Nick and I had spoken on the phone, though, just before he’d headed to the front-line area of Kolahun that Jackity had denied to Robert and Jonathan three weeks before.
‘Good luck, mate. Really, be careful. I won’t be there to look after you this time,’ I told him, ‘and it’s a long way to come and rescue you.’
I didn’t know if I could have gone back myself, so soon. His determination – or perhaps desperation – was impressive.
‘Ja, well, I must try and behave myself. If I don’t see you before, we’ll have a big braai at my house next year. The family are very curious to meet this mysterious Englishman.’
We finished the call, and that was it. He was gone. I plotted his route in my head and tried not to think about the traps that might lie in wait for him.
In Johannesburg, I learned to be careful about how I described my friendship with him. Nick did not want his involvement in our Liberia project to be credited, on account of his new business venture with the rebels. What was more, the young, ethnically diverse crowd of South Africans that I worked and socialised with were not – it transpired – straightforwardly sympathetic towards apartheid-era Special Forces operators. At first I talked fairly openly about Nick’s role in the film, and the fact that I hired him as my bodyguard, sometimes commenting on his past in Special Forces. Then one white colleague declared that he was ‘glad that cunts like that could finally find something useful to do’.
What the fuck would you know about it? I thought. How many people have you seen blown to bits? As if that somehow explained or excused anything. In fact, he knew a lot more about it than me, and had seen more than his fair share of the horrors of war.
‘You didn’t experience apartheid,’ he continued, ‘which is why you can forgive its henchmen their history when it suits you. James, I had cunts like Nick trying to kill me. I used to fear for my life from these sorts of people. People I know were killed by them. My father fled them into exile, they broke my ribs, tear-gassed me, machine-gunned children in front of me. They bugged our phones, raped our friends, dragged black people behind their bakkies and wiped out civilian villages dressed as freedom fighters. Think white Interahamwe, and you’re on the right track.’
We stared at each other, separated by the gulf of our different experiences. I just could not reconcile the Nick I knew with the man people assumed he must be – and I didn’t want to try. Our shared experience in Liberia was far more powerful than other people’s memories.
Thereafter, I became increasingly defensive of my friendship with Nick, justifying the whys and wherefores of our relationship in professional, logistical terms, rather than trying to describe the simple bond that had grown between us.
‘No,’ I said to another journalist friend, who worked in the Special Assignment office, ‘he doesn’t use the word “kaffir”, and he doesn’t hate black people.’
Agitated, I was responding to genuine suspicion on her behalf. We sat facing each other across stiff table linen and glinting cutlery at a smart restaurant in Johannesburg. From a mixed-race – ‘coloured’ – background, she wondered why it was that I bristled at the idea he might be a racist. Surely that was just a given?
‘Nick’, I continued, ‘is different. All right, he might not exactly have been a fan of the liberation movement, but he was a soldier, not a murderer. He wasn’t bumping people off in hotel rooms—’
‘Really?’ she interrupted me.
Shifting in her seat, she covered her lips with the palm of her hand – whether it was to hide a smile or a yawn, I couldn’t tell.
‘You were there, then? In Gaborone, Maseru …’
She quoted the names of the capital cities of the former so-called front-line states of Botswana and Lesotho as a provocation: both of them – and more besides – had hosted covert Recce missions that resulted in the deaths of innocent bystanders. Nick himself had led one of the teams on the infamous Gaborone Raid – a Special Forces assault on suspected ANC safe-houses. Among others, a child and a pregnant woman were killed. Nick maintained that his particular squad had simply ransacked an ANC newspaper office for intelligence files and hurt no one. The building was not demolished because, he believed, other local businesses shared the premises. ‘I never’, he’d said, ‘killed anyone in Botswana.’
I pressed on. ‘Basically, he was a professional soldier, and he followed orders.’
I sounded like a defence lawyer at Nuremberg. Then she smiled at me. We both knew I had no idea what orders Nick may or may not have followed in the army. It was an article of faith that he was who he said he was. I had no proof either way.
