by William Boyd
As if to give credence to this analysis Bond’s British passport was barely examined. It was stamped, the immigration officer said ‘Welcome to Zanzarim,’ and waved him through to the customs hall, which was surprisingly busy with a traffic of people who apparently had nothing to do with customs. As he waited for his suitcase to arrive, Bond declined to have his shoes polished, rejected the invitation to be driven in a ‘luxury’ Mercedes-Benz private car to his hotel and politely refused a small boy’s whispered offer of sex with his ‘very beautiful’ big sister.
A surly customs officer asked him to open his case, rummaged through his clothes and even unzipped his pigskin toilet bag and – finding no contraband – scratched a hieroglyph on the suitcase’s lid with a piece of blue chalk and moved on to the next piece of baggage in the queue.
Bond again refused the offer of help with his case as a young man physically tried to prise it from his grasp, and walked out of the building to find a taxi rank. He climbed into the back of a racing-green Morris Minor and happily agreed to pay extra in order not to share the car with others. He instructed the driver to take him to the Excelsior Gateway Hotel.
Even though the Excelsior was barely a mile from the airport the journey there was not straightforward. Almost as soon as they left the airport perimeter they were waved to a halt at an army roadblock and Bond was asked to step out of the car and show the customs mark on his suitcase. Despite the clear evidence of the chalk scribble he was asked to open the suitcase again. The soldiers at the roadblock were bored and this was a diversion to enliven their long and weary day, Bond realised. Other taxis were halted behind them and soon voices were being raised in angry protest. Bond wondered if he should give the soldier who was listlessly picking through his case some money – a ‘dash’, as he now knew it was called, thanks to his reading of The Heart of the Matter – but before he could do so an officer appeared, shouting in furious rage at his men and waved everyone on.
A further 500 yards down the road they were halted at another so-called roadblock consisting of two oil drums with a plank across them. This looked less official and the demeanour of the soldiers manning it was more lackadaisical, the men contenting themselves with peering curiously through the open windows into the back of the taxi.
‘Good morning,’ Bond said. ‘How are you today?’
‘American cigarette?’ one soldier said, grinning. He was wearing a tin helmet, a red T-shirt and camouflage trousers.
‘English,’ Bond said and gave him the Morlands that remained in his cigarette case.
When they eventually reached the hotel entrance Bond paid his fare and pushed through the crowd of hawkers that surrounded him – offering thorn carvings, painted calabashes, beaded necklaces – and finally gained the cool lobby of the Excelsior Gateway, formerly the Prince Clarence Hotel, as an old painted sign on the wall informed him. Ceiling fans turned above his head and Bond gave his suitcase to a bellhop in a scarlet waistcoat with a scarlet fez on his head. He crossed the glossy teak floorboards towards the reception desk where he was checked in. There, an envelope was handed to him that contained a slip of paper with Ogilvy-Grant’s address and new contact telephone number at an industrial park. Bond folded the note up and tucked it in his pocket, looking around him as the receptionist busied himself writing down Bond’s details from his passport. Potted palms swayed in the breeze produced by the ceiling fans. Through glass doors Bond looked into a long dark bar where a barman in a white jacket was polishing glasses. On the other side of the lobby was the entrance to the dining room, where a sign requested ‘Gentlemen, please no shorts’. Another receptionist wearing a crisp white tunic with gold buttons arrived on duty and wished him a smiling ‘Good morning, Mr Bond.’ For a moment Bond savoured the illusion of time travel, when the Excelsior Gateway had been the Prince Clarence Hotel and Zanzarim had been Upper Zanza State and civil war, mass starvation and illimitable oil revenues were all in an unimaginable future.
4
CHRISTMAS
The bellhop in the scarlet fez took Bond to his small chalet in the hotel grounds at the rear of the main building. There were a dozen of these mini-bungalows linked to the hotel buildings by weed-badged concrete pathways, a remnant of the Excelsior Gateway’s colonial past. After independence an Olympic-sized swimming pool had been constructed, flanked by two five-storey modern annexes – ‘executive rooms with pool-view balconies’. Bond was glad to be in his shabby bungalow. He tipped the bellhop.
