The Mission Song (23 page)

Dolphin: In the new democracy, all appointments will be the result of transparent consultation.

Franco: My brother will pay one hundred cows and fifty thousand dollars cash for a three-year appointment.

Dolphin: The offer will be considered democratically.

From the other side of his Meccano grid, Spider is peering at me, hooped eyebrows raised. I lift an earpiece.

‘Something wrong?’ I enquire.

‘Not that I know of, boy.’

‘Then why are you staring at me?’

‘Bell’s gone, that’s why. You were too busy listening to hear it.’

12

‘Three bases, gentlemen! Each base open-cast, minimally exploited, and a vital key to Kivu’s revival.’

Maxie, billiards cue in hand, is once more haranguing us from the head of the table. The airport is ours, the Mwangaza is installed. Soon the Syndicate will control all South Kivu’s mines but in the meantime here are three to be getting along with. They are out-of-the-way, with no official concession-holders to be dealt with. Re-entering the conference room, I have the sensation that its occupants have undergone a theatrical transformation. Haj and Dieudonné, who minutes ago were partners to a highly seditious conversation, are behaving as if they had never set eyes on one another. Haj is humming tra-las to himself and smirking into the middle distance. Dieudonné is meditatively drawing out the strands of his beard with his bony fingertips. Looming between them sits Franco, his gnarled face a mask of righteousness. Who would have imagined that minutes previously he had been attempting to bribe the seraphic Dolphin? And surely Philip is not now and never has been the author of certain peremptory commands barked over the sat-phone? His plump hands are linked across his shirt-front in parsonical tranquillity. Does he comb his waved white hair between acts? Coax up the little curls behind the ears? Tabizi alone seems unable to contain whatever unruly thoughts are seething in him. He may have the rest of his body under control, but the vengeful glint in his oil-dark eyes is inextinguishable.

The map Maxie is addressing is so large that Anton has to spread it like a counterpane over one end of the table. Like his skipper he has taken off his jacket. His bared arms are tattooed from elbow to wrist: a buffalo’s head, a two-headed eagle clutching a globe and a skull on a star to commemorate the Escuadrón de Helicópteros of Nicaragua. He bears a tray of little plastic toys: gunships with bent rotors, twin-engined aeroplanes with their propellers missing, howitzers hauling ammunition trailers, infantrymen charging with fixed bayonets or, more prudently, lying flat.

Maxie marches down the table, cue at the ready. I am trying to avoid Haj’s eye. Every time Maxie points with his cue, I glance up from my notepad and there’s Haj waiting for me with his goggly stare. What’s he trying to tell me? I’ve betrayed him? We never duelled with each other? We’re bosom pals?

‘Little place called Lulingu,’ Maxie is telling Franco, as the tip of his billiards cue affects to skewer it. ‘Heart of your Mai Mai territory.
Le coeur du Maï Maï. Oui? D’accord?
Good man.’ He wheels round to me: ‘Suppose I asked him to put three hundred of his best chaps there, would he do that for me?’

While Franco is pondering my offer, Maxie swings back to Dieudonné. Is he about to advise him to swallow a bottle of aspirin?—not to hang around at the back of the herd now his time’s up?

‘Your area, right? Your people. Your pastures. Your cattle. Your plateau.’

The cue wheels down the southern shores of Lake Tanganyika, stops halfway, veers left and stops again.

‘It is our area,’ Dieudonné concedes.

‘Can you maintain a fortified base for me—here?’

Dieudonné’s face clouds. ‘For
you
?’

‘For the Banyamulenge. For a united Kivu. For peace, inclusiveness and prosperity for all the people.’ The Mwangaza’s mantras are evidently Maxie’s own.

‘Who will supply us?’

‘We will. From the air. We’ll drop you everything you need for as long as you need it.’

Dieudonné lifts his gaze to Haj as if to plead with him, then sinks his face into his long thin hands and keeps it there, and for a split second I join him in his darkness. Has Haj persuaded him? If so, has he persuaded
me
? Dieudonné’s head lifts. His expression is resolute, but in what cause is anybody’s guess. He begins reasoning aloud in short, decisive sentences while he stares into the distance.

