by Nick Elliott
‘She was absolutely adamant she didn’t want my help,’ he said.
I had to wonder about that. ‘Didn’t you think to override her Levan? She’s just a kid.’
‘Have you met her?’
‘No I haven’t.’
‘Well I tell you Angus, she is not one to be “overridden”, as you put it. She is very self-confident – arrogant even, I would say. She told me she’d call me when she wished to return. I felt like I was her driver. So I left her to it.
‘Anyway, it’s not a war zone you know. Poti is a peaceful place. And I told her whatever she found out, not to pursue these people. They must have disappeared long ago up into the mountains. I warned her they would be armed and dangerous.’ His voice trailed off as he realised the implications of what he’d just said.
The port, when we finally rolled in, was a scene of chaos. Containers were stacked five or six high on uneven waste ground. Antique forklifts and the odd creaking old reachstacker trundled around inside and outside the terminal’s perimeter fencing. Trucks queued up the dusty road into the distance, engines running, black smoke billowing from their exhausts. Hungry-looking dogs, their coats patchy with mange, roamed the streets.
We started at the agent’s office, a dilapidated building with a pale green exterior. It looked like mould growing up the walls rather than the intended finish. Perhaps years ago the architect and his builder had stood back to admire its post-Stalinist functional grace but I doubted it.
There were four people in the outer office. Levan asked to see Gia Nozadze and we were ushered through to a small glass cubicle in the corner. This part of the office was much like the rest except that it was adorned with a dirty grey carpet which was curling up at the edges.
Gia was a malnourished-looking character in his early twenties. His card announced that he was the branch manager. He looked nervous.
Levan introduced me and I began gently. The boy’s English was poor so Levan translated to make my questions clear. Georgian was incomprehensible to me. Levan had said it was unlike any other language. Where else would the word for mother be deda and for father, mama?
‘We want to hear from you about this case of the missing containers, and we want to know where Miss Scott is, the woman who came here last week.’
Gia took a file from a shelf behind him. I sat well back so he had to come round to my side of the desk to show it to me.
‘Sit down,’ I said, patting the chair in front of me. He sat.
I looked at the copy bills of lading covering the fifty-three forty-foot containers of ethyl alcohol shipped from Antwerp. They weren’t bad as these kinds of forgeries go and I could almost believe him when he said he’d thought they were genuine.
The carrier’s funnel markings showing the letters MBSCL and the name – Med Black Sea Container Line – were printed on the bill in what appeared to be their original design, font and colours. Other details of the shipment, including the ship’s name and the cargo description, looked authentic enough.
‘Tell me about the people who presented these to you,’ I said.
They weren’t consignees he’d seen before. They were well dressed. Five of them in two black BMWs. Nice cars.
‘Their trucks were there too to collect the containers,’ he said. ‘The bills of lading looked okay so I issued the DO.’
They could present the Delivery Order at the port gate, collect the containers from inside the port and bingo, a million and a half dollars’ worth of hooch was theirs. Only by the time it was turned into cacha vodka for the Russian black market it would be worth a good deal more.
‘So how many trucks?’
‘Two,’ said Gia.
‘Just two? And how long did it take them to remove all the containers?’
Two days he thought.
‘So each truck was making twelve or more round trips a day,’ I said. ‘Allowing for loading and unloading there’s no way they’d make it to North Ossetia, right? They’d get about thirty kilometres or so up the road at best.’
‘To a yard or a warehouse or somewhere they could hold the containers or transfer what was in them,’ Levan interjected. Gia shifted uncomfortably and looked at the floor.
I drew my chair closer to his. ‘Levan, I want you to translate every word I say to our young friend here – slowly and carefully.
‘Now listen hard. You’re going to tell us everything you know about this little venture – who these people are, where they’re offloading the containers and what they’ve done with Miss Scott. So get started, now.’
Levan translated but Gia answered sullenly in English. ‘I know nothing. They came into this office. They presented the bills of lading. And then they left. That’s all I know.’
