by Tom Wood
‘Next dossier isn’t ready for you just yet,’ his employer explained. ‘Details are still being verified, you know the sort of thing. Don’t want to send you in without the full facts.’
‘Perish the thought.’
‘Exactly. So stand down while we’re waiting. Unwind and have a little fun.’
‘That’s what I’m doing.’
‘Good for you,’ the voice responded, ‘but don’t go too wild. I need you ready to go at the drop of a hat.’
‘I’m always ready.’
‘Which is exactly what I want to hear. And anyway, you should be happy.’
‘Why’s that?’ Victor asked.
‘Because we’re halfway there, my man. Two down, and only two to go. Then you’re a free man again.’
After a pause, Victor asked, ‘How long before you’ll have the third contract ready?’
‘Soon,’ the voice replied. ‘Very soon.’
CHAPTER 14
Beirut, Lebanon
The girl beneath Baraa Ariff was nineteen. Spanish. She had long wavy black hair that cascaded to her shoulders, flawless golden brown skin over a body that was slim yet curvaceous and just the way Ariff liked it. She also didn’t talk too much, which was another attractive quality the Egyptian arms dealer was particularly fond of.
He couldn’t stand women who tried to engage him in conversation or had the arrogance to dare ask him questions. If it wasn’t so offensive, it would be almost laughable. Ariff considered few men his equal and no woman alive had yet earned his respect. They were either toys for his amusement or to carry and raise his children. Never both. A mother should be too busy looking after the offspring to have time to waste speaking to him and a vagina had no need of vocal cords.
Fortunately, he was wealthy enough not to have to deal with the opposite sex unless he wanted to. Since he lived with his family he had to spend more time in the company of his wife than he would have liked, but she had learned not to speak to him unless absolutely necessary. His daughters were different though; they were three heavenly creations not yet tainted by womanhood. If it were possible, Ariff would keep them that way forever.
The girl grunted. She couldn’t speak Arabic and he didn’t know a word of Spanish, so that all but eliminated the talking problem. A few cries when he used her body were thankfully as much communication as he had to endure on a typical visit. Today was even better than normal — the girl barely moaned as he moved himself on top of her.
As a result he was finished much sooner than usual and this pleased him immensely. For Ariff, the quicker any kind of gratification could be obtained, the better. He climbed off the girl, gave her a little slap on the thigh to show his appreciation of her body, and walked to the bathroom for a quick shower.
He let the warm water strike the top of his head and flow down over his body. He felt tired from the sex. He may have kept himself in shape but his days as a young man were long over. Ariff knew from his regular check-ups that he was fit and healthy for a sixty-eight-year-old. His blood pressure was considerably below the average even with the inherent stresses and dangers associated with his profession. He accepted that his business came with unavoidable risks and as such didn’t spend too much time worrying about them. He paid other people to do that for him, and he paid them very well.
Five decades in the illicit arms trade had amassed Ariff a huge fortune, as it had his father before him. Ariff’s father had smuggled weapons into Gaza from Egypt for almost thirty years until Israeli commandos killed him. Ariff had been little more than a boy then, but he had learned a lot from his father’s death and always steered clear of moving merchandise himself, personally brokering only the most important deals.
The death of his father also taught him to be careful of those he dealt with. People who wanted weapons had enemies and by supplying those people, he would count their enemies as his own. This philosophy kept him away from dealing with anything chemical, biological or nuclear. The second he bought or sold such materials he would become the target of the West, particularly the United States. While he kept comparatively inconspicuous, he knew he was safe.
Ariff’s main business was almost exclusively in the small arms trade. He bought handguns, sub-machine guns, assault rifles, man-portable machine guns, grenade launchers and missile launchers then sold them on. In addition to helping maintain a relatively low profile, he preferred to trade in small arms for a variety of reasons. They were easy to source, cheap to buy, and straightforward to conceal and transport across borders. Demand was also high. Because they were cheap, everyone wanted them.
