Bannerman's Ghosts

by John R. Maxim

  Bourne was sure he knew the truth. They were going to ground. They were distancing themselves, for a while at least, until they saw which way certain ill winds were blowing.

  The whole of Washington seemed abuzz with what had happened to Clew. And word had spread that on that very day, Clew had charged down to Briarwood and provoked a confrontation over some grievance between them. No one knew quite what about. Speculation was rife. But one doesn’t trifle with Artemus Bourne. Within hours, Clew’s reduced to a vegetative state. Surely, there must be a connection.

  Well, of course there is, you cowards, but let someone try to prove it. In the meanwhile, talk it up. Tell anyone who’ll listen. It’ll make them less likely to trifle with me. No one trifles with Artemus Bourne.

  He had half expected that some of the buzz would concern that damned VaalChem container. He’d heard nothing, however. Clew certainly isn’t talking. Apparently no one else had yet heard about that freighter. And what of it if they had? Who can tie that to him? Who will testify as to the source of that container? Martin Kessler? Don’t be stupid. Kessler put it there himself. What’s more, he murdered three men to get it. You want evidence? Go look in my freezer.

  Do you want to find more of whatever’s on that freighter? Look no further than Kessler, but don’t take too long. Can you doubt that he’s planning some further atrocity? Go get him. Scorched earth. Turn them all into salt. He’s in league with al-Qaida, you know.

  Bourne paused. Strike that last one. That might be stretching it a bit. Let’s try to stay closer to home.

  You ask where did Kessler get it? I don’t know. Not a clue. He certainly didn’t get it from VaalChem. You say you want to visit VaalChem? Check it out for yourselves? I’ll agree to that, of course, but you know those Angolans. They’ll stall you until they get something in return for letting you traipse through a national asset. Well, not national perhaps, but an asset nonetheless. Every one of them collects a monthly stipend. By the time you get permission, the place will be so well scrubbed that you’ll wish you’d brought your children for a picnic.

  That is to say, of course, the parts that you can get into. The serious work is done four levels down. The hot zone, they call it. But you’ll never see it. The blueprints only show two levels down.

  No, thought Bourne. None of this need be a problem. But Kessler…ah, Kessler. There’s a problem.

  If he put Marburg on that freighter, he can surely put it elsewhere. And the foremost elsewhere on the Kessler list of elsewheres would surely be the VaalChem complex itself. One might ask, But why hasn’t he done that already? Well, you don’t just fling the stuff over the fence if you hope to survive it yourself. You need a means of delivery. Some aerosol device. You need experts in this field. You need planning. You need time.

  One might ask, Wouldn’t Briarwood be next on his list?

  The answer, Bourne realized, was an almost certain “Yes.”

  But if that’s so, why didn’t he add it to those coolers? Let it rise up with the fumes from Bobik’s putrefying head.

  Bourne shook his head. Same answer. Too dangerous. And besides, he would have thought that I have the antivirals. And I do. But it would have been too late.

  One might ask: Even so, shouldn’t you…like, not be here? Kessler, after all, now has your address.

  Bourne brushed that thought aside. What, go hide? Leave my home? When I have a basement that’s a bunker in itself and armed guards wherever you look? Not

  a chance. Besides, who’d look after my bees?

  One responds, Your bees? If you’re not careful, he will. What if Kessler should spritz it all over your beehives? You’d have a thousand Marburg missiles buzzing all over Briarwood, not to mention the whole of Shenandoah.

  That’s the trouble, thought Bourne, with imagined conversations. The straight man within you always wants better lines. Would Kessler hurt his bees? Would he be so cruel? Never mind. He wouldn’t. But not because they are blameless. He wouldn’t because he would have to consider the comfort and safety of my guests.

  What guests? asks the straight man. Are there any left?

  That shows how much you know, thought Bourne with a smirk. For among those sniveling phone calls that I took this morning was one that was exceedingly welcome. It was Lilly. He’s found her. He’s got her.

