“Now tell me, who do you think poses the biggest threat after Ashes?”
“The Vice President.”
“How high do you rate his chances?”
“If he mobilises from other tribes, the non-Muslims, malcontents, he can stage a coup. He is that popular, that close to the soldiers, that anti-you and anti–Marshal Amin.”
The General pulled hard on his joint. “The Marshal seems to think so too.”
“Is he on the red list already?”
“He is nowhere. He is nothing. One grenade; one car crash is enough, I can assure you,” said the General contemptuously.
“This government is expert at traffic control,” the colonel joked. He liked this kind of talk, reading intelligence reports, knowing who was on the way up and who was speedily descending.
The General burst out laughing and said: “One more small business. A little rescue operation to warm your hands for the big task. Get the boy out before Reptile’s men burn him.”
“You mean the smuggler?”
“A greedy, brainless bastard who thought he could make easy money.”
“No problem. We will get him out.”
“Now let us go and get drunk. I am a happy man. Reptile stands on the auction block. What a prospect!”
A very costly one, thought the colonel, biting his lower lip. He liked action and enjoyed to the full being the General’s brain, planning, advising, organizing, delegating authority to the men on the ground who carried out the General’s will. He knew that Amin and his regime would not last; unlike most henchmen, he had his certificates; he could go anywhere and begin anew.
The General never discussed details with the colonel. He had discovered that the more leeway you gave a man, the harder he worked trying to please you. The system had worked remarkably well. General Bazooka had in fact copied it from the Marshal.
General Bazooka was in the mood for his gun pranks, but at the same time he did not want to quarrel with his wife in front of his men. He would have wanted his eldest son to shoot a few glasses, but the boy’s mother would raise so much hell that it would not be worth the bother. Those things the boy would have to learn later in the company of men. What does she teach the children? What do they learn at school? It is definitely not to shoot a piece of chalk out of a teacher’s hand or a pen from behind his ear or a cigarette from his mouth. It struck him that his children might have a different future, a more sedate life. His wife and mother seemed to prefer that to the rigours of army life. But he did not want a teacher for a son, a nurse for a daughter. Except if they were army teachers and nurses. I will look into that, he thought.
He looked forward to a long hot night. A groany, sweaty, satisfactory affair. He liked tilling familiar ground after weeks away. The waiting created a change, a razor edge. It made the familiar sex sounds rendered in his mother tongue, laced with his earliest memories of the act, all the more fulfilling. They would bounce, roll, turn and milk each other like donkeys. Then he would lie in her arms, a delicacy uneroded by the years, watch the light going out of her eyes like receding stars, and feel reconnected to the past in sleep.
At daybreak he would rise, the past night an oasis in an encroaching desert, a lingering of fatigue in his veins, a bunch of memories in his pulsating head, a trace of sweet pain on his sex skin. He would rise out of it tentatively, a plant shooting out of a swamp, and climb into the new day, rejuvenated, invigorated. Ready for business as usual.
COLONEL ROBERT ASHES OFTEN THOUGHT of himself as an airborne bird, an eagle cruising, surveying its domains. His meteoric rise felt like a huge thermal thrust keeping him in the air with minimum effort. He had settled into the fast life. He enjoyed the banquets, the fleet of Boomerangs, the cameras, the sabre-rattling, the marriage, the wealth amidst poverty, the envy he generated and wore like an eagle’s monstrous wings. Only in Africa, he continually said to himself, can a man be reborn this fully, this gloriously.
When he set out for Uganda on the trail of the elusive Irish bomber Williams, he knew that everything was on the line. It was the watershed in his frantic effort to enter Uganda, and at the same time it was like a death sentence. The cover of the delegation could get blown; somebody could cave in under pressure; they could be shot by trigger-happy soldiers; Amin could fail to take the bait. He remembered arriving in Kenya and thinking fleetingly that he had made a mistake and should have remained in Britain or gone back to South Africa. He remembered the sleepless nights in a Kenyan hotel while they waited for a plane. In those days he subsisted on whisky, cigars and biscuits, the food too unpalatable to swallow. He remembered stepping on the plane with the words of his handler ringing in his ears: “You are on your own. If caught, we will deny any knowledge of you. Your head will probably end up in Amin’s fridge, your balls on his breakfast fork.”
