Алистер Маклин - Borrowed Time

Dead and gone.

He opened his eyes and more pain scythed across his skull. He was aware that he was sitting, and that his arms were tied. Another face moved in close to his, hairy and belligerent. It was familiar.

‘Paul Seaton,’ Mike said.

‘Nowadays I am called Memet-Muhammad.’

‘Crap by any other name …’

Seaton stiffened. Not used to people talking back , Mike thought.

‘I have plans for your poisonous tongue,’ Seaton said, ‘once you’ve told me what I want to know.’

The American accent was overlaid with the clipped syllabic delivery of Indian speech. Seaton probably hadn’t spoken English for years.

‘I’m telling you nothing.’ Mike turned his head to one side. There were maybe fifty people moving about in the clearing, a third of them women. ‘So this is where you live.’

‘Astute of you to work that out.’ Seaton grinned. He still had the hard and dangerous manner, but now it had a reckless edge, the bravura of a man who won every fight. ‘It amused me the way you all kept clinging to this forest for cover, hiding from me right under my nose.’

A woman brought a plate with food on it. Seaton took it and began eating with his fingers.

‘Tell me who you are.’

‘No.’

‘Shall I ask the woman instead?’

Sabrina! Mike suddenly remembered. He looked anxiously around and finally saw her. She was still where he had seen her last, still sagging against the pole in the middle of the clearing.

‘If my hands were free,’ Mike said, ‘I’d kill you with them.’

‘Aw, sorry – I have to frustrate you by denying you the chance.’

Seaton reached out with greasy fingers and twisted Mike’s nose. He kept twisting until the pain made Mike cry out.

‘I’ve guessed a thing or two about you and your friends, mostly from the equipment the woman was carrying. But I need to fill in the gaps.’

‘Didn’t she tell you, then?’

Seaton shook his head and popped more food into his mouth. ‘She’s very well trained. Not a word, in spite of everything.’

‘How did it feel, putting your grubby paws on a civilized person?’

‘Civilized! Ha!’ Particles of food flew from Seaton’s mouth. ‘You have no idea what civilization is. You think you are cultured, enlightened, a citizen of an advanced society. What you are, Mister Interloper, what you lamentably are is the feeble instrument of a corrupt western fixation with territory and material wealth.’

‘You reckon?’

‘You and your kind will be swallowed by the wilderness created by your own greed.’

‘Fine ideological words,’ Mike said. ‘They don’t sound so good coming from a crummy bandit who started his career as a lump of mouth-breathing hired muscle.’

‘That tongue of yours,’ Seaton said, wagging a finger.

‘I remember how you once destroyed a good man, Seaton. A man you didn’t even know. You did it without a qualm. You did your harm the way an insect would. And today you killed my friend just as brutally, with as little feeling. You’re not entitled to an opinion or to justice. You’re a barbarian.’

That appeared to sting Seaton. He blinked at Mike a couple of times, then he said, ‘People can be misunderstood.’

‘Not people like you.’

‘Yes. People change, remember.’

‘Oh sure. Time and circumstance, the great changers. Now you’re an Islamic separatist honcho. You’re into laudable pursuits like scaring pathetic drug mules into killing themselves sooner than face your notion of punishment–’

‘Hold on!’ Seaton shouted. ‘I won’t have that!’

‘Too late. I just gave it to you.’

‘No! No! You won’t hang that on me!’

Seaton jumped to his feet. He went to the centre of the clearing, shouting and gesticulating. Mike felt the bonds on his wrists being cut. He dropped his hands in his lap and flexed his fingers. The blood came tingling back. He watched as Sabrina’s ropes were cut and three women put her on a pallet and carried her away to a tent.

Seaton came back, still agitated, waiting while two women put food and water in front of Mike. Mike tasted the meat and found it was succulent chicken. He took a mouthful of water and stared at Seaton.

‘What’s going on?’

Seaton got down on his hunkers. He pointed at the plate. ‘Eat.’

Mike put a chunk of chicken breast in his mouth and chewed. It was as good as anything he had ever tasted.

‘What you said about the mules, being forced to kill themselves, that is what happens to people in the new trade.’

‘New trade? You mean the traffic in highly refined drugs?’

Seaton nodded. ‘Superfine heroin, MDA, pure coke, concentrated cannabis oil, crack – all that stuff is down to somebody else. I’m no part of the trade and I’m no part of the practices. Do you understand that? It’s got nothing to do with us.’

Mike pointed to his plate. ‘Why the sudden generosity?’

‘We’re obviously not so totally on opposite sides as I thought. Or as you thought. For all I knew before, you were an outcrop of the DEA.’

‘I could be. My friend that one of your goons shot for sport – he used to be DEA.’

‘Listen, about your dead friend – he had a gun, he would have shot me or mine given a chance, so let’s not get mired down in recrimination here. Just tell me one thing. Is it any part of your brief to stop the new trade?’

‘It certainly is.’

‘Well now let me tell you about my operation. It’s nothing angelic, but there’s a big difference between what we are and what they are, believe me. First off, we have no part in terrorizing peasant people or poor people of any kind.’

‘What do you do, then?’

‘Fundamentally, we look after ourselves.’ Seaton smiled briefly, showing surprisingly white teeth. ‘That’s what it’s about, survival. To survive we have to do some unpopular things, hard and damaging things, just to keep our status. If we ever softened we would be swamped.’

‘You haven’t really told me what you do.’

‘I operate drug convoys. That’s where the revenue comes from. The life-blood. But in my operation there are no hapless couriers, no victims within the trade. There’s only me, my men and their women and children. The merchandise we transport is traditional low-quality hashish and heroin destined for the usual outlets in the West. Any garbage will do for them.’

‘What’s your exact stance on the new trade?’

‘For months I’ve watched and I’ve searched. I caught one of their mules but he executed himself before he could be questioned. I’ll keep on watching and searching.’

‘And if you get lucky?’ Mike said. ‘What’ll you do?’

‘When I find the people who run the market in refined drugs, I’ll kill them. I don’t care how many there are. They will all die.’

‘That’s one way to deal with the competition, I suppose.’

‘They won’t be eradicated because they are competitors,’ Seaton said. ‘They are the worst kind of parasites, they devour our society. That is why they will die.’

‘You’re not exactly a credit to your society.’

‘We make waves and we make trouble but we do not destroy the fabric of community,’ Seaton insisted. ‘Call me what you like, but nobody can say I ever exploited or harmed the poor or the vulnerable.’

They stared at each other for a tense moment. ‘I made a mistake about you,’ Mike said. ‘I jumped to the conclusion that suited my prejudice. I was wrong.’ He swallowed the last of the chicken and took more water. ‘You’re still a rotten man, though,’ he added. ‘Your principles don’t save you from that.’

Seaton shrugged. He stood up and walked away. A minute later Sabrina was led out of the tent where the women had taken her. She had been bathed and her hair was combed. She looked pale but unharmed.