Executive orders - Tom Clancy [519]
Truly it is not, but I do love to watch airplanes. So what can I tell you? he asked next, his voice friendly and open.
You sell monkeys, John said.
Yes, I deal in them. For zoos, for private collectors, and for medical laboratories. Come, I will show you. He led them toward a three-sided building made of corrugated iron, it looked like. Two trucks were there, and five workers were loading cages onto it, their hands in thick leather gloves.
We just had an order from your CDC in Atlanta, the dealer explained, for a hundred greens. They are pretty animals, but very unpleasant. The local farmers hate them.
Why? Ding asked, looking at the cages. They were made of steel wire, with handles at the top. From a distance they appeared to be of the size used to transport chickens to market viewed closer, they were a little large for that, but
They ravage crops. They are a pest, like rats, but more clever, and people from America think they are gods or something, the way they complain on how they are used in medical experiments. The dealer laughed. As though we would run out of them. There are millions. We raid a place, take thirty, and a month later we can come back and take thirty more. The farmers beg us to come and trap them.
You had a shipment ready for Atlanta earlier this year, but you sold them to someone else, didn't you? Clark asked. He looked over to his partner, who didn't approach the building. Rather, he separated from Clark and the dealer, and walked on a line away from it. He seemed to be staring at the empty cages. Maybe the smell bothered him. It was pretty thick.
They did not pay me on time, and another customer came along, and he had his money all ready, the dealer pointed out. This is a business, Colonel Clark.
John grinned. Hey, I'm not here from the Better Business Bureau. I just want to know who you sold them to.
A buyer, the dealer said. What else do I need to know?
Where was he from? Clark persisted.
I do not know. He paid me in dollars, but he was probably not an American. He was a quiet fellow, the dealer remembered, not very friendly. Yes, I know I was late getting the new shipment to Atlanta, but they were late in paying me, he reminded his guest. You, fortunately, were not.
They went out by air?
Yes, it was an old 707. It was full. They were not just my monkeys. They had gotten them elsewhere, too. You see, the green is so common. It lives all over Africa. Your animal worshippers need not worry about extinction for the green. The gorilla, now, I admit that is something else. Besides, they mainly lived in Uganda and Rwanda, and more was the pity. People paid real money for them.
Do you have records? The name of the buyer, the manifest, the registration of the airplane?
Customs records, you mean. He shook his head. Sadly, I do not. Perhaps they were lost.
You have an arrangement with the airport officials, John said with a smile that he didn't feel.
I have many friends in the government, yes. Another smile, the sly sort that confirmed his arrangement. Well, it wasn't as though there was no such thing as official corruption in America, was it? Clark thought.
And you don't know where they went, then?
No, there I cannot help you. If I could, I would gladly do so, the dealer replied, patting his pocket. Where the envelope was. I regret to say that my records are incomplete for some of my transactions.
Clark wondered if he could press the man further on this issue. He suspected not. He'd never worked Kenya, though he had worked Angola, briefly, in the 1970s, and Africa was a very informal continent, and cash was the lubricant. He looked over to where the Defense attaché was talking to the chief constable-the title was a holdover from British rule, which he'd read about in one of Ruark's books, and so were the shorts and kneesocks. He was probably confirming that, no, the dealer wasn't a criminal, just creative in his relationships with local authorities