The Devil’s Kingdom: Part 2 of the best action adventure thriller you'll read this year!

Ben had seen a thousand perimeter fences just like it, around army bases all over the world. More recently, Khosa’s men had taken them to a rundown ex-military airfield in Somalia, another forgotten leftover from another fruitless civil war. There, the fence had been hanging in disrepair, abandoned for many years. This one, like the road leading to it, looked as if it hadn’t been there long at all. Along the perimeter’s length for as far as Ben could see, the trees had been severely cut back in what must have been a major clearing operation involving a large number of men and machines. Such a new and well-constructed installation was an incongruous sight in the midst of this green wilderness with its unmade roads and shambolic wooden bridges.

From this side of the wire it looked as though a large area of jungle had been cleared on the inside of the perimeter as well. Did Khosa really have that kind of manpower? Ben’s initial assumption had been that the man’s army was no different from any number of ragtag tinpot militia forces he’d come across during his SAS days, when his squadron would occasionally be sent to various parts of the African continent to deal with the more troublesome gangs of marauding thugs who stepped out of line by massacring and raping the locals and abducting UN aid workers. But he’d been learning from the outset that his assumption was a shaky one. General Jean-Pierre Khosa was full of surprises. Never pleasant ones.

What Ben didn’t yet realise was that the biggest surprise was yet to come, one he couldn’t have foreseen in a thousand years.

Jeff and Tuesday were on their feet next to him in the truck, following his gaze. Lou Gerber hadn’t moved or even looked up.

‘What do you reckon?’ Jeff said.

Ben shook his head. ‘Whatever it is, we’re about to find out.’

There was a lot of activity going on at the head of the stationary convoy. Doors were opened and soldiers were milling about. Greetings were exchanged, laughter shared, backs slapped. Ben looked for Khosa but couldn’t see him. The General must be still in his Land Rover, puffing on a Gran Cohiba and fondling his diamond, maybe thinking about who he was going to order hacked to death next, or whose head he might blow off on a whim using the magnum revolver he carried on his belt. Those burdensome decisions of leadership.

The soldiers inside the compound opened the outer gates first, followed by those in the inner fence. The men outside returned to their vehicles, slammed their doors, and the convoy slowly began to roll through the gates, waved in by the grinning guards. The convoy accelerated and sped onwards, pushing a bubble of light into the darkness beyond the perimeter.

The concreted road continued for a quarter of a mile up a steep rise that had been completely shorn of vegetation, creating a barren landscape of ploughed earth and craters where countless trees had been ripped out by their roots. The more Ben looked, the more perplexed he was by this place. He could sense Jeff and Tuesday’s growing sense of bewilderment, too. Far behind them, the tail end of the convoy had passed through the inner gates and the soldiers had closed up the perimeter with an air of finality that took away any doubts Ben might have had that this place, whatever it might be, was their final destination.

Ben narrowed his eyes when he saw the glow lighting up the sky from beyond the crest of the rise ahead. If it was a military camp, it was on a grand scale. The biggest he’d seen in Africa, rivalling major NATO bases in Europe. But that was impossible.

Khosa’s Land Rover crested the rise and dropped out of sight. A dozen vehicles later, the truck reached the top of the hill – and then Ben saw it, and his mouth fell open at the sight.

It wasn’t the biggest military camp in Africa. It wasn’t a military camp at all.

The manmade valley below was illuminated across its length and breadth by thousands of lights. The single road swept down the deforested hillside into what, unbelievably and yet undeniably, appeared to be a whole city.

A city enclosed behind a militarised security perimeter.

Khosa’s own city?

Ben blinked. His mouth went dry. He blinked again, tore his gaze from the surreal sight and exchanged looks of bewilderment with Jeff and Tuesday.

The road had widened into a smooth and immaculate double carriageway by the time they reached the final security fence. Blinding halogen spotlamps blazed down from masts. The gate was heavily guarded by a unit of at least a dozen sentries and a six-wheeled armoured personnel carrier with twin machine guns swivelled their way.

‘I’m not believing this,’ Jeff said. ‘Tell me I’m fucking dreaming, guys.’

‘It’s real,’ Ben replied. ‘Don’t ask me how, but it’s real.’

