Le Carré's The Mission song part four nearly has a happy ending

In true Le Carré story telling Salvo finding out the extent Big Lie by the time he left the coup planning conference on an island somewhere in the North Sea then became the Big Reality as the Mission Song is brought to a close.

The journey back to Luton was regarded as a celebration with a Fortnum and Mason Hamper of food goodies and a nearly cold Magnum of Champagne. There is a toast to Salvo for his efforts and a bonus as Maxie has raised the cash from $5000 to $7000 and then asks if he thinks the delegates will deliver when the operation takes place in two weeks time. They have judged rightly that Salvo will have seen more of the full game play than anyone else although they will not have appreciated how much more he saw than anyone else.

Everyone disappears to their assigned separate ways. From the private plane location Salvo is escorted to a desk where his original clothes are waiting for him and his cell phone. It is been the weekend to his life to date. He is driven to the pick up point for the coach to Victoria. He has the tapes and note books with him.

He catches up on phone messages from Penelope concerned at his appearance and disappearance, then having a go at him and then reconciliation of a kind but still anxious to know of his whereabouts and state. There is also one from Hannah just as concerned. He returns home to an empty house feeling it strange as you do when you have been away involved in an intense experience, then divests of his school master outfit and examines the tapes and notebooks on the bed.

The most striking aspect of his reflections is that he proposes to share the experience with Hannah and not with the journalist well connected wife and her lawyer father. If anything signals the weekend has brought about a more fundamental change in his life then it is this. We then witness the death of his marriage as he admits to himself and therefore to us that he had married Penelope for all the things she was not or wished to be such as a fearless champion of investigative journalism, the mother of his children and the mother he had never had. Penny who needed to be called Penelope had seen him as the rebel when as is often the case of someone born on the outside of conformity become conformists in heart and soul, or at least greatly desirous of being so. His father in law had a realistic sense of their marriage and prepared a prenuptial agreement which Salvo now took out and surrendered on the pillow of their marital bed plus his wedding ring. There is finality about his actions which we suspect, or more accurately I suspect because I cannot speak for anyone but me, has a greater significance than the character will appreciate.

If is evident from his removal of the tapes and notebooks that he means to share their content not just with Hannah but to use them in such a way to prevent the coup against the legitimate government known to have been paid for their acceptance of a British orientated Syndicate, as opposed to a USA Rwandan one or any other waiting in the wings. He is doomed of course whatever he does because the more involved the UK government the less likely he will be able to do anything and that includes creating publicity while the more it is entrepreneurial based then more likely his death, however accidental his demise, also becomes an increasing likelihood. And why this sudden interest commitment to the land of his birth?

He has lived in the UK for almost twice as long as his childhood in the Congo. It was that determined he should leave and find a life elsewhere and from all that he has said his childhood was a good one and he valued the relationship with his Father father. He knows how dreadful things became but he has been detached from that with in new middle life class life and important job.
In this respect he seems a little likely Haj, genuinely concerned but at a distance but with his own happiness and enjoyment of life taking priority, until now that is. This is what I believe often divides human being despite our similarities, those who when push comes to shove always put themselves and those closest to them first and those who in the same situation put others before themselves and sometimes to the extent that they offer up life itself. I have been one of these but always wishing I was not and one of the others. We are of course mixtures of both tendencies but with some the drive is more one way than the other, and for the minority throughout time those of self interest dominate the altruistic and the self sacrificing.

He has an encounter with a friend of his wife who he thought had returned early from her new found relationship with her boss, oh I know I forgot to mention that. He finds himself lodgings and then goes to wait for the night shift to leave the hospital sitting on a park bench opposite. Hannah leaves the hospital late and is listening to the eight messages he has left for her until they meet up.

She returns to his new abode and he begins to tell her his tale but she is a step ahead referring to a Mwangaza contact in London she knows called Baptise someone previously unmentioned. She says something of the life she was leading up to the point when they connected over the Rwandan who had gone to die on Hampstead Heath and then did so in hospital cared for by Hannah, and in his own way by Salvo until the special assignment. It is interesting that individuals when they believe a relationship could make them into a couple begin by wanting each other to know what their life has been beforehand. Know who I am reject me now so the pain will be less than if rejection occurs later.

Salvo like his father believed that sex should be a private as prayer. Amen to that I say.
It was after this that Salvo commenced to explain his everyday job for the Ministry of Defence and the events of the weekend. As I said yesterday it is weakness to share what one has been sworn to secrecy with anyone unless there is some compelling overriding justification, an issue which dominated the episode of Frost watched yesterday evening, and the last of a weekend of selected episodes from this excellent police detective season. A priest is faced with a man who confesses his intention to kill and then appears to do so and which could lead to an innocent man being convicted and another serving life in prison remaining incarcerated for a crime he did not commit. There is no absolute but be prepared to take the consequences for doing so even if there is justification which can be substantiated.

Hannah of true heart about her homeland also proves to be a realist with up-to-date knowledge and experience of the reality which Salvo has only acquired thought the disparate gang of four countrymen. Of Haj and his father she admits that in the Congo it is not possible to make money without being a crook so that one can admire those who do well although the father has a bad name in Goma as a man who likes to play politics for personal game, and for his son appears to be like all the young men who wear dark glasses and make money and usually do so from drugs and prostitutes. She also recognised that of the disparate gang it seemed to be Haj with whom he appeared to have formed a bond and speculates if this is because he has also been westernised thus revealing how she sees him and something which if he understood the implication he does not refer to.

We learn that she has a child, a son by a doctor who was married, although she knew not at the time, a Ugandan of the country where her father had sent her to be trained as a nurse. She was sixteen. She had to wait to endure the waiting of the HIV test after finding that the man had told another girl he was also gay. Now she did not wait before doing anything that was unpleasant or she wished she did not have to do. She had completed her studies refusing to sleep with all the doctors who pressed her until now and then again Salvo was married. Her son was with her aunt in Uganda where she sent her money and when she felt she had learned enough she would return to the Kivu and her son.

After listening to tapes it is she that immediately knows that by stealing the tapes he has become a wanted man and that the solution is reveal all to her friend Baptiste. Her assessment is that Baptise will know what to do with the information that Bukavu is to be attacked in thirteen days and the Mwangaza has cut a deal with the powers in Kinshasa so they will not intervene. He is described as a passionate nationalist for a united Kivu and who had attended a forum in Washington which given Salvo’s knowledge of the USA involvement he should have been cautiousness about the proposal that they should reveal the extent of his knowledge and involvement to this friend.

He decides to first approach Lord Brinkley another unwise move I immediately feared, He manages to gain entrance and speak to his wife who agrees he can wait until the return of her husband. Lord Brinkley when he arrives denies all knowledge of the event on the island or any of those involved and Salvo in his naiveté assumes this to be so. He is made to go over the full story and then is thrown by the surprising question that Salvador is sure he saw Brinkley at the House in Berkeley Square on the previous Friday evening. He was then quizzed about his identification of any others present, included a corporate raider, a TV presented and a bearded nobleman who owns a chunk of the West End; together with an Indian Billionaire, an African Former Finance Minister and the Supermarket tycoon who had recently acquired a national daily as a hobby.
I must admit that this weakest part of the story because I do not understand why Salvo was allowed to get to now the financial investors of the enterprise as surely his superiors must have no of his marriage, her occupation and the stories published by her newspaper?

