by Edward Klein
“Catch the red dot on that dame’s forehead,” Sydney Michael Green said. “I bet you thought it had something to do with her religion. No way.” He smiled broadly, and I could tell he was about to launch into one of his jokes. “When one of those Hindu women gets married, she brings a dowry with her. And on her wedding night, her husband scratches off the red spot to see if he’s won a convenience store, a gas station, or a donut shop.”
“Syd,” I said, “spare me.”
I only used his nickname when he really got on my nerves.
“Higgy, seriously, I’ve got everything worked out,” he said, waving his arm as though to show me the entire country. “A great driver who speaks Swahili and can also act as our interpreter. A perfect hotel. And a packed schedule of interviews over the next two days.” Flecks of spit were flying through the air, and I slowed a bit to avoid the spray. “Plus, you won‘t believe some of the gorgeous Eastern European chicks staying at our hotel. It‘s like Fashion Week here in Mombasa.”
Waiting for us in the car park was an NBA-sized Kenyan, who was leaning against the hood of beat-up four-door compact Peugeot. It looked like it had passed the 100,000-mile mark about 400,000 miles ago.
“Higgy, this is Abubakar,” Sydney Michael Green said. “He’s agreed to take care of us during our stay.”
In order to look Abubakar in the eye, I had to fight off the urge to stand on my toes. Shaking hands was like putting my hand inside a warm toaster oven. How in the world did he fit inside that car?
Abubakar immediately saw that his compact Peugeot and my luggage weren’t meant for each other.
“Easily solved, Mr. Sydney,” he said. “A little Kenyan ingenuity.”
The giant picked up my wardrobe with one hand and dropped it into the under-sized trunk. He covered the wardrobe with the duffels and suitcases, and tied the top, still so high it blocked the view out the back window, down with a long yellow bungee cord. I eyed the arrangement doubtfully, but I wasn’t arguing with someone who could lift my steamer trunk single-handed. Sydney Michael Green and I piled into the back seat of the car, and we were off.
As our chauffeur Abubakar threaded his way through the streets of Mombasa, I glanced out the window and noticed a group of attractive women waiting at an intersection. Tall and thin, with prominent buttocks, they were dressed in brightly printed kangas. The traffic light changed and as the women crossed in front of our car I was mesmerized. These women didn’t just walk; they seemed to undulate to the languid rhythm of some inaudible music. They reminded me of Taitsie’s sculptures of nubile black women, and I wondered what Taitsie would have said—and how she might have reacted—if she had caught an eyeful of these extraordinary African women.
Sydney Michael Green opened his passenger-side door as we pulled to a stop at the entrance of the Bamburi Beach Hotel, a five-star palace that could just as easily have been in Palm Beach or La Jolla.
My top-floor suite had two bedrooms, a kitchenette, satellite TV, and an Elliptical Stair Climber tucked in the corner of the living room. I also had a view of the harbor below. Looking out, I did a double-take. There, berthed off the private dock of the Bamburi Beach Hotel, was the biggest private yacht I had ever seen in my life.
I fished out my Zeiss binoculars and focused on the ship—a battleship-sized yacht with two helipads, two swimming pools, a mini-submarine, and its own sophisticated missile-defense system. The bow was facing toward the hotel so I couldn’t read the ship’s name on the stern. Nor could I make out the faces of the crew who were patrolling the decks, or get a good look at the bikini-clad women sprawled on the sun deck. But in that instant, I knew that the boat could belong to only one man—my old FSB adversary and spymaster, Yurik Maligin.
CHAPTER TWENTY
The next day, with Abubakar folded up behind the wheel of our miniscule Peugeot, we drove north by northwest for several hours on the Mombasa-Nairobi highway. We spent the night in the capital city, and set out early the next morning for the remote reaches of Nyanza Province, which is on the shores of Lake Victoria. We passed no traffic to speak of, and the roads were of surprisingly high quality. Not so my mood. My gut warned me that the presence of Yurik Maligin in Kenya meant trouble.
We sped on in silence for several more hours until we approached the village of Nyang’oma Kogelo. The first thing I noticed were the huge billboards
HOME OF FAMOUS AMERICAN LEADER BARACK H. OBAMA!
