Inspector Spears? A plane?
William nodded, as if I’d asked these questions out loud.
I picked up my backpack and lunged it onto the back seat of the car. I got in and shut the door. Sunglasses-guy pulled away and we joined the rush-hour traffic.
It wasn’t the first time that I’d been swept away on some unexpected, secret mission. And it was very possibly going to be more exciting than a school trip.
Our Help Is Needed
“Max cannot deal with these smugglers on his own,” Chief Superintendent Spears said on the video connection. We were on our way to the airport, and his image was projected on a screen fixed to the back of the driver’s seat. Superintendent Spears was in his office in London. A picture of Boris and her six pups was on the desk next to him. The three that looked a lot like William were called Sherlock, Clouseau and Poirot. The more fluffy ones were named after Russian space dogs: Laika, Belka and Strelka.
By now I’d almost forgotten about the trip to the Orange River. Once again I was caught up in the world of espionage and intrigue – the world I shared with my famous pet: Dogtective William.
“Diamond smuggling is a serious matter,” Spears continued. “For a time the authorities had it under control, with only a few small diamonds disappearing occasionally. But now things have changed. I am told that almost twenty per cent of all the diamonds that have been mined have been lost to these crooks, whoever they are. We’re talking about mines in a part of Namibia previously known as the Sperrgebiet – a German word meaning ‘forbidden area’.”
“They must be working from inside the mines, with outside help,” William said. “Maybe some international connections?” He glanced at me, checking if I was still upset about having missed my school trip.
“There are definitely international links. The security on those mines is world-class, and to get the diamonds out of the country they’d have to link to a syndicate of some sort.”
“Do you have any idea where the diamonds are going?” my clever dog asked.
“Our sources reported some Namibian diamonds being sold on the black market in Amsterdam, and one of the sought-after big pink ones ending up in Russia.”
“In Russia?” I asked, surprised.
“Yes, Alex. The Russian oil barons are extremely rich and flashy. Pink diamonds are just the kind of thing they love, and they have no scruples about buying stolen ones.”
“My passport!” I remembered as we stopped at the airport at Fisantekraal. I doubted whether there was passport control at that small, private airport, but surely someone would ask me for it once we landed in Namibia. But William had his small backpack with him, the same one he used on our trip through Europe. He motioned for me to open it, and inside I found his beloved teddy bear, a crumbling cupcake and my passport. I wiped some icing from its cover and stowed it more safely in my own pocket.
A Beechcraft Baron was waiting on the landing strip. The previous year William had subscribed me to an aviation magazine as a Christmas present. Of course he’d used my dad’s credit card number to pay for it, but it was definitely a better present than the two-thousand-piece puzzle my parents had given me.
I love planes and I quickly learned to identify most of them. A Beechcraft Baron 58 is a comfortable twin-engine that seats six people. It can go up to two hundred knots at a height of two kilometres above sea level, and . . .
“Alex!” William knew exactly where my thoughts were wandering. “Keep your attention on the matter at hand!”
He was right. I hadn’t been listening to the last part of his discussion with Spears. “We’ll get in touch again as soon as you get there,” were the chief superintendent’s final words before the screen went blank.
The car pulled away and the two of us started walking towards the plane. The pilot was making some final checks, headphones already pulled over his ears and scribbling something in his flight log. He flipped a switch and the propellers began to whirl.
An elderly man was standing next to the plane. His wild grey hair jutted from underneath one of those funny hats with flaps around the ears and neck, and his shirt and baggy shorts had enough pockets to carry tools and provisions in the wilderness for a month.
William had noticed him too. “Livingston, I presume?” he whispered to me.
“Sorry to disappoint you, old chap,” the man said and turned towards my talking dog without blinking an eye. “The name is Travis, Bill Travis, and I am a . . . Let’s just call me someone who specialises in finding things.”
“Like lost diamonds?” I asked. My question was either lost in the racket of the engines or Mr Travis had chosen to ignore it. “My name is Alex Simpson and this is my dog, Dogtective William!” I shouted.
He shook my hand with a firm grip and then bent down to shake William’s paw as well. William appreciates it when strangers treat him with respect. We were off to a good start.
We loaded our backpacks into the tail of the plane and climbed in. We had barely fastened our seatbelts when the plane started to taxi slowly towards the runway. The noise level inside the cabin swelled as the engines revved for the take-off. Then the dry grass flashed past our windows as we gathered speed. The pilot pressed the lever down to adjust the flaps, and we were away!
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