Frederick Ramsay_Botswana Mystery 02 (4 page)

Chapter Six

Modise, when not immediately engaged in casework, had set himself the task of absorbing as much information as possible from all the sources available to him. He was so engrossed in studying America’s no-fly list, a book with more names, it seemed, than the entire population of Botswana, that he almost missed the knock at his door.

“You are wanted in the conference room.” The new recruit who had been assigned as an intern in the office looked out of place in her too-new uniform and shiny belt. Most of the occupants on this floor had a “worn-in” look about them.

“Oh yes? Do you know why?” It didn’t matter if the young woman knew or not. Modise would go anyway, but he was curious whether she had acquired some listening skills.

“No, sir.”

She hadn’t.

He walked down the corridor that led from the president’s office with some trepidation. He knew there were some heavy hitters in the room, and there had been rumors. The conference room in use this day was located in a building separate from the presidential offices. The occasional but nonimportant leaks to the press had convinced the director general to move the meetings around from time to time. The room was rectangular and still smelled of tobacco from the old days, before the current president had quit and decreed all official meetings should henceforth be smoke free. Once in the room he found himself in the presence of the Minister for Security and Intelligence, the Vice President, the Commander of the Botswana Defense Force, the BDF, and the Director General of the DIS, Botswana’s equivalent to the fabled MI-5 of British Intelligence or America’s FBI. Clearly this would not be a routine briefing. Modise tried without much success not to feel intimidated.

“Modise, sit please,” the DG said and waved him toward a chair at the table. Modise’s first thought had been to take one against the wall near the door. He couldn’t see himself on such a familiar footing with these important people. “No, no, Modise, here, at the table. You have been the subject of considerable discussion.”

He didn’t know if that was a good thing or not.

He spent the next half hour sitting quietly as the meeting reviewed the potential problems that might spill over into the country from the World Cup matches in neighboring South Africa, scheduled for the second and third weeks in June.

“There will be opportunities for much mischief, to say the least,” the minister said. Modise nodded at this acknowledgement of the obvious.

“His Excellency, the President’s chief concern,” the director said, “is the rather porous nature of our borders in the light of the tastes of some of the visitors who will be attending. H. E., of course, has always been concerned with the incursions of poachers and perhaps hunters, which we can assume will increase as well. It is an obsession with him. Now we add this new element.”

The men around the table nodded. The president’s passion for conservation was well documented and an occasional sore point with the Ministers who would prefer to focus on the economic and international matters which they believed to be far more pressing.

“The people who will find their way to Botswana, for the greater part, will be the wealthy, team sponsors, owners, and political figures of varying importance. They are more than welcome, naturally, but I am concerned about what they may wish to do with their wealth and time while in our country.”

“We are speaking of smuggling, contraband and…other illegalities?” Modise asked.

“Smuggling? Certainly. That and all the sorts of things the wealthy indulge in…” The director’s voice trailed off.

“Big game horns and…” Modise said.

“Yes? Continue.” The DG had him in his crosshairs, it seemed.

“Yes, and other things. Rhino horns, as you know, are processed into powders or potions and sold as aphrodisiacs to the Chinese. For the Arabs, they and other species are used to carve handles for their ornamental daggers, Jambiyas, Khanjars, and so on. Then there is the ongoing market for pelts from the big cats, not to mention various body parts used in their traditional medicine. Since the animals that supply these products are all on the endangered species list or are otherwise protected, the traffic in these items has become very lucrative and, I should say, a global concern. There will be many buyers and a short supply. It could get ugly. They will be trying to slip them in from the North, I think.”

Modise stopped. He had lectured these men as if they were schoolboys. They, better than he, knew the problems in this area. What was he thinking? He slumped in his chair and tried not to make eye contact with any of them.

The DG nodded and glanced around the table at the others. “You see?” he said. Modise wondered at the remark. See? See what?

“Yes, well then, we add to that the black market in ivory, artifacts, and conflict diamonds,” the director added. “I am not so much worried about diamonds, though some in Parliament have raised the issue, and it is a particular obsession in the West. They have become an issue for Hollywood celebrities who have bought into the notion that the trade in—they call them blood diamonds—is the major problem when it come to financing wars on the continent. We know there are problems in that area, but in fact they play a small part of the equation. The problem for us is the sudden convergence of money, opportunity, and location. Africa is the preferred, and soon will be the only, source for many scarce and prohibited items.”

“Director, you believe these exchanges will happen here? Why not in South Africa where the matches will be held?” the vice president asked. Modise had been watching him out of the corner of his eye. He knew the VP knew the answer and wondered at the question. Politics, he decided, was too deep for him. He’d stay happy as a policeman.

