by Andy Maslen
“Boss. Please. Leave now. I need you.”
He held out his hands, palms uppermost and Gabriel watched, horrified, as the blades of the machetes sank and slithered through the bloodied flesh and clanged to the ground, bouncing first off the blood-streaked metalwork of the two taxis that flanked Smudge.
“I can’t!” Gabriel screamed. “I’ve got a job to do here first. It’s orders, Smudge. From Barbarian Sutherland.”
“Murderer!” Smudge shouted back at him as he climbed onto the boot of the Merc, pulling himself up with clawed fingers that left bloody marks across the gleaming black paintwork.
The rain ran freely down Gabriel’s face and into the collar of his shirt. Smudge’s face was a red mask, his lower jaw torn away and hanging by a sinew from the left side of his neck.
The two men came face to face, Smudge on his knees, Gabriel standing on the driver’s seat.
Smudge reached down inside the car and pushed the button for the sunroof.
“No!” Gabriel screamed as the wickedly sharp edge of the sunroof moved against the flesh of his stomach, pushing him back against the edge of the aperture. Then it snapped shut.
As his torso began to topple sideways, Smudge leaned closer. “Don’t do it, Boss,” he whispered, before imitating a mobile phone alarm.
*
Gabriel jerked upright, emitting an involuntary gasp and clutching his abdomen, where the phantom pain from his severed body still lingered. He wiped a hand across his forehead and checked his phone: 11.55 a.m. He thumbed the starter button and cranked the air conditioning up to full power. While he waited for the car to cool, he adjusted the seat position.
Pulling the gear selector into drive, Gabriel nosed the sleek, black car out of the garage and onto the street, which was steaming as the sun evaporated the rain from the hot tarmac.
Waiting outside the front of the Parliament building, he tried to hold onto the nightmare. What were you trying to tell me, Smudge? No. Not Smudge. His psychiatrist, Fariyah Crace, had explained to him that if the hallucination was telling him anything at all, it was merely acting as a mouthpiece for his own subconscious. OK, what am I trying to tell me, then? Is that better?
16
Death in Harare
WHATEVER Gabriel might have learnt from his subconscious would have to wait. He had no sooner parked at the side of the road outside the gateway of the Parliament building than his man, Minister of Finance Philip Agambe, appeared from the security checkpoint and walked directly towards the car.
Gabriel exited the car and walked round the back to hold the door open, keeping his head bowed and the peak of his cap dragged well down over his eyes.
“Where is Future?” Agambe asked.
Gabriel was nonplussed for a moment? Was it a code word? A secret ritual between ministers and their drivers? Then he realised. Future was the driver.
“Not well, boss,” he said, maintaining his South African accent. “I’m your relief driver. Where to, please?”
“National Bank. You know where that is, I take it?”
“Yes, boss.”
“Good. I don’t want to keep the director waiting.”
Gabriel closed the door on Agambe with a soft thunk.
He checked the rearview mirror. Agambe had opened his briefcase and was scrutinising papers spread out on the lid. He hadn’t fastened his seatbelt. One quick check in the door mirror and he pulled out into the sparse afternoon traffic. Where the offices of the Zimbabwean National Bank were Gabriel neither knew nor cared. He was heading for an area of the capital that politicians spoke of mainly in terms of clean-up operations, especially before international conferences.
His pulse steady at sixty, Gabriel drove through the business district. Smart, wide streets intersected at right-angles, the glass-faced buildings bedecked with global bank logos as well as local African brands. After a few minutes he emerged on the other side, heading for what his tourist guidebook had called “Harare’s combat zone”. Home to brothels, drug dealers and bare-knuckle boxing matches where the winner was the man left on his feet at the end of the bout, it was the last place this Cambridge-educated finance minister would ever voluntarily visit.
“Hey! Driver?” Agambe called from the back seat. “Where in blazes do you think you are taking me? Are you mad? This is The Avenues. You want to get us both killed? Turn around now and get me to the National Bank.”
“Sorry, boss. We’re being followed. Two white men in a dark blue BMW. I think they’re armed. I need to lose them.”
