Istanbul. I tried to envision where it was at. Portugal was by the straits on one end of the Mediterranean, Istanbul, Turkey, I think was on the other end, the east side. Yeah, I hadn’t hung around my geography class much, either.
Her hand went back to my thigh and squeezed. “I’m sorry, Win, but it’s necessary. If any of us cause this deal to fold, I’m afraid the Bey and Colonel Jomba both would seek revenge.”
She didn’t add João into the equation, but he’d probably be at the head of the pack, snarling at my heels as I ran from the hounds of hell.
She leaned against me and kissed me. Her lips were warm and lush.
“What can I do to make all this up to you?” she asked.
I started laughing. I kept laughing as she got out of the taxi and slammed the door. She started to walk away and turned back, speaking to me through the open window.
“João will wire your instructions on Istanbul to the mine.” She hesitated. “Don’t hate me.”
Bitch.
48
Simone’s phone was ringing as she entered her room.
“Está.”
“It’s me,” João said. “Did you tell our friend where he has to go?”
João was speaking in code because he was certain a room phone in an Angolan hotel was not secure.
“Thanks for asking how I am.”
João chuckled. “How are you, my love? Did I tell you that I miss you? That I count the hours?”
“You’re a terrible old fraud. How is Jonny doing?”
“Probably ‘doing’ every boy in Lisbon. She has the morals of an alley cat. Like her mother.”
“Don’t bother taking any blame for how your daughter turned out. And yes, our friend was told.”
“How did he take it?”
“How would you take it?”
“I wouldn’t.”
She thought for a moment. “I’m not sure he will, either.”
“Will he show up for the meeting?”
“I’m sure he will. At this point, he has no options. The question is, what control will you have once he has an option?”
“That’s simple, my love. We make sure he never has any.” João’s voice took on a chilling edge. “I think there will be a time in the near future when all this hassle about modern life gets our friend Win to the point where living’s not worth it.”
Neither spoke for a moment, then João asked, “Have you spoken to our friend, the colonel?”
“We met—briefly.”
“And?”
“He insists we meet the new timetable.”
“And we will, we will, if that’s what we have to do to get my baby back.”
There was no pretense that João cared more for the fire diamond than Jonny or Simone.
He went on. “I heard an interesting thing about tattoos and the colonel. Besides the bizarre ones that are visible, a member of the Angolan embassy staff told me the colonel is reputed to have had his penis tattooed so it appears to be a lion with a mane when the foreskin is pulled back.” He paused. “Have you tasted any lion meat while you were in Luanda?”
“Is that what you want me to do?”
“My love, you know I never tell you what to do. By the way, be careful. Our man is asking for a bigger cut.”
There was a knock on her room door.
“Someone’s at the door. I’ll call you in the morning before I go to the airport.”
She opened the door. A maid handed her an envelope. It contained a room key.
She undressed and took a bath, then showered afterward and applied bath oil to her damp body. Sitting naked in front of the mirror, she finished putting on her makeup. She lubricated her vagina with a sperm killer, then put on lacy white panties and bra. The color contrasted well with her copper-tone complexion.
Before she put on her dress, she posed in front of a full-length mirror. And let out a sigh. Men would describe her as sexy and sensuous, but like most women, Simone was her own worst critic.
She chose a red, strapless cotton dress, nice enough for evening, but not as provocative as she would have worn for a cocktail party.
When her preparations were done, she left the room and took the elevator up two floors. Rather than use the room key she had been provided, she knocked on the door.
Cross opened the door. Without smiling, he stepped aside and let her enter.
“Is Win going to wonder where you’re at?” she asked.
He shook his head. “I left a message that I went upriver to look at a claim. I do it all the time.”
She took a seat on the couch.
“What’s your pleasure?” He gestured at a tray full of liquor bottles.
“Nada. Tell me what Win said about Eduardo.”
