Facets of Death

by Michael Stanley

  “Shit!” Nari exclaimed and ran across the apron to where the emergency fire vehicle was parked. He jumped in and raced towards the burning plane and immediately realised that there was little he could do to save it. He drove as close as he thought was safe, jumped out, and ran to Roberts.

  “Tony! Oh God, I’ve got to get you to hospital.” The pilot’s hair was gone, and his skin was black. He took Roberts’s arm and led him to the vehicle. He opened the passenger door and helped the pilot in. “We’ll be at the hospital in five minutes.”

  Chapter 3

  When Kubu walked through the door of the meeting room, the hubbub of idle conversation quietened, and heads turned to look at him. But no one greeted him.

  “Good morning,” he said as he looked around for a seat. There were only four left—three at one end of the table and one at the other. He headed to the single one, thinking he had probably been channelled there so he would be facing the director.

  He pulled the chair back from the table, sat down—cautiously—and smiled.

  A few moments later, the director walked in, followed by Mabaku and another man Kubu didn’t recognize.

  “Morning, everyone.” Director Gobey put a stack of folders on the table. He looked down the table at Kubu. “I take it you are Detective Sergeant Bengu?”

  “Yes, sir. But everyone calls me Kubu.”

  A snicker ran around the table.

  “I couldn’t care what people call you. In the CID, you are Detective Sergeant Bengu. Understood?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Gobey looked around the table. “Anyway, I’d like you all to welcome our newest detective sergeant, David Bengu. He has a lot to learn, so please help him out wherever you can.” He glared around at the group of men.

  “Right. First, old business. Samkoa, what’s the status of your investigation into the theft at the garage on Molepolole Road?”

  “We arrested a suspect last Friday, sir. We had a good CCTV image, and it didn’t take long to identify him when we showed his picture around to some of our informers. Of course, he says he’s innocent, but the video is conclusive.”

  “Excellent. Tiro, how are you doing with the pickpockets on the Mall?”

  “Not as well as Detective Sergeant Samkoa, sir. We had some of our male and female employees shop along the Mall in their everyday clothes, hopefully looking like tourists. All we achieved was to waste department money for tourist trinkets that are now on the shelves by the coffeepot. Our next move is to put up some CCTV cameras around the areas where we’ve had the most problems. We’re trying to get the city to pay for them but haven’t succeeded yet.”

  And so Gobey went around the room, with each detective reporting how things were going with their individual investigations. Some had been successful; some were stalled. Kubu listened carefully, trying to imagine how he would approach each case.

  “Now, new business,” Gobey said, getting ready to take notes. “Mabaku, what did the weekend bring?”

  Mabaku cleared his throat and read from notes he’d prepared.

  “Two things, sir. There were several more incidents of rustling at Ramatlabama over the weekend. Almost certainly cross-border from South Africa. The border is so damned porous. I’ve spoken to the South African Police Service at Mahikeng. They’re looking into it. I’ve no idea when or if we’ll hear back from them.

  “Then, for the second item, an unusual number of suitcases belonging to tourists leaving the country seem to have gone missing. Of course, they were only missed at their destinations, some in London and some in Paris. British Airways and Air France are blaming Air Botswana. All of the suitcases should have been offloaded from Air Botswana flights arriving in Joburg and loaded on the relevant outgoing flights to Europe.”

  “How many cases in all?” Gobey asked.

  “Fifteen.”

  “Fifteen? We’d better get to the bottom of that quickly. Otherwise we’ll start to see tourism drying up.”

  “Yes, sir. We’ve already contacted the airlines in question.”

  Kubu put up his hand.

  “Yes, Detective Sergeant?”

  “Did I hear the assistant superintendent say that all the lost suitcases left Sir Seretse Khama on Air Botswana flights rather than on South African Airways flights?”

  “That’s correct,” Mabaku answered. He turned to one of the detectives sitting next to Kubu. “Neo, what’ve you found out?”

  “Not much so far, sir. We were only told about these suitcases on Saturday afternoon. We do know that they were all properly tagged before they left, but we haven’t heard back from Joburg about what happened there.”

  “Okay. Bengu, you work with Neo on this. A good one to get your feet wet on.”

  “Yes, sir,” Kubu responded.

  Gobey looked around the room. “Anything else?”

  Nobody raised their hands, and the meeting adjourned

  Kubu turned to Neo and held out his hand. “I’m Kubu. Pleased to meet you.” The man looked a little taken aback but stammered a response. “Neo. Mathew Neo.”

  Kubu stood up. “Let’s go to your office and get started.”

  Chapter 4

  Two hours after the plane had caught fire, Elijah Goodman, head of administration at the Jwaneng diamond mine, ended his phone call to civil aviation with a muttered curse. The major wasn’t going to be happy.

  Well, there’s no time to waste, he thought. I’d better get on with it.

  He left his office, told his secretary he was going to see Major Chamberlain, and crossed the corridor to Eddie Tau’s office. Tau was head of security and was always available for urgent matters.

  “Is he in?” he asked Tau’s secretary.

