All five members of the foreign press corps in Port Dunbar were invited to Brigadier Solomon Adeka’s state funeral, three days later. The journalists stood in a loose, uneasy group at the rear of the dusty, weed-strewn cemetery that adjoined Port Dunbar’s modest cathedral – St Jude’s – as a guard of honour carried Adeka’s coffin to the graveside. Through a crackling PA system Colonel Denga gave a short but passionate eulogy, outlining Adeka’s virtues as a man, a patriot and a soldier, describing him as the ‘first hero of Dahum’ and saying emphatically that the struggle for freedom would continue – this brought cheers and applause from the large crowd that had gathered beyond the cemetery walls – and that the people of Dahum should draw their inspiration, their courage, their endurance from the memory of this great man.
A firing party raised their rifles and delivered a ragged six-shot volley into the hazy blue sky as the coffin was lowered.
Bond looked on in an ambivalent state of mind and then became aware that Geoffrey Letham was sidling over in his direction. They had greeted each other curtly the other night, not shaking hands, and Bond had swiftly taken himself off to his room with his bottle of whisky. He had managed to avoid him subsequently, having Sunday fill his days with endless rounds of official sightseeing. However, there was no escaping him now, as Letham appeared at his shoulder, mopping his florid face with a damp ultramarine handkerchief.
‘I say, Bond,’ he whispered in his ear, ‘Breadalbane tells me you met Adeka just before he died. What was all that about?’
‘Nothing important.’
‘What was he like?’
‘Under the weather.’
‘Most amusing. Why did he want to meet you? I was told he refused to speak to the press. I’d come to Dahum expressly to interview him. The Mail was going to pay him serious money.’
‘I’ve no idea,’ Bond said.
‘All very curious, I must say.’ Letham gave an unpleasant smile. ‘In fact, you’re a very curious man, Bond. For a journalist of your age and alleged experience, no one seems to have heard of you. You and I must have a little chat about it one day.’
‘I don’t speak to the press, Letham, hadn’t you heard?’
Bond wandered away, wondering if Letham was issuing some kind of covert threat. He had arrived on a Super Constellation flight, having left Sinsikrou after his encounter with Bond and travelled to Abidjan in Ivory Coast. There, he’d paid Hulbert Linck to be flown in, posing as a friend and supporter of ‘plucky little Dahum’. Initially Bond was more irritated than perturbed by Letham’s surprising presence – he could deal with dross like Letham effortlessly – but what was disturbing him now was that nothing in Dahum had changed with the death of Adeka. It had been announced in a black-bordered edition of the Daily Graphic – Dahum’s sole newspaper – but the expected collapse of morale in the army and population had not taken place. The junta had simply announced that Colonel Denga was the new commander-in-chief of the Dahumian armed forces. The king was dead – long live the king.
Bond saw Kobus Breed talking with a group of his fellow mercenaries. He wandered over and called his name and Breed turned to greet him.
‘Hail the conquering hero,’ he said, not smiling.
Bond ignored this and asked him how he and his fellows had taken the news of Adeka’s death.
‘Well, it was a bit of a kick in the crotch,’ Breed said with a shrug. ‘But, you know, Denga’s as smart as a whip. Learned everything at Adeka’s knee. And, hey,’ he grinned, ‘we’ve got an air force now. The Malmös are ready for their first mission. Everyone’s in good heart – and of course we still have our secret weapon.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Tony Msour.’
‘Who is?’
‘Our juju man. Our fetish priest. Makes our boys immortal.’
‘Oh, yes, of course.’
Bond walked back to the Press Centre from the cemetery, thinking hard, composing in his mind a telex message to M at Transworld Consortium. He could let M know that Adeka had died – though surely that news had broken by now – and point out that Adeka hadn’t in fact been the vital key to Dahum’s survival as everyone in London had supposed. What more could he do? he wondered. Perhaps he should book a $100-seat on the next Constellation out.
