Frederick Ramsay_Botswana Mystery 02 Page 9

  “These tickets are for who? Or should I say what?”

  “Premiums, Yuri. Part of the package. Customers who stay with us after or before, watch the games free and in comfort. Marketing.”

  Greshenko didn’t say so, but he was sure his contacts, the men he had been bullied into meeting, would have no trouble finding as many tickets as Leo wanted. Whether he would pay their price was something else entirely.

  “I will talk to some people. You know that most of the tickets to the boxes and lounges are consigned already or sold. I may have access to a small block of first rate tickets and more of the general admission variety.”

  “Do the best you can. It’s just an idea, not a requirement. If we can’t lay our hands on a sufficient number, we can always scalp them.”

  But, tickets notwithstanding, he could not stop now. He must do what they asked and hoped they kept their word. He didn’t believe it but, as they had pointed out to him in painful detail, he had no options. Do as bid or end his days in a very cold place from which there would be no hope of escape. Greshenko nodded and pulled the handle of his bag up. “Very well, then, I will see you in a few days.” He rolled the bag out to his waiting taxi.

  “Airport,” he said, and climbed in.

  ***

  Sanderson saw Tlalelo and Modise to the door and shut it behind him. Could this internet thing be true? Surely the government would not permit it. She positioned herself behind her desk and stared at her computer screen. What to do. Did she need to know about this thing? Would her knowing be of help? She didn’t know. How could she?

  She pulled up her internet browser. Computers were not something she completely understood. She thought of her daughter, Mpitle. She would know how to find this out but…that was the point, wasn’t it. She did not want that to happen. Mpitle, so young and in so much danger with the HIV/AIDs all about. She shook her head and thought a moment. What do I type in this Google box? Did she know any of those words? She did, but knowing was not something she wished to admit. Her computer screen, pale blue and nonjudgmental, seemed to wait for her to decide. Did she want to proceed or not? Finally she typed in two words and hit enter. A screen filled with sites appeared. She clicked on the first offering and stared, her mouth agape as images of women flooded the screen. They were naked, of course, but the things they were doing! It was true. She clicked back to the search results and read that there were over three thousand sites with this rubbish on them.

  She quickly exited, erased her search history, and contemplated the now pristine screen. Why was this permitted? Who looked at those pictures? Why? And where were those girls’ mothers who allowed this to happen to their children?

  Chapter Eighteen

  Sometime in his early life, Patriarche had learned to use a stick. That happened before he became the leader of this increasingly threatened family group. A branch had apparently fallen from a tree and stuck vertically in the turf. Instead of knocking it over as he might have in the past, he grasped it with both hands and pulled it straight toward him. It unearthed a succulent root. A second scratch with the stick yielded the same results. He discovered the small end of a stick could push through the tangle and turn up an edible root more efficiently than grubbing in the dirt with his massive paws. At that moment Patriarche became what anthropologists would describe as a “tool user.” Somewhat later he discovered that a longer stick could be used to pull down tree limbs otherwise just out of his reach and make their leaves more accessible. He tried to teach the ways of the stick to the other gorillas. Some caught on; most remained unimpressed. He kept trying, however.

  Throwing the stick at limbs to bring down a shower of leaves, fruit, and occasionally nuts and seeds had only occurred to him in the last several months. He had become proficient at the art. Once, when he’d thrown the stick into a tree top, he’d brought down a bird’s nest. The eggs broke when they hit the ground and he’d tasted the yellow mess. It was food, no doubt. He did not try to knock down anymore nests but he remembered how it had been done. If he and the others had to change their territory or move to a less lush area, they might have to learn to eat these things that fell from the trees. A bigger stick would bring more things to him.

  Now as the sun rose in the east, stick in hand, he surveyed his family grazing quietly in the bush. He sensed more than knew, that down the hillside the infant gorilla was still alive and calling for its mother who would never answer. How much longer it would remain alive he could not know. He smacked the earth with his stick and it broke. He grunted and went searching for another, a stronger one. He would find a bigger stick and he would learn to throw it better. Then he would show the others how to do it again.

