Elements of Risk: A Noah Stark Thriller

by Ridgway, Brady

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘They’re not Yugoslavs, they’re Kosovars.’

  ‘Same thing.’

  I turned the conversation back to Caprice. It turned out Piet was old school, no sex before marriage - that sort of thing. Caprice had convinced him otherwise, fucked his brains out for two weeks. He thought it was true love, married her in Venice on the way home.

  He still hadn’t worked out whether it was his bank account or the size of his dick that attracted her. Maybe she did really love him. But one man just wasn’t enough for her, never would be.

  The following day we nursed our hangovers over coffee and greasy croissants, slept some more, then headed out for the airport after lunch.

  We parked outside the company hangar and waited. Piet’s elbow brought me crashing back to consciousness. He pointed out a smudge of greasy black smoke. The culprit, our Ilyushin, had dragged it all the way from Iran while we were sleeping. The big cargo plane touched down at the beginning of the runway, thrust reversers deployed, engines spooled up, shook the air, rattled the hangars.

  There wasn’t enough room for it at the company’s hangar, so it was directed to the main cargo apron. We drove across to greet it.

  When we reached the apron the huge engines were still spooling down: screeching like banshees. I stuck my fingers in my ears and waited for the noise to stop. We were kept away from the aircraft by a gaggle of airport officials, customs officers, ramp agents, baggage handlers and other hangers-on who clutched official-looking papers and worn receipt books. They were the real reason we were kept at a distance. They were concerned that we might tell the crew that they were charlatans, confidence tricksters, vultures who made their living charging naïve crews exorbitant amounts for non-existent services.

  Piet was used to the feeding frenzy that accompanied new arrivals and stopped just outside their comfort zone. We felt no compunction to intervene, watched as the vultures squabbled over the juiciest bits until the bones were clean, gleaming white in the sun. The weakest sloped away, heads low, still hungry, scanning the sky for fresh prey. Not that I’m cynical or anything. It’s just the way Africa operates.

  The crew began securing the aircraft, putting the covers on and chocking the wheels. A small group was left standing near the door at the front. As Piet and I approached, I recognised Jahangir. He was blinking in the sunlight, still in shock after the feeding frenzy.

  He seemed alarmed at the approach of the Land Cruiser, probably expecting round number two, but broke into a relieved smile when he recognised me. It was the first time I had seen him smile. It was a chilling sight.

  We dismounted next to him. There were only four of them, I’d expected more. Two were Iranian; I forget their names, probably VEVAK, the Ayatollah’s replacement for the Shah’s SAVAK – the same secret police serving a new master. The fourth looked Indian: no doubt the Pakistani connection.

  Jahangir confirmed my suspicion. ‘This is Doctor Awan.’

  ‘Pleased to meet you.’ He looked in his fifties. He was wearing a pale blue salwar kameez, a black waistcoat and sandals. Two dark stains grew from his armpits. Thin grey-flecked hair vainly tried to cover a fleshy dome. In the middle of his face a thick black moustache sat above his plump lips like a somnolent caterpillar.

  I shook his hand. ‘You must be tired. Do you want to go straight to the mine?’

  He wobbled his head from side to side. ‘But of course we must go to the mine. Is it far?’

  ‘About half-an-hour.’

  He went to the Land Cruiser and plumped himself down in the front seat; like some eastern potentate. Jahangir clearly had no intention of doing something so menial as transferring the luggage, so it was left to the two VEVAK agents to carry the doctor’s cases to the Land Cruiser.

  He wasn’t travelling light. His baggage consisted of two huge leather suitcases embossed with his initials. There was also a large computer bag.

  The governor had greased the necessary palms, so there was no need for customs or immigration formalities. There wasn’t enough room for all of us and the luggage, so I drove the doctor and Jahangir across to the company apron while Piet waited at the Ilyushin with the two VEVAK men.

  Bad move. I was left to unload the doctor’s bags. One of the suitcases was much heavier than the other and there was the definite clink of glass as I wrestled it to the ground. I imagined that it was filled with sensitive equipment to test the yellowcake.

