Little Sister (A James Palatine Novel)

by Giles O'Bryen

  ‘Our mother chose you, cunt-face, but we didn’t.’

  Nikolai had helped her. . . And now, here she was, the studious little girl from Kiev, lounging in the elegantly appointed courtyard of a boutique hotel in Marrakech. Would any of this have come her way if it hadn’t been for Nikolai?

  Where was Nikolai?

  A waiter came out of the brick archway leading to the reception area at a fast trot, slippers slapping the stone flags of the courtyard, Zender’s sonorous voice in effortless pursuit: ‘C’est moi qui vais la déboucher, mon gars. Moi! Et soigneusement, hein?’

  Zender propelled himself through the doorway, legs seeming barely to move inside a voluminous dark blue suit of a fine, smooth linen, fastidiously pressed. He saw her immediately and sailed over.

  ‘Natalya, my dear, I am in a state of apprehension. Our friends have a marvellous bottle of burgundy, a nineteen-ninety Richebourg Domaine de la Romanée Conté, a superb wine in a simply priceless vintage.’ He leaned down to kiss her on both cheeks, then whispered: ‘They have no idea what a treasure they have in their cellars. A mere fifteen hundred dirhams, I beg you to believe! I have put it on your bill. One bottle only, and we must drink it immediately, before it is wasted on some passing Philistine. I have insisted that I open it myself, though the boy will probably have forgotten by the time he finds it. Pray God he does not shake it just to spite me.’

  Nat laughed. ‘Sit down and stop fussing. You are looking very distinguished this evening.’

  ‘No amount of toilette could make me fit to appear beside you, Natalya, but I do my best with the satirical hand God has dealt me.’

  She laughed again – though Claude’s gallantry had no more substance than a soap bubble, it was nice to listen to.

  ‘One could imagine the fate of nations altered forever by the fluent loveliness of your laughter,’ Claude said. ‘Charming.’

  ‘My god, Claude, you’re like a flattergram. Don’t you ever stop?’

  ‘In your company, non.’

  Claude Zender now took to staring at the cigar-smoking reader of Le Monde, though the latter did not appear to have noticed. ‘That man is one of al Hamra’s snoops. They pursue me round Marrakech like a gaggle of courtiers who are too lily-livered even to let their faces be seen.’

  Mehmet al Hamra was director of the Marrakech bureau of the Direction Genérale de la Surveillance du Territoire or DGST, the Moroccan intelligence service. She had met him when drinking with Zender at La Mamounia, and been witness to a brief but extraordinarily arch conversation between the two men. Zender’s demeanour was so intensely belligerent it seemed he might challenge the cigar-smoking snoop to a duel; but then the waiter arrived, bearing a tray with the wine, two huge glasses and a basket of bread. Nervousness was making him unsteady, and when he set the glasses on the table without first removing the bottle to a place of safety, the tray wobbled and Claude sucked in his breath.

  ‘Livrez-moi la bouteille instamment!’ he hissed. ‘Natalya, the bread is so you can clear the gin from your palate. A repellent drink, I must say.’

  Finally, he had the bottle in his hands. ‘Ah, yes,’ he growled, examining the label. ‘A little chill from the cellar, but it can’t be helped.’ He reached for the corkscrew and with a few deft movements extracted the cork.

  ‘Shall I pour it for you, monsieur?’ asked the waiter.

  ‘Certainly not, go away. And take Mam’selle’s gin glass with you. And those.’ He gestured impatiently at the nuts and olives.

  When the waiter had gone, Zender slipped a little of the wine into his glass and held it up to the light. ‘It is beautiful, crimson suffused with amber, like stained glass at dusk. See how even the merest film where it coats the glass bears its own colour and density.’

  He brought the wine to his nose and inhaled powerfully, then emptied it into his mouth, drawing in air as he did so, and sat motionless in his chair, eyes glazed with a look that could, Nat thought as she chewed diligently on a crust of bread, readily be mistaken for idiocy.

  ‘Aaahh,’ he sighed. ‘Ah, yes. Nothing need be said. Nothing can be said. It is beyond the powers of language.’

