Illicit Trade

by Michael Niemann

  “Renko, this is Earle Jackson,” Wycliff said as if he were the host at a party.

  Renko stuck out his hand. “Pleased to meet you. I’m Renko. Earle Jackson, huh? Not a Kenyan name. Where are you from?”

  Jackson swallowed. A crucial moment.

  “Here and there,” he said. He could feel the hustler in him asserting himself. “Been moving around a lot.”

  “But you’re from America. You got that accent.”

  “Originally, yes. Been seeing the world. Pleased to meet you, too, Renko. You aren’t Kenyan either.”

  “No, I come from a place that doesn’t exist anymore.”

  Jackson nodded.

  “Wycliff here thinks you’d be a good candidate for the study.”

  Jackson’s mind went blank. “Uh … what?”

  “The study. A large study on a new drug. Revolutionary. We need test subjects.”

  Jackson looked at Wycliff. That man was one great hustler. Introducing him to Renko got Wycliff out of the line of fire. If anything went wrong now, Jackson was Renko’s problem.

  “You look very healthy, but we’ll have to test you,” Renko said. “You know, safety precaution. If it all checks out, you stand to make a pretty penny. And get a trip to America. Unless you have a problem waiting for you there.”

  “No problem,” Jackson said. “No problem at all.”

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  The HIV testing station was operated by some Scandinavian non-governmental outfit for UNAIDS, although there were enough logos on the tent to rival a race car. A blond man seemed to be in charge. The rest of the staff was African, mostly women.

  The scrubs had to be for show. As if they needed sterilized outfits in Kibera. All kinds of germs were floating in the air that wafted through the tent. Not that it mattered. They were only drawing blood. They could’ve done that in jeans and T-shirts. Maybe they thought the white outfits looked more impressive, part of persuading suspicious poor people to trust some foreign medical scheme, the benefits of which seemed as uncertain as winning the lottery. As Wycliff had said, if you tested positive, you had a death sentence, except that it was dragged out for a long time.

  Wycliff had faded into the background. He hadn’t run away, but hovered near the edge of the line, ready to take off if necessary. Renko wasn’t paying attention to him anymore. He was talking to one of the nurses. Then he went inside the tent to speak with the blond man.

  Drug testing. That didn’t sound right to Jackson. They wouldn’t fly people to the U.S. to test drugs on them. Or pay them a lot of money. The brothers who did that in Newark sure didn’t get much for it. That’s why he’d never participated. Maybe it was different for a revolutionary new drug. Or maybe they finally realized that they had to test drugs on a whole lot more people than the poor who needed the money. Whatever. He wasn’t going to do it anyway. Once he was off the plane, he’d disappear for good. And if Renko paid for his ticket, he’d have plenty of cash left to do it right.

  The crew had their method down pat. First intake, then instructions on what was going to happen, then the blood-letting and then another set of information about how to get the results. The intake nurse looked up and did a double take. Jackson’s clothes were too good for someone standing in this line.

  “Name?”

  Jackson stated his name. The nurse looked at him again and frowned. Jackson could tell she was wondering whether this guy was worth interrupting her routine. Apparently not.

  “Where do you live?”

  “Kibera.”

  She regarded him with one raised eyebrow.

  “Where in Kibera?”

  He remembered the rail stop and told her so.

  “Laina Saba?” she said.

  Jackson nodded.

  “Age?”

  “Thirty-one.”

  “Have you ever been tested before?”

  “No.”

  “Any diseases or infections you know of?”

  “No.”

  “You have a mobile number where we can reach you?”

  “No.”

  “Check back with us in two days for the results. Now wait over there and someone will draw your blood.”

  The blond man pulled Jackson out of the line and brought him straight to one of the nurses. Jackson looked at Renko hovering near the door to the van. The man was obviously connected to this outfit, but how? He wasn’t a medical professional, that much was clear.

  The nurse pushed Jackson’s sleeve up, twisted a thick rubber band around his bicep, and told him to make a fist. She probed the crook of his arm until she found a vein, which she rubbed with a cotton ball dabbed in alcohol. Then she peeled a syringe from a plastic bag, snapped a vial into the housing, and stabbed into his vein without any warning. He yelped in surprise. He watched the vial fill with his dark blood. At first there was just a few drops. Then, as he relaxed, it filled faster. He looked over to the man whose blood was drawn by the other nurse. The color of his blood was the same deep maroon.

  The nurse snapped the vial out of the syringe and popped another one in. One of her colleagues had scribbled something on a label, which she stuck to the vial. When the next one was full, the nurse handed the container to the woman with the labels. But she didn’t add another label. Instead she handed it to Renko, who disappeared inside the van.

  “You are all done,” the nurse said and grabbed a new bag with a syringe. She was ready for the next customer.

  Jackson wasn’t sure if he should wait for Renko or find Wycliff. He knocked on the door of the van. Renko opened it. A wave of cold air came from the inside.

  “What?” he said.

  “You want me to wait?”

