Frederick Ramsay_Botswana Mystery 02 (9 page)

Chapter Sixteen

Rra Botlhokwa was not in the habit of accepting criticism from any one and certainly not from people whom he judged to be inferior to him in either station or intellect. He gritted his teeth as he listened to this very loud man who called himself Sczepanski, who had all but barged into his office. When he paused to catch his breath, Botlhokwa raised both hands in front of him and hissed.

“Quiet please,” he said, and gave his guest a malevolent stare as fierce as a person whose visage could only be described as moon-like could muster. “You must let me speak before you say, or perhaps, do something that could do you a great disservice.” He lit one of his Cubans. After he had a satisfyingly heavy cloud of smoke between the two of them, he placed both hands palms down on the rosewood desktop.

“Now, as to the man who sold you this information, first, we do not sell information. If we contract to guarantee entry into the park—this is hypothetical of course—that is what we would do. No more, no less. If it became generally known we sold out our clients, well, how long do you think we would stay in business?”

“My men say they spoke with your man.” Botlhokwa started to interrupt but the man shushed him. “No, no it was definitely your man. At least, he said he was your man. He had done some things for us in the past for which he was paid certain sums, I should say. He was yours, I assure you. He told us there would be a delivery made in the park. He said it was a Congolese outfit delivering goods through Zambia. The Congo is a supplier of many things that cannot be easily obtained. We took him at his word and paid him. There was nothing of value in that truck, no horns, no contraband, nothing, just some plaster rubbish. I am here to retrieve my money and suggest to you that my employer is less than pleased with this situation.”

Botlhokwa studied the man for a full minute. He seemed to be telling the truth. More importantly, he did not seem in awe of him. Most men who ventured into his presence were, or pretended to be. Who was this man and who was the employer he alluded to? He would need to find out.

“Do you have a name for me? I will gladly give back your money, but as I do not have it, I must extricate it from this person who you say works for me. You understand? If this man took money from you in my name, he did so without my knowing and did not remit the money to me. If he, in fact, is one of my people I will do more than just extract the money from him, I promise you.”

The man opposite shifted in his chair.

“We do not have the name. I will have to go through my books and find it. He was your man
Rra
, I am sure of it.”

We
? Who would
we
be? “Fine, bring me the name and I will see to it. But without the name I can do nothing and I don’t think you will either.”

The man heard the edge to Botlhokwa’s voice and narrowed his eyes.

I do not like this man, Botlhokwa thought. He hoped the Noga would turn up a name soon. If he didn’t, well he was doing all he could do, wasn’t he? There’d been rumors circulating in Cape Town. Rumors about a criminal syndicate wanting to come north into his territory. Well, we shall see about that. He might work with these men, but it would be on his terms. Otherwise…It had been years since he’d called out the dangerous men he kept on retainer across the border in Zimbabwe, but he would do so if he had to.

***

Patriarche
heard the crashing in the bush as the hunters closed in on his family. He grunted for them to move farther up the hill and away from the threat. Never able to move with stealth, their departure was obvious and noisy. They knuckle-walked as quickly as they could through the brush, the females pausing
from time to time to keep track of their young. One infant fell behind and its distress call caused
Patriarche
to stop. The female wheeled and charged down the hill. A volley of shots rang out and the sounds of the hunter’s triumph rang out across the hillside.
Patriarche
reasoned the young one still lived. He knew its mother did not. He stared in the direction of the sounds. The group huddled close to him. They waited for his direction. They would be safe enough for a while, but they should move on. They were running out of space.
Patriarche
sniffed the air. Mixed in with the odor of gunpowder, he picked up another, equally dangerous scent. They had invaded a leopard’s territory. He huffed. They would stay here the night. Tomorrow? Who knew?

