The Templar Legion

by Paul Christopher

  Bangara was almost a hundred miles away from Fourandao, but it was also on the Kotto River—too close for comfort as far as Gash was concerned. It was the fifth time in ten months that he’d heard about the phantom Central African Liberation Army, but it was the first time he’d heard Limbani’s name attached to it.

  He listened to the sound of snoring coming from Kolingba’s office next door. He was having his “refresher,” the long afternoon nap that allowed him to stay up until all hours of the night expounding on everything from Galileo’s fundamental errors of mathematics to the proper way to cook hyena meat. An evening with King Kolingba was usually as exhausting as it was boring, but they had to be endured. Gash stood up, strapped on the holstered .45 automatic that went with his colonel’s uniform and went across the plaza to the hotel. He needed a good stiff drink and a moment to think about Dr. Limbani and his liberation army.

  Konrad Lanz got out of the cab in front of the address he’d been given, paid the driver and watched as the cab drove away. There were spotlights in the shrubbery, aimed upward at all five stories of the Cheyne Walk town house. His prospective client clearly had a great deal of money—always a good sign. Lanz pushed open the wrought-iron gate, went up three steps and rang the bell. He could faintly hear chamber music coming from inside. Brahms’s Piano Trio in C minor, Op. 101. A good choice for entertaining a German mercenary. The door was opened by a butler in full livery and the music got louder. Lanz could tell that the music was live. Piano, violin and cello. As a child, he’d heard a recording of his grandfather performing the piece. The old man had unfortunately been first violin for the Berliner Philharmoniker under the Nazi Wilhelm Furtwängler. He’d been killed during a bombing raid in March 1944.

  “Yes?” the butler asked.

  “Major Faulkener asked me to come,” said Lanz in unaccented English. “My name is Lanz.”

  “Of course, sir. The colonel is in the study. Please follow me.”

  Lanz stepped into a marble-floored foyer. Under the sound of the Brahms he could hear the chattering of conversations and clinking glasses that suggested a cocktail party down a hall and to his left. The butler went to the right around a flight of centrally positioned stairs and paused in front of a closed door. The butler knocked, opened the door and stood aside. Lanz stepped into the study.

  The room was large and masculine. The ceiling was paneled in dark oak, and waist-high built-in bookcases ran around the room, interrupted by a pair of tall windows on one end and an ornate wood-burning fireplace at the other. There was a Georgian kneehole desk to the left of the fireplace with a matching secretary beside it serving as a wet bar. A gigantic Oriental carpet covered almost the entire floor. The rest of the furniture was dark green leather, and the gilt-framed paintings above the bookcases were all oils. Lanz recognized several military paintings, including a portrait of Lawrence of Arabia by Augustus John. Money and good taste—a rare combination in the twenty-first century. A man in a dark suit with a full head of silver hair and a well-trimmed mustache sat in one of the leather club chairs smoking what Lanz assumed to be an expensive cigar. There was a crystal glass of some sort of amber liquid sitting on a lacquered end table. Presumably this was the mysterious Major Faulkener, the man who’d sent him the ten thousand euros as an enticement to get him off his Tuscan farm.

  “You’d be Lanz,” said the man.

  “That’s right.”

  “Faulkener. Drink?”

  “No, thank you.”

  “Have a seat.”

  Lanz sat down across from the silver-haired man.

  Major Allen Faulkener did a quick assessment of the man who’d just sat down opposite him. Konrad Lanz was dressed like a Tuscan farmer, which he professed to be. He wore a slightly worn but quite expensive linen shirt, a narrow suede tie and a creased, chocolate-colored leather bomber jacket that looked as though he’d had it for years. The shoes were expensive but thick-soled and practical.

  Lanz looked to be in his early fifties, with the rough, tanned look of a man who spent a great deal of time outdoors—once again, the image of a Tuscan farmer. Except the creases, lines and permanent tan didn’t come from life under a benevolent Italian sun. The weathering on this man’s face was equatorial and harsh, the parchment crinkling around the cold, ice blue eyes coming from squinting down the barrel of a gun. Even in his sixth decade the man’s belly looked flat and hard and there were thick cords of muscle in his neck. The scarred, sinewy hands looked like they could crack walnuts or splinter teeth. According to the pedigree Faulkener had assembled, Konrad Lanz had fought as a mercenary in every African war since the Congolese Kisangani Mutinies in the late sixties, starting as a wet-behind-the-ears eighteen-year-old looking for adventure. He’d found it.

