Dark Heart Read online

  ‘Ado, could you look for a book of tide tables?’ she asked. ‘Start in the drawers in here. It’ll be quite a small book with columns of figures showing dates and times . . .’ She stopped, almost ready to curse herself. There were probably charts and everything up in these drawers. Why hadn’t she thought to search through them earlier? But then she gave a shrug. Nellie and she had made it this far. Nothing they were likely to find aboard could have helped them do any better. Thanks to Esan, they were even well supplied with guns.

  But Ado’s search revealed nothing. The whole of Nellie seemed to have been cleaned out – to such an extent, Anastasia at last decided, that the flip-flops and T-shirt she was wearing must have belonged to the new crew and not the old one.

  While Ado searched and Esan stayed as watchkeeper in the bow, the sun set straight ahead, seeming to quench itself in the watery vista like a hot coal in a bucket. And night came. It was as sudden as that. Anastasia was struck by the speed of it yet again. Particularly as it robbed her of vital vision just when she needed it most. ‘Stay where you are, Esan’ she called.

  ‘But I can see nothing . . .’

  ‘We’ll fix that. Ado, can you climb up and switch the searchlight on. Then you can go on to the bow with Esan and help him keep watch.’

  Ado scurried up aloft and the light came on in a flash. Then Anastasia was edified by the sight of the two teenagers sitting side by side, trying to keep their eyes peeled and their hands off each other. Young love, she thought. Isn’t it just wonderful? She rolled her eyes in amused despair, suddenly feeling very old indeed.

  And just on that very thought, she saw the brightness behind the island trees. The kids probably didn’t see it because they were looking in the water dead ahead. It was a pale brightness, flickering because of the way the vegetation in front of it was moving. It might have seemed ethereal, almost ghostly to some. But not to Anastasia. She knew what it was at once. There was another boat on the river, somewhere just beyond the island. Probably heading upstream, judging by the light. But another boat. With a radio, no doubt – a way to get the news about the Army of Christ the Infant out even sooner than the people at Malebo could – if their fears about their cellphone and Internet access were true.

  ‘Esan,’ she called. ‘There’s a boat, over there, just beyond the island. See if you can attract their attention.’

  ‘HOI!’ bellowed Esan willingly enough.

  ‘It’s “Ahoy!”’ Anastasia advised from the pinnacle of the nautical wisdom Captain Christophe had given her. ‘“Ahoy the boat!”’

  ‘AHOY THE BOAT!’ bellowed Esan like a bull being led to the slaughter.

  But there was no reply.

  ‘Keep trying. They’re still coming closer, I think. Ado, come here and see if you can swing the searchlight round. Maybe we can signal with that.’

  But as Esan bellowed and Ado scurried up on to the wheelhouse roof, the trees on the island separating the two boats thickened and grew taller. The light from the southern channel came and went increasingly fitfully. The beam that Ado swung to port simply seemed to reflect back off wall after wall of foliage.

  ‘This simply isn’t getting through!’ shouted Esan at last, and he vanished back into the aft section behind the wheelhouse.

  She had no idea what he was doing until the AK gave its familiar ear-splitting rattle seemingly just behind her head. The reflective leaves flashed yellow and red back along with the steady white of the searchlight as he emptied a full clip into the air. ‘Esan!’ Anastasia shouted. ‘Stop! They’ll think we’re shooting at them!’

  ‘Fine!’ Esan shouted back. ‘So maybe they’ll come looking for us! Then we’ll make contact after all!’

  But nothing happened. The light beyond the islands went out. Ado killed their own light and the three of them strained to see any sign of pursuit. But there was nothing. After five minutes, Anastasia’s nerve broke. ‘Ado, switch the searchlight back on and point it straight ahead. Then I want the pair of you back in the bow keeping watch.’