“The same thing I told João on the phone. Win called me from Cape Town, said Eduardo came to him with a gun and a paper to sign.”
“Signing over the mine.”
“That’s the size of it. Eduardo’s in jail. Considering he’s a foreigner, he’ll probably stay in jail for a while since he’d be a flight risk if bailed out.”
“Is that all he told you?”
Cross sat on the arm of the couch and grinned down at her as he swished the ice and whiskey in his glass. “What’s the matter? Afraid Eduardo will tell Win that you and your hubby were in on the deal to steal his mine?”
Simone smiled up at him. Her lips were friendly, but her eyes were cold and calculating. “Don’t let your imagination run away with you, Cross. João and I can’t get involved in ownership of a mine in Angola, not while Savimbi’s still alive.”
“You could if you used a dummy South African corporation as a cover.”
“As I said, don’t let your imagination run away with you.”
“It already has.” He leaned down and kissed her on the mouth. He ran his lips down her neck and breathed in the floral essence between her breasts.
“Hmmm. You smell like a woman should.”
She returned his kiss, this time with eagerness. He slipped off the arm of the couch and onto the cushions. His pulled her dress up, then bent down and kissed her white panties.
“You want some Portuguese pussy?”
His face came back up. “What do you think? I already have a hard-on. Before I eat your pussy, there’s something we need to discuss . . . while I still have control over my senses.”
He sat back on the arm of the couch.
“João said you wanted a bigger cut.”
“No, that’s not the right way to put it. ‘Wanted’ sounds like I’m asking. I’m not asking, babe. This deal is getting hairier. When I got into it, I didn’t know Jomba would be bucking Savimbi. That’s kind of like a slow way to kill yourself—like using a machete to hack off your own toes and working your way up.”
“Savimbi’s human, he doesn’t live up to his reputation.”
Cross howled. “Honey, you obviously haven’t spent enough time in Angola. Savimbi is insane and he’s got an army, half of whom are crazy from drugs and the other half are just plain crazy. What do you think the chances are of Jomba beating him?”
“That’s none of our business. We deliver weapons, get the diamonds, and leave the dogs to scrap over their bones.”
“You leave, you mean. No one’s going to notice that you don’t belong here. But if Savimbi smells a rat, he’ll immediately start looking for the ones running. And I’ll be the one taken off the street and dropped at his doorstep if I try to run.”
“What’s this all leading up to? How much?”
“Our deal was a quarter million for helping you pull off the deal with Jomba,” he said.
“And making sure our friend Senhor Liberte doesn’t back out of the deal or try a double-cross.”
“And spying on Win for you. I want a half million.”
“All right. I’ll let João know that it’s now a half million.”
She stood up and took the glass from his hand and put it aside. He spread his legs as he sat on the couch arm a
nd she moved between them.
“Are we through with business?” she asked.
“What if I’d asked for a million?”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m just wondering why you agreed so quickly, no argument, nada.”
“There’s plenty to go around. What is it you Americans say? Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth?”
“Yeah, well, it kind of makes me wonder when someone is too easy. There’re promises and there’re promises, and they don’t always get taken care of. Makes me wonder whether you and that husband of yours really intend to pay me off. I could just get stuck here in Angola after everything goes to hell. But you will be in Lisbon.”
She unbuttoned his shirt, taking his nipple in her mouth. “I want you to fuck me.”
She heard the bedroom door open and turned her head. It was a young person, white skinned with short blond hair, dressed in baggy clothes.
Simone asked, “Who is this?”
“Someone I imported from Amsterdam. You can’t trust the pussy in Luanda.”
Simone frowned at the person. “Is it a boy—or girl?”
Cross laughed. “That’s the fun of it. We’ll find out together.”
49
Istanbul
I hired a high-speed boat that took me out onto the Bosporus, into the Sea of Marmara, and down the Dardanelles to the town of Canakkale on the Asian side of Turkey. I picked up the car I had reserved, first stopping at my hotel before starting for the hour-long trip. I was headed for the ruins. When I arrived I got out of the car and walked to the edge of an ancient wall along a cliff and stared down across the Dardanelles to Europe.
