by Dan Fletcher
Some of the details regarding specific cases cited in the leaflet were not public knowledge and could only have come from someone working on the Standing Committee on Human Rights. The Committee’s members were mostly lawyers and lead by a professor in law, Onesimus Mutungi. Set up by President Moi earlier that year the committee was intended to have no real power. Any investigations that it carried out were hindered by the inability to subpoena witnesses or order the production of documents.
Even so it was the political equivalent of stirring the hornet’s nest and Maliki opposed the idea from the start. The new American Ambassador was breathing down the President’s neck and Moi insisted that it was a necessary measure to appease both internal and international pressure. Now it seemed that someone on the committee was frustrated at getting nowhere and trying to cause trouble.
Konde spat out a mouthful of phlegm and blood, “Fuck you, you bastard! How many times do I have to tell you that I don’t know what you’re talking about?”
“What a shame,” Maliki pulled back his arm and delivered another blow to the right side of Konde’s face. He felt the eyeball squish in its socket beneath the already closed eyelid.
The stubborn shopkeeper lost consciousness again. He was surprisingly resilient for someone in his fifties. To his credit they had been interviewing him on and off for nearly twenty-four hours and yet he still wouldn’t tell them anything.
Maliki nodded towards the greengrocer, “Wake him up!”
Lembui picked up the bucket of water mixed with Konde’s urine and poured it over the prisoner’s head. He woke up coughing and spluttering for air.
Maliki waited for Konde to regain control of his breathing, although it was still short and raspy. Maliki was sure that a couple of the man’s ribs had been broken with his earlier blows. He had heard them crack, “You know that I can have you executed for treason? His name Mr Konde?”
“Go fuck yourself!” Although faint the shopkeeper’s words still carried a significant amount of venom.
Maliki face twitched, he sighed and stepped back from the puddle of water. “You leave me no choice.” He looked at Lembui, “Increase the voltage and give him another dose. Maybe it will help to loosen his tongue.”
“No!” Konde’s expression turned to one of terror and he struggled to free himself from the gaffa tape binding his arms and legs to the metal chair. “Please, not that again! I don’t know anything!”
“We both know that’s not true Mr Konde.” Maliki nodded to Lembui.
Two jump leads trailed across the floor to a control box set up on a table in the corner that was connected to the building’s power supply. One of the crocodile clips was attached to Konde’s penis and the other to the fingers of his right hand. It was a technique that Maliki had used successfully many times before. Inflicting excruciating pain whilst at the same time ensuring massive trauma as the current passed through the victim’s heart. He was yet to meet a man, or woman, who could resist the treatment. Lembui turned up one of the dials and pressed the button.
Konde started jerking around in the chair, violent sporadic movements as his muscles went into spasm. The odour of burning flesh and hair entered his nostrils and Maliki grinned. The smell reminded him of setting Douglas Mason on fire. To him the smell represented freedom and the moment he had taken control of his life. Suddenly the wiry shopkeeper’s whole body went rigid and he stopped moving.
“Shit!” Maliki shouldn’t have allowed himself to be distracted. “Turn it off you idiot! Can’t you see that he’s dead already?”
The problem with muscle was that they couldn’t seem to think for themselves. He waited for Lembui to kill the power and then checked Konde’s neck for the pulse that he knew wasn’t there.
“Go and get Sabore to help you clean this mess up!” he stopped at the door to the corridor and looked back, “And make sure that you dump the body somewhere that it won’t be found.” He’d learnt that it was better to be specific with Lembui. Otherwise the numbskull would probably throw the body out of the car on his way home.
He went upstairs and waited for the guard to come through and open the gate. The ground floor of the detention suite consisted of twelve cells, six on either side of the corridor, and a small anti-chamber. Two sets of security gates separated the cells from the basement and the anti-chamber, where two officers were always on duty. Unlike a normal jail there were no desk clerk or interview rooms. Nor were there any windows in the cells, barred or otherwise. There was also no official record of the prisoners that were dragged there from their beds in the middle of the night and beaten. Or of the torture inflicted in the dungeon beneath his feet. This was his world. Here Maliki was Engai Nanyokie, the angry red Maasai God, master of life and death.