‘Water he close at noon, sar,’ the boy said. ‘But we have electric light twenty-four hours.’ He smiled. ‘We have gen’rator.’
Bond took his advice and had a cold shower while the water pressure was still there. He changed into a cotton khaki-drill suit, a white short-sleeved Aertex shirt and a navy-blue knitted tie. He slipped his feet into soft brown moccasins, thought about removing his socks but decided against it. He reloaded his cigarette case with some of the Morlands he’d brought with him in a 200-cigarette carton and, ready for action, headed out to the hotel entrance.
The doorman shooed away the hawkers and Bond gave him $10.
‘I need a taxi with a good driver for several hours,’ Bond said. ‘Twenty US dollars for the day – and if he’s good, I’ll give you another ten.’
‘Five seconds, sar,’ the doorman said and raced off.
Two minutes later a mustard yellow Toyota Corona lurched to a halt opposite Bond. A skinny young man, smart in a white shirt and white shorts, stepped out and saluted.
‘Hello, sar. I am your driver, Christmas.’
Bond shook Christmas’s hand and eased himself into the back of the Corona.
‘Where to, sar?’
‘Do you know where the military headquarters are?’
‘Zanza Force HQ. I know him. Ridgeway Barracks.’
‘Good. Let’s go.’
Ridgeway Barracks was a large four-storey pre-war building of faded cream stucco set in a park of mature casuarina pines. Christmas dropped him at the main entrance and Bond showed his press card to the soldier at the gate and was told to follow a sign that said ‘Press Liaison’. In an office at the end of a corridor a young captain with an American accent looked over his documentation.
‘Agence Presse Libre? This is French. Are you French?’
‘No. I’m from the London office. I file all copy in English. It’s an international press agency, founded in 1923. Global. Like Reuters.’
The captain thought about it for a moment then stamped and signed a new accredited press card. He smiled, insincerely – Bond suspected that he didn’t like journalists or his job – and handed it over.
‘The daily briefing is in twenty minutes,’ he said. ‘Let me take you to your colleagues.’
The captain led Bond out through the back of the building where, at the edge of a beaten earth parade ground, a large canvas tent had been pitched.
‘Take a seat – we’ll be there shortly.’
Bond slipped in the back and sat down, looking around him. The filtered sunlight coming through the canvas was aqueous and shadowless. It was hot. Sitting randomly on rows of folding chairs were about two dozen journalists – almost all white – facing an empty dais beneath a huge map of Zanzarim. On this map, at the foot, a small bashed circle that was now the diminishing heartland of the Democratic Republic of Dahum was outlined in red chalk. Clusters of sticky-backed arrows threatening the circle indicated offensives by the federal Zanzarim forces, Bond supposed. He wandered down an aisle between rows of empty chairs to get a closer look.
The scale of the map revealed in great detail the massive and complex network of creeks and watercourses that made up the Zanza River Delta. Port Dunbar was at the southern extremity, the notional capital of the secessionist state. Above it, written on a card and stuck on the map, was the name Janjaville, where the vital airstrip was to be found. It was immediately apparent to Bond that bringing an end to Dahum would be no easy task. One main highway crossing many bridges and causeways led south
into Port Dunbar and it was here, judging from the clustered arrows, that the main federal thrust into the heartland was taking place. All other roadways were symbolised by dotted red lines, meandering around the obstacles posed by the creeks, swamps and lakes, crossing hundreds of makeshift bridges, Bond imagined. You didn’t need to be a military genius to defend this small patch of territory, it seemed to him. Bond wandered back to his seat – his close look at the map had also allowed him to calculate the distance from Sinsikrou to Port Dunbar – some 300 miles, he reckoned. He began to wonder how Ogilvy-Grant planned to ‘infiltrate’ him – it didn’t seem that straightforward . . .
Suddenly there was a jaded tremor of interest amongst the waiting journalists as a bemedalled colonel in crisp, brutally starched camouflage fatigues pushed through a flap at the rear of the tent and took up his position on the dais, followed by the captain with the American accent, who was carrying a thin six-foot rod, like a billiard cue.
