[African Diamonds 01.0] The Angolan Clan

by Christopher Lowery

  He rang off and looked back out the window. A drunken man was vomiting into the gutter, surrounded by vandalised buildings and burned-out vehicles. This was not what he had planned for in helping to bring communism to Portugal. He lit another cigarette, reflecting on the situation. For the moment, Cunhal had the power. But Bettencourt still had a fortune. He would continue to back both men until it was time to choose.

  At APA, Olivier relayed the bodyguard’s message to Charlie and Nick and they told Ellen when they got back to the house.

  “I told you there would be good surprises in store,” she said triumphantly. “I’ll bet there are more on the way.” Just to be sure, she called Maggie to ask if the Australian embassy agreed with Alberto’s opinion. It was still the case.

  Nevertheless, to be on the safe side Charlie and Nick went less often to Lisbon and worked from home. But they were forced to travel more to maintain the overseas business. There were now very few finance houses prepared to issue credits for Portuguese transactions.

  Charlie returned from Frankfurt having sewn up a contract for Angolan oil. “We’re still ahead of the game, guys. With our financing relations we’re picking up business where other companies can’t compete.” Olivier and Nick knew this was true and that it was largely due to Charlie’s expertise and international relations.

  The two main, practical problems were getting into Lisbon and getting in and out of the airport. Despite the VIP travel cards that Alberto had obtained for them, it was a continual nightmare getting past the check points on the main roads to the city. And airport security was so tight they had stopped taking a travel bag, just a briefcase with their personal items inside.

  In December, Nick went down to meet with Mario in Luanda. Before leaving for his return flight, he called Henriques at the mine, to keep up the contact in case things changed.

  “It’s an insane situation, actually,” Henriques told him.” “The FNLA have taken over the place because we’re close to the Zaire border. Roberto Holden’s the boss and he’s up there in Kinkuzu, jerking himself off at his success in occupying the north-west. Everybody knows he’s been on the CIA payroll for years and apparently he’s now done a deal with Mobuto and with the Chinese for soldiers and arms. Clever sod!

  “Now the Portuguese have disappeared from everywhere except the main cities, and the MPLA haven’t come up here yet, so we’re sitting in an FNLA occupied zone, pretending nothing has changed.

  “But the funny thing is, they’re leaving us alone. I don’t think they want to piss off the local people because they’ll want our support if those MPLA bastards do come up here. I hear that around Luanda and in Malange the MPLA have got a working alliance with the Portuguese, so they’ll be busy getting organised down there. But once they’re sorted, they’ll be heading up to the north-west. Then you’ll see things change around here faster than a farting cheetah.

  “The only thing that’s certain is that the Portuguese are doing what they’ve done in Mozambique. Getting ready for independence. Independence and democracy! That’s a joke. Everybody talks about it and no bugger can do anything to make it happen.” From his fouler than usual language, Nick guessed the Angolan was getting weary and fed up with the uncertainty and escalating violence in his country.

  Despite the high profile international plan to prepare for democracy in the Portuguese colonies, behind the scenes nothing was changed. Henriques was right, it would be a guerrilla war. The best funded group would win, whatever the politicians wrote into the history books.

  Nick wished him well and took the next flight back to Lisbon. As Henriques had said, central Luanda and the airport were still under Portuguese control and fairly quiet. He prayed that it would stay that way, for everyone’s sake, especially Mario, Henriques and their families.

  On December 6th, Jorge Gomez, Deputy Director of the Bank Investigation Committee, and his boss, Major Tavares, entered the offices of the Portuguese PTT, the national telecoms operator, and met the director. They provided him with a file full of executive orders signed by a member of the staff of Major Otelo Saraiva de Carvalho, the head of COPCON. Twenty minutes later, the two men left and the director called his manager of network maintenance.

