Once committed, there could be no failure. If Ben was going to kill Khosa, right here, right now, the job had to be done instantly, decisively, and with authority.
There was only one item in the room definitively capable of all three.
Ben thought fuck it and reached down Khosa’s body to the gunbelt. He unsnapped the retaining strap of the holster and drew out the big Colt Anaconda. Chambered in .44 Remington Magnum, custom-engraved, fitted with a grip made of mammoth ivory. One of a matched pair, much prized by their owner. The other one, Ben had tossed into the Indian Ocean during the battle to regain control of the Svalgaard Andromeda.
The revolver was cold and heavy in his hand. He checked the cylinder. He’d have expected someone like Khosa to keep it fully loaded at all times, and he wasn’t disappointed.
He stepped back two paces and aimed it at Khosa’s head. He cocked the hammer and placed his finger on the trigger.
Chapter 10
Khosa didn’t stir. His breathing was slow and deep. Ben stood over him with his finger on the trigger of the gun. He held the revolver in both hands, not just to steady his aim but because the .44 Magnum would kick hard when it went off. Which was a good thing, because every action has an equal and opposite reaction. If a handgun recoils brutally it’s because it has launched a very heavy bullet at a very high velocity. In this case, more than enough muzzle energy to blow Khosa’s brains all over his nice leopardskin sofa.
It was also going to be extremely loud. Ben wasn’t too worried about his eardrums. He knew from experience, repeated many times over, that they’d recover and the high-pitched whine would fade. He was more worried about the shot being heard all over the hotel, across the street and for a wide radius across the deserted city. The moment he squeezed the trigger he’d have to be out of the window and clambering down the nearest fire escape before the guards came rushing in.
Ben squared the sights on Khosa’s head with the muzzle at close to point-blank range. He wanted to kill this man more than anything. But it was hard to pull the trigger. The cause of his hesitation wasn’t the strange sense of pity that he felt, despite everything, for a man who was obviously deranged and had to die, like putting down a rabid dog. It was the knowledge that by killing him, he would set in motion an irreversible chain reaction. The initial panic and chaos over Khosa’s death would buy him a few minutes, maybe half an hour at best. The chain of command would disintegrate, but only temporarily, before Dizolele, or Xulu, or another of Khosa’s subordinates picked up a phone or a radio and put the word through to César Masango, the man on whom Jude’s fate would then rest.
Which meant Ben would have half an hour at best in which to locate Jude and prevent Masango from killing him in retaliation for Khosa. The odds weren’t exactly favourable. When Ben had received the message that Jude was in trouble aboard the MV Andromeda, he’d had the GPS coordinates to guide him more or less exactly to Jude’s location. Then, distance and time had been far less of an obstacle to rescuing him than the situation he faced now. Jude could be anywhere in the Congo. He could be in Burundi or Uganda or Zambia or Angola. He could be on another continent, for all Ben knew.
Ben’s thoughts whirled faster as he stood there pointing the gun and time rushed past him. Maybe there was a better option than killing Khosa. He could kidnap him and hold him hostage, forcing him to reveal Jude’s whereabouts and threatening to blow his brains out if Masango touched a hair on his son’s head. They could trade: Jude for Khosa. Prisoner exchange at dawn in some remote spot. Any tricks, the General cops it. It sounded good, except for the logistics of dragging a 250-pound comatose body past the guards outside the door, down the lift and into the street in the hope of finding a convenient escape vehicle, all without getting into a knock-down shootout with a small army of soldiers; one six-gun against armoured personnel carriers, heavy machine guns and mortars. And even if Ben did achieve the impossible and get away with his hostage – then what about Jeff, Tuesday, and Lou Gerber?
It would be them or Jude. Ben couldn’t save them all. He’d be leaving his friends behind to die, and it wouldn’t be a quick and easy death that Khosa’s enraged seconds-in-command would inflict on them.
Slowly, Ben lowered the gun. He uncocked the hammer and took his finger off the trigger and let the weapon droop limply at his side.
