by Alex MacBeth
“I’m going after Palma,” roared Naissone and ran out in hot pursuit with Raquel. Amisse was hiding behind a filing cabinet with Albertina. Both signalled they were okay. Tomlinson was sitting flat on the ground on the floor but had somehow not been hit. The same could not be said for Samora.
Chapter Twenty-Four
The Comandante tried to sleep as he kept vigil over his injured deputy but the smell of disinfectant and his infected thoughts conspired to keep him awake. The sadness in Raquel’s eyes would not leave him. To be betrayed is one thing, but by your own? Felisberto had no idea what would happen to Cristina.
Samora lay on a bed beside the Comandante on a drip. He was fast asleep, his leg wrapped in plaster. The doctors had operated for two hours to remove the bullet. A North Korean specialist from Monapo had arrived in the dead of night to see Samora and lead the operation. Doctor Gam said Samora would be walking again in as little as a week.
The Comandante reread his notes from the night before.
We have uncovered the theft of one of the nation’s largest mineral assets. The whole operation had been disguised behind the guise of a nature reserve. Officials from various ministries must have been involved. Palma and his associates had heard of oil under the wildlife park and the Palma Foundation had bought the reserve, ravaged by the war, to undertake initial explorations. Palma invested a little into wildlife preservation at first to give the idea that he his foundation had genuine intentions, but when his engineer hit oil, the wildlife park fell into disrepute as the drilling machines were ordered. When Palma teamed up with a foreign company, things began to move quicker. One night oil leaked into a stream that fed half the reserve during a preliminary drilling test. The media caught whiff of the story but never cottoned on to the fact that the black substance in the water was oil. The elephants were deemed casualties of a broken sewer and Palma was allowed to continue his operation. Then…
Could he really go to Frangopelo with this? The Comandante was due to fly to Maputo the next day to brief the minister on the Stokes case and his investigation into Palma. Minister Frangopelo had called him again personally the night before to confirm the trip. “I need to know what Palma is up to in that park,” the minister kept repeating. Now the Comandante understood why. The Minister was investigating assets sold cheaply by his predecessor, Palma. Frangopelo must have found the original contracts for the Nampula Wildlife Reserve. Palma must have called the attacks on Frangopelo’s convoy. The Comandante felt that if he could trust anybody at this stage, it was Frangopelo.
Felisberto stayed by his deputy’s bedside all day. Naiss called. Palma had gotten away. General Carlos and two units from Nampula and Pemba had shut down the park and were busy crawling through it. Naiss called and said the story would be all over the news within forty-eight hours. Felisberto knew there was still no way to prove Palma was involved. It would be his word against theirs. The Palma Foundation, which had bought the park, was a myriad organisation with a labyrinth of fake managers and board members. It would be highly unlikely that the blame would fall on Palma’s shoulders. Frangopelo might decide to investigate it, but Palma had escaped far worse before. Without conclusive evidence, no judge in Mozambique would have the resolve to go after a decorated war hero, former minister and a well-known public figure, albeit a formerly disgraced one. But then which public figure didn’t have a few skeletons? The public were always quick to forgive. Felisberto knew that his countrymen had memories like goldfish when it came to politics. Palma might have been involved in a drugs scandal two decades ago but today, Felisberto realised, most young Mozambicans saw him as the philanthropist behind the Palma Foundation saving children.
Samora awoke at around 4.30pm. The doctor checked his pulse and wiggled the patient’s toes. “He’ll need at least a week before he will be able to go home,” said Doctor Bobo, leaving them alone. “Is everybody else okay?” asked Samora. The Comandante reassured him that everybody was fine. “What about Frangopelo?” The Comandante told him that he would leave at dawn the next day and fly to Maputo to meet the minister. Amisse and Paul were keeping guard outside. The revelation that Cristina was Palma’s mole at the comando freed the erudite young officer from his captivity. He had been fully reinstated to his position, though not before he had been forced to spend thirty-six hours in the guards’ room. “I better get the boys some food,” said Felisberto. He took his motorbike to Dona Amelia’s, the only restaurant in the district, run by the firm yet fair woman proprietor by the same name.
