Bargain With the Devil: A Historical Espionage Thriller, page 7
“Of course, of course,” said the Sikh, snapping open a paper bag and stuffing it with takeout coffee and everything else he could lay his hands on. “You will be standing about all afternoon while they fill out forms, and your holiday will be ruined.” He led Avakian through a door and the back room with the larger ice cream freezers. And carefully checked the view on another small TV monitor before popping the locks on a very thick reinforced steel door. “Thank you again sir.” He stuffed a card into the paper sack and handed it over. “If I can ever be of service in the future.”
Avakian accepted the bag and pressed his hands together. “Sat Sri Akal.” It was the Sikh greeting. God is true and timeless.
The Sikh beamed. He also pressed his hands together. “Sat Sri Akal. God bless you sir!”
“I’ll say amen to that,” Avakian muttered under his breath while raising a saluting hand over his shoulder.
On Bay Road behind the apartment building he consulted his BlackBerry for a Cape Town street map and a listing of hotels. He found a nice little inn that was just to the south in the Seapoint neighborhood. Avakian didn’t believe in big tourist hotels unless they were a job perk he had no say over. They were soft targets for anyone who wanted to kill a bunch of westerners with car bombs or commando teams armed with AK-47’s. And he’d noticed a rental car office just down the street. He called both and made reservations.
With that done he walked back to the stadium. The game was over and the crowds filing out. No rioting between the opposing teams’ supporters. Just went to show that there was a catharsis in rugby not present in soccer.
The limo was still in the parking lot. “Where to, sir?” the driver asked.
“Don’t need you anymore, thanks,” said Avakian, collecting the single small carry-on that was all he ever traveled with.
“You sure, sir?” said the driver, looking worried.
“Positive,” Avakian replied, handing over a nice tip. He disappeared into the crowd of fans.
Chapter Four
Avakian’s hotel was much too small to offer anything more than a bare bones continental breakfast, and that Sunday morning he felt the need for something more substantial. The nice thing about being near the sea was that there were always a lot of eateries that catered to both early and late morning risers.
Crossing the hotel lobby he noticed a young black woman waiting just outside the glass front door with her eyes on him. She was in her late twenties, early thirties. It was way too early in the morning for the professionals to be out, and if she was bait for a mugging the muscle wasn’t in the vicinity. So who else would be hanging around a hotel?
As he stepped out onto the sidewalk she stepped into his path and said, “Mr. Avakian?”
“That’s right,” he said, smiling pleasantly and giving no outward indication of the alarm he felt at her knowing his name.
“My name is Patience Mbatha,” she said, extending her hand.
In general, women who initiated a handshake were open minded, confident, and concerned about a good first impression. “How do you do,” Avakian said, returning it. Nice and firm—I won’t be dominated.
“I’m a writer for South Africa magazine. May I have a few minutes of your time?”
Great. That was all he needed. But Avakian kept it cordial. “To talk about what?”
“A foreign professional’s impressions of the security situation in South Africa.”
Yeah, right. On his second day in town. That definitely had to be a new world record, especially since he hadn’t issued a press release to announce his arrival. He was reasonably sure he hadn’t been tailed. But that didn’t matter. The limo driver had his name, as did the stadium personnel. Not to mention the Safoil plane crew. Any one of them would cough that up for a few pieces of silver across their palm, and it had been more than enough time to call the hotels and see if there was an Avakian registered.
In his experience the surest way to incite the press was to tell them to get lost. Besides, he wanted to find out a few things himself. First of all, if she actually was with the press. How she’d run him down so quickly. And what she really wanted to talk to him about. “I’m about to have breakfast. Would you care to join me?”
She favored him with a really big, really warm smile. “That would be lovely.”
They walked down the street and he stopped at the first place with a good crowd and a good smell. Avakian wasn’t necessarily a booty man, but as he held the door open he paused to admire hers in her designer jeans.
They took an open booth. Patience Mbatha removed the leather jacket that matched her boots, and Avakian stood until she sat down.
She had high cheekbones and striking, almond-shaped eyes. She wore her hair very, very short, close to what would be a buzz cut on a man, and it accentuated an elegant forehead. Her complexion would be unremarkable to an American, since slavery had ensured that there were no African Americans with exclusively African heritage. The races had mixed the same way in South Africa, both during and after slavery, though the white supremacists there had the same professed horror of it. Under the apartheid system of rigid racial classification and separation the offspring of such unions had a category all to themselves. Set apart from white, black, and Asian, they were officially called colored. And ironically had a higher social status than blacks.
She unpacked half her voluminous bag before finding a notebook and a digital recorder. Then packed it all back up as Avakian watched, amused. “Do you mind if I record our interview?”
“This is going to have to be off the record,” said Avakian.
“That’s no problem,” she said, putting the recorder back in her bag and opening the notebook.
“First of all,” he said, “are you sure you have the right Avakian?”
