Predator: A Crossbow Novel

by Wilbur Smith

  “I can.”

  “And what was the substance of your discussion with Congo?”

  Weiss grinned. “Oh, come on, you know perfectly well that client–attorney privilege prevents me from answering that question.”

  “But you discussed his legal situation in general?”

  “Of course! I’m a lawyer. That’s what we do.”

  “So how would you characterize his legal situation at that point? I mean, were you confident of being able to delay his execution?”

  “Well, the man was a convicted killer, who’d used up all his appeals on his original charge before absconding from the State Penitentiary, spending several years on the run and then being apprehended. What would you say his chances were of a stay of execution?”

  “Worse than zero.”

  “Precisely. Anyone can figure that out, including Johnny Congo. Nevertheless, anyone is entitled to the best defense, again including Johnny Congo. So I assured him that I would use my very best endeavors to keep him out of the chamber.”

  “And did you use those endeavors?”

  “Absolutely. I made every call I could think of, right up to the Governor and beyond. Burned a lot of favors and, believe me, I’m not exactly Mr. Popular right now, not after someone turned Route 190 into a war zone.”

  “Did Congo pay you for doing that work on his behalf?”

  “Sure he paid me. I don’t represent a man like that pro bono.”

  “How much did he pay you?”

  “I don’t have to tell you that.” There was a glass jar of brightly colored jelly beans standing on Weiss’s desk. He unscrewed the lid and tilted the open jar in Malinga’s direction: “Want one?”

  “Nope.”

  “Suit yourself. So, where were we?”

  “You were explaining how you couldn’t tell me how much Johnny Congo paid you.”

  “Oh yeah . . .”

  “But you can confirm that you paid two million dollars on Johnny Congo’s behalf to D’Shonn Brown, and don’t tell me that’s privileged because I know it ain’t. D’Shonn Brown is not your client. Any conversation with him or payment to him constitutes admissible evidence.”

  Weiss popped a couple of jelly beans into his mouth. “I wouldn’t insult an experienced senior officer like you by pretending otherwise. Yes, I gave Mr. Brown the money. You can ask him what he did with it.”

  “Already have. I’m more interested in what you said when you gave it to him.”

  “I just passed on Mr. Congo’s instructions.”

  “Which were?”

  “Let me see . . .” Weiss leaned back and gazed upward as if Johnny Congo’s words might be written or even projected on to the ceiling. Then he focused back on Malinga. “As I recall, Mr. Congo wanted Mr. Brown to gather up all the people he used to hang out with back in the day, so that they could pay their respects to him and see him off.” Weiss chuckled to himself.

  “What’s so funny?” Malinga asked.

  “D’Shonn Brown’s a sharp kid. He told me that Johnny’s buddies wouldn’t be able to see him go, but they’d sure see him coming, seeing as most of them were already dead. I could see his point. But that didn’t alter Mr. Congo’s wishes. He basically wanted to have a lavish funeral, with a service in a cathedral and a long line of hearses and limousines, followed by a party with Cristal champagne and Grey Goose vodka—he specified those brands.”

  “And this was going to cost two million dollars?”

  “Evidently. Congo wanted Mr. Brown to, quote, ‘lay it on real thick’ and he wanted to ‘impress upon him’—and that’s another direct quote, I remember being struck by the formality—that this was all the wish of a dying man.”

  “And what conclusion did you draw from these instructions?”

  “That they were exactly what they appeared: a convicted criminal with a lot of money wanting to give society the finger one last time.”

  “You had no reason to doubt that Johnny Congo was planning to attend his own funeral?”

  “Well, he was laying out a fortune on it, and the state of Texas was absolutely determined to execute him, so no, why would I?”

  “He’d got away before.”

  “All the more reason that people like you were going to make sure he didn’t again. Are we done?” Shelby Weiss had suddenly lost his carefully worked air of relaxed bonhomie, just the way D’Shonn Brown had done.

  “Almost,” said Malinga, more than ever certain that there was something both of them were hiding. “Just one last thing I want to clear up. How come Johnny Congo called you?”

  “Because I’m a good lawyer.”