“There will be that sort of congress there, too, of course. But we are closer to the source of these items and the South African border presents one more obstacle they would have to surmount. We believe the big money will fly into the lodges on the Chobe and to the Okavango Delta. Both are on the border and less accessible to the press and curiosity seekers. Think of it, we border Zambia, Zimbabwe, and Namibia—four corners right on the Chobe. Then, just close by we have the Congo, Mozambique…” There was a collective murmur at the mention of Namibia. “My goodness, at the Chobe one need only accompany the elephants from the Caprivi Strip across the river in a
makoro
and there you are.”

The men sat in silence digesting the director’s words. The head of the BDF had taken several pages of notes. The minister, without realizing it, kept reaching for his cigarettes and then dropping his hand. The building’s designation as a strict no smoking zone had not been lost on him. Modise assumed the good gentleman had an addiction to nicotine, one with which he could empathize. It had taken more willpower than he thought he possessed to stop smoking himself.

“There is one other thing.” The DG sighed and looked strangely saddened. “Minister, are you acquainted with ‘Orgonize
Africa’ or ‘Operation Paradise’?”

“What? You mean that nonsense with the rubbish dumped into Lake Cahora Bassa in Mozambique?”

“Yes. Some fanatics attempted to introduce ‘orgonite’ as they call it, into the lower Zambezi by dumping it into the lake formed by the river’s dam.”

“I can see that those people might be an annoyance, but hardly a cause for concern except, as I have noted, for the annoyance factor.”

“You may be right. However, our intelligence people tell us that the overriding organization for this nonsense is planning to, as they put it, ‘make a statement’ during the World Cup matches. The waters they’ve targeted are the Chobe, Victoria Falls, the Zambezi among others. They will focus their attention here as Zimbabwe is too unstable to support such an effort.”

“So they dump their
motsholela
in the river. Only the fish, the hippos, and the crocodiles will care, and they not much I am thinking.”

“Except they will be abusing our borders illegally along with all the more conventional illegals. At the very least it will compound our difficulties. Who shall we track? How to distinguish these fanatics from smugglers? While we waste time on them, the real criminals may slip by us. And they will be breaking the law in any event, and so whether we think they are ridiculous or not, we must respond. It will thin our ranks, you could say.”

“I would say,” an Army colonel sitting against the wall said, “that we will have more important things to occupy our time than harass these people. You know, there are many who believe that orgonite does what its proponents claim.”

“So I hear. At any rate, they do not pose any immediate threat to our current program. They are, or will be an annoyance, a distraction at worst. Still…” The director gestured toward the commander of the BDF. “We need help. You know the borders and the animals as well as anyone in the country. We wish the BDF to be seconded to us for the duration of the cup beginning a week before and two weeks after the matches.”

The head of the BDF spoke for the first time. “There will be no seconding of the men and women assigned to me. But you may expect our full cooperation, of course.”

The director smiled. Modise assumed it was all he wanted in the first place.

“Then I can safely report to His Excellency, the President, that interagency cooperation in these matters is assured?” the vice president said.

“You can tell H. E. that we are all on the same page.”

The men rose and gathered their notes and belongings ready to depart. The director signaled to Modise.

“Kgabo, stay a minute. I wish to have a word with you.”

Kgabo. He called me by my first name. That must be very good—or very bad.

Chapter Seven

Sanderson sat at her desk contemplating its shiny, unblemished surface. She still had difficulty thinking of it as hers. She had spent many years on the other side receiving her orders from her predecessor, Mr. Pako, and she hadn’t quite gotten used to the fact that now it was she sitting behind it and giving orders to others. Mr. Pako had kept this desk free of all clutter. She couldn’t remember seeing anything heavier than a single piece of paper on it. Now that it was hers it had the beginnings of a small paper mountain at one end. Charles Tlalelo stuck his head around the door frame.

“Here’s trouble,” she said.
Tlalelo
is Setswana for trouble and Charles had to endure at least one joke about his name daily.

“It is you who seems to be having the trouble, Sanderson…I mean, Superintendent. Your brow is furrowed like a plowed field. You are worried, I can see.”

“Not worried,
no mathata
, Charles, and for you I am just Sanderson still, not Superintendent. I have a small difficulty I cannot seem to solve.”

“Perhaps I can be of some help?”

“Yes. You can find us each a nice cup of tea and sit here with me and tell me the things I should hear.”

Charles returned with the tea and sat opposite her. “I will tell what I can, but you must say what is it you wish to know?”

“Yes, of course, many things, one thing in particular. But first, you must tell me how the other game rangers are accepting the fact I have received this promotion to Superintendent?”

