The Russian Pink

by Matthew Hart

  After coaxing Natalie to go to her parents’ in Vermont, he packed a small bag, swapped his passport and driver’s license for the forgeries he wasn’t supposed to have, and walked to the subway at Twenty-Third Street. He watched the platform carefully and didn’t get on the northbound train until the doors were closing. That trick wouldn’t have brushed off a pro, but at least he was trying.

  At Thirty-Fourth Street he got off the subway, went through the tunnel to Penn Station, and caught a New Jersey Transit train to the stop for Newark airport. There, he boarded the AirTrain shuttle from the train station to the terminals. At Terminal C he got off, went straight downstairs to the arrivals level, and hopped a cab. He had the taxi drop him off in downtown Newark, walked around the crowded streets for ten minutes, then ducked into a department store. In a restroom, he ditched his old clothes and changed into the safari gear, bought the year before for a holiday in Kenya. Near the train station he rented a car and drove fifteen hours straight to Miami.

  From Miami, he flew to São Paulo and caught the South African Airways flight to Johannesburg with an onward connection to the Cape. The only thing I hated more than finding myself saddled with Chuck was how easily he’d found me.

  I could understand him picking up the trail to Antwerp. Someone else already had. But Namaqualand and the plane to Cape Town?

  “How did you get our flight information?”

  “I had a contact in the South African police.”

  “Oh, man,” I said, glancing at Lily. She got up and left the balcony and I heard the door to the apartment close softly as she went outside. She moved like a cat. Only because I was listening for the sound did I hear it: the barest snick as she shut the security gate behind her and left the property.

  “Congratulations, Chuck. Someone was hoping you would run. They wanted you to lead them to me.”

  I saw a movement in a patch of shadow below the balcony. Lily emerged and crossed the road, slipped between two cars, and disappeared in a clump of trees.

  “No one knew I had that passport,” Chuck said, “not even you.”

  “Please. If the NSA facial-recognition system was asleep when you went through Miami, believe me, someone would have woken it by the time you reached São Paulo. Who’s been pulling your strings in Washington? Because they’re getting impatient.”

  Between New York and Cape Town, Chuck had spent lonely hours mulling over this hard fact himself. He’d been trying to steer a middle course between Nash and the president’s allies, afraid that Nash would win and equally afraid he wouldn’t.

  “I was called to a meeting with the secretary,” he said. “He told me there was bipartisan concern that the Russians were going to compromise Harry Nash.”

  “Bipartisan. And that made sense to you?”

  “Of course it didn’t,” Chuck said, flushing. “I’m not a fool, Alex. These are sophisticated people. Some of the president’s party now believe they’re going to lose this election. They know that voters are sick of the president. Their view is more nuanced than win or lose.”

  “Well that’s a weight off my shoulders. They’re taking a nuanced view. Thank God. For a while it looked like they were taking the view that involves violent assault and murder.” I gripped the railing. “I mean, Jesus Christ, Chuck. Will you fucking wake up?”

  “I’m not trying to say they have altruistic motives,” Chuck bristled. “I think the cooler heads are evolving a new strategy. They think that if Nash is going to win anyway, they shouldn’t squander any dirt on him right now, but use it to wreck his presidency. That way they regain power in four years.”

  I could picture Chuck expounding this thinking in the office, his legs crossed on the desk so the interns could admire his jeans. Chuck was seduced by his own imagination, a fertile garden that he’d never learned to weed. I have a less nuanced mind. As long as it’s dirty enough, I favor the explanation right in front of me.

  “They don’t believe they’re going to lose, Chuck. Where did you get that, MSNBC? They fear it. That means they will use whatever dirt we can dig up for them. They won’t hold it for four years. They’ll use it when they get it. See if you can remember a last-minute slime job turning a presidential election on its ear.”

  I heard the gate again as Lily came back.

  “I circled the block,” she said when she was back on the balcony. “Two cars, both unmarked. They’re not even bothering to hide.”

