by Simon Mann
‘Once we get the cash from Angola, you mean. How would our costs work, Simon?’
‘Not more than US$2,000 a month, per man. One hundred men. And a success bonus. Two or three months, and then another two thousand, as the bonus. Something like that.’
‘How would we go in?’
‘I don’t know. Hopefully Angolan government forces will take us in, and come in with us: maybe by sea … maybe by choppers.’
Stavros had just slurped, then puffed. ‘You are kidding, aren’t you? You’re both out of your fucking minds. UNITA are a full-on guerrilla army, for fuck’s sake!’
I turned on him. ‘Look, Stavros, UNITA are just a bunch of thugs. Whatever they were before, they’re just thugs now. UNITA put their chop on the UN’s Bicesse Accords… Ronald Reagan’s Crocker Plan. They signed the agreement. They promised to disarm, demobilise, live by the election. Win or lose. They promised everyone. Savimbi himself, the UNITA leader, even promised David Steel and me: just the three of us. Comrade General Dr Jonas Savimbi gave his word! UNITA lost that election – back last September, which the UN, the US, the EU – and everyone else – decreed “free and fair”.’
Warming to my task, I kicked on: ‘God knows! We all saw what an effort went into those elections. So what excuse does UNITA have for plunging a whole fucking country back into hell? Back into bloody civil war?’
I finish off by nudging Stav. This is us.
‘But Stavros – these thugs, these criminals, are now attacking you! – us: our property, our livelihoods, our men. My bloody job. How many thousands of others are they hurting, right now? They’re warmongers. Let them have war then! How does it go in Julius Caesar? “Cry ‘havoc!’ and let slip the dogs of war!”’
‘You’re the warmonger, Simon.’ Stavros slurped, then puffed.
‘No – I bloody well am not! There is nothing worse for Mr and Mrs Joe Bloggs of Angola than civil war – nothing. I’ve been too close to civil war in Africa, in Liberia … in ’89. I saw it. Nothing is worse for the locals. I promise you: anything that speeds a government victory is good. If we go there, and fight for the government, then we’ll be fighting for peace – that’s what victory will mean – as well as our own shit.’
‘What do you say to that, Tony?’ drawled Stavros, laconically.
‘He’s right. I agree with Simon – 100 per cent.’
‘You could both be killed,’ Stavros snapped, frustrated now.
Tony leaned forward, stabbed his intercom, then bellowed: ‘Katya, try to get Joaquim David, will you? He’s in Angola. Try his Sonangol direct line, first – then the outer office number.’
Joaquim David – General Manager of Sonangol, the state national oil company of Angola – was among the half-dozen most powerful men in Luanda, Angola’s capital city.
‘Please! Tony!’ Stavros cried. ‘You’re not really going to pitch this to Joaquim David, are you? He’ll think we’re crazy people. Jesus! You two are crazy people.’
We waited for Katya to get our call through to Joaquim David, known as JD, in Luanda. A task that often took days.
Stavros fiddled with a box of matches, pricking the soggy end of his Cohiba with one stick, then lighting yet again the other. Once he had the whole thing burning to his exact satisfaction, he turned to Tony: ‘This UNITA business. Who is behind it? I mean: who is backing UNITA in this new phase of war? Shouldn’t we look behind the obvious?’
‘Let Simon and me worry about UNITA, Stavros. Why should anyone back them? They are in breach of an internationally agreed peace treaty. Shit! The Bicesse Accord that UNITA signed up to was also signed by the MPLA, as government, as well as Portugal, Cuba, the USA, the Soviet Union … and Old Uncle Tom Cobley and all, and Old Uncle Tom Cobbley and all!’
Stavros again slurped and puffed, eyes closed in thought.
I turned to Tony. ‘What do you think the chances are? Of selling this to Luanda, I mean.’
‘God knows. You know how oddball they can be. I like the idea, Simon. Don’t worry: I’ll give it my best shot, I promise you.’
I stood and walked around the big desk. I looked out over London: the picture-window view, behind Tony’s chair, was the best point of the penthouse. The office block sat on the south-west corner of the Ebury Street and Lower Belgrave Street crossroads. The view from the window was northward, over Belgravia, towards the Hyde Park Hilton. Panning right from the Hilton and then eastward, you could see the Post Office Tower, then St Paul’s and, further yet, the strange modern shapes of the City.