‘They invite us to join Kinshasa’s army. But only in order to neutralise us. They offer us appointments that give the illusion of power. But in reality they are worthless. If an election comes, Kinshasa will draw borders that give the Banyamulenge no voice in Parliament. If we are slaughtered, Kinshasa will not lift a finger to save us. But the Rwandans will come to our protection. And that will be another disaster for Congo.’ From between splayed fingers, he announces his conclusion. ‘My people cannot afford to reject this opportunity. We shall fight for the Mwangaza.’

Haj stares wide-eyed at him, and emits a girlish laugh of disbelief. Maxie raps the tip of his cue on the foothills south-west of Bukavu.

‘And this very fine mine belongs to
you
, Haj? Is that correct? You and Luc?’

‘Nominally,’ Haj concedes with an irritating shrug.

‘Well, if it’s not yours, whose else is it?’—part joke and part challenge, which I do not attempt to moderate.

‘Our company has subcontracted it.’

‘Who to?’

‘Some business acquaintances of my father,’ Haj retorts, and I wonder who else has heard the rebellious edge to his voice.

‘Rwandans?’

‘Rwandans who love Congo. Such people exist.’

‘And are loyal to him, presumably?’

‘In many circumstances they are loyal to him. In others, they are loyal to themselves, which is normal.’

‘If we tripled the mine’s production and paid them a cut, would they be loyal to
us
?’

‘Us?’

‘The Syndicate. Assuming they are well armed and supplied against attack. Your father said they would fight for us to the last man.’

‘If that is what my father said, then what my father says is true.’

In his frustration, Maxie rounds on Philip. ‘I understood all this was agreed in advance.’

‘But of
course
it’s agreed, Maxie,’ Philip replies soothingly. ‘It’s a done deal, sealed and delivered. Luc signed up to all of it
long
ago.’

The dispute being in English and of a private nature, I elect not to render it, which does not prevent Haj from rolling his head around and grinning like an imbecile, thereby incurring the silent rage of Felix Tabizi.

‘Three leaders, three independent enclaves,’ Maxie forges on, addressing the conference at large. ‘Each with its own airstrip, disused, used or part used. Each supplied by heavy air transport out of Bukavu. Your whole problem of access, extraction and transportation solved in one throw. Unfindable and—without enemy air power—impregnable.’

Enemy air power?
The
enemy
being who precisely? Is this what Haj is wondering, or am I?

‘It’s not every military operation where you can pay your men out of the ground you’re camping on, for God’s sake,’ Maxie insists, in the tone of a man overcoming opposition. ‘
And
have the satisfaction of knowing you’re doing your country a bit of good while you’re at it. Tell ’em that too, will you, old boy. Hammer the social benefits. Each militia collaborating with local friendly chiefs, each chief making a buck, and why shouldn’t he, provided he passes it on to his clan or tribe? Not a reason on earth, in the long term, why the bases shouldn’t flourish as self-maintaining communities. Schools, shops, roads, medical centres, you name it.’

Distraction while Anton sets a plastic toy airliner on Franco’s jungle base and everybody watches. It’s an Antonov-12, Maxie explains. Carrying a cargo of diggers, dump trucks, forklifts and engineers. The airstrip can handle it with room to spare. Whatever anyone needs, the Antonov can deliver it with bells on. But once again, Haj stops him in his tracks, this time by shooting his right arm in the air and holding it there in the manner of an obedient student waiting his turn.

‘Monsieur Philippe.’

‘Haj.’

‘Am I correct in assuming that under the proposed agreement the militias must occupy their bases for a minimum of six months?’

‘Indeed you are.’

‘And
after
six months?’

‘After six months the Mwangaza will be installed as the People’s choice and the creation of an inclusive Kivu will be under way.’

‘But for those six months—before the mines pass into the People’s hands—who controls them?’

‘The Syndicate, who else?’

‘The Syndicate will mine the ore?’

‘I certainly hope so.’ Joke.

‘And ship it?’

‘Naturally. We explained all that to Luc.’

‘Will the Syndicate also be
selling
the ore?’

‘Marketing it, if that’s what you mean.’

‘I said sell.’

‘And I said market,’ Philip rejoins, with the smile of a fellow who enjoys a good set-to.

‘And keeping all profits to itself exclusively?’

On the other side of the table, Tabizi is about to erupt, but nimble Philip is once more ahead of him.

‘The profits, Haj—
revenue
is a kinder word—will, as you rightly imply, for the first six months go towards defraying the Syndicate’s up-front investment. This of course includes the high costs incurred by supporting the Mwangaza’s accession to power.’

