Solo (31 page)

There was a bar on the ground floor with a wide veranda that looked over the newly renamed main street – Victory Boulevard. The veranda was crowded so Bond and Felix found a seat in a dark corner underneath a whirring ceiling fan. Bond surveyed the clientele – half a dozen black faces, all the rest white – and all men, men in suits, perspiring over their cold beers.

Bond signalled a waiter over.

‘Do you have gin?’ he asked.

‘Yes, sar. We have everything now. Gordon’s or Gilbey’s.’

‘Good. Bring me a bottle of Gordon’s, two glasses, a bucket of ice and some limes. Do you have limes?’

‘Plenty, plenty, sar.’

The ingredients were brought to their table. Bond filled the glasses to the brim with ice then poured a liberal few slugs of gin on to the ice and squeezed the juice of half a lime into each glass.

‘It’s called an African dry martini,’ Bond said. ‘Cheers, Felix.’

They clinked glasses and drank. The gin was ideally chilled, Bond thought, and the freshness of the lime juice took the edge off the alcohol. They both lit cigarettes, Felix holding his delicately between two of the pincers of his tungsten claw.

‘So, Felix,’ Bond said, looking at him squarely. ‘We know each other too well. Total honesty from us both. Deal?’

‘Nothing but,’ Felix said.

‘Shall I start the inquisition?’

‘Fire away, Torquemada.’

Bond paused.

‘Why did Massinette kill Linck?’ Bond saw Felix’s eyes flicker – he wasn’t expecting the unravelling of the story to begin there, obviously. He drew on his cigarette, nodded, pursed his lips, buying a few more seconds.

‘Because he was going to kill you.’

‘Not so. Linck had just “surrendered” to me. He’d put his gun on the table.’

‘He had another gun. It was a ruse.’

‘Massinette planted that gun,’ Bond said. ‘I saw him do it.’ He paused again. ‘Massinette was there to kill Linck, come what may. Linck was going to be killed. Why?’

Felix sighed. ‘Total honesty – I don’t know. And believe me, Brig doesn’t know. Massinette was assigned to the Milford Plaza operation. He’s not regular CIA personnel.’

‘So what is he? Some kind of CIA contract killer?’

‘Like a Double O? Maybe. It doesn’t smell good, I have to admit. But Massinette sticks by his story. He killed Linck to stop him killing you.’

‘How convenient.’

Felix topped up their glasses from the gin bottle and looked around the room.

‘OK. Here’s the thing, James. Let’s start at the beginning. This is what I know as far as I know.’

Felix lit another cigarette and proceeded to outline the facts. Towards the end of the war in Dahum, when the heartland was shrinking and the military and humanitarian situation was becoming ever more desperate, Brigadier Solomon Adeka was secretly approached by one Hulbert Linck, a philanthropic multimillionaire with an altruistic love of freedom and Africa. Linck offered to supply arms, aircraft, white mercenaries, ammunition, food, essential medical supplies – anything to keep Dahum alive.

‘But there was a price to pay,’ Bond said. ‘Altruism is expensive.’

‘Exactly. There always is. There’s no money in the free-lunch business,’ Felix said and gestured at the crowded bar and the veranda beyond. ‘You see all these white men?’

‘Yes,’ Bond said.

‘Who do you think they are?’ Felix didn’t wait for an answer. ‘They’re oil company executives.’

‘Flies round the Zanzarim honey pot,’ Bond said.

‘Indeed. The Adeka family have been important chiefs in the Fakassa tribe for hundreds of years. The Zanza River Delta is their tribal homeland. Solomon Adeka is the sovereign chief.’

‘No he’s not,’ Bond said. ‘He couldn’t be. His older brother is – Gabriel Adeka. I’ll explain when you finish.’

‘Anyway, the price Hulbert Linck demanded for his military aid was a twenty-five-year lease on the oil rights in the Fakassa tribal homelands. Profits to be split fifty-fifty. Solomon Adeka granted him the lease – anything to save Dahum.’

‘So Linck owned the land where the oil was.’

‘In fact it’s owned by a company in Luxembourg called Zanza Petroleum SA. It’s Linck’s company. He had all the leases. Signed and sealed.’

Bond was thinking – pieces were fitting together, fast. Signed and sealed – but by the wrong Adeka brother.

‘And Linck certainly tried hard,’ Bond said. ‘I give that to him. For him a free independent Dahum was the best option. I saw what he did, what he spent.’

‘But it was never going to work,’ Felix said. ‘Dahum was never going to win this civil war, was never going to be an independent state. Too many powerful countries had other plans.’