“Shit! Get rid of them, then. I’m calling the police.”
“No! Don’t do that, boss. If they’re after you and they hear sirens they’ll close in and do us right now. Let me lose them first.”
“Fine, but get on with it. I have many enemies, you know.”
Gabriel accelerated sharply, throwing Agambe back into the padded leather seat, and hurled the Merc round a couple of corners, driving deeper into the combat zone and keeping his man unbalanced, physically as well as mentally. Finally, he found the spot he’d pictured in his mind. They drove down a narrow road bordered on one side by an area of scrubland separated from the street by chain-link fencing, and on the other by a row of cheap houses and blocks of flats, the shutters of which were all closed against the sun.
Picking up speed, Gabriel aimed for the fence and burst through into the hardscrabble land beyond. Agambe screamed, an incoherent burst of his own language. The loud click in the middle told Gabriel he was a Xhosa-speaker.
The insulation inside the cabin was so effective, there was barely a sound as the fencing tore away from the metal stanchions. He brought the car to a lurching stop a few hundred yards away from the roadside, taking advantage of the cover provided by a hump of grassy red earth.
As the car’s momentum transferred to the loose items inside, Agambe was hurled forwards, smashing his face against the rear of the front headrest. “Fuck! What just happened?” he shouted, after he’d bounced back into his seat.
“The end of the road just happened, Minister,” Gabriel said, in his own voice.
He left the car and yanked open the door before Agambe could think of locking it from the inside. Reaching down he grabbed the man by his suit jacket and hauled him out, throwing him onto his hands and knees in the dirt.
“Who are you? You’re not a driver,” Agambe said, swiping at his bleeding nose with his hand.
“You’re wrong, Minister,” Gabriel said. “I am a driver. I’m just not your driver. I commanded a mobility troop in my Army days. It was like something out of Mad Max. We used to tear across the desert in stripped-back Humvees like fucking great dune buggies. But now I’ve come to tell you your shitty little game is over.”
He reached into the pocket of his chinos and pulled out the butterfly knife. Agambe watched, eyes wide, as the knife executed its circular dance in the air before coming to rest in Gabriel’s right hand, blade locked into place and glinting in the sun.
“What little game?” Agambe asked. “What do you mean?”
“Funding terrorism. Killing British troops. Massacring nurses. How’s that for starters?”
Agambe’s eyes widened. “I don’t know what you mean. I’m one of the few men in the Government trying to change things for the better.” Then his mouth fell open and he covered it with a hand. “Wait,” he said, letting his hand fall away again. “Who sent you?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“You’re working for Sutherland, aren’t you? She sent you to kill me.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It does, it does! She’s trying to silence me.”
Gabriel frowned. A member of the Shona tribe who spoke Xhosa under pressure? And now, something about the man’s tone made him want to hear more.
“What do you mean, silence you? Since when did terrorists’ bankers want to shout about their work?”
“Don’t you see? That’s what this is all about. I’m going to expose her. She’s going down
.”
With these words, Agambe lunged forward and grabbed Gabriel by the lapels. He was so close Gabriel could smell the cardamom seeds he’d chewed to sweeten his breath.
“Do not trust that woman. If you kill me she will not want you around to tell the tale. She’s in bed with Gordian. She’ll have you killed too, my friend.”
“I’ve never heard of Gordian. And she won’t have me killed. I saved her life.”
Gabriel thought of Smudge. And of who he trusted more, his own Prime Minister, the woman who’d allowed him out here to recover Smudge’s remains, or this stranger, this corrupt stranger funneling money to men who beheaded journalists and put the footage on YouTube.
“No!” Agambe screamed. “You have to believe me!”
“Sorry,” Gabriel said. “The trouble is, I don’t.”
It’s harder to stab someone to death than many people – especially amateur knife-fighters – believe. A clumsy thrust to the heart more often than not simply hits a rib, which either deflects or breaks the blade. Gabriel Wolfe was far from an amateur. He drew back the butterfly knife and stabbed upwards from underneath Agambe’s lowest rib. He thrust up and kept thrusting, so that the tip of the blade found, and punctured, the heart from below, having caused almost certainly fatal damage to the man’s left lung. Agambe was lifted off his feet by the force of the blow before sagging to his knees as his ruptured heart stuttered and misfired before shutting down altogether. Gabriel caught him and let him fall to one side, careful to avoid the bright red oxygenated blood now surging from Agambe’s ruptured heart.
