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

In Ben’s mind, he stepped up to the desk. Snatched the model cannon from under Khosa’s hand and weighed it in his own. A solid cast-iron lump, plenty of heft to it. Plenty of damage when he smashed it down with all his might on the top of Khosa’s head, cracking open the man’s skull. And plenty more when he kept on hammering until the African’s brains were pulped all over the polished mahogany.

And then all it would take would be one brief phone call from Dizolele or any of the rest, and somewhere out there a gun would be pressing at Jude’s temple and the order would be given.

‘He dies, you die,’ was all Ben could say.

Khosa gave him the demon smile.

‘Rest well tonight, soldier. My men will show you to your accommodation, which I trust you will find satisfactory. Eat and drink all you want. Tomorrow you begin your duties.’ He stood. ‘And now, if you will excuse me, I have a diamond to sell.’

Chapter 5

While Ben and the others were en route with Khosa’s convoy, Jude Arundel had been heading towards his own unknown destination.

The conversation in the back of the Mercedes limousine had been every bit as uncomfortable as the ride over endless miles of potholes and ruts. Jude was sandwiched between the tall, dapper César Masango, the man who called himself General Khosa’s political attaché, and another well-dressed though somewhat less elegant African who went by the name of Promise. If Masango looked like a rich lawyer, Promise looked like an enforcer for a gangster operation. The muscles, dark glasses and Uzi submachine gun contributed significantly to the effect.

Jude kept stealing glances at the gun. A pressed-steel box with a stubby barrel. Very compact. Ideal for close-up and personal killing. The kind of killing that could be done in the back seat of a car with no danger of hurting anyone but the intended victim. Just perfect.

‘This is your new companion Promise Okereke,’ was how Masango had introduced him. ‘You will be seeing a lot of him, my young friend. From now on, he will never be far away from you. Like your guardian angel, there to keep you from getting into trouble.’

‘That’s very considerate of you,’ Jude said. He was determined not to show the slightest weakness or emotion to his captors. The deaths of his friends Condor and Hercules had shaken him badly and his own predicament was terrifying. But outwardly he remained cool, almost flippant in his defiance.

Masango pointed at Promise. ‘Do not try to speak to him, because he will not reply. Promise, show him why you will not reply.’

Promise opened his mouth. Jude didn’t really want to see, but it was hard to miss. The space between Promise’s lower teeth was a big purple-red hole of flesh and veins where his tongue used to be. If Jude’s stomach hadn’t been empty already, he might well have distributed its contents over his lap, making the rest of the journey even more pleasurable.

‘I don’t suppose he was born like that,’ Jude said when he’d collected himself.

Masango shook his head. ‘The man who did this to him is called Louis Khosa,’ he explained. ‘The brother of my friend and associate Jean-Pierre Khosa. If you are afraid of Jean-Pierre, you would be much more afraid of his brother. Louis is a very terrible man.’

‘What a charming family,’ Jude said. ‘Are there any more of them? Just so I know.’

‘One day soon, Louis Khosa will be dead. Only one man can kill him.’

‘Let me guess. His dear brother.’

‘That is right. And that is why Promise is so loyal to Jean-Pierre, and to me. He is not called Promise because he keeps his promises. He cannot make any. But he always keeps mine. And I promise you, my young friend, if you try to escape or resist us in any way, there will be no second chance for you. You will die a death that you cannot imagine.’

‘Thanks for the tip,’ Jude said. ‘So am I allowed to ask where you arseholes are taking me, or would that constitute resistance?’

Masango’s face was stony. ‘To a place where you will be safe and well looked after, as long as you behave yourself. I hope for your sake that you will not forget that advice.’

‘Oh, I wouldn’t dream of giving you any trouble,’ Jude said. And while the Uzi was only a couple of feet away, he wasn’t being entirely sarcastic. He thought about his father. In this situation, he was certain, Ben wouldn’t waste any time getting the gun out of Promise’s hand. Probably breaking a few fingers in the process, but Promise wouldn’t have a chance to feel much pain or even cry out, because he’d be dead a second later, quickly followed by César Masango. Or maybe Ben would just break Masango’s arms and keep him alive to extract information from him. However he played it, Ben would have got out of this. He wouldn’t have sat here like an idiot, letting himself be taken off somewhere nobody would ever find him.

