Which was why, when he bumped into his old comrade-in-arms Sergeant Viljoen one night in an Old Town strip joint called the Baobab Club, he was all ears to any suggestions, reasonable or otherwise.
And Viljoen, of course, had a suggestion.
An organisation specialising in very specific import-export goods were looking to establish themselves in East Africa. They’d already recruited Viljoen as a footsoldier, and now they were looking for someone to manage the operation. And who better, Viljoen suggested, than his old army captain?
And, while the job sickened Conrad Getty to his very core, he had now reached the stage where he could no longer live without the money. The money had bought him the Marlin Bay, bought him his reputation in Shanzu, bought him a new life. Without the money, he was no one. He was dead.
It was midnight and the best part of a bottle of Glenfiddich before Getty left the hotel bar. He would have stayed longer, except that would have meant paying the barman overtime. Besides, he had a fresh bottle in his office that was just calling out for some love and attention.
First, he decided to take a stroll across the pool area, in the hope that the night air and the sea tang would stimulate him sufficiently to appreciate his nightcap. All it did was hit him like a brick wall. His legs turned to mush and he stumbled towards the pool in the darkness; his flailing arms grabbed the thick wooden post of a folded canvas parasol and he clung to it for dear life beside the still water before toppling backwards on to an empty sun lounger.
‘Shit,’ he said, wheezing hard, and above him the stars in the clear night sky spun alarmingly in his vision. He lay there for a moment, listening to the distant soothing crump of the ocean. As he did so, he became aware of a presence sitting opposite him in the darkness.
‘Who’s that?’
A voice he did not recognise said, ‘You know, I could stick a knife between the first two vertebrae of your neck and nobody would know you hadn’t just fallen into the pool and drowned.’
Getty sat up with a start, his eyes blinking into the shadows. ‘Who’s there?’ he said.
‘Alternatively, I could take you out on to the beach and slit your throat and everyone would think you’d been mugged by a couple of hoods high on chang’aa. From what I hear it happens a lot round here.’
And then Getty said, ‘Oh, Christ - you,’ and he pissed himself, because, even though he had never heard Whitestone’s voice, he knew it was him. The bogeyman.
‘Who did you think it was?’ Whitestone said, leaning forward slightly in his chair so that the moonlight cast his face in alabaster. ‘Patrick? The lovely Miss Bentley’s paramour?’
Getty stared with horrified fascination, his booze-sodden brain overloading as he tried to reconcile what he was seeing with what he was hearing. The face of the bogeyman belonged to the clean-cut, all-American Patrick Noonan he recognised from the hotel atrium - yet the voice did not. The Ivy League twang had gone. The bogeyman had no discernible accent or human emotion in his voice. It was clipped and impersonal as the coded emails with which he communicated.
‘My compliments to the chef, Conrad,’ Whitestone said. ‘Martha and I thought tonight’s dinner was outstanding, although the swordfish steak was a little overdone for my tastes.’
‘Listen,’ Getty whispered. ‘What happened the other day . . . It was nothing to do with me, I swear, I—’
Whitestone brought a finger to his lips. ‘Keep your voice down, Conrad. You don’t want to wake the guests. They don’t pay all that money to have their beauty sleep interrupted.’
‘I swear to you that I had nothing to do with what happened up at Dennis Bentley’s boatyard.’
‘Ah yes. Dennis Bentley’s boatyard. Now that wasn’t good at all.’ Whitestone paused to let his words sink in.
‘Things got out of hand,’ Getty admitted.
‘Out of hand? I should say so, Conrad. Those trigger-happy niggers damn near blew my girlfriend away. Martha’s a sweet girl. I’ve become very fond of her, and I wouldn’t like anything to happen to her. After all, you’ve already killed her father.’
‘I—’
‘Oh, I appreciate that Dennis had become a liability. In fact, I was impressed with the speed with which you terminated his contract. The nigger’s body floating back to shore was unfortunate - but these things happen. No, what worries me is when your men start shooting at policemen.’
‘I swear—’
‘I know, I know. It had nothing to do with you. But the fact is I pay you handsomely to make sure that everything that happens in this sector is to do with you. Do you understand that?’
