Ramaas cut the line and then frowned at the second message. A string of text from Guhaad brought troubling news.
One of Ramaas’s men was an educated youth named Jonas, who had lived in America for years but returned to Somalia to flee police authorities. His dalliances with computers had been his undoing, but he was from a brother clan, and Ramaas had found good uses for him and his skills.
Ramaas likened Jonas to a spider in the middle of a web, sitting patiently and feeling for vibrations from across the world. He had set up their paths of digital communication and his lines reached out to many places, from monitoring the cargo manifests of passing ships to be targeted by the clan’s raiders, to watching the poorly shielded bank balances of the Serbian money launderers.
The warlord’s expression became stony as he read Guhaad’s clumsy words. The Serbs had moved a lot of money in the past twenty-four hours, and there was no sign of where it had gone to. Ramaas read the message a second time to make sure he had missed no nuance of it, then cleared the phone’s memory and walked outside. He needed the air.
On the airport terminal forecourt, taxis and tour buses were arriving, sliding in beneath a wide white pergola held up by sculptured pillars that resembled metal palm trees. Wind off the sea made the fabric crackle and Ramaas walked on, considering his next move.
He had never expected his path to be a simple one. With each step forward he took, there were always obstacles. Amadayo and his so-called influence had been the most recent of them, and the Serbians would be the next.
But the money . . . If there was a problem, then it could jeopardise everything. He had come here to take what the Serbians owed him, but if they suddenly reneged on that agreement, the results would be unacceptable.
Bold action was measured in bullets, blood and dollars. Ramaas had much of the first two on hand, but the last he still needed to control.
He halted, alone in a stand of trees, and bowed his head reverently. A sign, he decided. It is said that the world is forever balanced upon the horns of the bull, so I will know if that balance favours me. I will ask for a sign, and if it comes I will know I am just in this.
Wheels crunched on tarmac nearby and he heard the slam of a car door. Ramaas looked up, irritated by the intrusion upon his private introspection.
Three men, all wearing tracksuit jackets that did nothing to conceal the guns they carried, stood in front of an idling Mercedes. ‘I am Mislav,’ said one of them, in heavily accented English. ‘You are Mr Ramaas?’
‘Just Ramaas,’ he corrected.
‘Car is for you,’ Mislav told him, indicating it with a sweep of the hand. ‘Please come.’
‘You are all alone?’ said one of the others, looking around to see if he had arrived with an entourage. There was judgement in the words, and Ramaas found that objectionable.
He walked toward the Mercedes, pausing to loom over the man who had asked the question. ‘I have never needed anyone else to handle my business.’ Ramaas pulled down the sunglasses so his dark shark’s eye could get a good look at him. ‘Take me to the Kurjaks.’
‘Bojan, he has a nice hotel room booked for you,’ Mislav began. ‘We go there first.’
‘This is not a discussion,’ Ramaas corrected him once again, and climbed into the town car’s back seat.
*
Marc stifled a yawn and pulled his laptop from the bag on the seat beside him, sliding down a little below the level of the windows. From the inside of Vanja’s battered Fiat Punto, they could both watch the police station across the street, but Marc knew their time was limited. Sooner or later, someone on the front desk would notice them parked out here and send a patrol officer to come and take a look.
Up in the front, Vanja leaned across the steering wheel and set to work lighting a cigarette. ‘How long will this take?’
‘You in a hurry?’ The laptop ran through its boot sequence and Marc activated the Wi-Fi sniffer, quickly locating the secured network inside the precinct.
‘If I am missed, people will get suspicious,’ Vanja went on. ‘Why do you need me? I can’t help you with that . . .’ He nodded at the computer.
‘You’re here because I need a ride, among other things,’ Marc said absently, his hands moving back and forth over the keyboard. The confidence that had been blown out of him in the apartment fire, the impetus that had pushed him into these actions in the first place, had returned to him now. The laptop was a tool he could understand, a system that Marc had full control over. Through it, his skills were at their strongest, and for the first time in hours he didn’t feel battered, strung out or bleak.
