Decisive Measures Read online

  ‘What are the rebels fighting for?’ I said.

  Grizz shrugged. ‘Just diamonds. They want to defeat the government, but only so they can take control of the diamond-producing areas. The rebels are bloody and brutal fighters but they’re not particularly well equipped; the Liberian regime that backs them creams off most of the diamond wealth that the rebels steal or smuggle out.

  ‘The regular army is supposed to be on our side but, despite the diamonds, this is the poorest country in the world and the soldiers certainly aren’t growing too fat for their uniforms. When they’re paid at all it’s sporadic, and they’re going hungry: they’re supposed to get one bag of rice a month plus clothing and a gun, but the senior officers keep back as much rice as they can to sell on the black market.

  ‘In short, we can rely on no one but ourselves here. If it all goes to ratshit, the British government and the UN won’t want to know. There will be no SAS rescue parties flying in to save our arses. We either look after ourselves or we go under.’

  He paused. ‘That’s the bad news; the good news is that for the moment we’re in a lull in the fighting. The rebel offensive in the north-east has stalled because of the rainy season. With the dry season almost upon us we must expect an upsurge in activity. For the moment, though, Decisive Measures are simply tasked with keeping the Bohara diamond mine running smoothly. Your job is to get the supplies and the personnel out there to enable it to do so. That’s it. Any questions? Then let’s go and have a beer.’

  * * *

  We went out into the hot, humid night. It was low tide and the sickly, fetid smell of mud and mangroves filled the air.

  Women sat at the side of the street, their goods – dried fish, rice, cassava roots, chillies and potato leaf – spread in front of them on palm leaves laid in the dust. Their hungry, pot-bellied children played around them as they waited.

  Here and there a solitary street light flickered into life as the power was restored, but most were broken, their wiring stolen and sold for scrap, or cannibalised for other uses.

  We passed several burnt-out and derelict houses. Those that remained intact had iron-barred windows, stout locks and razor-wire fences. The walls were still clapboard, however.

  Grizz led us along the road fringing the beach. It was lined with restaurants. From the name boards over the doors, most of them, like the shops, were run by Lebanese. Many were deserted, but at one the owner still presided over his bamboo-fronted bar, perched on a rusting stool, his paunch spilling out of his torn, stained T-shirt. The bar was full of expatriate mineworkers, traders, soldiers and government officials and a scattering of dull-eyed whores.

  The menu was limited: groundnut soup and rice. I ordered food and beer for all four of us.

  Grizz took a swig of his beer, lit a cheroot and glanced at Tom. ‘So what brings you here, Tom? Apart from the money, of course. Bottom line, that’s what we’re all here for, isn’t it?’

  Tom sipped his drink. ‘Money and boredom, I suppose,’ he said. ‘I’ve been pensioned off by the RAF, but it’s a bit early in my life to be getting out the pipe and slippers, so I thought I’d give this a go.’

  ‘Any family?’

  ‘No. Well, I’ve two children, but they’re grown-up now. One lives in Australia and the other’s in New York.’

  ‘And your wife’s back in England?’

  As Tom stared down into his beer, the overhead light deepened the furrows in his forehead and he looked even older than his forty-five years. ‘She left me a few months ago.’

  Grizz studied him for a moment. ‘So your break-up would have been another reason for a change of scene?’

  Tom didn’t reply. After a moment, Grizz switched his attention to me. ‘What about you, Jack? You’re too young to have been pensioned off. What’s the story? Rub some air marshal up the wrong way?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  Grizz waited for me to continue. As the silence lengthened, he smiled. ‘Fair enough. It’s none of my business, anyway, as long as you do your job here.’ He shot a glance at Rudi. ‘And you’re certainly not the only one working for Decisive Measures who’s got a bit of a history behind him.’ He paused. ‘So, got any wives or children?’

  ‘Not last time I looked,’ I said. ‘What about you?’

  ‘Plenty of each – three wives, four children. All in the past tense now, though.’

  ‘Even the children?’

  ‘Oh, I send them a card on their birthdays and things, but it only upsets them if I go to see them. It’s better all round if I stay away.’ He tried to force a smile, but his eyes belied it.

