‘This is Deet,’ Pretorius said. His eyes were still closed. ‘My chief of security. Deet once ripped the testicles off a fella with his bare hands. The fella in question deserved it, by the way. He betrayed me.’

  There was an economy to his voice, every word clipped, his lips barely moving, as if he wanted to expend as little energy as possible on dialogue.

  ‘Nice name,’ said Bald to Deet.

  The chief of security just looked at him with his pinhole eyes. There was something inhuman about him, Bald decided. Maybe he was missing his frontal lobe. ‘It is from the mosquito repellent,’ he said in a slow voice that sounded like a truck reversing up a gravel path. ‘Because I swat my enemies. I crush them.’

  Just in case Bald wasn’t getting it, Deet thrust out an arm and clenched his fist around an imaginary rock.

  Then Pretorius opened his eyes and sat upright. He was decked out in a pair of weathered old Palladium boots, olive-green combat trousers and a loose digi-camo jacket, unbuttoned. Now the guy’s hands were by his sides, Bald could see several scars lacerating his bare chest. Pretorius studied Bald for a while. His eyes were like jellied eels in a jar. Then he cleared his throat.

  ‘You’re late,’ he said.

  Bald glanced at Priest. ‘We ran into some trouble downriver.’

  ‘The pirates. Yes, I heard.’ Pretorius picked up a Beretta 92 semi-automatic pistol from the floor beside the mattress and began toying with it, twirling the trigger mechanism around his index finger. ‘Still, the sooner you realize it, the better.’

  Bald frowned. ‘Realize what?’

  Pretorius set down the Beretta, stood up and lumbered over to a pot in the corner of the room. Then he unzipped his flies and pissed into it. The hissing and splashing echoed around the hut.

  ‘This place is . . . despicable. The people are ignorant fucks, incapable of honest work, blindly worshipping leaders who promise them the earth. The land is cursed. Disease everywhere. And the heat . . . Christ, the heat. Getting anything done around here takes for ever. Make no mistake, you have arrived in the arsehole of the world.’

  Bald scratched his cheek. ‘If it’s such a crap gig, then why are you here?’

  Pretorius shook out the last drops of piss and zipped up. Turned back to Bald. Smiled. ‘Simple. Because where others see barbarity and conflict, I see opportunity.’ He narrowed his eyes to pencil points. ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Jimmy Speed,’ said Bald. He pointed to Priest. ‘And this is Liam Rees.’

  Pretorius shifted his eyes from Bald to Priest and grunted. Bald guessed he didn’t like the look of Priest. ‘Stegman says you’re both ex-SBS operators.’

  ‘That’s us,’ Priest replied.

  ‘Tell me,’ Pretorius said as he swung his gaze swung back to Bald. ‘What do you make of the savages?’

  ‘You mean those crazy fucking kids you call soldiers?’

  Pretorius laughed. It was a rasping laugh, a short-lived thing that burned in his chest and died in his throat. ‘My children? Yes, them. But here’s the thing. I’ve been fighting wars in Africa for more than thirty years. I’ve spent most of my life living among the natives, no one knows them better than me. And there is only one sure way of breeding loyalty in the savage: fear. You can motivate a white man in a dozen different ways. But the savage only responds to fear.’

  He drew closer to Bald. His breath reeked of whisky. Stretched to his full height, Pretorius came up to his chin. Bald didn’t normally read too much into these things, but it was obvious to him that the guy suffered from the Little Man Complex. He was practically a walking definition of the term.

  Pretorius cocked his head at Bald. ‘You doubt me, Jimmy?’

  ‘Where I’m from, you’d wind up in jail for calling someone a savage.’

  That seemed to amuse Pretorius. ‘Things are different here, as you will no doubt discover. In the West, you have all your rules and regulations. Here, there are no rules. Just the pretence of them. Truth be told, I prefer it that way. Less clutter. Here a man can still make something of himself and answer to no one. But discipline – work – loyalty – these qualities are hard to come by.’

  He gave his back to Bald and gazed out of the window.

