by Julian Beale
‘It’s this. I reckon you’re gonna stir up a helluva hornet’s nest. Within a day or so, you’ll have them table thumpin’ in the capitals of Europe, there’ll be preening and posin’ in Washington and Downing Street. Outrage on all sides and you know why? Because the big hitters don’t like to feel themselves outsmarted and they sure as hell will be feeling surprised. That means there’s the danger of one or more of them saying “hold on now. Nobody told us about this. What the hell’s going on?. We’ve gotta do something.” And that would be real dangerous, David. It could start bringing you guys all the attention that you really do not want.’
David sat straighter in his chair. ‘I’m with you King. So what do we do?’
‘Distraction’ was the immediate answer, ‘Distraction and diversion. If anyone starts to get pushy with us, we need to have a counter punch ready which can at least buy us time ‘cos that’s what we’ll need most. Leave it to me and I’ll be ready if and when we need it.’
They were interrupted by Pente looking for some time with David, who moved on feeling contented by his conversation with King.
They were all back in the dining room now, but still in small groups or two together as animated discussion continued. After a while, David invited them to sit down again, saying that he had one further matter to present to them before bringing their session to a close.
‘It’s been a long day already,’ he said, ‘and I expect a part of you is asking questions. Why do this? Why try against all the odds and strive for the unthinkable? Why take such risks? My answer? Because there’s the need, there’s a clear purpose and because I’ve been given the opportunity to try. And that’s what I’m going to do.’
He didn’t wait for reaction. He built on his moment by rising to walk around the table, placing before each of his companions a leather bound folder. He returned to the end of the table and remained standing as he spoke to them.
‘You will find here a résumé of the plan and facts we have considered. It concludes with our destination and the date of our arrival. On the first day of the new century, we will found here a new country which we will call Millennium and over its capital, Century City, we will raise the flag of a new nation in Africa.’
He did not need to issue a further invitation. They turned their pages to find the maps, the photographs and the depiction of a flag, a solid square of that azure blue, the cloudless sky of Africa and upon it, the thin outline of a rising crescent moon.
JOSH TROLLOPE — February 1999
On a cold afternoon, Josh took the train from London and in due course came home to his terrace house in Marlborough. He let himself into the loneliness, missing Moira as keenly as ever although it was nearly five years since the pneumonia had taken her. He made himself get on with it, to unpack his small case and make a cup of tea as he thought over the events of the last few days. He had enjoyed himself: the sense of involvement and of making contribution. The renewal of an old friendship.
It had started with a phone call from Rory, his son of whom he saw little these days. Not that Josh was complaining. Rory was now thirty-four, long grown and gone, but evidently fulfilled in his job with Bastion in the Far East. The quality of contact between father and son was good and better two days later when Rory flew in with his boss, a Mr Carradine who seemed to have the right cut about him to be the officer commanding. He had done most of the talking. They were planning a mercenary operation in Africa and needed to find a discreet advance party. Rory was pretty sure his Dad could help. Josh listened, liked the approach, made his contact and packed his small case. Then the three of them took a direct flight from London Gatwick to Lagos, Nigeria.
They arrived on a Friday evening, and joined the back of a long queue for immigration and customs, but it was at least a better ordered process now as a garrulous fellow traveller told them. He had been visiting Nigeria since the early oil boom years and entertained them with stories of getting through Murtala Mohammed Airport and on up north to Ibadan. Finally, they emerged from the airport building to find a cab and a slow drive to their hotel.
The traffic was no less intense the following morning as they were driven to Victoria Island. It took a further forty-five minutes before they found their destination and stood in the humid heat of midday as Carradine paid off their cab. Old Josh sniffed the air, the scent of Africa redolent with his memories of long gone days. They were in a cul-de-sac: at its end stood high steel gates, topped by rolls of razor wire. To the right of the gates was a substantial house on three floors, the windows and door on the ground floor shuttered, grilled and barred. They walked up to the gates. A personal entrance was set into one side. It bore no sign and there was neither handle nor bell in sight.
