Frederick Ramsay_Botswana Mystery 02 (16 page)

Chapter Thirty

Tarq and Rice pushed their way to the mountain’s crest. It had been a grueling trek from the tiny airstrip where they’d been dropped to this point. They’d hacked their way through the Congo’s jungle being careful to avoid the militias that combed this area seeking women to rape, villages to plunder, and children to enslave. Tarq had no assurance that his target would be in place even if they managed to avoid that plague of human locusts. He hated the senseless killing to which the militias seemed addicted. If a person needed to die, it should be clean and quick. These militiamen, some no more than twelve years old, were as savage as hyenas, he thought, and just as ugly, taking pleasure in the pain and suffering they created. It was as if someone had unleashed a battalion of serial killers on the land. He shuddered to think what life would be like if there were a truce. Could these insensate young men ever return to normal living and relationships after participating in years of unmitigated violence and merciless brutality?

The man and woman moved slowly and carefully through the underbrush. They rarely spoke. Rice knew enough English to follow Tarq and he in turn had acquired enough Arabic so that they could, if they wished, converse. But before a job, they spoke only when necessary. They slept in separate sleeping bags, and anyone observing them from a distance would have assumed they were no more than business associates, brother and sister. They would be wrong. When their work ended they would backtrack through the jungle, fly to the Seychelles, and take up residence in their condo on the beach. They would eat, sleep, bask in the sun, and make love until they received the next call for their services.

Rice slipped binoculars from her backpack and scanned the area below them toward the encampment. A kilometer away and perhaps the same distance below she could make out the rough placement of tents and shacks set up near the coltan mine. She motioned for Tarq to look. He lifted his sniper scope to his eye and swept the area. Men milled about, rifles slung across shoulders, apparently preparing to move out. But to where? General Le Grande exited the only decent looking tent on the site. He pivoted and flashed some sort of stick at the troopers. It would be a stretch, but if the little man would hold still long enough, Tarq thought he might be able to make the kill from where he stood. Then they could return to their rendezvous point. It would be risky. If he missed he wouldn’t get another chance, at least not in this venue, and they would have made the long hike in for nothing. The general would hightail it back to his main headquarters, and a wholly different strategy would be required to take him out there. Not an option Tarq relished. He’d wait for a sure thing. They would have to move closer.

He pulled his ghillie suit from his pack and indicated that Rice should do the same. They wrapped themselves in the camouflage and began the slow process of moving downhill toward the camp. Periodically Rice checked for changes. After twenty minutes of cautious maneuvering she held up her hand.

She indicated with her hands that Tarq should look down slope, that the men were moving in their direction.

Tarq lifted his head fractionally and confirmed it.

“This way. Why?”

Was it possible they’d been seen, been betrayed? He closed the bolt of his rifle over a cartridge, patted the holstered 1918 Colt .45 on his hip.

At that moment he heard rustling in the forest nearby. Too soon for the troops and their leader. He swung his rifle around; its scope now secured to its barrel, and scanned the underbrush.

“Gorillas. They are coming here to hunt the apes. We can move faster now. They will be in the forest on their way up the mountain and not expecting to see us or anybody except those bad boys.”

Rice nodded. They crouched and scrabbled down the hillside on an angle that should put them in position to intercept the hunters below the point where the gorillas grazed. Twenty meters further, they entered the westernmost end of a forest glade perhaps ten meters wide and at least fifty long. Perfect. The general and the cockroaches he called his
soldats
would have to cross this area out in the open to get to the gorillas on the hillside above.

Tarq calculated possible lines of fire and chose a spot that would allow him to draw down on anyone emerging from the tree line. He hoped the general would live up to his reputation for bravado and be the first one through. Tarq did not wish to shoot any more men than necessary. He understood, but disliked, the concept of collateral damage. A clean kill was best. One shot and then a high speed bug out.

He’d been trained for this life by the United Stated Marine Corps and had it not been for a bad run of luck involving the wife of his CO and a resultant dishonorable discharge for adultery and striking an officer, he might still be in their employ. On the whole he thought the exchange from highly regarded but underpaid grunt to wealthy assassin had worked out pretty well. Whether shooting the Corps’ idea of a bad guy or some other organization’s was, for him, a distinction without a difference. Bad guys were bad guys, period.

