Grave Island: a compelling mystery thriller

by Andrew Smyth

  ‘Only the one?’ I asked. ‘That’s odd. There’s supposed to be a small fleet of vans taking them directly to the inoculation stations. Have you looked on board yet?’

  ‘No, we were waiting for you two, but are you sure this is the right consignment?’ Juma asked. ‘They haven’t shown any signs of unloading yet.’

  ‘Let’s get on board and find out,’ I said to Brent. ‘But my Truscan is still on Nazeem’s dhow, so it’s going to be difficult to check them.’

  ‘Relax, kid. We brought our own equipment with us.’ He reached behind his seat in the helicopter and brought out a small box. ‘Here we are,’ he said, removing the machine and I saw it was very similar to the one I’d brought. ‘This is even more accurate,’ Brent said, unable to resist breast thumping. ‘Made in the US of A.’

  I wasn’t going to argue with him and nodded to Juma who signalled to his people and jumped on board. Most of the crew were on deck and the skipper came to the side and asked what we wanted. Juma held out his identification and I followed him on board with Brent. I thought I recognised some of the boxes from the Ansaar warehouse but checked the manifest that the skipper was holding.

  I moved further along the deck, matching the cases with the list until I came upon the boxes marked as malaria vaccines. I felt a new surge of excitement that I’d finally tracked them down and indicated the boxes to Brent. ‘These are some of the ones from Zanzibar. Let’s check them out.’

  Brent took out a knife, opened the carton and took out a package of vaccines and handed me his measuring equipment. I called out to Juma to come and watch as I set it down and turned it on.

  ‘Look at the printout here.’ I pointed to the miniature screen. I placed some of the vaccine into the tray and set it working. The chromatograph profile of what the sample should look like appeared along the top and slowly a graph was drawn below it and as it worked its way to the end it became clear that they were the same.

  ‘These aren’t the fakes,’ I said, shaking my head. ‘We must have been following the wrong consignment. Are you sure it’s the same boat?’ All dhows looked pretty much the same to me.

  Brent looked at the printout and shook his head. ‘It must be the same boat. Just not the same cargo.’

  ‘How did that happen? They were heading directly for Tanga.’ Reluctantly, I climbed off the boat onto the quay and looked up as the van drove up to the dhow to start unloading. I paced up and down the quay, mentally retracing our steps.

  Finally, I stopped in front of Juma. ‘You say they arrived several hours late. That could have given them enough time to offload the cargo onto another boat. But are you sure this is the same boat?’

  Juma stayed quiet, as if he didn’t think it necessary to repeat himself and I thought about our chase. I couldn’t see how Nazeem would have had time to report back, but since they’d got hold of Dickson, Ansaar must already know we might be onto them. He could have sent another boat and they transferred the cargo during the night knowing that we’d still be tracking the dhow to Tanga. Which meant that they could still be following their original plan and taking the vaccines to Shimoni. ‘How far away is Wasini Island? If they did offload then the logical thing would be for them to take it onto Shimoni.’

  ‘By sea it’s just over thirty miles, but it’s much longer by road. If they’ve gone to Shimoni, they’ll be way ahead of us by now.’

  ‘Yes, but there’s only one road from the coast to the main Mombasa road, so that might give us time to cut them off.’ I turned to Brent. ‘Can we take the chopper? Fly across to Shimoni?’

  ‘I can call Mombasa,’ Juma said. ‘They can cut them off on the road from Shimoni.’ Then he added, ‘Assuming that’s where they’ve gone.’

  ‘Where else would they go? Tanga’s not far out of their way. They’ve got to be there and with the helicopter we could get there at about the same time.’ I realised that I sounded more confident than I felt, but couldn’t see what choice we had. We walked back to the helicopter and I showed the pilot the route to Wasini Island and he fired up the engines. As the rotor blades started, the crew of the Ansaar dhow rushed to the guardrail and looked on in alarm.

  ‘Look at them. They thought we’d been fooled.’ As I said it, I saw the skipper bring out his mobile phone and shouted out to Juma. ‘Stop him! He’s going to warn the other boat.’

