Книга Legacy - читать онлайн бесплатно, автор James Steel. Cтраница 4
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Legacy
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Legacy

The other two sat down and resumed taking notes. Kalil clicked up a map of the country and its neighbours on the screen.

‘OK, so as you can see the country at the heart of Africa is roughly triangular, with the Democratic Republic of Congo running along its base here, the Ubangi River forms much of that border,’ he traced it with his finger, ‘Sudan up here to the northeast, and Chad over there to the northwest. We’re going to be here in the southeast bit in Mbomou Province.

‘Now, as I am sure you are aware, like a lot of failed states, CAR is not so much a country as a platform for criminal activity. It is completely wrong to apply the idea of a nation state to it because the central government has virtually no control outside the capital and a few of the main towns. The rest of the country is controlled by rebel groups, criminal gangs and tribal militias.’

He looked down at his notepad to check his facts.

‘So, in the shitty country stakes CAR is right up there with the best of them: the IMF ranks it a hundred and sixty-eighth poorest in the world, out of a hundred and seventy-five. A lot of that is due to there being either civil war and no government, or peace and a government that steals everything.’ He shrugged at the irony. ‘Total population of about three million and a lot of them are around the capital, Bangui, giving the country a very low overall population density. To put that in context for you Brits; it’s five times the size of England but with fourteen times fewer people living in it.’

‘So basically, what yer saying is that it’s a whole lot of fook all,’ said Col, scratching his jaw thoughtfully.

‘I guess that’s right.’

Col wrote something down on his pad.

Alex kept his face straight but winced internally. He valued Col for his direct nature but he wished he wouldn’t let it rip during their client’s introductory briefing.

Kalil got going again.

‘The terrain is mainly flat with semi-desert in the north, then savannah and finally dense rainforest in the Ubangi River basin in the south. That’s us,’ again he smiled at his audience, ‘nice and hot and humid.

‘Economy is nearly all subsistence farming although it does have a lotta diamonds, gold, uranium, and other minerals, but these are largely unexploited because transport links are so poor … apart from our friends here.’ He tapped the area of the map where the mine was.

‘And finally, some relevant recent history: French Equatorial Africa got its independence in 1958 and then there was the usual story of one crappy dictator replacing another, although,’ he held up an index finger to mark the point, ‘from 1965 to 1976 they did succeed in having one of the more entertaining guys — Emperor Bokassa — saw himself as an African Napoleon — spent twenty-two million dollars on his coronation, including twenty-four thousand bottles of champagne.’ He raised his eyebrows. ‘Some party.

‘Eventually, even the French got pissed with him and pulled their troops out, so he turned to Colonel Gaddafi for money and military training — the Libyans themselves were after his uranium deposits.

‘After Bokassa was overthrown there was a long civil war with heavy fighting, diseases and banditry spreading across the country. Troops from Libya, Chad and rebel groups from the Congo all got involved. Ended up with General Bozize toppling Ange Patassé and declaring himself President,’ he shut his notebook decisively, ‘of what was left.’

Alex leaned back in his chair and looked at Kalil. ‘So, what you’re saying is it’s a bloody mess?’

Kalil was suddenly ashamed of his flippancy. He nodded. ‘Ya … it’s a mess. OK, that’s enough to start planning the campaign on. Let’s take a break there.’

The other two nodded. Col needed a cigarette and Kalil had declared the office no smoking. Alex didn’t smoke but wanted a chat with him so they went out into the narrow mews.

‘Col, can I just have a quick word?’ Alex asked as they moved away from the office to confer. ‘There’s something Kalil said that’s bothering me.’ He looked at the short sergeant quizzically. ‘If he’s running diamonds out of Africa for his job, how come he’s never been there?’

17 NOVEMBER, MBOMOU PROVINCE, CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC

There is no more mournful scene than the aftermath of a fire.

The morning air was still. Wisps of smoke twisted up into it from the ashes of the torched village. Everything was burned black and white: the stumps of the hut walls, the kapok tree in the centre, the men and women who had resisted the attack the night before.

Colonel Ninja looked at the burned-out village but was no longer capable of feeling anything for it. He took a slow drag on his cigarette; the sound of a child crying was coming from somewhere nearby; there was a burst of machine-gun fire and it stopped.

