Authors: Philip Caputo
“Greed, believing in something too deeply, but in the end . . . there is something missing in him. He lacks a moral imagination when it comes to himself. He’s so certain of his inner virtue that he believes anything he does, even something this terrible, is the right thing. Am I making myself clear? The man cannot imagine himself doing anything wrong. It’s a blindness. He can’t see his own demons because he doesn’t think they exist, and so he’s fallen prey to them.”
“I don’t think he knows how to love,” she said. “People who can’t love are capable of most anything.”
“People have been known to do terrible things for love,” he said. “To kill for it.”
“That isn’t love. It’s obsession.”
She gave him a searching look and asked if he would like to stay to dinner. Of course he would. He was not to take that as an invitation to anything more. He would not. She went into the kitchen to give instructions to the cook and returned with two scotches.
“What are you going to do, then?” she asked.
“I am going to see Adid.”
“Adid? What can he possibly do?”
“We’ll see. I think he can . . .” He paused as the servant made another of his infiltrations, picked up the tray with the tea things, and drifted out. “I think he can help me to stop the voices.”
“I’m afraid I don’t understand you.”
“I prefer to keep it to myself for now. He is in Tsavo at the moment, at the Tsavo West safari lodge. Some Chinese firm has got a contract to improve the highway between the park and Mombasa. Hassan is involved in the project—he’s meeting with the Chinese and the minister of tourism down there. I’m going to see him tomorrow.”
“How are you getting there?”
“I’ve hired a car. A damned long drive, but cheaper than chartering a plane.”
“I could loan you my Land Rover and the driver. That would make it cheaper still. On condition though—that I go with you.”
This was startling. He wasn’t sure what to make of it.
“I would like to be part of whatever it is you’re going to do,” she said “For Tara’s sake.”
“This has to be between me and Hassan alone.”
“I understand that. I would be happy to hang about the pool or whatever till you’re done.” She paused to set her drink down with a firm tap, then came to the sofa and stood over him. “Damn you, I love seeing you again, in spite of myself.” She flipped her hair, bent down, and gave him a brief kiss. “I want to go for my sake, too.”
God and the Devil
I
N WESTERN
T
SAVO
, in the shadow of the Chyulu hills, lie vast lava beds that in the supremacy of their ugliness attain a kind of beauty: lakes and fjords of black igneous rock, overlooked by flinty ridges in which a few trees or shrubs have taken root, spread over hundreds of acres. The eruption that created this lava landscape occurred a mere two hundred years ago, but the Taita people who inhabited the region experienced the awe and suffered the terrors that mankind’s primitive ancestors did when the world was in its boisterous, violent adolescence: an entire mountain exploding, the molten guts of the earth rushing in torrents to incinerate villages, farms, livestock, wild beasts, and human beings, and then, as the blazing rivers cooled and congealed, to entomb the victims under tons of rock edged as sharp as arrows. The survivors, touched by the hand that makes the earth tremble and the hills to breathe fire, gave a Swahili name to this place, and it persists among their descendants:
Shetani,
which is derived from
Al-Shaitan,
the Arabic mother of the English word
Satan.
This was Fitzhugh’s destination when he picked up Hassan Adid in the afternoon, after Adid had finished his meetings. During the drive to the lava fields, Fitzhugh stated that Douglas was embezzling from the company, at times skimming as much as $36,000 in a single week. He wasn’t careful to cover his tracks, but had left a trail a child could follow in the form of wire transfers to a numbered account in Switzerland.
Adid was silent. Fitzhugh said, “I thought you should know.”
“I am aware of Douglas’s activities,” Adid grumbled.
Fitzhugh had suspected as much—and more—but pretended to be surprised.
“So these—may I call them withdrawals?—are authorized? They have your approval?”
“My friend, you should watch the questions you ask,” Adid remarked, or threatened, then fell into another silence.
