by Steve Richer
Earlier in the day, when they still had several hours to kill, they had taken a taxi to tour the city. They had seen the central market, driven by the city’s three universities, and made a detour to get a glimpse of the Stade Tata Raphaël, the stadium made famous by the Rumble in the Jungle boxing event where Mohammed Ali defeated George Foreman in 1974.
Then, there was a close call. Coming back from dinner at a small roadside restaurant, a group of men approached the two Caucasians. They flashed badges and shouted what sounded like accusations in the Lingala language before switching to French.
Hewitt understood that the men claimed to be police officers and needed the foreigners to accompany them to the police station immediately. What they didn’t know was that Hewitt had been around the block a few times. These guys were not wearing uniforms.
“Get ready to bolt, lad.”
It was a common scam in this part of the country. They showed up in the car, encircled you, and made threats to ensure you followed them. When isolated, they stripped you of your belongings.
“Remain friendly, smile, and follow my lead.”
Preston did as he was told and continued walking along the uneven sidewalk. Hewitt’s pace quickened and the criminals kept up with them.
“They’re not leaving us alone,” Preston noted.
“We’ll get a taxi.”
They were along the city’s main thoroughfare, Boulevard du 30 Juin, and while taxis were available, they’d have to stop walking. They would surely be attacked.
Preston glanced behind him and saw that the nearest thug was pulling out a jackknife, popping out the blade. He analyzed his limited options. Doing nothing meant he would become another statistic as a crime victim – possibly murder victim. He had to do something.
They got closer to the street and Hewitt’s arm was already raised to hail a cab. It was now or never.
Preston slowed down, looked at the ground, and then pretended to lose his footing. He tumbled sideways, taking the criminals by surprise. Using this brief moment when they were startled, Preston reached forward with his left hand and grabbed the guy’s wrist.
A fraction of a second later, he kicked the guy in the shin which made him lose his balance. Simultaneously, Preston’s right-hand wrenched the knife away. Without losing a second, he applied the blade to the man’s neck while looking at the others in the eyes.
They were afraid.
By then, Hewitt had a taxi ready and they left.
The excitement had died down by now. They were on a terrace outside a small café. The atmosphere in the Commune de Matonge was festive and you couldn’t help feeling safe. They were sipping coffee. The Englishman looked left and right and poured a little booze in his beverage from an airline-size bottle.
“You know,” Preston began. “Kinshasa seems like a really nice city but I still don’t understand why we had to come all the way to the Congo.”
“The MI6 working conditions might have been absolute bollocks but I did learn a few useful things while working for Her Majesty.”
“Like how to arrange shadowy deals with shadowy people?”
“Precisely, lad. There are three ways to purchase weapons. One, you go to a gun store but there are all kinds of legal hassles and you can’t purchase in bulk. Two, you find a criminal type on the streets but again large quantities will be a problem.”
“And the third?”
“The third is by dealing with an arms dealer. He will get you military-grade weapons at a fair price if you buy in bulk. It’s perfectly legal for them as long as you have an end-user certificate.”
“Which is?”
Preston finished his coffee and he winced. It definitely wasn’t up to his standards. Even his fairly low standards.
“Essentially, it’s a letter from a government official detailing how many weapons are to be purchased and where they should be delivered. As long as this document is provided, no law is being broken.”
“And you think they sell end-user certificates in this café?”
“Actually, this place is more than a café,” Hewitt answered with a smirk.
“It’s a meeting place for international arms dealers?”
“No, a whorehouse. Same thing, really.”
Now that he thought about it, Preston realized that there were no women whatsoever as customers. Men went in, men came out. The establishment did have a second-floor and now that he knew the truth he figured that’s where the rooms were.
A man walked out of the building, passing by the terrace while zipping up his pants. He was in his 40s and his dark skin had that softness of someone who had never worked outdoors. Hewitt perked up at the sight of him.
“Evariste, my friend!”
The Congolese in turn noticed Hewitt and wasn’t happy. It reminded Preston of how his father reacted whenever his aunt Beatrix’s second husband showed up unannounced. You had to be gracious but what you actually wanted to do was to bash the man’s face to a pulp and burn the remains.
“Oh no! I want nothing to do with you, devil man.”
“That’s not very polite, lad. I thought we were friends.”
Evariste glanced around him before getting closer to Hewitt. He said, “We stopped being friends after that Mbandaka operation.”
“You made money on this deal.”
“But I looked like a fool!”
“But you made money, yes?” Hewitt asked in a gentler tone. “Besides, you’re the one walking out of a whorehouse where half the ladies have HIV. In terms of looking like a fool, you have the market cornered, lad.”
There was no escaping this foreigner’s judgment. Exasperated, seeing that Hewitt wouldn’t leave him alone until he had said what he had come here to say, Evariste sat down at their table.
“What do you want?”
“Do you still work for the Defense Ministry?”
“I do,” he answered warily.
“I need a blank end-user certificate. It pays 50,000 American dollars and you get to keep one case of everything we purchase. You could make even more money this way. What do you think? Are you in or should I cancel our tickets to Cyprus?”
