Digging Deeper: An Adventure Novel (Sam Harris Series Book 1) (17 page)

‘I don’t care.  I will go anywhere with you, my General.’

‘Fine, you might have to. Let’s order some good fried fish.  I’m still starving. Waitress?'

Pibé was getting better every day and followed Sam around like a puppy.  She had to shoo him away when she wanted to go to the toilet.  When he was strong enough, they walked down to the river.  She used some of her precious soap to wash the pink teddy.  It was a thankless task but Sam was sure the soap would at least kill some of the bacteria on the pink polyester fur.

She was running out of repellent and had taken to spraying it on her clothes and not washing them for days.  Her hair had begun to clump up until Tereza and her friends dragged a plastic comb though it and plaited it close to her head in corn rows.  She had not looked in a mirror for weeks but her clothes told her that she was very thin.

Sam’s inner strength had become much more apparent as she fought to keep her spirits up.   The deadline for the ransom payment was fast approaching and the atmosphere in the camp became tense.  The hostages were shut in their huts at night. The games of chess and shared beers had become a thing of the past.  Sam spent many hours in her hut, lying on her uncomfortable bed, wide awake with fear and anticipation as she ran through possible scenarios in her mind.  She knew that not all outcomes had happy endings. She tried to imagine herself being brave, if worse came to worst.

This thought kept her awake, but she could not picture it.  She was a glass half-full girl.  To her all stories had happy endings, just maybe not quite the way one was expecting.

The next day, Sam was summoned by Joao Conte, the rebel leader, to the main hut in the centre of the compound.  He sat on a stool made of an upright piece of log polished by the sweat of many posteriors.  He wore a fetching pink t-shirt with a picture of a kitten on it.

Sam could not help smiling at the contrast between the bloodthirsty rebel leader and his less than terrifying attire.  What he said next put the kitten right back in its box.

‘The committee of the Santos unit of MARFO has made a decision about the future of you and your companions from Kardo.’

He paused to examine a scab on his leg, which he picked and rubbed while he spoke to her.  A small drop of dark blood oozed out and ran down his shin toward his battered trainers.  He stopped it with a finger and cleaned his leg with spit.

‘We have asked for a ransom of half a million dollars for you.  We have given the authorities one week to pay the ransom.  If the ransom is not paid, we will put you on trial, charged with stealing the diamonds of Kardo from their rightful owners, the people of Tamazia.  If you are found guilty, you will be shot.  You’d better hope that ransom is paid on time. I can’t guarantee your safety if my men don’t get their money.’

Sam sat in stunned silence, trying to process this information.  Their lives were hanging in the balance and Black was the only one who could save them.  She wondered if it was worth arguing that Gemsite had a contract from the government to exploit the diamonds and that they paid close to half their income in taxes and royalties to the ministry, which were supposed to be spent in the Kardo district.

She remembered the dusty road and the battered huts along it.  It was obvious that no government money had ever reached Kardo.  The local people had lost their only form of income when Gemsite began the commercial excavation of the diamond gravels.  They had been shot for trying to take gravel at night.

Sam knew that there was no argument that would change Joao’s mind and that any protests were likely to antagonise him.

‘I understand,’ she said.

‘It’s nothing personal,’ said Joao. ‘MARFO needs to force the western companies to leave before they take all our diamonds.  We need the income to buy weapons to fight the government.  Killing a few foreigners worked the last time we took hostages.  Asking for a ransom means that if we don’t get the diamonds ourselves, then at least we get the money earned from them.’

Sam could not fault his logic.  She felt his total lack of sympathy for their fate.  They were at war; people died.

He sent Sam to tell the others.

There was a shocked silence as Sam explained what she had learnt from Joao.

‘Jesus,’ said Brian. ‘That’s us fucked.’

‘Couldn’t you do something?’ asked Fred.  ‘After all, you speak Portuguese.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Sam. ‘I don’t think that anyone is listening.  We'll have to rely on Black.  Half a million dollars is peanuts to Gemsite.  We just have to wait.’

‘Rely on Black? That’s a laugh; he wouldn’t pay for his mother.  We have to escape.’

But escape was not in the cards, as the rebels now kept a very close eye on their captives.  From that time on, they did not let Sam near the others at all.

The days passed very slowly.  The rainy season was almost over, and the heat and humidity in the small huts was unbearable.  Sam used the last of her repellent on her clothes and decided not to wash them again until she was free.  She would smell terrible but malaria stalked the camp. She had no tablets left.