  I left the doctor there and went back to fetch Piet and his two new friends. They hadn’t said a word since our arrival and continued to maintain their silence. They were similarly dressed - charcoal suits, white shirts, thin ties – and both sported a bulge at the right hip.

  I drove them to the hangar and we all piled into the Antonov, secured the bags, took off for the mine. Throughout the flight Doctor Awan cast nervous glances at the heavy case. I was beginning to wonder what was in it, why he would be so nervous about scientific equipment. It was already getting dark when we began the descent to Shinkolobwe.

  The airstrip didn’t have lights. For a while it seemed as if the pilots were lost. They began to fly ever-increasing circles in the gloom. Eventually Piet went up to the front and leaned over the Captain’s shoulder. The Captain pulled his headset off one ear and I could see Piet shouting in his ear and pointing out the windscreen. The airplane lurched in the direction he had pointed. Piet returned to his seat.

  ‘Bloody Russians. I think they’ve been drinking. They didn’t have a clue where the airfield was.’

  ‘Drinking?’ I was shocked. ‘They drink and fly?’

  ‘Hell man sometimes I think that they’d be more dangerous if they didn’t drink.’ Piet put his seatbelt back on and tightened it; a little too tight I thought. I cinched mine tighter too; maybe he knew something I didn’t.

  It was completely dark by the time we touched down. When we taxied in I saw three Land Rovers in the parking area. All had their roofs and windscreens removed and one had a light machinegun mounted behind the driver. Two men wearing camouflage fatigues were in the front of each. All were armed with Russian AK47s.

  Our guests seemed impressed with the show of force. Piet and I got into the front vehicle, our guests in the second; the third with the machinegun brought up the rear carrying the baggage.

  The moon wasn’t up yet but as we passed the open cast mine where the artisan miners worked. It was deserted, a moonscape. The gate to the mine seemed unmanned, but it opened as we approached and we sped through, between the walls and into the compound.

  We went straight to a large guesthouse on the far end of the line of villas, offloaded our guests. Piet showed them to their rooms. Then Piet and I went out the back where a large boma was built around a fire pit. The fire had been lit. To one side was a long table laid out for dinner. A servant dressed in a starched white jacket fussed over the cutlery, straightening the tablecloth, lighting the candles. It was very ‘Out of Africa.’

  My stomach began to rumble at the thought of food. ‘What’s for dinner?’

  Piet looked at me, ‘Roast warthog.’

  ‘Warthog?’

  ‘Ja.’

  ‘As in pig?’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘Warthog is a type of pig.’

  ‘And…?’

  ‘These people are Muslim.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘They don’t eat pig.’

  ‘No!’ Piet looked shocked.

  ‘Yeah! If you serve them pig they’ll fucking kill you.’

  ‘So we won’t tell them it’s pig.’

  ‘You can’t do that.’

  ‘Why not?’ But he couldn’t keep up the act any longer. Tears began rolling down his cheeks. Piet slapped me on the back. ‘I had you going hey.’

  I didn’t say anything. Hook line and sinker.

  ‘You really thought I’d give them pig?’

  ‘Fuck off.’

  He walked away laughing to himself and shaking his head. I felt a right prat.

>   Chapter 46

  When Doctor Awan and his entourage emerged from the house, Piet directed everyone to their seats. There wasn’t any alcohol on the table (to avoid offending the guests). The good doctor shattered that myth by producing a bottle of Johnny Walker Blue and placing squarely in front of him. It was clear though that the bottle was in his territory; he wasn’t planning to share. He filled the tumbler in front of him, knocked half of it back before his arse had taken the shape of the seat.

  The chair at the head of the table was left open for Vladimir. Piet sat at the opposite end. Caprice was the only woman.

  Piet had placed the two VEVAK agents down at his end of the table. Caprice and Jahangir sat next to them. Doctor Awan and I ended up opposite each other, at the head of the table next to Vladimir.

  But Vladimir was late. For a few minutes we all sat there dumbly staring at each other, nobody wanting to break the ice. Piet got up and went inside. He returned carrying a small folding table. A waiter followed carrying a large silver tray laden with drinks.

