‘Yuri, here’s the deal,’ Farrukh responded to Oleg’s insistence. ‘Did any Russians cross the border in the last ten to fourteen days?’
‘You’re asking too much.’ Yuri Drygin was indignant and a little nervous.
‘Why?’ Farrukh asked.
‘Turning a blind eye to a shipment hidden in the back of a truck is one thing, but this is asking too much.’
‘It’s important.’
‘My life is important as well. If I tell you anything, and it’s traced back to me...’
‘We’ll guarantee your safety,’ Farrukh replied. ‘And besides, we’re not telling anyone.’
‘How can I believe you?’ said Drygin. ‘You’ll report to someone in the capital, who’ll tell someone else, who’ll be bribed by someone else for information and it will be me in a ditch with a bullet in the back of the head. Sorry, you ask too much of me this time.’ It was clear that Drygin knew something, but fear had stilled his tongue. The only issue to Oleg was how to loosen it.
‘Farrukh.’ Oleg directed his conversation away from Drygin. ‘How much do you typically pay him?’
‘On average, about five hundred American to look the other way.’
‘Then tell him one thousand this time.’
‘Your friend does not need to talk to me through you,’ the border guard said. ‘I understand Russian perfectly well.’
‘You kept that secret from us,’ Oleg replied.
‘I saw no reason to let you know,’ said Drygin. ‘I still don’t know if I can trust you. My family’s experience with Russians has not been good.’
‘And mine, with our friends across the border in Afghanistan, but that is past history,’ said Oleg. ‘We are of a different generation, a more forgiving generation.’
‘Different generation, as you said, but more forgiving? I would not go so far as that. History repeats and your fellow countrymen will be back here at some stage, with their military, aiming to subjugate and kill if we don’t comply.’
‘Unfortunately, you may be correct,’ Oleg replied. It appeared to have some effect on Yuri Drygin.
‘Some Russians did cross the border, last month. Where to? I don’t know.’
‘Do you see many Russians crossing into Afghanistan?’
‘In the past, never.’
‘And now?’
‘I’ve seen them cross two or three times in the last few months. They paid well to cross the border and for me to keep quiet. Russians are a cruel people. If they knew I was talking to you, my fate would be sealed.’
‘We’ll not tell anyone,’ Oleg assured him.
‘Are you joking? This is a border town; even the walls have ears and eyes. Someone’s watching us, even now, aiming to see if there’s any financial gain.’
‘You’ve started talking. You may as well continue,’ Farrukh said.
‘Two Russians crossed over recently, Viktor Gryzlov and Gennady Denikin.’
‘How do you remember their names so well?’ Oleg asked suspiciously.
‘No particular reason. After fifteen years on the border, you tend to develop an ability to remember details.’
‘Describe them?’
‘Viktor Gryzlov, big beefy man ‒ looked as though he was into bodybuilding. Guttural voice, bad language, moderate intelligence.’
‘And Gennady Denikin?’
‘Different style of man. Looked like an accountant or a lawyer. Polished manners, very polite.’
‘What do you reckon, Oleg?’ Farrukh asked.
‘I’d say Gryzlov is purely there as the bodyguard, and Denikin is the businessman, but from where and whom?’ Oleg directed his conversation back to Drygin. ‘Did they say where they were from, or where they were going?’
‘From, no, but they said they were selling tractors into Afghanistan and were looking for an agent to represent them.’
‘Did you believe them?’
‘Of course not.’
‘Why?’
‘Tractors in Afghanistan? They’ve got no money and, besides, how could you trust anyone over there? They’re all crooks. Send them a tractor and they’ll keep it, never pay, and Denikin did not look to be anyone’s fool.’
‘We need to find out what they were up to,’ Oleg said, directing his conversation to Farrukh, hoping that Drygin would have some suggestions.
‘Count me out,’ Farrukh repeated his earlier comment on crossing the border.
