by Peter Riva
Waving the flimsy fax in the air, “This is beginning to make no sense whatsoever. This man was still at the hotel in Nairobi three days ago when we were at the InterConti . . .” He stopped, lowered his hands, “Wait a moment, there is someone who might know. Let me make a call.”
Pero dialed Prabir Ranjeet, who answered quickly. “Ah, Mr. Baltazar, how good of you to call. Are you still at Wilson Airport? Seems you’ve had a busy time. The police are most impressed, you have a captain of the Langata station, how do you say it, eating out of your hand.”
“Well, I had to shoot his sergeant to make the point.”
“Most wise. They need a little lesson from time to time. Now, how can I help you?”
“The man in the Holiday Inn, the one who got away, when did Amogh see him in the past few days?”
“I will check, one moment . . .” He talked to someone. Amogh came on the line.
“Mr. Baltazar, good to hear you are well Sir. How can I help?”
“Ah, sorry, your father said not to involve you. Orders.”
“I have convinced father it was time he considered me as a grown up. Besides, he needed to know what Mr. Baylor and you discussed.”
“You could have asked me.”
“Yes, I know, I am most sorry for my lack of trust.”
“Doesn’t matter. Look, give me your details on tailing the unknown man, name of Smythe, from the Holiday Inn.”
“We tracked him every day, most of the day, until you arrived back in Nairobi—about the same time the Canon man was arrested. The police still haven’t gotten anything much out of him. I think he was a stooge.”
“Yes, there are others calling the shots, one Iman Kahal at a Nairobi mosque for starters and a trade organizer from Tanga called Purim. Look, here’s our problem. Mbuno has identified the fax of Smythe’s passport as Purim, one and the same.”
“Ah, father just heard that, he says Mbuno doesn’t make mistakes.”
“I know, except Mbuno tracked this other Smythe, our Purim. He killed his accomplice . . . well a hippo did, the day before yesterday in Pangani. No way he could be there in Pangani and here at the same damn. What gives?”
“My father is still listening in, he says we will discuss it. Can we call you on the number Director Lewis gave us?”
“Yes, but Amogh, if you’re free, and if your father agrees, I could use you here in case I need transport, fast transport.”
“Father’s nodding. One Porsche run to Wilson coming up. Twenty minutes tops.” They hung up.
“Mbuno, they were tracking this same guy,” Pero tapped the fax, “in Nairobi while you were seeing him in the bush. I cannot figure it out. Can you?”
“It is not the same man. He looks the same, so they are ndugu.” It was as simple as that, relatives; the Swahili word was, exactly, brothers. Pero realized with a start that they now had two Purims. Pero dialed up Lewis again.
“Baltazar here.” He waved Mbuno over, “Come here, listen in . . .” they put their ears together again either side of the satellite phone, “Mbuno and Amogh Ranjeet confirm they saw Purim in two places at the same time. Mbuno’s never mistaken on likeness and the Holiday Inn had a passport photo of Smythe, Smythe is Purim, Purim is therefore Smythe. Mbuno is sure. Mbuno’s conclusion is that they are brothers, maybe cousins. Please evaluate, and please tell Heep what to be on the lookout for—oh, and I have told Ranjeet.”
“Frightening possibility. Okay, stay on that. There’s news this end. We have only forty-five minutes before deadline. The Mosque has had no visitors; it’s clean. What we did was access the Imam’s bank records with Interpol’s help. They show transfers of money to buy tickets and pay the credit card bill of the Canon man at the Holiday Inn, three rooms and all room service altogether. We currently think Canon man is small fry, but they’re not through with him yet in Nairobi. So the Imam is the moneyman, some of it going to an account in Tanga, you know who. Some cash withdrawals there in Nairobi, probable payoffs, nothing too large. And there’s one other thing, some of the incoming money is from Swiss accounts that the Swiss have given us access to under their new anti-terrorism change in banking laws. Here’s the bombshell—the Christian America Group, a charity, has been funding that Swiss account. There’s the link, the Reichstag link . . .”
“But who?”
“Jane Seeland, the sister of JT’s secretary, one James Small. James Small’s sister is the founding chairwoman of the Christian America Group, very right wing. They’ve been calling for a crusade against the Islamic Jihad for years.”
“What does James Small look like?”
“Slight, red hair, five feet ten inches . . .”