His real name was André Kakodamba but that belonged to a person who was no longer alive. He was eighteen now but André had died aged ten when his home village in Congo had been raided by MLC militia. They took away all the children and brutalised them into soldiers; forced to mutilate and murder; each action a blow falling on his soul until it was numbed and his eyes frozen into blocks of ice.

He had killed his own soul. Now all he knew was how to force others to do the same. He had learned that fear was the key to life: fear of being hungry, beaten or shot. Gradually he had learned that it was best to be feared — fear gave you first pick of the food, the drink, the drugs and the girls. Fear was now his friend — the more the better.

He cultivated it in the gang he led: the Muti Boys.

Muti: La Science Africaine, Black Magic. His child soldiers were captured on raids like this and forced to murder their relatives to make them complicit in the gang. They dreamed that in their sleep they would travel to a demi-world to kill and eat human flesh. Awake they were not much better.

He shouted in Sango at a boy dawdling under a tree smoking a joint. ‘Hey, hurry up! Get in the ute!’ and pointed him over to the Toyota that was waiting to drive out of the village ahead of the truck with the prisoners.

The boy was sixteen and dressed in combat trousers, dirty white singlet, round mirror shades and a woman’s curly blonde wig. Muti charms and amulets hung around his neck — Colonel Ninja had told him that the bullets of their enemies would flow off them like water. Ammunition belts for his light machine gun were wrapped around him. He hefted the gun on its sling and stumped over to join his eight friends in the back of the truck. Its windscreen was shattered by three bullet holes and the bonnet had a collection of filthy teddy bears strapped to it as charms.

The boys sat in the back with their legs sticking out over the side, displaying a collection of bare feet and flip-flops; they bristled with RPGs and AK-47s. Tired after their night of destruction and slaughter, they slumped against each other and passed round a plastic bottle of home brew.

Colonel Ninja was tall and heavily muscled; he deliberately fought stripped to the waist to show off his physique to the younger boys. As he slung his PKM machine gun over his shoulder the veins stood out on his biceps. He flicked his cigarette away, scratched his head and walked over to the blue truck behind the Toyota.

It was a battered container lorry specially adapted for its new job with the addition of airholes shot through the sides. They didn’t want anyone suffocating on the way back home. The Boss had said that they needed more labourers; for some reason they kept dying in the mine; coughing up blood and wasting away.

‘They all in?’ he asked the boy standing at the open rear doors, pointing his rifle at the prisoners inside; the terrified faces of the men and women stared at him out of the dark.

The boy nodded.

‘Bon, allez!’ Colonel Ninja swung the heavy door shut in their faces and locked it.

SATURDAY 22 NOVEMBER

Here we go again, Alex thought as the plane swept in over the rusty iron roofs and palm trees of the shantytown around the Aéroport de Bangui-M’poko in the capital of Central African Republic.

It was midday and as soon as the door opened, hot African air swept into the cabin like a slick of warm oil. By the time their Air France flight from Paris had disembarked and they had walked over the burning tarmac to the arrivals shed, Alex’s shirt was plastered to him with sweat.

The 1960s terminal was dilapidated and filthy. Windows were broken and chewed sugarcanes, nut husks and litter were piled in corners. The noise from the press of people battered him. The air was thick with the strong smell of body odour.

When he got to the customs desk the uniformed officer looked at him with the quiet stare of a hyena eyeing a gazelle on the savannah.

He tapped the table in front of him with the end of his large truncheon and Alex dutifully dumped his rucksack down. He glanced across to where Col was getting the same treatment at another desk.

Welcome to Africa, he thought, as his baggage was unpacked and items of interest removed. The new MP3 player and bottle of whisky that he had deliberately placed at the top disappeared behind the desk; then Alex accidentally dropped a fifty-dollar bill out of his breast pocket and was through.

‘How’d ya get on?’ said Col as they met up on the other side of customs.

‘Didn’t get anything we need.’ The important kit for the mission was buried at the bottom of their bags.

They scanned the brightly dressed scrum of Africans milling around them.

‘Bienvenue à Bangui, Monsieur Devereux.’

