The Lucifer Network (3 page)

‘Somebody after you, Harry?' There'd be plenty of candidates.

Jackman feigned a look of wounded innocence.

‘Who is it?'

‘I don't know.'

Sam clicked his tongue. ‘Come on, old son. If we're to get anywhere, you've got to be straighter with me than that.'

‘No, I mean it.' Behind the oval lenses Jackman's eyes were like gob-stoppers. ‘I really don't know, Simon.'

‘Explain.'

Jackman hesitated again. ‘Things . . . things have been going on.'

‘Such as?'

‘People dying.'

‘It happens.'

‘Unnaturally, I mean.'

‘Friends of yours?'

‘Yeah.' Jackman's expression became pained, as if he were really putting himself out. He glanced down at his hands and began picking at his cuticles with a thumbnail. ‘Look. There
is
something in particular – you know, that I want immunity from.' Sam smiled inwardly. Progress. ‘The death I'm talking about was to do with that.' He looked up again, his eyes wanting sympathy. ‘It's a deal I wish I'd never got involved with, to be honest. And it's something you boys really ought to know about.'

‘Perhaps we do already. Tell me.'

‘I'd like to. And I will. But only after I have it in writing that I'm being granted immunity.' He bunched his fists and rested them on the table.

Packer let out a long sigh. For a moment he'd thought a breakthrough was in sight. ‘You know what you have to do, Harry. In black and white up front, so they know what's involved.'

The sweaty red brow crinkled with concern. ‘You're asking me to put my head on the block. I can't do that.' He glanced towards the door again then leaned forward. ‘Look . . . That bloke who died was a partner of mine in Jo'burg. Involved in the deal I'm talking about.'

‘Tell me about it.'

Jackman leaned even closer, his voice less than a whisper. ‘They'd sawn his effing head off, Simon.' The fear in the eyes looked convincing. Jackman thought he was next. ‘For God's sake let's settle things with HMG, so I can tell you about it.'

‘
If
they can be settled . . .'

‘Oh they will be, Simon,' Jackman bristled, winding back, angry at being played with. ‘You see, there's other letters ready to be sent. To the media and to people
I'm close to. A whole bunch. All sealed up. Envelopes addressed. Left with someone I trust in case something happens to me.' He thumped a fist on the table. ‘And next time they won't go to one of your bloody lapdogs.'

They finished their food in silence, heads down like weary bulls. When he'd done, Jackman puffed out his cheeks.

‘You know, I'm beginning to think they've sent the wrong man.'

‘Why's that?'

‘I need to talk with someone who'll take me seriously.'

‘Oh I'm taking you
very
seriously Harry. Be in no doubt about that. But you haven't understood what's possible and what isn't as far as HMG is concerned.'

Jackman seemed not to hear. He hovered like an angler pondering how much bait to lay down before the fish could be hooked.

‘This deal I'm talking about . . .' He was whispering again. ‘I'll tell you this much. It involved the shipment of something pretty nasty. And I think it was heading for the Islamics.'

The mention of the ‘I' word triggered alarm bells for Sam. It was less than three weeks since the car bombings of the US Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

‘What do you mean
think
?'

‘Because I don't know for sure.'

‘What sort of nasty stuff? Weapons? Biological? Nuclear?'

Jackman shook his head. He'd achieved his aim. Didn't need to say more. The man was like a streetwalker, flashing her interesting bits then hiding them again.

‘You say you want to move back to England,' Sam growled. ‘Why not Venezuela or Monaco? Someplace where they won't give a shit what you've done in the past.'

‘Personal reasons.'

‘You're not telling me you want to get back with your wife?' Sam prodded.

‘Which one? I've had three. And no, I'm not planning anything like that. Just take it that I want to return to my own country.'

Sam told himself to cool it. Letting the man rile him wasn't going to help. ‘Tell me about your ex-wife and daughter. The ones in Ipswich.'

‘Your file's out of date. It's Woodbridge. I bought them a place by the river a couple of years back. The estate where they'd been living was going downhill. Anyway, what about them?'

‘You've kept in touch?'

