Plantation A Legal Thriller

by J M S Macfarlane

  Chapter 103

  For a moment, Brandt seemed overcome but then regained his composure. “Sergeant, listen to me,” he said. “There are crates of weapons in the hold. This entire area is a cover for an arms smuggling operation. Guns and explosives have been smuggled into South Africa from this yard. As a representative of my government, I’ll be applying for the extradition of the ringleaders and that their organisation here be destroyed.”

  The Sergeant was politely indifferent.

  “That’s a political matter. Our country has no diplomatic ties with South Africa – but – we do not support terrorism.”

  That was the official line. The police in Freetown and the Sierra Leone government had no sympathy or contacts with the apartheid regime. But it was their job to uphold the law – when it suited them.

  Over the next few hours, the police made a clean sweep of the breaker’s yard and arrested twenty three people.

  One of them was Akuwe Kikuna who had been asleep in one of the cabins of a half-demolished freighter. Ashby pointed him out to the Sergeant. Before Kikuna was taken to the lock-up in Freetown, Ashby spoke to him.

  “We meet again, Mr Kikuna. You know the Greek shipowners and Captain Christoforou and the Chief Engineer, Keo, don’t you ? And you know all about the arms smuggling and where it's coming from. I’m right, aren’t I ?” Kikuna looked blankly at him and sneered.

  “Leave him to us, Mr Ashby,” said the Sergeant. “You needn’t worry. From what you tell me, the Nigerians want him. And so do the South Africans. And I wouldn’t be surprised if we do too. And if I look back in my records, there may be one or two outstanding warrants for him from other countries in the region. Never seems to take a holiday, does he ?”

  When the detainees had all been taken to Freetown, the sun was rising. Ashby asked the Sergeant if he and Brandt could look around the yard for evidence. The Sergeant was non-committal but agreed that it might save him time. Then all of them went to the old cargo carrier which Brandt had boarded during the night.

  The South African led the climb up the gangway to the main deck and showed the police the forward hold.

  “There are crates of guns down there. It’s my job to find out where they’re coming from. When I got down into the hold last night, there were the same type of crates as the ones we found in Cape Town. They were on a ship like this called the Marseillaise. Freetown was its last port of call before it sailed to South Africa. The crates we found on the Marseillaise were full of guns and explosives. I’m sure they came from here and that the Marseillaise came from here.”

  The Sergeant told one of his men to go with Brandt and check the hold. Then, he turned to Ashby.

  “There was a lot of commotion at the station last night. When you rushed in to tell us your friend was in trouble, we didn’t have time for a chat. So, now that we do have the time, how are you connected with all of this, Mr Ashby ? Why have you come to Freetown with a South African uh...’government representative’ ?”

  “Don’t get the wrong idea, Sergeant – I have no link with South Africa. I run a large insurance company in London. Here’s my card. Two years ago, we received a claim from a Greek shipping company. One of their ships, the Captain Stratos, was supposed to have sunk with everyone on board. What really happened was that the owners scuttled their ship and claimed on their policy with us. When we questioned the claim, they sued us in court for twenty million pounds. At the moment, they’re close to getting the money. If they succeed, it could wipe us out. In the past few weeks, I’ve been trying to uncover the fraud. A contact of mine in London from the Security Service said that the shipowners were smugglers. I found proof of that in Athens and in Cape Town. And now the trail has led me here. Somehow, the fraud is mixed up in it all.”

  “If your Security Service knows about the smuggling, they must have infiltrated the network – then why is it still going on ? Are the British turning a blind eye ?”

  “I really can’t say. My concern is with proving the fraud. There’s no doubt that the shipowners are criminals. The problem is, I can’t prove it – or at least, not yet. A judge in London will want evidence that the owners and Captain conspired together to sink their ship.”

  “Fraud and conspiracy are very hard to prove.”

  “We can agree on that. The original claim said that the officers and crew had all gone down with their ship. Then two years later, in Athens, a fortnight ago, we found the Captain himself, large as life and in good health.”

