Al Barmaka waits for more information, and Lara starts telling him the story, reluctantly at first, but then she gets into it and describes the entire saga with the pig farm, Avo’s initial enthusiasm at starting something new, how well the farm was doing at the beginning, then the way LeFreak manipulated both the feed market and the pork market, how over fifty small famers were driven out of business almost overnight, and how Avo was devastated, not just financially, but also emotionally. She skips over LeFreak’s bloody fence and Avo’s incarceration.
Al Barmaka is shocked. He understands monopoly power well. His country has a few big monopolists, and he himself is one of them. So that’s not what he finds shocking. Illegally ruining the livelihoods of a large number of poor farmers is entirely alien to him. The monopolists in Dubai and the Emirates can exist without affecting the livelihood of any citizen, because the government has its own vast financial resources and does not collect taxes. To the contrary, it subsidizes virtually everything for the citizen. But here?
“Now you know why last night I asked you to spearhead the shelter,” says Lara. “This, unfortunately, is what this country has come to.”
“We’ll talk about the shelter later. I have some ideas. By the way, did you tell Edik about the money?”
“Yes,” she says sheepishly. “Sorry, but I needed his advice. He’s a good friend. Actually, the shelter was his idea.”
“I’m glad you did, Lara,” he says. “I want to talk about what I have in mind with him and you together. But that’s later. Now, coming back to Avo, one of my companies is in the import-export business. We mostly import consumer electronics, but also some unique foodstuffs. We import only natural, organic and high quality foods. It seems to me your brother’s honey, from bees exposed to nothing other than wildflowers in mountain meadows, is ideal. If he doesn’t mess with the purity of the honey, we will buy all his output.”
“That would be incredible!” says Lara. “But please listen to me on a very important point, you do not have to do this for me.”
“Relax, when it comes to business, I am purely business. I am looking for pure, clean, old fashioned, natural, healthy, foods that have no hormones and are not genetically modified. Do you know what one of the ironies of that search is? One cannot find that in advanced economies. They all are so far down the road with their ‘advanced’ agriculture that it is difficult to say what is what. But, excuse me, the more backward countries, and Armenia is definitely backward in that respect, have a huge advantage. Their soil and water and air have not yet been corrupted, even if their politicians can put the most corrupt people elsewhere in the world to shame.”
What does he want? Thinks Lara. If he helps me with the shelter, and imports Avo’s honey, we won’t just go our separate ways and forget each other. Is that what he wants? To what end?
“So, I’ll import Avo’s honey without hesitation. But let me tell you this: If he deviates even one millimeter from the quality specifications that we have, we’ll drop him so fast that he won’t know what hit him. Now do you believe that I am not doing this for you? It is just business.”
Lara is impressed. She had never thought of her village as Al Barmaka described it. Clean soil, clean water and air, dirty homes and stables, corrupt politicians. So at least there still is something worth holding on to, something that is pure, in this country.
“I believe you,” she says.
“There is another point, which I have been debating whether I should even bring up. Avo thinks the oligarchs cannot harm his honey business, but the same man who manipulates the import duties can also manipulate export taxes. Do you have export taxes in Armenia?”
Every trace of optimism escapes from Lara’s expression.
“I don’t know,” she whispers, “but even if there aren’t any now, they’ll slap one on right when we start exporting.”
“Stop,” says Al Barmaka. “It won’t matter to us, because we’re willing to pay top prices if the quality is how I described. You tell your brother that. Let him secure purity. That’s worth more than the honey itself.”
They drive in silence for a while, each lost in thought. Al Barmaka seems to be absorbed in the countryside. He stares out of the window, at the agricultural fields and orchards, he sees farmers tilling the land with ploughs pulled by oxen, he sees irrigation systems of a kind that are long gone in Dubai, with hand dug canals manned by farmers, redirecting the water with shovels, a system replaced by automated sprinklers in the Gulf more than thirty years ago. He sees a dark brown, rich soil, instead of the desert sand, and rivers and creeks cascading by the side of the fields. To his right, he sees the ever-present two peaks of Mount Ararat, keeping watch over everything.
