The Dogs of War Page 9

  “What about medicines?”

  “There’s one hospital in Clarence, which is run by the United Nations. That’s the only one in the country.”

  “Doctors?”

  “There were two Zangarans who were qualified doctors. One was arrested and died in prison. The other fled into exile. The missionaries were expelled by the President as imperialist influences. They were mainly medical missionaries as well as preachers and priests. The nuns used to train nurses, but they got expelled as well.”

  “How many Europeans?”

  “In the hinterlands, probably none. In the coastal plain, a couple of agronomists, technicians sent by the United Nations. In the capital, about forty diplomats, twenty of them in the Russian embassy, the rest spread among the French, Swiss, American, West German, East German, Czech and Chinese embassies, if you call the Chinese white. Apart from that, about five United Nations hospital staff, another five technicians manning the electrical generator, the airport control tower, the waterworks, and so on. Then there must be fifty others—traders, managers, businessmen who have hung on, hoping for an improvement.

  “Actually, there was a ruckus six weeks ago and one of the UN men was beaten half to death. The five nonmedical technicians threatened to quit and sought refuge in their respective embassies. They may be gone by now, in which case the water, electricity, and airport will soon be out of commission.”

  “Where is the airport?”

  “Here, on the base of the peninsula behind the capital. It’s not of international standards, so if you want to fly in you have to take Air Afrique to here, in Manandi, and take a connecting flight by a small two-engined plane that goes down to Clarence three times a week. It’s a French firm that has the concession, though nowadays it’s hardly economic.”

  “Who are the country’s friends, diplomatically speaking?”

  Endean shook his head. “They don’t have any. No one is interested, it’s such a shambles. Even the Organization of African Unity is embarrassed by the whole place. It’s so obscure no one ever mentions it. No newsmen ever go, so it never gets publicized. The government is rabidly antiwhite, so no one wants to send staff men down there to run anything. No one invests anything, because nothing is safe from confiscation by any Tom, Dick, or Harry wearing a party badge. There’s a party youth organization that beats up anyone it wants to, and everyone lives in terror.”

  “What about the Russians?”

  “They have the biggest mission and probably a bit of, say, over the President in matters of foreign policy, about which he knows nothing. His advisers are mainly Moscow-trained Zangarans, though he wasn’t schooled in Moscow personally.”

  “Is there any potential at all down there?” asked Sir James.

  Endean nodded slowly. “I suppose there is enough potential, well managed and worked, to sustain the population at a reasonable degree of prosperity. The population is small, the needs few; they could be self-sufficient in clothing, food, the basics of a good local economy, with a little hard currency for the necessary extras. It could be done, but in any case, the needs are so few the relief and charitable agencies could provide the total necessary, if it wasn’t that their staffs are always molested, their equipment smashed or looted, and their gifts stolen and sold for the government’s private profit.”

  “You say the Vindu won’t work hard. What about the Caja?”

  “Nor they either,” said Endean. “They just sit about all day, or fade into the bush if anyone looks threatening. Their fertile plain has always grown enough to sustain them, so they are happy the way they are.”

  “Then who worked the estates in the colonial days?”

  “Ah, the colonial power brought in about twenty thousand black workers from elsewhere. They settled and live there still. With their families, they are about fifty thousand. But they were never enfranchised by the colonial power, so they never voted in the election at independence. If there is any work done, they still do it.”

  “Where do they live?” asked Manson.

  “About fifteen thousand still live in their huts on the estates, even though there is no more work worth doing, with all the machinery broken down. The rest have drifted toward Clarence and grub a living as best they can. They live in a series of shantytowns scattered down the road at the back of the capital, on the road to the airport.”

  For five minutes Sir James Manson stared at the map in front of him, thinking deeply about a mountain, a mad President, a coterie of Moscow-trained advisers, and a Russian embassy. Finally he sighed. “What a bloody shambles of a place.”

  “That’s putting it mildly,” said Endean. “They still have ritual public executions before the assembled populace in the main square. Death by being chopped to pieces with a machete. Quite a bunch.”

  “And who precisely has produced this paradise on earth?”

  For answer, Endean produced a photograph and placed it on the map.

  Sir James Manson found himself looking at a middle-aged African in a silk top hat, black frock coat, and checked trousers. It was evidently inauguration day, for several colonial officials stood in the background, by the steps of a large mansion. The face beneath the shining black silk was not round, but long and gaunt, with deep lines on each side of the nose. The mouth was twisted downward at each corner, so that the effect was of deep disapproval of something.

  But the eyes held the attention. There was a glazed fixity about them, as one sees in the eyes of fanatics.

  “That’s the man,” said Endean. “Mad as a hatter, and nasty as a rattlesnake. West Africa’s own Papa Doc. Visionary, communicant with spirits, liberator from the white man’s yoke, redeemer of his people, swindler, robber, police chief and torturer of the suspicious, extractor of confessions, hearer of voices from the Almighty, seer of visions, Lord High Everything Else, His Excellency, President Jean Kimba.”

  Sir James Manson stared longer at the face of the man who, unbeknownst to himself, was sitting in control of ten billion dollars’ worth of platinum. I wonder, he thought to himself, if the world would really notice his passing on.

