Solo (18 page)

Bond stood on the dockside looking out at the horizon feeling himself in a strange kind of limbo, thinking that everything would change – or that nothing might change. He thought of Tony Msour unconscious in the boot of the Peugeot hidden in the midst of an oil-palm plantation – what effect would his mysterious absence have on events? It was an act of audacious inspiration that might have no consequence at all, or else it would materially alter everything. It was all in the balance – he had played his best cards, now he could only wait and see.

As one day dragged into the next he began to feel that time was a curious irrelevance. He had his room in the Press Centre, he was fed, he could buy a drink. Somewhere to the north of the city, on the forest roads and tracks, across creeks and marshy expanses, by collapsed bridges and mined causeways, Zanzarim soldiers confronted Dahumian ones, everybody waiting – waiting to see what might happen next.

Then the first symbol of that possible change arrived in the late afternoon of the second day after the abduction of Tony Msour. Suddenly, the city’s air-raid sirens sounded and for the first time Bond sensed something crack in the ordered discipline of the population of Port Dunbar. It wasn’t panic but it was fearfulness, anxiety, and the streets became full of people running, frantically looking for shelter. He thought he could hear the distant roar of jet engines and a SAM missile was fired – more in hope than expectation – from the battery in the central square. Then, after twenty minutes the all-clear sounded. Breadalbane said that a MiG had been shot down but no one believed him.

The next morning Kobus Breed came to see him at the Press Centre. Bond was surprised.

‘You booked your passage out?’ Breed asked.

‘Not yet,’ Bond said, carefully. ‘Why do you ask?’

Breed lowered his voice, as if he might be overheard. ‘I might need your expertise,’ he said. ‘We’ve got a massive Zanza Force build-up on the main highway. We’ve seen heavy armour – Centurion tanks. And the artillery shelling has gone up two hundred per cent. Something big’s about to happen.’

‘Look,’ Bond said. ‘Kololo was a one-off. You’re the brave soldier being paid five thousand dollars a month to fight for Dahum, not me.’

‘We could always arrange something.’

‘I’m not a military man any more,’ Bond said. ‘You’re on your own.’

‘And our bloody fetish priest has disappeared,’ Breed said. ‘Can you believe it? Picked up by a “white soldier” three days ago.’

‘One of your guys?’

‘Absolutely no.’

Bond shrugged. ‘Can’t you get another fetish priest?’

‘You must be joking. He’s the only one they believe in.’

It was enough of a sign for Bond – equilibrium had gone – or was going fast. That evening he drove out to Janjaville and paid Hulbert Linck $100 to fly out on a Super Constellation the following night.

Linck looked at him shrewdly.

‘Do you know something we don’t, Mr Bond?’

‘I’ve been summoned home,’ Bond said, resignedly. ‘Personally, I’d love to stay on. See your famous running of the blockade. See your ship come in. I’m missing the big story.’

‘The sooner the better,’ Linck said, looking worried. ‘There’s a big Zanza Force push coming. We’ve got eight flights due in tonight.’

He turned and looked at the Constellation as it was being unloaded. As a truck backed away the wash of its headlights momentarily illuminated the nose of the plane. Bond peered closer – and was astonished to see, stencilled just below the cockpit, a sign that he had last observed in Bayswater, London: AfricaKIN.

He glanced at Linck but he was giving nothing away. What was this all about, Bond asked himself? And then thought – perhaps it was a former AfricaKIN charter; someone had simply forgotten to remove the logo. But it was another coincidence – and here in Dahum Bond was very suspicious of coincidences. What connection could Gabriel Adeka have with Linck and his blockade-running? Some sort of subterfuge? Were they using AfricaKIN funds? Exploiting its good name . . . ?

‘Well, good luck to you,’ Bond said, his mind still turning with the implications. ‘See you tomorrow night.’

Bond slept badly. He kept hearing, in his half-sleep, urgent knocking on his door. Convinced it was Blessing he went to open it twice. Of course it was all in his troubled imagination. At dawn he woke to hear the distant sound of explosions and again the air-raid siren went off. This time a solitary MiG streaked low over the city, just above the rooftops, shattering the morning peace – too low and too fast to loose off a SAM.

