Defender (12 page)

"What do you mean, 'recovery'? You saw yourself them dragging his body from the wreckage of the car," Baptiste stated with incredulity. "No man could have survived that."

There was anxiety in his voice. The boisterous arrogance of just a few seconds ago was now tinged with uncertainty, fear and anger. Lundt needed to feed off it. He needed to drive Baptiste to make the next move.

"What we saw, Colonel, was the BBC saying that his condition 1s unknown, that he has been taken to an undisclosed medical facility..."

"He could not have survived. My people used grenades and machine guns. He must be dead!" exclaimed Baptiste.

"You may be right, but remember this: if the British want to maintain control, whether he's dead or alive, they need to buy time.
If
he is dead, do they want everybody, especially you, to know that?"

Baptiste was silent, confused. Lundt knew it and played on that weakness. He could ill-afford Baptiste to be paralysed by indecision, as he was occasionally prone. Lundt didn't want to have this thing drag on any longer than it had to. He wanted Malfajiri sorted. The rebels needed to move now, without delay, and seize control of the country.
If
that meant slaughtering every member of the Malfajiri Government and their lackeys, then so be it. Yes, there'd be collateral damage. Yes, civilians would be killed. That wasn't Lundt's problem. After all he'd seen and all that he knew Baptiste, and the Malfajirians were capable of doing to each other, what did he care? Once they'd successfully seized power and the diamond and mining concessions were finally in the right hands, then he'd done his job. He'd collect his money and then they'd move him on to the next one - wherever that was, as long as it was out of this shit-hole.

Lundt gathered himself and continued: "You need to act before BBC World announces that Namakobo's alive. Move before the Vice-President gets the balls to take control, before outside help arrives to back him up. World opinion will erupt into outrage over the assassination and force Britain or the UN into a moral decision to send foreign forces to Malfajiri. You, Colonel Baptiste, you need to strike. Preemptive action. You need your forces to move. You need your officers together here tonight, with you, to hear your command to strike, and in the morning, Malfajiri will wake up with a new President: Jean-Claude Baptiste."

"But, how can we ...?" Baptiste faltered.

"It's all arranged, Colonel. I've been moving the troops into positions across the country for the past three days. They are poised and awaiting your word. They're ready to strike the Government, the Army and the Police. They'll take control of the television and radio stations, the power station and telephone company, the hospitals, transport companies and primary industry. All you have to say is 'Go'."

"Something is rotten in the state of Denmark," Davenport noted dryly, downing the remnants of a coffee that had clearly not impressed, and dropping the cup onto a small wooden table beside him. The muted luminescence of the lamp sitting on the table drew deep shadows across the lines and folds of his face, giving the depths of his beard a forest-like quality. He unfolded himself from the maudlin clutches of the soft, floral upholstered sofa that served as the room's centrepiece, and walked around to lean against the mantel, atop the unlit hearth.

"I agree, Nobby," replied Commissioner Sinclair Hutton, facing the fireplace. "But who's directing it ? It's almost as if Namakobo was taunting Baptiste by presenting himself in the open like that. Damn fool!"

"You know the score, Sinclair. Namakobo can't let Baptiste think he's afraid. It's an important part of their culture."

"Yes, and he put the British public at risk by doing it and embarrassed all of us in the process. The media will undoubtedly blame the Met for this mess. Namakobo came over here for our help!" Hutton added emphatically. The son of one of the greatest West Indian cricketers of all time, Hutton had been appointed Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police in 2004 and had seen London through the dark days of July 2005 and onwards. He was every ounce the quintessential stoic, dedicated career policeman. If he'd stuck to the arrangements, as agreed, this would not have happened. Ah, here's the doctor."

Davenport and Hutton were waiting in the VIP suite of one of London's designated emergency treatment centres dedicated to handling high priority dignitaries requiring special privacy or security considerations. The two men had been there almost an hour awaiting word from the operating theatre. The surgical teams had been working throughout the night. The Chief Surgeon entered the room, exhausted. He was escorted by Chief Superintendent Hargreaves from Scotland Yard.