  ***

  Leo Painter’s reply when asked how he’d produced counter moves to various efforts by rivals intent on upsetting his plans would always be, “I may be slow, but I’m not stupid.” Advancing age and the residual effects of multiple coronary accidents had not in any way diminished his intuitive grasp of situations that posed a threat to him or his business, although he readily admitted he’d slowed down considerably. And while he no longer held the day-to-day management responsibilities of Earth Global, the company he’d built from a small oil wildcatting firm to one of the world’s largest energy and mining consortiums, he still had a business to attend to. His casino and hotel on the Chobe occupied his full attention and he sensed that for some reason Yuri Greshenko had gone off the rails. He did not doubt Greshenko’s loyalty. He had no reason to. It wasn’t a matter of blind loyalty or friendship. He just knew enough about his partner to realize it was not in anyone’s interest, his or Greshenko’s, to mess it up. So, this rapid and nonessential departure to the south could only mean that something very much off the books lurked out there somewhere.

  Leo sorely missed his contacts in the States. Were he back home in Chicago, he’d need only to pick up the phone, make two or three calls, and he’d have a pretty good line on what pit Greshenko had fallen into. But this was neither Chicago nor the United States and the people who could deliver the information he wanted did not operate here. He positioned himself behind the battered desk that would serve as his office until the administrative wing of his hotel was completed and drummed his fingers. In the past this would be a two-cigar think. But cigars were off his list of permissible things along with double martinis before lunch and a few other small vices he’d once enjoyed but now only relished as memories.

  The telephone system had a call logger built into the system. Leo had insisted on that from the outset. He had had to order it special from the States and at considerable expense. But it had been one of those things he’d come to rely on in his past life, one of his “I-may-be-slow- but-I’m-not-stupid” props and he accessed it now. Who had Yuri been talking to besides the usual business and personal calls he made. It would be a start.

  ***

  Because she’d been so distracted by the topic of the filmmakers and the subject of internet sex, Sanderson had neglected to tell Modise of her encounter with the stranger who’d threatened in such a disturbing fashion. So much had happened so quickly and Modise…well, he distracted her too, she had to admit. He moved like one of the big cats, not a lion. Lions were not the graceful ones, only the largest. Although she’d been told the tigers of India were bigger, she found that hard to believe. In Setswana his name Kgabo meant monkey, but she did not think of him that way. Ape, maybe, but not a monkey for sure. No, she imagined him more as a leopard, one of those black ones that she’d read about that mostly live in Asia.

  “This is such foolishness,” she muttered and put Kgabo Modise out of her mind.

  She had arranged to take her daughter to the shops and that meant returning to her home, parking the government Land Rover, and starting off in her red Bakkie. She was very firm on that point. Personal business meant using her personal means of transportation. She knew perfectly well that many, indeed most people employed by the government, took as a perquisite of that employment the use
of their government issued vehicle. She did not. To and from work only. So, it was in her red Toyota HiLux that she drove into Kasane, not the Land Rover. It was a perfect disguise, you could say, if she wanted to go unnoticed. Old and battered Toyota pickup trucks were as common as ticks on a rhinoceros in this part of the country.

  She was about to make the turn to the road that led to her daughter’s school when the man, this threatening person of hers, stepped into the street and started toward her. She slid low in her seat and hoped he did not see her. But she saw him. Panicked, she put the truck into gear and thought to pull away, but he turned abruptly and seemed to follow another smaller man who seemed familiar, but his back was turned and she couldn’t be sure. Sanderson eased her truck into motion. She would trail this lummox who had threatened her. Perhaps he would lead her to his home or work place and she would identify him. Knowing these things would surely help Modise.

