Bait

by Nick Brownlee

  ‘And do you have any evidence to back up these outrageous allegations, Inspector?’ Omu said calmly.

  ‘There are more than enough decent people in Mombasa who would be willing to testify to your illegal activities,’ Jouma told him.

  Omu saw through the emptiness of his threats and smiled again. ‘Inspector, you and I both know that, if that were the case, you would have arrested me and Mr Kili long ago.’

  ‘Nyami, handcuff the suspect please.’

  ‘Might I suggest,’ Omu said smoothly, ‘that you both go back to Mama Ngina Drive and forget everything that has happened here?’

  ‘Sergeant, did you hear me? Sergeant!’

  But Nyami stood behind the desk, fidgeting, sweating, his eyes averted.

  ‘Oh, Nyami,’ Jouma sighed with genuine disappointment.

  ‘You should not blame the sergeant,’ said Omu. ‘Nobody should be expected to uphold the law on the pittance Kenya police pays its officers.’

  ‘I have always managed,’ Jouma said quietly.

  Omu shrugged. ‘Then I will be doing you a favour by putting you out of your misery, Inspector.’

  By the time Jouma saw the thin serrated knife that had appeared from the folds of the khanzu, Omu had crossed the room in a single catlike stride. Jouma felt no pain, just a dull impact as Omu drove the knife into his chest.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Colonel Augustus Kanga had ordered many men killed in his time. During the war against the UNITA rebels in Angola, just one command could result in the liquidation of an entire village. Those were happy days, he reflected sadly. Things were so much simpler then.

  Kanga was not ashamed to admit that he found the world a frustrating place these days. There was not a day went by that he did not wish he was putting on his crisply laundered army fatigues instead of a lambswool Italian suit, or that he was dealing with a regiment of disciplined soldiers instead of insolent businessmen motivated only by their own greed.

  But his army days were ancient history now. These days Kanga had more pressing concerns.

  The first was dealing with Whitestone. Even that was problematic compared to the days when he had any number of eager death squads at his disposal. No, in this frustrating world of business, assassins had to be hired, instructions had to be given, money had to be exchanged. There was none of the spontaneity , none of the immediacy that he had become accustomed to in the military.

  In a way, Kanga was sorry that things had come to such a head. After all, it was Whitestone who had been instrumental in setting him up in business, and who had taught him the rudiments of the trade they were now in. Yes, there was no doubt that Kanga owed Whitestone a great deal.

  But there was one lesson Kanga did not need to learn, and that was the importance of being ruthless. In offering Whitestone a fifty-fifty partnership, he had been more than generous; Whitestone’s noncommittal response was, as far as Kanga was concerned, tantamount to a rejection.

  So he was left with no choice. Whitestone had to be eliminated.

  In the back seat of his chauffeur-driven limousine, Kanga jabbed a number into the satellite phone built into the leather upholstery beside him. As he waited for the connection, he marvelled at the technology that was literally at his fingertips. Had he been equipped with such a device when he was in the army, the war would have been over long before any talk of ceasefire.

  Which was why he was now puzzled, not to say irritated, that for some reason the connection did not seem to be working.

  He leaned forward and rapped on the glass screen separating him from the driver.

  ‘Robert! The satellite phone is not working.’

  Robert was a bullet-headed man who in a previous life had been Kanga’s batman. When Kanga had quit the army, Robert had loyally followed him.

  ‘Perhaps the area is not suitable for a signal, sir,’ he said.

  Kanga looked out of the window and saw that they were proceeding along a road that was framed on either side by low scrubby hills. Even so, he thought, this terrain should not affect the operation of the phone.

  He was about to speak when the phone suddenly chirped to life.

  ‘Finally!’ Kanga exclaimed. He pushed the hands-free button. ‘Djali, my friend! It is about time you checked your batteries. I have been trying to contact you.’

  ‘I charged my batteries this morning, Colonel Kanga,’ Whitestone’s disembodied voice said through the speakers. ‘Right after our meeting.’

  Kanga masked his surprise. ‘Mr Whitestone! How nice to hear from you. You have considered my offer?’

  ‘I have,’ Whitestone said. ‘And I’m afraid the answer is no.’

