“I’m puzzled by your comments concerning Vaughan, Sir Andrew, the man not only formed a strong link with a leading North African politician, he also presented valuable information that no one else managed to glean from the conference. Given the way in which foreign observers were excluded from it Vaughan worked something of a miracle of diplomacy and intelligence gathering.”
“Then he started messing about in the internal politics of Portugal,” retorted Sir Andrew Averrille angrily. “The PM may think that was a good idea, but it has caused many ripples and I for one hope that that particular pond calms quickly.”
“Are you suggesting that the British Government should stand by and watch rather than warn a friendly nation of an attempt to overthrow its government? Damn it, Sir Andrew, Portugal is our oldest ally!”
“Now calm down, Alex, all I am saying is that Vaughan acting like he did on his first mission demonstrated to myself and others that he is likely to be a loose cannon just as the report, by Jeffery Marshal at The Manor, indicated was possible.”
“Marshal covers his backside with that phrase on almost every competent agent that has been through training there.”
“I’m not going to argue with you anymore on this subject, Alex. Tell me, where is Vaughan now?”
“In Madeira, I sent him there to recover his yacht. We chartered it from him for the mission and the agreement included return to the UK, as you and I agreed before he went.”
“I see, well I want him out the door the day after he gets back, Alex, and that is final.”
With that Sir Andrew turned on his heels and marched out of Campbell’s office and down the corridor towards the lifts.
***
In Rosso, Anna-Maria had barely slept at all that night, what with the memory of her mother’s death and the fear of Vermeulen or Elmoctor’s men searching for her. During the following day she relaxed a little though her anxiety soon returned when Nandini left the house to buy material for mulafas, the simple length of brightly coloured cotton that Mauritanian women wind around the full length of their body and over their head. When Nandini returned with two brightly patterned orange and red lengths of material Anna-Maria could have kissed her, such was her relief. During her time spent there, as Nandini showed her how to wear the garment, the two women formed something of a bond as Anna-Maria’s mistakes and failures brought humour to the situation. There followed hours with Nandini working at an ancient sewing machine fashioning a suitable undergarment. The results, though not fit for the catwalks of Paris, were ideal for the pre-dawn walk through the streets of Rosso.
It was as Nandini’s sewing machine was clunking away that Anna-Maria’s phoned chirped again and, expecting it to be her friend Lynn with news, she took it from her bag full of hope only to read “The rains are about to fall. Uncle Alex”: the coded message telling her to get out of Africa immediately.
Informed only that Jan Vermeulen, his wife and minders had left Angola, London had assumed that Anna-Maria was still safely at home; what triggered the warning was her name and picture appearing on a leaked US list of British agents operating in Africa posted online by one of the so-called “freedom of information” sites triggered by Vermeulen’s second phone call from the back streets of Rosso.
She looked at it despairingly, what use was that warning now, she knew full well that she had to escape. Tears welled up in her eyes. Then she realised that London may not have known about her sudden departure from Luanda and quickly sent back a message explaining what had happened following the visit to the Elmoctar household and that she was now trying to reach David’s “cousin” in Nouakchott, having stolen Vermeulen’s notebook.
Whether it was the making of her disguise or the confidence she had gained in Nandini coupled with exhaustion, but Anna-Maria slept deeply on that second night. Woken early but still half asleep she washed and dressed herself in the dim light of a paraffin lamp and now stood as Nandini wrapped her in the mulafa, taking care to cover Anna-Maria’s straight hair and face except for her dark brown eyes.
“There, Madame, when we leave here we will look like sisters.”
“If I make it out of here to safety I will adopt you as my sister, Nandini, and I will feel blessed to have a sister as brave and kind as you.”
“We must go now, Madame, Lamin will be waiting.”
The crystal dome of stars shed a silvery light but no colour onto the back streets and alleyways of Rosso as they started their walk towards the ferry landing and lorry park, but as they walked, the stars dimmed as the sun’s rays brought hard form and colour to their surroundings. By the time they reached the parking area and found Lamin it was full daylight with the sun already heating the cool earth.
