by J.D. Easley
Waterton Publishing Company
Waterton Publishing Company
This is a work of fiction. The events described are imaginary and the settings and characters are fictitious and not intended to represent actual places, companies, or persons.
Copyright © 2012 by J.D. Easley. Waterton Publishing Company. All Rights Reserved.
This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproducedin any form without permission.
Published simultaneously worldwide.
Library of Congress Control Number: 2012947104
ISBN: 978-0-9905249-0-8
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In Memory of Rain Walsh 1994 – 2011
“Teach us that wealth is not elegance,
that profusion is not magnificence,
that splendor is not beauty.”
Benjamin Disraeli
ILLUSION OF SPLENDOR
I REVENGE
On the Atlantic coast of northern Morocco a bearded man wrapped in a long white cotton shawl stands alone on the side of a hill. It is not yet dawn and gazing down into the distance he can barely make out a few dim lights believed to be houses or fishing boats moored in a harbor. He lowers to a rounded boulder and rests a sandaled foot on an adjacent rock and an elbow on a knee, takes a drag from his cigarette, waits, and watches; before long the starless night sky gives way to slate gray with streaks of burgundy highlighting low-hanging clouds. As he waits, the color fades, and so too the windows’ glow as square pale buildings take shape scattered among indistinct date palm and eucalyptus trees. The lone man on the hillside remains motionless, thinking, wishing he had come to this tranquil village for a different reason.
Sawahi is a pastoral community – life passes gradually the way it has for centuries. On this January morning, like most this time of year, a thick layer of clouds hangs over the coast creating a surrealistic haze beyond which palm fronds rustle, roosters crow, and songbirds sing. From out of the mist emerge children on their way to school, shopkeepers on their way to stores, and fishermen on their way to boats. Most of the men make their living casting and trolling in the open ocean from small wooden skiffs with benches and outboard motors and large trawlers with cabins and woven nets draping from poles like heron wings rising from their decks. Others catch their family’s evening meal from a stone breakwater that begins where a boardwalk ends to the north.
Boulders pile adjacent the road for a dozen or so meters until jutting more than fifty meters into the Atlantic as a rampart against the pounding waves. Fishermen jam cork handles of long stout poles into stone crevices; translucent lines dangle from tips, flutter in the breeze, and disappear in ripples below the water’s glassy surface. The sea washes crystal clear over a long stretch of fine white sand beyond the breakwater. After school, children will splash in the surf, run down the beach, chase crabs and pick up empty shells and other objects deposited by the retreating breakers. Later, some of the villagers may build fires in stone pits sheltered by post and thatch huts.
Hills and ravines enclose the village on three sides so it remains an isolated oasis of white on a green and blue background from which just one narrow dusty spur accesses paved thoroughfares many kilometers distant and, eventually, highways, towns, and cities such as Tangier and Casablanca. There are few visitors to the village. Most are vendors bringing food, water, and dry goods by truck to resupply local merchants; tourists from the south fishing for perch, billfish, and tuna; families arriving by car or boat to meet friends or relatives; or passengers on vessels bound elsewhere in Morocco, across the Atlantic to Spain or Portugal, or through the Strait to countries of the Mediterranean.
It took Alwar almost three days to reach the dirt road and hillside overlooking Sawahi from his home in Libreville, Gabon. Driving through Cameroon, Nigeria, Niger, Algeria, and most of Morocco, he traveled as early as possible to avoid the midday heat but never early enough it seemed to avoid the congestion of people and livestock plodding the rural thoroughfares. His life-changing journey began with a simple instruction delivered by a red-haired American wearing round tortoise shell glasses, a white short-sleeve shirt stained gray around the armpits, and a bright yellow tie. The out-of-place foreigner pretended to be in the market for sea bass while making his way around the docks in Libreville. Eventually, he stopped at Alwar’s small sailboat, the Jubilet.
The American stooped down, picked a fresh anchovy out of a bucket on the dock, and whispered to Alwar that he must sail the next day to a point a kilometer or so off the coast where the Gulf of Guinea meets the Gabon Estuary. There, at the periphery of a prominent sandbar well known in the area for very poor fishing, he would meet with a British Secret Intelligence Service officer from Port-Gentile. “Sail out by no later than six-thirty” advised the American, “then drop anchor, cast a fishing line and wait until at least eight for Michael Crane to arrive.” He handed Alwar a dollar bill and Alwar wrapped the tiny fish in newspaper.
Jubilet’s anchor plunged through kelp near the sandbar and a red warning buoy early the next morning. The weather was perfect; warm, clear but for a few white wisps, just a slight southerly breeze. Upright on deck, Alwar soon spotted what he believed to be a cabin cruiser motoring from the east. The vessel appeared and disappeared under the sun and swell as he tried with difficulty to keep track of its whereabouts through binocular lenses shielded by polarized sunglass. When the boat became larger than the waves, Alwar could see that it was navigating a steady course toward him and, when it was ten or so meters away, a nameless red and yellow wooden cabin cruiser slowed and a dark boy wearing a Red Sox cap hung two white bumpers over the side.
“Alwar!” the boy’s overly-enthusiastic loud greeting apparently a misguided attempt to mislead eavesdroppers – despite there being no other boats within view – followed more reserved by the boy asking if he was indeed addressing Alwar: “Êtes-vous Alwar; comment allez-vous?”
“Bien, oui, mon nom est Alwar, êtes-vous?” Cautious was the tone of Alwar’s welcome as he dropped the sponge grip of a black fishing rod into a steel tube bolted to the hull. Line ran taught from the pole tip to the water’s surface as the Jubilet rocked casually side to side with a squid tentacle enveloping a hook less than a meter under keel.
“Je suis bon;” answered the boy, “monsieur Crane est ici!”
Alwar silently examined the boy wondering why he had not asked if Alwar was alone, and, after a few seconds, twisted, leaned far over the side of the Jubilet and rubbed the palms of his hands briskly in seawater to hide the residue and smell of squid should Michael Crane wish to shake his hand. Once again standing, Alwar shook his hands, reached down to retrieve a dirty blue towel from the deck, dried, dropped the towel on a nearby bench, turned both palms up, and shrugged his shoulders in an obvious quizzical gesture to the boy. The boy’s muted response was simply to stand straight with feet apart, gaze at Alwar with eyes wide, and point in the direction of the yellow cabin.
The red and yellow cruiser drifted and recoiled as the two foam bumpers grinded and squeaked between the chipped paint of sealed hardwood slats. Alwar took a bow line tossed by the boy and looped it around a cleat, lifted the vinyl cushion of a bench in the back of the Jubilet, and removed binoculars. Walking along the railing he studied the horizon, vigilantly circling the deck twice searching for any sign of a possible intruder, anybody, in a position to see the two boats.
“It’s okay, there is only one boat and it is at least two kilometers away” proclaimed Alwar while pointing to the north.
In one leap the boy stood atop the yellow cabin, eyes shaded with his right hand he squinted and focused on the distant north, rotating his head very deliberately as the tiny outline of what appeared to be a fishing trawler popped in and out of view. He knelt and pounded on top of the cabin, “Il est vrai, monsieur Crane, il n’y a qu’un seul bateau.”
The old teak door of the small cabin creaked and soon a dark brown head appeared followed by chiseled hands grasping both sides of the doorframe. Michael Crane ascended cautiously from the cramped compartment; a lean and tall man, at least one hundred ninety-five centimeters, he crouched low, bending at the neck and waist to clear the top of the entry and twisting in obvious pain to straighten. His right hand held the brim of a tan straw hat supporting a red and blue rolled bandana, his left, a pair of gold wire aviator sunglasses.
