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  ‘Apartheid.’

  ‘Exactly. The idea was right. It’s the way the Afrikaners handled it that was wrong.’

  ‘And because apartheid’s dead you want to go home?’

  ‘Not that simple. Although you know as well as I do what’s happening here. This is no place any more for a white man wanting an easy life. Blighty, old boy. That’s where my roots are.’

  Roots, thought Sam as he spooned tomato soup into his mouth. As twisted as the rest of Jackman’s law-dodging life. The file in London had shown a blank when it came to the man’s parentage. The first note of the young Harry’s existence had been at one week old when found in the doorway of a pub.

  ‘So let me get this straight, Harry.’ Sam edged his voice with sarcasm. ‘You want to settle back in the UK. And you want to be sure officialdom is nice to you when you get there. So what’s the first thing you do? You offer a story to the papers that’ll blow a hole in the government’s claims to have an ethical foreign policy. You’re off your trolley.’

  ‘I need to be sure, Simon.’

  ‘Of what, for Christ’s sake?’

  ‘Of being allowed to live the rest of my life in peace. I’m pushing fifty. Fifteen years older than you?’ He overestimated by a handful of years. ‘I can afford to retire. To do a bit of this and a bit of that, just for the fun of it. Not for the money. I’ve got enough.’

  ‘I’m sure you have.’ Thousands of dead Africans had seen to that. ‘But you’re still confusing me, Harry. How does writing a letter to a newspaper claiming the British government was involved in a bungled African coup get you safe passage home?’

  Jackman’s eyes became deadly serious.

  ‘Come on. Don’t play the virgin with me. A warning shot, that’s all it was. I knew damn well that good-ole-boy Hampson wouldn’t go into print about Bodanga without the say-so of C or whatever you call him these days.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  Jackman hissed with exasperation. ‘That I just wanted to show you what I could do if I was so minded.’

  ‘Oh. Is that what it was about?’ Sam mocked, trying to get Jackman on the back foot. ‘You’ve miscalculated, old son. The people you’re dealing with don’t take kindly to threats.’

  ‘Don’t be daft. They need my co-operation as much as I need theirs. The world’s a dangerous place. You scratch my back . . .’

  Sam gave up on his soup which tasted unpleasantly of the can it came from, and pushed the plate away.

  ‘So, spell it out to me, Harry. What exactly is it you want?’

  ‘Immunity from any sort of prosecution.’

  Sam lifted his eyebrows.

  ‘Come on,’ Jackman insisted. ‘It’s a small return for the services I’ve done for my country.’

  It was true there’d been other small jobs for SIS before last year’s arms deal. Smuggling people across borders and providing untraceable funds to political groups that the government of the day was embarrassed to be associated with.

  ‘What sort of prosecutions did you have in mind?’ Sam inquired sceptically.

  Jackman’s gaze became a tunnel with no light at its end. He wiped his mouth with a napkin.

  ‘Can’t imagine,’ he murmured with a contrived mysteriousness. ‘But there’s people out there who’ll dream something up. You boyos have found me useful over the years, but I don’t kid myself you’re my friends.’

  ‘So. Let me get this right,’ Sam persisted, spreading his fingers across the edge of the table. ‘You want HMG to promise that you’ll never be prosecuted, whatever crimes you’ve committed. Is that it?’

  Jackman swallowed. ‘Yes, essentially.’ He paused for a moment. ‘Odd word crime, don’t you think? The definition of it seems to depend on who’s carried it out.’

  Sam folded his arms. Time for some home truths. ‘They’ll never buy it, Harry. Not a blanket immunity. You’ll need to be specific. Have to spell it out in black and white.’

  The gun-runner’s shoulders sagged as if the wind had been knocked from him. He shook his head. ‘No can do.’

  The soup plates were cleared away and the steaks set before them.

  ‘Best beef in southern Africa . . .’ said Jackman listlessly. The words sounded like a mantra he’d grown rather tired of.

  ‘You’ll miss it,’ Sam goaded. ‘We’re all getting brain disease from the stuff back home.’

  The gun-runner fired a glance towards the door. Sam recognised the look and empathised with it. Fear of enemies closing in.

  ‘Expecting someone?’

