Wynwood stopped suddenly, thinking he had heard a sound off to their right. ‘Hear anything?’ he asked in a whisper.
Franklin shook his head. The twelve Senegalese behind him were bumping into each other like trucks on a braking goods train.
It had probably been a representative of the local wildlife. Wynwood started forward again, moving their line of march in a long arc towards the rear of the enemy position. They had not seen anyone moving for some time, around either the barricade in the road or the houses the rebels were using as their camp, but that did not necessarily mean a thing. For all Wynwood knew the bastards were watching them through binoculars right now, and just waiting until they came into SMG range.
It was not likely though. It had rained for an hour or so in the middle of the night, the ground was soft, the moonlight dulled by high cloud cover. Conditions for a silent approach were almost perfect. And as far as they had been able to tell from observation the rebels had no binoculars.
Wynwood was twenty yards from the first building now, with the rest of the party strung out across the open ground behind him. He passed through the deep shadow of a mango tree, savouring its sweet scent but hoping that a ripe fruit would not drop onto his head.
As planned, the last two Senegalese in line were left by the door of the first building, and the two then bringing up the rear at the next. By the time they reached the back of the house which was being used by the officer in charge of the roadblock, only Wynwood, Franklin and four of the Senegalese remained. Two were left at the back door.
Wynwood reached the front corner of the house and put an eye around it. Four men were sitting round a smoky fire, two in uniform and two not, each with a gun within reach. Two of these were Kalashnikovs, the other two Sterling sub-machine-guns. The Welshman withdrew his head and used a finger to spell out SMGs on the wall. Franklin nodded in understanding. Silence might be a priority but not if it involved looking down the barrel of an SMG. The rebels would not be given any second chances.
‘OK?’ Wynwood mouthed silently. Franklin nodded again, the two Senegalese simply looked nervous.
The four men walked out into the open space, so naturally that it took the rebels a full three seconds to realize that they were not on the same side. And by that time they had also become aware of the four guns aimed in their direction.
‘Stand up and put your hands above your heads,’ Franklin said softly but with deliberate clarity, hoping that all four spoke English. Apparently they did. ‘Now walk this way and lie flat on the ground. On your stomachs.’ They did as they were told.
Wynwood went to pick up the Sterlings, gave one to Franklin, and indicated to the two Senegalese that they should keep their guns on the four prone rebels. Then the two Englishmen took up position at the front door of the HQ house, and Wynwood shouted ‘now!’ with all the power in his lungs.
There was the sound of doors being pushed open, shouldered open, kicked open, the sound of surprised voices woken from sleep, one crash of broken glass, one drawn-out groan, but not a single shot was fired. Ten minutes later thirty-five rebels were being led in single file up the road in the direction of Serekunda, with six of the Senegalese soldiers in attendance.
If four of the prisoners looked somewhat underdressed for their night-time stroll it was because Franklin and three of the Senegalese were now sitting around the fire in the clothes they had been wearing. Twenty minutes later, when the four men of the regular rebel road patrol arrived in their jeep, even the growing light of dawn was not enough to expose the deception. All four were arrested without a fight, and sent on down the road after their comrades. As the first glow of the sun emerged from the distant ocean horizon one route to the rebel HQ was wide open.
A mile and a half away, at almost the same moment, Diba awoke with a start. He lay there for a few moments, wondering what had woken him, but could hear only the birds in the tree canopy that covered the depot. His mouth was dry from the booze, and maybe his brain was a little fuzzy from the dope. He could still smell the women on him, which made him feel good. A feeling spread through him, as strong as it was unreasoned, that this would be an important day in his life.
It was time to get away from the depot – even with the sort of entertainment that had been provided on the previous evening, the place was beginning to feel more and more like a prison. There was little doubt that Comrade Jabang and his revolution were doomed, and who knew what the crazy bastards might do with their backs against the wall. This lot might be more interested in looking good and ordering people around than anything else, but Diba had a sneaking suspicion that they thought they were trying to help humanity, and anyone who even thought something like that needed their brains washing out.
It was definitely time to put some distance between himself and the comrades, and get started on his own programme. The first thing was to get hold of a decent gun. A Kalashnikov was probably a great weapon for fighting wars, or even hijacking planes, but it did not fit snugly in the waistband of his trousers.
The sun was now clear of the sea, the sky beginning to clear. Caskey, standing up in the turret of the armoured car, looked back along the column of vehicles stretched out on the Serekunda road. Directly behind his vehicle were the four lorries containing their sixty-four Senegalese troopers, and behind them more armoured cars and lorries loaded with several hundred more soldiers. If N’Dor had got his act together a similar force would be launching an attack along the Bakau road in precisely twenty-five minutes.
