Frederick Ramsay_Botswana Mystery 02 (6 page)

Chapter Ten

Kgabo Modise had an overnight bag packed, a flight booked to Kasane, and was in his car on the way to the airport when he received Sanderson’s call. His face creased into a frown as he listened to what she had to say. At one point, he pulled to the side of the road to jot details in the notebook he always carried with him. All the police he’d met in Quantico had notebooks like this one. He made a habit to write things down whether they seemed important or not.

“I am coming to Kasane today, Sanderson. I will visit you after I have talked with the lodge owners and local police. If the people who owned cameras were shooting at night, they will have the equipment you will need, I think. We will see.”

He rang off and continued to the terminal for his Air Botswana flight north. He wondered about a film crew that never returned to retrieve their equipment. Were they stupidly wealthy, or had they leased it and skipped, or…or what? Perhaps they had come back but had been sent away again by someone else. Perhaps they were not what they seemed. Another puzzle for him to think about. He would need the particulars. He thought to call Sanderson back and discover their names. His flight was called and he left the building. Plenty of time to do these things when he arrived at Kasane later that morning.

***

Noga left Botlhokwa’s office and stepped out into the afternoon sun. He dropped the butt of his cigar and ground it beneath his heel. His mouth tasted terrible. He did not like cigars, Cuban or otherwise. He smoked them with his boss because it was a necessary ritual when dealing with him. Not everyone who sat across the desk from Botlhokwa was offered a cigar. If you were, it meant something. You had status. Botlhokwa had funny notions about some things. Noga spat and placed a breath mint on his tongue. What to do? In his world one took advantage of opportunities that often came by like a herd of antelope. If you were a lion, you took care of the antelope. You did not wait for another day, a bigger herd, a fatter prey, or, in this case, permission from the boss. You ran them down, or in his case, struck like the snake, like the
noga
.

But it required discretion. One must never bite the hand that feeds you. A side deal for some drugs, a theft of some things that just happened your way was okay. But to cross the boss was not acceptable. Well, to cross him and be caught was not. Botlhokwa wanted him to discover the man who played at both ends. No problem there. If he wanted to end up in a ditch somewhere, he could turn himself in and finish the job. Not going to happen.

He did not want to be a Botlhokwa man forever. He knew the ropes, knew the people; had dealt with them for over a year now. He’d spent months studying his man, his habits, his strengths, and especially his weaknesses. Now, he had to think about his future. The man with the tattoos, the Russian, had approached him. He made the deal. He seized the moment. He would manage Botlhokwa later. With the Finals of the Cup matches beginning soon, there would be many new opportunities…who knew? How was he to know that the carrier had rubbish in the boot? How could he guess the men would shoot him? Were they stupid? Idiots.

But first there were loose ends to tie up. He needed to find a likely candidate for Botlhokwa. He’d find a fall guy. That should not be too difficult. There were many big, slow, men in his employ. He just needed to choose one and set him up. Perhaps Cunningham would fit the bill. That would surely shake up the boss. Then he would see to the Russian and other opportunities that might become available.

***

Sanderson returned to her house for lunch. Ordinarily, she would have packed something in the battered tin box with the picture of the Royal Family on it. Her grandmother had stood with thousands of others in the late forties to observe this great
Kgosi
, King George the Sixth, his queen, and two young daughters. She spoke as if she had somehow known them personally.

“You know,” she would say looking closely at her three year old granddaughter, “That Group Captain Peter Townsend, he was a fine catch for sure. I see him moving around in the background with the royal people. He is like a leopard that can’t get to the antelope because of the lion. That Princess Margaret, she should have made her parents see that.” She shook her head. “So sad.”

Sanderson’s grandmother was a romantic but wholly ignorant of the ins and outs of English royal politics. But she had her souvenir of that momentous visit, a square tin box that came with hard candy in it originally. She later gave it to Sanderson to use as a lunch pail on her first day of school. Sanderson had used it through her school days to carry her noon meal and later, as an adult, a place to put her meager luncheon. But today, running late and in a hurry, she had left home without it. Besides, she wished to check on her son, Michael, who lingered on, his pneumonia held at bay by antibiotics. She wrestled again with the dark notion that surfaced from the depths of her subconscious and plagued her; the idea, that perhaps these antibiotics were not such a good thing after all; that wouldn’t it be better if Michael’s long struggle with the effects of HIV/AIDs were to end now, quietly, peaceably? She flushed with guilt at the thought and pushed the notion back down in the recesses of her brain where it had come from. She would like to have it erased but it seemed that once an idea planted itself in your mind, it received a permanent residence permit and would stay forever.

