Danger Woman (9 page)

Chapter Eighteen

Her time had come and Kotsi Mosadi needed to find a safe place to birth her cubs. The previous year she'd enlarged a lair originally dug by a brown hyena she had chased off. The demands the pack had placed on her meant that she'd had no time to find a new place to lie up. Unfortunately for Danger Woman, the lair was two hundred meters away from an area that had only recently become a preferred place for a pride of lions to loll during the day. Also, the noisy and smelly things that roamed the park frequently crashed through the bush nearby. But now, as time was short, and despite its dangerous location, she had no choice but to return to it. She would exercise more caution when she entered and exited the area. She scanned the horizon and tested the air. She hesitated, shook her large head, snorted and, seeing and sensing nothing significant or threatening, entered her hideaway, her birthing chamber and, if she was not careful, quite possibly her tomb. She pawed out the old dirt, circled the narrow space, and settled down to whelp her cubs.

***

Downwind and a hundred and ten meters to the south in grass the same dun color as her coat, a lioness whose kill had been stolen by this same hyena a few nights earlier watched as it loped across the open space between her and the rise to the south. It disappeared for a moment into the bush and then reappeared. The lioness raised her head to track the hyena's progress. Her eyes glowed yellow in the afternoon sun and somewhere deep within her came a low rumble not unlike a cat's purr only deeper and more menacing. The scent had been distinctive. That hyena was about to give birth. She was not going anywhere soon. The lioness blinked and lowered her head back onto her paws. She would wait.

***

Ole Andersen had timed Kotsi Mosadi
's
gestation and knew she would be going to ground soon. Last year she'd made her lair in an embankment near the River Road. He expected her to do the same this year, but wanted to be sure. He drove his Land Rover to a spot close enough to watch, but far enough away so as not to frighten her off. The possible presence of lions did not worry him. The attack by a lion on a tourist in South Africa had come as no surprise to him. Caution around feral animals meant exercising a little common sense, a commodity missing in too many tourists. He'd fitted his vehicle with steel mesh in the windows and the camera mount on the roof hinged on the underside of the top. He manned it by standing on the seat and with the roof hatch back. In the unlikely event a lion would attempt to attack him, he had only to drop the camera down, slam the hatch shut and drive away. Ole was safe from any and all except an elephant. An elephant, particularly a bull with an attitude, could easily crush his vehicle and him in it. He made a point to avoid bull elephants, particularly those in musk. He thought others should, too, and said so frequently.

Now, he worried about Kotsi Mosadi
.
The hyena, his hyena, had put herself in harm's way. Last year, the lair placement had worked well, but lately the pride of lions that used to hunt farther westward had moved to this part of the bush, which could be a problem. Everyone knew that lions had no use for hyenas. If Kotsi Mosadi was careless even for an instant, one or another of them would dispatch her. He wished, not for the first time, that he could communicate with these animals he'd come to regard as his. If ever there was a time to be Doctor Dolittle and have a chat with her, it was now. But he wasn't. All he could do was watch, record, and hope the lions would stay preoccupied with other things. Perhaps a herd of kudu would wander by and the lions, their hunger sated, would ignore Danger Woman. He also knew that, hungry or overfed, if a lion had the opportunity, it would kill a hyena simply because it could.

He marked his spot on his GPS so that the camera angle would always be the same irrespective of the day the shot was made, and he settled back to wait. It would be days before he had his video completed.

***

Cszepanski sat his desk sorting papers. Two of Lenka's hires, a pair of Boer goons from Jo'burg, sat on the shabby leather sofa. They were the last of several he'd brought on board. Two others languished in jail at the moment. They were sent daily reminders of what would and very well could happen to them if they decided to cooperate with the police. Cszepanski had urged Lenka to put out a hit on them. Lenka said to wait. So they were waiting. He turned his attention on the two remaining Boers. One scowled at a graphic novel, his lips sounding out the words. The second had been cracking his knuckles for the last five minutes. Cszepanski thought if he didn't soon stop he would shoot him on the spot. Lenka would be angry, but it wasn't like these two were important or anything. Just hired muscle and idiots at that.

