Between This World and the Next, page 19
Fearless took the Post-it from Conrad’s hand.
“You’re kidding me. Christ. Does he know what happened to Laure?”
He felt a pang of jealousy even now, after all these years, in his chest at the name and number of someone who had been close to her.
“He must do,” said Conrad.
“At least I can tell him in person.”
“What do you mean?”
“Alyosha will move on if I wait. I know what he’s like.”
“But do you? Really? Isn’t that the crux of everything that’s happened? And we still have so many other leads to explore. Stop a moment and think. Give it one more day.”
But Fearless was already heading up the stairs. When Conrad came to find him, his duffel was almost packed.
“I made a call, Joe, and put some money in your account. You can pay it all back when the estate’s sorted out.”
“I can’t take it. I can use my credit cards, Con.”
“It was money for a rainy day. And it’s cats and bloody dogs.”
33
As soon as the plane touched down, the senses and muscle memory of his old self began to stir. Hire car. Road map. Chewing gum. Coke.
The black plastic of the dash bounced the summer heat onto his chest as he rolled down the broad boulevards of Chișinău, wary of the wired routes of the ringing trolleybuses. Mid-century Soviet architecture loomed on either side, but here and there anomalies had survived the century of upheaval: public buildings with French stylings and classical proportions; Greek, Byzantine, and Ottoman-influenced Orthodox churches. Since independence, new offices and shopping centers had sprung up: spaceships from the future, with blue steel columns and mirrored glass facades.
At the appointed meeting place—the tree-covered island of Ştefan cel Mare Park, where towering mulberries and acacias provided shade—Fearless found a bench by the central fountain. Flecks of spray were carried to him by the breeze as he watched young mothers congregate nearby, the fat hands of their babies reaching up from Victorian prams, and teenagers splashing each other on the other side of the water, their forms broken by glistening curtains of spray.
A tall, dark shadow slanted across him. “Small world,” a voice said before its owner came into the light.
“One degree of separation,” said Fearless, reaching out to take the bony fingers that had been offered. Fearless had seen photos of Richard before, but he was struck by how handsome he was in person.
“Do you know?”
“Yes. Yes, of course. I thought about coming to the funeral, but …”
“No need to explain.”
“She was an important part of my life.”
“And you to her.”
“You’re being generous.”
“You’re the generous one—helping the man who stole your fiancée.”
“Stole? I think you’re overdoing it a bit.”
“Wrong word, then.”
“She chose you. And she was never sure of me anyway. Still, for a while, I had an unhealthy interest in you. At first, seeing your work would drive me mad. But then I realized losing out to an idiot would have been worse. She chose someone who has something to say. There was comfort in that.”
“I had something to say?”
Richard appeared conventional and slightly studious, but Fearless could appreciate the frankness Laure would have valued.
“Anyway, it’s a point of honor that I help you now. Otherwise, I’ll hate myself for being petty. So—what can I do?”
“I need to know everything—everything I can about Transnistria. It’s the place I need to get to. At least, I think it is.”
Richard sat down on the bench beside him.
“Transnistria. Okay, then. A thin caterpillar of land—125 miles long, twenty wide, sandwiched between the Dniester River and Ukraine. Most people in the West have never even heard of it. They think you’re making the whole thing up when you tell them. And in a sense they’re right because, officially, Pridnestrovskaya Moldavskaya Respublika does not exist. Even though it has state institutions and its own flag and money and stamps and even passports for its citizens, it’s still not recognized—save by the men who run it.”
“It’s a breakaway state.”
“Yes, with its own micro–Cold War against the country of which it’s officially part. And that means you can’t do business legitimately there—there are only unofficial or criminal markets—which has made it the western edge of a new Silk Road that stretches all the way to the east of Russia, taking in Siberia, Afghanistan …”
“A new criminal Silk Road.”
“Indeed. A massive zone where Russian is the lingua franca. And that’s a key thing: Transnistria is inextricably tied to the motherland. It’s common knowledge that it shares profits with Russia from the sale of ‘unnecessary’ arms and ammunition stockpiled in the old army depositories. Thousands of tons of matériel flow out over the border with Ukraine, which is easy to cross with its farmland and forests of fir trees. It couldn’t be simpler—you drive the weapons down the road. From there, they go to Odesa, the Black Sea, and …”
“Anywhere.”
“The Middle East, Africa, the Caucasus.”
“Drugs too?”
Richard frowned. He pulled his mouth to one side. “Money-laundering. Sex trafficking … but drugs? Not so big.”
“Not necessarily illegal drugs. Pharmaceuticals I mean. You see—the person making this deal also demanded a quantity of needles.”
“Needles?”
“I overheard it—it was definitely needles that he said.” The phone conversation coupled with the Rohypnol in Alyosha’s toiletry bag had convinced Fearless that drugs were a crucial part of the deal.
“Odd question—but was it a Russian speaker you overheard?”
“Yes.”
“Then maybe the deal involves Iglas. Do you speak any Russian? Igla means needle, but it’s also the name of the surface-to-air missile system.”
“Antiaircraft guns … I didn’t even think.”
