The African Diamond Trilogy Box Set

by Christopher Lowery

  Henriques looked wildly about him, the woman would be raped in front of them and he would be shot out of hand if he interfered. Avelina was shrieking hysterically, begging for mercy. Manuela and the older children added their screams of terror, pleading for her. Another soldier came over to see what was going on. He looked about twenty-two years old, wearing a shirt with the epaulettes of a Portuguese major, badges and ribbons on the front. Henriques stepped out and grabbed him by the hand, smiling and talking, pulling out a wad of escudos. It was an officer from the unit near Ambrizete he had been bribing for the last six weeks.

  The man looked around at the scene. Now, Avelina was naked under the remains of her shift, vainly trying to pull it across her body to hide herself. One of the youths was undoing his flies while the other two held her down. Other rebels had come across to join in the rape. Olivier was kicked back down each time he tried to climb to his feet. He was bruised, bleeding and frightened for his life. Another of them tried to grab Manuela, but Henriques pulled her back and stood in front of her, turning the children away from the terrifying scene.

  The ‘major’ pulled out his sidearm and shot it into the air. “Stop! That’s enough! Let them go and get back to your duties. Get this van out of here. We’ve got enough problems with these people, don’t make it worse.” He pocketed the wad of notes and pulled Avelina to her feet. Olivier staggered up and the two men helped the women and children into the van and locked the doors. The soldier waved them on through the barrier.

  The rebels fired their guns over the heads of the other refugees, warning them to stay back. Their frightened, defeated faces looked on resignedly as the Transit drove through the roadblock. Avelina was weeping with relief and fear, hardly believing she’d escaped the ordeal. She took her children in her arms and held them fiercely to her, safe for the moment. Manuela found some underwear and a wrap for her and wet a rag to wipe the blood and filth from Olivier’s face. They were too exhausted to show their happiness and relief as they drove on to Noqui, to tackle the last hurdle in their escape from Angola.

  Here, the situation was less perilous. Under the pressure of the thousands of refugees who were now fleeing their country, the border guards had given up asking for proper documents. They seemed happy to see the backs of the Portuguese and Angolan families who were leaving, as long as they could extract their last few escudos for an exit visa. This time it cost them twenty thousand escudos and they were out of Angolan territory.

  Henriques looked back at the border, his last sight of his homeland. He had never dreamed that the day would come when he would be glad to leave his country, his family’s home since generations. But now he was just glad that he was alive, that they were all alive and headed for a new life in a civilised place. They drove slowly along in the midst of the crowd. Just eleven kilometres more and they would reach Matadi, in Zaire.

  Maggie’s phone rang again at about five fifteen on Friday evening.

  Nick jumped up and grabbed it. “Olivier! Thank God. It’s great to hear from you. Is everyone OK? Where are you?”

  “I’m at a public phone at a filling station on the highway to Leopoldville. We’re an hour from the airport, all completely knackered, but doing well.”

  “When are you getting back? Have you checked the flights?”

  “I just called the airport and booked us on an Air France flight for Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris, at nine this evening, with a TAP connection to Lisbon tomorrow morning at nine fifteen. So we should arrive at about eleven o’ clock.”

  “Terrific. We’ll be at the airport to meet you tomorrow. Well done, Olivier.”

  He called Charlie straight away. “They’re safe and sound in Zaire. Next stop, Lisbon.”

  At ten o’clock that evening, Charlie and Nick parked the Opel in the airport car park. They showed their papers at the terminal entrance then went to have a drink inside the arrivals hall. Two refugee flights had just landed and the terminal was pandemonium. Half an hour later, they saw Alberto struggling through the crowds of passengers. He was carrying the briefcase.

  On the way to his apartment he recounted all that had happened in Angola. The other two men were astounded to hear the details of Gomez’s relentless pursuit. Charlie had the same thought as Olivier. He must have really hated our guts.