Michael Crane was born Chiwetel Otaphi in a small Nigerian oil town where the bathwater smelled of tar and gas fumes flared night and day. His father died in a rig explosion when Michael was five, and he and his mother moved to Lagos, where she found a job washing dishes in a Mediterranean restaurant. Michael spent days in the streets running with the other children and nights in the restaurant playing with the owner’s son, eating kabobs, listening to Persian music, and watching scantily-clad belly dancers writhe through dimly lit tables.
When Michael was eight, his mother contracted malaria while visiting his father’s gravesite near the oil field, and was bed-ridden for nine weeks before dying. The owner of the Mediterranean restaurant took Michael in, but there was very little space in their two-room apartment – with six other people – and he left after three weeks. Michael wandered the streets of Lagos for nine months, surviving on handouts from the restaurant and sleeping under a bridge on Ozumba Mbadiwe Street near the bay. Sisters from the Streets of Eternity Orphanage found Michael digging in a trash pile one sweltering August night and he spent the next two-and-a-half years studying Catholicism and speaking English.
A British schoolteacher and his wife, volunteers at the orphanage, adopted Michael when he was eleven and moved him to their house in central London. There, he attended parochial school, played football on the school team, and fell in love with a blonde violinist. She moved away with her family to Paris when Michael was seventeen and, in an act born of remorse, he enlisted in the Royal Air Force by convincing the recruiter he was eighteen. Michael learned young how to shoot and parachute from airplanes and kill people in close quarters using knives, small arms, and guerilla tactics; he wanted to be a pilot but his height made the cockpits of smaller jets confining and a football injury to the left ear had caused an almost total loss of hearing. So instead, he became a soldier, a very good soldier.
Michael served two tours in the Bosnian War operating radar aboard troop transport planes. During one campaign in early 1993, while flying in a blinding snowstorm, his plane made an emergency landing near a village in Eastern Bosnia and he wandered the town and saw the snow-enshroud graves of Muslim men, women, and children killed by Serb forces. A woman appearing about forty approached Michael and tried to talk with him in Bosnian. He responded in French and English. The woman understood when Michael said in English that he too was a follower of Islam and she bent down, raised her billowing black skirt, and showed him deep purple scars around both ankles.
Michael applied with the British Secret Intelligent Service, MI6, after the war, became an Intelligence Officer, and was, after training and taking first in his class, assigned to a Lagos field office. It was 1995 and his cover was a cacao and palm oil export company on a noisy Victoria Island side street next to a sewage canal. Michael spent days monitoring monotonous telephone communications, following local news reports of questionable veracity, and conducting generally meaningless surveillance, and evenings in the Peacock Café across from the Radisson Hotel, plying locals with dirty gin martinis and befriending bartenders and prostitutes.
Members of the Alliance for Democracy broke into Michael’s office in March 1998, in a well-planned effort to discover the names of companies buying palm oil – to organize a boycott – and stumbled upon a file at the bottom of an unlocked wooden cabinet. Pinned to the cover was a photograph of Michael in his RAF uniform; inside were other photographs of Michael, papers on RAF letterhead, and a handwritten note from Air Marshal Peter H. Wiggens. One of the burglars later told a friend about the file during a birthday party on a sightseeing ferry in Lagos Harbor.
The following week, on an overcast Wednesday mid-afternoon, two black men in khaki pants and bright dashiki shirts appeared at the export company entrance. They glanced up inconspicuously searching for security cameras and, finding none, the taller man casually rang the buzzer. Michael’s partner, Kender Frederickson, set down his teacup, rose from a chair behind his desk in the front office, descended one flight of tattered carpet stairs and peeked out through the wrought iron bars of a very small one-way glass window encased in double-ply laminated and sealed iroko wood.
“Who is it?” he inquired in a loud voice.
One of the men, the shorter of the two, responded “Hello! My friend and I, we have a palm plantation in Kenya. We are looking for someone to sell our oil.”
Kender studied the men through the small window, his eyes moving slowly up and down each, darting from the shorter man to the taller man and back again; he surveyed the men to make out the style of shoes and looked closely for signs of nervousness or any bulges in the shirts.
“Please step back away from the door” Kender requested, demanded, again in a loud voice and one clearly conveying suspicion. The men stepped backward in unison and Kender could see that both wore clean, probably brand new, Adidas or Nike running shoes.
“I’m sorry” Kender said, again loudly, even more resolute, “we’re not taking any new orders at this time. Why don’t you try a block down on the other side of the road, the Pyramid Trading Company? By the way, how did you hear about us?”
The same man, the shorter, responded “Okay, thank you, yes, we will,” but neither man answered Kender’s second question.
The two suspicious visitors turned their backs to the door. Kender leaned closer to the window, his nose pushed against the glass, watching curiously as the men scrutinized both directions up and down the street until walking briskly between passing cars in the direction of the Pyramid Trading Company. The orange and blue rubber soles of their shoes began flashing fast, and faster, becoming smaller and smaller as the men sprinted out of view.
Kender turned from the door. His mind was racing, something was wrong, but what? Wanting quickly to compare what he remembered of the men, faces, sizes, clothes, voices, with those in a database, wanting hastily to file a report and telephone the Pyramid Trading Company and warn Michael their cover was blown, he started to move. “Wait, but I’m safe inside” he thought, nothing happened, maybe there was no danger, maybe the visitors were indeed just selling palm oil.
As happens in the end, control relinquished to circumstance. Everything around Kender seemed to slow down; legs became paralyzed, unable to respond to commands, comprehend the exigency – the top of the stairs, his desk, so far away. A left foot settles upon the damp fibers of a stair, a right hand touches the smeared paint of a handrail, and a splintered remnant severs the quadriceps of a right leg; life smothered, family, friends, irrevocably damaged, all by a small package wrapped in a white cloth once lying at the foot of an impenetrable door.
Michael was at that terrible instant upstairs in the back office. The bomb shivered the concrete building, shattering windows, tossing him like a ragdoll from his chair behind a steel desk. Michael’s head slammed the concrete wall and he blacked-out briefly, and, in a daze, found that he lie propped against the wall under holes where a few minutes ago were windows. His body was torn and twisted, arms dangled, legs crumpled. It felt like a dream. Moving his arms, legs, one at a time, just a little, bending at the joints, Michael tried to leverage his elbows against the floor for support but felt stabbing pain. He slumped, and felt the warm fluid streaming down his forearms, pooling in shards and slivers of glass.
“Kender?” there was no response to Michael’s faint plea; “Kender, are you OK?” he knew the answer, “Kender!”
Michael spent three days in Lagos General Hospital for a concussion, ruptured cervical disc, and lacerations on his arms and back. On the fourth day an MI6 section chief in Libreville chartered a Cessna, flew to Lagos, took a taxi to the hospital, and escorted Michael from the hospital back to Gabon. After a week in Libreville, recovering and awaiting his new assignment, Michael received word to report to an outpost in Freetown, Sierra Leone, and assume the title Head of Operations. It was January 1999.
Over the next four years Michael Crane directed security service operations for Sierra Leone, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, and Liberia; his officers infiltrated low-level rebel factions and helped Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy in their battle to dethrone President Charles Taylor. Michael rarely took direct part in covert operations, however, because of constant pain in his neck and numbness and tingling in his right arm. He was also addicted to fentanyl, injecting the potent narcotic in his numb right arm twice a day, and double-shot Bacardi dark rum and espresso cocktails, which he imbibed every afternoon at a vibrant outdoor café overlooking Susan’s Bay.
It was at this café two months after arriving in Freetown that Michael arranged for the assassination of the men responsible for Kender Frederickson’s death. He learned their identities while hospitalized in Lagos, after paying a private operative five-hundred dollars. The operative made contact with a young fruit-cart vendor, Alliance for Democracy junior officer, occasional paid informant for Western intelligence services.
The informant agreed to reveal the bombers’ names only after being paid, told the reason, and on condition that the operative’s principal make the request in person. Following some finagling the operative late one night escorted the fruit vendor to Michael’s hospital room where the prospective informant handed Michael his five hundred dollars and agreed to provide the names in exchange for a “promise you will remember me.” Michael promised.
