Frank Schätzing - Limit

In the second year under Ndongo’s rule, radical Esangui-Fang launch attacks on American and European oil institutions. Bubi and Fang go for each other’s necks as they have since time immemorial, terrorist cells thwart every attempt at political stabilisation, and Ndongo’s idea of a better world collapses with a crash. He has gone too far for his opponents, but not far enough for his friends. In a painful act of self-denial, Ndongo takes a harsher stance, carries out mass arrests and loses what was once his only capital overnight: integrity.

Meanwhile, Mayé is warming up on the sidelines in Cameroon.

‘From the outside,’ said Yoyo, ‘it looked like this: Obiang, sick and bitter, hangs around in the neighbouring country and pressures Mayé to force Ndongo out of office at the next available opportunity. But the old man doesn’t want Mayé himself to rule, but rather to prepare the ground for Teodorin and Gabriel, who have sunk sobbing into one another’s arms at the mere thought of Ndongo. Rivalry is no longer the issue. The country is destabilised and Ndongo is for it. All Mayé would really need to do is travel in and say Boo! Aside from the fact that he can’t enter the country of course.’

‘But because putschists don’t need a visa—’

‘—he agrees and sets off. It’s common knowledge by then that Mayé has already made contact with a private mercenary firm, African Protection Services, APS for short. And they’ – Yoyo paused for a short, dramatic moment – ‘are of interest to us!’

‘Let me guess. This is where Vogelaar comes back into the picture.’

Yoyo smiled smugly. ‘I’ve found the missing years. Does the name ArmourGroup ring any bells with you?’

‘It does. It’s a London security giant.’

‘In 2008 ArmourGroup took on a mandate in Kenya. Around that time, a smaller company, Armed African Services, went through a de-merger. Vogelaar’s Mamba was operating in the same crisis area. They crossed paths, perhaps one of them approached the other and borrowed some ammunition or something, but to cut a long story short they took a liking to one another and formed APS in 2010, with Vogelaar at management level. Do you see?’

‘I do. So Mayé overthrew Ndongo with the help of APS. But who paid APS?’

‘That’s exactly the point. Mayé was incredibly friendly with China.’

‘You mean—’

‘I mean that we assumed the whole time that the coup attempt discussed in the text fragment was the one from last year. But Beijing would have had far more reason to pull the strings in 2017.’

‘And how did Mayé’s coup go?’

‘Without a hitch. As a precaution, Ndongo was out of the country. But no one seemed particularly surprised by it. No resistance, no fatalities. The only one who was shocked was Obiang. Mayé had numerous opposition members imprisoned, including Obiang’s closest confidants, Teodorin supporters, Gabrielists—’

‘Because he had no intention of stepping down.’

‘Bingo.’

‘And Vogelaar became his security boss.’

‘Yep.’

‘Is there proof that China was tied up in it?’

‘Owen, what’s wrong with you?’ Yoyo reprimanded him. ‘There’s never proof, you know that. But on the other hand you would have to be a zombie to overlook the fact that Exxon, Marathon and Co. got the chop immediately after the putsch, whereas the Chinese company Sinopec was suddenly swimming in oil from Equatorial Guinea. Then there’s Mayé’s speeches: they owed the Chinese their gratitude, China had always been a brother, blah blah blah. When it came down to it, he wholeheartedly agreed to his country being sold out to China.’

Jericho nodded. It was obvious that Yoyo was right: Mayé had taken power with the help of the Chinese and, as agreed, hadn’t forgotten to reward them. But then why did they later want to kill him?’

‘And if it wasn’t the Chinese…’ said Yoyo, as if she had read his thoughts. ‘Last year, I mean.’

‘Then who?’

‘Is it that hard to guess? Mayé doesn’t miss a single opportunity to snub the Americans. He has their representatives imprisoned, breaks all contracts, aids and abets terrorist attacks on American institutions, even though he denies it outright in diplomatic circles. In any case, it was enough that Washington was threatening him with sanctions and invasion.’

‘It sounds like sabre-rattling.’

‘That’s precisely the question.’

‘So what then? The guy ruled for seven years. What happened in that time?’

‘He held his hand out. Finished the economy off. Made opposition members disappear, had them tortured, beheaded, who knows what else. Before long, Obiang looked like a philanthropist compared with Mayé, but now they had him by the neck. Mayé didn’t get involved with cannibalism, witchcraft and the whole black magic scene, but he was certainly developing considerable delusions of grandeur. He built skyscrapers that no one moved into, but he didn’t care, the important thing was how the skyline looked. He planned Equatorial Guinea’s own version of Las Vegas and wanted to set up an opera house in the sea. The final straw was when he announced that Equatorial Guinea was promoting itself to become a Space nation, to which end, and in all seriousness, he had a launching pad built in the middle of the jungle.’

‘Wait a second—’ It slowly dawned on Jericho that he had read something about it at the time. An African dictator who had built a space-rocket launch base and bragged to the rest of the world that his country would be sending astronauts to the Moon. ‘Wasn’t that—?’

‘In 2022,’ said Yoyo. ‘Two years before he was overthrown.’

‘And what happened?’

‘Well, do you see any Africans in space?’

‘No.’

‘Exactly. He did send one thing up though. A news satellite.’

‘And what on earth did Mayé need a news satellite for?’

Yoyo circled her finger over her temple. ‘Because he wasn’t all there, Owen. Why do men get penis extensions? They’re nothing but space-rocket launch bases on a smaller scale. But the whole thing became a mockery because the satellite broke down just a few weeks after the launch.’

‘But it was launched.’

‘Yes, without a hitch.’

‘Then what happened?’

‘Nothing really. Two years later, Mayé was liquidated, and Ndongo came back.’ Yoyo leaned back. Her entire posture said she was ready to call it a day and unwind. ‘You probably know more about that than I do. That was the part you researched.’

‘But I don’t know much about Ndongo.’

‘Oh well,’ Yoyo shrugged. ‘If you want to find out who footed the bill this time then you’ll need to take a close look at Ndongo’s oil politics. I’ve got no idea whether he has been as loyally devoted to China as Mayé was.’

‘Definitely not.’

‘How do you know?’

‘You said yourself that he would have attacked China pretty heftily. I don’t think there’s any doubt about that. Ndongo was put in there by the USA and taken out by China.’

‘So who took Mayé out?’

Jericho gnawed on his lower lip.

statement coup Chinese government

‘Something in this story doesn’t make sense,’ he said. ‘In the text fragment it’s about a coup that China is tied up in, but they can’t mean the coup of 2017. For one thing, that’s eight years ago. And in any case, everyone suspects Beijing was involved in it anyway, so why would they be hunting us down because of that? And another thing, it was explicitly about Donner and Vogelaar. But Vogelaar only comes up in connection with Mayé.’

‘Or was placed there by Beijing back then. Maybe as a kind of guard for Mayé. A spy.’