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

by Phillip Strang

  ‘Then let us agree on three per cent,’ Oleg said. The day was drawing to a close, and he was certain the border would close at dusk. He did not want to spend another night in that dreary city, which had been his home for too long. Alam had also told him earlier that the men with Noorzai were almost certainly present when Farhana, the fashion-loving prostitute, had been cornered and stoned.

  Oleg could be a brave man. He had been at times in the past, especially when Malenkov’s brother, the KGB operative, had been on his trail and anxious to kill him. But with Noorzai and his group of hardened Taliban fighters, and a city which, once the sun went down, was pitch black, lit only by the headlights of the cars and trucks as they hurtled round the city – that was something different. It would be stupid for him to stay, and he was not afraid and not unwilling to admit it. If they go for the three per cent, I’m out of here, he thought.

  It still took another two hours and endless cups of tea and pistachio nuts before an agreement was reached – three per cent. Oleg was pleased, Ahmad Ghori and Ali Mowllah delighted, and Ashraf Ghilzai, complacent.

  Arif Noorzai, however, was livid. He was livid on two counts. The first was that any agreement with a Russian was not what he wanted and, at a lower rate, was obscene in the extreme. The second which annoyed him more than the first – he had been forced to give an assurance that the Russian mafia’s man was to be left alone, even escorted to the border. The money and the business were more important than the hatred of a Russian.

  ***

  As Oleg made the trip to the border in the company of Alam, still driving the old Toyota that he had come in, not the black Mercedes that he had promised himself, his conversation turned to what had transpired.

  ‘Alam, what’s going on? They’ve agreed to three per cent, far too quickly for my liking.’

  ‘This is Afghanistan,’ Alam replied. ‘You have not concluded an agreement, only set in place the possibilities for further discussions.’

  ‘So I should not be overly elated?’

  ‘Elated? You should be ecstatic.’

  ‘Why?’ Oleg asked.

  ‘You’ve reached an agreement. And, you’re still alive and going back to Tajikistan.’

  ‘I must be grateful for that, I suppose.’ Oleg could see the sense in what Alam was saying, but he wasn’t so sure that his visit to the country and the people who had slaughtered his father and thousands of other Russians had been an unmitigated success.

  ‘As I said, you’re still alive.’ Alam sounded almost philosophical.

  ‘Is that all I achieved?’

  ‘Considering the circumstances, I would say that was a significant achievement.’

  ‘Why do you think that?’

  ‘On the one hand, you insulted Arif Noorzai, a man who has good reason to hate Russians. On the other, you were screwing the prostitute, even took her to your house a few times from what I heard.’

  ‘I thought nobody knew about that.’

  ‘I overheard two of Noorzai’s men; they knew.’

  ‘But how?’ Oleg asked.

  ‘Do you think a Russian could pick up an Afghan woman, put her in the boot of his car, then drive to his house past some guards and expect not to have been seen?’

  ‘I suppose not,’ said Oleg pensively. ‘But when they killed Farhana, why was I left alone?’

  ‘Ahmad Ghori protected you.’

  Chapter 17

  It was dark when Oleg said his farewells to Alam, a decent person worthy of his friendship. At the same time as the old Toyota rattled its way across the bridge into Tajikistan, Farrukh commenced his meeting with the group in Kunduz that had given him such a hard time earlier.

  This time, the meeting was much more cordial, Farrukh was a fellow Muslim. The Russian mafia – or, at least, Oleg’s Russian mafia – were in the bag. Now was the time to see if a better deal could be struck with the Tajikistan gangster, Baroyev.

  Ali Mowllah had seen the possibility, but not the solution. Farrukh was the man they wanted to talk to.

  ‘Farrukh, we have sent your friend back to Tajikistan with an answer,’ Ahmad Ghori led off.

  ‘May I ask what that answer was?’ Farrukh realised he was in safe territory here, and his manner with the four was relaxed.

  ‘Farrukh,’ Mowllah said, ‘we have agreed to continue with the present arrangement.’

