The Samurai Inheritance

XLVI

Jamie’s eyes swept his surroundings as he walked stealthily up the empty street in the shadow of the derelict apartment blocks and shops. Michael had said Keith Devlin’s private army of security guards mainly kept to the area around the community centre where he’d set up his headquarters, but there were no guarantees tonight. He checked his bearings and stifled a yawn. It would be dawn in an hour. The house where Fiona and Lizzie Carter were being kept was about five blocks ahead and off to the left. Adrenalin had seen him through the last two days, but after waiting three hours in the Toyota up in Panguna his bones ached as if he’d been sleeping on a pile of concrete rubble. He needed to finish it. Now.

When the helicopter had dropped him near the mine, Magda Ross had stayed on board to see Doug Stewart safely to the hospital in Buka. He found it ironic that just when he thought he’d got to know her she’d turned out to have been playing a double game all along. But, as he’d said, even after everything that had happened there was nothing to forgive. In the short time they’d spent together her strength of character and easy companionship had been a beacon in some dark times. Okay, maybe it was a little more complicated than that, but she’d become a friend and you couldn’t have too many friends.

He’d left the car on the Buka side of town. It wasn’t ideal, but he hadn’t dared bring it any closer. Still it was in easy enough reach for his purposes. All he had to do was get to the girls.

A sudden movement up ahead made him freeze, but it was only a feral cat. It crossed the road like a wraith, stopping in the middle to study him suspiciously with glowing green eyes before moving on. When he reached the point where it had disappeared he followed its route between the houses. Fiona had said most of the occupied homes kept dogs and he hoped they’d react to the cat before they reacted to him.

The jungle had encroached on the rear gardens of the abandoned houses. It wasn’t thick enough to delay him, but he took his time nonetheless. There was no point in reaching Fiona’s place too early. He ran over the layout in his mind. The entrance of the apartment was at the rear and reached by a set of wooden stairs. Fiona’s room was to the left and Lizzie’s to the right. Every few metres he stopped to listen. When he heard the sound of a car passing nearby he crouched behind a dilapidated outhouse among the vines for ten minutes after it was gone. Not one of the old rattletraps the locals drove, something more modern. Two blocks to go. No point in taking any chances. He dropped to his belly and slithered through the long neglected vegetable patches using his elbows and knees, trying to ignore the nameless slithering and hopping things that shared his environment.

Within sight of the house he stopped again and waited, attuning himself to his surroundings. When he was certain, he got to his feet and silently approached the stairs.

‘Mr Devlin thought you might try something like this.’ The words were accompanied by the cold steel of a gun barrel on his neck and Jamie’s heart jumped into his throat. ‘As it happened, we moved the girls last night just in case, but we’ve had the place more or less surrounded since Joe spotted your car.’ Andy’s tone was almost conversational, but Jamie knew that didn’t make him any less dangerous. The security man patted him down with an expert hand, the pistol never leaving his skin. ‘You didn’t do too badly, really. I’ll be kicking a couple of arses in the morning for letting you get this far. Where is it?’

‘Where’s what? Ouch.’ Jamie grunted as the pistol barrel rattled playfully off his ear.

‘Don’t get cute with me, Mr Saintclair. Where’s this briefcase the boss is getting so fired up about?’

‘You won’t find it even if you take this town apart.’ Jamie tensed for another blow, but it didn’t come and he hurried on. ‘Devlin can have it as soon as I have proof Fiona and Lizzie are on the eleven-thirty flight for Port Moresby. Call him now and tell him that.’

Andy spun him round so they were face to face with the pistol barrel square between Jamie’s eyes. ‘I admire a man who looks after his ladies,’ he was grinning, but there was no humour in the deep-set grey eyes, ‘but I really don’t think you’re in a situation to make any demands.’

‘Come on, Andy.’ Jamie kept his voice as steady as the circumstances dictated and prayed the safety catch was on. From where he was looking the pistol appeared to be a 9mm Ruger that would turn his head into a canoe if it went off. ‘We both know you’re not going to shoot me. No more games, but I’m not having Devlin bugger us about any more.’