Feeling a little like Ward Bond in Wagon Train, Caskey raised his arm and gestured the column forward. The armoured car jerked forward, almost throwing him off balance, and then settled into a satisfyingly smooth rumble. Caskey grinned to himself. The sun was shining, there was a breeze in his face, gorgeous palm trees waving him by, and he was off to war again. In moments like this he could understand the Sioux going into battle crying out that it was a good day to die.
Not that he expected to die in The Gambia. There would probably be a lot of sound and fury in the next half-hour or so – in fact he was counting on it – but Caskey did not really expect the terrorists to put up much of a show. It would be like sex, he thought – arriving was nice enough but it was the journey which provided most of the excitement.
Two lorries back Franklin was also thinking about sex. Or perhaps love – who could tell? He had not seen Sibou for more than two days, since escorting her home on the night they had made love. On the following afternoon the three SAS men had come across to Bakau for their appointment with Lady Jawara, and they had not been back to Banjul since. He wondered whether she was angry that he had not made contact. Or pleased. Maybe she would rather forget the whole business. After all, what could come of it – with him a soldier in Hereford and her a doctor in The Gambia?
He tried to put it all out of his mind. The Senegalese soldiers packed alongside him were mostly sitting in silence, some of them nervously chewing their lower lips or breathing deeply. A couple of the men who had taken part in the pre-dawn capture of the roadblock unit were in his lorry, and they seemed more relaxed than the others. It was all about confidence, as his athletics coach had told him over and over again.
They had been travelling for several minutes now; they had to be near the disembarkation point. Right on cue, the lorry started slowing down, and then turned right through the familiar gates of the Medical Research Centre. If the rebels had heard the approaching vehicles, then with any luck they would assume that they were on hospital business.
The Senegalese troops dismounted, and formed up in a column of pairs behind Caskey, Franklin and Wynwood. There was a lot of nervous grinning now, a clutching of amulets and the odd bow in what was presumably the direction of Mecca. At Caskey’s signal the column started off, with the Englishman at the front maintaining a steady jogging pace along the stretch of bare earth which adjoined the right-hand side of the road. They had about four hundred yards to go, which at this pace translated into not much more than two minutes.
It felt longer. The trees which leant across their path offered some cover, particularly if the Field Force depot sentries were in their usual position just inside the gates, and the sound of a hundred and thirty-four feet was more muted than Caskey would have believed possible, but sooner or later someone was bound to become aware of their approach.
They were more than halfway now, and he was beginning to feel the pace a little. By this time the armoured cars should be on the move behind them, the plan being that they should become audible at exactly the same moment as the first assault team became visible. ‘Hit ’em with everything at once,’ was Caskey’s motto, and preferably at speed.
The gates were only a hundred yards away now, and the fire-station tower leapt into view above the trees, but still no shots or cries of alarm rose up from the rebel stronghold. And then suddenly one of the sentries ambled out across the road and into view, looking as if he had not a care in the world. For several seconds he seemed engrossed in rolling a cigarette, but either the movement or the sound of the runners must have caught his attention, because his head jerked round and his mouth dropped open. The cigarette slipped from his grasp, he looked around wildly as if in search of somewhere to hide, and then half-ran, half-scrambled his way back towards the gates.
Through the entire pantomime not a sound escaped his lips. It was his fellow-sentry who raised the alarm, letting out a blood-curdling shout at the same time as he opened fire with his Kalashnikov, apparently at the trees across the street.
The moment the alarm went up, Caskey had told his men, make as much noise as an entire fucking army. They now obliged, firing their Kalashnikovs and SMGs into the air with wild abandon, and shrieking like a bunch of hyperactive banshees. The drumming of their feet on the road suddenly seemed three times as loud, as if someone had accidentally knocked the volume control.
The ambling sentry had already disappeared, the one with the gun took one appalled look at what was coming towards him and bolted out of sight through the gates. Caskey was about twenty yards behind him, shooting through the open gateway in a half-crouching run, braced for the impact of whatever it was the rebels had to throw at him.
There seemed to be nothing. Figures were visible in the distance, some already running for cover, some foolishly just standing there, curiosity getting the better of their survival instincts. Thanking their lucky stars, the SAS men and the Senegalese troops spread out in the prearranged pattern, still running, with the leading twenty men heading straight for the last-known location of the hostages.