“Kind of like a handler for JT? About thirty-five?”
“That’s the one, his nickname is Jimmy Little.” He had been at Mara’s offices, three days ago and would, surely, still be with JT. Pero had to warn Mary and Heep.
“Have you told Mary?”
“No . . .”
Pero hung up. Pero picked up the cell phone and dialed Heep’s number, reading it off the label on the back again where Ruis has thankfully listed them all.
“Heep, that you?”
“Yes.”
“Listen, don’t repeat. The Reichstag Gambit is real. The man is Jimmy Little, or real name James Small. Get him away from JT. They’ve arrested a guy here who had a super-glued glass cyanide capsule stuck to his cheek. Maybe Jimmy Little won’t have one, but take no chances, grab his mouth and do a search and then arrest the bastard. Lewis can explain.”
“He’s calling on the other phone . . . thanks, Pero, and keep your head down.” Pero could hear Heep’s satellite phone ringing. He hung up.
Mbuno and Pero were still outside the Aero Club, Mbuno balancing on the top rail, Pero leaning on a stanchion. Mbuno looked at Pero and Pero looked back at him. They didn’t know what to do next. The sun was getting hot, the airport busy, people who couldn’t get gas were getting angrier and angrier with the police, Securicor and the sailors. The men would hang tough—Pero knew that. They had so little time before the deadline. Pero was sure they still had something planned, but what?
Where was this Purim, either one? If Purim from Tanga were in town—if at all—and the ndugu, where would they be? Doing what? Pero really had nothing else to do and he needed quiet to think. The quiet needed to be in his head.
“I wish it were four in the morning and we were still waiting for the day to start. I’m having trouble getting my thoughts in order, planning what’s next.”
“Ndiyo, we need to start over . . .”
“Mbuno, what do you say we go over to Mara and get a nice cup of tea?”
“And some biscuits, Miss Sheryl’s tea biscuits?” Pero nodded. “I missed breakfast, we could start with breakfast.” So they walked down the flightline. Just thinking of tea seemed to calm his thoughts. Something would come, Pero was sure of it.
Amogh pulled up behind, coasting, no noise, and honked, scaring Pero. Mbuno just frowned like he would at a small boy.
“Come on Amogh, we’re off for a cup of tea at Sheryl’s office.”
Amogh looked frantic. “No time for that, I just saw Purim getting out of a taxi by the west gate. It’s road-blocked by the police, on foot entry only, so I took the east gate.” His hand waved towards the far distance. “He’s over there somewhere.”
“Over there” was a mile away, anywhere in one of twenty huts, hangers, and customs’ buildings.
Mbuno opened the car door and started to climb in, “I will have tea later, bwana.”
Once piled in the racing car, they sped down the runway, Amogh determined, pushing the revs beyond the red line. Pero told him to slow down. “Let’s start at Bluebird, see if David knows anything.”
When they stopped, Pero quickly called Lewis and told him they had a positive ID on Purim arriving Wilson Airport. Pero asked him to radio Jack and Joshua at the Aero Club and get them to sit in wait at Agip as Pero thought Purim, well either Purim, might go ther
e to meet his contact, to pay people off. Pero knew the police had Mobil covered, he could see them milling about over there. No doubt, Sergeant Gibson was busy arresting someone.
Director Lewis also had an urgent message for Pero: “The sniffer teams, dogs, they found more bombs, hidden in the scaffolding, every pipe was stuffed with C-4. The wiring for the sound systems caused them to miss them in the visual inspection last night, but the dogs smelled it and so they looked again and found the leads. The switch was radio controlled. They still don’t know who. Copy that?”
“I did.”
“Also, we told JT not to react about James Small on the phone, but he did, called him a Judas. James Small kept telling JT he didn’t understand, it was necessary, it was the will of God and then Mary slapped him so hard he went down like a ton of bricks. Stayed down.”
“Don’t tell me, he had a capsule . . .”
“Nah, she just clocked him good, they checked. The Navy Captain has him under arrest. They’re going to fly him home pronto. They’re rounding up the three thousand members of their so-called charity back in Virginia. A couple of whacko celebrities will be caught in the net. Tough. The Kenyans have now lifted the Imam and a few of his followers as well. Maybe we’re seeing the end of this thing.”
“Not yet, Purim is on the loose.” Pero rang off.