“Still going around getting shot are we, Comandante?” asked Dona Amelia. “Somebody has to take care of the bad guys,” the Comandante replied. He ordered four omelettes with bread rolls. He sat and read the paper while he waited. Secret services had uncovered a plot to assassinate Frangopelo, according to a source in the military, said the daily. The Comandante read on. The security services had received a tip-off about a contract hitman from ‘abroad’ who had been hired to ‘take out’ the minister and possibly other high value targets. Frangopelo had begun to uncover uncomfortable truths in his own ministry in his quest against corruption, said the paper, and now ‘certain forces’ were threatened by his transparency drive. The Comandante wondered if the hit man could be Colonel Li.
“Your eggs are ready,” said Dona Amelia. “Oh, and try not to get shot as you leave, Comandante. The glass in those windows is new.”
The Comandante returned to the hospital and the four officers ate together at Samora’s bedside. The injured officer was sitting up and was showing “extraordinary signs of recovery,” according to the doctor.
“What will you tell Frangopelo?” asked Samora. He ate little, his thumbs busy texting and sending photos of his hospital room to Mora. Taking a bullet had done wonders for his credentials.
“What we know,” replied the Comandante breaking into Samora’s internal monologue.
“What? What do we know?”
Felisberto was getting used to Samora in love. He had noticed the latter’s fingers moving feverishly over his iPhone keypad and surmised that his deputy was lost in a haze of Miss Mora. “The minister,” Felisberto explained kindly. Samora looked sheepishly at his boss and put down his phone. “I’ll tell the minister what we know, and I hope he will be able to tell me more than I can tell him.”
***
Felisberto awoke early to have breakfast with his children. He walked them to school. “Be careful,” his mother had said, as if the half-mile walk to school might suddenly be transformed with numerous obstacles along the way. Germano had been nominated as the class rep in his year by his classmates and was brimming with pride. “Goodie, goodie,” mumbled Sofia. She hated the way her brother always used the brief moments they had with their father to compete for his attention. When would he grow up, she wondered? The Comandante waved goodbye and sped off.
He drove straight to the airport. He parked the Jeep, which was now pelted with bullet holes, at a distance from the terminal and found his ticket waiting for him at the desk. He took a tentative look around and saw Palma was nowhere in sight. This time he made sure that a queue of other passengers boarded the plane first.
An hour later he was in the skies over Nampula on his way to the capital. He hadn’t been for five years and he was looking forward to the hustle and bustle of Maputo’s busy boulevards. Domestic flights were exorbitantly expensive and he could never find the time to make the 4000 kilometre round trip by bus or car. If things were different, it would have been nice to visit cousins, friends, and former colleagues. This time he knew he’d hardly have time to visit anyone. He was there to brief a minister – who knows, ministers? – of state about issues of national security. Samora had even suggested doing something called a ‘PowerPoint presentation’ on the computer. The Comandante found the idea ridiculous. He had written up five sides of notes in an exercise book and he read them over. Then he drifted off to sleep with his notes in his hands as the plane floated through a perfect blue sky.
They had
landed when he awoke. He stepped off the plane onto the new tarmac taxi runway and marvelled at the multi-million dollar upgrade that had transformed the military airstrip he’d once known. Inside, the future had arrived, with fancy shops selling luxury goods and foods of all kinds. He walked into the arrivals hall with his head held high. Back in his military days he had never imagined such luxuries.
The sun was dazzling as he stepped outside. He pulled a scrap of paper with an address from his pocket and headed towards a line of waiting taxis at the kerb. He liked taxis; riding in one had been a treat as a child and he still enjoyed it.
There wasn’t a queue as such. A pert air hostess took the cab in front of him and Felisberto hailed the next one. As he was stepping into it, a man suddenly blocked his way. The Comandante noticed it was a small but well-built man of East Asian appearance. A brief silence ensued as the two men eyed each other. The Asian man smiled. Then he pulled out a gun and shot the Comandante in the head. “Goodbye from Mason and Stock,” said Colonel Li.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Felisberto fell to the ground. Blood trickled from his head. Colonel Li ran across the forecourt, still shooting as he dodged in and out of cars en route to the main exit. An airport guard valiantly tried to stop the Chinese assassin as he reached the gate but Colonel Li coldly gunned him down. Li pushed through the gates and shot two more armed policemen. He grabbed one of their motorbikes and fled into the open traffic.