Ariff had stopped trading in anything larger over twenty years ago, after he’d bought half a dozen T-72 tanks in Estonia that had been left behind by the Red Army. Despite the fact the tanks were perfectly maintained and in full working order, he could find no one who wanted to buy them. Governments didn’t like to deal in such small numbers, and for the price of one tank a warlord could equip every man under his command with an assault rifle and ammunition. In the end, the Estonians had bought back the tanks for sixty per cent of what Ariff had paid for them. It had been a tough but important lesson for the arms dealer.
Despite primarily trading in illegal arms, Ariff conducted much of his business through legal channels. Weapons could be bought legally from supplier states, transported legally, but diverted for illicit use when they were thousands of miles from source. Half the time supplier states never realised their weapons hadn’t ended up where they were supposed to, and the rest of the time they didn’t even care. When big money was at stake, many suppliers would knowingly violate sanctions or embargoes so Ariff could ship their weapons straight to war zones to maximise their profits.
When business wasn’t conducted legally, Ariff preferred to conduct it with as much legality as could be illegally purchased. He bribed officials to issue certified bills of lading and end-use certificates. When he couldn’t bribe, he used expertly produced counterfeits. To keep on good terms with the border guards, airport officials and government cronies essential to his trafficking, Ariff made regular donations whether he was making a shipment or not. The more people were accustomed to bribery, the harder they found it to refuse. When making such bribes, it always helped if the receivers earned less in a month than Ariff would spend on a pair of shoes.
Those times when he wasn’t operating under the flag of a particular state, Ariff smuggled weapons in every conceivable way, whether over land, sea or air. One of his favoured methods was to conceal weapons in humanitarian-aid cargoes. The Red Cross might be sending a plane full of grain to the Democratic Republic of Congo, but while the plane was being refuelled in Egypt, a third of the sacks of grain would be emptied and refilled with guns.
Some arms dealers were more brazen in their illicit trade, openly exploiting the cracks in national and international arms trading. There were certainly enough cracks for Ariff to conduct a lot more trade, and hence earn a lot more money, but he didn’t let greed pull him out of the shadows. No one who operated more openly than him had stayed alive and out of jail for as long as he.
When Ariff had dried and dressed himself, he entered the lounge to find the Spanish girl sitting awkwardly on a sofa. She was wearing a red silk dressing gown and nothing else. The way the fabric flowed over the curves of her body might have encouraged Ariff to stay longer, had he not seen the large Lebanese man sitting opposite her.
Gabir Yamout made the armchair look like it was made for a child. He wasn’t so much tall as he was wide. There was an uncomfortable look on his face, but not because of the size disparity between himself and his seating apparatus.
Ariff smiled and said, ‘Did you not enjoy the performance, Gabir?’
Yamout scowled but said nothing. Ariff walked to where an ornate mirror hung on one wall. He brushed the shoulders of his jacket with his palm and turned around. He reached into a pocket and drew out a folded handkerchief. He gave it to the Spanish girl and made a dismissing gesture. She promptly we
nt into the bedroom and closed the door.
The pouch contained tiny diamonds — enough to make a fine ring or necklace. Sometimes African governments and warlords paid Ariff in precious stones, which in turn his jeweller sold on in Antwerp and Tel Aviv. The diamonds he gave to the girl were all flawed and not worth selling, but she would never know that.
‘One of our suppliers is dead,’ Yamout announced. ‘The Hungarian, Farkas, was assassinated last week.’
‘And why would I care?’
‘His mob associates think we killed him because Farkas was planning to bypass us and go direct to our customers. I hear they will retaliate.’
Ariff laughed. ‘Let them try. I’m more scared of my wife.’ He faced Yamout. ‘When are you getting my money?’
‘I’ll have the American bring it to Minsk,’ Yamout explained. ‘I can make the deal with the Belarusian and collect it afterwards.’