  The next morning, two telecoms engineers came to work on the Cascais substation near Charlie’s house. When they left, after only a half hour’s work, a small monitoring device had been connected to the line going from the substation to the house. The machine started automatically every time there was an incoming or outgoing call and registered the third party number. It also activated a miniature tape recorder.

  After leaving Cascais, they went to the Alfama district, a very old part of central Lisbon. It took them longer to connect the monitor and recorder to Olivier’s line, because the copper wire installation was much older and more difficult to identify amongst the masses of lines going into the densely populated area.

  The recording tapes could hold only two hours of conversation and had to be changed regularly to maintain semi-permanent monitoring. Unfortunately, the engineers had many other things to do and changes were not as efficient or as regular as they should have been.

  On December 7th, they were all at Olivier’s house in Lisbon with the children, it was Cristina’s birthday. The house was an 18th century palace overlooking the old part of the city, which had been rebuilt after the Great Earthquake. The rooms were vast, with high, ornate ceilings, enhanced by graceful mouldings designed to show off the many paintings which still hung on the walls. Every surface was covered with family portraits and fine masterpieces dating from centuries ago. It was more of a portrait gallery or a museum than a family house. Thanks to Alberto, the house hadn’t yet been seized by the workers or the government, but they knew that time was running out. His brothers had already left for Geneva. It was too dangerous for them to go back to the Algarve, so they had been forced to turn their backs on ten years of development work and hundreds of millions of escudos of land value.

  Those members of the family who hadn’t yet fled the country were at the house with their children. Olivier’s extended family was very numerous. The kiddies were playing five a side football in a beautiful ballroom which was now also used as a gymnasium and sports room. The women were gathered together in the enormous kitchen, still equipped with old-fashioned service bells and speaking tubes connected to the many bedrooms in the building. The men congregated in one of the ornate reception rooms, swapping rumours and opinions, like everyone in Portugal. There was to be a party that evening and the rooms were decorated accordingly. Olivier and Cristina were convinced that it would be the last time they would entertain in the house.

  Olivier took Nick and Charlie aside and they stood looking over the rooftops of the city. He said, under his breath, “I just heard from Alberto. That little shit Jorge Gomez is working for COPCON in the bank fraud committee, so I’m sure that he’s already tapped our private phone lines, as well as the bank’s. Be careful who you call and what you talk about.”

  Both men nodded their agreement. They were not surprised at this news.

  Olivier continued, “You know the Angolan rebel groups have agreed to sign the Alvor Accord?”

  The treaty was a compromise, negotiated between the US and Russia, to leave Angola with a democratic solution after independence, by creating a transitional government between Portugal and the three rebel groups. Despite the chaos in the country, the gossip grapevine ensured that every piece of news was immediately disseminated around Lisbon.

  “Even if they execute the treaty I’m certain they won’t stick to it.” Charlie’s analytical mind had been dissecting the matter. “The Russians have fooled the Americans again. They are behind the MPLA so there’s no way they’ll stick to a power sharing deal with the other two parties. The communists don’t share power, they take it, whatever the cost. Look what happened in Mozambique. The minute FRELIMO was nominated as the next government, Machel started turning the country into a Marxist state and he’s murdering
everyone who doesn’t agree with him. The treaty won’t be worth the paper it’s written on.”

  “You’re right, but my point is that I reckon we are now looking at the end game. The very existence of this agreement means that Portugal is pulling out of Africa completely and quickly. Mozambique, Guinea, Angola. It’s just a matter of time, a very short time, in my view.”

  “Agreed.”

  “I have some news for you,” Olivier lowered his voice again, “We’re moving the business to Switzerland.”

  “What about Alberto’s assurances?”

  “I think he’s underestimating the effect the withdrawals will have on Portugal. If our colonies go, we’ll have nothing left. A civil war could easily be on the cards and we’ll lose everything. So we have to plan for it now and save what we can. If he’s right and I’m wrong, it won’t matter, but if I’m right, we can still survive. In the meantime, with Alberto’s help we can continue for a while, until we’re in a position to move.

