by Ruth Hartley
Lara hoped that she was putting the documents where they would be safe from break-ins and looters. She finished sorting out the paintings and went into the office. There she found Inonge and Enoch frowning over some folders and letters from Oscar’s desk.
“Does this mean anything to you?” Inonge asked Lara.
“No, Lara doesn’t know about this!” Enoch said frowning, “I am the one who should have realised this – I should have guessed what was going on. This is huge.”
“What are you talking about?” Lara asked, but she already knew without being told. Inonge and Enoch had uncovered final proof of their long-standing betrayal by Oscar. Now they knew that their beloved project had been exploited as a front to cover Oscar’s dealings. Real dread, hard and fierce, clamped itself around Lara’s middle, squeezing the air from her lungs and making her stomach churn.
“Oh God – what have you found – don’t tell me – is it what I think? What has he done?”
Enoch looked up, his face twisted into a grimace of hate and disgust.
“Oscar!” Enoch was choking as he spoke as if he could neither swallow nor spit out poison. “Oscar – you fool! You bastard piece of shit! What are you doing? – are you mad? – you evil fuck!”
Inonge and Lara recoiled staring at each other wide-eyed. They had never seen Enoch angry or foul-mouthed or – as he was now – afraid and shaking. Enoch folded up in stages. First he sat down at the great wooden desk, then his hands crushed the papers he was clutching, his head went down and then up and he banged it again and again on the leather padding. Then he cried and beat his fists on the desk and then on his head, turn and turn about. Inonge bent over him, holding him, hugging him and trying to soothe him. Lara rushed to the kitchen in a panic and came back with yet another pot of coffee but this time also a bottle of Oscar’s favourite smoky whisky which Enoch first pushed away and then grabbed at. He gulped down a mouthful with another curse at Oscar.
Eventually Enoch explained. He had found export permits for gemstones that purported to come from the Tin Heart Gold Mine and carried official-looking, but faked government stamps. Lara told the Njobvus what Tim had tried to tell her which she had refused at first to believe or accept about Oscar’s secret dealings. Enoch’s first thought had been that Oscar had taken their money for himself and run. Now he realised that not only had Oscar recently taken the money and given it to General Miyanda to fund his coup, but that for years Oscar had been dealing in illicit gems and building up funds for just such an event. The evidence was incomplete. Bernie had done a good job of covering things up for Oscar. Lara recounted the conversation she had overheard between Natan and Oscar about Njoka’s rebel group. Enoch nodded.
“He’s trying to pay off both sides so he’ll be okay whoever wins, I think.” Enoch said as if he wanted to prove to himself that Oscar was motivated by something other than self-interest. Lara found herself wanting the same thing. Again and again she had to force herself to remember finding the gemstones in the frame of her painting. A feeling of coldness overcame her.
“I blame myself.” she said “I should have known – I should have guessed.” The tears started from her eyes. “I thought he loved me – I thought he loved me.”
“He did love you – he does love you!” Inonge said looking directly at her with a surprising calm, “You and Enoch are the only people he ever cared for – apart from his sister, I think – but don’t doubt it – it may not be – perhaps it is a bad thing to know – but he does love you – I have seen it. I don’t think he knows how to love you but he does love you.”
“What does this mean for us – now – what do we do?” Lara asked, still tearful. “Where is Oscar? Do you know what he is doing know? Can you guess? Enoch – what do you think? What should we do?”
“I’ll have to warn Junior immediately – tell him to leave Chambeshi at once – he may be in danger if Oscar gets found out – I think this is what Oscar meant when he rushed away – he wants me to hide all this stuff – or destroy it maybe – I can’t believe that he could think I would go along with him -” Enoch picked up the phone and started to dial his son.
“He knew you wouldn’t go along with this.” Inonge said to Lara, “That’s why he didn’t tell you about it. He must have decided that because Njoka’s rebellion was over, he would have to backtrack in case Colonel Miyanda’s coup also failed.”