  “No. Working up the complete blood picture takes a while. Come back tomorrow. We’ll talk then.”

  Jackson didn’t want to leave. If his blood test didn’t work out, if there was no match, Renko had no need for him. But Jackson needed to find a reason to hang around.

  “What will happen next?” he said.

  “We’ll talk about it tomorrow.”

  “I don’t want to wait that long. I need to know what’s gonna happen. Either way.”

  Renko got an annoyed expression and sighed. “Listen,” he said, “if your blood test comes out well, I’m sending you back to the U.S. of A. I’ll give you an address, you go there. They’ll take care of everything. When you are done you get paid.”

  “How much?”

  “Plenty. Probably more money than you’ve seen in a long time.”

  “And what if the test isn’t good?”

  Renko looked at Jackson as if he were dimwitted. “Then you go back to whatever you were doing before Wycliff found you.”

  “No money?”

  “Listen, Jackson. This isn’t charity. We pay for services rendered. If you don’t render any services, you don’t get paid.”

  “But I already rendered a service. You got my blood. You could pay me for that.”

  “Your blood is the price of admission.”

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Vermeulen was back at the clinic, waiting for the other shoe to drop. Gaby was asleep again and Tessa had a meeting about her organized crime story. He was sure her information about the women forced into prostitution by Kurtz was going to figure large. There was nothing else to do or investigate. The mills of Austrian justice were grinding away and he had too much time to think and worry.

  He had no regrets. Gaby was safe again. That was all that mattered. Still, he wondered how Suarez would react to Oserov’s complaint. Not that he was worried. Any halfway competent investigation would exonerate Vermeulen. He had no doubt about that. Of course, that presumed there would be an investigation.

  Everything at the UN was political. More often than not, facts became an obstacle to the need to assuage the concerns of the hierarchy. The Under-Secretary-General or even the Secretary-General might laud him for cleaning up this mess, but the important decisions were made at far lower levels. There, the petty g
rievances and conflicting personalities often played a more important role than the facts. By the time three o’clock rolled around, Vermeulen’s thoughts had retreated into a mean corner of his mind. He waited for the inevitable call and the bad news from Suarez in New York City.

  He was on his second cup of coffee. Unlike the public hospital, the clinic offered excellent coffee to its guests, served in porcelain cups rather than cardboard beakers. He had half a mind to turn off his phone until he finished his cup.

  His phone rang at four.

  Suarez seemed calm. “Just explain to me what happened,” he said.

  “The principal of the ring behind the fake invitation letters in New Jersey contacted her counterparts in Vienna. They found the hospital where my daughter was being treated and left a threatening note on her bed. That’s when I got involved.”

  He explained how he met with Dufaux, interviewed Frau Waldmüller who obtained the signatures, and followed her as she handed them to one of the crooks.

  “I needed to find out who was threatening my daughter,” he said.

  “I understand. Continue.”

  Vermeulen told him about the confrontation with Kurtz on the Ferris wheel, finding his address, and following him to the apartment building where the armed confrontation happened. Suarez let him lay out the story without interruptions, which surprised Vermeulen, who knew the choleric temper of the man. He proceeded gingerly to the details of the gunshots fired, stressing the threat to the lives of innocent people.

  That’s where Suarez abandoned his quiet listening.

  “You attacked a man—”

  “Who was threatening me!”

  “Took his gun and then shot a ranking UN employee.”

  It wasn’t a question, it was a statement of fact. Vermeulen cringed at that description. Yes, it was true, but the context was missing.

  “Yes, but—”

  “You are aware that you have absolutely no authorization to do that?”

  “It was self-defense. My life and an innocent victim’s were saved.”

  “It’s not your job to save lives. How often have I told you that you are an investigator, not a cowboy? It’s that attitude that gets you into such situations in the first place. It was a mistake to bring you back to New York headquarters. Maybe you can get away with those stunts out in the boondocks, but you have no temperament for working at the center of an international organization.”

  Vermeulen had any number of choice answers to that accusation, but he held his tongue. This wasn’t the moment to pick a fight. He was in a hole. Better to stop digging.

  “How is your daughter?” Suarez said.

  “She’s getting better. The coma seems to be ending. Today, she spoke with me for the first time since my arrival.”

  “Good. I’m glad to hear that. I assume you’ll be coming back to New York soon, then? I’m placing you on unpaid leave pending the outcome of an investigation that has already begun. That suspension starts now. It’s in your best interests that the investigation comes to a quick conclusion. That means you should be out in front, telling the committee all it needs to know. So call me as soon as you are back.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He ended the call and sank into the chair. He wanted to rant and swear, but his bones had melted. What energy he’d had dissipated in the stale air of the room. Or so it seemed because Gaby’s voice caught him by surprise.

  “Hi, Dad.”

  He turned to her.

  “You look sad,” she said. “Is everything all right?”

  “It is, sweetheart. It is.”

  “Don’t lie to me, Dad. I know when you’re down. D’you want to tell me?”

  “Maybe someday, but not now. You need rest, not trouble.”

