The African Diamond Trilogy Box Set

by Christopher Lowery

  Angela’s lovemaking was like her personality, a strange combination of tenderness and malice. She kissed and stroked his body until he was mad with desire, then slapped his face. ‘I like rough sex,’ she said. ‘Hit me.’

  Apart from a tragic accident in South Africa, Leo had never hit anyone outside of the fight ring, and he wasn’t about to start. Instead, with one hand he pinned her down by her wrists, and with the other he opened her legs and thrust his penis inside her. She screamed and pulled his face to hers, biting his lip until it bled, then pushing her tongue into his mouth again. He plunged himself into her again and again until their bodies were joined like one, then with a massive final thrust they climaxed together and she cried out and clasped him to her, her nails clawing into his back.

  ‘Oh, Dios mio, oh my God!’ she gasped as he fell by her side. ‘That was maravilhoso.’

  Jimmy Paige’s last chord faded away behind Robert Plant’s final wail, and he kissed her lips gently. ‘If that’s Portuguese for awesome, I agree.’

  After their second session of frantic sex, Leo called time. ‘I’ve gotta get home. It’s almost three o’clock and I’ve got a meeting with my boss this morning. I’m sorry, but I have to go.’

  ‘Are you really sure? Can’t I tempt you one more time?’

  ‘You could tempt me, but you’d be very disappointed.’ He went to pick up his clothes from the living room floor. ‘I couldn’t take any more of that rough sex. I’m hurting everywhere.’

  At the door, he said, ‘How about I pick you up tonight to go to 27?’

  ‘If you can make it, that’ll be cool. Goodbye, Leo.’ She pecked his cheek.

  ‘See you tonight, Angela.’

  Leo’s mind was racing as he rode home, reliving the night’s surreal events. What an incredible woman. Whatever’s happening between us, it feels great. He dumped his clothes on a chair, fell on his bed and was asleep a minute later.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Dubai, United Arab Emirates

  Friday, 9 July 2017

  Leo was riding a dolphin across the calm, azure Mediterranean. Angela was clinging on behind him, her nails digging into his chest. A guitarist was riding another dolphin alongside him, playing the solo from ‘Stairway to Heaven’. His dream was shattered by a violent banging sound, and he realised it was someone knocking on the door. He struggled to clear his head then looked at his watch and went over, still in his boxer shorts, and called, ‘It’s six in the morning, who is it? What the hell do you want?’

  ‘It’s the police. Open the fucking door,’ a voice shouted back.

  He fumbled with the lock and pulled the door ajar with the safety chain still attached. ‘What’s going on?’

  Two men stood outside; they wore olive green shirts and berets and had guns holstered at their hips. One of them had a baton in his hand that he’d been using to bang on the door. ‘Are you Leo Stewart?’ he shouted.

  ‘Yes. What is it?’

  ‘Aftah, aftah. Open the door up, nigger. You’re under arrest.’

  Leo’s mind couldn’t function for a moment. ‘What do you mean?’

  He banged the baton against the door. ‘Open this fucking door now or we’ll blow it open.’ His hand went to his pistol.

  ‘OK, OK.’ Leo unfastened the safety chain and he pushed the door wide and strode in, followed by the other man, who had now drawn his gun.

  The policeman shoved the baton into his chest, pushing him towards the open bedroom door. ‘Get your clothes on nigger, you’re coming to the station.’

  ‘What are you arresting me for?’

  ‘For raping a woman.’ He smashed the stick across Leo’s back. Taharruk! Get dressed and bring some clothes, khinzir qadhar, filthy black rapist.’

  Leo staggered and almost fell. ‘What the fuck are you talking about? When am I supposed to have raped a woman?’

  ‘You know when, last night. I can see the marks on your face and body. Your cock must still be burning. Akhris! No more talking, get ready.’ He hit him again with the baton.

  Leo’s mind suddenly cleared, and the answer dawned on him. He felt sick at the realisation. It’s a honey trap. Angela’s cried rape against me. Rape is a death sentence. What the fuck’s going on?

  His shirt and trousers were on the chair where he’d dropped them and he picked them up, thinking furiously, forcing himself to stay calm, remembering the events in South Africa when he had turned the tables on his captors. I need a minute, that’s all I need.