Tereza brought her food in the evenings.  But the portions were shrinking again, as the rebels did not want to waste food on the hostages.  Tereza smuggled bananas to Sam via Edison and Pibé.  But then the little boys were banned from going to see her after one of the rebels caught them giving her a tin of tuna.

Sam lay on her bed to conserve energy and tried to remember how to speak French.  She conjugated irregular French verbs on the ceiling and the walls, forcing herself to pry them out of her memory.  She ran through relationships she had in the past, dwelling on every good moment, every concert and every walk on the beach.  She had to avoid memories of food, which were too hard to bear.

Sometimes Tereza would sneak in for a few minutes when she delivered the food.  She asked Sam about living in England. ‘Do you know Princess Di? Have you ever seen her?’

‘No, I’m afraid I don’t.  I have only seen her in newspapers.  You do know that she is dead now?’

‘Yes, it is very sad.   The princess came to Mondongo to support the landmine trust and everyone in Tamazia knows about that.  A real princess!’

Sam tried to imagine the distance in realities between Tereza and Princess Di and gave up.  If Di had come from the moon, she could not have been from further away.

‘Tereza, tell me about Edison, your late husband.  Was he handsome and funny?  How did you meet him?’

‘He was from my village.  He was not tall, but he was strong and brave, like Pibé.  We met at school and we fell in love.  I got pregnant with Edison junior at seventeen.’ 

These little interludes kept Sam sane while she waited for news of the ransom and lay on her bed, imagining the worst and listening to the noises of people going about their daily lives in camp as if nothing was happening.

***

In Mondongo, Black sat in the meeting room, waiting for the general.  He looked even more dishevelled than usual and the sore on his forearm was weeping.  He had been on a serious binge the night before and, still quite drunk, could only just keep his head up.   He lit a cigarette with great concentration, unaware that there was already one balanced on one of the ashtrays, with a long piece of ash hanging from the end.  The air in the room was thick with smoke and there was a rank smell of sweat and bad breath.  There was a knock on the door.

‘Come.’ Black drew deeply on his cigarette, composing himself for a confrontation.  He had made up his mind days ago to make no attempt to raise the money for the ransom payment.  What sort of example would that be to his workforce?  Traitors didn’t deserve any sympathy.   If anything, Black was more determined than ever to punish Sam.  He did not care that two more people would die to make him feel better.  Sam had betrayed him.  That was unforgivable.

The General entered the room and waited to be addressed, wrinkling his nose in mute protest at the smell.

Black looked up, and gave the General a malevolent glance.  ‘General, was I expecting you?  Oh, yes. Yes, I was,’ he muttered.  ‘I don’t have good news, I’m afraid.’

General Fuego looked startled but said nothing.

‘We couldn’t raise the money in time.  The diamond sales have not gone through yet.  Can’t we persuade the rebels to wait?’  The insincerity of his tone surprised even the General.  

‘To wait?  You want the rebels to wait?  Don’t you realise that the hostages will be murdered if you don’t pay now?   How will you sleep at night knowing that you have, to all intents and purposes, signed their death warrants?’

Black knew damn well that it was a final demand.  He was going to leave the hostages to their fate because he imagined he had been betrayed by one of them.  Something approaching a smirk crept across Black’s face.  He cocked his head at the General, as if daring him to say something.

There was a tense silence. 

‘I see,’ said the General stiffly. ‘I suppose it can’t be helped.  The president will be most disappointed.’

Black was not fooled.  He knew as well as the General did that the president wanted diamond revenue at any cost and that if he had intended to do something about the hostages, he would have done it weeks ago.  The president would only be disappointed if production stopped because of the raid.   In fact, everyone had carried on as if nothing had happened.

Brian had been replaced by his deputy and Black had already interviewed replacements for his technical staff.  He had sent Jim straight back to Kardo to reorganise the staff so that diamond production would not cease or be diminished by the raid.  He already forecast another bumper month of production following the hitting of the double production target this month.

‘I’m sorry General, but I’m pretty busy this morning.  Was there anything else?’

***

Black shuffled some papers on the board table.  He soon appeared to forget that the General was there.

General Fuego got his limbs moving and left the room.  He was already miles away, thinking about Sam, scared and alone in the rebel camp.  He was so absorbed in his thoughts that he tripped as he descended the stairs.  He flailed around and made a grab for a non-existent bannister.

Luckily, one of the office gophers was coming up the stairs and managed to grab his arm and steady him to prevent him from crashing down the stairs head first.

The General was shaken.  He realised that Sam’s only chance of escape was now in his hands and he had almost ended up in hospital.  He waved the gopher away and sat on the stair for a moment, his breathing agitated.  He felt his age.  Every old wound, every broken bone told him that it was too late.  Was it hopeless to waste his time trying to do something?

