The Exile

by Andrew Britton

  Once, when he had known a great deal less about life, White might have been compelled to reflect on the juxtaposition of those impoverished living clusters and Hassan al-Saduq’s very ample surroundings. Might have spent a few silent minutes comparing the thoroughbred horses in their corrals out back of the courtyard—especially the majestic white specimen in the nearest enclosure—to the bowed, underfed mules he had first seen outside the villagers’ huts, and then again on the road, bearing whatever extra eggs, milk, and cheese they produced down to the market for sale or barter. He might have pondered, too, how Saduq managed to exhibit his personal extravagance without engendering hostility among those who owned next to nothing. While it would have been easy to appreciate why they would fear him, their protective allegiance might have been a source of curiosity.

  Now Cullen White took it all in matter-of-factly, recognizing the symbiosis that existed between the powerful and the deprived in the world’s most godforsaken corners. It was like the relationship between the shark and the pilot fish. Men like Saduq kept dangerous predators at a distance with their own ferociousness, while allowing their weaker followers to stay close and protected, and feeding them enough to appease their hunger. In return, they would always stay close, attaching themselves to his sides when it benefited him. But he would see they never slept with their bellies full or were left without their critical dependency.

  He sat, dropping his pack between his legs as he waited for the other two men to lower themselves into their chairs.

  “So,” Saduq said. “How are things in Khartoum?”

  “Tense,” White said. He recalled to his frustration reading the newspaper stories on the plane. “I would think you’d have good sources of information about what goes on there.”

  Saduq grinned. “One can never have too many,” he said. “I take it this unrest is because of the economic sanctions?”

  “There seems to be a lot going on.” White was looking at him. “From what I can tell, it isn’t easy to find somebody in the city who isn’t upset about something or other.”

  Saduq grunted. “A pity. Like Ishmael, I was born in the capital. And spent my childhood there.”

  “You sound homesick.”

  “It is always difficult when we must remain separated from our roots, Mr. White.”

  White merely shrugged. That had never been among his problems.

  The maid returned with a tray of cold juice, fruit and cheese hors d’oeuvres, set it on the table, and left. White reached for his juice and drank, appreciating its tangy sweetness. He realized he’d worked up quite a thirst during the trip.

  “We should get right down to business,” he said. “Are you all set for the purchase?”

  Saduq nodded. “I will be flying out tomorrow,” he said. “By the following night it should be complete.”

  “A deal is done when it’s done,” White said, shaking his head. “For me that won’t be until the shipment is in-country. In the meantime a thousand different things could go wrong, and any one of them could spell serious trouble.”

  “I understand your concern,” said Saduq. “But this transaction is not the first of its sort that I’ve brokered. Nor do I expect it will be the last. And my participation aside, it isn’t altogether without precedent.”

  White met his gaze. He was remembering the RUF affair. And Iran-Contra, the ballsiness of which Stralen had always applauded, although he insisted the idea of negotiating with supposed Iranian moderates had been a foolish pipe dream. His objection to the former deal, and not the other, was all a matter of context—one fell within his system of moral and political values, and the other didn’t, and for Stralen that made things very simple. But his respect for the general aside, White hadn’t bought the comparisons. The ramifications simply weren’t proportional, not as matters stood, let alone at the scale they were quickly approaching.

  “Precedent or otherwise, I need to know there won’t be any last-minute surprises,” he said after a long moment.

  “If my personal guarantee is not sufficient, then I would hope my cousin’s would be, Mr. White.”

  Mirghani hefted his vast bulk forward, took a wedge of cheese from the platter, and placed it on a slice of bread. “You should have no concerns,” he said, pushing the food into his mouth. “The merchants are reliable men.”

  “They’re pirates,” said White.

  “Yes.” Mirghani chewed, swallowed. “But it’s in their interest to deliver. They don’t want a reputation for reneging on bargains. While I have no doubt they’ll spend their skim in the bars and whore-houses of Eyl, it is worth remembering that President Ahmed’s Majeerteen clan controls Puntland, where they make their base. And that his transitional Somali government is in need of financial support.”

