‘He also said, “If anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung round his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.” That’s him distinguishing the guilty from the innocent, Nick, and telling us whose side we should be on.’

  This didn’t sound good. He was confusing himself with Billy Graham. Any minute now he’d be thumping the lectern.

  ‘People like the high commissioner’s lot down there –’ he waved his thumb towards the skyline ‘– they’d be dead if the likes of us didn’t turn to.’

  ‘Aren’t the rebels God’s children too?’

  ‘Of course!’ He beamed again. ‘It’s just they don’t know it yet.’

  I kept my eyes down and concentrated extremely hard on de-lumping my Milo. ‘Isn’t killing them a bit against the rules?’

  ‘No. We’re doing the right thing. If those rebels get killed, God will forgive them at the doors to the kingdom of Heaven, because He knows they don’t know any better.’

  ‘I see. Kill ’em all, let God sort it out?’

  ‘Do you believe in God, Nick?’

  I shrugged. ‘Dunno. I’ve always thought of Him as an imaginary friend for grown-ups. But maybe it’s smart to hedge your bets. Call me an agnostic.’

  If Sam thought that was an open door to try to convert me, he wasn’t going to get the chance to push it. The tinny roar of the 175 Yammy got louder and I saw Frankenstein stand up in his cab to my left.

  A second or two later, the machine jumped out of the dead ground, slewed round, and Davy gunned it towards the lead wagon. He looked like a twelve-year-old. He was as skinny as a pencil, and the diet here wasn’t exactly helping to fill him out. He definitely needed to go home and get a few bags of fish and chips down him – though half would probably end up on the floor. He’d lost three fingers from his left hand when he was in the Tank Regiment; his driver’s hatch had decided it wanted to close all by itself. Fuck knows how he’d passed Selection. He should have been modelling for an artificial-limbs catalogue, not fucking about on a 175 that weighed more than he did.

  5

  Standish came off the back of our wagon like a scalded cat and sprinted the eighty or so metres to the lead wagon.

  I entertained the flies round my head as Sam kept adjusting his hat to save what was left of the skin on the back of his neck.

  Seconds later, Davy jumped back on the 175 and screamed off towards the other two wagons. Standish hurried back to us and clambered aboard.

  ‘Listen in.’ He picked up the sat-comms handset as if he was about to make a serious announcement to all of the most important people in the world. ‘The Mercs are still by the house, in the dead ground about two and a half Ks ahead of us. Davy has seen rebels in flatbed pickups. He also saw a body. They’d cut it limb from limb and lined up all the parts outside the gates. He couldn’t tell if it was one of ours.’ He tapped numbers into the dial pad. ‘We’ll have a rolling start line. We’re going to go straight for them – get the wagons into the compound, load up, get out. No roads, cross-country to the coast.’

  A cloud of dirty smoke shot from the exhaust of Frankenstein’s wagon, and the other three drivers took their cue. Sam fired the ignition. ‘All aboard the Skylark.’ There was something childlike about Sam. It wasn’t always there but just now and again the kid in him would jump out of his head. The exhaust rattled like a tumble-dryer full of spanners.

  Standish was still trying to get through. ‘Hello? Hello?’

  I watched Davy gun his bike towards the last wagon. They’d rested a plank on the back and he just rode up it and on to the flatbed.

  I checked the link one last time, settled the butt into my shoulder, then made sure I had muzzle clearance over the sandbags and wasn’t about to shoot holes in the engine.

  ‘Hello, High Commissioner? It’s Miles. I sent out a recce patrol and it looks as if they’re still in the building. I’ll send you a sit rep as soon as we’ve linked up.’

  The front Renault started rolling. Sam threw us into first gear and the wagon jerked. Standish fell with the set still in his hand. The heat of the engine washed over us as we moved forward.

  We crested the hill in a rough diamond formation, Frankenstein at point, us to the right. The other two were to the left and rear.

  Sam was worried about the sat comms getting damaged. ‘You’d better close that thing down now, boss. We might need a hand on another weapon soon.’

