by Simon Mann
One afternoon, while sitting at a desk in my room at the Tivoli in Luanda, the phone rang. As I reached for it I was struck by a thought. Luanda now felt like home. My actual home in Portobello Road felt like a small hotel that I went to for brief holidays.
I picked up the receiver. Michael. It was always Michael Grunberg these days, never Tony. I couldn’t remember when Tony last phoned me. Last came to Luanda.
‘Hi, Michael. Luanda customer services speaking. How can I help you?’ I asked, with sing-song insincerity.
‘Simon – hi. Tony asked me to call you straight away: Andy Smith has been killed, and his wife. We don’t know what happened exactly. I’m flying to Entebbe right now. They were in a light plane – just taken off – headed for the concession. I’ll keep you posted…’
I was stunned. I knew Smith quite well. I hadn’t liked him.
Andy and his wife, flown by a local pilot, had taken off from Entebbe. They were headed for the concession in the north-east corner of Uganda, near the borders with Sudan and Kenya. Hemingway Africa. This had been Smith’s favourite concession. That had annoyed me: the concessions were held to make money; not for safari.
The area of the concession was unspoilt and beautiful. The mining exploration camp had been described to me as the best mining exploration camp, without any mining or exploration, ever seen. My spy for this titbit had been a hugely experienced South African mining consultant.
The aircraft, a single-piston-engine Piper, had taken off from Entebbe overweight, as per Andy’s habit. Branch Minerals had often used the same company, same aircraft, same pilot. All the company, aircraft and pilot paperwork was in order. Five minutes into the flight, the pilot had radioed a loss of power. Apparently he decided to try to ditch in one of the creeks leading off the main lake, Lake Victoria.
It then seemed as if he had changed his mind and tried for a forced landing. He hit a power line. Crashed into the ground. Caught fire. The fuel tanks were full. Andy’s wife was a non-swimmer and hated water. Possibly that had caused the fatal change of mind. All three occupants were killed.
Everyone was shocked. Then Michael asked me if I would take over from Smith with all the Angolan mining applications and projects. I was ready for this. I had no wish to take them over, but I had no choice. Who else was going to do it? It was my money being spent.
By good luck, over the previous few months I had made a new friend, Mario Von Haff. This had come about through Ibis Air, since Mario was the king of civil aviation in Angola. Mario had met Smith. When I told Mario our bad news, he looked thoughtful. He then volunteered to help, for an interest, also volunteering his cousin, Gaspar Cardosa. Here my luck doubled. Two better-placed, more helpful Luanda operators it would have been impossible to find.
The three of us went to work. Mario was hugely connected and powerful. Gaspar was a real worker, never defeated by too much paper or too tiresome a bureaucratic procedure: two of Luanda’s specialities.
First we adjusted Smith’s Angola applications. Amazingly there wasn’t a Kimberlite hard rock application. The whole point of Sierra Leone was to get a second hard rock concession, when Smith had failed to properly apply for a first.
Then we set in train the necessary steps to secure the concessions – especially the new applications for the all-important hard rock kimberlites at Luo, in Lunda Norte.
Once these activities were moving forward, I flew to London.
I arrived early at the King’s Road offices. I spoke to one of the models, Clare. She had been friends with Stavros. I gently asked her why he’d gone.
She looked at me in surprise, then glanced around. ‘No reason really, Simon. Tony was tired of him, that’s all.’
Clare had Stavros’s forwarding card and gave me a copy. She and the other models were in shock over Smith and his wife. So polite, so charming, a gentleman, they said. I nodded and clucked. So much expense, I thought.
Once Tony had arrived, he, Michael and I sat in his office. I could see that Tony was truly shocked.
‘Tell him,’ he ordered. Then I noticed: Tony wasn’t just shocked, he was embarrassed. So was Michael.
‘Simon – Andy was a crook.’
Amazingly, Andy’s Apple Mac PowerBook had partially survived the impact and fire. Michael got some hackers to dump off some 70 per cent of Smith’s Word and Excel data files. Some strange and interesting correspondence had come to light, the foremost being Andy’s letter of resignation from Branch Minerals. This was odd, when so many of Smith’s expensive little green shoots were supposedly about to blossom forth.
