‘I would have thought it was between him and me.’
‘You would be wrong. I would not want you killed over a matter of a car, no matter how good it is.’
‘I will check with you first.’
‘Good,’ Alam said.
Ahmad Ghori was affable the next day when he met with Oleg. He was not alone.
‘Oleg, I have asked my colleagues to join me. For the purposes of our initial meeting, I will not refer to them by name.’ One was instantly recognisable to Oleg as the man he had met in Kabul out on the road to Jalalabad.
‘I am pleased to see them here,’ Oleg replied, confident that there may be some serious discussions and he could get back to Dushanbe.
Farhana, the local woman, he was still not sure about. It seemed an unnecessary complication to take her back with him. The quality of the women was immeasurably improved there and, with a key position within the Russian organisation, he would be able to afford the best. An Afghan prostitute of limited skills and intellect was not the person for him to be squiring around the capital. He would either have to dump her on the street, or pay for her upkeep somewhere distant from him. No, he had decided, he would give her some money, wish her well and leave her in Kunduz.
***
The decision regarding Farhana mattered little in the end. Two days after the return from Latif’s production facility, and the day after he had spent the night with her at his house, she had been waylaid by a group of black-turbaned men.
‘You have shamed your family and Allah,’ they said.
It was a trial and sentencing by a mob, with no representation of defence. Farhana was convicted of riding in a car with a man, who was not a family member, and behaving in an open and promiscuous manner. The indiscretions she had committed with Oleg were not generally known by the mob, which was just as well, for if they had been known he would have suffered a similar fate.
It was equally fortuitous that the unruly and boisterous mob, which could not resist the urge to grab at her breasts and paw her in the crutch, were unaware that she had just spent two hours with Ali Mowllah, one of the group that Oleg and Farrukh were making representations to.
A man, especially a man of prominence as Mowllah, was above derision and contempt. It was, in that sad society, always the woman, the temptress, who caused the man to weaken and to deviate away from the path of Islam and Allah.
The open ground, not far from where she had been cornered, was soon awash with the illiterate, the intolerant and the curious. It was an all-male gathering with one woman, Farhana, the centre of attention. Her father, a humble man who had despaired of his daughter’s longing for expensive clothes and Western fashion magazines, was forced to throw the first stone. His aim was poor, the stone small and, if Farhana had looked, she would have seen a tear in his left eye. It would never be known if he had agreed with what they were doing.
If he had failed to denounce his wayward and dissolute daughter in front of the rabble, it would have made little difference. He would only have suffered the same fate, and his family would have been fatherless. With no means of financial support, they would have very quickly been out on the street begging. His younger daughters, even his wife, would have been reduced to selling themselves, not for the expensive clothes that Farhana had seen as so important, but just to put food on the table and a roof over their heads. They would have been lepers in a backwards society. Their only hope of restitution lay in the hands of the mob.
After the first stone had been thrown by her father, the black-turbaned men took their turn. Their stones were much bigger, their aim more accurate. After the fourth or fifth stone, she collapsed to the ground, blood oozing through the blue burka which covered her. With that, the mob of several hundred men surged forward hurling stones, beating the body with sticks and kicking indiscriminately.
How long she lasted for was unknown, but at the end, all that remained was an indistinct mass covered in blue, tinged with red. The body was left until dusk to show her shame and to let the people of the region know that the Taliban did not tolerate disobedience or any insult to Allah.
Her father came back later as the light faded and retrieved her body. He placed it with care in an open grave he had crudely dug, some distance from the city, and covered it with soil the best way he could.
Oleg was visibly shocked when Alam told him of her fate.
‘But why?’ Oleg asked.
‘I told you the danger of associating with her.’
‘I know, but stoning her to death. What crime had she committed?’
‘It matters little. Those who condemned her make up the rules.’
‘And no doubt sleep with her if they could afford her price.’
‘Of course, but this is not a just society.’
‘It is barbaric,’ Oleg said, realising that he may have offended Alam, who was a member of that society.