“Each of them would be worth maybe fifty thousand bucks. For a deal in this part of the world, that’s much more likely.”
A big-money arms deal—just as Viktor had alleged. Fearless’s mind raced through all the times Alyosha had agreed with him when he railed against the spread of weapons around the globe. “Bullshit!” he muttered.
But then, he could see a logic in Alyosha’s view. For years, the USSR had had the best tanks and missiles—a space program—while its citizens had made do with next to nothing. Now, they could cash them in to pay for the things they’d lacked.
“I’m sorry. It’s really not bullshit, I assure you.”
“I wasn’t referring to you, Richard—no offense.”
“None taken.”
The air felt thicker now, saturated with traffic fumes and biting insects. An Igla, Fearless remembered, sparked the Rwandan genocide, when one of them shot down Habyarimana’s jet. He had often dwelt on it—that a rocket from one man’s shoulder could be enough to light the touchpaper for a million deaths.
“There are definitely Iglas in the Transnistrian stockpiles,” said Richard. “And for all I know, they’re still in active production. The massive steelworks in Rybnitsa, the Tochlitmash or Elektromash factories—they’re fronts for the manufacture of all sorts of things. On one conveyor belt they turn out goods for the civilian market—transformers, electronics, cables, pipes—and on the other, all manner of weapons. Pistols, assault rifles. Mortar tubes, grenade launchers.”
Elektromash. Электромаш. The engraving on the back of Federenko’s Rolex.
“How do I get in? If I wanted to.”
“To Transnistria? Not difficult. Anyone can see the sites: statues of Lenin, the Heroes’ Cemetery—all the Soviet monuments in pristine nick. They might even give you a tour of the cognac factory. But where you’re thinking of … well …”
“I can try.”
“Of course. But …” Richard sighed. “Look—just ask yourself. Out of all the illegal weapons deals around the world, the billions of dollars in arms—$60, $70 billion every year—how many of these dealers are ever brought to justice? I mean anywhere. How many can you name? Soghanalian for selling to Saddam Hussein? What did he get? A couple of years before his deal with Clinton. Who else?
“The problem is this, Joseph. How the hell do you trace these deals? What evidence can you get out of the chaos of a war zone? And what connects the dealers to the arms on the ground? It’s not as if they’re present when the weapons change hands! And even if you do catch someone, what jurisdiction do you prosecute them under when the deals cross borders and go through secret channels? Under international laws in international courts? As if! And remember, that’s not even taking into account the fact that these men are nearly always connected to—or sponsored by—intelligence agencies, military officials, senior politicians, et cetera et cetera.
“No. Arms dealing is the perfect crime. The crime that sums up our age better than any other. Who we are. What we value. Our inability to work together.
“There can be a war on drugs. There can be a war on poverty. But there is no war on war. Not now. Not ever.”
“I know that,” said Fearless. “I agree completely. But I think Conrad must have told you this. This thing—it’s personal. It doesn’t matter how foolhardy it seems. I have no choice.”
Richard helped Fearless mark up his map: the route into Transnistria through the buffer zone town of Bendery; the capital, Tiraspol, and its principal street, along which he would pass the Parliament Building and City Hall; the approximate location of the military depository near Cobasna, where Vadim and his crew of “peacekeepers” would have yawned away their tours of duty.
“I guarantee that the roads around it will be blocked.”
“But I could go cross-country. Just here, perhaps. Park somewhere and go on foot.”
“If you want to be thrown into a police cell, sure. Whatever happens, take my address and phone number.”
As Fearless drove east, the economic deprivation of Moldova revealed itself. Rutted roads of compacted dirt branched off the highway at regular intervals. Young children ran around in bare feet and old people called after them from porches, a generation of working-age adults gone abroad in search of employment.
Under the circumspect glare of a peaked-capped guard, he passed through the border checkpoint and crossed a bridge that spanned the black expanse of the Dniester. This was the entry into a Soviet dreamland: here, a statue of Lenin on a thirty-foot-high pillar, an asymmetrical concrete wing soaring from his back; there, a Soviet tank squatting heavily on a brick plinth.
Soon, he was rattling across open country again until, as expected, he encountered the first roadblock: a candy-striped gate manned by two sullen guards. He wound down his window and greeted the one who bothered to rouse himself.
“Bună ziua. Good day! Hello.”
He’d tucked a wad of dollars inside his passport. He extended it slowly, catching the guard’s eye.
The man removed the notes and slid them into his breast pocket, then proceeded to peruse the pages and stamps at leisure. He muttered something to his colleague, who sniggered ostentatiously, before handing the passport back and tapping on the car roof. “You go,” he announced, waving his hand in the direction Fearless had come, as if dismissing yet another of his fawning concubines.
Fearless’s stomach tensed in anger, but he turned the car and drove off without saying a word. There would be no point trying the other checkpoint. They would surely radio their counterparts there.
And so Fearless attempted his original, ridiculous plan, pulling the car off the road once he’d reached a safe distance. Leaving it under a dogwood tree, he set out across a grassy plain. By his reckoning, the base’s perimeter would be half a mile to the north. But he had waded through the knee-high grass no more than four hundred yards when a vehicle roared up a track alongside the field. Two men got out and walked toward him. He stopped and waited.
