Place of Bones (3 page)

“Robert McCann?” said the thin man. His tone rose to the question, but it was not a question.

My pulse rate doubled on the spot and it was a struggle to remain outwardly calm. “Yes,” I said. There seemed little point in denying the name printed in the passport I held in my hand.

The third man opened another door, one that led to the outside, through which I could see a car pulled up on the pan close to the building, its rear door open. This, suddenly, was a classic security force scenario; the dawn swoop. Then I stopped analyzing the situation as the thin man withdrew his right hand from his pocket, displaying a small automatic. “You will climb into the car, sir,” he said. “Do not attempt anything foolish - however melodramatic that may sound to you. It would achieve nothing but heartache.”

I hesitated, my mind racing again. These people were not attached to the Congolese security force. They could not be. That organization, to my certain knowledge, had purged itself of all expatriate “advisors” as long ago as the early seventies; when Congo became Zaire. But it was equally as certain that whoever they were - and the thin man had an English accent - they had to be acting with local sanction.

I said, “You went to all this trouble just for me?” It was a temporizer, and not a very original one at that.

The thin man ignored it. “The car. Now!”

I felt a none-too-gentle shove from behind. But I held my ground in an attempt to gain some thinking time. “You’re probably making a mistake. I’m here for - “

The thin man cut in. “There’s no mistake. Now, are you going to move? Or must we use force?” He shrugged minutely then, and a smile as thin as his face tugged half-heartedly at his mouth. “Your life is in no immediate danger, sir. If you’ll just do as you’re told. But do it
now
!” The gun came up menacingly.

It did not require a man with two brains to realize the odds. I raised my hands in a gesture of not-so-mock surrender. “Okay. But you’ve got a wire crossed somewhere.”

I was bundled out of the building and into the car, sandwiched between the two heavyweights. The thin man slipped into the front passenger seat and twisted around, the gun aimed loosely at my crotch. I said nothing but thought hard as the car sped over the pan in the direction of the new administration building.

*

“My name is Brown,” said the man behind the desk. He had eyes that reminded me of steel ball bearings and skin that might have been painted on his skull. He was casually flicking through a file in front of him. “And yours is McCann. Robert McCann.” He stopped at a particular page and scanned it briefly. “Born, Garde Valley, Oklahoma.”

I said, “That’s Garve.”

Brown looked at me. “Pardon,” he frowned.

“It’s Garve. With a V.”

He grunted something and made an alteration with what looked to be a gold Parker pencil. I knew what I was receiving. I was receiving the show-them-what-a-disadvantage-they’re-at treatment. Along with the good-guy bad-guy police interrogation method, it was one of the classics. I did not know what it was all about, but I thought the treatment was good news. It meant that they - whoever they were - were not on as solid a ground as they may have liked.

“Garve Valley, Oklahoma,” Brown went on. “June ninth, ‘forty-five...Normal high school education...Excelled in sports.”

I said, “What is it you want, Brown?” My pulse was back to normal now. In fact, I almost did feel relaxed. Strangely, I had an idea I was back amongst my own kind.

Brown ignored the interruption, and continued to read from the file. “Both parents killed in road accident, August third, ‘fifty-two...Only brother killed on active service, Korean theatre, June second, fifty-three...” His eyes flicked over a few paragraphs. “...Subject submitted false personal details, i.e., date of birth, to selection board and gained illegal entry to military service. Marine corps.” He sat back in his chair, taking the file with him.

The two other men in the room might not have been there. I sighed a deep sigh of boredom, but Brown didn’t catch it. He went on, “Service...Let’s see...Malaya; service with distinction. Purple Heart, Congressional Medal of Honor.” At this point he glanced over at me and shook his head as if it were all too much for him.

I said, “I could really use a smoke.”