Lamin, like Nandini, was very dark skinned and to Anna-Maria’s surprise looked younger than his partner. It took a stressful amount of time for Nandini to explain to Lamin what was required but at no time did he look annoyed or reluctant. All the while Anna-Maria tried hard to make herself invisible, her heart missing a beat every time anyone so much as glanced in her direction.
The dialect and speed of the local pigeon French was too fast for Anna-Maria to fully grasp what Nandini said, except that great emphasis was laid upon the fact that men with guns were chasing her. Eventually, expressing her heartfelt thanks and pressing dollars into Nandini’s reluctant hand, she climbed up into the huge lorry’s cab, carrying all her possessions in the rather tatty plastic bag in which her mulafa had been supplied. After a few words of parting between Nandini and Lamin he started the engine and so began the eight-hour journey to Nouakchott.
To Anna-Maria’s relief Lamin appeared to be a little overawed by her and when he spoke it was always very respectful, starting each conversation by addressing her as Madame Ronaldo.
Once clear of Rosso the thin band of irrigated farmland soon turned to sparse scrub on a reddish sand desert, and away from the river and vegetation the air was dry and the wind rushed like that from a blast furnace through the open windows of the cab. Behind them trailed a cloud of the red dust that seemed to cover everything in that country.
They had travelled several kilometres when Anna-Maria asked Lamin to slow down, she had seen on a track some distance ahead and to the right of the road, a burnt out minibus with a body shape remarkably similar to that of the Mercedes.
Anna-Maria pointed towards the wreck, “Can we stop please, I wish to look at the vehicle over there.”
Lamin looked about suspiciously, wondering whether this was a trap for him and the load he was hauling. Anna-Maria understood his concern, “I promise it is safe, I just need to see if that is the vehicle I was taken away in two days ago.”
The track was wide and led up to a distant ruined compound, and Lamin, still looking about nervously, drove the lorry along it to a point just beyond the wreck where he turned it round stopping a short distance from the burnt out minibus.
“It is the one, Lamin, it is the minibus he used to bring us here from St Louis.”
“Can we go now, Madame Ronaldo?”
“No, please, Lamin, I need to look inside to see if any of my things have survived the fire.”
She jumped down from the cab and walked towards the vehicle, the bullet holes in the tailgate and the bullet-riddled bent side panel clearly visible. What she was not expecting was the sight of two charred bodies covered with flies left inside the vehicle. Turning away from the sight she was promptly sick. Spitting the last remnants of vomit from her mouth she heard the lorry’s engine rev up and saw it start to move forward. Rushing onto the track she held up her arms beseeching Lamin to stop and with no more than a metre to spare the lorry came to a standstill. Walking shakily round to the driver’s side she shouted up, “The body of my mother is in there, they have set fire to the vehicle and burnt her. Please, I need to bury her, will you help me?”
Lamin looked down at her from the cab, very unsure of the safety of being near a vehicle with obviously recent bullet holes in it.
“They ar
e gone, Lamin, the men who did this are gone. Please, please help me.”
Cautiously he got down from the lorry and, taking a shovel from the tool rack behind the cab, followed her to a point not far from the wreck.
“Here seems to be a good place, pass me the shovel, please.”
He watched silently as she started to dig into the red gritty sand, throwing the grit towards some loose stones not far from where Lamin stood. She had almost completed a trench the length of her mother’s body when she saw out of the corner of her eye a movement between the spoil heap and Lamin. When married to David they had frequently camped out in the bush, an experience that had given her a trained eye for the dangers of wild Africa. In one swift move she swung the shovel in a large arc over her head bringing it down no more than half a metre from Lamin’s foot to sever the head of a horned sand snake that the digging had disturbed.
“Are you all right, Lamin?” she asked, anxious to know whether she had acted in time.
