Flight-145
Canberra, 2 April 2005: Kirstin sorted through the morning newspapers. The front pages looked much the same. A photograph of an airliner was accompanied by pictures of anxious relatives. Headlines announced the mysterious disappearance of a Boeing-717 on its way from Paris to Toronto. A plane packed with politicians, bankers and captains of industry had vanished in mid-Atlantic.
Humphrey emerged from the kitchen. He was trying to reduce weight and had confined his plate to two poached eggs, a slice of toast and a single rasher of bacon. He placed the plate on the breakfast table and poured himself a mug of strong black coffee. Kirstin intervened before he could add cream to it.
‘You are on a diet, Humphrey.’
‘Yes, Mother.’
He glanced at the newspapers and grinned.
‘There will be a few jobs going after this little upset.’
‘Hardly little, Humphrey. There was a prime minister on board plus some senior bankers and their staff.’
‘Bankers …’
Humphrey squeezed tomato sauce onto his eggs.
‘They won’t be missed … anyone we know?’
‘One of your former employers. Sir Henry Thomlinson of the GNBC Bank was on the plane.’
‘Good Lord!’ Humphrey looked shocked. ‘I never liked the man but I wouldn’t wish this on him. I met his wife once … a very nice lady.’
‘Yes. Humphrey. We are talking about real people. They have families and others who will miss them.’
‘It’s just scandalous …’
‘What is, Humphrey?’
‘The way planes can take off and simply vanish. The civil aviation authorities should insist that they maintain continual radio contact with a monitoring station. The necessary technology has been around for years. I’ve published papers on it and given interviews.’
Kirstin removed the tomato sauce from the table.
‘Charlie doesn’t want you to give anymore interviews.’
‘Charlie?’ Humphrey looked up from his eggs.
‘He thinks he knows what happened to the plane and he wants to speak to you. He’s flying in. David is already here in Canberra. We will be meeting them at the Paget residence this afternoon. Sir George has arranged everything.’
The Paget residence was in Canberra’s plush suburb of Red Hill. Kirstin wondered why she was still calling it as a residence. The term dated from when she worked for Sir George as a counter-espionage agent in his Special Investigations Unit. Convention demanded that senior government officers, like George Paget, lived in residences. Ordinary people, like herself, lived in houses. Charlie was George’s son.
They had not met for almost twenty years. They had talked over the phone but that was different. Kirstin wondered what it would be like to meet him in the flesh. They had once been very close. She had even wondered if they would get married. It was probably as well they didn’t. Charlie Paget was a great lover but would have made a terrible husband.
He could never settle down. Charlie was always looking for something new. Now in his early sixties, he was still behaving like the crazy twenty-four-year-old who won her over with his charms. His nephew, David, looked like him, at the same age, but had a very different personality.
They went in Humphrey’s new car. He was now flush with funds and no longer addicted to rusting wrecks that he kept alive to save money for fine wines and other luxuries. But her son didn’t splash money around unnecessarily. The vehicle was modest. Humphrey didn’t want to draw attention to his newly acquired wealth.
The car was a big improvement on its predecessors but Humphrey’s driving was as bad as ever. The little boy who couldn’t ride a bicycle had grown into an adult who couldn’t drive a car. But he knew a lot about cars just as he knew a lot about guns. Mercifully, he had the good sense to keep well away from guns even if he couldn’t apply the same caution to cars and other means of transport.
They turned a corner and the Paget residence appeared. It was one of the first to be built when Canberra was created, from farmland, and designated as Australia’s capital. The house was less than a hundred years old but looked older. It was built in the grand style of an earlier era and hadn’t changed much over the years.
Kirstin was amused to see lace curtains at the windows. She was reminded of visits for tea and cucumber sandwiches when she was a junior operative and Charlie was her boss’ son. The curtains parted. Forty years earlier, she would have seen George’s wife. Now, his equally nervous daughter appeared.
Her face lit up. Cecelia Paget was a kindly soul who laboured under the burden of having a brilliant father and an equally brilliant brother. Cecelia couldn’t compete and regarded herself as stupid.
She threw open the door.
‘Kirstin. I’m so glad you could come. The darling boy is here. He so wants to see you.’
Cecelia always referred to her son, David, as the darling boy. Kirstin recalled occasions when he had been driven to fury when he heard himself spoken about in that manner. Now, at the age of twenty-four, David seemed to regard it as a joke. He emerged from a doorway and strode towards her.
‘How is my favourite girlfriend?’
‘As beautiful as ever, David.’
‘And how is Lizzie?’
‘My granddaughter never stops asking about you.’
David moved closer and dropped his voice.
‘Charlie says she has become a free operator.’
Kirstin saw the look of concern on Cecelia’s face at the mention of the term free operator. David was her only child. Cecelia’s greatest fear was that he would follow her brother, Charlie, into the murky world of espionage.
A furniture van pulled up outside and David’s face broadened.
‘Charlie’s here!’
Cecelia peered through the curtains.
‘In a furniture van?’
‘Yes, Mother,’ David grinned. ‘Charlie is trying to save money. He got one of his mates to pick him up at the airport.’
Cecelia failed to get the point.
‘I didn’t know Charles was hard up.’
Kirstin watched as two men emerge from the van and removed a chest of draws from the rear. She recognised the driver. The elderly man doubled as Sir George’s chauffeur and minder. The man beside him was, presumably, Charlie. Both men wore blue overalls and peeked caps. If David hadn’t pointed them out, she would have assumed that they had come to make a delivery. Charlie always covered his tracks.
Sir George’s spacious study was on the second floor of the big house. Kirstin was the first to enter. She had known him for most of her adult life. George was now in his late eighties. His health had deteriorated but his mind remained lively.
