Firewall - By Henning Mankell & Ebba Segerberg Page 0,86

office. He wrote countless memos, but he never had an answer that conveyed more than well-meaning indifference. At one of these meetings he finally understood that he had been labelled as difficult, as someone who was beginning to fall outside the pale. One evening he spoke with his oldest mentor, a finance analyst called Whitfield who had followed his career since his undergraduate days and who had helped recruit him. They met for dinner at a restaurant in Georgetown and Carter had asked him straight out: was he alienating everyone? Was there really no-one who could see that he was right and that the bank was wrong? Whitfield had answered just as candidly and told him he was asking the wrong question. It didn't matter that Carter was right or wrong. What mattered was bank policy.

Carter flew back to Luanda. As he leaned back into his first-class seat, a dramatic decision was taking shape.

It took several sleepless nights for him to see what it was he wanted. It was also at this time that he met the man who would play a decisive role in convincing him that he was doing the right thing. With hindsight Carter had often marvelled at the mixture of conscious decision and random coincidence that shaped a person's life.

It had been an evening in March in the middle of the 1970s. He had suffered a long period of sleeplessness as he searched for a way out of his dilemma. One evening, feeling restless, he decided to go to one of the restaurants in Luanda's harbour, Metropol. He liked going there because there was little chance he would run into anyone from the bank. Or any of Angola's elite, for that matter. He was usually left in peace at the Metropol. At the next table that night there had been a man who spoke very poor Portuguese and, since the waiter couldn't speak English, Carter had stepped in to translate.

Then the two of them had started talking. It turned out that the man was Swedish and was in Luanda on a consulting project commissioned by the state-owned telecom sector, which was grossly neglected and underdeveloped. Carter could never afterwards say exactly what it was that sparked his interest in the man. He was usually someone who maintained a stern reserve. But there had been something about this man that lowered his guard, even though Carter was a suspicious person by nature. His usual attitude was that most of the people he met were his enemies.

It had not taken Carter long to understand that the man at the next table – who soon joined him at his own – was highly intelligent. He was not only an able engineer and technician, but someone who seemed to have read up on and understood much of Angola's colonial history and present political situation.

The man's name was Tynnes Falk. He had only learned this when it was late and they had said goodbye. They had been the last to leave the establishment. A lone waiter was slumped half asleep at the bar. Their chauffeurs were waiting outside. Falk was staying at the Hotel Luanda. They decided to meet the following evening.

Falk had only meant to stay in Luanda for the three months that the project was expected to take. When the work was over, Carter had offered him a new consulting project. It was mainly an excuse to hold on to him, so that they could continue their conversations.

Falk had therefore come back to Luanda two months later. That was when he told Carter he was unmarried. Carter had likewise remained unmarried, though he had lived with a succession of women and fathered three girls and one boy, whom he almost never saw. In Luanda he now had two black lovers. One was a professor at the local university, the other the ex-wife of a cabinet minister. He kept these liaisons secret, except from his staff. He had avoided forming relationships within the bank. Since Falk seemed very lonely, Carter guided him into a suitable relationship with a woman named Rosa, the daughter of a Portuguese businessman and his Angolan housekeeper.

Falk had started to feel at home in Africa. Carter got him a pleasant house with a garden and a view of Luanda's beautiful harbour. He also wrote a contract that rewarded Falk excessively for the modest work he was expected to carry out.

They continued their conversations. Whatever subject they discussed on those long tropical nights, they always found that