Bernard Joyce awoke to the sound of the door opening. Outside he could hear frogs croaking. Night-time; though it was perpetually dark under the stifling hood.
He smelled someone else in the room. A hand moved to his throat and he recoiled in terror, but a voice said, ‘Still.’ He forced himself to relax — he would show no more fear in front of these men — and felt the fingers untying the knotted string which held the hessian sack secure.
Bernard snorted warm, sticky, salty night air, which was still deliciously cooler and fresher than his own breath in the hood. He blinked, for even though the room was dim, lit only by a light somewhere out in the hallway, the door to the cell was open and he could smell the outdoors. The man had the black hands of an African and wore a ski mask. Bernard was sure he was one of the two who had come for him to take him to his meeting with the Arab. But this time the man was alone. Before he had dozed off, though he had no idea how long he had been asleep, he remembered hearing a car’s engine starting. Had the others gone on some errand? His mind raced. There had been little time to establish a routine, and no doubt they wanted to keep him off balance. His captor’s weapon was slung, pointing down as he removed Bernard’s hood.
The little luxuries continued as the man ripped off the fresh duct tape that had been applied to Bernard’s mouth after his earlier interview. Bernard didn’t begrudge the pain of the tape being removed, as it allowed him to suck in more air. He felt some calm return to him now that he didn’t have to rely on his feeble nasal passages muffled inside a hood in order to stay alive, and could almost feel his brain starting to function better.
The man pulled a knife from a leather scabbard at his belt. Bernard tried to control his fear and the man bent forward. Again, ‘Still,’ was all he said. He reached behind Bernard and slid the cold, narrow blade between Bernard’s bound wrists. He didn’t flinch, though he was terrified the man might cut him by mistake. With barely a flick of the wrist Bernard felt the thick cable ties snap. His gratitude at being able to feel his hands again was swamped by the immediate rush of pain that flowed with the returning blood to his fingers.
‘Rub them.’
Bernard did as he was told, massaging his wrists, seeing and feeling the raw skin where the plastic had drawn blood because of its tightness. Still holding the knife, the man reached behind his back and pulled a pair of metal police handcuffs from his belt. He held them in front of Bernard. ‘Put these on — hands in front.’
Bernard was disappointed, but anything would be better than the plastic ties, and to have his hands in front would at least relieve the ceaseless pain in his shoulders from having his wrists bound behind his back. He reluctantly locked the open cuffs on each wrist, but kept them loose enough so that they weren’t contacting his skin. The man reached down and checked them, closing each manacle another notch for good measure, though Bernard still had full circulation to his fingers and his hands were already feeling better. The man dropped to one knee and slashed the tie binding Bernard’s ankles. As with his wrists, the relief was mixed with fresh pain and the blood flow seemed to reignite the aches in the tortured soles of his feet.
‘Stand.’
More pain, but again it was good to get his circulation moving. The man returned his knife to its pouch and unslung his shortened AK 47. He pointed it at Bernard’s belly and inclined his head towards the open door. ‘Move.’ Bernard hobbled, the pain in his feet increasing with each step. The man prodded the stubby barrel hard into his spine and he shuffled into the corridor. ‘Right.’
Bernard looked around him, risking what punishment might come. He was in a hallway. He had been hooded the last time he was taken from his room. He noticed cream-painted wooden doors on either side of the one he had just come from. Looking up he saw a high cathedral-like thatched roof. The floor was concrete and, like the one in his room, polished to a dull sheen with some kind of wax that made it quite slippery. A hallway window was covered in black plastic and sticky tape, just like the one in his room. At the end of the corridor, in front of him, was another cream-coloured door, with a key in the lock. Glancing back, until another shove made him face forward again, he saw a wooden door at the other end of the corridor. The walls were plastered and whitewashed.
The man in the mask motioned him to the door at the end of the hallway, then reached around him and turned the key in the lock. The door opened on to a bathroom, with a combination bath and shower, and a toilet. The enamel on the bath was chipped and stained and the place smelled of mould and old urine, but Bernard had forgotten just how wonderful such simple facilities could be. He had pissed himself, but so far managed to avoid voiding his bowels. He stank and he ached and he almost thanked his captor when he said, ‘Wash.’ Bernard noticed there was water in the bottom of the tub and, looking at the floor, he saw a pile of grey-black hair sitting on three spread sheets of newsprint. On a shelf off to one side was a set of hair clippers, plugged into a power point on the wall. As a weapon, they would be useless. He wondered if the hair on the floor was Robert’s and if his would be added to the pile next. Presumably the hair was on the newspaper so it could be bundled and disposed of. The thought chilled him.
