by Terry Morgan
"It is not important. I will be in my office. A guest will arrive at nine thirty. There are to be no interruptions until he leaves. Just ensure there is coffee. Do you understand?"
"Yes."
With that the woman backed away and the Minister walked through a long tiled hallway with a glittering overhead chandelier and white and gold panelled walls, past the foot of the wide, marble stairway and towards a double door of polished wood. Still carrying his briefcase he opened the door. As he did so he loosened his tie and walked into a tiled corridor lit by a row of wall lights with tasselled shades and more chandeliers that came on automatically. Through ceiling-high arches, the corridor then opened up into two separate rooms, one on either side of the corridor with white walls and more gold-bordered panelling. To his right, the tiled floor was dominated by a circular Chinese carpet, six ornate, white armed chairs, a glass-topped table with a vase of silk flowers and a gilt-framed painting of a prancing horse. But the Minister turned left, dropped his briefcase onto a settee set with gold-embroidered cushions and made his way across another Chinese carpet to a glass cabinet. Dragging off his tie completely he dropped it on a wooden table next to a crystal table lamp and turned the key in the cabinet. There he filled a glass with neat whiskey, took it to the settee next to his case, stretched out one leg and leaned back into a cushion. He swallowed half the whiskey, placed the glass on the table alongside the crystal lamp, clicked open his case, pulled out a mobile phone and pressed a button.
"Akram?" he asked as the call was answered. "You still in Dubai? Is the purchase finalized?" He waited. "Good, now listen. It is about our bloody Italian friend…" He was interrupted, waited and meanwhile took another drink. Then:
"If that is true then it is time we managed without Signore Guido and his friend Toni and that Egyptian, Tawfik. That crazy man Guido is too greedy. He was useful once but I am thinking he is now past his sell-by date." He listened once more.
"If he now says you are not good enough, it is because he does not need you. He thinks he can save a commission, cut you out. We must cut him out. These are my instructions. Do you understand? Cut him out. And cut out that Egyptian fool, Tawfik, also. Tell him you no longer need him, that you are returning to Pakistan to see your family. Instead, we will deal with things ourselves. We are now in a very strong position. Deal with it, Akram. It is urgent."
The Minister switched the mobile off and leaned back on the ornate high-backed couch and put the other leg up on the table. He checked his gold watch, drained the last of the whiskey and closed his eyes briefly. But then he stood up, went to refill his glass and, as he did so, heard the door to the corridor open. The woman in the long black dress crept down the corridor in soft slippers, walked around the edge of the Chinese carpet and placed a bronze tray with a dallah, a large, Arabic coffee pot and china cups on a long glass-topped table next to a jade statue of yet another prancing horse.
"It is nine twenty," she said. "Coffee for your guest." And then she stood, removed her headdress, pulled a clasp and let her long black hair flow across her shoulders. The Minister watched, smiled, looked at her, up and down.
"That is good. Please show him to the room when he arrives. We will be finished in an hour and then…" The woman nodded, smiled, touched her red lips and bowed almost imperceptibly. Then she backed away, turning briefly to smile again as she passed from his sight down the short corridor.
The Minister was still standing with the bottle in his hand. He held it up, checked the Glen Scotia label, raised his glass to something or someone and then drained it.
Chapter Fifteen
THE SPEED WITH which Mitchell drove his empty truck back to the barbed-wire encircled compound of Mambola Transport broke his previous record by almost five minutes. He skidded to a halt in a cloud of red dust outside Mr. Suleiman's concrete block office, leapt from his truck and ran inside. Mr. Suleiman was sitting on a large, wooden crate, speaking into a mobile phone.
"Mr. Suleiman, Mr. Suleiman. Big problem. Mr. Moses is very cross. I ran away in case he slapped me o…"
"Shhh. I am having important negotiations. You must wait."
Mitchell waited, fidgeting, first on one leg, then the other. He went to the window and glanced into the yard to check if Mr. Moses might have followed him. Mr. Moses had once told him that if anyone ever crossed him then they could expect serious consequences and then, as if to re-enforce his determination, Mr. Moses had pulled out a long and very sharp looking knife from the drawer in his desk and pointed it at Mitchell's nose.
