by Alan Glynn
Rundle isn’t sure what Kimbela is getting at here. Could it actually be the big kiss-off? No reason why not. Because the fact is, like it or lump it, China is going through an accelerated industrial revolution at the moment and has unlimited cash to feed its voracious appetite for natural resources – the kind of cash that the US these days can only dream of.
Highest bidder wins.
But what made the Buenke deal a little different, Rundle thinks, and where BRX were ahead of the curve, was that no one really knew what they were after. People assumed it was copper, and while Buenke certainly had some copper, there were better locations elsewhere – farther south, for example – that the Chinese would have been more likely to favour.
Rundle remembers the negotiations the way you might remember a particularly awful root canal procedure. First you had that stupid conference in Ireland, with Gianni Bonacci poking his nose in and Dave Conway pushing for more money. Then, after that whole mess was resolved, you had the meeting in Paris with Kimbela and the elaborate sham of pretending they were signing an actual, legally binding contract.
But it suited both parties at the time, and the arrangement has worked perfectly well ever since. That is, until the goddamn Chinese started poking their noses in, looking to hoover up a few more mining concessions.
Putting ideas in people’s heads.
The problem is, BRX can’t just up sticks and go somewhere else. This is site-specific shit here. ‘You know,’ he says, fixing his gaze at a point on the floor, ‘asleep at the wheel, I’m not sure about that. But maybe . . . maybe we haven’t been keeping our eye on the ball.’
‘As you like,’ Kimbela says. ‘Though tell me, who is this we? The Americans? The West in general?’ He pauses. ‘Because now, it seems, it’s the turn of the East.’
Rundle looks up. Kimbela is staring at him.
This could be awkward.
Without some sort of local support, BRX would have to leave the region, no question about it. Without the colonel, however, you could perhaps negotiate some deal with a rival militia group. But that would be a very long shot indeed, and not the outcome from all of this that Jimmy Vaughan wants to hear about.
Nor is it a card that Rundle can play right now, sitting in front of Kimbela, looking him straight in the eye.
Hey fatso, how’d ya like a bullet in the brain?
Rundle leans forward. He’s beyond tired at this point. ‘Colonel,’ he says, ‘stop fucking with me, OK? I need to know.’ He holds his hands out in surrender. ‘What was the message?’
Kimbela laughs at this. It’s clear he’s lapping up Rundle’s unease, his humiliation. But as before, he stops quite abruptly. ‘Very well, my friend. The Chinese, yes? They want to build a network here, a spider’s web of railroads and highways going out from Congo through Angola and Zambia and Tanzania to ports on either side of the continent. And you know why?’ He makes a snorting sound. ‘Of course you do. So they can come here, extract every mineral they can find from under the ground and cut down every tree in every forest and ship it all back to China.’ He holds up a finger. ‘But in exchange they will give us banks and soccer stadiums. Oh, and hospitals, too, and universities. And a functioning sewage system. And they want to do it all themselves, with imported labour, Chinese engineers, Chinese technicians, all living in temporary compounds, speaking Mandarin and eating chow mein. And no talk of human rights, either. None of that paternalistic bullshit we routinely get from you people about political transparency and fighting corruption.’ He stops and smiles. ‘Sounds good, yeah? Sweet? Tempting?’ The smile quickly fades. ‘If you’re in Kinshasa, maybe. If you’re already in the fucking government. But not for someone like me. Out here. In the hills.’ He thumps his chest. ‘In this brave new world, there’s no place for someone like me.’
This is shouted.
Rundle flinches.
‘You Americans?’ Kimbela goes on. ‘You have no real policy for Africa. The politburo in Beijing, they’re thinking one hundred years into the future. But what are you doing? Setting up AFRICOM? With its headquarters in Stuttgart? Is that meant to be some kind of a joke? No, you’ve got nothing to offer us but bureaucracy and aid and inefficiency and . . .’ – he drags the words out – ‘spectacular ignorance. But you know what? It’s fine. I love it. Plus ça change.’
Rundle isn’t too sure what point Kimbela is trying to make here. He’s beginning to understand how J.J. felt, and it obviously shows in his face.
