Malika's Revenge: A Powerful Mix for a Complex Noir Novel. An Organized Crime Thriller - not for the faint-hearted

by Phillip Strang

  ‘If you work for me, I’ll double, maybe triple, whatever you are making here,’ said Ghilzai.

  ‘But what is it that you want of me?’ replied Latif. ‘I am an honest man making an honest living.’

  ‘Honest and poor, isn’t that the truth?’

  ‘Yes, it is the truth.’

  ‘We are processing opium poppies…’ Ghilzai said.

  ‘Into heroin for sending to the West?’ Latif ended the sentence the Taliban commander had started.

  ‘Mainly into Russia, that’s our biggest market. But, yes, into the West as well.’

  ‘I have no love for the Russians. They killed my father and his brother and made our lives miserable.’

  ‘They made everyone’s lives miserable, but now we have a chance for revenge.’ The Taliban commander knew of the honest if desperately poor, shopkeeper’s hatred of the Russians. He knew it was his Achilles’ heel. ‘You have received an education; you understand chemicals?’

  ‘Yes, that is true.’

  ‘We need someone to take control of the production of the heroin, to ensure the quality remains at its finest and to deal with the increased demand.’

  Latif could see no tangible reason not to accept the offer. ‘I will take the opportunity to take my revenge. And if that provides a better life for my family, then so much the better.’

  ***

  In the six months since accepting the offer from Ghilzai, Latif had enhanced his position as the lead production manager of heroin in the region. His children and those of his extended family were receiving an education, although he rarely saw them.

  For the first three months it had only been one makeshift laboratory, but now he was overseeing ten, moving every few months whenever the police bribes became too severe and the Afghan army too inquisitive. He could never trust those working for him, or the local villagers where the factories were. Most of his employees were drug addicts who wanted the drug, while the guards wanted to steal whatever they could to sell on the black market. He had learnt to calm his conscience at the abhorrent trade he was involved in. Besides, the Russians had come to his country and killed millions. What harm was there in assisting in the depravity of their youth, the children of the invader back in their own country?

  ‘Latif,’ Ashraf Ghilzai said on one of his rare visits to one of the laboratories, ‘we need to dramatically increase our production.’

  ‘But we are at maximum capacity now. The men who work for us are no more intelligent than donkeys, and they’re the best we can find.’

  ‘Regardless of that, we must increase. Let me know what you need.’

  ‘But why? Surely you are making a great deal of money already?’

  ‘This is more important than money. We are aiming to accelerate the decline of the Russian invader’s empire.’

  It was an eloquent statement from Ghilzai, purely for his production manager’s benefit. He knew that Latif was an idealist, a believer in a better world. Ghilzai was none of those. All he wanted was money. Where and how he obtained it did not concern him. What his deluded Taliban comrades wanted in southern Afghanistan was fine, as long as it didn’t interfere with his aims.

  ***

  Malika’s life in the drug smugglers’ village continued to fluctuate between melancholy and depravity, although it was evident the depravity was winning. The drunken abuse by an Afghan smuggler or a gangster, Russian or Tajik, continued with predictable regularity. Her body was suffering the effects of the constant injuries, both personal and inflicted.

  The guilt of her parents continued to concern her until a fateful day in late February when the snow lay low on the surrounding mountains and the night-time temperatures in the desert dipped well below zero. It was one of the new girls in the village, Rena Ilolov, who was to change her outlook on life.

  Rena was the latest in a constant stream of otherwise attractive women, barely more than girls, who had made the trek to the village on the border with Afghanistan. Her story was similar, but in some ways different to Malika, who was older and more mature. Rena was only nineteen and still beautiful and fresh. The men in the village immediately lusted after her.

  No beatings for her, she was too valuable and her pimp, Andrei Kholov, was neither effeminate nor gay. He was strong and masculine and each night after Rena had serviced the degenerates, he would take her for himself. She was a drug addict, not as severe as Malika, but a drug addict nonetheless.