The man stood in the doorway as Bernard, his hands still manacled in front of him, stripped off his stained boxer shorts. In addition to the bruises on his body and the cuts and welts on his feet, his pale skin was covered in mosquito bites. Out of modesty, he turned away from the terrorist and ran the taps. He felt hot water coming out of the shower head. Sitting on the toilet he stared at the man, who smiled behind his mask at the Englishmen’s attempt at showing some defiance despite his embarrassment. Facing back towards the corridor, Bernard now saw a simple wooden chair behind the door. On it was a pair of folded orange overalls. His mind flashed back to videos he’d seen of the captives of Arab terrorists in Iraq. Often the victims wore the same type of garb, that reflected the uniforms worn by the detainees in Guantanamo Bay. Was he being cleaned up for his television performance? Quite possibly. If he could get to the chair he could use that as a weapon. However, the man stood blocking the doorway, his right hand on the pistol grip of the assault rifle, his finger curled through the trigger guard. His eyes followed every move Bernard made.
Naked, he stepped under the shower and attacked his filthy body with the bar of soap. There was a small window of frosted glass set high up on the wall beside him and if he’d stood on his toes he might have been able to see out. It was only opened a few centimetres and he sensed that if he tried to look out or open it wider he would be clubbed down. The man seemed to read his mind for, when Bernard glanced back over his shoulder at him, he shook his head. Bernard nodded his acquiescence. He lathered his hair with the soap and washed himself from head to toe again.
As he rinsed, Bernard caught a strong whiff of smoke. He looked back again at the guard and saw that he, too, had his nose in the air, and was sniffing. A gust of sea air brought a curling wisp into the bathroom, along with some black flakes of ash which disintegrated as soon as they landed on Bernard’s wet skin. Bernard stepped back from the window.
‘Enough! Out!’ The man brandished his AK and Bernard stepped out of the bathtub, dripping on the polished concrete floor. ‘Sit.’ Bernard followed the barrel’s direction and sat on the floor, knees drawn up, in the corner next to the commode.
The terrorist stepped into the bathtub, took another menacing glance at Bernard and quickly raised himself on his toes and looked out the bathroom window. He swore in the Latin language Bernard had heard spoken before — probably Portuguese. ‘Stay,’ he barked at Bernard, then turned and walked out, slamming the bathroom door behind him and turning the key in the lock.
Bernard leapt to his feet and got back into the bathtub. He opened the tiny window a few more centimetres and peered out. The darkness outside was lit by flames. Next to the dwelling he was in was a small separate circular cottage with white walls and a thatched roof which was rapidly being engulfed by fire. Bernard could feel the growing heat on his face. No one else was outside and he heard a door open somewhere else in the house. The masked terrorist, his rifle now slung over his back, ran outside to a tap hidden in a flowerbed of bougainvilleas, and uncoiled a garden hose.
Bernard scrambled out of the bath, nearly slipping in his haste, and pulled on his dirty boxer shorts. He put his eye to the keyhole and smiled for the first time since his abduction. He saw nothing — the key was still in the lock. He looked around him for something to stick in the keyhole. The flushing mechanism on the toilet had long since broken off the top of the cistern and a piece of wire now protruded through the hole in the top of the porcelain cover. He pulled the top off the cistern and unhooked the wire. Next, he tipped Robert’s hair from a sheet of newspaper and slid the paper under the door and poked the wire into the keyhole. ‘Come on, come on,’ he whispered as he jiggled. The key fell with a clatter and he held his breath. Hopefully it hadn’t bounced off the newspaper. He pulled the sheet to him. ‘Yes!’ he exclaimed as the key slid under the door. Picking it up in his cuffed hands he almost dropped it in his anxiety. He turned the key in the lock and the door opened.