  There were eight of us bayonets, two in each wagon, and the boss made nine. We had just two GPMGs, one on each flank, so the more hands to the pump the better when this thing kicked off.

  Standish started to pack the set away as if it was his own idea.

  The valley opened out below us. It was maybe six or seven kilometres wide, a huge swathe of sand, scrub and dust that shimmered in the heat haze. A track snaked along the bottom from left to right. A large grey building stood to our half left, surrounded by a perimeter wall to keep out the lowlife. There was stuff going on, vehicles on the move round it. Sunlight glinted off windscreens. At this distance I couldn’t see if they were the Mercs. I certainly couldn’t see the row of body parts.

  Standish finished packing the sat comms into its case and wedged it between the front seats, then stood up on the flatbed behind us, one hand gripping a section of frame, the other his AK. He was clearly going for the Lawrence of Arabia look.

  We reached the lower ground, about a K from the target, when a light-coloured vehicle detached itself from the buildings. Its dust trail flew high into the air as it headed out to give us the once-over.

  I checked that the rear leaf sight was on its battle setting of 300 metres and glanced across to see what the other GPMG was up to. One of us would have to stop and provide a stable fire base if this wagon needed to be dealt with.

  It was now no more than 200 metres from Frankenstein: a white pickup, bodies and weapons in the back, though it was hard to tell how many in the dust-shimmering heat.

  Sam swung the wheel half left to face them. ‘There you go, get on with it.’

  I got the gun in the shoulder, pushed the safety bar from left to right through the pistol grip and rested the pad of my forefinger on the trigger, ready to take up first pressure.

  As the pickup got ever nearer, I closed my left eye and looked through the circle of the rear sight, adjusting the weapon until the foresight rested on the driver’s side of the windscreen. The GPMG was an area weapon, which meant it was designed to fire bursts, but I’d adjusted the gas regulator so the rate of fire was slow enough that I could get off decent double-taps instead. We didn’t have ammunition to spare, and needed to make every round count.

  Standish leaned forward between us, as if being a foot closer would give him a better view.

  My foresight kept pace with the pickup.

  Sam muttered, ‘If they open up, it kicks off.’

  By the time the pickup had closed to within a hundred metres, I could clearly make it out: a Mazda, with two bodies in the back, both wearing red football shirts and brandishing AKs.

  Even over our engine noise, I heard hollering as one of the red shirts banged on the roof of the cab. They’d seen as much as they needed to. The pickup slewed hard to the left and sped back towards the buildings, horn blaring.

  Frankenstein’s wagon surged forward. Sam floored the throttle and I pushed the safety from right to left.

  6

  I could see patches of grey and decayed Tarmac under the drifting sand half a K ahead. My head jerked all over the shop as Sam gunned the Renault towards it.

  Then we saw that the guys we were following weren’t the only vehicles in the valley. Just over a K to our left, a serious dustcloud was making its way along the road towards the plantation.

  We had to get there before they did.

  As we lurched and bucked towards the house, the dustcloud closed in. I started to make out a series of distinct vehicle shapes, stretched out on either side of the road like a convoy from Mad Max.

  A grey smoke trail detached itself from the dustcloud as the sustainer motor of an RPG (rocket-propelled grenade) kicked in. The round was heading our way, but climbing steeply.

  ‘Lousy shot.’ Sam shook his head, as if them firing from out of range and aiming poorly was up there with singing out of tune in church. The smoke trail stopped after about five hundred metres when the propellant ran out. The grenade then exploded high and well short. RPGs ‘soft-detonate’if they don’t hit anything within about five seconds of firing.

  Sam turned the wheel to keep the diamond formation as Frankenstein headed for the gates in the perimeter wall. The mansion behind it was all shutters and fancy brickwork; the sort of thing you see on a posh wine label.

  We still had three hundred metres or so to go when the wagon on the left flank came to a halt and put down covering fire with their GPMG.

  The rest of us drove hard and fast towards the opening gates.

  I screamed to Sam, over the protesting engine, ‘We’ll cover them in!’