‘Barbaric, yes, but I must survive here, as you must at this time. I hope that you will keep your urges in check from now on.’
‘I will.’ Oleg had forgotten the savage beating he had given Malika. While he spoke of Farhana, it caused him to reflect back to what he had done to her. He knew he could not stay much longer in Afghanistan.
***
Ahmad Ghori had been succinct the day he deemed the four Afghans were available to Oleg and Farrukh. A wily individual, he saw that discussions needed to be protracted, flexible, and a final decision only reached after all options had been evaluated and thought through.
‘What’s the consensus here?’ he asked of the assembled gathering. Other, smaller drug smuggling operations were operating throughout the country; a significant amount of heroin were traversing out through Pakistan, a reasonable amount through Iran, but the route north through Tajikistan out into the heartland of Russia and then on to Western Europe was taking predominance. Ghori intended to ensure that his group remained the dominant player on the northern route.
‘Why don’t we play them off against each other?’ Arif Noorzai said. The clothes he wore were aged and tattered, the turban, dull in colour and the sandals on his feet, dusty and tired.
It was not due to lack of money, as he had ensured that the struggle had rewarded him with a comfortable income with which to secure four wives ‒ none that he had any great affection for ‒ although the last one had proved to be satisfactory in bed. They were there to breed him sons, seven at the last count – although one was born with an addled brain and another had an extra digit on each hand. Of the seven, two had been killed in the struggle, bravely – or, at least, that was what everyone had been told.
One of the two, the eldest and apparently the bravest, had blown himself up while planting an improvised explosive device (IED). In his enthusiasm, he had inadvertently caught the trip wire and had ensured himself martyrdom and the eternal thanks and praises of his Taliban brothers, although six months after his death his name had been long forgotten.
The son with the addled brain – of considerable embarrassment to the hero Taliban commander ‒ was kept well out of sight and stayed with the women. Arif Noorzai did not want to be associated with weakness and infirmity, especially within his own family. Ghori promised that one day, he would solve the problem and take the boy out into the desert and ensure him of a martyr’s death by putting a gun to his head and pulling the trigger.
‘Arif, this is what we do,’ said Ghori as he attempted to put forward an alternative. He was not to be given the opportunity. He should have been shocked by Noorzai’s naivety, but he was not. He knew the calibre of the man. Ghori was a politician and a politician evaluates, considers and debates before making rash statements.
‘I agree with Arif,’ Ashraf Ghilzai said. Ghori was shocked by his outburst. He had seen him as a smarter man. He had at least been smart enough to get away from the fundamentalists down near Kandahar in the south and to take responsibility for the heroin production, which was now running at record levels.
‘You are both missing t
he point,’ Ghori countered. ‘Baroyev cannot take the quantities the Russian mafia does. He may be more palatable ideologically. He is, after all, a Muslim and not one of the invaders, but he cannot operate at the same level.’
‘Then what can we do to assist him?’ Ali Mowllah asked. He was a businessman, pure and simple, and he did not like the Russians, either.
‘Ali, how can we assist and why should we?’ asked Ghori.
‘Do we trust the Russians?’ replied Mowllah.
‘We know of your hatred for the invader, but so far they have played fair with us.’
‘My hatred is not the issue, but they are Russians. They hate us as much as we hate them. Once the opportunity to cheat us arises, they will.’
‘Ali is right,’ Ghilzai said.
‘I agree.’ Noorzai savoured the moment of all three taking a united stand against Ahmad Ghori, the smug and sanctimonious politician who acted as though he was the leader of the assembled group.
‘If, as you say, the Russians will cheat us,’ said Ghori, seeing that it was opportune to go with the majority, ‘then what do you suggest we do?’
Ali Mowllah was the smartest of the disparate grouping that had made a stand against Ahmad Ghori. He was the first to speak. ‘We encourage the Russians as it is, maybe try to squeeze a higher price per kilo. But apart from that, we do no more.’