Andy stared at him for a long moment before emitting a low whistle between his teeth and removing the pistol from Jamie’s head. A moment later they heard the sound of large bodies rustling through the bushes.

‘Keep Mr Saintclair nice and close,’ the guard ordered. ‘And if he tries anything break one of his legs.’

Andy went off a few feet and Jamie heard him whispering into a phone or radio as two men he hadn’t seen before took him roughly by the arms. Andy was back within two minutes.

‘Mr Devlin is not best pleased. I told him we’d be happy to use a little gentle persuasion to locate the item in question, but he’s grown attached to the girls and he sees your point of view. He says to tell you that if you play silly buggers with him again he’ll let us break both your legs.’

‘So what happens now?’

Andy nodded towards the stairs. ‘Now we wait.’

Four hours later Jamie Saintclair felt like the condemned man on his way to his execution as the three guards escorted him through the streets towards the community centre. He was filthy, hungry and thirsty and the feeling was compounded by the knowledge that his companions would happily form his firing squad. A door opened as they approached the building and he squinted against the sun as a portly figure dressed in a freshly pressed white shirt and tan slacks walked towards him across the potholed car park. When the man’s identity slowly seeped into his sleep-deprived brain Jamie’s steps faltered and he automatically searched his surroundings. Had someone rewritten the script and not told him?

‘A fine morning, Mr Saintclair, if a little humid.’ Mr Lim ignored the guards and his smile confirmed that all was well with his world. ‘You look perplexed. Are you not pleased to see an old friend?’

‘Actually, I was wondering where your acquaintance, Mr Lee, was hiding.’

‘Mr Lee?’ The smile turned into a frown as if the bodyguard had slipped from his memory, but only momentarily. ‘Of course. Today, I have left him in Shanghai. He was never the most talkative of companions and an honest Chinese businessman requires no assistance. Besides, it saves an air fare. Do I take it from this unfortunate scene that your mission is not yet complete?’

Jamie glanced over his shoulder at the three guards and the Chinese laughed.

‘I have nothing to do with this, I assure you, Mr Saintclair, though I am aware how keen Mr Devlin is to lay his hands on a certain article. My presence here was merely to make him an offer, which he has unfortunately refused. It is a pity, because had he accepted I too had a gift that might have been to his advantage. Still, in the event he succeeds I have assured him that the Chinese People’s Republic will become his best customer. Of course, if he does not …’

Jamie felt the guards stir restlessly, but he didn’t move. ‘I’m not entirely sure what you’re telling me, Mr Lim?’

‘Oh, I am not telling you anything, Mr Saintclair. We are just two old friends having a chat. I must, however, express my admiration for your efforts. The fact that you have got this far against such odds is truly remarkable. I still cannot understand how you managed to escape the clutches of that terrible woman; and as for your vanishing act from Tokyo airport …’ He shook his head. ‘I would advise against any inclination to return to the East for a while, and it might be wise to avoid Japanese restaurants on your return to London, the food can be terribly spicy.’

‘I generally only eat the sushi.’ Jamie managed to return Mr Lim’s conspiratorial smile.

‘No, no. Please stick to Chinese; it would be much better for your digestion. The world would be a worse place without you, Jamie Saintclair.’

He nodded and as he walked off, Jamie could swear he heard the first few whistled bars of ‘Waltzing Matilda’.

Keith Devlin was in the meeting room, seated behind the big desk flanked by Joe and another bodyguard. Andy took the stranger’s place and the hard eyes told Jamie he wasn’t part of the team any more.

‘I thought I said we should be alone until we get the call?’ Jamie said.

‘So you did, son.’ Devlin’s lips twitched. ‘But I thought I’d make it clear who’s in charge right from the start. It’s easier all round if we understand each other.’

‘All right.’ Jamie could see there was no point in arguing. ‘But I hope you’ve complied with my other … request, or we might as well all go home.’

Devlin’s brows came together and his lips twitched in an entirely different way. He glanced at Andy, who shrugged. ‘We’ve searched, but we haven’t found anything.’

‘All right, son.’ The mining boss picked up a cell phone from the desk. ‘No need to get shirty. Everything’s just the way you wanted it. The girls are at the airport with tickets for the next flight out.’ He hit a preset button. ‘Joe? Get the lady on the phone.’