  ‘As I thought,’ Kanga nodded. ‘That is a great shame. I have enjoyed doing business with you. I trust you feel the same way.’

  As he spoke, Kanga noticed that the limousine was slowing down and was now pulling into the side of the road. He leaned forward again and rapped on the glass, but it was as if Robert did not hear him.

  ‘It’s always a pity when a profitable business arrangement comes to an end,’ Whitestone was saying. ‘Especially through the pig-headed ignorance of one of the partners.’

  Distracted, Kanga almost missed the insult. Now anger flooded through him. ‘I trust you are talking about yourself, Mr Whitestone!’

  Whitestone’s laughter filled the car. ‘Colonel, you’re so dumb you don’t even know who’s on your side any more. You’re probably wondering why Robert has stopped the car.’

  Startled, Kanga shifted in his seat in order to look out of the rear window of the limousine, but the road was empty. Then came the heavy thud of the central locking being activated and when he turned round the driver was pointing a heavy-duty silenced automatic at him through a gap in the dividing screen.

  ‘Robert?’ he said. Then, angrily, ‘You cannot kill me, Mr Whitestone. Where will you get your merchandise?’

  ‘You seem to be under the misapprehension that you are the only supplier in Africa,’ Whitestone said. ‘In fact, I could replace you with ten others by this afternoon. It’s the one lesson in business you never learned.’

  The expression of fury was still frozen on Kanga’s face when Robert pulled the trigger and blew his brains against the bullet-proof rear window.

  ‘Thank you, Robert,’ Whitestone said over the speakers. ‘That can’t have been easy.’

  Robert said nothing as he replaced the gun in his holster and closed the screen. It had been surprisingly easy, as a matter of fact. But then what Whitestone had offered him was extremely generous. And, as Colonel Kanga had never ceased to remind him, they were no longer in the army.

  Chapter Forty

  The telephone in the office of Britannia Fishing Trips Ltd, which had steadfastly refused to ring for more than two days, was ringing.

  ‘Well, I’ll be damned,’ Harry exclaimed. ‘I was about to call out the engineers to see if it was broken.’

  They were a hundred yards from the workshop, on the last leg of a marathon half-pissed trek back along the jungle path from Suki Lo’s.

  ‘Well, don’t just stand there, old boy! Go and answer it!’

  Jake gratefully unhooked Harry’s arm from round his shoulders and ran to the phone.

  ‘Fly like the wind!’ Harry laughed, following at a snail’s pace, his weight resting on the hickory handle of a furled umbrella.

  Despite his bravado and the drink inside him, he was now forced to admit that he was in quite a bit of pain. He hadn’t felt it necessary to go into all of the gory details of the beating he had received at the hands of the Arab’s henchmen - or indeed that it was the Arab who had been responsible. The last thing he wanted was Jake embarking on another vigilante mission. A mugging would suffice until he could straighten this mess out. But he also knew, from the succession of dull aches and sharp pains that wracked his body, that his internal injuries were just as severe as the bruises and abrasions on his skin. It had been, without a doubt, one hell of a kicking. And maybe late
r, if things didn’t abate, he would swallow his pride and pay a visit to Dr Markham on the far side of the river. At the very least the odious old quack might find it in his mercy to give him a few Paracetamol to dull the pain.

  But that would have to wait. Because right now Harry had business to attend to. Business that might just save the business.

  He was at the jetty now, and it was all he could manage to ease himself into the battered director’s chair he kept there for his mid-afternoon nap. Across the water, Yellowfin bobbed lazily on the current. Harry looked at her with paternal pride, and an uncharacteristic irritation came over him when he thought about the Arab using her in some grubby deal with a buyer in Malindi. She might be knocking on a bit and her glory days might be behind her, but she was all he had left - and no one was going to sell her from under his nose.

  Jake emerged from the workshop, wearing a quizzical expression.

  ‘That was Cyril from Malindi,’ he said. ‘Says he’s got a booking for us.’

  Harry grunted with surprise. ‘Cyril? Are you sure he had the right number? That little bastard deals exclusively with anyone who might give him a backhander. ’

  ‘The Ernies asked for Britannia Fishing Trips specifically, he said.’

  ‘What name?’

  ‘Cruickshank,’ Jake said.

