Windfall ms-2

by Desmond Bagley

  'Mr Hendriks to see Mr Brice. I'm expected.'

  'Sah.' The gate keeper went back and the gates opened. As Hendriks drove through, the gate keeper shouted warningly 'Pole pole!' Hendriks did not know what that meant until he hit the first sleeping policeman at a speed which jarred his teeth. He slowed the car and reflected that he had better learn Swahili. It would be useful in the future.

  He parked outside the Administration Block and went inside. In the cool hall he approached the reception desk behind which sat a muscular young black who was dressed neatly in white shirt and shorts. Another young Kenyan was sitting at a side desk hammering a typewriter. 'Mr Hendriks to see Mr Brice,' Hendriks repeated.

  'Yes, sir; he's expecting you. Come this way.' Hendriks followed, passing through a wicket gate and along a corridor towards Brice's office. He nodded approvingly. Potgeiter had it organized well; no one was going to wander about the place unobserved.

  Brice was sitting behind his desk and looked up with a smile as Hendriks came in. The Kenyan left, closing the door behind him, and Hendriks said, 'Goeie middag, meneer Potgeiter; hoe gaan dit?' The smile abruptly left Brice's face. 'No Afrikaans,' he said sharply. 'And my name is Brice – always Brice. Remember that!'

  Hendriks smiled and dropped into a chair. 'Think the place is bugged?'

  'I know it isn't.' Brice tapped on the desk for emphasis. 'But don't get into bad habits.'

  'I'm a South African,' said Hendriks. 'I'm supposed to know Afrikaans.'

  'And I'm not,' snapped Brice. 'So stick to English – always English.'

  'English it will be' agreed Hendriks. 'Even when we're conspiring."

  Brice nodded – a gesture which closed the subject. 'How did you get on in London?'

  'All right. That old fool, Farrar, is making the distribution next week.' Hendriks laughed. 'He gave me a cheque for a hundred thousand pounds on account as soon as we got back. Your coffers should be filling up soon.'

  'And about time,' said Brice. 'I'm tired of working on a shoestring." He shook his head. 'The way it was set up in Europe was too complicated. We ought to have had direct control. Farrar asked some sticky questions when he was here.'

  'It had to be set up in Jersey,' said Hendriks. 'Do you think we wanted to pay the British Treasury death duties on forty million pounds? This operation wasn't set up to give money to the Brits. As for Farrar, Mandeville kept a tight rein on him. Farrar is a legal snob; he likes working with an eminent British barrister. And Mandeville is a good man. The best.' Hendriks smiled thinly. 'He ought to be considering what we pay him.'

  Brice made a dismissive gesture. 'I never understood the European end of this and I didn't want to. I had my own troubles.'

  You had troubles! thought Hendriks bitterly, but said nothing. His mind went back to the moment when Alix happily announced that she was pregnant. That had come as a shock because if the child was born before Hendrykxx died it would automatically become one of his heirs and that could not be allowed. The kid would inherit two million of their precious pounds and it would bring Alix right into the middle of the operation.

  He had thought of having the will changed and had talked it over with Mandeville but Mandeville had said they would not get it past Farrar. Hendrykxx was then senile and not in his right mind, and Farrar was rectitude itself. So Hendrykxx had to go before the baby was born. It had been risky -murder always was – but it had been done. And all that was on top of the trouble caused by Henry Hendrix who had dropped out of sight in America. Still, that problem had been solved – or had it?

  Brice said, 'Your cousin Henry was one of your problems you wished on me. Why the hell was he allowed to come to Africa?'

  'We lost him,' said Hendriks. 'And Pretoria was asleep. By the time they woke up back home to the fact that Henry was important because the old man was dead Farrar had employed an American agency and was looking for him himself. The agency man got to Henry about ten minutes before we did.' He snorted. 'Ten minutes and three inches.'

  Brice raised his eyebrows. 'Three inches?'

  'Our man took a shot at him. Hit him in the shoulder. Three inches to the right and Henry wouldn't have been a problem ever again.'

  'Well, he's no problem now,' said Brice. 'I've seen to that. Have you read the papers lately.'

  Hendriks nodded. 'It made a couple of paragraphs in the English papers.' He leaned forward. 'You're wrong, Brice. Henry is still a problem. Where's the bloody body? We need the body. His three million quid is tied up until death is proved. We don't want to wait seven years to collect. As it is he's just disappeared.'

