by Frank Coates
She was waiting for him on the sofa, a cigarette in her hand, a magazine on her lap. She stood as he approached and pressed her hands to his chest as she had that last time. His abdomen muscles clenched.
‘You have it?’ she asked.
‘Yes.’ His voice was thick with the constriction in his throat. He hesitated before handing her the leather folder.
She took it and, without looking at the contents, threw it on her desk.
‘You don’t want to check it?’ he asked.
She pushed the suit coat from his shoulders. ‘No,’ she said as she began to loosen his tie.
He tried to assist her, becoming impatient with the way she slowly teased at the knot.
She pushed his hands away. ‘No,’ she said. ‘We will do this my way.’ Then her tone softened. ‘Besides…you don’t want to rush this, do you? I promise you, it will be more enjoyable if you allow me to do as I please. Agreed?’
He couldn’t trust his voice and merely nodded.
‘Good. Then you are to remain perfectly still.’
She killed the lights, leaving only the night sky and the glow of the city to illuminate the room.
She returned to him and slipped his tie from around his neck. She quickly undid the buttons of his shirt, pulling back the fabric to expose his chest. She slid her hands over his bare skin, caressing him before pinching a nipple. He groaned with pleasure and pain.
He could resist her no longer and his hand went to her breast. He grasped its fullness and heard her take a sharp breath.
She pushed his hand away. ‘I said, no!’ Even in the dim light he could see a flash of anger in her eyes, and then she softened. Again, the grey-blue eyes held a promise. ‘Be patient. Let me have my pleasure and then I promise you can do whatever you want.’
He dropped his hands to his sides and, with a great deal of self-control, kept them there as she slipped off his shirt and loosened his trousers. They fell around his ankles and he felt a little ridiculous.
She licked his nipple and sucked it as she slipped her hand into his underpants. He gasped as her fingers closed around his erect penis. She knelt and took the fullness of him into her mouth, rolling her tongue around him, and then closing her mouth to hold him firmly there.
He could resist it no more and grasped a handful of her thick brown hair and held her to him. He knew he would continue to provide any information she asked because there was nothing as maddeningly sensuous as what he was feeling at that very moment.
The rising surge of his lust swept him up, up, up, before he groaned and fell over the edge. Down, down, down…
Kazlana flipped a cigarette from the packet and tossed it onto the coffee table. She walked around her desk, trailing a finger along its edge until reaching the soft leather chair, where she paused to light the Marlboro. The flame illuminated her face, now cool and composed. As she took a long pull, the glow warmed the semi-darkness of her office. Before her was the file.
She slowly swung the leather swivel chair to the left and right as she contemplated the long and winding path she had taken to find the key man—they were always men—who could give her a copy of the incident report following her father’s last flight. Now that she had it, she wondered if she really wanted to know the truth. If it were as she suspected, she knew that to pursue the culprits would mean a difficult and possibly dangerous journey that, once commenced, could not be abandoned until her father’s death was avenged. The Ramanovas had always lived by that tradition and even today were sworn to observe it.
Her family had done business in Africa for generations, but had not always been agents. A century and a half ago, they were pirates, plucking rich fruit from sailing vessels plying the waters off the Horn of Africa. They had a reputation for quite imaginative methods of slaughtering those who resisted them. It served to make their boarding and looting more efficient. Merchant captains very quickly lowered their flags and sails when the most bloodthirsty pirates from Ceylon to the Swahili coast hove into view.
When the British became churlish about the piracy, sending gun boats to protect their link with India, the family changed their operations to become trading and shipping agents, working with whoever was prepared to pay a fair commission for their services. At about that time, they adopted the name Ramanova, which seemed to straddle the continents of Asia and Africa, their sphere of operation. It was deliberately chosen to disguise their ancestry—a move so successful that nobody could now remember where they had originated. Kazlana’s father had once told her: ‘By the time anyone realised our family was important, our history had been lost in the past.’
From its early beginnings in East Africa, the Ramanova empire had expanded into the Middle East, extending into the Far East at the end of the nineteenth century. Wars, and the whims of politicians and power-brokers, had caused the family to win and lose several fortunes. But the Ramanovas had endured. In recent years Kazlana and her father, Dieter, had worked to develop separate parts of their business. She was aware that Dieter had cultivated contacts within the Department of Regional Development, but wasn’t aware of the details.
Kazlana knew a little of her mixed-race heritage on her father’s side, which included elements of Swahili, Indian and Arab. Her grandfather was a Swahili trader, plying the route from India to East Africa, who met a young German woman on a world cruise with her parents, and convinced her to run away with him.
On her mother’s side, it was more easily defined. After her father’s first wife died, he married Kazlana’s mother—an Austrian—who suffered postnatal depression after giving birth to Kazlana. Two years later, unrecovered, she went back to Europe. She never returned. The only clue she had ever been in Kenya was the blue of her daughter’s eyes. With no memory of her mother, Kazlana’s affection was centred firmly on her father.
