The Watchman (10 page)

‘We believe a splinter group of that organization represents the other side of this meeting. They have a large measure of control over any movements in the area, in spite of recent set-backs, so it stands to reason that any discussions or meetings with foreign elements like ours will have been vetted and cleared by somebody with influence. I'll give you the coordinates as soon as I get them. If you get into the region beforehand and sit tight, you'll be in a good position to move in and monitor the situation.'

Somalia. It wasn't the easiest place for a white man to blend in, let alone be invisible. Stretched along the coast north of Kenya, it was a poor country with little reliable infrastructure, and freedom of movement wouldn't be easy. But I'd operated in similar situations before and walked out with everything intact. I was about to mention the problem of moving around when he handed me a memory stick.

‘This holds as much detail as I've been able to put together, including maps, road networks, such as they are, and the verified locations of local police and army units, including Kenyan Defence Force supply routes. There's a photograph of the officer who's going in and one or two of the few known faces on the other side. Our officer will have an escort. He's a fully trained close protection specialist, but he's mainly for window dressing.'

‘Why?'

‘The opposition expect it. It's the one concession Moresby got right. If we sent in a woman by herself, they'd smell a rat.'

‘Poor bastard.'

‘Yes.'

If things went wrong, the bodyguard wouldn't be able to do much but stand there and pray. No way would the other side allow him in armed, and he'd be outnumbered ten to one at every step. In such situations, it's the bodyguard who gets taken out first. I hoped they were paying him a big bonus.

‘Also on the stick is a name and phone number – a local personal contact of mine named Piet De Bont. He's not part of SIS, but he knows the region better than most. He used to be with the South African National Defence Force. He quit to work for animals instead of humans and is now a ranger with the Kenyan Wildlife Service based in Mombasa.' He stared at me. ‘He's a good man, but don't count on him running any rescue operation; he'll get you in and out again, but that's all I can ask him to do.'

‘I'll bear that in mind. So what's your officer going there for?'

‘There are five hostages being held further inland. We don't have a fix on the location and they keep moving them. Two of them are UN officials, one Dutch, one British. So far the Somalis don't know that. They've been there for two months now, shuffled from camp to camp, constantly on the move. We suspect they've been traded through three separate gangs so far, each time at a profit. There's a real danger that the next trade will be their last – to an al-Qaeda cell in the north.'

He wasn't exaggerating the danger; any time al-Qaeda got their hands on a westerner, especially one who was newsworthy, they were quick to make it into a propaganda issue. And that wasn't usually good for the hostage.

UN personnel would be regarded as prime meat.

‘We have a chance of negotiating their release,' he continued, ‘but it's a slim one. Two weeks ago our office in Nairobi was approached by a man calling himself Xasan. We know that's not his real name – he operates under several aliases. He's a go-between acting for Somali pirates and other extremists. He claims he can negotiate the release of the hostages, but it has to be done on the exchange of gold and face-to-face with the gang holding them. Their leader insists on it. Xasan says this gang has access to other hostages and can act as intermediaries to gain their release, too.'

‘If you pay enough.'

‘Correct.'

‘How much do you trust this Xasan?'

Vale shrugged. ‘No more than I trust any of them. He's been around a while and known to have secured the release of several hostages and even a couple of ships. Frankly, we're ready to take any avenue we're offered to get the UN officials back. Moresby and those above him are hoping that if we can start getting a trade going, it could lead to more releases. It will cost us, but that's better than dead bodies floating in the Indian Ocean.'

‘And you really think your officer will get anywhere with these people?' I didn't want to burst Vale's bubble more than I had to, but I wondered if he or Moresby were aware that the Somalis don't negotiate with women.

His next words dispelled that idea.

‘That's the puzzle. According to Nairobi, Xasan's instructions were that the gang leader doesn't trust male officials. He thinks they all work for the CIA. It's crazy, I know, but the word is, it's a woman negotiator or there's no deal.'

