They would kill him sooner or later. He was sure of that. Suliman, that dog, had had a look of such contempt on his face that he knew he would take pleasure in doing it personally. He was only being kept here as bait – bait for Ben Tracey, who was up to something he didn't understand. He couldn't let it happen. If he was going to die, he wanted to die trying to escape, rather than on the whim of these men who had sold their souls to Kruger's wallet.
But that was easier said than done.
Abele enumerated his weapons. One candle, and the clothes he stood up in. It wasn't much, but slowly an idea started to form in his mind. It was risky. He might come off worst. But he had no other choice. He was desperate.
He removed his shirt, folded it neatly, then rolled it into a tightly wound cylinder. He then unthreaded a worn lace from his prized but beaten-up leather boots and used it to tie the shirt in place. Picking it up, he saw with a nod of approval that it would not now unfurl. Then he moved over to the candle, took a deep breath and lit the end of the shirt. It started to smoulder and the acrid smell of burning cloth filled the hut. Gently, so as not to extinguish the small flames that had started to appear, he moved it over to the opposite wall, next to the door, and placed it on the ground.
The wood from which the walls were made had been baked dry by the sun. It wouldn't take long, he hoped, for it to ignite. Then he would be in the hands of the gods: either the guard would rush in and try to rescue him, in which case he would have to fight him for his life; or, more likely, the guard would leave him in there to die, in which case he would have to wait for the wooden wall to burn sufficiently for him to hurl his way through it. As long as he wasn't roasted alive first. Or suffocated.
The fire began to crackle and already Abele's eyes watered with the smoke. He ripped a piece of cloth from his thin trousers and placed it over his mouth and eyes, taking slow, infrequent breaths in an attempt not to breathe in too much smoke. Then he crouched down by the opposite wall, and waited. The wood was like kindling, and soon half the wall was covered in bright yellow fire. What Abele had not counted on, however, was the iron roof; it reflected the heat back into the hut like an oven, and within minutes he found himself clenching his teeth against the intolerable heat. He could not break out yet; the wall would still be too strong.
Just a few more minutes.
Outside he heard a shout of surprise from his guard, but it was difficult to tell what he was saying or how far away from the hut he was above the crackle of the fire. He realized that the padlock would now be too hot to touch, so there would be no chance of the guard coming in, even if he wanted to.
His skin was scorching.
He held his hand up to his hair; it was too hot to touch.
He couldn't bear any more of this heat. He was going to have to break out.
Just another minute.
The air burned the inside of his nostrils as he breathed in. He started to choke. There was nothing for it. It was now, or…
'Aaaarrrggghh! ' he yelled at the top of his voice as he stood up and threw himself towards the burning sheet of flame in front of him. He felt the hot shock of a piece of burning wood splintering into his cheek. His whole body shrieked with pain as his skin came into contact with the fire; but the wall gave way against his formidable bulk, and as he burst through, he heard the roof collapsing behind him. He was out.
The guard was only a few metres away, his face confused and his rifle trained directly at the door. When he saw Abele burst through the wall to the side, he shouted in surprise and turned his gun towards the roaring prisoner. But he was too late: Abele was upon him. His already impressive strength compounded by adrenaline, Abele knocked the guard's rifle out of the way; it fired a chugging round, but the ammo spat harmlessly into the burning hut. Still holding onto the barrel of the gun, Abele knocked it forwards so that the butt sank sharply into the guard's stomach. He spluttered, winded, before being floored by a brutal punch to the side of his face that exploded in a shower of blood the moment Abele's clenched fist connected.
He was out cold.
Abele pulled the Kalashnikov from over the guard's neck, then detached the ammo belt, moving quickly because he knew it would not be long before the burning hut served as a beacon to his accomplices. His hands were still shaking, and the rifle felt heavy in his hands. He aimed it at the man lying unconscious on the floor. One squeeze of the trigger was all it would take; one squeeze, and the man who would have killed him without a second thought would be with the ancestors.
Suddenly, though, the image of Ben popped into his head. The look of shock and horror that had crossed his face when he realized that Abele intended to kill the bandit who had attacked them the day he arrived.
Abele's lips curled into a sneer. He turned and left the man lying there.
It was a struggle to find the road that led into the village. Abele couldn't understand it – it wasn't like he didn't know the area well enough, but somehow he couldn't focus on where he was. He stopped for a moment and looked down at his arm. It was burning with an intense, white pain, and he could see a series of ugly burn blisters appearing along its length. As he looked at it, though, he felt his head spinning and a wave of nausea crashed suddenly over him.
The road, he told himself. I have to get to the road.
He looked around in confusion. 'That way,' he murmured under his breath.
By the time he reached the road, the nausea was allconsuming, making him forget even about the burns on his skin. He staggered along for perhaps fifty metres before he realized he could go no further. By the side of the road was a small copse of trees. He would be hidden there, so he stumbled towards them.
Immediately he was under their protection, though, he felt his legs buckle underneath him. He tried to take a deep breath, but he felt as though his airways were blocked. He coughed. A dreadful, racking cough.
A cough like the one he had heard coming from Russell Tracey, only a few hours before.
Ben awoke with a start.
For a couple of moments he looked around, not fully understanding where he was, confused by the ringing of the rainforest's early-morning noise in his ears. But then it all came crashing back.
Halima was stirring too; she opened her eyes and smiled at Ben, who was massaging a knot out of his neck and trying to forget about how hungry and thirsty he was. 'Bacon and eggs, anyone?' he asked with a sigh.
Halima looked puzzled. 'What is bacon and eggs?' she asked.
'Never mind,' Ben told her. 'Come on, we'd better get moving.' He consulted the compass and pointed in the direction they needed to go.
By mid-morning Ben started to notice that the foliage was thinning out a bit, and he had even seen a few stumps where trees had been hacked down. He gestured at Halima to stop. 'I guess this means we're getting close to an inhabited area,' he whispered. 'And we're less hidden now, so we need to be extra careful.'
Halima nodded her agreement. 'I do not think it is far to the river now.'
They continued to walk, their eyes darting all around them as they kept a lookout for Suliman's men. Soon, through a gap in the trees, Ben saw the twinkling blue of the river. He and Halima nodded at each other, then hurried towards it. As they reached the bank, Ben looked to the other side. Rising from the trees, a little distance away, he could see tendrils of smoke.
The village.
The place they were trying to get to; and the last place Ben wanted to be.
This time round, Ben knew better than to obey his body's urge to rush to the water's edge and drink. There were no animals sipping on the bank, and in any case there was less of a shoreline here, more of a mossy, treacherous bank forming a sheer drop down to the water. The river itself seemed stiller, calmer than it had further along; for some reason that just served to make Ben more nervous.