Frederick Ramsay_Botswana Mystery 02 (5 page)

Chapter Eight

“Modise, You have had some experience with the police and the game rangers at the Chobe, I believe.” It wasn’t a question. “I would like you to set up a temporary station in Kasane. Then make the rounds of the hotels and so on, and brief them on our plans. We will require their cooperation in this. You realize the potential for trouble up there, I assume.”

“Yes, sir, I do.” Modise had to chose his words carefully. “You are correct. I have some familiarity with both the game rangers and the police. I am sure about the rangers, not so confident about the abilities of the local police.”

“You mean Superintendent Mwambe. Yes, I know. You must understand this thing. Mwambe and people like him were in place before your time when the country struggled. We had raiders from across our borders, rebels using us for sanctuary, for the transport of materiel over our roads, and civil wars on all sides, and well, you see the picture. The Mwambes of the world helped us through those difficult times. They served. Now times have changed and they find it hard to adjust. Do not be hard on the man. He will come through for you in the end. He just needs a little gentle handling.”

“Yes, sir.” Modise saw the director’s point but he had difficulty summoning up sympathy for Mwambe. But he had to deal with him, so he would.

“There is another thing, well, several things you must be alerted to, Modise.”

“Sir?”

“First this, the Americans are telling us their secretary of state will be booking into the Mowana Lodge. She will be accompanied by her husband. They were here some time back, you may remember, in a different capacity. The Americans have their own excellent security, of course. We need only to coordinate with them. But now, we hear that several Mideastern leaders will be at the other lodges along the Chobe at the same time. This cannot be a coincidence on their part. No one is saying anything. They claim they are in Africa for the matches. They assume the new lodge and casino that the American and the Russian are involved in building will be open.”

“Yes, sir?”

The director fumbled with his shirt pocket, the place he used to keep his cigarettes, again. He sighed and chewed on a pencil.

“This is the more important bit. The North Koreans and some high profile celebrities will be booking in the Okavango at the same time. Everything is very hush-hush and nobody will say anything but, and this you must keep to yourself, Modise, some international negotiations will be taking place under the guise of the World Cup. You know the Koreans released an American missionary as a gesture, we think, indicating that they can be approached. As Botswana is a ‘Trusted Nation’ in African negotiations, we will have a presence in the Okavango, do you follow?”

“In the Okavango? The Koreans and the Americans? Yes, sir, I see.” Modise thought he did at any rate. The Americans would be setting up meetings using Botswana diplomats as intermediaries with the North Koreans.

“Of course events change and move swiftly so these possibilities may not come to be, and all this can disappear into the bush by next week or sooner. But in any case, we must be prepared. You understand this?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Now, the next concern. How much do you know about this Orgonize Africa or Operation Paradise?”

“Only what I read in the papers and police reports.”

“Not much then. Take these,” the director handed him a file, “and read them on your way north. You will find them interesting and also, I think, annoying.”

“I see.” Kgabo would read the reports and study them as he did everything that crossed his desk. He turned to leave.

“There is one last thing, Modise. And this is something I think we will have to deal with for some time. Do you know who Oleg Lenka is?”

“Only rumors, sir. Lenka is a said to be major Russian crime boss. Is it true he is a former KGB operator in Africa and Latin America?”

“The intel from Interpol says yes. He emerged as senior Bratva figure in the nineties Kremlin with global underworld connections. I have all this in another folder for you as well. Read it when you have a chance, but first, I want you to concentrate on this Operation Paradise nonsense. At the moment it poses a threat by interfering with border security. Crime bosses are, or will be, important soon enough, but borders first.”

“And that’s it?”

“Not quite. You have run across Rra Botlhokwa at one time or another. Am I correct?”

“Yes sir, not personally, but I have read his file. He is a big shot with a shady reputation. The word on the street is that he could have been big in government but chose to trade in marginal pursuits instead.”

“Marginal pursuits…nicely put. This is a heads-up and not to be repeated. He is connected to some very important people here in the capitol, a fact that makes bringing him down entail some serious risks for whoever attempts it. On the other hand, he has occasionally been useful to us when we have to run a dark operation, you understand?”

“Yes, of course.”

“No
of course
. It is an embarrassment to us who have to see to the nation’s security. But it is an unhappy fact. He is currently under indictment by the attorney general, but making the charges and bringing him to the bar is being held in abeyance for the moment. A count of how many and whose toes will be trod on is currently underway. As I said, a potential embarrassment, but it seems likely the AG will bring him to trial soon, that is if he doesn’t skip the country first.”

