by Alex MacBeth
“Neutralise them,” said Podolski leaving. “If these men can’t handle the job, give it to Colonel Li.”
***
Imam Ataullah slowly peeled off João’s bloodstained green uniform. The young cadet’s corpse lay on the narrow bed in the staff rest area, where the local religious leader and family members of the deceased were to clean the body. The room was sparse and smelt of blood. The Imam read several funeral prayers the holy Qu’ran and washed away the stains of violence. They wrapped the body in seven metres of white cloth and placed prayer beads round the neck. Every man must be prepared to meet his maker, said the Imam. Allah akbar!
Next day, hundreds of ordinary citizens joined the funeral as João’s body wrapped in a Mozambican flag was paraded through the dusty streets of Mossuril. Felisberto led the procession in full dress uniform, followed by Samora, Amisse and Albertina. Crowds lined the road as the procession moved through town. The District Administrator followed, as did the D.A. and Judge Marcio and all local government officials in their wake. A group of drummers kept up a feverish rhythm, which sound-tracked the human snake as it ghosted through Mossuril in solemn celebration. Shopkeepers closed their stores and stood on their doorsteps to pay their respects. Rosario, the radio’s chief broadcaster, trailed the procession. “Mozambique has lost another son, Mossuril a fine officer,” he announced live on-air, shedding tears for his friend and former classmate.
Raquel and the team from the comando in Monapo had brought the flag for the burial and an extra goat for the ceremony. The forensics expert was with Cristina and her family. Naiss and Daniel followed a little behind. As they walked, women on the side of the road cried and ululated for João’s spirit to reach a better place. Even the palm trees, usually so flippant in the morning breeze, seemed to swing their coconuts respectfully towards the procession.
The funeral march reached the compound of João’s family. A feast of fried goat, fish soup, rice and chima prepared by the neighbours greeted the hundreds of guests who flooded the ring-fenced home. They ate until the sun went down. The skies were filled with the constant beat of the drums and the ululations of João’s mother and friends. Night descended but the drums continued, lobbying João’s spirit to forget revenge and settle among its peers. As the sun rose the next morning, the drums could still be heard for miles around Mossuril.
Chapter Twenty
Aside from the faint echo of drumming, the comando had never been so quiet as the next day. The flag fluttered at half-mast above the new cement-block building. The Comandante, Samora and Amisse sat in the office in total silence. Daniel and Cristina took pictures of the bullet holes on their phones. Felisberto didn’t want the children of two colleagues in his comando in these circumstances. He would do everything to send them home while he still could. The provincial director of the PIC, Mozambique’s crime investigation unit, called to offer his condolences and promised a new officer would be sent to replace João ASAP. Apart from the acknowledgement of this call, nothing had been said all morning.
An officer called from the Naguema checkpoint and reported a car smashing through the roadblock fifteen minutes before. “Why didn’t you call then?” shouted Felisberto furiously. The officer explained that he didn’t have phone credit. The local store had only just received top-up cards from Nampula. Felisberto slammed his phone on the table. The driver had probably gotten away by now. Unless Raquel had stopped him in Monapo. But she reported seeing no suspicious cars. Was she lying?
Meanwhile Paul returned from a rotational posting the day before the funeral and had a fateful encounter en route to Mossuril, which, as Samora would later note, would be the beginning of a cruel journey for the young officer. Paul had been driving on the dirt track from Naguema to Mossuril on his motorbike the night of João’s death. He had spotted a car up ahead, about eight kilometres outside of Mossuril, parked on the side of the road. Sensing danger, he called the Comandante to inform him. After all, bandits sometimes operated on the road at night and a large 4×4 parked on the side of the bush at midnight had to spell trouble. Felisberto received the call after informing João’s parents that a stray bullet had robbed them of their son. He knew immediately that Paul had stumbled on the fourth sniper.