Felisberto was rushed to Maputo Military Hospital, where Minister Frangopelo kept vigil as the country’s best surgeons tried to keep the Comandante alive. The Minister read the Comandante’s notes as doctors fought against time to remove the bullet. It had not hit the Comandante’s membrane, but skidded to the left of the skull. The Comandante had not however regained consciousness and was in a deep coma.
Samora learned of the assassination attempt of his boss on TV. Within minutes of hearing the news, he ripped the drip out of his arm and hobbled towards the door in his pyjamas. He couldn’t walk without a crutch. All he could do was fall to the ground and cry. He curled up and wept forlornly. Once he had cried out the first shock of his own loss, he thought of the Comandante’s poor children, Sofia and Germano, now orphans, victims of Mozambique’s 2M killers: Malaria and the Mafia. How would they cope? He grabbed his iPhone seeking distraction from his pain and found a text message.
It was from Bia’s boy, Agostino. Call me, it said. Samora dialled the number.
“Hello?” enquired a whispering boy’s voice.
“Agostino, it’s Samora, the policeman from Mossuril,” Samora whispered back.
“Come and see me as soon as you can, I have something for you,” said Agostino and hung up.
Samora could hardly move but he knew he had to go. The Comandante was in a coma, fighting for his life. He, his deputy, could not afford to be stranded in bed because of a relatively minor leg wound. He called Amisse and asked him to come and help him dress.
Amisse arrived blubbering and helped Samora struggle out into the early morning light. Both of them had lost track of time as they sat and mourned their Comandante. Samora took a taxi from the rank outside the hospital. Amisse offered to go with him, but Samora was adamant that he wanted to be alone. He cruised through Nampula as the first shift of school children were checking in for classes around 8am. Amisse had managed to rustle up a couple of bamboo poles as crutches. Samora had persuaded a nurse to give him a handful of painkillers, half of which he had washed down after breakfast. When he arrived at the Sisters of Mercy School, he knocked on the large iron gate of the convent. “Yes?” a young nun enquired. “It’s me, the police officer,” said Samora. “Wait, I’ll call Sister Maria.”
A few minutes later Sister Maria opened the gate.
“What happened to you, young man?” she asked.
“Car accident, Sister,” lied Samora. “The boy asked me to come.”
“We’re glad you are here. He has been acting strange lately,” Sister Maria confided, still pointing at Samora’s leg. “He hasn’t eaten for days. He won’t say anything to anyone and he walks around as if he’s followed by some hideous affliction,” continued Sister Maria, spreading her arms if to invoke the aid of a higher being. Samora listened carefully and took notes. “He was watching television a couple of nights ago and suddenly he began to scream…” Sister Maria informed him. “Is it broken?” she enquired, pointing at the leg.
Samora nodded, and the curious nun waited for more. When nothing followed, she continued.
“We’ve closed the common room since then. There is no controlling what these idiots broadcast to the nation. There is just no decency anymore,” she added, pausing to make the sign of the cross.
“What was he watching?” asked Samora.
“The news. The truth is, the truth, or the way it is packaged, simply isn’t suitable for young people.” Sister Maria lectured on about the low values of the entertainment business and girls in short skirts and too much make-up. They reached the library where Agostino was seated outside listening to music on his phone.
“You have a visitor, Agostino,” Sister Maria informed him. The boy didn’t look up or answer and Sister Maria signalled for Samora to approach and sit. “I’ll leave you to sit then, officer,” said the sister, loitering before leaving the two in peace.
“I would sit but as you can see I’m not exactly strong on mobility right now,” said Samora. Agostino looked up and smiled.
“Why did you want to see me?”