But then, as Jude reflected bitterly, he was not his father.

The Mercedes drove through the night, pausing for the silent driver to refuel the tank from a couple of jerrycans stored in the boot. Jude was allowed a bathroom break behind a roadside bush, with his guardian angel hovering watchfully nearby. Before they set off again, Masango offered a floppy sandwich from a plastic wrapper, a half-melted chocolate bar and a bottle of warm Pepsi. The kind of stuff you’d give a twelve-year-old. Jude wanted to throw them angrily into the bushes, but then recalled Ben’s advice: eat when you can, drink when you can, sleep when you can. If he couldn’t fight like his father, then at least he could manage those.

He polished the food off in resentful silence, then got back in the car, folded his arms, sank down low in the soft plush seat, and pretended to fall asleep just as a ‘fuck you’ signal of defiance to Masango.

As he lay there with his eyes closed, he kept wondering what was happening to him. One thing was clear enough – he was a hostage. They were planning on isolating him as far away as possible from Ben, Jeff and the others, so that his friends had no way to find him. He would be imprisoned in some totally inaccessible shithole, a cellar maybe, or a dug-out pit in the ground with a truck parked over the top of it. He’d seen that in a movie and the idea appalled him.

If he was a hostage, it meant there was a deal going on. Jude had already figured that much out, from the moment Khosa had started keeping him under separate guard back in Somalia. Hostages were leverage, either for money or some other kind of trade. Nobody was going to pay money for Jude, at least not while Ben and Jeff were Khosa’s prisoners too. Even if they hadn’t been, Jude didn’t think he was worth much for ransom. No, it wasn’t about money. It had to mean that Khosa wanted something else from Ben. But what?

Genuine sleep came eventually, and when Jude awoke it was daylight outside. He expected them to arrive soon. But the drive went on, and on. Another fuel stop. Another floppy sandwich. More interminable miles along empty dirt roads, nothing but trees and bushes to look at all day long. How big was this damn country?

It was evening by the time they arrived at the military checkpoint. Men with guns appeared in the headlights. The Mercedes slowed. Masango rolled down the window and a soldier with a red beret and a bad harelip peered through before waving them on. Jude saw lots of lights and men with guns, and a big wire fence with a metal gate opening to let them pass, then yet more soldiers and fences as the car was ushered through what seemed like more layers of security than surrounded the US president’s country retreat at Camp David. Jude hadn’t known what to expect, but certainly nothing as elaborate and organised as this.

The Mercedes whisked him onwards, away from the checkpoint and along a narrower, bumpier dirt track that wound past earth-moving machinery and piles of dirt and rock as large as hills. Garbage was everywhere. A bonfire was burning, sending embers like fireflies into the night air and casting flickering orange shadows across a patch of empty ground to a row of makeshift wooden shacks. Jude saw movement in the firelight and realised there were people over there: some who looked like soldiers, and more who didn’t. A crowd of them, thin, bent, ragged Africans, men and women, being herded at gunpoint towards the shacks. The way they shuffled along, their bare feet dragging on the ground, they looked ready to collapse from exhaustion. Even in this light Jude could see that their clothes were in tatters and caked with filth.

Who were they? Jude wanted to ask, but then another sight killed the words in his mouth before they could come out.

Planted in the ground on the far side of the shacks, dimly bathed in the fire’s dancing light, stood a thick wooden post. The wood was all burnt and blackened, wrapped around with chains. Three blackened skeletons were held with their backs to the post. The burnt debris around the base of the post was still gently smouldering.

Jude felt sick. This was what these animals were doing here, burning people at the stake. He sensed that César Masango was looking at him.

‘What is this place?’ Jude managed to say. The defiance was all gone from his voice now.

‘Your new home,’ Masango said. ‘Oh, do not worry. You will not be joining the slaves. Here is where you will live, behind these gates.’ He pointed ahead. The Mercedes was arriving at another gate inset in another fence, this one built out of galvanised sheet-metal like a high grey wall streaked with dirt and rust in the light of the car’s headlights. The gate was heavily chained and padlocked. As the Mercedes pulled up, Promise Okereke got out of the back. He swung the rear passenger door lightly shut and walked towards the gates, taking a key from his pocket. He stopped at the gate; then with his back to the car, brightly lit by the headlamps, he started to undo the padlock. The Uzi submachine gun was dangling from his shoulder.

