He persuaded the air-hostess to sell them a bottle of champagne with breakfast, and they were feeling just fine when they arrived at Johannesburg: The Christian Science Monitor’s stringer, Matt Mathews, was there to meet Sarah and grudgingly offered McQuade a lift into town. ‘Oh, same hotel?’ and shot McQuade a dubious look. Matt and Sarah talked all the way about people she should try to interview, from P.W. Botha downwards. McQuade sat in the back, feeling very, very happy about Ms Sarah Buckley. To hell with the expense. When they reached the hotel, Matt said to Sarah, ‘Can you come to dinner tonight at home?’ The invitation definitely did not extend to McQuade.
‘Matt, I’m really not up to dinner after two nights’ flying. Any other time.’
To McQuade’s intense relief Matt said, ‘Can’t do lunch today. How about we finish the briefing right now?’
Oh boy, McQuade’s heart sang.
They checked in. Matt and Sarah adjourned to the bar to talk shop, while McQuade went up to his room, which overlooked sunlit gardens. He picked up the telephone and dialled the number of the telecommunications tower in Walvis Bay. ‘I want a radio hook-up with the Bonanza, please, to be charged to the ship. Here is her call sign …’
Half a minute later Tucker’s anxious voice came over the line: ‘Bonanza, over.’
‘This is McQuade, when’re you getting to port, over?’
‘You’re back! We expect to be full on Wednesday or Thursday, back about Friday.’ He added worriedly, ‘How did it go? Over.’
‘See you on Friday then. Prepare to return to sea the next day and give the Coloured crew a week’s leave. Out.’
That gave him four days to get up to Damaraland and back to show Jakob the photograph of Heinrich Muller. Good.
The next call might not be so easy, but he had to look into this in person since he did not want to leave it to the mail. He dialled again. A female voice sang: ‘Nathan’s Lingeries … More-Better-Cheaper-Faster, can we help youuu?’
‘May I speak to Ivor Nathan, please.’
There was a tinkle of seductive music before a gravelly voice barked: ‘Nathan.’
‘Why are you at work, you heathen? It’s the Sabbath!’
‘I’ve been to synagogue, I’ve been! So why aren’t you at sea already?’
‘Because I’ve come to make you an offer you can’t refuse already.’
‘On the Sabbath?! Where are you? I’m there already.’
‘Sunnyside Park Hotel, room 203.’
Astonishment. ‘Why aren’t you staying with me?’
‘I’ve gone upmarket.’ McQuade hung up, grinning.
He stripped off and headed for the shower. He gave himself a thorough scrubbing, to be nice and clean for Ms Buckley, shampooed his hair to be beautiful for Ms Buckley. He had a good shave to be smooth for Ms Buckley. He dabbed himself with after-shave to smell irresistible for Ms Buckley. Then Nathan arrived.
Nathan had graduated with McQuade from university as that rarity, a penniless Jewish marine biologist. But then he had got his cock caught in the cash-register and married one of the Cohen girls of garment industry fame. Nathan had never looked back, except to invest in Sausmarine when McQuade leaned hard on him. There was no mistaking Nathan’s ancestry. He was a big, well-nourished man with a big nose over a bristly moustache. ‘Painfully kosher,’ his wife described him, ‘– why won’t he have a nose-job, and my uncle a plastic surgeon already, why must he for ever continue to look like Groucho Marx?’ Now Nathan sat on the edge of the bed, a beer in his hand, looking very like an astonished Groucho Marx. ‘Where exactly is this submarine?’
McQuade had not told him about Heinrich Muller. ‘All I want to know is, will you bank-roll the operation? Give us a loan to cover the crew’s wages for about two weeks’ lay-off and the equipment we’ve got to buy?’
Nathan’s marine-biologist’s mind was locked in combat with his businessman’s. ‘And how much is all that?’
‘Ten to twenty thousand rand. More like fifteen. Depending on how long it takes.’
‘The company can’t lay its hands on fifteen thousand?’
‘Not if we don’t catch fish for two weeks. We could negotiate a bigger overdraft, but the bank will want to know why and I’ll have to tell lies because I don’t want anybody knowing what we’re up to. If that leaks out, we lose everything.’
Nathan blinked. ‘Shit no. And if I don’t lend the money to the company?’
‘Then we tell lies and borrow the money elsewhere and keep all the loot for ourselves.’ He half-closed his eyes happily. ‘Millions and millions …’
Nathan looked at him with a twinkle in his eye. ‘And if we don’t find any loot, when do I get my money back?’
McQuade had to work at it to keep a straight face. ‘You don’t. You get shares in the company instead.’