  Malika’s parents had been good people. Rena’s, however, had not and, from the age of eleven, her father would regularly rape her, as would her older brothers. When there was no money in the house, her father, a casual worker in a meat processing facility in Dushanbe, would sell her to his workmates or anyone else who was willing to pay. Her mother had protested, but she was a weak woman, waylaid by the mentally damaging effects of too much alcohol. Rena’s father would first beat his wife senseless as she moaned about how he could treat his daughter in such a manner, and then thrust an open bottle of vodka between her swollen lips.

  It was her father who would force Rena to smoke on some hash to deaden her resistance to the sexual abuse her young body was compelled to endure. Those who took her would blame her after they had dissipated their lust, because what they had just done was a sin in their religion.

  ‘It was her fault,’ they would always say.

  ‘If she did not dress so provocatively,’ although she did not.

  ‘If she was not so beautiful,’ which she was.

  ‘If she did not tempt us with lustful thoughts, we would resist her.’ She was the temptress, the agent of the devil ‒ they, the mere pawns.

  She had been a decent person, but as the degeneration exacerbated, and the belief that maybe they were right, she moved towards stronger drugs. Heroin was the natural progression and, as soon as her addiction affected her desirability and his return on his investment, her father threw her out of the house. She had drifted aimlessly around the capital, getting laid when she could, getting a fix as she could. It was not long before she ended up at the end of the road, at the drug smugglers’ village.

  ‘Your mother is still alive,’ she said to Malika as they stood huddled around an open fire in an attempt to keep warm.

  ‘How do you know?’ Malika replied.

  ‘She came looking for you.’

  ‘But where did she know to look?’

  ‘It’s not so difficult. A heroin addict in Dushanbe, female and attractive.’

  ‘She knows I’m selling myself?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Does she know I’m here?’

  ‘Nobody knows you’re here. It’s only your name I remember and her insistence to find you at any cost.’

  ‘I am pleased she is alive, but I am dead,’ Malika responded sadly.

  ‘You are only dead when you accept it.’ Rena still maintained some hope, although her future was as precarious as her new-found friend.

  It was not possible for Malika to remain entirely impartial to what Rena had told her. The strength of her addiction, however, made it impossible for her to contemplate leaving and rushing to her mother’s side, but if she could, she would have.

  Mother, oh Mother, somehow, someday, I’ll make it up to you, she thought, but it was only a daydream. It wasn’t possible. Or was it? She was not sure.

  Chapter 3

  Oleg Yezhov, the son of a butcher and his wife, had grown up in a pleasant suburb of St. Petersburg, close to the Baltic Sea. His education had been adequate even if he had, at best, been a student of no more than modest academic achievement. He had tried, but the schooling frustrated him and, by his fifteenth birthday, he had ceased to be interested.

  His introduction into crime had been unusual and unexpected. As he walked home from school, late one afternoon, he had unwittingly killed a youth.

  Some hooligans had waylaid a street dweller, down on his luck and looking for a handout. He had sought alcohol to help him through the impending freezing night-time temperatures
and to deaden the pain of a gangrenous leg wrapped in a dirty, smelly bandage. The itinerant only had a coat and a blanket to protect him from the arctic winds.

  The hooligans, no more than Oleg’s age, were teasing the man relentlessly. Pushing and shoving, ripping the blanket from his grip, offering to give it back and then pushing and shoving more; hitting when they could. It was as Oleg entered the affray, initially to dissuade them from further abuse, that a situation unexpectedly occurred.

  ‘Leave the man alone. Pick on someone your own age!’ he shouted. He was of medium height, stocky and an amateur boxer of some note ‒ even boxed for his school a few times.

  ‘You’re our age. Is that what you are saying? We should leave this old drunken vagrant alone and pick on you,’ one of the three hooligans shouted back.

  ‘That’s not what I’m saying, but don’t you have anything better to do?’ Oleg was brave and fearless in the face of overwhelming odds and, as a boxer, he had a reputation for never yielding, even when his opponent was beating him black and blue.

