by Andy Maslen
‘We’re here,’ Eli said from far away, breaking the spell and jerking Gabriel back to the present. ‘Tad Thong Road.’
He looked forward. She rolled imperceptibly to a stop in a clearing before an ornate stone-built church, its squat square tower surmounted by a cross whose horizontal member had slipped out of true and now hung at twenty degrees off true. A rose window above the gothic doorway depicted the crucifixion in stained glass. Here and there, irregular black stars interrupted the scene of Christ’s passion on Calvary.
Theirs was by no means the only vehicle in the improvised car park. It might have been an advert for a high-end rental outfit, or a millionaires’ car show. He saw a couple more Mercs, also a Bentley Continental in glittering metallic kingfisher blue, a brace of Lamborghini Urus SUVs, one black, one gun-metal, and a midnight-blue Range Rover, emblem of understated but still magnificent success from the shooting parties of Scotland to Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills.
Eli climbed out of the front seat then came round to hold the door open for Gabriel. Two guards flanked the church doors, AK-47s slung over their impressive shoulders. They wore the regulation stony gaze of their breed. Plus in the left-hand man’s case, a broken nose, and in his companion’s a jagged scar bisecting his right eyebrow and continuing down across his eye socket to his cheek.
Broken Nose held up his right hand, palm outwards. He stepped forward, unslinging his AK as he came towards them. Behind him, Jagged Scar did the same, yanking the charging lever back for added drama.
Eli stood to one side.
‘I am looking for the Pompidou Centre,’ Gabriel said, in English.
‘You’re a long way from Paris,’ Broken Nose said.
‘But Vientiane is cheaper.’
Broken Nose grunted.
‘No firearms.’
Gabriel held his suit jacket wide then lifted the back and executed a full circle. Eli turned slowly on the spot. Though his eyes lingered on the baton, Broken Nose waved them in with a grunt.
Inside, it was apparent the congregation had already gathered. Sitting in groups in the pews or standing in huddles were gathered an array of men and the odd woman who fitted Gabriel’s mental category, ‘foe’.
He saw portly men in the Arab combo of thawb and ghutra, looking for all the world like oil sheikhs, which, he supposed they might well be. Other Arabs dressed in conservative, western-cut business suits. Black guys wore beige and mustard suits, sporting plenty of bling at neck and wrist.
All eyes were on Gabriel and Eli as they entered the formerly sacred space. The gazes were at the least curious, if not hostile. But they had been allowed in, so they had sufficient credentials to buy. Conversations started up again, and Gabriel picked out a swirl of languages and accents, including in one corner a Belfast accent thick enough to need subtitles.
Gabriel and Eli sat at a pew right at the back of the church. Above them, a sad-eyed Madonna looked down on them, as if reproaching them for being part of such a gathering.
Gabriel jerked his chin up at the blue-robed statue.
‘If her son were here, he’d have a fine time kicking over the tables, don’t you think?’
She moved towards him.
‘If he did, I hope he’d bring some muscle. This lot would crucify him for sure, if he tried it.’
A loud clapping from the front of the church silenced the chatter.
A tall Laotian appeared at the lectern. He was bald and the dome of his skull gleamed in the light entering through the stained glass windows.
‘Gentlemen,’ he intoned, ‘and, ladies, welcome. My name is John-Antoine Vong. We are ready for you now. If you would like to make your way to the vestry, the vendors are ready for you.’
The buyers not already standing got to their feet and everyone headed for a narrow doorway in the gloom at the far end of the church. Gabriel and Eli hung back, then followed the last of the main crowd.
Once inside the vestry, Eli gasped.
The room, forty feet by sixty, was racked out to beyond head-height with industrial steel shelving. Every ten feet or so, the shelving broke with a gap. In the centre of each section stood a man armed with a clipboard, pen, and walkie-talkie.
But it was the objects piled, stacked and layered on the shelves that had drawn the air from Eli’s lungs.