Once more, there were waves and happy greetings as the convoy rolled through the gates. Some three hundred yards down the single straight road that crossed what had once been a valley deep in the jungle, now transformed into a barren no-man’s land, the line of vehicles rumbled past the first buildings. Side streets radiated left and right, forming a geometric grid system of two-hundred-foot-square blocks. Many of them were still empty and undeveloped patches of land; others sprouted semi-erected multi-storey buildings; others again were fully finished with high-rises and office blocks. Signs of recent construction were everywhere, cranes looming into the night sky and heavy plant equipment filling every empty corner. Street after street after empty street, all still, all silent, all lit up but eerily deserted. There were no cars. There was no movement. Not a single civilian to be seen anywhere, as if the entire population had fled or been vaporized by a hydrogen bomb leaving behind only empty buildings.

Like a vision from a post-apocalyptic world, or the most expensive movie set that had ever been built and was waiting for the film crews and herds of extras to move in.

‘What in hell’s name …?’ Jeff muttered.

Tuesday was shaking his head. ‘Please don’t tell me that Khosa built this place.’

‘Whoever built it,’ Ben said, ‘I’ve a feeling you won’t find it on any maps.’

‘Khosa City,’ Jeff grunted. ‘Jesus Christ. Who is this guy?’

The deeper the convoy rolled into the city, the fewer construction sites they passed and the more finished the place appeared to be, as if it had been built from the centre outwards. The main drag had grown into a broad boulevard. The architects had planted neat avenues of maple trees down its length, and laid clipped green lawns either side, and pavements and modern street lighting that glowed off the brand-new buildings.

Here and there they passed small patrol units of militia. Any non-military personnel in the place were either locked down tight in a curfew, or there simply weren’t any in the first place. The streets were lit up but almost every window of every building was dark and empty. The only other vehicle they saw was a six-wheeled APC identical to the one guarding the inner perimeter, which emerged from a side street and rumbled past them in the opposite direction.

Jeff said, shaking his head, ‘Where did they get the workforce? The materials? The money?’

Ben could have added a thousand more questions, but there were no answers to be had. Not yet. All he could do was stare at the surreal scene. Maybe Khosa had had their coffee last night spiked with LSD.

The convoy rumbled on, past empty parks and deserted squares and block after block of high-rise apartment buildings, all giving off the same uninhabited aura. Then the line of trucks and pickups veered across an intersection and rounded a corner, and Ben’s stupefaction racked up to a new level. Because the grandiose eight-storey building he could now see ahead, nestled a little way from the road next to an enormous and extravagantly illuminated plane tree, was the Dorchester Hotel in London’s Park Lane.

The Dorchester, here in the Congo. Complete with its sweeping nineteen-thirties façade and grand entrance and garden frontage of sculpted shrubs, ornamental railings, stone fountains, and flower beds. Ben closed his eyes for a moment. When he reopened them, it was still there.

Not dreaming.

The hotel was the first building they’d seen thus far that showed any sign of life. Light streamed from the entrance and many upper-floor windows were aglow against the night sky. At the head of the convoy, Khosa’s Land Rover turned off the street to park outside the building. The following vehicles kept on going down the street, and for a moment Ben thought the truck was going to do the same – until it too broke from the moving line and pulled to a halt directly behind Khosa’s personal transport.

The soldiers in the back of the truck jumped up and stabbed and poked with their rifles to get the prisoners moving. ‘Keep your panties on, girls,’ Jeff growled at them. Gerber seemed to take no notice of anything much that was happening around him. Ben and Jeff helped him to his feet, and down the wooden ramp from the flatbed to the pavement.

Outside the Dorchester Hotel. In the Congo. If Gerber was having the same hard time as the other three accepting reality, he wasn’t letting it show.

The night air was fresh and still, and fragrant with the scent of the hotel garden flowers whose perfume was strong enough to mask the lingering tang of exhaust fumes left by the convoy. A billion stars twinkled above the silhouetted city skyline. Khosa had stepped down from his Land Rover and paused outside the hotel, his tall bulky outline bathed in golden light shining from the entrance, clasping his hands behind his back in statesmanlike fashion as he exchanged a few words with one of the men who had been riding along with him at the head of the convoy.

