Maria was bound to arrive either in the Caymans or in the States. Not a good idea with Francine around.
She couldn’t be put off, she had every right to be there; I certainly couldn’t stop her from coming. Well, that just dropped me right into the dirty stuff again. I could just imagine Francine’s reaction - she would know what Maria and I had been doing; I already had experience of that. I wasn’t about to discuss this predicament with Gavin.
“Well, I’m not entirely convinced,” I said. “Let’s think about it.”
“Bullshit, I say, there’s nothing to think about.” Clearly, he was not prepared to be swayed otherwise.
“Listen, it’s a lot more complicated than that. We need to talk some more,” I said with little enthusiasm. This wasn’t going where I wanted to go.
“You’re concerned because Maria could pitch up and you would have her and Francine facing each other with you in the middle. Peter, you’re such a prick. If you hurt Francine, I’ll personally kick your fuckin’ ass. You can bet on it, okay?” He did not disguise his venom at all.
I wanted to say something appropriate like ‘Fuck you’ but thought better of it. I just walked away. Christ, the man was right, after all!
I drove home deep in thought. Francine had asked that I accompany her to her parents’ home for a family dinner, as it was her younger sister’s birthday. The birthday had actually been a week before and for some reason unbeknown to me, was postponed. I begged off, not particularly keen on the family. Oh, they were nice enough but the last time I had been there was for a late afternoon Sunday barbeque with perhaps six or seven people present, they all family. I had gone to get a beer out of the refrigerator, and met Francine’s mother, alone in the kitchen. When she realised there were just the two of us, she turned and stared at me.
“Are you sleeping with my daughter?” she asked.
My surprise at the question was so intense I choked on the beer; my cheeks bulged out like a balloon as I tried not to spew beer all over the kitchen. I waved my hand in apology, unable to speak, and fled outside where I immediately broke into a choking, coughing fit. The woman was mad - you don’t ask adults questions like that! She could have asked her daughter if she really wanted to know. For God’s sake, Francine was twenty-five!
Francine came over from where she had been talking to her sister.
“What’s up?” she asked.
“You won’t believe this! Your mother asked me whether we were fucking,” I whispered hoarsely.
Francine actually paled: then her blue eyes flashed and she stormed off before I could stop her. I wanted to tell her that her mother had actually put the question a lot more subtly. But it was now too late.
Well, a half-minute later we all could hear the sounds of an argument erupting from the kitchen, with Francine and her mother both yelling.
“What’s going on?” her bewildered father asked me.
“I haven’t a clue,” I said. This was getting out of hand. I checked that I had my car keys in my pocket: there might be a need to make a hasty departure! The two women were still yelling, her mother now matching Francine in volume. Fortunately, it was not possible to follow the screaming match. The next thing, Francine exited the backdoor in a rush, stormed towards me, grabbed my arm, pecked her father on the cheek, and then pulled me away.
“We are going... now!” she hissed and without any further farewells, dragged me to the car with her father calling to her from behind us. Fortunately, we had been the last to arrive and I could immediately reverse out into the street. I didn’t dawdle, not with both these two women angry and the father about to find out what happened.
So, I believed that I had every right to beg off and Francine didn’t blame me. She had not forgiven her mother either. Apparently, she had told her mother: “I’ll fuck whom I like whenever I like and it’s no fuckin’ concern of yours!” This did not go down well. Her mother was a regular churchgoer. She was appalled; the relationship had exploded into a rift. Her father had thought it best not to intervene.
I knew that if Francine and Liz accompanied us and Maria was to fly in, the whole fiasco would burst out into the open.
I decided that I was not going to let this happen.
Chapter Nineteen
Gavin arranged everything and did a fantastic job doing so. We submitted our flight plans to the ops centre: we were to land at Windhoek, then Ile de Sol in the Atlantic, and finally at George Town in the Cayman Islands in the Caribbean, where we would stay over for a few days before flying onto Witchita, Kansas in the States. Mike installed the long-range fuel tank in the cabin, but was still able to leave us the use of four passenger seats.
My attempts to keep Francine at home were of no avail. Her persistence, coupled to the fact the Gavin had insisted that Liz accompany us, had left me with no alternative but to agree to her joining us. Of course, I could not leave the matter there, and when speaking to Maria, told her that both my girlfriend and Gavin’s wife were accompanying me.
She certainly wasn’t slow on the uptake.
“So are you telling me that should I see her I am to act business-like and not waggle my ass at you?” she laughed sarcastically.
“Ja... that’s about it,” I replied. That was one way of putting it.
“Christ, you men are so damn stupid. Do you really think that with me breezing into your set-up, and with her knowing that I was present when your plane crashed etcetera, etcetera, that she won’t pick up the connection? Please, she picked it up before - she’ll be on super alert now!” Maria said forcefully.
