by Andy Maslen
If Gabriel had been expecting a reception area, he was soon set straight. The whole of the inside of the building was an open rectangle of floor space. It had been crudely subdivided into workstations comprising cheap-looking desks, swivel chairs from some bargain-basement office supplier and rudimentary, belt-driven drills. Power came via overhead cables slung from the suspended ceiling.
At each of the workstations, of which there must have been fifty, a masked operator sat, head bent to the task of transforming elephant tusks into purchasable objects.
A couple of the blue-masked workers glanced up as he and Jiàntán entered the factory, but they soon returned to their work. From his right, Gabriel heard footsteps above the multiplied thrum of the drills.
He turned to meet their host.
The man bustling towards him was in his late fifties and wearing traditional Arab dress. His belly interrupted the smooth fall of his white robe. Thawb, Gabriel translated mentally. Beneath the hem, his feet were shod in brown leather open-toed sandals. His red-and-white checked headscarf – ghutrah – was held in place with a black rope – agal.
Behind gold-rimmed square glasses, Yusuf’s brown eyes gleamed and he was smiling broadly. He held out his right hand and took Gabriel’s.
‘As-salaam ’alaykum, Gabriel,’ he said, pumping Gabriel’s hand vigorously.
‘Wa alaykum salaam, Yusuf.’
The handshaking went on, as was traditional.
‘You speak excellent Arabic,’ Yusuf said, in English.
‘And you speak excellent English.’
Finally, Yusuf relinquished his grip on Gabriel’s hand. He looked over his shoulder and nodded perfunctorily at Jiàntán.
‘Let us keep to English, Gabriel. It is the international language of business, is it not?’
Gabriel nodded.
‘It is, but I am happy to speak in Arabic if that would be easier for you, Yusuf.’
Yusuf’s eyes widened.
‘No! Not at all. I speak English with my clients in Hong Kong. It is good to practise, yes?’
Gabriel smiled.
‘Agreed. Mr Cho sends his regards.’
‘Please return mine to him when you next see him. He is well?’
‘Yes, as far as I could see, he enjoys good health.’
‘That is good, that is good,’ Yusuf said. ‘Come, you must be thirsty. I have prepared refreshments in my office.’
He reached down and took Gabriel’s hand in his and led him, companionably, along one side of the factory, to a partitioned-off corner.
‘Wait outside,’ Yusuf barked at Jiàntán.
The office was blissfully cool after the unpleasant warmth of the main processing area. A low mosaic-topped coffee table occupied most of one side. Its multi-coloured tiled surface was covered with small silver and brass dishes. Each contained a different sweetmeat.
Gabriel saw deep-fried falafel the size of golf balls, filo pastry tubes from which fragrant lamb and mint poked out at either end. Olives, black and green, and swimming in a reddish oil. Flatbreads, their upper surfaces pocked with black bubbles from the oven. Dishes of baba ganoush and hummus, the smells of charred aubergine and garlicky chickpeas rising from the little bowls and making Gabriel’s mouth water.
A silver pot steamed on a second table and, beside it, glass cups in silver cages stood ready, laden with fresh mint leaves.
Yusuf swept a hand wide over the table.
‘Eat! Eat! Whatever you like. Mint tea?’
‘Yes please. That would be lovely,’ Gabriel said. The roadside sandwich he’d eaten earlier felt like an age ago.
Yusuf beamed, took one of the low armchairs and watched intently as Gabriel scooped up some hummus on a triangle of flatbread.
‘It is acceptable?’ he asked, his forehead creasing. ‘We get it from a restaurant up the road. They are not the best, but they are the nearest.’
‘It’s wonderful,’ Gabriel said, and he meant it. The dip was creamy and spiked not just with garlic but a pinch of chilli.
Yusuf poured boiling water into two glasses, pushed one towards Gabriel and took one for himself.
The smell of fresh mint coiled its way into Gabriel’s nostrils and from there to his brain, stimulating memories of his parents’ herb garden at the trade mission house in Hong Kong.
‘Mr Cho said only that I should make you welcome, Gabriel,’ Yusuf said, waiting until Gabriel had taken a sip of the mint tea and set his glass down. ‘Nothing more. How may I be of service to you?’
