Peacekeepers (1988)

by Ben Bova

  "Like Miami," Pavel muttered.

  "Or Leningrad, Red," countered Alexander. He went on, "And Shamar must be getting a hefty cut of the drug money in return."

  "But what does he want?" Kelly asked. "What's in it for him?"

  "As I said," replied Steiner, "a base of operations."

  "A whole country," Alexander said.

  Jay shook his head. "He can't possibly expect to take over the whole nation."

  "Can't he?" Alexander shot back. "How do you think the Castanada family got to be the el supremos?"

  The American stared blankly at him.

  "The way things work down here for the past fifty years or so is this: The drug dealers start operating in the hills and sooner or later take over the whole damned government and make themselves legitimate. Then some other gang starts cooking up cocaine for themselves and selling it outside the official government channels . . ."

  Barker objected, "But cocaine and all the other hard drugs have been illegal since . . ."

  "Sure they have," snapped Alexander. "That's what makes them so profitable. Why do you think the Castanadas are so pissed at these guys? They're cutting into the Castanada family's personal drug trade!"

  "Despicable," Zhakarov hissed.

  "Damn right it is."

  "And that town they wiped out?" Hazard asked.

  "Castanada told me they did it to keep the grave robbers away from the mountains," said Alexander, his smile turning malicious. "Way I see it, though, is this: the villagers grow coca for the Castanada family. The guys in the hills eliminated some competition."

  "The whole village?" Steiner's voice was an uncomprehending whisper. "Everyone in it?"

  With a grim nod, Alexander answered, "They're a bunch of murdering bastards. We're not going after pushovers."

  Her round face wrinkled into a freckled frown, Kelly asked, "Let me get this straight: we're going to help the Castanada family to keep the drug trade to themselves?"

  "Nooo," Alexander said with exaggerated patience.

  "We're going after Shamar and his nukes."

  Barker objected, "But if Shamar can threaten to wipe out Bogota and God knows what else if the government attacks him, why doesn't that threat also apply to our attacking him?"

  "Because Shamar doesn't know we're working for the Castanadas. As far as he's concerned, this is a personal vendetta between him and me," Alexander said, then added, "Which it sure as hell really is."

  "I don't like it," said Zhakarov. "How do we know we can trust Castanada and his family?"

  Alexander laughed. "The KGB man worries about trust?"

  "That's not fair," said Kelly.

  "Nor constructive," added Steiner.

  "So he's won both your hearts," Alexander noted. He scratched briefly at his chin. "Okay, I admit that we can't trust the Castanada clan. But we've got to get Shamar."

  "And the bombs," Barker insisted.

  "And something else, too," Alexander said.

  "What?"

  "The drug dealers—all of them. The ones in the mountains and the ones in the capitolio."

  The others stared at him.

  Leaning forward over the lighted table display screen until the shadows across his face loomed like the mask of an eerie devil, Alexander said slowly, "We are going to make it impossible for anybody—including the thugs who run the government here—to manufacture cocaine. Ever again."

  "How?" asked Jay.

  "The nukes," replied Alexander. "We're going to wipe out the fields where they grow the coca plants with the fallout from one of Shamar's nuclear bombs."

  "That's insane!"

  "Is it?" The light from the tabletop cast a strange glint in Alexander's eyes. "Once we get our hands on those nukes we're going to use them. We're going to scrub the world clean of a lot of vermin."

  The others stared at him in stunned silence.

  I realize that I've jumped slightly ahead of

  myself once more. I should explain how the

  woman Kelly and Hazard's son happened to

  join forces with Alexander's mercenaries.

  While I'm at it, I might as well tell about

  Pavel Zhakarov, too.

  MOSCOW AND LIBYA

  Year 6

  PaveL did not notice them until almost too late.

  He had heard of muggers and hooligans in other, more remote outskirts of Moscow, but never near the university, so close to the heart of the city.

  Yet there were three young toughs definitely following him as he walked along the river promenade through the darkening evening, his fencing bag slung over one shoulder.