Rory gave the door a shove. It hardly moved, but they could hear it rattle against the locks which held it solid from the inside. Fergus glanced up and pointed out a CCTV camera mounted high on the corner of the house which would have seen them walk down the street. Rory turned to see an impressive figure. The black man approaching them was a colossus. Two metres in height and wide to match, he was moving with a sinuous motion which said he would also be quick on his feet, despite the huge boots. He had a baseball cap on the great head and Ray Ban glasses hid his eyes. He walked up and stood towering over them.
Josh Trollope took over. ‘You must be Jonah,’ he said, sticking out his right hand.
The black man didn’t utter, but he shuffled one vast boot in front of the other and then they could all hear the pedestrian door in the gate behind them being unlocked. Through it stepped another black figure, trim and muscled, well dressed in collar and tie, neither hat nor glasses, a close crop of grey hair, mature, experienced, confident. He stepped up to Josh.
‘Trollope,’ he said, ‘of Grenadier Guards.’
‘Patrick Nugumu. Maiduguri Frontier Force.’
Josh spoke the words as he held out his hand, but Patrick brushed it aside and swept the Englishman into a great hug of greeting. It was many years since they had first met in the bush, when Josh had rescued Patrick from certain death. Rory and Fergus looked on in contentment, while Jonah continued with an impassive stare from his great height. They stayed in the compound on Victoria Island for three days. There was history to cover and plans to lay. Patrick insisted on moving his visitors from their hotel onto the top floor of his house. He lived with his family on the second and the ground level was devoted to his business.
Patrick Nugumu had been living here for fifteen years, and a further twelve before then at a variety of addresses in greater Lagos, since he had struggled into the city two years after the Biafra War. He had tried a number of jobs before putting his military training to best use by joining the army of private security guards which sprang up during the boom years of the seventies and eighties. Even after that frenzy had subsided and the focus had switched to the new federal capital of Abuja, there was good business for Sentinel Security which Patrick had founded and built up on his own. Along the way, he had married his Delphine, an illegal immigrant from Cameroun, and she had borne him three sons in quick succession. Then there was Jonah. Delphine had found him abandoned on a rubbish tip and they had given him a second shot at life. He was still only nineteen and had never stopped growing since they had taken him in. He was a gentle giant until roused in defence of his family and their home. He was also mute, having never spoken a word in his life.
Following their brief action together in Gabon, Josh and Patrick had clung to a spasmodic contact for eighteen months, but neither was a man of letters and then the civil war had put Patrick completely out of contact. It was not until after Josh was widowed that loneliness drove him to discover the possibilities of the computer age. He traced Patrick through his old regimental association and they started to communicate again.
That renewed contact led to the recruitment of Patrick and Sons to the team of Zero. Fergus found Patrick quick, intuitive and professional. He was over ten years younger than Josh and he relished the challenge of Zer
o.
‘Delphine and I both have been refugees of a sort all our lives, Suh,’ he remarked to Carradine, refusing to address him by any other name or title, ‘we both like the notion of a new start. My boys feel the same, but there’s big Jonah too and he won’t leave my side. ‘
‘That’s good,’ Fergus smiled at him, ‘and from our side there will be Rory and two more. Plus someone who’s got pretty special skills,’ he said with a wink to Rory and his father.
‘OK,’ Patrick beamed back at him, ‘and do I get let in on this secret and what the guy does?’
Fergus was gathering papers together as he replied.
‘Actually Patrick, it’s not a guy but a girl. Her name is Verity Blades and she’s the best explosives ‘man’ I’ve ever found. She’s a Kiwi and I first met her when I was serving in Timor. She and Rory will travel in together as a couple, which makes for good disguise.’
Plus, hopefully, it makes for a future thought Josh to himself, as Rory had spoken much about this girl on the plane out from London.
