“He is shown the passenger lists long before the flight arrives. When he sees a name on the manifest he does not recognize he sometimes investigates,” said Nagoupandé. “A careful man, our Jean-Luc.”
“All of this is fluff and flummery,” said Matheson. “The only real threat is from Limbani. He is the only one who has the resources and the education to effect a real revolution in Kukuanaland.”
Nagoupandé looked at Matheson indifferently. “Your prejudices are showing, sir. You have me in your mind as another savage from the Dark Continent wishing to rape his country and then retire in luxury and obscurity in some safe haven like Dubai or Switzerland. I am not your average African despot, however. I have an undergraduate degree in anthropology from the Université de Paris and a master’s degree in political science and economics from the Ruprecht-Karls University of Heidelberg. I returned to my country because I thought I could do something to change it, to make it a better place for my people. I thought that the French had corrupted paradise and that with some time and patience and effort it could be paradise once more. I was wrong. Corruption is a disease that once contracted cannot be cured. Kolingba is only a symptom. ”
“So take what you want, but pay me well, Sir James, and I will be your puppet for as long as you require. Cheat me or betray me and you will live to regret it. The only codicil is that you bring me Solomon Bokassa Sesesse Kolingba’s head on the end of a spear.” Nagoupandé smiled pleasantly. “Savage enough for you, Sir James?”
Matheson was quiet for a long moment, smoking his cigar and staring at the painting on the wall that had cost him twice what the “destabilization” of Kukuanaland would amount to by the time all was said and done. There was perhaps ten billion pounds of profit to be made from this worm-in-the-apple of a country and with the shell company Faulkener was negotiating for through the bank in Aarau. Return enough for the risk and all the blood to be shed.
He turned his glance away from the painting and looked at Nagoupandé. The man looked ridiculous in his brigadier general’s uniform, but Matheson knew that the uniform was not for the man’s vanity but worn as a symbol of his power to his people, not far removed from the tribal scars some African chiefs still scored across their faces. The more scars, the greater the power.
Matheson knew exactly what Nagoupandé’s background was, and in the end his fine speech didn’t matter. Nagoupandé was smart enough to do as he was told, because he was easily replaced—one puppet dancing on its strings was much like any other.
“Yes, Brigadier General Nagoupandé, savage enough.” Matheson paused. “Quite savage enough.”
Grantham Place was a pricey cul-de-sac off Old Park Lane, and number nine was a large block of Victorian brick flats pierced on three sides by porte cocheres that led into an inner courtyard. It looked very much like a brick version of the Dakota in New York City, a building Captain Jean-Luc Saint-Sylvestre of the Kukuanaland secret police was quite familiar with, being a fan of both Roman Polanski and John Lennon. Of course, in Kukuanaland, the assassin Mark David Chapman would have been summarily executed on the spot and then torn limb from limb.
Flat six was on the second floor; that was easy enough to discover by visiting the English Heritage head office in Holborn, as was the original floor plan for the flat, a six-bedroom monster with two maid’s rooms and four bathrooms.
The long-term lease was held by something called the Bambridge Trust and was represented by a law firm in Edinburgh, Scotland, which paid the rent in full on January 1 of each year. They also paid for regular cleaning and maintenance, and contributed ten thousand pounds a year to English Heritage—beyond which the English Heritage partners knew nothing about the Bambridge Trust, nor did they wish to know anything.
At six thirty p.m., dressed in a well-cut Savile Row suit, Saint-Sylvestre rode the tube to the Hyde Park Corner station, then walked down Piccadilly to Old Park Lane and returned to the main entrance to the Grantham Place building. Nothing had changed since his first visit. He bent down, pretending to lace up his shoe, then turned back down Old Park Lane and stepped into a pub unimaginatively called the Rose and Crown. He took a table with a view through the big bow window to the street. He ordered a Heineken and a steak-and-kidney pie with chips, then settled down to wait.