  ***

  Superintendent Mwambe reread the cable from Kinshasa. He should contact Modise with this information. It would help with his investigation. It annoyed Mwambe that Modise had intuitively hit on the central fact of the killing—that the dead man was part of the Orgonise Africa movement and had come to the park ostensibly to distribute orgonite there or in the Chobe River. There had to be more, of course, but…he dropped the cable onto a pile of papers, straightened its edges, and decided he would wait and call Modise after lunch. He needed time to consider all the possibilities this knowledge presented as well as to affirm his jurisdiction over the investigation. Gaborone needed to understand that up in the north the police were perfectly capable of handling any and all situations with out the interference of young ambitious operators like Modise.

  And there he needed time to consider how to deal with Andrew Tanaka. Such a fool.

  Chapter Nineteen

  The group of people Mwambe’s cable referenced sat around a table in Kinshasa and considered their options. The plan to introduce orgonite into the Chobe seemed brilliant at the time. Thus far, only small amounts had been placed in northern Botswana. With the excitement of the games arriving soon, now seemed a perfect time to correct that. If they could put enough of this revitalizing substance into this river it would easily find its way along the river’s course on into the Zambezi River, and to Mozambique. Where they had previously failed at Cahora Bassa would be taken care of this time. The fact that it would also drift through Victoria Falls would be another great benefit. One only had to witness the mist billowing out of the fall’s gorge to see how it could not fail to put energy into the land.

  There had been some lengthy discussion about the energy migrating along the rivers. The people in London steadfastly insisted that the orgonite had to be placed in specific areas; that it did not migrate from the cones which held it. If that were the case, they insisted, one need only to introduce it at the headwaters of the continents great rivers and the task would be complete. But the younger, indigenous members of the movement had seen the blocks of material slowly disintegrate over time and reckoned it only reasonable that once this process had started the effects of the orgonite, the released energy, would drift inexorably downstream, refreshing and healing the countryside as it did so. That they should spot the material periodically along the course of the rivers and spread across a great expanse of land represented something of a compromise.

  They all knew from experience that a river in full flood did not behave like one during a time of relative drought. Indeed, a flood tide could bring water from the Okavango onto the Chobe and refresh the swamps between them. It didn’t happen often, but it did occur. Water in swamps would not fulfill the promise of distribution they anticipated. Thus, the plan to introduce orgonite in concentrations in certain areas rather than simply drop it into the Kwando in Angola and let it flow southeastward through the Chobe to the Zambezi and on to the sea in Mozambique.

  They neither thought nor cared that William Reich’s ideas about the orgone energy were peculiarly focused on its sexual and mental benefits and had little or nothing to do with revitalizing land, much less an entire continent. And what he would make of all this was never mentioned, much less discussed. Movements, great or small, once separated from their founders often acquired a life remarkably different than that which was initially envisioned, and Operation Paradise was no exception. If you believed, as these young people did, that you held in your hands the means to rid the continent of HIV/AIDs without having to acknowledge the societal, behavioral, that is to say the human element in its spread, why question premises? And one must add to this account the healing it offered from drought, poverty, and the residue of centuries of oppressive colonial rule. In the face of all this, they could not let this small setback stop them now.

  The group mourned the loss of their comrade, determined to send his widow some money if they came across any to spare, and began their search for another vehicle and driver. Their mission was of too great importance to pause now, either for reflection or mourning.

  ***

  Leo Painter studied the printout of Greshenko’s most recent phone calls. The international ones he could explain for the most part. The ones to Gaborone also except…Greshenko told him he had had no contact with the country of his birth for years. His temporary resident permit, however, had been issued to Yuri’s Russian passport. Leo never asked how this could be. He assumed that Yuri’s former connections to the nether world of international crime managed it for him. He also knew that Yuri had filed for citizenship in Botswana and that effort had landed in a sea of red tape. Yet there could be no mistaking this number. What would a Russian restaurant in Gaborone want with him? More likely, what would the denizens of such a place want with him?

