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  Bond sat up slowly, rubbing his throat.

  Blessing stood in shock, head bowed, shivering, arm across her breasts, a hand covering her groin. Six soldiers in camouflage uniform in mottled greens and greys and brown stood in the room – they looked like giants facing her, bulked out with their packs and ammunition. Five of them were black. The man with the automatic pistol – a big Colt 1911, Bond noticed – was white.

  ‘Move, sonny,’ the white man said. The accent wasn’t precisely English – more like East African or South African, Bond thought. Bond stood up and went to Blessing, putting his arm around her and making no attempt to conceal his nakedness.

  ‘Aw, Adam and Eve,’ the white man said.

  The other soldiers chuckled, enjoying the show, covering Bond with their Kalashnikovs. Bond noticed that sewn on their shoulders were small flags – a rectangle halved horizontally, black and white, and in the upper white band was a red disc. The flag of the Democratic Republic of Dahum.

  ‘Look, I’m a British journalist,’ Bond said. ‘She’s my translator.’

  ‘British special forces, more like,’ the white man said. There was something wrong with his face, something glinting in one eye, but Bond couldn’t see exactly what it was because of the zigzag paint stripes.

  ‘Get dressed,’ the man said to both of them. ‘Then pack up your stuff.’

  Bond pulled on his shirt and trousers, shielding Blessing as she put her clothes on as quickly as possible. She seemed calmer once she was dressed, and Bond gave her as reassuring a look as he could muster before he was escorted down the corridor to his room by two of the other soldiers. He put on his desert boots and safari jacket and packed away the rest of his things in the Zanzarim bag. Back in Blessing’s room he showed the white man his APL identification and his accreditation from Zanza Force.

  ‘Good cover,’ the man said, unimpressed. Closer to him, Bond could see that half his face looked different from the other, normal, half. The glinting that Bond had spotted was caused by tears – his left eye didn’t blink and tears flowed unchecked from it – tears that he wiped away with a constant motion of his thumb or dried on his cuff. There were two small round scars below his left eye – bullet entry wounds – that looked like a stamped umlaut and the contours of the left-hand side of his face were strangely dished, the cheekbone missing. Some awful trauma to his face had left him in this state, obviously.

  Bond and Blessing were ushered downstairs – no sign of the manager or the staff of Cinnamon Lodge – and out into the warm darkness of the night. Bond glanced at his Rolex – it was just after four in the morning. They were led out of the compound and down a pathway to a small creek. Bond feigned a stumble, dropped his bag and as he stooped to pick it up, bumped up against Blessing.

  ‘They’re from Dahum,’ he whispered.

  ‘That’s what I’m worried about.’

  Then they arrived at the water’s edge where a twelve-foot fibreglass dory was moored. Bond was shoved up to the front and Blessing told to sit in the stern. Bond acknowledged the Dahumian soldiers’ discipline and good training. They moved confidently and briskly about their business with very little conversation. He heard one of the men say ‘We are ready, Kobus.’ So he was called Kobus, Bond noted – Kobus short for Jakobus. The man with half a face or, rather: Kobus, the man with two faces.

  Kobus cast off the dory and sat down in the stern beside Blessing. The other men picked up short paddles and swiftly, silently, propelled the dory down the creek and out into the wider expanse of the lagoon. Bond could see a few lights burning in Lokomeji – no rendezvous with Kojo tomorrow – and it began to dawn on him that Kobus and his men must have come specifically to snatch him, thinking he was one of the British military advisers for Zanza Force. Bond smiled ruefully to himself – it would have been quite a coup if he had been. Blessing had said everyone in Lokomeji knew he was staying in Cinnamon Lodge – word had spread. So Kobus and his men had seized their opportunity and sneaked out of Dahum on a kidnap mission.

  Paradoxically, this analysis made Bond feel marginally more relaxed. There was nothing on his person or in his belongings that would identify him as a member of a special-forces team. For once he was hugely relieved that he wasn’t armed. Perhaps when the Dahumian authorities realised that he appeared to be what he was claiming to be – a journalist working for a French press agency – they would hand him and Blessing over to civilian authorities in Port Dunbar. It was something to hope for.