I kicked the leg of his chair hard enough to make him jump. ‘Not good enough. You tell us where the cargo was transferred or we will make it very hard for you. And we don’t have much time, so make it quick.’
Levan translated again, up close to Gia’s face, menacing him. I didn’t much like this way of doing things but I needed information. We could take off up the road to Ossetia like the Keystone Cops and find nothing. I needed to know where they’d gone and Gia was my best bet right now.
Levan had grabbed hold of Gia’s hair and was pulling his head around to get the point home. His resistance dissolved. ‘They took the Zugdidi road. I don’t know more than that. They said I shouldn’t speak to anyone. They’re mafia. They’ll come back for me.’
‘And the woman?’
‘She met them. One of them who had come to the office came back in one of the trucks. She wanted to meet them. She went off in the truck. That’s all I can tell you.’
Was she out of her mind? I turned to Levan. ‘Zugdidi. How far?’
‘Forty kilometres maybe, but my guess is we’ll find them before that. There’re a few places on the way where they could offload these boxes, Angus. Storage yards, old warehouses …’
We took Gia with us. He didn’t want to come but I figured if we acted as if we’d forced him then the Ossetians, if that’s what they were, might realise he’d been coerced rather than simply blown the whistle on them.
It didn’t take us long. Half an hour from the port we saw the containers emblazoned with the line’s livery, strewn across a bare patch of land a hundred metres or so off the road. Nearby was an old building, more a shack than a house. Levan stopped the car.
‘Are you sure you want to do this, Angus? These guys aren’t from your Salvation Army you know.’
I didn’t see that we had a choice.
Several of the containers that had already been emptied were aligned into a block. I could see that the others were still closed with intact Customs seals on their doors.
As we approached a man came out from one of the containers. He was wearing a black leather jacket, sunglasses and carrying what I recognised as an AK-47 rifle. And he was big. Levan stopped the car ten metres in front of him. We got out and I walked towards the man.
‘Hi! I’m Angus,’ I shouted, giving him my most genuine warm and friendly smile. I held out my hand, which he ignored. ‘We’re looking for a colleague, a British woman. Have you seen her?’
Levan started talking to him in Georgian. I looked behind them to the interior of the containers. One had a white plastic table and chairs placed just inside its doors. Another was being used to store what looked like cartons of food and bottled water. Inside the third container a small portable generator was running. It looked like a makeshift workshop.
‘He says this is private property and we should leave,’ Levan translated. ‘He says he hasn’t seen any woman.’
‘Okay,’ I said, ‘he won’t mind if we just have a quick look around then will he.’
I moved towards the container with the table and chairs. The man stepped across my path.
I raised my arms in a gesture of reassurance and smiled. ‘It’s okay, Ivan. I just want to have a quick look.’
‘Nyet!’ he said and pushed me b
ackwards. I stumbled but regained my balance before I fell.
He spoke to Levan.
‘He’s telling us to get out, Angus.’ Levan sounded anxious.
‘We need to look, Levan. What’s he so worried about? Tell him we’re not interested in the cargo, just the girl.’
Again Levan translated but it did nothing to placate the man.
I stepped towards him. He raised his rifle. From the way he held it I was reasonably sure he was going to strike me with the butt. With my arms open in what I hoped looked like a conciliatory gesture I lifted my right foot and brought it diagonally across and down onto his left ankle, heavily, pulling his rifle away from him as I did so.
The human foot and ankle together form a complex mechanism consisting of some twenty-six bones, thirty-three joints and over a hundred muscles, tendons and ligaments. The sound of this lot crushing beneath my boot came before the scream. Ivan went down grabbing at his ankle, the scream turning to a bellow of fury.
It had happened in seconds. Keeping hold of the gun I turned to Levan and Gia. They were staring aghast, frozen to the spot.
‘Keep an eye on him while I look around, okay?’ My voice trembled as I spoke. I was shaken but I was committed now and I didn’t want us hanging around there longer than necessary.
