The Twain Maxim (2 page)

Thank Christ, he thought. He raised his hand in salute.

Mark Higgins had been a soldier once, a pretty good one. He was not, however, much good in Civvy Street and had found himself quickly back at work in “security”. He liked to think of himself as a mercenary, but he didn’t do any fighting. He wasn’t comfortable with the moniker “bodyguard” – it sounded like a servant with a gun. He liked “security consultant”. He consulted by looking mean for his clients in unsavoury spots around the world and by knowing his way about. He found the latter easy – he was naturally attracted to the sleazy underbelly of any city. Once he had that mapped out, the rest of the places were just tourist destinations. His impossibly wide forearms bore dark green tattoos, blurred but military-looking.

“What a shithole,” said Baz, by way of greeting.

 Higgins smiled, his missing right dog tooth giving the expression a frightening aspect. “What did you expect?”

“I’m getting fucking soft,” said Baz. “Too much shagging on the beach.”

“Come on, matey, let’s vamoose. Mind how you go.” Higgins grabbed his heavy case as if it was empty and shouted, “Gangway.”

There was a minor explosion of guttural French from the crowd, but it parted as he pushed through.

Baz tucked in behind.

“Come on, out the way,” Higgins snarled, carving his way through the chaos. “
Allez
, mate,
allez
.”

“Fuck,” said Baz, as the door of the Merc slammed, insulating them from the heat, noise and smell of the airport.

“We should have gone to Papua, Marky.”

“Would have been a good choice,” said Higgins. “Didn’t want to say, mate, but when we were here last, and it was called Zaïre, it was fucked. Now it’s the Democratic Republic of Congo, it’s double-fucked. But you’ll get used to it.”

“Yeah,” said Baz. “A bottle of strong grog, a packet of extra strong condoms, and it’ll start to look up.”

“There you go,” said Higgins, as the car pulled away from what remained of the kerb and out across the uneven road surface.

The ministry building looked and smelt like some godforsaken east European orphanage.

They had been waiting for fifty minutes.

Baz was scowling. “It’s always the fucking same, Marky.”

“We could be here for days,” said Higgins.

“On the hour we’re off.”

 The ten minutes passed slowly. As the second hand swept into the next hour Baz picked up his briefcase and got out an envelope. He pulled a five hundred euro note from his jacket pocket and tore it in half. He put the left half in the envelope and the right half back in his pocket. He put his card in the envelope. He laid the envelope on top of the briefcase and wrote in big block capitals: “LAURENT JALBINYO”. He got up, walked over to the receptionist and gave her a big smile. He took out a five thousand Congolese francs note and put it under the envelope. “
S’il vous plaît. La lettre est pour mon ami.
”

She took the envelope and looked very happy indeed. Five thousand francs was three days’ pay.

“
À bientot
,” he said. “
Merci.
”

The girl said something incomprehensible and Baz turned away. “Let’s go,” he said to Higgins.

Baz was lying by the hotel pool in the fading evening heat. They had gone on a bender the night before and Higgins hadn’t reappeared. Baz was a bit surprised by the no-show but, then, Higgins had been drinking like a drowning man. He’d wait another day for contact from his connection, then start looking for a new one. He took a swig of his Primus beer. He could taste the maize in it.

His BlackBerry began to vibrate on the table in a heavy purr. He watched it for a moment, then snatched it up. No caller ID. “Baz Mycock.”

“Mr Mycock…”

Bingo, thought Baz.

“…very sorry about yesterday. There was a mix-up. Oh, my God, so many problems.”

 “Sorry to hear that. Problems can be expensive.”

“I’ve had a moment to read your proposals and I received your letter. I hope I can meet with you.”

“I’m at the Hotel Grand, why not come over?”

“I can be there at lunchtime, if that is convenient for you.”

“Fine, see you then.”

“Thank you.”

Baz hung up quicker than necessary. No one did him any favours by taking his money.

Jalbinyo looked as nervous as a rabbit eating too far from his warren. He was wearing a tired blue suit and his shirt collar was frayed. The flecks of curly white hair on his balding head stood out starkly against his skin. As they sat eating he seemed to be in constant motion, swaying slightly from side to side as if the joints holding him together had been loosened.

He had let Baz do all the talking, laughing, clapping and punctuating Baz’s schtick with exclamations. He wasn’t drinking enough for Baz’s liking.

“Well,” said Baz, halfway through his steak, “have you got my letter?”

Jalbinyo looked startled. “Letter?” He patted his suit jacket. “Oh, Jesus, yes.”

He pulled out the envelope.

Baz took it, then put the other half of the five hundred euro note into it. He smiled. “Laurent, I need the names of the two best lawyers in town and the best accountant. I want invites to the right parties.”

“No problem, my friend.”

“But it’s the rights I’ve got to get sorted, and I want to come to an understanding with you.”

“I’m listening.”

“I need you to look after me and I’ll be very grateful if you do.”

Jalbinyo nodded, clearly confused. “Very grateful?”

