Authors: Jeremy Duns
On the other hand, she thought, why would he panic? If Gadlow made this claim, he could simply deny it. Why should anyone believe a Sov agent about such a thing? But Sandy knew that Gadlow would
be convincing. He had been in Malaya with him and several of the others, some of whom would be shown to have far-right links if investigated. Gadlow would also presumably have been able to give
details of their meetings and plans. So Sandy would have soon realised that he had no choice: he had to make sure that Gadlow never spoke of it to anyone in the upper ranks of the Service. That he
never reached London at all. But he also had to stay at one remove from it. If
he
had flown out to Kuala Lumpur to fetch Gadlow and the man had died within hours of his arrival, suspicion
would fall on him – as indeed it had on her. She had been cleared of any involvement partly because she was young and inexperienced, with no links to Gadlow and no motive for wanting him
dead, but also because Sandy had argued that case for her.
She steadied herself against the table. He had sent her out there to take the fall. It wasn’t the Russians who had arranged for the waiter to kill Gadlow – it was Sandy. It took her
a few seconds to order it in her mind, but she had no doubt she was right. Her feminine intuition, she thought bitterly.
Proshin was peering at her. She knew she should be believing Sandy more than this strange Russian she had never even met before tonight, but try as she might she couldn’t. The scales had
fallen, and she tried to absorb her dismay. As well as the personal betrayal, she realised she had been seduced by a false image. Sandy had seemed grand and irreproachable to her, an ideal figure,
a statue. She had foolishly confused him with the noble version of him played by Dirk Bogarde – the famous scene in the film in which he stalked the streets of Saint-Nazaire with his pistol
at his side, his eyes glinting in the darkness, like a modern Knight of the Round Table. She’d fallen for the idea of him as a leader and a man of integrity simply because he was in that
position, because he looked the part and, she supposed, because she had wanted such a figure to look up to.
But he wasn’t a knight. Nothing like. He was just a shabby little fascist playing games with people’s lives. And he had lied to her, all down the line.
Proshin was right. She had to take the necessary steps, and she had to take them now. She turned to him, her jaw set.
‘Wait here,’ she said, and walked to the door. She took the passage to the back of the flat and pushed open the door to the bedroom. Manning was asleep beneath a pink duvet cover,
snoring. She turned the light on and walked over to him. He rubbed his eyes and stared at her.
‘What the hell’s going on?’ he asked.
‘You’re right about the Service,’ she said. ‘It’s corrupt to its core. I need you to help me fix it.’
Without warning, a sea eagle plummeted from its perch three hundred feet above the Zambezi River to snatch a fish in its talons, its strange laughing cry echoing across the
still air as it swooped back up with its prize. It was just before sunrise at Mosi-oa-Tunya, ‘The Smoke That Thunders’ – Victoria Falls – and the greatest spectacle in
Africa was rapidly revealing itself, the spray from the waterfall pluming into the air in a constant cloud.
On the 650-foot-long steel bridge spanning the second gorge, a South African Railways diesel engine inched five carriages towards the white line painted across the midpoint of the tracks. The
central carriage of the five, Car 49, had an ivory and gold exterior. It had been built and fitted in England, and apart from a few small repairs looked the same as it had done in 1947, when it had
been part of the ‘White Train’ used by the British royal family on their visit to South Africa. Inside, it was air-conditioned, with beige carpets and walnut and chestnut panelling. A
long polished stinkwood table had been set with carafes of water and vases of fresh flowers placed at both ends of the carriage. Lunch would be crayfish, specially imported for the occasion.
On the veranda of his suite at the Elephant Hills Hotel just above the Falls, Ian Smith sat in his dressing gown and looked out at the view, his heart rising with the beauty of it. He glanced
down at the golf course directly below his room and smiled as a warthog emerged from the undergrowth to run across one of the Gary Player-designed fairways.
He took a deep breath, then stood and walked back inside. It would have been a lovely morning for a round of golf, but he had greater problems to deal with than calculating how to direct a small
ball into a hole. It was time to get dressed and prepare – it would be a long day.
