Vicious Circle (44 page)

*

The two guards who picked Carl up from Johnny Congo’s cell led him back through the security gates and scanners to his own cell on the ground floor. Carl palmed a roll of hundred dollar bills to the senior officer who winked at him and then locked him down for the rest of the night.

Even at this late hour Carl could not sleep. Restlessly he roamed around his cell. He was excited and his imagination was sparking. He did not know why he had fired the question at Johnny Congo regarding his place of birth. The idea had sprung into his mind as though it had always been there, lying concealed until the right moment. He accepted it unquestioningly as further proof of his own natural genius.

He and Johnny needed a refuge, a fortress in which they would be safe from the enemies that surrounded them. For both of them America was now an exceedingly hostile place. They needed to find another more congenial country as a haven from which they could operate.

Carl stopped in front of his desk, which was concealed behind a curtain in the back corner of his cell. He sat down and switched on his computer. As soon as the screen came alive he typed in the name ‘Kazundu’ and he hit the Google search key.

Within seconds the page filled with rows of data and the legend at the head of the page read, ‘About 32,000,000 results’. Carl’s eyes raced down the screen as the facts sprang out at him. The descriptions of the country were overwhelmingly inauspicious.

Kazundu was the smallest sovereign country on the African continent. In extent it covered about 3,500 square miles; roughly half the size of Wales or the American state of New Jersey. Its total population was estimated at a quarter of a million. There had never been an official census.

It was also the poorest country on the African continent with a gross domestic product per capita of $100 per annum. Carl whistled softly. ‘Each of those poor suckers is pulling down less than $10 per month! What would ten million dollars buy out there?’ he asked himself in an awed whisper. ‘The answer, my dear friends, is it would probably buy the whole damned country.’

Carl went on scanning the information on his screen, and he learned that Kazundu was situated on the north-western shore of Lake Tanganyika, like a tiny bush-tick clinging to the belly of the great elephantine mass of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Lake Tanganyika is a vast inland sea. It is one of the longest and deepest lakes in the world, with a north to south length of over four hundred miles. On average it is thirty miles wide. Kazundu had a lake frontage of a mere twenty-two miles. Fishing and primitive agriculture were its only sources of income and sustenance.

Back in the dark days of the Arab slave traders it had been an important link in the chain of trading posts that led down to the shores of the Indian Ocean to the east. Slaves captured in the interior of the Congo were held there in barracoons before being shipped in Arab dhows across the lake to Ujiji, and thence down to the coast.

In
AD
1680, at the height of the traffic in human beings, the Sultan of Oman constructed a castle on a high promontory of a rocky cliff overlooking the lake. The slave-trading harbour nestled in the small inlet below the cliff.

When the Arabs were driven out of the Great African Lake districts by the European colonists and the anti-slavery forces of France and Great Britain, the paramount chief of the local Inhutu tribe moved with his entire court and harem into the abandoned castle of Kazundu. His heirs had been ensconced there ever since.

The present ruler of Kazundu was the hereditary King Justin Kikuu Tembo XII. The Swahili name translated as Great Elephant. His portrait revealed him to be an impressively large man with a sombre expression, a scraggly grey beard and an enormous paunch that sagged over his kilt of leopard tails. On his head he wore a turban of leopard skin, and he sat on a throne of elephant tusks. He was surrounded by his multitudinous wives and his bodyguard of five uniformed Askari armed with automatic rifles.

According to the numerous derogatory comments on the internet, he ruled the tiny state with a high hand, unencumbered by such modern eccentricities as parliaments and elections. He was treated by the rulers of the surrounding countries with benign indifference. None of them had ever shown much interest in wresting the insalubrious little country out of King Justin’s hands. His father had been a close associate of General Idi Amin in Uganda, and he was an ardent admirer of President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe.

Carl clicked on a collection of pictures and photographs of the kingdom. There were many views of the lake shore and the mountainous and densely forested land that rose beyond it. The settings were splendid and the panoramas across the lake were magnificent, wild and barbaric. White-headed fish eagles circled high above the creamy beaches, and lines of pink flamingos undulated low across the lustrous lake waters.