‘And Linck was no fool. He could see the writing on the wall, eventually. His leases weren’t going to be worth a penny when Zanzarim was reunited. And that’s when the conspiracy started,’ Bond said. ‘Plan B began when they saw that the war was going to be lost.’ He sipped at his drink. ‘And I suspect another factor was when Linck discovered that the leases weren’t Solomon Adeka’s to sell. With the war over and the older brother, Gabriel, on the scene Zanza Petroleum would be no more.’

‘Go on,’ Felix said, leaning forward. ‘This is where it gets confusing for me. Remember I thought Gabriel Adeka was alive and well and living in Washington DC.’

‘The only way for Linck to keep the integrity of his oil leases going was to have them “authorised” by the older brother – the paramount chief of the Fakassa. How was that to be achieved? Solomon Adeka had to “die” and become Gabriel . . .’ Bond felt more clarity arriving as he articulated the plan to Felix. ‘I think Linck contacted Gabriel Adeka in London right at the end of the war. Spun him some sort of story about aid to Dahum. That’s why the two Constellations I saw suddenly had AfricaKIN painted on them. Even that last night as everyone was fleeing. Linck knew about Gabriel and that he was the older brother – that proves it.’ Bond thought further. Gabriel Adeka must have been found and located, agreed to ‘partner’ Linck in the airlift to Dahum. Perhaps it was just a ruse to gain his confidence. He might even have been dead already when that last Constellation touched down at Janjaville.

‘From Linck and Solomon Adeka’s point of view the key thing was to have Gabriel Adeka dead,’ Bond said, adding – ‘not only dead but “disappeared”. There would be no body. As far as anyone in London was concerned Gabriel had gone to America to set up the new charity – AfricaKIN Inc.’ Bond remembered his encounter with Peter Kunle at the Bayswater offices. How Kunle had been surprised at Gabriel’s untypical complacency about his borrowed typewriter, not living up to his usual impeccable behaviour patterns.

‘You’re saying Adeka and Linck planned all this,’ Felix said, frowning. ‘To kill Gabriel.’

‘Yes, I’m afraid so. The rewards were immense. Fratricide has a long history – starting with Cain and Abel.’ Bond added more ice to his glass. ‘Solomon Adeka feigned his terminal illness and his death. By the way – you might want to interrogate an Indian doctor called Dr Masind. He was in Rowanoak as well. He must have done the drugging, written the death certificate. It was very effective. Solomon “dies”, the war ends and enter the CIA. Gabriel Adeka, meanwhile, has been invited to set up AfricaKIN in Washington DC.’ Bond smiled. ‘The timing was perfect. Gabriel Adeka apparently leaves London – suddenly he’s not there – and another “Gabriel Adeka” arrives in Washington. Meanwhile Solomon Adeka has been buried with full military honours in Port Dunbar.’

Felix shook his head cynically. ‘How were we to know? You meet a man who says he’s Gabriel Adeka. How could we know that it was the younger brother, Solomon? He had a shaven head and a small goatee, just like Gabriel. Solomon was dead and buried – who’s going to be suspicious?’ Felix nodded, almost as if he had to convince himself of the elaborate nature of the subterfuge.

‘I bet you didn’t see much of him,’ Bond said.

‘No, that’s true. There were some initial meetings – “Gabriel” was unwell, we were told – this Colonel Denga was the frontman. Very efficient. Very precise.’

‘Part of the team.’ Bond lit another cigarette. ‘I’m pretty sure this was how it must have happened. Gabriel Adeka was lured into a kind of collaboration with Linck and his aid plans for Dahum. At some meeting an unsuspecting Gabriel would have been killed – probably by one of Kobus Breed’s buddies and the body disposed of – buried under fresh concrete in the Bayswater office. Breed is Linck’s enforcer – he would have arranged everything. Maybe he’s his partner, for all I know. I bet you it was Breed who saw other opportunities for AfricaKIN and its “mercy flights”. Maybe Linck was in on it.’ He shrugged. ‘Clearly he’s a man who likes to make a profit, one way or another.’ Bond spread his hands. ‘But we’ll never know now, thanks to Agent Massinette.’

Felix wasn’t going to follow this line of speculation, Bond saw. He shook his glass, making the ice cubes spin.

‘So, just to be on the safe side, to keep their control, they turned Solomon into a junkie,’ Felix added, nodding to himself again.

‘Absolutely perfect control,’ Bond said, adding more gin to their glasses. They were halfway through the bottle. ‘Linck and Breed were running things now. They didn’t want their Adeka brother changing his mind in any way.’

‘So you reckon Linck wasn’t a prisoner at all,’ Felix said.

‘No. Why would a prisoner dye his hair and grow a beard?’ Bond posed the question. ‘That little ploy was Linck’s escape route, or so he hoped. Kobus Breed was the mastermind. So Linck would have had us believe.’

