The Dogs Of War

The Dogs Of War
Frederick Forsyth
1974

PART ONE - The Crystal Mountain
1
There were no stars that night on the bush airstrip, nor any moon; just the West
African darkness wrapping round the scattered groups like warm, wet velvet. The
cloud cover was lying hardly off the tops of the iroko trees, and the waiting men
prayed it would stay a while longer to shield them from the bombers.
At the end of the runway the battered old DC-4, which had just slipped in for a
landing by runway lights that stayed alight for just the last fifteen seconds of final
approach, turned and coughed its way blindly toward the palm-thatch huts.
Between two of them, five white men sat crouched in a Land Rover and stared
toward the incoming aircraft. They said nothing, but the same thought was in each
man's mind. If they did not get out of the battered and crumbling enclave before
the forces of the central government overran the last few square miles, they would
not get out alive. Each man had a price on his head and intended to see that no
man collected it. They were the last of the mercenaries who had fought on contract
for the side that had lost. Now it was time to go. So they watched the incoming and
unexpected cargo plane with silent attention.
A Federal MIG-17 night fighter, probably flown by one of the six East German
pilots sent down over the past three months to replace the Egyptians, who had a
horror of flying at night, moaned across the sky to the west. It was out of sight
above the cloud layers.
The pilot of the taxiing DC-4, unable to hear the scream of the jet above him,
flicked on his own lights to see where he was going, and from the darkness a voice
cried uselessly, "Kill de lights!" When the pilot had got his bearings, he turned them
off anyway, and the fighter above was miles away. To the south there was a
rumble of artillery where the front had finally crumbled as men who had had neither
food nor bullets for two months threw down their guns and headed for the
protecting bush forest.
The pilot of the DC-4 brought his plane to a halt twenty yards from the
Superconstellation already parked on the apron, killed the engines, and climbed
down to the concrete. An African ran over to him and there was a muttered
conversation. The two men walked through the dark toward one of the larger
groups of men, a blob of black against the darkness of the palm forest. The group
parted as the two from the tarmac approached, until the white man who had flown
in the DC-4 was face to face with the one who stood in the center. The white man
had never seen him before, but he knew of him, and, even in the darkness dimly
illumined by a few cigarettes, he could recognize the man he had come to see.
The pilot wore no cap, so instead of saluting he inclined his head slightly. He had
never done that before, not to a black, and could not have explained why he did it.
"My name is Captain Van Cleef," he said in English accented in the Afrikaner
manner.
The African nodded his acknowledgment, his bushy black beard brushing the
front of his striped camouflage uniform as he did so.
"It's a hazardous night for flying, Captain Van Cleef," he remarked dryly, "and a
little late for more supplies."
His voice was deep and slow, the accent more like that of an English publicschool
man, which he was, than like an African. Van Cleef felt uncomfortable and
again, as a hundred times during his run through the cloudbanks from the coast,
asked himself why he had come.
"I didn't bring any supplies, sir. There weren't any more to bring."
Another precedent set. He had sworn he would not call the man "sir." Not a
kaffir. It had just slipped out. But they were right, the other mercenary pilots in the
hotel bar in Libreville, the ones who had met him. This one was different.
"Then why have you come?" asked the general softly. "The children perhaps?
There are a number here the nuns would like to fly out to safety, but no more
Caritas planes will come in tonight."
Van Cleef shook his head, then realized no one could see the gesture. He was
embarrassed, and thankful that the darkness hid it. Around him the bodyguards
clutched their submachine carbines and stared at him.
"No. I came to collect you. If you want to come, that is."
There was a long silence. He could feel the African staring at him through the
gloom, occasionally caught a flash of eye-white as one of the attendants raised his
cigarette.
"I see. Did your government instruct you to come in here tonight?"
"No," said Van Cleef. "It was my idea."
There was another long pause. The bearded head was nodding slowly in what
could have been comprehension or bewilderment.
"I am very grateful," said the voice. "It must have been quite a trip. Actually I
have my own transport. The Constellation. Which I hope will be able to take me
away to exile."
Van Cleef felt relieved. He had no idea what the political repercussions would
have been if he had flown back to Libreville with the general.
"I'll wait till you're off the ground and gone," he said and nodded again. He felt
like holding out his hand to shake, but did not know whether he ought. If he had
but known it, the African general was in the same quandary. So he turned and
walked back to his aircraft.
There was silence for a while in the group of black men after he had left.
"Why does a South African, and an Afrikaner, do a thing like that, General?" one
of them asked.
There was a flash of teeth as the general smiled briefly. "I don't think we shall
ever understand that," he said.
A match spluttered as another cigarette was lit, the glow setting for a parting
instant into sharp relief the faces of the men in the group. At the center was the
general, taller than all but two of the guards, heavily built with burly chest and
shoulders, distinguishable from others at several hundred yards by the bushy black
beard that half the world had come to recognize.
In defeat, on the threshold of an exile he knew would be lonely and humiliating,
he still commanded. Surrounded by his aides and several ministers, he was as
always slightly aloof, withdrawn. To be alone is one of the prices of leadership; with
him it was also a state of reflex.
For two and a half years, sometimes by sheer force of personality when there
was nothing else to employ, he had kept his millions of people together and fighting
against the central Federal Government. All the experts had told the world they
would have to collapse in a few weeks, two months at most. The odds were
insuperable against them. Somehow they had kept fighting, surrounded, besieged,
starving but defiant.
His enemies had refuted his leadership of his people, but few who had been there
had any doubts. Even in defeat, as his car passed through the last village before the
airstrip, the villagers had lined the mud road to chant their loyalty. Hours earlier, at
the last meeting of the cabinet, the vote had asked him to leave.
There would be reprisals in defeat, the spokesman for the caucus said, but a
hundred times worse if he remained. So he was leaving, the man the Federal
Government wanted dead by sunrise.
By his side stood one of his confidants, one of those whose loyalty had not been
changed. A small, graying professor, he was called Dr. Okoye. He had decided to
remain behind, to hide in the bush until he could return quietly to his home when
the first wave of reprisals had ended. The two men had agreed to wait six months
before making the first steps to contact each other.
Farther up the apron, the five mercenaries sat and watched the dim figure of the
pilot return to his plane. The leader sat beside the African driver, and all five were
smoking steadily.
"It must be the South African plane," said the leader and turned to one of the
four other whites crouched in the Land Rover behind him. "Janni, go and ask the
skipper if he'll make room for us."
A tall, rawboned, angular man climbed out of the rear of the vehicle. Like the
others, he was dressed from head to foot in predominantly green jungle
camouflage uniform, slashed with streaks of brown. He wore green canvas
jackboots on his feet, the trousers tucked into them. From his belt hung a water
bottle and a Bowie knife, three empty pouches for magazines for the FAL carbine
over his shoulder. As he came round to the front of the Land Rover the leader
called him again.
"Leave the FAL," he said, stretching out an arm to take the carbine, "and, Janni,
make it good, huh? Because if we don't get out of here in that crate, we could get
chopped up in a few days."
The man called Janni nodded, adjusted the beret on his head, and ambled
toward the DC-4. Captain Van Cleef did not hear the rubber soles moving up behind
him.
"Naand, meneer."
Van Cleef spun round at the sound of the Afrikaans
and took in the shape and size of the man beside him. Even in the darkness he
could pick out the black and white skull-and-crossbones motif on the man's left
shoulder. He nodded warily.
"Naand. Jy Afrikaans?"
The man nodded. "Jan Dupree," he said and held out his hand.
"Kobus Van Cleef," said the airman and shook.
"Waar gaan-jy nou?" asked Dupree.
"To Libreville. As soon as they finish loading. And you?"
Janni Dupree grinned. "I'm a bit stuck, me and my mates. We'll get the chop for
sure if the Federals find us. Can you help us out?"
"How many of you?" asked Van Cleef.
"Five in all."
As a fellow mercenary, Van Cleef did not hesitate. Outlaws sometimes need each
other.
"All right, get aboard. But hurry up. As soon as that Connie is off, so are we."
Dupree nodded his thanks and jog-trotted back to the Land Rover. The four other
whites were standing in a group round the hood.
"It's okay, but we have to get aboard," the South African told them.
"Right, dump the hardware in the back and let's get moving," said the group
leader. As the rifles and ammunition pouches thumped into the back of the vehicle,
he leaned over to the black officer with second lieutenant's tabs who sat at the
wheel.
"We have to go now," he said. "Take the Land Rover and dump it. Bury the guns
and mark the spot. Leave your uniform and go for bush. Understand?"
The lieutenant, who had been in his last term of high school when he volunteered
to fight and had been with the mercenary-led commando unit for the past year,
nodded somberly, taking in the instructions.
"G'by, Patrick," the mercenary said. "I'm afraid it's over now."
The African looked up. "Perhaps," he said. "Perhaps it is over."
"Don't go on fighting," urged the white man. "There's no point."
"Not now," the lieutenant agreed. He nodded toward the steps of the
Constellation, where the leader and his group were saying good-by. "But he is
leaving for safety. That is good. He is still the leader. While he lives, we will not
forget. We will say nothing, do nothing, but we will remember."
He started the engine of the Land Rover and swung the vehicle into a turn.
"Good-by," he called.
The four other mercenaries called good-by and walked toward the DC-4.
The leader was about to follow them when two nuns fluttered up to him from the
darkness of the bush behind the parking apron.
"Major."
The mercenary turned and recognized the first of them as the sister he had met
months earlier, when fighting had raged in the zone where she ran a hospital and
he had been forced to evacuate the whole complex.
"Sister Mary Joseph! What are you doing here?"
The elderly Irish nun began talking earnestly, holding the stained uniform sleeve
of his jacket.
He nodded. "I'll try, I can do no more than that," he said when she had finished.
He walked across the apron to where the South African pilot was standing under
the wing of his DC-4, and the two of them talked for several minutes. Finally the
man in uniform came back to the waiting nuns.
"He says yes, but you must hurry, Sister. He wants to get this crate off the
ground as soon as he can."
"God bless you," said the figure in the white habit and gave hurried orders to her
companion. The latter ran to the rear of the aircraft and began to climb the short
ladder to the passenger door. The other scurried back to the shade of a patch of
palms behind the parking apron, from which a file of men soon emerged. Each
carried a bundle in his arms. At the DC-4 the bundles were passed up to the waiting
nun at the top of the steps. Behind her the co-pilot watched her lay the first three
side by side in the beginning of a row down the aircraft's hull, then began gruffly to
help, taking the bundles from the stretching hands beneath the aircraft's tail and
passing them inside.
"God bless you," whispered the Irish nun.
One of the bundles deposited a few ounces of liquid green excrement onto the
co-pilot's sleeve. "Bloody hell," he muttered and went on working.
Left alone, the leader of the group of mercenaries glanced toward the
Superconstellation. A file of refugees, mainly the relations of the leaders of the
defeated people, was climbing up the rear steps. In the dim light from the airplane's
door he caught sight of the man he wanted to see. As he approached, the man was
about to mount the steps while others waited to pull them away. One of them
called to him.
"Sah. Major Shannon come."
The general turned as Shannon approached, and even at this hour he managed a
grin.
"So, Shannon, do you want to come along?"
Shannon stepped in front of him and brought up a salute. The general
acknowledged it.
"No thank you, sir. We have transport to Libreville. I just wanted to say good-by."
"Yes. It was a long fight. Now it's over, I'm afraid. For some years, at any rate. I
find it hard to believe my people will continue to live in servitude forever. By the
way, have you and your colleagues been paid up to the contract?"
"Yes, thank you, sir. We're all up to date," replied the mercenary. The African
nodded somberly.
"Well, good-by, then. And thank you for all you were able to do." He held out his
hand, and the two men shook.
"There's one more thing, sir," said Shannon. "Me and the boys, we were talking
things over, sitting in the jeep. If there's ever any time— Well, if you should ever
need us, you only have to let us know. We'll all come. You only have to call. The
boys want you to know that."
The general stared at him for several seconds. "This night is full of surprises," he
said slowly. "You may not know it yet, but half my senior advisers and all of the
wealthy ones are crossing the lines tonight to ingratiate themselves with the
enemy. Most of the others will follow suit within a month. Thank you for your offer,
Mr. Shannon. I will remember it. But how about yourselves? What do the
mercenaries do now?"
"We'll have to look around for more work."
"Another fight, Major Shannon?"
"Another fight, sir."
"But always somebody else's."
"That's our way of life," said Shannon.
"And you think you will fight again, you and your men?"
"Yes. We'll fight again."
The general laughed softly. " 'Cry "Havoc!" and let slip the dogs of war,'" he
murmured.
"Sir?"
"Shakespeare, Mr. Shannon, just a bit of Shakespeare. Well, now, I must go. The
pilot is waiting. Good-by again, and good luck."
He turned and walked up the steps into the dimly lit interior of the
Superconstellation just as the first of the four engines coughed into life. Shannon
stepped back and gave the man who had employed his services for a year and a
half a last salute.
"Good luck to you," he said, half to himself. "You'll need it."
He turned and walked back to the waiting DC-4. When the door had closed, Van
Cleef kept the aircraft on the apron, engines turning, as he watched the dim droopnosed
shape of the Super Connie rumble down the runway through the gloom past
his nose, and finally lift off. Neither plane carried any lights, but from the cockpit of
the Douglas the Afrikaner could make out the three fins of the Constellation
vanishing over the palm trees to the south and into the welcoming clouds. Only
then did he ease the DC-4 forward to the take-off point.
It was close to an hour before Van Cleef ordered his co-pilot to switch on the
cabin lights, an hour of jinking from cloudbank to cloudbank, breaking cover and
scooting across low racks of altostratus to find cover again with another, denser
bank, always seeking to avoid being caught out in the moonlit white plains by a
roving MIG. Only when he knew he was far out over the gulf, with the coast many
miles astern, did he allow the lights on.
Behind him they lit up a weird spectacle which could have been drawn by Dore in
one of his blacker moods. The floor of the aircraft was carpeted with sodden and
fouled blankets. Their previous contents lay writhing in rows down both sides of the
cargo space, forty small children, shrunken, wizened, deformed by malnutrition.
Sister Mary Joseph rose from her crouch behind the cabin door and began to move
among the starvelings, each of whom had a piece of sticking plaster stuck to his or
her forehead, just below the line of the hair long since turned to an ocher red by
anemia. The plaster bore in ball-point letters the relevant information for the
orphanage outside Libreville. Just name and number; they don't give rank to losers.
In the tail of the plane the five mercenaries blinked in the light and glanced at
their fellow passengers. They had seen it all before, many times, over the past
months. Each man felt some disgust, but none showed it. You can get used to
anything eventually. In the Congo, Yemen, Katanga, Sudan. Always the same story,
always the kids. And always nothing you can do about it. So they reasoned, and
pulled out their cigarettes.
The cabin lights allowed them to see one another properly for the first time since
sundown the previous evening. The uniforms were stained with sweat and the red
earth, and the faces drawn with fatigue. The
leader sat with his back to the washroom door, feet straight out, facing up the
fuselage toward the pilot's cabin. Carlo Alfred Thomas Shannon, thirty-three, blond
hair cropped to a ragged crew-cut. Very short hair is more convenient in the tropics
because the sweat runs out easier and the bugs can't get in. Nicknamed Cat
Shannon, he came originally from County Tyrone in the province of Ulster. Sent by
his father to be educated at a minor English public school, he no longer carried the
distinctive accent of Northern Ireland. After five years in the Royal Marines, he had
left to try his hand at civilian life and six years ago had found himself working for a
London-based trading company in Uganda. One sunny morning he quietly closed his
accounts ledgers, climbed into his Land Rover and drove westward to the
Congolese border. A week later he signed on as a mercenary in Mike Hoare's Fifth
Commando at Stanleyville.
He had seen Hoare depart and John-John Peters take over, had quarreled with
Peters and driven north to join Denard at Paulis, had been in the Stanleyville mutiny
two years later and, after the Frenchman's evacuation to Rhodesia with head
wounds, had joined Black Jacques Schramme, the Belgian planter-turnedmercenary,
on the long march to Bukavu and thence to Kigali. After repatriation by
the Red Cross, he had promptly volunteered for another African war and had finally
taken command of his own battalion. But too late to win, always too late to win.
He lay with his back against the washroom door as the DC-4 droned on toward
Libreville and let his mind range back over the past year and a half. Thinking of the
future was harder, for his claim to the general that he and his men would go to
another war was based more on optimism than on foreknowledge. In fact he had
no idea where the next job would come from. But although he could not know it
that night in the plane, he and his men would fight again and would shake some
mighty citadels before they finally went down.
To his immediate left sat the man who was arguably the best mortarman north of
the Zambesi. Big Jan Dupree was twenty-eight and came from Paarl in Cape
Province, a descendant of impoverished Huguenots whose ancestors had fled to the
Cape of Good Hope from the wrath of Mazarin more than three hundred years ago.
His hatchet face, dominated by a curved beak of a nose above a thin-lipped mouth,
looked even more haggard than usual, his exhaustion furrowing deep lines down
each cheek. The eyelids were down over the pale blue eyes, the sandy eyebrows
and hair were smudged with dirt. He glanced down at the children lying along the
aisle of the plane, muttered "Bliksems" (bastards) at the world of possession and
privilege he held responsible for the ills of this planet, and tried to get to sleep.
By his side sprawled Marc Vlaminck, Tiny Marc, so called because of his vast bulk.
A Fleming from Ostend, he stood 6 feet 3 inches in his socks, when he wore any,
and weighed 250 pounds. Some people thought he might be fat. He was not. He
was regarded with trepidation by the police of Ostend, for the most part peaceable
men who would rather avoid problems than seek them out, and was viewed with
kindly appreciation by the glaziers and carpenters of that city for the work he
provided them. They said you could tell a bar where Tiny Marc had become playful
by the number of artisans it needed to put it back together again.
An orphan, he had been brought up in an institution run by priests, who had tried
to beat some sense of respect into the overgrown boy, and so repeatedly that even
Marc had finally lost patience and, at the age of thirteen, laid one of the canewielding
holy fathers cold along the flagstones with a single punch.
After that it had been a series of reformatories, then approved school, a dose of
juvenile prison, and an almost communal sigh of relief when he enlisted in the
paratroops. He had been one of the five hundred men who dropped onto
Stanleyville with Colonel Laurent to
rescue the missionaries whom the local Simba chief, Christophe Gbenye,
threatened to roast alive in the main square.
Within forty minutes of hitting the airfield, Tiny Marc had found his vocation in
life. After a week he went AWOL to avoid being repatriated to barracks in Belgium,
and joined the mercenaries. Apart from his fists and shoulders, Tiny Marc was
extremely useful with a bazooka, his favorite weapon, which he handled with the
easy nonchalance of a boy with a peashooter.
The night he flew out of the enclave toward Libreville he was just thirty.
Across the fuselage from the Belgian sat Jean-Baptiste Langarotti, thirty-one.
Short, compact, lean, and olive-skinned, he was a Corsican, born and raised in the
town of Calvi. At the age of eighteen he had been called up by France to go and
fight as one of the hundred thousand "appeles" in the Algerian war. Halfway
through his eighteen months he had signed on as a regular and later had
transferred to the 10th Colonial Paratroops, the dreaded red berets commanded by
General Massu and known simply as les paras. He was twenty-one when the crunch
came and some units of the professional French colonial army rallied to the cause of
an eternally French Algeria, a cause embodied for the moment in the organization
of the OAS. Langarotti went with the OAS, deserted, and, after the failure of the
April 1961 putsch, went underground. He was caught in France three years later,
living under a false name, and spent four years in prison, eating his heart out in the
dark and sunless cells of first the Sante in Paris, then Tours, and finally the Ile de
Re. He was a bad prisoner, and two guards would carry the marks to prove it until
they died.
Beaten half to death several tunes for attacks on guards, he had served his full
time without remission, and emerged in 1968 with only one fear in the world, the
fear of small enclosed spaces, cells and holes. He had long since vowed never to
return to one, even if staying out cost him his life, and to take half a dozen
men with him if "they" ever came for him again. Within three months of release
he had flown down to Africa by paying his own way, talked himself into a war, and
joined Shannon as a professional mercenary. Since being released from prison he
had practiced steadily with the weapon he had learned to use first as a boy in
Corsica and with which he had later made himself a reputation in the back streets
of Algiers. Round his left wrist he wore a broad leather razor strop, which was held
in place by two press-studs. In moments of idleness he would take it off, turn it
over to the side unmarked by the studs, and wrap it round his left fist. That was
where it was as he whiled away the time to Libreville. In his right hand was the
knife, the six-inch-bladed bone-handled weapon that he could use so fast it was
back in its sleeve-sheath before the victim knew he'd been cut. In steady rhythm
the blade, already razor-sharp, moved backward and forward across the tense
leather of the strop, becoming with each stroke a mite sharper. The movement
soothed his nerves. It also annoyed everybody else, but no one ever complained.
Nor did those who knew him ever quarrel with the soft voice or the sad half-smile
of the little man.
Sandwiched between Langarotti and Shannon was the oldest man in the party, a
German. Kurt Semmler was forty, and it was he who, in the early days back in the
enclave, had devised the skull-and-crossbones motif that the mercenaries and their
African trainees wore. It was also he who had cleared a five-mile sector of Federal
soldiers by marking out the front line with stakes, each bearing the head of one of
the previous day's Federal casualties. For a month after that, his was the quietest
sector of the campaign. Born in 1930, he had been brought up in Hitler's Germany,
the son of a Munich engineer who had later died on the Russian front with the Todt
Organisation.
At the age of fifteen, a fervent Hitler Youth graduate, as indeed was almost the
entire youth of the country after twelve years of Hitler, he had commanded
a small unit of children younger than himself and old men over seventy. His
mission, armed with one Panzerfaust and three bolt-action rifles, had been to stop
the columns of General George Patton's tanks. Not surprisingly, he had failed, and
spent his adolescence in Bavaria under American occupation, which he hated. He
had little time for his mother, a religious fanatic who wanted him to become a
priest. At seventeen he ran away, crossed the French frontier at Strasbourg, and
signed on in the Foreign Legion at the recruiting office sited in Strasbourg for the
purpose of picking up runaway Germans and Belgians. After a year in Sidi-bel-
Abbes, he went with the expeditionary force to Indochina. Eight years and Dien
Bien Phu later, with a lung removed by surgeons at Tourane (Danang), fortunately
unable to watch the final humiliation in Hanoi, he was flown back to France. After
recuperation he was sent to Algeria in 1958 as a top sergeant in the elite of the
elite of the French colonial army, the ler Regiment Etranger Parachutiste. He was
one of a handful who had already survived the utter destruction of the ler REP twice
in Indochina, when it was at battalion size and later at regiment size. He revered
only two men, Colonel Roger Faulques, who had been in the original Compagnie
Etrangere Parachutiste when, at company strength, it had been wiped out the first
time, and Commandant le Bras, another veteran, who now commanded the Garde
Republicaine of the Republic of Gabon and kept that uranium-rich state safe for
France. Even Colonel Marc Rodin, who had once commanded him, had lost his
respect when the OAS finally crumbled.
Semmler had been in the ler REP when it marched to a man into perdition in the
putsch of Algiers and was later disbanded permanently by Charles de Gaulle. He
had followed where his French officers had led, and later, picked up just after
Algerian independence in Marseilles in September 1962, had served two years in
prison. His four rows of campaign ribbons had saved him from worse. A civilian for
the first time in
twenty years in 1964, he had been contacted by a former cellmate with a
proposition—to join him in a smuggling operation in the Mediterranean. For three
years, apart from one spent in an Italian jail, he had run spirits, gold, and
occasionally arms from one end of the Mediterranean to the other. He had been
making a fortune on the Italy-Yugoslavia cigarette run when his partner had
double-crossed the buyers and the sellers at the same tune, pointed the finger at
Semmler, and vanished with the money. Wanted by a lot of belligerent gentlemen,
Semmler had hitched a hit by sea to Spam, ridden a series of buses to Lisbon,
contacted an arms-dealer friend, and taken passage to the African war, about which
he had read in the papers. Shannon had taken him like a shot, for with sixteen
years of combat he was more experienced than all of them in jungle warfare. He
too dozed on the flight to Libreville.
It was two hours before dawn when the DC-4 began to circle the airport. Above
the mewling of the children, another sound could be made out, the sound of a man
whistling. It was Shannon. His colleagues knew he always whistled when he was
going into action or coming out of it. They also knew from Shannon that the tune
was called "Spanish Harlem."
The DC-4 circled the airport at Libreville twice while Van Cleef talked to ground
control. As the old cargo plane rolled to a halt at the end of a runway, a military
jeep carrying two French officers swerved up in front of the nose; they beckoned
Van Cleef to follow them round the taxi track.
They led him away from the main airport buildings to a cluster of huts on the far
side of the airport, and it was here that the DC-4 was signaled to halt but keep its
engines running. Within seconds a set of steps was up against the rear of the
airplane, and from the inside the co-pilot heaved open the door. A kepi poked inside
and surveyed the ulterior, the nose beneath it wrinkling in distaste at the smell. The
French officer's eyes came to rest on the five mercenaries, and he beckoned
them to follow him down the tarmac. When they were on the ground the
officer gestured to the co-pilot to close the door, and without more ado the DC-4
moved forward again to roll around the airport to the main buildings, where a team
of French Red Cross nurses and doctors was waiting to receive the children. As the
aircraft swung past them, the five mercenaries waved their thanks to Van Cleef up
in his flight deck and turned to follow the French officer.
They had to wait an hour in one of the huts, perched uncomfortably on upright
wooden chairs, while several other young French servicemen peeked in through the
door to take a look at les affreux, the terrible ones. Finally a jeep squealed to a halt
outside and there was the smack of feet coming to attention in the corridor. When
the door opened it was to admit a tanned, hard-faced senior officer in tropical fawn
uniform and a kepi with gold braid ringing the peak. Shannon took in the keen,
darting eyes, the iron-gray hair cropped short beneath the kepi, the parachutist's
wings pinned above the five rows of campaign ribbons, and the sight of Semmler
leaping to ramrod attention, chin up, five fingers pointing straight down what had
once been the seams of his combat trousers. Shannon needed no more to tell him
who the visitor was—the legendary Le Bras.
The Indochina/Algeria veteran shook hands with each, pausing in front of
Semmler longer.
"Alors, Semmler?" he said softly, with a slow smile. "Still fighting. But not an
adjutant any more. A captain now, I see."
Semmler was embarrassed. "Oui, mon commandant —pardon, mon colonel. Just
temporary."
Le Bras nodded pensively several times. Then he addressed them all. "I will have
you quartered comfortably. No doubt you will appreciate a bath, a shave, and some
food. Apparently you have no other clothes; some will be provided. I am afraid for
the time being you will have to remain confined to your quarters. This is solely a
precaution. There are a lot of newspapermen
in town, and all forms of contact with them must be avoided. As soon as it is
feasible, we will arrange to fly you back to Europe."
He had said all he came to say. Raising his right hand to his kepi brim, he left.
An hour later, after a journey in a closed truck and entrance by the back door,
the men were in their quarters, the five bedrooms of the top floor of the Gamba
Hotel, a new construction situated only five hundred yards from the airport building
across the road, and therefore miles from the center of town. The young officer
who accompanied them told them they would have to take their meals in their
rooms and remain there until further notice. He provided them with towels, razors,
toothpaste and brushes, soap, and sponges. A tray of coffee had already arrived,
and each man sank gratefully into a deep, steaming, soap-smelling bath, the first in
more than six months.
At noon an army barber came, and a corporal with piles of slacks and shirts,
underwear and socks, pajamas and canvas shoes. They tried them on and selected
the ones they wanted, and the corporal retired with the surplus. The officer was
back at one with four waiters bearing lunch, and told them they must stay away
from the balconies. If they wanted to exercise in their confinement they would have
to do it in their rooms. He would return that evening with a selection of books and
magazines, though he could not promise English or Afrikaans.
After eating as they never had in the previous six months, since their last leave
period from the fighting, the five men rolled into bed and slept. While they snored
on unaccustomed mattresses between unbelievable sheets, Van Cleef lifted his DC-
4 off the tarmac in the dusk, flew a mile away past the windows of the Gamba
Hotel, and headed south for Caprivi and Johannesburg. His job was done.
The five mercenaries spent four weeks on the top floor of the hotel, while press
interest in them died
down and the reporters were all called back to their head offices by editors who
saw no point in keeping men in a city where there was no news to be had. One
evening, without warning, a captain on the staff of Commandant le Bras came to
see the men. He grinned broadly.
"Messieurs, I have news for you. You are flying out tonight. To Paris. You are all
booked on the Air Afrique flight at twenty-three-thirty hours."
The five men, bored to distraction by their prolonged confinement, cheered.
The flight to Paris took ten hours, with stops at Douala and Nice. Just before ten
the following day they emerged into the blustery cold of Le Bourget airport on a
mid-February morning. In the airport coffee lounge they said their good-bys.
Dupree elected to take the transit coach to Orly and buy himself a single ticket on
the next SAA flight to Johannesburg and Cape Town. Semmler opted to go too, but
first he would return to Munich for a visit. Vlaminck said he would head for the Gare
du Nord and take the first express to Brussels and connect for Ostend. Langarotti
was going to the Gare de Lyon to take the train to Marseilles.
They agreed to stay in touch and looked to Shannon. He was their leader; it
would be up to him to look for work, another contract, another war. Similarly, if any
of them heard of anything that involved a group, he would want to contact one of
the group, and Shannon was the obvious one.
"I'll stay in Paris for a while," said Shannon. "There's more chance of an interim
job here than in London."
So they exchanged addresses—poste restante addresses, or cafes where the
barman would pass on a message or keep a letter until the addressee dropped in
for a drink. And then they parted and went their separate ways.
The security surrounding their flight back from Africa had been tight, and there
were no waiting newspaperman at Le Bourget. But someone had heard of their
arrival, for he was waiting for Shannon when, after the others had left, the group's
leader came out of the terminal building.
"Shannon." The voice pronounced the name in the French way, and the tone was
not friendly. Shannon turned, and his eyes narrowed fractionally as he saw the
figure standing ten yards from him. The man was burly, with a down-turned
mustache. He wore a heavy coat against the winter cold and walked forward until
the two men faced each other at two feet. To judge by the way they surveyed each
other, there was no love lost between them.
"Roux," said Shannon.
"So, you're back," snarled the Frenchman.
"Yes. We're back."
The man called Roux sneered. "And you lost."
"We didn't have much choice," said Shannon.
"A word of advice, my friend," snapped Roux. "Go back to your own country. Do
not stay here. It would be unwise. This is my city. If there is any contract to be
found here, I will hear first news of it, I will conclude it. And I will select those who
share in it."
For answer Shannon walked to the first taxi waiting at the curb and humped his
bag into the back. Roux walked after him, his face mottling with anger.
"Listen to me, Shannon. I'm warning you—"
The Irishman turned to face him again. "No, you listen to me, Roux. I'll stay in
Paris just as long as I want. I was never impressed by you in the Congo, and I'm
not now. So get stuffed."
As the taxi moved away, Roux stared after it angrily. He was muttering to himself
as he strode toward the parking lot and his own automobile.
He switched on the engine, slipped into gear, and sat for a few moments staring
through the windscreen. "One day I'll kill that bastard," he murmured to himself.
But the thought hardly put him in a better mood.
2
Jack Mulrooney shifted his bulk on the canvas-and-frame cot beneath the
mosquito netting and watched the slow lightening of the darkness above the trees
to the east. A faint paling, enough to make out the trees towering over the clearing.
He drew on his cigarette and cursed the primeval jungle which surrounded him,
and, like all old Africa hands, asked himself once again why he ever returned to the
pestiferous continent.
If he had really tried to analyze himself, he would have admitted he could not live
anywhere else, certainly not in London or even Britain. He couldn't take the cities,
the rules and regulations, the taxes, the cold. Like all old hands, he alternately
loved and hated Africa but conceded it had got into his blood over the past quartercentury,
along with the malaria, the whisky, and the million insect stings and bites.
He had come out from England in 1945 at the age of twenty-five, after five years
as a fitter in the Royal Air Force, part of them at Takoradi, where he had assembled
crated Spitfires for onward flight to East Africa and the Middle East the long way
around. That had been his first sight of Africa, and on demobilization he had taken
his discharge pay, bidden good-by to frozen, rationed London in December 1945,
and
taken ship for West Africa. Someone had told him there were fortunes to be
made in Africa.
He had found no fortunes but after wandering the continent had got himself a
small tin concession in the Benue Plateau, eighty miles from Jos in Nigeria. Prices
had been good while the Malay emergency was on. He had worked alongside his
Tiv laborers, and at the English club where the colonial ladies gossiped away the
last days of the empire they said he had "gone native" and it was a damned bad
show. The truth , was, Mulrooney really preferred the African way of life. He liked
the bush; he liked the Africans, who did not seem to mind that he swore and roared
and cuffed them to get more work done. He also sat and took palm wine with them
and observed the tribal taboos. He did not patronize them. His tin concession ran
out in 1960, around the time of independence, and he went to work as a charge
hand for a company running a larger and more efficient concession nearby. It was
called Manson Consolidated, and when that concession also was exhausted, in
1962, he was signed on the staff.
At fifty he was still a big, powerful man, large-boned and strong as an ox. His
hands were enormous, chipped and scarred by years in the mines. He ran one of
them through his wild, crinkly gray hair and with the other stubbed out the
cigarette in the damp red earth beneath the cot. It was lighter now; soon it would
be dawn. He could hear his cook blowing on the beginnings of a fire on the other
side of the clearing.
Mulrooney called himself a mining engineer, although he had no degree in mining
or engineering. He had taken a course in both and added what no university could
ever teach — twenty-five years of hard experience. He had burrowed for gold on
the Rand and copper outside Ndola; drilled for precious water in Somaliland,
grubbed for diamonds in Sierra Leone. He could tell an unsafe mineshaft by instinct,
and the presence of an ore deposit by the smell. At least that was his claim, and
after he had drunk his habitual
twenty bottles of beer in the shanty town of an evening, no one was going to
argue with him. In reality, he was one of the last of the old prospectors. He knew
ManCon gave him the little jobs, the ones in the deep bush, the wild country that
was miles from civilization and still had to be checked out, but he liked it that way.
He preferred to work alone; it was his way of life.
The latest job had certainly fulfilled these conditions. For three months he had
been prospecting in the foothills of the range called the Crystal Mountains in the
hinterland of the republic of Zangaro, a tiny enclave on the coast of West Africa.
He had been told where to concentrate his survey, around the Crystal Mountain
itself. The chain of large hills, curved hummocks rising to two or three thousand
feet, ran in a line from one side of the republic to the other, parallel to the coast
and forty miles from it. The range divided the coastal plain from the hinterland.
There was only one gap in the chain, and through it ran the only access to the
interior, a narrow dirt road, baked like concrete in summer, a quagmire in winter.
Beyond the mountains, the natives were the Vindu, a tribe of almost Iron Age
development, except that their implements were of wood. He had been in some
wild places but vowed he had never seen anything as backward as the hinterland of
Zangaro.
Set on the farther side of the range of hills was the single mountain that gave its
name to the rest. It was not even the biggest of them. Forty years earlier a lone
missionary, penetrating the hills into the ulterior, branched to the south after
following the gap in the range and after twenty miles glimpsed a hill set aside from
the rest. It had rained the previous night, a torrential downpour, one of the many
that gave the area its annual rainfall of three hundred inches during five soaking
months. As the priest looked, he saw that the mountain seemed to be glittering in
the morning sun, and he called it the Crystal Mountain. He noted this in his diary.
Two days later he was clubbed and eaten.
The diary was found by a patrol of colonial soldiers a year later, being used as a
juju by a local village. The soldiers did their duty and wiped out the village, then
returned to the coast and handed the diary to the mission society. Thus the name
the priest had given to the mountain lived on, even if nothing else he did for an
ungrateful world was remembered. Later the same name was given to the entire
range of hills.
What the man had seen in the morning light was not crystal but a myriad of
streams caused by the water of the night's rain cascading off the mountain. Rain
was also cascading off all the other mountains, but the sight of it was hidden by the
dense jungle vegetation that covered them all, like a chunky green blanket when
seen from afar, which proved to be a steaming hell when penetrated. The one that
glittered with a thousand rivulets did so because the vegetation was substantially
thinner on the flanks of this hill. It never occurred to the missionary, or to any of
the other dozen white men who had ever seen it, to wonder why.
After three months living in the steaming hell of the jungles that surrounded
Crystal Mountain, Mul rooney knew why.
He had started by circling the entire mountain and had discovered that there was
effectively a gap between the seaward flank and the rest of the chain. This set the
Crystal Mountain eastward of the main chain, standing on its own. Because it was
lower than the highest peaks to seaward, it was invisible from the other side. Nor
was it particularly noticeable in any other way, except that it had more streams
running off it per mile of hillside than ran off the other hills, to north and south.
Mulrooney counted them all, both on the Crystal Mountain and on its
companions. There was no doubt of it. The water ran off the other mountains after
rain, but a lot of water was soaked up in the soil. The other mountains had twenty
feet of topsoil over the basic rock structure beneath, the Crystal Mountain hardly
any. He had his native workers, locally recruited
Vindu, bore a series of holes with the augur he had with him, and confirmed the
difference in depth of the topsoil in twenty places. From these he would work out
why.
Over millions of years the earth had been formed by the decomposition of the
rock and by dust carried on the wind, and although each rainfall had eroded some
of it down the slopes into the streams, and from the streams to the rivers and
thence to the shallow, silted estuary, some earth had also remained, lodged in little
crannies, left alone by the running water, which had bored its own holes in the soft
rock. And these holes had become drains, so that part of the rainfall ran off the
mountain, finding its own channels and wearing them deeper and deeper, and
some had sunk into the mountain, both having the effect of leaving part of the
topsoil intact. Thus the earth layer had built up and up, a little thicker each century
or millennium. The birds and the wind had brought seeds, which had found the
niches of earth and flourished there, their roots contributing to the process of
retaining the earth on the hill slopes. When Mulrooney saw the hills, there was
enough rich earth to sustain mighty trees and tangled vines which covered the
slopes and the summits of all the hills. All except one.
On this one the water could not burrow channels that became streams, nor could
it sink into the rock face, especially on the steepest face, which was to the east,
toward the hinterland. Here the earth had collected in pockets, and the pockets had
produced clumps of bush, grass, and fern. From niche to niche the vegetation had
reached out to itself, linking vines and tendrils in a thin screen across bare patches
of rock regularly washed clean by the falling water of the rain season. It was these
patches of glistening wet amid the green that the missionary had seen before he
died. The reason for the change was simple: the separate hill was of a different
rock from the main range, an ancient rock, hard as granite as compared to the soft,
more recent rock of the main chain of hills.
Mulrooney had completed his circuit of the mountain and established this beyond
a doubt. It took him a fortnight to do it and to establish that no less than seventy
streams ran off the Crystal Mountain. Most of them joined up into three main
streams that flowed away eastward out of the foothills into the deeper valley. He
noticed something else. Along the banks of the streams that came off this
mountain, the soil color and the vegetation were different. Some plants appeared
unaffected; others were stunted or nonexistent, although they flourished on the
other mountains and beside the other streams.
Mulrooney set about charting the seventy streams, drawing his map as he went.
He also took samples of the sand and gravel along the beds of the streams, starting
with the surface gravel, then working down to bedrock.
In each case he took two buckets full of gravel, poured them out onto a
tarpaulin, and coned and quartered. This is a process of sample-taking. He piled the
gravel into a cone, then quartered it with a shovel blade, took the two opposite
quarters of his choice, remixed them, and made another cone. Then he quartered
that one, working down till he had a cross-section of the sample weighing two to
three pounds. Then this went into a polyethylene-lined canvas bag after drying; the
bag was sealed and carefully labeled. In a month he had fifteen hundred pounds of
sand and gravel in six hundred bags from the beds of the seventy streams. Then he
started on the mountain itself.
He already believed his sacks of gravel would prove to contain, under laboratory
examination, quantities of alluvial tin, minute particles washed down from the
mountain over tens of thousands of years, showing that there was cassiterite, or tin
ore, buried in the Crystal Mountain.
He divided the mountain faces into sections, seeking to identify the birthplaces of
the streams and the rock faces that fed them in the wet season. By the end of the
week he knew there was no mother lode of tin inside
the rock, but suspected what geologists called a disseminated deposit. The
signs of mineralization were everywhere. Beneath the trailing tendrils of vegetation
he found faces of rock shot through with stringers, half-inch-wide veins like the
capillaries in a drinker's nose, of milky-white quartz, lacing yard after yard of bare
rock face.
Everything he saw about him said "tin." He went right around the mountain again
three times, and his observations confirmed the disseminated deposit, the everpresent
stringers of white in the dark gray rock. With hammer and chisel he
smashed holes deep in the rock, and the picture was still the same. Sometimes he
thought he saw dark blurs in the quartz, confirming the presence of tin.
Then he began chipping in earnest, marking his progress as he went. He took
samples of the pure white stringers of quartz, and to be on the safe side he also
took samples of the country rock, the rock between the veins. Three months after
he had entered the primeval forest east of the mountains, he was finished. He had
another fifteen hundred pounds of rock to carry back to the coast with him. The
whole ton and a half of rock and alluvial samples had been carried in portions every
three days back from his working camp to the mam camp, where he now lay
waiting for dawn, and stacked in cones under tarpaulins.
After coffee and breakfast the bearers, whose terms he had negotiated the
previous day, would come from the village and carry his trophies back to the track
that called itself a road and linked the hinterland with the coast. There, in a
roadside village, lay his two-ton truck, immobilized by the absence of the key and
distributor rotor that lay in his knapsack. It should still work, if the natives had not
hacked it to bits. He had paid the village chief enough to look after it. With his
samples aboard the truck and twenty porters walking ahead to pull the lurching
vehicle up the gradients and out of the ditches, he would be back in the capital in
three days. After a cable to London, he would have,
to wait several days for the company's chartered ship to come and take him off.
He would have preferred to turn north at the coast highway and drive the extra
hundred miles into the neighboring republic, where there was a good airport, and
freight his samples home. But the agreement between ManCon and the Zangaran
government specified that he would take them back to the capital.
Jack Mulrooney heaved himself out of his cot, swung aside the netting, and
roared at his cook, "Hey, Dinga-ling, where's my bloody coffee?"
The Vindu cook, who did not understand a word except "coffee," grinned from
beside the fire and waved happily. Mulrooney strode across the clearing toward his
canvas washbucket and began scratching as the mosquitoes descended on his
sweating torso.
"Bloody Africa," he muttered as he doused his face. But he was content that
morning. He was convinced he had found both alluvial tin and tin-bearing rock. The
only question was how much tin per rock-ton. With tin standing at about $3300 per
ton, it would be up to the analysts and mining economists to work out if the
quantity of tin per ton of rock merited establishing a mining camp with its complex
machinery and teams of workers, not to mention improved access to the coast by a
narrow-gauge railway that would have to be built from scratch. And it was certainly
a godforsaken and inaccessible place. As usual, everything would be worked out,
taken up or thrown away, on the basis of pounds, shillings, and pence. That was
the way of the world. He slapped another mosquito off his upper arm and pulled on
his T-shirt.
Six days later Jack Mulrooney leaned over the rail of a small coaster chartered by
his company and spat over the side as the coast of Zangaro slid away.
"Bloody bastards," he muttered savagely. He carried a series of livid bruises
about his chest and back, and a raw graze down one cheek, the outcome of
swinging rifle butts when the troops had raided the hotel.
It had taken him two days to bring his samples from the deep bush to the track,
and another grunting, sweating day and night to haul the truck along the pitted and
rutted earth road from the interior to the coast. In the wet he would never have
made it, and in the dry season, which had another month to run, the concrete-hard
mud ridges had nearly smashed the Mercedes to pieces. Three days earlier he had
paid and dismissed his Vindu workers and trundled the creaking truck down the last
stretch to the blacktop road which started only fourteen miles from the capital.
From there it had been an hour to the city and the hotel.
Not that "hotel" was the right word. Since independence, the town's main
hostelry had degenerated into a flophouse, but it had a parking lot, and here he
had parked and locked the truck, then sent his cable. He had only just been in time.
Six hours after he sent it, all hell broke loose, and the port, airport, and all other
communications had been closed by order of the President.
The first he had known about it was when a group of soldiers, dressed like
tramps and wielding rifles by the barrels, had burst into the hotel and started to
ransack the rooms. There was no point in asking what they wanted, for they only
screamed back in a lingo that meant nothing to him, though he thought he
recognized the Vindu dialect he had heard his workers using over the past three
months.
Being Mulrooney, he had taken two clubbings from rifle butts, then swung a fist.
The blow carried the nearest soldier halfway down the hotel corridor on his back,
and the rest of the pack had gone wild. It was only by the grace of God no shots
were fired, and also owing to the fact that the soldiers preferred to use their guns
as clubs rather than search for complicated mechanisms like triggers and safety
catches.
He had been dragged to the nearest police barracks and had been alternately
screamed at and ignored in a subterranean cell for two days. He had been lucky. A
Swiss businessman, one of the rare foreign visitors
to the republic, had witnessed his departure and feared for his life. The man had
looked through Mulrooney's belongings and contacted the Swiss embassy, one of
the only six European and North American embassies in the town, and it had
contacted ManCon.
Two days later the called-for coaster had arrived from farther up the coast, and
the Swiss consul had negotiated Mulrooney's release. No doubt a bribe had been
paid, and no doubt ManCon would foot the bill. Jack Mulrooney was still aggrieved.
On release he had found his truck broken open and his samples strewn all over the
parking lot. The rocks had all been marked and could be reassembled, but the sand,
gravel, and chippings were mixed up. Fortunately each of the split bags, about fifty
in all, had half its contents intact, so he had resealed them and taken them to the
boat. Even here the customs men, police, and soldiers had searched the boat from
stem to stern, screamed and shouted at the crew, and all without saying what they
were looking for.
The terrified official from the Swiss consulate who had taken Mulrooney back
from the barracks to bis hotel had told him there had been rumors of an attempt on
the President's life and the troops were looking for a missing senior officer who was
presumed to be responsible.
Four days after leaving the port of Clarence, Jack Mulrooney, still nursemaiding
his rock samples, arrived back at Luton, England, aboard a chartered aircraft. A
truck took his samples away for analysis at Watford, and after a checkout by the
company doctor he was allowed to start his three weeks' leave. He went to spend it
with his sister in Dulwich and within a week was thoroughly bored.
Exactly three weeks later to the day, Sir James Man-son, Knight of the British
Empire, chairman and managing director of Manson Consolidated Mining Company
Limited, leaned back in his leather armchair in the penthouse office suite on
the tenth floor of his company's London headquarters, glanced once more at the
report in front of him and breathed, "Jesus Christ."
He rose from behind the broad desk, crossed the room to the picture windows on
the south face, and gazed down at the sprawl of the City of London, the inner
square mile of the ancient capital and heart of a financial empire that was still
worldwide, despite what its detractors said. To some of the scuttling beetles in
somber gray, topped by black bowler hats, it was perhaps a place of employment
only, boring, wearisome, exacting its toll of a man, his youth, his manhood, his
middle age, until final retirement. For others, young and hopeful, it was a palace of
opportunity, where merit and hard work were rewarded with the prizes of
advancement and security. To romantics it was no doubt the home of the houses of
the great merchant-adventurers, to a pragmatist the biggest market in the world,
and to a left-wing trade unionist a place where the idle and worthless rich, born to
wealth and privilege, lolled at ease in luxury. James Manson was a cynic and a
realist. He knew what the City was; it was a jungle pure and simple, and in it he
was one of the panthers.
A born predator, he had nevertheless realized early that there were certain rules
that needed to be publicly revered and privately ripped to shreds; that, as in
politics, there was only one commandment, the eleventh, "Thou shalt not be found
out." It was by obeying the first requirement that he had acquired his knighthood in
the New Year's Honours List a month before. This had been proposed by the
Conservative Party (ostensibly for services to industry, but in reality for secret
contributions to party funds for the general election), and accepted by the Wilson
government because of his support for its policy on Nigeria. And it was by fulfilling
the second requirement that he had made his fortune and now, holding twenty-five
per cent of the
stock of his own mining corporation and occupying the penthouse floor, was a
millionaire several times over.
He was sixty-one, short, aggressive, built like a tank, with a thrusting vigor and a
piratical ruthlessness that women found attractive and competitors feared. He had
enough cunning to pretend to show respect for the establishments of both the City
and the realm, of commercial and political life, even though he was aware that both
organs were rife with men of almost complete moral unscrupulousness behind the
public image. He had collected a few on his board of directors, including two former
ministers in Conservative administrations. Neither was averse to a fat
supplementary fee over and above director's salary, payable in the Cayman Islands
or Grand Bahama—and one, to Manson's knowledge, enjoyed the private diversion
of waiting at table upon three or four leather-clad tarts, himself dressed in a maid's
cap, a pinafore, and a bright smile. Manson regarded both men as useful,
possessing the advantage of considerable influence and superb connections without
the inconvenience of integrity. The rest of the public knew both men as
distinguished public servants. So James Manson was respectable within the set of
rules of the City, a set of rules that had nothing whatever to do with the rest of
humanity.
It had not always been so, which was why inquirers into his background found
themselves up against one blank wall after another. Very little was known of his
start in life, and he knew enough to keep it that way. He would let it be known that
he was the son of a Rhodesian train-driver, brought up not far from the sprawling
copper mines of Ndola, Northern Rhodesia, now Zambia. He would even let it be
known that he had started work at the minehead as a boy and later had made his
first fortune in copper. But never how he had made it.
In fact he had quit the mines quite early, before he was twenty, and had realized
that the men who risked
their lives below ground amid roaring machinery would never make money, not
big money. That lay above ground, and not even in mine management. As a
teenager he had studied finance, the using and manipulating of money, and his
nightly studies had taught him that more was made in shares in copper in a week
than a miner made in his whole life.
He had started as a share-pusher on the Rand, had peddled a few illicit diamonds
in his time, started a few rumors that sent the punters reaching into their pockets,
and sold a few worked-out claims to the gullible. That was where the first fortune
came from. Just after the Second World War, at thirty-five, he was in London with
the right connections for a copper-hungry Britain trying to get its industries back to
work, and in 1948 had founded his own mining company. It had gone public in the
mid-fifties and in fifteen years had developed worldwide interests. He was one of
the first to see Harold Macmillan's wind of change blowing through Africa as
independence for the black republics approached, and he took the trouble to meet
and know most of the new power-hungry African politicians while most City
businessmen were still deploring independence in the former colonies.
When he met the new men, it was a good match. They could see through his
success story, and he could see through their professed concern for their fellow
blacks. They knew what he wanted, and he knew what they wanted. So he fed their
Swiss bank accounts, and they gave Manson Consolidated mining concessions at
prices below par for the course. ManCon prospered.
James Manson had also made several fortunes on the side. His latest was in the
shares of the nickel-mining company in Australia called Poseidon. When Poseidon
shares in late summer 1969 had been standing at four shillings, he had got a
whisper that a survey team in central Australia might have found something on a
stretch of land whose mining rights were owned by Poseidon. He had taken a
gamble and paid out a
very hefty sum to have a sneak preview of the first reports coming out of the
interior. Those reports said nickel, and lots of it. In fact nickel was not in shortage
on the world market, but that never deterred the punters, and it was they who sent
share prices spiraling, not investors.
He contacted his Swiss bank, an establishment so discreet that its only way of
announcing its presence in the world was a small gold plate no larger than a visiting
card, set into the wall beside a solid oak door in a small street in Zurich. Switzerland
has no stockbrokers; the banks do all the investments. Manson instructed Dr.
Martin Steinhofer, the head of the investments section of the Zwingli Bank, to buy
on his behalf five thousand Poseidon shares. The Swiss banker contacted the
prestigious London firm of Joseph Sebag & Co., in the name of Zwingli, and placed
the order. Poseidon stood at five shillings a share when the deal was concluded.
The storm broke in late September when the size of the Australian nickel deposit
became known. The shares began to rise, and, assisted by helpful rumors, the
rising spiral became a rush. Sir James Manson had intended to start to sell when
they reached £50 a share, but so vast was the rise that he held on. Finally he
estimated that the peak would be £115 and ordered Dr. Steinhofer to start selling
at £100 a share. This the discreet Swiss banker did and cleared the lot at an
average of £ 103 for each share. In fact the peak was reached at £120 a share,
before common sense began to prevail and the shares slid back to £ 10. Man-son
did not mind the extra £20, for he knew the time to sell was just before the peak,
when buyers are still plentiful. With all fees paid, he netted a cool £500,-000, which
was still stashed in the Zwingli Bank.
It happens to be illegal for a British citizen and resident to have a foreign bank
account without informing the Treasury, and also to make half a million sterling
profit in sixty days without paying capital gains tax on it. But Dr. Steinhofer was a
Swiss resident, and
Dr. Steinhofer would keep his mouth shut. That was what Swiss banks were for.
On that mid-February afternoon Sir James Manson, strolled back to his desk, sat
back in the lush leather chair behind it, and glanced again at the report that lay on
the blotter. It had arrived in a large envelope, sealed with wax and marked for his
eyes only. It was signed at the bottom by Dr. Gordon Chalmers, the head of
ManCon's Department of Study, Research, Gee-Mapping, and Sample Analysis,
situated outside London. It was the analyst's report on tests conducted on the
samples a man called Mulrooney had apparently brought back from a place called
Zangaro three weeks earlier.
Dr. Chalmers did not waste words. The summary of the report was brief and to
the point. Mulrooney had found a mountain, or a hill, some 1800 feet high above
ground level and close to 1000 yards across the base. It was set slightly apart from
a range of such mountains in the hinterland of Zangaro. The hill contained a widely
disseminated deposit of mineral in apparently evenly consistent presence
throughout the rock, which was of igneous type and millions of years older than the
sandstone and ragstone of the mountains that surrounded it.
Mulrooney had found numerous, and ubiquitous stringers of quartz and had
predicated the presence of tin. He had returned with samples of the quartz, the
country rock surrounding it, and shingle from the beds of the streams surrounding
the hill. The quartz stringers did indeed contain small quantities of tin. But it was
the country rock that was interesting. Repeated and varied tests showed that this
country rock, and the gravel samples, contained minor quantities of low-grade
nickel. They also contained remarkable quantities of platinum. It was present in all
the samples and was fairly evenly distributed. The richest rock in platinum known in
this world was in the Rustenberg mines in South Africa, where concentrations or
"grades" ran as high as Point Two Five of a Troy ounce per rock ton. The average
concentration in the Mulrooney samples was Point Eight One. I have the honour
to remain, Sir, Yours, etc . . . .
Sir James Manson knew as well as anyone in mining that platinum was the third
most precious metal in the world, and stood at a market price of $130 a Troy ounce
as he sat in his chair. He was also aware that, with the growing world hunger for
the stuff, it had to rise to at least $150 an ounce over the next three years,
probably to $200 within five years. It would be unlikely to rise to the 1968 peak
price of $300 again, because that was ridiculous.
He did some calculations on a scratch pad. Two hundred and fifty million cubic
yards of rock at two tons per cubic yard was five hundred million tons. At even half
an ounce per rock ton, that was two hundred and fifty million ounces. If the
revelation of a new world source dragged the price down to ninety dollars an
ounce, and even if the inaccessibility of the place meant a cost of fifty dollars an
ounce to get it out and refined, that still meant.. .
Sir James Manson leaned back in his chair again and whistled softly.
"Jesus Christ. A ten-billion-dollar mountain."
3
Platinum is a metal and, like all metals, it has its price. The price is basically
controlled by two factors. These are the indispensability of the metal in certain
processes that the industries of the world would like to complete, and the rarity of
the metal. Platinum is very rare. Total world production each year, apart from
stockpiled production, which is kept secret by the producers, is a shade over one
and a half million Troy ounces.
The overwhelming majority of it, probably more than ninety-five per cent, comes
from three sources: South Africa, Canada, and Russia. Russia, as usual, is the
uncooperative member of the group. The producers would like to keep the world
price fairly steady so as to be able to make long-term plans for investment in new
mining equipment and development of new mines in the confidence that the bottom
will not suddenly drop out of the market should a large quantity of stockpiled
platinum suddenly be released. The Russians, by stockpiling unknown quantities
and being able to release large quantities any time they feel like it, keep tremors
running through the market whenever they can.
Russia releases on the world each year about 350,000 Troy ounces out of the
1,500,000 that reach the same market. This gives her between 23 and 24
per cent of the market, enough to ensure her a considerable degree of influence.
Her supplies are marketed through Soyuss Prom Export. Canada puts on the market
some 200,000 ounces a year, the whole production coming from the nickel mines of
International Nickel, and just about the whole of this supply is bought up each year
by the Engelhard Industries of the United States. But should the United States need
for platinum suddenly rise sharply, Canada might well not be able to furnish the
extra quantity.
The third source is South Africa, turning out close to 950,000 ounces a year and
dominating the market. Apart from the Impala mines, which were just opening
when Sir James Manson sat considering the world position of platinum, and have
since become very important, the giants of platinum are the Rustenberg mines,
which account for well over half the world's production. These are controlled by
Johannesburg Consolidated, which had a big enough slice of the stock to be sole
manager of the mines. The world refiner and marketer of Rustenberg's supply was
and is the London-based firm of Johnson-Matthey.
James Manson knew this as well as anyone else. Although he was not into
platinum when Chalmers' report hit his desk, he knew the position as well as a brain
surgeon knows how a heart works. He also knew why, even at that time, the boss
of Engelhard Industries of America, the colorful Charlie Engelhard, better known to
the populace as the owner of the fabulous racehorse Nijinsky, was buying into
South African platinum. It was because America would need much more than
Canada could supply for the mid-seventies. Man-son was certain of it.
And the particular reason why American consumption of platinum was almost
certain to rise, even triple, by the mid- to late seventies, lay in that simple piece of
metal the car exhaust pipe and in those dire words "air pollution."
With legislation already passed in the United States projecting ever more
stringent controls, and with little
likelihood that any nonprecious-metal car exhaust-control device would be
marketed before 1980, there was a strong probability that every American car
would soon require one-tenth of an ounce of pure platinum. This meant that the
Americans would need one and a half million ounces of platinum every year, an
amount equal to the present world production, and they would not know where to
get it.
James Manson thought he had an idea where. They could always buy it from
him. And with the absolute indispensability of a platinum-based anti-pollutant
catalyst in every fume-control device established for a decade, and world demand
far outstripping supply, the price would be nice, very nice indeed.
There was only one problem. He had to be absolutely certain that he, and no one
else, would control all mining rights to the Crystal Mountain. The question was,
how?
The normal way would be to visit the republic where the mountain was situated,
seek an interview with the President, show him the survey report, and propose to
him a deal whereby ManCon secured the mining rights, the government secured a
profit-participation clause that would fill the coffers of its treasury, and the
President would secure a fat and regular payment into his Swiss account. That
would be the normal way.
But apart from the fact that any other mining company in the world, if advised of
what lay inside the Crystal Mountain, would counterbid for the same mining rights,
sending the government's share up and Man-son's down, there were three groups
who more than any other would want to take control, either to begin production or
to stop it forever. These were the South Africans, the Canadians, and most of all
the Russians. For the advent on the world market of a massive new supply source
would cut the Soviet slice of the market back to the level of the unnecessary,
removing from the Russians their power, influence, and money-making capacity in
the platinum field.
Manson had a vague recollection of having heard the name of Zangaro, but it
was such an obscure place he realized he knew nothing about it. The first
requirement was evidently to learn more. He leaned forward and depressed the
intercom switch.
"Miss Cooke, would you come in, please?"
He had called her Miss Cooke throughout the seven years she had been his
personal and private secretary, and even in the ten years before that, when she
had been an ordinary company secretary, rising from the typing pool to the tenth
floor, no one had ever suggested she might have a first name. In fact she had. It
was Marjory. But she just did not seem the sort of person one called Marjory.
Certainly men had once called her Marjory, long ago, before the war, when she
was a young girl. Perhaps they had even tried to flirt with her, pinch her bottom,
those long thirty-five years ago. But that was then. Five years of war, hauling an
ambulance through burning rubble-strewn streets, trying to forget a Guardsman
who never came back from Dunkirk, and twenty years of nursing a crippled and
whining mother, a bedridden tyrant who used tears for weapons, had taken away
the youth and the pinchable qualities of Miss Marjory Cooke. At fifty-four, she was
tailored, efficient, and severe; her work at ManCon was almost all her life, the tenth
floor her fulfillment, and the terrier who shared her neat apartment in suburban
Chigwell and slept on her bed, her child and lover.
So no one ever called her Marjory. The young executives called her a shriveled
apple, and the secretary birds "that old bat." The others, including her employer, Sir
James Manson, about whom she knew more than she would ever tell him or anyone
else, called her Miss Cooke.
She entered through the door set in the beech-paneled wall which, when closed,
looked like part of the wall.
"Miss Cooke, it has come to my attention that we
have had, during the past few months, a small survey —one man, I believe—in
the republic of Zangaro."
"Yes, Sir James. That's right."
"Oh, you know about it."
Of course she knew about it. Miss Cooke never forgot anything that had crossed
her desk.
"Yes, Sir James."
"Good. Then please find out for me who secured that government's permission
for us to conduct the survey."
"It will be on file, Sir James. I'll go and look."
She was back in ten minutes, having first checked in her daily diary appointment
books, which were cross-indexed into two indices, one under personal names and
the other under subject headings, and then confirmed with Personnel.
"It was Mr. Bryant, Sir James." She consulted a card in her hand. "Richard
Bryant, of Overseas Contracts."
"He submitted a report, I suppose?" asked Sir James.
"He must have done, under normal company procedure."
"Send me in his report, would you, Miss Cooke?"
She was gone again, and the head of ManCon stared out through the plate-glass
windows across the room from his desk at the mid-afternoon dusk settling over the
City of London. The lights were coming on in the. middle-level floors—they had
been on all day in the lowest ones—but at skyline level there was still enough
winter daylight to see by. But not to read by. Sir James Manson flicked on the
reading lamp on his desk as Miss Cooke returned, laid the report he wanted on his
blotter, and receded back into the wall.
The report Richard Bryant had submitted was dated six months earlier and was
written in the terse style favored by the company. It recorded that, according to
instructions from the head of Overseas Contracts, he had flown to Clarence, the
capital of Zangaro, and there, after a frustrating week in a hotel, had secured an
interview with the Minister of Natural Resources. There were three separate
interviews, spaced over six
days, and at length an agreement had been reached that a single representative
of ManCon might enter the republic to conduct a survey for minerals in the
hinterland beyond the Crystal Mountains. The area to be surveyed was deliberately
left vague by the company, so that the survey team could travel more or less where
it wished. After further haggling, during which it was made plain to the Minister that
he could forget any idea that the company was prepared to pay the sort of fee he
seemed to expect, and that there were no indications of mineral presence to work
on, a sum had been agreed on between Bryant and the Minister. Inevitably, the
sum on the contract was just over half the total that changed hands, the balance
being paid into the Minister's private account.
That was all. The only indication of the character of the place was in the
reference to a corrupt minister. So what? thought Sir James Manson. Nowadays
Bryant might have been in Washington. Only the going rate was different.
He leaned forward to the intercom again. "Tell Mr. Bryant of Overseas Contracts
to come up and see me, would you, Miss Cooke?"
He lifted the switch and pressed another one. "Martin, come in a minute, please."
It took Martin Thorpe two minutes to come from his office on the ninth floor. He
did not look the part of a financial whiz-kid and protege of one of the most ruthless
go-getters in a traditionally ruthless and go-getting industry. He looked more like
the captain of the Rugby team from a good public school—charming, boyish, cleancut,
with dark wavy hair and deep blue eyes. The secretaries called him dishy, and
the directors, who had seen stock options they were certain of whisked out from
under their noses or found their Companies slipping into control of a series of
nominee shareholders fronting for Martin Thorpe, called him something not quite so
nice.
Despite the looks, Thorpe had never been either a public-school man or an
athlete. He could not differentiate
between a batting average and the ambient air temperature, but he could
retain the hourly movement of share prices across the range of ManCon's subsidiary
companies in his head throughout the day. At twenty-nine he had ambitions and
the intent to carry them out. ManCon and Sir James might provide the means, so
far as he was concerned, and his loyalty depended on his exceptionally high salary,
the contracts throughout the City that his job under Manson could bring him, and
the knowledge that where he was constituted a good vantage point for spotting
what he called "the big one."
By the time he entered, Sir James had slipped the Zangaro report into a drawer,
and the Bryant report alone lay on his blotter. He gave his protege a friendly smile.
"Martin, I've got a job I need done with some discretion. I need it done in a
hurry, and it may take half the night."
It was not Sir James's way to ask if Thorpe had any engagements that evening.
Thorpe knew that; it went with the salary.
"That's okay, Sir James. I had nothing on that a phone call can't kill."
"Good. Look, I've been going over some old reports and came across this one.
Six months ago one of our men from Overseas Contracts was sent out to a place
called Zangaro. I don't know why, but I'd like to. The man secured that
government's go-ahead for a small team from here to conduct a survey for any
possible mineral deposits in unchartered land beyond the mountain range called the
Crystal Mountains. Now, what I want to know is this: Was it ever mentioned in
advance or at the time, or since that visit six months ago, to the board?"
"To the board?"
"That's right. Was it ever mentioned to the board of directors that we were doing
any such survey? That's what I want to know. It may not necessarily be on the
agenda. You'll have to look at the minutes. And in case
it got a passing mention under 'any other business,' check through the
documents of all board meetings over the past twelve months. Secondly, find out
who authorized the visit by Bryant six months ago and why, and who sent the
survey engineer down there and why. The man who did the survey is called
Mulrooney. I also want to know something about him, which you can get from his
file in Personnel. Got it?"
Thorpe was surprised. This was way out of his line of country.
"Yes, Sir James, but Miss Cooke could do that in half the time, or get somebody
to do it—"
"Yes, she could. But I want you to do it. If you look at a file from Personnel, or
boardroom documents, it will be assumed it has something to do with finance.
Therefore it will remain discreet."
The light began to dawn on Martin Thorpe. "You mean . . . they found something
down there, Sir James?"
Manson stared out at the now inky sky and the blazing lights below him as the
brokers and traders, clerks and merchants, bankers and assessors, insurers and
jobbers, buyers and sellers, lawyers and, in some offices no doubt, lawbreakers,
worked on through the winter afternoon toward the witching hour of five-thirty.
"Never mind," he said gruffly to the young man behind him. "Just do it."
Martin Thorpe was grinning as he slipped through the back entrance of the office
and down the stairs to his own premises. "Cunning bastard," he said to himself on
the stairs.
"Mr. Bryant is here, Sir James."
Manson crossed the room and switched on the main lights. Returning to his desk,
he depressed the intercom button. "Send him in, Miss Cooke."
There were three reasons why middle-level executives had occasion to be
summoned to the sanctum on the tenth floor. One was to hear instructions or
deliver a report that Sir James wanted to issue or hear
personally, which was business. One was to be chewed into a sweat-soaked rag,
which was hell. The third was that the chief executive had decided he wanted to
play favorite uncle to his cherished employees, which was reassuring.
On the threshold Richard Bryant, at thirty-nine a middle-level executive who did
his work competently and well but needed his job, was plainly aware that the first
reason of the three could not be the one that brought him here. He suspected the
second and was immensely relieved to see it had to be the third.
From the center of the office Sir James walked toward him with a smile of
welcome. "Ah, come in, Bryant. Come in."
As Bryant entered, Miss Cooke closed the door behind him and retired to her
desk.
Sir James Manson gestured to his employee to take one of the easy chairs set
well away from the desk in the conference area of the spacious office. Bryant, still
wondering what it was all about, took the indicated chair and sank into its brushed
suede cushions. Manson advanced toward the wall and opened two doors, revealing
a well-stocked bar cabinet.
"Take a drink, Bryant? Sun's well down, I think."
"Thank you, sir—er—scotch, please."
"Good man. My own favorite poison. I'll join you."
Bryant glanced at his watch. It was quarter to five, and the tropical maxim about
taking a drink after the sun has gone down was hardly coined for London winter
afternoons. But he recalled an office party at which Sir James had snorted his
derision of sherry-drinkers and the like and spent the evening on scotch. It pays to
watch things like that, Bryant reflected, as his chief poured his special Glenlivet into
two fine old crystal glasses. Of course he left the ice bucket strictly alone.
"Water? Dash of soda?" he called from the bar.
Bryant craned around and spotted the bottle. "Is that a single malt, Sir James?
No, thank you, straight as it comes."
Manson nodded several times in approval and brought the glasses over. They
"Cheers"ed each other and savored the whisky. Bryant was still waiting for the
conversation to start. Manson noted this and gave him the gruff-uncle look.
"No need to worry about me having you up here like this," he began. "I was just
going through a sheaf of old reports in my desk drawers and came across yours, or
one of them. Must have read it at the time and forgotten to give it back to Miss
Cooke for filing."
"My report?" queried Bryant.
"Eh? Yes, yes, the one you filed after your return from that place — what's it
called again? Zangaro? Was that it?"
"Oh, yes, sir. Zangaro. That was six months ago."
"Yes, quite so. Six months, of course. Noticed as I reread it that you'd had a bit
of a rough time with that Minister fellow."
Bryant began to relax. The room was warm, the chair extremely comfortable, and
the whisky like an old friend. He smiled at the memory. "But I got the contract for
survey permission."
"Damn right you did," congratulated Sir James. He smiled as if at fond memories.
"I used to do that in. the old days, y'know. Went on some rough missions to bring
home the bacon. Never went to West Africa, though. Not in those days. Went later,
of course. But after all this started."
To indicate "all this" he waved his hand at the luxurious office.
"So nowadays I spend too much time up here, buried in paperwork," Sir James
continued. "I even envy you younger chaps going off to clinch deals in the old way.
So tell me about your Zangaro trip."
"Well, that really was doing things the old way, One look, and I half expected to
find people running around with bones through their noses," said Bryant.
"Really? Good Lord. Rough place is it, this Zangaro?" Sir James Manson's head
had tilted back into the shadows, and Bryant was sufficiently comfortable
not to catch the gleam of concentration in the eye that belied the encouraging
tone of voice.
"Too right, Sir James. It's a bloody shambles of a place, moving steadily
backward into the Middle Ages since independence five years ago." He recalled
something else he had heard his chief say once in an aside remark to a group of
executives. "It's a classic example of the concept that most of the African republics
today have thrown up power groups whose performance in power simply cannot
justify their entitlement to leadership of a town dump. As a result, of course, it's the
ordinary people who suffer."
Sir James, who was as capable as the next man of recognizing his own words
when he heard them played back at him, smiled quietly, rose, and walked to the
window to look down at the teeming streets below.
"So who does run the show out there?" he asked quietly.
"The President. Or rather the dicator," said Bryant from his chair. His glass was
empty. "A man called Jean Kimba. He won the first and only election, just before
independence five years ago, against the wishes of the colonial power—some said
by the use of terrorism and voodoo on the voters. They're pretty backward, you
know. Most of them didn't know what a vote was. Now they don't need to know."
"Tough guy, is he, this Kimba?" asked Sir James.
"It's not that he's tough, sir. He's just downright mad. A raving megalomaniac,
and probably a paranoid to boot. He rules completely alone, surrounded by a small
coterie of political yes-men. If they fall out with him, or arouse his suspicions in any
way, they go into the cells of the old colonial police barracks. Rumor has it Kimba
goes down there himself to supervise the torture sessions. No one has ever come
out alive."
"Hm, what a world we live in, Bryant. And they've got the same vote in the UN
General Assembly as Britain or America. Whose advice does he listen to in
government?"
"No one of his own people. Of course, he has his
voices—so the few local whites say, those who've stuck it out by staying on."
"Voices?" queried Sir James.
"Yes, sir. He claims to the people he is guided by divine voices. He says he talks
to God. He's told the people and the assembled diplomatic corps that in so many
words."
"Oh dear, not another," mused Manson, still gazing down at the streets below. "I
sometimes think it was a mistake to introduce the Africans to God. Half their leaders
now seem to be on first-name terms with Him."
"Apart from that, he rules by a sort of mesmeric fear. The people think he has a
powerful juju, or voodoo, or magic or whatever. He holds them in the most abject
terror."
"What about the foreign embassies?" queried the man by the window.
"Well, sir, they keep themselves to themselves. It seems they are just as terrified
of the excesses of this maniac as the natives. He's a bit like a cross between Sheikh
Abeid Karume in Zanzibar, Papa Doc Duvalier in Haiti, and Sékou Touré in Guinea."
Sir James turned smoothly from the window and asked with deceptive softness,
"Why Sekou Touré?"
"Well, Kimba's next best thing to a Communist, Sir James. The man he really
worshiped all his political life was Lumumba. That's why the Russians are so strong.
They have an enormous embassy, for the size of the place. To earn foreign
currency, now that the plantations have all failed through maladministration,
Zangaro sells most of its produce to the Russian trawlers that call. Of course the
trawlers are electronic spy ships or supply ships for submarines. Again, the money
they get from the sale doesn't go to the people; it goes into Kimba's bank account."
"It doesn't sound like Marxism to me," joked Man-son.
Bryant grinned widely. "Money and bribes are where the Marxism stops," he
replied. "As usual."
"But the Russians are strong, are they? Influential? Another whisky, Bryant?"
While Bryant replied, the head of ManCon poured two more glasses of Glenlivet.
"Yes, Sir James. Kimba has virtually no understanding of matters outside his
immediate experience, which has been exclusively inside his own country and
maybe a couple of visits to other African states nearby. So he sometimes consults
on matters when dealing with outside concerns. Then he uses any one of three
advisers, black ones, who come from his own tribe. Two Moscow-trained, and one
Peking-trained. Or he contacts the Russians direct. I spoke to a trader in the bar of
the hotel one night, a Frenchman. He said the Russian ambassador or one of his
counselors was at the palace almost every day."
Bryant stayed for another ten minutes, but Manson had learned most of what he
needed to know. At five-twenty he ushered Bryant out as smoothly as he had
welcomed him. As the younger man left, Manson beckoned Miss Cooke in.
"We employ an engineer in mineral exploration work called Jack Mulrooney," he
said. "He returned from a three-month sortie into Africa, living in rough bush
conditions, three months ago, so he may be on leave still. Try and get him at home.
I'd like to see him at ten tomorrow morning. Secondly, Dr. Gordon Chalmers, the
chief survey analyst. You may catch him at Watford before he leaves the laboratory.
If not, reach him at home. I'd like him here at twelve tomorrow. Cancel any other
morning appointments and leave me time to take Chalmers out for a spot of lunch.
And you'd better book me a table at Wilton's in Bury Street. That's all, thank you.
I'll be on my way in a few minutes. Have the car round at the front in ten minutes."
When Miss Cooke withdrew, Manson pressed one of the switches on his intercom
and murmured, "Come up for a minute, would you, Simon?"
Simon Endean was as deceptive as Martin Thorpe
but in a different way. He came from an impeccable background and, behind the
veneer, had the morals of an East End thug. Going with the polish and the ruth
lessness was a certain cleverness. He needed a James Manson to serve, just as
James Manson, sooner or later on his way to the top or his struggle to stay there in
big-time capitalism, needed the services of a Simon Endean.
Endean was the sort to be found by the score in the very smartest and smoothest
of London's West End gambling clubs—beautifully spoken hatchet men who never
leave a millionaire unbowed to or a showgirl unbruised. The difference was that
Endean's intelligence had brought him to an executive position as aide to the chief
of a very superior gambling club.
Unlike Thorpe, he had no ambitions to become a multimillionaire. He thought one
million would do, and until then the shadow of Manson would suffice. It paid for the
six-room pad, the Corvette, the girls.
He too came from the floor below and entered from the interior stairwell through
the beech-paneled door across the office from the one Miss Cooke came and left
by. "Sir James?"
"Simon, tomorrow I'm having lunch with a fellow called Gordon Chalmers. One of
the back-room boys. The chief scientist and head of the laboratory out at Watford.
He'll be here at twelve. Before then I want a rundown on him. The Personnel file, of
course, but anything else you can find. The private man, what his home life is like,
any failings; above all, if he has any pressing need for money over and above his
salary. His politics, if any. Most of these scientific people are Left. Not all, though.
You might have a chat with Errington in Personnel tonight before he leaves. Go
through the file tonight and leave it for me to look at in the morning. Sharp
tomorrow, start on his home environment. Phone me not later than eleven-fortyfive.
Got it? I know it's a short-notice job, but it could be important."
Endean took in the instructions without moving a
muscle, filing the lot. He knew the score; Sir James Manson often needed
information, for he never faced any man, friend or foe, without a personal rundown
on the man, including the private life. Several times he had beaten opponents into
submission by being better prepared. Endean nodded and left, making his way
straight to Personnel.
As the chauffeur-driven Rolls-Royce slid away from the front of ManCon House,
taking its occupant back to his third-floor apartment in Arlington House behind the
Ritz, a long, hot bath, and a dinner sent up from the Caprice, Sir James Manson
leaned back and lit his first cigar of the evening. The chauffeur handed him a late
Evening Standard, and they were abreast of Charing Cross Station when a small
paragraph in the "Stop Press" caught his eye. It was in among the racing results.
He glanced back at it, then read it several times. He stared out at the swirling traffic
and huddled pedestrians shuffling toward the station or plodding to the buses
through the February drizzle, bound for their homes in Edenbridge and Sevenoaks
after another exciting day in the City.
As he stared, a small germ of an idea began to form in his mind. Another man
would have laughed and dismissed it out of hand. Sir James Manson was not
another man. He was a twentieth-century pirate and proud of it. The nine-pointtype
headline above the obscure paragraph in the evening paper referred to an
African republic. It was not Zangaro, but another one. He had hardly heard of the
other one either. It had no known mineral wealth. The headline said:
NEW COUP D'ETAT IN AFRICAN STATE
4
Martin Thorpe was waiting in his chief's outer office when Sir James arrived at
five past nine, and followed him straight in.
"What have you got?" demanded Sir James Manson, even while he was taking off
his vicuña topcoat and hanging it in the closet. Thorpe flicked open a notebook he
had pulled from his pocket and recited the result of his investigations of the night
before.
"One year ago we had a survey team in the republic lying to the north and east
of Zangaro. It was accompanied by an aerial reconnaissance unit hired from a
French firm. The area to be surveyed was close to, and partly on the border with,
Zangaro. Unfortunately there are few topographical maps of that area, and no
aerial maps at all. Without Decca or any other form of beacon to give him crossbearings,
the pilot used speed and time of flight to assess the ground he had
covered.
"One day when there was a following wind stronger than forecast, he flew
several times up and down the entire strip to be covered by aerial survey, to his
own satisfaction, and returned to base. What he did not know was that on each
downwind leg he had flown over the border and forty miles into Zangaro. When
the aerial film was developed, it showed that he had overshot the survey area by
a large margin."
"Who first realized it? The French company?" asked Manson.
"No, sir. They developed the film and passed it to us without comment, as per
our contract with them. It was up to the men in our own aerial-survey department
to identify the areas on the ground represented by the pictures they had. Then they
realized that at the end of each run was a stretch of territory not in the survey area.
So they discarded the pictures, or at any rate put them on one side. They had
realized that in one section of pictures a range of hills was featured that could not
be in our survey area because there were no hills in that part of the area.
"Then one bright spark had a second look at the surplus photographs and noticed
a part of the hilly area, slightly to the east of the main range, had a variation in the
density and type of the plant life. The sort of thing you can't see down on the
ground, but an aerial picture from three miles up will show it up like a beermat on a
billiard table."
"I know how it's done," growled Sir James. "Go on."
"Sorry, sir, I didn't know this. It was new to me. So, anyway, half a dozen photos
were passed to someone in the Photo-Geology section, and he confirmed from a
blow-up that the plant life was different over quite a small area involving a small hill
about eighteen hundred feet high and roughly conical in shape. Both sections
prepared a report, and that went to the head of Topographic section. He identified
the range as the Crystal Mountains and the hill as probably the original Crystal
Mountain. He sent the file to Overseas Contracts, and Willoughby, the head of O.C.,
sent Bryant down there to get permission to survey."
"He didn't tell me," said Manson, now seated behind his desk.
"He sent a memo, Sir James. I have it here. You were in Canada at the time and
were not due back for a
month. He makes plain he felt the survey of that area was only an off-chance,
but since a free aerial survey had been presented to us, and since Photo-Geology
felt there had to be some reason for the different vegetation, the expense could be
justified. Willoughby also suggested it might serve to give his man Bryant a bit of
experience to go it alone for the first time. Up till then he had always accompanied
Willoughby."