  ‘With the Russians?’ Farrukh had assumed that, with Oleg out of the city and heading north, they were going to supply him with some good news. They were, but not the news he was expecting.

  ‘Yes, with the Russians,’ Noorzai, the Taliban Warlord, said bitterly.

  ‘It is for us to explain our position.’ Ghori sensed the disappointment in Farrukh’s body language, with his arms folded and no longer leaning forward earnestly. He now slouched, leaning backwards in a defensive manner. ‘The Russians can take the quantities that you and your people cannot. This you cannot deny.’

  ‘But, we are brothers. The Russians are the invaders.’ Farrukh certainly understood the logic – it would have been the decision he would have made, but he could not accept defeat without putting forward a vigorous rebuttal. He had taken the opportunity to contact Yusup before the meeting.

  However, it annoyed him that so many weeks, endlessly floating around in Kunduz and without a woman as a distraction, had come to nought. He knew of the prostitutes, even of Oleg’s woman, but a good Muslim in an ultra-conservative Muslim society would not have endeared himself to the group in front of him if he had started sleeping with a local whore, no matter how much he wanted to.

  He had kept himself in check, often by some excessive praying at the Mosque. He hoped for a quick exit across the border, a fast run in the Mercedes up to the capital he loved. The apartment, however, was empty. Negareh, the live-in girlfriend, had departed after his enforced stay in Afghanistan, at her father’s insistence.

  ‘You deserve an explanation and a solution,’ Ghori said.

  ‘A solution?’ Farrukh had seen a closed door. Now there seemed to be an opening.

  ‘First, the explanation,’ the Afghan continued. ‘Business needs to be maintained and, as much as we hate and distrust the Russians, they take the quantity and pay us well. As a business arrangement, it is admirable. But, as you say, they are Russians.’

  ‘Does that mean you wish to still deal with us?’ Farrukh asked.

  ‘Smuggling across the border in the dead of night, with a local tribesman carrying a few kilos of heroin, no longer interests us,’ replied Ghori. ‘But that is all you can offer us at this present moment. Am I correct in what I am saying?’

  ‘Correct in what?’ replied Farrukh. Ghori’s question had proved to be a little obscure.

  ‘Baroyev cannot set up an organisation to compete with the Russian mafia.’

  ‘In the past, he would have been responsible for transporting up to the Russian border and then on-selling it to the Russian mafia. It was an arrangement that worked well. Why do you want to change it?’ Farrukh asked somewhat naively, overstepping the space between cordiality and rudeness. He sensed that his question may have been a little too direct.

  ‘Farrukh,’ Ghori felt obliged to rebut him, ‘we have been lenient with you. It would be wise to think before you speak and to allow us to state our position.’

  ‘I apologise, but naturally, I am disappointed. To go back to Yusup Baroyev and to tell him that I have not been successful…’

  ‘What makes you say that?’ Mowllah said. So far, Noorzai and Ghilzai had said little other than to nod their heads at the appropriate time. Noorzai busied himself with the spread of food laid out before them. Ghilzai doodled on a piece of paper, considering how to achieve the next month’s heroin production. The climate in the main growing regions had not been ideal for the optimum crop; there had been too much rain, and he’d had to order in some extra chemicals to extract the required quality.

  ‘I am not going back without a secured deal,’ Farrukh replied. It wasn’t only the d
eal that concerned Farrukh. Yusup had promised him a welcoming back party with the best whores in Tajikistan if he came back with good news, and here he was going back with nothing but a few words of appeasement from his Afghan hosts.

  ‘Then you are wrong. You are going back with more than that,’ Ghori said.

  ‘Am I?’

  ‘Yes, of course. You are going back with our support. We need the Russians, we all do, including Baroyev, but not necessarily those we are currently dealing with.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ Farrukh said.

  ‘Let me explain,’ Mowllah said. As the master organiser, it was for him to detail the plan. ‘The Russian mafia we know here is only a part of a much larger organisation.’

  ‘They are not the people that Yusup used to deal with,’ Farrukh replied.

  ‘Then,’ Mowllah continued, ‘what if we meet with Baroyev? See how we can assist him in the transportation up through Tajikistan and Kazakhstan to the Russian border?’