‘Why didn’t he just run for it? Why did he surrender to you?’

‘You answered that. While he was alive he still – just about – owned Zanza Petroleum. Linck must have known that the whole AfricaKIN cover would be blown. Better to present himself as a victim along with poor Gabriel Adeka. You said the leases were all legal. He might have been able to pick up where he left off. He could have claimed some sort of negotiating position, at least.’

‘Except he hadn’t reckoned on you – the fact that you knew both brothers.’

‘Linck didn’t know that. And Massinette blew him away the moment he saw him.’ Bond clicked his fingers. ‘Just like that. I wonder why . . .’

‘I think I may be able to answer that question, now.’ Felix nodded. Bond could see clarity was visiting him, also.

‘OK,’ Felix continued, ‘one more thing. I can now understand how the real Gabriel Adeka could be made to disappear in London. And suddenly reappear in Rowanoak Hall. Solomon was “dead” – you’d been to his funeral. How did he get to the US?’

‘It was something Blessing told me – Aleesha Belem. She reminded me that there had been another plane that last night at Janjaville – a DC-3. She said Breed and Linck flew out separately on the DC-3 while everyone else was on the Super Constellation. I didn’t see that, of course – I was minding my own business bleeding to death.’ Bond smiled, wryly. ‘I suspect there were a few crates loaded on the DC-3 at the last moment. One of them would have contained Solomon Adeka, drugged and comatose but very much alive and ready to assume his new identity. Gabriel was dead – long live Gabriel. You weren’t going to ask any difficult questions – even if you had any – because you were so very pleased to welcome him and AfricaKIN to the US. I wonder why? Sorry to repeat myself . . .’

‘Follow me,’ Felix said and strolled on to the veranda. Bond joined him. Just below the edge of the veranda was a long row of cars and trucks and utility vehicles. All new and each one with the logo of an oil company on its side. Shell, BP, Texaco, Elf, Agip, Esso, Mobil, Gulf.

‘Take a look,’ Felix said. ‘Every oil company in the world wants to stick its nose in the Zanzarim trough.’

Bond looked at the shiny new vehicles, looked back at the perspiring white men in the bar of the Grand Central Hotel.

‘You’ve got to understand, James,’ Felix said, ‘the civil war here fouled everything up. Oil had been discovered, sure. But you can’t develop oilfields if a war is raging on top of them. It was a disaster for the oil companies. And when the war didn’t end in a few weeks and began to drag on and on – one year, two years – and it looked like there was going to be this interminable stalemate—’

Bond interrupted. ‘And certain Western governments agreed that if there was some way of stopping the war it would be in everybody’s interests.’ Bond frowned: not quite everybody’s – but he saw how a congruence of different ambitions had merged unknowingly, unwittingly. Britain, the USA, the international oil companies, Hulbert Linck’s vicious opportunism, the greed of a younger brother . . .

‘Here we are in the heart of the Zanza River Delta,’ Felix said. ‘We’re standing on a gigantic ocean of oil, untapped, barely explored. We don’t know how vast these reserves may be. It could be bigger than the Ghawar field in Saudi. These fellows’ – he gestured at the bar – ‘will figure it out any day now. But it’s not just any old oil. It’s “light crude”. The best oil in the world, so much easier to refine. The world wants it and the world is going to get it.’

Bond smiled cynically. ‘And someone like Hulbert Linck couldn’t be allowed to stand in the way. Enter Agent Massinette.’

‘I don’t like to admit it,’ Felix said. ‘But I can see why it was in everyone’s interests if Hulbert Linck was dead – killed by an agent in a shoot-out, for example, during a raid.’

They wandered back to their seats. Felix had a sour expression on his face – a man who had just come face to face with an unpleasant truth about the business he was in, Bond thought. They sat down and Bond added a fresh splash of gin to their glasses. Felix dropped in more ice cubes.

Bond looked at him. ‘You say “everyone’s interests”, Felix, but what you mean is the West.’

‘Of course. Figure it out. We don’t want to get our oil from the Gulf, if we can help it,’ Felix said. ‘It’s the proverbial powder keg. Islam, Palestine, Israel, Shia and Sunni – it’s a goat-fuck. Zanzarim alone could provide up to forty per cent of all US and UK oil needs, I’ve heard it said. Forty per cent – and not a camel in sight. It changes everything.’ He lit a cigarette and spread his arms. ‘This is the new Gulf, James. Right here in West Africa. It suits us fine.’ He stood up. ‘I’ve got to make a quick phone call. I saw a payphone in reception. Don’t finish that gin, I’ll be right back.’