This had triggered the suspicious instincts of Tony and Michael. They conducted a forensic audit of all Smith’s affairs and transactions. To say Smith was a crook was to understate. He was a thief, a fraudster, a con. Michael and Tony were ready for my first question. No, there was nothing on Smith that cast any kind of a shadow over Ian Campbell. Not only that: Campbell’s reaction had been such a blizzard of shocked righteousness that he couldn’t have staged it.
A civil lawsuit against Smith’s estate was being considered. But it seemed that Andy had been spending as fast as he was stealing. Tony then went into Churchillian mode, his Esplendido fully alight.
Branch Minerals would soldier on, notwithstanding the setback.
But I had to pass on my news. I’d done some detective work too.
‘You remember how Andy said he was this big Angola diamond expert? And yet how odd it was that he actually spent less time in Angola than he did swanning around those Hemingway camps of his?’
Tony and Michael looked worried. They did remember. They had noticed.
‘Well – there is another Andy Smith!’
‘What?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘There is a real Angolan diamond expert – the Andy Smith who everyone knows. He is alive and well and living in Cape Town. Tony – when you did your checking-out of Andy Smith, the feedback you had from Angola referred to the Cape Town Andy Smith, not our one!’
‘So who the fuck was our Andy Smith?’
‘He must have been another Andy Smith – and used the coincidence to help his scam – maybe – I don’t know – unless he was a plant from the start…’
‘A plant?’
‘Well, if our numerous enemies wanted to have a smack at us, they could hardly have done better – although that just seems too far-fetched … impossible.’
‘Jesus.’
‘Now listen – there’s one more thing. I don’t know how seriously to take this – I’m just passing it on to you. I’m not advising in any sense, OK?’
‘Sure, Simon – go on.’
‘It turns out a couple of the Ibis boys know the Uganda flying scene really well. You know what a small world it is in Africa, among the pilots.’
‘And how…’
‘’xactly. So they’ve spoken to one or two people who are plugged. The word is: there’s a suspicion of sabotage. It could have been murder. Now, there’s no evidence, I know. There won’t be. Light plane crash is a common cause of death among African mining exploration companies, and that’s a fact… So don’t read too much into this. It’s just … well, let’s all be careful.’
‘Are you saying Andy Smith was murdered?’
‘No. I am not saying that. But be careful, that’s all. It may have been an accident. I think it was.’
We sat and thought about it. The whole Executive Outcomes and Branch Minerals empire was too stretched and vulnerable. Tony sucked, then blew: the two-stroke Cohiba engine.
‘Come on, chaps – let’s get the Bentley and go and have lunch somewhere decent!’
Two days later, I was in the King’s Road offices, readying to fly down to Jo’burg on the late BA flight, BA 057, that night. Of course, the models had to arrange a car for me: chauffeur and Bentley were busy.
The telephone rang. It was Calvin, one of the best of the Soyo originals, now country manager for Branch Minerals in Angola.
‘Simon. We’v
e got shit. I’m in Luanda. The three okes doing the gold exploration in Cabinda: they’re missing. Three days now. I’m going up to Cabinda tomorrow. You’d better come here, to Luanda, as fast as you can. The Angolans are being as much use as an ashtray on a motorcycle – as usual. Hopefully I’ll sort it, but – well, if they’re hostages – if they’ve been kidnapped by guerrillas or bandits … then we’ve got big shit.’
CHAPTER ELEVEN
2004: THE EG COUP
The Spanish election is upon us. The Boss and other investors have at last come up with some money. We can take a low-budget shot. A low-budget, no-fucking-time, long fucking shot. We are going to carry out a coup.
Yet we have no weapons. No men. Everyone has been stood down since before Christmas. Our foot soldiers are not happy. Dicking people around. GO STOP GO STOP has pissed off everyone. But we’re ready to take our chances. This is it now.
Niek rejects Plan C – the oilfield support vessel with an Mi-17 support heli flying off the work-deck. He wants to hit Malabo by air only. Just like Soyo: the Afrikaners don’t like going in by sea. They don’t think ‘sea’.
