by Wilbur Smith
‘You not kidding me, are you? You are real serious, aren’t you, white boy?’
‘You remember how we talked about if you have enough money you can take anything and you can do anything, and nobody is going to stop you?’
‘I remember.’
‘Well, Johnny, you and I have got enough money. Just give me a little time and Kazundu is going to be ours, Your Majesty.’ And he gave Johnny Congo a high five.
*
Three nights before his release from the Holloway unit Carl Bannock came to visit Johnny Congo on death row for the last time.
First they had sex. They had been lovers now for twelve years and each of them knew exactly what the other liked best. As it was a farewell occasion Carl acted the role of the queen and let Johnny have it his way.
Afterwards they shared the flat bottle of Dimple Haig whisky that Carl had smuggled into the cell with him. Sitting on the bunk with their heads close together, drinking the whisky from plastic tooth mugs and speaking in guarded whispers, they discussed Johnny’s escape.
The previous week Johnny’s lawyer had come to visit him. He was the only person from the outside who had that right. He told Johnny bluntly that they had reached the end of the line after many years of legal manoeuvring.
The Supreme Court had finally considered Johnny’s appeal against the death sentence and had turned it down flat. The governor of the State of Texas had set Johnny’s execution date for 12 August.
‘That’s much sooner than we were banking on,’ Carl reminded him. ‘It leaves us only a couple of months to spring you out of this joint. It was lucky that we started working on the planning so much earlier. Now we have only a few minor details to work out.’
By the time that the unit controller came to let Carl out of Johnny’s cell and escort him back to the trusties’ level on the ground floor, they had settled every one of those minor details.
The unit controller was Lucas Heller who had been the first to welcome Carl into Holloway twelve years previously. Since then he had been promoted to his present elevated rank in the prison hierarchy. When they reached the ground level Lucas took Carl into his own office and locked the door while the two of them discussed the final details of the plan that Carl had just agreed with Johnny Congo. When they had finished, Lucas tactfully brought up the matter of payment of the bribes. Lucas referred to these euphemistically as the motivational considerations.
Carl had agreed to make the payments in tranches; half the agreed fee immediately, and the balance on the day previous to the actual escape.
The prison warden, Marco Merkowski, would receive a total of $250,000 paid into a numbered account in the Bank of Shanghai in Singapore. The $100,000 for the two level supervisors would be transferred to an account in the British Virgin Islands. Lucas Heller was the main mover and shaker. He would be paid $200,000 in the Cayman Islands and an additional $200,000 once Johnny was outside the walls of Holloway and running free. Carl would personally hand over this final tranche to Lucas Heller in used $100 bills, and then they would shake hands and part as friends, never more to meet.
*
The traditional manner in which a prisoner was released from Holloway was firstly to take him down to the induction area and make him hand over his prison uniform. Then he would sign for, and be handed, a bag containing the same clothing in which he had entered the establishment all those years ago. Finally two armed guards escorted him as far as the main gate. There he was pushed firmly out into the sweet air of freedom and the gate slammed just as firmly behind him. If one of the guards was in a beneficent mood he might point the way to the Greyhound Bus terminal, only a three-mile hike down the road.
On Carl Bannock’s release day Warden Marco Merkowski came to his cell to shake his hand and bid him Godspeed. Then Lucas Heller escorted him to the induction centre, where he handed over his prison-issue uniform and received and signed for the large parcels that his tailors in Houston had consigned to him. These contained a custom tailored suit in pale grey flannel, a Sun Island cotton shirt, gold monogrammed cufflinks; a black string necktie with a lapis lazuli pendant; a wide-brimmed cream-coloured Stetson hat and a pair of high-heeled Western boots.
Lucas rode with Carl in the prison bus to the main gates, where a black hire limo with a uniformed chauffeur that he had ordered online was waiting. The limo carried Carl in air-conditioned silence to the Four Seasons Hotel on Lamar Street in Houston.
