Fire Force(12)

Before Steve could say anything, the hostess had secured the doors, and the Cessna was rolling onto the runway. Within seconds the tiny jet had lifted its nose into the air and was climbing steadily into the clear blue sky, then rolled as it twisted south to start what shouldn’t be more than a two-hour flight.

‘We just need to drop Newton off for Dudley,’ said Ollie, glancing towards Steve. ‘They’ve got BA flights from Cape Town every day - we can get home from there.’

As the Cessna steadied itself, hitting its normal cruising altitude of 43,000 feet, the hostess handed around some sandwiches and drinks. There was no alcohol on board, she explained to a disappointed-looking Maksim, just fruit juice and bottled water. The men ate hungrily: Ollie had spent a week in Broken Ridge and had eaten nothing except gruel, leaving him thin and famished. Only Newton picked at his food, removing the crusts and eating only tiny slithers of bread and the grated cheese inside.

‘You must need some decent food by now,’ said Ian, sitting next to the man. ‘I spent a few years in the Maze, and the British prison grub was pretty bad, but nothing on that place.’

‘I can’t eat too much, too quickly,’ answered Newton, in little more than a whisper. ‘After ten years without any proper food and no natural light . . . it’s going to take time to get my body back to normal. Eat too quickly, and I’ll just make myself sick.’

‘So where are you from, exactly?’ asked Steve, sitting across the narrow aisle from the two men.

‘Batota,’ said Newton. His eyes flashed up to meet Steve’s and you could see the intelligence and strength of the man in that single look. The name meant very little to Steve - just one more former colony in Africa now ruled by a brutal madman.

‘So how in God’s name did you end up in that hell-hole?’

‘Different wars, man,’ said Newton, with a nonchalant toss of his bony shoulder. ‘I came out of Batota and I didn’t know how to do anything other than fight. This is Africa, so there’s always work for a soldier, as long as you don’t complain about the food or the pay and you don’t mind getting shot at. Angola, the Congo, Uganda, then Sierra Leone.’ He chuckled softly to himself. ‘You just point at the map, I’ve probably fought there.’

‘Until Equatorial Guinea . . .’ pressed Ian.

Newton moulded a fragment of cheese between his fingers then slipped it into his mouth. ‘I don’t suppose anyone’s got any cigarettes, have they?’

‘You’ve been in the nick too long, mate,’ said Steve. ‘No one smokes any more - and certainly not on a plane.’

Newton smiled, but remained silent.

‘Tell us how you found your way to Broken Ridge and maybe we can find you some cigarettes,’ said Ian.

‘There was a coup attempt,’ the man said carefully. ‘The country is always a target. Small army, and lots of oil - that makes it vulnerable. A force was being put together to topple the government, and I was one of the scouts, going in ahead to assess the opposition. But we were poorly led, disorganised. I got captured, and the rest of the guys just melted away.’

‘This is what, in ninety-eight, ninety-nine?’

‘Ninety-nine,’ Newton sighed.

‘So why is someone paying all this money, after all this time, to get you out?’ asked Ian.

Newton’s eyes rolled up to look at him. ‘I’ve been through a lot of wars, a lifetime of bloodshed,’ he answered. ‘You see things, you hear things. But I’ve no idea who you guys are, or why you’ve broken me out of jail. No one cared a damn about me before, and I don’t know why they should do so now.’

Steve glanced out of the window of the Cessna. They were cruising at altitude over the arid wastelands that made up the Kalahari Desert. All you could see was sand for hundreds of miles in every direction.

No, nothing about this job made any sense, he thought once again.

And pretty soon I reckon we’re going to find out why that is.





Five

BRUCE DUDLEY SHOOK EACH MAN warmly by the hand. ‘Well done, boys,’ he said crisply. ‘They said no man could ever get out of Broken Ridge. Not alive, anyway.’

‘But when it comes to the impossible, Dudley Emergency Forces always gets the job done,’ said Ollie.

‘Good one,’ said Bruce. ‘I might even put it in the brochure.’

The Cessna had landed ten minutes earlier at Cape Town International. The pilot had taxied towards the private aircraft hangar, pulling up alongside a row of light aircraft flown by local amateurs. Dudley came on board to check everyone was OK, and to give Newton some temporary papers which, with the help of a generous bribe, would get him through immigration. Dudley was wearing the same cream chinos and green Ralph Lauren polo shirt he always wore, but his leathery Sergeant’s skin was more tanned than usual and there was a glimmer in his eye that suggested to Steve that Newton was worth a lot more than he had even told Ollie.