Jude’s heart began to race at the crazy idea that nothing but Promise’s empty seat now separated him from the unlocked rear passenger door. All he had to do was make a scramble for it before Masango could stop him, fling the door open and run like hell. For the first time since Khosa had captured them on the ocean, there was a real possibility of escape. A window of opportunity that wouldn’t last more than a few seconds, forcing him to make a very quick decision. Could he manage to disappear into the darkness before Promise turned round and opened fire on him? How would he get past the rest of the gates, and the soldiers?

Ben wouldn’t be worried about the risk. Ben would go for it.

Jude was suddenly boiling with adrenalin and his muscles were winding up tight as mandolin strings. He was ready. He had to do it. One chance, now or never.

Then Jude felt something hard poke against his ribs. Masango had a small pistol pressed into his side.

‘Jean-Pierre told me you have changarawe,’ Masango said.

It was the only word of Swahili that Jude understood. It meant ‘guts’.

‘But there is bravery, and then there is foolishness. You have already been warned once, my young friend. Do not even think about it again.’

Jude sank back into the seat, defeated and furious with himself for being so cowardly. He wished Masango would just shoot him and be done with it. In the beam of the headlights, Promise was opening the tall sheet-metal gate. The driver eased the car through it and then paused while Promise closed and relocked the gate and got back in. The Mercedes purred on. The area within the metal fence wasn’t large, maybe eighty yards across, a roughly square compound made out of beaten earth and empty apart from four green metal prefab huts that stood planted in a row a few metres apart at its centre.

The car stopped again. The driver kept the engine running. Masango climbed out, stretching his muscles after the long journey. ‘Come,’ he said to Jude. Jude got cautiously out of the car, looking around him. Promise got out from the other door, with the Uzi in one hand and a long flashlight in the other, which he shone first in Jude’s face and then at the huts.

‘This one here is yours,’ Masango said to Jude. ‘It has been specially prepared for our important new guest.’ He pointed in the direction of the torch beam at a hut on the end of the row. It was bolted together out of sections of the same galvanised sheet metal as the fence. There was a single tiny window, no glass, barred with flat aluminium bars riveted to the outside. The metal door, equipped with bolts top and bottom as well as a hasp and a thick padlock, hung ajar. The hut was pitch dark inside.

Promise took hold of Jude’s arm and pushed him into the hut, lighting the way with the torch. The compound evidently didn’t stretch to electric power. The floor was the same compacted earth and reminded Jude of the derelict building in Somalia where Khosa’s men had murdered his shipmate and friend Steve Maisky, otherwise known as Condor.

But this was no execution room, and no such gruesome fate awaited Jude here. Not yet. The hut was designed for another, very obvious, purpose. Its sheet metal sections had been assembled around an inner steel cage, a cube welded together out of tubular bars, maybe eight feet long by eight wide by eight high.

The cage was serious business, the kind of solid affair that would have served for keeping dangerous animals inside. It was probably strong enough to contain a silverback gorilla. At one side was a mattress and a chair. In the opposite corner, two buckets. One empty, to use as a toilet, the other half full of water.

‘You shouldn’t have gone to so much trouble,’ Jude said. ‘This kind of luxury is much more than I have at home.’

‘You will be brought two meals a day,’ Masango said. ‘If you cause trouble, there will be no food until you learn to behave yourself. If you are good, there will be special privileges, like a magazine to read, and a blanket.’

‘Any chance of a pool table?’ Jude said. ‘A decent laptop with Wi-Fi connection would be handy, too.’

‘Guards come and go during the day and night,’ Masango told him. ‘But Promise will be close by you at all times, and bring your meals. He will also report any instances of uncooperative behaviour back to General Khosa and myself.’

‘How’s he going to do that, with no tongue?’

Masango looked stern in the torchlight. ‘Lock him up,’ he ordered Promise. Promise pulled open the cage door, grabbed Jude and shoved him inside. The heavy door shut with a final-sounding hollow clang that Jude didn’t like at all. Promise slid home the four bolts that fastened it, and clicked a padlock through each in turn. He rattled them to test they were secure, then stepped away.