The receptionist escorted him up to his suite. After he had tipped her a $50 bill, he ordered a bottle of chilled Dom Pérignon from room service. He sipped a flute of the champagne as he phoned down to the concierge. His name was Hank and he well-remembered Carl and his generosity from the old days.
‘I want a couple of lady friends for the evening, Hank.’
‘Certainly, Mr Bannock,’ Hank agreed. ‘One blonde and one black, as usual; is that right, sir?’
‘You have a good memory. Make sure they are as young as possible, just short of jail-bait. Tell them I’ll want to see a piece of photo ID to prove their age.’
*
The following week was extremely busy as Carl picked up the severed threads of his previous existence, re-established old contacts and made new ones from the list that Johnny Congo had provided for him.
He spent a morning with his private account manager at the Carson National Bank in Houston, rearranging and fine-tuning his accounts and portfolios. Then he passed a glacial hour at the law firm of Bunter and Theobald, Inc., with the head trustee of the Henry Bannock Family Trust.
Ronald Bunter treated him as though he was a species of poisonous reptile and answered his questions only as far as a strict interpretation of the Trust Deed would allow.
Ronald had his legal assistant at his side. She was a young woman named Jo Stanley. She was attractive and seemed extremely efficient, but she was a little too old for Carl’s particular tastes. Although he did consider that she might be able to obtain for him a more comprehensive and up-to-date overview of the affairs of the Trust than Bunter was prepared to divulge.
The following morning Carl phoned Jo Stanley from his suite to invite her to dine with him. He had decided to explore the extent of her libido and the effect of his irresistible charms upon it. If this proved to be negative then she would certainly be amenable to a bribe. Carl had never yet met anybody who was not responsive to both of these two stimuli.
However, Jo Stanley declined to accept his call and, to Carl’s mild embarrassment, had it transferred directly to Ronald Bunter’s desk.
Carl broke the connection as soon as he recognized Ronnie’s voice.
He decided to postpone his assault on the Family Trust until he had freed Johnny Congo. Johnny was running out of time.
One of the names on Johnny’s list of reliable contacts was a certain Aleutian Brown.
‘Aleutian is young but he is bright and mean. He is well connected. He has never let me down yet. He is just about the best man on the entire west coast.’ Johnny had recommended him and provided Carl with his contact number.
In response to his phone call, Aleutian Brown flew in from Los Angeles and Carl picked him up from the airport. During the short drive from the airport to the hotel where he had made reservations Carl learned enough to accept Johnny Congo’s assessment of the man.
Aleutian was one of the top honchos in a black gang known as the Angels or the Maaliks. The gang was international. Its tentacles reached out from the USA across the oceans to all the major cities world-wide, wherever there was a significant Muslim segment of the population. Within a few days Aleutian had taken care of all the planning and logistics of the operation, and Carl was able to set a final date for Johnny’s rescue. He decided on 29 July, two weeks before the date appointed for Johnny’s execution.
On 23 July there was an explosion in the laundry of Holloway prison. Two inmates were killed and all the washing and drying machinery was destroyed or severely damaged. This was critical to the smooth functioning of the ent
ire unit. Emergency measures had to be taken by the prison administration. One of the commercial laundries that serviced some of the major hotels in the city was located only fifteen miles from the Holloway prison.
Polar White Laundry was chosen from a shortlist, and the selection was endorsed by the prison warden, Marco Merkowski, on the suggestion of Johnny Congo and a motivational consideration from Carl. Thirty per cent of the employees of Polar White were members of the Maalik Angels.
On the early morning of 29 July a five-ton white International truck pulled up at the main service gate of Holloway. On each side of the truck body was emblazoned the name of the laundry, and images of a smiling female polar bear with her three frolicking cubs wearing spotless white napkins. Over the past week, since the destruction of the prison laundry, the guards at the main prison gates had become accustomed to the daily traffic of these vehicles.
Today there were five men on board. All of them were dressed in white overalls with the company’s name and logo embroidered on their backs.
