CHAPTER 19
"There's an email from Michael," Solomon said.
They were on an early train from Victoria to Croydon to check the office after the fire and take away anything that was useful. Gabriel was reading newspapers, Solomon on the laptop.
"A group from the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs is arriving in Abuja. The national arms manufacturing company set up because the US refused to supply arms is looking to buy high tech equipment."
Gabriel, engrossed in the Guardian, looked up. "What can we do? Nothing. How's Michael?"
"Worried."
Gabriel lowered his newspaper. "I've been thinking, Sol. Maybe we should look at moving to the UK. Bring Michael and his family over." He looked at Solomon out of the corner of his eye. "You could bring Carla over. Settle down. Run things from here."
Solomon continued his tapping on the keyboard but Gabriel knew he was thinking.
Solomon had known Carla for years. He rarely mentioned her, but Gabriel knew he thought about her. Probably a lot. Fleeting liaisons suited Gabriel's style better.
He returned to the paper and nothing more was said until the announcement: 'Next stop, West Croydon.'
Ten minutes later they were talking to Anton Sobanski their landlord and owner of the Polish foods shop. Above the shop, the 'Household of God's Miracles Church' sign still hung in the front window.
"Yah, it was late, nearly nine o'clock but we still open," Anton explained. "This car, he stop outside and two black men get out. I thought, ah, friends of Kenneth. But we not see Kenneth for few days. He very nice man, Kenneth. Always buy yams and red chillies. They have key to side door. They go inside. Then they come down and drive away. Then someone pass by see smoke in the window. I run with fire extinguisher. Lucky not spread otherwise whole building, shop as well, in danger. Then I call police."
They went upstairs, took a look at the charred remains, the plastic of Kenneth's chair melted, the ceiling black with soot. Unburned files and boxes lay strewn around, desk drawers and filing cabinet doors hung open.
"I hate fires," Gabriel muttered. "I hate the smell, the blackness."
Solomon looked at him knowing it had something to do with Gabriel's childhood. A fire in the hut when he was very young, he suspected, though Gabriel had never talked about it. Neither did he ever talk about his mother, but Solomon knew she'd died in a fire.
Solomon was sifting through unburned papers and putting them in a box when Mark Dobson phoned. He'd been up half the night looking into the Kaplan empire and gave Gabriel a quick summary.
"Llc-Protech are based in Paris," he said. "They supply Russian made military equipment. Did you know that?"
Gabriel didn't.
"You told me the Kaplans had French connections, Gabriel. Well, it's more than a connection. They have a French company, Societe Protechnologie - SPT. It's into uranium mining in Kazakhstan and Mongolia but not, as far as I can tell, in Niger. Then there's some sort of connection between SPT and the French Ministry responsible for energy. I've asked Colin to check that. Point is, Gabriel, this is big corporate business mixed with high politics and national self-interest. You're like a sardine swimming amongst a shoal of sharks. Do you want to know more?"
"No."
For the first time, Dobson felt sorry for Gabriel. He sounded deflated and Dobson understood why. Gabriel was starting to look not just like a sardine but like a self-taught driver of a big truck who'd done well at the beginning but the road was now rougher and steeper, the fuel was running low and he still didn't understand what all the controls did.
Solomon had opened the office window to let fresh air in and Gabriel was peering through the sign that dangled on a wire. Dobson heard him sigh, audibly.
"No," he repeated. "I know enough. I know we can't trust the Kaplans. I've never trusted the French and I can't rely on the US or the UK government. I don't trust Nigerians because they don't trust me and if Sol and I go back they'll probably arrest us both."
He was silent for a moment but breathing heavily. "And yet......and yet we have support from so many. They all expect us to deliver."
Dobson waited for Gabriel to say more but there was only the sound of traffic passing by. "I assume you're at the Croydon office," he said.
"Sol's packing files that weren't fire damaged. But......" he stopped then started again. "I'm not sure how much longer we can keep going."
"Christ, Gabriel. What's up? Where's the spark?"
"And if we go for Plan B problems could double."
"Depends on what the hell Plan B is, I suppose," Dobson said, "You've never explained it."
"Yeh......." Gabriel said, hesitantly."I'm watching something."
"Good man. Keep watching your back, Gabriel."
"Not my fucking back, Mark. I'm watching something down in the street."
He'd been leaning on the window ledge covered in dirt and pigeon shit, but watching a black car on the road below. It had driven past twice, maybe three times. The main road outside was painted with double yellow lines meaning no parking. That meant the one-way side street alongside the shop was, as most everywhere else in London, jammed with parked cars on both sides. The car, a Mazda 6, turned into the side street.
Inside were three black men, a driver and two passengers - one in the front seat next to the driver and one in the rear. The man in the rear seat looked up at the open window where Gabriel was looking out and Gabriel ducked down. Still holding the phone with Dobson hanging on he went to the side window to see what happened as the car drove around the corner. With no space to stop it slowly drove past.