In spite of the man’s suspicions – Hewitt had never known him to be loose and relaxed – the wheels began to spin behind his eyes. The appeal of money could melt the most reluctant of hearts.
Chapter 39
Dark clouds were forming over Long Beach, gathering into a rare summer storm. It was all they were talking about on the radio. The stuffy host pedantically reminded listeners to be mindful of lightning, to stay indoors to avoid being electrocuted. That was something Jasmine hated about the media. They couldn’t help themselves from treating you like a child.
That’s LA for you, she thought. Now they had an entire summer worth of wildfires to look forward to. Great.
Special Agent in Charge Lifto was walking among the cubicles with a purpose while wringing his hands. He stopped by Joe’s cubicle and stared at the agent for a moment.
“Joe, you know I have back problems, right?”
Joe hesitated and then stood up, understanding the message.
“Well, if you insist,” Lifto said.
He took the younger man’s chair and rolled it over to Jasmine’s cubicle where the woman was working on her computer. She looked up as Lifto sat down and leaned back in the chair.
“So what’s this development you were speaking of?”
The Special Agent in Charge had just gotten to the office and there had been a message about Agent Needham wanting to see him as soon as possible.
“I’m sure McSweeney is the killer, sir.”
“I hope so, you’ve spent weeks investigating this guy.”
“But it goes deeper, like national security deeper.”
Lifto crossed his legs and said, “I’m all ears.”
“McSweeney spends a decade in the Army; Rangers, Special Forces, not Boy Scout stuff. He kills a soldier, shoots an officer, all he gets is retirement.”
&n
bsp; “Okay,” he nodded as he tried committing everything to memory, building a timeline inside his head.
Jasmine grabbed her notepad to refresh her memory and continued.
“Then McSweeney works as a mercenary in Iraq for two years. While he’s on duty, a US general is killed. A witness says McSweeney shot the general although a rare bullet was found in the corpse.”
“You see a conspiracy and I see a guy who’s always at the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“Perhaps,” Jasmine conceded. “But then I managed to track down his location. He’s been spending an awful lot of time in Africa. In Katoga. We both know that Africa is the breeding ground of terrorists.”
It hadn’t been easy and had involved even more of those dreaded phone calls. She had run down credit card numbers, visa applications, airline tickets, passport scans. All pointed to the fact that Preston McSweeney was spending an awful amount of time in Africa.
Lifto sat up straight. “You believe he’s gone freelance?”
She closed her notebook and took a deep breath, getting ready for the gist of her speech. There was something she wanted to ask.
“I’d like the permission to go find out, sir. Gervasi already got the authorization to go.”
“To Africa?”
“Yes, sir.”
Asking was something with which she’d never been comfortable. She was used to doing things on her own, to blaze her own trail. Asking was difficult because it shifted power to someone else.
“You really think the taxpayers should send two different agencies?”
“You really think the ATF should get the credit?”
Chapter 40
They might as well have been in Berlin during the Cold War. That’s what Nicosia felt like on this Tuesday morning. The Cypriot city was divided in two, the North sector having been seized by the Turks in 1974.
The city, the largest in Cyprus, had always been a coveted prize for expanding empires. First called Ledra and later Lefkosia in ancient times, it had started out as a Greek city state under the rule of Alexander the Great.
In the 4th century the Byzantine Empire took control of the third largest island in the Mediterranean before the Arabs briefly conquered Cyprus in 649.
In the 12th century, Isaac Komnenos found himself falling out of favor with his noble Greek Byzantine family which ruled over a number of fiefdoms in and around the Black Sea.
After being held prisoner for having started a war with an Armenian kingdom, Isaac broke from his family and raised an army of mercenaries. He took Cyprus, falsified official papers, and had himself crowned, ruling for six years.
Isaac’s demise began when he took prisoner two ladies who had been shipwrecked on his island. They happened to be English king Richard the Lionheart’s sister and fiancée. In retaliation, King Richard invaded the island which was on his way to Tyre and the Crusade.
Later, Richard sold the island to the Knights Templar but their insistence on raising taxes enraged the locals and led to a rebellion. As a result, the religious-military order sold Cyprus to Guy of Lusignan, a French knight and King of Jerusalem. It was during this period that the name Nicosia was officially adopted because the Frenchman couldn’t pronounce Lefkosia.
For the next few centuries, ownership was passed between a series of monarchs, Guy’s descendents, before the Republic of Venice seized control at the dawn of the Renaissance. They fortified the cities on the island and Cyprus became an important commercial center.
The Italian possession was short-lived. In 1570, the Ottoman Empire sent 60,000 troops and 20,000 Nicosians were murdered. Following the Russo-Turkish War in 1878, administration of Cyprus was ceded to the British Empire. It became a vital strategic possession for the British since the island overlooks the Suez Canal.
Independence was finally granted in 1960 but it led to over a decade of violence between Greek and Turkish factions within the country. Following a Turkish invasion in 1974 which left the island divided, Turkey declared the fractioned land as the independent Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, though nobody recognized the claim.