‘First of all, I would like to give you this,’ Gabriel said, retrieving a small wrapped parcel from his jacket pocket.
He handed it to Yusuf, who took it reverentially in both hands. He looked up at Gabriel and smiled.
‘It is rare to find someone who takes so much time and trouble to observe the correct behaviour, Gabriel,’ he said. ‘Most are all about this,’ he added, rubbing the pads of thumb and forefinger together.
Gabriel inclined his head.
‘I am a guest in your country, and your factory. Please, open it.’
With delicate movements that belied his stubby fingers, Yusuf unwrapped the gold tissue paper. As he spread the corners of the sheets open on his palm he inhaled softly.
He plucked out a small jade carving of a salmon leaping. Gabriel had bought it in Hong Kong’s jade market the day he left for Dubai.
‘I hope you like it,’ Gabriel said. ‘As you run an ivory-carving workshop I thought you might appreciate the artistry.’
Yusuf looked up. His eyes were glistening behind his glasses.
‘This is beautiful. Thank you. You are a collector of netsuke yourself?’
‘I was left a small collection, but I haven’t added to it.’
Yusuf stood and placed the little green salmon on a shelf beside an intricately worked carving of an elephant inside whose latticed sides a baby elephant stood.
He returned to his chair.
‘Tell me, Gabriel, what brought you to my humble factory?’
‘Some poachers in Africa murdered a group of British and Botswanan soldiers. Ivory poachers. I have been charged with bringing them to justice. I need to find out who was responsible for the massacre.’
Yusuf’s face, so full of pleasure only moments earlier, clouded over.
‘Ah, Gabriel, I wish I could help you. And, believe me, I am sorry for the loss of your comrades’ lives. But I do not know any poachers. All our ivory comes in by way of Vientiane.’
Gabriel frowned.
‘So, nobody up the supply chain ever comes here? You don’t deal directly?’
Yusuf shook his head, making his red-and-white ghutrah sway against his round cheeks.
‘I am sorry, my friend.’
Gabriel tried not to let his disappointment – or his suspicion – show. He wanted to push as hard as he could. Surely a factory manager would know who was supplying his raw materials, Laotian market or not?
‘And you’ve never heard whispers about the ultimate supplier for your ivory?’
Only now did a flicker of irritation disrupt Yusuf’s previous genial expression.
‘It is like I said, Gabriel. No. I order tusks from my contact in Vientiane. He arranges to buy it and ships it here.’
Gabriel finished his mint tea and placed the glass down on a few clear square inches of mosaic with a hard little clink.
‘Three British soldiers were murdered, Yusuf. The people I work for will not stop until their deaths have been avenged. Not just the killers but anyone who helped them. Do not put yourself in harm’s way to protect these men.’
Yusuf spread his hands wide.
‘Gabriel, even if I did know these poachers, why would I tell you their names? You will kill them and cut off my supply. I am a businessman. I need to protect my livelihood. I have a family to provide for. A wife, children.’
It was a mistake. Gabriel knew it. And he could see that Yusuf knew it, too. Gabriel said nothing. Sometimes it was the most effective way of getting people to tal
k. Some people just couldn’t bear the pressure.
‘Look,’ Yusuf said, finally. ‘I am not saying that I do know these people.’ He cleared his throat and took a sip from his glass of tea. ‘But just suppose I did, I would be taking a huge risk giving them up to you. A huge business risk. I would lose a great deal of money.’
Gabriel stared at Yusuf. Watched the way his eyes, glistening with tears at his gift a few minutes earlier, now had a greedy glint. Yusuf was just like those others. The ones for whom it all came down to this. He mentally rubbed the pads of his thumb and forefinger together.
‘I can pay you for information,’ Gabriel said. ‘If you have any.’
Yusuf shook his head.
‘You misunderstand me, Gabriel. Money can always be replaced, yes? But favours are a currency beyond value. I tell you a name and you owe me a favour. A man as well connected as you will know many powerful people.’
Gabriel didn’t even have to think.
‘No favours. Sorry.’ The last one I repaid nearly got me killed and a village full of Chinese peasants massacred.
