by Martha Carr
Eventually, the boy had gone and signed himself up as a freshman at one of the elite feeder schools for Management without telling anyone. “I can make a difference,” he said to his astounded parents when he showed them his acceptance letter.
It had worked out even better than the Circle had hoped.
He had heard rumors about the rogue Management cell and when he saw the chance, did them a favor.
Charlie was one of the first Management team members to get to Monumental Church and the wounded Clemente. He made sure Father Michael was still alive before carrying Clemente outside and to safety, avoiding capture by Management who wanted answers. Now, Charlie Foyle travelled with George Clemente, eventually ending up in Angola in a darkened warehouse.
He reported back to the highest cell in the Circle whenever possible, which was rare, and his real purpose was only known to a handful of people.
Foyle’s last report was that Clemente was gathering what was left of his soldiers after their losses in the shadowy civil war on American soil. He had come to Angola to work through some business deals and cement the financial standing of the rogue cell before coming back to the States for a bigger project. Foyle never gave any details about the new plans.
“I’m at work on a side project,” said George, turning to go. “Look through what I’ve left you. Tell Mr. Bowers he has the wrong man. The right man, Bach, has a six month head start planning his next move to save his ass. He has to know that someday you would figure that out, despite your lackluster talents. When cornered Richard Bach has proven to be rather resilient.”
“This isn’t going to end well for you Clemente,” shouted Helmut as George made his way across the rubble and trash that littered the warehouse floor and out into the light.
Clemente stopped at the door and turned back to point the gun in Helmut’s direction. “The next time I will not be in such a hurry and I won’t need a messenger boy. Be lucky you had some usefulness for someone this time,” said George Clemente as he slipped out of the metal door, letting it shut with a loud bang.
Helmut pushed himself off from the wall and tried to walk as quickly as he could around the piles, to the door.
There wasn’t much time if he was going to have any chance of picking back up on the trail. Even seconds could mean that all of his efforts over the last six months would add up to a waste of time.
He wanted to see George Clemente dead for the death of Maureen Bowers and even more to try and end the chance of another civil war started by Clemente. Helmut worried that Clemente’s new plans were a rehash of last year’s bloody conflicts.
Helmut dragged himself over to the door as quickly as he could, just in time to see the dark blue Mercedes pull away from the curb. Charlie was at the passenger side and turned for a moment to look at Helmut before giving him the finger. Helmut smiled and let himself slide down to the sidewalk. It was the sign that everything was going as planned.
He looked down the street and realized his driver was nowhere to be found. “Classy move, Clemente,” he muttered. He pulled out the torn bills from his pocket and let them flutter in the hot breeze.
Helmut started the walk back to the Epic Sana Hotel to deliver Clemente’s message. He grasped the envelope tightly under his arm, leaving a wet stain, and kept his head down, trying to make himself appear even larger than his muscular frame.
It was unusual to see Westerners strolling along the sidewalks at any time of day. They were likely to get mugged at every street corner and usually only travelled with a driver who let them out feet from the next doorway.
Several times he ducked into one of the newer high rises under construction waiting for a small group of men to walk by and lose interest in him. The last time he ducked into a steel frame barely started with towering cranes noisily lifting girders onto the top floor. A short stocky man in a hardhat that read ‘foreman’ took a look at Helmut and came strolling over.
“What are you doing out on your own?” he asked in what Helmut recognized as a South African accent. “Looks like a few of those guys have already caught up with you,” he said eyeing the blood that was now drying in Helmut’s hair.
“Lost my driver,” said Helmut, reaching up to feel the growing lump on the back of his head.
“German, I take it? You here for the oil or the construction? Never mind, let’s not exchange names. This place is tricky enough. I’d prefer not to know details of whatever this is, just in case someone ever comes asking. I don’t need to feel responsible for you.”
Helmut grimaced and turned to go, taking a look down the street to see if there was anyone waiting for him.
“Hang on, hang on. Sending you back out there alone would be like watching someone walk to their death. Where are you headed? I’ll lend you my driver. I don’t suppose they left you with any money?”
Helmut shrugged his shoulders and said, “Thank you, much appreciated.”
“Think nothing of it. Hoji! Hoji, take this man to wherever he needs to go. Come straight back here. Here, take this as your tip. You won’t be getting anything out of him today,” he said, pointing at Helmut. “Go on, get back to your hotel and take it all in as a lesson learned where you got to stumble away.”
“Again, thank you,” said Helmut. “A lesson learned,” he said, nodding. He waited for the car to pull around before moving out from the shelter of the building and quickly slid into the backseat of the Mercedes.
“Epic Sana, Hoji,” he said, and leaned back against the leather seat. He finally let himself relax and realized how close he had come to dying. “I’m getting a little too careless,” he muttered.
“What?” asked Hoji, turning his head to see over the back seat. “You don’t look that good, you know. It’s not smart for tourists to take a stroll through Luanda. You just rest back there. We may be a while.”
