malice fill her soul. In a louder, much friendlier voice, he switched to English and said, ‘Thank you for bringing us here, grandmother.’ Then he walked up to the bow and sprang with surprising athleticism, even grace, on to the ladder. A few seconds later, he was standing on the restaurant’s deck.
‘Let’s go,’ said Zheng.
He led Mabeki along a narrow walkway running down the side of the hull to the front entrance to the restaurant. There were no strings of fairy-lights here, just a scruffy, dimly lit interior where no more than a dozen tables were filled. The desultory hum of scattered conversations almost faded away as Mabeki walked by.
A white-jacketed waiter gave a respectful nod to Zheng as he walked to the back of the dining area, past the bar and through a door into a kitchen heavy with the smell of stir-fried food. Here, too, the atmosphere was half-dead. A handful of cooks were standing by one of the ranges, talking and smoking with the lassitude of men who did not expect to be taking many more orders that night. Zhen ignored them and led Mabeki to a metal door.
‘Watch your head,’ he said as he opened it and moved into a small store-cabin.
The walls were lined with metal shelves on which huge drums of cooking oil and soy sauce were crammed alongside cans, bags and glass jars of produce, packets of dried noodles and sacks of rice. A porthole, cut into the hull near the ceiling, had been opened to provide ventilation but the air was still thick with the cigarette smoke that rose from the four men sitting around a small wooden table, topped with a plastic cloth, in the middle of the cabin. All were as old as the woman who had piloted the boat. Dressed in a motley selection of sweaty, dirt-stained vests and tatty shirts, they looked like old dockside navvies, or lowly ship’s crewmen. In front of them, the table was covered in ivory mah-jongg tiles marked with Chinese characters, piles of notes in an assortment of currencies, bottles of spirits and cheap plastic tumblers, all illuminated by the single bare bulb that hung above the table.
Zheng approached the oldest man at the table and spoke quietly in his ear. The man looked up at Mabeki, who caught not a trace of discomfort, let alone fear, in his eyes. So this was Fisherman Zheng. Well, he was a tough, cold-blooded old bastard, that was for sure. But Mabeki wasn’t worried. He’d spent the past decade working for the biggest cold-blooded old bastard of them all. He’d fucked Henderson Gushungo’s wife and got away with it. He’d changed their relationship day by day, inch by inch, until he was the real master and Gushungo his puppet. He was entirely confident that he could deal with this old Chinese gangster, too.
Fisherman turned his attention back to his nephew. They spoke for a few seconds, and then Zheng spoke in English to Mabeki: ‘My uncle will hear your proposal. He wishes you to know, however, that nothing happens in Hong Kong without him knowing about it, or that he cannot discover within a matter of an hour or two. There is, therefore, no point in you trying to mislead or cheat him. It is very important, for your sake, that you understand this.’
Zheng lowered his voice. ‘Seriously, Moses, you don’t want to cross my uncle.’
Mabeki gave his own approximation of a smile. ‘I understand, Johnny. So please assure your uncle first that I would never attempt to double-cross him, any more than he would think of double-crossing me. Also, inform him that I have spent the past ten years as the most trusted personal adviser of the President of Malemba, His Excellency the Honourable Henderson Gushungo, with the result that there is no threat he could possibly make that I have not both heard before and made myself. Further, tell him that no matter how many people he has had killed during his long and illustrious career, I have killed more in my relatively short one. And fourthly, please ask him, with all due respect for his age, dignity and position, to stop pretending that he cannot speak English, since I can see very clearly from his eyes that he has understood every word I have just said.’
Mabeki watched the anger flare in Fisherman Zheng’s eyes, knew that he’d caught the old man red-handed, and added, ‘As I thought. So, let me explain the deal I have in mind, which is in essence very simple. At around noon on Sunday, roughly thirty-six hours from now, I will sell you a consignment of uncut Malemban diamonds worth at least fifteen million US dollars for a mere eight million. In exchange for this discount, which is much greater than I would normally give to any middle-man, you will kindly do me two additional services. One of them is nothing, a mere delivery run. The second is more complicated.’