  Alberto was relieved to hear that the others had managed to get out to Zaire. That meant that so far there had been no alert. They should have time to make their escape when the others arrived in Lisbon. He said nothing about his own decision to leave Portugal. He needed time to work it out, time to organise his family’s lives before taking any action. At his apartment he removed Neto’s documents and passed the briefcase and the key to Charlie.

  “It’s up to you two now,” he said. “I’ve played my part and you have to make it happen and look after me correctly. I have a feeling I’m going to need my share. My advice to you is to get out as soon as the others get here. You can’t risk one day more than you need to.”

  An hour later, the briefcase was in the safe in Charlie’s house. He didn’t open it, he thought that Olivier should have that pleasure. They told Ellen nothing of the events in Angola, only that she should get ready to be on her way out of Portugal.

  “Thank God!” she said. “Let’s get out of this hell-hole and move to a proper country.”

  Manuela was driving the last leg of their journey to Leopoldville airport while Henriques dozed in the seat beside her and Olivier slept in the back seat. They had left Avelina and her children at Matadi and were all dead beat, looking forward to sleeping on the flight. The two way road was built along an escarpment, with a narrow hard shoulder on the right, the hillside falling steeply away to a rocky valley. Like most African roads, it was full of every conceivable type of vehicle, many of which looked as if they would fall apart at any moment. The drivers were typically aggressive and dangerous, overtaking whenever a few meters of empty space were available. Risking everyone else’s life, almost forcing the oncoming traffic off the road.

  Manuela drove cautiously in the right-hand lane, following the signs for the airport, now only fifteen kilometres away. It was six fifteen and she had covered almost fifty kilometres since their stop at the petrol station. Dusk was falling, but the light was still fairly good.

  Then from one moment to the next, the twilight ceased and the night set in. There were no road lights and she suddenly found herself in pitch black darkness, the lights of oncoming traffic flashing onto the windscreen and momentarily blinding her. Never having driven the Transit van in darkness she ran her hand over the dashboard to find the light switch.

  “Damn!” She glanced down to find the switch. It was a button that pulled out from the dashboard. The lights flashed on full beam and she looked up just in time to see a sign pointing off to the airport on the left. Panicked, she signalled left and pulled over to the turning lane. An old, battered Renault was already moving into the lane from the blind spot on her offside. She pulled the wheel back and turned into the right hand lane again, simultaneously braking, hoping to catch the turn after the Renault.

  Manuela didn’t see the rusty, blue flatbed truck that was coming up behind her, because it had no lights on. When he saw the van come back into his path the driver stamped down on the brake, but the truck was piled high with scrap iron and the ineffective brakes strained to slow the momentum of the heavy load. As the Transit van slowed, the wheels still turned to the right, the truck piled into the back of it, pushing it forward and to the right. Manuela braked again and desperately pulled the wheel around to the left to avoid driving off the road.

  The crash of the impact and the swaying of the vehicle woke the two men from their doze. Startled, they both shouted conflicting instructions.

  “Pull over to the right and stop on the verge!”

  “Straighten up and accelerate away!”

  In her panic, Manuela did the worst possible thing. She accelerated while still going towards the left. The van overshot the tu
rning lane into the path of the oncoming traffic.

  “Jesus Christ!” Henriques grabbed the wheel, desperately trying to pull the vehicle back to the right. They looked in horror at the headlights coming straight towards them. The driver of the oncoming lorry had no time to avoid them. The offside wing of his vehicle smashed into the van at a combined speed of one hundred and seventy kilometres per hour, pushing the engine through the front seat and killing all three of them instantly. The van was thrown back into the path of the truck behind, which smashed into it again, shoving the vehicle across the hard shoulder and over the edge of the escarpment.

  The rocks and rubble at the top of the slope turned the Transit over and it started a mad descent down the hillside, rolling over and over, the three lifeless bodies being thrown around inside like dolls.

  The fractured remains of the van reached the bottom of the escarpment and it lay motionless on its side, its headlights still cutting through the blackness of the night, illuminating the barren, rocky surface around. The only sound to be heard was the hissing of the punctured radiator, breaking the blanket of silence that surrounded the bent and broken metal casing that was now the tomb of the three occupants.