To Salvo’s anger his lordship denies any knowledge of those at the gathering in addition to those on the island. Salvo had still not appreciated the basis of the no name syndicate and the no name island and no name contract, including the warning of deniability and he would be on his own if things went wrong.

Then his Lordship or more particularly his wife delivers the coup de grace for at the very time Salvo declared he had recognised Lord Brinkley at the Berkeley Square gathering and Maxie had commented that the man had appeared scared shitless on being recognised Lady Brinkley confirmed that they were on their way for the weekend to their home at Marlborough. She had also confirmed that neither of them knew any of those mentioned by name. Salvo had I fear not worked out that everyone who had gone to the Island apart from the African would have been given temporary identities and that everything that had taken place never existed after it did.

Lord Brinkley added as a lawyer that the man had therefore no proof for his story and action would be taken against should he attempt to blackmail. They query if he had told his wife and why he had brought the recorder which Salvo explained was his stock accessory as an interpreter, which accompanied him everywhere as some take their laptop.

He had left the note books and tapes in the care of Hannah who he now thought ought to return to sleeping at the hostel as so far Lord Brinkley and those all connect with his life and the weekend had no knowledge of her.
It was later that he switched on his mobile to find an angry message from his wife complaining about his wrecking of their flat. Give that she was a journalist and her father a lawyer it is extraordinary that he did not chose the opportunity to share his story with them.

But I can say from personal experience that when you are in a situation of conspiracy against you it is difficult to know who to trust and it is difficult to make the same level of reason judgement and decision taking as you would do in other circumstances.

There was also a message later from his official employers saying they had more work from him and a complaint from his wife. This may have been an innocent contact but he believed it was intended to get him into a situation where he could be investigated a la Haj and brought into line. It should have evident that Lord Brinkley would have immediately contacted all those concerned.

His next action of substance was to make a document which he headed J’Accusé a la Zola and Colonel Drefus for his boss at the MOD Mr Anderson which he planned to hand to him coinciding with his attendance at the Sevenoaks Choral Society. Again the production of a written record is something which I know only too well pitfalls including legal pitfalls of doing so. It could also be argued that my 101 project is an endless written record of my life divided between the public and private.

Nest there was a meeting with Baptiste who Salvo records as having a high level of resemblance to Haj noting his designer clothing, Ray-Ban gold necklaces and a Rolex together with cowboy style boots. Hannah after an embrace and kiss which caused Salvo to note his own concern at their familiarity commented on the attire questioning what had happened when visiting the USA indicating this was not his normal or previous look.

Hannah had prepared a cover story of friend of a friend but outlined the basic to which Baptiste reacted with a mixture of disbelief and anger arguing that his was the kind of disinformation put out by the Rwandans to discredit the Mwangaza and his Middle Path movement. He then explained how dangerous such information could become, a match to start a conflagration. He then turned towards Salvo who he had worked out was the friend saying that his leader had been playing golf in Marbella at the time he was supposed to be involved with the coup planning and the admission that he had cut a deal with Kinshasa.

Hannah who was naturally inclined to weep did so on the return journey

Later Hannah returned to the part of the tape after Haj had been tortured when he appeared to be singing and that he have given Salvo his card and email address. She suggested that he had wanted to be contacted and provided with evidence of what had happened if his assumption of being recorded and listened too was correct. He had identified Salvo as a friend.

The next idea was to send the evidence to Haj if they failed to prevent the coup with a few days. Hannah says she has a contact that can organise this

Salvo then gatecrashed Mr Anderson at Sevenoaks and tells him his assignment was not in the national interest but to plunder the Kivu, thus further misunderstanding how the national interest can be interpreted and forgetting how Great Britain became Great by plundering the wealthy of other nations including using populations as slave labour. It is that Anderson follows the cue of Lord Brinkley by ascertaining the nature of supporting information, the seven key tapes and the notebooks and their present location.
Mr Anderson presses for the information saying that he assigned Salvo to the mission and others did not want to take him on despite his irregular temperament and background. He had protected him. He should have known of my experience at the Henley Senior Management Course learning about psychological profiling and the creative, their uses and limitations.

Mr Anderson added that there were those who thought he was too impressionable and too generous hearted for his own good and who therefore might turn out rebellious. Salvo insists that he will only provide the location of the evidence if Anderson is willing to tell them to stop. Asked what he will do if Mr Anderson does not undertake his request Salvo replies he will go to an M.P or someone. Anderson asks what does stopping mean. Peace. To which Anderson asks Salvo if God’s Will might be that the scarce mineral resources should be held by Christian peoples with an advanced cultural way of life rather than remain in the hands of heathens. Salvo says he is not sure who the heathen are!

Mr Anderson argues that a rogue nation, one freely given to genocide and cannibalism is not more entitled to the protection international law than a rouge individual such as Salvo is entitled to indulge his naivety at the expense of his adopted country. He asked again where the materials are held and then made a citizen’s arrest. When Salvo indicates he will resist Anderson reminds of his age and offers a deal which Salvo will be his domestic guest until the morning when they will retrieve the evidence and then he will arrange things in Salvo’s interests. Salvo is then left further disillusioned by those he had admired.

Hannah was away for two days taking children for the Church youth group on a seaside trip having taken a week of unpaid leave and which had enabled her to help Salvo directly. He phoned to explain the latest predicament.
It is then Salvo decided to approach the editor of his wife’s paper who first thinks it is a kiss and tell story and then thinks he is also up to no good in offering to provide him for free the dirt on Lord Brinkley who had successfully sued the paper as previously mentioned,

They agree to meet at a drinking club close to the Savoy where he finds the Editor with a couple of reporters to hand. The Editor like the others expresses reservations about the authenticity of the document presented to him but then realising its full potential sets about confirmatory investigations including the contract creator who was already known as part of the successful libel case brought by Lord Brinkley, on the House in Berkley, on Maxie and his security firm, on the location of the Island, on flights from Luton, The Fortnum Hamper. They were told to stay clear of the Big players mentioned in order to avoid the slapping of an injunction. While all this sounded of excellence to Salvo it of course also indicated his naiveté about the choice of media and the time that would be required for the story to be checked and the evidence gathered, the legal assessment, before it could be published as a news story.

This forced Salvo to play his card on the availability the tapes, including the one in which Philip used a Satellite phone to communicate with the Syndicate leader getting authority to immediately transfer an additional three million into the account of Haj’s father. It was then to his horror he discovered that two of the tapes were missing, the two most important tapes, the two that would have persuaded the paper to go with the story that weekend thus pre-empting the coup. He realised that the two had been taken by Hannah.