  ‘And you, Rudi?’ I said.

  ‘Fifteen years in the South African Defence Force fighting bush wars against the ANC. I quit the day Mandela was sworn in.’

  ‘Any family?’

  He shook his head and ended the interrogation by walking over to the bar. By the time he returned with more beer, Tom, Grizz and I had moved the conversation on to less personal ground.

  Rudi stayed aloof from the chat, downing a succession of beers and replying in monosyllables to any remarks directed at him, but his watchful eyes showed that he missed little of what was said. Finally, as if we had passed some secret test, he banged another four beers down on the table and gave a broad smile. He took a long pull on his drink, then put his feet up on the table and rocked his chair back.

  ‘This could be God’s country, Jack – perfect beaches, diamonds, any woman you want for the price of a pack of cigarettes, and just enough trouble from the rebels to keep us in work. You couldn’t have a better posting.’ His speech was a little slurred, and though he smiled he had the air of a man who could change moods in a second.

  As Rudi was warming to his theme, a taxi pulled up outside. A few moments later two tall, striking women entered the bar. One had long black hair cascading around her powerful shoulders, a mouth lipsticked in vivid red and skin so dark it seemed blue-black in the dim light. The other was model-thin with close-cropped dark brown hair, coffee-coloured skin and eyes of piercing blue. I could not take my eyes off her.

  ‘Jesus,’ Rudi said. ‘Some good-looking whores at last.’

  He had just reached the two women when Grizz returned from the bar with another round. He took in the scene and winked at us. ‘This should be entertaining.’

  Rudi’s bulky figure loomed over the two women as he propositioned them, waving a ten-dollar bill. The black woman ignored him, turning her back and talking to the barman. The other heard Rudi out in silence, eyeballing him without blinking. Then she took the bill, tore it in quarters and dropped it on the floor.

  ‘Even if I was a whore,’ I heard her say, ‘it would take more than you could earn in a lifetime to persuade me to sleep with an ox like you. But I’m not a whore; I’m a paramedic. Part of my job is to patch up dumb mercenaries when they get shot. I look forward to making your acquaintance again under those circumstances.’

  Rudi stared at her, the veins knotting in his forehead. I was afraid he might strike her, but he shambled back across the room.

  He swore in Afrikaans. ‘That bitch needs teaching a lesson.’

  Grizz raised an eyebrow. ‘That bitch is a bloody good medic. Now have a drink and take your beating like a man. There’s plenty of whores will take your money without hitting on women who won’t.’ Rudi reverted to sullen silence.

  ‘So who is she?’ I asked Grizz.

  ‘She’s called Layla. She works for Medicaid International, but she’s seconded to us part of the time. She deals with medical problems at the mining compound and holds clinics in the villages.’ Grizz smiled. ‘And don’t waste your time; we’ve all tried.’

  I saw her move to the bar. ‘I’ll get the next ones,’ I said.

  I walked over and stood next to her as I ordered the beers, then glanced at her. ‘Hi, I’m Jack,’ I said. ‘I fly helicopters. I gather we’ll be working together now and again.’

  She looked me up and down. ‘I’m Layla.’ Her acc
ent was English but with a faint lilt. ‘I don’t think so. I work with mercenaries as little as possible. My job’s to save lives.’

  ‘So’s mine.’

  ‘Sure,’ she said. ‘Just like your friends over there.’ She walked back to her table, leaving me staring after her.

  I went back to the others. Rudi was still mechanically downing one beer after another and his mood was turning increasingly ugly.

  Grizz glanced at him and then at us. ‘Maybe we could round the evening off with a couple of beers back at the hotel,’ he said.

  Rudi shook his head, his eyes still fixed on Layla and her friend. ‘Not me. I’ll see you later.’

  Grizz shrugged. ‘You guys with me? I’ll just hit the can and we’ll be out of here.’

  On his way back from the stinking lean-to that acted as the communal toilet, I saw him stop and speak to Layla. She turned and looked at Rudi, then frowned and nodded.

  Grizz walked back over to us. ‘Let’s go.’

  Tom and I followed him outside. The taxi that had brought Layla and her friend was still waiting, parked a few yards away. Grizz signalled to it and we climbed in.