Agostino hesitated then stood up. He gave Samora the headphones. “Put them in,” he said. Samora complied. Agostino shuffled through his phone and found a track. He pressed play. It was Palma’s voice. It had to be the recording, thought Samora. He was right: Stokes had made a copy.
PALMA: It’s all sorted. All the contracts are done but Frangopelo better stop sniffing around the park.
CLARISSA: Oh darling, you always get the best deals, you know you do, doesn’t he Bia?
Bia: What about the animals?
PALMA: The animals?
(Laughter)
Bia: Won’t your oil field be on the habitats of thousands of animals?
PALMA: My dear, Mozambique has plenty of fields for them to go to. There are very few oil fields as abundant as the one below the Nampula Wildlife Reserve however. Think how many people died for Mozambique to become a nation. If a few more animals have to be sacrificed for wealth, is it not worth it?
Bia: So is the oilfield a secret?
PALMA: The best kind. The licence we have is to explore two hundred miles away from our actual site. We’ll drill at both, to not raise suspicions. The lorries carrying the oil to Nacala will load and leave at night via a hidden road out of the back of the park. The park will be plagued by scandal before it even opens. By then Frangopelo should be out of the way and we’ll have all the licenses we need, without all the vultures we don’t want.
CLARISSA: Cheers to the future, darling.
The recording went dead.
“Where did you find this?” asked Samora.
“Uncle John gave me the phone two years ago and shortly before he went away he added that track. I listened to it once but thought it was one of those strange intros you get to songs. Or a comedy sketch. Then two nights ago I heard that man’s voice in the advert and I knew it was important,” said the boy. Samora Bluetoothed the track to his own phone and thanked Agostino. “Would you like to play Monopoly?” asked Agostino. Samora remembered he had said no on his last visit. This time he was in a rush again but he also knew the debt of gratitude he owed Agostino. He’d make it quick and let the boy win.
“Absolutely,” replied Samora. Agostino ran off and got the board and pieces. “The board got bent recently,” said Agostino, “but we can still play.” Agostino had made a second die out of cardboard. They played a one-hour timed round, in which the boy acquired all the expensive properties and charged the injured officer extortionate hotel rates and rent charges until Samora was bank
rupt. “If I’d known you were that good I would have saved myself the time,” said Samora. Agostino did a mock victory dance. Samora was catching his own reflection on the bright red die. It was the same as Stokes’! Stokes wasn’t a gambler; he simply had a Monopoly die in his pocket when he died.
Samora packed away the board and felt joy. He had solved another part of the puzzle, even if he would never solve the case. A small tear in the side of the cardboard Monopoly board caught his eye. It looked like it had been sewn together. The thread in the stitching was a different colour on both sides, certainly not the work of a master board maker. Samora let his hand glide up and down the surface of the board and heard something move inside. He cut away the bottom of the board with the sharper side of his keys and a stack of papers fell out.
Samora read through the documents, his trembling hands hardly able to hold them. They were the original contracts granted to Palma by the ministry of oil and gas. They were awarded to Palma and stamped by Palma. They looked like originals.
This was it, Samora knew it at once. How could he have missed it? Stokes left the die in his pocket as a clue to where he had hidden the secret that eventually got him killed. This was the game that Stokes would end up winning. Palma and his thugs had played Russian roulette with Stokes’ life. But the British journalist had kept one last spin of the die up his sleeve. In his pocket, in fact. Monopoly, thought Samora. Stokes had been right: it was a game after all. Having broken one Monopoly board, Samora decided it was time to smash another.
“Smile, you may have just given your generation hope,” said Samora. He gave the boy enough money to buy at least two new monopoly sets and hobbled towards the gate. Sister Maria ran after him as he left. “What did Agostino say?” she asked. “He doesn’t like the morals on TV,” shouted back Samora and jumped into the same taxi he had arrived in. “Wait,” said the sister reinvigorated. “Take this,” she said, giving Samora a crutch. “You look like you need it.” Samora waved and they sped off. “To the airport,” roared Mossuril’s deputy police chief, ready to take the fight for Mozambique’s soul to the capital Maputo.