Desmond Bagley
Windfall
Chapter 1
It is difficult to know when this business began. Certainly it was not with Ben Hardin. But possibly it began when Jomo Kenyatta instructed the Kenyan delegation to the United Nations to lead a move to expel South Africa from the UN. That was on the 25th of October, 1974, and it was probably soon thereafter that the South Africans decided they had to do something about it.
Max Stafford himself dated his involvement to the first day back at the London office after an exhaustive, and exhausting, trip around Europe Paris, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Amsterdam, Milan. Three years earlier he had decided that since his clients were multinational he, perforce, would also have to go multinational. It had been a hard slog setting up the European offices but now Stafford Security Consultants, as well as sporting the tag 'Ltd' after the company name, had added 'S. A.', 'GmbH', 'SpA' and a couple of other assortments of initials. Stafford was now looking with a speculative eye across the Atlantic in the hope of adding 'Inc'.
He paused in the ante-room of his office. 'Is Mr Ellis around?'
Joyce, his secretary, said, 'I saw him five minutes ago. Did you have a good trip?'
'Wearing, but good.' He put a small package on her desk. 'Your favourite man-bait from Paris; Canal something-or-other. 'I'll be in Mr Ellis's office until further notice.'
Joyce squeaked. 'Thanks, Mr Stafford."
Jack Ellis ran the United Kingdom operation. He was young, but coming along nicely, and ran a taut ship. Stafford had promoted him to the position when he had made the decision to move into Europe. It had been risky using so young a man in a top post where he would "have to negotiate with some of the stuffier and elderly Chairmen of companies, but it had worked out and Stafford had never regretted it.
They talked for a "while about the European trip and then Ellis looked at his watch. 'Bernstein will be here any minute.' He gestured to a side table on which lay several fat files. 'Have you read the reports?'
Stafford grimaced. 'Not in detail.' Having determined to expand he had gone the whole hog and commissioned an independent company to do a world-wide investigation into possibilities. It was costing a lot but he thought it would be worthwhile in the long run. However, he liked to deal with people rather than paper and he wanted to match the man against the words he had written. He said, 'We'll go over it once lightly with Bernstein.'
Two hours later he was satisfied. Bernstein, an American, was acute and sensible; he had both feet firmly planted on the ground and was not a man to indulge in impossible blue sky speculation. Stafford thought he could trust his written reports.
Bernstein tossed a file aside. 'So much for Australasia. Now we come to Africa.' He picked up another file. 'The problem in general with Africa is political instability.'
Stafford said, 'Stick to the English-speaking countries. We're not ready to go into francophone Africa.' He paused. 'Not yet.'
Bernstein nodded. 'That means the ex-British colonies. South Africa, of course, is the big one.' They discussed South Africa for some time and Bernstein made some interesting suggestions. Then he said, 'Next is Zimbabwe. It's just attained independence with a black government. Nobody knows which way it's going to go right now and I wouldn't recommend it for you. Tanzania is out; the country is virtually bankrupt and there's no free enterprise. The same goes for Uganda. Now, Kenya is different.'
'How?' asked Ellis.
Bernstein turned several pages. 'It has a mixed economy, very much like Britain. The government is moderate and there is less corruption than is usual in Africa. The Western banks think highly of Kenya and there's a lot of money going into the country to build up the infrastructure modernization of the road system, for instance.' He looked up. 'Of course, you'd have competition Securicor is already established there.'
Securicor was Stafford's biggest competitor in Britain. He smiled and said, 'I can get along with that.' Then he frowned. 'But is Kenya really stable? What about that. Mau-Mau business some years ago?'
'That was quite a while ago,' said Bernstein. 'When the British were still there. Anyway, there are a lot of misconceptions about the Mau-Mau insurrection. It was blown up in the Western press as a rebellion against the British and even the black Kenyans have done some rewriting of history because they like to think of that period as when they got rid of the British oppressor. The fact remains that in the seven years of the Mau-Mau rebellion only thirty-eight whites were killed. If it was a rebellion against the British it was goddamn inefficient.'
'You surprise me,' said Ellis. 'Then what was it all about?"
Bernstein tented his fingers. 'Everyone knew the British would be giving up jurisdiction over Kenya the tide of history was running against the British Empire. The Mau-Mau insurrection was a private fight among black Kenyans, mainly along tribal lines, to figure out who'd be on top when the British abdicated. A lot of people died and the few whites were killed mainly because they happened to be caught in the middle in the wrong place at the wrong time. When it was all over, the British knew who was going to hold the reins of government. Jomo Kenyatta was intelligent, educated and had all the qualifications to be the leader of a country, including the prime qualification.'