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  New Name, New Person?

  As Charles stood in line waiting to check in to the hotel, he glanced at the passport in his hand. Subconsciously he had opened it ready to be inspected, and his thumb marked the page with his photograph. It seemed strange that his name was now Charles Siddons, no longer Barney Coughlin. This he would need to get used to!

  He left the hotel the next morning, passing through airport security without a hitch, then boarded a plane heading for Lubumbashi, a town situated deep in Africa in the southern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. During his research whilst planning his journey he had ascertained that the short journey from Lubumbashi to Konkola in Zambia should not be a problem, and he thought this could be done by hired car or taxi.

  However, it was his opinion that crossing the border into Zambia from the French-speaking Democratic Republic of the Congo may be a problem, and as a precaution he made sure that he was carrying enough cash to overcome resistance by way of a ‘dash’ or ‘bung’. Charles intended to keep his ears and eyes wide open and look for the opportunities if and when they came. He thought that if problems did arise, there was more chance that they would come from the DRC side due to the language barrier.

  He passed at border control at Lubumbashi without a hitch; none of the officers on duty seemed to care and waved him through. But his mood changed when he saw the state of the taxis waiting to be hired; they all looked ready for the scrapheap and he was sure they would not make the Zambian border, and he did not much feel like camping out in the African bush. All, of them were decrepit, old and rusty vehicles; he had inspected each one and they all looked totally unsafe and not fit to be on the road.

  He needed to get more information from the car rental information kiosk and waited for the clerk to return. It was over half an hour before she arrived.

  “Can you advise me on the best way to travel over the border to Konkola?” He waited for an answer, wondering whether she would offer him the advice he wanted.

  The pretty black lady pulled out of her desk drawer a bunch of leaflets and papers, and explained to Charles the procedure and cost. “It would be better if you hired a taxi; the cost of car rental is expensive, especially if you intend to drive over the border. The rental company will almost certainly require a bond.”

  “Can I hire a taxi from here?

  “You can, but it will be better if you hire one from outside the departure lounge. You will also need a visa from the government, that is, to enter Zambia.”

  “How long will that take?” Charles asked

  “Three days normally, but if we send our courier it will take only a day,” the lady advised.

  “How much?” Charles asked.

  “Fifty dollars, American.”

  “Can you get it for me today and I will pay you double?” Charles laughed.

  “We can try, if you want.” The lady tabled the papers, wrote a note on plain paper and called a young youth from the back of the office, gave him instructions and passed him the note with the cash.

  The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) was granted independence from Belgium in 1960. It took only four years for their first despot to become president, when Mobutu Sese Seko won a supposedly rigged election, and it took another thirty-two years for another despot, Laurent-Désiré Kabila, to oust him from power.

  During his reign Mobutu was accused of many unlawful acts including human rights abuses, money laundering, and corruption on a huge scale: he was rumoured to have extracted four billion dollars from the economy and transferred it to his personal Swiss bank account. It was the equivalent close to the Zambian national debt at the time. Ordinary people suffered immense hardship, food was scarce and work hard to come by, and the roads and security were controlled by a corrupt police force, their wages paid for by the fines they imposed on the public.

  When Charles tried to negotiate his taxi fare from Lubumbashi Airport, there were fifty drivers all offering different rates. He would get a discount if he paid in American dollars.

  During his flight he had studied the map of the Zambian towns close to the border. The best one to stay in would be either Chililabombwe or Konkola; he would make that decision when he arrived.

  Finally, he agreed a rate of one hundred dollars paid in advance. He wondered if he would reach Konkola alive, as this must be the most decrepit car on the planet; nevertheless, he collected his bag and they were off.

  The journey seemed long and arduous and after three hours of hard, scary driving they arrived at the border. But his luck left him when, after queuing for an hour, he was held by border control, who claimed that Charles had a visa problem. It was explained in detail why he was in breach of the regulations, pointing out the parts of his visa that did not match those on his passport.

  “What do you mean, ‘do not tie up’?”

  The officials remained dogmatic. The visa for entry to the DRC was not the correct one, and it was obvious they wanted to be convinced it was right before they even addressed his Zambian documents.

  He approached the officer, who waved him to the side, away from the rest of the passengers disembarking.

  “So what do you want from me to pass into Zambia?” asked Charles.

  “You must go back to Lubumbashi and re-clarify your details.”

  “You must be joking. Can I pay for you to verify my visa here and now?” he pleaded.

  The officer stood between Charles and the next passenger, who was becoming agitated. “I can, but it will take time and is a costly business.”

  “How much is ‘costly’, in dollars?”

  “It will be four hundred dollars, but can only be done after all passengers have passed through.”

  A passenger who was waiting some way down the line moved up and stood within talking distance of the officer and Charles. He was over six feet tall, his sleeveless vest emphasised his muscular physique, and his face was thin and hard. He hadn’t shaved for a few days. “What is the trouble? Can I be of assistance?”

