“Yes, a regrettable requirement, but a prudent one, especially if one must venture out of the city.”
Leo didn’t ask any more questions, his thoughts on the capture of the woman who had killed his brother. As soon as he could get out of this dung hole, he would deal with her, dragging her torture out for days. Leo’s connections with the mafia gave him access to specialists of all varieties, and it would give him immeasurable pleasure to see her in agony, paying with blood for her crime. His discussions with his contacts had convinced him that she could be kept alive almost indefinitely, every moment a nightmare, the pain unbearable.
He smiled at the thought and then reluctantly returned to the present. He was here to authenticate and verify the quality of merchandise that would make him even richer than he already was. The transaction was simple at its core – his African contacts had fifty million dollars’ worth of diamonds that would be problematic to move on the legitimate market. Conflict, or blood diamonds, as they were commonly referred to, had grown increasingly difficult for the Africans to sell through their own channels. Leo had found a home for them with the Americans, who wanted them for their easy portability and untraceable nature, presumably to pay for favors they couldn’t write a check to cover. The Africans needed weapons, but the U.S. couldn’t do business with them due to sanctions – the warlord in question having a spotty human rights record and a penchant for quelling disagreement by massacre rather than discussion. Enter Leo, who could broker a deal, obtain weapons from his Russian sources, and exchange them for the diamonds.
The transaction was worth far more than the fee he charged, however, because of the way the Americans had paid him: in heroin, freshly produced in Afghanistan and transported within driving distance of the Russian border by military transport. Leo had arranged for his mafia associates to smuggle the heroin into the country and distribute it in Moscow, in exchange for a further, generous cut of the proceeds, which had worked out extremely well, even after paying for a container-load of AK-47s and RPGs to be traded for the diamonds.
His hope was that after this first transaction, it would become a regular event. The quality of the heroin had been top grade, and his distribution network wanted more. Arms were easy to come by, with seemingly half of Moscow in that trade. And the warlord, working with the CAR government, would arrange for the diamonds to arrive in Russia on a freighter, so he didn’t have to risk carrying them himself – he’d take delivery at the port, the Africans would load their container of goodies onto the same ship, and off they’d go, the diamonds in the hands of the American representative from the nearby embassy.
It was foolproof, he bore no risk, and he’d clear ten million dollars by the time the first exchange was complete.
Not oligarch-level money, to be sure, but certainly enough to keep him in iced premium vodka, jet fuel, and ballerinas, all of which seemed to increase in price with every passing hour.
He caught sight of a corpse lying facedown in a garbage-strewn field, limbs twisted at an unnatural angle, bare torso bloated in the heat as pedestrians walked by with bundles on their heads, and looked away.
The sooner he was back on his plane and winging away from Bangui, the better. If his pilots hadn’t informed him that he couldn’t fly back tonight due to a massive storm scheduled to hit the area by nightfall, he would have done the inspection and turned right around the same day. As it was, he’d be stuck in a slum that smelled like a latrine for longer than he’d like; but he was earning the equivalent of half a million dollars per hour for his trouble, and for that, he’d suffer.
As would the woman upon his return.
He’d see to that.
Chapter 19
Jet regained consciousness slowly; whatever her captives had injected her with was wearing off in fits and starts. The floor was vibrating and the air was filled with the distinctive sound of an airplane in flight. Her ears popped, but she kept her eyes closed, offering no indication that she was coming to.
She was lying on her side, and she could feel that her hands and feet were bound. Men’s voices floated somewhere in front of her, and she guessed that she was in the back of a private plane, judging by the floor, which was soft carpeting against her skin. She chanced shifting one of her feet a few centimeters and felt a wall against the ball of her foot – a bulkhead, which confirmed her initial impression of her location.
The plane hit turbulent air and bounced several times, but she didn’t move. If anyone was watching her, they’d believe she was still out cold, which she might be able to use to her advantage. She willed the drug fogginess from her mind and tried to concentrate on the discussion, which she realized was in Russian, as the words became clearer.
“You talked to him?”