"We'll see who'll be dead at the end of the day," the American lawyer taunted with infuriating smugness.
Albondigas gripped the edge of the huge table. Furious eyes darted to the double doors.
The bodyguards and hired killers waited beyond. Albondigas had brought with him a hulking Paraguayan with arms as wide around as tree trunks and a chest as broad and muscled as the hindquarters of a charging rhino. If Albondigas called, the giant would break down the door. The other bodyguards would follow him in, guns blazing. In the ensuing bloodbath, they'd all be killed.
Albondigas's face twitched with barely contained rage.
The others in the room glanced anxiously to the head of the table for guidance. For a soothing voice. For something to stop this madness. But only silence issued from the most prominent chair in the big room.
"You are very certain of yourself, gringo," Albondigas hissed abruptly.
The softness of his tone was jarring. All eyes returned to Albondigas.
"I'm paid to be certain," Copefeld replied tightly. There was something in his voice, in his eyes. Like a cornered animal. Almost as if he didn't believe what he was saying. Yet he did not back down.
Albondigas clenched his jaw. Slowly, his gaze shifted to the main doors. And as all watched, his lips pursed with jeering malevolence.
Before Albondigas could utter a single word, another sharp voice broke in. The English was clipped and precise.
"This is foolishness. We are not here to squabble. Stop this now, Mandobar."
Sham Tokumo of the Yakuza was looking to the head of the table, to their silent host.
The faces of the men were bland-deliberately willed calm to mask inner unease. Flat eyes focused once more on the world-famous chocolate-black face of Mandobar. Their host's eyes were unreadable; the mouth held an expression of puckered impatience.
Mandobar's reaction to the war of words surprised them all. There was a long sigh, followed by a very slight raising of shoulders. Utter helplessness.
"I did not believe it would come this quickly," Mandobar clucked unhappily. "Of course, I knew a conflict was likely inevitable. But here? Now?" The head shook, the eyes were sad and slightly downcast, as if lost in weighty thought.
Albondigas licked his lips. He glanced from the lawyer up to Mandobar.
Albondigas's temper was legendary. Yet no one seemed ready to prevent his calling his bodyguard into the room. Not even the person who had summoned them all there for this great meeting of the world's most powerful crime syndicates. For Albondigas, it was now a matter of honor.
With agonizing slowness, he pushed his chair away from the big table. The mahogany legs groaned a sad protest across the dry, buffed-marble floor.
Across the table, Sham Tokumo was stunned. The Yakuza man could not believe Mandobar wasn't stopping this. Wasn't that what this whole plan was all about? Unity among these organizations? Tokumo didn't want to die because two squabbling idiots couldn't get along.
Albondigas was walking slowly to the door. Tokumo glanced desperately around the gleaming conference table for someone to stop the madness. When Albondigas ordered his man to shoot, it would all be over.
Tokumo had not spent four months negotiating with the East African government to be slaughtered over some petty remarks not even related to the current meeting.
"Stop this, Jamon," Tokumo called, rising to his feet.
Pausing, the drug dealer turned. He stood in the middle of the wide, vacant room, as big as a large auditorium. The table was far behind him, illuminated by sheets of cascading light pouring in from a latticed network of skylights that filtered the ultraviolet from the burning African sun.
"Do not worry, Sham," Albondigas said blandly. "I am only stepping outside for some air. It has suddenly gotten foul in here." He began walking once more.
Tokumo spun to the Cali lawyer, who sat a few seats from the Yakuza agent. "Apologize, fool," he hissed, whipping off his owlish glasses.
There were beads of perspiration on the lawyer's upper lip and forehead. Again, there was the sense that he hadn't expected a few ill-chosen words to go this far.
Tokumo saw a single bead of sweat form just beneath the neatly shaved hairline at the back of the lawyer's head. It slipped to the top of his white shirt collar.
Albondigas was barely a yard from the door when the Cali attorney called to him.
"The business day," Russell Copefeld called abruptly, his voice echoing in the big hall. Albondigas turned slowly, eyes narrowed. The harsh sunlight, muted through the blackened glass, cast weird shadows on his burly form. He was so far across the huge room they almost needed binoculars to see the expression on his face. "What?" Albondigas said, his tone flat.
"I meant to say 'we will see who is dead at the end of the business day,'" the lawyer offered, his voice suddenly going timid. "Rhetorically, there's a big difference. It wasn't a threat-it was a metaphor. For our healthy business rivalry. If you took it another way, it was not intentional and I do apologize, most sincerely."
