by Reapers
These were implacable men, he knew. Men who would kill you as soon as look at you, who would kill your wife and children, your uncles, aunts, and anyone near to you just to make their point, to assure compliance. One did not cross them. One did not resign from service without some higher-up’s blessing. The organization’s tentacles reached into every continent, every nation, and every disagreeable, dirty, and dishonest enterprise from arms running, prostitution, drugs, smuggling, to those more esoteric preoccupations known to men with certain peculiar predilections.
The business he was to be recruited into would soon be laid out for him. And as with the smoke, his response to its requirements, he guessed, would be neither pleasant nor possible to refuse. And the after effects would cling to him for a long, long time.
Chapter Twenty
Sanderson followed the man for a hundred meters. She noticed that he did not make an attempt to contact the man he seemed to be following. When the first stopped, so did her quarry. What is this all about? Another hundred meters further along and the small man stopped once again, looked furtively over his shoulder, nodded toward the follower, and veered into the parking area next to the police station. She knew this man. He worked for her. Andrew Takeda. The follower, this harasser of women, turned in as well. The Police station? What happens here?
Sanderson pulled to the side of the road and parked her bakkie so that she had a view of both men. They sidled to a corner of the car park and up to one another, and started a conversation. So, it seemed that this following was part of something else. Why did these men wish not to be seen together on the street, but in a car park next to the police station? Something here did not make much sense. Andrew. Why would he be talking to this man? Did he send this man to threaten her because of her promotion? Well, she did not scare so easily. She would have a long discussion with Andrew, and decide if he needed to remain employed in her unit. What were they talking about? She wished she could hear what these men were saying. She searched her pockets and found her cell phone.
Her daughter had shown her how to use the camera function. At the time she thought having a phone that took pictures a rubbish idea. Now she was not so sure. She held it up and took a series of photos of the two men. They were a distance away, but perhaps they could be enlarged. Modise would know. She turned the key in the ignition and started the engine. Nothing more to be done here. As she engaged the clutch, she caught sight of Superintendant Mwambe out of the corner of her eye. He stepped out of the door and into the car park. As he did so, the two men disengaged and drifted apart. The large man exited the area the way he had come and headed directly toward her. Mwambe apparently noticed only Andrew and joined him.
She fought her fear of the approaching man just long enough to take one more shot of Mwambe and Andrew. Then she pulled away and drove off in a hurry. She hoped she hadn’t been seen. On reflection, she didn’t care if she had.
She would call Modise.
***
“Mr. Painter.” The foreman on the construction site looked fearful. “It wasn’t my fault. Sammi borrowed my telephone to call his wife and then put it on the ledge for me to gather up later. I told him not to, that the last time someone did that the phone disappeared, but he didn’t listen.”
“You are telling me that your phone was stolen? I supplied those phones so that I could stay in touch with you. They were not for personal use, and certainly not to be handed around like chips at the lunch table.”
“I am sorry. Sammi said it was an emergency. His wife is pregnant and he had a feeling.”
“A what? He had a feeling? He is gifted with second sight?”
“Pardon?”
“Are you telling me he thought his wife might be in trouble and he knew it?”
“Sammi knows things, Mr. Painter. The moloi says he has the connection to the spirits.”
“If he’s so connected to the spirits, then what did he need your phone for? Wouldn’t he have already known what had or had not happened?”
The foreman only shrugged. The question did not make sense to him. There were people who talked to the spirits, and there were those who did not. One does not question these things. Americans, he thought were a peculiar people and sadly lacking in this simple wisdom. “Sorry,” he said and held out his hands in an attitude of supplication.
“Okay then, do you have any idea who might have taken the phone? They cost money, you know. Much pula.”
“Oh yes, I know.”
“Then why not go and demand that he return it. Why talk to me?”
“That will not be possible, sir.”
“Not possible? Why not?”
“No. You see, it was the monkey that took it. When Sammi put it on the ledge, he forgot about that gray monkey that hangs around here. It is a mistake we made when we started.”
“Whoa, you lost me. You say the monkey, that big one that pops up all the time looking for lunch handouts, took the phone? Why is that a mistake? I mean I guess it must be, but…you’ve lost me again”
“No, no, I must make my meaning clear. The monkey stole the phone. Where he took it is anybody’s guess. We could dial the number up and perhaps we will find he has dropped it nearby, but I do not think so. I saw him head into the park. No, the mistake, Mr. Painter, was for the men to ignore the signs saying not to, and then they feed that bad monkey in the first place. That is why he is always here and why he has taken up stealing as a pastime you could say. He took Joseph’s measuring tape yesterday and other things have gone missing.”
“What other things?”
“Well the lunches, as you mentioned, cold drinks, and well, under the tree where he likes to sit we find small tools that he takes, plays with, and then drops when he is done with them. He is a very curious monkey, that one.”
“Curious George, no doubt. Can you chase him off?”