  Elizabeth Stride. The great love of Kessler’s life. Her abduction was a somewhat untidy affair, but one has come to expect that from Chester. No matter. He’s bringing her. She’ll be here in time for supper. And, as a bonus, he’s bringing a girl who seems, says Chester, to be dear to her heart. A child who has just turned sixteen.

  Supper, thought Bourne. But who’s going to prepare it? We can’t very well have the household staff on hand to see our two guests being hauled to the basement. Best to dismiss them. A night on the town. Have them come back on Sunday on morning after Stride and the girl are tucked away. For tonight we’ll rustle up something for ourselves and eat it while we’re getting acquainted.

  Chester had asked, “Should I dump the kid, or what?”

  “Dump her how? Set her loose?”

  “I think you know what I’m asking.”

  “Certainly not. She’s an innocent. You will do no such thing.”

  “Mr. Bourne, she’s still out cold, but she saw two of our faces.”

  “We’ll deal with that later.” It won’t matter. You’ll be dead. “For the present,” he told Chester, “she’ll be added insurance. If Stride is to be my hedge against Kessler, the girl may come in handy as a hedge against Stride. A guarantor of Stride’s good behavior.”

  “If you say so.”

  “This is excellent, Chester. This is better than lamb’s blood.”

  “How’s that again?” asked Chester.

  “It’s a biblical reference. An apt one at that. Moses’ seven plagues of Egypt. Or was it six? I don’t recall. A smear of lamb’s blood kept the angel of death from one’s door. In this case, we have our own angel of death fended off by the infamous Black Angel.” Bourne paused. “You do grasp the irony, don’t you?”

  Chester didn’t, of course. “Mr. Bourne, are you okay?”

  “A little giddy, that’s all. You’ve brought very good news. Drive carefully, Chester. Safe home.”

  TWENTY SEVEN

  “Where were we?” asked Bannerman when Elizabeth returned. Her eyes were dry, but they were softer and more distant.

  “You were telling me that Martin is a mess.”

  “I was telling you what he thinks his future will be. For the present, he’s in reasonably good shape.”

  Elizabeth leaned forward. “Are you saying you’ve seen him?”

  “No, I haven’t. I’ve had no contact with him. But I’ve spoken at length with Yitzhak Netanya. He now heads the Mossad. I know you’ve met him.”

  She nodded. “Years ago. He was with the Shin Bet. I wasn’t very nice to him either.”

  “A problem between you?”

  “More of a pique. Someone snapped a photo of the two of us in a group. It shouldn’t have happened. There should have been no photographers. It’s the only clear photo of me in existence. I was angrier than I should have been. I looked differently then. You’d find it hard to identify me from it.”

  She brushed that thought aside as being of no consequence. She said, “You’re telling me that Martin did go to Angola. What made him change his mind, if not this Sara?”

  “Being spotted by the twins, I think, was part of it,” said Bannerman. “Or at least that made him want to get out of Davos. He knew the word would spread. He knew it might get back to you. The thought of going someplace where he could get lost began to have some appeal. The Israelis were willing to pay him quite well if he could stabilize the traffic in diamonds and weapons. He could offset the influence of Artemus Bourne who was trying to control that same traffic. Molly’s told you about Bourne?”

  “That he wanted me, you mean?”

  “He’d been looking for you for maybe six o
r eight months. I’d heard that he was looking. Then I heard he’d given up. I thought he’d accepted that fact that you’re dead. I kept quiet about it because if I’d inquired, people would have wondered what my interest was and the search for you might have intensified.”

  “You…still haven’t said what Bourne wanted with me.”

  “Well, it wouldn’t have been any paid consultation. If he’d found you, you would have been a hostage.”

  “To control Martin Kessler?”

  “That would have been his hope. If it worked, he would have a double agent in place. But it got much more urgent in the past week or two. I’ll get to why in a minute.”

  “And Bourne, all this time, knew that Martin was alive. He knew it from the beginning?”

  Bannerman shrugged. “I don’t know, but I doubt it. Bourne would have had no interest in Martin until Martin showed up in Angola.”

  Bannerman, having said this, looked away, smiling softly.

  Elizabeth asked, “Why is that funny?”