  THIRTH-FOUR

  Saturday, June 28th, 1975

  Lisbon, Portugal; Ambrizete, Angola

  Nick and Charlie arrived at the airport five minutes before the TAP flight from Paris was due in, and waited in the arrivals hall. Their friends had no luggage and they expected them to emerge amongst the first passengers. Half an hour later, when the last passenger had departed, they went to the TAP desk and spoke to the attendant.

  She consulted the passenger manifest. “I’m sorry, none of those names are on the list.”

  Charlie made her check again all the way back through the list and then asked her to look through the bookings. When she hesitated, he added, “These are friends of ours who are refugees from Angola, flying from Leopoldville. They could have only come to Portugal. They don’t have papers for any other country.”

  The woman studied her computer screen. “I can find their reservations, but they didn’t fly, so they must have missed the plane. It happens a lot with African connections. There’s another flight tonight, but there are no reservations for them on that, and it’s the same tomorrow. I can find no bookings at all.”

  “Can you check with Air France and any other airline coming here from Paris?”

  The young woman called Air France and Air Zaire and after a few minutes of discussion in French with each, she turned to the two men. “I’m sorry, but there’s no trace of your friends with any of the airlines for today or tomorrow.”

  Charlie had a sick feeling in his stomach. He said,“We need to get back to Cascais.”

  Sergio d’Almeida knew that he had to be ready to leave with Elvira and the children when his brother called. He forced himself to try to think like Henriques, to plan for any eventuality. It was twelve thirty on Saturday afternoon and the plant was closed for the weekend. Only a couple of guards and maintenance people were working. He went to the workshop area and started up their last sizeable, roadworthy vehicle. It was a Chevrolet truck, with the back closed, two bench seats and a storage space full of tools and equipment behind them. He drove it over to the house and helped Elvira and the children onto the back seat and they went out through the compound gates. Telling Joachim’s replacement that they were off for a picnic, he headed east for about two kilometres until they reached an area where there was a small lake, fed by the Mbridge river. They had often gone there with Henriques and Manuela for picnics.

  While Elvira played with the children in the warm, shallow water, he ripped out the racks and fittings that were used for the tools and equipment that the truck usually carried, and created enough space to put in a mattress where his family could sleep. He cleaned up the mess, threw the tools and broken fittings into the river then went to join his family for a swim in the lake.

  At the mine, the phone rang out, but the office was locked and there was no one to hear it.

  When Charlie and Nick got back to the house, there was a note from Ellen, “Gone shopping, back soon.” He went to the safe to retrieve the briefcase. The two men looked at each other anxiously. What was happening here? Was this some kind of a trap, a trick to fool them into giving themselves away? What could have happened to delay Olivier and the others, except for something that they didn’t even want to imagine?

  Charlie opened the three locks. “Check it out, you’re the expert.”

  Nick undid the flap and emptied the case onto the desk. The contents were exactly as Henriques had promised. There was a package of five stacks of one thousand dollar bills, each containing one hundred notes, fastened with wrappers marked Banco de Portugal y Angola. In addition, there were ten chamois leather pouches, tied with a string, like an old fashioned lady’s purse. Inside each pouch there was a handful of stones that looked like cheap beads, most of a dirty crystal colour, others a light brown. He examined the contents of each bag and nodded his head. “It’s the real deal alright, Henriques hasn’t let us down.”

  “And neither has Alberto. So what in God’s name has happened to Olivier? We need to make some phone calls.”

  “If this is some kind of a trap or a double cross, we are in really deep shit, Charlie. You know the phone’s definitely tapped.” Nick was pacing up and down the office.

  “It can’t be helped. We have to find out where the hell Olivier is.”

