Malika's Revenge: A Powerful Mix for a Complex Noir Novel. An Organized Crime Thriller - not for the faint-hearted

by Phillip Strang

  ‘I had planned to take you away from here, but now I am going to kill you.’

  With one leap across the room, he grabbed Malika by the hair, the blanket falling away to reveal her naked body. It was a body he had caressed many times, but now it was a body he was going to stick a knife into.

  Oleg moved to grab the knife, now covered in blood, from the dead Afghan. Malika struggled and pulled away, attempting to get out of the room. He grabbed her again, pushed her to the floor and kicked her hard in the abdomen several times, then hit her across the head with a piece of wood that was intended for the wood-burning stove. The beating continued for at least thirty seconds. To Oleg, it seemed like an instant. To Malika, it was as forever.

  Her screaming and his shouting attracted the attention of a couple of other whores and their customers: one was Afghan, the other, a Tajik. They quickly overpowered Oleg, beat him unconscious and hogtied him with some rope that was used to tie the donkeys to a post outside. The whores rushed to Malika, now unconscious.

  It would be two days before she regained consciousness, three before she realised that some of her ribs were broken and that she had lost the sight in one eye. The eye may have responded to medical care in a properly equipped hospital, but in a drug smugglers’ village…

  She had been fond of Oleg, but the addiction had been overpowering, and she had succumbed to the only method of obtaining the hideous drug. That was how she saw it. She determined, during the convalescing period, to remove herself from the village. The guilt of what she had done to her parents had eased, and she knew her mother was alive. She would heal her wounds and then she would go to Dushanbe, find her mother and make something of herself.

  Oleg, meanwhile, was not having a good time. Hogtied, left to rot in his own urine and faeces and caked in blood, after every Afghan tribesman in the village came in to kick him some more and to threaten him with an unpleasant death.

  ***

  Malika left the village on the tenth day after Oleg had killed the Afghan and almost beaten her to death. After the anger of the Afghans had subsided, he had been thrust into a corner of the room with his arms tied behind his back, his ankles firmly restrained in front. He still remained in his faeces and urine-laden clothes, but he was alive. One of the whores had taken pity on him and hand-fed him a bowl of warm soup, some rice and a few pieces of chicken.

  He felt great shame at what he had done to Malika. He wished he could have wound the clock back and been more sympathetic to her plight. If he were to die here, then so be it.

  It was on the fourteenth day that Najibullah unexpectedly turned up in the village. He had not come with any heroin.

  ‘You have killed one of my tribe,’ Najibullah said with little interest, as he stood in front of the murdering Russian.

  ‘I was angry. She was my woman.’

  ‘A whore? How can you say such a thing? She was only good for screwing.’

  ‘I still liked her. She had a kind heart and a bright mind.’

  ‘A woman is a mere chattel. A donkey has more value.’

  ‘I did not see her like that.’

  ‘Why not? She was screwing anyone and everyone in this village. I even screwed her a few times.’

  ‘What is it that you want, Najibullah? You’ve not come here to gloat.’

  ‘Maybe I have come to kill you.’

  ‘But why you?’

  ‘He was a cousin, the man you killed.’

  ‘Does that give you the right to kill me?’

  ‘In my culture it does, but maybe there is another solution.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Oleg attempted to sit up and listen.

  ‘A murderer can be slain in the same manner as the victim, or he can be forgiven by the murdered person’s family.’

  ‘Is that what you are offering?’

  ‘Babak was not a good man. The shame of him being killed in the company of a prostitute will only bring continued disgrace to his family. They wish to avoid that shame.’

  ‘But he was in the company of a prostitute. How can you change that fact?’

  ‘We will not mention the truth of it. We will say he died of an illness.’

  ‘That’s okay by me, but what do you want from me?’ Oleg asked.

  ‘You will need to be punished.’

  ‘And this punishment?’

  ‘I will tie you naked to a post and whip you until you are almost dead, then I will slit your throat. Or, you can pay his family for the life that you have forfeited.’