After settling in Freetown, Michael called a friend in Frankfurt, Klaus Adalbrecht, a “specialist” under occasional contract with MI6 and the CIA. Klaus boarded a flight to Freetown the next day. Michael met Klaus at Lungi International, drove him to the café, and slipped a two-thousand Euros deposit – cash from a special fund – under a napkin.
It was a sunny day, clearer than usual and not too humid, and the two sat outside at a table closest to the railing next to banana trees and a shack so as to admire the bay. Klaus discreetly slid the white napkin from the table, crumpled it in his hand to conceal the bills, transferred the napkin to his lap, removed the money with his right hand and with the other removed a nylon pouch held by a belt under his pants and stuffed the money into the pouch. He and Michael spent the next hour drinking double gin and tonics and laughing as each recalled lighter moments during training for the foreign intelligence services.
As fond memories faded, and laughter ebbed, Michael leaned forward after having surreptitiously surveyed the patio; smile gone, voice hushed, he stared intensely at Klaus until revealing something that had for weeks inside him percolated rage: “Kender bled to death in pieces.” Michael wanted to say more but choked upon hearing the words; holding back tears long overdue he at last blurted, “I want these bastards exterminated.” The word lingered as somehow improper – even evil – an uncomfortable violence daring to disturb tranquility.
“That’s what you paid me to do, Michael,” Klaus replied in compelled casualness too late. Wanting to release the tension and ease Michael’s discomfort, Klaus uncrossed his legs and shuffled to the edge of the chair, crossed his forearms on the tabletop, looked into Michael’s eyes, and explained serenely, “It is what I am trained to do, you know, exterminate,” followed up by a long sip of gin and tonic.
“Yes.” Michael paused, looked down at the table and up at Klaus, “I have the package for you; it’s in the trunk of the Ford, everything you asked for. Contact me with your expenses, the usual, Midland and Brookfield, if you get in a pinch, and I’ll arrange payment to your Cayman account.”
“That’s fine;” Klaus took a sip, “how do you want confirmation?”
“Your word is good with me Klaus, but if you can get a photo without risk, that would be great. I’d like to see….” Michael did not finish the sentence. This was not about prevention; it was about vengeance, pure and simple, revenge.
Klaus understood; “I’m sure an image will be no problem.”
“Your flight is at seven-thirty, I suppose we should get going.” The two men raised their drinking glasses dripping condensation in an unspoken, understood toast; ice cubes rattling, they took one last long drink, pushed back their chairs, and stood. Michael went to meet the waiter as Klaus stayed behind, hands in his pockets, contemplating the bay and the shanties lining the hillside. “What a picturesque slum” he thought, and slowly walked to a path leading from the patio through a grove of mango and banana trees to a dirt parking area. Michael joined him and they strolled without speaking to the Ford.
Michael arranged for Klaus to hitch a US Army cargo plane from Freetown to Lagos and drove past the Lungi International terminal along a chain-link fence half a kilometer to a closed gate. A large sign mounted on a pole at the center of the gate cautioned passersby, in English and French, against stopping or loitering. Behind the gate, two Military Police Corp officers with M4 carbines stood a silent vigil.
Holding his left arm straight out the window, consular identification card in hand, Michael slowed the car to a stop. The gate barely opened and an MP squeezed through and carefully approached the car with both hands on a carbine low and to the side. The other MP stood behind the gate, carbine low and center, finger on the trigger. Klaus placed his hands on top of the dash and cocked his head for a view out the driver’s window.
Michael spoke first: “Michael Crane, British intelligence, with a passenger for the seven-thirty transport to Lagos, cleared by Colonel Firston.” The MP lowered his chin to the left and whispered into his collar; remaining focused on Michael and Klaus he reached and took hold of the identification card, stepped back, and studied the card. After several minutes he lowered the carbine and walked back to the car, handed Michael his card, and said “You’re clear, stop at the hangar” while the gate swung open.
Michael drove a short distance down the dusty road, turned right, and proceeded until passing through gaping sliding doors into a cavernous metal hangar empty but for a few pallets loaded with cardboard boxes. He and Klaus stepped out of the Ford, lingered for a moment surveying the vast structure, and walked out into the sunlight toward a dark green C-12 Huron sitting on the runway. A gray-haired man in fatigues stood in an open rear door of the airplane. He waived at Michael and Klaus as they approached, disappeared, reappeared in a door toward the nose of the plane, and quickly descended a rolling staircase to meet them.
“You must be Michael Crane,” the man looked directly at Michael, obviously aware that he was Nigerian, and in a friendly voice approached and held out his hand, “I’m Johnny Firston.”
“Colonel,” Michael grasped the Colonel’s hand, “it’s a pleasure, this is Klaus Adalbrecht,” and nodded toward Klaus who reached out with his right hand.
“Good to meet you, Klaus, you ready for a ride?”
“Yes sir,” replied Klaus with his German accent and confident smile, “as long as the stewardess is serving cocktails.”
“I’ll get the rest of your things, Klaus,” exclaimed Michael, turned, and jogged to the hangar; after unlocking the Ford trunk he delicately pulled out a black satchel and black canvas scuba duffel, slipped his right hand through the strap of each, hung the bags from his shoulder, walked briskly back and handed them to Klaus. The men talked a few minutes longer and said goodbye. Klaus and the Colonel ascended the stairs as Michael leisurely returned to the hangar.
About three and a half hours later, Colonel Firston drove Klaus to a hotel in upscale Ikoyi on Lagos Island. Klaus did not necessarily want the attention of riding in an Army M1117 Armored Security Vehicle, but no other transportation was available from the isolated corner of Murtala Muhammad International Airport where the C-12 landed and, if dropped at the airport taxi stand, cab drivers would suspect he was with the United States military. He figured cab drivers were infinitely more talkative and troublesome than bellmen.
After settling in his room Klaus drew the curtains, placed the satchel and duffel on the bed, sat down on the bed, opened the satchel, and carefully removed two thick manila folders. One folder he placed on a nightstand next to a clock radio. The other, identified by a Nigerian name he tried to pronounce but could not, followed by the words “Shorter Man,” he opened.
The first set of documents consisted of twelve color photographs all presumed to be of the Shorter Man, wearing different clothes, taken in different settings, and including different people; he walked along a sidewalk, ate in a restaurant, talked to another man on the street, opened a door, talked to two women on the street, stood alone at a bus stop, pushed a two-wheeled wood cart, and drank beer out of a bottle with one man and two men at the same outdoor café. Behind the last photograph was a three-page typed dossier fastened to the folder with metal prongs and, under the last page of the dossier taped to the inside cover, a color photograph of Kender Frederickson’s mutilated corpse laying in the remains of a drab stairwell.
Klaus stared at the photograph. He had seen hundreds such photographs – crime and combat scenes – but each he found agonizing, and this one, especially so. He knew Kender, not as well as Michael, but had socialized and worked with him on three or four occasions and found him a pleasant and likeable person undeserving of such cruelty. Klaus set the folder gently on the bed, next to the duffel, and picked up and thumbed through the other, also identified by a Nigerian name, the subject referenced also by his relative height, “Taller Man.” The same type of documents held the same order. He placed that folder back on the nightstand, reclined, and gazed at the ceiling.
“Each of the bombers will have to die alone because catching the men together will be next to impossible” Klaus thought, meaning the kills would have to be very close in time, otherwise, his chance of escaping Lagos alive was very slim.
Eyelids drifted together for a moment. Klaus leaned forward and sat with his hands on the edge of the bed, yawned, stood and turned, quietly contemplating the zipped black duffel. He remained next to the bed for a long time, walked to the bathroom and bent over the sink to splash cold water on his face, grabbed a hand towel from a rod, dried, and stared solemnly into the mirror while clinging to the white cloth. Eyes met in the reflection. Looking down at the sink, sighing, Klaus tossed the towel on the counter and returned to the black duffel.
