Jericho stared indecisively out of the window. Yoyo had dozed off in her seat, the jet was preparing for landing. Tu didn’t like engaging in conversation while he was at the controls. Left to his own devices, Jericho had tried for a while to wring information about Ndongo’s current time in office out of the internet, but the media interest in Equatorial Guinea seemed to have vanished with Mayé’s departure. He suddenly felt his motivation ebbing away. Yoyo’s light, melodic snoring had the air of a soliloquy to it. Her chest rose and sank, then she gave a start and her eyes rolled under her eyelids. Jericho watched her. It was almost as though the confusing moment of intimacy they had shared had never happened.
He turned his head and let his gaze wander out over the ghost of light as it become steadily denser. At a height of ten kilometres, he had felt a gnawing loneliness, too far from the Earth, not close enough to the skies. He was grateful for every metre that the plane sank closer to the ground, allowing the strange pattern to form familiar pictures again. Buildings, streets and squares created the illusion of familiarity. Jericho had been in Berlin a number of times. He spoke German well, not perfectly, because he had never made the effort to learn it, but what he could say was accent-free. As soon as he put his mind to swotting up on a language he mastered it in a matter of weeks, and, in any case, just listening was enough to be able to understand.
He fervently hoped that they would find Andre Donner still alive.
At 04.14, they landed in Berlin Brandenburg airport. Tu set off to arrange a hire car. When he came back he was morosely waving an Audi stick.
‘I would have preferred another make,’ he moaned as they crossed the neon wasteland of the parking lot in search of their vehicle. Jericho trotted behind him with his rucksack slung over his shoulder, accompanied by a shuffling and sedated-looking Yoyo, whom they had barely managed to wake. Apart from Diane and some hardware, he had nothing else with him. Tu had refused to take him to Xintiandi before their departure so he could pack a few essentials. Not even Yoyo had been permitted to go back to her apartment, although she been bold enough to protest, making Tu see red.
‘No discussion!’ he had scolded her. ‘Kenny and his mob could be lying in wait. They’d either finish you off right on the spot or follow you to me.’
‘Then just send one of your people instead.’
‘They’d still follow them.’
‘Or just let me—’
‘Forget it!’
‘For God’s sake! I can’t just run around in the same smelly clothes for days on end! And nor can Owen, right? Or can you, Owen?’
‘Don’t try ganging up on me. I said no! Berlin is a civilised city; I hear they have socks, underwear, running water and even electricity there.’
There was electricity; that much was true. But beyond that a hot shower or the scent of fresh laundry seemed light years away in that deserted, car-packed hangar. Tu hurried past dozens of identical-looking metal and synthetic-fibre bodies, swinging his full to bursting travel bag, chivvied the others along and finally spotted the dark, discreet limousine.
‘The car’s not bad at all,’ Jericho dared to comment.
‘I would have preferred a Chinese make.’
‘What are you talking about? You don’t drive a Chinese car. Not even when you’re in China.’
‘Funny,’ said Tu, as the car read the data from the stick and obediently opened its doors. ‘Such a talented investigator, but in some respects you’re from the Stone Age. I drive a Jaguar, and Jaguar is a Chinese make.’
‘Since when?’
‘Since three years ago. We bought it from the Indians, just like we bought Bentley from the Germans. I would just as happily have taken a Bentley of course.’
‘Why not a Rolls?’
‘Under no circumstances! Rolls-Royce is Indian.’
‘You two are nuts,’ yawned Yoyo, and lay down across the back seat.
‘Listen,’ said Jericho, as he slid onto the passenger seat. ‘They don’t automatically become Chinese models just because you buy them. They’re English. People buy them because they like English cars, and that’s precisely why you buy them too.’
‘But they belong—’
‘—to the Chinese, I know. Sometimes the entire globalisation process just seems like one big misunderstanding.’
‘Oh, come on, Owen! Really!’
‘I’m serious.’
‘Comments like that didn’t have any punch even twenty years ago.’
Tu steered the car in slalom through the aisles, whose uniformity was only outdone by the fact that they seemed so infinite in number. ‘I’d rather you told me whether you’ve found out anything else that might be of interest to us.’
Jericho gave him a brief overview of Ndongo’s unsuccessful attempt to reform the country and do business with the United States again, and of Mayé’s subsequent coup, Beijing’s obvious implication in it and Mayé’s China politics. He also mentioned the dictator’s growing delusions of grandeur, his failed space programme and his violent removal from power.
‘The official story is that Mayé and his clique fell victim to a Bubi revolt which was supported by influential Fang groups,’ he said. ‘Which would be plausible. But Obiang certainly wasn’t behind it. Since his expulsion to Cameroon he’s become quite a hermit and, according to rumour, is fighting his final battle against cancer.’
‘And it wouldn’t have been the sons either?’
‘No.’
‘Well,’ Tu clicked his tongue. ‘There’s surprisingly little information about what’s been happening there over the last year, don’t you think?’
Jericho gave him an appraising look. ‘Is it just my imagination, or do you know something that I should know?’
‘Oída ouk eidós,’ said Tu innocently.
‘That’s not Confucius.’
‘I know, are you impressed? It’s Plato, Socrates’ apologia: I know that I know not.’
‘Show-off.’
‘Not at all. It’s perfectly fitting for what I’m trying to say. I do know that there’s an explanation for the diminished interest in Equatorial Guinea, but I just can’t work out what it is. I know it’s something obvious though. Something that’s right in front of our noses.’
‘Does it also explain why there was hardly any public speculation about involvement from abroad?’
‘Ask me after I’ve figured out what it is.’
Jericho listened to the navigation system for a while.
‘Look, the problem is that the coup wouldn’t have been possible without outside help,’ he said. ‘It’s clear that Mayé was installed there by the Chinese, so one would assume that America did it. But our text fragment says something different, that China had its finger in the pie too. If that’s correct, then the submissive servant wasn’t submissive enough when it really came down to it.’
‘You mean he was no longer willing to comply with Beijing’s wishes?’
‘Yoyo and I are leaning towards the view that he and his inner circle could even have become dangerous for China.’