She looked again at the file on her desk. The newspaper report had said her father had run short of fuel and crashed the Cessna while attempting an emergency landing. Kazlana had never accepted that finding. Firstly, her father would never have been so careless as to fly without sufficient fuel. He’d been an excellent pilot with thirty years’ experience. Secondly, if he had to make an emergency landing, the country around Wajir was flat. Even if the Cessna had run out of fuel, Dieter Ramanova could have glided to any number of suitable landing sites.
Sighing, Kazlana picked up the report and flipped through its pages. She found that it included the flight path, the details of the search and rescue operation conducted after the plane had been declared missing, and the coroner’s report. It soon became apparent that the media reports had been fabricated.
The flight path was reported to be from Mombasa to Wajir, yet the plane was found over a hundred kilometres beyond Wajir, near the Somali border. The Cessna was completely burnt—that much of the newspaper reports had been correct—but it had not been damaged during the landing and it was considered likely that the fire had occurred after the plane had put down.
Most damning was the coroner’s report. Her father’s body was burnt almost beyond recognition, but he hadn’t died in the fire. He’d been shot.
She could imagine why the aviation department had wanted to keep this hidden. The Northern Frontier District was an embarrassment to the government because it was obvious they couldn’t police it. There was no law and order there, and heavily armed Somali raiders made frequent incursions into Kenyan territory. There was also the al-Awaab Resistance Army, always a threat to security in the area. The authorities didn’t want further proof of their incompetence made public so close to an election.
Kazlana wouldn’t let that stop her carrying out her own investigation. Her father’s plane and his personal belongings had been left unplundered, which suggested this wasn’t the work of raiders. Besides, why had her father been near the Somali border in the first place? She wasn’t aware of any business dealings he’d been involved in there; not directly, anyway. She was going to find out who had killed her father, and why. And then she w
as going to kill them in turn.
‘Mark Riley to see Ms Ramanova,’ he said to the secretary, a slim black girl with beads in her braided hair.
‘Good afternoon, Mr Riley,’ she responded. ‘I believe Ms Ramanova is expecting you. Please take a seat. I’ll inform her you’re here.’
She stepped to an adjoining door, tapped on it and waited a moment before opening it and slipping through. Riley picked up a copy of The Nation, and was about to take a seat on the plush white leather sofa when the secretary returned, advising him that Ms Ramanova would see him.
She came around her desk to meet him as he walked into her office. ‘Good afternoon, Mr Riley,’ she said, extending her hand.
‘Afternoon, Ms Ramanova,’ he said. He liked her grip—firm, as it had been the night they’d met. And again it lingered. ‘When I made my appointment I wasn’t sure you’d remember me from—’
‘From the Australian High Commission? Of course I do. Please, won’t you take a seat?’
She indicated a white leather armchair and sat herself on another, across a low table from him. She crossed her legs and he noticed she wore no stockings.
‘Well, I would have understood if you didn’t. We only had a brief chat and then you were gone.’
She laughed. ‘Can you ever forgive me? I’m so sorry. I had to dash and I didn’t want to be rude during the speech.’ She placed a polished red fingernail to the corner of her mouth. ‘Would you like a coffee? Tea?’
‘No, thank you. I’m fine.’
‘How can I help you?’
‘I found your business card; it had somehow got into my jacket pocket,’ he said, pausing to gauge her reaction.
She simply smiled and said, ‘You’re a writer, if I remember correctly.’
‘That’s correct.’
‘And who do you write for?’
‘For anyone who’ll pay,’ he said. It was true. He’d decided to do some articles while in Kenya to supplement his funds. He’d already got a couple of commissions from previous colleagues willing to do him a favour. ‘Fortune magazine, for example.’
‘I’m flattered. Why would Fortune take an interest in my little company?’
‘Little fish can be sweet, Ms Ramanova,’ Riley said, smiling.
‘Can they indeed?’ Her smile widened. ‘Call me Kazlana.’
‘Mark.’
‘Ah, Mark. Yes, I remember. Now…what would you like from me, Mark?’
Riley unzipped his leather folder and took a pen and notepad from it, resisting the temptation to continue the little play on words. ‘Just a brief description of your business. Perhaps you could start by giving me some background and the names of the directors?’
‘I’m the sole director of Ramanova and Company. It’s a very old family business going back five or six generations. Trading in Africa is an informal, rambling affair, but I can tell you that the family were originally traders between the Indian subcontinent and East Africa before the time of the Omani regime. They went on to supply goods and materials to the British during the building of the Uganda railway. Later, my grandfather and his father made money running supplies to the Germans through the British blockade in World War I. Grandpa Omar was just fourteen; he manned the Gatling gun while my great-grandfather steered the dhow.’
‘It seems the Ramanovas were versatile,’ Riley said.
‘Business is business,’ she replied with a shrug. ‘After the war we moved operations to the new capital of Nairobi, but we still retain some ties with the coast, dealing mainly with regional cargo. Farida can give you a copy of our company description and activities.’
‘Thank you. And perhaps you can help me on a completely separate matter? I noticed that your company is involved with NGOs. I’m hoping you can direct me to the right government department to help me.’
‘What do you need?’
