The African Contract (2 page)

Monrovia, Liberia—August 6, 2002

The American Embassy's security floodlights cut through the blackness and illuminated the low waves rolling in from the Atlantic Ocean. A muggy wind blew drizzle from the west. Hayden Stone sat with the embassy's security chief, Al Goodman, on the covered deck of the guesthouse after a mediocre dinner at one of the two restaurants still open in Monrovia. The mildew-spotted seat of his chair felt clammy, and he brushed rust off his arm from the metal armrest. Everything in the city appeared damp, old, and murky, like the hulking black rock on which the embassy sat.

From his left, beyond the embassy compound, came a long cry that resembled a wounded animal. The wail accompanied a rhythmic banging on a skin drum that began only minutes after they settled down with cold gin and tonics.

“They're lighting candles on the beach over there,” Goodman said. “Mende people praying to a spirit of some kind.” He leaned forward, listening hard. “Kélèn drums.”

Stone took in the sounds of the rain and the beat of the drums. “The sounds of West Africa,” he said. “At night in Ghana, I've been to large gatherings on the beach outside Accra. Drums, bonfires, dances.”

“The locals here say it's a way to talk with restless souls. Understandable with all the human carnage this place has seen recently.” Goodman sipped his drink. “That beach over there is where former president Doe and his clique were executed by the incoming government.”

They were silent for some minutes.

“How long have you been in Liberia?” Stone asked.

Goodman, the embassy's RSO, regional security officer, tilted back in his chair and jiggled the ice in his glass. His eyeglasses sat on his forehead, touching his thin black hair. “Been here for over a year, but this is my third tour. First time I came here, the place was alive. American Firestone Rubber Company had a huge presence outside the city. Voice of America was here. Missionaries traveled back and forth from the interior.” He sipped his drink. “Of course, many of you agency folks were about.”

“Quite a change.”

Goodman chuckled. “Embassy people would drive to Payneville to see the Omega communication tower. Fourteen hundred feet high. Badge of honor if you climbed it.”

“Did you?”

“You bet I did.”

“See any hope for a rebound here?”

“The country's still in shock from the civil war. The leader of the new government is …” Goodman looked around as if someone might hear him, and gave a dismissive hand gesture.

They stayed quiet for a time, listening to the wails. Two or more drums joined in. The waves pounded as they grew higher, and the lights now brought out traces of transparent green in the gray water. Stone took in the smells of Africa he had forgotten since his last visit—the scent of vegetation breathing at night, smoke from the cooking oils throughout the city, the heavy warmth. He always found it difficult to relax on this continent, but at the same time, it exerted a strong fascination.

Goodman rose from his chair. “Time to go to the airport. Have to meet and greet a visitor on the evening flight in from Paris. It's always a challenge driving here at night. No city electricity. No traffic lights.” He tossed the rest of his drink out onto the rocky ground. “Tomorrow, let's try to get in a game of tennis.”

“Maybe in the afternoon, when I get back from my appointment.”

Stone watched the man descend the two cement block steps from the porch and carefully make his way on the overgrown path to his quarters. Raindrops slipped through the muggy air. Monsoon time.

Goodman appeared to be a decent man, an old Africa hand, but Stone hadn't known him long enough to place him in a friend or foe camp. An undercurrent of animosity existed between foreign service people like Goodman and the CIA, and Stone faced the added problem that many RSOs disliked the FBI. He wondered if Goodman knew he was a former FBI agent now working for the agency.

The embassy assigned Stone a unit in a four-bedroom complex facing the ocean. On entering, he found the room dark and had trouble finding the light switch on the table lamp. The air smelled musty, and he detected another scent he hadn't noticed that afternoon when he had brought in his luggage. A thick, sour ammonia odor.

He undressed, placed his Colt .45 semiautomatic on the nightstand, brushed his teeth, and slipped between the sheets. One benefit of staying in embassy housing in Liberia was the freshly washed and ironed bed linens every night. Still, the cloth felt sticky to the skin.

