Errand of Mercy: How far do you run, and where do you hide?

by William Walker

  “Maybe Gary could split me with his banana,” Lucy crowed and dissolved into laughter.

  “Gary,” Gina said, grinning. “You’ve put too much Ativan in the drip.”

  “I doubt it,” O’Brien informed them. “That’s the way she normally is.”

  11

  The maintenance shack at the Monrovia Airport was a shack in the literal sense of the word. The structure lacked telephones and electricity. Within the corrugated metal framework the early afternoon sun spiked the temperature to one hundred and ten degrees.

  A brightly-colored scorpion fly waxed its wings on an oil-stained logbook inside the ten by fifteen-foot shed. After an overheated nerve ending connected with its single-cell brain the insect spread gauzy wings and departed for the cool shade of a nearby Maringa tree.

  Two Liberian mechanics fanned themselves with newspapers and sweated profusely in the shade of the maintenance facility. They sipped bottles of lukewarm water and focused from time to time on the sleek, private jet parked next to the well-worn Boeing 737 on which they had been working.

  Markus Cottingham reclined in a soft, beige-leather executive lounger. From a window inside the air-conditioned comfort of his Learjet he observed the maintenance operation on the 737, or the temporary lack of it. An antique, eggshell china cup of hot Arabica coffee was placed in front of him while he waited on a return phone call from his satellite communication system.

  He considered the ludicrous cycle of irony the coffee represented. The beans were grown and sun dried—according to the package label—in the neighboring highlands of Sierra Leone, ridiculously close to where he was now parked. From there they were processed and shipped over three thousand miles to the town of Manchester in the British Midlands. After grinding and repackaging by Fortnam and Mason, the coffee found its way aboard his Learjet, and from there back the same three thousand miles to its original homeland. The actual brewing process completed the coffee’s life cycle.

  He took a sip of the strong, well-traveled beverage and pressed his lips together in satisfaction.

  The SatCom keyboard in front of him continued to display a series of steady red lights. While he waited for the green connection signal he lightly tapped his fingers on the edge of the china cup and thought about money.

  The Boeing 737 parked beside his Learjet carried a huge amount of it in the form of refined cocaine. The packages were hidden behind hundreds of small, relatively inaccessible panels. Tightly wrapped parcels were buried inside fuel access bays, and they were bundled in the wheel well and between the stringers in the fuselage and the vertical stabilizer. He routinely had the hydraulic accumulator packed with cocaine, then had the gauge frozen to read three thousand pounds of pressure. The oxygen tanks were packed the same way. All of the green cylinders, except the one for the pilots, were stuffed with cocaine. The wing roots, electronic compartments, and lavatory service areas all had cocaine bundles hidden in dark, almost unreachable spaces.

  This made the old airplane the most important part of an immensely profitable operation.

  But it wasn’t the only part. The airplane wasn’t even the most ingenious part.

  “More sir?”

  Cottingham looked up as his young attendant regarded him with an anxious-to-please look. She was from the town of Norwich, two hours northeast of London and close by the English Channel. Her family had known his at one time or another, or so she had concluded after extracting an abbreviated and totally boring family history from him.

  He directed his nod to the coffee pot in her hands.

  “Would you like scones and clotted cream with that sir?” She poured the hot coffee slowly. “We have a strawberry compote if you prefer.”

  “The coffee’s fine by itself, Clare,” he said. “Just keep my cup hot.” He took a long sip and considered the unexpected difficulty the continual shipments of cocaine created.

  It was Schoenfeld’s problem, not his, but it grew from something small to something large and worrisome: how to wash or otherwise dispose of all of the Euros that came to the organization from the cocaine operation.

  The answer was Liberian diamonds, and Cottingham likened the clever solution to the triangular trade of the colonial Americas in the 1700s. That one involved rum, sugar, and slaves. This one involved cocaine, Euros, and diamonds.

