Fire Force(3)

Steve nodded. ‘Deal yourself in, mate.’

The plan was a simple one. They knew Abago liked to gamble. Ian and Steve would make their separate ways to the bar, then get Abago into a game of poker. Working as a team, they’d force the Commandant into big losses. They’d then offer to settle the debt off the books. Let Ollie go, and Abago could keep the money he’d lost.

It had sounded fine when Bruce Dudley, the man in charge of Dudley Emergency Forces, or Death Inc. as it was known in the trade, sketched it out for them back in London. But out here, reflected Steve as he looked up across the table at Abago, it didn’t feel quite so easy.

The Commandant was fat, cruel and malevolent, his brain rotted by years of sycophancy and torture. The trouble was, none of that meant he couldn’t play cards.

‘Deal him in,’ instructed Abago.

The girl unwrapped the arms that were draped over his chest, and laid out a couple of cards in front of Ian. Steve checked his own deck again. Two eights, same as before. Ian took a hit of beer, then pushed a twenty-dollar bill into the pot. ‘Raise you . . .’ he said.

Steve chipped in twenty, so did Abago, then they laid their cards on the table.

The Commandant had a full-house.

An easy win.

Steve smiled to himself. Lose a couple of rounds, that was the plan. Get the man hooked on the game. Then start to toy with him, the same way you’d toy with a fish at the end of a line. Let him wriggle and gasp for air, give him a bit more line, then when you’re ready, land the bastard on the deck of the boat.

Abago scooped up the money, handing five dollars to the girl and tucking the rest into the breast-pocket of his shirt. A prisoner was bringing across a bowl of fresh pumpkin seeds. Steve noticed that he only had a left hand: the right had been severed just below the elbow, replaced by a stump where the wound had slowly and messily closed up. ‘Deal again,’ snapped Abago. ‘We’re just getting started.’

He took a mouthful of the seeds, chewed, then spat a few on the floor, while the girl dealt out three hands of cards. Steve glanced down. A Queen and a Jack. The start of a flush maybe? He asked for more cards, but ended up with nothing better than a pair of Jacks. That’s OK, he decided. We’re still planning to lose this round. Which is lucky, given the kind of cards I’m getting.

‘Raise you,’ said Ian.

Steve glanced across at him, but through the Irishman’s dark glasses it was impossible to see what he was thinking.

Abago pushed fifty dollars onto the table.

Steve laid down three tens.

Ian tapped the table twice, chewed a couple of seeds, then put down two aces.

Abago laughed, scooping up the money, folding the bills into his pocket. ‘The gods are with me tonight, I can feel it’.

‘Just play,’ said Ian. His voice was tense and strained.

Just the way it should be, thought decide Steve. They had already decided on their roles. Ian was the serious, strung-out card player, while Steve would play the businessman just looking for a few laughs, some beers and some women.

Another hand. And again, Abago won. The Commandant was a couple of hundred dollars up already, more money than he usually made in a month. ‘I can read you white boys like a book.’

‘At least there aren’t any of us in your jail,’ said Steve.

Abago threw back his head, roaring with laughter. ‘That’s where you are wrong, my friend. We arrested one last week,’ he said, in high good humour. ‘He’s down in the cells right now.’

‘A white man in a hell-hole like this?’

‘We don’t discriminate on the grounds of a man’s colour,’ Abago rapped out. ‘A criminal is a criminal . . . we treat them all the same.’

‘What’s his crime?’ asked Ian. For a brief moment, he’d lifted the dark glasses over his head and was looking straight at the Commandant.

‘A mercenary,’ Abago told him. ‘There’s oil in this country, and sometimes the white men think they can steal it from us. The fools end up here. We had five of them in this jail until recently - three British and two Germans. They’d been here for ten years, but the last of them died last year.’

Steve was draining his beer bottle. ‘A white man in a place like this . . . I hate to think of that.’ From his pocket, he took five gold Krugerrands, each of them worth $1,000. He placed them on the table. ‘I’ll play you for his freedom.’ ‘You don’t even know his name . . .’

Steve shrugged. ‘I don’t need to.’

Abago’s eyes narrowed, the sweat running in tiny rivers in the folds of flesh around his mouth and nose. He was looking at the gold coins. It was dark outside now, and the bar had only a couple of light bulbs to illuminate it. A wind was starting to blow in off the nearby beach, and you could hear the palm trees that lined the road start to creak. Yet even in the pale light, the gold still glittered: each lump of metal shimmering with the promise of pure wealth.