Dictator (11 page)

Alice turned and led the way across the hall, proving as she went that her rear view was almost as good as her front. She showed him into a richly decorated drawing room that, in a nod to long-gone imperial traditions, combined very English proportions and furniture with rugs, paintings and objects suggestive of wilder, distant lands.

‘Can I get you a drink, Mr Carver?’ Alice asked.

‘Scotch, please, Blue Label if you’ve got it.’

‘Of course. Ice? Soda water?’

‘No thanks, neat will do fine.’

She pressed a button on one of the side-tables and a second later the butler reappeared and was given Carver’s order.

‘Terence will bring your drink in a moment,’ Alice said as he departed. ‘I’ll go and see what Mr Klerk is getting up to. I’m sure he won’t want to keep you waiting.’

She left with what Carver felt certain was a deliberate twitch of her pinstriped backside just before the door closed behind her. Less than a minute later, Terence entered with a silver tray on which stood two whisky snifters, a full lead crystal decanter and a small glass jug of water with two more glasses. He placed the tray on a table and poured out a glass of whisky and another of water. Then he stepped to one side, saying nothing, giving no indication whatever of how he expected Carver to proceed.

Carver could tell that Terence, like so many servants, was a crashing snob. This was his way of testing Carver’s right to be served.

‘Thank you, Terence,’ said Carver, with charming condescension.

There weren’t many times he thanked his adoptive parents for sending him off to the overpriced, emotionally stunting, frequently abusive confines of an old-fashioned private boarding school, but this was one of them. He had at least been taught how to conduct himself properly, and, when his education failed to provide the correct solution to a social problem, to have the self-confidence to fake one.

Ignoring the snifter, Carver took a sip of water to clear his palate. Only then did he lift the glass of whisky, gently swirl the honey-coloured liquid and take a long, appreciative sniff of its smoky, floral aromas. Finally he lifted the glass and took a sip. ‘Perfect,’ he said, once he had savoured its complex flavours. ‘That will be all, thank you.’

Terence gave a fractional nod, acknowledging that Carver would now be treated as a gentleman rather than a mere hired hand, and disappeared once again.

Taking his whisky, Carver strolled across to the ornate marble fireplace that was the centrepiece of the room. It was flanked on either side by two mighty elephant’s tusks that stood almost to Carver’s full height.

Above the fireplace hung an oil painting at least five feet tall and wide enough to cover the entire chimney breast. It was a head-on portrait of a single bull elephant striding across the savannah. The artist had somehow perfectly captured not just its appearance, but its spirit. Carver could almost feel the earth tremble at the elephant’s approach, as though it might at any moment break free from the imprisonment of the picture and step right out into the room.

‘Magnificent, isn’t it?’

Wendell Klerk’s low rumble of a voice had, if anything, become even deeper in the years since Carver had first heard it.

He turned to look at his host. Klerk had acquired a few more lines on his face and the curly hair had gone from coal black to steely grey, but the man’s pugnacious air of vitality and determination was undimmed.

‘Good to see you again, Sam,’ Klerk said, taking Carver’s hand in a crushing grip. ‘Glad you could make it. I want you to know that I have not forgotten what you did for me and my family. I can never repay you. Never.’

Carver gave a wry smile, thinking of the massive fee that had been deposited in his Geneva account. ‘You made a pretty good stab at it, Mr Klerk.’

The tycoon laughed. ‘Ja, that’s true! But hey, call me Wendell. You are my guest, in my home. I don’t want to stand on ceremony.’

Klerk went across to the table where the drinks had been left. He ignored the water, poured himself a deep measure of whisky, downed it in one and refilled his glass before rejoining Carver by the fireplace.

‘David Shepherd did that for me – finest wildlife artist in the world,’ Klerk said, looking up at the painting. ‘What’s really remarkable, he was working entirely from photographs. The old bull was dead. I had shot him – quite legally I should add. Those are his tusks: one hundred and eleven, and one hundred and thirteen pounds respectively. We were in northeast Namibia, the Caprivi Strip. I tell you, man, when I came back to Cape Town with those beauties, no one could bloody believe it. Mind you, they cost me the love of a fine young woman.’

‘How so?’

