Moses Isegawa - Snakepit

Kate Witherthrush was a sun-burned, long-haired woman in her early forties. She had a seductive figure and a pleasant face which often belied her inner strength. She had spent the last ten years in Uganda, staying when others gave up and left, hell-bent on accumulating a big fortune. Her family had at one time had money, but had lost it in the Second World War. She had met her husband in London, where he was holidaying. She had been waiting all her life for such a man, an adventurer, a charmer, a man ready to risk all and gain all. The last decade had been the happiest period in the couple’s life.

She remembered the years as action-packed, often giddy, often calm, often unpredictable. There was always something happening, nights loaded with shooting, days calm as a sleeping baby, and vice versa. She had witnessed the fall of one government and the rise of another. She had witnessed lynchings, shoot-outs, beatings, burials, flamboyant weddings, wild Christmas celebrations lasting days, pleasure and pain see-sawing on an invisible, ever-changing pivot. She had been robbed five times, two at gunpoint. All by soldiers. Amidst all this they had their son, the icing on their cake of success which seemed to grow bigger and bigger. They had enjoyed so much success that at times they felt invincible, like gods walking among the uniformed scum and the people yearning for salvation from tyranny. They were in the unique position of trading with a tyrant, knowing that as they helped they did both good and bad. His capacity to oppress increased but at the same time the spares for the buses and lorries used by the populace were indispensable.

She was glad that her son was out of Ashes’ reach, safe in an exclusive boarding school. She still appreciated the wit, the danger, the revenge, the intoxication involved in the deal. They had decided to fuck Ashes back after he had fucked them, undercut their position, endangered their lives, and killed their colleague. The fake suicide note had been an insult both to his memory and to them. They would not be around when Ashes appointed stooges to run Copper Motors. They would take the spirit of the company with them to the Caribbean where they had just bought a mansion, a yacht, and a piece of paradise.

Mrs. Bossman sat opposite Robert Ashes, hardly able to hide her loathing for him. It seemed to seep through her pores and spread like a gas. After the way they had treated her, transporting her like a sack of onions, she knew that lines were already drawn. She had to stand firm. Any show of weakness would be the ruin of everything. She knew by now that her life, and that of her husband, and the career of Ashes, were all in the balance. She just prayed and hoped that her husband would also stand firm and not cave in to the violence of this gangster.

From the dignified way she conducted herself, Robert Ashes knew that he would get absolutely nothing from her. The fact that her son was already secured and out of his reach said it all. He regretted that he had let the boy escape the country. Why had he been fooled by Big Bossman and waited? He realized that his pride, his feeling of infallibility, had cost him a great fortune. If he had been more paranoid, the boy would be here, and Mrs. Bossman would be singing.

He stood up, a Havana in his hand, walked about and asked the woman where his money was. When he introduced the ways he intended to treat her son on capture, she did not flinch. She saw through his lies and that infuriated him. He looked at her coldly, and at that moment both of them knew that one would have to kill the other in order to walk away. Ashes could not risk releasing her for the fear that she might talk. He kept thinking about Mau Mau women caught with guns under their robes. Two decades later, he could still see them, their immobile faces giving away nothing even after rigorous torture, dying with their secrets and ruining a perfect day, a week or month’s campaign. His nightmare had caught up with him. He was after secrets, probably the most important in his whole life, which the witch didn’t want to divulge.

“You don’t know where my money is?” he said with his gloomy face looking odious.

“No, I don’t.”

“What can I say?” he said coldly, suppressing his ire, shrugging his massive shoulders. “Ten years of eating and fucking with the bugger and you don’t know anything about the most important deal in his career!”

“No, I don’t.”

“I am not going to waste your time,” he said looking outside, the effort of keeping calm almost causing him tears. “Guard, lock her up.”

Ashes walked out and left the guards to lock the woman in the room they used for the detention and interrogation of smugglers. He wished she would shout, call him back, and confess.

In the meantime, Big Bossman became frantic. He reported the abduction of his wife to the State Research Bureau, who did nothing when they found out that it was the boss of the Anti-Smuggling Unit who had her. The same morning, Ashes visited Bossman at his offices on Kampala Road and asked him where his money was. Big Bossman sat behind a huge gleaming bureau with a black telephone and open paper files covering half of it. His large head was as red as ripe coffee berries and his hands were trembling. He was dressed in a grey suit with a blue tie, which he thought gave the impression that he was still in control. The fact that another Englishman, not a Ugandan general, was standing in his office, threatening to crush his dreams to a pulp, troubled him deeply although he did his best to appear calm.

“Be patient, will you? The papers are coming today or tomorrow. As soon as they are here, I will inform you immediately and you will know that I have been telling the truth all along.”

“Your time is up, Alan, or Bossman or whatever they call you,” Ashes declared, standing in front of him and fixing his morose bulldog eyes on him.

“I want my wife back,” his adversary said, his voice almost breaking with emotion.

“She is an accessory to murder and fraud. I have information to show that you and your wife murdered your deputy and made it look like a suicide. There is also information linking you to guerrilla activity. Now, tell me where my money is, and I let both of you get out of the country never to return,” Ashes said softly, menacingly.

“Give me time, but please don’t hurt her,” Bossman pleaded as he realized that things had slipped out of his control.

“I have not touched a hair on her head or groin,” Ashes replied with distaste.

“Give me two days and your money will be here.”

“Deal,” Ashes said coldly, knowing that Bossman was lying to him.

As soon as Ashes left, Bossman contacted General MiG 300, another passionate hater of the man.

“Relax and leave everything to me. This is the easiest assignment you have ever given me,” the man replied.

Bossman gave him one hundred thousand dollars in cash and promised him a big bonus after the mission.

“I am going to do whatever it takes, friend. You know me, when I say everything, I mean including sending a MiG 200 bomber. The plane is just one phone call away. It will strafe the island and a helicopter gunship will then land and fly her away. I have the dollars to bribe everybody concerned twice over.”

Bossman was reassured. How desperately he wanted to hear somebody call him a friend. MiG 300 never issued idle threats or bouncing promises. He had asked for two days. Bossman knew that Ashes would wait because time was all he had. He could not jeopardize his position by doing anything foolish. Two days and his wife would be out of the country.

Ashes, however, acted very swiftly and contrary to Bossman’s expectations. Within hours of leaving Bossman’s office, he accused him of colluding with Tanzania-based dissidents. Using fabricated evidence, he arrested him. By now Ashes could hardly control his rage. Ten million! Added to the fortune in Switzerland, he would have been thirty million to the good. He could not believe that Bossman had expected to get away with the swindle. In Amin’s Uganda! People died for a pancake, a kilo of sugar, for nothing. But ten million dollars!