He checked the programme of the visit she was making and found that it would five hours before direct contact was likely to be possible. He listens to the news and then goes on line receives a call from Hannah about the same time as the news story appears of unconfirmed reports of fighting between rival militias in Eastern Congo and the government put the blame on imperialist backed forces from Rwanda which is denied from Rwanda. Rumours of British mercenaries in the region dismissed by British Consul. Four Swiss aviation technicians have requested protection from UN forces in Bukavu. There was more with the holding of 22 players of visiting football team following the discovery of arms. Later on the TV news he sees four of those on the island party in custody including Maxie shackled. A British Government denies any knowledge of the event saying that to suggest otherwise because one or two of those apprehended are British was absurd.

Then there is information about Maxie from an ex wife. He is British Officer trained and had various position including a contract for an Arab government. There is reference to an academic said to be behind the attempt coup.

It is the established that Hannah had been picked up by the police. The contact however mentions that while she was on the tip she made arrangement to have a sound file made for him as a surprise.

Salvo then gets a phone message from Philip saying he had a deal and Salvo had to contact. He does and gets an address to visit. Without knowing what the outcome will be Salvo then assumed he might not be returning so made the accommodation good order and dressed in comfortable, and potentially long term clothing, gathering his important possession including prized photo of Noah who he still hoped would be his step son to be.

He then reports what happened next and that he is able to do so means that at the time of recounting he is still alive because in all the Le Carré adventures someone I have come to care about or wish they had a different end dies, even Bill Haydon who I did not care about because his death seemed too easy for him given his level of treachery.

Salvo’s anger and frustration at what could have happened Hannah spills over when he visited the location for the meeting with Philip with the consequence he is rendered unconscious in such a manner that its effect remained for several months after. When he awoke he was confronted by Philip and a Gentleman from the Home Office with executive power. He was reassured that Hannah was well and returning to her home as her visa having been withdrawn because of her involvement in political agitation. This was because she had marched against the war in Iraq and because her Birmingham trip to hear the Mwangaza was also considered political, and further she was caught possessing and passing on to a foreign power restricted material and where the recipient of the material was involved in non government militia which makes it straight terrorism. That she was attempting to stop an illegal war was neither here or there. He explained that that she was departing voluntarily having signed all waivers and would be reunited with her son in Kampala.

It was then attention was directed at Salvo who the Home Office gentleman said had only been able to come to the UK which as research had discovered was due to the misguided action of the British Consul presumably under the pressure of the Holy See. Salvo was confronted by the reality that since the age of ten he had been an illegal immigrant and never attempted to regularise his position.

The Congolese have agreed to organise an official birth certificate and he will be welcomed there in due course. He is served with an official notice as an unwanted person and taken into police custody and onto a detention centre to await his departure.
He receives a communication from Hannah working in a new teaching ward in Kampala looking forward to seeing him again with her son and fending off advances with a pretend wedding ring.

He then received a letter via Mr Anderson from Haj addressed Dear Zebra. Haj explains that Hannah, whoever she was, had not needed to send him the tapes as he already pulled the plug as soon as he had returned home getting his father to turn in the Mwangaza and then contact the other two conspirators and get them to understand what they were doing before confessing to the UN and taking an extended holiday a long way from home. When Salvo is allowed back he is promised a teaching post at Bukavu University but it was up to him if he spends his time teaching languages or beer drinking. He mentions having got to a priest who knew his father and to quote it is evident he screwed for the whole mission. He has a bungalow on his former colonial palace at the lake’s edge which Salvo can have.

The books end with Salvo still waiting, writing to his future step son. Probably as close to a happy ending as one will ever experience with Monsieur Le Carré! It has not been into a film, I wonder why?

Le Carré's The Mission song part three the Big Lie revealed

I ended the second piece on the Mission Song as Maxie responded to Salvo’s question on the expected outcome of the meeting which led the admission that making money was an important element. This next section reveals the full extent of the Big Lie to be present the ordinary people and the rest of the world, assuming everything goes to plan. It is also in the tradition of such gatherings that everything has been agreed with the individual parties well in advance. The objective is to ensure everyone is familiar with their future role or encouraged to undertake a role and to deal with any last minute wobbles or negotiations

The next admission that is that the political economic and social progress had to be measured in small steps. Maxie presented his sense of reality about the situation they were talking about. The World’s worst graveyard chaps dying like flies, knee jerk tribal killings, disease starvation, ten year old soldiers and sheer fucking incompetence from the top down, rape and mayhem galore. Elections won’t bring democracy, they will bring chaos. The winners will scoop the pool and tell the loser to go fuck themselves. The losers will say the game was fixed and take to the bush and since everyone voted on ethnic lines they will be back to where they started and worse. The only alternative was to put a moderate leader in control and he educates the people to his way and proves to them it works and stops the vicious circle. He then added that leaving things to the market would not work because international business was not into using profit for infrastructure building or feeding the starving etc.

So my understanding is what was being proposed was a form of state capitalism where the natural resources would be sold but the money used to build the infrastructure and expand the wealth and middle class and break down tribal barriers but middle and long term. Well that would be good as still thought Salvo but was it true?
I grasped that a coup was being plotted in which there would some initial deaths with the number put in terms of a couple of hundred which in Circus terms is chicken feed to the gold dust gains. But once a violent conflict begins who can say what the outcome will be?

Salvo then had time to study the file of notes prepared for him by Philip. Warlord One was of the Banymanulenge who his father had loved as the Jews of the Kivu who occupied an inaccessible plateau as herders of cattle and sheep and ignored the minerals. They were despised by the Tutsi and akin to the Rwandan Hutu. The chosen one was empowered by the elders to participate in the proposed coup on the basis of being part of the new government, their established rights to the land they farmed, the return of those who had been forced to flee and the recognition of the people as part of the civil society of the new Congo. There was an added note that the chosen one Dieudonné was not interested in self enrichment. As an outsider this seems most reasonable although it is not clear what is brought to the table unless it is to allow the taking of minerals from within the land area they wish to own and control. I was to be proved right in my assumption.

Warlord Two is Franco named after a local singer and therefore not the Spanish Dictator. He was twice the age of Dieudonné, and without education whereas the former had at least that provided by missionaries from Scandinavia. What sent shivers anxiety in Salvo is that the man had joined the Mai Mai and these were second in the barbarity stakes in the history of the country. This seemed to be confirmed by Philip’s notes that the man was prepared to join the coup on the basis it fast tracked him to personal wealth, power and guns for his militias. He wanted to control the bribery and customs dues from the borders and wants to cleanse the Congo of Rwandan influence and wants to stop selling minerals to them if other buyers can be found. Because the elections posed a threat to the Mai Mai he wants the coup to pre-empt.

