“I had no idea that you’d done business in Africa?” Charlie was intrigued.
“That’s not something I like to think about too much. Because of my activities in Portugal, we helped thousands of Africans and expats to transfer some of their savings to a safe place. I personally did this in good faith. It’s true I made a good living from it but I really felt that I was providing a valuable service. Then, because of the big banks who didn’t like to see an offshore outfit doing better than them, the whole business was blown out of the water.”
“Then Robert Vesco stepped in and hijacked the rest?” Charlie remembered the American fraudster who had suckered the IOS Board into giving him control. At the last sighting he was in Costa Rica, with almost three hundred million dollars of stolen funds, having executed the coup de grâce on the once enormously successful investment company.
“That’s what makes no sense. There was a fortune of money there, no reason for it to fail. Then some American voyou comes along and rips off hundreds of millions of dollars. Insanity!
“And those trusting people that I thought I was helping lost just about everything. That was not a good result. Not what I intended. And since then I can’t tell you how many of those friends I made down there have been hounded, imprisoned or murdered. Just because they had a few thousand dollars and they’d tried to protect their family’s future, or because they happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
“These people trusted me. They became my friends. I went to their homes, their parties, their weddings, their christenings, their funerals. I just about became a member of their family. And then I let them down. And it was because I trusted others, just like they trusted me!”
Laurent took a large swallow of his wine. He was trembling with rage at these memories. Charlie and Nick said nothing, waiting for the Frenchman to calm down.
“Anyway, that’s all in the past. Do you want to tell me how you came into half a million dollars from Angola?”
“Well, there’s a similar story behind that. Do you want to tell it Charlie, or should I?”
FORTY
Monday, July 21st, 1975
Santo Olivier de Zaire, North-west Angola
Sergio, Elvira and their two children had been living in the truck in a wooded area near the beach at Santo Olivier de Zaire for the past two weeks. He knew they had to make a move soon. This state of anxiety and fear was taking its toll on his wife. The occasional slight cough and shortage of breath that she had suffered was now becoming a constant wheezing gasp as she desperately sucked air into her lungs. It was breaking his heart.
When they had arrived at the beach, there were about a thousand people there, waiting patiently for some kind of deliverence. Since then, some had moved out but a lot more had arrived. There were now several thousand refugees sitting around the beach and it was becoming crowded and unruly.
An FNLA unit was stationed a couple of kilometres from them. There had been no serious incidents, but when the teenage rebels got high on drugs or drink, they could hear them rampaging about, shooting off their guns and looking for trouble. Sergio was afraid for his family. He had already decided that it was futile to return to the south, where the MPLA were advancing, and the track to the east was impossibly hard for little Alicia and Raymundo. He had taken a gamble on finding places on a boat across the Congo into Zaire, or a ship that was passing en route to some far away destination. So far, his gamble had been unsuccessful.
At six o’ clock in the morning he walked into town to Port M’Pinda, as he had done every day. At the sight before him he started to run towards the dock. A small steamer was moored alongside, smoke coming from her funnels. She had obviously just arrived. A couple of men were carrying stores down the gangway. They were delivering foodstuffs to the town. A burly, scruffy-looking half-cast wearing a sweat-stained blue shirt and a captain’s hat was yelling instructions to the crew. There were already more than a hundred refugees clamouring around the gangway, trying to buy or beg a passage in the vessel.
Sergio managed to push himself through the crowd until he was close enough to the captain. “Where you heading?” He shouted to the man.
“Brazil, Rio,” he replied, not taking his eyes off the workers.
“When you casting off?”
He looked at his watch. “Soon as we finish unloading this lot and loading some other stuff. About seven.”
“How much for a passage?”
“I’ve got ten already, there’s no room for any more.”
“I said, how much?”
This time the captain looked at him. The young man looked serious, and desperate.
“How many are you?”
“Just my wife, two small children and me. How much?”