It was here, on the wall in the city of Troy, that Odysseus, Hector, Achilles, and Paris had fought over the fickle and beautiful Helen.
Istanbul was one of the great cities of East and West, a fascinating, mysterious, throbbing city at the crossroads of history. It was a city of political intrigue and conspiracy, of clashing cultures and ambitious empires. But it was to these ruins on the other side of the straits, an unimposing place of gray stones battered by war and time, that I was drawn.
It was a place where men had died in fierce battle, where a woman was determined to follow her own heart even if it meant death, destruction, and the fall of kingdoms. There were few places on earth where men had died so valiantly and so much had been wrought in the name of love.
I thought about Odysseus leaving Troy after the war, doomed by an angry god to embark upon a dangerous journey, in perilous waters. That’s how I felt about my New York-to-Lisbon, Africa-to-Instanbul venture. Damned by the gods. And the one-eyed Cyclops was João. I had inherited his machinations from my father like a genetic defect. And I was pretty sure that Bernie had died from the same disease.
I called Marni before I left for Istanbul. I asked her to come with me. The request was insane. How would I have ever explained that I was meeting the conspirators in a blood diamond deal? She said, “No,” and hung up.
I think I made the call because I knew she would say no. It was my weak-kneed way of pretending that I could back out of the deal. Yeah, back out. But I couldn’t claim for the sake of my everlasting soul that it was because of my concern for what Jomba would do with the weapons. I had Simone’s attitude about Angola—if they weren’t killing each other for one reason or in one way, they’d find another. And five million dollars soothed a lot of guilt for me. Hell, I’d even make a donation to an Angolan relief fund.
No, it wasn’t a sudden case of morality—it was the possibility that the Blue Lady was a gold mine—metaphorically speaking. If Kruger found more indicators in the test drilling we planned, the five million dollars I was getting—that I would probably never live to enjoy—could be chump change. If the money came out of my own legitimate mine, I would be as safe as the proverbial golden goose.
Life was so damn complicated. Besides having to fend off João the Cyclops and an Angolan colonel with a barbed-wire necklace and a human hood ornament, I was resolved to the fact that Marni would never be a part of my life.
Bottom line, I was a shit. And she knew it.
As I looked across the narrow strait dividing Asia and Europe and thought about Marni, I couldn’t remember what happened to Helen at the conclusion of the Trojan War. But I did recall that Paris was killed.
“You have a good view of the Sultanahmet from here,” the Bey said.
The Bey and I were on a balcony of his house. Spread out before us were the narrow straits of water called the Golden Horn and the Bosporus, along with the old, walled part of Istanbul.
The Bey was a small-built man, no more than five-six or five-seven and slender, probably a hundred and thirty or forty pounds. Bald, without even a hint of shaved hair around the sides, no eyebrows, and without wrinkles on his face, I had no idea of how old he was. When I had visited João and Simone in Lisbon before I went to Angola, Simone told me that the Bey was ex-KGB but João had scoffed. “They all use that as a subtle threat,” he said.
I wasn’t so sure. There wasn’t much subtlety about the Bey’s threats. I was picked up at the hotel by a limo. The driver and the guy riding shotgun looked like they had teethed on guns and barbells. I saw several more scattered around the grounds, two with big mastiffs on short chains. My impression of the Bey was that he was a careful man who had enemies.
Simone and João were in another part of the house having a drink with friends of the Bey.
The Bey struck me as more Russian than Turkish, only because his skin was lighter, and I heard him claim earlier he was born in Georgia. The dinner conversation had been about the fall of the Soviet Union and the independent status of some of its former republics. Simone saw the question on my face and explained that Georgia was a small country on the Black Sea between Turkey and Russia. No one offered any explanation as to how he got to be called “the Bey,” and I didn’t ask. I didn’t know what a bey was, anyway. Besides I think João told me the Bey was from somewhere else. I came to the conclusion that the Bey’s background changed with the tide.
