Once they were through the chaos of the terminal, Patrice led them across the road to an old yellow Peugeot estate in the car park.
They stashed their bags in the back with the equipment that Patrice had assembled for them. As he shut the boot he turned to Alex and smiled. ‘Don’t worry, Mr Devereux, I’m not going to make you speak French the whole way. That was just for the plainclothes security police in the crowd; they take an interest in whites coming in.’
Alex was caught off guard by the switch to American-accented English. Kalil had said they would be met by the cartel’s contact but Alex had not been sure what language they would be speaking. Besides, his French was passable from previous ops in Congo.
‘That’s fine,’ he smiled, conscious that he was reliant for now on this man.
They drove into town but Patrice didn’t seem to want to talk; he concentrated on steering them through the manic traffic. Old Peugeots, Renaults and Citroëns wheezed and limped alongside newer Toyotas and Mitsubishis. Trucks and buses were piled up with people and goods, and slouched on their axles; driven at top speed, they swerved around the worst potholes. Patrice was unfazed by it all, and weaved through them on the wide Avenue de I’Indépendance.
Alex and Col opened the windows to try to get a cool breeze but it was like having a hair dryer turned on your face. They looked out at the town; it had the rundown appearance of somewhere that had been taking a battering since its heyday in the 1960s. Most of the houses and buildings dated from then; their peeling whitewash was stained brown with red dust from the earth verges and were pockmarked by bullet holes. All the houses were heavily fortified against the outbreaks of rioting and looting over the years, with crude bars welded over windows and doors. Rubbish was strewn everywhere: plastic bags, newspapers, wrappers and cola nut skins. Sitting on beer crates at the roadside were ‘Gaddafis’ — youths selling stolen petrol from large jars; named after the oil-rich Libyan president, who had interfered in the country so often.
Driving through the centre, they circled the main traffic island. Alex saw it was covered with the distinctive spiky leaves of cassava plants; it had been turned into vegetable plots by civil servants used to being unpaid for months.
They headed out of town on Boulevard de Général de Gaulle, along the north bank of the Ubangi River. Alex looked out across it; it was over a mile wide, a great brown snake coiling through the heart of Africa.
Patrice drove them out east into the bush. The buildings gave way to vegetable patches and then the jungle began to take over. Dirt replaced tarmac, and they bumped past the mud huts of the village of Damara with red dust trailing behind them. A kilometre on and Patrice turned right up a small track to a football pitch surrounded by trees; long grass grew across it and the goal posts sagged at either end.
He parked in the shade out of the fierce sun. The three men got out and began unpacking the kitbags.
‘MP5s, as requested, with silencers,’ said Patrice, as he handed them machine guns. Both men checked them deftly, before pulling off their civilian kit and putting on camouflaged combat jackets and trousers. Alex prowled off round the field to make sure it was secure whilst Col went through the compasses, radios and homing beacons.
Patrice sat and smoked a Gauloise. When Col was satisfied that the kit was in order he sat with his back against a tree and read a biography of CAR’s former ruler, Emperor Bokassa, called Dark Age. Alex waited in the car with his long legs stretched out of the door and read through his maps and notes for the mission.
The hundred-degree heat sat heavily on the field. Nothing had the energy to make a sound. An hour passed and the men waited; Alex occasionally looked up at the sky and checked his watch.
When the distant noise of the helicopter broke the stillness he flicked his eyes at Col. They picked their kit up and readied themselves. Patrice grabbed his holdall out of the boot, then pulled a jerry can out and shook petrol over the inside of the car.
The camouflage-painted Mi-17 roared in; tree-tops thrashing in its wake. Alex never got over the shock of seeing such a huge, ungainly object hanging in midair, as if a bus were hanging over his head. Sunlight flashed off the cockpit windows as the pilot swung it round into the centre of the field and flared to hover two feet off the ground. Alex glimpsed Arkady Voloshin at the controls, cigarette clamped in the corner of his mouth as ever; his eyes narrowed as he scanned the tree line.
The door in the side was open; Yamba Douala crouched in combat gear with a 7.62mm machine gun poking out of the door in case they needed cover.
Grass and dust billowed crazily in the downwash as the two whites ran out through it, hunched under their packs.
Patrice stood back from the Peugeot and flicked his Gauloise into it. The petrol whooshed and then the fuel tank exploded as he ran to join them in the helicopter. Yamba hauled him and his bag inside as the big turbofans lifted them up.
The huge aircraft disappeared east over the trees towards the next phase of the operation.
14 JANUARY 1525, NEUHOF FOREST, HESSE, CENTRAL GERMANY
Dark clouds hung threateningly over the snow-covered forest. A shaft of bleak winter light slid in under them, cold as a knife.
Eberhardt shifted the axe in his hand and stared at the figure slipping between the frosted tree trunks. Everything was still around him; all he could hear was his breathing. Each breath pulsed out, froze in the still air and then descended gently. His beard jutted out, thick with frost.
The weight of the axe felt reassuring. He and Albrecht could not see clearly who was coming along the track that merged with theirs up ahead. In such a remote spot as this, bandits and outlaws were his first fear. He could see only one man, but could there be more? Was he a scout for a gang of brigands coming along behind?
It was two years after the Knights’ War, and Eberhardt and Albrecht’s circumstances had changed greatly.
The war had been a disaster. The Knights’ desperate attempt to try to preserve their status in society had merely hastened their demise. The Imperial Princes had united and crushed them in a few short battles. Eberhardt had fled and lived now as a woodcutter to escape the punishment inflicted on his fellows.
The Princes assumed he was dead and, as he’d been a traitor, his castle and lands had been sold off. If they ever found out he was alive, far worse would be visited on him. He and Albrecht travelled around, surviving on day labour: cutting wood and ditching.
The pair of them wore heavy winter clothing: sheepskin jerkins, broad peasant hats and Bundschuhe, the peasant boots made of strips of leather bound together with thongs. On their backs were their worldly possessions: bedding rolls, cooking pots, and tools. Albrecht stood nervously behind his master, his cooking knife in hand, unsure what to do. He had stayed despite everything. He had no family in Steltzenberg, and with the seizure of Eberhardt’s lands his job was gone as well. His whole life had been one of service and he could not think of any other way. Stoic and dour, he plodded on, focusing on getting his master through one day at a time and trying hard not to think about their problems.
The whole country was in similar dire straits. The growing population led to land shortage so the ordinary folk starved and turned to crime. Riots and attacks on the nobles were common; Germany was in turmoil, hence Eberhardt’s fear as the man approached in the wood.
Eberhardt would not have taken this track by choice but he still feared discovery by the Princes. With the climate of fear, checkpoints had been put across the main roads to look for suspicious characters.
He gripped the axe and filled his deep chest with air, summoning his most commanding tones, and bellowed out at the stranger: ‘Who are you?’
The bellow echoed through the still woods.