The Twain Maxim (11 page)

“I don’t want to be inside,” said Jim.

“Don’t worry,” said Kitson, screwing up his eyes and smiling. “Baz won’t make you inside. Will you?”

“No, mate,” said Baz, “couldn’t possibly.”

Ralph drank some of his wine.

“OK,” continued Baz, “there’s good news and bad news.”

“What’s the bad?” said Kitson.

Baz clucked. “The drilling for cobalt’s not going well. It’s slower than we’d like and it’s not turning up trumps as we hoped. We might be a busted flush on the cobalt data.”

With a bit of luck Evans would be bailing out of the stock he’d bought as soon as they took off from the helipad. “There’s cobalt there, all right, but the deposit is shallow, and at a lot lower grade than we had expected. It’s not looking commercial. On top of that, we’ve blown a lot of our money drilling the bores. Pretty much everything that could go wrong has.”

Jim nodded. “What’s the good news?”

“We’ve come up with some kimberlites, three to be exact. They might be diamond bearing.’

“Only about one in a hundred kimberlites contains diamonds,” said Kitson.

Ralph nodded. “Yes,” he said, “but this is a very fruitful area for diamonds so we’re hopeful.”

“And that’s why your price crashed, right” said Jim.

“Maybe,” said Baz, “but we haven’t announced the cobalt news yet. It’s still not certain that we’re bombed out on cobalt. We’re going to exhaust all possibilities. You never know.”

“How did the news get out?” asked Jim.

“Fucking drillers,” said Baz, looking mournful for about two seconds.

“So what you’re saying,” interjected Kitson, “is that your mine is dry and there’s a tiny chance you may have diamonds.”

“Yeah,” said Baz, “that’s about it. But we’ve got forty square miles of property in some of the richest mineral land on earth so something might still turn up.”

“Sounds pretty hopeless,” said Kitson.

Baz looked down at the table. “We’ll come up with something,” he said, “you mark my words. We’re still very hopeful.” The price of Barron would be 30p within days, he thought, and he’d buy back all the stock at the price he’d planned all along.

“Good,” said Jim. “I’m sure you’re right.”

“Thanks,” said Baz, suddenly confused.

“I’m tempted to buy some more,” said Jim. “Do you know anyone who wants to sell?”

“No,” said Baz, rather too sharply. “We don’t keep track of the stock that closely.”

“What about you Ralph? You’re the broker.”

Ralph grimaced. “I can look into it.”

Jim caught the eye of the steward, who was standing well back. “Another round, please.”

“I’d like to visit the property,” interjected Kitson.

“Really?” said Baz, squirming. “It really is in the arse of nowhere, mate.”

“I know,” said Kitson. “I used to know Zaïre well under Mobutu.”

“Oh, right,” said Baz. He laughed. “Well, sure, come on down.” Shit.

“Changing the subject a bit,” he went on, “can I ask you a personal question, Jim?”

“Go ahead,” said Jim.

“What kind of business is it that allows a young guy like you to afford all this?”

Jim wanted to say, “Drugs and guns,” so he did.

Baz went red and Ralph went white.

Jim laughed. “Only joking.”

“Ker, ker, ker,” laughed Baz, “good one.” He fixed Jim with a stare. “So, go on, what do you do?”

“I’m a trader.”

“What do you trade?”

“Anything that moves.”

Four hours later Kitson was on the phone to Jim from London. “Jim, I’m afraid, in my opinion, you’ve bought a lot of valueless stock.”

“Could be,” said Jim, his
flambé
cherries getting cold, “but the chart says it’ll go to a fiver maybe even thirty quid.”

“That’s insane,” said Kitson, his voice in a higher register than normal, “and I mean that, with due respect.”

“I can afford the mistake,”

“I know,” said Kitson, “and I don’t doubt your abilities to read the charts but, even so, this is such a simple example of a dud mining promotion I can’t entertain anything but the gravest of doubts.”

“Don’t bother yourself,” said Jim. “It’s OK. If it goes to a fiver sell it, if it goes tits up forget it.”

“Well, I’m going to take a look. If it’s as good as you think, I’d be a fool not to fill my own and my clients’ boots. So I’m going to take a look for both of us.”

“Cool,” said Jim. “I might come along.”

“I shouldn’t,” said Kitson. “There really isn’t much to recommend it unless you like boiling heat, hundred per cent humidity, terrible food and no amenities. If it was, say, Mozambique I’d encourage you, but in this instance I positively recommend against it.”