  Juma leaped athletically onto the dhow and took the phone from the skipper’s hands. He gestured to one of the Tanzanian police and told him to round up their cell phones and keep them under observation.

  ‘That was close,’ I said to Brent as we climbed into the helicopter and Juma followed behind. I put on the headphones. ‘All set,’ I said to the pilot and buckled myself in.

  We saw Wasini Island from some miles away and I told the pilot to circle. With the noise we were making, our arrival couldn’t be called stealthy, and it certainly got their attention. We could see the entire scene laid out below us and a small dhow had been pulled up amongst the mangroves. There appeared to be a line of people starting to unload and already we could see a small pile of boxes building up on the roadway beside them. A line of vans was drawn up amongst the mangroves but the drivers were looking up at us and hopefully realising that they wouldn’t be going anywhere.

  I finally felt a slight relaxation in tension; this had to be the shipment from Zanzibar. The pilot put us down on the road and Juma rushed past me and started corralling the drivers into a group. I was afraid he might be outnumbered but at that moment reinforcements arrived from Mombasa.

  All I needed to do was check the strength of the product. I took the Truscan and went over and opened one of the boxes and selected a sample to analyse.

  After a few minutes, we had the result. Bingo! ‘Virtually no active ingredients,’ I said and turned to Brent.

  ‘Okay, kid,’ he said, ‘You seem to have hit the bullseye again.’

  ‘Only “seem”? Look at the print-out – that shows I’m right.’

  ‘We could let them get through and follow them. This can only be part of the total programme. There are stations throughout the rest of East Africa which need deliveries. If we stop them now, the rest might get through.’

  ‘Have you contacted Ranish in Mumbai? Are they still running a night shift and making collections early in the morning?’

  ‘As far as I know.’

  ‘We’ll tell him to round up the Indian police and mount a raid on the Bakaar factory. Now we know they’re fakes tell him to go to the airport and stop the next consignment to Zanzibar.’

  ‘What are you going to do now?’ Brent asked.

  I laughed. ‘I think I’ll take the helicopter you’ve kindly lent and pay a visit on Jamaal Bakaar.’

  ‘You’d better take me with you.’

  ‘I’ll drop you off in Mombasa but I’ve got to see Jamaal Bakaar on my own. This has become personal.’

  After dropping Brent off at the airport, I told the helicopter pilot to fly directly to the Bakaar compound in Mombasa. They had plenty of room and I thought it would add sufficient drama to our arrival for even Jamaal Bakaar to take notice. I could see his assistant, Halim, running into the courtyard and trying ineffectually to wave us away. As the helicopter landed and rotors slowed, I jumped out and pushed past him, heading for the archway that I had seen Jamaal go through on my earlier visit.

  It was dark inside the office – if it could be called an office – it looked more like a museum with dimly lit display cases along the walls, interspersed with exquisite tapestries tastefully lit with hidden lighting. As my eyes adjusted to the gloom, I could see Jamaal Bakaar sitting at a glass desk at the far end of the room. He said nothing as I approached and once again I felt that there was something about his stillness and his lack of emotion that was chilling. I sat down opposite him. ‘We managed to stop it in time,’ I said and waited for a response but still he said nothing. ‘I worked out how you were doing it. You managed to produce the counterfeits right underneath our noses – it was
very clever.’

  Finally, Jamaal sighed. ‘I suppose you wouldn’t believe me if I told you that I didn’t know what you’re talking about?’

  ‘Who else could have organised it? You can’t hide behind the fake companies you set up. The vaccination contract might be in Tau’s name, but it was Bakaar who supplied the counterfeits. It was you who arranged it.’

  Jamaal gave a thin smile. ‘You would have some difficulty proving that.’

  ‘I don’t think so. Now we know that you had a night shift producing counterfeit pharmaceuticals in your Mumbai factory, I don’t think it would be too difficult to trace it back to you.’

  ‘I would deny it and there would be nothing anyone could do. I carry quite a lot of respect here, so I would be careful what you say in public.’