  He said nothing, but, after he had listened to Endean, that event was what he had decided to arrange.

  Six years earlier the colonial power ruling the enclave now called Zangaro, increasingly conscious of world opinion, had decided to grant independence. Overhasty preparations were made among a population wholly inexperienced in self-government, and a general election and independence were fixed for the following year.

  In the confusion, five political parties came into being. Two were wholly tribal, one claiming to look after the interests of the Vindu, the other of the Caja. The other three parties devised their own political platforms and pretended to make appeal through the tribal division of the people. One of these parties was the conservative group, led by a man holding office under the colonialists and heavily favored by them. He pledged he would continue the close links with the mother country, which, apart from anything else, guaranteed the local paper money and bought the exportable produce. The second party was centrist, small and weak, led by an intellectual, a professor who had studied in Europe. The third was radical and led by a man who had served several prison terms under a security classification. This was Jean Kimba.

  Long before the elections, two of his aides, men who during their time as students in Europe had been contacted by the Russians (who had noticed their presence in anticolonial street demonstrations) and who had accepted scholarships to finish their schooling at the Patrice Lumumba University outside Moscow, left Zangaro secretly and flew to Europe. There they met emissaries from Moscow and, as a result of their conversations, received a sum of money and considerable advice of a very practical nature.

  Using the money, Kimba and his men formed squads of political thugs from among the Vindu and completely ignored the small minority of Caja. In the unpoliced hinterland the political squads went to work. Several agents of the rival parties came to very sticky ends, and the squads visit
ed all the clan chiefs of the Vindu.

  After several public burnings and eye gougings, the clan chiefs got the message. When the elections came, acting on the simple and effective logic that you do what the man with the power to extract painful retribution tells you, and ignore or mock the weak and the powerless, the chiefs ordered their people to vote for Kimba. He won the Vindu by a clear majority, and the total votes cast for him swamped the combined opposition and the Caja votes. He was aided by the fact that the number of the Vindu votes had been almost doubled by the persuasion of every village chief to increase the number of people he claimed lived in his village. The rudimentary census taken by the colonial officials was based on affidavits from each village chief as to the population of his village.

  The colonial power had made a mess of it. Instead of taking a leaf from the French book and ensuring that the colonial protégé won the first, vital election and then signed a mutual defense treaty to ensure that a company of white paratroops kept the pro-Western president in power in perpetuity, the colonials had allowed their worst enemy to win. A month after the election, Jean Kimba was inaugurated as first President of Zangaro.

  What followed was along traditional lines. The four other parties were banned as “divisive influences,” and later the four party leaders were arrested on trumped-up charges. They died under torture in prison, after making over the party funds to the liberator, Kimba. The colonial army and police officers were dismissed as soon as a semblance of an exclusively Vindu army had been brought into being. The Caja soldiers, who had constituted most of the gendarmerie under the colonists, were dismissed at the same time, and trucks were provided to take them home. After leaving the capital, the six trucks headed for a quiet spot on the Zangaro River, and here the machine guns opened up. That was the end of the trained Caja.

  In the capital, the police and customs men, mainly Caja, were allowed to stay on, but their guns were emptied and all their ammunition was taken away. Power passed to the Vindu army, and the reign of terror started. It had taken eighteen months to achieve this. The confiscation of the estates, assets, and businesses of the colonists began, and the economy ran steadily down. There were no Vindu trained to take over who could run the republic’s few enterprises with even moderate efficiency, and the estates were in any case given to Kimba’s party supporters. As the colonists left, a few UN technicians came in to run the basic essentials, but the excesses they witnessed caused most sooner or later to write home to their governments insisting they be removed.

  After a few short, sharp examples of terror, the timorous Caja were subdued into absolute submission, and even across the river in Vindu country several savage examples were made of chiefs who mumbled something about the preelection promises. After that the Vindu simply shrugged and went back to their bush. What happened in the capital had never affected them anyway in living memory, so they could afford to shrug. Kimba and his group of supporters, backed by the Vindu army and the unstable and highly dangerous teenagers who made up the party’s youth movement, continued to rule from Clarence entirely for their own benefit and profit.

  Some of the methods used to obtain the latter were mind-boggling. Simon Endean’s report contained documentation of an instance where Kimba, frustrated over the nonarrival of his share of a business deal, arrested the European businessman involved and imprisoned him, sending an emissary to his wife with the pledge that she would receive her husband’s toes, fingers, and ears by post unless a ransom were paid. A letter from her imprisoned husband confirmed this, and the woman raised the necessary half-million dollars from his business partners and paid. The man was released, but his government, terrified of black African opinion at the United Nations, urged him to remain silent. The press never heard about it. On another occasion two nationals of the colonial power were arrested and beaten in the former colonial police barracks, since converted into the army barracks. They were released after a handsome bribe was paid to the Minister of Justice, of which a part evidently went to Kimba. Their offense was failing to bow as Kimba’s car drove past.