Her eyes fluttered up from the notebook, and although she tried hard not to, she couldn’t help laughing. “Excuse me?”
“I just like to get that out of the way,” he said. “These misunderstandings happen all the time.” She was bright and bubbly and flirtatious enough for him to consciously remind himself to be on his guard.
“How many Avakians are there?”
“Oh, quite possibly tens of thousands. If not more.”
“And retired American Army colonels?”
“Fewer,” Avakian conceded.
“And security consultants?”
“Fewer still.” Damn. But more information than you’d really like anyone to have on you was only a brief internet search away.
“Then I probably have the right one,” she said, smiling.
Her diction was crisp and precise. Avakian had an idea where that had come from. After taking a lot of crap at West Point he’d worked hard to get working class Bethlehem Pennsylvania out of his speech. He guessed that for her education had been just as hard to come by, and “sounding black” something she’d had to deal with.
A waitress finally arrived.
“Just tea for me,” Patience Mbatha said.
Avakian ordered poached eggs on toast and a side of oatmeal, or porridge when in the British Commonwealth.
After the waitress left he asked, “Is your name Xhosa?” One of the largest tribal groups in South Africa.
She gave him a dramatic pause, then finished it off with a little giggle. “Patience?”
Avakian grinned. “Very good.”
She smiled back at him. “I’m sorry, Mr. Avakian. Yes, Mbatha is Xhosa.”
“Please call me Pete. Shall I call you Mbatha?”
“If you like. But Patience will do.”
“How long have you been a writer, Patience?”
“Seven years total. Three in my current job. But you know, Pete, if you keep asking questions I shall never get a chance to. Or is that your intention?”
“Perish the thought, Patience.” Every interview, like every interrogation, was a battle of both wits and wills.
His coffee and her tea arrived. Avakian could see her working out the right angle to use on him. A little flirtation to loosen up the older white guy, followed by a few innocent softball questions. Then she’d surprise him with something. Because wanting story background was nothing but bullshit in its most basic form.
“Tell me, Pete, what brought you to South Africa?”
“I was consulting with a local company on the best ways to ensure the safety of their employees during foreign travel.”
“And which company was that?”
“I’m positive they’d prefer to remain anonymous,” said Avakian. “Even if I hadn’t signed a non-disclosure agreement.”
“And what are you up to now?”
Up to, Avakian thought. “A short holiday before I go back to the States. I’ve never visited Cape Town before.”
“What is your impression of the current security situation in South Africa?”
She asked her questions from a head-down, looking up, false submissive posture, trying to appeal to him. The tone of her voice was all “help me.” All in all very effective, Avakian thought. “I think I’d resent it if a South African who’d only been in America for a few weeks commented on the security situation there.”
“But we have one of the highest rates of violent crime in the world.”
“Every South African I’ve spoken to seems to think so.”
“Why do you think that is?”
“I really couldn’t care less,” Avakian said. Never go into any detail with a reporter.
Her eyebrows went up again. “What do you mean?”
“In my experience there are thousands of motives for a very short list of actions. I don’t care why people steal. I don’t care why they kill, or why they blow things up. I’m concerned with how to stop them from doing those things, or at least teaching others how not to be victimized by them. I have very little patience for whys.”
“I would have thought that was the most important thing in preventing them doing it.”
Avakian shook his head. “Even if they were inclined to be truthful and capable of being reflective, which they aren’t, they hardly know themselves. Everyone always forgets the simple fact that most people with hard lives don’t become criminals, and most people with serious grievances don’t become terrorists. The why is usually because they want to, and they think they can get away with it.”
“And you do this for companies.”
“They’re the ones who pay for it.”
“I Googled you.”
“Really? Am I interesting?”
“You don’t have a website.”
“I’m not on Facebook or MySpace either. Though I actually know what those are, in case you were wondering.”
“Now why would I wonder about that?” she said, smiling again.
“Oh, your generation is always skeptical about mine’s relationship with technology. But I get all the work I need from word of mouth.”
“I read of two cases where you helped American women whose foreign ex-husbands kidnapped their children and took them to Arab countries. You kidnapped them back.”
“I recovered the children,” Avakian corrected. “After American courts, which had jurisdiction in the marriages, granted legal custody to the mothers.”
“And you took no money.”
“The companies I work for pay enough that I can afford to do a limited amount of pro bono,” Avakian said.
“Though I imagine the publicity was good for your business,” she said.
“Actually, no,” Avakian replied. “The first case was the friend of a friend, and the second came on the heels of that. I asked the mothers to keep it quiet, but it’s a modern pathology that nothing of any note can happen without someone holding a press conference—not to mention that divorce is all about revenge. All the publicity got me was being declared persona non grata by Jordan and Saudi Arabia, and deluged by hundreds of other people I couldn’t help because of that.”
She was examining him again. “You’d prefer people think you’re a harder man than you are?”
