Chapter 53

Monday, July 12

Tanzania

9:47 am GMT, 1:47 pm Local

A white disc of searing heat hung high in the sky, blazing down on a massive sea of scorched grass that was pocked with the skeletons of dried baobabs and acacias and vachellias. Phythian climbed down from the bed of the Toyota Hilux and brushed a layer of African dust from his trousers, instantly relishing the silence and solitude that was why he called this place home.

The village of Terrat had not changed in the two weeks since he’d left it. Why would it? The place was little different than it had been a hundred years ago, and was unlikely to shift much over the next hundred. Chickens and goats napped in the shade of the concrete huts that put this outpost on the map, just barely, seeking shade from a day that inarguably was going to be more blistering than yesterday. The faint odor of burned cow dung hung in the air, mixed with the smell of diesel fuel that powered the noisy generators along this dusty road that was Main Street.

He’d picked up the ride four hours ago in Namanga, a lonely check-point on the border between Kenya and Tanzania and the start of the main road that took tourists to Lake Manyara and Serengeti National Park. He was headed toward neither of those locales, but the town was the final destination of the bus he’d boarded at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport when his one-stop from London via Addis Ababa landed the night before. Fortunately, there had been a restaurant where he could find a meal of pilau and biriyani, and a half-decent glass of Syrah.

The paved highway that ran through town was the only north-south route within one hundred kilometers, and Phythian easily had found someone who eagerly agreed to take him as far as Terrat—for one hundred thousand Tanzanian schillings, paid in advance.

The driver dropped him off in front of the post office, where the usual half-dozen villagers sipped their tea while comparing notes on yesterday, today, and tomorrow. Phythian tugged his backpack out of the pick-up bed and hoisted it over his shoulder, then handed his driver a fifty Euro note. He had no use for it, but figured the gaunt African behind the wheel could find some way to exchange it. Once the rusty old Hilux rattled off in a swirl of sand and dust, he made his way inside the building, the same tired fan churning in the corner, same flyers flapping on the bulletin board.

Phythian wandered up to the laminated counter and said to Elimu, the young postal worker, the same words with which he always greeted him. “Barua yoyote kwa ajili yangu?”

“Mshangao,” Elimu replied. He was dressed in a short-sleeve cotton shirt that at one time had been white but had discolored from sweat, dust, and the ever-present sun. “Ndio unayo kifurushi.” You have a package.

“Hiyo ni mshangao,” Phythian said. “Nashangaa inaweza kuwa nini.” That’s a surprise. I wonder what it could be.

In fact, it was not a surprise at all, and he knew precisely what the parcel contained. Phythian had mailed it to himself from Glasgow one week ago, the afternoon he’d left Gray Rock. This was several days after Adam Kent had been found lying in a pool of his own blood in the broom closet at a museum on the mall in Washington, DC.

Authorities had been baffled why a senior administration official would have committed suicide in such a place. Surveillance footage showed a woman hurrying through the rotunda and Ocean Hall, down the stairs, then back up and inside the small room just seconds before he had followed her inside. Some investigators speculated that she might have pulled the trigger, but further scrutiny of the security video showed Kent entering the lavatory with his gun drawn, and multiple witnesses reported that someone seemed to have been shooting at a man and a woman earlier, outside the museum.

The GSR on Kent’s hands sealed the deal.

Phythian spent a total of five days on the tiny knob of granite in the Firth of Clyde. On his first morning there he transferred a sizeable sum from a G3 account in Grand Cayman to a bank in Glasgow as a reward for Gordy’s many years of loyal service as caretaker, and to ensure his family would always enjoy the finer things Scotland had to offer. The generous gift also bought a promise of silence regarding the disposition of the island’s previous tenant, and an occasional “check-in” to make sure all was in order when no one was in residence.

As soon as the old caretaker departed Gray Rock, Phythian dug a good-sized grave for The Chairman. The old man had followed his final sip of rum during the tempestuous storm with a shot of lead to the temple, about an hour after Adam Kent had met a similar fate. The 7.65×17mm SR cartridge had been fired at close range from a Mauser HSc, a commercial pistol adopted for military service by both the German Navy and Air Force. Unfortunately, the soil on the tiny island was, indeed, mostly rock, and it took a good part of the day to prepare a hole large enough to do the job.

Martin Beaudin arrived the evening of the second day. As he’d learned during Phythian’s late-night visit in Andorra, it was difficult to say no to this enigma who had broken into his house and shared a bottle of expensive wine with him. Then, as now, he came to understand the changes Phythian had in mind, and agreed to execute them—not that he had much of a choice.

