The Ibeji Twins
By Anne Kimbell
Prologue
The Beginning
It was a cold and windy night in the outskirts of
London. The American Ambassador’s residence in
Regents Park was ablaze with light. The gardens
basked in the glow of reflected lights from the long
windows looking out into the garden. Through the
windows there were glimpses of beautifully gowned
women and men in formal attire, with here and there
the uniform of a member of the military services
represented in the multinational diplomatic corps.
The light from a kitchen window revealed a man
lurking in the shadows. He wore the uniform of a
London Bobby, tall hat and all. But there was
something in his demeanor that was less than
official. He leaned against the kitchen wall, seeming
to want to hide in the shadows. A burst of laughter
came from the drawing room as a door opened abruptly
onto the garden emitting a glamorously dressed couple
linked arm in arm. The man moved backward deeper into
the shadows putting his hand on a carefully concealed
weapon. London Bobbys don’t carry guns and being
found with one would certainly blow his cover.
As the couple moved deeper into the partially lit
garden, the assailant stared into the window of the
dining room. A short black man in the formal dress of
a Nigerian Ambassador to the Court of St. James was
the center of attention. He gestured dramatically,
causing the wide panels of his sky blue robe to
flutter like magical butterflies. His audience was
enraptured and moved closer, spoiling the
assailant’s shot for the moment.
The man moved back into the shadows as the
giggling couple returned, the woman adjusting her
dress self consciously over her bare shoulders. The
assailant snorted with disgust, dug his heels into
the soft earth of the garden and waited his chance,
squatting on his heels in a very un-English pose.
There was a soft noise behind him and he rose to
his feet, ramrod straight. Someone touched him on the
shoulder and he whirled ready to kill. There was a
whispered conversation in an African language. An
object, wrapped in a kitchen towel was handed to him,
and he was told to go. He hesitated, demurred and was
given an angry shove before the kitchen door closed,
blotting out a circle of light.
The man took one more hungry look through the
window where the brightly gowned guests paraded like
creatures in a play or under the sea. He hated them.
He would kill them all if he could. But he was a man
under orders. The object he held in his hand wrapped
in a kitchen towel, could do more damage to them than
his gun could. He said a silent prayer to Allah,
tucked the object under his armpit, rebuttoned his
uniform jacket and continued his promenade toward the
gates of the residence. The young marine guards
nodded at him unsuspiciously as he walked through the
gates carrying his precious burden. He hated them all
with their white baby faces and their idiotic grins.
His fingers itched to whip out his gun and make them
stop smiling. He nodded and touched his cap in a half
salute, being careful to keep his chin down and his
face in the shadow of its brim.
As he left the residence grounds and walked slowly
down the street swinging his Billy stick, a sleek
black limousine pulled out of the shadows. The driver
was an impeccably uniformed Nigerian. He presented
his credentials to the marine guards and drove slowly
to the front of the residence, parking a little way
from the other diplomatic cars. He rolled up the
opaque, bulletproof windows, locked the doors and
prepared to wait. His partner, on the floor of the
back seat, holding a package of pads soaked in
chloroform, muttered a remark in Arabic. The driver
gave a sharp guttural reply and turned on the radio
to the BBC second program. Now all they were required
to do was to wait until the glittering party was over
and then bag their prize.
Chapter One
The wind was blowing briskly through the trees
signaling an early evening rain, when Peter Blake, an
athletic looking young man in his mid thirties,
dashed up the American Embassy steps in Grosvenor
Square, cursing mildly. He had been on his way to a
party in Chelsea given by an actress he had been
waiting to meet for a month, when the call from the
Residence came. Ambassador Williams, in a high
dudgeon, was calling from his limousine for his young
assistant. Peter nodded to the cocky young marine
guard at the door, who raised his eyebrows at seeing
Peter back at the office at this time of the evening
and dressed for a night out to boot. He saluted
smartly and then grinned. “Williams got you by
the short hairs, sir?” he said, escorting Peter
to the locked private offices and watching while the
young diplomat punched in his code to turn off the
alarm.
Peter grunted an answer and pushed into the
Ambassador’s private office, turning on the
lights as he went. Everything looked as usual. The
large mahogany desk was flanked by the American flag
on one side and a picture of the current American
President, on the other. There had been a note of
anger, in the Ambassador’s voice when he called.
The kind of tone that made heads roll. Peter hoped
that his wasn’t on the chopping block tonight
for some fault either real of imagined.
Ambassador Williams was of the old school. He was
military man by trade, with a distinguished career.
He had been appointed to the post of Ambassador to
the Court of St. James in repayment of his loyalty to
the party in power, and also in recognition of his
considerable talents as a military advisor to the
present regime. The fact that he was black, and a
graduate of West Point, hadn’t hurt his
candidacy. He was somewhat of an enigma to Peter who,
as a career Foreign Service Officer, was trained to
tread carefully with political appointees, who came
and went at the whim of the current administration.