  ‘Ah yes. Your reputation for asceticism and piety. I don’t think you’ll be able to hide behind that when people discover the scale of the operation you’ve been running.’

  ‘I’ve been running? I haven’t been running anything.’

  I found his impenetrable smugness infuriating and couldn’t see how to get through to him. ‘We know you have links with Al-Shabaab. That you finance some of their operations.’

  ‘So now I’m a member of Al-Shabaab as well as a counterfeiter of pharmaceuticals? As I say, you can’t prove any of this.’

  ‘But you are sympathetic to them?’

  ‘I’ve made no secret of my dedication to the Prophet. The influence of the western world on traditional Muslim culture here in East Africa is something I regret.’

  ‘And so you’re prepared to put thousands of lives at risk for your beliefs?’

  ‘My beliefs!’ He stood up and pointed his finger at me – he was shaking with anger. ‘What do you know about my beliefs? I made some enquiries about you and found that you were fighting in Afghanistan so you’re the last person to talk about my beliefs. You mention thousands of deaths. What’s the difference between that and what you were doing in Helmand?’

  ‘How did you know I was in Helmand?’ But as soon as I said it I felt I’d fallen into a trap.

  ‘You’re not the only one with intelligence resources. You were part of yet another western effort to interfere in a place you should have left alone.’

  ‘Unlike you I was trying to do good over there. Trying to prevent the killing, not add to it.’

  ‘There are things worth dying for,’ he said immediately, and again I was struck by his conviction. There was no hesitation and his comments were made with an adamantine certainty.

  ‘You think that killing children with adulterated vaccines can be justified? That children are a legitimate target?’

  ‘There’s always going to be collateral damage. It’s unavoidable in war.’

  I was so taken aback that for a moment I couldn’t say anything. ‘You think this is a war? And dead children just collateral damage? What kind of person are you?’

  ‘I’m not someone who is to be judged by you,’ he said and he was almost shouting. ‘So, you think you’ve intercepted a consignment of counterfeit pharmaceuticals?’

  ‘I don’t think, I know they’re counterfeit. I checked them myself.’

  ‘But unimportant when set against the rest of the world,’ he said and pounded the desk with his fist. ‘We can’t win every battle, but eventually we will win the war against the Western corruption that infects us. There are other battlegrounds apart from Kenya and East Africa. While you’ve been chasing your tail here you’ll discover that your own Helmand is not immune.’

  I was about to respond but then realised what he’d just said. ‘What do you mean about Helmand? What’s Afghanistan got to do with this?’

  Jamaal said nothing, perhaps realising that he’d said too much. He sat down and stared at his desk. He was obviously making an effort to control himself.

  Eventually he looked up. Once again, I got his thin smile which I wanted to scrape off with a razor. ‘You will find out soon enough,’ he said, and looked at me, his eyes burning with hatred. ‘I think we’re finished here, aren’t we? You can’t arrest me so I think you should leave.’ He nodded through the window at the helicopter. ‘And take that machine with you.’

  I realised he was right, but as I left, I ran through what he had said in my mind. What did he mean about fighting more battles? I’d been so preoccupied with the deliveries to East Africa that I hadn’t thought about anywhere else, but why should they limit themselves? I’d read enough about counterfeits to know that few places were safe and the most vulnerable were always going to be those with weak governments. Afghanistan! Was he hinting that there were other vaccination programmes, perhaps even as important as this one?

  26

  I ran to the helicopter but shook my head at the pilot. I wouldn’t hear myself speak if he started the engines. I pulled out my phone and scrolled through to find Sayed’s number. Since his last visit to Afghanistan, he’d made contacts with various pharmacies so if anyone knew about what was going on there it should be him. The phone rang and rang and I was about to give up when I heard his voice answering.

  ‘Sayed, can you hear me?’ There was a gurgling on the phone but finally I could hear him clearly. ‘It’s Philip and it’s urgent. Can you contact the pharmacy in Chorjah?’ At first he didn’t understand what I was talking about, but then I realised that my call had come out of the blue and couldn’t have made much sense to him. I hurriedly explained the situation and he finally said he would ring me back.

