Clint Faraday Collection C: Murder in Motion Collector's Edition (7 page)

“
You
would have cut my throat if I’d come after you, wouldn’t
you?”

“
A very
small flick of the wrist. All these people noted that you
physically had attacked me when I simply asked you to abide by the
laws here and put out that cigar. I even, another first time, have
a permit for the cane as a personal defense weapon.”

He nodded. “You want to move here?”

“
I begin
to believe that would be a good move.”

“
Looking
for work?”

“
I have
more wealth than anyone reasonably needs. I think not, when I
consider the lines of work at which I am adept.”

He laughed. “I think I like you! No
horseshit, just tell it like it is!

“
Girl!
Bring my friend a drink!

“
I’m Ivan
Gregor.”

“
Which is
not your name, but quite possibly part is. I am called Generoso
Morales here.”

“
Which is
not your name, but possibly part is.”

“
It is
what my present passport says.”

“
Yeah. My
passport says that’s my name, but reversed.”

“
What is
your line of work, if you don’t object to my asking?”

“
I’m a
mining engineer. We’ve found a lode of, uh, silver near
here.”

“
Toward
the north and west? A taxi took me there as a point of interest in
an area where I might come to live.”

“
Yeah.
Indio people live there. It’s their farm where we found the silver
mine. They’re people I like. Good people. I don’t think they like
me too much. We’re too different.”

“
Yes. I
spoke with the family. They would make no judgements about you. If
you haven’t had much congress with them, they probably only have a
very slight feeling, one way or the other.”

The girl brought Clint a Scotch and soda
(which he didn’t like) and a vodka straight for Ivan. They chatted
awhile. Clint learned, indirectly, that the uranium was very close
to the silver, which he suspected.

He went back to the hotel to go on the
wireless with his laptop. He wanted to learn something about the
extraction of uranium.

The taxi was waiting. Clint took the driver
to breakfast, saying he arose a bit later than usual. He was quite
tired last night.

“
Not
tired enough to keep from telling our local pain in the ass Russian
where he gets off!” he replied. “I would liked to have been
there!”

“
Oh, he’s
a rather common type in Europe in the worse areas. He watches too
much telly and thinks he can make the world into that drivel. He
merely needed it explained to him that people will tolerate only so
much.”

“
Gina
said he called you his friend and bought you expensive drinks. She
thought you were the most gallant and macho person she ever saw!
You stood up to a person everybody around here is scared of and
made him back down!”

“
Then
she, also, watches too much of the telly silliness.”

They were already semi-pals. This made him a
real pal. Later, while driving around the local countryside, Clint
managed to learn that there was a second crusher area near the
silver mine. Julio said there was one truck going out there a lot
that the Russian was driving. He didn’t like that. Foreigners
weren’t allowed to operate equipment as heavy as that truck in
Panamá. He pointed out the little rutted road the truck went up.
Clint acted like it was a little interesting, but said he didn’t
know anything about mining and didn’t want to.

They went out on a little peninsula where
Clint already owned (thanks to Manny) some property. There was a
large rocky plot for sale, but nobody seemed interested. It was the
plot that caused Manny to buy his – to put an end to the big
development planned on the plot after they could manage to buy the
part Manny bought just before they made the deal. Bummer!

Clint went back to town about four. He
figured he was able to piece a lot of it together. What he’d
learned about uranium meant a tremendous amount of rock had to be
crushed to get a small amount of uranium. Critical mass wasn’t
much, but he would have to crush and process quite a few tons of
rock to get enough for a bomb.

Julio never saw anyone but Ivan going out
that road. He was doing it himself. Clint wanted to know how he was
managing it so that he could get away with the thing. He also
wondered if that bunch had already gotten enough uranium out to
make a bomb. That may have been what they were doing when this
started. Wouldn’t the automatic detectors find something like
uranium?

Not if it was in thick lead containers. That
would be heavy.

Clint didn’t think they had done that. There
was something else they wanted him to be distracted from.

Not necessarily! They wanted to keep him on
the Bocas side so he wouldn’t ever learn what this was about and so
that he’d never find the uranium mine. They knew he had set the
silver mine up and that he knew the family there. That meant the
road to the uranium mine went into the back of the property. It was
a very big place and Orlando surely wouldn’t know about it. He
wouldn’t allow it.

Clint decided he was going to go up that road
to find out what they had and exactly how they were handling
it.

The
Mine

Clint waited until dark, then went by El
Critico to see if Ivan was there. He was.

Clint could trust Julio so had the taxi take
him to the road. Julio said he could take the taxi up that road so
went in. If anyone asked, there was no fence or gate on that road
so it was legal to go on it. There wasn’t even a sign saying it was
private.

The road went around a few small hills, then
into Orlando’s property for only a hundred fifty meters or so.
There was the truck and a big pile of crushed rock just outside a
shed. The crusher was inside the shed, which was insulated so that
little sound would escape. There was a radiation suit on a rack.
There were three lead containers, one open and empty, the other two
sealed. From what Clint understood the two containers would mass at
about half critical mass together, judging by the volume in each.
If some was sent out it was probably a shipment of three containers
to make up half the critical mass. All they would need was these
three filled. Clint would see they didn’t ever receive the last
three. He told Julio to go outside, then he put on the radiation
suit. He opened the two sealed containers and took the tubes of
uranium out and told Julio to stay at least twenty feet from him as
he took it into the hole the rock was taken from. He hid the tubes
in a crevice about twenty feet into the hole, then went back to the
shed to hang the suit where it was when he came in. He went back
out and Julio took him back to town. He cleaned up and was at El
Critico by ten o’clock, saying he had been detained by another
Russian. Did Ivan know who he was? He looked much like Ivan, but
was a little thinner and was darker.

