Black Pearl

by Peter Tonkin

  ‘Body armour has been a problem in some areas,’ said Richard carefully. ‘Certainly the leadership of the hostiles we’re likely to face tend to wear it. The foot soldiers, though, are either hopped up on coke or brainwashed into believing Poro magic. Or both.’

  ‘I guessed as much,’ said Ivan. ‘If a guy’s coming at you wearing a wedding dress and a fright wig, you don’t need armour piercing, right?’

  ‘That’s about the size of it.’ Richard nodded, speaking feelingly from personal experience. ‘But both cocaine and magic can make them hard as hell to stop, hot rounds or not.’

  ‘Talking of hot rounds,’ interrupted Felix, ‘you haven’t brought ammunition for all these weapons as well, have you?’

  ‘Only the special stuff,’ answered Ivan. ‘I’m relying on the fact that everything I’ve brought will take standard military loads. If you guys haven’t got enough then we’ll have to take it from the hostiles. They’ll have plenty if the intelligence is accurate. That’s the head shed to you, Captain Mariner, I believe. As we seem to be using special ops jargon.’

  Richard laughed. But as he did so, he thought back to other conversations he had had like this. And remembered who he had shared them with: Max’s daughter Anastasia, in fact. ‘You take all this kit upriver with you,’ he said easily, ‘and you’ll certainly have a lot to talk to Anastasia about.’

  Ivan flinched as though Richard had struck him. But he recovered like a boxer as well as moving like one. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Though, given our history, Anastasia and I never seem to be short of topics for conversation. I would be grateful, however, just for the time being, you understand, if you did not mention me or my presence in any communication you might have with her.’

  OK, thought Richard. More along those lines later, perhaps. If it becomes relevant. Or any of my damn business. He shrugged in answer. Nodded a curt affirmative.

  In the meantime, ‘Felix,’ he said, ‘I think you’d better tell the driver to head straight for the docks. From the sound of things, almost all of Ivan’s luggage needs to go aboard the Zubr Stalingrad. And we’ll need to ask Captain Zhukov to put it in secure storage with the rest of his arms and armaments.’

  After a few moments of reflective silence Ivan asked, a little nervously, ‘Now that you’ve mentioned her, are we likely to see Anastasia?’

  ‘Certain to, eventually,’ answered Richard. ‘Didn’t anyone tell you? Our first base of operations is the orphanage she runs just upriver of the inner delta.’

  Plan

  ‘This is a plan of the river,’ said Captain Caleb Maina quietly. ‘I use the term plan rather than chart because as you can see it focuses on what lies along the banks more than the depths or state of the water itself, and even then it shows the land features in very little detail, so it is hardly a map. And, again, as will be obvious to you, the hand-drawn additions show municipal and structural works in progress. Where they are inked in, the project is effectively complete. Where they are in pencil, the project is still in progress. Where the lines are dashed or dotted, there are plans in place but nothing substantial yet on the ground. And, I should add – perhaps a little melodramatically – that some of what I am about to tell you has until recently been what you might term a state secret.’

  ‘Does Benin La Bas have an Official Secrets Act?’ asked Ivan cheerfully. ‘Will we have to sign it?’

  ‘As a matter of fact, yes it does,’ answered Caleb. ‘But no, you will not have to sign it.’

  Richard looked down at the plan which lay spread across the main mess table in the crew’s dining room aboard the lead Zubr Stalingrad. It showed in little more than sketch outline Granville Harbour and its inner bay, the mouth and main course of the River Gir from its tidal openings to its Central African origins, including Lac Dudo and the chain of volcanoes with Karisoke at its heart, from which the main river sprang. There was a line along the watershed that lay on the mountain chain’s highest ridge, beyond which was written Congo Libre. Nothing immediately struck him as looking much like a state secret.

  Stalingrad was Captain Zhukov’s command, but it was Captain Caleb Maina who had produced the long, thin outline plan of his country and its volcanic central feature. And it was Caleb who was delivering this update, revealing, somewhat to Richard’s surprise, that he had a background in intelligence as well as in ship handling. An all-round Ian Fleming, Richard thought. But that thought only made him look forward to the briefing even more. It would be the first, Richard hoped, of several increasingly detailed seminars before they all went charging up the river like gangbusters.

