Алистер Маклин - Time of the Assassins

‘You never cease to amaze me, Mike Graham,’ she said, shaking her head in astonishment. ‘I never realized you read poetry.’

He smiled then sat on the step beside her. ‘I grew up with it. My mother has volumes of the stuff, all beautifully bound in leather – Keats, Wordsworth, Browning, Shelley, the lot. Every Friday night her parents would come round for a meal and afterwards I would have to read to them from one of the volumes. That went on until I was in my teens.’

‘Do you still read poetry?’

‘Only when I visit my mother at the retirement home in Santa Monica. She’s still got all the volumes on a shelf in her room. Her eyesight’s going so I always read her favourite poems to her.’

‘That’s the first time you’ve ever really spoken about your childhood, do you know that?’

‘Now you know why,’ he said with a wry grin. ‘Imagine a ten-year-old in a suit and tie reading Gray’s ”Elegy in a Country Churchyard” to his grandparents. But she meant well, and that’s what counts.’

Sabrina chuckled. ‘I only wish I’d been there to see it.’

‘You don’t,’ Graham retorted. ‘She’d have got you reading as well.’

‘I know you think the world of your mother. But you never talk much about your father. I don’t mean to pry, but is there a reason for that?’

‘I was never close to my father. We didn’t have anything in common, that’s why. He never once took me to see the Giants or the Yankees play. I had to go with other kids’ fathers until I was old enough to go by myself. It was really embarrassing. I started playing football at the age of eleven. He never once came to watch me play, never. My mother wasn’t interested in football either, but I can’t ever remember her missing a game when I played in the New York area.’

‘Didn’t he even go and watch you when you played for the Giants?’

‘He died seven months before I joined them. I doubt he’d have come though. Why break the habit of a lifetime?’

The bitterness wasn’t lost on her and she decided against pursuing the subject. But she was still amazed at his openness. A year ago he would have clammed up at the mere mention of his past. Was he beginning to break down those barriers he had built around himself since he had lost his family? Or was it the thought that he was finally going to get a showdown with the man he blamed for their murder? And what would happen if he did come face to face with Bernard? Would he kill him? Or would he hand him over to the authorities? She knew she couldn’t answer that question. Or perhaps she just didn’t want to…

‘You guys look cosy down there,’ said Laidlaw from the doorway.

‘What the hell’s that supposed to mean?’ Graham demanded, scrambling to his feet.

‘Just kidding,’ Laidlaw said, winking at Sabrina.

Sabrina shook her head slowly to herself. What a jerk. But then he didn’t know Graham like she did. Any suggestion of any impropriety between them immediately put Graham on his guard. Some things hadn’t changed.

‘What do you want?’ Graham snapped.

‘Hey, chill out, man. I said I was only kidding.’ Laidlaw looked from Sabrina to Graham. ‘Look, I don’t give a damn if you guys have got something going–’

Graham grabbed Laidlaw by the shirt and shoved him up against the wall. ‘We work together, period. Understood?’

Laidlaw pulled free and smoothed down his shirt. ‘The plans are here,’ he said tersely then yanked open the door and disappeared back into the house.

‘Why can’t a man and woman work together without there always being some sort of sexual overtone attached to it?’

Sabrina nodded tight-lipped then followed Graham into the house.

Laidlaw walked up to Graham. ‘I’m sorry, Mike. I was out of order.’

‘Forget it,’ Graham replied then crossed to where Tambese and Moredi were sitting on the sofa, the plans spread out across the table in front of them.

‘Sit down,’ Tambese invited, gesturing to the second sofa which they had positioned on the other side of the table.

Graham waited until they were all seated then looked past Sabrina at Laidlaw. ‘What do you think?’

Laidlaw turned the plan around then looked up at Moredi. ‘You say the perimeter fence is electrified?’

Moredi nodded. ‘I don’t know the voltage but it is lethal. A prisoner died trying to escape over it when I was being held there.’

‘Escape was impossible,’ Tambese told them. ‘I heard stories of prisoners who had just arrived at the prison breaking free from the guards and throwing themselves against the fence to avoid being interrogated. That’s how much the people feared the Security Police.’

‘Where’s the current controlled from?’ Laidlaw asked.

Tambese tapped a square in the centre of the building. ‘That’s the control room. But it’s situated underground. It only has one approach route which is protected by a metal grill. The door itself is made of reinforced steel and can only be activated from inside the control room itself. It’s impregnable.’

‘David was one of the officers who liberated Branco after the death of Alphonse Mobuto,’ Moredi told them.

‘Was that the first time you had ever been inside the prison?’ Sabrina asked.

Tambese nodded. ‘The army and the regular police were never allowed into Branco when it was run by the Security Police.’

‘Wasn’t the fence deactivated when the prison was liberated?’ Graham asked.

‘It was,’ Tambese agreed. ‘But it wouldn’t have been very difficult to rig it up again.’

‘So you’re not sure whether it has been reactivated?’ Sabrina said to Tambese.

‘It has, according to our sources here in Kondese,’ Tambese replied.

‘Couldn’t you instigate a power cut?’ Graham asked.

Tambese shook his head. ‘It wouldn’t work, even if we could get into the power station. There’s an emergency generator inside the compound.’

‘What about the entrance?’ Laidlaw asked without taking his eyes off the plans.

‘One main gate – there,’ Moredi replied, pointing it out.

‘Operated from the control room,’ Tambese added. ‘There are also two watchtowers overlooking the gate. Each is manned by an armed guard. We wouldn’t get within a hundred yards of the main gate without been seen.’

‘What’s it made of?’ Laidlaw asked.

‘Reinforced steel.’

Laidlaw chewed his lip thoughtfully as he continued to study the diagram.

‘How many of Ngune’s men are inside the prison compound?’ Graham asked Tambese.

‘We think about twenty-five.’

‘What about the remainder of his troops?’ Sabrina asked.

‘I wish I knew,’ Tambese replied with a sigh. ‘I really do. There are pockets of them in and around Kondese manning roadblocks and patrolling the city centre. The resistance movement has been scouting the area ever since the rebels took Kondese but so far they’ve come up with nothing. It’s uncanny. There must be a garrison around here somewhere but we just can’t find it.’

‘What if it’s a bluff and Ngune doesn’t have the manpower he claims to have?’

‘That had crossed our minds, Mr Graham. But what use are tanks and aircraft without men? And we know he has both.’

‘Why not destroy them?’ Sabrina asked in surprise.

‘Because they’re in Chad. If our troops crossed the border into Chad we’d be certain to cause an international incident. And that’s the last thing we need now that we’re on the verge of being allowed back into the United Nations. We’ve lodged a formal protest with the Chadian government but they claim the tanks and planes are part of their own arsenal – which, in effect, they are. But we know from reliable sources inside the Chadian army that Ngune has struck a deal with their Government to use some of their tanks and planes in the event of an attempted coup d’état, but only if Ngune provides the men. So at the moment, it’s a stalemate.’