The African Contract (7 page)

Leaving, she blew him a kiss from the door.

He recalled his headache immediately disappearing, and cheerfully ordering a full room service breakfast with a double Bloody Mary.

The briefing at the airbase consisted of PowerPoint presentations on the military's latest and most expensive toys. After a buffet luncheon, he and the other two ambassadors were taken to a vault. There around a large conference table, an affable scientist from one of the Defense research agencies, wearing a Drexel University lacrosse sweatshirt, showed them a number of exotic gadgets.

One particular item had caught Bunting's interest. It was among a collection of drones, unmanned aircraft used for surveillance. Some had five-foot wingspans, some looked like miniature helicopters, and one resembled a saucer. As the scientist brought one after the other out to display, the drones became smaller and smaller. At last, after adjusting his eyeglasses that had slipped down his nose, the man presented his piece de résistance, lifting it and letting it fly about the room.

The bird-shaped drone was the size, shape, and color of the bunting that had just flown from the Van Wartts' olive tree. Identical.

“Ambassador?” Patience placed her hand on his shoulder.

“Oh. I didn't mean to be rude. Just remembered something,” he explained. “I think I'm off. Can I give you a lift home?”

“Thanks. I drove.”

“I'll call tomorrow.”

“Do.”

Ambassador Bunting paid his respects to the van Wartts and outside found his driver waiting for him by the embassy's armored BMW sedan. Riding down the winding road toward the sparkling lights of the city, he made a mental note to speak with his CIA base chief at the Cape Town consulate first thing in the morning. Why wasn't he informed of the surveillance, especially since he had announced his daily schedule at the huddle that morning? Unless, of course, it wasn't their drone. Maybe the Russians? Doubtful. Reports were their intel operations were in chaos. Israelis? Possible. Nevertheless, he would get an explanation.

At the same time, he'd get the base chief to do a background trace on Patience St. John Smythe. He did so hope that she wasn't too good to be true.

Freetown, Sierra Leone—August 10, 2002

At nine in the morning, Hayden Stone phoned York Export Ltd. and asked Mr. Amadu, the office manager, to speak with Dirk Lange. Amadu asked the nature of his call, and Stone reminded him of his visit to the office the day before.

“Oh yes. Mr. Costanza, I believe. The travel writer.”

“The same.”

“I took the liberty of making inquiries for Mr. Lange and could not find your name posted on any of the bibliographies.”

“Is Mr. Lange available? If so, put him on.”

After a pause and without further comment, Amadu transferred him to his boss. When Lange answered the phone, Stone detected a slight Afrikaner inflection to the otherwise clipped English accent.

“Good Morning, Mr. Lange. The name's Finbarr Costanza. I'm a writer, and a mutual friend suggested I give you a ring.”

“And who would that be?”

Stone provided the parole, the password provided by Jacob, to confirm his identity. “A fellow from London said you knew a lot about the forest elephants.”

After a silence, Lange asked, “Are you interested in the herds in the Gola Forest North or the Gola East?”

“Both are of interest for my story.”

“Let us meet for lunch at the Hill Station Club. The history of the club might be of use for your story,” he said, and as an afterthought asked, “What do you look like?”

“White. Dark hair. No facial hair,” Stone said. “Oh. I'll be wearing a khaki safari jacket.”

“Of course you will.”

Stone drove the small Toyota pickup from the city into the hilly, forested district that overlooked the bay. The meeting with Lange was scheduled for one in the afternoon. As he drove on the narrow lane through the tropical forest, a soft rain fell and the windshield wipers slapped a hypnotic rhythm. Each time the car passed over a rut in the road, the right bumper, the victim of a past collision, clanged against the car's frame.

That morning Sandra had demanded she accompany him on the meet, and at one point became quite adamant, but as they argued, he watched her physically deflate, eyes redden, and finally acquiesce. She trudged to her bedroom.

The station chief was another matter. After making the appointment with Lange, he had touched base with Craig in his embassy office. He showed a strange disinterest in the meet and said countersurveillance was unnecessary. His dislike for Dirk Lange came out rather loud and clear.

“Really can't afford spending resources on someone we know to be a small-time player. The guy's a bum. South Africa's equivalent to Eurotrash. People like him wind up everywhere there's a buck to be made. They're like gypsies.”

Stone was relieved to not have Craig involved in his meeting. The man's animosity toward Lange could only make Stone's pitch difficult. He wanted to find out what the man had to offer, report the details back to Washington, and head home. But something nagged at him. Craig's lack of interest in an operation on his turf was hard to fathom. More likely one of Craig's assets worked at the Hill Station Club and would report back to him about the meet.