With over seven billion humans competing for space on the planet, there would always be greed and avarice, love and hate, retribution and revenge. The Greenwich Global Group had emerged from the ashes of World War II as a cadre of a few well-intentioned men intent on avenging Hitler’s lethal regime and hunting down the Nazi scourge that remained. Over the years, however, it had evolved into a for-profit company that offered a permanent solution to personal or political conflicts that couldn’t be fixed by any other means than death; a super-monopoly with which no one could compete, and few dared to cross. Sure, there were independent players who could step in to provide similar outcomes for a lower price, but a G3 contract carried a certain cachet. A mark of prestige, the ultimate seal of approval.

Nature abhors a vacuum, of course, and people would always want other people dead. If the G3 were to disappear, another player would quickly fill the vacated space. Plenty of outfits were ready to move in at the first sign of opportunity, which made it prudent to preserve a lucrative business model that yielded tens of millions of dollars in net profit every year.

Phythian decided it was time to shake things up a bit.

The data contained on the cloud server in Luxembourg was beyond priceless. The G3 had completed over six thousand discrete executions since the end of the war, with only two abject failures during that entire period. The most recent of these had been Vice President Crittenden’s attempt to have President Mitchell assassinated less than two weeks ago, a plot that been foiled only by the hands of fate. Oddly enough, the VP himself had died that same night, a vial of hand sanitizer laced with a Russian nerve agent. Investigators were intent on tracking its origins back to the Kremlin, but Phythian suspected it would be wise to begin their inquiry in Jerusalem.

In any event, it all added up to a cache of invaluable intelligence for which countries, companies, organizations, and individuals would again pay handsomely—this time to prevent the details of their actions from being exposed to the public. Some with deep pockets would do so readily, albeit reluctantly, in order to protect their deadly secrets, while others would refuse to cough up one more dollar or Euro. Those who refused to reach a monetary settlement would pay with their lives, and eventually the other stragglers would get the message and fall in line.

Beaudin had willingly pledged his very soul to oversee the transition from one core strategy to the next. He hadn’t really been given a choice, but he appreciated the sizable increase in personal compensation, as well as an equity stake in the new enterprise. So far, Phythian was proving to be a fair and reasonable employer, and had promised to be back in touch in a week or two when his plans were locked in place.

Elimu appeared anxious to see what might be in Phythian’s package, which had been addressed to “Mr. Mzungu, Kambi ya Safari, Terrat, Tanzania,” the Swahili part translating to Mr. White Man, Safari Camp, which was what he had come to be known in these parts.

But Phythian did not open the parcel, not now. Instead he made limited chit-chat with the postman, then turned to go. He had a long walk ahead of him, unless a truck happened to come along and offer him a lift, a likelihood that was possible but not guaranteed on any good day in the Tanzanian Serengeti.

He was almost out the door when Elimu called out, “Karibu nikasahau. Wanaume wengine walikuwa wakiuliza juu yako.”

Phythian stopped, took a moment to decipher what the young man was telling him. Then he said, “Wakauliza juu yangu?” There were people asking about me?

Elimu nodded, swatting a fly from his face.

“What did they want to know?” Phythian inquired in Swahili, knowing he was butchering both the question and the language.

“Unaishi wapi.” They asked where you live.

“And what did you tell them?”

Elimu shook his head and gave up a broad grin. “Kwamba sijawahi kukuona,” he said.

“Good answer,” Phythian replied. “When was this?”

“Jana usiku. Jua.” Last night at sunset.

“Asante, Elimu,” he thanked him.

He shuffled out to the dusty road and began walking south, his backpack slung over his shoulder and the small package the size of a shoebox tucked under his arm. All the while he was sensing, the Russians are here, knowing the powerful yet grieving oligarch had not personally come to Africa to seek revenge for the death of his son. Instead, he’d hired a surrogate, and Phythian had pulled the sniper’s name out of the late Chairman’s laptop on Gray Rock the night before he’d left the island.

He was smiling to himself and thinking, it will be my greatest pleasure to see you to your grave.

Less than an hour into his walk, Phythian heard a vehicle approaching from behind. He was acquainted with most of the subsistence farmers in the area, and had never found one who would pass by without stopping to pick him up. He turned and raised a hand to the air, a casual gesture indicating he’d like a ride, if the driver was willing.