‘Stayed friends with all my exes. And Julie – my daughter – she's just great. You married? Kids?'

‘No.'

‘I was twenty-one when I met Maeve. Shacked up with her because it was the thing to do in 1970.A nurse. Irish, but with the morals of a Dane. Birth pills in her handbag instead of a rosary. But careless with it. She got pregnant. I agreed to marry her, stupid kid that I was. She was wrong for me. Too placid. And, you know, when it came to the business, the sex stuff – it was something she felt she had to do because everyone else was. Not because she got any pleasure out of it. You know the sort.'

Happily for Sam he didn't.

‘So I left her after a couple of years,' Jackman continued, ‘and came out here. Went back from time to time. Not very often.' He paused. ‘Little Julie never knew who I was when she was tiny.'

‘Do they know what you do for a living?'

Jackman squirmed slightly. ‘No. It isn't always wise being truthful in relationships, don't you find?'

Sam ignored his question. ‘So you started off selling black market chemicals. How did you get into guns?'

‘Somebody asked me if I could get them some. One of Mandela's boys.'

‘And . . .?'

‘And I discovered how easy it was. AK47s could be prised from the Zambian army like peas from a pod. This country's packed with people wanting to earn a dishonest penny.'

‘And it never concerned you what the guns might be used for?'

Jackman raised a cynical eyebrow. ‘Don't come the naïve kid with me, Simon. I was filling a hole in the market. If it hadn't been me, it'd have been someone else.'

The old excuse. They all used it.

‘And this other deal. The one you'll only tell us about if you get immunity – was that
filling a hole
too?'

Jackman fixed him with a steady eye. He selected a toothpick from the holder in the middle of the table and removed some beef fibres from between two molars.

‘It was supplying somebody with something that was damned hard to get,' he said enigmatically. ‘Something they wanted very bad.' Then he leaned forward. ‘I'll tell you something else. The shipping arrangements were real high security. Never done anything quite like it before. The warehouse I fixed up – it was like
Ali
Baba,
Simon. Like bloody Ali Baba.'

An odd image, thought Sam. ‘Meaning?'

‘Meaning that you and I have to do a deal, Simon.' The eyes were playing with him again. ‘So I can tell you about it.'

Sam felt his patience going. He had a sudden urge to deprive Jackman of sleep and food for a few days.

‘For God's sake, let's do a deal, man,' Jackman pleaded
melodramatically. ‘For the sake of the civilised world, if not for you and me.'

Packer narrowed his eyes. What sort of line was he being spun? Fact, fiction – did Jackman even know the difference?

‘Look,' he snapped. ‘The bottom line is this. You simply cannot expect the British government to give you immunity from prosecution without knowing what crimes you're talking about. Suppose some African nation were to charge you with genocide. There's no way HMG would protect you from that.'

Jackman pulled himself up straight. He twisted his head to one side and studied Sam out of the corner of his eye as if seeing whether a different perspective would show him the way forward.

‘Have another drink,' he suggested unoriginally. ‘Something a little stronger? They've got good single malts here.'

Sam would willingly have seen off most of a bottle.

‘No.'

Jackman clasped his hands. ‘Okay. Let's get back to basics. HMG needs my silence. I need a
laissez-passer
from HMG. There's two people who can sort this out. You and me.'

‘I've been trying my best, Harry.'

Jackman nodded. For a delirious moment Sam thought he was about to concede something meaningful.

‘We
can
reach a compromise, you know,' Jackman assured him. ‘I mean it
is
why you've come here, Simon. To do a deal.'

‘It's your move, Harry. It really is.'

Jackman pushed the spectacles up his nose and stroked his chin. The cockiness had gone from his eyes, replaced by an expression Sam couldn't quite define.

‘Well . . . if you won't have a night-cap here, what
about one back at my place,' Jackman suggested. ‘The house rattles a bit. My last girlfriend left me a couple of months ago. Went back to the Cape.'

Loneliness. That's what his eyes were showing, Sam realised. Jackman was lonely. Giving up on Africa because Africa had given up on him. He'd found a chink in the man's armour. Big enough to stick a screwdriver in for now. Soon it'd be a chisel, then a whole DIY workbench.

