Bite (27 page)

‘It was, believe me.' Max heard a cigarette being stubbed out in a metal ashtray, a fresh one lit. ‘Okay, Max here's the deal. I'm gonna take a risk, and let you in on the real identity of de Wit, the whole story. It should be a major help to you.'

‘Sure,' Max said. ‘But what's in it for you?'

‘I'll be honest with you, Max, it's not you we need, it's your link to Lisbeth de Laan. Keep her sweet, I figure she knows more about de Wit than anyone still alive. Keep her that way! She seems to trust you, and wants to help you get de Wit. Go along with it, but feed us what she knows. That way we can back you up. This is her old Amsterdam address.' Alex tucked a piece of paper in Max's top pocket. ‘Of course she don't stay there, just flits in and out every four or five days. We're watching the place. Next time she shows up we'll call you. When we do you better get there quick.'

‘Okay,' Max said edgily. ‘I'm interested. On two conditions. One. You got to protect Lisbeth, give her a fresh start, bury any charges that weasels like Stokenbrand maybe want to throw at her. Two. If I'm working for you I need some dough. Two thousand bucks worth of euros to repay my debts to Henk Schipper, plus enough to cover the bail bond if it becomes forfeit.'

‘Already has. The cops found the remains of your wallet, but now they are pretty certain you didn't die at Der Ridder. It's a fair guess de Wit has figured that out, too.' Alex inhaled deeply. ‘Yeah, I guess we can do both those things, so long as you follow the rules.'

‘Figured there'd gotta be rules,' Max said.

‘Rule one, communicate. Every day you leave me a message. I'll give you a secure cellphone, always use that. Our number's under memory one. Ignore the message about Chinese food, that's our cover.'

‘Two, protection. You'll get the gun back but try not to use it, okay? I might be wrong, but I've got a hunch you couldn't hit an elephant's ass at ten paces. You certainly won't hit anything unless you clean the damn thing. Looks like it's been barbecued. Anyhow, we will at our discretion back you up so long as you keep us informed where you are heading. But if you endanger my operatives or compromise their security in any way, then the deal's off, we're out of there and you're on your own.'

‘Three. If under any circumstances you do meet de Wit.' Alex took a deep drag on his cigarette, then stubbed it out. ‘Don't be a hero. Get out, fast. You're looking for Erica, remember, not him. If you're in a public place, just walk away quietly, don't confront, don't force an action upon him. If you are in a building, run, put doors between you, preferably metal, preferably lockable. Don't try stairs or long corridors, he's incredibly fast. If trapped, don't wait for him to approach. Shoot and keep shooting. Remember the lethal T from Coast Guard training? Imagine the crossbar through the eyes, the downstroke the full length of the spine. That's where to aim. If he goes down, don't stop to thank the Good Lord until you've emptied the magazine. Even if you think he's dead stay back and wait for us to arrive. Under no circumstance approach the body. If he's still standing at anything under ten feet, just say your prayers ‘cos you're going to heaven. Any questions on the rules?'

Max blew out a long sigh. ‘I guess not. Now your side of the deal. Who is this guy and what did he do?'

‘Maybe you know some of it already. It relates to another guy, a guy called Johnny Gee.'

Max laughed. ‘This one I
do
know.'

‘Oh yeah? Let's see how much you know.'

‘Gee was born 1966 in Antwerp. Brought up in Amsterdam. Gifted amateur boxer. Won Belgium's first boxing gold since 1924 at the Seoul Olympics in 1988, totally destroyed Leroy Percy in the final in under a minute and a half. Everyone reckoned he had world championship potential. Was about to turn pro in 1991 when he got killed in a road accident. A nation mourns, a hero's burial, blah blah, end of story. Unless you happened to be Lisbeth de Laan, his then seventeen-year old fiancée, for whom there will be no end to this story.'

‘So you did your research. Good. Tell me about the road accident.'

‘All I remember was that it was in Zaire, while he was on active service with the Belgian army.'

‘The context is very important. Johnny Gee was a member of an elite Belgian personal protection unit. The unit was sent to Kinshasa in August 1991 two days before the Belgian Prime Minister was due to arrive for a secret meeting at the U.S. embassy with President Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire. It was a sensitive time for relations between the former colonial power and an emerging nation. The meeting was to be hosted by the U.S. ambassador to Zaire, Kelly Xavier Douglas, but of course it never took place.'

