CHAPTER 27 #2
On their left, near the overhead service doors, a cluster of civilian men leaned against wooden crates, smoking cigarettes, grunting monosyllabically, looking for all the world like carrion-gorged vultures, too torpid to move.
“Don’t stare,” Brenna advised.
“Who are they?”
“Kav?ak mafia. After this war is over, half those guys will be high-ranking government officials.”
Grace picked up her pace. “What is this place?” The warehouse was cavernous, brightly-lit, as abundantly stocked as any box store back home.
“Party central. Everything here has been looted, smuggled, extorted, or misappropriated.”
“This is a UN post!”
“A man with no conscience can get very rich in this town. The Ukrainians have been especially open to, uh, strategic partnerships. Glance around,” she instructed, turning so the pinhole camera in her lapel could capture the scene. “Casually.”
There were uniformed Ukrainian soldiers posted at intervals throughout the warehouse, an armed variation of the ‘greeter’ theme.
“I suppose if we get caught, we’re dead meat.”
“Pretty much.” She led off. “Look happy. We can have anything we want—”
“—For the right price?”
“Exactly.”
God, Brenna had cojones. But you didn’t get extraordinary footage by sitting on your duff at press conferences. Or at a bar.
They walked through giant aisles stacked ceiling-high with powdered eggs and milk, French wines, Cuban cigars, cases of Marlboros.
Not to mention hand grenades, guns, and ammunition.
A gallon of gasoline, she quickly calculated, sold for the equivalent of ninety U.S. dollars.
A large jar of Nescafé instant coffee sold for sixty.
Strolling calmly past soldiers dickering with buyers over the posted prices, Brenna gave her a history lesson—what she called ‘the simple version’.
Before the war, she said, the militia was multi-ethnic.
When General Goran ?avi?’s men, now called Nationalists, saw the political split coming, they decamped to the mountains, taking the artillery, tanks, support vehicles, and most of the small arms with them.
The remaining troops—a coalition of Kav?aks of mixed heritage, and Fundamentalists—became the Separatists.
But there were few firearms left in the armory, and the metropolitan area had been surrounded.
So the city government mobilized the next-best armed, highly-organized group available to defend them.
The mafia.
Thugs set up checkpoints and blockades, enough to hold the Nationalists at bay.
That done, they began to loot—all in the name of defending the city.
They systematically stole every moveable item they could get their hands on.
No penny-ante smash-and-grab, but wholesale theft from government, business, and individuals, using fleets of trucks to move the product.
All normal commerce halted, and they settled in to profiteer. Guess what the big revenue generator was? The clandestine import of weapons for the Separatist militia—because by now the outside world had embargoed the legal sale of weapons to Kav?ak.
Without food or other essentials, ordinary citizens started selling off their assets—jewelry, furniture, cars—at a fraction of their value to buy necessities at extortion rates.
Warehouses filled up with the belongings of the once well-to-do.
Educated professionals fell into penury. Criminals became the ruling elite.
Brenna stopped and turned to her. “For five points: Kav?aks are forbidden to leave the city. Why?”
Grace looked around the giant warehouse, her gut spiraling. “I dunno. Because nothing beats a captive market?”
“Good. For ten: Given that the Nationalists ring the city and control every major route into and out of Kav?ak—where do the Marlboros, French wine, and Cuban cigars come from? And the answer isn’t the airlift.”
Grace pondered the question.
“Think, now. The warehouses don’t get shelled.”
The only explanation she could think of was too fantastic. “Collusion with the Nationalists? They besiege the city, then let supplies through for a percentage?”
Brenna started ambling again. “There are rumors of a tunnel—that millions of Euros worth of supplies are brought in through it.”
“So how do you tell the good guys from the bad guys?”
“Good question.”
“Wait a sec.” Grace stopped, confused. “Coming down Mt. Ottoman, all those checkpoints were manned by uniformed Separatist troops. I don’t get the link between the Mafia and the Separatists.”
“They want the same thing.”
“Control of Kav?ak?”
She nodded and took the corner into an aisle with rows of flats piled nearly to the ceiling. “Check these out,” she said and turned smoothly, panning the huge display with the micro-DVR.
They were food parcels, thousands of them, labeled UN Humanitarian Aid.
“Each of these boxes contains food for a month—cooking oil, canned mackerel, corned beef, sugar, feta cheese, and concentrated milk,” she said. “The mackerel and feta cheese are the most popular items right now.”
For sale. Aid was supposed to be distributed free.
An armed soldier with a cigarette hanging out of the corner of his mouth saw Brenna, dismissed her at first glance, then shot her a second, more careful, look. He started over, eyeing her like a movie fan intent on confirming he’d just spotted a major star.
Grace coughed. Brenna’s face had been all over the news recently in connection with the market footage. Maybe the Ukrainians had satellite TV. Maybe the Mafia could turn her over to ?avi? for a pretty penny.
Brenna held up two fingers before the soldier confronted her. “Two UN boxes,” she said in Kav?ak.
Taken aback, the soldier grunted. “два?” He held up two fingers in mirror image of her own.
“Dvije.” She wagged her two again.
Brenna pulled a wad of wrinkled bills out of her side pocket first. Without haggling, as Grace had noticed other patrons doing, she handed them over. Judging by the bundle she gave him, two was a large order.
The soldier hefted the boxes, one into Grace’s arms, one into Brenna’s.
Apparently there was no curb service.
Brenna moved away, looking at the shelves as if she still had more shopping to do. “Time to go,” she whispered.
Grace’s thoughts exactly. Even after the warehouse door closed behind them, she couldn’t shake off the feeling they were about to be shot in the back.
Jasha was leaning against the Golf, a new tire and rim in place. Seeing them coming, he jettisoned his cigarette and helped Grace stow the boxes in the trunk.
“A wee giftie for your Mom,” Brenna told Jasha, the shake in her voice belying her off-hand air.
“Two? Thank you.”
As they opened the car doors, a man with a missing leg and a pasty complexion hobbled toward them on makeshift crutches, and accosted Jasha. Speaking rapidly, the man pointed to a woman standing in a cluster of over-painted, under-dressed women that Grace hadn’t noticed before.
Jasha waved the man off and got in the car.
Inside the vehicle, Grace asked what the man had wanted.
“He offers us sex with one of the women at the curb.” He threw the car into reverse.
“So he’s a pimp?”
Jasha threw her a puzzled look in the rear view mirror. “Pimp?”
Brenna answered for him. “He’s that woman’s husband. He negotiates the price.”
Grace laid her head back on the seat rest. Kav?ak offered every imaginable vice and degradation. “Is this where Geoff Garrett gets his heroin?” she asked quietly.
“Probably,” Jasha said. “Heroin is plentiful. Lower price than before war.”
Jasha pulled out of the barrack gate and hit the gas.