The Second Death of Goodluck Tinubu (53 page)

A chill ran through Tatwa, thinking of the body sinking in the
water with monster scavengers. “Unfortunately Langa was snooping
around and saw us. I had to kill him too.

“In the morning, I wore Zondo’s hat on the boat in case someone
saw us on the river. Dupie wanted people to believe that Zondo had
left, that he was the murderer. It would’ve worked, but Rra
Board-man was up early looking at birds.” He shook his head. “The
ancestors again, you see? Well, he saw through his binoculars that
it was me not Zondo in the boat. He tried to blackmail Dupie.”

“So you had to get rid of him too?” Tatwa said.

“Yes,” said Enoch, finally. “We had to get rid of him too.”

Tatwa had the confession he wanted. The case was solved. Why was
he not elated?

“My ancestors knew I would end up here,” Enoch said. “It is how
my life was to be.”

Enoch put his arms on the table, his head on his arms, and said
no more. Tatwa and the Namibian policeman tried to get more details
but to no avail. Enoch had told his story. He had nothing more to
say.

∨
The Second Death of Goodluck Tinubu
∧

O
n Monday at 8:00
a.m., Mabaku arrived unannounced at the Central Prison and had
Beardy brought to an interview room. He waved away the guards, who
withdrew doubtfully. This was against procedure. Beardy wanted his
lawyer but Mabaku dismissed that with contempt.

“It’s time for us to have a private talk, Mr. Khumalo. You’ve
not been very helpful. Lots of promises, lots of delaying tactics,
no delivery.” Beardy started to protest but Mabaku frowned him to
silence. “Yes, you’ve told us all about the kidnappings. Everything
we already knew. But not what it was all for.” Again Beardy tried
to interrupt and again Mabaku ignored him. “Well, we know now.
Assistant Superintendent Bengu has unorthodox methods, but they
sometimes pay off. You were part of a plot to depose – perhaps
assassinate – the president of Zimbabwe. We don’t yet know all the
details, but we will. This will be very embarrassing for the
Republic of Botswana. It seems that we were also used as a conduit
to finance this attempted coup. We will, of course, cooperate fully
with the Zimbabwean authorities. But we don’t want to look
incompetent. We want to be able to show them that we took every
step to avoid an illegal action against their government.” He
glared at Beardy. “You can help us. If you do, we will recommend
leniency on the kidnapping charges. You’ll want to be in a Botswana
prison for the time being, safe from extradition to Zimbabwe, won’t
you, Mr. Khu-malo?”

Mabaku sat back, folded his arms, and waited. If Beardy called
his bluff, he would have no options left. It all depended on
whether Beardy believed the plot had failed and moved to save
himself, or whether he decided that if he kept silent all might
still be well. Mabaku stared at him without blinking. At last
Beardy dropped his eyes. That was when Mabaku knew he had won.

♦

Mabaku went straight to the commissioner. He was involved in an
important meeting, but Mabaku persuaded his assistant that he had
to see him immediately. A few minutes later he was ushered into a
small meeting room. The commissioner had been talking to the
Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation. The
commissioner introduced Mabaku and invited him to sit. “I think I
know what you are going to tell us, Mabaku. The minister should
hear it directly from you.”

“Thank you, Commissioner,” Mabaku said. Turning to the minister,
he continued, “I have a confession from a certain Mr. John Khumalo,
who is being held in connection with the kidnapping of Assistant
Superintendent Bengu’s sister-in-law. It probably won’t stand up in
court, because I embellished the truth a bit, but the purpose was
to discover what was going on. Before it was too late.”

“And that is?” The minister seemed only mildly interested.

“A plot to overthrow the president of Zimbabwe. A coup is
planned for the period that he is out of Zimbabwe, when he is here
in Botswana for the African Union meeting. What’s more, it was
being financed by monies smuggled from South Africa into Zimbabwe.
Through Botswana.”

The commissioner cut in. “After you spoke to me last night,
Mabaku, I decided that I should apprise the minister of the
possibilities you suggested. He wasn’t as surprised as I expected.
It seems there have been rumors developing over the past few weeks.
We knew nothing. So we said nothing. Now we know something.” He
stopped and looked at the minister expectantly.

