President Ambourouet had enough power, money, influence, and oil to weather such outcries. As one of the world’s wealthiest men with real estate holdings in France alone totaling over 2 billion in euros, he lived in Libreville in an appropriately sumptuous tall, white-walled presidential palace replete with African wildlife and a lake with lotus flowers.
Though the sparsely-populated country of Gabon was no longer a jewel in the French colonial empire— it had achieved independence in 1960— Ambourouet was one of France’s favored African sons because of the country’s natural resources. He had always had a place at the table in the Élysée Palace, whether it was de Gaulle, Mitterrand, Chirac, or Sarkozy sitting at the table’s head.
There were two kinds of “Big Men” in Africa, the elfin Ambourouet reasoned as he removed his platform-heeled shoes, which had been pinching his small toe. On the one side, there were the revolutionaries like Lumumba, Hani, Biko, and Madibi, also known as Saint Nelson Mandela, (Ambourouet sniped in envy); and, on the other, there were those with sordid domestic and international imbroglios on the order of Mugabe in Zimbabwe, Libya’s Gaddafi, the Congo’s Mobutu, or Amin in Uganda. He fell somewhere in the middle, propped up by Ornoir, a French oil company, and the world’s dependence on oil.
He was no dictator; his people lived peaceably, if poorly, despite his wealth and the country’s oil reserves. He had not built a reputation on cruelty and repression, except for the national press— and that was only occasionally. His country was no more or less a democracy than he was no more or less a dictator. He, the French, the IMF, and World Bank liked it that way.
A good political sport, he had never had dissidents and political opponents disappear into the night or tossed into crocodile pits; he usually brought them over to his way of thinking with healthy investments into their pet projects. He had a well-oiled patronage system in place. He chortled at the irony of his last remark. There had been only one international hoo-ha in his long-running regime and that was fueled by the press and its obsession with a pay-to-meet U.S. President George W. Bush scheme orchestrated by the powerful Washington lobbyist John Abramoff. But even that was of little consequence to Jean-Hilaire Ambourouet. He understood that everyone and everything had a price, including access.
His handwringing this late Monday evening was related to a political appointment. He would need to select a new interim prime minister this July, before his inevitable reelection. That prime minister would then continue on permanently after his installation as president. He had narrowed that selection down to two candidates: his daughter, Lucie-Gisèle, who had been given a position as Minister of Business Affairs, and Georges-Guillaume Damas, an adopted relative of the powerful Damas family, who had made Ambourouet’s ascension to the presidency possible.
Since politics is a blood sport, Ambourouet expected opposition research. Georges-Guillaume had refused to take the road well traveled, as it were. Though there was plenty of dirt to shovel on GiGi, as Lucie-Gisèle was called, he understood that his opposition was the president’s daughter; but it was also not in his nature to engage in political blood sport.
Georges-Guillaume was a quiet-spoken, elegant man nearing 61 years old. And he was tall, unlike the five-foot-one Ambourouet and the majority of his countrymen and women, whose earliest ancestors were Pygmies. He was also a brown man, not a black one, with an aquiline nose, light eyes, and brown, down-like curls. He was a member of the Fang, one of Gabon’s many ethnic groups. He had been named after the French poet Guillaume Appollinaire, who was known to invoke Africa in his poetry. Educated in France, Georges-Guillaume returned “home,” as he had reclaimed Gabon in his thirties, where he entered political life under the tutelage of Ambourouet.
As a member of the African elite, like his political mentor, he was extremely wealthy, having a grandiose home in Libreville, a villa in Antibes, a hôtel particulier on Rue de la Baume in Paris’s eighth arrondissement, a pied-à-terre in Versailles, and a private jet in a hanger at Beauvais airport. He had five children, six, if you counted the one he had stashed away in France, substantially less than Ambourouet’s 22.