‘Very efficient.’ Ariff checked his reflection one last time and said, ‘Come on, or we’ll be late for Eshe’s party. I don’t want to keep my daughter waiting on her birthday. You did get her something nice, didn’t you?’
Yamout rose from his seat and nodded. ‘Of course, she’s my goddaughter. I picked it up last week. This beautiful dress from Jordan. It’s blue with gold, so pretty. I can’t wait to see her face.’
Ariff’s brow furrowed. ‘You do realise Eshe is only eight?’
‘Even eight-year-olds like pretty dresses.’
On the street outside Ariff climbed into the passenger seat of Yamout’s Mercedes. There were two men sitting on the back seat, both with compact Ingram sub-machine guns resting in their laps. Ariff ignored them.
‘What do we know about this Belarusian?’
‘Not much,’ Yamout said. ‘But I have a solid recommendation and his prices seem very reasonable.’
‘Take plenty of protection,’ Ariff said as he sat back and closed his eyes. ‘These former Soviets can never be trusted.’
Yamout put the Mercedes in gear and pulled away from the kerb.
Further down the road, a young man in a brown suede jacket started up his motorbike’s engine and whispered something to someone who wasn’t there.
CHAPTER 15
Linz, Austria
The target’s dossier was waiting for Victor when he used an internet cafe to access his email account. As well as providing computer terminals, the store also rented out music and films. There were stacks of old DVD cases and video cassettes by the window, sleeves discoloured from too much sunlight exposure. The clientele were young — lots of teenagers and twenty-somethings. No one older than him. Multiple music tracks emanated from several different sets of headphones and mixed together to provide a disjointed soundtrack over the clatter of keyboards.
Sitting in a secluded corner, no one observed Victor opening the dossier and reading. Like the file on Farkas, it was an extensive piece of literature. Gabir Yamout was a forty-four-year-old Lebanese arms trafficker and a former officer in the Beirut police force. He was a Christian who had fought for the militias during the eighties civil war before going to work for an Egyptian named Baraa Ariff. Yamout lived in Beirut with his large family. He was Ariff’s business partner, bodyguard and friend.
Victor examined the first photograph that accompanied the dossier. A covert head-and-shoulders shot of Yamout. He looked in his early thirties, at least ten years younger than the age listed in the dossier, which told Victor his target was good enough to keep himself off anyone’s radar for a long time. Yamout was dressed in a casual shirt, wearing sunglasses. He had a neat moustache and beard. Short hair. He looked like an intelligent man, friendly. Nothing in his appearance gave away the dark way in which he made his money. In Victor’s experience, it rarely did. Certainly not in his own case.
Back in Victor’s hotel room, he connected to the VoIP call. His employer said, ‘I’ve got some more work for you.’
‘Gabir Yamout.’
‘But there’s a complication.’
‘Isn’t there always?’
‘Yamout is hittable for one night only, two days from now. I know this is the second time I’ve asked you to do a rush job, but I can’t help that. Time is of the essence here.’
‘Of course it is,’ Victor said. ‘You’re asking me to kill a major arms dealer with less than sixty hours’ lead time.’
‘I said I can’t help that. It’ll be different next time.’
‘Like the Farkas contract?’
‘Yeah,’ the voice agreed.
‘Like the Farkas contract that I had to rush because the rushed Bucharest job cut into my preparations?’
The voice didn’t answer.
‘This will be the third time in three contracts I’ve had to operate with a limited time frame,’ Victor said. ‘Three for three is not a reassuring pattern.’
‘I never claimed the work I needed doing was going to be easy. If it was, I wouldn’t need you now, would I?’
This time Victor remained silent.
‘As you can see from the dossier, Yamout is a pretty big fish,’ the voice said, moving on. ‘He’s the business partner of Baraa Ariff and together they run an extensive organisation that ferries mainly small arms from source to smaller, localised buyers. Who in turn sell them on to the end users. Their client list is huge and predominantly based in the Middle East and Africa, and over three decades of trafficking we believe they’ve shipped close to a billion dollars’ worth of guns to warlords, militias and terrorists.’