Inside, seven soft packages wrapped in brown fish paper and sealed with clear strapping tape. Firmly, but delicately, Klaus grasped the largest package with both hands. Long and narrow, about the length of his arm, he raised it from the duffel, set the widest end on the bed so that he could hold the narrow end with one hand, and reached in his pocket with the other to pull out a silver folding knife about the length of a credit card, push a steel button, and draw a razor-sharp edge under the tape. He tossed the knife on the bed and methodically turned the narrow end of the package with one hand, gathering fish paper with the other, to reveal a black plastic stock and steel gun barrel each cocooned in bubble wrap. Klaus recognized the parts at once as belonging to a Heckler & Koch PSG 1 semi-automatic sniper rifle.
Laying the stock and barrel next to the duffel, Klaus unrolled bubble wrap from each, dropped the wrap on the carpet next to the fish paper, and carried the cold black sections around the bed for alignment neatly atop the soft beige bed cover. He walked back around the bed and lifted a second brown package from the duffel, slit the strapping tape, and unfolded the paper and bubble wrap to unveil a Glock 27 forty-caliber pistol. This, he had also requested. Klaus held the gun, twisting and pivoting his wrist to appreciate the feel while working the safety and magazine releases, after which setting it gently next to the H&K.
The next four packages contained two magazines filled with Smith & Wesson hollow-point cartridges and a plastic pistol grip, Hendsoldt telescopic sight, and twenty-round NATO magazine for the H&K. Klaus thoughtfully positioned these items around the rifle and pistol. Last of the wrapping at the bottom of the duffel bag turned out to cushion a hand-held paper shredder and assortment of currency outlet converters; Klaus plugged the shredder into a converted outlet over the washroom basin and set it on the counter.
Back at the bed Klaus grabbed the satchel and removed a large plain brown envelope, went to an outside corner of the room where he turned on a floor lamp next to a reclining chair and fell back into the cushions. Inside the envelope he found a Lufthansa airline ticket sleeve and fifty twenty-dollar bills, which he removed, thumbed through, counted, and stuffed back into the envelope. Unfolding the ticket sleeve he removed the ticket: business class one-way travel to Frankfurt at eleven the next night. A glance to the clock radio and some quick math confirmed thirty-two hours to find two men in a strange city, terminate both, most likely in public, ditch guns, destroy documents, and check-in.
“Not much time” thought Klaus. He inserted the ticket into the sleeve and slid the sleeve into the envelope, which he returned to the satchel, and picked up the two manila folders. Lying back in the cushioned chair next to the lamp he carefully read each dossier stopping only occasionally to study a photograph or write illegibly on the back of a folder. When through, he stood and pulled back the curtain to expose a bright tropical late afternoon landscape filled with ordinary people going about their ordinary lives. He watched for several minutes before lifting his leather carryon bag from the floor next to a round table on the other side of the room. Inside was a notebook computer – after a few minutes he was comparing Lagos driving routes with the folder notes.
The Shorter Man was not married and lived alone, visited the same outdoor café almost every afternoon at around four-thirty, sat at a table near the street and drank a bottled beer, usually with one or two men, sometimes with the Taller Man, sometimes alone, for an hour or so. The Taller Man was married and had one child; he lived close to the same café in a ground floor flat and bought cigarettes and coffee each morning at a nearby market. Klaus jotted cryptic letters and numbers on a hotel writing pad as he studied the folders and maps.
The airport was about fifteen minutes driving time – assuming moderate traffic and no construction or accidents – from the café. It was about twenty-five minutes from the ground floor flat. Four-thirty at the café, to the flat, and to the airport by nine was possible under the best of circumstances. Klaus smiled; the shorter man worked near the café but lived in a fifth floor apartment on the other side of the lagoon at least forty-five minutes from the airport.
It was six-thirty when Klaus finished considering possible strategies for completing his assignment. He powered off the computer and slipped it back in the leather bag and turned on the television. Tuning to CNN he adjusted the volume to a high, almost unpleasant, level. The folders and scuba duffel he carried to the washroom where he ripped out documents and shredded all but one photograph of each man. The narrow strips of paper floated into the duffel.
Klaus placed each of the folders – empty but for one photograph – back in the satchel, scooped fish paper and bubble wrap from the floor, stuffed it all into the duffel, added two large bath towels and an ice bucket, and toted the billowing bag to a plastic trashcan next to an icemaker at the end of the corridor outside his room. Once satisfied nobody else was in the hallway or perhaps peering out a cracked door, and that no cameras overlooked the trashcan, he quietly unzipped the duffel. Raising and holding the lid with one hand Klaus shoveled wads of firearm cushion and shreds of assassination orders into the open can, replaced the lid, pulled out the ice bucket, fluffed the towels still in the duffel, zipped closed the duffel, filled the bucket with ice, and strolled back to room conspicuously carrying the full bucket.
The ice bucket and towels Klaus set next to the sink, laid the empty duffel on the bed, neatly positioned the fully assembled and loaded H&K and Glock inside the duffel, pushed the bag under the center of the bed, and brushed his teeth. Grabbing the shredder, satchel, and the notepad and pen, and pulling a full-size Nikon thirty-five millimeter digital camera from the leather bag and hanging it around his neck, he felt for the money belt under his pants, hung a do-not-disturb sign on the outside doorknob, walked to the end of the hallway and descended one flight of stairs. At the second floor, Klaus found another plastic trashcan next to an icemaker, where he discreetly deposited the shredder and subsequently resumed his descent to the lobby.
The bellman hailed a waiting cab. Klaus glanced at his watch, scribbled on the pad, and stepped outside. It was still very warm and humid. He slipped on sunglasses and waited three minutes. The taxi door opened. Tipping the bellman two dollars, Klaus scribbled again, took a seat in the back, examined the driver’s photograph taped to the dash, and rolled down a window. The old Dodge smelled of cigarettes and sweat.
“The Radisson,” Klaus said politely while again glancing at his watch and writing. The Radisson was a few blocks from the café. The driver tapped a meter and slowly pulled away from the bellman; Klaus focused intently on the passing surroundings when not looking down as he sporadically did – seemingly without reason – to make notes.
“In heavy rush-hour traffic without any delays arrived at the Radisson thirty-seven minutes after leaving the hotel” – Klaus memorialized his thoughts in a cryptic entry. He handed the driver a twenty-dollar bill, exited from the backseat slowly, and looked around while flipping pages of the notepad. “The café should be three blocks on the right” he surmised; and, turning to the street, jotted a reminder about the hotel-front cameras, “3 candy – red licorice 10, 12, 2,” and set off for the café.
The street was busy with traffic and the carbon monoxide from old American and Japanese cars permeated the humid air so completely that it felt as though poison was seeping into his pores. Klaus tramped along in the dirt and dust of a narrow path adjacent to the oncoming cars and trucks, stopping every so often to snap a photograph of the road in both directions interspersed with a photograph of some building or object he believed tourists found of interest. Ahead on his right, across the street perhaps a hundred or so meters from an intersection, he could see an outdoor patio with tables around which people sat. It was the same café as in pictures once attached to the manila folders in his satchel.
Klaus stopped to survey the side of the road to the intersection, trying to find an inconspicuous place to photograph the café above the flow of cars and trucks. There was a knoll covered by trash-laden scrub and two tall palms, a bus stop with a bench a few meters beyond, and a bland white three-story building with windows, probably apartments, behind the stop. “The knoll and bench would be too noticeable,” Klaus thought, maybe he could see the café from a second or third floor hallway window in the white building.
He walked briskly along the road, past the knoll, and behind the bus stop, where he paused to search for some evidence of the white building’s purpose. He found none. Neither were there a porch or front door – merely a tan dirt walkway leading to an opening where once, it appeared, hung a door. It was also clear to Klaus that some of what he thought were windows were instead empty frames where glass at one time shattered.