She was right, and I said so, knowing that I would have to fill Francine in with the sordid details of my involvement with Maria. I wasn’t looking forward to that: she’d probably ban me from her bed. And Maria was not about to let me anywhere near her with Francine around. It seemed I was going to be sucking the hind tit and that would probably be the only tit I would be able to latch onto for a while. I decided I would tell Francine only at the last moment, maybe only once aboard the aircraft, as she would then be unable to pull out of the trip, but being saddled with me for a while, she might hopefully give me time to make amends.
The four of us departed Lanseria at dawn on a Tuesday, starting the two-hour flight to Eros Airport in Windhoek. We took the direct route, flying over Botswana at twenty-six thousand feet. Gavin was in command in the left hand seat, the two women seated directly behind us with the bulkhead in between. Mike had gone through the Citation with a toothcomb and passed it fit for the long flight to the States. Most of our friends amongst the airport personnel and flight crews knew that we were going, and we were pretty sure that Trichardt knew too, although we had heard nothing from him.
Maria had given me all the relevant details concerning the cash and diamonds and how I was to go about withdrawing these from the bank. We would have to produce identification and the deposit box key and bank receipt Maria had sent per registered post to a safe address in Johannesburg so that we could gain access to the safe deposit locker. In addition, the bank would require a code before they release the contents. Of course, they had no idea what was in the case. The money and diamonds had been repacked in a single container, one of those wheeled travel suitcases so fashionable amongst air travellers.
At first glance, it seemed that we had catered for all possible eventualities, but this was not true. We had no inkling whether Trichardt had accepted this flight as nothing out of the ordinary, or whether he saw this as an attempt to get in touch with Maria and his property.
In fact, it was not his property; from my point of view, he was merely a go-between, entitled to a commission certainly, but I was sure he would never see it like that. The real owner was UNITA or Savimbi and as far as I was concerned, they didn’t count.
Maria would not appear unannounced in the Caymans, but would remain inconspicuous, relying on us to set up
a safe meeting. We had her satellite phone number, which we could call from anywhere. She had put herself on standby mode, ready to communicate, her actual whereabouts unknown until we arranged to meet. We would only do this once we were certain that neither of us were under observation. Of course, how we were supposed to establish whether we were being watched was another matter entirely.
During the two-hour flight from Lanseria to Windhoek, I swapped seats with Liz and sat down in the seat next to Francine. She poured me a cup of coffee from a thermos flask.
“Look, sweetheart,” I said nervously. “There are a few things I need to tell you.”
“Really!” she said with obvious feigned surprise. “I was wondering when you would decide to tell me. I can think of a several things you failed to clarify and a few things you have not said at all.”
Those ominous rumblings grew louder, but I gritted my teeth and ignored the sarcasm.
“This flight to America is really a cover-up for another operation. I had to wait until we were airborne before I could say anything. It has everything to do with your kidnapping and the information that Trichardt was trying to glean from me.”
She was shocked. She had obviously been expecting something else.
“You know I tried to dissuade you from coming on this trip but it would’ve been too dangerous to tell you about it then.”
“Could something happen on the plane?”
“No, I really think that’s highly unlikely and I do believe that nobody, and that includes Trichardt, really knows the underlying reason for this flight.”
“For God’s sake, what’s it all about?”
In detail, I took her through the sequence of events: the flight to Jamba, the crash, the hiding of the briefcases, Kowalski’s sudden death, and Maria’s and my decision to keep the location of the hidden briefcases to ourselves.
“Of course! The information Gerber and Rockell wanted was the location of the cases. That’s right isn’t?” she asked.
I nodded. “Yes.”
“Don’t worry, I’m glad you didn’t tell me, I would have done the same knowing what I now know. Was Gavin involved from the start?”
“No, initially he wasn’t involved, but Maria and I decided to rope him in for a third share - he was my partner and we needed his assistance to get the briefcases out of Angola from under Trichardt’s noses.”
“Does Liz know?”
“Not yet, but Gavin will tell her soon if hasn’t yet done so,” I replied, stretching my hand over the aisle and taking her hand in relief. This was going well.
She stared for a moment, looking down at my hand. I could see her mentally putting all the pieces of the puzzle together.
“Right. I understand now... Maria was in Johannesburg for a while and she is the woman you were fucking behind my back.”
Her body seemed to shiver with suppressed indignation and hurt. Christ! There’s nothing like being blunt, I thought.
“You don’t have to reply, I know now.” Her lower lip quivered with righteous anger and sorrow.
I couldn’t bring myself to reply. I desperately wanted to say that I was sorry, but just couldn’t. The answer was in my eyes and in my body language.
“Are we going to meet with her?” she asked, touching the corner an eye with an issue.
“Yes, probably in the Caymans.”
“Does she know I know?”
“No.”
She had let my hand go but she now took it again.
“You promise that me this will never happen again?” she asked looking me in the eye.
I returned the look. “It won’t happen again,” I said.
I realized that if I broke this promise, it was over. She was resolute, and would never allow me to belittle her again. I had no idea what Maria saw in our relationship; neither of us had ever referred to it as one of love, we seemed to accept these risqué dalliances as no more than sexual attraction. Well, considering the intensity of these torrid moments that was putting it mildly. But I could hardly put it that way to Francine! She’d probably consider me a sexual deviant! Women never saw these illicit, chance encounters that way!
