“Who is the buyer?”
“Over there…”
Lohan glanced at the platform and his heart sank. There was a group of them standing in front of it, dressed in khaki with guns dangling from their shoulders. These weren’t farmers looking for cheap labour or rich men who liked having good-looking boys to clean their houses. They were soldiers and they had done this before, many times. He could tell from the way they stood there, working as a unit, relaxed with each other, uninterested in their surroundings. They were men without feelings and Lohan knew that such men were the most dangerous of all.
He glanced briefly at Matt, wondering if he should make an excuse and pull them both out before it was too late. Matt had seen the soldiers too. He shook his head very slightly. The message was clear. He wanted to go on.
Lohan handed the rope across and the trader led Matt up to the platform, where he stood with the other boys. The soldiers barely acknowledged him. They were buying everyone who was there and it didn’t matter to them if he was fat, thin, strong or weak. A job lot. The trader negotiated briefly with one of the soldiers – a bearded man with a broken nose and crumpled cheeks. A deal was made. The two of them shook hands. The soldier reached into his pocket and took out a bundle of banknotes, which he began to count.
The trader took the money and walked back to Lohan. He handed over five crumpled ten-dollar bills.
“Fifty dollars?” Lohan was contemptuous. “You’re not being serious. He’s worth five times that.”
“I warned you that prices were low today. If you’re not happy, you can leave.”
“OK.” Lohan made a decision. He gave the money back. “You can forget it. I’ll take him with me.” It was already too late.
Lohan’s attention had been on the trader, on Matt and on the money. He hadn’t noticed the other man who had crept up behind him and only became aware of him as something slammed into his back. He toppled forward onto his knees, already reaching for the gun that was concealed in his waistband. But his attacker was too fast. Before he could produce it, he was hit a second time, this time a leather boot crashing into the side of his head. If Lohan hadn’t reacted instinctively and ridden the blow, it would have cost him a fractured skull. As it was, he was sent flying into the dirt and he could only lie there, dazed and furious, as the gun and everything else he owned was removed.
“Olhe para mim, seu porco…”
“Look at me, you pig.” The voice was ugly, filled with contempt.
With the side of his head on fire and blood in his mouth, Lohan rolled over and looked up. The trader was standing over him with a second man. That was when Lohan realized just how much trouble he was in. Short, dark with black eyes and a moustache … he recognized him at once. It was the cafuzo – half African, half Brazilian – who had bought Matt the last time he had been sold.
“Is this him?” the trader asked.
“This is him,” the other man replied. Lohan saw him draw back his foot and tried to roll out of the way as he lashed out a second time. The foot caught him on the shoulder, sending a bolt of pain all the way down his arm.
Matt watched helplessly from the platform. There were too many soldiers here, too many guns. He was tied up. There was nothing he could do. A small crowd had gathered around Lohan. People weren’t having a lot of fun in a place like Jangada and a man being beaten up was the closest thing to entertainment that they got. The cafuzo had Lohan’s gun in his hand. There could be no doubt that he was going to use it to kill him.
The soldier with the beard and the broken nose stepped forward. “What’s this all about?” he demanded.
“This man is a thief,” the cafuzo explained. “He and the American boy – they have this thing together. He sells him, then he takes him back again. Fernandinho sent me to find them. He wants them both dead.”
“You can’t kill the boy,” the soldier said. “He belongs to me now … and where he’s going, it’s a living death anyway. It’ll come to the same in the end. You can tell Fernandinho that. As for this other one…” He looked down at Lohan, who was lying there, his eyes sullen, furious with himself for allowing this to happen. Suddenly a thought came to him. “I’ll take him too, if you like.”
“You mean you’ll pay for him…” the cafuzo said.
“I’ll take him for nothing. You’ve got his money. How much did he have on him?”
The cafuzo had ended up with a bundle of notes which he had taken from Lohan’s pocket. He counted them quickly. “Six hundred.”
“That’s plenty.” The soldier laughed humourlessly. “You can pay back Fernandinho what he’s owed and split the rest between you. It looks like the Chinese guy’s got plenty of work in him so I’ll take care of him. I get an extra pair of hands for nothing. I’d say that works out all round.”
There was a brief pause. But what the soldier had said made sense, and anyway, he had his men close by and if there was going to be an argument or even a fight, the trader would have got the worse of it. He knew that. He glanced at the cafuzo, who must have thought the same thing. He nodded. The agreement had been made.
After that, things happened very quickly. Lohan was pulled to his feet. His hands were tied behind his back and he was propelled forward, joining the others on the platform. All at once he was standing next to Matt. Even at that moment, it occurred to him that Matt didn’t seem particularly surprised by what had just happened. Certainly, he wasn’t concerned, even though they were now both prisoners with no one to come after them wherever they were taken. At the same time, the trader completed his negotiations with the soldiers and suddenly it was over. There were thirty-four people on the platform, but they were no longer human beings. They were possessions.
“Vamos lá!”