At six forty-five the parade began with his Mr. X and none other than Francois Nagoupandé in tow dressed in a brigadier general’s uniform. Two bodyguards rode along with Mr. X and the ex–lieutenant governor under Amobe Limbani. Twenty minutes later a black Rolls-Royce Phantom whispered down the narrow street, and, craning his neck, Saint-Sylvestre watched as a figure recognizable from the London
Times
as well as
Country Life
and the
Wall Street Journal
appeared. Sir James Matheson, CEO of Matheson Resource Industries and one of the richest men in the world.
Twenty minutes later a cab dropped off Konrad Lanz at the Grantham address. An interesting assortment of witches around the Kukuanaland cauldron, thought Saint-Sylvestre. Of them Nagoupandé was the most interesting. Kolingba inevitably underrated him, but ever since Kolingba had seized power Saint-Sylvestre had spent a great deal of effort trying to track him down, to no avail. For the man Kolingba called a blundering bureaucrat and a buffoon, Nagoupandé was surprisingly clever at keeping himself hidden.
Nagoupandé’s attendance at this evening’s meeting confirmed everything that Saint-Sylvestre had been thinking. Matheson had found something in the hinterland and he was willing to pay whatever it cost to overthrow Kolingba and install Nagoupandé to get it. For a moment the secret policeman wondered, not for the first time, whether carrying too many secrets around in your head like he did was inevitably self-destructive.
If Nagoupandé were allowed to take power, Saint-Sylvestre knew that the dictator’s new broom would sweep the country clean, searching every nook and cranny. Perhaps it was better to go with the devil you knew than the devil you thought you
might
know. For now, at least, Saint-Sylvestre was still Solomon Kolingba’s man.
Saint-Sylvestre nursed several pints, then left the noisy pub and took up a station in the outdoor café of the Rendezvous Mayfair casino a little farther up the road. Grantham Place itself was blocked by the rear wall of an apartment block on Brick Lane, so if they exited the building he was sure to see them.
At eleven thirty Nagoupandé and his bodyguards left Grantham Place, minus Mr. X. Lanz was next to leave half an hour later, and fifteen minutes after that the Rolls-Royce appeared and Mr. X and Sir James Matheson departed. By rights the flat should have been empty, but Saint-Sylvestre waited another half hour to be absolutely sure. At a quarter to one he finally left the café, walked half a block and turned down Grantham Place.
He knew there was a porter’s lodge halfway through the porte cochere on the Old Park Lane side, but at the Grantham Place entrance there was a ten-foot-tall scrolled and spiked wrought-iron gate instead, the original iron locks replaced by modern Yales. Saint-Sylvestre took his tubular electric pick and a torsion bar out of his pocket, looked around and then fitted the torsion bar into the lock, pressing down the tumblers.
He then inserted the pick on the end of the electric unit, hit the button three or four times to get the pins lined up, then twisted the torsion bar to the left. The gate swung open. Saint-Sylvestre put the electric pick and the torsion bar back in his pocket, pulled the gate open fully and stepped through into the empty interior courtyard. He walked across to the interior door and repeated the process with the pick gun when he was sure the way was clear.
Pocketing the little device, he climbed three steps and turned down a short hall that led to the elevator lobby. There was a sleepy-looking security guard behind an elegant reproduction Louis Quinze desk reading the
Daily Mirror.
As Saint-Sylvestre appeared the man’s head came up out of the paper and stared.
“His lordship forgot his reading glasses,” explained Saint-Sylvestre with a smile. The security guard nodded and went back to his paper. Saint-Sylvestre climbed into the empty elevator and rode up to the second floor. A few moments later he had successfully bypassed the lock on flat six and let himself inside.
The flat was expansive, just the way the floor plan had indicated, furnished in an anonymous ultramodern style that reflected nothing about the people who occupied it. All there was to show that it had recently been occupied was a fresh cigar butt in a huge cut-glass ashtray in the living room and a collection of used drink glasses piled into the dishwasher in the kitchen.
Presumably the cleaners would be in to give the place the once-over before it was used again. It looked as though his efforts had been wasted. He checked every room and came up empty-handed. Then he pulled open the louvered doors on the coat cupboard in the entrance hall and found a single object out of place, along with the scent of an expensive aftershave.
