‘They didn’t tell you?’
Manheim forced a smile. ‘They don’t tell us shit.’
‘Operation Coast. Our nation’s secret biological and chemical warfare programme. I helped tell the world what they were doing.’
Manheim considered this a moment. ‘That’s all over now.’
‘Tell them that.’
Manheim made little circles with the pistol’s barrel, as if he was aiming to hit the circumference of a target painted on the floor. ‘To think that old bastard was working from the inside, all that time,’ he said. ‘The AB knew for years they had a leak, a Torch Commando mole, but they could never pin him down.’
Clay had first become aware of Torch – the underground movement dedicated to the creation of a free, liberal, multi-racial South Africa – and the bravery of its mostly white members, back in 1981. He cycled through a few deep lungfulls of air, tried to push the memories away.
‘It wasn’t just you, Straker. He helped dozens of people escape, tipped them off, helped them get out of the country. Killed at least five AB assassins in the process. We had a name for him: Rooikat. The Caracal.’ Manheim wasn’t speaking to Clay or Rania, now. He was speaking to himself, a soliloquy for the fallen. ‘He was a good friend, and a fok of a good fighter.’
‘He said the same about you.’
‘When I came looking for whoever was tipping you off, I never believed for one second that it would be him.’ Manheim stared at the floor for a long time.
‘Crowbar said that you fell out. What happened?’
‘Let’s just say we grew to have opposing views of the world.’
‘You joined the AWB.’
‘That’s right.’
‘Then why the hell are you working for the AB?’ Clay had slowly gathered himself, put himself into position for a last desperate lunge. With Manheim on the other side of the cabin now, it would be a long shot. But he wasn’t going to go down without a fight.
Manheim nodded slowly. ‘We’re not so different – you, me, Crowbar, even her.’ Manheim pointed the gun at Rania.
‘Fok jou,’ said Clay. ‘We’re nothing like you.’
Manheim swung the gun back towards Clay. ‘You don’t see it, do you Straker? We’re all fighting the same enemy. Each in our own way.’
‘That’s not the way it looks to me.’
‘I don’t give a damn what you think, Straker. I really don’t give a shit.’
‘The innocents you killed on Zanzibar?’ said Clay, barely holding himself back. ‘Were they the enemy?’
‘You know I didn’t kill that woman and her kid, Straker. I told those two kaffirs to keep it clean.’ Manheim lowered the gun a moment. ‘That was unnecessary.’
‘Well so is this.’ Clay opened his arms wide. ‘We’re done fighting. We’re leaving. Leave us be. You don’t need to do this.’
Manheim ran his free hand across his face, thumb on one cheek, fingers on the other, entry and exit wounds. ‘My sister. She’s married now. Has three kids.’
Clay tensed, readied to charge. Next time Manheim looked away, he would go.
‘Claymore, chéri. Please, do not.’
Both men looked at Rania. Clay unwound.
‘Please, monsieur,’ she continued, setting her gaze on Manheim now. ‘I knew your friend, Jean-Marie. His wife is my friend. She is pregnant with their first child. He saved your sister. Be the honourable man your friend thought you to be.’
Manheim stared at her as if she were an oracle come to presage his destiny.
‘There has been enough killing,’ she said.
Manheim stood there for a long time, drawing those little circles with his handgun. And then he sighed, breathed in and out slowly, and lowered the pistol. He glared at Clay, as if to warn him against a sudden attack, shoved the pistol into his waistband and covered it over with his shirt.
‘G told me everything,’ he said. ‘Gave me the photos and the ear. Wire me the money you promised him within three days. Here are the account details.’ He placed a card on the table near the door. ‘And then go. I’ll look after the AB. You ever surface again, you’re dead. You hear me, Straker? Both of you. No more fucking Operation COASTs, no more goddamned bleeding-heart court cases trying to right the world’s wrongs.’ He glanced at Rania. ‘Raise that kid of yours. Hell, have a few more for all I care. Just don’t ever show up on anyone’s radar again.’ He cracked the cabin door, stepped over the threshold.