Jude clasped the bars. They were cold and dreadfully rigid-feeling. ‘Let me tell you something, Masango,’ he said in a calm, serious tone. ‘You people are making the biggest mistake of your lives if you think this whole thing isn’t going to backfire on you. I’m getting out of here, and when I do, you’re in deep shit.’

‘Goodbye, White Meat,’ Masango said. Khosa had called him by the same name. They’d obviously been talking about him, which wasn’t a comforting thought. Masango walked out of the hut, followed by Promise, and Jude was left alone in the darkness. He heard the hasp close and the snick of the outer padlock. As if it was even necessary.

Jude stood clutching the bars, listening. Footsteps on the stony ground; Masango speaking to someone, either Promise or the driver, in Swahili. Then the car door slamming; the smooth engine revving, tyres crunching as it rolled away.

Then all that remained was absolute silence, except for the thudding of Jude’s heart.

He stood there for a long time afterwards, until finally he groped his way across the cage and lay down on the damp-smelling mattress. He closed his eyes. He wondered whether Promise had gone with Masango or stayed behind, and then wondered what the other three huts were for. If Promise had stayed behind, maybe one hut was the guard house. Were there other captives inside the other two?

Jude sighed, trying to relax. He let his mind wander. For some reason, the next person to drift into his thoughts was Helen. He fingered the little name bead bracelet he still wore around his left wrist, even though they’d split up months ago, and tried to picture her pretty, elfin face. He wondered what she’d been doing since then, and where she was at this moment. Somewhere safe and cosy, he hoped. Not locked in a cage in the middle of Africa, that was for sure.

Then he replayed his cocky parting shot to Masango. What a thing to say. How cool was that? It made him chuckle for a moment, but only a moment.

‘Who are you trying to kid?’ he muttered to himself out loud. ‘You’re the one in deep shit.’

Chapter 6

Ben and the other three spent their first night in Khosa City in a poky fourth-floor room of the hotel that had been fitted with makeshift bunks, like a dorm for soldiers to kip in, and a far cry from the opulence of the General’s suite high above them. The windows had been nailed shut and barred on the outside, presumably to prevent certain guests from escaping. At least it had a bathroom of its own, with a hot shower that actually worked and felt like a small piece of heaven as they took turns cleaning themselves up after the long, hot, and dusty journey. All except Gerber, who shuffled wordlessly to the nearest bunk and clambered in fully dressed with his boots on and his back to the room, ignoring all attempts to rouse him.

‘He’s got to snap out of this state,’ Jeff whispered to Ben. ‘You know what’s going to happen if he doesn’t.’

Ben did know. Either Gerber would spiral into a depression from which he might never resurface, or Khosa would simply decide he was of no use to him, and sign the death warrant.

The next morning at six, the door was unlocked and a pair of Khosa’s militia infantrymen marched into the room, accompanied by an older man in his mid or late thirties whose authoritative demeanour, if not his uniform, marked him as their superior officer.

Ben had already been awake for an hour by then. He’d managed to chase the blackness of his mood away by forcing a hundred press-ups out of himself, followed by a hundred sit-ups and a thorough inspection of their room and the view from the window. He’d taken another long, hot shower, then changed into the clean khaki T-shirt and combat trousers from the pile of clothing that had been left for them. Tuesday had just finished in the bathroom and Jeff was lounging on his bunk with his hands clasped behind his head and a whimsical look on his face. Gerber appeared to be asleep, in the same position he’d curled into the night before. Ben had in fact checked earlier to make sure he wasn’t dead.

‘I am Captain Xulu!’ the officer barked at them. The troopers stood either side of him, holding their AKs in a sloppy rendition of the high-ready position that would have been something to rectify, if Ben had had any real intention of helping to train Khosa’s army. The last thing the world needed was an effective fighting force with a rabid psychopath like Khosa at its helm.

Ben stepped towards Xulu and faced him up close. Xulu was an inch shorter, at around five-ten, and paunchy. He was like a smaller, fatter version of his general, without the ferocious facial scarring but doing his best to make up for it by acting tough.

Ben eyed him coldly and said, ‘Doesn’t this army teach you to salute a superior officer? You’re talking to a major.’

