Conspiracy in Kiev (30 page)
T
he Jeep halted at the side of a clearing. Beyond, a narrow path wound up the mountain between trees and rocks. The path was deeply rutted, the ruts flooded with water.
José stopped the vehicle and they all stepped out.
The late afternoon was so hot that steam rose from the mud. Low swarms of flies and gnats settled into little clouds above the mud. Alex fixed her hair into a ponytail, put on a cap to protect her head, and plastered herself with DEET for the third time.
“Barranco Lajoya is about a mile up the mountain,” Manuel said. “From here we go on foot. When God made this place, he must have been in a bad mood.”
She might have hiked up the mountain in long pants, despite the constant risk of insect or snake bits, but the heat ruled that out. Malaria was also rampant, so was rabies, and anything that flew or crawled had a good chance of being poisonous. She hoisted her pack onto her back and adjusted the weapon in her holster. The sheath with the knife was arranged on her left hip.
“The climb is steep,” Manuel said. “Take plenty of water.”
She put two one-liter bottles in her backpack and tied a fresh canteen at her waist.
“
Los machetes
,” José reminded them.
“Tigritos
, ¿
ustedes saben?”
She frowned. José explained. There were occasionally jaguars on the mountain, he said. They tended not to attack during the day, but one never knew. If the big cats were hungry enough, they would go after anything. Manuel took a machete with him, for protection as much as slashing through the underbrush. Alex at first declined, then took one.
Both Alex and Manuel checked the ammunition in their sidearms. If they needed the pistols, they might need them in a hurry. With a final gesture, José produced a pair of bracelets, suitable for ankle or wrist. They were made out of light wood, slatted with thin but strong wires running through connecting the beads. He proposed that they each wear one. Within one of the slats on each was a variation on a SIM card, a small directional chip.
“In case someone needs to go looking for a body?” Alex said.
“We try to think of everything,” he said in Spanish.
Then they were ready and began their ascent.
They crossed a barbed wire fence that belonged to a local rancher. Then they trudged several hundred yards through a half-shaded path through the jungle. The DEET worked and kept the biting flies at bay. Above them was a canopy of leaves, which provided some shade but also held the humidity across the floor of the jungle.
The hike was steep, like a march through a giant terrarium. Sweat rolled off her. They stopped for water after a quarter mile and had all the water they wanted when they came to a wide stream with a hard rushing current.
They picked up sturdy fallen branches from the zimba trees and fashioned walking sticks out of them. The path across the first stream was across a series of rocks that some Good Samaritan had put in place but which the force of the current had loosened.
Some of the rocks were submerged. Manuel crossed first and offered a hand back to Alex. There were fifteen steps, then they were at a soggy little island in the middle of the stream. The ground below their feet was soft like quicksand, so they kept moving.
The other side was a deeper ford. There was no choice but to wade through it. Manuel led the way. The water was past her ankles, then up to her knees, then almost touching the hem of her hiking shorts. Then they came up to the other side. They dried off as much as they could, re-applied the insecticides and continued. Alex felt as if her boots would be wet for days, but forged ahead. Fortunately, she had two pairs.
This was like a different planet.
Twenty minutes later, before her was another makeshift bridge of stepping stones, twice as wide and perilous as the first set. The stick was useless now, the water was too deep and the stream swelled into a small unfriendly river right before her eyes.
Manuel, becoming unsteady, crossed ten feet ahead of her. She was on her own. She kept the stick and used it as a balance, as a tightrope walker might.
An insect hit her in the throat and she slapped at it, hitting herself hard on the neck. The rocks below her left foot wobbled and she fought wildly to retain her balance, waving her arms, trying to keep the stick centered. She managed.
Manuel arrived on the other side. She stayed focused. Nine more stones. Then eight. She counted them down. The river narrowed and became shallower. Her confidence swelled. She had made it. Two more steps. Then one.
Manuel extended a hand. “
¡Aquí
,
señorita
,
aquí!
” he said, above the rustle of the current. She grasped his hand and he pulled. She took the final step with a neat jump and landed on the soft riverbank.
“That was the toughest part,” he said.
They stopped to drink, catch their breath, and gather themselves. They found some shade and stopped again where the path was halfway up the mountain. At one point, Manuel took out a pair of binoculars and scanned downward to an area where they could see part of the path they had taken. “What are you watching?” she asked.
“
¡Mira!
Three men with rifles,” he said.
Her heart jumped. She said nothing. Manuel handed her the field glasses and showed her.
She trained the glasses on them and felt her heart leap a second time. There were indeed three strong dark-skinned men in jungle pants and T-shirts. All three were armed with rifles. The guns were old but could kill nonetheless. One of them also had a sidearm. She scanned all parts of the path to see if there were any more than three, but those were the only ones she saw.
They were following them up the same path about half a mile below. Startled and fearful, she handed the glasses back to Manuel. Obviously, he read the anxiety on her face because he laughed.
“Don’t be alarmed,” he said. “About two miles from here there’s a rancher. His livestock escapes sometimes, and he sends out his
hombres
to bring back what is his.”