  “Yeah, sure, but how would he know that? He’d been out of the country for years.”

  “I guess word gets around. And I was already a successful attorney when he was originally locked up in Huntsville, you know, before his first escape.” Weiss put an emphasis on “first,” just to remind Malinga about the second one. Then he said, “I didn’t act for him at that point, but I certainly defended other guys on Death Row. No reason he couldn’t have known about me.”

  “Have you ever, at any time prior to these past few weeks, represented Jonny Congo?” Bobby Malinga asked.

  All the question needed was a one-word answer. It wouldn’t have taken a second. But Weiss paused. He was about to say something, Malinga could see it, but then had second thoughts. Finally he spoke. “The first time in my life that I represented a man called Johnny Congo was when I was asked to come and meet him at the Allen B. Polunsky Unit on the twenty-seventh of September. There, is that specific enough for you?”

  “Thank you,” said Malinga. “That’ll do just fine.” He smiled as he got up. He shook Weiss’s hand again and thanked him for his co-operation. And as he left the offices of Weiss, Mendoza and Burnett he felt more certain than ever that D’Shonn Brown and Shelby Weiss had played some part in Johnny Congo’s escape.

  You know, if someone had tossed a grenade into that bowl, it couldn’t have spread the mess wider than Missy Catherine here managed,” said Cross, sounding genuinely impressed at the havoc Catherine had brought to the simple business of eating her supper. There were spatterings of her chopped-up spaghetti and bolognese sauce all over the walls and the floor of the Cross Roads’ compact kitchen, the table in front of Catherine’s high chair, the chair itself and the tray that slotted on to it; not to mention her onesie, her plastic bib and, most impressively, her face, whose most noticeable feature was a huge, gummy grin, ringed by a magnificent spread of orangey-red sauce covering her chin, nose and chubby cheeks.

  “She was putting on a special show for you,” said Bonnie Hepworth, the nanny. She had known Catherine since the day she was born: she had been the maternity nurse on duty on that day of overwhelming joy, mixed with unbearable sorrow, when a baby had entered the world and her mother, fatally wounded by an assassin’s bullet, had left it. Cross had been touched by Bonnie’s warm heart, her kind smile and her unfailing combination of patience, efficiency and sound common sense. He’d made her an offer she couldn’t refuse. The patients of a Hampshire hospital had lost a first-rate nurse. Catherine Cayla Cross had gained a nanny who would never let this bereaved little girl lack a single moment of love and care.

  “If that was the show, I dread to think what she’s planning for the encore,” Cross said.

  “Chocolate pudding. Wait till that starts flying. You ain’t seen nothing yet!”

  Cross laughed, gazing in wonder at his daughter, his darling Kitty-Cross. How had she done it, he wondered? How could a tiny little person who had only just learned to say her first words fill his heart with so much love? He was helpless in her presence, yet the tenderness of his love for her was equalled by the fierceness of his determination to keep her safe.

  Now that Johnny Congo was at large once again, Cross knew that he would have to go back to war. Sooner or later, Congo would come after him, and when he did, there could only be one winner, one survivor. This time, though, Cross would be alone o
n the battlefield. Jo’s decision to leave had ripped open the emotional wound that she herself had helped heal. Cross wondered if there would ever be another chance to find someone new. One of the reasons Jo had left was that she thought he would blame her for Congo’s escape. The truth was, he blamed himself much more for exposing her to the death, the pain and the harsh cruelties that were his inescapable companions.

  “Mr. Cross . . . Mr. Cross!” His reverie was broken by Bonnie’s voice. “There’s a Skype call for you . . . from America.”

  Cross looked at his watch. In all the fussing over Catherine’s dinner, he’d completely lost track of the time. “Snap out of it, man!” he told himself. “Work!”

  He went into his study, sat down in front of the monitor and did a double-take. Bobby Franklin was not the middle-aged white male he had been expecting but an elegant African-American woman, whose fine features and lovely hazel eyes were given a scholarly touch by her tortoiseshell spectacles. That must have been the information that went missing when he’d lost contact with Bigelow, that afternoon on the Tay. To judge by the grainy image on the screen in front of him, Franklin was in her early to mid-thirties. “Hi,” he said, “I’m Hector Cross.”