Back home, the film was finally attracting some attention. I attended a huge news media conference in Dublin, where A Journey Without Maps was shown on a giant screen in the main events hall. When the film began I sneaked out the back. I was so nervous of this audience of producers, news editors, commissioners and well-known journalists I just couldn’t bear to watch their responses.
It went well, though. I was congratulated as brave, original and a future ‘award-winner’. The self-belief I’d felt after filming the fire-fights in Tubmanburg might not have been unfounded after all. Suddenly, though, I felt embarrassed; I thought how out of place Nick would have been, how little meaning any of it would have had for him. I was drinking champagne and moving towards recognition; he was back in the jungle, on the front line.
The truth was that he would have been in familiar – if arguably less principled – company. To be able to sit through other people’s horror and come out into the bar at the other end: that was what we all wanted – to have experienced, survived and been paid. Some of us did it for real; some of us did it by proxy. At one point I found myself in a corner, feeling ashamed, while men in suits approached like lizards, tongues out, licking the air around me for a vicarious, bittersweet tang of the jungle.
I had no idea if I would ever return to Liberia: the film was working, my career was gaining pace. Every conversation, every encounter, nudged me further into the world of the broadcast media. For the first time, I was forced by a professional audience to answer questions about my motivations for the trip. They wanted to know what it was like going to war, and why I did it. Their questions put me on the spot. Was I on a moral crusade, or merely rubber-necking an accident so that others could rubber-neck it, too? Was the entire trip a rite of passage – a simple surrender to a young man’s compulsion for adventure? Or was it a quest for Truth? Unprepared, I made up the answers as I went along.
‘To bear witness without accepting responsibility is to create entertainment,’ I thought out loud as they scribbled in their notepads. Yes, that was it. ‘Witnessing warfare brings with it a responsibility to the story, and, most importantly, to the people whose stories you’re telling.’
People seemed pleased with that. I thought of the dying man in the dust, executed by Deku, and the proud, hungry women winnowing the last of their precious rice crop. ‘I mean, basically, that’s the difference between war reporting as pornography and war reporting as truth. The story that you tell – it has to be honest, which means it has to be their story, not yours. I went without a sense of that – but I learned it. If you don’t discharge your responsibilities …’
They stared at me, as if silently guessing what I would say next. I was wearing a suit and had a pint of Guinness in my hand, and was telling my story. It was absurd. I changed tack slightly. I wasn’t sure exactly how I was supposed to discharge my responsibilities as a war reporter. Telling the truth seemed like a good – the only – place to start.
‘I went because it’s my job to tell stories. I was brought up on stories. I like telling them. I think there is a compulsion to do it,’ I continued. ‘I couldn’t write about economics, or sport – but I can do this, I went and I survived. There are very few people who can do that, who want to do it. So if I’m not going to do it, who is? Who will tell those stories?’
My argument was gaining pace, and I liked the sound of it, t
oo. ‘There is a moral imperative to this. Just because someone lives in a place where it’s hard to hear their voice – because they’re being silenced by an oppressive government or caught up in a war – doesn’t mean that their voice is somehow less worthy or less deserving of being heard. Quite the opposite. Those are voices that we don’t hear often, or loudly, enough. My job is to help interpret those stories, to give them context and clarity and make sure they are heard. That’s all. I’m a conduit. My camera is a funnel.’
They believed me; and I started to believe me, too. It seemed as good a justification as any.
* * *
From Dublin, armed with this new mantra, I flew direct to Amsterdam for the International Documentary Film Festival. I met up with Jonathan, the American director from the last trip to Liberia. Profoundly affected by his experiences in Voinjama, Jonathan had a simple proposition. He thought there was a much bigger film to be made in Liberia. Despite the beheading, Jonathan said he’d enjoyed his time in Voinjama, and loved the quirky nature of Liberia and the Liberians. He’d got the ‘bug’ because of it, and because of the country’s unique history.