  No one else in sight. The towers of the university were brilliantly lit, thousands of students bustling among the many buildings. But here along the riverside all was deserted. Pavel had come for solitude, for a chance to think about the offer he had been given. Was it truly an opportunity to do good for his country? Or was it a scheme by the apparatchiks to get him out of the way for a while, perhaps forever?

  An offer or a trap? he had been wondering as he strolled in the deepening cold of early evening. An opportunity or an ultimatum?

  Then he noticed the three young men in their Westernstyle leather jackets and zany hairdos. Up to no good, obviously.

  Across the river was the Lenin Arena and the big sports palace complex. Hundreds of athletes were rehearsing for the November parades. But here on the riverside promenade, no one except Pavel Mikhailovich Zhakarov and three young hoodlums.

  Pavel began walking a little more briskly. Sure enough, the trio behind him quickened their pace.

  "Hey there, wait up a minute," one of them called.

  There was no sense running. They would overtake him long before he got to an area where there were some people walking about. Of course, he could drop his fencing bag and leave the gear inside to them. It wasn't worth much.

  But I'll be damned if I give it up to three punks, Pavel said to himself.

  So, instead of making a break for it, he turned and smiled at the approaching trio.

  They were trying their best to look ferocious: leather jackets covered with metal studs. Wide leather belts and heavy, ornate buckles. Wild hair and faces painted like rock stars. Two of them were big, almost two meters tall and solid muscle from neck to toes. Pavel smiled. Probably solid muscle between the ears, as well. The third one, in the middle, was short and stocky, with an ugly squashed-nose face.

  "What are you grinning at, little man?" he asked.

  Pavel was not exactly little. True, he was barely 165 centimeters in height, and almost as slim as a girl. His face was delicately handsome, with dark eyes and brows, sculpted cheekbones and a graceful jawline. His hair was dark and naturally curly.

  "Pretty man," sneered the big fellow on Pavel's left. The other large oaf giggled.

  Pavel said nothing. He simply stood his ground, left hand with its thumb hooked around the shoulder strap of the fencing bag, right hand relaxed at his side. They did not notice that he was up on the balls of his feet, ready to move in any direction circumstances dictated.

  "What's in the bag?" the ugly little leader demanded.

  Pavel shrugged carelessly. "Junk. It's worthless."

  "Yeah?" The leader flicked a knife from the sleeve of his jacket and snapped it open. The slim blade glinted in the light of a distant streetlamp.

  "Hand it over."

  "Not to the likes of you, my friend," said Pavel.

  The other two pulled knives.

  "It's worthless junk, I tell you," Pavel insisted. "Not even a balalaika."

  "Open up the bag."

  "But . . ."

  "Open it up or we'll open you up."

  Pavel sank to one knee, slung the bag off his shoulder and unzipped it. Opening it wide so that they could see it was fencing gear and nothing more, he grasped one of the sabers and got to his feet.

  The two oafs stepped back a pace, but their leader laughed. "It's not sharp, it's for a game. Look."

  The
y grinned and moved toward Pavel.

  "I'm warning you," Pavel said, his voice low, as he retreated slowly, "what happens next is something you will regret."

  The leader laughed again. "One against three? One toy sword against three real knives." His laughter stopped.

  "Slice him up!"

  Pavel darted to his right, away from the promenade railing, where there was more room for maneuver. The first of the big thugs swung toward him and Pavel made a lightning-fast lunge. His blunted saber, thin and flexible as a whip, slashed at the oaf's hand and sent the knife clattering across the cement of the walkway.

  The thug yelped in sudden pain. His companion hesitated a moment, and Pavel gave him the same treatment, ripping skin off his fingers.

  The ugly little leader had circled around, trying to get behind Pavel. But Pavel danced backward a few steps and easily parried his lumberingly slow jab, then riposted with a slash at his cheek. He screamed and backed away.