"Gentlemen," the doctor began. 'I'm somewhat relieved to say that President Namakobo is in a serious but stable condition, and I expect that he will make a full recovery."

"Can't you give us any more than that?" Hutton inquired bluntly. "Well, he's certainly received a nasty bump to the head. But my

primary concern when he was brought in was the extent of his internal injuries; danger of haemorrhage and whatnot. However, I'm satisfied that we've dealt with that. He'll receive constant attention tonight and we'll see how he comes through in the morning."

"And Madame Namakobo?" asked Davenport.

"Not good, I'm afraid, General." The surgeon's tired features became grave. "She suffered the brunt of the blast and also received a number of bullet wounds to the abdomen and right leg - she was situated behind the driver I understand, and as you know, he died at the scene. Madame Namakobo lost a lot of blood and is in a particularly weakened state. I don't expect her to make it through the night."

The surgeon departed to tend his charges and leave his instructions for the night staff in intensive care. Davenport responded to the burr of his phone, while Hutton turned to Hargreaves.

"Alright, Eddie," Hutton began. "Tell me what the bloody hell happened."

"Well, Sir, it's in the log that our boys tucked the President and Madame Namakobo up in their embassy around 2100. Sometime after that, the President decided to go out for a nightcap." Hutton cursed, as Hargreaves continued. "Without warning, he and Mrs. Namakobo left in their car with his own security detail. None of ours. Completely off the agreed schedule, and absolutely no time for us to get any cars or extra people around there to take them. Of course, if I'd been there they wouldn't have been allowed to go outside the house let alone get into the car and head to town. From what I've been able to put together, the ambush was initiated by the deliberate obstruction of a van across the path of the President's vehicle. It then exploded - and it wouldn't be a stretch to assume that the stupid git driving the van didn't realise he was on a suicide mission. That's when the shooting started and the rest is history. I'll have more details later this morning, Sir."

"Alright, son. Well done. Get the report to me the moment you have it." "No problem, Sir. Will there be anything else?" Hargreaves' genuine respect for the Commissioner was evident.
"If
not, I'd best be getting back

to the Yard."

"Of course, nothing else for now," replied Hutton grimly. "Thank you." "Good night, gentlemen."

As the door clicked shut behind the policeman, Hutton returned to Davenport, who was standing dead still.

"Anything from your man, Morgan?"

"No, still nothing," replied Davenport sombrely. "To be expected. The whole bloody country has erupted."

"If there is anything to be unravelled from this mess, then it'll be up to him to find it," Hutton said.

"Indeed." Davenport was absently stroking his beard, as he did when in deep thought. "I believe we're about to be confronted by the elephant in the room - or not in the room."

"The very noticeable absence of our friend from the Foreign Office," Hutton noted. "There's definitely something rotten going on, Nobby.

Whatever it is, I'm certain that somewhere within our illustrious intelligence community someone has blood on their hands."

"We have difficult times ahead, Sinclair," Davenport said, looking straight at Hutton. 'I'm still troubled by the lack of available information surrounding this Foreign Office person Violet Ashcroft-James has suggested, and I don't believe we can afford the luxury of waiting for SIS, the Foreign Office, or even bloody MI5 to come clean about it."

"I think SIS has got an internal security problem that they're trying to patch up and the Foreign Office will be battening down the hatches to avert a scandal," Hutton noted. "And I'm afraid I don't have a great deal of confidence in the Foreign Office man."

"You mean ]ohnson?" "Yes, I do."

"How very interesting," remarked Davenport thoughtfully. "Let's go and find a drink somewhere, Sinclair, and swap some notes."

"Sounds like a splendid idea. You think it's time we upped the ante?" "Most definitely," asserted Davenport.

The day following the news broadcast started as expected, with crippling temperatures from sunrise, and all of the expats in a dead panic to get the hell out of Malfajiri.

