Chapter 23: The Five Brothers

Saturday Morning, July 12, 2008

From Ch. 22

I was briefed by the truth brothers who spent the night making sure Grisha was not bored or thirsty. The basic story came out pretty quick, there were a couple of unexpected twists. Cross-checking the details is so important to make sure the right folks wind up tortured and dead, so the brothers went over the story with Grisha a few times. They had thoughtfully recorded some of Grisha’s own words, so there would be no doubt about her crime, her accomplices and the motivations when I gathered the council together. There was no time like the present. I made some calls. As the sun first started to appear it looked to be an interesting morning.

New

Before sunrise the Garcia brothers gave me the facts they had gotten from Grisha’s long night of freedom from thirst, surfing the waterboard. The basic story did not take much time at all, Grisha was in no shape to resist. But the details dealing with the plot and the relative involvement of the others had to be checked and double checked, just to be sure. Grisha resisted, I don’t know why, but she was no Sheik Khalid. They talked to Martha, the Chief (briefly) plus Mer and Pur but none of them needed to see the prisoner. The brother’s very comprehensive logs confirmed the details of what took place. Marta also talked to Irene on the com units, she had made an exhaustive search of the Chief’s, and Grisha’s, quarters. The evidence was easy to find. Interestingly, the plan did not start in the Tribe, outside forces were at work. That made it an external matter for the Tribe.

As I saw it, Grisha had no motivations to kill the Chief, unless she had an exit to use she would get me and Marta running things after the Chief died, so her life would get worse. Grisha might be a mean old girl, but she was not stupid so there was no doubt a broader interest was involved. Was it a coup? Or something else?

There was no doubt the three older members of the tribal council were involved in the plot, but Grisha eventually revealed the deeper truth. The trio of Council members only saw the outside instigators known as the “Five Brothers” once. Grisha made the introductions. She knew everything. There was no doubt the guilty council members would lie no matter what they were asked, so why ask them? Better that all heard it from Grisha. Since everything was recorded the Brothers put together a playlist.

Grisha was not long for this world, she begged for a swift death as she thought her future would include great pain once I was involved. But the truth brothers are very good at their job. After mentioning that I had burned two prisoners alive “in the last 60 days” she was given a reason to live, in that she was carefully given a reason to hope to outlive those she conspired with, the crones who encouraged her and made the plot possible, because they put their own comfort above their duty to the community they swore an oath to. Grisha was convinced she was only looking out for herself, who could object to that?

Some of the indians visiting the colony looked in on Grisha during the night, after the questions were all answered, so they could testify that Grisha, while uncomfortable and embarrassed, was not whipped or beaten or tortured. (For historical purposes, the Patron kept a set of fearsome tools and devices from the Inquisition, plus some fearsome colony-made punishment whips, stored where a prisoner could see them. But these were untouched.) Since the questions did not take long these visitors saw nothing unusual, except, perhaps, an excess of empty water buckets. Her hair was wet, like it was just washed. Excess water was a luxury on the mountain, so they considered her well off, and thought the brothers were just being considerate by keeping her cool on a hot night.

The report was simple enough. I got the essential facts summarized in a pre-dawn one hour briefing.

In a medium-sized Peruvian city, it seemed there was a small crime group called the Five Brothers (actually three brothers and two cousins raised in the same household) who saw themselves as a combination of a James Bond villain and future crime lords. They had an unique advantages of being five bright minds that trusted each other. Their big disadvantage was that they had no practical background in either military or criminal operations. Two of the five were excellent doctors who preferred not to deal with big-city problems, while their two cousins jointly inherited a pharmacy/medical supply operation, which was a great cover for all sorts of mischief.

All were well off on inherited wealth, but they wanted more so they could stop dealing with sick people who were always complaining. (So few patients thank their doctors for every new birthday.) Their economic basis for getting “more” was a pair of brothels (one high-volume, the other very high-end) plus a medium-to-high end human trafficking operation, mostly girls purchased in bulk from the Asia.

Doctors mainly see people who are sick, not jolly. Pimps see people who are usually very happy customers. After years of higher education, the Five Brothers figured this out. Genius.

Asian girls were recruited from poor neighborhoods in poor countries (Bangladesh, Indonesia, Laos, plus China) they were tempted by grandiose promises. Because they have a little education but see Hollywood movies they think anything is possible. The best girls were kept for rental and the rest were resold.

All of the Five agreed they wanted more money faster than they could net from the girls in the current operation. But revenue elasticity was the constraint, more girls would drive the market price down, while fewer girls would mean fewer customers. Plus their supply network had a fixed capacity.

I will credit them with avoided buying or selling illegal drugs in any form - it is hard to find people you can trust in anything touching that business, there was always a competitor with lower ethical values, plus it is always a top priority for law enforcement. In Latin America, their brothels were de facto legal (with proper taxes/bribes) and human trafficking was effectively off the radar as long as they didn’t cause local problems. Since they only dealt with Asian women, who did not show up after, they were good with the locals.

The twist was that their legitimate operations required kidnapping insurance. The policies required them to surround themselves with well-equipped armed bodyguards. Hiring, equipping, and surrounding themselves with armed men was the start of the Five feeling they could be criminal masterminds if only they operated from an isolated super high-end full service brothel with a well trained attractive inventory for their trafficking. However, they were cheap with employees and were not good judges of character. This was reflected in the men they hired to carry live weapons.