Rice switched from binoculars to her spotter scope and lined up distances and elevations while they waited for the general and his hunting party. She told each off as she sighted down the glade. Tarq muttered, “check” each time she called a mark and adjusted his sight settings on the scope. There was no wind. The only possible difficulty he envisioned would arise if the gorillas moved through the glade before the soldiers arrived. He couldn’t worry about that now. He rubbed the palm of his hand down the length of his rifle, pulled gently at the scope to assure it had seated firmly, and readjusted the camo sleeve that covered the whole. He liked this rifle and scope but still missed the one he’d been issued in the Corps. The Mosin-Nagant M-40A3 had good balance, and excellent optics in the scope. As well as it performed, though, it was still a relic of the Second World War. After this payday he would have one of Lenka’s people find him a Sig Sauer SG 550 fully equipped. That was a piece! He lifted his head up to take in the whole of the shooting field, turned toward Rice and smiled. A thin smile. She blinked her response. They were ready.

If the gorillas were aware of their presence, and he guessed they were, they did not seem to care one way or another. They continued to graze their way toward them through the forest floor. Only the old silverback seemed to be aware of something out of the ordinary. He raised up and scrutinized the trees down the hill. Tarq blinked and thought maybe he might have imagined that.

Thirty seconds later, he heard the movements that apparently had attracted the old gorilla’s attention. These hunters were not very skillful. If the gorillas were to realize the danger they represented, they had ample opportunity to flee. But they lingered. Tarq settled into his shooting position and touched Rice’s shoulder. She lowered her body beside his. Only a matter of seconds now.

The first man into the glade was not the general. Two more stepped clear. Tarq realized the gorillas had become unnaturally quiet. He risked a look up the hill where the group of apes had been. They had moved, not away from, but toward the men. Odd. Tarq turned his attention back to the glade. He heard Rice hiss. The general had stepped forward. He stood, Napoleon-like, in the center, his rifle slung loosely in the crook of his arm. Tarq settled the crosshairs on the general’s core. A head shot would be surer but riskier. At the same instant, the gorillas seemed to rise as one and advance on the men. The soldiers hesitated, not expecting this move. Some raised their rifles and took aim but the general seemed to wave them off. He could not make out the man’s words but an order had been given and the men hesitated. At that moment the unthinkable happened.

The silverback had been carrying a large stick. He lifted his arm and threw it with considerable force toward the general. The other apes followed suit, apparently with no intentional aim at a target. They simply let fly and then rearmed with rocks and forest debris. The silverback’s stick caught the general on the temple. He dropped like a stone. Tarq could not see how badly he’d been hurt, only that he didn’t move once he fell. The apes moved closer now screaming and beating their chests, rocks and sticks flying. The soldiers, with their leader down, panicked and raced back down the mountainside. The silverback shuffled to the prostrate general and picked up his rifle. He held it by the barrel, as he had the stick earlier. He used it to smash the man’s head several times. It sounded to Tarq like the time he’d taken a baseball bat to a watermelon. The gorilla stared at the bloody end of the rifle, swung it around, and shattered it against a tree trunk. He dropped the pieces next to the man and he and the rest of his group retreated back up the mountain and out of sight.

Tarq waited until he felt certain the apes had cleared the area. He quickstepped down the hill to the general. The man was very decidedly dead. He snapped a picture with his cell phone, grabbed the ID from the general’s pocket, and turned.

“We’re out of here,” he said to Rice. They shed their ghillie suits and retraced their steps out of the area.

Except for the long trek through the jungle, it might have been the easiest paycheck he’d ever earned.

Chapter Thirty-one

Modise listened stone-faced to Leo Painter. He thought the attempt to sell intel to the Russians by a local gang of thugs verged on the fantastic. He knew about the
Bratva
, of course. Notices about it, its known activities and personnel, had been discussed at the Director’s briefings when the agenda reached global threats and Interpol intel. He had the file he’d been handed by the DG as well. He’d studied pictures of the major players and thought he could recognize many of them on sight. But, up until now, its known activities south of the Zambezi had been largely confined to South Africa. The possibility that it had spread its tentacles into Botswana and the Chobe was cause for serious concern. He would need to contact the Director General at once.

“Are you sure of this, Mr. Painter?”

“It is what Greshenko told me. I have no reason not to believe him. Before I asked him to come to the Chobe with me last year I had him vetted by a very reliable private investigator who told me that Greshenko used to run with those people. If he says the Russian
mafyia
is here and selling its services to Russian Intelligence, it would be silly for me not to believe him.”

“Have you contacted your embassy, the United States authorities? They will want to know, certainly.”

“I made some informal calls to some people I know in the State Department and elsewhere. They did not offer much in the way of relief for Greshenko. As I hear it, he’s as well off playing with the bad guys as with the good guys. I’m hoping you can do better by him.”