‘Good day to you, gentlemen,’ the colonel said. ‘Welcome to the briefing. We have interesting news for you today.’ The colonel took the pointing-stick from the captain and, indicating with it on the map, began to enumerate various federal victories and advances into the rebel heartland. Under his instructions the captain rubbed out a portion of the Dahum circle and redrew it with the red chalk so that a pronounced salient appeared on the main highway south. Bond sensed the minimal credulity in the room diminish, suddenly, like a balloon deflating.
‘With the capture yesterday of the village of Ikot-Dussa the Zanzari forces are now forty-two kilometres from Port Dunbar,’ the colonel said, triumphantly, turned and left the tent.
A journalist raised his hand.
‘Yes, Geoffrey,’ the captain said.
‘According to my notes,’ Geoffrey said, his voice flat, ‘the village of Ikot-Dussa was liberated ten days ago.’
‘That was Ikot-Darema,’ the captain said without a pause. ‘Maybe our Zanzari names are confusing you.’
‘Yes, that’s probably it – my mistake. Apologies.’ There was a subdued ripple of badly suppressed chuckles amongst the journalists and many knowing glances were exchanged.
Another journalist’s hand was raised.
‘You were predicting the unconditional surrender of rebel forces five weeks ago. What’s happened?’
The captain leaned the stick against the wall.
‘You may have noticed, John,’ the captain said, not quite managing to disguise his weariness, ‘now you’ve been in the country for so long, that it’s been raining rather heavily these last couple of months. And now it’s stopped raining and the dry season has begun – therefore military operations are resuming at full strength.’
And so the briefing continued for another listless twenty minutes as each loaded question was either batted away or rebuffed with confident fabrication. Bond found he rather admired the captain’s tireless ability to lie so fluently and with manifest conviction. He was good at his job but no one was fooled. This war had ground to a semi-permanent halt, no doubt about it. Bond stood up and slipped out of the tent. He had learned a surprising amount on his first day as an accredited journalist for APL. It was time, he felt, to make contact with the British Secret Service’s head of station in Zanzarim.
5
E. B. OGILVY-GRANT MA (CANTAB)
OG Palm Oil Export and Agricultural Services Ltd was to be found in a light-industrial estate halfway between Sinsikrou city and the airport. Bond had telephoned from Ridgeway Barracks, but there had been no reply, so he decided to pay a personal visit. Christmas drove Bond into the complex and stopped in the shade of a Bata Shoe warehouse. Opposite was a small row of premises with storage space below and offices above. OG Palm Oil Export and Agricultural Services was at the end.
‘I won’t be long,’ Bond said, opening the door.
‘I stay here, sar.’
Bond crossed the road to the OG section of the building. Sun-blistered metal blinds were padlocked down and the electric bell-push dangled from its flex by the door that accessed the stairwell. Bond rang the bell but it seemed dead to him. He pushed at the door and it swayed open. All very impressive, he thought: as ‘cover’ went, this might work – a tenth-rate palm-oil exporter on its uppers. He closed the door behind him and walked up the stairs to the offices. He knocked on the door but there was no reply, he tried the handle and the door opened – so, no locked doors at OG Palm Oil Export and Agricultural Services Ltd. Bond stepped into the office and raised his voice – ‘Hello? Anybody in?’ Silence. Bond looked around: a metal desk with a typewriter and an empty in tray, a wooden filing cabinet, a fan on a tea chest, last year’s calendar on the wall, a display table with various dusty sample tins of palm oil set out on it and – touchingly, Bond thought – hanging by the door, a faded reproduction of Annigoni’s 1956 portrait of the Queen, a small symbol of the covert business being done here.
Someone’s throat was cleared loudly behind him.
Bond turned round slowly. ‘Hello,’ he said.
A young African woman stood there – a pale-skinned Zanzari, Bond thought, slim, petite, pretty, her hair knotted in tight neat rows, flat against her skull, which had the curious effect of making her brown eyes seem wider and more alert. She was wearing a ‘Ban the Bomb’ T-shirt, pale denim jeans cut off raggedly at the knee and around her neck hung a string of heavy amber beads. Ogilvy-Grant’s secretary, Bond assumed. Well, he could certainly pick them – she was a beautiful young woman.