One floor beneath, Roy Campbell-Fraser stood on the veranda of his room, watching the carriages being positioned on the bridge through binoculars. He was pleased. Smith had initially thought to
take Willard Shaw with him as part of his retinue, but Campbell-Fraser’s information about Charamba’s decision to join the talks had turned the tables and he’d been invited as the
intelligence representative instead. He now had the ideal opportunity to see his plan in action at close quarters. And Charamba would have no idea he was sitting opposite one of the men he had
spoken to on the telephone.
Paul Dark disembarked from the plane and walked into the main terminal of Lusaka airport. A fan moved slowly in the ceiling, its blades creaking. The heat felt like an iron
placed against his face after the air conditioning on the plane, and his clothes hung on him like chain mail. Adding to his sluggishness, he had barely slept on the flight and his muscles still
ached from his struggle in the shopping arcade.
He didn’t regret killing the Rhodesian – the man had been a professional and wouldn’t have hesitated to kill him if he’d had the opportunity – but he was perturbed
at how easily the violence had come to him. He had almost
enjoyed
it. The red mist had descended at the thought of the man being involved in kidnapping Claire and Ben, but the transition
to his old brutal self had been seamless. Well, it was too late to do anything about it, he thought. Once he got them back he could put the monster away again. For now, he’d use it.
Something else was nagging him about Brussels: the couple who had appeared in the arcade after he’d killed the Rhodesian. He was certain they had been Service. The man had been based in
Paris in the mid-sixties, he thought, though his name escaped him. He hadn’t recognised the woman at all, but she had been dressed in a very English way, in stockings and a sober skirt. If
his instincts were right, it meant the Rhodesians
and
the British were chasing him – or that there was some sort of co-operation between them. He wasn’t sure which prospect was
worse.
He loosened the collar of his shirt as he took his place in the queue for the counter. A single official was inspecting passports, a young man in shirtsleeves. Despite his youth, he looked like
he was taking his task very seriously and Dark felt the familiar knot in his stomach tighten. He was using Jonas’s other passport now, Per Sundqvist, the pharmacist from Uppsala, but he
wasn’t sure it was going to work. Perhaps he should have tried to find Manning’s safe, after all. But that wouldn’t have helped him either: even if he had found another passport
there, the Service would simply have put an alert out for it.
He reached the front of the queue and the official beckoned him forward. Dark handed him his passport and he opened it up and looked at him.
‘Is this your first visit to Zambia, Mr Sundqvist?’
‘Yes.’
‘Business or pleasure?’
‘Pleasure.’
It happened very quickly after that. The official simply glanced up and nodded and a moment later Dark felt his arms being taken behind his back and metal pressing into his spine. He was marched
away from the queue and through an unmarked door, where he was shoved into a chair in a corner. A dead rat lay against one wall, and flies were buzzing around it. Dark felt like retching, but held
it in.
A few minutes passed, and the young official walked in. He lit a cigarette slowly, and Dark revised his view of him as he did.
‘You have no smallpox or yellow fever certificates, Mr Sundqvist,’ he said finally. ‘Can you explain this, please?’
Monday, 25 August 1975, Chièvres, Belgium
The sky was a sheet of pale grey. Rachel parked at the airfield and walked, buffeted by a wind, up the tarmac to the C-47.
‘I was told just one passenger,’ said the pilot as he took in the two figures standing next to her.
‘There’s been a change of plan,’ she replied. She gestured to Manning and Proshin, and they climbed aboard.
There was a knock on the door and Charamba looked up. It was Gibo.
‘What is it, Phillip?’ he said, irritated at the intrusion. He wanted time alone to think before they set out for the talks.
‘I’ve had a tip-off. A white man has arrived in town and asked to see you.’
Charamba peered at him. ‘When did you hear this?’
‘Just now. They’re holding him at the airport. He said you would know what it was about.’
Charamba stood. ‘Get the car,’ he said.
‘He’s tired a lot,’ said Jessica Innes, as she led them through the front hall. ‘And he has dreadful nightmares. A couple of months ago he woke up at
two in the morning and just shouted the word “Traitors!” over and over.’ She gave a small smile, apologetic and ashamed and yet stoic at the same time.