The minister rubbed his beard, making a sandpaper noise.
“Director Mabaku, you are aware, I’m sure, that the relations
between ourselves and the current leadership of Zimbabwe are very
strained. Since we rejected the 2008 elections, we have been almost
alone in Southern Africa in opposing the regime there. We had great
difficulty accepting that Zimbabwe’s president will be here for the
African Union meeting, but it was made clear that if we interfered,
the meeting would move elsewhere.” He looked at Mabaku with more
intensity. “What do you think we should do with this information
now, Director Mabaku?”

Mabaku looked back without blinking. “Minister, I’m a policeman
not a politician. I enforce the laws of the country. I have no
doubt that many laws have been broken. Laws of this country and of
another. We are obliged by protocol to inform that other country.
Without delay.”

“Even if that removes the possibility of a different sort of
government taking the reins in an important neighboring
country?”

“Minister, as I said, I’m not a politician. But I haven’t
noticed great democratic progress in countries where governments
came to power in coups or military takeovers. I believe in the rule
of law. The end is desirable, but it can never justify
inappropriate means.”

The minister rose and held out his hand. “Thank you, Director.
I’m glad we have people like you running our police force. We’ll
think about what you’ve told us. In the interim, I trust you will
keep this meeting and everything you have learned today in the
strictest confidence?”

Mabaku gave a stiff nod, shook hands, and left for his office at
Millennium Park.

♦

That afternoon General Joseph Chikosi received a message from a
contact he trusted. The message was short. The general and his key
men had very little time to flee the country. The government would
soon be looking for them. And once it looked, they would not be
hard to find. The general felt obliged to tell Madrid. He, too,
would soon be in serious danger. Chikosi didn’t really care about
that, but he had his honor. However, Madrid was nowhere to be
found. It seemed Madrid’s spies were even better than those of the
leader of the coup.

That evening the government of Zimbabwe announced that due to
pressing business, the president would not, after all, attend the
African Union meeting. A deputy with full rights to speak on behalf
of the government would stand in for him. This came with a very
gracious apology to the government of Botswana. It seemed relations
were on the mend.

♦

The evening before, a charter flight left Zimbabwe headed for
Argentina. None of the passengers went through customs or
immigration formalities. The plane’s cargo was in sealed boxes that
also were not inspected. One of the men was a short and swarthy
European. He spoke in Spanish to the pilot, who nodded without
surprise. The flight plan had just changed, but Zimbabwe air
traffic control would not be informed.

Madrid settled himself into an aisle seat. He started to relax.
He had played double or quits with Joseph Chikosi and had lost.
Shoving some U.S. dollar bills into his wallet, he came across a
remaining 1,000,000 Zimbabwe dollar note, a souvenir. Madrid
laughed, partly at the size of the note – worth less than 10 U.S.
cents on the black market – and partly because he had offered it in
answer to Johannes’s question about how much he would spend to
spring the bearded idiot from a Botswanan jail.

He signaled for a beer. He was philosophical about the Zimbabwe
project. Madrid was leaving empty-handed, but there would be
another country, another opportunity. There always was.

The plane started to taxi to the runway, and he checked his
watch. It was 6:30 a.m. Good. He had told his Zimbabwean contacts
he would leave early the next morning. He fully expected the
airport to be full of soldiers by then. They had skins to save
too.

The plane took off and headed west over Zambia and Angola, then
out over the ocean. As Madrid sipped an ice-cold beer, the huge
ball of the setting sun spread blood over the African Atlantic.

∨
The Second Death of Goodluck Tinubu
∧

A
s soon as he came in
the next morning, Kubu tossed his briefcase onto his desk and
barged passed Miriam into Director Mabaku’s office. Warily, Mabaku
looked up from his desk. “You made Beardy talk, didn’t you?” Kubu
threw himself into a chair, which creaked ominously.

“Yes, Kubu, you were right.”

“But they knew already, didn’t they?” said Kubu shrewdly.
“That’s why I heard nothing from you. They were just keeping a low
profile hoping it would all work out.”

Mabaku was puzzled. “Who knew?”

