Black Pearl

by Peter Tonkin

  ‘Downstairs,’ he reassured her with a chuckle. ‘He wants a chat.’

  ‘Tell him we’ll be five minutes,’ she said, flinging the duvet aside and returning to type as she headed for the bathroom. Richard forbore to point out that she hadn’t been invited.

  Fifteen minutes later the three of them were seated at an exclusive little table in the corner of a deserted coffee lounge overlooking the hotel’s main swimming pool, which was designed to resemble a lake surrounded by jungle. Richard, having just come back from Lac Dudo, was struck by how much it did not look like a real lake surrounded by actual virgin jungle.

  It was the lake, in fact, which Kebila had come to talk to him about. The colonel’s slim, muscular frame was clad in an immaculate uniform identical in cut and perfection to General Chaka’s, differing from his only in the matter of pips and badges of rank. Laurent Kebila and his cousin, Naval Commander Caleb Maina, always reminded Robin vaguely but excitingly of Denzel Washington. Younger and a little leaner, perhaps. One clean-shaven and one with a pencil moustache. Punctilious to a fault, he rose as they arrived and gave them a precise salute. Then he sat silently as coffee was left on the table beside his uniform cap and swagger stick before he started to talk business.

  ‘I have no doubt you have as clear an idea of the opposition’s likely plan as I do myself,’ Kebila began, his clipped Sandhurst accent coloured ever so slightly by the rhythms and intonations of his native West African Matadi dialect – like Igala, Edekiri and Itsekiri, a subspecies of the Yoruba spoken so generally here. The emphasis he gave to the word ‘opposition’ made it clear he meant Congo Libre rather than Celine Chaka. ‘It is, so to speak, a variant of the Kivu Gambit, if I may call it that.’ He glanced across at Richard and Robin. ‘The way that Rwanda, in the fairly recent past, fomented restlessness in the Kivu region of the DRC immediately across their border.’

  ‘The point being,’ emphasized Richard, putting down his coffee cup and reaching for the cafetière, ‘that Kivu is a major source of diamonds and coltan, which Rwanda did not have. The trouble in Kivu allowed them to get across the border and gain access without actually invading. It was – still is, to a certain extent – the core of diplomatic problems not only between Rwanda and the DRC but also between Rwanda and the rest of the diplomatic world. It very nearly became a pariah state. No outside contact except with some selected neighbours. No World Bank support. No IMF. Scarcely even any Oxfam, Save the Children or Medecin Sans Frontieres. No tourism. No inward investment. Even the Chinese are unlikely to go in there.’

  ‘Only one company currently on the record,’ emphasized Kebila. ‘Han Wuhan, in fact. As opposed to forty in the DRC. The same number in Nigeria. And now we have a good number beating a path to President Chaka’s door.’

  ‘As many as will beat a path to the door of President Celine Chaka after the elections,’ chimed in Robin.

  Kebila looked at her, his eyebrows raised. One finger stroked his moustache thoughtfully – a habitual gesture like Richard’s tendency to stroke the scar on his cheekbone when he was thinking. ‘Quite so,’ he said after a moment. Then he switched his attention more exclusively to Richard. ‘I have seen the picture of Ngama with Fola, Chen and Odem. How easy it would be,’ he persisted gently, ‘for our own neighbours in Congo Libre on the far side of Mount Karisoke, where there is no black lake full of coltan but a great deal of poverty, to send in someone like Colonel Odem with his Army of Christ to secure the area around Lac Dudo. Establish a bridgehead, so to speak. Secure a safe route over the mountain and across the border, such as might permit the illegal but unstoppable transport of coltan by Han Wuhan out of Benin La Bas.’

  ‘But not their troops,’ said Robin, understanding his point at once. ‘The Army of Christ, working under their orders, equipped and supplied by them.’

  ‘A well-established terrorist army whose roots are already deep in Benin La Bas,’ agreed Colonel Kebila gently. ‘As you say, with material and logistical support from over the border. And with advisors from Han Wuhan Extractions, of course. And the connivance of someone who knows the ground and the ropes, so to speak. An ex-government minister, say. Ex-Minister of the Outer Delta, Bala Ngama, perhaps.’ Kebila leaned forward and refreshed his coffee cup with a steady hand, then lifted it, sat back and continued. ‘He still has contacts in the government – no doubt he will have heard about Max’s discovery. A fortune for Gabriel Fola and all his tribe, family and his government – which are, of course, the same thing. And nothing for ours – whether it be Julius or Celine Chaka in the president’s palace. Nothing to be passed on to the people of Benin La Bas in the form of infrastructure, medical and educational facilities, the rebuilding of our social and financial economy.’