Bernard quickly grabbed a towel and dried his feet, leaving a pink stain. He didn’t want to leave footprints on the polished floor of the house and make it easer for his captor to trace his movements, but his soles still oozed blood. So be it. He moved quickly down the hallway. ‘Robert?’ There was no answer from the first door. He moved past the room where he had been imprisoned and stopped by the next. ‘Robert, it’s Bernard. Are you in there?’ In answer came murmuring from the other side and the noise of metal rattling on metal.
Bernard tried the bathroom door key in the lock and, to his surprise, it worked. This was hardly state-of-the-art security, but the terrorists were also relying on their prisoners being bound and gagged most of the time. Robert lay on his back, dressed only in underpants, on the bare springs of an iron-framed bed, his wrists and ankles handcuffed to the frame. Bernard moved to him and untied the hessian hood, then peeled off the duct tape from the politician’s mouth. His head had been shaved close to bald, the skin of his scalp showing purest white against his tanned face.
‘Thank god,’ Robert Greeves said, working his jaw. ‘What’s happening?’
‘Fire outside. Looks like there’s only one man guarding us.’ Bernard tugged on Greeves’s handcuffs then ran his hand along the bed frame.
Greeves turned his head to follow Bernard’s hands. ‘It’s solid — same as the one I was on when they, when they…’
‘It’s all right. I’ll get you out of here somehow.’
‘How?’
Bernard’s panic was mounting. Greeves was right. He was cuffed to a solidly welded frame. Without a key, or bolt cutters to sever the handcuffs’ chain, Greeves was trapped. They couldn’t even remove the bed’s head and foot as these, too, had been welded to the spring base. ‘Oh, shit.’
‘Bernard, listen to me.’ Bernard ran a hand through his hair in frustration and looked down at Greeves. His eyes took in the man’s injuries. Blue-black bruising about his chest and abdomen, bloodied feet — like his — and dried blood all down his left leg from below the knee. It looked as though they had cut him there. Greeves’s eyes were bright, though. Defiant. ‘Bernard, get out. Now!’
‘No, Robert, I can’t leave you, I — ’
‘Listen to me. This is an order, Bernard. You know you can’t get me out of here and you probably only have a few minutes before the guard comes back. You must get away and find help. If he’s alone he won’t be able to move me until the others come back. Did you hear the vehicle leave earlier?’
Bernard nodded. ‘But, Robert — ’
‘Shut up, man. The quicker you go, the better chance I’ve got.’
‘I’ll overpower him, get his gun and shoot the chain off your cuffs.’ Bernard turned to move.
‘No! Stay here and listen to me, damn it. He’s got an assault rifle. If you botch it, then we’re both dead. The best chance you have is to get away and get help, Bernard. I’m more valuable to them alive than dead. Go now, before it’s too late. With luck you can organise a rescue while this chap’s still on his own.’
Bernard looked back at the door, expecting the guard to return any second. He smelled the smoke, which was stronger now, though he heard the spray of the hose. He took Greeves’s chained right hand in his and squeezed tight. ‘You’re right, damn it. God be with you, Robert.’
‘I’ve got you, haven’t I? That’s all I need.’ He forced a smile, then it vanished from his face. ‘If, well… just tell Janet and the kids I love them. And tell the PM these bastards can go fuck themselves.’ Bernard smiled down at him, feeling the first tears prick the corners of his eyes. ‘I’m sure Helen will massage that into something more palatable and patriotic for the media, but you get the general idea.’
‘I do.’
‘Then go. Hurry. Get help.’
Reluctantly, Bernard replaced the duct tape and hood, and closed and locked the door. If they didn’t know he had been in Robert’s room, perhaps they would go easier on the minister. He paused in the hallway near the covered window and unpicked some tape holding plastic sheeting over the glass. He peered outside and saw the terrorist had nearly extinguished the blazing thatch. He was continually glancing back towards the main building, no doubt worried about what Bernard was getting up to. If he could find a weapon, he thought again, he could kill the bastard, get his gun, and free Robert. The idea of abandoning him cut him to the core. Bernard heard the sound of a motor vehicle’s engine, and the courtyard and garden outside were suddenly bathed in white light from the headlamps.
‘Shit.’ The pick-up had returned. Bernard ran down the hall and tried the door at the far end. It was open. He looked in and saw what must have once been the villa’s lounge room, with a kitchen off to one side. Instead of furniture, though, was the equipment needed for making a video — a camera on a tripod, lights on a frame, a white sheet with green Arabic writing stuck to one wall as a backdrop. There was also a laptop computer on a desk and a satellite phone, with a separate antenna plugged into it.
