Wings of the Morning (29 page)

‘Black and white,’ he said softly as the arm came up into a throw and the knife flew to bury itself with surgical accuracy in the throat of a kitten, which seemed to dance in its
mid-air play before crumpling into a motionless form in the dust.

Cestac said, ‘They’re all black and white: but impressive even so.’

After a pause he added, ‘What do I call you?’

‘Toussaint.’

KINGSTON OFFENBACH — 1984

In November 1980, when Ronald Reagan won the White House, King was still active in Africa with the CIA. As Reagan started his first term in Office, he might hardly have heard
of Liberia, but matters changed over the next four years, mostly at his own initiative, and there were reasons for his interest in this unsettled African State. By mid-year 1984, with King moving
up in the Administration, and recognised as the CIA expert on Africa, the prospects of Reagan going on to a second term were looking starburst bright. He knew he wanted to concentrate on the world
stage, building himself the reputation of a statesman. He was preoccupied with the Soviet Union and the so called Star Wars programme which might have been technically impossible but it did grab
headlines. Ronald Reagan, ever the showman protruding from the costume of an actor slightly manqué, knew that you can’t have too many first night triumphs even if they are in the
boondocks rather than on Broadway and he had been pleased with his military success in Grenada.

He thought he would look for another opportunity to build his image and Liberia caught his attention. It is a country unique in Africa because it was founded for and by freed American slaves.
Liberia owes nothing to the drive for colonisation by European powers in the 19th Century, but is a creation of the USA. What better springboard from which to launch a fresh era of benevolent
American influence in Africa?

Liberia had suffered a life changing coup in April 1980 when President Tolbert and many colleagues in government had been assassinated in a particularly bloody rebellion orchestrated by a lowly
soldier, Master Sergeant Samuel Doe who trailed guts and disorder in his wake. Reagan had been persuaded to permit an official visit to Washington by President Doe in 1982 and, in a disparaging
private aside at the time had remarked that ‘Doe is enough to convince anyone of the merits of slavery.’ Two years later, he was scheming to cajole this semi-literate thug into being
his footstool, at the same time sending a clear message to the Soviets that they should no longer expect the USA to stand aside while they spread communism throughout Africa. The added bonus was
that haughty imperialism was a sure winner amongst hometown American voters who liked to see a proper degree of respect for America, right around the globe.

Flushed with overwhelming victory in the polls of November 1984, Reagan decided on immediate action and on Monday 3rd December, the State Department sent a delegation to Liberia. Its three
members carried a brief for President Doe which amounted to a none too subtle bribe. America would provide an aid package to restore the economy, a US Military presence to ‘guarantee regional
security’ and there would be ‘advice on governance’. In straight language, we’ll pay you to do as you’re told.

Doe produced an interesting response, saying he had a better idea. The USA was to give him half the proposed aid, but in payment to his bank in Switzerland and he would then return the
messengers who were now languishing in the high security jail outside Monrovia, Liberia’s capital. This, of course, produced consternation in Washington. Reagan’s well respected
Secretary of State, George P Shultz, was furious that they had got themselves into this messy and unnecessary situation. The US Ambassador in Monrovia, William Lacy Swing, was obliged to report the
abduction of the three Americans at midday local time on Friday 7th December, just when Washington was waking up to the commemoration of Pearl Harbour forty-three years previously. King Offenbach
was put on immediate standby while the Administration figured out what to do next. King was CIA, he’d been knocking around Africa for years and hell, he was even the right colour. Surely he
could come up with the ideas to get them out of this fix.

But King couldn’t. His business had never taken him there, he knew no one in the country and had only been into Monrovia once, to change planes. Well whatever, they said, he had more
knowledge than any other guy, so they hauled him back to Langley and Foggy Bottom to sit through some interminable crisis meetings, at the end of which the Administration decided that it had to pay
up as a lousy alternative to welcoming home the three US citizens ‘in small pieces’ as the message from Doe had made clear — and he was believed.

So King was sent off as the bagman, armed only with his wits and a locked briefcase which was manacled to one wrist and contained two sheets of impressively heavy White House notepaper, both
blank but clearly signed by the President of the United States of America, and two money orders from Treasury, the first for the full amount demanded and a second for a much lesser figure. He just
had to do the best he could, and he was given this instruction personally by Shultz before he left for London and the Ivory Coast.

On 18th December, King took the Air Afrique flight from Abidjan to Monrovia, his insides churning at the challenge of getting back out again and his mission made no easier by the identity of the
three captives, of whom none had been in black Africa before and one was a woman. Their leader was Robert E Macrum, a former Marine of sound reputation and grouchy personality due to the badly
busted leg which had retired him early. He was accompanied by Ernest Wallinger, a nearly seventy Croatian born Jew who had never left the US since escaping there from Hitler’s Germany: he was
a prodigious statistician and a homosexual to boot. Thirdly, there was Melanie Stockton, a founding partner in Proudson and Partners, recognised as the preeminent public relations advisor to
governments worldwide. Perhaps not so well known in Africa, King thought to himself, and presumably this soignée, elegant lady had been asked to publicise that America was returning to
Africa with a Stetson hat and saddlebags stuffed with largesse.

What an almighty, goddamned mess. He was met at Robertsfield, the international airport fifty kilometres outside Monrovia. An immense paramilitary escort accompanied him from the plane to a
cavalcade of black Chevy Surburbans drawn up on the tarmac and they screamed off with motor cycle outriders and klaxons blaring. It was not a relaxed drive for forty minutes before they pulled into
the courtyard of an imposing, colonial style building.