"Is that it?"
"Almost. Bryant got visa-ed up and went in six months ago. He got permission
and arrived back after three weeks. Four months ago Ground Survey agreed to
detach an unqualified prospector-cum-surveyor called Jack Mulrooney from the
diggings in Ghana and send him to look over the Crystal Mountains, provided that
the cost would be kept low. It was. He got back three weeks ago with a ton and a
half of samples, which have been at the Watford laboratory ever since."
"Fair enough," said Sir James Manson after a pause. "Now, did the board ever
hear about all this?"
"No, sir." Thorpe was adamant. "It would have been considered much too small.
I've been through every board meeting for twelve months, and every document
presented, including every memo and letter sent to the board members over the
same period. Not a mention of it. The budget for the whole thing would simply have
been lost in the petty cash anyway. And it didn't originate with Projects, because
the aerial photos were a gift from the French firm and their ropy old navigator. It
was just an ad hoc affair throughout and never reached board level."
James Manson nodded in evident satisfaction. "Right Now, Mulrooney. How bright
is he?"
For answer, Thorpe tended Jack Mulrooney's file from Personnel. "No
qualifications, but a lot of practical experience, sir. An old sweat. A good African
hand."
Manson flicked through the file on Jack Mulrooney, scanned the biography notes
and the career sheet since the man had joined the company. "He's experienced all
right," he grunted. "Don't underestimate the old
Africa hands. I started out in the Rand, on a mining camp. Mulrooney just stayed
at that level. But never condescend; such people are very useful. And they can be
perceptive."
He dismissed Martin Thorpe and muttered to himself, "Now let's see how
perceptive Mr. Mulrooney can be."
He depressed the intercom switch and spoke to Miss Cooke. "Is Mr. Mulrooney
there yet, Miss Cooke?"
"Yes, Sir James, he's here waiting."
"Show him in, please."
Manson was halfway to the door when his employee was ushered in. He greeted
him warmly and led him to the chairs where he had sat with Bryant the previous
evening. Before she left, Miss Cooke was asked to produce coffee for them both.
Mulrooney's coffee habit was in his file.
Jack Mulrooney in the penthouse suite of a London office building looked as out
of place as Thorpe would have in the dense bush. His hands hung way out of his
coat sleeves, and he did not seem to know where to put them. His gray hair was
plastered down with water, and he had cut himself shaving. It was the first time he
had ever met the man he called the gaffer. Sir James used all his efforts to put him
at ease.
When Miss Cooke entered with a tray of porcelain cups, matching coffee pot,
cream jug and sugar bowl, and an array of Fortnum and Mason biscuits, she heard
her employer telling the Irishman, ". . . that's just the point, man. You've got what I
or anyone else can't teach these boys fresh out of college, twenty-five years' hardwon
experience getting the bloody stuff out of the ground and into the skips."
It is always nice to be appreciated, and Jack Mulrooney was no exception. He
beamed and nodded. When Miss Cooke had gone, Sir James Manson gestured at
the cups.
"Look at these poofy things. Used to drink out of a good mug. Now they give me
thimbles. I remember back on the Rand in the late thirties, and that would be
before your tune, even ..."
Mulrooney stayed for an hour. When he left he felt the gaffer was a damn good
man despite all they said about him. Sir James Manson thought Mulrooney was a
damn good man—at his job, at any rate, and that was and would always be
chipping bits of rock off hills and asking no questions.
Just before he left, Mulrooney had reiterated his view. "There's tin down there,
Sir James. Stake my life on it. The only thing is, whether it can be got out at an
economical figure."
Sir James had slapped him on the shoulder. "Don't you worry about that. We'll
know as soon as the report comes through from Watford. And don't worry, if there's
an ounce of it that I can get to the coast below market value, we'll have the stuff.
Now how about you? What's your next adventure?"
"I don't know, sir. I have three more days' leave yet; then I report back to the
office."
"Like to go abroad again?" said Sir James expansively.
"Yes, sir. Frankly, I can't take this city and the weather and all."
"Back to the sun, eh? You like the wild places, I hear."
"Yes, I do. You can be your own man out there."
"You can indeed." Manson smiled. "You can indeed. I almost envy you. No,
dammit, I do envy you. Anyway, we'll see what we can do."
Two minutes later Jack Mulrooney was gone. Man-son ordered Miss Cooke to
send his file back to Personnel, rang Accounts and instructed them to send
Mulrooney a £ 1000 merit bonus and make sure he got it before the following
Monday, and rang the head of Ground Survey.
"What surveys have you got pending in the next few days or just started?" he
asked without preamble.
There were three, one of them in a remote stretch of the extreme north of
Kenya, close to the Somaliland border, where the midday sun fries the brain like an
egg in a pan, the nights freeze the bone marrow like
Blackpool rock, and the shifta bandits prowl. It would be a long job, close to a
year. The head of Ground Survey had nearly had two resignations trying to get a
man to go there for so long.
"Send Mulrooney," said Sir James and hung up.
He glanced at the clock. It was eleven. He picked up the Personnel report on Dr.
Gordon Chalmers, which Endean had left on his desk the previous evening.
Chalmers was a graduate with honors from the London School of Mining, which is
probably the best of its kind in the world, even if Witwatersrand liked to dispute
that claim. He had taken his degree in geology and later chemistry and gone on to
a doctorate in his mid-twenties. After five years of fellowship work at the college he
had joined Rio Tinto Zinc in its scientific section, and six years earlier ManCon had
evidently stolen him from RTZ for a better salary. For the last four years he had
been head of the company's Scientific Department situated on the outskirts of
Watford in Hertfordshire, one of the counties abutting London to the north. The ID
photograph in the file showed a man in his late thirties glowering at the camera
over a bushy ginger beard. He wore a tweed jacket and a purple shut. The tie was
of knitted wool and askew.
At eleven-thirty-five the private phone rang and Sir James Manson heard the
regular pips of a public coin box at the other end of the line. A coin clunked into the
slot, and Endean's voice came on the line. He spoke concisely for two minutes from
Watford station. When he had finished, Manson grunted his approval.
"That's useful to know," he said. "Now get back to London, There's another job I
want you to do. I want a complete rundown on the republic of Zangaro. I want the
lot. Yes, Zangaro." He spelled it out.
"Start back in the days when it was discovered, and work forward. I want the
history, geography, lie of the land, economy, crops, mineralogy if any, politics, and
state of development. Concentrate on the ten years prior to independence, and
especially the period since. I want to know everything there is to know about
the President, his cabinet, parliament if any, administration, executive, judiciary,
and political parties. There are three things that are more important than all else.
One is the question of Russian or Chinese involvement and influence, or local
Communist influence, on the President. The second is that no one remotely
connected with the place is to know any questions are being asked, so don't go
there yourself. And thirdly, under no circumstances are you to announce you come
from ManCon. So use a different name. Got it? Good. Well, report back as soon as
you can, and not later than twenty days. Draw cash from Accounts on my signature
alone, and be discreet. For the record, consider yourself on leave; I'll let you make
it up later."
Manson hung up and called down to Thorpe to give further instructions. Within
three minutes Thorpe came up to the tenth floor and laid the piece of paper his
chief wanted on the desk. It was the carbon copy of a letter.
Ten floors down, Dr. Gordon Chalmers stepped out of his taxi at the corner of
Moorgate and paid it off. He felt uncomfortable in a dark suit and topcoat, but
Peggy had told him they were necessary for an interview and lunch with the
Chairman of the Board.
As he walked the last few yards toward the steps and doorway of ManCon House,
his eye caught a poster fronting the kiosk of a seller of the Evening News and
Evening Standard: THALIDOMIDE PARENTS URGE SETTLEMENT. He curled his lip in
a bitter sneer, but he bought both papers.
The stories backed up the headline in greater detail, though they were not long.
They recorded that after another marathon round of talks between representatives
of the parents of the four-hundred-odd children in Britain who had been born
deformed because of the tha lidomide drug ten years earlier, and the company that
had marketed the drug, a further impasse had been reached. So talks would be
resumed "at a later date."
Gordon Chalmers' thoughts went back to the house
outside Watford that he had left earlier that same morning, to Peggy, his wife,
just turned thirty and looking forty, and to Margaret, legless, one-armed Margaret,
coming up to nine years, who needed a special pair of legs and a specially built
house, which they now lived in at long last, the mortgage on which was costing him
a fortune.
"At a later date," he snapped to no one in particular and stuffed the newspapers
into a trash basket. He seldom read the evening papers anyway. He preferred the
Guardian, Private Eye, and the left-wing Tribune. After nearly ten years of watching
a group of almost unmoneyed parents try to face down the giant distillers for their
compensation, Gordon Chalmers harbored bitter thoughts about big-time capitalists.
Ten minutes later he was facing one of the biggest.
Sir James Manson could not put Chalmers off his guard as he had Bryant and
Mulrooney. The scientist clutched his glass of beer firmly and stared right back.
Manson grasped the situation quickly and, when Miss Cooke had handed him his
whisky and retired, he came to the point.
"I suppose you can guess what I asked you to come and see me about, Dr.
Chalmers."
"I can guess, Sir James. The report on Crystal Mountain."
"That's it. Incidentally, you were quite right to send it to me personally in a
sealed envelope. Quite right."
Chalmers shrugged. He had done it because he realized that all important
analysis results had to go direct to the Chairman, according to company policy. It
was routine, as soon as he had realized what the samples contained.
"Let me ask you two things, and I need specific answers," said Sir James. "Are
you absolutely certain of these results? There could be no other possible
explanation of the tests of the samples?"
Chalmers was neither shocked nor affronted. He knew the work of scientists was
seldom accepted by laymen as being far removed from black magic, and that they
therefore considered it imprecise. He had long since ceased trying to explain the
precision of his craft.
"Absolutely certain. For one thing, there are a variety of tests to establish the
presence of platinum, and these samples passed them all with unvarying regularity.
For another, I not only did all the known tests on every one of the samples, I did
the whole thing twice. Theoretically it is possible someone could have interfered
with the alluvial samples, but not with the internal structures of the rocks
themselves. The summary of my report is accurate beyond scientific dispute."
Sir James Manson listened to the lecture with head-bowed respect, and nodded
in admiration. "And the second thing is, how many other people in your laboratory
know of the results of the analysis of the Crystal Mountain samples?"
"No one," said Chalmers with finality.
"No one?" echoed Manson. "Come now, surely one of your assistants ..."
Chalmers downed a swig of his beer and shook his head. "Sir James, when the
samples came in they were crated as usual and put in store. Mulrooney's
accompanying report predicated the presence of tin in unknown quantities. As it
was a very minor survey, I put a junior assistant onto it. Being inexperienced, he
assumed tin or nothing and did the appropriate tests. When they failed to show up
positive, he called me over and pointed this out: I offered to show him how, and
again the tests were negative. So I gave him a lecture on not being mesmerized by
the prospector's opinion and showed him some more tests. These too were
negative. The laboratory closed for the night, but I stayed on late, so I was alone in
the place when the first tests came up positive. By midnight I knew the shingle
sample from the stream bed, of which I was using less than half a pound, contained
small quantities of platinum. After that I locked up for the night.
"The next day I took the junior off that assignment
and put him on another. Then I went on with it myself. There were six hundred
bags of shingle and gravel, and fifteen hundred pounds' weight of rocks—over three
hundred separate rocks taken from different places on the mountain. From
Mulrooney's photographs I could picture the mountain. The disseminated deposit is
present in all parts of the formation. As I said in my report." With a touch of
defiance he drained his beer.
Sir James Manson continued nodding, staring at the scientist with well-feigned
awe.
"It's incredible," he said at length. "I know you scientists like to remain detached,
impartial, but I think even you must have become excited. This could form a whole
new world source of platinum. You know how often that happens with a rare metal?
Once in a decade, maybe once in a lifetime."
In fact Chalmers had been excited by his discovery and had worked late into the
night for three weeks to cover every single bag and rock from the Crystal Mountain,
but he would not admit it. Instead he shrugged and said, "Well, it'll certainly be
very profitable for ManCon."
"Not necessarily," said James Manson quietly. This was the first time he shook
Chalmers.
"Not?" queried the analyst. "But surely it's a fortune?"
"A fortune in the ground, yes," replied Sir James, rising and walking to the
window. "But it depends very much who gets it, if anyone at all. You see, there is a
danger it could be kept unmined for years, or mined and stockpiled. Let me put you
in the picture, my dear Doctor. .."
He put Dr. Chalmers in the picture for thirty minutes, talking finance and politics,
neither of which was the analyst's forte.
"So there you are," he finished. "The chances are it will be handed on a plate to
the Russian government if we announce it immediately."
Dr. Chalmers, who had nothing in particular against the Russian government,
shrugged slightly. "I can't change the facts, Sir James."
Manson's eyebrows shot up in horror. "Good gracious, Doctor, of course you
can't." He glanced at his watch in surprise. "Close to one," he exclaimed. "You must
be hungry. I know I am. Let's go and have a spot of lunch."
He had thought of taking the Rolls, but after En-dean's phone call from Watford
that morning and the information from the local news agent about the regular
subscription to the Tribune, he opted for an ordinary taxi.
A spot of lunch proved to be paté, truffled omelet, jugged hare in red-wine
sauce, and trifle. As Manson had suspected, Chalmers disapproved of such
indulgence but at the same time had a healthy appetite. And even he could not
reverse the simple laws of nature, which are that a good meal produces a sense of
repletion, contentment, euphoria, and a lowering of moral resistance. Manson had
also counted on a beer-drinker's being unused to the fuller red wines, and two
bottles of Cote du Rhone had encouraged Chalmers to talk about the subjects that
interested him: his work, his family, and his views on the world.
It was when he touched on his family and their new house that Sir James
Manson, looking suitably sorrowful, mentioned that he recalled having seen
Chalmers in a television interview in the street a year back.
"Do forgive me," he said, "I hadn't realized before—• I mean, about your little
girl. What a tragedy."
Chalmers nodded and gazed at the tablecloth. Slowly at first, and then with more
confidence, he began to tell his superior about Margaret.
"You wouldn't understand," he said at one point.
"I can try," replied Sir James quietly. "I have a daughter myself, you know. Of
course, she's older."
Ten minutes later there was a pause in the talking. Sir James Manson drew a
folded piece of paper from his inside pocket. "I don't really know how to put this,"
he
said with some embarrassment, "but—well, I am as aware as any man how much
time and trouble you put in for the company. I am aware you work long hours, and
the strain of this personal matter must have its effect on you, and no doubt on Mrs.
Chalmers. So I issued this instruction to my personal bank this morning."
He passed the carbon copy of the letter across to Chalmers, who read it. It was
brief and to the point. It instructed the manager of Coutts Bank to remit by
registered mail each month on the first day fifteen banknotes, each of value £10, to
Dr. Gordon Chalmers at his home address. The remittances were to run for ten
years unless further instructions were received.
Chalmers looked up. His employer's face was all concern, tinged with
embarrassment.
"Thank you," said Chalmers softly.
Sir James's hand rested on his forearm and shook it. "Now come on, that's
enough of this matter. Have a brandy."
In the taxi on the way back to the office, Manson suggested he drop Chalmers off
at the station where he could take his train for Watford.
"I have to get back to the office and get on with this Zangaro business and your
report," he said.
Chalmers was staring out of the cab window at the traffic moving out of London
that Friday afternoon. "What are you going to do about it?" he asked.
"Don't know, really. Of course, I'd like not to send it. Pity to see all that going
into foreign hands, which is what must happen when your report gets to Zangaro.
But I've got to send them something, sooner or later."
There was another long pause as the taxi swung into the station forecourt.
"Is there anything I can do?" asked the scientist.
Sir James Manson breathed a long sigh. "Yes," he said in measured tones. "Junk
the Mulrooney samples in the same way as you would junk any other rocks and
bags of sand. Destroy your analysis notes completely. Take your copy of the report
and make an exact copy, with one difference—let it show the tests prove conclusively
that there exist marginal quantities of low-grade tin which could not be
economically mined. Burn your own copy of the original report. And then never
mention a word of it."
The taxi came to a halt, and as neither of his passengers moved, the cabbie
poked his nose through the screen into the rear compartment. "This is it, guv."
"You have my solemn word," murmured Sir James Manson. "Sooner or later the
political situation may well change, and when that happens, ManCon will put in a
tender for the mining concession exactly as usual and in accordance with normal
business procedures."
Dr. Chalmers climbed out of the taxi and looked back at his employer in the
corner seat. "I'm not sure I can do that, sir," he said. "I'll have to think it over."
Manson nodded. "Of course you will. I know it's asking a lot. Look, why don't you
talk it over with your wife? I'm sure she'll understand."
Then he pulled the door to and told the cabbie to take him to the City.
Sir James dined with an official of the Foreign Office that evening and took him to
his club. It was not one of the very uppercrust clubs of London, for Manson had no
intention of putting up for one of the bastions of the old Establishment and finding
himself blackballed. Besides, he had no time for social climbing and little patience
with the posturing idiots one found at the top when one got there. He left the social
side of things to his wife. The knighthood was useful, but that was an end to it.
He despised Adrian Goole, whom he reckoned for a pedantic fool. That was why
he had invited him to dinner. That, and the fact that the man was in the Economic
Intelligence section of the FO.
Years ago, when his company's activities in Ghana and Nigeria had reached a
certain level, he had accepted a place on the inner circle of the City's West Africa
Committee. This organ was and still is a sort of trade union of all major firms based
in London and carrying
on operations in West Africa. Concerned far more with trade, and therefore
money, than, for example, the East Africa Committee, the WAC periodically
reviewed events of both commercial and political interest in West Africa—and
usually the two were bound to become connected in the long term—and tendered
advice to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office on what would in its view
constitute an advisable policy for British interests.
Sir James Manson would not have put it that way. He would have said the WAC
was in existence to suggest to the government what to do in that part of the world
to improve profits. He would have been right, too. He had been on the committee
during the Nigerian civil war and heard the various representatives of banks, mines,
oil, and trade advocate a quick end to the war, which seemed to be synonymous
with a Federal victory in double time.
Predictably, the committee had proposed to the government that the Federal side
be supported, provided it could show it was going to win and win quickly, and
provided corroborative evidence from British sources on the spot confirmed this.
The committee then sat back and watched the government, on Foreign Office
advice, make another monumental African cock-up. Instead of lasting six months,
the war had lasted thirty. But the businessmen were sick to their teeth at the whole
mess and would, with hindsight, have preferred a negotiated peace at month three
rather than thirty months of war. But Harold Wilson, once committed to a policy,
was no more going to concede that his minions might have made a mistake on his
behalf than fly to the moon.
Manson had lost a lot in revenue from his disrupted mining interests and because
of the impossibility of shipping the stuff to the coast on crazily running railways
throughout the period, but MacFazdean of Shell-BP had lost a lot more in oil
production.
Adrian Goole had been the FO's liaison officer on the committee for most of the
time. Now he sat opposite James Manson in the alcove dining recess, his
cuffs shot the right inch and a quarter, his face registering earnest intent.
Manson told him some of the truth but kept the reference to platinum out of it.
He stuck to a tale of tin but increased the quantities. It would have been viable to
mine it, of course, but quite frankly he'd been scared off by the close dependence
of the President on the Russian advisers. The profit-participation of the Zangaran
government could well have made it a tidy sum, and since the despot was almost a
puppet of the Russkies, who wanted to increase the republic's power and influence
through wealth? Goole took it all in. His face wore a solemn expression of deep
concern.
"Damnably difficult decision," he said with sympathy. "Mind you, I have to admire
your political sense. At the moment Zangaro is bankrupt and obscure. But if it
became rich— Yes, you're quite right. A real dilemma. When do you have to send
them the survey report and analysis?"
"Sooner or later," grunted Manson. "The question is, what do I do about it? If
they show it to the Russians at the embassy, the trade counselor is bound to realize
the tin deposits are viable. Then it will go out for tender. So someone else will get
it, still help to make the dictator rich, and then who knows what problems he'll
make for the West? One is back to square one."
Goole thought it over for a while.
"I just thought I ought to let you chaps know," said Manson.
"Yes, yes, thank you." Goole was absorbed. "Tell me," he said at length, "what
would happen if you halved the figures showing the quantity of tin per rock-ton in
the report?"
"Halved them?"
"Yes. Halved the figures, showing a purity figure of tin per rock-ton of fifty per
cent the figures shown by your rock samples?"
"Well, the quantity of tin present would be shown to be economically unviable."
"And the rock samples could have come from another area, a mile away, for
example?" asked Goole.
"Yes, I suppose they could. But my surveyor found the richest rock samples."
"But if he had not done so," pursued Goole. "If he had taken his samples from a
mile from where he actually operated. The content could be down by fifty per
cent?"
"Yes, it could. They probably would, probably would show even less than fifty per
cent. But he operated where he did."
"Under supervision?" asked Goole.
"No. Alone."
"And there are no real traces of where he worked?"
"No," replied Manson. "Just a few rock chippings, long since overgrown. Besides,
no one goes up there. It's miles from anywhere."
He paused for a few instants to light a cigar. "You know, Goole, you're a
damnably clever fellow. Steward, another brandy, if you please."
They parted with mutual jocularity on the steps of the club. The doorman hailed
a taxi for Goole to go back to Mrs. Goole in Holland Park.
"One last thing," said the FO man by the taxi door. "Not a word to anyone else
about this. I'll have to file it, well classified, at the department, but otherwise it
remains just between you and us at the FO."
"Of course," said Manson.
"I'm very grateful you saw fit to tell me all this. You have no idea how much
easier it makes our job on the economic side to know what's going on. I'll keep a
quiet eye on Zangaro, and if there should be any change in the political scene
there, you'll be the first to know. Good night."
Sir James Manson watched the taxi head down the road and signaled to his Rolls-
Royce waiting up the street.
"You'll be the first to know," he mimicked. "Too
bloody right I will, boy. 'Cause I'm going to start it."
He leaned through the passenger-side window and observed to Craddock, his
chauffeur, "If pisswilly little buggers like that had been in charge of building our
empire, Craddock, we might by now just about have colonized the Isle of Wight."
"You're absolutely right, Sir James," said Craddock.
When his employer had climbed into the rear, the chauffeur slid open the
communicating panel. "Gloucestershire, Sir James?"
"Gloucestershire, Craddock."
It was starting to drizzle again as the sleek limousine swished down Piccadilly and
up Park Lane, heading for the A40 and the West Country, carrying Sir James
Manson toward his ten-bedroom mansion bought three years earlier for him by a
grateful company for £250,000. It also contained his wife and nineteen-year-old
daughter, but these he had won himself.
An hour later Gordon Chalmers lay beside his wife, tired and angry from the row
they had had for the past two hours. Peggy Chalmers lay on her back, looking up at
the ceiling.
"I can't do it," Chalmers said for the umpteenth time. "I can't just go and falsify a
mining report to help James Bloody Manson make more money."
There was a long silence. They had been over it all a score of times since Peggy
had read Manson's letter to his banker and heard from her husband the conditions
of future financial security.
"What does it matter?" she said in a low voice from the darkness beside him.
"When all's said and done, what does it matter? Whether he gets the concession, or
the Russians, or no one. Whether the price rises or falls. What does it matter? It's
all pieces of rock and grains of metal."
Peggy Chalmers swung herself across her husband's torso and stared at the dim
outline of his face. Outside, the night wind rattled the branches of the old elm
close to which they had built the new house with the special fittings for their
crippled daughter.
When Peggy Chalmers spoke again it was with passionate urgency. "But Margaret
is not a piece of rock, and I am not a few grains of metal. We need that money,
Gordon, we need it now and for the next ten years. Please, darling, please just one
time forget the idea of a nice letter to Tribune or Private Eye and do what he
wants."
Gordon Chalmers continued to stare at the slit of window between the curtains,
which was half open to let in a breath of air.
"All right," he said at length.
"You'll do it?" she asked.
"Yes, I'll bloody do it."
"You swear it, darling? You give me your word?"
There was another long pause. "You have my word," said the low voice from the
face above her.
She pillowed her head in the hair of his chest. "Thank you, darling. Don't worry
about it. Please don't worry. You'll forget it in a month. You'll see."
Ten minutes later she was asleep, exhausted by the nightly struggle to get
Margaret bathed and into bed, and by the unaccustomed quarrel with her husband.
Gordon Chalmers continued to stare into the darkness. "They always win," he
said softly and bitterly after a while. "The bastards, they always bloody win."
The following day, Saturday, he drove the five miles to the laboratory and wrote
out a completely new report for the republic of Zangaro. Then he burned his notes
and the original report and trundled the core samples over to the scrap heap, where
a local builder would remove them for concrete and garden paths. He mailed the
fresh report, registered, to Sir James Manson at the head office, went home, and
tried to forget it.
On Monday the report was received in London, and the instructions to the
bankers in Chalmers' favor were mailed. The report was sent down to Overseas
Contracts
for Willoughby and Bryant to read, and Bryant was told to leave the next
day and take it to the Minister of Natural Resources in Clarence. A letter from the
company would be attached, expressing the appropriate regret.
On Tuesday evening Richard Bryant found himself in Number One Building at
London's Heathrow Airport, waiting for a BEA flight to Paris, where he could get the
appropriate visa and make a connecting flight by Air Afrique. Five hundred yards
away, in Three Building, Jack Mulrooney humped his bag through Passport Control
to catch the BOAC overnight Jumbo to Nairobi. He was not unhappy. He had had
enough of London. Ahead lay Kenya, sun, bush, and the chance of a lion.
By the end of the week only two men had in their heads the knowledge of what
really lay inside the Crystal Mountain. One had given his word to his wife to remain
silent forever, and the other was plotting his next move.
5
Simon Endean entered Sir James Manson's office with a bulky file containing his
hundred-page report on the republic of Zangaro, a dossier of large photographs,
and several maps. He told his chief what he had brought.
Manson nodded his approval. "No one learned while you were putting all this
together who you were or who you worked for?" he asked.
"No, Sir James. I used a pseudonym, and no one questioned it."
"And no one in Zangaro could have learned that a file of data could have been
put together about them?"
"No. I used existing archives, sparse though they are, some university libraries
here and in Europe, standard works of reference, and the one tourist guide
published by Zangaro itself, although in fact this is a leftover from colonial days and
five years out of date. I always claimed I was simply seeking information for a
graduate thesis on the entire African colonial and postcolonial situation. There will
be no comebacks."
"All right," said Manson. "I'll read the report later. Give me the main facts."
For answer Endean took one of the maps from the file and spread it across the
desk. It showed a section of the African coastline, with Zangaro marked.
"As you see, Sir James, it's stuck like an enclave on
the coast here, bordered on the north and east by this republic and on the short
southern border by this one. The fourth side is the sea, here.
"It's shaped like a matchbox, the short edge along the seacoast, the longer sides
stretching inland. The borders were completely arbitrarily drawn in the old colonial
days during the scramble for Africa, and merely represent lines on a map. On the
ground there are no effective borders, and due to the almost complete
nonexistence of roads there is only one border-crossing point—here, on the road
leading north to the neighbor country, Manandi. All land traffic enters and leaves by
this road."
Sir James Manson studied the enclave on the map and grunted. "What about the
eastern and southern borders?"
"No road, sir. No way in or out at all, unless you cut straight through the jungle,
and in most places it is impenetrable bush.
"Now, in size it has seven thousand square miles, being seventy miles along the
coast and a hundred miles deep into the hinterland. The capital, Clarence, named
after the sea captain who first put in there for fresh water two hundred years ago,
is here, in the center of the coast, thirty-five miles from the northern and southern
borders.
"Behind the capital lies a narrow coastal plain which is the only cultivated area in
the country, apart from the bush natives' tiny clearings in the jungle. Behind the
plain lies the river Zangaro, then the foothills of the Crystal Mountains, the
mountains themselves, and beyond that, miles and miles of jungle up to the eastern
border."
"How about other communications?" asked Man-son.
"There are virtually no roads at all," said Endean. "The river Zangaro flows from
the northern border fairly close to the coast across most of the republic until it
reaches the sea just short of the southern border. On the estuary there are a few
jetties and a
shanty or two which constitute a small port for the exporting of timber. But there
are no wharves, and the timber businesses have virtually ceased since
independence. The fact that the Zangaro River flows almost parallel to the coast,
slanting in toward it, for sixty miles, in effect cuts the republic in two; there is this
strip of coastal plain to the seaward side of the river, ending in mangrove swamps
which make the whole coast unapproachable by shipping or small boats, and the
hinterland beyond the river. East of the river are the mountains, and beyond them
the hinterland. The river could be used for barge traffic, but no one is interested.
Manandi has a modern capital on the coast with a deep-water harbor, and the
Zangaro River itself ends in a silted-up estuary."
"What about the timber-exporting operations? How were they carried out?"
Fndean took a larger-scale map of the republic out of the file and laid it on the
table. With a pencil he tapped she Zangaro estuary in the south of Zangaro.
"The timber used to be cut upcountry, either along the banks or in the western
foothills of the mountains. There's still quite good timber there, but since
independence no one is interested. The logs were floated downriver to the estuary
and parked there. When the ships came they would anchor offshore and the log
rafts were towed out to them by power boats. Then they hoisted the logs aboard by
using their own derricks. It always was a tiny operation."
Manson stared intently at the large-scale map taking in the seventy miles of
coast, the river running almost parallel to it twenty miles inland, the strip of impene
trable mangrove swamp between the river and the sea, and the mountains behind
the river. He could identify the Crystal Mountain but made no mention of it.
"What about the main roads? There must be some."
Endean warmed to his explanation. "The capital is stuck on the seaward end of a
short, stubby peninsula here, midway down the coast. It faces toward the open sea.
There's a small port, the only real one in the
country, and behind the town the peninsula runs back to join the main landmass.
There is one road which runs down the spine of the peninsula and six miles inland,
going straight east. Then there is the junction— here. A road runs to the right,
heading south. It is laterite for seven miles, then becomes an earth road for the
next twenty. Then it peters out on the banks of the Zangaro estuary.
"The other branch turns left and runs north, through the plain west of the river
and onward to the northern border. Here there is a crossing point manned by a
dozen sleepy and corrupt soldiers. A couple of travelers told me they can't read a
passport anyway, so they don't know whether there is a visa in it or not. You just
bribe them a couple of quid to get through."
"What about the road into the hinterland?" asked Sir James.
Endean pointed with his finger. "It's not even marked, it's so small. Actually, if
you follow the north-running road after the junction, go along it for ten miles, there
is a turn-off to the right, toward the hinterland. It's an earth road. It crosses the
remainder of the plain and then the Zangaro River, on a rickety wooden bridge—"
"So that bridge is the only communication between the two parts of the country
on either side of the river?" asked Manson in wonderment.
Endean shrugged. "It's the only crossing for wheeled traffic. But there is hardly
any wheeled traffic. The natives cross the Zangaro by canoe."
Manson changed the subject, though his eyes never left the map. "What about
the tribes who live there?"
"There are two," said Endean. "East of the river and right back to the end of the
hinterland is the country of the Vindu. For that matter, more Vindu live over the
eastern border. I said the borders were arbitrary. The Vindu are practically in the
Stone Age. They seldom, if ever, cross the river and leave their bush country. The
plain to the west of the river and down to the sea, including the peninsula on which
the capital stands, is
the country of the Caja. They hate the Vindu, and vice versa."
"Population?"
"Almost uncountable in the interior. Officially put at two hundred and twenty
thousand in the entire country. That is, thirty thousand Caja and an estimated one
hundred and ninety thousand Vindu. But the numbers are a total guess—except
probably the Caja can be counted accurately."
"Then how the hell did they ever hold an election?" asked Manson.
"That remains one of the mysteries of creation," said Endean. "It was a
shambles, anyway. Half of them didn't know what a vote was or what they were
voting for."
"What about the economy?"
"There is hardly any left," replied Endean. "The Vindu country produces nothing.
The lot of them just about subsist on what they can grow in yam and cassava plots
cut out of the bush by the women, who do any work there is to be done, which is
precious little— unless you pay them well; then they will carry things. The men
hunt. The children are a mass of malaria, trachoma, bilharzia, and malnutrition.
"In. the coastal plain there were in colonial days plantations of low-grade cocoa,
coffee, cotton, and bananas. These were run and owned by whites, who used
native labor. It wasn't high-quality stuff, but it made enough, with a guaranteed
European buyer, the colonial power, to make a bit of hard currency and pay for the
minimal imports. Since independence, these have been nationalized by the
President, who expelled the whites, and given to his party hacks. Now they're about
finished, overgrown with weeds."
"Got any figures?"
"Yes, sir. In the last year before independence total cocoa output, that was the
main crop, was thirty thousand tons. Last year it was one thousand tons, and there
were no buyers. It's still rotting on the ground."
"And the others—coffee, cotton, bananas?"
"Bananas and coffee virtually ground to a halt through lack of attention. Cotton
got hit by a blight, and there were no insecticides."
"What's the economic situation now?"
"Total disaster. Bankrupt, money worthless paper, exports down to almost
nothing, and nobody letting them have any imports. There have been gifts from the
UN, the Russians, and the colonial powers, but as the government always sells the
stuff elsewhere and pockets the cash, even these three have given up."
"A cheap tinhorn dictatorship, eh?" murmured Sir James.
"In every sense. Corrupt, vicious, brutal. They have seas off the coast rich in fish,
but they can't fish. The two fishing boats they had were skippered by whites. One
got beaten up by the army thugs, and both quit. Then the engines rusted up, and
the boats were abandoned. So the locals have protein deficiency. There aren't even
goats and chickens to go around."
"What about medicines?"
"There's one hospital in Clarence, which is run by the United Nations. That's the
only one in the country."
"Doctors?"
"There were two Zangarans who were qualified doctors. One was arrested and
died in prison. The other fled into exile. The missionaries were expelled by the
President as imperialist influences. They were mainly medical missionaries as well
as preachers and priests. The nuns used to train nurses, but they got expelled as
well."
"How many Europeans?"
"In the hinterlands, probably none. In the coastal plain, a couple of agronomists,
technicians sent by the United Nations. In the capital, about forty diplomats, twenty
of them in the Russian embassy, the rest spread among the French, Swiss,
American, West German, East German, Czech, and Chinese embassies, if you call
the Chinese white. Apart from that, about five United Nations hospital staff, another
five technicians
manning the electrical generator, the airport control tower, the waterworks, and
so on. Then there must be fifty others, traders, managers, businessmen who have
hung on hoping for an improvement.
"Actually, there was a ruckus six weeks ago and one of the UN -men was beaten
half to death. The five nonmedical technicians threatened to quit and sought refuge
in their respective embassies. They may be gone by now, in which case the water,
electricity, and airport will soon be out of commission."
"Where is the airport?"
"Here, on the base of the peninsula behind the capital. It's not of international
standards, so if you want to fly in you have to take Air Afrique to here, in Manandi,
and take a connecting flight by a small two-engined plane that goes down to
Clarence three times a week. It's a French firm that has the concession, though
nowadays it's hardly economic."
"Who are the country's friends, diplomatically speaking?"
Endean shook his head. "They don't have any. No one is interested, it's such a
shambles. Even the Organization of African Unity is embarrassed by the whole
place. It's so obscure no one ever mentions it. No newsmen ever go, so it never
gets publicized. The government is rabidly anti-white, so no one wants to send staff
men down there to run anything. No one invests anything, because nothing is safe
from confiscation by any Tom, Dick, or Harry wearing a party badge. There's a
party youth organization that beats up anyone it wants to, and everyone lives in
terror."
"What about the Russians?"
"They have the biggest mission and probably a bit of say over the President in
matters of foreign policy, about which he knows nothing. His advisers are mainly
Moscow-trained Zangarans, though he wasn't schooled in Moscow personally."
"Is there any potential at all down there?" asked Sir James.
Endean nodded slowly. "I suppose there is enough
potential, well managed and worked, to sustain the population at a reasonable
degree of prosperity. The population is small, the needs few; they could be selfsufficient
in clothing, food, the basics of a good local economy, with a little hard
currency for the necessary extras. It could be done, but in any case, the needs are
so few the relief and charitable agencies could provide the total necessary, if it
wasn't that their staffs are always molested, their equipment smashed or looted,
and their gifts stolen and sold for the government's private profit."
"You say the Vindu won't work hard. What about the Caja?"
"Nor they either," said Endean. "They just sit about all day, or fade into the bush
if anyone looks threatening. Their fertile plain has always grown enough to sustain
them, so they are happy the way they are."
"Then who worked the estates in the colonial days?"
"Ah, the colonial power brought in about twenty thousand black workers from
elsewhere. They settled and live there still. With their families, they are about fifty
thousand. But they were never enfranchised by the colonial power, so they never
voted in the election at independence. If there is any work done, they still do it."
"Where do they live?" asked Manson.
"About fifteen thousand still live in their huts on the estates, even though there is
no more work worth doing, with all the machinery broken down. The rest have
drifted toward Clarence and grub a living as best they can. They live in a series of
shanty towns scattered down the road at the back of the capital, on the road to the
airport."
For five minutes Sir James Manson stared at the map in front of him, thinking
deeply about a mountain, a mad President, a coterie of Moscow-trained advisers,
and a Russian embassy. Finally he sighed. "What a bloody shambles of a place."
"That's putting it mildly," said Endean. "They still have ritual public executions
before the assembled
populace in the main square. Death by being chopped to pieces with a machete.
Quite a bunch."
"And who precisely has produced this paradise on earth?"
For answer, Endean produced a photograph and placed it on the map.
Sir James Manson found himself looking at a middle-aged African in a silk top
hat, black frock coat, and checked trousers. It was evidently inauguration day, for
several colonial officials stood in the background, by the steps of a large mansion.
The face beneath the shining black silk was not round, but long and gaunt, with
deep lines on each side of the nose. The mouth was twisted downward at each
corner, so that the effect was of deep disapproval of something.
But the eyes held the attention. There was a glazed fixity about them, as one
sees in the eyes of fanatics.
"That's the man," said Endean. "Mad as a hatter, and nasty as a rattlesnake.
West Africa's own Papa Doc. Visionary, communicant with spirits, liberator from the
white man's yoke, redeemer of his people, swindler, robber, police chief and
torturer of the suspicious, extractor of confessions, hearer of voices from the
Almighty, seer of visions, Lord High Everything Else, His Excellency, President Jean
Kimba."
Sir James Manson stared longer at the face of the man who, unbeknownst to
himself, was sitting in control of ten billion dollars' worth of platinum. I wonder, he
thought to himself, if the world would really notice his passing on.
He said nothing, but, after he had listened to Endean, that event was what he
had decided to arrange.
Six years earlier the colonial power ruling the enclave now called Zangaro,
increasingly conscious of world opinion, had decided to grant independence.
Overhasty preparations were made among a population wholly inexperienced in
self-government, and a general election and independence were fixed for the
following year.
In the confusion, five political parties came into being.
Two were wholly tribal, one claiming to look after the interests of the Vindu,
the other of the Caja. The other three parties devised their own political platforms
and pretended to make appeal through the tribal division of the people. One of
these parties was the conservative group, led by a man holding office under the
colonialists and heavily favored by them. He pledged he would continue the close
links with the mother country, which, apart from anything else, guaranteed the local
paper money and bought the exportable produce. The second party was centrist,
small and weak, led by an intellectual, a professor who had studied in Europe. The
third was radical and led by a man who had served several prison terms under a
security classification. This was Jean Kimba.
Long before the elections, two of his aides, men who during their time as
students in Europe had been contacted by the Russians (who had noticed their
presence in anti-colonial street demonstrations) and who had accepted scholarships
to finish their schooling at the Patrice Lumumba University outside Moscow, left
Zangaro secretly and flew to Europe. There they met emissaries from Moscow and,
as a result of their conversations, received a sum of money and considerable advice
of a very practical nature.
Using the money, Kimba and his men formed squads of political thugs from
among the Vindu and completely ignored the small minority of Caja. In the
unpoliced hinterland the political squads went to work. Several agents of the rival
parties came to very sticky ends, and the squads visited all the clan chiefs of the
Vindu.
After several public burnings and eye-gougings, the clan chiefs got the message.
When the elections came, acting on the simple and effective logic that you do what
the man with the power to extract painful retribution tells you, and ignore or mock
the weak and the powerless, the chiefs ordered their people to vote for Kimba. He
won the Vindu by a clear majority, and the total votes cast for him swamped the
combined
opposition and the Caja votes. He was aided by the fact that the number of the
Vindu votes had been almost doubled by the persuasion of every village chief to
increase the number of people he claimed lived in his village. The rudimentary
census taken by the colonial officials was based on affidavits from each village chief
as to the population of his village.
The colonial power had made a mess of it. Instead of taking a leaf from the
French book and ensuring that the colonial protege won the first, vital election and
then signed a mutual defense treaty to ensure that a company of white paratroops
kept the pro-Western president in power in perpetuity, the colonials had allowed
their worst enemy to win. A month after the election, Jean Kimba was inaugurated
as first President of Zangaro.
What followed was along traditional lines. The four other parties were banned as
"divisive influences," and later the four party leaders were arrested on trumped-up
charges. They died under torture in prison, after making over the party funds to the
liberator, Kimba. The colonial army and police officers were dismissed as soon as a
semblance of an exclusively Vindu army had been brought into being. The Caja
soldiers, who had constituted most of the gendarmerie under the colonists, were
dismissed at the same time, and trucks were provided to take them home. After
leaving the capital, the six trucks headed for a quiet spot on the Zangaro River, and
here the machine guns opened up. That was the end of the trained Caja.
In the capital, the police and customs men, mainly Caja, were allowed to stay on,
but their guns were emptied and all their ammunition was taken away. Power
passed to the Vindu army, and the reign of terror started. It had taken eighteen
months to achieve this. The confiscation of the estates, assets, and businesses of
the colonists began, and the economy ran steadily down. There were no Vindu
trained to take over who could run the republic's few enterprises with even
moderate efficiency, and the estates were in any case
given to Kimba's party supporters. As the colonists left, a few UN technicians
came in to run the basic essentials, but the excesses they witnessed caused most
sooner or later to write home to their governments insisting they be removed.
After a few short, sharp examples of terror, the timorous Caja were subdued into
absolute submission, and even across the river in Vindu country several savage
examples were made of chiefs who mumbled something about the pre-election
promises. After that the Vindu simply shrugged and went back to their bush. What
happened in the capital had never affected them anyway in living memory, so they
could afford to shrug. Kimba and his group of supporters, backed by the Vindu
army and the unstable and highly dangerous teenagers who made up the party's
youth movement, continued to rule from Clarence entirely for their own benefit and
profit.
Some of the methods used to obtain the latter were mind-boggling. Simon
Endean's report contained documentation of an instance where Kimba, frustrated
over the nonarrival of his share of a business deal, arrested the European
businessman involved and imprisoned him, sending an emissary to his wife with the
pledge that she would receive her husband's toes, fingers, and ears by post unless
a ransom were paid. A letter from her imprisoned husband confirmed this, and the
woman raised the necessary half-million dollars from his business partners and
paid. The man was released, but his government, terrified of black African opinion
at the United Nations, urged him to remain silent. The press never heard about it.
On another occasion two nationals of the colonial power were arrested and beaten
in the former colonial police barracks, since converted into the army barracks. They
were released after a handsome bribe was paid to the Minister of Justice, of which
a part evidently went to Kimba, Their offense was failing to bow as Kimba's car
drove past.
In the previous five years since independence, all
conceivable opposition to Kimba had been wiped out or driven into exile, and
those who suffered the latter were the lucky ones. As a result there were no
doctors, engineers, or other qualified people left in the republic. There had been
few enough in the first place, and Kimba suspected all educated men as possible
opponents.
Over the years he had developed a psychotic fear of assassination and never left
the country. He seldom left the palace, and, when he did, it was under a massive
escort. Firearms of every kind and description had been rounded up and
impounded, including hunting rifles and shotguns, so that the scarcity of protein
food increased. Import of cartridges and black powder was. halted, so eventually
the Vindu hunters of the interior, coming to the coast to buy the powder they
needed to hunt game, were sent back empty-handed and hung up their useless
dane guns in their huts. Even the carrying of machetes within the city limits was
forbidden. The carrying of any of these items was punishable by death.
When he had finally digested the lengthy report, studied the photographs of the
capital, the palace, and Kimba, and pored over the maps, Sir James Manson sent
again for Simon Endean.
The latter was becoming highly curious about his chief's interest in this obscure
republic and had asked Martin Thorpe in the adjoining office on the ninth floor what
it was about. Thorpe had just grinned and tapped the side of his nose with a rigid
forefinger. Thorpe was not completely certain either, but he suspected he knew.
Both men knew enough not to ask questions when their employer had got an idea
in his head and needed information.
When Endean reported to Manson the following morning, the latter was standing
in his favorite position by the plate-glass windows of his penthouse, looking down
into the street, where pygmies hurried about their business.
"There are two things I need to know more about,
Simon," Sir James Manson said without preamble and walked back to his desk,
where the Endean report was lying. "You mention here a ruckus in the capital about
six to seven weeks ago. I heard another report about the same upset from a man
who was there. He mentioned a rumor of an attempted assassination of Kimba.
What was it all about?"
Endean was relieved. He had heard the same story from his own sources but had
thought it too small to include in the report.
"Every time the President has a bad dream there are arrests and rumors of an
attempt on his life," said Endean. "Normally it just means he wants justification to
arrest and execute somebody. In this case, in late January, it was the commander
of the army, Colonel Bobi. I was told, on the quiet, the quarrel between the two
men was really about Kimba's not getting a big enough cut in the rake-off from a
deal Bobi put through. A shipment of drugs and medicines had arrived for the UN
hospital. The army impounded them at the quayside and stole half. Bobi was
responsible, and the stolen portion of the cargo was sold elsewhere on the black
market. The proceeds of the sale should have passed to Kimba. Anyway, the head
of the UN hospital, when making his protest to Kimba and tendering bis resignation,
mentioned the true value of the missing stuff. It was a lot more than Bobi had
admitted to Kimba.
"The President went mad and sent some of his own guards out looking for Bobi.
They ransacked the town, arresting anyone who got in the way or took their fancy."
"What happened to Bobi?" asked Manson.
"He fled. He got away in a jeep and made for the border He got across by
abandoning his jeep and walking through the bush round the border control point."
"What tribe is he?"
"Oddly enough, a halfbreed Half Vindu and half
Caja, probably the outcome of a Vindu raid on a Caja village forty years ago."
"Was he one of Kimba's new army, or the old colonial one?" asked Manson.
"He was corporal in the colonial gendarmerie, so presumably he had some form
of rudimentary training. Then he was busted, before independence, for
drunkenness and insubordination while drunk. When Kimba came to power he took
him back in the early days because he needed at least one man who could tell one
end of a gun from the other. In the colonial days Bobi styled himself a Caja, but as
soon as Kimba came to power he swore he was a true Vindu."
"Why did Kimba keep him on? Was he one of his original supporters?"
"From the time Bobi saw which way the wind was blowing, he went to Kimba and
swore loyalty to him. Which was smarter than the colonial governor, who couldn't
believe Kimba had won the election until the figures proved it. Kimba kept Bobi on
and even promoted him to command the army, because it looked better for a half-
Caja to carry out the reprisals against the Caja opponents of Kimba."
"What's he like?" asked Manson pensively.
"A big thug," said Simon. "A human gorilla. No brains as such, but a certain low
annual cunning. The quarrel between the two men was only a question of thieves
falling out."
"But Western-trained? Not Communist?" insisted Manson.
"No, sir. Not a Communist. Not anything politically."
"Bribable? Cooperate for money?"
"Certainly. He must be living pretty humbly now. He couldn't have stashed much
away outside Zangaro. Only the President could get the big money."
"Where is he now?" asked Manson.
"I don't know, sir. Living somewhere in exile."
"Right," said Manson. "Find him, wherever he is."
Endean nodded. "Am I to visit him?"
"Not yet," said Manson. "There was one other matter. The report is fine, very
comprehensive, except in one detail. The military side. I want to have a complete
breakdown of the military security situation in and around the President's palace
and the capital. How many troops, police, any special presidential bodyguards,
where they are quartered, how good they are, level of training and experience, the
amount of fight they would put up if under attack, what weapons they carry, can
they use them, what reserves are there, where the arsenal is situated, whether they
have guards posted overall, if there are armored cars or artillery, if the Russians
train the army, if there are strike-force camps away from Clarence—in fact, the
whole lot." ,
Endean stared at his chief in amazement. The phrase "If under attack" stuck in
his mind. What on earth was the old man up to? he wondered, but his face
remained impassive.
"That would mean a personal visit, Sir James."
"Yes, I concede that. Do you have a passport in another name?"
"No, sir. In any case, I couldn't furnish that information. It requires a sound
judgment of military matters, and a knowledge of African troops as well. I was too
late for National Service. I don't know a thing about armies or weapons."
Manson was back at the window, staring across the City. "I know," he said softly.
"It would need a soldier to produce that report."
"Well, Sir James, you would hardly get an army man to go and do that sort of
mission. Not for any money. Besides, a soldier's passport would have his profession
on it. Where could I find a military man who would go down to Clarence and find
that sort of information?"
"There is a kind," said Manson. "The mercenaries. They fight for whoever pays
them and pays them well. I'm prepared to do that. So go and find me a mercenary
with initiative and brains. The best in Europe."
Cat Shannon lay on his bed in the small hotel in Montmartre and watched the
smoke from his cigarette drifting up toward the ceiling. He was bored. In the weeks
that had passed since his return from Africa he had spent most of his saved pay
traveling around Europe trying to set up another job.
In Rome he had seen an order of Catholic priests he knew, with a view to going
to South Sudan on their behalf to set up in the interior an airstrip into which
medical supplies and food could be ferried. He knew there were three separate
groups of mercenaries operating in South Sudan, helping the Christian blacks in
their civil war against the Arab North. In Bahr-el-Gazar two other British
mercenaries, Ron Gregory and Rip Kirby, were leading a small operation of Dinka
tribesmen, laying mines along the roads used by the Sudanese army in an attempt
to knock out their British Saladin armored cars. In the south, in Equatoria Province,
Rolf Steiner had a camp that was supposed to be training the locals in the arts of
war, but nothing had been heard of him for months. In Upper Nile, to the east,
there was a much more efficient camp, where four Israelis were training the
tribesmen and equipping them with Soviet weaponry from the vast stocks the
Israelis had taken from the Egyptians in 1967. The warfare in the three provinces of
South Sudan kept the bulk of the Sudanese army and air force pinned down there,
so that five squadrons of Egyptian fighters were based around Khartoum and thus
not available to confront the Israelis on the Suez Canal.
Shannon had visited the Israeli embassy in Paris and talked for forty minutes to
the military attache. The latter had listened politely, thanked him politely, and just
as politely ushered him out. The only thing the officer would say was that there
were no Israeli advisers on the rebel side in South Sudan, and therefore he could
not help. Shannon had no doubts the conversation had been tape-recorded and
sent to Tel Aviv, but doubted he would hear any more. He conceded the
Israelis were first rate as fighters and good at intelligence, but he thought they
knew nothing about black Africa and were heading for a fall in Uganda and probably
elsewhere.
Apart from Sudan, there was little else being offered. Rumors abounded that the
CIA was hiring mercenaries for training anti-Communist Meos in Cambodia, and that
some Persian Gulf sheiks were getting fed up with their dependence on British
military advisers and were looking for mercenaries who would be entirely their own
dependents. The story was that there were jobs going for men prepared to fight for
the sheiks in the hinterland or take charge of palace security. Shannon doubted all
these stories; for one thing he wouldn't trust the CIA as far as he could spit, and
the Arabs were not much better when it came to making up their minds.
Outside of the Gulf, Cambodia, and Sudan, there was little scope and there were
no good wars. In fact he foresaw in the offing a very nasty outbreak of peace. That
left the chance of working as a bodyguard for a European arms dealer, and he had
had one approach from such a man in Paris who felt himself threatened and needed
someone good to give him cover.
Hearing Shannon was in town and knowing his skill and speed, the arms dealer
had sent an emissary with the proposition. Without actually turning it down, the Cat
was not keen. The dealer was in trouble through his own stupidity: a small matter
of sending a shipment of arms to the Provisional IRA and then tipping off the British
as to where it would be landed. There had been a number of arrests, and the
Provos were furious. Having Shannon giving gun-cover would send most
professionals back home while still alive, but the Provos were mad dogs and
probably did not know enough to stay clear. So there would be a gunfight, and the
French police would take a dun view of one of their streets littered with bleeding
Fenians. Moreover, as he was an Ulster Protestant, they would never believe
Shannon had just been doing his job. Still, the offer was open.
The month of March had opened and was ten days through, but the weather
remained dank and chill, with daily drizzle and rain, and Paris was unwelcoming.
Outdoors meant fine weather in Paris, and indoors cost a lot of money. Shannon
was husbanding his remaining resources of dollars as best he could. So he left his
telephone number with the dozen or so people he thought might hear something to
interest him and read several paperback novels in his hotel room.
He lay staring at the ceiling and thinking of home. Not that he really had a home
any more, but for want of a better word he still thought of the wild sweep of turf
and stunted trees that sprawls across the border of Tyrone and Donegal as the
place that he came from.
He had been born and brought up close to the small village of Castlederg,
situated inside County Tyrone but lying on the border with Donegal. His parents'
house had been set a mile from the village on a slope looking out to the west
across Donegal.
They called Donegal the county God forgot to finish, and the few trees were bent
toward the east, curved over by the constant beating of the winds from the North
Atlantic.
His father had owned a flax mill that turned out fine Irish linen and had been in a
small way the squire of the area. He was Protestant, and almost all the workers and
local farmers were Catholic, and in Ulster never the twain shall meet, so the young
Carlo had had no other boys to play with. He made his friends among the horses
instead, and this was horse country. He could ride before he could mount a bicycle,
and had a pony of his own when he was five, and he could still remember riding the
pony into the village to buy a halfpennyworth of sherbet powder from the
sweetshop of old Mr. Sam Gailey.
At eight he had been sent to boarding school in England at the urging of his
mother, who was English
and came from moneyed people. So for the next ten years he had learned to be
an Englishman and had to all intents and purposes lost the stamp of Ulster in both
speech and attitudes. During the holidays he had gone home to the moors and the
horses, but he knew no contemporaries near Castlederg, so the vacations were
lonely if healthy, consisting of long, fast gallops in the wind.
It was while he was a sergeant in the Royal Marines at twenty-two that his
parents had died in a car crash on the Belfast Road. He had returned for the
funeral, smart in his black belt and gaiters, topped by the green beret of the
Commandos. Then he had accepted an offer for the run-down, nearly bankrupt mill,
closed up the house, and returned to Portsmouth.
That was eleven years ago. He had served the remainder of his five-year contract
in the Marines, and on returning to civilian life had pottered from job to job until
taken on as a clerk by a London merchant house with widespread African interests.
Working his probationary year in London, he had learned the intricacies of company
structure, trading and banking the profits, setting up holding companies, and the
value of a discreet Swiss account. After a year in London he had been posted as
assistant manager of the Uganda branch office, from which he had walked out
without a word and driven into the Congo. So for the last six years he had lived as a
mercenary, often as outlaw, at best regarded as a soldier for hire, at worst as a
paid killer. The trouble was, once he was known as a mercenary, there was no
going back. It was riot a question of being unable to get a job in a business house;
that could be done at a pinch, or even by giving a different name. Even without
going to these lengths, one could always get hired as a truck-driver, as a security
guard, or for some manual job if the worst came to the worst. The real problem
was being able to stick it out, to sit in an office under the orders of a wee man in a
dark gray suit and look out of the window and recall the bush country, the waving
palms, the smell of sweat and
cordite, the grunts of the men hauling the jeeps over the river crossings, the
copper-tasting fears just before the attack, and the wild, cruel joy of being alive
afterward. To remember, and then to go back to the ledgers and the commuter
train, that was what was impossible. He knew he would eat his heart out if it ever
came to that. For Africa bites like a tse-tse fly, and once the drug is in the blood it
can never be wholly exorcised.
So he lay on his bed and smoked some more and wondered where the next job
was coming from.
6
Simon Endean was aware that somewhere in London there had to exist the
wherewithal to discover just about any piece of knowledge known to man, including
the name and address of a first-class mercenary. The only problem sometimes is to
know where to start looking and whom to start asking.
After a reflective hour drinking coffee in his office, he left and took a taxi down to
Fleet Street. Through a friend on the city desk of one of London's biggest daily
papers, he got access to that paper's morgue and to virtually every newspaper
clipping in Britain over the previous ten years concerning mercenaries. There were
articles about Katanga, the Congo, Yemen, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Sudan,
Nigeria, and Rwanda; news items, commentaries, editorial feature articles, and
photographs. He read them all and paid special attention to the names of the
writers.
At this stage he was not looking for the name of a mercenary. There were in any
case too many names— pseudonyms, noms de guerre, nicknames—and he had
little doubt some of them were false. He was looking for the name of an expert on
mercenaries, a writer or reporter whose articles seemed to be authoritative enough
to indicate that the journalist knew his subject well, who could find his way around
the bewildering
labyrinth of rival claims and alleged exploits and give a balanced judgment. At the
end of two hours he had secured the name he was looking for, although he had
never heard of the man before.
There were three articles over the previous three years carrying the same byline,
apparently that of an Englishman or American. The writer seemed to know what he
was talking about, and he mentioned mercenaries from half a dozen different
nationalities, neither overpraising them nor sensationalizing their careers to set
spines atingling. Endean noted the name and the three newspapers in which the
articles had appeared, a fact which seemed to indicate that the writer was
freelancing. A second phone call to his newspaper friend eventually produced the
writer's address. It was a small flat in North London.
Darkness had already fallen when Endean left Man-Con House, and, having taken
his Corvette from the underground parking lot, he drove northward to find the
journalist's flat. The lights were off when he got there, and there was no answer to
the doorbell. En-dean hoped the man was not abroad, and the woman in the
basement flat confirmed that he was not. He was glad to see the house was not
large or smart and hoped the reporter might be hard up for a little extra cash, as
freelances usually are. He decided to come back in the morning.
Simon Endean pressed the bell next to the writer's name just after eight the
following morning, and half a minute later a voice tinkled "Yes" at him from the
metal grill set in the woodwork.
"Good morning," said Endean into the grill. "My name is Harris. Walter Harris. I'm
a businessman. I wonder if I might have a word with you?"
The door opened, and he mounted to the fourth floor, where a door stood open
onto the landing. Framed in it was the man he had come to see. When they were
seated in the sitting room, Endean came straight to the point.
"I am a businessman in the City," he lied smoothly. "I am here, in a sense,
representing a consortium of friends, all of whom have this in common: that we all
have business interests in a state in West Africa."
The writer nodded warily and sipped his coffee.
"Recently there have been increasing reports of the possibility of a coup d'etat.
The President is a moderate and reasonably good man, as things go down there,
and very popular with his people. One of my business friends was told by one of his
workers that the coup, if and when it came, could well be Communist-backed. Do
you follow me?"
"Yes. Go on."
"Well now, it is felt that no more than a small portion of the army would support
a coup unless the speed of it threw them into confusion and left them leader-less.
In other words, if it were a fait accompli, the bulk of the army might agree to go
along in any case, once they realized the coup had succeeded. But if it came and
half failed, the bulk of the army would, we all feel sure, support the President. As
you may know, experience shows the twenty hours following the strike are the vital
ones."
"What has this to do with me?" asked the writer.
"I'm coming to that," said Endean. "The general feeling is that, for the coup to
succeed, it would be necessary for the plotters first to assassinate the President. If
he remained alive, the coup would fail, or might not even be tried, and all would be
well. Therefore the question of palace security is vital and becoming more so. We
have been in touch with some friends in the Foreign Office, and they feel it is out of
the question to send a professional British officer to advise on security in and
around the palace,"
"So?" The writer sipped more coffee and lit a cigarette. He reckoned his visitor
was too smooth, too smooth by half.
"So the President would be prepared to accept the services of a professional
soldier to advise, on the basis of a contract, on all security matters regarding
the person of the President. What he is seeking is a man who could go down
there, make a complete and thorough survey of the palace and all its security
arrangements, and plug any loopholes in the existing security measures
surrounding the President."
The freelance nodded several times. He had few doubts that the story of the man
who called himself Harris was some way from true. For one thing, if palace security
was really what was sought, the British government would not be against providing
the expert to advise on its improvement. For another, there was a perfectly capable
firm at 22 Sloane Street, London, called Watchguard International, whose specialty
was precisely that. In a few sentences he pointed this out to Harris.
Endean was not fazed in the slightest. "Ah," he said, "evidently I have to be a
little more candid."
"It would help," said the writer.
"The point is, you see, that HMG might agree to send an expert merely to advise,
but if the advice was that the palace security troops needed extensive further
training—and a crash course, at that—politically speaking a Britisher sent by the
government could not do that. And if the President wished to offer the man a
longer-term post on his staff, the same would apply. As for Watchguard, one of
their ex-Special Air Service men would be fine, but if he were on the staff of the
palace guard and a coup were tried despite his presence, there might be a question
of combat. Now you know what the rest of Africa would think about a staff man
from Watchguard, which most of these blacks regard as being linked to the Foreign
Office in some way, doing that. But a pure outsider, although not respectable,
would at least be understandable, without exposing the President to the sneer of
being a tool of the dirty old imperialists."
"So what do you want?" asked the writer.
"The name of a good mercenary soldier," said Endean. "One with brains and
initiative, who'll do a workmanlike job for his money."
"Why come to me?"
"Your name was recalled by one of our group from an article you wrote several
months ago. It seemed very authoritative."
"I write for my living," said the freelance.
Endean gently withdrew £200 in £10 notes from his pocket and laid them on the
table. "Then write for me."
"What? An article?"
"No, a memorandum. A list of names and track records. Or you can talk if you
like."
"I'll write," said the freelance. He walked to a corner, where his desk, a
typewriter, and a stack of white paper comprised the working area of the open-plan
flat. Having run a sheet into his machine, he wrote steadily for fifty minutes,
consulting occasionally from a set of files beside his desk. When he rose, he walked
over to the waiting Endean with three sheets of quarto paper and held them out.
"These are the best around today, the older generation of the Congo six years
ago and the new up-and-comers. I haven't bothered with men who couldn't
command a platoon well. Mere heavies would be no use to you."
Endean took the sheets and studied them intently.
The contents were:
COLONEL LAMOULINE. Belgian, probably government man. Came into Congo in
1964 under Moi'se Tshombe. Probably with full approval of Belgian government.
First-class soldier, not really a mercenary in full sense of the word. Set up Sixth
Commando (French-speaking) and commanded until 1965, when he handed over
command to Denard and left.
ROBERT DENARD. Frenchman. Police background, not army. Was in Katanga
secession in 1961-62,-probably as gendarmerie adviser. Left after failure of
secession and exile of Tshombe. Commanded French mercenary operation in
Yemen for Jacques Foccart Returned Congo 1964, joined Lamouline. Commanded
Sixth after Lamouline and up till 1967. Took part, halfheartedly, in second
Stanleyville revolt (the mercenaries' mutiny) in 1967. Wounded badly in head by
ricocheting bullet from own side. Flown out of Rhodesia for treatment. Tried to
return by mounting November 1967 mercenary invasion of Congo from the south at
Dilolo. Operation delayed, some said as a result of CIA bribes, was a fiasco when it
happened. Since lived in Paris.
JACQUES SCHRAMME. Belgian. Planter-turned-mercenary. Nicknamed Black
Jacques. Formed own unit of Katangese early in 1961 and was prominent in
Katangese secession attempt. One of the last to flee into Angola on defeat of the
secession. Took his Katangese with him. Waited in Angola until return of Tshombe,
then marched back into Katanga. Through the 1964-65 war against the Simba
rebels, his 10th Codo was more or less independent. Sat out the first Stanleyville
revolt of 1966 (the Katangese mutiny), and his mixed mercenary/Katangese force
was left intact. Launched 1967 Stanleyville mutiny, in which Denard later joined.
Took joint command after wounding of Denard and led the march to Bukavu.
Repatriated 1968, no further mercenary work since.
ROGER FAULQUES. Much-decorated French professional officer. Sent, probably
by French govt., into Katanga during secession. Later commanded Denard, who ran
the French operation in the Yemen. Was not involved in Congolese mercenary
operations. Mounted small operation at French behest in Nigerian civil war.
Ferociously brave but now nearly crippled by combat wounds.
MIKE HOARE. British-turned-South African. Acted as mercenary adviser in
Katanga secession, became close personal friend of Tshombe. Invited back to
Congo in 1964, when Tshombe returned to power, and formed English-speaking
Fifth Commando. Commanded through bulk of anti-Simba war, retired in December
1965 and handed over to Peters. Well off and semi-retired.
JOHN PETERS. Joined Hoare in 1964 in first mercenary war. Rose to become
deputy commander. Fearless and totally ruthless. Several officers under Hoare
refused to serve under Peters and transferred or left 5th Godo. Retired wealthy late
1966.
N.B. The above six count as "the older generation," inasmuch as they were the
originals who came to prominence in the Katanga and Congolese wars. The
following five are younger in age, except Roux, who is now in his mid-forties, but
may be considered the "younger" generation because they had junior commands in
the Congo or came to prominence since the Congo.
ROLF STEINER. German. Began first mercenary operation under Faulquesorganized
group that went into Nigerian civil war. Stayed on and led the remnants
of the group for nine months. Dismissed. Signed on for South Sudan.
GEORGE SCHROEDER. South African. Served under Hoare and Peters in 5th Codo
in the Congo. Prominent in the South African contingent in that unit. Their choice as
leader after Peters. Peters conceded and gave him the command. 5th Codo
disbanded and sent home a few months later. Not heard of since. Living in South
Africa.
CHARLES Roux. French. Very junior in Katangese secession. Quit early and went
to South Africa via Angola. Stayed there and returned with South Africans to fight
under Hoare in 1964. Quarreled with Hoare and went to join Denard. Promoted and
transferred to 6th Codo subsidiary unit, the 14th Codo, as second-in-command.
Took part in 1966 Katangese revolt in Stanleyville, in which his unit was nearly
wiped out. Was smuggled out of the Congo by Peters. Returned by air with several
South Africans and joined Schramme, May 1967. Took part in 1967 Stanleyville
revolt as well. After wounding of Denard, proposed for overall command of 10th
and 6th Commandos,
now merged. Failed. Wounded at Bukavu in a shoot-out, quit, and
returned home via Kigali. Not in action since. Lives in Paris.
CARLO SHANNON. British. Served under Hoare in 5th, 1964. Declined to serve
under Peters. Transferred to Denard 1966, joined the 6th. Served under Schramme
on march to Bukavu. Fought throughout siege. Repatriated among the last in April
1968. Volunteered for Nigerian civil war, served under Steiner. Took over remnants
after Steiner's dismissal, November 1968. Commanded till the end. Believed staying
in Paris.
LUCIEN BRUN. Alias Paul Leroy. French, speaks fluent English. Served as enlisted
officer French Army, Algerian war. Normal discharge. Was in South Africa 1964,
volunteered for Congo. Arrived 1964 with South African unit, joined Hoare's 5th
Commando. Fought well, wounded late 1964. Returned 1965. Refused to serve
under Peters, transferred to Denard and the 6th in early 1966. Left Congo May
1966, sensing forthcoming revolt. Served under Faulques in Nigerian civil war.
Wounded and repatriated. Returned and tried for his own command. Failed.
Repatriated 1968. Lives in Paris. Highly intelligent, also very politically minded.
When he had finished, Endean looked up. "These men would all be available for
such a job?" he asked.
The writer shook his head. "I doubt it," he said. "I included all those who could
do such a job. Whether they would want to is another matter. It would depend on
the size of the job, the number of men they would command. For the older ones
there is a question of the prestige involved. There is also the question of how much
they need the work. Some of the older ones are more or less retired and
comfortably off."
"Point them out to me," invited Endean.
The writer leaned over and ran his finger down the list. "First the older
generation. Lamouline you'll never
get. He was always virtually an extension of Belgian government policy, a tough
veteran and revered by his men. He's retired now. The other Belgian, Black Jacques
Schramme, is now retired and runs a chicken farm in Portugal. Of the French, Roger
Faulques is perhaps the most decorated ex-officer of the French Army. He also is
revered by the men who fought under him, in and out of the Foreign Legion, and
regarded as a gentleman by others. But he's also crippled with wounds, and the last
contract he got was a failure because he delegated the command to a subordinate
who failed,
"Denard was good in the Congo but got a very bad head wound at Stanleyville.
Now he's past it. The French mercenaries still stay in contact with him, looking for a
bite, but he hasn't been given a command or a project to set up since the fiasco at
Dilolo. And little wonder.
"Of the Anglo-Saxons, Mike Hoare is retired and comfortably off. He might be
tempted by a million-pound project, but even that's not certain. His last foray was
into Nigeria, where he proposed a project to each side, costed at half a million
pounds. They both turned him down. John Peters is also retired and runs a factory
in Singapore. All six made a lot of money in the heyday, but none has adapted to
the smaller, more technical mission that might be called for nowadays, some
because they don't wish to, or because they can't!"
"What about the other five?" asked Endean.
"Steiner was good once, but deteriorated. The press publicity got to him, and
that's always bad for a mercenary. They begin to believe they are as fearsome as
the Sunday papers say they are. Roux became bitter when he failed to get the
Stanleyville command after Denard's wounding and claims leadership over all
French mercenaries, but he hasn't been employed since Bukavu. The last two are
better; both in their thirties, intelligent, educated, and with enough guts in combat
to be able to command other meres. Incidentally,
meres only fight under a leader they choose themselves. So hiring a bad
mercenary to recruit others serves no purpose, because no one else wants to know
about serving under a guy who once ran out. So the combat record is important.
"Lucien Brun, alias Paul Leroy, could do this job. Trouble is, you would never be
quite sure if he was not passing stuff to French intelligence, the SDECE. Does that
matter?"
"Yes, very much," said Endean shortly. "You left out Schroeder, the South
African. What about him? You say he commanded Fifth Commando in the Congo?"
"Yes," said the writer. "At the end, the very end. It also broke up under his
command. He's a first-class, soldier, within his limitations. For example, he would
command a battalion of mercenaries excellently, providing it were within the
framework of a brigade with a good staff. He's a good combat man, but
conventional. Very little imagination, not the sort who could set up his own
operation starting from scratch. He'd need staff officers to take care of the admin."
"And Shannon? He's British?"
"Anglo-Irish. He's new; he got his first command only a year ago, but he did well.
He can think unconventionally and has a lot of audacity. He can also organize down
to the last detail."
Endean rose to go. "Tell me something," he said at the door. "If you were
mounting an—seeking a man to go on a mission and assess the situation, which
would you choose?"
The writer picked up the notes on the breakfast table. "Cat Shannon," he said
without hesitation. "If I were doing that, or mounting an operation, I'd pick the
Cat."
"Where is he?" asked Endean.
The writer mentioned a hotel and a bar in Paris. "You could try either of those,"
he said.
"And if this man Shannon was not available, or for
some other reason could not be employed, who would be second on the list?"
The writer thought for a while. "If not Lucien Brun, then the only other who
would almost certainly be available and has the experience would be Roux," he
said.
"You have his address?" asked Endean.
The writer flicked through a small notebook that he took from a drawer in his
desk.
"Roux has a flat in Paris," he said and gave Endean the address. A few seconds
later he heard the clump of Endean's feet descending the stairs. He picked up the
phone and dialed a number. "Carrie? Hi, it's me. We're going out tonight.
Somewhere expensive. I just got paid for a feature article."
Cat Shannon walked slowly and pensively up the rue Blanche toward the Place
Clichy. The little bars were already open on both sides of the street, and from the
doorways the hustlers tried to persuade him to step inside and see the most
beautiful girls in Paris. The latter, who, whatever else they were, most certainly
were not that, peered through the lace curtains at the darkened street. It was just
after five o'clock on a mid-March evening, with a cold wind blowing. The weather
matched Shannon's mood.
He crossed the square and ducked up another side street toward his hotel, which
had few advantages but a fine view from its top floors, since it was close to the
summit of Montmartre. He was thinking about Dr. Dunois, whom he had visited for
a general checkup a week earlier. A former paratrooper and army doctor, Dunois
had become a mountaineer and gone on two French expeditions to the Himalayas
and the Andes as the team medico.
He had later volunteered for several tough medical missions in Africa, on a
temporary basis and for the duration of the emergency, working for the French Red
Cross. There he had met the mercenaries and
had patched up several of them after combat. He had become known as the
mercenaries' doctor, even in Paris, and had sewn up a lot of bullet holes, removed
many splinters of mortar casing from their bodies. If they had a medical problem or
needed a checkup, they usually went to him at his Paris surgery. If they were well
off, flush with money, they paid on the nail in dollars. If not, he forgot to send his
bill, which is unusual in French doctors.
Shannon turned into the door of his hotel and crossed to the desk for his key.
The old man was on duty behind the desk.
"Ah, monsieur, one has been calling you from London. All day. He left a
message."
The old man handed Shannon the slip of paper in the key aperture. It was
written in the old man's scrawl, evidently dictated letter by letter. It said simply
"Careful Harris," and was signed with the name of a freelance writer he knew from
his African wars and who he knew lived in London.
"There is another, m'sieur. He is waiting in the salon."
The old man gestured toward the small room set aside from the lobby, and
through the archway Shannon could see a man about his own age, dressed in the
sober gray of a London businessman, watching him as he stood by the desk. There
was little of the London businessman in the ease with which the visitor came to his
feet as Shannon entered the salon, or about the build of the shoulders. Shannon
had seen men like him before. They always represented older, richer men.
"Mr. Shannon?"
"Yes."
"My name is Harris, Walter Harris."
"You wanted to see me?"
"I've been waiting a couple of hours for just that. Can we talk here, or in your
room?"
"Here will do. The old man understands no English."
The two men seated themselves facing each other.
Hams relaxed and crossed his legs. He reached for a pack of cigarettes and
gestured to Shannon with the pack. Shannon shook his head and reached for his
own brand in his jacket pocket.
"I understand you are a mercenary, Mr. Shannon?"
"Yes."
"In fact you have been recommended to me. I represent a group of London
businessmen. We need a job done. A sort of mission. It needs a man who has some
knowledge of military matters, and who can travel to a foreign country without
exciting any suspicions. Also a man who can make an intelligent report on what he
saw there, analyze a military situation, and then keep his mouth shut."
"I don't kill on contract," said Shannon briefly.
"We don't want you to," said Harris.
"All right, what's the mission? And what's the fee?" asked Shannon. He saw no
sense in wasting words. The man in front of him was unlikely to be shocked by a
spade being called a spade.
Harris smiled briefly. "First, you would have to come to London for briefing. We
would pay for your trip and expenses, even if you decided not to accept."
"Why London? Why not here?" asked Shannon.
Harris exhaled a long stream of smoke. "There are some maps and other papers
involved," he said. "I didn't want to bring them with me. Also, I have to consult my
partners, report to them that you have accepted or not, as the case may be."
There was silence as Harris drew a wad of French 100-franc notes from his
pocket.
"Fifteen hundred francs," he said. "About a hundred and twenty pounds. That's
for your air ticket to London, single or return, whichever you wish to buy. And your
overnight stay. If you decline the proposition after hearing it, you get another
hundred for your trouble in coming. If you accept, we discuss the further salary."
Shannon nodded. "All right. I'll listen—in London. When?"
"Tomorrow," said Harris and rose to leave. "Arrive any time during the course of
the day, and stay at the Post House Hotel on Haverstock Hill. I'll book your room
when I get back tonight. At nine the day after tomorrow I'll phone you in your room
and make a rendezvous for later that morning. Clear?"
Shannon nodded and picked up the francs. "Book the room in the name of
Brown, Keith Brown," he said.
The man who called himself Harris left the hotel and headed downhill, looking for
a taxi. He had not seen any reason to mention to Shannon that he had spent three
hours earlier that afternoon talking with another mercenary, a man by the name of
Charles Roux. Nor did he mention that he had decided, despite the Frenchman's
evident eagerness, that Roux was not the man for the job; he had left the man's
flat with a vague promise to get in touch again, with his decision.
Twenty-four hours later Shannon stood at his bedroom window in the Post House
Hotel and stared out at the rain and the commuter traffic swishing up Haver-stock
Hill from Camden Town toward Hampstead and the commuter suburbs.
He had arrived that morning on the first plane, using his passport in the name of
Keith Brown. Long since, he had had to acquire a false passport by the normal
method used in mercenary circles. At the end of 1967 he had been with Black
Jacques Schramme at Bukavu, surrounded and besieged for months by the
Congolese army. Finally, undefeated but running out of ammunition, the
mercenaries had vacated the Congolese lakeside city, walked across the bridge into
neighboring Rwanda, and allowed themselves, with Red Cross guarantees which the
Red Cross could not possibly fulfill, to be disarmed.
From then on, for nearly six months, they had sat idle in an internment camp at
Kigali while the Red Cross and the Rwanda government hassled over their
repatriation to Europe. President Mobutu of the Congo
wanted them sent back to him for execution, but the mercenaries had threatened
if that was the decision they would take the Rwandan army barehanded, recover
their guns and find their own way home. The Rwandan government had believed,
rightly, that they might do it.
When finally the decision was made to fly them back to Europe, the British consul
had visited the camp and soberly told the six British mercenaries present that he
would have to impound their passports. They had soberly told him they had lost
everything across the lake in Bukavu. On being flown home to London, Shannon
and the others had been told by the Foreign Office that each man owed £350 for
the air fare and would receive no new passport ever again.
Before leaving the camp, the men had been photographed and fingerprinted and
had had their names taken. They also had to sign documents pledging never to set
foot on the continent of Africa. These documents would be sent in copy to every
African government.
The reaction of the mercenaries was predictable. Every one had a lush beard and
mustache and hair left uncut after months in the camp, where no scissors were
allowed in case they went on the warpath with them. The photographs were
therefore unrecognizable. Each man then submitted his own fingerprints for another
man's prints, and they all exchanged names. The result was that every identity
document contained one man's name, another man's fingerprints, and a third man's
photograph. Finally, they signed the pledge to leave Africa forever with names like
Sebastian Weetabix and Neddy Seagoon.
Shannon's reaction to the Foreign Office demand was no less unhelpful. As he
still had his "lost" passport, he kept it and traveled where he wished until it expired.
Then he took the necessary steps to secure another one, issued by the Passport
Office but based on a birth certificate, secured from the Registry of Births in
Somerset House for the standard fee of five shillings, which
referred to a baby who had died of meningitis in Yarmouth about the time
Shannon was born.* (*For a more detailed explanation of this procedure, which
was used by a would-be assassin of General de Gaulle, see The Day of the Jackal
(New York: The Viking Press, 1971; Bantam Books, Inc., 1972).)
On arrival in London that morning, he had contacted the writer he had first met
in Africa and learned how Walter Harris had found him. He thanked the man for
recommending him and asked if he knew the name of a good agency of private
inquirers. Later that afternoon he visited the agency and paid a deposit of £20,
promising to phone the next morning with further instructions.
Harris called, as he had promised, on the dot of nine the following morning and
was put through to Mr. Brown's room.
"There's a block of flats in Sloane Avenue called Chelsea Cloisters," he said
without preamble. "I have booked flat three-seventeen for us to talk. Please be
there at eleven sharp. Wait in the lobby until I arrive, as I have the key." Then he
hung up.
Shannon checked the address in the telephone book under the bedside table and
called the detective agency. "I want your man in the lobby of Chelsea Cloisters in
Sloane Avenue at ten-fifteen," he said. "He had better have his own transport."
"He'll have a scooter," said the head of the agency.
An hour later Shannon met the man from the agency in the lobby of the
apartment house. Rather to his surprise, the man was a youth in his late teens, with
long hair.
Shannon surveyed him suspiciously. "Do you know your job?" he asked.
The boy nodded. He seemed full of enthusiasm, and Shannon only hoped it was
matched by a bit of skill.
"Well, park that crash helmet outside on the scooter," he said. "People who come
in here don't carry crash helmets. Sit over there and read a newspaper."
The youth did not have one, so Shannon gave him his own. "I'll sit on the other
side of the lobby. At about eleven a man will come in, nod to me, and we'll go into
the lift together. Note that man, so you will recognize him again. He should come
out about an hour later. By then you must be across the road, astride the scooter,
with the helmet on and pretending to be busy with a breakdown. Got it?"