Black appeared at the top of the stairs, alerted to the near accident by the gopher.  He was concerned enough to stagger from the boardroom when he realised that the national hero of Tamazia had almost died in his office.  He was amazed to see the General still sitting on the stairs with his head in his hands.  Could he really be in love with that woman?  Black was bemused.

‘Leave her to her fate, General.  She is only a spoilt white bitch,’ he shouted down the stairwell.

Black’s total lack of humanity stirred the general into action.  He stood up and straightened his uniform.  His dignity returned with the rush of fury that flooded his body with adrenalin.  Without looking back, he left the Gemsite office and went to call his friend General Freddy.

***

In the rebel camp, Joao Contes received the bad news.  He called a meeting of the fighters and told them that Gemsite had refused to pay the ransom.  There was a lot of shouting as they worked themselves into a group fury.  Joao had provided a ten-gallon plastic tank full of strong local beer, which he poured into plastic cups and passed around the hut.

He announced that it was his intention to try the prisoners for stealing the diamonds belonging to the people of Kardo.  He appealed to their patriotism and their machismo.  He was a good public speaker, which was the main reason that he had taken over the unit when Edison de Sousa had been killed.  He had no trouble persuading his frustrated men that the foreigners had to die.

No one mentioned that one of them was a woman and that it was against their rules to kill women.  Despite their status as illegal rebels, MARFO had military roots and strong discipline, which had enabled them to keep fighting for years on very small means.  Joao had been able to prevent them from raping because of this, although he had no real appreciation of the fact that many of the fighters wished they could drag her into their huts for an hour or two.  She had strong novelty value, even if she was not young anymore.

Joao was jealous of the strong attachment Tereza and the boys had formed with Sam at a time when he hoped to move in on Tereza himself.  Getting rid of Sam would clear the way for the final takeover of Edison de Sousa’s life, which he so craved.  The other two men were road-kill to him: expendable, soft, foreigners.  He encouraged his men to drink up.  They would need Dutch courage for the task ahead.

That night, two of the fighters appeared at the doorway of Sam’s hut.  They dragged her roughly outside.  She had no time to put on her boots.  As she emerged, she saw Fred and Brian also being manhandled and pulled to the meeting hut on the main square.

They were all thrown through the door onto the floor in front of two rows of improvised seating, where the hierarchy of the rebel group sat.  There was a strong smell of alcohol in the hut. A few of the soldiers had bright red eyes and looked stoned.  There was loud jeering when they were thrown inside.

Joao sat in the middle of the front row wearing his kitten t-shirt.  This time it was not at all amusing.

‘You will translate for the lawyer,’ Joao told Sam, indicating a small wizened man without a tooth in his head.  The little man slipped off his chair and dropped to the ground.  Standing, he looked even smaller.  He had what looked like a pair of shorts tied around his waist with a piece of string, and what remained of a waistcoat covered his bony chest.  Sam wondered if he was a pygmy.

He spoke with an authority belying his small stature, his voice quavering and spittle flying out of his mouth onto the dirt floor.

Sam struggled to understand his antiquated and flowery Portuguese, asking him several times to repeat himself.

Addressing the hostages, he said, ‘You have been called to a people’s court convened to deliver justice for the people of Tamazia.  You are on trial for the theft of diamonds from the village of Kardo, the execution of local villagers and the violation of local women.  I have witnesses from Kardo who will testify against you.’  He paused as Sam struggled with the legal terms.

‘MARFO, being a just and fair organisation, gave the company, Gemsite, the chance to pay reparations for the damage done to the village.  But the company has refused to pay, despite the amount being reduced by half.’

Sam translated this in a shaking voice. Oh my God, that bastard has hung us out to dry.

Fred and Brian looked stunned.  ‘This being the case, MARFO has decided to put the captives on trial for the wrongs of the company.’ 

Sam translated this, realising as she did that their last hope had gone.  As she looked into the crestfallen faces of her fellow captives, she felt the cold chill of reality slip into the suffocating heat of the communal hut.  They were going to die.  It was only a case of when and how but not ‘if’ anymore.  She felt her knees give out, and a short time later, she was surprised to find herself propped up against one of the central posts in the hut.

Tereza forced her to drink water.  ‘Sam, you have to translate.  Wake up.  You have to translate.’

Sam got groggily to her feet.  Faint with hunger and fear, she swayed on her weak legs.  She could not stand for long, so Joao made her sit on a chair placed beside the lawyer. 