We work up a number of options. Finally we cobble together Plan D at the last minute. Roll the dice.
Plan D spans Africa. The shitholes most crucial to Plan D are also among the most unstable and notorious of the entire continent. Zimbabwe and the DRC.
We will source our weapons for Plan D in Zim. Niek has done business there before. Next: transport.
Niek du Toit still has the Antonov An-12 cargo plane in Malabo, despite the flight of the Il-76. The An-12 is known as the Herkski because it’s the Russian equivalent of the C-130 Hercules. Less effective, but much simpler and much cheaper. The plan is for the An-12 to fly down from Malabo to Harare. There it will pick up the weapons and the ammo from our suppliers, the government-sponsored Zimbabwe Defence Industries (ZDI).
I shall be on hand in Harare to make sure that the deal goes through smoothly. The Herkski will then fly weapons and ammo (plus me) to Kolwezi – a copper-mining airstrip in the southern DRC.
Here Niek is friendly with the Katanga rebels. Niek and I meet them, to do the deal. They will secure the airstrip in return for 18,000 rounds of ammo, AK 7.62mm short. Meanwhile, our South African mercenaries will be flown in to Ndola, where they will refuel. That leg will be flown by the three DC3s.
They will wait at Ndola, for the signal to carry on to Kolwezi. The signal will be given as soon as the strip has been called in ‘Secure’. That call will come from one of our old hands, Simon Witherspoon. Up there with the Katanga rebels. Dodging the Interahamwe: murderous Rwandan fighters, drafted in as mercenaries by DRC President Laurent Kabila to fight these Katangese.
The Herkski will off-load at Kolwezi. Our men and hardware will marry up. The men can de-box, unwrap, de-grease, clean, oil and test-fire their weapons. They can sort out their kit, share out loads, make ready. Meanwhile the Herkski must return to Ndola, to refuel once more. There’s no fuel at Kolwezi.
Next, the Herkski flies back to Kolwezi. Picks up the men and weapons. We fly into Malabo Airport, EG. It’s D Day. It’s H Hour. At least this means we are sticking to one of the Golden Rules, as I laid down to Niek at the outset. Men and weapons will only travel together for the last leg: the flight into EG.
Once we get to Malabo, Niek and his team will be waiting for us. They’ll have secured Malabo Airport. By stealth. Force, if necessary. They’ll have vehicles and drivers ready. They’ll take our sub-units to the Key Point targets – the palace, the police station, the army barracks, the bank, the TV and radio station.
The plan is crippled by our lack of dosh.
We haven’t got the right aircraft. The only reason we had the An-12 in EG in the first place was to act as a run-about between the island capital, Malabo, and EG’s mainland, where the other capital, Bata, lies about 150 miles to the south-south-east.
We’re rushing, sure, but here’s how broke we are. For the first leg of Plan D, we’re sending the Herkski north-east – in the wrong direction – to Douala, in Cameroon. We’re refuelling in Douala because it’s cheaper than in EG. The Herkski will then fly south to Harare.
We’ve chopped great chunks out of the plan. Essential elements. We’re rushing. The Boss says it’ll be fine. His man in EG says it’s so rotten there that we could go in and change the regime with eight men.
My professional instincts are wincing. There’s so much we don’t control. The key step is for these Katangese rebels to secure the Kolwezi airstrip, but that will be out of our hands.
We don’t even know for sure whether or not the Herkski can take off from Kolwezi. Some experts – who know the strip, and the performance of the aircraft – say ‘No Problem’. Others are not sure. There is even disagreement as to how long the usable runway is. The strip is dirt. It’s complex enough at the best of times: pax weights, kit weights, fuel weights, available runway distance, surface, gradient, altitude ASL, air temperature, wind direction and speed … balls of the pilot…
And we don’t even know yet if they’ll grant permission for the Herkski to refuel in Ndola.
We’re sending someone round to bribe the airport officials, with one of the heads of the Katangese rebels.
Then all we can do is hope.
Severo Moto will be based in the Canaries along with Crause Steyl and his Beechcraft King Air 200. Steyl will fly Moto out of there and into Malabo, via Bamako, the capital of Mali, where Crause will refuel. In Bamako, he’ll await his GO GO GO signal. Crause is to time Moto’s arrival for half an hour after our touchdown in EG. Seat of our pants, wing and a prayer.