"I'll call you later, Mark."
Gabriel turned to Solomon. "Sol, we need to get out of here, right now."
"I've not finished packing these...."
"Now, Sol. Big trouble. I just saw someone."
Solomon abandoned the packing and in less than a minute they were outside, standing in the doorway of a Help the Aged charity shop on the other side of the main road. It was pouring with rain.
"Who did you see, Femi?"
"Remember the rally in Brixton? Remember Dele telling you there were Nigerians in the crowd who watched but never cheered. I also saw them from the stage. And I saw them get up and go before the end. I sometimes close my eyes on stage, but when I open them I always scan the crowd. If it's not too dark I make eye contact. Women love it."
"Who were they?"
"Pastor Lazarus in a suit and, two rows back, Pastor Ayo. wearing a fucking hat,"
"You insulted them once, Femi."
"I meant to insult them."
"Why didn't you tell me you saw them?"
"I just did."
"And Ayo and Lazarus were in the car?"
"And someone else driving. It passed twice......there it is again. It's circling round."
"You think they saw us go in?"
"Maybe they saw the window open. Take the car number, Sol."
They backed further into the doorway of the shop and watched as the car indicated right to turn, once more, into the side street. This time it pulled up on the double yellow line behind the first parked car. The engine died, the wipers stopped and the driver got out, leaving the passengers inside. The driver - tall, heavily built and dressed in black jeans and a black leather jacket - paused to look up at the window. Then he went to the side door, pushed it, found it unlocked and disappeared inside.
On the wet, busy main street, shoppers with umbrellas continued to walk past Anton Sobanski's shop. An elderly black woman picked over red peppers amongst a stack of boxes of fruit and vegetables.
"Give me the phone, Sol."
"You calling the police, Femi?"
"No, Mr Sobanski. What's his number?"
"It's painted above his front window, Femi."
"Anton? Yeh, it's Gabriel. Listen, we're outside, in the street, opposite the shop.......Why? We got scared, Anton. There's a black car parked round the side. One guy's just gone through our side door entrance. You want to check if it
's the same car as last time? Don't get involved. Just check."
They watched as Anton Sobanski came running out of his shop doorway, still carrying the phone. He stopped running, looked cautiously around the corner and put the phone to his ear, "Ya, same bloody car. Two black men inside, one with a hat."
"A third man has gone upstairs, Anton."
"Holy Mary, they gonna fire it again. I call police."
As Anton Sobanski ran back to his shop, the side door opened again and the big man in jeans came out. In no apparent hurry, he opened the front kerbside door of the car, bent down, said something to the occupant of the front seat and shook his head. The rain was falling heavily, bouncing off the pavement, streams of water running in the gutter. The man turned and glanced up at the office window just as a local council refuse truck appeared on the main road, orange lights flashing on its roof. It indicated to turn into the side road but the Mazda was blocking the way so it blew a warning on a loud horn that made the lady sorting peppers jump. It also confused the big man in the leather jacket. If he was getting instructions from inside the car, he was also getting sworn at by the co-driver of the trash truck and was now in far more of a hurry. In his confusion, his black leather jacket swung open and something fell onto the sodden pavement. It then slid into the gutter almost underneath the car.
"He's just dropped a fucking gun," Solomon said. "See? He's picking it up."
No-one who hadn't been watching the man would have noticed him grab the small but dripping handgun from the gutter and stuff it back inside his jacket. He stood up, raised his hand to the truck driver as if apologising for the inconvenience, went quickly around the front of the car and got in. A few seconds later the car moved off, the refuse truck completed its turn and followed the car up the narrow road, its orange lights still flashing.
Gabriel and Solomon ran across the road towards Anton.
"I phone police," Anton said.
"They've gone," said Gabriel.
"They from your bloody country?"
"Sorry about Nigerians."
"They your friends?"
"No. But we have no need of the office anymore. Sorry Anton, but if you email an invoice to Solomon we'll settle it."
Gabriel phoned Mark Dobson from the train back to Victoria.
"Can Colin trace car numbers?" he asked after describing what had happened.
"He has his ways. But the list of those you can't trust just gets longer and longer, Gabriel."
"I've never trusted Pastor Ayo. Pastor Lazarus is like a spoiled child, a cry baby. There's a third - Bishop William of the Disciples of Jesus School of Ibadan. They work together. Lazarus follows them like a pet poodle but they are conmen, top of their league, multi-millionaires. I didn't know they were in London."
"And the other man, the driver, the one with the gun?"
"Never seen him before. Big guy."
"Could they be behind Kenneth's murder?"
"Maybe."
"And the FAA contract?"
"Probably."
"And would they know the Kaplans?"
"They might."
"Do they know where you're staying?"
"Blossom's? Unlikely. Anyway, Sol and I are flying to Nice."
"Nice? France?"
"Yeh. A day trip. To see a donor."