  He could see Harry racking his brain for anyone of that name who might have once appeared in the Forbes Rich List.

  Eventually Harry shrugged. ‘Buggered if I know,’ he said. ‘You’d better get up there before they change their minds.’

  ‘OK,’ Jake said. ‘I’ll get the beer and food loaded and drop by Sammy’s on the way.’

  ‘Good man. And, Jake, I would have a strong coffee first.’

  Harry watched from the jetty until Yellowfin disappeared around the headland, then made a phone call of his own. Thirty minutes later, he limped off on foot along the dirt track that led eventually to the Mombasa highway. A journey that would have normally taken fifteen minutes took him nearer forty, but then that was what you got when you were half-crippled and you’d handed the keys of your Land Rover to the Arab in a desperate attempt to buy some time. Still, Harry thought, with any luck he might be about to cut a deal which would mean he could get rid of that heap of junk for good. OK, with Tug Viljoen involved, he would undoubtedly be selling his soul - but having worked in the City of London he was used to that. And how illegal could this scheme be?

  As arranged, the jeep was parked up by the side of the road. Harry hobbled towards it and let himself in on the passenger side.

  ‘Fucking hell, Harry,’ Tug Viljoen said at once. ‘What happened to your face?’ The South African leaned across and peered with fascination at the contusions as Harry eased himself into the seat beside him.

  ‘I had an unscheduled meeting with the Arab last night.’

  ‘Fucking bastard!’ Viljoen smacked a meaty fist into his palm.

  ‘Yes, well. It was a strange day all round yesterday. I take it you heard about the excitement up at Dennis Bentley’s place?’

  ‘I heard,’ Tug said grimly. ‘Fucking kaffirs with Uzis! It’s getting like Jo’burg round here. Still - they got what they deserved. Sounds like quite a cook-out. ’

  ‘Quite. Anyway, back to the Arab. You mentioned some sort of mutually beneficial financial arrangement you might be able to put my way. Something in the region of twenty-five thousand big ones?’

  ‘You interested?’

  Harry shrugged. ‘My hand has been forced. What do you want me to do?’

  Viljoen considered this for a moment. ‘You tell anybody else about this?’ he said presently.

  ‘No.’

  ‘You sure? You didn’t tell Jake?’

  ‘Not a soul, Tug. Just like you said.’

  Viljoen stared at the road ahead for what seemed like a long time. Then, apparently satisfied, he nodded and pulled out on to the highway.

  Chapter Forty-One

  The Vasco da Gama Pillar is a large whitewashed edifice jutting from the rocky promontory at the southern end of Malindi harbour. It commemorates the great explorer’s arrival there in 1498, when the local sultan greeted him with gifts of goats, oranges and sugar cane. What the sultan didn’t know was that within a decade his sultanate would be overrun by Portuguese marketeers and European slavers, who would milk the town of its resources and strategic importance and, by the middle of the sixteenth century, abandon it for the more lucrative port of Mombasa sixty miles to the south. Today the Pillar is a landmark for game-fishing boats and tourist leisure cruisers, and the town itself has been overrun by a new set of invaders in the shape of Malindi’s wealthy Italian ex-pat community.

  The Ernies were waiting at the tourist information office on Beach Road, cool boxes and ghetto blasters stacked and ready to go. They were Americans. College boys by the look of them. Jake could hear the simian whoops and high-five slaps a hundred yards away on Yellowfin’s flying bridge.

  ‘Looks like you’ll have your work cut out today, Sammy,’ he observed.

  Down in the cockpit, Sammy smiled and continued slicing the baitfish into fillets; and once again the kid’s demeanour made Jake feel ashamed and angry at his own self-absorption. It had been nearly a week, but Sammy still believed his brother was coming back. Jake was dreading the moment when he would have to tell him the truth. Whatever the truth was. Not for the first time that day, he wondered how Jouma was getting on with Michael Kili. And, not for the first time, he felt a twinge of annoyance that he was not there.

  He made his way along the wharf, casting covetous glances at the gleaming luxury motor yachts anchored in the bay, some of them nearly two hundred feet long and resembling sleek floating hotels complete with five-star accommodation, restaurants, on-board cinemas and gymnasiums. Was it any wonder that businesses like his and Harry’s were going to the wall when this was the opposition?

