by Terry Morgan
Tom Hanrahan was sitting with a Dutch beer at a wet table outside the Cafe de Oude Hans.
Wearing his driving glasses because, but for streetlights, it was dark and too far for his fading eyesight, Tom had watched everything. As the tall woman left and walked towards the foot bridge carrying something, Tom quickly paid his bill and followed her to the nearest car park where he had parked his own small rental car. He watched her get into a big, black BMW with Belgian plates and within five minutes he was following it as it headed towards Rotterdam and then the E19 towards Antwerp in Belgium. It took the route around the city and then headed towards Brussels. Tom, checking his fuel gage, kept going, still following the red rear lights of the BMW in the distance.
Chapter Sixty-Two
"I'LL DRIVE DOWN to see you in Brighton, Mr. Harding." Cole Harding had phoned Jonathan to fix a meeting for the following week, but Jonathan was far too impatient to wait for that.
The offices of Fitzgerald, Waterman & Harding were just a short walk from Brighton sea front. Once inside, Harding's own office was a typical English lawyer's room—walls of law books behind glass, an old, polished-oak table, four leather seated matching chairs and Harding's oak desk piled with files alongside a computer. What marked it out as different were the photographs that lined the walls—pictures of African families and a framed print of an old colonial-style building fronted by palm trees.
Cole Harding noticed Jonathan looking at it.
"Fourah Bay College, Freetown," he said. "Founded in 1827 by the Church Missionary Society."
"I had no idea there was such an old College in Sierra Leone," admitted Jonathan.
"Even during World War Two, the British colonial government took it over because of its strategic position."
Jonathan noticed his voice and English accent. It was uncannily similar to Jim's. "You were educated there?" he asked, although he already knew the answer because he'd checked.
"No, no," Harding replied. "I came to England with my parents when I was seven. I grew up here, but still have extended family back there—family that seems to grow larger every year. I'm forever discovering lost cousins." He laughed and sat back.
"So," he went on. "When I mentioned Cherry Investments and Sulima Construction, it clearly rang a bell with you, Mr. Walton?"
Jonathan sensed just a touch of suspicion and quite right, too. They did not know each other. Harding needed to reassure himself and check Jonathan out. But Harding had seemed an impatient, no nonsense sort of man on the phone so Jonathan's strategy, decided on the drive down, was to jump straight in.
"I don't know either of them," he said. "I was asked to help with a funding bid by someone who claimed to represent them—a Nigerian. But I've been in this business a while, Mr. Harding, and like to think I can smell a scam or an attempt at fraud a mile away."
"But you said they are a client."
"Mr. Harding. I would like to ask that you treat this conversation with the utmost confidentiality."
Cole Harding raised his eyebrows. "As always," he said, toying with an expensive-looking Mount Blanc fountain pen.
"And I've checked you out," said Jonathan, unsmiling, but pleased to be saying that to a lawyer. "I have read about your attempts to stamp out fraud—especially that emanating from West Africa."
"A futile task, Mr. Johnson. Nevertheless, I trust the checks met with your approval."
"It is why I asked that we meet far sooner than you suggested. I cannot wait even a week."
"I see. Desperate times, indeed."
Jonathan then sat with Cole Harding through several calls to his desk phone. Each time, he said, "I'm running late, Carole. Please apologize and ask that they call back. I'm happy to stay later tonight to accommodate them if it is convenient."
At midday, it was Cole Harding who wound up their discussion.
"So, Jonathan, let me summarize if I may. You and your three colleagues, two of whom are mysterious and nameless and the other being ex independent member of parliament Jim Smith whom I remember only too well—admirable gentleman—they are pursuing the private investigations you have already instigated. Jim himself is temporarily back in UK but not willing for that fact to be publicized. Correct?"
Jonathan nodded.
"The Sierra Leone bid you have submitted with the connivance of the Nigerian man called Jacob Johnson is, you are certain, an attempt at the fraudulent transfer of millions of Euros of economic development aid funds to unknown hands—although we have some names—linked to a chain of companies going by the name Cherry—Cherry Investments, Cherry Picking, et cetera."