  They crossed the lagoon surprisingly quickly and entered one of the winding watercourses. Bond heard the dry whisper of the soft night wind in the tall reeds that lined the channel and sensed rather than saw the overarching bulk of the mangroves and other trees. The men paddled on, tirelessly, and soon the sky began to lighten as dawn neared and with it Bond became aware of a mounting nervousness in the soldiers as they glanced around watchfully and muttered to each other. They clearly didn’t want to be caught out on the water in daylight. Then Bond heard the rhythmic judder of a helicopter’s rotors as it took to the air and the distant sound of diesel engines revving. They must be passing through the Zanza Force lines that surrounded Dahum’s diminishing heartland.

  Soon they reached a ramshackle cribwork jetty and they disembarked. The dory was hauled ashore and covered with palm leaves. Then the small column moved down a forest path to a clearing where a canvas tarpaulin had been erected as shelter, draped with camouflaged netting. Bond was ordered to sit down beneath it at one end and Blessing at the other. Kobus took both their bags away and their hands were tied behind their backs. One soldier was left to guard them and Bond saw Kobus posting lookouts on the trails that led into the clearing. As the sun began to rise, he heard the sporadic crump, crump of heavy artillery being fired.

  Kobus came in and squatted by Blessing and began to interrogate her, but he kept his voice low and Bond couldn’t hear his questions or her replies. Then Bond saw him stand up, look round and wander over to him.

  He had removed the zigzag stripes from his face and Bond was able to see the full damage – the tear-fall from the unblinking eye and the saucer-deep declivity where his cheekbone should have been made Bond think that half his upper jaw had gone as well. He searched Bond roughly, taking his passport, his APL identification and his remaining wad of dollars. He also pocketed Bond’s cigarette lighter and his Rolex.

  ‘I’ll want them back, one day,’ Bond said. ‘So look after them.’

  Kobus slapped his face.

  ‘Don’t be a cheeky bugger,’ he said.

  ‘Kenya? Uganda?’

  ‘Rhodesia,’ Kobus said, with a knowing smile. He nodded over to Blessing. ‘Your girlfriend tells me that you’re in the SAS.’

  ‘No, she didn’t,’ Bond said calmly. ‘Look, I’m a journalist. I met her in a bar in Sinsikrou. She’s smart, beautiful and speaks fluent Lowele and I needed a translator. I was meant to be interviewing General Basanjo today. I thought she’d be useful and we might have a bit of fun on the way, you know? Then you went and spoiled everything.’

  Kobus slapped his face again, harder. Bond tasted salty blood in his mouth.

  ‘I don’t like your attitude, man. I’ll get you back to Port Dunbar where I can do some serious work on you and find out exactly who you are. One thing’s for sure – you’re no journalist.’ He stood up and left. Bond spat out some bloody saliva and looked over at Blessing. She was lying on the ground, curled up, turned away from him.

  The day crawled by in the steaming heat beneath the tarpaulin. They were temporarily unbound and given some water and a plate of cold beans. Bond could hear the irregular detonations of artillery all day and at one stage two MiGs streaked over the clearing at very low level setting up a squawking and a squealing amongst the riverine birds that took a good five minutes to die down, such was the sky-shuddering guttural roar of the jets.

  As dusk approached the men began to pack up the camp – the tarp and the netting were taken down and rolled up and any bits of lit
ter were collected and buried. Bond and Blessing were untied and given another drink of water. Kobus swaggered up to them, smoking, and Bond felt a sudden craving for tobacco.

  ‘We’re walking out of here, OK?’ Kobus said. ‘If one of you tries to run I’ll shoot you down and then I’ll shoot the other. I don’t care. Just don’t be clever. Clever means death for you two.’

  When it was dark they marched into the forest in single file, Kobus leading, followed by Blessing, Bond at the back of the small column with one soldier in the rear behind him. Bond felt grimy and sweat-limned, itches springing up all over his body. He fantasised briefly about a cold shower then ordered his brain to stop and concentrate. The path they were on was well trodden, Bond could see in the moonlight, and the forest around them was full of animal and insect noises that rather conveniently disguised the sound of their passage, the clink of buckles on machine gun, the dull thump of shifting harness, the tramp of boots on the pathway. Bond could see his Zanzarim bag lashed with a webbing belt on to the rucksack of the soldier in front of him. The fact that it hadn’t been abandoned or thrown away he found somehow reassuring, as if it betokened a future for him, however short-lived.