Bastards. If nothing else, he’d slow down their propaganda effort and cut their communications. He looked around for something heavy and found a stout metal carry case. He put the laptop on the floor and pounded it with a corner of the heavy box. After doing so twice more, the thing looked wrecked. He unplugged the satellite phone and heard raised voices outside. He would have smashed the camera as well but he had to move. The men were arguing, accusations flying.
Clutching the phone, Bernard let himself out the kitchen door, into the warm, black tropical night, taking deep, greedy breaths of sea air as he ran down a sandy track.
There was no moon, which was good for him. Around him was only blackness — no other lights except the glare from the truck’s headlights and the sparks from the nearly extinguished fire being sucked high into the sky. He kept moving away from the house, allowing his eyes to become accustomed to the night. He paused and sniffed again, his nose and the wind guiding him to the sea. He turned and ran for it, like a turtle scurrying across the sands to find refuge from its predators. His feet squeaked on fine sand that glowed white despite the absence of natural or artificial light. Bernard’s progress slowed as he climbed a tall dune, his aching feet slipping in the soft sand.
When he reached the summit, which was thickly vegetated on either side of the pathway, he saw the Indian Ocean. The water was calm, telling him that there was a reef out there somewhere, protecting the beach from waves. The tide was high and the waters lapped to within ten metres of the base of the dune he was standing on. He ploughed down the hill, slipping and rolling the last few metres before dragging his aching body upright again. His tracks would easily be visible in the soft sand near the high-water mark, so he sprinted straight to the water. The warm salt water stung the raw wounds on his feet, but he knew it was doing him good. The terrorists would find his tracks to the water, but would not know whether he had turned left to the north, or right to the south. If nothing else this small ruse would split their forces. Water splashed up to his chest as he ran, knees high, legs pistoning as he drew on hidden reserves of strength, fuelled by pure adrenaline. If it came to it, he would swim out to sea, though he didn’t want to lose the satellite phone if he could help it. As he jogged he fiddled with it, eventually finding an on switch.
His mind raced as he tried to remember a phone number — any one — to call. He didn’t know what the local number for emergency services was, or how to dial it from a satellite phone. Although he had an IQ bordering on genius level, Bernard now could not for the life of him recall the switchboard number of Greeves’s office, or of the Houses of Parliament. ‘Bloody stupid,’ he panted. Then he thought of Helen. How could he forget her extension — 6969. It was a running joke throughout Westminster, but one the New Zealander took in good humour. At least he knew how to dial out of a foreign country, remembering the code for England — 44 — and the first few digits of their work telephone number. Would Helen be there at this time of night? He bloody well hoped their predicament was keeping the poor girl at work all hours.
He pushed send and, after some strange pips and beeps, was rewarded with a ring tone.
‘Helen MacDonald.’ She sounded weary.
‘It’s Bernard!’
‘Bernard? My god! Where are you — where’s Robert? Is he…’
Quickly he stilled her questions and explained, still moving through the shallow water at a trot. He could give her no information about his whereabouts other than that he was on a beach and guessed he was in Mozambique. ‘What’s your number?’
‘I have no bloody idea. Give me someone else to call…’
‘Who?’
He tried to focus. He would need someone local, who could relay messages to whomever was coordinating any search and rescue operation. ‘Tom Furey. Give me his cell phone number now and I’ll key it in while we talk. I’ve got no idea how long the battery will last on this thing. Stay at your desk, Helen, and I’ll call you as soon as I find someone to tell me where the hell I am.’
‘I’m going nowhere.’
He told her to get a pen and paper, then gave her a quick briefing about the number of men who had kidnapped them, their weaponry and a rough layout of the house where Greeves was still held prisoner.
‘Okay, got all that,’ she said when he paused for breath again. ‘There’s an SAS team in South Africa waiting to move as soon as they get the word. Blast, but I don’t have their numbers. Furey ended up in Mozambique somewhere — and caused a hell of a fuss in the process. By the time you call back after phoning him, I’ll have all the contact details you need. Are you all right, Bernard?’
His feet felt like raw meat and his whole body throbbed in pain, but he was alive and doing something. ‘I’m fine. It’s Robert we have to worry about.’