‘All right. I'll have a quick one with you,' Sam conceded.

Jackman called for the bill and paid it. They made small talk about the upcoming Springboks' tour and England's chances for the coming season. Then they walked out to the car park. Seeing Jackman appear, the army officer in the Land Rover shook his soldiers awake.

‘You'll follow me in your car?' Jackman checked.

‘Be right behind you.'

Sam kept half an eye on Jackman as they each moved to their own vehicle. He heard the Land Rover engine rattle into life, then as he unlocked the door of the Toyota the Zambian officer crossed to Jackman's Mercedes to talk to him. The two men's palms touched. Payoff time.

The Mercedes was first onto the road back to Kitwe, followed by the army patrol, a nearly full moon turning the palm trees by the gate into ghostly sentries. Out on the road the three vehicles settled into a steady run towards the outskirts of town. Sam's spirits had lifted. He felt absurdly confident all of a sudden. A few more hours and Jackman would be eating from the palm of his hand.

Five minutes into the journey, the Land Rover's brake lights flickered and the vehicle lurched over to the side of the road. Sam overtook, expecting it to fall in behind like a tail gunner, but when he looked in the mirror the lights had been doused. His antennae twitched.

When the tail lights of Jackman's Mercedes also disappeared he began to feel distinctly uneasy, but then they reappeared as he rounded a bend. He accelerated to close the gap. Suddenly, further ahead, there were other lights in the road. A red lamp being swung. A road block. Army or police. The Merc's brake lights blazed and Sam also touched the pedal, telling himself there was no need for alarm. Random traffic checks were normal on Zambian roads. Part of the government's anti-crime programme. The fact that the men involved used them to extort ‘fines' from guiltless car drivers was just an inconvenient fact of life. He fingered his wallet for a suitable note.

As the two vehicles approached the checkpoint in tandem, Sam braked harder. Suddenly a man in fatigues sprinted forward, shouting at him to stop short of the other car and to switch off his lights. An icy chill came over him – the soldier wore a black cloth hood with holes for eyes and mouth. This was no ordinary road block.

Jackman's car had stopped twenty yards in front of his. A spotlamp on the roof of an army truck lit up its pale cream paint. Sam's window was half open. The soldier who'd stopped him rested his rifle barrel on the top of the glass. A strong body odour wafted in, leavened by eucalyptus from the roadside trees.

His unease growing by the second, Sam watched Jackman being dragged from his car, a gun at his chest. The old expat still seemed unconcerned, extracting a wad of banknotes from a hip pocket. Sam told himself they'd be okay. A robbery on a larger scale than usual perhaps, but if they stayed cool and let the men have what they wanted . . .

Then a shot rang out, echoing through the trees like the sound of splitting timber. Jackman buckled and fell.

‘Shit . . .' Sam grabbed at the door handle to open it, but felt the cold of the gun press against his temple.

A second shot had Sam thinking his own brains had been blasted. But it was Jackman again. Spread-eagled on the tarmac, a vivid red bubbled from his chest. Then the spotlight turned on Sam, blinding him.

His throat tightened. He couldn't speak or breathe. Any moment now they'd do the same to him. There'd been times before when he'd faced death, and he knew there was no way to manage it. No way to control that cringing feel as you waited for the hit.

Two more shots, each sending shocks through his body, but not touching him. He heard air hiss from a tyre. There was a shout of impatience and the lorry started up. Two engines revving, the truck and the Mercedes. The light shining in his eyes wobbled and went out. Then with a crash of gears the two vehicles accelerated away.

Silence again. And darkness. Just the eucalyptus smell. Overpowering. Like a stench. Sam clicked his headlamps back on, banged open the door and ran forward.

‘Harry . . .' he breathed, crouching over him. Jackman lay in a thickening pool of blood. No response. The striped cotton had two small holes in the middle of the chest, but Jackman's life was leaking from the craters in his back.

The ashen face twitched suddenly. ‘Simon . . .' More of a breath than a voice.

Packer leaned forward.

‘Yes. Help's coming.'

‘Merc . . .' Jackman croaked.