  White turned his sweating glass in his hands. “May the circle be unbroken,” he said in an undertone.

  “What was that?” Mirghani asked.

  “American gospel.”

  Saduq’s grin had reappeared, accompanied by a look of secret amusement. “Speaking of America, Mr. White, I believe your Revolutionary army had no qualms about buying thousands of weapons, and millions of pounds of gunpowder, from pirates. Without those supplies they could never have sustained their war against the British.”

  White regarded him in silence, almost smiling himself now. He wondered what his former bosses in the Agency would have thought if they’d heard him elevated into the company of George Washington.

  Finishing his drink, he lifted the rucksack from the ground and set it on the table. “Here you are,” he said finally. “With my thanks for the history lesson.”

  Saduq took hold of the rucksack’s strap, pulled it across to his side. And that was that, White mused. There was no going back. For him, for Stralen, for anyone. And in an unexpected way, the finality of it took a weight off his shoulders.

  He reached for a piece of fruit and reclined in his chair, admiring the barb in its corral across the field.

  “A magnificent creature, is it not?” Saduq asked.

  White looked at him, nodding. The broker didn’t miss much, a valuable trait in his line of work.

  “The horse was bred by the Bamiléké…an offshoot of the Bantu tribe that migrated into Cameroon hundreds of years ago,” Saduq said. “Driven from their home near the Niger basin by internal conflict, they overran the Pygmies in their new land. Exiles themselves, these tribesmen became conquerors by necessity.” A pause. “African history is different from yours, Mr. White. It is an ancient tapestry spun with many recurrent themes. Nothing here is new to us, and all that comes has been seen before.”

  White continued to regard him. “Should I take that as another historical reminder?”

  Saduq shrugged. “I would prefer you consider it a bit of perspective…volunteered without added cost.”

  White considered that for a long moment, nodded. He again felt vaguely as if Saduq was toying with him.

  “I’ll try not to forget it,” he said.

  CHAPTER 14

  YAOUNDÉ, CAMEROON

  Bumping up against the hotels and high-rise apartments between Avenue Monseigneur Vogt and the railroad tracks, running nearly to the wide front steps of the Cathedrale Notre Dame des Victoires, with its pitched gable roof, lofty white crucifix, and swirl of Christian hymns and animist chants spilling on the streets at Mass time, the Marché du Mfoundi was the busiest open-air market in Yaoundé, the capital city of Cameroon.

  Displayed under faded, slightly tattered pastel sun umbrellas were meat, fish, vegetables, religious totems, folk medicines, sculpted wooden figures, handcrafted rugs, garments, and baskets, and merchandise of countless other varieties. French and English could be heard mingling with Beti dialects as buyers and sellers haggled over prices at the crowded vendor stalls. Motorcycle taxis and yellow cabs weaved through traffic, cutting off cars, vans, and trucks of assorted vintage, startling pedestrians as they veered past. In the near distance, nestling Yaoundé’s spaghetti tangle of stre
ets and avenues on all sides, the Central African hills rose with their shags of green forest, tumbledown shanties, and rugged dirt roads, over which many of the vendors made their way down to the city’s marketplaces each dawn, carrying their goods in mule carts or flatbed trucks, hoping to return with lighter loads and something of a profit before nightfall brought its threat of predatory thieves and bandits.

  A short walk from the market, Ryan Kealey emerged from his hotel into the warm noonday sunshine, feeling just a little the worse for wear after his trip, which had been long but fairly comfortable. The flight out of Johannesburg on Kenya Airways had been followed by an extended layover at JKIA, west of Nairobi, where his connection, a sleek Boeing 737, had arrived after an hour’s delay for the final sprint to Yaoundé’s Nsimalen International. Informed he’d missed his hotel’s courtesy shuttle, Kealey had hailed a taxi for the thirty-minute drive to the Hilton on Boulevard du 20 Mai. As Harper had promised, a prepaid reservation had been made for him there.