“Thanks for the tip,” said Helmut, looking out the window at the stalled traffic. That was typical of traffic in Luanda at any time of the day. There were very few stoplights and almost no markings on the road. Traffic changed direction when someone got enough nerve to push out into the middle, daring oncoming traffic to hit them.
Only the roads that ran along the newer construction were wide enough for several lanes and long lines of buses and cars were always in motion, driving around the older colonial concrete circles randomly erected in the center of some of the roads.
“Sorry it’s taking so long. Traffic is a little slow,” said Hoji, through a forced smile.
“Not a problem,” said Helmut, feeling a mixture of gratitude and regret.
Helmut tried not to think about what business George Clemente had in Luanda that was so important he needed to get rid of Fred Bowers and he let Helmut live. A shudder went through him as he realized what it might be and that it was urgent he get back to Richmond.
Chapter 3
Fred Bowers tapped impatiently on the top of the table, checking his watch again. Helmut Khroll was well over an hour late for their meeting. It wasn’t like him.
Helmut was right, thought Fred. George Clemente wasn’t the boogie man. “Just one clever bastard,” he muttered, peeling back the edge of the Cuca label on the warm, overpriced imported Cuban beer. He leaned forward, trying to catch the eye of the waiter.
“Sim?” asked the waiter.
“Outra cerveja,” said Fred, tapping the bottle. “Another.” His Portuguese wasn’t much better than when he first got to Luanda, the largest city in Angola on the western coast of Africa, but it was enough to help him move along the streets. Besides, he spent most of his time following up on the rumors and left a lot of the local conversations to Helmut.
Stories of where George Clemente was last seen were becoming a booming business for a select few on the streets of the Angolan capital. The last sighting cost him a thousand kwanza, only ten American dollars and led him down Rua da Masseo right in front of the shiny new twenty-story Epic Sana Hotel that towered over the nearby buildings sprouting up next to it.
Luanda had become an odd mixture of older colonial-era houses with wide verandas, small shacks brightly painted in pastel colors and ever-expanding tall buildings that were going up as fast as they could be erected.
Foreigners wanted nothing to do with the old homes and even less with the shanty towns. Their companies, mostly oil companies, were willing to pay almost four thousand a month, a year’s salary for a local Luandan, to put up their employees in a safe place that looked more like something back home. Demand for these buildings far outweighed supply.
A local taxi driver who was a self-professed guide to all the biggest ex-pats that came to Luanda swore he had seen the man in the picture. Had even given him a ride to the Terrakota restaurant that sat at its base. The hotel served as a starting off place for all of the Westerners who needed to find their bearings quickly if they wanted to last.
Luanda had once been considered a resort town for some but that was somewhere back in the 1970’s just as the Portuguese were finally giving over control. The large power structure known simply as Management, if they were known at all, quickly saw an opportunity and instead fermented a revolt vying to place their own puppet in power.
Management had misread the situation and things quickly got out of control. A long civil war that easily caught fire again and again took hold instead. There was too much gold and oil in Angola to easily control the populace.
Management was content to sit on the sidelines, no matter how long it took, carefully watching who was gaining power, funding both sides, when necessary, till everyone was exhausted.
Thirty years later the shooting finally stopped but not before most of the buildings were either destroyed or heavily pockmarked with bullet holes from reworked Russian AK-47’s shipped through Cuba along with reworked steel Chevys that plowed through streets with the swaying blue and white minibuses that passed for public transportation.
Management used the combination of a desire for a better life without the awareness of the pitfalls to their own advantage, promising more opportunity for more people without having to include some kind of detailed plan.
A short drive through the middle of town proved it was all still just a tempting idea that had yet to be realized.
Fred paid his bill and took the elevator to the top floor to get a better view of the streets below. He needed to get away from the endless loop of overworked Christmas carols that was playing in the restaurant and throughout the lobby.
Just as the elevator doors opened on the twentieth floor there was a loud ‘brzzzzt’, followed by a short crackle as the building went dark. Fred let out a sigh and held out his phone, using it as a flashlight, as he made his way to the stairs that led to the roof.
Blackouts were commonplace in Angola, if only a little less in Luanda and could last for hours. The only thing less reliable was the drinking water even though Angola had more rainfall than any other African nation. Broken pipes and plumbing that went nowhere or was shoddy to begin with added to the problem.
Fortunately the hotel had expensive bottled water and its own generator to fill the gaps and Fred knew the electricity would come back on within minutes.
It happened at least a few times a week since he’d been there, particularly in November during the rainy season when the downpours flooded the streets, leaving pools of mud everywhere, and bringing down fragile electrical lines.
Fred cracked open the door and felt the wave of humidity wash over him, instantly giving a sheen to his face. He was tired of being in this country and for a moment he was wondering if it was time to stop.
It was midday and all of the other guests were at work somewhere except for a small cluster of women who looked like expensive girlfriends of high-end Western executives. The women stayed within the walls of the hotel that had become their luxury prison eating twenty-five dollar cheeseburgers.