  The first one had recovered his knife, only to have Pavel disarm him again and whack him wickedly on the upper arm, shoulder and back: three blows delivered so fast they could not follow them with their eyes. Then it was back to the leader again.

  He faced Pavel with blood running from his cut cheek and eyes burning with hatred.

  "I'll kill you for this," he snarled.

  Pavel extended his arm and pointed the blunted tip of his saber toward his face. "I'll blind you with this," he said, as calmly as a man asking for a pack of cigarettes. "I'll take out your eyes, one by one."

  The little hoodlum glanced over at his two accomplices.

  One of the thugs was sucking on his bleeding knuckles. The other was wringing his pain-racked arm. The light faded from the ugly one's eyes. He backed away from Pavel.

  Wordlessly the three of them turned and started walking back the way they had come.

  "Jackals!" Pavel called after them.

  He retrieved his bag and zipped it up. But he kept the saber out and held it firmly in his right hand as he strode the rest of the way to his dormitory room.

  Two days later Pavel was in a luxurious Aeroflot jet airliner, winging southward, away from wintry Moscow and toward the sun and warmth of the Mediterranean.

  He still felt uneasy.

  "It is a mission of utmost importance," the bureau director had said, "and of the utmost delicacy."

  Pavel had sat on the straight-backed chair directly in front of the director's desk. The director himself had called for him, a call that meant either high honor or deepest disaster, all other chores were handled by underlings.

  He was a slim, bald man with a neat little goatee almost like that of Lenin in the gilt-framed portrait hanging on the wall behind his desk. But there the resemblance ended.

  Pavel imagined Lenin as a vigorous, flashing-eyed man of action. The director, with his soft little hands, his manicured nails and tailor-made Hungarian suits, looked more like a dandy than a leader of men. His most vigorous action was shuffling papers.

  To the director, Pavel looked like a cat tensed to spring.

  A strikingly handsome young man, not quite twenty-three, yet he comes stalking into my office like a cat on the prowl, all his senses alert, his eyes looking everywhere. That is good, the director thought. He has been trained well.

  Pavel's life history was displayed on the computer screen atop the director's desk. The screen was turned so that only the director himself could see it. Only child; mother killed at Chernobyl; father "retired" from his duties as Party chairman of Kursk due to alcoholism. There is nothing in his dossier to indicate romantic entanglements. Best grades in his class, a natural athlete.

  For long moments the director leaned back in his big leather chair and studied the young man before him. Pavel returned his gaze without flinching. The director smiled inwardly and thought of the eternal game of chess that was his career. He may be the man we need: not a pawn, exactly. More like a knight. One can sacrifice a knight in a ploy that will advance the game.

  Pavel finally broke the lengthening silence. "Could you explain, sir, what you mean?"

  The directly blinked rapidly several times, as if awaking from a daydream.

  "Explain? Yes, of course. We can't expect to send you on such an important mission blindfolded, can we?" He laughed thinly.

  Pavel made a polite smile. "As you know, sir, I had applied for the International Peacekeeping Force."

  The director gestured toward his computer display screen. "Yes, of course. A good choice for you. And you may eventually get it."

  "Eventually?"

  "After you have completed this mission—successfully."

  The director leaned back in his chair again and tilted his head back to gaze at the ceiling. "In a way, you know, this mission is somewhat like being with the IPF."

  He is trying to stretch my nerves, Pavel realized. To see how far I can go before I lose my self-control. Very casually, he inquired, "In what way, may I ask?"

  Still staring at the ceiling, "There is a certain Mr. Cole Alexander, an American, although he has not set foot in the United States in more than six years."

  Pavel said nothing. He glanced upward, too. The ceiling was nicely plastered, but there was nothing much of interest in it, except for the tiny spider-web the cleaning women had missed off in the comer by the window draperies.

  The director snapped his attention to Pavel. "This Alexander is a mercenary soldier, the leader of a band of mercenaries."

  "Mercenaries?" Despite himself, Pavel could not hide his surprise.