“Sir.”

“Very well, that’s a lot for you to chew on. Just get up there and take one thing at a time. And good luck.”

***

Modise returned to his desk and opened the first folder, a green-jacketed one, and read the report the director had handed him. It was taken from the government’s communications director.

With reference to a front-page Sunday Standard story, please find below insightful Mozambique Information Agency (AIM) Report. If the report is correct, the four men arrested in Mozambique, including one Tino Phutego, were on a mission to place orgonite into the Zambezi River via the dam’s lake. This is part of a wider mission, dubbed Operation Paradise, by a group called Orgonize Africa to place orgonite throughout the region acting on their belief that by doing so they are restoring Africa’s natural beauty, healing the earth, inducing rainfall, curing AIDs, etc.

Orgonize Africa is part of a global network—one might term it a new age cult—that is carrying on in the footsteps of Wilhelm Reich (1897-1957), a prominent, but in the end mentally suspect, Austrian psychoanalyst who in the thirties believed that the path to a Communist Utopia lay in the release of “Orgone Energy” originally through sexual free expression. Reich thereafter came to describe orgone as a universal bio-energetic force lying behind and causing much, if not all, observable phenomena. This resulted in his creation of orgonite as a substance supposedly containing the energy force.

Reich’s New Age followers have since come to claim that orgone or orgonite was the creative substratum in all of nature.

Modise shook his head. Who in the world believes this foolishness? But, someone most certainly did and so it was necessary he do so, too—not believe the silliness, but that others did so and would try to bring the stuff into the country. The people who would facilitate the movement of this orgonite across the border would be opening the same gates for smugglers and terrorists as well. As long as there was
pula
to be made, there would be people who would take the risks. These fanatics, however, would more likely be less disingenuous and if apprehended, might be persuaded to lead Modise and the authorities to the real threats.

He turned the last page of the stack he’d been given.

Orgonite is a mixture of fiber-glass resin, metal shavings (iron, steel, copper or any other metal), and quartz crystals. This stuff is mixed into cone shaped moulds. In water the orgonite cones soon dissolve—but there is nothing corrosive about any of the components.

The truck that had made the run to Mozambique, he read, had been equipped with state of the art communications equipment, including satellite phones and a global positioning system. They had very sophisticated equipment, it seemed, the sort one needs to move across borders and national parks safely and undetected. Perhaps it is not all it seems. Were they fanatics, or very clever people with some other agenda hiding behind this clowning? How easy it would be to plant a bomb in the stuff.

Modise put the file aside.

Chapter Nine

Sanderson waved at the miscellany of cameras, cables, and cartons scattered across the floor of her office. “So, Charles, what do we do with all this now?”

“I think these things here,” Charles held up a small plug-in transformer with a cord attached, “are used to charge up the batteries. I think we should start there. You didn’t see any instructional manuals, did you?”

“Nothing is ever that easy, Charles. So, we charge up these batteries and then? I do not have even a small notion as to what we must do with these things. Do we turn them on and point them at the fence. Surely the batteries will die before midnight.”

Charles scratched his head. “You present me with a great puzzle, Sanderson. There must be somebody around this place who knows about these things.”

“Yes, that would be very nice. I am sure you are right, but I do not know of such a person.” The two game rangers sat and stared at the equipment. “Wait, I do know someone who could help us, perhaps. Yes, and he will want to know of the break in the fence.”

“Who?”

“He is a policeman in Gaborone. I know him from before. You remember the business with the American and the lion? I think he will know what to do with these things. If he doesn’t, well then, he will know someone who does.” She went to the phone, found the business card she kept in her desk drawer, and called Kgabo Modise.

***

Rra Botlhokwa had many men in his employ. He used them as different situations developed. He made a point of keeping a certain distance between himself and them. He was not one to dirty his hands. He had learned the word “deniability” from the American newspapers. Politicians needed it, it seemed. He liked the concept. He wished also to have deniability. That was the reason the government in its many permutations had never been able to touch him, and though they would never admit it, occasionally had use of his services, but with deniability, of course. He intended to keep it that way. But this last problem caused him some annoyance.

He had guaranteed passage into the country and thence into the park, undetected passage, and there had been the shooting. The group who paid for the transit, those men came up from South Africa they claimed, but he doubted it. Congo more likely, and they were not happy. They thought he had played them off against another group. They accused him of deceit. They said he had betrayed them. They did not like that. And then there were the locals who set the whole business up. They wanted an explanation and restitution of the funds they’d paid him. That, of course, was out of the question. How would this be taken if he were to do such a thing? A sign of weakness and then…nothing good could come from that. No, there would be no restitution. He must find out how the men doing the shooting knew the time and location of the other man’s arrival in the park. Someone in his employment was telling things he should not have been. He would soon regret that.

