Decisive

by David Hickson

  Alassane placed his dustpan of glass onto a kitchen counter.

  “Let’s go,” he said.

  The grandmother still held my hand in both of hers. Then she nodded, released my hand, and I followed Alassane out of the room.

  Seven

  The military headquarters in Ouagadougou had been the focus of a terrorist attack a few months earlier. The dusty orange walls were still blackened in areas where some grenades had not made it over the wall into the compound. There were three steel gates we needed to pass through. They were opened one at a time, then closed behind us before the next one opened. While we were waiting between the first pair of gates, two soldiers peered in at us with interest, but their focus was mostly on Bibata. She was more interesting than the foreigner sitting beside her, or the shadowy figure in the back.

  I presented my credentials to the soldier who clicked his fingers and held out an open palm for them. Passport and a letter on the official letterhead of the president’s office. My invitation from General Kanazoe and the rubber stamp of approval.

  He carried the letter and passport over to a small security hut, where another soldier paged through the passport with careful deliberation, then read the letter three times, looking up to squint at the silver Mercedes between each reading. He lifted an old-fashioned telephone handset to his face and spoke into it, his eyes on our car. I wondered aloud whether the missing back window had caused any alarm. But Bibata assured me I worried unnecessarily; many of the cars in Ouagadougou were missing windows and even doors.

  Eventually the next gate opened for us. We drove through to another holding area, where two soldiers pointed their automatic weapons at us, and we stared straight ahead as the gate squeaked closed.

  The third gate opened, and we advanced to a parking space. Alassane spoke from the back seat.

  “We will wait for you here,” he said.

  “It would be better if you waited outside the compound,” I replied.

  “How will you get out?”

  “Let me worry about that.”

  I climbed out of the car and closed the door behind me. Bibata looked as if she wanted to say something, but I didn’t give her the time to say it. I gave them both a terse nod and walked to the entrance.

  The general’s office was not a grand one. It occurred to me as I entered it that I had never, despite many years in the military, actually seen the inside of a general’s office. I have always imagined that their senior rank is a motivation for the interior designers to stretch the budget a little: dark wood panelling, spotlights over etchings of historical battles, and so forth. But General Kanazoe did not have that type of office. A threadbare carpet on a concrete floor, a desk made of cheap wood from which the veneer was peeling. A large photograph of the president of Burkina Faso hung behind his desk, but no spotlight over it, and the lower half of the picture had faded, presumably from the intense tropical sunlight that came in through the barred windows.

  The general was seated behind his desk, a soldier dressed in camouflage fatigues had opened the door. The soldier stood to attention as I shook the general’s hand across his desk.

  “Mr Johnson,” said the general.

  “A pleasure to finally meet you, General Kanazoe,” I said.

  The general did not smile. Three stripes gouged into the skin on the right side of his face – a relic of tribal markings according to my briefing papers – puckered slightly in greeting. He indicated I should take a seat in a wooden chair that looked as if it came from the same batch as those in the kitchen of Bibata’s grandmother. I sat down, and folded one leg over the other, so that I did not look like a man who might be tempted to spring out of his chair, leap across the desk and throttle the leader of the Burkinabé military.

  The general pursed his lips and studied me through narrowed eyes. After a minute of silence, he turned to the soldier at the door and dismissed him with a curt order.

  Another beat of silence when we were alone, and then the general opened a drawer in his desk. He fumbled a little with something heavy and metallic, and then produced an old MAC-50, a handgun favoured by the French military at the end of the twentieth century. He pointed it at me.

  “You have come to kill me?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I said. “I have.”

  The general rested the grip of the MAC-50 on the desk, but kept the barrel pointed at my chest.

  “Your people said I would probably not even see you.”

  “That was the plan,” I said. “But there have been complications.”

  “What complications? You haven’t changed your mind? Decided to go ahead with it?”

  “I haven’t, General. I am a soldier following orders. I don’t have a mind that can be changed.”

  The general puckered his mouth again, which I realised was his way of smiling.

  “I was wondering whether you would make it,” he said. “They told me you had run into some trouble. An accident of some kind?”

  “Someone accidentally discharged an automatic weapon in the outskirts of Ouagadougou,” I said.

  “Ah, and those were your complications? Someone firing at you? Who were they? Soldiers?”

  “They didn’t look like soldiers to me.”

  “Certainly not my soldiers,” said the general. “That would have been a foolish thing for me to do, after all the planning.”

  He lowered the barrel of the gun and replaced it in the drawer with a clatter.

  “It is not loaded,” he admitted. “Like so many things the French have done. They have left us with only the useless aspects of their culture. The guns, but no ammunition. What good is that?”

  “Guns without ammunition can be pretty effective,” I said.

  “For a short while, perhaps,” said the general with a nod. “It is the African way, isn’t it? We’re all about bluster here in Africa. Point the gun – who cares whether it’s loaded? But eventually the person you are pointing the gun at realises you don’t have the force of conviction.”

