The Watchman

by Adrian Magson

  He wasn’t exaggerating the danger; any time al-Qaeda got their hands on a westerner, especially one who was newsworthy, they were quick to make it into a propaganda issue. And that wasn’t usually good for the hostage.

  UN personnel would be regarded as prime meat.

  ‘We have a chance of negotiating their release,’ he continued, ‘but it’s a slim one. Two weeks ago our office in Nairobi was approached by a man calling himself Xasan. We know that’s not his real name – he operates under several aliases. He’s a go-between acting for Somali pirates and other extremists. He claims he can negotiate the release of the hostages, but it has to be done on the exchange of gold and face-to-face with the gang holding them. Their leader insists on it. Xasan says this gang has access to other hostages and can act as intermediaries to gain their release, too.’

  ‘If you pay enough.’

  ‘Correct.’

  ‘How much do you trust this Xasan?’

  Vale shrugged. ‘No more than I trust any of them. He’s been around a while and known to have secured the release of several hostages and even a couple of ships. Frankly, we’re ready to take any avenue we’re offered to get the UN officials back. Moresby and those above him are hoping that if we can start getting a trade going, it could lead to more releases. It will cost us, but that’s better than dead bodies floating in the Indian Ocean.’

  ‘And you really think your officer will get anywhere with these people?’ I didn’t want to burst Vale’s bubble more than I had to, but I wondered if he or Moresby were aware that the Somalis don’t negotiate with women.

  His next words dispelled that idea.

  ‘That’s the puzzle. According to Nairobi, Xasan’s instructions were that the gang leader doesn’t trust male officials. He thinks they all work for the CIA. It’s crazy, I know, but the word is, it’s a woman negotiator or there’s no deal.’

  Sixteen

  I checked into the Royal Court in Mombasa and took a few minutes to get my bearings. It was late in the evening, and crossing time zones can be disconcerting, and making rapid decisions on the hoof when you’re travel-weary is risky. I drank two bottles of water I’d bought at the airport, then checked my satellite phone for a connection. It all looked good.

  Vale had asked for regular reports, but only if circumstances allowed; he was experienced enough to know that operating in hot zones doesn’t always permit the casual use of a cell phone as if you were on the street corner back home.

  I gave his number a try without checking the time in the UK. He’d be there, I was certain of that.

  ‘I’m at first base,’ I said when he answered. It took a while for the voices to travel, and the thing to get used to is the delay when waiting for an answer. It makes for awkward conversations at first, especially when under the stress of an operation.

  ‘Good.’ His voice sounded thin. ‘You met the wildlife man yet?’

  ‘No. He’ll be here in the morning.’ There had been a message waiting for me at the front desk. Vale’s contact was making his way into Mombasa from his base at one of the national parks. Vale was wary of using names, so we were going to be speaking in indirect terms unless absolutely unavoidable.

  ‘The two travellers are on their way,’ he said. ‘They’ll meet up with the middle man tomorrow before moving on. As soon as I know where and when, I’ll let you know.’

  We ended the conversation and I went downstairs and got a cab from the rank outside. The driver looked bored and lacking in curiosity, but glad of a fare. I gave him an address out near Kilindini Harbour, to the west of the city, and he nodded without comment and set off.

  Mombasa was frantic with pedestrians and traffic, most of it intermingling in a way that would have had London or New York’s traffic commissioners pulling out their hair by the handful. It was noisy and colourful and hot, and I was glad I didn’t have to be out there in the middle of it. I had too much to do.

  My destination was a small commercial unit a short hop from the docks. The area was dark and badly lit, a sharp contrast to the city centre, which was so full of life. It had a brooding, alien atmosphere that didn’t feel right, even from the inside of the cab. Groups of men were gathered in doorways, smoking large, flabby cigarettes and drinking Yokozuna or chang’aa – the local illicit and deadly brews of alcohol – from plastic bottles.

  They watched us go by with an intensity that had the driver rolling his eyes at me in the mirror and shaking his head.

  ‘Bad men, sir,’ he muttered. ‘Very bad.’