  ‘But why would you want to do that?’

  ‘For financial gain, what else?’

  ‘The idea is fine,’ said Farrukh. ‘But wouldn’t this create open warfare between the factions within the Russian mafia and with the organisation that I represent?’

  ‘The Russian mafia, what do we care?’ replied Mowllah. ‘As for Baroyev and your people, we will protect them.’

  ‘Why would you protect Yusup Baroyev? You have not shown any fondness for him.’

  ‘You are right,’ Ghori said. ‘He is, however, a Muslim and a Tajik. And, regardless of his habit of consorting with prostitutes, which we find distasteful, he is still one of us, a fellow brother.’

  Ali Mowllah sheepishly grabbed a handful of a savoury dish as Ghori made the comment about prostitutes. He had been the last man to have had sexual intercourse with the hapless Farhana, before her stoning. He relished the opportunity of an invite to one of Baroyev’s legendary parties. Taking Ahmad Ghori along with him to Dushanbe concerned him. It was bound to cramp his style.

  Mowllah had considered himself exceptionally lucky with the prostitute in Kunduz and, whereas he had snuck her into his room at the back of the house he occupied in Kunduz, he had very nearly been caught. He had almost tripped over a guard at the house, who should have been awake, but was not. Upon his return from dropping her off down a desolate and darkened street, several blocks from the house, he returned and chastised the guard, even had him beaten by the day guards the next morning, for his failure to stay awake.

  ‘We will come back with you to Dushanbe and meet with Baroyev,’ Mowllah said. This both pleased and disappointed Farrukh, who realised that his visit to a whorehouse on the Tajikistan side of the border would have to be curtailed. But then, if he brought two senior Afghan drug lords, he would have at least come back with a better than expected result. It would still be seen that he had had a successful trip to Afghanistan. Yusup would definitely throw him the party he wanted.

  ***

  Two days later, Farrukh arrived back in Dushanbe, to a welcome from Baroyev.

  ‘I am pleased to see you,’ Yusup said. ‘And what of our esteemed guests?’

  ‘They are comfortably settled in the guest house you provided for them.’

  The guest house, located five kilometres from the main residence where the parties were held, was sufficiently close if the visitors wanted to attend, sufficiently distant if they did not.

  The downturn in the drug trade was impacting on Yusup’s cash flow. While his other activities would ensure no curtailing of his lifestyle, at least in the short term, he did not want it to continue indefinitely. The Russians were poaching on his turf; he wanted them out. If showing the Afghans hospitality was the necessary course, he had no trouble with it.

  ‘Have you got yourself laid since you got back?’ Baroyev focused on the necessities first.

  ‘As soon as I offloaded the Afghans,’ Farrukh replied.

  ‘And the apartment?’

  ‘It’s great, just lonely.’

  ‘I’ll send you someone for a couple of days. But remember, on the weekend you need to be fired up, ready to go.’

  ‘I’ll be ready.’

  ‘No women in Afghanistan?’ Yusup seemed not to want to talk about business. Farrukh was quite comfortable to indulge in small talk.

  ‘There are, but it’s too dangerous. If you get caught with one, they’re likely to beat you to a pulp, take off your balls. They are a primitive people. Yezhov was nearly caught with a local whore. He was lucky and got away with it.’

  ‘He will not be so lucky here. I still have a score to settle with him.’ The Tajik drug lord saw Oleg as a traitor and, as such, he needed a traitor’s death. And then there was Malika, who had suffered at his hands.

  The relationship between her and the gangster leader remained firm and resilient, so much so that his wife was complaining of neglect.

  He reasoned that all he needed to do was to pack her off with the children to somewhere warm in Europe, equip her with a credit card and let her spend to her heart’s delight. She would stop complaining, or else she would be out on the street with barely enough money to buy a cup of tea.

  Not that he wanted to do that, but there was only so much complaining one man could take. If any of his men had dared to speak to him in the manner she had, they would be dead.

