Solo (5 page)

In Port Dunbar, the central town in the river delta, 200,000 Fakassa took to the streets in protest against this Lowele ‘theft’ of their patrimony. There were anti-Fakassa riots in Sinsikrou and over 300 Fakassa were massacred by a rampaging Lowele mob. In the south a revanchist anti-Lowele pogrom took place – shops were burnt, traders expelled and their assets seized. Eight Lowele policemen, attempting to flee, were caught and lynched. As the trouble increased and more indiscriminate slaughter ensued, attempts to broker a peace by British and UN diplomats failed and tensions rose inexorably on both sides as massacre and counter-massacre occurred in a deadly and inhuman tit-for-tat. A rush of Fakassa refugees from elsewhere in Zanzarim fled into the tribal heartlands around Port Dunbar. Towards the end of 1967 the south of the country – effectively the Fakassa tribal lands – formally seceded from Zanzarim and a new independent state was created: the Democratic Republic of Dahum. Two brigades of the Zanzarim army invaded Dahum and were repulsed. The Zanzarim civil war had begun.

Bond put the briefing document down. It was like that old Chinese curse: ‘May you live in interesting times’ – reconfigured as ‘May vast reserves of oil be discovered in your country.’ He shuffled through the newspaper clippings and selected one written by a defence expert whose name he recognised. In the two years since the war had begun the overwhelmingly superior Zanzarim forces had managed to drive the Dahumians back from their ostensible frontiers to a small hinterland in the river delta concentrated around the town of Port Dunbar. The Democratic Republic of Dahum now consisted of Port Dunbar, an airstrip near a place called Janjaville and a few hundred square miles of dense forest, river creeks and mangrove swamps. Dahum was surrounded and a blockade commenced. The desperate population of Fakassa began to starve and die.

Her Majesty’s Government supported Zanzarim (as well as providing military materiel for the Zanzarim army) and urged Dahum to sue for peace and return to the ‘status quo ante’. To all observers it seemed that unless this occurred there would be a human catastrophe. It had seemed inconceivable that Dahum could hold out for more than a week or two.

Bond recalled what M had recounted.

‘However, it simply hasn’t happened,’ he had said, shrugging his shoulders. ‘It seems heroic – this small, makeshift Dahum army holding out against hugely superior and well-equipped forces. To be sure, there’s a clandestine air-bridge flying in supplies at night to this airstrip at Janjaville. But somehow they’ve completely stopped the Zanzari advance. Every time there’s a push from the Zanzarim army it ends in humiliating disaster. It seems the Dahumian army is being brilliantly led by some kind of tactical genius producing victory after victory. The war could drag on forever at this rate.’

Bond picked up a clipping from
Time
magazine that showed an African soldier, a brigadier, with a black beret and a scarlet cockade standing on top of a burnt-out Zanzari armoured car. The caption beneath read: ‘Brigadier Solomon “The Scorpion” Adeka – the African Napoleon’. So, this was the soldier who was the architect of Dahum’s astonishing resilience – a military prodigy who was somehow contriving to inflict defeat upon defeat on an army ten times the size of his.

‘Brigadier Adeka is the key,’ M had said, simply. ‘He’s the man who’s single-handedly keeping this war going, by all accounts. He’s the target – the object of your mission. I want you to go to Zanzarim, infiltrate yourself into Dahum and get close to this man.’

‘And what am I meant to do then, sir?’ Bond had asked, knowing the answer but keeping his face impassive, giving nothing away.

‘I’d like you to find a way of making him a less efficient soldier,’ M had said with a vague smile.

There was a knock on his door and Bond looked up, irritated, and Araminta Beauchamp stepped in. She was a pretty girl with a fringe of dark hair that almost covered her eyes. She kept flicking it away with a toss of her head.

Bond sighed. ‘Minty, I said absolutely no interruptions. Don’t you understand plain English?’

‘Sorry, sir. Q Branch has just called to say that they can see you any time that’s convenient to you.’

‘I know that. I’ve just been speaking to M.’

‘I thought it was important . . .’ Her chin quivered and she dragged her fringe away with a finger to reveal eyes about to weep tears of penitence.

‘Thank you,’ Bond said, gently. ‘You’re right. It probably is. And please don’t cry, Minty.’

Bond rode the lift down to Q Branch’s domain in the basement and announced himself. He was met by a young bespectacled man who introduced himself as Quentin Dale. He looked about twenty-five years old and had the eager proselytising manner of a doorstep missionary.