“The commissioner! The minister! The great Republic of Botswana!
We were in on it, weren’t we? More what the world expects from the
CIA than from the Republic of Botswana.”

“Kubu, this is nonsense. I’m sure the commissioner knew nothing
about the coup. I’m not saying no one knew what was going on in
Zimbabwe. It all seemed rather neat, didn’t it?”

“And my family was attacked because the politicians decided to
dabble in the affairs of another country!”

Mabaku was getting irritated. This was an issue that should be
left well alone. “You may recall that you were the one who got
Madrid onto your family. That had nothing to do with any high-ups.
I was furious with you at the time, and I was right.”

Kubu had to accept the justice of this.

Mabaku spread his hands on the desk in a conciliatory gesture.
“We didn’t engineer this. That’s for certain. You think they’d pick
someone like Goodluck Tinubu to courier more than half a million
dollars from South Africa? Hardly. I’m sure no one in the
government even knew about him, otherwise I’d have had a lot more
heat when they discovered he was dead.”

Kubu had another thought. “Maybe it was the South Africans? That
would explain their shadowing of Tinubu without letting you know.
Maybe the money was raised by powerful people ready to support the
coup. Maybe the money started life as South African rands before it
morphed into U.S. dollars.”

Mabaku shrugged. “The South African government always seemed
pretty hands-off about Zimbabwe. Rich, well-connected individuals
putting up the money to further their own agendas? Well, that’s
certainly possible.”

Kubu wriggled in the chair, causing more creaking protests. “A
good man, a citizen of Botswana, was murdered for that money. Money
for an illegal plot. And we turned blind eyes to it.”

Mabaku shook his head. “It won’t stand up, Kubu. Goodluck knew
what he was doing, and he must’ve realized the risks. What happened
was the result of a confluence of circumstances.”

“So Goodluck’s life was wasted twice.”

“Well, I had a call from the commissioner this morning. It seems
a pretty clear message got through to the president of Zimbabwe. We
may see some changes there in the future.”

Kubu thought for a moment. “Perhaps,” he said.

Mabaku spotted the hesitation, the waning of steam, and slyly
moved the subject to the Jackalberry case. “Tatwa’s very pleased
with himself. Getting that confession from Kokorwe really tied up
the case. He’s done a good job. Impressive. Of course, you were the
brains behind it. When you decided to use them.”

“It was a joint effort. Tatwa’s a good detective. He’s got
brains too. He’s learned a lot from this case.”

“What was the final story of the murders? I’ve got Tatwa’s
report, but I haven’t had a chance to read the details yet.”

Kubu thought for a moment to get the pieces of the story in the
right order.

“Well, it was pretty much the way we’d worked it out already.
Salome thought Goodluck was one of the group who’d attacked her and
murdered her family, so Dupie snooped around in his tent. Dupie was
intrigued by the briefcase, which looked out of place with the old
suitcase and cheap clothing Goodluck had with him, but it was
locked. So Dupie got Enoch to filch Goodluck’s keys and investigate
at dinnertime. That nearly went wrong, because Goodluck realized
almost at once that the keys were missing and made a hell of a
fuss. But they pretended he’d dropped them at the buffet.

“Enoch had an amazing story to tell Dupie: The briefcase was
full of one hundred dollar U.S. bills. From there greed and revenge
egged each other on. The plan was to murder Goodluck late that
night, strip his body, and dump it in the river. The crocodiles
would take care of the rest. Dupie would pretend to take Goodluck
to the airstrip early the next morning, giving a family emergency
as the reason. So there’d be no murder in evidence at all.
Obviously people would look for Goodluck, but the people who were
expecting the dollars would put two and two together and get five:
that Goodluck had taken off with their money. Dupie and Enoch
might’ve got away with that.

“But the plan went wrong, because when they’d killed Goodluck,
they found he no longer had the money. He’d passed it on to someone
else. I think this is why Goodluck was found on the floor. They
were about to drag him to the river and throw him to the crocs when
they realized the money was missing.

“So Enoch and Dupie had two problems. First, who had the money,
and second, how to deal with killing two people. No one would buy a
double family emergency that forced two completely independent
people to leave the camp early and then disappear.