  “How is Tuscany?” Faulkener asked pleasantly.

  “Hot,” answered Lanz.

  “You’ve lived there a long time?”

  “Yes.”

  The battered, energetic figure of Sir James Matheson stepped into the room. His face had the unhealthy flush of high blood pressure and there were dark bags under his eyes. Matheson closed the door behind him and turned the latch. Lanz stood up and so did Faulkener.

  “Mr. Lanz, this is, uh, Mr. Smith.”

  Lanz turned to Faulkener, a look of weary irritation on his face. “Actually it’s lieutenant colonel, Major Faulkener, and I haven’t spent the last eight hours driving to Milan and flying here to be treated like an idiot.” Lanz turned back to Matheson. “You’re Sir James Matheson, Ninth Earl of Emsworth, majority shareholder in Matheson Resource Industries. Your address and a computer reverse directory told me that much. The ten thousand euros tells me you have a serious problem that you need solved militarily.” Lanz paused. “How am I doing, Lord Emsworth?”

  “Bravo, sir!” Matheson said. He went to the bar, poured himself a tumbler of neat Talisker single-malt and sat behind the desk. Lanz and Faulkener took their seats again. Lanz could still faintly hear the chamber music. The three-piece orchestra had switched to Beethoven’s “Triple Concerto” in C major, Op. 56. Another German. Lanz wondered if Matheson had chosen the music on purpose. Looking at the man he rather doubted it; somehow the industrialist didn’t look as though he had that sort of subtle nature.

  “You know of Solomon Kolingba, I’m sure,” Matheson said.

  “The breakaway dictator in the Central African Republic.” Lanz nodded.

  “Indeed,” said Matheson. “What is your opinion on the stability of his regime?”

  “Politically or militarily?”

  “Either.”

  “I have no idea.” Lanz shrugged. “At a guess I’d say he’ll be like most upstart dictators in Africa. He’ll have his day in the sun but he doesn’t even have the veneer of sanity, so eventually he’ll be deposed himself. It’s inevitable.”

  “Deposed from within?” Matheson asked, sipping his Talisker.

  “As opposed to what?” Lanz asked, although he had a fairly good idea where this was heading.

  “As opposed to a coup d’état from an outside source,” said Faulkener bluntly.

  “A mercenary force?” Lanz asked.

  “That’s why you’re here, Colonel Lanz,” said Faulkener crisply. Lanz could feel the silver-haired man itching to use the word Oberstleutnant, or better yet, Obersturmbannführer.

  “I have no idea about Kolingba’s military strength.”

  “We can give you all of that,” said Faulkener. “But if Kolingba is killed and the garrison is taken the coup would be a fait accompli. The regular army is a farce, small-time warlords at the very best.”

  “You have someone to replace Kolingba with?”

  “Several candidates. His second in command is the most likely,” replied Faulkener.

  “He has no loyalty to Kolingba?” Lanz asked.

  “He’s a very greedy man,” said Matheson. “His only loyalty is to himself.”

  “In my opinion once Kolingba is removed everything else will fall into place,” sa
id Faulkener.

  “But if I am to do this thing, it is not your opinion that is important, Major Faulkener; it is mine.”

  Faulkener’s face reddened but he remained silent.

  “What’s the first step?” Matheson asked.

  “A reconnaissance,” said Lanz.

  “To Fourandao, the capital?” Faulkener said.

  “Certainly.” Lanz nodded.

  “We expected that,” said Matheson.

  “We have a cover prepared,” said Faulkener. “There’s not much in the way of tourism in Kukuanaland, so we’ve made you an official with an NGO specializing in foreign aid. We’ve got a passport, contact numbers, a complete legend that will play out if anyone investigates.”

  “I know nothing of foreign aid,” said Lanz. “Nor do I have any interest in learning. I am a soldier. I’ll provide my own cover.”

  “As what, may I ask?” Faulkener said, reddening again. Lanz was nothing but a hired gun, but he seemed to have taken over the meeting completely.