‘I mean, are the rebels really finished, or what? It seemed like maybe they were waiting for the right time to move on Taylor again.’
Jonathan and I were queuing in the foyer of the main cinema to see what other productions were coming out of Africa.
‘Yeah, I think that’s right,’ I said. ‘Nick’s with them now. He’s, er, on a recce trip for me – so I’ll get some up-to-date info pretty soon. If they get their act together, they could take the capital. I’m sure they can.’
Later that day we met a producer from the Discovery Times Channel, who liked the idea of a longer film about the rebels, and we arranged to meet again soon to discuss a commission. Drinking coffee in between film screenings, I also met another of Jonathan’s contacts – a woman called Kathi Austin.
‘James, Kathi. Kathi, James. You two should talk. You’ve both got this Liberia thing going on. He’s a crazy dude, just so you know.’
And with that Jonathan plunged into conversation with another director.
‘So you just got back?’
Her accent was hard to place, southern USA perhaps, but with a slightly harder edge than the clichéd dialect I was used to hearing on television. She hoisted a teabag out of a dull green herbal infusion and then removed her jacket. She was petite and beautiful and in her forties. She looked at me, and smiled. I realised I hadn’t answered.
‘Long trip?’
‘Yes … no. I mean, yes. I got back from the trip with Jonathan a month ago. I’ve been cutting a film about my first trip down in Jo’burg, but I just got here. It’s Tuesday, right? So I must be in Holland. It’s a bit like that. I don’t know if I’m coming or going.’
Kathi explained she was a researcher, a sort of investigative activist who worked on exposing players and transactions in the international arms trade. She lived in San Francisco, but was on her way to Frankfurt to interview a man in prison connected to a South American arms-smuggling case. Apparently, it was a huge breakthrough for her, but the details were hard to understand. Most of what she said was vague and suggestive. She seemed to be implying that the man in jail was there partly owing to her investigation, but I was only half-listening.
Nick, I thought, is an arms dealer. Be very careful what you say.
‘What’s the Liberia connection?’ I asked, tentatively. ‘Did you do something very bad in a previous life?’
‘I worked with the UN Security Council’s Panel of Experts, looking at arms deals,’ she said.
I explained the lukewarm reception I’d had when I’d called the current Panel’s investigators on my return in August.
‘I really wish I could say it surprised me, but that is just typical. There’s so much politics, so much navel-gazing at the UN in general, and nothing really gets done. I’m sorry they gave you a hard time. In the end I wasn’t even properly credited on the Panel’s final report – they pretty much left my name off. It happens.’
No sooner had we started to chat than it was time for her to go. I asked where her accent was from.
‘Virginia,’ she replied, hamming it up, slowing down the syllables, ‘near Richmond.’
‘A Southern Belle, then?’
‘Oh, yeah,’ she smiled. ‘Call me.’
She gave me her number, and said goodbye.
It seemed I was finally getting a name for my work in West Africa. Back in London, I received an unexpected call.
‘Ah, yes, hello. Is that James?’
It was a male English voice that I didn’t recognise. I agreed it was me.
‘Hello, James,’ he continued. ‘My name is Mick. I’m calling from the Foreign Office.’
‘The Foreign Office? What is it?’
‘A mutual friend gave me your number. I wondered if we might meet for a chat.’
His inflection was flat and absolutely unreadable.
‘Friend?’ I repeated, like an imbecile. Must be Frank, I thought. The line remained silent. ‘Yeah, sure. When suits?’
He gave me a mobile number, a time, and the precise location of a wooden bench by a lake in St James’s Park. He didn’t give me a surname or an explanation. The line went dead.
Right, well, that was weird. I’ve just been approached by the Government.
I found him on the bench a week later, just as he’d said I would, wrapped up in a brown trench coat. I wondered if he’d been there the whole time.
‘Hello, James,’ he greeted me.
‘Hi, Mick,’ I replied.
‘It’s a cold day, isn’t it?’ he said as I sat down next to him. I agreed it was. ‘I hope you don’t mind meeting here. It seemed like a good idea. It’s fairly central.’
