The Devil’s Kingdom

Chapter 36

‘No! No! NO! I don’t care! I want that rock! I don’t give a damn what it takes to get it! You hear me, Bronski? I WANT IT!’

Victor Bronski held the phone six inches away from his ear and let the boss’s rant run its scalding course. Even Eugene Svalgaard could only scream and rage for so long before he exhausted himself. Bronski had decided to be patient with him, under the circumstances. After all, it wasn’t every day you were told that you’d just been rather unsubtly conned out of fifty million bucks by a bunch of gangsters. His employer’s reaction was fairly understandable.

At last, Svalgaard settled down from his apoplectic fury and his voice rasped with mere boiling anger. ‘I blame you for this, Victor. Jesus Christ, what kind of lame-ass outfit are you running over there? You told me this would be easy. You promised you’d get me that diamond. You told me—’

‘I never said it would be easy, boss,’ Bronski interrupted, firm but calm. ‘Don’t recall using that particular word. And I made no promises. Khosa and his associates are not people that any sane person would do business with. What happened was never totally out of the question. Hockridge and Weller both knew the potential risk involved.’ And so had Bronski, or he wouldn’t have kept himself at a safe distance from the meeting.

‘Maybe I should come out there and take care of this goddamn thing myself. In fact, I think I’ll do just that. What am I wasting my time for in Kenya anyway? This place sucks ass and I can’t stand it anymore. Sit tight and wait for me. I’m coming.’

‘Boss—’

‘You still have those three guys, right? Shelton, Gasser and what’s-his-name?’

‘Jungmayr.’

‘I’ll get six more. Surely we can do this job with ten men? Or eight more, or twenty. I really don’t care. I’ll hire friggin’ Chuck Norris and fly out there with another fifty million dollars and tell this Khosa dickwad that this time, he screws with me, he’s gonna regret it.’

Bronski ran his fingers down his face, struggling to keep his patience. ‘Get some therapy, boss. You’re already fifty million down. Would it be too much to suggest that you cut your losses and walk away at this point?’

‘Walk away? Are you out of your mind? That diamond is mine and I’m not leaving Africa without it. Get me?’

‘Whatever you say, boss. But don’t come to the Congo. If you think Kenya’s bad, you really wouldn’t like it here. And hang on to your money for now. I’ll see if there’s another way to deal with this situation.’

‘Great. Why don’t you do that? And don’t call again until you’ve got something better to tell me.’

That phone conversation was now twenty-two hours old. Since Bronski had broken the news to his employer about the disastrous failure of the deal, he and his remaining team members had been busy. Bronski’s first and most obvious step in trying to rescue the situation had been to locate the whereabouts, with a view to tracking the movements, of César Masango.

For a man of Bronski’s skill and generous bribery budget, it hadn’t been hard to find out his home address: a sprawling nine-bedroom, ten-bathroom villa on a verdant acre plot in the exclusive quarter of Mont Fleury, Ngaliema, on the western side of Kinshasa not far from where the Lukungu River cut through the city. The property was gated and surrounded by a high stone wall that bounded the street, but it was easy enough to mount watch on. Between Bronski in the van and Shelton, Gasser and Jungmayr in two cars, all equipped with serious binoculars and long-range camera lenses, they’d been keeping up a constant visual surveillance for the last sixteen hours. Setting up the phone tap hadn’t been too much harder, thanks to the primitive Congolese telephone wiring and a few Radio Shack bits and bobs that were child’s play to crocodile-clip into place in the connection box outside the house. Shelton had set off a dog barking ferociously while he was sneaking around the grounds, but the animal thankfully didn’t make an appearance and Shelton had made it back to his car unscathed and unseen.

By nine o’clock that morning, all that the surveillance operation had managed to ascertain was that Madame Olive Masango appeared to have spent the previous night alone in the big villa. The black Mercedes E-Class limousine registered to her husband — that information courtesy of more bribes to the appropriate officials — was apparently not at home, while the gold roadster registered in her name sat on the driveway, gleaming in the sunshine. The only visitor the watchers had observed coming or going was a burly grey-haired woman who had driven off in a battered Renault 4 at five thirty the previous afternoon and turned up again this morning at 8 a.m. sharp, presumably a full-time, live-out housekeeper. Olive Masango herself, a handsome and fashionably dressed lady in her early forties, had been glimpsed only a few times as she pottered about the rooms and gardens of the large villa (more often than not nursing what looked like a large gin and tonic, leading Bronski to wonder if she had a problem with the booze) and basked in the comfortable lifestyle that her marriage provided.

Nine thirty: still no sign of César, no telling where he’d gone and when he might return. As time passed, Bronski was debating the pros and cons of kidnapping the good lady, which would have been a simple matter of driving up to the house, snatching her, and bundling her into the back of the van, gagged and bound, to be whisked off to a secure location. Easy pickings; and after what Cesar’s thugs had done to Hockridge, Weller, and Addington, Bronski was running a little low on human kindness right now. If she knew anything, there was no question she’d talk. If she knew nothing, she was still a useful hostage, potentially. In such a case, much would depend on which way César’s loyalties swung under pressure: in his wife’s favour or that of his employer. Bronski suspected it might be the latter, but experience had taught him not to judge too hastily.

Keeping the idea in reserve as a potential Plan B, for now Bronski went on watching and waiting.