The Doves of Ohanavank (34 page)

The other, Samson, is new. He is one of Yuri’s recruits that Carla approved without meeting him. His resume, as described by Yuri, was enough. He is one of LeFreak’s top security men, assigned to the prostitution and trafficking part of the business. He’s been with LeFreak for less than two years, initially based in Georgia, and recently relocated to Yerevan. Before that, he was in Moscow for some ten years, but Yuri does not know what he did there. It cost a lot of money to have Samson change sides, but in the end, it was not the money alone that pushed him over the fence. It was his lack of confidence in LeFreak’s ability to manage the trafficking business properly. He also has a round face, but thinner than Ari’s, and his eyebrows are so light that they are barely visible. He does not seem to have a neck, and Carla tries not to stare at how his chin seems to perch directly on top of his chest, and his earlobes hang low, almost touching his shoulders.

For the time being, the team seems coordinated enough, with Ari as the soldier, Yuri thinking of himself as first officer and of Samson as second officer, and all three accepting her as the commander. For Carla, having that power is exhilarating.

“Do you have the exact date of the meeting?” she asks.

“May 20. In two weeks. At twelve noon.”

“You’re sure LeFreak will be present?”

“Absolutely. He’s called the meeting.” Samson answers her question, but looks at Yuri.

“How many people will attend?” Carla knows the answers to most of her questions from prior reports from Yuri, but wants to hear directly from Samson. She feels the direct questioning reconfirms her status as boss, and speaking to him gives her a reason to look at him, still amazed at how his head sits directly on his shoulders without the slightest hint of a neck.

“Four, excluding me. Five altogether.”

“Yuri has told me about the two options,” says Carla, “but I want to hear your take on both. I understand you prefer one over the other.”

“The bomb is too risky. It will rouse suspicion of an inside job. People will question why I left the room before the explosion. Besides, why kill all four, when we just need to get rid of LeFreak?” Samson knows that Yuri favors the bomb option, but he has not been able to present any convincing arguments. It is messy and unnecessarily complicated.

“The other option is a sniper hit when we’re all in the room. They never catch snipers. A bomb will leave too many clues behind.”

“Yuri?” asks Carla.

“Both are fine,” says Yuri and shrugs. “I don’t feel strongly one way or another. But maybe we want it to look like an inside job. I don’t mean raising suspicion about you, Samson, but an inside job by someone who is not present at the meeting. That way they won’t suspect us.”

“I’ll be the prime suspect. I’d be leaving the room before the explosion,” says Samson.

“They may suspect you, but they won’t be able to prove anything,” says Yuri. “We’ll arrange for someone to call you with an emergency, and you’ll leave to take care of it. Everything can be documented. Your story will hold up.”

“But why?” asks Samson. “If there was a benefit from blowing up the entire floor and killing all four, I’d say let’s take that risk. But we gain nothing, and we lose three experienced men.”

What neither Carla nor Samson knows, is that it is Yuri’s plan to also get rid of Samson. Only Samson can plant the bomb in the room, so he needs him for that. But then, instead of him walking out and detonating the bomb from a safe distance, a second detonator will set off the bomb while Samson is still in the room. The risks and the threats will die with the human targets of the operation.

“Tell me how the sniper option would work,” says Carla.

“The meeting is in one of their safe houses right outside Yerevan. He has the top two floors of an old building. They use only the tenth floor. He keeps the ninth empty so as not to have close neighbors. Below that live some poor families. He has a separate, locked elevator. No one without a key can get to his floors, because the staircase entrance to the ninth floor has an iron door, and it is also locked. The tenth floor is entirely refurbished, with wide windows overlooking the gorge.” Samson stops for a minute and looks at Carla. He has never planned an operation like this for a woman before. She sits completely still, staring at him with ice-cold eyes.

“There is only one building nearby,” continues Samson. “Some fifty meters away, also ten stories high, facing his, and from the top floor and the roof one can see directly into the meeting room. I have been there once to check it out for security. There is easy and direct access to the roof. Nothing is locked, and the elevator goes all the way to the roof. There are two apartments on each floor of that building. An old couple lives in one of the apartments on the tenth floor, the one that does not face LeFreak’s building. The apartment facing LeFreak’s building is empty.