Blood cleaned off the blade, Gabriel flipped it around and back into the protective embrace of its hinged handle. Now for the cover-up. Gabriel bent by the body and pulled the jacket open before relieving the dead man of his wallet and phone. He yanked the tie downwards and pulled open the shirt collar. Gold glinted at the man’s neck: an old-fashioned watch-chain, complete with a gold half-sovereign mounted with the T-bar on two shorter lengths of chain. He ripped it free, leaving a gouge in the dead man’s skin. It joined the wallet and phone in the pocket of Gabriel’s borrowed chauffeur’s jacket. Then he crouched and hoisted the body up and dragged it back onto the back seat.
Now for the car.
After retrieving a bottle of water from a cup-holder in the centre console, Gabriel thumbed the button that opened the petrol filler cover and unscrewed the black plastic cap. He ripped a length of fabric from Agambe’s shirt, twisted it into a makeshift fuse and threaded it down into the filler tube leading to the petrol tank.
He waited for a few seconds, while capillary action sucked petrol along the fibres of the shirt fabric to the ragged end . . .
. . . flicked open the lid of the lighter he’d brought for the purpose . . .
. . . and lit the end of the white cotton.
It caught at once, though the bright sunlight rendered the flames all but invisible.
Gabriel retreated fifty yards at a run then sat on the ground to wait, using the bottled water to wash Agambe’s blood off his right hand.
He didn’t have to wait long.
With a whoomp, the petrol tank of the Mercedes exploded, showering burning fuel and shards of steel around the limousine. One by one, the expensive plastics, fabrics and foam seat pads ignited, adding their own individual smells to the blend of acrid black smoke and volatile chemicals released by the combustion.
Burning in a kaleidoscopic mix of lime green, tangerine and turquoise flames, the car sagged in a series of jerks as the tyres blew out with loud pops. The previously glossy black paintwork bubbled and cracked, giving off a sharp metallic tang as the expensive minerals mixed into the paint began to burn.
Gabriel got to his feet, smacked his palms against his thighs to dispel the dust and marched back to the road to search out a taxi to take him back to the hotel.
17
A Creeping Doubt
WHEN Gabriel arrived back in the room at 12.45 p.m., Britta was lying on the bed reading, stripped to a pair of pale-grey knickers and an olive-green vest. The electric stand fan was switched to maximum power and she’d positioned it at the end of the bed in an effort to keep cool. She sat up as Gabriel came through the door. He’d dumped the chauffeur’s jacket and cap in a garbage bin behind a chicken restaurant while searching for a taxi. Not knowing why, he’d kept the gold chain.
“How did it go?” she asked, eyes searching his.
“Agambe’s dead.”
“You OK?”
“Yes, of course. Why wouldn’t I be?”
She reached out to him with an outstretched hand, and pulled him down to sit next to her.
“Like I said. You just murdered an elected politician.”
“On the orders of another.”
“Yes, and I’m not sure whether that makes it better or worse.”
“What it makes it, is over. That part, anyway. I need to call Don, then we should get going. I want to be out of Harare before the Right Dishonourable Philip Agambe’s body is discovered.”
“Any risk of prints or forensic evidence?”
“Shouldn’t be. He’ll be beyond recognition by now and so will any prints or physical evidence I left. Anyway, I’m not on any criminal databases and Don will have ensured my Army records and prints stay secure inside The Department’s files.”
Britta stood and pulled on her trousers and a shirt.
“Make the call then.”
Gabriel frowned. “In a second.”
“What is it?” she asked.
“It’s probably nothing. But he asked me if Barbara Sutherland had sent me.”
“What?” Britta sat down again.
“Almost straightaway. He said he was going to take her down.”
“Probably meant with his friends in the terror cell.”
