by Jeremy Duns
He took a deep breath, then stood and walked back inside. It would have been a lovely morning for a round of golf, but he had greater problems to deal with than calculating how to direct a small ball into a hole. It was time to get dressed and prepare – it would be a long day.
One floor beneath, Roy Campbell-Fraser stood on the veranda of his room, watching the carriages being positioned on the bridge through binoculars. He was pleased. Smith had initially thought to take Willard Shaw with him as part of his retinue, but Campbell-Fraser’s information about Charamba’s decision to join the talks had turned the tables and he’d been invited as the intelligence representative instead. He now had the ideal opportunity to see his plan in action at close quarters. And Charamba would have no idea he was sitting opposite one of the men he had spoken to on the telephone.
Chapter 61
Paul Dark disembarked from the plane and walked into the main terminal of Lusaka airport. A fan moved slowly in the ceiling, its blades creaking. The heat felt like an iron placed against his face after the air conditioning on the plane, and his clothes hung on him like chain mail. Adding to his sluggishness, he had barely slept on the flight and his muscles still ached from his struggle in the shopping arcade.
He didn’t regret killing the Rhodesian – the man had been a professional and wouldn’t have hesitated to kill him if he’d had the opportunity – but he was perturbed at how easily the violence had come to him. He had almost enjoyed it. The red mist had descended at the thought of the man being involved in kidnapping Claire and Ben, but the transition to his old brutal self had been seamless. Well, it was too late to do anything about it, he thought. Once he got them back he could put the monster away again. For now, he’d use it.
Something else was nagging him about Brussels: the couple who had appeared in the arcade after he’d killed the Rhodesian. He was certain they had been Service. The man had been based in Paris in the mid-sixties, he thought, though his name escaped him. He hadn’t recognised the woman at all, but she had been dressed in a very English way, in stockings and a sober skirt. If his instincts were right, it meant the Rhodesians and the British were chasing him – or that there was some sort of co-operation between them. He wasn’t sure which prospect was worse.
He loosened the collar of his shirt as he took his place in the queue for the counter. A single official was inspecting passports, a young man in shirtsleeves. Despite his youth, he looked like he was taking his task very seriously and Dark felt the familiar knot in his stomach tighten. He was using Jonas’s other passport now, Per Sundqvist, the pharmacist from Uppsala, but he wasn’t sure it was going to work. Perhaps he should have tried to find Manning’s safe, after all. But that wouldn’t have helped him either: even if he had found another passport there, the Service would simply have put an alert out for it.
He reached the front of the queue and the official beckoned him forward. Dark handed him his passport and he opened it up and looked at him.
‘Is this your first visit to Zambia, Mr Sundqvist?’
‘Yes.’
‘Business or pleasure?’
‘Pleasure.’
It happened very quickly after that. The official simply glanced up and nodded and a moment later Dark felt his arms being taken behind his back and metal pressing into his spine. He was marched away from the queue and through an unmarked door, where he was shoved into a chair in a corner. A dead rat lay against one wall, and flies were buzzing around it. Dark felt like retching, but held it in.
A few minutes passed, and the young official walked in. He lit a cigarette slowly, and Dark revised his view of him as he did.
‘You have no smallpox or yellow fever certificates, Mr Sundqvist,’ he said finally. ‘Can you explain this, please?’
Chapter 62
Monday, 25 August 1975, Chièvres, Belgium
The sky was a sheet of pale grey. Rachel parked at the airfield and walked, buffeted by a wind, up the tarmac to the C-47.
‘I was told just one passenger,’ said the pilot as he took in the two figures standing next to her.
‘There’s been a change of plan,’ she replied. She gestured to Manning and Proshin, and they climbed aboard.
Chapter 63
There was a knock on the door and Charamba looked up. It was Gibo.
‘What is it, Phillip?’ he said, irritated at the intrusion. He wanted time alone to think before they set out for the talks.
‘I’ve had a tip-off. A white man has arrived in town and asked to see you.’
Charamba peered at him. ‘When did you hear this?’