A few minutes later, he let out a laugh and admitted that he’d known about “Douglas’s activities” for quite some time. He’d uncovered them months ago, before the meeting in Lokichokio, the one at which he’d suggested that the company hire Timmerman as marketing manager. To prepare for the meeting, he’d examined Knight Air’s bank records, having persuaded the manager that, as the airline’s principal investor, he was entitled to review them. At the time, Douglas had raked off almost a hundred thousand dollars and had been even less cautious than he was now, transferring the money to an account
in his name
in a Channel Islands bank. Adid kept his discovery to himself. His instincts told him it was like a cash reserve, to be held until the time was right to put it to use. That time came when he decided to make his move and bring the airline into the fold of his conglomerate. He confronted Douglas with what he’d found.
“He was most nervous, terrified as a matter of fact,” Adid continued. “I reminded him that embezzlement was a crime even in Kenya.” Another laugh. “One phone call to my friends in the Justice Ministry and he would be in very deep trouble. My friend—” he was addressing Fitzhugh directly—“do you recall what I said at our cordial dinner? I don’t care who a man lies to as long as it is not to me. Embezzlement is a form of lying. Douglas assured me the money was not for his personal gain, oh my, no. He had some idea about opening a chain of coffee shops, and was going to consult me about it when he thought he had sufficient capital.”
“Yes, the coffee shops,” Fitzhugh interjected. “He told me about that notion a long time ago. Everyone would benefit.”
“Of course. Our American friend is concerned about bringing the greatest benefits to the greatest number. I was not interested in selling coffee. I told him I wished to acquire Knight Air and with it take one hundred percent of the aid market in Sudan and as much of the market elsewhere as we could get.” Adid was so absorbed in his reverie that he gave not one glance to the magnificent scenery, or to the herds of elephant and zebra in the distance, to the pride of lions lazing in the yellow grass a hundred meters from the road. “But I had no intention of paying full price, and presented my plan. Douglas could help me implement it or he could refuse, which would have certain consequences.”
“So you blackmailed him into staging that charade,” Fitzhugh said.
“I
convinced
him, my friend. I also convinced him to take his name off the account in the Channel Islands and move his money to a numbered account in Switzerland.”
“Which I would think has become a joint account, yes?”
Adid laughed again. “I have no comment.”
No one but the Somali would have confessed so freely to being a swindler and a blackmailer—he was bulletproof. His revelations were the product of his vanity; he was proud of his jujitsu, flipping Douglas’s greed to satisfy his own. But Fitzhugh saw how he could do a little jujitsu himself and use Adid’s admissions to further his plan.
“The money that’s going to Switzerland—do you know where it comes from?”
“Of course I do,” Adid replied.
“I don’t think so.”
Now it was time for Fitzhugh to make a confession, the confession he had wanted Douglas to make. Yellowbird, Busy Beaver, the real story that Phyllis Rappaport had been pursuing—he told him everything, omitting only his belief that Douglas had murdered her and the others. He assumed Adid would draw that conclusion on his own, which he did.
“You don’t care who a man lies to as long as it’s not to you? Our American friend has been lying to you for months, and he still is.”
“You were a part of it as well,” Adid remarked with a sour expression. It wasn’t only the fact that he’d been lied to for so long; it was that he’d been deceived by people he regarded as rank amateurs. His pride was hurt. “And now that you are no longer employed by Knight, you feel safe in informing.”
“I don’t think of it as informing.”
“However you may think of it, that is what it is, although I appreciate it. Very much appreciate it. As soon as I am back in Nairobi—and that will be day after tomorrow—I will tell that fool that he is through.
Halas,
finished.”
“Yes, you will do that,” Fitzhugh said, “but not the day after tomorrow.”
The Shetani beds came into view. Stopping the Land Rover, Fitzhugh stood on the running board and, in the tones of an enthusiastic tour guide, described the event that had brought them into being. Adid, baffled by the digression, grimaced at the desolation and asked, “Does this bear on what we were talking about?”