  ‘Wait a moment, please,’ Grizz said.

  Tom looked puzzled. ‘What for? Rudi said he was staying put.’

  He smiled. ‘I think you’ll enjoy this company more than Rudi’s.’

  As we waited, the rain began to fall. In seconds it was battering down, blanking out the view and turning the brown water coursing down the road to foam.

  Layla and her friend appeared in the doorway of the bar. They hesitated at the sight of the rain, then glanced behind them and ran for the taxi. By the time they had reached it they were soaked to the skin, their hair plastered to their scalps.

  Layla jumped in next to me, her wet clothes clinging to her, showing every contour of her body. As her friend also squeezed on to the crowded back seat, Layla was pressed against me. My nostrils were full of the musky aroma of her perfume, and I could feel the soft swelling of her breast against my arm. The heat of her body seemed to burn all the way down my side.

  The taxi moved off along the road, inching through the flood. I glanced behind us. The huge figure of Rudi was visible for a second, framed in the doorway of the bar, staring after us, then the curtains of rain blocked him from view.

  We were halfway back to the hotel when the storm ended as abruptly as it had begun. The floods began to ebb away and a watery moon appeared as the clouds parted. Even this late, traders came out of the buildings and doorways where they had been sheltering and began setting up again, lighting candles and storm lanterns to illuminate their wares.

  The hotel bar was deserted but still open. ‘Fancy a last drink?’ I said, unsuccessfully trying to hide my disappointment when Layla exchanged a glance with her friend, then shook her head.

  ‘Nothing personal. We’ve all got an early start in the morning.’

  ‘Have we?’

  ‘You guys are the helicopter pilots, aren’t you?’

  ‘Yes, but—’

  ‘Then don’t stay up all night drinking. I’m flying up to Bohara with you in the morning to run a clinic at the mine.’ For the first time all evening, she gave me a smile. I could still smell a faint trace of her perfume in the air long after she had disappeared up the stairs.

  Chapter Two

  We set off early the next morning. Layla rode up front with Grizz. Tom and I were once more perched in the back, with Rudi.

  The glass had been knocked out of the small window in the rear of the cab, allowing us to talk to Grizz and Layla, though we had to shout to be heard above the roar of the engine.

  When we reached the Kissy roundabout, Grizz continued straight on. ‘This isn’t the way to the airport,’ I shouted.

  ‘I know. That’s because the helicopter isn’t kept there.’

  We passed through the belt of dismal shanty towns surrounding the capital, the smoke from cooking fires mingling with the stink of refuse and decay, ragged people moving among the shacks. ‘Every rebel offensive sends a few more thousand fleeing to Freetown,’ Layla said. ‘They all end up in the shanty towns.’

  The road ran out into open country along fringes of dense jungle and swamp, and the tarmac gave way to red earth and crushed rock as the road climbed steadily towards the mountains. Looking back I could pick out the huge cotton tree in the centre of Freetown.

  We drove on, the surface of the road potholed and fissured by rainwater and floods. Ahead I saw savannah grassland. It looked fertile, studded with breadfruit, pawpaw, guava, mango and locust trees, but the villages were few and sparsely populated.

  The road curved to the left and, as we reached the bend, Grizz hit the brakes hard. A tangle of branches had been thrown across the road. Beyond it stood a row of armed men.

  I reached down to the rifle beneath my feet. Rudi already had his across his lap, and I heard a click as he eased off the safety catch. There was no way of telling whether the men were soldiers or rebels, since all wore the same battered uniforms, topped with whatever lurid T-shirts or other clothes they had managed to loot. They stood in silence, fingering their weapons and gazing at us with hostility.

  ‘I think they’re government men,’ Grizz said out of the corner of his mouth. ‘Not that it makes much difference. They’re hungry and they haven’t been paid. That’s enough to make anyone bad-tempered. Give them some smokes.’

  I reached for one of the packs of American cigarettes stashed in the back and held it out over the side of the pickup as Grizz drove slowly to the makeshift barrier. The leader of the soldiers stepped forward and took the cigarettes. He remained unsmiling, but after a few moments he nodded and signalled his men to move the barrier.