  “We’ve set up a new Geneva company called Bettencourt SA. My brothers are working with my father to rebuild the business. They’re arranging a banking license and we’re hoping to be up and running by the summer. After what happened last month I’ve decided to join them. I can’t expose my children to any more risk of losing their father.”

  “Can you salvage anything from Portugal?” Charlie was thinking of the huge loss that the family would face. The APA companies employed almost six hundred people, most of them still loyal to the family. Olivier’s father had started the business forty years ago, it was his lifetime’s work, but it was coming to an end. He must be heartbroken, thought Charlie.

  Olivier replied, “So far we’ve managed to get about half of our capital out and we’re working on the balance. There’s not much we can do about the physical assets. We can move our international business and whatever profits we can shift, and that’s about all.”

  “I suppose that’s where Nick and I come in. The international business.”

  “Exactly. You know that we would like you to join us. Our success in Portugal has been a combination of banking and trading and we want to do the same in Geneva. Will you come?”

  “Let’s work this out,” said Charlie. “Today’s December 7th. What’s your timetable?”

  “We should have the banking license by April and I expect it’ll take that long to salvage as much as we can of the capital. We won’t get it all out, but we’ll do the best we can. Also, we need more capital in Geneva than in Portugal, so that’s something else I’m working on.”

  Olivier lowered his voice again. “Outside of the bank assets we own about fifty buildings, offices and factories, around the country. We own them through a UK Plc and there’s no link to us. They’re UK registered, clean as a whistle. The government won’t dare to grab them, they’ve got enough problems with the British Embassy as it is. I’m negotiating to sell the UK company to a Swiss property group. We swap our shares for cash in a Swiss bank.

  “The problem is that the price is going down every day that the communists increase their power. They’re worth at least thirty million dollars, but I’ll be happy to get between ten and fifteen. I reckon it’ll take a couple of months, then we can plan our move. I want the maximum cash and assets in Geneva before the Swiss Banking Commission rules on our application.”

  “Listen, Olivier,” Charlie interjected. “We have several very profitable contracts to ship in the next few months and there’s a few more in the offing. I’m confident that we’ll get most of them because there’s nobody else can do them. We can easily divert part of the profits from these deals to Geneva. We use APA to negotiate the deals and we set up a Geneva trading company, an indirect subsidiary of Bettencourt SA, to pass the business through.”

  Olivier was already ahead of the game. “If we can show a well-capitalised bank with a profitable trading subsidiary the banking license is a piece of cake. My brothers can acquire one through our Panamanian company, so there’s no trace to the family or APA. Give us a week.”

  “Right.” Charlie turned to Nick, “We haven’t done the Frankfurt contract yet, have we?”

  He shook his head. “We could easily pay a fifteen percent commission to a Swiss agent.”

  Charlie continued on his line of thought. “There’s something we’d like to propose to you, Olivier. We’d both like to join you in Geneva, but as minority partners, not as employees. If we can bring extra profits and commissions like this, would your family allocate shares to us?”

  “I guarantee it. We just need a formula to calculate the shareholdings.”

  “Then it’s agreed. Right, Nick?”

  When he confirmed his agreement, Charlie continued. “I figure we can squeeze four or five more months of good business here, so how about a first of June start in Geneva?”

  Nick was sceptical of this time-frame. “What if we don’t have that long?”

  “Oh, don’t worry. With Alberto’s help, we’ll have it. We just need to manage it well.”

  InterCommerce SA, a Swiss trading company established in Berne for over five years, was bought on December 13th by a lawyer acting on behalf of MultiTrans Ltd., a Panamanian company with bearer shares. On December 17th, InterCommerce signed a contract to buy the Angolan oil contract from APA, simultaneously signing a contract with the Frankfurt buyers, and Charlie and Nick started to earn their shareholdings in Bettencourt SA.