So far this new Ambassador kept his own counsel, and
had done his duties with a formality that set well
with the British and with the British press. No
scandal marred his name. He had been married for
twenty-five years to the same sleek brown-skinned,
matron who had produced two admirable sons, both
graduates of Harvard and Yale, neither apparently
interested in following their father’s military
career.
Peter glanced idly at the Ambassador’s desk.
It was orderly with a precise line up of embossed
pens and pencils, something like a line of soldiers.
Nothing looked amiss. One unclassified message dated
and timed after the Ambassador’s departure, had
been placed neatly in the middle of his desk. It was
from the office of Habib Nucombe, the current
Ambassador from Nigeria and one of Williams’s
new friends. The message canceled a squash game for
the following afternoon at two p.m., nothing odd
about that. The Nigerian Ambassador was famous for
changing his plans at the last minute. Or for
arriving at a dinner party with five uninvited
friends in tow, thus sending his diplomatic hostesses
into a tizzy.
Peter paced the room looking for some hint as to
the Ambassador’s agitation. He glanced at the
gold Rolex on his tanned wrist. As the minutes went
by, he felt his chance of partying with Cherie Le
Blanc tonight fading away. The door opened abruptly
and Ambassador Williams appeared. He wore jeans and a
cream-colored polo shirt, and his coffee colored face
gleamed with agitation. “There has been a break
in at the residence,” he said grimly,”
Someone has stolen some of my personal effects from
the safe in our bedroom.”
Peter relaxed somewhat. He had expected that state
secrets had disappeared, in which case he might be
held responsible. If it was only some of the
Ambassadors personal effects, medals or some of his
wife’s jewelry, they should be covered by
insurance. However, it was unthinkable that someone
had actually broken into the residence. It must be an
inside job.
“ Who has access to your private quarters,
sir?” he asked, hoping to find out which way the
wind was blowing.
“No-one except my wife and myself has access
to our safe. But we have maids and cleaning staff up
the gazoo, who go in and out of the bedroom all the
time.”
“Was the house broken into?”
“Not that I could tell.”
“ Have you called embassy security?”
The Ambassador glared at him as though he were
some kind of cretin. “ No Blake, I called you
first.” He glanced down at his clenched fists.
“It would be a great embarrassment to me to have
the British press know that our residence is so badly
guarded that anyone can walk in, open my safe, take
what they want, and disappear without leaving a
trace.”
“ What did they take, sir?” Peter asked,
masking his chagrin.
“ The Ibeji twin,” the Ambassador spat
out, glancing down at the message on his desk
“ The what, sir?”
The Ambassador spoke very slowly as though to an
idiot child. “ The Ibeji twin, Ambassador
Nucombe gave a piece of Nigerian folk art to me for
safekeeping. It is one of a set of sacred twin images
revered because Sango, their traditional god, was a
twin. I have wanted one for my African art collection
for years, and the Ambassador had one sent from
Nigeria for me. It was a family heirloom. I was ready
to send it home in the diplomatic pouch. It was to
have gone tomorrow. That’s how I found out that
it was missing." He poured himself a glass of
scotch and sat heavily in the leather chair behind
his desk. He did not offer a drink to Peter, who
remained standing and speechless.
“What would you like me to do about this,
sir? “ Peter said softly. “Correct
procedure would be to alert security and let the
other agency know about this in case this is just the
beginning of some kind of attack on your residence
and perhaps on the embassy itself,” he continued
thoughtfully. “ Whoever did this is showing us
that they have easy access. What if it’s one of
your household help is a thief or a double
agent?”
“ But the damn thing has no great value to
anyone but a collector of African antiquities,”
the Ambassador mused. ”Fortunately, it’s
just a copy of a much older piece. Nucombe probably
didn’t know that when he gave it to me to send
to the States for safekeeping. It’s just as
well. But I don’t like the feel of this. I
don’t like it at all.” He picked up the
telephone. “ Get me the Department of Defense in
Paris,” he barked at the operator. “ I know
an officer there who can be counted on to keep his
mouth shut and investigate something without bringing
in the CBS, NBC, BBC and half a dozen British
newspapers, who would have a field day with this
one.”
“ But, as you know sir, correct procedure
would be to alert our own security people
first.”
“Diplomatic procedure be dammed,” the
Ambassador said firmly. “ I don’t want our
security people or the CIA pussyfooting around my
house and questioning my staff. It would scare them
to death and Mrs. Williams as well. Someone may have
taken this as a prank or as a warning. None of Mrs.
Williams’s jewelry was touched nor were my
medals. I keep no secret documents in that
safe,” he spread his large hands on the desk and
looked at Peter questioningly. “Whoever did that
was after the Ibeji twin and nothing else, but why?
It’s only a small wooden statue carved to
resemble one of a pair of twins who died. It has no
great value except to a collector such as myself. Or
to the twins mother, a Yoruba woman who is long since
dead.”
Anne Kimbell's books, including
The Ibeji Twins, are available at
Amazon.com.
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