At my last meeting with the Boss, before Plan D’s execution, I am at last told why he’s so blasé about Obiang’s defences. He tells me there is to be no fighting at Malabo Airport. Behind the scenes, he has plans of his own. He has set up a separate coup. A palace coup.
Anthony and Mark in South Africa, and the Boss in London, will know what is happening in Harare because we will be in comms with them by mobile phones, voice or texts. But, in any case, I am to signal the Boss when I am finally gear-up and en route from Harare to Malabo.
I will do that on my Iridium satellite phone from the 727 flight deck. We know that works because we have done it often before. As a back-up, we can pass a message to Pretoria by the Herkski’s HF SELCAL radio set. Anthony will then pass the codeword to the Boss.
Once he has that signal, then he will send a message to his man inside the palace in Malabo. The plotters inside the palace will then take action. They have the weapons and the support on hand to seize the President, along with any security who stay loyal. They are overthrowing Obiang in his own bedroom. Plan X.
The Boss and I are the only people outside of the palace who are aware of Plan X. I ask him for the names of the plotters within the palace. He refuses to tell me: for their protection. That information will only be supplied to me after I land in EG, along with two other lists: Goodies, Baddies. The palace coup will only be triggered when the Boss is certain that I’m on my way to Malabo, and so is the new interim President, Severo Moto.
Once we get to the palace, the coup should have taken place. A fait accompli!
This puts my mind one click easier.
Even so, we may yet meet resistance at Malabo Airport. We still may have to fight.
There’s more real and present danger though: the Boss could be bullshitting me. His plan can go wrong. We could yet be flying into an ambush.
And Plan D is still a shonky, cobbled-together recipe, with or without help inside Obiang’s palace. Anything can happen.
With just days to go until Plan D, I meet with Mark Thatcher.
In the event of things going wrong in EG, I want Thatcher to come and rescue those of us still uncaptured. I explain to him how he can do this. I have a selection of EG coordinates, radio frequencies, dates and times. All in code.
If it goes wrong, I can relay a time and a place to Thatcher on a pre-agreed radio frequency. Thatche
r is a helicopter pilot and a sailor. He can get to the appointed location by chopper or boat, at the appointed time, and pluck us to safety.
But the E&E plan is also a warning to Thatcher. This isn’t a game. I’m telling him: if you want to step back, then now’s the time to do so.
It’s a chance for him to say: ‘Stop! I’m an investor … but that’s all I am.’
I need Thatcher to decide. Thatcher has the money, and the political connections – in Zimbabwe, South Africa and the UK – to help me, if collared. I need Thatcher to look me in the eye. Tell me what he’ll do if it all goes tits up for my team and me.
Will he do all he can for us? Or will he deny us?
The E&E plan is the test.
Thatcher picks up his pencil. He dutifully notes down all of the information as I have in my notebook. He promises he’ll help his great friend Simon Mann any way he can, if things go awry. We even shake hands on it. If nothing else, Mark loves to play the officer and gentleman. ‘My word is my bond…’, etc.
Big time.
We check in to Harare’s Cresta Motel. I keep in touch with the other players around the African continent by means of Pay As You Go mobile phones. Every moment I expect the CIO to come crashing through the door.
We have to juggle between Pien, our flight ops coordinator; Simon Witherspoon, with the Katanga rebels in Kolwezi; Niek in Malabo; Gerhard Merz, with the Herkski. My PA Anthony is in contact with the South African mercenaries, preparing to fly out of Wonderboom Airport, Pretoria. At the same time, we have to keep others in the picture. Steyl in the Canary Isles. Those in London. Thatcher in Jo’burg.
I get word from Niek on his satellite phone in Malabo. The An-12 has left Malabo on time: for Douala, in Cameroon.
Meantime, I’m trying to get through to Witherspoon in Kolwezi. That’s where the Katanga rebels have promised to seize the all-important landing strip. First, they’re smuggling Witherspoon into the country. He’s taking a massive risk going in there at all.