He pulled up the command panel of the root control program he had installed on Franko Horvat’s phone and asked it to report in. A heartbeat later, a rich stream of co-opted data told him exactly what he wanted to know. The phone’s GPS showed Marc it was two hundred metres from where he was sitting, turned on but not currently in use. He toyed with the idea of using the control program to remotely activate the microphone, then dismissed the thought. Doing so too soon would risk exposing his intrusion to the user, and if Horvat suspected for one moment that his phone was compromised, he would dump it.
‘We’re going to have to be subtle about this,’ Marc said aloud.
‘How are you going to get Horvat to tell you where the Kurjaks are?’ Vanja took a long drag on his cigarette and blew smoke, filling the car’s stale interior. ‘He won’t sell them out unless his life depends on it.’
‘He’s not going to tell us,’ said Marc. ‘He’s going to show us.’
Horvat’s burner phone had only one number in its memory, and the text-messaging subroutine was set to self-delete every communication it got after one reading. But what was visible to the user and what was actually still stored on the phone were two different things. In the time it took Vanja to finish his cigarette, Marc had descended into the phone’s redundant memory and reconstructed the last text message it had received.
He turned the laptop so Vanja could see it. ‘I don’t read Croatian. What does that say?’
Vanja leaned closer, squinting. ‘It’s from last week. From Bojan. Telling him he’s going to be in town. Like, a warning. Bojan saying he doesn’t want anyone to bother him.’
Marc offered the computer to him. ‘Write another message. Pretend you’re Bojan, tell Horvat to come and see him. Don’t put in a lot of detail. Get over here now, that kind of thing.’
‘What is the point of that?’ Vanja didn’t reach for the laptop.
‘We’re taking a gamble, see,’ Marc explained. ‘If Horvat knows where the Kurjaks are right now –’
‘You can tail him.’ The other man nodded. ‘Okay, I get it.’ He started to hunt and peck at the keys. ‘I should insult him,’ he added. ‘Bojan does that all the time.’
‘Whatever is authentic,’ Marc agreed. ‘Just don’t bury yourself in the part.’ While the other man typed laboriously, Marc found the digital camera and carefully aimed it in the direction of the police station’s entrance.
‘Done,’ Vanja said eventually, with a crooked smile. ‘I say, Hey, asshole. We want you here, right now. Don’t make us wait.’ He handed back the laptop, and Marc hit the key that would send the message to the phone, as if it had just received it from Bojan’s number. ‘We are done?’ added the other man hopefully. ‘You give me the burner now?’
‘You get the phone, you’re safe,’ Marc replied. ‘What about Luka? If the Kurjaks get to him, what then? What about his family, if Luka winds up dead?’ He pressed on Vanja’s loyalty to his cousin, pushing away the momentary antipathy he felt for his own actions. It was easier to silence than he’d expected, and if anything, that troubled him even more. ‘You want that to happen?’
Through the lens of the camera, Marc saw Horvat emerge from the police precinct, scowling up at the gloomy morning sky and the implied threat of rain. The corrupt cop walked to his car and climbed in. Horvat had tailed Pavic’s VW the night before and turnabout would be f
air play.
‘The green Lada over there.’ Marc pointed out the car before Vanja could reply to his earlier comments. ‘Follow it, and don’t be obvious. We screw this up and that’s the end of it.’
Vanja said something under his breath that was clearly some kind of curse, and started the engine.
*
‘I’ll do the talking,’ said Bojan, taking up a spot near the big oak desk in the back of the office. ‘Africans respect strength.’
Neven made a sour face and dragged a dust cloth over the steel case on the opposite side of the room. ‘I can show strength when I need to,’ he insisted. He tapped his head. ‘Mine is all up here, not in my dick like yours, brother.’
Bojan scowled back at him. ‘Just shut up and let me deal with this. We want him out of here as quickly as we can.’ He shook his head. ‘Too much is happening all at once. He’s the last thing we need right now. We have to get rid of him and find a safe place for that.’ He jerked a thumb at the concealed case.
‘There’s the warehouse out by the railyards –’ Neven began a reply, but then there was a knock at the office door. Big Mislav entered with Erno, another of the Kurjaks’ drivers, and the pirate warlord himself.