The captain thought of a number, doubled it, then added some more. He quoted an outrageous price.
Sergio calculated quickly. He would still have about fifteen hundred dollars, plus the diamonds. There might not be another chance to get away.
“Can we have a cabin and food?”
Now the captain was taking him seriously. He could make some good money out of this idiot. “For five hundred dollars more, you can have my cabin. It’s big enough for you and your family at a squeeze. In any case, it’s all I’ve got to offer.”
Sergio hesitated. That left him just over a thousand dollars, plus forty or fifty thousand in diamonds. They could get started in Rio in good shape. Elvira couldn’t stay on that beach, sleeping in the back of the cramped truck with the children. She needed a proper bed and so did the kids. He took his decision.
“Here’s half now. I’ll be back in thirty minutes and pay you the rest.”
Forty minutes later, Sergio and his family were piling the few clothes and possessions thay had fetched with them into the captain’s small, smelly cabin. The man obviously smoked a pipe, since the walls were brown and everything stunk of nicotine. But they had a porthole to let in fresh air for Elvira and they had a bunk bed, which was more than the other poor passengers who were spread out on the deck, trying to create a little comfort for their long sea trip.
At seven fifteen, the five crew members cast off from the jetty and the ship headed out across the Atlantic towards Recife, over five thousand kilometres away, its first stop on the way to Rio de Janeiro.
FORTY-ONE
Tuesday, August 5th,1975
Geneva, Switzerland; Tangiers, Morocco
Angela was late. It was Tuesday and she should have arrived in Geneva on Monday. They were moving the diamonds from Malaga in batches. Laurent knew the risks, and had decided that it was better to lose one batch than to jeopardise everything if it went wrong. This was the seventh of ten trips. Angela had successfully made three and Lorenzo, her boy-friend, had made the others, also without any problems.
“Where was she going?” Charlie was trying to think logically, to make a plan.
“Morocco. She has three routes, all by ferry. Barcelona to Tangiers, Algeciras to Ceuta, and Almeria to Nador.” Laurent had a small map from a ferry company. He showed the other two men the routes she might have taken. “It depends on the day of the week. She mixes it up, sometimes she travels the same route twice in a row, other times... Well, you get the point.”
“So we don’t actually know, specifically?”
“We don’t. I doubt that she went via Barcelona, because she was up that way a couple of weeks ago. Ceuta has its problems because it’s still part of Spain, but she knows one of the Customs guys there. Almeria is possible, but hell, I simply have no idea.” The Frenchman looked worried. He had only three people who worked with him regularly and they were like family. In Angela’s case, she was family, his favorite niece, the daughter of his wife’s sister.
Laurent and his Spanish wife, Elena, had been married only two years and had no children. There were no close relatives on his side of the marriage, the French side, but in her family there was no shortage of young people to spoil. Angela was an example, she was the eldest child of
one of Elena’s sisters and they both loved her like a daughter. Although she looked several years younger, she was actually twenty-five and had been working for him for seven years, since the IOS days. She and Lorenzo made a great team, occasionally working together as a couple when it was more suitable to the job in hand. She lived with her parents in Antiquerra, up the road from Malaga. They knew about Angela’s work and didn’t disapprove. They could all do with the generous commissions that Laurent paid and there had never been a problem, until now.
“Where does she go from Morocco?”
“Either from Tangiers to Genoa by ferry, the Italian border is fairly soft. Or back over to Gibraltar. That’s still UK, so she can fly to London and then back to Geneva. It sounds complicated, but it’s actually a great route.”
The men talked the matter over for a long while, but there was absolutely nothing they could do. They had no idea where the young woman was. They could only pray that she was safe and would turn up tomorrow, alive and unharmed.