Carl Bannock was the driver of the truck, and Aleutian Brown was his mate. The other three riding in the body of the truck were all Maaliks. Carl was a cautious person and much concerned by his personal safety. He had evaluated the risk factor of being one of the rescue party, and decided it was minimal. Nevertheless he was nervous and jumpy as he drove up to the main gates of Holloway.
He sweated lightly across his forehead as his forged ID was carefully checked by the prison guards on the gate. As last they waved the truck through.
After his long residence in Holloway Carl knew the layout of the unit intimately. He drove to the service entrance of the prison’s utility block. There he reversed the truck up to the loading bank of the laundry. Once the double doors at the rear were opened, the trolleys were trundled out of the truck. In the laundry they were loaded with canvas sacks of dirty washing which were then pushed back to the waiting Polar White truck.
The three switches and substitutions that ensued were as neat and smooth as a magician’s illusions.
In one of the last laundry sacks to be loaded into the truck Johnny Congo was concealed. The sack had been marked and was manhandled with great care into the cargo body. Aleutian, who was overseeing the loading, made certain that it was placed in a position where it was screened by the other laundry bags, but where Johnny Congo would not be in any danger of suffocation.
The last trolley that was pushed from the truck into the laundry already had a single sack on board. It also contained a human body, but this one was very much deceased.
The previous week Aleutian had visited the suburb of Gulfton, one of the poorest areas of Houston populated mostly by Hispanics and immigrants. In a cheap bar he had picked out somebody with a passing resemblance to Johnny in that he was big, black and formidable-looking. Aleutian had bought him a drink and offered him a well-paid job. The man had accepted enthusiastically. Aleutian had given him $200 as an earnest of good faith, and arranged to meet in the same bar on the evening of 28 July.
They had met again as arranged. Johnny had plied him with liquor until he was jovial and unsteady on his feet, then he had strangled him in the parking lot behind the bar and had packed his body into the laundry sack in the trunk of his rental car. This sack was the last to be unloaded from the Polar White truck.
The corpse in the sack was taken down to Death Row. It was swiftly placed in Johnny Congo’s bunk with its face to the wall and covered with a blanket, leaving only the back of its head exposed. To a casual observer it would seem that Johnny Congo was still securely tucked up in his bunk.
Lucas Heller climbed into the empty sack and was trolleyed back to the Polar White truck, and placed alongside Johnny Congo.
Now that the Polar White truck was fully loaded the rear doors were slammed shut. Carl Bannock climbed into the cab and started the engine. Aleutian was already in the passenger seat, and Carl drove sedately back through the inner checkpoints and finally out onto the Interstate.
Ten miles down the highway they pulled off into a service area and Carl parked among the other large vehicles in the truck stop. He and Aleutian opened the rear doors. The three laundry employees jumped down and immediately set off to where they had left a small Toyota sedan the previous evening. They drove away without looking back. None of them ever showed up again at the Polar White Laundry.
Carl and Aleutian climbed into the back of the laundry truck and closed the doors behind them. They released Johnny Congo and Lucas from their canvas bags.
Johnny and Carl embraced ardently while Aleutian and Lucas Heller looked on with amusement. Then Johnny turned to Aleutian and lifted him off his feet in a bear hug.
‘Aleutian Brown, you are one hectic dude. I told Carl we could rely on you, man.’
Lucas Heller went to Carl and held out his hand. Carl took it and squeezed. Lucas squirmed at the pressure.
‘Okay, Carl,’ he said uncomfortably. ‘If you’ll just give me what you owe me now I will leave you and your pals to celebrate and I’ll be on my way.’
Still holding his hand Carl told him seriously, ‘Thank you, Lucas. It’s been a real pleasure knowing you, it really has.’ Then, still holding Lucas’s hand firmly, he nodded at Aleutian. ‘Okay, Aleutian. Give him what we owe him.’
From the inside pocket of his overalls Aleutian slipped out a small-calibre pistol fitted with a silencer. He fired a single bullet into the back of Lucas Heller’s skull.