The Comandante grabbed his gun at the comando and raced towards the scene. When he got there, the driver was missing. Paul confirmed he had never seen him and the Comandante called Raquel to check if she had set up the roadblock. No suspicious drivers or passengers had passed through the checkpoint in Monapo, the main artery to the outside world, since Samora had called through the alarm, confirmed Raquel. The driver the other officer had reported at Naguema must have not proceeded to Monapo.
The Comandante decided he would stake out the car from a few hundred yards away with Paul. The young officer was less than thrilled with his return to duty. They waited in the comando’s battered jeep for the man to return. They sat like that most of the night, exchanging stories about clubs in Chimoio and listening to the tam-tam of cicadas, crickets and owls. Around 4.07am they heard a branch snap. Then footsteps. Felisberto grabbed his gun and tried to locate the sound. Another branch broke and more footsteps. Then something being unscrewed followed by a guzzling noise.
“He’d run out of petrol,” whispered the Comandante, barely able to contain a chuckle.
The lights in the 4×4 illuminated the potholed surface of the mud track ahead. Felisberto opened the driver’s window, cocked his gun and shot at the car. Grabbing a mini loudspeaker from the glove department he roared “Drop your weapon, this is the police!” His voice barely carried to its intended subject but a bullet came flying back the Comandante’s way nonetheless. The car sped off. Felisberto swapped seats with Paul who slammed on the gas and followed the driver. The Comandante climbed out of the moving window and onto the roof of the car. He felt like he was floating through a black hole lined by tall green grass. Bats flew either side of him. He had to stop Palma’s man before he could reach the main road at Naguema. Paul’s zigzagging meant he kept losing his footing. He fired at the car and missed as a pothole threw him onto his stomach. The car in front was gaining ground. “Step on it!” the Comandante urged, slamming on the roof.
The only way to stop the driver without killing him was to take out the tyres. But Paul had other ideas and accelerated until he was beside the driver’s window. Then suddenly Paul braked and the Comandante went flying onto the bonnet of the car. What was Paul playing at? The Comandante pointed his gun at the driver’s face and signalled for him to pull over, firing a shot into the windscreen. The driver accelerated towards him and the Comandante climbed onto the roof of his car again. He fired another two shots at the driver’s windscreen. Then two more. One bullet hit the driver in the chest. Paul smashed him off-road and the Comandante went flying into the bushes.
Then silence. Paul slowly approached the steaming car as Felisberto brushed himself down. The driver was curled up in his seat, still alive. Paul disarmed him and cuffed his hands. Felisberto shoved him into the back seat of the police Jeep. He handcuffed the suspect’s feet and drove back towards Mossuril.
“What happened to the other men?” asked the prisoner.
The Comandante didn’t answer, driving fast through the last minutes of darkness. He wanted to reach Mossuril before the first rays of light. He arrived as dawn was breaking and placed the man, who called himself Mario Costa in his statement, in the cell with the urine-stained mat. The Comandante left both sets of handcuffs in place for security and locked the cell with a chain and padlock. Mario Costa wasn’t going anywhere.
Felisberto flicked through the recent calls on Costa’s phone and found most led to ‘boss’. His first instinct was to call the number but he wasn’t going to waste such a golden opportunity. He would let Costa rot in the cell for a while before questioning him. Then he’d act fast. It would only be a matter of time before Palma would send more men to wipe out any traces of the Stokes investigation. The only question was why. The situation r
eminded Felisberto of an old proverb his grandfather used to repeat: ‘If the sea doesn’t come to you, go to the sea.’ The Comandante knew he had to find Palma before Palma found him. He’d need to set a trap to catch Palma on his own turf. Otherwise he feared more men would descend on Mossuril and turn the troubled village into a Stygian nightmare.
The Comandante was not alone with his fears. Agent Paul was terrified the comando would come under attack again. Ever since he had joined the police he had lived a relatively quiet life. His stint in Nampula had involved a number of average arrests and an occasional foot chase in pursuit of a thief, but there had been nothing life threatening. Other postings in Niassa, Zambezia and Inhambane had been equally dull. Now the situation in Mossuril was one he felt he hadn’t signed up for. In principle he’d sworn to be ready to defend the law at whatever personal sacrifice was required, but in practice, being a cop in Mossuril District was not a job that had ever put police officers’ lives on the line.