Overhead, two geckos made their way across the cracked ceiling. He watched their progress in and out of the shadows from the lamplight and hoped they'd dine on the mosquitoes before the insects had a chance to feast on him. The medical unit back at Langley had given him mefloquine tablets, but they were only malaria suppressants, not full protection against the disease. The only things they guaranteed, Stone learned, were weird Technicolor dreams.

He flipped through the book on African birdlife he found in the embassy library, and after occasionally pausing where particularly colorful birds appeared, he became drowsy and dropped the book next to his gun. Yawning, he closed his eyes and debated whether he should turn out the light. Sleep came before making a decision.

A noise woke him. The straight back chair by the door to the toilet had scraped along the floor. Stone remained still. He could see only the top of the chair, where he had draped his trousers. He heard a swish along the floor. The sound approached the end of his bed. As his hand moved for his gun on the side table, the head of a thick, black snake with large scales rose from the foot of his bed. It continued to rise higher and higher.

Stone yanked his feet under him and hugged the headboard. He held the pillow in front of him. His left hand touched his gun, but it and the book tumbled to the floor. Startled, the snake slinked onto his bed and quickly coiled.

“Holy shit!” He jumped out of bed, dashing for the far wall. Once there, he inched toward the door.

The full length of the snake came into view. At least nine feet long, the creature became aggressive. Poised at the edge of the mattress and with open mouth, it hissed loudly. Stone saw that it was about to slide onto the floor in his direction. He ran to the chair and held it out as a shield against the snake.

“Help! For Christ's sake! Help! I got a big-ass snake here!”

The snake dropped to the floor and slithered toward him. Stone looked into the snake's black irises as the head swayed back and forth. It coiled and struck the chair with quick, short strikes, almost knocking it out of Stone's hands. The strength of the creature surprised him. Stone made for the door, but the snake blocked his escape. Striking again, the trousers dropped off the chair, which confused the snake.

“Unlock the door!” a voice shouted from outside.

“Can't get to it!”

The snake showed a fearless display of aggression. Mouth wide, it rose and made a quick nip at Stone's bare legs. Its head touched Stone's calf, but there was no sting, no bite.

The door banged open. The snake backed up, shifted its gaze, and hissed at the figure standing in the doorway.

A familiar woman's voice spoke. “Damn thing's too fast to shoot.”

Stone leaped toward the door, eyes on the snake. Another voice, Goodman's, ordered, “Get out. Fast!”

As Stone exited, a marine security guard brushed past and leveled a short-barreled Remington 870 shotgun at the snake. “Request permission to shoot, sir.”

“Permission granted,” Goodman barked. “Blow it away.”

The lance corporal fired and missed, racked the gun, but before he could fire again the snake disappeared into a ventilation shaft in the wall. The blast from the shotgun had gone through the bathroom door. One of the pellets burst a water pipe.

“Well, Hayden, I see you still manage to find ways to get yourself in harm's way.”

Stone turned and recognized CIA officer Sandra Harrington. As usual she looked stylish, in tight khaki shirt and shorts. Barefoot, she had her blonde hair tied back in a ponytail and held a Glock automatic by her side in her left hand.

“Here on holiday?” he asked. So,
she
was the visitor who flew in from Paris.

Her eyes traveled over his body. “Just taking in the sights.”

Stone forgot he was naked. He retrieved his trousers from the floor and slipped them on. Local embassy workers arrived, and Goodman gave orders to clean up the room and repair the water leak. The men crept into the room, their eyes on the opening in the wall where the snake was last seen.

Goodman tapped Stone on the shoulder. “That, my friend, is a black mamba. One of the deadliest snakes in Africa. Don't know how it got in here, but the locals do call this place Mamba Point.”

“Great.” Stone turned to Sandra. “So the boss sent you down from Paris to babysit me.”

Before she could respond, Goodman said, “Think we'll move you to the embassy quarters across from the main gate. Ms. Harrington, maybe you should move too.”

“The name's Sandra. I don't relish sleeping with a snake in the ventilation system, even though the noted writer Graham Greene slept here.” She bent over and picked up Stone's Colt from the floor, sauntered over, and gave him a hug. “Besides, I should stay close to my colleague and keep him out of trouble.”

