Devil’s Harvest Read online

  The men repeated their mantra, and Al Babr grinned, a manic display of broken teeth while his dislocated eye continued to circle without anchor.

  ‘It is not I who has wandered into your country. You have come walking into my world.’ He gestured to the surrounding landscape. ‘Here you are, standing in my office.’ His men liked the joke and several laughed forcefully.

  Gabriel thought of the bodies piled in the wadi behind him.

  ‘Here, my rules apply, Professor. Not the United Nations or the United Kingdom or the United States. So much “united”, but no unity amongst them.’

  The militiaman laughed at his last comment, letting his machine gun swing freely for a moment as he held his round belly. His men laughed with him, as if on cue, stopping abruptly when the laughter died on their leader’s lips, the grin fading to a thin line of spittle.

  Without warning, Al Babr leapt forward, his chubby fingers clawing at Alek’s back and shoulders. Before Gabriel realised what had happened, her torn dress was wafting down, caressing her legs as it fell to the ground. The men smirked at her nakedness, but Alek made no move to cover herself, her small breasts exposed for them all to see. Gabriel once again found himself transfixed by the mangled scar on her forearm, the fiery welts still raised.

  ‘The mark of The Tiger.’ The demented man ran his finger over the scar tissue. ‘I will not show you such mercy again, daughter of Deng. It was a mistake to let you live last time. I should have thrown you in the wadi with the men. Now you’ve come back to make more trouble, eh?’

  Alek sunk to her knees, her head bowed in defeat. Al Babr continued to rant, in various languages, cursing Alek’s father and Alek in equal measures, and interspersing his diatribe with appeals to Allah. Gabriel couldn’t make out much of the invective, although it was clear that Alek’s father’s death was a source of great humiliation to the man. ‘I will not be humiliated again!’ he roared to the heavens. ‘Allahu akbar! ’

  Somehow, a sidearm had appeared in his hand, though Gabriel hadn’t seen him unholster it from his belt. Then, with no warning, and seemingly without aiming, Al Babr fired a shot towards Alek. It was almost a dismissive gesture, as if part of a conversation. Gabriel jumped back at the cracking sound of the discharge, but failed to appreciate what had happened until he heard Alek howl, falling forward as she clutched her left shoulder. The bullet had left a small entry wound, a red hole with raised edges. There was almost no blood on her skin.

  Without thinking, Gabriel took a step forward, but the gun was immediately pointed at him. Al Babr shook his head, almost sadly, putting his finger to his lips as if to hush a baby. He turned back to Alek, now moaning as she lay curled on the sand. He said something to her in a foreign language. When she did not answer, another shot rang out, kicking up dust near her thigh. Al Babr grunted, acknowledging his miss.

  Alek screamed out an answer to his question. He nodded to one of his men, who took off at a brisk trot back towards the destroyed village.

  While the man was gone, Al Babr demanded Gabriel’s camera. He placed it on a flat rock and brought his boot down upon it. There was an ominous sound of plastic joints breaking apart, but the camera body held. Enraged by this, the officer slammed his boot down again and again like a child in the throes of a temper tantrum. The more determined he became, the less effective his attempts, striking the camera body at an angle and deflecting the force of his boot into the ground. The men watched their leader’s progress impassively. Finally, Al Babr slammed his boot down squarely and the body broke open, spilling bits of plastic and glass onto the earth. He was sweating and his chest heaved with the exertion.

  With the destruction of the camera achieved, Al Babr seemed momentarily at a loss, and Gabriel felt his fear rise. But the militiaman’s indecision was interrupted by the return of his subordinate, holding the wrapped object from the Land Cruiser. Al Babr pulled off the red cloth and inspected the square piece of metal. He seemed amused by something, muttering to himself and waving the object for his troops to see.

  Alek had managed to kneel again. She was straining for breath, sucking in air in gulps. Now Gabriel could see a thin stream of blood running down from the punched hole at the top of her shoulderblade.

  ‘You obviously have what you came for,’ he heard himself say. ‘Now just let us go.’

