PROLOGUE
It would be a moonscape if it wasn’t for the few scattered thorn trees, here and there, surviving the scorching sun and the ever present harsh, sandy, dry wind. The skinny trees survive, barely, thanks to the few small leaves, well protected by very sharp needles, that the goats cannot get to: and in this forsaken land, goats climb trees in order to eat the few things edible the earth has to offer.
N’Diouf is in front, Bertrand’s in the middle, and I close ranks. N’Diouf and Bertrand wear army fatigues: N’Diouf because he is an army sergeant, Bertrand’s because he is a gun and war games nut. I am dressed in jeans and a chequered shirt. One Senegalese, one native Quebecois, and one adopted Canadian.
N’Diouf is carrying a small back pack, containing a first aid kit, a bottle of water, white bread, probably onions, and a few cans of sardines; he also has with him a short waves radio: a rifle, at the ready, in his left hand, and the traditional army machete on his right’s. I know that he also carries a hand gun in the small of his back. His uniform wears no insignia: impossible to tell which army he belongs to, nor his rank. He walks half bent, briskly, but also so very cautiously, and he watches, constantly, front, back, left and right. The guy must be fifty, but walks like a teenager. He is not happy: he has lost his aviator glasses, one reason why he is not happy, but, mostly, he worries for us. He has been in so many close quarter battles in his life, he has been so very close to be killed in the process, he has killed so many people already, that I do not think he worries a bit for his own wellbeing: he wants us out of here, and alive. He also wants to understand what it is that happened on the cliff.
That’s it, as far as N’Diouf is concerned.
Bertrand’s bleeding: he has been hit on the left side of his body, just above his belt. It looks serious, and he is in pain. I wonder how he can walk at so brisk a pace with all the blood he seems to be loosing. We did not have time to dress his wound, not yet, so he tries to stem the blood from spilling out of the wound by pressing the flesh with his right hand. He is somewhat succeeding. His uniform is blood stained: he has no back pack and no guns. Bertrand’ not a thinker and he’s hurt: I am sure that he has not given a thought yet to explain the events.
I am closing ranks. I carry two small back packs, mine and Bertrand’s, no guns, no machete. But I have a map with me, a very detailed one: a military map which I have been able to get from the Senegalese High Command, including a few aerial photos of the surroundings. This area is rich in minerals: gold, silver, diamonds and uranium, to name a few. So, political or guerrilla led uprising allowing, Canadian, French and American mining companies compete to explore the area, stake the most promising real estate, and get granted the rights to mine it. Then wait for the next round of guerrilla fighting to stop, then, possibly, start mining the ore.
That’s why I have aerial photos.
I could not find a single geological map, so I do not have any with me: but I really do not need them now.
We have been walking briskly for the best part of one hour. We are pretty sure that we are man-hunted, and we do not want to take any chances: we have seen the carnage, we have been lucky enough to get away, and we have no desire to be seen nor be shot at again: we would very much like to get back to the army barracks, in Kedougou, and be safe.
And get some much needed explanation.
Bertrand cannot hold the pace: he has lost too much blood. We decide, well, not really we, N’Diouf more than we, decides to rest for a while.
The ground we are resting in is pretty flat: sand and gravel, a few big reddish outcrops, and a few trees growing in their shadows. The lands’ flat but we are a few feet above the plain: so we hope to be able to see if anybody’s following. We see no one; well, N’Diouf sees no one, so, we crouch first, then slide down on our belly, and then on our back, and take a rest.
We are all very tired but N’Diouf and I are not hurt, Bertrand is: we do not like him very much but he is one of us now, and must be tended.
The sergeant kneels over him then cuts his army shirt as well as his Canadian body-wear, and inspects the wound. He shakes his head: he is not going to make it, I think as I see N’Diouf distressed look, not if he keeps walking. He needs to rest. And he needs competent medical assistance, I believe, urgently. That’s what I think N’Diouf conveys to me, no words spoken. He takes a roll of gauze from his back pack, cleans the wound the best he can with what he has, a small bottle of alcohol, and dresses it. A quick but competent job: it is not the first time he has had to dress a gun wound.
We cannot stay here long: we need to move on. N’Diouf and I confer out of earshot from Bertrand’s. He is slowing us down. If we do not leave him here we are all going to get caught. So, we bring Bertrand in on what we have decided to do. I am the one who has been elected to talk to him, not because I wanted to, but because N’Diouf’s a Senegalese, and I am Bertrand’s boss after all. I am not particularly comfortable with the idea of leaving him behind but, to be completely honest, I am also relieved: with him resting here, we can walk much faster, and have a better chance of escaping. I am convincing myself that this is also good for him: he needs medical assistance, fast, or he will die.
These thoughts give me enough courage to talk to him, I believe, convincingly.
“Bertrand, you cannot carry on: you must rest. You are well hidden here, and I have your position precisely spot on the map: that is, we know exactly where you are. Do not move, do not make any sound: we do not know if we have been followed yet: so take no chances. We will leave the water we have for you: that is, about a liter worth of it. Use it sparingly. We will do our best to get back to friendly country, and rescue you, that is, if we do not get killed first. Do you understand, Bertrand?”
“You are dumping me, aren’t you, bastards? Now that you have found the gold you were looking for, you do not want anybody else to know, do you?” Bertrand can barely breathe, he whispers. So I bend, and put my ear close to his mouth to register what he is saying.
How in hell does he know that I was looking for gold? But I have no time now to question him: we have to leave, fast.