  The incident did not quite have no effect or aftermath. It galvanized Anastasia into pushing the throttle forward and taking the next section of the river a good deal faster than she would otherwise have done. And she got Ado and Esan to take turns to stand up on the wheelhouse roof for five minutes every half hour or so, swinging the bright beam left and right. So she clearly saw one of the last landmarks on the northern shore – the burned-out ruin of a casino with the mouldering wreckage of an old sternwheeler paddle boat beached in front of it. This was the point at which the single-track road from Malebo turned itself into a multi-lane highway, she remembered. It was also, more famously, the point from which General Julius Chaka had launched the last stage of his attack on Granville Harbour. A popular uprising led by T80 main battle tanks that had toppled his opponent Liye Banda and established Celine’s father as president. Was there any way at all that she could get to President Chaka with news about the invasion of his country and the wounding of his daughter?

  Only an hour or so to go. Then, perhaps she would find out.

  And so it was that Nellie came alongside the jetty at Granville Harbour a little before midnight. A full fat moon had risen behind her like a silver sun, so Anastasia had no trouble jumping on to the deserted jetty and mooring Nellie safely. Then she leaped back aboard and went below to discuss things with the other two, suddenly a little hesitant, almost scared by the situation she now found herself in. There was no official welcome to the inland section of the port – no customs or registration formalities. If there was a harbour master, he was asleep in bed. There was probably a security team watching the gin-palaces in the private marina, but a battered old riverboat with three youngsters aboard was far beneath their notice. No one of authority seemed interested in them at all.

  ‘I’ll have to go into the city itself,’ said Anastasia. ‘Find someone who can get the alert out to the authorities. You two will have to stay here. Esan, you can’t even dream of showing your face, just in case. Ado, you’d be best to stay with him. Neither of you have any papers or anything. You could get into a world of trouble out there.’

  ‘You’ve got no papers either,’ countered Ado. ‘What’s to stop you getting into trouble?’

  Nothing, thought Anastasia. Nothing at all. ‘I’ll be fine,’ she said, with much more confidence than she felt. ‘I’ll just try and find a police patrol or something. Once I get in contact with anyone from the police, security or the army I should be able to get some kind of alert out. All you two have to do is wait for me to come back. But try and keep an eye out. If anyone you don’t know comes this way, then slip the mooring and head off. Do not under any circumstances start using the guns again.’

  As Anastasia walked warily along the jetty in the moonlight, she looked about her in shock and confusion. She remembered this place well – her last visit had been six months or so ago. What had happened in the meantime? It looked as though a hurricane had hit it. The buildings appeared to be little better than the ruins of Citematadi. Certainly all the street lighting was out. Had the moon and stars not been so bright tonight she would hardly have been able to find her way. But things improved at the inland end of the compound. There were occasional street lights here and, although she wasn’t familiar with the city, it wasn’t too hard to work out what was what. The long, quiet road leading along the rear of the wrecked office compound led eventually to a fenced-off area filled with yellow security lighting. She went straight towards this, reasoning that there must be some kind of a guard there – someone she could start with.

  But before she managed to get to the security gate, however, she was distracted by something else. It was a bar called OTI. As she passed the door, there was a tremendous cheer and a cacophony of laughing and applause. Intrigued, she looked in. She saw a long bar down one side of a low-ceilinged, square room with a stage at the far end and a range of boxes opposite the bar. A woman wearing no clothes whatsoever was just leaving the stage. Between the
door and the stage there was a floor packed with tables and chairs, all of which seemed to be filled with drunken men. Some of them were in naval whites. She stepped in, thinking that a naval officer – even a drunk one – might be a better place to start than a security guard.

  She had only gone a few feet before she stopped, simply frozen with surprise. She knew the men sitting at the nearest table. It was Nellie’s old crew. And the man opposite her, his face clear and unmistakable even in the smoke-filled gloom, was the captain. ‘Captain Christophe? Is that you?’ she asked in simple, overwhelming relief. ‘Captain Christophe?’ she called. ‘It’s me, Anastasia Asov. I thought you were dead!’

  ‘Dead?’ he demanded, surging unsteadily to his feet. ‘Who says I’m dead?’

  ‘No one,’ she answered shortly. ‘But when we found Nellie . . .’