‘And me as well,’ Drygin added. ‘The halfway point on the bridge is as far as I want to go. They’ll cut your throat as soon as look at you.’
‘Well, someone’s got to go,’ said Oleg. ‘I can’t speak the local language.’
‘I’m a border guard in the employ of the Tajikistan Government,’ countered Drygin.
‘And in the pay of whoever hands over the most money,’ Oleg added scathingly. He knew Drygin was a villain, didn’t pretend otherwise, but the hypocrisy of the man and others like him always irritated.
***
Oleg did not want to continue discussing the situation in the presence of Drygin. The meeting concluded with Drygin pressing for his money and Farrukh agreeing to process in the usual manner.
Oleg decided to contact Yusup. He had ascertained that, as long as he was kept informed as to what was happening, he seemed to be a reasonable man. The mobile phone network worked well enough in the border town. Oleg made the call.
‘Someone’s got to go. It obviously can’t be you,’ Yusup said. ‘You’ll stand out immediately. Besides, you need contacts over there. I don’t give the person we send much of a chance to make it back, but we can’t let the Russians muscle in on us.’
‘Almost certainly,’ replied Oleg.
‘Why? Our relationship with them has always been excellent. We get the drugs up to the border with Kazakhstan; they take it from there. We’ve always treated each other with respect and it’s been highly profitable for both sides.’
‘Maybe a breakaway group, aiming to take a piece of the action?’ Oleg postulated.
‘It’s possible, but taking on the Russian mafia? That’s a whole different ball game. They better know what they’re doing or else they’re in trouble. Mind you, if they know what they’re doing, then we’re in trouble. We need to find out what’s going on; there’s only one person qualified.’
‘Farrukh?’ Oleg said.
‘There’s no one else with the language, the contacts and the appearance of a local tribesman.’
‘What about the business with the smugglers?’ Oleg asked the question. He was not looking forward to the answer.
‘You’ll have to deal with it. Farrukh shouldn’t be gone for more than a few days, anyway.’
‘I was afraid you’d say that.’
Yusup Baroyev laughed. ‘Fix this up and I’ll make sure there are some extra special women available once you’re back in Dushanbe.’
Chapter 6
With no more to be gained from Drygin in the border town, Farrukh and Oleg made their way back to the village. Oleg missed the capital of the country with its bright lights, the Mercedes in the garage and the spacious and elegant apartment. He realised that it may be some time before he was back there.
Farrukh, for his part, said little on the return trip, his mind focussed on the journey into Afghanistan. He drove with his usual lack of care, nearly putting them off the track a couple of times.
I may as well stick my head in the nearest termite’s nest now, he thought, although he knew he wouldn’t. He would do what was required, hopefully, survive and then be rewarded with a return to Dushanbe. Oleg could stay in the village with the whore to keep him warm.
Farrukh’s primary concern was whom he could trust. There was Najibullah, the most agreeable of the Afghans, but whether he could trust him, he wasn’t sure. They had learnt to be cordial with each other, even friendly, but where did his allegiances lie? He could be an advantage over the border. No doubt he was handy with a weapon as well, although whether that was good or bad, Farru
kh couldn’t be sure. There seemed to be no one else. He resolved to talk to the Afghan the next time he came to the village, maybe come up with a plausible story to tell him.
Oleg’s concerns were more immediate. Upon his return, he had quickly migrated over to Malika’s area of the camp. She was showing the effects of withdrawal, but she had held on, waiting for his return. What if I had not come back tonight? he thought. Would she have screwed someone, sucked on someone’s dick or put on a show with one of the other women, just to get a fix?
He had found some fondness for her, but he knew she was a junkie, and an addict would always do what was needed in the hour of desperation. He hoped he was wrong, but he realised his judgement in the matter may have been impaired.
Her skills, he had to admit would put the women around Yusup’s pool to shame. However, as she had already told him, she had been highly prized in the capital and exceedingly well-paid.