“No, we are not dumping you, buddy, and I am not trying to hide anything.” I am getting a little pissed by his uncooperative attitude. ”You can’t walk, and if you stay with us, you’ll die. You need medical assistance, competent medical assistance. You don’t get it, you die. We will die as well if we cannot run faster. So the best course of action, the best chance of survival we all have, is for you to stay here, and for us to run for help.” I am trying to reason him: I am not sure how I would take it myself, being left behind, I mean, no matter how badly hurt I would be!
“Fuck you, bastards!”
So much so for helping people in need. So, he gets half a liter of water instead of the one he was promised: be nice, you get help, be nasty, you don’t.
N’Diouf checks the surroundings once more: he sees some movements about a mile away.
So, we are being tracked after all.
We leave in a hurry, but not before erasing any foot print leading to Bertrand’s hiding place. Bertrand seems to be dozing. But as he realizes that we are leaving him behind, he starts yelling at us. I am not sure where he gets the strength to yell: he could only whisper before.
As we are running away the ground shakes: then we hear a sequence of explosions coming from the cliff: our pursuers have obliterated the tunnel we had been in.
THIES - THE BEGINNING
It all started when I decided to have an African adventure.
The best opportunity I had to have one was to land a job as a teacher for CIDA in Thies, Senegal, or, more to the point, at the Ecole Polytechnique of Thies, an engineering school similar to the Ecole Polytechnique of Paris, that is, Paris in France, except for the size and repute.
This is a CIDA1 sponsored project: the academic side of the engineering school is managed by Canadians, mostly teachers, plus some administrative personnel, whereas the facility side of the business is managed by the Senegalese army. As a matter of fact the army also manages the students-to-army relations, as well as the student-to-teacher relations. When the students don’t like it the way the army does things at the school, they go on strike. When the students go on strike, the army’s not happy. But being Senegalese, there is no violent confrontation, only endless discussion in an attempt to resolve the issues peacefully. These differences of opinions are difficult to be settled when negotiations are carried out by disciplined but impatient military men, and undisciplined but patient students. After a few weeks of endless discussions, the army takes charge: the students are confined to their quarters, and the army does not feed them: strikes tend to last very few days.
No hunger strikes in Senegal.
When I was offered the position of professor of geology, I accepted the challenge: I did not know better of course. Hopi, my wife, decided to take a leave of absence from Concordia, where she teaches Indian Affairs, and come with me. As soon as we got here, I realized that not so many Canadians were as adventurous as I was. I also realized that there were a few topics to be thought for which there was no teacher. So topography, soil dynamics, as well as photo-interpretation were added to my assignment: no pay rise of course.
I was also crowned head of research and development. Again, not because I was particularly qualified, but because nobody wanted the job.
I was by then teaching four different topics, plus related laboratories, and I was in charge of R&D: the most subject any other teacher had on campus was two, and no lab. I felt in a position of power: thus, in a position to do things, do them different, make things better, for the good of the school, and for the good of the Canadian delegation.
I got my chance to do just this, change things, I mean, when I realized that there are no rock outcrops to teach geology on, near the Atlantic coast, at least not in Senegal. Flat, sandy land on the west, up to Mauritania and beyond, flat, swampy and luxurious land on the east, up to Casamanche and beyond, flat, sandy land filled with baobabs, occasionally a few peanut patches of cultivated land, everywhere else, up to the Sahara desert.
One common tread: no outcrops to teach geology on the field.
One area, only one, was promising enough to fulfil my aspirations as a teacher of geology: the very northeast part of the country, close to the border with Guinea, then ruled by a renown democrat: Sékou Touré.
A few villages are scattered around this sparsely populated area of Senegal except for Tambacounda, a large town, roughly mid way between Dakar and Kedougou, itself a small village, a few miles from the border with Guinea.
Tambacounda is a large settlement, maybe one hundred thousand people live there: the town has power, running water, a primitive and incomplete sewer system, and a commercial airport. Kedougou on the other end is a typical small sub-Saharan village, a trading post really. It sits at the base of the Fouta Dialon mountain range: a few scattered huts, no electrical power, no running water except, that is, for the water of the Gambia river flowing nearby, and no sewer system. There is an airport, a military airport, about ten miles away.
Kedougou is more than seven hundred miles north east of Thies, by air. More than a thousand by road, trails, really, more than roads. Impossible to get there by ground transportation. The only way to reach Kedougou is by air. And Air Senegal or not, then as now, there are no flights scheduled for Kedougou. The only air carrier, then as now, is the Senegalese Air Force, servicing, on occasions, the civilian population in cases of emergency.
Back then the Senegalese air force was operating three DC3’s, and four fighters’ planes, gracious gifts (?) of the American or the French governments. We could not get 50 students, one teacher, the wife of the same, two Canadian assistants, the Commander of the school, his suite of officers, the Senegalese Air Force commander, and his suite of gofer, on any nor all of the fighter planes. This are two seater’s, and very uncomfortable, and there weren’t enough of them anyway.
But we could get all there, in a few hours, if I could put my hands on the Air Force’s DC3’s.
Now, for the DC3: the first one was built by Douglas in Santa Monica, California, in 1942. These are real flying workhorses. This twin turboprop engines aircraft, which has room for twenty-twenty five people, unless loaded with military hardware, has no known record of failures in flight: it crashes only when brought down by enemy fire.
It also lands almost anywhere.
