The Twain Maxim (25 page)

Baz was extremely irritated. They had landed at Kinshasa and had had to change planes. The Airbus was not allowed to fly to Goma: a landing there would apparently invalidate the airliner’s insurance. They were to fly in the presidential Boeing 707 to Goma, a step down from the modern luxury and safety of the Airbus. On their way to the plane Julius had received a phone call: the President requested his and Baz’s attendance.

The appointment was at two o’clock but by four thirty they were still waiting to see him. Julius sat impassively in silence. He had made it known that the reception area was likely to be bugged so nothing could be said.

Baz’s frustration was increasing by the minute. He didn’t wait more than thirty minutes for anyone, but this was a little bit special. This was the shot for the moon he had always dreamed of, the ultimate scam, the once-in-a-lifetime chance at an operation so large that no one could conceive it possible. For that he would wait.

There were only so many cups of coffee he could drink and they didn’t make him any less agitated. He contemplated his plan. Of course he would give Julius 80 per cent of the money raised for the projects, but the real money was to be made from trading the news through front companies. There had
been a time when all fortunes were made through insider trading, but in the last few decades that had been outlawed in its old crude format. In the modern era, shares had to be held through a series of fronts and controlled, like any secret organisation, with cleverness and precision. Well, that was how he did it. With 80 per cent of all takeovers showing obvious price action before the important news, it was clear to everyone, including the regulators, that insider trading was alive and well even at the crudest level. So, anything handled with a little more finesse went undetected. As he waited he consoled himself that the vast fortune he stood to make would more than compensate.

It was six o’clock when they were ushered in. The President was sitting behind a huge ebony desk, ten feet long and six deep. It was inlaid with ivory and gold and looked ancient. He was an old man, skinny, his sunken face
skull-like
, his eyes bloodshot and a rheumy yellow. “Julien, how are you?” he said, not getting up.

“I’m very well, Mr President, very well indeed.” Julius laughed jovially.

“Good,” said the President. “Keep me in touch, won’t you?” He looked at Baz but didn’t acknowledge him, then back at Julius. “Goodbye and have a safe flight.”

“Thank you,” said Julius, and bowed. He left the room, Baz following.

“What was that about?” said Baz, as the door of the ministerial limo was closed by Julius’s driver.

“The application of power.” Julius wiped his face with a handkerchief. “This is why we are working together, so that I am the man behind the desk and other people are left waiting at my door.” He smiled at Baz. “Not for so long, of course.”

Baz laughed quietly. It wasn’t his normal hearty quack, but more subdued. Momentarily the millions in his bank seemed enough – more than enough – but then the idea for the biggest swindle of all time rushed back to him. His laugh regained its normal bark. “Don’t do it to me, though, Julien,” he said.

“Of course not, Baz. How could I?”

They headed to Julius’s ministry: they would rest there till four a.m., then head out and arrive in Goma at eight. They would drive in convoy to the mine.

Julius made his excuses and had Baz shown to a room at the top of the fifties monstrosity that was the ministry. It was like so much of Africa, a building that time had forgotten. If an office block could be embalmed, that was what had happened. The whole construction was held in a kind of mouldering suspended animation, a product of sweat and a hopelessly forced determination. Where something should have been replaced it had been repaired; where it couldn’t be repaired, it had been painted over or removed or tidied up as much as possible, then left. The building was in a kind of zombie state, somewhere just below operationally functional but above derelict. It was a pickled whale.

Baz’s suite was as palatial as it was uncomfortable. The bed was on a dais and made to look like a horizontal throne. The other furniture was covered with lace and everything seemed slightly damp. He showered, got dressed again and lay on top of the sheets. He was going to have to lure Higgins back, he thought. A little convincing and a lot of money would do the trick. He’d give him some time with his wonderful missus and after a couple of weeks he’d be practically begging to work for him again. His eyes closed and he could see the
whole region in front of him, a mass of mining promotions, one huge complex of prospects offering the world a chance to get in on the ground floor of the new Saudi Arabia.