January cloud sat low, the skyscape already dark and grey by midafternoon. East, over the City and beyond, there hung a curtain of dark-grey, almost black cloud, squalls of rain falling upon Docklands and the river. Car headlamps were already lit, The yellow beams reflecting greasily off the rain-slicked tarmac.
It’s slippery, I warned myself.
A large jet, a British Airways Boeing 747-400, lowered itself out of the cloud, its blazing landing lights showing first, then the aircraft itself, one red navigation light a bright spot on the port wingtip. The pilot in me watched as the machine, already low, was turned to intercept the ILS localiser radio beam. A Precision Instrument Approach into Heathrow, busiest airport in the world.
At that instant, I knew, hundreds of aircraft were being controlled in and out of London. As ever, the city’s thumping energy caught me up into its beat: a titanic engine pushing and pulling goods – goods good and bad – all around the globe.
Once a slave colony of Rome, London itself later became the city to which all roads led. All ships sailed.
My thoughts swung to Luanda, then to Soyo. To the Angolans. I’d been there twice, and it felt good: simpatico, safe, welcoming. Now Soyo had fallen. Luanda must be cringing before the onslaught.
Jonas Savimbi had made clear what he planned for the people of Luanda: a plank of his manifesto had been that anyone who could not speak his native African language he would treat as white. He hadn’t been talking about Portuguese.
I thought of the journey Tony and I had made to Soyo, only two months back, when everything was going so well. For the journey I had dug out my Penguin Heart of Darkness.
I’d traced the Congo River on my Michelin 1:500,000 road map and had seen how apt were Conrad’s/Marlow’s words ‘…an immense snake uncoiled, with its head in the sea, its body at rest coursing afar over a vast country, and its tail lost in the depths of the land’.
As we had flown into Soyo, the Congo estuary did look as if it was the head of an immense snake, or dragon, with Soyo perched upon the southern, the lower, lip of the monster’s mouth. From the air I had seen across to the northern side, to the top of the dragon’s head, to Banana Creek. That day, great towers of Cumulonimbus had menaced, from over the endless forest inland: columns of dragon smoke reaching up to 30,000 feet or more.
I puzzled upon what was happening. UNITA’s attack on Soyo was an attack on Angola’s oil production, that was clear. As Tony had said, it would have been carefully considered beforehand. What did it mean? I asked myself. For so long the Angolan war had dragged on, yet never once had the flow of oil been cut. The oil industry had always been carefully left alone. This could only mean that UNITA planned quick victory, through rapid mortal blows; and was this one of them?
Yet how could this be possible, if UNITA had disarmed and demobilised, as they had sworn to do? I remembered the meeting between Savimbi and Sir David Steel. I’d been there as David’s bag carrier, but in truth as Tony’s secret agent. Savimbi had been big, ugly, very black. He was magnetic, enigmatic, commanding. Here was power.
Suddenly the telephone rang. Tony jabbed at his button. Breathless but victorious, Katya announced Joaquim David on the line. For overseas calls Tony kept a stentorian and old-fashioned shout. He gave JD full blast:
‘Hello! Joaquim? How are YOU?’
Next, Engineer Comrade Joaquim David, ever calm and courteous, asked after everyone. Tony and JD went over the Soyo news. Then Tony pitched our Soy
o plan. I stared out of the window, praying to my heathen gods.
Please, Ares. Please, Athene. It hurt me to think how much was at stake. Today I could lose my job. Much more than that would follow.
Once JD had the proposal straight he paused an age. That was his manner. Then my heart sank as he described the idea as very bad. Very dangerous. JD asked again: was this serious? A before-lunch idea?
Tony reassured him.
JD promised that the President, and his Chief of Staff, General João de Matos, would at least hear the proposal. That was his duty, he said, however bad an idea he thought it. He rang off, promising at the least a speedy reply.
Half an hour later, sure enough, came his reply. JD’s courteous tones, carried round the room by Tony’s speaker-phone, could not hide his worry or his confusion. The President was sending his Gulfstream jet to Lisbon, as soon as such a flight could be made ready. El Presidente wanted the three of us to come to Luanda for meetings. Joaquim David, messenger, feared that the Soyo plan was to be given the go-ahead.
Forty minutes later I walked from the office to the motorbike stand in Eaton Square. The rain had almost stopped, but the road looked slippery. My mind was in too many places.
