The Intern Affair (59 page)

“Where do you suggest we park them?”
Christian
asked, as he opened the pick-up door.

“I’d like to have the pick-up in front of the hut where the two women are, and the Landrover, down the hill near the container
.
”

“We’ll do,”
Jerry
and
Christian
replied in unison, while settling behind the wheel of each of the vehicles.

“
Charles
,
Thomas
, why don’t you come with me and Samir, into the hut, I’d like to talk to you before the fellows come back,” Talya asked.

The three men nodded and followed her into the house.

Once they were all sitting down, Talya said, “
Charles
, I know that my behaviour at the moment may not be to your liking, but I have not come here to please you, or anyone for that matter.
I came here because I have nothing to lose, and because
Charos
’s operation has to be erased from the face of the earth, and lastly but most importantly, I wanted to enable you and
Thomas
to put the projects on tracks.”

“But, you’re the one who’s going to do that,”
Charles
erupted, “or have you forgotten that you still have a job to do?”

“I have forgotten nothing. Just think about what I’ve said, that’s all.”

“Okay, I won’t argue with you tonight.
But if you think that I’ll let you off the hook that easy, you’ve got another thing coming.”

Talya smiled because it felt good to hear
Charles
speak to her that way.
Her mind went back to
Vancouver
….

95

Talya took the abayah
off her shoulders, wrapped the veil tightly around her neck and touched the knife at her side.
Through the open window and under the very clear moonlit night,
Samir saw her hand check
the blade’s access from the belt around her waist.

“For the last time, Princess, I beg of you to give me the knife,” he whispered into her ear.

“No, Samir, I will not. No one will ever be able to abuse me again, and live to brag about it.” He took her into his arms and held her gently.

The six of them were silently preparing to go on with their plan.
There hadn’t been any one disturb them for the past six hours.
Christian
went to turn on the light into the women’s hut a few hours earlier. To anyone watching from the village on the hill above, the absence of light in that hut would have attracted unwanted attention to the camp.

Jerry
’s Landrover contained all the gear they might need during their search, such as torches, ropes, clippers (to crack open any locking devices or seals) and plastic bags to store the evidence, should they find what they were looking for.

When the time was right and everyone was ready, they crept out one by one out of the hut and went slowly down the hill on the lane way along the embankment to the right of them.
They reached the vehicle at the rear of the container and took out what they needed from behind the back seats.

Being so close to the nitro cache, Talya felt dreading fear course down her spine. Yet, her determination to get inside was much stronger than any sense of dread or fear. At that moment, she needed to find out if her conjectures were correct.

Samir and she went to the container’s side door. It was ajar.
Their four companions, who were watching them from a few paces away, saw what Talya had seen under the light of her torch.
The space offering entry wasn’t wide enough for any one else but her, to slid into the container.
Samir grabbed her arm wanting to stop her.

Talya turned and glared at him. “Don’t you be the one stopping me, Samir!” He released her arm and Talya slid through the gaping space.

“Get out of here, all of you!”
Samir practically yelled at the four men. “Just go and take cover over beyond the lane behind you … until Talya comes out,” he added more quietly.

Stunned, they went down
,
crouching in the ditch on the other side of the dirt track.

Talya ran the torch light along the two stacks of nitro-glycerine packets.
She knew that one wrong move or one misplaced finger on the ‘sweating’ packs would send them all to kingdom come, and
Charos
would get his revenge after all.

She looked at each packet in turn—none was dry.
In a swift movement, she slid out of the container into Samir’s arms. “There is nothing but nitro left in there, but there are only sixty packets.
And that doesn’t make two hundred and twenty kilos by any calculation you may want to make.”

“Let’s get out of here.
We’ll go to the adits together and
—
” Suddenly as if Talya had put her hand across his mouth, Samir stopped talking.
There was someone approaching.
She could sense it as well as he did.

They squatted to the ground.
Samir turned, and in a second, he had disappeared behind the container.
Talya crept quickly to where he had gone. She reached the spot to see him raise his knife to a man, wanting to kill him. He was already strangling the fellow with his left arm. “Samir! Please don’t,” Talya growled at him. “He may know something useful.”

She saw him lower the blade slowly, and then drag his unconscious prey toward the Landrover.

Christian
and
Jerry
reached it before they did. “
Jerry
will take care of him, Samir, just go on and I’ll follow, in case we have other unwanted visitors.”

“I want
Thomas
and
Charles
to stay here with
Jerry
,
Christian
,” Talya ordered. “I don’t want them near us until we come back.”

“I’ll get them to stay here, Talya, don’t worry, but you go now … if this guy has got any friends lurking about, you don’t have time to spare.”

“I know.” That’s all Talya had time to say before she felt Samir’s hand grab her right arm to follow him to the first adit.
Within a couple of minutes, they were climbing a slight but rocky incline toward one of the large gaping holes below the village.

“Princess, thank you. I would have made the mistake of a lifetime down there,” Samir whispered as they entered the adit.

“…
Only in defence against thine enemy shall thou raise a blade to him
,” Talya recited quietly.