He remembered the flight, the glorious scenes outside the window, the rolling mountains, the snaking rivers, the blinding greens of forests. He kept thinking about paradise. He also remembered Williams’ Bombing of the Century, as the Irish Republic Army called the mainland campaign. He remembered hearing the news of the arrest of the bombers, and stories about men thrown from speeding cars, men with teeth pulled during interrogations. Then rumours that Williams was in Uganda and the massive thudding of his heart. It was like being struck by electricity, the muscles burning and tearing with excitement. He remembered the hours of waiting before getting to hear whether he would be sent to Uganda or not. He never believed for once that a man as important as Williams could risk hiding in Uganda; but what did he care? It was the break he needed. In those days there was fear that the IRA would export the campaign and start bombing British embassies abroad, but he did not believe it. The IRA knew what they wanted and how to get it. What did he care?
When he stepped on Ugandan soil, he had the feeling that he had done it before in some hazy past. He was not at all intimidated by the soldiers. He found the statues of Amin ridiculous and ugly. One of the things he remembered most clearly was the vicious urge to supplant Copper Motors officials as the top business force and its head as the top white man in the country.
A year later he heard that the famous astrologer had prophesied his coming messiah-style. The news was unbelievable to him because he did not believe in astrology. He believed in hard work and a lucky break or two, but not in omens read from the sky or from the livers of bulls. He had come across witchcraft in the past in southern and northern Africa, but he never paid it much attention. He was not going to begin now. He just made it a point to avoid the astrologer, which was easy since he was so reclusive; and he neither liked nor hated him.
According to Ashes, Amin welcomed him with open arms because, like many tyrants, he was lonely amidst a crowd of worshippers, sycophants, wives. He needed a confidant, somebody of his level, a mirror to make the enchanted nebulous world he inhabited real, a thorn to prick him with the occasional pang of inadequacy he needed to spur him on. His knowledge of the West and his ability to analyse it was just a bonus. In fact, it wasn’t as if there was a shortage of learned men who could feed Amin the information he needed. It was just that they could not get away from their high-couched language, the intricacies of their trade. They ended up confusing the Marshal, making him change plans he had approved, thus losing face. Ashes specialized in chewing cud for the Marshal; and he was ready to fulfil his role as cattle prod, keeping the generals on tenterhooks.
Robert Ashes was given the job of turning Amin’s bodyguard, the Eunuchs, into a specialized unit. The fact that they were all Kakwas and Nubians lessened the internal divisions. They knew that their life depended on Amin’s staying alive. Ashes found many of them dull, violent, predictable, but those were the qualities needed. All he did was drill them harder, teach them the necessary tactics, and let them loose.
Amin put them under the command of Major Ozi, increased their salary, improved their food and told them they were above all army officers and security agents. Both Amin and Ashes knew about the atr
ocities committed by them—robbery, kidnapping— but they turned a blind eye.They felt that a bit of leeway would only make them more loyal to their president. Ashes enjoyed stories of conflicts between the State Research Bureau and the Eunuchs. The Eunuchs liked to provoke the Bureau by driving them out of bars and night-clubs and taking their women. Ashes felt that divisions between the security agencies were always good. No conspiracy possible. Everybody on their toes.
Ashes was wearing it well. He loved to tease the generals and their men. They could hate him all they wanted but could not kill him, not without killing Amin first. He had the odd nightmare of waking up amidst a successful coup and finding Amin swinging from a tree by his balls. It always ended with a gun in his mouth. But he loved danger; he thrived on it. He had his own personal army now, and he liked to flaunt his status as a warlord. He had this thing with General Fart, as he called Bazooka in private. He knew that the man was insecure about his position, his future. He was cocksure that the man was infected with the vertigo of those who rose to prominence too early in life. He enjoyed teasing him, making him feel as if Amin was about to skewer his balls and make him eat them for breakfast. He could have made him beg over that Saudi deal; the rival prince had given him all the details. General Fart’s head could have rolled. But he had not liked the Saudi prince, a shapeless, unpleasant mass of a man. Nobody talked to him as if he were a messenger boy and got what he wanted.