Jonathan nodded again "And this Sierra Leone funding bid is just an example."
"Of course. But you are using this bid, knowing it is an attempt at fraud—a test case to try and pinpoint how it's done, where it's done and who does it.”
"Exactly."
"You already suspect an organized criminal group that operates globally with international connections that include certain high ranking bureaucrats who influence decision-making processes. As a result they have access to resources that can be, and have been, used to stifle attempts to uncover it—as poor Mr. Smith found to his cost. Give him my best wishes, by the way. I wish there were more like him. Is my summary accurate?"
Jonathan smiled. "Yes."
Cole Harding sat back. "Fine, then what I will do now is the following. As a priority I will speak to my cousin who first brought this to my attention—Suleiman runs a road haulage company in Freetown. I will ask him to delve a little deeper with the additional information you have now provided. In due course, but only if necessary, I can call on the Inspector General of Police to act—he is a good friend. In the meantime we will do nothing other than to immediately alert Suleiman. We will wait until the time is right, enough evidence is available and you and your small team are ready and in need of additional support. Is that how you understand it?"
"Perfectly," said Jonathan, "And we're hoping the FBI and Interpol might also be there when the time is right, Cole."
Chapter Sixty-Three
"AH. THIS IS Guido, Signore Mendes. Guido from Italy. I am in London."
"How the fuck…?" The mobile phone of Silvester Mendes, aka Lucas Valdez, had just rung. Lounging in his underwear in his room at the Intercontinental Hotel in London, he hit the TV remote, switched off the Jeremy Kyle show and stood up.
"How the fuck, Signor Mendes? It was very easy. Is the Intercontinental Hotel a good hotel, Signore Mendes? Nice food? Nice bed?”
"What the fuck…?"
"What the fuck, Signore Mendes? It is about Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, West Africa, East Africa, Central Africa. You cannot hide from Guido. You were in Dubai and you spoke to one of my friends who told my managing director who told me. So, welcome now to London, Mr. Mendes. I think we should meet again."
"Why the fuck…?"
"Why the fuck? Because you are looking to expand your business and there is only one partner good enough."
"And who the fuck is that?"
"Who the fuck? Why, me, Guido of course."
"And what if I don't want to see you, you little prick."
"Waaaah," Guido's soprano voice shrilled. "That's not nice. Of course you do. Think about it, Silvester. Don't be so hasty. Think like a businessman not an ex New York cop. We are professionals on this side of the big pond. Things are sophisticated. Without sophistication, you might as well go back to America. Americans couldn't even point to Somalia on a map let alone make money out of it."
"What the fuck are you talking about?"
"Work with me, Silvester. Invest in me and start living up to your name—Silvester the Investor."
"Why the fuck…?"
"Meet me before I tell someone about your account with Dubai Asia Investment Bank and about Akram and Tahir and our mutual friend the Finance Minister. No one will find me but everyone knows where to find you. I found you. You are in room 320 and you were at the Highwayman Club last night and if I were yo
u I'd watch your back. The FBI are on your tail."
"The fucking FBI have been on my tail for years."
"Meet me, Silvester. I'm in the lobby right now."
Silvester Mendes heard the phone click. This was his third mobile phone and SIM card since his arrival in London, so how the hell did that little bastard, who he'd only met once before in a hotel lobby in Karachi, know his number? He stood, walked around the room, pulled on some clothes, picked up his key and took the lift downstairs.
The lobby was frantically busy with coming and going. All seats were taken, luggage was being wheeled about, an Arab with entourage—children, women clad from head to toe in black sat waiting but Mendes wandered around. There was no sign of the squat little man in a dark suit he'd met in Pakistan, but he knew if he talked he'd hear him.
"Fucking, lying little prick." He turned to go back to the lifts where a tall, dark-haired woman was peering into a brown leather handbag on a gilt chain hung off her shoulder. He pressed the button, waited and when the lift arrived and the door opened he and the woman went inside. The woman stood behind him. He pressed for floor three, the woman for floor four. On the third floor Mendes got out. In his room he felt something in his pocket. It was a sheet of pink paper.