Mabeki took out his phone and brought a photograph up on the screen. It had been taken at Heathrow airport and showed a Caucasian male, full length, as he waited with his baggage by the Cathay Pacific desk. Mabeki flicked a finger across the screen and a series of further shots spun by, showing the man from varying angles and distances.
‘The man in these pictures is called Samuel Carver. I want him dead. You will ensure that he dies at a time and place that I will specify. The killing will be carried out in such a way that no suspicion attaches to me. Do this and I will give you the bargain of a lifetime. So, do we have a deal?’
Fisherman Zheng sat silently as Mabeki ran through his proposal. Then he cleared his throat like a man gargling gravel and phlegm and spoke to his nephew in perfect English: ‘Tell this African that the favours he asks can be granted with one wave of my hand. But tell him also that even the meanest beggar in Hong Kong knows about his precious diamonds and that no dealer would value them at more than a third of the figure he mentions. If I am to make a fair profit, I therefore cannot offer him more than two million dollars. That is my offer, and it is final.’
Moses Mabeki cast his eye over the three other mah-jongg players. ‘One of you give me your chair,’ he said. ‘I can see that this will take some time.’
Fisherman Zheng barked an order. All three men left the room. Mabeki sat himself down, as did Zheng Junjie. Fisherman poured them all drinks from one of his liquor bottles. And so the negotiations began.
54
On Saturday morning, Carver set about acquiring the final pieces of equipment he would need for the Gushungo assassination. First, he went to a hobby shop that sold amateur rocket-making kits and bought a couple of cheap engines in the form of cardboard tubes like small fireworks, filled with fast-burning explosive powder. At a hardware store, he acquired some acetone paint thinners. At a phone store, he picked up two handsets: one to be used as Zalika’s tracking device, the other for his own purposes. Then he went back to collect the suit trousers and the refitted Honda Civic, which he left in the darkest, least conspicuous corner he could find in one of Kowloon’s underground car parks. Before he left the car, he opened the boot and spent a few minutes working with the rocket accessories, the acetone and the various bits of kit he’d brought from his Geneva toolbox. By the time he’d finished, Carver had both a getaway car and the means to destroy it, along with any evidence it might contain.
Satisfied with his morning’s work, he called Zalika and met her for lunch. Afterwards, they took a cab up into the New Territories and found a spot where they could look down on to the Hon Ka Mansions and see the gaudy pink-painted home that was the Gushungos’ Asian bolthole. It was one thing working on a mockup, but there was no substitute for getting a first-hand look.
‘Fine,’ he said, once he’d committed the view of the house and its surroundings to memory. ‘I’m ready. There’s nothing to do now but wait.’
Zalika smiled. ‘Not quite nothing.’
‘No, maybe not.’
It was not easy for Moses Mabeki to smoke a cigarette. He had to hold it permanently to his mouth, his lips being too misshapen to grip it tightly by themselves. The drool in his mouth was apt to make the filter soggy. As he stood outside the Gushungo residence, slurping and sucking, blinking his eyes against the smoke, he made a grotesque, even bleakly comic sight. Mabeki could not have cared less. The sole purpose of his newly acquired habit was that it gave him an excuse to leave the house, within which Faith Gushungo had banned all smoking, and get outside. Once there he could walk to some quiet, unobserved corner, get rid of the cigarette and make phone calls in peace, without risk of being overheard.
He speed-dialled Zheng Junjie, and they spoke for less than thirty seconds, just enough time for Mabeki to give the precise time and location for the attack on Carver. ‘I expect him to have made an effort to change his appearance,’ he added. ‘If so, I will of course update you. You will spot him easily enough. Have no fear of that.’
Mabeki’s second call was made to General Augustus Zawanda, commander-in-chief of the Malemban