They were talking excitedly about their shopping excursion to the Belas Shopping Mall, the only shopping mall in town, which was guarded at every doorway by men with the familiar AK-47s. Locals were encouraged not to enter. One of the women held up a rayon dress in a bright yellow that could be found at any Walmart back in the States. The others oohed appreciatively.
They’ve been here too long, thought Fred.
“Power’s out again,” said a woman, coming through the door, yelling to the others. “Had to walk up the stairs,” she said frowning.
“Come sit by me,” said the woman who still held the dress in her lap. Her prize from the excursion. The woman smiled and swished by Fred, giving him a long look and a smile as she passed by him.
The women quickly huddled closer together and started talking loudly about the power outage when they were shopping that had kept them trapped inside until one of them could get a receipt for the few groceries she had bought at the ShopRite that was connected to the mall.
No one was allowed to carry anything out without a printed receipt and she was unwilling to abandon the expensive fresh fruit that she had already paid for just before the electricity went out. They had to wait for the lights to come back on so she could get a receipt. The women were taking turns rolling their eyes at her. Frugality as kept women wasn’t necessary they seemed to be saying.
Fred watched the entire drama unfold, bored and frustrated with the lack of news about George Clemente.
“I told the manager downstairs,” said the newcomer, just as the door opened again and the manager appeared carrying a tray of cold Cokes, which at $25 a bottle was a grand gesture on his part. Happiness tended to trickle down, just like misery, and the manager knew he needed to keep the executives happy, which meant keeping the women from complaining, or whining about going home.
Fred pulled up a chair near one of the two misters that provided some relief from the constant heavy, wet air, turning it away from the group of women. The other was perched in front of them as well. One of them turned and sneered at him but Fred ignored her, checking his phone to see if Helmut had called. He knew better than to call in case he was in the middle of something. Helmut would call when he could and if he couldn’t there was no point anyway.
Still it worried him. He moved his chair closer to the edge so he could see down on the street and watched the long train of cars and minibuses with belongings and furniture strapped to the top.
“What is that about?” asked one of the women, who had come to stand next to him. The rest turned and looked at Fred, waiting for an answer as if he was a natural resource of local lore, but he went on ignoring all of them and kept watching the street. The woman eventually gave up and went back to sit down, her friends giggling and whispering.
Fred knew what was happening twenty floors below but he wanted to discourage any conversation.
Residents of one of the slums were being relocated further inland from the mussolus, the shanties that sat on a spit of land south of Luanda in the Belas province, created out of the sediment from the Cuanza River. No one had cared about the rocky land until there was an overflow of rich foreigners without enough places to call a temporary home.
“You look cozy,” said Helmut loudly, letting the door to the roof bang against the wall. The women turned to look as a group and gasped at the sight of the battered and bloody journalist. One of them scooted their plastic chair a few inches further away even though Helmut was ignoring them.
“Thank you,” said Fred, watching the women turn away from him.
Helmut looked behind and smiled, as he pulled up a lounge chair next to Fred and lay down, letting out an ‘oof’ as he let his body finally relax.
“So, things didn’t go as you planned? Where have you been?” asked Fred. “Father Michael has been in touch,” said Helmut. “He wants to talk to you.”
“Father Michael can wait. He wants to tell me that we both should come home. He won’t say it to you because he knows you’ll hang up on him.”
Fred turned away and started watching the traffic below again.
“Listen, Fred, I saw George Clem
ente. Unfortunately, he saw me first,” said Helmut squeezing his eyes shut against the bright morning sun. He had lost his sunglasses in the scuffle and wasn’t up for a shopping trip to the fortified mall just yet. He felt himself start to fall asleep.
Fred turned around and shook the lounge chair. “Sit up, what the hell are you doing?” he said, sounding a note of impatience and anger. “We’ve been rotting in this city for six months and you stroll in here with the first real news.”
Helmut groaned and rolled on to his side, pushing off with one arm till he was sitting up. “Did you hear the part where I said he saw me first??
“You must have taken away some skin or you’d be dead,” said Fred.
“Not really. I’m his temporary messenger,” grimaced Helmut. “He wanted me to tell you he didn’t order the operation that killed your wife.” Helmut said the last part quietly, trying not to set Fred off into one of his dark moods. He never said Maureen’s name out loud if he could help it.
“That’s bullshit.” Fred spat out the words, startling the women again and they mumbled something about the hot sun and got up to leave. Helmut saluted as they went by, wincing as his shirt stuck for a moment to the dried blood on his back before pulling away in a yank.
“You have to wonder about those women. They’ve been here almost as long as we have and their only reason is some hustling sugar daddy who’s gone most of the day. Do you think they realize they have a limited shelf life?” asked Helmut. He glanced at Fred’s reddened face. “We’re never going to be real chums, are we?” he asked, feeling tired.
“Was that all he said?” asked Fred, taking in deep breaths and willing himself to calm down.
“You’re very good at this whole operative thing. Eyes on the prize, George Clemente’s scalp. Okay, okay, no, it was not all he said. He gave me a name. He said it was Richard Bach who made that call. Hang on, hang on,” said Helmut, grabbing onto Fred’s arm before he could get away.
