The Twain Maxim (18 page)

Jalbinyo sighed loudly down the telephone. “I’m sorry,” he said.

“I’m sorry, too, Laurent. But I need you to get these people off my mine.”

“If only,” said Jalbinyo.

“You’ll have to try,” said Baz. “I don’t need it to happen right away, but you have to fix it so that they leave when I say they must.”

“It is out of my hands.”

“Why?” said Baz.

“Because I didn’t put them there.”

“I’m not asking you to put them somewhere. I’m asking you to arrange for them to move on in a little while.”

“I didn’t put them there but my boss did.”

“Your boss?”

“Yes.”

“Your boss has invaded my mine?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because it is now worth so much he wants to protect it.”

“From what?”

“You, I should think.”

“Fuck!” said Baz. “That’s not on. What are you going to do about it?”

Jalbinyo sighed again. “What can I do?”

“For a start you can stop collecting the money I send you.”

“I mean, what I can do for you?”

“Set up a meeting for me with your boss.”

“That will be hard.”

“Sorry, Laurent, I can’t hear you – it must be the pain in my cheque-writing hand distracting me.”

“It will be hard.”

“Well, tell him to see me in a hurry or I walk and he can keep his bloody friends sitting in the jungle until hell freezes over. I’m not hanging around in this shithole to be fucked about over a worthless plot of jungle.” Baz laughed. “You’ve got twenty-four hours and then I’m off back to London, where I’ll make sure that that plot of land is blighted for the next century.”

“Why would you walk from such a valuable mine?”

“Laurent, excuse me, but you know fuck-all about mining, right?”

“I am not an expert.”

“What we’ve got here are deposits. Deposits like these need large-scale investment. You can’t fucking dig it up with a spade, you need to invest hundreds of millions of dollars just to get the first load out. You need a power station, you need dams and you need equipment the size of the Empire State Building to dig. You can’t build that kind of mine if every time you start digging a bunch of armed fuckers shows up and holds you to ransom. No one is going to put a dime into a project that has a whiff of those kinds of problems.”

There was silence at the end of the phone.

“So if I can’t talk to the top man, and quick, I’m walking and that’s curtains for Barron.”

“I will do all I can but I’m not sure he will see you so quick.”

“Laurent, I’ve got the world to play with and I’ve had it up to my back teeth with this little corner of it.” He stabbed his mobile off with his thumb.

He picked up his whisky and took a big mouthful. He should be selling out of the mine right now, rather than trying to resurrect the situation. He could make an enormous killing if he did – the price was hitting ten quid. Fuck it, he thought, fuck the diamonds, fuck everything.

He called Ralph. “Ralphy, close me out, close the lot.”

“What?” said Ralph.

“Close me out of all the Barron – sell as many of my positions as you can into this buying.”

“That’s a hell of a lot of stock,” Ralph quavered. He sounded as if he’d gone into shock.

“I know. Do it as best you can. Sell it down right to the bid offer price, but get as much as you can.”

“What about the diamonds? Is that a red herring?”

“No, mate, they’re there by the sackful, but I’ve had it.”

“That’s not like you.”

“I’ve had bad news,” said Baz, “and just when I’ve hit it big.”

“What bad news?”

“I’ve got throat cancer.”

“Oh, God…”

“I’ve been getting these bad throats for a few months now,” he said. “Anyway, I’ve just got back from the American clinic here and they say it looks pretty clear cut.” 

“You need to head for the States – they’ve got the latest stuff.”

“Yeah,” said Baz. “So get me clean out as best you can. Let lucky Jim have the show.”

“Are you sure?” said Ralph.

“I haven’t got a lot of time to think about it.”

“It’ll take me maybe a week if we want to avoid crashing the stock.”

“That’s all right,” said Baz. “Get as much as you can.”

“When are you back?

“I’m on the next possible flight out,” said Baz. “I’m going to check into Harley Street and get a load of tests and take it one day at a time.”

“Baz, if there’s anything I can do?”

“No,” said Baz, “there’s nothing. Thanks.” He hung up. Claiming imminent death was as corny as cons came, but he’d never used that one, let alone on one of his trusted conspirators. With a bit of luck he’d pocket a hundred million and Ralph’s no doubt handsome profits would add to his joy over his friend’s swift recovery.

Baz was filled with a wave of relief. Pretty soon he’d be back on the beach shagging lovely young whores. He grabbed his hotel-room key and walked to the door. The sooner he booked his ticket the sooner he’d be gone.