  ‘One of my children refused to obey my instructions. This was a few months ago. I had to make an example of him to the others, so I had a couple of them place his head between a pair of sticks bound together with rope. Then they twisted the sticks tighter.’ Pretorius demonstrated by wrenching both his hands in front of his head in opposite directions. ‘It feels like your head is going to explode. Much worse than waterboarding. The child died slowly, of course, and his cries of anguish terrified the others. I made them all watch. After that, no one tried to flee or disobey me.’

  He glanced back at Bald. The sunlight caught his face. Wrinkles were cut into his brow like knife marks in a block of wood. Crow’s feet were visible either side of his vacant eyes. It was possible that Pretorius had empathy, a soul, whatever you wanted to call it. But somehow Bald doubted it.

  ‘I know how to get loyalty from a savage, Jimmy,’ Pretorius said. ‘But how do I get loyalty from a man such as yourself?’

  Bald shrugged. ‘A packet of jelly babies usually does the trick.’

  That drew a sharp laugh from Pretorius. Bald could see it rippling from his chest up into his gullet, like a Mexican wave in a football stadium. ‘You’re familiar with my name?’

  ‘Kurt Pretorius,’ Priest said matter-of-factly.

  The corners of Pretorius’s lips curled up. ‘What else?’

  ‘That you’re ex-French Foreign Legion. You reached the rank of colonel before retiring on medical grounds. Now you run your own PMC team.’

  Bald knew more – knew, for instance, that Pretorius had spent a lifetime launching coups d’état across Africa, that he had gone underground in the early nineties, only to emerge in the cauldron of Somalia, launching attacks against African Union troops and doing his best to destabilize the fragile peace. No one seemed quite sure what his endgame was. Avery Chance’s best guess – and the Firm’s – was that he intended to topple the transitional government in Mogadishu and turn the country into a security black hole where terrorists could thrive: a breeding ground for Islamic militants with British or American passports, where they could plot attacks on the kind of scale the Tsarnaev brothers could only dream of.

  ‘That’s all true,’ Pretorius said, ‘but there’s one thing you should know about me. At heart, I’m an African. I still think of Southern Rhodesia as home, even if that prick Mugabe bled it dry. This is my land. Get this straight: if you want to be on my team, you need to deal with that. Here I’m the king.’

  Bald sort of nodded and kept his trap shut, happy to go along with this bollocks as long as it secured them both a spot on the team. Soon as Pretorius gave him the green light, he could begin plotting to wipe out this grandstanding cunt.

  ‘Stegman reckons you saved his life this morning,’ Pretorius said, rubbing his jaw. ‘When the pirates attacked.’

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘One of my many talents is that I can tell a lot about someone just by looking at them. And you – you’re a tough bastard, Jimmy. Got that stone-cold look in your eyes. Like you’d butcher a family if the mission called for it.’

  Bald gave a half-shrug. ‘I grew up in Dundee.’

  ‘I need guys like you on the team. So this is the deal. Stegman’s vouched for you both. I trust him like I trust my own mother.’ He tipped his head at Priest. ‘And I guess your mate will do too.’

  In the corner of his eye, Bald glimpsed Priest about to burst with excitement, like a dog being patted on the head and told he’s a good boy.

  ‘What has Stegman told you about the mission?’ Pretorius asked.

  It was Priest who answered. ‘He mentioned something about training up a militia.’

  ‘Anything else?’

  Priest shook his head.

  ‘Training is only half the mission,’ said Pretorius. ‘You’re both ex-SF, which is good, because I have a lot of foot soldiers, but guys with leadership skills, not so much. I need a couple of fellas who know all the tricks of the trade. But I can’t let you in on the mission until I know I can trust you both. And I’ve known you for about as long as it takes for me to have a piss. Do you follow?’

  ‘No worries, mate, we’re kosher,’ Bald said, doing his best to sound casual.

  But Pretorius didn’t seem to have heard him. ‘In a perfect world I’d get to know you both. Since time is not on our side, I have arranged a test for the two of you. Something that will help you prove your loyalty.’

  A cold shot of dread coursed through Bald. ‘What kind of test?’

  Pretorius waved at the door. ‘Follow me.’