The Doombahs sat in their defensive rings staring out into the green-lit night. The controllers sat at their work-stations in Virginia and listened to the night sounds of the jungle. The contract engineers were working to get video, but the satellite above didn’t want anything to do with the file format the Doombahs were sending. They were pulling their hair out. The system wasn’t even out of Alpha test and they were being asked to perform technical miracles. It was an opportunity for the company to break into the big-time but this was not the way they would have liked to prove their concept. The Doombahs were little more than demo models designed to prove a concept – it was like taking synchronised swimmers and making them Navy Seals. A typical military situation: SNAFU – Situation Normal, All Fucked Up. Quite likely it would turn into FUBAR – Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition.

The Doombahs estimated forty-seven kills with one loss, but the interesting thing was how the robots had scared off nearly two thousand men. Forty-seven dead, 1,963 paralysed with fear made them almost a non-lethal-force weapon. That could be an additional selling point.

Deep below the mountain a huge ball of lava was slowly moving up from the depths of the earth. It had begun its journey from the core hundreds of years before as the currents of the earth’s furnace had formed a sphere of almost immeasurable energy and sent it rolling towards the crust. It
entered the root system of the volcano and began to effervesce where the core met the mantel. The volcano was like a huge boil swelling to burst. The Doombahs sensed the vibration, and as the data streamed back to Virginia the engineers wondered at the seismic readings flickering across the many control graphs. There was no sound in the jungle to indicate that tremors were pulsating through the ground, and earthquakes were not rare. Nyamuragira and Nyiragongo were in a constant state of activity, which meant plenty of quakes and a full-scale eruption every two years. A volcanologist would have recognised the cloud of steam coming from the Nyamuragira crater as different from the heavy raincloud above it but it would have been pretty pointless to wake Jim and Jane’s party. A catastrophic eruption would be just that and a lesser one would require no wake-up call.

As the sun rose they were served notice.

A Doombah jumped up and Jim groaned. Why the fuck was someone shaking him?

He sat up. He heard a growl in the distance. The ground was juddering: it was an eruption.

Adash leapt to his feet. Now was the time. His men were awake and knew what to do. They crawled through the grass towards the tree. They couldn’t see it but the machines were standing up, Gatlings rotating, jumping from side to side hunting an invisible enemy coming from far up the mountainside. Jane and Jim were lifting Kitson on to his Doombah and strapping him in. Pierre was stowing the kit. The volcano was legendary for its lava. It contained no silica and when it burst from the cone of the volcano it rushed
down the sides at a hundred kilometres an hour. Nothing on the ground could outrun it, neither beast nor machine, and even birds could be knocked out of the air by the ash and gases.

Jane jammed in her earpiece. “What have you got?” she said.

“Minor eruption,” said Control.

“Where are Will and Bill?”

“On their way.”

“Is the pickup ready to fly?”

“Taking off as soon as you leave. They’ll be waiting for you.”

“As soon as we’re packed we’re on our way.”

The Doombahs were skipping around in a frenzy.

“Get these things under control,” she said. “They’re losing the plot.”

She heard a rustle behind her and turned as a tall soldier walked through the grass, his Kalashnikov pointing right at her. He was looking into her eyes, ready to shoot her down if she so much as went for her carbine. There were two more behind him.

Jim saw her look and followed it. “Shit,” he muttered.

Pierre looked up: Adash was with four men. They were on top of them, their rifles aimed. Adash walked into the camp. Pierre had seen that look before. It was the wicked smirk of conquest and conquest meant that death would follow.

“Breach,” said Jane.

“Copy,” said an impassive voice.

The Doombah twitched, its camera eyes rolling about.

“Dog Bites Man, tell them to give me control of the machines.”

Pierre relayed the message.

“No can do,” said Jane.

There was a thunderous clap from the mountain and they all blanched, including the Doombah. The ground rolled and heaved and they were shaken from side to side. The Doombah kicked out with its legs like a dressage horse and felled two of the soldiers. Jane grabbed the barrel of Adash’s Kalashnikov and tore it from his grasp. Adash ran forwards, grabbed Jim’s M4 carbine and dashed through the wall of grass. Pierre pulled the knife from the sheath in Jim’s belt and toppled into the third soldier, who gasped.

Jane opened up on the fourth. Instantly, he crumpled backwards.