‘And that goes for your little girlfriend in Zanzibar, too,’ said Manheim, leaning back in. ‘Consider my debt to Crowbar repaid. We’re even.’ And then he was gone.
3rd December 1997. Long 00°, 42' S; Lat 46°, 42' E. The Indian Ocean. 10:35 hrs
This morning I took my first star sight, calculated my first position. You have been teaching me how to use the sextant, how to navigate by the stars. You say I need to know how to do it, in case you cannot.
Looking up into the infinite, seeing order in seeming chaos, I find myself regaining a measure of faith. In what, exactly, I am not yet sure. Perhaps, as I watch you go about your tasks on our little home, securing the sails, working the tiller, rigging the self-steering (all these terms I am only just starting learn!), it is faith in you. In us. In our ability to make a life for ourselves, on our own terms. To take all that we have seen and learned, and forge it into something new, something lasting and true.
Eleven days ago, we found Flame among the mangroves, where you had left her. Seeing this little boat for the first time, there in her hiding place, was like glimpsing part of your life without me. And now that I am here, I marvel that after everything I have done and said, you came for me, as true and constant as the compass that guides us.
As the days have passed, we have had time to talk. You have recounted to me the events on Zanzibar, your flight across East Africa, the terrible ambush in Sudan the day Jean-Marie was killed. I, too, have shared some of what I have been through.
Yesterday, for the first time, Eugène laughed and smiled at me. He is getting better. Each day I feel him coming closer to me, remembering, or perhaps just building new trust in me. The resilience of children is amazing.
Before we left Mombasa, at your urging, I called Inspector Marchand in Paris. To say she was surprised to hear from me is a gross understatement. I told her that Eugène was in my arms. That my husband was dead, killed in Egypt only a few days before. She asked if I was coming back to clear my name. I told her I had no intention of returning. Then she wished me good luck. It was very human of her.
I also called Hope. She is strong and seems to be managing alone. The baby is due soon. I told her we were safe, but that we would be disappearing for a while. I could hear her crying. I know she wishes she could be with us. Somehow that would seem right. Her son is yours. Her new baby is Jean-Marie’s. We all love each other. That will have to be enough, for now.
From Mombasa I posted everything we have on Yusuf’s case to my editor at AFP in Paris. The parcel I sent contained the data dossier, the Kemetic’s diary with my transcriptions, and the memory card from his camera with most of the photographs. He may do with it as he wishes. The Directorate have now been informed, via my friend, of the death of Fatimah Salawi at Luxor, and the fact that Hamid Al-Farouk, a French citizen, was almost certainly the militant who called himself ‘The Lion’. I told him to tell them not to try to find me. That I needed time, and peace.
I try not to speculate on Hamid’s motives, on what led him to do what he did. We can never really know another person, what drives them. Perhaps he simply lost faith in the law, in the concept of justice as he’d practised it. It is clear to me now that Hamid knew that the Consortium would come after him. And so he decided to pre-empt them, fake his own death, and take the fight to them. Whether it was his idea or hers, I will never know. But the thought that he would sacrifice me to achieve this, make me out to be a murderer, hurts me more deeply than I can express. I cannot help wondering: if I had not been late coming home that day, wo
uld they have killed me? Had they argued, perhaps? She wanting to kill me, he opting for framing me. Did he anticipate, perhaps, that the Consortium would come after me, too, and devised the framing to protect me from its assassins? He would have known that, behind bars, I would be safe. Is that perhaps what he meant when he said he had done it for me? I must resign myself to the fact that I will never know.
The degree to which Fatimah Salawi influenced Hamid I can only guess. Love is a powerful thing. So is hate. I know that I will find it within myself to forgive him one day. I doubt the families of the Luxor victims ever will.
It is clear to me now that once the Consortium had determined to eliminate Hamid, the direction of events was set. Knowing my association with you, and our role in exposing Operation COAST, the AB and the Consortium decided, together, that it was time to get rid of us both. We are dangerous.