“Ah. Well, you know that some of the older men thought the job should have been theirs. They were here longer and they have opinions about women in high places.”

“Who says this?”

“Andrew Takeda for one, but you are knowing how he is about things.”

“That is so silly. This government is fully committed to equality of opportunity. Only these old men from before Independence don’t seem to get the news. And you are right, Andrew is a strange one.”

“They think they were passed over because someone in Gabz decided to address the gender issue out here in the north. I do not think you can persuade them otherwise.”

“You are right about that, too, I guess. Who can say? Perhaps they are correct in thinking that.”

“They will get over it, Sanderson. They like you personally, I think, and when they understand they have more to gain working for you than against you, they will come around, you will see.”

“I hope you are right. As you say, we shall see. Right now I cannot concern myself with that. I have a bigger knot to untie. You heard about the shooting in the park?”

“Yes. The constable who was there with you and Superintendent Mwambe is my neighbor. He told me about it. And about you, too.”

“Me? What did he say about me?”

“That you had annoyed the Baboon and not for the first time, I think. He said that Mwambe wanted a suicide and you kept insisting on murder. He said you were right in doing so but Mwambe was not happy that you were the one to point out the flaw in his assessment. It seemed to my friend that Mwambe did not want the inconvenience of an investigation. He is a good policeman, I think, and he wondered about that, you see.”

“Well, that is not our concern. The police will find out what happened or they won’t and Mwambe will be the hero or the goat. We have a bigger problem that his murder introduces.”

Charles left and returned with more tea. This new pot emitted the sweet scent of oranges.

“And what,” he said as he slid the cup across the desk, “is this great problem?”

Sanderson described the track through the trees, the breach in the fence, and the evidence pointing to its frequent use.

“We must fix it then. That does not seem much of a difficulty to me.”

“No, that is not what we must do, Charles. If we close this gap the people who come into the park illegally will just find another place and cut a new one. It might take us weeks to find it, or never. We must leave this one and discover what they are doing and who they are.”

“I see.” Charles closed his eyes and sipped his tea. He frowned, deep in thought. Sanderson drummed her fingers lightly on the desk. Charles, she knew, was nobody’s fool.

“Do you wish to stake out this place?” he said after a minute.

“No, I don’t think so. For one, it will use up personnel we cannot spare, and two, if we do it will be obvious to anyone who knows anything that we are on to them. Did I tell you that dead man’s car had a GPS device in it and also night vision equipment? They will not be so easily fooled.”

“I didn’t know.” Charles sipped some more and thought some more. “Ah,” he said and his eyes lit up. “Do you know if that equipment from the cinema people is still here?”

“Cinema people? What are you speaking of? I do not know about any equipment.”

“Last year. Oh yes, you were on leave for Michael.” Charles’ sorrow at bringing up Sanderson’s son, who even now lingered at home in the final stages of AIDs-related pneumonia, crossed his face. He cleared his throat in embarrassment.

“It is all right, Charles. You were saying?’

“Yes, you were out on leave then when Superintendent Pako came across a crew of filmmakers in the park. Actually, I am wrong. I think they were television people. No, cinema, for sure. Anyway, they had neglected to obtain proper permits to enter the park and to film the animals. Pako suspected they were not entirely forthcoming about their filming either. Perhaps they had other things on their mind and the camera business was a cover-up. Some of the ladies who accompanied them seemed almost too pretty to be film crew or game experts, you see? Pako can be very suspicious of people sometimes.”

“Not often enough, for my thinking.”

“Yes? He confiscated their equipment and said they could have it back when they returned with the correct permits from the ministry. I don’t think they ever came back.”

“That is very interesting, but it will help me how, exactly?”

“Don’t you see? If those cameras are still here, we can take pictures of the men when they enter. We don’t need to be out in the open at all.”

“They will come in the darkness.”

“That is so. But, you see the TV people were also taking their pictures in the night. Something to do with hyena hunting they said. They were certainly filming at night. Therefore, they will have the night vision equipment, I think.”

“If we have this material, I would have seen it on an inventory, surely. But if we do, do you know how to operate it?”

Charles’ face fell. “No, not really. A little maybe. I have a device at home which makes videos. I don’t know, but there must be someone in the area that does.”

“Well, let us see if we can find this equipment. I am guessing it ran on batteries and that they are flat by this time. But, we will see.”

They left the office and went to the room in the game ranger’s building reserved for storage. It took them twenty minutes, but they found the equipment in a crate tucked in at the back of the room. There was a great deal of material in it. The cameras Sanderson recognized. Tripods and microphones as well. But there were other items she could not identify. Many such items and, as she suspected, all of the batteries were flat.