Pierre was looking into the eyes of his victim, who was in the throes of death. He twisted the blade. The man buckled and fell. He whirled round to face another enemy but there was none. Jane was heading through the wall of grass. The Doombahs were sitting on their back legs aiming up at the mountain, preparing to fire on some massive computed foe created by the artificial intelligence wired into their silicon synapses. The ground was shaking and as she ran she toppled on to one knee. She could see Adash running into the gloom, thrown from side to side like a drunkard by the heaving ground. She let off a burst of fire, but it missed its target. Then, as she tried to aim, running on the rolling ground, he swerved behind the trunk of a tree and was gone.

“Damn it,” she shouted. The mountain roared again and she saw a flame of red streak into the air.

“Erupting,” she said into the mouthpiece. “We’ve closed the breach.”

Jim was mesmerised by the bloodied blade in Pierre’s hand.

Pierre saw his expression. “Sorry,” he said. He wiped the knife on the grass, then cleaned his hand on the shirt of one of the soldiers. “I should cut their throats,” he said, as if to prove his compassion.

“You’ll do no such thing,” said Jane, stalking back. “Disarm them quickly and then we have to hurry.” The ground moved again. “This mountain could blow and give us a real hot shower.”

Pierre picked up the assault rifles, pulled out the magazines and put them into Jim’s pack. He jammed the barrels into the ground with all his might, then threw them into the long grass.

“Let’s rock,” said Jim.

“Let’s roll,” said Jane.

Pierre shouldered Jim’s rucksack as the ground trembled.

The Doombahs were completely confused, and when Virginia tried to control them they responded strangely, fixated by the huge enemy behind them that shook the ground as it approached. They were running around in a robot panic.

“Let’s pick it up,” said Jane. “The sooner we’re out of the jungle the happier I’ll be.”

As she spoke, the tremors subsided and the ground was solid once more.

The forest stopped abruptly in a torn mass of charred and lacerated vegetation. It was the sort of thing that an eruption would do but the destruction had not come from the mountain: it had been caused by the rod of tungsten that had fallen twelve thousand miles from space, giving up all its energy as it touched the ground in a plume of earth. The
landscape was seared and black, a congealed mass of uneven ground, melted, thrown into the air and pulled back to earth.

Adash moved himself into position, embedded in the destruction like a maggot in the decomposing body of a fallen elephant. They would come his way and then he would shoot them, as they exposed themselves on the flat, featureless plain. He would leave the Dog alive and the Dog would take him to the diamonds. Then he would kill him and leave the mountain until it had stopped its eruptions. He would return to take the diamonds and once again he would be the master of an army. Nothing would stand in his way ever again. He looked up at the volcano. “The fire god is angry today,” he said to himself mockingly. The mountain might pour lava but it would dump its flaming pus along the routes it had used before. Of that he was sure.

“There’s a whole lot of helium coming out of the ground,” said Virginia.

Jane laughed. “You’ve got helium in your goddamn mine,” she said to Jim, as they hurried forwards.

“That’s good?” said Jim.

“Sure – it’s a strategic element. Only two helium mines in the world.”

“OK,” said Jim. “Like I need to get into the kids’ balloon business.”

Jane snorted. “Just think about the word ‘strategic’,” she said.

Jim didn’t.

Pierre was lamenting his new Kalashnikov. He hadn’t been the one to lose his M4 carbine, so why did he have to get the poorest weapon now?

The jungle was lightening: they were approaching the edge. Jim’s spirits rose. He drew his personal chart and it went forward for years. He wasn’t going to be wrong this time. He was only a few hundred metres from safety.

They pushed through a stand of grass, the thunder of the volcano in their ears.

“Oh, shit,” he muttered. A giant wall of shredded, twisted jungle vegetation stood between them and the plateau. The
Doombahs were looking up at it, trying to work out how to get through.

“We’ll find a way,” he said.

“No problem,” said Jane.

“Rock and roll?” said Pierre, ambiguously.

“We’re going to see some fireworks.” Julius laughed.

“OK,” said Baz. He wasn’t too happy at the prospect as he looked out over the Goma airfield at the erupting volcano on the far horizon. Nyiragongo looked bad enough, smoking away to itself; Nyamuragira looked more threatening, even though it was further away. Its smoky plume had a certain intensity about it that said, “Fuck off somewhere else.”