  ‘Nellie.’ He subsided sadly. ‘Ah Nellie. My poor Nellie! Where is she now?’

  ‘She’s at the end of the jetty,’ Anastasia answered matter-of-factly. ‘I’ve just moored her there. Listen. Captain Christophe, you have to help me . . .’ She stopped. The old man was staring at her simply horrified.

  ‘You have her? You moored her? Then where are the men I sold her to? They were bad men, those ones! The sort who chop off hands like the Rwandan Interahamwe. They’ll come after Nellie, mark my words. After you too, if you stole her. Maybe . . . Maybe they’ll come after me!’ He surged to his feet again, staring down at the horrified woman. ‘After me!’ he repeated, and he punched her full in the face. ‘What have you done?’ he roared. ‘What have you done?’

  One of the navy men took him by the shoulder. ‘What are you doing, old man?’ he asked. ‘You can’t go round punching women like that . . .’

  He would have said more, but the terrified Captain Christophe rounded on him with a wild haymaker that floored him at once. Then, before Anastasia could grasp what was really going on, she was in the middle of a full-blown punch-up.

  After all she had been through, this seemed like the final straw. She crawled under a table, closed her eyes and curled into the smallest, tightest ball she could. Which is where she was when the police arrived. The drunken brawl was quelled in an instant and the main protagonists dragged off to a paddy wagon waiting outside. And Anastasia might have stayed hidden under her table, had the young officer who tried to protect her not asked, ‘Hey! Where’s the woman who started all this? The one the old guy punched in the face?’

  Five minutes later, she was with the others in the back of the wagon. She fought the overwhelming desire to shout, scream, swear at the aggrieved naval lieutenant. To punch the comatose Captain Christophe in the face as he deserved. To try and get someone to listen to a story she knew was going to sound frankly unbelievable. She sat in silence and cudgelled her brains therefore, until the wagon stopped, the doors opened and she was swept on to the next level of helplessness.

  Half an hour later, her next opportunity to sit and think things through arrived – she was alone in a cell in the nearest police station to OTI, which, as it happened was police headquarters. She was charged with affray. She was charged with having no ID or papers. The others were slung in a communal holding area. She was photographed and led to a single cell deep in the cellars of the building. It was chilly, badly lit, very basic. There was a pallet bed to sit on or lie on, a stainless steel washstand and beside it a stainless steel toilet with no seat. She would have used the toilet but she couldn’t get over the feeling that she was being watched. So she sat, stunned by the enormity of the misfortune that had overtaken her, praying that the men who chopped off hands had not yet noticed that Nellie was moored at the end of the jetty, when the door opened.

  She was so stressed that she actually screamed. Screamed again, even as her reeling mind registered that she knew the man in army officer’s uniform, with his clipped moustache and Denzel Washington good looks.

  ‘Good evening, Miss Asov,’ said Colonel Laurent Kabila quietly. ‘Welcome to Granville Harbour. I’m sorry your reception has been so upsetting so far but I’m sure we can improve things for you very soon. I think you had better come with me . . .’

  SIXTEEN

  Manpads

  ‘No,’ whispered Caleb. ‘It is out of the question. I will simply not allow you to accompany us.’ He, like the team assembled to go ashore, was wearing body armour and a tin helmet. He was armed with a sidearm – as was Sanda – while the others carried semi-automatic rifles. Both officers also carried massive flash lamps.

  But Caleb was staying aboard for the moment – as was Robin. This wasn’t a TV programme – the commander stayed aboard and in command; guests did not go running willy-nilly into dangerous situations. He had other officers whose job was to go ashore and other responsibilities beyond indulging the adventurous desires of his passengers. But he would be following them the instant it was safe for him to do so. He was a ‘lead from the front’ commander to his fingertips. The problem was, so was Robin.

  ‘That seems sensible, Robin,’ added Bonnie, nervously, her voice breathy and scarcely audible above the grumbling motor. ‘This stretch of the river’s supposed to be deserted and now suddenly we have folks shooting at us and setting fire to stuff. If the president had known about all this he would never have sent us, I’m sure. And I’m equally certain he wouldn’t want us going ashore and nosing around in burned-out buildings.’