Since we were not going to fly over any hostile territory to get from Dakar to Kedougou, I can put my hands on the most reliable, although vintage, airplane there is, or will ever be, to get my fifty students, safely, to geology friendly territory, and then back to school.
I’d be a hero to my students, the envy of my peers, and I would also have some adventure.
This is why I went to Africa in the first palace, didn’t I?
Unfortunately, I did not become a hero to my students, nor the envy of my peers, but I saw plenty of action.
It took about seven months to get the trip organized. Most people I knew pitched in, including Hopi. We had first to sell the idea to the Commander of the Scholl, Sidi Bouya N’Diaye, an Air Force lieutenant colonel by trade. Hopi was invaluable here: Sidi, who became a friend, wanted to look good, especially to my wife. He worked hard to sell the idea to his boss, the Senegalese Air Force Commander, a three stars General, and his staff. The General, in turn, convinced the Defence Minister that this was an excellent exercise for the students and his pilots, and that he should approve of the trip.
I initially got some resistance, indifference more than resistance really, from my colleagues, and from the Director of the school, curious of course but mostly indifferent, maybe concerned for the safety of the students, but certain that I could never, ever get through the read tape of the military establishment. Once it was clear that Sidi and I had managed to get the support of the Defence and of the Education Minister, in record time one must say, the Director could only approve the field trip. But not before a colleague and I flew in to check things out: a fact finding mission to establish the academic value of the trip as well as to make sure that there was room to host everybody at the local army base.
This is where I met, and got to know, and appreciate Sergeant N’Diouf: I cannot thank God enough for this. The guy is tall, maybe five feet ten, and skinny: he must be around fifty, and he certainly weights no more than one hundred thirty pounds: but he projects strength, he is smart, knows the land well, and can liaise with the local population. His most distinguishing features are the aviator glasses, dark lenses, that he wears at all times. He wears them because they were given to him by a Canadian commando, a comrade in arm, a guy he used to share adventures with. The glasses give him the status he lacks since he is still a sergeant at fifty. Close to retirement but still a sergeant: he is either so good at his job that the army needs him where he is, or he has no connections in high places.
He introduces us to the local garrison, all young chaps who have never seen action. He makes sure that we are properly fed, the best possible food really, not what the troops eat at all, and that the small fridge the camp’s equipped with is well stocked with cold beers. The military base is powered by a generator running on diesel fuel: the generators works, the beers are cold. This happens most of the time, that the generator’s in working conditions, I mean, and it did when we were there.
N’Diouf also drives us around in an army jeep: he is no geologist of course, so I had to brief him in what I am looking for. He is a smart chap so he brings us to the best spots in the area: the high cliff overlooking Kedougou, a cliff about 300 meters high, an almost vertical wall. All exposed sedimentary bedrock, almost un-weathered, very little vegetation, except for a few thorn trees, here and there.
Perfect spot to teach a geology class.
We learned a few things, while there, thanks to the sergeant. One of them is that you never challenge baboons: they might be scared of you, more than you are of them, but they fight back viciously when threatened. So, if they bark at you, even when they are high up on trees, just go away: it is safer. Another one deals with food: military men on a field mission eat canned sardines and drink water. Canned sardines are filling but hardly digestible. Eat canned sardine with raw onions: you might not end up with the freshest of breath, but the food becomes digestible: no endless burps.
We were accompanied, in our journey, by a senior member of the Canadian academic team: my chaperon. He is supposed to check things up, and generally make sure that I will not do anything which might embarrass CIDA nor the Canadian Government. As it happened, he enjoyed the trip so much, that he recommended we do it with the students.
To this day, honestly, I still wonder why he enjoyed the trip. He was almost eaten alive by a colony of big, red, ants when, against N’Diouf’s advice, he took a leak in a dry creek in the bush, instead of just taking it beside the sandy trails we were driving on, nor could he eat row onions, although he enjoyed eating canned sardines, and was also scared shitless by the barking baboons.
But thanks to his positive report to the school’s governing body, the trip was approved, and I, and the lieutenant colonel, Sidi Bouya N’Diaye, could organize it.
This proved to be a high profile activity, which got the wrong sort of publicity, and ended up scaring off a number of people
People that did not want us to nose around in Kedougou, that is.
CONAKRY
This has been a very difficult negotiation. It has involved two West African states, Senegal and Guinea, at odds with each other for no valid reasons except machismo. And greed. At stake the development of a major mining district in an area still very isolated and backward: the eastern part of Senegal and the north of Guinea.
He has found gold on the foothills of the Fouta Dialon mountain range. This is where all major rivers of these parts of the world have their source, including the Niger, flowing eastward, and the Gambia River, flowing westward. He knows there is gold and copper, and he knows exactly where.
Most experts agree that the area could also be rich in diamonds and uranium. But nothing of significance has been discovered yet.
But he faces problems. The first one is the location of the ore body: right on the border between Senegal and Guinea. He has to deal with both governments instead of just one. The second snag is the accessibility of the future mine: a railway has to be build to transport the ore from the interior to the coast. It has to be built on the Guinean side of the border. Senegal’s not happy since any economical fall out of the operation, beside the royalties, goes to others.
But gold and diamonds are very powerful magnets. They have always been.