Jabang had, as usual, been sitting on the command office verandah when the first shot rang out. Instinctively, he knew what was happening, even before the sudden, tumultuous outburst of gunfire and shouting which came on the first shot’s heels.
He walked quickly inside and picked up the light sub-machine-gun which Taal had got for him, and stood there for a few seconds, holding the gun and staring blankly into space. Then he strode purposefully through the command room and out of the building’s front door. About a hundred yards away he could see men in uniform running in what looked like all directions. The Senegalese.
He became conscious that several of his own men were standing around him, all carrying guns, all looking at him and waiting for his orders.
He did not know what to tell them.
There was a loud explosion away to his right, in the direction of the cell block. The hostages were being released! Jabang started off instinctively in that direction, his men dutifully following him, but almost immediately found himself face to face with Taal.
The military commander, who had neither shirt nor shoes on, was carrying only an automatic pistol. ‘Get to the back gate,’ he told Jabang, ‘it’s the only way out.’
Jabang looked at him as if he was a creature from Mars.
‘Go!’ Taal shouted at him.
Jabang went, collecting more and more men as he went. The mad burst of gunfire which had started the attack now seemed reduced to the occasional shot, and at the gate Jabang could see many of his men already hightailing it into the distance across the stretch of mostly open countryside. He took one last look back, wondering where Taal was, and then started running for his life down the dirt lane and through the knee-high grass.
For all his determination to be ready when the time came, Diba had the misfortune to be in the middle of his morning shower when the assault team came through the gates. He struggled back into his clothes, grabbed the rifle which he had had the sense to keep with him, and cautiously poked his head out of the washroom barracks, just in time to see two white men race past him, followed by a bunch of Senegalese soldiers.
He pulled his head quickly back, waited five seconds, and tried again. The soldiers were gone. He stepped out, turned a corner and started running like everyone else towards the rear of the depot, swivelling his eyes to left and right for any sign of immediate danger. The parade ground in the centre seemed empty at first, but as Diba loped across it he saw a man emerge from the command offices on the far side, carefully buttoning his Field Force uniform shirt, as if this was the day of all days for being smartly turned out.
The man was carrying an automatic pistol, Diba realized, and he slowed his pace to a fast walk as Taal came towards him, then pulled up the Kalashnikov and blew a bloody hole in the neatly buttoned shirt. Hardly breaking step, Diba let the rifle drop and stooped to pick up the pistol. Now he had a weapon for the outside world.
Not far away Wynwood and Franklin were taking turns smashing the cell locks, and telling the hostages they were safe. Most of them looked undernourished and generally the worse for wear, but it seemed that none had been tortured or killed. In a world like this one, Wynwood thought, be thankful for such mercies.
Outside Caskey was experiencing a mix of emotions. The operation seemed to have been a complete success when it came to safely rescuing the hostages, but most of the rebels had probably escaped, because it had been planned that they should. The normal procedure for an op like this was to have assault and perimeter teams, the latter mopping up what the former flushed out. But this time Jawara and N’Dor between them had vetoed the encirclement of the depot, on the grounds that the terrorists were more likely to harm the hostages if they had no means of escape. Caskey had argued that the assault team would be moving so fast that the terrorists would have no time to realize they even had such options, but he had been overruled.
Still, he thought, looking round at the Senegalese troops now swarming through the depot grounds, the rebellion was over. They had done what they had come to do. The Gambia belonged to President Jawara once more.
Two hours later General N’Dor gave a press conference under the baobab tree behind his HQ. He confirmed the strong rumour that two British Army advisers had taken part in the attack on the Field Force depot. ‘We knew that the rebels did not shoot at white men,’ he explained, ‘because we had seen white men going and coming even in areas we considered dangerous. The rebels didn’t shoot at them because they wouldn’t know whether they were diplomats or other personnel, injury to whom could bring down outside intervention on their heads.’ The General nodded here, as if he saw the rebels’ point. ‘Lives have been saved,’ he went on, ‘and that’s what matters. Whether they were saved by white, blue or green men is to us unimportant.’
He offered no explanation as to why the rebels, seeing their last stronghold being overrun, should still be worrying about outside intervention.
By this time the three SAS men had been given a lift by the Senegalese back to the Presidential Palace, where they found the red carpet conspicuous by its absence. The President had apparently removed himself to his bungalow in Bakau, and the SAS men were politely informed that rooms had been reserved for them at the Atlantic Hotel. Their belongings had already been packed and taken across.