He shone his torch into her eyes and said, “Just wait until we get out of here … I’ll—”

“Hush, Samir, let’s get on with it.” Talya pushed his torch away from her face, and brushing passed him, she hurried toward the end of the adit.
About half way down the passage, her torch shone onto a recess in the adit’s wall.
There must have been at least fifty packets piled up against the rocks.
She gasped at the sight.
All of them were dry as a bone.
Samir took one packet from the top of the first pile, and with his knife, he made a tiny slit in the side of it to reveal the white powdery substance Talya had wanted to see for so long.
She didn’t know what the name of this particular substance was, but
Christian
knew.

The latter had come to join them, as Samir was slitting the packet.

“That’s cocaine, Talya,”
Christian
said after touching his tongue with the tip of the finger that he had dipped through the slit.

“Yes!
That’s what I wanted to hear,” Talya exclaimed with joy in her voice. “
Christian,
as you’ve said we don’t have much time….” She explained quickly what the next step was while Samir put the open packet and one other into a plastic bag. “Samir and I will go to the other adits and if we find the same thing in there, we’ll be back to the Landrover in a few minutes and we should be able to complete the job within an hour.”

“Okay,”
Christian
said. “Just be careful.
I’m sure there’s going to be other men follow the first we found.”

Samir and Talya climbed quickly to the second adit where they found another stack of fifty or more packs. They left them where they were and went to the third adit.
Christian
had been right; someone else wanted to stop them.
Samir had seen the tip of his shoes at the edge of the hole when they were climbing the side of the hill.
The man couldn’t have seen them as they were practically making one with the wall of rocks at their backs.
Samir grabbed the shoe closer to his left hand and from over his shoulder pulled the man forward and out of the hole.
He jumped on him and put the fellow to sleep within seconds.

Unfortunately, he hadn’t been alone, for Talya saw another man come to the edge of the adit.
She couldn’t pull him out the same as Samir had done.
She didn’t have the strength to do so. Besides, her left hand was still inert in the cast.
She didn’t take time to think and did the next best thing.
She flung herself at his ankles and pulled as hard as she could. They lost their balance and in an instant, the man fell forward into Samir’s awaiting arms below her
,
and she on top of him.
That was a lot easier than I would have thought!

She rolled off letting Samir knock the man unconscious as he tried to struggle to his feet. Samir was fury personified.
As he was about to clobber the fellow to death,
Christian
came at him from behind, grabbed his wrist and pushed him away. “You don’t want to have a death on your conscience…,” he shouted at his face. “Let me deal with these two. I’ll make sure they sleep the night through.”

Standing up, Talya took Samir’s arm and whispered, “Let’s get out of here.”

Samir nodded, patting the hand that was still holding his forearm. “Are you all right?”

“Yes, Samir, I am…. Come on, let’s go.”

The three of them lumbered slowly back up the hill to the Landrover, panting and in need of a drink.
Talya’s body was wet with the sweat it had exuded during the past hour.
Jerry
handed them a pouch of water as they reached the car. They drank and sprayed themselves as if the gourd was a bottle of champagne. They laughed, chuckled and chortled at their success.
They were not done yet, however.
They still had to bring every packet back into the container and seal them in together with the nitro.
Talya was confident that no villager would dare approach the container, unseal it and reach inside to get the drugs that would be stacked among the nitro.

96

Three hours later,
they were back on the road, driving to the hostel.
They had done it.
Talya was so happy that she wanted to have champagne doused on her and Samir to celebrate.

“You were absolutely wonderful tonight, Talya, and you were right.”

Talya just smiled and made no reply.

“Tell me something; how could
Ousmane
have been so blind to what was going on?” Samir asked.
“And why did he buy such a quantity of nitro in the first place?”

“He listened to
Kareef
who just pulled the strings.
When Johan ordered five hundred kilos of nitro,
Kareef
didn’t hesitate. He contacted
Florida
where they arranged for a shipment of cocaine to be shipped together with the nitro to Sabodala. The cost of which was equivalent to half-a-ton of nitro.”

“What about Johan’s involvement?”

“Johan only used the nitro he needed to open the adits, and in doing so, literally gave access to the drugs
of
the container to the traffickers.
All they had to do was to store the packets of cocaine in the adits when Johan had done the job.”

“Do you think Johan knew where the drugs were kept?”

“Of course he knew, but Johan couldn’t do anything about it, unless he wanted to get killed in the process.
He was forever searching for a partner for
Ousmane
, but no one was interested.
Ousmane
didn’t have deeds or permits to substantiate his ownership of the land, and what’s more he didn’t think he needed any partner. He wanted to realize his dream, and reap the profits from it, by himself.”

“And why was
Sergio
beaten and tortured during his first stay at the mine then? Wasn’t he offering the perfect link between overseas traffickers and
Charos
?”

“Because,
Sergio
wanted a bite of the apple far too soon after his arrival. When
he
first arrived on the scene,
Kareef
saw the opportunity to make him the scapegoat while using him to get the first shipment in and ready for distribution.
But
Sergio
was too eager and too impatient, so
Kareef
did what he relished in doing; he tortured him and slowed him down.”