"Sorry for the interruption, Mr. Taylor," Mr. Suleiman continued calmly. "It was one of my drivers. OK, so that's fifty boxes every day for one week starting on Monday from Cobra Printers to go to Awoko Newspaper. That is very good, Mr. Taylor. No problem. My driver Mr. Mitchell will be responsible. He has just returned from his last delivery and I will make sure he obeys all the instructions. Yes. Thank you, Mr. Taylor. Good bye…What is it Mitchell?"
"Big problem, Mr. Suleiman. Mr. Moses is very cross. I ran away in case he took out his big…" Mitchell was still out of breath.
"His big what, Mitchell?"
"His big knife, Mr. Suleiman."
"Ha, ha! No problem. I told you already, Mr. Moses is always cross. He is a crook, a swindler, a skimmer. Mr. Taylor who I have just spoke to is the opposite. He is an honest, hard-working family man with six children and his old mother. Don't worry. As long as you do your job it's OK. Moses won't hurt you."
"No, no, Mr. Suleiman. There is a problem. All his boxes had newspaper inside. I saw with my own eyes."
"Ha, ha. No problem. It was packaging paper, plastic foam, polystyrene, don't worry."
"No, no, not packing paper. Nothing to pack. Nothing inside except paper. Nothing. That is why they were lighter than the first two hundred boxes."
"What are you saying? What first two hundred boxes?"
"There was a big mistake, Mr. Suleiman. Tamba the forklift driver was drunk from last night and got slapped by Granville. But before he got slapped he made a mistake and gave me the wrong two hundred boxes. So, I unloaded the wrong ones and loaded the right ones. Then I took the right ones to Mr. Moses. But I think they were the wrong ones. Then Mr. Moses checked inside and it wasn't what it said on the paper—it was paper."
"What sort of paper?"
"Newspaper. Italian newspapers. But no water purifiers."
"So there is a problem."
"Yes, that's what I'm telling you, Mr. Suleiman. And Mr. Moses thinks it is me."
"Ha ha! No, no, no. It cannot be. I will phone the airport. It is that bloody man Granville."
"Or the bloody man Tamba. But it wasn't me, Mr. Suleiman."
"OK, no problem. I will sort it. Here is your next job. Thirty-six crates of chickens. Collect from William's chicken farm and take to Sani Abacha Street."
"Sani Abacha Street, Mr. Suleiman? Again?"
Chapter Sixteen
AT NINE THIRTY-five, the Minister of Finance heard the expected knock on the door. Placing his empty glass on the cabinet, he pushed the half bottle of Glen Scotia away out of sight and closed the glass front. Then he walked to the door, greeted a short, balding man in a dark suit and primrose yellow tie and ushered him to sit in one of the gold-braided armchairs next to the glass-topped table and the tray of coffee.
Just as the Minister started pouring the steaming, black coffee, a small red light appeared on some electronic equipment laid out in the kitchen of an apartment in a gray, concrete block less than a mile away. Sitting alongside it were three men, one a tall, well-groomed man in a smart suit and tie, the other two wearing casual clothes. All three wore headphones.
"He's in, sir," said an American voice. "A pity about the sound quality—it's the fucking walls but OK, we're recording…sorry for the language, sir…and that's the Minister's voice, sir…and the other belongs to our little friend from the Central Bank…Shahid Masud."
There was a long pause as the three Americans listened through head
phones. Then:
"Hear that name, sir?"
"Did he say Mendes?" the suited one asked.
"Yep. I reckon. It proves Mendes is involved somehow, somewhere. That's the second time in a week we've taped something. It adds to suspicions but it's still not enough to do anything."
"Silvester Mendes, huh? Jesus."
"Yep…that's just what we wanted you to hear, sir…listen now, sir. Hear that? Government contracts. They're now talking online tenders. It'll be another fucking stitch up… sorry 'bout the language, sir. Any aid going in there is supposed to be awarded via open tenders but it'll probably be another fix, a stitch up by the adjudication committee—chaired by that same little bastard Shahid Masud and signed off by the Minister… Listen! 'Education,’ hear it? Young people, students.' The only beneficiaries will probably be the Minister, this little guy Masud and a few other characters."