Paul had joined the police because it was the first job he could find that could subsidise his need for ten books a month. He kept a low profile and spent most of his free time reading in his small mud house on the edges of town. His reclusive home-life led many local residents to cast the young officer as the victim or villain, depending on the storyteller, of a plethora of myths and grapevine fairy tales. Some said he was a prisoner of his ‘witch wife’. Others said he ate a different organ of hers every week. Other still had him down as the insider on every crime. The worst gossips believed that he performed ritual sacrifices. “That’s why he has all those books,” said one old man. “Not even students have that many books.”
Even with the prisoner locked away as a trophy in the cell, the morning after the funeral a sombre silence reigned over everybody. They tried to get some perspective on the roller-coaster events of the last forty-eight hours. “The man in the holding cell shot Agent João. He will be charged with murder in the first degree. I, and only I, will question him,” said Felisberto, finally breaking the silence. “No one, and that means no one, will move the accused from his cell for any reason whatsoever without my written and personally confirmed authorization. Is that clear?”
Everyone nodded but no one had the heart for police work. Yet everyone knew, as João had always said, that crime doesn’t take a day off. So Amisse, Raquel and two more agents from Monapo went to arrest the psychopath farmer murderer thanks to the DNA test results. The Comandante approached Daniel and Cristina. “Fetch Albertina,” Felisberto told them, lighting a GT cigarette. “Tell her to report to work tomorrow.”
No matter how much Felisberto tried to create a sense of normality, that morning Mossuril felt like a city that had come under siege. They had forgotten to clean up some of the bullets from the road and children were busy collecting them in plastic bags. The front wall of the comando was littered with bullet holes.
The streets were full of whispers. Fear had returned to Mossuril. The queues outside of the best witchdoctors’ residences were longer than usual and there was such a run on clay pots, candles, razor blades white cotton cloth and white doves (accoutrements to every spell) that a pair of enterprising youths had begun to get rich by ferrying them in from Monapo.
Rumours that a mercenary army had been sent to destroy the district began to circulate from mouth to mouth. These rumours, fanned by lethargy and spiced with malice, brought forth supposed eyewitnesses who swore they had seen fleets of armoured cars and trucks invading Mossuril. The same witnesses swore on all they held sacred that in the ensuing gun battle, dozens and even hundreds of soldiers had been slain only to vanish into thin air. The elder who had first enquired about the gunfire had become a celebrity touring from mosque to mosque, gathering to gathering. He recounted how he had seen with his own eyes “between forty and fifty bodies heaped up beside the market place and strewn across the comando’s forecourt.”
They talked of a paramilitary coup, of machine gun fire, rockets and grenades. Under the baobab next to Shoppy, the village’s largest store – selling everything from ladies underwear and electric fittings to canned foods, plastic buckets and mobile phones – a few dozen people stopped by the open-air motorbike mechanics to offer their ‘witness’ reports. Every person added a new detail to the story until in some corners of Mossuril people were talking about an army of CIA operatives having raided a secret stash of gold hidden under the mosque by Vasco da Gama over five hundred years before.
The midnight minibuses that left Mossuril for the city carried passengers wide-awake and gossiping about the shootings, spreading the embellished tales far from Mossuril. Elders feared it was a return to war and many could be seen stockpiling goods at Shoppy with their savings, ready to face the worst.
Morale at the comando was also low. The electricity still hadn’t been repaired and it was hot in the small crowded office. “I’ve finished the report but what do we do now, Comandante?” Paul asked. He was a broken man looking to his leader for inspiration. The eyes of Amisse and finally Samora looked up at Mossuril’s veteran force commander, hoping he could guide them back into their depth. The Comandante showed no fear. Mozambique needed interested young people like Cristina and Daniel to believe in more than defeat.