The search for gold started a long time ago in this part of the world. The Portuguese where first to find it in West Africa, around the year 1450, soon to be followed by other European countries eager to dislodge the Portuguese and find riches for themselves. The exploration in those days was mostly confined to the costal area: reaching the interior from the coast proved almost impossible as well as deadly. The rivers, the Gambia and the Niger in particular were infested by crocodiles, the water was undrinkable, and the mosquitoes very fond of sucking a new brand of blood. This very unfriendly territory also contributed to confuse the early explorers and lead them to conduct very flawed surveys: the Niger, for instance, was thought then to flow west, not east, as it does. Things started to change somewhat thanks to the Association for Promoting the Discovery of the Interior Parts of Africa. Founded in London in 1788, this association of geographers and explorers tackled the problem of getting to the interior of West Africa coming from the north, not the south. Mungo Park, an English explorer, was the first to give notoriety to the Association by establishing, conclusively, that the Niger was flowing east, not west. But he could not find gold. He spoke of it with the natives, was told of vast riches, but could not find any himself. He died looking for gold together with most of his crew of forty.
And this went on and on until the first half of the twentieth century, when more modern techniques where invented to discover mineral deposits of commercial value. Airborne magnetic surveys, for instance, made it possible to survey large tracks of land quickly, and at relatively low cost.
But strong anomalies discovered from the air could hardly be checked on the ground: it was still too dangerous to travel the area, not any longer because of crocodiles or mosquitoes, although they were still there, but because of the turmoil which preceded and followed independence from the colonial powers. Senegal was, and still is, a pretty quite, and civilized country. But under the spell of their former masters: France. Nothing can be done there unless the French agree. And they do not want to have any sort of competition when dealing with natural resources in their former colony. On the other end Guinea has seen its share of violence during and after independence from their masters and colonizers: the French again. Even with Sékou Touré now in power you can do no prospecting. The man is paranoid and ruthless. He is less concerned about mineral riches than he is about staying in power. So he plays the Russians against the American and the French. He leans on Russia for weapons, technical assistance and money and on the American for the mining interests they already have in the country: a bauxite2 open pit mine, a railway linking the mine to the coastal area, and an aluminum smelter. Keeping the French at bay is trickier: they are constantly trying to overthrow his government. They did not appreciate Guinea becoming independent: they would have preferred it to be more like Senegal: the country’s too rich in minerals. With Sékou Touré in power they are out of the game.
The American presence is being felt by the large Embassy they maintain in Conakry, Guinea’s capital: a very large one considering that Guinea is a rather small, underdeveloped country, and of little strategic importance. Except for its potential mineral resources, and the constant interference by the French DGSE.
He was able to maintain the negotiations at the highest level, indispensable if secrecy was necessary to achieve results. He could talk directly with the highest instances of the two countries, and a very limited number of their very trusted accolite: each one of them bound to become rich if the deal went through. He was able to avoid them raising the stakes by involving other companies: he convinced them that enlarging the number of participants was the best way to ensure that the project would never take off. Too many diverging interests. No project, no hands out to anybody.
He had to make many concessions: of infrastructure development, in the form of investment in transportation, in school, in hospitals, in training. He had to commit to royalties, and he had to find a way to funnel some of the money into the pockets of the right individuals. He had to secure the preliminary financing of the project. Senegalese and Guineans, often at odds publicly, but with shared interests when money was at stake, would not commit to grant him any mining rights until the negotiations were completed to everybody’s satisfaction.
And all this in total secrecy: an almost impossible task. But he did it.
They were now walking the last legs of the deal; they had to cross the last bridge: but unless an earthquake struck, he was sure that the deal was a done thing.
PARIS, RUE DE RIVOLI
“Am I hearing you all right? You are telling me that somebody in Dakar has authorized a geological expedition in, or around, the Kedougou area without telling us first, better, without asking for our permission to do so, first? Aren’t we paying enough people there to make sure that these things do not happen?” This is Fernand Amis, Vice President, Exploration & Mining, of COMAO, the Compagnie Mineraire de l’Afrique de l’Ouest, talking, shouting more than talking, over the phone with Denis Duvallier, his gofer, and permanent COMAO resident for West Africa.
“Yes sir, I am. Except that this is not a real geological expedition. You see, we have these Canadians which have stolen our project in Thies.. You know, the engineering school, the Ecole Polytechnique of Thies, that opened last year, with Canadian financing. Well, there is a young teacher, Frank Gauthier his name is, that just thought that organizing a field trip for his class of students in this forsaken part of the country was a good idea. He could not find any outcrops around Thies, this idiot. I could have shown him some, had he asked, for Christ sake. He could not get there by road, if you can call that a road, so he had the approval of the Senegalese Air Force to fly everybody there, and have a look at the scenery … The entire process went through the army, not the Ministry of Mines, that is why we did not know anything before hand, and we were not asked for approval either. Fortunately I have good contacts about everywhere here, and I have been informed, late, but I have been informed.”
“I believe it is more complicated than this, Denis; as a matter of fact, I am sure that this is more complicated than it looks like. Do you honestly think, for a minute, that the Canadian Government is interested in co-founding a school to teach these third world ignorant, engineering? No! They are not! They want to be there to better tap the mineral resources of the country, and screw us in the process. As they have done in South America. And I mean Chile and Peru, to name a few countries where they got in as well as making sure to get us out. They want to be able to influence the Ministry and gain a foothold on mineral exploration and mining rights. Something they have not been able to do so far because they could not properly oil the right wheels. So, I really believe that this Gauthier of yours works, officially or not, for Jake Godson of The West Indies Mining Consortium, he does!”
“I guess, Fernand, that this is why you are a V.P. and I am only your assistant: I think that you are right. This cannot be a simple academic trip. They want to screw us. They must be stopped!”