‘Her name was Renée. Beautiful girl, but she hated the idea of me shooting such a magnificent creature. I tried to explain that it is vital to cull the herds for conservation purposes. If elephant populations are allowed to expand too much, they will destroy their habitat through overeating. Then there is nothing left for them, or other animals, or even the human population, and that is when things turn nasty. It is far better for everyone to manage the elephants through controlled hunting. It even provides legal ivory so that there is less opportunity for poachers to make money.’

‘What did Renée say to that?’

‘She said she didn’t care. Killing animals was wrong and she couldn’t love a man who could slaughter a defenceless elephant. I said to her, try wandering up to an angry bull elephant and see how defenceless it is. How would you like one of those tusks jammed right through your guts?’

‘I bet she didn’t like that.’

‘No, she certainly did not! But my argument still stands. Sometimes the herd must be culled. Sometimes the rogue male must be destroyed. Do you understand what I’m saying, Sam?’

‘Sure.’

‘Good,’ said Klerk. ‘Because there is someone I want you to cull.’

26

Carver closed his eyes for a second and sighed. ‘You know I don’t do that kind of thing any more,’ he said. ‘I quit a long time ago.’

Klerk nodded. ‘That’s what I heard, yes.’

‘So why are you asking?’

‘Because this is a special case,’ said Klerk. He placed his whisky glass on the mantelpiece. When he spoke again, his hands were in front of him, palms up in something close to supplication. ‘Listen, I truly believe that what I am about to ask you to do will make the world a better place. You could be saving tens, even hundreds of thousands of lives. Millions of people will be freer, healthier and more prosperous.’

Carver took another sip of his drink. ‘And how, precisely, will I do that?’

Klerk looked him straight in the eyes. ‘By killing that mad, tyrannical old bastard President Henderson Gushungo of Malemba.’

‘Why bother? The man’s in his eighties. He’ll die soon anyway.’

‘That’s what people said when he was in his seventies,’ Klerk replied. ‘But in the past ten years, while people have waited for him to go, the whole country has fallen apart. We’re talking an annual inflation rate of eleven million per cent. It is literally cheaper to wipe your arse with Malemban dollars than buy toilet paper. You know, they just printed a one-hundred-trillion-dollar note, and it’s worth less than the scrap of paper it’s printed on.’

‘Is that why you want him dead, to lower the rate of inflation? You sure the reason isn’t more personal than that?’

‘You know, Carver, that’s what I like about you: there’s no bullshit. Ja, I admit it, I’d like to see Gushungo dead for what he did to my family. He ordered the attack on the Stratten Reserve. The deaths there were down to him and he must pay for them in his own blood. That debt is long overdue. But I mean what I say about the shit he’s heaped on Malemba, too.’

Klerk’s right hand was clenched now, just the index finger sticking out, jabbing at the air between them as he spoke.

‘My homeland used to be the breadbasket of Africa, but vast areas of rich, fertile farmland are now just dust and weeds. The only thing stopping mass starvation is food aid from the West. The average life expectancy is just over forty-five years. More than one person in ten has HIV. There’s been an epidemic of cholera. And on top of all that, the people have to put up with oppression, rigged elections, forced eviction from their homes and resettlement in squalid camps miles from bloody anywhere. I tell you, man, it’s a disaster.’

‘I get it,’ said Carver. ‘The man’s an evil tyrant. But that’s what they said about Iraq. And killing Saddam didn’t do much good, did it? You take out the bastard at the top, you don’t get a sudden outbreak of peace and love. You just get some other bastard taking his place. Or even worse, a whole bunch of other bastards all fighting for the top spot while innocent civilians get caught in the crossfire. And if you do it illegally it just makes matters even worse. Why would Malemba be any different?’

‘Because there is an alternative: a genuine democrat waiting for the chance to govern the country properly and peacefully. I presume you’ve heard of Patrick Tshonga, head of the Popular Freedom Movement?’

‘Is he that guy who keeps winning elections without ever getting power, the one whose son was killed in a light aircraft? The authorities said the crash was an accident, as I recall.’ Carver gave a short, humourless laugh. ‘Oh yeah, I know all about that kind of accident.’