He passed the handset to Andy and the bodyguard tossed it to Jamie, who caught it with his right hand. ‘Fiona?’

‘Jamie, where are you?’

‘I’m back in Arawa. There’s nothing to worry about. We have a few details to straighten out. I plan to catch a later flight and meet up with you in Brisbane.’

‘But …’

Jamie glanced at his watch. ‘Shouldn’t you be boarding?’

‘We’re on board, but they say the flight’s been delayed for technical reasons.’

Jamie looked at Devlin and the tycoon’s grim smile told its own story. ‘I’m sure they’ll get it sorted out soon. Give my love to Lizzie.’ He handed the phone back to Andy. ‘The briefcase is hanging inside an empty cistern behind the old hospital.’

‘Get it,’ Devlin ordered.

They waited in silence until Andy returned ten minutes later with the briefcase under his arm. The security guard worked at the leather straps to open it and pushed it across the desk. Devlin’s face creased into a shark’s grin as he retrieved one of the papers, nodding as he read it. ‘Okay, Andy.’

Andy dialled a preset number. ‘Vern? The deal’s done, mate. You can let the plane go.’

Jamie’s legs almost gave way with relief. It was over. He looked to Devlin for some sort of acknowledgement, but the businessman continued to study the documents, frowning occasionally as he came across a symbol that tested his knowledge. With a glance at Andy, Jamie shrugged and turned away.

‘Not interested in what’s in here? It makes fascinating reading.’ Devlin was savouring the moment, basking in the spotlight of his cleverness. Here I am, the victor, and this is the mark of my genius.

‘I already know.’

The smile tightened. ‘Of course.’

‘What really interests me is what you’re going to do with it.’ Play the plucky loser, Michael had said. There’s nothing he likes better than crowing over the people he’s beaten. Spin it out. ‘I can understand it might be worth a great deal of money. But you can’t be certain what will happen when the world gets to know that Winston Churchill knew about Pearl Harbor a week before it happened and didn’t tell his friends the Yanks. Who knows what it will do to the economy? That sheet of paper might just be a smoking gun pointed right at your head.’

‘This?’ Devlin laid down the document he’d been reading and picked up the other piece of coated paper from the case. ‘You think it’s about this?’ He held it away from his body and pulled something from his pocket with his other hand. ‘But you’re right. We don’t want Bougainville all over the front pages and folks writing alternative histories about Yamamoto and Churchill, do we?’ Jamie heard the flick of a cigarette lighter and cried out as the paper disintegrated in Devlin’s hands with a bright flash. ‘Clever buggers the Japs. Way before their time. Paper impregnated with gunpowder to ensure complete destruction.’

‘I don’t—’

‘No, you don’t, son. You thought you had it all worked out, but Keith Devlin was way ahead of you. It’s a shame about old Doug,’ he shook his head in mock sorrow, ‘but he’d had his day and to be honest I was beginning to have doubts about him. Imagine getting to his age and suddenly developing a conscience. I’ll see he gets a decent send-off, but it’s better this way. We were worried they might have got you too and run off with the merchandise. Andy and the boys were around to pick up the pieces, but they couldn’t get near you for some rogue BRA outfit. Fortunately, good old dependable, go-the-extra-mile Jamie Saintclair delivered the goods.’

Jamie somehow managed to keep his thoughts to himself as he listened to the cynical dismissal of Doug Stewart and his half a lifetime’s service to the man behind the desk. ‘But it was all for nothing.’

‘Not for nothing, son.’ Devlin rose from his seat. Jamie waited apprehensively for his next move, but it was only to extract a cigar from a box on a side table. He lit it with the lighter and drew in two puffs before continuing. ‘For progress. When I was here back in the day, I was forever looking at stuff from the war. Jap bunkers. Crashed planes and that old Sherman on Tank Corner round by Buin. The local boys used to bring me things. Old rifles, bayonets, even a couple of live hand grenades. One day they walk in with a map case they’d found with the bones of a Jap officer, and lo and behold what was in it? That’s right, a letter from the lieutenant who recovered Yamamoto’s body saying he’d found a briefcase with the admiral, only some Boog native had pinched it, and by the way this is what was in it.’

