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"Wonderful," Bulgarin said Pri at one hundred dollars a kilo

A third helper was hustling down the aisle "Your partner is here," he said

Bulgarin looked as if he had bit into a lemon He instructed his helpers to load the tusk into a sawdust-filled crate and to set it aside He ht have the tusk carved into little ivory s rather than send it out as raw ivory, increasing the value even more

As he headed back to his office, he had a frown on his fleshy face His so-called partner hat they called a "bag who showed up once a e of the take, accuse Bulgarin of holding out and threaten to break his legs if he was

It was inevitable that the Russian Mafia would find a way to get its sticky fingers into the profitable , thanks to the international ban against the sale of ivory from the African elephant herds that had been decimated by hunters Inhabitants of Yakutsk had a history in theback hundreds of years, and, with an estimated ten million mammoths buried under the Siberian permafrost, a vast source of material

Political change had boosted the ivory trade as well Moscow had always regulated coold business, but the local inhabitants had been trading with the Chinese for two thousand years, and they knew better than anyone how to iants The ivory first had to be worked in order to be exported legally under the law, but sonored the law

and sent raw ivory directly to the buyers

When Moscow stepped out, the Mafia stepped in The previous year, the cooperative received an unannounced visit froarin had ever met They wore black turtlenecks and black leather jackets, and they spoke softly when they said they were becoarin was a petty thief, and he rubbed elboith the more violent elements of the Russian underworld When these hard men said he and his fareed to the arrangeuards with uns at the door to protect their investment

Bulgarin was puzzled as well as annoyed at the tiular as clockwork, his partner showed up on the fourth Thursday of every month This was the second Wednesday Despite his annoyance, when he entered his tiny, cluttered office near the entrance to the warehouse he wreathed his face in a broad s to see Karpov, the usual representative from Moscow But the er, and, in contrast to Karpov, who stole uy affability, his expression was as cold as Yakutsk on a winter night

He glared at Bulgarin "I don't like to be kept waiting"

"I' his smile "I was at the far end of the warehouse Is Karpov ill?"

"Karpov is only a et in touch with the men on Ivory Island"

"It's not easy"

"Just do it"

Several days before, Moscow had called, and told him to assemble a team of his most hardened ivory hunters and send the there, and were instructed to hold a woman scientist na in from Alaska