Gabriel tried to take it all in in a sweeping glance, without looking surprised. Five-foot tusks carved to represent a procession of animals entering Noah’s Ark. Buddhist temples of such intricate tracery it was impossible to imagine the filigree had been achieved by human hand. Intricate geometric ornaments on which octagons tessellated with squares, hexagons interlocked and double helixes like DNA strands curled around each other in a seemingly endless spiral.
Buyers and sellers were clearly used to the process and the noise level rose as orders were placed, pages on clipboards were flipped over, commands were issued into walkie-talkies and haggling broke out.
‘I’m going to have a look around,’ Eli said.
The owner of the Belfast accent spoke from close beside Gabriel’s left side.
‘First time, eh?’
Gabriel turned to see a man a few inches shorter than himself looking up at him. Sandy hair cut short and parted on the right, pale-blue eyes, a couple of days’ beard growth tinting his red cheeks grey.
‘Yeah. Not yours, then?’
‘Me? No, pal. Been coming here for a few years. Best source of untraceable cash on the planet just now. Take a shitload of this gear and, two months later, you can turn it into Semtex, AKs, whatever you might need for your own personal struggle, know what I mean? So, what’s yours?’
Belfast winked. Gabriel favoured him with a grim smile in return.
‘What’s my what?’
‘Struggle.’
‘No struggle. I’m buying for clients.’
‘Clients, eh? Chinese?’
‘Russians.’
‘Plenty of money, those oligarchs.’
‘Enough to keep me in business. Listen, my name’s—’
‘Let me stop you right there,’ Belfast said, holding up a hand. ‘No names, no pack drill, know what I’m saying?’
Gabriel shrugged.
‘Fair enough. I have another line of business. Can we talk somewhere a little quieter?’
Belfast’s pale eyes flicked left and right, then settled back on Gabriel.
‘How about where we came in? Place is quiet now.’
Gabriel followed him back into the main part of the church, not before catching Eli’s eye and signalling for her to follow them.
Belfast wandered all the way out of the church into the car park.
‘What is it you wanted to talk about?’
‘I heard there’s a certain South African political outfit involved upstream in the trade,’ he began. ‘I have some very powerful contacts who want to meet their leader.’
‘Sorry, mate, no idea what you’re talking about. Cigarette?’ he said, holding out a pack of Marlboro.
Gabriel shook his head.
‘They’ll kill you.’
Belfast laughed, a high-pitched chuckle.
‘Aye, well something sure as hell will.’
He lit up, inhaled deeply, then blew it out skywards with a satisfied sigh.
Gabriel had done this dance before. He knew the steps.
‘These contacts of mine are wealthy as well. They would be prepared to compensate anyone who could help with an introduction. But,’ he hesitated, ‘if you’re not the right person, forgive me. I’ll go and talk to one of the others back there.’
‘You think I can be bought, is that it?’
‘I didn’t say that. I can see you’re engaged in a political project of your own. One involving,’ he paused briefly, as if searching for a delicate way of phrasing it, ‘non-conventional means of reaching your goals. Well, so are my contacts. They believe they could learn from the South Africans.’
He watched Belfast running the mental numbers. Calculating odds.
Assessing risk and reward. Gabriel was pretty sure he knew which way the dice would land. They were miles from anywhere in a backwoods deconsecrated Catholic church on the Thai-Laotian border. He looked across the water. Anyone without the right password would end up floating downstream with a couple of ounces of lead in their body. Which meant Gabriel was clean. It was a no-brainer.
‘And when you say “a certain South African political outfit”…’ Belfast said.
‘BVR. That’s the—’
‘Boerevryheid an Regte. Yes, I know. In my line of work, it pays to know who else is engaged in a struggle, even if they are a bunch of racists.’
‘You don’t approve, then?’ Gabriel asked, marvelling that Belfast could afford scruples, given his ‘line of work’.
‘We are fighting to right a historic wrong imposed on Ireland by Oliver-fucking-Cromwell and enforced by the British Crown ever since. They are—’
‘Fighting for a homeland where they can live according to their customs without interference by an over-mighty, corrupt majority-governed state they don’t recognise.’