  The four men left the hut, Pretorius and Deet first. They hung a right, steering off the dirt path and made a beeline for the concrete building Bald had assumed was a pig shed.

  Four soldiers were guarding the building. The instant they caught sight of Pretorius it was like they’d set eyes on the Prophet Muhammad. They fell to their knees and bowed their heads. Not to be outdone, two of the soldiers began kissing the ground at his feet in a we’re-not-worthy kind of way. Pretorius had a complete hold over his men, Bald realized. He’d seen men worship dictators, but that was different: fake adulation born out of fear of reprisal. This, though – Bald had never seen anything like it.

  Pretorius casually waved a hand at them. The guards hurried to their feet and pulled open the gate. Deet and then Pretorius entered, with Bald and Priest a step behind. A vicious smell hung in the air: a foul mix of piss, shit and sweat. Maggots writhed in the fetid liquid in the trough. Pretorius clicked his fingers. As the four guards ducked inside the building, Bald swapped a puzzled look with Priest. The more he wondered about this test, the more anxious he became. Thirty seconds later a line of bedraggled figures shuffled out of the building and staggered towards Bald, the guards hurrying them along by slamming the wooden stocks of their AK-47s against their backs. The ragged figures slumped limply to their knees beside the trough. They were so weak they couldn’t lift up their heads. Bald looked at Pretorius.

  ‘Prisoners?’

  Pretorius laughed. ‘Traitors, Jimmy.’

  Bald fought his gag reflex. The stench coming off the men was unbearable.

  ‘These sorry fuckers refuse to renounce their gods and follow me. I killed the rest – you must have seen their heads on the stakes at the other end of the village? These lucky few I have been keeping alive. To draw out their suffering.’

  Bald counted thirteen prisoners in total. Most of them were men in their twenties and thirties: a hundred in Somali years. Three women, a couple of young boys. All the prisoners shared the same dull-eyed look. A few had had limbs amputated and the stumps cauterized with hot tar. Others were missing fingers and toes. Their faces were filled with the silent despair of people who have abandoned all hope. Even Bald felt sorry for these poor cunts.

  ‘What do you want us to do?’ he said.

  Pretorius grinned. ‘Isn’t it obvious?’

  A leaden feeling sank through Bald as the PMC chief gestured to one of the guards. They picked out one of the prisoners from the group. A child. Six or seven years old. Burn marks were visible down the length of both arms. Flies crawled over his face. The boy was barefoot and half-naked, wearing only a pair of frayed orange shorts. He blinked dumbly at Bald as the guard hauled him forward from the huddle.

  Pretorius offered Bald his Beretta.

  ‘Take it, Jimmy,’ he said.

  Bald didn’t want to ask the next question. He did anyway. ‘What for?’

  Pretorius smiled. ‘I want you to kill the boy.’

  Twenty-five

  1134 hours.

  Bald stood still for a long beat. Like his feet were putting down roots. Hoping that Pretorius might burst into laughter and tell him he was just kidding. But he didn’t. The renegade chief of the PMC gang just stood there, right arm extended, the stainless-steel barrel of the Beretta glinting in the sun.

  ‘Take the gun,’ Pretorius demanded.

  Bald felt his chest tighten. He was bricking it. His bowels tied themselves up into knots. He accepted the Beretta. It felt unusually heavy. The words engraved down the side of the barrel read, ‘PIETRO BERETTA – GARDONE, V.T. MADE IN ITALY.’ The familiar Beretta logo was embossed on the polymer pistol grip. Three arrows pointing upwards with three rings laid behind. Bald was stalling. He’d done some dark shit in his time – strangled a Royal Navy Wren, killed an MI6 agent he believed was a mole, sold out his former mates in the Regiment. But this . . .

  ‘What are you waiting for? Get it over with.’

  Do whatever it takes to earn his confidence. Wasn’t that what Avery Chance had told him back in Poland? Only Bald was pretty sure she didn’t have in mind slotting a six-year-old. A sharp pain immediately sparked at the side of his head. Like someone was dragging an ice pick across the surface of his brain. He touched a hand to his left temple and clamped his jaw shut. He was caught between the ultimate rock and a hard place. If he killed the boy, Bald would have his blood on his hands for the rest of his life. If he refused, he could forget about winning Pretorius’s trust, securing his place on the team and salvaging the op.