The trial began.

***

Tereza stepped outside the hut into the cool night air.  Despite her status as the widow of a war hero, she was not allowed to participate in the trial because she was a woman.  She knew that the captives had no hope of redemption in a court in which all the jurors were drunk and aggressive.  There was nothing she could do for Brian and Fred.  They would have to fight their own ground, and she did not like either of them much anyway.  They always excluded Sam.

She could not understand what Sam had done to be treated in such a way.  The woman she knew was kind and brave and loved her boys like an auntie or a second mother.  She had never seen Sam be horrid to anyone, even when she was depressed.  Tereza remembered how Sam had saved Pibé at great risk to her own life.  She knew that she had to try and save Sam in return.

She knew that it would mean the end of her life in Tamazia, but she was sure that she could make a new life with the money she had received from Eduardo for looking after Sam.  She felt no loyalty to the rebels, who had used her like a servant since her husband died.  Sam had shown her how it felt to be equal and she wanted that for herself and her children, no matter what the risk.

Her mind made up, Tereza ran back to her hut and dug under her bed until she found a small tin box.  She opened it.  The unused mobile phone was still there, accusing her of treachery with its shiny black case.  She took it out and sneaked over to the generator hut where she plugged it in to a row of sockets placed along the wall.  She rang the only number in the contact list.

After five rings, the phone was answered by Eduardo, who was panting.

‘The hostages are on trial,’ she said.  ‘They will kill her. You must come early in the morning, or it will be too late.  I will direct her to the house that you told me about.  She is very weak.  You must come, or she will die.’

***

  Brian was on trial.  A woman from Kardo spoke about the time her husband went out under the cover of night with twenty other men to pan the gravels on a strip of diamond bearing gravel that had been exposed by the company machines.  They had been spotted.  Her husband had been shot dead trying to run away by some of Grey’s security men.

Brian was charged with this murder because he was head of security.  Brian looked confused as Sam translated the charges.  Then he smiled as the misunderstanding of his role at Gemsite became apparent.  Brian was too arrogant to realise that whatever he said he would still be guilty.

He tried in vain to explain the difference between the mercenaries and the internal security guards.  He told them that he was not a member of Grey’s but head of internal security and that his job was to prevent stealing of the diamonds once they were mined.  He never carried a gun in Tamazia and he had never shot anyone.

No one was listening.  He was shouted down by the drunken rebel fighters who had got tanked up well before the trial started.  Sam struggled to make herself heard above the jeering.

‘We know you were a soldier.  You are a killer.  We don’t believe you.’

Brian managed to stay standing despite some of the rebels jumping up, shouting in his face and shoving him.  He muttered to himself.

Sam could hear him say, ‘It’s not true, it’s not true,’ again and again.

The fighters shouted, ‘Guilty, guilty, guilty!’

Brian was drowned out, but he kept trying.  ‘A security guard looks after things not people.  I didn’t ever use my gun.’

Sam tried to shout the translation over the drunken roars.

‘Silence!’ Joao yelled at him.  ‘You have been found guilty of murder.  You will be executed by firing squad.  Take him outside and carry out the sentence.’

Sam’s throat constricted so much it almost closed over.  She could not and would not, translate.

An eruption of cheering was followed by a nasty change in atmosphere.  More rebels had come over to Brian and pushed him back and forth between them.

Sam protested over the clamour of angry voices.

Brian shouted at her.  ‘What did he say, Sam?  What did he say?’

Sam could not look him in the eye.

Suddenly, several large men grabbed Brian. One of them got him in a headlock and took him away.  His eyes bulged with terror as they dragged him through the door.

Sam, who had stood up in protest, sank to her chair. As her blood sugar betrayed her, she feared she would faint again.

She could not take it in. After all this time, the fighters were just going to shoot them? People they had laughed with and drunk beer with?  She was sure she had translated the tense wrong.  Maybe they were just taking him back to his hut? There was shouting outside, which faded as the rebels moved away from the hut.

There was a moment’s silence and then a loud retort of what could only have been gunfire.

All the men in the hut cheered.  Fred started to cry.  He sobbed on his knees, his over-large clothes hanging in rags around his diminished frame.

Sam looked at the floor.  She could not bear to catch his eye and to humiliate him further.

He did not have much dignity left but he had to defend himself.  Their only chance was to stick up for themselves.

The rebels stumbled back into the hut and slumped on their makeshift chairs.  There was a smell of cordite.  Joao silenced the back rows by pointing his AK47 at them.