"My dear Silvester. We should be partners. Together we could exploit USAID's flaws because we have the technology. But we need someone on the ground. Invest in a professional partner, Silvester, or be doomed to detection and arrest. The choice is yours."
Chapter Sixty-Four
JAN WAS ALSO on the E19 heading towards Antwerp and home to Brussels. But, near Breda and unable to resist the temptation any longer, he pulled off, went into a rest area and plugged the voice recorder into his own laptop on the passenger seat and listened. Not bad. He smiled to himself, then phoned Jonathan.
"The first piece of recorded evidence, Jon. Guido's voice in full soprano. Tell Jim. I'm now heading home. Any idea where Tom is?"
Tom Hanrahan was still driving south in his small rented Opel following the big BMW's red lights and wondering whether it was heading for Brussels—in which case he was worried he might lose it. But suddenly he saw its orange indicators come on and take the N16 into Mechelen. It was now ten o'clock, the traffic much lighter. At a junction, dominated by a tall, red and yellow McDonalds sign, the BMW turned and headed straight for the McDonalds car park. Tom followed. He parked behind a sign that said Family Combo Special and sat and watched the BMW. Nothing happened for twenty minutes. Then the driver's door opened and the tall woman emerged. In the street lighting, Tom saw that the headscarf was gone. Instead, long black hair hung below her shoulders. She was a smart-looking woman in a dark suit and she wandered around her own car, speaking on a mobile phone. Tom got out, strolled passed the Play Place, around a short hedge and stood in the shadow. He wrote down the BMW's registration number and returned to his own car to watch as the woman got back into hers.
The area was even quieter and darker now. A light drizzle was falling but a few cars were still using the drive-in. Then a big black Mercedes turned into the car park, circled around and parked a few spaces from the BMW. Tom watched a small, round man in a suit get out, open the rear passenger door and pull out an umbrella that seemed to sparkle in the lights. He put it up over his head and strutted quickly around to the passenger door of the BMW, shook the umbrella and got in. It could only have been a few meters but the man seemed determined not to get wet. Five minutes later, the rain had stopped and he emerged carrying the laptop that Jan had used and the rolled-up umbrella. He gave a delicate wave to the woman in the BMW, opened the rear door of the Mercedes, put the umbrella on the back shelf, shut the door and got into the front. Then he drove off.
Tom now followed the Mercedes at a safe distance, but too far to read its registration plate.
Chapter Sixty-Five
IN SIERRA LEONE, driver Mitchell was, as usual, the last to arrive back at the yard of Mambola Transport Enterprises. It had been another long, hot day and the sun was just setting in a red ball over the Atlantic Ocean beyond the fence and through a row of silhouetted coconut palm trees. He reversed the truck into his allocated space next to the concrete block building that was the company headquarters, switched his engine off and jumped down. Van drivers Samson, Big Saidu and George were sitting together, smoking on the wooden pallets in the lengthening shadows.
"What's up my man?" Mitchell called to the three.
"Mr. Suleiman, he want to see you," said Big Saidu.
"Him very serious this day," added Sampson, grinning. "He tok about that bastad Moses, say he know now he big teef and skimmer. Say he have proof. Say he wanna speak to you, Mitchell. You must go, fast like. He's in the office."
"OK," said Mitchell. "But you got any watta, man? I gave all my watta to lady who sell banana but still not get any free banana."
Mitchell knocked on Mr. Suleiman's office door and went in.
"Ah, Mitchell. We have a serious matter."
"Something I did, Mr. Suleiman?"
"No, no. It's that bastard Moses. He is a criminal, Mitchell, a big time crook, a scammer and a thief."
"You see, Mr. Suleiman? I told you."
"Yes, but my cousin Cole in England told me more."
"Sorry, Mr. Suleiman."
"Now then, Mitchell. Tomorrow I need you to be like that big, fat lady from Botswana. You know who I mean? The lady detective—except you are not a lady."
Mitchell scratched his head.
"I have a plan, Mitchell. Tomorrow you must deliver some boxes to Rocki General Supplies."
"How many, Mr. Suleiman?"