‘What’s the point of that?’ Noorzai snapped.
‘Arif, my friend, you do not understand,’ Mowllah replied in a gentle, condescending manner, hoping to appease the anger of the Taliban commander. It did not.
‘Don’t take that tone with me,’ shouted Noorzai. ‘I’m not some fool who you can charm with your eloquent manners and regal clothes.’
‘I apologise,’ replied Mowllah. ‘Let me continue.’
‘I will accept your apology. Continue,’ Noorzai said, although he was a hard man who did not forgive easily and never forgot.
‘The Russians are putting plenty of money into our accounts,’ Mowllah explained. ‘We stay with the Russians. We tell them clearly they are our preferred option.’
‘And then what?’ Noorzai interjected.
‘We enter into discussions with Baroyev.’
‘Ahmad is correct,’ said Ghilzai. ‘He is incapable of moving the quantities.’ He felt the need to enter into the conversation. He did not want production to go down dramatically. There were a couple of good apartments that he was in the process of buying in Dubai and a BMW in the garage of one of them. He did not want to jeopardise them by being too smart with the invaders.
‘What I am saying is,’ Mowllah felt the need to clarify his position, ‘Baroyev cannot take the quantities now, but with our assistance, he may be able to.’
‘Are you saying we get involved in the transportation through Tajikistan and the distribution into Russia?’ Ghori asked.
‘Who are the Russians?’ Mowllah asked.
‘The Russian mafia,’ Ghori replied.
‘Are you saying they represent the entire Russian mafia?’
‘That is what we assumed.’
‘Then what if we are wrong?’ What if they only represent a small part of the organisation, and those we are dealing with are a splinter group operating independently?’
‘Are they?’ Ghilzai asked.
‘It’s possible.’
‘How will we find this out?’ Ghori asked.
‘Baroyev is our best bet. He will be able to find out.’
‘So how do we make contact with him?’ Ahmad Ghori asked.
‘His representative is here.’ Ali Mowllah had momentarily taken the lead position of the four assembled Afghans. ‘Let us meet with him and discuss. First, we must speak to the Russians’ agent and send him back to Tajikistan.’
‘I am in agreement with Mowllah’s suggestion,’ Noorzai said. Ashraf Ghilzai nodded his head in compliance.
‘And after he has gone?’ Ghori asked.
‘I will travel to meet with Baroyev,’ Mowllah said.
‘And I will go with you,’ Ghori added.
***
The subsequent meeting with Oleg was shorter than expected and to the point.
‘We will maintain the agreement with your people, subject to certain conditions,’ Ahmad Ghori said.
‘And those conditions?’ Oleg replied, sceptical that such an easy resolution was possible. Down at the smugglers’ village, the Afghans had been anything but conciliatory and agreeable. They were always bargaining for that little bit extra, a sweetener, an enticement for them to continue to do business with him.
He knew their ploy. It was little different to what he had used when he had been a standover man back in St. Petersburg, but there he had real leverage. The Afghan smugglers in the village, degenerate as they were, could hardly have burnt his premises down – he had nothing other than a wooden hut. And there was no one else trustworthy in the village they could have dealt with – Baroyev had dealt with that by scaring off anyone muscling in on his business.
‘We require an increase in the price,’ Ghori said.
‘My people will not be very responsive to this.’ The reply that Oleg gave surprised even him, exceedingly diplomatic as it was. He would have preferred to tell them to keep their unreasonable and offensive demand, and he’d go somewhere else; but here, as in the drug smugglers’ village, there was nowhere else to go. Those sitting in front of him knew that all too well.
‘There are no options,’ Ali Mowllah said.
Ashraf Ghilzai, silent until now, offered a comment. ‘Our costs of manufacture are rising, and we have to move the factories on a more regular basis, now that the Afghan army is increasing its presence in the region. They’re backed up by American satellite surveillance and drones.’