  ‘Don’t worry about them,’ I told him.

  ‘You sure this is where you wanna be, boss?’ He turned into a narrow street between lines of ancient cargo warehouses, dark and fobidding. ‘Not good here, y’know?’ The breath whistled between his teeth as he stopped the car outside a premises bearing the name Bera Wharf Trading Co. I could feel the fear coming off him in waves and hoped he wasn’t going to drive off the moment I got out.

  I took out some notes and dropped them on the passenger seat alongside him. It wasn’t quite enough to cover the gas, but enough to keep his foot on the brake until I’d done what I’d come here for. I showed him some bigger notes for good measure. ‘This is yours if you wait.’

  He rolled his eyes again and nodded and I got out and approached the building.

  The man who answered the door was as thin as a fisherman’s pole, with a neat goatee beard and half-glasses. He was dressed in a long, white shirt and tight pants, and the overall effect was of an academic stork. The name I’d been given was Ita Khaban, although I doubted it was his real one. According to the man who’d supplied me with his details, part of a network of professionals I used, he could source anything I needed, right up to a Stinger surface-to-air missile, given enough time and money.

  Fortunately, my needs didn’t yet involve starting a small war.

  We exchanged pleasantries, which meant I gave him a name which he acknowledged with a blink of his eyes. Then he stuck his head out the door and checked the street both ways. It looked like he probably did this on a regular basis.

  Khaban noticed the cab. ‘That is your driver, sir?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He turned and called a name. Another man appeared through a doorway behind him. He was a taller, younger version of Khaban, only bigger in the shoulders and carrying a nasty looking sawn-off shotgun.

  ‘My son, Benjamin,’ Khaban explained. ‘He will stay by the car. There should be no problems.’ The way he smiled at me was also a warning not to try anything.

  Benjamin stepped past me and stood outside the door, eyeing the street. Khaban left him to it and led me inside, bolting the door behind me.

  The area we were in was little more than a metal workshop and storeroom combined, the air heavy with the smell of oil and grease and metal. He sat me down in a tiny office holding a desk covered in paperwork, much of it yellowed by age, and an old photograph of a young British Queen Elizabeth on the wall. He had already received a list of what I needed. It wasn’t much, but he looked happy enough.

  ‘I have everything you requested,’ he said, his voice a cultured whisper, businessman to businessman. I handed him a folded canvas sports bag purchased from a stall near the hotel, and he poured me some tea and left me to sip it while he disappeared into the workshop.

  When he returned a few minutes later, the sports bag was no longer empty.

  ‘If you return the items in good condition,’ he said softly, ‘I will buy them back from you.’

  ‘At a discount?’

  ‘Of course.’

  I checked the contents while he watched, then paid him in cash and said goodbye.

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ he whispered before calling his son back inside. ‘A pleasure doing business with you.’

  Seventeen

  SIS officer Angela Pryce stared at the ceiling of the British Airways Boeing 777 and shivered in the blast of air-conditioning. She was impatient for take-off. With an eight-hour flight ahead of her to Nairobi, Ke
nya, she didn’t expect to sleep much. Somehow, leaving London’s cooler climate for the hotter atmosphere of Kenya’s coast north of Mombasa, where she had been told the temperature was currently topping 31˚C, didn’t have the attraction it should have done.

  Beside her, in the aisle seat, Doug Tober already had his eyes closed and was breathing easily. If the former Special Forces sergeant had any doubts about what lay ahead of them, he wasn’t showing it. She hoped his calmness was real and not put on for her benefit. His role was purely close protection, although neither of them was under any illusions about how limited that might be where they were going.

  The engines wound up and talk in the cabin began to fall away. A luggage locker fell open with a bang, and a stewardess rushed to close it. A child cried out somewhere near the rear, and across the aisle a very large woman in Kenyan national dress began to pray loudly, drawing responses from those eager to share in requests for a safe take-off and a safer landing.