Klaus stood at the doorway of the abandoned tenement, turned, and again surveyed the area; knowing the building was likely home to vagrants, perhaps worse, he evaluated the preparatory value of any photographs when considering possible loss of the satchel dangling from his shoulder and the expensive camera around his neck. It was one thing to take pictures, he concluded, but keeping them may be a problem. A quick pat to his right trouser pocket confirmed with some satisfaction the small folding knife brandished in impromptu self-defense on several previous occasions; “I knew I should have brought the Glock” he muttered.
Looking around again, Klaus raised the wire-embedded strap of the satchel over his head and positioned it on his left shoulder to prevent the case sliding from his arm. He stepped back and considered the windowless rectangles in the wall above; deciding quickly, for no empirical reason, the benefit was worth the risk, he cautiously stepped forward over a threshold of dirt-filled cement block into the building.
A narrow space of shadows masking chipped concrete led to wood stairs adjacent to a wall and a dark hallway beyond. Klaus stopped at the base of the stairs, leaned slightly, and examined – listened really – down the dim corridor for any sign of life. There was none. His tense upper body straightened, ears strained for sounds and squinted eyes sought anything at the stair’s zenith but a stream of sunlight illuminating a graffiti-laden cinderblock wall. Onto the first stair, the second, keen to every sound, Klaus cautiously made his way up into the shadows.
Standing on the last stair at the second floor – and the sun’s welcome glow – Klaus paused, and quietly pressed against the wall to peer around the corner. The sun shone from an opening across the hall, a doorway; low enough on the horizon was the sun that through a window, or a cavity, it cast light across the vacant room into the hall and onto the wall. Nothing moved. Still, Klaus waited, and listened. Faint sounds soon emanated from deep within the hall, pounding, scratching, perhaps an animal, perhaps not. Klaus leaned back slowly from the corner and focused his attention down the stairs. With his right hand reaching in a pocket he pulled out the knife, felt the handle, placed his thumb on the round steel button, pressed, and held the springing blade firmly against his belt to let it arch and lock quietly.
In an advance of experience and expertise, quick and smooth, Klaus crossed the hall and through the doorway; in his right hand, the knife, close to his side, blade at forty-five degrees turned inward just slightly. He hesitated and surveyed the space. “This is fortunate” he thought, one vacant room with two window frames, no glass, one of which overlooked the intersection.
The entire café patio was easily visible across the street a short distance from the intersection. Klaus set the knife on a window base the width of a concrete block, raised the camera, and looking through the viewfinder adjusted the zoom and shot several photographs of the busy patio. Next, he adjusted the power higher and began photographing people’s faces; pausing, he adjusted the zoom to a higher power while looking through the eyepiece. It was the Shorter Man – he was sure.
Klaus lowered the camera. He had not expected to see the Shorter Man; it was past six-thirty and background surveillance described in the dossier suggested the man never stayed at the café past five-thirty. Klaus raised his camera and again found the man in the viewfinder. Moving his head slowly, he began studying each person at the table under the lens’ highest power; four men equally positioned at the table, all drinking coffee, perhaps tea, out of cups resting on saucers, none laughing, all leaning forward, arms on the table, hands almost touching. The conversation appeared quite serious. Klaus continued staring through the viewfinder at one man whose face he could not see and who, he hoped, would soon turn.
A loud thump from the hallway startled Klaus, though, and his body twitched and he instantly let the camera drop to his chest, grabbed the knife, and pivoted. The sound was like that of a muffled collision, “like a head striking carpet” he thought, but no carpet in the hall. Maybe it was nothing, maybe something. He moved closer to the wall and, facing the room, sidestepped hurriedly toward a dark corner with a view down another wall to the doorway still bathed in sunlight and the door hinged from the other side. Klaus considered his options: no door exit, two window exits, one of which about three-meters above hard packed soil, no diversions, no hiding places, no gun, hand-to-hand combat training and a small knife.
The decision took about two seconds: he would jump out a window.
Klaus with a cautious but strong gate proceeded as his shoulder rubbing the concrete wall guided him toward the window, all the while keeping keenly observant of the doorway; midway to the window and hearing a different sound however, those of footsteps and talking, a group not just two or three people, his pace quickened and his eyes focused solely on the window and he thought of nothing but escape.
A gruff angry voice loudly demanded to know “What are you doing?” Klaus turned in a flash and saw two men enter the room and a third and a fourth; in the sun’s waning rays high against the wall and through the doorway he saw only dark bearded men scowling “Stop!” quickly vanishing in the dark, and he heard running, and he ran.
Still clutching the silver knife in his right hand, with his left, Klaus threw the camera over the right shoulder and the strap went taught against his neck as it fell to his back. No time to hang from the ledge – he had to jump. First very briefly studying the ground he gave the knife a slight toss and next, placing both hands on the concrete, threw his legs over the ledge. Knees buckled as feet touched the ground. He rolled to one side on packed dirt with the camera and satchel bouncing around his neck and quickly to feet scoured the dirt under nearby bushes until the knife was firmly in grasp.
Above, two angry men yelled and shook their fists; “Damn lucky” Klaus ventured aloud, they had no guns.
“Somebody had to have seen me jump or at least heard the commotion” thought Klaus. He moved quickly toward the road and folded the knife, dropped it in a pants pocket, positioned the camera at his chest and the satchel to his side, and brushed fine brown dirt from his clothes. Nearing the empty bench his pace slowed and he passed cautiously and surveyed the street in both directions; nobody seemed to be paying any attention to him or the white building in the background. Turning once more and finding the window frame empty, Klaus inspected the camera, stepped leisurely to the intersection, and paused to consider the next – hopefully less hazardous – twenty-eight hours.
The choice was simple; either try to take the men that evening without the usual tools, which also meant trying to locate the Taller Man, and take an early flight, or wait as planned until the next afternoon. “A bird in the hand” Klaus thought, if, the Shorter Man was still at the café, no certainty now but also no certainty tomorrow. He decided to walk past the patio.
It was dusk, traffic lights turned, cars and trucks stopped, and bicyclists bolted through the intersection. Klaus looked, walked across the road between bicycles, looked again, waited for the light to change, and crossed toward the café. He went through a parking lot, down a dirt path, and suddenly was next to the low chain-link fence enclosing the patio.
Four people with arms outstretched encircled the same round table near the fence. Klaus glimpsed two of the men’s faces as he walked by; they sat together on the far side of the table only a few meters distant. The man to their left, Klaus had identified, through the camera lens. The man to their right sat with his back to the fence. Klaus pretended to look past the patio into the café, passing the table looked ahead, and followed the fence to the café entrance. In position to see the fourth man’s face – but not daring to turn and look – he opened a glass door, slipped on his black sunglasses, and stepped inside the café. Hoping still to go unnoticed, he weaved through a row of tables and stood at the edge of the patio, as might a German tourist searching for the perfect table from which to enjoy a cocktail at dusk.
The unseen man was the Taller Man; almost sure, Klaus’ eyes locked on the man for brief intervals while pretending to survey the patio, head pivoting slowly, thinking about the photograph but certainly not wanting to unzip the satchel in the restaurant and pull out a manila folder to make the comparison, he discreetly kept the men in view. They talked close together seemingly at once; voices low they leaned toward the center and faces intense their eyes darted from person to person.
“Sit anywhere!” a young woman’s pleasant voice broke Klaus’ concentration.
“Oh, yes, thank you, I’m waiting for my wife,” Klaus smiled, started to back into the café away from the patio, but too late.
“Here, you can sit here,” a woman spoke as she stood from a chair at a nearby table; “Yes, please, we are leaving,” it was her male companion in a black fedora standing from his chair and motioning with his arm.
