On the riverside of promise (15 page)

“Who would you like to speak to?”

Ethan hesitated for a moment before asking
the captain:

“Captain, would you mind? It’s a sensitive
call.”

“It’s my phone. I do mind. Get on with it or
hang up, I don’t care.”

Ethan nodded and having no other option went
ahead:

“Ian Ruthers, please. Tell him it’s from the
Nigerian desk.”

The voice on the other end sounded
puzzled:

“Sir, do you know were it is you are
calling?”

“I bloody know very well, get me Ruthers,
just mention my name: Richard Owls. And I’ll hold.”

There were a few moments of silence and then
some hiss and the sound of lines mingling and connecting. Finally,
after almost half a minute Ian could be heard on the other
side:

“Have you lost your mind? Calling from
half-way around the world on an insecure line! What do you think
this is, Whitehall?”

“I’m in a tent, borrowing a phone from a
Nigerian captain. Listen, I need you to run a check. Nicole
Heurgot, says she works for Virginia.”

“What the hell, Ethan? What’s with her? You
don’t mean Langley, Virginia.”

“The one and the same. Listen, just let me
know when you find out. A yes or no will do.”

“I guess I’ll have something by tomorrow
night. Listen on the BBC, tomorrow at 10. God, the paperwork you’re
putting me through alone could kill me.”

“Right… How will I…?”

“Right, well. Off the top of my head and I’m
not saying we do this all the time, we’ll use the `Top of the Pops’
opening song. I know you hate the Beatles, so… If it's the Beatles,
then as far as we can tell she's full of it. There's a new single
out, `Hey Jude’. It seems fitting. Remember, opening song. And
Ethan, I don’t know why exactly you’re asking this but it doesn’t
sound good at all.”

“I know. I just hope I’m wrong.”

Dead men can’t dance

The old man drained the last of the beer from
the keg, and brought the bottle to Ethan’s small table. There was
some beer foam right at the mouth of the bottle, which the old man
blew away with a wheezy puff, before settling it down on the table.
He then looked at Ethan with wide, almost hazy, glassy eyes and
said:

“He can smell you are trouble.”

Ethan shook his head and his stilted smile
had the look of tasting salt about it. He drank another gulp of
beer and asked the old man, “I didn’t know trouble has a smell of
its own,” trying to sound nonchalant, unconvincingly enough.

“It doesn’t. It’s the smell of shit!” blared
the owner with an almost accusing stare and suddenly broke down in
laughter. The other two men followed suit, showing off hollowed out
mouths and wrinkled, leathery faces worn through a life-time of
being used to hardships of all kinds.

“And you’re full of it, Englishman. Who dem
asking for trouble, days like these, but dem trouble, no?” said one
of the two, while the owner chimed in himself again, “You can’t
hide a pile of shit if you paint it gold, mister. It still smells,
so do you. Your man, whoever he is, won’t be coming. Hope he didn’t
take your money first.”

Ethan couldn’t manage a reply. Taken by
surprise by their straightforward manner, he barely managed a grin
while acceding to having being played like a fool:

“He did. I’m that transparent, aren't I?” he
said, while all three men smiled and nodded. The one who hadn’t
even spoken a word said then, “You dem English” smiled, shrugged
and sipped his beer. The owner was sitting behind his counter, and
tapping his hand with each word he said to Ethan, “What’s a white
man doing in the middle of a war?” and added with a rather grim
face, “It can’t be fishing now.”

Ethan took the hint, nodded almost
reverentially, drank another gulp of beer, left another five
pounder on the table and got up. As he stepped outside the door, he
began to realise there was a lot more to what the old man had just
said.

* * *

The rest of the leads proved to be dead ends
as well; they all talked about a red cross caravan and they had all
heard about the attack. But nothing solid, nothing first hand.
Those few shady people that made a living trading all sorts of
information had either been laying too low to be found or had
simply refused to deal; one of them had just left saying the whole
thing was too hot. In any case, all the useful info about Andy
boiled down to that he was indeed missing.

Soldiers on jeeps and foot patrols made their
presence felt around the town while Ethan moved about; they asked
him for his papers on more than one occasion. They had lists with
names and photos, actively looking for people that the Nigerian
government had one way or the other decided had been acting against
their best interest: Soldiers of fortune, spies, people who made it
their business to know all kinds of dangerous, possibly profitable
things.

An English journalist casually roaming about
Onitsha and asking people questions could be all three things if
his name or photo was on that list. It was a crude thing to do,
using soldiers for field intelligence work, but then again he
himself was running on pure luck and whatever ropes James was
pulling. His cover was extremely thin, but he had no other option;
it was only a matter of time before someone would notice he was
nowhere to be found and still he had nothing solid on Andy. At
least, he thought to himself, they haven’t found a body yet.

The evening breeze brought the smell of river
life to Ethan as he walked past a checkpoint under an old, Anglican
church. He stood there for a moment or so with real, keen interest
as its small congregation poured outside, shuffling their feet with
purpose: it would be curfew time soon. True enough, the church bell
started to ring, forcing Ethan to look at his watch: half past
seven. He would be running a bit late for his meeting with
Nicole.

He nodded with an uncertain smile at the
soldiers motioning him to get off the street and hastily took off
towards the river bank, quickly disappearing in the flimsy shade of
a small shop alley. He could hear movement and shouts behind him;
the military police was hurrying people out of the streets and into
their houses.

At the end of the alley he ventured a quick
look behind him. Nothing. As he crossed an empty street, he noticed
it looked the same in every direction he gazed at: The natural
denizens of city streets, dogs and cats alike, could barely be seen
hiding away under alcoves, small balconies and porches. Pigeons and
swallows were trudging along stained rooftops lazily and even rats
seemed attuned to the curfew, fleeing purposefully back into their
shadowy nests wherever there were people left to harrow.