They were out of the forest and into the grass of the plateau, the mine compound fifty yards ahead. “We did it,” said Jim.

Pierre didn’t respond. He was looking at the building and the two soldiers who were walking down towards them. Their combat pants bore light green patches. He turned to Jim. “Run! Run away!”

Jim started.

“If you want to live, run!”

As Jim turned the soldiers started to shout and Pierre was running towards them yelling and waving his arms. There was a burst of gunfire but Jim couldn’t see what was going on because he was struggling up the hill and into the bushes. When he had reached cover, he spun round in time to see Pierre remonstrating with the soldiers. One knocked him down with the butt of his rifle. The other took his Kalashnikov and hauled him to his feet. Jim ran a little further along the trail but it wasn’t taking him upwards. Instead every time he took a turning that he thought would lead him further into the jungle it twisted back on itself and he was heading towards the mine. He was exhausted, his legs trembling and uncoordinated. He jerked to a standstill when he almost ran out of the trees and saw the soldiers dragging Pierre towards the camp. The boy was limp and staggering.

Jim reversed himself into a stand of reedy plants that lay in front of a tall large-leafed bush. He crouched down, threw off the pack, pushed it into the bush’s hollow centre and climbed into the dark alongside it. Through a tiny gap in the dense vegetation he could see pretty much the whole camp. He might as well hide there, he thought, as anywhere.

Pierre was groaning. His head was throbbing and his mind was only just coming back to him. He could see General Adash standing outside Mr Baz’s bungalow.

“He let a miner get away,” shouted the soldier who had hit him. “He’s helping them.”

Adash stepped off the veranda with two of his captains, who looked angry on their general’s behalf.

“Dog Bites Man,” said Adash, “what have you done? I thought you would be loyal to me, but I see I was wrong.”

The soldier let go of Pierre and he fell to the ground. “He’s a liar,” said Pierre, struggling to his feet. There was a large lump on his temple, which was bleeding.

“Why would they lie?”

Pierre hesitated. Adash slapped him across the face and he fell.

Adash was pulling a machete from one of his captains’ belts and smiling down on him.

“Kill me and kill my secret with me,” spat Pierre, blood trickling from his mouth.

“I don’t need your English ‘secret’ any more,” said Adash, feeling the edge of the machete with his left thumb. “I have two other followers now who speak as well as you,” he sneered, “perhaps better.”

“My secret is in my pocket, so kill me like you killed my
family.” He scrambled up and the two soldiers grabbed his arms and shoulders.

“I didn’t kill your family.” Adash pushed Pierre in the chest with the dull nose of the blade. “Now you have reminded me, I will.”

“I don’t believe you – you kill everybody. They were dead the day you took me.”

“So, Dog Bites Man, what have you got in your pocket?”

“Let me go and I’ll show you.”

“Let him go.”

The soldiers stepped back grudgingly.

Pierre reached into his top pocket and pulled out the diamond. “This is my secret, my star,” he said, holding it up, like a challenge.

Adash put the machete into his left hand and snatched the diamond out of Pierre’s grasp. “Where did you get this?”

“Why should I tell you? You are going to kill me.”

“If you tell me perhaps I will let you go.”

Pierre said nothing.

Adash slapped his face with the flat blade of the machete. Pierre yelped and fell to the ground. He had a thin gash across his face, which swelled with blood that began to run down his cheek. He lifted himself up on one arm. He was panting.

“If you don’t change your mind by morning, I will kill you then.” Adash held the diamond out at arm’s length and watched it sparkle in the afternoon sun. “Tie the Dog up outside my villa and fetch him a bowl of water.”

“What about the miner?”

“He will come to us when he is desperate enough, and that won’t be long.”

Jim had seen the gruesome scene enacted by tiny figures on the horizon through the almost useless pair of binoculars he’d had in the pack. He had practically howled when he saw the figure in white hit Pierre with what looked like a sword and had nearly cried with relief when the boy had kept moving. He watched the indistinct blobs tie up the boy and leash him to a beam that held up the veranda roof of Mycock and Higgins’s bungalow. They would probably come for him next, he thought, but running didn’t seem an option. If they hadn’t caught him by nightfall, he’d have a try at freeing Pierre. If he was caught he could maybe buy them both out, but if he pulled it off, they’d make a run for it. It might be a week’s march to Goma, but he’d worry about the practicalities of that later. He took the jungle knife from the pack and strapped it to his leg. It was an evil-looking piece and razor sharp. He imagined stabbing the man in white in the gut with it. It would do the job nicely.