Tangiers, Morocco
The only item in the abandoned house was a filthy rug, the one Angela was kneeling on. The house was falling to pieces in a slum area on the outskirts of Tangiers. The man who had kidnapped her was a Pied-Noir, a half cast, French and North African, wearing a faded tee shirt and jeans. Lank hair hanging over his neck, nicoteen stained teeth and a foul breath. Probably Algerian, she thought. He had brought her here in a beat-up old Citroen deux chevaux, on the back seat, wrapped in the rug.
She was furious with herself. On the ferry from Barcelona she thought she recognised him from her trip a couple of weeks before. He came up to her, asking if she wanted a lift when they arrived in Tangiers. She told him that she was meeting her boy-friend at the port but she knew he wasn’t fooled by this. He had her figured for a courrier, carrying something out of Spain to some more hospitable place. The question was, what?
She didn’t want to give him a chance to get close enough to find out. Getting off the boat she attempted to shake him off but he was smarter than she expected and came around the port building from the other side. She walked right into him. He had a pistol, so she didn’t resist. Behind a wall in the car park he tied her hands, rolled her into the smelly rug then threw her onto the car seat and drove out to the house.
Now he was pulling her rucksack to pieces. Probably looking for drugs. People who took the ferries regularly, especially young people, were usually running drugs. The customs agents were often involved. It was a business, just like any other. He threw her papers and the few items of clothing aside. Then he pulled out the pouch and emptied the rough diamonds onto the floor.
“Qu’est-ce que c’est cette merde? What’s this shit?” He didn’t know what they were. “Is that all you’re carrying?” He demanded in French.
The pouch contained only about twenty stones. The rest were packed with vaseline into the hollow, metal frame of the rucksack. Fortunately he hadn’t figured that out.
“They’re my beads from Africa. I’m going to make them into a necklace to sell. What did you expect? I’m just a student, I don’t know what you want of me. Just let me go, I won’t tell anyone.” Her French wasn’t perfect, but good enough.
“When I’ve finished with you, you won’t be able to tell anyone anything, so shut your stupid mouth. What else do you have? Where’s your money?”
“I’ve got no money. I’m broke.”
He slapped her across the cheek so hard that she fell sideways onto the rug. “Everyone has money you lying bitch. Where is it?”
“It’s here. In my jeans, on the belt.”
The man unbuttoned her jeans and pulled down the zip. She had a belt on underneath with a small flat purse on it. He undid the belt and ripped it off her, counted the bills in the wallet. “Two hundred dollars! Where does a kid like you get that kind of money?” He slapped her across the face again.
“OK, don’t hit me again, I’ll tell you. I go with men. They pay me, I’m very good.”
He looked at her lying on the rug and licked his lips. “Putain! Slut! Sit up!”
“I can’t, you can see I can’t. My hands are tied.”
He grabbed her, manhandling her back to a kneeling position, and ripped off her blouse to reveal her small breasts, covered by a black bra. He kneeled beside her and pulled the bra off, stroking her breasts with his calloused fingers then pressed his mouth against hers. She almost fainted from the stench of his breath.
“Undo my hands. I can do things for you. You won’t be sorry.”
He sat back on his knees and thought for a moment. She couldn’t lie on her back with her hands tied behind her. And she was no threat, she hardly weighed fifty kilos. In any case he was going to kill her soon. One fuck and bang. “OK. But no tricks or I’ll break your neck.” He undid her hands.
She rubbed her wrists. They were sore from the rope. “I’ll let my hair down, it’s too hot like this.” Angela’s long hair was done in a bun, fastened up with hair clips. She reached up and undid the clips. When she brought her hands down, she was pointing a small gun at him.
He looked at the gun. It was tiny. He laughed out loud, showing his yellow teeth. He reached out to grab it. “Stupid bitch.”
It was an American Derringer Colt, just twelve centimetres long. It only fired two bullets. One was enough. She pulled the trigger. The man was staring at the gun, he couldn’t believe his eyes. Suddenly a third eye appeared in the centre of his forehead. He fell onto the rug, dead.
Angela caught the ferry to Gibraltar, then flew to Geneva via Heathrow. She was two days late. On her remaining trips she was on time.