“LeFreak rarely draws the curtains during meetings. The two side windows don’t have curtains. A sniper on the roof of the facing building can take him. LeFreak usually sits in the large armchair facing the window, and he likes to stand up and pace once in a while. When he paces, he always goes and stands by the window. Even if for some reason the curtains are drawn, he opens them while standing there.”

“I agree that the sniper option is cleaner, let’s go with that,” says Carla. “I want Ari to be the sniper. You take him to the roof of that building and let him study every detail. Then I want to see the exact plan. We’ll meet again before the 20
^th
.” The three listen, nod and wait.

“You will each receive one hundred thousand dollars,” continues Carla. “Work as one team. If anything goes wrong, no matter whose fault it is, none of you gets paid. On May 20, when it is done, you’ll get half of your payment. A month later, if none of you is arrested or under investigation, you’ll get the balance. If any one of you gets in trouble with the law in that period, none of you gets the balance of the pay. Are the rules clear?”

They look at each other first, then at her, and they nod.

“Good. Let me know when you’re ready to show me the precise plan.”

When Yuri leaves the meeting, he is convinced that someone is coaching Carla. How did she come up with that on her own? The one hundred thousand each, told to all three together, is unusual enough. But fifty when the job is done and fifty a month later if no one gets arrested? The only reason she’d add that condition is to ensure that the men do not undermine each other. Does she suspect him? Or perhaps she knows something about Ari or Samson that Yuri doesn’t.

Yuri wonders if Ari and Samson are resenting the fact that he will get paid as much as they are, when he is not doing much. In fact, now that he has found Samson, his role is technically finished. Carla could have told him that she’d take it from here, and worked with Samson and Ari to plan and execute the operation. Why then was he in the room? Why is Carla, who is careful to fairly reward contributions to the business, giving him the same reward as the others, and letting them know about it?

Whatever it is, Yuri is now more convinced than ever that Samson has to somehow become a victim of the operation. He needs a new plan. A new plan without Carla’s knowledge and approval will cost money. He’ll have to pay the cost of getting rid of Samson. Yuri decides that at least part of his one hundred thousand would be worth spending on eliminating Samson. Chances are that Samson, if he stays, will end up running Carla’s operations and costing him a lot more.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

I
t was cloudy and drizzling when we left Yerevan, and Edik was worried that we might get rain in Vardahovit. “For me,” he said, “any time of year, regardless of the weather, it is perfect up there, but for a first-time visitor on a day trip, I want a bright sunny day so you can get the full experience.”

He must be relieved, because by the time we take the Getap junction road, the skies clear up.

“In around ten minutes,” I tell Ahmed, “we’ll pass through some typical villages. Poor and undeveloped, these places are in miserable condition, but I don’t think their fields have seen any contaminants like agricultural chemicals.”

“You’re lucky to have a friend like Edward,” he says, out of the blue, as if he did not hear my last comment about the villages.

“I know. He’s a very good friend, but what made you think of that now?”

“I did not think of it now. I’ve been thinking about it since I met him. He’s a good man.”

“I knew you two would end up becoming friends the minute you called him ‘Edik Jan.’”

“I want to tell you something, Lara, which probably should wait until we sit on that bench of truth and redemption. But I will not wait. The truth is, that I do not have a lot of friends. All the socializing that I do is with family members. All my other interactions with people are for business. I have many business associates, fellow board members, trading partners, employees, some loyal, others not so loyal, but no friends. Isn’t that something?”

“I don’t have a lot of friends either,” I say. “Aside from Edik, there are only three people that I would consider to be my friends, in the sense that I would go out of my way to help, and that I trust. That’s it. Four friends.”

“You’re only eighteen and you have four friends, that is something. I’m thirty-five, and I have none. There’s a big difference.”

“Have you ever felt the need for friends?” I ask. “I mean, your family is so extensive and tight, that maybe it has made friends redundant for you.”