"Yes. I've got it."
"The man will either take his own car from nearby, in which case grab the
number of it. Or he'll take a taxi. In either case, follow him and note where he
goes. Keep on his tail until he arrives at what looks like his final destination."
The youth drank in the instructions and took his place in the far corner of the
lobby behind his newspaper.
The lobby porter frowned but left him alone. He had seen quite a few meetings
take place in front of his reception desk.
Forty minutes later Simon Endean walked in. Shannon noticed that he dismissed
a taxi at the door, and hoped the youth had noticed it as well. He stood up and
nodded to the newcomer, but Endean strolled past him and pressed the summons
button for the lift. Shannon joined him and remarked the youth peering over his
newspaper.
For God's sake, thought Shannon and mentioned something about the foul
weather lest the man who called himself Harris should glance round the lobby.
Settled into an easy chair in flat 317, Harris opened his briefcase and took out a
map. Spreading it out on the bed, he told Shannon to look at it. Shannon gave it
three minutes and had taken in all the details the map had to give. Then Harris
began his briefing.
It was a judicious mixture of fact and fiction. He still claimed he represented a
consortium of British businessmen, all of whom did some form of business with
Zangaro and all of whose businesses, including some
which were virtually out of business, had suffered as a result of President Kimba.
Then he went into the background of the republic from independence onward,
and what he said was truthful, most of it out of his own report to Sir James
Manson. The punch line came at the end.
"A group of officers in the army has got in touch with a group of local
businessmen—who are, incidentally, a dying breed. They have mentioned that they
are considering toppling Kimba in a coup. One of the local businessmen mentioned
it to one of my group, and put their problem to us. It is basically that they are
virtually untrained in military terms, despite their officer status, and do not know
how to topple the man, because he spends too much time hidden inside the walls
of his palace, surrounded by his guards.
"Frankly, we would not be sorry to see this Kimba go, and neither would his
people. A new government would be good for the economy of the place and good
for the country. We need a man to go down there and make a complete
assessment of the military and security situation in and around the palace and the
important institutions. We want a complete report on Kimba's military strength."
"So you can pass it on to your officers?" asked Shannon.
"They are not our officers. They are Zangaran officers. The fact is, if they are
going to strike at all, they had better know what they are doing."
Shannon believed half of the briefing, but not the second half. If the officers, who
were on the spot, could not assess the situation, they would be incompetent to
carry out a coup. But he did not say so.
"I'd have to go in as a tourist," he said. "There's no other cover that would work."
"That's right."
"There must be precious few tourists that go there. Why cannot I go in as a
company visitor to one of your friends' business houses?"
"That will not be possible," said Harris. "If anything went wrong, there would be
all hell to pay."
If I get caught, you mean, thought Shannon, but kept silent. He was being paid,
so he would take risks. That, and his knowledge, was what he was being paid for.
"There's the question of pay," he said shortly.
"Then you'll do it?"
"If the money's right, yes."
Harris nodded approvingly. "Tomorrow morning a round-trip ticket from London
to the capital of the neighboring republic will be at your hotel," he said. "You have
to fly back to Paris and get a visa for this republic. Zangaro is so poor there is only
one embassy in Europe, and that's in Paris also. But getting a Zan-garan visa there
takes a month. In the next-door republic's capital there is a Zangaran consulate.
There you can get a visa for cash, and within an hour if you tip the consul. You
understand the procedure."
Shannon nodded. He understood it very well.
"So get visa-ed up in Paris, then fly down by Air Afrique. Get your Zangaran visa
on the spot and take the connecting plane service from there to Clarence, paying
cash. With the tickets at your hotel tomorrow will be three hundred pounds in
French francs as expenses."
"I'll need five," said Shannon. "It'll be ten days at least, possibly more, depending
on connections and how long the visas take to get. Three hundred leaves no margin
for the occasional bribe or any delay."
"All right, five hundred in French francs. Plus five hundred for yourself," said
Harris.
"A thousand," said Shannon.
"Dollars? I understand you people deal in U.S. dollars."
"Pounds," said Shannon. "That's twenty-five hundred dollars, or two months at
flat salary if I were on a normal contract."
"But you'll only be away ten days," protested Harris.
"Ten days of high risk," countered Shannon. "If this place is half what you say it
is, anyone getting caught on this kind of job is going to be very dead, and very
painfully. You want me to take the risks rather than go yourself, you pay."
"Okay, a thousand pounds. Five hundred down and five hundred when you
return."
"How do I know you'll contact me when I return?" said Shannon.
"How do I know you'll even go there at all?" countered Harris.
Shannon considered the point. Then he nodded. "All right, half now, half later."
Ten minutes later Harris was gone, after instructing Shannon to wait five minutes
before leaving himself.
At three that afternoon the head of the detective agency was back from his
lunch. Shannon called at three-fifteen.
"Ah, yes, Mr. Brown," said the voice on the phone. "I have spoken to my man. He
waited as you instructed, and when the subject left the building he recognized him
and followed. The subject hailed a taxi from the curb, and my man followed him to
the City. There he dismissed the taxi and entered a building."
"What building?"
"ManCon House. That's the headquarters of Manson Consolidated Mining."
"Do you know if he works there?" asked Shannon.
"It would seem he does," said the agency chief. "My man could not follow him
into the building, but he noticed the commissionaire touched his cap to the subject
and held the door open for him. He did not do that for a stream of secretaries and
evidently junior executives who were emerging for lunch."
"He's brighter than he looks," conceded Shannon. The youth had done a good
job. Shannon gave several further instructions and that afternoon mailed £50 by
registered mail to the detective agency. He also
opened a bank account and put down £10 deposit in it. The following morning he
banked a further £500 and that evening flew to Paris.
Dr. Gordon Chalmers was not a drinking man. He seldom touched anything
stronger than beer, and when he did he became talkative, as his employer, Sir
James Manson, had found out for himself over their luncheon at Wilton's. The
evening that Cat Shannon was changing planes at Le Bourget to catch the Air
Afrique DC-8 to West Africa, Dr. Chalmers was having dinner with an old college
friend, now also a scientist and working in industrial research.
There was nothing special about their meal. He had run into his former classmate
in one of those coincidental meetings on the street a few days earlier, and they had
agreed to have dinner together.
Fifteen years earlier they had been young undergraduates, single and working
hard on their respective degrees, earnest and concerned as so many young
scientists feel obliged to be. In the mid-1950s the concern had been the bomb and
colonialism, and they had joined thousands of others marching for the Campaign for
Nuclear Disarmament and the various movements that sought an instant end to
empire, and world freedom now. Both had been indignant, serious, committed, and
both had changed nothing. But in their indignation over the state of the world they
had dabbled with the Young Communist movement. Chalmers had grown out of it,
married, started his family, secured a mortgage for his house, and slowly merged
into the salaried middle class.
The combination of worries that had come his way over the previous two weeks
caused him to take more than his usual single glass of wine with dinner,
considerably more. His friend, a kindly man with soft brown eyes, noticed his worry
and asked if he could help.
It was over the brandy that Dr. Chalmers felt he had to confide his worries to
someone, someone who, unlike his wife, was a fellow scientist and would understand
the problem. Of course it was highly confidential, and his friend was
solicitous and sympathetic.
When he heard about the crippled daughter and the need for the money to pay
for her expensive equipment, the man's eyes clouded over with sympathy, and he
reached across the table to grip Dr. Chalmers' forearm.
"Don't worry about it, Gordon. It's completely understandable. Anyone else would
have done the same thing," he told him. Chalmers felt better when they left the
restaurant and made their separate ways home. He was easier in his mind, his
problem somehow shared.
Though he had asked his old friend how he had fared in the intervening years
since their undergraduate days together, the man had been slightly evasive.
Chalmers, bowed under his own worries and his observation blunted by wine, had
not pressed for detail. Even had he done so, it was unlikely the friend would have
told him that, far from merging into the bourgeoisie, he had remained a fully
committed member of the Communist party.
7
The Convair 440 that ran the connecting air service into Clarence banked steeply
over the bay and began its descent toward the airfield. Being intentionally on the
left side of the plane, Shannon could look down toward the town as the aircraft
overflew it. From a thousand feet he could see the capital of Zangaro occupying the
end of the peninsula, surrounded on three sides by the palm-fringed waters of the
gulf, and on the fourth side by the land, where the stubby peninsula, just eight
miles long, ran back to join the main coastline.
The spit of land was three miles wide at its base, set in the mangrove swamps on
the coastline, and a mile wide at the tip, where the town was situated. The flanks
along each side were also composed of mangrove, and only at the end did the
mangroves give way to some shingly beaches.
The town spanned the end of the peninsula from side to side and stretched about
a mile back down the length of it. Beyond the fringes of the town at this end, a
single road ran between cultivated patches the remaining seven miles to the main
coast.
Evidently all the best buildings were set toward the seaward tip of the land,
where the breezes would blow, for the aerial view showed the buildings to be set ia
their own plots of land, one to an acre. The landward side of the town was
evidently the poorer section, where thousands of tin-roofed shanties intersected
with narrow muddy alleys. He concentrated on the richer section of Clarence, where
the colonial masters had once lived, for here would be the important buildings, and
he would only have a few seconds to see them from this angle.
At the very end was a small port, formed where, for no geological reason, two
long curving spits of shingle ran out into the sea like the antlers of a stag beetle or
the pincers of an earwig. The port was set along the landward side of this bay.
Outside the arms of the bay, Shannon could see the water ruffled by the breeze,
while inside the three-quarter-circle enclosed within the arms, the water was a flat
calm. No doubt it was this anchorage, tacked onto the end of the peninsula in one
of nature's afterthoughts, which had attracted the first mariners.
The center of the port, directly opposite the opening to the high seas, was
dominated by a single concrete quay without any ship tied up to it, and a
warehouse of sorts. To the left of the concrete quay was evidently the natives'
fishing area, a shingly beach littered with long canoes and nets laid out to dry, and
to the right of the quay was the old port, a series of decrepit wooden jetties
pointing toward the water.
Behind the warehouse there were perhaps two hundred yards of rough grass,
ending with a road along the shore, and behind the road the buildings started.
Shannon caught a glimpse of a white colonial-style church and what could have
been the governor's palace in bygone days, surrounded by a wall. Inside the wall,
apart from the main buildings, was a large courtyard surrounded by lean-to
hutments of evidently recent addition.
At this point the Convair straightened up, the town disappeared from view, and
they were on final approach.
Shannon had already had his first experience of Zangaro
the previous day when he had applied for his visa for a tourist visit. The
consul in the neighboring capital had received him with some surprise, being
unused to such applications. He had to fill out a five-page form giving his parents'
first names (as he had no idea of Keith Brown's parents' names, he invented them)
and every other conceivable piece of information.
His passport, when he handed it over, had a handsome banknote idly lying
between the first and second pages. This went into the consul's pocket. The man
then examined the passport from every angle, read every page, held it up to the
light, turned it over, checked the currency allowances at the back. After five
minutes of this, Shannon began to wonder if there was something wrong. Had the
British Foreign Office made an error in this particular passport?
Then the consul looked at him and said, "You are an American."
With a sense of relief Shannon realized the man was illiterate. He had his visa in
five minutes more. But at Clarence airport the fun stopped.
He had no luggage in the aircraft hold, just a hand grip. Inside the main (and
only) passenger building the heat was overpowering, and the place buzzed with
flies. About a dozen soldiers lounged about, and ten policemen. They were
evidently of different tribes. The policemen were self-effacing, hardly speaking even
to each other, leaning against the walls. It was the soldiers who attracted
Shannon's attention. He kept half an eye on them as he filled in another immensely
long form (the same one he had filled the previous day at the consulate) and
penetrated Health and Passport Control, both manned by officials whom he took to
be Caja, like the policemen.
It was when he got to customs that the trouble started. A civilian was waiting for
him and instructed him with a curt gesture to go into a side room. As he did so,
taking his bag with him, four soldiers swaggered in after him. Then he realized
what it was about them that rang a bell in his memory.
Long ago in the Congo he had seen the same attitude, the blank-eyed sense of
menace conveyed by an African of almost primeval cultural level, armed with a
weapon, in a state of power—wholly unpredictable, with reactions to a situation
that were utterly illogical, ticking away like a moving time bomb. Just before the
worst of the massacres he had seen launched by Congolese on Katangese, Simbas
on missionaries, and Congolese army on Simbas, he had noticed this same
menacing mindlessness, the sense of power without reason, that can suddenly and
for no recollected explanation turn to frenetic violence. The Vindu soldiers of
President Kimba had it.
The civilian customs officer ordered Shannon to put his bag on the rickety table
and then began to go through it. The search looked thorough, as if for concealed
weapons, until he spotted the electric shaver, took it from its case, examined it,
tried the "on" switch. Being a Remington Lektronic and fully charged, it buzzed
furiously. Without a trace of expression, the customs man put it in his pocket.
Finishing with the bag, he gestured to Shannon to empty his pockets onto the
table. Out came the keys, handkerchief, coins, wallet, and passport. The customs
man went for the wallet, extracted the travelers' checks, looked at them, grunted,
and handed them back. The coins he swept into his hand and pocketed them. Of
the banknotes, there were two 5000-French-African-franc notes and several 100s.
The soldiers had crowded nearer, still making no sound but for their breathing in
the roasting atmosphere, gripping guns like clubs, but overcome with curiosity. The
civilian behind the table pocketed the two 5000-franc notes, and one of the soldiers
picked up the smaller denominations.
Shannon looked at the customs man. The man looked back. Then he lifted his
singlet and showed the butt of a Browning 9-mm. short, or perhaps an 875,
jammed into his trouser band. He tapped it.
"Police," he said, and kept staring. Shannon's fingers itched to smash the man in
the face. Inside his head he
kept telling himself: Keep cool, baby, absolutely cool.
He gestured slowly, very slowly, to what remained of his belongings on the table
and raised his eyebrows. The civilian nodded, and Shannon began to pick them up
and put them back. Behind him he felt the soldiers back off, though they still
gripped their rifles with both hands, able to swing or butt-jab as the mood took
them.
It seemed an age before the civilian nodded toward the door and Shannon left.
He could feel the sweat running in a stream down the spine toward the waistband
of his pants.
Outside in the main hall, the only other white tourist on the flight, an American
girl, had been met by a Catholic priest, who, with his voluble explanations to the
soldiers in coast pidgin, was having less trouble. He looked up and caught
Shannon's eye. Shannon raised an eyebrow slightly. The father looked beyond
Shannon at the room he had come from and nodded imperceptibly.
Outside, in the heat of the small square before the airport building, there was no
transport. Shannon waited. Five minutes later he heard a soft Irish-American voice
behind him.
"Can I give you a lift into town, my son?"
They traveled in the priest's car, a Volkswagen beetle, which he had hidden for
safety in the shade of a palm grove several yards outside the gate. The American
girl was shrill and outraged; someone had opened her handbag and gone through
it. Shannon was silent, knowing how close they could all have come to a beating.
The priest was with the UN hospital, combining the roles of chaplain, almoner, and
doctor of medicine. He glanced across at Shannon with understanding.
"They shook you down."
"The lot," said Shannon. The loss of £15 was nothing but both men had
recognized the mood of the soldiery.
"One has to be very careful here, very careful indeed," said the priest softly.
"Have you a hotel?"
When Shannon told him he had not, the priest drove
him to the Independence, the only hotel in Clarence where Europeans were
permitted to stay.
"Gomez is the manager, he's a good enough sort," said the priest.
Usually when a new face arrives in an African city there are invitations from the
other Europeans to visit the club, come back to the bungalow, have a drink, come
to a party that evening. The priest, for all his helpfulness, issued no such offers.
That was another thing Shannon learned quickly about Zangaro. The mood affected
the whites as well. He would learn more in the days to come, much of it from
Gomez.
It was that same evening that he came to know Jules Gomez, formerly proprietor
and latterly manager of the Independence Hotel. Gomez was fifty and a pied noir, a
Frenchman from Algeria. In the last days of French Algeria, almost ten years earlier,
he had sold his flourishing business in agricultural machinery just before the final
collapse, when one could not give a business away. With what he had made, he
returned to France, but after a year found he could not live in the atmosphere of
Europe any longer and looked around for another place to go. He had settled on
Zangaro, five years before independence and before it was even in the offing.
Taking his savings, he had bought the hotel and steadily improved it over the years.
After independence, things had changed. Three years before Shannon arrived,
Gomez had been brusquely informed that the hotel was to be nationalized and he
would be paid in local currency. He never was, and it was worthless paper in any
case. But he hung on as manager, hoping against hope that one day things might
improve again and something would be left of his only asset on this planet to
secure him in his old age. As manager, he ran the reception desk and the bar.
Shannon found him at the bar.
It would have been easy to win Gomez' friendship by mentioning the friends and
contacts Shannon had who were former OAS men, fighters in the Legion and the
paras, who had turned up in the Congo. But that would have blown his cover as a
simple English tourist who, with five days to kill, had flown down from the north,
impelled only by curiosity to see the obscure republic of Zangaro. So he stuck to his
role of tourist.
But later, after the bar closed, he suggested Gomez join him for a drink in his
room. For no explicable reason, the soldiers at the airport had left him a bottle of
whisky he had been carrying in his case. Gomez' eyes opened wide at the sight of
it. Whisky was another import the country could not afford. Shannon made sure
Gomez drank more than he. When he mentioned that he had come to Zangaro out
of curiosity, Gomez snorted.
"Curiosity? Huh, it's curious, all right. It's bloody weird."
Although they were talking French, and alone in the room, Gomez lowered his
voice and leaned forward as he said it. Once again Shannon got an impression of
the extraordinary sense of fear present in everyone he had seen, except the bullyboy
army thugs and the secret policeman who posed as a customs officer at the
airport. By the time Gomez had sunk half the bottle, he had become slightly
garrulous, and Shannon probed gently for information. Gomez confirmed much of
the briefing Shannon had been given by the man he knew as Walter Harris, and
added more anecdotal details of his own, some of them highly gruesome.
He confirmed that President Kimba was in town, that he hardly ever left it these
days, except for the occasional trip to his home village across the river in Vindu
country, and that he was in his presidential palace, the large, walled building
Shannon had seen from the air.
By the time Gomez bade him good night and wove his way back to his own room
at two in the morning, further nuggets of information had been culled. The three
units known as the civilian police force, the gendarmerie, and the customs force,
although all carried sidearms, had, Gomez swore, no ammunition in their
weapons. Being Caja, they were not trusted to have any, and Kimba, with his
paranoia about an uprising, kept them without one round of ammunition between
the lot of them. He knew they would never fight for him and must not have the
opportunity of fighting against him. The sidearms were just for show.
Gomez had also vouchsafed that the power in the city was exclusively in the
hands of Kimba's Vindu. The dreaded secret police usually wore civilian clothes and
carried automatics, the soldiers of the army had bolt-action rifles such as Shannon
had seen at the airport, and the President's own Praetorian Guards had submachine
guns. The latter lived exclusively in the palace grounds and were ultra-loyal to
Kimba, and he never moved without at least a squad of them hemming him in.
The next morning Shannon went out for a walk. Within seconds he found a small
boy of ten or eleven scampering by his side, sent after him by Gomez. Only later
did he learn why. He thought Gomez must have sent the boy as a guide, though, as
they could not exchange a word, there was not much point in that. The real
purpose was different, a service Gomez offered to all his guests, whether they
asked or not. If the tourist was arrested for whatever reason, and carted off, the
small boy would speed away through the bushes and tell Gomez, who would slip
the information to the Swiss or West German embassy so that someone could begin
to negotiate the tourist's release before he was beaten half dead. The boy's name
was Boniface.
Shannon spent the morning walking, mile after mile, while the small boy trotted
at his heels. As he expected, they were stopped by no one. Shannon knew that the
sheer inefficiency of the place meant that no one would seriously question why a
foreigner should spend a week as a tourist. Such countries even advertise for
tourism in the waiting rooms of their embassies in Europe. Moreover, in the case of
Zangaro there was a community of about a hundred whites in the capital, and no
soldier was going to know that the white walking
down the street was not a local one, or care, provided he was given a dollar for
beer.
There was hardly a vehicle to be seen, and the streets in the residential area
were mainly deserted. From Gomez, Shannon had obtained a small map of the
town, a leftover from colonial days, and with this he tracked down the main
buildings of Clarence. At the only bank, the only post office, half a dozen ministries,
the port, and the UN hospital there were groups of six or seven soldiers lounging
about the steps. Inside the bank, where he went to cash a travelers' check, he
noticed bedrolls in the lobby, and in the lunch hour he twice saw pots of food being
carried by a soldier to his colleagues. Shannon judged that the guard details lived
on the premises of each building. Gomez confirmed this later the same evening.
He noticed a soldier in front of each of six embassies he passed, three of them
asleep in the dust. By the lunch hour he estimated there were about a hundred
soldiers scattered in twelve groups around the main area of the town. He noted
what they were armed with. Each carried an old Mauser 7.92 bolt-action rifle, most
of them looking rusted and dirty. The soldiers wore drab green trousers and shirts,
canvas boots, webbing belts, and peaked caps rather like American baseball caps.
Without exception they were shabby, impressed, unwashed, and unprepossessing.
He estimated their level of training, weapons familiarization, leadership, and fighting
capacity at nil. They were a rabble, undisciplined thugs who could terrify the
timorous Caja by their arms and their brutishness, but had probably never fired a
shot in anger and certainly had never been fired at by people who knew what they
were doing. Their purpose on guard duty seemed to be to prevent a civilian riot,
but he estimated that in a real firefight they would quit and run.
The most interesting thing about them was the state of their ammunition
pouches. They were pressed flat, empty of magazines. Each Mauser had its fixed
magazine, of course, but Mausers hold only five shells.
That afternoon Shannon patrolled the port. Seen from the ground, it looked
different. The two spits of sand running out across the water and forming the
natural harbor were about twenty feet high at the base and six feet above the
water at the tip. He walked down both until he reached the end. Each one was
covered in knee-to-waist-high scrub vegetation, burned brown at the end of the
long dry season, and invisible from the air. Each spit was about forty feet wide at
the tip, forty yards wide at the base, where it left the shoreline. From the tip of
each, looking back toward the port area, one had a panoramic view of the
waterfront.
The concreted area was at dead center, backed by the warehouse. To the north
of this stood the old wooden jetties, some long crumbled away, their supports
sticking up like broken teeth above or below the water. To the south of the
warehouse was the shingly beach where the fishing canoes lay. From the tip of one
sandspit the President's palace was invisible, hidden behind the warehouse, but
from the other spit the uppermost story of the palace was plainly visible. Shannon
walked back to the port and examined the fishing beach. It was a good place for a
landing, he thought idly, a gentle slope to the water's edge.
Behind the warehouse the concrete ended and a sloping bank of waist-high
scrub, dissected by numerous footpaths and one laterite road for trucks, ran back
toward the palace. Shannon took the road. As he breasted the top of the rise the
full façade of the old colonial governor's mansion came into view, two hundred
yards away. He continued another hundred yards and reached the lateral road
running along the seashore. At the junction a group of soldiers waited, four in all,
smarter, better dressed than the army, armed with Kalashnikov AK 47 assault rifles.
They watched him in silence as he turned right along the road toward his hotel. He
nodded, but they just stared back. The palace guards.
He glanced to his left as he walked and took in the
details of the palace. Thirty yards wide, its ground-floor windows now bricked up
and painted over the same off-white wash as the rest of the building, it was
dominated at ground level by a tall, wide, bolt-studded timber door, almost
certainly another new addition. In front of the bricked-up windows ran a terrace,
now useless because there was no access from the building to it. On the second
floor a row of seven windows ran from side to side of the façade, three left, three
right, and one above the main entrance. The topmost floor had ten windows, all
much smaller. Above these were the gutter and the red-tiled roof sloping away
toward the apex.
He noticed more guards lounging around the front door, and that the secondfloor
windows had shutters which might have been of steel (he was too far away to
tell) and were drawn down. Evidently no closer access to the front of the building
than the road junction was permitted, except on official business.
He completed the afternoon just before the sun went down by making a tour of
the palace from afar. At each side he saw that a new wall eight feet high ran from
the main mansion toward the land for a distance of eighty yards, and the fourth
wall joined them together at the rear. Interestingly, there were no other gates to
the entire compound. The wall was uniformly eight feet high—he could tell by the
height of a guard he saw walking near the wall—and topped by broken bottles. He
knew he would never see inside, but he could retain the image from the air. It
almost made him laugh.
He grinned at Boniface. "You know, kid, that bloody fool thinks he has protected
himself with a big wall topped with glass and only one entrance. All he has really
done is pin himself inside a brick trap, a great big closed-in killing ground."
The boy grinned widely, not understanding a word, and indicated he wanted to
go home and eat. Shannon nodded, and they went back to the hotel, feet burning
and legs aching.
Shannon made no notes or maps but retained every detail in his head. He
returned Gomez' map and after dinner joined the Frenchman at the bar.
Two Chinese from the embassy sat quietly drinking beer at the back tables, so
conversation between the Europeans was minimal. Besides, the windows were
open. Later, however, Gomez, longing for company, took a dozen bottles of beer
and invited Shannon up to his room on the top floor, where they sat on the balcony
and looked out through the night at the sleeping town, mainly in darkness because
of an electricity breakdown.
Shannon was of two minds whether to take Gomez into his confidence, but
decided not to. He mentioned that he had found the bank and it had not been easy
to change a £50 check.
Gomez snorted. "It never is," he said. "They don't see travelers' checks here, or
much foreign currency for very long."
"They must see it at the bank, surely."
"Not for long. The entire treasure of the republic Kimba keeps locked up inside
the palace."
Shannon was at once interested. It took two hours to learn, in dribs and drabs,
that Kimba kept not only the national armory of ammunition in the old wine cellar of
the governor's palace, under his own lock and key, but also the national radiobroadcasting
station so that he could broadcast direct from his communications
room to the nation and the world and no one else could take control of it from
outside the palace. National radio stations always play a vital role in coups d'etat.
Shannon also learned he had no armored cars and no artillery, and that apart from
the hundred soldiers scattered around the capital there were another hundred
outside the town, a score in the native township on the airport road, and the rest
dotted in the Caja villages beyond the peninsula toward the Zangaro River bridge.
These two hundred were half the army. The other half were in the army barracks,
which were not barracks in truth but the old colonial police lines four hundred
yards from the palace—rows of low tin shanties inside a reed fence enclosure.
The four hundred men constituted the entire army, and the personal palace guards
numbered from forty to sixty, living in the lean-to sheds inside the palace courtyard
walls.
On his third day in Zangaro, Shannon checked out the police lines, where the two
hundred army men not on guard duty lived. They were, as Gomez had said,
surrounded by a reed fence, but a visit to the nearby church enabled Shannon to
slip unnoticed into the bell-tower, run up the circular brick staircase, and sneak a
view from the belfry. The lines were two rows of shanties, adorned with some
clothes hung out to dry. At one end was a row of low brick kilns, over which pots of
stew bubbled. Twoscore men lounged around in various stages of boredom, and all
were unarmed. Their guns might be in the hutments, but Shannon guessed they
were more probably in the armory, a small stone pillbox set aside from the huts.
The other facilities of the camp were primitive in the extreme.
It was that evening, when he had gone out without Boniface, that he met his
soldier. He spent an hour circling the darkened streets, which fortunately for him
had never seen lamplighting, trying to get close to the palace.
He had managed a good look at the back and sides and had assured himself
there were no patrolling guards on these sides. Trying the front of the palace, he
had been intercepted by two of the palace guards, who had brusquely ordered him
on his way home. He had established that there were three of them sitting at the
road junction halfway between the top of the rise from the port and the front gate
of the palace. More importantly, he had also established that they could not see the
harbor from where they stood. From that road junction the soldiers' eyeline, passing
over the top of the rise, would meet the sea beyond the tips of the arms of the
harbor, and without a brilliant moon they would not even see the water five
hundred yards away, though
undoubtedly they would see a light out there, if there were one.
In the darkness on the road junction, Shannon could not see the front gate of the
palace a hundred yards inland, but assumed there were two other guards there as
usual. He offered packets of cigarettes to the soldiers who had accosted him, and
left.
On the road back to the Independence he passed several bars, lit inside by
kerosene lamps, and then moved on down the darkened street. A hundred yards
farther on, the soldier stopped him. The man was evidently drunk and had been
urinating in a rain ditch by the roadside. He swayed up to Shannon, gripping his
Mauser two-handed by the butt and barrel. In the moonlight Shannon could see
him quite clearly as he moved toward him. The soldier grunted something Shannon
failed to understand, though he assumed it was a demand for money.
He heard the soldier mutter, "Beer," several times and add some more
indistinguishable words. Then, before Shannon could reach for money or pass on,
the man snarled and jabbed the barrel of the gun toward him. From then on it was
quick and silent. Shannon took the barrel in one hand and moved it away from his
stomach, jerking hard and pulling the soldier off balance. The man was evidently
surprised at the reaction, which was not what he was accustomed to. Recovering,
he squealed with rage, reversed the gun, gripped it by the barrel, and swung it
clubwise. Shannon stepped in close, blocked the swing by gripping the soldier by
both biceps, and brought up his knee.
It was too late to go back after that. As the gun dropped he brought up his right
hand, crooked into a ninety-degree angle, stiff-armed, and slammed the base of the
hand under the soldier's jawbone. A stab of pain went up his arm and shoulder as
he heard the neck crack, and he later found he had torn a shoulder muscle with the
effort. The Zangaran went down like a sack.
Shannon looked up and down the road, but no one was coming. He rolled the
body into the rain ditch and examined the rifle. One by one, he pumped the
cartridges out of the magazine. At three they stopped coming. There had been
nothing in the breech. He removed the bolt and held the gun to the moon, looking
down the barrel. Several months' accumulation of grit, dirt, dust, grime, rust, and
earth particles met his eye. He slipped the bolt back home, replaced the three
cartridges where they had been, tossed the rifle onto the corpse, and walked home.
"Better and better," he murmured as he slipped into the darkened hotel and went
to bed. He had few doubts there would be no effective police inquiry. The broken
neck would be put down to a fall into the rain ditch, and tests for fingerprints were,
he was sure, unheard of.
Nevertheless, the next day he pleaded a headache, stayed in, and talked to
Gomez. On the following morning he left for the airport and took the Convair 440
back to the north. As he sat in the plane and watched the republic disappear
beneath the port wing, something Gomez had mentioned in passing ran like a
current through his head.
There were not, and never had been, any mining operations in Zangaro.
Forty hours later he was back in London.
Ambassador Leonid Dobrovolsky always felt slightly uneasy when he had his
weekly interview with President Kimba. Like others who had met the dictator, he
had few doubts about the man's insanity. Unlike most of the others, Leonid
Dobrovolsky had orders from his superiors in Moscow to make his utmost efforts to
establish a working relationship with the unpredictable African. He stood in front of
the broad mahogany desk in the President's study on the second floor of the palace
and waited for Kimba to show some sort of reaction.
Seen close to, President Kimba was neither as large
nor as handsome as his official portraits indicated. Behind the enormous desk he
seemed almost dwarfish, the more so as he held himself hunched in his chair in a
state of total immobility. Dobrovolsky waited for the period of immobility to end. He
knew it could end one of two ways. Either the man who ruled Zangaro would speak
carefully and lucidly, in every sense like a perfectly sane man, or the almost
catatonic stillness would give way to a screaming rage, during which the man would
rant like someone possessed, which was in any case what he believed himself to
be.
Kimba nodded slowly. "Please proceed," he said.
Dobrovolsky breathed a sigh of relief. Evidently the President was prepared to
listen. But he knew the bad news was yet to come, and he had to give it. That
could change things.
"I am informed by my government, Mr. President, that it has received information
that a mining survey report recently sent to Zangaro by a British company may not
be accurate. I am referring to the survey carried out several weeks ago by a firm
called Manson Consolidated of London."
The President's eyes, slightly bulging, still stared at the Russian Ambassador
without a flicker of expression. Nor was there any word from Kimba to indicate that
he recalled the subject that had brought Dobrovolsky to his palace.
The Ambassador continued to describe the mining survey that had been delivered
by a certain Mr. Bryant into the hands of the Minister for Natural Resources.
"In essence, then, Your Excellency, I am instructed to inform you that my
government believes the report was not a true representation of what was really
discovered in the area that was then under survey, specifically, the Crystal
Mountain range."
He waited, aware that he could say little more. When Kimba finally spoke, it was
calmly and cogently, and Dobrovolsky breathed again.
"In what way was this survey report inaccurate?" whispered Kimba.
"We are not sure of the details, Your Excellency, but it is fair to assume that since
the British company has apparently not made any effort to secure from you a
mining concession, the report it submitted must have indicated that there were no
mineral deposits worth exploiting in that region. If the report was inaccurate, then it
was probably in this respect. In other words, whatever the mining engineer's
samples contained, it would appear there was more than the British were prepared
to inform you."
There was another long silence, during which the Ambassador waited for the
explosion of rage. It did not come.
"They cheated me," whispered Kimba.
"Of course, Your Excellency," cut in Dobrovolsky hurriedly, "the only way of being
completely sure is for another survey party to examine the same area and take
further samples of the rocks and the soil. To this end I am instructed by my
government most humbly to ask Your Excellency to grant permission for a survey
team from the Institute of Mining of Sverdlovsk to come to Zangaro and examine
the same area as that covered by the British engineer."
Kimba took a long time digesting the proposal. Finally he nodded. "Granted," he
said.
Dobrovolsky bowed. By his side Volkov, ostensibly Second Secretary at the
embassy but more pertinently the resident of the KGB detachment, shot him a
glance.
"The second matter is that of your personal security," said Dobrovolsky. At last he
secured some reaction from the dictator. It was a subject that Kimba took
extremely seriously. His head jerked up, and he shot suspicious glances around the
room. Three Zangaran aides standing behind the two Russians quaked.
"My security?" said Kimba in his usual whisper.
"We would respectfully seek once again to reiterate the Soviet government's view
of the paramount importance of Your Excellency's being able to continue to lead
Zangaro on the path of peace and progress that
Your Excellency has already so magnificently established," said the Russian. The
flow of flattery caused no incongruous note; it was Kimba's habitual due and a
regular part of any words addressed to him.
"To guarantee the continued security of the invaluable person of Your Excellency
and in view of the recent and most dangerous treason by one of your army officers,
we would respectfully once again propose that a member of my embassy staff be
permitted to reside inside the palace and lend his assistance to Your Excellency's
own personal security corps."
The reference to the "treason" of Colonel Bobi brought Kimba out of his trance.
He trembled violently, though whether from rage or fear the Russians could not
make out. Then he began to talk, slowly at first, in his usual whisper, then faster,
his voice rising as he glared at the Zangarans across the room. After a few
sentences he lapsed back into the Vindu dialect, which only the Zangarans
understood, but the Russians already knew the gist: the everpresent danger of
treason and treachery that Kimba knew himself to be in, the warnings he had
received from the spirits telling him of plots in all corners, his complete awareness
of the identity of all those who were not loyal and who harbored evil thoughts in
their minds, his intention to root them out, all of them, and what would happen to
them when he did. He went on for half an hour in this vein, before calming down
and reverting to a European language the Russians could understand.
When they emerged into the sunlight and climbed into the embassy car, both
men were sweating, partly from the heat, for the air-conditioning in the palace was
broken yet again, partly because that was the effect Kimba usually had on them.
"I'm glad that's over," muttered Volkov to his colleague as they drove back
toward the embassy. "Anyway, we got permission. I'll install my man tomorrow."
"And I'll get the mining engineers sent in as soon as possible," said Dobrovolsky.
"Let's hope there really is
something fishy about that British survey report. If there isn't, I don't know how
I'll explain that to the President."
Volkov grunted. "Rather you than me," he said.
Shannon checked into the Lowndes Hotel off Knightsbridge, as he had agreed
with Walter Harris to do before he left London. The agreement was that he would
be away about ten days, and each morning at nine Harris would phone that hotel
and ask for Mr. Keith Brown. Shannon arrived at noon to find the first call for him
had been three hours earlier that morning. The news meant he had till the next day
to himself.
One of his first calls after a long bath, a change, and lunch, was to the detective
agency. The head of it recognized the name of Keith Brown after a few moments'
thought, and Shannon heard him sorting out some files on his desk. Eventually he
found the right one.
"Yes, Mr. Brown, I have it here. Would you like me to mail it to you?"
"Rather not," said Shannon. "Is it long?"
"No, about a page. Shall I read it over the phone?"
"Yes, please."
The man cleared his throat and began. "On the morning following the client's
request, my operative waited close to the entrance of the underground parking lot
beneath ManCon House. He was lucky, in that the subject, whom he had noted the
day before arriving back there by taxi from his interview at Sloane Avenue with our
client, arrived by car. The operative got a clear view of him as he swung into the
parking lot tunnel entrance. It was beyond doubt the subject. He was at the wheel
of a Chevrolet Corvette. The operative took the number as the car went down the
ramp. Inquiries were later made with a contact at the Licensing Department at
County Hall. The vehicle is registered in the name of one Simon John Endean,
resident in South Kensington." The man paused. "Do you want the address, Mr.
Brown?"
"Not necessarily," said Shannon. "Do you know what this man Endean does at
ManCon House?"
"Yes," said the private agent. "I checked up with a friend who's a City journalist.
He is the personal aide and right hand man of Sir James Manson, chairman and
managing director of Manson Consolidated."
"Thank you," said Shannon and put the phone down.
"Curiouser and curiouser," he murmured as he left the hotel lobby and strolled
down to Jermyn Street to cash a check and buy some shirts. It was the first of April,
April Fool's Day; the sun was shining and daffodils covered the grass around Hyde
Park Corner.
Simon Endean had also been busy while Shannon was away. The results of his
labors he imparted to Sir James Manson that afternoon in the penthouse over
Moorgate.
"Colonel Bobi," he told his chief as he entered the office.
The mining boss furrowed his brow. "Who?"
"Colonel Bobi. The former commander of the army of Zangaro. Now in exile,
banished forever by President Jean Kimba. Who, incidentally, has sentenced him to
death by presidential decree for high treason. You wanted to know where he was."
Manson was at his desk by this time, nodding in recollection. "All right, where is
he?" he asked.
"In exile in Dahomey," said Endean. "It took a hell of a job to trace him without
being too obvious about it. But he's taken up residence in the capital of Dahomey.
Place called Cotonou. He must have a little money, but probably not much, or he'd
be in a walled villa outside Geneva with all the other rich exiles. He has a small
rented villa and lives very quietly, probably because it is the safest way of ensuring
the Dahomey government doesn't ask him to leave. It's believed Kimba has asked
for his extradition back home, but no one has done anything about it. Besides, he's
far enough away from Kimba to assume he'll never present a threat."
"And Shannon, the mercenary?" asked Manson.
"Due back sometime today or tomorrow," said En-dean. "I booked him into the
Lowndes from yesterday onward to be on the safe side. He hadn't arrived this
morning at nine. I'm due to try again tomorrow at the same time."
"Try now," said Manson.
The hotel confirmed to Endean that Mr. Brown had indeed arrived, but that he
was out. Sir James Manson listened on the extension.
"Leave a message," he growled at Endean. "Ring him tonight at seven."
Endean left the message, and the two men put the phones down.
"I want his report as soon as possible," said Manson. "He should finish it at noon
tomorrow. You meet him first and read the report. Make sure it covers every point I
told you I wanted answered. Then bring it to me. Put Shannon on ice for two days
to give me time to digest it."
Shannon got Endean's message just after five and was in his room to take the
call at seven. He spent the rest of the evening between supper and bed making up
his notes and the memorabilia he had brought back from Zangaro—a series of
sketches done freehand on a pad of cartridge paper he had bought in the airport in
Paris to while away the time, some scale-drawings done from measurements
between fixed points in Clarence that he had paced out stride by stride, a local
guidebook showing "points of interest," of which the only interesting one was titled
"the residence of His Excellency the Governor of the Colony" and dated from 1959,
and an official and highly flattering portrait of Kimba, one of the few items not in
short supply in the republic.
The next day he strolled down Knightsbridge just as the shops opened, bought
himself a typewriter and a pad of paper, and spent the morning writing his report.
It covered three subjects: a straight narrative of his visit, including the
episode of the soldier he had killed; a detailed description of the capital, building by
building, accompanied by the diagrams; and an equally detailed description of the
military situation. He mentioned the fact that he had seen no signs of either an air
force or a navy, and Gomez' confirmation that neither existed. He did not mention
his stroll down the peninsula to the native shanty towns, where he had seen the
clustered shacks of the poorer Caja and beyond them the shanties of the thousands
of immigrant workers and their families, who chattered to one another in their
native tongue, brought with them from many miles away.
He finished the report with a summary:
The essence of the problem of toppling Kimba has been simplified by the man
himself. In all respects the majority of the republic's land area, the Vindu country
beyond the river, is of nil political or economic value. If Kimba should ever lose
control of the coastal plain producing the bulk of the nation's few resources, he
must lose the country. To go one step further, he and his men could not hold this
plain in 4he face of the hostility and hatred of the entire Caja population, which,
although muted by fear, exists beneath the surface, if he had once lost the
peninsula. Again, the peninsula is untenable by Vindu forces if once the town of
Clarence is lost. And lastly, he has no strength within the town of Clarence if he and
his forces have lost the palace. In short, his policy of total centralization has
reduced the number of targets necessary to be subdued for a take-over of the state
to one—his palace complex, containing himself, his guards, the armory, treasury
and radio station.
As to means of taking and reducing this palace and compound, they have been
reduced to one, by virtue of the wall surrounding the entire place. It has to be
stormed.
The main gate could perhaps be rammed down by a
very heavy truck or bulldozer driven straight at it by a man prepared to die in the
attempt. I saw no evidence of any such spirit among the citizenry or the army, nor
signs of a suitable truck. Alternatively, self-sacrificing courage by hundreds of men
with scaling ladders could overwhelm the palace walls and take the place. I saw no
signs of such spirit either. More realistically, the palace and grounds could be taken
with little life loss after being first pulverized with mortar fire. Against a weapon like
this the encircling wall, far from being a protection, becomes a deathtrap to those
inside. The door could be taken apart by a bazooka rocket. I saw no signs of either
of these weapons, nor any sign of one single person capable of using them. The
unavoidable conclusion reached from the above has to be as follows:
Any section or faction within the republic seeking to topple Kimba and take over
must destroy him and his Praetorian Guards inside the palace compound. To
achieve this they would require expert assistance at a technical level they have not
reached, and such assistance would have to arrive, complete with all necessary
equipment, from outside the country. With these conditions fulfilled, Kimba could be
destroyed and toppled in a firefight lasting no longer than one hour.
"Is Shannon aware that there is no faction inside Zangaro that has indicated it
wants to topple Kimba?" asked Sir James Manson the following morning when he
read the report.
"I haven't told him so," said Endean. "I briefed him as you told me. Just said
there was an army faction inside, and that the group I represented, as interested
businessmen, were prepared to pay for a military assessment of their chances of
success. But he's no fool. He must have seen for himself there's no one there
capable of doing the job anyway."
"I like the sound of this Shannon," said Manson,
closing the military report. "He's obviously got nerve, to judge by the way he
dealt with the soldier. He writes quite well; he's short and to the point. Question is,
could he do the whole of this job himself?"
"He did mention something significant," interjected Endean. "He said when I was
questioning him that the caliber of the Zangaran army was so low that any assisting
force of technicians would have to do practically the whole job anyway, then hand
over to the new men when it was done."
"Did he now? Did he?" Manson said musingly. "Then he suspects already the
reason for his going down there was not the stated one."
He was still musing when Endean asked, "May I put a question, Sir James?"
"What is it?" asked Manson.
"Just this: What did he go down there for? Why do-you need a military report on
how Kimba could be toppled and killed?"
Sir James Manson stared out of the window for some time. Finally he said, "Get
Martin Thorpe up here." While Thorpe was being summoned, Manson walked to the
window and gazed down, as he usually did when he wanted to think hard.
He knew he had personally taken Endean and Thorpe as young men and
promoted them to salaries, and positions beyond their years. It was not simply
because of their intelligence, although they had plenty of it. It was because he
recognized an unscrupulousness in each of them that matched his own, a
preparedness to ignore so-called moral principles in pursuit of the goal success. He
had made them his team, his hatchet-men, paid by the company but serving him
personally in all things. The problem was: Could he trust them with this one, the big
one? As Thorpe entered the office, he decided he had to. He thought he knew how
to guarantee their loyalty.
He bade them sit down and, remaining standing with his back to the window, he
told them, "I want you two to think this one over very carefully, then
give me your reply. How far would you be prepared to go to be assured of a
personal fortune in a Swiss bank of five million pounds each?"
The hum of the traffic ten floors down was like a buzzing bee, accentuating the
silence in the room.
Endean stared back at his chief and nodded slowly. "A very, very long way," he
said softly.
Thorpe made no reply. He knew this was what he had come to the City for,
joined Manson for, absorbed his encyclopedic knowledge of company business for.
The big one, the once-in-a-decade grand slam. He nodded assent.
"How?" whispered Endean. For answer Manson walked to his wall safe and
extracted two reports. The third, Shannon's, lay on his desk as he seated himself
behind it.
Manson talked steadily for an hour. He started at the beginning and soon read
the final six paragraphs of Dr. Chalmers' report on the samples from the Crystal
Mountain.
Thorpe whistled softly and muttered, "Jesus."
Endean required a ten-minute lecture on platinum to catch the point; then he too
breathed a long sigh.
Manson went on to relate the exiling of Mulrooney to northern Kenya, the
suborning of Chalmers, the second visit of Bryant to Clarence, the acceptance of the
dummy report by Kimba's Minister. He stressed the Russian influence on Kimba and
the recent exiling of Colonel Bobi, who, given the right circumstances, could return
as a plausible alternative in the seat of power.
For Thorpe's benefit he read much of Endean's general report on Zangaro and
finished with the conclusion of Shannon's report.
"If it is to work at all, it must be a question of mounting two parallel, highly
secret operations," Man-son said finally. "In one, Shannon, stage-managed
throughout by Simon, mounts a project to take and destroy that palace and all its
contents, and for Bobi, accompanied by Simon, to take over the powers of
state the following morning and become the new president. In the other, Martin
would have to buy a shell company without revealing who had gained control or
why."
Endean furrowed his brow. "I can see the first operation, but why the second?"
he asked.
"Tell him, Martin," said Manson.
Thorpe was grinning, for his astute mind had caught Manson's drift. "A shell
company, Simon, is a company, usually very old and without assets worth talking
about, which has virtually ceased trading and whose shares are very cheap—say, a
shilling each."
"So why buy one?" asked Endean, still puzzled.
"Say Sir James has control of a company, bought secretly through unnamed
nominees, hiding behind a Swiss bank, all nice and legal, and the company has a
million shares valued at one shilling each. Unknown to the other shareholders or the
board of directors or the Stock Exchange, Sir James, via the Swiss bank, owns six
hundred thousand of these million shares. Then Colonel—beg his pardon—President
Bobi sells that company an exclusive ten-year mining franchise for an area of land
in the hinterland of Zangaro. A new mining survey team from a highly reputable
company specializing in mining goes out and discovers the Crystal Mountain. What
happens to the shares of Company X when the news hits the stock market?"
Endean got the message. "They go up," he said with a grin.
"Right up," said Thorpe. "With a bit of help they go from a shilling to well over a
hundred pounds a share. Now do your arithmetic. Six hundred thousand shares at a
shilling each cost thirty thousand pounds to buy. Sell six hundred thousand shares
at a hundred pounds each—and that's the minimum you'd get—and what do you
bring home? A cool sixty million pounds, in a Swiss bank. Right, Sir James?"
"That's right." Manson nodded grimly. "Of course, if you sold half the shares in
small packets to a wide variety of people, the control of the company owning
the concession would stay in the same hands as before. But a bigger company
might put in a bid for the whole block of six hundred thousand shares in one flat
deal."
Thorpe nodded thoughtfully. "Yes, control of such a company bought at sixty
million pounds would be a good market deal. But whose bid would you accept?"
"My own," said Manson.
Thorpe's mouth opened. "Your own?"
"ManCon's bid would be the only acceptable one. That way the concession would
remain firmly British, and ManCon would have gained a fine asset."
"But," queried Endean, "surely you would be paying yourself sixty million quid?"
"No," said Thorpe quietly. "ManCon's shareholders would be paying Sir James
sixty million quid, without knowing it."
"What's that called—in financial terms, of course?" asked Endean.
"There is a word for it on the Stock Exchange," Thorpe admitted.
Sir James Manson tendered them each a glass of whisky. He reached round and
took his own. "Are you on, gentlemen?" he asked quietly.
Both younger men looked at each other and nodded.
"Then here's to the Crystal Mountain."
They drank.
"Report to me here tomorrow morning at nine sharp," Manson told them, and
they rose to go.
At the door to the back stairs Thorpe turned. "You know, Sir James, it's going to
be bloody dangerous. If one word gets out..."
Sir James Manson stood again with his back to the window, the westering sun
slanting onto the carpet by his side. His legs were apart, his fists on his hips.
"Knocking off a bank or an armored truck," he said, "is merely crude. Knocking
off an entire republic has, I feel, a certain style."
8
"What you are saying in effect is that there is no dissatisfied faction within the
army that, so far as you know, has ever thought of toppling President Kimba?"
Cat Shannon and Simon Endean were sitting in Shannon's room at the hotel,
taking midmorning coffee. Endean had phoned Shannon by agreement at nine and
told him to wait for a second call. He had been briefed by Sir James Manson and
had called Shannon back to make the eleven-o'clock appointment.
Endean nodded. "That's right. The information has changed in that one detail. I
can't see what difference it makes. You yourself said the caliber of the army was so
low that the technical assistants would have to do all the work themselves in any
case."
"It makes a hell of a difference," said Shannon. "Attacking the palace and
capturing it is one thing. Keeping it is quite another. Destroying the palace and
Kimba simply creates a vacuum at the seat of power. Someone has to step in and
take over that power. The mercenaries must not even be seen by daylight. So who
takes over?"
Endean nodded again. He had not expected a mercenary to have any political
sense at all.
"We have a man in view," he said cautiously.
"He's in the republic now, or in exile?"
"In exile."
"Well, he would have to be installed in the palace and broadcasting on the radio
that he has conducted an internal coup d'etat and taken over the country, by
midday of the day following the night attack on the palace."
"That could be arranged."
"There's one more thing."
"What's that?" asked Endean.
"There must be troops loyal to the new regime, the same troops who ostensibly
carried out the coup of the night before, visibly present and mounting the guard by
sunrise of the day after the attack. If they don't show up, we would be stuck—a
group of white mercenaries holed up inside the palace, unable to show themselves
for political reasons, and cut off from retreat in the event of a counterattack. Now
your man, the exile, does he have such a back-up force he could bring in with him
when he comes? Or could he assemble them quickly once inside the capital?"
"I think you have to let us take care of that," said Endean stiffly. "What we are
asking you for is a plan in military terms to mount the attack and carry it through."
"That I can do," said Shannon without hesitation. "But what about the
preparations, the organization of the plan, getting the men, the arms, the ammo?"
"You must include that as well. Start from scratch and go right through to the
capture of the palace and the death of Kimba."
"Kimba has to get the chop?"
"Of course," said Endean. "Fortunately he has long since destroyed anyone with
enough initiative or brains to become a rival. Consequently, he is the only man who
might regroup his forces and counterattack. With him dead, his ability to mesmerize
the people into submission will also end."
"Yeah. The juju dies with the man."
"The what?"
"Nothing. You wouldn't understand."
"Try me," said Endean coldly.
"The man has a juju," said Shannon, "or at least the people believe he has.
That's a powerful protection given him by the spirits, protecting him against his
enemies, guaranteeing him invincibility, guarding him from attack, ensuring him
against death. In the Congo the Simbas believed their leader, Pierre Mulele, had a
similar juju. He told them he could pass it on to his supporters and make them
immortal. They believed him. They thought bullets would run off them like water.
So they came at us in waves, bombed out of then: minds on dagga and whisky,
died like flies, and still kept coming. It's the same with Kimba. So long as they think
he's immortal, he is. Because they'll never lift a finger against him. Once they see
his corpse, the man who killed him becomes the leader. He has the stronger juju."
Endean stared in surprise. "It's really that backward?"
"It's not so backward. We do the same with lucky charms, holy relics, the
assumption of divine protection for our own particular cause. But we call it religion
in us, savage superstition in them."
"Never mind," snapped Endean. "All the more reason why Kimba has to die."
"Which means he must be in that palace when we strike. If he's upcountry it's no
good. No one will support your man if Kimba is still alive."
"He usually is in the palace, so I'm told."
"Yes," said Shannon, "but we have to guarantee it. There's one day he never
misses. Independence Day. On the eve of Independence Day he will be sleeping in
the palace, sure as eggs is eggs."
"When's that?"
"Three and a half months away."
"Could a project be mounted in that time?" asked Endean.
"Yes, with a bit of luck. I'd like at least a couple of weeks longer."
"The project has not been accepted yet," observed Endean.
"No, but if you want to install a new man in that palace, an attack from outside is
the only way of doing it. Do you want me to prepare the whole project from start to
finish, with estimated costings and time schedule?"
"Yes. The costing is very important. My—er—associates will want to know how
much they are letting themselves in for."
"All right," said Shannon. "The report will cost you five hundred pounds."
"You've already been paid," said Endean coldly.
"I've been paid for a mission into Zangaro and a report on the military situation
there," replied Shannon. "What you're asking for is a new report right outside the
original briefing you gave me."
"Five hundred is a bit steep for a few sheets of paper with writing on them."
"Rubbish. You know perfectly well if your firm consults a lawyer, architect,
accountant, or any other technical expert you pay him a fee. I'm a technical expert
in war. What you pay for is the knowledge and the experience—where to get the
best men, the best arms, how to ship them, et cetera. That's what costs five
hundred pounds, and the same knowledge would cost you double if you tried to
research it yourself in twelve months, which you couldn't anyway because you
haven't the contacts."
Endean rose. "All right. It will be here this afternoon by special messenger.
Tomorrow is Friday. My partners would like to read your report over the weekend.
Please have it prepared by tomorrow afternoon at three. I'll collect it here."
He left, and as the door closed behind him Shannon raised his coffee cup in mock
toast. "Be seeing you, Mr. Walter Harris oblique stroke Simon Endean," he said
softly.
Not for the first time he thanked his stars for the amiable and garrulous
hotelkeeper Gomez. During one
of their long nightly conversations Gomez had mentioned the affair of Colonel
Bobi, now in exile. He had also mentioned that, without Kimba, Bobi was nothing,
being hated by the Caja for his army's cruelties against them on the orders of
Kimba, and not able to command Vindu troops either. Which left Shannon with the
problem of a back-up force with black faces to take over on the morning after.
Endean's brown manila envelope containing fifty £10 notes arrived just after
three in a taxicab and was delivered to the reception desk of the Lowndes Hotel.
Shannon counted the notes, stuffed them into the inside pocket of his jacket, and
began work. It took him the rest of the afternoon and most of the night.
He worked at the writing desk in his room, poring over his own diagrams and
maps of the city of Clarence, its harbor, port area, and the residential section that
included the presidential palace and the army lines.
The classical military approach would have been to land a force on the side of the
peninsula near the base with the main coastline, march the short distance inland,
and take the road from Clarence to the interior, with guns covering the T-junction.
That would have sealed off the peninsula and the capital from reinforcement. It
would also have lost the element of surprise.
Shannon's talent was that he understood Africa and the African soldier, and his
thinking was unconventional. Tactics suited to African terrain and opposition are
almost the exact opposite of those that will work in a European situation.
Had Shannon's plans ever been considered by a European military mind thinking
in conventional terms, they would have been styled as reckless and without hope of
success. He was banking on Sir James Man-son's not having been in the British
army—there was no reference in Who's Who to indicate that he had— and
accepting the plan. Shannon knew it was workable and the only one that was.
He based his plan on three facts about war in Africa
that he had learned the hard way. One is that the European soldier fights well
and with precision in the dark, provided he has been well briefed on the terrain he
can expect, while the African soldier, even on his own terrain, is sometimes reduced
to near helplessness by his fear of the hidden enemy in the surrounding darkness.
The second is that the speed of recovery of the disoriented African soldier—his
ability to regroup and counterattack—is slower than the European soldier's,
exaggerating the normal effects of surprise. The third is that firepower and hence
noise can bring African soldiers to fear, panic, and headlong flight, without
consideration of the smallness of the actual numbers of their opponents.
So Shannon based his plan on a night attack of total surprise in conditions of
deafening noise and concentrated firepower.
He worked slowly and methodically and, being a poor typist, tapped out the
words with two forefingers. At two in the morning the occupant of the bedroom
next door could stand no more and banged on the wall to ask plaintively for a bit of
peace so that he could get to sleep. Shannon concluded what he was doing five
minutes later and packed up for the night. There was one other sound that
disturbed the man next door, apart from the clacking of the typewriter. As he
worked, and later as he lay in bed, the writer kept whistling a plaintive little tune.
Had the insomniac next door known more of music, he would have recognized
"Spanish Harlem."
Martin Thorpe was also lying awake that night. He knew he had a long weekend
ahead, two and a half days of monotonous and time-consuming poring over cards,
each bearing the basic details of one of the forty-five hundred public companies
registered at Companies House in the City of London.
There are two agencies in London which provide their subscribers with such an
information service about British companies. These are Moodies and the
Exchange Telegraph, known as Extel. In his office in ManCon House, Thorpe had
the set of cards provided by Extel, the agency whose service ManCon took as a
necessary part of its commercial activities. But for the business of searching for a
shell company, Thorpe had decided to buy the Moodies service and have it sent to
his home, partly because he thought Moodies did a better information job on the
smaller companies registered in the United Kingdom, and partly for security
reasons.
After his briefing from Sir James Manson on Thursday, he had gone straight to a
firm of lawyers. Acting for him, and keeping his name to themselves, they had
ordered a complete set of Moodies cards. He had paid the lawyer £260 for the
cards, plus £50 for the three gray filing cabinets in which they would arrive, plus
the lawyer's fee. He had also engaged a small moving firm to send a van around to
Moodies, after being told the set of cards would be ready for pickup on Friday
afternoon.
As he lay in bed in his elegant detached house in Hampstead Garden Suburb, he
too was planning his campaign—not in detail like Shannon, for he had too little
information, but in general terms, using nominee shareholders and parcels of voting
stock as Shannon used submachine guns and mortars. He had never met the
mercenary and never would. But he would have understood him.
Shannon handed his completed project to Endean at three on Friday afternoon. It
contained fourteen pages, four of them diagrams and two of them lists of
equipment. He had finished it after breakfast and had enclosed it in a brown folder.
He was tempted to put "For Sir James Manson's Eyes Only" on the cover, but had
resisted. There was no need to blow the affair wantonly, and he could sniff a good
contract in the offing if the mining baron offered the job to him.
So he continued to call Endean Harris and to refer to "your associates" instead of
"your boss." After taking
the folder, Endean told him to stay in town over the weekend and to be
available from Sunday midnight onward.
Shannon went shopping during the rest of the afternoon, but his mind was on the
references he had already seen in Who's Who to the man he now knew employed
him, Sir James Manson, self-made millionaire and tycoon.
He had an urge, partly from curiosity, partly from the feeling that one day he
might need the information, to learn more about Sir James Manson, about the man
himself and about why he had hired a mercenary to make war in Zangaro on his
behalf.
The reference from Who's Who that stuck in his mind was the mention of a
daughter Manson had, a girl who would now be in her late teens or just turned
twenty. In the middle of the afternoon he stepped into a phone booth off Jermyn
Street and called the private inquiry agents who had traced Endean from their first
meeting in Chelsea and identified him as Manson's aide.
The head of the agency was cordial when he heard his former client on the
phone. Previously, he knew, Mr. Brown had paid promptly and in cash. Such
customers were valuable. If he wished to remain on the end of a telephone, that
was his affair.
"Do you have access to a fairly comprehensive newspaper cuttings library?"
Shannon asked.
"I could have," the agency chief admitted.
"I wish to get a brief description of a young lady to whom there has probably at
one time been a reference in society gossip columns somewhere in the London
press. I need very little, simply what she does and where she lives. But I need it
quickly."
There was a pause on the other end. "If there are such references, I could
probably do it by phone," said the inquiry agent. "What is the name?"
"Miss Julia Manson, daughter of Sir James Manson."
The inquiry agent thought it over. He recalled that this client's previous
assignment had concerned a man
who turned out to be Sir James Manson's aide. He also knew he could find out
what Mr. Brown wanted to know within an hour.
The two men agreed on the fee, a modest one, and Shannon promised to mail it
in cash by registered mail within the hour. The inquiry agent decided to accept the
promise and asked his client to call him back just before five.
Shannon completed his shopping and called back on the dot of five. Within a few
seconds he had what he wanted. He was deep in thought as he walked back to his
hotel and phoned the writer who had originally introduced him to "Mr. Harris."
"Hi," he said gruffly, "it's me, Cat Shannon."
"Oh, hello, Cat," came the surprised reply. "Where have you been?"
"Around," said Shannon. "I just wanted to say thanks for recommending me to
that fellow Harris."
"Not at all. Did he offer you a job?"
Shannon was cautious. "Yeah, a few days' worth. It's over now. But I'm in funds.
How about a spot of dinner?"
"Why not?" said the writer.
"Tell me," said Shannon, "are you still going out with that girl you used to be with
when we met last?"
"Yeah. The same one. Why?"
"She's a model, isn't she?"
"Yes."
"Look," said Shannon, "you may think this crazy, but I very much want to meet a
girl who's also a model but I can't get an introduction to. Name of Julie Man-son.
Could you ask your girl if she ever met her in the modeling world?"
The writer thought it over. "Sure. I'll call Carrie and ask her. Where are you
now?"
"In a call box. I'll call you back in half an hour."
Shannon was lucky. The two girls had been at modeling school together. They
were also handled by the same agency. It took another hour before Shannon, by
then speaking directly to the writer's girlfriend,
learned that Julia Manson had agreed to a dinner date, providing it was a
foursome with Carrie and her boyfriend. They agreed to meet at Carrie's flat just
after eight, and she would have Julie Manson there.
Shannon and the writer turned up within a few minutes of each other at Carrie's
flat off Maida Vale, and the four of them went off to dinner. The writer had
reserved a table at a small cellar restaurant called the Baker and Oven in
Marylebone, and the meal was the kind Shannon liked, enormous portions of
English roast meats and vegetables, washed down with two bottles of Piat de
Beaujolais. He liked the food, and he liked Julie.
She was quite short, a little over five feet, and to give the impression of more
height she wore high heels and carried herself well. She said she was nineteen, and
she had a pert, round face that could be innocently angelic when she wanted, or
extremely sexy when she thought no one else was looking.
She was evidently spoiled and too accustomed to getting thirgs her own way—
probably, Shannon estimated, the result of an overindulgent upbringing. But she
was amusing and pretty, and Shannon had never asked more of a girl. She wore
her dark brown hair loose so that it fell to her waist, and beneath her dress she
evidently had a very curved figure. She also seemed to be intrigued by her blind
date.
Although Shannon had asked his friend not to mention what he did for a living,
Carrie had nevertheless let it slip that he was a mercenary. But the conversation
managed to avoid the question during dinner. As usual Shannon did less talking
than anyone, which was not difficult because Julie and the tall auburn-haired Carrie
did enough for four between them.
As they left the restaurant and climbed back into the cool night air of the streets,
the writer mentioned that he and his girlfriend were taking the car back to his flat.
He hailed a taxi for Shannon, asking him if he would take Julie home before going
on to his hotel.
As the mercenary climbed in, the writer gave him a slow wink. "I think you're
on," he whispered. Shannon grunted.
Outside her Mayfair flat Julie suggested he might like to come in for coffee, so he
paid off the taxi and accompanied her up to the evidently expensive apartment.
Only when they were seated on the settee drinking the appalling coffee Julie had
prepared did she refer to the way he earned his living.
He was leaning back in the corner of the settee; she was perched on the edge of
the seat, turned toward him.
"Have you killed people?" she asked.
"Yes."
"In battle?"
"Sometimes. Mostly."
"How many?"
"I don't know. I never counted."
She savored the information and swallowed several times. "I've never known a
man who had killed people."
"You don't know that," countered Shannon. "Anyone who has been in a war has
probably killed people."
"Have you got any scars from wounds?"
It was another of the usual questions. In fact Shannon carried over a score of
marks on his back and chest, legacies of bullets, fragments of mortar, and shards of
grenade. He nodded. "Some."
"Show me," she said.
"No."
"Go on, show me. Prove it." She stood up.
He grinned up at her. "I'll show you mine if you'll show me yours," he taunted,
mimicking the old kindergarten challenge.
"I haven't got any," Julie said indignantly.
"Prove it," said Shannon shortly and turned to place his empty coffee cup on the
table behind the sofa. He heard a rustle of cloth. When he turned back he nearly
choked on the last mouthful of coffee. It had taken her
less than a second to unzip her dress at the back and let it slip to a pool of
crumpled cloth around her ankles. Beneath it she wore a thin gold waist-chain.
"See," she said softly, "not a mark anywhere."
She was right. Her small nubile teenager's body was an unblemished milky white
from the floor to the mane of dark hair that hung round her shoulders and almost
touched the waist-chain.
Shannon swallowed. "I thought you were supposed to be Daddy's sweet little
girl," he said.
She giggled. "That's what they all think, especially Daddy," she said. "Now it's
your turn."
Sir James Manson sat at the same hour in the library of his country mansion not
far from the village of Notgrove in the rolling Gloucestershire countryside,
Shannon's file on his knee and a brandy and soda at his elbow. It was close to
midnight, and Lady Manson had long since gone up to bed. He had saved the
Shannon project to read alone in his library, resisting the temptation to open it in
the car on the way down or to slip away early from dinner. When he wanted to
concentrate hard he preferred the night hours, and on this document he wanted to
concentrate hard.
He flicked the cover open and set on one side the maps and sketches. Then he
started on the narrative. It read:
Preamble. The following plan has been prepared on the basis of the report on the
republic of Zangaro prepared by Mr. Walter Harris, my own visit to Zangaro and my
own report on that visit, and the briefing given by Mr. Harris on what it is desired to
achieve. It cannot take into account elements known to Mr. Harris but undisclosed
by him to me. Notable among these must be the aftermath of the attack and tke
installation of the successor government. Nevertheless, this aftermath may well
require preparations built in to the planning of the attack, and these I have
obviously not been able to make.
Object of the Exercise. To prepare, launch, and carry out an attack on the
presidential palace at Clarence, capital of Zangaro, to storm and capture that
palace, and to liquidate the President and his personal guards living inside. Also, to
take possession of the bulk of the weapons and armory of the republic, its national
treasury and broadcasting radio station, also inside the palace. Lastly, to create
such conditions that any armed survivors of the guard unit or the army are
scattered outside the town and in no position to mount a viable counterattack.
Method of Attack. After studying the military situation of Clarence, there is no
doubt the attack must be from the sea, and launched directly from the sea at the
palace itself. I have studied the idea of an airborne landing at the airport. It is not
feasible. Firstly, the authorities at the airport of take-off would not permit the
necessary quantity of arms and men to board a charter aircraft without suspecting
the nature of the flight. Any authorities, even if they permitted such a take-off,
would constitute a serious risk of arrest, or a breach of security.
Secondly, a land attack offers no extra advantages and many disadvantages. To
arrive in an armed column over the northern border would only mean the men and
arms would have to be smuggled into the neighboring republic, which has an
efficient police and security system. The risk of premature discovery and arrest
would be extremely high, unacceptably so. To land elsewhere on the coast of
Zangaro and march to Clarence would be no more realistic. For one thing, most of
the coast is of tangled mangrove swamp impenetrable by boats, and such tiny
coves as there are would be unfindable in darkness. For another, being without
motor transport, the attack force would have a long march to the capital, and the
defenders would be forewarned. For a third, the paucity of the numbers of the
attacking force would be visible in daylight, and would hearten the defenders to put
up a stiff resistance.
Lastly, the idea was examined to smuggle the arms and the men into the republic
clandestinely and hide them out until the night of the attack. This too is unrealistic,
partly because the quantity of weapons would be too great in weight terms, partly
because such quantities and so many unaccustomed visitors would inevitably be
spotted and betrayed, and partly because such a plan would require an assisting
organization on the ground inside Zangaro, which does not exist.
In consequence it is felt the only realistic plan must be for an attack by light
boats, departing from a larger vessel moored out at sea, straight into the harbor of
Clarence, and an attack on the palace immediately on landing.
Requirements for the Attack. The force should be not less than a dozen men,
armed with mortars, bazookas, and grenades, and all carrying as well submachine
carbines for close-quarters use. The men should come off the sea between two and
three in the morning, giving ample time for all in Clarence to be asleep, but
sufficiently before dawn for no visible traces of white mercenaries to be available by
sunrise of the same day.
The report continued for six more pages to describe exactly how Shannon
proposed to plan the project and engage the necessary personnel; the arms and
ammunition he would need, the ancillary equipment of radio sets, assault craft,
outboard engines, flares, uniforms, webbing, food and supplies; how each item
could be costed; and how he would destroy the palace and scatter the army.
On the question of the ship to carry the attacking force he said:
Apart from the arms, the acquisition of the ship will prove the most difficult part.
On reflection I would be against chartering a vessel, since this involves crew who
may turn out to be unreliable, a captain who could at any time change his mind,
and the security
hazard that vessels of a kind likely to undertake such a charter are probably
notorious to the authorities of the countries bordering on the Mediterranean. I
advocate spending more money to buy outright a small freighter, crew it with men
paid by and loyal to the patrons and with a legal reputation in shipping circles. Such
a boat would in any case be a returnable asset and might work out cheaper in the
long run.
Shannon had also stressed the necessity of security at all times. He pointed out:
Since I am unaware of the identity of the patrons, with the exception of Mr.
Harris, it is recommended that, in the event of the project being accepted, Mr.
Harris remain the sole link between the patrons and me. Payments of the necessary
money should be made to me by Mr. Harris, and my accounting of expenditure
returned the same way. Similarly, although I would need four subordinate
operatives, none would know the nature of the project, and certainly not the
destination, until all are well out to sea. Even the coastal charts should be handed
over to the captain only after sailing. The above plan takes in the security angle,
since wherever possible the purchases may be made legally on the open market,
and only the arms an illegal purchase. At each stage there is a cut-out at which any
investigator comes up against a blank wall, and also at each stage the equipment is
being bought separately in different countries by different operatives. Only myself,
Mr. Harris, and the patrons would know the whole plan, and in the worst event I
could not identify the patrons, nor, probably, Mr. Harris.
Sir James Manson nodded and grunted in approval several times as he read. At
one in the morning he poured himself another brandy and turned to the costings
and timings, which were on separate sheets. These read:
COMPLETED
Reconnaissance visit to Zangaro.
Two reports £ 2,500
Project commander's fee £ 10,000
Engagement all other personnel
and their salaries £ 10,000
Total administrative costs, traveling,
hotels, etc., for CO and
all subordinates £ 10,000
Purchase of arms £ 25,000
Purchase of vessel £ 30,000
Purchase of ancillary equipment £ 5,000
Reserve £ 2,500
TOTAL £ 100,000 The second sheet bore the estimated timings.
Preparatory Stage: Recruitment and assembly of personnel. Setting up of bank
account. Setting up of foreign-based company to cover purchases. 20 days
Purchasing Stage: Period to cover purchase of all items in sections. 40 days
Assembly Stage: Assembly of equipment and personnel onto the vessel,
culminating in sailing day. 20 days
Shipment Stage: Transporting entire project by sea from embarkation port to
point off coast of Clarence. 20 days
Strike day would take place on Zangaran Independence Day, which in the above
calendar, if set in motion not later than next Wednesday, would be Day 100.
Sir James Manson read the report twice and slowly smoked one of his Upmann
Coronas while he stared at the rich paneling and Morocco-bound books that
lined his walls. Finally he locked the project file in his wall safe and went upstairs
to bed.
Cat Shannon lay on his back in the darkened bedroom and ran his hand idly over
the girl's body that lay half across his own. It was a small but highly erotic body, as
he had discovered during the previous hour, and whatever Julie had spent her time
learning in the two years since she left school, it had not had much to do with
shorthand and typing. Her appetite and taste for sexual variety were equaled only
by her energy and almost constant stream of chatter between meals.
As he stroked her she stirred and began to play with him.
"Funny," he said reflectively, "it must be a sign of the times. We've been screwing
half the night, and I don't know a thing about you."
She paused for a second, said, "Like what?" and resumed.
"Where your home is," he said. "Apart from this pad."
"Gloucestershire," she mumbled.
"What does your old man do?" he asked softly. There was no answer. He took a
handful of her hair and pulled her face around to him.
"Ow, you're hurting. He's in the City. Why?"
"Stockbroker?"
"No, he runs some company to do with mining. That's his specialty, and this is
mine. Now, watch."
Half an hour later she rolled off him and asked, "Did you like that, darling?"
Shannon laughed, and she caught a flash of teeth in the darkness as he grinned.
"Oh yes," he said softly, "I enjoyed that enormously. Tell me about your old
man."
"Daddy? Oh he's a boring old businessman. Spends all his day in a stuffy office in
the City."
"Some businessmen interest me. So tell me, what's he like?"
Sir James Manson was enjoying his midmorning coffee in the sun lounge on the
south side of his country mansion that Saturday morning when the call came
through from Adrian Goole. The Foreign Office official was speaking from his own
home in Kent.
"I hope you won't mind my calling you over the weekend," he said.
"Not at all, my dear fellow," said Manson quite untruthfully. "Any time."
"I would have called at the office last night, but I got held up at a meeting.
Recalling our conversation some time ago about the results of your mining survey
down in that African place. You remember?"
Manson supposed Goole felt obliged to go through the security rigmarole on an
open line.
"Yes indeed," he said. "I took up your suggestion made at that dinner. The
figures concerned were slightly changed, so that the quantities revealed were quite
unviable from a business standpoint. The report went off, was received, and I've
heard no more about it."
Goole's next words jerked Sir James Manson out of his weekend relaxation.
"Actually, we have," said the voice on the phone. "Nothing really disturbing, but
odd all the same. Our Ambassador in the area, although accredited to that country
and three other small republics, doesn't five there, as you know. But he sends in
regular reports, gleaned from a variety of sources, including normal liaison with
other friendly diplomats. A copy of a section of his latest report, concerned with the
economic side of things out there, landed on my desk yesterday at the office. It
seems there's a rumor out there that the Soviet government has secured
permission to send in a mining survey team of their own. Of course, they may not
be concerned with the same area as your chaps...."
Sir James Manson stared at the telephone as Goole's voice twittered on. In his
head a pulse began to hammer, close to his left temple.
"I was only thinking, Sir James, that if these Russian chaps go over the same
area your man went over, their
findings might be somewhat different. Fortunately, it's only a question of minor
quantities of tin. Still, I thought you ought to know. Hello? Hello? Are you there?"
Manson jerked himself out of his reverie. With a massive effort he made his voice
appear normal.
"Yes indeed. Sorry, I was just thinking. Very good of you to call me, Goole. I
don't suppose they'll be in the same area as my man. But damn useful to know, all
the same."
He went through the usual pleasantries before hanging up, and walked slowly
back to the sun terrace, his mind racing. Coincidence? Could be, it just could be. If
the Soviet survey team was going to cover an area miles away from the Crystal
Mountain range, it would be purely a coincidence. On the other hand, if it went
straight toward the Crystal Mountain without having done any aerial survey work to
notice the differences in vegetation in that area, then that would be no coincidence.
That would be bloody sabotage. And there was no way he could find out, no way of
being absolutely certain, without betraying his own continuing interest. And that
would be fatal.
He thought of Chalmers, the man he was convinced he had silenced with money.
His teeth ground. Had he talked? Wittingly? Unwittingly? He had half a mind to let
Endean take care of Dr. Chalmers, or one of En-dean's friends. But that would
change nothing. And there was no proof of a security leak.
He could shelve his plans at once and think no more of them. He considered this,
then considered again the pot of pure gold at the end of this particular rainbow.
James Manson was not where he was because he had the habit of backing down on
account of risk.
He sat down in his deck chair next to the now cold coffeepot and thought hard.
He intended to go forward as planned, but he had to assume the Russian mining
team would touch on the area Mulrooney had visited, and he had to assume that it
too would notice the vegetation changes. Therefore there was now a new
element, a time limit. He did some mental calculation and came up with the
figure of three months. If the Russians learned the content of the Crystal Mountain,
there would be a "technical aid" team in there like a dose of salts. A big one at that,
and half the members would be hard men from KGB.
Shannon's shortest schedule had been a hundred days, but he had originally told
Endean that another fortnight added to the timetable would make the whole project
that much more feasible. Now they did not have that fortnight. In fact, if the
Russians moved faster than usual, they might not even have a hundred days.
He returned to the telephone and called Simon En-dean. His own weekend had
been disturbed; there was no reason why Endean should not start doing a bit of
work.
Endean called Shannon at the hotel on Monday morning and set up a rendezvous
for two that afternoon at a small apartment house in St. John's Wood. He had hired
the flat on the instructions of Sir James Manson, after having had a long briefing at
the country mansion on Sunday afternoon. He had taken the flat for a month in the
name of Harris, paying cash and giving a fictitious reference which no one checked.
The reason for the hiring was simple: the flat had a telephone that did not go
through a switchboard.
Shannon was there on time and found the man he still called Harris already
installed. The telephone was hung in a desk microphone set that would enable a
telephone conference to be held between one or more people in the room and the
person on the other end of the line.
"The chief of the consortium has read your report," he told Shannon, "and wants
to have a word with you."
At two-thirty the phone rang. Endean threw the "speak" switch on the machine,
and Sir James Man-son's voice came on the line. Shannon already knew who it
would be but gave no sign.
"Are you there, Mr. Shannon?" asked the voice.
"Yes, sir."
"Now, I have read your report, and I approve your judgment and conclusions. If
offered this contract, would you be prepared to go through with it?"
"Yes, sir, I would," said Shannon.
"There are a couple of points I want to discuss. I notice in the budget you award
yourself the sum of ten thousand pounds."
"Yes, sir. Frankly, I don't think anyone would do the job for less, and most would
ask more. Even if a budget were prepared by another person which quoted a lower
sum, I think that person would still pass a minimum of ten per cent to himself,
simply by hiding the sum in the prices of purchases that could not be checked out."
There was a pause; then the voice said, "All right. I accept that. What does this
salary buy me?"
"It buys you my knowledge, my contacts, my acquaintanceship with the world of
arms dealers, smugglers, gun-runners, and mercenaries. It also buys my silence in
the event of anything's going wrong. It pays me for three months' damned hard
work, and the constant risk of arrest and imprisonment. Lastly, it buys the risk of
my getting killed in the attack."
There was a grunt. "Fair enough. Now as regards financing. The sum of one
hundred thousand pounds will be transferred into a Swiss account which Mr. Harris
will open this week. He will pay you the necessary money in slices, as and when
you need it over the forthcoming two months. For that purpose you will have to set
up your own communications system with him. When the money is spent, he will
either have to be present or to receive receipts."
"That will not always be possible, sir. There are no receipts in the arms business,
least of all in black-market deals, and most of the men I shall be dealing with would
not have Mr. Harris present. He is not in their world. I would suggest the extensive
use of travelers' checks and credit transfers by banks. At the same tune, if Mr.
Harris has to be present to countersign every
banker's draft or check for a thousand pounds, he must either follow me around
everywhere, which I would not accept on grounds of my own security, or we could
never do it all inside a hundred days."
There was another long pause. "What do you mean by your own security?" asked
the voice.
"I mean, sir, that I don't know Mr. Harris. I could not accept that he be in a
position to know enough to get me arrested in a European city. You have taken
your security precautions. I have to take mine. These are that I travel and work
alone and unsupervised."
"You're a cautious man, Mr. Shannon."
"I have to be. I'm still alive."
There was a grim chuckle. "And how do I know you can be trusted with large
sums of money to handle on your own?"
"You don't, sir. Up to a point Mr. Harris can keep the sums low at each stage. But
the payments for the arms have to be made in cash and by the buyer alone. The
only alternatives are to ask Mr. Harris to mount the operation personally, or to hire
another professional. And you would not know if you could trust him either."
"Fair enough, Mr. Shannon. Mr. Harris."
"Sir?" answered Endean immediately.
"Please return to see me at once after leaving where you are now. Mr. Shannon,
you have the job. You have one hundred days, Mr. Shannon, to steal a republic.