  “That is why it is best to do something before anyone points a gun,” I suggested.

  “In any case,” said the general, “if you see a man pointing a gun at you, the chances are they will not use it. They say that, don’t they?”

  I nodded.

  “I imagine you know this,” he said. “Your people told me they would send a ‘wet works’ man. Is that the kind of man you are?”

  “It is, General.”

  “And you have come to me with a name, despite your complications?”

  “I have, sir. Although I have some reservations about the source of the name.”

  “Name first. Reservations later.”

  “Of course, General. The name I have been provided with is, as expected, a member of your government’s inner circle.”

  “Very well. Who is it?”

  “The vice president, sir.”

  “That’s absurd,” exclaimed the general.

  “I suspect it is. Which is why I have reservations.”

  “The vice president is my greatest ally. I refuse to believe she accuses me of planning to overthrow my government.”

  “I consider it more likely that the vice president was the person who tried to stop me from reaching you this morning.”

  “She sent the men who fired the automatic weapons? What makes you think that?”

  “Her name was given to me – in anger – by my escort. I believe he realised it was her, which caused his anger.”

  “And this escort is who?”

  “He is a member of her staff. I should explain, General, that my masters consider it possible that the source of this operation does not come from your government’s inner circle at all.”

  “Oh? Where does it come from then?” There was a spark of anger in the general’s eyes. I knew he had been reluctant to sit in this office and wait for my arrival. It must have been a hard thing for a man of action to do. “Who else would have the gall to request foreign assistance in my assassination?
”

  “It has been suggested this could be the work of a lone madman. An extremist.”

  “Lone madman? You mean one person? Why on earth would anyone do this?”

  “The suggestion, I believe, was with the intention of sparking an international incident.”

  “That’s absurd.”

  “This morning’s accident renders it a little less absurd, if I may say so, General.”

  “Why less absurd?”

  “Because if I was here at the request of a senior member of your government, it is hard to understand why anyone – apart from you – would want to prevent me from fulfilling my task. On the other hand, they might wish to stop me if they discovered what I was doing here, and intended to prevent an incident.”

  The general considered this. His anger faded as the lunacy of the idea started making sense.

  “An international incident?” he said.

  “A foreign assassin attempting, or succeeding, to assassinate the military leader of your country.”

  “But who would know it was a foreign assassin?”

  “Everyone would know if the assassin was killed in the process.”

  “You think this lone madman is intending to kill you?”

  “I do, General.”

  “In that case, you have taken a substantial risk coming here.”

  “Not very substantial. The manner of this operation has been fairly … amateurish, I think would be the word for it.”

  The general laughed. “That is just the way we do things in Africa. In what way has it been amateurish?”

  “My escort handed me a pistol and expected me to simply walk into these headquarters and shoot you.”

  “You’ve seen our security,” said the general. “That sounds like a fairly foolproof plan to me.” His mouth puckered with amusement. “When those jihadists attacked, they threw grenades over the wall and dropped men with automatic weapons from a helicopter onto the roof. I wondered why they didn’t just walk in the front door as you did. Do you know what we discovered later? When the whole thing was over?”

  I shook my head.

  “That x-ray machine in the entrance had been out of order for a week. They could have simply concealed their weapons and walked in.”

  I smiled.

  “Amateurs can be dangerous,” pointed out the general. “You should be careful.”

  “They can, but I rather imagine this amateur overestimates his skills.”

  “And underestimates yours, perhaps,” said the general. “I wondered why your government wanted to send a man like you. I expected a bureaucrat, a pen pusher who would help us resolve the issue. Instead, they sent you. But it makes a little more sense to me now.”

  “Perhaps because the best way to deal with a lone madman,” I said, “is to send another lone madman after him.”

  “And I assume this man’s madness threatened to cause your government a good deal of embarrassment. That is the actual issue here, isn’t it?”

  “It might be, sir.”

  “Give me his name, I will ensure that the matter is dealt with.”

  “Of course.”

  The general opened the drawer of his desk again and produced a pen and a pad of paper, which he pushed over the desk towards me. I wrote Alassane’s full name, which had been helpfully provided by him on the itinerary. I returned the pad of paper and pen to the general. He read the name and nodded several times. He looked up and his eyes narrowed.

  “You are not what I expected,” he said.

  “What did you expect?”

  “Someone less … thoughtful, I suppose. Someone who took action without thinking about it. Isn’t that what ‘wet works’ men are?”

  “Too much thinking is my great weakness,” I said.

  He smiled. “Can I offer you safe passage to the airport?”

  “Thank you, but no.”

  “I will get this man arrested. At least allow me to do that before you leave here.” He picked up an old-fashioned telephone handset that sat on his desk.

  “My escort has a woman with him,” I said. “I fear for her safety if things don’t go his way.”

  “A woman?”