‘But I don’t want any shares in your fucking fishing business! And, if we do find the loot?’
‘Well, then we’re all rich! You get your money back plus ten per cent of the loot.’
‘Ten per cent! I want more if I’m risking my money.’
‘But you’re not risking your life! We’re providing the seamanship! And we know where the submarine is, which you don’t.’
Nathan looked at him, then gave a conspiratorial wink. ‘Better idea. I charter a yacht. Just you and me. We split the loot fifty-fifty. That way the Bonanza keeps working and earning.’
McQuade shook his head. ‘The boys are already in. Anyway I need at least three divers, and you and I couldn’t handle a big yacht in those seas by ourselves. And the only yachts on that coast are way down south, and we’d attract attention. I’ve thought it all through, Groucho.’
‘I’ll think about it.’
‘You have to think about it right now. Because tomorrow I start. Which brings me to my second reason for being here. How do we launder the loot?’
‘Launder it?’
‘Sell it. Get rid of it. It is quite likely to be in the form of gold. And diamonds, jewellery maybe. But unlicensed dealing in gold is a serious offence in South Africa – IGB. So is illicit dealing in diamonds. And it wouldn’t be easy to smuggle large quantities of the stuff out of this country. We can’t sail away with it to Europe without knowing where we’re going to launder it. So?’ He raised his eyebrows. ‘You’re a big underwear businessman. Do you know any real businessmen who could help us get rid of the stuff, for a piece of the action? But he must be honest.’
Nathan stared at him.
‘An honest illegal diamond buyer? Can’t we do this legally?’
‘No. As soon as we lay a legal claim to that submarine we’ll be tied up in courts for months. So, who do you know? Haven’t you got a brother-in-law who’s a jeweller – Bloomfield, the guy who always wears a bow-tie?’
‘Bloomberg,’ Nathan said. ‘That schmuck. He’s an antique dealer, not a jeweller. He’s my cousin-in-law.’
‘Could we trust him?’
‘Christ, he’s so respectable he’d have a heart-attack at buying illegal gold and diamonds.’
‘But he probably knows somebody who’d do it. Why is he a schmuck?’
‘Anybody who marries my cousin is a schmuck, even though she’s had a nose-job. Why can’t this wait until we know whether we’ve found the loot?’
‘Because,’ McQuade said, ‘we don’t want security problems. We can’t leave the stuff lying around on the ship for weeks. So we must be prepared. Now, can we trust Bloomberg to keep his mouth shut?’
Nathan shifted on the bed. ‘He wouldn’t dare drop me in the shit. The family would kick his arse all the way to Baghdad. But I can tell you now he won’t touch it. He’s too much of a sissy.’
‘And you? Are you too much of a sissy?’
Nathan grinned at him, his nose burying into his moustache. ‘If there’s one thing I can’t stand it’s a goy smart-ass.’
‘Well, are you in? Or out?’
Nathan shook his head, then said irritably, ‘In.’
‘And you’ll ask Bloomberg today? In the strictest of confidence. I want his answer by tonight. Yes, or no. No maybes. Otherwise I look elsewhere.’
‘What commission are we offering him? Or the guy he recommends?’
‘Ten per cent? Negotiable.’
‘Five, non-negotiable,’ Nathan said aggressively. ‘That arty schmuck.’
McQuade said: ‘Well?’
‘Well what?’
‘Got your cheque-book?’
Nathan put his hand into his jacket pocket reluctantly. ‘You goys are hard bastards.’
‘At least I don’t sell pantihose on the Sabbath!’
He was on top of the world as he made his way downstairs to the bar, Nathan’s cheque for twenty thousand rand in his pocket. Sarah was sitting in the corner with Matt Mathews, scribbling notes. McQuade gave them a cheery wave and made for the bar. Sarah called, ‘We’re almost finished, come and join us.’
He bought a bottle of Grand Mousseaux and took it to their table. Matt gave him a sour smile, and finished up. He gave her a few more names, people to contact, subjects to consider. A minute later he took his leave with a brief handshake. McQuade said to Sarah:
‘He doesn’t much like me. Been pen-pals for long?’
She grinned. ‘Only met him once in Boston. I think he thinks you’ve got designs on my untrammelled body.’
‘Perish the thought!’
They adjourned to the restaurant for an early lunch. (McQuade was anxious to get the show on the road.) He ordered the best wine. She smiled, her sensuous mouth crying out to be ravished: ‘Can we continue with my edification in the multi-faceted moral complexities of South Africa, to quote Matt?’