  He dialled Henriques’s private number. There was no answer. He called the office number, still no answer. He didn’t know if they worked on a Saturday afternoon, but, if they did, no one was answering the phone, not even Sergio. He didn’t like the fact that Henriques’s brother wasn’t there, but he said nothing to Nick.

  Charlie thought for a moment, then picking up the phone once more, he looked at Nick for confirmation. The South African said nothing. He dialled Alberto’s number.

  Alberto didn’t call back until the next afternoon. “We need to meet,” he said, with no further comment. They arranged to see him immediately in a bar in the Alfama, the old town.

  The Angolan’s face was strained, he looked all of his fifty-five years and more. He avoided looking at the others. “I got a call from the Angolan Consul in Leopoldville this morning. The news is very bad.”

  Charlie and Nick said nothing. They waited, fearing the worst.

  “The van was involved in a crash outside of Leopoldville last night, only fifteen kilometres from the airport.”

  “God almighty! Olivier and the others?”

  Alberto continued as if he hadn’t heard. “Apparently, they were all killed, instantly. The van was virtually destroyed. It took the police some time to identify the victims and advise the consulate.” He breathed in deeply, then expelled the air through pursed lips. “I’m sorry, I’m really sorry. Olivier was a good man. He was a friend. This situation in Angola, it’s…” His voice trailed off.

  The others were incapable of speech, and after a moment Alberto continued, “You remember what I told you on Friday about getting out. It’s now vital to do it immediately. You can’t explain Olivier’s absence to the Nationalisation Committee, and Tavares is bound to be looking for Gomez when he doesn’t turn up tomorrow. You’ve got no time to waste.”

  He asked for the Bettencourt’s address in Geneva. He would arrange with the Portuguese embassy in Leopoldville to contact the family to inform them of Olivier’s death and ask what arrangements they wished to make for the body. He also promised to organise a decent burial for the d’Almeidas. It was the least he could do.

  Somehow Charlie managed to drive back to Cascais. He couldn’t help repeating, “Fifteen kilometres from the airport. My God, just fifteen bloody kilometres.” Apart from that, he and Nick hardly said a word.

  They hadn’t mentioned their anxiety to Ellen when she came home the previous night, but her instinct had alerted her that something was wrong. After Ronnie had gone to bed, they went to sit
in the warm evening breeze in the garden. The two men told her everything. Every detail of the plan, from start to finish. The last part, the contrary twist of fate that had caused the loss of their friends, three innocent civilians, caught up in a bloody, senseless, political death trap, brought tears to their eyes.

  Ellen was sobbing uncontrollably. She wanted to blame Charlie, or Nick, or anybody, for this awful situation, but she knew it was useless. She knew they were all trapped in this nightmare, and the only way to get out of it was to leave, now. It would never get better. It would only get worse. They had to get out while they still could, before it was too late. For them, for Ronnie, for their future lives.

  When Ellen had finally fallen asleep, exhausted with emotion, and Nick had gone off to his bedroom, Charlie went to the safe in his office and took out the envelope that Olivier had given him. He turned it over in his hands, wishing himself back in the past, before the accident, before the communist takeover, before the revolution. He also knew that they could no longer stay, that they had to leave immediately.

  But there are still things to be done. Things that only I can do. He had to fulfill Olivier’s wishes. He had to contact his family. Somehow he had to find a solution for the money and the diamonds. Olivier’s and the others’ deaths mustn’t be in vain.

  He was tired and depressed and his head ached. He opened the envelope. It contained two sheets of paper.

  The first was a receipt for a premium on a life insurance policy from Frazer, Robinson, Lloyd’s Insurance brokers in London, for seventeen thousand six hundred Pounds Sterling. It was dated June 24th 1975.

  The second document was a cover note confirming a policy on the life of Olivier Cabral e Mendonça Borges de Bettencourt de Santiago de Compostela. The policy itself was in preparation and would be delivered within two weeks. The capital sum payable on death was two million five hundred thousand Pounds Sterling. Charlie quickly calculated that this was equivalent to about five and a half million US Dollars at the current exchange rate.