The third individual could not be described as a warlord but the Honoré Amour-Joyeese who Le Carré shortens to Haj and represents the wealthy businessmen and who centre was the former colonial town of Bukavu at the southern end of Lake Kivu and which was Salvo’s childhood paradise and he was dependent on his enemies for the trading livelihood. It was his father who was expected to have attended the conference but was ill and his interests were to reduce to whatever extent possible Rwandan influence in his country. His son had a minority shareholding in his father’s business and life the life in Paris where business had its European office

He was prepared to organise a popular uprising in support of the Mwanganza in turn for a role in the new government and consequential power and influence. It was at this point that something more of the underlying deal was revealed because the son was said to have accepted a specified amount of financial commission in advance to secure his attendance. This suggested that the others had also received personal commissions and why it was suggested to Salvo that he had been bought cheap.

Salvo was then provided with a copy of the draft contract while the first document was removed into safe keeping away from the eyes of the participants as he also speculated on the ability of the “aged Professor” the Manwanganza to cut the deal with the three other participants.

However in my youth I had been an observer at one similar in format conference in which the purpose was to agree a communiqué on what had been agreed by the parties and on their future role. It was only later that I appreciated the apparent skill of the chairman in finding agreement was his prior knowledge and discussions with the individual parties and that far from starting from scratch the meeting was only to iron out remaining differences. This was to become clear when later after a long introduction from the Mwangaza those carrying out the coup with help provided by the unnamed syndicate, made only short introductory statements.

The contract was as already stated was officially about the provision of agricultural help with reference to an event rather than a coup and with no reference to the provision of heavily armed mercenaries or the extraction of minerals. It seemed that the operation was costing the Syndicate of venture capitalists 50 million in Swiss Francs for the right to have complete control of what ever it wanted to take out of the South Kivu province on the basis of 90% revenue profits tax free for six months and therefore after 67% with the balance going to the Government less deductions for overheads and administrative costs. The Government headed by the Mwanganza would use the allocated proceeds for the health education and welfare of the people with the objective of establishing harmony, unity and mutual tolerance under one flag.

So in simple terms with UK Political approval at some high level the British Government, the syndicate was funding a coup with arms length led agents providing the trained operatives and fire power to establish a government which because of its official head and aims would be given International recognition and then through commercial agents extract the range of mineral wealth at huge profit for as long they could get away with hope that the principals would direct some of the remainder of the profits to good causes. In exchange the chosen ones would between them stop the internal fighting and close the borders to Rwanda in a constructive way. This again was still a major lie in terms of the reality. Salvo’s first task was to translate the document written in French into Swahili.
I have always argued that he sets the agenda for meetings and then controls the minutes has the real power especially if he or she also has the means to put into operation whatever has been agreed. My beef when I first became a senior office in local government was that everyone was so intent on preparing for and holding decision taking meetings that they forgot to ensure that the decisions were carried out and carried out as broadly intended, with on occasions as precisely as hoped for.

In this instance Salvo was clearly in a strong position in so far as he could understand what everyone was saying officially and in private and could therefore change emphasis, omitting and adding at his choosing although he had to be mindful that everything was being taped and could be independently verified if the recording material and note taking was kept for later re-examination.

Salvo was then able to observe the notables arriving and work out who was who at a distance before assembling with the French Lawyer in to be part of the grand welcome of parties with Phillipe rather than Philip (for the purposes of everyone being named in French around the place marks on the conference table) coming in prematurely with the three African conspirators before the Mwangaza his aides with Maxie and the rest.

The Africans were evidently delighted to see a fellow African, despite the white tinge, as the interpreter and this prompted Franco to embark in Bembe in a diatribe which Salvo nearly started to interpret before remembering that officially he was limited to French, English and Swahili so Franco then tried to translate what he had said in Swahili so they could all understand but we are not told if he repeated such statements that he was no friend of foreigners or invaders, or his roll in defending his country from Rwandan scum or the Banymanulenge cockroaches.

Salvo’s next task was to translate into Swahili Philip’s who has been designated Colonel Phillipe, speech of welcome.
Salvo now the opportunity to explain to the reader something of his art with the observation that anyone speaking in another tongue to that of his birth tends to adapt personality to what he perceives as the characteristics of the new voice so the Englishman tends shout in German and sound pompous in French said as preamble that the African notably the Congolese use a language which is basic and direct without subtly and find shouting an argument normal.

This perhaps explains that although speaking in French the Mwangaza proceeded to insult the three Africans he had come to make him the new leader of their country before explaining what he had to offer and why they should back him. His main issue is the extent to which Rwandan based companies are stealing Congo wealth plundering the natural resources. While in full flood Salvo is called out by the Mwangaza to stand with him and to answer the question are you one of us or one of them referring to the three Warlords or would be warlord delegates.

It is at this moment that Salvo proves him worthy of the position and the opportunity afforded him when he replies. I am one of both of you in Swahili

This delights the would be leader who roars with laughter and translates in French to the approval of everyone around the table and is rewarded by the observation that “This fine fellow is the symbol of our Middle Path” and asks Salvo to continue standing at his side in order to translate his exposition on a map of the locations and extent to which the Rwandans are stealing there wealth with the help of carpetbaggers from Uganda and Burundi and the corrupt government in Kinshasa.

He then recited the scale of deaths that have occurred in the various wars and turns his attention to the existing politicians running the government, and then talk of what he hopes can be achieved. It is very impressive and appears to affect the delegates in a positive way.

Unexpectedly Franco is brief reminding that when the Mobuto regime failed it was the Mai Mai who protected the country and then added “Now we shall see what comes. God will protect us.” Dieudonné was also brief reminding of how the people suffered and their wish to own and have control of their land that was their bottom line. One of the Mwangaza aide confirmed that this would be position. It was Haj who summoned the point of the contract: It is a coup; Bukavu today, Goma tomorrow, Rwandans out and UN and Kinshasa can kiss our arses.` Philip responds to the doubts raised and argued that if they do nothing the situation will continue as it is until there is post election chaos and Rwandan intervention. Act today to prevent worse in the immediate future.

Philip suggests a short recess and Salvo goes to the listening room and is asked to listen in the discussion between the delegates of the three parties. Haj is negative and Franco insults Dieudonné, They speculate on the Ethnicity of Salvo and his background and present role. The key point is an observation that the Mwangaza is after his place in history rather than concern for the welfare of the people represented by the three parties.

It was Maxie’s role next to stress there was to be no external intervention and the coup had to be a spontaneous uprising. He reveals they had listened to the UN HQ and that head of each participating nation’s unit has to consult on every action. If it is clear to the UN it is internal uprising they will withdraw civilians and retreat to the compound until the situation is settle one way or the other. The world will accept the outcome.
It was as he explained further what was to happen that my attention drifted first to the UK riots and the fanciful idea that there had been an attempt to destabilise the coalition around disaffected backbench rightwing Tories with perhaps a Cabinet Minister expressing interest at one such similar meeting. The other thought and more realistic is how the operation to free Libya of Gadaffi may have been organised, albeit internationally.