‘I remember reading that the U.S. ambassador died in the same wreck.'

‘You did. Douglas was a heck of a loss. Not only a highly experienced career diplomat, but a former marine colonel and an expert on African affairs. All this stuff I just told you was available in the press. Two facts were not. One, Douglas was the illegitimate son of a former U.S. president, whom I shall not identify. Two, Douglas and Gee dying in a road accident was a brilliant fiction created between Washington and Brussels to hide an acute diplomatic embarrassment.'

‘And the truth?'

‘Kelly Douglas was murdered, right in his own goddamn embassy by a member of the Belgian leader's own Personal Protection Unit. And Johnny Gee was the poor guy that got in the way.'

‘Wow. No wonder it was hushed up.'

‘The disinformation was only the start. Thirteen years ago I was in the CIA, running a few operatives in Sudan. I was less than nobody. In fact it is thirteen years ago to the day when the director of the entire fucking agency called me, personally, and summoned me to his office. I was so frightened I had to go to the john to throw up. When I arrived, sitting there with the director was a former president of the United States, asking
me
to do
him
a favour, for the sake of the boy he loved so much. Never mind that Kelly Douglas was pushing sixty when he died, he was still a boy to his old man. The old pres had tears in his eyes, but his jaw was set firm for vengeance. He had political connections to die for and he finally had something worthwhile to pour his millions into. The day I started my new secret job, with a trebled salary and a budget twice that of my entire old department, I was given the secure phone line numbers direct to three European prime ministers and their heads of security. So with those resources I never thought that it would take thirteen hours to find this guy, yet alone thirteen years.'

‘So de Wit is the killer you've been looking for?'

‘Yes. We are now certain that the guy you are chasing, Luc de Wit, alias Anvil, is actually the long missing member of the Belgian Prime Minister's Personal Protection Unit.'

‘What is his real name, Alex?'

‘Not so very different to Anvil. His real name is d'Anville. Poul Stefan d'Anville. And Max, you're gonna help us catch him.'

Saskia Sivali jerked awake with tears in her eyes, her hand tingling where she dozed off holding her daughter's hand. Caroline lay sleeping in front of her, a frail angel caught in a web of monitoring machines and intravenous drips. It was 4.30 p.m. and Saskia had not left the hospital for thirty-six hours. The last thick film blood slide, four hours before, had shown fourteen per cent of her daughter's red blood cells were occupied by parasites. Twelve hours before it was only eight per cent. The urine Caroline passed was now black, the dreaded blackwater fever which marked the last stages of unchecked malaria as it strips the bloodstream of its ability to carry oxygen.

Every single drug had been tried, and every one failed. The only hope was to play for time with a blood transfusion, and that was where fate's cruel twist played in. Saskia and her daughter shared a rare blood group, AB, found in only three per cent of the population. Saskia had exhausted herself donating two litres of her own in the last day and a half, bringing the hospital's reserves up to only four and a half. More was needed. Professor van Diemen was now frantically ringing around hospitals in the rest of the country and as far as Germany, Belgium and Luxembourg, trying to track down more AB blood.

When the door to intensive care clicked open, Saskia looked up with hope on her face. But instead of Van Diemen it was Professor Jürgen Friederikson, with a package under his arm and bright eyes sparkling as he levered his faltering legs across the room.

‘How is your daughter, Saskia?' Friederikson's tone was unusually informal.

Saskia shook her head. ‘Deteriorating rapidly.'

‘I suppose Van Diemen is doing his best,' Friederikson said. ‘Would you be willing to let me try a unusual experiment on her?'

Saskia stared at him. ‘What kind of experiment?'

‘A new anti-malarial drug, unfortunately of entirely unproven provenance, has been offered to us.'

‘What drug? I thought we'd tried everything possible.'

‘Of approved treatments, we have. At the risk of sounding mysterious, all I can say is that this drug has been offered through a third party.'

‘Is it from Pharmstar Corporation?'

‘I'm not at liberty, as they say, to disclose the source, but I can tell you it isn't Pharmstar. My worry is that there is no clinical data whatsoever, not even phase one clinical trials. Nevertheless, there comes a point at which we might need to try it.'

Saskia looked at her daughter. ‘I really don't know, Jürgen. How can anyone know it works if it has never been tested? What about side effects? It could even be toxic.'