“So Shepan…Skiz…whatever you call yourself. How come you got out to the park, dumped the big ape, and back so quick last night? You must been speeding, yah?”

“Short cut, Hans. Listen, if you crack your damn bones one more time I will help you do it with the butt of this rifle.”

“Okay, sorry. I know it's a bad habit. My Muttie was always on about how I would get arthritis if I do not stop. She's dead now so I can't tell her she was wrong. Oh, and my name is Johannes, and this fella is Jan.”

Cszepanski rolled his eyes and turned his attention back to the pile of papers and miscellany on the desk. If he ended in Hell, which he reckoned a distinct possibility, he knew it would be filled with morons like these two, endlessly cracking their knuckles and mispronouncing his name. He wished them gone. He wished them dead. Neither of those possibilities was available. What had Lenka been thinking? Still they had their uses.

“Okay, Johann, or Joe or whatever, where is the nine mil that was here last night?”

“A gun is missing?”

“What did I just say? Which one of you apes took it?”

“You think one of us took a gun?”

“It was right here on the desk last night when I left. I come in this morning, you two are sitting here doing nothing, and it's gone. What am I supposed to think? Look, you morons are supplied with all the firepower you will ever need. There is no reason to pinch someone else's. What? Were you planning to sell it to one of the locals? If so, don't. They can't keep secrets and selling a gun like that is illegal and the police will be all over you like ugly on a gorilla. Got it?”

“By
Gott
, it wasn't me. Jan, did you take the pistol from the desk?”

“Who is missing a pistol?”

“Kepanz…he is. He says it is on the desk last night and now it's gone.”

“Not me. I am not taking it.”

“Well you birds better have a good story if Lenka comes and asks about it. He don't like people who rip him off.”

The two Boers looked at Cszepanski dumbstruck and then at each other.

“Johann, you—”

“Me? It was you.”

That took care of the missing pistol. There was an upside to keeping these oafs around after all. If Lenka ever wondered what had happened to the gun that he'd slipped to Grelnikov, he'd just shrug and kick one of these two to the curb.

Chapter Nineteen

When Grelnikov reached the riverbank in Zambia, he motioned Sami Nkola over and reached into his pocket. Sami, expecting a tip, smiled and held out his hand. Gur shot him twice and shoved him and his boat out into the current. The boat and disappeared into the river, Gur into the darkness. Late the following afternoon he staggered into Zimbabwe. He had one connection there. One would be enough. That, and the currency rate of exchange. Zimbabwe is the country which made it onto the Internet when it issued a trillion-dollar bill. It wasn't a stunt. Zim dollars are practically worthless—except in Zimbabwe.

Gur very soon discovered that the exchange rate had turned the wad of Pula notes Cszepanski had shoved into his pocket into several billion Zim dollars. He was rich. Rich enough to pay for medical care which would not find its way into any official record. Rich enough to tap into the black market and purchase a large supply of the painkillers he required. Rich enough to put up at a decent hotel where he could rest and mend, and rich enough to purchase his way back to Botswana when the time came. He intended to settle the score with Greshenko, who'd humiliated him, and Lenka, who'd betrayed him. His only miscalculation had to do with the healing process. Painkillers will mask symptoms, not remove them. His hotel stay would be shorter than he'd planned. Also, to his great disappointment, he was not able to persuade his friends from Moscow to join him. Had he been successful at that, what happened on the riverbank when he finally tracked down Greshenko might have ended differently.

***

Kgabo Modise did not like being late for his meeting, but here he was hurrying through the trees. He could blame Sanderson, but that would not be fair. Greshenko would just have to suck it up. That is how the Americans would say it. “Suck it up, pal.” Before the operation slipped out of his control, Greshenko had been instructed to meet with him daily and report what he had learned from his activity acting as one of Lenka's henchmen. Everything was different now except the place to meet and that must change as well. The spot he'd selected, a clearing in the otherwise heavily forested riverbank seemed a safe place. Now, he wasn't so sure. The addition of six fake Bratva operatives and the complicated scheme that Leo Painter had cooked up made everything riskier, less certain.

