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

by Phillip Strang

  ‘What sort of sideline? I am always looking for some way to make more money.’

  ‘Supply and demand,’ Iskandar said.

  ‘That’s a little vague.’

  ‘It’s not strictly legal.’

  ‘Nor is the tax dodging that I’m fiddling on behalf of your father. But I am there, doing it for him.’

  ‘I buy drugs and sell them for a profit. It’s a cash economy, very profitable.’

  ‘Okay by me. What help do you want? What are the risks?’

  ‘The risks are minimal, but the rewards could be substantial with someone smart like you doing the numbers and figuring out the percentages.’

  Six months later, Yusup had supplanted Iskandar in the business, made his first serious stack of money and bought his wife a house several blocks from where her parents lived.

  Iskandar had been looking for a few hundred American dollars on every trade. To him, it was fun; some extra money for a better car and a better woman. He wanted to party every night and, as the son of a wealthy man, he knew that the money was coming his way. His father wasn’t going to live forever, not with the way he worked, worried and smoked – cigars, mainly – to compensate for the stress.

  Yusup had no such father or inheritance to look forward to. His father, a decent man, had laboured all his life in a junior administrative role in the nondescript office of a minor government department. An honest man, salt of the earth they said when he suddenly died at the age of fifty-two. Yusup had listened intently at the eulogising of his father and felt some sadness at his demise. He was determined not to follow a similar path.

  The textile company was the best he could do after some forlorn years working for a building company. It was not what he wanted, but Firuza was pregnant. Her father was adamant that, as Yusup had got his daughter in the family way, she was his responsibility. He wasn’t going to stick his hand in his pocket and help out with any money. He was a hard but caring man and, as soon as the baby made its entrance into the world, he would be there, lathering kisses and presents on the infant.

  The relationship between Firuza’s father and Yusup would always be tenuous. Neither liked the other very much, but they remained civil.

  Yusup had seen the potential in Iskandar’s enterprise. It concerned the textile factory owner’s son little when he had been sidelined out of the business. There was an agreement that he would receive five per cent of any business going forward, which seemed insignificant at the time.

  ‘Don’t worry about it. It’s not important,’ Iskandar had said, but Yusup honoured the agreement, right up to the current day, when that five per cent had become substantial, worth many millions of American dollars.

  It was just as well, due to an unforeseen recession and the textile company going into liquidation. Iskandar’s inheritance became Iskandar’s burden. As soon as Iskandar’s father had passed away, the creditors were knocking on his door. They always bought someone solid and physically threatening to deal with his constant denials that he was only the son, not the father and he was not responsible.

  ***

  Over the years, Yusup had transformed a small sideline of Iskandar’s into a major business, growing at a staggering rate. The mansion had been a gift to his wife at the end of the third year, but she neither liked the extent of the place nor the excessive security that came with a drug lord.

  ‘Necessary part of the business,’ he would say.

  ‘Maybe,’ she said, ‘but I don’t want the children growing up in such an environment. You provide for us, but I prefer not to know the details.’

  Within two months, Firuza had returned to the old house, while Yusup remained at the mansion. It was an arrangement that had served them well in the intervening years. He was free to focus on his business interests, which included some serious entertainment, and a drug lord’s entertaining entailed women and plenty of them.

  At first, he had declined to partake of the women, only supplying for others, but it looked suspicious with him sitting there drinking and every other man, politician, police official and drug runner cavorting with them. It raised questions as to whether he was homosexual – although, not to his face, which was just as well. He used violence sparingly, as a tool, but with great vindictiveness when it was required.

  His enforced celibacy had lasted for six weeks before he took one of the women for himself. He had always been a one woman man, but Firuza was comfortable, the children were in school and doing well and, as long as she saw him at regular intervals, no questions were asked on her part, no reasons given on his.

  He had reasoned that she must have known what was going on, but she turned a blind eye – even said as much after they had made love on one of his regular visits when the children were at school.

  ‘I don’t want to know what and how you conduct your business,’ she had said.

  ‘It is best you do not know,’ he had replied. ‘I must maintain a certain lifestyle. It goes with the image and the business.’

  ‘From what I’ve heard, you work incredibly hard at your image.’

  It was the only time Firuza ever alluded to the fact that she knew of the parties, but then everyone knew of Yusup Baroyev and his lifestyle, even at the children’s school. Sometimes, they would come home, upset that someone had said something which wasn’t very nice. Their mother would just counsel and tell them that other people were jealous, and it was their parents who had said such things because their father was such a successful man.

  Firuza knew that the wealth did not come from running a corner store or a small business, but she had made an agreement and would keep to it. Sometimes, she wished they could live as an ordinary family, but she realised that would never be possible.

  Her husband was too far entrenched in the business, and he controlled it with an iron rod. There were no deputies, no natural successors, no truly reliable lieutenants he could trust implicitly.

  Iskandar remained Yusup’s friend, but he had been the son of a wealthy man and, with such people, they are either driven to continue in the footsteps of their father, or they are driven not to care. He proved to be the latter. The debts, the heavies and the threatening letters, after the failure of his father’s business, were dealt with by Yusup.