And all McQuade wanted to do was take her beautiful hands across the table and tell her he was going to make wild passionate love to her if she would only be a sport. And he felt absolutely charming and on top of the world and he had Nathan’s cheque in his pocket and this time next week he was going to be a millionaire, and he continued her edification in the multi-faceted moral complexities of his troubled land. And he was very amusing whilst he was very serious and edifying, and thoroughly enjoying himself, and Sarah Buckley scribbled and thoroughly enjoyed herself too. He ended:
‘But you’ve got to keep this fact in mind constantly: the Afrikaner – the Dutchman – has been fighting for his piece of the sun ever since the British took the Cape Colony off the Dutch. And the Great Trek set him free, and they set up their own republics, and the British conquered them all over again in the Boer War. And the Afrikaner has been fighting the Boer War ever since – and he’s finally got his own beloved Afrikaner country at last, but he is still fighting – but now it’s no longer just the British, it’s the whole world. And he’ll fight the whole world, like the Israelis will.’
She said: ‘But evidently they’re not going to fight for Namibia? What do you think about this bombshell of Resolution 435?’
McQuade sat back. ‘I don’t believe Resolution 435 will come to pass for a long time yet.’
‘Why is that?’
McQuade sighed. ‘Because South Africa has made it a condition that Cuba withdraws her fifty thousand troops from Angola, where the fighting is. I simply don’t believe that Fidel Castro and his Russian masters will do that small thing. Because the Cuban soldiers are not only fighting the South Africans on behalf of SWAPO, they are also fighting UNITA on behalf of the communist Angola government. Do you know about UNITA?’
‘Yes, they’re the pro-western rebels—’
‘They’re not “rebels” – they’re a perfectly legitimate political party which the communists are illegally trying to crush. When Portugal gave independence to Angola and held elections, the communists promptly seized power, formed a one-party Marxist government and denied the UNITA party their share of government. So UNITA took to the bush under General Savimbi and have waged legitimate civil war ever since for their rightful share of democracy. Of course the Russians don’t want any democratic nonsense in Angola so they sent their surrogate Cubans in to fight UNITA, and so America and South Africa are jointly supporting UNITA with aid.’ He shrugged. ‘If the Cubans withdraw from Angola, UNITA would win and install a pro-western government. I simply don’t believe the communists will permit that to happen. And anyway,’ he ended, ‘Angola is only part of the story – only part of Castro’s ambitions. Because after he’s crushed UNITA, he wants his troops to march south and “liberate” South Africa too. He wants to go down in history as the “Conquistador of the Boers”. And have the Cape sea route in communist hands. They’ve already got Suez anytime they like through their puppets in Yemen and Ethiopia. The Mediterranean is a Russian lake anytime they like. So that will only leave Panama to get. Then the commies will really have the world sewn up.’
She said: ‘So the South African government knows its offer will be refused, so it’s made an empty gesture?’
‘They’ve made an astute diplomatic move. They’ve put the ball in the communist court. If the communists reject the offer, they are clearly the warmongers. And South Africa would like to be rid of an expensive border war, and in exchange for that I think they really are prepared to give independence to Namibia – South Africa can live with a SWAPO government in Namibia because they will be our economic hostage, bound to reasonably tolerable behaviour. But not if SWAPO brings their fifty thousand Cuban pals with them to shoot across the fence at South Africa.’
She smiled. ‘And you? Could you live with a SWAPO government? I’ve gathered from everything you’ve said that you don’t like the South African government.’
He sighed. ‘Look, I hold no brief for the South African government. I hate Apartheid. But – whether your readers in Boston, Massachusetts believe it or not – things are changing. Yes, I want Namibia to be independent of South Africa. Free and multi-racial. But no, I could not live with a SWAPO government. Because they’re communist. They’ll ruin the economy. And so they’ll ruin the fishing industry, and so they’ll ruin me. Q.E.D.’
Sarah scribbled. It was mid-afternoon when she sighed: ‘It’s been a lovely day. But now I really must go and sleep off my jet-lag.’
It was the moment to close in on her. He took her hand across the table – then the head waiter appeared at his side. ‘There’s somebody to see you, Mr McQuade …’
He saw Nathan at the entrance, looking furtive.
‘Excuse me,’ he said apologetically. He held a finger out at her: ‘Don’t move …’
Nathan was in the foyer. ‘Can’t this wait?’ McQuade complained.
Nathan slipped him a piece of paper with a number written on it. ‘That’s a public telephone. Call it immediately from that public phone’ – he pointed across the foyer. ‘A man called Julie will answer.’
‘Julie who?’