The smartly dressed one now asked a question. "That fund they're talking about is not US money, it's European…it was only officially announced last week and it was in the Minister's budget speech today…" He was interrupted.
"Yep. Dead right, sir. Listen again, sir. Sorry about the sound. They're now talking money transfers. Electronic. Switches. No wonder their foreign exchange reserves dropped by sixty percent last year…OK, listen, that's a new name. Who the fuck is Tahir? And Italy? He just said 'our Italian friend'… You get that as well, Steve? What's the Italian connection? Don't tell me Silvio's involved here as well, sir. Ha! …Sorry sir, now they're moving around. Did you hear a name? Weedo? Get that, Steve? Weedo? I think they've already finished. He used a mobile earlier but we couldn't get a fix or enough voice clarity. All we got was a definite mention of Dubai and the Dubai Asia Investment Bank…and the sound of a bottle… Yep, they've finished. It's a fucking enormous villa, sir. Gold everywhere and a fucking big jade horse. We got a few pictures inside once. Now the sound’s gone. He's probably seeing him to his limousine outside. But, that enough, sir?"
"Yep, keep it coming, boys, but we gotta improve that sound quality." The suited one got up, dropping his headphones alongside the equipment.
"Just one thing, sir. Before you go. Let's check out this guy, Tahir."
There was a pause as the man tapped names into a computer. "It won't take a minute…there. See? Could that be him? Tahir Babar, nice picture. If that's him then he's another Central Bank Board member. Figure?…We'll now try for a match. And let's check this Dubai Asia Investment Bank. Ever heard of it?"
The tall, smart one shook his head. "Nope, never."
Chapter Seventeen
GUIDO HAD DECIDED his two Lebanese guests should stay at the expensive Park Hyatt Hotel in Milan. Had they been interested and had it not been past ten in the evening a short stroll would have enabled them to shop in the celebrated fashion houses and boutiques of Via Montenapoleone and Via della Spiga. But after leading them on foot from the restaurant, Guido ushered them into the hotel lobby and, as he left them to gaze at the opulence perhaps wondering who was paying for this, he walked to the reception area.
"Your rooms are booked," he said as he returned, "but I am very busy so you can check in later. Please leave your bags with Marcel. Marcel will take care of them while we talk. Marcel—per piacere—do your job. These are important guests—all the way from Amsterdam." Then he giggled.
As Hamid and Farid watched their two bags disappear once more, Guido walked quickly on, shoes clicking on the tiles, arms marching in unison with his short legs. "Follow me. We will sit and talk. You will take an Italian beer, yes?"
Still walking, he beckoned a passing waiter carrying a tray. "Birra Moretti—due—two. For me, acqua minerale frizzante—San Benedetto."
In the far corner of the lobby he gestured towards a long sofa set against a glass-topped coffee table. He made straight for the sofa, sat down in the middle and lay back with his feet barely touching the floor, his trousers riding up to expose bright yellow socks and white legs. Holding his arms out, he then beckoned them to sit on either side of him. "Yah. This is comfortable. Here we can talk."
He looked to his left at Hamid and then to his right at Farid, both perched uncomfortably on the edge of the sofa.
"Milan is a very nice city, yes?" he continued from where his head lay on the back of the sofa. "It is much better than Beirut and I expect it is much better than Lagos. But I have not yet been to Nigeria. I have my own managers in Lagos. One is called Frederico because he looks like my dead uncle who was called Frederico. Lagos Frederico is of course as black as the night. Uncle Frederico was as white as snow. The other manager is still learning the business. He is called Dada because his hair is long and curly."
Again, he looked to his left and then to his right as if waiting for a round of applause at his humor. "So," he said, spreading his arms on the settee behind his guests' backs. "Tell me about your Nigerian company."
There was another silence as the two Lebanese looked at one another across the space that Guido occupied. "Come. You must not be shy. If we are to be partners we must be open."
Hamid looked particularly uncomfortable and he moved as if he might get up and go, but he was interrupted by the arrival of the waiter with a tray. "Ah, here is your Birra Moretti and my San Benedetto."