“Perhaps, but I don’t think so. Monkeys do not run off if only you yell at them, you see. No, he will not be chased off. There is a way, but it is frowned on and is probably illegal. The game rangers will be very angry at us.”
“How, ‘frowned on?’”
“It is illegal.”
“So you said, but…?”
“Beer, Mr. Painter. He is fond of beer. It comes from living near the game lodges. People leave their cans half empty lying about and the monkey, he has developed a taste for it. We can feed him much beer. He will become drunk and we carry him off to another place far away, perhaps into the park with the other animals. He won’t come back so soon.”
“But it’s illegal.”
“Yes.”
“Do it. But call the number first in the off chance he dropped the phone nearby. I don’t want any trouble with that woman game ranger. Been there, done that and…”
Excuse me?
“”Never mind. Do what you have to do and if it isn’t available, I’ll see about getting you another.
“Yes, sir.”
Leo watched the man walk to his comrades speaking rapid Setswana. The men grinned and searched their lunch boxes for cans of beer. Leo decided he did not want to see this. Deniability, that was the word.
***
The man Greshenko met with had a job to do, and seemed to say he intended to do it. No one had to like what they would do. A job is a job. This man was no different than the hundreds of manipulators Greshenko had encountered along the way—in the army, the governments of more than one country, crime bosses, politicians, and international industrialists. He had become cynical in the process. This occasional marriage of Russian intelligence services and the dark side of society, the Bratva, was not new or unique, but it still made him uneasy. He was not naïve enough to believe this new love for Botswana meant it was completely corruption free or that it would always provide that safe haven for him, but he also knew that any country that had established a permanent commission to root out and expose dishonesty at every level had a better chance of staying clean than the ones that had institutionalized their dysfunctio
nal behavior, and masked them with commissions and boards assigned to investigate breaches of ethics.
But how do you withstand the Bratva? You don’t.
So, it was with sadness that he climbed into the taxi that had been summoned for him. He dropped his overnight bag, now heavier by the addition of nearly a half million dollars in pula notes, on the seat next to him. The remainder of the equipment required to complete this enterprise would be sent to his hotel the following day along with detailed instructions. He sat back and gave the driver the address of his hotel. It would not be the last time these men approached him, that much had been made clear. He wondered if he should make a run for it. What were the chances?
This will destroy Leo.
Chapter Twenty-one
Leo Painter said nothing when Greshenko returned except to note that the trip seemed to have taken less time than he thought it would. Greshenko only nodded and stepped to his desk. The afternoon passed as the two men worked separately on that portion of the build for which they had taken responsibility. Greshenko, though, seemed distracted. Leo waited. He knew his friend well enough not to press.
Toward dinner time, Leo received an international call from the CEO of Earth Global, Travis Parizzi, who wanted to know how the project was going, and to give him the name and number of the contact he’d asked for. Parizzi didn’t ask Leo why he needed that particular name and address. If Leo wanted him to know more he would undoubtedly have told him. He probably sensed that the query had something to do with an undertaking about which he did not wish to know. He had dealt with Leo in similar matters in the past.
Leo thanked him and hung up. He swiveled around in his chair and studied Greshenko.
“It is nearly time for dinner, Yuri. Mrs. Painter is over at the Marina Lodge playing bridge and will have her dinner there with her new-found friends. Let’s you and me slip up to the Old House and get a steak.”
Greshenko hesitated. He shifted some papers about on his desk and looked uneasy.
“We’ll have a drink or two and you can tell me what’s bothering you and,” Leo paused briefly for effect, “what the Russians wanted from you.”
Greshenko’s expression revealed nothing but Leo knew he’d touched a nerve. He smiled and raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, I know about the calls to and from the restaurant, and if you push me hard enough, I can probably find out who they are and what they’re likely to be about anyway. So tell me, what’s going on Yuri?”
“It’s complicated.”
“Life is complicated. At least the bit that has meaning is. Animals have uncomplicated lives. A cow worries about nothing much at all—better forage, full udder, that’s pretty much it. ‘Happy as a clam,’ the saying goes. But people are remarkably different…so what’s the big deal?”
Greshenko looked around the room and frowned. Then he signaled for Leo to follow him outside. The two men walked toward the road in silence. Leo looked at his watch.
“The docs say I am supposed exercise every day. Bunch of horse hockey if you ask me. You know what Mark Twain said about exercise?”
Greshenko shook his head.
“He said, ‘I don’t have anything against exercise, I just don’t see the virtue in being tired.’ I agree. So, we’ll walk to the Old House for our steak. That will be my stab at healthy living, and it will give you time to arrange the disinformation you are contemplating telling me into a format that you think I will buy. Then I will tell you it’s all bullshit and then you will tell me the truth.”