Ramaas took in the room with an imperious glance and removed his sunglasses, folding them into one of his thick-fingered hands. That strange, half-blank gaze of his raked over Neven and he did his best to give a nonchalant nod in return – but the African’s presence unsettled him and he wanted to be far away from here. Ramaas made Neven think of the bomb, hidden there in the room with them. Both contained destructive forces he didn’t want to be witness to.
Bojan mouthed a few pleasantries, offering his hand to the warlord. Ramaas gave it a cursory shake. ‘We have business to discuss,’ he said.
‘I will tell you now, you have come at a bad time.’ Bojan made it sound as though he was bringing the man into a confidence. ‘We have a problem with the local police force. Spies.’ He put hard emphasis on the word. ‘Perhaps if you could come back in the evening?’ Bojan threw a glance at Mislav and Erno. ‘We’ll get you a good meal after that airline garbage food, a drink? A bed, a woman if you want one.’
‘I am not here for pleasure. I am here for vital reasons.’ Ramaas walked slowly into the middle of the room, and Neven watched as Mislav moved with him. The bigger man was waiting for something bad to happen.
Neven dropped into a chair and did his best to simulate an air of aloof disinterest. He didn’t like admitting that the African made him uneasy. He countered the thought by reminding himself that for all his dangerous manner, Ramaas was just a pirate, a crude bandit with little sophistication. He had ideas above his station, that was clear, but Neven doubted he would ever have the intelligence to achieve them.
He decided at their very first meeting that Ramaas was all animal cunning but with no real education. Coming from that backwater shambles of a country he called home, how could the man be any more than that? The Kurjaks were worldlier than Ramaas would ever be, and Neven smiled a little at that, convincing himself of his superiority.
‘Of course,’ said Bojan, returning to the desk where he took a seat. He offered one to Ramaas, but the African didn’t take it. ‘Business comes first. After all, our association has been profitable for everyone involved.’
Over the years, a lot of money had flowed up from the wilds of Somalia and into the coffers of the Serbians, thanks to the careful laundering of cash ransoms between the pirate clans under Ramaas’s control and the shipping concerns who paid up rather than lose their vessels, cargoes and crews to his gunmen. That flow had tailed off in more recent times as UN coalition naval forces had made it harder for the pirates to operate in the Gulf of Aden, but the clans were nothing if not adaptable. Trafficking in drugs, weapons and people made up the shortfall for a while, and then some. There were stories that piracy was on the upswing again, but it had been months since the arrival of any new deposits.
Now that Ramaas was here on a surprise personal visit, Neven expected that drought was going to end.
‘Do you believe in fate?’ Ramaas asked them. ‘As a God, a force or power, it does not matter what form. Do you believe in it?’
Neven couldn’t stop himself from giving a snort of derision. ‘In my experience, you make your own luck.’
The African ignored him completely. ‘Something has come to me in recent times. I will tell you about it. At sea one morning, I came to an understanding.’
Neven shot his brother a quizzical look. What the hell is he talking about? Bojan gave the smallest of shrugs in return.
‘I have done much,’ Ramaas went on, as if he was teaching them a lesson. ‘But nothing changes for me, for my clan. Poverty. Oppression. Ruin. They stay. So I will change things. I have already begun.’
Bojan leaned forward over the desk. ‘That’s a lot of insight for one man to have. You say you learned all that at sea?’ He nodded, keeping his tone just on the right side of patronising. ‘I’ve never liked boats myself.’
Ramaas sensed he was being insulted, and showed a flash of teeth. ‘This is for you.’ He reached into his jacket pocket, showing no concern when Mislav’s hand moved toward the butt of his gun in reaction. Ramaas drew out a piece of paper and put it on Bojan’s desk. ‘Details are here. Bank transfer codes. Routing information.’
‘What do you want me to do with it?’ Bojan said firmly, keeping up his pretence of superiority.
‘I have come here for my money,’ replied Ramaas. ‘Every single dollar. I am . . . cashing out.’
Neven’s faked calm melted. Bojan’s gaze flicked to Mislav and Erno as the tension in the room jumped tenfold. ‘We had an agreement, Ramaas . . .’
‘It ends now,’ said the pirate. ‘Our association is over. I have shown you respect by coming here in person to tell you so.’
