Dark Asset Read online

  Through the filthy lobby windows I could see the two Land Cruisers out in the parking lot, and a guard standing by the front of the nearest vehicle, toting a rifle. He looked nervous; a driver, probably, and the least experienced. But the distance between us was too great and he looked ready to start shooting if anybody other than his comrades stepped out of the building. It gave me an idea.

  Tucking the pistol into my waist I stripped off the unconscious guard’s camo top and hat and put them on, then bent and pulled the man up onto my shoulder and grabbed his rifle. Tugging the hat down over my face I made sure my head was shielded by the body and stepped outside. Hurrying across the parking lot towards the nearest pickup, I waved the rifle and called for the guard to help me.

  The blatantly unlikely is sometimes the best way of fooling somebody. He wasn’t expecting anybody to exit the building, not with all the men checking out the upper floors and having such a banging time, so his thought processes were a little off. The gunfire alone would have convinced him that the man they had come here to arrest was trapped on the upper floors. But seeing a figure emerge carrying one of his colleagues, probably wounded in the first contact inside, looked close enough to be plausible. It helped that he couldn’t see my face, only the camo top and hat.

  I was ten steps away when he must have remembered that his colleagues were in uniform. He began to swing up his assault rifle and open his mouth to shout a warning that the bad man was on the outside, when I put on as near as I could a sprint and threw the man off my shoulder right at him, knocking him over. His head hit the side of the Land Cruiser with a vicious thump and he dropped his rifle. I followed it up with a tap to the head to make sure he stayed put.

  As I jumped aboard and turned on the engine, I heard a shout from way up in the building, followed by a volley of shots hitting the ground around me and a couple punching through the pickup’s thin bodywork. Somebody had been admiring the view and seen me come outside.

  I hit the gas and accelerated out of the parking lot, pausing long enough to put a couple of rounds into the tyres of the other pickup on the way by. I had no idea what these men’s tyre-changing skills were like, but unless they’d all been recruited from a Formula One pit crew, I’d gained myself several minutes’ advance on any pursuit.

  I got to where I’d left my own vehicle tucked behind a derelict workshop a couple of hundred yards away and dumped the pickup, tossing the keys into a hole before heading out to a road called the Corso Somalia. It was crowded with trucks and small cars, and if I got lucky it would take me to the city’s Aden Adde International Airport. As I drove I got on the phone to the man who’d hired me. The name he’d given me was Victor Petrus. He answered immediately and didn’t sound happy when I gave him the news.

  ‘Dead? How dead?’

  Like Masse, Petrus’s English was good, if formal, which suited his professorial appearance. I figured he’d been thrown a little by the bad news, so he probably meant how was Masse killed, not how much was he dead. ‘Knifed in the gut,’ I told him, ‘probably by somebody he knew.’

  ‘How do you come to that conclusion?’

  I explained about the defensive cut to Masse’s hand. Somebody had got close enough in front to take him by surprise, and he’d tried to parry the thrust. He’d either known the killer or been fooled enough to let his guard down.

  Petrus didn’t sound convinced, but neither did he allow the death of his operative to get in the way of pursuing his agenda. ‘Did you find anything of interest?’ He didn’t ask about any other problems I might have encountered, either, such as people trying to kill me, but I let it pass. Caring fella.

  ‘I did. I’ll see you at the airport. Be there because I won’t wait.’ I clicked off, then sent him the photo I’d taken of Masse’s body. I figured it might stop him asking pointless questions and prick his conscience a little. Or maybe not.

  I dropped the cell phone on the passenger seat and focussed on driving. I’d told Petrus I’d be at the airport, but that wasn’t where I was flying out from. Mogadishu’s Aden Adde International airport was too dangerous and would be the first place the soldiers back at the office building would aim for. A white face in this city was already easy enough to find, and being boxed in inside the terminal would make it even more so. With that in mind, I’d arranged an air-taxi flight from a smaller field ten miles away. As soon as I was sure Petrus was clean and I’d completed the hand-over, I was out of there with a hop across the border into Djibouti and away.