  Brice sighed. He stood up and went to the window. With his back to Hendriks he said, 'He's not the only one to have disappeared. Two of my men didn't come back.'

  'What!' Hendriks also rose to his feet. 'What did you say?'

  Brice turned. 'You heard me. I've lost two men.'

  'You'd better explain,' Hendriks said tightly.

  'It all went exactly the way I planned. You've read the newspaper reports. The stories those tourists told were exactly right except for one thing. They were supposed to see the body and they didn't. It wasn't there – and neither were my men.'

  'Could Henry have jumped them and got away? How were they armed?'

  'Standard Tanzanian army gear. Kalashnikovs.'

  Hendriks shook his head. 'I don't think Henry would have the stuffing in him to tackle those. In any case if he got away he'd be back by now.' He thought for a moment. 'Perhaps the Tanzanians got him. The real ones, I mean.'

  'I doubt it,' said Brice. 'The Legislature is in an uproar and the Foreign Minister is putting pressure on the Tanzanians. Some of my boys are on the border with a watching brief. The Tanzanians are scouring the area south of the Masai Mara. Why would they do that if they already had Henry – or his corpse?'

  Hendriks said coldly, 'So that leaves one answer. Your men are cheating on you.'

  'Not those boys,' said Brice decisively. 'They're two of my best.' He paused, then added, 'Besides, they've got their families back home to think of.'

  'So what's the answer?'

  'I don't know.' Brice rubbed his eyes and said sourly, 'Who dreamed up this crazy operation, anyway?'

  'We did,' said Hendriks flatly. 'You and me.'

  Brice said nothing to that but merely shrugged. 'Well, we'll get most of the money in soon.'

  'That's true,' said Hendriks as he sat down again. 'But it irks me to have three million tied up. I worked damned hard to get this money in here.' He changed the subject. 'Why did you announce an inheritance of only seven million? Isn't that risky?'

  Brice spread his hands. 'Who is going to check back to Jersey? Hell, man; I'll bet not one in a hundred Kenyans even knows where Jersey is. One in a thousand."

  'But what if somebody does?' persisted Hendriks.

  'No problem,' said Brice. 'I'll say I was misquoted – misunderstood. I'll say that the seven million is the estimated annual income after the main fund has been invested. We have everything to gain and nothing to lose.' He checked the time. 'We'll have lunch and then I'll show you around. I didn't show you the real stuff last time you were here. Farrar stuck closer than a leech.'

  'I'll stay for lunch,' said Hendriks. 'But the rest can wait. I have got to get back to Nairobi and raise a stink. My long lost cousin has been lost again and what the hell are they doing about it? I must do the grieving relative bit to make it look right. Let's go and eat. I'm hungry.'

  Chapter 19

  In Nairobi Gunnarsson was angry. His feet hurt and his back was sore but that was not the reason for his anger. What riled him was that he was being given the runaround in the American Embassy. 'Damn it!' he said. 'I've been kidnapped and my friend is still missing. If I can't see the Ambassador who the hell can I see? And don't fob me off on any third clerk. I want action.'

  The clerk behind the counter sighed. 'I'll see what I can do.' He moved away and picked up a telephone. 'Is Mr Pasternak there?'

  'Speaking.'

&nbs
p; 'There's a guy here called Gunnarsson wanting to see the Ambassador. He has some crazy story about being kidnapped by Tanzanians and says his friend is still missing. I think he's a nut, but I can't get rid of him.'

  An incredulous silence bored into his ear, then Pasternak said, 'Gleeson; don't you read the papers? Watch TV? Listen to the radio?'

  'I've been on safari for two weeks,' said Gleeson. 'Just got back this morning from my vacation. Why? Something happened?'

  'Yeah; something happened,' said Pasternak ironically. 'Don't let that guy get away; I'll be right down. And catch up on the goddamn news for God's sake.' He hung up, opened his desk drawer to check that his recorder had a tape ready to go, then went downstairs to meet Gunnarsson.

  Gunnarsson was still simmering so Pasternak applied the old oil. 'Sorry you've been kept waiting, Mr Gunnarsson, and sorrier that you've been inconvenienced by idiocy.

  Won't you come this way?' He slowed his pace to Gunnarsson's hobble as he led the way to the elevator. 'I guess you had a tough time.'

  Gunnarsson grunted. 'You guessed right. What's your position here?'

