Will Adams - The Eden Legacy

‘Good.’ Rebecca reached to take Ahdaf’s hands from her lap. She separated them, examined the stubby fingers artificially lengthened by false nails of burnished brown; the smudges of ink on her index finger and thumb. ‘You’ll wear what I tell you to wear?’

‘Yes,’ said Ahdaf.

‘Clothes that showed off your figure?’

‘I…’ Ahdaf bowed her head. ‘Yes.’

‘That flattered your breasts and waist and hips?’

Ahdaf’s head drooped lower and lower. ‘Yes.’

‘That showed your cleavage?’

‘Yes.’

Rebecca pushed back Ahdaf’s sleeve and jangling silver bracelets, revealed dark forearms soft with downy black hair. She reached up inside the material all the way along Ahdaf’s arm to her shoulder. ‘Clothes that showed your legs and arms?’

‘Yes.’

‘You’ll put yourself completely in my hands?’

‘Yes.’

Rebecca leaned backwards. ‘Why do I get the impression you’ll be too proud to take orders?’

Ahdaf said softly: ‘I can take orders.’

‘From me?’

‘Yes.’

‘You’ll obey me?’

‘Yes.’

‘Look at me, Ahdaf.’ Ahdaf raised her eyes slowly, reluctantly. Their gazes met and locked. Ahdaf seemed to quiver, almost to shrink. ‘Sometimes, to succeed,’ said Rebecca, ‘we must do things we wouldn’t want to do, things that clash with our image of ourselves. I need to know you’ll do such things, if I tell you they need to be done.’

‘What kind of things?’

‘I can’t predict that,’ answered Rebecca. ‘Each person balks at different obstacles. I only know that if you want to succeed, you must be willing to sacrifice everything else, including your pride. Are you willing?’

‘Yes,’ said Ahdaf quietly.

‘Your family? Your friends?’

‘Yes.’

‘Without protest? Without bitterness?’

‘Yes.’

‘Good,’ said Rebecca. ‘Then take me to your room. I need to see you in some other clothes.’

Boris had been diving several times in his life, on holidays in Bali, the Red Sea and the like, but it had been a while and he’d forgotten much of what he’d learned, particularly on equipment set-up and safety. He and Knox were much the same size and build, however, so he removed the man’s flexi-cuffs, had him turn on the compressor to fill a pair of scuba tanks with air, then made him assemble two complete sets of dive-gear. ‘I don’t need any,’ said Knox. ‘Mine’s already on the boat.’

‘What I dive with, you dive with,’ Boris told him. ‘And I’m not saying who’s getting which set until we suit up. So no tricks, eh?’

Knox shrugged. ‘Whatever you say.’

The compressor took forever. Boris made Knox carry the dive-gear out to the boat while they waited, keeping the gun on him all the time, half expecting him to try something; but he didn’t. When they returned to the boathouse, the reels of fishing line gave him an idea. He cut off several metres, coiled it up and put it away in his pocket. The second tank was still filling; Boris took Knox to collect his belongings from the lodge, so that he wouldn’t have to return here once this was done. The compressor finally finished. They turned it and the generator off, locked up the boathouse, carried everything out to the boat then motored through the pass and north-west, navigating with GPS and a local chart until Madagascar was just a dark line on the horizon behind them, and Knox finally cut the engine.

‘This is it?’ asked Boris.

‘This is it,’ nodded Knox, deploying the anchor. ‘See what I mean about trying to describe the place?’

It was true enough. The water was too deep here to see the bottom, and they were too far from shore for landmarks. ‘You fuck with me down there, you’re going to regret it.’

‘Then let me go collect some pieces for you.’

‘Sure!’ Climbing into a wetsuit was an awkward and ungainly process, during which Boris knew he’d be at his most vulnerable. He had Knox suit up first, therefore, then tied his wrists behind his back again with another set of flexi-cuffs. He took out the fishing line he’d cut earlier, looped it around Knox’s neck and then knotted it tight enough to cut into his throat a little, whiten his skin.

‘What’s that for?’ asked Knox.

‘You think I’m going to let you swim around loose? What kind of idiot do you take me for?’ He suited himself up, chose a BCD and tank, weight-belt, mask and fins, then he knotted the other end of the fishing line around his left wrist, so that Knox was like a pet dog on a long leash. If he tried to get away now, all Boris would have to do was give the fishing line a good sharp tug and it would choke Knox, bring him within the business range of his knife. He picked up the Heckler amp; Koch again before releasing Knox from his cuffs so that he could finish suiting up. There was no way of cuffing his wrists behind his back again, not with his scuba tank on, so he cuffed them in front instead.

‘Okay,’ he told Knox. ‘In the water.’ He waited until Knox was down, gave a little tug on the fishing line to remind him who was boss. No point taking the Heckler amp; Koch down with him. It was useless underwater, and cumbersome too. On the other hand, he didn’t want just to leave it on board, lest Knox somehow make it back here first and use it against him. He ejected the magazine, therefore, and zipped it away in his wetsuit’s waterproof pouch. He hid the gun itself in a side-pocket of Knox’s dive-bag, on the basis that it was the last place he’d look, then he took his knife in his right hand, climbed down the stern ladder and joined Knox in the water.

Rebecca was thinking furiously as she followed Ahdaf through a vast atrium and up a marble staircase. Ahdaf might be vain enough to buy her cover story, but no way would her father fall for it, and he was due back here within an hour or so. She needed to find her proof and get away fast.

Ahdaf’s bedroom was pastel pink with spectacular views of the beach and lagoon. She led Rebecca into a walk-in closet, a narrow aisle several paces long between rails of dresses and blouses on her left, shelves of folded silks on her right. It wasn’t perfect, but it was too good an opportunity to pass up. Rebecca stepped back out, closed the closet door with Ahdaf still inside, then pinned its handle with a leaned chair.

‘Rebecca?’ asked Ahdaf tentatively, as though suspecting some curious joke. ‘What are you doing?’

‘Just give me a moment,’ said Rebecca. She picked up a remote control at random, pressed buttons. The flatscreen TV came on. She flipped through until she found a music channel, turned the volume up just enough to muffle Ahdaf’s increasingly panicky pleas of claustrophobia, then hurried back down through the atrium to Mustafa’s office. The door was locked. She tried to force it but it wouldn’t give. She heard footsteps approaching, so she hurried the other way into a plush drawing room. The footsteps drew closer. She went to stand before a vast acrylic family portrait to make it look as though she belonged there. There were more Habibs than she’d realised. Mustafa, of course, was the focal point. Dominant, serious and kindly, sitting on a high-backed red armchair. His wife stood in a floral dress beside him, somehow managing to look down on the artist, despite her own low starting position. Ahdaf stood on Mustafa’s other side, her face half shadowed by her scarf. And there was a young man on either flank too, presumably Mustafa’s sons. The first looked athletic and handsome, with arrogant hooded eyes. The second was thin with high cheekbones and wavy hair, his hips thrust out like a model at the end of the catwalk.