  “Then come here. You can lie on the bed next to me. Maybe you need a little rest, too.”

  There was no reason to argue. He went to the side of the bed that didn’t have all the medical apparatuses and crawled atop the bedding. She stretched out her arm. He rested his head on it. As she pulled him a little closer, he smelled a faint remnant of shampoo in her hair. The orderlies must have given her a bath and washed her hair.

  “Good idea, Gaby.”

  She murmured something and stroked his hair. Vermeulen didn’t notice. His exhaustion had already pulled him into a deep sleep.

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Another morning at the guesthouse. The same tea and white bread with Vegemite, that strange paste. Jackson had finally asked about it. Apparently, the British brought it to Kenya and his host thought that all foreigners liked it. He would have killed for a fried egg and some bacon. Overall, though, he couldn’t complain. The supper of nyama choma and moonshine had been better than the night before, and he’d gotten braver about eating street food during the day.

  Jackson was itching to get back home. He was still marveling at how well Wycliff had played his cards. He’d stayed out of trouble and Jackson was on his way home. If the test turned out good, he’d be okay. As long as Renko thought he was a wandering American ready to earn some cash, he was safe. If not? He didn’t want to consider that alternative. Having met Renko, he understood why Wycliff was afraid of him. The man had a ruthless streak. Dealing with him was going to be tough.

  That left Abasi’s wife. He felt a pang of conscience remembering how he’d told her and the neighbors that he was going to press Renko for some compensation. That wasn’t going to happen. It came down to him getting home or being stuck in Kenya. It was a no-brainer. He was going home one way or another. And for that, he needed to know the results of the test.

  Wycliff was waiting for him outside the guesthouse. Which was odd. There was no reason for him to be there. Jackson knew how to get to the clinic where he was to meet Renko.

  “What are you doing here?” he said.

  “I bring you to Renko.”

  “I know how to get there.”

  “He’s not at the clinic. You go to his house.”

  That was seriously off. Renko had definitely told him to come to the clinic.

  “Why?”

  “He calls me and tells me to bring you. Is all I know.”

  That could be true, but Jackson didn’t trust Wycliff.

  “Hold on a minute. Just realized I forgot something inside,” he said and went back into the guesthouse.

  It took a while to find his host out back, washing sheets.

  “Someone is waiting for me out front and I need to get away without him seeing me.”

  She looked at him with curious eyes. “You in trouble?”

  “Not yet. But the man outside is trouble, I think.”

  She shook her head as if to say, Men, what are you going to do about them?

  “Come,” she said and went to a corner of the fence that surrounded the postage-stamp yard. She twisted two pieces of wood and lifted a sheet of corrugated tin like a flap.

  “Turn left and go straight until you reach a corner, then go left again and you’ll get to the railroad tracks.”

  “Thanks a lot. I really appreciate it.”

  “You won’t get back in that way. So you better lose the man out front.”

  Jackson made his way along the tracks back to the general area where the tent and the truck had been the day before. Wycliff had spooked him, and he wanted to be extra cautious, whatever that meant in this strange place. Back in Newark, he knew how to disappear, blend in so that no passerby would notice him. Here, that was impossible. Although his clothing was looking worse for wear and the sporadic access to water made him smell like everyone else, the kids still stopped and eyed him. He knew that kids saw things adults didn’t, but that wasn’t a notion he’d base his life on.

  The tent was already in operation. The van with the air conditioner on top stood backed against the rear. A small line of people waited to be tested, about the same as the day before. The nurses worked with the same efficiency; the doctor drifted between the testing stations and the van. The only thing different was the
absence of Renko.

  For a moment, Jackson thought he’d been too paranoid about the whole thing. Maybe something really had come up that kept Renko from coming to Kibera. That thought sent him down a different route. What could have come up to keep Renko from checking on the test results? It had to be something important. Something more than an upset stomach or a hangover or not feeling like it. If Renko’s job was to recruit participants for a drug study, he should be at the testing station. But he wasn’t.

  Not that his absence was an obstacle. Jackson could ask the doctor or the nurses what his role at the station was. That might give him some insight into how the scam operated at this level. Since the doctor was probably part of the scam—who knew there were so many crooked doctors?—he had to be careful. Anticipation.

  He approached the tent from the opposite direction, weaving carefully in and out of the stream of people, stopping here and there to check on the situation. But nothing indicated anyone lying in wait for him. He noted no telling glances from the nurses, no pretend carefree banter meant to hide the nervousness, only observed a group of healthcare professionals doing their job.

  The nurse who took his information the day before recognized him and smiled.

  “Hullo, Mr. Jackson. Back to check on your results?”

  “Yes, I am, ma’am. You have them?”

  “They should be in the database. Check with Doctor Agnor.”

  “Where’s Renko? I expected to see him here.”

  “I haven’t seen him today. He was still here when I left last night. Maybe he overslept.”

  He stepped under the tent and caught the doctor.

  “Dr. Agnor?”

  “Yes?”

  “I’m here to check on my test results.”