‘How long was I out for?’
‘Oh, a good hour.’
‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—’
Yoyo stared at him. She tried to keep a straight face, then she and Tu burst out out laughing. They cackled idiotically at the tops of their voices, nervous and breathless.
‘Hey! What’s so funny?’
‘Nothing.’ They were still panting and laughing.
‘There’s clearly something.’
‘No, nothing, Owen, it’s nothing. It’s just that—’
‘What?’
Altitude sickness, he thought. The beginnings of hysteria. You hear of people who start laughing after traumatic events and then just can’t stop. Astonishingly, even though he didn’t have the faintest clue what it was about, he felt a painful longing to laugh along, whatever it was. That’s not good, he thought. We’re all going crazy.
‘So?’
‘Well.’ Yoyo blew her nose and wiped the corners of her eyes. ‘Oh, it’s silly really, Owen. I lost you in the middle of a sentence. Your last word was—’
‘What?’
‘I guess it was meant to be interim candidate. You said, Obiang had an inteeeeriiim—’
Tu was making bleating noises.
‘Candidaaaaaa—’
‘You’ve both lost your minds.’
‘Come on, Owen. It’s funny,’ grunted Tu. ‘It’s really funny!’
‘Why, for God’s sake?’
‘You fell asleep in the middle of the sentence,’ giggled Yoyo. ‘Your head fell forward in a funny way, your lower jaw dropped down, like…’
Jericho waited patiently until her re-enactment of his degradation had reached its drooling conclusion. Tu dabbed the sweat from his bald head. In moments like these, the English and Chinese senses of humour seemed to be galaxies apart, but Jericho suddenly realised he was laughing too. For some reason it felt good. As if someone had put the furniture inside his mind in order and let some fresh air in.
‘Right then.’ Tu patted him on the shoulder. ‘I’m going up front again. Yoyo will tell you the rest. Then we can draw our conclusions.’
‘Where did we get to?’ asked Jericho.
‘To interiiiiiim—’ chirruped Yoyo.
‘Enough now.’
‘No, I’m being serious. To General Mayé.’
She was right, that was where they had left off. Obiang had named his highest commander in chief as his successor. Mayé was supposed to use the time the outgoing president had left in office to prepare for democratic elections, and yet—
No one trusted the brigadier general. Mayé was seen as a hard-liner and as Obiang’s puppet. There was no doubt that the elections would result in either Mayé himself or one of the president’s sons seizing power. Definitely not the kind of result anyone would like.
Apart from Beijing, that is.
What happened next was so surprising, both for Obiang and Mayé, that even weeks later they were still convinced it was a bad dream. On the day when office was to be handed over, a boldly soldered-together alliance of Bubi and Fang, including members of the armed forces, simultaneously stormed numerous police stations in Malabo as well as the seat of government, taking the dictator and his designated successor prisoner. They drove them to the Cameroon border and threw them out of the country without any further ado. America’s investment had paid off: practically every key position in government circles had been bought. This even turned out to be to Obiang’s advantage, because America refused to tolerate any cases of lynch justice for the logistic and strategic support of the coup.
For the next few hours, the country seemed to have no leader.
Then Severo Moto’s successor emerged from an aeroplane, a university-educated economist by the name of Juan Aristide Ndongo, from the Bubi clan. He had once been forced to reside in Black Beach for a number of years for his criticism of the regime, and for that reason had gained the trust of a large proportion of the population. Ndongo was known to be clever, friendly and weak, the ideal Manchurian candidate. The Fang and Bubi agreed on him in advance with the USA, Great Britain and Spain, expecting to be able to spoon-feed good old Ndongo to their heart’s desire, but he surprised them by having his own plans. The speedy dissolution of parliament is followed by the equally speedy formation of a new government, in which the Bubi and Fang are equally represented. Ndongo promises to create the long overdue infrastructure, a pulsing educational system, to reinvigorate the economy and to provide healthcare and prosperity for everyone. But, above all, he rails against China’s bloodsucking vampire capitalism, which he sees as having destroyed Equatorial Guinea in collaboration with Obiang’s recklessness. He also puts a stop to Beijing’s licence treaties and puts the American ones back in force, without forgetting – with wise foresight – the Spanish, British, French and Germans.
But reality catches up with Ndongo like a pack of hungry dogs. His attempts to put his plans into action aggravate the Fang elite, who hadn’t reckoned with his political survival instinct. He puts oil income into trust funds instead of transferring it to private accounts, and by doing so keeps the money out of the reach of corruption. He keeps to his promise and builds streets and hospitals, kick-starts the wood trade, and relaxes censorship. In doing so, he provokes the hate of the Obiang clique who, they now realise, let themselves be bought without taking into consideration that the preaching Bubi politician intended to take the lead. Within the first year after the coup, the hard-liners move over to the opposition. Ndongo’s successes just feed their hatred, so they try to sabotage him wherever possible, denouncing his inability to rid the world of ethnic resentment and stirring it up in the process. They claim that Ndongo is just another Obiang, a puppet of the USA, and that he will discriminate against the Fang. Many bravely initiated projects grind to a halt. Aids grows rampant, crime is rife, and Ndongo’s parliament proves itself to be just as corrupt as his predecessor’s, while the president, hobbling around defiantly on the crutches of legality, begins to lose touch.
In the second year under Ndongo’s rule, radical Esangui-Fang launch attacks on American and European oil institutions. Bubi and Fang go for each other’s necks as they have since time immemorial, terrorist cells thwart every attempt at political stabilisation, and Ndongo’s idea of a better world collapses with a crash. He has gone too far for his opponents, but not far enough for his friends. In a painful act of self-denial, Ndongo takes a harsher stance, carries out mass arrests and loses what was once his only capital overnight: integrity.
Meanwhile, Mayé is warming up on the sidelines in Cameroon.
‘From the outside,’ said Yoyo, ‘it looked like this: Obiang, sick and bitter, hangs around in the neighbouring country and pressures Mayé to force Ndongo out of office at the next available opportunity. But the old man doesn’t want Mayé himself to rule, but rather to prepare the ground for Teodorin and Gabriel, who have sunk sobbing into one another’s arms at the mere thought of Ndongo. Rivalry is no longer the issue. The country is destabilised and Ndongo is for it. All Mayé would really need to do is travel in and say Boo! Aside from the fact that he can’t enter the country of course.’
‘But because putschists don’t need a visa—’
‘—he agrees and sets off. It’s common knowledge by then that Mayé has already made contact with a private mercenary firm, African Protection Services, APS for short. And they’ – Yoyo paused for a short, dramatic moment – ‘are of interest to us!’
‘Let me guess. This is where Vogelaar comes back into the picture.’