‘I don’t know. Friend of Bloomberg, who’s waiting at the other phone right now. The call can’t be tapped, see?’
McQuade didn’t like it. ‘What does this Julie do?’
‘Big wheeler-dealer in antiques, carpets, that sort of thing. International, Bloomberg says.’
‘Bloomberg doesn’t know you were asking on my behalf, does he?’
‘No, I’m not a schmuck.’
‘So this Julie doesn’t know who I am?’
‘How can he, schmuck, if Bloomberg doesn’t know?’
‘Jewish?’
‘Bloomberg’s pal? My boy, my life.’
McQuade wanted to get back to Sarah before she went to sleep off her jet-lag without him to comfort her, but the man was waiting. He hurried to the public telephone, and dialled. It was answered immediately. ‘Yes?’
‘Julie?’ McQuade said.
The man said, ‘I have three conditions. First, my commission will be thirty per cent. I have international outlets for these artefacts and immense expertise in the business.’ The voice was soft, almost flabby and very British. ‘Well?’
McQuade said tersely, ‘Second condition?’
‘That this whole matter be handled on the basis of complete trust. You don’t cheat me on the quantities, and I won’t cheat you. You must accept the prices I get without subsequent argument and acrimony. If you’re going to quibble afterwards, I’m not sticking my neck out. I must know all about you, so I can satisfy myself you’re not a crook, and that I’m not handling stolen goods.’
‘And are you prepared to tell me who you are? So I can satisfy myself you’re not a crook?’
‘Not yet. My third condition is that I accompany you on your expedition, so that I can see the merchandise the moment it appears.’
‘And after the merchandise appears, what happens?’
‘I take it away with me and dispose of it.’
‘Where to?’
‘That is my business at this stage. That’s why you’re involving me. For my expertise.’
‘It’s also my business. Do I accompany you?’
‘If you wish to take those risks.’ He paused. ‘Well? Are those conditions accepted?’
McQuade was irritated. ‘Not yet. We’ll have to meet. Give me a telephone number where I can contact you.’
‘Then that meeting must take place immediately.’
‘The meeting,’ McQuade said, ‘will take place when I arrange it. Through Bloomberg. Goodbye.’
He hung up, annoyed. Yet also impressed. He looked at his watch, then said to Nathan, ‘Find out all you can from Bloomberg about this Julie. I’ll phone you later. Then we’ll arrange a meeting.’
He hurried back into the restaurant, to Sarah. ‘I’m sorry, just a bit of business.’
He paid the bill, adding an over-generous tip. The things I do. They walked out of the restaurant, to the staircase. She said, ‘Don’t bother to come up …’
‘Oh, I’m going up to my room too.’
They mounted the stairs. He felt she had read his mind, and thought, what the hell – tomorrow I’ll be gone, so it’s now or never. They walked down the corridor to her room. She unlocked the door. ‘Tomorrow I’m returning to Walvis Bay,’ he heard himself say, ‘then driving up the Skeleton Coast into Damaraland to see somebody. Why don’t you join me? Leave the Kruger National Park for another time.’ He paused. ‘We’ll have time to see the Etosha National Park too.’
She had the door open.
‘That’s sure worth thinking about. Thank you. Can I tell you tomorrow?’
He smiled. ‘You can tell me over dinner tonight?’
She leant against the doorway. ‘Dinner? Look, I’m not at my best – thanks to you.’
He stepped through the door and took her in his arms. And, oh the wonderful feel of her against him. He whispered ardently: ‘Please … Then we can fall into a beautiful sleep together.’
She pressed her forehead into his shoulder and giggled. ‘That’s the corniest approach I’ve ever heard.’
‘I’m not at my best either.’ He tilted back her chin and he kissed her, and her smiling mouth was soft and warm as she pressed her belly against him, and he felt himself swell. She thrust her lips against him hard as if she wanted to bite him, then she broke the kiss.
‘Let’s see how we feel about this tomorrow. In our sound and sober senses.’
‘I know exactly how I’ll feel about it tomorrow!’
She grinned and turned him towards the door. ‘Will you have lunch on the Christian Science Monitor tomorrow?’
‘Lunch is going to be in the aeroplane to Walvis Bay.’ He took her in his arms again, and kissed her grinning mouth and to make love to her was the most desperately important thing in the whole wide world and he pushed his loins against hers. She gave a tiny shiver and again she broke the kiss. She took a step backwards, her hair a little awry and her face smouldering. ‘Wow …’ She held up a hand to restrain him. ‘Okay, dinner tonight. Fetch me at eight?’
‘If you promise to be in your sound and sober senses …’
She bundled him out the door, grinning.