Dictator

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 National Army. Together they ran through a series of operations planned for the following morning. The conversation was notable for the unspoken assumption that even the most senior member of the nation’s armed forces was junior to the President’s unelected, unofficial right-hand man.

‘Carry out your orders precisely as specified, and I will ensure that you receive a twenty-five per cent share of all the monies I will liberate from the President and the First Lady’s private offshore accounts – accounts to which only I have the codes. Fail, or try to double-cross me, and I will ensure that your wife, your children, your mother, your brothers, your sisters and all your family die, very slowly. And all the soldiers in Malemba will not be able to save them.’