Oleg, for his part, had found that his appearance had started to deteriorate. He had always prided himself each morning on being clean-shaven, freshly showered and smelling of a particularly good brand of perfume. Here, he imagined, he was starting to smell of donkey, rather than aftershave.
If he was going to negotiate with the Afghans as they came over from the border, he thought he had better start to look the part. He should have been abhorred with the changes in him, but as long as Malika was there, he felt he could endure the compromise ‒ if it were not for too long.
The sharwal kameez that he managed to buy from a local trader, brown in colour, allowed him to change his appearance and the loose rag wrapped around his head suited him. Malika laughed when she first saw him; but, as he explained, he had to look the part, even if his language skills were limited. She offered to help with the transactions, but an Afghan tribesman would have rather communicated with a donkey than a woman. He had noticed that their treatment of the whores was abysmal.
Once sated, they would blame the women for being wanton and agents of the devil. It was never their weakness for a willing whore, after the dull and lifeless women they experienced back on their side of the border. No, it was the whores who were to blame.
Oleg had pulled an Afghan off one of the women on a previous occasion, as he held a knife to her throat. He had received a gash on the arm for his chivalry. It looked like it was going to be a knife to the chest until Farrukh intervened and appeased the Afghan.
He later explained to Oleg he had told the Afghan that Oleg was also a junkie and a little soft in the head.
Oleg had initially been amused with Farrukh’s definition of him; but later, in hindsight, he felt a little insulted that anybody, even an illiterate Afghan tribesman, could see him as soft in the head.
He had noticed how the fresher-faced women coming into the village, there always seemed to be one or two a day, were treated much better and the men protecting them were well-armed and not averse to using their weapons.
Malika had told him that a regular beating, from the Afghans especially, was par for the course and she had come to develop a detachment from their perverse and violent methods of sexual gratification. He vowed to protect her from further abuse.
Farrukh had given him a comprehensive run-through on how the operation worked. How the Afghans ‒ there were, at least, forty or fifty, sometimes more ‒ would cross the Panj River at different spots each night, depending on where the border guards were and who they could bribe and who they could not. After crossing, they would make their way to the villages by different routes. Dependent on the cloud cover, the weather and, of course, the border guards on the Tajikistan side, they would walk, ride on a donkey, even use a motorbike, to reach Farrukh. It was not far in distance, but it would take them all night and, once they arrived in the camp, all they wanted to do was do the deal with Farrukh, aim to cheat him if they could, grab a quick feed and then get to the whores.
As Farrukh had explained, they may not like Russians, but they would like Oleg’s money, and they would see him as easier to cheat, which was probably true. He wouldn’t see them slipping a bit more heroin into the belt of their trousers, or removing a little from the sack after he had carefully weighed it. Farrukh told him that it didn’t matter too much, as the mark-up on the product as it transited Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, before reaching Kazakhstan and ultimately into Russia, was sufficient to compensate for his inexperience.
Anyway, if they thought they could cheat a bit more, it would be all the easier for him to be accepted. Malika had given him some instruction in the basics of the local language, Tajik, especially the numbers.
The transportation up to Dushanbe was a different matter. The police checkpoints on the road occurred with disturbing regularity, but the drivers were well-versed in who to pay and how much, so normally there was no issue. Sometimes, a truck and a driver would be caught, but that was only as a result of the police wishing to be seen as incorruptible and diligent. Anyway, Farrukh invariably had some advance notice and subsequently reduced the load the truck was carrying.
The driver would receive a substantial bonus to compensate for the three months he would be in prison, pending a trial, which would always be thrown out for lack of evidence. It was an annoyance, but Yusup controlled the authorities.
Yuri Drygin played his part, in that if the security on the bridge he guarded was lax, he would let a shipment through, but it put a dent in the margins. Still, it did have its advantages, as it simplified the whole operation and larger quantities could be moved and much faster.