Baz was checking in for his flight to Kinshasa. The selling had gone well – the market was insatiable, gobbling up his stock. Ralph was doing a good job; on the phone he’d seemed genuinely upset and worried about him. He’d do better to worry about Jim Evans, who was either hopelessly lost in the jungle or having tea with the nastiest people in Africa. Good riddance to him, and hello retirement. He watched a beautiful Congolese girl walk by in a bright green and white dress. Every step he took away from that hole, the better he felt. Leaving a scam usually made him feel a bit sad but not this time. This time nothing would bring him back to the game, however much he loved it.

Jim was examining his tiny Sony mobile phone. The battery was different from the sat phone’s and would not replace it. He glanced up frequently but there was little going on in the mining camp, save the occasional arrival of small groups of soldiers who pitched tents near the barracks. Jim calculated there were perhaps around a hundred men and wondered if some would soon be heading his way. He reassembled the small phone and set the alarm to vibrate at three a.m. He hoped that would be the optimal time at which to rescue Pierre.

At least there were no dogs to wake and bark – or, at least, none that he could see. He wound his Rolex Cosmonaut and put it back on his wrist, shoved the phone in his top trouser pocket and settled down to watch the camp. The sun would set in an hour and then he’d be a lot safer. He would eat something and go to sleep. He examined the night-sight goggles, and was pleased to discover that their battery was full of life.

Thank God for Stafford, he thought. He looked at the inside of his all-weather blanket. It was lined with silver foiled material that would shine like a beacon in the dark with the night-sight goggles on. He would hang it on the bush when he left and its reflection would lead him back to the
pack. That was all good in theory, but first he had to make it that far.

The night-sight goggles were almost as sinister as the hunting knife. There was something demonic about both articles. Black straps fitted eyepieces to his face and a snout poked out at the front above his nose like a stubby telescope. It could see ahead about half a mile and would run for ten hours. Thirty minutes after leaving his hideout, he would be back – or, more likely, captured or dead. He laid the goggles on their black nylon carrying pouch and put the pack down so he could use it as a pillow. The sun was setting fast and in six hours the alarm would go off and he would start his foolhardy rescue mission. His life must be like a pixel in one of Davas’s crazy financial models. He was the single tiny chaotic element in a universe of data that flicked on and off at random and sent its neighbours cascading into waves of unpredictable turbulence. In other words he was totally fucked up. He was like a giant lightning conductor poking up into the sky as a black Kansas stormcloud rolled in.

He could practically feel the air filling to rupturing point with electricity.

Was his fabulous luck at calling the markets matched by a balancing curse? Was his meteoric rise about to be followed by a spectacular crash to earth? Stocks went up like a rocket and fell back like a stick. Maybe he was now the biggest short in history. Was he Icarus?

He tried to get comfortable. He drew the chart of his life, which went on and on. Yet one day he knew his predictions would be wrong and tonight he was more likely to be wrong than at any time before.

It was getting darker by the second, so he closed his eyes
and tried to drift off but he couldn’t fall asleep. It was seven thirty. He was just going to have to stay awake all night.

Adash walked out on to the veranda, a jug in his hand. He came to stand over Pierre, who was bound hand and foot with cord. The metal chain leash around his neck had a leather handle, which had been threaded around a post, tethering him like a guard dog.

Adash poured water from the jug into an empty bowl set out for the boy. “Drink,” he said.

Pierre looked at the bowl and then at Adash. His face was full of hate.

“Drink, little Dog, or you won’t be strong enough to take me to the diamonds and then I will have to cut off your hands to make you sorry.” He smiled. “And perhaps your nose and lips, too. You know I will do it, so drink and maybe if I am happy I will just send you away.”

“You would never do that,” said Pierre, trying to challenge him to do the opposite.

“And not let you return to tend your family’s grave?” said Adash.

Pierre rolled on to his knees and elbows and started to drink from the bowl. Adash only spoke lies so maybe what he had said meant he would be killed soon, maybe it meant his family lived, maybe both.

Adash pushed him away with his foot and Pierre rolled awkwardly on to his back.

Adash laughed. “I have complete power over you,” he said. “Worship me and you may live.”

“God will smite you,” said Pierre, wriggling on to his knees.

Adash laughed. “There are no gods to smite me.” He lifted his boot to kick Pierre with his heel. The lights of the camp went out. Adash stopped mid-stride and his foot returned to the wooden boards. He looked into the dark of the night, then walked back into the bungalow muttering to himself.