  In his little office next to the COPCON building, Jorge Gomez and his assistant/secretary, Lía, read through over two thousand transcripts of taped phone calls during the month of December.

  Lía was a tall, big breasted Angolan refugee, who wore a thick layer of makeup on her cheeks to hide the scars remaining from the chicken pox she’d had as a child. She had been the APA receptionist until Gomez made her a better offer. The downside of the job was that he expected her to spread her legs for him or give him a blow job several times a week, but the work wasn’t hard and the pay was better than at the bank. In addition, she was right next door to hundreds of the most powerful men in the country and she hoped to take full advantage of it.

  The changing of the tapes was sloppy and there were usually long intervals between the transcripted calls. This was for two reasons. There were now hundreds of wire taps in place in and around Lisbon and there were not enough technicians to attend to them regularly. Dozens of untrained army conscripts were being seconded to the task of managing the recorders and typing out the transcripts but the whole project was a shambolic mess.

  However, the automated register of caller’s numbers from the machines was complete. When they found Swiss, Luxembourg or similar offshore numbers, they would look for the transcripts to try to find incriminating conversations. Usually they heard anodine, innocent talk, since many of the callers knew that their phone had been tapped and were using code words. But their hit rate justified the cost of the operation in the eyes of their paranoid left-wing bosses at COPCON. Several bank or business managers had received early morning visits from them and were now lying terrified in filthy cells, just as Olivier had done.

  In the transcripts for the end of the month they started to find calls between APA and InterCommerce SA, a Swiss company that Gomez had never heard of. He found out from the Swiss commercial register that it was a well-established company, but he was convinced it was a front, set up to funnel money out of the country and he was determined to expose it. Day by day he was preparing his attack on the remaining pieces of the capitalist system and especially on APA and Olivier, Charlie and Nick.

  In Cascais, Charlie hadn’t told Ellen about the phone tapping. It would have looked suspicious if she suddenly stopped using the phone to call her friends and family. In any event, she was unlikely to say anything of a compromising nature, since she didn’t know anything. But he was ill at ease knowing that Gomez was looking over his shoulder. The man was determined to bring him down and would go to any lengths to succeed. He found himself needlessly double-checking the doors and wi
ndows when they went out or up to bed and he ensured that either he or Nick was always there and they never left Ellen and Ronny alone.

  On Christmas Eve the three men went out for a celebration drink. They had won a reprieve. God knew for how long, but at least they could enjoy Christmas and New Year with their families and worry about 1975 later on.

  BOOK TWO

  PART TWO: 2008

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Wednesday, April 16th, 2008

  Marbella, Spain

  It was eight o’clock by the time the two women had read to this point in the narrative. Leticia’s parents had arrived earlier with Emilio. At first, he sat on Jenny’s knee quite happily while they continued reading. When he started yawning, they realised that they were as tired as he was.

  “Time for supper. We’ll finish reading in the morning.” Jenny switched the laptop off and they went into the kitchen with Encarni, to scavenge what they could and prepare some supper.

  Leticia’s parents spoke no English but they were the most friendly and natural people Jenny had ever met. José was a small skinny man with skin so clear that it appeared to be transparent in the lamplight. He looked more like a doctor or an artist than a check-out clerk in a supermarket. His wife was quite the opposite. Large, ample bosomed and dark skinned, with her hair tied back in a typical Spanish bun, she could have been an ex-flamenco dancer.

  Together the three women made up dishes of tapas from what they could find in the kitchen, while José opened a fine bottle of Rioja from the wine cellar. Despite the recent traumatic events, the ambience was relaxed, mainly because of little Emilio, who was a born clown. He laughed and chattered at the table and had them all in stitches with his antics. Clearly he had inherited his mother’s cheerful, outgoing personality. His grandparent’s lack of English didn’t present a problem. Smiles and gestures were sufficient to complete the conversation. It was a long time since Jenny had felt so at ease and she began to revise her feelings about her new ‘family’.