  ‘Refer them to me,’ Yusup had said.

  It was the least he could do. It had been Iskandar who had set him on the road to salvation. The debtors came, often with their heavies, but Yusup’s heavies were heavier, and a solution was soon arranged. Most had gone away empty-handed; some had received a fraction of what they demanded. Some had left the mansion, never to be seen again.

  Iskandar continued the life of frivolity and irrelevance, although his form of irrelevance came with a luxury motor cruiser somewhere in the Mediterranean and a crew of young women. Yusup paid for it all, occasionally visited, although Iskandar had become corpulent and an alcoholic. The women stayed because of Yusup’s money, but they never cared or asked where it came from.

  ***

  Heroin addiction, especially in Moscow and St. Petersburg, had been escalating exponentially ever since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the installation of a free-enterprise system.

  It had been Yusup who had seen the potential of increased sales into Russia. He had been ambitious, saw himself as a businessman aiming to turn a profit. There were plenty in the government and the military willing to go along with his plan, as long as they were financially rewarded.

  Tajikistan had been awash with crime, corruption and bribery. So much so, that it formed the larger part of the impoverished country’s economy. Yusup knew he was just taking advantage of the situation and making the best of it, though better that anyone else as it turned out. He was a smart man who knew how to turn a profit, make the percentages and keep those who were on the take out of sight, although some of those were now openly disregarding him for the Russians. He knew who they were. When the time was right, he would deal with them.

  Feliks Kalinin had been his pr
imary contact with the Russian mafia. They had met fifteen years earlier to discuss expanding the operations up through Tajikistan and into Russia. He had proved to be a good man. He was a criminal, but an honest one. An oxymoron, although Feliks, once he had set a deal in place, honoured that deal. The one he had presented to Yusup had been good and solid. It had served both them and Feliks’ superiors well over the years. Yusup regarded him as a friend, and he was now a friend in trouble.

  Questions were being asked of Feliks by his superiors. A graph showing the amount of heroin up into Russia and the price on the street showed a steady upward trend, but the Bratva, the name the Russian mafia preferred, was not seeing the full returns.

  Mafia had connotations of greasy Italians with moustaches, or Al Capone and machine-gun killings in the street. The Bratva was more structured, and greasy moustaches and machine guns were not their modus operandi. They ran more as a multi-national business and the senior executive, under the leadership of the Pakhan ‒ the godfather ‒ understood graphs and charts and, as long as the right numbers moved in the right direction, they were fine.

  The meeting of Bratva’s senior group had raised concern at a meeting some weeks earlier. Feliks Kalinin had been called in at short notice. He had been with his mistress at the time; she had been none too pleased.

  The business had been running well for many years, almost like clockwork. He had taken his eye off the game. He had seen the healthy trade in heroin on the streets and assumed it was coming up through Yusup, and that he had been left out of the loop. Not that it had worried him unduly, as he was still making plenty of money. He had been lucky to get off with a severe warning when he met with his superiors. Forced to confront Yusup soon after, he found out that the Tajikistan drug lord had played square with him, and that he was not responsible for the current situation. Feliks realised the next time the Bratva’s senior executive met, he could well experience an early death.

  ***

  Feliks was waiting at Domodedovo Airport in Moscow, early in the morning to meet the flight from Tajikistan. Yusup exited the plane first, followed closely by Malika, on her first visit.

  Feliks was a worried man and his greeting to Malika was brusque. Yusup understood, told Malika that matters were serious and that he and Feliks needed to sit down and talk as soon as possible. She acknowledged the situation and left them for the hotel. Feliks had organised a car for her. She checked into the penthouse suite and then, after a suitable period to freshen up, she hit the shops. Not with the vengeance of Firuza, Yusup’s wife, or Dmitry Gubkin’s Katerina, but she still hit them.

  The range of goods from every part of the world left her speechless. She had travelled little, other than the occasional trip across into Uzbekistan, but Dushanbe had been her home and, before becoming the mistress to one of the most influential men in Tajikistan, she had never considered travelling as part of her life’s experiences. Her life had been tainted by drugs and violent men; however, now that she was with Baroyev, she felt she was finally at peace. Her mother was comfortable and complacent and had even found herself another man, the owner of a small car hire company.

  It would not be until later that night that Yusup returned to the hotel. She was anxious to show him all that she had bought; he was slightly drunk and ready to sleep. She let it pass and put him to bed. He had never been a heavy drinker, but Feliks Kalinin was and, the next day, Yusup apologised. He said it was necessary; that Feliks was in trouble, the Russian mafia was in turmoil, and it was going to get nasty.

  It was the most he had ever spoken to her about his business in the time they had been together, and the tension showed in his face. Unable to spend time with her, he wished her well. She booked herself on a tourist bus to see the sights of Moscow from the comfort of a double-decker bus. She would have sat on the open top, but the climate was certainly colder than she was used to. She stayed on the heated lower deck.