Watched by all the room, Haj mulls this over. ‘And these mines, these three bases your Syndicate has selected—one for each of us—’ he resumes.

‘What about them?’

‘Well, they’re not just any old mines, selected at random, are they? They may not look it, but these are highly specialised sites.’

‘I fear you’re losing me, Haj. I am not a technical man at all.’

‘They have gold and diamonds, right?’

‘Oh, I sincerely hope so! Otherwise we’ve made a most terrible mistake.’

‘These mines are also
dumps
.’

‘Oh, really?’

‘Yes, really. All round them there are hill-works of coltan ore. Ore extracted, stockpiled and abandoned while we were so busy dying we didn’t get around to shifting it. All you have to do is crude-process it on site to reduce the weight, ship it out, and you’ve got a bonanza. You don’t even need six months. Two will do fine.’

At the edge of my screen, Tabizi is tenderly exploring the pockmarks on his jaw with the tips of his jewelled fingers, but to me it is Haj’s jaw that he is thinking about.

‘Well, thank you for that information, Haj,’ Philip replies, bland as cream. ‘I can’t imagine that our experts are unaware of what you’ve told us, but I’ll make sure it’s passed on. Coltan isn’t quite the wonder mineral it used to be, alas, but I’m sure you know that.’

‘
Roamer
, Skipper?’

My hand is up, requesting clarification. Maxie tetchily supplies it. Well, how was I to know that roamer radios move so fast from one frequency to another that there’s not a listening device in all Africa, let alone Bukavu, that can touch them?

‘
Mercs
, Skipper?’

‘Mercenaries, man! Bloody hell. What did you think they were? Cars? Thought you could do military.’

‘And
PMC
, Skipper?’—not two minutes later.

‘Private Military Company—Jesus, Sinclair, where the hell have you been all your life?’

I apologise, a thing a top interpreter should never do.

‘
Cordons
. Got that, old boy? French word, you should be all right with that. Soon as a base is secured, we throw a cordon round it. Fifteen-mile radius, nobody goes in or out without our say-so. The whole outfit air-supplied by helicopter. Our helicopter, our pilot, but your base.’

Anton pops a toy helicopter on each base. Moving to avoid Haj’s stare, I discover that Philip has taken centre stage.

‘And these helicopters, gentlemen’—never shy of the showman’s touch, Philip waits for total silence, gets it, starts again—‘these helicopters, which are so
vital
to our operation, will for ease of identification be painted
white
. And for ease of passage, we propose to take the precaution of painting UN markings on them,’ he adds in a throwaway tone which I do my level best to emulate while keeping my eyes fixed on my Perrier bottle, and my ears deaf to Hannah’s ever louder cries of outrage.

Maxie is back. He favours the sixty-mill mortar, essential to Spider’s beloved mayhem. He has a kind word or two for the rocket-propelled grenade which goes nine hundred yards then self-destructs, making mincemeat of a platoon, but it’s the sixty-mill that has his heart. Rendering him, it’s as if I’m in a long tunnel, hearing my own voice coming at me out of the darkness:

–  First we ferry in fuel, then ammunition.

–  Each man to get his own Czech-made Kalashnikov. Find me a better semi anywhere in the world.

–  Each base to receive three Russian 7.62 machine-guns, ten thousand rounds of ammunition, one white helicopter for transporting freight and troops.

–  Each white helicopter to carry one Gatling machine-gun in its nose cone, capable of firing four thousand rounds per minute of 12.7 mm ammunition.

–  Ample time to be allowed for training. Never knew a unit yet that wasn’t the better for training.

Tell ’em that, old boy.

I do.

No bell has rung but the post-office clock ticks on and we soldiers are sticklers for time. The double doors to the library swing open. Our forgotten women, wearing gingham aprons, are posed before a royal buffet. In my out-of-body state I observe lobsters on packed ice, a salmon garnished with cucumber, a cold collation of meats, a cheeseboard that includes a soft Brie that has escaped the waste-disposal unit, white wine in frosted silver buckets, a pyramid of fresh fruits and, as the jewel in the crown, a two-tiered cake surmounted by the flags of Kivu and the Democratic Congolese Republic. Via the French windows, with perfect timing, enter in solemn order of precedence the Mwangaza, his pious secretary the Dolphin, and Anton bringing up the rear.