Near the door, Jamon Albondigas weighed Copefeld's placating words carefully. It took him a moment to react. When he took a step back toward the table, Sham Tokumo felt the very air lighten. It was over.
"I accept your apology," Albondigas said tightly as he strode back to the table. "And I wish you dead, as well. In the healthiest, business-metaphor sense, of course."
As the others laughed, Albondigas resumed his place at the conference table.
When Sham Tokumo glanced at Copefeld, the Cali lawyer was mopping sweat from his tan face. Tokumo frowned at the man's strange behavior even as he felt relief that they could now resume the more mundane business before them.
At the head of the table, Mandobar had been a surprisingly silent observer. Not a word had passed the broad lips. Even now, that famous face remained unreadable. As though it could have been carved from a chunk of gleaming coal. But as Tokumo and the others returned to their papers and briefcases, a happy chuckle rose from the far end of the great table. When those gathered glanced up, they found that the stern mouth had melted into a broad grin.
Mandobar laughed a deep, rolling belly laugh. The black eyes sparkled, and the familiar laugh lines returned. It was the same face they'd all seen on newspapers and television screens since the nation of East Africa had been so abruptly thrust into the world spotlight some fifteen years before.
"Do you not see?" Mandobar happily asked the puzzled faces. "This was the first real test of our new union, and the crisis has been resolved peacefully. With words, not violence. Gentlemen, we have already succeeded. It is as I have promised. There will be no conflict here. The Republic of East Africa will be ally to all of you." Mandobar looked to Albondigas and Copefeld in turn, eyes beaming. Far, far down the enormous table, the Tadzhikistan representative began to applaud. Near him, the agent for the Sons of Belial started clapping, as well. What began as a polite ripple quickly grew. Tokumo, Copefeld-even Jamon Albondigas joined in. Like thunder rumbling in across the vast Serengeti, the cheers grew and grew, echoing across the great hall.
And in the place of honor at the head of the table, Mandobar reveled in the accolades from this collection of the world's greatest purveyors of misery and dependence.
THE MEETING DISBANDED late in the evening. The cheers were long dead by the time Russell Copefeld crept alone through the shadowy compound near the darkened meeting hall.
The night was warm. Distant animals until now familiar only from PBS documentaries howled sad, desperate shrieks at the bejeweled African sky.
A line of neat bungalows to his right housed some of the delegates from around the world. Many others had been helicoptered back to Bachsburg after the meeting.
It was now long past midnight, and all of the tidy little houses were bathed in blackness. The only light Copefeld could see came from the cottage of the French delegate. A local brothel had been supplying prostitutes for the delegates since first they arrived at the secret VIP village. No doubt the French agent was at it again.
Copefeld didn't care about the Frenchman or his whores. Right now, all he was interested in was getting paid.
This cloak and dagger was ridiculous. Stealing around like common thieves in the dead of night. He'd be sure to let Mandobar know when they met.
There was nothing wrong with bank transactions. Hell, wasn't that what all of this was about? Untraceable cash, banks willing to look the other way at huge deposits and, most importantly, no tax man breathing down anyone's neck.
Copefeld was a great proponent of electronic cash. It was part of why he had convinced his Cali bosses to look seriously into this East African deal. A haven for crime that didn't care where the money came from? A fixed rate of graft with the local government locked in more securely than a United States government treasury note? Approval for the entire enterprise at the highest levels of government?
It was a sweetheart deal. East Africa was going to be a nation like none the world had ever seen. Every country or state or city had its lawless suburbs. Many countries looked the other way at certain types of crimes. But the promise of East Africa was everything under one roof. You could wire transfer your wealthy wife's cash to one of Bachsburg's banks, hire someone to kill her from the classified section of a local newspaper and be out on the links at the famous Sin City resort all in less than one hour.
Of course, that sort of thing was for the truly wealthy. Russell Copefeld was just a struggling New York attorney, someone who could use a couple of extra bucks now and then. That was why, when Mandobar had offered him fifty thousand U.S. dollars to start that little fight with Albondigas that afternoon ...well, a fool and his money.
Copefeld didn't know for certain why Mandobar was so insistent that he disrupt today's meeting. However, he had an inkling. Doubtless it was to prove to the other crime lords that things could be worked out easily here. There were no wars here in the new East Africa. This was the demilitarized zone of crime.