Thunderbolt by Wilbur Smith (reading strategies book .txt) 📕

‘Let’s stick around, see what happens,’ I said.

‘I’m not sure that’s wise,’ said Xander.

He’s generally good at avoiding needless trouble, but I ignored him today. ‘To plan an escape, we need to know as much of what goes on here as possible,’ I whispered, trying to believe what I was saying and failing: it sounded so lame.

One of General Sir’s bloodhounds was curled in the dirt beneath a nearby tree. I went over to it. The dog opened an eye and raised its lip above a yellow incisor as I approached, but there was no venom in the display and I heard no growl. When I bent to scratch the dog between the ears, I was ready to jerk back if it snapped at me, but it didn’t. In fact, though its lip stayed half curled, the dog pushed its dusty head up against my hand, clearly enjoying the attention despite itself. I knelt there, gently working the fur on the back of the dog’s neck, one eye on General Sir’s quarters.

We were close enough to hear voices coming from inside. Or rather one voice: General Sir’s. He got louder and louder, as if arguing with himself.

I strained to hear the Leopard’s responses but couldn’t. His stillness seemed to radiate from the shack. Elsewhere, there was movement. The kids who’d not been selected to fight slunk away while those who were off to war, all smiles, climbed into the waiting Land Rovers, ushered inside by the Leopard’s goons.

That made sense. What surprised me, however, was that as soon as General Sir’s voice became audible outside his shack, two kids with guns had materialised. One, Kayd, came out from behind the building itself, the other casually wandered into the clearing from the direction of the tents.

The door to General Sir’s quarters banged open hard, kicked from within. The General himself emerged. He had a pistol in his hand, and even from this distance I could see the whites of his eyes.

Both boys with rifles went immediately to General Sir’s side. The metallic click of gun mechanisms cocking cut through the hubbub. General Sir was waving the pistol in the direction of the door he’d just walked through. Sure enough, the Leopard emerged from the shack.

Whatever the shape of the row between the two men, the Leopard had remained calm while General Sir had lost his temper. The boy-enforcers weren’t exactly aiming their guns at the Leopard, but they were resting them on their hips, muzzles pointing in his direction.

If he noticed this, he didn’t show it, just strolled slowly past the little group as if he was taking a walk in the park. He caught nobody’s eye: didn’t look at us or even General Sir, just calmly crossed the clearing, heading for the Land Rovers.

‘It was a good offer, a valuable opportunity, and you know it!’ General Sir shouted after him.

The Leopard’s pace neither quickened nor slowed.

‘This disrespect, it’s very bad for business!’ General Sir hollered.

The Leopard climbed into his seat and closed the door.

‘You’ll be back,’ shouted General Sir. ‘You will. You’re interested. We both know it!’

The Leopard’s Land Rover did not take off in a cloud of dust. Instead it made a slow three-point turn and came to a halt next to General Sir and his enforcers. The second SUV fell in line behind the first. From where we were standing the sun, glancing off the Land Rover’s windows, made it hard to see what was happening.

I couldn’t see the Leopard at all. But he definitely held out a small package to General Sir, and General Sir, his shiny head still pulsing with rage, snatched it from him angrily. Without pausing, General Sir marched back to his shack as the two Land Rovers, carrying their cargo of fresh child soldiers, eased away down the track.

38.

‘What was all that about?’ asked Xander.

‘It’s pretty obvious,’ said Amelia. ‘Those guys were here to buy fighters from the General.’

‘Have you seen them here before?’ Xander asked Mo.

Mo shook his head. ‘They are not General Sir’s usual customers.’

‘Who do they work for?’ Xander asked. ‘Where are those poor kids going to fight?’

‘Government forces,’ said Mo. ‘Either they go north to Mogadishu, or further south to the border.’

‘That Leopard guy didn’t look much like a Somali government official,’ said Xander. ‘But I suppose there’s no telling.’

Mo shrugged. ‘He’s a mercenary working with them, I think, to put distance between General Sir’s black-market child soldiers and the officials. But the other two men wore Somali army uniform, that’s how I know. Mercenaries fight on all sides. Often they have military experience in foreign armies. They sell their expertise to the highest bidder.’

‘He sounded British to me,’ I said. ‘And he looked pretty together. General Sir’s a nasty nut-job, but what he does makes a sort of sense. This is his conflict. Imagine coming here on purpose as a mercenary, just to make money out of the war, buying children to fight in it. That Leopard guy is just … beyond evil.’

‘Yeah, but what was the row about?’ asked Xander.

Mo, eyes to the ground, said, ‘I think General Sir was trying to sell you to the Leopard as well,’ he said. ‘With his contacts he could ransom you on for even more money. But the Leopard wouldn’t bite.’

‘And the implications of that are pretty interesting,’ said Amelia, as if explaining a bit of schoolwork, not theorising about our fate. ‘Things can’t be going too well from General Sir’s perspective if he wants to pass us on to some random mercenary. Either he’s not been able to make contact with our parents or they’re not willing to pay for our release. Given that he appears to have a computer and adequate communications in place, the latter is the more logical, if surprising, conclusion.’

We sat in silence as her words sank in.

Amelia’s reasoning sounded, as usual, correct.