[African Diamonds 01.0] The Angolan Clan

by Christopher Lowery

  Charlie hugged her. “Congratulations, Bella. You’ve finally decided to tie the knot?”

  “Well, you know that Carlos is a member of the Mozambique Independence Party.”

  Carlos was a Mozambique national, a trading account manager at APA, specialised in business with that country. His parents still remained in their homeland, despite the fighting between the FRELIMO guerrilla forces and the Portuguese army.

  “He has good information that the Portuguese are preparing to pull out of his country. Apparently they’re about to sign an agreement that independence will be declared in nine months time and it’s FRELIMO who’ll form the government. They have a moderate ideology and Carlos is keen to go back and be involved in helping to form the new government.”

  Charlie was sceptical that anyone could determine what might happen in such a volatile situation but he just said, “This is a real case of mixed emotions for me. I’m happy that you and Carlos are getting married, but then I’ll have to replace two of my most trusted assistants. How will I cope?”

  “Don’t worry,” she said. “We won’t leave you in the lurch, you’ll have plenty of notice.”

  Carlos asked for the day off on 13th September. It was a Friday, so Charlie didn’t know whether he was attending a pro-independence rally, or maybe holding his bachelor party. He was happy to grant the absence in any case. Carlos had brought good profits to the division over the last two years.

  At the golf club on Saturday morning, Ted Carpenter, one of his partners, came up to him. “Did you see the telly this morning?” Charlie hadn’t seen it.

  “The police broke up a rally in Porto last night. With bloody guns! Dozens of people were injured and someone was killed. I saw some of the live footage. It was horrible. Things are going from bad to worse in this country.”

  “What kind of a rally was it?” Charlie had a bad premonition.

  “Pro-independence for Mozambique. Some woman was preaching peace and brotherhood, and then a riot broke out and the police started shooting people. I don’t understand why the hell they were involved. The police are supposed to be on the side of the army and the army is supposed to want to get out of that country and give it back. I thought everybody had agreed on independence and now they’re killing each other. It’s bloody madness!”

  Carlos had gone up to Porto on the train with four Mozambican activist friends on Thursday night. Joana Simeão was coming to the city. Known as the ‘Mother of Mozambique’, Joana was head of the moderate movement, United Group for Mozambique, GUMO, and was negotiating with Samora Machel, the leader of FRELIMO, to introduce democratic elections after independence. Carlos had been contacted by one of her team in Mozambique to help with Joana’s visit to Porto.

  They spent the night sleeping on the floor of Bella’s sister’s flat in the textile manufacturing quarter. The next day they were the first to arrive in the Jardim da Boavista in the city centre and by four in the afternoon there were thousands of people in the park. Carlos and his friends had set up a platform from packing cases, with planks of wood and a carpet on top. They installed a primitive amplification system with a microphone and some loudspeakers around the platform. A van from the national television company was parked nearby, and a reporter with a handheld movie camera was walking around interviewing people in the crowd.

  When Joana Simeão walked onto the platform the scene erupted with cheering and whistling. Men and women alike were crying “Joana, Joana. Nossa Mulher Mocambicana. Our Mozambique Mother. Independence for Mozambique now!” The cameraman, in front of the stage, was filming the whole spectacle.

  The leader of GUMO was a bespectacled, middle aged lady, suited to her nickname. She took the microphone, “Bom dia Porto!” She spoke fluidly, exhorting her supporters to greater efforts for independence. The crowd cheered incessantly, straining to hear her words blasting indistinctly from the loudspeakers.

  In front of the stage, a gang of rough looking Mozambique men in worker’s overalls were drinking beer. One of them turned to Paolo, a friend of Carlos, who had handed the mike to Joana. “Get that bloody bitch off. We don’t want another right-wing, fascist government stealing our country.”

  “So, you’d rather have the communists murdering and pillaging, would you? What’s wrong with a moderate consensus?”

