Fire Force(26)

Steve strolled back to his lodge, collected his trunks and walked down towards the beach. There was a slight breeze but the night air was still warm. He splashed into the waves and swam out fifty feet. There was a heavy swell in the water, and he could feel the currents whipping across him. As he turned around and swam back to the shore, the waves were breaking over him in strong, powerful gusts, and it was only when he stood up and cleared the water from his eyes that he saw the woman standing in front of him.

She was wearing a white bikini which, in the pale moonlight, only highlighted the soft golden tan of her skin.

‘Where were you?’ said Steve, taking her in his arms.

‘I didn’t want to come to the party,’ she said. There was a smile playing on her lips.

‘Shy?’

Sam shook her head, letting her long pale hair catch the breeze blowing in from the sea. ‘I fuck better when I’m sober,’ she said.

Christ, thought Steve to himself. You could spend a lifetime looking for perfection in a woman, and not get any closer than this.

He pressed her lips close to his mouth and could feel her tongue flicking up to meet his. Her grip was strong, and her lips salty as she led him away to a small cove on the side of the beach where a circle of black rocks formed a discreet, natural curtain. Sam was tugging Steve down into the ground, kissing his chest and running her hands down the length of his back.

‘Take me,’ she muttered huskily. ‘Take me right now . . .’

Their lovemaking was quick and urgent. With the waves snaking around their feet, Steve pushed her down into the sand, pressing close to her body until he could hear her start to moan in pleasure. Within minutes, they were lying in each other’s arms, exhausted yet satisfied.

‘There’s something about you,’ Sam said, nestling in his arms. ‘My father would have liked you. He admired soldiers.’

‘I’m nervous,’ said Steve, looking into her huge eyes.

‘Of the mission?’

‘Not that,’ he answered, with a curt shake of the head. ‘I’m worried I might not see you again.’

‘I’ll be in London,’ she said. ‘I spend most of my time there anyway, working with the World Species Fund. We fight for the protection of endangered animals.’

‘Come and see me,’ said Steve.

Her tongue lashed upwards towards his. ‘I’d love to,’ she said, pulling him towards her wet and naked body.

Archie shook each man warmly by the hand as they gathered in the departure lounge of Cape Town Airport. It was time for them to take a short break before the mission - to go home and get organised.

‘I’m bloody grateful to you boys,’ he said. ‘And if there’s anything you need, just ask.’

His eyes were clear and bright, noted Steve. Archie had been plastered on vodka, cognac and beer last night, a combination which in Steve’s experience took a savage revenge on you in the morning, but he looked as fresh as a newly-born butterfly. Nick and Maksim, by contrast, looked like a pair of gutter hounds. Ollie was the only man among them who could really hold his drink, but you needed to keep him as far from the bottle as possible: the man was a liability to both himself and his mates once he had a few drops of the hard stuff in his bloodstream.

‘One question,’ said Ian. ‘You bought some papers recently that belonged to the explorer Charles Simkins. Anything interesting in them?’

‘Who the hell was he?’ interrupted Ollie.

‘Charles Simkins was one of the colleagues of Oswald Fitzpatrick, the founder of Batota,’ said Archie. ‘He negotiated a document that came to be known as the Simkins Concession - that was the deal under which the British South Africa Company bought the mineral rights to the country from King Hstalongula, the African ruler of what is now Batota. Over the years, the concession formed the legal basis for the later white takeover of the country.’

‘And his personal papers came up for auction at Sotheby’s earlier this year,’ said Ian. ‘I looked it up on the web. Archie here paid over half a million pounds for them.’

‘I’m interested in the history of my country.’

‘It’s a lot of money for a souvenir.’

‘That depends on how much money you have,’ said Archie. ‘To me, it’s loose change. I’m hoping to build a Museum of Batota one day, a place historians can study the joint black and white heritage of the country. Simkins’s papers will be core to that. He was the real founder of the nation.’

He looked closely at Ian. ‘But that’s just history,’ he said. ‘What you boys are creating is the future.’