“Yes, Madame, thank you, Madame, I am good, Madame,” he replied, wide-eyed with fear and searching the ground around him for signs of any further dangers.
The sound of her digging again brought him back to the task in hand and taking the shovel from her he started to make the grave deeper. It took them two hours to dig deep enough to discourage wild animals from exhuming her mother’s remains, and by the time they had finished both were covered in sweat, and exhausted.
The time had come to move her mother’s body, and seeing Anna-Maria’s distress at such a prospect, Lamin went to the lorry, returning with a blanket from the pile on his sleeping bunk, and wrapping the charred body in it carried it to the grave. She couldn’t bear to watch as Lamin buried her mother’s corpse and lay heavy rocks on top of the grave, but once the task was completed she stood at its foot and said a prayer. They marked the grave with a crude cross then returned to the minibus to see if any of her possessions were recoverable. Forcing the rear door open she found that her suitcase had been opened along with her mother’s, guaranteeing the destruction of all the contents. Had he been looking for the black notebook she wondered to herself as with a sigh she turned and walked back towards Lamin and the lorry.
Anna-Maria, now beyond the point of tears, and grief-stricken at leaving her mother’s body buried in the soil of a country far from her beloved South Africa, sat staring ahead at the road, her mind numb as the vehicle moved off in the direction of the capital.
Along the way, several police checks forced Anna-Maria to take refuge beneath the untidy heap of sweat-soiled bedding piled on the bunk behind the driver’s seat. At the first checkpoint they questioned Lamin at length, asking about a white woman but at the rest little was said. They passed a mosque, remote but placed there for the benefit of the faithful traveller. Most of the other buildings along the route were in a half-ruined state, and some buildings apparently abandoned altogether, with a goat or two pulling at the leaves on the sparse scrub. Occasionally, they saw a small herd of camels, normally guarded by elderly men or young boys. The heat and glare were unrelenting and made worse by the plastic covering on the seats in the lorry, leaving Anna-Maria sitting in a pool of perspiration.
At last, in the late afternoon, they approached Nouakchott at the end of what seemed to be an interminable journey and Anna-Maria’s heart sank still further as she looked out at the squalid city they were entering. Slowly picking their way along the busy streets, where cars and lorries shared the road with the many donkey carts, they eventually stopped a little south of the centre in the area called El Mina. Lamin drove the lorry off the road and parked it between two similar vehicles on an area of dusty ground.
“You must now hide again, Madame. It is best you stay in the back until it is dark, then it will be safer for you to reach your friend.”
“Will you stay with me until then?”
“I must fetch water for engine, Madame, I will return soon, then I will stay.”
On his return Lamin found Anna-Maria looking desperate. “Lamin, do you know how I get to Rue Lumumba and is it far? The battery on my tablet is dead and the charging unit was in my suitcase.”
“Madame Ronaldo, it is far and very difficult for me to show you how. Can your friend come here to collect you because in this country a woman must not be seen walking alone at night without a man and I must stay with my lorry or I will lose my work?”
“What would happen to me if I was seen?”
“You would be beaten, Madame, and maybe men would, er, use you.”
“What am I to do then? I cannot remember the phone number, only the address.”
Lamin thought for a few moments then started to look in a box under the bunk. “Ah! Here, Madame, here is a map of the city centre, it is old but I think not so much changed.”
Though creased and grubby the map was still legible and soon she found the street name. “How far is it to this street, Lamin?”
“We are maybe about here, Madame,” he replied, his finger off the map itself, resting instead near the bottom of the street index. “You should wait until after evening prayers, Madame, the streets will be quieter then.”
Whilst there was still light they studied the map and Lamin showed her the safest route.
“Madame Ronaldo, there will still be many people between here and the place you wish to get to, so you must go this way,” he said pointing towards the coast. “Then go through the Sebkha area here on the map to cross the big road. Only then can you go straight to the place, but that last part will be the most dangerous.”