One hundred days."
PART TWO - The Hundred Days
9
For several minutes after Sir James Manson had hung up, Simon Endean and Cat
Shannon sat and stared at each other. It was Shannon who recovered first.
"Since we're going to have to work together," he told Endean, "let's get this clear.
If anyone, anyone at all, gets to hear about this project, it will eventually get back
to one or another of the secret services of one of the main powers. Probably the
CIA, or at least the British SIS or maybe the French SDECE. And they will screw, but
good. There'll be nothing you or I could do to prevent them ending the affair stone
dead. So we keep security absolute."
"Speak for yourself," snapped Endean. "I've got a lot more tied up in this than
you."
"Okay. First thing has to be money. I'll fly to Brussels tomorrow and open a new
bank account somewhere in Belgium. I'll be back by tomorrow night. Contact me
then, and I'll tell you where, in which bank and in what name. Then I shall need a
transfer of credit to the tune of at least ten thousand pounds. By tomorrow night I'll
have a complete list of where it has to be spent. Mainly, it will be in salary checks
for my assistants, deposits, and so on."
"Where do I contact you?" asked Endean.
"That's point number two," said Shannon. "I'm going
to need a permanent base, secure for telephone calls and letters. What about
this flat? Is it traceable to you?"
Endean had not thought of that. He considered the problem. "It's hired in my
name. Cash in advance for one month," he said.
"Does it matter if the name Harris is on the tenancy agreement?" asked Shannon.
"No."
"Then I'll take it over. That gives me a month's tenancy—seems a pity to waste
it—and I'll take up the payments at the end of that time. Do you have a key?"
"Yes, of course. I let myself in by it."
"How many keys are there?"
For answer Endean reached into his pocket and brought out a ring with four keys
on it. Two were evidently for the front door of the house and two for the flat door.
Shannon took them from his hand.
"Now for communications," he said. "You can contact me by phoning here any
time. I may be in, I may not. I may be away abroad. Since I assume you will not
want to give me your phone number, set up a poste restante mailing address in
London somewhere convenient to either your home or office, and check twice daily
for telegrams. If I need you urgently, I'll telegraph the phone number of where I
am, and a time to phone. Understood?"
"Yes. I'll have it by tomorrow night. Anything else?"
"Only that I'll be using the name of Keith Brown throughout the operation.
Anything signed as coming from Keith is from me. When calling a hotel, ask for me
as Keith Brown. If ever I reply by saying 'This is Mr. Brown,' get off the line fast. It
means trouble. Explain that you have the wrong number, or the wrong Brown.
That's all for the moment. You'd better get back to the office. Call me here at eight
tonight, and I'll give you the progress to date."
A few minutes later Endean found himself on the pavements of St. John's Wood,
looking for a taxi.
Luckily Shannon had not banked the £500 he had received from Endean before
the weekend for his attack project, and he still had £450 of it left.
He rang BEA and booked an economy-class round trip on the morning flight to
Brussels, returning at 1600 hours, which would get him back in his flat by six.
Following that, he telephoned four telegrams abroad, one to Paarl, Cape Province,
South Africa; one to Ostend; one to Marseilles; and one to Munich. Each said
simply, "Urgent you phone me London 507-0041 any midnight over next three
days. Shannon." Finally he summoned a taxi and had it take him back to the
Lowndes Hotel. He checked out, paid his bill, and left as he had come,
anonymously.
At eight Endean rang him as agreed, and Shannon told Manson's aide what he
had done so far. They agreed Endean would ring again at ten the following
evening.
Shannon spent a couple of hours exploring the block he was now living in, and
the surrounding area. He spotted several small restaurants, including a couple not
far away in St. John's Wood High Street, and ate a leisurely supper at one of them.
He was back home by eleven.
He counted his money—there was more than £400 left—put £300 on one side for
the air fare and expenses the following day, and checked over his effects. The
clothes were unremarkable, all of them less than three months old, most bought in
the last ten days in London. He had no gun to bother about, and for safety
destroyed the typewriter ribbon he had used to type his reports, replacing it with
one of his spares.
Though it was dark early in London that evening, it was still light on a warm,
sunny summer evening in Cape Province as Janni Dupree gunned his car past
Seapoint and on toward Cape Town. He too had a Chevrolet, older than Endean's,
but bigger and flashier, bought second-hand with some of the dollars with which he
had returned from Paris four weeks earlier.
After spending the day swimming and fishing from a friend's boat at Simonstown,
he was driving back to his home in Paarl. He always liked to come home to Paarl
after a contract, but inevitably it bored him quickly, just as it had when he left it ten
years before.
As a boy he had been raised in the Paarl Valley and had spent his preschool years
scampering through the thin and poor vineyards owned by people like his parents.
He had learned to stalk birds and shoot in the valley with Pieter, his klonkie, the
black playmate a white boy is allowed to play with until he grows too old and learns
what skin color is all about.
Pieter, with his enormous brown eyes, tangled mass of black curls, and
mahogany skin, was two years older than Janni and had been supposed to look
after him. In fact they had been the same size, for Janni was physically precocious
and had quickly taken the leadership of the pair. On summer days like this one,
twenty years ago, the two barefoot boys used to take the bus along the coast to
Cape Agulhas, where the Atlantic and the Indian oceans finally meet, and fish for
yellow-tail, galjoen, and red steenbras off the point.
After Paarl Boys' High, Janni had been a problem — too big, aggressive, restless,
getting into fights with those big scything fists and ending up twice in front of the
magistrates. He could have taken over his parents' farm and tended with his father
the stubby little vines that produced such thin wine. The prospect appalled him —of
becoming old and bent trying to make a living from the smallholding, with only four
black boys working with him. At eighteen he volunteered for the army, did his basic
training at Potchefstroom, and transferred to the paratroops at Bloemfontein. It was
here he had found the thing he wanted to do most in life, here and in the
counterinsurgency training in the harsh bushvdd around Pietersburg. The army had
agreed with him about his suitability, except on one point: his propensity for going
to war while pointing in the wrong direction. In one fistfight too many, Corporal
Dupree had beaten a sergeant senseless, and the commanding officer had
busted him to private.
Bitter, he went AWOL, was taken in a bar in East London, battered two MPs
before they held him down, and did six months in the stockade. On release he saw
an advertisement in an evening newspaper, reported to a small office in Durban,
and two days later was flown out of South Africa to Kamina base in Katanga. He
had become a mercenary at twenty-two, and that was six years ago.
As he drove along the winding road through Fran-shoek toward the Paarl Valley,
he wondered if there would be a letter from Shannon or one of the boys, with news
of a contract. But when he got there, nothing was waiting at the post office. Clouds
were blowing up from the sea, and there was a hint of thunder in the air.
It would rain that evening, a nice cooling shower, and he glanced up toward the
Paarl Rock, the phenomenon that had given the valley and the town its name long
ago when his ancestors first came into the valley. As a boy he had stared in
wonderment at the rock, which was a dull gray when dry but after rain glistened
like an enormous pearl in the moonlight. Then it became a great glistening,
gleaming thing, dominating the tiny town beneath it. Although the town of his
boyhood could never offer him the kind of life he wanted, it was still home; and
when he saw the Paarl Rock glistening in the light, he always knew he was back
home again. That evening he wished he were somewhere else, heading toward
another war.
Tiny Marc Vlaminck leaned on the bar counter and downed another foaming
schooner of Flemish ale. Outside the front windows of the place his girlfriend
managed, the streets of Ostend's red-light district were almost empty. A chill wind
was blowing off the sea, and the summer tourists had not started to arrive yet. He
was bored already.
For the first month since his return from the tropics, it had been good to be back,
good to take hot baths again, to chat with his friends who had dropped in to see
him. Even the local press had taken an interest, but he had told them to get lost.
The last thing he needed was trouble from the authorities, and he knew they would
leave him alone if he did or said nothing to embarrass them with the African
embassies in Brussels.
But after weeks the inactivity had palled. A few nights back it had been enlivened
when he thumped a seaman who had tried to fondle Anna's bottom, an area he
regarded as entirely his own preserve. The memory started a thought running
through his mind. He could hear a low thump-thump from upstairs, where Anna
was doing the housework in the small flat that they shared above the bar. He
heaved himself off his barstool, drained the tankard, and called, "If anyone comes
in, serve 'em yourself."
Then he lumbered up the back stairs. As he did so, the door opened and a
telegram came in.
It was a clear spring evening with just a touch of chill in the air, and the water of
the Old Port of Marseilles was like glass. Across its center, a few months ago a
mirror for the surrounding bars and cafes, a single homecoming trawler cut a
swathe of ripples that wandered across the harbor and died chuckling under the
hulls of the fishing boats already moored. The cars were locked solid along the
Canebiere, smells of cooking fish emanated from a thousand windows, the old men
sipped their anisette, and the heroin-sellers scuttled through the alleys on their
lucrative missions. It was an ordinary evening.
In the multinational, multilingual caldron of seething humanity that called itself Le
Panier, where only a policeman is illegal, Jean-Baptiste Langarotti sat at a corner
table in a small bar and sipped a long, cool Ricard.
He was not as bored as Janni Dupree or Marc Vlaminck.
Years in prison had taught him the ability to keep himself interested in
even the smallest things, and he could survive long periods of inactivity better than
most.
Moreover, he had been able to get himself a job and earn a living, so that his
savings were still intact. He saved steadily, the results of his economies mounting
up in a bank in Switzerland that no one knew about. One day they would buy him
the little bar in Calvi that he wanted.
A month earlier a good friend of his from the Algerian days had been picked up
for a small matter of a suitcase containing twelve former French army Colt .45s and
from Les Baumettes had sent Jean-Baptiste a message asking him to "mind" the girl
on whose earnings the imprisoned friend normally lived. He knew he could trust the
Corsican not to cheat him. She was a good girl, a broad-beamed hoyden called
Marie-Claire, who went under the name of Lola and did her nightly stint in a bar in
the Tubano district. She had taken quite a fancy to Langarotti, perhaps because of
his size, and her only complaint was that he did not knock her about the way her
boyfriend in prison had done. Being small was no hindrance to being a "minder,"
because the rest of the underworld, who might have made a claim for Lola, needed
no education about Langarotti.
So Lola was happy to be the best-minded girl in town, and Jean-Baptiste was
content to while away the days until another contract to fight came up. He was in
contact with a few people in the mercenary business but, being new to it, was
relying more on Shannon to hear of something first. Shannon was more the sort
clients would come to.
Shortly after returning to France, Langarotti had been contacted by Charles Roux
in Paris, who had proposed that the Corsican sign on with him exclusively in
exchange for first choice if and when a contract turned up. Roux had talked largely
of the half-dozen projects he had brewing at the time, and the Corsican had remained
noncommittal. Later he had checked up and found Roux was mostly talk,
for he had set up no projects of his own since his return from Bukavu in the autumn
of '67 with a hole through his arm.
With a sigh Langarotti glanced at his watch, finished his drink, and rose to go. It
was time to fetch Lola from their apartment and escort her to the bar for work, and
then drop in at the all-night post office to see if there was a telegram from Shannon
offering a prospect of a new war.
In Munich it was even colder than in Marc Vlaminck's Ostend, and Kurt Semmler,
his blood thinned by years in the Far East, Algeria, and Africa, shivered in his kneelength
black leather coat as he headed toward the all-night post office. He made a
regular check-call at the counter every morning and evening, and each time hoped
for some letter or telegram bearing news or an invitation to meet someone for an
interview for possible selection for a mercenary assignment.
The period since his return from Africa had been one of idleness and boredom.
Like most army veterans, he disliked civilian life, wore the clothes badly, despised
the politics, and longed again for some form of routine combined with action. The
return to his birth city had not been encouraging. Everywhere he saw long-haired
youths, sloppy and ill-disciplined, waving their banners and screaming their slogans.
There seemed to be none of the sense of purpose, of commitment to the ideal of
the greatness of the Fatherland and its leader, that had so completely absorbed his
own childhood and youth, nor the sense of order that characterized army life.
Even the smuggling life in the Mediterranean, although it had been free and easy,
at least could offer the sense of activity, the scent of danger, the feeling of a
mission planned, executed, and accomplished. Easing a fast launch in toward the
Italian coast with two tons of American cigarettes on board, he had at least
been able to imagine himself back on the Mekong, going into action with the
Legion against the Xoa Binh river pirates.
Munich offered him nothing. He had drunk too much, smoked too much, whored
a bit, and become thoroughly disgruntled.
At the post office there was nothing for him that evening.
At midnight Marc Vlaminck phoned in from Ostend. The Belgian telegram delivery
service is excellent and delivers until ten at night. Shannon told Vlaminck simply to
meet him in front of Brussels National Airport the following morning with a car, and
gave him his flight number.
Belgium has, from the point of view of those wishing to operate a discreet but
legal bank account, many advantages that outweigh those offered by the much
better-publicized Swiss banking system. Not nearly as rich or powerful as Germany,
not neutral like Switzerland, Belgium nevertheless offers the facility of permitting
unlimited quantities of money to pass in and out without government control or
interference. The banks are also just as discreet as those of Switzerland, which is
why they and the banks of Luxembourg and Lich tenstein have been steadily
increasing their volume of business at the expense of the Swiss.
It was to the Kredietbank in Brugge, seventy minutes' driving time from the
Brussels airport, that Shannon had himself driven by Marc Vlaminck the following
morning. The big Belgian was evidently full of curiosity, but he kept it to himself.
When they were on the road to Brugge, Shannon mentioned briefly that he had
been given a contract and there was room for four helpers. Was Vlaminck
interested?
Tiny Marc indicated that of course he was. Shannon told him he could not say
what the operation was, other than that it was a job that had to be not merely
fought but set up from scratch. He was prepared to offer
normal rates of $1250 a month, plus expenses, for the next three months, and
the job, although not requiring absence from home until the third month, would
require a few hours' risk in Europe. That, of course, was not strictly mercenary
work, but it had to be done.
Marc grunted. "I'm not knocking off banks," he said. "Not for that kind of
money."
"It's nothing like that. I need some guns taken on board a boat. We have to do it
ourselves. After we sail, it's all set for Africa and a nice little firefight."
Marc grinned. "A long campaign, or a quick in-and-out job?"
"An attack," said Shannon. "Mind you, if it works there could be a long contract in
the offing. Can't promise, but it looks like that. And a fat success bonus."
"Okay, I'm on," said Marc, and they drove into the main square at Brugge.
The Kredietbank head office is situated at number 25 in the Vlamingstraat, a
narrow thoroughfare flanked by house after house in the distinctive style of
eighteenth-century Flemish architecture, and all in a perfect state of preservation.
Most of the ground floors have been converted into shops, but upward from the
ground floors the façades resemble something from a painting by one of the old
masters.
Inside the bank, Shannon introduced himself to the head of the foreign accounts'
section, Mr. Goossens, and proved his identity as Keith Brown by tendering his
passport. Within forty minutes he had opened a current account with a deposit of
£100 sterling in cash, informed Mr. Goossens that a sum of £10,000 in the form of a
transfer from Switzerland could be expected any day, and left instructions that of
this sum £5000 was to be transferred at once to his account in London. He left
several examples of his Keith Brown signature and agreed on a method of
establishing his identity over the phone by reeling off the twelve numbers of his
account in reverse order, followed by the
previous day's date. On this basis oral instructions for transfers and withdrawals
could be made without his coming to Brugge again. He signed an indemnity form
protecting the bank from any risk in using this method of communication, and
agreed to write his account number in red ink under his signature on any written
instruction to the bank, again to prove authenticity.
By half past twelve he was finished and joined Vlaminck outside. They ate a lunch
of solid food accompanied by the inevitable french-fried potatoes at the Cafe des
Arts on the main square before the town hall, and then Vlaminck drove him back to
Brussels airport. Before parting from the Fleming, Shannon gave him £50 in cash
and told him to take the Ostend-Dover ferry the next day and be at the London flat
at six in the evening. He had to wait an hour for his plane and was back in London
by teatime.
Simon Endean had also had a busy day. He had caught the earliest flight of the
day to Zurich and had landed at Kloten Airport by just after ten. Within an hour he
was standing at the counter of the Handels-bank of Zurich's main office, at 58
Talstrasse, and opening a current account in his own name. He too left several
specimen signatures and agreed with the bank official who interviewed him on a
method of signing all written communications to the bank simply by writing the
account number at the bottom of the letter and under the day of the week on which
the letter had been written. The day would be written in green ink, while the
account number would invariably be in black. He deposited the £500 in cash that he
had brought, and informed the bank the sum of £100,000 would be transferred into
the account within the week. Last, he instructed the bank that as soon as the credit
had been received they were to remit £10,000 to an account in Belgium which he
would identify for them later by letter. He signed a long contract which exonerated
the bank from anything and everything, including culpable
negligence, and left him no protection whatever in law. Not that there was any
point in contesting a Swiss bank before a Swiss court, as he well knew.
Taking a taxi from Talstrasse, he dropped a wax-sealed letter through the door of
the Zwingli Bank and headed back to the airport.
The letter, which Dr. Martin Steinhofer had in his hand within thirty minutes, was
from Sir James Manson. It was signed in the approved manner in which Manson
signed all his correspondence with his Zurich bank. It requested Dr. Steinhofer to
transfer £ 100,000 to the account of Mr. Simon Endean at the Handelsbank
forthwith, and informed him that Sir James would be calling on him at his office the
following day, Wednesday.
Endean was at London airport just before six.
Martin Thorpe was exhausted when he came into the office that Tuesday
afternoon. He had spent the two days of the weekend and Monday going
methodically through the 4500 cards in the Moodies index of companies quoted on
the London Stock Exchange.
He had been concentrating on finding a suitable shell company and had sought
out the small companies, preferably founded many years ago, largely run-down and
with few assets, companies which over the past three years had traded at a loss, or
broken even, or made a profit below £ 10,000. He also wanted a company with a
market capitalization of under £200,000.
He had come up with two dozen companies that fitted the bill, and these names
he showed to Sir James Manson. He had listed them provisionally in order from 1 to
24 on the basis of their apparent suitability.
He still had more to do, and by midafternoon he was at Companies House, in City
Road, E.C.2.
He sent up to the archivists the list of his first eight companies and paid his
statutory fee for each name on the list, giving him, as it would any other member of
the public, the right to examine the full company documents. As he waited for the
eight bulky folders to
come back to the reading room, he glanced through the latest Stock Exchange
Official List and noted with satisfaction that none of the eight was quoted at over
three shillings a share.
When the files arrived he started with the first on his list and began to pore over
the records. He was looking for three things not given in the Moodies cards, which
are simply synopses. He wanted to study the distribution of the ownership of the
shares, to ensure that the company he sought was not controlled by the combined
board of directors, and to be certain there had not been a recent build-up of share
holdings by another person or associated group, which would have indicated that
another City predator was looking for a meal.
By the time Companies House closed for the evening, he had been through seven
of the eight files. He could cover the remaining seventeen the following day. But
already he was intrigued by the third on his list and mildly excited. On paper it
looked great, from his point of view—even too good, and that was the rub. It
looked so good he was surprised no one had snapped it up ages ago. There had to
be a flaw somewhere, but Martin Thorpe's ingenuity might even find a way of
overcoming it. If there was such a way—it was perfect.
Simon Endean phoned Cat Shannon at the latter's flat at ten that evening.
Shannon reported what he had done, and Endean gave a resume of his own day.
He told Shannon the necessary £100,000 should have been transferred to his new
Swiss account before closing time that afternoon, and Shannon told Endean to have
the first £10,000 sent to him under the name of Keith Brown at the Kredietbank in
Brugge, Belgium.
Within a few minutes of hanging up, Endean had written his letter of instruction
to the Handelsbank, stressing that the transferred sum should be sent at once but
that under no condition was the name of the Swiss account-holder to become
known to the Belgian
bank. The account number alone should be quoted on the transfer, which should
be by Telex. He mailed the letter express rate from the all-night post office in
Trafalgar Square just before midnight.
At eleven-forty-five the phone rang again in Shannon's flat. It was Semmler on
the line from Munich. Shannon told him he had work for all of them if they wanted
it, but that he could not come to Munich. Semmler should take a single ticket by air
to London the following day and be there by six. He gave his address and promised
to repay the German his expenses in any case, and pay his fare back to Munich if
he declined the job. Semmler agreed to come, and Shannon hung up.
The next on the line was Langarotti from Marseilles. He had checked his poste
restante box and found Shannon's telegram waiting for him. He would be in London
by six and would report to the flat.
Janni Dupree's call was late, coming through at half past midnight. He too agreed
to pack his bags and fly the eight thousand miles to London, though he could not
be there for a day and a half. He would be at Shannon's flat on Thursday evening
instead.
With the last call taken, Shannon read Small Arms of the World for an hour and
switched off the light. It was the end of Day One.
Sir James Manson, first class on the businessman's Trident III to Zurich, ate a
hearty breakfast that Wednesday morning. Shortly before noon he was ushered
respectfully into the paneled office of Dr. Martin Stein-hofer.
The two men had known each other for ten years, and during this time the
Zwingli Bank had several times carried out business on Manson's behalf in situations
where he had needed a nominee to buy shares which, had it become known that
the name of Manson was behind the purchase, would have trebled in value. Dr.
Steinhofer valued his client and rose to shake hands and usher the English knight to
a comfortable armchair.
The Swiss offered cigars, and coffee was brought, along with small glasses of
Kirschwasser. Only when the male secretary had gone did Sir James broach his
business.
"Over the forthcoming weeks I shall be seeking to acquire a controlling interest in
a small British company, a public company. At the moment I cannot give the name
of it, because a suitable vehicle for my particular operation has not yet come to
light. I hope to know it fairly
soon."
Dr. Steinhofer nodded silently and sipped his coffee.
"At the start it will be quite a small operation, involving relatively little money.
Later, I have reason to believe news will hit the Stock Exchange that will have quite
an interesting effect on the share value of that company," Sir James went on.
There was no need for him to explain to the Swiss banker the rules that apply in
share dealings on the London Stock Exchange, for Steinhofer was as familiar with
them as Manson, as he was also with the rules of all the main exchanges and
markets throughout the world.
Under British company law, any person acquiring 10 per cent or more of the
shares of a public quoted company must identify himself to the directors within
fourteen days. The aim of the law is to permit the public to know who owns what,
and how much, of any public company.
For this reason, a reputable London stockbrokerage house, buying on behalf of a
client, will also abide by the law and inform the directors of their client's name,
unless the purchase is less than 10 per cent of the company's stock, in which case
the buyer may remain anonymous.
One way around this rule for a tycoon seeking to gain secret control of a
company is to use nominee buyers. But again, a reputable firm on the Stock
Exchange will soon spot whether the real buyer of a big block of shares is in fact
one man operating through nominees, and will obey the law.
But a Swiss bank, not bound by the laws of Britain,
abiding by its own laws of secrecy, simply refuses to answer questions about who
stands behind the names it presents as its clients, nor will it reveal anything else,
even if it privately suspects that the front men do not exist at all.
Both of the men in Dr. Steinhofer's office that morning were well aware of all the
finer points involved.
"In order to make the necessary acquisition of shares," Sir James went on, "I
have entered into association with six partners. They will purchase the shares on
my behalf. They have all agreed they would wish to open small accounts with the
Zwingli Bank and to ask you to be so kind as to make the purchases on their
behalf."
Dr. Steinhofer put down his coffee cup and nodded. As a good Swiss, he agreed
there was no point in breaking rules where they could be legally bent, with the
obvious proviso that they were not Swiss rules, and he could also see the point in
not wantonly sending the share price upward, even in a small operation. One
started by saving pfennigs, and one became rich after a lifetime of application.
"That presents no problem," he said carefully. "These gentlemen will be coming
here to open their accounts?"
Sir James exhaled a stream of aromatic smoke. "It may well be they will find
themselves too busy to come personally. I have myself appointed my financial
assistant to stand in for me—to save time and trouble, you understand. It may well
be the other six partners will wish to avail themselves of the same procedure. You
have no objection to that?"
"Of course not," murmured Dr. Steinhofer. "Your financial assistant is who,
please?"
"Mr. Martin Thorpe." Sir James Manson drew a slim envelope from his pocket and
handed it to the banker. "This is my power of attorney, duly notarized and
witnessed, and signed by me. You have my signature for comparison, of course. In
here you will find Mr. Thorpe's full name and the number of his passport, by
which he will identify himself. He will be visiting Zurich in the next week or ten
days to finalize arrangements. From then on he will act in all matters on my behalf,
and his signature will be as good as mine. Is that acceptable?"
Dr. Steinhofer scanned the single sheet in the envelope and nodded. "Certainly,
Sir James. I see no problems."
Manson rose and stubbed out his cigar. "Then I'll bid you good-by, Dr.
Steinhofer, and leave further dealings in the hands of Mr. Thorpe, who of course
will consult with me on all steps to be taken."
They shook hands, and Sir James Manson was ushered down to the street. As the
solid oak door clicked quietly shut behind him, he pulled up his coat collar against
the still chilly air of the north Swiss town, stepped into the waiting hired limousine,
and gave instructions for the Baur au Lac for lunch. One ate well there, he
reflected, but otherwise Zurich was a dreary place. It did not even have a good
brothel.
Assistant Under Secretary Sergei Golon was not in a good humor that morning.
The mail had brought a letter to his breakfast table to notify him that his son had
failed the entrance examination for the Civil Service Academy, and there had been a
general family quarrel. In consequence, his perennial problem of acid indigestion
had elected to ensure him a day of unrelenting misery, and his secretary was out
sick.
Beyond the windows of his small office in the West Africa section of the Foreign
Ministry, the canyons of Moscow's windswept boulevards were still covered with
snow slush, a grimy gray in the dim morning light, waiting tiredly for the thaw of
spring.
"Neither one thing nor the other," the attendant had remarked as he had berthed
his Moskvitch in the parking lot beneath the ministry building.
Golon had grunted agreement and taken the elevator to his eighth-floor office to
begin the morning's work. Devoid of a secretary, he had taken the pile of files
brought for his attention from various parts of the building and started to go
through them, an antacid tablet revolving slowly in his mouth.
The third file had been marked for his attention by the office of the Under
Secretary, and the same clerkish hand had written on the cover sheet: "Assess and
Instigate Necessary Action." Golon perused it gloomily. He noted that the file had
been started on the basis of an interdepartmental memorandum from Foreign
Intelligence, that his ministry had, on reflection, given Ambassador Dobrovolsky
certain instructions, and that, according to the latest cable from Dobrovolsky, they
had been carried out. The request had been granted, the Ambassador reported,
and he urged prompt action.
Golon snorted. Passed over for an ambassadorship, he held firmly to the view
that men in diplomatic posts abroad were far too prone to believe their own
parishes were of consummate importance.
"As if we have nothing else to bother about," he grunted. Already his eye had
caught the folder beneath the one he was reading. He knew it concerned the
Republic of Guinea, where the constant stream of telegrams from the Soviet
Ambassador reported the growth of Chinese influence in Conakry. Now that, he
mused, was something of concern. Compared to this, he could not see the
importance of whether there was, or was not, tin in commercial quantities in the
hinterland of Zan-garo. Besides, the Soviet Union had enough tin.
Nevertheless, action had been authorized from above, and, as a good civil
servant, he took it. To a secretary borrowed from the typing pool, he dictated a
letter to the director of the Sverdlovsk Institute of Mining, requiring him to select a
small team of survey geologists and engineers to carry out an examination of a
suspected tin deposit in West Africa, and to inform the Assistant Under Secretary in
due course that the team and its equipment were ready to depart.
Privately he thought he would have to tackle the question of transportation to
West Africa through the appropriate directorate, but pushed the thought to the
back of his mind. The painful burning in his throat subsided, and he observed
that the scribbling stenographer had rather pretty knees.
Cat Shannon had a quiet day. He rose late and went into the West End to his
bank, where he withdrew most of the £1000 his account contained. He was
confident the money would be replaced, and more, when the transfer came through
from Belgium.
After lunch he rang his friend the writer, who seemed surprised to hear from him.
"I thought you'd left town."
"Why should I?" asked Shannon.
"Well, little Julie has been looking for you. You must have made an impression.
Carrie says she has not stopped talking. But she rang the Lowndes, and they said
you had left, address unknown."
Shannon promised he'd call. He gave his own phone number, but not his address.
With the small talk over, he requested the information he wanted.
"I suppose I could," said the friend dubiously. "But honestly, I ought to ring him
first and see if it's okay."
"Well, do that," said Shannon. "Tell him it's me, that I need to see him and am
prepared to go down there for a few hours with him. Tell him I wouldn't trouble him
if it wasn't important, in my opinion."
The writer agreed to put through the call and ring him back with the telephone
number and address of the man Shannon wished to talk to, if the man agreed to
speak to Shannon.
In the afternoon Shannon wrote a letter to Mr. Goos-sens at the Kredietbank to
tell him that he would in the future give two or three business partners the
Kredietbank as his mailing address and would keep in contact by phone with the
bank to check whether any mail was waiting for collection. He would also be
sending some letters to business associates via the Kredietbank, in which case he
would mail an envelope to Mr. Goossens from wherever he happened to be. He
requested Mr. Goossens to take the envelope which would be enclosed, addressed
but not stamped, and forward it from Brugge
to its destination. Last, he bade Mr. Goossens deduct all postal and bank charges
from his account.
At five that afternoon Endean called him at the flat, and Shannon gave him a
progress report, omitting to mention his contact with his writer friend, whom he had
never mentioned to Endean. He told him, however, that he expected three of his
four chosen associates to be in London for their separate briefings that evening,
and the fourth to arrive on Thursday evening at the latest.
Martin Thorpe had his fifth tiring day, but at least his search was over. He had
perused the documents of another seventeen companies in the City Road, and had
drawn up a second short list, this time of five companies. At the top of the list was
the company that had caught his eye the previous day. He finished his reading by
midafternoon and, as Sir James Manson had not returned from Zurich, decided to
take the rest of the day off. He could brief his chief in the morning and later begin
his private inquiries into the set-up of his chosen company, a series of inquiries to
determine why such a prize was still available. By the late afternoon he was back in
Hampstead Garden Suburb, mowing the lawn.
10
The first of the mercenaries to arrive at London's Heathrow Airport was Kurt
Semmler, on the Lufthansa flight from Munich. He tried to reach Shannon by phone
soon after clearing customs, but there was no reply. He was early for his check-in
call, so he decided to wait at the airport and took a seat by the restaurant window
overlooking the apron of Number Two building. He chain-smoked nervously as he
sat over coffee and watched the jets leaving for Europe.
Marc Vlaminck phoned to check in with Shannon just after five. The Cat glanced
down the list of three hotels in the neighborhood of his apartment and read out the
name of one. The Belgian took it down in his Victoria Station phone booth, letter by
letter. A few minutes later he hailed a taxi outside the station and showed the
paper to the driver.
Semmler was ten minutes after Vlaminck. He too received from Shannon the
name of a hotel, wrote it down, and took a minicab from the front of the airport
building.
Langarotti was the last, checking in just before six from the air terminal in
Cromwell Road. He too hked a taxi to take him to his hotel.
At seven Shannon rang them all, one after the other, and bade them assemble at
his flat within thirty minutes.
When they greeted one another, it was the first indication any of them had had
that the others had been invited. Their broad grins came partly from the pleasure of
meeting friends, partly from the knowledge that Shannon's investment in bringing
them all to London with a guarantee of a reimbursed air fare could only mean he
had money. If they wondered who the patron might be, they knew better than to
ask.
Their first impression was strengthened when Shannon told them that he had
instructed Dupree to fly in from South Africa on the same terms. A £500 air ticket
meant Shannon was not playing games. They settled down to listen.
"The job I've been given," he told them, "is a project that has to be organized
from scratch. It has not been planned, and the only way to set it up is to do it
ourselves. The object is to mount an attack, a short, sharp attack, commando-style,
on a town on the coast of Africa. We have to shoot the shits out of one building,
storm it, capture it, knock off everyone in it, and pull back out again."
The reaction was what he had confidently expected. The men exchanged glances
of approval. Vlaminck gave a wide grin and scratched his chest; Semmler muttered,
"Klasse," and lit a fresh cigarette from the stub of the old one. Langarotti remained
deadpan, his eyes on Shannon, the knife blade slipping smoothly across the black
leather around his left fist.
Shannon spread a map out on the floor in the center of the circle, and the men
eyed it keenly. It was a hand-drawn map depicting a section of seashore and a
series of buildings on the landward side. It was not accurate, for it excluded the two
curving spits of shingle that were the identifying marks of the harbor of Clarence,
but it sufficed to indicate the kind of operation required.
The mercenary leader talked for twenty minutes, outlining the kind of attack he
had already proposed to his patron as the only feasible way of taking the objective,
and the three men concurred. None of them asked the name of the destination.
They knew he would not tell
them and that they did not need to know. It was not a question of lack of trust,
simply of security. If a leak were sprung in the secret, they did not want to be
among the possible suspects.
Shannon spoke in strongly accented French, which he had picked up in the Sixth
Commando in the Congo. He knew Vlaminck had a reasonable grasp of English, as
a barman in Ostend must have, and that Semmler commanded a vocabulary of
about two hundred words. But Langarotti knew very little indeed, so French was the
common language, except when Dupree was present, when everything had to be
translated.
"So that's it," said Shannon as he finished. "The terms are that you all go on a
salary of twelve hundred and fifty dollars a month from tomorrow morning, plus
expenses for living and traveling while in Europe. The budget is ample for the job.
Only two of the tasks that have to be done in the preparation stages are illegal,
because I've planned to keep the maximum strictly legal. Of these tasks, one is a
border crossing from Belgium to France, the other a problem of loading some cases
onto a ship somewhere in southern Europe. We'll all be involved in both jobs.
"You get three months' guaranteed salary, plus five thousand dollars' bonus each
for success. So what do you say?"
The three men looked at each other. Vlaminck nodded. "I'm on," he said. "Like I
said yesterday, it looks good."
Langarotti stropped his knife. "Is it against French interests?" he asked. "I don't
want to be an exile."
"You have my word it is not against the French in Africa."
"D'accord," said the Corsican simply.
"Kurt?" asked Shannon.
"What about insurance?" asked the German. "It doesn't matter for me, I have no
relatives, but what about Marc?"
The Belgian nodded. "Yes, I don't want to leave Anna with nothing," he said.
Mercenaries on contract are usually insured by the contractor for $20,000 for loss
of life and $6000 for loss of a major limb.
"You have to take out your own, but it can be as high as you want to go. If
anything happens to anyone, the rest swear blind he was lost overboard at sea by
accident. If anyone gets badly hurt and survives, we all swear the injury was
caused by shifting machinery on board. You all take out insurance for a sea trip
from Europe to South Africa as passengers on a small freighter. Okay?"
The three men nodded.
"I'm on," said Semmler.
They shook on it, and that was enough. Then Shannon went into the jobs he
wanted each man to do.
"Kurt, you'll get your first salary check and one thousand dollars for expenses on
Friday. I want you to go down to the Mediterranean and start looking for a boat. I
need a small freighter with a clean record. Get that: it must be clean. Papers in
order, ship for sale. One hundred to two hundred tons, coaster or converted
trawler, possibly converted navy vessel if need be, but not looking like an MTB. I
don't want speed, but reliability. The sort that can pick up a cargo in a
Mediterranean port without exciting attention, even an. arms cargo. Registered as a
general freighter owned by a small company or its own skipper. Price not over
twenty-five thousand pounds, including the cost of any work that needs doing on it.
Absolute latest sailing date, fully fueled and supplied for a trip to Cape Town, not
later than sixty days from now. Got it?"
Semmler nodded and began to think at once of his contacts in the shipping
world.
"Jean-Baptiste, which city do you know best in the Mediterranean?"
"Marseilles," said Langarotti without hesitation.
"Okay. You get salary and five hundred pounds on Friday. Get to Marseilles, set
up in a small hotel, and start looking. Find me three large inflatable semi-rigid craft
of the same kind as Zodiac makes. The sort developed
for water sports from the basic design of the Marine Commando assault
craft. Buy them from separate suppliers, then book them into the bonded
warehouse of a respectable shipping agent for export to Morocco. Purpose, waterskiing
and sub-aqua diving at a holiday resort. Color, black. Also three powerful
outboard engines, battery-started. The boats should take up to a ton of payload.
The engines should move such a craft and that weight at not less than ten knots,
with a big reserve. You'll need about sixty horsepower. Very important: make sure
they are fitted with underwater exhausts for silent running. If they can't be had in
that condition, get a mechanic to make you three exhaust-pipe extensions with the
necessary outlet valves, to fit the engines. Store them at the same export agent's
bonded warehouse, for the same purpose as the dinghies: water sports in Morocco.
You won't have enough money in the five hundred. Open a bank account and send
me the name and number, by mail, to this address. I'll send the money by credit
transfer. Buy everything separately, and submit me the price lists by mail here.
Okay?"
Langarotti nodded and resumed his knife-stropping.
"Marc. You remember you mentioned once that you knew a man in Belgium had
knocked off a German store of a thousand brand-new Schmeisser submachine
pistols in nineteen-forty-five and still had half of them in store? I want you to go
back to Ostend on Friday with your salary and five hundred pounds and locate that
man. See if he'll sell. I want a hundred, and in first-class working order. I'll pay a
hundred dollars each, which is way over the rate. Write me by letter only, here at
this flat, when you have found the man and can set up a meeting between him and
me. Got it?"
By nine-thirty they were through, the instructions memorized, noted, and
understood.
"Right. What about a spot of dinner?" Shannon asked his colleagues.
He took them around the corner to the Paprika for a meal. They still spoke in
French, but no one else took much notice, except to glance over when a loud burst
of laughter came from the group of four. Evidently they were excited at something,
though none of the diners could have surmised that what elated the group in the
corner was the prospect of going once again to war under the leadership of Cat
Shannon.
Across the Channel another man was thinking hard about Carlo Alfred Thomas
Shannon, and his thoughts were not charitable. He paced the living room of his
apartment on one of the residential boulevards near the Place de la Bastille and
considered the information he had been gathering for the previous week, and the
snippet from Marseilles that had reached him several hours earlier.
If the writer who had originally recommended Charles Roux to Simon Endean as
a second possible mercenary for Endean's project had known more about the
Frenchman, his description would not have been so complimentary. But he knew
only the basic facts of the man's background and little about his character. Nor did
he know, and thus was unable to tell Endean, of the vitriolic hatred that Roux bore
for the other man he had recommended, Cat Shannon.
After Endean had left Roux, the Frenchman had waited a full fortnight for a
second contact to be made. When it never came, he was forced to the conclusion
either that the project in the mind of the visitor who had called himself Walter
Harris had been abandoned, or that someone else had got the job.
Pursuing the latter line of inquiry, he had looked for anyone among the other
possible selections that the English businessman could have made. It was while he
was making these inquiries, or having them made for him, that he had learned Cat
Shannon had been in Paris, staying under his own name at a small hotel in
Montmartre. This had shaken Roux, for he had lost trace of Shannon after their
parting at Le Bourget Airport and had thought the man had left Paris.
At this point, more than a week earlier, he had briefed one of the men he knew
to be loyal to him to make intensive inquiries about Shannon. The man was called
Henri Alain and was a former mercenary.
Alain had reported back within twenty-four hours that Shannon had left his
Montmartre hotel and not reappeared. He had also been able to tell Roux two other
things: that Shannon's disappearance had taken place the morning after Roux had
received the London businessman in his own apartment, and that Shannon had also
received a visitor the same afternoon. The hotel clerk, with a little currency
persuasion, had been able to describe Shannon's visitor, and privately Roux had no
doubt the visitor in Montmartre had been the same man who came to him.
So Mr. Harris from London had seen two mercenaries in Paris, although he
needed only one. As a result, Shannon had disappeared while he, Roux, had been
left on the shelf. That it was Shannon of all people who seemed to have got the
contract made his rage even worse, for there was no one the man in the flat in the
11th arrondissement hated more.
He had had Henri Alain stake out the hotel for four days, but Shannon had not
come back. Then he tried another tack. He recalled that newspaper reports had
linked Shannon with the Corsican Langarotti in the fighting in the last days of the
enclave. Presumably if Shannon was back in circulation, so was Langarotti. So he
had sent Henri Alain to Marseilles to find the Corsican and discover where Shannon
might be. Alain had just arrived back, bearing the news that Langarotti had left
Marseilles that same afternoon. Destination, London.
Roux turned to his informant. "Bon, Henri. That's all. I'll contact you when I need
you. Meantime, the clerk in the Montmartre place will let you know if Shannon
returns?"
"Sure," said Alain as he rose to go.
"Then ring me immediately if you hear."
When Alain had gone, Roux thought things over. For him the disappearance of
Langarotti to London of all places meant the Corsican had gone to join Shannon
there. That in turn meant Shannon was recruiting, and that could only mean he had
got a contract. Roux had no doubt it was Walter Harris's contract, one he felt he
personally should have had. It was an impertinence, compounded by the recruiting
of a Frenchman, and on French territory, which Roux regarded as being his own
exclusive preserve.
There was another reason why he wanted the Harris contract. He had not worked
since the Bukavu affair, and his ability to keep his hold over the French mercenary
community was likely to slip unless he could produce some form of work for it. If
Shannon was unable to continue, if for instance he were to disappear permanently,
Mr. Harris would presumably have to come back to Roux and engage him, as he
should have done in the first place.
Without further delay he made a local Paris phone call.
Back in London, the dinner was nearing its end. The men had drunk a lot of
carafe wine, for, like most mercenaries, they preferred it. Tiny Marc raised his glass
and proposed the often-heard toast of the Congo.
Vive la mort, vive la guerre,
Vive le sacré mercenaire.
Sitting back in his chair, clear-headed while the rest got drunk, Cat Shannon
wondered idly how much havoc would be wreaked when he let slip this group of
dogs on Kimba's palace. Silently he raised his own glass and drank to the dogs of
war.
Charles Roux was forty-eight, and several parts mad, although the two facts were
quite unconnected. He could never have been certified insane, but most psychiatnsts
would at least have held him to be mentally unstable. The basis for such
a diagnosis would have been the presence of a fair degree of megalomania, but this
is present in many people outside lunatic asylums and is usually more kindly
interpreted, at least when present in the rich and famous, as merely exaggerated
egocentricity.
The same psychiatrists would probably have detected a tinge of paranoia, and a
severe examiner might have gone so far as to suggest there was a streak of the
psychopath in the French mercenary. But as Roux had never been examined by a
skilled psychiatrist, and as his instability was usually well camouflaged beneath an
exterior of some intelligence and considerable cunning, these questions were never
raised.
The only exterior clues to his make-up lay in his capacity to impute a status and
importance to himself that was wholly illusory, a self-pity that insisted he had never
once been at fault but that all others who disagreed with him were wholly in the
wrong, and the capacity for vicious hatred toward those he felt had wronged him.
Often the victims of his hatred had done little or nothing beyond frustrating Roux,
but in Shannon's case there were at least grounds for the dislike.
Roux had been a top sergeant in the French army until his late thirties, when he
was dismissed after an affair involving certain missing funds. In 1961, at a loose
end, he had paid his own fare to Katanga and proposed himself as a well-qualified
adviser to the secessionist movement of the then Katangese leader, Moi'se
Tshombe. That year was the height of the struggle to tear the mineral-rich province
of Katanga out of the union with the sprawling, anarchic, and newly independent
Congo. Several of the men who later became mercenary chieftains began their
freelance careers in the imbroglio in Katanga. Hoare, Denard, and Schramme were
among them. Despite his claims to greater things, Roux was permitted only a small
role
in the Katangese events, and when the mighty United Nations finally managed to
vanquish the small bands of freebooting pistoleros—which had to be done
politically, since it could not be done militarily—Roux was among those who got out.
That was in 1962. Two years later, with the Congo falling like a set of skittles to
the Communist-backed Simbas, Tshombe was recalled from exile to take over not
Katanga but the whole Congo. He in turn sent for Hoare, and Roux was among
those who flew back to enter service under Hoare. As a Frenchman, he naturally
would have been in the French-speaking Sixth Commando, but as he had been in
South Africa at the time, it was to the Fifth that he went. Here he was put in charge
of a company, and one of his section commanders six months later was a young
Anglo-Irishman called Shannon.
Roux's break with Hoare came three months later. Already becoming convinced
of his own superiority as a military commander, Roux was entrusted with the job of
knocking out a Simba roadblock. He devised his own plan of attack, and it was a
total disaster. Four white mercenaries were killed and more than a score of his
Katangese levies. Part of the reason was the plan of attack, part the fact that Roux
had been blind drunk. Behind the drunkenness was the secret certainty that, for all
his bombast, Roux did not like combat.
Colonel Hoare called for a report from Roux and got it. Parts of it did not tally
with the known facts. Hoare sent for the only surviving section commander, Carlo
Shannon, and questioned him closely. From what emerged, he sent for Roux and
dismissed him on the spot.
Roux went north and joined the Sixth Commando under Denard at Paulis,
explaining his defection from the Fifth as being due to dislike of a superb French
commander by the inferior British, a reason Denard found little difficulty in
believing. He posted Roux as
second-in-command of a smaller commando, nominally dependent on the Sixth
but in fact almost independent. This was the Fourteenth Commando at Watsa, ruled
by Commandant Tavernier.
By 1966 Hoare had retired and gone home, and Tavernier had left. The
Fourteenth was commanded by Commandant Wautier—like Tavernier, a Belgian.
Roux was still second-in-command and hated Wautier. Not that the Belgian had
done anything; the reason for the loathing was that Roux had expected the
command after Tavernier's departure. He had not got it. So he hated Wautier.
The Fourteenth, heavily staffed by Katangese levies, was the spearpoint of the
1966 mutiny against the Congolese government. This had been planned, and well
so, by Wautier, and would probably have succeeded. Black Jacques Schramme was
holding his own predominantly Katangese Tenth Commando in check only to see
how things went. Had Wautier led the revolt, it might well have succeeded; Black
Jacques would probably have brought his Tenth into the affair, had it been
successful, and the Congolese government might well have fallen. To launch the
revolt, Wautier had brought his Fourteenth to Stanleyville, where on the left bank of
the Congo River the vast arsenal stood, containing enough munitions to enable
anyone holding it to rule the central and eastern Congo for years.
Two hours before the attack, Commandant Wautier was shot dead, and although
it was never proved, it was Roux who murdered him with a shot in the back of the
head. A wiser man might have called off the attack. Roux insisted on taking
command, and the mutiny was a disaster. His forces never got across the river to
the left bank, the Congolese army rallied on learning the armory was still in its
hands, and Roux's unit was wiped out to the last man. Schramme thanked his stars
he had kept his own men out of the fiasco. On the run and terrified, Roux sought
refuge with John Peters, new commander of the English-speaking Fifth,
which was also not involved. Peters smuggled the desperate Roux, swathed in
bandages and masquerading as an Englishman, out of the country.
The only plane out was heading for South Africa, and that was where Roux went.
Ten months later, he flew back into the Congo, this time accompanied by five South
Africans. He had got wind of the coming July 1967 revolt and came to join
Schramme at the headquarters of the Tenth Commando near Kindu. He was in
Stanleyville again when mutiny broke out, this time with Schramme and Denard
participating. Within hours Denard was out of action, hit in the head by a ricochet
bullet loosed off in error by one of his own men. At a crucial point the leader of the
joint forces of the Sixth and Tenth was out of the fight. Roux, claiming that as a
Frenchman he should take precedence over the Belgian Schramme, maintaining he
was the best commander present and the only one who could command the
mercenaries, put himself forward for overall command.
The choice fell on Schramme, not because he was the best man to command the
whites but because he was the only man who could command the Katangese, and
without these levies the small band of Europeans would have been too badly
outnumbered.
Roux's claim failed on two fronts. The Katangese loathed and distrusted him,
remembering the unit of their own people he had led to annihilation the previous
year. And at the mercenaries' council, held the night Denard was flown out on a
stretcher to Rhodesia, one of those who spoke against Roux's nomination was one
of Denard's company commanders, Shannon, who had left the Fifth eighteen
months earlier and joined the Sixth rather than serve under Peters.
A second time the mercenaries failed to take the arsenal, and Schramme opted
for the long march from Stanleyville to Bukavu, a resort town on Lake Bukavu,
abutting the neighboring republic of Rwanda and offering some form of retreat if
things went wrong.
By this time Roux was gunning for Shannon, and to
keep them apart Schramme gave Shannon's company the hazardous job of point
unit, breaking trail up front as the column of mercenaries, Katangese, and
thousands of camp followers fought their way through the Congolese toward the
lake. Roux was given a job at the rear of the convoy, so the two never met on the
march.
They finally met in Bukavu town after the mercenaries had settled in and the
Congolese had surrounded them on all sides except the lake behind the town. It
was September 1967, and Roux was drunk. Over a game of cards he lost through
lack of concentration, he accused Shannon of cheating. Shannon replied that Roux
made as big a mess of his poker as he had of attacks on Simba roadblocks and for
the same reason —he had no nerve. There was dead silence among the group
around the table as the other mercenaries edged back toward the walls. But Roux
backed down. Glaring at Shannon, he Jet the younger man get up and walk toward
the door. Only when the Irishman had his back turned did Roux reach for the Colt
.45 he, like all of them, carried, and take aim.
Shannon, listening, heard the scrape of a chair and reacted first. He turned,
pulled his own automatic, and fired down the length of the hall. The slug was a
lucky one for a shot from the hip on a half-turn. It took Roux high in the right arm,
tore a hole through the biceps, and left his arm hanging limp from his side, the
fingers dripping blood onto the useless Colt on the floor by his side.
"There's one other thing I remember," Shannon called down the room. "I
remember what happened to Wautier."
Roux was finished after the shoot-out. He evacuated himself across the bridge
into Rwanda, had himself driven to Kigali, the capital, and flew back to France. Thus
he missed the fall of Bukavu when finally the ammunition ran out in November, and
the five months in an internment camp in Kigali. He also missed a chance to settle
scores with Shannon.
Being the first back into Paris from Bukavu, Roux
had given several interviews in which he spoke glowingly of himself, his battle
wound, and his desire to get back and lead his men. The fiasco at Dilolo, when a
recuperated Denard tried a badly planned invasion of the Congo from Angola in the
south as a diversion to take the strain off his men in Bukavu, and the virtual
retirement of the former leader of the Sixth, gave Roux the impression he had
every right to claim leadership over the French mercenaries. He had made quite a
lot of money from looting in the Congo and had salted it away.
With the money, he was able to make a splash among the barflies and
streetcorner bums who like to style themselves mercenaries, and from them he still
retained a certain degree of loyalty, but of the bought kind.
Henri Alain was one such, and so was Roux's next visitor, who came in answer to
his telephoned summons. He was another mercenary, but of a different type.
Raymond Thomard was a killer by instinct and profession. He too had been in the
Congo once, when on the run from the police, and Roux had used him as a hatchet
man. For a few small handouts and in the mistaken view that Roux was a big shot,
Thomard was as loyal as a paid man can ever be.
"I've got a job for you," Roux told him. "A contract worth five thousand dollars.
Are you interested?"
Thomard grinned. "Sure, patron. Who's the bugger you want knocked off?"
"Cat Shannon."
Thomard's face dropped.
Roux went on before he could reply. "I know he's good. But you're better.
Besides, he knows nothing. You'll be given his address when he checks into Paris
next time. You just have to wait till he leaves, then take him at your own
convenience. Does he know you by sight?"
Thomard shook his head. "We never met," he said.
Roux clapped him on the back. "Then you've got nothing to worry about. Stay in
touch. I'll let you know when and where you'll find him."
11
Simon Endean's letter sent on Tuesday night arrived at ten on Thursday morning
at the Handelsbank in Zurich. According to the instructions the bank Telexed
£.10,000 to the account of Mr. Keith Brown at the Kredietbank in Brugge.
By noon Mr. Goossens had seen the Telex and wired £5000 to Mr. Brown's
account in the West End of London. Shortly before four that afternoon, Shannon
made a check call to his bank and learned the credit was there waiting for him. He
asked the manager personally to give him drawing facilities in cash up to £3500 the
following morning. He was told it would be available for collection by eleven-thirty.
Shortly after nine the same morning Martin Thorpe presented himself in Sir
James Manson's office with his findings. The two men went over the short list
together, studying the pages of photostat documents acquired at Companies House
on Tuesday and Wednesday. When they finished, Manson sat back in his chair and
gazed at the ceiling.
"There's no doubt you are right about Bormac, Martin," he said, "but why the hell
hasn't the major stockholder been bought out long ago?"
It was the question Martin Thorpe had been asking himself all the previous night
and day.
The Bormac Trading Company Limited had been founded in 1904 to exploit the
output of a series of vast rubber plantations that had been created during the last
years of the previous century on the basis of slave labor by Chinese coolies.
The founder of the estates had been an enterprising and ruthless Scot by the
name of Ian Macallister, later created Sir Ian Macallister in 1921, and the estates
were situated in Borneo, hence the name of the company.
More of a builder than a businessman, Macallister had agreed in 1903 to enter
into partnership with a group of London businessmen, and the following year
Bormac was created and floated with an issue of half a million ordinary shares.
Macallister, who had married a seventeen-year-old girl the previous year, received
150,000 shares, a place on the board, and managership during his lifetime of the
rubber estates.
Ten years after the company's founding, the London businessmen had clinched a
series of lucrative contracts with companies supplying the British war effort with
rubber, and the share price had climbed from its issue price of four shillings to more
than two pounds. The war profiteers' boom lasted until 1918. There was a slump
for the company just after the First World War, until the motor-car craze of the
1920s boosted the need for rubber tires, and again shares rose. This time there was
a one-for-one new issue, raising the total amount of the company's shares on the
market to 1 million and Sir Ian's block to 300,000. There had been no more share
issues after that.
The slump of the Depression sent prices and shares down again, and they were
recovering by 1937. In that year one of the Chinese coolies finally ran amok and
performed an unpleasantness on the sleeping Sir Ian with a heavy-bladed parang.
The under manager took over but lacked the drive of his dead master, and
production fell as prices rose. The Second World War could have been a boon to
the company, but the Japanese
invasion of Borneo in 1941 disrupted supplies.
The death knell of the company was finally sounded by the Indonesian nationalist
movement, which wrested control of the Dutch East Indies and Borneo from
Holland in 1948. When the border between Indonesian Borneo and British North
Borneo was finally drawn, the estates were on the Indonesian side and were
promptly nationalized without compensation.
For more than twenty years the company had staggered on, its assets
unrecoverable, fruitless lawsuits with President Sukarno's regime eating away at the
cash, prices falling. By the time Martin Thorpe went over the company's books, the
shares stood at a shilling each, and their highest price over the previous year had
been one shilling and threepence.
The board was composed of five directors, and the company rules stipulated that
two of them made a quorum for the purposes of passing a resolution. The company
office's address was given and turned out to be the premises of an old-established
firm of City solicitors, one of whose partners acted as company secretary and was
also on the board. The original offices had long since been given up because of
rising costs. Board meetings were rare and usually consisted of the chairman, an
elderly man living in Sussex, who was the younger brother of Sir lan's former under
manager, who had died in Japanese hands during the war. Sitting with the
chairman were the company secretary, the City solicitor, and occasionally one of the
other three, who all lived a long way from London. There was seldom any business
to discuss, and the company income consisted mainly of the occasional belated
compensation payments now being made by the Indonesian government under
General Suharto.
The combined five directors controlled no more than 18 per cent of the million
shares, and 52 per cent was distributed among 6500 shareholders scattered across
the country. There seemed to be a fair proportion of married women and widows.
No doubt portfolios
of long-forgotten shares sat in deed boxes and banks and solicitors' offices up
and down the land and had done so for years.
But these were not what interested Thorpe and Man-son. If they tried to acquire
a controlling interest by buying through the market, first it would take years, and
second, it would become quickly plain to other City-watchers that someone was at
work on Bormac. Their interest was held by the one single block of 300,000 shares
held by the widowed Lady Macallister.
The puzzle was why someone had not long since bought the entire block from
her and taken on the shell of the once-flourishing rubber company. In every other
sense it was ideal for the purpose, for its memorandum was widely drawn,
permitting the company to operate in any field of exploitation of any country's
natural assets outside the United Kingdom.
"She must be eighty-five if she's a day," said Thorpe at last. "Lives in a vast,
dreary old block of flats in Kensington, guarded by a long-serving lady companion,
or whatever they are called."
"She must have been approached," said Sir James musingly, "so why does she
cling to them?"
"Perhaps she just doesn't want to sell," said Thorpe, "or didn't like the people
who came to ask her to let them buy. Old people can be funny."
It is not simply old people who are illogical about buying and selling stocks and
shares. Most stockbrokers have long since had the experience of seeing a client
refuse to do business when proposed a sensible and advantageous offer, solely and
simply for the reason that he did not like the stockbroker.
Sir James Manson shot forward in his chair and planted his elbows on the desk.
"Martin, find out about the old woman. Find out who she is, where she is, what she
thinks, what she likes and hates, what are her tastes, and above all, find out where
her weak spot is. She has to have one, some little thing that would be too big a
temptation for her and for which
she would sell her holding. It may not be money, probably isn't, for she's been
offered money before now. But there has to be something. Find it."
Thorpe rose to go. Manson waved him back to his chair. From his desk drawer he
drew six printed forms, all identical and all application forms for numbered accounts
at the Zwingli Bank in Zurich.
He explained briefly and concisely what he wanted done, and Thorpe nodded.
"Book yourself on the morning flight, and you can be back tomorrow night," said
Manson as his aide left.
Simon Endean rang Shannon at his flat just after two and was given an up-todate
report on the arrangements the mercenary was making. Manson's assistant
was pleased by the precision of Shannon's reporting, and he noted the details on a
scratch pad so that he could later make up his own report for Sir James.
When he had finished, Shannon put forward his next requirements. "I want five
thousand pounds Telexed direct from your Swiss bank to my credit as Keith Brown
at the head office of the Banque de Luxembourg in Luxembourg by next Monday
noon," he told Endean, "and another five thousand Telexed direct to my credit at
the head office of the Landesbank in Hamburg by Wednesday morning."
He explained tersely how the bulk of the £5000 he had imported to London was
already spoken for and the other £5000 was needed as a reserve in Brugge. The
two identical sums required in Luxembourg and Hamburg were mainly so that he
could show his contacts there a certified check to prove his credit before entering
into purchasing negotiations. Later, most of the money would be remitted to
Brugge and the balance fully accounted for.
"In any case, I can write you out a complete accounting of money spent to date
or committed for spending," he told Endean, "but I have to have your mailing
address."
Endean gave him the name of a professional accommodation address where he
had opened a box that morning in the name of Walter Harris, and promised to get
the instructions off to Zurich within the hour to have both sums of £5000 awaiting
collection by Keith Brown in Luxembourg and Hamburg.
Big Janni Dupree checked in from London airport at five. His had been the
longest journey; from Cape Town to Johannesburg the previous day, and then the
long SAA flight, through Luanda in Portuguese Angola and the Isla do Sol stopover,
which avoided overflying the territory of any black African country. Shannon
ordered him to take a taxi straight to the flat.
At six there was a second reunion when the other three mercenaries all came
around to greet the South African. When he heard Shannon's terms, Janni's face
cracked into a grin.
"We going to go fighting again, Cat? Count me in."
"Good man. So here's what I want from you. Stay here in London, find yourself a
small bed-sitting-room flat. I'll help you do that tomorrow. We'll go through the
Evening Standard and get you fixed up by nightfall.
"I want you to buy all our clothing. We need fifty sets of T-shirts, fifty sets of
underpants, fifty pair of light nylon socks. Then a spare set for each man, making a
hundred. I'll give you the list later. After that, fifty sets of combat trousers,
preferably in jungle camouflage and preferably matching the jackets. Next, fifty
combat blouses, zip-fronted and in the same jungle camouflage.
"You can get all these quite openly at camping shops, sports shops, and army
surplus stores. Even the hippies are beginning to wear combat jackets about town,
and so do people who go shooting in the country.
"You can get all the T-shirts, socks, and underpants at the same stockist, but get
the trousers and blouses at different ones. Then fifty green berets and fifty pairs of
boots. Get the trousers in the large size, we can
shorten them later; get the blouses half in large size, half in medium. Get the
boots from a camping-equipment shop. I don't want heavy British army boots, I
want the green canvas jackboots with front lacing and waterproofed.
"Now for the webbing. I need fifty webbing belts, ammo pouches, knapsacks, and
campers' haversacks, the ones with the light tubular frame to support them. These
will carry the bazooka rockets with a bit of reshaping. Lastly, fifty light nylon
sleeping bags. Okay? I'll give you the full written list later."
Dupree nodded. "Okay. How much will that lot cost?"
"About a thousand pounds. This is how you buy it. Take the Yellow Pages
telephone directory, and under Surplus Stores you'll find over a dozen shops and
stockists. Get the jackets, blouses, belts, berets, webbing harnesses, knapsacks,
haversacks, and boots at different shops, placing one order at each. Pay cash and
take the purchase away with you. Don't give your real name—not that anyone
should ask it—and don't leave a real address.
"When you have bought the stuff, store it in a normal storage warehouse, have it
crated for export, and contact four separate freight agents accustomed to handling
export shipments. Pay them to send it in four separate consignments in bond to a
shipping freight agent in Marseilles for collection by Mr. Jean-Baptiste Langarotti."
"Which agent in Marseilles?" asked Dupree.
"We don't know yet," said Shannon. He turned to the Corsican. "Jean, when you
have the name of the shipping agent you intend to use for the export of the boats
and engines, send the full name and address by mail to London, one copy to me
here at the flat, and a second copy to Jan Dupree, Poste Restante, Trafalgar Square
Post Office, London. Got it?"
Langarotti noted the address while Shannon translated the instructions for
Dupree.
"Janni, go down there in the next few days and get
yourself poste restante facilities. Then check in every week or so until Jean's
letter arrives. Then instruct the freight agents to send the crates to the Marseilles
agent in a bonded shipment for export by sea from Marseilles onward, in the
ownership of Langarotti. Now for the question of money. I just heard the credit
came through from Brussels."
The three Europeans produced slips of paper from their pockets while Shannon
took Dupree's airline ticket stub. From his desk Shannon took four letters, each of
them from him to Mr. Goossens at the Kredietbank. Each letter was roughly the
same. It required the Kredietbank to transmit a sum of money in United States
dollars from Mr. Keith Brown's account to another account for the credit of Mr. X.
In the blanks Shannon filled in the sum equivalent to the round-trip air fare to
and from London, starting at Ostend, Marseilles, Munich, and Cape Town. The
letters also bade Mr. Goossens transmit $1250 to each of the named men in the
named banks on the day of receipt of the letter, and again on May 5 and again on
June 5. Each mercenary dictated to Shannon the name of his bank—most were in
Switzerland—and Shannon typed it in.
When he had finished, each man read his own letter and Shannon signed them at
his desk, sealed them in separate envelopes, and gave each man his own envelope
for mailing.
Last, he gave each £50 in cash to cover the forty-eight-hour stay in London and
told them to meet him outside the door of his London bank at eleven the following
morning.
When they had gone, he sat down and wrote a long letter to a man in Africa. He
rang the writer, who, having checked by phone that it was in order to do so, gave
him the African's mailing address. That evening Shannon mailed his letter, express
rate, and dined alone.
Martin Thorpe got his interview with Dr. Steinhofer at the Zwingli Bank just
before lunch. Having been previously
announced by Sir James Manson, Thorpe received the same red-carpet
treatment.
He presented the banker with the six application forms for numbered accounts.
Each had been filled out in the required manner and signed. Separate cards carried
the required two specimen signatures of the men seeking to open the accounts.
They were in the names of Messrs. Adams, Ball, Carter, Davies, Edwards, and Frost.
Attached to each form were two other letters. One was a signed power of
attorney, in which Messrs. Adams, Ball, Carter, Davies, Edwards, and Frost
separately gave power of attorney to Mr. Martin Thorpe to operate the accounts in
their names. The other was a letter signed by Sir James Manson, requesting Dr.
Stein-hofer to transfer to the accounts of each of his associates the sum of £50,000
from Sir James's account.
Dr. Steinhofer was neither so gullible nor so new to the business of banking as
not to suspect that the fact the names of the six "business associates" began with
the first six letters of the alphabet was a remarkable coincidence. But he was quite
able to believe that the possible nonexistence of the six nominees was not his
business. If a wealthy British businessman chose to get around the tiresome rules
of his own Companies Act, that was his own business. Besides, Dr. Steinhofer knew
certain things about quite a number of City businessmen that would have created
enough Department of Trade inquiries to keep that London ministry occupied for
the rest of the century.
There was another good reason why he should stretch out his hand and take the
application forms from Thorpe. If the shares of the company Sir James was going
to try to buy secretly shot up from their present level to astronomic heights—and
Dr. Steinhofer could see no other reason for the operation—there was nothing to
prevent the Swiss banker from buying a few of those shares for himself.
"The company we have our eye on is called Bormac Trading Company," Thorpe
told him quietly. He outlined
the position of the company, and the fact that old Lady Macallister held
300,000 shares, or 30 per cent of the company.
"We have reason to believe attempts may already have been made to persuade
this old lady to sell her holding," he went on. "They appear to have been
unsuccessful. We are going to have another try. Even should we fail, we will still go
ahead and choose another shell company."
Dr. Steinhofer listened quietly as he smoked his cigar.
"As you know, Dr. Steinhofer, it would not be possible for one purchaser to buy
these shares without declaring his identity. Therefore the four buyers will be Mr.
Adams, Mr. Ball, Mr. Carter, and Mr. Davies, who will each acquire seven and a half
per cent of the company. We would wish you to act on behalf of all four of them."
Dr. Steinhofer nodded. It was standard practice. "Of course, Mr. Thorpe."
"I shall attempt to persuade the old lady to sign the share-transfer certificates
with the name of the buyer left out. This is simply because some people in England,
especially old ladies, find Swiss banks rather—how shall I say?—secretive
organizations."
"I am sure you mean sinister," said Dr. Steinhofer smoothly. "I completely
understand. Let us leave it like this, then. When you have had an interview with this
lady, we will see how best it can be arranged. But tell Sir James to have no fear.
The purchase will be by four separate buyers, and the rules of the Companies Act
will not be affronted."
As Sir James Manson had predicted, Thorpe was back in London by nightfall to
begin his weekend.
The four mercenaries were waiting on the pavement when Shannon came out of
his bank just before twelve. He had in his hand four brown envelopes.
"Marc, here's yours. There's five hundred pounds in it. Since you'll be living at
home, your expenses will be the smallest. So within that five hundred you have to
buy a truck and rent a lock-up garage. There are other items to be bought. You'll
find the list inside the envelope. Trace the man who has the Schmeissers for sale
and set up a meeting between me and him. I'll be in touch with you by phone at
your bar in about ten days."
The giant Belgian nodded and hailed a taxi at the curb to take him to Victoria
Station and the boat train back to the Ostend ferry.
"Kurt, this is your envelope. There's a thousand inside it, because you'll have to
do much more traveling. Find that ship, and inside forty days. Keep in touch by
phone and cable, but be very discreet and brief when using either. You can be frank
in written letters to my flat. If my mail is on intercept we're finished anyway.
"Jean-Baptiste, here's five hundred for you. It has to keep you for forty days.
Stay out of trouble and avoid your old haunts. Find the boats and engines and let
me know by letter. Open a bank account and tell me where it is. When I approve
the type and price of the stuff, I'll transmit you the money. And don't forget the
shipping agent. Keep it nice and legal all down the line."
The Frenchman and the German took their money and instructions and looked for
a second taxi to get them to London airport, Semmler bound for Naples and
Langarotti for Marseilles.
Shannon took Dupree's arm, and they strolled down Piccadilly together. Shannon
passed Dupree his envelope.
"I've put fifteen hundred in there for you, Janni. A thousand should cover all the
purchases and the storage, crating, and shipping costs to Marseilles, with
something to spare. The five hundred should keep you easily for the next month to
six weeks. I want you to get straight into the buying first thing Monday morning.
Make your list of shops and warehouses with the Yellow Pages and a map over the
weekend. You have to finish the buying in thirty days, because I want the stuff in
Marseilles in forty-five."
He stopped and bought the Evening Standard,
opened it at the "Properties to Let" page, and showed Dupree the columns of
advertisements for flats and flatlets for rent, furnished and unfurnished. There
were, as usual, about 300 flats to rent, ranging from £6 a week to £200.
"Find yourself a small flat by tonight and let me know the address tomorrow."
They parted just short of Hyde Park Corner.
Shannon spent the evening writing out a complete statement of accounts for
Endean. He pointed out that the total had eaten up the bulk of the £5000
transferred from Brugge and that he would leave the few hundreds left over from
that sum in the London account as a reserve.
Last, he pointed out that he had not taken any part of his own £ 10,000 fee for
the job and proposed either that Endean transfer it straight from Endean's Swiss
account into Shannon's Swiss account, or remit the money to the Belgian bank for
credit to Keith Brown.
He mailed his letter that Friday evening.
The weekend was free, so he called Julie Manson and suggested taking her out
to dinner. She had been about to set off for a weekend at her parents' country
house, but called and told them she was not coming. As it was late by the time she
was ready, she came to collect Shannon, looking pert and spoiled at the wheel of
her red MGB.
"Have you booked anywhere?" she asked.
"Yes. Why?"
"Let's go and eat at one of my places," she suggested. "Then I can introduce you
to some of my friends."
Shannon shook his head. "Forget it," he said. "That's happened to me before. I
am not spending the whole evening being stared at like a zoo animal and asked
damnfool questions about killing people. It's sick."
She pouted. "Please, Cat darling."
"Nope."
"Look, I won't say what you are and what you do.
I'll just keep it secret. Come on. No one will know you by your face."
Shannon weakened. "One condition," he said. "My name is Keith Brown. Got it?
Keith Brown. That's all. Nothing else do you say about me or where I come from.
Nor about what I do. Understood?"
She giggled. "Great," she said. "Great idea. Mystery Man himself. Come on, then,
Mr. Keith Brown."
She took him to Tramps, where she was evidently well known. Johnny Gold rose
from his doorside table as they entered and greeted her effusively with kisses on
both cheeks. He shook hands with Shannon as she introduced him. "Nice to see
you, Keith. Have a good time."
They dined at the long row of tables running parallel to the bar, and started by
ordering the house lobster cocktail in a hollowed-out pineapple. Seated facing the
room, Shannon glanced around at the diners; most, from their long hair and casual
dress, could be placed in show business or on its fringes. Others were evidently
young-generation businessmen trying to be trendy or make a model or an actress.
Among the latter he spotted a face he knew across the room, with a group, out of
Julie's vision.
After the lobster Shannon ordered "bangers and mash" and, excusing himself, got
up. He strolled slowly out of the door and into the center lobby as if on his way to
the men's room. Within seconds a hand fell on his shoulder, and he turned to face
Simon Endean.
"Are you out of your mind?" grated the City hard boy.
Shannon looked at him in mock surprise, a wide-eyed innocent. "No. I don't think
so. Why?" he asked.
Endean was about to tell him, but checked himself in time. His face was white
with anger. He knew his boss well enough to know how Manson doted on his
supposedly innocent little girl, and knew roughly what his reaction would be should
he ever hear about Shannon taking her out, let alone climbing into bed with her.
But he was checkmated. He assumed Shannon was
still unaware of his own real name, and certainly of Manson's existence. To bawl
him out for dining with a girl called Julie Manson would blow both his own concern
and Manson's name, together with both their roles as Shannon's employer. Nor
could he tell Shannon to leave her alone, for fear Shannon would consult the girl
and she would tell him who Endean was. He choked back his anger.
"What are you doing here?" he asked lamely.
"Having dinner," said Shannon, appearing puzzled. "Look, Harris, if I want to go
out and have dinner, that's my affair. There's nothing to be done over the weekend.
I have to wait till Monday to fly to Luxembourg."
Endean was even angrier. He could not explain that Shannon's slacking on the
job was not what concerned him. "Who's the girl?" he asked.
Shannon shrugged. "Name's Julie. Met her in a caf6 two days ago."
"Picked her up?" asked Endean in horror.
"Yes, you might say that. Why?"
"Oh, nothing. But be careful about girls, all girls. It would be better if you left
them alone for a while, that's all."
"Harris, don't worry about my security. There won't be any indiscretions, in bed
or out. Besides, I told her my name was Keith Brown; I'm on leave in London and
I'm in the oil business."
For answer Endean spun round, snapped at Paolo to tell the group he was with
that he had been called away, and headed for the stairs to the street before Julie
Manson could recognize him.
Shannon watched him leave. "Up yours," he said quietly, "with Sir Bloody James
Manson's biggest drill."
On the pavement outside, Endean swore quietly. Apart from that, he could only
pray that Shannon had been telling the truth about the Keith Brown business and
that Julie Manson would not tell her father about her new boyfriend.
Shannon and his girl danced until shortly before three
and had their first quarrel on the way back to Shannon's flat. He had told her it
would be better if she did not tell her father she was going out with a mercenary, or
even mention his name. "From what you have already told me about him, he seems
to dote on you. He'd probably send you away somewhere, or have you made a
ward of court."
Her response had been to start teasing, keeping a straight face and saying she
would be able to handle her father, as she always had, and in any case being made
a ward of court would be fun and would get her name in all the papers. Besides,
she argued, Shannon could always come and get her, fight his way out, and elope
with her.
Shannon was not sure how serious she was and thought he might have gone too
far in provoking En-dean that evening, although he had not planned on meeting
him, anyway. They were still arguing when they reached the living room of his flat.
"Anyway, I'm not being told what I'll do and what I won't do," said the girl as she
dropped her coat over the armchair.
"You will be by me," growled Shannon. "You'll just keep damn silent about me
when you're with your father. And that's flat."
For answer the girl stuck her tongue out at him. "I'll do what I damn well like,"
she insisted and, to emphasize her words, stamped her foot. Shannon got angry.
He picked her up, spun her around, marched her to the armchair, sat down, and
pulled her over his knee. For five minutes there were two conflicting sounds in the
sitting room, the girl's protesting squeals and the crack of Shannon's hand. When
he let her up she scuttled into the bedroom, sobbing loudly, and slammed the door.
Shannon shrugged. The die was cast one way or the other, and there was
nothing he could do about it. He went into the kitchen, made coffee, and drank it
slowly by the window, looking out at the backs of the houses across the gardens,
almost all dark as the respectable folk of St. John's Wood slept.
When he entered the bedroom it was in darkness. In the far corner of the double
bed was a small hump, but no sound, as if she were holding her breath. Halfway
across the floor his foot scuffed her fallen dress, and two paces farther he kicked
one of her discarded shoes. He sat on the edge of the bed and as his eyes grew
accustomed to the darkness he made out her face on the pillow, eyes watching
him.
"You're rotten," she whispered.
He leaned forward and slipped a hand into the angle of her neck and jaw,
stroking slowly and firmly.
"No one's ever hit me before."
"That's why you've turned out the way you have," he murmured.
"How is that?"
"A spoiled little girl."
"I'm not." There was a pause. "Yes, I am."
He continued caressing her.
"Cat."
"Yes."
"Did you really think Daddy might take me away from you if I told him?"
"Yes. I still do."
"And do you think I'd really tell him?"
"I thought you might."
"Is that why you got angry?"
"Yes."
"Then you only smacked me because you love me?"
"I suppose so."
She turned her head, and he felt her tongue busily licking the inside of his palm.
"Get into bed, Cat, darling. I'm so randy I can't wait any more."
He was only half out of his clothes when she threw the bedsheets back and knelt
on the mattress, running her hands over his chest and muttering, "Hurry, hurry,"
between kisses.
"You're a lying bastard, Shannon," he thought as he lay on his back, feeling this
avid and infatuated young girl go to work on him.
There was a light gray glow in the east over Camden Town when they lay still
two hours later. Julie was curled up in the crook of his arm, her varied appetites for
the moment satisfied.
"Tell me something," she said.
"What?"
"Why do you live the way you do? Why be a mercenary and go around making
wars on people?"
"I don't make wars. The world we live in makes wars, led and governed by men
who pretend they are creatures of morality and integrity, whereas most of them are
self-seeking bastards. They make the wars, for increased profits or increased
power. I just fight the wars because it's the way I like to live."
"Buy why for money? Mercenaries fight for money, don't they?"
"Not only the money. The bums do, but when it comes to a crunch the bums who
style themselves mercenaries usually don't fight. They run away. Most of the best
ones fight for the same reason I do; they enjoy the life, the hard living, the
combat."
"But why do there have to be wars? Why can't they all live in peace?"
He stirred and in the darkness scowled at the ceiling. "Because there are only two
kinds of people in this world: the predators and the grazers. And the predators
always get to the top, because they're prepared to fight to get there and consume
people and things that get in their way. The others haven't the nerve, or the
courage, or the hunger or the ruthlessness. So the world is governed by the
predators, who become the potentates. And the potentates are never satisfied.
They must go on and on seeking more of the currency they worship.
"In the Communist world—and don't ever kid yourself into thinking the
Communist leaders are peace-loving—the currency is power. Power, power, and
more power, no matter how many people have to die so they can get it. In the
capitalist world the currency is money. More and more money. Oil, gold, stocks and
shares, more and more, are the goals, even if they have to lie,
steal, bribe, and cheat to get it. These make the money, and the money buys the
power. So really it all comes back to the lust for power. If they think there's enough
of it to be taken, and it needs a war to grab it, you get a war. The rest, the socalled
idealism, is a load of cock."
"Some people fight for idealism. The Vietcong do. I've read it in the papers."
"Yeah, some people fight for idealism, and ninety-nine out of a hundred of them
are being conned. So are the ones back home who cheer for war. We're always
right, and they're always wrong. In Washington and Peking, London and Moscow.
And you know what? They're being conned. Those GIs in Vietnam, do you think
they die for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness? They die for the Dow Jones
Index in Wall Street, and always have. And the British soldiers who died in Kenya,
Cyprus, Aden. You really think they rushed into battle shouting for God, king, and
country? They were in those lands because their colonel ordered them there, and
he was ordered by the War Office, and that was ordered by the Cabinet, to keep
British control over the economies. So what? They went back to the people who
owned them in the first place, and who cared about the bodies the British army left
behind? It's a big con, Julie Manson, a big con. The difference with me is that no
one tells me to go and fight, or where to fight, or which side to fight on. That's why
the politicians, the Establishments, hate mercenaries. It's not that we are more
lethal than they are; in fact we're a damn sight less so. It's because they can't
control us; we don't take their orders. We don't shoot the ones they tell us to shoot,
and we don't start when they say, 'Start,' or stop when they say, 'Stop.' That's why
we're outlaws; we fight on contract and we pick our own contracts."
Julie sat up and ran her hands over the hard, scarred muscles of his chest and
shoulders. She was a conventionally raised girl and, like so many of her generation,
could not understand even a tiny fraction of the world she saw about her.
"What about the wars when people fight for what they know is right?" she asked.
"I mean, what about fighting against Hitler? That was right, wasn't it?"
Shannon sighed and nodded. "Yes, that was right. He was a bastard all right.
Except that they, the big shots in the Western world, sold him steel up to the
outbreak of war and then made more fortunes making more steel to crush Hitler's
steel. And the Communists were no better. Stalin signed a pact with him and waited
for capitalism and Nazism to destroy each other so he could take over the rubble.
Only when Hitler struck Russia did the world's so idealistic Communists decide
Nazism was naughty. Besides, it cost thirty million lives to kill Hitler. A mercenary
could have done it with one bullet costing less than a shilling."
"But we won, didn't we? It was the right thing to do, and we won."
"We won, my little darling, because the Russians, British, and Americans had
more guns, tanks, planes, and ships than Adolf. That's why, and that's the only
reason why. If he had had more, he'd have won, and you know what? History
would have written that he was right and we were wrong. Victors are always right.
There's a nice little adage I heard once: 'God is on the side of the big battalions.'
It's the gospel of the rich and powerful, the cynical and the gullible. Politicians
believe in it, the so-called quality newspapers preach it. The truth is, the
Establishment is on the side of the big battalions, because it created and armed
them in the first place. It never seems to occur to the millions of readers of that
garbage that maybe God, if there is one, has something to do with truth, justice,
and compassion rather than sheer brute force, and that truth and justice might
possibly be on the side of the little platoons. Not that it matters. The big battalions
always win, and the 'serious' press always approves, and the grazers always believe
it."
"You're a rebel, Cat," she murmured.
