Frederick Ramsay_Botswana Mystery 01 (5 page)

Chapter 8

The Gulfstream V powered smoothly to a gentle landing in Gaborone. “Wheels down at 15:43,” the pilot announced. “Your car is waiting for you outside the terminal, Mr. Painter. As soon as you clear customs, it can take you to your hotel. The tower states there is a greeting party that will meet you at the door.”

Leo Painter released his seatbelt buckle even though the plane continued to taxi. He signaled for Yuri Greshenko to join him. Greshenko hesitated, looked at the flight attendant who shrugged her shoulders. Apparently she had grown accustomed to Leo’s perversity. Greshenko shook his head and slid into the aisle and made his way forward. He lowered his bulky frame into the seat opposite Leo. In his day, Greshenko could have played outside linebacker for the Chicago Bears. If Leo were forty years younger and forty pounds lighter, he might have played in the middle on the same team. Leo handed him a fat envelope.

“As soon as you clear customs, contact your people and then get up to Kasane and look around. I want to be sure this deal will fly. There’s a guy up there named something like Ray Bolly-hock-wa. Check in with him, but I don’t want to use him unless it’s absolutely necessary.”

“It’s pronounced rah…Rra Botlhokwa.” Greshenko rolled his R’s with practiced precision. “In English it means Mr. Important, or something like you would say in America, Big Shot or Mr. Big.”

“Interesting. I hired you because a mutual friend said you knew things about this country. Apparently that was an understatement. How did you know that, the Mr. Big Shot thing?”

“Years ago when I was younger, you understand, we, the USSR we were then, had certain interests in Africa, this country in particular. We knew it had mineral wealth, particularly diamonds. It would be a major player in the diamond world with us and DeBeers. The kimberlitic diamonds here and in Siberia would form a cartel that…well you can see how that would play out. Diamonds would be many, is that the word? They would be plentiful and controlling the price and distribution important, yes? And we were interested in their nickel and copper mines, of course. Also there were political considerations that…well, anyway, I served here as commercial attaché. I knew Botlhokwa then.”

“Commercial attaché? As in…you were a spy? KGB?”

Greshenko shrugged. “There are attachés and there are attachés, you understand. I was sent to southern Africa as part of the interests we had here. I spent some time in Zambia, Johannesburg, Mozambique…around. Botswana found her diamonds after Independence.” He shrugged again and smiled. “In Botswana, all rights of ownership of minerals are vested in the state, irrespective of the district or region in which they are found. Any individuals or companies wishing to obtain a prospecting license must apply to the Minister of Minerals, Energy, and Water Resources. That gives the minister the responsibility for natural resource regulation and management. And, so they also managed to keep the minerals for themselves. We were all shut out.” Greshenko frowned.

“Wait a minute, you know this guy Rah Whatever, Mr. Big?”

“Knew, Mr. Painter. I knew him when, as you say, he was a player. A very interesting man, Botlhokwa, one of the few recipients of the Bechuanaland Protectorate Scholarships to Oxford. Would have been a classmate, you could say, of presidents, leaders, both in Botswana and surrounding countries. He turned his back on government and went into business. I don’t know what he went into after that. But I will find out. The last I heard of him he’d moved into some shady areas. But he has hotels and casinos here and there. He should be happy to see us, if he wants to recapture his respectability.”

“Well, that’s your bailiwick, I think. Back to the Russians. Your people are active here, it seems. You bought ActiVox, and it’s being used here, in Botswana. So you won after all.”

“Not won—prevailed, I think would be a better description. And that process is on the back burner, as you Americans would say. Because of the global economic meltdown, the sale of the raw materials in Botswana has dropped precipitously, leaving the economy a little shaky. The mines in particular are in financial trouble and have struggled to pay their employees. The country needs help from institutions like the African Development Bank.”

“A good time to invest, or not?”

Greshenko shrugged as if he had closed the book on that part of his history. “You’re the minerals expert, it’s your call, Mr. Painter. Capitalism is not quite my line of country.” He tilted his head at Travis Parizzi. Leo glanced in Travis’ direction and shook his head.