“OK,” said Jim. “Keep me posted.”

Baz lay awake, thinking. It was one a.m. and it was only a very rare problem that stopped him sleeping. He had hoped the selling would start the moment they took off from the yacht, but nothing had happened.

A lot of so-called rich men would panic at the thought of losing the smallest amount of money, and even a man on a fifty-million-dollar yacht would sweat over a $20 million position in a busted mine. Yet the kid didn’t seem to give a monkey’s and that was too weird. How much money did you need to have to not give a fuck about twenty million dollars? And if you were that rich, surely you’d be famous. But Evans was a nobody.

Someone was trying to con him, but who? Not only who, but why? He didn’t know anyone with the money or the balls to play that kind of game and he couldn’t imagine why they would, even if they did.

Something was very wrong but he had no idea what it could be. He was going to have to spend some real cash to find out who this joker was.

To make things worse, the irritating broker, Kitson, was going to visit the mine next week, with or without Baz going along. He’d have to drop everything and go too, to make sure Kitson got the right handling. Fortunately brokers never knew the slightest thing about mining so it was easy to bamboozle them. A little sightseeing, some drinking with the ladies, a spot of entertaining storytelling and they were always satisfied.

It had all been going so well. Yet now he was just going to have to get it back on track, using the old magic he had conjured up so many times before.

Perhaps tomorrow would be the day Evans would start to dump his Barron stock. If he did, the problem would evaporate, like most of Baz’s problems did. Then he’d be a much happier man. If Evans didn’t, he’d have to come up with another plan. At some point he’d have to ramp the price to dump his stock, so whatever happened he needed to keep the diamonds-and-gold story in place.

Baz was waiting for Kitson at the check-in desk. The broker was late, but that was OK because Baz was on a call he didn’t want him to overhear.

“No, that can’t be right,” he said, pacing up and down. “You can’t be telling me you’ve found nothing at all on this guy?”

“That’s right,” said the voice at the other end. “There are two thousand James Evanses in the London area alone and we’ve gone through every one. None fits your description.”

“OK,” said Baz, “but he’s on my company register. What did you find out from his broker?”

“Nothing. They have twelve James Evanses on their books but not one is under thirty.”

“But the Kitson guy checks out.”

“Yes.”

“That can’t be right. Can it? The banks can’t have mystery customers, not in this day and age.”

“I’m sorry, Mr Mycock, but we’ve drawn a complete blank.”

“I’ve paid you a hundred grand for this. What kind of service are you offering?”

“We’ll refund you in the circumstances.”

“Don’t refund me,” he exploded. “Just find out about him
for me. For God’s sake, you’re meant to be the best.”

“We do come up blank from time to time,” said the voice. “We are human, after all.”

“Look,” said Baz, “I’m out of town for two weeks. You’ve got until then to turn up the goods or I’ll have my money back. OK?”

“All right. We’ll continue to do our best.”

“How hard can it be to trace a guy who takes holidays on a fucking huge yacht called
Leviathan
?”

“In this case, Mr Mycock, very difficult indeed.”

Baz caught sight of Kitson coming his way. “Got to go,” he said, and hung up. He walked towards Kitson and smiled. “I was starting to worry, mate. It’s a fucking nightmare getting through security, and we’re cutting it a bit fine.”

The tide was high outside his lounge window. It would be hours before it was low enough for him to jump out and go searching along the foreshore. He was happy to be home – glad to be looking at the grey river rolling by.

John Smith had called him to say he’d drop by for a quick chat. That had sounded ominous but, then, Smith’s voice always was in a gallows-humour sort of way.

When he’d rung the doorbell and Stafford answered, Smith’s brow furrowed. “Bertie?” he was about to say.

Stafford pointed his index finger straight at him, then put it to his lips.

Smith’s mouth stayed closed. He gave Stafford a glare of frustration.

Stafford pursed his lips and glared back. “Come in, sir.”

Smith peered at Stafford hard.

“Please come this way.”

Smith’s habitual deadpan expression clicked back into place and he followed Stafford to Jim.

His friend greeted him, and Smith flopped on to the sofa, then sat up straight. “Someone’s making enquiries about you.”

“Really?” said Jim. “Not the Serbs, I hope.”

“No, some mining fellow.”

“Do you want a drink?”