Ivan said he didn’t know anyone else there
from Russia. Was Clint sure he was Russian?

Clint remembered the pictures of Niklev and
Ghenkof from the net. He said he had assumed that as the accent was
the same. This one said his name was Viktor. He had a scar on his
face and across his nose, but it was not bad. He made the
description close enough to fit Ghenkof or Niklev. Neither had a
scar on their face, but that was a common fixture in disguises.

That really made him nervous! “Did he have a
gold tooth just to the side of the center?”

“
I did
not notice.”

He talked for a minute, then mingled. Ivan
soon sneaked to the door and out. Clint waited, then went out
himself and to the hotel to grab some sleep. About four in the
morning Ivan knocked on his door and asked if the Russian he met
was carrying anything or were there packages he was watching.

“
No, I
don’t think so, but there could possibly been something in the car
waiting for him.”

“
There
was a car? There was someone in the car?”

“
Yes. A
woman, I think. I found it odd when she didn’t come out to be
introduced. She stayed in the car.

“
Of
course, it well may not have been his car. She may have been
waiting for someone else.”

“
There
were some things stolen from my place. They’re terribly dangerous.
They are poisons you have to understand to use. I’m afraid someone
might have taken them and could let them get in the water or
something. That would be a disaster! I must find them!

“
I wish I
knew who took them. I’ll be in terrible trouble if someone, er,
misuses them. It wasn’t quite legal for me to have them, you see.
If someone is harmed or killed by them I could be in serious
trouble.”

“
Well, I
hope you find something like that and neutralize it! Those kinds of
things should not be carelessly left around! It alarms me that one
as professional as you seemed to be would allow any chance of such
an occurrence at all!

“
I think
I understand you! You had them in a safe place, but someone
specific would take them. True? Someone who will use them for
personal reasons that are not to the good of anyone
else?”

“
Much too
close to the truth.”

Clint said he wouldn’t know anything about
that kind of people here. He was here to escape that life and those
kinds of people.

Ivan soon left. Clint got a little sleep and
met with Julio and Orlando. He got Orlando aside and explained the
situation and that he was Clint Faraday. Orlando said he was
suspicious of this strange Spaniard and could not help feeling he
already knew him. They would see that nothing else was ever moved
from that property. Orlando suggested that he could take a few
people to see his property and could accidentally find the shed and
mine. He would then, as it was not legally on his property, put
guards on it to see that it was closed and abandoned. Clint said it
might even be a good idea to have someone there with a Geiger
counter who was looking for radium in that kind of place. They
might avoid going into the mine.

Orlando said he knew just the person to set
that up!

Clint had introduced Orlando to the mobster,
now ex-mobster, who opened the mine. Paulo Lariez. He had no doubt
Orlando and he had become friends and confidants. He would arrange
it as someone from his mine who came from Mexico to look for
anything he could find in the area.

“
Ivan’s
luck sucks lately,” Clint remarked. They all laughed.

Clint felt this part was fairly well arranged
so went back to the hotel. Ivan came in about four and said he had
made no progress in finding the poisons and he couldn’t find but
one person, a taxi driver, who had seen the other Russian. He spent
most of the day looking for that person.

It suddenly dawned on him that the poisons
are easy to detect so it was possible they were still hidden at his
place. He would go back and check. Maybe he’d see Generoso at El
Critico later. With a proposition, if it was truly the people he
suspected who stole the poison.

Clint said he would quite possibly be
there.

He hung around the pier awhile, greeting the
locals he knew . None saw through his disguise.

He cleaned up and went to El Critico at seven
for dinner. The food was good there. Ivan came in about seven
thirty, excited and scared. He said some people were on his
property and had as much as thrown him off! They had all his
things!

“
Call the
police, as much as the idea annoys us who have been in the
occupations we have been in.”

“
I can’t.
It’s not really my property. I thought we had a legal agreement
with the owner, but it turns out my, er, associates didn’t bother
with that little detail. I’m in terrible trouble!”

“
Well,
you can at least disclaim any knowledge of the stolen poisons. That
should, as the yanks say, get you off the hook for
that.”

“
Not
really, but that’s not the ... my problem will be with others, now.
A war between two different groups will end with one of them wiped
from the face of the Earth.

“
You see,
the stolen poisons were the factor that gave the group I work for
precedence in, er, some areas. Now they’re no longer a factor. If
the other group learns of that, well, it can get bad.
Fast!”

“
Distance
yourself from both sides. If you were merely working as a contract
worker for one side or the other you are no part of the management,
shall we say.”

“
I wish I
could. I suppose I’m a walking dead man, but that’s part of the
trade. I do think I like you. Don’t get involved with Russian
groups. They play for keeps. It’s always a survivors’ club
deal.”

Clint nodded. “Take care. I really have to
leave tomorrow for a few days. Three days. It’s to renew the
visa.”

“
You
bother with that crap?”

“
I wish
to retire here. I wish for a solid good reputation. Yes, I bother
with it.”

“
Oh,
that’s right. I guess it’s better. I suppose I’ll be gone, one way
or another before you get back. I wish you good fortune and hope
you can retire the way you want.”

Clint thanked him and said he hoped it could
be resolved where he wouldn’t end up dead. He went to the
hotel.

He left for David in the morning. Paulo
Lariez called to say the problem with the illegal mining operation
was settled. Orlando made a deal with a US company about the
uranium and was now several million dollars richer – which he
hated! They would go together and build a new school in the town
where Orlando’s wife grew up. And a free medical clinic.