By 8 a.m. the place was a furnace. The second-grade tarred roads in and around Pallarup had blistered, and the air, as always, was too hot to breathe. Morgan and Fredericks had been on the move since daybreak. By 10 a.m. they'd managed to get almost all of the employees out of Pallarup and back to the RV at the Francis Hotel in Cullentown. With one more group to go, Fredericks was there with the rest of the small Chiltonford team, coordinating arrivals from Pallarup and making arrangements with the US Navy to get the Alga Creek people onto the Navy choppers and out to the aircraft carrier.

Meanwhile, as if there wasn't enough to deal with already, during the dozens of sorties that Steve had fl.own in and out of Pallarup that morning, he'd seen a large group of armed men camped out in the plains to the southwest of the mining town. A company of rebel troops, he'd reported to Morgan, looking as though they were preparing to attack.

Morgan, Fredericks and Mason agreed that they were rapidly running out of the already borrowed time they were on.

Absent from the sweat-soaked handful of evacuees waiting their turn to escape from Pallarup, was just one far too obvious face. Turner. The others, all long-serving employees of Alga Creek Mining, had lost patience with the man long ago.
It
had taken Morgan only two days to share their aggravation. Enough was enough.

Not for the first time that morning, Morgan checked his watch. Christ! Where the hell was Turner? Shouting over the deafening howl of the Aerospatiale AS-332M Super Puma's engines, and watching over the last of the evacuees as they clambered aboard, Morgan told Steve to wait for him - signalling 'five minutes' with the splayed fingers of his left hand and clutching an AKM assault rifle in his right. He spun his gaze back across the open plains surrounding the mine site, searching for movement, across mile upon mile of dirt and acacia trees.
In
the distance, a company of rebel troops was moving in from the southwest. A cloud of red dust marked the line of their advance as the convoy snaked towards him. Morgan figured he had less than 20 minutes to get the final group out before the rebels were on top of them.

Running from beneath the downdraft of the rotor blades, he sprinted for the head office where they'd been watching the news and making preparations last night. Checking his watch again, then scanning back to the rebel trucks, Morgan ran. The swirl of wind whipped at the dirt and bush, spinning the tinder-dry tussock into balls of tumbleweed around his feet. When he finally crashed through the rear entrance door to the office building, a powerful gust of wind forced its way in behind him, covering Morgan in another coat of the blood-red dirt and dust. He coughed, dragged a filthy sleeve across his eyes, and opening them, saw what he came for.

Morgan was barely able to contain the urge to push in the pugnacious, fat face that confronted him. He had no patience for Turner and was in no mood for resistance. Turner had made it clear from the outset that Morgan's sudden appearance to evacuate the Alga Creek Mining people was unnecessary. According
to
Davenport, Turner had vehemently resisted the recommendation from the Foreign Office that an evacuation specialist be deployed. Turner had even complained that Morgan's appointment was an affront to his management of Alga Creek operations in Malfajiri. This, despite the fact that the Foreign Office had arranged Morgan's appointment, and quite apart from the fact that the elected government of Malfajiri was in a shambles, and the country had been on the brink of civil war for months. Why so much resistance, thought Morgan, what exactly did Turner have to hide?

It was clear to Morgan that with the assassination of Namakobo (though nobody seemed sure whether the President was alive or dead), Baptiste had made his move and the civil war was now off the leash. Alga Creek Mining's multi-billion dollar rutile operation, the lifeblood of the struggling nation's economy, had been closed down overnight, and Pallarup would soon be a ghost town. Despite his previous remonstrations and open resentment, Turner's backflip at the precise moment that the assassination had been reported was quite bizarre. He was now only too happy to offload all responsibility onto Morgan. And now, but for the last load of people clambering aboard the chopper, Pallarup was stripped bare. Only the empty shells of the buildings and storage areas remained, buckling under the searing oppression of the sun.

"You can't be bloody serious?" Morgan yelled.

"What do you mean? I'm ready, aren't I?" Turner, startled by Morgan's arrival, was grappling with a laptop case, clumsily attempting to zip it closed as he waddled towards the door, clutching it to his chest as an old woman clutches her handbag.