‘All good questions, Saskia. I am endeavouring to answer some of these questions in my own laboratory this evening, if you could spare just one hour to help me. However, I will need a little of your daughter's precious blood.'

Saskia looked stony-faced at him.

‘With your permission, of course,' the professor added. ‘I would not presume, as I did with Mr Erskine.'

‘I'll take a sample for you,' Saskia said. ‘Have you told Van Diemen?'

‘Perhaps at this stage it would be as well not to mention what we are planning. His clinical responsibility might be undermined and he would feel compelled to put a stop to it. I don't think such a course of action would be beneficial for Caroline, considering how few alternatives are available.'

Saskia spoke to a nurse, who returned with a syringe, a vial and a rubber tourniquet. She took her daughter's arm, tied the rubber tight until a vein showed in the crook of the elbow. Then she pressed in the needle and pulled back the plunger. As dark red blood flowed into the tube, Saskia felt uncharacteristically squeamish and looked up at Professor Friederikson. His unblinking stare was fixed on Caroline's arm.

When Saskia had finished transferring the blood to a vial she handed it, almost reluctantly, to the professor.

‘Thank you very much, Doctor. You know where Utrecht Laboratories is, do you not? Let us say eight o'clock?'

Saskia nodded slowly, and watched him go, holding the blood in front of his face as if he planned to drink it.

‘We didn't know what we were looking for. You could just call it a fishing expedition,' Crocodile said, fingering the film on his desk.

‘This looks like a big fish, much more important than a Swiss knife,' he grinned, and posted a moist slice of mango into his mouth.

There was no food or shower for me on this trip to Crocodile's quarters, just Gaptooth standing behind me with a rifle. I had expected Crocodile to be angry, but he seemed too pleased with his coup. I had to admit it was simple and clever. Once the cell search had finished, the soldiers marched out noisily. Crocodile had waited just a few silent minutes in the dark recesses of the inspection floor, and we unwittingly revealed our secrets.

‘So what is on the film?' His jaws worked slowly on the bright yellow pulp as he played with the Agfa canister.

‘I can't tell you anything. I didn't take the pictures.'

‘Who did?'

‘Tomas Hendriksen.'

Crocodile shrugged, and turned to Gaptooth. ‘Hendriksen?'

‘Your soldiers murdered him,' I yelled. ‘First they crippled him like an animal, then shot him because he couldn't walk.'

Crocodile looked impassively at me, and with Sister Margaret's swiss army knife began to peel another mango. ‘Was he an aid worker?'

‘Yes,' I lied. ‘He was a doctor. Someone who saved lives, not like you.'

‘But why do you have the film?'

‘I found it among his possessions. I thought his family would like to see his pictures. He was interested in the animals, especially the monkeys.'

Crocodile tapped the canister. ‘Ah, wildlife. You know, it surprised me when I was in Europe. There were many television programmes about Africa, but none about Africans. It was all birds and monkeys, lions and leopards and wildebeest. The only people on the screen were a few conservationists. And they were white.' He laughed. ‘I should very much like to see these beautiful pictures, but we have no way to develop them here, so reluctantly…' he pulled the film out of the canister, exposing it in a sharp arm movement. ‘...I must destroy them.'

The grey coils rustled on the desk, like some nocturnal beast disturbed by the light. I tried hard to fight back tears as I thought of what it had cost Tomas to get these images, and how easily they had been ruined.

‘I know you are lying to me,' Crocodile said, juice running down his chin. ‘I'm not stupid. I have been kind to you, and you repay me with lies and evasions.'

He stood up and walked close to me. My tears seemed to enrage him. ‘You know,' he rested the tip of the knife between my collar bones, indenting the flesh. ‘I could have you killed any time I want, but I am merciful. So why can't you look at me without hatred?'

‘It is your power and how you abuse it that makes me hate you.'

‘My power? Let me show you who taught us about power.' He walked to his wall and reached up for what I first took to be a coiled rope that hung on a high hook.

‘This is called a chicotte,' he said letting the corkscrew whip unravel to its full eight foot length. ‘It is a strip of raw hippopotamus hide, twisted and dried in the sun until the edges are sharp. A single blow will slice open a man's skin, and the scars will never fade. It would be barbaric, yes, if I were to use it on you or your comrades?'

I nodded nervous assent.