  The officer, on seeing the man, suddenly stiffened. His attitude changed, and he suddenly began to show signs of nervousness. “His passport is not in order. It will need to be verified and amended, but this cannot be done until tomorrow, as the chief officer is not available until then.”

  Charles interrupted. “They want four hundred dollars to ‘revise’ the visa.”

  “Enough.” The tall man glared at the officer. “My name is George Mwanza, you know that. Let this man through; I will talk with Benson in the morning.”

  “But—” the officer protested.

  “No. As I said, tomorrow.”

  The two of them walked through from the airside and stopped to chat on the Zambian side of the border.

  George Mwanza looked at the grateful Charles. “Look, boss,” he said. “You owe me, but I will just take 250 dollars now and pay you back in a month.”

  “You want me to lend you 250 dollars?” Charles wanted confirmation of what he was hearing.

  “Yes. But as I said, I will pay it back in a month; I will have a deal through by then.”

  Charles asked George to wait whilst he went to the money services, and within five minutes returned and gave George the 250 American dollars. “You do not owe me anything, George; that was a good deal, and I am grateful.”

  The man looked down at Charles. His face was set, with not a smile or any other sign of feeling. “As I said, it is a loan. Where will you stay in Zambia?”

  “I don’t know, probably Ndola.”

  “I know your name and will find you, but now I must be off.” Then George quickly turned his attention to two very colourful females who were waiting for him.

  11

  Ndola: A Place to Remember,

  Summer 1981

  The backpack that Charles had hauled all the way from London weighed a ton and he wondered why it seemed he
avier now than when he had left, which seemed a hundred years ago.

  He headed for the small guest house he had pre-booked, checked in, and fell onto the bed without undressing. Tomorrow would be another day, he thought; first he would sleep, and then make plans for his travel tomorrow. He was hoping to visit Ndola and see if the town was suitable to set up his temporary home.

  It now seemed a million years ago that he had researched and selected these places to stay en route. He wondered what had endeared them to him when he learned of them at the travel agent, but he was thankful they had.

  The Zambian climate is renowned as one of the best in the world; never a winter, only a wet and a dry season, a good quality of air. As he lay on the bed he tried to remember the geographic statistics of the country. They had a low of one thousand feet and a high of seven thousand feet above sea level, and he remembered that Ndola was at three thousand feet and had good air quality.

  On balance it was very acceptable, even if the smelting plants belonging to the Copperbelt mines were taken into account, and with all these numbers bouncing around his head he fell asleep, only to wake with a start an hour before dawn, but then settled back and listened to the sounds outside.

  It was unnerving for him to hear these strange noises, different than any he had heard before; it was only the dogs barking that reminded him of home. He assumed the incessant chirping was perhaps crickets; the short, high-pitched calls he suspected were monkeys, but the action was not all outside; it was also the consistent buzzing of mosquitoes outside his protective nets. He wondered what would happen if all those mosquitoes suddenly got inside the net and sucked his blood at the same time. He wondered if the noises he could hear were worse than those things he could not hear; those silent killers one comes across in a nightmare.

  As he lay there resting, he realised for the first time since going to bed that all the other guests in the house were silent. Yet at three o’clock it had seemed as if the hotel was the centre of a railway station, with continuous noise from people’s footsteps, incessant talking, a steady hum of voices from dusk to nearly dawn, and it was during this time that he’d felt alone, and scared.

  Life was cheap in Africa; gangs would kill, rob and rape at any time; certainly a wooden door was not going to stop any predators. They could burst into his room in a moment and cut him in half with a panga; it did not bear thinking about.

  He was glad to wake in the morning in one piece, the sun streaming through the window. The fear had gone.

  Charles Goes Walkabout

  A few days after arriving at Ndola, Charles wanted to get out and about to see what the place was like, even make a few friends. Those people he had met already all seemed to be friendly and hospitable; probably, he thought, they were of the same ilk as George Mwanza. He too was friendly, so much so that he had been able to fleece Charles out of a few hundred dollars.

  The first thing he needed to do was to check out the municipality where he now lived – the shops, roads, administration buildings, bus station and airport. It was necessary to know where the primary buildings were situated, including the police station, the best pubs, the town hall and the long-haul bus station. He had been told by the boys in the bar to avoid travelling in the white transit vans used as taxis; they said if he did it may be the last time he travelled anywhere. The township people would see to that.

  Nevertheless, he liked the area and if he did settle in Ndola he hoped he could do business in the social climate, perhaps find a house and negotiate the terms without providing his personal details.

  He shaved and showered, and thought it would be nice to dress smartly, but looking at his pile of crumpled clothes in his backpack he thought there wasn’t much chance of that. He would take them to the launderette tomorrow, but for now he would test out the mood of the people.

  As he approached the Savoy Hotel, it was obvious by the flaking paint hanging from the walls that it had seen better days. The traffic passing on the road was now much busier than earlier in the day; it seemed that the working class were on their way home, and the drinkers on their way to the hotel.