VISIT HOUSE OF NEXT AMERICAN PRESIDENT!
We almost had an accident as we turned a corner and suddenly came upon a crowd of people standing in the middle of the road. Abubakar pulled the Peugeot to a stop and we got out. Sydney Michael Green went to see what all the fuss was about. The crowd was admiring a new silver convertible two-door SLR McLaren Roadster parked in front of a small, modest house. How did that get there? I wondered. I doubted they even sold McLarens in this country.
Sydney Michael Green whistled as he inspected the vehicle.
“Higgy,” he said, “this little baby might be the single best automobile made today. It has an AMG V8 compressor which allows her to go over 200 miles an hour. God, I love her lines, don’t you? I wonder who owns her? She costs a cool half a mil.”
By now the villagers had stopped ogling the car and had turned their attention to us. There was a lot of whispering in Swahili.
“What are they saying?” I asked Abubakar.
“They are wondering if you have also come to make a gift?”
“What does that mean—a gift?” I asked.
Before Abubakar could inquire, the front door of the house opened and a tall, thin young man came out. He saw Sydney Michael Green and smiled.
“Ah, Mr. Green,” he said in decent English, “I see that you are back. Who is your friend?”
Sydney Michael Green made the introductions.
The young man turned out to be Malik Obama, the half-brother of Barack Obama. According to my information, Malik had been the best man at Barack Obama’s 1992 wedding to Michelle, and Barack Obama had been Malik’s best man at his wedding. A native Kenyan and an accountant by training, he told me that he ran an electronics shop in Nyanbg’oma Kogelo. But when he handed me his business card, I noted that it identified him as International Consultant.
“I spend several months a year in D.C.,” he said by way of explanation. “Please, why don’t you come in and meet my bibi—my grandmother?”
Malik Obama ushered us into a modest, Western-style house which would have fit into any neighborhood in the United States. A half dozen people were milling about the house.
“Cousins,” explained Malik.
The house might as well have been a Barack Obama shrine. Every wall was covered with photographs of him—playing basketball in Honolulu, graduating from Columbia University, being sworn into the Illinois State Senate Chamber in Springfield. Side-by-side drawings of Barack Obama and Abraham Lincoln took up an entire wall. Obama’s Harvard Law School diploma was in a frame on a small table off to the left.
Seated in a large La-Z-Boy recliner in a corner of the living room was a petite gray-haired woman. She had a shawl over her shoulders and an expression on her face that said butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth.
“Gentlemen,” Malik Obama said, “this is my bibi, Sarah Obama.”
The expression on Grandma Obama’s face suddenly changed, and she gave us a roguish grin. All of her teeth were capped in gold.
“Karibu yetu!” she said in Swahili.
Malik translated: “Welcome to our home. We love America. My grandson, Barack Hussein Obama, will one day be the president of the United States. He was sent by God to help us all.”
I listened as Malik translated this extraordinary opening statement. I thought I was supposed to be in Nyang’oma Kolego, not Bethlehem. Apparently I was wrong.
“He will do great things,” Grandma Obama continued. “Miracles. He is much smarter than anyone else. And with God’s guidance he will make us all better.”
I had a quick
memory flash of Vangie Roll telling me, “This Obama Machine is unlike anything you have ever seen.” She might have been right. Here we were in the armpit of Africa, and we were hearing a campaign speech—not merely for the presidency of the United States, but for sainthood.
“Ma’am,” I inquired, “how do you know that your grandson will become the president? He isn’t even a United States Senator yet.”
Malik chuckled as he heard the question, and then smiled knowingly as he spoke to Grandma Obama in Swahili. As she heard my question she, too, couldn’t contain a laugh. Her gold teeth flashed as she fired back her answer.
“Kuru!” she said.
“Mr. Higginbothem,” Malik translated, “it’s kuru—destiny. It’s predetermined. Allah has chosen her grandson… from the moment of his birth…to lead a peaceful revolution to save the world.”
The mention of Obama’s birth reminded me why I had come all this way. So I decided to jump right in.