Gabriel nodded. “You’re right. Just a final bit of boasting.”
But what was that about Gordian?
He hit the speed dial number for Don on the satellite phone. After a few seconds during which Gabriel looked at Britta and gave her a small, tight smile, Don answered.
“Hello, Old Sport. What news?”
“Agambe’s dealt with. Now Britta and I need to get back to Mozambique.”
“Good man. Call me when you’re in place and we can sort out some on-the-ground support.”
“I will, but Don?”
“What is it?”
“Something Agambe said to me. He asked if Barbara Sutherland sent me. Said he was going to expose her.”
There was a momentary pause during which Gabriel could hear his boss breathing steadily.
“Grasping at straws, Old Sport. Knew you were going to deliver The Queen’s Message and was trying to buy time.”
“I suppose so. I mean, how could a rogue Zimbabwean Government minister expose our PM?”
“Exactly. Now, listen. I have to go. Meeting some high-up in the Ministry of Defence who goes by the unlikely name of Sir Bruce Babbage. I suspect mowing the lawn would be a more interesting hour. Call me from Mozambique, like we agreed.”
“Of course.”
The line went dead.
“Everything all right?” Britta asked as she laced up her combat boots.
“Good question. Is it? Something’s off here and I don’t know what it is.”
*
They reached Muanza at 10.00 p.m., having taken turns driving. It was a poor-looking place, with white-painted circular huts roofed with thatch intermingled with modern concrete buildings. The red-earth road was home to goats, chickens and sleeping men clutching bottles in outflung hands, as well as the sparse traffic.
After checking into a cheap hotel, situated another grubby rung down the ladder of comfort and respectability, Gabriel and Britta laid out their kit on the sagging double bed.
“Are you sure we need all this?” Britta asked, hands on hips as she looked down at the array of high-tech weaponry and explosives in front of them.
“Better . . .”
“. . . S
afe than sorry. Yes, I get it. Your favourite catchphrase, right?”
He frowned. “I don’t know, Britta, I mean there’s no civil war, no militias. Or not as far as we know. This should be cleared at the highest level. We should be able to just go in using the GPS, sweep the area and find him. Then leave with the remains and get back to England on a military flight.”
She closed with him and slung her hands round his waist. Looked up into his dark brown eyes with her ice-blue ones.
“For an analytical man that was a lot of ‘shoulds’ and ‘don’t knows’. What’s bothering you?”
Gabriel reached round to the back of his head and scratched his scalp.
“That’s the trouble. I don’t know. It’s just, Agambe seemed so sure of what he was saying. How could anyone be so quick to identify who was behind their assassination? Even if that person was bankrolling terrorists? And why was he speaking Xhosa if he was a Shona? Sutherland said her intel was so good. Surely they’d have got his identity right?”
She pulled him closer and stretched up to kiss him.
“I don’t know. Come on, stop moping. Let’s go out for a beer or two and something to eat.”
They repacked the assault rifles, sub-machine guns, pistols and the rest of the materiel and shoved it all into the wardrobe. Then Gabriel reached in and pulled out the two Glocks. He handed one to Britta and tucked the other into the back of his waistband.
Britta looked at him and grinned.
“Better safe than sorry, hej?”
He grinned back. “Fast learner, aren’t you?”
Gabriel had also brought a flexible bike lock in his luggage, and now he threaded the heavy-duty, braided steel cable through the doors of the wardrobe and spun the combination wheels to lock their armoury away.
On the street, it was already dark. Warm, too, and humid. From somewhere behind them came the sound of a party. Women’s voices were singing in beautiful harmony, underlaid with the clink of bottles and raucous male laughter. Gabriel’s mouth watered as the ever-present southern African smell of grilling meat reached his nostrils. Britta kicked out at a pair of chickens dithering in front of them. The birds scurried away with protesting clucks. Under low-wattage street lighting, they made their way to a brightly lit bar on the corner of their block. The sign above the door announced “Bar Pele” in vivid green and yellow neon. Making sure their windcheaters covered the butts of their pistols, Gabriel and Britta pushed through the flimsy wooden door to the bar and went inside.