‘Look,’ Kimbela says, lowering his voice to a conspiratorial whisper, ‘what I’m telling you is, this thing, this arrangement we have.’ He waves a hand back and forth between them. ‘It suits me very well. I don’t want it to change.’ There is a long pause, during which his smile slowly returns. ‘And that, my friend, is what I told your brother.’
*
‘Yes, but . . .’ Jimmy looks around this spectral hotel lobby. There’s nowhere to go, nowhere to sit. The place is empty. Are they just going to stand here? He looks back at Conway. ‘Protect you from what?’
‘My part in what happened. Not that Phil Sweeney actually knows what happened. He doesn’t. Which is something, by the way, you should get straight in your head right now.’
Jimmy nods.
Conway then seems to brace himself. He picks a spot on the dusty concrete floor to stare at, and starts talking. ‘I’d been trying to sell First Continental for years. It was one of my old man’s early companies and originally consisted of five copper mines spread out over various parts of eastern Congo, but with what was going on there, the unrest, the war, he lost most of the concessions and when he died there was just one left, near a place called Buenke, but even that hadn’t been operational for about five or six years. I tried to sell it, couldn’t and then more or less forgot about it.’ He looks up at Jimmy for a moment and a flicker of doubt crosses his face. ‘You do know what I’m talking about, right? My father? Conway & Co.? I’m assuming you’ve got background on all of this. You actually are a journalist?’
Jimmy nods. ‘Yeah, of course I am.’
Conway narrows his eyes. ‘Right. Anyway, I get this offer, out of the blue, for First Continental and the mine at Buenke. It’s from BRX and is decent enough, I suppose, but I’m thinking, they’re a huge company, interests everywhere, always expanding, maybe they’ll shell out a little more.’ He shrugs, half apologetically. ‘Look, I’m a businessman. You don’t just accept an initial offer without . . .’ He hesitates, then waves the point away. ‘So. It turns out that Clark Rundle, the CEO of BRX, is coming to Ireland to attend some conference and he suggests that we meet up to discuss the offer. Now at the time, I’ll be honest with you, I thought this was pretty weird. A guy like him? Of his stature? Negotiating the sale of an old copper mine?’ He pauses. ‘But what was I going to do? Not go?’ He pauses again. ‘It was a weekend thing, at Drumcoolie Castle in Tipperary, corporate ethics in the age of globalisation, some crap like that. Anyway, I meet Rundle on the Friday evening, with a couple of his cronies, and we get on pretty well. At first, he seems like a bit of a stuffed shirt, but then he loosens up. I’m flattered too by all the attention I’m receiving, and then doubly so – more, in fact – when I realise just who one of the guys with him is, an old guy, James Vaughan. Of the Oberon Capital Group. Who I’m now looking at and thinking, what’s he doing here? He isn’t listed as one of the delegates – I checked up on it later. Nevertheless, he seems to be paying very close attention to everything that’s happening, and in particular to the conversation Rundle and I are having. Strange thing is, as the evening progresses, and although they don’t say anything about it explicitly, I get the impression from both of them that they’re excited, giddy almost, at the prospect of acquiring this shitty little copper mine in the middle of nowhere.’ He pauses. ‘Now why would that be, I find myself asking. There’s also something arrogant about them, in their attitude to me, like I’m stupid and won’t notice what’s going on. Needless to say, that rankles.’ He stops and takes a
deep breath. ‘Jesus. I can’t believe I’m doing this.’
Jimmy doesn’t move a muscle.
‘OK.’ Conway takes another deep breath. ‘You know, when I look back at it now, at that evening – we were in the main lounge, the Angler’s it’s called – I can see that everything was in place for what happened afterwards. We were there. Gianni Bonacci was there. He was a couple of tables over, with some of the Nike people. And Susie Monaghan was there, up at the bar with Niall Feeley. It’s like a . . . a tableau.’ He pauses to visualise it.
Jimmy tries to visualise it, too. Lounge of a big country hotel? Mahogany-panelled walls? Red leather armchairs? Fine art prints of hunting and angling scenes?
He looks at Conway, who seems lost in reverie. Jimmy has some questions here, needs certain things clarified, but does he ask now, or wait? He waits about two seconds. ‘How did you know them all?’