  I leaned over the railing and looked along the street. There was one about six cars away, on the far side of the road. The driver took a drag on a cigarette, the orange dot glowing in the shadows. The one riding shotgun sat there checking his email, his face lit by the glow of the screen.

  We didn’t have to wait long to find out what they wanted. The car pulled up in front of us. The driver got out and placed a flashing blue light on the roof. His partner climbed out too, and they took up position under the balcony, not even bothering to glance at us. Down the street another car slid out of a side street to block the intersection. A minute later a car flashed its lights at the cops in the intersection, drove through, and stopped below us.

  A short, slim figure hopped out of the passenger side, said something to the policemen, and followed them up the sidewalk.

  The escort came in first. They gave us the hard look that said, I hope we understand each other. They checked the apartment quickly, sweeping their flashlights around the bedroom and opening the closets. Then they stood aside.

  She wore the same black jeans and T-shirt that she’d worn when she’d waited on us in the restaurant at Port Nolloth.

  “I hope you’re not going to complain about the tip,” I said.

  “Mr. Turner,” she said, “whatever you’re involved in is above my pay grade. Basically my job tonight is to airmail you off to someone who has more important friends than you do.”

  She gave me a warm smile.

  “While I’m at it, though, I’m hoping to do a swap with you. I think you found out something about how that big Angolan pink got paid for. That’s something I’d really like to know. In return, I have something for you. Isn’t that how our business works?”

  “I’m the ranking officer,” Chuck interjected. “We’re not authorized to disclose information about a US government investigation.”

  A long pause followed while she studied Chuck.

  “Wow,” she said finally. “Did I just hear someone mention a foreign government operating without permission in South Africa?”

  “We’re just here for the beaches,” I said.

  “I’m so glad,” she replied, her eyes still on Chuck.

  She stepped to the railing and looked out at the ocean. The black shape of a container ship, marked by its running lights, sailed slowly eastward on a course that would take it around the Cape of Good Hope.

  “Barry Stern and people like him are bleeding us,” she said, her gaze fastened on the ship. “They declare only a fraction of the diamonds they buy and sell, and smuggle the rough out, sometimes on ships like that one,” she tiled her chin at the distant shape. “We don’t care so much about the diamonds. Most of them are Namibia’s problem. But they smuggle gold too.”

  “Theft from your mines,” I said.

  She nodded. “Stolen ore means the mines lose at least a fifth of their production every year, probably more. We’ve managed to track some of it. Most of that stolen ore goes to a refinery in the Persian Gulf. First Partners runs it.”

  “And you want to find out how they pay for it.”

  The container ship was almost out of sight around the headland. Two more ships had appeared behind it, sailing the same course. An endless convoy steamed past the Cape on its way to ports in the Gulf and China. From Africa they took copper, steel, chrome, oil, timber. Gold and diamonds. Behind they left poverty, corruption, and despair.

  I sent a message to Patrick. Using the information from Piet, he’d already started mapping a trail of transactions by First Partners. I read off to her the a
ccount number of every wire that had a South African banking code.

  When she’d entered the last number I gave her, she put her phone away and pressed a flash drive into my hand.

  “I think you’ll find that interesting. Now, you have a plane to catch. Henny Botha has the flight plan. You know how to find him. I believe he was your pilot of choice when you had that great apartment on the mountain.”

  She gave me another dazzling smile, and a moment later I heard the car doors slam and the sound of their engines fading down the road.

  * * *

  I followed the coast to Hout Bay, then cut through the mountains. An hour later we were picking our way through the leafy streets of Stellenbosch. I found Henny Botha in the tiny living quarters attached to the back of his hangar at the airstrip on the edge of town.

  “Ach!” said Henny when I appeared at his door. “After all these years! Still flying around in the night?”

  “Can’t let bats have all the fun.”