“Travis? No, he doesn’t know. I’ll fill him in when the right moment comes. In the meantime…well, I don’t need to tell you, discretion, Greshenko. This may be a developing country with more goats than flush toilets, but they’re as shrewd as snakes—”

“And innocent as doves?” Greshenko finished for him. Leo’s eyebrows shot up. He had been raised by fundamentalist Christian grandparents. The only residue of that rigorous and often painful upbringing was his ability to quote occasional bits of scripture. That Greshenko recognized and could complete the passage from Matthew on top of the Botswana connection came as complete surprise.

“Jury is out on the dove bit. Word in Washington is the pols here, unlike those in my beloved Chicago, are incorruptible. We’ll have to see about that, but in the interim, be careful. We don’t want to be seen as the wolves.”

Russians never ceased to amaze him. He guessed he did not have Greshenko’s story, not all of it at any rate, and possibly never would. He wished he were younger. What he, what Earth Global could have done in that vast country with men like Greshenko! Hell, the man even had a better grasp of English than 90 percent of the dolts who worked for him.

The plane lurched to a halt. A minute later, the pilot had the door open and steps down. Leo Painter and his party descended onto the taxiway to be greeted by two officials who steered him and his party through customs and on to their hotel. They set the time for the appointments with the minister of Mineral, Energy, and Water Resources, BEDIA, and a handful of other functionaries. The purported purpose of Leo’s visit had begun. In the confusion of off-loading baggage and passengers, Yuri Greshenko slipped through customs to a waiting SUV. He did not notice the official-looking car at the curb behind him.

Kgabo Modise had been waiting. He’d watched the sleek corporate jet touch down and disgorge its passengers. His eyes, however, were focused entirely on the man whose picture was clipped to the folder on the seat beside him.

No one noticed Greshenko’s departure except Modise, who started his car followed a discreet distance.

Chapter 9

Henry Farrah was not part of the official meeting-and-greeting taking place in the hotel’s ballroom. As a matter of fact, he didn’t even know why Leo had brought him along. But knowing Leo as he did, he knew there would be a reason forthcoming and he would find out soon enough. He wandered into the hotel bar and, turning his back on the three or four other patrons perched on stools near him, began punching numbers on his cell phone. There would be a seven-hour difference between New York and Gaborone, eight to Chicago. He needed to know if the SEC had tumbled to the leak; he needed to know what his partners knew or were prepared to do if it had. He was in as close to a state of panic as ever in his life.

As in a European pub, his order for whiskey translated to Scotch. Henry didn’t like Scotch. His ulcer positively rebelled at Scotch. He signaled to the bar tender.

“Sir, something wrong with your drink?”

“Take it away and bring me a beer.”

“Certainly. What brand would you like?”

“I don’t care…a local beer, then.”

The bartender retreated, returned, and placed a can of Saint Louis beer and a glass on a napkin in front of Henry.

“I asked for a local beer.”

“Yes, sir. This is local beer.”

“Saint Louis is local? What’s the name of the others? San Francisco, Duluth? Old Milwaukee is taken, I’m afraid.”

The barman only looked at him and nodded agreeably.

He signaled for the bartender to pour the beer and turned his attention back to his phone.

The call to his contact in New York was inconclusive. The man in the SEC either did not know, was not in the loop, or had decided to dummy up. Farrah cursed and pulled out his notebook. It had been a present from his wife two Christmases ago. Just before she’d left him and moved in with her tennis instructor. That hadn’t lasted. Cougars can’t hold on to their prey very long, it seems. She’d asked him to take her back. He’d refused and now she lived with his daughter in tight-lipped silence in Winnetka.

He jotted a few notes in his pocket memo—he’d never been able to master the Blackberry he’d been issued. He had his secretary keep it up to date in case Leo ever asked. His secretary hadn’t traveled with him so he reverted to his pocket notebook. Besides, the notes he was keeping at the moment would not be the sort of information he’d want in the Blackberry anyway. He didn’t know the extent to which that device could be accessed remotely, but he’d become convinced that Leo had somehow managed it in order to spy on his employees. Why else would he have issued such an expensive perquisite? What finally appeared in Henry’s Blackberry files were the innocuous details about items everyone knew.

He clicked off and drummed his fingers on the polished bar. A second call confirmed the first. Either the SEC knew nothing, knew but saw no cause for concern, or his contacts weren’t as tight with the commission as he’d been led to believe. Henry scowled and dialed Chicago.

