‘That is correct. Liberating Africa, by showing its sons and daughters what we have achieved, what we are made of, how we have overcome in the New World.’ There were shouts of affirmation, impromptu applause. Right on, way to go, say it loud, yessir. A fleck of froth appeared on Azania’s lips. ‘Until today, it was a world barely drawn, hardly noticed, on the maps of the white man. They dismissed it as a dark continent, dismissed us as backward. They got their mouthpieces like Duncan Pitt to polish and proselytize their racist creed. Now we have brought the heart of Africa to the body of America, and we will make the African whole, stand tall.’
‘You got it, Reverend. You hear even the bloccos in Salvador, Brazil, have started street rallies in your honour? The beat’s everywhere.’
‘Because it’s a universal message, because we have all emerged from slavery.’ Azania gently caressed the necklace, ran a forefinger along its slashing curves. Wine bar to shanty town, ghetto to boardroom, consciousness had been honed to a scalpel’s edge. You could either claim supremacy or carve it out. He was doing both. And so his people danced, with joy, with purpose. Capoeira. It described the formalized choreography of protest developed by enslaved Brazilian blacks to nurture African traditions, sustain resolve and fighting skills. There would be no more simulation, no more shadow-play. The combative instinct, the ability to stand firm, hang tough, were at a premium. It was what informed his brutality, what mandated him to threaten the mass exodus – plummeting descent – of women and children from Downtown rooftops unless bedding, portable sanitation and food were provided. Any hostile move and he would pass the cost down to his captives. A cogent negotiating ploy, one guaranteed to win respect, gain compliance. The authorities capitulated, were bound to, had sent their trucks with red crosses and sacks of grain, compounded the crisis, publicized their weakness. Without leadership, bereft of courage, they were left in the dust. His foot would stamp on their chests, his fist press a stabbing assegai to their exposed throats.
He leant to inspect the scene miniaturized far below. Provisions were offloaded and manhandled, vehicles waved in and turned around, the Tiger patrols circuiting small and busy in their sports utilities. Chain of command. Sacks of produce lay piled on a sidewalk, the maize staple to feed over 3,000 hostages. The whites would eat what the African peasant ate, share the hunger, endure subsistence. It should occupy the media for a while, generate debate. Say Africa, they would leap; repeat it, they would apologize. Basic shame reinforcement. Pre-eminence was there to be driven home, vulnerability existed to be exploited. He was barely started. Each day, a fresh set of demands had been broadcast, a variation added to the theme of grievance. He had called for an immediate increase in aid to black nations, a cessation to their debt, for holocaust reparations to the descendants of slaves carried off to the tobacco, cotton and sugar plantations of the Americas. They took him at his word, took him seriously. And all the while, he was merely passing time, generating column inches, engaging the commentators, scaring America, waiting for the moment when the ultimate determinant of tribal ascendancy arrived. White fright and white flight – a condition of the modern city. Except for Los Angeles, and but for the Forresters. They would come; they would challenge, be routed. He, the Reverend Al Azania, was destined to overcome, would usher in the modern order, the black era.
‘You think the Administration will attack?’ The question came from a man chewing pensively on gum, cupping his eyes to study a nearby tower.
‘Relax. Think of the lawsuits.’ Think of a firestorm that would burn inextinguishable for as long as the United States remained. ‘A few G-men with low morale won’t take us down.’
‘How about a Department of Defense with tanks and airborne gunships?’
The Reverend frowned, choosing his words, preparing to preach. Reporters were calling this a hostage situation. That was what it was, a moment when whites comprehended what it meant to be held in their own jail, what Africans and their blood American brothers had endured for generations. No capitulation, no going back. It was cast the day his men took down the white supremacists in California’s hi-max penitentiaries, the day not even locked-down Level Four inmates in Pelican Bay’s Secure Housing Unit were safe. Total reach, global appeal.
He inhaled, drew the powder residue up into his nasal cavity. ‘Crisis concentrates the mind, distils politics into a single drop of pure moment. They won’t do nothing to break the surface tension.’
‘It can’t hold forever.’
‘It doesn’t have to.’ He tucked his thumbs into the folds of his robe, adopting the portraiture pose of a statesman. A nod, and the video-diarist began to record. One for the archive, footage for the ego. ‘By the time we’ve finished, federal government as we know it will be gone.’ More whoops, more cheers. ‘We defeated the plantocracy, those who sought to own us, crush us, who shackled and scourged us to work their crops. They have simply moved from plantation house to White House, from running the slave markets of Alabama and Mississippi to running the Supreme Court, the banks and the stock markets of New York. We too have moved on, and we have new institutions to conquer.’ The voice dropped to a staged whisper. ‘It’s always said the black diaspora has been too unfocused, undisciplined, to find cohesion, a cause. What I have offered is a cause to fight, the opportunity to fight for a cause.’
Cut and print. The American people were scared, the American people were heavily armed. It was a great combination, an exquisite coincidence. There was a tension that would rip society, seams that were ready to split. He had unpicked the joins, at this location, through force of will, had created fabric tears that no appeals for calm, perspective, common sense, no flag could ever patch. Differences went too deep, reached too far back. They appeared in the DNA, arrived over 600 million years before when animal life began, when choanoflagellate microbes evolved into more than one cell. Superiority grew from the earth, primacy came from Africa, flowed into the veins of its native inhabitants. Caucasians were parvenus, a lesser strain, late arrivals at the banquet, in the caves, around the camp fire. They would be hounded into the wilderness, were unworthy so much as to gather scraps.
‘Are you with me?’
‘We’re with you.’