  Then a shot thunderclapped at his right shoulder, like a tank blasting out a shell, and a bullet struck the boy between his eyes. His neck jerked back, his eyes rolling into the back of his head, hot blood spewing out of the exit wound like champagne from a shaken bottle. The kid swayed on the spot for a second. He dropped like someone had unplugged him from the mains.

  Bald turned to his right in horror. He saw Priest with his bulbous fingers wrapped around the grip of his AK-47. Smoke fluted off the barrel. Just then one of the prisoners crawled forward. An old man, all bones and leathered skin, with a face like charred meat on a barbecue grill. The dad, Bald guessed. The old man reached out to the slotted kid with a trembling hand as blood disgorged from his head, forming a slimy pool around his sprawling body. Bald looked on, numb and cold despite the heat, wondering how the fuck his life had come down to this.

  Pretorius merely laughed.

  ‘Great stuff, Liam,’ he said. Priest beamed with pride. ‘Now here’s a fella, Jimmy. I like this one. Doesn’t piss about. Gets on with it. Good man. Consider yourself on the team.’

  He ditched the smile and turned to Bald.

  ‘Now it’s your turn.’

  Bald almost choked on the muggy air. ‘What are you talking about? We’ve done as you asked. The kid’s dead.’

  ‘No, Jimmy. Like I said, the test is for both of you. Liam has fulfilled his side of the bargain. Now you must do the same.’ His expression hardened like cement. ‘Or you can join the prisoners. Your call.’

  The guards dragged the other boy forward. He looked eerily similar to the dead kid. Could have been twins. A village as small as this, they might well have been. He had a prominent scar running down the side of his head. His belly was painfully distended, like someone had pumped him full of gas and forgot to turn it off.

  ‘Kill him,’ Pretorius said sternly.

  ‘He’s just a kid,’ Bald protested.

  ‘This is Africa. No such thing.’

  The kid looked at Bald. Bald looked at the kid. The boy’s eyes were totally dead. His expression neutral. Either way, he was fucked. If Bald didn’t slot him, someone else would. Hadn’t Pretorius said he was keeping them alive to prolong their suffering? In a way, by killing him he’d be doing the kid a solid.

  So why are you still hesitating to pull the trigger? nagged the voice in his head.

  ‘Do it,’ said Pretorius.

  Bald went through the motions of killing. He took a deep breath, raised his gun arm until the Beretta was level with his shoulder blade. Tensed his muscles, but not too rigid. Lined up the kid’s bulbous head between the front and rear sighting posts on the semi-automatic. He did all this without actually believing he would go through with it. The whole time, the boy didn’t so much as blink. Now Bald thumbed the safety lever.

  Weird how the kid was looking at him like that.

  He found himself pulling the trigger.

  The kid was still looking at him as a flame tongued out of the pistol’s muzzle and a bullet slammed into his forehead. The kid fell back like a marionette with the strings cut.

  A moment passed. Pretorius looked down at the body. So did everyone else – everyone except Bald. He turned away in disgust as one of the female prisoners began to wail at the top of her voice. In that moment Bald hated himself. He hated Pretorius more, for making him do it. He hated the Firm too, for sending him to this dark, ungodly corner of the world. Hated them all.

  He tossed the Beretta back to Pretorius. The chief was laughing hysterically. The guards quickly joined in and a chorus of cheers went up above the pained screams of the woman and the moans of the old man. That’s when the migraine flared up. Like an assault. Searing pain shot through Bald’s brain, as if someone was trying to strike a match against his skull.

  God, he needed a drink.

  ‘Good work,’ said Pretorius, nodding his approval. ‘That’s more like it. Took real balls to do that. Now I know you’re both golden. And in case either of you ever dares betray me, this footage will find its way to The Hague. You’ll be extradited for war crimes in the time it takes the clip to go viral.’

  Still smiling, Pretorius gestured towards one of the guards. Bald followed his line of sight. His stomach went hollow as he realized that the guard was holding an Olympus digital camera.