“Denis, please, this is an international call. So do not say anything you might regret later! Get all the info you can on this field trip, and then catch the first flight to Paris. We will think this over, and act accordingly. In the mean time telecopy to me all the info you can on this Gauthier guy. I want to know more about him and possibly his real intentions, before you get here,”
“I’ll get the complete file on him. I have a very good connection at the Ecole Polytechnique of Thies and I’ll get all his personal data. You’ll have it on your desk by tomorrow morning, your time. Now I have to run and get more on the expedition itself. See you in Paris, boss!”
Fernand Amis is sure that this is a set up organized by the Canadians to steal what is rightly theirs. This is so important that he organizes a rush meeting with the president of COMAO.
As Fernand Amis meets his boss, Denis Duvallier jumps in his car and instructs his driver to get to the Ministry of Defence. This will be his first stop. He is very friendly with a staff corporal there, working for Yousef M’Bay, a three star general, usually very well informed on what is going on in the armed forces in Senegal and elsewhere in West Africa. He is also the officer in charge of liaising with the French Foreign Legion which maintains a sizable force, close to Dakar. Just in case they are needed, of course, not there to bully anybody, nor give the impression that France still think of Senegal as one of their colonies.
These are not the sixties any longer after all.
As it is common in these parts of the world, the lobby of the Ministry of Defence, as all lobbies of any other administrative building, and not only in Senegal, is a complete mess: everybody is going in all directions, some in a rush, most by walking so slowly you’d think that they are day sleeping or are impaired somehow. All walk without any apparent purpose other than being seen busy. But in all this confusion, Denis can get his contact out of his office in no time without looking too conspicuous. He then waits patiently in a bar close by, until, about two hours later, he gets all he needs to know as far as the Ministry of Defence is concerned: he gets the name, rank, and contact information of every soldier that is going to be on the field trip. That is all the people form the Air Force staff, not the military personnel or the civilians from the school side. So he needs to get to Thies, and instructs his driver to drive him there. But first he stops at the office and has his secretary, a French girl he sleeps with occasionally, to phone the school and tell Oumar Diallo that he is coming: he needs to talk to him urgently. Oumar Diallo is a young lieutenant attached to the school garrison: he is a staff officer, and the personal assistant of Sidi Bouya N’Diaye, the commander of the place.
Oumar is a smart chap and owes Denis. He owes him his reputation and, ultimately, his rank as well. They met by chance at the Brumel, a bar in downtown Dakar: the bar offers live music, lots and lots of exotic drinks, a wide selection of beers and French wines, The Brumel is well frequented by local businessmen as well as expatriates in search of company for the night or just to relax over a drink, and some local music. Denis happened to be there when Oumar, half drunk, was generally making a fool of himself, and getting in trouble with a white girl that he thought was a prostitute or, more likely, the wife of an expatriate in search of action for the evening.
Well, she was neither.
Very quickly the brawl initiated by Oumar got out of hands with the intervention of some French expatriates, drunk as well, wanting to “protect” or “defend” or “safeguard” the reputation of a white lady, a particularly handsome one, one has to say, from the attacks of a black savage. The only one who attempted to get Oumar out of trouble was Denis. He got him out of the bar, and in his car, minutes before the police got there. And Oumar was dressed in uniform: he would have gotten in real, I mean, real, trouble if he had been caught.
Denis got him sober, drove him to the army camp he was supposed to be in, and they became friends.
Once in Thies, two hours later, Denis meets Oumar at the gate. He briefly tells him what he needs, urgently, and that this has to be kept confidential. While Denis waits patiently outside the Ecole compound, Oumar gets to work. Half an hour later Denis leaves the school with the list of the students, and that of the Canadians on the field trip as well as the names of the three military personnel who will travel with them: Sidi Bouya N’Diaye, the Ecole Polytechnique commander, Oumar Diallo, the commander’s assistant, and N’Diouf, the sergeant that has been on the preliminary mission to Kedougou with the two Canadians professors. He also gets a complete run down on who Frank Gauthier is, from the school’s personnel files.
Denis is ready to join his boss, Fernand Amis, in Paris.
TORONTO, FRONT STREET
“Mr. Godson, I have a Mr. Blackwell, of the Canadian Consulate in Dakar, on the line. Do you want to take the call?”
“Pass him on.”
“Hi Jake, John here.. How are you ..?”
“Pretty good, thank you. To what do I owe a call from such an important person?”
“Well… I may be more important than you, although I doubt it, but you are certainly making more money then me. Not that I’m envious, mind you, I just want to set the record strait.” Both men laugh. “But the reason I call is not about your money nor me being an important person, I have information you might be interested in. I know that you are doing your best to do business in West Africa. We just approved an academic trip in the Kedougou area. A certain Mr. Gauthier, a professor at the Ecole Polytechnique of Thies, he is one of us, a Canadian, has organized a field trip for the benefit of his Senegalese students, in that area. I thought you might want to know.”
“Any chance I can get some of my geologists on that trip?”
Jake Godson, the Senior Vice President of the West Indies Mining Consortium, a Canadian mining company, is very interested in that area of Africa: that area in particular. He is not used to wasting his time, and he is a fast thinker. He has been trying to get approval from the Ministry of Mining of Senegal to send a team of geologist and geophysicists in that area, and make a thorough survey of it all. Gold, alluvial gold, although very little, had been found on the Gambia River between Balaki, in Guinea and Mako in Senegal. Most of it on the Senegal side of the river.