One of the soldiers shouted the order and the pack of them began to move off. The other men used the butts of their rifles to lash out at anyone who was slow or who tried to break away. The local townspeople watched with blank faces. Lohan knew what they were thinking. It might have amused them to see the slaves being bought, but in their hearts they knew that one day their food and their money would run out and they would end up just the same. The captives were herded down the main street past shops that were empty or closed and houses with the windows boarded over. Everything was dirty and run-down. Finally, they came to an old bus station. There were still one or two buses left behind, missing their windows, their wheels and their seating … nothing more than rusty, burnt-out cans.
There was a helicopter parked there, waiting for them. Matt and Lohan had seen nothing in the air since they had found themselves in Brazil so the sight of it was both surprising and alarming. Clearly, they had a long journey ahead of them. The helicopter was a four-bladed Super Puma painted in the colours of the national air force, sitting on its own in the rubble, hardly in better condition than the buses. It had been constructed to hold just eighteen passengers but almost twice that number were going to be crammed inside.
“OK. Começar dentro!”
Once again the order was barked out in Portuguese, but the sight of the helicopter had been too much for one of the prisoners, an older man with wide eyes and a thin, pockmarked face. As the soldiers pushed the others in, he panicked and broke free, running across the bus station, weaving from side to side with his hands still tied behind his back. One of the soldiers lifted his rifle, aimed and fired. The man’s legs tied themselves in knots and he went down. Lohan watched the body hit the ground. Well, there was fifty dollars wasted, he thought. But on the other hand, the soldiers probably didn’t care too much. After all, they had got him for nothing.
Nobody did anything that would get themselves noticed after that, climbing into the helicopter and taking their places on their feet in the metal cabin. The seats had been taken out, but even so they were jammed in so tight that there was barely room to breathe. Lohan and Matt had become separated. They couldn’t have been far apart from each other but it was impossible to be sure. Their faces were pressed again
st the necks and shoulders of people they didn’t know. They could taste sweat on their lips.
The soldiers slammed the door shut. Only two of them were making the journey. One was the pilot. The others would presumably follow another time. The engines started up. The blades began to turn, picking up speed until the noise became deafening. The cabin began to vibrate. Some of the boys were sobbing.
The helicopter left the ground. It hovered, turned, rose into the sky, then soared, carrying its human cargo into the unknown.
THIRTY-TWO
At last the helicopter landed.
They had been flying for about two hours but it had been impossible to tell which direction they were taking, whether they were heading inland or out to sea. Nobody could see anything unless they were pressed up against the cabin window, and even then the clouds had covered everything for much of the time. The helicopter might be droning forward but time seemed to have stood still for the unfortunate passengers who were there, breathing in the damp air, suspended in darkness and misery with the noise of the engines all around. At last they felt the pressure change as the helicopter began its descent. There was a sudden bump. The door was opened. And there it was … the most secure prison in the world, in the middle of the rainforest, surrounded by it, thick and impassable on all sides. If anyone was going to leave here, it would certainly not be on foot … not without a compass, drinking water, a machete, food and medicine.
A miniature airport had been hacked out of the middle of the jungle and this was where the helicopter had come to rest. It was sitting in a wide compound, penned in by a tall wire fence which had been built fairly recently, although it was already covered in rust. A tarmac road followed the fence on the inside and there were more slaves, part of an earlier intake, hard at work, unloading heavy boxes from a truck. A single armed soldier watched over them.
A runway stretched into the distance, stopping at the edge of the rainforest, which stood there like an impenetrable barrier. The soldiers had constructed an ugly, uneven control tower using a patchwork of wooden panels ripped out of crates and squares of beaten tin. It was surrounded by covered wagons and a jeep and a second helicopter. Battered drums of aviation fuel were stacked to one side, partly covered by tarpaulin.
Lohan realized that Matt was standing next to him. He looked at the boy almost reproachfully, wanting to blame him for the situation in which they found themselves but at the same time knowing that it would do no good. But Matt’s eyes were fixed on something behind him. Slowly, Lohan turned.
And there it was, the one sign of hope in this nightmare, the one small chance that there might be a way out. It was parked on the rubble, waiting to take off. Lohan knew it at once … a Legacy 600, made in Brazil, old and dusty with fading paint but surely still capable of flight. Already, Lohan was doing the sums. A Legacy had a range of six thousand kilometres. They couldn’t be more than four thousand kilometres from the tip of South America. The plane could take them to Antarctica.
“Can you fly?” Matt asked.
Lohan nodded slowly. “Yes.”
How could Matt have known? There had been a time when the Triad had been given the task of smuggling illegal immigrants from Asia into Australia – for a price. Lohan’s father had always insisted that his sons should involve themselves in every area of his business and so he had ordered Lohan to study for his pilot’s licence. He was unfamiliar with the controls of the Legacy but he had flown a Hawker 4000, which was similar. Not that it mattered anyway. There wasn’t a plane in the world that Lohan wouldn’t have attempted to fly if he had thought it would get him out of here.