  It started with UN sanctions, currently in force, prohibiting the world-wide sale of Liberian diamonds. The diamond trade had previously financed local warlords and destabilized the country, so the UN outlawed Liberian diamonds. Like most UN measures, the sanctions were a joke. The supply of diamonds simply moved to the black market.

  Liberia’s Mano River, on the border with Sierra Leone, held one of the richest deposits of kimberlite in Africa. Where kimberlite is found, diamonds are found, and illegal mining operations flourished on the Mano River.

  At irregular intervals a tall, bearded man boarded the airplane for the flight to London and on to Germany. His appearance at the airplane, medical kit in hand, was unannounced and often at the last minute. He went by the name of Dr. Smith.

  Cottingham smiled at the simple ruse. Dr. Smith’s medical bag often accommodated a portable defibrillator, or sometimes just a pouch. But both contained between one hundred and two hundred carat weight of rough diamonds bought with cash from the cocaine profits in Europe. The wealthy recipients of the precious stones then spread them throughout the diamond markets of Amsterdam and Zurich without ever having transited the United States.

  A sip of lukewarm coffee remained in the bottom of his cup, and he motioned to Clare in the front of the airplane. She approached with a steaming pot situated on a platter surrounded by artfully arranged cookies. She had taken off her hostess coverall and was now in a sheer, white blouse.

  “Just a sip or two more, Clare,” he said, as he glanced up.

  The thin fabric of her blouse fell open partway as she leaned over him. A look just so revealed a small tattoo of a rose on her left breast above the barely visible top of her nipple. Her shoulder brushed against his with a soft touch.

  He was not an idiot. It was an offer of sex, and hardly discreetly put forward.

  The thought was nauseating.

  The act would soil his body with the girl’s slick, sexual humus, and conjoined with his own discharge effectively ruin his new silk underwear. The lingering moisture might well stain his Saville Row suit. At the very least his clothes would be severely wrinkled after the various clinchings and gropings.

  “That’ll be all for now, Clare,” he said curtly.

  The green light on the SatCom panel illuminated accompanied with a muted, computer-generated tone.

  “Cottingham here.” He adjusted his small Telex headset and brought the boom microphone to his lips.

  “This is Daniel O’Brien, the airplane captain.”

  “Ah yes. Captain O’Brien. We talked several days ago when you were at the hotel describing your problem with the airplane. I understand that you are now at some type of medical compound with the co-pilot. Please explain this.”

  “It’s a long story, but basically the co-pilot has been sick.”

  “I’d like the full details, Mr. O’Brien. We’ve got time.” Actually he didn’t, and his thumb and forefinger tightened around the fragile cup.

  “I’ll tell you when I see you,” O’Brien said. “But the other pilot has to get better before we can fly out. It may be a day or two.”

  Cottingham’s eyes became hooded, his face tight. The man on the phone had an attitude that he didn’t particularly care for. “You’ll bloody well tell me now, Mr. O’Brien, or you won’t set foot on that fucking airplane again! Do you understand that simple sentence?”

  “Well...” The sound from the headset had the composure of a man deciding on a restaurant menu item. “I’m not sure that I want to step on your fucking airplane again, Mr. Cottingham. The plane was barely airworthy when we picked it up in Fortaleza. It’s in worse shape now.”

  Cottingham clenched
his fist, relaxed the tension, and clenched it again. This O’Brien fellow was an ass like so many Americans, but he held the important cards and he acted like he knew it. He drained the last of the coffee in a quick sip and tried to sweeten his tone. “You may be right about that, but I’ve got mechanics working on it non-stop, and it should be ready by tomorrow morning. You chaps come on out early and we can get this airplane out of here.”

  “I’ll have to see how my co-pilot is doing in the morning,” O’Brien responded. “I can’t give you an answer right now.”

  Cottingham pushed his hand through his hair and narrowed his gaze on a barren stretch of concrete outside the airplane window. “You should know, Mr. O’Brien, that you will never, ever, fly a contract with this organization again. Is that completely understood?”

  “I was just going to inform you of the same thing,” O’Brien replied. Then he broke the connection.

