He had arrived that morning on the first plane, using his passport in the name of Keith Brown. Long since, he had had to acquire a false passport by the normal method used in mercenary circles. At the end of 1967 he had been with Black Jacques Schramme at Bukavu, surrounded and besieged for months by the Congolese army. Finally, undefeated but running out of ammunition, the mercenaries had vacated the Congolese lakeside city, walked across the bridge into neighboring Rwanda, and allowed themselves, with Red Cross guarantees which the Red Cross could not possibly fulfill, to be disarmed.
From then on, for nearly six months, they had sat idle in an internment camp at Kigali while the Red Cross and the Rwanda government hassled over their repatriation to Europe. President Mobutu of the Congo wanted them sent back to him for execution, but the mercenaries had threatened if that was the decision they would take the Rwandan army barehanded, recover their guns and find their own way home. The Rwandan government had believed, rightly, that they might do it.
When finally the decision was made to fly them back to Europe, the British consul had visited the camp and soberly told the six Brit
ish mercenaries present that he would have to impound their passports. They had soberly told him they had lost everything across the lake in Bukavu. On being flown home to London, Shannon and the others had been told by the Foreign Office that each man owed £350 for the airfare and would receive no new passport ever again.
Before leaving the camp, the men had been photographed and fingerprinted and had had their names taken. They also had to sign documents pledging never to set foot on the continent of Africa. These documents would be sent in copy to every African government.
The reaction of the mercenaries was predictable. Every one had a lush beard and mustache and hair left uncut after months in the camp, where no scissors were allowed in case they went on the warpath with them. The photographs were therefore unrecognizable. Each man then submitted his own fingerprints for another man’s prints, and they all exchanged names. The result was that every identity document contained one man’s name, another man’s fingerprints, and a third man’s photograph. Finally, they signed the pledge to leave Africa forever with names like Sebastian Weetabix and Neddy Seagoon.
Shannon’s reaction to the Foreign Office demand was no less unhelpful. As he still had his “lost” passport, he kept it and traveled where he wished until it expired. Then he took the necessary steps to secure another one, issued by the Passport Office but based on a birth certificate secured from the Registry of Births in Somerset House for the standard fee of five shillings, which referred to a baby who had died of meningitis in Yarmouth about the time Shannon was born.1
On arrival in London that morning, he had contacted the writer he had first met in Africa and learned how Walter Harris had found him. He thanked the man for recommending him and asked if he knew the name of a good agency of private inquirers. Later that afternoon he visited the agency and paid a deposit of £20, promising to phone the next morning with further instructions.
Harris called, as he had promised, on the dot of nine the following morning and was put through to Mr. Brown’s room.
“There’s a block of flats in Sloane Avenue called Chelsea Cloisters,” he said without preamble. “I have booked flat three-seventeen for us to talk. Please be there at eleven sharp. Wait in the lobby until I arrive, as I have the key.” Then he hung up.
Shannon checked the address in the telephone book under the bedside table and called the detective agency. “I want your man in the lobby of Chelsea Cloisters in Sloane Avenue at ten-fifteen,” he said. “He had better have his own transport.”
“He’ll have a scooter,” said the head of the agency.
An hour later Shannon met the man from the agency in the lobby of the apartment house. Rather to his surprise, the man was a youth in his late teens, with long hair.
Shannon surveyed him suspiciously. “Do you know your job?” he asked.
The boy nodded. He seemed full of enthusiasm, and Shannon only hoped it was matched by a bit of skill.
“Well, park that crash helmet outside on the scooter,” he said. “People who come in here don’t carry crash helmets. Sit over there and read a newspaper.”
The youth did not have one, so Shannon gave him his own. “I’ll sit on the other side of the lobby. At about eleven a man will come in, nod to me, and we’ll go into the lift together. Note that man, so you will recognize him again. He should come out about an hour later. By then you must be across the road, astride the scooter, with the helmet on and pretending to be busy with a breakdown. Got it?”
“Yes. I’ve got it.”
“The man will either take his own car from nearby, in which case grab the number of it. Or he’ll take a taxi. In either case, follow him and note where he goes. Keep on his tail until he arrives at what looks like his final destination.”
The youth drank in the instructions and took his place in the far corner of the lobby behind his newspaper.
The lobby porter frowned but left him alone. He had seen quite a few meetings take place in front of his reception desk.
Forty minutes later Simon Endean walked in. Shannon noticed that he dismissed a taxi at the door, and hoped the youth had noticed it as well. He stood up and nodded to the newcomer, but Endean strolled past him and pressed the summons button for the lift. Shannon joined him and remarked the youth peering over his newspaper.
For God’s sake, thought Shannon and mentioned something about the foul weather, lest the man who called himself Harris should glance round the lobby.
Settled into an easy chair in flat 317, Harris opened his briefcase and took out a map. Spreading it out on the bed, he told Shannon to look at it. Shannon gave it three minutes and had taken in all the details the map had to give. Then Harris began his briefing.
It was a judicious mixture of fact and fiction. He still claimed he represented a consortium of British businessmen, all of whom did some form of business with Zangaro and all of whose businesses, including some which were virtually out of business, had suffered as a result of President Kimba.
Then he went into the background of the republic from independence onward, and what he said was truthful, most of it out of his own report to Sir James Manson. The punch line came at the end.
“A group of officers in the army has got in touch with a group of local businessmen—who are, incidentally, a dying breed. They have mentioned that they are considering toppling Kimba in a coup. One of the local businessmen mentioned it to one of my group, and put their problem to us. It is basically that they are virtually untrained in military terms, despite their officer status, and do not know how to topple the man, because he spends too much time hidden inside the walls of his palace, surrounded by his guards.
“Frankly, we would not be sorry to see this Kimba go, and neither would his people. A new government would be good for the economy of the place and good for the country. We need a man to go down there and make a complete assessment of the military and security situation in and around the palace and the important institutions. We want a complete report on Kimba’s military strength.”
“So you can pass it on to your officers?” asked Shannon.
“They are not our officers. They are Zangaran officers. The fact is, if they are going to strike at all, they had better know what they are doing.”