“They need all that artillery to track down goats?” she asked.
“The region is peaceful these days,” Manuel said, “but it is still too dangerous to wander around by oneself or unarmed. About a year ago, a man named Luis was upset because his wife had fled his village. He sat around drinking all day, then attacked some friends for no reason with his machete. He killed a child. The people in his village had to take things into their own hands.”
“What did they do?”
Manuel wouldn’t say.
“Please tell me,” she pressed.
“It was not pleasant. And it is not good to speak of it to outsiders,” he said.
“I want to know,” she said. “There is no one else here. You can say it aloud to the mountain, as if I’m not listening.”
He paused, then spoke slowly.
“They attacked him with heavy hammers and clubs,” he said. “They broke his legs. Then they the tied him to a tree and left him for three days. By the time they returned, he was dead. Wild animals had feasted on the body, perhaps when he was still alive.”
At length, she said, “I see.”
“There is no justice out here other than what people make for themselves,” he said. Luis’s remains had received a proper burial under four feet of dirt, a pile of stones, and a primitive wooden cross on a remote part of the mountain.
“God will be his judge, as he will judge all of us,” the guide said.
Alex nodded and asked nothing further about the incident. Her gaze drifted back down the mountain. Manuel’s eyes followed her gaze.
“Anyway, there is no reason to be alarmed right now,” he said, looking back down the mountain. “Those men down there are looking for the pigs and goats that belong to
su jefe
. I know those men. They are friends. Let’s continue.”
“Good idea,” she said.
They rose and continued their hike. The path narrowed again and headed into heavy brush under a stand of trees. It continued that way for another few hundred yards, then came to a clearing and began to wind steeply through a rocky area that required climbing.
She was thankful she’d worn good footwear, solid mountain hiking stuff. The gun and the machete hung heavily at her side and reminded her constantly of the extra danger from wildlife.
Then she was out of breath. They stopped. She found a rock and she sat, panting to get her wind back. Manuel seemed midway between concerned and amused.
The time passed slowly and heavily. There was a rustle in the underbrush. Alex’s hand went for her weapon as she thought of the jaguars. But when a beast emerged it was only a wild pig, a descendant of an escapee from a nearby ranch. Future prey for
los tigritos
. The animal gave them a curiously indignant look and scooted off into the heavy brush.
“¿
Está bien?
” Manuel asked.
“
Estoy bien
,” she answered. “I’m okay.”
“One more push to Barranco Lajoya,” he said.
She nodded and stood. He led the way after a final warning to look out for snakes, which could be up to six feet long. “The rattlers are the worst,” he said. “And you don’t always hear the rattle before they strike.”
The last part was free of rocks. From somewhere there was even a breeze. A hot breeze, but a breeze nonetheless. She became short of breath again, but Manuel urged her on, promising that the rest of the way was short and if she stopped at this altitude it could sometimes prove impossible to get back into gear.
Then, up ahead, she heard an incongruous sound.
Chickens.
When you heard the chickens you were close to the village, Manuel said. A final few hundred feet and she came to a clearing. The contours of a wood and plaster roof came into view, and then there was the sound of children shouting. Manuel walked ahead of her a few more strides, and a minute later a clearing opened before them. When they stepped out of it, there was the village of Barranco Lajoya.
The path didn’t end so much as it disappeared into a rambling battered mishmash of rundown huts and shacks. Walls were made of scrap metal, as were roofs. Some roofs were thatched, others had gaping holes in them. There were hammocks for sleeping on small overhangs to some of the huts, attempts at porches, and a few primitive colorful murals that attempted to make things look better. Some of the better homes had mosquito netting on the windows. The majority didn’t. The windows were just open. Alex saw one car, an old blue Citroen with an ornate grill. It must have been forty years old and have spent part of its early life in the old French colony of Guyana, to the east. She wondered how it could have gotten there and guessed that the path must have been more passable in the past.
There seemed to be one store, which operated out of a window in someone’s hut. Barefoot children played soccer in a field cluttered with litter. A hand-painted sign on the side of one building said
Iglesia Christiana
. The church. The building would have been considered an eyesore and a slum in most American towns, but here it was one of the better buildings. It was white stucco, shuttered windows and large wooden doors that locked. Beside it, adjacent to a porch, was a gasoline-powered generator. Electricity had not yet come to Barranco Lajoya, nor had telephones. In Barranco Lajoya the modern world didn’t exist.
A crowd began to gather. Moments later, a small middle-aged man with slick hair, a round face, and a pleasant smile came forth from the church. He introduced himself as Father Martin. He was a Cuban American from Miami, who spoke English and Spanish.
“
¡Bienvenida! Por favor
,
accompáñame
,” he said. Welcome and come with me. I will take you to the other missionaries.
I
n London, Anatoli felt safe. Honest to God, he had never committed even the slightest crime in the United Kingdom. And he wouldn’t. He rather liked the place, the pubs, the football, the girls. Like the cute redhead with whom he had spent the previous night. The trashy blue collar fun of Oxford Street and Picadilly Circus. London was a great place to be for a young man from one of the old Soviet republics. Much better than Rome, from which he had arrived a week earlier.