  Jackman grimaced. ‘Look. I do want to go home, Simon. Back to England. Don’t make it hard for me.’

  ‘What makes you think you’ll be safer there?’

  ‘I’ll blend in easier . . . Surrounded by people my own colour.’

  ‘You’re out of touch. Times have changed.’

  ‘Not out in Suffolk they haven’t.’

  Sam remembered the file again. An ex-wife and a daughter living in Ipswich.

  Jackman’s eyebrows arched in despair. ‘I’ve got to get home, Simon. Too many enemies here. That’s why I’m prepared to play rough to be left in peace.’

  Packer watched him begin picking at his food. He was puzzled. There was something fundamentally odd about Jackman’s fear of legal retribution. Before coming out here his controller had told him there was nothing pending. No warrants waiting to be served. No misdemeanours under investigation. So long as he kept his mouth shut the ex-pat could return home and merge with the background as much as he wanted. But Jackman clearly thought otherwise, a paranoia that was perfectly understandable after so many years of bending rules to suit his own pocket. But Packer sensed there was something specific Jackman was concerned about. Some deed in his recent past which he expected to backfire.

  If so, his mission was changing. No longer merely a matter of agreeing terms for Jackman’s silence, but a need to discover what the bugger had been up to. Success would require more subtlety than he’d used so far. He decided to sidetrack. To soften up the ground.

  ‘Why Africa, Harry? What got you started here? Twenty-five years ago, you said.’

  Jackman’s eyes melted with self-satisfaction. His mouth puckered, like a bully’s given an unexpected excuse to brag. ‘You really want to know?’ Sam nodded. Jackman took a gulp of wine. ‘Dust. That’s what got me started.’

  ‘Dust?’

  Jackman grinned. ‘I was a chemist by training when I came out. First job was managing a lab at a copper mine. Boring as hell. I had two Kaffirs who did all the real work. Then one day a black came to me who’d been given the job of cleaning the whole place up. Copper production sites get littered with all sorts of junk. This Af had found some drums of powder and didn’t know whether it was safe to dump them. Didn’t know what was in ’em, you see.’ Jackman’s eyes twinkled at the memory of it. ‘So what did I do? I did a little test in the lab after my two assistants had gone home. Found out the powder was condensates from the smelter chimneys. Packed with cobalt and nickel. Worth a fortune to somebody with the hardware for extracting it. So, I told the Af the drums weren’t worth anything but because they contained toxic minerals, they couldn’t be taken for dumping. Then I got in touch with a feller I knew in South Africa . . .’

  ‘And the rest is history,’ Sam interrupted. ‘A life of crime was under way.’

  ‘Crime? Come on, my friend! Out here that’s not crime, it’s business.’

  ‘But a business which has now turned sour, you’re saying.’

  Jackman sighed. ‘It’s become harder. A lot harder. Too many people wanting a cut.’

  For a while they ate without speaking. The beef was as good as Jackman had promised. Sam noticed an increase in frequency of the glances towards the door.

  ‘Somebody after you, Harry?’ There’d be plenty of candidates.

  Jackman feigned a look of wounded innocence.

  ‘Who is it?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  Sam clicked his tongue
. ‘Come on, old son. If we’re to get anywhere, you’ve got to be straighter with me than that.’

  ‘No, I mean it.’ Behind the oval lenses Jackman’s eyes were like gob-stoppers. ‘I really don’t know, Simon.’

  ‘Explain.’

  Jackman hesitated again. ‘Things . . . things have been going on.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘People dying.’

  ‘It happens.’

  ‘Unnaturally, I mean.’

  ‘Friends of yours?’

  ‘Yeah.’ Jackman’s expression became pained, as if he were really putting himself out. He glanced down at his hands and began picking at his cuticles with a thumbnail. ‘Look. There is something in particular – you know, that I want immunity from.’ Sam smiled inwardly. Progress. ‘The death I’m talking about was to do with that.’ He looked up again, his eyes wanting sympathy. ‘It’s a deal I wish I’d never got involved with, to be honest. And it’s something you boys really ought to know about.’

  ‘Perhaps we do already. Tell me.’