These were the things that Ambourouet knew about Georges-Guillaume Daniel Damas. In her attempt at a power grab, GiGi had recently brought him a package containing the most disturbing and politically damaging photographs. And they had something to do with the peripatetic doctor, Philippe Friedrich, whose hospital in the city of Franceville, Gabon, Ambourouet had allowed to remain open when he came to power. The doctor had been instrumental in his securing aid from the French government in the amount of 400 million francs in 1968, of which Ambourouet had been able to siphon off thirty percent.
Ambourouet had allowed a good number of things to continue and flourish in order to curry favor with France after independence. Senghor had been his model, though Senegal did not have black gold seeping in its offshore deepwater blocks like Gabon. In exchange for giving the French expatriate community in Gabon plum jobs that should have gone to Africans, subsidized housing in the best suburbs of Libreville and Port Gentil with country clubs, maids they could not have afforded in France, and pipelines galore, Gabon had stability, private foreign investors, electricity in most of the country, paved roads, the Transgabonais railroad, modern architecture, fine hotels, champagne, and swank malls.
Ambourouet understood that, anytime a white man came to Africa to do good, white men in Europe and America believed he was doing good. Though the hospital had been in deplorable condition, the good doctor himself believed Africans unfit for independence, and thus had never trained an African in the field of medicine in his lifetime; that white doctor had been given a Nobel Peace Prize. And in those years, nearly thirty, when the ascetic doctor resided in Franceville without his wife, he had been doing something other than good, at least according to GiGi. The spectre of that Swiss doctor was now clawing up from his grave on the banks of the Mpassa River near the Poubara waterfalls and meddling in Gabonese politics.
XVI
Cassis, France, Tuesday, June 22nd
Havilah awoke at 5:30 a.m. She quickly showered and put on a hotel bathrobe. She had slept soundly thanks to the Tylenol. She went straight for her laptop. She had become so dependent on the laptop and cell phone she was beginning to feel like they were extra limbs. They were her lifelines now. Mathias had not emailed. But Hezekiah and Mr. Allen, the librarian from Chicago, had. She wondered what Mr. Allen wanted, but she opened Hezekiah’s email first: “Call me. Urgent. I don’t care how late it is. 615-419-7777.” It was almost midnight in Nashville.
“Hello! Hello! Hezekiah?” Havilah was practically yelling into the telephone. Wherever Hezekiah was, it was very loud.
“Yeah, it’s me.”
“It’s Havilah. You told me to call.”
“Hold up. Let me move away from the music.”
“Where are you?”
“Exit In. Ivan Neville’s Dumpstaphunk is playing. I couldn’t miss it.”
She didn’t want to keep him from Dumpstaphunk so she went straight to the Q & A. “Did you recover the email?”
“That’s the problem. Your boy sent exactly one email on the night he was clubbed; but not to you. It was to some MonaLisa Caren. But whoever killed old dude used his email account to duplicate the original and send multiple copies of that same email with an attachment to the Caren female. As soon as I opened one, a virus started erasing the data. Are you following me?”
“Sort of. The email data or data from your system?”
“Both. Someone introduced a virus into our system using Beirnes’s email account. It’s a hybrid because our security didn’t catch it or clean the attachments. I’ll figure it out. It disables virus protection software and destroys some files, while encrypting others. I’ve been at the office all evening trying to clean up this mess. We’ve reported it. But my experience has been that these virus perpetrators are rarely caught.”
She could hear in his voice that Hezekiah seemed impressed, highly annoyed, and chal
lenged by the killer’s skills. Havilah’s thoughts quickly shifted to Mathias and the network at MonaLisa Caren’s Agency. As she talked to him, she immediately began writing an email to Mathias. She would also leave him a message as soon as she finished speaking with Hezekiah. She hoped that he had been too busy yesterday to check MonaLisa’s email account.
“So where does that leave us?”
“That data is erased, Havilah. Unless Kit saved a copy on a flash drive somewhere, in a cloud, or printed out a hardcopy, no one will be reading that attachment. Ever. I know that’s not what you wanted to hear.”
That was not what she wanted to hear. Neither Hezekiah nor Mathias could help her with the proposal.
“You’ve been a sweetheart, Hezekiah. Thanks for trying. I’ll figure something out. You get back to Dumpstaphunk. I’ll bring you something nice back from France.”
