Lost Empire Read online

  THE AIRPORT SHUTTLE dropped them off at the Ras Kutani shortly after dawn. Aside from a few maintenance people moving about in the morning fog, the airstrip was quiet and devoid of life. As the shuttle pulled away, a figure emerged from the mist and approached them. He wore safari khakis, calf-high jungle boots, and a baseball cap emblazoned with the U.S. Army Rangers insignia. He had close-cropped black hair and a thick mustache.

  “Ed Mitchell,” he said without preamble.

  “Sam and Remi Fargo,” Sam replied. “You’re American.”

  “More or less. Expatriate, I guess you’d call it. That all you got?” he said, nodding to Sam and Remi’s backpacks. They’d left the majority of their baggage with Vutolo, an old friend and the concierge at the Moevenpick.

  “This is it,” Sam replied.

  “Okay. I’m ready if you are.”

  Mitchell turned and started walking. Sam and Remi followed him to a sturdy-looking but weathered Bush Air Cessna 182. Mitchell loaded their gear aboard, got them buckled into the backseat, and did a rote preflight check. Within five minutes of arriving they were airborne and headed south.

  “Diving?” Mitchell’s voice said over their headsets.

  “Pardon?” Remi replied.

  “That’s why you’re going to Mafia, I assume.”

  “Oh. Right.”

  Sam said, “Mr. Mitchell, how long have you been in Africa?”

  “Name’s Ed. Twenty-two years, I guess. Came here with RAND to do a radar installation back in ’88. Fell in love with it and decided to stay. I flew Spads and Hueys in ’Nam, so bush flying seemed like a good fit. Set up shop and the rest is history.”

  “Sounds familiar,” Remi replied.

  “Which part?”

  “Falling in love with Africa.”

  “It has the tendency to get into your blood. Every few years I go back to the States to see friends, but I always end up coming back early.” For the first time, Mitchell chuckled. “I guess that’d make me an Africa junkie.”

  “What do you know about Sukuti Island?” Sam asked.

  “Great diving. Prickly owner. A guy named Ambonisye Okafor. You thinking about going there?”

  “Thinking about it.”

  “We can fly over. He owns the island, not the airspace. It’d only cost us fifteen minutes or so.”

  Mitchell made the course adjustment, and within a few minutes the island came into view out the left-hand window. “Sukuti is actually part of the Mafia Archipelago and, depending on who you ask, they’re part of the Spice chain along with Zanzibar,” Mitchell said. “Big and little Sukuti—the big one situated to the north, the little one to the south. See the little waterway between them? Since it’s only fifty or sixty feet wide they’re officially considered a single landmass. All in all, about five square miles. See the other one there, four miles to the south? That’s North Fanjove.”

  “And the long one sitting between them?” Remi asked.

  “That’s more atoll than island—a reef and sandbar. Doesn’t really have a name that I know of. It’s just so close to the surface that it looks solid. You can walk across it, but you’d be wading up to your knees.”

  “Are those craters?” Sam asked, peering out the window.

  “Yep. Back before World War One, German battleships and cruisers used to use Sukuti and Fanjove for target practice. In some places they punched holes straight down the water table. That’s why Fanjove is so popular with cave divers. They rope down into the craters and explore. Every year three or four die doing it. Are you—”

  “No,” Sam replied. “Just regular diving.”

  “Watch yourself. Okafor claims two miles all around Sukuti. He’s got patrol boats and a few armed guards. He even tries to warn people away from Fanjove, but he’s got no legal claim there. There’s his house . . . there on the peak.”

  Sam and Remi craned their necks to take a look. Ambonisye Okafor’s island vacation home was a four-story Italian-style villa surrounded by a chest-high stone wall. Neatly groomed crushed-shell paths branched out from the estate like crooked wheel spokes.

  If set sixty-five years earlier and dropped into the Pacific Ocean, Big Sukuti could have easily passed for a Japanese fortress island during World War II. Shaped like a cone whose rear quarter had been cleaved down to the waterline, the island’s southern, lower reaches were devoid of plant life, save the occasional scrub brush, and completely without cover save the occasional boulder. A half mile from the shore the moonscape gave way to a swath of rain forest that ended where the estate’s grounds began.