  ‘We accept your challenge,’ said another of the hooligans, a tall and skinny individual who looked mean and tough.

  ‘Please don’t or I’ll be forced to deal with you severely.’

  ‘Is that a threat?’ the tall, skinny individual replied.

  ‘I box for my school. I don’t want to hurt you.’

  ‘Hurt me? How? There are three of us, and I’ve got a knife.’

  With that, the three hooligans focused their attention away from the beggar and towards Oleg. They did not realise that he had a reputation for unnecessary violence, even in the boxing ring. There had been one occasion when it had taken four of his schoolmates all their strength to wrench him from inflicting repeated blows on an opponent. The opponent had questioned his manhood when they were trading blows in the ring. He ended up with two broken ribs and a severe concussion for the insult.

  It was touch and go for a few days as to whether the amateur pugilist had sustained permanent brain damage. The school hushed it up, and the opponent’s parents were paid a sufficient amount to let it rest, even though they wanted to institute legal proceedings against the school.

  Oleg discovered that he had enjoyed immensely the thrill of the beating he had inflicted. His violence so far had been restricted to the ring, but three hooligans and an adrenaline rush proved too enticing.

  The first of the three came at him with arms waving and chest exposed. It gave Oleg the opportunity to catch him clear in the central rib cage with a solid punch.

  ‘Never leave your body exposed, cover at all times,’ his physical education teacher had drummed into him, time and time again. Oleg knew the hooligans he was disposing of had never had the benefit of training in the art of unarmed combat. They had only ever watched the incessant nonsense on the television, where the hero always wins regardless of his technique ‒ invariably incorrect and unnecessarily flamboyant for dramatic effect.

  With the first individual down on the ground, the second decided it was for him to show his mettle. He was more careful after seeing what had just happened. He sparred around Oleg, baiting him, calling him names, using as much bad language as he could muster; it seemed to constitute the majority of his limited vocabulary. After he had run out of swear words, he came in close, close enough for Oleg to get a clean punch to the side of his face. With blood visibly emanating from inside his mouth, the would-be assailant retreated to lick his wounds.

  It was then that the skinny individual felt he needed to show the other two as to why he was the leader of a bunch of poorly-educated hooligans. He had no intention of wasting his time with fists and posturing, aiming to look fierce and menacing. A knife was his solution, although he wasn’t sure how to use it. His technique was to stick it out in front of him and to wave it menacingly. Oleg had the advantage. When he wasn’t boxing, he was learning martial arts.

  ‘You just remember the name of Sergei when you’re lying in a hospital bed – if you’re lucky to live, that is,’ the knife-wielding individual bragged.

  ‘You will remember Oleg when you’re dead.’ Oleg felt the need to respond.

  Sergei came at him, jabbing this way and that with the knife, looking for an opening in Oleg’s defences, but there were none. He kept trying, getting closer, more careless each time, until Oleg grabbed his knife arm, spun him around and twisted his arm around his back. The knife still held firmly, pierced the hooligan’s skin and, within two minutes, he was dead.

  ***

  It had been impossible to convince the police that it had been an accident. Oleg, at the age of fifteen, a violent individual when riled and with no criminal record, found himself incarcerated in an austere and foreboding establishment committed to the rehabilitation of the criminal youth of Russia.

  It may have pretended to be there for rehabilitation, but it was not. It was a prison with bars that housed the most violent of individuals, teenagers mainly, although some were as young as ten or eleven. It was there that his skills were honed. Either you were strong, violent and cruel, or you were dead, and he did not intend to be dead.

  Oleg was released six years later, a hardened and dangerous criminal, even though he had gone in as a talented, if somewhat unpredictable, fighter, who had only wanted to help a person down on his luck. The system that had aimed to protect and rehabilitate him had the reverse effect.

  It was to be some time after his release before he killed again. Although he had killed a few times while he was locked up inside, the authorities didn’t care. Sure, they asked questions and conducted investigations, but no one inside was going to squeal, and they soon lost interest. It was one less mouth to feed, one less individual to care about. As long as those in charge were able to keep the victim on the books, they could claim the payment from the government and keep it for themselves.