More armed soldiers had come to meet them, all of them dressed in the same khaki uniforms, although they carried a range of different guns. Lohan could see that this was not a military installation. The men were too slovenly and ill-disciplined, many of them unshaven, smoking, with long, dirty hair. Mercenaries? A private army? They stood and watched over the new arrivals as they formed themselves into a line. It was extremely warm and damp in the jungle. It wasn’t actually raining but the moisture hung constantly in the air. Matt and Lohan had only been here for a few minutes but their clothes were already damp and uncomfortable. Mosquitoes whined in their ears. Doubtless there would be snakes in the undergrowth. Disease and sickness were all around them.
“Did you know it would be here?” Lohan asked.
Matt looked up. “What?” he asked.
“The plane.”
“I hoped it would be.”
Lohan shook his head. “You knew it was here,” he said. “This is your plan. You want me to fly us to Antarctica.”
Before he could answer, one of the soldiers struck out with the butt of his rifle, driving it into Matt’s chest. “Nenhuma fala!” No talking.” Again the instruction was in Portuguese. A Brazilian boy, aged eleven or twelve, had been standing next to Matt and for him this casual act of violence was the final straw. He burst into tears. There was nothing Lohan could do for him. His hands were still tied behind his back, and anyway, any further talking would only invite the same punishment. But looking at the boy, he thought to himself, if the pain of others means so much to you, you will be dead in a week. For his part, Matt reeled back, straightened up, but said nothing. The soldier moved on.
The prisoners stood with the helicopter behind them for about ten minutes. Finally, the man with the beard and the broken nose who had been at the market stepped forward to address them. He had travelled in the front, with the pilot. He was holding a half-empty bottle of rum.
“Welcome to Serra Morte,” he began. “This is where you will live and where you will die. If you work hard, you will not be badly treated. You will be given water – one litre a day – food and a place to sleep. If you do not work, if you try to escape, if you are disobedient, you will be punished. There is only one punishment at Serra Morte and it is death. But do not think that it will be painless, a quick release from your labours. We have a game here. We like to see how long we can make a person suffer before they die. The record is one hundred and six days. Remember that.
“You will begin work immediately. We work here for fifteen hours a day, every day. There are no holidays. If you become too sick to work, you will be taken into the jungle and left there for the snakes and the alligators. After work you will be taken to the place where you will sleep. But sleep has to be earned. There are rules that you must learn but it is very simple. You are slaves. You have no rights. Nobody cares about you. You will do as you are told and you will work and that is all. Now – follow me.”
They set off, shuffling through the gates, along the track and into the rainforest. Matt was still next to Lohan, his face grim and yet submissive. At the same time, the fire seemed to have gone out of him and that worried Lohan almost more than the terrible situation in which they found themselves. Neither of them spoke, afraid of another beating and saving their energy for the long walk through the heat. Within seconds they were smothered in the thick, tangled vegetation of the rainforest, and when Lohan glanced back, the little airport had already disappeared. The path was well trodden. A great many people must have come this way as they were led into captivity. Some sort of creature, a monkey maybe, moved in the branches overhead, but looking up, there was no sign of it. Nothing could be seen, not even the sky. It was as if they were walking through a dark green tunnel.
And then the rainforest opened out and they found ourselves at the edge of a clearing. The helicopter had dropped them on high ground, on a plateau, and suddenly a whole panorama opened up in front of them. It was a sight that none of them would ever forget.
There was a vast, monstrous hole in the ground. It was as if an entire mountain had been scooped out and this was the empty space that had been left. In fact that was exactly what had happened. The hole was man-made. The earth had been cut into, layer after layer, with long ridges and platforms that continued down for five hundred metres. To get from one level to another there were ladders – hundreds and hundreds of
them – cut from the branches of trees and roped together so that they looked horribly fragile and unsafe.
And there were people still digging. It was impossible to say how many of them there might be. The ones in the distance were tiny, the ones close by packed together in dense crowds. They were climbing the ladders – swarming up them – carrying wooden buckets filled with earth. Most of them were half-naked. Some of them wore only a loin cloth wrapped around their groin. And they were filthy, so caked in mud and sweat that they barely looked human at all, smothered in brown and grey, their hair matted, their eyes staring out hopelessly.
They were taking soil from the bottom to the top, a back-breaking journey up one ladder after another, with long lines of people in front and behind. Up to the top with a full bucket and then immediately down again with an empty one. Fall and you would die. You could break your neck. You could suffocate in the soft earth. You could be trampled underfoot by the others. Nobody was speaking. These people were worse even than slaves. They had been turned into caged animals: mindless, helpless, existing only in exhaustion and pain.
And Matt and Lohan had been chosen to join them.
“This is the Serra Morte mine,” the bearded man exclaimed. The new prisoners were huddled on the edge of the plateau, looking down at the chasm, knowing that we were going to be sucked into it, that they would become part of it and it would never let them go. “It is the largest gold mine in Brazil,” he went on. “Your lives mean nothing any more. All that matters is the soil that you bring to the surface, the flakes of gold that it contains.
“From now on you will work together and you will live together. Your team name is 1179 Verde. Remember that.” “Verde” was the Portuguese for green. “Your own names do not matter any more. If a guard asks you who you are or what team you belong to, you must answer ‘1179 Verde’. If you are unable to tell him, you will be punished. Now, before I take you down, are there any questions?”