A large black face with three tribal scars cut down each cheek emerged out of the throng. A gigantic hand extended and gave him a soft handshake. ‘Je m’appelle Patrice Bagaza.’

A huge man with an understated manner, as if he was embarrassed by his size, he averted his eyes as he shook Alex’s hand. He was wearing a long red and green print shirt, jeans and flip-flops.

‘Bonjour,’ said Alex carefully.

Monsieur ‘Waites.’ Patrice didn’t attempt to pronounce the ‘Th’ at the start of his name and shook Col’s hand as well. He then turned and shouted in Sango to make a path through the crowd.

Patrice’s bulk forced a way and the two men followed in his wake, loaded down with rucksacks. Their visa said they were here to go big-game hunting and they were dressed in lightweight outdoor gear: boots, walking trousers, slouch hats and tan waistcoats with lots of pockets.

Once they were through the chaos of the terminal, Patrice led them across the road to an old yellow Peugeot estate in the car park.

They stashed their bags in the back with the equipment that Patrice had assembled for them. As he shut the boot he turned to Alex and smiled. ‘Don’t worry, Mr Devereux, I’m not going to make you speak French the whole way. That was just for the plainclothes security police in the crowd; they take an interest in whites coming in.’

Alex was caught off guard by the switch to American-accented English. Kalil had said they would be met by the cartel’s contact but Alex had not been sure what language they would be speaking. Besides, his French was passable from previous ops in Congo.

‘That’s fine,’ he smiled, conscious that he was reliant for now on this man.

They drove into town but Patrice didn’t seem to want to talk; he concentrated on steering them through the manic traffic. Old Peugeots, Renaults and Citroëns wheezed and limped alongside newer Toyotas and Mitsubishis. Trucks and buses were piled up with people and goods, and slouched on their axles; driven at top speed, they swerved around the worst potholes. Patrice was unfazed by it all, and weaved through them on the wide Avenue de I’Indépendance.

Alex and Col opened the windows to try to get a cool breeze but it was like having a hair dryer turned on your face. They looked out at the town; it had the rundown appearance of somewhere that had been taking a battering since its heyday in the 1960s. Most of the houses and buildings dated from then; their peeling whitewash was stained brown with red dust from the earth verges and were pockmarked by bullet holes. All the houses were heavily fortified against the outbreaks of rioting and looting over the years, with crude bars welded over windows and doors. Rubbish was strewn everywhere: plastic bags, newspapers, wrappers and cola nut skins. Sitting on beer crates at the roadside were ‘Gaddafis’ — youths selling stolen petrol from large jars; named after the oil-rich Libyan president, who had interfered in the country so often.

Driving through the centre, they circled the main traffic island. Alex saw it was covered with the distinctive spiky leaves of cassava plants; it had been turned into vegetable plots by civil servants used to being unpaid for months.

They headed out of town on Boulevard de Général de Gaulle, along the north bank of the Ubangi River. Alex looked out across it; it was over a mile wide, a great brown snake coiling through the heart of Africa.

Patrice drove them out east into the bush. The buildings gave way to vegetable patches and then the jungle began to take over. Dirt replaced tarmac, and they bumped past the mud huts of the village of Damara with red dust trailing behind them. A kilometre on and Patrice turned right up a small track to a football pitch surrounded by trees; long grass grew across it and the goal posts sagged at either end.

He parked in the shade out of the fierce sun. The three men got out and began unpacking the kitbags.

‘MP5s, as requested, with silencers,’ said Patrice, as he handed them machine guns. Both men checked them deftly, before pulling off their civilian kit and putting on camouflaged combat jackets and trousers. Alex prowled off round the field to make sure it was secure whilst Col went through the compasses, radios and homing beacons.

Patrice sat and smoked a Gauloise. When Col was satisfied that the kit was in order he sat with his back against a tree and read a biography of CAR’s former ruler, Emperor Bokassa, called Dark Age. Alex waited in the car with his long legs stretched out of the door and read through his maps and notes for the mission.

The hundred-degree heat sat heavily on the field. Nothing had the energy to make a sound. An hour passed and the men waited; Alex occasionally looked up at the sky and checked his watch.