‘Damn,’ he said out loud. The moment of opportunity was slipping by him.
Then it was gone. Khosa’s inert bulk gave a twitch, followed by a lurch, and he awoke in a panic, as if still half in the grip of some terrible nightmare. His eyes darted and rolled for several seconds before he heaved himself violently off the sofa and crashed forwards into the coffee table, wrecking it and spilling its contents to the floor. Ben could only stand and stare as Khosa reeled back to his feet, staggered sideways several yards and hit the drinks cabinet with his hip, sending an array of wineglasses and a crystal decanter flying. Khosa was screaming and bellowing as if he’d lost what sanity remained to him. Either that, Ben was thinking, or else this was what two bottles of Kotiko on an empty stomach could do to even a sane person. Khosa fell to the floor, beating the carpet with his fists and filling the bedroom with his roaring, braying voice.
Ben had been right about the guards listening at the door for trouble. They burst into the suite and raced towards the sound of their commander’s screams. The same two soldiers who had escorted Ben earlier were quickly joined by two more, all of them wearing the same shocked expression as they took in the scene.
By then, Ben had already replaced the revolver in Khosa’s gunbelt. He’d moved quickly to the far side of the bedroom and raised his hands to show he was no threat to any of them. The soldiers yelled and pointed their rifles and jabbed and prodded him and fired a thousand questions in Swahili and broken English. What had he done to their illustrious leader? What was happening here? Keeping the other hand raised, Ben pointed at the bottles on the floor and told them the General had drunk something that disagreed with him. He was sick. He needed his doctor.
It took fifteen minutes for the doctor to arrive, by which time another half-dozen soldiers had crowded the suite and more were milling around in the corridor outside. Khosa had long stopped screaming like a mad bull and lapsed back into a comatose state, saliva oozing from his lips and one eye half open. Ben was pinned in a corner of the bedroom by four jumpy soldiers ready to blast him if he moved. He was beginning to worry that if Khosa died, they would accuse him of having poisoned their leader.
Khosa’s personal physician was tall and thin and stooped, possibly ninety years of age. He was barefoot and wore a long black robe intricately embroidered in gold thread and a necklace of what Ben at first thought were shrunken human skulls, then realised were those of monkeys. The old man appeared quite calm as he entered the room, took one look at the patient slumped full-length on the floor and strolled over to inspect him.
After a brief examination, the doctor turned, gazed around the room until he spotted the empty bottles still lying where they’d fallen, and in a voice as cracked and dry as parchment asked a soldier to pick one up and bring it to him. After a sniff of the bottle’s neck he nodded sagely to himself and then produced a smaller amber bottle from the folds of his robe and trickled a few drops of liquid into the unconscious Khosa’s open mouth.
Ben had heard of doctors like this. In French-speaking parts of Africa they called them féticheurs. The nearest English translation would be ‘witch doctor’, a purveyor of magic healing and weird potions of the kind that the patient’s brother had apparently tried to purge from his province of Luhaka.
Adolf Hitler had taken military guidance from his astrologer. Tsarina Alexandra had hung on every word of the mystic healer, Rasputin. Jean-Pierre Khosa had his witch doctor. It didn’t seem unfitting. With luck, the sorcerer’s medicine would finish the job the Kotiko had started, and then nobody could blame Ben for the General’s demise.
The old man creaked to his feet, his medical examination of the Supreme
Being concluded. ‘There is nothing wrong with him,’ he declared, in the same hoarse, dry croak. ‘He has tired himself and needs to rest.’
‘That, and a good dose of lithium,’ Ben said.
The witch doctor motioned to the nearest group of soldiers to pick Khosa up and place him on the bed. It took three of them to heave him onto the rumpled four-poster. Khosa was still out for the count. With long, bony hands the witch doctor performed a series of strange gestures over his inert form, rattled his monkey skulls and uttered some sort of incantation in a language Ben had never heard before. Satisfied, he turned away to let his patient sleep off the booze. His wizened gaze scanned the room and fell on Ben. He gave an odd little smile. ‘I know who you are. You are the white warrior who has come to help us.’