  Ahmad Ghori had been to Dushanbe before, Ali Mowllah had not. To Ghori, it represented decadence and, whereas it remained a Muslim city, the Russian influence still tainted the city with its austere style of building construction, concrete mainly. Even the police and military looked as if they had just flown in from Russia and the senior military, the officers of which seemed to be plenty on the street, continued to wear the same mildly absurd officers’ caps with their wide rims and peaks.

  He wanted to conclude business as soon as possible and to get back to where he belonged and back into the bear-pit of local politics. He also wanted to ensure his burgeoning wealth as a result of drugs in main, and local corruption in part, which was endemic, did not falter.

  Ali Mowllah saw something different. He had experienced many years in the sprawling megalopolis of Karachi, in the far south of Pakistan, and the capital of Tajikistan excited him. He had no issue with the decadence and, if Baroyev’s parties were as he had heard, he was determined to get an invite.

  ***

  For two days, the Afghans enjoyed the luxury of the house provided. It boasted five bedrooms, five bathrooms and a swimming pool in the manicured grounds ‒ heated as befitted a climate that ranged from freezing in winter to boiling in summer.

  Ali Mowllah had learnt to swim in the freezing waters, as a child, in his home city of Sarobi, Ahmad Ghori had not. He sat to one side, studying the Koran, but not failing to notice the appealing features of the two female housekeepers who dressed in a provocative, Western style of clothing, showing too much leg and too much cleavage. One had bent over to pick up a glass on a small table to his right, and he had not resisted the opportunity to look down the front of her blouse to her exposed breasts and erect nipples. She wore no bra.

  Mowllah had noticed his leering but made no comment. He had made an inappropriate gesture to the most becoming of the two women when she came to make his bed and received a disdainful look for his efforts and a slap to the face. He realised that they dressed provocatively, promiscuously even, but they were neither, and he conditioned himself to no longer assume that the women were available, even if they looked as if they were.

  Farrukh took the two days to spend time with the woman Yusup had supplied. At the end of his time with her, he wasn’t sure he would be ready for the weekend party. But then, he reasoned, he had spent too long in Afghanistan being chaste. He would find the energy.

  ***

  The long-awaited meeting between Ali Mowllah, Ahmad Ghori and Yusup Baroyev convened at the Afghans’ guest house. Yusup arrived in the green Bentley. He thought it sufficiently prestigious, not overtly ostentatious. Ali Mowllah wa
s overawed with the car and managed to talk Yusup into letting him have a drive of it in the next few days. Ahmad Ghori was taken aback by its opulence.

  The room where they met, to the left-hand side of the sweeping semi-circular staircase, was decorated in a neoclassic style indicative of the late 18th century.The statues, one in every corner, as Ahmad Ghori noted, reproductions of Greek classical nude females; he was neither excited nor offended by them.

  Yusup Baroyev was proud to tell them that the room had cost over a quarter of a million American dollars, and he considered it money well spent.

  The conversation soon turned to business.

  ‘You have told Farrukh that you wish to work with us. Is this correct?’ Yusup asked.

  ‘We wish to investigate the possibility,’ Ghori said. He was still overawed by the luxury of the mansion and enjoying it too much. He was a wealthy man in his society, but a modest man by nature. He saw wealth as support for his family, not something to be thrown around in a bragging manner as Baroyev had done.

  Ghori took the lead role in the discussions, as he and Baroyev both spoke Tajik, the regional language, whereas Mowllah did not – at least, not to the fluency required. Baroyev’s pronunciation was more refined, Ghori, more guttural, but they managed to communicate with ease. Ali Mowllah could follow the conversation, but the nuances of the language were beyond him.

  ‘That’s an ambiguous statement,’ Baroyev said.

  ‘It must be. The Russians are making us wealthy, whereas you cannot.’ Ghori was blunt in his reply.

  ‘Then why did you want to come here and meet with me?’

  ‘Because we want you to make us wealthy, not them,’ Ghori said.

  ‘But how can I? The Russians throw money around like it was confetti at a wedding. I cannot compete and, if I tried, it would be open warfare. My life would be threatened. I treasure my life too much to allow myself to be open to such a situation.’