  ‘So some of this planned development is a work in progress,’ he observed. ‘And a secret work in progress.’

  ‘Yes, Captain Mariner. That makes two important points,’ answered Caleb. ‘Since the president settled into office and gained the backing of the IMF, the World Bank and other international institutions and NGOs, work on the country’s infrastructure has proceeded at a great and gathering pace.’

  Particularly, thought Richard, since the president’s national heroine daughter arrived as the leader of the opposition – and a competition for hearts and minds really got under way.

  ‘So even modern maps are out of date within a month,’ Caleb persisted. He glanced around the table, his attention focused primarily on Felix and Richard. ‘I am aware that many of you will have flown over the river – along much of its length on several occasions recently,’ he continued. ‘But you may not have been fully alive to the changes that have taken place on the ground. Changes that will affect our progress radically and, I hope, positively. Changes which are detailed on this plan.’

  The conference had started as an attempt to bring Ivan up to date. Felix had gone through the basic situation in the car coming down here from the airport, but Ivan still felt he needed filling in on some of the background to the Army of Christ the Infant – its history, its likely objectives, and what precisely had been the involvement of Anastasia Asov in the overthrow of its last leader, the mad, cannibalistic black magician General Moses Nlong.

  But when it became plain that Ivan remained ignorant of several basic factors that the others were taking for granted, Caleb agreed to a more detailed explanation of the background to the current situation in his country as a whole. Even Felix seemed surprised by some of the more recent developments along the river and further upcountry. And, for some reason, now was the appropriate moment to start filling them in on matters that everyone had remained ignorant of until recently. Or everyone except a very select few at the top of the government, the defence and the intelligence services, by the look of things. So Caleb had led them down to the deserted mess hall, laid out his plan and started filling them in while the main object of the visit – the safe disposal of Ivan’s arsenal – was achieved by a cheerfully awestruck armaments officer.

  Richard was paying particularly close attention because he knew Robin would be frustrated at missing a briefing like this and would want a detailed explanation of whatever Captain Caleb told them. He was supported in his endeavour to remember what Caleb was saying by the fact that his memory was very nearly photographic, and he would be able to recall the sketch map itself in astonishing detail simply by closing his eyes and concentrating.

  ‘The work on the harbour which you can see marked here … has proceeded upriver,’ Caleb was saying. ‘We have kept the basic rule of the road for the tidal section at the river mouth where, as you see, the main channel is divided into two by a series of small islands. The rule is to “keep right”. So, upriver shipping passes to the south of the islands, and downriver to the north.

  ‘We have cleared both channels of the water hyacinth that made them difficult to navigate in the past. And, as you see here, the main road along the north bank has been restored. There was an old casino twenty kilometres upriver on the northern bank – just at the end of the tidal section – that is now a river pilot station whose additional function is keeping the water flowing down to the harbour f
ree of floating obstructions. Especially water hyacinth. The road along the northern bank has in fact been cleared and re-metalled as far as the township of Malebo, more than sixty kilometres into the delta. This is particularly important as the spiralling number of citizens in Granville Harbour need feeding, and we cannot do it all by importing what we need and paying for it with our oil and gas sales. No. Clearing the road and river for commercial access has allowed the growing number of farms in the inner and outer deltas to get their produce to our city markets – and by extension of that to allow increasing numbers of people who would otherwise be unemployed to go into the hinterland and find agricultural work. A benign spiral, you see, and one extended further inland, as we shall also see in a minute or two. Therefore, the government is working to clear the next section, right through the inner delta as far as the Father Antoine and Sister Faith Memorial orphanage here, where we are working to broaden the scope of our farming activities exponentially.’

  ‘Still nothing on the south bank, though?’ asked Richard, thinking nothing very secret so far. ‘Nothing but mangroves and delta jungle?’

