Ivory Nation

by Andy Maslen

  ‘Ani ohev otakh,’ she said. ‘I love you.’

  ‘Ani ohev otakh,’ he repeated with a smile.

  How was it possible to live this life and still find time to fall in love again? He asked himself the question, then dismissed it. It just was. Eli just…was. It worked, and that was what mattered.

  ‘What time is it?’ she asked.

  ‘Midday. Where’s Stella?’

  ‘She went into town. I said we’d meet her in the bar later. She’s going to text me when she gets back. Let’s save mission talk till we’re together. It’ll save doing it all twice.’

  ‘Agreed. Now, Miss Eli Schochat, I don’t know about you, but I’m feeling so nifla I think I’d like to go again.’

  Eli’s eyes popped wide. She grinned.

  ‘Why, Mr Wolfe, what a big…’ she reached beneath the covers and squeezed him, ‘… you have.’

  ‘All the better to ravish you with,’ he growled.

  Later, while Eli slept beside him, Gabriel checked his emails. Just one, from Don.

  Subject line: Pennant

  Hello Old Sport,

  Interesting little souvenir your man Yusuf had in his factory. It’s from the Boer Freedom and Rights Party. That’s what the Afrikaans means.

  The BVR is a white separatist movement based in the Northern Cape. Small, but vicious. They’ve been implicated in the murder of several black politicians and at least two journalists.

  The leader’s a charming young fellow. Goes by the name of Julius Witaarde. Surname means ‘White Earth’ if you can believe it. Sounds like a nom de guerre to me.

  Believe or not, we don’t have anything else on them. Not really our sphere of interest, you might say. Six wasn’t much help either. The BVR is, and I quote, ‘SLAFA’: ‘small, local and far away’.

  Follow it up.

  Yours, aye,

  Don

  Guests at Beau Rivage could always opt to dine in the city, but not many bothered. The Spirit House restaurant offered some of the best cooking in Vientiane and the best view. Traffic in diners came the other way.

  Tables on a terrace across the road from the hotel looked out over the vast Mekong as it flowed towards its delta in Vietnam, eight hundred miles to the south.

  One of those tables, separated from its neighbours by ten feet, thanks to a US-currency-smoothed intervention with the restaurant manager, was currently occupied by Gabriel, Eli and Stella.

  Beneath a wide parasol, citronella candles did a reasonable job of keeping the mosquitos at bay, assisted by liberal applications of weapons-grade insect repellent. To the west, a sunset of orange, pink, purple and green had drawn dozens of tourists to take photos. Charcoal-grey clouds speared horizontally across the sky.

  A bottle of Chassagne-Montrachet sat in an aluminium ice bucket, its sides beaded with condensation. Gabriel had selected it, white burgundy being his favourite wine. Its creamy toast-and-butter and apricots’ flavour reminded him of long evenings sitting in the garden in Aldeburgh with Eli.

  ‘Cheers, ladies!’ he said, raising his glass. They clinked rims and drank. ‘So, now we’re all here, do you want to tell me about G-City?’

  Stella and Eli took turns describing their final, fateful meeting in the Oasis Lounge. When Eli reached the part where the Syrian contract killer had tried to set them up, Gabriel sat forward.

  ‘Syrian?’

  ‘That’s what he said. We think he was telling the truth, don’t we, Stel?’

  Stella nodded.

  ‘He was close to death and he knew it.’

  ‘Did he say who hired him to kill the princess?’

  ‘No,’ Eli said. ‘He died right after we asked him.’

  ‘He denied it was the Israelis and we got the whole confession on film,’ Stella added. ‘It’s back in England being processed by our forensics people.’

  ‘What about you, Gabe?’ Eli asked. ‘What did you turn up in Dubai?’

  ‘Not a lot, to be honest. The guy running the processing factory hinted he might know people, but I think he was bluffing, trying to get something for nothing. But, I did take this.’

  He pulled out his phone and showed them the picture of the pennant.

  ‘What does that say?’ Stella asked, executing a deft reverse-pinch on the screen to enlarge the image. ‘Boer what?’

  ‘Boerevryheid an Regte. It means Boer Freedom and Rights. They’re a white separatist movement in South Africa.’

  ‘You think they were involved somehow?’