He looks at me with surprise.

“How come you know so much about me? Have I told you about my family?”

“Well,” I laugh, “you’ve said very little. But girls talk, you know. I had a few chats with Sumaya.”

He frowns at the mention of Sumaya, but says nothing.

“Ahmed, I want to ask you something, which I know is none of my business. May I?”

“About Sumaya?”

“Yes.”

“Go ahead.”

“When I was planning my escape, I used her. I lied about my intention to return after five days. And she helped me. She understood my desire to visit my family and my sick mother, and those were not lies, by the way. Anyway, she helped me, and she arranged for a driver to take me to Oman, she arranged all my tickets. I was feeling guilty for betraying her trust, almost as bad as I was feeling for betraying yours. But then I found out in
Istanbul that she had her own plans to send me away for good. I was supposed to end up somewhere in Russia and ‘disappear.’ What was that all about? Did you ever figure out the details of her plan?”

“Lara,
habibty
, you don’t know how beautiful you are,” he says, and I misunderstand him at first and roll my eyes. “No, listen to me, I’m not flirting with you. And that is one of the most attractive things about you. I mean that you don’t know how beautiful you are. To me, that was charming. To them, that was threatening. They used your desire to visit home to scheme to get rid of you.”

“Nadia was in on it too?” I’ve heard that she was, but I want him to confirm it.

“Yes. But let’s stop talking about that. Did I answer your question?”

“Thank you, yes,” I say, even though I still wanted to know what their plan was, what happened to them, what happened to Abo.

We fall silent for a long time. We reach the end of Hermon, and Edik takes the road to the right leading to Vardahovit. Ahmed’s driver is not used to driving on dirt roads like this, steep, with huge potholes, and deep truck-tire ruts in the mud. We’ll be climbing close to five hundred meters in just a three-kilometer stretch, with sharp curves. Had it not been for Edik leading the way, I don’t think Ahmed’s driver would even consider proceeding on this road. Of course Armen, who is following us, is used to worse than this.

“There’s something else that I should tell you on the bench,” he says, breaking the silence, “but I want to get it off of my chest before we reach Edward’s place. All the women I’ve been with have been hired. I do not know anything else. Starting with Sumaya some eighteen years ago, and every single one since. I’ve paid for their time. I figured that when I decide to get married that would change, but why bother to ‘date’ someone in the meantime? What we’ve done in the past couple of days, what we’re doing now, is new to me. No payment, no sex. Just being together. Just being normal. Please do not say anything. Just know that I am in totally new territory with this.”

He does not realize how thankful I am that he asked me not to say anything. I wouldn’t know how to respond to something like that anyway. He thinks I’ve had one normal relationship? If all his women have been bought, all the men I’ve known have bought me, including him. What am I supposed to say to him about that? Oh, Ahmed, I’m so sorry you’ve
missed out on this great thing called a normal relationship? He thinks
he
is in new territory! After the talks of the last two days, after the deep remorse I saw on his face when I told him my story, how can he tell me this? Does he expect sympathy? Does he expect me to believe that he too, like me, has been deprived of the pleasures of a normal relationship? What a comparison, Ahmed!

But I don’t like where this is taking me. Regardless of what has happened to me, he has not had a normal relationship either. My story does not diminish his. Even as I think these thoughts, something breaks loose inside of me. Ahmed loses a little bit of his charm.

Agassi opens the large iron gates to Edik’s estate, and we drive in. Agassi has a new puppy, a mixed breed between
Gampr
, the famous Armenian hound best known for its ferocity in fighting wolves, and thus a favorite among shepherds, and an unknown type. His name is Cheko, and he looks more like a
Gampr
than like his mother. Cheko follows the three cars to the main house, and, recognizing Edik’s car, jumps around with such exuberance that we’re afraid he’ll end up under the car.

It is past one-thirty in the afternoon, and everyone is hungry. We walk in through the back door, near the kitchen. Ahmed wants to wash up. Manoj and then I follow him. Then Edik leads us to the front terrace, where Vartiter has set up an incredible table.