  “I suspect she is his insurance policy. If I am correct, my escort has brought her along as a scapegoat in case things go wrong. He intends to kill her as well.”

  General Kanazoe replaced the handset.

  “Very well,” he said. “And I suppose your masters have told you how they would like the matter to be resolved? You have your orders?”

  “I do.”

  “I will respect that. How long do you need?”

  “An hour should do it.”

  The general got to his feet and held out his hand. I stood up and shook it.

  “What is your rank?” he asked.

  “I only reached corporal, General.”

  “Reached? Once a soldier, always a soldier.”

  “I was discharged.”

  “But you are here on behalf of the South African military. You are still in service, only for different masters?”

  “Not in service, I am an employee of the South Africans. The things I do for them are not, strictly speaking, the things expected of a military man.”

  “Don’t be so sure, Corporal. What makes a good soldier is the ability to perform a necessary task without consideration of the personal price. What you are doing fits that description.”

  The general was still grasping my hand. He gave me a smile.

  “Trust a Burkinabé to come up with such a crazy scheme,” he said. “It is a pity, really. An interesting idea, to get the French off our backs by creating an international incident over a foreign assassin.”

  “But lucky for us,” I said, “that his chosen target had some foreign friends.”

  “Lucky for all of us,” he agreed. “That man Alassane made the mistake politicians often make. The mistake of underestimating the military.”

  Eight

  I realised the single benefit of the general’s office when I left it. It was the air conditioning. As I stepped out of the building, a wall of intense heat struck me. It grabbed at my breath, but I kept moving. I did not want to be a static target for Alassane.

  Somewhat to my surprise, Alassane and Bibata were not in the parking area. I had assumed that he would attempt to complete his operation within the military compound, which was why I had asked them to meet me outside. But there was no silver Mercedes without a back window in the parking area. I wondered whether they had changed cars so I studied each vehicle there, but none of them held two occupants. I scanned the surrounding buildings, but there were no threatening silhouettes. No open windows with the barrel of a gun protruding.

  I stepped cautiously through the pedestrian gates and collected my passport from the security hut. I behaved as if I had done what I came to do and was a professional assassin making my exit. Act normally for the guards, an edge of anxiety for Alassane. Move slowly, no rush. Make my way to the airport.

  I walked along the dusty road, checking the tops of buildings, searching the usual danger spots. And then, with a crunching of gravel, the silver Mercedes pulled alongside. Indicator lights flashing, Bibata still carefully obeying the rules. Her eyes were slightly wide and fearful. She looked at me, perhaps wondering what signs there would be in the face of a man who has just killed someone. I had no worries there; my face was full of those signs.

  I climbed into the passenger seat and turned to face Alassane. He was coiled like a spring in the back seat, full of tension. I had not been wrong about his intentions, I could see it in his face.

  “All done?” he asked.

  “All done,” I said.

  He stared at me, as if wondering whether he could believe me.

  “It’s quiet,” he said. “I thought you would have problems getting out.”

  “Give them time. Let’s get away from here.”

  Alassane nodded. Bibata engaged the gears, and we lurched forward.

  The internationa
l airport of Ouagadougou was a desultory collection of brick buildings with fading paint. They cowered beneath a tower of cloud that looked as if it was preparing to unleash a storm of some magnitude, which might provide a little relief from the persistent heat. In the Mercedes, despite the missing windows, we were all sweating. Alassane knew his moment was coming, and the closer it came, the more his anxiety built. I had seen it before in people who intended to kill but who had no experience. My clothes were damp with sweat, and there was blood on the sleeve of my shirt. The pain in my arm had increased and had become a dull throb in rhythm with the beating of my heart.

  Outside the main terminal building stood a cluster of impatient passengers, hoping for some relief from the heat. The air conditioning in the terminal building had not been working the previous night, and I guessed they had not yet fixed it. Some passengers were smoking, others were standing around chatting, and a few were looking about, hoping for something to distract them. Several pairs of eyes watched our approach.

  “Park around the back,” said Alassane, pointing to a small side road that led to a row of aircraft hangars. Vast structures of corrugated iron and steel columns. The air around them vibrated with heat.

  Bibata frowned and turned to Alassane with confusion. That was the confirmation I needed. Alassane intended to kill us both.

  “Over there,” said Alassane with irritation, pointing at the nearest hangar. He shifted restlessly in the back seat as if he wanted to leap from the car before it stopped.

  Bibata glanced at me, and I gave what I hoped was a reassuring nod and a tightening of the mouth. Bibata was a kind person. Not the ideal person with whom to face an inexperienced killer. For the first time today, Bibata did not indicate as she turned off the road. We pulled up beside the hangar.

  Alassane opened the back door and leapt out of the car. Bibata opened her door, but looked back to me with fear in her eyes.

  “Bring your bag,” I said. “When we enter the hangar, pass me the gun.”

  “What are you doing?” called Alassane. “Get out of the car.”