  The man’s response was to crash his fist into Paolo’s face. He fell to the ground, blood pouring from his broken nose. The rest of the gang started kicking him, shouting and screaming in a frenzy. Carlos and his friends tried to protect him, fighting the men away. Some of the assailants produced short cudgels that they could wield in the restricted space. They swung them around, smashing heads and faces indiscriminately.

  Within minutes there were injured people lying all over the ground. The TV camera man ran to the back of the crowd, away from the fight. Marxist extremists spread the fighting further afield, until there was a general riot in the park. Moderates and Marxists alike were lashing out at each other. Carlos and his friends were prime targets, right in front of the platform.

  Those on the outskirts of the crowd started hurling rocks, stones, bottles, anything they could find, into the melee. Duarte, who was engaged to Bella’s sister, was hit by a flying beer bottle. The bottle shattered on impact, shards of glass ripping the flesh from his face and splintering into his eyes. He went down into the heap of bodies, falling on top of Paolo. More troublemakers rushed in to kick and punch the defenseless bodies senseless. After filming the riot from the edge of the crowd for a few minutes, the reporter raced off to the safety of his van.

  Joana Simeão tried to calm the crowd. She called for order and quiet. When that didn’t work she called for the police. “Buscar a Polícia,” she cried vainly. The fight in front of the stage threatened to bring down the primitive pile of packing cases. Carlos managed to climb up beside her and pull her to the back of the stage, away from the fighting. Just then, a detachment of police came running up. They had dogs on leads and they were carrying rifles and pistols.

  The leading officer was shouting through a megaphone. “Clear the area! Anyone still here will be arrested and put in jail. Clear the area now!” Trying to disperse the maddened crowd, but only succeeding in creating more panic.

  The women in the crowd tried desperately to escape from the pandemonium, but many of them fell and were trampled by the surging fighters. The police pushed forward, they were now wielding their weapons like clubs, laying about them with relish. Then the militants stopped fighting each other and started attacking the police. They were met with rifle butts and batons. The dogs barked and strained on their leashes as they were used to push back the crowd. More of the crowd started to take out their hatred and venom on the police.

  First one, then more of the officers started shooting into the air, shouting at the struggling, bloodied demonstrators. The dogs were frightened by the pandemonium, barking and jumping, fighting to get free from their leads. Two policemen were pulled down to the ground, boots and cudgels smashing into them. A woman was screaming, a dog had grabbed her ankle in its jaws. The blood was pouring from her leg, running onto the mud-baked ground. The gang of Marxist militants moved about the crowd, manipulating the situation, pumping up the crowd’s animal ferocity until it was a frenzy. The panic got worse. The noise was infernal.

  Carlos led Joana down the stairs and away from the stage towards the top of the park where it was quieter. A policeman looked over and saw Carlos pulling Joana away. She was still crying out to try to calm the crowd. He took aim and fired his rifle at Carlos.

  Afterwards, the officer testified that Carlos had been threatening to kill Joana, but by that time she was already on her way back to Mozambique and couldn’t speak in the dead man’s defence.

  Everyone was devastated by Carlos Souza Machado’s death. His funeral was a reality check to the large number of family and friends who congregated in the churchyard by the grave. The weather had changed. A cold wind was blowing in from the Atlantic, bringing heav
y, bitter rain with it. The sky was leaden with black clouds and the ground was saturated underfoot.

  The sods of earth clung to the shovel then clunked down onto the coffin like giant slabs of chocolate. The wreaths and garlands of flowers were soaked and limp looking, their colours muted by the gloomy half light. It was a sad, desolate scene. The congregation vainly tried to keep dry under a panoply of umbrellas, huddling together as if to ward off the malignant aura of death. Suddenly, the impersonal threat of change that had surrounded them since April had materialised into the murder of someone they knew. And a wedding had become a funeral.

  The priest spoke out with a firm voice, straining to be heard against the beating rain. “Carlos was a fine young man with an admirable purpose in his life. To bring independence, freedom and prosperity to his homeland and to resettle there with his new wife, Bella.”