I was about to step into the first container when I heard a shout. It came from the furthermost container. I ran over to it and into the back of the forty-foot steel box. They’d got her locked in a makeshift cage. A mesh of steel reinforcing bars had been cut to size and welded across the width and height of the container. A section a metre high and less than half a metre across had been cut out then repositioned and held in place with four heavy padlocks – two on either side.
‘Hang on,’ I said and returned to where Levan and Gia were standing over Ivan. I guessed the keys to the padlocks would be in his pocket and reached down to get them. We exchanged looks. His face was contorted with pain. He didn’t look happy. I took the keys and went back to let the girl out.
‘You’re Claire, I take it,’ I said superfluously as I unlocked two of the padlocks and pulled the mesh open. There was an old mattress, a table and chair and some bottles of water inside the cage. On the table was the remains of what looked like the khashi soup Levan had been telling me I should try. It didn’t look at all appetising.
‘Yes, and you are?’ Any thought that she’d fall gratefully into my arms was quickly dispelled. Claire Scott defied assumptions.
‘Grant Douglas asked me to find you. We now need to get out of here before Ivan there or his pals decide otherwise.’
She hesitated so I grabbed her arm and marched her towards the car.
‘Levan, we’re leaving now.’
‘Wait!’ the girl shouted. She pulled away and ran back to the container.
‘Get the car turned round, Levan,’ I said and went back after her. She had found her handbag into which she was stuffing papers lying on a table near the container’s doors. ‘I’m not leaving without these,’ she said defiantly.
She was a little dishevelled-looking but considering she’d been held captive for a couple of days at least I guessed, she didn’t seem too much the worse for wear.
I went searching for something to constrain Ivan with and found a coil of rope in the container which was being used as a workshop. We trussed him up as best we could. He wasn’t putting up much resistance.
Then I grabbed hold of young Gia by his jacket, shook him hard and pushed him to the ground. ‘As for you, you little shit, don’t think we don’t know you’re in on this.’ Levan caught on and reiterated the message in his native tongue. I hauled Gia up and propelled him towards the car, the little charade being for Ivan’s benefit. He was lying on the ground gaping at us. I didn’t want him thinking Gia was our accomplice, for Gia’s sake.
Levan drove like the wind - that is to say in his normal manner. We dropped Gia off near his office in the port. He was agitated. He told Levan he was going into hiding. I passed him the gun I’d taken off Ivan for which he seemed grateful. Then we picked up the road back to Tbilisi.
‘Levan,’ I said. ‘Call your office and tell them to book us seats back to Istanbul on tonight’s flight will you?’
‘Sure. We’ll head straight for the airport,’ he said punching in a number on his phone.
Claire Scott was looking at me. We were both in the back of the car. ‘Well aren’t you just the all-action hero then. Do you make a habit of crippling people when you first meet them?’
‘Look,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry if I disturbed your cosy little moment with Ivan back there but it didn’t look like he was about to start serving you afternoon tea. Or am I missing something?’
‘I’m sorry,’ she said without much conviction. ‘I do appreciate you coming to the rescue, really.’ She was examining herself in a small mirror she’d fished out of her handbag. She began wiping her face with a cleansing tissue.
‘My bag’s back in the hotel, bugger it.’
‘You’ll just have to manage I’m afraid. Maybe we can get you something at the airport.’
She was slightly built with dark hair which she’d tied back into a ponytail. Wide cheekbones, eyebrows that swept upwards slightly, clear grey eyes and flawless skin.
‘Were you mistreated?’ I asked. ‘It wasn’t exactly the Ritz they had you in back there.’
‘No I wasn’t. I was getting lecherous looks though. They let me wash. There was a bathroom of sorts. It was disgusting.’
The drive back seemed to take forever although Levan flogged the old Merc to its limit. I just hoped it would last the journey. I didn’t ask Claire what she’d thought she was doing playing at Lara Croft. That could wait.