‘If you knew all the time why didn’t you use it?’

‘Oh, I tried, son. I was a bushy-tailed idealist just like you in those days. I went to Canberra and spilled the beans to some po-faced civil servant. The next thing I know I’m locked in an office with a US State Department official who laughed in my face. And pretty soon I was laughing too.’ He blew out a big cloud of smoke from the cigar and Andy moved half a step away. ‘Why? Because they already knew. Why do you think the Yanks screwed the Brits into the ground after the war while they were pouring money into Japan and Germany and helping them rebuild their countries? In nineteen forty-six the UK was about to go bust, so Westminster sent a fella called John Maynard Keynes to Washington. Naturally, they expected the Americans to slap him on the back and send him home with a shipload of gold bullion with the thanks of a grateful nation for all their sacrifices.’ Keith Devlin laughed out loud at the notion. ‘Only by then the Yanks had found the other copy of the Yamamoto document in some Tokyo safe. Instead of rocking the boat with the New World Order by blowing the whistle, Harry S. Truman decided to make your countrymen pay blood money for those eight thousand sailors at Pearl Harbor. They reckon Keynes looked like he’d been kicked in the teeth when he heard the terms, but the Brits had no option but to pay up. They kept on paying until five years ago, and all that time they watched the world’s economies passing them by. Tragic, ain’t it?’

‘But there was something else in the letter you never mentioned to anybody.’ Jamie suddenly saw where the scenario was taking them.

‘That’s right, Jamie.’ He held up the second document. ‘By rights this shouldn’t exist. Sometime in nineteen forty-two the Japs sent a surveyor to Bougainville to check out the mineral deposits and he came back with a big fat blank.’

‘But the Panguna Mine has produced billions.’

‘Sure, he found copper.’ The Australian shrugged. ‘But it was in traces so small it was uneconomic to mine it using the techniques they had in those days. What a lot of people don’t understand is that BCL took a huge gamble when they opened that mine, but it paid off.’

‘Not for the Moroni and the other tribes up there.’

Devlin ignored him as if he’d never spoken. ‘Only there was something else that one of their top scientists must have noticed and thought the report was worth sending to Yamamoto. The surveyor found deposits of a metal so useless he didn’t even bother to name it, but when I read what he said that little Devlin alarm bell went off in my head. What’s the rarest and most expensive metal on the planet, son?’

‘I don’t know,’ Jamie admitted, happy to play Devlin’s games for now. ‘Platinum, maybe.’

‘Not far off, but the answer is rhodium.’

‘So that’s what this is all about?’

‘Bougainville Island is sitting on top of one of the biggest deposits of rhodium on Earth, enough to double the world’s output. Just a couple of years ago it was selling for ten thousand dollars an ounce, but with the new applications they’re developing for it in the weapons industry, that could double and double again.’

Keith Devlin studied Jamie with a knowing half-smile on his face and suddenly he wasn’t the only person in the room with an alarm bell in his head. By now Jamie’s was ringing off the scale, accompanied by a little voice that said Devlin was giving him too much information. There was only one way off the island for the man who knew this much, and it wasn’t in an Air Niugini Fokker. Jamie glanced at Andy and his partner. They looked relaxed enough, but their eyes never left him and he knew they were ready for him to try anything. Even if he somehow managed to evade them, there’d be more of Devlin’s bodyguards outside the door. He only had one chance and that was to play the game out to the last hand.

‘If this stuff is so valuable why hasn’t anybody found it before now?’ He let his curiosity show. ‘The island must have been crawling with geologists since before the mine opened.’

Devlin smiled. ‘Either they weren’t looking for it — the world only found a use for rhodium in the mid-Seventies — or they were looking in the wrong place. This document in my hand has the exact coordinates. Do you know what that means, Jamie?’ Jamie knew exactly what it meant, but he also knew it was one of those questions that didn’t need an answer. The tycoon’s voice took on that messianic certainty the Englishman had learned meant he was lying through his ten-thousand-dollar teeth. ‘It means that we can make a huge investment in the future of this island and its people and a huge investment in technology to make future mining operations more environmentally acceptable. Bougainville will be the showcase for the world of how industry and indigenous people can combine for the benefit of both. You’ve heard my vision for the island, Jamie. Tell me I’m wrong.’