Alluvial gold is found on river beds. Tiny speckles of it that prospectors screen out of the sand bank of rivers with the help of a sieve. These bits and pieces of precious metal find their way on streams because the rocks veins they come from are eroded, in geological times, by wind and rain. Rocks bearing gold roll down steep hills, falls on stream, are eroded even more by the rushing waters, until the metal is freed from its matrix. The surrounding rocks, lighter and more friable, are carried away by the current, whereas gold, a much heavier metal, finds refuge on the sand banks. The gold found on river may come from many miles away. But alluvial gold is a good indicator of a potentially much bigger and richer source upstream.
Jake Godson has never been able to secure permission to organize any geological survey, mostly because the French are so much in control of everything in Senegal. It is very difficult to do anything there, without their explicit consent. And they are not interested in sharing. Nor could he do anything on the Guinea side of the river because the Russian, which are keeping Sékou Touré in power, are not interested in having any western company steal the goods they might get their hands on. It is a sensible policy to get the rights to explore and stake the grounds before embarking in any expensive survey. If you are not granted the rights prior to exploration, you might end up finding the richest of ore bodies just to be stolen the rights by some more powerful player.
But Godson knows, because important news are seldom kept secrets, that somebody has found gold there, and not the alluvial type: a real, big gold deposit. The discovery was apparently made before the ’60, a few years before most of West Africa became “independent” from colonial rule, at least on paper. Two companies were working there in those times: COMAO, a French mining outfit, and the North America Mining and Smelting, a large American organization with interests in South America and West Africa. The guerrilla war then ravaging Guinea, with every chance of spilling into Senegal, Mauritania, Mali and Gambia, marked the end of any exploration activities. Even today, with Sékou Touré in power, and his claims over Kedougou and surroundings, it is next to impossible to do any work there, let alone open a mine. But you have to be patient in this business: you have to wait for the right time, get some help from your government, and then sign the required agreements. Jake Godson knows how to be patient but hates not being in the know.
“Dear Jake, that would be plenty difficult and potentially harmful. As soon as the French know that your guys are in, they will want to be there as well, or they’ll make sure that the trip is cancelled. In my opinion it would be politically unwise to have your people officially or unofficially on the team. May I suggest you might do it more, let’s say, sensibly? Why don’t you get in touch with this guy, Gauthier, and see what he has to say? He is a geologist himself!”
“You are a politician to the bones, and an outstanding schemer, John. I might just do that. Can you let me know how to get in touch with Mr. Gauthier, without alerting everybody on the French quarters?”
“When are you planning to be here?”
“I have no plans yet, but I am listening!”
“Look, the trip is scheduled for next Monday, that is, seven days from now. Can you make it, say, by Thursday next?”
“Sure I can. I’ll try to be there myself; otherwise I’ll send somebody important enough to get Mr. Gauthier’s attention”
“See you in three days then. Have a good trip”
As soon as he is off the phone, Jake calls his secretary.
“Judy, where’s Thumbell and where’s Peterson?” Thumbell is the Chief Geologist of The West Indies Mining Consortium, and Peterson’s his assistant.
“They are both in our Calgary offices: let me see … they are supposed to be back next week”
“Tell them to be here today! And get me all the material we have on Senegal, specifically Kedougou”
“Senegal or Kedougou, or Senegal and Kedougou” Judy’s a very good assistant and wants to do things right.
“Senegal and Kedougou.”
Five hours later Jake, Thumbell and Peterson are in the Toronto Offices’ conference room pouring over the documentation on Senegal and Kedougou Judy’s has been able to dig.
“What do you think of all this?” Jake’s asks to nobody in particular.
“The little we have, documents we can reasonably assume to be original or coming from original reports, I mean, confirm the presence of some alluvial gold found on the banks of the Gambia river, here, here and here” Thumbell points to a map of North East Senegal, a narrow area south of Kedougou.
“What about East of Kedougou, on the Guinea side of the border”
“Nothing has ever been reported, officially. My guess is that nothing was found there either. My best guess is that if there is a ore body, it must lay across the border between the two countries: the Fouta Dialon cliff, here, is the ideal place where the ore body could have met the surface, thanks to soil and rock erosion. Then some speckles of gold could have run off into the Gambia River. The shape of the cliff suggests that any run off, from here to here, would have fed the stream. I suggest that the ore body, if there is one, could be located from here to there. This is about fifty miles of cliff to explore.”
“Is it worth, in your opinion, to talk to this guy, Gauthier, and get his support on finding more about the area? Unofficially, of course.” Asks Jake.
“Well, it’s a pretty big area. The way to do it would be to do a geophysical survey, an airborne one, select the most important anomalies and then drill them. Short of that we have to be very lucky to have one guy in and find a gold mine. As I understand it, it is not possible to conduct a proper survey. Still, I would suggest that sending this guy in is better than sitting here doing zilch. But of course we have not staked the ground. Should he find anything, he could sell his discovery to the highest bidder.”
“I understand, but we can make him an offer he cannot refuse. Also, we have to make sure that the French do not know that one of our guys is in there nosing around. They would be furious. And I may have to do business with them later.” He works his thoughts for a while, then “Ok: you and I are leaving for Dakar. We will meet Mr. Gauthier at the Canadian Consulate. We will fly on separate planes, and we will be staying in two different hotels. We will get to the Consulate separately, and we will leave the compound, separately. I will get back home after the meeting while you, Thompson, will wait for Gauthier to get back from his field trip, and debrief him. Allright?”