  Angela glanced through the rain-spotted window. The airport buildings looked distant and cold. It reminded her of being sent away to school as a girl, when part of her wanted to leap off the train and run home, while the other part couldn’t wait to see what lay ahead for the new term.

  She shivered again. She was dressed in a lightweight jacket and skirt, and shoes suitable for all terrains. Since nobody had appeared too certain where she and Tober might end up, she had decided on basic, interchangeable clothes, with spare trousers in case she needed to observe a degree of conservatism for local sensibilities.

  She closed her eyes and went over her briefing, trying to pick out potential highlights in the detail. It was no more comforting than listening to the engines winding up and waiting for the first thrust of power to punch her in the back. But it offered a useful distraction for a few minutes.

  The briefing room in SIS headquarters at Vauxhall Cross had been busy with maps, schedules, photos and details of the mission ahead. Talk had been muted but firm, concentrating solely on the mission. Nobody, Colin Moresby, Operations Director 4, had stressed, was underestimating the potential difficulties that lay ahead. She would be to all intents and purposes alone, apart from Tober, and certainly once they left Mombasa, would be beyond any immediate assistance. But there was nothing they could do about that. Assurances had been given by the other side and that was all they could expect.

  ‘Any show of force on land or offshore,’ he had stressed, eyeing her carefully, ‘will be construed as aggression, according to Xasan. And they control the region closely enough to detect any intrusions.’ That meant no covert backup from units of Special Forces ready to crash in on demand if things got sticky. It was a sobering reminder of what she had undertaken.

  She had nodded, aware that they were taking on trust the words of a man with a dubious, if virtually unknown history, who was known for working with the Somali pirates and effecting trade-offs of hostages for money. The knowledge that he had successfully closed more than one such deal, with the safe return of people and ships, was to some, a justifiable claim to credibility. To others it was like approaching a street-corner moneylender rather than a bank. But in the present circumstances, it was all they had.

  ‘We need those people back,’ Moresby had continued smoothly, ‘especially the UN personnel. If they get moved further north, they’ll be in the hands of extremists and beyond our help.’ He meant al-Qaeda, but nobody wanted to hear that name. ‘Once gone, I fear we’ll lose them until someone, somewhere, wants a substantial deal … or a huge publicity coup. We can’t let that happen.’

  ‘What are the chances,’ Angela had queried, ‘of them finding out that they’re holding two UN people?’

  Moresby had looked at Bill Cousins, Controller Africa, to answer that question. ‘Higher than we’d like,’ Cousins replied. ‘Both of them have appeared on UN websites, and both have their photos on the internet if anybody cares to trawl through the archives or check out current photos of personnel in the field. We know al-Qaeda has access to IT personnel and equipment, so they could get lucky and identify them any day. We have to move quickly.’

  ‘We also know,’ Moresby added, ‘that they are increasingly trawling the net for details on all western hostages, to determine their status and value. If they identify any with position, family or the slightest degree of importance, the price goes up.’

  The briefing had continued, going over the plans with great care.

  She and Tober were to fly to Nairobi, where they would make contact with a man named Ashkir Xasan. He was the first step in a chain of contacts and agreements going back two weeks – probably longer. It would culminate, if all went well, in the eventual release of the hostages. Xasan would take Angela and Tober via Mombasa to a point on the Kenya-Somali border, where they would meet a group headed by a clan chief called Yusuf Musa. It probably wasn’t his real name any more than Xasan’s was his, but that was beside the point. Knowing a man’s real name in a game like hostage taking was usually the least of one’s worries.

  ‘Any queries, Miss Pryce?’ Moresby was looking at her, his eyes blank. She felt like standing up and saying, Yes, this whole bloody idea is insane and I don’t want to go because I’m terrified we’ll both end up dead. But she didn’t. She could do this. She’d been trained and could handle herself in crisis situations. And in doing so, would enhance her career prospects in SIS. All she had to do was what most field operatives hoped to accomplish every time they were sent out: get through it successfully and come back in one piece.

  ‘No, sir,’ she said, and wondered what Tom Vale would have thought. She also wondered why he hadn’t been in on the briefing. ‘No questions.’