FORTY-TWO
Friday, August 15th, 1975
Geneva, Switzerland
Alberto arrived at Klein, Fellay’s offices at 10:00 am and was shown into Miriam’s conference room, where the others were waiting. After a friendly reunion, the four new partners held their first annual meeting of the Angolan Clan. Charlie chaired the proceedings, explaining their thinking on the long term, softly, softly approach to the business. Everyone agreed with the proposal. They were content to look forward to a continuing revenue stream from the diamonds for as long as it lasted.
The Englishman’s partnership concept was equally cautious. “We don’t want a regular company, with share certificates and all that corporate stuff. The problem there is that someone might be tempted, or forced, to sell his shares. Then we could find ourselves in bed with a partner whom we can’t get along with and it could endanger the partnership.
“So I propose that we form an offshore company with registered shares and we restrict the transfer of shares. Just like an old-fashioned partnership agreement. That means that we can only sell our share back into the company, or pass it onto our nearest of kin or their spouses or descendents when we snuff it. It’s also essential to keep quiet about the business. Nick is convinced that we’ll be in big trouble if word gets around that we’ve got this massive stock of Angolan diamonds. I recommend that you don’t even tell your nearest and dearest. I certainly don’t intend to. We’re entering into a long term partnership, so let’s try to avoid any pain or risk down the road. If you all agree, then we just need to decide on the share split. OK?”
The other partners took heed of his advice and unanimously agreed to his proposals. No one wanted to endanger this opportunity. They then opened up the discussion on the partnership shares.
Laurent had readily accepted to work with them, to develop the market, using his financial contacts and building a distribution network. Alberto couldn’t commit himself to any involvement but was modest in his attitude towards his share. It was finally settled at thirty percent each for Charlie and Nick, twenty-five for Laurent, and fifteen for Alberto.
The problem that took the most time to resolve, was the name to be given to the partnership. It was Nick who found the solution. He wrote down, Charlie, Laurent, Alberto and Nick. The initials spelled CLAN. In deference to Henriques and Manuela, the partnership was to be called the ANG
OLAN CLAN.
Miriam opened the accounts for them with Klein, Fellay. One in the name of the partnership, operated by any two signatures, and one for each partner. They made the initial distribution transfers to each account, leaving Nick’s hundred thousand dollars in the Angolan Clan account for operational requirements.
After the meeting, the four partners said goodbye and went their separate ways, for the time being. They had made a long term committment and they knew they would be seeing each other often in the future.
Alberto went back to Lisbon, but it was clear that he didn’t intend to stay there much longer. The deaths of Olivier and the others had had a profound effect on him, and events in Angola had caused him to question his own convictions. In November he would finally be able to celebrate the independence of his country after five hundred years of occupation. Only to see thousands of Cuban soldiers march in to replace the Portuguese. Was that a good solution? He knew it was not.
Nick decided that Switzerland was as good a base as any. He obtained a temporary residence permit and rented an apartment overlooking the Jet d’Eau in Geneva. He joined the Geneva Golf Club in Cologny, although he didn’t get the chance to play as often as he would like. He took Miriam Constance out for dinner and they started going out together when he wasn’t travelling about, managing the processing of the diamonds. He found out that Swiss woman were no different from South African or Australian women.
Laurent returned home to Monaco. To Elena and their friends at the Monte-Carlo Country Club. He had always found the golf course to be a great place to do business. He used his network of financial and banking contacts to move stones and funds around and start creating market opportunities.
Charlie stayed in Geneva for a few more days. It was a perfect place to set up the company and commercial structure. Ellen and Ronnie joined him at the Majestic when he returned the following weekend and he transferred funds from his account at Klein, Fellay to the Banco de Malaga. Within a month they had found a lovely old hacienda in Mijas village. They moved in in October 1975, just in time for her birthday.
[African Diamonds 01.0] The Angolan Clan Page 28