Conway looks at him. ‘Dublin. Everyone knows everyone. I knew Niall from years back, and of course I knew Susie. Who didn’t?’ He sighs. ‘And for some reason Bonacci stuck out. He didn’t have that executive look.’ He pauses again, his eyes busy, as though he’s trying to work out how much he’s said so far and if there’s any chance he might be able to just cut loose at this point and stop.
Jimmy jumps in. ‘So, what then?’
‘Well, later on, I got talking to Niall and Susie at the bar, and somehow Gianni Bonacci ended up joining us. You know how it is, people come, people go, but at the same time I think he was mesmerised by Susie. He kept staring at her from his table and eventually just came over and wormed his way in. He started talking to Niall and within ten minutes had got himself invited to go on this big, all-bloke trip Niall and Ted Walker were organising for Sunday. They’d hired a helicopter and were going to be scouring the Donegal coastline for good spots where they could go paragliding later in the summer. Anyway, after a while I got talking to him myself and before I realised he was a UN inspector I was telling him about the mine at Buenke and how I was in the process of selling it to Clark Rundle. I mean, why not? It wasn’t a state secret or anything. I didn’t go into any of the details, but he seemed very interested and after another couple of drinks started asking me if I knew what was going on in that part of the DRC and if I’d ever heard of Arnold Kimbela. I said of course I had.’ He pauses. ‘Even though I hadn’t.’
‘Who?’
‘Arnold Kimbela? Local warlord. I checked up on him later, too. He was originally the leader of a Mobutuist rebel faction, but then he went on to gain control of this huge mineral-rich territory in the east, which he now runs as a sort of de facto state. All mining contracts and land sales there have to go through him. He also has an iron grip on the local population. Torture, rape, mutilation, whatever. At its best it’s a form of indentured labour, and at its worst . . . I don’t know. When First Continental was running the mine there, at Buenke, it wasn’t anything like that, it was a proper mine, so . . .’
Jimmy swallows. What?
‘So. I don’t know,’ Conway goes on. ‘Apparently he’s a very smart guy, from a rich background, educated in Belgium and all of that. What can I say?’ He shrugs it off. ‘But look, the point is, Bonacci seemed to get more and more puzzled at the idea of a company like BRX wanting to buy a copper mine, and in that particular location. BRX is a private company, he said, and very secretive, so that sort of information doesn’t usually get out. Which is when I realised I should have kept my mouth shut. I toyed with the idea of letting Clark Rundle know what I’d done, but I decided against it. I chickened out, basically. I should have told him, though.’ He pauses. ‘Because that might have . . .’ He looks away, shaking his head.
Jimmy glances down, and sees the notebook in his hand. He isn’t taking any notes. Should he be? Where’s his pen? How’s he going to remember all of this?
Shut up.
Conway looks back. ‘Anyway, at that point Bonacci’s attention was very much divided between me and Susie, and of course Susie won out, especially as she started flirting with him, and pretty outrageously. The reason for this was because her ex-fiancé, Gary Lynch, who she was more or less stalking, had appeared in the bar and she was trying to get his attention. She even left with Bonacci, though no one seems to know how far that went. One thing is certain, though, she was doing a lot of coke. What’s also undisputed is that Bonacci spent most of the next day trailing along behind her like a lovesick puppy. Now I didn’t see any of this. I was off in a conference room with my solicitor poring over the contract. But what also must have happened during the day, at some point, and which nobody saw, was that Susie and Bonacci broke into – or somehow inveigled their way into – Clark Rundle’s room and went through his papers. Rundle said later on that his stuff had been disturbed, that certain things had been moved. No one can know now, but what seems likely or at least possible is that Bonacci shot his mouth off to Susie about BRX and the mine, maybe trying to impress her, maybe genuinely concerned about it, and that Susie, crazy bitch that she was, suggested they both go and find out more. Sneak into Rundle’s room. It’d be a hoot. Come on. Carpe fucking diem.’ He rolls his eyes. ‘Now this probably isn’t the sort of thing Bonacci would have done in a million years, but there he is, who knows, maybe coked out of it himself, and with this gorgeous woman egging him on, going, have you no balls? I have. Come on.’
Conway stops, stares ahead, seems to be considering what he’s just said, trying it out for size. He looks back at Jimmy. ‘Maybe that’s not how it was, not exactly, but it fits. It explains what happened later.’