  “Replace that villa with a bunker complex, and you’ve got a smaller version of Iwo Jima,” Sam said. “Keeping that jungle at bay probably requires a full-time maintenance staff.”

  Two of the island’s paths caught their attention. One led to a dock on the island’s northwestern side. The Njiwa was tied up alongside the pier. Opposite her were two Rinker speedboats like those Rivera and his men had used during the theft of the bell. They could see several figures moving along the Njiwa’s deck, but at this altitude couldn’t make out any faces.

  The other significant path led to a clearing bordered by white-painted stones; in the center, more stones, these embedded in the earth, formed a giant H. A helicopter landing pad.

  Remi said, “Ed, is that a—”

  “Yep. He owns a Eurocopter EC135. Top-of-the-line bird. Okafor doesn’t drive anywhere if he can help it. A status thing, I suspect. Either of you fly?”

  “I’ve got my single-engine,” Sam replied. “I’ve taken helicopter lessons. I have ten hours in the cockpit. It’s a tougher adjustment than I’d imagined.”

  “Boy, you got that right.”

  “I don’t see many guards or fences down there,” Remi said. “Odd for a man who enjoys his privacy.”

  “He’s got enough of a reputation that he doesn’t need as much protection now. He prosecutes trespassers without mercy. Rumor has it, a few of them have even disappeared after pushing their luck.”

  “You believe that?” Sam asked.

  “I tend to. Okafor was a general in the Tanzanian army before he retired. Tough, scary guy. Seen enough?”

  “Yes,” Sam replied.

  THE REMAINDER OF THE FLIGHT was quiet, punctuated only by Ed’s occasional utterances over their headsets as he pointed out landmarks and offered bits of African history. Just before seven-thirty they touched down on Mafia Island’s gravel airstrip and taxied up to the terminal, a whitewashed building with dusky blue trim and a brick-red tin roof. Beside the building, a pair of uniformed immigration officials sat in the shade of a baobab.

  As the engines wound down, Ed climbed out and retrieved their backpacks from the cargo compartment. He handed them his card, said, “Safe travels, Fargos. Call me if you run into trouble,” then gave them a smile they could only describe as conspiratorial.

  Sam smiled back. “You know something we don’t?”

  “No, but I know adventure hounds when I see them. I’d say you two can handle yourselves better than most, but Africa is an unforgiving place. The number on my card is my satellite phone. I’ll leave it on.”

  “Thanks, Ed.”

  They shook hands, then Ed turned and headed toward a Quonset hut whose window displayed a flickering red neon BEER sign.

  They grabbed their backpacks and headed toward the terminal but were intercepted on the sidewalk by the two officials from under the baobab. After a cursory glance at their passports, the officials poked through their belongings, then stamped the passports and offered a “Welcome to Mafia Island” in halting English.

  “You need taxi?” one of the officials asked. Without waiting for a response, he raised his hand and whistled. From the turnaround outside the airport entrance, a rust-riddled gray Peugeot growled to life.

  Sam said, “Thank you but no. We’ll find our own transportation.”

  Hand still raised, the official looked quizzically at Sam. “Eh?”

  Sam pointed to the Peugeot a
nd shook his head. “La asante.” No thanks.

  The official shrugged, then waved off the taxi driver and said, “Sawa.” Okay. He and his partner walked back to the baobab.

  “What was that all about?” Remi asked.

  “They were in cahoots. At best, we get a padded fare; at worst, we get taken to a private alley and robbed.”

  Remi smiled. “Sam Fargo, where’s your trust in humanity?”

  “Right now, it’s the same place as my wallet—well hidden.” While Mafia Island was a popular destination for extreme scuba divers, it was also a hub for the Tanzanian black market. Sam explained this to Remi.

  She said, “You’re a font of trivia. Where did you come across this tidbit?”

  “I downloaded the CIA World Factbook to my iPhone. Very handy. Come on, we’ll walk. It’s not far.”

  “What’s to stop us from getting mugged on the street?”

  Sam lifted the tail of his shirt to expose the butt of the H&K.

  Remi smiled and shook her head. “Just go easy, Tex. No O.K. Corral reenactments, please.”