  “As a dealer in small arms,” said Lanz, smiling. “Something General Kolingba and I have in common.”

  “When?” Matheson asked.

  “As soon as possible.”

  “Excellent!” Matheson said. He tossed off the last of the Talisker. “How much?”

  “For the reconnaissance and my report?”

  “Yes.”

  “One hundred thousand euros. Fifty thousand now, paid into my account in Liechtenstein, the balance when you get my report.”

  “A little steep, don’t you think, Lanz?” Faulkener said.

  “You’re asking me to step into the lion’s den, Major Faulkener. I think the price is fair. If you don’t think so I can always go back to Tuscany.”

  “The price is fine,” interrupted Matheson. “Go to Fourandao. Get me that report as soon as possible.”

  9

  For all its storied, bloody history, Khartoum is a relatively young city. Established in 1821 by Ibrahim Pasha as an outpost of the Egyptian army, Khartoum grew into a major trading town for slave traders. Nestled on a peninsula where the Blue Nile and the White Nile converge, the city was strategically located, and in 1884 the self-styled Mahdi, or Messiah, of the Arab people laid siege to and eventually massacred the Anglo-Egyptian garrison under British General Charles George Gordon. The British got their revenge thirteen years later when General Herbert Kitchener routed the Mahdist forces in the town of Omdurman on the other side of the river. Patriotic to a fault, Lord Kitchener laid out the new city of Khartoum with a street plan designed like the Union Jack.

  Like many African cities Khartoum has two faces: the oil-rich city of lavish resorts, exotic architecture and luxurious apartment buildings and, at the same time, a city of terrible poverty, with children selling stale food products in the souks, or markets, massive inflation and unemployment, lack of fresh water or sewage treatment, an active criminal trade in women and children and a massive black market trade in just about anything you could name.

  “This can’t be right,” said Peggy, looking out the grimy window of the Land Cruiser. They were on an unpaved street in south Khartoum. Most of the buildings were low, cheap industrial structures made from concrete blocks with flat, rusty, corrugated iron roofs. The majority looked empty, what few windows they had filthy and broken. At some time in the past there had obviously been a flood, as the marks of the high-water line could be seen clearly on the buildings.

  “It’s what it said on that bit of hotel stationery in Ives’s dispatch case,” answered Rafi. “ ‘Trans,’ which we can assume means transportation; ‘Mutwakil Osman, end of Al-Hamdab Street, over railway tracks. Look for old abandoned Petronas station on left.’ ” Rafi pointed. “There’s the Petronas station, there’s the end of the street, and we passed over the railway tracks a half dozen blocks ago.”

  “There’s nothing here except the Nile River and some barges,” said Holliday, pulling the Land Cruiser to a stop. Directly in front of the truck the road ended in a patch of weeds that turned into the rough, sloping bank of the Nile. A set of rickety wooden stairs led down to a narrow concrete walkway and several wooden docks that jutted out into the sluggish, wind-ruffled water. Several gigantic barges were moored to the docks, most of them clearly used for dredging Nile mud. Two others were fitted with large ribbed Quonset huts that appeared to be World War Two vintage. Holliday climbed out of the truck. Rafi and Peggy followed. It was hot but the light, faintly aromatic breeze coming off the river was refreshingly cool.

  “Surely he didn’t take a boat,” said Rafi, frowning.

  “Is the Kotto River a tributary of the Nile?” Peggy asked.

  “No, but it’s the same drainage basin. In the Sudan it’s called the Bahr al-Arab,” explained Rafi. “I suppose you could take a boat of some kind but it wouldn’t be easy.”

  “Crocodiles?” Peggy asked.

  “Hungry ones.” Rafi grinned, throwing an affectionate arm across Peggy’s shoulder.

  “Let’s check it out,” suggested Holliday. He headed down the wobbly steps to the rough concrete pier. The breeze was stronger here and there was something else in the air: the familiar smell of gasoline.

  Rafi and Peggy came down the steps after him. They walked along the pier until they reached the first one of the barges fitted with a Quonset hut. There was a door set into the side of the hut with a cardboard sign ducttaped to it that read, OSMAN AIR SERVICES.

  “I don’t see a runway anywhere,” said Peggy.