  “There’s your proof of conspiracy.”

  “Not at all. The shipowners changed their story. They said the Captain must have stolen the cargo and that he and the crew sank the ship. Dead men tell no tales. The owners denied they had any part in it. It was all a pack of lies, of course.”

  “It’s still theft and criminal acts at sea. Isn’t that enough to stop any claim on the insurance ?”

  “No, it isn’t. The policy actually covered the owners for this very thing – it's called ‘barratry’ – where the master and crew of a ship carry out criminal acts on the high seas and the owners are powerless to stop them.”

  “So, how does Cape Town come into this ? How did you turn up there, after you found the Captain in Athens ?”

  “The Captain refused to tell the police anything. If he had made a full confession, I wouldn’t be here. But we found his passport which showed that he went to Lagos with his crew, shortly after his ship sank. When I went there last week.....”

  “You went to Lagos ?”

  “Yes, I did. You see, when I was in Athens, we knew there had to be a reason why the Captain went to Lagos after scuttling his ship. In Lagos, we discovered that someone had booked hotel rooms for him and his crew, two weeks before the ship went down.”

  “Before it sank ? Then, that means.....they planned it all along. Well, it is all the proof you need, for sure.”

  “Not quite.”

  “What ? Your courts are mad.”

  “No, not mad, just demanding. In England, you have to prove everything. Anyway, there was no connection with the shipowners. But – when I was in Lagos, we uncovered a link between them and Benin Maritime – the company operated by Kikuna.”

  “Now, I’m interested in an official capacity. What can you tell me about him ? He is a big headache to all the police in maybe, three countries in west Africa, including us. So, what did you find out ?”

  “Kikuna’s company, Benin Maritime bought a cargo ship called the Marseillaise from a French company, possibly owned by the Greeks or even the arms smugglers. We just don’t know.”

  “The Marseillaise – that’s the ship spoken of by Brandt earlier where they found the arms in Cape Town ?”

  “That’s right. But there were two ships with the name Marseillaise...”

  “Two ships ? How can they be called the same thing ?”

  “Kikuna got rid of the original Marseillaise and transferred its papers and its name to a different ship called the Aegean Star.”

  “Why should he do that ?”

  “The Aegean Star was a phantom ship – it was supposed to have sunk in April ’79.”

  “A phantom ship.....a ghost ship.....so, its another big fraud.”

  “Right. It was probably used to make arms deliveries for the smugglers. Then, when things got too hot for them, they wanted to hide its real identity and use it later.”

  “But I still don’t see......how are they connected – the shipowners, the frauds and the smugglers ?”

  “I think it's the Captain. He was also in command of the Aegean Star. The shipowners pretended that it sank but later, it turned up here – in Freetown in 1982 – when it was transformed into the Marseillaise.”

  “Ah, now I see....so, you’re in Freetown to prove the Captain was running the smuggling ring and the frauds and was doing that for the shipowners.”

  “Exactly. I was able to follow his movements up to when he was in Lagos, one month after the Stratos sank but I wasn’t able to
find out why he went there with all his crew, only that he saw someone there every day. It must have been Kikuna. When I asked Kikuna if he knew the Greek Captain, he didn’t deny it but just laughed at me.”

  “We here must speak to the Greek police about this Captain fellow. What’s his name ?”

  “Constantinos Christoforou.”

  “And you do not know why he came to Lagos with all his crew ? Did you speak to the Nigerian police down there ?”

  “No. At that stage, there was no reason to bother them. All I found out in Lagos was that Captain Christoforou arrived on another ship, stayed a week and then went back to Athens.”

  “Then, Mr Ashby, I will leave you to look around for yourself. If you see anything, please tell me. Also, may I have copies of your adjuster’s reports ? They will help us with the prosecutions we will have to bring against these bad fellows here.”

