However, anything African was his vital interest and he had noted the title Africa Dying and punched the programme time into his desk-top alarm.
The discreet electronic chimes aroused him from his study of the financial statements which lay on the pigskin blotter in front of him.
He touched the controls, and the panel in the wall directly across the figured-silk Quin carpet from his desk slid open.
He adjusted the volume of sound as the theme music floated into the room.
Then the image of a great elephant and a snowy peak filled the screen, and instantly he was transported back fifty years and thousands of miles in time and space. He watched without moving until the final frame faded. Then he reached out to touch the controls. The screen went black and the silent panel closed like a sleepy eyelid.
Tug Harrison sat for a long time in silence. At last he picked up the eighteen-carat gold pen from the desk set and scribbled a name on his note-pad. Daniel Armstrong. Then he swivelled his chair and took down his copy of Who's Who from the bookshelf.
Daniel walked from Shepherd's Bush to Holland Park. just because he was a potential millionaire didn't mean he should toss away a fiver on a few minutes taxi ride. The weather was bright and warm and the trees in the squares and parks were decked in early summer greenery. As he strode along, glancing with abstract appreciation at the girls in their thin dresses and short skirts, he was thinking about Tug Harrison.
Ever since Eina Markham had phoned him to pass on Harrison's invitation, he had been intrigued. Of course, he knew of the man.
Harrison's tentacles reached into every corner of the African continent, from Egypt to the banks of the Limpopo river.
Daniel knew the power and wealth of BOSS and its influence in Africa but little about the man behind it. Tug Harrison was a man who seemed to have a knack for steering well clear of public controversy and the attentions of the tabloid press.
Wherever Daniel travelled in Africa these days he could discern Tug Harrison's influence, like the Spoor of a cunning old man-eating lion.
He left his tracks, but like the beast he was seldom seen in the flesh.
Daniel pondered the reasons for Harrison's peculiar success on the African continent.
He understood the African mind as few white men could. He had learned as a lad in the lonely hunting and prospecting camps in the remote wilderness, when his only companions for months on end had been black men. He spoke a dozen African languages but, more important, he understood the oblique and lateral reasoning of the African. He liked Africans, felt comfortable in their company, and knew how to inspire their trust. On his African travels Daniel had met men and women of mixed blood whose mothers were Turkana or Shana or Kikuyu, and who boasted that Tug Harrison was their true father. There was never any proof of their claims, of course, but often these people were in positions of influence and affluence.
There were very seldom news reports or photographs of Harrison's visits to the African continent, but his Gulfstream executive jet was often parked discreetly at the furthest end of the airport tarmac in Lusaka or Kinshasa or Nairobi.
Rumour placed him as an honoured guest and confidant in Mobutu's marble palaces or at Kenneth Kaunda's presidential residence in Lusaka.
They said that he was one of the very few who had access to the shadowy Renamo guerrillas in Mozambique as well as to the guerrilla bush camps of Savimbi in Angola. He was also welcomed by the legitimate regimes that they opposed. They said that he could pick up the telephone at any hour of the day or night and within minutes be speaking to de Klerk or Mugabe or Daniel Arap Moi.
He was the broker, the courier, the adviser, the banker, the go-between, and the negotiator for the continent.
Daniel was looking forward to meeting him. He had tried many times before, without success. Now as an invited guest he stood outside the imposing front door and felt a little tickle of nerves. That premonition had served him well in the African bush; it had warned him so often of dangerous beasts and even more dangerous men.
A black servant in flowing white kanza and red fez opened the front door.
When Daniel spoke to him in fluent Swahili, the wooden mask of his face cracked into a huge white smile.
He led Daniel up the wide marble staircase. There were fresh flowers in the niches of the landings, and Daniel recognised some of the paintings from Harrison's fabled art collection gracing the walls, Sisley, Duly and Matisse.
Before the tall double doors of red Rhodesian teak, the servant stood aside and bowed. Daniel strode into the room and paused in the centre of the silk Quin carpet.
Tug Harrison rose from behind his desk. It was at once obvious how he had earned his nickname. He was big-boned but compact, although the exquisitely tailored pin-stripe suit smoothed the raw powerful angles of his frame and the heavy jut of his belly.
He was bald, except for a fringe of silver hair like that of a tonsured monk. His pate was pale and smooth while the skin of his face was thickened and creased and tanned where it had been unprotected by a hat from the tropical sun. His jaw was determined and his eyes were sharp and piercing, giving warning of the ruthless intelligence behind them.
Armstrong, he said. Good of you to come. His voice was warm as molasses, too soft for the rest of him. He held out his hand across the desk, forcing Daniel to come to him, a subtle little dominance ploy. Good of you to ask me, Harrison. Daniel took his cue and eschewed the use of his title, setting equal terms. The older man's eyes crinkled in acknowledgement.
They shook hands, examining each other, feeling the physical power of each other's grip without letting it develop into a boyish contest of strength. Harrison waved him to the buttoned leather chair beneath the Gauguin and spoke to the servant. Letta chai, Selibi. You will take tea, won't you, Armstrong? While the servant poured the tea, Daniel glanced at the rhino horns on the entrance wall. You don't see trophies like that often, he said, and Harrison left his desk and crossed to the doorway.
He stroked one of the horns, caressing it as though it were the limb of a beautiful and beloved woman. No, you don't, he agreed. I was a boy when I shot them. Followed the old bull for fifteen days. It was November and the temperature at midday was 120 degrees in the shade.
Fifteen days, two hundred miles through the desert. He shook his head.
The crazy things we do when we are young. The crazy things we do when we are older, Daniel said, and Harrison chuckled. You are right. Life is no fun unless you are at least a touch crazy. He took the cup that the servant offered him. Thank you, Selibi. Close the doors when you leave.
The servant drew the double doors closed and Harrison went back to his desk. I watched your production on Channel 4 the other night, he said, and Daniel inclined his head and waited.
Harrison sipped his tea. The delicate porcelain cup looked fragile in his hands. They were battler's hands, scarred and ravaged by tropical sun and hard physical labour and ancient conflicts. The knuckles were enlarged but the nails were carefully manicured.
Harrison put the cup and saucer down on the desk in front of him and looked up at Daniel again. You got it right, he said. You got it exactly right. Daniel made no comment. He sensed that any modest or deprecating comment would only irritate this man. You got your facts straight, and you drew the right conclusions. It was a refreshing change after all the sentimental and ill-informed crap that we hear every day.
You put your finger on the roots of Africa's problems, tribalism and overpopulation and ignorance and corruption. The solutions you suggested made sense. Harrison nodded. Yes, you got it right. He stared at Daniel thoughtfully. Harrison's faded blue eyes gave him a strangely enigmatic expression, like a blind man.