“It does in a way.” Fitzhugh got back behind the wheel and drove on, past jagged escarpments honeycombed with caves. “If you listen to my proposal, you will be rid of that fool and spare yourself a lot of trouble.”
“What trouble?”
“The trouble I will cause if you don’t listen to it.”
“You have a great deal of nerve speaking to me in that manner. You sound like an extortionist.”
“I admit it, that is what I am,” Fitzhugh said, stopping again. “Hassan, you are the president of a company that is profiting from gunrunning. Money from gunrunning is being funneled to a Swiss bank account that I am sure has your name on it.”
“You wouldn’t dare.”
“Yes, I would. I was visited by a CNN correspondent not long ago, Phyllis’s replacement. He has seen the videotapes, the photographs, the notes she left behind. It’s only a matter of time before he adds things up and comes to the same conclusion you and I have. Do I need to tell you the trouble that will cause you? And what if he finds out about that Swiss account and the source of its funds? What if he finds out—I know this, Hassan—that you and your father once were suspected of sabotaging Richard Leakey’s plane? Yes, I can accelerate things by going to him with everything I know, and that I will do unless you listen to me.”
The twin black holes in Adid’s head turned toward Fitzhugh.
“Hassan, I am aware how easy it would be for you to see that I meet with an accident. You had better make the arrangements immediately, because I will be there tomorrow.”
“What is in this for you? Who is paying you?”
“What is in it for me?” Fitzhugh pointed to a crude ladder, leaning against an outcrop under the mouth of a shallow cave. “Do you see that? The Taita who live here climb it to leave food offerings for those who were buried under all that lava. It is said that their souls cry out on certain nights, and that they must be appeased or they will bring down on the living the evil that befell them. What made this? A wrathful god or a destructive demon? Both. This Shetani is a place of evil, yet it is sacred also. It is feared and revered. It is a kind of church where the God who is Devil and the Devil who is God is worshipped.”
“I have no patience for this nonsense,” Adid muttered.
“Souls cry out to me,” Fitzhugh said. “The souls of those six dead people. They won’t let me sleep at night until they are appeased. That is what’s in it for me—nothing more than a decent night’s sleep.”
“I am not going to listen to this anymore. Turn around.”
Fitzhugh released the parking brake but did not turn around; he continued on, climbing the road to the crest of a pass from which they could see, far across the oceanic sweep of the Serengeti plains, the stupendous mass of Kilimanjaro. The clouds that normally veiled its peak had lifted, and the snow and ice mantling the great mountain glared in the sun.
“Look!” Fitzhugh said, braking to another stop. “Ice on the equator! Ice in the heart of Africa! A rare thing—like justice.”
Adid looked as if he were about to jump out and go back on foot. A Cape Buffalo bull, staring balefully from under its massive horns, gave him second thoughts.
“The souls cry out to me for justice,” Fitzhugh carried on. “That’s how I can appease them. Not a perfect justice, which would be to see Douglas hang. A partial justice. An African justice. They will settle for half a loaf, and so will I.”
“You have gone mad, have you not?” Adid said. “But I will humor the madman.”
“Yes! You are something of a devil, Hassan, but a minor devil compared with our American friend. And I seek your help in delivering justice. Do your old friend the Ambler a service. Help him to sleep at night.”
“But I cannot humor the madman for much longer.”
“You said you do business in Khartoum. Do you know people in the government?”
“You cannot do business in Khartoum without knowing people in the government,” Adid said, speaking as he would to a child.
“And these are highly placed people?”
“I have had dinner with the president. I call the first vice-president by his first name.”
“Then you must go to Khartoum as soon as you can, and you will tell your acquaintances that you and I are going to give them a big propaganda victory, one they have been looking for. You will ask them for one concession, that there be no bloodshed. In fact, they will see that it is to their advantage not to shed any blood.”