Maxie that in one of the designated cities there should be a protest march which gets out of hand, a little looting and shooting the burning of a car but not the fire raising of a city. As prior arrange the Mwangaza would arrive calling for peace and any fighting and disturbance would immediately cease. The role of the agents of the Syndicate would be to secure the airport at Bukavu to enable the safe passage of the Mwangaza. The importance if taking and maintaining control of the airport would be sown to be of greater significance.

The phrase friend of my friend is my friend is used to indicate the agreement to the package by Franco and Dieudonné. They turn on the fence sitting Haj and remind he is standing for his father who agreed during the prior negotiations. It is then Haj who translates the word of a song into a description of what is proposed. I do not know if the song is a real one but the translation is the core of the book because it describes how they are proposing to buy mercenaries( black trained South Africans posing as a visiting football team) buy local officials and provide anti Rwandans with new guns etc. Everyone thinks this is funny except one of Mwangaza’s assistants who Salvo notes is far from amused. The key aspect of this session is that Maxie makes clear that there is to be no prior dealings with Kinshasa whose location and role is akin to Washington in the USA with the revolt involving the state of Texas and a couple of neighbours.

Another recess in which we learn more of the realities following a conversation between Haj and Dieudonné who has HVI and requires medication and is hoping to negotiate a legacy for his people but he is also aware Mwangaza says one thing and lives another with a ten million dollar villa in Spain.

Haj also expresses concern at the strength of the Rwandans. He reveals that he has contacts in Kinshasa and found out they are part of death with the Mwangaza and the Syndicate, and therefore their stake in the coup despite what was being said around the table. Haj argues is that they are underselling their position by 1000% and who needs another war especially as the two of them are dependent up the Rwandan trade. Haj argues that the Rwandans will not accept the situation but return with allies and with vengeance. It won’t matter to Haj because he will be back in Paris. The tape is gone over several times by Maxie and Philip. Salvo translates and Salvo realises that they have been waiting for the information, expecting it to happen. The admission has been that Haj and his father have had a meeting with another outfit led by a Dutchman

Salvo is right in his assumption. Philip is now seeking confirmation of the whereabouts of the father of Haj and the man’s actual condition. He is also wanting attention given to the whereabouts of the Dutchman about whom he appears to know quite a lot about. Salvo is told that there is to be action during the lunch interval but what is to happen is not disclosed. While the others are occupied he decides to listen in where he has been forbidden, on his diminished hero who is with Franco. They are discussing the fact that in the many planes will be used. Franco is cutting a deal to get medical treatment for his brother. He then mentions the payment his brother will make to become Chief of Police for a contract of three years. The dreams of Hannah and Salvo take a further knock.
In the next session Maxie explains more of the detailed plans which is basically that in the first instance the syndicate will take over three mines, one in each of the areas of the delegates and they will provide the mercenaries and staff required to mine supported by the delegates and using air transport for the work with Bukavu the core airfield. The next information is revealing that it is only by the end of this month of intense mining that the Mwangaza will be installed as governor of South Kivu.

Haj illuminates further by establishing that the three selected mines are gold and diamonds with the waste mountains of valuable coltan which have been left to accumulate. He suggests that they will be able to make great profit beyond their overheads within two months let alone six. Maxie mentions that the helicopter will be painted white like those of the UN with nose cone firepower of 4000 rounds a minute. It is then time to enjoy a sumptuous lunch.

But not Salvo as advised he has to return to the listening, Nothing specific but a spin round the tables from time to time to check the discussions taking place. Salvo notices that Haj is missing so is the Mwangaza goon who hatred for the African Salvo had noted.

Haj is being tortured with some kind of electrical device into admitting his father is not sick but allegedly playing golf with his brother and although he denies he is spying on the conference for the Dutchman and his alternative mining syndicate to get better deal.

They concentrate on the Kinshasa contacts who Haj says are the thirty percent fat cats who will as a consequence do nothing, keep the troops in the barracks and tell them to stop raping women for a few days. It is as if Haj has endured the torture to wait for his moment. He first asks that in instead of the profit going to the new government to administer, a third will go direct to his father to provide for the people. The Mwanganza thug is then told by phone to stop and release Haj but issues a warning that next time they are together he will kill him and do worse to his women, children and relatives. Maxie‘s men apologise saying they were under orders and hoped next time they will be on the same side.

Philip then joins Haj proclaiming innocence of the torture and explaining that The Dutchman is one of eight parties to a venture capital house with a special eye on the Eastern Congo. He then reveals the trail of the firm to Liechtenstein and then the backgrounds of the Directors of the parent body who are all Americans with White House connected political and corporate power. With the Chinese sniffing around the Americans are in effect wanting the annexation of the Congo by the Rwandans in a bloodless coup.

Philip then admits the Mwangaza has cut a dirty deal with Kinshasa but this is better the than the proposed complete sell out to the Rwandans.

Haj then requests some paper as if he is aware he is being listened to but Philip reacts with the demands. Three million dollars into his father’s special account before the deal can be signed. On million with go to Bukavu, one to Goma and one in compensation for the torturing. It has to be paid immediately into his father’s off shore account and he will not accept part now with the rest on project completion.

The afternoon session begins with the prepared contract. There is some questioning led by Haj but they quickly reach the point when it is signed, there is the drinking of champagne, handshakes of a kind and departures. It is at this point that Haj approaches one Brian Sinclair and says he hopes to keep in contact as he wants to open an office in London one day. Brian gives his card which gives only a post office box in Brixton. The card given by Haj is in English, French and Swahili and gives his addresses in Paris and Bukavu.

Salvo returns to the hideaway to the listening room ostensibly to collect his notebooks, but alone and with everyone busy he selects a number of the tapes replacing them with blanks and then secreting them on the clothing on his body. Fortunately he has dome this when Philip arrives to express his thanks and to inspect the note books about which he questions. He seems satisfied. He asks about Salvo’s wife commenting that pillow talk can cost lives. It has always struck me as amazing how often men and I presume women but I suspect less so, talk freely when engaged in some form of sexual transaction, even those who also have the benefits of the Catholic Confessional. He is soon on his way back to London.

The Mission Song Part two less of a Big Lie

One of the constant issues in my life has been the relationship between the individual and the state closely followed by such concerns as the role of the independent organisation and the individual and the balance between democratic states and organisations. Running through all of these considerations is the challenge which every individual experiences of maintaining consistency in their relations with others, their integrity and commitment to the truth whether as parent or between government and the people. There are those who have attempted some successfully, to construct all embracing systems of thoughts and behaviours through religious, political and social systems to achieve this although I suspect as the core of everything is the need for personal survival and the survival of those one cares about. In recent weeks I have listened to account of mothers who have left their husbands, extended families and all that they know to walk in horrendous conditions without or with little food and water great distances in attempt to bring their children to where they have been told help is available.

Human being are said not be able to bear too much reality of this nature and indeed as I get older and questions about my own future survival loom larger I find the distress of empathy, albeit at a distance, is sometimes more than I can bear which is why I frequently bury myself in the dramatic fictions of experience although I continue to demand integrity even when the ending satisfies the need for a meaningful sense of justice, continuing survival, resolutions of mysteries and uncertainties, the belief in life everlasting, in the possibilities of heaven on earth as well as in some form of afterlife and in my instance to die at peaces with everyone and myself.