  His parents could not deal with the ignominy of a criminal son, and the few times he had seen them since his release had been difficult and tense. Within a few months of exiting the so-called rehabilitation centre, he ceased to see them at all. He missed his mother for a few months, but after that, he gave them little thought.

  ***

  Oleg Yezhov’s first criminal gang made a good living out of offering protection to small shopkeepers.

  ‘Either you pay us a retainer,’ he would say, ‘or your place of business will be burnt down or blown up.’

  It was not an honest way to make money, but it was not long, only three months later, before he was driving around in a late model BMW and seducing any woman he could lay his hands on. There was always a gangster’s moll to be found, and Oleg was not a bad-looking man; tough after years of building up his muscles and well-dressed as would befit any respectable hoodlum.

  It had been the first month of a new year when one of the shopkeepers, Artur Malenkov, had become difficult. There had been some other criminal ventures – stolen cars, burglary – but Oleg Yezhov enjoyed the protection rackets.

  Malenkov’s store, not far from Catherine Palace to the south of the city, was successful. He sold upmarket electronics, televisions, sound systems and, as he said often enough whenever Oleg went in to pressure him, ‘My brother’s a big man in the KGB. You touch me, and he’ll be here soon enough to deal with you.’

  It was not the first time Oleg had heard such a statement, and he ignored it. He was not a man to be intimidated and had a reputation within his organisation as the person who always brought in the money. He had no intention of allowing someone to get away purely because they said they had a powerful and influential relative.

  ‘I don’t care who your brother is,’ he had said. ‘We offer a comprehensive service. There are plenty of criminals out there, and I wouldn’t want it on my conscience if your business was to suffer. We’re insurance, and it’s only five per cent of your takings. It’s not as if you can’t afford it. You’re making plenty here, and it would pain me personally to see all your hard work going to waste, purely because we could not come to
an equitable agreement.’

  ‘Don’t give me your fancy words,’ Malenkov replied. He was a big man, always well-dressed and eloquently spoken, with an air of respectability and self-assuredness. ‘I know criminals when I see them, and I know what you are. I’ve come across your kind before. Slimy thugs who think they can run roughshod over everyone else. You touch me, and I’ll have the full weight of the KGB down on your heads, and they don’t mess around.’

  ‘I’m sorry you feel that way,’ said Oleg. ‘I only hope you manage to survive without our assistance.’

  There had been a few who had stood up to him over the years. Vasily Konev had been one. He had been a purveyor of men’s clothing, good-quality handmade suits. He had even sold a couple to Oleg. He had resisted, said he was covered by insurance. At least, he did until the shop burnt to the ground early one morning.

  He claimed it was an electrical fault. His insurance company disputed the claim. They said it was gasoline and accused him of doing it himself due to a downturn in business. The insurance assessor had been slipped the equivalent of five hundred American dollars by an associate of Oleg’s and told to reject the claim, or else. The last anyone heard of Vasily Konev was that he was attempting to sell shirts door-to-door and was no longer the brash, confident person who had continually rejected the enticements to sign up for an extended protection plan.

  Anton Grechko had been another. He had thought his insurance company would protect his car maintenance business – high-end mainly, Mercedes, BMW, even the occasional Ferrari. It was a sad day, even for Oleg, who had found an appreciation for expensive motor cars, when a late model Ferrari and a couple of Mercedes went up in smoke. The insurance claim was invalidated due to clear negligence by Grechko, an arc-welding torch near an open fuel tank. It was bogus, but after that, there had been few who had resisted Oleg Yezhov’s persuasive negotiating skills.

  Artur Malenkov was a different issue. Perhaps he did have powerful connections, but let one off the hook and the other shopkeepers paying in to Oleg’s exceedingly agreeable lifestyle would start to question and cause difficulties. He had no intention of letting that occur.