‘I understand,’ said Rachel. ‘We’ll be very careful.’
She had driven here straight from Northolt with Proshin and Manning squeezed in the back seat of the Austin, two defectors in their own ways – traitors, too, depending on who you asked. It
had taken her a while to find the village but Manning had helped, having visited it many moons ago when it had been occupied by a previous Chief.
Jessica Innes rapped on the door of the study.
‘Edmund? I have some visitors here to see you. From London.’
There was no response, and they stood in awkward silence.
She was about to knock again when the door opened, and Innes stood there in his dressing gown and slippers. He seemed to have shrunk since Rachel had last seen him. His face was narrower at the
cheekbones but his jowls were still there, as if Giacometti had started work at the top of his head but abandoned the job halfway through.
He shuffled out of the room, peering through his spectacles with watery eyes.
‘I wondered if it might be you,’ he said. ‘I see you’ve brought some friends.’
The door of the room in the basement of Lusaka airport swung open and five men marched in. All wore fatigues, and were armed. Dark didn’t offer any resistance as they
escorted him from the room and bundled him into an unmarked station-wagon outside. Someone placed a blindfold over his eyes and tied his wrists together, a voice called out ‘Go!’ and
the engine started up.
Half an hour later, he was roughly dragged out and taken into a cool house. They led him down into a basement and tore off his blindfold – the room was empty. They left him, and he paced
the concrete floor. The summit was due to start later that morning, but the thugs at the airport had taken his watch so he had no idea how much time he had left. Two hours? Three? Finally, the door
opened and a small, neat-looking man entered. He wore a short-sleeved white shirt, slacks and sandals, and he had glasses and a neat beard. He approached Dark and stared down at him.
‘I’m Matthew Charamba,’ he said. ‘I’d very much like to know why you are looking for me.’
Dark breathed out in relief. ‘My name is Paul. I have a son with your daughter, Hope. I think I know who’s taken them, and I’ve come to try to get them back, with your
help.’
Charamba looked at him, his expression impassive.
‘Why should I believe you?’
Dark took a step closer to the man. ‘Because it’s the truth. I knew her as Claire. She has a birthmark inside her left elbow, the shape of a teardrop. She has a smile that makes you
think someone has turned the lights on. She has tiny dimples in her cheeks that you only see if you’re very close. We love each other, and we love our son, Ben.’
Dark had spoken without altering his voice, as though reciting a poem. But now he saw that Charamba was crying softly. He had opened up Dark’s wallet and found the photograph of the three
of them. He waved a hand at Gibo and the others.
‘Get out,’ he said. ‘Leave us.’
Rachel asked Innes if she could use his telephone, and he took her into the conservatory. She dialled, her hand trembling.
‘Savage and Cooper.’
‘Phoenix,’ she said. ‘It’s terribly urgent.’
There was a pause on the line and then a familiar voice came on. ‘You looking for His Lordship?’ said Tombes, ignoring protocol. ‘He’s not here, is he? Buggered off to
leave us plebeians slaving away.’
She pushed her fingers into her temple in frustration. She couldn’t really face calling his house and having Celia pick up instead of him. ‘When did he go home?’
‘Home? He’s gone out to Rhodesia. Left about an hour ago.’
It came like a punch to her chest. She hadn’t seen that coming, but of course. Of course he bloody had.
‘I need you to make some calls for me, Keith,’ she said. ‘Several calls, in fact. Do you have a pen handy?’
Tombes laughed. ‘I’ve been waiting for you to ask, Your Highness.’
Rachel replaced the receiver and stood for a moment, thinking. Then she picked it up again and dialled a number in Chancery Lane.
‘Good morning, Public Record Office.’
‘Good morning. I’d like to speak to Daniel Gold, please.’
‘You haven’t told them?’ said Dark, surprised. ‘Your men.’
‘I haven’t told anyone. They said if I breathed a word of it they would kill them both, and I believe them.’
‘I see. And what exactly have they demanded of you?’
Charamba explained the script he was to read from at the summit and Dark listened in silence. It was much as he had suspected.