  They trooped down the single-width gangplank to the Quonset hut. Holliday rapped on the door. It rattled on its hinges. Overhead a bright, iridescent Nile Valley sunbird flitted toward the riverbank.

  “Dakhaltum!” called out a muffled voice. Holliday could make out the sound of something like a lathe and the muffled clatter of a generator.

  “It either means come in or go away,” said Peggy.

  “It means enter,” said Rafi. “It’s Sudanese. Open the door.” Holliday lifted the latch and stepped inside.

  The front half of the gloomy curved structure was fitted out as a combination living space and machine shop. There was an area for welding, a lathe, a drill press, racks of welding and a brazing rod and something up on trestles that looked suspiciously like an elongated sheet-metal banana covered in rust-colored primer paint. The other side of the space was given over to a narrow cot, a kitchen table, cupboards, a small stove and a large laundry sink. The back half of the Quonset hut was blocked off by an unpainted plywood bulkhead. In the center of the bulkhead was a rolling garage-door mechanism with an overhead set of rails.

  A man in a white apron was standing at the stove stirring something steaming in a small aluminum pot.

  “Aasalaamu Aleikum,” said Rafi.

  “Wa-Aleikum Aassalaam, effendi,” replied the man in the apron. He smiled pleasantly. “Chunky chicken,” he said, gesturing toward the pot with a wooden spoon. “Care to join me? It’s Campbell’s.” The man was short, slim, dark-skinned and wearing an ornately embroidered pillbox-shaped kufi on his head. He appeared to be in his middle forties. His accent was from somewhere in the American South.

  “Mr. Mutwakil Osman?” Rafi asked.

  “I went to the Riverside Military Academy in Gainesville, Georgia,” said the man in the apron. “You have any idea what it was like being named Mutwakil in Gainesville, Georgia? My friends call me Donny.”

  “Donny Osman?” Peggy laughed.

  “Hey, it’s better than Mutwakil, believe me.”

  “You’re American?” Rafi asked.

  “Born and raised. My parents were both Sudanese. I’ve been living here since 2002.” He shrugged. “Things weren’t the same for Muslims after nine/ eleven.” He grimaced. “Especially if you fly airplanes for a living. I had a little puddle-jumper air transport company. It went bust in six months.” He shrugged again. “Anyway, that’s my story.” He poured the soup into a bowl, carried the bowl over to the little kitchen table and began to eat. “What can I
do for you folks?” He eyed them carefully, paying particular attention to Holliday. “Nobody comes here by accident.”

  “Archibald Ives,” said Holliday flatly.

  “Archie? Sure, what about him?”

  “What’s the connection?”

  “What business is it of yours?”

  “We found your name among his personal effects,” said Holliday bluntly, looking for a reaction.

  “Personal effects?”

  “He’s dead. Murdered.”

  The Sudanese man’s face fell. “I knew it,” he said softly.

  “Knew what?” Holliday asked.

  “Knew it was trouble right from the start.”

  “What was trouble?”

  Osman put down his soup spoon and sighed. “I’ve been taking people into dangerous places for years,” he said. “But this time it was too dangerous. The whole thing smelled, you know?”

  “What whole thing?”

  “Matheson for one, Kukuanaland for another.”

  “Because of Kolingba?”

  “Limbani as well.” Osman nodded.

  “What about Limbani?” Rafi asked.

  “Limbani’s like Kolingba’s white whale, or Marley’s Ghost from A Christmas Carol.”

  “Explain,” Holliday said.

  “Limbani haunts Kolingba. He got away during the coup and ever since then Kolingba’s been worrying about Limbani organizing some kind of rebel army in the jungle like Fidel and Che. He smokes that iboga stuff or snorts it or eats it or whatever you do and he has visions of Limbani and his hordes coming out of the woodwork like cockroaches.”

  “Limbani’s a myth?” Peggy asked.

  “Who knows?” Osman shrugged. “The point is, Kolingba’s got patrols of his thugs roaming around in the bush shooting anything on two legs. There’s a hundred-thousand-dollar reward for Limbani’s head on a stick.”

  “And you took Ives there?” Rafi said.

  “Archie seemed like a big boy—was a big boy. I thought he could take care of himself. He said it was his big chance. The strike that he could retire on.”