“Welcome to the land of WAWA,” Goodman said.

“What?” Sandra frowned.

Stone tried a smile. “An old saying hereabouts. West Africa wins again.”

Monrovia, Liberia—August 7, 2002

The phone's hollow ring brought Stone out of a hazy sleep. He reached for the receiver, scanning the floor for any unwelcome visitors. After the incident with the black mamba the night before, he had made a thorough check of his new room in the quarters directly across from the embassy. It took time before he allowed himself to close his eyes.

Over the crackling phone line, Sandra Harrington said she was having breakfast at the embassy cafeteria and wanted to know if he was interested in joining her. “Al Goodman will try to be there. After he's handled some employee problem.”

Stone agreed, and before replacing the handset, he examined the phone. At least twenty years old, the beige instrument appeared and smelled clean like the rest of the room. He sanitary-wiped it anyway. The room contained the bare necessities: bed, table, a straight back chair evidently borrowed from an embassy office, a shower, and toilet. Over the washbasin, a mirror hung by picture wire. A crack, apparently not recent, ran diagonally right to left. Inserted through the outside wall, an air-conditioning unit hummed, blowing in wet, cool air.

The second-floor window overlooked the backyards of two houses beyond the walls of the embassy compound. The one on the left side balanced a remnant of a corrugated metal roof over its burnt-out shell. The other, directly across, was a three-story Victorian showing a fresh coat of chalky paint. Someone had planted corn in the area between the houses, and banana trees hugged the trunks of immense banyans.

Stone traced his finger along the windowpane and made a line in the condensation with his fingernail. What a difference this world was from the French Riviera. Less than three months ago he had been relaxing in a village along the sea. He had completed a successful assignment for the CIA and now intended to enjoy the Mediterranean ambience. As he sat in his garden, his boss, Colonel Gustave Frederick, phoned and asked if he'd accept an assignment to Africa. He agreed, realizing the trip meant trouble, but that, along with a nice fee, was part of the enticement.

While he waited for his orders, he spent time in Paris visiting Sandra, who was assigned to the CIA station there. He also met with his old FBI colleagues at the American Embassy in Paris, then flew to Los Angeles to visit his two children attending college.

The call from Colonel Gustave Frederick came while tending his vegetable garden in McLean, Virginia. The garden had lain untended since his divorce. Three days later, he was on a plane heading for Monrovia.

He wiped the moisture from his finger. After this last, easy assignment he'd retire for good. Open that café on the beach in Southern California.

Stone found Sandra in the empty cafeteria sipping hot black coffee. She wore a sleeveless blouse and jeans. Over the cup, she eyed him, a twinkle in her green eyes. “I see you're properly dressed this morning.”

“Long sleeves and long pants keep the bugs off. Along with prying eyes. What's good on the menu?”

“Fresh fruit and fresh-baked bread.”

“Your recommendations are always dependable. I'll have the same. And coffee.” Stone gave his order to a short woman who had come from the kitchen. Head drooped, with worried eyes, the woman shuffled away. He saw Sandra studying him. “Bad morning for her?”

“Every day's a bad day for these people,” Sandra said. “The ethnic warfare has taken its toll.”

Stone knew Sandra as a cool CIA professional. His boss, Colonel Frederick, had done him a favor sending her down from Paris to assist him. They had worked well together on the anti-terrorist operation three months before in the South of France. He had saved her life in Marseille; she had saved him from the CIA bureaucrats. They were a good team.

Al Goodman entered the cafeteria from the patio area. The sound of the surf followed him in and faded as the door closed. He came to their table, slumped into a chair, and shouted for coffee and a roll. “Awful day already. The roving security patrol found one of our employees dead behind the garage. The doc believes it was snake bite.”

“Seems snakes are a problem around here,” Stone said.

From the kitchen, the server carried a tray that rattled with the breakfast servings and coffee cups. She placed each item in front of them and gave Goodman a long stare as she trudged back.

“The man who died was her cousin,” Goodman said, watching her leave. “He just started work at the embassy last week.”

The three picked at their food.

