An African Affair Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  CHAPTER 37

  CHAPTER 38

  CHAPTER 39

  Acknowledgements

  VIKING

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A. • Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3 (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) • Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England • Penguin Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd) • Penguin Books Australia Ltd, 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd) • Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi – 110 017, India • Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, Auckland 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd) • Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  First published in 2011 by Viking Penguin, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  Copyright © Nina Darnton, 2011

  All rights reserved

  Publisher’s Note

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING IN PUBLICATION DATA

  Darnton, Nina.

  An African affair : a novel / Nina Darnton.

  p. cm.

  eISBN : 978-1-101-51693-5

  1. Women journalists—Fiction. 2. Americans—Nigeria—Fiction.

  3. Assassination—Nigeria—Fiction. 4. Organized crime—Nigeria—Fiction.

  5. Lagos (Nigeria)—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3604.A749A69 2011

  813’.6—dc22 2011001507

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrightable materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

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  FOR JOHN, WITH LOVE

  Beware, beware the Bight of Benin

  For few come out though many go in.

  —Old sailor’s rhyme

  PROLOGUE

  The operations room at Langley was unusually busy for a Thursday morning.

  Even in the slowest of times, the windowless chamber—the nerve center of the CIA, where all reports and rumors were gathered—was frantically active. The operatives remained vigilant, ready to mobilize at the first sign of trouble anywhere in the world. And today, April 15, 1994, problems were brewing in all the usual places: Serbia continued its attacks on Bosnia, the Hutus escalated their slaughter of the Tutsis, and Moscow and Chechnya were growing increasingly hostile.

  The operations room seemed small considering its importance, measuring only thirty by forty feet. In the middle, four computers divided the space into quadrants. An operator sat in front of each monitor scanning the incoming reams of words, then forwarding each report to the correct department as more information streamed in. The operators—two men and two women—were too preoccupied to talk to one another.

  A light hanging from the center of the ceiling suddenly flashed, bathing the walls in an eerie yellow glow. It alerted the operatives that someone not cleared to receive classified information had entered.

  The stranger was a tall, lean man with piercing eyes that darted around the room, taking everything in. He was standing at the door with his escort, a middle-aged analyst from the Africa section plump from years of sitting at a desk.

  “Every news story, every intercept, every piece of economic data, even every weather report pours in here,” the analyst bragged, “and is forwarded to the appropriate desk in less than ten seconds.”

  The stranger smiled. He remembered walking through an experimental psych lab where white rats pressed little bars to receive food pellets. Ten seconds, he mused—hardly enough for a considered judgment. The scene reminded him that the CIA was a gigantic vacuum cleaner, sucking up every tidbit, while hobbling the agency with an overload of information.

  One of the operators seemed particularly busy. The computers—set back to back—allowed no one else to see the screen.

  “That man,” the escort said, pointing, “handles all the field reports. Obviously they get top priority.”

  The young man suddenly sat upright.

  “My God!” he exclaimed before hunching over and hitting some keys.

  “What happened?” one of the women yelled.

  The young man started to speak, then looked nervously at the two men by the door.

  “We’d better leave,” whispered the escort, touching the stranger on the elbow.

  The coded message was forwarded directly to the deputy director for operations, who immediately summoned an emergency meeting. Within ten minutes, a small group of highly placed analysts and operatives dropped what they were doing and made their way to a secure conference room on the fourth floor. Word had spread throughout the building: William Agapo, their most valuable agent in Nigeria, had been assassinated.

  Fortunately, the top experts on Nigeria were already at Langley to discuss what was euphemistically called “the Nigerian landscape,” a volatile mix of corruption and drug smuggling with an overlay of politics.

  As the analysts and agents filed into the room, there was none of the usual banter. They arranged themselves around an oval mahogany table. James Woolsey, the soft-spoken director, took his seat at the head of the table. Dave Goren, the station chief in Lagos, sat next to him. Goren’s pale blue eyes searched the room, then focused on the doorway as Peter Bresson, the elegant ambassador to Nigeria, entered with Bob Albright, the deputy director, a short, scruffy man with crumbs from breakfast still caught in his beard. Albright paused for a moment, staring hard at Goren, who got the message, sighing theatrically as he gave up his seat next to the director.

  The last to arrive was Vickie Grebow. Being inconspicuous was not one of her talents. No one could he
lp but notice this thirty-five-year-old Amazon with her platinum blond curly hair and five-foot-ten-inch frame. Everything about Vickie was big—her throaty voice, her exaggerated New York accent, her expansive gestures. She seemed exactly the wrong person to work for an undercover agency, but although she was always noticed, she was never seen.