  ‘Hallelujah for that,’ said Nat. ‘Have you found out anything about Nikolai?’

  ‘Nikolai?’

  ‘Yes, Nikolai, my brother. I asked you about him earlier.’

  ‘Of course. It had slipped my mind in this little moment of vinous ecstasy. Your brother. . . ’ He took a mouthful of wine, leaned back in his chair, closed his eyes and said no more.

  ‘Christ, Claude, you are annoying sometimes.’

  She waited restlessly for the interlude of vinous ecstasy to conclude.

  ‘I fear your brother has been arrested,’ Claude said finally.

  ‘Arrested. What for?’

  ‘You heard there was trouble at the casino – it seems your brother assaulted someone and provoked an unpleasant scene. A broken nose, blood spilled, the casino emptied – very bad for business. I understand a girl was involved.’

  ‘Nikolai broke someone’s nose? Did you see any of this?’

  ‘No, indeed. I am seldom at the casino these days – they have turned it into a glorified amusement arcade.’

  ‘So now Nikolai is at the police station?’

  ‘Thankfully, no. The incident was handled by casino security. I believe they will release him as soon as he has recovered from his injuries.’

  ‘What injuries, is he all right?’

  ‘Really, I do not know. It does not sound as if he went quietly.’

  ‘I don’t believe it. Nikolai isn’t so stupid. And since when can you be arrested by a casino?’

  ‘They deal with such matters the whole time, I assure you. The owners have made arrangements with the authorities that allow them to carry on their trade without adverse publicity. Equally, the police are pleased to be relieved of the burden of paperwork associated with arresting foreigners after every minor fracas. The more so because they are paid for it.’

  ‘So where is he now?’

  ‘That I do not know.’

  ‘I must go to the casino immediately.’ She stood up, glaring at Claude.

  ‘I can tell you for nothing what they will say: a foreigner of the most undesirable sort accidentally gained entry to the gaming floor, got drunk, started a fight and was ejected. Please, there is no reason to be angry with me, Natalya, I simply report what I have heard. Sit down and let us talk. There is wine to drink and business to attend to.’

  ‘Fuck business,’ said Natalya. But she sat down.

  ‘If you make difficulties, the casino will feel obliged to hand him over to the police, and then? Charges will be brought and he will end up in jail. Better to let matters take their course. The casino has no interest in anything other than a rapid and discreet conclusion.’

  Nat fell silent while she digested this news. Nikolai seldom drank to excess and when he did, stupefaction not belligerence was the outcome. Nor did he get into fights: he started them, won them, tidied up. However, her brother did not like to see women ill treated. If Claude was right and a girl had been involved, perhaps he had let chivalry cloud his judgement.

  ‘Have you been in touch with the IPD400’s new owner?’ she asked eventually.

  ‘Yes I have, and there is the remote possibility of a deal – but it will take lengthy and elaborate preparation, or else we will scare him off.’

  ‘What did you tell him?’

  ‘Just as you suggested, that the IPD400 does not work.’

  ‘And he bought it?’

  ‘Must you taunt me with these trite Americanisms? He bought it implies that he believed a lie. Do I conclude that the IPD400 does work after all, and that you have manoeuvred me into deceiving a favoured client? I told you last week that I decline to engage in such duplicities. I am not entirely without scruple.’

  ‘You have scruples? Let me know if I can help,’ Nat replied. The arrival of Claude’s high horse, snorting with self-righteousness, was a tactic wi
th which she was perfectly familiar.

  ‘You are always ready with a jibe, however unjust.’

  ‘It’s horrible to have this row hanging over us, don’t you think,’ Nat said, deciding it was time to remind him of the inquisition she had pretended was taking place in London. ‘All those Whitehall nit-pickers snuffling over our export licences. Didn’t you say the UK was one of the last civilised countries you could enter without being taken from the airport in handcuffs? You may have to cross it off your list.’

  ‘The offending documents will be conveniently misfiled, I predict.’

  ‘They keep asking me whether I can verify your end-users. Which I can’t of course, though I do try.’

  ‘My gratitude is boundless.’

  ‘If you won’t put me in touch with your client, why don’t we just agree what I have to pay to get the IPD400 back? Go on, name your price.’