  They soon laid out a creditable bar. Piet looked after Caprice and I managed to get the VEVAK agents to take a Pepsi each, poured myself a stiff Gin and Tonic, returned to the table. Doctor Awan didn’t need any help from us; the Johnny Blue was already taking strain.

  The alcohol helped loosen tongues. Caprice sensed that she was not going to get anything out of Jahangir. He was studiously avoiding looking at her while surreptitiously glancing in her direction now and then with a look that conveyed disgust, morbid fascination and lust all at the same time.

  She put a hand on Doctor Awan’s arm and asked, ‘Doctor, what made you come to this horrible place?’ She dragged out the word ‘horrible’ as only Italians can, injecting it with putrescence.

  We all looked at her, then to the Doctor.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Is a terrible place, somewhere to come only if you have to. It is full of Malaria and disease.’ The reference was for Piet, not Doctor Awan. While she was talking, Caprice was casting sideways glances at Piet, trying to see his reaction. ‘Why did you not just send him?’ she tossed her head in Jahangir’s direction. ‘You are an educated man, there is no need for you to come here.’

  Jahangir caught the educated reference; he didn’t like it. She got her reaction from Piet; he frowned at her.

  Doctor Awan took a gulp from his glass. When he answered her, his eyes had a new lustre. ‘No, but you do not understand. This is a most important place for me.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Do you not know that it was here that the uranium was mined for the Manhattan Project?’

  ‘Uranium? For New York?’

  ‘No, not Manhattan Island, the Manhattan Project.’ He turned his chair towards her, enthusing. We all listened.

  ‘You know the American atom bombs in the Second World War? The ones dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘The development of those bombs was called The Manhattan Project, it was a code name, to keep it secret.’

  ‘Sì.’

  ‘It is a very fascinating story.’ He placed one pudgy hand on Caprice’s arm, securing her attention. ‘The mine here opened more than a hundred years ago, digging for copper and cobalt, long before uranium was found. A Belgian mining engineer Edward Sengierarrived in 1903 to work forUnion Minière du Haut Katanga.’ He mauled the French badly, pronouncing it Union Minny-ear. His plump hand gripped Caprice’s arm. She was clearly uncomfortable, squirming in her seat; but there was something in the Doctor’s eyes that stopped her pulling away. They glittered like the eyes of someone not far from the edge of sanity.

  We had all stopped drinking, talking, were all listening: rapt.

  Doctor Awan didn’t notice that he was the centre of attention; Caprice was the centre of his and that was all that mattered to him. ‘The uranium was discovered here in 1915 and six years later they were able to extract it. Of course at that time they did not have any idea of how powerful it was.

  ‘Until the 1930s uranium was used for colouring glass and also for medical purposes. They also took radium from it and used that for medical purposes too.’

  He dragged his eyes away from Caprice and looked pointedly at me. ‘Do you know that at one time radium was the most expensive substance in the world? It cost in today’s money ten million dollars per gram.’ He paused for effect. ‘And you thought that osmium was expensive.’

  I didn’t flinch, but I was surprised that he knew who I was, that I was the one who sold him the osmium.

  He turned back to Caprice. ‘In the thirties some scientists became aware of other potential for uranium; that it can break apart to lighter elements, something Frisch called fission. Very quickly scientists began to work out that uranium could be used to make a bomb, but they didn’t know how to do it yet.

  ‘Then just before the second war, Einstein wrote a letter to Roosevelt to warn him of the bomb.’ He must have sensed our incredulity because he stopped and looked at each of our sceptical faces in turn.

  He wobbled his head delightedly, ‘I see you do not believe me. But it is true!

  ‘The Americans then asked the Belgians to send the uranium from Shinkolobwe to them. And this what I am going to tell you it true also, but you will not believe me. The engineer Sengier was a very clever man because he had foreseen that the Americans might want his uranium and had sent it there already. There was more than a tonne in storage on Staten Island. The Americans gave him a medal.’ He clapped his hands together delightedly and Caprice immediately withdrew hers under the table.

  ‘Why Shinkolobwe?’ I asked. ‘Couldn’t they have got the uranium elsewhere?’