Again, I was ignored. “Central America...Service with distinction...Amazing.” I tried to get a look at the file heading, but at that distance, and upside down, I didn’t stand a chance, but I was glad that my stomach had stopped churning. I glanced at the other men. Both seemed more interested in the walls. “Then Viet Nam,” continued Brown. “Involved in the Xuan Loc breakout...subsequent trek through hostile territory...promoted major.” One of his eyebrows did a dance. “Major,” he repeated thoughtfully. It was all an act. I wondered if he knew it was so obvious. “Captured in Mekong Delta...escaped...recaptured...escaped again.” This time he looked me full in the face. “You are a resourceful man, colonel.”

I said, “I’m a puzzled one.”

He hmm’d softly and returned to the damned file. “Ah! Promoted colonel, September seventh, sixty-nine.” Then, “Ah-ha! Attacks four star general Andrew Macquarter.”

I suddenly saw that bastard’s face clearly in my mind, as I do whenever someone mentions generals. He had ordered me to send my company off to fight some useless rearguard action, east of Saigon, while the rest of us “advisors” hightailed it out of that city as fast as the choppers could come get us. It was the start of the biggest double-cross in history. I had told him what he could do with his orders, then, as an afterthought more than anything else, I’d belted him. No, I had belted him because he couldn’t understand my refusal to obey. He simply couldn’t understand it! He had thought it a perfectly reasonable request: “under the circumstances.” He had ended up with a broken jaw and I had ended up under loose house arrest pending a court martial.

“From which,” Brown was saying, “he subsequently absconded...Stole military vehicles and, as far as can be ascertained, transported his former command overland to Kampuchea.”

Kampuchea had been my first paymaster as a mercenary. I had not chosen the business. It had chosen me.

Brown was smiling now. At least his mouth seemed to be. “Subject is known to have operated as a mercenary soldier in Kampuchea, then Mozambique in ‘77...For the Libyans in ‘78-’79. Then Angola...” He placed the file on the desk with exaggerated care. “And so on, and so forth”

For several seconds no-one said anything.

Then Brown went on, “An impressive record, colonel. It is a pity that you had to spoil it.”

“For whom?” I said, adding, “May I smoke?”

I was certain now that my arrest was not strictly legal, not yet anyway. And despite the file-flourishes, it had not been instigated by the local authorities. These men were British Intelligence; S.I.S. - a dunce would have guessed it. None of which, however, altered the fact that local blessing must have been sought and granted. Brown said, “All in good time.”

I said, “Now’s a good time,” and I took out my packet, shook out a cigarette and lit up. Brown glanced up at the sign on the wall that informed the world that smoking was illegal anywhere inside the terminal building. I felt certain he would react. But he didn’t. He leant forward over the desk and studied my face minutely. Then he went on, “You were hired in Crete. By a man called Chi Luang. A sometimes, and a highly questionable, employee of the Bank of China. Your brief is simple. You are to take command of a force of mercenary soldiers, at present camped, under the guise of migrant workers, near the Zaire border, on the estate of a...a certain...” He again glanced at the file. “A certain mister Wang Cha...Cha...” He flicked a glance at one of the men. “Charma, is that? Ian, your writing is abominable. What
is
this name?”

“Shama, sir.”

My mind was now a jumble of stray ends, and this charade of seemingly inconsequential sidetracks was not helping. The broad reason why I had been pulled in was obvious. The niceties were the puzzle. I looked at the man whose writing Brown thought was abominable, and then at the third member. These men were the thinkers, the planners, the white collar brigade. The three who had performed the heavy work; the thin man and the two “engineers”, had escorted me to the room then left. Here were three more, of whom Brown appeared the boss. How many more were there? Did it require a minimum of six men to haul in a single mercenary? And why Brown’s heavy emphasis on the continuous tense. He had said, “You
are
to take command” Or was I imagining that?

“Ian” was a tallish character. Definitely ex-something or other. He wore a suit that had experienced desk work and an expression that had seen some hard times. The other man, as yet unaddressed by name, might have been a wrestler. He had a walkie-talkie in his hand and kept looking up at a clock on the wall. The passage of time was definitely an element in this man’s thinking.