Inside they found David, still at his desk, trying to conquer a mountain of backlogged paperwork. He looked a little less worried. Pero guessed the body was gone from the closet and since David hadn’t been personally arrested, things weren’t all that bad. Pero feared they were about to be and showed him the photo and asked if he had ever seen the man, Purim. No, he was sure he hadn’t. Then he remembered the second fax had come in and handed it to Pero as the cell phone rang. Pero went outside, past the steel girders of the hangar, to get a clear signal for the cell phone, stuffing the fax in his pocket as he walked.
Mary sounded frantic, “Pero, JT is very low. Jimmy Little’s treason has hit him hard. He’s still going on, but with the bomb in the scaffolding tubes, the bomb you found on the oil tank, the deaths, the cyanide water . . . oh, Pero, I don’t know how much more of this he can take.”
“Mary, will he cancel?” Pero sounded hopeful, even he could tell. He knew he was beginning to sound desperate.
“No way, Heep says not and I agree. It’s in God’s hands. What we’re going to do is this. We’re going to go down and stay with him, backstage, in five minutes, as the gospel singers are warming up the crowd. Maybe their wonderful voices will warm up his heart. This is a bad blow Pero, a bad blow”
“I know Mary; make sure, though, that Kweno goes with you. He must be there to protect you.”
“He will be, Pero, he’s a Christian, he’s been reading Psalms with JT, French and English, in unison. They are very . . . well . . . simple together in a powerful sort of way. Anyway, I just wanted to tell you we’re heading down to the stage now. Thanks for everything, no matter what happens Pero, you really did save us again and again. God bless. Bye.” And she rang off, leaving Pero with a sense of deep sadness. Her faith in God overwhelmed his by a mile.
Pero leaned in, turned on the car AM radio, spun the dial, and listened to the singers, already belting out their rhythm versions of traditional hymns. If anything could help JT, maybe it was those happy voices.
The satellite phone rang again. It was Lewis: “Baylor’s saying something in the sick bay on the HMS Cardiff, off Malindi. Sounds like—déjà vu? Wait . . .” Off the satellite phone Pero heard him ask for a repeat from the HMS Cardiff, and Pero could hear the radio voices as he turned up the gain: “Director Lewis, he’s repeating this,” pause, “Pero déjà vu, Pero déjà vu, over and over again.”
Lewis came back on, “Did you get that? It makes no sense to any of us.”
On the contrary, it suddenly made perfect sense to Pero.
Then the voice of the HMS Cardiff floated over the airwaves again: “He’s fading, we’ve got to stabilize him and prep him for surgery, we will do what we can, over.”
“You get that, Baltazar?” Pero told Lewis he did. “What’s he mean?”
“He means my wife died in a plane crash, Lockerbie. Déjà vu, for me, can only mean one thing—it has to be an aerial attack.” Pero signed off.
At that moment, as Pero pushed the off button he heard the gunfire on the public radio. Pero looked at his thumb on the off button. A crazy thought . . . Did he cause that? There were screams, yelling and pandemonium, even on the radio the effect of automatic, quick burst gunfire, was unmistakable. There was nothing Pero could do for them there. Mbuno had his head cocked to the side, listening. “Over a hundred bullets Pero, many will have been hit.”
“We can’t help them, Mbuno, we need to concentrate here, on Purim.” They knew he was somewhere near and Pero needed to find him—the one punch was underway, cameras definitely rolling now, live satellite feeds were opened up across the world. Sets would be going on in every country as the word spread—A live terrorist event to catch, live, on TV!
As Pero was listening to the carnage on the AM radio, he was also thinking about the clumsy Langata Police at Mobil who would frighten off Purim at the Agip depot.
That’s fuzzy thinking Pero, get a grip. The sounds of chaos continued from the radio. “People have been shot, there are many wounded.” The one punch . . . the only two punch left to them was Purim, Pero was now damn sure of it. But which plane?
Pero looked out across the tarmac and saw at least thirty planes taxiing, fueling, loading tourists, being inspected, rolling on or off the apron or the runway. With the advent of gunfire and the airport state of emergency, Pero could see many small planes lined up for the runway suddenly turn and start to head back towards the hangars. No one was allowed to take off now, but there were others still being prepared, readied, moved, fueled, loaded for safari. In short, the airport was busy as usual, yet one of these was Purim, or a plane for Purim. But which one?