  Henny’s leathery old face split into a grin. He put his head back and sent a roar of laughter up to rattle among the stars. “Bats have all the fun,” he repeated, shaking his head in appreciation. He wiped a tear from the corner of his eye, chuckled again, and shoved a cigarette into his mouth. He lit it with an ancient Zippo, inhaled deeply, and led the way to the apron where his sixty-year-old Antonov single-engine biplane stood. A ladder leaned against the open hatch.

  “Ach!” he said in disgust, “I tell the boy—don’t leave the ladder and the open door. Last month I was halfway to Mozambique. Puff adder dropped from hole in overhead bulkhead onto right-hand seat. Good thing I have no copilot!” He started to roar with laughter again, then stopped abruptly. “Flight plan Botswana?”

  “You tell me,” I said.

  He nodded and sighed. “Yes, Botswana. They come and pay cash and tell me where to take you.” He turned and raised his thick forefinger. “And if I ever talk about it, they will come in the night and drive a stake through my heart.” He watched me for a moment with a solemn expression, then erupted into another roar of laughter. Henny liked any joke, but best of all his own.

  He flipped a switch on the side of the hangar and a line of blue runway lights sprang into view. I yanked the blocks from the wheels and we clambered in. Stuffing leaked from the seats. The stench of whatever cargo Henny had last carried lingered in the filthy cabin. The Antonov made a short, noisy dash along the runway and lifted into the starry sky.

  We headed due north over the Great Karoo. The lights of isolated farms floated on the black expanse of the desert. I sat in the green glow of the cockpit in the copilot’s seat, thinking about puff adders while Henny smoked non-stop and bragged about his beloved airplane.

  Henny maintained the heading north until we had passed the main air routes into Johannesburg, then turned northeast and crossed the Botswana border.

  The sun was coming up when we landed at Sir Seretse Khama Airport and taxied to a distant corner of the airfield. The only other planes in sight carried the military insignia of a dozen countries. One of them was a Gulfstream V with US Air Force markings. The list of people who can pull that kind of ride is a short one, and I could only think of one person on it who might want to talk to me.

  16

  Everyone has terrorists, old man, everyone,” a British air commodore was braying into the face of a Canadian brigadier.

  The lobby bar of the hotel was packed with men and women in uniform.

  “Don’t tell me about regional conditions,” the air commodore trumpeted on. He fixed the Canadian with a bulging eye. “Malaya!” he boomed, settling an argument in which he seemed to be the only participant.

  A pair of American marine captains huddled with a small group of Namibian army officers and a South African naval commander. One of the Americans tapped his finger on the table and said, “Software.”

  A sign behind the reception desk welcomed delegates to SAFSEC, the annual security conference for southern Africa.

  Until the middle of the last century the Texas-sized sandlot called Botswana was a sleepy backwater. Its scattered population of herdsmen and nomadic San tribesmen led subsistence lives. That changed abruptly in 1963, when a geologist sampled termite mounds at a place called Orapa. Among the mineral grains he found were microdiamonds. Termites excavate underground cities to a depth of sixty feet. The geologist decided to see if he could find where the termites got the diamonds. He did, and fifty years later the Orapa diamond pipe still produces 12 million carats a year, and Orapa was just the first pipe they found.

  For terrorists, diamonds are even more popular than bitcoin, so Botswana’s capital, Gaborone, one of the world’s biggest diamond-trading centers, was a natural location for the conference. I’d been to it before, and in spite of the spooks mixed in with the soldiers it always had a comradely air about it. It didn’t feel that way now.

  “Big security,” the desk clerk at the Masa Square Hotel said as she checked us in. “Big VIP.”

  “Who’s that?” I said.

  She gave me an elaborate shrug and said she didn’t know. That seemed unlikely in a country completely controlled by members of the same ethnic group. The Tswana-speaking majority ran everything from the army to the diamond business. The clerk was Tswana. So was the cop standing at her shoulder glaring at the screen as she entered our names and handed us our key cards.

  They put us on the top floor. I could hardly keep my eyes open, but I put my laptop on the desk and found the flash drive the South African agent had given me. I slipped it into the USB port and clicked the play button that appeared on the screen.