The two men walked east on the road the half kilometer to the Old House, a restaurant of dubious ambience and presence, but which served the best steak in the country. Or at least Leo thought so. There were people in Gaborone who disagreed and many in Chicago who still thought the Windy City had invented the steak house, but Leo put that down to urban snobbishness, chauvinism, ignorance, or all of the above. He’d toyed with the idea of purchasing the restaurant, moving it, lock, stock, and barrel, to his property and attaching it somehow to the hotel. He had not completely dismissed the idea. He worried, however, if the high-end look of the hotel/casino could accommodate this rustic, tin roofed, oversized shack. He couldn’t make up his mind so he’d not made the offer.
The restaurant was crowded with locals and a few tourists who, to Leo’s amusement, were staring dubiously at the walls, decor, and the other customers. He supposed they were contemplating the possible risks to their health if they actually ate the food. If they had a look at the kitchen they’d no doubt run screaming into the night.
They found a table against the wall away from the door. They did not need a menu. The Old House had an eclectic array of offerings from pizza to Chinese, but the only thing worth eating, Leo claimed, was the T-bone steak. They each ordered and called for Saint Louis beers while they waited.
“Are you going to give up what you’re trying to sit on or do I have to use my sources?”
“Ah Leo, it’s complicated.”
“So you said. And I said life is complicated. Knitting an argyle sweater is complicated, or so I’ve been told. I’ve never attempted to knit so I could be wrong, but it certainly looks like it would be. Have you ever dismantled a sewing machine? Complicated as hell. Shall I go on?”
Greshenko held up his hands in surrender. “No, stop. Next you will be telling me how to turn potatoes into vodka.”
“I had no idea vodka was made from potatoes. How do they do it?”
“It’s simple. First you…never mind. Okay, some of my former countrymen and colleagues have me in a tight spot.”
“A tight spot? What sort of tight spot?”
“You know of my past, yes?”
Leo nodded. He did. He’d made a point to learn as much as he could about Greshenko before he’d been recruited to take the trip to Botswana in the first place. A man who knew his way around the shadier side of the law, the Russian Mafia to be precise, would be useful, Leo believed, when dealing with bureaucrats and businessmen. Two discoveries had altered that estimate almost immediately. First, Botswana was the least corrupt country in Africa and one of the least in the world, and second, Greshenko wanted out of the life a failed Russian military had forced him into in the first instance. Botswana offered an escape for Leo, but more so for Greshenko.
“I know about the Russian Mafia, of course—”
“Mafia, mafiya, is the Russian word. Mafia is Italian. But we say Vory v zakone.” Greshenko scribbled on a piece of paper. “Like this,” and handed it to him. “It means disciplined thieves, but not quite. The groups have been around since the Tsars, believe it or not. Communism, neo-capitalism, the Tsars…nothing stops people who trade in the dark. Now we just say Bratva, the brotherhood. And then you know, also, I still travel on a Russian passport. I have false ones stashed here and there, of course, but they are of no use to me now.”
“Disciplined thieves, very apt. Change Bratva to Congress and it could apply to some politicians I know, too, a lot of them actually. Yes, so, as they say in Hollywood, let’s cut to the chase. What’s up?”
“You are a very cynical man for one so blessed with the fruits of your capitalist system, Leo.”
“Cynical? Yes, I suppose I am. It comes from the sure knowledge that if I wanted to, I could under the guise of campaign contributions, buy myself a congressman, or several, and certainly their votes. So, moving right along…”
“Okay, out of the blue, I receive a call from one of the underlings who says he is calling on behalf of the government. The term is used loosely here, you understand. The government will not confirm any of this. It is a contractual arrangement.”
“They are out-sourcing?”
“Ah, yes, that would describe it, surely. So, they know me, of course, and they know my past connections and, this is the important part, they know of certain actions and reactions in my past that are still on the books, you could say.”
“Sorry, you lost me. Yuri, circumlocution is not your style. What exactly are you getting at?”
<
br /> Greshenko glanced around the room and lowered his voice. “Okay. In the past I was indiscreet legally. I have some outstanding warrants circulating. They can extradite me back to Russia anytime they want to for those things. They said they would make that happen if I did not help them with this small thing. Or, and this is no idle threat, they will kill me and anyone associated with me.”
“Oh come on. Gangsters are mostly hot air. Why would they do that?”
“Leo, please believe me. You only know your mafia and most of that knowledge is from Hollywood or HBO. This is not The Sopranos. Those men are gentlemen crooks compared to this crowd. Your mafia will rub out a man and then send his widow flowers. But the Bratva? They will send her a bomb.”
“Jesus. Really? Okay, you said a small thing? What sort of small thing would you have to do to make these guys leave you alone?”
Their steaks and sides arrived. Neither picked up a fork. Greshenko waited until the waitress had gone away and continued.
“You understand, Leo, they have me by the…how do you say? Shorts. If I refuse, they will call the local police, and I will be on a military aircraft and on my way to Moscow in a heartbeat…maybe worse. Even if the local government stalls—say you pull some of your strings and get the U.S. involved—it will end my chances for citizenship, and eventually I will have no means of staying here. Where would I go then?”