  ‘I’d like to. And I will. But only after I have it in writing that I’m being granted immunity.’ He bunched his fists and rested them on the table.

  Packer let out a long sigh. For a moment he’d thought a breakthrough was in sight. ‘You know what you have to do, Harry. In black and white up front, so they know what’s involved.’

  The sweaty red brow crinkled with concern. ‘You’re asking me to put my head on the block. I can’t do that.’ He glanced towards the door again then leaned forward. ‘Look . . . That bloke who died was a partner of mine in Jo’burg. Involved in the deal I’m talking about.’

  ‘Tell me about it.’

  Jackman leaned even closer, his voice less than a whisper. ‘They’d sawn his effing head off, Simon.’ The fear in the eyes looked convincing. Jackman thought he was next. ‘For God’s sake let’s settle things with HMG, so I can tell you about it.’

  ‘If they can be settled . . .’

  ‘Oh they will be, Simon,’ Jackman bristled, winding back, angry at being played with. ‘You see, there’s other letters ready to be sent. To the media and to people I’m close to. A whole bunch. All sealed up. Envelopes addressed. Left with someone I trust in case something happens to me.’ He thumped a fist on the table. ‘And next time they won’t go to one of your bloody lapdogs.’

  They finished their food in silence, heads down like weary bulls. When he’d done, Jackman puffed out his cheeks.

  ‘You know, I’m beginning to think they’ve sent the wrong man.’

  ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘I need to talk with someone who’ll take me seriously.’

  ‘Oh I’m taking you very seriously Harry. Be in no doubt about that. But you haven’t understood what’s possible and what isn’t as far as HMG is concerned.’

  Jackman seemed not to hear. He hovered like an angler pondering how much bait to lay down before the fish could be hooked.

  ‘This deal I’m talking about . . .’ He was whispering again. ‘I’ll tell you this much. It involved the shipment of something pretty nasty. And I think it was heading for the Islamics.’

  The mention of the ‘I’ word triggered alarm bells for Sam. It was less than three weeks since the car bombings of the US Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

  ‘What do you mean think?’

  ‘Because I don’t know for sure.’

  ‘What sort of nasty stuff? Weapons? Biological? Nuclear?’

  Jackman shook his head. He’d achieved his aim. Didn’t need to say more. The man was like a streetwalker, flashing her interesting bits then hiding them again.

  ‘You say you want to move back to England,’ Sam growled. ‘Why not Venezuela or Monaco? Someplace where they won’t give a shit what you’ve done in the past.’

  ‘Personal reasons.’

  ‘You’re not telling me you want to get back with your wife?’ Sam prodded.

  ‘Which one? I’ve had three. And no, I’m not planning anything like that. Just take it that I want to return to my own country.’

  Sam told himself to cool it. Letting the man rile him wasn’t going to help. ‘Tell me about your ex-wife and daughter. The ones in Ipswich.’

  ‘Your file’s out of date. It’s Woodbridge. I bought them a place by the river a couple of years back. The estate where they’d been living was going downhill. Anyway, what about them?’

  ‘You’ve kept in touch?’

  ‘Stayed friends with all my exes. And Julie – my daughter – she’s just great. You married? Kids?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I was twenty-one when I met Maeve. Shacked up with her because it was the thing to do in 1970.A nurse. Irish, but with the morals of a Dane. Birth pills in her handbag instead of a rosary. But careless with it. She got pregnant. I agreed to marry her, stupid kid that I was. She was wrong for me. Too placid. And, you know, when it came to the business, the sex stuff – it was something she felt she had to do because everyone else was. Not because she got any pleasure out of it. You know the sort.’

  Happily for Sam he didn’t.

  ‘So I left her after a couple of years,’ Jackman continued, ‘and came out here. Went back from time to time. Not very often.’ He paused. ‘Little Julie never knew who I was when she was tiny.’

  ‘Do they know what you do for a living?’

  Jackman squirmed slightly. ‘No. It isn’t always wise being truthful in relationships, don’t you find?’

  Sam ignored his question. ‘So you started off selling black market chemicals. How did you get into guns?’

  ‘Somebody asked me if I could get them some. One of Mandela’s boys.’

  ‘And . . .?’

