of weaponry wasn’t a quick and easy prospect. For a few moments Ben played with the insane idea that a loose grenade dropped into the wrong box could set off a fireworks display that would wreck most of the stadium and be seen and heard for miles. Goodbye shipment. But goodbye Ben, Jeff, and Tuesday too. Maybe that wasn’t such a good plan.
With the boxes opened, the job was only just beginning. The sun grew meltingly hot as, for the next three hours, Ben and his companions checked and itemised every single piece of ordnance in the shipment.
‘That’s the last one,’ Jeff said, tossing a rifle back into its crate.
‘I’m done,’ Tuesday said. He’d been checking the ammo supply for obvious duds such as dented cases or badly seated heads. Sadly, every round he’d examined had been shipshape and ready for business.
‘Only question now is, when’s the delivery of tanks and fighter jets due to arrive?’ Jeff said.
‘Don’t joke about it,’ Ben told him. ‘That could be our next job.’
‘Even if it’s not, Khosa’s still got enough toys here to kick off a pretty decent little war.’
‘But who against?’ Tuesday said.
‘This is Africa, old son,’ Jeff told him. ‘There’s never any shortage of folks to attack. Military rivals to overthrow, civilians to slaughter, other races to exterminate. It’s what people do all over the world, always have, but here it’s the national sport.’
Xulu had left the comfort of the shade and was strutting towards them, sipping from a bottle of water in one hand and carrying a radio handset in the other.
‘You have done good work this morning, soldier,’ he said to Ben, smacking his lips after a long drink. He didn’t offer any of it to them.
‘Delighted to be of service. I hope you didn’t strain yourself with too much rest back there.’
Xulu held up the radio. ‘We have been called back to headquarters. The General wishes to see you.’
‘To inform us what our next duty of the day is?’ Ben said. ‘Maybe he’ll have us spend the afternoon drilling some sense into your so-called troops. Starting with teaching them to tell their right hand from their left, and their arse from a rocket crater in the ground. You might want to join in. Might learn something.’
Xulu’s gold teeth glinted in the sunlight. ‘No, soldier. He wishes to see just you, alone. You are invited to lunch.’
Just what it was about the idea of Ben having lunch with Khosa that Xulu found so amusing, Ben didn’t want to dwell on. Maybe the General had special plans. Maybe it was also lunchtime for another poor starving lion captured by the soldiers, or a cageful of Rhodesian Ridgeback hounds that Khosa kept out back somewhere, and he’d decided to have Ben served up as the main course. When it came to murdering prisoners, the man was as inventive as he was unpredictable.
So it was with a degree of trepidation that, on their return to the Khosa City Dorchester, Ben let himself be escorted to the top floor and shown inside the luxurious command post. His guards closed him in and left.
There was no sign of Ben’s gracious host in the palatial suite’s living room. After a moment’s hesitation, he headed for another door and found himself in an enormous dining room with a table that could have seated twenty people. No sign of places set for lunch. No sign of Khosa, either.
Ben went on exploring. Beyond the dining room, he discovered a narrow hallway with more rooms off it. He silently cracked open a door to his right, peered through the gap and saw it was a bathroom the size of his whole safe-house apartment in Paris, all marble and gilt and mirrors everywhere. The toilet, sink, and bath were pink with gold-plated taps. Ben pulled a face as if he’d drunk vinegar, closed the door and tried another, only to find a walk-in wardrobe even bigger than the bathroom but empty of clothes except for Khosa’s uniform jacket and trousers hanging neatly from a rail.
The third door was a bedroom.
Like the rest of the suite it was richly decorated in silks and fine wood, but it appeared that Khosa had added some personal touches. Like the leopardskin covering on the enormous sofa on which the man himself was sprawled with his head lolling backwards and his legs splayed out in front of him.
The General was either asleep or unconscious. The sheets of the giant four-poster that dominated the room behind him were rumpled and looked as if he hadn’t long since got up. He was wearing a burgundy silk dressing gown, crocodile cowboy boots, and a gunbelt with the ever-present .44 Magnum Colt Anaconda revolver strapped to his side. Ben wondered if he wore the gun in bed at night.
Khosa had obviously been enjoying a late, liquid breakfast. A half-empty, unlabelled bottle of some kind of pale liquor rested on the coffee table in front of him, next to an empty crystal wineglass and a carved ebony ashtray in which the stub of a Cohiba Gran Corona stood crumpled, nose-down, like a crashed plane. The room stank of stale cigar smoke. Khosa’s eyes were closed, but they snapped sharply open as Ben stepped into the room, instantly focused on him. The General made no attempt to get up.
‘So you accepted my invitation, soldier,’ he said, as though there had been any choice in the matter. His voice betrayed no trace of drunkenness.
‘You’ll forgive me if I didn’t get time to change into something a little smarter,’ Ben said.
‘Oh, this is not a formal occasion. I very much enjoyed our last conversation. I thought it time that we talked some more.’
That conversation had been back at Khosa’s forward operating base in Somalia. They’d discussed war, strategy, the General’s grand future plans, and the fact that he’d cottoned onto the father–son relationship between Ben and Jude. Ben had had more pleasant conversations.
‘Where’s Jude?’
‘I told you, soldier. He is in a safe place and being very well looked after. There is no need for you to worry about him.’
‘I want to talk to him.’
‘That is not possible. You will have to accept my word on this. Do you not trust me, soldier? Do you not yet believe that what I say I will do, I always do?’
Ben made no reply. He did believe it. Khosa could invariably be taken at his word, and that was precisely what worried Ben the most.
Khosa straightened up and waved towards an armchair across the coffee table. ‘Come and sit down. I want you to talk to me.’
‘I don’t have a lot to say to you.’
‘Oh, that is not true. There is so much I can learn from a great warrior from the British army.’
‘So that you can get better at killing people? Looks to me as if you’re pretty adept at that already.’
Khosa found that highly amusing, and laughed loudly. ‘Ah, soldier, you never tire of teasing me. You are a very impudent fellow. But as you know, I admire your frankness. Nobody else speaks to me the way you do. It is refreshing to have such open discussions, man to man.’ He