The vehicle slowed, a fantail of dust churning up from its rear wheels. He recognized it as a Toyota Kluger, at least fifteen years old, a color that the factory probably had described as charcoal when it first rolled off the line. Despite its age it was in good condition, none of the customary dings and dents and caked-on mud embedded around the wheel wells, water being too precious this time of year to be used to wash away a little dirt. That meant it probably was a rental car, probably from Mombasa near the coast or, equally likely, Nairobi.

As the vehicle pulled up alongside him, there was no question in his mind who the occupants were, or where they were from: two white men, crisp safari shirts, stiff collars, aviator sunglasses that looked as if they’d been purchased just yesterday in an airport halfway around the world.

The driver cranked the window down and flashed Phythian a polite but cheerless smile. “Need a lift?” he asked in an accent that sounded Australian.

“Depends,” Phythian replied. “Where are you going?”

“All the way through to Kibaya,” the driver explained, seeming none too happy about it, even though it was a lie.

“What’s in Kibaya?”

“Nothing, as far as I can tell. So how ‘bout it, mate? You want a lift, or not?”

Definitely Australian. Same thing with his passenger, but not the elongated package in the back, which Phythian had already determined had been picked up in Kampala, and contained a SAKO TRG 42 bolt-action sniper rifle originally manufactured in Finland.

“I’m not going very far, only about twenty miles,” Phythian told him.

“It’ll be good to have company part of the way.” The driver glanced over at the man in the passenger seat, added, “All Archie, here, does is snore and fart.”

“Let’s go,” Phythian said. “As long as I don’t have to sit behind him.”The man named Archie looked offended, but Phythian said nothing as he opened the rear door and slipped in behind the driver with his backpack and shoebox-sized package. “There’s an old baobab tree marking the road to my place,” he said. “Can’t miss it.”

Phythian had expected retribution for the killing of the Russian poacher, and a quick mental grab of the two men in the front seat told him they were the recon party that had been dispatched to track him down. The third member of the team, the shooter who belonged to the crated gun in the back of the SUV, was in the vicinity and positioned to move in as soon as the target’s identity and location were verified. While they didn’t know Phythian’s name, they suspected this hitchhiker was the man they were looking for, and both were almost giddy with excitement to have found him so easily. They’d been given strict orders not to harm him, just to confirm his whereabouts and try to get as much information out of him as possible.

Phythian found all this comforting, since it meant the person who had flown this pair of professional spotters halfway around the world from Melbourne didn’t know the identity of their target, either—an interesting and convenient twist.

Because of their collective ignorance, they had no clue that he had already determined that the driver had a Glock G29 loaded with ten-millimeter cartridges tucked into his door pouch. Similarly, the gassy passenger up front—the driver had been spot-on about that—had stashed his SIG P226 in the glove compartment.

The driver’s name was Russell, and he and Archie asked questions they believed were subtly designed to verify that their rider was the person they had traveled all this way to locate, but not touch—and certainly not kill. That was up to the boss lady, who was waiting for a signal that her mark was in-country, and back at his compound.

“How long have you lived here?” Russell asked as Archie passed gas beside him.

“About five years,” Phythian explained. “It’s a magnificent and unspoiled corner of the planet.”

“Looks like a great place for trophy hunting,” Archie said.

“If you’re into that sort of thing,” Phythian responded. “Personally, I don’t see the fun in stopping a beating heart.” He knew his words could be considered by many as the height of hypocrisy but, in fact, he’d never taken any pleasure in completing an assignment—other than checking his bank account later.

“Do you see many elephants out here?” Russell wanted to know.

“From time to time, but you’ll find more of them in the national park. They’re illegal to hunt there, but now and then we get some rich asshole who pays a fortune to take one down.” Practically leading them by the hand to the confirmation they were looking for; the quicker they figured this out, the sooner it would all be over.

The two men in the front seat glanced at each other and regarded him warily. Phythian studied Russell’s eyes in the rearview mirror, waiting for the dim bulb to go off in his head. Finally, he obliged, saying “We’re looking for a man who is said to live around here.”

“Shouldn’t be difficult, since there’s not many of us. What’s he look like?”

“White man, about your age and height.”

“What do you want with him?” Phythian inquired.

Both men in the front seat laughed. Then the one named Archie, the one Phythian could tell had a short temper, said, “He killed a man named Vasily Sokolov.”

“You mean the Russian bastard who was in the wrong place, clearly at the wrong time.”