Xulu returned the stare with a nasty grin. Every second or third tooth in his mouth was capped with gold. ‘You are not in my chain of command, soldier. I take my orders from General Khosa, Colonel Dizolele, and nobody else.’ He pursed his lips and added, ‘The General thinks you are a great warrior. Me, I think you are just another muzungu bastard who thinks he can deceive us. I do not salute muzungu shit.’

Ben and Jeff had known each other a long time and could communicate on a level that wasn’t quite telepathic, but not far off it. Might just have to kill this one, Ben knew Jeff was thinking from the set of his jaw.

Soon, Ben’s return glance told Jeff.

Jeff twitched one eyebrow and gave a tiny jerk of his chin, indicating as clearly as if he’d spoken it out loud, Why wait? Let’s pitch the fucker out of the window, snap the necks of these worthless two, take their weapons, and storm the building. You know you want to.

Ben gave a half-smile. The idea had merit. Its time might come, but that time wasn’t now.

The silent conversation between the two men wasn’t lost on Tuesday Fletcher, but it went straight over the head of Xulu, who planted his hands on his hips and glared around the room. His disapproving eye settled on Gerber. ‘You! Old man! You should stand up when I speak to you!’

‘He isn’t well,’ Ben said. ‘Leave him alone.’

‘Is he drunk?’ Xulu demanded. ‘Is he sick? What is wrong with him?’ He reached out to grab Gerber’s arm and yank him off the bunk.

‘He has the simian herpes genitalis virus,’ Ben said. ‘Caught it from a macaque in Addis Ababa. Very contagious.’

‘Makes your bollocks shrivel up and drop off,’ Jeff said, pointing downwards. ‘And everything else down there with them, if you’re really unlucky.’

‘Pretty grim,’ Tuesday added, pulling a face. ‘You can get it just by touching an infected person.’

‘We’re all vaccinated against it,’ Ben said. ‘If you’re not, I wouldn’t get too close.’

‘But the infection only lasts a little while,’ Jeff concluded. ‘He’ll be fine by tomorrow.’

Evidently not much of a doctor, Xulu had quickly pulled back his arm and now stepped away from Gerber’s bunk with a disconcerted frown. ‘Very well. He is excused duty for today.’

‘And what duty might that be?’ Ben asked.

The nasty gold smile. ‘You will soon find out. Come with me.’

Three more soldiers awaited downstairs in the lobby, to escort them to the armoured personnel carrier parked in the street in front of the hotel. Ben was able to get a better look at the six-wheeled APC in daylight and recognised it as a Chinese Type 92. Essentially it was a small tank, except it was fully amphibious. Hardware like it wasn’t cheap to come by, even in central Africa where military-grade weapons of all shapes and sizes could be had for a few dollars.

‘I wonder what surprises are in store for us today,’ Jeff mused as they walked from the entrance. The sun was already hot, burning a hole in the early morning clouds over the city.

‘Surprises are foolish things,’ Tuesday replied. ‘The pleasure is not enhanced, and the inconvenience is often considerable.’ He caught Jeff’s look and shrugged. ‘It’s from Emma.’

‘Who the hell’s Emma?’

‘You know, Jane Austen?’

Jeff looked blank. ‘Sounds like you know some strange women.’

But Tuesday was right about the pleasure not being enhanced as the three of them were made to clamber inside the stuffy, baking-hot interior of the APC. The three-man crew was already in place and the additional five soldiers, plus Xulu, plus their three charges, made twelve people crammed in like herrings in a cask. ‘Anybody farts in here,’ Jeff muttered, ‘and he’s dead meat.’

Captain Xulu sat near the front and gave orders to the crew as the hatch was slammed down above them and the heavy vehicle got moving. From his cramped fold-down seat in the back, Ben was able to peer out through a bulletproof-glass porthole. The sight of the empty city streets rolling by was even more surreal in daylight than when they’d first arrived. ‘There’s no way Khosa built this place,’ he said, voicing his thoughts from last night in a low tone that only Tuesday and Jeff would hear. ‘His resources don’t stretch this far, nothing like it. And if they did, he’d have spent the money on building a proper military base.’

‘Then again,’ Jeff said. ‘Khosa’s as loony as a shithouse rat. If anyone’s capable of it, he is.’

‘He might be loony, but he’s also got a plan. I don’t see how this place fits with it.’