  ACCORDING TO THEIR MAPS, the Mafia Island airstrip bisected the island’s largest town, Kilindoni, into north and south portions, the former situated more inland, the latter hugging the coast. That was where, Selma had told them, they would find the docks and the boat she’d rented for them.

  Despite it being not yet eight in the morning, the sun shone brightly in a clear blue sky, and within minutes of leaving the airstrip both Sam and Remi were sweating. They felt eyes watching their every step, many of which belonged to curious children who paralleled their path, waving and smiling shyly at the white strangers who’d come to their village.

  After twenty minutes of walking down hard-packed dirt roads lined with ramshackle huts that ranged in composition from tin to brick to cardboard, they arrived at the beach. Equally dilapidated boat sheds and warehouses lined the dunes overlooking the water. A dozen wood-plank docks jutted into the surf. Thirty to forty boats, from decades-old motor cruisers to skiffs to dhows, both sail driven and motorized, bobbed at anchor in the harbor. Near the waterline, clusters of men and boys worked, repairing nets, scraping hulls, or cleaning fish.

  “I miss the Andreyale,” Remi murmured.

  “Well, now that it’s got a grenade hole in the center of the afterdeck, we own it,” Sam replied. “Maybe we’ll pull it off the bottom. We’ll call it a souvenir.” He turned and scanned the row of buildings along the dune. “We’re looking for a bar called the Red Bird.”

  “There,” Remi said, pointing fifty yards down the beach to a thatch longhouse fronted by a black-painted four-by-eight-foot plywood sign sporting a crow painted in bright red.

  They walked that way. As they approached the wooden steps, a quartet of men stopped their animated conversation and looked at them. Sam said, “Morning. We’re looking for Buziba.”

  For a long ten seconds none of them spoke.

  “Unazungumza kiingereza?” Remi said. Do you speak English?

  No response.

  For the next two minutes Sam and Remi used their limited knowledge of Swahili to try to start a dialogue but to no avail. A voice behind them said, “Buziba, don’t be a jackass.”

  They turned to see a grinning Ed Mitchell standing behind them. He had a Tusker beer in each hand.

  “Are you following us?” Sam asked.

  “More or less. We’re probably the only three Americans on the island right now. Thought a little solidarity couldn’t hurt. I know old Buziba here,” Ed said, nodding to the gray-haired man sitting on the top step. “He speaks English. Playing dumb is his bargaining strategy.” Ed barked out a sentence in Swahili, and the other three men got up and wandered back inside the bar.

  “Now, be a gentleman, Buziba,” Ed said. “These are friends.”

  The old man’s dour expression dropped away. He smiled broadly. “Friends of Mr. Ed are friends of me.”

  “I told you not to call me that,” Mitchell said, then to Sam and Remi: “He saw reruns of the TV show. He gets a laugh out of comparing me to a talking horse.”

  Remi said to Buziba, “Your English is very good.”

  “Fair indeed, yes? Better than your Swahili, eh?”

  “Without a doubt,” Sam replied. “A friend of ours called you about a boat.”

  Buziba nodded. “Miss Selma. Yesterday. I have your boat. Four hundred dollars.”

  “Per day?”

  “Eh?”

  Ed said something in Swahili, and Buziba responded. Ed said, “Four hundred to sell. He gave up fishing last year; been trying to sell the thing ever since. The bar brings in plenty of money for him.”

  Sam and Remi exchanged glances. Ed added, “You’d probably pay that for two days’ rental from anyone else here.”

  “Let’s see it,” Sam said.

  THE FOUR OF THEM walked down the beach to where an eighteen-foot aquamarine blue dhow sat atop a half dozen V-shaped sawhorses. A pair of young boys were sitting in the sand beside the dhow’s hull. One was scraping while the other was painting.

  Buziba said, “Look. Inspect.”

  Sam and Remi walked around the dhow, checking for signs of decay and disrepair. Sam poked the seams with his Swiss Army knife while Remi tapped the wood, sounding for rot. Sam walked to the stern, climbed up the ladder leaning against the transom, and stepped onto the afterdeck. He reappeared two minutes later and called down, “The sails have got some rot.”