“Is there someone there? Please, I need water.”
The jangling of the guard’s keys against the outer gate stirred one of the occupants and he started banging on the sliding hatch in the metal door. There were only two at the moment, both Kikuyu. A pair of radical students in their early twenties who had organised protest rallies at the university campus. Maliki still hadn’t decided whether to have them shot or simply badly beaten and then released as an example.
“Shut up or I’ll take you downstairs,” snapped the guard on his way past. Fortunately for the student the banging stopped and he remained silent whilst Maliki was being shown out. Otherwise he might have ordered his execution there and then. Konde dying had put him in an even worse mood. Moi wasn’t going to be happy when he found out that Maliki had failed to get any information. He wanted to know who was behind the latest attack on his presidency.
As Maliki strode across the gravel courtyard into the central building of GSU Headquarters the drill sergeant’s barked command made him glance over. A company of officers were being put through their paces on the parade square, straight lines of shiny boots and red berets split by camouflage uniforms. Maliki burst through the double doors, ignoring the desk clerk’s salute and the beeping metal detector he went up to his office on the first floor. He sat in the leather recliner behind his mahogany desk and checked the answer machine. But there were no new messages. He slammed his fist down on the desk.
Why did he get the feeling that unseen forces were at work? Maliki forced himself to relax and took a deep breath. He was being paranoid. Really there was nothing to worry about. It was not uncommon for Gupta to be away from base camp for long periods of time. Maliki would deal with him when he showed up. Letting the baby elephant live was a huge mistake, one that Gupta needed to be punished for. Maliki would have to start thinking about who would replace him.
The reporter had been easy to trace. A few phone calls revealed that he was checked in at the Kenya Comfort Hotel. A place that was popular with westerners travelling on a budget. Maliki had set up a team of four officers to follow Bernstein, the first pair should be reporting in soon after completing their twelve-hour shift.
Maliki picked up the phone and started dialling. In the meantime he might as well find out what he could about this Captain Nbeke. If either he or the American continued to make waves then they would have to disappear.
CHAPTER TEN
Emurutoto, Edge of the Maasai Mara
August 12th, 1996
David was beginning to think that he must have missed the turning and was ready to head back toward Lolgorien when he saw it. ‘FRIENDS OF THE MAASAI MARA’ and an arrow messily painted onto a rock pointing to a dirt track. Judging by the numerous drips running down from the letters the not very skilled artist had used some kind of whitewash and a thick brush. The sun had faded the letters so that they were barely legible. David smiled to himself. He had made the right decision to come in daylight, at night he could have easily driven by the sign without noticing it.
Transporting Ella to Nairobi had proven to be the final straw for the Nissan’s suspension and the shocks badly needed replacing. He turned off onto the track and slowed to a crawl, nursing the truck over the bumpy terrain. The Ka
wai Dam wasn’t far off to his right, an oval roughly the size of a football field that was fed by a spring higher up in the hills. The damn was meant to supply the neighbouring village of Emurutoto but a group of four Maasai in bright red shukas had pushed over a section of the fence and were letting their cattle drink from the brackish water, stirring it up into a brown soup. There was nothing David or the villagers could do about it. By reinstating their nomadic rite of passage Moi had given the Maasai carte blanche to go where they wanted and do what they liked.
A bit further up the track he passed a man-made water hole surrounded by a large boma, put there by one of the local farmers. There to protect the goats from predators or the water from the Maasai herdsmen, David wasn’t sure which. After a couple of miles of crisp dry savannah, only broken by the odd acacia tree, the track ended at a cattle grid and gate set into a chain-link fence.