Then he noticed more movement near the river
bank, jeeps and trucks moving along its length, while all the while
tugboats putted away upstream. With a fleeting look he noticed a
patrol coming his way. Across the street, he finally saw a sign
that read “Madimba”. He crossed the empty road with a casual
walking pace and pushed the door open. A flight of steps lead
downward into a dimly lit cellar, hushed conversations and the
faint but unmistakable sound of brass; jazz.

He closed the door behind him and carefully
tread down the narrow steps. He then looked around, taking in the
whole setting of the underground bar. It was elegantly decorated
but crudely furnished; crammed but somehow everyone seemed
comfortably seated. The smell of sweat and smoke weighed heavy.

It was a small wonder that a place like that
could be found hidden away amidst the forefront of a war, but there
was an explanation for that as well; it was packed with foreigners.
Europeans from the look and sound of them, almost down to the last
one.

He then saw Nicole silently waving him over
to a table near one corner of the establishment; a tall, lank black
man was sitting beside her. After wading through tightly packed
tables and customers, he pulled up the single empty chair and sat,
addressing Nicole:

“Who is this?”

“This is Adu, Adu Nebdele. He’s going to help
us get to Owerri.”

“For starters, I don’t like the fact we
didn’t talk this over first. Why Owerri?”

Adu then spoke out of turn, just when Nicole
was about to talk and bluntly said with a cultivated accent:

“I think your brother’s dead.”

“Who is this again?” said Ethan without even
turning to acknowledge the man’s existence. Nicole replied with a
calming voice, “I’ve known this man far longer than you, Ethan. You
can trust him, he’s been more than useful in the past.”

Ethan shook his head and sagged back on his
chair. He flicked his gaze between Nicole and Adu, and said with a
sickly grin:

“Can I now? What makes him such an expert on
dead people?”

Nicole’s face flashed red with slow-boiled
anger and her piercing eyes met Ethan’s with a decisive clash.
Neither of them seemed willing to look away. Adu then drew himself
closer to Ethan and said in a low-keyed voice, trying to sound
condescending:

“I have a brother-in-law, works in the
morgue. There’s been lot of work lately.”

Ethan spared a vehement look in Adu’s
direction that only seemed to stick for a moment or two. He then
lowered his gaze and said after sighing:

“I need a drink.”

Adu nodded and asked him casually:

“Scotch?”

“I thought there was a war going on,” replied
Ethan, a mocking expression on his face.

“Not if you’re a white Englishman with pounds
to spare. Anything particular?” asked Adu to which Ethan answered
along with a wave of his hand, “I wouldn’t go that far. Anything
other than rye would be good.”

Adu smiled thinly, nodded and got up. As he
slowly made his way through the crowded tables towards the bar at
the other end, Ethan told Nicole with ire in his voice:

“I don’t appreciate this. Who the hell is
that?”

“He’s an associate. A valuable associate. Has
been for the past three years. If you can’t trust him, you can’t
trust me and that would be a damn shame because I want us to find
Andy. Alive. Maybe you’re having second thoughts about this,” said
Nicole, nursing a barely touched glass of wine. Ethan almost
erupted into a drowned out shout:

“Now hold on a minute! The last thing I need
right now is some sort of lecture from the wife and all sorts of
Agency bullshit!”

Nicole’s face had a serious, business-like
look when she said:

“Adu is a well-connected man. He keeps an
uneasy balance between the two sides. I’ve been going in and out
thanks to him ever since I’ve been operating here.”

“Which brings us to the question, what
exactly are you working on here? And why did you drag Andy into
this mess?”

“Listen, I really wish I hadn’t but that was
his choice. It really was. I thought it would be relatively safe.
That was my mistake. Now, about the job…”

She let her voice trail off while the jazz
filled the next few silent moments. Ethan shook his head and said
through a tight, forced smile:

“Bloody right. A mistake. But not the last
one.”

Their gazes remained locked like lovers in a
quarrel; neither one seemed willing to let go, as if in a staring
contest. Instead of passion though, there was brewing anger. When
Adu returned with Ethan’s drink, they looked away as if somehow
slightly embarrassed.

“Thanks,” said Ethan with a barely audible
mutter, while Nicole silently sipped at her own glass of wine. Adu
then told Ethan in a matter-of-fact way:

“I can imagine you might be upset about this,
but it’s good, solid information. Caucasian, English passport.”

“I’ll wait and see with my own two eyes,”
Ethan replied and then said to Nicole accusingly, striking his
finger at the table, “I’ve been running in circles all day, and you
simply ask your man and it’s a done deal? Andy’s dead?”

The jazz song playing in the background
reached a crescendo, sax and trumpets blaring with a virtuoso’s
tenacity, easily drowning out the mingled, hushed voices all around
the ’Madimba’. Nicole looked at Ethan with watery eyes and said,
“Andy’s not dead. I believe he is not dead. But we have to know,
don’t we? To keep looking, we have to know.”

Ethan drank a mouthful of the scotch. It made
him flinch, his face sour. He nodded and said flatly:

“True enough. Besides, Owerri was down the
road anyway. When do we leave?”

Nicole shrugged and said, “We can’t leave
tonight, not with the curfew in place. Tomorrow at dawn, at the
earliest.”

“So what does that mean, we’re stuck here for
the night as well?” said Ethan indignantly.

Adu’s mouth widened into a knowing smile,
showing an impressively bright set of teeth before he said:

“There’s a small room with a cot on the top
floor were you can spend the night. A guesthouse, if you like.
Besides, the curfew isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be if you’re
white and willing to spend money.”