  ‘I can handle myself,’ persisted Robin. ‘I proved that when we turned the corvette round and got her out of trouble. And I’m trained to Accident and Emergency standard in first aid – that makes me the closest to a medic you have.’

  ‘Even so,’ said Caleb, his quiet voice ringing with finality, ‘I’m not going to let you go ashore now. It will almost certainly be dangerous – even if all we’re doing is going into a smouldering boathouse – and I simply don’t want to put you at risk.’

  As they spoke, Lieutenant Sanda was watching the helmsman bring the Shaldag gingerly into the cavernous opening of the burned building. Her engines were running as close to silent as possible, just giving the vessel headway against the restless current downriver of the cataract. There was an order for silent running aboard – as though this were a submarine. FPB004 was also in darkness, as anonymous and nearly invisible as she was silent. For Caleb was correct, thought Robin grimly, scanning the boathouse they were approaching though narrow eyes. This all looked wrong on so many levels.

  The front of the building was gone but the back of it remained relatively unscathed. There had once obviously been a covered wooden jetty along one side, reaching out into the river, but all that remained of it was the concrete posts it had stood on and one or two beams above, outlined against the starry sky. Behind the posts, the concrete floor of the main area was littered with chunks of charcoal. But the thick, rough slabs seemed solid still. The roof above them was burned back to a ragged line of timbers that stood above what seemed to be an internal lean-to. An office, perhaps, or a storeroom. But it was difficult to see details even under the moonlight.

  Caleb turned away from Robin, his armour creaking, its Velcro fastenings rasping. ‘Put on the searchlight and get ready to go ashore,’ he ordered, and suddenly the interior of the place was lit by the stark white illumination of a hospital operating theatre.

  ‘Can you put her against the concrete?’ asked Caleb, no longer keeping his voice down – the need for stealth over as soon as the light went on.

  ‘Yes sir,’ answered the helmsman. ‘But there’s nothing to moor her to.’

  ‘Use the engine to hold her in place. Mr Sanda, you and the men I’ve detailed will go on my order. I will follow on your all clear.’ He turned back to Robin. ‘If it’s safe when I’ve checked it out for myself then I’ll call you ashore for a quick look around,’ he promised. ‘Or if there’s anyone needing tending in a secure location. In the meantime, stay aboard and inside, please.’

  ‘Thanks a bunch,’ she answered.

  Richard would have known from her tone that sh
e had no intention of doing what she was told. But Caleb’s experience with women was relatively slight, so he took this as acquiescence. He turned away from her and signalled to Lieutenant Sanda, who ran silently out of the bridge, crossed the deck and leaped ashore with the four men detailed for the first recce.

  Robin followed them out on to the deck, but stopped at the rail, looking after the little commando unit as they went forward in practised formation, scouting carefully ahead and moving from one secure firing position to the next. After a heartbeat she returned to stand by Caleb on the bridge, inside, as he had ordered, listening to Sanda reporting back to the captain at every step, even though he and the shore party were etched against the brightness like saints in a stained-glass window. Within three minutes they had crossed the concrete floor. Then Sanda hit the door to the lean-to office, and vanished inwards. After a second, his torch went on, its light varying the lambency in the mirror surface of the internal window. Shadows moved against the frosted glass like some kind of magic trick or theatrical effect. They stooped, twisted, turned. ‘Men down,’ came his terse report. ‘Not ours. Strangers. Five here. Some uniforms. Look like UN but hard to say. Pretty torn-up. Something’s not right. There’s a back door half open. Checking further . . .’ The light went out. The window became a flat mirror once again.

  That was enough for Caleb. He ran out of the bridge and leaped nimbly ashore. Robin followed him to the deck rail and hesitated. She could still hear Sanda’s voice coming quietly from the relay on the bridge behind her. ‘Back of the building deserted. But there’s a truck. UN markings. Checking inside . . . Oshi! What is this? . . .’ The torchlight in the office deepened the window once again as Caleb’s shadow hurried through.