“Yes, very grateful – if I get my rights.”

“Magnificent,” said Jalbinyo. He squinted. “How do you mean, ‘grateful’?”

“Well, I need you to sort out my mineral rights for me. When I have them I’ll pay you a hundred thousand euros.”

“Oh, Jesus, oh, God.” Jalbinyo glanced around furtively. Then he looked back at Baz and smiled suddenly. He leant forwards. “There are lots of costs.”

“I know,” said Baz, “but none of them gets paid until I have my rights all done, dusted, signed and sealed. Then I’ll send you twenty thousand euros a month and you’ll take all the running costs from that.”

Jalbinyo sat back, pouting reflectively. He seemed about to say something until Baz shot forwards in his chair. “Don’t fucking try to negotiate with me,” he spat, spraying a little chewed steak from his mouth. “There are fifty friends in fifty countries who’ll take that and call me ‘sir’. Don’t give me any shit. Just say: ‘Yes, Baz. Thank you, Baz. That’s just perfect, Baz.’”

Jalbinyo sat back. “There are a lot of costs,” he said again.

“I know, I know,” said Baz, dismissively. “Lots and lots of costs.” He paused and scowled. “Look, Laurent, as long as I get no trouble, the money will flow. The moment I get shit it stops. It’s a simple relationship.”

Jalbinyo clapped. “You are a funny man, Baz.”

Baz grinned and nodded. He caught sight of Higgins in the doorway, shook his head and Higgins stayed back. “No,
Laurent, I’m a simple man. DRC is a big place with a capital about as far from the interior as you can get. All I want is forty square miles of useless land next to your country’s most dangerous volcano. It’s so far away from Kinshasa that it’s nearly in Rwanda. Maybe I am funny, but what could be simpler?”

Jalbinyo scratched the right side of his face. He breathed in to speak.

“Don’t tell me about costs.”

Jalbinyo laughed, clapping his hands in front of his face and holding them there. “Relax, Mr Baz Mycock. I will look after you.”

Baz smiled.

“But…”

“No buts.”

“But it will take time.”

“That’s OK.”

Jalbinyo held out his hand and Baz shook it.

“Now,” said Baz, putting a hand into the briefcase by his seat. “Here are five thousand euros as a float. That’s all you’ll see from me until I get my rights delivered. I hope it’ll speed things along for us.”

Jalbinyo took the envelope and put it into his top pocket.

“You see?” said Baz. “I’m a reasonable man.” He grinned and nodded at the shadow at the door. “Just don’t ever, even for a moment, think I’m stupid.”

A bulk in a Hawaiian shirt loomed up and sat down next to him.

“Oh, Jesus,” squeaked Jalbinyo.

“No,” said Higgins, “it’s Mark.” He offered his giant hand.

 Jalbinyo took it as if he was expecting an electric shock.

They shook.

Jalbinyo smiled nervously. “
Enchanté
.”

“Ker, ker, ker,” cackled Baz.

Jim Evans knew he was in hospital, he knew he was pretty banged up, but he didn’t give a fuck. Whatever it was they were filling him with, it was the nectar of the gods. Submerged, as he was, in sedation and pain relief, the recent past seemed like a fading nightmare, one in which a grenade had nearly torn him in half.

When he fell asleep the nightmare would return and terrify him. He was running down the tunnel in the volcano on Las Palmas, trying to save the world, and the soldiers were being blown to pieces. He saw himself shoot a man in the head, then blood cascading from the hole as more bullets struck the body.

When would someone come and see him?

Jane was the first. She looked as if someone had beaten the shit out of her. He couldn’t hear much of what she said, but he’d given her the thumbs-up. Having a DIA agent as your girlfriend was like dating the angel of death, but it had its advantages. While he’d been saving the world she had saved his life.

Next up was Max Davas, who didn’t look much better. He might be the smartest fund manager in the world but Jim’s mentor, the father he’d never had, was old and fragile.

He couldn’t remember much of what Davas had said
either, but Jim was happy to see him. Somehow he and Jane had helped him separate the dreams from reality.

John, the laconic MI6 man, showed up next. Of the three, he looked worst – one cheek was covered with a giant plaster and his left side was encased in something that meant he had to wear his jacket over his shoulders. He seemed happy enough, though. He grinned a lot and told jokes Jim didn’t get.

His doctors told Jim he was a lucky man. They’d taken out about half a metre of his guts and various bits of shrapnel. It was a miracle he hadn’t lost a kidney. He’d be OK, though, they said; nothing much wrong that wouldn’t heal. Jim found lying in bed all but intolerable, but they’d said it might be another couple of months before he could leave: he’d picked up an antibiotic-resistant infection. He wasn’t to worry about it, but it would slow the healing process.

Now Jane was on leave and visiting him every day. In his semi-frozen state he looked up at her adoringly. She was the most amazing woman in the world. If only he could drag her into his hospital bed and make love to her … That was his goal. But by the time he was able to go home, Jane was back on duty and had vanished into the ether …

The sergeant wanted to whistle at the babe in the black leathers but that would have been a very bad idea. Whistling at Colonel Jane Brown would have been like pinching the butt of a Tigron.