Enoch was speaking on the phone to Junior telling of what he had uncovered and advising Junior to leave the country at once.
“Remember Inonge and I love you.” he said as he handed the phone to his wife, “Take care!”
While Inonge and Junior exchanged a few words Enoch began to plan what actions they needed to take.
“Junior says that there may not be a coup. The army have taken charge of the television station and say they support President Chona. They keep saying that the President will make a statement to the nation in the morning. Junior says it isn’t clear at this stage if the army will make the President their puppet or reinstate some degree of democracy. Everything is still uncertain.”
“And what about us? What do we do?” Lara asked.
“I am setting off at dawn for the Mine. First I must decide what to do with all this incriminating evidence here. I can’t tell at the moment if it implicates me or makes it clear that only Oscar is involved.” Enoch replied, “As soon as I have got this sorted I will have to go and see what other evidence is still in existence at the Mine because that will probably need to be got rid of too or kept as evidence. If, as seems likely, the remains of the Njoka Gang are in retreat – it should be safe enough to go and I must make sure that all our people there are okay and have some basic supplies.”
“I’m coming with you!” Inonge said, “No! Don’t argue. I am!”
“I can’t stay here alone.” Lara, at first hesitant, decided, “I don’t ever want to see Oscar again – I would be terrified to see him again. I’ll have to come with you – I want to come with you! I have nowhere to go anymore but first I also must remove everything of mine from the camp too otherwise I will also be implicated.” For a moment Lara stopped breathing, unable to speak as the terror of her situation became more apparent to her.
It seemed only yesterday that Oscar had been the centre, the axis of her world. Today she was in free fall in empty space with nothing to hold her anywhere.
“Enoch, where do you think Oscar has gone?” she asked, anxiety gripped her. “What about Natan? Do you think they are together?”
“Natan?” Inonge looked up from the papers she was reading through. “Do you know anything about him, Lara?”
“Same as you, I think. Tim said he thought that Natan was once Mossad, an Israeli secret service agent who had become a loose cannon, or turned traitor or was just wandering around Africa wheeling and dealing anyway he can. Oscar didn’t talk about him but he did turn up in odd places all the time as if he was checking up on Oscar.”
“I haven’t seen Natan for a while.” Enoch said, “Oscar went off in the Land Cruiser – his plane is still in the hangar. He might have gone to the airport or driven out of the country. Whatever he’s done we can’t know. We must just do what we think best and I think that is going to tidy up the Tin Heart Mine.”
Enoch had burnt some of the letters and put others into a metal document box that he hid in the underfloor safe in the strongroom. They were on their way to get some sleep sometime after midnight when the phone rang. It was Junior telling them to listen again to the radio.
They heard American pop music, inappropriate and cheerful. A few clicks, a silence that lasted seconds and a very young-sounding, rather inarticulate voice, not very proficient in English, was heard. He was a soldier he said, a supporter of General Miyanda who had organised the coup and who was now in charge of the country of Chambeshi. He sounded incompetent and uncertain. Enoch listened.
&nb
sp; “We must still go – first thing tomorrow.”
Lara tried to phone Tim but his phone was busy. She sent him a brief fax telling him that she was going to the Tin Heart Mine very early the following day, Wednesday, with Enoch and Inonge to sort out ‘business’ there and take food supplies to the Tin Heart Camp. They would be back in Chambeshi City on Thursday, the second evening. “We’ll radio back to the house on Wednesday evening as usual. Take care of yourself,” she ended.