He continued to supply information about the border patrols, changes in the senior officers and whether or not they could be bribed. Yusup would then ensure, through his contacts in Dushanbe, that the incorruptible were transferred – or, failing that, there would be an accident on the way home from work. There had been a couple of accidents, and the fatally wounded had been feted in the local press as pillars of society, shining examples of the modern police force and long would they be remembered.
Yusup thought they were bloody fools. However, as a prominent member of society, he would regularly donate his time and money towards a more efficient police force.
***
Najibullah arrived in the camp the second night after Oleg and Farrukh’s return from the border town.
‘Oleg will be here for a few days, looking after operations,’ Farrukh said.
‘I don’t like this,’ the Afghan replied. It was the expected reaction. A smuggler by definition is a suspicious person and trust is built up over time. Oleg was an unknown factor, and a smuggler risking his life did not want unknowns.
‘I vouch for him,’ Farrukh replied, attempting to calm the tribesman’s fears.
‘Are you sure he’s not Russian?’
‘I told you before. His mother had been raped by the Russians. You said you have some in Afghanistan.’
‘That is true, but we can never trust them the same way we would a true Afghan.’
‘Even if the children have committed no sin?’
‘Their sin was to be born,’ said the tribesman. ‘I would never consent to sully my family’s name by allowing one of my daughters to marry them.’
‘I thought you did not care for your female children.’
‘I do not. It is the dishonour of children conceived by the seed of an invader that is of concern. I would rather kill my daughters than allow that shame to besmirch my family.’
‘Najibullah, will you accept Oleg at least for the next week or so?’ Farrukh asked.
‘If you guarantee him, then so will I.’
‘And the others who come over at night?’
‘I will ensure they accept him.’
Farrukh felt now was not the time to discuss the other issue: the visit across the border that he had feared, but now offered some interest. He saw it as an adventure, albeit a dangerous one, but an adventure nonetheless.
Later that night, after Najibullah had spent time with one of the women, and Farrukh had spent a short time with No
zia, they both sat down to talk.
‘What would you say if I told you I wanted to go into Afghanistan?’ Farrukh asked.
‘I’d say you were mad.’
‘It’s important.’
‘Nothing’s that important. You’ll not be welcome unless you know someone. Where will you go?’
‘I know you?’
‘I’m only a peasant trying to look after his family. Of what use would I be?’
‘Someone’s trying to take our business from us. You’ve seen that?’
‘I know, but there are always other people involved, other smugglers, other traders.’
‘But this time, it’s serious.’
‘I have heard of another operation setting up,’ Najibullah confided. ‘But, I am only the person who smuggles the drugs across the border. I do not listen to rumours. Besides, foolish talk can be fatal.’
‘I need to know if it’s true. It will be beneficial to both of us.’
‘And deadly if we are caught.’
‘Will you help me?’
‘You would need to cross the border with me and then I’m not sure what can be achieved.’
‘Tell me how you pick up the shipments?’
‘It varies, but most times I travel from my village to a nominated location. It changes from week to week. There, I am given the shipment and asked to take it across the river, then up to here. That’s all. I am paid on my return.’
‘Do you see anyone when you pick up the shipment?’ Farrukh continued to probe, Najibullah continued to be reticent.
‘No, but why are you asking me these questions?’
‘Because, if you are agreeable, I will come back with you.’
‘I’ve not agreed.’
‘I will pay you.’
‘The return trip is not so easy. There are guns to carry, and the journey is more dangerous. A few kilos of heroin, I can hide under a rock. One or two hundred guns, I cannot.’
‘Will you take me?’ Farrukh asked.
‘Why don’t you just cross the border legally and I’ll meet you the other side?’
To Farrukh, it seemed a reasonable solution. Oleg, however, had cautioned against it.
Malika's Revenge: A Powerful Mix for a Complex Noir Novel. An Organized Crime Thriller - not for the faint-hearted Page 8