Solo

in the bush. If those Federal boys got her, then . . .’ He sniffed. ‘She’d be better off dead, believe me. I’ve seen what they do to women.’
    Bond felt that weary heart-sink, that heaviness of loss.
    ‘I looked for her in the morning,’ he said. ‘But there were no bodies left behind.’
    ‘Pretty girl,’ Kobus leered. ‘How was she in the sack? A real goer, I’d bet.’
    Bond registered this glimpse of the old Kobus, the brutal gun-for-hire, not this purported pseudo-comrade he was being offered, and stubbed his cigarette out in the dashboard ashtray. He didn’t want to be friends with Kobus Breed.
    They drove on in silence, as if Breed sensed Bond’s new sombre mood. There was very little traffic on the road to Port Dunbar. At one stage Breed pulled over to the side in the shelter of a tree convinced he’d heard a MiG. They both sat and listened for a couple of minutes but there was no sound of jet engines, so they motored on.
    Eventually, they came to the outskirts of Port Dunbar. They passed through two roadblocks – Breed was waved on – and drove down the main boulevard into the city. Bond looked around him – it appeared to be a typical, bustling provincial capital, even though there were many soldiers on the streets. Otherwise it seemed bizarrely normal; police directed traffic at crossroads, the roadside food stalls were busy with customers, street-hawkers harassed them when they stopped and, as they passed a church, Bond saw that there was a wedding party emerging. Port Dunbar gave no sign of being a beleaguered, besieged city. Bond noticed that on the roofs of the higher buildings – office blocks and department stores – there were batteries of ground-to-air missiles.
    ‘What’re they? SAMs?’
    ‘Dead right,’ Breed said. ‘But they’re all dummies. Knocked up by the local carpenters in a couple of hours. No, we got one real S-75 SAM site in the central square and one at Janjaville. Two months ago they shot down a MiG. Now the MiGs don’t come near Port Dunbar. Those boys don’t want to lose their wages.’
    Bond thought of the pilots he’d seen drinking in the bar of the Excelsior.
    ‘So they just shoot up cars on the road,’ Breed went on. ‘Chalk it up as a kill – military vehicle. Money for old rope, man.’
    ‘How did you get your hands on S-75 missiles?’
    ‘Present from our pet millionaire. He pays for the Janjaville flights as well.’
    Pet millionaire, Bond thought, filing away the information for later. Breed was turning off into a compound. He showed his pass to a guard at the gateway and they drove into a courtyard surrounded by neat white two-storey buildings.
    ‘Welcome to the DRD Press Centre, Mr Bond,’ Breed said.
    It turned out that the Press Centre was a former Methodist primary school converted by the Dahum government after the secession as a comfortable base for foreign journalists and a location where the daily SitRep briefing took place. Forward planning, Bond thought – they knew they needed friendly propaganda. Once again he was impressed by the organisation and efficiency. He signed in at reception where his new accreditation was waiting for him, and Breed showed him upstairs to his room. There was even a private bar that was open from 6 p.m. to midnight. The only problem was, Breed said, that it wasn’t like the early days of the war when the place was heaving; now there were hardly any journalists – just three, apart from Bond: an American, a German and another Brit. ‘A freelance,’ he said, with a sneer.
    Breed opened the door to Bond’s room. There was a bed, a table fan, a chest of drawers and a desk and a chair. Sitting on the bed was Bond’s Zanzarim bag. Breed gave him back his passport, his APL identification and his Ronson lighter and Rolex watch.
    ‘You took a lot of money off me as well,’ Bond said.
    ‘I lost that in the firefight, unfortunately,’ Breed said, dabbing at his eye with his shirtsleeve cuff. ‘Must’ve fallen out of my pocket. Sorry about that.’
    ‘Yeah, sure.’
    ‘See you,’ Breed said, bluntly, moving to the door. Then added, remembering he was meant to be amiable now, ‘Oh, yeah. Let me know if I can help with anything.’
    He left and Bond unpacked his bag. He checked that everything was there – his shirts, his underwear, his panama hat and his pigskin toilet bag. He unzipped it – everything in its place. He took the panama out of its tube and unrolled it, pulling and tweaking