They reach Surenavan, a small town along the road where Laurian always stops to buy fruits and vegetables from stalls lined up by the roadside. There isn’t much in early May, but they find some apples and pears kept refrigerated from last year and some fresh vegetables grown in green houses. These roadside stalls would be full of fresh fruit starting in June, when the legendary apricots and cherries ripen, and all the way from July to early November, when every other fruit and vegetable comes into season.
In the spring, Surenavan has another attraction. It is the favorite nesting place of the storks. They are all over, filling the sky with a joyful commotion that conjures homecoming, because they are building their nests. On top of telephone poles, poplar trees, rooftops of barns. Huge white birds with black and white wings gliding gracefully and descending with new twigs.
“They raise their chicks here, and then migrate in the fall. But they always return home in the spring,” says Lara, pointing to the nests.
They pass Yeraskh, go around an ill-kept circle in the road, and start to climb up the mountain.
“That leads to Nakhijevan,” she says, pointing to the right, “that’s where Edik’s ancestors come from.”
“Really?” asks Al Barmaka surprised, “then why didn’t he settle there?”
“It’s a long story, Ahmed. The bottom line is, that thanks to someone called Joseph Stalin, Nakhijevan is no longer part of Armenia. I’ll let Edik explain that to you later if you’re still interested.”
Al Barmaka looks at Lara, and then at his surroundings, in amazement. This is history in the making, he thinks. Wherever he has travelled through Europe and Asia, he has encountered a lot of history, but everything there is settled now. History has somehow slowed down, if not stopped altogether. After hundreds of years of wars, today France is France and England is England and Germany is Germany. But Armenia is not Armenia. Not yet. Nothing is settled here. History has not yet come to a stop. In all his travels, he has not seen anything like this, except of course in the Middle East, but even there, he has not been to the unsettled parts personally.
“You look so handsome when you’re deep in thought,” says Lara, with her mischievous smile.
“Habibty.” Al Barmaka makes a superhuman effort to control his urge to reach for her and kiss her passionately. Then he looks away, to the incredible layers of mountains unfolding in front of them, a watercolor symphony of purple, azure, green, and a hundred shades of each of those colors, across mountain after mountain in an unending chain clear to the horizon.
“In the beginning were the mountains,” he says.
“We are our mountains,” says Lara, and tells him about the Monument in Stepanakert, the capital of Nagorno Karabagh.
Carla’s study has turned into a war room. She presides from behind her desk, wearing a black pantsuit and white shirt. Her hair is short, recently cut. She wears no makeup, nor any jewelry. Her feet are not on the desk.
Yuri and two other men sit on the sofa and side chairs facing her. The other men do not look like Yuri. They look like the typical bodyguards kept by oligarchs—big, muscular, with clean-shaven heads. They don’t feel at ease. They sit straight and stiff, unsure where to look and how to behave. One of them, named Ari, works for Carla. He’s one of the two men that she’s as
signed to Yuri. He is the bodyguard that accompanied Yuri to Stepanavan to talk with Hov. He has a round face, with dark brown eyes and bushy eyebrows that seem to twitch every time he turns his head. Ari’s here because he has killed before. He is one of Ayvazian’s old soldiers, whom Carla has seen with her father several times. He is also another one of the lovers she’s known in the past seven months, although she has not required his services in the bedroom as regularly as she’s called upon Yuri.