That was unexpected, and Avakian had to take a pause over it. “Who wouldn’t?” he said finally.
“Yet you are a retired U.S. Army colonel who was awarded the Bronze Star twice.”
That’s right, flatter the old guy. “Always be skeptical about medals.”
“You’re advising me to be skeptical about your own heroism?”
“I’m advising you to be skeptical about everyone’s heroism.”
“Do you advise governments?”
“No. They have their own advisors.” Nice little transition to throw him off balance. Now they were finally getting close to it.
“Do you give military advice?”
“No. I leave that line of work to others.”
“But you know people who do.”
“I had a long career as a soldier and a shorter one as a security consultant. I know a lot of people in both worlds.”
“Have you ever done any mercenary work?”
“We’re all mercenaries,” said Avakian. “But if you mean the standard definition of a hired soldier in foreign service, no.”
“Yet you know mercenaries.”
“I’ve bumped into a few in my travels.”
“Including Herbert Payne-Best.”
Ah, the kicker arrives. “I know him.”
“You met with him at the rugby match yesterday. Are you working with him?”
Well, that answered one question. So much for discretion and keeping your mouth shut or we’ll kill you, and all that. But it was always the ones who yapped on about discretion who had their $40,000 a year secretary get them the mercenaries on line two. “I was a guest at the match. It turned out that he was a guest also.”
“But you mentioned that you know him.”
“I was in Sierra Leone in 1995, observing the situation there for the U.S. military. I met most of the people working for Corporate Solutions, including Payne-Best. Hadn’t seen him since, until the game yesterday.”
“You say you’re not working with him.”
“That’s right.”
“It seems you don’t care whether I believe you or not.”
“You’re going to believe whatever you want, no matter what I say, so why should I get all bent out of shape about it?”
She put down her pen and raised her head to meet him eye to eye. “Pete, I must say your answers leave me torn. You’ve been very forthcoming, but I can’t decide whether it’s in order to tell me nothing.”
She was no fool. “Patience, there’s nothing I can do about that, either.”
“Are you married, Pete?”
“Divorced.”
“As am I. Occupational hazard for journalists.”
“Soldiers, too.”
Patience Mbatha seemed about to say something else, but didn’t. She pushed her chair away from the table. “Well, Pete, I think I’ve taken up enough of your time. Thanks so much for tea.”
“My pleasure,” said Avakian, standing up.
“Do you have a card, should I need to contact you again?”
Avakian smiled. “You didn’t have any trouble finding me. I’m sure you can do it again if need be.”
Undaunted, she reached in her purse. “Here is mine, then.”
Avakian dropped the card into his jacket pocket, making a mental note to toss it into the first trash can he saw. Neither he nor she needed anyone else to find that in his possession.
“Goodbye, then,” she said, offering her hand again.
“Goodbye,” said Avakian. He liked her, but she was definitely going to be a lot of trouble.
Chapter Five
Avakian certainly wouldn’t bother visiting the U.S. consulate on a Sunday. Not that he would bother visiting the U.S. consulate anyway. It was located far out in the Cape Town suburbs, the State Department’s answer to security in the age of terrorism. Built like a bunker, fenced in like a prison camp. Everything except a moat and a drawbridge. He wondered why they even bothered. If you weren’t going to interact with the people of the country you might as well pack up and go home and save the taxpayers a lot of money.
The e-mail had arrived Saturday evening. His friend Phil’s reply used the second letter in each word to encrypt the message. Deciphered, it read:
Constance Springfield. 28. White. Blond.
Kind of young to be the person to talk to, but the whole CIA was young these days. Lots of turnover. Anyway, it was enough information to get him on track. But the weekend duty officer at the consulate wasn’t likely to give him her address and phone number. And an internet search was inconclusive. There were a lot of Constance Springfields in Cape Town. She was bound to be unlisted, and he didn’t have a whole lot of time to run her down.
Any competent South African private investigator would have been able to get her address for him in a few minutes. But then the fact that you’d wanted a U.S. diplomat’s home address would cause the private detective to sell you to the local intelligence service.
He didn’t even want to call one of the fixers he knew in Johannesburg, a retired police detective who could provide official information access numbers and authentication codes. That would still leave too many fingerprints behind to suit him. No, this particular job was too serious. There couldn’t be any mistakes.
It was going to call for a little social engineering. And the weekends were a particularly good time for that. Doing it over the phone would require too much research and preparation. In person was best, but he would just as soon not leave behind any security camera images of himself. It would have to be a neutral location.
The magic of the internet gave Avakian quite a bit of information on the South African public utility Eskom. People might have different phone carriers, but everyone had electricity. He was particularly interested in the location of their dispatch stations.
On Sunday the repair crews would be on call, and Avakian understood what a holy thing the lunch hour was to a working man. After a short random drive in his rental car to make sure he didn’t have a tail, he began cruising in ever increasing circles until he came across a diner with a repair van parked outside.
