The Jackal's Share

by Christopher Morgan Jones

  Constance looked at him and winked, a huge smile on his face, his gray eyes shining with fun and pleasure. Where it showed through the coarse beard and flowing gray hair his tan was the color of maple, the skin around his eyes dry and flaking, his nose strong and straight. There was a simplicity about Constance, something foolish, something sage, and if it weren’t for his Western dress and his paunch he might have been some man of ancient wisdom, newly returned from months in the desert seeking truth.

  “You eaten Yemeni before?”

  Webster smiled and shook his head.

  “You’re going to love it. We’re in the men’s section. The mixed is for tourists and we, after all, are men.” He raised an eyebrow for effect. “Not that we’ll be able to drink like them but there’s plenty of time for that. You got clean hands?”

  “Pretty clean.”

  “You’ll be using them.”

  A waiter came and spread out a clear plastic sheet. A second weighted it down with a basket of bread, two glasses, a large bottle of mineral water and a huge platter covered in sliced cucumber, lettuce, shining green olives, long, curling peppers, bright pink radishes and bunches of parsley, tarragon and mint. Webster smiled.

  “You like this?” said Constance.

  “I do. It’s like a dinner I had with Darius Qazai not long ago.”

  “You sat on the floor with Darius Qazai?”

  “No. We had chairs.”

  “That bastard.” Constance roared with laughter. “So fucking grand.”

  Constance ordered, without consulting Webster, and when two glasses of orange juice had been brought, he leaned in over the plastic sheet, preparing for confidences.

  “So. How is the old fraud?”

  “Qazai? Or Ike?”

  Constance chuckled. “Qazai. I don’t need to ask after Ike. He’s always OK.”

  “Yes, he is. He is always OK.”

  “Must be infuriating.”

  “Never.” Webster smiled and took an olive. “Qazai,” he said, chewing and spitting out the stone, “is the same as he was. We’ve not found much.”

  Constance frowned, grunted and looked up from his food. “You think he’s clean?”

  Webster thought for a moment. “No. But I don’t know why.” He bit into a pepper and savored its heat. “I’ve checked out hundreds of people. Usually from afar. And you’re never sure. You get little sniffs, bits and pieces, then you run out of money. The clients don’t care because they want to do the deal anyway. But this is different. I can speak to the man. I get to ask him questions. I get to look him in the eye.”

  He paused, and Constance smiled. “He lets you look him in the eye?”

  Webster gave a knowing laugh. “For now.”

  “Do you like what you see?”

  Webster considered the question. “Anyone that polished has to be hiding something.”

  Constance rocked back and slapped his thigh. “That’s it! That’s it exactly. All that smoothness isn’t right. People are only smooth when they’ve smoothed something out. That’s a fact.” He held up his glass. “A toast. To the roughing up of Darius Qazai.” And giving Webster’s glass a forceful chink he drank the orange juice down, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand when he was done. “You sure you don’t want me to find out where his money comes from?”

  “No. Unless you have something cast iron.” There was something predictable about this line: it was the easiest thing in the world to call a man a money-launderer, and one of the most difficult to prove. Tiredness had seized him, and though he knew it was just the flight and the time difference—it was always worse coming east—he asked himself whether he really had the energy to scrape away the layers of Constance’s vanity and enthusiasm to determine whether he actually knew anything that might help.

  Constance looked a little put out. “You mean to tell me that you don’t care if the whole Qazai palace is built on shit?”

  “I do. If it’s shit with evidence.” He shifted his position, sitting up straighter and stretching his back. “What about Shokhor?”

  “He can wait.” Constance waved his hand. “This is from a good source, Ben. Very good.” Webster knew what he meant by this; he was always dropping hints that he had a friend in the CIA, and Webster had sometimes suspected that this friend had a habit of playing on Constance’s enthusiasms. This wouldn’t be the first time that someone had planted a seed with him in the hope that it would grow in the repeated telling.

  “If he can back it up, I’m all ears. Now. Shokhor.”

  Constance, a little deflated, like a schoolboy who has been told he must do his homework before he can go out and play, told Webster what he had found. Shokhor was a creature of the Gulf. If you wanted to move something from one place in the region to another and had reason to believe that law enforcement might raise an objection, he was your man. Money, guns, drugs, art, people: he didn’t specialize. He operated from an office by the port in Jebel Ali and his sole asset, like all respectable businesses, was goodwill—the goodwill of the customs officers and dockworkers and policemen that he kept on his unofficial payroll.

  “How well protected is he?”

  “He’s still in business. Flourishing. Pretty well, I’d say.”

  “Does anyone know him?”

  “You mean, can I secure you a polite introduction?”

  “Something like that.”

  “That needs a little thought.”

  “It’s OK. I have some ideas,” said Webster.

  Constance glanced up and leaned back to allow two waiters to place three bowls of food on the floor in front of them: one with prawns, one chicken, one lamb, grilled golden and black and laid on top of steaming yellow rice. “This is mandi,” he said reaching for a piece of chicken. “The best thing ever to come out of Yemen. Which is saying something.”