  Once he had reached the inn and entered the bar area, he found himself amongst a noisy bunch of local guys enjoying a drink. It was a national holiday and the bar was full of mineworkers, with hardly enough space left for a lone drinker, and the noise in the room was so loud it was difficult for the barman to hear Charles’s order.

  Although the mood was boisterous, it was affable; the people seemed a peaceful lot and, seeing a new white face enter their space, they soon befriended him.

  “Where do you come from, man?” shouted a huge black worker. He was only three feet away from Charles but anyone who heard him would have thought he was communicating with someone fifty yards away. After every gulp of beer, he slammed the bottle on a nearby table and the beer frothed over and dripped onto the floor.

  “From Ireland,” answered Charles, but he felt guilty and did not offer any more than this.

  “From where? I thought an island was a place in the middle of the ocean,” queried the big man.

  Charles changed the subject and hoped that the man would forget where his original track had been going. “Would you like another beer, friend?”

  “Yes, man, that would be great; I will ask the barman to bring them over. One for me and three others for my friends here; let me introduce them.”

  He turned to three characters similar in looks to himself; they were all in conversation but when the words ‘another drink’ were uttered they stopped talking (or shouting) and paid attention to the big man.

  “I am Issac.” He looked down to at the others. “This is Boniface, and John, and the good-looking one is Lotte.”

  “Hi, guys, hope you’re well and enjoy the drink; it is a pleasure to meet you all.”

  They all nodded in unison and their smiles seemed to reflect their appreciation for the beers.

  “Where are you living?” asked Issac, swaying on his feet as he waited for an answer.

  “At the guest house on the Kitwe road,” said Charles, “but I am looking for something more permanent.” He was careful to hold back any information that would lead the others to think about his originality.

  “Just a minute, boss, I may have something for you.” Issac moved towards the bar and shouted to the barman, who was pouring a beer into a glass. “Jacob, are you still looking to rent your house?”

  “Yes, man, but keep your voice down; I do not want the whole world to hear.” He winked, and it suggested something about the proposed transaction was not normal.

  Issac continued the conversation as the barman closed the till and moved towards Charles. “This white guy needs a place to stay; he is writing a book and it may take a year or so. You know, man, it’s good business, and you know one good deed needs a return.”

  “OK, OK, but let me do a deal first and keep your mouth shut.”

  “OK, then speak with him.” Issac shouted to Charles and waved him over. “Charles, please meet Jacob; he has something to offer you.”

  At midnight Charles staggered from the hotel bar. His mind was scrambled, his legs were like jelly and he held the building wall; he was sure without support he might well fall on his face.

  He collected his thoughts. Where was his bloody guesthouse?

  “How will you get back to your boarding house?” Issac slurred from the hotel door.

  “Can I get a taxi?” asked Charles.

  “Not if you value your life.”

  “What, then?”

  “Stay with me,” the local man slurred, then added, “just for the night, and you better leave when I go to work at five o’clock, otherwise the neighbours will talk about a white man alone in the house with my wife.”

  Barney felt content in Ndola; he had made friends on his first night out and, although he’d got plastered doing it, in the morning he sti
ll remembered to pay the deposit and one month’s rent to his landlord. His head was throbbing!

  One thing was missing from his rejuvenated life: sport. His friends from the bar were no help; they only had an association with football and boxing. His enquiries led people to advise him to approach the expat community, and he did; the local vicar informed him there were three decent expat clubs that sponsored polo, tennis and golf.

  The following day he was obtaining references to join the golf club.

  12

  Finding a Needle in a Haystack,

  1st May 1981

  The tall, balding man was gazing out of his Manhattan hotel window. His stomach was hanging over his belt and his silhouetted outline looked even more rotund than he actually was. His face was grey and he did not look happy – he was about to discuss a particularly embarrassing situation with the two colleagues sitting behind him.

  McGirk was the commander of the South Armagh division of the IRA, and it was his brigade who, in August 1979, had carried out two horrendous attacks simultaneously.

  Today McGirk was nervous; in two weeks’ time members of his brigade would attempt the IRA’s most outrageous attack on the British Queen and on the same day an organisation called the Grey Wolves were planning to assassinate John Paul II, and, if both attacks were to be successful, the consequences of the bombings would shock the world.

  The operation was monumental; the two-pronged attack was brokered by the IRA and sponsored by the KGB. It would be the most audacious in the history of the IRA, and the Soviet Secret Service hoped it would unstable Europe and change the minds of the Russian people and take them away from their own problems of discontentment. All necessary arrangements had been made and it was only days until the attack. All those concerned were on edge, and none more so than McGirk.

  It was a setback that one of the main agents had absconded six months before the date. The IRA had responded quickly and replaced him with one of their best men; there was no change to the 9th May 1981, and everything was in hand.