Yusuf pooched his lips out in a moue of disappointment.
‘That is a shame. But, as I said, I was only speaking, what is that English word, hypo…?’
‘…thetically.’
‘Exactly! Hypothetically.’
Gabriel returned the smile. Time for one more roll of the dice.
‘I’m sorry, Yusuf. That was rude of me to push when you had already answered my question. Look, at least I can cross this place off my list. Thank you for your time. I don’t suppose, while I’m here, you would show me around? I am fascinated by the whole process.’
Yusuf smiled again, his moment of irritation forgotten.
‘Of course! It would be an honour. Come! Come!’
After the quiet of Yusuf’s office, the hum and rattle of fifty electric motors, boring, burring, cutting and polishing ivory was deafening. He looked at the bent heads with the blue paper masks over their noses and mouths. How do they take it without going deaf?
He followed Yusuf as he pointed out particularly intricate or large pieces of ivory. Unprocessed tusks were stacked on wooden pallets against one wall. Gabriel saw dark rust-red stains on the roots and pictured the mangled and mutilated heads of these great beasts. He felt a sudden surge of anger and reproached himself for sucking up to Yusuf. Needs must.
A cry of pain made him look up.
36
A woman working on an entire tusk, three feet from root to tip, had reared back in her chair. Her face above the mask was pale. She was clutching her left hand. Blood seeped from between her fingers.
‘Stupid woman!’ Yusuf yelled in Arabic as he rushed over. ‘Don’t get blood inside the tusk, it’ll never come out.’
The woman was rocking back and forward in her chair and Gabriel saw blood streaming now, from between her fingers and onto the concrete floor. Yusuf was shouting for a first aid kit and in the woman’s corner of the factory, work stopped while her co-workers crowded round to comfort her, or just to watch.
Gabriel looked back at the door to Yusuf’s office. It was standing open. Of Jiàntán there was no sign. He must have gone off to get something to eat or drink.
While Yusuf knelt at the woman’s side trying to get her to release her bleeding hand, Gabriel turned and strode back the way they’d come. He glanced over his shoulder then slipped inside the office.
A grey steel filing cabinet occupied one corner. He tried the top drawer. It didn’t yield. Shit! The desk held an ageing PC, black and dust-covered. Gabriel jiggled the mouse to wake it up. His reward, a dialogue box asking for his password.
He pulled open the drawer beneath the desktop. A few pencils, a calculator. Some rubber bands. A packet of breath mints.
He caught movement in the corner of his eye. A pennant, six inches by eight, fluttered in the cool breeze from the air conditioning unit. He hadn’t seen it earlier because the bookcase to its right had blocked his view.
Glancing over his shoulder, he crossed the office to get a better look.
At first he took it to be a sports trophy of some kind, the type of gift opposing team captains exchange on a football pitch. Shield-shaped, with a white fringe running along the sloping lower edges, it depicted a white sun flaming over a green hill. A quartered ground of turquoise and orange completed the design. But it was the wording running along the top that interested Gabriel. He peered at it.
Boerevryheid an Regte
He recognised the language: Afrikaans. The first part of the first word was easy enough to decipher. Boer: the descendants of German, Dutch or Huguenot settlers in the Transvaal and Orange Free State.
The rest he was less sure of, although Regte looked a lot like the German word for ‘right’: recht. He heard hurrying footsteps behind him. Yusuf’s voice, calling his name. He pulled out his phone and took a couple of pictures, willing his fingers to stay still as he focused on a close-up.
He stuffed his phone back in his pocket and moved his gaze to the ivory elephant carving beside which Yusuf had placed the jade salmon.
‘Gabriel! I thought I’d lost you.’
Gabriel turned, smiling.
‘I was in the way over there,’ he said, jerking his chin towards the door. ‘Is the lady going to be OK?’
‘She is fine. A little cut, nothing more. I tell them to be careful but they don’t listen.’
Gabriel looked over Yusuf’s shoulder, where the factory workers had all returned to their tasks. How much was he paying them? Was he paying them at all? Were they trafficked? He realised he had no time to worry about the fate of the ivory-carvers. Yusuf was eyeing him as a hawk might eye a mouse.