The investor consortium he’d assembled and in which he’d been promised a substantial equity share based on his insider position were understandably skittish. They hadn’t heard anything and were less than pleased to hear there might be a leak. Since his future depended entirely on the IPO going through, they said, he’d better put a lid on the rumor immediately. Easier said than done. Perhaps he should have another talk with Brenda Griswold. He wrinkled up his nose at the thought. Like so many of his social class, he held people like Brenda in disdain—being a predator in the market place was somehow classier than being one on the streets.

It required ten rings before his secretary answered. She gibberd something about a Christmas party, giggled, but had nothing to report. When reminded that it was only nine in the morning in Chicago and only the eighth of December, which meant Christmas was still seventeen days away, she hiccupped, made an effort to acquire a serious and sober tone, and agreed it did seem a bit early to celebrate. She’d have a word with the girls.

“I asked you to pull the IPO file and fax it to me on the plane. You didn’t. I need it. Fax it to me at the hotel.”

She seemed to struggle with her pronunciation but did manage to ask for the fax number.

“How the hell would I know? Look in the itinerary on my desk and find it. I want that file ASAP.”

Henry slapped his phone shut with a curse uttered loudly enough to attract the attention of several guests. He slid off the stool and stormed out of the bar, his beer untouched and his bill unpaid.

***

From his vantage point in a booth to the rear, and unseen by Farrah, Travis Parrizi watched as he pulled out his notebook and scribbled furiously for a minute. He wondered what had become of Henry’s Blackberry. Everyone in the company had been issued one, Henry included. All notes and correspondence that related to Earth Global were to be entered in the devices. Apparently these notes were personal, or they were some other kind of business—business Farrah did not want anyone to know about. Farrah made a second, a third, and a fourth call. His expression seemed to grow darker after each. Then he’d left in a hurry. Interesting. The barkeep started to say something and held up a bar tab. Farrah ignored him and kept walking.

Travis sidled over to the bar and signaled to the barman.

“Here, let me have that. I’m with his party.” He took the bill, scanned it, and signed. The bartender smiled a thank you and held out Henry’s notebook.

“Would…” he peered at the signature line on the tab, “Would Mr. Parizzi be kind enough to return this book to that gentleman?”

“Certainly,” he said and pocketed the pad and its miniature gold pen. And he would return it—eventually—after he’d read it, made a few calls of his own, and weighed the consequences of several new options available to him.

Chapter 10

Brenda needed to talk to someone. Bobby should have been her first choice but that wasn’t going to work. Even if she could explain what she had in mind, and even if he understood—a stretch at best—the idiot boy would not go along, she was sure about that. It was funny. He watched cage fighting, gloried in the violence offered by his collection of video games, but when it came to the real world and tough choices, he turned into a bunny rabbit. Brenda smiled at the thought. Bunny, that was good. The only thing Bobby did with any skill was…well, like a bunny. Well, at least there was that. A girl needs something and he did help her out there. She’d just have to handle the rest. The question before the house now was, who should she confide in?

Travis Parizzi rounded the corner. He had a notebook in his hand and was so absorbed in it, he nearly ran her down.

“Oh, sorry. I nearly knocked you down, Mrs. Griswold.”

“Hey, could have been worse. You could have knocked me up.”

Travis slipped the notebook in his pocket and evidently decided to let the remark pass.

“Yes. Well, sorry.”

Brenda thought it was a hoot talking off-color to guys like Travis Parizzi. Freaking stuffed shirts. They loved it when you did it at the club or in bed with the lights out, but out in the polite world it, like, made them crazy. There was nothing like dropping the “F bomb” into an otherwise polite conversation to get things rolling. Well, you could take the girl out of the strip club, but you’d never get the strip club out of the girl.

“We need to talk, Parizzi.”

“About what?”

“The stock you screwed Bobby out of. I want to exercise his option to buy it back.”

“I’m not sure what you mean. What stock, what option?”

“Don’t bother trying that tap dance on me, hotshot. Bobby sold his stock to you. Spare me the razzle dazzle about you don’t know. He said he had an option to buy it back inside a year. The year ain’t up and I want it.”

Travis looked at her for a nearly a full minute without speaking, apparently trying to figure out where this could go.

“You want to buy. As the guy in the movie said, show me the money.”

“Now? I don’t have it right now, but I have it on tap.”

“On tap? What, like it’s a keg of beer? Look, Mrs. Griswold, you want to redeem stock that your husband sold me for a considerable amount of money, more, I might add, than it would be worth on the open market, and you want me to surrender it on your say-so? Not going to happen. By the way, I didn’t have to screw it out of him. He was only too happy to sell.”