"Sure. Always have been. No, not always. Since I
buried six of my mates in Cyprus. That was when I began to question the wisdom
and integrity of all our leaders."
"But, apart from killing people, you could die yourself. You could get killed in one
of these futile wars."
"Yes, and I could live on, like a battery hen, in one of these futile cities. Filling in
futile forms, paying futile taxes to enable futile politicians and state managers to
fritter it away on electorally useful white elephants. I could earn a futile salary in a
futile office and commute futilely on a train, morning and evening, until a futile
retirement. I prefer to do it my way, live my way and die my way."
"Do you ever think of death?" she asked him.
"Of course. Often. Don't you?"
"Yes. But I don't want to die. I don't want to die."
"Death's not so bad. You get used to the idea when it has come very close and
passed by many times. Let me tell you something. The other day I was clearing out
the drawers in this place. There was some newspaper, a year old, at the bottom of
one. I saw a piece of news and began to read it. It dated from the winter before
last. There was this old man, see? He lived alone in a basement. They found him
dead one day, a week or so after he died. The coroner was told no one never came
to see him and he couldn't get out much. The pathologist said he had been
undernourished for at least a year. You know what they found in his throat? Bits of
cardboard. He had been nibbling bits of cardboard from a cereal package to try and
get nourishment. Well, not me, baby. When I go, I'll go my way. I'd prefer to go
with a bullet in my chest and blood in my mouth and a gun in my hand; with
defiance in my heart and shouting, 'Sod the lot of you,' than to flicker out in a damp
basement with a mouth full of cardboard.
"Now go to sleep, love, it's dawn already."
12
Shannon arrived in Luxembourg just after one on the following Monday and from
the airport took a taxi to the Banque de Credit. He identified himself as Keith Brown
by using his passport and asked for the £5000 that should be waiting for collection
by him.
After a delay while the Telex room was checked, the credit was discovered. It
had just come through from Zurich. Instead of drawing the whole sum in cash,
Shannon took the equivalent in Luxembourg francs of £1000 and signed a form
making over the balance of £4000 to the bank. In exchange for this he was given a
certified bank check for the equivalent of £4000.
He had time for a quick lunch before making his way to the Hougstraat, where he
had an appointment with the firm of accountants Lang and Stein.
Luxembourg, like Belgium and Lichtenstein, maintains a system of offering to the
investor a highly discreet and even secretive service in banking and the operation of
companies, into whose affairs a foreign police force has the greatest difficulty in
trying to pry. By and large, unless a company registered in Luxembourg can be
shown to have broken the laws of the archduchy or can be proved beyond doubt to
have been involved in international illegal activities of a highly unpleasant nature,
foreign police inquiries as to who owns or controls
such a company will be met with a stoic refusal to cooperate. It was this
kind of facility that Shannon sought.
His interview, arranged by phone three days earlier, was with Mr. Emil Stein, one
of the partners in the highly respectable firm. For the occasion Shannon wore a
newly acquired charcoal-gray suit, white shirt, and school tie. He carried a briefcase
and the Times under one arm. For some reason, the carrying of this newspaper
always seems to impress Europeans with the idea that the bearer is a respectable
Englishman.
"Over the forthcoming few months," he told the gray-haired Luxembourger, "a
group of British associates, of whom I am one, wish to engage in commercial
activities in the Mediterranean area, possibly Spain, France, and Italy. For this
purpose we would like to establish a holding company in Luxembourg. As you may
imagine, being British citizens and residents and doing business in several European
countries with differing financial laws could prove very complicated. From a tax
standpoint alone, a holding company in Luxembourg seems to be advisable."
Mr. Stein nodded, for the request was no surprise. Many such holding companies
were already registered in his tiny country, and his firm received such requests
every day.
"That should present no problem, Mr. Brown," he told his visitor. "You are aware
of course that all the procedures required by the Archduchy of Luxembourg must be
complied with. Once that is done, the holding company may hold the majority of
shares in an array of other companies registered elsewhere, and after that the
company affairs remain entirely private from foreign tax investigations."
"That's very kind of you. Perhaps you would outline the essentials of starting such
a company in Luxembourg," said Shannon.
The accountant could reel off the requisites in a few seconds. "Unlike the
situation in Britain, all limited liability companies in Luxembourg must have a minimum
of seven shareholders and a minimum of three directors. However, quite
often the accountant asked to help in setting the company up takes the
chairmanship of the directors, his junior partners are the other two, and his staff
becomes shareholders, each with a purely nominal number of shares. In this
manner the person wishing to establish the company is merely the seventh
shareholder, although by virtue of his greater number of shares he controls the
company.
"Shares will normally be registered, and the names of the shareholders also, but
there is the provision for the issue of bearer shares, in which case no registration of
the identity of the majority holder is necessary. The snag to that is that the bearer
shares are exactly what they mean, and the bearer of the majority controls the
company. Should one man lose them, or have them stolen, the new owner would
automatically become the controller without needing a vestige of proof as to how
he acquired them. Do you follow me, Mr. Brown?"
Shannon nodded. This was the arrangement he hoped to establish, in order to
have Semmler buy the boat behind the cover of an uncheckable company.
"A holding company," said Mr. Stein, "as its name implies, may not trade in any
form. It may only hold stock in other companies. Does your group of associates
hold shares in other companies which it would like to have taken over and held in
Luxembourg?"
"No, not yet," said Shannon. "We hope to acquire existing companies in the area
of chosen operations, or found other limited-liability companies and transfer the
majority shareholdings to Luxembourg for safekeeping."
By the end of an hour the agreement had been reached. Shannon had shown Mr.
Stein his £4000 banker's check to prove his solvency, and had paid a deposit of £
500 in cash.
Mr. Stein had agreed to proceed at once with the foundation and registration of a
holding company to be called Tyrone Holdings SA, after searching through the bulky
lists of already registered companies to ensure that no such name existed on the
register. The total
share capital would be £40,000 of which only £ 1000 would be issued
immediately, and this would be issued in 1000 bearer shares of £ 1 each. Mr. Stein
would accept one share and the chairmanship of the board. One share each would
go to his partner, Mr. Lang, and a junior partner in the firm. These three men would
form the board. Three other staff members of the firm—they turned out later to be
secretaries—would be issued with one bearer share each, and the remaining 994
shares would be held by Mr. Brown, who would thus control the company and
whose wishes the board would have to implement.
A general meeting to float the company was fixed for twelve days thence, or any
time after that, if Mr. Brown would let them know in writing when he could be in
Luxembourg to attend it. On that note Shannon left.
Before closing time he was back at the bank, returned the check, and had the
£4000 transferred to the account at Brugge. He checked into the Excelsior and
spent the night in Luxembourg. He already had his reservation for Hamburg the
next morning, and he had the hotel call to confirm it. It was to Hamburg that he
flew the following morning. This time, he was looking for arms.
The trade in lethal weapons is the world's most lucrative, after narcotics, and, not
surprisingly, the governments of the world are deeply involved in it. Since 1945 it
has become almost a point of national prestige to have one's own native arms
industry, and these industries have flourished and multiplied to the point where by
the early 1970s it was estimated there existed one military firearm for every man,
woman, and child on the face of the planet. Arms manufacture simply cannot be
kept down to arms consumption except in case of war, and the logical response has
to be either to export the surplus or encourage war, or both. As few governments
want to be involved in a war themselves but also do not wish to run down their
arms industries just in case, the
accent has for years been on the exporting of arms. To this end, all the major
powers operate highly paid teams of salesmen to trot the globe persuading any
potentate with whom they can secure an interview that he does not have enough
weapons, or that what he does possess are not modern enough and should be
replaced.
It is of no concern to the sellers that 95 per cent of all the hardware on the face
of, for example, Africa is used not to protect the owner-country from external
aggression but to keep the populace in subjection to the dictator. Arms sales having
logically started as a product of the profits rivalry between competing Western
nations, the entry of Russia and China into the arms-manufacturing and -exporting
business has equally logically transferred the salesmanship into an extension of the
power rivalry.
The interaction of profit desirability and political desirability has produced a
tangled web of calculations that continue daily in the capitals of the major world
powers. One power will sell arms to republic A, but not to B. At which a rival power
will rush to sell weapons to B but not to A. This is called establishing a power
balance and therefore keeping the peace. The profit desirability of selling arms is
permanent; it is always profitable. The only constraints are imposed by the political
desirability of this or that country having certain arms in its possession at all, and
from this shifting quicksand of expediency versus profit has evolved the intimate
link between Foreign Affairs Departments and Defense Departments all over the
world.
To establish an indigenous arms industry is not difficult, providing it is kept basic.
It is relatively simple to manufacture rifles and submachine guns and ammunition
for both, along with hand grenades and hand guns. The required level of
technology is not high industrial development, and the variety of needed raw
materials is not large. But the smaller countries usually buy their weaponry readymade
from the larger ones, because their internal requirements are too small to
justify the necessary industrialization, and they know their
technical level would not put them into the export market with a chance.
Nevertheless, a very large and growing number of medium-sized countries have
in the past two decades gone ahead and established their own native, if basic, arms
factories. The difficulties increase, and therefore the number of participating nations
decreases, with the complexity of the weapon to be made. It is easy to make small
arms, harder to make artillery, armored cars and tanks, very difficult to create an
entire shipbuilding industry to build modern warships, and hardest of all to turn out
modern jet fighters and bombers. The level of development of a local arms industry
can be judged by the point at which local weaponry reaches its technical limits, and
imports have to be made for anything above those limits.
The main world arms-makers and -exporters are the United States, Canada,
Britain, France, Italy, West Germany (with certain banned manufactures under the
1954 Paris treaty), Sweden, Switzerland, Spain, Belgium, Israel, and South Africa in
the Western world. Sweden and Switzerland are neutral but still make and export
very fine weaponry, while Israel and South Africa built up their arms industries in
light of their peculiar situations, because they did not wish to be dependent on
anyone in the event of a crisis, and both export very little indeed. The others are all
NATO countries and linked by a common defense policy. They also share an illdefined
degree of cooperation on foreign policy as it relates to arms sales, and an
application for an arms purchase made to any of them habitually undergoes a close
scrutiny before it is granted and the arms are sold. In the same vein, the small
buyer country always has to sign a written undertaking not to pass weaponry sold
to itself to another party without express written permission from the supplier. In
other words, a lot of questions are asked, before a sale is agreed to, by the Foreign
Affairs Office rather than the Weapons Sales Office, and sales are almost inevitably
deals made government-to-government.
Communist arms are largely standardized and come mainly from Russia and
Czechoslovakia. The newcomer, China, now also produces weaponry up to a
sufficiently high level of sophistication for Mao's guerrilla-war theory's requirements.
For Communists the sales policy is different. Political influence, not money, is the
overriding factor, and many Soviet arms shipments are made as gifts to curry favor,
not as commercial deals. Being committed to the adage that power grows out of
the barrel of a gun, and obsessed with power, the Communist nations will not
merely sell weapons to other sovereign governments, but also to "liberation"
organizations that they politically favor. In most cases these are not sales, but gifts.
Thus a Communist, Marxist, extreme Left-wing, or revolutionary movement almost
anywhere in the world can be reasonably assured of not running short of the
necessary hardware for guerrilla war.
In the middle, the neutral Swiss and Swedes have their own self-imposed
inhibitions on whom they will sell to and thus curtail their arms export by their own
volition on moral grounds. No one else does.
With the Russians selling or giving their hardware from governmental source to
nongovernmental recipients, and the West being too shy to do so, the private arms
dealer enters into the picture. The Russians have no private arms dealers, so this
creature fills the gap for the West. He is a businessman who may be used as a
source of weaponry by someone seeking to buy, but in order to stay in business he
must liaise closely with the defense department of his own country, or the
department will see that he goes out of business. It is in his interest to abide by his
native country's wishes anyway; that country may be the source of his own
purchases, which could be cut off if he causes displeasure, apart from his fear of
being put out of business by other, less pleasant means.
Thus the licensed arms dealer, a national and resident usually of his native
country, sells arms to buyers after consulting his own government to be sure that
the sale
is acceptable to them. Such dealers are usually large companies and hold stocks.
This is at the highest level of the private-enterprise arms business. Lower in the
pond are more dubious fish. Next down the scale is the licensed dealer who does
not hold a stock of weapons in a warehouse but is licensed to hold a franchise by
one of the large, often government-owned or -controlled arms-manufacturing
companies. He will negotiate a deal on behalf of a client and take his cut. His
license depends on his toeing the line with the government whose franchise to
operate he holds. This does not prevent some licensed arms dealers from
occasionally pulling a fast one, though two well-established arms dealers have been
put out of business by their governments when discovered doing it.
Down in the mud at the bottom sit the black-market, arms dealers. These are
self-styled, since they hold no license. They may not therefore legally hold any
stocks of weapons at all. They remain in business by being of value to the secret
buyer, a man or organization who, not being a government or representing one,
cannot clinch an intergovernmental deal; who would not be tacitly approved of by a
Western government as desirable to receive arms; who cannot persuade a
Communist government to support his cause on the grounds of political ideology;
but who needs arms.
The vital document in an arms deal is called the End User Certificate. This
certifies that the weapons purchase is being made by, or on behalf of, the End
User, who almost without exception in the Western world has to be a sovereign
government. Only in the case of a flat gift by a secret-service organization to an
irregular army, or of a pure black-market deal, does the question of an End User
Certificate not apply. Examples of the former were the arming, without payment, by
the CIA of the anti-Castro forces of the Bay of Pigs, and the arming of the Congo
mercenaries, also by the CIA. An example of the latter is the shipment to Ireland
from various European and United States private sources of arms for the Provisional
IRA.
The End User Certificate, being an international document, has no specific form,
shape, or size, or specific wording. It is a written affirmation from a certified
representative of a national government that either he, the bearer, or Mr. X, the
dealer, is authorized to apply to the supplier government for permission to purchase
and export a quantity of arms.
The vital point about the End User Certificate is that some countries carry out the
most rigorous checks to ensure the authenticity of this document, while others
come under the heading of "no questions asked" suppliers. Needless to say, End
User Certificates, like anything else, can be forged. It was into this world that
Shannon carefully entered when he flew to Hamburg.
He was aware that he could certainly not make a direct application for permission
to buy arms to any European government with a chance of success. Nor would any
Communist government be kind enough to donate the weapons; indeed, it would
be totally opposed to the toppling of Kimba. By the same token, any direct
application would surely blow the entire operation.
He was also not in a position, for the same reason, to approach one of the
leading government-owned arms-makers, such as Fabrique Nationale of Belgium,
for any request put to a government-owned combine in the arms-making and -
selling business would be passed on to the government; similarly, he could not
approach a large private arms dealer, such as Cogswell and Harrison of London or
Parker Hale of Birmingham. In the same category, Bofors of Sweden, Oerlikon of
Switzerland, CETME of Spain, Werner and others in Germany, Omnipol of
Czechoslovakia, and Fiat of Italy were ruled out.
He also had his own peculiar buying circumstances to consider. The amount he
had to spend was too small to interest the big legitimate licensed dealers who
habitually dealt in millions. He could not have interested the erstwhile king of the
private arms dealers, Sam Cum mings of Interarmco, who for two decades after the
war ran a private arms empire from his penthouse suite in
Monaco and had retired to enjoy his wealth; nor Dr. Strakaty of Vienna, the
licensee franchise holder for Omnipol across the border at Washington Street 11,
Prague; nor Dr. Langenstein in Munich; nor Dr. Peretti in Rome; nor M.
Cammermundt in Brussels; nor Herr Otto Schlueter in Hamburg.
He had to go farther down the scale, to the men who dealt in smaller sums and
quantities. He knew the names of Günther Leinhauser, the German, former
associate of Cummings; in Paris, of Pierre Lorez, Maurice Herscu, and Paul Favier.
But on consideration he had decided to go and see two men in Hamburg.
The trouble with the packet of arms he sought was that it looked like what it
was: a single packet of arms for a single job, and it would not need a keen military
mind to realize that job had to be the taking of one building within a short period.
There was not enough leeway in the quantities to kid any professional soldier that a
Defense Ministry, even a small one, was behind the order.
Shannon had therefore decided to split the packet even smaller, so that at least
the items sought from each dealer were consistent. A mixed package would be a
giveaway.
From one of the men he was going to see he wanted 400,000 rounds of standard
9mm. ammunition, the kind that fits into automatic pistols and also submachine
carbines. Such a consignment was too large and too heavy to be bought on the
black market and shipped without a large amount of complicated smuggling to get
it on board. But it could well be the kind of consignment needed by the police force
of any small country, and was not suspicious in that there were no matching guns
in the same packet and it could therefore pass under scrutiny as an order designed
simply to replenish stock.
To get it, he needed a licensed arms dealer who could slip such a small order
through the procedures among a batch of bigger orders. Although licensed to trade
in arms, the dealer must nevertheless be prepared to do a
bent deal with a forged End User Certificate. This was where an intimate
knowledge of the no-questions-asked countries came in useful.
Ten years earlier there had been vast quantities of superfluous weaponry lying
about Europe in private hands, "black," i.e. illegally held, arms, leftovers from
colonial wars such as those of the French in Algeria and the Belgians in the Congo.
But a series of small irregular operations and wars throughout the 1960s, notably
Yemen and Nigeria, had used them up. So he would have to find a man who would
use a bent End User Certificate and present it to a supplier government that asked
no or few questions. Only four years earlier the most noted of these was the Czech
government, which, although Communist, had continued the old Czech tradition of
selling arms to all comers. Four years earlier one could have walked into Prague
with a suitcase full of dollars, gone to the Omni pol headquarters, selected one's
hardware, and a few hours later have taken off from the airport in one's chartered
plane with the stuff on board. It was that simple. But since the Soviet takeover in
1968 the KGB had taken to vetting all such applications, and far too many questions
were being asked.
Two other countries had earned a reputation of asking few questions about
where the presented End User Certificate really came from. One was Spain,
traditionally interested in earning foreign currency, and whose CETME factories
produced a wide range of weapons, which were then sold by the Spanish Army
Ministry to almost all comers. The other, a newcomer, was Yugoslavia.
Yugoslavia had begun manufacturing her own arms only a few years earlier and
inevitably had reached a point where her own armed forces were equipped with
domestic arms. The next step was overproduction (because factories cannot be
abandoned a few years after they have been most expensively started), and hence
the desire to export. Being a newcomer to the arms market, with weapons of
unknown quality, and eager for
foreign currency, Yugoslavia had adopted the "ask me no questions and I'll tell
you no lies" attitude to applicants for weaponry. She produced a good light
company mortar and a useful bazooka, the latter based heavily on the Czech RPG-
7.
Because the goods were new, Shannon estimated a dealer could persuade
Belgrade to sell a tiny quantity of these arms, consisting of two 60mm. mortar
tubes and a hundred bombs, plus two bazooka ,tubes and forty rockets. The excuse
could well be that the customer was a new one, wishing to make some tests with
the new weaponry and then come back with a far larger order.
For the first of his orders (the 400,000 rounds of 9mm. ammunition), Shannon
intended to go to a dealer Kcensed to trade with CETME in Madrid but known also
not to be above putting through a phony End User Certificate. For the second,
Shannon had heard the name of another man in Hamburg who had skilfully .
cultivated the baby Yugoslav arms-makers at an early stage and had established
good relationships with them, although he was unlicensed.
Normally there is no point in going to an unlicensed dealer. Unless he can fulfill
the order out of illegally held stocks of his own, which means no export license, his
only use can be in securing a bent but plausible End User Certificate for those who
cannot find their own, and then persuading a licensed dealer to accept this piece of
paper. The licensed dealer can then fulfill it, with government approval, from his
own legally held stocks and secure an export license—or put the phony certificate to
a government, with his name and guarantee backing it up. But occasionally he has
one other use which makes him employable: his intimate knowledge of the state of
the market and where to go at any given moment with any given requirement to
have the best chance of success. It was for this quality that Shannon was visiting
the second man on his Hamburg list.
When he arrived in the Hansa city, Shannon stopped by the Landesbank to find
his £5000 was there already.
He took the whole sum in the form of a banker's check made out to
himself and went on to the Atlantic Hotel, where his room was booked. Deciding to
give the Reeperbahn a miss, and being tired, he dined early and went to bed.
Johann Schlinker, whom Shannon confronted in his small and modest office the
next morning, was short, round, and jovial. His eyes sparkled with bonhomie and
welcome, so much so that it took Shannon ten seconds to realize the man could be
trusted as far as the door. The pair of them spoke in English but talked of dollars —
the twin languages of the arms marketplace.
Shannon thanked the arms dealer for agreeing to see him and offered his
passport in the name of Keith Brown as identification.
The German flicked through it and handed it back. "And what brings you here?"
he asked.
"You were recommended to me, Herr Schlinker, as a businessman with a high
reputation for reliability in the business of military and police hardware."
Schlinker smiled and nodded, but the flattery made no impression. "By whom,
may I ask?"
Shannon mentioned the name of a man in Paris, closely associated with African
affairs on behalf of a certain French governmental but clandestine service. The two
had met during one of Shannon's previous African wars, and a month earlier
Shannon had looked him up in Paris for old times' sake. A week ago Shannon had
called the man again, and he had indeed recommended Schlinker to Shannon for
the kind of merchandise he wanted. Shannon had told the man he would be using
the name Brown.
Schlinker raised his eyebrows. "Would you excuse me a minute?" he asked and
left the room. In an adjoining booth Shannon could hear the chatter of a Telex.
It was thirty minutes before Schlinker came back. He was smiling. "I had to call a
friend of mine in Paris on a business matter," he said brightly. "Please go on."
Shannon knew perfectly well he had Telexed to another
arms dealer in Paris, asking the man to contact the French agent and get a
confirmation that Keith Brown was all right. Apparently the confirmation had just
come back.
"I want to buy a quantity of nine-mm. ammunition," he said bluntly. "I know it is
a small order, but I have been approached by a group of people in Africa who need
this ammunition for their own affairs, and I believe if those affairs go well there
would be further and much larger shipments in the future."
"How much would the order be?" asked the German.
"Four hundred thousand rounds."
Schlinker made a moue. "That is not very much," he said simply.
"Certainly. For the moment the budget is not large. One is hoping a small
investment now might lead to greater things later on."
The German nodded. It had happened in the past. "The first order is usually a
small one. "Why did they come to you? You are not 'a dealer in arms or
ammunition."
"They happened to have retained me as a technical adviser on military matters of
all kinds. When the question of seeking a fresh supplier for their needs arose, they
asked me to come to Europe for them," said Shannon.
"And you have no End User Certificate?" the German asked.
"No, I'm afraid not. I hoped that sort of thing could be arranged."
"Oh, yes, it can," said Schlinker. "No problem there. It takes longer and costs
more. But it can be done. One could supply this order from stocks, but they are
held in my Vienna office. That way there would be no requirement for an End User
Certificate. Or one could obtain such a document and make the application normally
through legal channels."
"I would prefer the latter," said Shannon. "The delivery has to be by ship, and to
bring that sort of quantity through Austria and into Italy, then on board a ship,
would be hazardous. It enters an area I am not familiar with. Moreover,
interception could mean long terms in prison for those found in possession. Apart
from that, the cargo might be identified as coming from your stocks."
Schlinker smiled. Privately he knew there would be no danger of that, but
Shannon was right about the border controls. The newly emergent menace of the
Black September terrorists had made Austria, Germany, and Italy highly nervous
about strange cargoes passing through the borders.
Shannon, for his part, did not trust Schlinker not to sell them the ammunition one
day and betray them the next. With a phony End User Certificate, the German
would have to keep his side of the bargain; it would be he who presented the bent
certificate to the authorities.
"I think you are perhaps right," Schlinker said at last. "Very well. I can offer you
nine-mm. standard ball at sixty-five dollars per thousand. There would be a
surcharge of ten per cent for the certificate, and another ten per cent free on
board."
Shannon calculated hastily. Free on board meant a cargo complete with export
license, cleared through customs and loaded onto the ship, with the ship itself
clearing the harbor mouth. The price would be $26,000 for the ammunition, plus
$5200 surcharge.
"How would payment be made?" he asked.
"I would need the fifty-two hundred dollars before starting work," said Schlinker.
"That has to cover the certificate, which has to be paid for, plus all personal
traveling and administrative costs. The full purchase price would have to be paid
here in this office when I am able to show you the certificate, but before purchase.
As a licensed dealer I would be buying on behalf of my client, the government
named on the certificate. Once the stuff had been bought, the selling government
would be extremely unlikely to take it back and repay the money. Therefore I would
need total payment in advance. I would also need the name
of the exporting vessel, to fill in the application for export permit. The vessel
would have to be a scheduled liner or freighter, or a general freighter owned by a
registered shipping company."
Shannon nodded. The terms were steep, but beggars cannot be choosers. If he
had really represented a sovereign government, he would not be here in the first
place.
"How long from the time I give you the money until shipment?" he asked.
"Madrid is quite slow in these matters. About forty days at the outside," said the
German.
Shannon rose. He showed Schlinker the banker's check to prove his solvency, and
promised to be back in an hour with 5200 United States dollars in cash, or the
equivalent in German marks. Schlinker opted for German marks, and when Shannon
returned, he gave him a standard receipt for the money.
While Schlinker was writing out the receipt, Shannon glanced through a series of
brochures on the coffee "table. They covered the items put on sale by another
company, which evidently specialized in nonmilitary pyrotechnic goods of the kind
that are not covered by the classification of "arms," and a wide variety of items
used by security companies, including riot sticks, truncheons, walkie-talkies, riot-gas
canisters and launchers, flares, rockets, and the like.
As Schlinker handed him his receipt, Shannon asked, "Are you associated with
this company, Herr Schlinker?"
Schlinker smiled broadly. "I own it," he said. "It is what I am best known for to
the general public."
And a damn good cover for holding a warehouse full of crates labeled "Danger of
Explosion," thought Shannon. But he was interested. Quickly he wrote out a list of
items and showed them to Schlinker. "Could you fulfill this order, for export, out of
your stocks?" he asked.
Schlinker glanced at the list. It included two rocketlaunching
tubes of the type used by coast guards to send up distress flares, ten
rockets containing magnesium flares of maximum intensity and duration attached to
parachutes, two penetrating foghorns powered by compressed-gas canisters, four
sets of night binoculars, three fixed-crystal walkie-talkie sets with a range of not
less than five miles, and five wrist compasses.
"Certainly," he said. "I stock all these things."
"I'd like to place an order for the list. As they are off the classification of arms, I
assume there would be no problems with exporting them?"
"None at all. I can send them anywhere I want, particularly to a ship."
"Good," said Shannon. "How much would that lot cost, with freight in bond to an
exporting agent in Marseilles?"
Schlinker went through his catalogue and priced the list, adding on 10 per cent
for freight. "Four thousand, eight hundred dollars," he said.
"I'll be in touch with you in twelve days," said Shannon. "Please have the whole
lot ready-crated for freighting. I will give you the name of the exporting agent in
Marseilles, and mail you a banker's check in your favor for forty-eight hundred
dollars. Within thirty days I expect to be able to give you the remaining twenty-six
thousand dollars for the ammunition deal, and the name of the ship."
He met his second contact for dinner that night at the Atlantic. Alan Baker was an
expatriate, a Canadian who had settled in Germany after the war and married a
German girl. A former Royal Engineer during the war, he had got himself involved
during the early postwar years in a series of border-crossing operations into and out
of the Soviet Zone, running nylons, watches, and refugees. From there, he had
drifted into arms-running to the scores of tiny nationalist or anti-Communist bands
of maquis who, left over from the war, still ran their resistance movements in
Central and Eastern Europe—
with the sole difference that during the war they had been resisting the
Germans, while after it they were resisting the Communists.
Most of them had been paid for by the Americans, but Baker was content to use
his knowledge of German and commando tactics to slip quantities of arms to them
and take a hefty salary check from the Americans for doing so. When these groups
finally petered out, he found himself in Tangier in the early 1950s, using the
smuggling talents he had learned in the war and after it to bring cargoes of
perfume and cigarettes into Italy and Spain from the then international and free
port on the north coast of Morocco. Finally put out of business by the bombing and
sinking of his ship in a gangland feud, he had returned to Germany and gone into
the business of wheeler-dealing in any commodity that had a buyer and a supplier.
His most recent feat had been to negotiate a deal in Yugoslav arms on behalf of the
Basques in northern Spain.
He and Shannon had met when Baker was running guns into Ethiopia and
Shannon had been at a loose end after returning from Bukavu in April 1968. Baker
knew Shannon under his real name.
The short, wiry man listened quietly while Shannon explained what he wanted,
his eyes flickering from his food to the other mercenary.
"Yes, it can be done," he said when Shannon had finished. "The Yugoslavs would
accept the idea that a new customer wanted a sample set of two mortars and two
bazookas for test purposes before placing a larger order if he was satisfied. It's
plausible. There's no problem from my side in getting the stuff from them. My
relations with the men in Belgrade are excellent. And they are quick. Just at the
moment I have to admit I have one other problem, though."
"What's that?"
"End User Certificate," said Baker. "I used to have a man in Bonn, diplomat for a
certain East African country, who would sign anything for a price and a few nice big
German girls laid on at a party, the sort he liked. He
was transferred back to his own country two weeks ago. I'm a bit stuck for a
replacement at the moment."
"Are the Yugoslavs particular about End Users?"
Baker shook his head. "Nope. So long as the documentation is in order, they
don't check further. But there has to be a certificate, and it must have the right
governmental stamp on it. They can't afford to be too slack, after all."
Shannon thought for a moment. He knew of a man in Paris who had once
boasted he had a contact in an embassy there who could make out End User
Certificates.
"If I could get you one, a good one, from an African country? Would that work?"
he asked.
Baker inhaled on his cigar. "No problem at all," he said. "As for the price, a sixtymm.
mortar tube would run you eleven hundred dollars each. Say, twenty-two
hundred for the pair. The bombs are twenty-four dollars each. The only problem
with your order is that the sums are really too small. Couldn't you up the number of
mortar bombs from a hundred to three hundred? It would make things much
easier. No one throws off just a hundred bombs, not even for test purposes."
"All right," said Shannon, "I'll take three hundred, but no more. Otherwise I'll go
over budget, and that comes off my cut."
It did not come off his cut, for he had allowed a margin for overexpenditure, and
his own salary was secure. But he knew Baker would accept the argument as final.
"Good," said Baker. "So that's seventy-two hundred dollars for the bombs. The
bazookas cost a thousand dollars each, two thousand for the pair. The rockets are
forty-two dollars and fifty cents each. The forty you want come out at... let's see .
.."
"Seventeen hundred dollars," said Shannon. "The whole packet comes out at
thirteen thousand, one hundred dollars."
"Plus ten per cent for getting the stuff free on board your ship, Cat. Without the
End User Certificate. If I could have got one for you, it would have been twenty
per cent. Let's face it, it's a tiny order, but the traveling and out-of-pocket
expenses for me are constants. I ought to charge you fifteen per cent for such a
small order. So the total is fourteen thousand, four hundred dollars. Let's say
fourteen and a half, eh?"
"We'll say fourteen four," said Shannon. "I'll get the certificate and mail it to you,
along with a fifty-per-cent deposit. I'll pay another twenty-five per cent when I see
the stuff in Yugoslavia crated and ready to go, and twenty-five per cent as the ship
leaves the quay. Travelers' checks in dollars, okay?"
Baker would have liked it all in advance, but, not being a licensed dealer, he had
no offices, warehouses, or business address as Schlinker had. He would act as
broker, using another dealer he knew to make the actual purchase on his behalf. As
a black-market man, he had to accept these terms, the lower cut, and less in
advance.
One of the oldest tricks in the book is to promise to fulfill an arms order, show
plenty of confidence, assure the customer of the broker's absolute integrity, take
the maximum in advance, and disappear. Many a black and brown seeker after
arms in Europe has had that trick played on him. Baker knew Shannon would never
fall for it; besides, 50 per cent of $14,400 was too small a sum to disappear for.
"Okay. The moment I get your End User Certificate I'll get straight onto it."
They rose to leave.
"How long from the time you make your first approach until shipping date?"
asked Shannon.
"About thirty to thirty-five days," said Baker. "By the way, have you got a ship?"
"Not yet. You'll need the name, I suppose. I'll let you have it with the certificate."
"If you haven't, I know a very good one for charter. Two thousand German
marks a day and all found. Crew, food, the lot. Take you and the cargo anywhere,
and discreet as you like."
Shannon thought it over. Twenty days in the Mediterranean, twenty days out to
target, and twenty days back.
A hundred and twenty thousand marks, or £15,000. Cheaper than buying one's
own ship. Tempting. But he objected to the idea of one man outside the operation
controlling part of the arms deal and the ship, and being aware of the target as
well. It would involve making Baker, or the man he would have to go to for the
charter, virtually a partner.
"Yes," he said cautiously. "What's she called?"
"The San Andrea," said Baker.
Shannon froze. He had heard Semmler mention that name. "Registered in
Cyprus?" asked Shannon.
"That's right."
"Forget it," he said shortly.
As they left the dining room, Shannon caught a swift glimpse of Johann Schlinker
dining in an alcove. For a moment he thought the German dealer might have
followed him, but the man was dining with a second man, evidently a valued
customer. Shannon averted his head and strode past.
On the doorstep of the hotel he shook hands with Baker. "You'll be hearing from
me," he said. "And don't let me down."
"Don't worry, Cat. You can trust me," said Baker. He turned and hurried off down
the street.
"In a pig's ear I can," muttered Shannon and went back into the hotel.
On the way up to his room the face of the man he had seen dining with the
German arms merchant stayed in his memory. He had seen the face somewhere
but could not place it. As he was falling asleep it came to him. The man was the
chief of staff of Provisional IRA.
The next morning, Wednesday, he flew back to London. It was the start of Day
Nine.
13
Martin Thorpe stepped into Sir James Manson's office about the time Cat
Shannon was taking off from Hamburg.
"Lady Macallister," he said by way of introduction, and Sir James waved him to a
seat.
"I've been into her with a fine-tooth comb," Thorpe went on. "As I suspected, she
has twice been approached by people interested in buying her thirty-percent
holding in Bormac Trading. It would seem each person used the wrong approach
and got turned down. She's eighty-six, halfway senile, and very tetchy. At least,
that's her reputation. She's also broad Scottish and has all her affairs handled by a
solicitor up in Dundee. Here's my full report on her."
He handed Sir James a buff folder, and the head of Manson Consolidated read it
within a few minutes. He grunted several times and muttered, "Bloody hell," once.
When he had finished, he looked up. "I still want those three hundred thousand
shares in Bormac," he said. "You say the others went about it the wrong way.
Why?"
"She would appear to have one obsession in life, and it's not money. She's rich in
her own right. When she married, she was the daughter of a Scottish laird with
more land than ready cash. The marriage was no doubt
arranged between the families. After her old man died she inherited the lot, mile
after mile of desolate moorland. But over the past twenty years the fishing and
hunting rights have brought in a small fortune from city-dwelling sportsmen, and
parcels of land sold off for industry have made even more. It's been shrewdly
invested by her broker, or whatever they call them up there. She has a nice income
to live on. I suspect the other bidders offered a lot of money but nothing else. That
would not interest her."
"Then what the hell would?" asked Sir James.
"Look at paragraph two on the second page, Sir James. See what I mean? The
notices in The Times every anniversary, the attempt to have a statue erected,
which was refused by the London County Council. The memorial she had put up in
his home town. I think that's her obsession—the memory of the old slave-driver she
married."
"Yes, yes, you may be right. So what do you propose?"
Thorpe outlined his idea, and Manson listened thoughtfully.
"It might work," he said eventually. "Stranger things have happened. The trouble
is, if you try it and she still refuses, you can hardly go back again with another offer
couched in a different vein. But then, I suppose a pure cash offer would in any case
get the same reaction the previous two proposals met. All right, play it your way.
Just get her to sell those shares."
With that, Thorpe was on his way.
Shannon was back in his London flat shortly after twelve. Lying on the mat was a
cable from Langarotti in Marseilles. It was signed simply "Jean" and addressed to
Keith Brown. Its message was an address, a hotel in a street a little way out of the
center of the town, where the Corsican had checked in under the name of Laval-
Ion. Shannon approved the precaution. Checking into a French hotel requires the
filling out of a form which is later collected by the police. They might have
wondered
why their old friend Langarotti was staying so far out of town from his usual
haunts.
Shannon spent ten minutes extracting the number of the hotel from Continental,
Directory Enquiries, and placed a call. When he asked the hotel for M. Lavallon, he
was told the monsieur was out. He left a message asking M. Lavallon to call M.
Brown in London on his return. He had already given each of the four his own
telephone number and made them commit it to memory.
Still using the telephone, he sent a telegram to the poste restante address of
Endean under the name of Walter Harris, advising the project manager that he was
back in London and would like to discuss something. Another telegram went to
Janni Dupree at his flat, instructing him to report to Shannon as soon as he
received the cable.
He rang his own Swiss bank and learned that of the salary for himself of £10,000,
half that amount had been transferred to him, the credit having come from an
unnamed account-holder at the Handelsbank. This he knew to be Endean. He
shrugged. It was normal for half the salary only to be paid at this early date. He
was confident, from the sheer size of ManCon and its evident eagerness to see
Kimba fall from power, that the other £ 5000 would be his as the operation
progressed.
Through the afternoon he typed out a full report of his Luxembourg and
Hamburg trip, excluding the names of the firm of accountants in Luxembourg and
the two arms dealers. To these sheets he attached a full statement of expenditure.
It was past four when he finished, and he had not eaten since the midmorning
snack provided by Lufthansa on the flight from Hamburg. He found half a dozen
eggs in the refrigerator, made a complete mess of an omelet, threw it away, and
had a nap.
The arrival of Janni Dupree at the door just after six woke him, and five minutes
later the phone rang. It was Endean, who had picked up the telegram in the post
office.
Endean soon noticed that Shannon was not in a position to talk freely. "Is there
someone with you?" he asked.
"Yes."
"Is it connected with business?"
"Yes."
"Do you want to meet?"
"I think we ought," said Shannon. "What about tomorrow morning?"
"Okay. About eleven suit you?"
"Sure," said Shannon.
"Your place?"
"Suits me fine."
"I'll be there at eleven," said Endean and hung up.
Shannon turned to the South African. "How are you getting on, Janni?" he asked.
Dupree had made a little progress in the three days he had been working. The
hundred pairs of socks, T-shirts, and underpants were on order and would be ready
for collection by Friday. He had found a supplier for the fifty combat tunics and had
placed the order. The same firm could have provided trousers to match, but,
according to his orders, Dupree was seeking another firm to supply the trousers, so
that no one supplier would realize he was providing complete sets of uniforms.
Dupree mentioned that no one seemed suspicious in any case, but Shannon
decided nevertheless to stick to the original idea.
Janni said he had tried several footwear stores but had not found the canvas
boots he was looking for. He would go on trying for the rest of the week and start
searching for berets, haversacks, knapsacks, a variety of webbing, and sleeping
bags next week. Shannon advised him to contact his first export agent and get the
first consignment of underwear and tunics off to Marseilles as soon as possible. He
promised Dupree to get from Langarotti the name and address of a consignee
agent in Marseilles within the next forty-eight hours.
Before the South African left, Shannon typed out a
letter to Langarotti and addressed it to him under his real name at the main post
office of Marseilles. In the letter he reminded the Corsican of a conversation they
had had six months earlier beneath the palm trees, when the talk had turned to the
buying of arms. The Corsican had mentioned that he knew a man in Paris who
could get End User Certificates from a diplomat in one of the Paris embassies of an
African republic. Shannon needed to know the name of the man and where he
could be contacted.
When he had finished he gave Dupree the letter and ordered him to post it,
express rate, that same evening from Trafalgar Square. He explained he would
have done it himself, but he had to wait in the flat for Langarotti to call from
Marseilles.
He was getting very hungry by eight, when Langarotti finally called, his voice
crackling over a telephone line that must have been created personally by the
inventor of that antique masterpiece the French telephone network.
Shannon asked him, in guarded terms, how he had been getting on. Before any
of the mercenaries had left him, he had warned them all that under no
circumstances was a telephone line to be used to talk openly about what they were
doing.
"I checked into a hotel and sent you a telegram with my address on it," said
Langarotti.
"I know. I got it," shouted Shannon.
"I hired a scooter and toured all the shops that deal in the kind of merchandise
we are looking for," came the voice. "There are three manufacturers in each
category. I got the addresses and names of the three boat-makers and wrote off to
each for their brochures. I should get them in a week or so. Then I can order the
best-suited from the local dealers, quoting the maker's name and brand name of
the article," said Langarotti.
"Good idea," said Shannon. "What about the second articles?"
"They depend on the kind we pick from the brochures
I shall get. One depends on the other. But don't worry. On the second
thing we need, there are thousands of every kind and description in the shops
along this coast. With spring coming, every shop in every port is stocking up with
the latest models."
"Okay. Fine," Shannon shouted. "Now listen. I need the name of a good export
agent for shipping. I need it earlier than I thought. There will be a few crates to be
sent from here in the near future, and another from Hamburg."
"I can get that easy enough," said Langarotti from the other end. "But I think it
will be better in Toulon. You can guess why."
Shannon could guess. Langarotti could use another name at his hotel, but for
exporting goods from the port on a small freighter he would have to show his
identity card. Moreover, in the past year or so Marseilles police had tightened up
considerably in their watch on the port and a new customs chief had been drafted
in, who was believed to be a holy terror. The aim of both operations was to clamp
down on the heroin traffic that made Marseilles the start of the French connection
with New York, but a search of a boat for drugs could just as easily turn up arms
instead. It would be the worst irony to be caught because of something one was
not even involved in.
"Fair enough, you know that area best," said Shannon. "Cable me the name and
address as soon as you have them. There is one other thing. I have sent a letter by
express rate tonight, to you personally at the main post office in Marseilles. You'll
see what I want when you read it. Cable me the man's name at once when you get
the letter, which should be Friday morning."
"Okay," said Langarotti. "Is that all?"
"Yes, for the moment. Send me those brochures as soon as you get them, with
your own comments and the prices. We must stay in budget."
"Right. By-by," called Langarotti, and Shannon hung up. He had dinner alone at
the Bois de St. Jean and slept early.
Endean arrived at eleven the next morning and spent an hour reading the report
and accounts and discussing both with Shannon.
"Fair enough," he said at length. "How are things going?"
"Well," said Shannon, "it's early days yet, of course. I've only been on the job for
ten days, but a lot of ground has been covered. I want to get all the orders placed
by Day Twenty, which will leave forty days for them to be fulfilled. After that there
must be an allowance of twenty days to collect all the component parts and get
them safely and discreetly aboard the ship. Sailing date should be Day Eighty, if we
are to strike on schedule. By the way, I shall need more money soon."
"You have three and a half thousand in London, and seven thousand in Belgium,"
objected Endean.
"Yes, I know. But there is going to be a spate of payments soon."
He explained he would have to pay Johann, the Hamburg arms dealer, the
outstanding $26,000 within twelve days to allow him forty days to get the
consignment through the formalities in Madrid and ready for shipment; then there
would be $4800, also to Johann, for the ancillary gear he needed for the attack.
When he had the End User Certificate in Paris, he would have to send it to Alan,
along with a credit transfer for $7200, 50 per cent of the Yugoslav arms price.
"It all mounts up," he said. "The big payments, of course, are the arms and the
boat. They form over half the total budget."
"All right," said Endean. "I'll consult and prepare a draft to your Belgian account
for another twenty thousand pounds. Then the transfer can be made on a
telephone call from me to Switzerland. In that way it will only take a matter of
hours, when you need it." He rose to go. "Anything else?"
"No," said Shannon. "I'll have to go away again at the weekend for another trip. I
should be away most of next week. I want to check on the search for the boat,
the choice of dinghies and outboards in Marseilles, and the submachine guns in
Belgium."
"Cable me at the usual address when you leave and when you get back," said
Endean.
The drawing room in the sprawling apartment above Cottesmore Gardens, not far
from Kensington High Street, was gloomy in the extreme, with heavy drapes across
the windows to shut out the spring sunshine. A gap a few inches wide between
them allowed a little daylight to filter in through thick net curtains. Between the four
formally placed and overstuffed chairs, each of them late-Victorian pieces, myriad
small tables bore assorted bric-a-brac. There were buttons from long-punctured
uniforms, medals won in long-past skirmishes with long-liquidated heathen tribes.
Glass paperweights nudged Dresden china dolls, cameos of once demure Highland
beauties, and fans that had cooled faces at balls whose music was no longer
played.
Around the walls of discolored brocade hung portraits of ancestors, Montroses
and Monteagles, Far-quhars and Frazers, Murrays and Mintoes. Surely such a
gathering could not be the ancestors of one old woman? Still, you never knew, with
the Scots.
Bigger than them all, in a vast frame above the fire that clearly was never lit,
stood a man in a kilt, a painting evidently much more recent than the other
blackened antiques, but still discolored by age. The face, framed by two bristling
ginger muttonchop whiskers, glared down into the room as if its owner had just
spotted a coolie impudently collapsing from overwork at the other end of the
plantation. "Sir Ian Macallister, K.B.E.," read the plate beneath the portrait.
Martin Thorpe dragged his eyes back to Lady Macallister, who was slumped in a
chair, fiddling as she constantly did with the hearing aid that hung on her chest. He
tried to make out from the mumblings and ram-blings, sudden digressions, and
difficult accent, what she was saying.
"People have come before, Mr. Martin," she was saying; she insisted on calling
him Mr. Martin, although he had introduced himself twice. "But I don't see why I
should sell. It was my husband's company, don't you see. He founded all these
estates that they make their money from. It was all his work. Now people come and
say they want to take the company away and do other things with it—build houses
and play around with other things. I don't understand it all, not at all, and I will not
sell—"
"But Lady Macallister—"
She went on as if she had not heard him, which indeed she had not, for her
hearing aid was up to its usual tricks because of her constant fiddling with it.
Thorpe began to understand why other suitors had eventually gone elsewhere for
their shell companies.
"You see, my dear husband, God rest his poor soul, was not able to leave me
very much, Mr. Martin. When those dreadful Chinese killed him, I was in Scotland
on furlough, and I never went back. I was advised not to go. But they told me the
estates belonged to the company, and he had left me a large part of the company.
So that was his legacy to me, don't you see. I could not sell his own legacy to me
..."
Thorpe was about to point out that the company was worthless, but realized that
would not be the right thing to say. "Lady Macallister—" he began again.
"You'll have to speak directly into the hearing aid. She's deaf as a post," said
Lady Macallister's companion.
Thorpe nodded his thanks at her and really noticed her for the first time. In her
late sixties, she had the careworn look of those who once had their own
independence but who, through the strange turns of fortune, have fallen on harder
times and to survive have to put themselves in bond to others, often to
cantankerous, troublesome, exhausting employers whose money enables them to
hire others to serve them.
Thorpe rose and approached the senile old woman in the armchair. He spoke
closer to the hearing aid.
"Lady Macallister, the people I represent do not want to change the company. On
the contrary, they want to put a lot of money into it and make it rich and famous
again. We want to start up the Macallister estates, just like when your husband ran
them. ..."
For the first time since the interview had started an hour before, something like a
glimmer of light awoke in the old woman's eyes. "Like when my husband ran
them?" she queried.
"Yes, Lady Macallister," bawled Thorpe. He pointed up at the figure of the tyrant
on the wall. "We want to create all his life's work again, just the way he would have
wanted it, and make the Macallister estates a memorial to him and his work."
But she was gone again. "They never put up a memorial to him," she quavered.
"I tried, you know. I wrote to the authorities. I said I would pay for the statute, but
they said there was no room. No room. They put up lots of statutes, but not to my
Ian."
"They will put up a memorial to him if the estates and the company become rich
again," Thorpe shouted into the hearing aid. "They'll have to. If the company was
rich, it could insist on a memorial. It could found a scholarship, or a foundation,
called the Sir Ian Macallister Trust, so that people would remember him."
He had already tried that ploy once, but no doubt she had not heard him or had
not grasped what he was saying. But she heard him this time.
"It would cost a lot of money," she quavered. "I am not a rich woman." She was
in fact extremely rich, but probably unaware of it.
"You don't have to pay for it, Lady Macallister," he said. "The company would pay
for it. But the company would have to expand again. And that means money. The
money would be put into the company by my friends."
"I don't know, I don't know," she wailed and began to sniff, reaching for a
cambric handkerchief in her sleeve. "I don't understand these things. If only my
dear Ian were here. Or Mr. Dalgleish. I always ask him what would be for the best.
He always signs the papers for me. Mrs. Barton, I'd like to go back to my room."
"It's time enough," said the housekeeper-companion brusquely. "Now come
along, it's time for your nap. And your medicine."
She helped the old woman to her feet and assisted her out of the sitting room
and down the corridor. Through the open door Thorpe could hear her businesslike
voice commanding her charge to get onto the bed, and the old woman's protests as
she took the medicine.
After a while Mrs. Barton came back to the sitting room. "She's on the bed, she'll
rest for a while," she said.
Thorpe smiled his most rueful smile. "It looks as if I've failed," he said sadly. "And
yet, you know, the stock she holds is quite valueless unless the company is
rejuvenated with fresh management and some hard cash, quite a lot of it, which my
partners would be prepared to put in." He turned to the door. "I'm sorry if I put you
to inconvenience," he said.
"I'm quite used to inconvenience," said Mrs. Barton, but her face softened. It had
been a long time since anyone had apologized for putting her to trouble. "Would
you care for a cup of tea? I usually make one at this hour."
Some instinct at the back of Thorpe's mind prompted him to accept. As they sat
over a pot of tea in the back kitchen, which was the housekeeper-companion's
domain, Martha Thorpe felt almost at home. His mother's kitchen in Battersea had
not been dissimilar. Mrs. Barton told him about Lady Macallister, her whining and
tantrums, her obstinacy and the constant strain of competing with her all-tooconvenient
deafness.
"She can't see all your fine arguments, Mr. Thorpe, not even when you offered to
put up a memorial to that old ogre in the sitting room."
Thorpe was surprised. Evidently the tart Mrs. Barton had a mind of her own when
her employer was
not listening. "She does what you tell her," he said.
"Would you like another cup of tea?" she asked. As she poured it, she said
quietly, "Oh, yes, she does what I tell her. She depends on me, and she knows it. If
I went, she'd never get another companion. You can't nowadays. People aren't
prepared to put up with that sort of thing these days."
"It can't be much of a life for you, Mrs. Barton."
"It's not," she said shortly, "but 1 have a roof over my head, and food and some
clothes. I get by. It's the price one pays."
"For being a widow?" asked Thorpe gently.
"Yes."
There was a picture of a young man in the uniform of a pilot of the Royal Air
Force propped on the mantelpiece next to the clock. He wore a sheepskin jacket, a
polka-dotted scarf, and a broad grin. Seen from one angle, he looked not unlike
Martin Thorpe.
"Your son?" said the financier, with a nod.
Mrs. Barton gazed at the picture. "Yes. Shot down over France in nineteen-fortythree."
"I'm sorry."
"It was a long time ago. One becomes accustomed."
"So he won't be able to look after you when she's dead and gone."
"No."
"Then who will?"
"I'll get by. She'll no doubt leave me something in her will. I've looked after her
for sixteen years."
"Yes, of course she will. She'll see you all right—no doubt of it."
He spent another hour in the back kitchen, and when he left he was a much
happier man. It was nearly closing tune for shops and offices, but from a corner
phone booth he made a call to the head office of Man-Con, and within ten minutes
Endean had done what his colleague asked.
In the West End an insurance broker agreed to stay late in his office that night
and receive Mr. Thorpe at ten the next morning.
That Thursday evening Johann Schlinker flew into London from Hamburg. He had
arranged his appointment by telephone from Hamburg the same morning, phoning
his contact at his home rather than at the office.
He met the diplomat from the Iraqi embassy for dinner at nine. It was an
expensive dinner, even more so when the German arms dealer handed over an
envelope containing the equivalent in German marks of £1000. In return he took an
envelope from the Arab ,and checked the contents. They took the form of a letter
on crested embassy notepaper. The letter was addressed to whom it might concern
and stated that the undersigned, being a diplomat on the staff of the London
embassy of the Republic of Iraq, had been required and requested by the Interior
and Police Ministry of his country to authorize Herr Johann Schlinker to negotiate
the purchase of 400,000 rounds of standard 9mm. ball for shipment to Iraq to
replenish the stocks of the police forces of the country. It was signed by the
diplomat and bore the stamp and seal of the Republic of Iraq, which would normally
be on the desk of the Ambassador. The letter further stated that the purchase
would be wholly and exclusively for the use of the Republic of Iraq and would under
no circumstances be passed, in whole or in part, to any other party. It was an End
User Certificate.
When they parted, it was too late for the German to return home, so he spent
the night in London and left the following morning.
At eleven on Friday morning, Cat Shannon phoned Marc Vlaminck at his flat
above the bar in Ostend.
"Did you find that man I asked you to trace?" he inquired after introducing
himself. He had akeady warned the Belgian to talk very carefully on the telephone.
"Yes, I found him," replied Tiny Marc. He was sitting up in bed, while Anna
snored gently beside him. The bar usually closed between three and four in the
morning, so midday was the habitual rising time for both of them.
"Is he prepared to talk business about the merchandise?" asked Shannon.
"I think so," said Vlaminck. "I haven't raised the matter with him yet, but a
business friend here says he will normally do business after a suitable introduction
through a mutual acquaintance."
"He still has the goods I mentioned to you at our last meeting?"
"Yes," said the voice from Belgium, "he still has them."
"Fine," said Shannon. "Get a meeting and introduction with him yourself first, and
tell him you have a customer who has approached you and would like to talk
business. Ask him to be available for a meeting next weekend with the customer.
Tell him the customer is good and reliable and is an Englishman called Brown. You
know what to say. Just get him interested in a business deal. Tell him the customer
would wish to examine one example of the goods at the meeting, and if it is up to
standard, discuss terms and delivery. I'll ring you toward the weekend and let you
know where I am and when I could come to see you and him together.
Understand?"
"Sure," said Marc. "I'll get on with it over the next couple of days and set the
meeting up for some time to be confirmed later, but during next weekend."
They exchanged the usual good wishes and hung up.
At half past two a cable from Marseilles arrived at the flat. It bore the name of a
Frenchman and an address. Langarotti said he would telephone the man and
introduce Shannon with a personal recommendation. The cable concluded by saying
inquiries regarding the shipping agent were under way, and he expected to be able
to give Shannon a name and address within five days.
Shannon picked up the phone and called the offices of UTA airlines in Piccadilly to
get himself a seat on
the flight of the following Sunday midnight to Africa from Le Bourget, Paris. From
BEA he reserved a ticket to Paris on the first flight the next morning, Saturday. He
put £2000 of the money he had brought back from Germany into an envelope and
slipped it into the lining at the bottom of his handgrip, for London airport
representatives of the Treasury by and large disapprove of British citizens strolling
out of the country with more than the permitted £25 in cash and £300 in travelers'
checks.
Just after lunch Sir James Manson summoned Simon Endean to his office. He had
finished reading Shannon's report and was agreeably surprised at the speed with
which the mercenary's proposed plan of twelve days earlier was being carried out.
He had checked the accounts and approved the expenditures. What pleased him
even more was the long telephone call he had had from Martin Thorpe, who had
spent half the night and most of the morning with an insurance broker.
"You say Shannon will be abroad for most of next week," he told Endean when
his aide entered the office.
"Yes, Sir James."
"Good. There's a job that has to be done sooner or later, and it might as well be
now. Get one of our standard contracts of employment, the kind we use for the
engagement of African representatives. Paste over the name of ManCon with a strip
of white paper and fill in the name of Bormac in its place. Make it out for a one-year
engagement for the services as West African representative of Antoine Bobi at a
salary of five hundred pounds a month. When you've got it done, show it to me."
"Bobi?" queried Endean. "You mean Colonel Bobi?"
"That's the one. I don't want the future president of Zangaro running off
anywhere. Next week, starting Monday, you are going down to Cotonou to
interview the colonel and persuade him that Bormac Trading
Company, whose representative you are, has been so impressed by his mental
and business acumen that it would like to engage his services as a West African
consultant. Don't worry, he'll never check to see who or what Bormac is, or that you
are its representative. If I know anything about these lads, the hefty salary will be
what interests him. If he's short of the ready, it ought to be manna from heaven.
"You are to tell him his duties will be communicated to him later, but the sole
condition of employment for the moment is that he remain where he is at his house
in Dahomey for the next three months or until you visit him again. Persuade him
there will be a bonus in salary if he waits where he is. Tell him the money will be
transferred to his local account in Dahomean francs. On no account is he to receive
any hard currency. He might vamoose. One last thing. When the contract is ready,
have it photocopied to hide the traces of the change of name of the employing
company, and only take with you photocopies. As for the date on it, make sure the
last figure for the year is blurred. Smudge it yourself."
Endean absorbed the instructions and left to begin setting up the employment
under false pretenses of Colonel Antoine Bobi.
That Friday afternoon, just after four, Thorpe emerged from the gloomy
Kensington apartment with the four share-transfer deeds he needed, duly signed by
Lady Macallister and witnessed by Mrs. Barton. He also bore a letter of authority
signed by the old woman, instructing Mr. Dalgleish, her attorney in Dundee, to hand
over to Mr. Thorpe the share certificates upon presentation of the letter and proof
of identity and the necessary check.
The name of the recipient of the shares had been left blank on the transfer
deeds, but Lady Macallister had not noticed. She had been too distraught at the
thought of Mrs. Barton packing her bags and leaving. Before nightfall the name of
the Zwingli Bank's nominee
company acting on behalf of Messrs. Adams, Ball, Carter, and Davies would be
written into the vacant space. After a visit to Zurich the following Monday, the bank
stamp and countersignature of Dr. Steinhofer would complete the form, and four
certified checks, one drawn against the account of each of the four nominees
buying 7.5 per cent of the stock of Bormac, would be brought back from
Switzerland.
It had cost Sir James Manson 2 shillings to buy each of the 300,000 shares, then
quoted at 1 shilling and 1 penny on the Stock Exchange, or a total of £.30,000. It
had also cost him another £30,000, shunted that morning through three bank
accounts, withdrawn once in cash and repaid into a fresh account an hour later, to
purchase a life annuity which would assure a comfortable and worry-free end to her
days for an elderly housekeeper-companion.
All in all, Thorpe reckoned it was cheap at the price. Even more important, it was
untraceable. Thorpe's name appeared nowhere on any document; the annuity had
been paid for by a solicitor, and solicitors are paid to keep their mouths shut.
Thorpe was confident Mrs. Barton would have enough sense to do the same. And to
cap it all, it was even legal.
14
Benoit Lambert, known to friends and police as Benny, was a small-fry member
of the underworld and self-styled mercenary. In point of fact, his sole appearance in
the mercenary-soldier field had occurred when, with the police looking for him in
the Paris area, he had taken a plane for Africa and signed on in the Sixth
Commando in the Congo under the leadership of Denard.
For some strange reason the mercenary leader had taken a liking to the timorous
little man and had given him a job at headquarters, which kept him well away from
combat. He had been useful in his job, because it enabled him to exercise to good
effect the one talent he really did possess. He was a wizard at obtaining things. He
seemed to be able to conjure up eggs where there were no chickens and whisky
where there was no still. In the headquarters of any military unit, such a man is
always useful, and most units have one. He had stayed with the Sixth Commando
for nearly a year, until May 1967, when he spotted trouble brewing in the form of a
pending revolt by Schramme's Tenth Commando against the Congolese government
He felt—rightly, as it turned out—that Denard and the Sixth might be drawn into
this fracas and there would be an opportunity for all, including headquarters
staff, to see some real combat. For Benny Lambert this was the moment to
move briskly in the other direction.
To his surprise, he had been allowed to go.
Back in France, he had cultivated the notion of himself as a mercenary and later
had called himself an arms dealer. The first he certainly was not, but as for arms,
with his variety of contacts he had occasionally been able to provide an item of
weaponry here and there, usually hand guns for the underworld, occasionally a
case of rifles. He had also come to know an African diplomat who was prepared, for
a price, to provide a moderately serviceable End User Certificate in the form of a
letter from the Ambassador's personal desk, complete with embassy stamp.
Eighteen months earlier he .had mentioned this in a bar to a Corsican called
Langarotti.
Nevertheless, he was surprised on Friday evening to hear the Corsican on the
phone, calling long distance to tell him he would be visited at his home the next day
or Sunday by Cat Shannon. He had heard of Shannon, but, even more, he was
aware of the vitriolic hatred Charles Roux bore for the Irish mercenary, and he had
long since heard on the grapevine that circulated among the mercenaries of Paris
that Roux was prepared to pay money to anyone who would tip him off as to
Shannon's whereabouts, should the Irishman ever turn up in Paris. After
consideration, Lambert agreed to be at home to see Shannon.
"Yes, I think I can get that certificate," he said when Shannon had finished
explaining what he wanted. "My contact is still in Paris. I deal with him fairly
frequently, you know."
It was a lie, for his dealings were very infrequent, but he was sure he could
swing the deal.
"How much?" asked Shannon shortly.
"Fifteen thousand francs," said Benny Lambert.
"Merde," said Shannon. "I'll pay you a thousand pounds, and that's over the
rate."
Lambert calculated. The sum was just over eleven
thousand francs at the current rate. "Okay," he said.
"You let out one word of this, and I'll slit your gizzard like a chicken," said
Shannon. "Even better, I'll get the Corsican to do it, and he'll start at the knee."
"Not a word, honest," protested Benny. "A thousand pounds, and I'll get you the
letter in four days. And not a word to anyone."
Shannon put down five hundred pounds. "You'll take it in sterling," he said. "Half
now, half when I pick it up."
Lambert was about to protest but realized it would do no good. The Irishman did
not trust him.
"I'll call you here on Wednesday," said Shannon. "Have the letter here, and I'll
hand over the other five hundred."
When he had gone, Benny Lambert thought over what he would do. Finally he
decided to get the letter, collect the remainder of his fee, and tell Roux later.
The following evening Shannon flew to Africa on the midnight flight and arrived
at dawn on Monday morning.
It was a long drive upcountry. The taxi was hot and rattled abominably. It was
still the height of the dry season, and the sky above the oil-palm plantations was
robin's-egg blue, without a cloud. Shannon did not mind. It was good to be back in
Africa again for a day and a half, even after a six-hour flight without sleep.
It was familiar to him, more so than the cities of Western Europe. Familiar were
the sounds and the smells, the villagers walking along the edge of the road to
market, columns of women in Indian file, their gourds and bundles of wares
balanced on their heads, unwaveringly steady.
At each village they passed, the usual morning market was set out beneath the
shade of the palm-thatch roofs of the rickety stalls, the villagers bargaining and
chattering, buying and selling, the women tending the stalls while the men sat in
the shade and talked of important matters that only they could understand, and
the naked brown children scampering through the dust between the legs of their
parents and the stalls.
Shannon had both windows open. He sat back and sniffed the moisture and the
palms, the woodsmoke and the brown, stagnant rivers they crossed. From the
airport he had already telephoned the number the writer had given him and knew
he was expected. He arrived at the villa set back from the road in a private, if small,
park just before noon.
The guards checked him at the gate, frisking him from ankles to armpits, before
letting him pay off the taxi and enter the gate. Inside, he recognized a face, one of
the personal attendants of the man he had come to see. The servant grinned
broadly and bobbed his head. He led Shannon to one of the three houses in the
grounds of the park and ushered him into an empty sitting room. Shannon waited
alone for half an hour.
He was staring out of the windows, feeling the cool of the air-conditioner dry out
his clothes, when he heard the creak of a door and the soft sound of a sandal on
tiles behind him. He turned around.
The general was much the same as when they had last met on the darkened
airstrip, the same luxuriant beard, the same deep bass voice.
"Well, Major Shannon, so soon. Couldn't you stay away?"
He was bantering, as he usually did. Shannon grinned as they shook hands.
"I've come down because I need something, sir. And because there is something
I think we ought to talk over. An idea in the back of my head."
"There's not much that an impoverished exile can offer you," said the general,
"but I'll always listen to your ideas. If I remember rightly, you used to have some
fairly good ones."
Shannon said, "There's one thing you have, even in exile, that I could use. You
still have your people's loyalty. And what I need is men."
The two men talked through the lunch hour and through the afternoon. They
were still discussing when
darkness fell, Shannon's freshly drawn diagrams spread out on the table. He had
brought nothing with him but clean white paper and a variety of colored felt-tipped
pens, just in case of a skin search at customs.
They reached agreement on the basic points by sundown and elaborated the plan
through the night. Only at three in the morning was the car summoned to drive
Shannon back to the coast and the airport for take-off on the dawn plane to Paris.
As they parted on the terrace above the waiting car and its sleepy chauffeur, they
shook hands again.
"I'll be in touch, sir," said Shannon.
"And I'll have to send my emissaries immediately," replied the general. "But in
sixty days the men will be there."
Shannon was dead tired. The strain of the constant traveling was beginning to
tell; the nights without sleep, the endless succession of airports and hotels,
negotiations and meetings, had left him drained. In the car driving to the south he
slept for the first time in two days, and dozed again on the plane trip back to Paris.
The flight stopped too many tunes to allow a real sleep: an hour at Ouagadougou,
another at a godforsaken strip in Mauretania, and again at Marseilles. He reached
Le Bourget just before six in the evening. It was the end of Day Fifteen.
While he was landing in Paris, Martin Thorpe was boarding the overnight sleeper
train to Glasgow, Stirling, and Perth. From there he could take a connecting train to
Dundee, where were situated the old-established offices of Dalgleish and Dalgleish,
attorneys-at-law. He carried in his briefcase the document signed before the
weekend by Lady Macallister and witnessed by Mrs. Barton, along with the checks
issued by the Zwingli Bank of Zurich, four of them, each in the sum of £7500 and
each enough to purchase 75,000 of Lady Macallister's shares in Bormac.
Twenty-four hours, he thought as he drew down the blinds of his first-class
sleeping compartment, blotting
out the sight of the scurrying on the platform of King's Cross station. Twenty-four
hours should see it through, and they would be home and dry; and three weeks
later a new director on the board, a nominee responding to the strings pulled by
him and Sir James Manson. Settling himself on the bunk, his briefcase under the
pillow, Martin Thorpe gazed up at the ceiling and enjoyed the feeling.
Later that Tuesday evening Shannon was settled into a hotel not far from the
Madeleine in the heart of Paris's 8th arrondissement. He had had to forsake his
regular Montmartre hideout, where he was known as Carlo Shannon, because he
was now using the name of Keith Brown. But the Plaza-Surène was a good
substitute. He had bathed and shaved and was about to go out for dinner. He had
telephoned to reserve a table at his favorite eating place in the quarter, the
Restaurant Mazagran, and Madame Michele had promised him a filet mignon the
way he liked it, with a tossed-lettuce salad by the side and a Pot de Chirouble to
wash it down.
The two person-to-person calls he had put in came through almost together. First
on the line was a certain M. Lavallon from Marseilles.
"Do you have that shipping agent yet?" asked Shannon when they had
exchanged greetings.
"Yes," said the Corsican. "It's in Toulon. A very good one, very respectable and
efficient. They have their own bonded warehouse on the harbor."
"Spell it out," said Shannon. He had pencil and paper ready.
"Agence Maritime Duphot," spelled Langarotti and dictated the address. "Send
the consignments to the agency, clearly marked as the property of Monsieur
Langarotti."
Shannon hung up, and the hotel operator came on the line immediately to say a
Mr. Dupree was calling from London.
Shannon dictated the name and address of the Toulon agent to him, letter by
letter.
"Fine," Janni said at length. "I've got the first of the four crates ready and bonded
here. I'll tell the London agents to get the stuff on its way as soon as possible. Oh,
by the way, I've found the boots."
"Good," said Shannon, "well done."
He placed one more call, this time to a bar in Ostend. There was a fifteen-minute
delay before Marc's voice came through.
"I'm in Paris," said Shannon. "That man with the samples of merchandise I
wanted to examine . . ."
"Yes," said Marc. "I've been in touch. He's prepared to meet you and discuss
prices and terms."
"Good. I'll be in Belgium Thursday night or Friday morning. Tell him I propose
Friday morning over breakfast in my room at the Holiday Inn near the airport."
"I know it," said Marc. "All right, I'll put it to him and call you back."
"Call me tomorrow between ten and eleven," said Shannon and hung up.
Only then did he slip on his jacket and head for a long-awaited dinner to be
followed by a long-desired full night's sleep.
While Shannon slept, Simon Endean also was winging his way southward to
Africa on the overnight flight. He had arrived in Paris by the first flight on Monday
and taken a taxi immediately to the embassy of Dahomey in the Avenue Victor
Hugo. Here he had filled out a lengthy pink form requesting a six-day tourist visa. It
was ready for collection just before the closing of the consular office on the
Tuesday afternoon, and he had caught the midnight flight to Cotonou via Niamey.
Shannon would not have been particularly surprised to know that Endean was going
to Africa, for he assumed the exiled Colonel Bobi had to play a part in Sir James
Manson's scheme of things and, that the former commander of the Zangaran army
was cooling
his heels somewhere along the mangrove coast. But if Endean had known
Shannon had just returned from a secret visit to the general in the same area of
Africa, it would have quite ruined his sleep aboard the UTA. DC-8 that night, despite
the pill he had taken to ensure an uninterrupted slumber.
Marc Vlaminck called Shannon at his hotel at ten-fifteen the next day. "He agrees
to the meeting, and he'll bring the sample," said the Belgian. "Do you want me to
come too?"
"Certainly," said Shannon. "When you get to the hotel, ask at reception for the
room of Mr. Brown. One other thing. Have you bought that truck I asked you to
get?"
"Yes, why?"
"Has this gentleman seen it yet?"
There was a pause while Vlaminck thought. "No."
"Then don't bring it to Brussels. Hire a car and drive yourself. Pick him up on the
way. Understand?"
"Yes," said Vlaminck, still perplexed. "Anything you say."
Shannon, who was still in bed but feeling a sight better, rang for breakfast and
had his habitual five minutes under the shower, four of them in steaming hot water
and sixty seconds under a stream of ice-cold.
The coffee and rolls were on the side table when he emerged. He placed two
calls from the bedside phone, to Benny Lambert in Paris and Mr. Stein of Lang and
Stein in Luxembourg.
"Have you got that letter for me?" he asked Lambert.
The little crook's voice sounded strained. "Yes. I got it yesterday. Luckily my
contact was on duty on Monday, and I saw him that night. He produced the letter
of introduction yesterday evening. When do you want it?"
"This afternoon," said Shannon.
"All right. Have you got my fee?"
"Don't worry, I've got it right here."
"Then come to my place about three," said Lambert.
Shannon thought for a moment. "No, I'll meet you here," he said and gave
Lambert the name of his hotel. He preferred to meet the little man in a public place.
Rather to his surprise, Lambert agreed to come to the hotel with what sounded like
elation in his voice. There was something not quite right about this deal, but
Shannon could not put his finger on it. He did not realize that he had given the
Paris crook the information he would later sell to Roux.
Mr. Stein was engaged on the other phone when the call came, so, rather than
wait, Shannon said he would ring back. This he did an hour later.
"About the meeting to launch my holding company, Tyrone Holdings," he began.
"Ah yes, Mr. Brown," said Stein's voice. "Everything is in order. When would you
suggest?"
"Tomorrow afternoon," replied Shannon. It was agreed the meeting would be in
Stein's office at three. Shannon got the hotel to reserve a seat on the express from
Paris to Luxembourg just after nine the next morning.
"I must say, I find it all very strange, very strange indeed."
Mr. Duncan Dalgleish, Senior, in appearance and manner matched his office, and
his office looked as if it had been the scene for the reading of the will of Sir Walter
Scott.
He examined the four share-transfer deeds signed by Lady Macallister and
witnessed by Mrs. Barton carefully and at length. He had muttered, "Aye," in
sorrowful tones several times, and the glances he shot at the younger man from
London were disapproving. He was evidently quite unused to handling certified
checks from a bank in Zurich, and he had held them between forefinger and thumb
as he read them. He was examining the four deeds again as he spoke.
"Yell understand, Lady Macallister has been appreached
before concerning the sale of these shares. In the past she has always
seen fit to consult the firm of Dalgleish, and I have always seen fit to advise her
against selling the stock," he went on.
Thorpe thought privately that no doubt other clients of Mr. Duncan Dalgleish
were holding on to piles of valueless stock on the basis of his advice, but he kept
his face polite.
"Mr. Dalgleish, you must agree the gentlemen whom I represent have paid Lady
Macallister close to twice the face value of the stock. She, for her part, has freely
signed the deeds and empowered me to collect the shares on presentation of check
or checks totaling thirty thousand pounds. Which you now hold in your hand,"
The old man sighed again. "It's just so strange that she should not have
consulted me first," he said sadly. "I usually advise her on all her financial matters.
For this I hold her general power of attorney."
"But her own signature is still perfectly valid," insisted Thorpe.
"Yes, yes, my power of attorney in no way invalidates her own power to sign on
her behalf."
"Then I would be grateful if you would let me have the share certificates so that I
can return to London," said Thorpe.
The old man rose slowly. "Would you excuse me, Mr. Thorpe?" he said with
dignity and withdrew into an inner sanctum. Thorpe knew he was going to
telephone London and prayed Lady Macallister's hearing aid would make it
necessary for Mrs. Barton to interpret for the pair of them on the telephone. It was
half an hour before the old attorney came back. He held a large wad of old and
discolored share certificates in his hand.
"Lady Macallister has confirmed what you say, Mr. Thorpe. Not, of course, that I
doubted your word, ye understand. I felt obliged to speak with my client before
completing such a large transaction."
"Of course," said Thorpe, rose, and held out his hand. Dalgleish parted with the
shares as if they had been his own.
An hour later Thorpe was in his train, rolling through the springlit countryside of
Angus County on his way back to London.
Six thousand miles away from the heather-clad hills of Scotland, Simon Endean
was seated with the hulking form of Colonel Bobi in a small rented villa in the
residential district of Cotonou. He had arrived on the morning plane and checked
into the Hotel du Port, whose Israeli manager had helped him trace the house
where the Zangaran army officer lived in the straitened circumstances of exile.
Bobi was a lumbering giant of a man with a face of brooding brutishness and
massive hands. The combination pleased Endean. It was of no consequence to him
with what disastrous effects Bobi might rule Zangaro in succession to the equally
disastrous Jean Kimba. What he had come to find was a man who would sign away
the mineral rights of the Crystal Mountain range to Bormac Trading Company for a
pittance and a hefty bribe to his personal account. He had found what he sought.
In exchange for a salary of £500 a month the colonel would be delighted to
accept the post of West African consultant to Bormac. He had pretended to study
the contract Endean had brought, but the Englishman noted with pleasure that
when he turned to the second page, which Endean had stapled upside down
between the first and third pages, Bobi's expression did not flicker. He was illiterate,
or the next thing to it.
Endean explained the terms of the contract slowly in the mishmash of language
they had been using, a mixture of basic French and Coast-pidgin English. Bobi
nodded soberly, his small eyes, much flecked with bloodshot vessels around the
whites, studying the contract
intently. Endean stressed that Bobi was to remain in his villa or near it for
the next two to three months., and that Endean would return to see him again in
that time.
The Englishman elicited that Bobi still had a valid Zangaran diplomatic passport, a
legacy of a visit he had once made outside Zangaro at the side of the Defense
Minister, Kimba's cousin.
Shortly before sundown he scrawled what could pass for a signature on the
bottom of the Bormac document. Not that a signature really mattered. Only later
would Bobi be told that Bormac was putting him back into power in exchange for
mining rights. Endean surmised that, if the price was right, Bobi would not quibble.
The following morning at dawn Endean was on another plane, heading back to
Paris and London.
The meeting with Benny Lambert took place, as agreed, in the hotel. It was short
and to the point. Lambert handed over an envelope, which Shannon flicked open.
From it he took two pieces of paper, both identical and both bearing the printed
crest and letterhead of the stationery of the Ambassador in Paris of the Republic of
Togo.
One of the sheets was blank, except for a signature on the bottom and an
embassy seal. The other sheet was a letter in which the writer stated that he had
been authorized by his government to engage the services of---------to apply to the
government of---------
for the purchase of the military weapons listed on the attached sheet. The letter
concluded with the usual assurance that the weapons were intended solely for use
by the armed forces of the Republic of Togo and would not be given or sold to any
third party. This too was signed and decorated with the seal of the republic.
Shannon nodded. He was confident Alan Baker would be able to insert his own
name as the authorized agent and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia as the vender
government in such a way as to leave no trace
of the insertion. He handed to Lambert the £500 he owed him, and the latter left.
Like most weak men, Lambert was indecisive. He had for three days been on the
verge of calling Charles Roux and telling him that Shannon was in town and seeking
an End User Certificate. He knew the French mercenary would be more than
interested in the news, but he did not know why. He assumed it was because Roux
regarded Paris and its resident mercenaries as his private preserve. He would not
take kindly to a foreigner coming there to set up an operation in either arms or men
without cutting Roux in on the deal as equal partner or, more desirable, as the
patron, the boss of the project. It would never occur to Roux that no one would
want to finance him to set up an operation because he had blown far too many
already, taken too many bribes to kill a project, and cheated too many men of their
salary.
But Lambert was afraid of Roux and felt he ought to tell him. He had been on the
verge of doing so that afternoon, and would have if Shannon had not had the
balance of £500 with him. But to have warned Roux in those circumstances would
have cost the little crook that £500, and he was sure Roux would not have made up
such a large sum to him simply for a tip-off. What Lambert did not know was that
Roux had placed a killing contract on the Irishman. So in his state of ignorance he
worked out another idea.
He could collect his full £1000 from Shannon and tell Roux the Irishman had
approached him with a request for an End User Certificate, which he had promptly
refused. There was just one snag. He had heard enough of Shannon to be afraid of
him also, and he feared that if Roux was in contact with the Irishman too soon after
Lambert's own meeting at the hotel, Shannon would guess from whom the tip-off
came. He decided to wait until the following morning.
When he finally gave Roux the tip-off, it was too late. Roux telephoned the hotel
at once under another
name and asked if a Mr. Shannon was staying there. The chief desk clerk replied
quite truthfully that there was no one of that name at the hotel.
Cross-examined, a thoroughly frightened Lambert claimed he had not actually
visited the hotel but had simply received a call from Shannon, who had given that
hotel as the place where he was staying.
Shortly after nine Roux's man Henri Alain was at the reception desk of the Plaza-
Surene and established that the only Englishman or Irishman who had stayed in the
hotel the previous night exactly corresponded in description to Cat Shannon, that
his name and passport had been those of Keith Brown, and that he had reserved
through the reception desk a ticket on the 9:00 a.m. express train to Luxembourg.
Henri Alain learned two more things: of a meeting that M. Brown had had in the
residents' lounge the previous afternoon, and a description of the Frenchman with
whom he had been seen speaking. All this he reported back to Roux at midday.
In the French mercenary leader's flat, Roux, Henri Alain, and Raymond Thomard
held a conference of warvRoux made the final decision.
"Henri, we've missed him this time, but the chances are that he still knows
nothing about it. So he may well return to that hotel next time he has to overnight
in Paris. I want you to get friendly, real friendly, with someone on the staff there.
The next time that man checks in there, I want to know, but at once. Understand?"
Alain nodded. "Sure, patron. I'll have it staked out from the inside, and if he even
calls to make a reservation, we'll know."
Roux turned to Thomard. "When he comes again, Raymond, you take the
bastard. In the meantime, there's one other little job. That shit Lambert lied his
head off. He could have tipped me off last night, and we'd have been finished with
this affair. So he probably took money off Shannon, then tried to take some more
off me for out-of-date information. Just make sure Benny Lambert doesn't do any
walking for the next six months."
The floating of the company to be known as Tyrone Holdings was shorter than
Shannon could have thought possible. It was so quick it was over almost before it
had begun. He was invited into Mr. Stein's private office, where Mr. Lang and a
junior partner were already seated. Along one wall were three secretaries—as it
turned out, the secretaries of the three accountants present. With the required
seven stockholders on hand, Mr. Stein set up the company within five minutes.
Shannon handed over the balance of £500, and the thousand shares were issued.
Each person present received one and signed for it, then passed it to Mr. Stein, who
agreed to keep it in the company safe. Shannon received 994 shares in a block
constituted by one sheet of paper, and signed for them. His own shares he
pocketed. The articles and memorandum of association were signed by the
chairman and company secretary, and copies of each would later be filed with the
Registrar of Companies for the Archduchy of Luxembourg. The three secretaries
were then sent back to their duties, the board of three directors met and approved
the aims of the company, the minutes were noted on one sheet of paper, read out
by the secretary, and signed by the chairman. That was it. Tyrone Holdings SA
existed in law.