“Sounds good to me!” Says Thompson
“OK.” That is Peterson. This is the only word he has proffered during the entire meeting.
As the two geologists leave, Jake calls his secretary. “Jane, please, pass me on to Cornwell.” Cornwell is the President and Chief Executive Officer of The West Indies Mining Consortium. He is Godson boss.
“Mr Cornwell is in Huston and right in the middle of a meeting. Do you want me to call him out?”
“No, it is not that important. I’ll talk to him when he gets back. Thank you, Jane.”
Then he phones a friend of his, Phil Birchall, President and CEO of Consolidated Exploration and Mining, a smaller company founded a few years ago. Phil is a French national: as any French he can enter, and work in Canada almost as he pleases. The company does some business in Western Canada: oil sand, mostly. Jake and Phil go a long way. When Birchall started his company he offered Jake to be CEO of the start up. Jake turned the offer down: a start up is always a risk, and he had a good job already. But they have been in touch: the offer still stand.
And this may be the opportunity they have been waiting for. They have known, positive, that there is a major ore body sitting right on the border between the two Countries. This is a chance to prove it. Phil Birchall should be a happy man.
SEATTLE, SOUTH NORMANDY ROAD
“Mr. Phillips, you have a call on line three from Mr Hamed Ndiadema, American Embassy, Dakar: you want to take it?”
“Hamed, good to hear from you … long time no see … How are things on your side?”
“Hi Sean, can you get on a secure line?”
“Of course I can, give me a minute!”
“Sean, I just got word that a geological expedition led by Canadians is leaving for Kedougou, that is Senegal, the eastern part of it, I am sure you know where that is. They’ll leave in a week time. I know for a fact that they did not get any specific authorization from the Ministry of Mines there. I would have known if they had. They are going in, using the Ecole Polytechnique of Thies, as a cover, an academic trip, if you get the meaning. But I smell rats. So I thought you might want to know. Everything has been organized trough the Ministry of Defence. The Air Force’s three DC3, the one’s we supplied them, are going to be used for transport. The field expedition is going to last one week, and the general area to be explored covers the Fouta Dialon cliff, east of Kedougou. I have more on this but it would be too long to detail it over the phone. I can send it by teletype, encrypted.”
“Do that please. And thank you for the warning.”
Sean Phillips is an ex CIA field officer who grew to become deputy chief, CIA operations, Africa and Middle East. Nobody knows this of course, except for very few within the secret service organization. This explains why the resident CIA, Hamed Ndiadema, has called him, with information that was intercepted: that includes the French conversation between Fernand Amis and Denis Duvallier of COMAO, the French mining company, and all the telephone conversations by all and every one in the Ministry of Defence, the Air Force, and the Ecole Polytechnique of Thies concerning the field trip.
The conversation between the Canadian Consul and Jake Godson, of the West Indies Mining Consortium, the Canadian company, was missed, somehow. Well, that’s understandable: Canadians do no wrong, and entertain no undercover activities. There is no need to monitor their conversation. On top of that they are the American neighbour: they share miles of unchecked border. And Canadians do not enter the US of A illegally, not like Mexican do. Canadians are Americans’ best friends.
But what got Hamed on red alert was the conversation between Amis and Duvallier: if they got suspicious, so should he.
Sean calls immediately on his assistant, who shows up in seconds.
“Who’s our personnel manager in Conakry? Isn’t it Carlo Chavez by any chance?”
“Yes, he is”
“Call him and organize a meeting with him, person to person. We will meet in Paris: it is going to be faster for both of us to meet there. I want to meet him tomorrow at the latest. Get my Learjet ready to take off in three hours. Cancel all meetings; claim an urgent business in South America, no specifics given.”
Carlo Chavez is an ex Canadian paratrooper. He has probably been in every important and secret commando led mission in support of the French or the English that has taken place in Africa, since the end of World War II. Canadian paratroopers are not widely known. Canada is a peaceful country. Canadians abhor violence, and hate guns: all that to say that Canadians, nor Canada armed forces, are normally associated with acts of war, or terrorism, or covert operations. But Canada has a very well trained unit, the Canadian Airborne Regiment, staffed with very tough guys, as tough and well trained as the more widely popularized American Green Berets or the British paratroopers. Chavez was decommissioned in 1978, not because he was too old for the job. It was let go because most of the guerrilla wars in Africa and the Middle East, where France or Britain maintained so called “vital interests” had subsided by then, meaning that most guerrillas had been killed or had been offered lavish compensation to stop making trouble, and there was a surplus of personnel.
When such guys leave their regiments, they get into private security, or become body guards. Some, and Chavez is one of them, have lived in Africa for too long. They still crave for action and for freedom: they’d have a hard time to adjust to a life back home. So, Chavez, in order to stay in Africa, landed a job as personnel manager for the office that the North America Mining and Smelting maintains in Conakry, the city capital of Guinea. The American company is operating an aluminium refinery near Sangaredi in the eastern region of Boke. They needed a tough guy to manage their indigenous personnel.
Chavez has his secretary, a local girl, whom he entertains occasionally, call Air Afrique and book a business class ticket for him to get to Paris. He would leave at 21:55 the same day and reach Charles De Gaul airport the next day at 16:50. He would transfer in Dakar and Casablanca, a 17 plus hours of travel time.
Mr. Phillips must have a very good reason to wanting a meeting in Paris at such short notice.