While his soldiers looked dusty and tired from the long journey, the General appeared as fresh and energetic as if he’d just finished a leisurely breakfast and donned a crisp new uniform to attend to the first business of the day. His combat boots gleamed as though he’d spent the whole drive polishing them, the gold Rolex on his thick wrist was resplendent under the lights, and the red beret on his head sat at a jaunty angle. If it hadn’t been for the tribal scarring that distorted his face into a monstrous demon’s mask, he might have seemed almost jovial.

As the soldiers prodded and shoved the four prisoners in his direction, Khosa turned to give Ben a beaming white smile that looked like the last thing a shark’s dinner might see before being swallowed up in one bite. It was usual for him to ignore Jeff and Tuesday as the underlings they were. As for Gerber, Khosa viewed the ‘Goat Man’ with as much regard as for an inchworm. Ben had twice had to persuade him not to have the old sailor hacked to death by his men.

‘Ah, it is very good to be home again,’ Khosa said in his deep, resonant voice. ‘Soldier, welcome to my executive headquarters.’

Chapter 4

Khosa led the way to the entrance, a bodyguard flanking him each side and one step back, their guns ready as though they were expecting an ambush inside the grand foyer. Khosa himself seemed completely at ease, like a guy strolling in his front door and about to hang up his jacket and hat and call, ‘Honey, I’m home!’

Ben followed, with Jeff and Tuesday in his wake both keeping a concerned eye on Gerber. The rest of the soldiers from the truck strutted along behind, their loaded and cocked Kalashnikovs trained on their new guests and menacing scowls on their faces. The real Dorchester didn’t know how lucky it was.

‘I know what you are thinking, soldier,’ Khosa declared.

Ben said nothing. He was painfully aware of the man’s bizarre ability to read minds, so there didn’t seem any point.

‘Yes, yes. You had not expected anything quite like my little camp.’ Khosa chuckled. ‘Even if you do not want to admit it.’ He paused at the entrance and turned to admire his little camp for one last moment before stepping inside, arms spread wide.

‘It is not a big city,’ he said modestly. ‘Big enough for eighty thousand people at the moment, but growing every week. Tomorrow I will have my Captain Xulu show you around, and you will see for yourself what we have here. The sports stadium is still under construction, to the west. So is the airport, on the other side of it. Both will be finished soon. The hydroelectric power station is to the north, where the river runs. On the other side of the river lies the industrial zone.’ He grinned, obviously delighted by the bewildered expression that Ben couldn’t hide. ‘You are realising, at last, that you should not have underestimated me. Did I not tell you? But you would not listen. Now let us go inside.’

It had been years since Ben had last set foot in the real Dorchester, and he’d had more on his mind that day than to admire the decor. But from hazy memory the architect of this bizarre recreation seemed to have done a creditable job, right down to the marbled pillars and magnificent tiled floor. The only thing missing from the lobby was any kind of reception staff. Khosa’s boots rang on the tiles as he led them briskly towards the lifts.

Behind him, Ben heard Jeff say to one of the soldiers, ‘Hey, arsehole, take my luggage up to my room and see to it that everything is cleaned and pressed, okay?’ If Jeff couldn’t blast his way out of a tight spot, he’d joke his way through it. Tuesday was either being more restrained, or he was just too stunned to speak.

The lift glided up to the top floor. Its doors slid open to an empty corridor with Persian carpeting and artwork on the walls. A sharp-eyed visitor might have noticed the assortment of automatic weaponry propped along one wall, but as far as Ben could tell the rest was authentic.

Ben was understanding less and less. His confused thoughts whirled back to the events in which Jude had been caught up aboard the cargo ship, the Andromeda of the Svalgaard Line. Jude had described it all in detail afterwards. His take on the situation was that the jewel thief called Pender, travelling in secret under the assumed name Carter, had hired Khosa and his crew to intercept the vessel in the guise of Somali pirates as a means of smuggling off the ship the enormous diamond he had in his possession. Pender had sensibly attempted to conceal the true nature of his precious package from Khosa, until things had started to go badly wrong for him and he quickly ended up as fish bait. In retrospect, he’d made a serious error of judgement in choosing Khosa for the task. That had probably been Pender’s own final thought, too, as the machetes came out.

Ben hadn’t doubted his son’s account of those events for a moment. But if Jude was right, then Khosa’s discovery of the diamond had been no more than a lucky accident – lucky for him, less so for Pender. Which in turn meant that, up to that point, all that Khosa had stood to gain from the deal was whatever Pender was paying him by way of a cash fee.