They finished their planning. It was arranged that Rory and team would fly into Target as eco-tourists, arriving in the first week of December. Patrick and family would close the Sentinel business at the end of August and travel in by road, taking time to establish some safe houses in the capital. Patrick had a final question for Josh.
‘Will you be coming in with the ships?’
‘No, I won’t. I’m too old, Patrick. I’ll be more hindrance than help, but I’ll be down a bit later when the dust has settled.’
The two old comrades gazed into each other’s eyes, each knowing there was no more to be said.
THIERRY CESTAC — July 1999
Ginger McCabe was found dead in the first week of the month. His body was discovered in a corner end seat of a carriage on the Circle line of the London underground. It was early morning before peak hour when a fellow traveller thought that something about him looked wrong and pulled the emergency handle. There was a short report in the Evening Standard which said that the transport police were trying to establish where and when he had joined the train but made plain that this was a murder enquiry. A long, thin knife was still embedded in his chest and the blood loss had spoiled Ginger’s favourite waistcoat.
The Mansion House PR Agency picked up the news item and passed it to human resources who informed Felix Maas. Felix was startled and distressed: he had liked Ginger and admired his ability. He had lived a rackety sort of life, but would never have hurt a fly and didn’t deserve to go out this way. Perhaps it had been yet another love affair, this one gone badly wrong. Before dismissing the sad news from his hectic work schedule, Felix rang his boss. David was more brusque: these things do happen, plus it was now months since McCabe had left their employ and there had been no adverse comments from Bastion on his subsequent activities. They were now inside their final six months before Zero. They were flat out with no time for distractions and the subject was closed: but only for a few days.
It was mid-morning on a Wednesday when Felix took the call on his personal land line, a number available to only a very few. The voice and name were unknown to him, but he was chilled by a reference code which was quoted with familiarity. The code identified a summary file in one of his Zero Programs. Absolutely no one on the planet should have access to this information, but the voice spelt it out with perfect accuracy. It did not wait for a reaction which Felix would have been unable to articulate. The voice said that it required a meeting in The Mansion House that Saturday morning at 11 am precisely when terms would be laid down. Attempts at counter action between then and now would result in exposure of Plan Zero to the world media. ‘Click’ as the line was cut.
Felix felt he had been hit by a bus. He drank half a pint of black coffee laced with whisky and smoked two cigarettes as he clung to his discipline and wrote a note of all he had heard. Then he took the staircase three at a time to barge into David Heaven’s office. David listened as he made his own scribble. He made Felix go over it all again. He kept calm as his innards churned over. He focussed his concentration. The threat was for a purpose. Someone out there wanted something in exchange for silence: a bargain, therefore, a trade, a bribe. Well OK, he could handle that. Not for nothing had he been dealing in Africa for thirty years. But how had it come to this?
David and Felix looked at each other and said simultaneously ‘Ginger McCabe.’
Felix went on to say, ‘It must have been Ginger. I should’ve worried more when I first suspected him. He’s the only one I know who would have half the ability to crack my systems. And that was when he was working here. But the stuff I was hearing back is recent: it’s current. It includes work from only last month. Which means that Ginger was hacking into me for all that time since he dumped us: right up to his’...
‘Death.’ David finished it as he thought furiously. The somebody somewhere had sent their message with murder, which could only mean that Ginger had become expendable. They already knew the lot: no need for further spying. They knew the plan, the destination, the timing. They had killed the messenger to make a chilling point and for all his knowledge of dark deeds in Africa in the past, David realised that he was now out of his depth.
‘Felix,’ he said with all the confidence he could muster, ‘this is tragic, serious and dangerous. We need help and I know where to start. What you’ve got to do is to get back to work. That’s tough but necessary. There’s so much still to do and I’m not having us thrown off course now. I’ll handle it urgently and I’ll keep you posted, but you have to keep it quiet and leave it to me. Be here on Saturday in case I need you. Agreed?’
‘Yes David. OK.’ Felix looked relieved, as David expected, although the fear was still naked in his eyes. David sympathised. As Felix made for the door, he stopped him.