Klerk took out his mobile phone and pressed a speed-dial number. ‘Could you bring in our other guest please, my dear? And the laptop, too, if you don’t mind.’

The two men waited in silence for a minute or so. Then the door opened and Alice walked in, holding the slender aluminium body of a MacBook Air under one arm like a futuristic evening-bag. She was accompanied by a tall, powerfully built black man whose shaved head was dusted with a stubble of greying hair. His huge shoulders seemed to strain at the fabric of his suit and his neck bulged over the collar of his shirt. He looked like a retired NFL player, the kind of guy who’d played in the trenches, slugging it out on the line of scrimmage. If he’d been allowed to claim his country by solitary combat, the President wouldn’t have stood a chance.

‘Good evening, Mr Carver,’ he said. ‘My name is Patrick Tshonga. I have the privilege of leading the struggle for democracy in Malemba. I presume Mr Klerk has already made the request that was the reason for inviting you here tonight?’

‘Yes, he has,’ said Carver as the ever reliable Terence slipped into the room bearing more glasses and fresh supplies of whisky. ‘And I was about to tell him how I used to think I was making the world a better place by taking out the bad guys. Then I realized that it made no difference. The world carried on just like it had before. And I had more deaths on my conscience.’

Klerk gave a snort of disgust. ‘Don’t get wishy-washy on me now, man. You weren’t this squeamish when you rescued my niece. You plugged plenty of the bastards then, and a bloody good thing too.’

Tshonga accepted the whisky that Terence offered him, gave a nod that indicated both thanks and dismissal, then said, ‘No, Wendell, Mr Carver has a point. It is one thing for us to wish an evil man dead, it is quite another to be the one who actually has to kill him. But think of all the people who have died because of this man. Do they not deserve retribution? Think of the people who will die because of him. Do they not deserve to be saved? On their behalf, Mr Carver, I implore you, rid the world of this monster.’

‘Suppose I did. Suppose you and your party took power. What then? Any way you dress it up, you’re planning the murder of a head of state. Doesn’t sound like a good precedent to be setting if you plan on taking his job. Someone might decide to get rid of you the same way. And you claim to be a democrat. What kind of democrat becomes president by assassination?’

‘The kind who has discovered that it’s not enough to win elections,’ said Tshonga. ‘I have tried to do this in the proper fashion. I have fought elections honestly, even though Gushungo sends his thugs to disrupt my rallies and attack my supporters; even though his men threaten and intimidate voters; even though the final counts are corrupt; even though it cost me my son. I have done that and won a majority, against all the odds. But then he refuses to accept the result. He denies the truth. He spits in the face of the electorate. And no one has the power to stop him. Believe me, Mr Carver, if there were a way to remove the President by legal means, I would find it and pursue it. But there is not. I have therefore been forced to conclude that the only way to save the lives of our people, who are dying every day of disease and starvation, is to kill the man who is causing all this suffering. And if you think that is wrong, I would ask you: why is it worse to kill one evil man, so that innocent people can be saved, than to let him live and condemn those people to death? Why are their lives worth so much less than his?’

‘That’s a very powerful argument, Mr Tshonga,’ said Carver. ‘But I don’t hear you making it in public. I don’t see the rest of the world’s politicians nodding their heads and agreeing. None of you people can afford to be seen to support the assassination of a national leader. So you’re asking me to do something you don’t even have the guts to talk about outside this room.’

‘You are right, Mr Carver, I cannot get up in public and say that the President should die. But that does not make any difference to my argument. It is still better to cause one evil leader to die than to let an entire nation perish.’

Carver nodded, taking the point. ‘Maybe, but what about you, Klerk? Don’t even try to tell me you’re doing this for the good of humankind. What’s in it for you?’

‘Tantalum,’ Klerk replied, with typical bluntness. ‘You know what that is?’

‘Sounds like some kind of designer drug,’ said Carver.

Klerk laughed. ‘Well, there are certainly people who are addicted to it. But they are industrialists, not junkies. Tantalum is a very hard, very dense metal. It is a superb conductor of electricity and heat, and incredibly resistant to acid. Mixed with steel, it makes alloys of unusual strength and flexibility. You could say it is a wonder-metal.’

‘That’s the science lesson,’ said Carver. ‘How about the economics?’