  She plopped her large black shoulder bag on a chair next to Dave Goren and sat down next to it.

  “Jesus, I’m sorry,” she said to no one in particular. “How did it happen? What do we know?”

  “Not much,” Goren said. “The message said he and his wife were found in bed with their throats cut. The house was ransacked. The police are calling it a robbery.”

  “No surprise there,” said Vickie.

  “Anything taken?” Bob Albright asked.

  “We just contacted his secretary,” Goren replied. “She said he had taken home all his private papers a few days ago. His safe there was blown. Whatever was in there is gone.”

  Vickie leaned forward. “Just papers? What about jewelry, cash, electronics?”

  “We only know about the safe. There may have been jewelry in it, but the expensive rings and bracelets on the dresser weren’t touched.”

  “Well, that’s practically a signed confession, isn’t it?” Vickie blurted. “They found out he was working for us and killed him.”

  Goren raised his eyebrows condescendingly. “Just like that, Vickie, you solved it. It’s so easy, we don’t even need trained analysts to figure it out.”

  Vickie shot him an angry look.

  “You just heard from a trained analyst. Am I going too fast for you?”

  Bob Albright suppressed a smile. “Hold on,” he said. “We don’t know what happened. But Vickie’s right, Dave, it’s probably not just a simple robbery.”

  “Besides, he lived in Ikoyi,” Vickie broke in, “home to foreign diplomats and rich Nigerians. It’s well patrolled. Most of the houses are surrounded by cement walls and protected by security guards.”

  Goren snorted. “Right. He had two. They ran away.”

  “Question them,” Albright ordered. “Were they paid to disappear? Did they recognize anyone?”

  “If they know who did this they’ll be afraid to talk,” Vickie said.

  “It’s our job to make them afraid not to talk,” Goren shot back.

  “That’s where we differ, Dave. I think it’s our job to help them feel safe to talk.”

  Albright nodded his head slowly up and down, a personal tic they all knew well. It meant he had reached a decision.

  “We need another asset on the ground. Vickie, I want you to go to Lagos as soon as possible,” he said. “Your cover will be as the new deputy political officer. Bill, your office can take care of the details. Nose around, Vickie. I know you’re good at that. We want information on this killing, of course, but without Agapo, we’ve lost our eyes and ears. We need to know what that tin-pot dictator is up to and get a fix on his opposition. So far, we’ve remained neutral—at least officially. You’ll report to Peter on paper, as Dave does. But be sure to keep me up to speed.”

  “I’ll need to be brought up to date on the details,” Vickie said. “Are you thinking it’s the work of local operatives or are we looking at Solutions, Incorporated? A mercenary operation that assassinates people who can’t be bought off would suit Olumide perfectly.”

  “The point is, we don’t know,” Goren said, “but that group seems too sophisticated for overt assassination. Why not hire some local to do it?”

  He turned to Albright with an air of exasperation. “My apologies if I’m out of line here, but we know that Vickie’s strengths—great as they are—are intuitive, not intellectual. Don’t we need more mature analysis for this situation?”

  The director impatiently pushed back his chair and rose.

  “I think we’ll go with Bob’s plan. If you have a problem with it, Dave, get over it.” He turned to the deputy director. “And keep me apprised of whatever they find.”

  He walked out of the room.

  Vickie turned to Goren. “This is just the kind of thing Solutions, Incorporated does—acts of sabotage for a political goal. It’s not a wild idea at all, especially if the hit was ordered by the top guy.”

  “That’s enough,” Albright said, standing up. “You’ll know more when you’re on the scene. I’d like to leave this meeting confident you and Dave will work well together.”

  “Yes, sir,” Vickie boomed. “We’ll get along fine, won’t we, Dave?”

  “Sure,” he replied. He looked Albright straight in the eye. “You have my word on that, sir.”

  The ambassador stood up to leave.

  “Don’t worry,” Albright said. “They always settle into a professional relationship. They challenge each other, but it generates results.”

  Looking skeptical, the ambassador picked up his papers and withdrew. Dave Goren shook Albright’s hand and nodded at Vickie.

  “Well, welcome aboard. See you in Lagos.”

  “Thank you. Looking forward to it.” Vickie grinned.

  Albright walked to the door, then turned to face her.

  “I want to stay on top of this. I don’t have to tell you how important it is. You’ll report through regular channels. But feel free to contact me directly if there are any serious problems.”

  “I will, sir. I have some ideas about where to start,” she began intently.

  She was about to elaborate but he had left, his mind already on the next problem.

