if we wanted to avoid a full-on confrontation. It was probably heading deeper into trouble, but right now we were short on choices.

I heard the roar of an engine and saw light sweeping through the buildings, and remembered the pickups I'd seen before. Some of Musa's men were camped in town, and had evidently got word of our presence. They would be joining in the search by now, and every minute that passed meant the net around the town would be growing tighter.

We pounded through a network of narrow passages between the huts. Twice men appeared out of doorways and tried to stop us. Each time we ran through them. It was brutal, close-quarter fighting, but if anything Tober and I had the advantage of surprise and momentum. We eventually found ourselves by the side of the town's mosque. Just as we did so, a figure appeared round the corner and ran head-on into Tober, who smacked him down with the butt of his rifle.

Another man appeared, this one swinging up an AK and letting off a couple of rounds before I could stop him. I knocked him over with two quick shots and pointed off to our left towards the lower edge of town, away from the sound of shooting and the searchers' lights.

Tober got the message and headed off fast, barrelling his way between two ragged lines of huts. I followed a couple of paces behind, ready to turn and defend our flanks.

It was difficult to see clearly ahead of us, and we didn't always get it right. At one intersection we saw what appeared to be clear space between two buildings, only to crash through a wall of palm fronds surrounding a small plot of land. The noise was considerable and raised a volley of shouting from towards the beach as the pursuers zeroed in on our location and began closing in, letting off an occasional round to show they meant business. We were forced to duck as we ran down the lines of huts due to the overhanging canopies brushing our faces, which slowed us down, and all the way I could hear the slap of running feet on the other side as the men closed in. If they got ahead of us, all they had to do was run down an intersection and cut us off.

As we turned a corner and raced across a triangle of hard ground, we found two men with rifles blocking our way and yelling at us to stop.