  He cut left as the other two wagons thundered through the gates and into the safety of the compound. He stopped level with the corner of the wall, facing the threat further down the road, and threw the gearstick into neutral. The wagon that had been giving covering fire took its cue and charged towards the gate.

  Sam leaned over the sat-comms case and supported the link as I loosed off a slow double-tap into each of the vehicles, aiming at the driver’s side of the windscreen. Each time I squeezed the trigger, rounds disappeared into the left of the feed tray, empty cases tumbled out underneath and disintegrated link was spat out from the right. The whole lot rattled as it bounced off my Reeboks into the footwell.

  Soon I wasn’t the only one firing. Empty cases from Standish’s AK bounced off my back. Then there was a whole lot more from the compound. The pickups stopped in their tracks.

  Frankenstein and Davy were just visible above the perimeter wall. Fuck knows what they were standing on, but they were getting the rounds down and that was all that mattered. Just in time, too. The gun oil in my GPMG was so hot it was smoking. What little was left of the black Parkerization coating the metalwork was starting to peel off the barrel.

  Sam had already dropped the link and I’d put the safety catch on when Standish yelled, ‘Come on, let’s go! Let’s go! They’re covering us,’ as if we didn’t know what to do.

  Return fire from the pickups blasted chunks of rendering out of the compound wall. Bending low in his seat, Sam pulled hard to turn and get us heading towards the gate. Standish lay flat behind us now, clutching wherever he could to stop himself bouncing off the back, not a single hair out of place.

  The guys on the wall took the incoming rounds to try to give us cover. As we neared the gates I could finally see what was left of the hacked-apart body. The wagons had run over a severed arm and leg, both still partly wrapped in green uniform, and they now lay crushed in the dark, blood-soaked sand.

  The wagon screamed through the gates and jerked to a stop, just feet from the building. The gates were slammed behind us by a couple of scared black faces in green fatigues.

  Frankenstein was on the back of his Renault, firing over the eight-foot wall.

  The moment our wagon stopped, he took control.

  ‘Davy!’ He pointed at the pair of soldiers who’d closed the gates and were now jabbering at each other in fright. ‘Give those fuckers a big mug of shut-the-fuck-up and check the Mercs for fuel.’ He pointed at the other gunner. ‘Take that fucking thing and get up on the roof. Sam – you run the shop up there.’ He turned to Standish. ‘You –’ he indicated the house ’– get in there and find whoever’s running this gangfuck. Make sure the stuff is OK.’

  Then it was my turn. ‘What are you standing around for? Get that fucking gun on the roof! Go! Go!’

  I heaved the GPMG from the cab by the carry handle, grabbed all the link I had, and ran.

  Davy had already gone to the Mercs to check their fuel levels. ‘Oi, Gary! No good, they’re diesel!’

  7

  There was more than fifty pounds of link pulling down on my neck and banging against my legs as I ran through the front door; four long belts of about a hundred rounds each.

  Straight from the blinding sunlight, and with the mansion’s shutters closed, it was almost pitch black inside. I ripped off my sun-gigs and clenched one of the arms between my teeth. I’d need them again before too long.

  It took my eyes several seconds to adjust. Eventually I made out Standish with several black soldiers, standing like bouncers around a waist-high pile of small wooden crates. Three white women were in a huddle behind, one in her twenties, two with grey hair. They were all dressed like extras from Out of Africa, in the uniform of khaki shirt and trousers that all British civil servants seemed to wear out here. The youngest one appeared to be trying to reassure the other two, who looked up at me like a pair of pleading Labradors.

  Fuck ’em, they weren’t my concern for now.

  Ahead of me was a wide, sweeping staircase, bare wood, no carpet. I took the stairs two at a time, the link rattling against my legs. I reached a landing and turned left. A cast-iron spiral staircase in the far corner led to an open doorway a floor up, through which sunlight streamed. I could hear the other gun firing from the roof. The spiral was tight and narrow and it was almost impossible to keep the scalding gun metal off my skin as I climbed. The stairs rose slightly proud of the roof terrace, and the doorway was covered with a canopy. I pushed the gun out on to the concrete slab floor, shielding my eyes from the glare.