  For the next two hours, Ashby explored the ship in the same way that he’d gone through the Marseillaise. This time, it was more difficult : there was no internal lighting or power generator. The work crew had left some electric torches but these were not especially powerful, as he made his way down the steel corridors and stairways in the darkness. As he went, he looked for anything which could tell him where the ship came from and what it was doing before it arrived in Freetown.

  Like the Marseillaise, there were no identifying numbers or names. Finally, when he heard the police calling him back on deck, he knew his search in Sierra Leone had come to an end. The trail extended no further. There was nothing to prove that Christoforou, Elefthriou and the smugglers had all been acting together.

  In comparison, Brandt and the police had better luck. The weapons they found in the crates were of the same Czech and Soviet manufacture as those found in neighbouring African countries blighted by civil war. Brandt said that the South Africans had been told by the Israelis that the Americans had traced the arms from Czechoslovakia to Bulgaria. From the Adriatic, they had been taken by Soviet freighter to locations in the Mediterranean where they were transferred to merchant ships for delivery to the rebels. The Aegean Star (Marseillaise) was one such ghost ship : if it was ever boarded, there would be no connection to the Russians who would appear blameless.

  That afternoon, Jonathan Mzenga wrote up his report ; Brandt spent hours dictating a coded signal over the telephone to his superiors in Johannesburg ; Ashby spent an hour organizing a connecting flight from Sierra Leone to Athens. The only available plane was the next morning which would take him to Madrid and from there to Rome and then to Athens. As it was scheduled for a mid-morning departure, he had dinner with Brandt and Mzenga and told them he would be unlikely to see them in the morning as he had an early start.

  When his Breguet woke him at six, an hour later he’d showered, dressed, packed, had breakfast, paid his bill and was at the airport at eight, for the regimented two hour check-in. Perhaps more than anything, he detested airports and their luggage, passport and boarding card checks. It was another feature of modern life which grated – being treated like a sack of potatoes. It was better not to travel at all.

  As it had only gone nine o’clock, it was too early for a drink – in any case, there was no bar, no duty free shops, no restaurants and no club class to get one. There wasn’t even a newsagents. On this trip, he’d read War and Peace three times, cover to cover and was beginning to tire of Pierre, Napoleon and the Rostovs. There was really nothing to do but pace around the small concourse and wait.

  After what seemed an age, the Madrid flight was announced and he strolled out of the side of the airport, straight onto the tarmac – there was no boarding gate or check-in area. When he climbed the steps to get on the plane, instead of being shown to his seat in business class, as soon as the stewardess looked at his ticket, she said, “Senor Ashby ? Robert Ashby ? Si ? There ees an urrgent message for you, Senor – from the police.”

  “The police ? What – now ? Just when I’m getting on the plane ?”

  “Si, the flight will not leave for twenty minutes. You will have time. Reeng them from inside the airport, Senor Ashby.”

  With feelings of panic and annoyance, he ran down the steps and then the short distance across the tarmac to the nearest telephone.

  “Hello, Sergeant – I’m about to catch my flight to Madrid. You sent me a message to ring you urgently. What is it ? Can it wait until I’m in London ?”

  “Ha, sorry about that – but I thought you might like to know what I found after you left.”

  “What did you find ?”

  “I am not so sure.”

  “What ? You dragged me off the plane to tell me that ?”

  “Well, what I mean is – you would have to go and look at it – yourself and then decide. It may be important and then again, it may not.”

  “But I’m just about to leave.....do you really expect me to.....”

  “It's up to you, Mr Ashby.”

  “Well.....alright then.....who knows.....”

  When he got off the phone, he thought that he might have been too hasty in agreeing to stay. Despite that, he told the stewardess he wouldn’t be catching the flight after all. This prompted the other passengers to curse him for the half hour delay caused by getting his bag out of the hold. Then there was a cancellation charge almost equal to the airfare. To top it off, the hotel where he’d been staying was full up and they had to send him to another hotel which was a distance away from the city centre. At the end of it, he thought about what the Sergeant had said and that he must have been mad to have listened to him.