‘I don’t think we’ve met before, Commander,’ Dale said, cheerfully. ‘I’ve only been here a couple of months.’ He led Bond down a corridor to his small office, showed him to a seat and sat down opposite, removing a file from his desk and pushing his spectacles back on his nose.

‘You’ll need some inoculations if you’re going to West Africa,’ he said. ‘Shall we arrange them or would you prefer your own doctor?’

‘I’ll deal with that,’ Bond said.

‘Yellow fever, smallpox, polio – and you’ll need a supply of antimalarials. They say Daraprim is very good.’

‘Fine,’ Bond said, thinking that the only problem with Q Branch was that they treated everyone as a naive, innocent, not to say ignorant, fool.

‘We don’t think you should go to Zanzarim armed,’ Dale said, consulting the notes in his file. ‘Because of the war the airport searches at Sinsikrou can be very thorough. And you’re working for a French press agency . . .’ Dale smiled, sympathetically, as if he was about to break bad news. ‘And the French aren’t very popular with the Zanzaris.’

‘Why’s that?’

‘They’ve given a kind of de facto recognition of the Dahum state. The French embassy here in London is where the Dahum diplomatic mission is based.’ He screwed up his face.

‘I suppose it was their colony for a while.’

‘True,’ Dale said.

‘But I’ll be pretty popular in Dahum itself.’

‘Exactly – that’s the logic.’ Dale smiled again, this time approvingly, as if the most backward boy in the class had answered a difficult question. He reached into another drawer and took out a zipped pigskin toilet bag, opening it and showing Bond its contents. Bond saw that it was a luxury shaving kit: safety razor, Old Spice shaving stick and badger-bristle brush, aftershave, talcum powder, a deodorant roll-on, all tucked in their respective pockets and slings.

‘We can’t give you a gun, but we can give you some potency,’ Dale said. He held up the aftershave. ‘A tablespoonful of this will knock a man out for twelve hours. Add a teaspoon of this’ – he showed Bond the talcum powder – ‘and he’ll go into a coma for two to three days. It’s completely tasteless, by the way. You can put it in any drink or food, no one will notice.’

‘What if I add two teaspoons?’ Bond asked.

‘You’ll probably kill him. Best to make it three teaspoons to be on the safe side, if you want to bring about death. Coma, then a massive heart attack,’ he smiled and pushed his spectacles back on his nose again. ‘Should give you plenty of time to make your escape.’

He took an envelope from his file and handed it over.

‘This contains all the information you need. And your plane ticket to Zanzarim. BOAC on Friday evening. One way.’

‘So I’m not coming back,’ Bond said, drily.

‘Our station head in Sinsikrou will arrange your journey home. It’s not clear how long you’ll be in the country, anyway – or even if you’ll be leaving from it.’

‘I suppose not. Who’s our station head?’

‘Ah . . .’ he looked at his file. ‘One E. B. Ogilvy-Grant. It’s been very recently set up. A business card with the address and phone number is in the envelope and confirmation of your reservation at the Excelsior Gateway Hotel. It’s near the airport. Ogilvy-Grant will make contact with you after you’ve landed.’

Bond took the business card from the envelope. It read: ‘E. B. Ogilvy-Grant MA (Cantab). Palm Oil Export and Agricultural Services.’ There was a telephone number in the corner.

‘Anything else, Commander?’

Bond zipped up the toilet bag.

‘What about communications? Connecting with base, here?’

‘Ogilvy-Grant will take care of all that.’

Bond stood up, slowly. Something was bothering him. It all seemed a bit vague, a bit wing-and-a-prayer, a bit improvised. But maybe this was what a mission to a civil-war-torn West African country involved. Once he was actually in Zanzarim and had met Ogilvy-Grant the picture would be clearer, surely. He had a few days before his plane left, in any event, so it might be a good idea to do some extra homework himself.

‘Good luck,’ Dale said, flashing him his boyish smile. He didn’t offer Bond his hand to shake.

Bond strolled down the street in Bayswater for the second time and joined the back of a long queue at a bus stop and took in his surroundings at leisure. Across the street was a small shabby parade of shops – an ironmonger, a newsagent, a grocery store and a seemingly empty premises with a hand-painted sign above the grimy plate glass window that said ‘AfricaKIN’. Sellotaped to the glass was a poster of a starving child with rheumy eyes and a distended belly holding out a claw-like begging hand. The caption was: ‘Genocide in Dahum. Please give generously.’

Bond crossed the road and rang the bell.