  ‘They’re doing business with the boss of an ivory-carving factory. That means they’re involved in the illegal trade. South Africa is Botswana’s southern neighbour, so there’s a good chance their involvement is at the sharp end. Or, as my new friend Yusuf would probably call it, the top of the supply chain.’

  ‘They’re poaching,’ Stella said. ‘Makes sense. Movements need money. Ivory’s incredibly valuable.’

  ‘And they’d have guns, too, Hunting rifles, shotguns, whatever,’ Eli added, sitting forward.

  ‘I’ll tell you what else is interesting,’ Stella said. ‘It’s been on my mind since the other night.’ She sipped her wine. ‘That is, actually, the nicest bottle of wine I have ever tasted.’

  ‘Come on,’ Eli said, ‘don’t keep us in suspense.’

  ‘Sorry. Why was the Syrian guy in Botswana? Bit of a coincidence, don’t you think?’

  Eli opened her mouth, then closed it again. She frowned and put a finger to the top of her nose.

  Gabriel leaned closer and dropped his voice, even though the nearest person was several yards distant.

  ‘Let’s work it backwards. He kills the princess in Windsor. We think he meets and kills Lieberman there, too. He left soil from Botswana in the sniper nest.’

  ‘So he’d come from there. We know Lieberman didn’t,’ Eli said.

  ‘But why? Why was he in Bots in the first place?’

  ‘Another hit?’ Stella asked.

  ‘I don’t see it, do you? Those guys are expensive hires. Crime in Bots seemed to be mostly low-level thuggery.’

  ‘Apart from the ivory poaching,’ Stella said. Then her eyes lit up. ‘That’s it! What if al-Javari was involved, too?’

  ‘In the poaching?’ Gabriel asked.

  ‘Yes!’

  ‘How?’

  ‘I don’t know. Was he protection?’

  ‘Wait,’ Eli said in an urgent whisper. ‘Don’t forget the BVR angle. You’ve got South African white separatists and a Syrian contract killer active in Botswana at the same time. He killed Princess Alexandra. It looks at least possible that they were involved in killing the Paras and the Botswana guys. Two sets of foreign killers in one place. They’re linked. They must be.’

  Stella closed the distance between her and Eli still further, shuffling her chair closer.

  ‘Slow down, Eli. I agree it looks suspicious. But we have no evidence linking him to them. It’s all circumstantial.’

  Eli sat back and folded her arms across her chest.

  ‘They are. I’m telling you. I can feel it,’ she hissed. ‘I know about contract killers and I know how the need for a homeland drives people on, sometimes beyond where they should go.’

  Gabriel finished his glass and signalled to the waiter for another bottle.

  ‘Aren’t we forgetting something?’ he asked.

  ‘What?’ Eli said.

  ‘The client for the shooting,’ he said. ‘Who paid al-Javari?’

  ‘That,’ Stella said with finality, ‘is the sixty-four thousand dollar question.’ She leaned forwards. ‘There’s something I wanted to tell you. I heard from my boss, Callie, earlier. She wants me back in London. Now we know it was al-Javari, there’s nothing more for me to do out here. I need to be back there, where our resources are.’

  Gabriel saw Eli’s face fall as Stella delivered the news. He realised how close the two women had become over the previous couple of weeks. He liked Stella, too, but Eli and she had formed a close bond. Strengthen
ed, no doubt, by fighting their way out of the Oasis Lounge and then offing a Syrian contract killer.

  ‘Can we meet up in London?’ Eli asked.

  ‘Sure!’ Stella said with a smile. ‘It would be a great idea for you to talk to Callie. Give her your take on events.’

  ‘I meant,’ Eli hesitated, ‘socially.’

  ‘I’d love that,’ Stella said, smiling. ‘When you’re back, call me. We’ll go out for a few wines.’

  Eli nodded, then went to Stella and hugged her. As he watched the two women embrace, Gabriel felt some of the tension that had knotted up his guts leave him. He inhaled deeply and sighed it out. He was thinking about the soil. Three men and one woman had been on that training tower. What were they missing?

  39

  Three days later, Gabriel was returning from the Avis office on Rue Setthathirath behind the leather steering wheel of a long, low Mercedes CLS in a dazzling white paint job. He’d cruised back, enjoying the admiring stares of little boys, who grinned and waved as he purred past them. He smiled and waved back, trying out his Laotian through the open window.