I nodded and tried to look over my shoulder without appearing either too obviously amused or paranoid. For several minutes we sat and talked like this about nothing in particular: the weather, the traffic. Then he wanted to know where I’d been in Liberia, whom I’d been working for, whether I was going back. I suspected he knew most of the answers, but I played along, answering in good faith, seeing where it would all lead.
He knew his stuff. He asked a specific question about former pro-Government militia from Sierra Leone fighting with the LURD rebels in Liberia. It was an interesting enquiry, and caught my imagination.
‘There are several dozen of them. Ex-Civil Defence Force, mainly,’ I confirmed. ‘On the other side, Taylor is using the RUF in Foya, re-supplying them by helicopter …’
At the mention of the word ‘helicopter’ we both looked at each other. I wondered if he knew about Nick’s plans. Could the British be monitoring his satellite phone calls from Freetown? I pressed on.
‘When I was last in Voinjama—’
‘In October?’ he interrupted.
That freaked me out. I’d not mentioned the second trip at all until then. I continued, cautiously.
‘Yes, a couple of months ago, they took an RUF prisoner – alive, for a change. He showed me Yugoslav currency – dinar – that the chopper pilot had given him, and told me that Benjamin Yeatin, Taylor’s main commander, was personally handing out the ammo. I’m pretty sure it’s coming from Eastern Europe.’
Other than the brief burst of shooting on the outskirts of town, it had been the only other exciting thing to film with the Americans.
‘And are the rebels using mercenaries?’
Hmm, I thought, is this what this is all about?
‘No, they’re not. Just the CDF.’ Then a thought came to me. ‘Listen, I’m happy to talk, but I was wondering … I was wondering if, perhaps, if there’s anything that I need help with in the future, if we could, er, co-operate?’
As soon as I spoke, I felt foolish – it was as if I was playing a scene in my own imaginary movie but somehow I’d forgotten my lines.
‘What kind of help?’
He looked at me as if he might genuinely be interested in what I wanted from hi
m.
‘I’m not sure yet,’ I said, truthfully. I looked away and stared at a brightly plumed duck that had glided away from the bank near our feet. ‘But I’ll let you know.’
‘Okay. Well, you’ve got my number.’
As December drew on, with still no word from Nick, Rachel and I went on holiday to Italy. For me it was a final attempt to rescue our relationship. After nearly a week of each other’s company in a picture-perfect farmhouse in Umbria, I ran out of things to say. It didn’t help that I was obsessed with my career, and my next adventure. Being alone with a beautiful woman in Italy was frankly boring compared to the rush of being with the rebels in the Liberian jungle.
‘I just don’t understand why you want to do it,’ she said, when I explained that I was trying to go back.
I couldn’t, wouldn’t, explain it to her. There was no common ground. She was too young, and I was too selfish. It could never work. It was over.
At two o’clock in the afternoon of the day I arrived back from Italy, I went to see the head of the Africa Programme at the Royal Institute for International Affairs at Chatham House.
I handed over the photos of the new Kalashnikovs that the rebels had captured from Taylor’s army in Tubmanburg. I wanted them traced, to follow the lead back to Europe. To my surprise, while I was there I was invited to write a briefing paper on the LURD rebels, which they wanted me to submit the following February.
London was freezing. The year was drawing to a close.
On New Year’s Eve, Nick called.
‘It wasn’t such a long walk this time,’ his familiar voice echoed on my cell phone. He was out of the jungle, and in one piece. ‘We went down from the main place to the other town where we wanted to go but the tourists weren’t allowed to visit.’
‘Yeah, I’m with you.’
He’d been to Kolahun. He’d also seen where Deku had been killed.
‘It was a lucky shot. An RPG came through the window of a house he was taking cover in and hit him in the head. There were bits of brain everywhere, all over the walls, the ceiling. They left his body in the bushes.’
My Friend The Mercenary Page 22
