Defender: Intrepid 1 Page 9
Turner’s office had been free of him for hours, he was off on one of his apparently infamous errands in the capital, but no sooner had Ari finally managed to sneak in unobserved than she heard him return. It was impossible not to hear him, she thought with disdain. His intolerably irritating squeal of a voice rang clear over the rising tumult out in the main office. Her immediate impressions of him were reinforced by the obvious disregard the Alga Creek staff had for him. He clearly had no leadership qualities of any kind and Ari found his offhand, condescending treatment of the others to be repulsive. He was no doubt running around outside trying to give the impression of being in charge.
What was all the commotion about out there?
She knew she had to wrap up before being discovered, but there were still files she hadn’t managed to access. So far, she’d had absolutely no luck in finding anything that looked even remotely suspicious, apart from some disgusting internet downloads that she was not in the least bit surprised by. What did Johnson expect of her? Then she spotted something in her peripheral vision, a corner of paper, a letterhead. With shaking hands she tugged it from beneath the batch of discarded documents that lay strewn across Turner’s desk, constantly stealing glances at the door. The letterhead was a stylized business emblem incorporating the profile and headdress of a Native American chief. The logo was blood red, and beneath the emblem was the title The Renegade Group of Companies. She scoured through the text of the document, noting references to Alga Creek, various joint ventures, oil platforms in the Timor Sea, goldfields in Kazakstan. God, where had she seen this Renegade thing before? She was searching her memory, usually so easy to access, but the upheaval from the main office area erupted into full-scale panic, making any further thoughts impossible. Time to go, she decided. Ari took a gamble that whatever was going on would provide an effective distraction, allowing her to escape from the administrator’s room unnoticed. With great care she slipped out using the side door and found herself in the midst of escalating chaos.
CHAPTER 19
In his top-floor room of the rebel headquarters, Baptiste strode up and down in front of the television, chest puffed, full of confidence.
“I’m impressed, English. You have delivered, and Namakobo lies dead in a London street. My followers will cry, ‘Such is the power of Baptiste!’ I need only say the word here in Africa and Namakobo is killed returning to his bed in London.”
“That’s what I’m here for, colonel,” replied Lundt brusquely, unmoved by Baptiste’s praise, and fed up with his ramblings. “But, I presume you realize that now the hard work begins. You must move against Namakobo’s government before he makes a miraculous recovery.”
“What do you mean, ‘recovery’? You saw them dragging his body from the wreckage of the car yourself,” Baptiste stated with incredulity. “No man could have survived that.”
There was anxiety in his voice, dispelling the boisterous arrogance of just a few seconds ago. 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 is 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, clearly confused. Lundt knew it and played on that weakness. He could ill-afford Baptiste to be paralyzed by the indecision to which 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 and seize control of the country. If that meant slaughtering every member of the Malfajirian 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 of what 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 shithole.
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. The world will erupt into outrage over the assassination and force Britain or the UN to make a moral decision to send foreign forces to Malfajiri. You, Colonel Baptiste, you need to strike. Preemptive action. 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’.”
CHAPTER 20
LONDON
“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 centerpiece, 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!”
Davenport and Hutton were waiting in the VIP suite of one of London’s emergency treatment centers 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.
“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 January 2005. He cemented his outstanding reputation early, seeing London through the dark days of the bombings in July that year and onward. 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.”
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 hemorrhage 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 even graver. “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 buzz 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 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 realize 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? If not, I’d best be getting back to the Yard.”
“Of course, nothing else for now,” replied Hutton grimly. “Thank you.”
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 unraveled from this mess, then it’ll be up to him to find it,” Hutton said.
“Indeed.” Davenport was absently stroking his beard. “I believe we’re about to be confronted by the elephant in the room – or not in the room.”
“The very noticable absence of our friend from the Foreign Office,” Hutton said. “There’s definitely something rotten going on, Nobby. Whatever it is, I’m certain that someone within our illustrious intelligence community has blood on their hands.”