  He’d left South Africa at eleven o’clock the night before and spent nine hours in travel, reaching his hotel room at about six in the morning due to the difference in time zones. Gaining the two extra hours hadn’t hurt—it had given him a chance to rest up before he met his contact. Though he’d been convinced he was too wired and out of synch to sleep, he’d set his cell phone alarm for ten thirty just in case and actually dozed off on a chair while skimming through a complimentary copy of the Tribune, the country’s bilingual French-English newspaper.

  When the alarm went off, Kealey showered, changed his clothes, called room service for some coffee, and headed out toward the market feeling decently refreshed. The temperature even in the full sun was probably in the seventies—about what it would have been in Johannesburg, where the winter climate was similarly moderate.

  Now he crossed the boulevard on Rue Goker, passing a statue of John Kennedy on the avenue named after the assassinated U.S. president. Among the people here he was a heroic figure, his status rising almost to the same level of myth as in the States—and the reason, for Kealey, was no mystery. A lifetime ago, when he’d lectured in international relations at the University of Maine, he’d reminded students that the Peace Corps, which most of them believed had sprung from charitable ideals, had actually been brainstormed as a proactive—and cannily pragmatic—foreign policy initiative for staving off Soviet influence in the third world. In Cameroon, then a young republic after gaining independence from French colonialism, Communist maquisards had been entrenched in the bush, launching repeated terrorist strikes at its pro-Western government. It had been an early test of Kennedy’s Cold War plan to offer the carrot before the stick in strengthening American interests. And in this country, at least, it had proven an effective tool.

  Kealey went several more blocks on the avenue, then turned right toward the marketplace. It was full of activity, people milling about everywhere, some dressed in Western clothes, others in flowing, big-pocketed cotton shirts and pants with embroidery and colorful patterns spun into their fabric.

  His dark eyes scanned the street through the jumble of shoppers crowding the stands—tourists, locals, men and women of every age. Mothers in traditional kabbas, many with three or four children while barely out of adolescence themselves, held babies in carriers against their breasts and urged dawdling toddlers along with quick tugs on their wrists.

  Up ahead at the curbside, Kealey noticed black coils of cooking smoke wafting from a food stall occupied by 2 women in traditional robes. Their skin the color of burnt caramel, Kealey guessed them to be mother and daughter, with the younger of the pair stirring the contents of a large saucepan on a barrel-shaped, coal-fired oven. He could smell roasting peanuts and a sweet, not quite identifiable overlaying scent in the thick smoke.

  After a moment he checked his chronograph wristwatch. It was 12:20. Still a little early.

  There was a gray-bearded man to his left standing over an assortment of knives spread out on a threadbare woven carpet, and Kealey decided to kill a few minutes by having a look. The vendor had a large choice for sale—machetes, bowies, hunting knives, a whole array of combat blades.

  Kealey picked up a Spanish-made Muela Scorpion with a rubber grip and seven-inch black chrome finish blade, then simultaneously tested its balance and examined it to make sure it wasn’t a knockoff.

  “How much?” he asked.

  “Eighty euros,” the man said.

  Kealey leaned over to put it down.

  “Sixty, no lower.” The vendor lifted its sheath from the carpet to display it. “Come with this!”

  Satisfied, Kealey got out his wallet, paid for the knife, and slipped it into his carryall.

  A moment later he wound his way toward the food stall, paused a short distance from it, and stood quietly observing the female vendors. There was something at once sad and impressive about them. It was hard for him to separate the feelings or even know where they came from. He did not examine them any more than he had any others inside him, not for a very long time. He was keeping things simple. Blackwater was done. There was nothing more for him in South Africa. And he had agreed to do a job for Harper. He did not want to look further back than that. Or beyond it.