‘In 1893 a Belgian ivory trader named Leon Rom ordered a slave, whose name was Kthepo, to be tied to the ground and receive fifty strokes of this chicotte. The reason? For not saluting him correctly. For the first three strokes he screamed, but by the tenth stroke he had no voice left. After twenty strokes the bones of his legs showed through. Rom ordered the overseer to continue until the punishment was complete. By then Kthepo was barely conscious. Rom took Kthepo's sobbing eight-year-old son aside and gave him a bag of white powder. This is medicine, he said, pour it into your father's wounds. The son poured in the salt. Kthepo jerked once in agony and then lay still. Rom laughed while the desperate son tried to rouse his dead father.'

‘That is an awful story,' I said.

‘The child was my grandfather, and he carried the burden of killing his own father all his life.' Crocodile looked hard at me. ‘He was not alone. King Leopold of Belgium raped our country in his lust for ivory and rubber and his agents and traders enslaved and killed millions of us. I understand the true nature of European power, you see?'

‘Can't you be better than him?'

Crocodile shrugged, rolled up the chicotte and returned it to its hook. ‘Now I am a modern, compassionate man, so let us in a modern and compassionate way find out about this Hendriksen. Speak.'

I didn't know what to say, so I said nothing.

‘Erica, I think perhaps Hendriksen was a government spy. Perhaps you are all government spies.'

Crocodile walked to the door and leaned out, yelling to one of the guards. In a few minutes Gaptooth brought Jarman in. He looked terrible, with crusts of blood under his nose and purple bruises all down one side of his head. What had been a neat beard was now thick and matted. His swollen foot was wrapped in yellowed and bloody strips of shirt, and he was limping badly. Gaptooth sat Jarman on a metal chair facing Crocodile over the desk. I was a few feet behind Jarman, and conscious of Gaptooth's rifle.

‘Dr Herrera,' began Crocodile. ‘I want to ask you some questions. It is important that you think about them and answer truthfully.' Jarman's head hung down, but he nodded. The smell of fear was as overpowering as the stink of his body.

‘Who took these photographs?' Crocodile prodded the film.

Jarman said nothing for a while, then inhaled heavily: ‘I believe it was Tomas Hendriksen.'

‘Who is he?'

‘He was killed by your soldiers in Zizunga.'

‘What do you know about this man?'

Jarman thought long and hard, but he had no idea what I might have said. ‘He was a freelance photographer, and I believe he was on assignment for the Associated Press.'

‘So he was a spy.'

‘No. Just a journalist.'

‘What was he photographing? Birds and monkeys, like Ms Stroud-Jones would have me believe? Or the military positions of my forces, to pass to the government?'

Jarman looked up. ‘I'm no journalist, but I don't think it works that way. He probably took pictures of the carnage in Zizunga to show the world what is happening. Maybe he took animal pictures too, Erica would know better than me.'

‘Why would she?'

Jarman did not reply. Crocodile walked up to him and dragged his head up by a hank of hair. ‘I asked you why.'

I couldn't bear to see Jarman suffer for me, and interrupted. ‘Because Tomas was my friend.'

Crocodile whirled around to me. ‘Your friend? I see more than friendship in your eyes.'

‘Yes, I loved him. I still do,' I shouted in his face. I was willing him to hit me, eager to burn away my guilt. Tomas, I am sorry and I will never deny you.

Crocodile loomed over me, eyes blazing and fists clenched. But something in him understood my provocation. Instead of hitting me, he turned away and stepped on Jarman's injured foot with his full weight. Jarman screamed and fell off the chair, but despite his agonised writhing he could not extricate himself.

‘Dr Herrera, you must persuade your colleague to show me more respect,' Crocodile yelled over the screams.

I was shouting for Crocodile to stop, and after an eternity he stepped away. Jarman curled up into a ball, whimpering. Gaptooth and another guard dragged him out and back to his cell.

‘What do you want of me?' I asked quietly.

‘Cooperation and respect.'

‘How can I respect someone who massacres people like cattle. Look at what happened at Zizunga. They were no threat to you. A blind village chief? His young wife? And Tomas. And what about the prisoners who were here when we arrived? Where are they now?'

‘We moved them to another camp.'

‘I don't believe you. Why don't you stop this killing, and release us. That would win everyone's respect, including mine.'

He laughed as if I had said the most foolish thing he had ever heard. ‘Then you think I can go down there and say “‘please Mr President. Let me talk about my place in the next government.” Do you think he would listen?'

‘No, not just like that. You have to spread ideas for a new way of doing things, build a consensus.'