by Moulton, CD
Clint went in to be introduced to Orlando Ruiz and family, who he knew very well. They chatted for a few minutes and told Clint they had a deal with the one operating the mine that would allow them to do things for the community, which was part of the Indio culture. They had little personal ownership and were responsible for the rest of their community simply because they were part of it. That is what a man’s reason to exist was about. That was an enormous difference in other cultures that most couldn’t see. The Indios are part of a community, not someone who lives in a community.
Clint had made the arrangements with a big mobster, Paulo Lariez, who ran the mine for these people. He was now accepted and part of that community. That gave him a real sense of pride.
The next drive was on out the road and over almost to Costa Rica, then return to Puerto Armuelles. He didn’t see anything more that got his interest, though he looked at two properties the taxi driver said were for sale to stay in character.
They returned to the town a bit before dark. Clint made arrangements for the taxi to meet him the following morning to take him out another road, then went in, cleaned up, had a good meal at Yola’s, bought a few small items from the vendors along the street and went back to the brothel.
There were a lot of people at the place. Gina, a girl Clint knew, came to talk a bit and to offer her services, but Clint said, at his age, last night made it good for the week. He bought her a drink and chatted a few minutes. He said the girl the night before had said that some Russian came in a lot and that he wanted to treat the girls like slaves so she didn’t like him. Was that the one she was talking about? Ivan?
He pointed to a large slightly loud stocky man with longish dirty blonde hair and a moustache. He was smoking a cigar, which is against the law in Panamá inside a building where others were present. She made a sour face and said that was Ivan! She didn’t like him, either – but he paid. Very well. He refused to abide by the rules. That cigar was enough to make her want to puke!
Clint grinned and stood. He went to Ivan, who was trying to pull a girl into his lap.
“Sir, take your hands off the lady – and put out that offensive cigar.”
“WHAT?! Who the HELL do you think you are?”
“I am a customer who has made an objection to your manner and to that cigar. There is a law here that says you may not smoke inside a building that is occupied by other persons. Put it out and conduct yourself like a human being, not like a pig!”
“I’ll wipe the floor with your stupid ass! You don’t tell me what to do!”
“Anytime you feel you may survive such an attempt, feel free to make that attempt. Meanwhile, you will put out the cigar.”
People were both amused and nervous. This was some old man confronting a younger and much bigger man Ivan jumped up and reached to grab Clint – and found a sword cane blade against his throat. “I’m quite capable of defending myself against riff-raff of your type. Sit down, put out the cigar and keep your hands off the employees here.”
He looked uncertain. Clint slightly increased the pressure on the blade, drawing a drop of blood.
Ivan sat. He put out the cigar. Clint sat opposite him and studied him.
“So. Now we understand one another. We may act like we’re civilized.
“I spent many years in Europe and in the field of protection of certain parts of the population. I met many of our type there. I learned how to act like I am also civilized. I managed to retain the skills such occupation requires. I have had more confrontations than I care to remember where only one was able to walk away. I am still here.
“You are Czeck?”
“Siberia.”
“Ah! A very cold and forbidding place. I was there only three ... four times. Some years ago. It is a hard life there.”
Ivan cocked his head to the said. “I can’t figure you at all! Who sent you? Taylor?”
“I know no Taylor. I am merely here on a small vacation and am looking for a place to retire. I wish to establish a reputation, for the first time in my life, of being a good person to know and one who is sensitive to others. You are merely a convenient person to use in that pursuit. It isn’t personal. I do feel I am, at last, gaining a more reasonable perspective on life. I find that I actually like some of the people here. I have never liked anyone before. It is a confusing and good feeling.”
“You would have cut my throat if I’d come after you, wouldn’t you?”
“A very small flick of the wrist. All these people noted that you physically had attacked me when I simply asked you to abide by the laws here and put out that cigar. I even, another first time, have a permit for the cane as a personal defense weapon.”
He nodded. “You want to move here?”
“I begin to believe that would be a good move.”
“Looking for work?”
“I have more wealth than anyone reasonably needs. I think not, when I consider the lines of work at which I am adept.”
He laughed. “I think I like you! No horseshit, just tell it like it is!
“Girl! Bring my friend a drink!
“I’m Ivan Gregor.”
“Which is not your name, but quite possibly part is. I am called Generoso Morales here.”
“Which is not your name, but possibly part is.”
“It is what my present passport says.”
“Yeah. My passport says that’s my name, but reversed.”
“What is your line of work, if you don’t object to my asking?”
“I’m a mining engineer. We’ve found a lode of, uh, silver near here.”
“Toward the north and west? A taxi took me there as a point of interest in an area where I might come to live.”
“Yeah. Indio people live there. It’s their farm where we found the silver mine. They’re people I like. Good people. I don’t think they like me too much. We’re too different.”
“Yes. I spoke with the family. They would make no judgements about you. If you haven’t had much congress with them, they probably only have a very slight feeling, one way or the other.”