  ‘The Cruickshank party?’

  The Ernies looked at him with beery incomprehension.

  ‘Whassat, buddy?’ one of them said.

  ‘I’m looking for the Cruickshank party. Booked up with Britannia Fishing Trips.’

  ‘Crockshank? Whassat?’

  ‘I heard-a Shawshank. You mean Shawshank, man?’

  Jake smiled unconvincingly and backed away towards the tourist office, which was a grand name for a wooden box the size of an ice-cream kiosk, manned by a young African wearing an oversized peaked cap and a lapel badge that read CYRIL TAYARI.

  ‘Jambo, Mr Moore!’ he exclaimed with a grin. ‘How the devil are you today?’

  ‘I’m looking for my booking, Cyril. Name of Cruickshank. Party of six.’

  Cyril frowned and ran his finger down a list of names scribbled on a ledger in front of him. ‘Crook, Shank; Crook, Shank . . .’

  ‘You phoned the booking this morning,’ Jake said testily. ‘I answered the phone.’

  ‘Of course, of course,’ Cyril said, licking his lips nervously.

  ‘It was me who made the booking, I’m afraid,’ said a familiar voice, and to Jake’s astonishment Martha Bentley appeared from behind the kiosk.

  ‘Ah! Mrs Crook Shank!’ Cyril clapped his hands. ‘Now I remember!’

  ‘Mrs Cruickshank, eh?’ Jake said. He folded his arms and leaned against the kiosk. ‘You appear to have lost the other five members of your party.’

  Martha held up a wad of dollar bills secured by a silver clip. ‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘I made sure they paid up-front.’

  Chapter Forty-Two

  The man standing at the reception desk of the Marlin Bay Hotel had that swagger of youthful confidence born of good health, expensive education and too much money that Conrad Getty found hugely irritating, yet at the same time filled him with boiling envy. Dressed casually in Chinos and a linen shirt, and with a pair of aviator sunglasses pushed back against a full head of thick hair, he was everything Getty despised simply because he was everything the cadaverous, balding and sick-to-the-soul hotel owner wanted to
be.

  ‘What is his name?’ he hissed, staring through narrowed eyes at the man across the hotel atrium.

  ‘Mr Noonan, sir,’ Loftus informed him.

  ‘Is he a guest?’

  ‘He checked in twenty minutes ago, sir.’

  ‘Then what’s his problem? Is there something wrong with his room?’

  ‘No, sir. He says he was expecting to meet someone here, but he cannot find them on the premises. ’

  ‘Who, for God’s sake? Who?’

  ‘Miss Bentley, sir.’

  Shit! Was this the moment he had dreaded? Had American investigators suddenly taken an interest in his little corner of Kenya? In the instant it took him to stride across the atrium, Getty’s demeanour transformed from that of bitter hobgoblin to fawning host.

  ‘Mr Noonan?’

  The young man glanced up and smiled, revealing - as Getty had expected - a set of perfect white teeth.

  ‘Patrick Noonan,’ he said. ‘Pleased to meet you.’

  ‘Conrad Getty, owner of the Marlin Bay. My concierge tells me you have a problem?’

  ‘No problem, Mr Getty. Just a little mystery, that’s all.’

  Getty’s blood froze and, to his annoyance, a tic began fluttering in the corner of his eye.

  Noonan lowered his voice. ‘Between you and me, I’ve just flown in from New York to pay a surprise visit to my girlfriend. Martha Bentley? Your receptionist tells me she’s been staying here, but I’ve looked everywhere for her and I can’t find her. I was just wondering if you knew where she might be? If she left a message maybe?’

  ‘Of course. Miss Bentley,’ Getty said evenly, although the knowledge that this jumped-up piece of shit was Martha’s boyfriend was only slightly less galling than if he’d been a CIA agent. An image of Noonan’s sculpted buttocks pounding between Martha Bentley’s thighs flitted briefly but unpleasantly through his mind. ‘She went to Malindi this morning,’ Getty said, relishing the surprise on Noonan’s face.

  ‘Malindi?’

  ‘She took one of the hotel’s boats there this morning. I believe she had some outstanding business regarding the estate of her late father.’