  “Eh?” Buziba replied. Ed translated, listened to Buziba’s response, then said, “He’ll throw in a new set for fifty dollars.”

  Remi asked Sam, “How’s the cabin?”

  “Cozy in the extreme. Not the Moevenpick, but we’ve seen worse.”

  “And the engine?”

  “Old but well maintained. Should give us six or seven knots.”

  Remi walked to the transom and inspected the propeller and shaft. “I’m betting the bearings could use repacking.”

  Ed translated, listened, then replied, “He says another fifty and he’ll have it done in two hours.”

  “Twenty-five,” Sam countered. “He gives me the supplies and the tools, and I’ll do it myself.”

  Buziba jutted out his lower lip and stuck his chin in the air, thinking. “Fifty. I add potable water and food for two days.”

  “Three days,” Remi replied.

  Buziba considered this, then shrugged. “Three days.”

  CHAPTER 16

  INDIAN OCEAN

  “OKAY, SHUT HER DOWN,” SAM CALLED.

  Remi turned off the ignition key and the dhow’s engines sputtered out. Sam hoisted the sails, and they held their collective breaths for a few seconds until the canvas caught the wind and billowed out. The dhow’s bow lifted slightly and the boat lurched forward. Sam crab-walked aft and dropped onto the afterdeck beside Remi.

  “We have liftoff,” Sam said.

  “Here’s hoping we don’t have to call Houston with a problem,” Remi said and handed him a bottle of water.

  It was already midafternoon, and they were only five miles north of Mafia Island. While Remi’s discerning eye had noticed the propeller shaft’s bearing problem, it hadn’t been until Sam had gotten it apart that they realized how much time the repair would require. As Remi supervised the boys in finishing up the maintenance and changing out the sails, Sam and Ed worked under the shade of a makeshift sheet awning.

  Once done, Buziba and another dozen boys appeared and carried the dhow down to the waterline, where they tested the engine and took the dhow for a test drive around the harbor. An hour later, the dhow fully stocked with water, supplies, and food, Sam and Remi waved to Buziba and Ed and set out.

  “How long until we get there?” Remi asked.

  Sam got up, retrieved the chart they’d found inside the cabin, and unfolded it in his lap. He checked the readout of his handheld GPS unit and plotted their position. “Another thirty-nine miles. We’re doing about five knots . . . If we run all night, we’ll get there sho
rtly after midnight. Or we could find someplace to lie up tonight, then set out early and get there about dawn. There’s an unnamed island about twelve miles south of Fanjove.”

  “That’s my vote. Without radar, we’re asking for trouble.”

  “Agreed. We wouldn’t be able to see anything of Sukuti until daylight anyway.”

  They sailed north for another five hours, caught a tailwind for the last hour, and found the island just as the upper rim of the sun was dipping behind the horizon. Sam steered the dhow into a small cove and dropped anchor. Once the boat was secure, Remi ducked into the cabin for a few minutes, emerging with a lantern, a camping stove, and two cans of food.

  “What can I serve you, el capitán? Baked beans or baked beans and franks?”

  Sam pursed his lips. “Choices, choices. Let’s celebrate our not sinking. Let’s have both.”

  “A fine choice. And for dessert: fresh mango.”

  THE SURPRISINGLY COMFORTABLE double army cot, combined with the salt air and the gentle rocking of the dhow at anchor, lulled them into a deep, restful sleep. At four A.M. Sam’s watch chimed, and they got up and moving, sharing a breakfast of leftover mango and strong black coffee before weighing anchor and setting out again.

  They lost an hour of progress to sluggish predawn winds, but shortly before sunrise the air picked up and before long they were clipping north at a steady six knots that brought them within sight of North Fanjove Island by seven A.M. A half hour later they drew even with the atoll Mitchell had pointed out. Here they secured the sails, switched to engine power, and spent another nerve-racking forty minutes picking their way through the reefs until they reached the south side of Little Sukuti Island. Sam tooled along the coast until Remi spotted a mangrove-choked cove they hoped would shield the dhow from prying eyes. Following Remi’s hand signals from the bow, Sam steered into the cove. He shut off the engine and let the dhow drift forward until the bow gently wedged itself between two mangroves jutting diagonally from the bank.