Fred was the next to be judged.  He hauled himself to his feet and stood on the sandy floor, scratching his thigh for a non-existent itch.

Sam could not imagine what he had done to be on trial and had hoped to help him by judicious translation.  She knew what would happen to them both barring a miracle.  She was not expecting the next development.

The lawyer re-entered the hut. From the marks on his shorts, he had urinated in some dark corner outside.  He stood at the front of the rows of fighters.  In a loud voice, he proclaimed that Fred would be tried for rape.

Sam made him repeat it three times.

Fred stopped sobbing and looked bemused.  He looked at Sam for guidance.  She shrugged at him.  She had no idea what this was about, either.

Then, from a dark corner of the hut, a young woman was pushed forward.  She was weeping and covered her face with her hands when she saw Fred.  It was Dina, Fred’s girlfriend from Kardo.  The fighters were baying for blood.

‘Do you know this woman?’ asked the lawyer.

‘Yes, I do,’ answered Fred.  ‘We are friends.’

‘Friends?' asked the lawyer.  ‘Have you had relations with her?’

‘Yes, we have been together for four months.’

‘Four months?  Have you no shame?’

‘I am sorry. I don’t know what you mean.  I love her.’

‘She is thirteen.  That is rape in your country, is it not?’

Sam flinched.  Where on earth did he get that piece of information?  Fred looked astonished and then horrified.

‘Thirteen?’ he stammered.  ‘Thirteen?  She said she was sixteen.  I swear.’

The lawyer turned to question the girl.  She appeared to have been coerced to appear, as she did not want to answer the lawyer’s questions. She looked at Fred with a pleading expression.

As he started to sob again, she ran forward and wrapped her long limbs around him weeping, too.  A couple of the less drunk rebels came forward and dragged her away.

‘It wasn’t rape,’ said Fred. ‘I paid her.  I wasn’t the first.  She is a prostitute.  How can that be rape?’

Sam did not translate, but she could tell from the expression on the lawyer’s face that he understood far more English than he was letting on.

‘You have raped a thirteen-year-old girl.  And then insulted her by giving her money.  How would you feel if that happened to your daughter?’

Fred realized that he had made things worse.  He pleaded.  ‘But I love her.   We were a couple.  I gave her money because she asked me for it.  I gave her the dress she is wearing.  I didn’t know she was thirteen. I swear I didn’t know.’

Sam had to translate over a sea of jeers and insults.  She knew that the lawyer had already made up his mind about the verdict.

Joao stood up to silence the tribunal who had taken up their chorus of guilty pleas again.  ‘Take him outside,’ he said.

‘No,’ screamed Fred.  ‘No, I don’t want to die.’

The girl freed herself from the soldiers and launched herself at Fred.  She wailed and screeched and clung on to him like a leech.  She had to be slapped hard to make her let go.

Fred howled in fear. 

The soldiers prevaricated, uncertain of what to do.

‘Didn’t you hear me?’ asked Joao.  ‘Take him outside and get on with it.’

Fred was dragged along the ground, as his legs would not carry him.  His awful howls of fear could be heard through the walls of the hut.  There was a thud, and he went quiet.  This was followed by a single shot and the sound of a body being pulled over the sand.

The dreadful scenes had knocked the stuffing out of the tribunal, who had sobered up.  Fred had become a favourite with the fighters and could often be seen trying to fix a mobile phone or explain something in sign language.  They made fun of his skin, which got bright pink at the least provocation either by the sun or embarrassment.  The execution of such a gentle being diminished the effects of the drink and affected the atmosphere in the hut.

Joao appeared uncertain how to proceed.

Sam sat on her chair.  She wondered if she was brave or not because up to this moment, she had always assumed that she was a courageous person.  People had called her brave for coming to Tamazia, and she had accepted it.  Of course she must be to work in a war-zone.

But now, she was sure that she, like Fred, would have to be carried out howling. She envied Brian, who had not known what was happening until it was too late.

Joao pointed to a spot on the floor.  Sam managed to walk to it without help.  The tiny lawyer stood up again and accused Sam of stealing diamonds from the village of MARFO, causing starvation and penury.

Sam did not answer.  She could not think of anything to say that she could remember how to translate into Portuguese.  She knew that nothing she said would make any difference to the verdict.

‘Have you nothing to say in your defence?’ roared Joao.

Sam looked him in the eye, forcing a rebellious look onto her face.  She drew herself up to her full height and tried to spit on the floor in defiance.  But her mouth was dry.  She waited for the verdict she knew was coming.  She was another expendable foreigner, and her time had run out.  She wobbled and almost fell.