That was where it all stopped making sense, as far as Ben could see. Why would this brutal, sadistic warlord, apparently endowed with the limitless resources needed to build his own private city in the middle of the jungle on such an unbelievably lavish scale, bother to travel all the way to the Indian Ocean to take on a mercenary job for the likes of Pender? If Khosa was already so fabulously rich and powerful, he wouldn’t even have been on that ship to begin with. Especially if he hadn’t known about the diamond in advance.

Ben thought about the motley assortment of aircraft that had brought them here in stages from where Khosa had found them drifting in the Indian Ocean. The air-sea ‘rescue’ had been carried out with an ancient Puma helicopter the best part of fifty years of age, even more battered and worn out than the two Bell Iroquois choppers, relics from the Vietnam War, that made up the rest of Khosa’s helicopter fleet. Then there had been the prehistoric DC-3 Dakota that had taken them almost to the Congolese–Rwandan border when it ran out of fuel and almost killed them. If Khosa could afford to build a city in the jungle, what was he doing flying around in piles of scrap metal?

None of it added up.

Khosa strode along the corridor and threw open a gleaming set of double doors to reveal a suite of palatial proportions. ‘This is my command post,’ he declared proudly, sweeping an arm to usher them inside.

Ben’s confusion deepened when he stepped into the suite. He’d never set foot inside the White House, or been invited into the Oval Office. But this was the nearest thing. The vast room was decked out in sumptuous style, dominated by a carved hardwood desk the size of a Buick. Its gleaming surface was bare, apart from an old-fashioned dial telephone in red plastic, and a scale model of a Napoleonic-era field cannon.

Seated at the desk was a small, slender African man of about sixty, with thick spectacles and silvery hair buzzed to a stubble. He wore a crisp short-sleeved khaki shirt that hung on his reedy frame, with a mass of colourful military decorations over his heart and epaulettes studded with regalia. The man rose with a delighted smile as Khosa entered the room. Ignoring the motley crew of prisoners and soldiers who had filed through the doorway, he hurried from the desk and rushed over to greet his commander. They shook hands warmly. ‘It is good to see you again, Your Excellency. I believe the mission was a great success.’

Ben had never heard a lower-ranking officer refer to a general as ‘Your Excellency’. But this was hardly a normal kind of army.

‘Oh, yes. A very great success,’ Khosa replied, patting the lump in his hip pocket that made it look as though he was carrying an apple in there. He removed his beret and skimmed it into the nearest antique armchair, threw his bulk into a silk-upholstered sofa with a deep sigh of satisfaction, drew another of his trademark Cuban cigars from a breast pocket and took his time lighting it. Through a dragon’s breath of pungent smoke, he turned to Ben.

‘Soldier, allow me to introduce my second-in-command, Colonel Raphael Dizolele. Colonel, I would like you to meet Major Hope of the SAS, our new military advisor. He is going to help train the army for us.’

Dizolele turned the smile on Ben, but it wasn’t long before he realised that the new military advisor wasn’t inclined to shake hands.

‘This is Captain Dekker,’ Khosa said, motioning at Jeff, who scowled back at him as if he wanted to twist his head off and punt it out of the window. ‘Also a celebrated warrior in his own country. And this young man’ – pointing at Tuesday – ‘is the finest marksman in the British army. I am told he can kill a man from two miles away with a rifle.’

Or so Ben had claimed on Tuesday’s behalf, mainly as a way to prevent Khosa from having him diced into pieces. Ben worried that his strategy might have worked too well.

‘Wonderful news, Excellency,’ said the beaming Dizolele. ‘And this old man is what?’

Khosa threw a sour look at Gerber, who was just staring at the floor as if he’d fallen into a state of senility. ‘A sergeant of the United States Marine Corps. Major Hope believes he is of use to us. We will see. I have not decided yet.’

The dismal introductions over with, the colonel updated Khosa on events during his absence. Neither seemed to have any problem discussing business in front of the underlings. ‘There was an incident with some of the workers,’ Dizolele reported. ‘A minor revolt in which three guards were killed, but the disturbance was soon brought back under control and the instigators have been punished.’

Khosa nodded, his face blank. ‘Good. Anything else?’