His closest assistant, a man called Noga, the snake, knocked and then entered.

Botlhokwa shifted in his chair. “You have news for me?”

“Not about the shooting, but about some things of interest to us in other ways.”

“Why do I not hear about the shooting? It is not good for us, this killing. The people who depend on us for our services, who pay us, will find others to do their work. And then there is a need to have a talk with the game ranger. What does he know of this?”

“I will talk to the ranger soon. He is frightened and lying low. He will surface soon enough, him or one of his fellows. As for our people, I have talked to the most likely, the ones who would know. I must now determine who they might have spoken to. There is a weakness in the system but we will find it. But the news that you will want to hear is better.”

Botlhokwa motioned him to a chair. Noga nodded and sat. He accepted the Cuban cigar offered and the two men lit up. Soon the room was filled with the strong aroma of tobacco. If a visitor were a cigar smoker, he would have been ecstatic. A non-smoker, a reformed smoker, would have staggered from the room gasping for air.

“Several important visitors will soon be with us,” Noga said between puffs. “The American Secretary of State and her entourage, including the husband, will arrive during the matches.”

“And?”

“There will be emissaries from some Near Eastern nations as well. They will talk politics, settle issues of sovereignty over lands they do not own, and make deals with other people’s resources. It is politics as usual. And there are the rumors about the Okavango.”

“And that concerns me, how? I have no interest in the Machiavellian movements of the rich and powerful. If I had, I would be president by now.”

“You could be still, if you were willing to create the illusion of incorruptibility. However, the arrival of these people is important to us for several reasons. The Emirs will be in the market for some of the things and activities we can supply. The Americans may wish to confer in private with certain parties across the border in Zimbabwe. They cannot go openly. They may use their CIA people to approach us to help them, I think.”

“There is no money in those transaction.”

“There is good will, indebtedness, you can say, that may be useful to us in the future. It is not a bad thing to be on the CIA’s list of preferred providers.”

Botlhokwa flicked the ash from his cigar and stared out the window. He would be in Cape Town now except for this business at the borders. He needed to keep a tight rein on his people. He would be happy when these football matches were over and he could enjoy his wine estate again. And then, there had been the call from Gaborone earlier. He would have to spend some scarce political currency to muzzle the attorney general. Politicians!

“The Koreans, I am told, will find their way to the Okavango. The North Koreans, that is. The South will locate in one of the local lodges. Who knows what sort of business that is about. Besides wanting to meet with the Americans or perhaps the Russians who will also be here, informally of course, they will be anxious to procure hides, horns, and ivory, perhaps other things. They have peculiar tastes, I hear. Perhaps we should stock up on Snake Wine.”

“And compliant women?” Noga shrugged. Some things, he reasoned, were self evident.

“You realize,” Botlhokwa said between puffs, “the BDF will be out in force. They will not permit poaching of any of these things and will be patrolling the borders. They can be very difficult.”

“You mean unapproachable for the sort of inducements you might offer. Of course they are. We can manage them. What we need is a supply of merchandise from Congo, Uganda, Rwanda, and possibly Kenya. Who knows what the West African people might do for us? They are all in need of negotiable currencies. And there is coltan, easy to move, hard to detect, good return on investment, you could say. It is a big continent and the borders are wide. We will be the middle men, as the American movies say. We collect fees, expedite commerce, and remain safely in the dark.”

Botlhokwa nodded his approval. He did not deal in drugs, arms, or any of the illicit human traffic that coursed in and out of his country, his continent. He merely facilitated its passage from seller to buyer remaining, as Noga put it, safely in the dark. This careful positioning had kept him in place for years. It would be so in the future. Let others reap the big profits and take the risks, he’d settle for a fat fee.

***

Patriarche
heard the men approaching. They did not move quietly like the poachers he knew in his youth. These men crashed through the bush like elephants. That was good. He could keep his family safe and away. He picked up a stick and snapped off the remaining branches from it. A stick was a handy thing to have, He could pry roots out of the earth and if a branch with fruit or succulent leaves hung too high for him to reach, he could use it to pull the branch within his grasp. He did not think of this thing in his hand as a weapon. Such a concept had no resonance for this gentle giant.

The men moved closer. He grunted—not loudly—and the gorillas slipped deeper into the forest.