“Just bring yourself back safely. Do that for a brotha.”
She smiled. He really was a sweetheart.
* * *
She had another ace in the hole. She called Mathias and left a message before she opened Mr. Allen’s email. She was struck again by Mr. Allen’s generosity and usefulness. A Lucie-Gisèle Ambourouet in Libreville, Gabon had also requested the very photographs Havilah had left facedown on the nightstand. She picked them up again and studied them. She looked from Knowlton to the boy, the boy to Knowlton, their expressions, their body language. She was still stumped by Knowlton’s gaze at the boy. It was tender, but it was something else too.
She decided to do a search on the Libreville connection. So far, all she knew was that Libreville was the capital of Gabon and not far from Franceville where Friedrich’s hospital had been located. She got up to speed on Gabon’s history and politics. Ms. Ambourouet was the daughter of Gabon’s president. She was also an aspiring politician. Was the boy African? She picked up the photographs again. There was some connection between this boy, Knowlton, Gabon, and Philippe Friedrich. She had no last name for the boy. She could try to write Ms. Ambourouet but it would probably be weeks before she got a response from Gabon. There was no email contact or telephone number. Havilah figured she just couldn’t call the Presidential Palace at Gabon and ask for his daughter. She also didn’t know what political intrigue she might start by having a dialogue with her. If only it were that easy, she thought as she sat down on the balcony with her computer. She emailed Mr. Allen a profuse thank you and then asked him for one more very large favor.
* * *
She could tell the day would be a scorcher. The skies were clear and it was already sunny and very warm. She decided she would go for a quick dip in the sea. It would help her think through Ms. Ambourouet, the boy, and the rest of this madness. As she changed from the bathrobe to a respectable hot pink tankini, she knew Thierry Gasquet would have to come along and then they could have their talk about what she’d discovered. It wasn’t even 6:00. She wondered if the French agent had patrolled the halls like a monitor throughout the late night and early morning trying to catch her slipping out.
She decided she wouldn’t try to ditch Gasquet anymore. Indeed, she actually wanted to keep him closer. There was no one reason, but rather the combination of the killer’s thoroughness in disposing of Kit’s proposal, MonaLisa’s curious accident, and those photographs.
She walked to her door so she could let the agent know she wanted to swim. That’s when she saw the paper tucked neatly under her door. She snatched it up. In large, bold letters, it read: “STOP.”
XVII
Havilah’s hands were shaking. “STOP,” she said aloud. STOP. STOP. She’d been found. She was terrified and hesitant about opening her door. The killer could be in the hallway. She thought about screaming. Instead she went to the door, turned the lock once again and put the top swinging lock in place. She reached for the hotel telephone.
“Thierry.” She spoke evenly into the receiver, though her hands were trembling and the pit in her stomach had induced a sort of nausea. “I need you to come to my room now, please.”
* * *
The loud jangle of the phone snapped the French agent to attention. In two steps he was opening his door and in the hotel corridor, tapping lightly on her door.
“Havilah.” He rapped the door twice. He could see her at the peephole before she opened it. Her fear was palpable. It animated the large room.
“What’s happened?” Gasquet heard the tenseness in his voice.
“This…” her voice cracked “…was placed under my door.”
She handed him the note. He could see a slight twitching in her hands. In quick whispers she told him about the message Kit left on her cell phone, the notes at Kit’s apartment, her discovery of the cigarette butt on the grounds, her research over the last evening. She was taking in deep breaths.
“Here. Here. Here,” she repeated like an incantation. “All from Nashville. Nashville.” She placed the cigarette, holding only the tobacco end, the notes, and envelope beside the other hostile missive to her. Thierry noted the visible shaking of her hands.
“Kit had been threatened. Someone threatened him.”
He studied her for a moment longer. He looked over the evidence she presented, puzzling this entire Nashville connection. Her warning resembled the first two bold-lettered “STOPs” rather than the last note sent to Professor Beirnes. “Are you okay?”