By the time they were ready to leave they were still all tired. They had twice been disturbed in the night by brief bursts of gunfire. In spite of it, Enoch had managed to grab some sleep during the night as he intended to drive the first half of the trip. Inonge and Lara had organised food and supplies and packed them into the Land Cruiser. Lara was to drive the second half of the trip if Enoch became too tired so she lay down on the back seat and dozed for the first part of the journey. It was hard to sleep properly. Lara found herself caught in a hallucinatory state between dreaming and waking. She was reliving the four past years of love and sex with Oscar, the hard work with Inonge and Enoch making the camp at the Tin Heart Mine into a paying safari business, the struggle to keep her creative life meaningful and her painting selling. Her body had changed, hardened, toughened, darkened and her hair and skin had lost its glow. Twenty-eight seemed a significant age to have attained but what had she achieved? What did Oscar mean to her now? Was she able to walk away from her relationship with him and what would she take with her from her time at the Tin Heart Mine? What had been the cost? What was lost? Could she start over again and where would she go? She supposed she would never see Tim again once all this was over. He had warned her again and again about Oscar. Now he knew what had happened she would have no worth in his eyes. She would never be able to claim his friendship. Lara’s mind kept circling around the idea of Oscar. As soon as she started to think of him she felt herself losing control and panicking.
Would Oscar let me walk away from him when I know so much about him? Do I miss him? Did I ever really love him?
They scrambled out of the Land Cruiser at the Safari Camp soon after midday. They were stiff, tired and uncertain. They had met two road blocks on the way and the police manning them had been jumpy and aggressive and insisted on searching the vehicle thoroughly. Fortunately they had had enough provisions to successfully bribe their way through in each case. They had learnt little at either halt except that no one knew really what was happening in the city but had heard all the rumours and feared the worst. The police had shaken their heads when asked about the remaining soldiers of the Njoka gang but the consensus was that they were in retreat and would cross back over the border to Northern Angola very soon.
The Tin Heart Camp seemed deserted when they first drove in but after Enoch had hooted a couple of times, announced his name and called out the name of his manager, Mainza, and his foreman, Tembo, his staff made an appearance. They were, not surprisingly, keeping a low profile but were delighted to see Enoch and the supplies of food and fuel that he brought. Their safari camp was apparently safe. Another safari camp fifty kilometres north had been burnt down by the retreating rebels but no one had been there at the time and so nobody was hurt. Joseph the cook organised a meal for them of steak, sweet potatoes and rape leaves. Kimu, his 14-year old son, helped him cook and then served the food with a big smile that showed how relieved everyone at the camp felt at their arrival. Enoch explained that they still did not know the outcome of the rioting in the city and suggested that they might return to their villages for a few weeks until it was more certain what was happening. After eating, Enoch and Lara went through the safari camp office but all the paperwork was as they had left it; all above board and in order. Inonge sorted through the distribution of the supplies they had brought and organised the lock-up of vital equipment in the camp store.
“We’ll have to go down to the Mine workings and see what is there.” Enoch said, “Do you have any idea what is kept down there, Lara?”
“Oscar always insisted that there was nothing there.” Lara replied, “There is the store room where he said he kept diesel locked up and the necessary equipment to keep the pump machinery going. That is all that was needed for the mine. I’ve always hated the place –it’s cursed and ugly. The mine manager’s cottage was almost empty but both places Oscar kept locked up.”
“Well we’ll break into the cottage and the storeroom.” Enoch said, “I need to be sure that there is nothing incriminating there. It is also time to let the workers leave and go to their villages if they want to – and that means turning off the pump and allowing the mine to finally flood I think. Perhaps we’ll come back one day but who knows? We’ll sleep tonight at the safari camp and head back to the City in the morning very early – provided it seems safe.”
“There are two camp vehicles here in good nick – your small jeep, Lara, and the Land Cruiser used for sight-seeing but I don’t plan for us to drive them back to town. If they get stolen there isn’t much we can do.”