  ***

  Feliks and Yusup met the next day at ten in the morning. Feliks arrived wearing a suit, an open-neck shirt and black leather shoes. Yusup, as usual, was impeccably dressed in a suit of the best quality.

  Feliks was a dependable man, short on attention span. At least, that had been Yusup’s impression the first time he had met him. That was clearly why it was only now he had realised the seriousness of the situation. Yusup had contacted him several times in the last few months.

  ‘Keep your eye on the business. Find out what’s going on,’ he had said, but to no avail.

  ‘It’s all fine,’ was all Feliks had said, until the wake-up call from the senior members of his branch of the Russian mafia.

  Yusup was pleased that he was finally taking notice. It was the reason he had come up from Dushanbe, where he felt comfortable and safe. Nobody would touch him down there, for fear of what would have happened if he had survived; here in Moscow, it was not so certain.

  Feliks had provided the security, but they looked indolent; Yusup had little faith in them. He had agreed to give Feliks two days of his time to give him some ideas and find out what was going on, then he would head back to where he felt safe.

  Gennady Denikin was also hanging around in Dushanbe, so maybe he could sort out a deal with him, although he would have to leave Oleg Yezhov alone ‒ for the time being ‒ and he hadn’t told Malika that he was back in town yet. The Afghans were still unknown, although there were possibilities there to perhaps set up a rival operation, and maybe include Feliks, or maybe not.

  ‘Feliks, you know this part of the world,’ said Yusup. ‘What do you know about Gennady Denikin?’

  ‘Minor player. Seems to have landed on his feet.’

  ‘So who is he reporting to? Have you managed to find that out?’

  ‘The best I can figure is Grigory Stolypin,’ Feliks replied.

  Feliks was a slight man, with small bones, who stood slightly shorter than the average man in the street. He was not an impressive man, the diction of his speech was indicative of a government school education. He limped slightly on his left leg – which, he told Yusup, he had been born with, and his head tended to jiggle on his shoulders as he spoke. He wore heavy-rimmed spectacles. He did not look like a gangster, but he had been one of the most vicious in his younger days.

  ‘Grigory Stolypin, who’s he?’ Yusup asked.

  ‘He’s a senior figure in Bratva. Although, if it’s him, he should have been conducting the operation with the full authority of the Pakhan, the godfather.’

  ‘And he’s not?’

  ‘Apparently, otherwise, the money would show up on the accounts.’

  ‘If it’s not, does that mean he’s gone renegade?’

  ‘That appears to be the case, but how to prove it?’ Feliks said.

  ‘Do you need to prove it?’

  ‘I can’t tell them of my suspicions about Stolypin without any proof.’

  ‘What proof do you need?’

  ‘I’m not sure. We need to connect him to the operation, show that he’s taking the money for himself. But he’s a gangster, not an organiser – not at this level, anyway.’

  ‘There’s someone else behind the scenes?’

  ‘I would have thought so, but whom? It’s hard to imagine anyone would be so foolish to act against the interests of the godfather. They’re signing their death warrant if they’re caught. They must know that.’

  ‘How do you find out?’

  ‘That’s the difficulty. Ask too many questions and you end up dead.’

  Yusup sensed he was getting nowhere with Feliks and, besides, what happened in Russia concerned him little. What happened in Tajikistan did and, there, he had problems.

  ***

  Malika was pleased to be going back. Two days had been enough for her, although there would be excess baggage to pay for all that she had bought, even with the increased allowance in first class. Feliks dropped them off at the airport, unaware that they had been followed at a discreet distance by a black, late-model Volvo.

  After leavi
ng the airport, Feliks had driven back into the centre of Moscow. Taking a detour down some back streets to avoid the traffic, which was building up as the day drew to a close, he found himself boxed in by the Volvo at his rear and a BMW 7 series at his front. Unable to get out due to the width of the road and the cars parked on either side, he was trapped.

  He had dismissed the security at the airport except for one, the most reliable – this was his city, and he felt safe. The pistol in the glove compartment served no use, as the rear doors of both vehicles opened and a man from each vehicle exited, the AK-47s they carried on rapid fire. Feliks and his security, dead within fifteen seconds, although the weapons continued for ten more. The assailants then left the scene, the Volvo backing up the narrow street, the BMW accelerating away to the front.

  Yusup received the news on landing at the airport in Dushanbe. One of the supposed security guards had phoned him. He was glad to be back on home territory. He did not tell Malika what had happened. She would have only worried, not fully understanding how dangerous the situation had become.

  Chapter 22

  Yusup Baroyev was not the only one who took the news of Feliks Kalinin’s death hard. Dmitry Gubkin’s attempts at orchestrating the drug smuggling operation out of Afghanistan were unravelling. He was being drawn inexorably into the open. The aspersions about his criminal activities, no longer scurrilous gossip, were now receiving media coverage in the major newspapers and some of the readers were his former social peers.

  His ostracising from the polite society of the city continued unabated. They had suspected what he was before the press did, but the good society people did not care as long as no one else knew and now it was being blasted across the pages of every newspaper. It had even rated a mention on one of the television chat shows discussing escalating organised crime in the city.