She sat down in a leather chair and Charlie sat beside her. He had grown a beard. She suspected it came on and off like the spectacles he had been wearing when he arrived. Apart from that, he had an uncanny resemblance to George at the same age. The three generations of Pagets were strikingly alike in appearance.
David was twice a Paget. His mother had married a cousin of the same name. All three had sharply chiselled features. George and Charlie were brilliant linguists. David didn’t share their intellectual skills but was a smart operator when practical problems had to be solved. He was there because George wanted him to follow the family tradition of spying.
The old man removed his spectacles and placed them on his desk. Kirstin was reminded of briefing sessions when she was one of his operatives. He was very thorough then. She guessed he would be very thorough now.
He glanced from one to the other.
‘An airliner has gone missing. Two days ago, a Boeing-717 left Paris with some highly distinguished people on board. It failed to reach its destination and its loss is deeply disturbing. I and certain of my colleagues are reminded of a similar incident that occurred in Africa forty-four years ago. It was not properly investigated and we fear the same could happen in the present case.
We have accordingly resolved to mount an investigation and have assembled funds for that purpose. I call upon the four of you to join our team. Remuneration will not be at the preposterously high rates to which some of you are accustomed. However, you will not be out of pocket.’
Sir George turned to David.
‘I shall give the background to the case for your benefit. People of your generation have lived in a world that is very different from the one I knew at your age. When I was born, the Western nations ruled the roost. They had huge empires and thought themselves innately superior to the rest of humanity. They were mistaken. They owed their power to the industrial revolution.
Their forebears had developed the means to produce weapons of devastating power. The Gatling machine gun was one and it was decisive in their quest for empire. A few imperial troops, armed with that formidable weapon, could take on whole armies equipped with muskets and spears.
The Europeans set about conquering Africa and, by 1900, most of the huge continent was under their control. The French and British were the main players but not the only ones. The Belgian royal family acquired the Congo and ruled it as a private estate. Most was soggy rainforest with little economic potential but one part was immensely rich in minerals. They separated it off from the rest of the Congo and called it Katanga.’
Sir George glanced at his notes.
‘By the late 1950s, a wind of change was blowing through Africa. The Africans began to acquire modern weapons and the colonial powers realised it was time to leave. The British pulled out gradually and the Belgians left in a rush. That was popular with the electorate back home in Belgium but the white settlers were deeply resentful. They felt that they had been let down. Most could do little more than complain but the mining companies had the power to act.
The miners backed a local politician called Moise Tshombe. He declared Katanga an independent country and set himself up as president. It was a cosy relationship. Tshombe needed the miners’ support to stay in power and they needed him to keep the mines going as before. The newly created Congolese government refused to recognise Tshombe. War broke out and the United Nations intervened.
Sir George looked up.
‘I come now to the crucial part.’
He returned his attention to his notes.
‘The United Nations sent in peacekeeping forces and they came under attack. A crisis developed and UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjold decided to intervene. On 18 September 1961, he boarded a Douglas DC-6 airliner and was on his way to negotiate a ceasefire when the plane crashed near Ndola in what is now Zambia. Hammarskjold was killed together with fifteen others on board. Their bodies were retrieved but crash investigators were hampered by lack of cooperation from people on the ground.’
‘Were you involved?’ David asked.
‘No. But my British colleagues were. Their Colonial Office was meant to be in charge of the case but effective power was in the hands of white settlers and they enjoyed a high degree of self-rule.
The investigation was inconclusive. My British colleagues were unable to prove anything but were left in little doubt that the plane had been shot down. Hammarskjold was near to putting an end to Katangan independence when he was killed.’
‘And they suspected the miners?’
‘Yes,’ Sir George nodded. ‘They believed the plane was shot down by forces working for the big mining corporation, Union Miniere. Former US President, Harry Truman, was of the same opinion. He didn’t go so far as to name Union Miniere but came very close.’
‘What’s this got to do with Flight-145?’
‘It looks as if the past has been repeated.’
‘You mean there was a top UN official on the plane?’
‘No. But there are disturbing similarities. Some of the investigators into the Hammarskjold crash are still alive. They want the plane’s disappearance to be investigated by an independent team and I have agreed to help them put one together.’
‘What sort of similarities?’ Kirstin asked.
‘Flight 145 was taking some very distinguished people to a high-level meeting in Toronto to discuss how national governments might rein in the powers of multinational corporations. The plane was owned by the de Villiers Foundation. Its present head is Richard de Villiers. He and others on the flight received death threats and were warned not to participate in the meeting.’
‘Why us?’ Humphrey asked.
‘I know I can trust you.’
‘Is that all?’
‘You have the necessary skills.’
‘Who pays?’
‘My colleagues and I will guarantee a living wage. We don’t have the resources to do more. There are people who would be willing to assist financially. We don’t want to be beholden to anyone outside our small circle.’
‘David can have my pay,’ Charlie said.
‘And mine,’ Kirstin nodded.
She prodded Humphrey.
‘Yes … mine too.’
‘So the three of you agree to be part of the team.’
Sir George turned to David.
‘How about you?’
‘I’m in, Grandfather.’
‘Does that mean you have decided to abandon your career as a commercial diver and follow the noble tradition of espionage?’
‘No, Grandfather. It means I want to find out what happened to Richard de Villiers. I know him. I’ve worked for Richard.’
‘As a political activist?’
‘No. As a volunteer diver. Richard funds marine science projects. He puts up the money for the logistics. The marine scientists and divers work for free. His projects are about preserving the environment. If he’s still alive, I want to work for him again. If Richard is dead, I want to know who killed him.’