‘I’ve heard of overstaying a welcome, but this is ridiculous,’ Caskey said.
‘At least our bags weren’t taken to the airport,’ Wynwood said.
Worse was to come for Caskey. From the Atlantic he phoned Bill Myers, who told him that direct communications with London had been established, and that the Foreign Office was less than ecstatic about the SAS unit’s elastic interpretation of ‘military advice’. They were also wondering why Caskey had not sent back a single report since their departure from London.
‘Because we’ve been too damn busy doing the job we were sent to do,’ Caskey said angrily. ‘Sorry, Bill,’ he added, ‘it’s not you I should be yelling at.’
‘Don’t worry about it,’ Myers said. ‘And your real boss sent you all a “well done”.’
‘Well, that’s something.’
‘And he’s given you all a week’s immediate leave.’
Caskey went back upstairs to tell the others, but both men were stretched out in their rooms, fast asleep. He went to his own room and sat down on the edge of the bed, feeling the familiar flatness of a mission completed.
It was early afternoon before Radio Gambia announced the routing of the terrorists and ‘the restoration of democracy and order’. Those few rebels and criminals still at large in the Bakau-Fajara area would soon be captured, the announcer said. All those people who had not yet returned to their work should do so without delay.
Sibou Cham listened to the broadcast in the nurses’ common room at the Royal Victoria, and wondered whether Moussa Diba was dead, captured, or one of the ‘few still at large’. The odds were on his having been taken, but she had no intention of taking any risks until she knew for certain.
She wondered whether the news on the radio meant she would see Worrell Franklin that evening. It was always possible that she had completely misread him, and that he had no intention of ever making contact with her again, but she did not think so. It had been so wonderful that night on the beach, and she found it hard to believe that he would not be as willing to repeat the experience as she was.
Two hundred or more rebels and ex-prisoners had managed to swarm out through the Field Force depot’s back gate, but for most of them it proved to be no more than a temporary reprieve. There were only three ways out of the Bakau area: by sea, across open country, or by road. Few of the rebels had any experience with boats, the open savannah made them sitting targets, and all traffic on the few roads and tracks out of the area was subject to stop and search by the authorities. Not surprisingly, more than half of the escapees had been captured by midday, and a majority of the rest before the daylight faded.
Diba was not one of them. He had immediately realized that the suburbs of Bakau offered a better chance of avoiding detection than open country, and once he had gained the relative safety of populated streets Diba did not make either of the two mistakes most popular with his ex-comrades. Instead of beginning to believe in his own invisibility or instantly seeking out a ride to the haven of the poorer townships, he worked his way across the suburbs and out the other side, to where the mangrove swamps around Cape Creek offered a multitude of hiding places.
Through the rest of the daylight hours he waited, daydreaming of possible futures far from Banjul, and occasionally slipping into sleep for a few blissful minutes. He would wake with hunger gnawing at his stomach, limbs cramped from their confinement within the mangrove roots, and the sun apparently no further across the sky.
At long last night began to fall, and as soon as he judged it dark enough Diba started off on the three-mile walk which would bring him to the Denton Bridge. Working his way along the strip of broken country which lay between the ocean and the road was neither easy nor fast, but this route did keep him clear of checkpoints or patrols, and after less than an hour’s walking he found himself looking out over Oyster Creek, the bridge a hundred yards or so away to his right. Beyond it, on the same bank, were the tourist-boat moorings.
He made his way down to the water’s edge and began following it towards the bridge, keeping a careful eye on the Senegalese checkpoint at its near end. As luck would have it, a minibus had just arrived, and the soldiers had their work cut out examining the passengers and their luggage. As Diba passed under the bridge he could hear a heated argument start up on the road above – something to do with a chicken, though he had no way of knowing what.
There was no light on the small wooden jetty, and it was difficult to choose between the dozen or so dug-out canoes tied up against it. Diba had never been particularly comfortable in boats, but he was not much of a swimmer, and in Oyster Creek there was always the chance of meeting an undernourished crocodile. He untied the mooring rope of the best-looking craft, climbed gingerly aboard, and managed to sit down without tipping the boat over and himself into the water. Though the argument around the brightly lit bus on the bridge was still filling the evening air, he focused all his concentration on making no sound with the paddle until he was at least halfway across the wide creek.
In midstream he crossed under the bridge, so as to reach the shore on the ocean side of the road. There was no checkpoint on the Banjul end, and he decided to risk walking straight down the unlit road into town. An hour later he was making a wide loop round a checkpoint outside the Banjul High School, crossing Box Bar Road and ducking into the backstreets of Portuguese Town. Another ten minutes and he was slipping through the gate of Anja’s compound.
