The Littlest Jackal

"What are you going to do with these women?"

"They'll entertain my loyal troops, first of all. I needed them for that, which gave me the idea. I admit this: it's very hard work in the sex-labor industry. But under my care, at least they won't be shot afterwards."

Raf strolled along the rocky shoreline to the edge of the resort's dock. It was a nice dock, well-outfitted. The fiberglass speed launch was tied up to one rubber-padded edge of it, but the dock could have handled a minor cruise ship.

"Those women will be grateful. Here, we will admit they exist! They haven't even had identities. And this world is full of people like them. After ten years of civil war, they sell slaves openly now in the Sudan. Kurds are gassed like vermin by Iraqis and shot out of hand by Turks. The Sinhalese are killing Tamils. We can't forget East Timor. All over the planet, groups of little people are quietly vanishing. You can find them cowering, hiding all around the world, without papers, without legal identities... . The world's truly stateless people. My kind of people. But these are rich little islands -- where there is room for thousands of them."

"This is a serious new wrinkle to the scheme, man. Did you clear it with Petersburg?"

"This development does not require debate," Raf said loftily. "It is a moral decision. People should not be killed in pogroms, by brutes who hate them merely because they are different. As a revolutionary idealist, I refuse to stomach such atrocities. These oppressed people need a great leader. A visionary. A savior. Me."

"Kind of a personality-cult thing then."

Raf shook his long-haired head in sorrow. "Oh you'd prefer them all quietly dead, I suppose! Like everyone else in the modern world who never lifts a hand to help them!"

"What if the locals complain?"

"I'll make the aliens into citizens. I'll have them out-vote all the locals. A warlord, justly voted into power by the will of the majority--wouldn't that be lovely? I'll raise a postmodern Statue of Liberty for the world's huddled masses. Not like that pious faker in New York Harbor. Refugees aren't vermin, even if the rich despise them. They're displaced human beings without a place to rally. Let them rally here with me! By the time I leave power -- years from now, when I'm old and gray -- they'll be accomplishing great works in these little islands."

The hookers arrived on a fishing trawler. They looked very much like normal hookers from the world's fastest-growing hooker economy, Russia. They might have been women from the Baltic States. They looked like Slavic women at any rate. When they climbed from the trawler they looked rather seasick, but they seemed resolved. Not panicked, not aghast, not crushed by terror. Just like a group of fifteen more-or-less-young women, in microskirts and spandex, about to go through the hard work of having sex with strangers.

Starlitz was unsurprised to find Khoklov shepherding the hookers. Khoklov was accompanied by two brand-new bodyguards. The number of people aware of Raf's location was necessarily kept small.

"I hate working as a pimp," Khoklov groaned. He had been drinking on the boat. "At times like these, I truly know I've become a criminal."

"Raf says these girls are Bosnian slave labor. What's the scoop?"

Khoklov started in surprise. "What do you mean? What do you take me for? These girls are Estonian hookers. I brought them over from Tallin myself."

Lekhi watched carefully as the bodyguards shepherded their charges toward the whooping brutes inside the sauna. "That sure sounds like Serbo-Croatian those girls are talking, ace."

"Nonsense. That's Estonian. Don't pretend you can understand Estonian. Nobody understands that Fi

"Raf told me these women are Bosnians. Says he bought them and he's going to keep them. Why would he say that?"

"Raf was joking with you."

"What do you mean, 'joking?' He says they're victims from a rapists' gulag! There's nothing fu

Khoklov gazed at Starlitz in mournful astonishment. "Lekhi, why do you want gulags to be 'fu

"I know that, man."

Khoklov looked him over, then slowly shook his head. "No, Lekhi, you don't know that. You just don't know it the way that a Russian knows it."

Starlitz considered this. It seemed inescapably true. "Did you ask those girls if they were from Bosnia?"

"Why would I ask them that? You know the official Kremlin line on the Yugoslav conflict. Yeltsin says that our fellow Orthodox Slavs are incapable of such crimes. Those rape-camp stories are alarmist libels spread by Catholic Croats and Bosnian Muslims. Relax, Lekhi. These women here today, they are all Estonian professionals. You can have my word on that."

"Raf just gave me his word in a form that was highly otherwise."

Khoklov looked him in the eye. "Lekhi, who do you believe: some hippie terrorist, or a seasoned KGB officer and member in good standing of the Russian mafia?"

Starlitz gazed down at the flower-strewn Aland turf. "Okay, Pulat Romanevich... . For a moment there, I was actually considering taking some kind of, you know, action Well, never mind. Lemme get to the point. Our bank deal is falling apart."

Khoklov was truly shocked. "What do you mean? You can't be serious. We're doing wonderfully. Petersburg loves us."

"I mean that the old lady can't be bought. She's just too far away to touch. The deal is dead meat, ace. I don't know just how the momentum died, but I can sure smell the decay. This situation is not sustainable, man. I think it's time you and me got the hell out of here."

"You couldn't get your merchandising deal? That's a pity, Lekhi. But never mind that. I'm sure we can find some other capitalization scheme that's just as quick and just as cheap. There's always dope and weapons."

"No, the whole set-up stinks. It was the video thing that tipped me off. Pulat, did I ever tell you about the fact that I, personally, never show up on video?"

"What's that, Lekhi?"

"At least, I didn't used to. Back in the eighties, if you pointed a video camera at me it would crack, or split, or the chip would blow. I just never registered on videotape."

Slowly, Khoklov removed a silver flask from within his suit jacket. He had a long contemplative glug, then shuddered violently. He focused his eyes on Starlitz with weary deliberation. "I beg your pardon. Would you repeat that, please?"

"It's that whole video thing man. That's why I got into the online business in the first place. Originally, I was a very analog kind of guy. But the video surveillance was seriously getting me down. I couldn't even walk down to the comer store for a pack of cigs without setting off half a dozen goddamn videos. But then -- I discovered online anonymity. Online encryption. Online pseudonymity. That really helped my personal situation. Now I had a way to stay underground, stay totally unknown, even when I was being observed and monitored twenty-four hours a day. I found a way that I could go on being myself."

"Lekhi, are you drunk?"

"Nyet. Pay attention, ace. I'm leveling with you here."

"Did Raf give you something to drink?"

"Sure. We had a coffee earlier."

"Lekhi, you're on drugs. Do you have a gun? Give it to me now."

"Raf gave all the guns to the Suomi kids. They're keeping the guns still the mercs sober up. Simple precaution."

"Maybe you're still jetlagged. It's hard to sleep properly when the sun never sets. You should go lie down."

"Look, ace, I'm not the kind of fucking wimp who doesn't know when he's on acid. Normal people's rules just don't apply to me, that's all. I'm not a normal guy. I'm Leggy Starlitz, I'm a very, very strange guy. That's why I tend to end up in situations like this." Starlitz ran his hand over his sweating scalp. "Lemme put it this way. You remember that mafia chick you were banging back in Azerbaijan?"