As he passed a row of luxurious villas in Mayfair, he kept pondering why the Aydins would sell out their own insider. It was unfathomable, as having men inside his enemies’ organizations had been an invaluable asset. Foregoing such a forte only proved that they were against the wall. Are the bastards that desperate? The Aydins remained inscrutable, even after all those years spent competing on the same turf. They had been the most cunning foes he had encountered since Majid, and they offered no permanent truce.
His lieutenants had severed the most belligerent heads of the family, and he had expected that the Turks would drop their incessant and pernicious attacks in response. But he had certainly not foreseen that they would turn into reasonable men so fast, and he knew he'd have to tread carefully. This just smells like rotten fish.
Zakariya pulled over a block away from his club, and on his way there, escorted by one of his men, he wasn't sure if he was prepared for what Mustafa would have to say. In truth, he wasn't willing to lose any of the lieutenants, or rather, any of his childhood friends.
As he entered the basement boardroom of club Lucky 77, he felt a chill in the air. The lieutenants were sat around the table. What is Mustafa up to, bringing them in? Is the mole not amongst them?
Then, as he scanned the room, he realized why his brother had invited them. One of the lieutenants was missing. And by the solemn expressions of the men’s faces, there was no waiting for him.
“Zak...there’s no doubt about it…” Mustafa said, the anguish in his voice contrasting with his stern eyes. “The Aydins are begging for us to end the hostilities, and they’ve sent those pictures.” He tossed a bunch of photographs on the table. “They’ve been communicating with the bastard for months now, always face to face.”
Zakariya picked up the pile of pictures. It seemed they had come straight out of a CCTV camera, which didn't help in the way of clarity. And yet, there was no mistaking it; the traitor was shown shaking hands with Kemal Aydin on one shot, walking with Dervis Aydin, patting him on the back, in another pic. There was a close-up, numerically-treated headshot as well.
“We had no idea he went rogue,” Zinedine said. He looked like he was already mourning the inevitable death of their friend.
Rayyan went on, his torment palpable, “What a fucking letdown…Why would he league with them, against us, and try to have you killed?”
“I think I know exactly why,” Zakariya said. “A rancor from the past...”
He threw away the pictures in the bin in the far corner, and stood inert in front of his remaining three lieutenants and his brother for a while.
Mustafa finally broke the silence. “So, how do you want to do it, Zak?”
“I’ll do it,” the last lieutenant finally spoke up. “Let me take that burden off of you. I owe you this.”
“You don’t have to…” Zakariya said, “We’ve got other men who can do the job.”
"No, leave it to me, Zak, there's no place for traitors in this group. We have to deal with it now, and it has to be one of us. The bastard will be on his guard."
. . .
It had been an hour since his captor had let him off in his new neighborhood on the side of the road. He had launched into a frenzied sprint, and ten seconds later he was leaning on a street light, his breathing erratic and his calves burning with cramps. Lloyd had remained at that very spot, unable to shake off the mental assault he had just undergone. Watching the mundane flow of passersby had a soothing therapeutic effect, and roughly an hour later, only a hint of anger remained in his mind.
It was time to go back. Scratching his head any further wouldn't help him figure out who was at the origin of his rapt. He took off and started strolling back toward his apartment at the other end of Brixton. He paid no attention to the colorful roadside food stalls and the skillful hip-hop street dancers. His thoughts were all steered toward the most traumatic event he had ever experienced.
He was a nobody, just a normal British man trying to make a decent living. He had massive ambitions for sure, but he had kept those to himself. What good would it do to go around telling people that he wanted to be his own boss, and run his own business as he saw fit?
His traditional British family had been good to him, but all his life, he had been expected to follow a set path. They had urged him to go to Oxford, get his Master’s degree, then a Ph.D. – in theoretical physics in his case – and then find a well-paid job in a respectable profession, preferably as an engineer like his father. In that context, branching off into investments had been seen as an act of defiance, which was exactly what he had intended.
He wasn’t feeling like an outcast only in his own family. People would put him in a box as soon as they noticed his signet ring, and he had developed a hatred for anyone trying to pigeonhole him because of his noble origins.
During the abduction, he had thought for an instant that the kidnapper was after his family’s monies – of which he had never seen even one penny. The Davies were direct descendants of Mary Davies, the spouse of Sir Thomas Grosvenor, ancestor of the modern-day Duke of Westminster. Even if he wasn’t ideally placed to benefit financially from that glorious lineage, he had valuable connections within the British nobility that he liked to nurture. They used to be his only escape from his suffocating immediate family.
As he finally reached his safe abode in one piece, he couldn’t help but wonder if his wealthy and well-connected family would have been able to do anything against the kind of threat he had just fallen victim of. The answer was probably a definite no. Men like his captor were operating outside of all the rules his family were always a prisoner of. The only way to defend against such threat was to use similar lawless methods. In truth, he envied men like this, men capable of taking risks, men with guts of steel. If anything, the abduction incident had made him realize that he wanted to be on the other side. He wanted to break the rules.
Bursting inside his apartment, he slammed the door and locked himself in. Then he crawled on the sofa, burying his head under the pillow, and shouted as loud as he could.