She nodded. “I was going to tell you everything this morning.” She had a hangdog look on her face.
He tried for a combination of sternness and empathy. “You’ve been rather busy. I’ll need to make a few calls.”
Quickly, he arranged for the retrieval of all the evidence as well as the feed from the cameras in the lobby and elevators. There was only one way in and out of the hotel. Everyone passed through the lobby. Unfortunately, he had noted that there were no surveillance cameras on the individual hall floors. He would have never approved this hotel for high value assets. But he hadn’t selected these accommodations. Havilah Gaie had.
“They’ll be here in fifteen minutes to collect everything. Are you sure you’re okay? Havilah, did the professor smoke? Do you know who would have taken the trouble to send him these notes from Nashville?”
“Yes, I’m fine. Really. Kit smoked occasionally. Usually only to celebrate things. In the message he left me the night he was murdered, he said he had completed the proposal and his remarks for the Centennial. He said the work was electrifying. So yes. He may have smoked that evening,” she whispered. “I have no idea about the Nashville connection.” She was shaking her head now.
“The hotel is full. I will need to button you up, Havilah. Do you understand me?” He stared at her again.
He had already obliged the hotel’s manager to rebook someone else in order to secure his room. He knew his countrymen well enough that a second inconvenience, even for SPHP, would set off a round of shrugging and gesticulations before the onset of frostiness. These people, his people, had stormed the Bastille and staged strikes whenever the mood hit them. They had never been sufficiently intimidated by those hired to protect and serve. Indeed, quite the opposite. Another room, another hotel even, he knew would be impossible to secure in Cassis in June.
Havilah nodded up at him absently, her eyes beginning to tear up. She closed them for a minute and cleared her throat. “But if you shuttle me off now, how do you know they won’t come after me later? When I’m back in the U.S.? Wouldn’t it be better to force them out of the shadows?” Her eyes seemed to be pleading with him.
He ignored her reasoning for the moment. “Besides Laurent, who else knew where you were staying?”
“I only told Laurent, and I never told him my room number,” she said protectively. It was clear to him that she didn’t want him to draw a bullseye around her friend.
He knew her mind had to have also wandered in that direction. She obviously didn’t want to believe that Laurent, who probably knew a good deal about her undertakings since arriving in Cassis, could possibly be involved in
this sordid business.
The agent looked at her as if reading her mind. “And yes, it would be better to force the killer out of the shadows. My task is to protect you, though. Not use you as bait.”
“Bait, a honeypot to lure a bear, or manna from the gods. Think of me however you want, but the way I see it, we don’t have a choice. I leave out of here in a tear, whoever did this just lies in wait for another opportunity. They know I know something. They don’t know how much, so they might just chance neutralizing me, just in case. So that makes me all yours, Agent Gasquet.”
She looked awkwardly in his direction, while she adjusted her bathing suit cover-up.
Thierry Gasquet knew Havilah Gaie was terrified now; but he also knew that she’d begin coloring outside the lines just as soon as the shock wore off. It was that determination that made his job of keeping her safe much harder. Her snooping had delivered some goods. He wondered how those investigating the crime scene had not recovered those notes and that cigarette.
He sighed. What does a cigarette mean in France?
Nothing unusual.
“I need to make some inquiries discreetly at the front desk. We’ll change rooms for the evening.”
“Then can we swim? It will help me relax and think.” Her stomach growled loudly. Thierry wondered if it was genuine hunger or nerves.
“Followed by breakfast,” he responded. He could only imagine what giving her an opportunity to “think” would portend next.
They decided they would take the stairs. As they moved from the lobby to the terrace, they could see the hotel’s staff bustling about preparing the buffet for breakfast. Thierry motioned for Havilah to stop.
He asked casually if anyone had contacted the hotel about Mademoiselle Gaie. He explained that she was expecting a visitor last evening. A chorus of “Non, Monsieur” led to a dead end. The agent decided he would have his colleagues find out who worked the evening shift as well and make some inquiries. He then picked up four towels from the basket on the terrace.
The 13th Fellow: A Mystery in Provence Page 11