Oleg could feel his blood boiling. He knew when he was being fed a line. The Afghan army was only vigilant when Ghilzai did not keep up with his bribes to the senior men in their military, but he supposed that their demands could be rising. If there was one business where greed rose to dominance, it was crime – especially so when that crime came with a surfeit of money, and here the surfeit was astronomical.
Oleg knew his greed was the equal of theirs, but his new best friends, the Russian mafia, had sent him down to negotiate a more equitable deal, not to be asked to pay more. He knew their nature, and they would be hostile to him, maybe even jeopardise his return to Dushanbe. He had still not given up on returning to Russia, once his pockets were full of ill-gotten gains.
‘I can understand your wish to maximise your returns,’ said Oleg. ‘However, over the border into Tajikistan and all the way up to Russia, everyone is looking for a bit extra. If we agree to an extra payment to you, then everyone else will want a similar increase We would then be forced to look for another supplier.’
‘There is no other supplier,’ Noorzai brusquely summed up the situation. A Taliban commander was not known for subtlety, only total obedience or death to those who got between him and his desired objective. He had little time for a Russian, even if the one in front of him was palatable to the sight and reasonably refined in his manners. Noorzai had heard the rumours surrounding the Russian negotiator, including his involvement with the whore his men had stoned to death.
‘There is always another supplier,’ Oleg said, although he knew that he had probably made a statement based on nothing but air.
‘You insult us with your arrogance and intransigence,’ Ali Mowllah retorted. ‘We have treated you with respect, a person from a country that caused great suffering to the people of Afghanistan, and here you mouth words which you know to be untrue.’
‘With respect,’ replied Oleg. He was careful not to show his anger. He could feel the nervousness in his body as the increased levels of adrenaline surged through him. ‘Your people killed my father, and with a level of barbarity which can only be the mark of an uncivilised people.’
All in the meeting were on their feet. Arif Noorzai’s men, who were standing just outside the room burst i
n at a command from their leader and grabbed Oleg firmly from either side. They were about to beat him senseless until Ahmad Ghori intervened.
‘This is not how a meeting should be conducted. We are all businessmen here. The history of the past must remain in the past. Even amongst ourselves, there is derision, even hatred, but we have a common cause ‒ the pursuit of money to serve our needs and the needs of our people.’
***
It would be another couple of hours for the tempers to calm before the meeting could resume. Oleg had taken the opportunity to contact his superiors and to give them an update. Surprisingly, they were pleased that it was only five per cent, but they were insistent – do not come back until you get it down to two and a half, three at the most.
He was determined to secure the deal and to exit the country at the earliest opportunity, that night if the border was still open. Farrukh could have his car as far as he was concerned. He would soon get another one in Dushanbe. Farrukh could wait for another day.
‘Let us resume,’ Ghori said. It still irked Noorzai that he acted as the leader of their group. But, after the unpleasantness of earlier, he, like Oleg, decided to remain calm, whatever the provocation. He would have easily had the Russian shot and thrown to the dogs; he would still do so if the opportunity arose.
‘I have spoken to my people,’ Oleg was quick to speak. ‘They are agreeable to two per cent.’
‘We want a five per cent increase,’ Ali Mowllah said with little conviction. ‘Our costs are escalating. Two per cent is not sufficient.’
‘My people will not agree to five.’ Oleg remained calm.
‘Then your people can go to hell,’ Noorzai shouted. He was still tense, although Ghori and Mowllah had spoken to him earlier and reminded him that the Russians were giving him the money he needed to further his fundamentalist cause. The group had also offered him a five per cent increase for the opium poppies that he produced and sold on to Ghilzai, as well as a higher percentage return on the money the Russians were paying. He knew a good deal when it was thrust in his face, and it justified his earlier outburst, although it did not temper his wish to have the Russian killed – in fact, any Russian if he could get his hands on them.
Malika's Revenge: A Powerful Mix for a Complex Noir Novel. An Organized Crime Thriller - not for the faint-hearted Page 20