THIES, ECOLE POLYTECHNIQUE
“Ok guys, it’s all set up. We are leaving for Kedougou on Monday, in four days time. The sheets here are your shopping list: make sure that you have all the things listed with you when you leave. Lieutenant Diallo and I prepared it: it is exhaustive, and you may think that some of the items listed are too much. Just make sure that you have everything’s on the list before we leave. Any questions?”
“How are we getting to Kedougou, Mr. Gauthier?” This is one of the fifty students that will be part of the field trip. For all of them it is the first time they fly, so they are all excited and nervous at the same time.
“We will be driving by bus to Dakar and then fly from there. I am told that we will refuel in Tambacounda and leave half an hour later for our final destination. If you care to read what’s on the sheets, you get the travel schedule as well.”
“Do you think it is safe to fly there, Mr. Gauthier?”
“Of course it is safe. We will be flying the DC3, the safest plane in the sky. And the pilots are all trained Senegalese air force officers.”
“That is why I am worried, Mr. Gauthier. The pilots are Senegalese!!!” Collective laughter.
“I was told that the border with Guinea can be treacherous!” Another student asks.
“We will be well protected: fifty of your best soldiers stationed in Kedougou will support us and will be with us when we will be in the countryside. We will not get very close to the border anyway. And you need some experience in front line duties.” This was meant to be a joke, but they did not get it.
“Will they carry live ammunitions?”
“This is classified. Even I do not know. But trust me; we will be well protected by your armed forces. You are important people, the future of this country, so everybody cares for your safety and well being”
“That’s why we are all nervous!” Collective laughter.
As this goes on, an orderly knocks on the door: he would normally wait to be called in, but this one enters the classroom without getting permission first. This must be important business. He informs me that I am urgently requested by the dean. I apologize to my students for the interruption, I promise them that I’ll be back momentarily, and I walk to the administration offices. The dean informs me that the trip is confirmed: I knew that already. He also tells me that the Canadian Vice Consul would like to meet me in person, if possible today. This I did not know, yet. No, he does not know what it is that he wants. A staff car is ready to take me to Dakar, and it is not that important that I shower or change first.
“What’s so important for John Blackwell to want to see me in such a hurry.” I am thinking. I know the guy: he is my interface for the local initiative projects I conduct in the area. In other words he is the one reading my position papers and approving the money I am requesting. He is not the most brilliant of civil servant I have met, but I don’t have much experience on this topic: John’s the first civil servant I had to deal with.
So I inform my students that the classes are finished for the day, and I am chauffeured to Dakar.
I am introduced to John and two other older fellows: a Mr. Godson, and a Mr. Thumbell from the West Indies Mining Consortium. Mr. Godson is a Senior V.P. and Mr. Thumbell their chief geologist.
“We are very pleased that you could join us here, Mr. Gauthier, at such short notice. I was told that you are soon leaving for a field trip in the Kedougou area, and we would very much like to exchange thoughts on your trip, and the activities you will be conducting there.” That’s Godson talking. He is the prototype of the Canadian chief executive: tall, not fat but well fed, greying, dark striped suit, jacket a measure too small, white shirt, pale grey tie with blue dots. He talks smooth, he wants me to feel comfortable. He does not know me well. He obviously does not know that I am, generally speaking, a pain to deal with, and cannot keep my mouth shot.
“Pardon me, but I fail to grasp why a person as important as you travels here, I assume on very short notice, with your chief geologist, just because I have successfully organized a field trip, with my students, in Kedougou.” I have never, ever been able to keep my mouth shut: that is why people refer to me as a “smart ass”. I talk instead of listening. By doing so people generally thing that I am too smart for them, and they antagonize me instead of cooperating.
And Mr. Godson, who must now think that I am a smart ass, explains in detail why he wants to meet me personally, and on such short notice. I listen carefully, and I ask technical questions during his presentation. I am led to believe that they consider my support extremely important, and that I could expect to land a very good job when my assignment here in Senegal is completed, that is, in one year time.
“Ok Mr. Godson, I understand what you ask me to do. I also understand that the Canadian Government concurs with your requests since John is here with us. But what I fail to grasp is why all this secrecy. Why don’t you get your own team in, and explore the area? Or am I missing some?”
“Well, we are very new in this country, as a company wanting to do business here, I mean. The French are very powerful, and we cannot as yet get any permission whatsoever to explore anywhere, let alone stake the ground. But we would be in a much better negotiating position if we knew for sure that there is gold there. We would not know the size of the deposit, nor would we know if it is economical to exploit it. But we would know that there is gold or gold bearing rocks. We could then make an offer to the Senegalese government, one so good they could not say no to. And we could do it in secrecy, and sign an agreement well before the French get wind of it. Understand me well, now, Mr. Gauthier: we are not expecting you to actually find any gold. But if you could bring back with you some representative samples of the outcrops, we might know more about the area than we know now.”
“Would I be in any sort of danger, should I accept to help you sir?”
“None whatsoever, son. You’d be doing exactly what you would have done anyway, except that you will explore an area closer to where we think gold is, that’s all.” A very convincing argument.
“Sounds easy enough …. Ok I’ll do it ... I will take some field notes of course, and if I see anything of interest I’ll keep my mouth shut, and you gentlemen will be the first one to know. Is that ok with you, sir?”
It is ok. Then Thumbell spreads some geological maps on the conference table, and we spend the next two hours pouring over them.
Then we shake hands and I leave.