“I’m tempted,” said Smith, throwing a look at Stafford, “but I can’t stay. Just thought you needed to know.”

Stafford took the hint and left the room.

“Would that have been Baz Mycock by any chance?”

“It would indeed. Happily, he asked the wrong people and they knew to pass it on to us.”

“Oh, right,” said Jim. “That’s good.” He shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “Thanks for the favour.”

“My pleasure.”

“What did he want to know?”

“Just who the hell you are.” Smith grinned. “I take it that’s because you’ve bought a big chunk of his company.”

Jim shrugged. “I guess that would make sense.”

“My people think your Mr Mycock is a wrong ’un, so you should proceed with caution.”

“My broker’s in the Congo with him right now, up at the mine.”

“Good luck to him. That area’s well dodgy, if you ask me.”

“The mine’s showing a great chart,” said Jim, “unless I’ve got it completely wrong.”

“That might be true, but it’s sited in the last place on earth you’ll find me visiting.”

“Hmm,” said Jim. “I think you can rest easy on that one.”

Smith got up. “Go carefully, Jim,” he said.

“Have you heard anything from …” Jim trailed off.

“Jane?” said Smith. “No, not a dickybird.”

“Right.”

Kitson always felt strangely happy going to sleep in a rough bed in a rough billet somewhere in the middle of nowhere. It was on such rare occasions that he felt the line between himself and his environment was at its most sharply defined. In what he deemed civilisation, he was separated from the rest by tiny gradings in subtleties such as taste and manners. In a desert or a jungle the line was much clearer. Right and wrong were clearly delineated by life and death.

While he might appear a duffer in the modern landscape, he was revealed as anything but in a world stripped of decadence. The fops back at the bank would quiver at the prospect of visiting such a place, but Kitson was entirely at ease.

For some reason mines seemed to favour such remote crucibles and visiting them filled him with a sense of purpose and excitement. Bedding down, he felt as if he’d regressed to his thirties. The creatures of the night were making their soothing noises, and in the faint light of a bedside lamp he could see through the mosquito net a small lizard climb up the far wall. He turned off the light and fell asleep to the sounds of the jungle.

Jim looked out of his bedroom window at the low tide glittering in the light of the full moon. If only he could see in
the dark he could be searching during the lowest tides, which always happened at night. He was tying his tie, which Tulip would probably pull off again in approximately an hour. Somehow he had made it impossible to have sex with his girlfriend in his own home.

His life had truly gone mad.

Higgins was looking out over the base camp towards the soldiers’ barracks. He kept a constant eye on it for signs of trouble. They were a useless crowd but, armed with serviceable weapons, even the most ragtag collection of men could be dangerous. Now, though, only their itinerant servant, a young guy called Man Bites Dog, appeared to be up and about. He watched him carrying a crate of beer from the stores to the mess. He didn’t like the kid’s name. War names smacked of trouble.

Baz joined him. “Another beautiful day, ker, ker, ker,” he croaked. “It’ll be as hot as hell I suppose in about two hours.”

“Hotter,” said Higgins.

Kitson, they noticed, was walking towards them. “Good morning,” he said.

“Morning,” said Higgins.

“How are you feeling?” enquired Baz.

“Very well, actually,” said Kitson. “I had an excellent night.”

“Shall we get going?” said Higgins.

“Why not?” said Baz

“It’s very reassuring that you’re flying,” said Kitson to Higgins, as he regarded the old Bell Huey helicopter. “The amount of times I’ve flown in one of these things with a drunken pilot …”

Higgins was a little bleary-eyed. “You probably need to be drunk to fly in half the aircraft in Africa,” he said. He didn’t seem to be joking.

“Quite. Is the helicopter a recent model?”

“Recent enough for me to fly the thing two or three times a week,” said Higgins.

“I fucking hate choppers,” said Baz, grinning. “I don’t like flying without wings. Seems a bit too trusting.”

The helicopter was in a protected compound about a hundred metres square, the central area roughly concreted. The landing pad was in the middle, marked in white paint with a giant H. There was an open building at the far end of the compound, a roof on stilts to protect barrels of aviation fuel from the direct glare of the sun.

Higgins unlocked the armoured door in the high perimeter fence. Coils of razor wire inside the enclosure created a twenty-foot buffer of assured agony for anyone who wanted to take an unauthorised look or flight. They walked into the compound and Higgins locked the gate behind them. There was meant to be at least one guard on duty
twenty-four
hours a day, but attempting to get the government soldiers to do anything was a waste of effort.

