The Power of Five Oblivion

probably better not to know.
    And now it was his turn.
    Matt wasn’t allowed to look up. If he so much as lifted his head, he would feel the crack of a cane across his shoulders. But he couldn’t resist raising his eyes to see who might be about to buy him. The speaker – the man who had asked the price – was short, fat, dark-skinned with a black moustache and little ratty eyes. A cafuzo . Half African, half Brazilian. He was dressed in jeans and a striped shirt that stretched across his belly, and one glance told Matt that he wasn’t in the market for himself. He was an agent. That was bad news. If the man had been a farmer or a log-worker or even a bandit, that would have given Matt a clue as to where he might end up. But as the man was representing someone else, it could be anywhere.
    “The price is two hundred dollars.”
    “The boy not worth half that.”
    “When was the last time you saw a boy in this condition?”
    “Where you find him?”
    “That’s my business. You buy him, maybe he’ll tell you. But you’re not having him for less than two hundred.”
    “A hundred and twenty.”
    The slave market was taking place in a village that looked more like a prison or a military compound. A white church stood at one end, with an ornate roof and a bell tower surmounted by a cross. Otherwise, all the buildings were identical: long, white-washed and low with red-tiled roofs, laid out as neatly as houses on a Monopoly board. They were arranged around a wide square of grass cut so short that it was as if the ground had been sprayed green, and it was here that the platform had been built. There were about a dozen buyers. The villagers were keeping their distance. Matt had glimpsed a man dressed in what looked like dirty white pyjamas, carrying two buckets on a rod over his shoulders and another pushing a wheelbarrow. But they didn’t want to know. The village was surrounded by jungle. Not the lush and mysterious rainforest that Matt had once seen on TV programmes but a flat, dark green shrub land that seemed to stretch on for ever.
    “A hundred and fifty. That my last offer.”
    “A hundred and eighty.”
    “One seven five.”
    The two men shook hands.
    Matt watched as a roll of American dollars was unwrapped and a number of notes peeled off. He knew that US currency was used almost everywhere, while the local money – the real – was almost worthless. To one side of him, the malnourished boy let out a moan and fainted. His owner swore and lashed out at him and the buyers laughed. The boy’s price would have just been halved and it would have been barely in double figures to begin with.
    For his part, Matt had a new owner. There was a rope around his neck and – just as if he were a dog – he saw it being passed from the seller to the buyer. Then he was jerked forward, off the platform and down onto the grass. Just for a moment he found himself right next to the man who had sold him.
    Lohan, the Triad member who had protected Scarlett when she was in Hong Kong, the son of the criminal boss who called himself the Master of the Mountain, the man who had somehow got tangled up with Matt when they had escaped from the Tai Shan Temple, stood in front of him.
    Lohan shrugged. “I’m sorry, Matt,” he said. “But I’ve got to survive.”
    Matt swore at him.
    The cafuzo jerked on the rope so that Matt’s head snapped round and he was led away. Behind him, Lohan counted his money and the sale went on.
    There was a truck with a driver waiting at the edge of the village. Matt’s new owner used one end of the rope to lash him across the shoulders and he climbed into the back. There was another boy of about his own age already sitting there, chained to the floor with a shackle around his ankle. The boy was Brazilian, with curly hair and a pockmarked face, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt that advertised Skol beer. Matt wondered vaguely if it still existed. He squatted down as his ankle was also fastened to the floor. Nobody had spoken to him but that was quite normal. He was property – nothing more. He wanted to ask for water. The afternoon was hot, the air heavy and still, and he could feel the sweat trickling under his clothes. He would have given anything for a bath or a shower but there was no point in asking. If he was going to be made to work in a kitchen or wait at tables, they would dress him and make him presentable. If he had been bought for outside labour, they would keep him as he was. He