‘I am happy to report that the payment we expected from America has been received in full, by wire transfer to one of our offshore accounts.’

Khosa seemed mildly pleased by this. ‘Is the package still intact?’

‘In perfect condition, Excellency. Should we return it?’

‘It would be a mistake to return it too quickly. Issue another demand instead.’

Ben wondered what they were talking about. A faint alarm bell was ringing in his mind, but he couldn’t be certain.

‘The same again?’ Dizolele asked with a smile.

‘No, this time double it to two million. Remind them of what will happen if they do not pay. If they are slow, give them a warning.’

‘A warning, by which I take it his Excellency means …?’

Khosa made a casual gesture, indicating his growing boredom with the conversation. ‘The usual. Whatever does not spoil the goods too badly. I leave such details to your judgement, Raphael.’

That alarm bell in Ben’s mind was ringing a little more loudly now.

Dizolele clasped his hands and bowed his head, like a sycophantic mouse. ‘Thank you, Excellency. It will be done exactly as you say.’

‘Is there anything else, Raphael?’

‘I am also pleased to report that the shipment from our friends in the east arrived safely while you were away. The items are awaiting your approval.’

This seemed the most welcome news of all. Khosa’s horror mask of a face crinkled with contentment. ‘I will inspect them shortly. Thank you, Raphael. If that is all, you are excused.’

Once the little colonel had left the room, Khosa stood and paced the deep-pile carpet for a moment or two before seating himself importantly at his desk. He leaned back in the leather chair, laid his big hands flat on the shining desktop and fixed his implacable wide-angle gaze on Ben and the others. His eyes were so far apart that it was impossible to stare back at both of them at once. He seldom blinked, and his breathing was that of a man in the deepest state of tranquillity. He drew another long puff from the Cuban, exhaled a huge cloud of smoke and said, ‘Well, soldier. What do you think?’

‘I think you know what I think,’ Ben said.

‘I do, soldier. I do. But I would like to hear it from you.’

‘I think that whatever dirty little business you’re up to in this luxury rathole of yours, it’s obviously paying off pretty well so far.’

Khosa smiled. ‘Is this your way of telling me that you are impressed, Major Hope?’

Ben had known this man less than a week and already he had seen him order scores of brutal executions, lay waste to an African village and personally blow out the brains of one of his own men. Whatever Khosa proved himself capable of, ‘impressed’ wasn’t the word to describe Ben’s reaction.

‘It’s my way of telling you that all good things come to an end, General. I wouldn’t get too complacent.’

Khosa reached out a lazy arm and swivelled the model field cannon on his desk so that its barrel pointed towards Ben. ‘I see. And what else do you think?’

‘I think that nothing bad had better have happened to my son,’ Ben replied. ‘Because if it has, all good things might come to an end that bit sooner.’

‘You think I should let him go?’

‘That would be the smartest move you’ve ever made in your life.’

Khosa pondered this for a long moment. ‘I would be disappointed, soldier,’ he said at last, ‘if I thought that you had forgotten our deal. Are we not clear on the terms of the arrangement?’

‘You want me and my friends here to train your ragtag rabble into something resembling an army,’ Ben said. ‘We do our job, Jude stays safe. Or so you promise.’

‘I am a man of my word, soldier,’ Khosa said, his big hand still resting on the cannon and the cannon still pointing at Ben’s heart. ‘When I say I will do something, I do it. You can depend on that.’

‘The part I’m not clear on is just how long you intend to keep us here,’ Ben said. ‘One month? Six? We don’t make for the easiest hostages to handle.’

‘Right,’ Jeff said tersely.

‘Six months,’ Khosa said, with a nonchalant shrug. ‘One year. Two. As long as it takes, soldier. But I advise you, I am not a patient man. I expect results quickly.’

Ben stared at him. ‘You haven’t thought this through, have you, Khosa? You’re too lost in your own little fantasy world. People will be looking for us. The kind of people you don’t want to deal with.’

‘There is nothing I cannot deal with,’ Khosa said. ‘You will learn this, if you have not learned it already. I have the power to do whatever I choose. If I am satisfied that you are doing a good job, perhaps I will choose to extend our deal for another ten years. It is, how do you say? An open-ended contract.’ Khosa chuckled at his own joke.