Bond duly sent his telex and received a swift and brief reply from Agence Presse Libre. ‘Suggest you stay in Port Dunbar until hostilities cease. Have you any idea when that might be?’
Bond detected M’s hand in the message’s ironic terseness. He could read the subtext: his mission was not over, that much was clear.
Two days later the foreign press corps was invited to reassemble to witness the first attack by the Dahumian air force on a key Zanzarim army position – a substantial bridge over one of the many tributaries of the Zanza River. Bond happily allowed Breadalbane to travel with him in Sunday’s Peugeot. They set off well before dawn and after a two-hour drive along bumpy minor roads they arrived, as the sun was rising, in a village called Lamu-Penu, a half-mile from the targeted bridge. There were no villagers in evidence, just 300 well-armed Dahumian soldiers drawn up in a long column, waiting for the fetish priest. Hulbert Linck was there in a Land Rover equipped with a radio that gave him contact with the Janjaville strip. The fetish priest arrived and proceeded to ‘immortalise’ the troops, spraying liquid from his magic gourd through his bared teeth at them, and flicking at them with his horsehair whisk. Bond looked over at Letham, who was trying to suppress his hilarity, his shoulders rocking, small snorts coming from his nose and throat.
Then Linck called in the Malmös and ten minutes later they flew low over the village, waggling their wings in salute to great cheers and exultation from the massed troops waiting to follow them in. Seconds later came the sound of their machine guns as they strafed the bridge defences and, with whoops and yells, led by Breed and his men, the soldiers jogged off to do battle.
It was all over in fifteen minutes and the journalists were duly called up to the bridge to bear witness. Clearly Zanza Force’s aptitude for swift and sudden retreat had prevailed again, Bond thought. He paced around, thoughtfully, looking at the marginal damage – some burst sandbags, discarded equipment, the odd bloodstain on the tarmac – and ran into an exhilarated Hulbert Linck.
‘Look what we can do, Bond, with three little aeroplanes. Wait until the ship arrives.’
‘What ship?’
‘We’re going to run the blockade at Port Dunbar,’ Linck said, tapping the side of his nose. ‘Don’t worry – I’ll keep you informed.’
Bond went in search of Breed to see if he could shed more light on this mysterious ship and its cargo. He found him stringing up three Zanzari corpses – the only fatalities of the air strike – busying around them with his ropes and his fish hooks, hauling the bodies up by their jaws into the trees above the road that approached the bridge and the river.
‘Linck told me about the ship,’ Bond said.
‘Did he?’ Breed said, impressed. ‘It’s meant to be a deadly secret. He must think you’re one of us – now you’ve won your medal.’
‘So, what’s with this ship?’
‘Big cargo vessel. Got some serious stuff on board. Going to change everything.’ He cuffed away a tear and turned to his men in the trees. ‘Take ’em up a bit higher, boys. Up! Up! Heave-ho! We want everyone to have a good view.’
On the drive back to Port Dunbar, Bond began to feel a debilitating sense of impotence. What was he meant to do in this situation, for God’s sake? Hulbert Linck was a one-man arms industry coming to the rescue of embattled Dahum – and what was this ‘serious stuff’ Breed mentioned? Bond wondered if there was any way he could immobilise Linck, somehow take him out of the equation . . . But how to get to him? And then there was still the Dahum army, fighting on efficiently under Colonel Denga—
The sound of a car horn being tooted angrily behind them interrupted his thoughts and Sunday pulled in promptly.
A glossy black Citroën DS swept by, curtains drawn in its rear windows.
‘Who the hell’s that?’ Breadalbane asked.
‘That’s Tony Msour,’ Sunday said. ‘Very rich man.’
Bond remembered where he’d heard the name before: Kobus Breed’s juju man. Bond watched the Citroën roar down the road, its hydropneumatic suspension coping effortlessly with the potholes. Nice cars. The nudging intimations of an idea were beginning to nag at him.