The other, Samson, is new. He is one of Yuri’s recruits that Carla approved without meeting him. His resume, as described by Yuri, was enough. He is one of LeFreak’s top security men, assigned to the prostitution and trafficking part of the business. He’s been with LeFreak for less than two years, initially based in Georgia, and recently relocated to Yerevan. Before that, he was in Moscow for some ten years, but Yuri does not know what he did there. It cost a lot of money to have Samson change sides, but in the end, it was not the money alone that pushed him over the fence. It was his lack of confidence in LeFreak’s ability to manage the trafficking business properly. He also has a round face, but thinner than Ari’s, and his eyebrows are so light that they are barely visible. He does not seem to have a neck, and Carla tries not to stare at how his chin seems to perch directly on top of his chest, and his earlobes hang low, almost touching his shoulders.
For the time being, the team seems coordinated enough, with Ari as the soldier, Yuri thinking of himself as first officer and of Samson as second officer, and all three accepting her as the commander. For Carla, having that power is exhilarating.
“Do you have the exact date of the meeting?” she asks.
“May 20. In two weeks. At twelve noon.”
“You’re sure LeFreak will be present?”
“Absolutely. He’s called the meeting.” Samson answers her question, but looks at Yuri.
“How many people will attend?” Carla knows the answers to most of her questions from prior reports from Yuri, but wants to hear directly from Samson. She feels the direct questioning reconfirms her status as boss, and speaking to him gives her a reason to look at him, still amazed at how his head sits directly on his shoulders without the slightest hint of a neck.
“Four, excluding me. Five altogether.”
“Yuri has told me about the two options,” says Carla, “but I want to hear your take on both. I understand you prefer one over the other.”
“The bomb is too risky. It will rouse suspicion of an inside job. People will question why I left the room before the explosion. Besides, why kill all four, when we just need to get rid of LeFreak?” Samson knows that Yuri favors the bomb option, but he has not been able to present any convincing arguments. It is messy and unnecessarily complicated.
“The other option is a sniper hit when we’re all in the room. They never catch snipers. A bomb will leave too many clues behind.”
“Yuri?” asks Carla.
“Both are fine,” says Yuri and shrugs. “I don’t feel strongly one way or another. But maybe we want it to look like an inside job. I don’t mean raising suspicion about you, Samson, but an inside job by someone who is not present at the meeting. That way they won’t suspect us.”
“I’ll be the prime suspect. I’d be leaving the room before the explosion,” says Samson.
“They may suspect you, but they won’t be able to prove anything,” says Yuri. “We’ll arrange for someone to call you with an emergency, and you’ll leave to take care of it. Everything can be documented. Your story will hold up.”
“But why?” asks Samson. “If there was a benefit from blowing up the entire floor and killing all four, I’d say let’s take that risk. But we gain nothing, and we lose three experienced men.”
What neither Carla nor Samson knows, is that it is Yuri’s plan to also get rid of Samson. Only Samson can plant the bomb in the room, so he needs him for that. But then, instead of him walking out and detonating the bomb from a safe distance, a second detonator will set off the bomb while Samson is still in the room. The risks and the threats will die with the human targets of the operation.
“Tell me how the sniper option would work,” says Carla.
“The meeting is in one of their safe houses right outside Yerevan. He has the top two floors of an old building. They use only the tenth floor. He keeps the ninth empty so as not to have close neighbors. Below that live some poor families. He has a separate, locked elevator. No one without a key can get to his floors, because the staircase entrance to the ninth floor has an iron door, and it is also locked. The tenth floor is entirely refurbished, with wide windows overlooking the gorge.” Samson stops for a minute and looks at Carla. He has never planned an operation like this for a woman before. She sits completely still, staring at him with ice-cold eyes.
“There is only one building nearby,” continues Samson. “Some fifty meters away, also ten stories high, facing his, and from the top floor and the roof one can see directly into the meeting room. I have been there once to check it out for security. There is easy and direct access to the roof. Nothing is locked, and the elevator goes all the way to the roof. There are two apartments on each floor of that building. An old couple lives in one of the apartments on the tenth floor, the one that does not face LeFreak’s building. The apartment facing LeFreak’s building is empty.