He heard a clatter of footsteps descending some stairs and sensed a presence behind the door scrutinising him through the peephole.

‘Who are you? What do you want?’ an educated English voice said.

‘My name’s James Bond. I’m a journalist,’ Bond explained, adding, ‘I’m going to Zanzarim on Friday.’

The door was opened after a key had turned in a lock and two bolts were drawn. A slim African man stood there, in his forties, smart in a pinstriped suit with his head completely shaven and a neat goatee beard. His gaze was watchful and unwelcoming.

Bond showed his Agence Presse Libre card. The man smiled and visibly relaxed.

‘I’m looking for Gabriel Adeka,’ Bond said.

‘You’ve found him. Come on in.’

Bond knew from his further researches that Gabriel Adeka was Brigadier Solomon Adeka’s older brother. A successful barrister, educated at Rugby School and Merton College, Oxford, he had given up his lucrative legal career to found AfricaKIN, a charity dedicated to alleviating the suffering in Dahum. Bond saw, as he entered, that the linoleum-covered ground floor contained a fifth-hand photocopier and, to one side on a decorator’s trestle table, a light box and a typewriter. It must be quite a contrast to his chambers in Lincoln’s Inn, Bond thought, as he followed Adeka up the creaking carpetless stairs to his small office on the floor above.

Adeka’s office was papered with his various distressing posters and was occupied by a table and chair surrounded by yellowing piles of flyers, news-sheets and booklets about AfricaKIN and the plight of Dahum. He shifted some cardboard boxes and found a stool behind them, placing it in front of his desk for Bond to sit on.

‘May I offer you a cup of tea?’ Adeka said, gesturing towards an electric kettle and some mugs on a tray on the floor.

‘No, thank you . . . I don’t drink tea,’ Bond added in explanation.

‘And you call yourself an Englishman?’ Adeka smiled.

‘Actually, I’m not English,’ Bond said, then changed the subject. ‘You seem to be very much on your own here. One-man band.’

‘I’ve a ready supply of volunteers when the need arises,’ Adeka said, with a weary smile. ‘But most of my funds have gone. I gave up my practice two years ago and as we all know, money – alas – doesn’t grow on trees. Also, we find ourselves very harassed by the state. Inexplicable electricity failures, visits by aggressive bailiffs claiming we haven’t paid our bills, break-ins, vandalism. All this costs me. AfricaKIN isn’t welcome – Her Majesty’s Government has made that very clear.’

‘Maybe you should move to Paris,’ Bond said.

‘I’ve thought about it, believe me. Without our French friends . . .’ He stopped. ‘I wouldn’t be talking to you, Mr Bond, if you didn’t work for a French press agency.’

‘I’m very grateful.’

‘So, what takes you to our benighted country?’

‘I’m flying in to Sinsikrou, yes – but then I plan to make my way south, to Dahum. I want to interview your brother – which is why I’m here.’

The kettle had boiled and Adeka made himself a cup of tea – no milk, no sugar. He sat behind his desk and looked at Bond, candidly, silently for a second or two, as if weighing him up, analysing him. Bond sat there, happy to be scrutinised – for some reason he liked Gabriel Adeka and admired his futile ambitions, his sacrifice, his crazy integrity.

‘Why do you think I might be able to help you?’

‘Well, you are his brother.’

‘True. But I haven’t spoken to my “little brother” since Dahum seceded in ’67,’ he said with heavy cynicism. ‘Solomon can be very persuasive. He told me what he was planning to do – to secede, to establish a “new” country, keep the potential oil revenues for the Fakassa people. He had very, very big dreams. I begged him not to do it, told him it would be a disaster for the Fakassa, a kind of race-suicide.’ His face tautened. ‘I derive no satisfaction from being proved right.’

‘So why didn’t he listen to you?’

‘You wouldn’t understand, Mr Bond. You have to be a Fakassa to have that depth of feeling, that closeness . . .’ The words seemed to fail him. ‘We’ve lived in the Zanza River Delta for hundreds, perhaps thousands of years. It’s our homeland – our heartland – in every passionate, instinctive sense of the words.’ He smiled, emptily. ‘I don’t expect you to know what I’m talking about. You’re not African.’

‘No, I can understand,’ Bond said. ‘You make sense. There’s no need to patronise me.’

‘I apologise. Do you own a house?’

‘I have a flat.’

‘Do you like living there?’

‘Very much.’

‘What would you say if your neighbours came in one day and took away your carpets and your furniture, your treasured possessions?’