“During the last upheaval, we had thousands of refugees next door on the Greystone compound for over a month,” Goodman said. “Little food, little water. All the wildlife disappeared.”

“Odd that snakes have returned all of a sudden,” Stone said.

Goodman broke his roll in half. “Before he left to go up-country, the COS told me to tell you to stay alert.”

A morning meeting with the COS, as the CIA chief of station was known, had been scheduled to discuss Stone's meeting with Jacob, an Israeli Mossad agent. Colonel Frederick had instructed him to contact Jacob, who had some important information to pass on to American intelligence.

“What are your thoughts about your man's death?” Stone asked.

“The doc says the symptoms matched a bite from a black mamba. His initial diagnosis is death from suffocation resulting from paralysis of the respiratory system. Death would have taken about fifteen minutes.”

Sandra shivered. “Guess if you're going to handle one of those nasties, you'd better know what you're doing.”

Stone found the coffee bitter and thick. Too much and the veins in his head would throb, but a couple of good swallows would get his reasoning in gear. “I'd wager your dead man was bitten by the same snake that paid a visit to my room.”

Goodman shrugged in agreement. “The COS said to help you with your meet today. I suppose this is all necessary?”

Stone realized Goodman hadn't been let in on all the details of the meet and was miffed. This was his turf, and he had the right to know what was happening. If Stone got himself killed, he as the security officer would be held responsible. He decided to feed him just enough information to settle him down.

“I'm meeting a guy named Jacob who's an Israeli who deals in diamonds. Travels throughout West Africa from Amsterdam and Tel Aviv. He works for Mossad, but I don't know if he's staff officer or a ‘
sayan
.' In other words, he helps out when Israeli intelligence needs him.”

“The COS told me that.”

“He wanted to meet me.” Stone paused. “I knew him years ago when I worked in New York City as an FBI agent. This all has something to do with your neighbor next door. Sierra Leone.”

“Is Jacob his real name?”

“Probably not,” Stone said.

“Trust him?”

“No.”

“Why would someone here want to kill you?”

“The snake?”

“It was a message. Obviously, someone doesn't want you to meet your Jacob.”

“I agree. But who, I don't know.”

“So, you're FBI?”

“Retired. Now I'm with the agency.” Stone folded his arms. “You don't like the bureau?”

Goodman looked at Sandra, then back to Stone. “My brother-in-law's an FBI agent. He thinks he's a hot shit.”

Stone stayed low in the backseat of the armored Suburban SUV while Goodman drove and Sandra rode shotgun. Four blocks from the embassy compound, the meet, selected by Jacob, was to be in a restaurant. Few people walked the trash-littered streets lining gutted buildings, and Stone expected he and Jacob would be the only patrons.

After two passes around the block, Goodman slowed as they approached the back door of the restaurant and said to Stone, “Check your radio.”

Stone keyed his device by depressing the send button. The signal crackled over the car's radio.

“Listen, and don't tell anybody I told you this.” Goodman looked at him in the rearview mirror. “If you have to use your gun, don't hesitate. Life's cheap here and yours is cheaper.”

Sandra turned around. “We'll be close. Yell if you need help.” As the SUV came to a halt, she said, “Out now! Don't stay longer than necessary.”

Stone leaped from the car, took three long strides to the door, found it unlocked, and slipped into restaurant and darkness. As he closed the door behind him, he heard the SUV drive off. He slipped the safety off his semiautomatic and inched across the room toward leaking light from behind a door hanging from one hinge.

Footsteps shuffled from the other side, and the door opened slowly. A black man in an ironed white shirt, age forty to sixty with graying hair and red-veined eyes, motioned for him to enter. Dust hung in the air. Even in peaceful days the restaurant couldn't accommodate more than ten customers. The man pointed to a solitary figure across the room wearing a khaki safari jacket, sitting with his back to the wall.

Jacob looked hard at Stone, then shot a glance out the dirty window toward the street.

“You came alone.” Jacob said, not so much a question than a statement.

“No.”