  “You can count on me, sir,” she said to the empty space.

  Downstairs, as his escort guided him through the front lobby, the stranger stopped to browse through a souvenir shop, much to the annoyance of his guide. The stranger picked up one of the coffee mugs for sale, turning it over in his hand.

  It was meant as a joke. CIA was scrawled across the top. Below, large block letters proclaimed: “SPECIAL AGINT.” Acknowledging the misspelling, a thick black line was drawn through them. Below, a second attempt read: “SECRIT OPERATIVE.” That too was crossed out. The final line was a single word: “SPY.”

  The stranger smiled and bought the mug. He carried it in his left hand as he shook hands with the little bureaucrat and turned toward the security check. Passing the wall of memorial plaques to the agents who had died in the line of duty, he wondered where the newest one would go.

  CHAPTER 1

  A phone was ringing somewhere. Its shrill, insistent screech broke through Lindsay’s sleep, but she was sure it wasn’t her phone—that hadn’t worked in days. She sat up and threw off her sheets, which were damp with perspiration. There was that sound again. It was her phone. She scrambled to lift up the receiver.

  “Lindsay,” a voice shouted. “What the hell’s going on? I haven’t heard a word from you in over a week.”

  Joe Rainey, the foreign editor, sounded far away through the scratchy connection.

  “The line’s been out,” she yelled back.

  “Why the hell do you think we gave you a sat phone?” he asked.

  “It’s broken. No one here can fix it. And the power keeps failing so I often can’t use my computer. It’s lucky I have an old manual typewriter, but I need a generator,” she said. “I’m waiting for the business side to approve it. Can you put some pressure on—” but before she could say another word, the connection was severed. The landline had expired as mysteriously as it had sprung to life.

  She glared at the ticking clock: 3:00 A.M. There must be some unwritten law decreeing that editors would never be able to compute the time difference between them and their correspondents. She punched her pillow into a soft lump under her head and closed her eyes. But sleep wouldn’t come. The air was thick and muggy. The air conditioner didn’t work and the wooden blades of the ceiling fan weren’t moving.

  A blackout. Again. She fumbled for a candle, lit it with the matches she kept on the bedside table and, half-asleep, groped her way downstairs to get some water.

  Her friend Mau
reen was slumped at the kitchen table, her short brown hair plastered down with perspiration. Poor Maureen. Lindsay, a foreign correspondent for the New York Globe, had been in Lagos for four months, long enough to accustom herself to the frequent electrical disruption and the relentless heat. But Maureen, an AP reporter, had arrived only yesterday for a brief assignment.

  Both had been based in London and specialized in West Africa. Half a year ago Lindsay began hearing stories about the corruption and cruelty of General Michael Olumide, Nigeria’s military dictator. Exiles said he made millions from drug dealing, that he used the country as his private ATM, and that the walls of his underground jails were stained with blood. When she learned that the paper was planning to open a full-time bureau in Nigeria, she had lobbied hard for the job. Rainey had been reluctant to assign her—she suspected that he thought it too dangerous for a woman but didn’t dare say so. Then, one of Olumide’s advisers, widely rumored to be working for the Americans, was found murdered. Olumide claimed that there was evidence pointing to The Next Step, an anticorruption movement that was an unlikely culprit since it believed in change by counting votes rather than cutting throats. The dissidents pointed to Olumide as the more obvious suspect. Others said it was the work of northern fundamentalists who had been agitating for Islamic law. Lindsay told her bosses that she had already developed a network of sources among dissidents. She insisted this could be a very big story, with international repercussions, a Pulitzer contender. Rainey relented. Pulitzer talk always brought editors around.

  Maureen’s brief was more specific—a story on the main opposition leader, Femi Fakai, who had promised an interview with the Western press. Since the AP had no resident correspondent, she had also been assigned to write some features on the Nigerian economy and oil production.

  The two women had been close friends since high school. They chose the same college—the University of Wisconsin at Madison—and joined the school paper together. In their senior year, both wanted the job of editor, and the board, finding it impossible to choose, split the job between them. Though different in many ways, they worked well as a team. Maureen, barely five feet tall, with curly brown hair and striking blue eyes, was feisty, outspoken, and honest to a fault. She could hone in on the holes in a reporter’s story but needed Lindsay’s diplomatic talents to communicate her criticisms. Lindsay, whose parents had changed their name from Kaminsky to Cameron, was lively, witty, flirtatious, and pretty. She had a tall, graceful body, long, straight auburn hair, and hazel eyes, qualities which made her popular in spite of her ambition and academic success.