by Peter Riva
“What, Pero, what? I couldn’t leave that man to face the consequences alone.”
“No, but what you’ve done Mary is make Mbuno maybe reveal where you, we all, are. Let’s get back to the camp. He’s there on the phone I take it?” Mary nodded, looking worried. The fun of the day had just evaporated.
Heep and the Commissioner had finished their session and Priit was reloading the camera so that they could shoot some feeding shots of the crocs at suppertime. “It’ll build the audience anticipation of what could happen to Mary when we edit it in. Lots of teeth, lots of blood, carcasses being torn apart. The usual stuff. And Pero, I have asked Kivoi to do an interview on crocs, not that I think I will use it, Mary’s stuff was better. Priit can shoot this without me and then he and Ruis can follow us up.”
The Commissioner left a police officer with the driver, Ruis and Priit and the rest of them all piled into a Land Rover, Pero driving. “Where’s Mbuno?” Heep asked. Pero explained he’d gone back to start making arrangements. What arrangements Pero didn’t say. Heep had the good sense not to ask with the Commissioner next to him. Mary stayed quiet.
At Pangani camp, the mosquitoes were out in force and the baking smell of tonight’s dinner rolls filled the air. There is very little more welcoming than the smell of baking yeasty bread in the bush. Pero went into the “office” as the sign proclaimed on a whitewashed, thatched, twelve-foot square hut, electric wires attached to one corner and telephone wires to the other. Heep, Mary and the Commissioner went to shower and, no doubt, change for cocktail hour. In luxury safari accommodation, sundowners are taken seriously, even if you only drink fruit juice. It is a time to recap the day’s events, savoring the experience.
Pero found the manageress standing outside her doorway. There was no door, of course. Inside, there was a crude wooden desk with a phone, an outdated computer (with no mouse), and a printer/fax that had seen better days. The electro-static grime was prodigious. Talking on the phone, sat Mbuno.
Some older Kenyans never learn how to use a phone, nor do they want to. Mbuno was always different. It is not that he is modern, but recently the telephone enabled him to “keep in touch with his people” when he was away. He learned to use it while in the hospital, where they wheel in a public call box for “your convenience.” You had to have a stack of shillings to make it work. Since then, it was the one perk he always asked of Pero, to be able to use the camp phone, cell phone, radiophone, ham radio, whatever, every few nights. Pero often accidentally listened in, simply because it was in a public place. The conversation was almost always the same (how are you, that sort of thing) at the same time, mostly 7:00 p.m. Pero learned eventually that Mbuno’s wife always went to Giraffe Manor at 7:00 p.m. sharp, every night, in case he called. They had been together for decades. Indeed, they seemed unified, the way they sat whenever Pero visited them, side by side, touching, on a second-hand, faded velvet, moth-holed, Victorian, two-seater settee that the Manor had given them as an anniversary present. The anniversary wasn’t their wedding anniversary—it was the anniversary of his surviving the puff adder bite, made into an annual family feast of thanksgiving, when dozens of relatives would, simply, turn up, from who knows where.
Mbuno, on the phone, was struggling to hear. In Swahili Pero heard him ask the other person to repeat the answer, twice. Then he said, “Ndiyo, jambo” and rang off.
“Mbuno, who were you talking to?” Pero was not looking pleased.
“I was talking to my people.” That usually meant his wife. It was too early for that, Pero knew. “Mr. Pero, I have news, can we go out there?” he gestured out the door. He rose and Pero followed, saying something banal, but pleasant to the manageress as they walked past her.
Out of earshot, walking towards the drivers’ quarters back of the car park, he explained: “Miss Mary asked me to help with the young soldier who saved her in Arusha. I know you have your special handy. I would not be thinking you would need me to call any person. It is right?” Pero agreed, nodding. “Something happened and I needed to talk to the lady manager, to question her, so I pretended that I needed to use the phone, so I called the duka, a nice man there, who supplies my village with sacks of corn. While I was waiting for the call, we talked.” He meant he talked with the Manageress. In the remote parts of Tanzania, you booked a call and waited, ten to twenty minutes for a country-to-country call. “The call I also made was to my nephew, the one who works at Bluebird to warn him you could be needing a plane for tomorrow. He says they don’t have any big planes for six people. And the word is that Mara doesn’t want to send anything to you either, those pilots who got home safely scared everyone away.”
