John Connolly - The Black Angel

“You really don’t like him, do you?” I said.

“I don’t like big men who throw their weight around.”

I had to admit that Angel was probably right. Most was a bit of a jerk, but we needed what he had to offer.

“Try to play nice,” I said. “It’s not like you’re adopting him.”

We got in the car, Louis and Angel taking a seat in back while I sat in the passenger seat beside Most. Louis didn’t look uneasy, despite the fact that he didn’t have a gun. This was purely a business transaction for him. In turn, Most probably knew enough about Louis not to screw him around.

We drove over the Vltava, past tourist restaurants, then little local bars, eventually leaving behind a big railway station before heading in the direction of the enormous TV mast that dominated the night sky. We turned down some side streets until we came to a doorway with an illuminated sign above it, depicting a figure of Cupid shooting an arrow through a heart. The club was called Cupid Desire, which made a kind of sense. Most pulled up outside and killed the engine. The entrance to the club was guarded by a barred gate and a bored-looking gatekeeper. The gate was opened, Most handed the car keys to his employee, then we were descending a flight of steps into a small, grimy bar. Eastern European women, some blond, some dark, all bored and worn down, sat in the murk nursing sodas. Rock music played in the background, and a tall, red-haired woman with tattoos on her arms worked the tiny bar. There were no men in sight. When Most arrived, the tattooed woman uncapped a Budvar for him, then spoke to him in Czech.

“You want something to drink?” Most translated.

“No, we’re good,” said Louis.

Angel looked around the less-than-glorified bordello.

“Busy time?” he said. “What the hell is it like when it’s quiet?”

We followed Most through into the heart of the building, past numbered doors that stood open to reveal double beds covered only by pillows and a sheet, the walls decorated with framed posters of vaguely artful nudes, until we came to an office. A man sat on a padded chair, watching three or four monitors that showed the gate to the club, what appeared to be the back alley, two views of the street, and the cash register behind the bar. Most passed him and headed to a steel door at the back of the office. He opened it with a pair of keys, one from his wallet and the other from an alcove near the floor. Inside were cases of alcohol and cartons of cigarettes, but they took up only a fraction of the space. Behind them was a small armory.

“So,” said Most, “what would you like?”

Louis had said that we would have no trouble acquiring weapons in Prague, and he was right. The Czech Republic used to be a world leader in the production and export of armaments, but the death of Communism led to a decline in the industry after 1989. There were still about thirty arms manufacturers in the country, though, and the Czechs weren’t as particular about the countries to which they exported arms as they should have been. Zimbabwe had reason to thank the Czechs for breaching the embargo on the export of weapons, as had Sri Lanka and even Yemen, that friend to U.S. interests abroad and the target of a nonbinding UN embargo. There had even been attempts to export arms to Eritrea and the Democratic Republic of Congo, facilitated by export licenses covering nonembargoed countries, which were then used to redirect their cargoes to their true destinations. Some of these weapons were legitimately acquired, some were surplus weapons sold on to dealers, but there were others that came through more obscure channels, and I suspected that the bulk of Most’s inventory might have been acquired in this way. After all, in 1995 the Czech national police’s elite antiterrorist unit, URNA, was discovered to be selling its own weapons, ammunition, and even Semtex explosive to organized crime elements. Miroslav Kvasnak, the head of URNA, was sacked, but that didn’t stop him from later becoming the deputy director of Czech Army Intelligence, and later the Czech defense attaché to India. If the cops were prepared to sell guns to the very criminals they were supposed to be hunting, then the free market appeared to have arrived with a vengeance. If nothing else, the Czechs, flush with the newfound joys of capitalism, clearly understood how to go about creating an entrepreneurial society.

Against the far wall were racks of guns: semiautomatic weapons mainly, along with some shotguns, including a pair of FN tactical police shotguns that were clearly just out of the crate. I saw CZ 2000 assault rifles, and five 5.56N light machine guns mounted on their bipods and lined up on a table beneath their smaller brothers. M-16 mags and M-249 saw belts were stacked neatly beside each. There were also AK-47s and rack upon rack of similar Vz.58s. Beside them were two further racks of various automatic and semiautomatic weapons, and arrayed on a pair of oilcloth-covered trestle tables was a selection of pistols. Nearly everything on display was new, and a lot of it appeared to be military issue. It looked like half of the Czech army’s best weaponry was being stored in Most’s basement. If the country was invaded, they’d have to make do with peashooters and cusswords until someone cobbled together enough money to buy the guns back.

Angel and I watched as Louis checked his weapons of choice, working the slides, chambering rounds, and inserting and ejecting clips as he made his selections. He eventually opted for a trio of Heckler amp; Koch.45 pistols, with Knight’s suppressors to reduce flash and noise. The guns were marked USSOCOM on the barrel, which meant that they were made originally for U.S. Special Operations Command. The barrel and slide were slightly longer than on the usual H amp;K.45, and they had a screw thread on the muzzle for attaching the suppressor, along with a laser-aiming module mounted in front of the trigger guard. He also picked up some Gerber Patriot combat knives, and a Steyr nine-millimeter machine pistol for himself fitted with a thirty-round magazine and a suppressor, this one longer than the pistol itself.

“We’ll take two hundred rounds for the.45s, and I’ll take three thirties for the Steyr,” said Louis when he was done. “The knives you’ll throw in for free.”

Most agreed a price for the guns, although his pleasure in the sale was dimmed a little by Louis’s negotiating skills. We left with the weapons. Most even gave us some holsters, although they were kind of worn. The Mercedes was still parked outside, but this time there was another man behind the wheel.

“My cousin,” explained Most. He patted me on the arm. “You sure you don’t want to stay, have some fun?”

The words “fun” and “Cupid Desire” didn’t seem a natural fit to me.

“I have a girlfriend,” I said.

“You could have another,” said Most.

“I don’t think so. I’m not doing so good with the one I have.”

Most didn’t offer girls to Angel and Louis. I pointed this out to them on the ride back to the hotel.

“Maybe you’re the only one of us who looks like a deviant,” suggested Angel.

“Yeah, that must be it, you being so clean-living and all.”

“We should be there now,” said Louis.

He was talking about Sedlec.

“They’re not dumb,” I said. “They’ve waited a long time for this. They’ll want to look the place over before they make their move. They’ll need equipment, transport, men, and they won’t try to get to the statue until after dark. We’ll be waiting for them when they come.”

We drove to Sedlec the next day, following the highway toward the Polish border because it was a faster road than the more direct route through the villages and towns. We passed fields of corn and beet, still recovering from the harvest, and drove through thick forests with small huts at their edges for the hunters to use. According to the guidebook I’d read on the plane, there were bears and wolves farther south, down in the Bohemian forests, but up here it was mainly small mammals and game birds. In the distance I could see red-roofed villages, the spires of their churches rising above the houses. Once we left the highway we passed through the industrial city of Kolin, the crossroads for the railways heading east to Moscow and south to Austria. There were crumbling houses and others in the process of restoration. Beer signs hung in windows, and chalk-written menus were displayed by open doors.