Baz and Kitson sat in the Huey’s rear jump seats. Kitson’s gave him a good view through the door’s window and, past Higgins, the large windscreen. He noted that the passenger area, which was actually the cargo bay, was almost pristine. If it had been carrying bulky loads it would have shown plenty of wear and tear. Instead, what damage there was had been repaired, perhaps by the aircraft’s previous owners – it seemed unlikely that there would be anyone in the camp who
could touch up the interior of a helicopter. Odd, thought Kitson.

“Do you use this to run supplies to the drillers?”

“All the time,” said Baz. “It’s a workhorse.”

“Right,” said Kitson.

“Let’s go see a kimberlite first.”

Higgins started the engine, which whistled and screamed, and they were soon in the air.

Kitson watched the vibrant landscape pass below. He felt an excitement he never experienced at home. He took out a packet of Marlboro Lights and motioned to Baz.

“OK to smoke?” he shouted.

“Sure! This is fucking Congo, for Christ’s sake.”

Higgins smelt the smoke and glanced around. He didn’t approve, but what the hell?

The kimberlite was a ten-minute flight into the jungle. It had once been a volcanic vent through which all manner of minerals had been blown from below the earth’s mantle. Time had worn away the cone it had once formed and now there was just a large circular scar. There was no soil on the kimberlite, just the barren rock that had spewed up and solidified. No trees grew there so the Huey could land right on top of it.

Kitson and Baz gazed down at what resembled a circular clay-surfaced tennis court as they dropped towards the ground. It looked impressive, poking out of the hillside like an artificial construction, a semicircular ledge of about two hectares set into the jungle hillside. Baz nodded at the other man. At least they’d found a few kimberlites to put on a show. Kitson was asking lots of stupid questions over the clatter of the rotor blades and writing the answers on a notepad he’d
got out of a beaten-up briefcase. Now he was consulting a GPS and noting down the grid reference.

Baz didn’t like his attention to detail. The whole point of siting the mine somewhere awful was that no one who knew what they were talking about would want to visit.

In the past Baz had taken investors to places not actually on the ground that was in his parcel of rights. This was not such an occasion, but the more questions Kitson asked, and the more people who visited, the greater the chance of exposure. Kitson was demanding the sort of due diligence Baz hated. He wasn’t used to it. Tonight he’d make sure Kitson got the worst case of food poisoning ever. The kid who had latched on to the soldiers did the cooking for the camp, spoke English and was quick on the uptake when there was money in it for him. He’d do the honours for a few thousand Congolese francs. A dose of dysentery would send the nosy broker packing.

The landing shook Baz out of his plans. They waited for the rotors to stop and for the dust to settle. Eventually he leant over Kitson and opened the door. Kitson jumped out. The morning sun was rising and the temperature was picking up. The kimberlite was about fifteen hundred feet up the mountainside from the plateau where they were standing. It afforded clear views to the valley and the camp below.

Higgins joined them, carrying a Tavor-21 assault rifle. “We’ve got to be careful,” he said, noticing Kitson’s reaction. “Pygmies.”

“What about them?” asked Kitson.

“Not happy bunnies,” said Baz. “They don’t trust anyone around here and they can put an arrow in you as easy as look at you.”

“They’re all over the mountain,” said Higgins, “and since the last war, some of them have gone nasty.”

“How does that affect the drilling?”

“It doesn’t make it any easier,” said Baz, “but so far so good.”

Kitson was gazing down the mountain to the camp, which was just a dot in the distance. “What a stunning place,” he breathed. He turned and looked towards the cone of the volcano a mile behind them. A plume of smoke rose lazily above it.

“Yeah,” said Baz, “and we may just be standing on a king’s ransom.”

“Have you had the rock tested for microdiamonds?” asked Kitson, peering at the eroded, porous surface of the ground.

“Sure,” said Baz. “Ker, ker, ker.”

“And?” said Kitson, lighting another Marlboro.

“Well, without giving too much away, it’s bloody promising.”

Kitson took a puff of his cigarette, his eyes screwed up. There was nothing in the way of workings to show that any drilling or digging had gone on there. There was not one piece of rubbish he’d have expected a team to leave behind. He put a hand into his pocket and took out a small hammer, chipped at the ground with the sharp end of the head and put a useful chunk of rock into his pocket.