The girl brought Clint a Scotch and soda (which he didn’t like) and a vodka straight for Ivan. They chatted awhile. Clint learned, indirectly, that the uranium was very close to the silver, which he suspected.
He went back to the hotel to go on the wireless with his laptop. He wanted to learn something about the extraction of uranium.
The taxi was waiting. Clint took the driver to breakfast, saying he arose a bit later than usual. He was quite tired last night.
“Not tired enough to keep from telling our local pain in the ass Russian where he gets off!” he replied. “I would liked to have been there!”
“Oh, he’s a rather common type in Europe in the worse areas. He watches too much telly and thinks he can make the world into that drivel. He merely needed it explained to him that people will tolerate only so much.”
“Gina said he called you his friend and bought you expensive drinks. She thought you were the most gallant and macho person she ever saw! You stood up to a person everybody around here is scared of and made him back down!”
“Then she, also, watches too much of the telly silliness.”
They were already semi-pals. This made him a real pal. Later, while driving around the local countryside, Clint managed to learn that there was a second crusher area near the silver mine. Julio said there was one truck going out there a lot that the Russian was driving. He didn’t like that. Foreigners weren’t allowed to operate equipment as heavy as that truck in Panamá. He pointed out the little rutted road the truck went up. Clint acted like it was a little interesting, but said he didn’t know anything about mining and didn’t want to.
They went out on a little peninsula where Clint already owned (thanks to Manny) some property. There was a large rocky plot for sale, but nobody seemed interested. It was the plot that caused Manny to buy his – to put an end to the big development planned on the plot after they could manage to buy the part
Manny bought just before they made the deal. Bummer!
Clint went back to town about four. He figured he was able to piece a lot of it together. What he’d learned about uranium meant a tremendous amount of rock had to be crushed to get a small amount of uranium. Critical mass wasn’t much, but he would have to crush and process quite a few tons of rock to get enough for a bomb.
Julio never saw anyone but Ivan going out that road. He was doing it himself. Clint wanted to know how he was managing it so that he could get away with the thing. He also wondered if that bunch had already gotten enough uranium out to make a bomb. That may have been what they were doing when this started. Wouldn’t the automatic detectors find something like uranium?
Not if it was in thick lead containers. That would be heavy.
Clint didn’t think they had done that. There was something else they wanted him to be distracted from.
Not necessarily! They wanted to keep him on the Bocas side so he wouldn’t ever learn what this was about and so that he’d never find the uranium mine. They knew he had set the silver mine up and that he knew the family there. That meant the road to the uranium mine went into the back of the property. It was a very big place and Orlando surely wouldn’t know about it. He wouldn’t allow it.
Clint decided he was going to go up that road to find out what they had and exactly how they were handling it.
The Mine
Clint waited until dark, then went by El Critico to see if Ivan was there. He was.
Clint could trust Julio so had the taxi take him to the road. Julio said he could take the taxi up that road so went in. If anyone asked, there was no fence or gate on that road so it was legal to go on it. There wasn’t even a sign saying it was private.
The road went around a few small hills, then into Orlando’s property for only a hundred fifty meters or so. There was the truck and a big pile of crushed rock just outside a shed. The crusher was inside the shed, which was insulated so that little sound would escape. There was a radiation suit on a rack. There were three lead containers, one open and empty, the other two sealed. From what Clint understood the two containers would mass at about half critical mass together, judging by the volume in each. If some was sent out it was probably a shipment of three containers to make up half the critical mass. All they would need was these three filled. Clint would see they didn’t ever receive the last three. He told Julio to go outside, then he put on the radiation suit. He opened the two sealed containers and took the tubes of uranium out and told Julio to stay at least twenty feet from him as he took it into the hole the rock was taken from. He hid the tubes in a crevice about twenty feet into the hole, then went back to the shed to hang the suit where it was when he came in. He went back out and Julio took him back to town. He cleaned up and was at El Critico by ten o’clock, saying he had been detained by another Russian. Did Ivan know who he was? He looked much like Ivan, but was a little thinner and was darker.
Ivan said he didn’t know anyone else there from Russia. Was Clint sure he was Russian?
Clint remembered the pictures of Niklev and Ghenkof from the net. He said he had assumed that as the accent was the same. This one said his name was Viktor. He had a scar on his face and across his nose, but it was not bad. He made the description close enough to fit Ghenkof or Niklev. Neither had a scar on their face, but that was a common fixture in disguises.
That really made him nervous! “Did he have a gold tooth just to the side of the center?”
“I did not notice.”
He talked for a minute, then mingled. Ivan soon sneaked to the door and out. Clint waited, then went out himself and to the hotel to grab some sleep. About four in the morning Ivan knocked on his door and asked if the Russian he met was carrying anything or were there packages he was watching.
“No, I don’t think so, but there could possibly been something in the car waiting for him.”
“There was a car? There was someone in the car?”