She parked next to her red pickup, her
bakkie
, and smiled. Restoring the old Toyota HiLux had been Michael’s last project. If he died, it would be his memorial.

Not
if
.

She wiped her eyes and stepped down from the Land Rover she now drove as the new superintendent of her game ranger station and turned to enter her house.

“You…woman.”

She spun to see who called to her. It was neither a voice nor a face she recognized.

“Who is it?”

“You do not know me and you will forget you have seen me, you see, but I bring a message of importance to you.”

“A message? What sort of message, and who are you that you bring me messages?”

The man stepped forward and stood very close to her. Too close for comfort, much too close for propriety.

“You are wanting to trace the vehicle that might be related to the death at the game park. Is that not so? It is advisable that you no longer do this. There might be consequences.”

“I do not accept messages from strangers unless they identify themselves, and I do not accept threats from anybody, and I do not know what you are talking about.”

Her words startled her even as she spoke them. She wondered what was happening to her. She did not consider herself a particularly brave person and yet she had just stood up to this stranger who, she now realized, was a foot taller than she, much heavier, and considerably larger than anyone she’d known except, perhaps, Inspector Mwambe. But Mwambe’s size came from too much eating, not strength building and exercise. This man who threatened her looked like one of those athletes she’d seen on the telly who fought in cages and had tattoos on their bodies.

The man seemed taken aback. He did not expect this bravery from a game ranger, from a woman. He seemed about to strike her, hesitated, and stepped back.

“Remember what I tell you,” he said. He turned and spat on the ground at the entry to her little court in front of her house. Sanderson clenched her teeth. The insult to her home was almost more irritating that this man’s threats to her.

“What is your name, man?” She shouted after him. He waved without turning around, a dismissive gesture, and strode away. Sanderson stamped her foot.

“And what will you do if I do not listen to your threats?”

The man turned and glared. “Do not be stupid, woman. You have a daughter. Do not forget that. She is young and pretty and…” he left the sentence dangling. He didn’t need to finish it.

He was right, Mpitle was young, and pretty, and vulnerable. She spent the better part of her days alone or with Michael because Sanderson had to work long hours. Michael could barely leave his bed. He certainly could do little or nothing to protect her. She depended on her village to keep her safe. But against this man? Could the villagers do anything? Sanderson stood in stunned silence and watched as the man climbed into his truck and drove away.

Chapter Eleven

Yuri Greshenko expected a call from the freight company he’d hired to haul the room modules from South Africa to Kasane. So, the phone’s brrip-brrip did not startle him. But the voice on the other end when he picked up did. He listened. A scowl settled on his face. He spoke softly in Russian, checking frequently to see if Leo or any of the close employees were within earshot, even though he was sure none of them spoke the language. His former life, however, had made him cautious.

“
Nyet,
” he repeated periodically, shaking his head. He listened some more, then sighed “
Da
, okay,” and hung up. He was not happy. How to explain to Leo he had to go away for a few days, perhaps longer, in the middle of this rush to finish the lodge? He’d assured Leo that his ties to his past were lost, broken, or at least sufficiently attenuated as to be nonfunctional, and all he had on his plate was his new life in Botswana. Now this.

The past has a way of seeking you out and finding you, and then sometimes punishing you for having had the audacity to ignore it. Yuri’s past had searched him out and now required a favor of him, a simple task. There would be no rest until the thing was done. He did not like it. The job he could do,
no mathata,
as his foreman would say, no worries, but once done it could put him and possibly many others in an awkward position in any new situation that arose. Someone would have leverage and could use it against him. He did not wish to return to his old life, any of those old lives he’d lived before. He would need to find a way to make the thing work without a payback. He needed a diversion, a red herring.

The phone twittered again. This time it was the transport company. Good. Something he could deal with. He handled the truckers and hung up. Leo Painter stepped into the room.

“Leo,” Yuri began. Leo held up his hand. He was staring out the window toward the gate.

“It’s that cop,” Leo said. “You know, the one from the time my daughter-in-law, if that’s what she was, and her husband got into that mess.”

“I remember him. He came up from Gaborone.”

“That’s the guy. Gabbo Mo…something.”

“I think his name is Kgabo Modise.”

“Right. How’d you remember that? What the hell does he want?”

Yuri shrugged. Cops were hard to figure. Best to let them do their thing. Leo chewed on the end of an unlit cigar and studied the policeman who, in turn, was kicking at something near the skip.

“What’s he doing? Why is he here? Our permits are all in place, aren’t they?”

“Yes, we are covered and then some. I think it must have something to do with the World Cup. The rumors are all over the place that the American Secretary of State will be staying at the Mowana Lodge and we have bookings, which I hope we can honor, for some Mideast guests as well. Maybe some geopolitical intrigue is on someone’s agenda.”