  As we moved off, Rudi kept his rifle trained on the group of men, swinging himself slowly round as we nosed through the narrow gap in the barrier, until he was facing back over the tailgate.

  We left the road for a rutted dirt track leading away through the bush. It dog-legged right and left, and as we swung round the second bend I saw a stretch of rusty wire fencing and a pair of open double gates. The legend on the peeling signboards was just about legible: SIERRA LEONE DEFENCE FORCES, CAMP 17.

  Beyond the fence was an expanse of beaten earth and concrete. The barrack huts ahead were so ruinous it seemed inconceivable that the base could still be in use, but a squat soldier appeared from the guardhouse and pointed a Kalashnikov in our direction. His scowl changed to a smile as he recognised Grizz, and he saluted.

  Grizz returned the salute and I tossed the soldier a pack of cigarettes as we bounced and jolted our way across the base. We rounded a barrack block and came to a halt by an old Huey parked on the concrete. Even through the camouflage net covering it, I could see it was riddled with holes.

  ‘We’re not flying that,’ I said. ‘Are we? It looks like a wreck.’

  Grizz smiled. ‘It is. The one you’re flying is inside the hangar.’ He pointed towards an arch of corrugated-tin sheeting walled with mud bricks. A soldier dozing by the doors leapt to attention and was rewarded with another pack of cigarettes.

  Grizz kicked at the rotting wooden doors to loosen them, then we dragged them open. ‘Same model,’ he said, ‘just better nick.’

  Rudi turned the pickup round and backed it up close to the doors. He ran out the winch cable and connected it to the helicopter and we began half-dragging and half-pushing it out of the building. It was covered in a thin layer of red dust and its body panels were a jigsaw of repaired and reclaimed pieces, suggesting it had had a hard and bullet-riddled life, but the rotor hubs were greased and, when I opened the engine covers, the turbines looked well maintained.

  ‘It looks better than the other one,’ I said. ‘Where’s the engineer?’

  Grizz smiled. ‘You’re looking at him.’

  ‘I thought you were the door gunner,’ I said.

  ‘That too. Versatility is the first rule of these kind of ops.’

  ‘So why keep it here? What’s wr
ong with the airport in Freetown?’

  ‘If we left it there, it would be flogged by the first government minister who was short of a few quid. This way it’s under our control.’

  ‘Hardly,’ I said. ‘It’s still guarded by government soldiers.’

  He smiled. ‘But the government doesn’t pay them. We do. If the president says one thing and I say another, they’ll do what I say.’

  Rudi jumped down from the pickup and disappeared into the gloom of the hangar. He returned rolling a drum of aviation fuel and began topping up the tanks as Tom, Grizz and I began a detailed check of the heli. Layla settled herself to wait in the shade, but a queue of soldiers formed next to her. All complained of aches and pains and pestered her for medicine. They wore a baffling variety of uniforms, collaged together with multicoloured T-shirts and sandals cut from old tyres. Their weapons were a similar mixture, but the guns did at least look well maintained.

  It took us an hour to check the heli. The oil pressure on one of the engines was low and, as Grizz tinkered with it, I strolled over and sat next to Layla, who had just sent her last patient away.

  ‘You had quite a queue there,’ I said.

  ‘It’s the same wherever I go.’

  ‘So what do you do?’

  She met my gaze. ‘Treat the sick ones as far as I’m able, and give the others a placebo – you’d be amazed how well it works.’

  ‘What brought you to Sierra Leone?’ I said.

  ‘I’m a medic.’

  ‘I know, but why here?’

  ‘Why not? They need all the help they can get. Sierra Leone should be one of the richest countries in the world; it has platinum, gold, iron ore and diamonds. But it’s the poorest country on earth. The national wealth’s all held by foreign corporations or in Swiss bank accounts. By the time the mining companies’ – she glanced at me –‘and their mercenaries, the president, the army officers, government officials and rebels have had their share, there’s precious little left. Know what they call the mining district? The Wild West. Officially, two million carats of diamonds are being exported every year, but even on the most conservative estimates, for every one legally exported, another two are smuggled across the border. There are no diamonds in Liberia and yet there are more diamond merchants in Monrovia than there are in Amsterdam.