He turned off the road, drove up a short dirt driveway, and parked in front of a two-story house that served as the clubhouse. Nearby, three weathered colonial-style homes sodden in the rain looked like they hadn't been occupied since the British granted independence to Sierra Leone.

A black man carrying an umbrella came up to the car. A large two-way radio hung on his belt. Behind him the clubhouse sat morose, upstairs windows flung open, the paint faded on the cement block walls topped by a rusty tin roof.

“You are Mr. Costanza? Mr. Lange awaits in the bar.”

The guard led Stone up broken concrete stairs to the entrance past scraggly bushes with yellow flowers. “The bar is beyond the ballroom.”

The room had not seen a dance in years, yet the wooden floor had maintained a degree of polish. The floorboards didn't squeak underfoot. Scattered around the room were chrome-framed chairs, the type Stone had last seen in an American diner. No tables were visible.

In contrast to the club's exterior, the mahogany-paneled bar was clean and looked cared for. Tall chairs lined the bar, a limited but expensive selection of liquor sat on the glass shelf, and a dated computer cash machine hummed. A local man wearing a striped shirt sat, before him a half glass of Guinness.

At the far end of the bar, under a row of British Navy ship plaques displayed on the wall, in a position where he could see anyone coming in, a sandy-haired man in a yellow tennis shirt sat smoking a cigarette. The eyes gave Stone a long once-over. From a photo Craig had shown him that morning, Stone knew the man to be Dirk Lange.

Stone acknowledged the black man and walked straight for Lange, right hand extended. “Mr. Lange? I'm Finbarr.”

Lange's handshake was firm and quickly withdrawn. He motioned for Stone to take a seat next to him. When the bartender approached, Stone ordered a Star beer, then laid a black Moleskine notebook on the table. “Good of you to help me out with my story on the elephants here in Sierra Leone.”

“My pleasure. Only hope I can be of assistance.” Lange's eyes darted to the man with the Guinness. “They are a distrustful lot, those animals. The ones that manage to survive. In that region there are too many people with AK-47s looking for something to kill.”

Stone made a pretense of opening his notebook and scribbling with his pen.

“This is an interesting club,” Lange continued. “Has history. Have you been here before?” Without waiting for Stone to answer, he rose. “Come, I'll show you the billiard room upstairs. You know a famous English writer was a member here during the Second World War.”

“So I hear.”

“He was also a spy.”

Upstairs, a shaded lamp hung over an old, well-maintained billiard table. Not three feet away, a ragged hole in the floor the size of a manhole looked down into the ballroom.

“Termites?” Stone asked.

Lange said, “Probably,” and led him to the green painted wall next to the open window. He searched the grounds below. At last, he turned, moved closer, and looked directly into Stone's eyes. “Jonathan spoke to me about you.” The words came more as assurance than a statement. “I will come to the point.”

He stood close and the nearness made Stone uneasy. The man smelled of a cheap aftershave that airlines placed in travel amenity kits.

“Ronda. A colleague at the aid organization fell in love with an Arab man who lives next to one of the big mosques in town. They slept together and one night began smoking hashish. Three weeks or so ago, she confided in me, being a fellow South African. She is disturbed, troubled.” Lange moved away and for a moment listened at the door. Returning, he continued. “She said that while in bed, smoking hashish, the Arab starts bragging about how his people will triumph against Western civilization. That he was helping purchase the means of making a bigger statement than was made with those towers in New York City.”

“What kind of statement?”

Lange shrugged. “Ronda came to me about this. Being a sensible woman, she was quite worried.”

“Can I talk to her?”

Lange shook his head. “Last week fishermen pulled her body ashore in their nets.”

“Did the police rule suicide or foul play?”

“You are joking, Mr. Costanza? The police here are not concerned with the random body that washes ashore. They have a backlog of
explained
deaths to process.”

“You believe this Middle Eastern friend had something to do with her death?”

Lange nodded. “I told all this to Jacob, who said he would have someone come and talk with me.”

Stone, thinking about his last assignment on the Riviera, asked if Lange thought the Arab had been talking about spreading Ebola or some other disease.

“I doubt it. To me, it sounded like some object they were buying. Something that would prove catastrophic. Ronda told me she thought the Arab inferred one of her own kind, a South African, was selling them this ‘thing.'”

“Someone from South Africa?”

“That was her impression.”

Stone walked to the window. The still air in the room hung heavy with dust. Down below, the guard stood under the roof of a shed next to the parking lot. He turned back to Lange. “This Arab. What nationality? Lebanese, Syrian? Is he still here? Know where I can find him?”

“Egyptian.” Lange motioned that they should return downstairs to the bar. “Saw the bugger two days ago at the open-air beach café on the point. Out Lumley Beach Road.”

“Have a name?”

“Nabeel. Nabeel Asuty.”