  'Nothing much,' admitted Pasternak. 'Third Secretary. You'll realize we're all busy on this thing, especially the Ambassador. He's talking with the Kenyan Foreign Minister right now, trying to get some action. And the rest of our work has to carry on – guys losing their credit cards and traveller's checks and so on.'

  'This is more important,' said Gunnarsson acidly. 'You've lost an American citizen.'

  Pasternak said, 'We're doing all we can, Mr Gunnarsson; and we're sure you can help.' They left the elevator, walked along a corridor, and he opened the door of his office. 'In here. Would you like coffee?'

  'Thanks.' Gunnarsson sat before the desk, thankfully taking the weight off his feet, as Pasternak picked up the telephone and ordered a jug of coffee.

  Pasternak sat down, opened his desk drawer and unobtrusively switched on the recorder before taking out a notepad and laying it on the desk. He picked up a pen. 'I've read the newspaper reports,' he said. 'But you know what newspapers are. I'll be glad to hear a first-hand report. If you hadn't come to us, Mr Gunnarsson, we'd have been camping on your doorstep. Now, I'd like you to tell it as it happened. Don't leave anything out even though you might think it irrelevant.'

  So Gunnarsson told his story while Pasternak made largely unnecessary notes and dropped in a question from time to time. 'You say these men were in uniform. Can you describe it?' Then again: 'You say the rifles were Kalashnikovs; how do you know?'

  'I'm a gun buff back home. I know a Kalashnikov when I see one.'

  He got to the end when he said, 'And then we got back to '

  Keekorok and that was that. But Hank Hendrix didn't come back.'

  'I see.' Pasternak laid down his pen. 'More coffee?'

  'Thanks. All this talk is thirsty work.'

  Pasternak poured the coffee. 'What's your relationship with Hendrix?'

  'We're business associates,' said Gunnarsson. 'And friends, too.'

  Pasternak nodded understandingly. 'Yes, you'd naturally be disturbed about this affair. What business are you in, Mr Gunnarsson ?'

  'I run Gunnarsson Associates; we're a security outfit based in New York. We run security for corporations and do some investigative work. Not much of that, though.'

  'Investigative work,' repeated Pasternak thoughtfully. 'You're licensed for that in the state of New York?'

  'In most states of the Union,' said Gunnarsson. 'We're a pretty big outfit.'

  'And what were you doing in Kenya?'

  'Well, Hank had some business here. He'd inherited a hunk of dough. I came along for the ride; taking a vacation, you know.' Gunnarsson looked at Pasternak over the rim of his coffee cup. 'The shit's going to hit the fan on this one, Pasternak, because Hank had just inherited six million bucks. The papers will make hay of it back home.'

  Pasternak raised his eyebrows. 'The State Department does not run its affairs on the basis of newspaper reports, Mr Gunnarsson. But you interest me. You say Henry Hendrix had inherited six million dollars from Kenya?'

  Gunnarsson shook his head. 'I didn't say that. He inherited from his grandfather, but the will said that a condition of inheritance was that Hank was to spend at least one month a year at some charitable foundation here; helping out, I guess.'

  'Which foundation?'

  'Ol Njorowa,' said Gunnarsson, stumbling over the unfamiliar words. 'It's near Naivasha.'

  'Yes,' said Pasternak meditatively. 'I read they'd come into money but I didn't know about Hendrix.' He thought for a moment, then said, 'How long are you staying in Kenya, Mr Gunnarsson?'

  Gunnarsson shrugged. 'For a while, I guess. I'll stick around to see if Hank comes back. And I want to goose the Ambassador. An American citizen has disappeared, Pasternak, and no one seems to be doing much about it. I tell you, I'm going to raise hell.'

  Pasternak made no comment. He drew the notepad towards him, and said, 'If you'll give me the name of your hotel here, and your home address, I think that's about all.'

  'What do you want my home address for?'

  'I doubt if you'll be staying in Kenya indefinitely,' said Pasternak reasonably. 'We might want to talk to you again, even back in the States. And if you intend moving about in Kenya we'd like to know your itinerary in advance.'

  'Why?'

  'We might want to get hold of you in a hurry. For identification purposes, for instance.' Again it was a reasonable request. Pasternak wrote down the addresses, then pushed a button and stood up. 'That's all, Mr Gunnarsson. Thanks for coming in.' He held out his hand. 'We'll do our best to find what happened to Mr Hendrix.'