Brown nodded and made another pencil alteration in the file. “Shama,” he repeated. Then he came back to me. “In due course you are to lead this force over the border and into Zaire...”

There it was again. The heavy stress on the word
are
.

“...where you will locate an area know to locals and - “Another glance at me. “ - persons of your calling, as Camp-One. Kanyamifuta...”

“Mifu
pa
, sir.” said Ian.

“Hmm?”

“It’s Kanyamifu
pa
sir. Translates as - “

“I know what it translates as, Ian,” breathed Brown testily, “It’s written here. Damned theatrical, if you ask me. Place of bones, indeed! What a lot of nonsense!”

“Right,” I put in, “What a lot of nonsense.”

Brown shot me a look that wondered if I was taking the rise. Whatever his conclusion, he returned to the file. “Then -” To me now. “ - at a given signal from the Chinese, you
were
to have mobilized this force against president Aaron Motanga.” He closed the file with a snap. “Win or lose, the attempt itself would have been sufficient to allow the Chinese to jump to the aid of a government in some considerable confusion. Right, colonel?”

Then I had it, courtesy of his shift in emphasis. I did not attempt a bluff. It would have been useless. They knew the lot. I said, “All of which leads me to smell a counter proposal.”

Brown nodded and smiled happily and the file was pushed to one side. “Well, whatever else you may be, you’re a realist. I’ll grant you that. And you are correct. Instead of adhering to the Chinese schedule of times and targets, you will adhere to ours.”

“Meaning who?”

Brown tossed that question away as if it were a piece of fluff. “Let me rephrase that. You will adhere to
mine
.”

“I see.” I said, relaxing back into the chair they had given me, certain now that I was amongst contemporaries. This was not the first time I had been asked to play a dual role. Though, to accept it, would definitely have been a first. The big difference here was who was doing the asking, and how. Western governments normally keep well clear of mercenary operations; which is not to say that they do not utilize them, direct them. They normally do it via a long and confusing chain of intermediaries - the thin end of which would be some poor expendable soul who barely realizes what he’s into. Even the Chinese trod the same path, though they tended to be less subtle about it. These men had not said who they were or who they were acting for, but they had denied nothing either. Nor had they bothered to hide their oh-so British accents. This was part of my new puzzle, but not all of it. There was some stray end that I had yet to put a name to. I could sense it, feel it in the atmosphere, as tangible now as the clock ticking its message on the wall. I said, “And what are these schedules, Mister Brown?”

He leant forward onto the desk, hands clasped together. “You will lead your men into the Isanga Valley, colonel, where Aaron Motanga’s personal guard will dispose of them, utterly and completely.”

I had heard it, but I could not believe it. “Pardon?”

Brown grunted. “You heard every word, colonel. And you understood well enough.”

This was incredible, staggering. “Dispose of them?”

Brown nodded. “Quite. And in full view, so to speak, of the Zaire population. You
personally
, of course, will have made your own arrangements.”  He sat back in his seat now. He appeared smugly satisfied with something or other. “Your remuneration, payable the moment we have an agreement in principle, will be five hundred thousand pounds. Which figure does not take into account the sum you have already received from the Chinese. A small fortune, colonel, for only a small deviation from your original brief.”

It was several seconds before I could weigh it all up in my mind. “Are you saying that you are after
total annihilation
?” The words sounded ridiculous even as I was saying them.

Brown’s nod was stony this time. “I couldn’t have put it better myself. A half a million pounds,
plus
what you have already been paid. For delivering your command into the hands of president Motanga.”

“Sweet Jesus Christ,” I breathed. These people did not want prisoners; men to pack some show-trial courtroom. They wanted bodies.
By the ton
! “You want me to -” I began. Then I was filled with a throat constricting revulsion. Over the next few seconds this died away, to be replaced by anger. “You know what gets up my nose more than anything else,” I said icily.