12: Plans

Not for the first time in his life, George marvelled at how well Michael was able to handle everything. Back on the surface, they'd showered to get all of the dirt and dust off them, and George had been disgusted to discover another blood smear on the back of his arm that he'd missed earlier. After a few weeks of living in the facility, they'd found that since the library was disused but still in-bounds, they could go there to talk about the mission when they didn't want to be overheard. Unfortunately, the air-conditioning had broken, so it was a sweat box, but that meant everyone else avoided it.

"Sounds pretty nasty," Michael said in English, which was less likely to be understood if anyone did hear them, when George told him about the grisly injury. He shook his head. "That's definitely got to shake you up."

George nodded. "We've been lucky so far, but I can't stop feeling like one day we'll run out of luck."

Michael sighed, looking at one of the dust-encrusted windows. "I completely understand your concern. I won't lie, I've had a couple of near-misses I don't like to think about."

"What should we do?" George asked, touching his transmitter again reflexively.

The movement of George's hand wasn't lost on Michael. "I don't think we need to panic, yet. We're looking for an opportunity for three things, remember?"

They'd had this conversation before and George rolled his eyes. "I know. Distraction, information, escape."

"Right." Michael looked back at George. "Causing a distraction is easy enough, you can cause chaos in this place with the slightest thing. Escape, we know where we are and how to get to the roads. They won't bother to chase us unless they know we've got something they want, so if we do it right, it's easily done."

"But," George said, "We still don't have the information."

"Yeah." At this, Michael looked deflated. "I think we can grab tons of falsified documents from this place, maybe enough to close it down, but that's hardly worth six months of effort."

"If, like you say, though," George said, "that they might be able to arrest some people here, then that would be a good result."

Michael shrugged. "We can speculate about results all day," he said, wiping his chest with his hand to keep the sweat off. "That's for the government or police or whatever to decide. For me, we want to grab something really valuable and get out of here. Then we're on the fast track back to campus inside a week."

George wasn't convinced. "Why do you think we'll get something after six months that we haven't been able to already?" he asked, biting gently on his thumbnail.

Michael rubbed his face this time. "I don't know, man. I just don't want all this effort to lead to a reprimand for some anonymous Chinese company and a couple of fall guys behind bars for a year. You saw that guy's hand, we need to really nail the guys responsible for all this." He waved his hand around. "We've got an amazing situation here to provide names, faces, evidence, which nobody else could ever get. Not to mention the stuff we got when we got moved up here."

During the journey from Cape Town to the DRC, they'd been disappointed to have been kept in a blacked-out van most of the time, but they'd picked up a couple of names and places, which could be crucial to busting the trafficking network. They'd expected to be taken to a location somewhere in South Africa or maybe Botswana, where CHERUB and Lewis would have been able to set up some kind of contact network, but instead of travelling a thousand kilometres, they'd gone more than four times that and ended up not in the desert but deep in the jungle. George assumed the transmitters had let CHERUB know where they were, but they'd had no contact whatsoever from the outside world. The trafficking network was significantly larger than expected, which was why Michael had pushed hard right from the start that they should infiltrate things, rather than withdrawing immediately.

George lay back, resting his head on an ancient chair whose stuffing was crumbling. Michael sensed his reluctance.

"Listen, man," Michael said, leaning forward. "I need your support on this. If you're not totally committed to the mission, we'll go for extraction. Or grab some water and hit the road tomorrow. Honestly, the most important thing is that we're both completely in this to win it."

"I appreciate that, I just… I don't know," George said, uncertainly.

Michael rested his hands on his knees. "If we get into some shit out here, it's a complete wilderness. It's not like the UK, or even South Africa. We mess up, a guard'll chuck our bodies in a muddy hole somewhere and we'll just be two names on the campus memorial. No investigation or anything. We're completely on our own, and we've got to be ruthless."

George couldn't help cracking a smile. "Well, if I had to pick one guy to have on my side for that, it'd be you."

Grinning, Michael flexed a massive bicep, but then went back to serious mode. "I mean it, though. If I have to grab an AK and gun down a guard, or another worker, or Pierre, I'll do it. And I need you to be ready to do that, too."

George thought for a second. There was a strange cult surrounding the CHERUB agents, mostly older, who'd killed someone on a mission. None of them ever seemed happy about it and, although George knew it was technically a possibility, he'd never been in that situation. On his mission last year he'd been shot at and only a few inches from taking a bullet, but he wasn't shooting to kill anyone. Being in a fight with a guy with a knife was easy, his training took over, but actually pulling a trigger and killing someone…

"Have you done it before?" George asked Michael, and for once, this was a conversation they hadn't had before.

Michael seemed surprised. "What, shot someone?"

"Killed someone," George clarified.