  Richard nodded, his mind fixed on the beginning of Colonel Kebila’s speech. It was as he had already calculated it. One glance at the familiar faces in the secret photograph had been enough for him. ‘But no pariah status for Gabriel Fola and his nation,’ he said. ‘A perfect scapegoat instead – just another marauding militia out of control and behaving as they want. No international condemnation. Just two and a half trillion dollars’ worth of coltan there for the taking.’

  ‘Unless we can stop it,’ said Kebila.

  ‘We …’ said Richard, his voice alive with speculation.

  ‘Consider the vital elements of our own version of the Kivu Gambit.’ Kebila ticked them off on his fingers as he enumerated them. ‘A willing government happy to take a few chances. A well-equipped force led by men who know the territory; who will stop at nothing to achieve their mission and overcome their enemies.’ His eyes crinkled with the smallest of smiles and the edge of his clipped moustache lifted infinitesimally. ‘A ruthless business enterprise led by men of questionable reputation who are happy to cut corners – and are not averse to a little backstabbing.’

  ‘And?’ said Richard, who suspected that he was just about to be compared with ex-minister Ngama somehow – as Bashnev/Sevmash had just been compared with Han Wuhan; Kebila and his men with Odem and his, and the Chakas with President Fola.

  ‘And a wild card,’ concluded Kebila. ‘An ace in the hole that we cannot quite fathom as yet. Whose involvement may mean nothing. Or everything.’

  ‘Is there,’ interrupted Robin, ‘a Mrs Ngama anywhere in this parallel?’

  Kebila laughed. It was a surprisingly pleasant sound. ‘The ex-minister is famous for his taste in beautiful women,’ he said. ‘But the last I heard, he was still … ah … tasting. So no, there is no Mrs Ngama. However, let us not let my love of rhetoric unbalance the drift of my argument. Your involvement could well be as crucial as your husband’s. Were I to suggest that he might be a unique liaison between the president and Bashnev/Sevmash, then you – to begin with – could perform exactly the same service between Bashnev/Sevmash and the leader of the opposition.’

  ‘So it’s a race for the coltan,’ said Richard, at his most forthright. ‘Chaka – father and daughter – will sanction an expeditionary force to go upriver as fast as possible. It will be led by you and its main objective will be to find and stop Odem. Any inconvenient red tape will be cut in order to allow Bashnev/Sevmash to assay and annexe the lake – on a commercial basis, while you leave enough men to handle the security.’

  ‘And, frankly, to keep an eye on your Russian colleagues, who are to be given the green light now because they are the only opposition to Han Wuhan that we have to hand,’ added Kebila smoothly. ‘There will be certain carefully negotiated provisos with regard to long-term extraction rights, of course. Perhaps, at a later date, an open bidding process …’

  ‘That goes without saying,’ said Richard, cutting to the chase. ‘But in the long term, we’re all dead, as John Maynard Keynes observed. In the short term, Chaka wants to put Bashnev/Sevmash in there before Han Wuhan can get a foothold, with you to keep an eye on their security and their behaviour. Longer term to be negotiated as and when, after an increasingly hard-to-call election. And you want Robin and
me to be liaison on the ground, oiling the wheels between all concerned – aware that there might well be unexpected additions to the situation that will have to be handled – like I said – as and when.’

  ‘A very precise summation,’ nodded Kebila. ‘Are you game?’

  Richard exchanged glances with Robin. She nodded infinitesimally.

  ‘Right,’ said Richard. ‘You’re on. And we’re in.’

  Patience

  Ten minutes later, Richard was hammering on the door of Max Asov’s presidential suite. Robin and he had discussed the best way forward as they rode up in the lift. Courtesy really demanded that they phone Max and Felix to arrange a meeting rather than banging on their doors, but it was by no means first thing and Richard was certain that news as good as this warranted immediate action. So they emerged from the lift, swept past the security guards and took a door each.

  The door half opened and Max’s bleary-eyed face appeared on Richard’s third knock. ‘Richard! Only you …’ Even as Max reluctantly answered Richard’s knock, Robin, a little way down the corridor, started pounding on Felix’s door.