  He went towards the bathroom, and the policeman hit him again and screamed, ‘Get dressed here, stay where you are.’

  Leo’s muscular fighter’s frame easily withstood the blows, and he mentally calculated the height of the two men at five ten or eleven. Both of them could be disabled with two swift Taekwondo kicks, but he knew it would only worsen the situation. He needed to avoid a fight, to think clever.

  ‘I have to use the toilet. Unless you want me to shit in your car.’ He had to get a message to someone before they took him to the prison. He’d heard enough stories to know that once in their custody, it would be too late.

  The man hesitated, ‘Hasanana. Be quick, filthy pig. I’m standing here. Leave the door open and don’t try to be clever.’

  Leo went into the bathroom and half closed the door. He sat on the toilet seat, took his mobile from his trouser pocket and found Ed’s number, typed prison Hatim help, pressed Send then switched it off and shoved it back into his pocket.

  Standing up, he caught sight of himself in the cabinet mirror. There was a purple welt across his cheek where she’d slapped him, and his lip was cut and bruised. Crafty bitch, he thought. She’s set me up for a fall. He flushed the toilet and the policeman pushed the door open. The room stunk of their sweat.

  ‘Get ready and bring your stuff, or I’ll cut your balls off,’ he shouted. ‘Where’s your mobile?’

  Leo handed it over and the man shoved it in his shirt pocket. He grabbed some toilet things and another shirt and shorts and was pushed out of the flat, the baton smashing into his back as he walked to the elevator.

  Dubai, United Arab Emirates

  Ed Muire’s flat was in a nearby building in the park. He checked his phone when he got up at six-thirty and saw the text. There was no reply when he called Leo’s mobile. Panicked, he rang Tom Connor’s number. The American had arrived late the night before and was still in bed. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes as Ed read the message to him.

  ‘Wait a minute, Ed. I can’t understand anything you’re saying. Tell me again.’

  ‘It’s a text from Leo, he sent it at six-fourteen. It just says “prison Hatim help”, nothing else, and he’s not answering his mobile. I didn’t know what to do, so I called you.’

  Tom’s brain woke up with a start. ‘He’d only ask for Hatim’s help if he was in trouble. Why is he talking about prison? I’ll get Hatim on the case to find out what’s going on. Meet me at the office in half an hour, and we’ll take it from there. And Ed, call Sharif and get him back in here. This sounds like we need all hands on deck.’

  At eight-thirty, Tom received a call from Hatim. Ed, Shen and Daniel were in the office with him and Sharif arrived during the call. He didn’t speak for several minutes, making notes, his face becoming paler as he listened to the lawyer.

  Finally, he asked, ‘Is there any proof, or is this just a money-making stunt?’ He listened again, then put the phone down, a worried look on his face.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Ed asked.

  ‘Leo’s in jail for rape.’

  ‘What? That’s bullshit. He wouldn’t rape a girl if she asked him to, it’s total rubbish.’

  Shen sat silently, his face as inscrutable as always.

  ‘OK, here’s the situation.’ Tom assembled his thoughts. ‘This morning at three-thirty, a woman called the police to say she’d been raped by Leo. They’d been for a drink to Club 27 and came back to her flat and he raped her there. The police came to her apartment and she was distressed a
nd hysterical, so they took her to a police doctor who confirmed she’d recently had sexual relations. Her wrists and legs were bruised as if she’d been held down, and she had a black eye she said he’d given her when she wouldn’t do what he wanted. She named the man as Leo Stewart and gave them his address. They went round to arrest him and saw he was bruised on the face and had fingernail scratches on his arms, back and shoulders. He was taken to the Bur Dubai police station and checked by a doctor, who confirmed the marks on his body were consistent with a woman defending herself against him.’

  ‘Where is he now?’ Shen spoke for the first time.

  ‘He’s in a holding cell at Bur Dubai until they take him to the magistrate later today.’

  ‘Is he OK?’ asked Ed. ‘I mean, all this is a heap of crap, but I’ve heard the stories about police brutality here. And if he could only text me three words and then couldn’t answer the phone, he must be in bad shape.’