“Yes. A woman, I think. I found it odd when she didn’t come out to be introduced. She stayed in the car.
“Of course, it well may not have been his car. She may have been waiting for someone else.”
“There were some things stolen from my place. They’re terribly dangerous. They are poisons you have to understand to use. I’m afraid someone might have taken them and could let them get in the water or something. That would be a disaster! I must find them!
“I wish I knew who took them. I’ll be in terrible trouble if someone, er, misuses them. It wasn’t quite legal for me to have them, you see. If someone is harmed or killed by them I could be in serious trouble.”
“Well, I hope you find something like that and neutralize it! Those kinds of things should not be carelessly left around! It alarms me that one as professional as you seemed to be would allow any chance of such an occurrence at all!
“I think I understand you! You had them in a safe place, but someone specific would take them. True? Someone who will use them for personal reasons that are not to the good of anyone else?”
“Much too close to the truth.”
Clint said he wouldn’t know anything about that kind of people here. He was here to escape that life and those kinds of people.
Ivan soon left. Clint got a little sleep and met with Julio and Orlando. He got Orlando aside and explained the situation and that he was Clint Faraday. Orlando said he was suspicious of this strange Spaniard and could not help feeling he already knew him. They would see that nothing else was ever moved from that property. Orlando suggested that he could take a few people to see his property and could accidentally find the shed and mine. He would then, as it was not legally on his property, put guards on it to see that it was closed and abandoned. Clint said it might even be a good idea to have someone there with a Geiger counter who was looking for radium in that kind of place. They might avoid going into the mine.
Orlando said he knew just the person to set that up!
Clint had introduced Orlando to the mobster, now ex-mobster, who opened the mine. Paulo Lariez. He had no doubt Orlando and he had become friends and confidants. He would arrange it as someone from his mine who came from Mexico to look for anything he could find in the area.
“Ivan’s luck sucks lately,” Clint remarked. They all laughed.
Clint felt this part was fairly well arranged so went back to the hotel. Ivan came in about four and said he had made no progress in finding the poisons and he couldn’t find but one person, a taxi driver, who had seen the other Russian. He spent most of the day looking for that person.
It suddenly dawned on him that the poisons are easy to detect so it was possible they were still hidden at his place. He would go back and check. Maybe he’d see Generoso at El Critico later. With a proposition, if it was truly the people he suspected who stole the poison.
Clint said he would quite possibly be there.
He hung around the pier awhile, greeting the locals he knew . None saw through his disguise.
He cleaned up and went to El Critico at seven for dinner. The food was good there. Ivan came in about seven thirty, excited and scared. He said some people were on his property and had as much as thrown him off! They had all his things!
“Call the police, as much as the idea annoys us who have been in the occupations we have been in.”
“I can’t. It’s not really my property. I thought we had a legal agreement with the owner, but it turns out my, er, associates didn’t bother with that little detail. I’m in terrible trouble!”
“Well, you can at least disclaim any knowledge of the stolen poisons. That should, as the yanks say, get you off the hook for that.”
“Not really, but that’s not the ... my problem will be with others, now. A war between two different groups will end with one of them wiped from the face of the Earth.
“You see, the stolen poisons were the factor that gave the group I work for precedence in, er, some areas. Now they’re no longer a factor. If the other group learn
s of that, well, it can get bad. Fast!”
“Distance yourself from both sides. If you were merely working as a contract worker for one side or the other you are no part of the management, shall we say.”
“I wish I could. I suppose I’m a walking dead man, but that’s part of the trade. I do think I like you. Don’t get involved with Russian groups. They play for keeps. It’s always a survivors’ club deal.”
Clint nodded. “Take care. I really have to leave tomorrow for a few days. Three days. It’s to renew the visa.”
“You bother with that crap?”
“I wish to retire here. I wish for a solid good reputation. Yes, I bother with it.”
“Oh, that’s right. I guess it’s better. I suppose I’ll be gone, one way or another before you get back. I wish you good fortune and hope you can retire the way you want.”
Clint thanked him and said he hoped it could be resolved where he wouldn’t end up dead. He went to the hotel.
He left for David in the morning. Paulo Lariez called to say the problem with the illegal mining operation was settled. Orlando made a deal with a US company about the uranium and was now several million dollars richer – which he hated! They would go together and build a new school in the town where Orlando’s wife grew up. And a free medical clinic.
Clint could picture Orlando’s response to the news that he was a few million dollars richer. His reaction the first time was, “What the hell will I do with it?”
Clint caught the early bus to David in the morning.
“Clint? What’s happening down there?” Judi demanded. She called just after he got on the bus.
“What have you heard?”
“That some spies were doing something and some Spanish guy came in and broke it up.”
“Not quite. I’ll tell you about it when I get back home.”
“Nando is back.”
“Oh? That’s news! It might work out pretty well, all-in-all.”
“He and Serg seem to have come to a Mexican standoff of some kind. I wondered if maybe you engineered that.”