First, I’d been sacked. It was all over. Now it might be all on. Could it really be that, after everything, UNITA, Soyo, was to be my dragon? My worthy cause?
To seal out the wet, I pulled up the jacket’s zipper tab as high as it would go. The BMW K1000 RS stood on its main stand. I pushed the start button and electronics set the engine running. A plus of being even a tyro tycoon was having a well-engineered bike.
I pulled down the full-face helmet, did up the chinstrap, then pulled on and Velcroed tight my leather gauntlets. The engine ticked over, warming itself. I swept the worst of the water from off the seat with the back of a gauntlet.
With the bike still on the stand, I swung my right leg over, steadied myself on the balls of both feet, then pushed the machine forward and off. I tried to kick myself into the frame of mind needed for a fast ride home on a slippery top, weaving through London’s night-dark, high-speed, log-jam rush hour.
I was on my way to Amanda. How much I loved her. Fun. Laughter. Jokes. Beauty. Strength. Fine limbs. Wild hair.
Launching into the spray of speeding traffic, I grin to myself. All I have to do now is slay UNITA, win the gold, then woo the girl.
Piece of piss.
*Omar Bongo ruled Gabon for more than four decades until his death in 2009. Bongo had come to symbolise ‘la FrancAfrique’, France’s shadowy system of maintaining control over former colonies through a web of opaque dealings.
CHAPTER THREE
MARCH 2003: SPAIN
There’s no point overthrowing a tyrant without someone to put in his place. Our man is an exiled opposition leader. Severo Moto. If the Brothers-In-Arms put Moto in power, Moto will see to it that the Brothers-In-Arms benefit from EG’s great wealth. Quid pro quo.
But before anything can happen, Moto and I need to meet. I have to check out the President designate, and the President designate has to check out me. This blind date has been set up by a plot investor, Malaysian oil broker/Barrel Boy Mustafa Al-Senussi. So it is that a week later I’m checking in to this old guard five-star hotel in Barcelona: the Majestic. Barcelona. Old Spain. Rich. Courteous. It’s the Ritz but more posh. The former townhouse of some Duke or other, and Mustafa’s choice of RV.
Could there be a more obvious place for me, with all my baggage, to meet the exiled opposition leader of an oil-rich West African tyranny? And in the company of a Barrel Boy like Mustafa? For God’s sake.
I walk into Mustafa’s suite and struggle to keep a straight face. ‘Nice basha,’ is what comes to mind. His sitting room is the size of a tennis court. Mustafa is sitting at a table with the faithful Iqmad, another scion of a millionaire business dynasty, and another coup backer.
The other backers start grilling me – in a polite way – about how I’d go about toppling Obiang. Iqmad asks about an assassination. He fancies taking out Obiang, but I repeat the arguments. Killing Obiang could flush out all sorts of would-be new Emperors. We would have to sort out all of them. Plus, killing him makes us bandits.
Whenever I stop, Mustafa talks up why I’m right for the job in hand. He’s selling me to the investors. But they want to show how tough and sharp they are. We move on to discuss other scenarios. Other options.
I talk them through the slow-burn guerrilla war option. We start in the jungle on EG’s mainland, fight village to village, hiding in the jungle, until we reach the capital. I point out the obvious weakness of that approach. Obiang is a billionaire. When billionaires holler for help, help comes.
We could find ourselves fighting the entire Angolan Army, for example. But the biggest ‘why not’ – for the slow-burn guerrilla war option – is that of civilian casualties. Burned villages. Many.
I talk them through the option of landing on Bioko Island, establishing a Beachhead, then a defensible base, then advancing on Malabo, the capital. The trouble is that Obiang will flee.
I talk them through the ‘Wham Bam Thank You Obiang’ option. We land at night, with a crack unit, on Bioko Island, near Malabo. Our weapons are speed and surprise. (But without any Pythonesque ‘Fanatical belief in the Pope’.)
We smash and grab the palace, with Obiang inside, then Army HQ, Police HQ, communications centres, bank, media centres. KPs. We seize power in a lightning strike. We mug Obiang of his personal fiefdom. A blitzkrieg smash and grab.
They ask me which option I favour, but I won’t throw any out. I learned in the SAS: don’t close an option until you have to. Talk them all through, throw away the dross, but keep all the others open. Anything can happen. We may find ourselves going into EG as Severo Moto’s escort, after an army coup has already removed Obiang. We may have to put forward Moto, while the Colonels argue about what they should do next.