  ‘Not quite,’ answered Caleb. ‘The government has been busy there too. If you look carefully you can see that we are bringing back the oil pipework that was there and clearing the jungle itself. There was some talk of a wildlife park there – that’s marked here in dotted lines – and the idea was to make it a tourist attraction. But it was abandoned when the men who thought it up, Bala Ngama and his brother – ministers for the outer and inner deltas – were dismissed for demanding bribes and using promises of land both in the deltas and further upriver to build their private power base.

  ‘Minister Ngama had also assembled a considerable menagerie that was supposed to go into the wildlife park but as soon as he was dismissed he apparently arranged to have it all sold off. It was paid for by the ministry, but he is supposed to have pocketed the proceeds himself. It was typical of the man and of the activities that finally made President Chaka run out of patience with him. Then he and his brother vanished, leaving their families to face the music. And it is they, in fact, who seem to have sold to our enemies and competitors some of the facts that I am revealing to you now. Facts whose importance will be immediately obvious, I’m sure. Facts which had been secret until the Ngama brothers crossed the border. In many other countries the reprisals would have been terrible. Here, they are simply the subject of an investigation in absentia, and their families are currently at liberty on bail.’

  ‘And there’s a deserted town there too,’ observed Richard, focusing on Caleb’s overdrawn plan once again as he mulled this new information over. ‘A big place, but a deserted ruin now, just inside the inner delta. What about that?’

  ‘It is Citematadi,’ answered Caleb. ‘It was built, flourished briefly, was abandoned and then died during the nineteen seventies and eighties of the last century. We have sent army engineering units up to see what of the infrastructure can be cleared, made safe and used. Granville Harbour is becoming overcrowded, as you will readily appreciate, and we do not want it to turn into another Lagos. And – you will welcome this particularly, Captain Mariner – the engineers were ordered to blow up the piles and starlings of the collapsed bridge there and clear the river, making it navigable for larger craft right up to the orphanage and the new farms beyond it.’

  ‘The orphanage,’ said Ivan. ‘You mentioned that. What is it and why is it important?’

  ‘Here, on the north bank. The Father Antoine and Sister Faith Memorial orphanage is now at the heart of a considerable new settlement. It is not really large enough to warrant a municipal authority or a name, but the suggestion has been made that it be called Chakaville after Celine Chaka, who was wounded defending the orphanage against the Army of Christ the Infant some time ago, before she became leader of the opposition. And that the first municipal leader should be Anastasia Asov, who runs the orphanage itself.’

  At the mention of Anastasia’s name, Richard felt Ivan stir once again, and was opening his mouth to ask about their relationship when the door opened and Anastasia’s father strode in.

  ‘Someone mention my name?’ he asked, having heard the last few words.

  ‘No,’ said Richard. ‘We were discussing Anastasia and her orphanage.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Max, his voice flat, his tone somewhere between disinterest and disdain. Then his whole demeanour changed. ‘Ivan,’ he said. ‘Ivan, my boy …’

  What started as a handshake turned into a bear hug, and in among the whispered greetings Richard was sure he heard the phrase, ‘Uncle Max!’

  ‘The point is,’ continued Caleb, when the two men finally pulled apart, ‘that, just at Malebo, there is now a decent docking facility there. Fuel, supplies and so forth. Any expedition proceeding upriver can expect to refuel there and at the orphanage. And, even as we speak, further fuel dumps are being ferried upriver, nine thousand kilos at a time by the Super Pumas of the Benin La Bas army’s support command.’ He looked around the table, smiling briefly at the curt nods of approval. Then he continued. ‘As well as the fuel and ancillary equipment, we will be leaving a security contingent at the orphanage to guard the place. And that is a happy coincidence, because, as you can see if you look a little to the north and east of the encampment, here is the first of the large nationalized farming cooperatives.