Luckily for General Fart, at the time, Ashes had been busy putting the finishing moves on the deal which would have earned him millions. He had made a deal with Alan Witherthrush, known as the Big Bossman to everybody, who was the head of Copper Motors, to import spares for military helicopters, Stinger jeeps, Leyland buses and lorries. He was bound to cream off a clean ten million dollars through inflation of prices and commissions. Amin had approved the deal, and the spares were already on the way. According to plan, his millions should already have been paid into his account. When he confronted Bossman about it, he was told to wait. He waited because he wanted to handle the affair carefully, without the Marshal knowing about it. But when nothing changed, he realized that Big Bossman had cheated him.
The head of Copper Motors deeply resented Robert Ashes’ interference in the affairs of his company because Ashes did not have any sense of history, any respect for what Witherthrush had been through to keep it going. Copper Motors had begun as a branch of a multinational company that mined copper and cobalt in Kilembe, in the South-western Region, and was further involved in small-scale manufacturing. The copper plant and the manufacturing divisions had folded soon after Amin came to power. The foreign employees had cleared out. Big Bossman had found himself in a precarious situation: he could leave and work in Kenya or South Africa, or take a gamble and rebuild the flagging motor division. He decided to stay; he reorganized; he hired and fired; he blackmailed and curried favour. With great success. By 1973 he was the sole importer of spare parts for the whole country. Competitors came and went, leaving him stronger. Barclays Bank remained his faithful banker, switching money, transferring bribes, offering loans, maintaining the mechanism which kept the company solvent.
The first meeting between Bossman and Ashes had been acrimonious.
“I want a cut of the action,” Ashes dourly demanded. “It is protection money. I want shares, a partnership.”
“You are joking,” Big Bossman said, laughing.
“We will see,” Ashes said in parting.
Ashes swallowed the insult, went home and decided to contact the Bossman’s deputy. He threatened to link him with guerrillas if he did not comply. The man refused. Ashes hanged him, making it look like a suicide. The next time he held talks with the Bossman, the latter obliged. Ashes was made a partner. His contribution to the mega-deal had been to make Amin approve and finance the importation of the biggest haul of spares in years.
At that time, Bossman realized that Ashes wanted to take over everything. It was clear that his dream was ending. He and his wife decided to exit with a big bang. Friends at Barclays Uganda and Barclays Britain transferred Ashes’ cut not to his account, but to a secret numbered account in the Cayman Islands. At about the same time, the Bossmans sent their only son abroad and made him sole beneficiary of their fortune. Just in case. Mrs. Bossman was supposed to follow a fortnight later. Her husband would leave last. They had planned to travel separately so as not to arouse suspicion.
But Ashes knew very well that the only way to make Bossman tell him the truth was to go for the softest target: his wife. It was also insurance in case Bossman managed to get away or decided to tell Amin what was going on. Ashes sent his men to abduct the woman. They arrived in Euphoria 707s, surrounded the compound, cut the phone, stormed the house, gagged her, threw her in the boot and drove off. At their rendezvous they transferred her into a Shark helicopter which took her to Ashes’ island, the base of the Anti-Smuggling Unit.
The island was five kilometres long and three kilometres wide at its widest. It was full of chunky, imposing rocks, extremely tall grey-trunked trees filled with the song of yellow-legged parrots and other birds. From the distance, it looked like a green, grey-stemmed blur, dovetailed by rocks. There were houses, gun emplacements, speedboats, and a massive bunker Ashes used as his headquarters. The island sat by itself in the water, battered by moody waves, combed by sharp-toothed winds. It conjured up images of enchantment, freedom, glorious isolation, especially when viewed from a distance on a bright sun-drenched day.