  They walked for about an hour, Bond guessed, before Kobus halted them. He signalled them to crouch down where they were and wait. Bond turned to the soldier behind him.

  ‘What are we waiting for?’

  ‘Shut you mouth,’ he said simply.

  Bond peered ahead – there was a lightening in the general gloom that would signal a gap in the trees and by craning his neck Bond could see the moonlight striking on what seemed like a strip of asphalt. Then Kobus waved them forward to the very edge of the treeline and Bond was able to get his bearings.

  They had reached a road – a typical two-lane, potholed stretch of tarmac with wide laterite verges on each side. This section ran straight with no curves and the light of the moon afforded a good view a couple of hundred yards in each direction. Kobus obviously planned to cross it and pick up their forest path on the far side. However, they sat there in silence another five minutes or so, waiting and listening. Bond calculated that the distance to the other side was no more than thirty yards, maximum, before you reached the dark security of the forest again. It was the middle of the night, for God’s sake, Bond said to himself – what could be so problematic about crossing a road?

  As if in answer to his question, Kobus stood and ran briskly at a crouch across the road without pausing and disappeared into the vegetation on the other side. They waited another five minutes. Then he heard Kobus shout an order: ‘Femi! Dani! Bring the girl, chop-chop!’

  Two of the soldiers stood up, one of them took Blessing’s arm and began to jog across the road.

  The night erupted in gunfire.

  Bond saw the tracer looping a split second before he heard the detonations. There was the usual sensory delay – the lazy flow of glowing light-flashes picking up speed – and then the road surface disintegrated under the impact of the heavy-calibre machine-gun bullets. Blessing screamed and fell to the ground. One of the soldiers seemed literally torn apart, shredded by the impact of a dozen rounds, while the other was spun around in a mad pirouette before Bond saw one of his arms flail off and go tumbling into the undergrowth end over end.

  On hands and knees Blessing scrabbled back into cover and Bond grabbed her.

  ‘You all right?’ he shouted. The yammering noise of gunfire ripped through the night.

  ‘Yes,’ she sobbed. ‘I’m not hit.’

  Kobus was screaming orders at his men, firing back up the road where the machine guns were. The other three soldiers had opened up with their AK-47s. Leaves and bits of branches were falling on them as the machine guns hosed the sides of the road, raking the forest verge.

  This was their moment.

  Bond took Blessing’s hand and drew her slowly back into the darkness. One yard, two, three. The soldiers were too intent taking cover or returning fire. Bond backed them off the path and deeper into the undergrowth. Ten seconds, twenty – they were completely hidden, out of sight. He heard Kobus shouting and then the noise of one soldier blundering down the path.

  ‘They gone, Boss!’

  Bond drew Blessing still further into the leafy obscurity.

  ‘Where are we going?’ she said, panic in her voice.

  ‘Say nothing,’ Bond hissed at her.

  Then enormous explosions sent shockwaves through the trees – mortar bombs – brief flashes of brilliant, scalding light. There was a scream from one of the soldiers. Bond grabbed Blessing’s hand more firmly and turned, moving as fast as he could, forcing a way through the bushes and the branches, running away from the road and the firefight.

  Now there was more firing coming from another direction on their flank. A random spraying of the forest as another group of soldiers appeared to be coming up from the rear.

  ‘Lie down,’ Bond said, ‘they’ll never find us.’

  He dragged Blessing off her feet and pressed her down into the dry leafy mulch of the forest floor.

  ‘Keep your eyes down, don’t look up.’

  Someone would have to stand on them to discover them, Bond reasoned, listening to the chaos of the night, the shouts of men, the staccato rattle of machine guns. It was crazed firing, soldiers loosing off at shadows – staying still and prone was the only solution. Shots thunked into tree trunks near them, ripped through foliage overhead, and every now and then there was another brief flash of light washing through the forest as another mortar shell was lobbed in their general direction.