  I had no idea why the assault on the building had been made, but my every instinct told me that it had been too well-timed for my arrival to have been an accident.

  I’m a close protection specialist. I run security, evaluate risks in hostile situations and, where needed, provide hard cover. To do my job I have to look ahead of where a principal is going to be at any one time, checking details, terrain, routes in and out – most especially out – and providing the best possible solution for a happy outcome. If it works the principal won’t even know I’m there and will go home happy. If it doesn’t, I step in.

  And that’s where the hard cover comes in; it means I have to take a more direct course of action and fight back.

  With this one, the job had appeared simple enough – on the surface. I’d been hired through a cut-out agency for freelance contractors based in Paris, who’d told me it was an easy in-out collection job in north-east Africa and paid good money. I should have known that ‘simple’ and ‘good money’ are rarely good companions in this game. But I’d agreed on a meeting that same afternoon with Victor Petrus, an officer with France’s DGSE. He was in his late forties, tall and slim with receding grey hair and a neat goatee beard. He wore frameless glasses and the way he peered at me over the top of the lenses put me in mind of a college professor about to give a student a bad grade. He also wore the attitude of a man who didn’t want to get his hands too dirty beyond giving me my instructions.

  Our talk didn’t take long. He described my main task was to tag along with a man named André Masse through Mogadishu in Somalia, to make sure he stayed clean, alive and functioning. Masse, he said, was their man in that neck of the world and he’d been sent in to collect some information from a contact in the capital. It was a big deal, Petrus said; a very big deal. All I had to do was ride shotgun and get the package and Masse over the border to Djibouti to the north. Well, two borders if we took a direct line of flight. The first would take in a stretch of empty land in Ethiopa’s top right corner, unless we went round the long way. Like I say, simple enough; what some refer to as a milk run.

  But every now and then that’s when circumstances throw in a twister.

  Following the briefing I’d met up with Masse at a small hotel favoured by freelance reporters in the centre of Djibouti. There was sufficient traffic to help our meeting pass unnoticed, just another couple of media hounds among many, shooting the breeze while waiting for the next assignment.

  The snapshot Petrus had given me was accurate and useful; Masse would have been easy to miss in a crowd, especially in this neck of the woods. He was of medium build, with close-cropped dark hair and large, slightly bulbous brown eyes. He had a deep tan and could have passed as a Gulf Arab, which I guessed he probably did a lot of the time. You’d walk by him in most city streets around the world and not look twice.

  Masse had just returned from a trip across the border into Somalia, and confirmed what Petrus had told me – that he’d got a line on some information which he had to get back to his bosses in Paris. He didn’t say what the information was, just that it was important and had to be contained as quickly as possible. I was to accompany him to the rendezvous in Mogadishu as soon as he got word that it was ready to collect, and make sure the handover went according to plan.

  ‘It sounds as if there might be some opposition over there. Who exactly are we dealing with?’

  ‘You were not told?’ He looked guarded and I figured I knew why: I was an outsider and a stranger on his
turf. Maybe he didn’t like the idea of having a nursemaid along.

  ‘I wasn’t. But I’m sure you can fill me in.’

  He hesitated, and then said, ‘Bien. The information comes originally from a member of al-Shabaab – but it’s not terrorist-related. I can’t say more than that.’

  He was either ingenuous or taking me for a cupcake. Everything connected with al-Shabaab is terrorist-related, and brings with it all the dangers that an organisation like that implies. But I could see by his face that he wasn’t going to open up any more than he had done, so I decided to try again later before we got over the border. That way he either gave me something to go on or I backed out and left him to it.

  ‘I’ll need a weapon.’

  ‘Of course. That is already arranged. Do you have any preferences?’

  ‘A semi-automatic but nothing too heavy. Will I need papers?’