***

“Charles supposes the cinema crew who left us this fine equipment were filming restricted footage.” Sanderson could not bring herself to say pornography to Modise. She didn’t know why. Perhaps it was because she had a daughter and she knew that these sorts of men, the men who made those awful DVDs, preyed on girls Mpitle’s age. She also knew that there were times in the lives of some families when a daughter in that business, if only for a very short time, meant the difference between starving and eating. And of course, however certain the girl or her family were that it was
only this once,
it never ended there—not until the girl had been exploited by all sorts of very bad men, not until she came home feverish and sick with
HIV/Aids.

She clenched her fists at these thoughts and felt anger in her heart for the people who did these terrible things, and then at men in general whose sick need to view women in this way created the market that kept the producers in business. It was always the same: the rich and self indulgent with their appetites created the market that exploited the poor, and required the police to spend scarce resources to stop it. Drugs, pornography, it was all the same. Their money was blood money paying for pain and death. The drug cartels, the pornographers, all relied on so-called good people to continue their awfulness. She smacked the desk with her fist.

Modise jumped and reading the expression on her face took a step back. Whatever she was about in her mind, he seemed to say, he did not want to be too close when she expressed it.

Sanderson caught her breath, shot an angry look at Charles who, like Modise, stepped back, puzzled.

“I am very angry at the thought of the park being a place where this awfulness is taking place.”

“Well, Sanderson, you can rest assured they will not be back. At least not to film. But that will not stop others from trying somewhere else. It is a shame, but all we, the police, can do is be vigilant.”

“I am not sure it is enough. If people do not buy this filth, there is no reason to make it, yes? You must stop it at the consumer end, I am thinking. Perhaps Charles can give you some leads in this matter.”

Charles looked genuinely shocked. “Sanderson, what are you saying? I am not a person who frequents the places where this business goes on. I merely pointed out to you what anyone, no everyone, knows. That pornography is ingrained into the culture. It has been for years, I think. I saw a very fine program on the telly about some place in Italy where they had a big volcano problem many years ago, thousands, I think, and the walls on these houses that they uncovered after all this time had pictures of…those sorts of pictures. It has not always been so bad a thing it seems.”

“That those people did these things is no excuse.”

“Do you think I am likely…Sanderson, simply to know these things is not the same as condoning, utilizing them or…or anything. What are you thinking?”

Modise paused and then sat at Sanderson’s desk, just as he had at Mwambe’s. And for the same reason—to assert his authority and bring the conversation back to where he needed it to be.

“Enough, Sanderson. I agree with you completely,” he said, “But this gets us nowhere. I need your thoughts…yours too, Charles, on how we can monitor the park when the press arrives in a month or two. Mwambe tells me the gap in the fence is for outsiders, people who do not know how really easy it is to enter the park. He says the poachers would not need it. Is that so?”

Sanderson took a breath. Her anger subsided sufficiently to address this problem. “I am sorry, Charles. I had no right to accuse you. So, as to Mwambe. He is correct in that. The gap is convenient to Kasane, and so has the advantage of providing quick access to the park. Otherwise you must do some driving about on bad and probably unfamiliar paths. If you do not know these tracks, they can be dangerous.”

“Who would know of these?”

“The guides from the lodges all know them. And then there are the local people. You know there are still some people living in the enclaves near the water. They come and go. Mwambe may think they are poachers but they live off the land—at least some of them do, and they have hunted it forever. They fish but will not take an animal. I cannot be so sure about their friends and relatives from across the river, and then there are the illegals from Zimbabwe. They flee the chaos in their country and the foolishness of Crazy Bob. If there is a problem with them, it is the poverty they experience that will make them easy prey for exploiters.”

“Well, we must work with what we have, I guess.” Modise would have liked something more concrete, but it was early still.

Chapter Seventeen

“It’s dead simple. We find customers, we find suppliers, we put them together and take a nice finder’s fee.”

“I’m not convinced about the simple bit, but if we’re caught, we’re perished and that’ll be the dead bit.”

“Don’t be such a puss, Harvey. I’ve explained it to you a dozen times. Now, your job is to scare us up some buyers. That should be easy enough for you. You’ve been mucking about in the minerals business for donkey’s years. I’ll see to the suppliers. There’s always some power hungry warlord or Mugabe wannabe out there who can supply the goods to get the cash he needs to pay for his personal war.”