There were two very contradictory notices attached to the rusty crossbars. By the craftsmanship, David guessed that the artist was the same person responsible for the sign near the main road. The first read ‘FRIENDS OF THE MAASAI MARA – PLEASE CLOSE THE GATE BEHIND YOU’. The second said simply ‘TRESPASSERS WILL BE SHOT’.
David could see a shrivelled waterhole in the dip below, a few tin-roofed cabins surrounding it raised about a meter from the ground on wooden stilts. Smoke was coming from the chimney of the largest structure, rising up lazily into the hot stagnant air. He gave the truck’s horn a blast and waited, eventually a figure emerged onto the porch of the building with the fire going inside. From this distance it was hard to tell whether they were male or female but whoever it was waved in his direction.
Guessing that it was probably safe he went through the rigmarole of opening and closing the gates before pulling up outside the cabin. The Nissan’s engine rumbled to a grateful stop and emitted a large hiss as steam escaped from a hole in the bubbling radiator. David reminded himself to check the water level again before he left for base camp. Hopefully it could be repaired and didn’t need replacing like the suspension. There wasn’t much cash in the emergency slush fund and getting money from HQ was like getting blood out of a stone. Besides which the paperwork could take months as the requisition was passed from one department to another. As much as possible David and the other rangers did the repairs themselves to keep the vehicles on the road. Fortunately Chege wasn’t a bad mechanic and could fix most things when he put his mind to it.
David let the dust settle and then climbed down from the cab. He put a hand up to shield his eyes from the fierce mid-morning sun and squinted up at the figure hidden in the shade of the veranda.
“Sorry to turn up unannounced but a mutual friend told me that I might be able to find Spencer Scott here.” There was no reply from the shadows. “Dr Caitlyn Brennan from the orphanage in Nairobi.”
“Caitlyn sent you did she?” The booming voice definitely belonged to a man, or at least David hoped so. The alternative didn’t bear thinking about. By the way he pronounced his ‘I’s to make them sound more like ‘Y’s and emphasised his ‘E’s David knew that he was a white Kenyan before he stepped forward and put his bear-like hands on the wooden railing. “Now why would she do that?”
David was getting used to cold receptions, “She didn’t exactly send me. I was hoping that he might be able to help me with something.”
The man he guessed must be Spencer Scott eyed his uniform and glanced at the truck before speaking, “And why would the KWS want my help? You’ve been ignoring my reports for years.” He wasn’t the under-fed environmentalist that David somehow expected. Huge tanned biceps flexed below the sleeves of his khaki shirt as he gripped the railing. David wondered if the wood might break and crumble into splinters beneath his cigar-like fingers.
“I’m sorry I don’t know which reports you’re talking about and I’m not here on any kind of official business.” David hesitated, “Well I guess I might be. It’s difficult to explain really.”
Spencer Scott raised a bushy eyebrow, obviously intrigued, “What’s it to do with?”
“Poaching,” said David simply.
“I suppose you better come inside,” grunted Scott before turning and disappearing through the fly-screen door. David went up the three rickety steps and followed him inside. The roughly hewn floorboards creaked and groaned under their combined weight. He began to wonder whether Scott had built the place and painted the signs himself. There didn’t seem to be anyone else around and everything bore signs of the same shoddy handiwork. The cabin itself was on a tilt, slanting towards the waterhole. David put it down to subsidence.
“Would you like something to drink?” said Scott, heading over towards the breakfast bar built from wooden pallets. The uneven worktop separated what could loosely be described as a kitchen from the lounge area. Six inch nails protruding from some of the planks threatened to snag passers-by. Somehow Scott found a quarter-full bottle of Jameson amongst the empties and other debris covering the worktop. He held it up in the air and gave the contents a shake, “Whisky?”
“No thanks,” replied David. “Beer if you’ve got it or water.” Looking at the stacks of dirty crockery and empty food cartons it was difficult to imagine where either of them might come from.