Her room was in darkness, so Diba simply let himself in, anger rising at the thought of finding her with someone else. But she was not there, and neither were any of her things. The room had been stripped bare of everything but the bedstead.
He went in search of neighbours, and found two young men sharing some ganja in one of the other rooms. They looked at him blankly when he asked about Anja, so he dragged one of them across the yard by the ear to jog his memory. It worked, but not in the way he had wanted. Anja, it seemed, had moved out several days ago. And had not given anyone any idea where she was going. She had been frightened of someone, one of the young men volunteered, before realizing that he was probably talking to the frightener.
Diba gave him a contemptuous look and went back to Anja’s old room to think. He had been savouring this moment for days, and now it had all been snatched away from him. He needed a woman, he needed to … to show someone who he was.
He told himself to calm down and think. His clothes had survived the day without getting too soiled, which was good. His first need was money – enough of it to get clear of the country.
He knew exactly where to go. Halfway down Jones Street, just by the intersection with Spalding, was the home of a money-changer who went by the name of The Christian. Diba had no idea what his real name was, but he did know the man kept his money at home, because he had once tailed him there from his pitch opposite the tourist market. In those days his ambitions had not extended beyond Banjul, and the fear of being identified had held him back from going ahead with a robbery, but now he was on his way out of the country. And in any case, no one was ever identified by a dead man.
He arrived outside The Christian’s house, saw a light burning inside, and knocked on the door. The man himself answered it, his eyes growing rounder as he saw the automatic pointing at his chest.
‘Get in,’ Diba growled.
The man backed away. ‘What do you want?’ he pleaded.
‘What do you think?’ Diba sneered, closing the door behind him and bringing the gun up to within an inch of his terrified face. ‘I want all the money you keep here, and it had better be a good sum. Or I’ll just blow your head all over the wall.’
The man looked into his eyes, and did not like what he saw. ‘OK, OK,’ he said, ‘it’s in here, come, I’ll give it to you, all of it.’
The money – a thick wad containing assorted denominations of dalasis, CFAs, English pounds, French francs and US dollars – was in a padlocked metal box under the table.
Diba’s mouth watered at the sight. ‘How much is there here?’ he asked softly.
‘About two thousand five hundred dalasis – that’s almost a thousand dollars …’
It was a fortune. ‘Turn round,’ said Diba.
The man opened his mouth to speak, but decided not to. He turned round, and Diba swung the automatic against the side of his skull with all the force he could muster. After gathering up the money he put an ear against the man’s chest to see if the heart was still beating. It seemed not to be, but just to make sure he hit him again in the same place.
He let himself back out into the night, feeling the adrenalin flowing through his veins, a faint throbbing in his head. A woman cast a doubtful glance in his direction as she walked by, and his smile in return only served to hasten her steps.
He needed a woman, he thought. And soon.
McGrath heard a later airing of the same news broadcast as Sibou, and immediately telephoned Mansa Camara’s office to find out whether Diba was on the list of those killed or captured. The Field Force man was not there, but one of his subordinates told McGrath that he would try to get him the information. Ten minutes later he called back with the news that Diba had so far not been found, either alive or dead.
McGrath packed up work for the day and drove the ministry jeep up to the Royal Victoria. The reception area was empty and she was sitting in her office, feet up on the desk, apparently deep in thought. She looked up with a start, and he caught a flash of disappointment where he had expected fear. ‘Waiting for someone?’ he asked.
‘No,’ she said. ‘How are you?’
‘As well as can be expected.’ He sat down on the edge of her desk. ‘He may still be out there,’ he told her bluntly.
‘I know.’
‘So I’ve come to take you home.’
She smiled at him. ‘That’s very kind,’ she said, ‘but – I don’t know – I feel restless this evening …’
‘Then let’s paint the town red – what’s left of it.’
‘Oh … I don’t know … what have your English friends been doing?’
‘I don’t know the details, but they’ve been over in Bakau for the last couple of days. And probably running the whole show, if Caskey had anything to do with it.’
‘And now it’s over they’ll be going back, I suppose?’ she said, a little too obviously.
McGrath’s face split into a grin. ‘I get it,’ he said. ‘So which one is it? No, don’t tell me … Wynwood’s happily married and Caskey’s older than I am. It must be our Mr Franklin.’
She rolled her eyes at the ceiling. ‘I like him, OK?’