I like the character of Salvo, Bruno Salvador sufficiently to hope that his experience over one weekend bringing about a peaceful settlement and better future for the people of his childhood ends well although as I read Le Carré’s Mission song for first time against my outline knowledge of recent events in central Africa especially the Rwandan massacres and the ongoing civil wars of the Congo, I doubted if there would be any such outcome, especially given my knowledge of previous writings of Monsieur Le Carré. It also seemed unlikely that the finding his emotional and sexual soul mate in Hannah, the nurse finishing her training in the UK from the homeland would end in their happiness, for he appeared to be his father’s son and any break down of his existing marriage unless it was from the initiative of his wife was destined to have repercussions given their respective backgrounds and her father‘s occupation. I had already wrestled with how the British Consul in Kampala had fixed for him to enter orphanage in the Sussex downs as a UK citizen when the more likely destination would have been Eire.

As with the small state of Malta Eire and not Northern Ireland is famed for producing Catholic priests who serve Rome and the rest of the world although in the most recent decades Poland and some Africa countries have enriched the churches of the UK and elsewhere as much a sin their homelands.

But I am in advance of myself again as when I left the adventure of Salvo for this is how he regarded his $5000 weekend assignment to an island in the North Sea where a small group of representatives from the warring factions in the Democratic Republic of the Congo were to hold talks to bring peace, at least in the Kivu part of the country rich is various minerals especially coltan needed by the mobile phone industry. I broke off my narrative as he had reached the island with his immediate guide explaining that in order to bring about an agreed and signed contract between the parties it was necessary for him to spy on the parties by pretending he was limited in the languages and dialects available to him and that in translating one language to another he should remember the diplomatic nature of the exchanges and which meant in practice toning down threats and insults.

The island of their destination remained unknown although with a flying time of two hours from Luton he was able to calculate he was in the North of Scotland or some Danish or Nordic outpost but seemed less likely given the requirement to by pass the usual posting of flight plans and passenger list although it is possible for one to have been posted with false identities although the transfer of extensive listening and communicating technology would have required a custom’s check or some official sanctioning otherwise the passage of terrorist firearms and explosives within Europe would be easier than I have feared.

Their small craft landed in a field close to the sea where they were a short distance minibus ride to a country house crossing cattle grid and with a Great Hall entrance and from here was shown to his bed with the promise of a long hard day on the morrow and the comforting thought that if he screwed up they all would. On waking he attempted to identify his location from the window of his well appointed en suite all mod cons room without success but he puzzled over men at work on an outside building when had he been less innocent he should have immediately grasped was the establishment of listening and communication technology and a clue that had the location been UK such arrangements would have been made prior to their arrival.

It is at this point that he sees someone from the plane that he already knew. The voluble Welsh Spider who had taken the role of catering organiser but he knew from the listening centre in the bowels of the MOD known as the Chat Room. The significance of this added to the view that although the leader was no an employee of Her Majesty’s government, the operation was however clandestine. He also noticed three “bulked out anoraks” outside the property although he does not disclose if they are evidently armed. He hoped his investigation of the house would yield a clue to his location and the large library room offered one opportunity except from the spine lettering the books appeared to have been printed in the various languages of their authors and the glass fronts of the book cases were locked, A sense of the proportions of the property could be gauged from a separate snooker billiards table room albeit three quarter size.

In is on the next stop of his unguided tour that he encountered a man from Beasacon who explained that he was skilled in International jurisprudence and employed as a lawyer by their host syndicate and which Salvo assumed had a cover story similar to his own. The man did explain that his every day skill was to create a holding company in Martinique for example which was registered in Switzerland and owned by an anonymous Liechtenstein foundation which is owned by you and all for the purpose of avoiding all together or paying as little tax as legally possible. He had forgotten to bring his lap top (which struck me as the reality on which most clandestine operations flounder) and therefore had borrowed one with Anglo Saxon keyboard and therefore he was at a loss without knowing how to locate the keys with accents to create the draft contract for the participants in French.

Now this is where I express surprise because via the Internet it is possible to obtain keyboard language switching programmes which remedy this problem as long as you know the appropriate form in which to type in one language and convert to another so that it makes sense to the eventual reader. The Internet front page should also have been a clue to the language of the location.

The man appeared as voluble as the Welshman offering the additional information that the contract would be between three parties but would have no name and cover hypothetical eventualities. Further questioning revealed that it would centre on an unspecified event and be written as an agricultural contract which fitted into the requirements that Salvo if pressed would say that his employers (Channel Islands based) provided agricultural technology to the Third and Four worlds.

It was at this point that that the Frenchman yielded information for the observant Salvo which he was able to connect to the Lord Brinkley of Sands because in order to illustrate the nature of his craft Salvo was told that the man had previously negotiated a timeshare contract for an offshore property company that went into liquidation and which therefore no longer existed and the directors did not exist because the company never had a name, Salvo remembered a story in the newspaper of his wife which linked Lord Brinkley with the headline: Peer’s Eldorado was Pie in the Sky.

The Frenchman also revealed that in contrast to Salvo’s payment he was getting two hundred thousand Swiss Francs in cash and in small denominations. This highlights he differences in experience but also perspectives and between the amateur and the professional in such affairs between the representatives of nations and peoples.

Summoned together he found an English breakfast of sausage, bacon and scrambled eggs that had few takers and he had barely started to eat a portion of smoked salmon when Maxie announced that the panic, whatever it had been, was over and everything was no on schedule according to plan. Philip and the gang of three will touch down in two hours and ten minutes. He then announced that the Royal Party would arrive 20 mins later. Conference starts at eleven thirty, lunch two fifteen subject to progress with a five thirty latest closure. He then called for Brian Sinclair and the second part of his sealed orders.

He was shown into the makeshift operations room in which some twenty four locations in the house and grounds were identified as being bugged and automatically recorded on the banks of recorders. He was shown his chair and explained that he would told via the controller Sam who to listen to live and to translate fast. In off time he would be told what tapes to skim through and what to report to the “people who can use it.” It was the job of the Welshman to keep the system working and of Anton to ensure the whereabouts the subject are located each identifiable through a system of coloured lights on a master location board.

Salvo having tried a number of times to find out more about Philip for the umpteenth time and was rewarded after a fashion, told that he was freelance, a consultant whose speciality was Africa and English but different from the others who had ties but were para. There was further enlightenment that elsewhere there was a conference officially taking place on the future of the Eastern Congo ahead of the forthcoming elections were it was anticipated there would be much ranting and no outcome, that is at the conference, but alas I suspect at the elections! Three of delegates said they would prefer to rest than take the tour of fish smokeries and sculpture parks but were on their way to this second unofficial get together where through previous contacts and hard work by Philip they were in the process of forming an alliance which it was hoped to seal over the course of the day.