The foliage near the river was dense and to the untrained eye, impenetrable. He found the clearing they'd agreed on as their meeting place but not Greshenko. Instead, Leo Painter sat on a fallen tree trunk with an unlit cigar between his teeth. “There you are, Inspector Modise. You know, I think I may be getting too old for this. You probably don't know it, but I had what the docs call a ‘cardiac event' shortly after I came out here. I thought I'd up and died. My wife is all over me to come home to Chicago. She's not well. Age catches up with us all in the end. So, maybe she's right. If I'm going to die, back home in Chicago would make more sense. The thing is, I hate to quit, and even more than that, I hate to lose. I said I was going to build a damned casino out here and I'll be damned if some Russian goombah is going to stop me. Oh, by the way, sorry we had to call you off earlier. The goon Lenka sent to beat some information from one of our boys, sort of screwed things up.”

Modise remained standing. He listened with half an ear to Leo. Americans, he'd decided, were much too outgoing and open for their own good. This man, for example, why did he think I should know about his heart attack or his wife's health or what she said, or even want to? He started to say something along those lines, but switched to, “Where is Greshenko?”

“Yuri is busy. More importantly, your bad guy, Lenka, has eyes on him twenty-four/seven. That makes it unwise for him to meet with you now. For the nonce, you will have to deal with me. We'll cook up something better but first, we talk.”

“That was not the arrangement. Greshenko was to work with me, not you. I have stretched my authority to the limits with this arrangement you made to bring those men in from the States. Again, sir, I need to speak with Greshenko.”

Leo shrugged and tossed the badly mangled cigar aside. A gray monkey that had been lurking nearby, dropped out of the trees, retrieved the cigar before it hit the ground, and bounded away.

“There goes a monkey with taste, Modise. That cigar was an H Upmann. It was a Cuban, Modise, surely you know cigars.”

“I do not smoke, Mr. Painter, so, I do not know one cigar from another, nor do I care to. I came to this place to speak with Greshenko about what we are doing in the case of Lenka, not to you about cigars.”

“Yeah? Sorry about that. Well, here's the deal, I will fill you in on all the important stuff. If you need to speak to Greshenko and don't trust me to adequately represent him, you will have to put someone else into play. Oh, and not one of those people you have pushing a broom around in the casino. All of those guys have been spotted, compromised, or turned. Pick someone you trust implicitly and would never be suspected to be connected to either Yuri or me. In the meantime, I will have to do.”

Leo filled him in on what they'd finally decided to do with the hit man they called Gur. Modise took notes. He double underlined Gur, added a forward slash, and wrote:
Grelnikov—check with Interpol
. As he listened he realized how completely his operation had changed, he could only hope for the better. The plan laid out to him by Leo, and which he then relayed to the director, seemed complicated. Now, with all the elements in place, it seemed overwhelming. Before, it had been a nice, safe plan. This new iteration looked like the end game was to be the Russians' complete annihilation. Never mind deportation, burial services might be added to the to-do list. The director was not going to be pleased. Violence, even in the pursuit of justice, he held as a last and unwanted resort. These Americans and the “cowboy culture” they followed would opt for it as a first choice. Modise wrestled with whether he should tell the director, take the reprimand, and put this show back on the original script, or let it run and hope for an acceptable outcome, one that would discourage the next wave of Lenkas from trying to invade the Chobe. He sighed. There was something about being a “cowboy” that, much as he knew he should, he found difficult to resist.

“I will send someone to you with a message as to who will be my messenger. I am guessing it will be a woman. I am thinking that they will notice a woman not so much.” Modise paused and frowned. “She will bring you some pens. You will need them.”

