Chris looked up at Steve.
‘The bastards had captured him. They spreadeagled the bloke on the ground and crucified him by sticking bayonets through his hands and legs and then left him out in the midday sun. He was still alive by the time we got there, but only just: it can take a man hours to die like that, days sometimes. He was drifting in and out of consciousness. We ripped the bayonets straight out. But the shock of it killed him. He’d lost too much blood, and too much strength. Just before his eyes closed I told him that if I ever got a chance to take revenge on Kapembwa I’d grab it. Joe nodded, tried to smile, then closed his eyes. There aren’t many things I’m certain of in this world, but this is one, if you make a promise to a mate on his deathbed, then you bloody well keep it - and you don’t let anything stand in your way.’
Bruce was letting the hunting dogs out of their pound when Steve caught up with him. It was just after seven in the morning, and dawn had hardly broken. ‘Thanks for getting Ollie out for me,’ said Bruce, watching as the dogs raced off into the damp grass, then out into the woodland.
‘The man’s a liability,’ grunted Steve.
‘He proved himself a good enough soldier out in Afghanistan.’
‘But he should never have taken that job,’ said Steve. There was a thread of bitterness in his voice. ‘He put all our lives at risk.’
‘He can’t settle, Steve,’ said Bruce. ‘It can take a man years to do that, to figure out what home is, and how he can put down roots there. So you shouldn’t be too hard on him.’
Steve shook his head. ‘As for the rest of the team . . .’ he muttered.
‘You’re not happy with them?’
‘Chris shouldn’t be on the unit - he’s got a kid to look after. Nick’s just a boy. And Maksim turned sodding traitor on us, last time we went into action together.’
Bruce put an arm across Steve’s shoulder as they walked out over the wet grass towards the dogs. ‘Chris wants to avenge his mate, and Nick wants to grow up - and those are both mighty powerful forces within a man. As for Maksim, he’s looking to atone for what happened the last time around, to prove himself as good a man as any of you. Men fight for many different reasons, Steve, but trust me, when you’ve been around military forces as long as I have, you’ll understand that those are three of the best reasons there are for taking up arms. The unit will be just fine.’
A thin, wet mist was covering the hillside. It was just after eight in the morning now, and a car had been booked for nine to take them to the airport. They had already eaten some breakfast, but before leaving, Bruce had insisted on taking them all down to the wood at the bottom of the extensive gardens. It covered about fifty acres in total - rough heather broken up with rows of thick, tall mountain ash and silver birch running right down to the banks of the loch below.
But the tree Bruce was standing next to was an oak.
And it was freshly planted.
It was a cold, blustery morning, and the men could hear the branches creaking above them, as they gathered around the sapling. Bruce looked at the assembled unit of men, his expression solemn. From his green Barbour jacket, he pulled out a small silver plaque; with a hammer, he staked it into the ground. As Steve looked down, he could see that the plaque had only a name on it and a pair of dates: Jeff Campbell 1978-2008
Jeff, thought Steve. My mate, now buried somewhere in Afghanistan.
‘Every time a man goes down, working for DEF, then I plant an oak tree right here in this forest and his name is next to it,’ said Bruce. ‘And I’m not planning on planting any more. So you boys had better come back with blood still running in your veins.’
Sixteen
THE WAREHOUSE WAS LOCATED IN Aerton, a drab industrial suburb of Johannesburg to the south of the city, not far from Soweto. The road twisted through a series of factories and depots before Chris pulled the jeep up outside Ben Bull & Sons.
‘We’ll get what we need in here,’ he said. ‘And if we don’t find it, we’ll find out where we can get it.’
The unit had touched down in the city this morning. They’d flown from Aberdeen to Madrid, then caught a flight to South Africa from there. They had passed through immigration without any trouble. British citizens didn’t need a visa. If they’d been asked, they’d have said they were here on holiday, but all of them were waved in, no questions asked. They’d checked into the City Lodge, a three-star place with a pool a couple of miles down the highway from OR Tambo International. Newton and Ganju had stayed behind in the room, as Newton was still building his strength back up and Ganju was keeping an eye on him. Nick and David had gone out to buy a pair of second-hand jeeps by scouring the used parking lots. Chris, meanwhile, had phoned around his old Recce mates to find out which of them had the best black-market arms-dealing operation in the country.