Wings of the Morning (51 page)

The site among the rocks and surrounding acacia trees looked shambolic under the fading moon and was it lit by several camp fires. The country had started to undulate for some distance back so
Fergus and his party could lie up behind a ridge and look down on the scene. He didn’t need night vision equipment. In the light of the fires and the waning moon, binoculars were enough.

At a quick count, there were over three hundred down there, but including camp followers, women and girls amongst them. Most were sitting on the ground with their backs to Fergus as they gazed
towards the main grouping of boulders which made for a stage, particularly one long, flat rock which looked like a giant coffin lid. On top of it a figure was cavorting, dressed in just a breech
clout. He was prancing about, gesticulating with an evil skinning knife which was streaked with blood and attracting glints from the moon. Behind the coffin rock was a dark pile of something.
Fergus shifted focus and could make out an untidy heap of bodies, maybe five or six and all men from the size of them. It made a gruesome sight. Fergus realised that the dancing figure with his
weird incantations was the Pange Man. That made him not the boss here, not even a senior lieutenant, but every bit as powerful in this setting because he was the ju-ju figure, the bogeyman and the
executioner.

It wasn’t hard to interpret the scene. They’d spent the night weeding out interlopers, men who had escaped fighting in the city, but who were not recognised Pange. They had moved
from frying pan to fire and it was impossible to know if Jonah had already perished amongst them. Being mute, large and of the wrong tribe, he wouldn’t have lasted long.

As they looked on from their ridge, Fergus saw a tall man with a large head rise from his position at the front of the crowd and recognised him as the former President of the Republic. He
wielded a long staff, a sign of his office, and bawled an instruction. The crowd subsided and voices fell, but for seconds only. Fergus caught a movement from off stage right and saw a huge figure,
shambling in a docile fashion as he was being led in to confront the Pange Man. Here was Jonah, and he was going like a lamb to the slaughter.

Fergus dropped his glasses and looking left, gave a thumbs up to his sharp shooter, Kenny Crowe, an Aussie from the Northern Territory and an artist with the sniper’s rifle. Kenny had
already prepared his position and started to lay his cheek along the scope in an awkward looking angle which apparently worked best for him. But he was to be delayed. Big Jonah had worked out a
plan for himself.

As he reached the edge of the coffin lid, Jonah seemed to stumble and he looked a cowed and abject figure. His escort jabbed him in the back with the butt of an AK47. Jonah leaned forward and
placed his massive hands, loosely tied together in front of him, onto the rock as if in preparation for heaving himself up and onto it. Then he struck.

A muffled grunt of appreciation came from Patrick’s other son beside him as he watched young Jonah sweep his hands wide and break his bonds as if they’d been rice paper. He whirled
around in a tight circle. He swept up the guard, plucking the AK from his hands and hurling it high and far into the acacia trees behind the coffin. Then Jonah leapt onto the rock to confront the
drooling dervish, setting about him with an unusual weapon. In his mighty arms, he carried the guard who was screaming and struggling. Jonah dumped the man head first onto the rock with a sickening
thud to his skull which could be heard in the sudden silence of a stunned audience. He picked up the man by his ankles and used the inert body to club the Pange Man. Blow one might have killed him
and the skinning knife went flying from his grasp. The Pange Man slumped onto his execution rock and Jonah rained another couple of mighty blows upon him, skull to skull with a force which made for
vengeful retribution and a bloody mess.

The onlookers were past shock and on their feet, grabbing their weapons. One was quicker than the others and had a machine pistol in his hand. Fergus watched through his glasses as Kenny Crowe
took him with a clear head shot. Two or three others followed before the shouting body worked out the direction of fire and turned, bellowing their message of fury and attack.

Fergus and his team had cover, quickly improving light and good weapons, but they were hugely outnumbered. They were happy to hear the faint whump whump which announced the arrival of the
support which Fergus had put in place before leaving the city. Two Apache gunships popped up from ground skimming behind the ridge. They came in to hover just above the commando group and opened up
their hellish firepower. The Pange fell like flies and any that managed to break out were picked off by Kenny and the rest of the team. Very soon, it was all over and Fergus walked down with his
men to sweep the area and far into the trees beyond to ensure that all had perished, every last one. It was there and then that they found Jonah, still mute but alive.

Fergus himself attended to the corpse of the Pange Man, cutting off the head. It was a gruesome business, made worse by Jonah’s attentions. With his ravaged features, almost toothless
mouth and the long, matted hair bloodied from his splintered skull, it made for a nightmare sight. The Pange Man, who had lurked and menaced and killed, was now very damn dead himself. That was the
message which David Heaven wanted to put out and he did so with photographs of this ghoulish horror which were posted up around the city. It was a graphic illustration that the threat of the past
was gone and a new era had arrived.

MARTIN KIRCHOFF — March 2000

From the BBC’s Today Programme on Radio Four. An interview with Mr Martin Kirchoff, (MK) Chief Executive, The Mansion House, London. Interview conducted at 0809 hours,
Wed 29 March 2000 by John Humphrys. (JH)

JH: I am speaking now to Mr Martin Kirchoff who is the chief executive of The Mansion House, the substantial British conglomerate. Mr Kirchoff is in our radio car outside the
company’s corporate headquarters in Piccadilly, London. Good morning, Mr Kirchoff.

MK: Good morning.