  The scene was shot at night across a river. The cameraman had used a telephoto lens, but the picture was steady. Whoever shot it had a tripod.

  I was pretty sure it was the Chicapa. For one thing, a small diamond barge was sieving gravels on the right-hand side of the frame. But the main clue was the huge industrial dredge working the far side of the river. Arc lamps mounted on steel pylons floodlit the scene, including a landing stage tethered to the shore. A small group stood watching the dredge. The camera started to creep in until the figures filled the screen. By the time I recognized Lime, I’d figured out that the dredge was mining the section of the Camafoza pipe exposed by the river. It was just as João had described it.

  Lime was talking to someone sitting at a trestle table, back to the camera. The seated person never turned around, but she didn’t have to. The camera shot was very tight at the end of the zoom, and in the abundant light the tips of Lily’s ears pushed through her coiling hair and straight into my heart.

  I watched the clip a few more times, then shaved and took a shower before falling into bed. I had a feeling there wouldn’t be time when I got up.

  * * *

  The African sun was burning a hole in the curtains when loud knocking woke me. I opened the door to a young officer with red shoulder boards. He strode by me into the room, followed by a sergeant, snapped the drapes open, and waved his swagger stick at the overnight bag that sat open on a chair.

  The sergeant went through it quickly and expertly, making no comment when he found the Škorpion. He snapped out the magazine and stuck it in his belt, found the backup, and took that too. He dropped the disarmed Škorpion back into my bag.

  “Please get dressed, Mr. Turner,” the officer said. He waited with his back to the window, his feet planted firmly apart and his hands behind him. Clamped beneath his arm, the swagger stick pointed at me like the barrel of a gun. I could feel it drilling a hole in my back as I left the hotel and climbed into the jeep with the blue, white, and black Botswana flag on the fender. The officer got in beside me and we tore off through the city.

  The government guest house sat in the middle of a sprawling fifteen-acre park with lawns and towering fan palms. Jackalberry trees shaded the drive that swept through the grounds in a graceful curve. At the mansion’s entrance, two airmen in gray fatigues and sidearms stood beside a white Mercedes limousine. I followed
the officer through to a veranda at the side of the house.

  Matilda Bolt slouched on a sofa and watched me with her yellow eyes. She wore a white cotton sleeveless shirt and black jeans. Her silver sandals matched the nail polish on her toes. She took a puff on a vape and squinted at me through the smoke.

  “You don’t look so hot.”

  My legs had swollen again. The doctor had warned they might.

  I sank into a wicker chair.

  She fanned the smoke away with a lazy flap of her hand. She was doing her best to preserve an appearance of calm, but every screw that held her together had been tightened with a wrench.

  “Just so you know, I had nothing to do with that attack on your numbskull boss. But when I heard about it, I did use it to find you and bring you here.”

  An air force colonel stepped onto the veranda with a clipboard and some papers. She took another drag on the vape, glared at it with loathing, and tossed it on the table. She glanced through the papers, slashed her pen through some lines, and scribbled her initials in a corner.

  “I started this conference,” she said when he’d gone. “We used to set the agenda. Now we’re the country the others whisper about when our backs are turned. I only get the fancy digs,” she flicked a bony finger at the house, “because they’re still afraid of us.”

  “They should be.”

  “As you, unfortunately, are well placed to understand.” Her face radiated menace. I kept telling myself not to take it personally, but I wasn’t sure it was the right advice.

  She told me how Chuck had been followed, because she had people watching the watchers. He’d thrown off his trackers with the maneuver at Newark, but they’d picked him up again in Miami. They were onto him when he boarded the flight from São Paulo to Johannesburg, with connection to the Cape. That told them where I was. They asked the South Africans to grab me and wait for an arrest team. But in Africa the president had no friends. More to the point, no one feared him. They feared Bolt. That’s why I was now in Gaborone instead of in a black site somewhere with the lights on 24/7 and my eyes taped open.