Dawn of the Epoch

Chapter L - Spilling the Beans

Loyalty happened to be one of Chivambo’s defining characteristics. The word had come down from the Minister of Transportation to hide the ship. He had guided it to the old, abandoned seawater treatment plant on the Minguri side of the Nacala Bay. He guided it to its place under the canopy of the old intake building. To prying satellites, the ship would not be visible.

He did not ask questions. This would not be the first time that Chivambo dealt with Somali pirates and he doubted that it would be the last. He merely did as he was told. If Chivambo ever did consider the morality of the situation, he simply concluded that Mozambique had a booming extralegal economy and the fact that the transportation minister wanted to make a few moves outside of the law did not make him any less reputable than any other businessman on the street.

On that day, Chivambo saw only two people come out of the ship. Chivambo thought it strange that these men were the leaders because they clearly were not Somali. On the other hand, he had never seen such a large ship seized by pirates. Maybe they needed to bring in foreign gangsters to pull off this big of a caper. One was tall, pale, and broad-shouldered, and the other was olive-skinned with strange yellow eyes. The rest of the crew hid below the deck. Chivambo did not question this. The men may not have wanted their identities known.

Chivambo sat in his office smoking a large cigar that the pale man had given him. He leaned back in his chair and put his boots up on his desk. He interlocked his hands behind his head and relaxed. It was good to be him. He thoroughly enjoyed the cigar. A knock came at his door and his secretary peeked in.

“Sir, some dockmen are here to see you.” She said.

“What do they want? We have no more shipments scheduled for this week. Tell them to be here bright and early Monday morning.” He responded.

“They want to talk to you about the ghost ship.” She said tentatively.

He took his boots off the desk. “The ghost ship? Send them in.”

She opened the door wide and four large men bustled in with one skinny man in their midst. The skinny man had a grimace on his face. He did not want to be there.

“This man told those visitors from the other day about the ghost ship.” The leader of the group said. “He owes us money. We want a reward for bringing him in.”

Chivambo scowled. “Ghost ship?”

The large man smiled, “Hey, we know there’s no ghost ship. We know that on July 14th, in the middle of the night, no ship came into the Nacala Bay. Where would it go? It did not dock at the port. This man, however, thinks he saw something different. He told a visiting Kenyan man about it. He is clearly spreading specious rumors about our port. Rumors that could be bad for business.”

“Interesting.” Chivambo said. “Leave him here. Give your names to Maria on your way out. She will put you on the next loading crew at triple pay.”

“This man owes us a great deal of money.” The leader said as he shook Daniel.

“Don’t press your luck. Take the jobs or don’t take them. I am not sure if you all conspired with this man to spread these seditious rumors.”

The leader picked up on the veiled threat. “Alright.” He looked at his partners and jerked his head toward the door. They all filed out.

“Well now, it seems we need to have a talk.” Chivambo said as he blew smoke into Daniel’s face.

Daniel knew Chivambo’s reputation and wasted no time in capitulating. He told the whole story. He spilled the beans on his conversation with Hongo.

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Author's Note: You are halfway done with the story! Please vote for each chapter as you go along if you are enjoying yourself!