‘My name’s Bond, James Bond,’ he said. ‘I want to buy some palm oil. I’d like to arrange a meeting with Ogilvy-Grant.’
‘Your wish is granted,’ she said. ‘I’m Ogilvy-Grant.’
Bond managed to suppress his sudden smile of incredulity.
‘Listen, I don’t think you understand—’
‘I’m Efua Blessing Ogilvy-Grant,’ the young woman said, then added with overt cynicism, ‘oh, yes, I’m E. B. Ogilvy-Grant, managing director.’ She had a clipped English accent, rather posh, Bond thought, rather like Araminta Beauchamp’s.
‘Nice to meet you, Mr Bond,’ she said and they shook hands. ‘My friends all call me Blessing.’
‘A Blessing in disguise,’ Bond said without thinking.
‘Funny – I’ve never heard that one before,’ she said, clearly unamused.
‘I apologise,’ Bond said, feeling vaguely shamefaced that he’d uttered it.
‘I was waiting for you at the airport this morning,’ she said. ‘Didn’t London tell you I’d be there?’
‘They didn’t, actually . . .’ Bond watched her take her seat behind the desk.
‘We were meant to meet by the Independence Monument.’
‘No one told me.’
‘Standard London cock-up.’
She opened a drawer and took out a pack of cigarettes, offering it to Bond.
‘They’re our local brand,’ she said. ‘Tuskers – strong and oddly addictive.’
Bond took one, fished out his Ronson and lit her cigarette, then his.
‘So – you’re our head of station in Zanzarim.’
‘Go to the top of the class. That’s me.’
Her accent sat oddly with the radical-chic, love-in outfit, Bond thought.
‘When were you appointed, if you don’t mind my asking?’ he went on.
‘I don’t mind at all. Just over two months ago. Weirdly, we had no one here. Everything was run through the embassy.’ She smiled, relaxing a bit. ‘My mother is a Lowele. All her family’s here in Sinsikrou – my family. I speak Lowele. And my father was a Scottish engineer, Fraser Ogilvy-Grant, who helped build the big dam in the north at Mogasso just before the war. My mother worked as his interpreter – and they fell in love.’
‘A Scottish engineer?’ Bond said. ‘So was my father, funnily enough. And my mother was Swiss,’ he added, as if the fact that they were both of mixed nationalities would form an affinity between them.
In fact the information did seem to make her relax ev
en more, Bond thought. That old Celtic blood tie established, the homeland noted – however fragile the connection, however meaningless – worked its temporary magic.
‘You don’t sound Scottish,’ he said.
‘Neither do you.’ She smiled. ‘I was educated in England. Cheltenham Ladies’ College, then Cambridge, then Harvard. I hardly know Scotland, to be honest.’
Bond stubbed out his Tusker in the ashtray on her desk, his throat raw.
‘Did they recruit you at Cambridge?’
‘Yes. Then they arranged for me to go to Harvard. I think they had plans for me in America. But, because of my family connections, this was the perfect first assignment.’
Bond was trying to calculate her age – Cambridge then Harvard, born in the war, maybe twenty-six, or twenty-seven. She was remarkably assured for one so young; but he suspected this job was going to prove harder than he had ever imagined.
‘I’m staying at the Excelsior,’ he said.
‘Yes, I do know that,’ she said with elaborate patience. ‘And Christmas is your driver.’
‘Ah, so you must have arranged—’
‘I’m here to help, Commander Bond.’ She stood up. ‘I must say it’s a great privilege to be working with you. Your reputation precedes you, even out here in the sticks.’
‘Please call me James, Blessing.’
‘I’m here to help, James,’ she repeated. ‘Shall we have dinner tonight? There’s a good Lebanese restaurant in town. We can talk through everything then.’ She walked him to the door. ‘Make our plans. I’ll pick you up at the Excelsior at seven.’