‘Just now. They’re holding him at the airport. He said you would know what it was about.’
Charamba stood. ‘Get the car,’ he said.
Chapter 64
‘He’s tired a lot,’ said Jessica Innes, as she led them through the front hall. ‘And he has dreadful nightmares. A couple of months ago he woke up at two in the morning and just shouted the word “Traitors!” over and over.’ She gave a small smile, apologetic and ashamed and yet stoic at the same time.
‘I understand,’ said Rachel. ‘We’ll be very careful.’
She had driven here straight from Northolt with Proshin and Manning squeezed in the back seat of the Austin, two defectors in their own ways – traitors, too, depending on who you asked. It had taken her a while to find the village but Manning had helped, having visited it many moons ago when it had been occupied by a previous Chief.
Jessica Innes rapped on the door of the study.
‘Edmund? I have some visitors here to see you. From London.’
There was no response, and they stood in awkward silence.
She was about to knock again when the door opened, and Innes stood there in his dressing gown and slippers. He seemed to have shrunk since Rachel had last seen him. His face was narrower at the cheekbones but his jowls were still there, as if Giacometti had started work at the top of his head but abandoned the job halfway through.
He shuffled out of the room, peering through his spectacles with watery eyes.
‘I wondered if it might be you,’ he said. ‘I see you’ve brought some friends.’
Chapter 65
The door of the room in the basement of Lusaka airport swung open and five men marched in. All wore fatigues, and were armed. Dark didn’t offer any resistance as they escorted him from the room and bundled him into an unmarked station-wagon outside. Someone placed a blindfold over his eyes and tied his wrists together, a voice called out ‘Go!’ and the engine started up.
Half an hour later, he was roughly dragged out and taken into a cool house. They led him down into a basement and tore off his blindfold – the room was empty. They left him, and he paced the concrete floor. The summit was due to start later that morning, but the thugs at the airport had taken his watch so he had no idea how much time he had left. Two hours? Three? Finally, the door opened and a small, neat-looking man entered. He wore a short-sleeved white shirt, slacks and sandals, and he had glasses and a neat beard. He approached Dark and stared down at him.
‘I’m Matthew Charamba,’ he said. ‘I’d very much like to know why you are looking for me.’
Dark breathed out in relief. ‘My name is Paul. I have a son with your daughter, Hope. I think I know who’s taken them, and I’ve come to try to get them back, with your help.’
Charamba looked at him, his expression impassive.
‘Why should I believe you?’
Dark took a step closer to the man. ‘Because it’s the truth. I knew her as Claire. She has a birthmark inside her left elbow, the shape of a teardrop. She has a smile that makes you think someone has turned the lights on. She has tiny dimples in her cheeks that you only see if you’re very close. We love each other, and we love our son, Ben.’
Dark had spoken without altering his voice, as though reciting a poem. But now he saw that Charamba was crying softly. He had opened up Dark’s wallet and found the photograph of the three of them. He waved a hand at Gib
o and the others.
‘Get out,’ he said. ‘Leave us.’
Chapter 66
Rachel asked Innes if she could use his telephone, and he took her into the conservatory. She dialled, her hand trembling.
‘Savage and Cooper.’
‘Phoenix,’ she said. ‘It’s terribly urgent.’
There was a pause on the line and then a familiar voice came on. ‘You looking for His Lordship?’ said Tombes, ignoring protocol. ‘He’s not here, is he? Buggered off to leave us plebeians slaving away.’
She pushed her fingers into her temple in frustration. She couldn’t really face calling his house and having Celia pick up instead of him. ‘When did he go home?’
‘Home? He’s gone out to Rhodesia. Left about an hour ago.’
It came like a punch to her chest. She hadn’t seen that coming, but of course. Of course he bloody had.
‘I need you to make some calls for me, Keith,’ she said. ‘Several calls, in fact. Do you have a pen handy?’
Tombes laughed. ‘I’ve been waiting for you to ask, Your Highness.’