He laughed. ‘It’s great,’ he said. ‘I was beginning to get worried about you.’
‘You’re impossible,’ she said.
‘So my wife tells me. Anyway, they’re staying at the Atlantic Hotel now …’
‘Since when?’
‘Since this afternoon. I’m meeting Caskey up there in an hour or so. Want to come? Or would you like me to take your boyfriend a message?’
‘He’s not … And I can deliver my own messages, thank you.’ She smiled at him. ‘But you could drive me home, wait while I have a shower and change, and then drive me over to the hotel.’
‘Uh-huh. And what’s in it for me.’
‘A double whisky?’
‘You could have had me for a single.’
‘I know.’
Diba could not believe his luck. Not only had the doctor emerged with the Englishman McGrath, but he was able to flag down a passing taxi in time to follow them back to the house in Wellington Street. He saw them enter the front door as his cab went by, and by the time he had paid off the driver and walked back the fifty yards someone had turned on the second-floor lights.
It was an old building from colonial days, and as far as Diba could tell its bottom two floors were occupied by a daytime business. Certainly there was no sign of life through their shuttered windows, and generally speaking this was a commercial rather than a residential area.
He thought about simply knocking on the door and having one of them open it onto his gun. The trouble was, it might be the woman, and then he would have to find a way to deal with the Englishman. He knew from experience that was not likely to be easy. No, this time he had to be certain, and not give the bastard the slightest chance of a comeback.
Fifteen minutes they had been up there now, and the only reason he had for supposing they were coming down again was the slapdash way the Englishman had parked the jeep, slewed halfway across the road. Diba examined the columned porch, and decided that it would be an ideal spot for an ambush if they did come down again.
He went back into the road, looked up at the lights, and wondered if they were fucking at that moment. It made him feel hot thinking about it.
One light went out, and then another. Diba hurried back into the shadows of the porch and waited for the hoped-for sound of feet on the stairs inside. The seconds stretched out until he was almost convinced that they had gone to bed, and then he heard her voice, sounding almost insultingly happy, and the door swung open. She came out first, and he caught a glimpse of her body profile as she walked past him. The Englishman followed, almost too quickly, but in one motion Diba took a single step forward and brought the automatic swinging down on the side of his head. Not as hard as he had hit the money-changer – he wanted this victim alive, at least for a while.
Franklin examined himself in the mirror, took one last admiring look at the batik trousers he had just purchased in the hotel shop, and left the room. ‘See you later,’ he told Wynwood through the Welshman’s open door.
‘Not if you’re wearing those trousers,’ Wynwood said. ‘Have fun,’ he yelled after him.
Franklin smiled to himself as he walked down the stairs. He could get to really like Wynwood, he thought. The Welshman did not get serious very often, but when he did it counted. He knew where the line was between being real and playing games, and in the work they were in it was a good thing to know.
He left the hotel and briskly walked the few hundred yards which separated it from the entrance to the Royal Victoria emergency department. There he received his first shock – it was in darkness. He looked at his watch, which told him it was half-past eight. Somehow he had assumed she would still be working, as she had been on the other days. Why, he asked himself, had he not thought to phone her earlier?
She must have gone home, he decided. He did not have her home telephone number, and he had no certain knowledge of the address, only a visual memory of where the taxi had stopped that night when he took her home. She had not wanted him to come up, and in the street he had been too busy kissing her goodnight to take much note of the surroundings.
But he did remember the name of the street.
Franklin walked down to Independence Drive, still cursing himself for his stupidity, and managed to find a taxi.
He climbed into the front seat. ‘Wellington Street,’ he told the driver.
‘What number?’ the man asked.
‘I don’t know. Just start at one end and drive slowly down.’
The driver gave him an odd look and pulled away. In not much more than a minute they were at the head of the street in question, and about half a mile down Franklin spotted the tell-tale clue – McGrath’s Ministry of Development jeep. It was possible that the Ministry had more than one jeep, but highly unlikely that they employed two men with such indifferent parking skills.
It was now about twenty minutes since Diba had knocked McGrath unconscious and pressed the barrel of his automatic between Sibou’s lips. Pulling the Englishman up two long flights of stairs had taken up quite a time – the man was heavy and Diba could only use one hand, since the other was needed for keeping the gun on the doctor.
She was worried that McGrath might be dying, but Diba would not let her examine him. In any case, it probably did not matter, she told herself, because the maniac was going to kill them both anyway. She fought back the rising tide of panic which accompanied this realization, and a second – that Diba had been so humiliated at their first meeting that the likelihood of him making any mistake at all was extremely slim.