Jamie let a smile play across his face, but his voice dripped with contempt even though he now knew for certain that every word was leading him towards an early grave. ‘Sure, Keith,’ he laughed. ‘I’ve heard your vision for the island, but the one I heard didn’t sound anything like that. The one I heard had a private army beholden to one man and ready to break the heads of anyone who speaks out. It had politicians bought and paid for by that same man on the island, in Port Moresby and even in Canberra.’ Andy came off the wall with his fists clenched and a killing look in his eye, but Devlin waved him back.

‘Let him finish,’ the businessman snapped. ‘He’ll find out the price of his little speech later.’

‘You didn’t mention the seven other mining concessions, every one of them just as big as Panguna, which are just the start as you turn this island into one big hole. Or the islanders who are going to lose their ancestral lands to make way for them. All those people whose lives will depend on the company store for everything, because their coconut groves have been ripped out and they can no longer grow their own food, or fish in rivers that will all go the same way as the Jaba. Do the Rotokas people, or the Lawunuia, or the Askopan, or the Ramopa,’ he listed all the tribes Michael had said would be left landless by Devlin’s plans, ‘know they’re all going to go the same way as the Moroni, Keith? Or that they’re destined to be worker ants for Devlin Metal Resources?’

Keith Devlin was still smiling, but the smile was frozen on his face. ‘The funny thing about worker ants, son, is that as long as you give them a roof over their head and food in their belly, they don’t even know they’re worker ants.’

‘It’s all true?’

‘Seems to me that old Doug’s been speaking out of turn before he croaked. I’m getting soft. I should’ve got rid of him sooner.’ If there was an Angel of Death his eyes couldn’t have been any bleaker than the ones now focused on Jamie Saintclair. ‘The rhodium’s the key. All the rest would have come my way in time, but with the rhodium I can buy every politician in the Pacific. Of course, it only works if nobody else knows about it.’

‘So I’m going to have an unfortunate accident?’

‘I’m afraid so, son.’

‘So I’m going to have an unfortunate accident?’

Devlin looked at Jamie as if he’d just grown another head and the Englishman was almost as bemused, because he’d swear his lips never moved. The words had the metallic flatness of a recording and came from the door behind Keith Devlin. As the tycoon turned in astonishment they were repeated again.

Andy and Joe moved fast for the door, hands going for the guns at their belts.

‘I wouldn’t do that.’ Two white men in T-shirts and jeans appeared from the balcony like ghosts. One ghost carried a machine pistol and the other a pump-action shotgun. Andy sensibly froze, but his partner turned with the gun rising to bear on the intruders. It was very brave, but also very foolish because the blast of the shotgun shook the whole room and Jamie thought he’d gone deaf as the bodyguard was smashed against the rear wall and bounced to land face down on the wooden floor. The door behind Devlin burst open and Michael appeared like an avenging angel holding a pistol in one hand and a badge in the other. Magda Ross followed him, her eyes wide with concern and only relaxed when she saw Jamie was safe. It had all happened so quickly that the sound of the shotgun still reverberated in the room as Michael pushed Keith Devlin back into his chair and placed the badge on the desk in front of him.

‘You’ve no right …’ the businessman spluttered.

‘Take a look at the badge, Mr Devlin. Will he live, Steve?’ This to the man leaning over the prone body of the bodyguard. The other covered Andy with the machine pistol, which was largely unnecessary because the security man seemed to have decided the whole affair had nothing to do with him.

‘A baton round,’ Steve shrugged. Baton rounds were designed for riot control to shock and debilitate the target, but at close range they’d been known to kill. ‘He still has a pulse.’

‘Get him to the doctor and get him,’ Michael pointed to Andy, ‘out of here.’

A shout brought four other white men into the room and they picked up the wounded guard and carried him out. The man with the shotgun escorted Andy after them.