The other two directors shook hands with Shannon, calling him Mr. Brown as
they did so, and left. Mr. Stein escorted him to the door.
"When you and your associates wish to buy a company in the chosen field of
operations, to be owned by Tyrone Holdings," he told Shannon, "you will then need
to come here, present us with a check for the appropriate amount, and buy the new
issue at one pound per share. The formalities you can leave to us."
Shannon understood. Any inquiries would stop at
Mr. Stein as company chairman. Two hours later he caught the evening plane for
Brussels, and he checked into the Holiday Inn just before eight.
The man who accompanied Tiny Marc Vlaminck when they knocked at Shannon's
door the following morning just after ten was introduced as M. Boucher. The pair of
them, standing on the threshold when he opened the door, looked like a comic
turn. Marc was bulky, towering over his companion, and he was beefy in every
place. The other man was fat, extremely fat —the sort of fatness associated with
fairground sideshows. He seemed almost circular, balanced like one of those
children's spherical plastic toys that cannot be overturned. Only on closer
examination was it apparent there were two tiny feet in brilliantly polished shoes
beneath the mass, and that the bulk constituting the lower half was divided into
two legs. In repose, the man looked like one single unit.
M. Boucher's head appeared to be the only object to mar the contours of the
otherwise uniformly globular mass. It was small at the top and flowed downward to
engulf his collar and hide it from view, the flesh of the jowls resting thankfully on
the shoulders. After several seconds Shannon conceded that he also had arms, one
on each side, and that one held a sleek document case some five inches thick.
"Please come in," said Shannon and stepped back.
Boucher entered first, turning slightly sideways to slip through the door, like a
large ball of gray worsted fabric on castors. Marc followed, giving Shannon a wink
as he caught his eye. They all shook hands. Shannon gestured to an armchair, but
Boucher chose the edge of the bed. He was wise and experienced. He might never
have got out of the armchair.
Shannon poured them all coffee and went straight to business. Tiny Marc sat and
stayed silent.
"Monsieur Boucher, my associate and friend may have told you that my name is
Brown, I am English by nationality, and I am here representing a group of
friends who would be interested in acquiring a quantity of submachine carbines
or machine pistols. Monsieur Vlaminck kindly mentioned to me that he was in a
position to introduce me to someone who might have a quantity of machine pistols
for sale. I understand from him that these are Schmeisser nine-mm. machine
pistols, of wartime manufacture but never used. I also understand and accept that
there can be no question of obtaining an export license for them, but this is
accepted by my people, and they are prepared to take all responsibility in this
regard. Is that a fair assessment?"
Boucher nodded slowly. He could not nod fast. "I am in a position to make
available a quantity of these pieces," he said carefully. "You are right about the
impossibility of an export license. For that reason the identity of my own people has
to be protected. Any business arrangement we might come to would have to be on
a cash basis, and with security arrangements for my own people."
He's lying, thought Shannon. There are no people behind Boucher. He is the
owner of this stuff and works alone.
In fact M. Boucher in his younger and slimmer days had been a Belgian SS man
and had worked as a cook in the SS barracks at Namur. His obsession with food
had taken him into cooking, and before the war he had lost several jobs because he
tasted more than he served through the hatch. In the starving conditions of
wartime Belgium he had opted for the cookhouse of the Belgian SS unit, one of the
several local SS groups the Nazis recruited in the occupied countries. In the SS,
surmised the young Boucher, one could eat. In 1944, when the Germans pulled
back from Namur toward the frontier, a truckload of unused Schmeissers from the
armory had been on its way east when the truck broke down. There was no time to
repair it, so the cargo was shifted into a nearby bunker and the entrance
dynamited. Boucher watched it happen. Years later he had returned, shoveled away
the rubble, and removed the thousand weapons.
Since then they had reposed beneath a trapdoor built into the floor of the garage
of his country cottage, a building left him by bis parents, who died in the mid-
1950s. He had sold job lots of Schmeissers at various times and had "unloaded" half
of his reserve.
"If these guns are in good working order, I would be interested in buying a
hundred of them," said Shannon. "Of course, payment would be by cash, in any
currency. All reasonable conditions imposed by you would be adhered to in the
handing over of the cargo. We also would expect complete discretion."
"As for the condition, monsieur, they are all brand new. Still in their maker's
grease and each still wrapped in its sachet of greaseproof paper with seals
unbroken. As they came from the factory thirty years ago and, despite their age,
still possibly the finest machine pistol ever made."
Shannon needed no lectures about the Schmeisser 9mm. Personally he would
have said the Israeli Uzi was better, but it was heavy. The Schmeisser was much
better than the Sten, and certainly as good as the much more modern British
Sterling. He thought nothing of the American grease-gun and the Soviet and
Chinese burp-guns. However, Uzis and Sterlings are almost unobtainable and never
in mint condition.
"May I see?" he asked.
Wheezing heavily, Boucher pulled the black case he carried onto his knees and
flicked open the catches after twirling the wheels of the combination lock. He lifted
the lid and held the case forward without attempting to get up.
Shannon rose, crossed the room, and took the case from him. He laid it on the
bedside table and lifted out the Schmeisser.
It was a beautiful piece of weaponry. Shannon slid his hands over the smooth
blue-black metal, gripped the pistol grip, and felt the lightness of it. He pulled back
and locked the folding stock and operated the breech mechanism several tunes and
squinted down the barrel from the foresight end. The inside was untouched,
unmarked.
"That is the sample model," wheezed Boucher. "Of course it has had the maker's
grease removed and carries only a light film of oil. But the others are identical.
Unused."
Shannon put it down.
"It takes standard nine-mm. ammunition, which is easy to come by," said
Boucher helpfully.
"Thank you, I know," said Shannon. "What about magazines? They can't be
picked up just anywhere, you know."
"I can supply five with each weapon," said Boucher.
"Five?" Shannon asked in feigned amazement. "I need more than five. Ten at
least."
The bargaining had begun, Shannon complaining about the arms dealer's inability
to provide enough magazines, the Belgian protesting that was the limit he could
provide for each weapon without beggaring himself. Shannon proposed $75 for
each Schmeisser on a deal for 100 guns; Boucher claimed he could allow that price
only for a deal of not less than 250 weapons, and that for 100 he would have to
demand $125 each. Two hours later they settled for 100 Schmeissers at $100 each.
They fixed time and place for the following Wednesday evening after dark, and
agreed on the method for the handover. Shannon offered Boucher a lift back in
Vlaminck's car to where he had come from, but the fat man chose to call a taxi and
be taken to Brussels city center to make his own way home. He was not prepared
to assume that the Irishman, who he was certain was from the IRA, would not take
him somewhere quiet and work on him until he had learned the location of the
secret hoard. Boucher was quite right. Trust is silly and superfluous weakness in the
black-market arms business.
Vlaminck escorted the fat man with his lethal briefcase down to the lobby and
saw him away in his taxi. When he returned, Shannon was packing.
"Do you see what I mean about the truck you bought?" he asked Tiny.
"No," said the other.
"We will have to use that truck for the pick-up on Wednesday," Shannon pointed
out. "I saw no reason why Boucher should see the real number plates. Have a
spare set ready for Wednesday night, will you? It's only for an hour, but if Boucher
does want to tip off anyone, they'll have the wrong truck."
"Okay, Cat, I'll be ready. I got the lock-up garage two days ago. And the other
stuff is on order. Is there anywhere I can take you? I have the hired car for the rest
of the day."
Shannon had Vlaminck drive him westward to Brugge and wait in a cafe while
Shannon went to the bank. Mr. Goossens was at lunch, so the pair ate their own
lunch in the small restaurant on the main square and Shannon returned to the bank
at two-thirty.
There was still £7000 in the Keith Brown account, but a debit of £2000 for the
four mercenaries' salaries was due in nine days. He drew a banker's check in favor
of Johann Schlinker and placed it in an envelope containing a letter from him to
Schlinker that he had written in his hotel room late the previous night. It informed
Schlinker that the enclosed check for $4800 was in full payment for the assorted
marine and life-saving articles he had ordered a week earlier, and gave the German
the name and address of the Toulon shipping agent to whom the entire
consignment should be sent in bond for export, for collection by M. Jean-Baptiste
Langarotti. Last, he informed Schlinker that he would be telephoning him the
coming week to inquire if the End User Certificate for the ordered 9mm.
ammunition was in order.
The other letter was to Alan Baker, addressed to his home in Hamburg. The
check it contained was in Baker's name for $7200, and Shannon's letter stated that
the sum was in full settlement of the required 50-per-cent advance for the purchase
of the goods they had discussed over dinner at the Atlantic a week earlier. He
included the End User Certificate from the government of Togo and the spare sheet
from the same source.
Last, he instructed Baker to get right on with the purchase and promised to be in
touch by phone regularly to check on progress. Both letters were mailed from
Brugge post office, express rate and registered.
Shannon had Vlaminck drive him from Brugge to Ostend, had a couple of beers
with the Belgian in a local bar near the seaport, and bought himself a single ticket
on the evening ferry to Dover.
The boat train deposited him at Victoria Station at midnight, and he was in bed
and asleep by one in the morning of that Saturday. The last thing he did before
sleeping was to send a telegram to Endean's poste restante address to say he was
back and he felt they ought to meet.
The Saturday morning mail brought a letter mailed at express rate from Malaga in
the south of Spain. It was addressed to Keith Brown but began "Dear Cat." It came
from Kurt Semmler and stated briefly that he had found a boat, a converted motor
fishing vessel built twenty years earlier in a British shipyard, owned by a British
citizen, and registered in London. It flew a British flag, was 90 feet overall and 80
tons deadweight, with a large central hold amidships and a smaller one aft. It was
classed as a private yacht but could be reregistered as a coaster.
Semmler went on to say the vessel was for sale at a price of £20,000 and that
two of the crew would be worth engaging under the new management. He was
certain he could find good replacements for the other two crew members.
He finished by saying he was staying at the Malaga Palacio Hotel and asked
Shannon to contact him there with his own date of arrival to inspect the boat.
Shannon cabled him he would arrive on Monday.
The boat was called the MV Albatross.
Endean phoned Shannon that afternoon after checking his mail and receiving the
telegram. They met
around dinnertime that evening at the flat, and Shan-non presented Endean with
his third lengthy progress report and statement of accounts and expenditures.
"You'll have to make further transfers of money if we are to move ahead in the
forthcoming weeks," Shannon told him. "We are entering the areas of major
expenditure now—the arms and the ship."
"How much do you need at once?" Endean asked.
Shannon said, "Two thousand for salaries, four thousand for boats and engines,
four thousand for submachine guns, and over ten thousand for nine-nun,
ammunition. That's over twenty thousand. Better make it thirty thousand, or I'll be
back next week."
Endean shook his head. "I'll make it twenty thousand," he said. "You can always
contact me if you need more. By the way, I would like to see some of this stuff.
That will be fifty thousand you'll have gone through inside a month."
"You can't," said Shannon. "The ammunition is not yet bought, nor the boats,
engines, and so forth. Nor are the mortars and bazookas, nor the submachine
pistols. All these deals have to be put through cash on the barrelhead or in
advance. I explained that in my first report to your associates."
Endean eyed him coldly. "There had better be some purchases being made with
all this money," he grated.
Shannon stared him out. "Don't threaten me, Harris. A lot of people have tried it;
it costs a fortune in flowers. By the way, what about the boat?"
Endean rose. "Let me know which boat and from whom it is being bought. I'll
make the credit transfer direct from my Swiss account."
"Please yourself," said Shannon.
He dined alone and well that evening and had an early night. Sunday would be a
free day, and he had found Julie Manson was already at home with her parents in
Gloucestershire. Over his brandy and coffee he was lost in thought, planning the
weeks ahead and trying to visualize the attack on the palace of Zangaro.
It was in the middle of Sunday morning that Julie
Manson decided to call her new lover's flat in London and see if he was there.
Outside, the spring rain fell in a steady curtain on the Gloucestershire countryside.
She had hoped to be able to saddle up the handsome new gelding her father had
given her a month earlier and gallop through the parkland surrounding the family
mansion. She had hoped the ride would be a tonic to the feelings that flooded
through her when she thought of the man she had fallen for. But the rain had
washed out the idea of riding. Instead she was confined to wandering around the
old house, listening to her mother's chitchat about charity bazaars and orphan-relief
committees, or staring at the rain falling on the garden.
Her father had been working in his study, but she had seen him go out to the
stables to talk to the chauffeur a few minutes earlier. As her mother was within
earshot of the telephone in the hallway, she decided to use the extension in the
study.
She had lifted the telephone beside the desk in the empty room when her eye
caught the sprawl of papers lying across the blotter. On top of them was a single
folder. She noted the title and idly lifted the cover to glance at the first page. A
name on it caused her to freeze, the telephone still buzzing furiously in her ear. The
name was Shannon.
Like most young girls, she had had her fantasies, seeing herself as she lay in the
darkness of the dormitory at boarding school in the role of heroine of a hundred
hazardous exploits, usually saving the man she loved from a terrible fate, to be
rewarded by his undying devotion. Unlike most girls, she had never completely
grown up. From Shannon's persistent questioning about her father she had already
half managed to translate herself into the role of a girl agent on her lover's behalf.
The trouble was, most of what she knew about her father was either personal, in
his role of indulgent daddy, or very boring. Of his business affairs she knew
nothing. And then here, on a rainy Sunday morning, lay her chance.
She flicked her eyes down the first page of the folder and understood nothing.
There were figures, costings, a second reference to the name Shannon, a mention
of several banks by name, and two references to a man called Clarence. She got no
further. The turning of the door handle interrupted her.
With a start she dropped the cover of the folder, stood back a yard, and began to
babble into the un-hearing telephone. Her father stood in the doorway.
"All right, Christine, that will be marvelous, darling. I'll see you on Monday, then.
'By now," she chattered into the telephone and hung up.
Her father's set expression had softened as he saw the person in the room was
his daughter, and he walked across the carpet to sit behind his desk. "Now what
are you up to?" he said with mock gruffness.
For answer she twined her soft arms around his neck from behind and kissed him
on the cheek. "Just phoning a friend in London, Daddy," she said in her small, littlegirl
voice. "Mummy was fussing about in the hall, so I came in here."
"Humph. Well, you've got a phone in your own room, so please use that for
private calls."
"All right, Daddikins." She cast her glance over the papers lying under the folder
on the desk, but the print was too small to read and was mostly columns of figures.
She could make out the headings only. They concerned mining prices. Then her
father turned to look up.
"Why don't you stop all this boring old work and come and help me saddle up
Tamerlane?" she asked him. "The rain will stop soon, and I can go riding."
He smiled up at the girl who was the apple of his eye. "Because this boring old
work happens to be what keeps us all clothed and fed," he said. "But I will, anyway.
Give me a few more minutes, and I'll join you in the stable."
Outside the door, Julie Manson stopped and breathed deeply. Mata Hari, she was
sure, could not have done better.
15
The Spanish authorities are far more tolerant to tourists than is generally
thought. Bearing in mind the millions of Scandinavians, Germans, French, and
British who pour into Spain each spring and summer, and since the law of averages
must provide that a certain percentage of them are up to no good, the authorities
have quite a lot to put up with. Irrelevant breaches of regulations such as importing
two cartons of cigarettes rather than the permitted one carton, which would be
pounced on at London airport, are shrugged off in Spain.
The attitude of the Spanish authorities has always tended to be that a tourist
really has to work at it to get into trouble in Spain, but once he has made the effort,
the Spaniards will oblige and make it extremely unpleasant for him. The four items
they object to finding in passenger luggage are arms and or explosives, drugs,
pornography, and Communist propaganda. Other countries may object to two
bottles of duty-free brandy but permit Penthouse magazine. Not Spain. Other
countries have different priorities, but, as any Spaniard will cheerfully admit, Spain
is different.
The customs officer at Malaga Airport that brilliant
Monday afternoon cast a casual eye over the bundle of £1000 in used £20 notes
he found in Shannon's travel
bag and shrugged. If he was aware that, to get it to Malaga, Shannon must
have carried it with him through London airport customs, which is forbidden, he
gave no sign. In any case, that was London's problem. He found no copies of Sexy
Girls or Soviet News and waved the traveler on.
Kurt Semmler looked fit and tanned from his three weeks orbiting the
Mediterranean looking for ships for sale. He was still rake-thin and chain-smoked
nervously, a habit that belied his cold nerve when in action. But the suntan gave
him an air of health and set off with startling clarity his close-cropped pale hair and
icy blue eyes.
As they rode from the airport into Malaga, Semmler told Shannon he had been in
Naples, Genoa, Valletta, Marseilles, Barcelona, and Gibraltar, looking up old
contacts in the world of small ships, checking the lists of perfectly respectable
shipping brokers and agents for ships for sale, and looking some of them over as
they lay at anchor. He had seen a score, but none of them suitable. He had heard
of another dozen in ports he had not visited, and had rejected them because he
knew from the names of their skippers they must have suspect backgrounds. From
all his inquiries he had drawn up a list of seven, and the Albatross was the third. Of
her qualities, all he would say was that she looked right
He had reserved Shannon a room in the Malaga Palacio in the name of Brown,
and Shannon checked in there first. It was just after four when they strolled
through the wide gates of the south face of the Acera de la Marina square and onto
the docks.
The Albatross was drawn up alongside a quay at the far end of the port. She was
as Semmler had described her, and her white paint glistened in the sun and heat.
They went aboard, and Semmler introduced Shannon to the owner and captain,
George Allen, who showed him over the vessel. Before very long Shannon had
come to the conclusion that it was too small for his purposes. There were a master
cabin to sleep two, a
pair of single cabins, and a saloon where mattresses and sleeping bags could be
laid on the floor.
The after hold could, at a pinch, be converted into a sleeping area for another six
men, but with the crew of four and Shannon's five, they would be cramped. He
cursed himself for not warning Semmler there were six more men expected who
would also have to be fitted in.
Shannon checked the ship's papers, which appeared to be in order. She was
registered in Britain, and her Board of Trade papers confirmed it. Shannon spent an
hour with Captain Allen, discussing methods of payment, examining invoices and
receipts showing the amount of work that had been done on the Albatross over
recent months, and checking the ship's log. He left with Semmler just before six
and strolled back to the hotel, deep in thought.
"What's the matter?" asked Semmler. "She's clean."
"It's not that," said Shannon. "She's too small. She's registered as a private yacht.
She doesn't belong to a shipping company. The thing that bugs me is that she
might not be accepted by the exporting authorities as a fit vessel to take on board a
load of arms."
It was too late back at the hotel to make the calls he wanted to make, so they
waited till the following morning. Shortly after nine Shannon called Lloyds of London
and asked for a check of the Yacht List. The Albatross was there all right, listed as
an auxiliary ketch of 74 tons NRT, with her home port given as Milford and port of
residence as Hooe, both of them in Britain.
Then what the hell's she doing here? he wondered, and then recalled the method
of payment that had been demanded. His second call, to Hamburg, clinched it.
"Nein, not a private yacht, please," said Johann Schlinker. "There would be too
great a possibility she would not be accepted to carry freight on a commercial
basis."
"Okay. When do you need to know the name of the ship?" asked Shannon.
"As soon as possible. By the way, I have received
your credit transfer for the articles you ordered in my office. These will now be
crated and sent in bond to the address in France you supplied. Secondly, I have the
paperwork necessary for the other consignment, and as soon as I receive the
balance of the money owing, I will go ahead and place the order."
"When is the latest you need to know the name of the carrying vessel?" Shannon
bawled into the phone.
There was a pause while Schlinker thought. "If I receive your check within five
days, I can make immediate application for permission to buy. The ship's name is
needed for the export license. In about fifteen days after that."
"You will have it," said Shannon and replaced the receiver. He turned to Semmler
and explained what had happened.
"Sorry, Kurt. It has to be a registered company in the maritime freighting
business, and it has to be a licensed freighter, not a private yacht. You'll have to
keep on searching. But I want the name within twelve days and no later. I have to
provide the man in Hamburg with the ship's name in twenty days or less."
The two men parted that evening at the airport, Shannon to return to London
and Semmler to fly to Madrid and thence to Rome and Genoa, his next port of call.
It was late when Shannon reached his flat again. Before turning in, he called BEA
and booked a flight on the noon plane to Brussels. Then he called Marc Vlaminck
and asked him to be present at the airport to pick him up on arrival, to take him
first to Brugge for a visit to the bank and then to the rendezvous with Boucher for
the handover of the equipment.
It was the end of Day Twenty-two.
Mr. Harold Roberts was a useful man. Born sixty-two years earlier of a British
father and a Swiss mother, he had been brought up in Switzerland after the
premature death of his father, and retained dual nationality. After entering banking
at an early age, he had spent twenty years in the Zurich head office of one of
Switzerland's
largest banks before being sent to their London branch as an assistant
manager.
That had been just after the war, and over the second twenty-year period of his
career he had risen to become the manager of the investment accounts section and
later overall manager of the London branch, before retiring at the age of sixty. By
then he had decided to take his retirement and his pension in Swiss francs in
Britain.
Since retirement he had been available for several delicate tasks on behalf not
only of his former employers but also of other Swiss banks. He was engaged on
such a task that Wednesday afternoon.
It had taken a formal letter from the Zwingli Bank to the chairman and the
secretary of Bormac to achieve the introduction to them of Mr. Roberts, and he had
been able to present letters corroborating his engagement as agent of the Zwingli
Bank in London.
Two further meetings had taken place between Mr. Roberts and the secretary of
the company, the second one attended by the chairman, Major Luton, younger
brother of the deceased under manager for Sir Ian Macallister in the Far East.
The extraordinary board meeting had been agreed on, and was called in the City
offices of the secretary of Bormac. Apart from the solicitor and Major Luton, one
other director had agreed to come to London for the meeting and was present.
Although two directors made up a working board, three gave an outright majority.
They considered the resolution put by the company secretary and the documents
he placed before them. The four unseen shareholders whose interests were being
looked after by the Zwingli Bank undoubtedly did now own between them 30 per
cent of the stock of the company. They certainly had empowered the Zwingli Bank
to act on their behalf, and the bank had incontrovertibly appointed Mr. Roberts to
represent it.
The argument that clinched the discussion was the simple one that if a
consortium of businessmen had
agreed together to buy up such a large amount of Bor-mac stock, they could be
believed when their bank said on their behalf that their intention was to inject fresh
capital into the company and rejuvenate it. Such a course of action could not be
had for the share price, and all three directors were shareholders. The resolution
was proposed, seconded, and passed. Mr. Roberts was taken onto the board as a
nominee director representing the interests of the Zwingli Bank. No one bothered to
change the company rule stipulating that two directors constituted a quorum with
power to pass resolutions, although there were now six and no longer five directors.
Mr. Keith Brown was becoming a fairly regular visitor to Brugge and a valued
customer at the Krediet-bank. He was received with the usual friendliness by Mr.
Goossens, and the latter confirmed that a credit of £20,000 had arrived that
morning from Switzerland. Shannon drew $10,000 in cash and a certified bank
check for $26,000 in the name of Johann Schlinker of Hamburg.
From the nearby post office he mailed the check to Schlinker by registered mail,
accompanied by a letter from himself asking the arms dealer to go ahead with the
Spanish purchase.
He and Marc Vlaminck had nearly four hours to kill before the rendezvous with
Boucher, and they spent two of them taking a leisurely pot ot tea in a café in
Brugge before setting off just before dusk.
There is a lonely stretch of road between Brugge and Ghent, which lies 44
kilometers to the east. Because the road twists and winds through flat farmland,
most motorists prefer to take the new motorway E5, which also links the two
Flemish towns as it runs from Ostend to Brussels. Halfway along the old road the
two mercenaries found the abandoned farm that Boucher had described, or rather
they found the faded notice board pointing down the track to the farm, which was
hidden from view by a clump of trees.
Shannon drove on past the spot and parked, while Marc got out and went to
check the farm over. He came back twenty minutes later to confirm the farm was
indeed deserted and there were no signs that anyone had been there for quite a
time. Nor were there any preparations in progress to provide an unpleasant
reception for the two buyers.
"Anyone in the house or outbuildings?" asked Shannon.
"The house is locked front and back. No signs of interference. I checked out the
barns and stables. No one there."
Shannon glanced at his watch. It was dark already, and there was still an hour to
go. "Get back there and keep a watch from cover," he ordered. "I'll watch the front
entrance from here."
When Marc had gone, Shannon checked the truck once again. It was old and
rattled, but it was serviceable and the engine had been looked over by a good
mechanic. Shannon took the two false number plates from the facia and whipped
them onto the real number plates with sticky insulating tape. They could be ripped
off easily enough once the truck was well away from the farm. On each side of the
truck was a large publicity sticker that gave the vehicle a distinctive air but which
could also come off in a hurry. In the back were the six large sacks of potatoes he
had ordered Vlaminck to bring with him, and the broad wooden board sawn to
make an internal tailgate when slotted into place. Satisfied, he resumed his vigil by
the roadside.
The truck he was expecting turned up at five to eight. As it slowed and swung
down the track to the farm, Shannon could make out the form of the driver
hunched over the wheel and beside him the blob surmounted by a pimple of a head
that could only be M. Boucher. The red taillights of the vehicle disappeared down
the track and went out of sight behind the trees. Apparently Boucher was playing it
straight.
Shannon gave him three minutes; then he too pulled his truck off the hard road
and onto the track. When he
got to the farmyard, Boucher's truck was standing with sidelights on the center.
He cut his engine and climbed down, leaving his own sidelights on, the nose of his
truck parked ten feet from the rear of Boucher's.
"Monsieur Boucher," he called into the gloom. He stood in darkness himself, well
to one side of the glow of his own lights.
"Monsieur Brown," he heard Boucher wheeze, and the fat man waddled into
view. He had evidently brought his "helper" along with him, a big, beefy-looking
type whom Shannon assessed as being good at lifting things but slow-moving.
Marc, he knew, could move like a ballet dancer when he wished. He saw no
problem if it came to trouble.
"You have the money?" asked Boucher as he came close.
Shannon gestured to the driving seat of the truck. "In there. You have the
Schmeissers?"
Boucher waved a pudgy hand at his own truck. "In the back."
"I suggest we get both our consignments out onto the ground between the
trucks," said Shannon. Boucher turned and said something to his helper in Flemish,
which Shannon could not follow. The man moved to the back of his own truck and
opened it. Shannon tensed. If there were to be any surprises, they would come
when the doors opened. There were none. The dull glimmer from his own truck's
lights showed ten flat, square crates and an open-topped carton.
"Your friend is not here?" asked Boucher.
Shannon whistled. Tiny Marc joined them from behind a nearby barn.
There was silence. Shannon cleared his throat. "Let's get the handover done," he
said. He reached into the driving compartment and pulled out the fat brown
envelope. "Cash, as you asked for. Twenty-dollar bills. Bundles of fifty. Ten
bundles."
He stayed close to Boucher as the fat man flicked through each bundle, counting
with surprising speed for such plump hands, and stuffing the bundles into his
side pockets. When he had reached the last he pulled all the bundles back out
and selected a note at random from each. By the light of a pencil flashlight he
scanned them closely, the samples, checking for forgeries. There were none. At last
he nodded.
"All in order," he said and called something to his helper. The man moved aside
from the truck doors. Shannon nodded at Marc, who went to the truck and heaved
the first crate onto the grass. From his pocket he produced a wrench and prised up
the lid. By the light of his own flashlight he checked the ten Schmeis sers lying side
by side in the crate. One of them he took out and checked for firing-mechanism pin
and breech movement. He replaced the machine pistol and smacked the loose lid
back down tight.
It took him twenty minutes to check all ten cases. While he did so the big helper
brought by M. Boucher stood nearby. Shannon stood at Boucher's elbow, twelve
feet away. Finally Marc looked into the open-topped crate. It contained five
hundred magazines for the Schmeissers. He tested one sample magazine to ensure
it fitted and that the magazines were not for a different model of pistol. Then he
turned to Shannon and nodded.
"All in order," he said.
"Would you ask your friend to help mine load them up?" asked Shannon of
Boucher. The fat man passed the instruction to his assistant. Before loading, the
two beefy Flemings removed the potato sacks, and Shannon heard them discussing
something in Flemish. Then Boucher's helper laughed. Within another five minutes
the ten flat crates and the carton of magazines were loaded in Marc's truck.
When the crates of arms were loaded, Marc placed the board in position as a
tailgate which came halfway up the back of the truck. Taking a knife, he slit the first
sack, hefted it onto his shoulder, and emptied the contents into the back of the van.
The loose potatoes rolled about furiously, finding the cracks between the edges of
the crates and the sides of the van and filling
them up. With a laugh, the other Belgian started to help him. The quantity of
potatoes they had brought more than covered every trace of the ten crates of guns
and the carton of magazines. Anyone looking in the back would be confronted with
a sea of loose potatoes. The sacks were thrown into the hedge.
When they were finished, both men came around from the back of the truck
together.
"Okay, let's go," said Marc.
"If you don't mind, we'll leave first," said Shannon to Boucher. "After all, we now
have the incriminating evidence."
He waited till Marc had started the engine and turned the truck around so that it
was facing the drive back to the road before he left Boucher's side and leaped
aboard. Halfway down the track there was a particularly deep pothole, over which
the truck had to move with great care and very slowly. At this point Shannon
muttered something to Marc, borrowed his knife, and jumped from the truck to hide
in the bushes by the side of the lane.
Two minutes later, Boucher's truck came along. It too slowed almost to a halt to
negotiate the pothole. Shannon slipped from the bushes as the truck went past,
caught up, stooped low, and jammed the knife point into the rear offside tire. He
heard it hiss madly as it deflated; then he was back in the bushes. He rejoined Tiny
Marc on the main road, where the Belgian had just ripped the stickers from the
sides of their vehicle and the false number plates off front and back. Shannon had
nothing against Boucher; he just wanted a clear half-hour's start.
By ten-thirty the pair was back in Ostend, the truck loaded with spring potatoes
was garaged in the lockup Vlaminck had hired on Shannon's instructions, and the
two were in Marc's bar on Kleinstraat, toasting each other in foaming steins of ale
while Anna prepared a meal. It was the first time Shannon had met the well-built
woman who was his friend's mistress, and, as is the tradition with mercenaries
when meeting each other's
womenfolk, he treated her with elaborate courtesy.
Vlaminck had reserved a room for him at a hotel in the town center, but they
drank until late, talking about old battles and skirmishes, recalling incidents and
people, fights and narrow escapes, alternately laughing at the things that seemed
hilarious in retrospect and nodding glumly at the memories that still rankled. The
bar stayed open as long as Tiny Marc drank, and the lesser mortals sat around and
listened.
It was almost dawn when they got to bed.
Tiny Marc called for him at his hotel in the middle of the morning, and they had a
late breakfast together. He explained to the Belgian that he wanted the
Schmeissers packaged in such a way that they could be smuggled over the Belgian
border into France for loading onto the ship in a southern French port.
"We could send them in crates of spring potatoes," suggested Marc.
Shannon shook his head. "Potatoes are in sacks, not crates," he said. "The last
thing we need is for a crate to be tipped over in transit or loading, so that the
whole lot falls out. I've got a better idea." For half an hour he told Vlaminck what
he wanted done with the submachine pistols.
The Belgian nodded. "All right," he said when he understood exactly what was
wanted. "I can work mornings in the garage before the bar opens. When do we run
them south?"
"About May fifteenth," said Shannon. "We'll use the champagne route. I'll bring
Jean-Baptiste up here to help, and we'll change to a French-registered truck at
Paris. I want you to have everything packed and ready for shipment by May
fifteenth."
Marc accompanied him down to the car ferry to Dover, for the truck would not be
used again until it made its last run from Ostend to Paris with its cargo of illegal
arms. Shannon was back in London by early evening.
He spent what remained of the day writing a full
report for Endean, omitting to mention from whom he had bought the guns or
where they were stored. He attached to the report a statement of expenditure and
a tally of what was left in the Brugge account.
The first morning mail of that Friday brought a large packet from Jean-Baptiste
Langarotti. It contained a sheaf of brochures from three European firms that
manufactured the rubberized inflatable semi-rigid boats of the kind he wanted.
They were variously advertised as being capable of use as sea-rescue launches,
power boats, speed craft for towing water-skiers, pleasure boats, launching vessels
for sub-aqua diving, runabouts, and fast tenders for yachts and suchlike. No
mention was made of the fact that they all had been developed from an original
design produced to give marine commandos a fast and maneuverable type of
assault craft.
Shannon read each brochure with interest. Of the three firms, one was Italian,
one British, and one French. The Italian firm, with six stockists along the Cote
d'Azur, seemed to be the best suited for Shannon's purpose and to have the best
delivery capability. Of their largest model, an 18-foot launch, there were two
available for immediate delivery. One was in Marseilles and the other in Cannes.
The brochure from the French manufacturer showed a picture of their largest
example, a 16-foot craft, speeding through a blue sea, tail down, nose up.
Langarotti said in his letter there was one of these available at a shop for marine
equipment in Nice. He added that all the British-made models needed to be ordered
specially and, last, that although there were several more of each type available in
brilliant orange color, he was concerning himself only with those in black. He added
that each could be powered by any outboard engine above 50 horsepower, and that
there were seven different makes of engine available locally and immediately which
would suit.
Shannon replied with a long letter instructing Langarotti to buy the two models
made by the Italian firm that were available for immediate delivery, and the
third of French manufacture. He stressed that on receipt of the letter the Corsican
should ring the stockists at once and place a firm order, sending each shopkeeper a
10-per cent deposit by registered mail. He should also buy three engines of the best
make, but at separate shops.
He noted the prices of each item and that the total came to just over £4000. This
meant he would overrun on his estimated budget of £5000 for ancillary equipment,
but he was not worried by that. He would be under budget on the arms and, he
hoped, the ship. He told Langarotti he was transferring to the Corsican's account
the equivalent of £4500, and with the balance he should buy a serviceable secondhand
20-hundred-weight truck, making sure it was licensed and insured.
With this he should drive along the coast and buy his three crated inflatable
assault craft and his three outboard engines, delivering them himself to his freight
agent in Toulon to be bonded for export. The whole consignment had to be in the
warehouse and ready for shipment by May 15. On the morning of that day
Langarotti was to rendezvous with Shannon in Paris at the hotel Shannon usually
used. He was to bring the truck with him.
The mercenary leader sent another letter that day. It was to the Kredietbank in
Brugge, requiring the transfer of £4500 in French francs to the account of M. Jean-
Baptiste Langarotti at the head office of the Société Général bank in Marseilles.
When he got back to his flat, Cat Shannon lay on his bed and stared at the
ceiling. He felt tired and drained; the strain of the past thirty days was taking its
toll. On the credit side, things seemed to be going according to plan. Alan Baker
should be setting up the purchase of the mortars and bazookas from Yugoslavia for
pick-up during the early days of June; Schlinker should be in Madrid buying enough
9mm. ammunition to keep the Schmeissers firing for a year. The only reason he
had ordered such an excessive amount of rounds was to make the purchase
plausible to the Spanish
authorities. Clearance for their export should be obtained for mid to late June,
provided he could let the German have the name of the carrier by the middle of
May, and provided the ship and its company were acceptable to the officials in
Madrid.
Vlaminck should already have the machine pistols stowed for transporting across
Belgium and France to Marseilles, to be loaded by June 1. The assault craft and
engines should be loaded at the same time in Toulon, along with the other ancillary
gear he had ordered from Schlinker.
Apart from smuggling the Schmeissers, everything was legal and aboveboard.
That did not mean things could not still go wrong. Perhaps one of the two
governments would make problems by taking overlong or refusing to sell on the
basis of the provided documentation.
Then there were the uniforms, which Dupree was presumably still buying in
London. They too should be in a warehouse in Toulon by the end of May at the
latest.
But the big problem still to be solved was the ship. Semmler had to find the right
ship, and he had been searching in vain for almost a month.
Shannon rolled off his bed and telephoned a telegram to Dupree's flat in
Bayswater, ordering him to check in. As he put the phone down, it rang again.
"Hi, it's me."
"Hello, Julie," he said.
"Where have you been, Cat?"
"Away. Abroad."
"Are you going to be in town this weekend?" she asked.
"Yes. Should be." In fact there was nothing more he could do and nowhere he
could go until Semmler contacted him with news of a ship for sale. He did not even
know where the German was by this time.
"Good," said the girl on the phone. "Let's spend the weekend doing things."
It must be the tiredness. He was getting slow on the uptake. "What things?" he
asked.
She began to tell him in precise and clinical detail until he interrupted her and
told her to come straight around and prove it.
Although she had been bubbling with it a week earlier, in the thrill of seeing her
lover again Julie had forgotten the news she had for him. It was not until nearly
midnight that she remembered. She bent her head low over the half-asleep
mercenary and said, "Oh, by the way, I saw your name the other day."
Shannon grunted.
"On a piece of paper," she insisted. Still he showed no interest, his face buried in
the pillow beneath crossed forearms.
"Shall I tell you where?"
His reaction was disappointing. He grunted again.
"In a folder on my daddy's desk."
If she had meant to surprise him, she succeeded. He came off the sheet in one
movement and faced her, gripping both her upper arms hard. There was an
intensity about his stare that frightened her.
"You're hurting me," she said irrelevantly.
"What folder on your father's desk?"
"A folder." She sniffed, on the verge of tears. "I only wanted to help you."
He relaxed visibly, and his expression softened. "Why did you go looking?" he
asked.
"Well, you're always asking about him, and when I saw this folder, I just sort of
looked. Then I saw your name."
"Tell me about it from the beginning," he said gently.
When she had finished she reached forward and coiled her arms around his neck.
"I love you, Mr. Cat," she whispered. "I only did it for that. Was it wrong?"
Shannon thought for a moment. She already knew far too much, and there were
only two ways of ensuring her silence. "Do you really love me?" he asked.
"Yes. Really."
"Would you want anything bad to happen to me because of something you did or
said?"
She pulled herself back from him, staring deep into his face. This was much more
like the scenes in her schoolgirl dreams. "Never," she said soulfully. "I'd never talk.
Whatever they did to me."
Shannon blinked several times in amazement. "Nobody's going to do anything to
you," he said. "Just don't tell your father that you know me or went through his
papers. You see, he employs me to gather information for him about the prospects
of mining in Africa. If he learned we knew each other, he'd fire me. Then I'd have
to find another job. There is one that's been offered to me, miles away in Africa. So
you see, I'd have to go and leave you if he ever found out about us."
That struck home, hard. She did not want hun to go. Privately he knew one day
soon he would have to go, but there was no need to tell her yet.
"I won't say anything," she promised.
"A couple of points," said Shannon. "You said you saw the title on the sheets with
mineral prices on them. What was the title?"
She furrowed her brow, trying to recall the words. "That stuff they put in fountain
pens. They mention it in the ads for the expensive ones."
"Ink?" asked Shannon.
"Platium," she said.
"Platinum," he corrected, his eyes pensive. "Lastly, what was the title on the
folder?"
"Oh, I remember that," she said happily. "Like something out of a fairy tale. The
Crystal Mountain."
Shannon sighed deeply. "Go and make me some coffee, there's a love."
When he heard her clattering cups in the kitchen he leaned back against the
bedhead and stared out over London. "You cunning bastard," he breathed. "But it
won't be that cheap, Sir James, not that cheap at all."
Then he laughed into the darkness.
That same Saturday night Benny Lambert was ambling home toward his lodgings
after an evening drinking with friends in one of his favorite cafes. He had been
buying a lot of rounds for his cronies, using the money, now changed into francs,
that Shannon had paid him. It made him feel good to be able to talk of the "big
deal" he had just pulled off and buy the admiring bar girls champagne. He had had
enough, more than enough, himself, and took no notice of the car that cruised
slowly behind him, two hundred yards back. Nor did he think much of it when the
car swept up to him as he came abreast of a vacant lot half a mile short of his
home.
By the time he took notice and started to protest, the giant figure that had
emerged from the car was hustling him across the lot and behind a hoarding that
stood ten yards from the road.
His protests were silenced when the figure spun him around and, still holding him
by the scruff, slammed a fist into his solar plexus. Benny Lambert sagged and,
when the grip on his collar was removed, slumped to the ground. Standing above
him, face shadowed in the obscurity behind the hoarding, the figure drew a twofoot
iron bar from his belt. Stooping down, the big man grabbed the writhing
Lambert by the left thigh and jerked it upward. The iron bar made a dull whumph
as it crashed down with all the assailant's force onto the exposed kneecap,
shattering it instantly. Lambert screamed once, shrilly, like a skewered rat, and
fainted. He never felt the second kneecap being broken at all.
Twenty minutes later, Thomard was phoning his employer from the booth in a
late-night café a mile away.
At the other end, Roux listened and nodded. "Good," he said. "Now I have some
news for you. The hotel where Shannon usually stays. Henri Alain has just informed
me they have received a letter from Mr. Keith Brown. It reserves a room for him on
the night of the fifteenth. Got it?"
"The fifteenth," Thomard said. "Yes. He will be there then."
"And so will you," said the voice on the phone. "Henri will keep in touch with his
contact inside the hotel, and you will remain on standby, not far from the hotel,
from noon of that day onward."
"Until when?" asked Thomard.
"Until he comes out, alone," said Roux. "And then you will take him. For five
thousand dollars."
Thomard was smiling slightly when he came out of the booth. As he stood at the
bar sipping his beer, he could feel the pressure of the gun under his left armpit. It
made him smile even more. In a few days it would earn him a tidy sum. He was
quite sure of it. It would, he told himself, be simple and straightforward to take a
man, even Cat Shannon, who had never even seen him and did not know he was
there.
It was in the middle of a Sunday morning that Kurt Semmler phoned. Shannon
was lying naked on his back on the bed while Julie puttered around the kitchen
making breakfast
"Mr. Keith Brown?" asked the operator.
"Yes. Speaking."
"I have a personal call for you from a Mr. Semolina in Genoa."
Shannon swung himself off the bed and crouched on the edge, the telephone up
to his ear. "Put him on the ljne," he ordered.
The German's voice was faint, but reception was reasonably clear. "Carlo?"
"Yes. Kurt?"
"I'm in Genoa."
"I know. What news?"
"I have it. This tune I am sure. She is just what you wanted. But there is
someone else would like to buy her also. We may have to outbid them if we want
the boat. But she is good. For us, very good. Can you come out and see her?"
"You're quite sure, Kurt?"
"Yes. Quite sure. Registered freighter, property of a Genoa-based shipping
company. Made to order."
Shannon considered. "I'll come tomorrow. What hotel are you staying at?"
Semmler told him.
"I'll be there on the first available plane. I don't know when that will be. Stay at
the hotel in the afternoon, and I'll contact you when I get there. Book me a room."
A few minutes later he was booked on the Alitalia flight to Milan at 0905 the
following morning, to make a connection from Milan to Genoa and arrive at the port
just after one in the afternoon.
He was grinning when Julie returned with the coffee. If the ship was the right
one, he could conclude the deal over the next twelve days and be in Paris on the
fifteenth for his rendezvous with Langarotti, secure in the knowledge that Semmler
would have the ship ready for sea, with a good crew and fully fueled and supplied,
by June 1.
"Who was that?" asked the girl.
"A friend."
"Which friend?"
"A business friend."
"What did he want?"
"I have to go and see him."
"When?"
"Tomorrow morning. In Italy."
"How long will you be gone?"
"I don't know. Two weeks. Maybe more."
She pouted over her coffee cup. "So what am I supposed to do all that time?"
she asked.
Shannon grinned. "You'll find something. There's a lot of it about."
"You're a shit," she said conversationally. "But if you have to go, I suppose you
must. It only leaves us till tomorrow morning, so I, my dear Tomcat, am going to
make the best of it."
As his coffee was spilled over the pillow, Shannon reflected that the fight for
Kimba's palace was going to be a holiday compared with trying to satisfy Sir James
Manson's sweet little daughter.
16
The port of Genoa was bathed in late-afternoon sunshine when Cat Shannon and
Kurt Semmler paid off their taxi and the German led his employer along the quays
to where the motor vessel Toscana was moored. The old coaster was dwarfed by
the two 3000-ton freighters that lay on either side of her, but that was no problem.
To Shannon's eye she was big enough for her purposes.
- There was a tiny forepeak and a four-foot drop to the main deck, in the center
of which was the large square hatch to the only cargo hold set amidships. Aft was
the tiny bridge, and below it evidently were the crew quarters and captain's cabin.
She had a short, stubby mast, to which a single loading derrick was attached,
rigged almost vertical. Right aft, above the stern, the ship's single lifeboat was
slung.
She was rusty, her paint blistered by the sun in many places, flayed off by salt
spray in others. Small and old and dowdy, she had the quality Shannon looked for—
she was anonymous. There are thousands of such small freighters plying the
coastal inshore trade from Haifa to Gibraltar, Tangier to Dakar, Monrovia to
Simonstown. They all look much the same, attract no attention, and are seldom
suspected of being up to
anything beyond carrying small cargoes from port to port.
Semmler took Shannon on board. They found their way aft to where a
companionway led down into the darkness of the crew quarters, and Semmler
called. Then they went on down. They were met at the bottom by a muscular,
hard-faced man in his mid-forties who nodded at Semmler and stared at Shannon.
Semmler shook hands with him and introduced him to Shannon. "Carl
Waldenberg, the first mate."
Waldenberg nodded abruptly and shook hands. "You have come to look her over,
our old Toscana?" he asked.
Shannon was pleased to note he spoke good, if accented, English and looked as
if he might be prepared to run a cargo that did not appear on the manifest, if the
price was right. He could understand the German seaman's interest in him.
Semmler had already briefed him on the background, and he had told the crew his
employer would be coming to look the ship over, with a view to buying. For the first
mate, the new owner was an interesting person. Apart from anything else,
Waldenberg had to be concerned about his own future.
The Yugoslav engineer was ashore somewhere, but they met the deckhand, a
teenage Italian boy reading a girlie magazine on his bunk. Without waiting for the
Italian captain's return, the first mate showed them both Over the Toscana.
Shannon was interested in three things: the ability of the boat to accommodate
another twelve men somewhere, even if they had to sleep out on deck in the open;
the main hold and the possibility of secreting a few crates below the flooring down
in the bilges; and the trustworthiness of the engines to get them as far as, say,
South Africa.
Waldenberg's eyes narrowed slightly as Shannon asked his questions, but he
answered them civilly. He could work out for himself that no fare-paying passengers
were coming on board the Toscana for the privilege
of sleeping wrapped in blankets on the hold-cover under the summer stars; nor
was the Toscana going to pick up much freight for a run to the other end of Africa.
Cargo sent that distance will be shipped in a bigger vessel. The advantage of a
small coaster is that she can often load a cargo at very short notice and deliver it
two days later a couple of hundred miles away. Big ships spend longer in port while
turning around. But on a long run like that from the Mediterranean to South Africa,
a bigger ship makes up in extra speed what she spent in port before setting out.
For the exporter, the Toscanas of the sea have little attraction for trips of more than
500 miles.
After seeing the boat they went topside, and Wal denberg offered them bottles of
beer, which they drank in the shade of the canvas awning set up behind the bridge.
That was when the negotiations really started. The two Germans rattled away in
their own language, the seaman evidently putting the questions and Semmler
answering.
At last Waldenberg looked keenly at Shannon, looked back at Semmler, and
nodded slowly. "Possibly," he said in English.
Semmler turned to Shannon and explained. "Waldenberg is interested why a man
like yourself, who evidently does not know the charter cargo business, wants to buy
a freighter for general cargo. I said you were a businessman and not a seaman. He
feels the general cargo business is too risky for a rich man to want to hazard money
on it, unless he has something specific in mind."
Shannon nodded. "Fair enough. Kurt, I want a word with you alone."
They went aft and leaned over the rail while Waldenberg drank his beer.
"How do you reckon this guy?" muttered Shannon.
"He's good," said Semmler without hesitation. "The captain is the owner also, and
he is an old man and wants to retire. For this he has to sell the boat and retire on
the money. That leaves a place vacant as captain.
I think Waldenberg would like it, and I agree with that. He has his master's
license, and he knows this boat inside out. He also knows the sea. That leaves the
question of whether he would run a cargo with a risk attached. I think he would, if
the price is right."
"He suspects something already?" asked Shannon.
"Sure. Actually he thinks you are in the business of running illegal immigrants into
Britain. He would not want to get arrested, but if the price is right, I think he would
take the risk."
"Surely the first thing is to buy the ship. He can decide whether to stay on later.
If he wants to quit, we can find another captain."
Semmler shook his head. "No. For one thing, we would have to tell him enough
beforehand for him to know roughly what the job was. If he quit then, it would be a
breach of security."
"If he learns what the job is and then quits, he only goes out one way," said
Shannon and pointed his forefinger down at the oil-slicked water beneath the stern.
"There's one other point, Cat. It would be an advantage to have him on our side.
He knows the ship, and if he decides to stay on he will try to persuade the captain
to let us have the Toscana, rather than the local shipping company that is sniffing
around. His opinion counts with the captain, because the old boy wants the
Toscana to be in good hands, and he trusts Waldenberg."
Shannon considered the logic. It appealed to him. Time was running short, and
he wanted the Toscana. The first mate might help him get it and could certainly run
it. He could also recruit his own first mate and make sure he was a kindred spirit.
Apart from that, there is one useful precept about bribing people: Never try to bribe
them all; just buy the man who controls his own subordinates, and let him keep the
rest in line. Shannon decided to make an ally of Waldenberg if he could. They
strolled back to the awning.
"I'll be straight with you, mister," he told the German. "It's true if I bought the
Toscana she would not
be used for carrying peanuts. It's also true that there would be a slight element
of risk as the cargo went on board. There would be no risk as the cargo went
ashore, because the ship would be outside territorial waters. I need a good skipper,
and Kurt Semmler tells me you're good. So let's get down to basics. If I get the
Toscana I'll offer you the post of captain. You get a six-month guaranteed salary
double your present one, plus a five-thousand-dollar bonus for the first shipment,
which is due ten weeks from now."
Waldenberg listened without saying a word. Then he grinned and uncoiled
himself from where he sat. He held out his hand. "Mister, you just got yourself a
captain."
"Fine," said Shannon. "Except the first thing is to buy the boat."
"No problem," said Waldenberg. "How much would you spend for her?"
"What's she worth?" countered Shannon.
"What the market will take," answered Waldenberg. "The opposition has fixed its
own ceiling at twenty-five thousand pounds and not a penny more."
"I'll go to twenty-six," said Shannon. "Will the captain take that?"
"Sure. Do you speak Italian?"
"No."
"Spinetti speaks no English. So let me interpret for you. I'll fix it with the old man.
With that price, and me as captain, he'll let you have her. When can you meet
him?"
"Tomorrow morning?" asked Shannon.
"Right. Tomorrow at ten, here on board."
They shook hands again, and the two mercenaries left.
Tiny Marc Vlaminck was contentedly at work in the garage he had rented, while
the locked truck stood outside the door in the alley. Marc had closed and locked the
garage door also, so he would not be disturbed while he worked. It was his second
afternoon alone in
the garage, and he had almost finished the first part of the job.
Along the rear wall of the garage he had erected a workbench of solid timber
balks and equipped it with what he needed, the tools bought with Shannon's £500,
as the truck and the rest of the necessary items had also been. Along one wall
stood five large drums. They were bright green and bore the trading mark of the
Castrol oil company. They were empty, which was the way Marc had bought them,
quite cheap, from one of the big shipping firms in the port, and they had once
contained heavy lubricating oil, as was plainly marked on each barrel.
From the first in the line, Marc had cut a circular disk out of the bottom, and the
barrel stood up-ended, with the gaping hole showing upward and the screw cap at
the top of the barrel on the floor. Around the hole was a 1½-inch flange, all that
was left of the original base of the drum.
From the truck Marc had taken two crates of Schmeissers, and the twenty
machine pistols were almost ready to enter their new hiding place. Each gun had
been carefully mummified from end to end in sticky masking tape, and each had
five magazines taped to the weapon itself. Following the wrapping process, each
machine pistol had been slipped into a stout polyethylene envelope, which Marc had
then sucked empty of air and tied securely at the neck with twine. After that, each
had gone into a second, outer envelope of polyethylene, which was again tied at
the neck. Such wrapping, he reckoned, should keep each weapon dry until it was
next brought out into the air.
He took the twenty stubby packages and with two stout webbing straps rolled
them all into one large bundle. This he inserted into the hole at the top of the drum
and lowered it to the bottom. The drums were the usual 44-gallon or 200-liter type,
and there was enough room in each for twenty Schmeissers and their
accompanying magazines, with a little room to spare around the walls.
When the first bundle was secreted, Marc began the process of resealing the
barrel. He had had fresh tin-plate disks cut at a machine-shop in the port, and the
first of these he fitted onto the top of the opened drum. It took half an hour of filing
and rasping before the disk finally settled tight and neatly onto the drumhead,
running right up to the rim in all places and nicely covering the 1½-inch overlap
that remained of the previous end of the drum. Turning on his steam jet, powered
by a gas bottle and burner, and taking a stick of soft solder, he began to "sweat"
the tinplate to tinplate.
Metal can be welded to metal and, to get the hardest join, it usually is. But a
barrel that has once contained oil or ignitable fuel always retains a residue of film
on the inner surface of the metal. When heated, as it must be by welding, the film
turns to fumes and can easily explode very dangerously. "Sweating" a piece of
tinplate onto another piece does not give the same strength of join but can be done
with steam heat at a lower temperature. Provided the drums were not laid on their
sides and juggled about, which would produce a powerful surge inside, they would
hold together against a fair amount of handling.
When he had finished, Marc packed any remaining crevices with solder and,
when all was cool, spray-painted the whole area with a color the exact replica of
the color of Castrol oil drums the whole world over. After leaving the paint to dry,
he eased the drum gently onto its new base, removed the screw cap at the top,
took one of several large jerrycans standing ready, and began to pour in the
lubricating oil.
The emerald-green liquid, thick, sticky, viscous, flowed into the open aperture
and gurgled its way to the bottom of the drum. Slowly it filled up the air spaces
between the sides of the drum and the bundle of machine pistols inside, slid
noiselessly into every nook and cranny between the individual weapons, and
impregnated the webbing and twine. Despite Marc's sucking before twisting the
ends of each polyethylene
bag tight shut, there were still bubbles of air inside the bags, trapped in
magazines, barrels, and breeches. These offset the weight of the metal so that, as
the barrel filled, the cumbersome bundle of guns became almost weightless,
bobbing in the heavy oil like a body on the tide, and finally sinking slowly below the
surface.
The Belgian used two jerrycans, and when the drum was full to the brim he
estimated seven-tenths of the interior was taken up by the bundle, three-tenths by
oil. He had poured 60 liters into the 200-liter drum. Finally he took a pencil
flashlight and scanned the surface of the liquid. It gleamed back at him in the light,
slick and green, with hints of gold. Of what lay at the bottom of the drum there was
not a sign. He waited another hour before he checked around the base. Nothing
had leaked; the new base of the barrel was sealed tight.
There was a jauntiness to him as he rolled open the garage doors and ran the
truck back inside. He still had the wood of two flat crates with German markings to
destroy, and a disk of now useless tinplate to throw away. The latter would go into
the harbor, the former onto a bonfire. He knew now that the system worked and
that he could convert one barrel every two days. He would be ready for Shannon by
May 15, as promised. It was good to be back at work.
Dr. Ivanov was incensed, not for the first time and doubtless not for the last.
"The bureaucracy," he snapped at his wife across the breakfast table, "the sheer,
incompetent, stultifying bureaucracy in this country is bloody unbelievable."
"I'm sure you're right, Mikhail Mikhailovich," his wife said soothingly as she
poured two more cups of tea, strong, dark, and bitter as she knew her husband
liked it. A placid and contented woman, she wished her volatile scientist husband
would be careful with his outbursts, or at least confine them to the house.
"If the capitalist world knew how long it takes to
get a couple of nuts and bolts in this country, they'd die laughing."
"Shush, dear," she told him, stirring in the sugar for herself. "You must be
patient."
It had been weeks since the director had summoned him to the pine-paneled
office in the heart of the vast complex of laboratories and living quarters that made
up the institute in the heart of the Siberian New Lands, to inform him that he would
be in charge of a survey team being sent to West Africa and that he should take
charge of the details himself.
It had meant forsaking a project that interested him deeply, and asking two of his
junior colleagues to do the same. He had put in for the necessary equipment for an
African climate, sending off his requirements to the half-dozen different supply
directorates concerned, answering the petty queries as politely as he could, and
waiting, always waiting, for the equipment to arrive and be crated. He knew from
having been on a survey team in Ghana what working in the deep bush could
entail.
"Give me the snow any time," he had told his team leader at the time. "I'm a
cold-weather man."
But he had done it, on orders and on time. His team was ready, his equipment
prepared and crated, down to the last water-purification tablet and camp bed. With
luck, he had thought, he could be there, do the survey, and be back with his rock
samples before the brief and glorious days of the Siberian summer had been eaten
by the bitter autumn. The letter in his hand told him it was not to be.
It came from his director personally, and he bore the man no animosity, for he
knew he was only passing on instructions from Moscow. Unfortunately the
Transport Directorate there had ruled that the confidential nature of the survey
forbade the use of public transport, but the Foreign Ministry did not feel able to
instinct Aeroflot to put an airliner at the team's disposal. In view of continuing
Middle East developments, neither would it be possible to use one of the military's
Antonov freighters.
In consequence, ran the instructions from Moscow, it had been felt advisable, in
view of the volume of equipment necessary for the survey, and the even greater
volumes of samples that would have to be brought back from West Africa, to use
maritime transport. It was decided that the team could be best transported by a
Soviet freighter heading past the coast of West Africa toward the Far East. On its
return, it would simply notify Ambassador Dobrovolsky that it had completed the
survey, and, on instructions from him, a freighter heading back toward home would
divert to take the three-man team and its crates of samples on board. Notification
would be made in due course of the date and port of departure, and vouchers
authorizing the use of state transport to the port of embarkation would be provided.
"The whole summer," shouted Ivanov as his wife helped him into his fur-collared
coat and fur hat. "I'm going to miss the whole damned summer. And it'll be the
rainy season down there."
Cat Shannon and Kurt Semmler were at the ship again the following morning and
met Captain Ales sandro Spinetti for the first time. He was a gnarled old man with a
face like a walnut, a T-shirt over what was still a barrel of a chest, and a whitetopped
peaked cap aslant on his head.
The negotiating started then and there, before they adjourned to the office of the
captain's lawyer, a certain Giulio Ponti, who ran his practice from one of the narrow
side streets that lead backward and upward from the brawling, riotous Via
Gramschi. To be fair to the signer, he was at least at the better end of the Via
Gramschi, and the prostitutes in the bars they passed became progressively more
presentable and expensive as they neared the lawyer's office.
Nothing to do with the business of the law moves faster than a snail's pace in
Italy—and usually the pace of an arthritic snail.
The terms had been agreed on already. With Carl Waldenberg translating,
Captain Spinetti had accepted the package deal Shannon offered: £26,000 cash for
the ship, to be paid in any currency or country the captain cared to name; his own
first mate to be offered a minimum six-month contract as the new skipper, at a
salary double that he had received as first mate; the chance for the other two men,
the engineer and the deckhand, to stay on for six months at existing salary, or part
company with severance pay of £500 for the deckhand and £ 1000 for the
engineer.
Privately Shannon had already decided to persuade the deckhand to leave but to
do all he could to keep the engineer, a surly Serbian who Waldenberg said could
coax those engines to hell and back, who said nothing and asked less, and, best of
all, whose papers were probably not in order and who therefore needed the job.
For tax reasons, the captain had long ago invested £100 in forming a small
private company, Spinetti Maritime Shipping Company. It had one hundred ordinary
shares, of which he held ninety-nine and his lawyer, Signor Ponti, held one plus the
position of company secretary. The sale of the MV Toscana, the company's only
asset, was therefore linked to the sale of the shipping company, Spinetti Maritimo,
which suited Shannon perfectly.
What did not suit him so well was that it took five days of meetings with the
lawyer before the details were in order. And that was only for the first stage.
It was a week into May, and Day Thirty-One of Shannon's private calendar of a
hundred days, before Ponti could start drawing up the contracts. As the deal was
going through in Italy, and the Toscana was an Italian-registered and -resident
vessel, the contract had to comply with Italian law, which is complicated. There
were three contracts, that for the sale of Spinetti Maritimo and all her assets to
Tyrone Holdings of Luxembourg, that which contracted Tyrone Holdings to offer
Carl Waldenberg the job of captain for six months at
the agreed salary, and the third guaranteeing the two other crewmen their
existing salaries or severance pay. This process took four days, and Ponti's attitude
was evidently that he was breaking all speed records, although all participant
parties were anxious to complete the sale as soon as possible.
Big Janni Dupree was content with life that bright May morning when he emerged
from the camping-goods store, having placed the last of his orders. He had put
down a deposit for the required number of haversacks and sleeping bags. Delivery
had been promised for the next day, and that same afternoon he intended to pick
up two large cardboard boxes full of military-style knapsacks and berets from a
warehouse in East London.
Three bulky consignments of miscellaneous equipment were already on their way
to Toulon. The first should have arrived, he estimated, and the other two should be
in transit. The fourth would be crated and put in the hands of the shipping agent
the following afternoon, which left him a week ahead of time. The day before, he
had received a letter from Shannon, telling him to vacate his London flatlet and fly
to Marseilles on May 15. He was to check into a given hotel in the French port and
wait there to be contacted. He liked precise instructions; they left little room for
errors, and if anything did go wrong, it could not be his fault. He had bought his
ticket and was eager for the remaining week to pass so that he could be off. It was
good to be going into action again.
When Signor Ponti had finally drawn up the necessary papers, Cat Shannon
dispatched a series of letters from his Genoa hotel. The first was to Johann
Schlinker to tell him that the ship that would be engaged to carry the ammunition
from Spain would be the MV Toscana, owned by Spinetti Maritime Shipping
Company of Genoa. He himself would need from
Schlinker details of where the arms shipment was supposed to be heading, so
that the captain could draw up the appropriate manifest.
He included in his letter full details of the Toscana and had already checked with
Lloyds Shipping List, to make sure the Toscana was listed there. He told Schlinker
he would be contacting him within the next fifteen days.
Another letter went to Alan Baker, so that he could inform the Yugoslav
authorities of the name and details of the carrying vessel, so the export license
could be granted. Shannon already knew what the manifest would have to read. It
would say the vessel was proceeding with her cargo from the Yugoslav port of
embarkation to Lome, the capital of Togo.
He wrote a long letter to Mr. Stein as chairman of Tyrone Holdings, instructing
him to prepare the papers for a board meeting of the company in his office four
days hence, with two resolutions on the agenda. One would be for the company to
buy Spinetti Maritime and all its assets for £26,000 and the other would be to issue
a further 26,000 bearer shares of £1 each to Mr. Keith Brown in exchange for a
certified check for £26,000.
He dashed off a line to Marc Vlaminck, telling him the pick-up of the cargo in
Ostend would have to be delayed until May 20, and another to Langarotti, putting
back the Paris rendezvous to May 19.
Last, he sent Simon Endean a letter in London, asking him to meet Shannon in
Luxembourg four days hence and to have at his disposal funds amounting to
£26,000 for the purchase of the ship to carry the whole operation to the target
area.
The evening of May 13 was soft and cool, and several hundred miles along the
same coastline Jean-Baptiste Langarotti was driving his truck westward from Hyères
on the last stretch into Toulon. He had the window down and sniffed the smell of
conifer and maquis coming off the hills to his right. Like Dupree in London,
who was preparing that evening to fly to Marseilles, like Vlaminck in Ostend,
who was putting the final touches to his fifth and last oil drum of guns, Langarotti
was content with life.
He had in the back of the truck the last two outboard engines, bought for cash
and equipped with underwater exhaust attachments for silent running. He was on
his way back to Toulon to deliver them to the bonded warehouse. Already in the
warehouse of Maritime Duphot were three inflatable black dinghies, each crated
and unopened, and the third engine. Also there were four large crates of assorted
clothing that had arrived over the past two weeks from London in his own name.
He too would be ready on tune.
It was a pity he had had to move from his hotel. A chance encounter with an old
underworld friend as he left the doorway three days ago had forced him to make a
quick excuse and move out the following morning. He was now in a new hotel and
would have informed Shannon of this, except he did not know where Shannon was.
It made no difference. In forty-eight hours, on May 15, he would keep his
rendezvous with his chief at the Plaza-Surène hotel in Paris.
The meeting in Luxembourg on May 14 was surprisingly short. Shannon was not
present. That morning he had taken delivery from Endean of the £26,000 purchase
price for the ship. Just before the board meeting he had met Mr. Stem in his office
and handed over to him the documents for the sale of the Spinetti Maritime
Shipping Company and its vessel, the Tos cana, along with a certified check for
£26,000, payable to Tyrone Holdings SA.
Thirty minutes later, Mr. Stem emerged from the board meeting and handed
Shannon 26,000 ordinary bearer shares in Tyrone Holdings. He also showed him an
envelope which contained the documents concerning the sale of the ship to Tyrone,
and Tyrone Holdings' check in the name of Signor Alessandro Spinetti. He sealed
the envelope, which was addressed to Signer
Giulio Ponti at his Genoa office, and gave it to Shannon. The last document he
handed over was a board decision to appoint Herr Kurt Semmler managing director
of Spinetti Maritimo Shipping Company.
Two days later, in the Italian lawyer's office, the deal was finished. The check for
the purchase of the Tos cana had been cleared, and Tyrone Holdings legally owned
100 per cent of Spinetti Maritimo. In respect of this, Signor Ponti dispatched by
registered mail the 100 ordinary shares in Spinetti Maritimo to the company office
of Tyrone in Luxembourg. As a separate matter, Signor Ponti accepted a package
from Shannon and locked it in his vault for safekeeping. He took two sample
signatures from Shannon, in the name of Keith Brown, to be able later to certify the
authenticity of any letter from Shannon regarding disposal of the package.
Unknown to Ponti, the package contained the 26,994 controlling shares of Tyrone.
Carl Waldenberg received his captaincy and his six-month contract, and the
Serbian engineer was kept on. One month's salary was paid to each man in cash,
and the remaining five months' pay for each was placed in escrow in the hands of
Signor Ponti.
The Italian deckhand was persuaded without difficulty to take his £500 severance
pay, plus a bonus of £ 100, and left the crew. Semmler was installed as managing
director.
Shannon had had a further £5000 transferred from Brugge to his credit in Genoa,
and with this he had covered the two salaries of the crewmen who were remaining
with the Toscana, Before he left Genoa on May 18, he handed the rest over to
Semmler and gave him his briefing.
"How about the two replacements for the crew?"
"Waldenberg is seeing to it already," Semmler told him. "He reckons this port is
crawling with men available for recruitment. He knows the place inside out. He also
knows what we need. Good hard men, the kind
who ask no questions and do what they are told, particularly if they know there is
a bonus at the end of it. Don't worry, he'll have a good pair before the end of the
week."
"Right. Fine. This is what I want. Get the Toscana ready for sea. A complete
engine overhaul and servicing. Port dues paid up, papers in order with the new
captain's name. Manifest prepared for Toulon to pick up general cargo for Morocco.
Get her fueled and supplied. Take on enough stores for the crew plus a further
dozen men. Extra fresh water, beer, wine, cigarettes. When she's ready, take her to
Toulon. You have to be there by June first, at the latest. I'll be there with Marc,
Jean-Baptiste, and Janni. Contact me through the shipping agent, Agence Maritime
Duphot. They're in the port area. I'll see you then. Good luck."
17
Jean-Baptiste Langarotti was alive, in part, at least, because of his ability to sense
danger before it came looking for him. The first day he reported to the Paris hotel,
he just sat quietly at the appointed hour in the residents' lounge and read a
magazine. He gave Shannon two hours, but the mercenary leader did not show up.
On the off chance, the Corsican inquired at the reception desk, for although
Shannon had said nothing about staying the night, it might be he had arrived early
and taken a room. The reception clerk checked the register and informed Langarotti
there was no Monsieur Brown from London in the hotel. Langarotti assumed
Shannon had been delayed and would make the rendezvous at the same hour on
the next day.
So the Corsican was there, sitting in the residents' lounge, at the same hour on
May 16. There was still no Shannon, but there was something else. Twice the same
staff member of the hotel peeked into the room and vanished as soon as Langarotti
looked up. After another two hours, Shannon still not having come, he left the hotel
again. As he passed down the street he had a glimpse of a man in the corner
doorway showing a bizarre interest in the window into which he was staring with
such fixed intensity. The shop window was
full of women's corsets. Langarotti had the feeling the man was one component
that did not fit into the pattern of that quiet back street on a spring morning.
Over the next twenty-four hours the Corsican began to sniff the wind in the bars
of Paris where mercenaries forgather, using his old contacts of the Corsican Union
in the Paris underworld. He continued to go to the hotel each morning, and on the
fifth morning, that of May 19, Shannon was there.
He had arrived the previous evening by plane from Genoa and Milan, and had
stayed the night at the hotel. He seemed in good spirits and told his colleague over
coffee in the lounge that he had bought a ship for their operation.
"No problems?" asked Langarotti.
Shannon shook his head. "No problems."
"But here in Paris we have a problem."
Unable to strop his knife in such a public place, the small Corsican sat with his
hands idle in his lap. Shannon put down his coffee cup. He knew if Langarotti
referred to problems, that meant trouble.
"Such as?" he asked softly.
"There's a contract on you," said Langarotti.
The two men sat in silence for a while, as Shannon considered the news. His
friend did not interrupt. He usually answered questions only when they were asked.
•
"Do you know who placed it?" asked Shannon.
"No. Nor who has taken it up. But it's high, about five thousand dollars."
"Recently?"
"The word is, the contract was placed some time in the past six weeks. It seems
uncertain whether the contractor, who must be Paris-based, is the one who placed
it, or whether he is acting for someone behind the scenes. The word is, only a good
hit-man would take a contract on you, or a stupid one. But someone has taken it.
Inquiries are being made about you."
Shannon cursed silently. He had little doubt the Corsican was right. He was too
careful a man to go bandying unchecked information like that around. He
tried to think back to any incident that might have given rise to the placing of a
contract on his head. The trouble was, there were so many possible reasons, some
of which he knew he could not even guess.
Methodically he began to go over the possibilities he could envisage. Either the
contract stemmed from something to do with the present operation, or it came
from a motive that lay further back. He considered the first option first.
Had there been a leak? Had some government agency received a whiff of
intelligence that he was mounting a coup in Africa and decided to stop it
permanently by snuffing out the operations commander? The thought even crossed
his mind that Sir James Man-son had learned of his ewe lamb's multiple ravishing —
if that was the word for such an experienced Lolita. He rejected all three
possibilities. It could be that he had offended someone in the murky world of the
black-market arms dealers, who had decided to settle the score the hard way while
remaining in the background. But such a move would have been preceded by an
argument over a deal, a squabble over money, a stand-up row, or threats. There
had been none.
He turned his memory further back, to the wars and the fights gone by. The
trouble was, one never knew if one might at some time have angered a big
organization without meaning to. Perhaps one of the men he had gunned down had
secretly been an agent of the CIA or the KGB. Both organizations bore long grudges
and, being peopled by the world's most savagely unprincipled men, insisted on
settling scores even when there was no pragmatic motive, but simply for revenge.
He was aware the CIA still had an open-ended hit contract out on Bruce Rossiter,
who had shot an American in a bar in Leopoldville because the man was staring at
him. The American, it had later turned out, was one of the horde of local CIA men,
though Rossiter had not known this. His ignorance did not help him. The contract
still went out, and Rossiter was still running.
The KGB was as bad. It sent assassins across the world to liquidate fugitives,
foreign agents who had hurt the KGB and had been blown for all to see, and were
thus unprotectable by their own former employers; and the Russians needed no
practical motive, like the information in the man's head that he had not yet spilled.
They did it just for revenge.
That left the French SDECE and the British SIS. The French could have taken him
a hundred times over the past two years and made sure it happened in the jungles
of Africa. Moreover, they would not place the deal with a Paris contractor and risk a
leak. They had their own men, good ones, on the staff. The British were even less
likely. Legalistic to the end, they would have to get permission from almost Cabinet
level for a hit and used the method only in the direst emergency, to prevent a vital
leak, to create a nasty example to encourage others to have confidence in the
Service, or occasionally to even a score where one of their own men had been
knowingly knocked over by an identifiable killer. Shannon was sure he had never hit
a white-carded Britisher, and that left the motive of preventing an embarrassment.
The Russians and French would kill for that reason, but not the British. They had
left Stephen Ward alive to stand trial and nearly ruin the Macmil lan government;
they had left Philby alive after he was blown, and Blake too; in France or Russia
both traitors would have entered the road-accident statistics.
That left a private firm. The Corsican Union? No, Langarotti could not have stuck
by him if it had been the Union. So far as he knew, he had never upset the Mafia in
Italy or the Syndicate in America. That took the matter back to a private individual
with a private grudge. If it was not a government agency and not a big private firm,
it had to be an individual. But who, for God's sake?
Langarotti was still watching him, waiting for his reaction. Shannon kept his face
still, his air bored.
"Do they know I'm here in Paris?"
"I think so. I believe they know about this hotel. You always stay here. It's a
mistake. I was here four days ago, as you had said—"
"Didn't you get my letter, putting the meeting back to today?"
"No. I had to move from my Marseilles hotel a week ago."
"Oh. Go on."
"There was someone watching the hotel the second time I came. I had already
asked for you by the name of Brown. So I think the leak came from inside this
hotel. The man was watching yesterday and today."
"So I change hotels," said Shannon.
"You might shake him. You might not. Someone knows the name of Keith Brown.
They could find you elsewhere. How much do you have to be in Paris over the next
few weeks?"
"Quite a bit," admitted Shannon. "I have to go through several times, and we
have to bring Marc's stuff down from Belgium to Toulon through Paris in two days."
Langarotti shrugged. "They might not find you. We don't know how good they
are, or how many of them. Or who. But they might find you a second time. Then
there would be problems, perhaps with the police."
"I can't afford that. Not now. Not with Marc's consignment sitting in the truck,"
said Shannon.
He was a reasonable man and would much prefer to have negotiated with the
one who had placed the contract on him. But whoever it was had chosen to do it
the other way.
Shannon would still have tried to talk to the man, but first he had to identify him.
There was only one man who could do that for him: the man who had taken the
contract to kill him. He put this to the Corsi-can, who nodded somberly.
"Yes, mon ami, I think you're right. We have to take the hit-man. But first he
must be lured out."
"Will you help me, Jean-Baptiste?"
"Of course," said Langarotti. "Whoever it is, it is not the Union. It is not my
people, so I am your man."
They spent close to an hour with a street map of Paris on the table in front of
them. Then Langarotti left.
During the day he parked his Marseilles-registered truck at an agreed
prearranged spot. In the late afternoon Shannon went to the reception desk and
asked the way to a well-known restaurant a mile away. He was within earshot of
the hotel clerk who had been described to him by Langarotti. The chief receptionist
told him where the restaurant was.
"Within walking distance?" asked Shannon.
"But certainly, m'sieur. About fifteen minutes, maybe twenty."
Shannon thanked him and used the desk telephone to make a reservation in the
name of Brown for ten o'clock that night. He did not leave the hotel all day.
At nine-forty exactly, carrying his overnight bag in one hand and a light raincoat
over the other arm, he left the hotel and turned up the street in the direction for
the restaurant. The route he took was not direct. It led down two streets even
smaller than the one in which the hotel was situated. As he walked, he left the
other pedestrians behind and entered streets in the first ar-rondissement which
were dimly lit and where no passers-by came his way. He dawdled, passing the
time staring into lighted shop windows, killing time until the hour of his restaurant
reservation was long past. He never looked back. Sometimes, in the quiet, he
thought he could hear the soft slap of a moccasin somewhere up the dim-lit streets
behind him. Whoever was there, it was not Langarotti. The Corsican could move
without disturbing the dust.
It was past eleven when he reached the dark, black alley he had been told was
there. It led to his left and had no lights in it at all. The far end was blocked by a
row of bollards, making it into a cul-de-sac. On each side the walls were blank and
tall. Any light that might
have entered the alley from the other end was muted by the bulk of the French
truck that stood parked there, empty but with its rear doors open. Shannon walked
toward the truck's gaping back and, when he reached it, turned.
Like most fighting men, he always preferred to face danger rather than knowing
it was somewhere behind. He knew from past experience that, even when moving
backward, it is safer always to face the danger source. At least, then, you can
watch it. Moving up the alley with his back to the entrance, he had felt the hairs on
his neck prickling. If the psychology was wrong, he could be very dead. But the
psychology had been right. Keeping to empty streets, the man behind him had
stayed well back, hoping for just such an opportunity as now presented itself.
Shannon tossed his bag and raincoat to the ground and stared at the hulking
shadow that blocked the vertical streak of lamplight from the end of the alley. He
waited patiently. He hoped there would be no sound, not in the center of Paris. The
shadow paused, assessed the situation, and evidently checked Shannon for a gun.
But the sight of the open truck reassured the hit-man. He assumed Shannon had
simply parked it there for discretion's sake and had been all this time returning to it.
The shadow in the alley moved softly forward. Shannon could make out the right
arm, out of the raincoat pocket now, held forward, holding something. The face
was in shadow, the whole man was a silhouette, but he was big. His form stood
dead center in the cobbled cul-de-sac, stopped now, raising his gun. He paused for
several seconds as he aimed, then slowly lowered it again, straight-armed, down to
his side. It was almost as if he had changed his mind.
Still staring at Shannon from the shadow-black face, the man slowly leaned
forward and went onto his knees. Some shots do this to steady themselves. The
gunman cleared his throat, leaned forward again, and placed both his hands,
knuckles down, on the cobbles
in front of him. The metal of the Colt .45 clattered on the stones. Slowly, like a
Moslem facing Mecca at the hour of prayer, the gunman bowed his head, staring for
the first time in twenty seconds not at Shannon but at the cobbles. There was a
light splashing sound, as of a liquid running fast onto cobbles, and finally the man's
arms and thighs gave out. He slumped forward into the puddle of his own aortic
blood and went to sleep, quite gently, like a child.
Shannon was still standing against the doors of the truck. With the man down, a
shaft of lamplight came from the lit end of the alley. It glistened on the polished
black sheen of the four-inch bone knife-handle that protruded upward from the
mackintoshed back of the man on the pavement, slightly left of center, between the
fourth and fifth ribs.
The Cat looked up. There was another figure against the lamplight, small, spare,
motionless, still standing fifteen yards from the body at the point where it had
made its throw. Shannon hissed, and Langarotti padded noiselessly down the
cobbles.
"I thought you'd left it too late," said Shannon.
"Non. Never too late. He could not have squeezed the trigger of that Colt at any
time since you emerged from the hotel."
The rear of the truck was already laid with a large sheet of tough industrial
plastic over a canvas tarpaulin. The tarpaulin had loopholes all around the edge for
easy lashing into a bundle, and plenty of cord and bricks were stacked at the far
end. Each taking an arm and a leg, the two men swung the body up and inward.
Langarotti climbed in to retrieve bis knife, while Shannon shut the doors. He heard
them securely locked from the inside.
Langarotti climbed into the front seat and started up. Slowly he backed out, down
the alley and into the street. As he swung the truck around before driving off,
Shannon approached the driver's window.
"Have you had a good look at him?"
"Sure."
"You know him?"
"Yes. Name of Thomard, Raymond. In the Congo once for a short period, more of
a city type. Professional hit-man. But not quality. Not the sort one of the big
contractors would use. More likely to work for his own boss."
"Who's that?" asked Shannon.
"Roux," said Langarotti. "Charles Roux."
Shannon swore quietly and viciously. "That bastard, that stupid, ignorant,
incompetent fool. He could have fouled up a whole operation just because he
wasn't invited to come in on it."
He fell silent and thought for a while. Roux had to be discouraged, but in a way
that would keep him out of the Zangaro affair once and for all.
"Hurry up," said the Corsican, the engine still running. "I want to get this
customer put to bed before anyone comes along."
Shannon made up his mind and spoke urgently and rapidly for several seconds.
Langarotti nodded. "All right. Actually, I like it. It should fix that bugger for a long
time. But it will cost extra. Five thousand francs."