But he might, she told herself, he might. And if he did she had to be calm enough to make the most of it.
They finally reached her flat on the second floor. After she had turned on the lights he dragged McGrath to the middle of the carpeted floor and then went back to lock the door, all the time keeping the gun pointed at her.
‘Nice place,’ he said, walking to the open window and looking out. The sky was full of twinkling stars, and the lights of Barra, two miles away across the river, seemed dead by comparison. Tomorrow he would get a taxi from there to the Senegalese border, and try and find some way round the border post. But that was tomorrow … He turned back to her.
‘The house belongs to my father,’ she said, thinking that any conversation was better than none.
‘And where is he?’
‘He lives in New York. He used to own the business downstairs.’
‘And he gave his little rich-girl daughter all these rooms just for herself.’
‘There are only two.’
‘Two is a lot,’ he muttered. His eyes were darting to and fro, as if looking for something. ‘Find something to tie him up with,’ he told her.
‘I don’t have anything.’
‘Take off that dress and tear it into strips,’ he said, grinning.
‘I have another dress,’ she said, turning away.
‘That one,’ he said, ‘or I kill him now.’
She gave him a contemptuous look, pushed the straps from her shoulders and stepped out of the dress. She was shaking inside but trying hard not to show it.
‘I thought about your body such a lot in prison,’ he told her.
‘It’s only a body,’ she said, wondering how long it would be before he asked her to remove her underwear.
He tore the dress up himself, and braided several strips until they were strong enough to hold McGrath’s wrists together behind his back. Then he used the Englishman’s belt to loop his tied wrists to the leg of a heavy wooden table. ‘Now you can take a look at him,’ he said. ‘And bring him back to life. I want him to be able to see it all.’
She knelt down to examine the head wound. It was not as bad as she’d feared …
The bell rang in the hallway outside. Someone had pulled the rope at the front door.
‘What’s that?’ Diba hissed.
‘Someone at the door,’ she said. She could only think of one person it would be, and the sudden feeling of hope almost overwhelmed her.
He stood there, uncertain what to do.
‘They’ll have seen the lights,’ she said.
‘Who is it?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know.’
He slapped her with the back of his hand, almost knocking her off her feet. ‘I don’t know!’ she half-shouted.
‘Come with me,’ he said, grabbing her by the arm and pulling her alongside him out through the door and down the stairs, just as the bell rang again above them.
He stopped and swung her round at the first-floor landing, intending to say how he expected her to get rid of the caller at the door, and remembered she was almost naked. ‘Fuck!’ he muttered violently. ‘OK, you’ll get behind the door,’ he hissed. ‘And if you make a single sound both you and whoever it is out there are dead.’
Franklin had spent a few minutes wondering what to do. Sibou had told him that McGrath was only a friend, and he had believed her, but standing out there in the street, the man’s jeep in front of her house, he had begun to fear the worst.
You’re being stupid, he told himself. Go and knock on the door.
He found an old-fashioned bell-pull and tugged on it, causing a bell to ring somewhere high in the house. For what seemed like an age nothing happened, so he pulled again, and then footsteps could be heard, which seemed to stop and start again, bringing all his suspicions back to life.
And then the door opened and an African face appeared, that of a man in his mid or late twenties, with a smile on his face and eyes that seemed not to match it.
Franklin had never seen Diba, never heard him described, but in that moment he knew that this was the man who had attacked her, the man whom McGrath had disarmed, and that he was holding a gun in the hand hidden from view behind the door.
Diba, for his part, had opened the door not only prepared for trouble, but also assuming that it would wear a white face. The sight of a man with a black face and batik trousers instantly eased his mind. ‘What do you want?’ he asked.
‘Taxi,’ the Englishman said creatively, making a fair stab at delivering both syllables with a Gambian accent. He looked at Diba, waiting expectantly. ‘Woman called,’ he added helpfully.
‘She changed her mind,’ Diba said, digging in his pocket and coming up with a five-dalasi note. ‘Take this,’ he said, and began to close the door.
The other hand was still out of view, and Franklin could not risk setting off the gun by launching himself forward. The door clicked shut, but no footsteps sounded inside. The man was waiting for him to leave before he moved back upstairs.
Franklin walked back down the steps, and turned left up the street, continuing on until he knew he was out of sight of the house. What should he do? The idea of going for the police was quickly abandoned: it would take hours and Sibou might only have minutes. She might already be dead. The thought cut through his mind like a knife.