Enoch, Inonge and Lara climbed back into Enoch’s Land Cruiser together with Joseph, Mainza and Tembo and bumped down the narrow uneven track to the defunct mine. Its rusting head-gear rose up black against the red scarring of the mine tip, balancing on what was apparently a heap of rock debris. It was an ugly monster of metal that stared out across the river. Hidden in the tree line behind the mine were the cement block shacks that made up the one-time mine manager’s cottage and the mine storeroom. Two squat buildings crouching among long grass and the rubbish heaps of abandoned machinery and broken equipment under pale broken-edged asbestos roofs. Enoch ordered Joseph and Tembo to break the chains and padlocks holding the metal doors shut. The heavy shuddering clang of the great mallets as they attacked the locks made the echoes crash around the bare, stripped and damaged space below the mine. Lara cringed at each blow. Someone must hear them. The noise was tremendous, much louder than the mine pump. Would the departing bandits turn around and come back?
At last the doors were open and the three of them went inside, first of all into the old cottage. It was almost empty except for an ancient iron bedstead, a table and a couple of rusty and decrepit garden chairs. In one corner was a metal cupboard of the sort that old files were kept in but the doors were hanging open. There was a room that might once have been a kitchen and off that was a bathroom containing a stained toilet and a ceramic wash basin without plumbing. All the windows were barred with heavy thick gauge iron bars. It would be difficult to get in or out of the building if the heavy metal door was locked. Feeling momentary claustrophobia Lara looked up at the roof to see if that was also impenetrable. She saw to her surprise that the ceiling was made of solid iron sheets embossed with flowers and patterns, obviously recycled from some older and more elegant colonial house and put in here for extra security.
Next they went to the storeroom. It was an almost windowless space and very dark inside so Enoch sent Tembo back to get the torches and spotlights from the Land Cruiser. It took a few minutes to back the vehicle up close enough for the spotlight leads to reach into the hot dim space. Tembo and Mainza stood by the door each holding up a light and Enoch, Inonge and Lara went in. and immediately stood still to stare. Inside the storeroom was a rudimentary but well-organised mini-laboratory with a powerful microscope. Lara did not know what it was for but she had guessed by the time Enoch explained what it was to Inonge.
“It is a laboratory for testing gemstones!” he said, a quiet horror in his voice. “This is where the work was done to smuggle them out.”
“Oh my dear Lord and God!” Inonge was not swearing but praying in a loud whisper.
Lara, full of guilt, noticed empty picture frames against the table waiting to be loaded with their illegal cargo of gemstones. Then they all three, at the same moment, saw piled in the corner of the store the smooth gleam of asymmetrical giant ivory tusks. Lara saw Enoch’s face, stunned, grieving, his mouth fall
en open.
“It’s the Old Chief’s tusks!” he said hoarsely, “My Old Chief!” and the tears started to pour down his face.
“My poor Enoch, my poor husband.” Inonge’s hands covered her face.
Tembo and Mainza stood still, open-mouthed in disbelieving shock.
It was then they heard the shouts from outside and turned around bewildered.
“Come out! Come out! Come out with your hands in the air! Come out!”
Lara recognised the deep, thick voice of Natan. Afraid and mesmerised by what they had seen, they all obeyed. In a semi circle around the entrance to the store were six men, two white and four black. Opposite the door and facing them as they re-emerged into the hot bright sunlight stood Oscar and Natan each holding a hand gun. The four Africans armed with Kalashnikov automatic sub-machine guns, knelt or crouched behind protective oil drums, and piles of rubble to the left and right. No one moved or spoke. The mine pump rattled, spun and spewed dirty water into the sludge of the gulley below the pit.
It was an eternity of 30 seconds.
“Lie down, Tembo. Lie down, Mainza,” ordered Oscar. Both men dropped instantly to the ground, the spotlights in their hands burning up the beetles and ants in the soft dry earth beneath them.
Enoch stared at his old friend. He took one steady step forward, raised his fists and with a great shout of rage leapt towards Oscar. There was a bang and Enoch jerked backwards and sideways to fall in front of Inonge. Natan had killed Enoch.
Part Twelve
Escape 1989
Chapter One
Telling Brendan