  But Al Babr took no notice of him. Somewhere in the distance, beyond the burnt-out village, a low thud of a gunshot went off. Then another. The men tensed but did not move. Al Babr looked at the soldier on the back of the technical and then nodded. An order was shouted and the soldiers turned, one jumping into the driver’s seat of the technical, the others clambering onto the back. With a roar, the vehicle churned the stones up and headed for the village, leaving them alone.

  ‘Professor,’ Al Babr said, turning to Gabriel with menacing deliberation, ‘do not tell me what to do. This piece of metal is many things to different people. To your government it is a dangerous piece of evidence. To my country it is proof that ideals can be bought and sold, that a man’s spoken words are not the same as his thoughts. To her, it is vengeance for her bastard father’s death. But to me it is a sign of my humiliation. Do you understand? It should have been me. I should’ve been the one to kill the infidel Deng. I came close, but I failed. And my country had to ask for help from your government, help that is paid for in the blood of my people. And so this thing was sent like the Devil from the sky. But even your sophisticated machines can make mistakes, Professor. Leaving their dirty fingerprints behind.

  ‘I do not like to fail, Professor. I do not take anyone’s life with ease. Though you will know, yes, I have taken many. Ah yes, many have perished at Al Babr’s hands. But I do what is necessary, that which is required by Allah and my country. This woman’s death is required. Even your government requires it. But, come, your life may be spared, depending on what you do.’

  Al Babr pulled the slide on the pistol back, extracting a bullet and letting the slide click back into place. He turned the gun around, holding it by the barrel, and presented it to Gabriel. Gabriel took a step back, keeping his hands firmly at his side.

  ‘Take it.’ Al Babr pushed the gun towards him again.

  There seemed to be few options. Alek moaned to herself, rocking on her knees. Perhaps being armed would be an improvement, Gabriel thought, though he had no idea how to use the gun. He put out his hand and, for the first time in his life, he gripped the butt of a firearm. It was lighter than he’d imagined, but it felt solid and comforting. His hand immediately slid over the grip, leaving his index finger pressed against the trigger guard. He looked up at Al Babr blankly.

  ‘You have one bullet, Professor,’ Al Babr said. ‘Come, use it wisely. Go back to your life in England. This fight has nothing to do with you. These are not your people. This is not your pain. It is time for you to leave this place, one way or another.’

  The man’s left eye settled into a squint in the corner of his socket. Gabriel tried to concentrate, desperate to focus his mind on a plan of action, but his thoughts ran wild, disassociated and untethered. What should he shoot? Should he shoot the man’s roving eye? How did the officer know his name? Where were the other soldiers? He remained rooted by confusion.

  ‘Shoot her,’ Al Babr said in answer to his thoughts. ‘Come, put her out of her pain, Professor. She’s had a whole lifetime of it; she’ll welcome an end to it. It is her time. And if you do this, I will let you go. If you speak, I will tell the world that you were her killer. And you will not be able to deny it. But if you do not, then you are both witnesses, and you are required to die together. The choice is yours. But do not keep me waiting.’

  Alek had half-risen, kneeling on one knee and trying to use her uninjured shoulder to push herself up. She continued to emit a low, growling sound. The sound of the abattoir, Gabriel thought with a shudder.

  He would not shoot Alek. He knew it was an impossibility. But could he turn the gun on his attacker, could he bring the gunsights up in
line with the demented man’s bobbling eyeball and pull the trigger? Could he act?

  The sound of the AK-47 felt like a whip cracking inside his eardrum, stinging him deep inside. A splatter of red smeared across a rock a few feet in front of Alek. She pitched forward, her arms limp at her side as her face plunged into the raw dirt. Gabriel was unable to move, the pistol still at his side, his mouth open in a mute scream. The gunshot had temporarily eliminated his hearing and he was lost in a world of unvoiced turmoil. His eyes moved from the barrel of the machine gun, swinging almost nonchalantly at Al Babr’s side, to Alek’s body, lying utterly still in the sand.

  He recognised that Alek had been shot, that this time it was more serious, but he remained imprisoned in a motionless and silent world. He waited to feel some sort of pain himself. He half-expected Alek to stand up and berate Al Babr. For a moment, no one moved, the officer taking the time to fully enjoy Gabriel’s horror. Then, he slowly turned towards his captive, one hand still on the automatic weapon, the other holding the parcel from the Land Cruiser.

