Shortly after nine o’clock on this particular Sunday morning, however, Simon Dollond received a call from Faith Gushungo’s personal assistant informing him that the First Lady and President had both been afflicted by food poisoning and would not be able to receive communion as usual. Rev. Dollond sympathized with the Gushungos’ plight, agreeing that few things were more unpleasant than food poisoning and assuring the PA that he would make sure Tony Gibson got the message and would not disturb them.
‘I hope that the President and Mrs Gushungo feel much better next week,’ Dollond concluded.
‘Oh yes, sir, I am quite sure that they will be greatly improved,’ agreed Zalika.
‘That’s the general idea, certainly,’ Carver muttered under his breath.
‘Now it’s your turn,’ she said, having put down the phone.
‘God bless you, my child,’ he replied.
Carver wasn’t a big believer in elaborate disguises. He was blessed with a face that was neither pretty-boy handsome nor memorably ugly. His height was somewhat above average, but not so much as to make him stand out. He carried very little spare weight, so his jawline was not blurred by excess fat or sagging skin, and there was no bloating in his cheeks. When people described him, they could have been talking about a million other guys in their thirties or forties. The one feature that marked him out most clearly, the greenness of his eyes, could easily be dealt with using contact lenses. The combination of toughness, competence and relentless determination that gave his character its strength he camouflaged just as easily by hiding it below the surface of his personality like a shark lurking beneath the waters of a cheery tourist beach.
He’d entered Hong Kong using a Canadian passport in the name of Bowen Erikson, an alias he’d used for many years. For the job itself, though, he’d be using another of his identities, Roderick Wishart. It seemed right, somehow, for the character he had in mind.
Carver slipped on the grey wig and covered his eyes with brown contacts and the tortoiseshell spectacles. He put on the second-hand dark-grey suit and a black T-shirt, over which went an item of clothing he had bought at Vanpoulles: a dove-grey vicar’s bib with a white dog-collar. Carver then slipped Wishart’s wallet into the right inside pocket of his suit jacket. It contained the vicar’s passport and a couple of his unimpressive-looking credit cards: it would take a lot more than a cursory search to uncover that they were directly linked to Panamanian bank accounts with hundreds of thousands of US dollars in credit. Three clean SIM cards were stitched into the lining of the wallet. Into the other inside pocket he slipped a small leather-bound prayer book. Its centre had been hollowed out to provide room for the Erikson passport and another set of cards. Carver never left home without the means to get anywhere in the world, fast.
Six days earlier in Tunbridge Wells, Carver had acquired a scuffed old briefcase with a flap-top secured by two buckled straps. Into it went a glass cruet – a glass flask with a silver screw top, filled with communion wine – and a silver-plate chalice from which to drink it. Whoever had owned the case before him had obviously not taken the trouble to screw his cruets tightly enough, because the fabric lining was dotted with purple wine stains, which gave off a faint vinegary smell. Then came a small, round silver box with a hinged snap-shut top, which contained twenty communion wafers. This was the pyx.
Carver had also bought a gold-plated crucifix on a plinth. It was about a foot high. A figure of Jesus hung on the cross. He’d been advised that it was normal to provide one of these to give a religious feel to the secular space in which the communion would be held. For himself, he had a red silk stole. It would be draped round his neck like a long scarf, reaching to his waist. A golden cross was embroidered at either end of the stole, with a red and gold fringe beneath it.
The last items to go in the case were a Book of Common Worship, which contained all the words of the prayers and responses he would require, along with A4 sheets of paper on which were printed the readings for the day.
Carver was sticking to his no-gun policy. He expected that he would be searched on arrival at the house: it was inconceivable to him that a man with as many enemies as Henderson Gushungo, protected by a sidekick as devious as Moses Mabeki, would not take such basic security precautions. Guns and knives would, in any case, be superfluous. If his plan was going to work, it would do so silently, quickly, before his targets even knew they had been attacked. Gunfire would be a mark of failure.
Carver made a final run-through to confirm that he had everything he needed. Zalika was still in the bathroom, getting ready.
‘You done yet?’ he called through the door. ‘Because in exactly ten minutes I’ll be going down the emergency stairs and out through the service exit. If you’re not ready, I won’t wait for you.’
56
The security guard at the main gate of the Hon Ka Mansions development waved Carver’s car through without a second glance. It was Sunday morning. An Englishman wearing the costume of one of their clergymen had arrived to see the Gushungos. There was nothing unusual about that. If this one had brought a young woman with him that was none of the guard’s concern.
Carver drove uphill along a winding drive that ran between two lines of newly built villas, each standing in its own grounds, discreetly hidden from its neighbours. Shortly before he reached the Gushungo property, he stopped and let Zalika out of the car. Then he continued up the drive, turned into the Gushungos’ semicircular forecourt and parked his scuffed and battered old Honda next to a gleaming silver Rolls-Royce. From the way it sat fractionally low on its wheels, he guessed it had been given the full security treatment and was now as impregnable as a very fast, ultra-luxurious tank. It was a beautiful machine, all right, but it had been put to an ugly purpose that embodied the absolute contempt held by so many African dictators for their people’s poverty. Carver thought of Justus and his children. They were sweating in prison cells, and here was Gushungo swanning around in a Roller.
Well, not for very much longer.
The front door to the house was raised a few feet and reached by a short flight of steps. One of the presidential bodyguards opened it and glared suspiciously at his visitor. He was half a head taller than Carver and fifty pounds heavier. His neck strained against the tightly buttoned collar of his white shirt. His shaved head glinted with sweat.
‘Good morning,’ said Carver, holding out a hand. ‘My name is Wishart. I’m an assistant priest at St George’s Church. I’ve come to give Holy Communion to Mr and Mrs… well, to President and, ah… well, the Gushungos, anyway.’
‘Wait here,’ the guard said, and disappeared into the house.
Half a minute later, Moses Mabeki was standing by the door, the guard looming massively behind him. Carver felt his skin prickle with a combination of tension and disgust. The memory of that night in Mozambique came back to him so vividly that he could not believe Mabeki would not know that he was the man who had caused his disfigurement. He had to remind himself that he had been wearing a mask over his face, that Mabeki could not possibly recognize him. And yet he could not escape the instinctive sense that Mabeki knew, by some force of intuition, precisely who he was.