“We can presume this second attack was independent from the first attack on the comando,” began Felisberto.
“Who would want to attack the comando?” said Cristina naively.
“All the criminals and scumbags who don’t respect the law,” said Naiss’ son Daniel, slamming his fist on the edge of the bench he was sitting on, causing a pile of documents to go flying.
“So what do we do?” asked a desperate Samora.
“The man in the cell will lead us to him,” replied Felisberto.
“Will we call for reinforcements, chefe?” asked Samora in a crackling voice. “We really can’t keep running this covert operation without informing Nampula.”
“I fear it is too late for that my trusted deputy,” said the Comandante. He made it clear that anybody who didn’t want to take part in any future operations related to Stokes and the Palma inquiry wouldn’t have to. Nobody abstained.
“In fact, Daniel and Cristina, internship is up, time to go home,” said Felisberto like a father announcing the end of a fun day out.
“Why?” Daniel said. “I’ve been to Police Academy. I can handle this. Send her home, but keep me,” Daniel continued to protest.
“I’d make a way better police officer than you,” Cristina snapped back. “You don’t even know what a VPN is.”
Felisberto tried calling Naiss. “Keep him there, it’ll be character building,” said Naiss, who was drunk and at a conference in Nyassa. The Comandante called Raquel who didn’t answer. He turned to Daniel and Cristina.
“Ok, I have a job for you,” began Felisberto. Daniel sat up and dusted down his chest. “I want you both to go back to your rooms and guard them,” said Felisberto.
“Yes, sir, count it done,” said Daniel, before it sunk in.
“That means house arrest, you moron,” explained Cristina, grabbing her jacket and leaving. Daniel followed scratching his head.
“Finally,” said Felisberto lighting a cigarette. “Feels like a kindergarten around here these days.” He smoked and let his shoulders drop.
“What about the zoologist and the park story, Comandante? Weren’t you saying we should find out more about this Fixer guy you knew?” said Amisse, talking for the first time.
“João The Fixer is one of the most dangerous men in Mozambique,” the Comandante announced, forewarning his young living flock of trouble. “But right now we have to focus on Palma. We know where he is.”
“Should we go after them? I mean, all of them?” asked Samora, practically trembling.
“We don’t have the manpower and the resources to pursue somebody like The Fixer. He moves around heavily guarded and will recognise any of us as policemen from a football field away. There isn’t a cop in the force who could get the near Th
e Fixer.”
“Or maybe there is, Comandante,” said Albertina in her soft, delicate voice, standing in the doorway. She had stopped in at the comando on her way back from church. She had been crying – the tear marks were still fresh on her face – but now she looked composed. The graceful girl had a way of making people feel good, even in such times of grief.
For all her adorable features, Albertina was tough deep down. In one case she had personally intervened in a fight between a married pair to stop the wife being beaten with a chair. The young black-belt applied timely kicks to the man’s shins and testicles before he could harm his wife any further. The wife beater was prosecuted and sent to prison in what was a landmark case. Albertina was even interviewed by the national papers about it. Right now though, everybody was thinking about what she had said only seconds ago.
“Albertina, take a seat. We were just discussing—”
“The Fixer,” said Albertina, cutting off Felisberto. “Forgive the interruption Comandante, but I did some research of my own through old contacts in Nampula and Maputo and found out The Fixer does have a few weak spots.”
“Since when do secretaries start their own investigations?” chipped in Amisse.
“Since when do cadets act like the boss?” retorted Samora.
“Carry on,” said Felisberto to Albertina.
“The Fixer may be the mean killing machine you describe,” began the comando’s reticent administrative manager, reluctantly taking centre stage. “But he also has a soft spot for women,” she added, standing firm and scouring the room for reactions. The men looked confused. Her confidence grew with every word she spoke
“I don’t understand,” said Paul.
“Do you mean…” added Samora in disbelief, pointing at Albertina and staring at the others.