“What I love about the view from this balcony,” the Bey said, “is you see so much history of the world. You have the great dome building of St. Sofia, the second church of Christendom before the Sons of Islam took the city and massacred the last defenders in the church. Topkapi Palace, the seat of the Ottoman sultans, is there, to the left of it. Royal princes were kept away from the palace because so many of the sultan’s wives tried to gain the throne for their own sons by murder. To the right is the Blue Mosque, one of the great religious edifices of Islam.”
I made listening responses and sipped a vodka martini. I didn’t know why the Bey had invited me out onto the balcony to give me a personal tour, or even still, why I had been commanded to come to Istanbul.
“I can see that I’m boring you,” the Bey said. “Before you came, I asked João to explain to you that I insist upon meeting face-to-face with people who I am investing a great deal of money in. That’s why I asked you here.”
“I wasn’t aware you were investing anything in me. My only role in this action is to certify the diamonds that get turned over to us.” I had been warned not to mention Jomba’s name to the Bey. João was keeping him in the dark to insure that the Bey didn’t cut him out and make his own deal.
“I was under the impression your role would be larger than that.”
I smelled a rat. “What do you mean?”
“That you will take possession of the diamonds from the buyer of the arms and hand them over to my representative. You understand how this sort of arrangement comes down, don’t you?”
“No, I don’t.”
“The exchange will take place in stages. Three days before the delivery, you will check the buyer’s goods and insure they are as represented in terms of the total carats, quality, and quantities. You will then notify me and I will set the exact time for the exchange. An hour before my planes are set to land, you will confirm that the same diamonds are at th
e landing field. A few minutes before the exchange, my reconnaissance plane will check the area for traps. When the actual exchange takes place, the diamonds will be turned over to you and you will turn my share over to my representative. What you do with João’s share is between you and your friends.”
“João isn’t my friend, this is strictly business.”
“My apologies. I was led to believe that your relationship with him and Simone was almost of a family nature.”
“I trust João as much as you do.” I let that sink in for a moment. “And I don’t know him as well as you.”
The Bey chuckled, the throaty rasp of a death rattle. “You are blunt, Win, I like that.”
“Then let me give you the other barrel. My agreement is to certify the diamonds. To me, that means I sit in a nice, safe, warm place and sign my name. There was no mention of me standing in the line of fire in a jungle clearing while your people and the buyer decide if you’re going to go through with the deal or shoot it out.”
“I’m afraid that you have inadvertently brought the matter upon yourself. You eliminated the person who was going to monitor the exchange.”
I caught it immediately. “You were going to have Eduardo do the exchange.”
“Yes, he was perfect for the task. Like you, he’s an expert on diamonds, near the exchange site . . . and obtainable. At least he was, until you had him locked up in Cape Town.”
Other things were falling into place. “I hired a lawyer in South Africa to trace back Eduardo’s partners who were planning to steal my mine. He came up with a Swiss corporation and ran into a brick wall.”
“The Swiss are very practical about business matters. As long as you do the stealing and killing outside their borders, they don’t ask questions about money you bring them. But your suspicion is correct. I was the money behind Eduardo’s attempt to buy the mine.”
“And to kill me.”
He chuckled again, another death rattle. “Not at all, although had it succeeded, I would not have lost any sleep over it. I’m very practical, too, especially with people I don’t know. Or with ones like João, who I know too well. I didn’t know Eduardo was going to try to get you to sign over the mine at the point of a gun. It was a stupid move. When you fired Eduardo, as far as I was concerned the affair was closed. I let him know that, which is perhaps why he became so desperate. I had loaned him money, an advance, you see . . .”
Heat of Passion Page 24