  The next sounds were nothing but dull knocks, muffled booms emanating from some distant place. At first, neither of them reacted. But on the second thud, Al Babr’s body jerked like a puppet, as if he were being pulled by someone from the side, or pushed with a long stick. He still had a grin on his face but there was something puzzled in his functioning eye, a wrinkle of a frown above his eyebrows.

  Gabriel saw blood trickle down the man’s arm from under his sleeve, coursing down the inside of his elbow and onto the side of his hand, dripping off the end of his thumb. A red streak slid down the piece of metal. Had he managed to shoot him, Gabriel wondered, lifting the handgun up. He was sure that it had remained pointed at the ground. The trickle of blood increased into a stronger stream and Al Babr dropped the square of metal. It landed with an edge sticking into the ground like a thrown star, droplets of blood showering the sand around it. Gabriel watched the ground with fascination. Nothing seemed more important than the pattern the blood made, like scarlet snowflakes.

  His hearing was slowly returning, sufficiently at least to hear – through a haze of interior buzzing – the odd sucking sounds coming from Al Babr. The militiaman now, too, sank to his knees, his uninjured hand trying to staunch the flow of blood running down his arm.

  ‘Birdman. I told you this place isn’t for you.’

  The voice was familiar, but distant. Gabriel thought perhaps he’d imagined the statement, somehow conjured up a voice in his distress.

  ‘Didn’t I say this isn’t a place for thinkers? Only those who can act and do the necessaries will survive out here, boet.’

  Gabriel turned around to locate the speaker. Jannie was striding towards him, a massive hunting rifle with telescopic sights in his hand. The South African was wearing grey-and-khaki camouflage with matching canvas boots and the kind of floppy sun hat that Gabriel’s mother used to make him wear on the beach, though this one was also printed in camouflage and was more reminiscent of Operation Desert Storm than Brighton Beach. Gabriel stared at the man’s scarred face in confusion.

  ‘I put a tracker on your vehicle in Juba,’ Jannie announced. ‘Fucking thing kept playing up. Some cheap Chinese crap. I lost you for a while after Wau. But I picked you up at the camp. I couldn’t work out why the fuck you’d gone to that shit-hole. But I see you had to pick up a little package, hey? You and your little birdie.’

  His tattoo flexed as he reached into his pocket and pulled out a packet of unfiltered cigarettes. He flicked the burning match at the wounded militiaman, blowing out a long draw of blue-grey smoke as if it was his first cigarette of the day. Al Babr was bent over, both arms on the ground, the sucking sounds coming fast and stronger now.

  ‘Were you there all along? Watching?’ Gabriel found his voice, albeit hoarse. ‘Why did you wait? You could’ve stopped him!’ He was shouting at Jannie now, but the man didn’t flinch, watching Gabriel rant with cold eyes.

  ‘Ja, sorry about your friend,’ Jannie said without emotion. ‘But, you know, she’s not my mission. And, anyway, you check that branding on her arm? That means she was spoiled meat. Already raped by these guys. Hard-core. So you wouldn’t want her anyway.’

  Jannie bent down and picked up the piece of metal, not bothering to look at it. He hooked the rifle over his shoulder on its strap, before turning back to Gabriel. ‘This is all I’m after. I need to return it to its owners, know what I mean? Seems like your government doesn’t trust you to bring it back to them yourself.’

  Jannie laughed, an incongruous giggle from the swarthy soldier. Al Babr groaned and sank onto his elbows, a murmured prayer on his lips.

  ‘You can do with him what you like,’ Jannie said. He took the gun from Gabriel’s compliant hand, pulling the slide back.

  ‘There was nothing in the chamber, if that makes you feel any better. Seems like no one trusts you, boet.’ He pushed a bullet into the opening and let the slide snap back into place. ‘Now there is,’ he said, handing it back to Gabriel.

  ‘Just don’t take your time. His men will be back soon to see what’s happened. Shoot him in the head to kill him quickly. The stomach for more suffering. Nice to have choices in life, hey man?’