The key was the Mwangaza at whose mention a bright light came across the face of Salvo because this was name he had been told of by Hannah in adoration for he was presented as cross between Nelson Mandela and Gandhi, who she had heard address a crowd of supporters in Birmingham. He had followed in the footsteps of Lumumba after his assassination by the CIA in 1961 and in great rebellion of 1964 he had been wounded. Now he spoke of lasting peace and reconciliation and the departure back over the border to Rwanda of the surrogate armies and genocidal militias. On being told this Salvo had remembered the words of father: One Kivu at peace and free of the pet of foreign exploitation but willing to embrace those who will to help the use of the natural resources for the betterment of the people. Now I used to talk like that in my youth but in the late age of worldly experience, I ask you what dangerous stuff to inflict on a child anywhere let alone under the African sun. But then of course we continue to do to our children in fairy stories of various kinds.

The purpose of Maxie’s enlightenment of Salvo was that he should know in advance the languages used by the participants and this led to him explaining that the Muslim Hammas former fanatical whose Arabic tone Salvo had identified at the home of Lord Brinkley was the Lebanese Christian covert middle man that had brokered the proposed alliance on behalf of the great man. It was then that dear Salvo once more posed the question: what was to be the successful outcome of the conference that he was told a little more of the truth of the Big Lie..... Which in addition to giving the country back to its people Maxie added was to “make money and get a fucking life”

Le Carré's The Mission song part one the Big Lie

As with all John Le Carré writing The Mission Song merits close attention a good memory, note taking and a map of central Africa and Democratic Republic of the Congo with an overview of the recent history together with a second read to appreciate the story integrity and the depth of characterisation. I purchased a half price hard cover 2006 first edition from the Asda Bolden and if I read from cover to cover I did not remember the ending although I recalled some aspects when I set about reading properly over a week ago.

I immediately identified with the hero of the story, Bruno Salvador, Salvo to friends, because he is the illegitimate son of an Irish Catholic priest but there the similarity ends because he was acknowledged by his father who raised him for ten years until he died in South Kivu in the Eastern Congo, a land of lakes and volcanic mountains, emerald pasture land and luscious fruit groves according to Le Carré. He was born at the Carmelite convent in Kisiangani, previously Stanleyville the provincial capital of Tshopo, the largest city in the tropical woodlands of the Congo and the third largest in the country, the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The official language is French but Swahili and Lingala is the most common tongue of the people together with countless dialects which Salvo picked during his most tender years and which became a mixture of his good fortune and downfall in equal measure. Kisiangani is an inland port 1300 miles from the Ocean and became the commercial capital of the north and the birth place of Patrice Lumumba.

It was between my 60th and 65th birthday that I first knew that my father was of a Maltese family with a known history on the Island of several hundred years whereas Salvador’s father was more colourful, the union of an Irish soldier and 14 year Normandy peasant girl who had spent his childhood between the two countries thus speaking French as well as Irish. I sometimes think I should have also become a priest as seemed destined in my childhood, a man apart from sexuality at least that is the official nature of the calling. For one reason not made clear Salvo’s father did become a missionary priest, a calling for which he appears to have been suited except for the passionate nature of a sexual kind.

We learn that with the outbreak of the First World War he made his way to the Congo and joined a group of Friars attempting to bring Christianity to the two hundred odd tribes in the east of the territory. Of his mother, his father had once whispered that she was a village headman‘s daughter, tall and beautiful and that he was born out of love.

She escaped the convent where she had given birth leaving her Salvo behind and went back to her people where unfortunately the whole village was massacred by another tribe. In disgrace the Catholic Church as its wont sent his father first to Madrid and then to Marseilles before allowed to return to the Congo was he retrieved his three year old child from the orphanage to have with him. It was during the following seven years that accompanying his father on his mission work he was able to learn the variety of languages and meanings from the children he met on the travels.

Following the death of his father then in his seventies which again brings comparison with my own who was nearly the age of my mother he found himself branded the secret child within the Catholic church community and which also mirrors my own experience hidden from the extended Gibraltarian family and friends for reasons which I assumed until my own sixtieth year was just from my illegitimacy. It was only then I learned my true identity. Salvo was given his two identities when ten years of age. The first as described was African and Catholic and the second in preparation for banishment to England was an UK Irish seafaring citizen with the unlikely surname of Salvador selected by the Mother Superior who was Spanish and with the support of the British Consul in Kampala he was on his way for an education with care among the downs of Sussex

It was here he had the good fortune to come under the wing of a Brother who sensed that his ability to speak French, English Swahili and Langali with all the dialects would be his making and then introduced him to his wealthy sister Imelda and the experience of holidays at her estate in Devon which included a croquet lawn and a paddock for retired pit ponies. She also funded the private tutoring which led him to the school of Oriental and African Studies in London where he graduated first class in African Languages and culture and then achieved a Masters in Translation and Public Service Interpreting.

Salvo making something of his talents can be said to have been down to the Catholic Church and particular individual who felt a sense of responsibility rather than guilt and shame because of the circumstance of his parenting. I have previously reported on the head of the catholic preparatory school whose letter, the first I had ever received, when I moved to the Independent Catholic senior school said that I was child of God which made my birth mother angry, taking the letter from me which I never saw again. It was then a Jesuit modern history teacher who inspired me to understand what the second world war was all about which led me to nervously approaching the local public librarian to read some of the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials on the concentrations camps which he suggested,

We first meet Salvo in London aged 28 years where he is married to the beautiful upper crust wife called Penelope aged 32, yes four years his senior, and who is a rising star of tabloid journalism whose mother is an active Tory and father a top lawyer with a family home in the depth of Surrey. In fact Salvo is already late for a special drink’s party followed by DJ dinner of recognition and celebration for his wife’s journalistic achievements when he gets the call which is to change his life.

Unsurprisingly he had gained well paid work as an interpreter for the police and the courts, for the health and immigration services and for his country more overtly through the Minister of Defence which necessitated signing the Official Secrets Act about the only thing I also have in common with Monsieur Le Carré, and his Salvo.

The reason that Salvo was late was only ostensibly the need to be at the bedside of a Rwandan from the Congo who appeared to have escaped from an immigrant detention centre who was found dying on Hampstead Heath from an immediately unknown infection, but more because of a black countrywoman from his birth land with whom he had immediately connected with her soul as well as her body, and in a way in which only served to underline the gulf between him and his childless by choice wife.

He was summoned by phone, by one Mr Anderson, a man in his late fifties, married with children, a baritone in some choir at his home town in Sevenoaks with an office at the MOD and in charge of the listening and interpreting unit in the bowels of the Whitehall building. He was told the money was exceptional, that the work was in the national interest and concerned the future welfare of his birth land.

Because of his origin and background it could not be said that Salvo had the welfare of his birth land foremost in his daily consciousness although this was something which Degree nurse Hannah was constantly reminding him of during their brief relationship to date as the patient, the Rwandan had a hatred of her people.