  Eighteen

  I recognized De Bont as soon as he walked into the foyer of the hotel, if only because he stood out among the dark suits and floral dresses. He was of medium height, heavy in the shoulders and chest, like a weightlifter, with rust-coloured hair in a brush cut, a spiky moustache and pink, sunburned skin. He was wearing a tan shirt and shorts, which on him looked like some sort of uniform.

  He saw me, hesitated for a moment, then came over to where I was sitting.

  ‘Mr Portman?’ He held out a hand the size of a small shovel. ‘I’m Piet. Hope I’m not late.’ His accent was pure Afrikaans, with a faintly harsh rumble in the throat.

  ‘No. Shall we get a drink?’ It wasn’t yet fully hot outside, which suited me fine, but the air was dry and gritty, and making my eyes sting. I nodded at the bar, which was full of a convention of businessmen and women. ‘We need somewhere more private to talk.’

  ‘Sure. I know a nice bar along the street here. Air-con and privacy guaranteed.’ He turned on one heel and led the way out of the hotel, into the noisy, traffic-filled atmosphere of central Mombasa. Out here was a different world to the one in the hotel, and we were soon lost among a mass of humanity, honking vehicles and the smell of a busy city. If we’d had the time, I would have enjoyed the atmosphere.

  We found the bar and settled at a table to the rear. It was gloomy, cool and deserted save for a barman, the air heavy with the smell of stale tobacco and alcohol. The barman wandered over and handed us a drinks menu without a word. Piet ordered beer and I had coffee. I needed to be awake for the next two days at least and didn’t need alcohol to get in the way.

  ‘Tom Vale mentioned you,’ I began, ‘and said you could help me move around. He said he’d settle the bill.’

  He nodded but looked guarded. ‘Is Tom still keeping the empire safe?’ It was a hint that he knew what Vale’s job was. Up close I realized he was older than I’d first thought – somewhere in his early fifties at least – and he’d probably been around the block a few times if he’d served with the South African National Defence Force.

  ‘I don’t work for Vale. Just doing a job for him.’

  ‘Sub-contractor, huh? I did that for a while, after the army. Paid well enough but the conditions were shit and there was no pension. Where is it you want to go?’

  I told
him. The details on the data stick Vale had given me showed a map of the very north-eastern corner of Kenya, where it butted up against the Somali border, about 150 kilometres north of where we were now sitting. The nearest Kenyan town of any note was Kiunga, on the coast. Further north and it was into what Vale had referred to as pirate country.

  Somalia.

  Piet grunted. ‘Long way to go for easy trouble. I’m guessing this is covert, right?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You planning on stopping long?’

  ‘I don’t know yet. I hope not. It depends on others.’

  He stared at me without expression. ‘I figure. How soon do you want to get there?’

  ‘Today would be good. Are the roads passable?’

  ‘The roads are shite, my friend. They’re mostly rock, ruts and rubble, and sandstone the rest of the time. They run out, in any case, before you get near that place, so it’s overland and tough going. It’d take a couple of days – that’s if you didn’t break down or run into trouble.’

  ‘What kind of trouble?’

  ‘Poachers, bandits … trucks on the wrong side of the road driven by guys high on booze or drugs who don’t give a shit. It’s not an easy place to travel. Does it have to be today?’

  ‘By this evening – tomorrow morning at the latest.’

  His eyebrows lifted and he sank some beer. ‘Forget the roads, then.’ He checked his watch, which was sunk into the skin of his wrist. ‘We can get a flight to Malindi up the coast in a couple of hours, then fly into the Kiunga area this afternoon.’

  ‘Is there a local strip?’ I hadn’t seen anything on the maps Vale had supplied, but landing strips were often nothing more than a beaten stretch of track or grass cleared of rocks and shrubs. In fact, other than deserted beaches and some dubious tracks, the whole area looked like nothing but scrub, acacia trees, thorn bush and rock-strewn patches of rolling grassland, with palm trees bristling along the coastal stretch. ‘I’d rather not turn up where everybody can see me.’