It was good, innocent cover, and informative. “Okay, sounds like that took you five minutes, each call, good thinking.” Most producers would never entrust such matters to scouts, but Mbuno was different, he had, over the years, often been the one to make many travel arrangements for them. It was a good idea to contact Bluebird, a rival firm to Mara, who had flown them down to Pangani. He had heard Pero say he would need to make a decoy flight back, to safeguard the crew, and had taken care of the rest. “And what else did you get up to? Care to start at the beginning?”
“Ah, yes, Mr. Pero. I am most sorry, but I had to kill a man.”
CHAPTER 12
Mashangalikwa
“What do you mean kill a man? Who?”
“An Afghani, I think the man young master Amogh told you about. I walked back from the Rudolf farm as Miss Mary asked, it is only three miles, and found him just there,” he pointed into the lush jungle cover between the car park and the river. “He was watching the camp, I watched one half hour, there was another man with him. The other man went into the camp, spoke to one of the waiters coming out of the first tent,” he pointed to where one of the tourists slept, not their crew “and then he walked to the office of the manager. So later, when we talked, I asked her who he is. She knows him, he is from Zanzibar. He is the local union organizer, in charge of workers at the camp.”
Tanzania still had remnants from communist days. The union organizers had been, until recently, local communist bosses. Anyone from Zanzibar, the lush island off the coast of Tanzania, was more Arab than African.
“Where is he now?” Pero meant the Zanzibari.
“He has gone down to the ferry to take the boat back to Tanga. He did not go back to the bush,” he pointed to the place beyond the car park, “or I would have seen him pass me.”
“Where’s the Afghani?”
“Feeding the hippos. Come, I show you.” They walked to the riverbank and Pero could see where something, or someone, had slid into the water next to the unmistakable footprints of a large hippo. Pero didn’t bother asking Mbuno how or why or if he had killed him. If he had needed to, he would have found the means. Here in his element, Pero was sure Mbuno would have been swift and noiseless. “The cow surprised me searching the jacket pockets, the man was quite asleep, I took the jacket and let the hippo have the body, there was no choice. Come.” Mbuno lead Pero over to the patch in the jungle. Under some leaves carefully arranged, flattened grass made to look like a waterbuck nesting place, was the jacket, a cell phone and a map case. Pero looked in the map case. Mbuno stopped his hand. “Be careful bwana, it is a trap.” He had already checked it out and showed Pero the thin wire attached to the zipper. Open it and the wire breaks, recedes and, probably, a small explosion or fire would occur.
“Thank you Mbuno, I owe you, again.”
“Ndiyo.” Yes, it was a simple statement, not of account but recognition. This was his field, his expertise, he knew it, Pero knew it.
“And don’t admit to anyone you killed the Afghani. Just say he attacked you and the hippo got him, okay?”
“Ndiyo. I do not think he was quite dead when the hippo took him, he cried out but no one heard. I waited, no one came.”
“Okay, then stick to that. He attacked you.” Pero looked at the map case, turning it over, carefully this time.
&n
bsp; “Mr. Ruis? Could we not get him to open it?” It was a possibility, Ruis was the technical expert. Pero wondered if he should involve Ruis. Mbuno was thinking the same, “I think he is already part of the trouble, bwana, the plane was blown up for him as well. He is also in danger.”
“Yes, maybe it’s time he knows what has been going on. Maybe it’s time everyone knows what is going on.”
“Even your special phone and Mr. Tom?”
“No, not that Mbuno, that must be our secret, for now. They just need to know they are in danger. Someone knows we’re here, most likely those Arab Mau Mau. And that Zanzibari will be back, maybe with reinforcements.”
“I think, bwana, it is time to leave. Very fast.”
Pero agreed. “Mbuno, if something happens . . . well, I want to tell you what I know and where I think this is going.” There, standing in that small clearing, in the waterbuck false nest Mbuno had made, Pero explained and recapped all that he knew, all that had happened, the Embassy, the Ranjeets and all. Mbuno listened and asked no questions. “Mbuno, my friend, I have gotten you into this Trouble,” Pero deliberately chose that Mau Mau association word as the time of revolt was known, “and I apologize. I really didn’t mean to. It was a simple thing, to see if we could see anyone out there in a camp. Someone else would investigate, not us . . .”