Most educated and informed Westerners of a certain age are familiar that in Rwanda a small Africa country compared to that of the two Congo Republics that the minority Tutsi had dominated the overwhelming majority of Hutu for centuries before the 1959-1962 of displaced Hutu power lasting 30 years. The majority took power from the minority. The Ugandans then supported a move back of the displace Tutsi and this led to Hutu planning genocide killing of the Tutsi at a rate of 10000 a day, some 400 an hour so that roads were filled with slaughtered bodies reducing the population from over a million to 300000 creating thousands of raped HIV widows and an overall population with 40000 orphans with 85000 older children the head of families in the community.

The United Nations belated intervened giving power to the Tutsi and displacing hundreds of thousands of Hutu into the Congo and other neighbouring countries.

It was in the Eastern Congo and Kivu area of Salvo and Hannah that other nations coveted their mineral wealth particularly coltan which is used by the cellular phone industry and began to financially support the various factions, tribal and geographical based, in an attempt to gain authority to plunder the riches underground

At present my understanding is that there is now a Hutu based power group self styled Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda which is at war with the government of the Democratic Republic. In addition there is a Goma city based group sympathetic to the cause of the Banymanulenge Tutsi, who is opposed, understandably, by both the Government and the Rwandan Hutus and also the United Nations forces trying to establish ongoing peace in both countries. People have killed in number, fled, change sides often at the time elections are held with allegations of corruption and worse. Military forces from Angola have become involved in the ongoing conflict although this appears restricted to advisers (of the kind employed by the USA in Asia, middle and central Americas in the past and Europeans in Libya most recently We are in the age of ex professional soldier mercenary employed by agents and used by governments to bypass the niceties and complexities of democratic and Parliamentary government.

Salvo had his reservations about taking on the special financially lucrative assignment which meant abandoning and embarrassing his wife by his non appearance, deserting the dying Rwandan and the emotional and sexual comforts of Hannah and a commitment to help at a Court hearing after the weekend, which Anderson assured, was already covered.

But if he wanted continuing work and the approbation of his government’s Ministry then he had no alternative but to accept the arranged lift not to the MOD but to a flat 22a in South Audley Street where he was told to ring the bell and advise that he had a parcel for Harry.

It is here he found his Mr Anderson and an assistant called Bridget who measured him up for new clothes which turned him into looking like an English school master than international top notch interpreter and a new identity which confirmed his birth place as central Africa, with Brian for Bruno and Sinclair for Salvador and a set of printed name and address cards which did not disclose the name of the Channel Islands registered company for which he worked bringing the latest horticultural devices to the Third and Fourth Worlds.

Salvo was also told that his assignment was deniable as anything to do with the MOD and if things went wrong he was on his own, His contact was to be someone called Maxie who in turn worked for Phillipe who was agent and not a government employed. Now while I the reader noted this carefully and the alarm bells, Salvo appears awed by his new circumstance and clearly did not register that the warning was absolute and unequivocal. Le Carré has his character failing to grasp the nature of the project and reflecting his still naive, idealistic and trusting personality.

I too have found myself in situations where there is a sense of unreality and is this really happening to me as he was then taken, equipped with a small overnight bag to Berkeley Square and area familiar to me because this is where in 1959 I attended a one month sales training school with forty or so others for British Olivetti and ended the course heading the list of successful candidates based on four weekly examinations and an overall course assessment rating. I was clearly destined for selling greatness but alas the new office standard manual machine had too light a touch for the dozens of mainly young women who I persuaded to take a free trial use of the machine, achieving more than anyone else of the new intake but where even with the help of my supervisor not one could be sold and although I was not alone in this I took it personally and eventually resigned to shortly become a non violent actionist against weapons of mass destruction.

Salvo or Brian as he had become was told to wait outside a room where a conference was being held and where he was able to distinguish the language as English but laced with Indian sub continent, Euro-American and African Colonial, all which should have registered on Brian that although his mission was sponsored by the UK, using an agency, there was international involvement.

It was while he speculated about ethnicity of those engaged behind the closed door that he missed the entrance of Maxie, a somewhat manic gentleman who remind him of figures in his past and who proclaimed he was late because he had got a puncture in his push bike. Whereupon Maxie enquired if Brian knew what the caper was about and surprised that the old fart Anderson had not told him. Maxie then established that Brian’s skill extended beyond French Lingala and Swahili to Bember, Shi, Kinyarwanda and more.

Brian is then introduced to a hero of his, one Lord Brinkley of Sands, former Labour Minister, entrepreneur and defender and champion of all things African. The significant point here is that Maxie did not know the name of the person dominating the room until pointed out by Salvo and that the man was clearly put out at being identified by the newcomer as he was introduced for his interpreting skills. He was still pondering why according to Maxie the recognition had scared the shit of the Lordship when he was taken to join a people carrier and was whisked with a short distance of his home to a helicopter and then across London to Luton Airport.

He had already left messages for Penelope explaining he had been called away on a special assignment but at the airport he managed to contact the hospital where he learned the patient had died, that Hannah was upset and not available, His inability to connect with the two beings who mattered most to him, I suspect added to the sense of unreality he was experiencing although this is my personal viewpoint and not explicit in the writing.

In addition to two pilots the party numbered nine and during the journey where most settled down to sleep but he learned that they were on their way to a small island in the North Sea where they were to meet with a small group of gentlemen from the Congo who were officially elsewhere and where they had six hours to help them say yes to each other.

Maxie wanted to know what food was available then ordered that the York ham, salmon sides, cold fillet of beef and magnum of Champagne should would wait for the return journey and those who wished could partake of nearly cold Chow mein,

It was while attempting to eat the meal he was asked on his knowledge of military terms and technical terms and assisted in explaining that the Congolese would use the nearest colonial language to their everyday experience if there was no equivalent in their particular vernacular, something which I could identify with have been brought up in the part of a household which spoke Gibraltarian which is predominantly southern Spanish with English mixed in unless you were also Maltese in which that was also mixed in with the Spanish and sometimes with the English.

It meant that you had a peasant level vocabulary unless you were sent for education to Spain, England and Malta and in significantly fewer instances to Italy, France and Muslim North Africa. And where me, alas despite the Spanish, Maltese, Italian and English background was brought up only English speaking while the adults spoke Gibraltarian Spanish so they thought I would not know what they said to each other. But like Salvo I listened and commenced to understand only to be told to keep stum when Gibraltarian family and friends called. Salvo was quickly told to restrict his understanding and speaking abilities to the basic languages of the visitors so they would think they would be safe to talk in other tongues although knowing their conversations would be likely recorded. It was during the journey that Maxie presented the big lie to Salvo.

He admitted that that Congo had been fucked by the Arab slavers, then by fellow Africans, then by the United Nations, the CIA, the Christians, the French, The Belgium’s, the Brits, the Rwandans, the diamond companies, the golf companies and the mineral companies, half the world’s carpetbaggers and their own government in Kinshasa and any minute they are going to be fucked by the oil companies. This first part was all true of course. Then came the lie “Time they had break and we are the boys to give it to them.” They landed