by Terry Morgan
Kano calls itself the commercial nerve centre of northern Nigeria. Hausa is the main language and Islam the main religion. It's warm but less humid than Lagos, not that Mark Dobson took much notice of the weather unless it got in the way.
He'd decided on an 'overnight limousine service' up to Kano thinking he'd catch up on some sleep in the car. The US and UK Foreign Offices constantly warned against that sort of thing with comforting words like: 'We continue to recommend against all but essential travel to the following states due to the risk of kidnappings, robberies, and other armed attacks.'
But Dobson tended to ignore warnings like that. If you had to go you had to go and, anyway, that's where he'd agreed to meet Bill Larsen. The overnight SUV service rolled into Kano at six in the morning and dropped him at the Ocean View Hotel where he'd expected Bill Larsen to be waiting. He wasn't.
He checked in anyway and, once in his room, dragged the curtain aside but with no expectation of glimpsing an ocean. The nearest sea to the Ocean View Hotel was a thousand miles away but there was a good view of a shanty town and clouds of black smoke rising from something burning in its midst. Then he lay on the bed.
Travelling like that sometimes made him forget where he was. He'd been known to wake from a short, deep sleep in a panic trying to work out where the hell he was. As a tourist, you'd be there to watch people, see the sites, smell the smells, hear the sounds. Dobson did that as well but much of it passed him by because he spent too much time strategizing, trying to work out what the hell was going on, calculating reactions, judging people.
Out there, beyond the window, one hundred and eighty million Nigerians were scraping a living, working in fields, carrying stuff, eating, sleeping and burning stuff that smelled like old tyres. And over the smoky horizon to the north-east Gabriel's plans for a new self-sustaining community were either taking shape or collapsing. This world of struggling billions needed some fresh ideas. Gabriel might be controversial but there was no denying his determination to try something different.
He sat up and phoned Colin Asher on a new phone with a new SIM to see if Asher had heard from Bill Larsen.
"No," Asher said abruptly. Dobson sensed his mood and that he was busy. "But Gabriel's phoned. He expects to have his passport returned tomorrow."
"Good news. Any idea where he'll move next?"
"No."
"OK, I'll leave you to whatever problem you've got right now."
"Just you go careful, Mr Hicks. I sense something - call it danger."
"And I sense you're busy. But if you're so concerned what's your advice?"
"Come home."
"Option two?"
"Keep your bloody head down."
"Option three?"
"Make sure Asher & Asher is the main beneficiary of your bloody life insurance."
Dobson changed the subject. "I enjoyed your recommended bedtime story from Google, Colin."
"Good. So now you're an expert on ancient Fulanis and their jihad, Mr Hicks, you should begin to understand the modern Fulanis. The ancient Fulanis were peanut farmers. Modern Fulanis think two million dollars is peanuts. Upsetting the peanut harvest is likely to upset the big chief."
"Ah," Dobson said, reading between clear lines.
"In my humble opinion and going on what little evidence we've gathered, upsetting Mr F and his friends is like tickling a tiger."
"I'll check my insurance," Dobson said carrying the phone to the window and looking out. The smoke had become a thick, black mushroom cloud rising into the Kano sky. It looked like an omen. "So, what you're saying is, if I spot a tiger I should walk the other way."
"I'm suggesting you should run, Mr Hicks." Asher said calmly. "Let me explain why.
"Last night, I took all the figures, added a few spoons of facts from MI6, sprinkled in some views from Craig Donovan and then poured in a good measure of my well-known imagination. I mixed it all together, left it to rise and then stuck it in the oven overnight."
"What did it look like this morning?" Dobson asked.
"It was burned to a cinder, Mr Hicks. A horrible sight and it tasted even worse"
"I see. What's your conclusion?"
"My previous conclusion still stands but it's become a conviction. That Mr F is not only a common crook and a corrupt bastard but also something big in the COK. Maybe he's not the top boss but he's someone very close."
"And your consultants' advice?"
"Some serious forward planning on your part, Mr Hicks. Got it?"
Yes, he'd got it.
It had already struck Dobson, not during the night but at the airport in Lagos where he'd been sitting trying to fathom out who might think Gabriel was a hindrance to their ambitions - political or military or both.
At the time, he'd been sitting amongst a group of Nigerian businessmen laughing and joking about the terrible state of the Nigerian army. It was the old joke about Nigerian army soldiers checking their grenades when one old soldier holds up a spare pin and asks if anyone has seen his grenade. The joke had lightened Dobson's increasingly sinister thoughts about Festus Fulani for a minute or two. The Nigerians, on the other hand, had continued to laugh and tell jokes all the way to Abuja.
But Dobson was still left wondering what had happened to Bill Larsen. An hour later, the explanation came in a call from Solomon in Ghana.
"Benjamin didn't arrive back at camp two nights ago," he said. "Bill waited until morning then went out with some men."
On the phone from Ghana, Dobson heard Solomon choke. "Yesterday they found his body."
"He was working on the school," Solomon went on, struggling to explain. "An old man and woman were also killed. His truck was taken. Bill found them yesterday afternoon. It was the COK, a small group checking the camp out Bill thinks."
Forcing the shock aside, Mark Dobson's mind now raced on the upshot of this. Benjamin was a British citizen, a graduate doing good work though not for a recognised charity or aid organisation. People would learn what he'd been doing and where. Ben's family also needed to be told. and there was no British Embassy in Niamey the capital of Niger.
"Does Gabriel know?" Dobson asked.
"I thought Femi's phone was confiscated."
"It's been returned. But you know something, Sol?" Dobson said, trying to calm Solomon. "This is tragic but, sometimes, good comes from evil."
"Maybe," Solomon replied. "You want to know how Ben and the two, old people died?"
"How?"
"Their throats were cut. Ben was beheaded."