  A smile crossed her face. Cross frowned uncertainly. Had he said something amusing?

  “Excuse me, Mr. Cross,” Franklin said, “but there’s something on your face and it looks a little like spaghetti sauce.”

  Now it was Cross’s turn to grin, more from embarrassment than amusement. “That’s my daughter’s supper. I was crazy enough to try feeding her this evening. Where is it, exactly?”

  “On your cheek and chin . . .” She paused as he dabbed at his face. “No, the other side . . . there you go!”

  “Thanks. Hope that hasn’t totally destroyed my credibility as a security expert.”

  “Not at all. And it’s made you much more interesting as a man.”

  Cross felt the electrical charge of that first contact between a man and a woman. How strange to experience it through a pair of screens, thousands of miles apart. Pleased that the loss of Jo Stanley hadn’t completely beaten him down, Cross looked at Franklin for a moment, just to let her know that he’d heard her.

  “Speaking of interesting, you don’t look much like an average Bob,” he said.

  She smiled again. “It’s Bobbi, with an ‘i,’ short for Roberta.”

  “Well, I’m glad we’ve sorted that out,” said Cross. “Now we should get down to business . . .”

  “Good idea . . . so, do you know much about Africa, Mr. Cross?”

  “Well, I was born in Kenya, spent the first eighteen years of my life there and the only reason I’m not a full Morani warrior of the Maasai tribe is that although I’ve undergone all the initiation rites, I’ve not been circumcised. So yes, I know a bit.”

  “Oh . . .” Franklin said, wincing. “Sounds like I should have done my homework before we met.”

  “Don’t worry. It’s quite a relief that Uncle Sam doesn’t know everything about me.”

  She smiled. “Oh, I’m sure he does. I just hadn’t asked his archives the right questions. But I’m glad to hear about your past because it makes my job today a whole lot easier. You’ll understand the first thing I want to say, which is this: Africa isn’t poor. The great mass of Africans is still very poor. But Africa itself is very rich. Or, at least, it could be.”

  “You mean if corrupt leaders didn’t keep all their people’s wealth for themselves and siphon off most of the aid given to them by guilt-ridden suckers in the West?” said Cross, who liked the way Bobbi Franklin thought almost as much as the way she looked.

  “Well, I’d put it a little more diplomatically, but, yes. Let me give you some examples to illustrate the point: stop me if I’m telling you things you already know. You’re going to be operating off the coast of Angola, so would you care to estimate how much oil those offshore fields produce, in total, per day?”

  “Hmm . . .” Cross thought, his mind now fully focused on his job. “Our rig at Magna Grande will produce around eighty thousand barrels a day when it’s going flat out. There are lots of other rigs like it. So I guess the total would be, what, twenty times as much?

  “Not bad, Mr. Cross, not bad at all. Angola produces one point eight million barrels of oil a day: so yes, just over twenty times your rig’s production. The nation’s oil exports are currently running at about seventy-two billion dollars a year. And there’s about three hundred billion cubic meters of natural gas down there too.”

  “That sounds like they have around a trillion dollars of reserves.”

  “And that’s why I say that Africa’s rich. Granted, Angola’s not as blessed with oil reserves as Nigeria, and it doesn’t have the incredible mineral wealth of the Democratic Republic of Congo. But it’s got Africa’s first female billionaire, who just happens to be the President’s daughter. And I hope Bannock Oil gives you a decent expense account when you’re out there because a couple of years ago the Angolan capital, Luanda, was named the most expensive city on earth. A hamburger’ll cost you fifty bucks. Go to a beach club and order a bottle of champagne—that’ll be four hundred. If you decide you like it and want to rent a single-bedroom apartment, the best ones go for ten grand a month.”

  “And I thought London was expensive.”

  “Here’s the biggest sign that things have changed. Forty years ago, Angola was just declaring its independence from Portugal. Three years ago, the Portuguese Prime Minister paid a visit to Luanda. He wasn’t coming to give Angola aid. He couldn’t afford to. Portugal was bust. So the Prime Minister wanted aid from Angola.”

