Emerging aboveground, my eyeballs throbbed as they adjusted to the glare of the sun. We were in a small clearing surrounded by dense forest, deserted except for two vehicles: a dirt-spattered Land Rover with a large red cross on its side and a white Mercedes estate in which were seated several heavily armed soldiers, all of whom were watching us keenly.
‘Akuji’s men?’
David nodded.
I got him to hand over the keys to the Land Rover and told him to wait for me.
There were six of them, all seated in varying postures designed to intimidate, all in crisp uniforms with the Biafran sun on their shirtsleeves and berets sitting on their heads at the correct angle.
‘Hello,’ I said. ‘I’m Doctor Foster.’
‘Where is the Colonel?’ said one of the men, his thumb toying with the trigger of his machine gun.
‘He’s still downstairs,’ I said. ‘He wants to talk to the patient some more. Doctor Kanu and I are needed elsewhere, so he asked me to tell you to wait here for him.’
A few of the men sighed or rolled their eyes.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘He should be up in about half an hour.’
David had told me that all the patients belowground had been moved to another clinic on my arrival. But they didn’t know that, and I reckoned it would be at least another hour before they ventured downstairs to check up on Akuji. I turned to walk away.
‘Doctor Foster!’ one of them called out. I turned to face him and smiled through clenched teeth. ‘Are you from Gloucester?’ he asked.
A couple of the others broke into laughter, no doubt remembering the rhyme from childhood. Careless, Dark: you may be in the middle of the bush, but it’s also a former British colony. If you’re going to make this cover work, you’re going to have to use your head a bit more.
I smiled wearily. ‘Very funny,’ I said. ‘I’ve never heard that one before.’
Their cackles followed me back to the Land Rover. David was already behind the wheel, so I climbed in and handed him the key. As he started the ignition, he gestured at a small plastic container on the dashboard, which looked to be filled with yellow mush.
‘Garri,’ he said. ‘Crushed cassava.’
I told him I wasn’t hungry.
‘That’s because Benzedrine suppresses the appetite. But your body needs this. Eat.’
I did as I was told. The taste was coarse and bitter, but I was soon using my fingers to scoop out the last of it. When there was none left, I laid my head against the window and watched the landscape judder by.
I still had no idea why Akuji had been impersonating Ojukwu, but with an armed guard and a swish car, it seemed he had some pretty powerful backing. I had told both him and David that the PM’s death would lead to Britain switching allegiance in this war, but that was because I thought it would persuade them to help me. I wasn’t sure what the game was. Pritchard was still nagging at me: what was the message he had wanted to pass to Akuji?
I turned my head and was startled to see a man staring back at me from the road: sunken eyes, a few days’ beard and a bloodstained white coat. It took me a fraction of a moment to recognize myself in the wing mirror, which was hanging at an odd angle. I felt light-headed and exhausted, but I couldn’t sleep, not now. I caught David glancing at me, and I lifted my gun fractionally and met his gaze. He looked away and pushed his foot down.
*
Within twenty minutes of leaving the clinic we reached our first checkpoint. It was a distinctly unofficial-looking one, consisting of a gang of youths in unidentifiable uniforms and a few cleverly positioned oil drums. I had hoped that the large red cross painted across the side of our vehicle might speed us through such situations, but they signalled us to stop nevertheless, and I quickly slipped the gun into my waistband and covered it with my shirt. David pretended to brush some mosquitoes from the windscreen and in the same gesture brushed the garri container to the floor. ‘They’re looking for food,’ he said. Sure enough, as we came to a standstill the group immediately headed towards the back of the Land Rover to investigate our cargo. Without turning my head, I tried to calculate the odds of survival if I had to make a run for it, but presumably there were no edible supplies under the tarpaulin because they quickly sauntered back and waved us through with their sticks and machetes. We passed two more similar checkpoints before reaching our first back in Federal-occupied territory, but apart from flicking through David’s identity papers, which the boy held upside down, they were no more interested in us.
I was nevertheless getting anxious. I had to be there by half past two at the latest; it was now twenty to, so I asked David for an estimate of how far away we were. He pointed ahead, and as the haze lifted, I saw the concrete barriers, machine guns and ring of barbed wire reinforcing a solid perimeter fence.
‘We’re there,’ he said.
Udi.
*
‘Can I help you?’ said the man in the uniform of the British military police, but his tone of voice suggested he couldn’t.
‘We’re from the clinic over in Awo Omamma,’ I said cheerfully. ‘We were asked to bring over some supplies.’