  Kealey checked his watch again, grunted with mild impatience. Half past noon, not early anymore. At the food stall, the elder stood in front of the oven, repeatedly sliding baking sheets out of its front door and shaking their contents into plain white cardboard food containers. He watched quietly as she arranged the containers on a wooden table beside her or held them out to passing customers.

  “Are you on line for the honey peanuts?” someone said from behind him. Speaking in a soft, French-inflected female voice.

  Kealey turned. The woman facing him was tall and slim, with slightly up-slanted eyes and long, glossy black hair gathered into a ponytail. She had on a light cream-colored, midlength skirt, a yellow sleeveless halter, and open-toed sandals.

  “I prefer an African fool,” he said and took her hand. “Ryan Kealey.”

  “Abigail Jean Liu,” she said. “Though Abby would be fine.”

  Kealey nodded, looking at her in silence.

  “As far as your mango custard…I am afraid you’re looking in the wrong place for a chilled treat,” she said.

  Kealey kept his eyes on hers. “Anywhere else you’d recommend?”

  She tilted her head sideways over her bare, tanned shoulder. “There’s a delightful café over on Avenue de l’Indépendance, where it is served with a touch of lime…. I was just going in that direction, if you’d like me to point it out.”

  Kealey gave another small nod. “I’d appreciate it. If you don’t mind.”

  He identified her smile as altogether professional. “Not at all,” she said. “In fact, I might just stop in and have a bit myself.”

  “You don’t seem too thrilled with the custard,” Abby said.

  Kealey sat with his dessert untouched, his folded napkin on the table beside the parfait cup. “I’ve never liked mangoes,” he said. “Or cloak-and-dagger routines.”

  Abby spooned some of her own serving into her mouth. “I’m sorry in both instances,” she said. “One is a delight to me. The other, unfortunately, a necessity.”

  Kealey was silent, thinking. The café, Exotique, was run by an expat Frenchman named Gaston who’d seemed to know her well, engaging her in several minutes of familiar small talk before showing them to a small outdoor table set apart from the rest in the small rear garden.

  “I don’t know how Interpol operates,” he said quietly. “But an arranged public meeting and code phrase are rigmaroles I’d rather have skipped.”

  “And your preferred alternative?”

  “You knock on my door at the hotel. We make our introductions. And then we talk,” Kealey said. “It lessens the high intrigue but gets right to the point.”

  Abby Liu delicately ate her custard. She was looking at Kealey, but there was something in her gaze…a keen peripheral awarenes
s, which didn’t escape him. “This is Cameroon, not South Africa,” she said. “The clerk at your hotel’s registration desk, the bellhop, or housekeeper could well be a relative of one of the pirates that raid the coastline. Or a member of the gendarmerie that’s in bed with them.”

  He was thoughtful a moment. “Beware of prying eyes, that it?”

  Abby nodded. “And ears,” she said, barely moving her lips, speaking in a voice as hushed as Kealey’s. “As an American, you’re an instant red flag. Putting aside the affiliation you mentioned, I am a French citizen of Chinese descent. If nothing else, that makes me easy to spot and track. An odd-looking vegetable in the patch, if you will. Our meeting cannot help but draw notice.”

  “And you think a crowded market is less conspicuous than, say, your office?”

  Her lips tightened at the corners. “Mr. Kealey, I hardly appreciate you making light of my understanding and experience.”

  “I’m not…and feel free to drop the ‘mister.’” He paused, motioned vaguely to indicate their surroundings. “This place—”

  “Gaston can be trusted.” She’d cut him off. “I prefer we leave it at that for now.”

  Kealey nodded, his hunch confirmed. The café was an Interpol safe harbor.

  “Another point worth bearing in mind,” she said. “I use the term pirates as a convenient reference. But it is a misnomer. Or at the very least an oversimplification. While some groups in this region are wholly mercenary in their motives, others are political extremists or religious militants. Their connections aren’t easily sorted out.”