  He held the chicken between his fingers, ripped some flesh off with his teeth and gave a muffled groan of satisfaction. His nails were discolored and cracked. Webster took a prawn and prized the meat free of its shell.

  “So,” he said. “Did you like my fax? About Mehr’s death?”

  Constance grinned and carried on chewing. “I sure did,” he said at last. “Quite an intriguing little document.”

  Webster watched him carefully. “You didn’t write it, did you?”

  Constance looked genuinely surprised, and struggled to get a mouthful down before he spoke. “Me? No. Not my handiwork. I write better than that.”

  “It did lack a certain verve. Any idea who did?”

  Cupping his hand to scoop up some rice Constance shook his head. “None. Maybe it leaked from somewhere.”

  “Maybe. What did you think?”

  “Well. Even for the Iranian police that’s one slack investigation.” Constance picked up a prawn and pinched its head off. “Put it this way,” he said, pulling the shell away in one easy motion, “even the Iranians, even today, will pay lip service to the murder of a Westerner on their soil. They won’t do anything, of course, but they’ll make it look like they’ve done something. These fuckers sound like they’re not even doing that.” He was waving the prawn around in his hand, forgetting about it as he warmed up. “They haven’t tried to trace the truck that took him, they’re not interested in where these priceless treasures might appear for sale. No one’s asking why the poor fucker had to get kidnapped when all they had to do is break into his hotel room. And he had his passport on him? In a country where a British passport would net you what, five hundred bucks? Those are some snooty criminals, my friend, that’s for sure.” He finally put the prawn in his mouth. “They haven’t even interviewed the guy he was due to meet. Oh that’s good. Damn that’s good. And you know what?” He reached for another prawn. “They don’t make decisions like that on their own. Not some terrified homicide cop in Isfahan. No way.”

  “Who does?
”

  “Someone with power. Could come from a couple of places.”

  Webster took a long drink of orange juice and thought.

  “Can you find out?”

  “I can try.”

  “Who would have done the work?” he said. “In Isfahan.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, there are five men, which is a lot, they have guns, and they know where Mehr is. Either they intercept his calls or they control the antiques dealer.”

  “I don’t know. There’s organized crime in Iran, like everywhere.”

  “What about the government?”

  “Possibly. They’re always up for an op. You have to give ’em that.”

  “If it was, who does the work?”

  “The Revolutionary Guard. Most likely. Or VEVAK.”

  “What’s the difference?”

  “Well,” Constance scratched his beard, “understand this. Every dictatorship needs terror. To keep going. But in Iran, it goes beyond necessity. They have a taste for it. It’s not politics, it’s cruelty. Viciousness. This is why they love executing people so much.” He paused. “Do you know the story of the Shiraz martyrs?”

  Webster didn’t.

  “No reason why you should. You would have been about ten, I guess. Jesus. So three or four years after the revolution, ten women were arrested for teaching religious classes. They were Bahai, and therefore supremely dangerous to the revolution.” He raised an eyebrow and shook his head. “So dangerous that they had to be killed. All ten of them were driven out to a field near Shiraz and hanged, one by one. The older women went first, so that the younger ones might look on and recant. Convert to Islam. But they didn’t. The youngest of them all was seventeen. She kissed the noose before she put it around her neck.”

  Webster felt the food in his mouth turn to clay.

  “That, my friend,” said Constance, with black cheerfulness, “is called protecting the revolution. The revolution must be protected from religious young girls, and dissidents, and anyone with an ounce of decency or brains or fire. Right now they’re scared fucking witless that they’re going to be the next sorry-ass tyranny to collapse and they’ll have to hide out in Caracas for the rest of their lives with a bunch of mangy Arab dictators—who they despise, because they’re Sunnis, but are in fact no different from them in any particular. That is if they make it out, which they probably won’t. And if the Israelis don’t nuke them to shit. But you know what? They’re right to be vigilant. One day it’ll be a seventeen-year-old that brings it all down. And until then, they’re going to keep killing people.”

  Webster swallowed, waiting for Constance to finish.

  “Grizzly, huh? They’re organized, of course. You need structures to keep the killing efficient. So the Revolutionary Guard is the army. More powerful. More money. VEVAK is intelligence. They’re both big on killing dissidents, sometimes with a noose around their neck, sometimes with a discreet little bullet in the head.” He gestured with two fingers against his temple. “So you think your guy was political?”

  “Not that I know.”

  “Everything’s political in Iran.” Constance grinned, took a shank of lamb and with theatrical delight took a hungry, wolfish bite. “Maybe he got sacrificed.”

  8.

  IF ZIA SHOKHOR HAD thought to check up on the man who had called him up the next morning he would have found enough, Webster hoped, to accept a meeting. William Taylor was the managing director of Northwest Associates Limited, a London company that according to its nicely designed but rudimentary Web site sought “to maximize opportunities arising from disparities in finance and trade between developed and emerging economies.” Whatever that meant, Northwest had a respectable address on Savile Row, its own domain name, and a telephone number that went through to a well-spoken receptionist who would offer to connect your call. Its accounts had been up to date since its incorporation in 1991 and its filings at Companies House in order. Taylor had become a director in 2004.