“Jack, you could sell ice to Eskimos, I know. I just think we might be headed into something that could bring some very nasty types into our yard. Never disturb a hornet’s nest, I say.”

“Hornets? Oh, come on, mate.”

“I’m serious, Jack. Like you said, I’ve been mucking about in this business for a long time, and I will tell you there are people who can smell a wonky deal at thirty paces. Coppers, officials, governmental types, and even some do-gooder U.N. people worried about the wars up north. They are all over the lot looking for just this sort of dodge. It’s uncanny, but I’ve seen it up close. Some of those people’ve been in the intercession business for years.”

“Now, surely those blokes you can deal with if you have to.”

“Maybe. Worst case, they shut us down. It’s the others, the stone cold chaps with eyes like ice, lads who’d kill you as quick as look at you if they thought you had something of value in your kit.”

“Harvey we’re covered here. Whether they can smell them or have super powers and can see through walls, dodge bullets, and drink river water, the scam here is they won’t tumble to us because they’ll think we’re a pair of nutters flogging orgonite all over the place. If they object at all, it will be because we get in their way while they’re out in the park doing truly dark deeds.”

“You’d better hope so, Jack. Okay, I will go through my contacts and work up a list of possible customers. Some are easy, low risk, some are the other way about.”

“We’ll start with the low risk. Who would that be?”

“There are a few companies that can’t compete in the global market, and many who would be middle men in the market. They’ve got financing problems, or have been elbowed out of the way by the big guns in Asia, mostly. The government will not be happy if we start moving this stuff into the wrong places. There is a market in place for coltan. I just need a name or two and we’re in.”

“The government. This is the strangest country I’ve ever had to work a grift. These people are determinedly honest. They seem incapable of straying. They say they will not allow corruption to seep into their affairs.”

“That is true now. Give them time and a healthy dose of Western civilization and then see how straight they stay. I’ll give them ten years, tops. Progress under capitalism always has a price, and that price is the corruption that always follows greed.”

“You are a terrible cynic, Harvey. But, I hope you’re right. I like working here. Who are the high risk customers?”

“The usual—the greedy, the slightly bent, the dealers who are low on the supply chain. There are always people ready to broker anything that’s hard to come by. You realize, of course, that we will need to have the stuff analyzed. That is a specialty skill. We will have to find someone who can do that for us and keep his mouth shut.”

“No worries. I have some people in mind that can handle that.”

“Can you get the coltan? And if so, how much?”

“My man in the north says they just opened a new pit and it looks big. Sky’s the limit, he says.”

“I still think it’s risky.”

“Life is risky and listen, he says there might be gorillas in the area where the pit is located. Nice secondary market. He’ll sell the bush meat and we’ll distribute the interesting bits.”

“Jack, I’m drawing the line here. If we get caught moving coltan we have a minor felony on our sheet. If this government catches us with endangered species products they will lock us up and throw away the key. No gorillas. Period.”

***

Leo Painter allowed as how he could manage for a few days without him. Greshenko guessed Leo didn’t buy his excuses entirely, though. He knew something was up, but hadn’t said anything—yet.

“But while you are in South Africa, drop in on the shippers in Cape Town and double check their capacity to get those modules up here on time. Oh, and see if you can scrounge…finagle…” Greshenko had a puzzled expression on his face, “Okay, how do you say in Russian, something like to steal honestly?”

Greshenko shrugged and shook his head.

“Okay, you do…whatever you would do if you needed something and didn’t have time to bargain or pay right away.”

“Ah, some little playing of the shell game?”

“Whatever you say. I want a block of tickets for the finals of the World Cup matches. It’s early yet and there has to be someone who can make that happen, maybe our shipper. Like, if you were to hint we might be putting our business out for bid, they might find a way to come up with some tickets. Anyway, see what you can do.”

“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?