I
checked into the Royal Court in Mombasa and took a few minutes to get my bearings. It was late in the evening, and crossing time zones can be disconcerting, and making rapid decisions on the hoof when you're travel-weary is risky. I drank two bottles of water I'd bought at the airport, then checked my satellite phone for a connection. It all looked good.

Vale had asked for regular reports, but only if circumstances allowed; he was experienced enough to know that operating in hot zones doesn't always permit the casual use of a cell phone as if you were on the street corner back home.

I gave his number a try without checking the time in the UK. He'd be there, I was certain of that.

‘I'm at first base,' I said when he answered. It took a while for the voices to travel, and the thing to get used to is the delay when waiting for an answer. It makes for awkward conversations at first, especially when under the stress of an operation.

‘Good.' His voice sounded thin. ‘You met the wildlife man yet?'

‘No. He'll be here in the morning.' There had been a message waiting for me at the front desk. Vale's contact was making his way into Mombasa from his base at one of the national parks. Vale was wary of using names, so we were going to be speaking in indirect terms unless absolutely unavoidable.

‘The two travellers are on their way,' he said. ‘They'll meet up with the middle man tomorrow before moving on. As soon as I know where and when, I'll let you know.'

We ended the conversation and I went downstairs and got a cab from the rank outside. The driver looked bored and lacking in curiosity, but glad of a fare. I gave him an address out near Kilindini Harbour, to the west of the city, and he nodded without comment and set off.

Mombasa was frantic with pedestrians and traffic, most of it intermingling in a way that would have had London or New York's traffic commissioners pulling out their hair by the handful. It was noisy and colourful and hot, and I was glad I didn't have to be out there in the middle of it. I had too much to do.

My destination was a small commercial unit a short hop from the docks. The area was dark and badly lit, a sharp contrast to the city centre, which was so full of life. It had a brooding, alien atmosphere that didn't feel right, even from the inside of the cab. Groups of men were gathered in doorways, smoking large, flabby cigarettes and drinking
Yokozuna
or
chang'aa
– the local illicit and deadly brews of alcohol – from plastic bottles.

They watched us go by with an intensity that had the driver rolling his eyes at me in the mirror and shaking his head.

‘Bad men, sir,' he muttered. ‘Very bad.'

‘Don't worry about them,' I told him.

‘You sure this is where you wanna be, boss?' He turned into a narrow street between lines of ancient cargo warehouses, dark and fobidding. ‘Not good here, y'know?' The breath whistled between his teeth as he stopped the car outside a premises bearing the name Bera Wharf Trading Co. I could feel the fear coming off him in waves and hoped he wasn't going to drive off the moment I got out.

I took out some notes and dropped them on the passenger seat alongside him. It wasn't quite enough to cover the gas, but enough to keep his foot on the brake until I'd done what I'd come here for. I showed him some bigger notes for good measure. ‘This is yours if you wait.'

He rolled his eyes again and nodded and I got out and approached the building.

The man who answered the door was as thin as a fisherman's pole, with a neat goatee beard and half-glasses. He was dressed in a long, white shirt and tight pants, and the overall effect was of an academic stork. The name I'd been given was Ita Khaban, although I doubted it was his real one. According to the man who'd supplied me with his details, part of a network of professionals I used, he could source anything I needed, right up to a Stinger surface-to-air missile, given enough time and money.

Fortunately, my needs didn't yet involve starting a small war.

We exchanged pleasantries, which meant I gave him a name which he acknowledged with a blink of his eyes. Then he stuck his head out the door and checked the street both ways. It looked like he probably did this on a regular basis.

Khaban noticed the cab. ‘That is your driver, sir?'

‘Yes.'

He turned and called a name. Another man appeared through a doorway behind him. He was a taller, younger version of Khaban, only bigger in the shoulders and carrying a nasty looking sawn-off shotgun.

‘My son, Benjamin,' Khaban explained. ‘He will stay by the car. There should be no problems.' The way he smiled at me was also a warning not to try anything.