‘Yes. There’s no excuse.’
‘No, Conrad. There’s not.’
Getty hung his head - yet, even as he waited to die, he felt a strange elation that at last it was all over.
‘But let’s not be too downcast,’ Whitestone said.
Getty lifted his eyes, and saw that the bogeyman was actually smiling. But then he knew from long experience that killers often smiled just before they dealt the fatal blow.
Whitestone, however, sat back in his chair with his hands behind his head. Getty was struck by how young he was. The bogeyman could have been his own son.
‘If it was anybody else, I might feel differently,’ Whitestone said. ‘But there is the question of this urgent shipment which needs to be attended to. Which is why I thought I’d better come down here to make sure nothing else goes wrong. How prepared are you?’
For the first time ever, Getty had cause to thank God for Tug Viljoen. ‘Everything is in place.’
‘What about the courier?’
‘We have a replacement ready.’
Whitestone raised an eyebrow. ‘I’m impressed, Conrad.’
‘Just say the word, Mr Whitestone. We’re ready to go.’
Whitestone gave him instructions and Getty memorised them as if they were military orders. Even as he did so, his mind was already working out the logistics. But then Getty had always been good at that. It was why he had been given the job in the first place.
‘Very well,’ Whitestone said. ‘In that case I think I’ll go to bed. It’s been a long day. Room service at nine tomorrow morning, eh?’
‘Of course.’
The bogeyman stood, and the expressionless face suddenly broke into a toothy grin.
‘No more mistakes, or you die,’ Patrick Noonan said, the forefinger of his right hand extended like the barrel of a pistol. ‘Count on it.’
Day Seven
Chapter Fifty-One
It was seven in the morning, and, considering he rarely stirred from his hammock in the workshop before eight, Harry was in an unfeasibly good mood. Jake, who slept on Yellowfin and had been up since just after dawn, regarded him with suspicion as he moored the launch and leaped ashore.
‘You hollered?’
‘Good news, old boy!’
‘I hope so,’ Jake said peevishly, wiping his oily hands on his vest. ‘I’ve been trying to get those bloody hydraulics fixed for the last—’
‘I’ve just got us a new radio!’ Harry announced. His face still looked like pounded steak, but there was a discernible sparkle in his eye.
Jake looked at him suspiciously. ‘I thought it wasn’t due for another fortnight.’
‘That’s the Nairobi radio,’ Harry said dismissively. ‘I just got a call from Missy Meredith. Seems this chap she knows in Mazeras owes her a favour. And it just so happens he’s got a secondhand ship-to-shore in his workshop, good as new. It’s ours for fifty bucks if we can pick it up this afternoon.’
‘Mazeras?’ The township was west of Mombasa along the main Nairobi highway. ‘How the hell are we supposed to get to Mazeras? We don’t have a car, remember?’
‘Initiative, old boy,’ Harry said, tapping his nose. Then, as if dispensing great wisdom, he said, ‘Suki Lo’s Honda.’
It took a moment for the full significance of his words to sink in. Then Jake backed away, his hands raised. ‘No way! That old wreck is a d
eath trap, and you’re talking about a three-hour round trip on a good day.’
‘Well, I’d go myself, but I’m hardly in a fit state to get behind the wheel of a car,’ Harry said. ‘The way my back is, I wouldn’t get as far as the highway without medical assistance.’ He shrugged. ‘But it’s up to you. If you’re happy to wait two more weeks ...’
Jake knew when he was beaten. ‘Jesus, Harry.’
‘I scribbled the address on the pad on the desk,’ Harry said, grinning. ‘There’s a hundred bucks in the jar next to the phone. That should be more than enough to pay for the radio and for petrol there and back.’
‘What are you going to do?’
‘Paperwork, old boy. The system is long overdue for an overhaul. I sense there are good times ahead, and we must be ready to embrace them with open arms!’