When the distant noise of the helicopter broke the stillness he flicked his eyes at Col. They picked their kit up and readied themselves. Patrice grabbed his holdall out of the boot, then pulled a jerry can out and shook petrol over the inside of the car.

The camouflage-painted Mi-17 roared in; tree-tops thrashing in its wake. Alex never got over the shock of seeing such a huge, ungainly object hanging in midair, as if a bus were hanging over his head. Sunlight flashed off the cockpit windows as the pilot swung it round into the centre of the field and flared to hover two feet off the ground. Alex glimpsed Arkady Voloshin at the controls, cigarette clamped in the corner of his mouth as ever; his eyes narrowed as he scanned the tree line.

The door in the side was open; Yamba Douala crouched in combat gear with a 7.62mm machine gun poking out of the door in case they needed cover.

Grass and dust billowed crazily in the downwash as the two whites ran out through it, hunched under their packs.

Patrice stood back from the Peugeot and flicked his Gauloise into it. The petrol whooshed and then the fuel tank exploded as he ran to join them in the helicopter. Yamba hauled him and his bag inside as the big turbofans lifted them up.

The huge aircraft disappeared east over the trees towards the next phase of the operation.

14 JANUARY 1525, NEUHOF FOREST, HESSE, CENTRAL GERMANY

Dark clouds hung threateningly over the snow-covered forest. A shaft of bleak winter light slid in under them, cold as a knife.

Eberhardt shifted the axe in his hand and stared at the figure slipping between the frosted tree trunks. Everything was still around him; all he could hear was his breathing. Each breath pulsed out, froze in the still air and then descended gently. His beard jutted out, thick with frost.

The weight of the axe felt reassuring. He and Albrecht could not see clearly who was coming along the track that merged with theirs up ahead. In such a remote spot as this, bandits and outlaws were his first fear. He could see only one man, but could there be more? Was he a scout for a gang of brigands coming along behind?

It was two years after the Knights’ War, and Eberhardt and Albrecht’s circumstances had changed greatly.

The war had been a disaster. The Knights’ desperate attempt to try to preserve their status in society had merely hastened their demise. The Imperial Princes had united and crushed them in a few short battles. Eberhardt had fled and lived now as a woodcutter to escape the punishment inflicted on his fellows.

The Princes assumed he was dead and, as he’d been a traitor, his castle and lands had been sold off. If they ever found out he was alive, far worse would be visited on him. He and Albrecht travelled around, surviving on day labour: cutting wood and ditching.

The pair of them wore heavy winter clothing: sheepskin jerkins, broad peasant hats and Bundschuhe, the peasant boots made of strips of leather bound together with thongs. On their backs were their worldly possessions: bedding rolls, cooking pots, and tools. Albrecht stood nervously behind his master, his cooking knife in hand, unsure what to do. He had stayed despite everything. He had no family in Steltzenberg, and with the seizure of Eberhardt’s lands his job was gone as well. His whole life had been one of service and he could not think of any other way. Stoic and dour, he plodded on, focusing on getting his master through one day at a time and trying hard not to think about their problems.

The whole country was in similar dire straits. The growing population led to land shortage so the ordinary folk starved and turned to crime. Riots and attacks on the nobles were common; Germany was in turmoil, hence Eberhardt’s fear as the man approached in the wood.

Eberhardt would not have taken this track by choice but he still feared discovery by the Princes. With the climate of fear, checkpoints had been put across the main roads to look for suspicious characters.

He gripped the axe and filled his deep chest with air, summoning his most commanding tones, and bellowed out at the stranger: ‘Who are you?’

The bellow echoed through the still woods. It died away and silence hung in the air like the clouds of his breath.

‘Thomas the Carpenter, good day to you!’ the man called through the trees, and walked towards Eberhardt and Albrecht. He approached at a steady pace with his hand thrust out in greeting.

Eberhardt was relieved to see that the man looked like a travelling artisan. He was short and slight; wearing undyed woollen hose and a shabby leather coat down to his knees. He had a broad-brimmed felt hat with a grey cloth wrapped round his head against the cold. A satchel was slung over one shoulder with a bedding roll and a cooking pot over the other.

Eberhardt was, without realising it, impressed by the confidence in the strong clear voice and the man’s open-handed approach. The hand he shook was small but the grip was sharp.