“Mr. Tom?”
“No, perhaps not him, that’s unusual. He’s like a Park Ranger chief; he never leaves the office. There is something going on that is desperately urgent. First, we were attacked, Simon was killed even though no one knew if we had seen anything; they killed Simon because they thought he had seen something. In the air like that, maybe he did, or maybe he glinted in the sun and they thought it was a spy plane, I don’t know. What I do know is that it made them act with no hesitation at all, they acted with violence, immediately.”
“Yes, I can see. They are like a leopard mother, kill first, find out later.”
“Yes, pretty much, predators. Dangerous, frightened creatures, eating—or in this case, killing—machines. I don’t know why though Mbuno. Tom has gone to find out more, but I’m pretty sure he will find nothing. If they are desperate enough to kill so quickly, they will not stay there, will they?”
“It is right, they may be gone. Do you need to find them?”
“Not me Mbuno, I only need to protect our friends here, others will deal with them I hope.”
“If they have left the Gurreh, bwana, you may have the only way to find them.” He looked at the map case.
Pero nodded. As they made their way to his tent Pero quickly told him of the progress of Mary, Heidi, Heep, and the Commissioner. He told Mbuno to bring Ruis here, no one else, as soon as he came in, back from the beach.
“Are you going to tell the Commissioner, bwana?”
“Oh yes, Mbuno my old friend. And don’t look so worried. I have a card to play there which will ensure he helps us out of this mess.” Mbuno left, looking for Ruis to return. Also, Pero knew he would, he had no doubt, make sure the Land Rovers were full, the extra jerry cans as well. They would be ready to leave, plane or no plane.
Pero always left the satellite phone, his secret one, in an obvious place, a different place each time. This morning Pero chose his safari boots, phone keys towards laces, sock on the inside of the shoe, between the phone and the inside wall only. The phone was upside down, but with the antenna pointed down the shoe towards the toes. Then he laced the boot. If someone had moved it, he would know. It was unmoved. They hadn’t had time to search his tent, yet. Maybe it was the two police officers left behind that had kept them away. Whatever, it didn’t matter. Pero assumed it was still clean.
He raised the antenna, pointing it at the tent roof. “Baltazar, P. here, Pangani Camp. Probably it is the Afghani, name of Nadir, dead, hippo food, no trace. His booby-trapped map case and other items recovered. Will attempt to open and transmit case contents. Zanzibari, local union chief, contact of Afghani. Recommend surveillance Zanzibari, name to follow. Urgent you inform and advise Tom Baylor. Planning immediate decamp Pangani and possible to drive Nairobi to safeguard Mary Lever and crew here. End.” The two clicks followed.
Mbuno came back and reported that Mary and Heep were showering or dressing. The Commissioner was sitting in the bar. It was time for Pero to get the difficult one out of the way. They emptied the Afghani’s jacket pockets and laid them out on the small trunk at the foot of the bed. Nothing much there, except an air ticket Dar to Tanga that morning. No keys, no wallet, no matches with a motel name like in the movies. Pero placed the Afghani’s cell phone next to the pocket items and asked Mbuno to fetch the Commissioner. Pero hid the map case.
Pero had to give the Commissioner credit. Today he had showed good humor, a great deal of bravery and, now, no surprise, just consideration for facts which had escalated beyond anything he thought he would be dealing with on this day. As Pero showed him the jacket, contents of the pockets, and the cell phone of the dead Afghani, Pero gave him an encapsulated version of their trip to Kenya: Simon’s accidental death, the car chase to Ramu, the tails in Nairobi that the Ranjeets had spotted. Pero knew he would know them, at least by name, one merchant Asian family to another in a small region of the continent. He included details, as much as he had, about the truck stop identification of an Afghani, Mbuno’s description of Arab Mau Mau, the switcheroo with the planes to Arusha, leaving him to figure out the bomb placement, and, not least, the death of an Afghani here by a hippo.
The Commissioner looked hard at Mbuno who remained calm and unreadable, almost innocent.
Lastly, Pero explained the problem they had with the Zanzibari who might come back.
