Solo

the white man said. There was something wrong with his face, something glinting in one eye, but Bond couldn’t see exactly what it was because of the zigzag paint stripes.
    ‘Get dressed,’ the man said to both of them. ‘Then pack up your stuff.’
    Bond pulled on his shirt and trousers, shielding Blessing as she put her clothes on as quickly as possible. She seemed calmer once she was dressed, and Bond gave her as reassuring a look as he could muster before he was escorted down the corridor to his room by two of the other soldiers. He put on his desert boots and safari jacket and packed away the rest of his things in the Zanzarim bag. Back in Blessing’s room he showed the white man his APL identification and his accreditation from Zanza Force.
    ‘Good cover,’ the man said, unimpressed. Closer to him, Bond could see that half his face looked different from the other, normal, half. The glinting that Bond had spotted was caused by tears – his left eye didn’t blink and tears flowed unchecked from it – tears that he wiped away with a constant motion of his thumb or dried on his cuff. There were two small round scars below his left eye – bullet entry wounds – that looked like a stamped umlaut and the contours of the left-hand side of his face were strangely dished, the cheekbone missing. Some awful trauma to his face had left him in this state, obviously.
    Bond and Blessing were ushered downstairs – no sign of the manager or the staff of Cinnamon Lodge – and out into the warm darkness of the night. Bond glanced at his Rolex – it was just after four in the morning. They were led out of the compound and down a pathway to a small creek. Bond feigned a stumble, dropped his bag and as he stooped to pick it up, bumped up against Blessing.
    ‘They’re from Dahum,’ he whispered.
    ‘That’s what I’m worried about.’
    Then they arrived at the water’s edge where a twelve-foot fibreglass dory was moored. Bond was shoved up to the front and Blessing told to sit in the stern. Bond acknowledged the Dahumian soldiers’ discipline and good training. They moved confidently and briskly about their business with very little conversation. He heard one of the men say ‘We are ready, Kobus.’ So he was called Kobus, Bond noted – Kobus short for Jakobus. The man with half a face or, rather: Kobus, the man with two faces.
    Kobus cast off the dory and sat down in the stern beside Blessing. The other men picked up short paddles and swiftly, silently, propelled the dory down the creek and out into the wider expanse of the lagoon. Bond could see a few lights burning in Lokomeji – no rendezvous with Kojo tomorrow – and it began to dawn on him that Kobus and his men must have come specifically to snatch him, thinking he was one of the British military advisers for Zanza Force. Bond smiled ruefully to himself – it would have been quite a coup if he had been. Blessing had said everyone in Lokomeji knew he was staying in Cinnamon Lodge – word had spread. So Kobus and his men had seized their opportunity and sneaked out of Dahum on a kidnap mission.
    Paradoxically, this analysis made Bond feel marginally more relaxed. There was nothing on his person or in his belongings that would identify him as a member of a special-forces team. For once he was hugely relieved that he wasn’t armed. Perhaps when the Dahumian authorities realised that he appeared to be what he was claiming to be – a journalist working for a French press agency – they would hand him and Blessing over to civilian authorities in Port Dunbar. It was something to hope for.
    They crossed the lagoon surprisingly quickly and entered one of the winding watercourses. Bond heard the dry whisper of the soft night wind in the tall reeds that lined the channel and sensed rather than saw the overarching bulk of the mangroves and other trees. The men paddled on, tirelessly, and soon the sky began to lighten as dawn neared and with it Bond became aware of a mounting nervousness in the soldiers as they glanced around watchfully and muttered to each other. They clearly didn’t want to be caught out on the water in daylight. Then Bond heard the rhythmic judder of a helicopter’s rotors as it took to the air and the distant sound of diesel engines revving. They must be passing through the Zanza Force lines that surrounded Dahum’s diminishing heartland.
    Soon they reached a ramshackle cribwork jetty and they disembarked. The dory was hauled ashore and