Chapter 3 #3
17:03
The door opened wide and Axel walked in, good Finnish soldier from his head to his toes. His fatigues were clean and freshly pressed. The baby-blue UN helmet that was such an attraction, practically a beacon, to snipers the world over firmly on his head, boots spit-shined.
“Hello, Mr. Deaver,” Axel said. His English was excellent. He’d studied computer science for two years at Stanford and he spoke colloquial American English with only a faint accent. “How are you today?”
The light from the open door filled the room. Since his back was to the door, Deaver’s eyes were able to accommodate quickly to the light pouring into the room from behind his back. Going from darkness to tropical light could blind a man for minutes.
“Hi, Axel. Close that door, will you?”
“Certainly.” Deaver heard the snick of the door closing and turned around. By now, Axel had become used to what he considered Deaver’s fetish for darkness.
Floor to ceiling bars separated the shack in half.
Deaver considered his cell a personal affront.
The bars were loosely planted in the wooden planks and fixed by screws to the stucco ceiling.
The lock was a joke—it would fall apart if you blew on it too hard.
How the fuck did they think a cell like that could hold a man like him?
The problem wasn’t getting out, the problem was what to do afterwards.
They were about twenty miles from the Sele River.
Even if he could make it through the jungle to the river, he’d need to steal a boat and motor his way down to Freetown.
It would take three days, at least. Everyone knew there was only one place to escape to and that was Freetown.
By the time he made it to the capital, Freetown and, worse, Lungi Airport would be crawling with UN troops with his photograph in their hands, itching to capture the American renegade.
So he needed to make sure no one would be looking for him. He needed a body that looked like Vincent Deaver they could bury.
Axel was sympathetic to him, he’d made that clear. Axel loved America and his tidy Finnish soul had been horrified at what he’d seen in his two year tour of duty in central Africa. ‘Hell on earth’, he called it.
Axel had made it plain more than once that he thought it a ridiculous waste of time and effort to keep Deaver in detention.
He was right, of course. This part of the world had been on a rampage for fifteen years, tribe against tribe, with brutally ferocious massacres on a daily basis. On the Revolutionary Army scale, what Deaver’d done was the equivalent of a slap in the face.
So Axel was definitely on his side. Deaver had even thought about bribing him for travel documents. Might have worked, but he needed something else from Axel, besides documents.
His body.
Pity, because he liked the guy. But what can you do?
“Merry Christmas, Axel.” Axel’s head swiveled to follow the source of his voice. Deaver sat on his cot, legs spread, forearms on knees, hands clasped. Utterly, totally nonthreatening.
Axel’s eyes would slowly be accommodating to the dark shed after the bright tropical light outside.
Deaver’s body was a still statue slowly taking shape, like a film in the developing pan.
“Merry Christmas, Vince. I came to say good-bye.” Axel walked towards Deaver and wrapped his hands around the bars.
Deaver let his gusty sigh fill the room. He lifted his head. Axel would be able to make out his movements by now. “Man, oh man, I’m going to miss you. Miss our talks. I’m just happy you’ll be out of this shithole and with Maja.”
“Oh, yeah.” Predictably, Axel’s face creased in a smile at the mention of his girlfriend.
He’d spent the past three days talking about her.
Her beauty, her intelligence, her warmth, blah blah blah.
Deaver was sick of hearing about Maja, particularly after he’d been shown a photograph of a whey-faced dog with long, stringy white-blonde hair.
It had reassured him, however, to know that Axel was not the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree.
Axel was slated to leave this afternoon for a two month rotation back to Finland. He hadn’t even tried to hide how glad he’d be to get out of Africa and back to his computer, snow and Maja, probably in that order.
Axel pulled up a stool and pulled out a little magnetized travel chess set. They had spent the past three days playing through the bars. Deaver had been letting him win two games out of three.
“Hey,” Deaver said, putting on a shy, abashed expression.
“You’ve been really good to me, here, you know?
” He put a little folksiness into his voice, just two guys chewing the fat on a lazy afternoon.
“And I was thinking, what with you going back home for a while and all, that I’d like to give you something. I really owe you, man.”
“Ah, Vince…” Axel said uneasily. Deaver watched him fidget a little. “I can’t accept anything from you. You know that. I mean think how it would look—”
“No no!” Deaver shook his head sorrowfully. “Wow, you must think—” He blew out a big gust of breath. “No, I have something for you to give Maja. You know, as a Christmas present. I bet you didn’t get anything for her.”