Preston wondered if that rich and violent history had anything to do with the fact that everyone he encountered looked dour. They all had this standoffish look which did absolutely nothing to make him feel welcome. It was as if they were wary of visitors now, afraid they were simply a new breed of conquerors.
“The Green Line is what makes it seem like Berlin,” Hewitt said.
They were walking through Nicosia’s Old Town where some streets were blocked by an actual wall although half a dozen crossing points had been opened since 2003 when the Turks eased traveling restrictions.
“I don’t see anything green about it,” Preston remarked.
“The United Nations has been here since 1964, since the most bitter of the fighting. Major-General Peter Young, a fellow Englishman, he took a green pencil and drew a line on his map, establishing the cease-fire buffer zone.”
“Hence the Green Line, I got it.”
They wandered off Ledra Street onto Eleftheria Square, the city’s hub. There were a few sidewalks and patches of grass but mostly the square was built around motor traffic. There were a few kiosks selling newspapers, candy, and soft drinks.
Preston looked at his watch. There was a minute left before their appointment.
“So I guess I’ll let you handle this again, right?”
“I believe this is why you’re paying me so much, lad.”
“Yeah well, I should’ve paid you in vodka. I have a feeling you wouldn’t have seen the difference. Besides, that’s what you’re gonna do with your money anyway.”
“Yes, but I’ll be purchasing very high quality vodka. Stolichnaya Elit, to be exact.”
“Good hooch?”
“Russian, grain-based, triple distilled and triple filtered. The best.”
“You’re not getting thirsty on me, are you?”
As a matter of fact, Hewitt was. It had been two hours since he’d had a little nip and the effect was dying off. He licked his lips.
“Or I simply might go with the world’s most expensive vodka. It’s from Scotland, if you can believe it. Diva Vodka is ice-filtered through Nordic birch charcoal three times before being filtered through a fine sand made of gems and diamonds. They even include some of these precious stones in the bottle.”
A late-model Mercedes with dark tinted windows came to a halt 30 feet ahead, facing them. Preston got the feeling this car was meant for them.
“And this booze is pricey?”
“Depending on what type of gems in your bottle you can pay between $4,000 and a million. I intend to bathe in it.”
Two men came out of the German car. They both had pale suits and thick mustaches which did nothing to dispel Preston’s deeply ingrained Greek stereotypes. Moreover, one of them wasn’t clean-shaven which gave him an even more ominous look.
“Are these our guys?”
“Why would you have any doubts, lad? They’re practically wearing the official arms dealer uniform.”
They stepped forward and met the two men halfway.
Chapter 41
Hewitt put on his game face which meant he forced himself to smile broadly. These guys were merely the hired help and they didn’t have to engage in small talk.
After Hewitt identified himself, they were invited into the Mercedes and were blindfolded to avoid discovering the precise location where the meeting was to take place. Preston was reluctant to accept but Hewitt assured him this was how his contact operated.
Being blindfolded made it difficult to know how long they traveled. It seemed like they drove for hours when it was perfectly conceivable that the ride only took 20 minutes. Preston vowed to look at his watch once they removed the blindfold.
When the Mercedes came to a halt, his hand shot up to take off the black piece of cloth over his eyes but one of the thugs caught his arm just in time. Apparently, they weren’t quite there yet. The guy led Preston and his c
olleague out of the vehicle.
They walked on uneven terrain which could only be gravel. The sound of seagulls was only a tad louder than the rumbling of crashing waves in the distance. They were close to the ocean. Preston was startled when he felt a surprisingly gentle hand on his elbow. He was led up six steps and then into a building.
When the door was closed, the blindfolds were yanked off. Preston blinked, letting his eyes adjust to the dim lighting of the foyer. He glanced at Hewitt who offered a brief smile to reassure him and then looked at his watch. They had driven for 41 minutes.
The guy who wasn’t clean-shaven grunted something in Greek and motioned for the guests to follow him. They took a right through a long hallway and emerged in a brightly lit living room with wide French doors opening on a small balcony. Preston approached the windows and took in the view.
He was right about hearing the ocean. The balcony was directly over the blue Mediterranean as the house – a stone villa, he could now see – was built on the edge of a cliff. The sun, already lowering on the horizon, was to his right. At this time of day the sun was in the West so this meant they were on the southern coast of Cyprus.
Judging by the driving distance and the maps he had seen, Preston guessed that they were in the Larnaca area. This in turn frustrated him. The only international airport on the island was in Larnaca which meant they had been here earlier and had driven to Nicosia for the sole purpose of being jerked around.
He was about to share his irritation with Hewitt when footsteps grew louder on the terra-cotta floor. He turned around and saw a tall, rotund man with wild hair enter the room.
He was pushing 70 years old and his face was creased with laugh lines. A huge smile was plastered on his face. All in all, he appeared to be a jovial person.
He approached his guests literally with arms wide open and his two thugs took the hint. They left.
“Mr. Parker!” he said with the cheery cadence of a thick Greek accent. “How do you do?”
Hewitt had been addressed as Mr. Parker by the driver of the Mercedes earlier in Eleftheria Square, puzzling Preston. To that, Hewitt had whispered back, “Pseudonyms are popular in this business”.