JH: Thank you for joining us today. I want to ask you about your colleague Mr David Heaven who is the self-styled leader of the illegal regime in West Africa currently referred
to as Millennium.

PAUSE

JH: Can you hear me Mr Kirchoff?

MK: Perfectly, thank you. I was waiting for the question.

JH: Very good. Let me start by asking you what connection, if any, Mr Heaven still has with your organisation?

MK: Mr Heaven is a shareholder, but he has no further interest or position. Together with myself and my late father, Mr Heaven was instrumental in developing our business over a
period of some thirty years and it is in large measure due to his efforts that The Mansion House now deals with 493 suppliers and we sell to over 70 countries worldwide. Our major operating
divisions include mining, manufacturing, agric.....

JH: Yes, Yes, Mr Kirchoff. Forgive me interrupting but a commercial for The Mansion House is not the requirement here. What I would prefer to ask is why your organisation is
retaining any sort of contact with a man who is now widely regarded as a latter-day pirate?

MK: Well, that is of course your characterisation but it certainly isn’t mine. As I understand matters and from what I read in the international press, the citizens of
that country are already pretty content with all that Millennium has come to offer them. Order to replace corruption, hugely improved public services, advances in health care and the supermarket
shelves bec...

JH: Yes indeed. But that’s just one point of view isn’t it? There are a host of other informed commentators who report with equal conviction that this is a colonial
land grab. Am I not right?

MK: You are right in what you quote, but surely neither of us knows all the truth of it. We all wait with growing interest to be given facts, and I am not personally privy to
details which have been denied to the rest of the world.

JH: You are surely not expecting us to be satisfied with that Mr Kirchoff. After all, this is a man whom you have known and worked with for over thirty years. You must have some
continuing contact with David Heaven?

MK: To the extent that I may do, Mr Humphrys, it’s private and that is how I shall keep it.

JH: So you do admit that you retain contact with Mr Heaven?

MK: Well ... yes I do, but it’s infrequent.

JH: Perhaps. Now Mr Kirchoff, let me ask you about another member of the so called Millennium mob. Do you have connections to Mr Hugh Dundas, the financier?

MK: I know him, certainly. But Mr Dundas is in no way involved with The Mansion House.

JH: Quite so. But your company’s past public statements have confirmed, have they not, that The Mansion House has donated funds to Mr Dundas’ charity ‘Orphans
of Africa’ which is currently under investigation by both the United Nations Fraud Investigation team in Geneva as well as equivalent authorities within the European Development Fund?

MK: Yes. I confirm that our company did donate and yes, I do understand that enquiries into the Dundas Charity are on-going.

JH: And this makes you uneasy?

MK: No. I wouldn’t say that. I have confidence in the skills and the probity of Mr Dundas. I welcome the exercise of investigation as the best means of proving the good
intent and the effective operation of all that Mr Dundas has put in place.

JH: And can you confirm also that it was Mr Dundas who funded the invasion of this West African State?

MK: I believe that is provocative. I have no knowledge — and neither should I have — as to the funding for the development of Millennium. If such an arrangement
exists, you would need to ask either or both of Mr Heaven and Mr Dundas for clarification on the matter.

JH: I wish we could do just that, Mr Kirchoff, but as you know, neither is available for comment. But let me ask you a final question. If you were a peaceful citizen of
background and established means, how would you react to an undemocratic assumption of power by an incoming force? An illegal invasion by any other name?

PAUSE

JH: Mr Kirchoff? I must press you for a response if you have one. Time is against us.

MK: Very well. I would say that it would depend upon the circumstances.

JH: Yes of course. But do I take your answer as meaning that you would prefer to avoid a direct answer?

MK: By no means. I mean just as I have said, and I might illustrate my point. My father was just such a citizen in Germany before the outbreak of the Second World War. He was
also a Jew. I believe that he would have welcomed an invasion some time before it happened to release him from his concentration camp.

JH: Just so. Mr Kirchoff, thank you for speaking to us.

And now, what is to happen to the visitor centre at Stonehenge? We have a special report ...

KINGSTON OFFENBACH — May 2000

King was worried. Mostly, he was worried about where he was. He had agreed to come on down to Millennium with David and had been very pleased to witness a successful arrival
followed by some pretty dramatic progress. Five months on, you could feel throughout Century City that the welcome had been won. But joy at their results was not unconfined. Just as King had
feared, there were pressures building elsewhere in the world for action against the makers of Millennium. What they had done was simply not proper by 21st century rules of international diplomacy.
It was different, which was bad enough and apparently successful which was worse. Something must be done — and soon.

King could pick up all those vibes by reading the news or tuning in to international stations and they were getting them all in Century now. He could flick between CNN and Sky but he preferred
BBC World, and for reading, the Wall Street Journal and the Economist. What he could not do was to pick up the phone and talk to his buddies of working days. He was now regarded as a maverick who
had gone seriously bush in his retirement, opting out to join the renegades. Folks didn’t want to know him right now, especially not stuck in Century City and unable to travel. He had his US
passport, of course, and it was an entirely legal laissez-passer. But in practice, if he tried to enter the USA, they would pick him up and process him straight through to Langley without his
elegant feet touching the ground. The CIA did not care for a retiree giving them cause for embarrassment. If he flew into Europe someplace, the reports would go back and he would become a watched
man, compromising his ability to help in the one area in which he had promised to deliver.