‘They sound like a delightful pair.’
‘Don’t they just? So stubbing Yamout out under our heel is going to make the world a far nicer place. You should feel good about that.’
‘I’m overjoyed.’
‘You sound it.’ His employer paused. ‘Yamout is going to be in Minsk to meet a Belarusian gangster by the name of Danil Petrenko. Petrenko is a typical Eastern European crime boss, but he’s happened upon a few crates of AKs he wants to unload. They’re meeting at the Hotel Europe, where Petrenko has a suite booked for the occasion. We don’t know how Yamout is getting to Minsk, or when he’s leaving again afterwards, but according to my intel Yamout isn’t likely to stay too long, either at the hotel or in Minsk, so you’ll have to hit him as soon as the first chance presents itself.’
‘Which means the hotel will be the only viable strike point.’
‘I guess. But you know more about it than me, so I’ll defer to your judgement.’
Victor said, ‘I hope you understand how that will complicate matters.’
‘How so?’
‘Yamout is a career arms trafficker, a man who has survived and thrived in a ruthless, dangerous profession; a man smart enough to keep his face away from a camera for the last decade. He won’t be meeting a foreign gangster on his own turf without substantial backup. And Petrenko won’t be meeting a foreign arms dealer in his city without a show of strength. That’s potentially a lot of guns pointing my way.’
‘Are you saying you’re scared?’
‘I’m saying that without proper time for planning and surveillance I’m going to have to do this strong. I won’t be able to stealth it.’
‘Kill him in an elevator with an axe for all I care.’
‘The chances of this going loud are extremely high.’
‘I can live with that.’
‘And a hotel is a very public space.’
‘I’m sure you’ll do everything in your power to keep civilians out of any crossfire.’
‘Fine,’ Victor said. ‘I’m going to need some guns, and I’m going to need to pick them up in Minsk no later than tomorrow afternoon.’
‘I can do that,’ the voice said. ‘What kind of guns are we talking about?’
‘A lot of them.’
After finishing the call, Victor slept, setting the alarm in his head to wake him at eight p.m. He exercised and bathed, thinking about the upcoming Yamout contract the whole time, wondering what he hadn’t been told, and whether that lack of informat
ion would get him killed. Accepting the position of an expendable asset came as part of an assassin’s job description, but that didn’t mean Victor had to like it.
Another arms dealer. A telling fact, and one his employer hadn’t elaborated on. Like his current target, his previous had been part of that industry, and though his first kill had been a contract killer, he had died to save the life of yet another trafficker, Vladimir Kasakov. Three members of the arms trade in three contracts. Two to die; one to live. For what goal?
Victor pushed the speculation from his mind. It wasn’t his place to know. He was just a triggerman. For years he had done everything in his power to not understand why the men he killed needed to die. But it was different this time. This time he wanted to know. He wanted to understand. He told himself it was for protection, because ignorance had almost cost him his life the previous year.
That justification didn’t sit right, however. There was more to it than that, whatever it may be. The distrust he had for his employer was palpable. He knew any job could be a set-up in the making, or this theme of rushed contracts could result in him walking into a situation he couldn’t walk back out of. If he had been working for some private client he wouldn’t go through with the latest job. He would cease communication and never contact them again. But resigning wasn’t an option. Private clients didn’t have the power to give him up to police forces and intelligence agencies the world over, or have access to satellite imagining, facial-recognition software, or the ability to call on thousands of spies and assets.
And when it was finally over, would his employer honour their arrangement? Would Victor be allowed to walk away from the CIA’s employ when he’d completed the last kill? Maybe the final job would come with a severance package of the two-in-the-head variety. But he had no choice but to see it through. If he ran, they would chase him, and they knew enough about him to succeed where others had previously failed.