Baz smiled. What use would a rock be to Kitson? “You collect rocks,” he observed.

“I’ve got an old friend in Canada who’s a whiz at kimberlites – he found the Silver Fox deposit. I thought he might be persuaded to take a look.”

“Right,” said Baz, “good one.”

“Pygmies,” mused Kitson, as he walked towards the jungle that ringed the back end of the kimberlite. “I thought they were peaceful people.”

Higgins was at his side. “Maybe they were. They probably just got fed up with getting killed.”

“Really?” said Kitson.

“It’s not been too clever around here for years and they get a pretty raw deal.”

“I see.” Kitson stared longingly at the jungle. “Do you think we could meet some?”

“No!” Baz laughed, sounding nervous. “I don’t think we can.”

“Man Bites Dog goes in there. He speaks English – you might get him to take you.”

“No, mate, that wouldn’t be sensible,” said Baz

“Man Bites Dog?” asked Kitson.

“He’s a local lad, does for the soldiers. He gets them bush meat now and again.”

“Ah, interesting,” said Kitson. “That sounds like a fine idea.”

As Kitson continued to gaze at the jungle, Higgins cast a glance at Baz, his eyebrows raised. His fixed smile suggested that Baz should shut up and think.

Baz’s answering expression said, “You dickhead.” Then it changed. Maybe instead of giving Kitson the runs he could let the kid take him on safari in the jungle. By the time the pair got back to camp, the broker would be good and ready for a quick flight home.

“OK,” said Baz. “I’ll fix it up if you like.”

“Would you?” said Kitson, lighting yet another cigarette.
“That’s very good of you.” He pointed at the jungle ahead. “But perhaps we could take just a quick look now?”

Baz thought about the pad in Kitson’s briefcase. “Why not?” he said. “Go on, Mark, take Terence for a recce – no more than an hour, mind you.”

Higgins frowned. “OK – but first sign of life and we’re coming straight out.”

“Fine,” said Kitson.

It was raining almost constantly somewhere on the mountain so the jungle was a network of streams and small rivers working their way down the mountainside to the valleys below. The tall trees, many of which were more than a hundred feet high, blanked out the sun from the ground, starving much of the undergrowth of light. This meant that
the way wasn’t as difficult as it had appeared, although the path was steep. Higgins checked both GPS every few minutes to make sure they tallied and kept his eye on a compass he had tied to his belt as well.

Despite the heat and humidity, Kitson was fascinated. His head swivelled as he walked. Butterflies danced in fluttering circles, illuminated by shafts of light. Hanging lianas fell from the high canopy, and distant birds chirped and squawked over a cacophony of buzzing and burbling. Yet no sound was louder than the thud of his feet on the soft wet ground or the breath in his lungs. He stood to watch a troop of ants ascend a tall tree, Higgins beside him. He wondered where they were going – their nest, perhaps, or some succulent spray of fruit.

Eventually Higgins turned away and they began to retrace their footsteps.

“Tomorrow should be fun,” Kitson said, navigating down the incline.

“The pleasure’s all yours, mate,” said Higgins.

“I can’t see the rig,” shouted Kitson, above the rotors.

“It’s down there somewhere,” Baz yelled back.

Higgins was flying in circles over the grid reference they had identified in the mining report as a location to drill for cobalt.

“Well, I can’t see a thing.”

“It’s under the trees,” roared Baz.

“Surely there’d be a clearing?”

“What?”

“Clearing! There should be a clearing.” Kitson leant forwards against his seatbelt.

Baz shrugged. “It’s bloody well down there somewhere.”

Kitson sat back. “Let’s move on to the next point, then, and the second drilling team.”

“Right,” said Baz, and spoke into the microphone that broadcast into Higgins’s headset. The helicopter headed off on a new course.

Kitson scribbled on his pad. To Baz, it looked like “MACS” again.

They circled the second grid reference.

“Still can’t see the bloody rig,” shouted Kitson.

“We’re environmentally sensitive,” shouted Baz.

“What?”

“En-viro-men-tal-ly sen-si-tive,” Baz howled. So much so that we don’t bother drilling at all, he added to himself.

“Quite,” hollered Kitson, writing again. “Last rig?”

“OK.” Baz passed on the command. “MACS” was bugging the hell out of him. Shit! he thought. They were heading towards open country – Kitson would know it was a scam…he shook his head. MACS was “scam” spelt backwards.