She pulled the dusty cover off her motorbike, stuffed it into the space where her helmet had been stowed, saddled up and switched on the Kawasaki Ninja ZX-14. It snarled into life. Good to be riding home, she thought, as she arced out of the hangar. At 160 m.p.h., she could be down this ten-mile straight in four minutes, but just as she hit the zone of perfect speed, she saw a police car pull on to the road behind her, blue lights flashing. She could have lost it, of course, but she throttled right back.

Damn, she thought. Busted.

The police car stopped shrinking in the wing mirror and began to grow.

“Pull over,” came a voice from the bullhorns on its roof, and she steered to the edge of the tarmacked road, stopped and dismounted.

The officer on the passenger side got out as she lifted off her helmet, but as he approached her, the car let out a sudden ‘Woot, woot.’ The officer stopped and turned. ‘Woot’ from the squad car meant that something was up. He
ambled back to the driver and looked in at the computer terminal his partner had twisted around for him. “Colonel J. Brown,” it read. The gal in the leathers made a pretty strange colonel. His eyes went to “Gender”. “F,” it said. He gave his partner a look; his partner returned it. He glanced down at “Notes”.

DIA.

He straightened, walked round the front of the car and got back into the passenger seat. His partner pulled out and, as they passed her, waved.

Jane put her helmet back on. Cool, she thought, starting her engine. Good to be back in ole Virginia.

Jim looked at the mess that ran down the right of his torso, then rubbed some ointment on to his wounds. It burned. Bastard bacteria, he thought. He took three large strips of plaster and covered them. The abscesses were slowly closing, but after six months, progress seemed glacial. His body had lost its previously honed outline, the result of dedicated running, and he suspected his fitness had gone with it.

He walked out of the bathroom into his bedroom. Jane was coming at the weekend and it was in worse shape than he was. Must do a tidy, he thought. He didn’t make much of a mess, rattling around in his palatial London Docklands flat all on his own, but the agency cleaner didn’t seem to do much. She came one morning a week and shuffled about, with her iPod on, to little effect.

He sat on the end of the bed to pull his socks on, trying not to yank at his injuries. For now, the grenade had put an end to his ability to stand on one leg and hop into a sock. It was a small loss to suffer from such a bad trade.

He pulled on his boxers, picked up his mobile and called Davas.

“Jim, how are you?”

“Great,” he said, perking up at the sound of the old man’s voice.

“You never ring, you never email. Have I upset you?”

“No, no,” said Jim, “I know how busy you are. Don’t want to trouble you.”

“I was starting to worry.”

“Don’t be silly,” said Jim. “I’m sorry I haven’t been in touch.”

“So what is new?”

“Nothing,” said Jim. “It’s just I need some advice.”

“Fire away.”

“It’s sort of like I’m in a vacuum. It’s stupid but I miss having to get up and go to work. It was great at the bank, being on the trading floor with the guys. There was always something kicking off to make money out of. I miss the buzz. I miss working with you,” he laughed sadly, “not that I want to have to save the fucking world again or anything. It’s just I’ve got no day job, nothing to do, but also no one to do the little stuff I need either.”

“Bored?”

“Yes – and, well, kind of like …” He trailed off.

“Lonely?”

“No,” he said, “not really.” He’d lied. “I’ve got Jane and she’s over this weekend – but it can get a bit quiet when she’s working.”

“Why don’t you come over?”

“That’d be great – I’ll be with you after she’s gone back.”

“And get yourself a butler like Jeffries.”

Jim laughed. “It’s an idea, but I’m not sure it’d suit me.”

“A man of your position needs staff,” said Davas. “And a good butler is a top-quality manager as well as a confidant and an adviser.”

Jim’s mind flapped as he poured silence down the phone to Davas. A butler was the ultimate status symbol in the world of privilege to which his strange talent had taken him. Jim could predict the transit of a stock or currency chart. On his monitor, the tiny trail of pixels represented the inexorable grindings of the world economy: to be able to see just a minute ahead unlocked vast treasure that he had barely begun to plunder. It was the skill that had led him to see that global markets were to crash to zero and that for this to happen the world had to come to a sudden and catastrophic end. With his freakish ability he had helped to find the source of the threat and had ended up nearly dead. After that, everything seemed rather bland.

“Look, Jim,” Davas interrupted his musing, “let me find you one. If you don’t like him or her, I’ll take care of it.”

“You’ll fire them?” said Jim.

“Sure.”

“OK,” he said, slumping on to the bed, head spinning. “Got to go.” He hung up and took a few deep breaths. Not good, he thought, eyes closed.

His mobile bleeped with an SMS. It was from Davas. “Are you all right?”

“Fine. J Thanks,” he sent back. Not quite true, he thought, but I’m not going to miss this weekend.