“We have orders. You go back to border with us.”
They searched him thoroughly, patting him down, then took him back to his car and searched that too. No point in claiming it was just a misunderstanding.
Sandwiched between the “police” car and an impeccably preserved lime green Zaporozhets, Fearless drove in a convoy of three. For a moment, he had the urge to drive right off the road. He had a vision of Belmondo in Pierrot Le Fou, plunging his stolen Galaxie straight into the sea. But no ocean abutted the side of the road, just scrub and meadow, so on he followed, heading west in a country where all things leaned East, back to the border, through yet more checkpoints. “You’re pathetic,” he muttered to himself as they rumbled along.
He looked at his watch and added on four hours. He’d missed the agreed-upon time to phone Phnom Penh. He needed to think, be clearer and sharper. Viktor would be waiting in the lobby of the Intercontinental, pacing back and forth, brooding and cursing. If he thought Fearless had abandoned them, then he might abandon Song, and all Fearless would have achieved was to cast Song out and ensure that the only person she loved was inaccessible.
As he drove on, he wondered if everything that had happened to him since Laure’s death had been nothing but an excrescence of selfish grieving: an allegory he had cultivated to give himself the hit he needed, to sate the junkie woefully addicted to extremes. He had given up photography but invented a situation that allowed him to carry on avoiding the routine and rules that he’d feared a wife and baby would bring. Now he was distracting himself from facing up to his loss.
And then, there was something that both disgusted and comforted him: on some deep level, Fearless still believed that Alyosha might explain all of this away, or that, even if Alyosha had lost his moral compass, Fearless could somehow set him straight again.
On the outskirts of Chișinău, they pulled over onto a quiet road. The Zaporozhets performed a U-turn and puttered away, while the police car flashed its headlights to indicate he could move on.
“Were you followed?” Richard asked when Fearless turned up at his apartment.
“No. Can I telephone?”
“Not from here you can’t.”
He went into another room and reappeared with a hooded sweatshirt.
“Put this on. We’ll take my car to a place I know.”
“Is this necessary?”
Richard stared at him with narrowed eyes before he pushed him into the corridor outside. On the street, he walked fast, nudging Fearless along.
“When I open the boot, climb in quick.”
“Correct me if I’m wrong. But you’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”
“Just a little bit. Maybe,” Richard chuckled.
At least it’s clean, Fearless thought, as he braced himself against the rough, black carpet, the car turning left, then right, then left again.
When Richard opened the boot, dusk was beginning to fall. Fearless had a glimpse of decorative wrought iron balustrades on a first-floor balcony, a curved mansard roof, a line of stuccoed cornice, before Richard guided him up three or four steps and a wooden door opened, an apprehensive woman standing behind it.
She whispered to Richard, who squeezed her shoulder in return, and nodded hello to Fearless as he pushed the hood back from his head. Impeccable silk suit. Matching lilac heels. From the luxurious surroundings, a diplomat or politician.
Richard led Fearless into a library bathed in the glow of heavy table lamps, two leather sofas facing each other in its center. “It’s safe to call from here,” he said, pointing to a phone on a console table. “But you have no more than fifteen minutes. I’ll leave you in peace.”
Conrad’s bright “Hello” let a chink of light in on his twilit mood. He was clearly delighted to be freed from his usual humdrummery.
“The plane belongs to a fleet under the name Air Irina …”
“Irina is the name of Alyosha’s grandmother.”
“It’s a company that’s extraordinarily difficult to trace. First, it’s registered here, then it’s registered there. Moldova, Equatorial Guinea, the Central African Republic, Kazakhstan.”
“Not places renowned as aviation hubs.”
“At the moment it’s incorporated in Monrovia, Liberia. A bloody convenient jurisdiction if you’re up to no good. A business registered there can operate anywhere, have its offices wherever, and get the paperwork in a matter of minutes. Liberian law doesn’t even demand that the names of executives or shareholders be filed.”
“Monrovia,” murmured Fearless. He thought of Traoré and the precious stones—two facts that indicated links with West Africa. Liberia shared a border with the Ivory Coast and was a center for the trade in Sierra Leonean blood diamonds.
“And, as for company ownership before the Liberian registration: well, there are different directors named on each document, none of them traceable to anyone concrete. There are headquarters with nothing but a P.O. box for an address. Business offices located in residential blocks of flats.”
“And no Alexei Federenko.”
“What do you think?”
“So what now?”
“The only way we could get a better picture is to look at the records on the planes themselves. The logbooks, insurance documents, all the paperwork pertaining to airworthiness.”
“Oh, why didn’t you say? I’ll call up my international police force and we’ll dispatch men with search warrants.”
Conrad ignored his sarcasm and rustled some papers. “There’s one more thing that Roger found out. Not long after you arrived in Phnom Penh, the jet went in and out of Dubai.”
“It can’t have been Federenko—he was definitely in Cambodia.”
“So the plane went without him. In fact, it goes to Dubai regularly. Several times over the last few months.”