“LeFreak rarely draws the curtains during meetings. The two side windows don’t have curtains. A sniper on the roof of the facing building can take him. LeFreak usually sits in the large armchair facing the window, and he likes to stand up and pace once in a while. When he paces, he always goes and stands by the window. Even if for some reason the curtains are drawn, he opens them while standing there.”
“I agree that the sniper option is cleaner, let’s go with that,” says Carla. “I want Ari to be the sniper. You take him to the roof of that building and let him study every detail. Then I want to see the exact plan. We’ll meet again before the 20th.” The three listen, nod and wait.
“You will each receive one hundred thousand dollars,” continues Carla. “Work as one team. If anything goes wrong, no matter whose fault it is, none of you gets paid. On May 20, when it is done, you’ll get half of your payment. A month later, if none of you is arrested or under investigation, you’ll get the balance. If any one of you gets in trouble with the law in that period, none of you gets the balance of the pay. Are the rules clear?”
They look at each other first, then at her, and they nod.
“Good. Let me know when you’re ready to show me the precise plan.”
When Yuri leaves the meeting, he is convinced that someone is coaching Carla. How did she come up with that on her own? The one hundred thousand each, told to all three together, is unusual enough. But fifty when the job is done and fifty a month later if no one gets arrested? The only reason she’d add that condition is to ensure that the men do not undermine each other. Does she suspect him? Or perhaps she knows something about Ari or Samson that Yuri doesn’t.
Yuri wonders if Ari and Samson are resenting the fact that he will get paid as much as they are, when he is not doing much. In fact, now that he has found Samson, his role is technically finished. Carla could have told him that she’d take it from here, and worked with Samson and Ari to plan and execute the operation. Why then was he in the room? Why is Carla, who is careful to fairly reward contributions to the business, giving him the same reward as the others, and letting them know about it?
Whatever it is, Yuri is now more convinced than ever that Samson has to somehow become a victim of the operation. He needs a new plan. A new plan without Carla’s knowledge and approval will cost money. He’ll have to pay the cost of getting rid of Samson. Yuri decides that at least part of his one hundred thousand would be worth spending on eliminating Samson. Chances are that Samson, if he stays, will end up running Carla’s operations and costing him a lot more.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
It was cloudy and drizzling when we left Yerevan, and Edik was worried th
at we might get rain in Vardahovit. “For me,” he said, “any time of year, regardless of the weather, it is perfect up there, but for a first-time visitor on a day trip, I want a bright sunny day so you can get the full experience.”
He must be relieved, because by the time we take the Getap junction road, the skies clear up.
“In around ten minutes,” I tell Ahmed, “we’ll pass through some typical villages. Poor and undeveloped, these places are in miserable condition, but I don’t think their fields have seen any contaminants like agricultural chemicals.”
“You’re lucky to have a friend like Edward,” he says, out of the blue, as if he did not hear my last comment about the villages.
“I know. He’s a very good friend, but what made you think of that now?”
“I did not think of it now. I’ve been thinking about it since I met him. He’s a good man.”
“I knew you two would end up becoming friends the minute you called him ‘Edik Jan.’”
“I want to tell you something, Lara, which probably should wait until we sit on that bench of truth and redemption. But I will not wait. The truth is, that I do not have a lot of friends. All the socializing that I do is with family members. All my other interactions with people are for business. I have many business associates, fellow board members, trading partners, employees, some loyal, others not so loyal, but no friends. Isn’t that something?”
“I don’t have a lot of friends either,” I say. “Aside from Edik, there are only three people that I would consider to be my friends, in the sense that I would go out of my way to help, and that I trust. That’s it. Four friends.”
“You’re only eighteen and you have four friends, that is something. I’m thirty-five, and I have none. There’s a big difference.”
“Have you ever felt the need for friends?” I ask. “I mean, your family is so extensive and tight, that maybe it has made friends redundant for you.”
The Doves of Ohanavank Page 25