“Look, I can get a letter of credit faxed to me tomorrow. When I do, I want you to, like, sign back Bobby’s shares. Got it?”

“A faxed LOC. You’re kidding, right? Look, you want the stock, you can get it, but with cash. I want cash, and that means you can only redeem it after we get back to Chicago and…” He paused and studied the woman in front of him, “And, after other things.”

“Other things? What other things?”

“It’s business. You wouldn’t understand.”

Brenda had survived as long as she had and succeeded where others might have failed because she could read people. Her handler back in Chicago at the club before she left to become Mrs. Robert Griswold said she’d missed her calling. She should have been a professional poker player.

“You’re working a scam, aren’t you?”

“Scam? What do you mean?”

“You need that stock. You need it and you need time, and probably some other help, more options, I’ll bet, than you have your hands on right now, to pull off something.”

“What? Pull what off? What other stock?”

Brenda realized she’d hit pay dirt. Travis was up to something, and she’d bet her hottest red thong Leo didn’t know anything about it. “If I take the stock out of your hands, the deal goes south. Am I close?” Travis turned to leave. “Maybe I should talk to Leo. What do you think?” For a split second, Travis looked stricken. It was enough. “You want to buy me a drink and talk some business? Or do I have a chat with the boss man?” Brenda raised her eyebrows and smiled.

“In an hour, in the bar.” He growled, turned on his heel, and stalked away.

Brenda pumped her arm and whispered “Yes!”

***

Michael seemed stronger that evening. Perhaps the medicine was working, after all. Hope springs like new flowers in the desert after a rain. False or real, hope enabled Sanderson to endure.

“You are better, then?”

“I am feeling better, yes. Show me these tires you have achieved.”

“Can you walk?”

“For the HiLux, I can dance.” Michael shuffled his feet, lost his balance and staggered, and caught himself on the door jamb.

“You are not ready, Michael. You must rest.”

“No, I am fine, you see. I must see these wheels.”

It took a long time for him to walk outside to the court. He sat on its low wall to catch his breath. Sanderson pointed to the late Lovermore Ndlovu’s stolen property. Michael smiled, a weak smile, but a smile nonetheless. It was the first time he’d done so for months, it seemed.

“You were lucky. These will fit the truck. See, the number of mounting holes in the wheels is correct and we have the lug nuts.” Sanderson was not sure what lug nuts were, but she beamed. She couldn’t be sure what pleased her more, the acquisition of these wonderful wheels or seeing Michael up, smiling, and maybe a little better.

Michael stood and wrapped his hands around one of the wheels. He couldn’t lift it. He tried again and then collapsed on the wall, his face distraught.

“I cannot do this thing, Mma.”

“I will do it, but you must tell me how.”

Michael instructed her how to mount the wheels on the truck’s axles and tighten the down the nuts.

“Now we must ask Mr. Naledi for the loaning of a jack. We must lift this machine off of these blocks.”

“A jack?” Sanderson rummaged in the pile of equipment stacked at the side of the house. “Like this one?” She held up the other prize from her trip to Kazungula—Lovermore’s jack.

“Yes, like that. Is it another present from the police superintendent? He is a very generous man.”

“With other people’s property, yes.”

Several of the young men of the village had gathered to watch and offered to do the removal of the blocks for Mma Michael. It took longer than it might have, had Michael been able to do it alone. There was a great deal of competition among the boys for leadership, and then there were disagreements as to which wheel and which side should be lowered first. In the end the HiLux stood on its own four wheels, dented, rusted in spots and still missing a few parts, but in Sanderson’s eyes the most beautiful machine in the country.

“We must ask if Mr. Naledi has a fender we can beat into shape for the right front, and then we must paint it,” Michael said. Sanderson shook her head and tried to hide the tears streaming down her face.

“I would like a red
bakkie
,” she said.

“You should paint it that color, then.” Michael slumped forward.

“Back to bed with you.”

With the help of two of the boys she managed to get her son back to bed. Michael smiled once more.

“Tomorrow I will finish the engine and we will charge up the battery again and you shall drive your beautiful machine.” Michael closed his eyes and lay very still—too still. Sanderson’s heart was in her throat. Then she saw him draw a breath. He slept. Death had not yet come. There was still hope.