  ‘How much if I pay?’

  ‘Five thousand American dollars.’

  ‘I don’t have that much money here.’

  ‘Where do you have it?’

  ‘In Dushanbe.’

  ‘Then we will go there together, and you will give me the money. Remember, if you betray me, your death is certain. This is your only option.’

  ‘You have entered illegally. How can you go to the capital?’ Oleg asked.

  ‘I am not carrying drugs. I entered Tajikistan legally at the border crossing in Panj-e Payon. We will leave for the capital tomorrow.’

  Chapter 10

  Oleg, released after satisfying the Afghan of his willingness to pay, felt much better after a wash, a change of clothes and some medicine. The sadness over Malika remained, and he had no idea what had become of her.

  The trip to the capital of Tajikistan for Oleg and Najibullah was uneventful. Oleg imagined that Najibullah would have felt out of place in a city that looked more Western than Asian, but it was apparent he was not. Oleg suspected that he had visited the city before, but felt it was best not to ask.

  ‘We will deal with the five thousand dollars that you owe Babak’s family first,’ the Afghan said. They had checked into a reasonable hotel, some distance from the centre of the city ‒ hopefully, far enough from Yusup Baroyev’s prying eyes. Oleg guessed the events in the village, his dereliction of duty and the slaying of the Afghan would have impacted on Yusup’s business empire. He realised how the drug lord would have regarded that chain of events.

  ‘And then, after the payment?’ Oleg asked.

  ‘You are free to go.’

  ‘But where? My previous employer will not want me back. He will probably kill me if he knows I’m here.’

  ‘What concern is this to me?’ Najibullah attempted to walk away.

  ‘You took Farrukh over to Afghanistan. Did you meet with the Russians?’

  ‘That is not any of your concern.’

  ‘I may be of some use to them.’

  ‘I will enquire. If you are, I will let you know.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  Oleg, after payment of the blood money and with time on his hands, checked out his old apartment from a vantage point on the other side of the road. He still had the look of a tribesman ‒ it provided a perfect disguise. He resolved to keep the beard and the overgrown shaggy hair, but there was no harm in a trim and tidy up.

  Thirty minutes later, feeling better for a shampoo and the slightest of haircuts, he resumed his position. He did not have to wait for long before he saw Farrukh, wearing the clothes from his wardrobe, driving his Mercedes down the street, with a beautiful woman in the passenger’s seat. It could only be Farrukh, although now he was clean-shaven with short hair and the distinct look of affluence.

  Oleg resolved to avenge himself on Farrukh for taking his apartment and his car.

  Two hours later, Najibullah phoned. ‘I have set up a meeting for you.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Tomorrow. They will contact you.’

  ***

  The man who phoned Oleg was the same man who picked him up from a street corner close to the airport the following morning, in a late model Mercedes. He was unfriendly.

  ‘What can you do for us?’ He was a quietly spoken man. The receding hairline combed over to disguise the signs of premature baldness.

  The man may have looked weak and retiring, but the other man sitting in the front of the car did not. He wa
s big and strong and no doubting carrying a gun. The man speaking to Oleg appeared suspicious. He wanted answers. Oleg was certain they were the two Russians, Yuri Drygin had mentioned when he and Farrukh had visited the border town some weeks earlier.

  ‘You were working for Yusup Baroyev?’ the man asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then, why do you want to work for us?’

  ‘I killed a man.’ Oleg realised that Najibullah had probably told him the full story.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I caught him with my woman.’

  ‘Was she worth it?’

  ‘I thought she was, but maybe I was wrong.’

  ‘We know the story. We also know that you had an unfortunate run-in with the KGB.’

  ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘We have people inside that organisation.’

  It’s true, an unfortunate accident. I was only aiming to force the man to comply. I didn’t expect him to be in the back office of the shop.’

  ‘That may be, but you have a history of unfortunate accidents. Assuming we wished to use you, of what advantage would you be?’