When the time came for her to leave, Lamin walked with her until they cleared the busy area and reached poorer and quieter streets.
“I must return to my lorry, Madame, you go in that way for two kilometres then turn north until you get to big road.”
“Thank you, Lamin, thank you for everything you have done for me. Helping me dig my mother’s grave, I could not have done it on my own.” Her words seemed to her trivial and almost childish but she knew that only simple words would be correctly understood.
“It is a good thing we did, Madame.”
She left, pressing one hundred dollars into Lamin’s hand, and expressing her gratitude again.
Following Lamin’s warning, her route understandably took her from shadow to shadow, picking her way along side streets and alleyways, hiding in doorways or behind parked cars when either a car approached or she heard voices nearby. How far she walked that night she had no idea except that it had taken her four hours and she felt weak from nervous exhaustion as much as from the physical demands of the journey. Once she had crossed the wide road that Lamin had referred to she could at last locate her position on the map and navigate her way to the house. Finally, running across the deserted Rue Lumumba she reached up and grabbed the high iron railings, then with scrambling feet and tired arms pulled herself up the shoulder high wall then over the railings themselves. Looking around cautiously she then quietly lowered herself down onto the front courtyard of what she believed to be the home of Lars Van der Rykes. As a cloud crossed the thin crescent moon the dark figure of Anna-Maria slipped from the shadow of the wall and ran across the open paved area to the front door of the house and pressed the bell push. Angry barking came from the rear of the house and before she could even take a step back towards the high railings she had climbed over, two Dobermanns blocked her way, growling and showing their teeth.
“Down Pascal! Down! Carmen, heel!” The dogs instantly obeyed the loud command from the squat, hard-faced man illuminated by the bright security lighting that had come on, standing arms akimbo at the front corner of the house. Neither animal moved, then, after several seconds in which neither had taken their eyes off him, he pointed back along a side path and shouted, “Hus!” Immediately both the Dobermanns loped off around the side of the building.
“What do you want?” asked the man, his South African accent clipped and harsh.
“I have come to see a Mr Lars Van der Rykes,” replied Anna-Maria, her
voice quavering nervously.
The man moved his position slightly trying to get a better view of Anna-Maria who was still cloaked in the mulafa. “You have found him. Who are you, eh?”
“I am Anna-Maria Patterson,” she replied removing the headdress and praying that London had made contact.
“Ah, I ’eard you may be coming this way. What name are you travelling under?” asked Van der Rykes, his guttural accent emphasising the ‘tr’ of travelling.
“Anna-Maria Ronaldo,” she informed. “Who told you that I may be coming here?”
“London sent a message,” replied Van der Rykes. “Your ’usband is dead I ’ear.”
Anna-Maria nodded, trying hard not to show the sadness she still felt, but grateful for the coded confirmation that the man was actually Van der Rykes, the man listed on the stick.
“You ’ad better come in. Do you have any luggage?”
“No, only this,” she raised the old plastic bag. “I had to leave in a hurry.”
“I ’ave told my wife that maybe the daughter of an old friend of mine who is trying to get away from a cruel husband may need my help,” said Van der Rykes, quietly, “I’ll leave the details for you to fill in if she asks.”
He led her round the side of the house and up some steps to the terrace which overlooked a small garden surrounded by a high wall. An old cast iron streetlamp lit the terrace and there were two smouldering dung coils placed next to a sun lounger, their wisps of smoke helping to repel the swarms of mosquitos.
A tall young African woman stood alongside the sun-lounger, her arm returning to her side from having just zipped up the long dress she wore over an otherwise naked body.
“Blessings, my dear, can you bring us some drinks please.”
A slight smile flickered across the young woman’s face before she turned and walked into the house, with a grace of movement rarely seen outside of a traditional finishing school for young ladies. Van der Rykes’ politeness surprised Anna-Maria, as did the bra strap poking out from under the lounger cushion.
In Treacherous Waters Page 5