Benjamin stepped past me and stood outside the door, eyeing the street. Khaban left him to it and led me inside, bolting the door behind me.

The area we were in was little more than a metal workshop and storeroom combined, the air heavy with the smell of oil and grease and metal. He sat me down in a tiny office holding a desk covered in paperwork, much of it yellowed by age, and an old photograph of a young British Queen Elizabeth on the wall. He had already received a list of what I needed. It wasn't much, but he looked happy enough.

‘I have everything you requested,' he said, his voice a cultured whisper, businessman to businessman. I handed him a folded canvas sports bag purchased from a stall near the hotel, and he poured me some tea and left me to sip it while he disappeared into the workshop.

When he returned a few minutes later, the sports bag was no longer empty.

‘If you return the items in good condition,' he said softly, ‘I will buy them back from you.'

‘At a discount?'

‘Of course.'

I checked the contents while he watched, then paid him in cash and said goodbye.

‘Thank you, sir,' he whispered before calling his son back inside. ‘A pleasure doing business with you.'

S
IS officer Angela Pryce stared at the ceiling of the British Airways Boeing 777 and shivered in the blast of air-conditioning. She was impatient for take-off. With an eight-hour flight ahead of her to Nairobi, Kenya, she didn't expect to sleep much. Somehow, leaving London's cooler climate for the hotter atmosphere of Kenya's coast north of Mombasa, where she had been told the temperature was currently topping 31˚C, didn't have the attraction it should have done.

Beside her, in the aisle seat, Doug Tober already had his eyes closed and was breathing easily. If the former Special Forces sergeant had any doubts about what lay ahead of them, he wasn't showing it. She hoped his calmness was real and not put on for her benefit. His role was purely close protection, although neither of them was under any illusions about how limited that might be where they were going.

The engines wound up and talk in the cabin began to fall away. A luggage locker fell open with a bang, and a stewardess rushed to close it. A child cried out somewhere near the rear, and across the aisle a very large woman in Kenyan national dress began to pray loudly, drawing responses from those eager to share in requests for a safe take-off and a safer landing.

Angela glanced through the rain-spotted window. The airport buildings looked distant and cold. It reminded her of being sent away to school as a girl, when part of her wanted to leap off the train and run home, while the other part couldn't wait to see what lay ahead for the new term.

She shivered again. She was dressed in a lightweight jacket and skirt, and shoes suitable for all terrains. Since nobody had appeared too certain where she and Tober might end up, she had decided on basic, interchangeable clothes, with spare trousers in case she needed to observe a degree of conservatism for local sensibilities.

She closed her eyes and went over her briefing, trying to pick out potential highlights in the detail. It was no more comforting than listening to the engines winding up and waiting for the first thrust of power to punch her in the back. But it offered a useful distraction for a few minutes.

The briefing room in SIS headquarters at Vauxhall Cross had been busy with maps, schedules, photos and details of the mission ahead. Talk had been muted but firm, concentrating solely on the mission. Nobody, Colin Moresby, Operations Director 4, had stressed, was underestimating the potential difficulties that lay ahead. She would be to all intents and purposes alone, apart from Tober, and certainly once they left Mombasa, would be beyond any immediate assistance. But there was nothing they could do about that. Assurances had been given by the other side and that was all they could expect.

‘Any show of force on land or offshore,' he had stressed, eyeing her carefully, ‘will be construed as aggression, according to Xasan. And they control the region closely enough to detect any intrusions.' That meant no covert backup from units of Special Forces ready to crash in on demand if things got sticky. It was a sobering reminder of what she had undertaken.

She had nodded, aware that they were taking on trust the words of a man with a dubious, if virtually unknown history, who was known for working with the Somali pirates and effecting trade-offs of hostages for money. The knowledge that he had successfully closed more than one such deal, with the safe return of people and ships, was to some, a justifiable claim to credibility. To others it was like approaching a street-corner moneylender rather than a bank. But in the present circumstances, it was all they had.