If memory served, the aftershave was a scent developed by the Sultan of Oman back in the 1960s—Amouage Die Pour Homme, probably purchased in an effort to impress Nagoupandé, since it cost something like two or three hundred dollars an ounce. But the object that had caught his interest was a business card: Leonhard Euhler, Gesler Bank, 11 Rathausgasse, Aarau, Switzerland.
18
They paddled west, letting the current do most of the work. The dugouts were tethered bow to stern using the horizontal slots normally used for making portages overland down steep grades. As the current increased in speed it seemed to Holliday that the river narrowed, the banks stony rather than the low muddy beaches that had been the norm up until now. There were fewer eddies and backwaters and no crocodiles at all; the water was too swift and there was little for them to eat.
Even the sound of the river was different, deeper and louder, the roar echoing off the hills that were beginning to rise from the jungle. As the sun rose behind them on the morning after seeing the child warriors, Holliday saw the shimmering magic light of a rainbow in the distance.
“Waterfall ahead,” he called, turning back to warn Rafi and Peggy in the trailing dugout. “Next time I spot a likely place we’ll get off the river and take a look.” There was no way of telling on which side they’d make landfall, so Holliday and Captain Eddie kept them centered in midriver, feeling the strengthening of the current with each stroke of the paddle.
Fifteen minutes later Eddie called out and pointed to the starboard shore with his dripping paddle.
“¡Ahí!” There
.
Two hundred yards ahead on their right-hand side Holliday saw the spot Eddie had pointed out, a tiny patch of light green, a little paler than the surrounding foliage. Holliday jammed his paddle on the left and the bow of the lead dugout swung around, taking them out of the current at a shallow angle. He and Eddie paddled hard, Rafi and Peggy following suit. Just as they approached the little beach Holliday reached back and pulled the quick release on the tether that bound the two crude boats together. Both dugouts made it to a barely visible swirl of calmer water and they drove the boats up onto the rough sand.
Holliday and Eddie stepped out of the lead dugout and pulled it even higher out of the water. Then the two men dropped down onto the sand for a much-needed break. From where they sat they could hear the steady distant thunder of the waterfall.
“We are not the first to stop here,” said Eddie, reaching into the long grass at the edge of the tiny strip of sand as Rafi and Peggy pulled their dugout completely out of the water. The Cuban held up a crushed green tin of Sparletta cream soda.
“The kiddie soldiers?” Peggy said.
“¿Los niños? Sí.”
Eddie nodded.
“Who are they going to fight for, I wonder,” said Holliday.
“Presumably Kolingba, or someone against him.” Rafi shrugged.
“It could be that they are only on a raid,” said Eddie. “Borders mean nothing to them. They could be, how do you say,
reclutamiento
, recruiting. They go to the villages, take the children. If the parents object they kill them. Sometimes they kill them anyway.”
“I don’t care what they’re doing,” said Holliday. “The question is, How do we get ourselves out of their way? Right now we’re trapped. They’re ahead of us and behind us.”
“We could hide the boats and wait for the ones behind us to go past, then go back upriver,” suggested Rafi.
“They’ll have scouts on land as well as in boats. The jungle is their home. They would almost certainly find us,” said Eddie.
“There’s no way of telling how far ahead they are,” said Holliday. “Or if they’ve already arrived at their destination.”
“How would we know?” Peggy asked.
“First we must portage the boats below the falls. Maybe they will have left some sign?” The Cuban held up the can. “A trail of Sparletta, like the two children of
la bruja
and her
casa de pan de jengibre.
”
“ ‘ Hansel and Gretel.’ ” Peggy laughed.
“Sí.”
Eddie nodded. “They cook her in the oven, yes?”
“Yes,” said Holliday grimly. “And that’s what those kids with the AK-47s will do if they catch us. Rafi and I will see how far it is to the fire. Peggy, you stay here with Eddie and watch our backs. Maybe unload some of the gear from the boats to make them lighter.”