  ‘I never name my price, it seems to upset people,’ said Claude. ‘But I do agree that it would be a relief to get this contraption off our hands. Already I wish I had never heard of it. Eighteen million sterling might sway my client, though it is far short of what I would expect, given the extraordinary nature of your proposal and the damage to my reputation that will surely ensue. But, as ever, I bow low before your superior negotiating skills—’

  Nat interrupted: ‘Twenty-five million US I might be able to do.’

  ‘Which at today’s exchange rate is the merest trifle more than I paid for it. I am curious that you think in dollars, now,’ Claude observed. ‘I suppose your buyer is an American?’

  ‘Suppose all you like, I’m not going to tell you.’

  He looked directly into her eyes and held his gaze.

  ‘Claude, you look like a huge fat lizard. Stop or I’ll scream and throw my wine at you.’

  He stared for a few seconds longer, then threw back his head and laughed – rather unconvincingly, Nat thought. Had she actually wounded his vanity?

  ‘Oh thou weed, that art so lovely fair and smell so sweet and so on and so forth. How in the name of all that is holy can you say twenty-six million dollars yet remain irresistible to me?’

  ‘Do stop putting numbers into my mouth, Claude. Twenty-five gives you more than enough to play with.’

  ‘A humiliating experience, to have an Ukrainian émigrée of almost offensive youthfulness talk one down by the best part of nine million dollars, but at least I can plead distraction in the presence of a beauty so disarming it could bring peace to the Middle East. Let us leave this difference between us and I’ll bring you news when I can. And now, I am exhausted. The only thing that could possibly restore me would be dinner with you at Adela’s. Let us go at once.’

  ‘Not tonight, Claude, the jet lag’s kicking in.’

  ‘Jet lag, from a three-hour flight?’

  ‘It was hours late and then horribly rough,’ she said quickly, realising she’d told Claude she’d been in London, not LA. ‘I feel like I’ve been round the world. Anyway, I must go to bed.’

  ‘That enchanted place.’

  ‘Stop it.’

  ‘Tomorrow, then – though one of my neediest clients is in town so it will have to be late.’

  ‘Tomorrow is perfect.’

  She bent down to kiss him, then walked quickly from the courtyard, feeling his eyes upon her.

  Mehmet al Hamra of the DGST entered his office in the Gueliz district of Marrakech, lowered the blinds, then sat down and stared across the darkened room. The air conditioning unit in the window next to his desk caused the slats to tremble and lift, spilling a pattern of pale streetlight over the worn leather inlay. He pulled open a notebook and opened it at a page headed Mansour.

  This man was a puzzle to al Hamra. He seemed to have joined Zender’s entourage about two years ago, as sidekick to the verminous Etienne. While the fat arms dealer flaunted his amiable self in the hotels and restaurants of Marrakech, these two prowled the backstreets, committing acts of appalling cruelty and striking fear into the hearts of all who encountered them. Their hold on the Marrakech underworld was such that identifying them had proved impossible. None of the many people he had bribed, threatened or blackmailed would say a word about them, let alone pick out their faces from a folder of photographs. They did not even have surnames.

  Just recently, however, some subtle intelligence work on his part had revealed that Mansour was, as well as an employee of Zender’s, the flag-bearer for a fledgling terrorist outfit called al Bidayat. His full name was Mansour Anzarane. Al Bidayat – the Terror Consultancy as it was known, because of its policy of funding atrocities, rather than committing them – was generating much hysteria in intelligence circles. Al Hamra thought the attention exaggerated: no one could demonstrate that they had done anything other than host a bloodthirsty website. Still, the discovery was astonishing. He’d had Mansour down as a sadist and murderer, not a zealot. And why would Zender, who was cautious to a fault, associate with a self-proclaimed terrorist? Whatever the reason, it was a chink in his armour – a mistake that might enable al Hamra to engineer his downfall.