  Instead, he had been shot down like a criminal, his body thrown into the back of a police truck, together with other wounded friends whose only crime had been to love their country.

  Bella quit her job and went to live with her parents in Setúbal. Charlie had been right. He had lost two of his best colleagues, although he could never have foreseen the tragic circumstances that would cause the losses.

  And she and Carlos were not the only employees that APA had to replace over the next few months. Now, more and more communist activists were showing their true colours in APA and the growing, insidious influence of the Marxist group caused many departures. Jorge Gomez, the general manager, had gone from being frightened and scared of the revolution, to embracing it with open arms. He was a small man, both in stature and in strength of character. It seemed that he had been totally converted to the Marxist propaganda. He had also subverted a number of the bank’s middle management and some younger employees to join him. The group always left the offices early on the day of a left-wing rally or demonstration. Gomez tried to organise political meetings in the bank, as was happening in many businesses, but the majority of the staff was still loyal to the Bettencourt family and so far he had been unsuccessful.

  The problem was that under new government directives, employees could not be sacked or made redundant without a full enquiry. These enquiries became political demonstrations and were totally destructive. So they stayed, fomenting discontent, like worms in a barrel of apples. In the case of Gomez and his henchmen, plotting to overthrow the corrupt capitalist owners of the business, along with their star executive, Charlie Bishop.

  After attempting and failing a coup d’état, President António Spinola resigned from the Junta on September 28th. His troops, all afilliated to moderate political parties, were outnumbered and soundly beaten by the forces of COPCON, the Operational Command of the Armed Forces and the puppets of the extreme left. Several of his closest aides were thrown into prison, where they would stay for God knew how long. His resignation left the field open to the Marxists. He was replaced as President by General Francisco da Costa Gomes, a left-wing member of the Junta. Another nail in the coffin of democracy. Day by day Charlie’s prophecy was becoming a reality.

  TWENTY-TWO

  October, 1974

  Cascais, Portugal

  The attack on Charlie’s house came on October 25th. He and Nick returned home early for the weekend. They took the stairs to the kitchen and dumped their briefcases, grabbed a couple of beers from the fridge and went to sit on the garden terrace.

  The garden door into the kitchen was ajar. The door had been forced, the wood around the lock was splintered. Racing back through the house they saw two men running from the hall out the front door and down the driveway. They sprinted after the men towards the road, where a white Fiat had just come racing up. One of the men turned. He was wearing a balaclava which hid his face. He held a pistol in his hand and he raised it up, aiming.

  “Christ almighty!” Charlie pulled Nick down behind the bushes at the side of the driveway. They heard the crack of two shots and spurts of gravel came up from the path. Looking up they were in time to see the men jump over the wall and climb into the car. It shot off up the road towards Cintra. They ran to the gate but were too late to see through the back window and there was no number plate on the back.

  They went through the house, checking every room. It seemed that nothing had been touched, until they got to the office. The room had been ransacked. The desk drawers and filing cabinet had been forced open. There were papers and books thrown everywhere and the files had been emptied all over the carpet. An attempt had been made to open the safe. There were scratch marks around the lock, but it was bolted to the floor and wall and still intact.

  “Did you have anything worth stealing in here?” Nick was picking up papers and trying to get them into some semblance of order.

  “Absolutely bugger all! Ellen’s couple of rings and bracelets are in the freezer drawer. Our personal papers are in our safety deposit box at the bank. All I’ve got in the safe is APA stuff and this is the only place they’ve looted, so I’m just wondering why anyone would be interested in burgling my office. This is not a typical burglary, it has to be a political thing. Someone looking for something incriminating, something to do with me, Charlie Bishop, director of APA.” He opened up the safe and ensured that its contents were untouched. “The other thing is that it’s Maria’s day off. Somebody’s been doing their homework on the Bishop’s household routine.”

  “Did you notice the tall guy in the black jerkin? Not the one with the gun, the other one?”

  Charlie shook his head vaguely, still coming to terms with two intruders in his house and being shot at in his driveway.