Their bodyguards were former military who served in support roles (drivers, cooks, etc.) or police who had never fired a shot in anger and wanted to retire into a second, less dangerous, career where they were not “on the streets alone” facing lying, dangerous scum-bag criminals with all kinds of weapons. The hiring standards favored those who shot well at the shooting range, did not sweat much in body armor, were good at pushing around drugged, terrified naked young women, and working for less pay but better benefits than others. Driving a truck for the army over 10 years meant you could take orders, but that was no help when bullets were flying and you had to risk your life acting like part of a fire team doing something your orders did not anticipate. Armies need to fight to stay in practice and to condition people. Giving hell to unarmed pheasants while blinking at dangerous criminals does not count.

The bodyguards looked nasty to some, but an experienced eye saw men who would drop their high-priced weapons and run the first time they saw, smelled, heard or felt a buddy cut down real horrorshow within an arms reach. They had signed up for the spiffy body armor, regular hours, free time with the inventory and dental coverage. Real gunplay where bad folks shot first from ambush was not in their nature.

The Five refused to pay the wages demanded by scruffy-looking folks who had real combat experience.

Starting about a year ago the Five were especially vexed by increasing bribes from the local police and military. In addition, their richest customers were drug dealers who abused their best girls then “took a discount” when the bill was presented. The Five could not really force collection against folks who actually dealt in death. So they choked on their business model.

Refusing to blame their business model or their place at the asshole of the society of vipers, the Five spent a weekend watching spy movies and concluded that their real problem was location. That they could fix. So they looked and found the weakest of my people.

Their favorite James Bond movie (possibly the worst of the batch) had Telly Savalas as the villain with an isolated base that was safe from police and military and criminal assault because of the high mountain location (no roads, rough terrain, high altitude, etc.). The grad school educated bums figured that was what they needed. So they conducted their own aerial survey of suitable areas and by chance they saw my Tribe’s mountain. These men were not stupid, they knew they could not afford to hire good people to build a mountain top fortress. But the Egyptians got by with slave labor and the pyramids lasted pretty well. They also saw the Colony close nearby, hundreds of people but no pavement, so they assumed the community at the base of the wall was made up of uncivilized Amazon natives who could be conveniently enslaved for the construction work. Who could the natives call? It was not like there were actual conquistadors around, were there?

They did conduct a basic title search and found there was no claim on the land since Peru became a nation. (The Patron at the time hated paperwork, plus he had a grant from the King of Spain, so he did not care who claimed to be the head of Peru so he could steal and call it taxes. No Patron since had bothered to stake a claim. It was just as well.) The Five wanted to build on the eastern side of an Andes mountain, high enough so they needed to pressurize the facility, that way no troops could march up. With no military experience beyond watching WW2 movies made in Hollywood, they thought the east slope was difficult to approach or to fire upon. So on all counts, my mountain, and the nearby labor pool, seemed ideal for their purpose.

Checking Peruvian medical records, they discovered Grisha and the sick Chief were in the system. Computerized records were so easy to search.

Grisha was 30 but she had a hard life with no man, so when the Chief died she would have to beg for a family to take her in. Three of the older council members believed they would be out at the next election, if not sooner when I took over, and at 50 they saw the same bleak future for themselves once they lost power. (There kids hated the old biddies.) For all of them, even if they could get somebody to take them in they would be the drudges in the household, doing manual work like hauling water in and human waste out. That sounded like poor retirement planning.

During a scheduled trip to the hospital Grisha was approached by one of the Five. She agreed to discuss some ideas, and at her next appointment she met all five. They had a plan. For their annual medical exams three council members joined Grisha for a meeting with the Five. That was when Grisha and the 3 crones accepted a promise from the Five. In exchange for their help “in the transition” they would get modern condos in a city, with servants and wealth. The Five plotted the Chief’s slow drug-induced death for a time which the women believed would be inconvenient for me - they were thinking mid-August, a month after my visit. They were sure I would be too busy for another long trip to South America.

The male doctors focused on the the Chief. Why not? They planned the meds to kill him in a manner that was slow but seemingly natural. Even if the body was taken to Lima for autopsy the drugs selected were more than likely to escape detection. Once the chief was dead they could move in.

Both sides lied to the other. Grisha knew the Five counted on enslaving the natives in the colony, so she did not mention that the colony was descended from conquistadors, was militarized with well trained motivated experienced soldiers and equipped with modern heavy weapons (artillery, serious SAM, radar, etc.). She also downplayed my standing (painting me as the Chief’s rich-city schoolboy grandson). No mention was made of the Patron’s drug operations, the Five believed he was on the wrong side of the Andes for such things and Grisha did not want to raise any red flags on her path to the nice house. Instead they claimed the Colony, were Amazon natives, who had once mined gold. (Both were true enough in part, there were records.)

They claimed I was living in the US, working for a living with a small trust fund which remained from the gold. Grisha had my card so they were able to call the law firm and confirm, I was not even a partner. I actually got a memo when the call came but I did not know of a firm of “Chavez and Gold” in Lima so I ignored it. Now they would get a personal visit from a black helicopter.