‘I suppose I get pleasure from helping the needy,’ Ben said.
‘I am Pascal Wakenge,’ the old man said. He walked towards Ben, fixing him with an intense stare. ‘You can leave now. There is nothing for you to do,’ he told the guards crowded around Ben. The soldiers dispersed and filed out of the bedroom, just a couple of them hovering in the doorway. Evidently, the witch doctor carried some weight of authority around here.
Ben stood up. Wakenge watched every move he made with great fascination. Something in the old man’s glittering eyes made Ben’s flesh creep. It was easy to understand the sway he would hold over someone who believed in sorcery and witchcraft.
‘Jean-Pierre sees much in you,’ he said. ‘You should not hate him so.’
‘Oh, I’m full of human understanding,’ Ben replied. ‘No hard feelings. He’s only trying to do his job, after all.’
‘He sees much, but I see more.’
‘You do, do you?’
‘I see much death in you, white man. You have killed many. And you will kill more. But there is one you wish to kill more than any other. It is your greatest desire to look this man in the eye as you take his life.’
Ben said nothing. He was positive that Wakenge could tell no such thing. The crafty old man was using what he knew to psych Ben out in search of a sign that he could be a threat. Fortune-tellers and other such cranks, at any rate the more successful ones, were often excellent psychologists and extremely devious at winkling out useful information without their victims realising they were being manipulated.
‘I’m afraid you must have me confused with someone else,’ Ben said. ‘I don’t want to kill anybody.’
Wakenge went on staring at him for the longest time. Ben returned the eye contact, not wanting to be the first to look away. For a few moments it seemed to have become a battle of wills, one Ben was determined not to lose to this creepy old charlatan.
Then Wakenge said, ‘Be warned, white man. You have saved many lost souls in the past. But you should be careful, or you will not be able to save your own.’
Ben gave him a dry smile. ‘I’m going to die?’
‘Soon,’ the old man said.
Chapter 11
It was lunchtime in Kinshasa, too, and the bar at the Grand Hotel in the Presidential district of Gombe was crowded with well-to-do locals, bureaucrats and visiting business executives. It was more or less the most prestigious environment that the capital had to offer, even if the electricity went off several times a day, and César Masango fitted into it well. He was perfectly groomed in a handsomely tailored double-breasted suit of light grey silk, tan leather brogues polished into mirrors, and a Rolex Daytona that was even bigger and glitzier than the model that his friend and business associate, Jean-Pierre Khosa, liked to flash around. None of the corporate types milling around him could have guessed that he’d returned only hours ago from a militarised stronghold deep in the jungle. Any more than they could have guessed what his business was here today in the city.
Masango and his two associates had occupied a corner table by the window, where they sat in silence as Masango scanned the busy street and sipped on an $8 cappuccino. His associates didn’t get any, because they weren’t paid to eat, drink, or speak on his time unless specifically permitted.
Masango was waiting for Marius Grobler, a fifty-six-year-old white South African who labelled himself a consultant in international import/export but who was in fact a criminal fence specialising in converting dubiously obtained diamonds, gold and other such high-end commodities into untraceable cash. He was effective, discreet, and had been the first name to come up when discussing the various options for selling Jean-Pierre’s wonderful new acquisition.
The purchase deal had been brokered on Khosa’s behalf by Masango, his political attaché. ‘Political attaché’ might have been an accurate term, if indeed Khosa had anything much to do with politics – which for the moment he did not, although that didn’t deter Khosa’s small but rapidly growing legion of followers from viewing César Masango as the man who would one day put their exalted leader in power. While both men believed that day would eventually come (and all the sooner now that Khosa was set to become much richer), for the moment Masango was happy to act as his universal aide, fixer and back-door man. In return for these services, he received more than the General’s gratitude and the future promise of a top ministerial job when Khosa grabbed the presidency. For brokering this deal, setting up the meeting with Grobler in Kinshasa and attending to all associated matters, Masango’s slice of the diamond sale proceeds would be a lordly five per cent. Which was as generous a percentage as anyone was likely to get from Khosa; in this case, anyhow, it still amounted to a nice little payday for César.