Baz was happy to deal with explosive situations and volatile personalities. People he could handle, but a mountain was a different matter. It wasn’t a fireworks display: a natural disaster was about to happen. His top lip was sweating, not because it was so humid but because fear was coursing through his veins. But there was no turning back.

The great force of the blast from the fallen tungsten had blown the jungle edge into a solid wall of tangled vegetation. They moved along the margin of the devastation. The Doombahs were trying to cross the tangle but their software didn’t seem able to cope with the jigsaw of broken tree limbs. They were trying to scale it, but they hopped, stumbled and struggled in vain.

As the party moved along the wall, so the Doombahs backtracked from their ascents and kept the line.

“We’re going to have to start climbing soon,” said Jim, “if we can’t find a break.”

“Or burrowing,” said Pierre.

“Let’s find a spot the Doombahs can get across, or we’ll be crossing the open space with no back-up. You stay here,” said Jane. “I’m going up the log pile to see if I can find a way.”

“Can’t HQ see anything?” asked Jim.

“They’ve no field of depth. Ten feet high could look like fifty from space.” She took off her pack and put on her carbine, then swung up on to a torn tree-trunk. “I won’t be long.” The view from the top was breathtaking. There was a large blasted area that took up the entire plateau, with a deep crater in the centre where the tungsten rod had impacted.

The area might have been struck by a meteor – which it had been, except that the meteor was not extra-terrestrial but man-made.

Jane looked to the north and along the concave wave of debris. A couple of hundred yards ahead a chunk of jungle had been blown further inwards than the rest. The pocket penetrated the semicircular wall of debris. Maybe they could climb over the thin side wall of the hollow and be in clear ground. That would be easier than trying to struggle over anywhere else. Lugging Kitson over the high barrier was at the bottom of the list of things she wanted to do, and leaving the Doombahs behind would be extremely risky.

She was smiling as she picked her way elegantly down the giant climbing frame. “OK,” she said. “We’re going that way for a half a klick. We can see if the Doombahs can get Terence over, and if they can do that we’ll follow.”

They moved carefully along between the jungle and the tangled wall. Flying debris had thinned the jungle on the margin, but everywhere wicked splinters were aligned against them. Jim found his right forearm was bleeding a little. A
splinter the size of a toothpick was sticking out of his arm. He pulled it out and threw it away.

“You OK?” asked Jane.

“Just a scratch.”

She went over to the breach. It was manageable for humans, but not necessarily for the Doombahs.

“Come on,” said Jim, “Let’s get Terry off the robot and carry him.”

“I’ll be OK,” said Kitson. “Don’t mind me.”

Jane was about to agree with Jim but the Doombah crouched and sprang on to the jungle wreckage. It balanced and swayed, inspecting its surroundings with whizzing rotating eyes. It tapped its forefeet on the surface, adjusting its rear in a half-clumsy, half-delicate way. It resembled a pantomime horse being driven by two blindfolded ballerinas. It jumped up again and scrabbled. Jane followed it, hoping she could stop it falling as it balanced precariously. The Doombah seemed to stare ahead, and then, with four steps, climbed a few more feet up. It collected itself and sprang like a deer on to a spiky severed log. Then it clambered another nerve-racking few feet till it was poised on top of the breach. It hopped off and fell on to the branches below. Jane followed it. She could still hear the engine buzzing and revving. At the top she looked down. Below she saw a mass of spears pointing up, like an elephant trap, at anyone who would dare to climb down the other side.

The Doombah had fallen on to them but had smashed the many jagged splinters with its armoured belly, its thin metal feet threading through the gaps and finding a footing. Precision guidance or luck? It was snaking its hips, reading the ground below. It trembled and shook to realign itself,
then sprang down again. It was halfway to safety.

“Are you getting all this data?”

“Sure,” said Will in her earpiece. “If this one makes it, we’ll network it to the others. It’s marking the trail as it goes.”

Jane couldn’t see anything – but, then, she didn’t see in infrared or ultra-violet unlike the Doombahs, which could follow the trail using their acute machine vision.

Jim was looking back at the volcano and she turned briefly, curious to know what had captured his interest. The column of white ash was impressive, blown south by the winds at fifteen thousand feet.