As the waiter prepared the table with three delicate white doilies, placed chilled glasses for the beer and filled Guido's glass with his mineral water, the silence continued. But Guido was now beaming broadly as the waiter bowed his head and went away.
"Sante," he said, lifting his glass of water and beckoning them to try their beer. "You must not be shy with Guido," he said, from virtually inside his glass of water. "You must relax. Now—tell me about your Nigerian business."
His tone was changing, almost to a command, but the silence from the other two continued as neither of them seemed inclined to try their beer or to speak.
Then: "How is Mr. Johnson? Is he well?"
Hamid visibly jumped. "You know Mr. Johnson?"
Guido tapped his nose with a stubby finger. "Of course. So tell me about your Nigerian business." The tone was now even more serious.
"It is fine," said Farid, bravely, and he lifted his glass of beer to his lips.
"Fine? Fine? Do you understand your business? It is not fine. I have checked. It is weak. It is struggling. It needs fresh ideas. It needs what the Americans call 'an injection of expertise.’ How can you even think of a project in Sierra Leone without an injection of the right expertise? And as for Sulima Construction, it is not structured properly to attract funds. And yet…and yet…you are sending Mr. Johnson to London to ask for help with a funding bid? It is ridiculous. Tu sei stupido."
Hamid stood up. Farid edged even further forward on the settee.
"How do you know about Johnson?" Hamid, visibly insulted now, hissed the question from his standing position.
Guido himself then sat forward. He quickly took off his jacket and tucked it behind him on the settee as if preparing for a fight. Hamid appeared to almost laugh at such an apparent show of aggression from such a little man, but he was distracted by the damp sweat marks at Guido's armpits and the shirt that stuck to his round chest. And, instead of raising a fist, Guido stood up—to the height of Hamid's own shirt collar—and held out his arms.
"It is my business to know everything," he hissed quite clearly and deliberately copying Hamid, even with a touch of the Arabic accent. "Why do you come to see me, if not for help, Mr. Hamid?"
With that, using the tips of his toes, he raised himself two more inches but still only looked into the black stubble on Hamid's chin. His tone was menacing but in the confines of the Park Hyatt, Hamid, tempted though he was to punch the little creature in the face, looked around and thought better of it.
Guido continued to hiss, quietly but very clearly in English with only a slight Italian accent. He was less than twelve inches from Hamid's face.
"You were advised to see me, Mr. Hamid, and I know who advised you. And you will fucking well
know from the person who recommended me that you were asked to treat this meeting with total secrecy and extreme confidentiality. That is what you were told and that is what made you so excited, Mr. Hamid. You smelled big money and a big opportunity and you talked to Farid about it and you both agreed it was worth a little more investigating because, like so many others, you are greedy. You run a backstreet business that no one has heard of, you have a family to feed and you want to prove something to your wife or to yourself that you are very clever and can make big money."
Guido's rosy lips curled into a snarl.
"So I have a right to know about your Nigerian business and your Cherry Picking and your ideas for this so-called Coalition for Arab Youth. If you want funds from international aid organization and you think you can make a few dollars out of it for your own pockets then the only person who can help you is Guido. Guido has the systems in place. He has the technology. He has the contacts and he is very, very clever, Mr. Hamid. You cannot come here to Milano and treat Guido as if he was an Egyptian selling cheap bronze teapots in a backstreet of Beirut or an illegal Burmese immigrant selling colored stones from a plastic bag in Bangkok.
"You must raise your game, Mr. Hamid. If you want to play in the big league then you will need a big partner who costs money and who expects to be treated with respect. Because if you don't treat him with respect you will find you get stung, very badly and very painfully—and so will your family. This is a dangerous game you are trying to play, Mr. Hamid. You need insurance."
Briefly he stopped, dropped down from his tiptoes and offered a twisted smile. "There are many benefits of working with Guido, Mr. Hamid. You get a package deal that includes free insurance. But the insurance is quickly invalidated because I am also the underwriter."
With the smile gone, his small eyes bored into Hamid's but then he turned to face Farid who was still sitting down.