  Cottingham jerked off his headset and tossed it to the floor. The American was going to pay. O’Brien would fucking pay. He picked up the delicate china cup and slung it against the forward bulkhead, where it shattered into fragments.

  He took a series of slow breaths, shot his French cuffs back in place, and punched in the SatCom connection for Schoenfeld.

  Gary Starr moved along the dirt trail to the communications shed with his idiotic pipe in hand. If he had to fuss with the ridiculous, smoky thing one more time... Well, it wouldn’t be for much longer.

  He trod slowly between the kitchen and the back side of the dormitory building. The pathway was mostly hidden and in shadow this time of day, and it was a good place to arrange his priorities, to be careful in thought. He wore a pair of flip-flops, disregarding the hazards of Gaboon vipers and puff adders. Black mambas had been known to curl in the crawl spaces and along the cool foundation walls of the buildings. Screw the snakes. He had more important things on his mind.

  For one, he’d have to be careful around O’Brien. The man was perceptive and strong, and Starr would have to make sure he projected the affable, helpful personality of a doc.

  Another problem was the Conductor. Schoenfeld would have him killed if he suspected that Starr was taking a cut from the diamonds. This was going to be the last pouch. Afterwards, he was going to disappear with his millions like a villain in a TV drama. But this was real and it was easy. A swing through Amsterdam had always found plenty of buyers for the rough stones from Liberia, no questions asked. The proceeds went into his bank accounts in several countries. His partners had actually done him a favor when they forced him out of that pathetic medical practice years ago.

  He approached the small, white communication’s shed and frowned. It was one of the few facilities in the medical section that had full time air conditioning. The resident UN staff members all had conditioned accommodations with plenty of generators and electricity, entirely paid for by the deep pockets of the wealthy member nations. The medical volunteers had nothing and expected less. They were a naive bunch and likened the conditions at the compound to the atmosphere of a summer camp. It gave them something to talk about over gin and tonics back home. Bullshit.

  The door to the shed was locked and Starr released the heavy, boron-steel hasp on the Yale lock. He swung open the door and took in the stuffy twelve-foot square room painted white.

  A long table was bolted into one wall, the surface crowded with computers, data modems and the normal clutter of printers and electronic components. The heart of the operation was a bank of Motorola 9500 SatCom transmitter/receivers. The system relayed signals through a constellation of Iridium satellites stationed in a low earth orbit around the entire planet. From this room he could call any city in the world.

  Starr sat in a chair below the steel-grated windows and punched his user code into one of the SatCom units. He scratched his beard as the digital display went through a series of ready prompts, ending with steady uplink signal. He was now ready to dial.

  The source code for Germany was the numeral twenty-three, followed by the local number for the Weimar exchange. Schoenfeld’s secretary picked up on the second ring.

  “Hier bei Herr Schoenfeld.”

  “English, please,” Starr said. There was a faint crackle in the background. Solar flares sometimes interfered with the link from the satellites making communications difficult.

  “Yes, Herr Schoenfeld’s office. Can I help you?” She’d switched to English but spoke slowly with an irritating nasal quality, as if she was pained to be speaking in such a foreign tongue and not shy about letting him know. He’d never met the woman, but envisioned her as a thick loutish creature, a female by the thinnest of genetic margins.

  “This is Dr. Starr in Liberia calling for Herr Schoenfeld.” He spoke into the black dimpled handset and waited.

  It took several minutes to find the Conductor, and further delay before he finally picked up the receiver. Starr was glad he wasn’t paying for the call.

  Schoenfeld’s voice at last came through the link. “Dr. Starr, so nice of you to contact me. I understand the pilots are with you at the medical compound. How convenient. When I asked you to keep an eye on them I hardly expected such a clever development.” His tone had the oily venom of a pit viper under the shed.

  Starr tried to stay casual. “Yes. A fortunate turn of events, but I used it to full advantage.”

  “So now you can make certain they depart tomorrow morning? You understand my concern with all the delays.”