Anger flashed across Belfast’s face, then it was gone. Gabriel felt sick to his stomach. Why was he having to stand here discussing politics with someone he was sure would think nothing of shooting dead his former comrades-in-arms? Not to mention blowing up women and children with car bombs, nail bombs or whatever else he could fashion from his ivory-into-Semtex supply chain.
Belfast took another deep drag on his cigarette.
‘Aye, well, maybe we should leave politics to the politicians, eh? I’m just a lowly foot soldier. Suppose I could point you at the right person. What sort of compensation are we talking about?’
There it was again. The little green light of greed winking at Gabriel, this time from the depths of Belfast’s eyes.
‘I am authorised to offer ten thousand dollars.’ Gabriel patted the inside pocket of his suit jacket. ‘Cash. Here and now. If,’ he paused, ‘the information is solid. Anything less than diamond-hard would lead to some very,’ another pause, ‘unfortunate consequences.’
Belfast glared at him. His colour disappeared, leaving his cheeks pale behind the stubble.
‘Are you threatening me?’ he said in an incredulous tone of voice.
Gabriel smiled down at him.
‘Do I need to threaten you?’
Belfast’s stare intensified and Gabriel had time to observe a squiggled blue-green vein pulsing beneath the translucent skin at his right temple. His lips tightened to a mean line.
Gabriel counted in his head.
One…two…three…
He visualised drawing the karambit and laying Belfast’s face open.
41
Belfast laughed.
‘Fuck you, you English cunt!’ he said, smiling now. ‘You’ve got a pair of brass balls on you, I’ll give you that.’
‘So you can help.’
‘Show me the money.’
Gabriel reached into his suit pocket, let his knuckles glide over the karambit’s knurled grip and withdrew the bundle of hundred-dollar notes. No thicker than a deck of cards, it wouldn’t look very impressive unless the viewer could see the 100s printed in the corners of the topmost note.
Gabriel made sure Belfast got a good long look before replacing it in his pocket.
‘So?’ Gabriel said.
‘Let me make a call.’
Gabriel watched as Belfast wandered away to the edge of the clearing before pulling out a phone. The man’s head nodded, shook, bobbed again. His free hand described random movements in the air, chopping down, holding up the index finger, patting an imaginary animal. Finally, he nodded emphatically, before ending the call and walking back to Gabriel.
‘It’s on. My BVR contact says he’ll send one of his guys to meet you.’
‘Here?’
‘No. Jo’burg. Be there day after tomorrow. A bar called the Blue Springbok on Smit Street. Seven in the evening.’ He held up his phone and took Gabriel’s picture, then tapped the screen a few times. ‘There! Just sent him your mugshot. Now he knows what you look like.’
It was a good idea, a little bit of tradecraft, but it came over like a threat. Gabriel Wolfe didn’t like being threatened. In that moment he made a decision.
‘Thanks. I suppose you want your money.’
Belfast grinned. The little green light came back on.
‘That would be nice, yes.’
Gabriel made a show of looking around. He stared at the guards on the door, who were eyeing them with bored expressions.
‘Not here. Let’s go over there, behind the church. Out of sight of Tweedledum and Tweedledee over there. Wouldn’t want them getting any ideas.’
Belfast looked over Gabriel’s shoulders.
‘Aye, maybe not. I saw them take a guy’s hand off at the wrist a couple of months back for trying to cheat one of the vendors.’
Gabriel nodded his head towards a stand of palms choked with low-growing ferns and creepers to the left of the church. The two men walked side by side until the vegetation thickened and pressed against the ancient stone walls of the church. He stood back and let Belfast precede him.
Belfast pushed his way between two palms and kicked his way through the undergrowth until he emerged into a small space no more than six feet square. It smelled strongly of urine and Gabriel realised they’d stumbled into what passed for an outside toilet.
The little man turned, hand out.
Gabriel placed the bundle of notes in his palm.
‘You don’t mind if I count it,’ Belfast said. A statement, not a question.