‘Yusuf, I want to thank you. For making time to hear my request, even if you were unable to help,’ Gabriel said in Arabic.
Yusuf bowed slightly.
‘You came on the highest recommendation. I will tell Mr Cho of your trip the next time I see him.’
Gabriel returned the bow, eager to leave and have someone back at The Department check out the pennant. Yusuf escorted him as far as the front door and shook hands once more, releasing Gabriel’s hand after only fifteen seconds.
Gabriel found Jiàntán outside, leaning against the side of the Jeep and smoking. Apparently impervious to the heat, he pushed himself upright, took a final drag on the cigarette then dropped it and ground it out under his toe.
‘You drive for a change,’ Gabriel said in Cantonese.
With Jiàntán behind the wheel, Gabriel scrutinised the image on his phone screen. A white sun. A green hill. Turquoise and orange quadrants. Ideas were shimmering in his mind but refusing to coalesce into something he could get hold of.
He returned to the slogan or motto. Boerevryheid an Regte. He tapped the browser icon, then swore as he realised he had no signal. Then he smiled. He didn’t need it. He was a damn linguist after all. OK, so Boer he knew. The Boer people. Afrikaaners. Regte meant right. Or rights, plural, maybe. Boer rights.
Boer rights. A protest movement of some kind? A pressure group. The Zimbabweans under Mugabe had expropriated white-owned farms and handed them to the president’s cronies. Maybe South Africa’s ANC-led government was trying the same thing. Or planning it.
How about the iconography? A white sun. Well, that wasn’t too hard to decode. Suns set, but they rise, too. And this one was high in the sky and shining down on the land. A white sun might mean white dominance. No, wait. He had it. A green hill lit by a white sun. It was a homeland. A white homeland. No, not a white homeland. A whites-only homeland.
Boerevryheid an Regte was a white separatist movement. And their pennant was hanging in the office of a man running an ivory-carving factory about halfway down the supply chain for poached ivory. Equidistant between the killing grounds of sub-Saharan Africa and eager customers for finished goods in China and the Far East. He realised with a twinge of guilt that Master Zhao had a small sub-collection of yellowed ivory figurines on a shelf in his house
on the hill.
The sun – the real sun – was high in the sky. Not white, but blazing yellow, searing the ground and everything foolish enough to slither, crawl, walk or drive across it. He checked his watch. The rose-gold Bremont he’d bought to replace his beloved Breitling told him it was a few minutes before 11.30 a.m.
Back at the airport, after they’d returned the Jeep to the mildly puzzled-looking clerk at the Hertz office, Gabriel turned to Jiàntán.
‘I’m not flying back to Hong Kong. Have a good flight.’
Jiàntán shrugged and grunted. His meaning was clear. Whatever. You’re not my responsibility anymore. The big man turned on his heel and ambled off towards one of the many bars.
Gabriel sighed out a breath. He found a quiet spot and chose a seat facing the runway where he couldn’t be overlooked or overheard. He checked his phone. The signal was strong. The screen lit up with an incoming text. He smiled. It was from Eli.
Contacted by Syrian contract killer. Confessed to the hit on video. Now dead. Also, got lead on poachers. Vientiane. Meet us there ASAP. El x
He took a few moments to digest her six terse sentences. Imagined Eli and Stella taking on and killing a contract killer in some Gaborone backstreet. All roads lead to Laos.
He tapped out a reply.
Good work. You or S hurt? I have lead too. See u in V. G x
Next, he called Don.
‘What’s up, Old Sport?’
‘It’s kind of two steps forward one back, but I have got a potential lead to the poachers.’
‘Go on.’
‘I’m in Dubai. I just visited an ivory-carving factory out in the desert. The manager was reluctant to talk about his suppliers, but I think he meets them, at least occasionally,’ Gabriel said, as he watched a Boeing 777 taxiing in front of the expanse of plate glass. ‘He had a pennant in his office. From South Africa. If I send you a picture, can you have someone take a look? I need intel on the source. I think it’s something to do with a Boer separatist movement.’
‘Send it over,’ Don said. ‘And don’t be too hard on yourself, either. This is excellent work. I’ll let Nick Acheson know. He’ll be delighted.’