Stone followed Lange to the door. “Mr. Lange. Tomorrow I suggest we go drinking by the bay.”

Stone eased the battered truck down the tree-covered lane from the Hill Station Club to the American Embassy. The steady rain washed mud onto the patchy macadam, and at places the runoff poured across the road from the hill above, splattering the windshield with muddy water. The meeting with Lange went well, he thought. The information was a bit sketchy and hearsay, but still Lange gave him a name, Nabeel Asuty, and an address for a place that he frequented—a mosque located downtown.

A cable setting out the results of the meeting had to be sent to Stone's boss, Colonel Gustave Frederick, at CIA headquarters. However, Stone had to follow protocol: Luke Craig had to sign off on the draft before it was sent over the agency's communications network. Craig's reaction would be interesting. Would he blow off the allegation that Nabeel was involved in a grandiose terrorist plot? Did he know this individual and already have him in the agency's crosshairs?

Stone would know by tonight whether he was staying in Freetown to follow up on the case or heading back to Washington. As he drove, he imagined himself opening that café along the Southern California coast. He'd be near his two kids, who attended college nearby. This last thought reminded him that he must email both of them. He remembered his ex-wife lived in Los Angeles, competing for their children's attention. By the time Stone pulled up to the embassy, he decided he wasn't that eager to board a homeward plane.

Craig surprised him. Swiveling side to side in his chair, he read and reread the draft Stone had prepared. He stopped occasionally to make edits with his number two pencil, a practice that Stone knew was instinctual for any boss in the agency who authorized the sending of cables to their headquarters division. Bosses had to make their mark on all outgoing communications. What caught Stone off guard was Craig's interest in the content of the draft. Evidently, Craig had picked up other information that made the account credible. Stone guessed the station's source at the Hill Station Club reported something positive about his meet with Lange.

“The name Nabeel Asuty doesn't ring a bell, but we know about activity at the mosque,” Craig admitted. “Most of the hotheads in town gather there to plan their version of
jihad
. As if this country needs any more turmoil.”

Since Craig appeared in a cooperative mood, Stone offered, “I suggested to Lange that I'd contact him for a follow-up. What do you think?”

Craig looked off as if in thought. “Why don't you and Sandra stay on for a bit? Contact the source tomorrow and see if this Nabeel can be located. We need a face on this guy.” Craig returned to scribbling on the bottom of the draft. “I'm making that suggestion to headquarters.”

Stone said he'd get hold of Lange and head for the café on Lumley Beach Road. Craig continued his scribbling. “My people will ramp up coverage of the mosque and try to come up with corroborating evidence,” he muttered. Stone knew he was dismissed when Craig lifted the phone and told his assistant to send in one of his case officers for a briefing.

A mixture of cooking aromas greeted Stone as he walked in the second-floor apartment. Sandra Harrington stood at the sink draining pasta in a colander. Her demeanor appeared a lot more chipper than when he left for the embassy that morning.

“We're having spaghetti,” she said. “My stomach and head feel a lot better.”

The place settings were laid out on the wooden dining table, something cooked in a covered pot, and a short baguette of bread lay on the counter ready to be sliced.

“What, no candles?” Stone asked.

“Not tonight,” she said. “But I did get some ground beef and some sort of squash from the commissary here on the compound.”

Stone told her she looked a lot better. The color had returned to her face. Her blouse and shorts looked as if they had been washed and ironed that day. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail and she had put on earrings. His eyes lingered on her legs, tanned and firm.

“So, how did the interview go with Lange?” she asked.

He related the details of the meeting with Lange and Craig's reaction. She turned from browning the ground beef and gave him a look. “Craig knows more than he's letting on.”

“I agree.” He walked to the counter, cut a slice of Gouda cheese, and put it on two crackers. He handed one to Sandra. “But he wants us to stay and run with it, for how long I don't know.”

She studied the cracker. “Imagine getting fresh cheese in this country. The embassy's administrative office must be well run.”

“I'm meeting with Lange tomorrow around lunchtime to see if we can get a read on this Nabeel character. Are you ready to go back to work?”

“You bet. And how about you? What happened to the guy who was itching to fly home?” She grinned. “The thrill of the chase got you?”

“Maybe I didn't want to head home as much as lay over in Paris, but to answer your question, something about this case has sparked my interest. Luke Craig knows more than he's willing to let on. That's to be expected.” He thought for a moment. “Jacob told me in Monrovia that he's concerned enough that I should contact Dirk Lange, who in turn says this Nabeel character probably had a South African killed to keep her quiet about some big plan to attack the West. Another Twin Towers-type attack. And this guy Dirk Lange turns out to be … interesting.” Stone saw his Irish whiskey bottle and two glasses sitting next to the refrigerator. “Shall we? Or is the stomach too sensitive?”