Burning Angels

‘We do. The email was generated from a commercial address: [e-mail]. There is an Amani Beach Retreat approximately four hundred miles south of Nairobi. It’s a high-end, exclusive resort set on the Indian Ocean.’

‘Great. Forward me the comms chain. And keep digging. I want to be absolutely one hundred per cent certain this is our guy.’

‘Understood, sir.’

Kammler cut the IntelCom link. He punched the words ‘Amani Beach Resort’ into the Google search engine, then clicked on the website. It showed images of a pristine white crescent of sand, washed with stunning turquoise waters. A glimmering, crystal-clear swimming pool situated on the very fringes of the beach, complete with a discreet bar service and shaded sunloungers. Locals in traditional-looking batique dress serving fine food to the elegant foreign guests.

No slum kid ever went to a place like this.

If the kid was at Amani Beach, someone must have taken him there. It could only be Jaeger and his group, and they could only have done so for one reason: to hide him. And if they were shielding him, maybe they had

realised the impossible hope that a penniless kid from the African slums might offer humankind.

Kammler checked his email. He clicked on the message from Peterson, running his eye down Simon Chucks Bello’s email.

This Dale guy gave me maganji. Spending money — like real maganji. Like, Jules man, I’m gonna pay you back. All I owe you. And you know what I’ll do next, man? I’m gonna hire a jumbo jet with a casino and a swimming pool and dancing girls from all over — London, Paris, Brazil and Russia and China and Planet Mars and even America; yeah — Miss USA by the busload — and you’ll all be invited ’cause you’re my brothers and we’ll zoom above the city dropping empty beer bottles ’n’ stuff so that everyone will know what a cool party we’re having, and behind that jumbo we’ll drag a banner announcing: MOTO’S JUMBO BIRTHDAY PARTY — BY INVITATION ONLY!

Mburu had replied:

Yeah, well you don’t even know your own age, Moto, so how will you know when it’s your birthday? Plus where’s all the dough gonna come from? You need a lot of maganji

to hire a jumbo. Just take it easy and lie low and do as the mzungu tells you. Plenty of time for partying when all this is over.

Clearly ‘Moto’ was the kid’s nickname. And clearly he was being treated well by his mzungu benefactors, mzungu being a word that Kammler knew well. In fact, the kid was being treated so nicely that he was even planning a birthday party.

Oh no, Moto, I don’t think so. Today it’s my time to party.

Kammler punched in Steve Jones’s ID on his IntelCom link with furious fingers. After a few short rings Jones answered.

‘Listen, I have a location,’ Kammler hissed. ‘I need you to get there with your team and eliminate the threat. You’ll have Reaper overhead if you need backup. But it’s one slum kid and whoever is guarding him. It should be — forgive the pun — child’s play.’

‘Got it. Send me the details. We’re on our way.’

Kammler typed a short email providing a link to the resort, then sent it to Jones. Next, he googled the word ‘Amani’. It turned out to be Swahili for ‘peace’. He smiled his thin smile.

Not for much longer.

That peace — it was about to be ripped asunder.

82

Jaeger shoulder-barged the last of the doors with all of the force of his cumulative rage. It was coursing through his veins like burning acid.

He stopped for an instant, the cumbersome space suit snagging on the door frame, and then he was through, his torch beam sweeping the darkened interior, his weapon doing likewise. The light reflected off shelves of gleaming scientific equipment, most of which Jaeger couldn’t begin to recognise.

The lab was deserted.

Not a soul anywhere.

Just as they’d discovered with the rest of the complex.

No guard force. No boffins. All he and his team had used their guns on were the disease-ravaged monkeys.