“Purim, his name is Mustafa Purim and he is al-Qaida.” The Commissioner shocked Pero. “If I had seen him here, or anywhere near the airport, I would have suspected and arrested him. His usual beat is Tanga, the port there, smuggling weapons, out mostly. Weapons left over from Darfur, Congo and Uganda’s civil war, RPGs, SAMs, that sort of thing, channeled through to Pakistan and then to the cells. We have been working on this with Interpol.”
The fact that he revealed all this, told Pero something else as well. “Your brother Virgi has informed you well.” The Commissioner must have known, then, that Pero was on their side.
He smiled, “Yesterday, after I saw you,” he pulled out a new Navistar satellite phone, showed it to Pero. It had a green code button. It could be scrambled, secure.
On that fishing trip years ago with his brother Virgi, out in the deep blue Indian Ocean waters, there had been a Donzi racer, a cigarette boat, approaching at sixty knots, straight at them. Suddenly, automatic fire raked the Singh boat. Virgi, the captain, and Pero had ducked behind the diesel engines, but two of the crew were killed. Sure they had killed all on board, the shooters had stepped aboard to make sure. But behind the engines, the survivors had been waiting.
Pero used a 9mm Beretta that Virgi pressed into his hand in the dark of the engine room. Virgi and the captain used grenades, two of them each. His boat and the attackers’ were a mess. The attackers died, they didn’t. Singh’s brother, the government minister, came out secretly in a forty foot fishing boat, fourteen miles to sea, to rescue them and sink the attackers’ speedboat. He towed them into a private harbor well south of Dar. Pero learned that the Virgi yacht returned later to Dar, fully repaired and with no tales to tell, except for the “caught” Marlin, which Virgi had actually bought off a fisherman in Mkwaja. Having it stuffed on his wall was another sort of trophy, an insider joke. Virgi was like that.
Pero also learned that the Minister had, even though he was only the Minister for Tourism, forced through anti-terrorist legislation, and had linked the country to anti-terrorist services in Lyon (Interpol) and the UN. Now Pero knew who had the usual suspects connected with the boat attack arrested, questioned, tried, jailed for life and, rumor had it, shot: the Commissioner standing in front of Pero in the tent. Pero should have guessed Virgi had been joking when he told Pero to ne
ver trust his brother the police officer. Family reverse pride. Good people the Singhs. Strange, but good.
The Commissioner picked up the contents of the dead man’s pockets, one at a time and pocketed them in his side pockets. The cell phone was active, so he scrolled down to the recent numbers, ten showing, wrote them in a little notebook common to police officers the world over, and called for the cop standing outside the tent. He quickly told him to take Mbuno to the site in the bush and then bring him back. Then he extended his phone’s antenna, pressed a series of buttons, pressed the green code button, and waited. When it answered, he simply read the cell phone numbers in an obscure dialect, Hindi or Urdu, Pero thought, off his pad. Code on code, try and decipher that, anyone listening. On hanging up, he asked, “What are you planning to do, Mr. Baltazar?”
“Get my crew packing. Leave, as soon as possible. I have checked, there are no aircraft available, unless you want to loan us yours?”
“That is not wise.” He paused. “Anyway, I think you should not tell any of your people, yet. You are safe enough here, I will see to that. If Purim comes back I will arrest him—or shoot him—on suspicion of the bombing at the airport. He will know that if I’m here by now, it is what I would be expected to do, a simple police officer. But I doubt he will come back.”
“Okay, but these people are clearly desperate; I cannot risk my crew’s lives—Mary’s life . . .”
“This I know Mr. Baltazar. You will try once more to confirm your plane with . . . Mara, isn’t it?” Pero nodded, “Good, for tomorrow afternoon, I will put in a good word. Then, instead, you will leave when I give you the all clear in the middle of the night, this night, but by Land Rover. Do not go to Mombasa.” He meant, do not follow the coast road, it went through Tanga. The only other way was through Mkomazi and Arusha, back into Kenya, the border town of Namanga, and on to Nairobi. The Arusha-Namanga border between Tanzania and Kenya was worrisome because of Mary. He seemed to sense his hesitation. “The border patrol based in Arusha will not be a problem. I have already made sure that Miss Lever is not wanted as a witness for the unfortunate death of Consul Jikuru.”
