Path of the Tiger, стр. 20
2
ABOUBAKAR
2nd September 2020. Stallions Bar, Beirut
Aboubakar handed one of his many fake identity documents to the bouncer, with a cheerful if somewhat plastic grin smeared across his broad visage. The monstrously muscular young man – a steroid abuser, Abou surmised – glanced at the card and nodded, indicating with a dismissive wave that he was satisfied.
‘Wrist, stamp,’ the bouncer grunted, automaton-like.
Aboubakar rolled up the sleeve of his silk shirt to expose his wrist, which was adorned with numerous gold and silver bracelets and beaded West African flair. After he got his stamp, he headed down the stairs into the club, and was hit by a wall of deep house music that rumbled his insides and rattled his brain like the passing of a speeding locomotive. Glancing at his own reflection in the mirror-finish chrome that bordered the downstairs doors, he saw looking back at him a portly Cameroonian with a shining bald pate and a wide, fine-featured face. Pounding bass vibrated the floor in seismic ripples beneath his feet, which were disproportionately small and almost delicate in construct. He got caught up in staring at his reflection and tugged at the lapels of his leather jacket, grinning with muted glee at the sparkling glint of the many rings that adorned his fingers.
Inside the pulsating belly of the club, green lasers parted the acrid, smoky air with geometric precision as multicoloured lights spun frenetically, anarchic overseers of the churn of chaos on the dancefloor. Sweaty, barely clothed bodies, male and female, flailed and gyrated in a broil of seething flesh, like a scene transplanted from Hieronymus Bosch’s Final Judgment of Man. Abou pushed his way through the revellers, moving with a quiet grace that belied his large frame. Before he could get to the bar, though, a slender young Lebanese man dressed in form-fitting clothes sidled up to him and stroked a flirtatious hand across his forearm. Abou locked his eyes into the man’s for a few moments, and then slowly looked him up and down, his features a deadpan mask. Abruptly, however, the corners of his mouth curled up into a lascivious smile.
‘Well, well, look at you, you little cutie,’ Abou cooed with a salacious grin, speaking fluent Arabic.
After coyly mirroring Abou’s smile, the young man discreetly tucked a napkin into Abou’s pocket and then slipped away, melting back into the rolling sea of bodies.
‘Backstage, now,’ were the only words on the napkin, scrawled in a hasty hand.
Abou made his way around the periphery of the dancefloor and then, after making sure that he wasn’t being watched, he ducked inside the curtained-off backstage area.
‘Mira,’ he said, immediately recognising the figure waiting in the shadows.
‘Hello Aboubakar. I took the liberty of purchasing a rum and coke for you. Double, yes?’
A petite middle-aged Arab woman, her features angular almost to the point of gauntness, attired in a dark business suit, stood up from the ratty sofa, greeting Abou with a politely extended hand. He took it, noting with a subtle shudder the cold clamminess of her palm.
‘Thank you. Are you sure we’re safe here?’ he asked, almost having to shout at full volume to make his voice heard above the thunderous din of the club.
The woman swept her shoulder-length hair out of her eyes, darkened with kohl, before replying.
‘We’re safe. The Huntsmen have eyes and ears in this city, but not in here. It’s true that the Huntsmen have connections all over the Lebanese underworld … but this club isn’t owned by gangsters. It’s off the radar, so to speak.’
Aboubakar craned his neck and peered with suspicion into the corners of the claustrophobic space and its impenetrable shadows; his eyes could perceive things in the gloom that human eyes could not.
‘Are you absolutely sure?’
‘Do you think I’d be here if it wasn’t safe?’
This response seemed to satisfy Aboubakar.
‘How goes the war, Mira?’ he asked.
‘Which one?’ she asked in a neutral tone, stiff-faced, both her eyes and her voice glacial.
‘The one just across the border; Syria. Or Yemen, or any other war you lot are involved in, take your pick.’
‘Ah, so not the War. Well, I’m not sure how much I want to share with you on this topic, Aboubakar, suffice to say that I have close contacts in the upper leadership of ISIL, who are working with myself and three other board members … and that my arms company has been doing very, very well since the Syrian conflict began. Ditto with Yemen, and other wars. In other news, though, you may be interested to know that something that has been lost for a very, very long time, something immensely important, may have been found … but I’m afraid I cannot give you any more details on that just yet.’
‘One of the lost Temples? One of the Mothers, alive?’ he asked, leaning forward, his eyes widening with surprise.
‘I cannot comment further on that matter.’
‘Ah you Huntsmen and your secrets … but in the end, business trumps all other concerns, always, yes?’
Mira was quick to retort, rather snappily.
‘A sentiment you yourself are familiar with, are you not?’
‘Touché, although I wouldn’t say that I’m perhaps as focused as you Huntsmen are. Anyway, let’s not beat about the bush, Mira. We are here to talk business, so let’s talk. I’ll come right out and say it: my main concern is the West African situation.’
‘That’s understandable. Your financial interests are at stake.’
He exhaled a long, protracted sigh, gazing at the ground before abruptly challenging her with a piercing stare.
‘I could lose millions, no, tens of millions of dollars,’ he murmured.
Mira held his gaze in silence for a few seconds, not a single muscle in her face moving.
‘You already have.’
Abou dropped his glass. It shattered on the floor between his feet, but the sound of it smashing was muted by the raging typhoon of deep house.
‘You … you promised that—,’
Mira was