Surprisingly Scott ducked behind the counter and produced a familiar looking bottle, “Tusker OK? Now if I can just find an opener.” He started rummaging around under the counter, presumably there was a shelf hidden away under there somewhere.
“That would be great.”
David found himself salivating at the unlikely prospect. One thing his Aunt refused to stock at the Mission was alcohol.
“Here we go,” said Scott triumphantly straightening up into view. He popped the lid off the bottle.
“Cheers,” David was even more shocked to find that the beer was cold when Scott eventually handed it to him.
Scott must have read his expression. His laugh was a suitably deep bellow, “We’ve got solar panels and a wind turbine to keep the fridges going. The odd beer mixed in with the medical supplies doesn’t hurt anybody.”
David smiled back at him and then took a long swig. His throat was so dry and parched after the journey in the hot cab that he could feel the isotonic reaction as his body welcomed the beer’s arrival.
“Thanks, I needed that.”
Scott had returned to the kitchen and was searching for something amongst the pots and pans piled up in what must be the sink, presumably a glass. His voice was muffled, “No worries.” There was some more clinking of bottles, “Sod it!”
Scott gave up his search and took the cork out with his teeth before spitting it onto the counter. He gulped down half of the contents and held the bottle towards David, “Are you sure you don’t want some? It’s good stuff.”
“I’m alright thanks, you go ahead.”
Scott’s shrug suggested that he thought David must be crazy, “Suit yourself.” He necked the rest of the bottle in one go and dropped it to the floor.
David noticed a slight limp as Scott went over to the wood burner and collapsed into a rattan armchair that had seen better days, it creaked in unison with the floorboards. Scott had obviously been hitting the bottle hard for some time. The clothes he was wearing were crumpled and creased, like he’d been sleeping in them for days. His face looked haggard, bloodshot eyes and pallor skin, bristly stubble covering his jutting jaw.
“I didn’t catch your name?”
“David Nbeke, I’m a ranger in the KWS,” he said it as if that explained him being there.
“Well don’t just stand there David, take a seat,” he waved his hand towards the other beaten armchair. Apart from the trestle table folded against the wall, littered with books on wildlife next to a CB radio, they were the room’s only furnishings. “So how do you know Caitlyn?”
David tried to get comfortable but broken bits of cane dug into him when he leant back. He perched on the edge of the chair hoping that it didn’t collapse.
“I met her at the o
rphanage in Nairobi a few days ago...” David told him about their brief encounters. Scott nodded as if satisfied with something.
“So how is she?” He opened the door and stirred the embers with a metal poker hanging from the side of the burner. “The place just hasn’t been the same since she left.”
That explained the state of the cabin and Scott’s unkempt appearance.
“She seemed fine to me,” for some reason David felt knots of tension in his stomach. “If you don’t mind me asking. Why did she leave?”
Scott looked like he might get up out of the chair and hit him for a second, but his expression softened, “I suppose it’s old news. Nothing that dramatic, we just couldn’t live together.”
David decided that he had pried enough into their relationship and changed the subject.
“Is that where the black rhino are at the moment?”
Scott glanced over his shoulder at the large map of the park and the surrounding area. Around twenty little red plastic triangles were dotted about the surface. He gave David a strange look, “That’s right, as of 6pm yesterday. We’ve got eight volunteers keeping an eye on them as best they can. For what good it does. We carry on monitoring them between our other duties but nobody from Parks seems to give a shit.”
Scott was obviously old school. He used the same name for the KWS as David’s father.
“What exactly do you guys do here?”
“We do what we can in conservation terms, look after a few sick animals, rescue them from snares, mend broken limbs that kind of thing. We keep them here until they recuperate,” Scott nodded towards the waterhole where a group of Impala were lying in the shade of a tree.
Something was boiling away furiously in a pot on top of the stove. The heat in the room was stifling. It would have been unbearable but for the open windows that allowed in what little breeze there was.