  I told the pilot to drop me off back at the airport and anxiously watched my phone for Sayed’s call but it took him over an hour before he finally came back to me. ‘How did you know?’ he started. ‘Have you got a sixth sense or what?’

  I thought it best not to tell him that it was Jamaal Bakaar himself who’d given me the clue. ‘They told me they’re part of the programme and are expecting their first deliveries any day now. They’re excited that at last there’s a peace dividend that will help.’

  I thought back to Sayed’s village and his excitement and pride when he told me about the restored clinic. Was all that effort in trying to bring peace and progress going to be wasted? ‘Tell them not to do anything if it arrives before me. Tell them I’m coming out there.’

  Next I called Brent. ‘Thanks for the chopper. Now can you get me a plane?’ After I’d listen to him expostulating for a while I cut in. ‘I’ve seen the fleets some of these agencies have, there must be something leaving here. When I was in Afghanistan there were always one of your flights coming in or out.’

  As I hung up I realised that even if I got to Afghanistan I would have problems in tracking and shipments. Most of our regiment had left and I didn’t know any of the people who had replaced us. Although I was reluctant to try, I realised that my only chance lay with Ali. I tried his number and hoped that he wouldn’t see it was me calling and refuse to answer. I gave up after several minutes and instead called James in the Whitehall office knowing that he was usually chained to his desk. I told him I needed to speak to Ali urgently and to get him to call me back. As I hung up, I realised that I hadn’t eaten since throwing up half the Indian Ocean, so I went in search of the airport cafe where I ordered myself a quick snack, while looking anxiously at my phone.

  Finally, Ali called and I snatched it up. ‘Ali. It’s me. I’m in Kenya and I need your help.’ Ali grunted something unintelligible which I ignored. ‘I told you about the possibility that they were supplying counterfeit drugs to the huge vaccination programme in East Africa? We’ve tracked them down and they were fakes.’

  ‘So what are you ringing for? Congratulations?’

  ‘No, listen. I could be wrong but there’s a strong suggestion that while we’ve been chasing the shipments here, another delivery has already been sent to Afghanistan. There’s a similar programme there so I need you to check with your contacts and find out where they’re likely to be bringing it into the country. The chances are they’re counterfeits as well.’

 
The pause before he answered made me think we had got cut off and I was going to ring again, when he answered. ‘Not asking much, are you? How do you expect me to track a single shipment of pharmaceuticals in a country the size of Afghanistan while I’m here in the UK? I hadn’t realised you had such a high opinion of me.’

  ‘We can narrow it down. Get in touch with Brent Hillman at the FDA – he’s here in Mombasa and I’ll tell him to expect your call. He’ll be able to find out where the deliveries are supposed to be made and you’ve got enough contacts out there to be able to intercept it.’ I could sense his doubts so I added, ‘There are thousands of lives at risk here. We’ve got to stop it and I don’t know who else to ask. You’re still in army intelligence and they’ll listen to you.’

  There was another pause. ‘All right.’ He said it reluctantly. ‘I’ll see what I can do. Give me contact details for this Brent person. I’ll see if he knows where this shipment is being sent. What is it, by the way?’

  ‘Malaria and measles mainly. Apparently some polio.’ I read off Brent’s number and told Ali to keep in touch. The triumph I’d felt a few hours earlier had disappeared. Instead, I realised that I’d been too close to the chase to step back and look at it objectively. I, of all people, particularly after my time in Afghanistan, should have known that East Africa was only one battleground and Jamaal had been right about the war being fought on a larger canvas.

  But this was a different war with different battles to his. His saw only death and destruction as the objective and life-saving drugs as western interference that had to be stopped. There was no place for the simple things of life in his warped view of the world: bringing up families in peace and security and seeing them live to adulthood; a society which was not controlled by fanatics and which might finally liberate its women. My fight in Afghanistan might have changed little but I’d been on the right side. Jamaal was fighting for oppression, while we had been fighting for at least some kind of freedom.