Levan’s office had got us seats on Turkish Airlines’ evening flight. We had time but I was worried about Levan and said so. He’d spotted a couple of black BMWs behind us as we were approaching the Tbilisi suburbs. They were keeping their distance but if it was our gang then they must have travelled fast to catch up with us.
‘Don’t worry Angus,’ he replied cheerfully. ‘They’re cheap crooks. Their interest is in getting that ethanol up to North Ossetia, turning it into bootleg vodka and selling it into Russia on the black market. They’re not interested in me or you.’
‘I wish I shared your optimism,’ I said.
We reached the airport and Levan pulled in to drop us off. Almost immediately the two BMWs were there, one in front, one behind us. Four men came towards our car, two from the front and two from the rear. They were all wearing black leather coats and dark glasses like it was their uniform. Behind them was another man wearing a long, expensive-looking grey coat with a black fur collar, and no shades. One of the thugs yanked open Levan’s door and gestured for him to get out. Grey Coat, flanked by two of his goons, stood with his arms folded. He spoke to Levan for a few moments, everything nice and calm. Levan came back to my side of the car. I wound down the window, about an inch.
‘It’s okay, Angus. He wants to talk to you, that’s all.’
‘Really, well that’s reassuring.’
‘Stay put,’ said Claire. I got out and walked with Levan to where Grey Coat was standing, arms still folded. We looked each other up and down. He was in his early fifties I guessed, medium height, thin and ascetic-looking. His grey hair was swept back from his forehead and he sported a Lenin-style goatee beard and moustache. It was a sharp, angular face with a hooked nose. And dark, piercing eyes that never left mine for a second.
‘Hi,’ I said.
‘Listen, English.’ He spoke slowly, his voice soft and guttural. ‘You and your woman went a step too far back there, you know? You keep your nose out of my business and I don’t trouble you, okay? You ever come back here, you never leave. Understand?
‘I will let “Ivan” do what he wants with you – and it’ll be very bad if you ever call him that again. He’ll break more than just your foot after what you did to him.’ He was prodding me in the chest now. I took it to be
a threat.
‘Yes, sorry about that, my foot slipped. But listen to me, pal,’ I said. ‘If you’re responsible for the theft of that cargo then sooner or later the forces of law and order will catch up with you. Maybe not me, or this guy,’ I gestured to Levan, ‘but sooner or later they’ll get you. Don’t imagine your Procurator Fiscal doesn’t know about this case. And remember, when you point a finger at someone like that, three fingers are pointing straight back at yourself.’
I walked back to the car and got in. I looked back. Levan was talking to Grey Coat, waving his arms around in an effort to placate him I sensed.
‘For God’s sake, are you crazy?’ Claire exploded. She’d wound the window down and listened to the exchange. ‘They could have shot you there and then.’
‘I didn’t want them thinking they could just intimidate us with impunity like that. Levan has to live and work here, remember?’
‘I just hope you haven’t made matters worse, that’s all.’
‘Well without labouring the point, who the hell got us into this in the first place?’
Levan returned to the car.
‘Well?’ I said.
‘It’s okay I think, but Angus you shouldn’t have done that. The guy’s a big cheese in these parts. He has blat.’ It was an all-purpose Russian word for influence and corruption. ‘And by the way, his name’s not “pal”, it’s Boris Kaliyagin. He’s, how would you say, a lesser oligarch but with many fingers in many pies. Not just the cacha market, other things too. He’s from Svaneti in the north and they say he controls the illegal gold prospecting business there. And he just said he can stop your plane departing if he wishes. He said to tell you this.’
‘Oh? And how would he do that?’
‘He has the franchise on the fuel supply to all planes flying out of this airport. Believe me, he can.’
***
Istanbul. A city I never tired of, until now. We’d gained two hours on the flight back from Tbilisi, but I was weary and that evening Claire Scott and I headed straight for the hotel Levan’s office had booked for us.