  Sam was spotting for the gunner.

  ‘On!’

  There was a burst of GPMG fire. Sam and his gunner had positioned themselves to face the threat from the road.

  ‘Go left!’

  Then another.

  ‘On!’

  I tightened my grip on my gun and held the link against my body. I kept low, dragging the gun across the terrace to the corner on their left, above where we’d given covering fire from the wagon.

  My throat was as dry as the rest of me was wet with sweat.

  The parapet was only a metre high. It was probably designed to do no more than stop the Belgian plantation owners sliding off the edge when they took time to enjoy the sight of their indentured labour bent double in the heat as they slaved across the valley below.

  I folded down the bipod, clicked it into position, and rested it on the brick ridge. I dropped on to both knees behind it – I’d worry about the pain later.

  Sam’s gunner loosed off another short burst. Cordite caught in the back of my throat as smoke curled from his muzzle and the sides of the feed tray.

  There were shouts in the compound below. Standish was going ape-shit at the government soldiers who’d deserted the boxes and seemed to want to get out of the gates and run. They’d definitely had enough of this gig, and had failed to realize that leaving here wouldn’t make their lives any easier.

  Another black guy ran out of the house and started screaming at them. It didn’t take a genius to spot that he was the main man around here – tribal scars were slashed across both his cheeks, and he had enough decorations on his chest to cover a Christmas tree.

  Standish shot out a hand and they shook as the boys slunk back to their positions.

  Sam’s man put another couple of quick bursts into the clouds of dust on the valley floor. More vehicles were on the move. Three or four small figures jumped from one about 250 away. Two hefted RPG launchers that seemed almost taller than they were; the others each had an armful of grenades. They disappeared behind some moth-eaten bushes, which wasn’t the most tactical move they could have made. The stupid fuckers obviously didn’t know the difference between cover from fire – a nice five-foot-thick lump of concrete that’ll stop most things short of a nuclear attack – and cover from view.

  A cloud of grey smoke erupted from behind the foliage.

  ‘Incoming!’

  The sustainer motor kicked in and the RPG round screamed towards us.

  We all hit the slabs, though we needn’t have bothered. The round went as high as the guy who’d fired it probably was, and self-detonated way past the house.

  Every man and his dog chewed on ghat leaves round here; even the goats got fucked up on the stuff. They could sometimes take five or six rounds pumped into them before the message finally got to their brain that they weren’t Superman. On the plus side, nine out of ten times they were so out of it rounds flew everywhere but at the target.

  With the sights at 300, I aimed low at the bushes, still shrouded in grey smoke.

  I gave a double-tap, then again, and again.

  I didn’t see sand kick up from weapon strike around the scrub. That was good: it meant the rounds had gone where they were supposed to.

  Sure enough, only one body made a run for it. I followed him. I wasn’t sure if it was a trick of the light or the rebels were recruiting pygmies, but he didn’t cast much of a shadow. My foresight slowly passed his feet from behind, and as it got about three body widths ahead, I fired a longer, six-round burst. Rounds plucked at the sand around him, and he went down.

  More shouting. I looked down into the compound again. Frankenstein was getting Davy and some others to relieve the government troops of their RPG launchers and rounds.

  Standish exited the building, followed closely by the youngest of the women I’d seen by the crates. Her shiny brown hair was drawn back from her face in a ponytail, and you didn’t have to be on the ghat to spot that she was very attractive; it wasn’t difficult to see why Standish was interested.

  Frankenstein turned, covered with sweat, his hair plastered to his head. ‘Change of plan. Get on to the fleet. Tell them there’s too many oiks out there. We need support – now!’

  ‘But they can’t make it, Gary. We’re too far away.’

  ‘Tell them I want some fast jets up there covering our arses, and I want some of those refuelling Sea Knights up in the fucking air too. Like I said – now!’