  ‘I know these people. I’ve even learnt the language, and I’m Russian.’

  ‘Russian or otherwise is of no concern to us, but your ability to speak Tajik may be of some interest. However, you can’t stay here, or Baroyev will see you.’

  ‘Thank you. Anywhere is fine.’

  ‘We will send you somewhere you will be of use to us.’

  ‘Anywhere is fine,’ Oleg repeated.

  ‘We will send you to Afghanistan. Is that acceptable?’

  To Oleg, it was not the answer he wanted. He was unable to return to Russia, as the KGB would soon find him and Andre Malenkov’s brother would ensure he was dead. If he stayed in Dushanbe, it would be Yusup Baroyev, and he would not take kindly to him deserting his position, even if he had been hogtied for nearly two weeks. Then there was the disruption to business that he had caused. It was either a bullet in Russia, a termite’s nest in Tajikistan, or living with a bunch of savages in Afghanistan. He chose the latter.

  ‘Afghanistan is fine.’

  ‘That’s good. Otherwise, we would have informed Baroyev that you had been speaking to the Russian mafia.’

  ‘I’m screwed, whatever happens,’ Oleg commented in a moment of indiscretion.

  ‘Look on the bright side,’ said the man. ‘If you get down to Kabul, there may be some Chinese whores for you. Mind you, every other Afghan with some money in his pocket would have been through them. I wouldn’t fancy them, but you may do after a few months in Kunduz. You stand a better chance of a little boy pulling you off there.’ The man had a warped sense of humour, which Oleg did not appreciate.

  The conversation with the man in the car had lasted no more than thirty minutes, yet he never said his name once. Najibullah met Oleg five minutes later, close to where the car had dropped him off. The Afghan had been waiting and watching for the appropriate signal from the car: two flashes of the headlights to indicate agreement, three to indicate failure.

  The two flashes were clear and precise.

  ‘It looks as if we are travelling companions to Kunduz,’ Najibullah said.

  ‘It looks that way,’ the Russian said with a tone of resignation in his voice. It was not what he expected from the Russian mafia, but he was still alive and, with life, there was hope. At least, that was what he tried to convince himself, but for once he was not so sure.

  ***

  Two days later, Oleg and Najibullah were back at the northern border of Afghanistan. Panj-e Payon had changed little since Oleg’s last visit some weeks before. It retained the look of all border towns in Central Asia. The trucks stretched for two hundred metres back from the metal gate on the Tajikistan side. Stalls had been set up alongside the road, selling food and drinks and the women, also for sale, only twenty metres distant. The drivers were either partaking of the local wares or dealing with the customary fees and bribes that were mandatory ‒ Yuri Drygin, the corrupt customs officer, fully involved in the negotiations.

  He offered no comment as Oleg presented his passport with two hundred American dollars secured inside the second page, for stamping in his office at the border. The bridge, built by foreign aid money, was good and solid. Once across and into Afghanistan, the road rapidly deteriorated.

  Oleg had thought the drug smugglers’ village was unique in its desolation. Once in Afghanistan, he realised he had been wrong. The poverty was overwhelming, the decay and rotting excessive, and the women subjugated and covered.

  The arrival in Kunduz, the main city in the region, had been delayed by the never-ending movement of vehicles, people and donkeys. It was apparent there were no road rules, apart from who gesticulated with a brandished fist the most, and beeped the horn on their vehicle the most aggressively. Najibullah organised a guest house close to the centre. It was the same guest house Farrukh had stayed in previously.

  ***

  Najibullah left, promising to return in two hours, but it was closer to four before Oleg saw him again. He brought with him a man who instinctively did not like Oleg, not because of his look, but because Oleg was Russian and his family had suffered under the Russian invaders. Najibullah introduced him as Alam.

  ‘Let me make it clear,’ Alam said. ‘I do not like or trust you. I will work with you, not because I want to, but because I must.’ He was not an altogether unpleasant looking man, with a dark beard showing flecks of grey. He wore a shalwar kameez, freshly washed. His sandals were open-toed and made of brown leather.

