Mark Burnell - Gemini

Eventually, Andersen said, ‘Tomorrow morning, the Mellah.’

‘Mostovoi will be there?’

‘Someone will be there. They’ll take you to him.’

‘If he’s not there I’m going home.’

‘Place des Ferblantiers at ten.’

The Land Cruiser drove her back to the city centre and came to a halt on Avenue Hassan II, just short of the intersection with Place du 16 Novembre. Claesen turned round. An inch of ash spilled down his red T-shirt. His creepy confidence had returned the moment they left the walled compound.

‘Until next time, then?’

‘How did they know that you knew me?’

‘I have no idea.’

‘You didn’t ask?’

‘I received a message, an air ticket and the promise of dollars.’

‘And that was enough for you? It never occurred to you to check it out first?’

His reply was bittersweet. ‘These days that’s a luxury I can’t afford.’

‘You know something, Claesen, I’m amazed you’ve made it this far.’

‘Me too.’ Smiling once more, he waved his Gitanes at her. ‘I used to think I’d never live long enough to die from lung cancer. Now I’m beginning to think I have a chance.’

The Hotel Mirage on Boulevard Mohammed Zerktouni was in the Ville Nouvelle, not far from Café La Renaissance. Mid-range, it mostly catered for European tourists. Which was precisely what Petra was: Maria Gilardini, a single Swiss woman, aged twenty-nine. A dental hygienist from Sion.

There was a message for her at reception. She took the envelope up to her room, at the rear of the building, overlooking a small courtyard, opposite the back of an ageing office block. She sat on the bed and opened the envelope. As expected, there was nothing inside.

Petra had heard of Maxim Mostovoi long before he became a contract. A former air force pilot, he’d emerged from the rubble of the Soviet Union with his own aviation business. His military career had been restricted to cargo transport. At the time, that had been a source of regret. Later it proved to be the source of his fortune.

Among the first to recognize potential markets for the Soviet Union’s vast stockpile of obsolete weaponry, Mostovoi was able to commandeer cargo aircraft from what remained of the Soviet air force. Then he formed partnerships with contacts in the army who were able to supply him with arms. In the early days he based himself in Moscow, taking comfort from the chaos that bloomed in the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union. There were few laws to contain him. Those that existed were not enforced; bribery tended to ensure that. Failing bribery, there was always violence.

Mostovoi’s first fortune was made in Africa. Rebel factions sought him out, eager for cheap weapons. Using huge Antonov cargo aircraft, he delivered to Rwanda, Angola and Sierra Leone, frequently taking payment in conflict diamonds, depositing the gems in Antwerp. Soon Mostovoi decided he would prefer to be closer to them. In 1994 he moved to Ostend, establishing an air freight company named Air Eurasia at offices close to the airport. As his reputation grew, so did demand for his services. He established an office in Kigali, the Rwandan capital, at the height of the genocide perpetrated by the Hutu militia. He bought a hotel in Kampala, in neighbouring Uganda. The top floor was converted into a luxury penthouse, marble flown in from Italy, bathrooms from Scandinavia, hookers from Moscow. Twice a year Unita rebels travelled from Angola to the hotel in Kampala with pouches of diamonds. The stones were valued by Manfred Hempel, a leading Manhattan diamond merchant, who was extravagantly rewarded for his time. Despite this, Hempel hated the trips to Uganda. To ease his discomfort Mostovoi used his Gulfstream V to ferry the diamond dealer directly from New York to Kampala and back again.

By 1996 his fleet of aircraft, mostly Antonovs and Illyushins, had grown to thirty-eight and had attracted the attention of the Belgian authorities. In December of that year he relocated Air Eurasia to Qatar, opening associate offices in Riyadh and the emirates of Ras al Khaimah and Sharjah. In February 1997 he met senior representatives of FARC – the Colombian rebel army – at San Vicente del Caguan, but failed to come to an agreement. From Colombia he travelled directly to Pakistan. In Peshawar he struck a deal to supply weapons to the Taliban in Afghanistan. Here he was paid in opium, which he sold for processing and onward distribution in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.

Born in Moscow in 1962, Mostovoi had been destined for mediocrity. An unexceptional pupil, a poor athlete, he longed to fly fighters for the Soviet air force but lacked the necessary skills, and was thus relegated to the cargo fleet. To those who knew him best, this would have seemed entirely predictable. As charming and amusing as he could be, it was accepted by everybody that Max would never amount to much. His wife used to tease him in public, and all Mostovoi would muster in his defence was a resigned shrug. Still, a decade and two hundred million dollars later, the memory of his heavy-hipped ex-wife had been eclipsed by the finest flesh money could buy. As a younger man he’d often dreamed of taking his revenge upon those who had humiliated him over the years. Now that he was in a position to do so, he found he couldn’t be bothered. He didn’t have the time. It was enough to know that he could.

Petra knew that had Mostovoi been content to confine his business interests to Africa, he would never have become the subject of a contract. The reality was that nobody cared about Africa. Afghanistan, however, was different. Through his relationship with the Taliban, Mostovoi was connected to al-Qaeda. Before 11 September 2001 he’d been an easy man to find, confident of his own security, keen to expand his empire. Since that date he’d been invisible.

Dusk descended quickly upon Djemaa el-Fna, the huge square in the medina that was the heart of Marrakech. Kerosene lamps replaced the daylight, strung out along rows of food stalls.

Petra found the café on the edge of the square. The outdoor tables were mostly taken. Inside, she picked a table with a clear view of the entrance. A slowly rotating fan barely disturbed the hot air. To her right, beneath an emerald green mosaic of the Atlas mountains, two elderly men were in animated discussion over glasses of tea.

She ordered a bottle of mineral water and drank half of it, checking the entrance as often as she checked her watch. At ten past seven she got up and asked the man behind the bar for the toilet. Past the cramped, steaming kitchen she came to a foul-smelling cubicle, which she ignored, pressing on down the dim corridor to the door at the end, which was shut. She tried the handle and it opened, as promised. She found herself in a narrow alley, rubble underfoot. At the end of the alley she saw the lane that she’d identified on the town map. She unbuttoned her shirt, took it off, turned it inside out and put it back on, trading powder blue for plum.

At twenty-five past seven she emerged from a small street on the opposite side of Djemaa el-Fna to the café. This time she melted into the crowd at the centre of the square, trawling the busy stalls, until she found one with no customers. She sat on a wooden bench beneath three naked bulbs hung from a cord sagging between two poles. The man on the other side of the counter was tending strips of lamb on an iron rack, fat spitting on the coals, smoke spiralling upwards, adding to the heat of the night. Petra passed fifteen dirhams across the counter for a small bowl of harira, a spicy lentil soup.

The woman appeared within five minutes, a child in tow. Short, dark and squat, she wore a dark brown ankle-length dress and a flimsy cotton shawl around her shoulders. The child had black curls, caramel skin, pale hazel eyes. She was eating dried fruit. They sat on the bench to Petra’s right. The woman ordered two slices of melon, which the man retrieved from a crate behind him.