“No, thank you, no, I’m waiting for someone,” Klaus smiled and gestured with his palms facing the couple, fingers up, as if to say “It’s not necessary.”
Klaus glanced at the men around the table trying not to move his head, peering instead from the green edges of his sunglass lenses. The two facing Klaus, the Taller Man and another, had stopped talking and were sitting straight and studying him. Klaus kept smiling at the couple as he stepped back, pivoted, and entered the café. Walking in deliberate leisure toward the exit, squeezing at times between chairs sideways facing the patio, he saw that the two other men had their heads turned and all four were closely monitoring his departure.
Nonchalant as a foreign tour-group sightseer intentionally but carelessly straying from the pack, Klaus pushed the glass and strolled through the doorway down a concrete walkway to the road. He did not look in the direction of the patio. At the road he stopped and turned away from the café, paused, and raised his camera. Peering through the viewfinder he adjusted power and slowly turned his head to take in the cityscape. What must have to others been meaningless vistas gray in the looming night – speckled only by headlights, lampposts, signs, and windows – Klaus captured, and began a brisk exodus from the café. There appeared to be a hotel in just five or six blocks, which almost assuredly meant a cab and a safe retreat back to his hotel.
Making his away along the busy street toward the hotel, horns, diesel engines and brakes, choking fumes, crossing one narrow street at a roundabout Klaus took a path barely visible in the imploding darkness and meandered through a vacant lot overgrown with vegetation. Thereafter a bus stop, another roundabout, a gas station, and another treed strip of land; he stopped on the asphalt and stood at the edge of the forest. It was a dark and foreboding place illuminated just slightly by the pumps and a neon petrol station sign to his back. A trail barely visible led through dense undergrowth. “No, no,” he thought, this was too much, better to follow the road and try to hail a cab, no telling where the trail led; he hurried along the forest edge toward the welcoming lights and sounds of a busy thoroughfare.
Peering down the road toward his destination and witnessing the loud rush of cars and trucks coming and going, Klaus realized, there was no place for a pedestrian to walk or run. Large palms and leafy trees grew to the edge of the pavement, towering and hanging over the traffic, with smaller trees, bushes, and grasses making up part of a thick barrier in the dark impenetrable undergrowth. He decided to stay put and try forcing the attention of a passing cabbie in need of a fare.
Facing oncoming traffic, Klaus leaned with his right arm stretched out waving up and down so close to the flashing metal and glass that occasionally his hand reflexively jerked back. Within a short time an old white Ford sedan jetted from the stream of lights, came to rest abruptly between him and the neon sign, and disgorged four occupants before Klaus realized the vehicle was not a cab. The men, he recognized instantly even in the faint light, and slipped the fingers of his right hand down a pant pocket to cradle the small silver knife.
The driver and the man behind the driver, one of the very men Klaus was under contract to assassinate, the Taller Man, took positions slightly apart in front of Klaus while the other two including the Shorter Man stood on the opposite side of the car, one facing the street, the other, gas pumps. In one smooth action, Klaus moved his right hand concealing the knife from the pant pocket and, palm inward, fingers together, thumb pressing the cold steel handle a millimeter from the steel button, lowered the hidden knife to his side.
“What do you want?” the inquiry a subdued trembling deceit as Klaus, raising his left hand, palm out, fingers slightly spread, gestured “Stop, please, I don’t want any trouble.”
“We want your camera” the Taller Man demanded confidently, “and your sunglasses. Give us your wallet, that bag and your money belt, now, or we’ll take them!” The two men’s hands curled into fists and they stepped closer to Klaus, close enough to strike.
Klaus quickly responded, again, displaying timidity, “Okay, okay, you can have them.”
Raising his quivering right hand, Klaus reached into a shirt pocket, carefully pinched the black plastic sunglasses with his thumb and forefinger and, still concealing the knife, held the sunglasses with his elbow slightly bent in front of the Taller Man. The man’s left hand lurched and his fingers seized a lens just as Klaus’ thumb slid from the plastic frame over the steel button and pushed just slightly; the blade flashed and locked; a right hand twisted and wrenched as dark red blood spewed from the Taller Man’s left wrist. There was a scream. Klaus lunged. He grabbed the man’s head with his left hand and with his right plunged the small blade through the carotid artery and out the back of the neck. The man with eyes wide in disbelief crumpled to the asphalt.
The driver turned to run but Klaus pivoted and leapt; another scream; the driver’s legs buckled under Klaus’ weight and he fell to the asphalt. The blade red with blood lay against the man’s throat for just an instant until with his other hand Klaus slammed the man’s head against the hard surface, raised it, and slammed again. This assailant would live to remember a German tourist who turned out to be a very poor choice for robbery.
Toward Klaus from behind ran another, not the Shorter Man, this attacker shrieked a war cry while in his right hand clenching a long machete raised high to wield a decapitating blow. Klaus jumped to his feet, flipped the knife, caught the blade with the thumb and two fingers of his right hand and jettisoned it twirling toward the man’s face. The blade struck its target in less than a second – penetrating the mouth and sinking deep into the tongue and throat. The war cry turned to gurgle.
Still in possession of the machete the man stumbled backward just long enough for Klaus to jump and, with his left hand, hold off the blade and, with his right, pull the silver knife from the man’s mouth and jam the blade deep into his neck. The man tumbled backward. Klaus fell forward crashing onto his writhing body all the while pulling and jamming the blade until the writhing ceased and the machete released. Klaus lay on the man and into vacant eyes seeing death gasped for oxygen; shaking, sweat and blood dripped from his face.
“Just one more thing to do” he thought, finish the assignment – the Shorter Man – no salvation for either prey or predator.
The Shorter Man, Klaus instinctively knew, fled deep into the jungle to escape the carnage; vanishing into the terrible darkness down a narrow trail the terminus of which Klaus could not possibly know. Rising painfully, Klaus stood over his victim, in his right hand a small silver knife, in his left, a machete. Khaki pants and floral shirt earlier that day new emblazed in dark wet red as was the scored nylon satchel pressing against his stomach. Sunglass and camera lay strewn in fragments on the asphalt.
Klaus was unsure of the time, unsure of how much time had elapsed, unsure of how many people knew what brutality had befallen five people there under a faint neon glimmer. The Ford was empty but the engine rumbled and the headlamps illuminated the forest wall until succumbing eventually to the awesome black.
Standing for just a few seconds considering what would be in all likelihood his final moments, Klaus’ thoughts were not of self-pity, but of finishing a job and protecting his client. “Soon, passersby will find lifeless bodies by the car, police will comb the area, sunglasses and camera will provide evidence linking me to the scene. Self-defense, I could argue, perhaps, but tomorrow while I’m still at the police station a hotel housekeeper will find the computer and cache of precision firearms. Not an option, anyway, the Shorter Man has to die. In a few days someone will find the Shorter Man’s body somewhere distant from this place and sometime later they may find my body. With it will be no documents or identification. The authorities will piece together part of the puzzle, know it was an execution with at least two intentionally killed, but that is all, no motive, no connection to Michael.”
Drawing a deep breath as if about to submerse in a dark pool, Klaus lowered his head under a tree branch visible under the headlamps and, holding the machete and knife at ready, entered the menacing maze. He walked cautiously at first, getting used to feeling his way along the trail, managing fear, occasionally colliding with a tree branch or stumbling on a root or a rock, while insects buzzed all around drawn by the blood. After a short distance he began sprinting with his head down and the machete held in his left hand, high out in front like a battering ram, thrusting the long blade, striking, cutting, jolting at times to recoil against his head or shoulder leaving gaping wounds, stopping, listening, jogging, walking, sprinting, heart racing. After a while Klaus began to feel as one with the jungle, an animal, a predator pursuing his prey, invulnerable to fear or pain, finally accepting of his mortality.