  “Yes, Rra Goodman. But he has a meeting coming up and—”

  Goodman didn’t wait to hear the end of her sentence. He opened Tau’s door and walked in.

  Tau gave his usual easy smile. “Dumela, Elijah. What’s up?”

  Goodman’s news wiped the smile off his face.

  “Shit! Will the pilot be okay? We need to inform the major right away.”

  He jumped up, and they made their way to the boss’s more imposing office at the end of the corridor.

  David Chamberlain’s personal assistant looked up with surprise. She wasn’t expecting the heads of administration and security, and the major liked to operate by appointment.

  “We need to see him right away,” Tau said. “It’s urgent.”

  The PA saw their expressions and immediately went into her boss’s office. A moment later, she returned and signalled them in.

  Major Chamberlain’s desk was positioned in front of a large corner window overlooking the sprawling Jwaneng diamond-mine complex. The size of the open pit always astonished Goodman—a thousand metres across and much deeper than the country’s tallest skyscraper. And the ore trucks! Even the tyres dwarfed a man. Goodman was convinced the office was deliberately positioned there to remind a visitor of how big the operation was and who was in charge of it. He thought the large photograph of the major’s wife on his desk was there for the same reason. She was a cousin of the chairman of De Beers, one of the mine’s owners.

  “Yes, what is it, Elijah, Eddie?” He didn’t invite them to sit. “What’s so urgent?”

  “Major,” Goodman began, “we’ve got a big problem. They’ve closed the airport. There’s been a fire. It could be out of service for a couple of days.”

  “What! When did that happen?” He waved them to seats in front of his desk.

  “Earlier this morning. A plane going up to Orapa caught fire in the middle of the runway. It’s a write-off. The pilot’s in hospital. He managed to get out, but the airport manager says he got burnt when the petrol exploded. He has no idea what could have happened. The civil aviation people are sending a team to investigate, but in the meantime, they�
��ve closed the airport completely.”

  “But it’s our airport!” The major’s voice rose. “What right do they have to tell us that it’s closed?”

  “It still comes under their authority, Major,” Tau explained.

  “And that will be several days? Why can’t they just tow the plane out of the way? Did you explain to them how urgent it is?”

  Goodman nodded. “I just spoke to them in Gaborone. Nothing can be disturbed till they’ve done their investigation. They said we could bring in a chopper and land it at the end of the runway if we wanted to.”

  Tau shook his head at once. “We don’t have any of our own, and we can’t bring in an outside team at short notice for this sort of job. It’s much too risky.”

  The major nodded in agreement.

  Goodman had an idea. “Shall we try the military? The president owes us a favour or two. Maybe they can help us out?” It seemed a sensible option to him, and because of Chamberlain’s army background, he thought the major would like it. But Tau didn’t look happy, and the major was already shaking his head.

  “I’m not going crawling for help!” he said angrily. “It won’t look good.”

  Goodman knew he meant that the directors in Gaborone wouldn’t like it. But the reality was that the voracious processing plant in Gaborone would be expecting a delivery today—a larger delivery than usual because the plane they used to take the diamonds to Gaborone had spent the past two days being serviced at Lanseria in South Africa. The plant would probably need to start processing the stones as soon as they arrived if it was to keep on schedule. He checked his watch. About one hundred thousand carats of mainly gem-quality, raw diamonds needed to be on their way within the next few hours. Failing that, Debswana’s total diamond exports for the week would be well below target, and the directors wouldn’t like that at all.

  “We have a backup plan.” Chamberlain waved at them. “You two had better get off your backsides and implement it, hadn’t you? Sort out this mess we’re in.”

  Goodman chewed his lip. He wasn’t really keen on the backup plan. They’d never used it before, and he felt it was too complicated. Complicated things could go wrong. But the major had designed it, so there was no point in even raising that.

  “Sir, this shipment is much bigger than usual. Perhaps we should consider waiting a day. Maybe the runway—”

  “It’s all set up, isn’t it?” Chamberlain interrupted. “Is the security company on standby?”

  Goodman frowned. “Yes sir, but—”

  “Well, then, get on with it.”

  * * *

  They went back to Goodman’s office, and he found the contract with Gaborone Cash in Transit and tossed it to Tau.

  “It’s all in there. You remember when we negotiated it with them? It stipulates immediate response.”

  Tau nodded and flipped through the document.

  Goodman hesitated. “Eddie, I think we should delay this. At least until tomorrow. Check with Gaborone first. I’m nervous about doing this on zero notice.” As head of security, Tau was much more likely to persuade the major than Goodman was. And Tau was usually the cautious one.

  Tau didn’t look up from the contract. “The major wasn’t interested in a delay. We’ll just have to make this work.”

  Goodman sighed, grabbed the phone, and called Gaborone Cash in Transit. He insisted on speaking to the managing director and then put him on speakerphone.

  “Rra Henkel? This is Elijah Goodman at Jwaneng. I’m here with Eddie Tau. You’ll remember that he’s our head of security here at the mine. We have a problem.” He explained the situation at the airport and that they needed to implement their backup plan. Tau chipped in with details of what would be required.