‘Eberhardt the Woodcutter,’ he said.

Albrecht could not look him in the eye but muttered, ‘Albrecht the Steward,’ whilst looking down at the man’s hand. He was used to appraising men for work and judging their capabilities. The thin-boned hand had no scars or calluses; it had never plied its trade as a carpenter.

‘Good day to you both. A fine day to be out walking across this great German land of ours,’ breezed the stranger, waving an arm at a shaft of light catching in the snow-laden treetops.

Eberhardt was puzzled by the man’s accent: the cadence was the flattened Schriftdeutsch of the educated élite, not some carpenter’s burr.

The man also had an intriguing face. He was in his mid-thirties, but seemed much older. His face was thin and pinched with hunger; it looked burned out, with large bags under his eyes that had been drawn down where his cheeks had shrunk in the cold. Yet the eyes themselves showed no signs of exhaustion. Indeed, quite the opposite: his glance was quick, taking everything in, his movements rapid and decisive.

‘There is, however,’ he continued, ‘rather a lot of our German nation.’ He indicated the path with an ironic smile and dip of his head. ‘It looks like our paths have joined — shall we?’ He held a hand out to indicate the road ahead.

‘Hmm,’ said Eberhardt, realising that there was no alternative and that the three of them would have to walk together for some time. He handed his axe wordlessly to Albrecht, who strapped it onto his pack and shrugged it back onto his shoulders.

They set off down the path. Eberhardt glanced at the stranger as he tried to work out what he was about. Albrecht tagged along behind. The tension of their sudden coming together made them all edgy and they plunged into conversation to relieve the awkwardness.

‘So where are you headed for?’ Thomas took command of the discussion.

‘Leipzig — I have friends there from …’ Eberhardt was about to say university, but realised that did not fit with his cover story so finished lamely, ‘from before … The German nation, you said,’ he blustered, trying to think of a way off the subject. ‘What do you mean by that?’

This was not just a diversion; the subject was of great interest to him. He had been trying to think who could be the new saviour of Germany ever since the Knights had failed.

‘Well,’ Thomas laughed, ‘Dr Luther and his Protestants would have us believe that we are the new nation of God,’ he said mockingly, ‘rising up to throw out the Whore of Rome!’ He laughed again.

‘It’s not a bad thing to give those Italians a taste of the Bundschuh,’ muttered Eberhardt.

‘No, they haven’t made themselves many friends,’ agreed Thomas, flicking a quick glance at Eberhardt to gauge his expression.

Albrecht had been walking along behind his master, fearing that his lack of discretion about the Knights would give them away. ‘That Luther’s bad news,’ he muttered.

Thomas chuckled again as if he didn’t really understand it all. ‘Well, he says he wants to reform the Church, to take it back to its roots.’

‘Yes, but he says there’s something special about Germans,’ continued Eberhardt, immune to his servant’s subtleties, ‘that God has chosen us to reform the Church and bring light into the darkness that has grown up under these popes.’

‘And what do you think?’ asked Thomas. He shot a sideways look at Eberhardt.

Instinctively he knew who the leader of the pair was, despite Albrecht ostensibly outranking him socially. A steward should not have been deferring to a woodcutter. Equally a woodcutter should not be discussing politics. None of the three of them was fitting his story well.

‘Well, he’s certainly stirred up the whole country,’ Albrecht cut across the question, trying to override Eberhardt’s tactlessness. ‘Stirred ‘em up good and proper down south last summer, he did.’

There had been riots, rent strikes and refusals to pay tithes by the peasants in Franconia, and open rebellion had broken out in the Schwarzwald.

‘Yes, but that’s not Luther, is it?’ Eberhardt turned round to look at Albrecht scornfully. ‘He’s not running round stirring up the peasants, is he? God knows who’s been doing that!’ He looked at Thomas for support.

‘Malefactors!’ said Thomas, and laughed. His tone mocked the term used by the authorities in their proclamations issued against the rebels.

Albrecht fell silent in the face of the rebuke from his master. He had tried what he could to keep him from self-incrimination but he seemed hell-bent on it. Albrecht retreated to following on behind the other two.