  'You'd better find him,' said Gunnarsson. 'There's a lot riding on Hank.'

  A man entered the room. Pasternak said, 'The messenger will escort you downstairs.' He smiled. 'If you're in the security business you'll realize why we don't like people wandering around the building.'

  Gunnarsson grunted and left without saying another word. Pasternak opened the drawer and stopped the recorder, then rewound it. He played it, skipping back and forth, and listened to one part several times. Would a gun nut know a Kalashnikov when he saw one? There were precious few of those floating about loose back home. True, an enthusiast might study illustrations in books. And Gunnarsson was in something known amorphously as 'security' which could be a euphemism for something more dangerous. A couple of loose ends which needed tidying up. He played the tape yet again and frowned when he noted that both he and Gunnarsson had consistently referred to Hendrix in the past tense.

  Pasternak turned to the typewriter and wrote a request for any known information on John Gunnarsson, giving the address in New York. He took it to the code room himself.

  The telex was addressed to Langley, Virginia.

  An hour later Pasternak was interrupted again. The telephone rang and Gleeson said 'Mr Hardin is asking for you.'

  Pasternak frowned, hunting in his mind for a connection, then his brow cleared. 'Not Ben Hardin?'

  There was a pause and a few mumbled words, then Gleeson said, 'Yes; Ben Hardin.'

  'Have him brought up.' Pasternak depressed the telephone cradle and dialled. 'Send in some more coffee.' When Hardin entered the room he stood up and smiled. 'Well, hello, Ben. It's been a long time. What are you doing in Kenya?'

  They shook hands and Hardin sat down. 'A sort of working vacation,' he said. 'I haven't been here in years. Nairobi has changed some but the country hasn't. I thought I'd drop in to see if there was anyone I knew from the old days.'

  'And you found me.' Pasternak smiled. 'It's certainly been a long time. What are you doing these days?'

  'Working for a British outfit.' Hardin shrugged. 'A guy has to earn a living.'

  'I'd stick in Kenya,' advised Pasternak. 'I wouldn't go into Tanzania. You'll still be on a list after what you did in Dares-Salaam. I know it was years ago but those guys have long memories.'

  'I'm not going anywhere near Tanzania,' said Hardin. 'Not e
ven to the border. I hear it's not safe even for tourists.'

  'You heard about that?'

  'It made the London papers,' said Hardin. 'I read about it over there.'

  'It will have made the New York papers, too,' agreed Pasternak gloomily. 'If it hasn't yet, it will. One of the guys who was kidnapped has just been in here bending my ear. The other American, the one who came back. Gunnarsson has been threatening to raise Gain.'

  'Gunnarsson!' Hardin showed surprise. 'Of Gunnarsson Associates in New York?' Pasternak nodded. 'Well, I'll be a son of a bitch!'

  'Do you know him?'

  'I used to work for him after I left the Company. He's ex-Company, too.'

  'I didn't know that,' said Pasternak. He poured a couple of cups of coffee while he thought. That would explain the recognition of the Kalashnikovs, but it did hot explain why Gunnarsson had lied about how he knew unless he did not want to advertise his one-time connection with the CIA. A lot of the guys were sensitive about it. But Gunnarsson had not looked the sensitive type. 'What sort of a guy is he?'

  'A 22-carat bastard,' said Hardin, and hesitated. 'Look, Mike, I'd just as soon Gunnarsson doesn't know I'm around. We parted on bad terms and now I'm working for the competition. He won't like that.'

  Pasternak shrugged. 'No reason for me to tell him, Ben. Who are you working for?'

  'Stafford Security Consultants of London. I joined them when Gunnarsson fired me.'

  The facts in Pasternak's mind rearranged themselves into a different pattern. Another security crowd! 'You said "a working vacation." How much is work and how much vacation?'

  'About fifty-fifty,' said Hardin. 'Max Stafford, my boss, is in Nairobi too. We're giving Kenya the once-over to see if it's ripe for us to move in.' He thought for a moment. 'Damn it; I'll bet that's why Gunnarsson is here. I'll tell Stafford.' He sipped his coffee. 'Getting any action around here?'

  Pasternak smiled genially. 'You know better than to ask that, Ben. You're not in the Company any more and, even if you were, I wouldn't tell you i damned thing and you know it.' He leaned forward. 'I've got the idea you aren't here just to talk about old times, so why don't you spill it?'