Jacob looked older than the last time Stone had seen him. Thinner, and with a sallow complexion. Stone figured that during Jacob's travels in Africa he had caught a dose of malaria, or maybe dengue fever. Nevertheless, he still broadcasted a defiant look.

He pushed out a wooden chair with his foot. “Have a seat.”

“You look good, Jacob.” Stone didn't bother to offer a handshake, knowing it wouldn't be returned.

“Cut the bullshit. You have any idea why I wanted to talk with you?”

Stone considered giving him a New York City smart-ass response, but instead answered straight. “My boss said to come here and find out.”

“I believe you.” Jacob hunched his shoulders and waved to the old man standing by the counter. “A Club beer for my friend.”

“It's a bit early for me. I usually wait 'till five. I'll have a glass of water.” Stone tried to sense whether Jacob believed he didn't know the reason behind the meet. Knowing this old operative, Stone withheld judgment for the time being.

“They refill plastic water bottles from the town sewer. Hold them up to the light and you can see the bacteria swimming. Beer's the only safe drink in town.”

Stone nodded. When the Club beer came, he told the old man to forget the glass. He'd drink from the bottle. “So, what's up?”

“Before we start, who do you work for? I heard you retired.”

“I was at home gardening when a friend called. He asked me to take a short trip for him and write a travel story.” Stone smiled. “I understand you're here dealing in diamonds.”

Jacob's face, his whole countenance, remained motionless. As if on cue, a slight smile appeared. “Diamonds. Yes, I understand you may need one for an engagement ring.” He gave his head a little shake. “Since your recent divorce and, of course, your friendship with that contessa in Villefranche.”

Stone took a long swig of beer, smiled, and took another swallow. The bastard was good. Jacob's people had made some serious inquiries about him and learned about his marital status—a train wreck—and about his dalliance three months ago with Contessa Lucinda Avoscani. Mossad and Jacob may or may not know about Stone's involvement in the deaths of a number of terrorists along the Côte d'Azur. Chances were they did.

Stone asked, “Why are we here?”

“You're here because the last time I had dealings with your new masters, I met with an unfortunate circumstance.” He turned his head and brushed back his hair. Most of his right ear was missing. “With your veterans assigned to Afghanistan, you have some very inexperienced officers working the backwater countries. Mistakes are not forgiven in this region.”

Stone stared at the ear and knew Jacob had reason to be pissed at the CIA. He would be, but was Jacob's tradecraft up to snuff? Had he let his guard down?

Remembering Sandra's words about not lingering, he looked at his watch. “We should get to the point.”

They looked out the window. Birds, black with white blotches on their breasts, waddled on piles of garbage. The gloom from an overcast sky blended with the deteriorating setting.

Jacob spoke. “There are some disturbing rumors. As you know, many people from the Middle East ply this region. For years, they have come, lived here, and traded goods. Some of these people now trade weapons.”

Stone nodded, thinking what he had just heard sounded like some factoid from a news documentary. Anyone who flew on the regional airlines in Africa recognized the Lebanese, Indians, and Israelis sharing the cabin. “And now the jihadists have descended,” Stone offered.

“Yes, but this time, a group is here, not to sell, but to purchase.”

“Buy what?” Stone asked.

Jacob shrugged with his upper body.

“Let's see, my boss advised that you,” Stone pointed, “suggested I travel to Sierra Leone.”

Nodding, eyes closed, Jacob pushed a white index card across the table on which appeared a name, a company, and a telephone number in heavy marker ink. “Memorize,” he ordered.

Stone studied the card, looked away, and mentally repeated the words. Pushing it back, he planned to write the information down in code and slip it somewhere secure.

“He is an Afrikaner. You must see him very soon,” Jacob said. “He is taking a big risk.”

“Understood.” Stone watched the man pull back and again look out the window as if looking for someone.

Pulling the radio partially out of his pocket, Stone keyed the transmitter twice, signaling Goodman and Sandra to pick him up. He rose and made his way to the door.

Without looking, Jacob tossed a good-bye.

In the backseat of the SUV, Stone asked if they had detected anything strange while they waited for him. “Nothing,” Sandra answered, and added, “You didn't waste any time.”