The big lad paused before saying anything. "I haven't directly done that. But in Singapore, I was using this kid for information, a totally normal guy, but really deep into drugs and hacking and all that. When things kicked off, I had to pull out and grab what I could, but it meant leaving him isolated. I could've pushed CHERUB to extract him, or get him protected somehow, but it would've risked my position and I didn't want to take a chance. Stupidly, I Googled his name about a month later and he got murdered the day after I left." He shrugged. "I completely used him and left him to die. But I'm here, still doing some good, and if I'd tried to save him, I might not be."

It sounded cold when he said it, but George understood. A whole chapter of the training manual was dedicated to 'close personal relationships' whilst undercover and he felt like he was gaining a new understanding of it.

"I just need your support," Michael concluded. "We got a deal? Trust me?"

He held out his hand for a shake, and George grabbed it without hesitation. "I trust you." Then he pulled his hand back. "Your hand is so wet, that's gross."

Michael laughed, wiping his hand on his shorts. "This room is sweltering, that's why."

They went over what kind of information they were looking for for the hundredth time, but it was almost meal time, so they retreated from the room into the cooler parts of the building.

"Today was red hot," Michael remarked. "Sahlu completely owes me."

George remembered about Moses and his books. "I need to go and see Moses," he said quickly, trying to work out if he had enough time before dinner. "Gotta pay him, I forgot earlier."

"Alright, take care, man, see you for food," Michael said in his usual relaxed manner, exchanging a quick hand slap with George before he headed for the cafeteria and George dashed back to his locker. He counted out thirty dollars, which almost completely depleted his pile of bills, blocking anyone else from seeing into his locker as they milled around behind him, then locked it up and headed towards the guards' accommodation.

When the compound had been built, to impress foreign investors, the main part was landscaped, with small patches of lawn and flowerbeds, as well as clean and tidy, one-storey buildings everywhere. The intervening decade had eaten away all of the lawns and paths, leaving them as either red dust when it was dry or red mud when it was wet. The guards had taken over an accommodation block that had obviously once been for high-ranking managers, and while it wasn't unknown for workers to go there for some reason, the guards thought they were better than the workers and didn't like to be seen associating. Luckily for George, instead of having to trail dust into the foyer and risk a reprimand, he spotted Moses standing outside, smoking and chatting to another guard with his back to George. George skirted the building to go and talk to them, but as he approached, he heard the word 'Bheki' and instantly stopped, tucking in close to the building to stay hidden and listen. He had to creep to within ten yards of the guards to hear them, but he was hidden by a decaying air conditioning unit which wasn't currently running.

"I hate that guy," Moses said in a bitter tone. "He acts like he owns the place."

His fellow guard just nodded. "He's a dangerous guy, though. Some of the boys he picks up come from all over, he's gotta have a lot of power. And I wouldn't even ask about the girls."

Both men laughed in a cruel way.

"Brothel in Lubumbashi is probably full of 'em," Moses said, taking another drag on his cigarette.

"Don't say that, I don't fancy having Bheki's-"

George didn't understand the slang word he used, but based on the way they both laughed again, it wasn't nice.

"When's he getting here? Tomorrow?" Moses asked.

"Yeah. Just in time, too, after that idiot today crushed his hand, we're getting short of workers," the other guy, scratching at his beard, replied. "I heard the boss say he's staying for a week."

"Probably negotiating terms and getting a free week's accommodation," Moses remarked.

"Negotiating? More like blackmailing."

"Do you know where this lot is coming from? French-speakers?"

Moses's question was met with an indifferent shrug. "Don't know, don't care. Anyway, I'm working the night tonight, so I'd better get my things."

Moses didn't look as if he was going anywhere, so George left it a couple of minutes, creeping backwards, then noisily crunched over some loose gravel to announce his presence. Moses turned around and smiled.

"Hey George," he said, chucking the end of his cigarette on the floor and treading on it. "Got my money?"

George pulled out the bills and handed them over. Moses counted them quickly and seemed satisfied.

"Just in time, I need to pay up for my fags," he said. "Your new books are in your bunk."

Buzzing with excitement at what he'd overheard, George left, running the conversation over and over in his head so he'd remember every detail. When he had it memorised, he tried to imagine whether he'd be able to shoot Moses if he had to. They were friendly after months of transactions, and Moses had mentioned his kids a couple of times, but George tried to tell himself that he was nothing more than an armed guard who'd shoot him without even hesitating if he had to. He was still visualising the situation when he almost bumped into Pierre outside the cafeteria.

"They're having an organisation of the bunkhouse, looks like new people are coming," Pierre said, jabbing his thumb in the direction. "You might want to get in there before someone steals your stuff."

"Thanks," George said quickly. Being caught with contraband usually meant a beating and everything being confiscated, which he could handle, but he wanted to keep his head down. "Have you seen Michael?"

"Eating like a pig at a trough," Pierre laughed. "Where else?"