  “Who did he remind you of?”

  “I didn’t get much of a look. Who do you mean?”

  “I’m almost certain that it was that tall skinny guard who started at the bank last year. He’s been very thick with Jorge Gomez recently if you’ve noticed.”

  “Shit, that’s just great. So we’re being burgled and shot at by our own employees now. What in hell is going on in this country? Who do they think I am, Salazar’s long lost son?”

  Charlie called a local handyman to come over to fix the door and put additional locks on all the outside entrances. Next, he called the Cascais police station who said that they would send someone right away.

  By the time Ellen got back with Ronnie the two men had managed to clean up the office so that it looked reasonably tidy again. She was horror struck when they told her about the aborted break in. They didn’t mention the gunman. “Can you imagine if they’d come when we were in the house, or even worse, at night? What if Ronnie had been at home?”

  Shortly after, two police officers arrived. They were totally disinterested. One of them who spoke English said to Charlie, “It’s time rich people like you stopped exploiting the poor. Either that, or you should go back where you came from, we don’t want capitalists or foreigners in our country.” They walked out without acknowledging anyone any further.

  “Well, that’s encouraging.” Nick smiled sarcastically. “As long as we know we have the police on our side, we won’t worry, will we?”

  Ellen calmed herself down. “Let’s not blow this out of all proportion. It’s a minor incident and compared with what’s going on elsewhere, we’re very lucky. Petty crime happens all the time, it doesn’t matter where you are. There’s no harm done.”

  That night in bed, Charlie said, “Listen, Ellen. When you decide you want to leave, you just have to say it’s time. I’ll understand.”

  She kissed him and switched off the light. “I’m not going to let a couple of petty thieves chase me out of my home. We’ll leave when we’re ready and not before.”

  Charlie said no more. He didn’t want Ellen to know that they seemed to have become targets of the new regime. There was no point in worrying her. He could worry for them both.

  In the Toston Bar in Cintra, five men were sitting drinking beer in one of the back rooms. Cigarette smoke swirled up through the light from the ceiling lamps. The air
was thick with the acrid smell of cheap tobacco.

  Jorge Gomez, the smallest of the group, asked, “So, you found nothing?”

  The man in the black jerkin shook his head. “There was nothing in his files. He might have had something in the safe, but we couldn’t crack it.”

  The other intruder interrupted, “If I’d nailed them in the drive, we might have been able to go back and break it out.”

  “Don’t be a fucking imbecile. I’ve told you. No guns, no trouble until we’re ready. We want to get rid of all of those fat bastards in the bank together, in one fell swoop. The whole rotten lot of them, pay-off time.” Gomez took a drag on his cigarette. “I’m certain there’s something going on. That new guy, Nick Martinez, is involved with Angola, money smuggling or something like that. But we need real proof. Bank account numbers and names, copies of transfers, that kind of thing.”

  “Well, that’s it for me tonight.” The tall man emptied his glass and got to his feet. “I’ve got a hot date, that new receptionist from Angola. Bloody animals, these Angolan women. See you in the morning, I hope.” He led the way out and the men dispersed in separate cars.

  Despite Ellen’s apparent calm, Charlie knew she was on the verge. The uncertainty and fear was taking its toll on all of them. If they weren’t safe in their own home in a sleepy little backwater like Cascais, then where were they safe? He hired a security company to check on the property day and night. They advised him about buying a shotgun and, despite her protestations, he showed Ellen how to use it. The security companies were doing great business. Some people were happy with the situation.

  TWENTY-THREE

  November, 1974

  Lisbon, Portugal

  On Friday, November 29th, at eight in the morning, Jorge Gomez, General Manager of APA, arrived at the COPCON headquarters in central Lisbon and was met by two army majors. He was carrying a cardboard box-file under his arm. They spent almost an hour inside the building, then emerged with two other soldiers and climbed into a canvas-covered lorry. They sat on the wooden seats along the interior of the vehicle for the ten minute ride to the APA head office on Avenida Duque de Loulé.