‘The voice, Felix, you say you were speaking English but what about the accent? Foreign? European? What?’
Felix shook his head. ‘No. The language was fluent but the guy was French, from down south somewhere I’d guess, and he seemed to have a slight lisp. Oh, and one other thing. He sounded, well an older man than you would expect.’
‘And you’re sure about the name?’
‘Certain. But it means nothing to me.’
‘Nor to me,’ said David. Felix went out and David sat and thought and shivered before he reached for the telephone. He had no trouble in getting to Connie Aveling.
The two men exchanged a formal greeting and David laid out the reason for his call: the death of McCabe, the contact with Felix from out of the blue, the menacing demand to meet on Saturday. The voice of an older man, Felix had said, and definitely French in origin. David had never heard of him, but he gave his name — a Mr Thierry Cestac.
At his desk in Bastion HQ, Conrad was transfixed. He was also speechless and it took several bellows down the line from David before he became capable of reply.
‘I heard you, David, but there was some break in the line. Sorry.’
There was a pause while Connie tried to pull himself further together and then he went on,
‘I’ll go over all our reports on McCabe, see what else I can piece together. I’ll call back if I find anything. But also, David, I think I’ll come up to the meeting with this man. I may be needed.’
He rang off abruptly, leaving David staring at his dead phone and thinking that this bad day was getting worse. Connie had sounded to be in another universe, distracted, uninterested: but at least he would be here with us. It was good that he was so busy. He just had to get his head down and get on with it, ignoring for the moment all the horrors which might lie just around the corner. Saturday would come soon enough.
This was exactly the expression used by Conrad in a conversation with himself as he stayed barricaded in his office, the telephone barred, meetings cancelled, visits and visitors postponed. The overarching problem for him, which he had been wrestling to contain for a couple of years at least, was that he was sick and he couldn’t find the cure. Sic
kness, for him, was something which you sorted with a course of pills or maybe an operation. It was all to do with a physical problem. Infirmity of mind or spirit, especially if brought on by that dreadful word ‘stress’, was not a condition to be recognised by an Aveling. Stress was for wimps. Pressure was something to be endured.
Connie told himself that he was winning, but he had to acknowledge that he was still suffering from sudden rage and torment, mood swings, forgetfulness and the inclination to be morose and grumpy. All this spelt worry which ate into the reserves of his energy and now he had to find enough of that to meet the challenge of this crisis. Could he do so? Admit it, he had been duplicitous. He had accepted The Mansion House contract to watch over McCabe, and then done absolutely nothing about it. He had allowed Bastion to be paid at full rates for a job which he, personally, had then ignored. Yes, he had been much wounded by David Heaven’s actions but he should not have been playing personal pique against commercial standards. But that’s done now. Whatever he might discover over the next couple of days, it won’t bring back the brilliant geek with the easy morals and it won’t undo the damage done.
Which is what? It seems pretty clear. McCabe was induced to access and keep passing the total secrets of David’s despicable Plan Zero. And the person to whom he has been giving this information is called Thierry Cestac. A Frenchman, sounding mature and with a slight lisp. Could this be the same man who had abducted Alexa in 1970? The year when he had flown out to his posting in Singapore?
Yes, Connie told himself, it’s a huge coincidence, but it’s just possible. Thirty years on and he might be about to meet the man who caused him to commit two acts of murder at Bahrain Airport: the Russian woman and the big Arab. Conrad spread his arms on his desk and clenched his fists as details of memory flashed before him. He saw again that sly little bastard Riaz, he visualised Alexa, standing her on the dead bodies to push her over the cubicles, sitting in his aircraft seat and willing Peter Bushell to get them into the air. And it made sense that ‘Cestac’ meant nothing to David Heaven. He knew about the abduction but had never heard the name, while Cestac himself would have neither known nor cared about the final outcome. Whatever, it would become clear on Saturday which gave him two full days to do some overdue research.