Another indication, Bond thought, as he packed up his few belongings and emptied the remains of his coma-inducing drugs down the toilet. He had lunch with Breadalbane who told him that Dupree, Haas and Letham had gone up to the front to see if this news of a Zanza Force thrust was genuine or not.

Bond told him he was booked out on a flight that night and he could see the news disturbed Breadalbane.

‘But why?’ he asked, uncomprehendingly. ‘You’re going to miss everything.’

‘I just think it’s time to go,’ Bond said and offered him the loan of $100 if he wanted to leave also.

‘Can’t do that,’ Breadalbane said. ‘No, no. I have to stick it out. Have to. Otherwise why have I spent all these months here?’ He thought for a while. ‘Actually, the loan would be very handy, all the same – if you could spare the cash.’

Dupree and Haas came back in the afternoon in a state of shock. There had been a massive breakthrough on the transnational highway – Centurion tanks crossing rivers on improvised bridges had outflanked Dahumian defences. More worryingly, there was panic and mass desertion by the normally steadfast Dahum troops – all resistance, all morale suddenly gone.

‘No juju man,’ Haas said. ‘Breed is going insane. He shot three of his own men for deserting. Even the mercenaries are talking of leaving now.’

By late afternoon the heavy detonation of artillery shells was audible in central Port Dunbar and columns of black smoke were rising from the northern outskirts. The streets of the city emptied as if in response to some silent order. Sunday drove Bond out to the airport in sombre mood.

‘We done lose this war, Mr Bond. It finish. We don’t want fight no more.’

They motored out to Janjaville past columns of dishevelled soldiers retreating on the airstrip, where some sort of final defensive ring was being formed. Bond noted the new trenches, barbed wire and gun emplacements but there seemed little sign of martial spirit among the troops. He saw officers striking men with bamboo batons and the soldiers looked frightened and resentful. No one wants to be the doomed rearguard, Bond realised. In the distance the sound of gunfire and explosions grew ever louder as the Zanzarim army advanced into Port Dunbar.

Janjaville airstrip had never been busier. Two DC-3s and a Fokker Friendship were parked in front of the hangar and, as Bond arrived, he saw Linck’s Malmös take off and head east, away from the fighting, their mercenary pilots all too aware of what was impending.

Bond said a heartfelt farewell to Sunday and gave him the remains of his dollars. He told Sunday to go to the oil-palm plantation the next morning. ‘You’ll see the Peugeot there, off the track’. He gave more specific directions. ‘There’s a man locked in the boot. I want you to let him out. Don’t say anything. You were just passing by.’

‘I don’t know you, sar.’

‘Exactly. It’ll be our secret.’

They shook hands and Bond wished him good luck.

Bond confirmed that his place was secure on the flight, due to leave in an hour. He encountered Hulbert Linck, who was agitated and fretful. ‘How could this have happened?’ he kept repeating, rhetorically. ‘A week ago we were in total control. Total control.’ To Bond’s eyes Linck seemed untypically distressed, all his old confidence gone, as if there was something more at stake than the fate of Dahum, something that touched him personally.

‘That’s the fortunes of war for you,’ Bond said, conscious of the scant comfort in this lame adage. He said goodbye to Linck and walked over to the Quonset hut that did duty as a departure lounge.

Soon Haas and Dupree joined him, complaining that the price of a seat on the Constellation had now risen to $500, and then the mercenaries began to arrive, awkward in their civilian clothes, their guns and swagger left behind. They looked edgy and uncomfortable, having no desire to be subject to the full-blooded retribution of the Zanzarim army.

Bond stood by the window watching the families and retainers of the Dahumian junta board one of the DC-3s and the Fokker Friendship. And then came the members of the government themselves – he saw Abigail Kross and Colonel Denga amongst them. The die was cast now. He watched both planes take off and realised that the Republic of Dahum was officially rudderless – he wondered if the terrified soldiers manning the perimeter knew that they were now on their own.