  ‘Suh-bye-dee!’ Hello!

  ‘Sa bai di bo?’ How are you?

  The boys would grin even wider, revealing dazzling teeth and clap their palms together at their sternum in a respectful nop, shouting back the greeting, sometimes in French, others English.

  ‘Hello! How are you?’

  ‘Bonjour! Ça va?’

  Only closing the window when the heat became oppressive, he took a right on Quai Fa Ngum towards the Beau Rivage. The street in front was thronging with tuk-tuks, mopeds, ox carts and taxis, all fighting for a few square metres of roadway. He was forced to slow the big coupe to a crawl amidst the chaos.

  White-feathered chickens clucked from the confines of a blue plastic crate lashed to the seat of a Honda 50. On another, a woman with a baby strapped to her front clamped a bulging string basket of melons between her knees as a toddler standing up on the seat behind her dug its pudgy fingers into her shoulders. Yellow dogs with grey muzzles darted in and out of the traffic, occasionally snapping at the bare calves of moped riders and earning angry kicks for their troubles.

  A sharp rap on the glass by his left ear jerked him to full alertness. He turned his head to see a round brown face surmounted by a beige and green peaked cap looking in at him through the darkened window. He thumbed the switch.

  The traffic cop’s face wasn’t just the beautiful shade of caramel all Laotians bore; it was overlaid with a reddish tinge, and sheened with sweat. Poor bugger. I’d be hot, too, if they made me wear that get-up. Over the cop’s shirt, beneath which a white tee-shirt was visible, he wore a zipped-up pocketed vest and a hi-vis TRAFFIC POLICE tabard. White nylon gloves, tight at the wrist, completed the uniform.

  Gabriel smiled up at the sweaty cop.

  ‘Suh-bye-dee.’

  ‘Americaine?’ the cop asked.

  ‘Non, monsieur. Anglais.’

  The cop nodded, beaming.

  ‘Princess Diana. Very pretty lady.’

  It was hard to disagree. Did the cop know Diana was dead? That her distant relative by marriage was, also? He decided not to find out.

  ‘Is there a problem, officer?’ he asked.

  ‘Today market day. Traffic very, very bad.’

  ‘Yes. I can see.’

  The cop favoured Gabriel with a long look, directing his gaze in the direction of his inside jacket pocket.

  ‘You want go faster?’

  He leaned his right arm on the Merc’s windowsill so that his hand, fingers opening like a flower, draped inside.

  Gabriel nodded. From his wallet he fished out a five-dollar bill. It vanished inside the curling petals. Smiling, the cop withdrew his arm then turned and marched into the centre of the knot of stationary mopeds, carts and tuk-tuks in front of the car.

  He reached down to his hip. For one horrific moment, Gabriel imagined he was about to pull the black pistol from its polished leather holster and start shooting.

  Instead, it came up gripping a silver whistle. Several long, shrill blasts followed. All eyes were on the cop. In a voice loud enough to wake the dead, he began bellowing, first in Laotian, then French, ordering the assorted road users to clear the way.

  Little by little, and with much good-natured jostling and bantering, they parted before the Merc’s predatory grille like the Red Sea before Moses.

  Waving his thanks, and praying fervently they didn’t take him for what he so obviously was, an arrogant, rich Western tourist, Gabriel eased the car onwards until he escaped the jam and found the relative freedom of an uncongested part of the road.

  Before leaving for the ivory market, Gabriel and Eli changed into the outfits they’d bought especially for the trip. They’d decided to make an impression rather than going for anything subtle. In Gabriel’s case, a pinstriped suit, canary-yellow tie and matching pocket square and polished black Oxfords.

  ‘Well?’ he said. ‘What do you think?’

  She pursed her lips.

  ‘Merchant banker.’

  ‘OK, then, let’s see how you interpreted the brief,’ he said.

  Eli disappeared into the bathroom. Ten minutes later, as he was checking his watch for the third time, the door opened and she emerged.

  Gabriel’s eyes widened, involuntarily.

  ‘Wow!’ was all he could manage.