  Cross gave a low whistle. He’d always thought there was something condescending, even racist, about the western liberal assumption that black Africa was a helpless basket case of a continent, pathetically grateful for a few crumbs from the white man’s table. Now those tables had turned. But there was one vital element missing from Bobbi Franklin’s account.

  “Just out of curiosity, how rich is the average Angolan?” Cross asked. “I’m assuming they don’t eat too many fifty-dollar hamburgers.”

  “You assume correctly. More than a third of Angola’s population, which is roughly twenty million people—no one knows the exact figure—live below the poverty line. Less than half of them have access to electricity. So even though they’re sitting on gigantic energy reserves most of them depend on a mix of wood, charcoal, crop residues and animal manure for their cooking fires. This is a classic case of a rich African country filled with dirt-poor African people.”

  Now they were getting to the heart of the discussion. “How angry are these people?” Cross asked. “Are they ready to take violent action against the government or foreign businesses? They do in Nigeria, after all.”

  “Yes, they certainly do.” Franklin nodded, and Cross was momentarily distracted by how sexy she looked pushing her glasses back up to the bridge of her nose. He tried to snap his mind back to what she was saying.

  “Nigerian oil production can drop by up to five million barrels a day because of terrorist and criminal activity. As I’m sure you know, there are regular attacks on the oil industry’s infrastructure. There’s also a major problem with ‘bunkering.’ That’s the local name for cutting a pipe and stealing the oil it’s carrying, kind of like siphoning gas from a car, but on a much larger scale. Add to that the bitter religious conflict between the Muslim and Christian populations and the presence of powerful terrorist groups like Boko Haram and you can see that the danger of large-scale civil unrest in Nigeria is extremely high. It’s no wonder, really, that several of the major oil companies have either already pulled back from their Nigerian operations or are seriously considering doing so.”

  “So could the same happen in Angola?”

  “Not as easily, for a number of reasons,” Bobbi Franklin said. “Angola was torn apart by war for more than forty years: first a struggle for independence against the Portuguese that ended with independence in 1975, and then a c
ivil war that didn’t end until 2002, having killed about one and a half million Angolans. The ruling party, the MPLA, has been in power since independence and the President, José Eduardo dos Santos, has held office since 1979.”

  “Must be a popular guy,” said Cross.

  Franklin picked up on his sarcasm and ran with it. “You know how it is: African leaders have a way of staying in office a lot longer than your average western leader. At the last elections, the MPLA won seventy-two percent of the vote and one hundred and seventy-five of the two hundred and twenty seats in parliament. Folks in Angola just can’t get enough of ’em.”

  “That’s because the MPLA is doing such a terrific job of giving them money and food, and electrical power.”

  “Or it could be because the elections are a long way from fair and the government spends a higher proportion of its budget on defense than any other state in sub-Saharan Africa. And there’s not going to be a military coup, either, because President dos Santos is head of the armed forces. There’s no religious dimension to worry about because, bluntly, Islam is not an issue in Angola. Just over half the population is Christian, the rest follow traditional African religions.”

  “So Angola’s relatively peaceful?”

  “These days, sure, and the other advantage you have operating there is that your installations are way out to sea. A lot of the Nigerian ones are in the waters of the Niger Delta, much closer to the mainland, so they’re a helluva lot easier for the bad guys to attack.”

  Cross frowned. He’d been told to expect a warning, but all he was getting was good news. “So what’s the problem?”

  “I thought you’d never ask,” said Franklin.

  You’re a cool operator, aren’t you? thought Cross, feeling increasingly annoyed with himself for not getting on a flight to DC and conducting the meeting in person. But now she was talking again. “You see, there’s one last hangover from the civil war: the province of Cabinda. It’s separated from the rest of Angola by the narrow strip of territory that links the Democratic Republic of Congo to the Atlantic Ocean. Cabinda still has a rebel movement that calls itself—wait for it—‘The Front for the Liberation of the Enclave of Cabinda—Forças Armadas de Cabinda,’ or FLEC-FAC for short.”