  “Oh, it’s nothing. Well, yes. Just a story Yitzhak told me. Not only did Bourne know it, he’d met him, had a drink with him. It was at some social event in Luanda. Martin had somehow bluffed his way in and they had a nice chat about diamonds. Bourne, of course, never dreamed that he was talking to Kessler. He found out later. He could not have been pleased.”

  Bannerman saw the start of an answering smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. He could see that she was thinking, “That does sound like Martin.” He said, “Let’s skip over what sold him on going.”

  She said, “You’ve already told me. It was to get away from me.”

  “Elizabeth…that is not what I said.”

  “Well, it wasn’t for money. It was not to save the world. It certainly was not to help a whimsical killer. Why else would he do anything so dumb?”

  Bannerman tried to sneak a glance at the clock. She saw it. She said, “You’re not moving. Let’s hear it.”

  In his mind, he heard Molly. She was saying, “Same here. No two years in twenty minutes, remember?”

  The Israeli’s, he told her, appealed to his conscience. They argued that Kessler, and Kessler alone, could help curb some of Savimbi’s excesses. These included burning witches who Savimbi suspected of trying to work magic against him.

  “He believes in witches?”

  “Probably not,” said Bannerman, “but he knew that his men did. Every tribe, apparently, has its resident witches. They’re used to cast spells on enemy tribes. If one of those tribes should come down with some sickness, it’s presumed to be magic, the work of a witch. Savimbi had a lot of sickness…for reasons I’ll get into…but the short term solution was to burn a few witches to prove that he was stronger than they were.”

  He said, “Another of those excesses, although Savimbi denied allowing it, was chopping the arms off young children. These machete amputations were done as a warning to anyone who finds diamonds and tries to sell them on their own. The practice is, however, not limited to Angola. It’s especially prevalent in Sierra Leone. It’s a terrible thing, but neither country invented it. The Belgians and the Portuguese introduced that practice during the colonial era. It was a punishment for lazy field workers.”

  She cleared her throat. She said, “I guess I’d call that excessive. The Israelis I knew would have called that excessive. They would have killed Savimbi themselves.”

  “No, they wouldn’t,” said Bannerman. “That would only lead to chaos. Savimbi was the devil they knew and he was strong enough to keep things fairly stable. He was no dummy either. He was articulate and well-read. Even Kessler gave Savimbi high marks for intelligence after meeting with him in Tel Aviv.”

  “Not Angola?”

  Bannerman shook his head. “Savimbi and Duganga flew to Israel to see him. The Mossad snuck them out of Angola. They went to the hospital maybe three or four times and Savimbi renewed their acquaintance. They both tried to sell Kessler on coming to Angola. Kessler still had no intention of going, but the Israelis had asked him not to shut the door entirely so that they could keep Savimbi on the hook. Savimbi, meanwhile, kept sweetening the pot. He already had workers restoring a house that had belonged to some Portuguese slave trader. It would be Kessler’s, he’d have servants, and he’d have the rank of general. He’d be given a uniform that would be the envy of every other general on the continent.”

  “He’d…never get Martin in a uniform,” said Elizabeth.

  “The fact is, he did. Netanya’s seen it; I haven’t. Netanya says that I’d have to see it to believe it. Savimbi dressed him up, had him photographed in it, made posters and hung them all over Angola. It was so everyone would know him. No one would dare harm him. He gave Martin a new name. He’d be known as Alameo. The word is simply Portuguese for German. When Savimbi was killed, Duganga printed up new ones with Duganga’s own symbol on the poster. By then the rationale was to let it be known that Alameo supported Duganga.”

  Elizabeth had lost interest in uniforms and posters. She asked, “Did he go there by himself?”

  “I know what you’re asking and yes, Sara went with him because the Israelis insisted. She spoke Portuguese; he didn’t, nor did he object. He liked her; she liked him. There were no other Europeans. I’m sure that he was glad for the company.”

  “I’m sure,” said Elizabeth.

  “Um…Elizabeth, there’s something I should tell you about Sara.”

  “How long?”

  “How long what?”

  “How long have they been in Angola together?”

  “Elizabeth, there’s no ‘they.’ Will you please let that go?”