“We have difficult times ahead, Sinclair,” Davenport said, looking straight at him. “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 said. “And I’m afraid I don’t have a great deal of confidence in the Foreign Office man.”
“You mean Johnson?”
“Yes, I do.”
“How very interesting,” remarked Davenport thoughtfully, returning his gaze to the fire. “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,” said Davenport.
CHAPTER 21
MALFAJIRI
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 8am the place was a furnace. The second-grade tarred roads in and around Pallarup had blistered, and the air, as always, was almost too hot to breathe. Morgan and Fredericks had been on the move since daybreak. By 10am they’d managed to get almost all of the employees out of Pallarup and back to the RV at the Francis Hotel in Cullentown. Fredericks was there now 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 Kruger had flown 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, looking as though they were preparing to attack, he’d reported to Morgan.
Morgan, Fredericks and Kruger agreed that they were rapidly running out of the already borrowed time they were on.
Absent from the final sweat-soaked handful of evacuees waiting to escape from Pallarup was 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. He had noted the obvious contempt with which Turner dealt with the staff. It appeared that he considered his responsibilities as site manager to be beneath him, although his Alga Creek superiors obviously didn’t share that view. Turner’s derisive and supercilious manner, while infuriating to the staff, was a sign to Morgan that the man was well out of his depth, hiding his professional inadequacies behind arrogance and abuse of power.
Maxwell 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?
Of course, that all changed overnight.
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 multibillion dollar rutile operation, the lifeblood of the struggling nation’s economy, had been closed down overnight. Pallarup would soon be a ghost town and despite his previous remonstrations and open resentment, Turner’s backflip at the precise moment that the assassination had been reported was nothing short of 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 all but stripped bare. Only the vacant buildings and empty storage areas remained, buckling under the searing oppression of the sun.
Not for the first time that morning, Morgan checked his watch. Christ! Where the hell was Turner? Shouting over the deafening howl of the Super Puma’s engines, and watching over the last of the evacuees as they clambered aboard, Morgan told Kruger 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 massive cloud of red dust marked the line of their advance as the convoy snaked toward him. Morgan figured he had less than twenty 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 kept running. 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.
“You can’t be bloody serious!” Morgan yelled.
“What do you mean? I’m ready, aren’t I?” Turner, clearly startled by Morgan’s arrival, was grappling with a laptop case, clumsily attempting to zip it closed as he waddled toward the door, clutching it to his chest as an old woman clutches her handbag.
“You were supposed to be out there, ready to go, fifteen minutes ago, Turner. You’re jeopardizing the lives of everyone else who got there on time.” Morgan held the door open with his leg and leant, dog-tired, against the doorframe. “Let’s go.”
“But you said that we had plenty of time before we’d have to move. This is your plan. You told me I’d have time. I’ve—”
“There’s no time for this,” Morgan barked. “We’ve got ten minutes, if we’re lucky, before rebel troops are crawling all over this place. Get out there. Now!”
“You don’t understand. I couldn’t let … this highly sensitive company information … our records …” Turner gestured with the laptop case and then back at the PC that remained on his desk. “You take this and I’ll finish cleaning the hard drive, delete some files and so on. Surely there’s still …”
Turner was shaking, clutching the laptop in front of his chest like a shield to protect himself from Morgan, while handing it to him at the same time. Morgan knew this was panic. Turner had become so familiar with his tiny little corner of Africa that to go outside, out into the reality that was disintegrating around him, would be the point of no return. In his mind, if he could stay safely tucked away, buried in work at his desk, then the world could pass him by. Morgan had heard and seen it before in others. The fat little bastard wasn’t going to budge. Morgan’s temper simmered. Through the windows he could see the plumes of dust trailing the rebel trucks growing in size, closer and closer. If Turner wouldn’t move, then Morgan would move him. He headed straight for Turner.