Bingo. Axel hung his head. There wasn’t much but jungle within a hundred-mile radius. Jungle and soldiers and blood and misery. Nothing a Finnish woman would want.
Deaver stood and walked towards the bars, crooking his finger to bring Axel closer. Curious, Axel stood against the bars. Though they were separated by the bars, they were close enough to feel each other’s breath.
“I’ve got something real special for Maja. Something she’ll like … a lot.” He allowed himself a smile. “Something sparkly. Something all women like.” He shrugged and winked, man to man. “Won’t do me much good in here. You might as well get some use out of it, know what I mean?”
Axel nodded eagerly.
Deaver knew that everyone in the UNOMSIL encampment assumed he had the diamonds. Or rather, since he’d been frisked, knew where the diamonds were.
If only. It was a fucking fortune. Enough money to keep him happy for the rest of his life, wherever he wanted to settle down.
Away from Africa, away from Afghanistan and Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan and all the fucking ’Stans.
Away from Iraq, away from all the shithole places with kids blowing themselves up just for the pleasure of gutting you while they did it and women who hid grenades under their burqas and men willing to shoot you for your fillings.
No more.
No more 12 year olds high on ganja or palm wine carting around Ak-47s they could barely lift with access to unlimited ammo and just itching to bag a white man. No more roadside IEDs, no more leeches or scorpions or lice, no more MREs, no more rough sleeping.
He’d earned that money. It was fucking his. He’d been dreaming of a big hit for years and when he’d heard the rumors of a village whose men had all gone off to war and with millions of dollars in conflict diamonds hidden in the ground, he’d instantly known that this was it. His big chance.
He’d never have to soldier again, or ever have to work at anything, ever again. Never take orders again, never do anything but what he damned well pleased.
No more jungles, no more deserts. No more bivouacking in primitive encampments on stony ground.
Deaver planned on living in luxury for the rest of his natural life. Buy a mansion somewhere nice, somewhere sunny, somewhere OUTCONUS. In the Bahamas maybe. Or maybe Montecarlo.
Why not? Buy a big house with a pool and servants and lots and lots of women. Not that many beautiful women wanted to fuck a soldier, but they sure as hell lined up ten deep to fuck rich men.
He could taste it, smell it, feel it, this new life.
And it was all gone. All his dreams for his future, a future he’d sweated and taken bullets for, wiped out in a second by Jack Prescott.
For a moment the heat of rage swept through him, wiping out every other thought except that of hunting down that fucker Jack Prescott, getting his diamonds back and killing Prescott with a knife, taking a couple of days to do it.
None of this showed on his face. He bent his head forward and dropped his voice to a murmur. “Come in here, Axel. And I’ll give you something that will make Maja drop to her knees in gratitude.”
“Okay, Vince.” Though there was no one else in the hut, Axel dropped his voice, too. As if they were about to exchange confidences.
Deacon stood up and backed away slowly. “Come inside.” His voice was still low. “I’ll show you what I’ve got for you. For her.”
Axel didn’t even hesitate. Deacon knew Axel thought of him as someone much like himself. Nice white boy caught up in the craziness that was west Africa.
Axel unlocked the cell door and walked inside, following Deacon, who’d reached his cot and pulled something out from under the hard mattress. A cloth bag with smooth round objects that rattled.
Axel’s excited breathing was loud in the darkened room.
Deacon smiled. “Maja’s going to love these. Come over and look.” Deacon reached over the cot to suddenly open the shutters, flooding the room with harsh light. Axel was temporarily blinded and would remain blind for about a minute and a half. More than enough time.
Deacon had closed his eyes and turned his back to the window and he could see just fine.
His hand dropped to his boot where he quickly and quietly pulled out a long thin dagger with a folding handle the UN troops hadn’t even noticed.
He’d been briskly frisked for arms before being shut up in the detention center but no one had thought to check his boots.
Or his belt buckle with the mini-revolver or the garotte wire along the inside of his belt.
The garotte was out of the question. Deaver needed Axel’s clothes intact. A slow choking death would loosen his bowels and bladder. And a bullet wouldn’t do—it would stain his uniform with blood.
There was only one way to do it.