Just as he was beginning to worry vaguely that their own departure might not take place he saw the Constellation swoop in, land and taxi round to its usual position in front of the hangar. However, this time the engines were cut. The plane was empty, Bond supposed. And once again he saw the AfricaKIN logo on the nose – and it was a different Constellation from the one he’d seen the night before, traces of an old airline livery marking it out as another aircraft. What had Gabriel Adeka to do with these last perilous flights in and out of the shrinking Dahum heartland? Why this overt connection? Bond turned away from the window, questions yammering in his head. Was it some final gesture of solidarity between the Adeka brothers? A sign that Gabriel had heard of Solomon’s death and had stepped in? Or simply some futile, symbolic despatch of aid before the war ended . . . ? He wandered back to rejoin Haas and Dupree, thinking there was no point in further speculation. Once he had safely left Dahum he could investigate further.

The mood in the Quonset hut was increasingly tense. The sound of small arms was now audible – the pop and chatter of machine guns – and from time to time nervous sentries triggered bursts of aimless fire into the darkness of the night. Bond sat apart, taking in the images of almost-chaos of a small country about to forcibly lose its brief identity forever. Its government had fled; its highly paid foreign mercenaries – about to flee – were passing themselves off as civilians; a few hundred frightened and reluctant troops had been ordered – at gunpoint, no doubt – to keep the airstrip open until the last rat had left the sinking ship and they could all throw their guns away and go back home.

He was not pleased to see Letham arrive. He was wearing a white linen suit with a raffish navy bandana at his neck and he actually asked Haas to take a photograph of him standing beside the armed soldier guarding the door. His new picture by-line, Bond assumed. Ace foreign correspondent Geoffrey Letham reporting fearlessly from the world’s crisis zones. Bond saw him look over in his direction and was grateful when he didn’t approach. He and Letham had nothing more to say to each other – and, with a bit of luck, would never see each other again after tonight. There were minor satisfactions to register about the fall of Dahum, he considered.

A crew member came in from the Constellation and all the mercenaries were invited to board. Bond heard the engines spark and fire up, generating their throaty rumble. The four journalists joined the back of the queue.

Haas looked round, his face was sweaty. ‘They seem to be getting closer,’ he said.

‘Did you see Breadalbane before you left?’ Bond asked. ‘I lent him some cash – thought he might have changed his mind and decided to join us.’

‘I told him,’ Dupree said. ‘I said that with all the mercenaries gone he’ll be the only white man in Port Dunbar. Not a good idea, I said. A most uncomfortable situation. I thought he’d be here.’

Bond was about to reply when three soldiers pushed their way in, all carrying AK-47s, swathed in bandoliers of bullets and somehow looking more capable and alarming than the demoralised men manning the defences. They wore the soft, peaked kepis that the mercenaries favoured. Everyone went quiet.

‘Who is James Bond?’ one of the soldiers called out.

Bond stepped forward. There was no hiding place here.

‘I am,’ he said.

‘Come with us. The rest of you please to board the plane.’

Bond picked up his grip, feeling his mouth dry, suddenly. What was this – had Msour been found and somehow identified him? He followed the three soldiers out of the Quonset hut, glancing back over his shoulders to see the others striding energetically across the grass towards the Constellation, its four engines now turning in a shimmering blur in the airport lights.

‘What’s going on?’ Bond asked, feigning minor irritation – he was feeling concern mount in him. ‘I need to be on that plane.’

‘Someone wants to talk with you,’ the soldier said.

Perhaps it was Linck, Bond thought, though his worries didn’t subside. The last DC3 was still there, its propeller blades now beginning to revolve slowly as the generator fired up the engines, the exhausts coughing out smoke. Perhaps Linck wanted them to fly out together. But Bond recognised the symptoms – he was trying to put a benign gloss on serious alarm. It never worked – something was wrong here.

Bond was being led towards the concrete blockhouse of the control tower, he saw. A door in the side was opened and he was ordered in. He found himself in a windowless cement cell with a neon tube in the ceiling casting an unkind glaring light.

‘Excuse me. What’s happening?’ he asked, still managing to preserve his tone of mild irritation. ‘Can you tell me? Who am I meant to meet?’

One soldier left, to fetch the person who wanted to talk to him, Bond supposed. The other two stood by the closed door, hands resting on the AK-47s slung across their fronts.

Bond paced slowly to and fro, affecting unconcern, but his mind was hyperactive. Something must have gone very wrong – but what? No clever strategy suggested itself.

Two minutes went by, then five. The only thing that reassured Bond was that the idling motors of the Constellation hadn’t changed pitch. It must still be in position, waiting for the final passengers to arrive before taking off.