Back in Nairobi it was almost 3 am and the van outside the Shah Medicals front entrance was still there alongside the Mercedes and the small Toyota. The Pakistani driver who had gone inside the building had not yet reappeared, while his two colleagues left in the van had
got out as if bored with waiting. In the still night air, their cigarette smoke drifted around the lights. Then, as Jimmy and I watched, the lights at the rear of the building went out, and the front door opened.
“Lunneau,” said Jimmy.
The Frenchman went to the van, opened the passenger door, spoke to the two men inside and they followed him into the building. More lights went out and the building was now in complete darkness apart from those at the front.
Until that moment, it had been completely silent. Jimmy, and I had heard nothing except the normal Nairobi night-time sounds of distant cars and trucks, insects chirping, dogs barking and a cockerel crowing before its due time. But then, there was a different sound that came from the Shah Medicals building. Jimmy lifted his finger to his ear. I nodded. I had heard it too. It was a single, muffled gun shot, then another and then silence.
Behind the front door, someone was moving. The outside light was switched off, leaving only one inside light on behind the door. I had the binoculars trained on the entrance, but it was becoming difficult to see anything.
Lunneau appeared, and I watched him go to the smaller car, the Toyota, and open the boot. The boot light came on. He took out something that might have been a toolbox and put it on the ground.
Then he pulled out two long sheets of what might have been plastic and lay them flat on the ground. Then he picked up the box and returned inside.
There was more movement behind the door, shadows and silhouettes of two men, perhaps three.
Then Lunneau’s back appeared as if he was carrying something with the help of a second man. A man’s body was dragged out of the door across the ground, rolled into one of the sheets, and dumped in the boot of the Toyota.
A third man then appeared at the door, a big man with a light suit, and he stood with his hands on his hips, as if giving instructions.
“Mr O’Brian?” whispered Jimmy.
“Yes,” I said.
I looked at Jimmy who did not have the advantage of the binoculars.
“Have they finished?” he said.
“Keep watching,” I said.
“They’ve gone inside. O’Brian has also gone inside. Now they’re bringing out another body.”
The whole process took less than five minutes as the second body was wrapped in the sheet and put not in the boot with the other but at the back seat.
The remaining Pakistani got in the van. O’Brian got in the Mercedes, and Lunneau switched off the last light, locked the door, and got in the Toyota with the two bodies.
I could see Jimmy’s eyes, wide and sparkling in what little light there was inside his car. “Mungu wangu,” he muttered. “So quick.”
“When you run an operation like O’Brian’s, there are only a very few people who are entitled to know what’s going on. The others do their job and are then dismissed before they know too much.”
“So lucky Lucky and lucky Luther.”
“You might have saved Luther’s life, Jimmy.”
“So what now? We follow them?”
“We can’t follow three vehicles with one car, Jimmy. Let’s focus on GOB’s car, the Mercedes.”
“GOB?” asked Jimmy.
“Colin’s nickname for Greg O’Brian. Let’s find out which of Nairobi’s smart hotels he’s staying at.”
The Mercedes’ headlights came on and floodlit the area where they had just wrapped up the bodies. The van drove away, and the Mercedes and Toyota followed.
It was almost 4 am. Jimmy started the engine of our car and, without any lights on, edged along the side road until we reached the main road and then speeded up.
The van, loaded with its boxes, turned off towards the airport. A few minutes later the Toyota slowed and turned left up a dark side street.
“Do we follow GOB or the hearse?” Jimmy asked.
“Do you want to join Lunneau for a funeral at 4 am?”
“No.”
We followed O’Brian’s Mercedes along Waiyaki Way and into the Westlands area of Nairobi. “Sankara Hotel, Mr Dobson. Nice hotel.”
Jimmy stopped the car on the roadside close to the main entrance of the five-star hotel.
“I told you the Best Western wouldn’t be good enough for GOB,” I reminded Jimmy. “I assume he’ll now sleep for a while. Let’s do the same and meet for breakfast.”