  ‘And I discovered how easy it was. AK47s could be prised from the Zambian army like peas from a pod. This country’s packed with people wanting to earn a dishonest penny.’

  ‘And it never concerned you what the guns might be used for?’

  Jackman raised a cynical eyebrow. ‘Don’t come the naïve kid with me, Simon. I was filling a hole in the market. If it hadn’t been me, it’d have been someone else.’

  The old excuse. They all used it.

  ‘And this other deal. The one you’ll only tell us about if you get immunity – was that filling a hole too?’

  Jackman fixed him with a steady eye. He selected a toothpick from the holder in the middle of the table and removed some beef fibres from between two molars.

  ‘It was supplying somebody with something that was damned hard to get,’ he said enigmatically. ‘Something they wanted very bad.’ Then he leaned forward. ‘I’ll tell you something else. The shipping arrangements were real high security. Never done anything quite like it before. The warehouse I fixed up – it was like Ali Baba, Simon. Like bloody Ali Baba.’

  An odd image, thought Sam. ‘Meaning?’

  ‘Meaning that you and I have to do a deal, Simon.’ The eyes were playing with him again. ‘So I can tell you about it.’

  Sam felt his patience going. He had a sudden urge to deprive Jackman of sleep and food for a few days.

  ‘For God’s sake, let’s do a deal, man,’ Jackman pleaded melodramatically. ‘For the sake of the civilised world, if not for you and me.’

  Packer narrowed his eyes. What sort of line was he being spun? Fact, fiction – did Jackman even know the difference?

  ‘Look,’ he snapped. ‘The bottom line is this. You simply cannot expect the British government to give you immunity from prosecution without knowing what crimes you’re talking about. Suppose some African nation were to charge you with genocide. There’s no way HMG would protect you from that.’

  Jackman pulled himself up straight. He twisted his head to one side and studied Sam out of the corner of his eye as if seeing whether a different perspective would show him the way forward.

  ‘Have another drink,’ he suggested unoriginally. ‘Something a little stronger? They’ve got good single malts here.’

  Sam would willingly have seen off most
of a bottle.

  ‘No.’

  Jackman clasped his hands. ‘Okay. Let’s get back to basics. HMG needs my silence. I need a laissez-passer from HMG. There’s two people who can sort this out. You and me.’

  ‘I’ve been trying my best, Harry.’

  Jackman nodded. For a delirious moment Sam thought he was about to concede something meaningful.

  ‘We can reach a compromise, you know,’ Jackman assured him. ‘I mean it is why you’ve come here, Simon. To do a deal.’

  ‘It’s your move, Harry. It really is.’

  Jackman pushed the spectacles up his nose and stroked his chin. The cockiness had gone from his eyes, replaced by an expression Sam couldn’t quite define.

  ‘Well . . . if you won’t have a night-cap here, what about one back at my place,’ Jackman suggested. ‘The house rattles a bit. My last girlfriend left me a couple of months ago. Went back to the Cape.’

  Loneliness. That’s what his eyes were showing, Sam realised. Jackman was lonely. Giving up on Africa because Africa had given up on him. He’d found a chink in the man’s armour. Big enough to stick a screwdriver in for now. Soon it’d be a chisel, then a whole DIY workbench.

  ‘All right. I’ll have a quick one with you,’ Sam conceded.

  Jackman called for the bill and paid it. They made small talk about the upcoming Springboks’ tour and England’s chances for the coming season. Then they walked out to the car park. Seeing Jackman appear, the army officer in the Land Rover shook his soldiers awake.

  ‘You’ll follow me in your car?’ Jackman checked.

  ‘Be right behind you.’

  Sam kept half an eye on Jackman as they each moved to their own vehicle. He heard the Land Rover engine rattle into life, then as he unlocked the door of the Toyota the Zambian officer crossed to Jackman’s Mercedes to talk to him. The two men’s palms touched. Payoff time.

  The Mercedes was first onto the road back to Kitwe, followed by the army patrol, a nearly full moon turning the palm trees by the gate into ghostly sentries. Out on the road the three vehicles settled into a steady run towards the outskirts of town. Sam’s spirits had lifted. He felt absurdly confident all of a sudden. A few more hours and Jackman would be eating from the palm of his hand.