  There was silence on the line for a few seconds before the man responded. “I understand. When do you want all this to happen?”

  “Right now,” Tau replied. “We were expecting to load the plane in a couple of hours.”

  “Today? You can’t be serious! You want three armoured vehicles—each with an experienced three-man team—and backup vehicles—at half an hour’s notice? We have a schedule, you know. We can’t just drop all our other customers.”

  Goodman had sympathy with the man’s point of view, but it wasn’t his problem.

  “I have the contract in front of me.” His voice left no room for disagreement. “It says ‘immediate response.’ That means now, not tomorrow or next week.”

  “It can’t be done! You’ll have to give me until tomorrow at least.”

  Goodman sighed. He could imagine what the major would say if he was having this conversation.

  “You simply have to make this happen, Rra Henkel. Today. You’ve had good money from us on this contract for nearly two years, and you’ve never had to lift a finger or spend a pula to earn it. You didn’t have to sign it, but you jumped at it. Now it’s payback time. I really don’t think you want to make an enemy of Debswana.”

  “Let me take a look at the contract,” Henkel replied. “Please hold on.” He was quiet for almost a minute. “It does say immediately,” he conceded eventually. “But I assumed some notice.” When neither Debswana official commented, he continued. “I’ll look at the options and see what can be done. I’ll call you back.”

  “I expect to hear from you within fifteen minutes.”

  Goodman hung up and gave a sigh of relief. He hoped it wasn’t premature.

  Chapter 5

  “You shouldn’t have volunteered to help me,” Detective Sergeant Mathew Neo said as they walked into his office after the meeting.

  “I didn’t,” Kubu responded. “All I asked was whether I’d heard the assistant superintendent correctly. The director volunteered me.”

  “Are you totally stupid, Bengu? Asking a question is the same as volunteering. Nobody does that if they can help it.”

  “Please call me Kubu. I really prefer it to David or to Bengu. Can I call you Mathew?”

  Neo squirmed in his chair. This newcomer, whom everyone despised, had put him on the spot by being friendly and suggesting they address each other informally.

  “I suppose so,” he replied reluctantly. “But only in private.”

  “Why’s that? I don’t understand.”

  Neo didn’t have the courage to tell Kubu that he didn’t want to be mocked by his colleagues for becoming Kubu’s first friend.

  “The director is a stickler for the rules,” he stammered. “Let me fill you in on what I know about the suitcases.”

  Kubu pulled out his notebook. “Go ahead.”

  “All the suitcases were properly tagged here in Gabs and then scanned as they were loaded on the planes. I’ve just received a fax from Joburg. They’ve confirmed that the bags were scanned when they were put on their next flight, either to London or Paris.”

  “So they must have disappeared at the destination cities, right?”

  “That’s what I think,” Neo mumbled. “But…”

  “But what?”

  “The English and French baggage handlers insist that the bags were not on the planes when they landed.”

  Kubu shrugged. “Well, I’m sure they didn’t fall out somewhere over the Sahara. Somebody’s not telling the truth. Let’s go to the airport and talk to the Air Botswana people to make sure we understand how their tracking works. Can you drive?”

  Neo wasn’t used to things happening quite so quickly, but he couldn’t think of a reason not to head out to the airport. On the way, he and Kubu discussed various possibilities for how the suitcases had disappeared.

  “From what I’ve read,” Kubu said, “most criminals are pretty stupid, which means they often leave clues or haven’t thought their plans through carefully. I’d be surprised if this was any different.”

  “Well, I don’t know how the bags disappeared,” Neo responded. “I stick by
my first conclusion that they were stolen at the destination airports.”

  When they arrived at the Air Botswana counter, they asked to speak to the manager and were escorted to her office. After introductions were made, Kubu asked her to explain exactly how the tracking system worked. Neo was put out that Kubu had jumped in and taken the lead.

  “It’s a very good system,” she explained. “When a passenger checks in, we generate a paper tag that is attached to the handle. It’s designed to hold together if left outside in any sort of weather. It has a bar code for easy scanning, as well as flight and connection information and the name of the passenger. There’s a small version of the bar code on the tag that we remove and stick on the bag. That’s an extra precaution in case the tag is torn off. And, of course, we give the passengers a receipt for their bags, which is also taken from the baggage tag. It’s a very efficient process, and very few bags disappear. The worst that usually happens is that a bag is late or sent to the wrong destination. But almost always, a missing bag finds its way back to its owner.”

  Kubu scratched his head. “Okay. So, what happens next?”

  “When the bag is loaded onto the plane, the baggage handler scans the tag. That way, we know it’s on board and headed to its first destination. The same process is followed each time the bag is loaded onto a plane.”

  “And the missing bags were scanned all the way to their destinations?” Neo jumped in. “But didn’t arrive on the carousels?”

  “Yes. We confirmed that this morning.”

  “And you’re sure they were scanned here and when they were loaded in Joburg?” Kubu asked the manager.

  “I’m certain of that. It showed up on our system each time. It’s a complete mystery to us how it could have happened.”

  “Just a few last questions: first, which flights did the bags leave on?”