When she turned back, the Doombah was feeling the way ahead. It crabbed down on to another trunk. Two more bounds and it would be on
terra firma
. It dropped its forefeet on to a branch three feet below, balanced, then sprang forwards on to the ground.

Amazing, Jane thought. “Come on up,” she called to Jim and Pierre. “We should be able to get down from here. Kitson’s made it.”

Pierre jumped up and Jim followed. He was extremely glad he wasn’t carrying his pack. He felt grateful to Pierre but absolutely no shame in letting the boy take it. Even without it he was at almost his physical limit.

Pierre bounded up the debris wall, Jim toiling behind. The boy disappeared over the other side while Jane waited for Jim to reach the summit. She looked at his drawn face, covered with filth. He was breathing hard. “You OK, buddy?”

“Perfect,” he said. He peered at the chaos below. “Nearly there,” he panted, smiling. Pierre was picking his way along the path, made easier by the Doombah’s splinter-crushing
progress. “You go ahead,” said Jim. “I’m going to need to take this really slow.”

“Go ahead,” said Jane. “I’ll stand guard here.”

The Doombahs behind were starting their assent now. Without passengers they seemed recklessly keen to conquer the wall.

Pierre watched Jim climbing tentatively down: he was kind of weak and shaky. Jane was picking her way down behind him, scanning the forward ground for problems. She had one eye on Jim: a fall now and he would be impaled on any number of spears. He sat down on a branch and studied the short route ahead. “You OK?” she asked.

“My legs have gone to jelly. I think I’m dehydrated or something.”

She passed her canteen down to him and he drank. “I’ll be OK,” he said. He swung the bottle up without letting go of the strap. Jane caught it and he let go. She dropped down beside him and they looked at the wicked puzzle below.

“Tricky,” she said.

“How did the Doombah do it?” he asked.

“It just dropped ten feet from up there,” she said.

“Good idea,” said Jim. He slapped his legs. “OK – I’m going.” He took a nearby branch in his hand and slipped forwards, his foot out to catch the edge of a fractured stump. It didn’t land where he’d meant it to and he slid forward. His shirt caught something and yanked him under the arms. Buttons flew. He struggled, his foot pushing away from the spears, and fell on to a branch below, feet first. He tilted forwards, his knees buckled and he fell backwards. He grunted. There was the sound of branches cracking and a thud. Jane traipsed down the wall.

“I’m OK,” came a muffled voice, and she saw that he was lying on the ground ten feet below her, his legs and arms in the air.

Pierre was burrowing through the branches to him as Jane lowered herself down.

Jim’s hair had blood in it. “I’m OK,” he said, “but I’m stuck.”

“Move your feet,” said Jane.

Jim stared at her, dazed.

“Just move them for me, will you?” she persisted.

He did so.

“Good. You haven’t broken your neck,” she said.

He held out his arm and she hauled him out of the wedge of branches. “Thanks,” he said.

Jane thought he seemed a little concussed. “No problem,” she said. “Take it slowly.”

“Come through here,” said Pierre, from his burrow. Jim followed him on all fours while Jane climbed out and down.

Jim sat on the ravaged ground and drank more water. Jane had given him a salt tablet. The Doombahs were scampering down the other side of the breach. It was like a crazy circus show. He watched them as his sight cleared.

“OK, guys, the RV is on the other side of this plateau, about fifteen hundred metres.”

“Can’t they come here?” asked Jim, hopefully.

“It’s too close to cover for an RPG attack on the chopper. The Doombahs will defend for us on the walk, and by the time we’re across the plateau our ride will be there. As soon as ten Doombahs make it across the wall, we start walking.”

“Deal,” said Jim. “It’s not far, after all.”

He got up, feeling almost normal, apart from the big bump on the back of his head.

Jane was programming a Doombah. “Ride on this.”

“I’m OK,” said Jim.

“No,” said Jane, “you’re not. Ride the friggin’ Big Dog.” She smiled. “Please.”

Jim gave in, swung his leg over it and jumped on to its back. “Let’s rock,” he said.

“Let’s roll,” said Pierre.

“Let’s rock and roll,” said Jane. They moved off.