  ‘Max. We have to talk …’ snapped Richard.

  ‘Who is it, Max?’ came the voice of Max’s current companion – the model Tatiana Kolina – from the bedroom. At least Tatiana seemed a little more mature than usual. Most of Max’s girls would make better companions for his daughter Anastasia. Some of them, indeed, were even younger than Anastasia.

  ‘It’s just Richard, Tatiana,’ Max called back, without looking round.

  ‘What is so important, Richard, that you must disturb us so early?’

  ‘We’re off!’

  ‘Off? Who’s off?’ demanded Max. ‘Where to? Richard! What are you talking about?’

  ‘We are! Bashnev/Sevmash and the whole of your team. Off upriver. As fast as you like, as far as you want; but back to the lake at least. With an escort of soldiers armed to the teeth, and carte blanche from the president and the leader of the opposition.’

  Max’s eyes narrowed. His face lost that sleepy look and became calculating. ‘Carte blanche?’

  ‘For anyone and anything you need. Any provision or permission the country can give. No limits. Just get up the river and take hold of the Lac Dudo on behalf of your company and the Benin La Bas government while an elite force sorts out your security and makes sure your people are safe.’

  Max stood gaping as his brain clearly tried to calculate the full implications of the sudden change in President Chaka’s position. The door swung wide. Tatiana padded out of the bedroom behind him wearing a nightdress that was more or less transparent. She caught Richard’s eye, which was not – to be fair – difficult, gave him a wicked smile and a wave and vanished again.

  In the brief silence, Felix’s door opened. ‘Robin,’ he said breathlessly. ‘How nice.’

  ‘Felix!’ said Robin, gazing over Felix’s shoulder into his room. ‘Is that a multigym? How in heaven’s name did they get something as big as that in there?’

  ‘Piece by piece. Now, why have you called me away from it?’

  Max caught Richard’s wandering gaze again. He shrugged. ‘Felix gets his morning exercise one way. I get mine another.’

  ‘Get dressed,’ said Richard again. ‘We have to talk. My suite in ten minutes; I’ll order breakfast. And check whether Tatiana’s game for a safari.’

  Twenty-four hectic hours later, Richard, Robin and Felix were down at the Granville Harbour docks in the office of ex-minister Bala Ngama’s replacement Minister of the Outer Delta, Patience Aganga. Max was up at the airport bidding a regretful farewell to Tatiana who, it transpired, would not be available for a safari into the interior after all. Especially not a safari likely to involve a good deal of hardship and danger – even before Colonel Odem and his Army of Christ the Infant were added to the picture.

  The minister’s office was in one of the smart new government buildings that had been erected on the land which had housed the shanty towns and slums under President Liye Banda’s kleptocratic regime. What had been a mess of shacks and tents constructed of clapboard, bamboo, timber pilfered from the wreckage of the nearest suburbs and ubiquitous plastic sheeting was now, under President Chaka, a carefully planned complex of manicured public gardens and municipal offices. The position of this particular office could hardly have been better from the new minister’s point of view. The broad front of the building opened through a series of glass doors on to a convex curving veranda that seemed to command a view of everything for which she stood responsible.

  To the left, the mouth of the River Gir opened, as wide as the Thames at Greenwich. Where the jungle used to cluster right up to the edge of the city as recently as ten years ago, now there stood river docks, bustling with river craft, some freighters, more dredgers and a pair of the neat little Fast River patrol boats. And a marina, filled with pleasure craft of all sorts, from pirogues to gin palaces, that could have been transported here directly from San Francisco or St Tropez.

  Straight ahead, on the far bank, the jungle of the delta itself swept out across the bay. But where in the old days that had been an environmental disaster of oil-polluted mangroves peopled with restlessly dissatisfied freedom fighters, now it reflected order and care. The pipework looked new. Distant figures were working there, wearing a range of coloured overalls, clearly about legitimate business. Richard remembered that it had been part of ex-minister Bala Ngama’s plan to repopulate the delta with a huge number of wild animals – most of them extremely dangerous. He had planned to set up a tourist park that would rival the Masai Mara and the Virunga Impenetrable Forest.