Grumbling, Jake headed for the cool of the workshop and made his way to the office. An address in Mazeras was indeed scrawled on Harry’s notepad, but as Jake had never been to the township before he was none the wiser. He ripped off the sheet of paper and folded it into the pocket of his shorts. Next to the phone was a brinjal pickle jar with a selection of mixed currency bills inside. Officially this was petty cash, but right now it was investment capital. Jake peeled off four twenty-dollar bills and replaced the rest of the money - which in the same currency came to a little over five hundred dollars - in the jar.
He was on his way out of the door when the phone rang.
‘Who was that?’ Harry asked as Jake emerged from the workshop a few minutes later.
‘Somebody trying to sell me life insurance.’
‘I trust you told them to fuck off.’
‘I told them I was about to drive Suki Lo’s Honda to Mazeras, and they told me to fuck off.’
Harry laughed. ‘That’s the spirit!’
‘You think I’m joking?’
The two men said their goodbyes and Jake set off on foot along the track to Suki Lo’s. Thirty minutes later, he returned along the same track in Suki’s luminous-green Honda Civic, a relic which the bar owner had picked up for a couple of hundred dollars from a scrapyard in Kilifi and kept ‘for emergencies’ in a lean-to garage at the rear of the building. Its suspension was shot to hell and the brakes appeared to be working on a time-delay mechanism, and there were thick scabs of bird and monkey shit on its paintwork - but, as he skirted potholes en route to the highway, Jake was no longer thinking about the car and whether he would survive to hand the keys back.
He was thinking about the telephone call he had received in the boatyard office - and why it meant he wouldn’t be driving to Mazeras township after all.
Chapter Fifty-Two
The Arturet was a thirty-six-year-old former Yugoslavian-registered grain freighter now transporting anything from grape nuts to secondhand-car parts - but mostly drugs - under a flag of convenience around the African coast. She had limped into Kilindini at dawn on her one functioning engine, ostensibly for mechanical repairs but primarily to offload a large consignment of cannabis resin she had picked up in Oran two weeks earlier.
The skipper was a bearded and bellicose Greek called Aristophenedes, who had once held a lucrative and prestigious position piloting Aristotle and Jackie Onassis around the Dodecanese in one of the billionaire’s yachts, until he was sacked for downing two litres of retsina and attempting to grope Jackie.
Thanks to The Arturet, sailing under the influence of alcohol was no longer a problem for Aristophenedes; the freighter was such a lumbering piece of shit that he could easily manoeuvre it blindfold, let alone blind drunk - which he was most of the time. The Greek’s only concern these days were his illicit cargoes - and, more specifically, offloading them. In the past, this had not been a problem. His regular stops - places like Rabat, Libreville, Maputo and Quelimane - were generally patrolled by an official with a peaked cap and shiny badge who would allow you access to his own sister for a couple of US dollars. But that had all changed after September 11th and the war on terror. Now, even in these godforsaken places - perhaps because they were so godforsaken - it was commonplace within minutes of docking to find your vessel swarming with security goons in search of rocket launchers and al-Qaeda stowaways. On more than one occasion recently, Aristophenedes had looked out from the bridge to discover a reception committee waiting on the quay, and been forced to either dump the illicit cargo in the sea or else set it adrift in a lifeboat to be picked up later.
Mombasa, at least, was one place where he could breathe a little easier. If only, Aristophenedes reflected, someone like Michael Kili ran all African ports. Think of the order there would be, the refreshing lack of harassment for sailors such as himself just trying to get by in difficult times. Kili made it so simple: you pitched up at Kilindini and were free to unload whatever cargo you wished - as long as the gangster received twenty-five per cent of it. He would even provide dockhands to offload it for you. Twenty-five per cent was steep, but it was a hell of a better option than throwing the whole lot in the sea.
Aristophenedes had been looking forward to his stopover in Mombasa. Kili was not only a good businessman, but also a generous host and there was one whore in particular from his stable, a young girl called Mary, who gave the most exquisite oral pleasure. But now, as he stood in the temporary office belonging to the warehouse controller, waiting to put his name to the largely meaningless customs documentation, he felt his temper beginning to rise.
‘But I don’t understand, Pieter,’ he barked. ‘There is never usually a hold-up.’