Last night we sat in the cockpit together. It was cold. Your put your arms around me and pointed up to a small cluster of stars. Those, you said, are the Pleiades, the daughters of Pleione, the seven sisters. At first, I saw only five stars. But then you gave me the binoculars and I realised that there were nine. You named them each. The parents, Atlas and Pleione, hand in hand, so close together that to my naked eye they had been one. And then the seven daughters: Alcyone, the brightest, Merope, Electra, and Maia, and the three smaller stars I had not seen at first: Cleano, Taygeta and Stereope, the smallest. In any monolith there are cracks – places where the light shines through.
After leaving the estuary where you had hidden Flame, we set sail for Zanzibar’s northernmost island, Pemba. We visited the daughter of the woman Manheim murdered. Zuz is living with her grandmother and great-aunt now, in this most remote place. We stayed three nights only, long enough to provision for our voyage.
Zuz’s mother must have been very beautiful. I could see from the way she looked at you, Claymore, that she is in love with you, in her own adolescent way. It made me smile to see the two of you together – you fatherly and stern, she mature beyond her years, twisting you this way and that. The two of you work on different planes, and yet there is a bond there, a deep respect. You told me about Grace and Joseph.
Flame is small but sturdy. The weather has been fine, and the winds fair. Nights, you sleep in the cockpit, allowing Eugène and me the forward berth.
The ocean is beautiful, so powerful. There is peace here in the endless blue horizons, the shifting of weather and clouds, the deep currents. We are making steady progress north along the coast. There is something deeply satisfying about watching the daily position fixes as they move across the map. Soon we will start east across the Arabian Sea, as the north-east monsoon builds. I have always wanted to see India.
As each day goes by, I can see something growing in you, my love. You are healing, physically. Your ear is fully mended, the wound in your side also. You are tanned and strong. Your hair is bleached by sun and salt. You smile at me from the cockpit, standing with the tiller under your arm. There is, for the first time since I have known you, no pain in your eyes, no deep, lurking terror. It is as if something has left you, a shadow of some kind – a dark umbra; and in its place I can see glimpses of something you may have been once, traces of a boyish innocence.
Last night, for the first time in years, we made love. Eugène was asleep in the forward cabin. Stars filled the sky to bursting. The ocean surged beneath us. The air was so pure in our lungs. I cannot describe it. I love you. And for the first time, I am sure that you love me.
And yet in my happiness, I think of all of those we have left behind – some dead, others locked in a hell of their own making, others surviving as best as they can, trying to stay sane in an insane world. You say that we have done our fighting, you and I. That it is time to live for ourselves now. Life is fleeting. I do not know how long this can continue, but right now, I do not ever want it to end.
Absolution for the Living
Clay stands, tiller in hand, and looks up into the night sky. Time spreads out before him, a universe of stars. He feels the deep vibrations of the rudder, the finer harmonics of the hull folding back the water. The boat is alive with the soft inhalations of its occupants. And all around him are the flowing currents and deep, living rhythms of the planet.
It is all there, pulsing inside him like some distant quasar – each death, every mercy. He thinks again of all those who time has eclipsed. He thinks of Grace and Joseph, now part of this same limitless ocean. Of Eben and Kingfisher and Bluey, and so many more, sacrificed for a lie. Of Vivian, whom he might have loved, in another, saner, world. He remembers Crowbar, lying in his desert grave, weapon at his breast, as the first grains of sand cover him over. And he decides that this will be the last time. He raises his voice and speaks aloud to the universe their names, each in turn, and asks them for absolution. Then he says goodbye.
He lashes the tiller amidships, loosens the jib and with Capella steady off the starboard bow, goes below. Rania is asleep in the forward berth with Eugène. In the starlight, he can just see the curve of her hip under the light blanket. He lights the alcohol stove, pumps some water into the kettle and settles it onto the gimbals.
Landfall is still seven or eight days away if the winds hold. He wonders what she will do, after they reach India. He hasn’t asked what her plans are, and she has not offered. On past evidence, he must assume that she will again disappear and leave him to navigate these meridians on his own.