  To the right, the bay itself stretched away to southern and western horizons, ringed with rigs – the farthest visible only as columns of smoke and flame. Vessels moved busily among them, and Richard found himself wishing for binoculars as he strained to see the tell-tale house colours of Heritage Mariner. Hard right, looking north-west along the city’s coastline, there stood the new dock facilities. Richard’s most vivid memory of the place was as a blazing ruin after the late president Liye Banda’s helicopter had caused a supertanker to explode with near nuclear force. Now it was all rebuilt.

  The port frontage extended right down to the office complex itself; the minister of the outer delta’s waterside office seeming to stand as the dividing point between seagoing and river-going vessels, between commercial craft and pleasure boats. Right at the hub of Granville Harbour, at the heart of Benin La Bas. But Richard, Robin and Felix were not here to admire the view, or to appreciate the bustling industry of the anchorages in front of them. They were here to dot a few ‘i’s and cross a few ‘t’s. Because, although they had Kebila’s assurance that he would be supplying men and material, Heritage Mariner and Bashnev/Sevmash wanted to provide transport. For the first stages, at any rate.

  ‘It’s the biggest hovercraft ever built,’ said Richard easily to the new minister for the outer delta, Patience Aganga, as two of the Zubrs he was describing came into view cruising across the harbour. ‘It’s just under sixty metres long and twenty-five wide. It has a displacement of five hundred and fifty tons but when the cushion is up it has a draft of less than one and a half metres, though it sits just over twenty metres high. It can carry more than one hundred tons – three T80 main battle tanks, for instance, and it goes at nearly fifty knots – that’s the better part of sixty miles per hour. It’s bristling with rocket launchers, thirty-millimetre cannons and air missile defence systems. Or it would be if Mr Asov and Mr Makarov were permitted to import fully-functioning armaments. It has an armoured command post and sealed combat stations for when the going gets tough. That’s almost as much firepower as a naval corvette on a platform that moves as rapidly as a fast patrol boat, with a draft only half a metre deeper than what a patrol boat has. The Russian and Ukranian navies have them and so do the Greeks – though they’ll probably have to put them up for sale soon – and the Chinese navy has half a dozen. Max has been negotiating with the governme
nt to supply these vessels. But the removal of your predecessor put things back.’

  ‘I am aware of the basic statistics,’ answered Minister Aganga, her square face folding into the faintest frown. ‘I have only assumed ministerial responsibility relatively recently but I have taken the opportunity to go through my predecessor’s papers.’

  ‘Pay no attention to him, Minister. It’s just boy toy talk,’ said Robin, who had bonded with the dumpy, bespectacled schoolmarm at once. She received a grin in reply. Then Patience Aganga put her serious face back on and straightened her glasses.

  Richard shook his head gently, watching his ghostly reflection in the minister’s panoramic office window. Then his eyes refocused. The huge hovercrafts were speeding full ahead now, skipping across the water like skimmed stones. Each one threw up a massive wall of spray to port and starboard of its long, lean, grey hull, which was almost thick enough to conceal the three great turbofans that powered each of the huge vessels. Almost high enough to cloak the tall bridge houses that sat midships like the command bridges of the corvettes that the hovercraft so nearly resembled.

  ‘The bottom line is this, Minister,’ persisted Felix. ‘We can crew these vessels and use them to transport Colonel Kebila and his command as well as our own expedition up the river. They have, as you may know, already been used successfully to navigate right past the outer and inner deltas as far as the orphanage and refuge run by Mr Asov’s daughter and – until quite recently – the leader of the opposition, the president’s daughter, Celine.’

  ‘Indeed,’ answered Patience dryly. ‘Who has not heard of the great battle that led to the defeat of the Army of Christ the Infant and its leader, the murderous Moses Nlong.’

  ‘But, as is the nature of such things,’ rejoined Richard, turning back, ‘the winning of a battle is not the same as the winning of a war. And Moses Nlong might be dead, but he’s been replaced.’

  ‘By Colonel Odem.’ Patience nodded. ‘Yes. The president held a ministerial security briefing. Colonel Kebila addressed us in some detail. I am aware of what is at stake. And I have been directed to afford you all the help I can. You may therefore arm your huge hovercrafts. You may use your own trained crews or crews our navy will be happy to supply. Of course, you will be taking Colonel Kebila and his command aboard, but you may also expect to take anyone else you can fly in on time – or anyone else we can assign to you from our own personnel. We are to treat this as a war situation. Before it becomes a war, in fact.’