  "Yes. Oh, he claims to be hunting for the infamous Jabal Shamar, the man responsible for the Jerusalem Genocide. But he spends most of his time hiring out his services to the rich and powerful, helping them to oppress the people."

  Pavel had heard rumors about Shamar.

  "Is it true that Shamar took a number of small nuclear weapons with him when he disappeared from Syria?" he asked.

  The director's brows rose. "Where did you hear of that?" he snapped.

  Pavel made a vague gesture. "Rumor . . . talk here and there,"

  Tugging nervously at his goatee, the director said, "We have heard such rumors also. Until they are clarified, all nuclear disarmament has been suspended. But your mission does not involve Jabal Shamar and rumored nuclear weapons caches."

  "I understand, sir."

  "You will join Alexander's band of cutthroats," the director continued. "You will infiltrate their capitalistic organization and reach Alexander himself. And, if necessary, assassinate him."

  The airliner landed at Palma, and Pavel rented a tiny, underpowered Volkswagen at the airport. He did not look like the usual tourist: a smallish, athletically slim young man, alone, unsmiling, studying everything around him like a hunting cat, dressed in a black long-sleeved shirt open at the neck and an equally somber pair of slacks, carrying nothing but a soft black travel bag.

  Using the map computer in the car's dashboard, he drove straight across the island of Mallorca, heading for the meeting that agents employed by the Soviet consulate had arranged with a representative of the mercenaries.

  Across the flat farmlands he drove, seeing but not bothering to take much note of the fertile beauty of this warm and ancient land: the green farms, the red poppies lining the roads, the terraced hillsides and tenderly cultivated vineyards. But he noticed the steep hairpin turns that scaled the Sierra de Tramunta as he sweated and cursed in a low, angry whisper while the VW's whining little electric engine struggled to get up the grades. A tourist bus whooshed by in the other direction, nearly blowing him over the edge of the narrow road and down the rugged gorge.

  When he finally got to the crest of the range, the road flattened out, although it still twisted like a writhing snake.

  And then he had to inch his way down an even steeper, narrower road to the tiny fishing village where he was supposed to meet the mercenaries.

  Pavel was drenched with sweat and hollow-gutted with exhaustion by the time he eased the little
car out onto the solitary stone pier that jutted into the incredibly blue water of the cove. He turned off the engine and just sat there for a few moments, recuperating from the harrowing drive.

  The smell of burned insulation hung in the air. Or was it burned brake lining?

  He got out on shaky legs and let the warm sunshine start to ease some of the tension out of him. The village looked deserted. Houses boarded up. Even the cantina at the foot of the pier seemed abandoned, its whitewashed cement walls faded and weathered. Not a single boat in the water, although there were several bright-colored dories piled atop one another at the foot of the pier.

  He took his black overnight bag from the car and slung it over his shoulder, then paced the pier from one end to the other. He looked at his watch. The time for the meeting had come and gone ten minutes ago.

  He heard a faint buzzing sound. At first he thought it was some insect, but within a few moments he realized it was a motor. And it was getting louder.

  A black rubber boat came into view from around the mountains that plunged into the sea, a compact little petrol motor pushing it through the water, splashing out a spume of foam every time the blunt bow hit a swell. A single man was in it, his hand on the motor's stick control. He wore a slick yellow poncho with the hood pulled up over his head.

  Pavel watched him expertly maneuver the boat into the cove and up to the pier. He looped a line around the cleat set into the floating wooden platform at the end of the pier.

  "What's your name, stranger?" the man called in English.

  "Pavel."

  "That's good. And your last name?"

  "Krahsnii." It was a false name, of course, and the lines they had exchanged were code words that identified them to one another.

  "Pavel the Red," said the man in the boat, grinning crookedly. "Fine. Come on aboard."

  So he understands a bit of Russian, Pavel thought as he trotted down the stone steps onto the bobbing platform and stepped lightly into the rubber boat.

  "That's all you've got?" The man pointed at Pavel's bag.