King was ushered straight through the hall and into a spacious office with full length windows overlooking gardens. A long desk stood centrally and a man rose from behind it to greet him.

‘I am Major Andrade, Head of State Security. I believe you are Mr Kingston Offenbach, representing the President of the United States of America in this matter. Please take a seat’,
and he gestured to chairs set around a coffee table.

King was content to overlook this grandiose, self-serving introduction as he made an assessment of the Major, of whom he had heard much from Ambassador Swing over guarded phone links. Andrade
was a neat man, slight in build, a little below average height, sallow in colour with a head of very black hair and a pencil line moustache. He was ominously quiet and controlled. There was the
threat of evil in his looks and mannerisms.

Andrade broke the silence. ‘You have brought with you all that is necessary to complete our business?’

King lifted the briefcase chained to his wrist in unspoken answer. Then he posed his own question in the form of a statement.

‘I will need to see my colleagues, however, before we can proceed with the arrangement concluded between our Heads of State.’

‘Very well, Mr Offenbach, I can accommodate you in that request, but there will be some delay. Macrum, Stockton and Wallinger are being held at our detention compound for high risk
detainees. It is some way from here. Their transfer will take over an hour from when I issue the instruction.’

King was not going to rise to this self-importance. He sat and waited. Andrade continued,

‘This building is my Headquarters for State Security. Suspects come before me here for questioning before they are ... moved on’. There was meaning in that slight delay as he
continued, ‘but you will not wish to be delayed. Let us proceed to study what you have brought with you. I am empowered by our President Doe to approve the detail.’

I’ll just bet you are, you little bastard, King thought to himself as he kept his demeanour and gazed back. He had suspected and was now certain that Andrade was the brains and the prime
mover behind this whole deal. It was rumoured and had been confirmed by Ambassador Swing that Doe was now a hophead and close to incapable of thought for himself. King placed his case on the table
between them and busied himself with the tumbler locks. He left no possibility for Andrade to read the numbers as he rotated them, and he caused further distraction by asking a question.

‘You are evidently in a position of great authority, Major, and yet you are not a national, I believe. I understand you are Cuban by nationality?’

‘You are well informed, Mr Offenbach, and you are correct although it is some years since I was in Havana. I am here because I gained the confidence of our illustrious President and now I
am indispensable to him. They have plenty of brawn in this country, you understand, but not so much brain, and no understanding at all of the finesse required for international relations. But
before you open your case, do you wish me to summon your Ambassador. I anticipated that Mr Swing would be present to witness the matter.’

King was not displeased to note the smug confidence in this toad. He replied easily.

‘No thank you, Major Andrade. It is better for our Ambassador to remain uninvolved and more fruitful for him to concentrate on the development of the relationship between the peoples of
Liberia and the United States.’

Andrade looked momentarily disconcerted but he smirked knowingly. ‘Very well.’

King maintained his advantage. He removed the money order for the full sum demanded from his case and passed it to Andrade for inspection.

‘You will note that it is in three copies, Major. One for President Doe, one for me to retain, the third for your approval and signature please. When you are satisfied, I will replace all
three in my case until my colleagues are returned to me.’

There was a long pause as Andrade scrutinized the document in detail and King surmised that the Cuban was using the time also to commit his confidence to the handover arrangement as proposed.
Finally, he spoke.

‘That is satisfactory, Mr Offenbach, ‘he said rising and moving behind his desk where he picked up the telephone and gave an instruction in hectoring tones.

‘And now,’ he said returning to stand in front of King, ‘now we have about an hour to wait. Come with me and I will show you around here. I believe you will find it
instructive. You may leave your case if you wish. It will not be moved.’

King gave a wintry smile as he rose, ‘that will not be possible’ he said indicating the chain which bound the handle to his wrist. Andrade shrugged and led the way from the room.

The tour which followed was all too familiar to King. They visited a series of rooms on all three floors of the building in which the occupants — almost all men and all in uniform —
were seated at battered desks or peering into decrepit filing cabinets. All of African state bureaucracy was there, the normal smell, the dust and decay and grubbiness: all the piles of files which
he would find from Benghazi to Brazzaville. The Major maintained a monologue of explanations, but there were no introductions. There was much springing to attention and flamboyant saluting but the
coal black faces remained closed and unwelcoming.

They returned at last to the hall and Andrade stopped by the one door through which they had not yet passed.

‘This is our waiting room for those being held for interview’, he remarked with a gleam of anticipation in the dark eyes. For King, the first sensation was the smell which hit him in
a blast. It was pure Africa, the combination of heat and sweat and dust and dirt. It was overlaid with a greater pungency, a rancid, penetrating mixture of urine, blood and excrement: sharper still
was the stench of human terror. He stood motionless in the doorway and let his eyes wander.

The room was oblong in shape and measured maybe five metres by three. The walls on three sides were of plain concrete, roughly finished. The ceiling was crudely plastered with holes through
which could be seen the steel floor formed in the room above. The fourth wall was made up of windows, sealed into their concrete surrounds. These had a few cracks which spoke of poor workmanship
but which provided the single source of ventilation. There were no blinds or curtains and the blazing midday sun made a furnace of the room.

There were six occupants of this hell hole, three men in rags and a fourth, completely naked and stretched out on the floor. Two bulky guards stood roughly at attention as they saw the Major:
each held a heavy rubber truncheon dangling from his hand.