Page 29 of Babies for the Boss
I have moved weapons through difficult territory before. It’s a logistics problem, fundamentally, and I’m good at logistics problems. The issue is the territory, which has shifted in the way that territory shifts when the people who control it change their minds, their allegiances, or their governments, often in that order.
Igor lays it out for me on a Tuesday morning with the methodical calm of a man who has already done the worrying and arrived at the part where he simply presents the facts.
“Astrakhan was manageable,” he says, settling into the chair across my desk with a folder he doesn’t open, because Igor has never needed notes. “We greased the right palms. The Caspian crossing went smoothly—we avoided Baku entirely, which added time but removed the headache.” He pauses, and I know from the pause that the headache is coming. “Baku used to be reliable. It isn’t anymore. Too much legitimate investment in the last few years. Too many people with too much to lose by looking the other way.”
“Turkmenistan?”
“Friendly, but we have a seasonal problem. The flooding in the south pushes the viable routes northeast.” He finally opens the folder, not to consult it but to slide a map across the desk. His finger traces a line I follow without pleasure. “To meet the Pakistani clients on schedule, we need to come through the northeast end of Afghanistan.”
I look at the map for a moment. “Then we need Kamila.”
Igor’s expression does something it rarely does, which is approach warmth. “Tell her hello for me,” he says, standing, and there’s something in his voice that belongs to a history I have never fully inquired about and do not intend to start now. He takes his folder and leaves, closing the door behind him with the quiet precision he brings to everything.
I lean back in my chair. This is a call I look forward to. Kamila Mahendru has been running guns through every viable corridor in Afghanistan for the better part of fifteen years, and she does it with an efficiency and discretion that I have encountered in very few people in this business. She knows the terrain, the players, the seasonal variables, and the precise calibration of loyalty required at each checkpoint along every route she operates.
We have had many nights spent over cards, laughing and telling tall tales of our greatness to one another. I have worked with her for seven of her fifteen years and have never once had cause to question her judgment. Kamila also drinks and curses like a sailor, often answering with her guns instead of her words. It’s no wonder Igor’s crush on her has only grown over the years.
She answers on the third ring. “Allo?”
“Kamila, it’s good to hear your voice.”
There’s a pause that lasts slightly too long. “Pavel.” Her voice is flat in a way it has never been with me, stripped of the businesslike warmth that usually characterizes her end of these calls.
Something tightens at the base of my neck. “I have a shipment that needs a northeast passage. Same parameters as last time, adjusted for the seasonal routes. I need to discuss?—”
“I can’t.” Two words, delivered with a finality that cuts across my sentence cleanly.
“Can’t, or won’t?”
Another pause. When she speaks again, her voice is lower, and beneath it I identify, after a moment, urgency. Not fear exactly, but its more controlled cousin. “Our professional relationship is over, Pavel. I won’t be taking your calls after this one. I’m sorry.”
I’m quiet for a moment. “Kamila. What is the meaning of this?”
“There’s no time to explain it properly.” She pauses, either in hesitation or consideration. I’m not sure which. “Ask Fedor. He can explain it better than I can.” Then the line goes dead.
I hold the phone for three seconds. Then I dial her back.
“The number you have dialed is no longer in service.”
I set the phone down on the desk with considerable care and look out the window at the gray November city and think about what it means that Kamila Mahendru, who has operated in some of the most hostile environments on earth without flinching, has disconnected her number within thirty seconds of ending a call with me.
Fedor got there first. He got there far enough in advance to apply whatever pressure was required to turn our association into a disconnected line in under a month. His reach is longer than I calculated, and his timeline is shorter, and I have underestimated the speed at which he is moving.
I will not make this mistake twice.
I pull up my contacts and work through the backup list. The backups are less reliable than Kamila by varying degrees—one is competent but has a drinking problem that surfaces unpredictably, one is reliable in good conditions and creative in bad ones in ways that are not always useful, and the third I have not worked with in four years and have no current read on.
None of them knows the northeast routes the way Kamila knows them. None of them has her relationships with the checkpoint operators, her understanding of the seasonal variables, or her ability to move a shipment through difficult territory without generating the kind of attention that compounds problems downstream.
This could get very ugly.
I call Igor back in and lay it out for him. He listens without interrupting, which is his way, and when I finish, he’s quiet for a moment with the stillness that means he’s working through implications rather than reactions. “Fedor’s been busy.”
“He has.” I look at the map still spread across my desk. “He’s closing routes. He wants us exposed before he moves. It’s a smart strategy.”
“Smart isn’t his usual play.”
Igor’s right. The man I knew wouldn’t have thought to do this. No. This is the calculated Fedor, which is the more dangerous version. “It’s not, which means the man who left prison is dead, and the new Fedor is worse. Get me current intelligence on all of our active associates. Anyone Fedor might approach, I want to know before he does.”
