Lords of Corruption (35 page)

He put one of the girl's arms over his shoulders and dragged her to the limo, pushing her into a seat and then following her inside.

"I wonder," Umboto Mtiti said as the door was slammed shut and Fedorov's pupils struggled to adjust to the interior gloom, "why you wouldn't have informed me you were coming to my country?"

"You asked me to come, Excellency, and I chartered the soonest available plane. I was going to call you as soon as I got to the house."

Mtiti just stared at him, and he used the time to refine his story. Mtiti was a monkey, but he was a smarter monkey than most.

"Who is this woman?"

Fedorov glanced over at her and saw that she'd slipped fully into unconsciousness again. "Josh Hagarty's sister, sir."

"And what is it you intend to do with her?"

"I plan to flush out Josh Hagarty and kill him."

Mtiti nodded. "With your South African mercenaries?"

Fedorov tried not to let the sudden surge of adrenaline coursing through him show. In the United States he was surrounded by guards at all times, he had informants keeping an eye on his competition, and he killed anyone who was a threat to him well before they could become dangerous. But this wasn't the States. Here Mtiti dominated everything. Soft leather and air conditioning notwithstanding, Fedorov knew he had become a prisoner the moment he'd passed through the limousine's door.

"I can only assume that you feel m
y p
eople aren't good enough?"

"Excellency, you made it clear on the phone that it was my responsibility to deal with this problem. So now I'm here personally with a team of men to resolve this issue and prove my loyalty."

Mtiti smiled, but it was impossible to tell if it was because he believed what he was hearing or merely admired Fedorov's skill at lying. "Unfortunately, things have changed in a way that will make your plan impossible."

The implication was clear. The South Africans were all dead.

Mtiti leaned forward and patted Fedorov's knee. "I appreciate your commitment, Aleksei. And to show that mine is equal, I want to make you a guest at my palace. And to offer you the use of my best people."

"I wouldn't want to impose on your hospitality," Fedorov said. "I'm happy to stay at Stephen Trent's house."

"I insist."

Fedorov forced a smile. "Then I accept. Thank you."

"And where is Stephen, Aleksei?"

It was impossible to know whether Mtiti was genuinely looking for information or if he already knew the answers to his questions and was testing. Lies had to be considered carefully. The wrong one could be fatal.

"He's dead, Excellency. And I suspect Gideon is, too. I'm sorry. I know he was a relation to you."

Mtiti didn't react other than to reach beneath his seat and hand Fedorov a stack of file folders. They were all empty, but their prior contents were noted on labels relating to various NewAfrica bank accounts, bogus projects, and payoffs.

"We found these in the secure file cabinets in Stephen's office. Would you happen to know where the documents are?"

Fedorov's stomach tightened, and he was forced to wipe the sweat from his face before it began dripping from his chin. "Josh Hagarty has them."

"And why wasn't I told about this?" Mtiti said, his voice filling the back of the enormous car.

"Because I just found out," Fedorov replied. "And there wasn't a secure way for me to get in touch with you while I was in transit."

The girl started to mumble incoherently, and Mtiti looked down at her. His face twisted with rage, and without warning he slammed the heel of his boot into the side of her head.

Fedorov slid in front of the now silent girl
,
holding his hands up. "We need her alive. Not for much longer, but --"

"The world is lining up against me," Mtiti shouted. "I can no longer count on you on the people who were supposed to be my friends. The Europeans came here and enslaved the black man for a hundred years, stripping our homelands of everything of value before they turned their backs and walked away. The Americans bomb anyone who might cost them money and develop weapons that can destroy all life. But who lives beneath the world's microscope? I do. I am the man everyone wants to call a war criminal. I am the brutal dictator. And do you know why?"

"Excellency, I -"

"Because my country is poor. We don't have the oil that allows the Saudis to do whatever they want with the blessing of America. We don't have a billion future customers for American products, like the Chinese. And so while their much greater crimes are ignored, I am criticized for doing nothing but trying to keep my country at peace."

"Excellency, I understand your situation, but --"

"Do you? Do you understand that my future -- the future of my people -- is hanging by a thread? Do you understand that your failures, your incompetence, could be enough to destroy everything I've built?"

"It won't come to that, sir. I guarantee it."

Mtiti sat back again, the storm suddenly over. "I hope you're right, Aleksei. Because if you're not, I don't know what will happen."

Chapter
47.

"I'm here," Aleksei Fedorov said into the phone while keeping his eye on Umboto Mtiti across the desk. The president was leaning back in a chair that looked vaguely like a throne, listening in on another handset.

"In Africa?" Josh Hagarty responded. Despite the fact that he was undoubtedly within a few hundred miles, his voice echoed with a slight delay.

"Where the fuck do you think I mean?" "And you've got my sister?"

"Yes. Do you have my documents?" "Yeah, I have them."

"Then we don't have much more to talk about, do we? Where are we meeting, and when?"

"Did Stephen tell you about the village where Annika was hiding out?"

"Yes."

"Let's meet on that road. Say, five mile
s b
efore the village turnoff."

"Is that where you killed him?"

"It is, actually."

There was a nonchalance to his voice that Fedorov found vaguely disconcerting. In an effort to avoid hiring another overeducated do-gooder, they seemed to have gone too far in the other direction. It was difficult to tell if his attitude was just a bluff or if he'd learned more in prison than they'd anticipated.

"From what I heard, he had five or ten guys with him. Did you kill all of them?" No response.