  Leo wondered if his revelation would create an unnecessary snarl in his carefully planned retirement. He no longer wished for, much less relished, the sort of plotting and scheming that had characterized his earlier life as a CEO, and all the corporate wheeling and dealing it entailed. “The simple life,” he’d said six months ago, “from now on peace and serenity, thank you.”

  So, what had Greshenko gotten himself involved in now? He had no idea what it might involve, but he knew he would not like it when he found out. Once again, he longed for the resources, the investigators and yes, the muscle, he could muster back in the States. He could call them, he supposed. They might have some suggestions, some alternatives. It would be worth a try.

  He’d confront Greshenko the instant he returned. International intrigue, if this is what it is, did not figure in Leo’s future. And anything that threatened his hotel and casino threatened him personally.

  He did not need this.

  ***

  The street appeared nearly empty. It would be another hour before luncheon and people would spill out of offices and buildings. That he would be noticed was not in question. A white man carrying a large overnight bag loitering in the mall’s food court would be obvious to even the most inattentive passerby. And he felt sure the men who awaited him in the restaurant had him in sight as well. But caution had become a habit in his past life and he allowed it to click in now as well. He walked with deliberate slowness toward the entrance marked Pectopah and Reseturente on the opposite side of the corridor. He needed to know if others, not his contacts, were interested in him as well. If he did spot them he’d keep walking and wait for another call. Aside from the fact he was white and carrying a satchel, there did not appear to be anyone even remotely interested in him.

  As he suspected, however, he had been monitored from the restaurant. The young man who acted as maitre de gave his ID a cursory glance and waved him into a booth in the back. A moment later a tall man, whom in the old days Greshenko would more than likely have labeled a Cossack, gestured for him to follow. He was ushered through the kitchen area into a small sitting room and told someone would be with him shortly. Requiring a person, who had one could say certain deficits, and who was, therefore, in his summoner’s power, to wait was an old psychological trick. It
was not lost on Greshenko. The visa, which permitted his continued residence in the country, and therefore his very future, could very well depend on the outcome of this meeting. Leo, with all his political connections in the United States, did not have much sway in this venue. So he waited in silence, eyes fixed on the wall opposite, and wondering where they had planted the listening devices.

  In something less than a half hour a grizzled man entered followed by a billow of thick smoke which reeked of the sort of tobacco that only Russians and Turks could abide. Yuri had all but forgotten that aroma. It brought back memories, very few of them pleasant. The old man sat and studied him. He, in turn, studied the old man. He could read his history by the tattoos on his arms, at least those he could see. This man had been around. Greshenko had never reached the point of wearing his résumé, as it were, as skin art. The practice which started in the gulags as far back as Tsarist Russia had pretty much ended by the time Greshenko found himself in the service of these men.

  “You’re part of Lenka’s organization?” he asked.

  The big man coughed, one of those “been smoking cheap tobacco products for over thirty years” coughs that sounded as if his lungs would soon fly out of his mouth and slide across the table. He caught his breath, wiped his chin, and grinned, Greshenko caught sight of the stainless steel in his mouth. He had been around a long time.

  “Perhaps, my son, and perhaps not. That is knowledge you do not need to possess at this moment.”

  So, the rumors he’d heard before he left Chicago were true. The Bratva had established a base in South Africa and, with Bout out of the picture, this had to be Lenka. It had only been a matter of time before they moved north. He contemplated the man across from him who still tried to clear his throat from the after effects of the coughing spell. We are two of a kind, he thought. Separated by decades and history but after that, where was the difference? Time and tide, he thought. Weren’t they both too old to play this game? Very possibly, yet here they were. This man from the Russian Bratva who represented as well the Bratva’s reluctant bridegroom—the smoldering embers of the old KGB—and him. Only Greshenko believed he’d left this life behind, but it seemed he’d anticipated his freedom to soon. Now he wondered if he would ever be free.