  And if Shokhor was the diligent sort he would have found, among the hundreds of thousands of other William Taylors, a handful of hits for this one—enough to demonstrate that he existed, but not so many to alarm anyone who liked their business associates discreet. Taylor had spoken at a conference on Central Asian investment in 2007, and had published a handful of articles in more or less obscure trade magazines. To each was attached his biography: University of Bristol, a career in banking and trade, the specifics artfully elided.

  Thorough investigation would find the cracks in the fiction, but for nearly twenty years, ever since Hammer had persuaded a friend of his to sign the documents in return for a small annual fee, it had held up. Taylor, Webster’s double, had made several outings over the years, and had never been found out. For Shokhor he would do, Webster told himself. Just to get a meeting.

  He had made the call on a cell phone he kept for these occasions and had had to concentrate hard on sounding more businesslike than he felt. Constance had finally stopped talking at two that morning, or thereabouts, a little while after the opening of a second bottle of whisky. Sitting on his roof, leaning back into a pile of oversized cushions, a half-spent, half-lit cigar in his teeth, he had been telling a long, snaking story about a German businessman who had been relieved of a large amount of money by a conman masquerading as a sheikh. The ending hadn’t seemed like much of an ending, but Webster had grunted his appreciation and tilted his head back to look at the stars, his own cigar short and glowing warmly between his fingers, until he realized, opaquely, that the story hadn’t finished and that Constance was in fact asleep. Laughing to himself, he had staggered up and gone to bed, vainly trying to rouse his host and settling in the end for removing the dead cigar from his mouth and covering him with a rug.

  After that it had not been a good night. He hadn’t been able to sleep: with air conditioning it was airless and too cold, and without, instantly sweaty. Constance’s kitchen had run to coffee but not to food, and as he sat on the roof in the early heat waiting for his host to wake and Shokhor to return his call, he felt like all the moisture had been drained from his system and replaced with sand. With luck Shokhor would set their meeting for tomorrow, if ever.

  Webster had called the office number on Calyx’s Web site, asked for Mr. Shokhor and told him that he had been given his name by a big collector of art in London, which was true, in a sense; that he was looking for someone to help with moving some large and delicate cargoes from Syria and Iran to Cyprus; and that he would like to meet, if possible, while he was in town for a few days. Shokhor had seemed wary but curious, and promised to call back once he had consulted his diary. That had been an hour ago.

  Slow footsteps coming up the stairs to the terrace made Webster turn. Constance was up. Wearing a plain white robe, his hair wiry and crazed, he looked more than ever like some wild prophet, but for the cup of coffee he was guarding carefully with both hands.

  “You son of a bitch,” he said, sitting down opposite Webster. Around them low roofs lay stepped like boxes, covered in white satellite dishes that shone blindingly in the sun. “What did you do to me last night?”

  Webster squinted back at him. “Nothing untoward. You made it to bed then?”

  “I woke up at six with the sun broiling my face.”

  Webster laughed. “I’m sorry. I tried to wake you.”

  Constance uttered something between a grunt and a groan and looked around him over the rooftops. “Another beautiful day. God, how they run together.” He took a watchful sip of his coffee. “What’s the plan?”

  “Dinner with Timur Qazai. Until then, waiting for Shokhor to call me back.”

  “You called him? Before breakfast?”

  “It’s ten o’clock.”

  “Jesus, you’re a machine.” He stood up. “Come on. It’s too hot out here. Let’s go and eat.”

  • • •<
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  SHOKHOR HAD CALLED BACK while Webster and Constance were eating eggs at an ersatz diner in Deira. He had suggested that they meet at the Hyatt Regency, explaining that it might prove more convenient for everyone since his office was so far away, and at ten to four, after a day of little more than sitting and eating, Constance had dropped Webster two blocks away. He had insisted on waiting nearby until the meeting was finished.

  “I’m yours today. I’m certainly not myself. And you never know what this fucker’s got in store.”

  Webster had told Shokhor that he would be wearing a light-gray suit and a plain dark-blue tie, but as he scanned the hotel lobby he could see that he was the first to arrive; everyone else was already in conversation. He found a pair of sofas by a window, sat down and ordered tea.

  This was not the Burj. It could have been any hotel anywhere in the world: the marble floor, the low leather furniture, the absence of color, the bland courtesy of the uniformed staff; it was all of a piece. Outside, the pool had a lone swimmer in it, and the loungers surrounding it were empty.

  “Mr. Taylor.”

  Webster looked around, experiencing that brief sense of disconnection that follows when someone calls you by the wrong name, quickly caught himself and stood up. Two men were standing by his table. One was small and plump, under his white kandura, with a thick black mustache; the other, standing a foot or so further back, with his hands clasped in front of him, was almost twice his height.

  “Terribly sorry. I was miles away. Mr. Shokhor?” They were expecting an Englishman, and Webster would oblige. He held out his hand. “A great pleasure. Thank you so much for seeing me at such short notice.”

  “Please, have a card.” Shokhor took a card from his breast pocket and passed it to Webster, who took the time to look at it for a moment, appreciatively.