Carl released his hand and Lucas’s body dropped to the floor. His legs kicked and his body juddered. Aleutian stooped over the corpse and fired two more spaced shots into Lucas’s right temple. His legs stopped kicking.
‘What the hell?’ said Johnny Congo. ‘What the hell did you do that for?’
‘I never liked the bastard,’ Carl explained reasonably. ‘And I just saved us two hundred grand.’
‘I love you, Carl Bannock.’ Johnny clutched his belly and guffawed.
Aleutian had brought a change of clothing for each of them packed into one of the laundry bags. They discarded their uniforms and dressed quickly in street clothes. Then they jumped down from the back of the truck. Carl locked all the doors and they left the International and walked unhurriedly to the far side of the car park where the previous afternoon Aleutian had left a Ford rental car.
They climbed into it and drove north on Route 45 for forty miles and then they turned onto a secondary road and headed west towards Waco. In the late afternoon they reached a crop-spraying airstrip in the centre of a wide area of cultivated sorghum. There was a twin-engine Baron G58 prop-driven aircraft waiting for them on the strip. The aircraft was owned by one of Aleutian’s drug contacts and its short take-off and landing capabilities were ideal for their needs.
The pilot already had the engines ticking over, and the nose lined up with the runway. Carl and Aleutian shook hands with Johnny Congo. Then Johnny scrambled up on the wing root and stooped to cram his bulk through the open cabin door.
The co-pilot locked the door behind him, and the pilot gunned the engines and roared away down the strip, outward bound for La Ceiba in Honduras where Señor Alonso Almanza was looking forward to the pleasure of Johnny’s company.
*
Johnny and Carl met again fourteen days later in a suite on the top floor of the Hotel La Lasjitas in the Argentine capital, Buenos Aires. Carl had a Gold Rewards Card issued by Four Seasons. He always enjoyed the ambiance and the service that the company provided.
After they had sex, they showered together, and then took a cab down to the Puerto Madero and ate huge juicy steaks at Cabaña las Lilas. They washed them down with a bottle of Catena Alta Malbec. Afterwards they returned to the hotel suite.
The concierge had been forewarned and as soon as they arrived he sent two young people up to their room.
Carl checked the ID of the two visitors carefully. The girl looked to be about twelve years old, but her papers proved that she was sixteen years and two months. Carl kissed her and squeezed h
er skinny little buttocks. ‘You are very beautiful, my angel,’ he told her.
The boy was four months older than the girl. He was also very comely, if overly effeminate. When Johnny smiled at him from the sofa, he minced across the room and sat down on Johnny’s lap.
The following evening Carl and Johnny settled into the first-class cabin of the Air Malaysia flight to Cape Town on the southern tip of Africa. From the Presidential Suite of the One and Only Hotel at the Cape Town waterfront Carl phoned an unlisted number and spoke with General Horatio Mukambera in Harare, the capital city of Zimbabwe.
The general informed Carl that President Mugabe had been fully briefed on their proposal and had ordered the cooperation of the military. He confirmed that the funds had been received in the bank in Singapore, and that he would meet them in person when they arrived at Harare airport on board South African Airways.
Carl then passed the call on to Johnny Congo. Johnny had served two full tours of duty with the US Marine Corps in Vietnam, so his combat experience was extensive. He had reached the rank of sergeant major, and had been in the thick of the action on numerous occasions.
Within minutes he had established his credentials, and General Mukambera was aware that he was speaking to a man who knew the business. Their conversation became more relaxed and cordial as they discussed the logistics of the operation.
‘I am able to put at your disposal up to two companies of first-line assault paratroopers,’ the general told him.
‘How many men in one of your companies, General?’
‘One hundred and twenty.’
‘We do not want to be under-gunned. We will need both your companies,’ Johnny told him. ‘You have a secure location where I will be able to meet the men and work with them before we head north?’ Johnny switched into Swahili, leaving Carl unable to follow the conversation. But the general warmed to him even further as he replied in the same language.
‘Yes, we have an operations area that I can put at your disposal. But tell me how you speak one of our languages so well? I thought you were an American.’