The port supervisor, a white Kenyan called Pieter Sylvian, removed his cap and ran his fingers through thinning hair. ‘What can I say, Nikos? These are difficult times for us all,’ he said miserably.
‘I have seven hundred kilos of cannabis resin in the hold of my ship!’ the Greek shouted, his eyes bulging. ‘That makes life extra difficult for me!’
Sylvian gestured for him to calm down and keep quiet, but Aristophenedes jabbed at him furiously with a thick tobacco-stained finger.
‘Where is Kili? Let me speak to Kili!’
‘Kili isn’t here.’
‘Then where the hell is he?’
‘He is dead, Captain,’ said a voice from behind him.
The Greek skipper turned and stared with bemusement at the besuited African standing in the cabin doorway.
‘And who the hell are you?’
‘My name is Detective Inspector Daniel Jouma of Coast Province CID.’
‘Police?’ Aristophenedes glared accusingly at Sylvian, who raised his hands abjectly.
‘There was nothing I could do about it, Nikos.’
‘I will see you in Hell,’ hissed the Greek.
‘About your cargo, Captain,’ Jouma said.
The Greek smiled broadly. ‘As I was explaining to the gentleman here, I had no idea these narcotics had been smuggled aboard my ship until I personally conducted an inventory of the cargo this morning. I—’
‘Please do not insult my intelligence,’ Jouma said. ‘I have documentary evidence which proves that you have been regularly offloading drugs at Kilindini for the last two years. You know that in Kenya the penalty for trafficking marijuana is twenty years’ imprisonment?’
Aristophenedes seemed to choke slightly behind his rictus grin. ‘Perhaps we can work this out, Inspector,’ he said smoothly. ‘I’m sure I don’t have to tell you how much twenty-five per cent of such a delivery would be worth to you.’
‘I am not Michael Kili and I am not open to bribery, Captain,’ Jouma snapped. ‘Those days are over.’
At his desk, Sylvian put his head in his hands.
Aristophenedes, meanwhile, had abruptly dropped his blustering façade and was now pleading with Jouma. ‘Why catch the sardine when you can land the whale?’ he said. ‘I myself hate drugs and all they stand for. I can give you names of those responsible for threatening me and my family to transport these evil substances—’
‘Enough!’ Jouma ordered.
Aristo
phenedes hung his head like a scolded child.
‘Now listen to me carefully, Captain,’ Jouma continued. ‘You will get back on board your ship and you will leave Kilindini on the next tide and you will not return. Do you understand?’
The Greek’s bushy eyebrows shot up. ‘Of course, Inspector,’ he said hurriedly.
‘Mombasa may have been an easy touch in the past, but now things have changed. I repeat: do you understand, Captain?’
‘Yes, Inspector.’
‘Once out of Mombasa waters, you will ditch your cargo over the side. Understand?’
Aristophenedes flushed briefly with affront, but nodded.
‘There is one more thing.’
‘Yes, Inspector.’
‘You will be taking two passengers with you.’
Chapter Fifty-Three
Had he actually been a bonds trader, Whitestone had no doubt he would have been good at it. After all, what was his true profession if not profiting from the transfer of saleable commodities across international borders? The only difference was what was perceived as legal and what was not. But that was of little importance anyway. Anyone who hoped to flourish in the real world knew that legality was just a word. What really counted were market forces.
Whitestone understood the market, which was why he had flourished. His sector was southern Europe, crucial both for its established client base and for export routes to the burgeoning markets in the north. To have been put in charge of such an important operation so young was an extraordinary achievement. Whitestone was just thirty-three, and there were many who saw him running the whole organisation before he was forty.
‘Patrick, do you have the letter from Dad’s insurance people?’
Whitestone slipped easily out his reverie and into the persona of Patrick Noonan. It was not difficult. As far as Whitestone was concerned, the American had the complexity of a barn door. He reached into the door pocket of the BMW X5. The car belonged to Marlin Bay Hotel’s fleet of courtesy cars and was far too extravagant for their needs. But Conrad Getty had good reason to be generous, so Whitestone wasn’t complaining.
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