In addition, I would have to ensure that my future meetings with Maria were not in some secluded hotel room where the isolation from others and our proximity could affect us. I well knew where this had led to before.
What would be difficult was explaining to Maria that our relationship must remain platonic. She’d probably think this was hilarious, given the past. Only adolescents encountering love or sex for the first time said such things!
Fortunately, Francine did not know what I was thinking.
“You will tell Maria that it is over?” she asked again insistently.
There was no getting out of this one.
“I’ll tell her as soon as I can.”
Eros is a municipal airport, the home of privately owned aircraft and small charter companies. Aware that we were a cross-border flight, the air traffic controller directed us on landing to taxi to an area in front of a small building that housed the customs and excise offices. The instructions were that as we were only refuelling and immediately departing, no customs or passport clearance was necessary. However, I obviously had to go into town and we finally decided that Francine should accompany me, as she could drive the hired car while I popped into the bank.
“Listen Peter, hire a big car, not some small budget car,” Gavin said. I wasn’t quite sure what he was getting at, but agreed. Namib Car Rentals has a car lot on the airport and I hired a Toyota Land Cruiser SUV, a powerful and heavy, all-wheel-drive station wagon. The transaction was simple and a mere formality. We carried the black flight suitcase with us, which I dragged by the handle into the passport control office where we both produced our passports. South Africa and Namibia share a common currency and movement between the countries requires no visa or any other documentation.
“I thought you were merely in transit,” the official frowned at me.
“I just want to leave these samples with a business acquaintance of mine in town. We shouldn’t be more than an hour or two,” I smiled cheerfully at him.
“What’s in the case?” the uniformed coloured official said.
“Samples of medicines and medical equipment.” I lifted the case onto the case rack next to the counter and began to unzip it.
” No need,” he said, lifting his hand.
“Thanks.” I wheeled the case to the car rental lot and put it into the trunk of the SUV.
The drive into the city was no more than five miles, and the Standard Bank was in the main street.
Windhoek is situated in the tropics and although still midmorning, the sun burnt down out of a clear sky, already hot, a good reason to engage the car’s air-conditioning. I knew the town well and we were soon parked near the bank. We left the case in the vehicle. I hoped we had chosen the case well and that it was similar to the case Maria had deposited in the bank.
Francine remained in the car. I approached the enquiries counter and asked to have access to our deposit locker. I produced my identification document, signed a few forms, and showed that I had my key. I was shown into a huge vault and led to a side room, my escort carrying a thin file. We stopped in front of one of the largest lockers and he inserted his key.
“Mr. van Onselen, please give me the code,” he said opening the file, holding it so its contents were hidden from me.
I had memorized the alphanumeric number and slowly and distinctly rattled this off.
He nodded his head. “Please insert your key.”
I did. We then both simultaneously turned the keys, and the door swung open. In the locker, a black suitcase with wheels, similar to that in the SUV, stood on its side. The moment the door opened, the immaculately dressed bank official left me.
I removed the suitcase, closed the door, and removed my key.
I had told the bank that I would have no further requirement for the locker after to-day. I rang the bell the official had indicated I was to use and he returned immediately. I handed him my key and he then escorted me from the vault. I made my way to the exit, wheeling the case behind me. Actually, it was light enough to carry.
I had nearly made it to the exit when there was a loud call behind me. I swung round. It was the bank official. My heart almost stopped. What was wrong?
“I’ve a call here for you, Mr. Van Onselen,” he said, handing me the enquiries’ counter phone..
“Hello?” I answered apprehensively.
“Is that you, Peter?” Gavin’s voice was agitated.
“Yes, what’s wrong?” I asked keeping my voice down.
“You won’t believe this - Trichardt’s just stepped off a Learjet with three of his men. They’ve passed through customs. There was a car waiting for them.”
I felt myself grow cold. “How long ago was this and what car is it?”
“Two or three minutes ago. It’s a silver three series.” I wondered whether he had left anybody on the aircraft. He probably had, I thought.
“Christ! Just get ready to depart quickly.”
I thanked the official and quickly moved to the exit, throwing the suitcase into the back of the SUV and walked swiftly round to the driver side.
“Move over,” I said to Francine.
”Do you have everything? What’s wrong, you look worried?”
“Trichardt’s here but I’m bloody sure he has no idea where we are and what we’re doing in town. There is no way that he could have found out about the case and the bank. I think he is just proceeding on the assumption that this flight may have something to do with his diamonds.”
“Are we in danger?” she asked hoarsely her eyes wide with alarm.
“Not yet - don’t panic and don’t breathe so rapidly - you’ll hyperventilate,” I said trying to sound calm. “I don’t think he even knows where to look for us.” I hoped I sounded confident and in control. “Oh, keep a lookout for a silver BMW three series - that’s what they’re driving. There should be four men in the car.”
Diamonds Are But Stone Page 15