  ‘Of course. But nowhere else in the world is the concentration as high as it is here.’

  I shifted uncomfortably at the thought of all that radiation under my seat.

  Doctor Awan turned back to Caprice, reached for her arm again, but it was gone.

  ‘So you see my dear why this place is so important for me, why I had to come here. It is part of history.’

  Caprice nodded politely, but she didn’t understand at all. It was clear that she thought he was barmy.

  I understood though. I understood very well. I suddenly knew what it was all about, why the CIA had chosen Shinkolobwe, how they knew that he would go there. Doctor Awan was a nuclear tourist! His interest in nuclear weapons had gone beyond developing them and selling them; it had become his passion: his obsession. I’d bet that among the stamps in his passport would be one or more trip to Japan, among his credit card statements bills from hotels in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He would have also travelled to Bikini and Enewetak Atolls in the Pacific where the Americans did their testing.

  The CIA had probably followed this ghoulish nuclear fetish and known that he could not possibly turn up the opportunity to visit Shinkolobwe: the holy of holies to a man like him.

  That meant that they probably had a carefully planned operation underway to snatch him before he left the Congo. But how would they do that? Snatching from the compound would be difficult with Piet’s army protecting the place. That only left the airport at Lubumbashi; but that was guarded too and they could hardly storm into the country’s second largest airport with guns blazing.

  Vladimir arrived and took his place at the head of the table. As soon as he sat down the waiters brought the food. It was Lebanese, my favourite. I filled my plate with falafels, pickles and a few generous dollops of hummus, mutabal and tabbouleh. For a while only the sound of chewing competed with the chirping of crickets from the surrounding trees. I noticed that Caprice was looking at Jahangir strangely and wondered what was on her mind. I didn’t have to wait long to find out.

  Jahangir was reaching for some salad when he let out a shriek, jumped back from the table, hands protecting his groin. Heads jerked up from their meals, stared at him. He just glared at Caprice, sat down again, crossed is legs. She shrugged and continued eating as if nothing had happened.

/>   Piet looked at her suspiciously. I couldn’t believe that she had done that in front of Piet. She really was out of control. When everyone had finished eating, they all drifted off to bed. Caprice waited until the end and when she saw that Piet and I were staying she kissed him on the cheek and flounced off leaving Piet and I alone in the boma.

  ‘Where did you get the food?’ I asked.

  ‘Lubumbashi. I had no idea what Iranians eat, so I figured as long as it was Muslim food it would be okay.’

  ‘Good thinking. There many Lebanese in town?’

  ‘Plenty. They own all the supermarkets and a lot of the restaurants. This stuff comes from a restaurant on the airport road: Katanga Fried Chicken.’

  ‘KFC. You’re joking.’

  ‘No. It’s true; I swear.’

  I shook my head. ‘I’m knackered. I’m off to bed.’

  ‘Ja, me too.’

  We walked together back to the house. All the houses were in darkness. We were the last ones awake. Caprice hadn’t left a light on for us again. I said good night to Piet and then felt my way down the corridor to my room.

  I was about to fall asleep when I heard the unmistakeable thump of a mortar leaving its tube.

  Chapter 47

  To a civilian, any loud bang sounds like a gunshot; most people who have not served in the army can’t tell the difference between a firecracker and a .44 magnum. But to a soldier, every gun has a signature song - from the clatter of an AK47 to the reverberating boom of a heavy machine gun. And there’s nothing in the world that sounds quite like a mortar leaving its tube: there are always consequences.

  I rolled from the bed onto the floor. The sound came from quite far away, so I didn’t know if it was outgoing or incoming. Before I hit the floor there were two more thumps: two more rounds leaving their tubes.

  It seems like forever, waiting for incoming rounds, wondering if they are going to land right on top of you.

  There was a pop, a hiss; flickering white light shone through the curtains and on to the opposite wall. Illumination rounds; they were outgoing (only defenders fire illumination rounds). I leapt to my feet, pulled on a pair of shorts, my boots, grabbed the Browning and went through to the lounge to find Piet.