“No,” said Azziz, smiling again at his lawyer’s surprise. “Not quite. Your excellent soldiers will be on board. If I submit once to terrorism, then it will never stop-that’s a worthwhile lesson to be learned from the Israelis.”
“What about the woman?” asked Grearson as an afterthought.
“I couldn’t care less what happens to her,” said Azziz. “Any more than I care what happens to Deaken.”
The sun disappeared finally, and reluctantly Underberg moved in from the balcony of the Monaco hotel. He was sure they would move quickly after the threat to hurt the boy and the woman. He would have to warn Makimber, to give him time to get to Dakar and prevent Deaken getting aboard the Bellicose. He would have to remember an appropriate time to remind the African of a favour owed.
18
Everything was arranged with the customary efficiency of Azziz’s organization: the helicopter connection to the airport, courteous airline officials on standby to escort Deaken to the waiting aircraft, stewards in readiness to show him to his seat. It was a direct flight with no transfer connections and Deaken arrived in the Senegalese capital just after midday. The heat took his breath away, the first reminder of a return to Africa. At once there were others. The forgotten sweet-sour odour; flies which thrive in it; lethargic people accustomed to the sun-slowed pace; colours, seemingly bleached, yellows and ochres, the white of the airport building harsh in comparison.
The airport taxi was a dilapidated Renault, with missing handles and sagging door linings, the dashboard and mirror surrounds a bazaar of dangling amulets and rosaries, as if its very survival depended upon the will of God. The legacy of the city’s importance during the French occupation of Africa continued as they entered Dakar. The wide, straight streets were still policed by mottle-trunked plane trees, attendants to the set-back villas, two- and sometimes three-storey, shuttered and square and imposing, monuments to vanished imperial power. Only occasionally were the sculpted, patterned gardens still tended; elsewhere was the tangle of neglect.
Deaken chose a hotel near the harbour, still with almost twenty-four hours before the Bellicose was due to dock, but wanting to be as near as possible. It was terraced, between ground-floor shops and offices above, with wooden fronting verandahs on the first and second floors and wooden steps leading up to the entrance. The street- level verandah had high-backed wicker chairs, glass-topped tables and yellow ashtrays recommending Pernod. Geckos, glued to the walls like ornaments, would suddenly dart at the speed of a blink in pursuit of insects.
Deaken took a room at the front in order to keep the harbour in sight. It was French-built, like everything else, with docks and stiff-fingered jetties and long sheds bracketing the wharves. Beyond, the huge fan of water was flat and polished, cupped in the protective grasp of Cape Verde and Goree Island. Cargo ships and freighters, rusting and middle-aged like cargo ships and freighters always are, were tethered to their berths beneath high- necked, peering cranes. Anchored off were two oil tankers heavy in the water, like logs with straying branches. A working place, thought Deaken: no sparkling, burnished yachts with tinkling rigging and back decks full of topless sunbathers and laughing holidaymakers. After the last few days it was like retreating through the looking glass into the real world.
Deaken was impatient to establish contact with the agent to whom he had letters of introduction and authority, but he knew there would be no work going on at this, the hottest part of the day. To pass the time he descended to the ground floor and located, to the right of the reception area, a zinc-topped bar with stools and beyond it sets of tables with curve-backed chairs. There were five, three of which were occupied. There were more yellow ashtrays which prompted Deaken to order pastis. Remembering he was in Africa, he mixed it with mineral water, refusing the grubby carafe that was offered to him. The Pernod here was weak and already watered. At the far end of the bar, where it abutted the wall, was a gaggle of black whores. They stirred at his arrival and one detached herself from the group, smiling as she sidled towards him. Deaken raised his hand and shook his head. He thought the girl seemed almost grateful to go back to her lunchtime gathering. He wondered what Carole was doing.
He tried to hurry the question from his mind. The idea of Carole was intrusive and distracting: she had no place in his thoughts. He supposed, when everything was over, that he would see Azziz again briefly. But he would not be trapped on board the yacht, not like before. So he wouldn’t be seeing her again. Ever. Good, he thought. Very good. That was as it should be. He was still ashamed at how he had felt. Nervous too. There was only room for one thought with no distraction. Karen was all that mattered. Karen and how they were going to start again.
“Dejeuner?” inquired the barman hopefully. Even he made the effort to maintain a French ambience, the muchstained shirt originally white, the black trousers threadbare, and a money pouch at the belt. The pouch was flat and empty.
“Non, merci,” said Deaken. It was going to be a long wait. Not just until the Bellicose arrived but afterwards, days, he guessed, going back up around the fat chest of Africa and into the Mediterranean. And not over even then. There would be Underberg’s instructions to comply with. More delay.
He took a second Pernod, conscious of the barmen’s flat pouch and leaving a larger tip than before. The girl, encouraged by her friends, made a second desultory attempt. He didn’t see her approach, so she had her arm through his and was inquiring in lisping French if he was lonely before he could make the second refusal. He sent her back with a brandy, unsure why he had made the gesture; she would probably despise him for it. There was laughter from along the bar. She raised the glass and he raised his in return. Behind the bar the waiter remained blank-faced and unimpressed.
Deaken telephoned for directions and to ensure that the agent was back at work and then emerged out onto the harbour-fronting boulevard. The place had that sticky-eyed; just awake feeling. A stretching taxi driver took him along the curve of the sea and then briefly away from the waterfront, into one of the roads that radiated from it like spokes. There was a fleeting impression of deja-vu and then Deaken remembered Ortega’s office in Lisbon. Only four days earlier, he thought. Or was it five? It seemed a lifetime.
The Levcos agent was a man named Henri Carre, a mulatto who had clung to his French parentage. He was a thin, fine-featured man with a high forehead of which he appeared constantly aware, running his hand persistently across it and up into his crinkled hair. One wall of the man’s office was occupied by an erasable plasticized chart inscribed with the names of the ships for which he was responsible, sectioned so that it showed the departure port, stops en route and estimated time of arrival at Dakar. Deaken saw that the Bellicose was scheduled to arrive at dawn on Saturday and that the panel allowed for possible delay was blank. Carre studied Deaken’s letter of authority and then, revealing the bureaucratic caution bred into people who had been colonized, asked to see Deakens passport. Dutifully the lawyer produced it. Carre placed it beside the letter, apparently to compare the name, and then looked up, nodding with satisfaction.
“It is an honour for me to meet you,” he said, in stiffly formalized French.
“I am sorry for the intrusion.” Deaken was equally polite.
“I’m asked to give you every help,” said Carre, pointing to the letter of authority.
“The arrival is still scheduled for Saturday?”
The Senegalese nodded.
“What berth?”
The man made a vague gesture towards the harbour. From the window it was just possible to see a wedge of water. “Undecided yet,” he said. As if imagining he were being checked out by a carrier, he added quickly, “It will be a good berth, one of the best.”
“I’m sure,” said Deaken. “What’s the period in port?”
“Just revictualling, fuelling if necessary,” said Carre.
Deaken said, “I’m taking passage aboard.”
Carre frowned. “It’s a freighter,” he said.
“There’ll be some sort of accommodation,” said Deaken. It hadn’t occurred to him until now; it didn’t matter.
“Do you want me to radio the ship?” asked Carre”, eager to show his efficiency.
Deaken shook his head. “All that’s being done from Athens,” he said. “They’ll be expecting me when they dock.”
“There’s no problem, I hope?” Carre was unable to withhold the question any longer.
“None.”