"That's what I thought. You're in rebel country, and it sounds like you made some friends there. Fuck you, we do this somewhere neutral."

"There is nowhere neutral. We do it there, or we don't do it at all."

"Well, why don't we ask your sister --" Fedorov started but then fell silent when Mtiti held up a hand and nodded. "Okay, fine. When?"

"Five days from now. An hour before sunset."

"Five days? No way. Tomorrow."

"It's a little hard for me to travel right now, Aleksei. I've got a price on my head, and Mtiti's got people everywhere. It'll tak
e m
e five days just to get there."

"How do I know you aren't trying to ge
t t
he documents out of the country?" "Because you have my sister, remember?" Fedorov glanced at Mtiti, and again th
e p
resident nodded.

"Five days, then. And you'd better not be screwing with me. Because you can be sure that while I'm tearing your sister apart, I'll tell her exactly whose fault it is."

"I want this over with, Aleksei. Just like you."

The line went dead, and Fedorov replaced the handset as Umboto Mtiti looked on.

"I don't believe that bullshit about them being five days away from the meeting place," Fedorov said. "Is there any way they could make copies?"

"No," Mtiti said. "There are very few copiers in this country, and I have people watching all of them. I also still have the power and phones cut off in most of the country."

"What about the borders? They could be running."

The muscles in Mtiti's jaw started to bulge as though he were chewing something. In the short time he'd been there, Fedorov had come to recognize this as one of th
e w
arning signs that the man was about to lose it.

"Just because you can't control your people and your business, Aleksei, doesn't mean I can't. If they show their faces anywhere -- anywhere -- I'll know it."

Fedorov looked around him -- at the guards by the door, at the dilapidated city on the other side of the bulletproof glass that framed Mtiti. All he could think about was cutting Josh Hagarty's heart out for forcing him to come here. For making him a prisoner of this ape that passed for a dictator.

"How much intelligence do you have on the terrorists in that area?" Fedorov said, being more careful of his phrasing this time.

Mtiti's expression turned to one of disgust. "I've left that land to the Yvimbo for now -- there's nothing of value on it. But if your young friend thinks I'm powerless there, he's going to be very surprised."

Chapter
48.

The sun was starting to get low on the horizon, and Aleksei Fedorov dared a quick glance at his watch before going back to scanning the jungle on either side of the road. Nothing. He was alone except for Josh Hagarty's sister, who was handcuffed to the bumper of the Land Cruiser he'd driven there.

She was no longer drugged, but it was hard to tell. Mtiti's people had taken charge of her the day they'd arrived and apparently thrown her into the local prison. She was bruised, battered, and filthy enough that he'd had to drive with the windows open to take the edge off the smell. Alive, yes. But completely broken.

Hagarty was now half an hour late. Mtiti was watching and would be getting impatient. Fedorov considered calling him to make sure he stayed put, but it would do more harm than good. Mtiti did what h
e w
anted when he wanted -- most often with no thought at all for anything beyond that moment.

Instead he dialed the number for Stephen Trent's sat phone. Hagarty picked up on the first ring.

"Yeah?"

"Where the fuck are you?"

"I'm not coming."

"What? What the "

"I told you to come alone, and you're not alone, are you? You were followed."

Fedorov looked around him for signs of Mtiti's men. He'd tried every argument he could think of to get Mtiti to use outside professionals, but the man had insisted on troops loyal to him -- by all measures a bunch of poorly trained, drunk assholes. And now one of them had let himself be spotted.

"This is bullshit, Josh. I'm here with your sister, alone. Just like you said. You --"

"Do you think I'm an idiot, Aleksei? I know what I saw. When you --"

Fedorov cut off the connection and dialed another number. "He's got us. Go!"

At first there was nothing. Then, less than a minute later, small dots in the sky became visible in every direction.

The helicopters arrived first. Nine in all
,
they'd been brought in four nights ago, full of troops who were now blocking the only road in and out of the area. The planes would be next, flying in from an airstrip fifty miles north. Most were rickety, '60s-era warplanes, but there was one important exception: a state-of-the-art spy plane full of sensors and high-definition cameras designed specifically to find ground targets. The Russian pilot said he could track a rat through the Siberian forest in a snowstorm.

If Josh and Annika were close enough to have seen Mtiti's men, there was no way they could avoid being spotted or get through the net that was now closing around the area. It was only a matter of time before they were caught.

Fedorov walked back to the car, removing the handcuffs from one of the girl's limp wrists and shoving her back into the vehicle. He'd heard talk of a method of execution that was uniquely African: They slid a tire over you, pinning your arms to your sides, and then set it on fire.

With a little luck, all this would be over by sundown. The documents would be destroyed, and Hagarty, his sister, and Annika Gritdal would be burning.

Chapter
49.

"Oh, my God . . ."

Annika was lying on her stomach in the dirt peering through a pair of binoculars. Josh knelt next to her, and she held them out to let him have a look.

Even with the magnification, he couldn't make out much more than dark specks against the sky. Their speed and pattern of movement made an educated guess possible, though. "Maybe seven or eight helicopters and probably double that many planes. Looks like a few are jets."

"I think it's the entire air force, Josh. I can't believe it. Mtiti sent the entire air force."

They were many miles from the place where they were supposed to meet Fedorov and, until the aircraft appeared, hadn't known if he'd kept his word and shown up alone. Clearly deceitfulness ran deep on both sides of the table. While everyon
e t
alked about an honest exchange, Fedorov's real agenda was to see them dead, while theirs was to stall and hope Katie hadn't gotten cold feet.