Rachel replaced the receiver and stood for a moment, thinking. Then she picked it up again and dialled a number in Chancery Lane.
‘Good morning, Public Record Office.’
‘Good morning. I’d like to speak to Daniel Gold, please.’
Chapter 67
‘You haven’t told them?’ said Dark, surprised. ‘Your men.’
‘I haven’t told anyone. They said if I breathed a word of it they would kill them both, and I believe them.’
‘I see. And what exactly have they demanded of you?’
Charamba explained the script he was to read from at the summit and Dark listened in silence. It was much as he had suspected.
‘The first thing you have to understand,’ he said, ‘is that they have no intention of letting them go after the summit. Far too risky. They’ll kill them both.’
Charamba looked at him, his face frozen in shock at the words.
‘How can you be so sure?’
Dark didn’t reply for a few seconds. Then he said: ‘I have experience of operations like this. We need to formulate a plan and we need to do it now. How large is your delegation?’
Charamba grimaced. ‘Two. Just me and my bodyguard.’ It had been a deliberate attempt to put him in his place by Nkomo and his cronies, but he’d had no choice but to accept.
Dark took this in. ‘Do you have any maps?’ he asked. ‘The more detailed the better.’
Charamba stared at the strange man who had dropped into his world, and weighed the way he had acted and spoken. Then he glanced back down at the photograph still in his hands and made a decision. He stood and walked to the door.
‘Phillip, come in here. And bring the others. Everyone in the house.’
Chapter 68
Monday, 25 August 1975, Victoria Falls
It was a quarter to ten in the morning. From the Rhodesian border post, Ian Smith walked slowly onto the bridge. He had put on a dark suit and tie, with a white shirt and matching pocket handkerchief. Flanked by advisers and security men, he squinted in the sharp sunlight and nodded at the assembled photographers and pressmen, but said nothing – he had made a statement at his hotel earlier, filled with the usual platitudes. The group walked along the platform next to the compartments, then climbed the small mobile staircase and entered Car 49.
At the Zambian end of the bridge, John Vorster and Kenneth Kaunda began their walk from the opposite direction. Kaunda, looking relaxed in one of his elegant safari suits, smiled and waved his handkerchief at the onlookers. Directly behind them were the Zimbabweans and their retinues: Nkomo, Sithole, Muzorewa and the latest addition, Matthew Charamba. When they reached the platform, the group paused briefly as Vorster and Kaunda gave brief comments, then they too walked towards the ‘peace train’.
As he made his way down to the central carriage, Roy Campbell-Fraser looked out of the window at the splendour of the Falls. The South Africans were overseeing the security with help from the Zambians so he had no say in the arrangements, but he’d had a discreet word with the officers in charge and had been impressed by their thoroughness. The bridge had several inbuilt advantages as a location: the ravines either side of it and the raging water below made for a formidable natural barrier. Security posts had been erected on both sides, and the entire area had been closed off to aircraft, meaning that any approach from the sky would be instantly detected by the South African Air Force and shot down. Tourist trails around the edge of the Falls had been cordoned off, and the South Africans had visited all possible sniper positions and reconnoitred nearby villages.
Campbell-Fraser opened the door to the central carriage and was greeted by the BOSS agent responsible for guarding it. He saw from the place-cards that he wasn’t to be seated at the table itself, but directly to the right behind Smith. Still, it was a bird’s-eye view. He helped himself to a glass of whisky from the bar in the corner and waited as the room began to fill up.
In the first of the Zambian carriages, a South African security officer held a German Shepherd on a short leash. As Matthew Charamba entered, he asked him to raise his arms so he could be frisked.
‘It’s just a formality,’ he said, noting Charamba’s expression.
‘Are you conducting the same formalities with the men on the other side of the carriage?’
‘Of course,’ the man replied with restrained equanimity. ‘Everyone who enters the train is being checked. This is for your own security.’
Charamba raised his arms and the man patted him down.
‘And who is this?’ he said when he had finished, nodding at the figure behind Charamba.
‘Phillip Gibo, my private secretary.’