There came a time when the machete was still, branches and leaves did not rustle, and the sensation against arms and shoulders subsided; after a few steps, Klaus perceived the change and stopped. He stood and listened, tried to see, anything, and could; ahead was a dim narrow glow visible through the trunks and leaves. His feet in soft rhythm motions glided in the direction of the light while the muscles in his arms and shoulders rippled, sinew tight, blades, appendages of his anatomy, positioned to slice.
The distant glow evolved into a bright point of shedding radiance in the distance. Klaus moved even more deliberately, quietly, one shoulder, the right, jutting forward, in his right hand the machete poised to thrash, his body crouched to pounce. The bright point expanded to a ball, a dancing spire, a fire, a bonfire; people stood around, perhaps ten, perhaps more. Klaus lingered in the dark and considered the scene as might a lone wolf or hyena. It would be impossible to approach unnoticed – retreat his only alternative.
Years of meticulous preparation and unwavering experience, however, steadied impulse and Klaus reconsidered; too far, too much lost to go back. Sighing in recognition of the challenge in store, he rested the machete handle at the base of a palm, folded the knife and slipped it into a pant pocket, and unzipped the satchel, withdrew and folded the documents and stuffed them in his pockets. Once again grasping the knife in his right hand, around it making a fist, he began to move in large purposeful strides toward the gathering.
As Klaus drew closer the people became clearer, men and women, old, young, children, all dark, some laughing, others drinking, smoking. A few meters from the fire he was noticed, by one, by a few, until by all; heads turned one by one, talk and laughter silenced, the crackling torment of a large fire the only sound. No slowing in stride or trying to appear harmless Klaus determined; no time; eyes focused on the group, on each man, waiting for one to bolt, the straggler, wounded and afraid.
Then it happened. A man broke from the human circle in front of Klaus, dashing close to the burning branches and pushing through a wall of people on the other side, in a scrambling panic to find darkness. Klaus accelerated and running hard grazed those unable to step out of his way or simply immobilized by the sight of frenzied bloody death. Crashing through the undergrowth, glow soon gave way and, arms flailing, Klaus ran, crouched low, head down, while ahead the Shorter Man stood in the dark holding high a heavy tree limb.
First absorbing the club’s force was Klaus’ right hand and the knife went flying; a blow to the head, above the right ear, Klaus tumbled to the ground. Dazed – but conscious – both hands reflexively cradling his head, Klaus squirmed in the dirt as a beached fish squirms in the sand desperately for water. The club struck his left arm. Klaus pushed in the dirt with his hands, trying to crawl, the left arm and shoulder, battered, down again on his belly, stabbing pain, more squirming, another blow to his back on the left side. Klaus rolled to his right in the blinding dark until his torso pressed against the man’s legs. The club pounded his low back, once more, and again. Wrapping his arms around the man’s ankles and calves, Klaus pushed with his legs, and the attacker tilted like a timbered tree.
Resembling a terrible parasite, Klaus slowly inched up the legs of the Shorter Man screaming desperately for help and wriggling in vain to break free all the while bludgeoning Klaus with the heavy wood. Klaus held firm despite the relentless battery, pulling his body up the Shorter Man’s legs, driving, until the infected host finally accepted an incurable malaise and succumbed to the cool soil. Klaus pummeled the man’s stomach with fists in an anger borne of pain, the man’s chest, his face, and finally, lying atop the dying man, wrapped fingers around his flaccid neck and wringed out the remaining life.
A silent crowd formed close around Klaus and his unfortunate prey. Out of the haze of his rage and fear, the cloud of his numbing pain, Klaus lifted his eyes and saw light, legs and feet, and, head turning just slightly, realized there was no escape. Releasing his grip from around the man’s neck and arching his chest and stomach, knees in the dirt, pausing, raising one knee and planting one foot, pausing, the other foot, very slowly Klaus reared with his feet on either side of the motionless body. Confronting this torn and bloody monster the crowd stepped back. No person spoke. Klaus thought of running but did not have the strength and solemnly lowered his head.
A big man on Klaus’ left spoke first, forcefully, “That man dead?” and bobbed his head once. Klaus at first did not respond but soon moved his head up and down, just slightly, eyes fixed on the Shorter Man’s corpse between his legs.
“Why you kill him?” the big man demanded. Klaus did not respond.
Others in the crowd shouted out “Why, what has that man done to you?”
Klaus raised his head and stared vacantly into the distance, “Because, he tried to kill me.”
The crowd rumbled and the big man raged, “That man running from you! He is much smaller than you. How this man try to kill you?”
“With that” Klaus replied wearily while raising his hand just enough to motion in the direction of the thick tree branch lying in the dirt next to the dead man’s right hand.
The rumbling more pronounced, whispers, talking, short bursts of angry words, feet shuffling, and the big man took two steps forward, reached down, put a left hand around the broad end of the tree limb and held it with both hands close to his face, inspecting the weapon under the dull white glimmer of a kerosene lantern. He turned the bough slowly, examining it carefully, until, relaxing the fingers of his left hand, rotating the wrist slowly to consider his palm and fingers sticky with blood. His gaze fixed on Klaus.
“He tried to rob me” Klaus muttered.
“What’s that?” the big man shouted.
“He tried to rob me” Klaus raised his head and looked in the big man’s eyes, “He tried to rob me.”
“What do you mean, tried?” the big man grew angrier, his voice louder, “You mean he tried to rob you and then you chase him, you kill him?” The rumble turned to roar – hyenas yapping around a lion wounded in the hunt, excited by the prospect of finally taking down the ferocious carnivore.
Klaus thought of his knife somewhere in the dirt, likely under a foot, concealed from view; he would play his last card. “I have money,” the words were clear and yielding, “at the car, you can have it.”
“Quiet!” the big man roared at the crowd and with both hands raised the club above his head as though an ax soon to split a log.
They fell silent.
The big man turned; the weapon that had caused Klaus so much pain, poised, in much stronger arms, to strike again. “How much money, where is your car?” he demanded.
Resolve and strength renewing, adrenaline rushing, Klaus replied “Back that way, at the station, but the money is hidden, there is two-thousand American dollars in twenty dollar bills, you can have it, but let me go when it’s in your hands, promise me that.” He calculated the Ford was by that time crawling with police and spectators.
The big man grinned wide with yellowed and missing teeth visible even under the lantern’s faint glow, “We will let you go, if you give us the money, if no money, no freedom, and you die.”
The crowd restless closed in on Klaus, each man and woman, each child, anxious, wanting not to be last, to be left wanting in the illicit bounty. They pushed against the dead man and Klaus like a crashing wave pushes against driftwood until it comes to rest high on the beach. Klaus turned and ran, the crowd closed in behind, and several of the faster men and women with the lantern took the lead down the narrow path ahead of Klaus, past embers once flame, past the machete leaning against a palm, through the heavy brush and low branches until they could see the neon sign above the growth.
Those in front of Klaus slowed to let the big man pass but once in the lead he came to a stop, turned, and motioned for everyone to stop. They did. The big man conferenced with those standing between him and Klaus, after which, the big man and one other man proceeded down the trail cautiously, quietly, alone in the dark toward the crime scene.
“What now to do?” Klaus’ mind raced. Soon, his kidnappers would know their reward his ploy; trapped, no way past the two in front and, even if there were, the trail’s end was for him certain doom. Cash, credit cards, and passport still bound concealed to his waist. Any chance of survival whatsoever required a very quick escape from his captors and Nigeria; meaning a change of clothes and either a car or an international flight from the airport.
Klaus turned away from the petrol station sign and began shuffling slowly back through the crowd, thinking only of the machete some distance down the trail. One by one he passed close to each person. First, cautiously but confidently stepping aside a tall thin man, looking in his eyes, Klaus muttered “I have to take a piss.” Pressing past a woman strong of build; “Excuse me.” The first two unresponsive, watching, another woman, “Excuse me, I need to go” apologetically, a boy, a man, a girl, they all observed in silence. Squeezing by the last, a woman, and taking a few short steps, Klaus turned and touched the zipper of his trousers with his left hand; “I’m just going there.” He pointed toward a patch of partial darkness just a few steps away.