Pero lowered his head, stuck his hands in his pocket to think, and brushed the fax. Absent-mindedly, with the radio still blaring the terrible news—I wonder if my friends are alive or dead—Pero looked absently at the fax. It was a simple laundry list. His eyes drifted down the list. One line snapped into focus and threw cold water on his fatigue: One, shirt, heavy starch, careful with the Gazelle logo and epaulets . . . twenty-five shillings.
Nairobi Purim-Smythe was a pilot. Jeppesen, déjà vu Lockerbie, Gazelle Charters, it all made sense. As fast as possible, Pero hit the buttons and told Lewis, “It’s Gazelle Charters, a piloted plane, small but big enough—if loaded with explosive—to kill JT and everyone around him.” Pero grabbed Mbuno and Amogh and raced to the Porsche. Mbuno and Pero jumped in the cramped single seat and they raced down the flightline to Gazelle. “Drive straight into the hangar Amogh, if they try and stop you, run them over.”
He was as good a driver as Pero knew; he side-slipped the car, drifting into the hangar doing forty just as a startled Purim took two quick shots at their arrival. The bullets entered the car’s back quarter panel and lodged in the back, low by the gearbox. Mbuno and Pero parachute-rolled out of the car and Pero got off a quick shot at a pair of running legs, running away that is. “That’s not Purim, he’s too old,” Amogh said.
Mbuno’s whole physique looked focused, eyes locked on target, “No, he is my Purim. My prey. I will get him.” And with that Mbuno went into his crouching run and started tracking “his” Purim, the one from Tanga. Pero was sure Purim didn’t stand a chance of escape.
“Where’s the other one?” They looked around—the hangar was empty. Pero ran into the office and found a very scared woman crouching behind the desk probably because of the gun shots fired. With the blood on his trousers, Pero must have been an additional fright because she fainted dead away. Pero looked at the log entries recorded in her open ledger. Ah, there it was. Pero keyed the desk VHF radio microphone and called, “Wilson Tower, Wilson Tower, Gazelle Ops here, this is an emergency
, a Cessna Caravan,” he studied the numbers in the ledger, “seven, seven, three, two, Kilo has been hijacked. Advise whereabouts.”
“Roger Gazelle Ops. Caravan seven, seven, three, two, Kilo is on unapproved final on take-off. On ascent leaving ground vectoring two three zero true. V two now, advise request. Are you declaring an emergency?”
“Affirmative, Wilson Tower, this is an emergency. Caravan is being used as a flying bomb to attack Meeting on the Hill, repeat a flying bomb.”
“Roger Gazelle, we will advise ATC.” ATC is air traffic control. Fat lot of good they could do, Pero thought. He knew he needed to do something, and something immediately. He ran out into the sun. There was no one with a pilot’s uniform near the Gazelle operation base. Amogh was talking into his radio.
“Amogh, forget that, do you fly as well as you drive?” He nodded. “Solo?”
“Flying Doctor service, volunteer. I fly small singles, normally one fifty or one seventy series Cessnas, a Piper Aztec a few times and only twice a Beech Baron.”
“Okay, let’s steal a plane, hurry.” They ran towards the Porsche. They got in and roared off down the line. The closest plane that matched Amogh’s needs was a Beech Baron being fueled. They pulled up as the tank caps were being closed and flashed the gun and badge at the fueler who ran off to his truck cab. “Get in, Amogh, prep, do the checklist, I’ll call home.”
Amogh left the Porsche running, climbed up the right wing, and entered through the only door of the Baron, stepping carefully over the co-pilot’s seat and settling in. Taking a moment to familiarize himself with the controls, he started the engine start-up sequence.
“Baltazar here. We’ve found the Purim brothers. Mbuno is chasing one on foot, the Tanga one, he’ll get him. The other is in a Caravan cargo plane—the plane is probably stacked with explosives. It’s smaller than a commercial jet, but it will look big enough on camera. Also, if he crashes the plane into the stage the explosives in the struts could still go off too unless you’ve removed them. We will intercept him and try and prevent it. I found his name, Smythe, entered into the Gazelle daily rental log, he’s listed as a pilot. Al-Jazeera is his listed TV feed. I suspect the woman at Gazelle may also need detaining, but Mbuno can arrange that. Right now, I need a Navy intercept, priority one.”