The two men in the front seat didn’t know what to do next. Their only job had been to hang around Terrat until the target showed up and they were able to confirm his identity. Done. This hitchhiker had all but confessed to shooting the young Russian hunter three weeks ago, and seemed indifferent to the presence of these two Australian men driving a rented Toyota SUV in the middle of fucking nowhere.

“Do you have any idea why we’re here?” Russell asked him.

“Well, you’re obviously not going to Kibaya; that much is certain. Which means you’ve probably come all this way from Australia, flew into Kampala to pick up the SAKO TRG 42 you have in the back there, for the purpose of settling a score. Then you drove here.”

There was silence from the front seat, almost five seconds of it. Then Archie kicked open the glove box and pulled out his Sig, a black, double-action semi-automatic.

“Who the fuck are you?” he demanded, aiming the gun at Phythian. Even though he’d been forewarned that, under no circumstances whatsoever, was he to injure the target.

“You want to know rule number one in this line of work?” Phythian replied. “Never ask a question to which you don’t already know the answer.”

“How the bloody hell could you know what’s in the back?”

Phythian let out a sigh of impatience, said, “There—you just did it again. Whoever said there are no stupid questions was wrong.”

“Yeah?” Archie said. “How ‘bout this one, then: Which one of us has the gun, fuckwit?”

“Archie—put that thing down,” Russell told him. “You shoot the bloody wristy, we don’t get paid.”

“Listen to your friend, Archie,” Phythian said. “You don’t want to go back to Melbourne empty-handed. Or, more likely, shipped home in a box.”

“You fuckin’ kidding me? You’re the one’s gonna get himself killed.”

“Put it down,” Russell repeated. “Before you blow this whole thing.”

Archie found himself in a conundrum from which he saw no escape. Russell, behind the wheel, was telling him to put the gun away and stand down. But if he did that, this crazy hitchhiker—whom he now was certain was the sniper who had killed the Russian kid, and somehow knew too much about their business—would do something crazy. He was sure of it. Plus, he was beginning to sense a headache coming on. Not exactly a headache; more like a large hose clamp tightening around his skull, the worm gear being turned one agonizing notch at a time.

Inexplicably, he found himself turning the gun away from this crazy scrote who was almost smirking at him from the back seat. He moved it in one slow but steady motion, pivoting it until the barrel was pressed up against his own temple. His hand trembled as he fought this growing impulse that had come over him with absolutely no warning.

In the seat beside him Russell screamed, “C’mon, mate…put it down—”

But he didn’t—couldn’t—put it down, as the clamp seemed to squeeze his head even tighter. At the same time it was filling his brain with a maelstrom of emotions, all of them very dark and disturbing. His eyes filled with fear as he felt his finger tighten on the trigger, the pull of which he had reduced by replacing the factory-original hammer spring.

The firing pin snapped forward, the explosive charge in the brass casing detonated, and the hollow-point roared down the four-point-four-inch barrel directly into Archie’s brain.

“Fucksakes,” Russell screamed from the front seat. “What the bloody hell—?”

His hands were shaking on the wheel, and the Toyota Kluger began to weave from one side of the dirt road to the other. Eventually he pulled it over to the edge and lurched to a stop, yanking the shifter into neutral. He whirled around in the front seat and yelled, “Who the bloody fuck are you—?”

But Phythian ignored his question, instead snatching the blood-covered SIG from Archie’s limp hand. He pressed it against the driver’s temple and said, “Give me your Glock, unless you want to end up like your friend there.”

“My what?”

“The gun in the side pocket. Now.”

“How the hell—?”

“I said now.”

Russell reluctantly removed the gun from the door pouch and handed it over his left shoulder. Phythian accepted it, then stuffed both weapons into a pouch in his backpack.

“Listen up,” he said. “Here’s what you’re going to do, but I’m only going to tell you once.”

Russell was too nervous—too bloody scared—to do much listening, his dead friend Archie slumped against the passenger door, brains already simmering on the hot glass. But he nodded anyway and made like he was paying attention.

“Wherever your boss lady is, tell her she’s down to just one spotter. She’s going to have to improvise a bit, since it’s too late to fly in someone new. Go ahead and give her the gun in the back. It’s a fine weapon, and she’ll think it’ll give her an advantage. Which she’s going to need. Tell her that. And make sure you also tell her that her old friend from The Farm says ‘hello.’ Got it?”

The driver nodded; yeah, he got it.

“And one more thing,” Phythian said as he opened the rear door and climbed out, grabbing his backpack and the package. “Make sure she knows I’m waiting for her.”