There were shots of the airport that had been built by South African Airways to attract the tourists who never came. The buildings were now abandoned and derelict, but the runway which ran parallel to the lake shore looked as though it was still serviceable.

The castle was built in the Indo-Islamic style. Elegant minarets rose above the formidable walls. The gateways were curlicue shaped, and the windows were covered with fretwork panels. Photographs of the interior depicted spacious and lofty public rooms. The walls were covered with glazed ceramic tiles in shades of blue ranging from azure to indigo and ultramarine. These were overlaid with verses from the Koran in black serpentine Arabic script.

These state rooms contrasted sharply with the dingy cellars and dungeons where the slaves had once been chained.

Carl Bannock had difficulty restraining himself and his ambitions until he could resume his interrupted discussion with Johnny Congo. As soon as the two of them were alone again he picked up their discussion at the point it had been interrupted.

‘You remember what we were talking about last time, Johnny my man?’

‘I sure do, Carl baby.’ Johnny grinned. ‘I was telling you how my daddy and all the family had to get the hell out of Kazundu before my mother-loving uncle ate us.’

‘What was your uncle’s name?’

‘Justin Kikuu Tembo.’

‘So your name isn’t really Congo, is it?’

‘My daddy changed it to Congo when we reached Texas, but before that it was also Kikuu Tembo. People here in the US can’t get their stupid tongues around my real name, man.’

‘How would you like to change back to King John Kikuu Tembo?’ Johnny blinked and then began to chortle.

‘You not kidding me, are you? You are real serious, aren’t you, white boy?’

‘You remember how we talked about if you have enough money you can take anything and you can do anything, and nobody is going to stop you?’

‘I remember.’

‘Well, Johnny, you and I have got enough money. Just give me a little time and Kazundu is going to be ours, Your Majesty.’ And he gave Johnny Congo a high five.

*

Three nights before his release from the Holloway unit Carl Bannock came to visit Johnny Congo on death row for the last time.

First they had sex. They had been lovers now for twelve years and each of them knew exactly what the other liked best. As it was a farewell occasion Carl acted the role of the queen and let Johnny have it his way.

Afterwards they shared the flat bottle of Dimple Haig whisky that Carl had smuggled into the cell with him. Sitting on the bunk with their heads close together, drinking the whisky from plastic tooth mugs and speaking in guarded whispers, they discussed Johnny’s escape.

The previous week Johnny’s lawyer had come to visit him. He was the only person from the outside who had that right. He told Johnny bluntly that they had reached the end of the line after many years of legal manoeuvring.

The Supreme Court had finally considered Johnny’s appeal against the death sentence and had turned it down flat. The governor of the State of Texas had set Johnny’s execution date for 12 August.

‘That’s much sooner than we were banking on,’ Carl reminded him. ‘It leaves us only a couple of months to spring you out of this joint. It was lucky that we started working on the planning so much earlier. Now we have only a few minor details to work out.’

By the time that the unit controller came to let Carl out of Johnny’s cell and escort him back to the trusties’ level on the ground floor, they had settled every one of those minor details.

The unit controller was Lucas Heller who had been the first to welcome Carl into Holloway twelve years previously. Since then he had been promoted to his present elevated rank in the prison hierarchy. When they reached the ground level Lucas took Carl into his own office and locked the door while the two of them discussed the final details of the plan that Carl had just agreed with Johnny Congo. When they had finished, Lucas tactfully brought up the matter of payment of the bribes. Lucas referred to these euphemistically as the motivational considerations.

Carl had agreed to make the payments in tranches; half the agreed fee immediately, and the balance on the day previous to the actual escape.

The prison warden, Marco Merkowski, would receive a total of $250,000 paid into a numbered account in the Bank of Shanghai in Singapore. The $100,000 for the two level supervisors would be transferred to an account in the British Virgin Islands. Lucas Heller was the main mover and shaker. He would be paid $200,000 in the Cayman Islands and an additional $200,000 once Johnny was outside the walls of Holloway and running free. Carl would personally hand over this final tranche to Lucas Heller in used $100 bills, and then they would shake hands and part as friends, never more to meet.