“Yes, I see. The circumstances of his past are most unfortunate, I think. You know it does not make him the sort of person for whom a government like ours does favors.”

Modise turned his gaze away and studied the men applying stucco to the walls of the hotel in front of him. He stood and began to pace. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his notebook, flipped it open, and held it up to his ear. A confused look, followed by a sheepish smile, and he placed the book on a low wall nearby and fished out his cell phone.

“Inspector, I would not leave that thing on the wall. If I were you.”

Modise stopped pacing and looked at Leo. “There is a problem?”

At that instant, the gray monkey made a lightning dash toward the wall, Modise’s notebook his destination.

“Hey, get away from that,” Modise shouted and bent to retrieve a scrap of debris which he scaled at the monkey who, in turn, veered away and scurried up a nearby tree to await another larcenous opportunity.

“That sucker does that all the time. We’ve lost tools, cell phones, and God only knows what else to that little bastard. Maybe your police can arrest him.”

“If we arrested every monkey who steals we would have none in the trees to amuse your guests.”

“I would not miss them, Inspector.”

“Ah, but the tourists would, I believe.” He pocketed his notebook and turned his attention to his phone, his back to Leo who strained to catch a word or two or make out who the inspector had on the line. But as the talk was in Setswana, a language he had not yet mastered, he failed.

The conversation, if you could call it that—Modise mostly listened—lasted nearly five full minutes. Leo scuffed his toe in the dirt and waited.

“Mr. Painter, my superiors will require more time to consider how best to handle this situation. I reminded them of the threats made to your Mr. Greshenko and the likelihood his controllers will be expecting results soon.”

“More than that. I hope you also told him that if Greshenko is taken out of the picture, it means someone else will be sent in his place and we will not know who that person will be. Greshenko is your proverbial ‘bird in the hand.’”

“Bird? Yes, I suggested we would be wise to keep the operation in your friend’s hands rather than taking a risk that a stranger might be sent in his place. Is that what you meant?”

“Yes, that sort of bird, you understand correctly.”

“The DG suggests you proceed but only in part. What you do in your hotel is your business, he says. Placing cameras and microphones in the units is highly suspicious behavior, perhaps unethical even, but only becomes a problem when used in a covert or illegal manner and only then depending for what purpose, you see?”

“Not really. Are you saying we should go ahead and install them?”

“In your buildings, yes, but in yours only. If Greshenko’s controllers get word of work in progress, it will hold them at bay for a while. Long enough for us to decide what to do next.”

“I’m being told to bug and setup secret surveillance of guests in my hotel rooms?”

“Bugging, surveillance? Um…I think you did not hear me correctly, sir. I am sure I distinctly said the government would have no difficulty with your attempt to provide a cutting edge fire warning system in your rooms. Of course you understand the equipment must key to switch on only when your smoke detectors activate.”

“My smoke detectors activate? Oh, fire warnings, right. I’m not as quick as I used to be, Inspector. Sorry about that. Yes, indeed, we are very proud of our system for helping guests safely from their rooms in case of fire. Smoke detectors do their thing and the system jumps to attention. Indeed, we call it the Fuggo system.”

Modise raised his eyebrows. “Fuggo?”

“F. G. H. O.—Fire, Get the Hell Out.”

“Very clever. I must remember that. Well, put your man to installing the Fuggo. We will of course, wish to have a close monitor on your system as well. Perhaps we could build in a delay of some sort. You know how that is, time to assess the actions before sending them along. We are not sure.”

“And the rest of the job? What does Greshenko tell the bozos about installing things in the Mowana Lodge?”

“We will have an answer for that in a day or two.”

“And what happens to Greshenko when this gets out?”

“If it gets out you mean.”

“I think I mean, when. If he does this job, he will be in their pocket forever. I don’t want that to happen. But if he gets caught, does time, or whatever, they’ll have no more use for him.”

“And they may eliminate him as he is the link to them. But if he doesn’t and he stays in their service, you could say, we would have use for him.”

“You’d make him a double? Modise, you might as well put a bullet in his head right now.”

“You are too dramatic, I think.”

“How well do you know this
Bratva
?”

“Well enough.”

“I think not.”

“Still, for the moment, he should proceed as we have discussed.”

“I hate it when big institutions decide the sacrifice of a life is justifiable if it serves the greater good, especially when it’s someone else’s life.”

“Stay with us, Mr. Painter, we do not wish any harm to fall on your friend.”

“Words, Modise, words. Governments trade in them. But I don’t suppose we have any better options, do we?”

“No.”