John Case - Ghost Dancer aka Dance of Death

300 combat boots 25,075

1 Meillor 37mm dual antiaircraft gun 188,256

100 antiaircraft shells (37mm) 9,500

10 mortars 60mm 17,600

100 60mm shells 14,300

400 pounds liquid explosive (Triex) 80,500

200 pounds RDX plastic booster 32,040

400 time delays, electronic (solid-state programmable, one hour to 90 days) 83,600

1 special kit 33,500

30 man-portable air defense systems: Russian Strela-2 (SA-7a) 1968 54,000

15 1.17 kg infrared seeker, 5 feet long, 30-40 lbs 105,260

TOTAL: $ 1,670,191

(1,429,992 euros)

Wilson studied the list, curious about just what it was he was delivering to Africa. “‘Cekpet’?”

“‘Secret,’” Belov explained. “I don’t have English stamp.”

“And this?” Wilson asked, pointing to an entry.

“Stabiscope? Special binoculars, with gyroscope! On vibrating platform, is stable like rock. Good for helicopter, APC. Tank, too. Come! I show you.” He grabbed a crowbar that was leaning against the wall, and led Wilson up the ramp and into the plane.

The fuselage was cavernous, with belt-loader tracks running along the floor under wooden palettes held down by tensioning buckles and cargo nets.

Wilson glanced at the list. “What’s this?” He pointed to the entry for thirty Strela-2s.

“Manpads.”

“Which are what?” Wilson asked.

“Missile. Like Stinger.” To illustrate, he rested the crowbar on his shoulder. Aiming at an imaginary plane, he squeezed off an imaginary shot. “Hold like bazooka,” he said. “Pull trigger, and… boom !”

“And this… ‘special kit’? What’s that?”

“Poison kit,” Belov said. “Four kinds, all by mouth or DMSO. So watch what you eat, and don’t touch!” He chuckled, then grew serious again. “ECC: tastes like shit, but no one ever complains. One taste, convulsions. Number two: THL. Forty-eight hours, mouth to morgue. So, have time to leave. Then heart stops. Number three is CYD: liver dies, kidney dies. Four hours, maybe six. Last one? MCR. Ugly way to die! Organs decompose. Totally. They open you up, inside looks like soup, so obvious foul play.”

“And the DMSO…”

“Is solvent. Mix with poison, put on keyboard, doorknob, rifle, whatever. One touch, right to bloodstream – tits up.”

Wilson glanced around. “When do they finish loading?”

“Tonight. When pilot get in. Very important he get balance right.”

“And this is everything?”

It seemed to Wilson that Belov hesitated before he nodded.

“What?” Wilson asked.

“Is small thing…”

“In a deal like this?”

“Yes, yes! Is small thing. I show you!”

The Russian went from pallet to pallet until he found what he was looking for. Using the crowbar, he pried up the lid on one of the boxes. “Look!” he said. “These African guys, they want Russian RPGs, but… no way, José. Impossible, even for me! So, I substitute Type Sixty-nines. Chinese made. Not bad. And cheaper.”

Wilson stared at the gunmetal-gray cylinders. “What if they don’t want them?”

“If they don’t, I take them back. Is five percent off bottom line. No problem. Customer always right.”

“Actually, it’s seven point one percent,” Wilson told him.

Belov frowned. “How you figure?”

“It’s arithmatic. You need a pencil?”

Belov looked at him for a moment. And blinked.

They came to the first in a series of checkpoints about two miles from the airport. Soldiers in olive-drab camouflage were dragging a striped wooden barrier back and forth across the two-lane road, questioning drivers, waving them on. Nearby, a concrete blockhouse stood by the side of the road, its foundations soaked in mud, its walls filigreed by gunfire. Smoke curled from a rusty stovepipe in the roof.

There were a dozen trucks and cars waiting in line, up ahead of them. Wilson felt the Escalade slow as one of Belov’s bodyguards leaned out the window, shouting angrily and waving a gun. For the first time, Wilson saw that the car’s windows were about an inch thick.

From a wooden hut on the other side of the barrier, an officer emerged. Seeing them, he straightened almost to attention, and saluted.

Belov saw that Wilson was impressed. “Fender flags.”

Wilson nodded. “I meant to ask; where are they from?”

Belov chuckled. “From here. Nowhere. They’re company flags.”

Wilson gave him a questioning look.

“Is bullshit government here,” Belov said. “Like Wild West. So Sheriff Corporation steps in. Makes law. Owns things.”

“Like what?”

“Airport. Hotel. Kentucky Fried. Mercado. Telephones. Electricity. Everything that works.”

“And you’re, what? The president?”

Belov scoffed, and shook his head. “Small fish.”

Wilson thought about it. “So where are the big fish?”

The arms dealer shrugged. “Deep water. Red Square.”

Wilson nodded, then turned his eyes to the landscape outside. The sleet was changing to snow. Flakes the size of quarters floated toward them.

“Lagos,” Belov added, seemingly to himself. Then he flashed a wolfish grin. “Geneva… Dubai.” He laughed.

“I get the picture,” Wilson told him.

“Virginia Beach…”

Tiraspol turned out to be a forlorn anachronism of the Soviet era. Whatever charms it might once have had, had long since disappeared, bulldozed into oblivion by communist urban planners. In their place stood block after block of soulicidal apartment buildings, concrete warrens ablaze with graffiti.

“So, what you think?”

“I think it looks like shit,” Wilson replied.

“Looks like? Is!” Belov chuckled.

They entered a roundabout with an enormous statue of Lenin at its center. Nearby, a couple of soldiers stood in the cold, smoking cigarettes beside a tank. They eyed the Cadillacs warily, then looked away.

“Hotel just ahead,” Belov said. “Not bad. Like fucked-up Intercon. But one night only, so… no big deal. In morning?” He answered his own question by cupping the palm of his hand, then flattening it out in what looked like a Hitlerian salute. “Flaps up.”

Wilson felt his stomach growl. “You know someplace to eat?”

“Hotel. Chinese restaurant. Not so bad.”

“I was thinking I’d get something to eat, maybe take a walk.”

Belov shook his head and chuckled. “Maybe not,” he said. “You get lost, Hakim kills me.”

“You could draw me a map.”

Belov rolled his eyes. “Map is problem.”

“Why?”

“Is crime!” Belov declared.

“What is?”

“Map! In Transniestria, having map is crime.”

“You’re kidding,” Wilson said.

“No. Map is big security issue. Anyway, you don’t have visa. So, is better you stay off streets.”

“I could get one, couldn’t I? How hard could that be?”

“Impossible!” Belov told him.

“Why?”

“Because you’re here,” Belov told him. “Without visa. So-”

“-is crime.”

Belov grinned. “Exactly. Cops ask questions. Anyway, Transniestrian visa is only good for eight hours. Day-trip for Ukrainians.”

“That’s it ?”

Belov nodded. “Yes, ‘it’! Better you stay off street.” Wilson started to object, but Belov cut him off. “I know. This is pain in your ass, but…” The arms-dealer raised his hands, as if he were surrendering. “So much I can do only.” By way of ending the conversation, he donned the pink earphones, lay back in his seat and closed his eyes.

The manager was waiting for them in the lobby of the Red Star Hotel, a concrete cube with mouse-gray carpeting. Behind the front desk, a heroic haute-relief of Elena Ceau escu hung from the wall.