  ‘The land north-east of the inner delta is raised savannah and is particularly well suited to a range of farming activities. President Chaka has set up, in parallel, an agricultural college in Malebo and the cooperative you see marked. Unlike earlier schemes – such as the ill-fated Million Acre experiment in Kenya and the attempted restitution in Zimbabwe – chance has offered us a clean slate here and now. Almost all the original farmers in this area were driven off during the last thirty years by the kind of dangers that closed Doctor Koizumi’s pearl factory and cleared the jungle all around it. If there are any survivors with legitimate personal, family, clan or tribal claims to the land, they have yet to come forward. The best experts we can find, therefore, have been brought in to assess what of the most in-demand crops might be farmed there to feed not only our own people but also a global market. And it seems that everything from watermelons to wine is in demand. From beans to Burgundy. As well as the sweet potato, yam and manioc that are the staples of the area.’

  ‘You have people up there farming already?’ asked Richard, impressed.

  ‘Indeed. The government has instituted a three-pronged recruitment scheme. We have experienced farmers from the older generation who know the land and are willing to return to it while the next generation are being trained up in the agricultural college. And any shortfall or stopgap is filled by experts recruited from our near neighbours – or from further abroad – who help and advise in the meantime.’

  ‘Experts from the far side of Karisoke?’ asked Richard, as he felt something beginning to stir in his mind.

  ‘Indeed. Bala Ngama, before his removal, negotiated a most successful agreement with President Gabriel Fola. There are several of his farming experts involved in the project. But we also have Kikuyu farmers from the Great Rift Valley, Masai herdsmen, Bantu vegetable growers from Kenya who are expert in growing onions, tomatoes, cabbages and avocados, as well as fine green beans for export. Hutus and Tutsis from nearer at hand. Bantu again and Luala from the DR Congo, south of us. It started in secret because of the influx of experts from outside the country and the Matadi tribe, but anyone who reads the government-sponsored press will soon learn the details.’

  ‘OK,’ said Max. ‘But the main objective remains to get up the river to Lac Dudo first, before this Army of Christ the Infant gets a good firm grip on it – whether they know about the coltan or whether they are just reconquering their old stamping grounds – and lets the other bad guys in through the back door. It looks as though we may have to sort out how many bad guys – fifth columnists – are here already. Where they are, what they’re up to and how in hell’s name they fit into Gab
riel Fola’s and Colonel Odem’s overall plan.’

  Richard nodded. ‘But that’s not all,’ he added. ‘I’m pretty certain Colonel Odem has a grudge he wants to settle with Celine Chaka, for instance, so she’s involved, like it or not …’

  ‘Not too likely she’s at any risk,’ shrugged Ivan. ‘Leader of the opposition, in the middle of Granville Harbour. We’re talking Army of Christ, not Smersh assassins …’

  ‘But,’ said Richard forcefully, his eyes on Ivan and not on Max, ‘he also has an account to settle with Anastasia Asov, who is effectively alone and unprotected. And out there in the middle of nowhere.’

  Du Lac

  ‘Anastasia says she’s fine,’ said Robin, gesturing towards the Skype screen on her laptop. ‘All quiet on the eastern front. And no – before you ask, I did not mention your mysterious Ivan Yagula.’

  It was later that evening and they were getting ready for bed. The day had been spent in preparations for getting the Zubrs, the equipment, Kebila and his men up the river. But the job needed to be planned carefully and done right. It was all a frustratingly slow process. Over a light but exquisite dinner, they had talked the situation over.

  Their conversation over dinner in the hotel’s new Bistro Bamidele had started with Ivan, who was not present at the moment because Max and Felix had dragged him out to a less sedate, more actively Russian dinner at a dockside bar and grill called OTI, which was more famous for its massive selection of vodkas than for its actual food. And, for Robin, a bottle of lemony Chablis. Richard explained in detail Captain Caleb’s briefing. He was aided in this endeavour first by using the tines of his fork to draw on the starched snowiness of the linen, then his pen on some paper napkins purloined from a passing waiter and finally in perfect detail with a pencil on several overlapping pieces of A4 paper all supplied by the long-suffering manager Andre Wanago. But it was over dessert, presented with a powerful NV ‘Alcyone’ Tannat, Vinedo de los Vientos, that they had discussed Richard’s worries about Anastasia. Worries that had only seemed to darken over coffee. Worries that seemed to persist, even after Robin got through to the orphanage on Skype.