“Malik, can you please ask your grandmother if it is true that her grandson was born in Mombasa?”
It seemed like Malik had been down this road before. He sighed as he began the translation, and it was clear that Grandma Obama understood what the question was even before he was finished.
Her one-word answer came back fast.
“Ndiyo.”
“What does ndiyo mean?” I asked.
“It means ‘Yes’ in Swahili,” Malik said.
I was caught up short. This was the very answer I’d wanted.
“Malik, is your grandmother saying, ‘yes,’ he was born here in Kenya? Is that what she is saying?”
She answered before the translation. “Ndiyo,” she repeated.
I suspected she understood English more than she let on.
Suddenly Malik stood up and leaned closer to his grandmother. They began a quick back-and-forth. Abubakar listened.
“He is telling her that she can’t say Barack was born here in Kenya, because then he can’t be president,” Abubakar whispered into my ear. “But she says, she doesn’t care, because Allah will make him president anyway.”
After Malik had finished conferring with his grandmother, he turned back to me.
“Bibi says she was here in Kenya when my half-brother Barack was born.”
The American Constitution didn’t cover the whereabouts of grandmothers during the births of American citizens. But I restrained the impulse to indulge in sarcasm. Instead, I said:
“Please ask your grandmother—once again—if she was in Mombasa in the hospital when her grandson Barack Hussein Obama Jr. was born on August 4, 1961?”
Malik began the translation. But before he got out four words, Grandma Obama interrupted
“Ndiyo,” she said. Then she added in English: “Yes!”
Malik seemed frustrated by her answer, and he began another heated discussion with her about American constitutional law.
“What are they saying?” I asked Abubakar.
“Malik is telling her that Mister Why asked her not to talk anymore about it,” Abubakar whispered to me.
“Mister Why? Who’s that?” I asked Abubakar.
At this point, Malik stood up and shrugged.
“Mr. Sydney,” he said, “as I told you the other day, my half-brother was born in Hawaii. So there’s no problem.”
But there was indeed a problem. Obama’s wily grandmother was adamant that he was born in Mombasa. And his half-brother Malik kept trying to switch the story.
I turned to Sydney Michael Green and signaled that I had heard enough. As we turned to leave, Grandma Obama cleared her throat. She obviously had something further to say.
“She asks if you have a gift for her,” Abubakar translated.
This was the second mention of the subject of gifts. I had been slow on the pickup before, but now I smiled. I reached into my pocket for a few Kenyan shillings. You could be cheap in this country, and people would shower you with thanks.
Yet, Grandma Obama gave me a look like “Are you kidding?” She reached into her purse and fished around, finally coming up with a business card.
She said—and again Abubakar translated—“We have a friend who gave us the gift of a new car. Perhaps you will give us a boat?”
She handed the card to Sydney Michael Green, who glanced at it and gave it to me. It read, Yurik Maligin, Monte Carlo.
Mister Why was Yurik Maligin.
I felt the blood drain from my face.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
When Sydney Michael Green and I arrived back at the Bamburi Beach Hotel in Mombasa an envelope was waiting for me at the front desk.
Yurik Maligin Requests
The Pleasure of Comrade Higgy’s Company
For Drinks and Other Assorted Pleasures
At 8:30 O’clock Aboard The Escape
RSVP the Front Desk of the Bamburi
The invitation confirmed my worst fear—namely, that Yurik Maligin was on the same trail as I was. But why would the Russian master spy be interested in an obscure Illinois politician who was running for the United States Senate? That didn’t make any sense. Unless Whitney Nutwing was right and Barack Obama was already running for president in 2008.
On the other hand, I wasn’t going to pass up a party on a mega yacht. Free drinks, pretty girls, sumptuous dinner—of course, the only reason I was going was to engage in surreptitious activities. I’d let everyone else get loaded, then take a leisurely stroll to see what I would see.
The hotel launch took us out to The Escape. I was dressed in my Humphrey Bogart white dinner jacket, looking ultra debonair. Sydney Michael Green, on the other hand, was channeling Johnny Depp: the unshaven look; an open-collared, untucked yellow shirt; no jacket; no socks; casual loafers.