Magda came to stand beside Jamie and placed her hand on his shoulder. ‘Looks like I was wrong about heroes.’ She whispered the words so only he could hear and he grinned at the praise.

Meanwhile, Michael turned back to Devlin. ‘As an officer of the Australian Security Intelligence Organization I am detaining you under the special investigative powers delegated to me by the Attorney General, on suspicion of suborning members of the national legislature in the Australian Capital Territory, interference in the internal governance of an Australian ally, namely Papua New Guinea, and the instigation of fraudulent conduct in another ally, namely the Autonomous Region of Bougainville.’

‘That’s all very clever, Mr …’ he picked up the badge and his lips twisted into a sneer, ‘Taruko. But I think you’ll find that the powers that be on Bougainville won’t recognize that warrant of yours.’

Michael ignored the insult and picked up his badge, replacing it with an oblong of black plastic. He pushed a button and there was a long squeak in which could just be heard the sound of voices being played backward at speed. He pushed a second button and a distinctive voice echoed from the digital recorder.

‘The funny thing about worker ants, son, is that as long as you give them a roof over their head and food in their belly, they don’t even know they’re worker ants.’

Devlin shrugged. ‘Things like that can be faked. I deny ever saying it.’

Michael nodded. ‘That’s your right, Mr Devlin, and I’m sure you’ll enjoy explaining it to the special committee of the Bougainville House of Representatives who listened to it in real time by satellite link. I’m told they included a few of your friends, who are no longer quite so well disposed towards you.’

Jamie saw Devlin go pale as the full implications of Michael’s carefully constructed sting operation dawned.

‘You can’t—’

‘We will also have the testimony of Mr Douglas Stewart, former security director of Devlin Metal Resources, who is currently cooperating from a hospital bed in Buka.’

‘Doug’s not dead? Well, I’ll be—’

‘Yes, Keith, old chum,’ Jamie said, ‘I think you probably will. I’d suggest you go along with Michael here, before the Bougainville Revolutionary Army hears about your real plans for their island paradise.’

The tycoon’s shoulders slumped and Jamie had never seen anyone look more defeated, but the mood only lasted for seconds. He saw the broad back straighten and the big farmer’s head come up. Keith Devlin’s eyes narrowed. ‘I’ll come along with you, son, but don’t think I’m beaten yet.’ He rose from his chair and marched to the door followed by the final member of Michael’s team. ‘It’ll take more than a few black backstabbers and pansy politicians in Canberra to take Keith Devlin down.’

The door closed behind him and Jamie exchanged a wry glance with Michael. ‘I wish you luck.’

‘In a way,’ the black man shrugged, ‘it doesn’t matter much if he ends up in the slammer or not. His great plan for the island is finished and he’ll have his hands full staying out of jail and keeping Devlin Metal Resources afloat.’

‘Then you’ve won,’ Magda said.

Michael gave them a long look. ‘You still don’t understand us, do you? On Bougainville there are no easy answers. No winners and losers. We move on and face the next crisis and the next, holding on to what we can of our culture and our values, but deprived of a little more every time. There’ll be another Devlin, or another BCL, or that Chinese gentleman Jamie spoke to earlier … But one thing I can say is that my people are in debt to you both. You returned my ancestor’s head to its rightful place and you helped bring Devlin down. You’ve given us hope. My people and my government will always be grateful.’

They shook hands and Michael went out to join the special team of Australian undercover cops he’d called up to help out with the arrest. Magda watched Jamie cross to Devlin’s desk where Admiral Yamamoto’s leather briefcase still sat with the surviving document at its side. He picked up the sheet and ran his eyes over the columns of figures.

‘All that for this insignificant piece of paper and the other great secret didn’t matter a damn.’ He picked up Keith Devlin’s lighter and met Magda’s gaze. She nodded and he flicked the mechanism allowing the flame to touch the corner of the geological survey. The paper disintegrated with a flash and he dropped the blackened cinders to the floor, distributing it across the boards with his foot. ‘If it is out there, let the Bougainvilleans find it in their own time.’

Magda took his arm and they left the room side by side. ‘I’m going to miss working with you, Jamie Saintclair.’