“Pens? You mean like ballpoints? Why? Never mind, you have your reasons, I guess. Right. So, until we hear from you I will… Do you think that monkey will try to smoke my Upmann or eat it? Either way, I pity it. Probably kill him. Does that make me subject to arrest for abusing the wildlife? Or feeding them? If so, you know where to find me.”

Leo stood, stretched, and wandered off through the trees. A few moments later, Modise heard an engine start and the sounds of a vehicle leaving the area. He waited another five minutes and then left himself. Well, Sanderson had always busied herself with playing at police work, he thought. Now he would give her a real assignment. Maybe it would cure her of this bad habit she had of putting her beak in where it did not belong.

***

He found Sanderson in her office. Derek Kgasa sat next to a window room reading the sports pages of a day-old copy of the local newspaper with the light through glass panes much in the need of a good wash.

“Hello, Derek, how is your uncle keeping? How is he getting along with the important official from Gabz visiting him this week?”

“Oh yes, it is Inspector Joseph Ikanya. He is very high up. The Director of the DIS must be very pleased with my uncle to have such an important person come and review his office.”

“Oh yes, no doubt about that. It sounds very good for him. Excuse me, Derek, but do you suppose I might have a moment in private with the superintendent of the game rangers? There is the matter of some urgency I must deal with. It is not police business, you understand.” Modise winked. After a brief moment of confusion, Derek's face brightened and he stood.

“I believe I will have an early dinner,” he said and scuttled from the room.

“How did you do that, Kgabo? I have been trying to get rid of that goony bird every day since he arrived. He has no idea what his uncle wants him to do and is afraid to ask. So, how did you manage it?”

“It is a police secret. Speaking of police secrets, I have one for you.”

Modise explained to her how the plan had changed and that she now had a task to do as part of the changes.

“I am to be the go-between? I will talk with this Greshenko person and then tell you what he says? Kgabo, that is crazy. They know that you and me…they know we are seen together.”

“You are blushing, Kgopa.”

“I am not, and do not call me that.”

“No, you are right. You are many things, Sanderson, but your old uncles were wrong at naming you for the snail. You are
tau
, a lion, and I am sending you into the lair of hyenas. And yes, you are right. They know about you and me, but they also know that we know that they know.”

“What?”

“Look, it is simple. Since I put a twenty-four/seven watch on you and your children, Michael and Mpitle, it is clear as crystal that we know they have figured out that you and I have become an item. That is what they call it in the gossip business.”

“So?”

“So, they also know that we would never be so stupid as to use you as a messenger, knowing what we know they know, you see?”

“This is very confusing. They will believe that since we are aware that they know of our…relationship, they will not get in their heads that we are actually using me as a messenger, because that would be stupid and they don't think we are.”

“Is that really clearer than what I said?”

“For me, it is. And from what I am hearing from those Russians, it is pretty clear they do think we are stupid.”

“But not stupid that way, okay?”

“Okay, but why will I be seeing this Greshenko?”

“That is the good part. The American bought the new electric safari vehicles for his tourist guests. He has hired women to drive them. They must be trained. They must be familiarized with the rules of the park, the routes, radio frequencies, and so on. You or someone from your department will be going over there to do all this soon enough, I think. At least in a week. We have only moved up the timetable. You see?”

“And during this training I will have a chats with Greshenko in private but also out in the open, you could say, out of earshot.”

“Not quite.”

“What then?”

“You will sign in when you arrive. You will use a pen which you will absent-mindedly leave behind.”

“The pen has a hiding place.”

“Exactly, and if there is to be a return message, Greshenko will hand ‘your' pen back but it will be an identical pen he has prepared.”

“So I am to be James Bond. And when I am done with this pen?”

“Then we will have another picnic. We will have many picnics.”

“Okay, Kgabo. But next time could we choose a place to picnic where the termites do not crawl into trousers while we are, um…engaged?”

“You are becoming warm under your collar, I think Sanderson.”