"Done," said Shannon. "Get moving, and meet me outside the Porte de la
Chapelle metro station in three hours."
They met Marc Vlaminck for lunch in the small South Belgian town of Dinant by
agreement. Shannon had called him the previous day and given him the instructions
and the rendezvous. Tiny Marc had kissed Anna good-by that morning, and she had
given him his lovingly packed suitcase of clothes and his snack box with half a loaf,
some butter, and a hunk of cheese for midmorning break. As usual, she had told
him to take care of himself.
He had driven the truck, carrying in the back five 200-liter drums of engine oil by
Castrol, across Belgium without being stopped. There was no reason why he
should be. His license was in order, as were the permit for the truck and the
insurance.
As the three men sat over lunch at a main-street cafe, Shannon asked the
Belgian, "When do we go over?"
"Tomorrow morning, just before sun-up. It's the quietest time. Did you two sleep
last night?"
"Nope."
"You'd better get some rest," said Marc. "I'll watch over both trucks. You can
have till midnight."
Charles Roux was another one who was tired that day. All the previous evening,
since he had received the telephone call from Henri Alain about Shannon walking to
his restaurant meal, he had waited for news. There had been none by midnight,
when there should have been a call from Thomard to say it was all over. There had
been none by three in the morning and none by sunrise.
Roux was unshaven and puzzled. He knew Thomard was no match for Shannon
on equal terms, but he was sure the Irishman would be taken in the back as he
walked through one of the quieter streets on his way to the evening meal.
At midmorning, as Langarotti and Shannon in their empty truck were passing
without trouble into Belgium north of Valenciennes, Roux finally slipped on a pair of
trousers and a shut and took the elevator five floors down to the lobby to check his
mailbox.
There did not seem to be anything wrong with the lock of his mailbox, a
container some twelve inches tall, nine wide, and nine deep, screwed to the wall of
the lobby along with a score more for the other tenants. There was no indication
that it had been opened, but of course a clever burglar would have picked the lock.
Roux used his personal key to unlock the door and swung it open.
He stood for about ten seconds without moving. Nothing changed about him
except the normal ruddy
color of his face, which slid into a chalky gray. Still staring, mesmerized, he began
to mutter, "Mon Dieu, O mon Dieu . . ." over and over again like an incantation. His
stomach turned over; he felt as he had at the moment in the Congo when he had
heard the Congolese soldiers questioning his identity as he lay inside the bandages
on a stretcher while John Peters smuggled him out from certain death. He felt he
wanted to urinate, run, but could only sweat with fear. With an air of almost sleepy
sadness, eyes half closed, lips gummed together, the head of Raymond Thomard
gazed back at him from inside the mailbox.
Roux was not squeamish, but he was no lionheart either. He closed the box, went
back to his flat, and started on the brandy bottle, for medicinal purposes only. He
needed a lot of medicine.
Alan Baker emerged from the office of the Yugoslav state arms company into the
bright sunshine of Belgrade, feeling well pleased with the way things were going.
On receiving Shannon's down payment of $7200 and the End User Certificate, he
had gone to a licensed arms dealer for whom he had occasionally done work in the
past on a subcontractual level. As in the case of Schlinker, the man had felt the
amount of weaponry and money involved in the proposed deal to be derisory, but
he had yielded to Baker's argument that if the buyers were satisfied with the first
consignment they might well return for more, a lot more.
So he had given Baker his fiat to fly to Belgrade and make application for the
purchase, using the certificate from Togo, duly filled out with the appropriate
names, and with a letter of authority from the dealer appointing Baker his
representative.
It meant Baker would lose a part of his cut, but it was the only way he could be
received in Belgrade, and for such a small deal he had in any case allowed a markup
of 100 per cent on the buying price of the arms.
His five days of talks with Mr. Pavlovic had been
fruitful and had included a visit to the state warehouse, in which he had selected
the two mortar tubes and two bazookas. The ammunition for both was standard
and supplied in crates of twenty bazooka rockets and ten mortar bombs.
The Yugoslavs had accepted the Togolese End User Certificate without demur,
and although Baker, the licensed dealer, and probably Mr. Pavlovic, must be aware
the certificate was just a piece of paper, the air was maintained that the
government of Togo was eagerly awaiting the chance to buy Yugoslavia's weaponry
for testing. Mr. Pavlovic had also required full payment in advance, and Baker had
had to pay over what remained of the $7200 Shannon had given him, after his
travel costs, plus $1000 of his own. He was confident Shannon's balance of another
$7200 would reimburse him and, even after the licensed dealer had taken his cut,
leave $4000 for Baker's pocket.
His morning's talks had confirmed that the goods would be granted an export
license and sent by army lorries to a bonded warehouse at the port of Ploce in the
northwest, close to the holiday resorts of Du-brovnik and Split.
It was here that the Toscana should dock to take the shipment aboard, any time
after June 10. With a light heart, Baker took the next flight for Munich and
Hamburg.
Johann Schlinker was in Madrid that morning, May 20. He had Telexed the full
details of the deal in 9mm. ammunition that he wanted to put through to his Madrid
partner, a Spanish national, a full month earlier, and had later flown to the Spanish
capital himself with his Iraqi End User Certificate, as soon as he had received
Shannon's $26,000 in full payment.
The Spanish formalities were more complicated than those Alan Baker had
discovered in Belgrade. Two applications were necessary, the first to buy the
hardware, the second to export it. The application to buy had been made three
weeks earlier and over the past twenty
days had been vetted by the three departments of state in Madrid who concern
themselves with such matters. First the Finance Ministry had been needed to
confirm that the full purchase price of $18,000 had been received into the
appropriate bank in hard currency. A few years earlier, only United States dollars
had been acceptable, but more recently Madrid was more than happy to take
German marks.
The second department was the Foreign Ministry. Its job had been to confirm
that the buyer country was not a state to which Spain was opposed. There was no
problem with Iraq, since the great bulk of Spanish arms exports habitually go to the
Arabs, with whom Spain has always maintained close and friendly relations. The
Foreign Ministry had no hesitation in confirming its approval of Iraq as a recipient of
Spanish 9mm. ball ammunition,
Last, the Defense Ministry had been required to confirm that nothing in the
proposed sale was on the secret list or among the categories of arms not for
export. With simple small-arms ammunition, this too had been no problem.
Although there had been no sticky problems with such a consignment, it had
taken eighteen days for the papers to pass through the three departments,
accumulating more paperwork as they went, until the final dossier emerged with
the stamp of approval. At this point the crates of ammunition were taken from the
CETME factory and stored in a warehouse of the Spanish army on the outskirts of
Madrid. From this point the Army Ministry took over, and notably the head of its
arms-export section, Colonel Antonio Salazar.
Schlinker had come to Madrid to present personally the application for an export
license. He had been in possession of the full details of the MV Toscana on his
arrival, and the seven-page questionnaire had been filled out and presented. Back
in his room in the Hotel Mindanao, the German expected no problems here
either. The Toscana was a clean ship, small but belonging to a registered
shipping company, Spinetti Maritime, as Lloyds Shipping List confirmed. According
to the application form, she would wish to berth in Valencia between June 16 and
June 20, take the shipment on board, and proceed straight to Latakia on the coast
of Syria, where the consignment would be handed over to the Iraqis for trucking to
Baghdad. The export license should take no longer than another two weeks, and
then application would be made for a movement order, permitting the crates to be
taken from the army warehouse and detailing an army officer to mount escort with
ten soldiers as far as Valencia quayside. The latter precaution, brought into force
over the previous three years, was to prevent any risk of hijacking by the Basque
terrorists. The last thing the government of El Caudillo wanted was to see Madrid's
bullets being used against the Guardia Civil in Coruna.
As Schlinker prepared to leave for Hamburg, he reflected that his Madrid partner
was perfectly capable of ensuring that the liaison with the Army Ministry remained
at a cordial level and that the crates would be waiting in Valencia for the arrival of
the Toscana on time.
In London a third and seemingly unconnected meeting took place. Over the past
three weeks Mr. Harold Roberts, the nominee director of Bormac Trading Company,
controlling 30 per cent of the company stock, had been cultivating the chairman,
Major Luton. He had several times taken him to lunch and once visited him at his
Guildford home. They had become quite friendly.
Throughout their talks, Roberts had made it clear that if the company were to get
off the ground and go back into business, whether in rubber or in some other area
of trading, a large injection of fresh capital would be needed. Major Luton could
well see that. When the time was ripe, Mr. Roberts proposed to the chairman
that the company should make a new one-for-two issue of shares—a total,
therefore, of half a million of new stock.
At first the major was aghast at the boldness of the move, but Mr. Roberts
assured him that the bank whose nominee he was would find the necessary fresh
finance. Mr. Roberts added that in the event that any of the new shares were not
taken up by existing shareholders or new shareholders, the Zwingli Bank would take
up the rest at full value on behalf of its customers.
The clinching argument was that when news of the fresh share issue broke on
the market, the price of Bormac ordinaries would be bound to rise, perhaps by as
much again as their present value, which then stood at one shilling and threepence.
Major Luton thought of his own hundred thousand shares and agreed. As is so
often the case when a man has once weakened, he then went along with Mr.
Roberts's proposal without further demur.
The new director pointed out that the pah* of them could form a quorum and
hold a directors' meeting able to pass a resolution binding on the company. At the
major's insistence, a letter was still sent to the other four directors, simply stating
that it was intended to hold a board meeting to discuss company business,
including the possibility of making a share issue.
In the event, only the company secretary, the City solicitor, turned up. The
resolution was passed and the announcement of the new share issue posted. There
was no need for a meeting of shareholders, as in the long-distant past an increase
in capital had been authorized but never carried out.
Existing shareholders were given first choice to buy the stock and were sent
allotment letters for the appropriate number of new shares. They were also given
the right to apply for any shares not subscribed by those to whom they were
originally offered.
Within a week, papers and checks signed by Messrs. Adams, Ball, Carter, and
Davies, forwarded by the Zwingli Bank, were in the company secretary's hands.
Each man opted to buy fifty thousand of the new shares, including those
originally allotted to him because of his existent holdings.
The shares had to be issued at par, which was four shillings each, and, with the
existing shares standing at less than a third of that price, it was an unattractive
offer. Two City speculators noticed the press announcement and tried to offer to
underwrite the issue, assuming there had to be something in the wind. They would
have succeeded but for Mr. Roberts. His own bid on behalf of the Zwingli Bank was
already in, wishing to buy any shares remaining at the closing of the offer that had
not been bought by existing shareholders or Bormac.
Some idiot in Wales agreed to buy a thousand shares, even at the too high price,
and another three thousand were bought by eighteen other shareholders scattered
around the country, who apparently could not do basic arithmetic or were
clairvoyant. Mr. Roberts, as a nominee director, was not in a position to buy for
himself, since he owned no stock. But at three in the afternoon of May 20, the
closing date of the offer, he subscribed for all the 296,000 remaining unsold shares
in the name of the Zwingli Bank, which in turn was buying these on behalf of two of
its customers. Their names happened to be Edwards and Frost. Again the bank
used designated accounts of its nominee company.
In no case were the rules of the Companies Act regarding disclosure broken.
Messrs. Adams, Ball, Carter, and Davies each owned 75,000 of the shares from
their first purchase and 50,000 from their second. But as the number of shares now
in circulation had risen from 1 million to 1.5 million, each man held less than 10 per
cent and was able to remain anonymous. Messrs. Edwards and Frost each owned
148,000 shares, just under the 10-per-cent limit.
What did not appear in public, or even to the directors, was that Sir James
Manson owned 796,000 shares in Bormac, an overwhelming majority. He
controlled, through Martin Thorpe, the six nonexistent
shareholders who had bought so heavily. They could, through Martin Thorpe,
direct the Zwingli Bank in its dealings with the company, and the bank controlled his
contracted servant, Mr. Roberts. Using their proxies, the six invisible men behind
the Zwingli Bank, operating through Harold Roberts, could make the company do
anything they wished.
It had cost Sir James Manson £ 60,000 to buy the original shares, and £ 100,000
to buy up the bulk of the new issue of half a million. But when the shares reached
the predicted £100 each, which he was sure they would do after the chance
"discovery" of the Crystal Mountain in the heart of Bormac's Zangaran franchise, he
stood to make £ 80 million.
Mr. Roberts was a contented man when he left the Bormac offices after hearing
how many shares his six Swiss-based stockholders had been allotted. He knew that
when he placed the share certificates in the hands of Dr. Martin Steinhofer, there
would be a handsome bonus for him. Although he was not a poor man, he was
relieved to know his retirement in comfort was secured.
In Dinant, Shannon and Langarotti woke from their slumbers shortly after dark
had fallen, to find Marc shaking them. Both were stretched out in the back of the
empty French truck.
"Tune to be going," said the Belgian.
Shannon looked at his watch. "I thought you said before sunrise," he grumbled.
"That's when we go over," said Marc. "We ought to get these trucks out of town
before they become too noticeable. We can park by the roadside for the rest of the
night."
They did park, but none of the men slept any more. Instead they smoked and
played cards with the pack Vlaminck kept in the glove compartment of his truck.
Sitting under the trees by the Belgian roadside in the darkness, waiting for the
dawn, feeling the night air on their faces, each could almost think he was back in
the African bush again, about to go into action, except for the flashing lights
through the trees where cars headed south on the road to France.
As they sat through the wee small hours, tired of playing cards, too tensed to
sleep, each fell back into his old habits. Tiny Marc munched the remnants of the
bread and cheese his girl, Anna, had made for him. Langarotti stropped his knife
blade a little sharper. Shannon gazed at the stars and whistled softly.
18
There is no great technical difficulty in running an illegal consignment across the
Belgian-French border in either direction, and that includes a quantity of blackmarket
arms.
Between the sea at La Panne and the junction with Luxembourg near Longwy,
this border sprawls for miles, and most of it in the southeast corner is through
heavily wooded hunting country. Here the border is crossed by scores of side roads
and tracks through the forest, and by no means all of them are manned.
Both governments seek to establish some kind of control, using what they call
douanes volantes, or flying customs. These are units of customs men who pick a
track or side road at random and set up a border post. At the existing customs
points, one may reasonably assume that one vehicle in ten is likely to be stopped
and examined. On the unmanned roads, if the flying customs on either side happen
to be sitting there for the day, every vehicle going through gets a check. One can
take one's choice.
The third alternative is to pick a road where there is definitely no customs post
set up, and drive straight through. This method of running cargoes through the
frontier is particularly favored by the smugglers of French champagne, who see no
reason why this drink
connected with mirth and gaiety should receive the attentions of the very
unhumorous Belgian import duty. As a bar-owner, Marc Vlaminck knew about this
route. It is called the champagne run.
Running south from Namur, the old fortress town of Belgium, following the line of
the river Meuse, one comes first to Dinant, and from here the road runs almost due
south over the border to the French town called Givet. Along this road there is a
finger of French territory that juts upward into Belgium's underbelly, and this
corridor of France is surrounded on three sides by Belgian territory. It is also a
hunting forest and intersected by scores of tracks and paths. The main road from
Dinant to Givet has a customs post on it—in fact, one Belgian post and one French,
set four hundred yards apart but in sight of each other.
Shortly before dawn, Marc got out his maps and briefed Shannon and Jean-
Baptiste on what he needed to be sure of getting across the border unspotted.
When both men understood exactly what was required, they set off in convoy, the
Belgian truck in front, driven by Marc, the other two in the French truck, two
hundred yards behind.
South from Dinant the road is fairly well built up, with a series of villages whose
outskirts almost connect with each other. In the predawn darkness these hamlets
were quiet and obscure. At kilometer six, south of Dinant, there is a side road
leading to the right, and this Marc took. It was the last they saw of the river Meuse.
For four and a half kilometers they ran through undulating country of even-sized,
rounded hills, thickly wooded and covered in the lush leafage of late May. The run
was parallel to the border and into the heart of hunting country. Without warning,
Vlaminck swung his truck off to the left, heading again toward the frontier, and
after three to four hundred yards he pulled to the side. He climbed down and
walked back to the French truck.
"Make it snappy," he said. "I don't want to wait here for long. It's too obvious
where I'm heading for,
with Ostend number plates." He pointed down the road.
"The border is down there at one and a half kilometers exactly. I'll give you
twenty minutes while I pretend to change a tire. Then I get back to Dinant and we
meet at the cafe."
The Corsican nodded and let in the clutch. The drill is, if either the Belgian or
French customs men have set up a flying barricade, the first vehicle stops and
allows itself to be searched. Being clean, it then proceeds south to rejoin the main
road, heads into Givet, turns north, and returns via the fixed customs post to
Dinant. If either customs post is in operation, it cannot return back up the road
within twenty minutes.
At kilometer one and a half, Shannon and Langarotti saw the Belgian post. At
each side of the road a vertical steel upright had been placed, embedded in
concrete. Beside the right-hand one was a small glass-and-wood booth, where the
customs men could shelter while drivers passed their papers through the window. If
it was occupied, there would be a red-and-white striped pole, supported by both
uprights, blocking the road. There was none.
Langarotti cruised slowly past, while Shannon scanned the booth. Not a sign. The
French side was trickier. For half a kilometer the road wound between the flanks of
the hills, lost to sight from the Belgian posts. Then came the French border. No
posts, no booth. Just a parking area on the left, where the French customs car
always parks. There was nothing there. They had been gone five minutes. Shannon
gestured to the Corsican to go around two more corners, but there was nothing in
sight. A glimmer of light showed in the east over the trees.
"Turn her around," snapped Shannon. "Allez."
Langarotti pulled the truck into a tight turn, almost made it, backed up, and was
off toward Belgium like a cork from a bottle of the very best champagne. From then
on, time was precious. They shot past the French parking space, through the
Belgian posts, and less
than a mile later saw the bulk of Marc's waiting truck. Langarotti flashed his
lights, two short, one long, and Marc gunned his engine into life. A second later he
was past them, rating through to France.
Jean-Baptiste turned around more leisurely and followed. If Marc drove fast, he
could be through the danger area within four minutes, even heavily laden with a
ton of cargo. If any customs men hove in sight during the vital five minutes, it was
bad luck. Marc would try to bluff it out, say he had got lost, hope the oil barrels
stood up to a thorough checking.
There were no officials there, even on the second run. South of the French
parking space is a five-kilometer stretch with no turnings. Even here the French
gendarmerie sometimes patrols, but there was nothing that morning. Langarotti
caught up with the Belgian truck and followed it at six hundred feet. After three
miles Marc turned off to the right at another parking area, and for three more miles
wended his way through more back roads until he finally emerged onto a sizable
main road. There was a signpost by the roadside. Shannon saw Marc Vlaminck
wave his arm out of the window and point to it. The sign said GIVET in the direction
from which they had come, and pointed the way they were going with the word
REIMS. A muted cheer came wafting back from the truck in front.
They did the change-over on a hard concrete parking lot next to a truckers' café
just south of Soissons. The two trucks, open-doored, were backed up tight against
each other, and Marc eased the five barrels from the Belgian truck to the French
one. It would have taken Shannon and Langarotti together all their strength, the
more so as the loaded truck was squashed on its springs, so the floors of the two
vehicles were not at the same height. There was a 6-inch step-up to get into the
empty truck. Marc managed it on his own, gripping each barrel at the top in huge
hands and swinging it in arcs while balancing it on its lower rim.
Jean-Baptiste went to the café and returned with a breakfast of long, crisp
baguette loaves, cheese, fruit,
and coffee. Shannon had no knife, so they all used Marc's. Langarotti would
never use his knife for eating. He had his finer feelings. It would dishonor the knife
to use it on orange peel.
Just after ten they set off again. The drill was different. The Belgian truck, being
old and slow, was soon driven into a gravel pit and abandoned, the license plates
and windshield sticker being taken off and thrown into a stream. The truck had
originally been of French make anyway. After that, the three proceeded together.
Langarotti drove. It was legally his truck. He was licensed. If stopped, he would say
he was driving five barrels of lubricating oil south to his friend who owned a farm
and three tractors outside Toulon. The other two were hitchhikers he had picked
up.
They left the Al autoroute, took the peripheral road around Paris, and picked up
the A6 south to Lyon, Avignon, Aix, and Toulon.
Just south of Paris they saw the sign to the right pointing to Orly Airport.
Shannon climbed out, and they shook hands.
"You know what to do?" he asked.
They both nodded.
"Keep her under cover and safe till you get to Toulon."
"Don't worry, no one will find this little baby when I've hidden her," said
Langarotti.
"The Toscana is due in by June first at the latest, maybe before. I'll be with you
before then. You know the rendezvous? Then good luck."
He hefted his bag and walked away as the truck headed south. At the nearby
garage he used the telephone, called a cab from the airport, and was driven there
an hour later. Paying cash, he bought his single ticket to London and was home in
St. John's Wood by sundown. Of his hundred days, he had used up forty-six.
Although he sent Endean a telegram on his arrival home, it was a Sunday, and
twenty-four hours. went
by before Endean called him at the flat. They agreed to meet on Tuesday
morning.
It took him an hour to explain to Endean all that had happened since they last
met. He also explained that he had used up all the money both in the cash sum he
had retained in London and in the Belgian account.
"What's the next stage?" asked Endean.
"I have to return to France within five days at the latest and supervise the
loading of the first section of the cargo onto the Toscana," said Shannon.
"Everything about the shipment is legal except what's in those oil barrels. The four
separate crates of assorted uniforms and webbing should pass without any problem
on board, even if examined by customs. The same goes for the nonmilitary stuff
bought in Hamburg. Everything in that section is the sort of stuff a ship might
normally take on as ship's stores: distress flares, night glasses, and so on.
"The inflatable dinghies and outboard engines are for shipping to Morocco—at
least, that's what the manifest will say. Again, it's perfectly legal. The five oil drums
have to go aboard as ship's stores. The quantity is rather excessive, but there
shouldn't be any problem despite that."
"And it there is?" asked Endean. "If Toulon customs men examine those barrels
too closely?"
"We're busted," said Shannon simply. "The ship impounded, unless the captain
can show he hasn't a clue what was going on. The exporter arrested. The operation
wrecked."
"Bloody expensively," observed Endean.
"What do you expect? The guns have got to go on board somehow. The oil
barrels are about the best possible way. There was always that risk involved."
"You could have bought the submachine guns legally, through Spain," said
Endean.
"I could," Shannon conceded, "but there would then have been a good chance
the order would have been refused. The guns and the ammo together make a
matching pair. That would have looked like a special order to outfit one company of
men—in other words, a small operation. Madrid might have turned it down on those
grounds, or examined the End User Certificate too thoroughly. I could have ordered
the guns from Spain and bought the ammunition on the black. Then I would have
had to smuggle the ammo on board, and it would have been a much bigger
consignment. Either way, there has to be an element of smuggling, and hence of
risk. So if it all goes wrong, it'll be me and my men who go down, not you. You're
protected by a series of cut-outs."
"I still don't like it," snapped Endean.
"What's the matter?" Shannon mocked. "Losing your nerve?"
"No,"
"So cool it. All you have to lose is a bit of money."
Endean was on the verge of telling Shannon just how much he and his employer
stood to lose, but thought better of it. Logic dictated that if the mercenary was
going to face prison, he would be as careful as possible.
They talked finance for another hour. Shannon explained that the payment to
Johann Schlinker in full, and half to Alan Baker, along with the mercenaries' second
months' salary, the £5000 he had transferred to Genoa to fit out the Toscana, and
his own traveling, had emptied the Brugge account.
"Also," he added, "I want the second half of my salary."
"Why now?" asked Endean.
"Because the risks of arrest start next Monday, and I shall not be returning to
London after that. If the ship is loaded without fuss, she sails for Brindisi while I
arrange the pick-up of the Yugoslav arms. After that, Valencia and the Spanish
ammunition. Then we head for the target. If I'm ahead of schedule, I'd prefer to kill
the extra time on the high seas rather than wait in a port. From the moment that
ship has hardware on board, I want her in port as little as possible."
Endean digested the argument. "I'll put it to my associates," he said.
"I want the stuff in my Swiss account before the weekend," countered Shannon,
"and the rest of the agreed budget transferred to Brugge."
They worked out that, with Shannon's salary paid in full, there would be £20,000
of the original money left in Switzerland. Shannon explained why he needed it all.
"From now on I need a wad of big-denomination travelers' checks in United
States dollars on me all the time. If anything goes wrong from now, it can only be
of a nature where a fat bribe on the spot might sort out the problem. I want to tidy
up all the remaining traces, so that, if we all get the chop, there are no clues left.
Also, I may need to make cash bonuses on the spot to the ship's crewmen to
persuade them to go ahead when they find out what the job really is, as they must
when we are at sea. With the last half-payment for the Yugoslav arms still to come,
I could need up to twenty thousand."
Endean agreed to report all this to "his associates" and let Shannon know.
The following day he rang back to say that both transfers of the money had been
authorized and the letter instructing the Swiss bank had been sent.
Shannon reserved his ticket from London to Brussels for the following Friday, and
a Saturday morning flight from Brussels to Paris to Marseilles.
He spent that night with Julie, and Thursday as well, and Thursday night. Then
he packed his bags, mailed the flat keys with an explanatory letter to the agents,
and left. Julie drove him to the airport in her red MGB.
"When are you coming back?" she asked him as they stood outside the
"Departing Passengers Only" entrance to the customs area of Number Two Building.
"I won't be coming back," he said and gave her a kiss.
"Then let me come with you."
"No."
"You will come back. I haven't asked where you
are going, but I know it has to be dangerous. It's not just business, not ordinary
business. But you will come back. You must."
"I won't be coming back," he said quietly. "Go find someone else, Julie."
She began to sniffle. "I don't want anybody else. I love you. You don't love me.
That's why you're saying you won't see me again. You've got another woman, that's
what it is. You're going to see another woman—"
"There's no other woman," he said, stroking her hair. An airport policeman looked
discreetly away. Tears in the departure lounge are not uncommon anywhere. There
would be, Shannon knew, no other woman in his arms. Just a gun, the cool,
comforting caress of the blued steel against his chest in the night. She was still
crying when he kissed her on the forehead and. walked through into Passport
Control.
Thirty minutes later the Sabena jet made its last turn over South London and
headed for its home in Brussels. Below the starboard wing, the country of Kent was
spread out in the sunshine. Weatherwise, it had been a beautiful month of May.
From the portholes one could see the acres of blossom where the apple, pear, and
cherry orchards covered the land in pink and white.
Along the lanes that trickle through the heart of the Weald, the Maythorn would
be out, the horse-chestnut trees glowing with green and white, the pigeons
clattering among the oaks. He knew the country well from the time years ago when
he had been stationed at Chatham and had bought an old motorcycle to explore the
ancient country pubs between Lamberhurst and Smar-den. Good country, good
country to settle down in, if you were the settling type.
Ten minutes later, one of the passengers farther back summoned the stewardess
to complain that someone up front was whistling a monotonous little tune.
It took Cat Shannon two hours on Friday afternoon to withdraw the money
transferred from Switzerland
and close his account. He took two certified bank checks, each for £ 5000, which
could be converted into a bank account somewhere else, and from that into more
travelers' checks; and the other £10,000 in fifty $500 checks that needed only
countersignature to be used as cash.
He spent that night in Brussels and flew the next morning to Paris and Marseilles.
A taxi from the airport brought him to the small hotel in the outskirts where
Langarotti had once lived under the name of Lavallon, and where Janni Dupree, still
following orders, was in residence. He was out at the time, so Shannon waited until
he returned that evening, and together they drove, in a hired car Shannon had
engaged, to Toulon. It was the end of Day Fifty-two, and the sprawling French
naval port was bathed in warm sunshine.
On Sunday the shipping agent's office was not open, but it did not matter. The
rendezvous spot was the pavement in front of it, and here Shannon and Dupree
met Marc Vlaminck and Langarotti on the dot of nine o'clock. It was the first time
they had been together for weeks, and only Semmler was missing. He should be a
hundred miles or so along the coast, steaming offshore in the Toscana toward
Toulon.
At Shannon's suggestion, Langarotti telephoned the harbormaster's office from a
nearby cafe and ascertained that the Toscana's agents in Genoa had cabled that
she was due in on Monday morning and that her berth was reserved.
There was nothing more to do that day, so they went in Shannon's car along the
coast road toward Marseilles and spent the day at the cobbled fishing port of
Sanary. Despite the heat and the holiday atmosphere of the picturesque little town,
Shannon could not relax. Only Dupree bought himself a pair of swimming trunks
and dived off the end of the jetty of the yacht harbor. He said later the water was
still damn cold. It would
warm up later, through June and July, when the tourists began to pour south
from Paris. By then they would all be preparing to strike at another harbor town,
not much larger and many miles away.
Shannon sat for most of the day with the Belgian and Corsican on the terrace of
Charley's bar, the Pot d'Etain, soaking up the sunshine and thinking of the next
morning. The Yugoslav or the Spanish shipment might not turn up, or might be
late, or might be blocked for some as yet unknown bureaucratic reason, but there
would be no reason for them to be arrested in Yugoslavia or Spain. They might be
held for a few days while the boat was searched, but that would be all. The
following morning was different. If anyone insisted on peering deep into those oil
barrels, there would be months, maybe years, spent sweating in Les Baumettes, the
great forbidding fortress prison he had passed on Saturday as he drove from
Marseilles to Toulon.
The waiting was always the worst, he reflected as he settled the bill and called
his three colleagues to the car.
It turned out to be smoother than they thought. Toulon is known as an enormous
navy base, and the skyline at the harbor is dominated by the superstructures of the
French navy warships lying at anchor. The center of attraction for the tourists and
the strollers of Toulon that Monday was the battle cruiser Jean Bart, home from a
voyage to the French Caribbean territories, full of sailors with back pay to spend
and looking for girls.
Along the broad sweep of esplanade fronting the harbor, the cafes were full of
people indulging in the favorite pastime of every Mediterranean country— watching
life go by. They sat in brightly colored hordes, gazing from the shaded awnings
across the half-mile of bobbing yachts—from little outboard-powered runabouts to
the sleek sea greyhounds of the very rich.
Up against the eastward quay were the dozen fishing boats that had elected not
to go to sea, and behind
these were the long, low customs sheds, warehouses, and harbor offices.
It was beyond these, in the small and hardly observed commercial port, that the
Toscana slipped into her berth just before noon.
Shannon waited till she was tied up, and from his seat on a bollard 150 feet away
he could see Semmler and Waldenberg moving about the decks. There was no sign
of the Serbian engineer, who was probably still in his beloved engine room, but two
other figures were also on deck, making fast and coiling ropes. These had to be the
two new crewmen recruited by Waldenberg.
A small Renault buzzed along the quay and came to a halt by the gangway. A
rotund Frenchman in a dark suit emerged and went aboard the Toscana. The
representative of Agence Maritime Duphot. Before long he came back down,
followed by Waldenberg, and the two strolled over to the customs shed. It was
nearly an hour before the two men emerged, the shipping agent to return to his car
and drive away into town, the German captain to get back to his ship.
Shannon gave them another thirty minutes, then he too strolled up the gangway
and onto the Toscana. Semmler beckoned him into the companionway that led
down to the crew's saloon.
"So, what's been going on?" Shannon asked when he and Semmler were seated
below.
Semmler grinned. "All smooth and easy," he said. "I got the papers changed to
show the new captain, had a complete engine service done, bought an
unnecessarily large amount of blankets and a dozen foam-rubber mattresses. No
one asked any questions, and the captain still thinks we are going to run
immigrants into Britain.
"I used the Toscana's usual shipping agent in Genoa to book us in here, and the
manifest says we are taking on a mixed cargo of sporting goods and leisure
equipment for a holiday camp on the coast of Morocco."
"What about the engine-lubricating oil?"
Semmler grinned. "It was all ordered; then I called
up and canceled it. When it didn't arrive, Waldenberg wanted to delay for a day
and wait for it. I vetoed that and said we would get it here in Toulon."
"Fine," said Shannon. "Don't let Waldenberg order it. Tell him you've done it
yourself. Then when it arrives, he'll be expecting it. That man who came on
board..."
"The shipping agent. He has all the stuff still in bond, and the papers prepared.
He's sending it down this afternoon in a couple of trucks. The crates are so small
we can load them ourselves with the derrick."
"Good. Let him and Waldenberg sort out the paperwork. An hour after the stuff is
all aboard, the fuel-company truck will arrive with the oil. Driven by Langarotti. You
have enough money left to pay for it?"
"Yes."
"Then pay for it in full, cash, and get a signed receipt. Just make sure no one
bangs it about too hard as it goes aboard. The last thing we need is for the bottom
of one of the barrels to fall out. The quay will be waist-deep in Schmeissers."
"When do the men come aboard?"
"Tonight after dark. One by one. Just Marc and Janni. I'm leaving Jean-Baptiste
here for a while. He has the truck, and there's one more job to be done at this end.
When can you sail?"
"Any time. Tonight. I can fix it. Actually, it's rather nice being the managing
director."
"Don't get too accustomed to it. It's only a front."
"Okay, Cat. Incidentally, where are we going when we leave?"
"Brindisil Know it?"
"Sure I know it. I've run more cigarettes into Italy from Yugoslavia than you've
had hot dinners. What do we pick up there?"
"Nothing. You wait for my telegram. I'll be in Germany. I'll cable you through the
port office at Brindisi with the next destination and the day you have to arrive. Then
you must get a local agent to cable the
Yugoslav port in question and reserve a berth. Are you okay to go to Yugoslavia?"
"I think so. Anyway, I won't get off the ship. We pick up more arms?"
"Yes. At least, that's the plan. I just have to hope my arms dealer and the
Yugoslav officials have not cocked it up. Do you have all the charts you need?"
"Yes, I bought them all in Genoa as you told me. You know, Waldenberg will
have to realize what we are taking on board in Yugoslavia. Then he'll know we
aren't running illegal immigrants. He accepts the speedboats and the engines, the
walkie-talkies and the clothing as quite normal, but arms are something else again."
"I know," said Shannon. "It will cost a bit of money. But I think he'll get the
message. There'll be you and me, Janni and Marc on board. Besides, by then we
can tell him what's in the oil drums. He'll be so far in by then, he'll have to go
along. What are the two new crewmen like?"
Semmler nodded and stubbed out his fifth cigarette. The air was a blue haze in
the small saloon. "Good. Two Italians. Hard boys, but obedient. I think they're both
wanted by the carabinieri for something. They were so pleased to get on board and
under cover. They couldn't wait to get to sea."
"Fine. Then they won't want to be put ashore in a foreign country. That would
mean they'd be picked up without papers and repatriated, straight into the hands of
their own police."
Waldenberg had done well. Shannon met both men briefly, and short nods were
exchanged. Semmler simply introduced him as a man from the head office, and
Waldenberg translated. The men, Norbiatto, the first mate, and Cipriani, the
deckhand, evinced no further interest. Shannon exchanged a few instructions with
Waldenberg and left.
In midafternoon the two vans from Agence Maritime Duphot rolled to a stop by
the Toscana, accompanied by the same man who had appeared that morning. A
French customs officer, clipboard in hand, emerged from the customs house and
stood by as the crates were swung inboard by the ship's derrick: four crates of
assorted rough clothing, belts, boots, and caps, for the Moroccan workers at the
holiday village; three crated large-size inflatable dinghies for sporting and leisure
purposes; three outboard engines for same; two crates assorted flares, binoculars,
ship's gas-powered foghorn, radio parts, and magnetic compasses. The last crates
were listed under ship's stores.
The customs officer ticked them off as they went aboard, and confirmed with the
shipping agent that they were either bonded for re-export, having arrived from
Germany or Britain, or they were locally bought and carried no export duty. The
customs man did not even look inside the crates. He knew the agency well, dealing
with them every day.
When all was aboard, the customs man stamped the ship's cargo manifest.
Waldenberg said something to Semmler in German, and the latter translated. He
explained to the agency man that Waldenberg needed lubricating oil for his
engines. It had been ordered in Genoa but had not been delivered in tune.
The agency man noted in his book. "How much do you need?"
"Five drums," said Semmler. Waldenberg did not understand the French.
"That's a lot," said the agent.
Semmler laughed. "This old bucket uses as much oil as Diesel. Besides, we might
as well get it here and have enough for a long time to come."
"When do you need it?" asked the agent.
"Five o'clock this afternoon be all right?" asked Semmler.
"Make it six," said the agency man, noting the type and quantity in his notebook,
along with the hour of delivery. He looked up at the customs man. The official
nodded. He was uninterested and strolled away. Shortly after, the agency man left
in his car, followed by the two trucks.
At five o'clock Semmler left the Toscana, went to a phone in a caf6 on the
waterfront, rang the agency, and canceled the oil order. The skipper, he said, had
discovered a full barrel at the rear of the stores locker and would not be needing
any more for several weeks. The agency man was disgruntled but agreed.
At six a truck drove carefully along the quay and stopped opposite the Toscana.
It was driven by Jean-Baptiste Langarotti in a bright green overall suit with the
word Castrol on the back.
After opening the back of the truck, he carefully rolled five large oil drums down
the plank he had fitted to the rear step. From the window of the customs house the
duty officer peered out.
Waldenberg caught his eye and waved. He pointed to the barrels and back to his
ship.
"Okay?" he called, adding with a thick accent, "Ça va?"
From the window the customs man nodded and withdrew to make a note on his
clipboard. At Waldenberg's orders, the two Italian crewmen slipped cradles under
the barrels and, one by one, winched them aboard. Semmler was uncommonly
eager to help, steadying the drums as they swung over the ship's rail, shouting in
German to Waldenberg on the winch to let them down easily. They slid out of sight
into the dark, cool hold of the Toscana, and soon the hatch was back in place and
clamped down.
Langarotti, having made his dispatch, had long since left in his truck. A few
minutes later the overall suit was at the bottom of a waste bin in the heart of town.
From his bollard at the other end of the quay, Shannon had watched the loading
with bated breath. He would have preferred to be involved, like Semmler, for the
waiting was almost physically painful, worse than going into action.
When it was over, things quieted down on the Toscana. The captain and his
three men were below decks, the engineer having taken one turn of the ship to
sniff the salt air and then having gone back to his
Diesel fumes. Semmler gave them half an hour, then slipped down to the" quay
and came to join Shannon. They met around three corners and out of sight of the
harbor.
Semmler was grinning. "I told you. No problems."
Shannon nodded and grinned back with relief. He knew better than Semmler
what was at stake, and, unlike the German, he was not familiar with port
procedures.
"When can you take the men aboard?"
"The customs office closes at nine. They should come between twelve and one in
the morning. We sail at five. It's fixed."
"Good," said Shannon. "Let's go and find them and have a drink. I want you back
there quickly in case there are any inquiries still to come."
"There won't be."
"Never mind. We'll play safe. I want you to watch that cargo like a mother hen.
Don't let anyone near those barrels till I say so, and that will be in a harbor in
Yugoslavia. Then we tell Waldenberg what he's carrying."
They met the other three mercenaries at a prearranged cafe and had several
beers to cool down. The sun was setting, and the sea within the vast bowl of land
that forms the anchorage and roads of Toulon was ruffled by only a slight breeze. A
few sailboats pirouetted like ballerinas far out on the stage as their crews brought
them about to catch the next gust.
Semmler left them at eight and returned to the Tos cana.
Janni Dupree and Marc Vlaminck slipped quietly aboard between midnight and
one, and at five, watched from the quay by Shannon and Langarotti, the Toscana
slipped back to the sea.
Langarotti ran Shannon to the airport in midmorning to catch his plane. Over
breakfast Shannon had given the Corsican his last set of instructions and enough
money to carry them out.
"I'd prefer to be going with you," Jean-Baptiste said, "or with the ship."
"I know," said Shannon. "But I need someone good to do this part of it. It's vital.
Without it we can't go through. I need someone reliable, and you have the added
advantage of being French. Besides, you know two of the men well, and one speaks
a smattering of French. Janni couldn't go in there with a South African passport.
Marc I need to intimidate the crew if they cut up rough. I know you're better with a
knife than he is with his hands, but I don't want a fight, just enough to persuade
the crew to do what they're told. And I need Kurt to check the navigation, in case
Waldenberg chickens out. In fact, if the worst comes to the worst and Waldenberg
goes over the side, Kurt has to skipper the ship. So it has to be you."
Langarotti agreed to go on the mission. "They're good boys," he said with a little
more enthusiasm. "It will be good to see them again."
When they parted at the airport, Shannon reminded him, "It can all fall through if
we get there and we have no back-up force. So it depends on you to do it right. It's
all set up. Just do what I said and cope with the small problems as they arise. I'll
see you in a month."
He left the Corsican, walked through customs, and boarded his plane for Paris
and Hamburg.
19
"My information is that you can pick up the mortars and bazookas any time after
June tenth, and that was reconfirmed yesterday by Telex," Alan Baker told Shannon
the day after his arrival in Hamburg.
"What port?" asked Shannon.
"Ploce."
"Where?"
"Ploce. Spelled P-L-O-C-E, pronounced Plochay. It's a small port almost exactly
halfway between Split and Dubrovnik."
Shannon thought. He had ordered Semmler while in Genoa to pick up the
necessary sea charts to cover the whole Yugoslav coast, but he had supposed the
pick-up would be at one of the larger ports. He hoped the German had a chart
covering the sea approaches to Ploce, or could get one at Brindisi.
"How small?"
"Quite small. Very discreet. Half a dozen wharves and two large warehouses. The
Yugoslavs usually use it for their arms exports. The last shipment out of Yugoslavia
I did by plane, but I was told at that time if it was to be by sea, it would be from
Ploce. It's better if it's a small port. There's usually a berth, and loading facilities are
quicker. Moreover, the customs there must be a very small unit, probably with one
lowly
man in charge, and if he gets his present, he'll see everything on board within a
few hours."
"Okay, Ploce. On June eleventh," said Shannon.
Baker noted the date. "The Toscana is okay?" he asked. He decided to bear the
Toscana in mind for later use. Shannon, he was sure, would have little use for her
after whatever operation he was mounting was finished, and Baker was always on
the lookout for a good boat for running his cargoes into deserted coves.
"She's fine," said Shannon. "She's running for an Italian port now, where I have
to let her know by Telex or letter where to head for. Any problems at your end?"
Baker shifted slightly. "One," he said. "The price."
"What about it?"
"I know I quoted you fixed prices, totaling fourteen thousand, four hundred
dollars. But the system inside Yugoslavia has changed over the past six months. To
get the paperwork through on time, I had to engage a Yugoslav partner. At least,
that's what he is called, though in fact he's another middleman."
"So?" asked Shannon.
"So he has to get a fee or salary for getting the paperwork through the Belgrade
office. On balance, I supposed it was worth it to you to have the shipment ready on
tune and no bureaucratic hang-ups. So I agreed to engage him. He's the brother-inlaw
of the official in the Trade Ministry. It's another way of taking a kickback. But
what can you expect these days? The Balkans are still the Balkans, and they've got
wised up."
"How much extra will he cost?"
"A thousand pounds sterling."
"In dinars or dollars?"
"In dollars."
Shannon thought it over. It might be the truth, or it might be that Baker was
trying to squeeze a bit more out of him. If it was the truth, refusing to pay would
simply force Baker to pay the Yugoslav out of his own cut. That would reduce
Baker's margin to such a small amount he might lose interest in the deal, not caring
whether it went through or not. And he still needed Baker, and would need him
until he saw the white wake of the Toscana heading out of Ploce harbor on her way
to Spain.
"All right," he said. "Who is this partner?"
"Fellow called Ziljak. He's out there now, taking care of the shipment right up to
Ploce and into the warehouse there. When the ship comes in, he'll get the stuff
from the warehouse through customs and onto the boat."
"I thought that was your job."
"It is, but now I have to engage a Yugoslav as partner. Honestly, Cat, they left
me no alternative."
"Then I'll pay him personally, in travelers' checks."
"I wouldn't," said Baker.
"Why not?"
"The buyers of this shipment are supposed to be the government of Togo, right?
Black men. Another white turns up, obviously the paymaster, and they might begin
to smell a rat. We can go to Ploce, if you like, or I can go alone. But if you want to
come with me, you'll have to come ostensibly as my assistant. Besides, travelers'
checks have to be cashed at a bank, and in Yugoslavia that means they take the
man's name and identity-card number. If someone cashing them is a Yugoslav,
there are questions asked. It would be better if Ziljak got cash, as he has asked."
"All right, I'll cash some checks here in Hamburg, and I'll pay him in dollar bills,"
said Shannon. "But you get yours in checks. I'm not carrying vast sums of dollars in
cash around. Not to Yugoslavia. They get sensitive about that sort of thing. Security
gets interested. They think you're funding a spy operation. So we go as tourists
with travelers' checks."
"Fine by me," said Baker. "When do you want to go?"
Shannon glanced at his watch. The next day would be June 1.
"Day after tomorrow," he said. "We'll fly to Dubrovnik
and have a week in the sun. I could do with a rest anyway. Or you can join
me on the eighth or ninth, but not a day later. I'll hire a car, and we can drive up
the coast to Ploce on the tenth. I'll have the Toscana come in that night or early on
the morning of the eleventh."
"You go on alone," said Baker. "I have work to do in Hamburg. I'll join you on the
eighth."
"Without fail," said Shannon. "If you don't turn up, I'll come looking. And I'll be
hopping mad."
"I'll come," said Baker. "I still want the balance of my money, don't forget. So far,
I'm out of pocket on this deal. I want it to go through just as much as you."
That was the way Shannon wanted him to feel.
"You do have the money, I suppose?" asked Baker, fingering a lump of sugar.
Shannon flicked through a booklet of large-denomination dollar checks under
Baker's nose. The arms dealer smiled.
They left the table and on the way out used the restaurant telephone to call a
Hamburg charter company specializing in package tours for the thousands of
Germans who vacation along the Adriatic coast. From this company they learned
the names of the three best hotels in the Yugoslav resort. Baker was told he would
find Shannon in one of them under the name of Keith Brown.
Johann Schlinker was as confident as Baker that he could fulfill his arms deal,
though he had no idea that Baker was also doing business with Shannon. No doubt
the men knew of each other, might even be acquainted, but there would not be a
question of discussing each other's business together.
"The port should be Valencia, though this has yet to be fixed and is in any case
the choice of the Spanish authorities," he told Shannon. "Madrid tells me the dates
have to be between the sixteenth and twentieth of June."
"I'd prefer the twentieth for loading," said Shannon.
"The Toscana should be permitted to berth on or during the night of the
nineteenth and load in the morning."
"Good," said Schlinker. "I'll inform my Madrid partner. He habitually handles the
transporting and loading side of things, and employs a first-class freight agent in
Valencia who knows all the customs personnel very well. There should be no
problem."
"There must be no problem," growled Shannon. "The ship has been delayed
already once, and by loading on the twentieth I have enough sailing time but no
margin to fulfill my own contract."
It was not true, but he saw no reason why Schlinker should not believe it was
true.
"I shall want to watch the loading also," he told the arms dealer.
Schlinker pursed his lips. "You may watch it from afar, of course," he said. "I
cannot stop you. But as the customers are supposed to be an Arab government,
you cannot propose yourself as the buyer of the merchandise."
"I also want to board the ship at Valencia," said Shannon.
"That will be even harder. The whole port is sealed off inside a chain-link fence.
Entry is by authority only. To board the ship you would have to go through passport
control. Also, as she will be carrying ammunition, there will be a Guardia Civil at the
bottom of the gangplank."
"Supposing the captain needed another crewman. Could he engage a seaman
locally?"
Schlinker thought it over. "I suppose so. Are you connected with the company
owning the vessel?"
"Not on paper," said Shannon.
"If the captain informed the agent on arrival that he had permitted one of his
crewmen to leave the vessel at its last port of call to fly home and attend his
mother's funeral, and that the "crewman would be rejoining the vessel at Valencia,
I suppose there would be
no objection. But you would need a merchant seaman's card to prove you were a
seaman. And in the same name as yourself, Mr. Brown."
Shannon thought for a few minutes. "Okay. I'll fix it."
Schlinker consulted his diary. "As it happens, I shall be in Madrid on the
nineteenth and twentieth," he said. "I have another business deal to attend to. I
shall be at the Mindanao Hotel. If you want to contact me, you can find me there. If
loading is for the twentieth, the chances are the convoy and escort from the
Spanish army will run the shipment down to the coast during the night of the
nineteenth to arrive at crack of dawn. If you are going to board the ship at all, I
think you should do so before the military convoy arrives at the docks."
"I could be in Madrid on the nineteenth," said Shannon. "Then I could check with
you that the convoy had indeed left on time. By driving fast to Valencia, I could be
there ahead of it, and board the Toscana as the rejoining seaman before the
convoy arrives."
"That is entirely up to you," said Schlinker. "For my part, I will have my agents
arrange the freighting, transportation, and loading, according to all the normal
procedures, for dawn of the twentieth. That is what I contracted to do. If there is
any risk attached to your boarding the vessel in harbor, that must be your affair. I
cannot take the responsibility for that. I can only point out that ships carrying arms
out of Spain are subjected to scrutiny by the army and customs authorities. If
anything goes wrong with the loading and ' clearance of the ship to sail, because of
you, that is not my responsibility. One other thing. After loading arms a ship must
leave a Spanish port within six hours, and may not re-enter Spanish waters until the
cargo has been offloaded. Also, the manifest must be in perfect order."
"It will be," said Shannon. "I'll be with you in Madrid on the morning of the
nineteenth."
Before leaving Toulon, Kurt Semmler had given Shannon a letter to mail. It was
from Semmler to the Toscana's shipping agents in Genoa. It informed them there
had been a slight change of plan, and that the Toscana would be proceeding from
Toulon not directly to Morocco but first to Brindisi to pick up further cargo. The
order, Semmler informed the agents, had been secured locally by him in Toulon and
was lucrative, since it was a rush order, whereas the consignment of mixed cargo
from Toulon to Morocco was in no hurry. As managing director of Spinetti Maritime,
Semmler's instructions were those of the boss. He required the Genoa agents to
cable Brindisi reserving a berth for June 7 and 8, and to instruct the port office to
hold any mail addressed to the Toscana for collection when she berthed.
Such a letter was what Shannon wrote and dispatched from Hamburg. It was to
Signor Kurt Semmler, MV Toscana, c/o the Port Office, Brindisi, Italy.
In it he told Semmler that from Brindisi he should proceed to Ploce on the
Adriatic coast of Yugoslavia, and that if he had no charts to negotiate the tricky
straits north of Korcula Island, he should get them locally. He had to get the
Toscana there on the evening of June 10, and his berth would be reserved. There
was no need to inform the agents in Genoa of the extra leg from Brindisi to Ploce.
His last instruction to Semmler was important. He told the German ex-smuggler
he wanted him to acquire a merchant seaman's card for a deckhand called Keith
Brown, stamped and up to date, and issued by the Italian authorities. The second
thing the ship would need was a cargo manifest showing the Toscana had
proceeded straight from Brindisi to Valencia without a halt, and would be heading
from Valencia to Latakia, Syria, after taking cargo aboard in Valencia. Semmler
would have to use his old Brindisi contacts to obtain these documents.
Before he left Hamburg for Yugoslavia, Shannon's
last letter was to Simon Endean in London. It required Endean to meet Shannon
at a rendezvous in Rome on June 16, and to bring certain maritime charts with him.
About the same time, the MV Toscana was chugging steadily through the Bight of
Bonifacio, the narrow channel of limpid blue water that separates the southern tip
of Corsica from the northern end of Sardinia. The sun was blistering, but mellowed
by a light wind. Marc Vlaminck was stretched out, stripped to the waist, on the
hatch cover of the main hold, a wet towel beneath him, his torso like a pink
hippopotamus covered in suntan oil. Janni Dupree, who always turned brick red in
the sun, was propped up against the wall of the after structure, under the awning,
swigging from his tenth bottle of beer of the morning. Cipriani, the deckhand, was
painting part of the rail around the forepeak white, and the first mate, Norbiatto,
was snoozing on his bunk below after taking the night watch.
Also down below, in the stinking heat of the engine room, was the engineer,
Grubic, oiling some piece of machinery that only he could understand but which no
doubt was vital to keep the Toscana steady on her eight knots through the
Mediterranean. In the wheel-house Kurt Semmler and Carl Waldenberg were
sipping cold beer and exchanging reminiscences of their respective careers.
Jean-Baptiste Langarotti would have liked to be there. From the port rail he could
have watched the gray-white sunbleached coast of his homeland slipping past
barely four miles across the water. But he was many miles away, in West Africa,
where the rainy season had already begun and where, despite the fever heat, the
clouds were leaden gray.
Alan Baker came into Shannon's hotel in Dubrovnik just as the mercenary was
returning from the beach on the evening of June 8. He looked tired and dusty.
Cat Shannon, by contrast, was looking and feeling
better. He had spent his week in the Yugoslav holiday resort behaving like any
other tourist, sunbathing and swimming several miles each day. He looked thinner,
but fit and tanned. He was also optimistic.
After settling into his hotel, he had sent Semmler a cable at Brindisi requesting
confirmation of the arrival of the vessel and receipt of the waiting letter mailed from
Hamburg. That morning he had got Semmler's telegraphed reply. The Toscana had
arrived safely in Brindisi, the letter had been received and acted on, and they would
depart on the morning of June 9 to make destination by midnight of the tenth.
Over drinks on the terrace of their hotel, where Shannon had reserved Baker a
room for the night, he told the dealer from Hamburg the news.
Baker nodded and smiled. "Fine. I got a cable forty-eight hours ago from Ziljak in
Belgrade. The crates have arrived in Ploce and are in the government warehouse
near the quay, under guard."
They spent the night in Dubrovnik and the following morning hired a taxi to take
them the hundred kilometers up the coast to Ploce. It was a boneshaker of a car
that appeared to have square wheels and cast-iron suspension, but the drive along
the coast road was agreeable, mile upon mile of unspoiled coastline, with the small
town of Slano at the halfway mark, where they stopped for a cup of coffee and to
stretch their limbs.
They were established in a Ploce hotel by lunchtime and waited in the shade of
the terrace until the port office opened again at four in the afternoon.
The port was set on a broad sweep of deep blue water, shielded to its seaward
side by a long peninsula of land called Peliesac, which curved out of the mam coast
to the south of Ploce and ran northward parallel to the coast. Up to the north the
gap between the tip of the peninsula and the coast was almost blocked by the
rocky island of Hvar, and only a narrow gap gave access to the sea lagoon on which
Ploce stood. This lagoon, nearly thirty miles long, surrounded on ninetenths
of its perimeter by land, was a paradise for swimming, fishing, and sailing.
As they approached the port office, a small and battered Volkswagen squealed to
a halt a few yards away and hooted noisily. Shannon froze. His first instinct said
trouble, something he had been fearing all along, some slip-up in the paperwork, a
sudden block put on the whole deal by the authorities, and an extended stay under
questioning in the local police station.
The man who climbed out of the small car and waved cheerily might have been a
policeman, except that police in most totalitarian states of East or West seemed to
be banned from smiling by standing orders. Shannon glanced at Baker and saw his
shoulders sag in relief.
"Ziljak," Baker muttered through closed mouth and went to meet the Yugoslav.
The latter was a big shaggy man, like an amiable black-haired bear, and he
embraced Baker with both arms. When he was introduced, his first name turned out
to be Kemal, and Shannon supposed there was more than a touch of Turk in the
man. That suited Shannon fine; he liked the type, normally good fighters and
comrades with a healthy dislike of bureaucracy.
"My assistant," said Baker, and Ziljak shook hands and muttered something in
what Shannon assumed to be Serbo-Croat. Baker and Ziljak communicated in
German, which many Yugoslavians speak a little. He spoke no English.
With Ziljak's assistance, they roused the head of the customs office and were
taken off to inspect the warehouse. The customs man jabbered a few words at the
guard on the door, and in the corner of the building they found the crates. There
were thirteen of them; one apparently contained the two bazookas, and each of
two others contained one mortar, including the baseplates and sighting mechanisms
in each. The rest were of ammunition, four of them with ten bazooka rockets in
each, and the other six containing the ordered three hundred mortar bombs. The
crates were in new timber,
unmarked with any description of contents, but stenciled with serial numbers
and the word Toscana.
Ziljak and the customs chief babbled away in their own dialect—and it appeared
they were using the same one, which was helpful, because there are dozens in
Yugoslavia, including seven major languages, and difficulties have been known to
occur.
Eventually Ziljak turned to Baker and said several sentences in his halting
German. Baker replied, and Ziljak translated for the customs man. He smiled, and
they all shook hands and parted. Outside, the sunshine struck like a sledgehammer.
"What was all that about?" asked Shannon.
"Kemal was asked by the customs man if there was a little present in it for him,"
explained Baker. "Kemal told him there would be a nice one if the paperwork could
be kept trouble-free and the ship was loaded on time tomorrow morning."
Shannon had already given Baker the first half of Ziljak's £1000 bonus for helping
the deal go through, and Baker drew the Yugoslav to one side to slip it to him. The
man's all-embracing bonhomie became even more embracing for both of them, and
they adjourned to the hotel to celebrate with a little slivovitz. A little was the word
Baker used. Ziljak may have used the same word. He did not mean it. Happy
Yugoslavs never drink a little slivovitz. With £500 under his belt, Ziljak ordered a
bottle of the fiery plum liquor and bowl after bowl of almonds and olives. As the sun
went down and the Adriatic evening slipped through the streets, he relived again
his years in the war, hunting and hiding in the Bosnian hills to the north with Tito's
partisans.
Baker was hard put to it to translate as the exuberant Kemal related his forays
behind Dubrovnik in Montenegro, in the mountains behind where they sat, on the
coast of Herzegovina, and among the cooler, richer, wooded countryside north of
Split in Bosnia. He relished the thought that he would once have been shot
out of hand for venturing into any of the towns where he now drove on behalf of
his brother-in-law who was in the government. Shannon asked if he was a
committed Communist, having been a partisan, and Ziljak listened while Baker
translated, using the word "good" for "committed."
Ziljak thumped his chest with his fist. "Guter Kom munist," he exclaimed, eyes
wide, pointing at himself. Then he ruined the effect by giving a broad wink,
throwing back his head, and roaring with laughter as he tossed another glass of
slivovitz down the hatch. The folded notes of his first £500 bonus made a bulge
under his waistband, and Shannon laughed too and wished the giant was coming
along to Zangaro with them. He was that kind of man.
They had no supper but at midnight wandered unsteadily back to the quay to
watch the Toscana come in. She was rounding the harbor wall and an hour later
was tied up alongside the single quay of hewn local stone. From the forepeak
Semmler looked down in the half-light cast by the dock lamps. Each nodded slowly
at the other, and Waldenberg stood at the top of the gangplank, consulting with his
first mate. He had already been instructed, following Shannon's letter, that he
should leave the talking to Semmler.
After Baker had headed back to the hotel with Ziljak, Shannon slipped up the
gangplank and into the captain's tiny cabin. No one on the quay took any notice.
Semmler brought Waldenberg in, and they locked the door.
Slowly and carefully Shannon told Waldenberg what he had really brought the
Toscana to Ploce to take on board. The German captain took it well. He kept his
face expressionless until Shannon had finished.
"I never carried arms before," he said. "You say this cargo is legal. How legal?"
"Perfectly legal," said Shannon. "It has been bought in Belgrade, trucked up here,
and the authorities are of course aware what the crates contain. Otherwise there
would be no export license. The license has not been forged, nor has anyone
been bribed. It's a perfectly legal shipment under the laws of Yugoslavia."
"And the laws of the country it's going to?" asked Waldenberg.
"The Toscana never enters the waters of the country where these arms are due
to be used," said Shannon. "After Ploce, there are two more ports of call. In each
case only to take on board cargoes. You know ships are never searched for what
they are carrying when they arrive in a port to take on more cargo only, unless the
authorities have been tipped off."
"It has happened, all the same," said Waldenberg. "If I have these things on
board and the manifest doesn't mention them, and there is a search and they are
discovered, the ship gets impounded and I get imprisoned. I didn't bargain on
arms. With the Black September and the IRA about these days, everyone's looking
for arms shipments."
"Not at the port of embarkation of fresh cargo," said Shannon.
"I didn't bargain for arms," repeated Waldenberg.
"You bargained for illegal immigrants to Britain," Shannon pointed out.
"They're not illegal until their feet touch British soil," the captain said. "And the
Toscana would be outside territorial waters. They could go inshore in fast boats.
Arms are different. They are illegal on this ship if the manifest says there aren't
any. Why not put it on the manifest? Just say these arms are being legally
transported from Ploce to Togo. No one can prove we later deviate from course."
"Because if there are arms already on board, the Spanish authorities will not
allow the ship to stay in Valencia or any other Spanish port. Even in transit.
Certainly not to take on more arms. So they have to remain unmentioned on the
manifest."
"So where did we come from to reach Spain?" asked Waldenberg.
"From Brindisi," replied Shannon. "We went there
to take on cargo, but it was not ready in time. Then the owners ordered you to
Valencia to pick up a new cargo for Latakia. Of course you obeyed."
"Supposing the Spanish police search the boat?"
"There's not the slightest reason why they should," said Shannon. "But if they do,
the crates have to be below decks in the bilges."
"If they find them there, there's not a hope for us," Waldenberg pointed out.
"They'd think we were bringing the stuff to the Basque territories. We'd be inside
forever."
The talk went on till three in the morning. It cost Shannon a flat bonus of £5000,
half before loading and half after sailing from Valencia. There was no extra charge
for the stopover in the African port. That would present no problem.
"You'll take care of the crew?" Shannon asked.
"I'll take care of the crew," said Waldenberg with finality. Shannon knew he
would, too.
Back in his hotel, Shannon paid Baker the third quarter of his bill for the arms,
$3600, and tried to get some sleep. It was not easy. The sweat rolled off him in the
heat of the night, and he had an image of the Toscana lying down there in the port,
the arms in the customs shed, and prayed there would be no problems. He felt he
was so close now, just three short ceremonies away from the point where no one
could stop him, whatever was tried.
The loading started at seven, and the sun was already well up. With a customs
man, armed with a rifle, walking beside the crates, they were wheeled on trolleys
down to the dockside, and the Toscana hoisted them aboard with her own jumbo
derrick. None of the crates was very large, and down in the hold Vlaminck and
Cipriani swung them easily into position before they were roped down across the
floor of the hold. By nine in the morning it was over, and the hatches went on.
Waldenberg had ordered the engineer to stand by for casting off, and the latter
needed no second bidding. Shannon learned later he had suddenly become very
voluble when he learned three hours out from Brin disi that they were heading
for his native country. Apparently he was wanted there for something or other. He
stayed well hidden in his engine room, and no one went looking for him.
As he watched the Toscana chugging out of the port, Shannon slipped Baker the
remaining $3600 and the second £500 for Ziljak. Unbeknownst to either, he had
had Vlaminck quietly prise up the lids on five of the crates, taken at random, as
they came aboard. Vlaminck had verified the contents, waved up to Semmler on the
deck above him, and Semmler had blown his nose, the signal Shannon wanted. Just
in case the crates contained scrap iron. It has been known to happen, quite
frequently, in the arms world.
Baker, having received his money, gave the £500 to Ziljak as if it came from
himself, and the Yugoslav saw the customs chief did not go without supper. Then
Alan Baker and his British "assistant" quietly left town.
On Shannon's calendar of a hundred days, given him by Sir James Manson to
bring off his coup, it was Day Sixty-seven.
No sooner was the Toscana out to sea than Captain Waldenberg began to
organize his ship. One by one, the three other crewmen were brought into his cabin
for a quiet interview. Although none of them knew it, had they refused to continue
to serve aboard the Toscana, there would have been some unfortunate accidents
on board. Few places are quite as well suited for a complete disappearing act as a
ship on a dark night at sea, and Vlaminck and Dupree between them could have
pitched anyone else on board a long way from the ship's side before he touched the
water. Perhaps their presence did the trick. In any case, no one objected.
Waldenberg dispensed £1000 of the £2500 he had received in travelers' checks
from Shannon. The Yugoslav engineer, delighted to be back out of his own country,
took his £250, stuffed it into his pocket, and
went back to his engines. He made no comment one way or the other. The first
mate, Norbiatto, became quite excited at the thought of a Spanish jail, but
pocketed his £600 in dollars and thought of the difference that could make to his
chances of owning his own ship one day. The crewman, Cipriani, seemed almost
happy at the prospect of being on a vessel full of contraband, took his £150, said an
ecstatic thank you, and left, muttering, "This is the life." He had little imagination
and knew nothing about Spanish jails.
With this done, the crates were broken open, and all afternoon the contents were
examined, wrapped in polyethylene, and stowed deep in the bilges, below the floor
of the hold and inside the curvature of the ship's hull. The planks which had been
removed to make this possible were replaced and covered with the innocent cargo
of clothing, dinghies, and outboard engines.
Finally Semmler told Waldenberg he had better put the Castrol oil drums at the
back of the stores locker, and when he told his fellow countryman why, Waldenberg
finally did lose his composure. He lost his temper as well and used some
expressions that could best be described as regrettable.
Semmler calmed him down, and they sat having beer as the Toscana plowed her
way south for the Otranto Channel and the Ionian Sea.
Finally Waldenberg began to laugh. "Schmeissers," he said. "Bloody Schmeissers.
Mensch, it's a long tune since they've been heard in the world."
"Well, they're going to be heard again," said Semmler.
Waldenberg looked wistful. "You know," he said at length, "I wish I was going
ashore with you."
20
When Shannon arrived, Simon Endean was reading a copy of The Times bought
that morning in London before he left for Rome. The lounge of the Excelsior Hotel
was almost empty, for most of those taking late-morning coffee were on the
outside terrace watching the chaotic traffic of Rome inch past and trying to make
themselves heard above the noise.
Shannon had picked the place only because it was in easy reach of Dubrovnik to
the east and in line with Madrid to the west. It was the first time he had ever been
to Rome, and he wondered what the ecstatic guide books were talking about. There
were at least seven separate strikes in progress, one of them being among the
garbage workers, and the city stank in the sun from the uncleared fruit and other
rubbish on the pavements and down every back alley.
He eased himself into a seat beside the man from London and savored the cool
of the inner room after the heat and frustration of the taxi in which he had been
stuck for the past hour.
Endean eyed him. "You've been out of touch a long time," he said coldly. "My
associates were beginning to think you had run out. That was unwise."
"There was no point in my making contact until I had something to say. That ship
doesn't exactly fly
across the water. It takes time to get her from Toulon to Yugoslavia, and during
that time there was nothing to report," said Shannon. "By the way, did you bring
the charts?"
"Of course." Endean pointed to the bulging attaché case beside his chair. On
receiving Shannon's letter from Hamburg, he had spent several days visiting three
of the top maritime-chart companies in Leaden-hall Street, London, and in separate
lots had acquired inshore charts for the entire African coast from Casablanca to
Cape Town. "Why the hell do you need so many?" he asked in annoyance. "One or
two would suffice."
"Security," said Shannon briefly. "If you or I were searched at customs, or if the
ship were boarded and searched in port, one single chart showing the area of the
ship's destination would be a giveaway. As it is, no one, including the captain and
crew, can discover which section of the coast really interests me. Until the last
moment, when I have to tell them. Then it's too late. Do you have the slides as
well?"
"Yes, of course."
Another of Endean's jobs had been to make up slides of all the photographs
Shannon had brought back from Zangaro, along with others of the maps and
sketches of Clarence and the rest of Zangaro's coastline.
Shannon himself had already sent a slide projector, bought duty-free at London
airport, onto the Toscana in Toulon.
He gave Endean a complete progress report from the moment he had left
London, mentioning the stay in Brussels, the loading of the Schmeissers and other
equipment onto the Toscana in Toulon, the talks with Schlinker and Baker in
Hamburg, and the Yugoslav shipment a few days earlier in Ploce.
Endean listened in silence, making a few notes for the report he would later have
to give to Sir James Manson. "Where's the Toscana now?" he asked at length.
"She should be south and slightly west of Sardinia, en route for Valencia."
Shannon went on to tell him what was planned in three days' time: the loading of
the 400,000 rounds of 9mm. ammunition for the machine pistols in Valencia, and
then departure for the target. He made no mention of the fact that one of his men
was already in Africa.
"Now there's something I need to know from you," he told Endean. "What
happens after the attack? What happens at dawn? We can't hold on for very long
before some kind of new regime takes over, establishes itself in the palace, and
broadcasts news of the coup and the new government."
"That's all been thought of," said Endean smoothly. "In fact, the new government
is the whole point of the exercise."
From his briefcase he withdrew three sheets of paper covered with close typing.
"These are your instructions, starting the moment you have possession of the
palace and the army and guards have been destroyed or scattered. Read,
memorize, and destroy these sheets before we part company, here in Rome. You
have to carry it all in your head."
Shannon ran his eyes quickly over the first page. There were few surprises for
him. He had already suspected the man Manson was boosting into the presidency
had to be Colonel Bobi, and although the new president was referred to simply as
X, he did not doubt Bobi was the man in question. The rest of the plan was simple
from his point of view.
He glanced up at Endean. "Where will you be?" he asked.
"A hundred miles north of you," said Endean.
Shannon knew Endean meant he would be waiting in the capital of the republic
next door to Zangaro on its northern side, the one with a road route straight along
the coast to the border and thence to Clarence.
"Are you sure you'll pick up my message?" he asked.
"I shall have a portable radio set of considerable
range and power. The Braun, the best they make. It will pick up anything within
that range, provided it's broadcast on the right channel and frequency. A ship's
radio should be powerful enough to send in clear over at least twice that distance."
Shannon nodded and read on. When he had finished, he put the sheets on the
table. "Sounds all right," he said. "But let's get one thing clear. I'll broadcast on that
frequency at those hours from the Toscana, and she'll be hove to somewhere off
the coast, probably at five or six miles. But if you don't hear me, if there's too much
static, I can't be responsible for that. It's up to you to hear me."
"It's up to you to broadcast," said Endean. "The frequency is one that has been
tested before by practical use. From the Toscana's radio it must be picked up by my
radio set at a hundred miles. Not first time, perhaps, but if you repeat for thirty
minutes, I have to hear it."
"All right," said Shannon. "One last thing. The news of what has happened in
Clarence should not have reached the Zangaran border post. That means it'll be
manned by Vindu. It's your business to get past them. After the border, and
particularly nearer Clarence, there may be scattered Vindu on the roads, running for
the bush but still dangerous. Supposing you don't get through?"
"We'll get through," said Endean. "We'll have help."
Shannon supposed, rightly, that this would be provided by the small operation in
mining that he knew Manson had going for him in that republic. For a senior
company executive it could provide a truck or jeep and maybe a couple of repeater
hunting rules. For the first time he supposed Endean might have some guts to back
up his nastiness.
Shannon memorized the code words and the radio frequency he needed and
burned the sheets with En-dean in the men's room. They parted an hour later.
There was nothing else to say.
Five floors above the streets of Madrid, Colonel Antonio Almela, head of the
exporting office of the Spanish Army Ministry (Foreign Arms Sales), sat at his desk
and perused the file of papers in front of him. He was a gray-haired, grizzled man,
a simple man whose loyalties were uncomplicated and uncompromising. His fidelity
was to Spain, his beloved Spain, and for him all that was right and proper, all that
was truly Spanish, was embodied in one man, the short and aged generalissimo
who sat in El Pardo. Antonio Almela was a Falangist to his boot-heels.
Two years from retirement at the age of fifty-eight, he had been one of those
who stepped ashore on the sand of Fuengirola with Francisco Franco many years
ago when El Caudillo of modern Spain had been a rebel and outcast, returning
against orders to launch war against the Republican government in Madrid. They
had been few then, and condemned to death by Madrid, and they had nearly died.
Sergeant Almela was a good soldier. He carried out his orders, whatever they
were, went to mass between the battles and the executions, and believed, deeply,
in God, the Virgin, Spain, and Franco.
In another army, at another time, he would have retired as a sergeant-major. He
emerged from the civil war a full captain, one of the ultras, the inner circle. His
background was solid peasant, his education next to nil. But he had made full
colonel, and he was grateful. He was also trusted with one of the jobs that in Spain
is unmentionable and top secret. No Spaniard ever, under any circumstances, learns
that Spain exports arms in large quantities to almost all comers. Publicly, Spain
regrets the international arms trade as unethical and conducive to further warfare in
a world already torn by war. Privately, she makes a lot of money out of it. Antonio
Almela could be trusted to check the paperwork, decide whether to grant or refuse
permission for export licenses, and keep his mouth shut.
The dossier in front of him had been in his hands for four weeks. Individual
papers from the dossier had
been checked out by the Defense Ministry, which had confirmed, without
knowing why the question was being asked, that 9mm. bullets were not on the
secret list; by the Foreign Ministry, which had confirmed simply that a sum of
money in dollars, paid into a certain account in the Banco Popular, had been
received and cleared.
The top paper on the file was an application for a movement order to shift a
quantity of crates from Madrid to Valencia and export them on a vessel called the
MV Toscana. Beneath this sheet was the export license, granted by his own
signature.
He glanced up at the civil servant in front of him. "Why the change?" he asked.
"Colonel, it is simply that there is no berth available in Valencia port for two
weeks. The place is crowded to capacity."
Colonel Almela grunted. The explanation was plausible. In the summer months
Valencia was always crowded, with millions of oranges from the nearby Gancia area
being exported. But he did not like changes. He liked to play things by the book.
Nor did he like this order. It was small, too small, for an entire national police force.
Target practice alone for a thousand policemen would use it up in an hour. Nor did
he trust Schlinker, whom he knew well and who had slipped the order through his
Ministry with a batch of other orders, including more than ten thousand artillery
shells for Syria.
He glanced through the papers again. Outside, a church bell struck the hour of
one, the hour of lunch. There was still nothing wrong with the papers, including the
End User Certificate. Everything bore the right stamp. If only he could find one
discrepancy, in the certificate, in the carrying ship of the company that owned it.
But everything was clean. Making a final decision, he scrawled his signature across
the bottom of the movement order and handed the file back to the civil servant.
"All right," he growled. "Castellón."
"We've had to change the port of embarkation from Valencia to Castellon," said
Johann Schlinker two nights later. "There was no choice if the loading date of the
twentieth was to be adhered to. Valencia was full for weeks."
Cat Shannon was sitting on the bed in the German arms dealer's room in the
Mindanao Hotel. "Where's Castellon?" he asked.
"Forty miles up the coast. It's a smaller port, and quieter. Probably better than
Valencia for you. The turn-around of your ship is likely to be quicker. The cargo
agent in Valencia has been informed and will personally go north to Castellon to
supervise the loading. As soon as the Toscana checks in with Valencia harbor
authorities by radio, she will be advised of the change of port. She will only have a
couple of hours' extra steaming if she diverts at once."
"What about my going aboard?"
"Well, that's your business," said Schlinker. "However, I have informed the agent
that a seaman from the Toscana who was left behind ten days ago in Brin disi is
due to rejoin, and given him the name of Keith Brown. How are your papers?"
"Fine," said Shannon. "They're in order, passport and merchant seaman's card."
"You'll find the agent at the customs office in Cas-tellón as soon as it opens on
the morning of the twentieth," Schlinker told him. "His name is Señor Moscar."
"What about the Madrid end of things?"
"The movement order provides for the truck to be loaded under army supervision
between eight and midnight on the nineteenth, tomorrow. It will set off with escort
at midnight, timing its arrival at Castellón harbor gates for six a.m., the hour they
open. If the Toscana is on time, she should have docked during the night The truck
carrying the crates is a civilian one, from the same freight firm I always employ.
They're very good and very experienced. I have given the transport manager
instructions to see the convoy depart from the warehouse and to phone me here
immediately."
Shannon nodded. There was nothing he could think of that might go wrong. "I'll
be here," he said, and left.
That afternoon he hired a powerful Mercedes from one of the internationally
known car agencies that have offices in Madrid.
At half past ten the following evening he was back in the Mindanao with Schlinker
while they waited for the telephone call. Both men were nervous, as men must be
when a carefully laid plan rests for its success or catastrophic failure in the hands of
others. Schlinker was as concerned as Shannon but for different reasons. He knew
that, if anything went badly wrong, a complete investigation into the End User
Certificate he had supplied could be ordered, and that certificate would not stand
up to a complete investigation, which must include a check with the Interior
Ministry in Baghdad. If he were exposed on that one, other, and for him far more
lucrative, deals with Madrid would be forfeit. Not for the first time he wished he had
not taken the order in the first place, but, like most arms dealers, he was a man so
greedy that no offer of money could be turned down. It would almost be physical
pain to do it.
Midnight came, and still there was no call. Then half past midnight. Shannon
paced the room, snarling his anger and frustration at the fat German, who sat
drinking whisky. At twelve-forty the phone rang. Schlinker leaped at it. He spoke
several words in Spanish and waited.
"What is it?" snapped Shannon.
"Moment," replied Schlinker and waved his hand for silence. Then someone else
came on the phone and there was more Spanish, which Shannon could not
understand. Finally Schlinker grinned and said, "Gracias," into the phone several
times.
"It's on its way," he said when he put the phone down. "The convoy left the
depot fifteen minutes ago under escort for Castellón."
But Shannon was gone.
The Mercedes was more than a match for the convoy,
even though on the long motorway from Madrid to Valencia the convoy
could keep up a steady 60 miles per hour. It took Shannon forty minutes to find his
way out of the sprawling suburbs of Madrid, and he supposed the convoy would
know the way much better. But on the motorway he could take the Mercedes to
100 mph. He kept a careful eye open as he sped past hundreds of trucks roaring
through the night toward the coast, and found what he was looking for just past
the town of Requena, forty miles west of Valencia.
His lights picked up the army jeep keeping station to a covered 8-ton truck, and
as he swept past he noted the name on the truck's side. It was the name of the
trucking company Schlinker had given him. Driving ahead of the truck was another
army vehicle, a four-door sedan, evidently with an officer sitting alone in the back.
Shannon touched the accelerator, and the Mercedes sped past toward the coast.
At Valencia he took the ring road around the sleeping city, following the signs to
the E26 highway to Barcelona. The motorway ran out just north of Valencia, and he
was back to crawling behind orange trucks and early farm vehicles, past 'the
miraculous Roman fortress of Sagunto, hacked by the legionaries out of the living
rock and later converted by the Moors into a citadel of Islam. He drove into
Castellón just after four and followed the signs labelled PUERTO.
The port of Castellón lies three miles from the main town, down a narrow, arrowstraight
road that leads from the city to the sea. At the end of the road it is
impossible to miss the port and harbor, for there is nothing else there.
As usual with Mediterranean ports, there are three separate harbors, one for
freighters, one for yachts and pleasure craft, and one for fishing vessels. In
Castellón the commercial port lies to the left as one faces the sea, and like all
Spanish ports is ringed by a fence, and the gates are manned day and night by
armed Guardia Civil. In the center lies the harbormaster's
office, and beside it the splendid yacht club, with a dining room looking
out over the commercial port on one side and the yacht basin and fishing harbor on
the other. Landward of the harbor office is a row of warehouses.
Shannon turned to the left and parked the car by the roadside, climbed out, and
started walking. Halfway around the perimeter fence of the port area he found the
main gate, with a sentry dozing in a box beside it. The gate was locked. Farther on,
he peered through the chain-links and with a surge of relief spotted the Toscana
berthed against the far side of the basin. He settled to wait till six o'clock.
He was at the main gate at quarter to six, smiled and nodded at the Guardia Civil
sentry, who stared coldly back. In the rising sunlight he could see the army staff
car, truck, and jeep, with seven or eight soldiers milling around them, parked a
hundred yards away. At 6:10 a civilian car arrived, parked next to the gate, and
sounded its horn. A small, dapper Spaniard climbed out. Shannon approached him.
"Señor Moscar?"
"Si."
"My name's Brown. I'm the seaman who's got to join his ship here."
The Spaniard puckered his brows. "Por favor? Que?"
"Brown," insisted Shannon. "Toscana."
The Spaniard's face lightened. "Ah, sí. El marinero. Come, please."
The gate had been opened, and Moscar showed his pass. He babbled for several
seconds at the guard and the customs man who had opened the gate, and pointed
at Shannon. Cat caught the word marinero several times, and his passport and
merchant seaman's card were examined. Then he followed Moscar to the customs
office. An hour later he was on board the Toscana.