He spoons instant coffee and sugar into a mug, pours in hot water, stirs it with a knife, and sits at the table. There, before him, is Rania’s diary, the one he has seen her writing in ever since they were reunited in Cairo. He sips the coffee, stares at the black leather cover, the elastic strap. Never before has he seen it anywhere except in her hands.
He contemplates it for a long time as he finishes his coffee. Then he reaches out and opens the front cover.
His own eyes look up at him from the past. He looks at the photograph a moment, and then reads:
25th October, 1997. Paris, France. 02:50 hrs
Chéri, mon amour:
My husband has disappeared. And so has my son.
Historical Note
On 17th November, 1997, at approximately 08:45, six men entered the Temple of Hatshepsut in Luxor, southern Egypt, dressed as police. They were carrying AK47 assault rifles and knives. After killing the two policemen stationed at the parking area entrance, they moved into the temple, trapping almost a hundred tourists inside. Over the next forty-five minutes, moving methodically through the columned courtyards, they killed sixty-two tourists and wounded twenty-six others. Many of the victims were shot in the legs and then dispatched later at close range. Several, mainly women, were mutilated with knives. The dead included four Japanese couples on honeymoon, almost all of a Swiss tour group, and a five-year old boy. The terrorists subsequently hijacked a bus, apparently intending to continue their rampage at the nearby Valley of the Kings. But the bus driver took them in the opposite direction. When stopped at a police roadblock, the gunmen fled into the hills, and were found later, dead, in a cave. They had committed suicide. Notes were found on the bodies claiming: ‘We shall take revenge for our brothers who have died on the gallows. The depths of the earth are better for us than the surface since we have seen our brothers squatting in their prisons, and our brothers and families tortured in their jails.’
The massacre, termed an ‘accident’ by the Egyptian government, destroyed the Egyptian tourism industry for the next two years. Egyptians were outraged. Sensing that they had badly miscalculated, organisers and supporters of Al-Gama’a al-Islamiyya quickly distanced themselves from the attack. Some claimed it was the work of the Israelis, others that it had been planned and executed by the police to justify further repression and restrictions of personal freedom.
During the 1990s and early parts of the following decade, several major scientific studies of air quality in Cairo were conducted by different organisations. They revealed the immense econo
mic and human health costs of some of the worst urban air pollution on the planet. Several of the studies pointed clearly to the severe effects on children in particular, including a significant lowering of IQ. The reports were never released to the public.
Air quality in Cairo is now much improved, thanks to a number of foreign-aid funded initiatives. When I was there in May of 2017, doing some additional research for this book and visiting old friends, you could actually see more than a couple of hundred metres. And yet, a few days later, not far from where I was travelling in the Western Desert, a busload of Coptic Christians were stopped at the side of the road by men dressed as police. They boarded the bus and opened fire, killing all aboard, including children. The Copts had been on a pilgrimage to the monastery of Saint Samuel the Confessor. Islamic State claimed responsibility.
Since the revolution of 1952, which deposed King Farouk and the monarchy, Egypt has been ruled as a dictatorship by three presidents: Gamal Abdel Nasser until his death in 1970, Anwar Sadat from 1971 until his assassination in 1981, and Hosni Mubarak until his resignation in the face of the 2011 popular revolution. All were ex-army, supported by a cadre of loyal officers and extremely wealthy businessmen. At the time of publication in 2018, the army was back in control, having ousted the only democratically elected president in Egyptian history, the Islamist, Mohamed Morsi.
After years of civil war costing over 1.5 million lives, Sudan was divided in two in 2011. The conflict continues, in part driven by the struggle to control oil revenues. At last reckoning, over a million people have been displaced from Darfur, and more than two hundred thousand are dead.
In 2017, the Lancet Commission on Pollution and Health estimated that over nine million people die prematurely every year because of air pollution, more than from war, smoking, and AIDS combined. Meanwhile, in the same year, the world’s eight richest people, all men, controlled as much wealth as the poorest thirty percent on the planet. And inequality is growing.
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