  ‘Hatim said it’s a miracle he was informed immediately. He told them Leo is an executive at XPC which is a billion-dollar Chinese investment and they’d better not treat him badly, or Shanghai is going to be very pissed off, so they let him see him. He’s been beaten up a bit by the police, but he’s OK. He admits he was with the woman last night in her flat. But he says it was at her invitation, and they listened to music and they had sex twice before he left her with a goodnight kiss and went back to his place.’

  Daniel Oberhart asked, ‘Did he tell you who the woman is?’ Ed was sure he knew the answer, but he waited for the CEO’s confirmation.

  Tom consulted his notes. ‘Angela da Sousa. She’s a Brazilian woman who Leo met a few nights ago, and they fixed a date last night.’

  Oberhart said nothing, but he gave Shen a querulous look.

  Shen managed to show some emotion. ‘Angela? She’s a very good friend of my partner and me. Daniel knows her as well. There’s no way she’d lie about a thing like that, she’s a fabulous person. I knew there was something about that kid. Pushy, arrogant fucking know-all. I told you so, remember? And now he’s raped a beautiful woman who trusted him enough to invite him home. I’ll kick the shit out of him if I see him again.’

  Ed had been observing Liáng for a while in his own quiet way. His opinion of the Chinaman was that he was irrelevant and divisive, continually undervaluing Leo’s contribution while praising Sharif to the skies. He knew there was history between them, and it showed. This was the longest – in fact, the only – speech he’d ever heard him make, and he wasn’t going to let him get away with it.

  ‘What in Christ’s name are you talking about, you ungrateful tosser? He’s just saved your whole fucking Chinese business by sorting a problem that no bugger else could fix, especially you. You were in deep shit before he came, and you know it. He’s worth more to this company than you’ll ever be. And don’t go accusing him of raping that woman, because she was just as keen on him as he was on her.’ Ed stopped, thinking about Angela, Elodie, Shen, whatever their relationship was. ‘Unless she’s into women and not men, that is.’

  Shen gave him a vicious look, but reverted to saying nothing.

  Tom held up his hands. ‘Guys, no one here knows what happened, so let’s stop being judge and jury about it and work out what we can do to help.’

  Sharif spoke for the first time. ‘I agree with Ed. There’s no way Leo would have raped a woman, he’s a respectful kind of guy. And we’d still be stuck with the remote upgrades if he hadn’t come up with the solution.’ He looked at Shen. ‘I got a call in Sharjah yesterday from him about some extra tests he was doing. He’s smarter than any of us, and we need him to be involved in the final testing and design to be sure we can deliver the job on time.’

  ‘He told me the same thing yesterday morning, but I couldn’t help him,’ Daniel said. ‘He was going to call you right away.’ The Swiss man was nervous, there was definitely something not right about this situation. Yesterday Leo had asked him about a cell that he couldn’t find in the network, and now they were discussing his arrest on a rape charge. What the hell’s going on? He looked again at Shen, who was wearing his most inscrutable expression.

  Tom snapped his fingers, ‘That’s right. He asked me about a cell function as well. Did you check it out, Shen?’

  The Chinaman looked uncomfortable and shot a glance back at Sharif, who made no comment. ‘I haven’t had time yet, I just got in. I’m going to look at it with Sharif later on. But you’re right, I’m sorry, we have to try to get Leo out of there as soon as possible.’

  Ed looked at him in astonishment, but just said to Tom, ‘What happens next? Did Hatim tell you?’

  ‘He said the appearance in front of the magistrate is a formality. They’ve agreed for him to represent Leo, which is a blessing, because none of us understands a word of Arabic. He’ll plead not guilty and make a statement, then they’ll hold him to await trial.’

  ‘Which prison?’ Ed knew there were two options, Port Rashid and Dubai Central Prison. He’d heard very bad stories about the former, but he knew whichever it was it would be a life-changing experience for his friend.

  ‘Hatim thinks he can wangle things to keep him in Bur Dubai until the trial, but that’s not the problem.’

  ‘Can we visit him? I can drive down there now. There must be stuff he needs, I can get it and take it in for him.’