The search started at nine. There was no warning. The captain's manifest had
been presented and
checked out. It was perfectly in order. Down on the quay the truck from Madrid
was parked, along with the car and the jeep. The army escort captain, a thin,
sallow man with a face like a Moor's and a lipless mouth, consulted with two
customs officers. Then the latter came aboard. Moscar followed. They checked the
cargo to make sure it was what the manifest said and no more. They peered into
nooks and crannies, but not under the floorboards of the main hold. They looked in
the stores locker, gazed at the tangle of chains, oil drums, and paint cans, and
closed the door. It took an hour. The main thing that interested them was why
Captain Waldenberg needed seven men on such a small ship. It was explained that
Dupree and Vlaminck were company employees who had missed their ship in
Brindisi and were being dropped off at Malta on the way to Latakia. They had no
seamen's cards with them because they had left their gear on board their own ship.
Asked for a name, Waldenberg gave them the name of a ship he ha'd seen in
Brindisi harbor. There was silence from the Spaniards, who looked at their chief for
advice. He glanced down at the army captain, shrugged, and left the ship. Twenty
minutes later, loading began.
At half past noon the Toscana slipped out of Cas tellón harbor and turned her
helm south to Cape San Antonio. Cat Shannon, feeling sick now that it was all over,
knowing that from then on he was virtually unstoppable, was leaning against the
after rail, watching the flat green orange groves south of Castellón slip away as
they headed for the sea.
Carl Waldenberg came up behind him. "That's the last stop?" he asked.
"The last where we have to open our hatches," said Shannon. "We have to pick
up some men on the coast of Africa, but we'll moor in the roads. The men will come
out by launch. Deck cargo native workers. At least, that's what they'll be shipped
as."
"I've only got charts as far as the Strait of Gibraltar," objected Waldenberg.
Shannon reached into his zip-up windbreaker and pulled out a sheaf of charts,
half of the number En-dean had handed him in Rome. "These," he said, handing
them to the skipper, "will get you as far as Freetown, Sierra Leone. That's where
we anchor and pick up the men. Please give me an arrival time at noon on July
second. That is the rendezvous."
As the captain left to return to his cabin and start to plot his course and speed,
Shannon was left alone at the rail. Seagulls wheeled around the stern, seeking
morsels dropped from the galley, where Cipriani was preparing lunch, squealing and
cawing as they dipped toward the foaming wake to snatch up a scrap of bread or
vegetable.
Anyone listening would have heard another sound amid their screaming, the
sound of a man whistling "Spanish Harlem."
Far away to the north, another ship slipped her moorings and under the guidance
of a port pilot eased her way out of the harbor of Archangel. The motor vessel
Komarov was only ten years old and something over five thousand tons.
Inside her bridge, the atmosphere was warm and cosy. The captain and the pilot
stood side by side, staring forward as the quays and warehouses slipped past to her
port side, and watching the channel ahead to the open sea. Each man held a cup of
steaming coffee. The helmsman kept the vessel on the heading given him by the
pilot, and to his left the radar screen gleamed and died endlessly, its iridescent
sweep arm picking up on each turn the dotted ocean ahead and beyond it the
fringe of the ice that would never melt, even in high summer.
In the stern two men leaned over the rail beneath the flag with the hammer-andsickle
emblem and watched the Russian Arctic port slip past. Dr. Ivanov
clipped the crushed cardboard filter of his black cigarette between his teeth and
sniffed the crisp, salt-caked air. Both men were wrapped against the cold, for even
in June the wind off the White Sea is no invitation to shirtsleeves. By his side, one
of his technicians, younger, eager for his first trip abroad, turned to him.
"Comrade Doctor," he began.
Ivanov took the stump of the Papiross from his teeth and flicked it into the
foaming wake. "My friend," he said, "I think, as we are now aboard, you can call
me Mikhail Mikhailovich."
"But at the institute—"
"We are not at the institute. We are on board a ship. And we will be in fairly close
confinement either here or in the jungle for months to come."
"I see," said the younger man, but he was not to be repressed. "Have you ever
been to Zangaro before?"
"No," said his superior.
"But to Africa," insisted the younger man.
"To Ghana, yes."
"What is it like?"
"Full of jungle, swamps, mosquitoes, snakes, and people who don't understand a
damn thing you say."
"But they understand English," said the assistant. "We both speak English."
"Not in Zangaro, they don't."
"Oh." The junior technician had read all he could find, which was not much, in
the encyclopaedia borrowed from the vast library at the institute, about Zangaro.
"The captain told me if we make good time we should arrive at Clarence in
twenty-two days. That will be their Independence Day."
"Bully for them," said Ivanov and walked away.
Past Cape Spartel, nosing her way from the Mediterranean into the Atlantic, the
MV Toscana radioed a ship-to-shore telegram to Gibraltar for onpassing to London.
It was to Mr. Walter Harris at a London
address. It said simply: "Pleased announce your brother completely recovered." It
was the sign meaning the Toscana was on her way and on schedule. Slight
variations of the message about Mr. Harris's brother's health could have meant she
was on course but late, or in some kind of trouble. No telegram of any kind meant
she had not been cleared from Spanish territorial waters.
That afternoon there was a conference in Sir James Manson's office.
"Good," said the tycoon when Endean broke the news. "How much time has she
got to reach target?"
"Twenty-two days, Sir James. It is now Day Seventy-eight of the hundred
estimated for the project. Shannon had allowed Day Eighty for his departure from
Europe, and that would have left him twenty days. He estimated the time at sea
between sixteen and eighteen days, allowing for adverse weather or a two-day
breakdown. He had four days in hand, even on his own estimate."
"Will he strike early?"
"No, sir. Strike Day is still Day One Hundred. He'll kill time hove-to at sea if he
has to."
Sir James Manson paced up and down his office. "How about the rented villa?" he
asked.
"It has been arranged, Sir James."
"Then I don't see any point in your waiting around London any longer. Get over
to Paris again, get a visa for Cotonou, fly down there, and get our new employee,
Colonel Bobi, to accompany you to this place next to Zangaro. If he seems shifty,
offer him more money.
"Get settled in, get the truck and the hunting guns ready, and when you receive
Shannon's signal that he is going in for the attack that evening, break the news to
Bobi. Get him to sign that mining concession as President Bobi, date it one month
later, and send all three copies by registered post in three different envelopes to me
here.
"Keep Bobi virtually under lock and key until
Shannon's second signal to say he has succeeded. Then in you go. By the way,
that bodyguard you are taking with you—is he ready?"
"Yes, Sir James. For the kind of money he's getting, he's good and ready."
"What's he like?"
"As nasty as they come. Which is what I was looking for."
"You could still have problems, you know. Shannon will have all his men round
him, at least those who survive the battle. He could prove troublesome."
Endean grinned. "Shannon's men will follow Shannon," he said. "And I can handle
him. Like all mercenaries, he's got his price. I'll just offer it to him— but in
Switzerland and out of Zangaro."
When he had gone, Sir James Manson stared down at the City below him and
wondered if any man did not have his price. "They can all be bought, and if they
can't, they can be broken," one of his mentors had once said to him. And after
years as a tycoon, watching politicians, generals, journalists, editors, businessmen,
ministers, entrepreneurs and aristocrats, workers and union leaders, blacks and
whites, at work and play, he was still of that view.
Many years ago a Spanish seafarer, looking from the sea toward the land, had
seen a mountain which, with the sun behind it in the east, appeared to him to have
the shape of a lion's head. He called the land Lion Mountain and passed on. The
name stuck, and the country became known as Sierra Leone. Later another man,
seeing the same mountain in a different light, or through different eyes, called it
Mount Aureole. That name also stuck. Even later, and in a more whimsical bout of
fantasy, a white man named the town founded in its shadow Freetown, and it still
bears the name today. It was just after noon on July 2, Day Eighty-eight in
Shannon's private calendar, that the motor vessel Toscana dropped anchor a third
of a mile out from the shore, off Freetown, Sierra Leone.
On the voyage from Spain, Shannon had insisted that the cargo remain just
where it was, untouched and unopened. This was just in case there was a search at
Freetown, although since they had nothing to discharge and no cargo to take on
board, that would have been most unusual. The ammunition crates had been
scrubbed clean of their Spanish markings and sanded down with a disk sander to
the bright white wood. Stenciled markings showing that the crates contained drilling
bits for the oil rigs off the Cameroon coast had been painted on.
Only one job had he allowed to be done on the way south. The bundles of mixed
clothing had been sorted, and the one containing the haversacks and webbing had
been opened. With canvas needle and palm, Cipriani, Vlaminck, and Dupree had
passed the days cutting the haversacks to pieces and transforming them into
backpacks fitted with a score of long, narrow pouches, each capable of taking one
bazooka rocket. These now shapeless and inexplicable bundles were stored in the
paint locker among the cleaning rags.
The smaller knapsacks had also been altered. The packs had been cut away so
that only the shoulder straps remained, with braces across the chest and around
the waist. Dog-clips had been fastened atop each shoulder strap, and others at the
belt, and later these frames would accommodate an entire crate of mortar bombs,
enabling up to twenty to be carried at one time.
The Toscana had announced her presence while six miles offshore to the
harbormaster's office of Freetown, and had been given permission to enter port and
anchor out in the bay. As she had no cargo to load or unload, there was no need
for her to take up room at the port's precious Queen Elizabeth II Quay. She had
come only to take on deck crew.
Freetown is one of the favorite ports along the West African coast for taking
aboard these brawny laborers who, trained in the use of tackle and winches, are
used by the tramp steamers frequenting the smaller timber
ports along the coast. They board at Freetown on the outward voyage and
are discharged with their pay on the way back. In a hundred coves and creeks
along the coast, where cranes and jetties are at a premium, ships have to use their
own jumbo derricks to load cargo. It is grindingly hard work, as one sweats in the
tropical fever heat, and white seamen are paid to be seamen, not stevedores.
Locally recruited labor might not be available and probably would not know how to
handle cargo, so Sierra Leonians are brought along. They sleep in the open on the
ship's deck for the voyage, brewing up their own food and performing their
ablutions over the stern. It caused no surprise in Freetown when the Toscana gave
this as her reason for calling.
When the anchor cable rattled down, Shannon scanned the shoreline right
around the bay, almost all of it taken up by the outer shantytown of the country's
capital.
The sky was overcast, no rain fell, but beneath the clouds the heat was like a
greenhouse, and he felt the sweat clamping his shirt to his torso. It would be like
this from here on. His eyes riveted on the central area of the city's waterfront,
where a large hotel stood looking out over the bay. If anywhere, this was where
Langarotti would be waiting, staring out to sea. Perhaps he had not arrived yet. But
they could not wait forever. If he was not there by sundown, they would have to
invent a reason for staying on—like a broken refrigerator. It would be unthinkable
to sail without the cold store working. He took his eyes away from the hotel and
watched the tenders plying around the big Elder Dempster ship tied up at the quay.
On shore, the Corsican had already seen the Toscana before she dropped anchor,
and was heading back into the town. He had been there for a week and had all the
men Shannon wanted. They were not the same tribal group as the Leonians, but no
one minded. A mixture of tribes was available as stevedores and deck cargo.
Just after two, a small pinnace came out from the customs house with a
uniformed man standing in the back. He was the assistant chief customs officer,
white socks agleam, khaki shorts and tunic pressed, epaulettes sparkling, and stiff
peaked cap set dead straight. Among the regalia a pair of ebony knees and a
beaming face could be distinguished. When he came aboard, Shannon met him,
introduced himself as the owner's representative, shook hands profusely, and led
the customs man to the captain's cabin.
The three bottles of whisky and two cartons of cigarettes were waiting. The
officer fanned himself, sighed gustily with pleasure at the cool of the airconditioning,
and sipped his beer. He cast an incurious eye over the new manifest,
which said the Toscana had picked up machine parts at Brindisi and was taking
them to the AGIP oil company's offshore concessions near the Cameroon coast.
There was no mention of Yugoslavia or Spain. Other cargo was listed as power
boats (inflatable), engines (outboard), and tropical clothing (assorted), also for the
oil drillers. On the way back she would wish to load cocoa and some coffee at San
Pedro, Ivory Coast, and return to Europe. He exhaled on his official stamp to
moisten it, and placed his approval on the manifest. An hour later he was gone, his
presents in his tucker bag.
Just after six, as the evening cooled, Shannon made out the longshore boat
moving away from the beach. Amidships the two local men who ran passengers out
to the waiting vessels in the bay heaved at their oars. Aft sat seven other Africans,
clutching bundles on their knees. In the prow sat a lone European. As the craft
swung expertly in to the side of the Toscana, Jean-Baptiste Langarotti came nimbly
up the ladder that hung to the water.
One by one the bundles were heaved from the bobbing rowboat up to the rail of
the freighter; then the seven Africans followed. Although it was indiscreet to do so
in sight of land, Vlaminck, Dupree, and Semmler started to clap them on the back
and shake hands.
The Africans, grinning from ear to ear, seemed as happy as the mercenaries.
Waldenberg and his mate looked on in surprise. Shannon signed to the captain to
take the Toscana back to sea.
After dark, sitting in groups on the main deck, taking with gratitude the cooling
breeze off the sea as the Toscana rolled on to the south, Shannon introduced his
recruits to Waldenberg. The mercenaries knew them all, as they did the
mercenaries. Six of the Africans were young men, called Johnny, Patrick, Jinja
(nicknamed Ginger), Sunday, Bartholomew, and Timothy.
Each of them had fought with the mercenaries before; each of them had been
personally trained by one of the European soldiers; each of them had been tried
and tested in battle many times and would stick it out however hard the firefight.
And each of them was loyal to his leader. The seventh was an older man, who
smiled less, bore himself with a confident dignity, and was addressed by Shannon
as "Doctor." He too was loyal to his leader and his people.
"How are things at home?" Shannon asked him.
Dr. Okoye shook his head sadly. "Not well," he said.
"Tomorrow we start work," Shannon told him. "We start preparing tomorrow."
PART THREE - The Big Killing
21
For the remainder of the sea voyage, Cat Shannon worked his men without
pause. Only the middle-aged African whom he called "Doctor" was exempt. The rest
were divided into parties, each with a separate job to do.
Marc Vlaminck and Kurt Semmler broke open the five green Castrol oil drums by
hammering off the false bottoms, and from each plucked the bulky package of
twenty Schmeissers and a hundred magazines that was inside. The superfluous
lubricating oil was poured into smaller containers and saved for the ship's use.
Aided by the six African soldiers, the pair stripped the masking tape from each of
the hundred submachine guns, which were then individually wiped clean of oil and
grease. By the time they had finished, the six Africans had already learned the
operating mechanisms of the Schmeisser in a way that was as good if not better
than any weapons-familiarization course that they could have undergone.
After breaking open the first ten boxes of 9mm. ammunition, the eight of them
sat around the decks slotting the shells into the magazines, thirty to each, until the
first fifteen thousand rounds from their store had gone into the five hundred
magazines at their
disposal. Eighty of the Schmeissers were then set aside while Jean-Baptiste
Langarotti prepared sets of uniforms from the bales stored in the hold. These sets
consisted of two T-shirts, two pairs of shorts, two pairs of socks, one pah- of boots,
one set of trousers, one beret, one combat blouse, and one sleeping bag. When
these were ready, the bundle was wrapped up, one Schmeisser and five full
magazines were wrapped in an oily cloth and slipped into a polyethylene bag, and
the whole lot was stuffed into the sleeping bag. Tied at the top and ready for
handling like a sack, each sleeping bag contained the necessary clothing and
weaponry for one future soldier.
Twenty sets of uniforms and twenty Schmeissers with five magazines per carbine
were set aside. These were for the attack force itself, although the force numbered
only eleven, with spares for the crew if necessary. Langarotti, who had learned
while in the army and in prison to handle a needle and thread, altered and sewed
eleven sets of uniforms for the members of the attack party until each man was
fitted out.
Dupree and Cipriani, the deckhand, who turned out to be a useful carpenter,
stripped down several of the packing crates that had once contained ammunition,
and turned their attention to the outboard engines. All three were Johnson 60-
horsepower units. The two men built a wooden box to fit neatly over the top of
each engine, and lined the boxes with foam rubber from the mattresses that had
been brought along. With the exhaust noise of the engines muffled by the
underwater exhausts, the mechanical noise emanating from the engine casings
could also be reduced to a low murmur by the muffling boxes.
When Vlaminck and Dupree had finished these tasks, each turned his attention to
the weapon he would be using on the night of the strike. Dupree un-crated his two
mortar tubes and familiarized himself with the aiming mechanisms. He had not used
the Yugoslav model of mortar before, but was relieved to
see it was simple. He prepared seventy mortar bombs, checking and arming the
primers in the nose-cone of each bomb.
Having repacked the prepared bombs into their boxes, he clipped two boxes, one
above the other, to the webbing harness that had already been prepared from the
army-style knapsacks he had bought in London two months earlier.
Vlaminck concentrated on his two bazookas, of which only one would be used on
the night of the attack. Again, the main limitation to what he could take with him
was the weight factor. Everything had to be carried on a human back. Standing on
the forepeak, using the tip of the flagpole sticking above the stern as a fixed point,
his aiming disk slotted to the end of the bazooka, he carefully adjusted the sights to
the weapon until he was certain he could take a barrel at two hundred yards with
no more than two shots. He had already picked Patrick as his back-up man, for they
had been together before and knew each other well enough to make a good team.
With his backpack, the African would be carrying ten bazooka rockets as well as his
own Schmeisser. Vlaminck added another two rockets as his personal load, and
Cipriani sewed him two pouches to hang from his belt, which could contain the
extra rockets.
Shannon concentrated on the ancillary gear, examining the magnesium-flare
rockets and explaining to Dupree how they worked. He distributed one compass to
each mercenary, tested the gas-powered foghorn, and checked the portable radio
sets.
Having tune, Shannon had the Toscana heave to for two days well out at sea in
an area where the ship's radar told them there was no other shipping within twenty
miles. As the ship lay almost stationary, heaving slightly on the swell, each man
tested his personal Schmeisser. The whites had no problems; they had each in their
tune used half a dozen different submachine guns, and these weapons vary but
slightly. The Africans took longer to get used to them, for most
of their experience had been with bolt-action 7.92mm. Mausers or the standard
7.62 NATO self-loading rifle. One of the German carbines jammed repeatedly, so
Shannon threw it overboard and gave the man another. Each African fired off nine
hundred rounds, until he was accustomed to the feel of the Schmeisser in his
hands, and each man had been cured of the annoying habit African soldiers tend to
adopt, of closing their eyes while they fire. There was no point in testing the
mortars, since they have no moving parts—the bombs do the work—and they
cannot be fired with accuracy anyway from the deck of a ship at sea.
The five empty and open-topped oil barrels had been stored for later use, and
these were now streamed astern of the Toscana for bazooka practice. At a hundred
yards all of the men, black and white, could riddle a barrel before they had ceased
their practice. Four barrels were destroyed and sunk in this manner, and the fifth
was used by Marc Vlaminck. He let it stream to two hundred yards, then planted
himself in the stern of the Toscana, feet apart and braced, the bazooka across his
right shoulder, right eye applied to the sight. Judging the gentle heave of the deck,
he waited until he was sure and fired off his first rocket It screamed over the top of
the barrel and exploded with a spout of spray into the ocean. His second rocket
took the barrel in the center. There was a crash, and the boom of the explosion
echoed back over the water to the watching mercenaries and crew. Fragments of
tinplate spattered the water close to where the barrel had been, and a cheer came
from the watchers. Grinning widely, Vlaminck turned to Shannon, ripped off the
glasses he had used to protect his eyes, and wiped the specks of smut from his
face.
"You said you wanted a door taken off, Cat?"
"That's right, a bloody great wooden gate, Tiny."
"I'll give it to you in matchsticks, and that's a promise," said the Belgian.
Because of the noise they had made, Shannon ordered
the Toscana to move on the next day, and two days later he called his
second halt. In the period under way, the men had hauled out the three assault
craft and inflated them. They lay side by side along the main deck. Each, despite
being a deep, dark gray in color, had a brilliant orange nose and the name of the
manufacturer in the same luminous color down each side. These were painted out
with black paint from the ship's store.
When they were hove-to for the second time, they tested all three. Without the
muffling boxes placed over the top of each engine, the Johnsons made an audible
mutter even when four hundred yards away from the Toscana. With the boxes in
place and the engines throttled back to less than quarter-power, there was hardly a
sound at thirty yards. They tended to overheat after twenty minutes at half-power,
but this could be stretched to thirty minutes if power was reduced. Shannon took
one of the craft out for two hours, checking throttle settings for speed against
noise, to get the best combination. As the powerful out-boards gave him a large
reserve, he elected never to push them beyond one-third of full power, and advised
his men to close down to less than quarter-power for the last two hundred yards as
they approached the landing beaches of the target area.
The walkie-talkies were also tested at up to four miles, and despite the heavy
atmospherics and the hint of thunder in the stifling air, messages could still be
heard if read over clearly and slowly. To get them tised to the notion, the Africans
were also given trips in the power craft, at a varying range of speeds, in daylight
and at night. The night exercises were the most important.
For one of them Shannon took the other four whites and the six Africans three
miles out from the Toscana, which burned one small light at her masthead. On the
journey away from the ship, the ten men had their eyes bandaged. When the
masks were taken off, each was given ten minutes to accustom his vision
to the blackness of the sky and the ocean, before the move back to the boat
began. With the engine throttled down and dead silence maintained aboard, the
assault craft moved quietly back toward the light that represented the Toscana.
Sitting with the tiller bar in his hand, holding the power setting steady at one-third,
then cutting back to less than a quarter for the final run-in, Shannon could feel the
tension of the men in front of him. They knew this was what it would be like when
they struck, and there would be no second chances.
Back on board, Carl Waldenberg came up to Shannon as the two men watched
the crew winch the vessel inboard by torchlight.
"I hardly heard a sound," he said. "Not until you were a couple of hundred
meters away, and I was listening hard. Unless they have very alert guards posted,
you should be able to make the beach, wherever you are going. Incidentally, where
are you going? I need more charts if I have to proceed much farther."
"I think you'd all better know," said Shannon. "We'll spend the rest of the night
going through the briefing."
Until dawn, the crew (with the exception of the engineer, who still slept with his
engines), the seven Africans, and the four mercenaries listened to Shannon in the
main saloon while he went through the entire plan of attack. He had prepared and
set up his projector and slide transparencies, some of which were pictures he had
obtained of Zangaro, others of which were the maps and charts he had bought or
drawn for himself.
When he had finished, there was dead silence in the stifling cabin, the blue
wreaths of cigarette smoke trickling out through the open portholes into the equally
clammy night outside.
Finally Waldenberg said, "Gott in Himmel." Then they all started. It took an hour
before the questions were answered. Waldenberg wanted reassurance that if
anything went wrong the survivors would be back
on board and the Toscana well over the horizon before sunrise. Shannon gave it
to him.
"We have only your word for it they have no navy, no gunboats," Waldenberg
said.
"Then my word will have to do," said Shannon. "They have none."
"Just because you did not see any—"
"They have none," snapped Shannon. "I spent hours talking with people who
have been there for years. There are no gunboats, no navy."
The six Africans had no questions. Each would stick close to the mercenary who
would lead him and trust that he knew what he was doing. The seventh, the doctor,
asked briefly where he would be, and accepted that he would remain on board the
Toscana. The four mercenaries had a few purely technical questions, which
Shannon answered in technical terms.
When they came back up on deck, the Africans stretched themselves out on their
sleeping bags and went to sleep. Shannon had often envied their ability to sleep at
any time, in any place, in almost any circumstances. The doctor retired to his cabin,
as did Norbiatto, who would take the next watch. Waldenberg went into his
wheelhouse, and the Toscana began to move again toward her destination, just
three days away.
The five mercenaries grouped themselves on the afterdeck behind the crew
quarters and talked until the sun was high. They all approved of the plan of attack
and accepted that Shannon's reconnaissance had been accurate and precise. If
anything had changed since then, if there had been an unforeseen addition to the
town's defenses or improvements to the palace, they knew they could all die. They
would be very few, dangerously few, for such a job, and there was no margin for
things going wrong. But they accepted that either they had to win within twenty
minutes or they would have to get back to their boats and leave in a hurry—those
that could leave. They knew that no one
was going to come looking for wounded, and that anyone finding one of his
colleagues badly hurt and immovable would be expected to give him one
mercenary's last gift to another, the quick, clean way out, preferable to capture and
the slow death. It was part of the rules, and they had all had to do it before.
Just before noon they parted company and turned in.
They all woke early on the morning of Day Ninety-nine. Shannon had been up
half the night, watching beside Waldenberg as the coastline loomed out of the
perimeter of the tiny radar screen at the rear of the wheelhouse.
"I want you to come within visual range of the coast to the south of the capital,"
he had told the captain, "and spend the morning steaming northwards, parallel to
the shore, so that at noon we are off the coast here."
His finger jabbed the sea off the coast of Manandi. During the twenty days at sea
he had come to trust the German captain. Waldenberg, having taken his money in
Ploce port, had stuck by his side of the bargain, giving himself completely to making
the operation as successful as he could. Shannon was confident the seaman would
hold his ship at readiness four miles off the coast, a bit to the south of Clarence,
while the firefight went on, and if the distress call came over the walkie-talkie, that
he would wait until the men who had managed to escape rejoined the Toscana in
their speedboats, before making at full power for the open sea. There was no spare
man Shannon could leave behind to ensure this, so he had to trust Waldenberg.
He had already found the frequency on the ship's radio on which Endean wanted
him to transmit bis first message, and this was timed for noon.
The morning passed slowly. Through the ship's telescope Shannon watched the
estuary of the Zangaro River move past, a long, low line of mangrove trees along
the horizon. At midmorning he could make out
the break in the green line where the town of Clarence lay, and passed the
telescope to Vlaminck, Langarotti, Dupree, and Semmler. Each studied the off-white
blur in silence and handed the glass to the next man. They smoked more than usual
and mooched around the deck, tense and bored with the waiting, wishing, now
they were so close, that they could go straight into action.
At noon Shannon began to transmit his message. He read it clear into the radio
speaker. It was just one word, "Plantain." He gave it every ten seconds for five
minutes, then broke for five minutes, then gave it again. Three times within thirty
minutes, each time over a five-minute period, he broadcast the word and hoped
that Endean would hear it somewhere on the mainland. It meant simply that
Shannon and his men were on time and in position, and that they would strike
Clarence and Kimba's palace in the small hours of the following morning.
Twenty-two miles away across the water, Simon Endean heard the word on his
Braun transistor radio, folded the long wasp-antenna, left the hotel balcony, and
withdrew into the bedroom. Then he began slowly and carefully to explain to the
former colonel of the Zangaran army that within twenty-four hours he, An-toine
Bobi, would be President of Zangaro. At four in the afternoon the colonel, grinning
and chuckling at the thought of the reprisals he would take against those who had
assisted in his ousting, struck his deal with Endean. He signed the document
granting Bormac Trading Company a ten-year exclusive mining concession in the
Crystal Mountains for a flat annual fee, a tiny profits-participation by the Zangaran
government, and watched Endean place in an envelope and seal a check certified
by a Swiss bank for half a million dollars in the name of Antoine Bobi.
In Clarence preparations went ahead through the afternoon for the following
day's independence celebrations. Six prisoners, lying badly beaten in the cells
beneath the former colonial police station, listened to the cries of the Kimba
Patriotic Youth marching through the streets above them, and knew that they
would be battered to death in the main square as part of the celebrations Kimba
had prepared. Photographs of the President were prominently hung on every public
building, and the diplomatic wives prepared their migraines so they would be
excused attendance at the ceremonies.
In the shuttered palace, surrounded by his guards, President Jean Kimba sat
alone at his desk, contemplating the advent of his sixth year of office.
During the afternoon the Toscana and her lethal cargo put about and began to
cruise slowly back down the coast from the north.
In the wheelhouse Shannon sipped his coffee and explained to Waldenberg how
he wanted the Toscana placed.
"Hold her just north of the border until sundown," he told his captain. "After nine
p.m., start her up again and move diagonally toward the coast. Between sundown
and nine, we will have streamed the three assault craft astern of the ship, each
loaded with its complement. That will have to be done by flashlight, but well away
from the land, at least ten miles out.
"When you start to move, around nine, keep her really slow, so you end up here,
four miles out from the shore and one mile north of the peninsula at two a.m. You'll
be out of sight of the city in that position. With all lights doused, no one should see
you. So far as I know, there's no radar on the peninsula, unless a ship is in port."
"Even if there is, she should not have a radar on," growled Waldenberg. He was
bent over his inshore chart of the coast, measuring his distances with compasses
and set-square. "When does the first craft set free and move inshore?"
"At two. That will be Dupree and his mortar crew.
The other two boats cast adrift and head for the beach one hour later. Okay?"
"Okay," said Waldenberg. "I'll have you there."
"It has to be accurate," insisted Shannon. "We'll see no lights in Clarence, even if
there are any, until we round the headland. So we'll be on compass heading only,
calculating by speed and heading, until we see the outline of the shore, which
might be no more than a hundred meters. It depends on the sky; cloud, moon, and
stars."
Waldenberg nodded. He knew the rest. After he heard the firefight begin, he was
to ease the Toscana across the mouth of the harbor four miles out, and heave to
again two miles to the south of Clarence, four miles out from the tip of the
peninsula. From then on he would listen on his walkie-talkie. If all went well, he
would stay where he was until sunup. If things went badly, he would turn on the
lights at the masthead, the forepeak, and the stern, to guide the returning force
back to the Toscana.
Darkness that evening came early, for the sky was overcast and the moon would
not rise until the small hours of the morning. The rains had already started, and
twice in the previous three days the men had weathered drenching downpours as
the skies opened. The weather report from Monrovia, listened to avidly on the
radio, indicated there would be scattered squalls along the coast that night, but no
tornadoes, and they could only pray there would be no torrential rains while the
men were in their open boats or while the battle for the palace was on.
Before sundown the tarpaulins were hauled off the equipment piled in rows along
the main deck, and when darkness fell Shannon and Norbiatto began organizing the
departure of the assault craft. The first over the side was the one Dupree would
use. There was no point in using the derrick; the sea was only eight feet beneath
the deck at the lowest point. The men lowered the fully inflated craft into the water
manually, and Semmler and Dupree went down into it as it bobbed against the
Toscana's side in the slow swell.
The two of them hoisted the heavy outboard engine into place over the stern and
screwed it tight to the backboard. Before placing the muffler on top of it, Semmler
started the Johnson up and ran her for two minutes. The Serbian engineer had
already given all three engines a thorough check-over, and it ran like a sewing
machine. With the muffling box on top, the noise died to a low hum.
Semmler climbed out, and the equipment was lowered to Dupree's waiting hands.
There were the baseplates and sighting gear for both mortars, then the two mortar
tubes. Dupree was taking forty mortar bombs for the palace and twelve for the
barracks. To be on the safe side, he took sixty bombs, all primed and fused for
detonation on impact.
He also took both flare-launching rockets and the ten flares, one of the gaspowered
foghorns, one walkie-talkie, and his night glasses. Slung over his shoulder
he had his personal Schmeisser, and tucked in his belt were five full magazines. The
two Africans who were going with him, Timothy and Sunday, were the last into the
assault craft.
When it was ready, Shannon stared down at the three faces that looked back up
at him in the dun glow from the flashlight. "Good luck," he called softly.
For answer Dupree raised one thumb and nodded. Holding the painter of the
assault craft, Semmler moved back along the rail while Dupree fended off from
down below. When the craft was streamed astern of the Toscana in complete
darkness, Semmler tied her painter to the after rail, leaving the three men to bob
up and down on the swell.
The second boat took less time to get into the water, for the men had got the
hang of it. Marc Vlaminck went down with Semmler to set the outboard engine in
position, for this was their boat. Vlaminck was taking one bazooka and twelve
rockets, two on his
own body, the other ten carried by his back-up man, who was Patrick. Semmler
had his Schmeisser and five magazines in easy-extraction pouches hung around his
belt. He had a set of night glasses around his neck and the second walkie-talkie
strapped to one thigh. As he was the only man who could speak German, French,
and reasonable English, he would double as the main attack party's radio operator.
When the two whites were ensconced in their craft, Patrick and Jinja, who would be
Semmler's back-up man, slid down the Jacob's ladder from the Toscana and took
their places.
The boat was streamed astern of the ship, and Dupree's painter was passed to
Semmler, who made it fast to his own assault craft. The two inflatable vessels
bobbed behind the Toscana in line astern, separated by the length of rope, but
none of their occupants said a word.
Langarotti and Shannon took the third and last boat. They were accompanied by
Bartholomew and Johnny, the latter a big, grinning fighter who had been promoted
at Shannon's insistence when they last fought together, but who had refused to
take his own company, as his new rank entitled him to, preferring to stick close to
Shannon and look after him.
Just before Shannon, who was the last man into the boats, descended the ladder,
Captain Waldenberg appeared from the direction of the bridge and tugged at his
sleeve. The German pulled the mercenary to one side and muttered quietly, "We
may have a problem."
Shannon was immobile, frozen by the thought that something had gone seriously
wrong. "What is it?" he asked.
"There's a ship. Lying off Clarence, farther out than we are."
"How long since you saw it?"
"Some time," said Waldenberg, "but I thought it must be cruising south down the
coast, like us, or moving northward. But it's not; it's riding to."
"You're sure? There's no doubt about it?"
"None at all. When we came down the coast we
were moving so slowly that if the other had been steaming in the same direction,
she'd be well away by now. If northward, she'd have passed us by now. She's
immobile."
"Any indication of what she is, who she belongs to?"
The German shook his head. "The size of a freighter. No indication who she is,
unless we contact her."
Shannon thought for several minutes. "If she were a freighter bringing cargo to
Zangaro, would she anchor till morning before entering harbor?" he asked.
Waldenberg nodded. "Quite possible. Entry by night is frequently not allowed in
some of the smaller ports along this coast. She's probably riding out until the
morning before asking permission to enter port."
"If you've seen her, presumably she's seen you?" Shannon suggested.
"Bound to," said Waldenberg. "We're on her radar all right."
"Could her radar pick up the dinghies?"
"Unlikely," said the captain. "Too low in the water, most probably."
"We go ahead," said Shannon. "It's too late now. We have to assume she's just a
freighter waiting out the night."
"She's bound to hear the firefight," said Waldenberg.
"What can she do about it?"
The German grinned. "Not much. If you fail, and we're not out of here before
sunrise, she'll recognize the Toscana through binoculars."
"We mustn't fail, then. Carry on as ordered."
Waldenberg went back to his bridge. The middle-aged African doctor, who had
watched the proceedings in silence, stepped forward.
"Good luck, Major," he said in perfectly modulated English. "God go with you."
Shannon felt like saying that he would have preferred a Wombat recoilless rifle,
but held his tongue.
He knew these people took religion very seriously. He nodded, said, "Sure," and
went over the side.
Out in the darkness, as he looked up at the dim blob of the Toscana's stern
above him, there was complete silence but for the slap of the water against the
rubberized hulls of the boats. Occasionally it gurgled behind the ship's rudder. From
the landward side there was not a sound, for they were well out of earshot of the
shore, and by the time they came close enough to hear shouts and laughter it
would be well past midnight and, with luck, everyone would be asleep. Not that
there was much laughter in Clarence, but Shannon was aware how far a single,
sharp sound can travel over water at night, and everyone in his party, in the boats
and on the Toscana, was sworn to silence and no smoking.
He glanced at his watch. It was quarter to nine. He sat back to wait.
At nine the hull of the Toscana emitted a low rumble, and the water beneath her
stern began to churn and bubble, the phosphorescent white wake running back to
slap against the snub nose of Shannon's assault craft. Then they were under way,
and by dipping his fingers over the side he could feel the caress of the passing
water. Five hours to cover twenty-eight nautical miles.
The sky was still overcast, and the air was like that inside an old greenhouse, but
a hole in the cloud cover let a little dim starlight through. Astern he could make out
the craft of Vlaminck and Semmler at the end of twenty feet of rope, and
somewhere behind them Janni Dupree was moving along in the wake of the
Toscana.
The five hours went by like a nightmare. Nothing to do but watch and listen,
nothing to see but the darkness and the glitter of the sea, nothing to hear but the
low thump of the Toscana's old pistons moving inside her rusted hull. No one could
sleep, despite the mesmeric rocking of the light craft, for the tensions were building
up in every man in the operation.
But the hours did pass, somehow. Shannon's watch said five past two when the
noise of the Toscana's engines died and she slowed to idle in the water. From
above the after rail a low whistle came through the darkness—Waldenberg, letting
him know they were in position for cast-off. Shannon turned his head to signal
Semmler, but Dupree must have heard the whistle, for a few seconds later they
heard his engine cough into life and begin to move away toward the shore. They
never saw him go, just heard the low buzz of the engine under its muffler vanishing
into the darkness.
At the helm of his assault craft big Janni checked his power setting on the twistgrip
he held in his right hand, and held his left arm with the compass as steady as
he could under his eyes. He knew he should have four and a half miles to cover,
angling in toward the coast, trying to make landfall on the outer side of the
northern arm that curved around the harbor of Clarence. At that power setting, on
that course, he should make it in thirty minutes. At twenty-five minutes he would
shut the engine almost off and try to make out his landfall by. eyesight. If the
others gave him one hour to set up his mortars and flare-rockets, they should move
past the tip of the point toward their own beach landing just about the time he was
ready. But for that hour he and his two Africans would be the only ones on the
shore of Zangaro. That was all the more reason why they should be completely
silent as they set up their battery.
Twenty-two minutes after he left the Toscana, Dupree heard a low psst from the
bow of his dinghy. It was Timothy, whom he had posted as a lookout Dupree
glanced up from his compass, and what he saw caused him to throttle back quickly.
They were already close to a shoreline, little more than three hundred yards away,
and the dim starlight from the hole in the clouds above them showed a line of
deeper darkness right ahead. Dupree squinted hard, easing the craft another two
hundred yards inshore. It was mangrove;
he could hear the water chuckling among the roots. Far out to his right he
could discern the line of vegetation ending and the single line of the horizon
between sea and night sky running away to the end of vision. He had made landfall
three miles along the northern coast of the peninsula.
He brought his boat about, still keeping the throttle very low and virtually silent,
and headed back out to sea. He set the tiller to keep the shoreline of the peninsula
in vision at half a mile until he reached the limit of the strip of land at whose end
the town of Clarence stood, then again headed slowly inshore. At two hundred
yards he could make out the long, low spit of gravel that he was seeking, and in the
thirty-eighth minute after leaving the Toscana he cut the engine and let the assault
craft drift on its own momentum toward the spit. It grounded with a soft grating of
fabric on gravel.
Dupree stepped lightly down the boat, avoiding the piles of equipment, swung a
leg over the prow, and dropped onto the sand. He felt for the painter and kept it in
his hand to prevent the boat from drifting, away. For five minutes all three men
remained immobile, listening for the slightest sound from the town they knew lay
over the low hummock of gravel and scrub in front of them, and four hundred yards
to the left. But there was no sound. They had arrived without causing any alarm.
When he was certain, Dupree slipped a marlin spike out of his belt, rammed it
deep into the shingle of the shore, and tied the painter securely to it. Then he rose
to a crouch and ran lightly up the hummock ahead of him. It was barely fifteen feet
above sea level at its top, and covered in knee-high scrub that rustled against his
boots. The rustling was no problem; it was drowned by the slap of the sea on the
shingle and far too soft to be heard away in the town. Crouching at the spine of the
strip of land that formed one arm of the harbor, Dupree looked over the top. To his
left he could make out the spit running away into the darkness,
and straight ahead lay more water, the flat mirror-calm of the protected
harbor. The end of the spit of gravel was ten yards to his right.
Returning to the assault craft, he whispered to the two Africans to begin
unloading the equipment in complete silence. As the bundles came onto the shore
he picked them up and carried them one by one up to the top of the rise. Each
metallic piece was covered in sacking to prevent noise if two should knock together.
When the whole of his weaponry was assembled, Dupree began to set it up. He
worked fast and quietly. At the far end of the spit, where Shannon had told him
there was a round, flat area, he set up his main mortar. He knew, if Shannon's
measurements were accurate— and he trusted they would be—that the range from
the tip of the land to the center of the palace courtyard was 781 yards. Using his
compass, he pointed the mortar on the exact compass bearing Shannon had given
him from the point he stood to the presidential palace, and carefully adjusted his
mortar's elevation to drop his first range-finding bomb as near to the center of the
palace courtyard as possible.
He knew that when the flares went up he would see not the whole palace but
just the top story, so he could not watch the bomb hit the ground. But he would
see the upward flash of the explosion over the brow of the ground behind the
warehouse at the other end of the harbor, and that would be enough.
When he was finished with the first mortar, he set up the second. This was
pointed at the barracks, and he put the baseplate ten yards away from the first,
down the spine of the land on which he stood. He knew both range and bearing
from this mortar to the barracks, and that the accuracy of the second mortar was
not vital, since its purpose was to drop bombs at random into the acreage of the
former police lines and scatter the Zangaran army men through panic. Timothy,
who had been his sergeant on mortars the last
time they fought, would handle the second mortar on his own.
He established a pile of a dozen mortar bombs next to the second tube, settled
Timothy beside it, and whispered a few last instructions into his ear.
Between the two mortars he established the two flare-launching rockets and
jammed one rocket down each launcher, leaving the other eight lying handy. Each
flare was reputed to have a life of twenty seconds, so if he was to operate both his
own mortar and the illuminations, he knew he would have to work fast and
skillfully. He needed Sunday to pass him his mortar bombs from the stack he had
built beside the emplacement.
When he was finished, he looked at his watch. Three twenty-two in the morning.
Shannon and the other two boats must be off the shore somewhere, heading for
the harbor. He took his walkie-talkie, extended the aerial to its full length, switched
on, and waited the prescribed thirty seconds for it to warm up. From then on, it
would not be switched off again. When he was ready, he pressed the blip button
three times at one-second intervals.
A mile off the shore, Shannon was at the helm of the leading assault craft, eyes
straining into the darkness ahead. To his left side, Semmler kept the second craft in
formation order, and it was he who heard the three buzzes from the walkie-talkie
on his knee. He steered his boat softly into the side of Shannon's, so the two
rounded sides scuffed each other. Shannon looked toward the other boat. Semmler
hissed and pulled his boat away again to maintain station at 2 yards. Shannon was
relieved. He knew Semmler had heard Dupree's signal across the water, and that
the rangy Afrikaner was set up and waiting for them. Two minutes later, 1000 yards
off the shore, Shannon caught the quick flash from Dupree's flashlight, heavily
masked and bunkered to a pinpoint of light. It was off to his right, so he knew that
he was heading too
far north. In unison, the two craft swung to starboard, Shannon trying to recall
the exact point from which the light had come and to head for a point 100 yards to
the right of it. That would be the harbor entrance. The light came again when
Dupree caught the low buzz of the two outboard engines as they were 300 yards
from the tip of the point. Shannon spotted the light and changed course a few
degrees.
Two minutes later, shut down to less than quarter-power and making no noise
louder than a bumblebee, the two assault craft went by the tip of the spit where
Dupree was crouching, fifty yards out The South African caught the glitter of the
wake, the bubbles from the exhausts rising to the surface; then they were gone
into the harbor entrance and across the still water toward the warehouse on the
other side.
There was still no sound from the shore when Shannon's straining eyes made out
the bulk of the warehouse against the marginally lighter skyline, steered to the
right, and grounded on the shingle of the fishing beach among the natives' dugout
canoes and hanging fishnets.
Semmler brought his own boat to the shore a few feet away, and both engines
died together. Like Du pree, all the men remained motionless for several minutes,
waiting for an alarm to be called. They tried to make out the difference between
the humped backs of the fishing canoes and the shape of a waiting ambush party.
There was no ambush. Shannon and Semmler stepped over the side; each jabbed a
marlin spike into the sand and tethered the boats to it. The rest followed. With a
low, muttered "Come on, let's go," Shannon led the way across the beach and up
the sloping incline to the 200-yard-wide plateau between the harbor and the silent
palace of President Jean Kimba.
22
The eight men ran in a low crouch, up through the scrubland of the hillside and
out onto the plain at the top. It was after half past three, and no lights were
burning in the palace. Shannon knew that halfway between the top of the rise and
the palace 200 yards away they would meet the coast road, and standing at the
junction would be at least two palace guards. He expected he would not be able to
take them both silently, and that after the firing started the party would have to
crawl the last hundred yards to the palace wall. He was right.
Out across the water, in his lonely vigil, big Janni Dupree waited for the shot that
would send him into action. He had been briefed that whoever fired the shot, or
however many there were, the first one would be his signal. He crouched close to
the flare-launching rockets, waiting to let the first one go. In his spare hand was his
first mortar bomb.
Shannon and Langarotti were out ahead of the other six when they made the
road junction in front of the palace, and already both were wet with sweat. Their
faces, darkened with sepia dye, were streaked by the running perspiration. The rent
in the clouds above them was larger, and more stars showed through, so that,
although the moon was still hidden, there
was a dim light across the open area in front of the palace. At 100 yards Shannon
could make out the line of the roof against the sky, though he missed the guards
until he stumbled over one. The man was seated on the ground, snoozing.
Shannon was too slow and clumsy with the commando knife in his right hand.
After stumbling, he recovered, but the Vindu guard rose with equal speed and
emitted a brief yell of surprise. The call attracted his partner, also hidden in the
uncut grass a few feet away. The second man rose, gurgled once as the Corsi can's
knife opened his throat from carotid artery to jugular vein, and went back down
again, choking out his last seconds. Shannon's man took the swipe with the Bowie
knife in the shoulder, let out another scream, and ran.
A hundred yards in front, close to the palace gate, there was a second cry, and
the sound of a bolt operating in the breech of a rifle. It was never quite certain who
fired first. The wild shot from the palace gate and the snarling rip of Shannon's halfsecond
burst that sliced the running man almost in two blended with each other.
From far behind them came a whoosh and a scream in the sky; two seconds later
the sky above them exploded in blistering white light. Shannon caught a brief
impression of the palace in front of him, two figures in front of its gate, and the
feeling that his other six men were fanning out to right and left of him. Then the
eight of them were face down in the grass and crawling forward.
Janni Dupree stepped away from the rocket-launcher the instant he had torn the
lanyard off the first rocket, and was slipping his mortar bomb down the tube as the
rocket screamed upward. The smack-thump of the mortar bomb departing on its
parabola toward the palace blended with the crash of the magnesium flare
exploding away toward the land, over the spot he hoped his colleagues would have
reached. He took his second bomb and, squinting into the light
from the palace, waited to watch the first one fall. He had given himself four
sighting shots, on an estimate of fifteen seconds for each bomb in flight. After that
he knew he could keep up a fire rate of one every two seconds, with Sunday
feeding him the ammunition singly but fast and in rhythm.
His first sighting bomb hit the front right-hand cornice of the palace roof, high
enough for him to see the impact. It did not penetrate but blew tiles off the roof
just above the gutter. Stooping, he twirled the traverse knob of the directional
aiming mechanism a few mils to the left and slipped in his second bomb just as the
flare fizzled out. He had stepped across the other rocket-launcher, ripped off the
firing lanyard of the rocket, sent it on its way, and stuffed a fresh pair into the two
launchers before he needed to look up again. The second flare burst into light
above the palace, and four seconds later the second bomb landed. It was dead
center, but short, for it fell onto the tiles directly above the main door.
Dupree was also pouring with sweat, and the grub-screw was slick between his
fingers. He brought the angle of elevation slightly down, lowering the nose of the
mortar a whisker toward the ground for extra range. Working the opposite way
from artillery, mortars have to be lowered for extra range. Dupree's third mortar
bomb was on its way before the flare fizzled out, and he had a full fifteen seconds
to send up the third flare, trot down the spit a short way to actuate the foghorn,
and be back in time to watch the mortar explode. It went clean over the palace roof
and into the courtyard behind. He saw the red glow for a split second; then it was
gone. Not that it mattered. He knew he had got his range and direction exactly
right. There would be no shortfalls to endanger his own men in front of the palace.
Shannon and his men were face down in the grass as the three flares lit up the
scene around them and Janni's ranging shots went in. No one was prepared
to raise his head until the Afrikaner was sending the hardware over the top of the
palace and into the rear courtyard.
Between the second and third explosions Shannon risked putting his head up. He
knew he had fifteen seconds until the third mortar went home. He saw the palace
in the glare of the third magnesium flare, and two lights had gone on in the upper
rooms. After the reverberations of the second mortar bomb died away, he heard a
variety of screams and shouts from inside the fortress. These were the first and last
sounds the defenders made before the roar of explosives blotted out all else.
Within five seconds the foghorn had gone on, the long, maniacal scream howling
across the water from the harbor spit, filling the African night with a wail like a
thousand released banshees. The crash of the mortar going into the palace
courtyard was almost drowned out, and he heard no more screams. When he raised
his head again he could see no further damage to the front of the palace and
assumed Janni had dropped the bomb over the top. By agreement, Janni would use
no more testing shots after his first on target, but go straight into the faster
rhythm. From the sea behind him, Shannon heard the thud of mortars begin,
steady, pulsing like a heartbeat in the ears, backed by the now monotonous wail of
the foghorn, which had a life of seventy seconds on its gas canister.
To get rid of forty bombs, Janni would need eighty seconds, and it was agreed
that, if there were a ten-second pause at any point after halfway, he would cease
the bombardment so his colleagues would not run forward and be blown apart by a
latecomer. Shannon had few worries that Janni would muff it.
When the main barrage began to hit the palace fifteen seconds after the thumps
of their firing were heard, the eight men in the grass had a grandstand view. There
was no more need for flares; the roaring crash of the mortar bombs going into the
flagstonecovered
courtyard behind the palace threw up gobbets of red light every two
seconds. Only Tiny Marc Vlaminck had anything to do.
He was out to the left of the line of men, almost exactly in front of the main gate.
Standing foursquare to the palace, he took careful aim and sent off his first rocket.
A twenty-foot-long tongue of flame whirled out of the rear of the bazooka, and the
pineapple-sized warhead sped for the main gate. It exploded high on the right-hand
edge of the double doors, ripping a hinge out of the masonry and leaving a yardsquare
hole in the woodwork.
Kneeling by his side, Patrick slipped the rockets out of his backpack spread on the
ground, and passed them upward. The second shot began to topple in midair and
exploded against the stonework of the arch above the door. The third hit the center
lock. Both doors seemed to erupt upward under the impact; then they sagged on
the twisted hinges, fell apart, and swung inward.
Janni Dupree was halfway through his barrage, and. the red glare from behind
the roof of the palace had become constant. Something was burning in the
courtyard, and Shannon supposed it was the guardhouses. When the doors swung
open, the men crouching in the grass could see the red glare through the archway,
and two figures swayed in front of it and fell down before they could emerge.
Marc sent four more rockets straight through the open gate into the furnace
beyond the archway, which apparently was a through passage to the courtyard
behind. It was Shannon's first glimpse of what lay beyond the gate.
The mercenary leader screamed to Vlaminck to stop firing, for he had used seven
of his dozen rockets, and for all Shannon knew there might be an armored vehicle
somewhere in the town, despite what Gomez had said. But the Belgian was
enjoying himself. He sent another four rockets through the front wall of the
palace at ground level and on the second floor, finally standing exultantly waving
both his bazooka and his last rocket at the palace in front, while Dupree's mortar
bombs caromed overhead.
At that moment the foghorn whined away to a whisper and died. Ignoring
Vlaminck, Shannon shouted to the others to move forward, and he, Semmler, and
Langarotti began to run at a crouch through the grass, Schmeissers held forward,
safety catches off, fingers tense on the triggers. They were followed by Johnny,
Jinja, Bartholomew, and Patrick, who, having no more bazooka rockets to carry,
unslung his submachine gun and joined the others.
At twenty yards, Shannon stopped and waited for Dupree's last bombs to fall. He
had lost count of how many were still to come, but the sudden silence after the last
bomb fell told him they were over. For a second or two the silence itself was
deafening. After the foghorn and the mortars, the roar and crash of Tiny's bazooka
rockets, the absence of sound was uncanny. So much so that it was almost
impossible to realize the entire operation had lasted less than five minutes.
Shannon wondered for a second if Timothy had sent off his dozen mortar bombs
to the army barracks, if the soldiers had scattered as he surmised they would, and
what the other citizens of the town had thought of the inferno that must have
nearly deafened them. He was jerked into wakefulness when the next two
magnesium flares exploded over him, one after the other, and without waiting
longer he leaped to his feet, screamed, "Come on," and ran the last twenty yards to
the smoldering main gate,
He was firing as he went through, sensing more than seeing the figure of Jean-
Baptiste Langarotti to his left and Kurt Semmler closing up on his right. Through the
gate and inside the archway the scene was enough to stop anybody in his tracks.
The arch went straight through the main building and into the courtyard. Above the
courtyard the flares still burned with a
stark brilliance that lit the scene behind the palace like something from the
Inferno.
Kimba's guards had been caught asleep by the first sighting shots, which had
brought them out of their lean-to barrack huts and into the center of the paved
area. That was where the third shot and the succeeding forty quick-succession
bombs had found them. Up one wall ran a ladder, and four mangled men hung
from its rungs, caught in the back as they tried to run to the top of the enclosing
wall. The rest had taken the full force of the mortars, which had exploded on stone
flags and scattered lethal shards of Steel in all directions.
There were piles of bodies, some still half alive, most very dead. Two army trucks
and three civilian vehicles, one the presidential Mercedes, were standing shredded
from end to end against the rear wall. Several palace servants about to flee the
horror in the rear had apparently been grouped behind the main gate when
Vlaminck's mortars came through. They were strewn all over the undercover area
beneath the archway.
To right and left were further arches, each leading to what seemed to be a set of
stairs to the upper floors. Without waiting to be asked, Semmler took the right-hand
set, Langarotti the left. Soon there were bursts of submachine-carbine fire from
each side as the two mercenaries laundered the upper floor.
Just beyond the stairs to the upper floors were doors at ground level, two on
each side. Shouting to make himself heard above the screams of the maimed Vindu
and the chattering of Semmler's Schmeisser upstairs, Shannon ordered the four
Africans to take the ground floor. He did not have to tell them to shoot everything
that moved. They were waiting to go, eyes rolling, chests heaving.
Slowly, cautiously, Shannon moved through the archway into the threshold to the
courtyard at the rear. If there was any opposition left in the palace guards,
it would come from there. As he stepped outside, a figure with a rifle ran
screaming at him from his left. It could be that a panic-stricken Vindu was making a
break for safety, but there was no time to find out. Shannon whirled and fired; the
man jackknifed and blew a froth of blood from an already dead mouth onto
Shannon's blouse front. The whole area and palace smelled of blood and fear,
sweat and death, and over it all was the greatest intoxicant smell in the world for
mercenaries, the reek of cordite.
He sensed rather than heard the scuff of footsteps in the archway behind him
and swung around. From one of the side doors, into which Johnny had run to start
mopping up the remaining Vindu alive inside the palace, a man had emerged. What
happened when he reached the center of the flagstones under the arch, Shannon
could recall later only as a kaleidoscope of images. The man saw Shannon the same
time Shannon saw him, and snapped off a shot from the gun he clenched in his
right hand at hip level.
Shannon felt the slug blow softly on his cheek as it passed. He fired half a second
later, but the man was agile. After firing he went to the ground, rolled, and came
up in the fire position a second time. Shannon's Schmeisser had let off five shots,
but they went above the gunman's body as he went to the flagstones; then the
magazine ran out. Before the man in the hallway could take another shot, Shannon
stepped aside and out of sight behind a stone pillar, snapped out the old magazine,
and slapped in a new one. Then he came around the corner, firing. The man was
gone.
It was only then he became fully conscious that the gunman, stripped to the
waist and barefoot, had not been an African. The skin of his torso, even in the dim
light beneath the arch, had been white, and the hair dark and straight.
Shannon swore and ran back toward the embers of the gate on their hinges. He
was too late.
As the gunman ran out of the shattered palace, Tiny Marc Vlaminck was walking
toward the archway.
He had his bazooka cradled in both hands across his chest, the last rocket fitted
into the end. The gunman never even stopped. Still running flat out, he loosed off
two fast shots that emptied his magazine. They found the gun later in the long
grass. It was a Makarov 9mm., and it was empty.
The Belgian took both shots in the chest, one of them in the lungs. Then the
gunman was past him, dashing across the grass for safety beyond the reach of the
light cast by the flares Dupree was still sending up. Shannon watched as Vlaminck,
moving in a kind of slow motion, turned to face the running man, raised his
bazooka and slotted it carefully across his right shoulder, took steady aim, and
fired.
Not often does one see a bazooka the size of the warhead on the Yugoslav RPG-7
hit a man in the small of the back. Afterward, they could not even find more than a
few pieces of cloth from his trousers.
Shannon had to throw himself flat again to avoid being broiled in the backlash of
flame from the Belgian's last shot. He was still on the ground, eight yards away,
when Tiny Marc dropped his weapon and crashed forward, arms outspread, across
the hard earth before the gateway. Then the last of the flares went out.
Big Janni Dupree straightened up after sending off the last of his ten magnesium
flares and yelled, "Sunday."
He had to shout three times before the African, standing ten yards away could
hear him. All three men were partly deaf from the pounding their ears had taken
from the mortar and the foghorn. He shouted to Sunday to stay behind and keep
watch over the mortars and the boat, then, signaling to Timothy to follow him, he
began to jog-trot through the scrub and bushes along the spit of land toward the
mainland. Although he had loosed off more firepower than the other four
mercenaries put together, he saw no reason why he should be denied all the action.
Besides, his job was still to silence the army barracks, and he knew, from his
memory of the maps on board the Toscana, roughly where it was. It took the pair
of them ten minutes to reach the road that ran across the end of the peninsula
from side to side, and, instead of turning right toward the palace, Dupree led the
way left, toward the barracks. Janni and Timothy had slowed to a walk, one on
each side of the laterite road, their Schmeissers pointing forward, ready to fire the
moment trouble showed itself.
The trouble was around the first bend in the road. Scattered twenty minutes
earlier by the first of the mortar bombs dispatched by Timothy, which fell between
the hutments that made up the barracks line, the two hundred encamped men of
Kimba's army had fled into the night. But about a dozen of them had regrouped in
the darkness and were standing at the edge of the road, muttering in low whispers
among themselves. If they had not been so deaf, Dupree and Timothy would have
heard them sooner. As it was, they were almost on the group before they saw
them, shadows in the shadows of the palm trees. Ten of the men were naked,
having been roused from sleep. The other two had been on guard duty and were
clothed and armed.
The previous night's torrential rain had left the ground so soft that most of
Timothy's dozen mortar bombs had embedded themselves too deeply in the earth
to have their full intended impact. The Vindu soldiers Dupree and Timothy found
waiting around that corner still had something of their wits about them. One of
them also had a hand grenade.
It was the sudden movement of the soldiers when they saw the white gleam of
Dupree's face, from which the dye had long since run away with his sweat, that
alerted the South African. He screamed, "Fire," and opened up at the group. Four of
them were cut apart by the stream of slugs from the Schmeisser. The other eight
ran, two more falling as Dupree's fire pursued them into the trees. One of them, as
he ran, turned and
hurled the thing he carried in his hand. He had never used one before and never
seen one used. But it was his pride and joy, and he had always hoped to use it one
day.
The grenade went high in the air, out of sight, and when it fell, it hit Timothy full
in the chest. In instinctive reaction, the African veteran clutched at the object as he
went over backward and, sitting on the ground, recognized it for what it was. He
also saw that the fool who had thrown it had forgotten to take the pin out. Timothy
had seen a mercenary catch a grenade once. He had watched as the man hurled it
straight back at the enemy. Rising to his feet, Timothy whipped the pin out of the
grenade and threw it as far as he could after the retreating Vindu soldiers.
It went high into the air a second time, but this time it hit a tree. There was a
dull clunk, and the grenade fell short of where it was intended to go. At that
moment Janni Dupree started in pursuit, a fresh magazine in his carbine. Timothy
shouted a warning, but Dupree must have thought it was a scream of elation. He
ran eight paces forward into the trees, still firing from the hip, and was two yards
from the grenade when it exploded.
He did not remember much more. He remembered the flash and the boom, the
sensation of being picked up and tossed aside like a rag doll. Then he must have
passed out. He came to, lying out on the laterite road, and there was someone
kneeling in the road beside him, cradling his head. He could feel that his throat was
very warm, as it had been the time he had had fever as a boy—a comfortable,
drowsy feeling of being half awake and half asleep. He could hear a voice talking to
him, saying something repeatedly and urgently, but he could not make out the
words. "Sorry, Janni, so sorry, sorry ..."
He could understand his own name, but that was all. This language was different,
not his own language, but something else. He swiveled his eyes around to the
person who was holding him and made out a dark face
in the half-light beneath the trees. He smiled and said quite clearly in Afrikaans,
"Hallo Pieter."
He was staring up at the gap between the palm fronds when finally the clouds
shifted to one side and the moon came out. It looked enormous, as it always does
in Africa, brilliant white and shining. He could smell the rain in the vegetation beside
the road and see the moon sitting up there glistening like a giant pearl, like the
Paarl Rock after the rain. It was good to be back home again, he thought. Janni
Dupree was quite content when he closed his eyes again and died.
It was half past five when enough natural daylight filtered over the horizon for
the men at the palace to be able to switch off their flashlights. Not that the daylight
made the scene in the courtyard look any better. But the job was done.
They had brought Vlaminck's body inside and laid it out straight in one of the side
rooms off the ground-floor hallway. Beside him lay Janni Dupree, brought up from
the seashore road by three of the Africans. Johnny was also dead, evidently
surprised and shot by the white bodyguard who had seconds later stopped
Vlaminck's last bazooka rocket. The three of them were side by side.
Semmler had summoned Shannon to the mam bedroom on the second floor and
showed him by flashlight the figure he had gunned down as it tried to clamber out
of the window.
"That's him," said Shannon.
There were six survivors from among the dead President's domestic staff. They
had been found cowering in one of the cellars, which they had found, more by
instinct than by logic, to be the best security from the rain of fire from the skies.
These were being used as forced labor to tidy up. Every room in the main part of
the palace was examined, and the bodies of all the other friends of Kimba and
palace servants that had been lying around the rooms were carried
down and dumped in the courtyard at the back. The remnants of the door could
not be replaced, so a large carpet taken from one of the state rooms was hung over
the entrance to mask the view inside.
At five o'clock Semmler had gone back to the Tos cana in one of the speedboats,
towing the other two behind him. Before leaving, he had contacted the Tos cana on
his walkie-talkie to give the code word meaning all was in order.
He was back by six-thirty with the African doctor and the same three boats, this
time loaded with stores, the remaining mortar bombs, the eighty bundles containing
the remaining Schmeissers, and nearly a ton of 9mm. ammunition.
At six, according to a letter of instruction Shannon had sent to Captain
Waldenberg, the Toscana had begun to broadcast three words on the frequency to
which Endean was listening. The words, paw-paw, cas save, and mango, meant
respectively: The operation went ahead as planned, it was completely successful,
and Kimba is dead.
When the African doctor had viewed the scene of carnage at the palace, he
sighed and said, "I suppose it was necessary."
"It was necessary," affirmed Shannon and asked the older man to set about the
task he had been brought to do.
By nine, nothing had stirred in the town and the clearing-up process was almost
complete. The burial of the Vindu would have to be done later, when there was
more manpower available. Two of the speedboats were back at the Toscana, slung
aboard and stowed below, while the third was hidden in a creek not far from the
harbor. All traces of the mortars on the point had been removed, the tubes and
baseplates brought inside, the rocket-launchers and packing crates dropped out at
sea. Everything and everyone else had been brought inside the palace, which,
although battered to hell from the inside, bore only two areas of
shattered tiles, three broken windows in the front, and the destroyed door to
indicate from the outside that it had taken a beating.
At ten, Semmler and Langarotti joined Shannon in the main dining room, where
the mercenary leader was finishing off some jam and bread that he had found in
the presidential kitchen. Both men reported on the results of their searches.
Semmler told Shannon the radio room was intact, apart from several bullet holes in
the wall, and the transmitter would still send. Kimba's private cellar in the basement
had yielded at last to the persuasion of several magazines of ammunition. The
national treasury was apparently in a safe at the rear of the cellar, and the national
armory was stacked around the walls—enough guns and ammunition to keep an
army of two or three hundred men going for several months in action.
"So what now?" asked Semmler when Shannon had heard him out.
"So now we wait," said Shannon.
"Wait for what?"
Shannon picked his teeth with a spent match. He thought of Janni Dupree and
Tiny Marc lying below on the floor, and of Johnny, who would not liberate another
farmer's goat for his evening supper. Langarotti was slowly stropping his knife on
the leather band around his left fist.
"We wait for the new government," said Shannon.
The American-built 1-ton truck carrying Simon Endean arrived just after one in
the afternoon. There was another European at the wheel, and Endean sat beside
him, clutching a large-bore hunting rifle. Shannon heard the growl of the engine as
the truck left the shore road and came slowly up to the front entrance of the
palace, where the carpet hung lifeless in the humid air, covering the gaping hole
where the main gate had been.
He watched from an upper window as Endean
climbed suspiciously down, looked at the carpet and the other pockmarks on the
front of the building, and examined the eight black guards at attention before the
gate.
Endean's trip had not been completely without incident. After the Toscana's radio
call that morning, it had taken him two hours to persuade Colonel Bobi that he was
actually going back into his own country within hours of the coup. The man had
evidently not won his colonelcy by personal courage.
They had set off from the neighboring capital by road at nine-thirty on the
hundred-mile drive to Clarence. In Europe that distance may take two hours; in
Africa it takes more. They arrived at the border in midmorning and began the
haggle to bribe their way past the Vindu guards, who had still not heard of the
night's coup in the capital. Colonel Bobi, hiding behind a pair of large and very dark
glasses and dressed in a white flowing robe like a nightshirt, posed as their car-boy,
a personal servant who, in Africa, never requires papers to cross a border. Endean's
papers were in order, like those of the man he brought with him, a hulking strongarm
from London's East End, who had been recommended to Endean as one of the
most feared protectors in Whitechapel and a former enforcer for the Kray Gang.
Ernie Locke was being paid a very handsome fee to keep Endean alive and well and
was carrying a gun under his shut, acquired locally through the offices of ManCon's
mining enterprise in the republic. Tempted by the money offered, he had already
made the mistake of thinking, like En-dean, that a good hatchet man in the East
End will automatically make a good hatchet man in Africa.
After crossing the frontier, the truck had made good time until it blew a tire ten
miles short of Clarence. With Endean mounting guard with his rifle, Locke had
changed the tire while Bobi cowered under the canvas in the back. That was when
the trouble started. A handful of Vindu troops, fleeing from Clarence, had spotted
them and loosed off half a dozen shots. They all went wide except one, which hit
the tire Locke had just replaced. The journey was finished in first gear on a flat tire.
Shannon leaned out the window and called down to Endean.
The latter looked up. "Everything okay?" he called.
"Sure," said Shannon. "But get out of sight. No one seems to have moved yet,
but someone is bound to start snooping soon."
Endean led Colonel Bobi and Locke through the curtain, and they mounted to the
second floor, where Shannon was waiting. When they were seated in the
presidential dining room, Endean asked for a full report on the previous night's
battle. Shannon gave it to him.
"Kimba's palace guard?" asked Endean.
For answer Shannon led him to the rear window, whose shutters were closed,
pushed one open, and pointed down into the courtyard, from which a ferocious
buzzing of flies mounted.
Endean looked out and drew back. "The lot?" he asked.
"The lot," said Shannon. "Wiped out."
"And the army?"
"Twenty dead, the rest scattered. All left their arms behind except perhaps a
couple of dozen bolt-action Mausers. No problem. The arms have been gathered up
and brought inside."
"The presidential armory?"
"In the cellar, under our control."
"And the national radio transmitter?"
"Downstairs on the ground floor. Intact. We haven't tried the electricity circuits
yet, but the radio seems to have a separate Diesel-powered generator." " Endean
nodded, satisfied. "Then there's nothing for it but for the new President to
announce the success of his coup last night, the formation of a new government,
and to take over control," he said.
"What about security?" asked Shannon. "There's no army left intact until they
filter back, and not all of the Vindu may want to serve under the new man."
Endean grinned. "They'll come back when the word spreads that the new man
has taken over, and they'll serve under him just so long as they know who is in
charge. And they will. In the meantime, this group you seem to have recruited will
suffice. After all, they're black, and no European diplomats here are likely to
recognize the difference between one black and another."
"Do you?" asked Shannon.
Endean shrugged. "No," he said, "but it doesn't matter. By the way, let me
introduce the new President of Zangaro."
He gestured toward the Zangaran colonel, who had been surveying the room he
already knew well, a broad grin on his face.
"Former commander of the Zangaran army, successful operator of a coup d'etat
as far as the world knows, and new president of Zangaro. Colonel An toine Bobi."
Shannon rose, faced the colonel, and bowed. Bobi's grin grew even wider.
Shannon walked to the door at the end of the dining room. "Perhaps the
President would like to examine the presidential office," he said. Endean translated.
Bobi nodded and lumbered across the tiled floor and through the door, followed
by Shannon. It closed behind them. Five seconds later came the crash of a single
shot.
After Shannon reappeared, Endean sat for a moment staring at him. "What was
that?" he asked unnecessarily.
"A shot," said Shannon.
Endean was on his feet, across the room, and standing in the open doorway to
the study. He turned around, ashen-faced, hardly able to speak.
"You shot him," he whispered. "All this bloody way, and you shot him. You're
mad, Shannon, you're fucking crazy."
His voice rose with his rage and bafflement. "You don't know what you've done,
you stupid, blundering maniac, you bloody mercenary idiot."
Shannon sat back in the armchair behind the dining table, gazing at Endean with
scant interest. From the corner of his eye he saw the bodyguard's hand move under
his floppy shirt.
The second crash seemed louder to Endean, for it was nearer. Ernie Locke went
back out of his chair in a complete somersault and sprawled across the tiles,
varying the pattern of the old colonial marquetry with a thin filament of blood that
came from his midriff. He was quite dead, for the soft bullet had gone through to
shatter his spine.
Shannon brought his hand out from under the Oak table and laid the Makarov
9mm. automatic on the table. A wisp of blue smoke wriggled out of the end of the
barrel.
Endean seemed to sag at the shoulders, as if the knowledge of the certain loss of
his personal fortune, promised by Sir James Manson when Bobi was installed, had
suddenly been compounded by the realization that Shannon was the most
completely dangerous man he had ever met. But it was a bit late for that.
Semmler appeared in the doorway of the study, behind Endean, and Langarotti
slipped quietly through the dining-room door from the corridor. Both held
Schmeissers, catch off, very steady, pointing at Endean.
Shannon rose. "Come on," he said, "I'll drive you back to the border. From there
you can walk."
The single unpunctured tire from the two Zangaran trucks in the courtyard had
been fitted to the vehicle that had brought Endean into the country. The canvas
behind the cab had been taken away, and three African soldiers crouched in the
back with submachine carbines. Another twenty, fully uniformed and equipped,
were being marshaled into a line outside the palace.
In the hallway, close to the shattered door, they met a middle-aged African in
civilian clothes. Shannon nodded to him and exchanged a few words.
"Everything okay, Doctor?"
"Yes, so far. I have arranged with my people to send a hundred volunteer
workers to clean up. Also another fifty will be here this afternoon for fitting out and
equipping. Seven of the Zangaran men on the list of notables have been contacted
at their homes and have agreed to serve. They will meet this evening."
"Good. Perhaps you had better take time off to draft the first bulletin from the
new government. It should be broadcast as soon as possible. Ask Mr. Semmler to
try to get the radio working. If it can't be done, we'll use the ship."
"I have just spoken to Mr. Semmler," said the African. "He has been in touch with
the Toscana by walkie-talkie. Captain Waldenberg reports there is another ship out
there trying to raise Clarence port authorities with a request for permission to enter
port. No one is replying, but Captain Waldenberg can hear her on the radio."
"Any identification?" asked Shannon.
"Mr. Semmler says she identifies herself as the Russian ship Komarov, a
freighter."
"Tell Mr. Semmler to man the port radio before going to work on the palace
transmitter. Tell him to make to Komarov: 'Permission refused. Permanently.' Thank
you, Doctor."
They parted, and Shannon took Endean back to his truck. He took the wheel
himself and swung the truck back on the road to the hinterland and the border.
"Who was that?" asked Endean sourly as the truck sped along the peninsula, past
the shantytown of the immigrant workers, where all seemed to be bustle and
activity. With amazement Endean noticed that each crossroads had an armed
soldier with a submachine carbine standing on point duty.
"The man in the hallway?" asked Shannon.
"Yes."
"That was Doctor Okoye."
"A witch doctor, I suppose."
"Actually he's an Oxford Ph.D."
"Friend of yours?"
"Yes."
There was no more conversation until-they were on the highway toward the
north.
"All right," said Endean at last, "I know what you've done. You've ruined one of
the biggest and richest coups that has ever been attempted. You don't know that,
of course. You're too bloody thick. What I'd like to know is, why? In God's name,
why?"
Shannon thought for a moment, keeping the truck steady on the bumpy road,
which had deteriorated to a dirt track.
"You made two mistakes, Endean," he said carefully. Endean started at the sound
of his real name.
"You assumed that because I'm a mercenary, I'm automatically stupid. It never
seemed to occur to you that we are both mercenaries, along with Sir James Manson
and most of the people who have power in this world. The second mistake was that
you assumed all black people were the same, because to you they look the same."
"I don't follow you."
"You did a lot of research on Zangaro; you even found out about the tens of
thousands of immigrant workers who virtually keep this place running. It never
occurred to you that those workers form a community of their own. They're a third
tribe, the most intelligent and hard-working one in the country. Given half a chance,
they can play a part in the political life of the country. What's more, you failed to
recognize that the new army of Zangaro, and therefore the power in the country,
might be recruited from among that third community. In fact, it just has been.
Those soldiers you saw were neither Vindu nor Caja. There were fifty in uniform
and armed when you were in the palace, and by tonight there'll be another fifty. In
five days there will be over four hundred new soldiers in
Clarence—untrained, of course, but looking efficient enough to keep law and
order. They'll be the real power in this country from now on. There was a coup
d'etat last night, all right, but it wasn't conducted for or on behalf of Colonel Bobi."
"For whom, then?"
"For the general."
"Which general?"
Shannon told him the name.
Endean faced him, mouth open in horror. "Not him. He was defeated, exiled."
"For the moment, yes. Not necessarily forever. Those immigrant workers are his
people. They call them the Jews of Africa. There are one and a half million of them
scattered over this continent. In many areas they do most of the work and have
most of the brains. Here in Zangaro they live in the shantytown behind Clarence."
"That stupid great idealistic bastard—"
"Careful," warned Shannon.
"Why?"
Shannon jerked his head over his shoulder. "They're the general's soldiers too."
Endean turned and looked at the three impassive faces above the three
Schmeisser barrels.
"They don't speak English all that well, do they?"
"The one in the middle," said Shannon mildly, "was a chemist once. Then he
became a soldier; then his wife and four children were wiped out by a Saladin
armored car. They're made by Alvis in Coventry, you know. He doesn't like the
people who were behind that."
Endean was silent for a few more miles. "What happens now?" he asked.
"The Committee of National Reconciliation takes over," said Shannon. "Four Vindu
members, four Caja, and two from the immigrant community. But the army will be
made up of the people behind you. And this country will be used as a base and a
headquarters. From here the newly trained men will go back one day
to avenge what was done to them. Maybe the general will come and set up
residence here—in effect, to rule."
"You expect to get away with that?"
"You expected to impose that slobbering ape Bobi and get away with it. At least
the new government will be moderately fair. That mineral deposit, or whatever it
was, that you were after—I don't know where or what it is, but I can deduce that
there has to be something here to interest Sir James Manson. No doubt the new
government will find it, eventually. And no doubt it will be exploited. But if you want
it, you will have to pay for it. A fair price, a market price. Tell Sir James that when
you get back home."
Around the corner they came within view of the border post. News travels fast in
Africa, even without telephone, and the Vindu soldiers on the border post were
gone.
Shannon stopped the truck and pointed ahead. "You can walk the rest," he said.
Endean climbed down. He looked back at Shannon with undiluted hatred. "You
still haven't explained why," he said. "You've explained what and how, but not
why."
Shannon stared ahead up the road. "For nearly two years," he said musingly, "I
watched between half a million and a million small kids starved to death because of
people like you and Manson. It was done basically so that you and your kind could
make bigger profits through a vicious and totally corrupt dictatorship, and it was
done in the name of law and order, of legality and constitutional justification. I may
be a fighter, I may be a killer, but I am not a bloody sadist I worked out for myself
how it was done and why it was done, and who were the men behind it. Visible up
front were a bunch of politicians and Foreign Office men, but they are just a cage
full of posturing apes, neither seeing nor caring past their interdepartmental
squabbles and their re-election. Invisible behind them were profiteers like your
precious James Manson.
That's why I did it. Tell Manson when you get back home. I'd like him to know.
Personally. From me. Now get walking."
Ten yards on, Endean turned around. "Don't ever come back to London,
Shannon," he called. "We can deal with people like you there."
"I won't," yelled Shannon. Under his breath he murmured, "I won't ever have to."
Then he turned the truck around and headed for the peninsula and Clarence.
EPILOGUE
The new government was duly installed, and at the last count was ruling
humanely and well. There was hardly a mention of the coup in the European
newspapers, just a brief piece in Le Monde to say that dissident units of the
Zangaran army had toppled the President on the eve of Independence Day and that
a governing council had taken over the administration pending national elections.
But there was nothing in the newspaper to report that one of the council's first acts
was to inform Ambassador Dobrovolsky that the Soviet mining survey team would
not be received, and new arrangements for surveying the area would be made in
due course.
Big Janni Dupree and Tiny Marc Vlaminck were buried down on the point,
beneath the palm trees, where the wind blows off the gulf. The graves were left
unmarked at Shannon's request. The body of Johnny was taken by his own people,
who keened over him and buried him according to their own ways.
Simon Endean and Sir James Manson kept quiet about their parts in the affair.
There was really nothing they could say publicly.
Shannon gave Jean-Baptiste Langarotti the £5000 remaining in his money belt
from the operations budget, and the Corsican went back to Europe. He was last
heard of heading for Burundi, where he wanted to train the Hutu partisans who
were trying to oppose the Tutsi-dominated dictatorship of Micombero. As he told
Shannon when they parted on the shore, "It's not really the money. It was never
for the money."
Shannon wrote out letters to Signor Ponti in Genoa in the name of Keith Brown,
ordering him to hand over the bearer shares controlling the ownership of the
Toscana in equal parts to Captain Waldenberg and Kurt Semmler. A year later
Semmler sold out his share to Waldenberg, who raised a mortgage to pay for it.
Then Semmler went off to another war. He died in South Sudan, when he, Ron
Gregory, and Rip Kirby were laying a mine to knock out a Sudanese Saladin
armored car. The mine went off, killing Kirby instantly and badly injuring Semmler
and Gregory. Gregory got home via the British Embassy in Ethiopia, but Semmler
died in the bush.
The last thing Shannon did was to send letters to his bank in Switzerland through
Langarotti, ordering the bank to make a credit transfer of £5000 to the parents of
Janni Dupree in Paarl, Cape Province, and another in the same sum to a woman
called Anna who ran a bar in the Kleinstraat in Ostend's red-light district.
He died a month after the coup, the way he had told Julie he wanted to go, with
a gun in his hand and blood in his mouth and a bullet in the chest. But it was his
own gun and his own bullet. It was not the risks or the danger or the fighting that
destroyed him, but the trivial black mole on the back of his neck. That was what he
had learned from Dr. Dunois in the Paris surgery. Up to a year if he took things
easy, less than six months if he pushed himself, and the last month would be bad.
So he went out alone when he judged the time had come, and walked into the
jungle with his gun and a fat envelope full of typescript, which was sent to a friend
in London some weeks later.
The natives who saw him walking alone, and later brought him back to the town
for burial, said he was whistling when he went. Being simple peasants, growers of
yams and cassava, they did not know what the whistling was. It was a tune called
"Spanish Harlem."
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
FREDERICK FORSYTH was born in Ashford, England, in 1938 and educated at
Tonbridge School. He has been an RAF fighter pilot, newspaperman, foreign
correspondent and a BBC radio and television reporter. Mr. Forsyth has traveled to
more than forty countries in Europe, the Middle East, North and West Africa, and
speaks several languages including French, German and Russian. His first book, The
Biafra Story, was published in 1969, followed later by his bestsellers The Day of the
Jackal and The Odessa File, both of which were made into motion pictures.