‘To the end?’
‘All the way.’
He approached the doubter, encircled his shoulder with an arm, and drew him close into private conference. The pressure bent the man towards the parapet. ‘Ever heard of the Assassins?’
‘No, Reverend.’
‘But then you’re hardly educated. Twelfth and thirteenth-century cult, based in the Levant, fanatically loyal, secretive, would give up their lives for their leader. Would you be an Assassin for me?’
‘I’d do my best.’
‘To prove their devotion, the select would jump when their boss said jump, throw themselves to their deaths from the battlements. It impressed visitors.’ He punched the solar plexus playfully. ‘Think hard about that.’
Al fresco ruminations over, his retinue about him and bodyguards staying close, Azania strode through the steel doors for the interior. He was energized, narco-pumped, argument-fuelled, taking questions, giving orders, a leader in a hurry, a general on his rounds, sweeping down corridors, entering elevators, emerging from stairwells to inspect, harangue, encourage. High command, high visibility. Move, move, move. Palpable excitement – electricity – wherever he went. The cheetah tail swayed behind. He was making the biggest goddamn statement his country had ever seen. What are the papers calling me? The Black Hitler. No shit? No shit. What about the coloured press? That is the coloured press. The NAACP? Them too. They’ll learn. How are we doing on provisions? Fine. Any recces by the Feds? The military? All quiet. How I like it.
How he wanted it. The open-plan office had become an interior camp, populated by refugees, devoid of a sense of refuge. Men and women sat or lay silently on mattresses, their bodies hunched, faces shocked-grey, eyes averted. Low or no profile was the better form of survival. Raising objections, challenging the new regime, was the surest invitation to blade and bullet. It was a prickling hush, expectant with threat, reinforced by armed Tigers patrolling the serried lines. A natural order. Azania moved among them. He enjoyed getting close, feeling the heat of other people’s despair. White folk could be so dejected when they did not get their own way, when ripped from the bosom of certainty. Try climbing in chains aboard a vessel leaving Africa. He was not here to boost their morale. Over by a window, a mother and young daughter crouched together for comfort, their backs to the wall. A moving sight. He would have them split up. The woman was plainly some rich bitch lawyer, manicured, pedicured, cultivated, wore defiance and Gucci as statements of intent, had been showing the next generation around her inheritance when the shit hit, when their world imploded. Azania edged in their direction, kept them guessing. At twenty feet, the woman would be jumpy; at ten, desperate. Quite a pretty face. American apple-pie with a brittle, sculpted crust. She would offer up a slice if her daughter were in danger.
‘That’s a nice doll you’ve got there,’ he ventured to the girl.
The six-year-old looked up, grimaced and stuck out her tongue. ‘You’re a bad man.’
She had no idea.
* * *
The UK
‘You have to hand it to Denys Krige. He certainly started something big.’
A night-time meeting. Kemp sat on the jump-seat facing Aubyn St Clair in the rear of the cab. Clive had the wheel. They were passing through Pimlico, its bland stuccoed uniformity reflecting street lights and the lifestyle of those who liked order, hated gardening. And they all live in little boxes – albeit with pillared entrances and seven-figure price tags. Kemp despised areas that did not have a park.
St Clair nestled plump and comfortable in the seat, rubbing the back of his neck and yawning. The overweight were adept at finding the G-spot of ease, could sink into sleep and chins without prompting. It was late, the culmination to a day of strategy sessions and intelligence overviews, of flitting between different rooms and similar faces. Kemp had done the rounds – gone several – and was happy to be turning in.
‘We’ll assume for the moment it is Krige,’ his travelling companion rumbled.
‘It’s the model I’m prepared to go with.’
‘And a model good enough for both the Feds and Five.’ Jowls and shadow created a mournful expression. ‘Would have to be a bloody South African. Hard to get at. Completely ring-fenced by political sensitivities, diplomatic minefields and lack of firmed-up evidence.’
‘The advantages of the offshore villain. He’s obviously factored it in.’
St Clair grunted. ‘Calculated most things. Knows from experience there’s nothing more destructive, harder to resolve, than a nation waging war on itself.’
It was a lesson the tycoon was applying with a vengeance, born from a sense of retribution. He was no conventional terrorist linchpin, had masked the smoking gun by spreading the shot, through delegation, with the aid of Forresters and Tigers. Check his hands, they would be near-spotless. For events were out of those hands, escaping fast, running away. Kemp shrugged fatigue from his shoulders, felt the strain crawl to his neck. He would appeal direct to Krige for the safe release of Krista if he thought it could work. There was little point when he himself was listed, highlighted for eradication. Spook the spooks. Yes, Krige had calculated most things.
The older man was musing rhetorically at a window panel. ‘We always assumed our social and political structures were more modern, peaceful, solid and democratic than those of Africa because of cultural secularization. No ancestralism, no Third World atavism, no unhealthy juxtaposition of state, clan, religion and wealth-creation.’ He tapped the glass. ‘How wrong we were. Everything’s linked to the tribe.’
‘We never left it, if Azania’s to be believed.’
‘Ah yes, the Reverend.’ The words hung for a moment and drifted off. An ambivalent pause, lending either respect or disgust. ‘Played it like a true master.’ St Clair’s face inched round, turning from the window, warming to his theme. ‘LAPD were going to hit him with a murder rap for Duncan Pitt. That annoyed his disciples. He might have been innocent, his arrest a set-up. Enraged them still further. Most believed the Prof deserved his appointment with a noose. That’s a third notch in the escalation. Et voilà. Countdown. Ignition. Lift-off.’