  He smiled as if he wasn’t quite sure whether I was joking or not. ‘This is the Horn of Africa. Everybody has a gun … but papers not so much.’

  I had a question. ‘If the information your contact has is on a hard drive, why can’t he send it to you online? We could save ourselves a trip.’

  ‘It would be nice,’ he said, ‘but not possible. The communication network over there is very bad and always dropping out, and I believe the quantity of data contained might be substantial. Besides, I need to see this man face-to-face. He gives me the hard drive, I check it out and if it’s good I give him the money we promised.’ He shrugged and added, ‘I may need to use him again, so it will be good to get to know him a little more.’

  I nodded. Standard tactics when building and maintaining a network; keep your assets close and keep them happy. ‘What does this man do?’ I like to know who I’m meeting with. If the contact was part of a group, he might turn up with heavy firepower and a bunch of pals. If that happened the exchange could be strictly one-sided.

  ‘He’s a Somali army officer. He works in their intelligence section. Believe me; over there he has more to lose than we do if he’s caught. He’ll come alone, I promise.’

  We talked about routes – by air taxi in and out was the simplest, according to Masse – and where to meet in Mogadishu, along with cell phone numbers and fall-back message drops if we couldn’t meet as planned. Masse seemed relaxed about the whole thing which, considering Mogadishu was billed as the current murder capital of Africa, showed considerable sang-froid. But he was French, so I guess it was in his veins.

  ‘I’ve been working this region for twenty years,’ he explained, scanning the room as he had been doing ever since we arrived. ‘I know how things work.’ He didn’t sound boastful, just matter-of-fact. He finished his drink. ‘But in another three months, I’m out of here for good. It will be good to get back to the Loire, where I was born.’ He stretched and stood up, then hesitated, his eye on the door. A man had just entered and lifted a hand in recognition before heading towards the bar. I glanced at Masse and he looked unsettled.

  ‘Friend of yours?’

  ‘An acquaintance. He’s a teacher from Malawi.’

  ‘That’s quite a hike from here.’ At a rough guess, about 1,800 miles of hard travel.

  ‘He’s a freelance. He works for a number of schools and was transferred up here on loan after a number of foreign teachers rotated out. He’s a good man, don’t worry.’

  I’m paid to worry, especially about people who turn up at a meeting out of the blue. It could be a coincidence but I wasn’t taking chances. The fact that this new guy was a teacher made no difference. One thing you try not to do in this business is to involve innocents. There’s too much at stake and they don’t know the rules. ‘I’m guessing he doesn’t know anything about what you do?’

  ‘No, of course not.’ He blinked as he said it. Big mistake.

  ‘You’re lying.’

  There was a long silence while he figured out whether to tell me another lie to cover his incompetence or to come clean. He settled for somewhere in between. ‘I told him I’m in construction.’ He shrugged. ‘It’s been my cover for a long time, if he wants to check.’

  Check? If this teacher did any such thing, it would prove he was no teacher. ‘Did he buy it?’

  ‘Of course. Why would he not?’

  ‘Because the big thing down here is the war on terror, not construction, and there are bound to be people here who already wonder what you do for a living. Nobody stays secret forever. One careless word from him in the wrong company and your teacher friend could find himself in trouble.’

  ‘That won’t happen. Anyway, you’re here with me; do you feel threatened?’

  ‘Not yet. But I’m just passing through. By the time anyone connects any dots I’ll be long gone.’

  By now the newcomer was walking towards us. Masse clamped his mouth shut and stood up to greet him, then made introductions. ‘Colin Doney, Marc Portman.’

  Doney was medium height and stocky, in his forties with a growth of stubble around a chiselled jaw. Dressed in standard light cotton pants and shirt, he was holding a whisky in one hand. He looked fit and relaxed, with a deep tan; a genial looking guy at ease with himself and the world around him.