Tom sat at the tiny dining table in the camp-ground chalet and pored over their simplistic tourist map of Mozambique. He slapped at a mosquito that had landed on his neck.
Sannie saw the stress in Tom’s knotted shoulders. Despite the killer insects, he was shirtless in the evening heat. She set a can of cold Coke down on the table beside him and he opened it without taking his eyes off the map.
‘That was nice of you before,’ he said, sipping the drink.
‘What was?’
‘When you prayed with the old couple.’
‘I’m not overly religious, but my mom takes the kids to church and Sunday school. I go when I’m not working.’
She thought he was probably referring to the way in which she had taken his hand, but there was nothing intimate or sexual in the gesture. It was the way her mother prayed when they ate their meals together as an extended family, though, with her dad and her husband gone, it never really felt as though the circle of hands was fully joined. It had been nice, though, to hold Tom’s hand, if only for a minute. It was as if she was sharing some of his burden, letting some of his pain and angst flow into her. From the look of him she thought he could do with a neck and shoulder massage as well, but she didn’t want to risk touching him. ‘At least we know whose side Carla was on now,’ she said, changing the subject.
In Xai Xai both of their cell phones could get reception and Tom had spoken to the commander of the hostage recovery force, an SAS major, and his superior, Shuttleworth, a short time ago. Although for security reasons they were careful about how they described the rescue force in their telephone conversation, he had told her after he got off the phone that the special forces team was at Hoedspruit in case the terrorists’ location was pinpointed. Shuttleworth had also relayed from Isaac Tshabalala, for both their benefits, that Carla Sykes had boarded a flight to Maputo, Mozambique after leaving Tinga.
‘I know the police here have been alerted, but she was probably a long way from Maputo by the time they got the word. You know, Sannie, it was all a bit hazy for me the other night, but nothing — ’
‘Tom, this isn’t the time or the place. I can accept that Carla probably drugged you, but the fact is that you let her come to your room voluntarily and, whether anything happened or not, there was intent. As I told you after the first time, what you do in your own time doesn’t concern me. The fact that it looks like Carla was working for the terrorists changes nothing.’
He started to say something else, but she knew the look on her face was enough to silence him. It worked on her kids and it used to work on Christo as well. He had laughed about it often enough. Besides, she didn’t want to go over old ground with Tom now. Part of what she said was true — what concerned her was that, drugged or not, he had not resisted Carla. However, she realised that what he did on his own time actually did concern her. Her feelings for him were growing stronger — she couldn’t deny it. She admired his doggedness, and whether it was the tension, the excitement, the adrenaline of the pursuit or just his physical presence, right now she felt more alive by his side than she had since Christo’s death. Her husband would have liked Tom, she decided, and was pleased she could think of the two men without feeling that she was betraying her husband.
Her heart went out to Tom, too, seeing him sitting there, staring at the map as though it would suddenly yield some previously unthought-of solution. As with any police investigation, what they needed was a break — some vital clue to fall into their laps — and there was little use driving endlessly up and down the Mozambican coastline while they waited for it, even though that would give them something to do in the morning.
Sannie rested her chin in the palm of her hand as she sat at the table, looking at Tom. She was angry at herself, but there was nothing she could do to stifle the realisation that she hadn’t only crossed the border with him because she empathised with his living through the worst scenario a protection officer could face. She was also there because she cared about and wanted to be with him.
When Sannie had checked her messages she found she had two missed calls from Isaac Tshabalala. She had taken a call from her boss. Wessels had told her that she was officially reprimanded for ignoring the Skukuza police commander’s orders and she could expect a slap on the wrist from him for crossing the border with a foreigner suspected of drug possession on an unofficial investigation. Unofficially, he wished her luck, told her to come home as soon as she could, and to make sure she kept herself safe. ‘Think of your kids, Sannie. Don’t let that Englishman put you in danger.’
His warning was and wasn’t fair. She did owe it to her children not to take unnecessary risks — and this assignment certainly fell into that category — but she resented the fact that Wessels had all but accused her of being a bad mother. He was kind, and a good boss, but, as far as romance went, there would never be anything again between her and Henk.
Tom’s phone rang again. He answered it, listened for a few seconds, and when he jumped up knocked over both of their drinks, spilling them all over the maps.