Besides, as only he and Khosa knew, this wouldn’t be a one-off payment. Far from it.
Grobler arrived in a shiny X3 BMW, with three large, unsmiling white subordinates who shadowed him like the bodyguards they in fact were as he entered the hotel lobby and was warmly met by César Masango. The South African was carrying a large silver case attached to his left wrist. He was a slight man and clearly struggling with its weight, but not about to entrust such a valuable load to a helper. His manner was gruff and brusque as he and Masango shook hands. His pale-grey eyes darted left and right as if looking for someone. ‘I’d understood your client was to meet me in person,’ he said, a little nonplussed.
Not missing a beat, Masango smiled and informed him that there had been a slight change of plan, and the meeting was now to be held elsewhere. ‘For security reasons,’ he explained vaguely. ‘I hope you understand. We received reports of a potential confidentiality leak.’
‘Not from my side, there isn’t,’ Grobler snorted. ‘I hope your client isn’t backing out on me here. I’ve gone to a great deal of trouble to arrange the funds at such short notice. This isn’t the kind of money I normally carry around with me, you know?’
‘Please be assured, Mr Grobler,’ Masango replied with another charming smile, ‘that the meeting will proceed exactly as intended. It will be my pleasure to take you to him. However, unfortunately, also for security reasons, my client stipulates that you attend the meeting alone.’
Grobler didn’t take this well. ‘These men are my trusted associates. I have no secrets from them.’ Which was blatantly untrue, of course. The men were paid thugs with no knowledge of the deal and nothing to think about except how to keep their employer in one piece if things went south. That possibility was an ever-present occupational hazard in Grobler’s line of work and he had long since learned to be careful.
‘I am sorry,’ Masango said. ‘I am instructed that if this condition is not met, the meeting is cancelled. My client was very specific on this point. It is, as you say, a deal breaker.’
Grobler quickly considered what he had to lose by missing out, then grunted, ‘Very well. But my associates will accompany me to this alternative venue of yours, and wait outside while we do business. Okay?’
Masango shook his head. ‘Again, I am afraid that is not possible. Your associates may remain here at the hotel during the meeting. They are welcome to have lunch, at our expense of course. We will return you here once our business is concluded.’
Masango’s men climbed into the front of the Mercedes. Masango politely ushered Grobler into the back. Grobler hesitated, then climbed in and sat on the plush leather seat with the case between his feet. The moment they got moving, Masango said, ‘I must ask you if you are armed, Mr Grobler. If so, please be so good as to let me have your weapon for a moment. I apologise for this intrusion, but my client is most particular.’
Grobler had no choice but to let Masango have the gun. Masango received it with a gracious smile, dropped out the magazine, emptied the chamber, and returned the empty pistol to him. ‘You will have the bullets back later,’ he assured him.
They drove for nearly half an hour through the wild Kinshasa traffic, dodging taxis and the yellow buses that ploughed the roads at high speed with little regard for human life. The paramilitary police presence was everywhere, but as no elections were currently taking place no actual tanks were rolling through the streets to quell the usual violent civil disturbances. Like so many African cities Kinshasa was a study in extremes, with great wealth and miserable poverty existing side by side. And it was southwards, away from the tree-lined boulevards, expensive villas, and high-rises towards the poorer districts where the local ‘Kinois’ lived in varying degrees of tin-roofed squalor on unpaved streets, that Grobler found himself being driven. It wasn’t what he’d expected, and he was increasingly restless. ‘Where are you taking me?’ he kept asking, but Masango just smiled and kept assuring him that they were nearly there.
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