  “I’ll get them to the airfield tomorrow morning, Herr Schoenfeld.”

  The receiver crackled with a buzz of static. After a short delay Schoenfeld continued. “Be sure that you do that, doctor. There have been enough problems and I would hate to blame you for something further. Do you understand?”

  “I understand completely, Herr Schoenfeld.”

  “Fine. I would also like the diamond pouch on this trip.”

  Starr tightened his grip on the handset. This was unusual. “I’m…I’m not sure it’s ready yet. I was thinking one more run and—”

  “I’ll take what you’ve got, doctor. In any case, I rather thought that you might have a full pouch.”

  Starr crossed his legs and pulled nervously at the rubber strap on his flip-flop. The conductor could not possibly know that. “Herr Schoenfeld, it’s going to be very difficult for me to get away on such short notice. I have—”

  “Dr. Starr. Do I have to remind you of your position in this organization?”

  “No sir,” Starr replied.

  “Fine. Then you will present yourself and the diamonds on the airplane tomorrow. I will have my people waiting for the plane at Heathrow, perhaps with a special payoff for the pilots. Any questions?”

  “No questions.”

  “And one more thing. I’ll be interested as always, in the carat weight of the pouch.”

  The disconnect tone was abrupt and followed immediately by a red light on the receiver and static in the speaker. Starr listened to the garble from the outer reaches of the universe for a long moment before replacing the handset. He pushed back his chair and watched a lime green lizard hanging on the outside of the window screen. The reptile slowly winked a nictating membrane over a shiny, protruding eyeball and crept away in search of an insect.

  Starr wiped a sweaty hand on his shorts and chewed on a fingernail. He was becoming fond of Lucy. If he was an honest man…well, he wasn’t and never had been. But he sure as hell could play a role.

  12

  O’Brien leaned back in a sagging camp chair and set his eyes on a disappearing sun the size and color of a large Halloween pumpkin. They were leaving in the morning, finally, but their stay at the medical compound had been prolonged for two days because of Lucy’s condition.

  He was convinced that for the past two mornings the irritating big shot named Cottingham had suffered through a series of mini strokes with each phone call delaying their departure. Too bad.

  O’Brien took in the incredible evening display. A line of moisture-laden
clouds tinged with iridescent, crimson hues lay along the top of a huge sun magnified by the optical parallax of the African light. Orange and silver streaks radiated out from the western horizon. For a fleeting moment it struck him as a dazzling artist’s canvas painted by a mad but talented surrealist.

  He sat beside Gary Starr in the corner of a large veranda atop the third floor of the single dormitory unit. The doc busied himself mixing a pitcher of something alcoholic. He seemed friendly enough, but in an odd way, as if he had to remind himself to be friendly. In any case, whatever problems the doctor had did not concern him.

  The evening cocktail hour swirled around them. Their building sat as a social gathering place above the darkening folds of the Liberian landscape and drew squads of medical personnel. A three-bar, steel balustrade set into a raised concrete lip ran along the perimeter of the roof. It reminded him of a ship’s railing, one sturdy enough to keep drunks from taking a long dive. Conversations in several languages were taking place along the edge.

  The good news was that Lucy didn’t have cholera. Better news was that Gina had become an ally during the course of Lucy’s recovery. Her medical opinion stood in the way of Cottingham’s, and even Starr’s surprising pressure to depart, and she didn’t budge. O’Brien regarded her in a completely different way, and that feeling extended to something that had nothing to do with her medical expertise. He reminded himself of his earlier appraisal concerning all the guys she’d probably had to work around in her life. He decided not to let anything show; she’d seen it all before.

  The screen door slammed and O’Brien and Starr turned in their seats as Lucy walked out on the porch with Gina.

  “Daniel, this reminds me of summer camp,” Lucy said in a moderately loud voice. She indicated the entire compound with a sweep of her hand, which presently held a foamy bottle of Heineken.

  “The lumpy mattress is about the same,” he replied. “Should you be drinking that beer?”