The Benzedrine was really kicking in now: every pore on the Redcap’s face was in focus and my fatigue had miraculously vanished.
He stepped back from the window and took a small notepad from his belt.
‘Name?’
My stomach tightened, and a fresh supply of sweat broke across my neck and back.
‘We probably won’t be on there,’ I said, lowering my voice. ‘Has Pritchard arrived yet? I’m with his group.’
He looked at me.
‘And you are… ?’
‘Paul Dark. Government liaison.’
He frowned, and I knew why. Never change your story. I had started by saying I was with the Red Cross, before suddenly claiming to be a British government agent. I’d had to, because he had a list of authorized personnel and I wasn’t on it and I didn’t have time for the inevitable runaround that path would have led to: Snowdrop disappearing to fetch someone higher up the chain, bluster about phone calls received from people whose names I couldn’t quite remember, and so on. No choice but to switch horses quickly and hope that the hint of top-secret hooha carried enough authority to sway him – and that Pritchard was curious enough to come out and get me, despite apparently warning every soldier in the country to lock me up on sight. I cursed myself for letting the local roadblocks lull me into complacency. The British prime minister was visiting – of course they would have something professional in place.
‘Can’t say I know of anyone by that name, sir,’ said the Redcap, and put his pad away. ‘I’m afraid I cannot allow you to come through here—’
‘Oh for Christ’s sake, stop mucking me around!’ I said. ‘It’s vitally important I get through before the PM arrives. Find Henry Pritchard and tell him…’
I trailed off. A man with a jovial red face and a Saint George bow tie had made his way through the checkpoint and was striding towards us.
*
‘Gosh – you have been in the wars, haven’t you? So to speak.’ He chuckled into his chins.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I’ve caught some rare new disease, apparently.’
His eyes widened. ‘Contagious?’
‘Could be.’
He wiped his brow with a dirty-looking handkerchief. ‘Best keep out of your way, then!’ He squinted into the sun, which was almost directly above us. ‘Mad dogs and Englishmen, eh?’
David had gone off with the Redcap to park the Land Rover, and Manning was leading me through the compound’s main courtyard. All the usual pageantry and pomp of a state visit had been rolled out: Union Jacks hung from every available flagpole and a banner welcomed the British prime minister in foot-high letters above the main gate. Shirtsleeved photographers circled one another trying to find innovative angles to shoot it, while doctors in spotless white coats muttered abstractedly to journalists as they glanced anxiously at the wards that wrapped around the place like a quad.
It was easy to take the scene for granted, but I knew it could all change in an instant. I mentally replaced the Union Jacks with Hammer and Sickles and the black Rovers with ZiLs: one squeeze of a trigger and that could be the next state visit this place saw. So where could she be? The wards were very low-ceilinged, but there were three floors, so it wasn’t possible to see into them all. Especially the corners… Manning was babbling something next to me, and I interrupted to ask him if he had heard from Pritchard yet.
‘Yes, he arrived with Smale a few hours ago.’
‘Smale? What’s that little prick doing here?’
Manning looked offended. ‘I thought he was rather a nice chap, actually. He’s over there.’ He pointed to a group of whey-faced men in suits standing by an armoured car at the other end of the courtyard. One of them seemed vaguely familiar, and I asked Manning who he was.
‘Sandy Montcrieff,’ he said. ‘You met him at the Yacht Club, remember?’
I remembered: the ghostly figure in the nightshirt. Ex-BBC Mirror man.
‘What’s he doing here?’ I asked. ‘And Smale?’
‘They’re both with the PM’s advance party. Making sure of security with Henry.’
‘And where’s he?’
‘Oh, Christ knows. Last time I saw him he was about to head off to check the wards. Lord knows why he’s so anxious: I’d have thought he’d have been used to this sort of thing, what with his connections.’
I stopped walking. ‘What connections?’ It sounded odd coming from Geoffrey: he was also a spook.
Manning turned to me, his piggy little eyes looking a little forlorn. ‘Well, you know…’
‘No, I don’t know. Tell me: it could be important.’
‘Ah,’ said Manning. ‘Did I not mention that Henry is Marjorie’s brother?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘You didn’t.’ It explained how the old fool was still working, though. ‘So Henry is an aristocrat, is that it?’
‘Well, yes – but not just any old Scottish aristocracy, old boy! They’re second cousins to the Queen. I just thought with the number of state functions Henry’s been to, he must be used to—’
I didn’t hear the rest. I had already started running in the direction of the wards.