  ‘Apparently nobody except his lawyer will be permitted to visit him until after the trial. He’s virtually incommunicado.’ He looked at his notes again. ‘Hatim says the case will go very quickly, and unless Leo can provide some kind of proof, or this woman Angela withdraws her accusation, there’s no chance of him avoiding a guilty verdict.’

  ‘Which means?’

  ‘The official penalty for rape is death by firing squad, but that would only be in an aggravated case, something involving torture or murder for example. It’s usually commuted to life imprisonment or less, and sometimes it can be settled by a financial arrangement. If it’s not, he’d be sent to Port Rashid or Dubai Central. That’s all I know, everything Hatim told me.’

  Ed shuddered. ‘Do you have any idea of what would happen to him if he went to one of those hellholes on a rape conviction? He’d be sodomised by every bugger in the prison and dead from AIDS in a year. Fucking hell! This is an insane situation.’

  ‘One thing is sure. I have to call his mother and give her the bad news, before they get it from the press or the embassy. It’ll probably be all over the papers tomorrow, “Englishman arrested on rape charge in Dubai”, that kind of thing.’

  ‘Hang on, Tom. Can’t we keep a lid on this?’ Oberhart asked. ‘I mean, this is a pretty serious charge, and Leo’s a Senior VP of an important foreign-owned business in Dubai. This could become a big issue and do a lot of damage to XPC. Neither the company nor any of us will benefit from that.’

  ‘Shit, I wasn’t even thinking about that aspect. You’re right, we’ve got to do everything we can to keep this quiet until we know exactly what happened, the likely outcome and what the collateral damage looks like. Nothing gets out of this room unless and until I say so. I’ll tell Hatim and Ms Stewart the same thing, nobody talks about this to anyone.’

  Ed couldn’t believe that everyone seemed to be putting the company’s interests ahead of Leo and his family. ‘Hang on a minute, Tom. We need to get Hatim over to get a clearer idea of what’s likely to go on before you speak to his mother. We can’t just call and say, “Hi there. Leo’s in jail for rape and we don’t know what’s going to happen to him, sorry.” There must be something we can do to help.’

  ‘OK, you’re right, Ed. This is a new situation for all of us, I’ll get Hatim to come over now.’ Connor looked at his watch. ‘I can’t call anyway for a few hours, it’s only five-thirty a.m. over there.’ He looked worriedly from Sharif to Ed. ‘The next question is, though, if we can’t get Leo back quickly, can you two guys get the final testing and design ready for Shanghai by the end of the month? That’s in just three weeks’ time.’


  Ed answered first, typically giving his friend the kudos for their present status. ‘Leo ran a successful, fully redundant end-to-end solution, so if I take his final logs, I can write the definitive code. I’ll test it to death myself to be doubly sure, but if everything runs as it did for him on Tuesday and there are no bad surprises, the firmware should be OK. You, Sharif ?’

  ‘Same here. The design is finished except to incorporate Leo’s remote upgrade requirements, but I don’t see any problems with that. If Shen clears up the question about that cell he asked about, I can deliver without Leo. I don’t want to, but I can if I have to.’

  ‘No problems on the network side,’ Oberhart added. ‘I’ve cleared the decks for the next few days, so get testing.’ He tried to sound relaxed and bullish, but he was a very worried man.

  ‘OK, guys. I feel a lot better hearing that. I’ll let you know what Hatim has to say.’ Tom breathed a sigh of relief. He was going to have to write a report for Shanghai, and every positive response made the task a little easier.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Bur Dubai Police Station, United Arab Emirates

  Friday, 9 July 2017

  Leo was pushed into a cell with four other men and two double bunks. No washbasin or toilet, but the cell still smelled like a cesspit and it took him a long time to ignore it. There was no place to sit other than on the bunks, and since he was the last occupant, he had no bunk. Behind him the guard locked the barred door and walked away along the corridor. Leo had just undergone a humiliating medical examination by what he suspected was a gay doctor, and had blood and urine samples taken to check for drug use. He now had a lot more bruises on his body from the beatings the police had given him on the way to the station and while moving him around inside. They were incapable of letting him walk without smashing a baton into his back or kidneys.