  We chatted for a few minutes, and if Doney was hiding anything, he was a very good actor. While Masse excused himself and went to the bathroom, Doney confirmed that he was a teacher on assignment, and as far as I could determine lacked any guile. He didn’t even ask what I did, which showed either good manners or a carefree lack of interest.

  When it was polite to do so, I gave Masse a nod and stood up. It was time to get moving and on our way across the border.

  THREE

  Now, as I was approaching Mogadishu airport I began seeing uniforms – lots of them. With the likelihood of an attack by al-Shabaab on a daily basis, an open display of force was the customary approach. It worked more days than it didn’t. But today I began to worry. It was like they’d called in every spare cop and soldier in the city, and I gave up counting after seeing about thirty armed uniforms wandering around checking vehicles in and out.

  I drove by with my head down and found a parking slot sandwiched between two small trucks, with a good view of the terminal building and a short run to the exit if I had to bug out in a hurry. I knew Petrus would be waiting inside, but the one thing I wasn’t about to do was waltz in there like a tourist. That was a quick way of sticking my head in a noose.

  I dialled his number, and he answered in a rush, his voice low. ‘You took your time, Portman. Where are you?’ If he was trying to be cool and polite, it didn’t work; he was way too tense and his question came out like an accusation.

  I said, ‘Trying to avoid trouble, if you must know.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Like I told you, Masse was dead when I got there. But just minutes after I arrived I had company. A bunch of uniforms came in hard and hosed down the entire building. They weren’t looking to take prisoners.’

  He didn’t ask what building or how I’d got out. Instead he brushed it aside by saying, ‘A coincidence, that’s all. Masse would have been most careful. You must have been the one followed.’

  I let the insult to my professionalism go by because it was a waste of time arguing. The one thing I always make certain of when going to a meet is to shake off any possible tails. If the other party brings one, that’s different. But I’m usually far enough back to check out that possibility and deal with it.

  This time there had been nothing. And judging by the length of time Masse appeared to have been dead, I knew the soldiers hadn’t been waiting around close by on the off-chance somebody might show up; they’d been primed and timed and told to go.

  ‘You must come in and complete the handover,’ Petrus continued. If he felt any grief at the loss of his man, he was hiding it well. ‘Come through the main doors of the terminal building and look to your right. I’ll be waiting by the coffee franchise.’

  As I switched off and got ready to move, a Magirus army truck
full of troops arrived in front of the terminal, followed by a shuttle coach. The troops dropped out and scattered across the entrance and approach road, while a Hilux pickup stopped further back and dropped off more troops, who jumped down and stopped any other traffic from approaching and pushed people away from the entrance. The result was chaos and near panic. Before things got completely out of control an officer gave a signal and the coach doors opened. A dozen passengers, a mix of African and Europeans, each carrying briefcases and wearing suits, scurried out and disappeared inside the terminal.

  Government or African Union officials, I guessed, maybe even European observers leaving another of the many places on earth now drawing the growth industry of fact-finding organisations worldwide with a mission to make things better.

  I leaned over the back of the seat and picked up a briefcase of my own. It’s like a passport to normality in this part of the world, and while I knew it wouldn’t stop me running into trouble forever, it would give any ordinary trooper or cop pause for thought before demanding a look at documents or making a body search.

  I crossed the parking lot and approach road and walked up to the first trooper I saw and held out the briefcase, the top open. It held papers, a road map and a book. He glanced at the contents and waved me through in a distracted manner, one eye on the area behind me for signs of danger.

  It was my pass into the building. I found the coach party hadn’t gotten far beyond the entrance, in spite of their army escort. They were milling around impatiently, throwing nervous glances at the entrance behind them and trying to push through the already crowded terminal away from all the activity outside. But that simply added to the frenzy. The interior was already crowded with noise and bustle, with everybody seemingly shouting at each other, at airport officials or into cell phones. I slipped into their midst and looked towards the coffee franchise Petrus had mentioned. It was an open trolley with an array of snacks out front and a coffee machine behind, operated by a single man juggling mugs and materials like a professional.