‘Some gift.’
‘I will make the regime in Tbilisi crumble and my country will be free. Georgia is an enemy of Russia, Nick. An enemy of South Ossetia. There will be violence on the streets of Tbilisi very soon. The people I support and finance will make sure of that. Those heads — they are a gift to those who would try to use my son as a weapon against me.
‘I am treating them to a vision of their future — because soon I will have their heads as well. My mother and my father, they were in their seventies when the Georgians came into my country. They were old, gentle people, no threat to anyone.’
When Georgia launched its military offensive in 2008 to retake the breakaway South Ossetia, about fourteen hundred locals were killed. Frank’s parents must have been among them.
We both went quiet as Tracy’s body was loaded.
There had been anger in his voice when he spoke about his parents, but now sadness replaced the more familiar Terminator look.
‘We’ll bury her in Moscow. Stefan needs to be close to her always.’
Frank suddenly couldn’t meet my eye.
‘What are you going to tell him?’
He shrugged.
‘If it helps, Frank, when I first saw Tracy in Merca, she was stroking his head and singing a nursery rhyme. What about telling him that his mum has gone to heaven to teach the angels to sing “Three Blind Mice”?’
The tears welled up again in Frank’s eyes. I didn’t think they were just for Stefan. A hand came up, trying to push them back into his head rather than wipe them away.
‘Yes, that will be a very good idea. Thank you, Nick.’
My job was done, but I suddenly felt this might be a new beginning, not the end of days. Maybe what I’d told Tracy was true. Stefan was a part of her. And she was a part of Mong. And Mong? Well, Mong was a part of me, always.
I gave Frank a couple of seconds to sort his face out. ‘And what’s going to happen with Stefan now? Is he going to be kept away from your family?’ I nodded over at the bedroom. ‘Kept in a box with a nanny for the rest of his childhood? It wouldn’t be right, would it, Frank?’
The tears had gone and the old Frank, maybe not the real Frank, was coming back. ‘You really have been working very hard to find out about me.’
I nodded. ‘Part of my job, mate.’
He leant in towards me, the eyes now able to fix on mine. ‘Stefan will be part of my family. My wife’s name is Lyubova. It means “love”. She has much of it. She has had to, Nick. I have not always been a good husband. Some of the women, Lyubova has known about — but she has always loved me.’
He pointed a finger at me. ‘She knows nothing of Stefan. But she will, very soon. I will tell her everything. I believe she will embrace my son as her own. I hope she will forgive me. I hope that I may become the husband she has always deserved. So maybe something good has already come out of this.’ He sat back. ‘But enough, Nick. What about you — what do you want? What do you need?’
I sat back too, taking the last of the water down my throat. ‘I think Joe the pilot needs a new aircraft. He’s got more holes in it than my socks.’
Frank looked down and saw the state of my feet. He laughed.
He put his hands up. ‘Of course, that will all be taken care of. But you, Nick — what do you want more than anything in the world?’
That was an easy question to answer.
‘Frank, I want a lift to Benghazi.’
His eyes widened. He laughed again, a deep, warm, sonorous laugh. This was the real Frank, and I liked him.
PART EIGHT
1
The muslim without Borders convoy of six white Mercedes Sprinter vans passed through yet another Free Benghazi checkpoint on the outskirts of the war-scarred city. With all the 12.7-mounted technicals and AKs and RPGs, it could almost have been Mogadishu — except that these Africans were Arabs.
After he’d laughed himself out, Frank had ordered the G6 to fly to Sallun, the Egyptian border-crossing. Near the Mediterranean, it was about ninety miles from Tobruk. The small airport that greeted me there looked exactly like Camp Hope in Aceh Province six years ago. The only difference was that transport planes could land a lot closer.
Aircraft disgorged humanitarian supplies 24/7. Lots of people ran around looking very busy in khaki waistcoats and cargoes with a huge number of pockets full of very important stuff. The white Toyota 4×4s had already turned up with their big antennas and NGO and MONGO stickers.
The G6 looked totally out of place as it taxied to a standstill. Even the happy-clappy crowd who’d just arrived to convert the Libyans and Egyptians to Christianity stopped and stared, as if Obama had turned up to take a personal look. The locals just watched suspiciously. They needed to make sure it hadn’t come to help Gaddafi’s family do a runner.
When I emerged in a pair of Frank’s centre-creased jeans and a green and yellow checked shirt they all looked very let down. Frank knew how to make a billion or ten. He also knew how to dress like a knob.
Getting into Libya was a piece of piss, mainly because nobody wanted to. There were no officials on the Libyan side of the crossing. It was getting out that would be the problem: the Egyptian side was heavily policed. Sub-Saharan migrant workers waited for days in makeshift camps to do so, drinking bottled water and eating bread doled out by the agencies. Every one of them carried at least one large market bag with that tight tartan weave, tied up with string. Some even had TVs wrapped in cardboard. These lads had worked hard to buy that shit, so it was coming with them.
And even when they finally got across, it was only to step into yet another camp. Where would you go? There was fuck-all for miles in any direction apart from some Roman wells and a Second World War Commonwealth cemetery.
At least those who’d made it this far were getting fed until somebody, somewhere, somehow, got them home. It wasn’t like the Egyptians didn’t have problems of their own. They’d just had their own Arab Spring and were still trying to sort their shit out.
The Bangladeshis faced the worst hardships. There were thousands of them, and they were thousands of miles from home.
Militias controlled the main drag along the coast, and the eastern part of the country — or so rumour had it. Whatever, they looked ecstatic to see our convoy coming through. They knew we were on our way to help their brothers.
Wahid Kandawalla, the young Pakistani guy in command of the line of vehicles, was negotiating the war zone for the fifth time in ten days, bringing supplies to the hospital. His fresh face full of goodwill, he sat in the right-hand seat, still trying to grow his beard like a good Muslim.
He glanced into the rear of the van from time to time to check I was OK. I was. I’d made myself reasonably comfortable, lying on the boxes of dressings and surgical sterilization kits. I was also completely fucked. The rocking of the vehicle, the darkness and the heat had me asleep in no time at all.
And now I was just lying there relaxing. I had no control over what was happening. I couldn’t do anything about it. So: whenever there’s a lull in the battle, get your head down. You never know the next time you’re going to get the chance to sleep.
I’d thrown Awaale’s mobile away at Sallun. I wasn’t fucking him off: it was just that these ‘meet up again’ things never really work. Events had brought us together for a moment, but that was all it had been. Besides, Awaale wasn’t going back to Minneapolis for a while. He’d be too busy taking over the clan, brassing up Lucky Justice, and standing his ground against AS fighters coming from the south. That was if he stayed alive long enough. Piracy was a dangerous business on both sides of the deal.