The South African looked down at a clipboard and then up again at Gibo.
‘All right,’ he said. He frisked him, too, then gestured at the attaché case in his hand. ‘Open it, please.’
Gibo glanced at Charamba.
‘That contains my private papers,’ Charamba said.
The BOSS man glared. ‘Nothing goes beyond this point without being checked.’
Charamba took a breath and nodded. Gibo placed the case on the ground and opened the combination. It clicked open, and he lifted it back up to show the South African its contents. The South African flicked his fingers over the papers, fingering the edges of the case. Then he clicked his teeth at the German Shepherd, which bounced up on its hind legs and sniffed at the case.
After a few moments the man nodded and let them through to the central carriage, where they took their seats on their side of the table.
Chapter 69
The Grumman Gulfstream II landed on the airstrip at Inkomo at just after eight o’clock in the evening. Sandy Harmigan stepped onto the tarmac and felt the heat rush over him. For a moment, he felt he was back in Malaya. He turned back to the plane and extended his hand to his wife.
‘Mind your step,’ he said.
She glowered at him. He hadn’t wanted her to come, but she had insisted. She liked to protect her investments, she’d said, a little too pointedly for his liking.
They reached the foot of the steps. In the dim haze ahead, a large man in camouflage gear was striding towards him.
‘Pete Voers,’ he said, sticking out a hand. ‘Major Campbell-Fraser sent me to pick you both up.’ He glanced up at the jet. ‘We don’t get too many of these landing here.’
‘No,’ said Celia Harmigan with a chilly smile, ‘I don’t imagine you do.’
Voers considered responding, but decided against it. They walked towards the barracks. ‘I’ll show you the prisoners,’ he said. The Commander had said they would want to inspect the goods.
Chapter 70
Roy Campbell-Fraser was tired and angry. Despite the air conditioning, the carriage felt muggy and claustrophobic – the stale sweat of twenty men pressed against each other around the narrow table lingered in his nostrils.
The summit had
been going on for nearly two hours, but there had been more breaks than actual talk. Vorster and Kaunda had given some peppy opening remarks but had left ten minutes later – the acrimony had begun within moments of their vacating the train. Now several of the delegates were openly doodling as the others spoke, and Smith was becoming increasingly irate at the lack of progress.
Campbell-Fraser was furious for another reason: Matthew Charamba hadn’t spoken a word so far. He had simply sat there, stone-facedly listening to the others speak. What the hell was he playing at? Campbell-Fraser glared at him across the table, thinking about his next move.
Chapter 71
‘What does your daddy do?’ said the boy in English. They had quickly established it was their only shared language.
‘He helps people,’ said Ben.
‘My daddy’s a soldier,’ said the other proudly. ‘He will be back soon.’
‘Mine, too,’ said Ben.
In the small nursery section behind the barracks, Hope tried not to cry as she watched Ben playing with around a dozen other children on the linoleum floor, a ritual that seemed to take place every evening before the children’s bedtime. A few other mothers looked on, but they sat apart and none of them talked to her. Joshua Ephibe stood by the door watching the scene, a machine-pistol by his side. She wondered if he would have the guts to shoot her if she just took Ben in her arms and made a run for the door, but it was an idle thought – by her mental calculations in the car from the airport, they were less than fifty kilometres from Salisbury, but the view through the flyblown windowpanes confirmed that this was a military base, and the perimeter was patrolled by dozens of armed men.
Still, they had been let out into the open air now, and were staying in a tiny but clean room that felt a little less like a cell. There was running water and food was placed under their door twice a day. The threat of physical assault also seemed to have abated, at least for now. Life almost felt normal. But that was perhaps worse, she thought, that they might become used to this situation. She also knew there was a danger in feeling grateful to her captives – there had been a famous case a couple of years earlier during a bank robbery in Stockholm when just that had happened. She and Erik had watched the news, gripped by the evolving drama. But then, his name wasn’t really Erik and hers wasn’t Claire, so they had been enacting their own hidden drama as they’d sat on the cramped sofa together watching the television.