E09 The Ojuka Situation

Danby: It's no use sounding off at me about this one, Cowley. I merely obeyed a request from the Home Office.

Cowley: Then tell me why they should make a request to you, Major, or to military security at all?

Danby: Because Colonel Ojuka is a very persuasive man, as I've no doubt you'll discover.

Cowley: Which means you've been relieved of the responsibility, and the buck's been passed to me.

Danby: If you want to put it that way.

Cowley: What riles me is how it happened in the first place. Ojuka's not exactly a guest of the military in this country.

Danby: Agreed. If you're interested, I'm also agreed that your department should have been in at the beginning. And there's your muscle, unless I'm mistaken.

[Bodie and Doyle drive up]

Danby: I'll leave you to give them your words of wisdom, Cowley. I have some explaining of my own to do elsewhere this afternoon. Give my regards to the Colonel and his lady.

Cowley: He killed two of them himself, you say?

Danby: Apparently so. The Colonel's no stranger to the dangerous life.

Cowley: Who's the woman? His mistress?

Danby: No, his wife. He has four. She's his most recent and his favourite, so he took her with him when he skipped. She's called Madam Ojuka, by the way.

Cowley: No doubt they all are. I'll keep in touch, Major.

Danby: I'm sure you will, Cowley.

[Danby drives away]

Doyle: What's the Fourteenth Heavy Metal Brigade doing here? It's not war, is it?

Cowley: It's never anything else, Doyle. Or would you call this a peaceful scene?

Doyle: I've seen worse.

Cowley: I'm glad to hear it, because you two are going to be standing where the victim stood — right next to Colonel Ojuka. So, if you'll follow me, I'll make the introductions.

Bodie: Uh, this Ojuka. Is he a friend of ours?

Cowley: Politically, yes. Diplomatically, he's more of a thorn in the flesh than anything else.

Doyle: Oh, I see. We're gonna be the elastoplast over it.

Cowley: CI5 has been instructed to safeguard the Colonel, if that's what your juvenile metaphor was meant to convey, Doyle.

Doyle: Yes, Sir, something like that. So, what's he doing here, apart from having his kid educated?

Cowley: He wants to re-establish himself in power, and he needs our help to do it. Just how much we'll give him is to be decided at a conference this week. He was supposed to stay under wraps until then. This is what happened when he didn't.

Bodie: If he's trouble, why are we playing ball with him in the first place?

Cowley: Because the military coup that replaced him isn't looking westward for its ideology. The game hasn't even started in Africa yet, Bodie.

Doyle: So which way does Ojuka look, then?

Cowley: Heavenward, so they tell me.