  He could hear men thrashing through undergrowth not far from them. Kobus? Or was that the Zanza Force ambush?

  Blessing gripped his arm, fiercely.

  ‘James – we’ve got to get out of here, now!’ she whispered harshly at him. ‘They’re going to find us.’

  ‘No! Don’t move – listen, they’re moving away.’

  He felt her fist pounding on his restraining hand.

  ‘Let me go!’

  ‘Blessing – no – we’re safer here—’

  She snatched her hand away.

  ‘I’m not going to die here!’ she screamed at him. She was uncontrollable, panicked out of her wits. She stood up and ran into the dense gloom of the surrounding trees.

  ‘Blessing!’ Bond shouted – and someone, hearing the noise, began to loose off quick bursts of fire in his direction. Bond fell to the ground and crawled away as fast as he could, rolling into a hollow and clawing dead leaves over him. Blessing had first lost her nerve, then lost her head and made a run for it. Fool! Bond thought. Then he heard her scream, shrill and terrified, and a long chatter of gunfire before she screamed again and it was choked off. Bond pressed his forehead into the earth, feeling sick, breathing shallowly and waiting. Slowly the spatter of gunfire diminished and grew more distant. A lot of shouting seemed to be coming from the direction of the road and then he heard a metallic rumble from the tracks of some kind of armoured vehicle approaching.

  He lay there motionless, counting the seconds, the minutes. He saw the beam of torchlight through the trees and heard the excited voices of Zanzari soldiers – whoops and shouts. For a brief second he thought about surrendering himself to them but realised that any figure emerging from the trees would be cut down instantly. Best to stay put. Had they taken Kobus? he wondered. Maybe he was dead? He heard the vehicle start up again and move off.

  The forest quietened, and then the insects and the animals began their interrupted squeaks and chatterings again. Bond sat up, slowly: he could smell smoke and cordite but there were no sounds of any human presence that he could distinguish. He pushed himself backwards in the darkness until he came up against the bole of a tree. He hugged his knees to him and closed his eyes, trying not to think about what had happened to Blessing. There was nothing more to do but wait for dawn.

  9

  JAMES BOND’S LONG WALK

  At some stage in the night Bond had fallen asleep in his sitting pos
ition against the tree, his forehead resting on his knees, his arms locked around his shins. At first light he woke and, very slowly, stretched his legs out, massaging his thigh muscles back to life and taking his time to rise to his feet. He windmilled his arms and ran on the spot for a minute or two to get his circulation going. Then he pushed cautiously through the undergrowth until he found the pathway and advanced slowly up to the road. There was a crude confetti of shredded leaves everywhere, as if some violent storm had passed, but not a body to be seen, all casualties carted away. The road surface was scarred and torn with bullet strikes and there were two drying pools of blood, humming with flies, where the two soldiers had been hit by the first fusillade.

  He cast around half-heartedly up and down the road, not expecting to find Blessing or any trace of her. Brass cartridges glinted everywhere on the ground and he found a bloodstained pack with a few rounds of ammunition in it. Otherwise there was little sign of the firefight and its victims.

  He stood in the middle of the road feeling the heat of the rising sun on his face. What to do? Which direction to take? He turned northwards – that was where the Zanza Force fire had come from. If he walked up the road in that direction surely he’d reach the advancing columns of the main army . . . Bond forced himself to think about his options for a while, kicking at bits of the shattered road surface. He could, he supposed, realistically abort his mission, after what he’d been through. M would surely understand. But there was unfinished business and he felt an obscure sense of guilt over what had happened to Blessing. If he’d only held on to her more forcefully, even knocked her out . . . Was she dead? Was she safe in the hands of Zanza Force? Or perhaps Kobus and his men had recaptured her.

  Bond looked around him. Kobus’s plan had been to cross this road and continue on the forest path they had been walking along. Perhaps that was the option to choose . . . he had no food, no water, no weapon. He could last a couple of days, he reckoned, perhaps longer if he could find something to eat or drink. Bond thought – Kobus knew exactly where this path was heading and that it was the route to follow. Bond made up his mind: he crossed the road and walked into the forest.