‘Not at all. Tell me, you said you’re a foot soldier. You chalk up many kills?’
Belfast grinned, though he didn’t lift his gaze from the notes rustling between his thumbs.
‘One or two, you know? Squaddies, mainly. Couple of RUC. Eejits wouldn’t know one end of a—’
The rest of the sentence was lost in a gargling wheeze.
Blood sprayed out in a translucent fan from the rent in Belfast’s throat, spattering against the glossy leaves of a fern with a sound like rain. He turned, eyes wide, clutching his throat, searching Gabriel’s face for an explanation.
Gabriel held up the karambit, whose blade was smeared red.
‘Fuck you, and fuck your project,’ he hissed, before kicking Belfast in the chest and sending him toppling backwards into the soft embrace of the lush green undergrowth.
Gabriel pulled a couple of the larger leaves over the body, then reached in and took Belfast’s phone. He stepped back. He couldn’t do much about the blood spatter, but of Belfast himself, there was no sight. He cleaned the blade on the ground, then folded it and replaced it in his pocket.
He found Eli near the doorway, deep in conversation with a dark-skinned woman dressed in a chocolate-brown trouser suit, her thick black hair tied back in a ponytail.
‘Time to go,’ Gabriel said.
Eli nodded.
‘A pleasure to meet you, Maria,’ she said.
The two women shook hands and then Gabriel and Eli were walking smartly back to the Merc.
‘Everything OK?’ Eli asked.
‘Yes. But we shouldn’t hang around. I just killed a guy.’
‘What? Where?’
‘Back there. He set up a meet with a BVR contact in Johannesburg. Two days’ time.’
They reached the car. Eli climbed behind the wheel and Gabriel sat beside her. As she swung the car around in a circle, past the Bentley’s imposing front grille, a couple of white men emerged from the church, their heads turning from side to side.
‘Drive,’ Gabriel said. ‘Nice and easy.’
Back on the riverbank road, Eli glanced up at the rear-view mirror.
‘Nobody behind us. You think they were looking for him?’
‘I don’t know. But I don’t want to find out. Give this beast some juice and let’s check out. We need to get out of Vientiane.’
42
JOHANNESBURG
>
‘What time is it?’ Gabriel asked.
He was sitting on the bed towelling his hair. They’d checked in an hour earlier and he realised he had no sense of time or date beyond what his watch or phone told him. The perils for criss-crossing so many time zones in such a short space of time.
‘Six-thirty,’ Eli replied. ‘It’s a ten-minute taxi ride, I checked.’
She was sitting in an armchair, feet tucked beneath her, reading a book.
Gabriel dressed in pale chinos, a white shirt and a navy linen jacket. He slipped his bare feet into tobacco-brown boat shoes.
‘How do I look?’
‘I like that better than the suit. Too formal. That’s much more you.’
Gabriel nodded. He patted his pockets reflexively. They’d left their newly acquired hardware behind in Vientiane.
Catching the movement, Eli grinned.
‘You’ll be fine. After what you got up to at the church, not being armed is probably better all round.’
‘He deserved it.’
‘I know. But you need to get to the BVR. Killing people won’t help.’
Gabriel crossed the room, planted a kiss on her lips and drew back.
‘I’ll see you later.’
‘Take care.’
‘I will.’
The taxi driver knew the Blue Springbok and dropped Gabriel outside at 6.50 p.m. Gabriel entered the bar, passing beneath an electric-blue neon outline of South Africa’s own antelope. Inside the place was busy, but not noisy, the early evening crowd consisting largely of office workers, to judge by the clothes. He made his way to the bar and ordered a glass of chenin blanc.
He found a corner table where he could observe the rest of the bar. With his back protected by two walls, he felt about as relaxed as was possible. Low-level jazz, something with sax and piano, was issuing from ceiling-mounted speakers. He looked up: one was suspended directly overhead. Good, a little extra cover for our conversation.
He sipped the chilled wine. It was delicious. He caught a brief sensation of eating pear drops before he tasted pineapple and peach.
