He turned off the road, drove up a short dirt driveway, and parked in front of a two-story house that served as the clubhouse. Nearby, three weathered colonial-style homes sodden in the rain looked like they hadn’t been occupied since the British granted independence to Sierra Leone.
A black man carrying an umbrella came up to the car. A large two-way radio hung on his belt. Behind him the clubhouse sat morose, upstairs windows flung open, the paint faded on the cement block walls topped by a rusty tin roof.
“You are Mr. Costanza? Mr. Lange awaits in the bar.”
The guard led Stone up broken concrete stairs to the entrance past scraggly bushes with yellow flowers. “The bar is beyond the ballroom.”
The room had not seen a dance in years, yet the wooden floor had maintained a degree of polish. The floorboards didn’t squeak underfoot. Scattered around the room were chrome-framed chairs, the type Stone had last seen in an American diner. No tables were visible.
In contrast to the club’s exterior, the mahogany-paneled bar was clean and looked cared for. Tall chairs lined the bar, a limited but expensive selection of liquor sat on the glass shelf, and a dated computer cash machine hummed. A local man wearing a striped shirt sat, before him a half glass of Guinness.
At the far end of the bar, under a row of British Navy ship plaques displayed on the wall, in a position where he could see anyone coming in, a sandy-haired man in a yellow tennis shirt sat smoking a cigarette. The eyes gave Stone a long once-over. From a photo Craig had shown him that morning, Stone knew the man to be Dirk Lange.
Stone acknowledged the black man and walked straight for Lange, right hand extended. “Mr. Lange? I’m Finbarr.”
Lange’s handshake was firm and quickly withdrawn. He motioned for Stone to take a seat next to him. When the bartender approached, Stone ordered a Star beer, then laid a black Moleskine notebook on the table. “Good of you to help me out with my story on the elephants here in Sierra Leone.”
“My pleasure. Only hope I can be of assistance.” Lange’s eyes darted to the man with the Guinness. “They are a distrustful lot, those animals. The ones that manage to survive. In that region there are too many people with AK-47s looking for something to kill.”
Stone made a pretense of opening his notebook and scribbling with his pen.
“This is an interesting club,” Lange continued. “Has history. Have you been here before?” Without waiting for Stone to answer, he rose. “Come, I’ll show you the billiard room upstairs. You know a famous English writer was a member here during the Second World War.”
“So I hear.”
“He was also a spy.”
Upstairs, a shaded lamp hung over an old, well-maintained billiard table. Not three feet away, a ragged hole in the floor the size of a manhole looked down into the ballroom.
“Termites?” Stone asked.
Lange said, “Probably,” and led him to the green painted wall next to the open window. He searched the grounds below. At last, he turned, moved closer, and looked directly into Stone’s eyes. “Jonathan spoke to me about you.” The words came more as assurance than a statement. “I will come to the point.”
He stood close and the nearness made Stone uneasy. The man smelled of a cheap aftershave that airlines placed in travel amenity kits.
“Ronda. A colleague at the aid organization fell in love with an Arab man who lives next to one of the big mosques in town. They slept together and one night began smoking hashish. Three weeks or so ago, she confided in me, being a fellow South African. She is disturbed, troubled.” Lange moved away and for a moment listened at the door. Returning, he continued. “She said that while in bed, smoking hashish, the Arab starts bragging about how his people will triumph against Western civilization. That he was helping purchase the means of making a bigger statement than was made with those towers in New York City.”
“What kind of statement?”
Lange shrugged. “Ronda came to me about this. Being a sensible woman, she was quite worried.”
“Can I talk to her?”
Lange shook his head. “Last week fishermen pulled her body ashore in their nets.”
“Did the police rule suicide or foul play?”
“You are joking, Mr. Costanza? The police here are not concerned with the random body that washes ashore. They have a backlog of explained deaths to process.”
“You believe this Middle Eastern friend had something to do with her death?”
Lange nodded. “I told all this to Jacob, who said he would have someone come and talk with me.”
Stone, thinking about his last assignment on the Riviera, asked if Lange thought the Arab had been talking about spreading Ebola or some other disease.
“I doubt it. To me, it sounded like some object they were buying. Something that would prove catastrophic. Ronda told me she thought the Arab inferred one of her own kind, a South African, was selling them this ‘thing.’”
“Someone from South Africa?”
“That was her impression.”
Stone walked to the window. The still air in the room hung heavy with dust. Down below, the guard stood under the roof of a shed next to the parking lot. He turned back to Lange. “This Arab. What nationality? Lebanese, Syrian? Is he still here? Know where I can find him?”
“Egyptian.” Lange motioned that they should return downstairs to the bar. “Saw the bugger two days ago at the open-air beach café on the point. Out Lumley Beach Road.”
“Have a name?”
“Nabeel. Nabeel Asuty.”
Stone followed Lange to the door. “Mr. Lange. Tomorrow I suggest we go drinking by the bay.”
Stone eased the battered truck down the tree-covered lane from the Hill Station Club to the American Embassy. The steady rain washed mud onto the patchy macadam, and at places the runoff poured across the road from the hill above, splattering the windshield with muddy water. The meeting with Lange went well, he thought. The information was a bit sketchy and hearsay, but still Lange gave him a name, Nabeel Asuty, and an address for a place that he frequented — a mosque located downtown.
A cable setting out the results of the meeting had to be sent to Stone’s boss, Colonel Gustave Frederick, at CIA headquarters. However, Stone had to follow protococlass="underline" Luke Craig had to sign off on the draft before it was sent over the agency’s communications network. Craig’s reaction would be interesting. Would he blow off the allegation that Nabeel was involved in a grandiose terrorist plot? Did he know this individual and already have him in the agency’s crosshairs?
Stone would know by tonight whether he was staying in Freetown to follow up on the case or heading back to Washington. As he drove, he imagined himself opening that café along the Southern California coast. He’d be near his two kids, who attended college nearby. This last thought reminded him that he must email both of them. He remembered his ex-wife lived in Los Angeles, competing for their children’s attention. By the time Stone pulled up to the embassy, he decided he wasn’t that eager to board a homeward plane.
Craig surprised him. Swiveling side to side in his chair, he read and reread the draft Stone had prepared. He stopped occasionally to make edits with his number two pencil, a practice that Stone knew was instinctual for any boss in the agency who authorized the sending of cables to their headquarters division. Bosses had to make their mark on all outgoing communications. What caught Stone off guard was Craig’s interest in the content of the draft. Evidently, Craig had picked up other information that made the account credible. Stone guessed the station’s source at the Hill Station Club reported something positive about his meet with Lange.
“The name Nabeel Asuty doesn’t ring a bell, but we know about activity at the mosque,” Craig admitted. “Most of the hotheads in town gather there to plan their version of jihad. As if this country needs any more turmoil.”