There was only one thing for it – he had to get into the house, and now. It would have to be the back. He found a way between the next two houses down and stumbled his way through the dark backyard of the one which stood next to Sibou’s building. The ground behind the latter was overgrown, the only back door seemed both locked and rusted shut, and the windows were barred as well as shuttered. The verandah on the first floor looked more promising, but it was fifteen feet up, and the wall seemed to offer no help to a would-be climber.
Inside the house Sibou was holding on to the hope that the man at the door had been Franklin. The voice had not sounded like his, but she could not think who else it could have been. She wondered for a moment if McGrath might have phoned for a taxi while she was in the shower, but there would have been no reason – they had his jeep. And anyway, she suddenly remembered, the man had said it was a woman who called.
It had to be Franklin. He would get help or something. She just had to stay alive long enough for it to arrive.
All these thoughts ran through her head as Diba dragged her back up the stairs. At the top he pushed her into the flat and again locked the door behind him.
Franklin, or whoever he went for, would have to come through that door, she thought. There was no other entrance. She would have to distract Diba somehow, make noises to cover any that her rescuers might make. One thought came into her mind and caused her to shudder. She would sooner die, she thought, and then realized she would rather not.
‘Wake him up,’ Diba said, waving the gun in the direction of McGrath. She dutifully leant over the Englishman and took his pulse, which was surprisingly strong. ‘He’ll come round in a little while,’ she said, and at that moment an almost inaudible groan escaped from his lips.
Franklin had already wasted several minutes looking for something to help him onto the verandah when he discovered the line of iron rungs just round the corner of the building. Silently cursing himself, he started to clamber up as fast as the need for silence would allow, until one rung came half out of the wall and nearly sent him tumbling thirty feet down to the ground.
Moving more cautiously, he reached the level of the top-floor windows. Craning his neck round the corner of the house, he could see dim light coming from both, which suggested that light was filtering through from the room at the front. But he could see no way of reaching the windows from the ladder of iron rungs, and for a few moments he could see no reason whatsoever why the rungs had been placed where they had. Then he realized: the newer bricks to his right were blocking up what had once been a doorway.
He carried on up to the flat roof, pulled himself over the edge and lay still for a second, listening for any sounds that might be coming through from below. There were none. He got carefully to his feet and tiptoed over to the front edge, almost strangling himself on a half-invisible washing line. Here he could hear a voice – the man’s – but not what he was saying. And then Sibou, who replied more clearly: ‘You’ll kill him!’
Putting his head over the edge, Franklin could see the lighted windows below. The shutters were open, and he guessed that the glass windows were too, but there was probably a mosquito screen. The top of the window was about five feet below the level of the roof. He had no harness, but there was little choice.
He went back for the washing line, decided it was strong enough, and spent a few minutes knotting foot and hand holds at one end. Then he tied the other through one of the holes in the parapet where the water drained off the roof.
He stood there for a moment, thinking that he should have called the police, or someone, before coming up to the roof. If he fucked this up then there would be no help for her or McGrath.
But it was too late to think about that. Just don’t fuck up, he told himself, and everything will be fine.
He lowered himself over the edge, walking his feet down the wall inch by inch as he let the rope out through his hands. When he was level with the window he paused, and wondered how many years’ wages he would give for one stun grenade. Then he took a deep breath, bent at the knees, and pushed himself off the wall and out into space.
Sibou had told Diba that McGrath needed water, and he had accompanied her into the kitchen while she filled a cup from the tap. She noticed he had an erection, and wondered how long his desire for an audience would dampen his desire for her. Back in the living room she applied water to McGrath’s lips and forehead, and was just opening the top button on his shirt when her ears, already straining for any sound from beyond the locked door, picked up the slightest of scraping noises from outside the open window.
She managed not to look at Diba, instead rising to her feet as noisily as she could manage. ‘He can see now,’ she said aggressively, walking away from McGrath. ‘Let’s get it over with,’ she went on, moving towards the couch, pulling Diba’s eyes away from the direction of the window. To hold them on her she reached back to unhook her bra, flicking it off her shoulders and letting her breasts fall free, just as Franklin came hurtling feet first through the open window.
Diba whirled around, tried to raise the arm that held the gun, but found both her hands wrapped around it. He slashed out with his other hand, sending her flying, and turned in time for a final glimpse of the taxi driver from downstairs, perched on his knees, both hands around the butt of an automatic that was aimed between his eyes.
Darkness fell swift as a camera shutter, eclipsing his world.