‘I’m trying to find an orphaned child I’ve been sponsoring for a few years,’ he said. ‘I found the building I was looking for in Kibera, but there was no one there. So I went to the Department of Community Development to get the new address…’
‘…and they refused to help.’
‘Exactly.’
‘They said something like: it’s not departmental policy to give out that information?’
‘You’ve been down this road before?’ he said.
‘Have you had any other experience with the Kenyan bureaucracy, Mark?’
He smiled. ‘I know what you’re thinking: this guy is going to be taken to the cleaners by petty local corruption.’
‘I know what it’s like—even for a local like me. You could waste a lot of time jumping through hoops for no reward.’
‘I’ve had some experience jumping through hoops in Indonesia.’
‘Then you have an idea of what you’re up against. What would you like from me?’
‘Well, I could go back to Mombasa and start again, but I thought you may be able to put me in touch with someone in the department who’s cooperative.’
‘Cooperation comes at a price.’
Riley shrugged. ‘I’m prepared to pay a little to save some time.’
‘Are you sure this child is still with the orphanage?’
‘I’m not sure of anything. All I know is the money’s still coming out of my account every month.’
‘I do know someone in the Department of Community Development, through my father’s side of the business.’
‘Maybe your father can direct me to someone useful?’
‘I’m afraid not,’ she said. ‘He passed away late last year.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘It’s okay, but thanks.’ She smiled a little self-consciously. ‘It’s strange, isn’t it? It’s been almost a year and yet it seems like only a week ago. I still have trouble believing he’s not here, running the family business as he always did. So, this fellow in Community Development—his name’s Omuga. He’ll take your tea money, but you’ll probably get what you’re looking for.’
‘How do I see him?’
‘I’ll make a call and let you know. How shall I contact you?’
Riley took a business card from the coffee table and wrote his mobile phone number on it.
‘I’d take you to see him myself,’ said Kazlana, taking the card, ‘but, well, I made life difficult for a few of the senior people in the department when my father died, so if I were to introduce you, it would not be to your advantage.’
‘What did you do?’ Riley asked.
She took a moment before responding. ‘When Papa died, I enquired about the circumstances of his death.’
‘And…?’
‘Let’s just say they weren’t explained to my satisfaction.’
‘How so?’
Again she hesitated. ‘They said he died in a plane crash near Wajir.’
‘I suppose aviation accidents aren’t uncommon in those remote places,’ Riley said.
‘You’re right. But my father was an ace pilot. He wouldn’t have made a mistake. And the weather wasn’t a factor. I knew they were lying.’
Riley could see that Kazlana was quite a strong, assertive woman, as demonstrated by her admission that she had made life difficult for people in the department, but he recognised a sign of grief that he shared. Rather than accept what had happened, she wanted to find someone to blame. After Melissa’s death he’d spent a lot of energy in the same pursuit. ‘I guess there’s nothing you can do about it now,’ he said.
Kazlana stood up and moved to the door, indicating the interview was over. ‘That’s where you’re wrong. I intend to find out who was responsible. And when I do, I’ll know exactly what to do about it.’
She didn’t elaborate, but Riley left her office feeling there was more to Kazlana Ramanova than just a pretty face.
CHAPTER 8
After the last of the men had departed the warehouse in the depths of the industrial area, Gideon Koske stood for a moment beside his car, reflecting upon the meeting. He had called the men t
ogether to organise a protest march, designed to cause the authorities to retaliate. The ensuing violence would make front-page news, drawing attention to the government’s inability to maintain law and order. The twenty men he had recruited to incite the protesters were all very experienced operators.
He felt a little apprehensive that the police response might be lukewarm, but he had some ideas about leaking information in the right quarters to ensure that they were properly primed to take strong action. His young supporters in Kibera could be relied upon to provide the necessary enthusiasm, ensuring that the authorities felt suitably aggrieved and reacted appropriately.
He opened the car door and slid into the seat beside his driver, allowing himself a smile of self-congratulation. If this march had the desired effect, Kibaki and his supporters could be guaranteed to react vigorously to every future Odinga rally. The retaliations would escalate and the climate would be perfect for his purposes.
Everything was proceeding rather well.
Raila Odinga stood in the very heart of Kibera, on a makeshift platform above the bare red earth of Kamukungi and in the full heat of the sun. He was there to address his followers. His voice fluctuated in strength as he moved the portable megaphone over the many thousands who had crammed into the railway easement to hear him speak.
Joshua was near enough to feel the full volume of Odinga’s words as the megaphone swept past him. It made his chest thump and his ears ring, but he was too dazzled by the great man’s presence to comprehend a word he said.
Then, quite suddenly, Odinga was gone amid a flurry of personal security guards. A mighty roar of appreciation followed him out. Before the crowd had time to disperse, a man stepped onto the platform and began to address it. Joshua did not recognise him as one of the many Odinga supporters who moved among the Kibera slums promoting their leader as next president, but with his black trousers and crisp white shirt he had an air of authority about him.
His voice boomed through the megaphone in his hand and across the Kamukungi clearing. ‘My friends,’ he bellowed in Kiswahili. ‘Do you want our brother Raila Odinga to be president of Kenya?’