‘Coming here alone,’ Neven added with a sneer, grasping for a vague threat.
‘Unless you cannot pay me.’ Again, Ramaas ignored every word Neven uttered, as if he was beneath his notice. ‘Because you do not have my money.’
‘Of course we do,’ Bojan lied smoothly. ‘But there is a certain way things are done in this part of the world. This is not Africa – we do not give ultimatums out of thin air and expect them to be immediately met. That is not how business happens!’
‘You do not have my money,’ Ramaas repeated, with chilling certainty. ‘Until this moment, I was unsure. But now I know.’
Bojan stood up, his body language dismissive. ‘Look, we’re all tired. You’ve had a long trip, we’ve had a busy night . . .’
Neven saw Big Mislav take his cue and step toward Ramaas, reaching for his arm.
‘Come back tomorrow,’ Bojan continued, ‘and we’ll talk about this properly when everyone is rested –’
Mislav touched the pirate’s arm and made the biggest mistake of his life. Ramaas did something with the sunglasses in his hand, flicking them so that one of the carbon-fibre arms snapped out. In the same motion, Ramaas stabbed it into Mislav’s right eye and sent him staggering back, squealing in pain.
Neven bolted up from his chair in fright as Ramaas tore the Taurus semi-automatic from Mislav’s belt and used it to pistol-whip him to the floor. Erno was fumbling for his own gun, but the pirate was on him in two quick, fluid strides, and he got the same treatment, cracked three times on the brow in rapid succession.
Bojan had a bulky Python revolver in a desk drawer, and he went for it; but again, he was too slow. By the time Neven’s brother had the gun in his hands, Ramaas was back across the room with the Taurus pressed into the small of Neven’s back.
He was hauled around as though he weighed nothing and shoved into the firing line between the two men. ‘I am not coming back later,’ said Ramaas. ‘Where is my money?’
Neven whimpered, struggling in the man’s unbreakable grip.
‘We can’t just give it to you now!’ snapped Bojan. ‘Be reasonable!’
‘I have no
interest in reason,’ Ramaas replied, then changed tack. ‘Do you know why I have used your services for so long, Kurjak?’ He went on without waiting for an answer. ‘Because you place value on family. I understand this. My clan is important to me. Those bonds make a man strong.’ He glanced at Neven. ‘Also they provide a point of leverage, when it is required. I will shoot him through the throat. He will drown in his own blood. You will watch it happen.’
There was no equivocation in the pirate’s words, and Neven blinked, his vision blurring. ‘Brother, please . . .’
‘Give us time,’ Bojan insisted, a rare expression of helplessness on his face. ‘I’ll do what you ask. Just don’t do anything you might regret . . . There’s no need for that!’
‘You think I will regret killing a man?’ Ramaas shook his head.
‘We can make a deal!’ Neven spluttered. ‘Nuh-negotiate a . . . a bonus fee for the delay!’ The Somalians are always greedy, he told himself. I can sell him the lie.
Ramaas moved the gun until the barrel was jammed into the soft flesh of his neck. ‘No delay.’
Panic broke its banks as Neven abruptly understood how wrong he was. Words gushed out of his mouth. ‘We don’t have it, we don’t have the money anymore! We used it, spent it, we got something better!’
‘Better?’ He felt Ramaas’s hot breath on the back of his neck. ‘Show me.’
‘All right . . .’ Bojan put down the revolver and gingerly moved to the dust cloth, pulling it away to reveal the metal case beneath. He opened the lid and stepped away so that Ramaas could see the workings of the nuclear device within, and the unmistakable icon of a radiation warning trefoil.
‘It is false,’ sneered Ramaas, and he cocked the pistol’s hammer. ‘I think I will kill you both now.’
Neven heard the fatal click of the gun’s mechanism and voided his bladder, his will breaking. ‘It’s real!’ he screamed. ‘Please don’t kill me it’s real it’s real . . .’ Tears streamed down his face.
‘This can make us all rich,’ said Bojan desperately.
Then Neven realised that Ramaas had let him go, and the sound he was hearing like a chugging snarl was the pirate’s laughter.
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