  In the previous five years since independence, all conceivable opposition to Kimba had been wiped out or driven into exile, and those who suffered the latter were the lucky ones. As a result there were no doctors, engineers, or other qualified people left in the republic. There had been few enough in the first place, and Kimba suspected all educated men as possible opponents.

  Over the years he had developed a psychotic fear of assassination and never left the country. He seldom left the palace, and, when he did, it was under a massive escort. Firearms of every kind and description had been rounded up and impounded, including hunting rifles and shotguns, so that the scarcity of protein food increased. Import of cartridges and black powder was halted, so eventually the Vindu hunters of the interior, coming to the coast to buy the powder they needed to hunt game, were sent back empty-handed and hung up their useless dane guns in their huts. Even the carrying of machetes within the city limits was forbidden. The carrying of any of these items was punishable by death.

  When he had finally digested the lengthy report, studied the photographs of the capital, the palace, and Kimba, and pored over the maps, Sir James Manson sent again for Simon Endean.

  The latter was becoming highly curious about his chief’s interest in this obscure republic and had asked Martin Thorpe in the adjoining office on the ninth floor what it was about. Thorpe had just grinned and tapped the side of his nose with a rigid forefinger. Thorpe was not completely certain either, but he suspected he knew. Both men knew enough not to ask questions when their employer had got an idea in his head and needed information.

  When Endean reported to Manson the following morning, the latter was standing in his favorite position by the plate-glass windows of the penthouse, looking down into the street, where pygmies hurried about their business.

  “There are two things I need to know more about, Simon,” Sir James Manson said without preamble and walked back to his desk, where the Endean report was lying. “You mention here a ruckus in the capital about six to seven weeks ago. I heard another report about the same upset from a man who was there. He mentioned a rumor of an attempted assassination of Kimba. What was it all about?”

  Endean was relieved. He had heard the same story from his own sources but had thought it too small to include in the report.

  “Every time the President has a bad dream there are arrests and rumors of an attempt on his life,” said Endean. “Normally it just means he wants justification to arrest and execute somebody. In this case, in late January, it was the commander of the army, Colonel Bobi. I was told, on the quiet, the quarrel between the two men was really about Kimba’s not getting a big enough cut in the rake-off from a deal Bobi put through. A shipment of drugs and medicines had arrived for the UN hospital. The army impounded them at the quayside and stole half. Bobi was responsible, and the stolen portion of the cargo was sold elsewhere on the black market. The proceeds of the sale should have passed to Kimba. Anyway, the head of the UN hospital, when making his protest to Kimba and tendering his resignation, mentioned the true value of the missing stuff. It was a lot more than Bobi had admitted to Kimba.

  “The President went mad and sent some of his own guards out looking for Bobi. They ransacked the town, arresting anyone who got in the way or took their fancy.”

  “What happened to Bobi?” asked Manson.

  “He fled. He got away in a jeep and made for the border. He got across by abandoning his jeep and walking through the bush round the border control point.”

  “What tribe is he?”

  “Oddly enough, a half-breed. Half Vindu and half Caja, probably the outcome of a Vindu raid on a Caja village forty years ago.”

  “Was he one of Kimba’s new army, or the old colonial one?” asked Manson.

  “He was corporal in the colonial gendarmerie, so presumably he had some form of rudimentary training. Then he was busted, before independence, for drunkenness and insubordina
tion while drunk. When Kimba came to power he took him back in the early days because he needed at least one man who could tell one end of a gun from the other. In the colonial days Bobi styled himself a Caja, but as soon as Kimba came to power he swore he was a true Vindu.”

  “Why did Kimba keep him on? Was he one of his original supporters?”

  “From the time Bobi saw which way the wind was blowing, he went to Kimba and swore loyalty to him. Which was smarter than the colonial governor, who couldn’t believe Kimba had won the election until the figures proved it. Kimba kept Bobi on and even promoted him to command the army, because it looked better for a half-Caja to carry out the reprisals against the Caja opponents of Kimba.”

  “What’s he like?” asked Manson pensively.

  “A big thug,” said Simon. “A human gorilla. No brains as such, but a certain low animal cunning. The quarrel between the two men was only a question of thieves falling out.”

  “But Western-trained? Not Communist?” insisted Manson.

  “No, sir. Not a Communist. Not anything politically.”

  “Bribable? Cooperate for money?”

  “Certainly. He must be living pretty humbly now. He couldn’t have stashed much away outside Zangaro. Only the President could get the big money.”

  “Where is he now?” asked Manson.

  “I don’t know, sir. Living somewhere in exile.”

  “Right,” said Manson. “Find him, wherever he is.”

  Endean nodded. “Am I to visit him?”

  “Not yet,” said Manson. “There was one other matter. The report is fine, very comprehensive, except in one detail. The military side. I want to have a complete breakdown of the military security situation in and around the President’s palace and the capital. How many troops, police, any special presidential bodyguards, where they are quartered, how good they are, level of training and experience, the amount of fight they would put up if under attack, what weapons they carry, can they use them, what reserves there are, where the arsenal is situated, whether they have guards posted overall, if there are armored cars or artillery, if the Russians train the army, if there are strike-force camps away from Clarence—in fact, the whole lot.”