  “Platonic. I heard you. Let’s not beat it to death. How long has he been in Angola?”

  “Kessler has been there well over a year. That’s after spending the first eight months recovering and wandering. But he’d had no intention of staying this long. He figured a few months at the most. When he got to Angola, he began with an inspection. He was appalled by the conditions he saw there. Amputees everywhere. The world’s highest percentage. And not from machetes; it was mostly from land mines, the highest concentration on the continent. Kessler told Savimbi that he wanted them mapped and the maps distributed everywhere. Savimbi objected. His enemies would find them. Kessler told him, ‘Of course. Make sure that they do. They’ll be sure it’s a trick. Wouldn’t you be?’”

  This time she smiled fully. She could almost hear him saying it. She said, “His mind works in wonderful ways.”

  “He’s unconventional, certainly, but he does know his craft. He reminded Savimbi of what he’d taught him in East Germany. No insurgency succeeds without support of the locals. He cancelled an Israeli shipment of arms and had them replaced with twenty thousand prosthetics plus technicians from the Red Cross to fit them. Savimbi may or may not have condoned the amputations, but he agreed that they needed to be stopped.

  “Kessler told Savimbi that ‘stopped’ was not enough. Either round up those who did it or he’s gone. Savimbi agreed; twelve soldiers were arrested and identified by several of their victims. Kessler handed machetes to the parents of those victims, but they were too frightened to use them. So Kessler had all of them dig their own graves. He had them buried alive, the parents watching.”

  Elizabeth seemed startled. “He had that kind of power?”

  “He did, at least while the honeymoon lasted. But then suddenly Jonas Savimbi was dead and Dumas Duganga took his place. Savimbi was killed in a government raid, caught out in the open by two helicopter gunships. Those gunships didn’t happen to be just passing by. Someone had set Savimbi up. Netanya denies that it was either he or Kessler, but he admits that the timing was convenient. Killed with him were a dozen or so of his commanders. Their names ‘just happened’ to match a list that Kessler had given to Netanya. It listed those whom he’d found to be thoroughly corrupt. They were there to get rich; they ‘d tried to undermine Kessler; he was cutting into their action.”

  “But Savimbi,
you said, was the devil they knew.”

  “Not any more. By that time, the Israelis knew Duganga pretty well due to Kessler’s assessment of him. And Duganga, when this happened, needed Kessler more than ever because he was not as strong as Savimbi.”

  “Does he still?”

  “He’d say yes,” answered Bannerman. “But no, not as much.”

  “Then Martin’s work there is finished. Can Netanya get him out?”

  “If that’s Kessler’s wish.”

  “He’ll come out or I’ll go in. Either way, I’m going to see him.”

  “First there’s more for you to know. Let me finish.”

  He said that Kessler found people even sicker than he’d been. The medicines helped, but not nearly enough. Subtropical diseases, all native to Africa, but also some strains that they’d never seen before. All of them viral; penicillin was useless. Always in out-of-the-way villages and farms or in isolated outposts of troops.

  “It was as if somebody was testing these strains, but at first no one took that thought seriously. Enter a man named Savran Bobik. He’s a major dealer in weapons and drugs. The Mossad got a report that Bobik had boasted that he could wipe out Savimbi’s army at will. They knew that Bobik had some connection with VaalChem, a biotech firm owned by Artemus Bourne. Before Bourne, it had been a South African company. South Africa had a secret bio-warfare program until Nelson Mandela took power. Bourne bought it, dismantled it, and moved it to Luanda where its charter was strictly to develop vaccines.

  “The Mossad had a number of operatives in Luanda. They had them report on both Bobik and VaalChem. They also asked Sara if she would volunteer to try to get close to Savran Bobik. They didn’t realize that Sara had already been made. Bobik assumed, as you have assumed, that Sara was Alameo’s woman.”

  “He took her?” asked Elizabeth.

  “And he tortured her,” said Bannerman. “While she was still fully conscious, he sawed off her head. He sent her head back to Kessler.”

  Elizabeth paled. She couldn’t speak for a moment. She said, “Paul, I can be such a shit.”