After an hour, I know I’m getting the thumbs-up from the investors. I’m the man for the job. We all know it. There’s still one man I need to back me. The Prez Dez, S’Moto himself, walks in, with aide. Everyone goes quiet. More than anything, Moto has to make me want to back him.
First sights count all round. I try to get a read-out on him, in among the ‘hello and how-de-do’ small talk. He is small, and a little podgy. For an African of his age, he looks old. He seems serious, bright, intense. He is a church man – nearly ordained as a Roman Catholic priest – but I try not to rubbish him on that score. He is well turned out, but I know that the Brothers-In-Arms pay all those bills. Moto is what they call the ace card.
Then it’s clear I’m meant to lead. Sell myself to Moto. Moto must sell to me. I want to get a feel for Moto. I want to know if he’s for real. A good guy. I want to know that he isn’t just another arsehole manic for power. Is Moto worth risking our necks for?
The thing is this: whenever I’ve been part of a private military venture before, either we’d been upholding the cause of a democratically elected government (Angola, Papua New Guinea) or we’d brought democracy back (Sierra Leone). One thing had always been sure and uppermost: we’d all believed. Each time I’d been sure, in my heart of hearts, that our actions would improve the lot of all the Mr and Mrs Bloggses of the country we were in, or going to.
I want to hear it from Moto. If we take down Obiang, then what is Moto’s vision for his native Equatorial Guinea? Who is he?
To find out, I need an interpreter. Moto only speaks Spanish, some French, and of course Fang, his tribal lingo. But Mustafa isn’t going to miss a trick: he steps in as interpreter, mainly in French. As back-up, Moto has his aide with him, who speaks English. Badly.
I ask Moto why he went into politics. He tells me he’d completed 80 per cent of his training to be a Catholic priest. He woke up one morning – bang! – he could do more good for his people in politics.
‘On the Road to Damascus,’ I joke.
He smiles, priest-like. He tells me how, early in Obiang’s r
eign, they had been allies. Moto had worked in various ministries, until he fled for Madrid in December 1981. Moto’s crime was to publicly call for political reform. Democracy. Later he went back, asking for free and fair elections.
Obiang threw Moto into Malabo’s ghastly Black Beach prison. Obiang knew what that was like: his uncle had done the same to him one time. Moto learned his lesson. On his release, given on the pleading of the King of Spain and Pope John Paul II, he fled EG for Madrid. Here his party, the Progressive Party of Equatorial Guinea (PPEG), formed a government in exile. According to Moto, PPEG has won several elections in EG. Obiang refuses to accept the result. African democracy. A mess.
Of course, I knew this patter anyway. I’d done my homework. I have my sources. I’m sure Moto has already checked me out too … but our dance isn’t done.
There is one INT issue that is snagging me badly. Preying on me. My sources tell me how Obiang splits his time between one palace at the capital, Malabo, on Bioko Island, and another at Bata, the mainland capital, miles of sea away, 200 NM SSE.
We don’t want to assault a stronghold that doesn’t have the bad guy inside it. Which do we hit? How can we be sure he’s there? With that, Moto smiles and whips out a mobile phone. He snaps the lid open and dials a number that he knows by heart. One that he hasn’t stored in the phone’s speed-dial memory. He puts the phone to his ear.
After a couple of seconds, he speaks just a few words in Spanish. He listens, then snaps the phone shut. He opens it again to check it has cut off. I like his attention to detail. It won’t help him. If he’s under surveillance, then those precautions mean shit.
He looks up at me, smiling. ‘The President’s at Malabo right now,’ says Moto. ‘He’s planning to stay there the next two nights.’
I nod, then smile. Moto has a man at the heart of Obiang’s court. He has someone next to the President secretly plotting against him.
Silence now. I wait for Moto to question me about our options for the Op. He doesn’t. He’s going to leave the rough and tumble to us, he says. I respect that. He’s probably worked this out. Whatever we do tell him will be a maskirovka. A deception. The last people we’re going to tell what is really going on are him and his staff … not until we have to. He just asks that the coup be bloodless. He wants bloodless. I want bloodless. I tell him that we will want him to be alongside us on our way to the Op. He smiles. He wouldn’t miss it for the world, he says.