He stepped out of the shiny black taxi at the foot of Edgerton Gardens in Kensington. It was a mild morning. He would walk the rest of the way home, pass by a pub for an early pint maybe, then go home and sleep off the previous evening.
He sighed to himself. He blinked against the unusual bright sunlight of London in April. He put on a pair of sunglasses.
First rain, then sun, then more rain, then more sun. He blinked. How did these English ever get used to it? It wasn’t like Ukraine where things were steadier.
He skipped the pub. He had been out late the night before and needed a long nap. He turned onto his block of red brick flats and saw nothing unusual.
He entered his building. The lift was out of order again. Well, he only lived three flights up. He took the steps two by two. He clutched an old metal key in his hand.
He looked at his door. The little splinter that he’d left above the lock was still in place. No one had entered while he was out. Either that, he mused to himself, or whoever had entered was so good that they looked for the little marks like that and fixed them.
The floor was silent. Anatoli opened the door and stepped inside.
The lunging, swinging metal baseball bat came from his blind side and was aimed straight at his kneecap. It missed slightly, but smashed the bone of his shin with a sickening crack. At the same time, doors to the apartment behind him opened and men in London police uniforms rushed toward him. They hit him hard from behind and shoved him forward into his own apartment.
Anatoli went berserk. He fought like a wild man. If there were two things he knew in life, one was fighting. The other was killing. Now he knew a third thing: if he were taken prisoner, he wouldn’t see freedom until he was a very old man, if then.
He threw his powerful elbows at the men behind him, caught one in the jaw and one in the gut. He clenched a fist, threw a backward punch at the same man and caught him in the groin. The man howled profanely and loosened his grip.
The man with the bat hammered at Anatoli’s knee again and caught it. Anatoli screamed, then cursed in Ukrainian. Those he fought cursed him in English.
Anatoli started to go down. But he managed to get a hand to the gun he carried under the left armpit of his leather jacket. He moved the gun at one of his assailants. He counted
six
of them now, plus one that was smaller, older, who was standing back. He pulled the trigger, once, twice.
One bullet flew wildly. But the other tore part of the left hand off one of the men who was trying to take his freedom away. The man spun away with a loud screech, blood splattering in every direction like a shattered bottle of ketchup. Anatoli saw a curled pinky finger hit the floor.
Then the bat hit Anatoli’s wrist. The gun flew away from him. Anatoli’s hand and wrist were then rendered nerveless and paralyzed from a second blow.
“Bring him down!
Down!
” the leader said from outside the fight.
One of the intruders had a police club and used it with remarkable efficiency. He walloped Anatoli on the left side of the temple so hard that it crushed the cartilage in his ear. Another blow to the midpoint of his face broke his nose. Then there was one to his groin that took much of the fight out of him.
Anatoli went down hard onto his face, overpowered. The fight had taken a full minute. Championship bouts one-on-one often took less.
Anatoli lay stunned but not unconscious on the old Pakistani carpet that covered the floor. Someone grabbed him by the hair, lifted his head, and slammed it down again. He felt his hands pulled behind his back and cuffed. His mouth was hot and salty, and little shards of his teeth floated on his tongue. His physical fight was gone but a rage still surged within him. If he ever got out of here, he swore to himself, he would find all these men and kill them.
He was still breathing hard, clinging to consciousness, wondering how he could have been so careless or who had betrayed him. He wondered if the redhead had been a setup to get him out of his apartment. And how had they found him?
Voices
. Voices in the room. A voice talking on a cell phone: the man who had stayed back from the fight. He was obviously the leader. Even dazed and defeated, Anatoli knew how these things worked.
“Yeah, we got him,” the voice said.
There was a pause. Then it continued. Same guy.
“Are you kidding me?
Of course
he fought, you moron. He fought like a stuck hog. What’d you expect … that he’d come to tea with us at Fortnum’s?”
There was another pause. Then, “One of my men got clubbed in the balls. Another got a bullet wound. We need some doctors fast.”
In the background Anatoli could hear the man he had shot wailing and crying. Anatoli wished to hell he had killed him.
“Should I put him down, Mark?” Anatoli heard someone say.
“Put him down,” the commander said in response.
Anatoli hadn’t been in America often and his English wasn’t strong. But it seemed like most of these men who had attacked him were English.
They looked it. They smelled it. They sounded it.
But their leader, Mark, the one with the cell phone, the one who had stayed clear of things until the dirty work was done, was American. Anatoli could tell by the accent. If he’d known his American accents better, he would have recognized the soft strains of the Tidewater region of Virginia.
Through a broken nose, shattered teeth, and a fractured jaw, Anatoli cursed his captors. But there was no physical fight left in him now. Darkness came down on him like a collapsing brick wall.
Everything hurt. Consciousness faded. And even as darkness descended, his right eye twitched uncontrollably, even more than usual.
Then one of the assailants pressed something to the side of his head. The nose of a pistol, it felt like. A few seconds later, there was a tremendous explosion and darkness.