Maligin’s maitre d’, a tall, leggy blonde named Yelena, greeted us on board. She spoke English with a slight French accent. Her white mini-skirt was little more than a maxi belt. She was wearing a pair of Stuart Weitzman “Diamond Dream” shoes, which, as an aficionado of fashion, I knew the price tag: a cool $500,000.
Yelena took us on a tour of The Escape: the swimming pools, the helipads, and the bridge, which featured an anti-paparazzi “shield” that fired a laser beam at a camera, destroying all digital photographs. I carefully memorized all the places I might want to visit later.
“The General,” she explained, referring to Maligin by his old KGB rank, “wants to prevent pirates. So we have missile-proof windows on every window.”
Next, we took an elevator to a lower deck. As we got off, I thought I heard the sound of dogs barking.
“Do you keep a dog kennel on board?” I asked Yelena.
I pictured Maligin using a brace of bloodthirsty Dobermans during one of his torture sessions.
“You’ll have to ask the General about that,” Yelena said.
“Have to ask me about what?”
Yurik Maligin, all five feet of him, approached with a huge grin and an extended hand. He exuded warmth and bonhomie. And he already reeked of Scotch, his favorite libation.
“And this must be the infamous Sydney Michael Green that our Federal Security Service so hopes will replace Comrade Higgy. Welcome aboard, Comrade Sydney! Welcome aboard, Comrade Higgy!”
He led us into a small lounge, where an Asian waitress, dressed in a short, white mini-skirt like Yelena’s, asked us for our drink orders.
“Higgy,” Maligin said, “I have broken out a case of your old favorite, Hidalgo Manzanilla Pastrana sherry. And Comrade Sydney drinks Bailie Nicol Jarvie, a wonderful blended whisky. My research tells me you will drink just about anything, but that Bailie is your favorite, no?”
Sydney Michael Green glanced at me. I knew what that look meant. The enemy was already treating him like my equal.
“Yurik,” I said, “I’m off the sauce. I’ll just have a soft drink or iced tea.”
Maligin seemed offended by my teetotalarism. “I heard about you and Taitsie,” he said. “My condolences.”
“Let’s not
discuss our private lives tonight.” Or any night, I added to myself.
Maligin led us over to a sofa and two chairs, and opened a small humidor. Inside were two-dozen Saint Luis Rey Lonsdale CAB 50 cigars.
“Smoke?”
Sydney Michael Green and I both happily accepted, and Maligin clipped our cigars and chose one for himself.
Just then a disheveled man, possibly inebriated, stumbled into the lounge. He looked familiar, but at first I couldn’t place him. Then I remembered. We had met in London during the Bill Clinton Matter. This was Charnofsky, the assistant Maligin had ordered to pick up dog poop with his bare hands.
Maligin’s face turned red and his body tensed. He snapped at Charnofsky—two quick words in Russian—and the man was gone.
“Sorry,” he said, “that fucking Charnofsky is causing me big trouble these days. Big trouble…”
Maligin looked away for a moment, and then his face rearranged itself into a more placid expression. Music and a deep bass beat came from down the hall. But Maligin ignored it as he drew on his Lonsdale and exhaled.
“So, Higgy,” he finally said, “what brings you this far from home?”
“I could ask you the same thing,” I said. “I don’t picture you cruising the east coast of Africa too often.”
He hesitated—a dramatic pause—then whispered, “You’d be surprised the places I sometime appear.”
The Asian waitress returned, and served us our drinks along with platters of steamed vegetables. She placed small napkins and cocktail forks in front of each of us, and then left.
I was about to probe Maligin again, when the door burst open and two tall, vivacious young women almost fell into the room. A redhead and a brunette, they were wearing short shorts and halter tops and spike heels. Both were laughing and seemed to be high on something. Their arms were wrapped around each as they fell onto a sofa across from us, with the brunette rolling on top of the redhead. I barely glanced at them, but they were going at it like porn stars.
“Higgy…Sydney…perhaps you would like to watch while we chat?” Maligin said.
Maligin’s girls were all “Sparrows”—FSB-trained enticers who were expert at getting men to talk. I ignored them, not stealing even the slightest peek.