  Al Babr was trying to kneel again, in danger of keeling over next to Alek’s lifeless body. The sand around his hanging arm was congealing with blood, the bloodstained pattern now a mess. Jannie turned and walked back towards the village, his rifle slung over his shoulder, a trace of smoke trailing behind him. Al Babr half-lifted his bloodied hand towards Gabriel.

  Gabriel raised the gun, the castle sights first wavering in front of him, then focusing on the man’s torso. Now is the time, he thought, as he squeezed the trigger.

  Chapter 20

  SIS BUILDING, VAUXHALL, LONDON

  ‘Our operative was found lying in a destroyed northern village in South Sudan with a bullet hole in his back and a rather surprised look on his face. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you now, sir?’

  Gabriel stared at the neatly dressed man across the table from him. He had been taken directly from the airport, whisked away before reaching passport control by two serious-looking men in suits. He was still dressed in grubby clothes from his flight from Nairobi. No doubt they had hoped to catch him tired and off-guard, but he’d received a welcome phone call from Brian Hargreaves while nursing a beer in the White Nile Lodge in Juba. Government officials had arrived at Gabriel’s office and taken his computer away, Hargreaves told him in whispers, as if those tapping the phone line would only hear if he spoke out loud. They had questions about his research, his connections to the Chinese. They had even asked about Jane.

  ‘Gabriel, they think you’re a bloody agent provocateur or something,’ Hargreaves had squeaked with ill-repressed fright.

  The news, cryptic and theatrical as it was, had given Gabriel the opportunity for reflection and planning on the long flight from Nairobi to Heathrow. By the time he’d landed, he’d worked out a strategy, though he still was not sure what awaited him. As it turned out, his fate was two gormless goons followed by a sugarless cup of tea in an interview room with a strange hum emanating from the ceiling. Then the snappy dresser had emerged, all quaffed hair and pressed hems, at first trying to intimidate him, then trying to be affable.

  ‘I do have some things to tell you,’ Gabriel consented. ‘But I’m not saying anything until I have my wife, Jane Easter, in the room, together with whoever in the military organised the hit on Matthew Deng in South Sudan. And a person with sufficient authority in this government to agree to the terms of engagement that I’m prepared to offer. Until you’ve assembled such a collection of persons, you can quite simply bugger off.’

  The man seemed genuinely taken aback by Gabriel’s attitude, though the interview had been proceeding in the same manner for almost an hour already. In truth, Gabriel had used his questioner’s probing to gather information about his supposed role in an international espionage scandal. Though the
man called Todd was accomplished at his task, Gabriel had long lost the inclination to be cooperative.

  Gabriel had brought an A4 envelope into the ‘discussion session’, which so far had remained unopened, and uninvestigated by his interrogator, though he had made no attempt to hide it away. Now he opened the seal and slid his hand into the envelope. He placed a small nugget of metal on the table. Todd looked at him in puzzlement.

  ‘You may not have seen much combat, judging by your state of hygiene and fashion sense. So I’ll explain to you what this is. It’s a spent AK-47 bullet. Not the casing, but the bullet itself. I picked it up. In a UNHCR camp in Unity State, South Sudan.’

  Gabriel twirled the bullet between his fingers, pressing into the dents and flattened sides. Todd continued to look at him with incredulity.

  ‘What this little bullet tells you, Mr MI6, is simply this: I’ve seen things that you couldn’t begin to comprehend. I’ve seen things that, until recently, I couldn’t have begun to understand. I have been to hell. I’ve seen the Devil at work.’

  Todd looked somehow embarrassed, whether at his own shortcomings or Gabriel’s melodramatic imagery.

  ‘I have returned, Todd, feeling quite bloody pissed off. So if you think for one moment that I’m going to bow to some snotty bureaucrat in an Armani suit just because he asks me in a cultured accent, then you’d better think again. I’m not interested in you or your questions, or your dead agent, Jannie, or the piece of a British missile he was holding in his dying hand (his left hand; he holds his cigarettes in the right) when I took it off him in Malual Kon village.’

  The effect of this disclosure was immediate. Todd’s mouth opened in genuine surprise, and then closed. His eyebrows rose as he absorbed the significance of the statement. And then he was gone. The door closed after him with a tight hiss.