  The difficulty was how to lever the chink open wide enough to deal Zender a fatal blow. The arms dealer had contrived to make himself impregnable by providing the British SIS with intelligence on Polisario arms procurement – a subject on which Zender was particularly well informed because he managed the entire process himself. The intelligence duly found its way to al Hamra’s esteemed colleagues in the Moroccan military – who in turn congratulated themselves on having a line in to the enemy camp. The information followed this circuitous route because Zender knew very well that if his Polisario clients discovered the betrayal they would not hesitate to cut his throat.

  MI6 were rather sanctimonious about protecting their sources and al Hamra had no hard evidence to prove his suppositions correct. Nevertheless, he was satisfied that he had worked it out: why else would emissaries from both MI6 and Moroccan Army Intelligence drop such insistent hints that Zender was best left well alone? The arrangement probably owed its stubborn longevity as much to the thrill his military colleagues derived from dealing with the great majesty of the British SIS as to any intrinsic merit in the information supplied; nor, in al Hamra’s view, could any amount of intelligence compensate for the fact that Zender was a thoroughly odious and dishonourable man, a professional humiliation to him personally, and a very stubborn and painful thorn in the side of the Moroccan state.

  Mehmet al Hamra pushed the notebook aside and looked gloomily at the sofa opposite him, which served as a bed when affairs kept him late at the office – as they would tonight. He still had to complete his review of the operation to hunt down the Agadir Bomber. Eighteen months previously, someone had blown up a hotel in the seaside resort town, killing sixty-seven tourists. The police operation to catch the perpetrator had been an embarrassing failure.

  He pulled the report from the drawer of his desk. As he did so an idea came to him. Since the real Agadir Bomber had eluded them, why not nominate someone else for the crime – someone who ought to be locked up anyway? And when considering possible candidates, why not concentrate on persons whose locking up might also discredit some of one’s other enemies?

  Mansour Anzarane fitted the bill on both counts.

  Al Hamra stood from his desk and paced the office as his idea took shape. Anzarane worked for Zender and Zender worked for the Polisario. If Anzarane was named chief suspect in the Agadir Bombing, then life would become very uncomfortable for Zender: the gentlemen of MI6 could hardly continue to have even a clandestine relationship with a man who had a terrorist suspect on his payroll. As soon as this shameful fact was made known to them, Zender’s untouchable status would be withdrawn. As for the Polisario, the association with Anzarane would be a political catastrophe. The UN would never allow their claim to the Western Sahara if the Polisario could plausibly be depicted as terrorist sympathisers. Their cause would be tainted forever.

  The first step was to persuade those in charge o
f the hunt for the Agadir Bomber to name Mansour Anzarane as their prime suspect – and surely they’d be relieved to see their fiasco turned to advantage. Next, he would organise a raid on the Polisario compound in the Free Zone – under the pretext of pursuing a wanted terrorist. Once there, he could ensure (by planting it himself, which was wrong, of course, but the end would surely justify the means) that there was plenty of evidence to show Mansour had planned the Agadir Bombing with the protection and even support of his Polisario hosts. Both the internal politicking and the laying of a false trail would take some skill, but it was not for nothing that he was nicknamed the Gnome of Rabat.

  A thoroughly poisonous dart that had a sporting chance of taking out at least one and possibly both of its intended targets, al Hamra concluded. He would start by allowing his counterparts in MI6 to discover that Zender’s affairs were about to become disorderly – this in itself might be enough to make them sever their links with the fat arms broker. Nigel de la Mere of their North-West Africa Office was in town and would likely demand a meeting; but de la Mere was a graceless oaf and al Hamra would tell him nothing. Preferable in all ways to let the lovely Natalya Kocharian carry the message for him: her employer, Grosvenor Systems, was known to have close connections with MI6.

  Al Hamra patted his stomach with satisfaction, then telephoned the man he had ordered to tail her and told him to call back immediately if the opportunity for a chance encounter with Ms Kocharian should arise.

  Nat went up to her room to check her emails and change, then an hour later left the Riad by a side entrance and took a taxi to the Casino des Capricornes. As she arrived, a troupe of middle-aged women were disgorging themselves from the Holiday Inn shuttle bus – all zipped up in pastel chiffon cocktail dresses that bulged like paper bags full of wet plums. A hen night, thought Nat. They might just as well be wearing T-shirts saying I’m going to drink too much and lose $100.