Placing each foot very gingerly, instilling trust, turning frequently to assure his pensive audience, Klaus proceeded; certain of standing in the dark, barely visible to onlookers, Klaus stopped; facing away from the lantern’s glow, feet shoulder width apart, Klaus unzipped; tugging the nylon pouch, feeling for the zipper, unzipping the pouch, feeling the contents, removing several bills, zipping the pouch, separating the bills, Klaus relieved himself; twenty-dollar bills fluttering one by one to the ground, eyes closing in silent prayer, Klaus sprinted.
The hungry crowd’s wrath erupted. Klaus heard their fomenting furor, felt their disastrous desire and ran as fast as he could, crashing into obstacles, through branches and twigs and leaves, stumbling, searching in fear for embers’ glow. The commotion behind soon subsided though, as the raging assemblage devolved to a conglomerate of opportunists, each novice kidnapper becoming simply a beggar scratching urine-soaked soil for money. A glimmer appeared and Klaus slowed, concerned only of the machete he combed trail walls, remaining instinctively cognizant of the closing danger.
Grasping the handle in his sweating hand, accelerating, gulping air, past a pile of orange coals Klaus ran, his heart racing; don’t give out now he beseeched heart and legs – can’t be much farther. There indeed was the Shorter Man lifeless in the dirt. Klaus paused, kicking furiously in the muck for a glimpse of his knife, but nothing. More running, listening, swinging the machete, scared, gasping, and suddenly, he was upon light and civilization.
The trail widened and through the forest canyon cars and trucks with brilliant headlamp beacons from left and right and across the road streetlights and buildings with windows through which incandescent lights glimmered. Klaus laughed loud. Bursting from desolation and despair to civility and hope he traversed the two-lane road between cars, jumped to a sidewalk, and turned to see if the mob pursued. The trailhead chasm appeared a hideous orifice ready to vomit certain death at any moment yet he waited – no sign of his captors – caught a glimpse of his right hand brown with dried blood, other, same, shirt, ripped and soiled beyond recognition.
“Must keep moving and find some clothes” he thought; still much survival to do.
To Klaus’ right as he faced the road and forest, an intersection, which, he concluded, meant that he stood on a side street with the hotel taxis probably two or three blocks behind him down the crossroad; that road, however, too busy and a cab too risky given his appearance. Klaus analyzed further. To the right he knew, an intersection, to the left, a building, beyond which an open door and people lingering on the sidewalk; maybe a bar or a nightclub. Moving closer it became clear.
Slipping through a small crowd and an open door, Klaus entered a room where loud music filled his head and dancers under flashing lights raised his spirits. Calypso, a smooth vibrant rhythm, people swayed shoulder to shoulder. Klaus relaxed, smiling, twisting and turning, he approached a bar jammed with customers and beside it an exposed washroom from which trailed a long line of men and women. He took his place, hands in pockets, and reveled in the conviction he was still alive.
Leaving the washroom with hands and face wiped clean and two twenty dollar bills tucked into a shirt pocket, Klaus again stood in line, this time at the bar to order a double-shot gin and bottle of Budweiser. Leaning against the wet sticky surface, he promptly depleted the gin and, mounting an elbow on the bar, sipped beer, watched, and waited, until a man of his approximate height wearing a shirt appearing new or at least very recently laundered paused at the bar.
“Excuse me” Klaus said to the man, “I like your shirt.”
The man looked down at his shirt, “Oh yes, I just bought it, thank you” and started to order a drink when Klaus interrupted, “I will give you twenty dollars American for it,” displaying the folded bill between two fingers of his left hand.
The man laughed, “Okay. How much will you give me to take your shirt?”
Klaus laughed, “It’s on the house!”
The man laughed again and reached for the bill. Klaus moved his hand, smiled, and pointed at the man’s shirt; the man shook his head in affirmation and he and Klaus exchanged shirts and possession of the twenty-dollar bill at the bar. The man donning a damp filthy rag nonetheless proudly beckoned the bartender with his well-bartered currency as Klaus took one last long drink from the beer bottle and maneuvered through the throbbing mass to catch a cab.
A taxi pulled alongside the curb after a few minutes and Klaus lowered with relief onto the old orange beach towel covering what was left of a cushion behind the front passenger seat; “I need to get to the airport and on the way an internet café.”
“No problem;” the cabbie sped away from the curb, turned right at the intersection, and weaved between cars past the hotel from which Klaus first intended to depart. After a short distance the old Dodge made a left turn, went a block, and came to rest in front of a storefront bearing the sign “West Africa Coffee and Internet.”
“Wait here, I’ll only be a few minutes” Klaus said, handing the driver a twenty-dollar bill; “No problem.”
Folding tables with chairs and dirty numbered computers close together lined both sides of a narrow room where people silently stared at screens and typed. Klaus scanned the tables on his way to the glass display counter and seeing a vacant seat ordered a double-shot espresso and questioned the young man behind the counter, “How much for the coffee and internet?”
“The espresso is a hundred twenty naira and the internet is a hundred naira for fifteen minutes, how long do you need it?” the man replied.
“Fifteen minutes is fine;” Klaus pulled two dollar-bills from a thick fold and handed them to the man who responded “Thanks; change?” Klaus in turn replied “Thanks; I’m okay.”
“Take number four,” the man motioned and Klaus strolled with his cup and saucer to the assigned computer. After setting the swirly blue and white porcelain close to the keyboard, he slid a chair from the table between a man and a girl, neither of whom paid him any attention, and, sitting comfortably, took a sip of the strong Kenyan coffee and typed “classifieds” into the web search bar. Next, he clicked on “usa,” “south dakota,” “midland,” and “post to classifieds, for sale, sporting”; under “posting title,” typing “Used Fishing Poles 4 Sale,” followed by an imaginary email address and a brief description. “For sale, two poles, one short, one tall, both in very bad condition, would include tackle but all stolen, police report filed, have decided to give up fishing and retire south, price $17,473 for both, wire only.”
While sipping espresso Klaus reread the message, clicked “submit,” exited the site, deleted the browsing history, and enjoyed the calm for a few moments longer until leaving the café and, what he hoped soon, Nigeria and Africa. It would take the police several hours to complete an investigation of the crime scene determined Klaus; his camera and sunglasses would provide little immediate evidentiary value, the man he left alive would undergo interrogation sometime later at a hospital, and his hotel room would remain undisturbed for another eight hours or so – ample time to catch a flight out of the country.
“Which airline?” asked the cabbie glancing in the mirror and slowly turning the cab onto Airport Road; “Arik” replied Klaus. The car slowed to a baggage stand in front of an Arik Air sign.
Klaus settled with the driver, entered the terminal, found flight monitors and studied them carefully, waited in the Arik ticket line without any bags and bought a one-way ticket to Johannesburg – the soonest flight to a suitable destination that he could purchase. Three days later, in Johannesburg, Klaus purchased a one-way ticket to Buenos Aires and, from there, Caracas; from Venezuela he caught a freighter to Belize City, bought an old Toyota Corolla from a shrewd American expat staying in the same hotel, and drove to his cottage a few blocks from the beach in Dangriga.
After resting for a couple of days, satellite internet service again active, Klaus opened a bottle of Warsteiner beer and sat down at his desktop computer. First confirming a deposit into his Cayman Islands account he pulled up the online classified site; the “USA, Missouri, Brookfield” – an avenue in London that Michael remembered fondly from his childhood – “lost and found” message read “Two Fishing Poles Lost, one short, one tall, paid $17,473, never caught a fish but lost a friend, my heartfelt thanks to the man who took them.”
Klaus smiled.
