Kidnap the Emperor!. Jay Garnet

A routine morning’s work. One down, twenty-five to go, a job lot from Leyland.

      A lot of people envied Dicky Collins. He looked the very epitome of the well-to-do countryman in his tweed jackets, twill trousers, Barbour coats. His Range Rover had a Blaupunkt tape deck, still something of a rarity in the mid-1970s. The farmhouse, with its courtyard and outbuildings, was surrounded by ten acres of woodland and meadow. It was an ideal base for his business, which was mainly selling army-surplus vehicles. In one of the stone barns, converted into a full working garage, there were five Second World War jeeps in various stages of repair, a khaki truck that had last seen action in the Western desert, and several 1930s motorbikes, still with side-cars.

      The business turned over quarter of a million. He took £25,000, more than enough in those days. He was forty-eight, fit, successful, unmarried, and bored out of his bloody mind.

      For almost ten years he had worked at his bloody Land Rovers and jeeps and trucks, ever since he finished in Aden and Charlie Cromer had given him a £100,000 loan to buy his first 100 vehicles – in exchange for sixty per cent of the equity. Both had judged well. It was a good business, doing the rounds of the War Department auctions. Now things were drying up, prices were rising. Any old jeep you could have got for £100 ten years before now fetched £2000 and up. It was a specialist field, and Collins knew it well. Once he had loved it. The sweet purr of a newly restored engine reminded him of the real thing.

      After Aden, he was happy to settle. Hell of a time. Fuzzies fighting for a stump of a country and an oven of a city. Chap needed two gallons of water a day just to stay alive. No point to it all in the end, with Britain pulling out. Not like Borneo – that had been a proper show, all the training put to good use.

      Now he was sick of it. Country life could never deliver that sort of kick. Money? It was good, but it would never be enough to excite him. The place was mortgaged to the hilt, the taxman was a sadist, and even if he sold, Charlie Cromer would take most of the profits.

      Boredom, that was Collins’s problem. There was old Molly to do the house. The business ran itself these days, what with Caroline coming in two days a week to keep the VAT man at bay. Stan knew all about a car’s innards and could fix anything over twenty years old as good as new. Collins had other interests, of course, but keeping up with publications on international terrorism and his thrice-weekly clay-pigeon practices hardly compared with jungle warfare for thrills. There were parties, there were girls for the asking, but he wasn’t about to marry again. What had once been a comfortable country nest had become a padded cell.

      ‘Major,’ Stan called from the garage. ‘Phone.’

      Collins nodded. He walked through the garage, edging his way past a skeletal jeep to the phone.

      ‘Dicky? Charlie Cromer. Got a proposition for you.’

       Monday, 22 March

      That morning, Sir Charles Cromer, Oswald Kupferbach and Jerry Lodge were together in Cromer’s office. The Swiss and the American sat facing each other on the Moroccan leather sofas beneath the Modigliani. Both had been chosen for their present jobs only after an interview with Cromer, who had judged them right for his needs: astute, experienced, hard. Kupferbach, fifty-two, with rimless glasses, had practised discretion for so long he never seemed to have any emotions at all. Professionally, he didn’t. His one passion was personal: he was an expert in the ecology of mountains above the tree line. Lodge – his grandparents were Poles from the city of Lodz – was quite a contrast: bluff, rotund, reassuring. He found it easy to ensure he was underestimated by rivals.

      Between the two on the glass-topped table was newly made coffee and orange juice. Sir Charles was standing, coffee cup in hand, having just outlined the approaches made to him by Yufru.

      He concluded by saying: ‘So you see, gentlemen, why we had to meet: I have the strongest possible reasons for believing that the Emperor is not dead. I further believe that unless we move rapidly and in concert, we shall shortly be presented with documents bearing the Emperor’s signature demanding the release of his fortune to the revolutionary government of Mengistu Haile Mariam.

      ‘This would be a financial blow that we, as individual bankers, should not have to endure. Indeed, the sums in gold alone are so vast that their release would devastate the world’s gold markets. While the short-term implications for our respective economies are not pleasant, the implications for our banks and ourselves as individuals are horrendous.’

      The Swiss was thoughtful, the American wide-eyed, caricaturing disbelief.

      ‘Oh, come on, Charlie,’ he said, ‘that’s got to be the most outrageous proposition I’ve ever heard. What are you on? I mean, my God.’

      Kupferbach broke in: ‘No, no, Jerry. It is not so foolish. It fits in. There have been a number of approaches in Zurich for loans. They need the money. But their propositions are unrealistic. The World Bank might consider a loan for fighting the famine, but, of course, it would be administered by World Bank officials. They don’t want that.’

      Lodge paused. ‘OK, OK,’ he said at last, ‘let’s follow it through. Suppose the old boy is still alive. Suppose he signs the papers. Don’t you think we could persuade the Ethiopians to leave the gold with us? After all, they have to place it somewhere, don’t they? We arrange a loan for them based on the reserves. They buy their arms and fight their goddam wars, and everyone’s happy. Hey?’

      ‘It’s possible,’ Cromer said slowly, ‘but it doesn’t look like a safe bet to me. You think Mengistu would pay interest, and if he did, do you think his successors would? Would you invest in a Marxist without any experience of international finance who came to power and preserves power through violence?’

      ‘I agree. But what do you think would happen if we received these documents and simply ignored them?’ replied Kupferbach.

      ‘Whadya mean, Ozzie?’ said Lodge. ‘We just don’t do as we’re told? We say we’re not going to hand over the funds? We tell the Ethiopians to go stuff their asses?’

      ‘In brief, meine Herren yes.’

      ‘If all this is true,’ said Cromer, ‘that thought must have already crossed their minds. In their position, what would your answer be?’

      ‘Right,’ Lodge said, jutting his lower jaw and biting his top lip. ‘Jesus, if I was them, I’d make one hell of a storm. Major banks refusing to honour their obligations? Yeah, they could really have a go at us. International Court at The Hague, questions in the UN, pressure on other African countries to make holes in Rothschild and Morgan Guaranty investments in the Third World. We’d come out of it with more than egg on our faces.’

      ‘Of course,’ added Cromer, ‘to do that, they’d have to reveal that Selassie was still alive. It would make them look pretty damn stupid.’

      ‘Yes, but they have less to lose.’ It was Kupferbach again, a clear thinker with a coolness that more than matched Cromer’s. ‘Mengistu could write off the previous announcement of the Emperor’s death as a necessity imposed by the revolution. The publicity would be bad for them, but could be catastrophic for us.’

      Cromer looked at the two of them in turn.

      ‘Gentlemen,’ he said, ‘I have been thinking of nothing else for the last two days. I have rehearsed these arguments many times in my own mind. If the Emperor signs those papers we are lost.’ He paused. ‘We are left with no choice – we have to assume the Emperor is still alive, and we have to get to him before he signs anything.’

      Cromer’s two colleagues looked at him expectantly.

      ‘What the hell are you suggesting?’ said Lodge.

      ‘We have to do the decent thing. We have to kidnap the Emperor.’

      They stared at him.

      Lodge shook his head in disbelief and went on shaking it, perhaps at the very suggestion, or perhaps at the impossibility of achieving it.

      ‘Jerry, Oswald: don’t fight it. It’s the only