CHAPTER 46
Ismael and Djibril were facing each other in the early hours of the following morning, ahead of the reception of a large shipment of cocaine. The sound of the first containers hitting the concrete slabs of the docks was echoing across the Port of Tilbury, Essex, on the easternmost estuary of the river Thames.
Given the size of the cargo – over two hundred pounds of tightly packed blocks of pure white– this had been earmarked as a two-man job. More men were on site for safety, but only the lieutenants would touch the dope.
They had loaded the last bulky bag into their two vehicles and were ready to head back to London, twenty-five miles away, where the merchandise would be split across seven undercover storage places and distributed over the following weeks.
“Here, for your troubles,” Djibril handed three hundred pounds in cash to one of the harbor employees, only a few yards away from their cars.
"Good man," Ismael said in approval. An additional five hundred pounds would go to the freight transporter, which was peanuts compared to the value of the cargo itself – a staggering seven million pounds sterling.
On their way back to their parking spot, the traitor had the ominous feeling that something was off. The signs were not overtly obvious, but he had noticed some uncommon oddities in the protocol.
Their two henchmen were chatting to each other conspicuously when the rules clearly dictated that they remained in their driving seats at all time, and only move out of the vehicle if the shipment was compromised. Granted, they could be just exchanging a few banters in an otherwise ungrateful job. Or they could be plotting something.
Another tell-tale sign was that communications with Mustafa and Zakariya had been unusually infrequent for the past twenty-four hours. In a time of heightened tensions with other clans, this was certainly a poor way to run a crime gang, unless it was done on purpose.
But then again, it might all have been in his
head, he reasoned. Stakes were high, and it was easy to be led astray by irrelevant cues under those circumstances. He would just need to be alert and ready to pull out his gun at the slightest sign of danger.
He had been ready to die for almost a year now, and the rage that animated him had been a hefty, malevolent driving force. He had never imagined that one day he would feel so much loathing for Zakariya, his old pal, that he would do everything in his power to provoke his demise. The man who had made him a millionaire. The man who had taken his family away from him.
. . .
The boardroom of club Lucky 77 had rarely seen such a quick succession of momentous meetings. Worryingly, each new meeting seemed to be attended by fewer men. It was time to rebuild the executive team, with equally competent men, or else the organization would risk falling apart. The loss of the two lieutenants in such a short time had been their worst streak ever, even more so than during the first all-out gang war at the turn of the century.
Jamal's death had left an empty space in the rapidly expanding markets of Clapham, Balham, and Brixton, but Zinedine and Rayyan had done a brilliant job of filling in the void.
The absence of leadership in the other vacant sector was the most urgent issue to address. The former man in charge was a shrewd salesman, and he had been ruling with an iron hand despite appearances to the contrary. He inspired fear and respect in a subtler way.
His replacement had been handpicked within the ranks of the organization, and if Zakariya had asked Zinedine and Rayyan to join him this morning, it was more out of courtesy than to trigger a democratic election.
"So gents, the suspense is killing us. Who's going to join the council?" Rayyan said, his sarcasm hardly masking his apprehension. He knew the decision had been made already. And as the oldest of the group, he would most likely have to mentor the rookie lieutenant. He had a right of veto, but this was no ordinary time, and he would rather not make use of it.
“Well, we’ve gone through the profiles of all of the organization’s top-level dealers,“ Mustafa said, “and when experience, loyalty, and seniority were taken into account, one name stood out. And to be honest, I don’t see who could fill the void better than him on such short notice.”
Zinedine and Rayyan glanced at each other, and said in almost perfect synchronicity, “Vince?”
"That comes as no surprise then," Zakariya said. "The man had been with us from the start, and I have contemplated many times expanding his prerogatives and geographical coverage. So it was only natural that we picked him for the opening. But I want this to be a collective decision, so guys, if you have anything to say, please speak now."
Zinedine took the cue, "I think there's not much debate when it comes to his experience and knowledge of the business. He's street smarts, and every time I've worked with him, he's done an outstanding job."
"He will serve us well, and certainly qualifies for the job," Rayyan continued. "There is no doubt about it. But he's a bit of an oddball; I think we just need to be cognizant of that."
Vincent Martinez was a man the Mansouri brothers had gotten acquainted with during their stay in Marseille, following their exile from the Val Fourré. The man’s family had emigrated to the South of France from Madrid, Spain, in an attempt to flee Franco’s dictatorship in the late 1950s.
As a kid in the rough neighborhoods of Marseille, he had gained the nickname of the Mexican, mostly due to his stout and overly hairy physique. As it turned out, he had no shared heritage whatsoever from the South American country, but even he was puzzled by the abundance of thick dark hair sprouting from all direction over his body. To his delight, the mockeries he was subject to during his teenage years rapidly dissipated once he reached early adulthood, his original fur even becoming an asset when the time came to seduce a very specific kind of women.
By that time, he had become beyond grateful for his lush facial hairiness. It counterbalanced another physical trait that he felt led people to think less of him. The Mexican was an extremely small man, pushing five feet two on his best day.