"I don't know, perhaps ten. The number is not important, Mitchell. Listen and do not interrupt. Tomorrow you will deliver some boxes to Rocki General Supplies. They are water purifiers that were lost at the airport but now found. It will be a nice surprise for Mr. Moses so when you turn up he will be very pleased to see you. Now—listen, Mitchell. Tell him you want him to check inside the boxes. When he is not looking and busy checking, you must do something. You must stick this little machine in his office near his telephone. It is a big mess, yes? His office?"
"A big mess, Mr. Suleiman, but what is that?"
"It is a voice recorder."
"Where did you get it, Mr. Suleiman?"
"From my cousin, Cole, in England DHL delivery this morning. There is another little machine that belongs to the first one—they are like brother and sister. This one is for Mr. Moses, this one is for you. You must sit outside in Sani Abacha Steet for three days to listen to what Moses says. Then you must go back and retrieve the machine before he finds it."
Chapter Sixty-Six
JIM HAD FELT tired and exhausted all day and now he couldn't sleep.
"The time difference is catching up with you. You'll be OK," he reassured himself aloud to the walls of his hotel room. He was also rapidly losing track of what was going on and he didn't like it. Phone calls were all he had to go on. The mobile had rung constantly all evening.
"Action through my Brighton lawyer friend, Cole Harding, to find out what's going on in Sierra Leone, Jim," Jonathan had earlier reported with an energy that Jim wished he shared. "Let's see if we can prove a link with Guido. And Jan, under duress, is the one responsible for tampering with my bid for Jacob Johnson. Let's see how Eichmann deals with it at the next EAWA meeting tomorrow. And Scott Evora is phoning me tonight."
Then: "I'm on the tail of a black Mercedes, Jim," was the late evening call from Tom somewhere in Belgium. "The car contains a small fat man. Guess who?"
That morning, Jim had called Hugh McAllister for an update on the exhibition. "Anything remotely professional is going to take me at least three weeks to organize, Jim. And I'll need to start promoting it now if you want people to turn up. "
"Proceed, Hugh. I've decided to go off for a couple of days. I'll be in touch by phone."
Jim's plan to go off for a couple of days had been in the making for three years. The plan was for Margaret to go with hi
m to a place he knew she loved as much as he did. That plan was now shelved, but he had decided he'd still go, but alone.
He had taken an early train to Derby and then a bus to Ashbourne. He bought a can of orange juice and a pack of fresh sandwiches and hired a bicycle to pedal in the autumn sunshine along the Tissington Trail that led into the Derbyshire Dales and Peak District of England.
At midday, he sat to eat his sandwiches on a damp, sunny bank of grass, brown leaves and some lingering but fading summer flowers and then crawled to the top of the bank where the wind blew fresher. With his hand shielding his eyes, he looked out towards the bright, sunlit hills that stretched into the far distance—a view he knew and had expected to share with Margaret.
Then he rode slowly on using the straight, flat cycle track that had once been a thriving railway line that linked the area's ancient industry and then onto a narrow road that led towards Dovedale and the tiny hamlet of Thorpe. Then, when his breath became short and his lungs began to hurt, he dismounted, and pushed the bike slowly up another slope until he could once again freewheel down into the spectacular, green valley of the River Dove.
He stopped at the bottom on the corner by the stone bridge, leaned over and looked into the water flowing beneath. It was crystal clear with long, flowing strands of green weed and he watched a water vole swim across and disappear into the shelter of dark, tree roots at the water's edge. He watched and he listened.
Just as at home up on his rock, nature was noisy. The water, tumbling over the black, stony, river-bottom, a robin in the branches of the trees, sheep on the hillside. And civilization—a tractor, somewhere out in the fields. Then a kingfisher, like the ones at home, but smaller. It flew from under the bridge beneath his feet to disappear in a flash of fluorescent blue upstream. And Jim wanted to go the same way, to leave the bike and walk, to stroll along the stony pathway beside the river, to follow it upstream to where it opened into a wider valley of high, green, rocky hills, to the tiny village of Mill Dale and still further into the higher hills.