  His footwear surprised Oleg, as the ground outside was still frozen in places from the interminable, bone-gnawing cold. The sky was a dull hazy blue, tinged with brown due to the smoke emanating from the wood and charcoal burning stoves around the city, which gave it an eerie, moonlike character.

  ‘I appreciate your honesty.’ Oleg was surprised how competent his language skills had become. The language spoken by his reluctant colleague was Tajik, but with a different inflexion on some of the verbs and a more guttural sound than in Tajikistan. ‘It will take time for us to adjust to each other.’

  ‘I am to be your primary contact. I am to assist you in any way possible and ensure that no harm befalls you,’ the unfriendly Afghan replied.

  ‘Then I thank you. I understand that my people, which I cannot be proud of, came here in a previous time and committed untold atrocities against the population of Afghanistan.’ Oleg had come across this man’s attitude before.

  ‘They slaughtered my family.’

  ‘It was not my generation. I have no issue with the Afghan people.’

  ‘You are still the son of the invader,’ Alam reiterated.

  ‘And you are the son of the people who flayed my father,’ Oleg rebuked.

  ‘Then we are clear. I will work with you, assist you as I must, but do not assume that we can share a friendship.’

  ‘That is fine. Business and friendship are not two commodities exclusively aligned. We will focus on business, friendship maybe at a later date.’

  ‘Friendship, never!’ the Afghan affirmed.

  Regardless of the shaky first meeting, Oleg instinctively trusted the Afghan, who professed hatred and malice towards him. An honest, plain-talking man, a man I can work with, he thought, although he hoped it would not be for too long. His life had taken too many twists and turns, and this was one turn that he did not appreciate.

  Najibullah excused himself from the meeting and left. There was an uncomfortable silence before either Oleg or Alam felt the need to speak again.

  ‘Why are you here?’ Alam broke the silence.

  ‘My position is unclear, but it appears that I am to be the contact point for my people back in Russia.’

  ‘Why you? What skills do you have?’

  ‘Hopefully, my language skills and my knowledge of the industry.’

  ‘It is a surprise you speak our language.’

  ‘You seem to be an educated man,’ Ole
g said in return.

  ‘Refugee camp in Pakistan for some years. I had a few years at school, and I picked up the ability to speak English.’

  ‘Unfortunately, I speak no English.’

  ‘Then we can possibly agree to a mutually beneficial partnership.’

  ‘I’m sure we can,’ Oleg said.

  ***

  The following morning, Oleg received a phone call from the man in the car who had assigned him the job in Kunduz.

  ‘Have you met with your primary contact?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, although he hates Russians,’ Oleg replied, as he cleared his eyes and coughed up the smoke that remained in his lungs. The thick, slow-moving air in the city ensured the smell of burning embers remained long after daybreak. It was as if a brown fog had fallen over the city. It would take him some time to get used to it. His room had been adequate, the electricity intermittent and the noise from the diesel generator, which started and stopped with annoying regularity, overbearing.

  ‘They all hate us, but they have no problems taking our money,’ said the man. ‘Never trust them for one minute. That’s why you’re there.’

  ‘What am I here for?’ Oleg asked.

  ‘To ensure our interests are protected.’

  ‘How do I do that? I don’t even know your name.’

  ‘You know my voice.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then why do you need my name?’

  ‘It just seems courteous to know who I’m dealing with,’ Oleg said.

  ‘Courtesy is for social occasions. Our relationship is purely business. I have no more interest in you than do the Afghans. Do I make myself clear?’

  ‘Crystal clear. Where do I start?’

  ‘You need to visit the processing plants. Check their quality control and their methods of transportation. Ensure they’re not cheating on quantity and never trust them for one minute.’

  ‘This is dangerous. What protection do I have?’

  ‘With the money, we’re paying them? Or do you fancy your chances in Tajikistan or Russia?’