"He's a fierce man, make no mistake," Mustafa said.
"I know I know," Rayyan replied. "I've seen it; he can be a wild bull. God, I remember a wedding party last year. The groom was from a conservative family. I was in the middle of a discussion with Vince at the bar, and I turned my head for a second to order a drink. Next thing you know, the man was giving a lap dance to one of the bridesmaids, and smashing the girl's boyfriend when he came protesting. That's what I mean by oddball."
They all laughed in good heart. Zakariya figured the jokes were not going to stop so soon. But he also knew that Vince Martinez wouldn’t care. He was about to become one of the most powerful men in London.
CHAPTER 47
The Port of Tilbury, with its thirty-four berths and picturesque blue cranes, was perhaps most striking for its endless rows of vividly-colored containers. The monstrous volume of merchandise passing through the harbor installations each day demanded a flawless organizational system and meticulous precision, or else the well-oiled machine would clog instantly.
What the wharf was admittedly even more famous for was its special police force, supposedly the oldest unit in the entire country. The lieutenants would typically settle any illegal business almost half-a-mile upstream, where the annoying security patrols were rare, still close enough to the disembarkation facilities but far from the maze of containers on the ground. There was nowhere to hide there, only a large stretch of barren wasteland.
Djibril and Ismael were thus relatively isolated from the early bustle of the largest port of London, as they strolled back toward the cars parked in the gravel yard.
“Everything alright, lads? We’re going to get moving, get ready,” Djibril said, motioning at the two henchmen waiting. Ismael was following closely.
The banks of the river projected an eerie atmosphere at this early hour. The underlying, untold tension between the two lieutenants had kept both men alert this morning. And now, they had reached the breaking point. The traitor had lived in constant fear of being exposed for months, and he reckoned it was time to make his coming out and rally the Aydins for good, or maybe go under as a free agent. Meanwhile, the executioner mandated by the Mansouri was patiently holding on for the right moment to confront his old pal. They glanced nervously at each other as they reached the end of the road.
Out of the blue, Ismael stopped dead and pulled the handgun stuck under his belt.
Djibril understood right away what was happening. He’s figured it out, fuck! He jumped behind the car on his right, while the two henchmen rushed for cover behind the other vehicle.
Ismael fired three shots in their direction, hitting his driver in the calf. The man screamed in dolor.
As he spun around to escape, Ismael's heart missed a beat. He was overly exposed, there was no cover around him, and the magazine of his weapon was already half-empty. In a flash, he was darting toward the container terminal. If I can somehow make it there, he reckoned, I can probably lose them, or reach for the police unit stationed nearby. He needed to be lighting fast though because the bullets would rain soon.
When Djibril got back to his feet, Ismael was already fifty yards away. The fallen lieutenant was making the most of his head start, and the salvos fired by the henchmen failed to hit their target. He was too far already.
The nearest container was only a couple hundreds of yards away now, and Ismael felt a glimmer of hope when the initial bullet storm came to an abrupt stop. I can fucking do this! You dirty dogs, I’ll show you!
He dashed toward the nearest shelter as fast as he could, a bright red container within reach, and his mind started to wander to more pleasant thoughts – how he would finally kill Zakariya. He had been living a lie for over a decade because of him.
Suddenly the roar of a screaming engine resonated through the open expanse. A car was approaching at a frightening speed, and an explosive torpor seized Ismael. His stomach sprung to his throat, and he was clo
se to tumbling over.
Desperate to complete the final hundred yards of this death race unscathed, he turned around and fired the rest of his charger in a last-ditch effort, trembling as he aimed. He saw Djibril duck down behind the wheel, as two of the bullets crashed into the windshield.
Ismael threw away his gun and attempted to resume his race, but he had lost his momentum. Trying to shoot down the driver had been a mistake. Goddammit! The car was coming too fast, and Djibril was the most skilled driver he had ever seen. The pressure in his pumping heart was so high that his head felt like exploding.
Ismael – like his fellow lieutenants – was used to reacting on pure instinct in tight situations. Moments before the incoming hit, a rush of adrenaline flooded his bloodstream, and he plunged to the side, narrowly avoiding the hurtling vehicle.
The respite was short-lived. He glanced up flatly as he bumbled back on his feet. The raging car had already made a U-turn, its drift blasting a cloud of dirt in its wake.
It was back on track, thrusting like a guided missile led with deadly precision by a soldier thirsty for blood.
Ismael refused to abdicate, and as the inevitability of his death finally dawned on him, a rush of adrenaline kicked him back into motion. His feet were pounding the dirt floor like a raging jackhammer in motion, but it was too late. He had no time to spring to the side. The car crashed head-on into the back of his curbed frame, and he was sent flying twenty yards away. The sheer force of the impact broke his spine and shattered his pelvis.
The car drifted and came to a brutal halt, and as Djibril stepped outside, he could the chilling wail of his former associate agonizing in pain. He strode to his side; gun clutched in hand. Losing friends was part of life, he thought as he raised his weapon. There, he stood immobile for several seconds, peering into Ismael's terrorized eyes.
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