“What do you mean,
hope?
Of course we’ll be ready. Maybe not at one hundred percent, but we’ll be ready. The gaming tables and roulette wheels will arrive next week. If we offer our guests cards, dice, and make book on the matches, and keep the bar open late, we’ll be okay. Might have to do a crash course in dealing, though. I hired three dealers and a croupier from Laughlin, Nevada. Temps, but they should be here long enough to teach the locals the way American casinos operate.”

“He’s heading this way.”

The two men watched as the man from Gaborone walked toward them, notebook in hand and writing.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Painter, Mr. Greshenko. It is nice to see you here. It has been some little time.”

“Hello, Inspector. Yes it has. I understand you took care of my late stepson’s widow.”

“We did what we had to do, sir. The case against her was mostly circumstantial and with the husband finding himself dead, there was not much else we could do, certainly not hold her. She is a very interesting woman, that Brenda Griswold.”

“Interesting doesn’t cover the half of it. What can we do for you? Not looking into any more murders? I’m not aware of any.”

“Yes and no. I am here to apprise you of the security we will impose on the area very soon. And, in fact, there has been a murder in the park. A smuggler, we think.”

“A smuggler? Of what?”

“That is hard to say. His vehicle had been emptied of whatever it carried. But I am here on other matters today.”

“You mean because of the secretary of state visiting the Mowana Lodge?”

“That and the fact that we believe, with all the money and power that will congregate here in the north, there will be opportunists who will seek to market their products and cause embarrassment.”

“Meaning?”

“As you know, certain animals are protected both by international agreements and by Botswana law. Rhinoceros horns, for example. Also ivory, gorilla parts, pelts, and so on. And there are always those who wish to cut the corners on the purchase of raw diamonds. We wish to give you what you Americans call the ‘heads up.’ We will be monitoring these activities and our borders very carefully and anyone caught trafficking in them will be severely punished. As will their employers. You see my meaning.”

“Ah, so if one of my employees happens to be suborned by these traffickers, it will fall to me as well?”

“It could. The circumstances would dictate the degree of the response, if any. You are understanding this?”

“Yes. Anything else?”

“Oh yes. Drugs. We take a dim view of opiates, hallucinogens, prescriptions, or otherwise, as well. And there are other things in the wind, we hear.”

“Inspector, you needn’t be so hard on us. I, we, have no interest in jeopardizing this enterprise for any reason. We will keep a close watch on the staff and report anything out of the ordinary to you. Will that do?”

“Very good. Now, there is this other thing.”

“More?”

“Two things, I think. First there is the news, more than a rumor, I am afraid, of Russian mobsters having their eyes on this part of the world. What you are building here will have been noticed by some of the more unsavory elements in society. This is a heads-up but one that might be of particular importance to you.” Modise glanced in Greshenko’s direction as he spoke.

“And secondly, can you tell me the origin of the cone-shaped object that you are using to prop open your gate?”

“Sure. A couple of goons drove up a few days ago and dumped it, and a bunch of other stuff like it, in my skip. I pulled that one out for a gate stop. Why do you ask?”

“Are you aware of a program called ‘Operation Paradise’?”

“Is it a television show?”

“No, sorry, not the telly.” Modise scratched his head. “It has to do with Wilhelm Reich. In the nineteen thirties, I am told, he believed that the path to Utopia lay in the release of ‘orgone energy’ and he came to see ‘orgone’ as a universal bio-energetic force that lay behind…um, various events and so forth. It is hard to explain. At any rate he created something he called orgonite, a substance supposedly containing an energy force. There are now many of the people you call New Agers following that claim, you see?”

Leo looked at Modise and then at Greshenko. He didn’t see.

“Reich’s successors think that orgone in this form as orgonite is the creative substratum in all of nature.”

“Skip to the chase, Inspector. Hippie fads don’t interest me.”

“Just this—the American based ‘National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine’ regards orgone as a type of energy. According to mainstream science, it has no practical application in medicine or wider science—in other words this is all total quackery.”

“That is very interesting, Inspector…I think, but what has that got to do with the trash in my skip?”

“This trash, as you so correctly label it, is orgonite. I would be interested in hearing about the men who brought it here.”

“Really? Two beefy guys in hiking boots, bush jackets, and beards. Didn’t look like hippies to me, though.”

“Boers, probably. Anything else?”

“They were driving a fairly late model Toyota Land Cruiser and,” Leo smiled and pulled out his note book, “I have their license number.”

It was Modise’s turn to smile.