Jimmy nods. He’s reluctant to open his mouth, in case this stops.
He nods again, hoping it will act as a prompt.
‘In the meantime,’ Conway says after a while, ‘I was still locked away with my solicitor, but I had this great idea. I decided to get on the phone to Larry Bolger and persuade him to come down to the conference, swing by for an hour or two, show his face. It was a Saturday, he was due in Cork anyway for a thing that evening, so it wouldn’t be a big deal. I’d done a lot of favours for Larry over the years, and this wasn’t asking much. I figured if I could be seen hanging out with the prime minister, introducing him around, it’d strengthen my negotiating position with BRX. So after a bit of cajoling Larry agrees. He shows up around six o’clock and before you know it we’re all sitting at a table in the main dining room – me, Larry, Clark Rundle, James Vaughan and this other character, Don Ribcoff. There’s minimal security, just a couple of guys on the door, and the atmosphere is very relaxed, very congenial. Larry and Vaughan, it transpires, have met before and have plenty to talk about. I’m going over some figures with Rundle, and for those few moments, sitting there at that table, I feel brilliant. I mean, think about it, with James Vaughan beside me I’m one degree of separation from John F. Kennedy. It’s amazing. I feel like I’m a player, like I’ve arrived or something, and this is just the beginning.’ He exhales loudly. ‘What a joke.’ He looks away again.
Jimmy waits. Then can’t wait any longer. ‘What happened?’
‘What happened? We’re all there, in the middle of our various conversations, when Gianni Bonacci arrives into the dining room and walks right up to our table. He says his name, that he’s with the UN Corporate Affairs Commission and then he slaps a piece of paper down in front of Clark Rundle and in the space of time it takes for the two guys on the door to get over and grab him he says, Thanaxite? You’ve found thanaxite in eastern Congo? And you’re going to be extracting it? Does anyone know about this? Then he bangs his fist on the table and says, We need to talk. And that’s it. They drag him off.’ Conway clears his throat. ‘Was Susie there in the background, hovering outside? I don’t know, maybe she was, I can’t remember, I didn’t see, but what I do remember is the shockwave of panic around that table, Jesus Christ, it was palpable. Rundle was as white as a ghost. He grabbed the piece of paper, looked at it and then flung it at Ribcoff. From what I could see it was a printout of a photo, probably taken on a mobile phone
– a photo of a document. I didn’t see what was on it, but I didn’t need to, we’d all heard what Bonacci said. Anyway, it was the strangest thing, over the next minute or two, no more, Larry and I just sat there, frozen, not even daring to look at each other, as this desperate, whispered conversation took place between Rundle, Vaughan and Ribcoff. I don’t know if it was blind panic on their part, or . . . or contempt for us, but it was as if we weren’t even there. Vaughan asked how Bonacci had gotten a hold of this information, and Rundle said that didn’t matter now, Jesus, because the situation had to be contained, and immediately. Ribcoff started to say he’d look into it, but Rundle said no, looking into it was for later, right now this little fucker, whoever he was, had to be stopped, he had to be prevented from causing any further damage. Ribcoff put his hands up and said, fine, tell me what to do, and Rundle said, whatever you have to . . . clean him out first, bleach him, and then . . . whatever, but don’t make it obvious, don’t make it about him, he’s UN for Christ’s sake, I don’t know, cause a diversion, some sort of distraction. There was a silence and then Ribcoff said right, and left the table. After another tense pause, Rundle looked at both me and Larry and said, Gentlemen, listen, I’m really sorry about this . . . but before he could get any further, more security arrived and there was a bit of a flurry and Larry was whisked away and then Vaughan got up and left as well . . .’
Conway suddenly seems overwhelmed. He turns away and starts massaging his temples. He walks over to the big, grimy window that looks out onto the empty plaza.
Jimmy stands there, watching, waiting. Questions are piling up in his mind now. He tries to filter some of them out and to prioritise others – the obvious first question being, what is thanaxite?
That’s the word – the name – Conway used, isn’t it?
Jimmy pats his jacket to find a pen. He flips his notebook open and scribbles the word down – a preliminary version of it, at least – and then a few quick notes.