Kate Witherthrush was a sun-burned, long-haired woman in her early forties. She had a seductive figure and a pleasant face which often belied her inner strength. She had spent the last ten years in Uganda, staying when others gave up and left, hell-bent on accumulating a big fortune. Her family had at one time had money, but had lost it in the Second World War. She had met her husband in London, where he was holidaying. She had been waiting all her life for such a man, an adventurer, a charmer, a man ready to risk all and gain all. The last decade had been the happiest period in the couple’s life.
She remembered the years as action-packed, often giddy, often calm, often unpredictable. There was always something happening, nights loaded with shooting, days calm as a sleeping baby, and vice versa. She had witnessed the fall of one government and the rise of another. She had witnessed lynchings, shoot-outs, beatings, burials, flamboyant weddings, wild Christmas celebrations lasting days, pleasure and pain see-sawing on an invisible, ever-changing pivot. She had been robbed five times, two at gunpoint. All by soldiers. Amidst all this they had their son, the icing on their cake of success which seemed to grow bigger and bigger. They had enjoyed so much success that at times they felt invincible, like gods walking among the uniformed scum and the people yearning for salvation from tyranny. They were in the unique position of trading with a tyrant, knowing that as they helped they did both good and bad. His capacity to oppress increased but at the same time the spares for the buses and lorries used by the populace were indispensable.
She was glad that her son was out of Ashes’ reach, safe in an exclusive boarding school. She still appreciated the wit, the danger, the revenge, the intoxication involved in the deal. They had decided to fuck Ashes back after he had fucked them, undercut their position, endangered their lives, and killed their colleague. The fake suicide note had been an insult both to his memory and to them. They would not be around when Ashes appointed stooges to run Copper Motors. They would take the spirit of the company with them to the Caribbean where they had just bought a mansion, a yacht, and a piece of paradise.
Mrs. Bossman sat opposite Robert Ashes, hardly able to hide her loathing for him. It seemed to seep through her pores and spread like a gas. After the way they had treated her, transporting her like a sack of onions, she knew that lines were already drawn. She had to stand firm. Any show of weakness would be the ruin of everything. She knew by now that her life, and that of her husband, and the career of Ashes, were all in the balance. She just prayed and hoped that her husband would
also stand firm and not cave in to the violence of this gangster.
From the dignified way she conducted herself, Robert Ashes knew that he would get absolutely nothing from her. The fact that her son was already secured and out of his reach said it all. He regretted that he had let the boy escape the country. Why had he been fooled by Big Bossman and waited? He realized that his pride, his feeling of infallibility, had cost him a great fortune. If he had been more paranoid, the boy would be here, and Mrs. Bossman would be singing.
He stood up, a Havana in his hand, walked about and asked the woman where his money was. When he introduced the ways he intended to treat her son on capture, she did not flinch. She saw through his lies and that infuriated him. He looked at her coldly, and at that moment both of them knew that one would have to kill the other in order to walk away. Ashes could not risk releasing her for the fear that she might talk. He kept thinking about Mau Mau women caught with guns under their robes. Two decades later, he could still see them, their immobile faces giving away nothing even after rigorous torture, dying with their secrets and ruining a perfect day, a week or month’s campaign. His nightmare had caught up with him. He was after secrets, probably the most important in his whole life, which the witch didn’t want to divulge.
“You don’t know where my money is?” he said with his gloomy face looking odious.
“No, I don’t.”
“What can I say?” he said coldly, suppressing his ire, shrugging his massive shoulders. “Ten years of eating and fucking with the bugger and you don’t know anything about the most important deal in his career!”
“No, I don’t.”
“I am not going to waste your time,” he said looking outside, the effort of keeping calm almost causing him tears. “Guard, lock her up.”
Ashes walked out and left the guards to lock the woman in the room they used for the detention and interrogation of smugglers. He wished she would shout, call him back, and confess.
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