  Eli stood before him, one hip cocked like a fashion model. She wore a black silk flying suit, zipped up the front and fastened at the neck with press-studs. On her feet, calf-length black leather biker boots with stainless-steel toecaps. She’d pulled her abundant hair back into a bun fastened high on the back of her head. Heavy black eye makeup and red lipstick added to the combination of sexiness and menace.

  But it was the item dangling from her leather belt that captured Gabriel’s attention.

  40

  An eighteen-inch black polished baton lay along her right thigh. From its tip protruded two stubby metal contacts.

  ‘Is that what it appears to be?’ he asked.

  ‘Amazing what you can find if you know how to ask nicely,’ Eli said. ‘Four thousand volts. From a very nice man called Monsieur Nam. Apparently his main customers are in farming. I got this, too,’ she said, reaching behind her back and pulling out a short folding knife with a thin blade the shape of a claw.

  ‘Karambit. Very nice. I don’t suppose you got anything for me?’

  Eli pouted.

  ‘Aww, did Gabwiel think I’d forgotten his pwesents?’

  She disappeared into the bathroom and emerged clutching a black plastic carrier bag.

  Gabriel accepted it and emptied the contents out onto the bed. A second karambit, a blued-steel knuckle duster and two small canisters about the length of his palm.

  He pointed at the canisters.

  ‘Mace?’

  ‘PAVA. According to the manager of Vientiane Police Supply Store, the cops here have to buy their own PPE, sorry, personal protection equipment. It’s a very concentrated pepper spray. Incapacitation guaranteed if you can hit them in the eyes, severe restriction of action if you get them in the nose or mouth. One each.’

  Feeling much more comfortable knowing that between them they had enough hardware to be deadly in any close quarter encounter, yet hoping they wouldn’t need it, Gabriel led the way to the car.

  He took a seat in the back, while Eli sat behind the wheel. She twisted around in her seat.

  ‘Let’s go over it one last time.’

  ‘I’m the buyer,’ Gabriel said. ‘Representing Russian interests in England. You’re my driver-slash-bodyguard.’

  They’d argued it back and forth over the preceding couple of days, but Gabriel had swung it by reminding her of Fang Jian’s Lotus Blossoms. There was something about female bodyguards that threw off male adversaries.

  ‘We make a sample purchase today, say we’re going to present it to our big client in London and, if he likes it, come back for a bulk shipment
,’ Eli said.

  ‘And while we’re there, we make discreet enquiries about the BVR. Say we’re interested in investing upstream, too,’ Gabriel finished. ‘You think it’ll work?’

  ‘It’ll have to. This is our last remaining lead.’

  The big Mercedes was silent inside, apart from the faint whisper from the air conditioning. Eli drove west along an unnamed road that tracked the Mekong’s Laotian bank. Very occasionally, they’d see a fishing boat. The thin brown-skinned man holding the tiller or casting nets would pause in his labours, shade his eyes then hold up a long, lean arm in greeting.

  On the Thai side of the river, palms, huge, fat-trunked ferns and other unnameable trees blocked out any view inland. Gabriel had trained for jungle warfare in Brunei. They’d spent days, then weeks living in one hundred percent humidity, either alone or in a small patrol.

  The days were spent fighting through foliage laced with saw-toothed edges, four-inch-long thorns, or leaking poisonous sap that raised blisters the size of poker chips on any exposed skin. He’d become accustomed to, though not happy about, sleeping in dry clothes then waking, packing them into a waterproof bag and squelching his way into the previous day’s wet outfit.

  He’d been prepared for it. And it was only training, after all. As the jungle across the water rolled past, he imagined himself a farm-boy from somewhere like Kansas, drafted into the hell that was Vietnam.

  One day you were driving a John Deere across a wheat field that stretched to the horizon, yellow-gold below and a dazzling blue above. The next, up to your waist in stinking swamp water, slapping away mosquitos the size of sparrows, your horizon truncated to two feet in front of your nose. Slashing at the grabbing, coiling, entangling vegetation while all the time fearing the bullet, grenade or shit-tipped punji stick that would end your life before it had properly begun.

  How would they have coped? He feared he knew the answer. Not just from watching documentaries and reading military histories, but from talking to vets of that conflict during trips to the USA. Alcohol. Marijuana. Heroin. Suicide.