*

The traditional manner in which a prisoner was released from Holloway was firstly to take him down to the induction area and make him hand over his prison uniform. Then he would sign for, and be handed, a bag containing the same clothing in which he had entered the establishment all those years ago. Finally two armed guards escorted him as far as the main gate. There he was pushed firmly out into the sweet air of freedom and the gate slammed just as firmly behind him. If one of the guards was in a beneficent mood he might point the way to the Greyhound Bus terminal, only a three-mile hike down the road.

On Carl Bannock’s release day Warden Marco Merkowski came to his cell to shake his hand and bid him Godspeed. Then Lucas Heller escorted him to the induction centre, where he handed over his prison-issue uniform and received and signed for the large parcels that his tailors in Houston had consigned to him. These contained a custom tailored suit in pale grey flannel, a Sun Island cotton shirt, gold monogrammed cufflinks; a black string necktie with a lapis lazuli pendant; a wide-brimmed cream-coloured Stetson hat and a pair of high-heeled Western boots.

Lucas rode with Carl in the prison bus to the main gates, where a black hire limo with a uniformed chauffeur that he had ordered online was waiting. The limo carried Carl in air-conditioned silence to the Four Seasons Hotel on Lamar Street in Houston.

The receptionist escorted him up to his suite. After he had tipped her a $50 bill, he ordered a bottle of chilled Dom Pérignon from room service. He sipped a flute of the champagne as he phoned down to the concierge. His name was Hank and he well-remembered Carl and his generosity from the old days.

‘I want a couple of lady friends for the evening, Hank.’

‘Certainly, Mr Bannock,’ Hank agreed. ‘One blonde and one black, as usual; is that right, sir?’

‘You have a good memory. Make sure they are as young as possible, just short of jail-bait. Tell them I’ll want to see a piece of photo ID to prove their age.’

*

The following week was extremely busy as Carl picked up the severed threads of his previous existence, re-established old contacts and made new ones from the list that Johnny Congo had provided for him.

He spent a morning with his private account manager at the Carson National Bank in Houston, rearranging and fine-tuning his accounts and portfolios. Then he passed a glacial hour at the law firm of Bunter and Theobald, Inc., with the head trustee of the Henry Bannock Family Trust.

Ronald Bunter treated him as though he was a species of poisonous reptile and answered his questions only as far as a strict interpretation of the Trust Deed would allow.

Ronald had his legal assistant at his side. She was a young woman named Jo Stanley. She was attractive and seemed extremely efficient, but she was a little too old for Carl’s particular tastes. Although he did consider that she might be able to obtain for him a more comprehensive and up-to-date overview of the affairs of the Trust than Bunter was prepared to divulge.

The following morning Carl phoned Jo Stanley from his suite to invite her to dine with him. He had decided to explore the extent of her libido and the effect of his irresistible charms upon it. If this proved to be negative then she would certainly be amenable to a bribe. Carl had never yet met anybody who was not responsive to both of these two stimuli.

However, Jo Stanley declined to accept his call and, to Carl’s mild embarrassment, had it transferred directly to Ronald Bunter’s desk.

Carl broke the connection as soon as he recognized Ronnie’s voice.

He decided to postpone his assault on the Family Trust until he had freed Johnny Congo. Johnny was running out of time.

One of the names on Johnny’s list of reliable contacts was a certain Aleutian Brown.

‘Aleutian is young but he is bright and mean. He is well connected. He has never let me down yet. He is just about the best man on the entire west coast.’ Johnny had recommended him and provided Carl with his contact number.

In response to his phone call, Aleutian Brown flew in from Los Angeles and Carl picked him up from the airport. During the short drive from the airport to the hotel where he had made reservations Carl learned enough to accept Johnny Congo’s assessment of the man.

Aleutian was one of the top honchos in a black gang known as the Angels or the Maaliks. The gang was international. Its tentacles reached out from the USA across the oceans to all the major cities world-wide, wherever there was a significant Muslim segment of the population. Within a few days Aleutian had taken care of all the planning and logistics of the operation, and Carl was able to set a final date for Johnny’s rescue. He decided on 29 July, two weeks before the date appointed for Johnny’s execution.